Three Amigos: Ardi, Raptorex, and the Komodo...
By Josh Witten
If ur Bill Maher ur an idiot.
By Josh Witten
Why Do We Have A Space Station Anyway?
By Alex Antunes
One More New Physics Effect Kissed Bye-Bye
I'm sitting at "Beyond the Decade: The Future of International Astronomy",... Read >
If you're a child of the 1970s you remember peak oil - it was a book that claimed... Read >
Calcium is crucial for heart regeneration by cardiac stem cells following cardiovascular... Read >
Can diet make you less likely to develop depression? A new report from... Read >
We look at heroes and do-gooders as a special sort of breed; people who possess... Read >
No country is immune from gender discrimination, says the World Economic Forum's... Read >
To The Moon, ALICE - And Maybe Make Fuel On Mars, Too
A new type of rocket propellant made from a mixture of water and nanoscale aluminum powder could be manufactured on the moon or Mars or any place remnant ice may exist, say researchers from NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Purdue and Pennsylvania State University who believe their ...
Two Men Plus Two Cell Membrane Channels Plus Two Synchrotrons: One Nobel Prize
Soon the world will learn who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Do you remember Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon of the following announcement? The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2003 “for discoveries ...
The Internet And Photography: The Nobel Prize In Physics 2009
One half of the Nobel Prize in physics for 2009 goes to Chinese-British physicist Charles K. Kao "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication", and the other half is divided between Canadian Willard S. Boyle and American George E. Smith ...
Qubits - 0, 1 Or Both
The power of quantum mechanics for data transmission is intriguing because of potential for secure, high speed communications but current storage and transmission of quantum information is far too fragile to have any practical value in the near term.In classical communications, a bit can represent ...
Finally, Climate Model Incorporates The Nitrogen Cycle (and Things Still Look Grim)
A narrow focus on carbon dioxide has long focused attention of the political and economic motivations of the European countries behind treaties like the Kyoto protocol rather than the science data and what parameters are needed to make climate simulations truly accurate.Now that the fad aspects ...
Dinosaurian Physiology Inherited By Birds? Archaeopteryx Imaging Study Says Rapid Bone Growth Not Necessary For Flight
Archaeopteryx (Urvogel ) is the most primitive bird yet discovered. Found in the 1860's, it has since been dated to 150 million years ago but new microscopic imaging of its bone structure says this ancient critter grew less like what we think of as birds and more like dinosaurs.The bones of ...
Alioramus Altai - Tiny Tyrannosaur With Horns Revealed
Tyrannosaurus rex has had an interesting few weeks - Raptorex kriegsteini, a man-sized ancestor, was unveiled a few weeks ago and now we find out that Alioramus altai—a horned, long-snouted, gracile cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex—shared the same environment with larger, predatory relatives. Tyrannosaurs ...
Dating Tips For Men & Women (But Mainly For Rocks)
Dating can be a difficult task, a daunting challenge for men and women the world over. It becomes especially difficult when what you're trying to date is extremely ancient. I'm not talking about romantic dates with seniors though, I don't have many tips there I'm afraid, although good personal ...
An Evolutionary Root For 'Goo Goo' And 'Ga Ga' In Babies?
Researchers studying Rhesus Macaque mothers and writing on their results in Current Biology have determined that interactions of macaque mothers with their infants have a lot of similarity to human mothers in the first month of a newborn's life."What does a mother or father do when looking at their ...
Autism Gets A Genome-wide Study
A study combining family- and population-based approaches has uncovered a single-letter change in the genetic code that is associated with autism. The finding implicates a neuronal gene not previously tied to the disorder and more broadly, underscores a role for common DNA variation. In addition ...
Humans Vs. Chimps -- Neither Is An Offshoot Of Ardipithecus Ramidus
Tomorrow's Science will be a special issue reporting tons of new information on the fossil hominid Ardipithecus ramidus ("Ardi"), which is really exciting (though not as much as Darwinius, which was "like a meteor hitting the Earth" or whatever).There are news reports of course, including one at ...
Meet Ardipithecus Ramidus - Early Hominid Common Ancestor Was Neither Chimp Nor Human, Says Study
Researchers writing in Science have described Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The last common ancestor shared by humans and chimpanzees is thought to have lived six or more million years ago and Ardipithecus likely shared many ...
Can Herbal Medicines Reduce Risk Of Diabetes?
Herbal medicines are more common in Asian countries to treat pre-diabetes (impaired glucose tolerance or IGT), the precursor of diabetes but is there any hard scientific evidence to confidently recommend their use?No. That doesn't mean they aren't a viable treatment but, or that they haven't ...
Men And Hearing Loss: Do We Just Rock Harder Or Are We Too Stupid To Turn Down The Volume?
Men suffer noise-induced hearing loss more than women, it seems. Guys just rock out more, you might think. Better to burn out than fade away, and all that. But it's primarily married white guys who can't turn the volume down, which means our families will have the next 70 years of repeating ...
Future Medicine - 'Closed' Heart Surgery Using Gene Therapy
Everyone's heard of open heart surgery but closed heart surgery could one day be just as ubiquitous, according to research from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota in the FASEB Journal.According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart failure is a condition where the ...
Too Many Antioxidants, More Diabetes?
It seems like common sense that too much of even good things can be bad. Everyone has heard about the damage that reactive oxygen species (ROS) – aka free radicals – can do to our bodies by now and the sales pitches for antioxidant vitamins, skin creams or "superfoods" that can stop them ...
Considering Free Will: Moral Responsibility
In the last article we considered the formation of choices as providing a set of predetermined responses to various situations. It is this phase of data gathering and assessment that sets the groundwork for our moral responsibility.Specifically it is erroneous to consider that choices are ...
A King Of Righteousness For The 21st Century?
Recent correspondence directed me to the fact that there is a Philosophy section in Scientific Blogging. This is something I have kept away from, since my view of the subject follows the Pooh-Goethe paradigm [1]. However, I have just read In The Beginning - A Rough Guide To A Physicalist View Of ...
Good Posture Good For Positive Self Image Too
Sitting up straight in a chair is obviously good for posture but it can also make you unconsciously more confident, say Ohio State University researchers. They found that people who were told to sit up straight were more likely to believe thoughts they wrote down while in that posture concerning ...
Does Super-High IQ= Super-Low Common Sense?
We have all heard the term, "Nutty Professor", which brings to mind the highly intelligent, yet socially inept individual; excelling in the academic world, yet failing miserably in the realm of common sense. Is there an evolutionary explanation for why this phenomenon exists?Bruce Charlton, Editor ...
The Speed Of Computing
A recent LiveScience article 'Computers Faster Only for 75 More Years' has indicated that new research conducted by two physicists have placed a speed limit on what's attainable regardless of the size of the components. Moore's Law1 has often been touted as representing an infinite curve ...
Not Just Organs - Pacemaker Donations Save Lives Too, Says Study
Everyone knows about being an organ donor - you may even have a little sticker saying it's okay for doctors to remove parts from you in order to save someone else. Pacemaker donations from funeral homes are less well known but patients who received refurbished pacemakers in the Philiipinnes ...
There Oughta Be A Law. And, Actually, There Is One
They say the world is changing. Let’s check that out empirically.We might run a couple of sample surveys, to see how people’s behaviors or attitudes change between the two questionnaire mailings. A colleague, however, suggests panel sampling. Which should we choose? If we go with a ...
Conservation Conundrum - Discouraging Sportsmen Has Meant Less Money For Conservation
There is a subset of people in the environmental conservation movement who hate their fellow man - they like nature but don't think anyone outside of their companies should enjoy it, they should just pay companies to raise money for advocacy.Fortunately, most recognize that hunters, hikers and ...
Absent from the Olympics in any form since 1924, seven-a-side rugby has been officially approved... more »
When thinking about burial, most people think of caskets or cremation. But there are two options... more »
Today begins the Third Annual International Cephalopod Awareness Days! Naturally, since it is the... more »
Perhaps the more wrenching by-product of the scientific revolution has been to render untenable... more »
I now own half a satellite... and in a way, you do to. The Scientific Blogging "Project Calliope"... more »
