Monthly Archives: February 2014

Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers : Nature News & Comment

The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense. Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in … Continue reading

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Scientist proposes revolutionary naming system for all life on Earth

A Virginia Tech researcher has developed a new way to classify and name organisms based on their genome sequence and in doing so created a universal language that scientists can use to communicate with unprecedented specificity about all life on … Continue reading

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College Applicants Sweat The SATs. Perhaps They Shouldn’t : NPR

[William] Hiss’ study, “Defining Promise: Optional Standardized Testing Policies in American College and University Admissions,” examined data from nearly three-dozen “test-optional” U.S. schools, ranging from small liberal arts schools to large public universities, over several years. Hiss found that there … Continue reading

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A simple exercise to increase your happiness and lower depression, the greatest maps of imaginary places, David Foster Wallace on leadership, and more

Celebrated Italian novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary critic, and list-lover Umberto Eco has had a long fascination with the symbolic and the metaphorical, extending all the way back to his vintage semiotic children’s books. Half a century later, he revisits the … Continue reading

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1 In 4 Americans Thinks The Sun Goes Around The Earth, Survey Says : The Two-Way : NPR

A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the National Science Foundation. The survey of 2,200 people in the … Continue reading

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Where does the Amazon start?

The Amazon is believed to be the world’s largest river. A tough question has been where that river actually begins. Naming its source has evidently been difficult as centuries of efforts indicate. With technology and scholarship on hand why should … Continue reading

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Study on evolution of flu viruses may change textbooks, history books

The study, published in the journal Nature, provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the evolutionary relationships of influenza virus across different host species over time. In addition to dissecting how the virus evolves at different rates in different … Continue reading

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What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun? | David Graeber | The Baffler

My friend June Thunderstorm and I once spent a half an hour sitting in a meadow by a mountain lake, watching an inchworm dangle from the top of a stalk of grass, twist about in every possible direction, and then … Continue reading

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Scientists reading fewer papers for first time in 35 years : Nature News & Comment

A survey of the reading habits of US university researchers saw a drop in the traditional, paper-based consumption of information. A 35-year trend of researchers reading ever more scholarly papers seems to have halted. In 2012, US scientists and social … Continue reading

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Mesmerizing Magnet

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How Vaccine Fears Fueled The Resurgence Of Preventable Diseases

For most of us, measles and whooping cough are diseases of the past. You get a few shots as a kid and then hardly think about them again. But that’s not the case in all parts of the world — … Continue reading

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