Science

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    Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

  • Resilient Space Internet Comes Down to Earth Gadgets with Android

    Jeremy Hsu
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm
    A new Internet protocol designed for interplanetary transmissions is bringing its delay-tolerant magic to Earth Google's Android does a lot more these days than just smart phones and nifty mobile gadgets. An Internet pioneer is using the platform to launch a interplanetary Internet protocol on Earth that could harden wireless networks against delays in data transmission. Vint Cerf worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the TCP/IP protocol that all netizens rely upon today, and tried adapting the old reliable for NASA's interplanetary communications with distant spacecraft. But…

  • How Much Power Does The Human Brain Require To Operate?

    Jeremy Hsu
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:43 pm
    Simulating the brain with traditional chips would require impractical megawatts of power. One scientist has an alternative According to Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist at Stanford University, a robot with a processor as smart as the human brain would require at least 10 megawatts to operate. That's the amount of energy produced by a small hydroelectric plant. But a small group of computer scientists may have hit on a new neural supercomputer that could someday emulate the human brain's low energy requirements of just 20 watts--barely enough to run a dim light bulb. Discover Magazine has…

  • Armored Airbags to Protect Vehicles from RPGs and Roadside Bombs

    Jeremy Hsu
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:59 am
    Airbags could prevent RPGs from exploding and neutralize the blast of improvised explosives Despite the vehicles' armor, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) can still take out Humvees and MRAP vehicles with ease. But a company wants to change that equation with airbags that neutralize incoming RPGs and prevent them from exploding. Textron's Tactical RPG Airbag Protection (TRAP) system uses radar to detect incoming warheads and deploy airbags on the threatened side of a vehicle. The airbags prevent the RPGs from exploding at all, and thereby avoids any cloud of shrapnel that could harm nearby…

  • This Week in the Future, October 30- November 6, 2009

    <a href="http://www.baarbarian.com/">Baarbarian</a>
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:21 am
    Leave a comment to win a TWITF T-shirt! The future continued to unfold before us this week, and it's been quite a week indeed. A bread-loving bird shut down the LHC, a martian weatherman forecasts conditions on Mars, a space hotel set to open its doors in 2012 already has paying guests, and, by the time the holidays roll around, every Nintendo-loving household can stick a wiimote in an anatomically correct doll's back to rock it lovingly via accelerometer and hear its gurgles, giggles and wails through a tinny Wiimote speaker. The past is looking pretty weird, too; as it turns out, kissing…

  • Nanoparticles Can Damage DNA Without Crossing Cellular Barrier

    Jeremy Hsu
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:28 am
    Metal nanoparticles use a newly observed cell signal process to wreak havoc indirectly Scientists know that nanoparticles can damage DNA in cells through direct interaction. Now, though, it appears that nanoparticles can also mess with DNA on the far side of a cellular barrier, by creating signaling molecules -- a never-before-seen phenomenon. The finding could hint at unintended consequences: using nanoparticles to deliver medicine within the body, or for targeting specific cells such as cancerous clusters in tumors. But it also provides new insight into how small particles such as metal…
 
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    Scientific Blogging

  • A Rotation With Translation Movement Is A Standalone Natural Phenomenon

    abelov
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:22 pm
    For this experiment, two identically thin cylinders which are initially static to the observer are taken. These cylinders are attached with internal mechanical springs that induce a repulsive action between them.  Two experiments are to be conducted.The first experiment. read more

  • The Purpose Of Life

    Steve Davis
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:02 pm
    In an earlier article titled What is Life?, I took the reader through a reasoning process to finally arrive at the conclusion that, contrary to general expectation, finding a definition of life is not an overwhelmingly difficult problem at all because life  is a remarkably simple concept – independent spontaneous cooperation.I think that finding a definition has been seen as difficult because those considering it have confused the definition with the underlying significance of life, which some might call life’s purpose, when the two are almost separate questions.This confusion, this…

  • Columbus Dispatch Follow-Up (Part Deux)

    jtwitten
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:45 am
    In a previous post, I published my letter to the Columbus Dispatch editor responding to their publication of an evidence-free, anti-vax screed by Dr. "Medical Licensing is Not Doing Its Job" DeMio. I also indicated that the lovely and talented Jennifer Grey had penned a response on behalf of the Central Ohioans for Rational Inquiry (CORI). read more

  • David Chalmers And The Singularity That Will Probably Not Come

    pigliucci
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:46 am
    David Chalmers is a philosopher of mind, best known for his argument about the difficulty of what he termed the “hard problem” of consciousness, which he typically discusses by way of a thought experiment featuring zombies who act and talk exactly like humans, and yet have no conscious thought (I explained clearly what I think of that sort of thing in my essay on “The Zombification of Philosophy”). read more

  • Calculating Animal Intelligence

    Dave Deamer
    5 Nov 2009 | 7:27 pm
        In a column posted a few days ago (November 1) I mentioned that my friend John Evans, a Cambridge (England) mathematician, has developed a general formula for estimating biocomplexity. It is quite simple, using only two variables: the number of units in a system, and the number of connections (interactions) each unit has with other units in the system. Today, in fact, biologists publish ‘interactomes” with furry ball figures that illustrate the number of proteins in a given cell and the number of interactions each protein has with other proteins. read more
 
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    Sciencebase Science Blog

  • Alchemical Anomalies

    David Bradley
    5 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    In the current issue of The Alchemist we learn how to stick methane molecules to metals without breaking carbon-hydrogen bonds and how to make impossible carbene catalysts without the usual prerequisite of an attendant metal centre. Another seeming impossibility comes to light: a new microscopy technique for visualizing non-fluorescing biomolecules using the kind of stimulated emission suggested by Einstein almost a century ago. An exchange program leads to a new way to make nanoscopic tools from tiny wires of cadmium sulfide, we hear, while an extract of grape skin shows promise as a novel…

  • Twitter science list categories

    David Bradley
    5 Nov 2009 | 12:45 am
    The manually compiled Scientwists list of science people on Twitter grew from around 100 of my contacts in January 2009 to almost 700 members, who asked to join or who retweeted the link as of October. Justin Reid helped automate the inclusion of bios and photos and 2020science did some amazing analyses to show how all those science types were interconnected. The scientwist list is now on Listorious and doing very well in the Top 140 of all lists listed, the more followers the better, would love to make the Top 10 by the end of the year, get science in its rightful place. A lot of work went…

  • My Whole Cell Twitter Interview

    David Bradley
    3 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    Laura Bonetta wrote an excellent article for the science journal Cell recently in which she quoted various science types who use Twitter on the subject of whether or not scientists should be tweeting. It’s a topic I’ve discussed more generally regarding scientists’ use of social media and online networking communities. Anyway, she asked my opinion on a few matters regarding twitter and quoted me at some length. But, as is the way with such articles, which I’ve experienced from all three angles now, as interviewer, interviewee, and editor, she trimmed off the fat and…

  • List categories for Twitter scientists

    David Bradley
    3 Nov 2009 | 1:38 am
    UPDATE – NOV 5: Still working through the almost 650 members of the list, but now up to the P’s. Pressure was on from lots of science tweeps for to categorise my scientwist list…so I’ve made a start. The spillover (lots of tweeps in the T to Z group from the TweepML.org version of my scientwist list have now each been given a category as I cannot squeeze them into the 500 limit for the main scientwist list. Everyone else will get a second list assignment where appropriate as follows: bio – med, health, psy, bioinformatics, pharma chem – chemical sciences…

  • Scientists on Twitter

    David Bradley
    2 Nov 2009 | 6:03 am
    Regulars will know that I’ve compiled and recompiled lists of science types on Twitter for mutual benefit. It started out as a list of 100 of my own Twitter friends back in January 2009, who happened to be in science and gradually grew to well over 600 members by November 2009. However, just as I migrated the old manual list to Tweepml.org to help automate bio and avatar updates, Twitter announced the release of its own lists system. As far as I can tell Twitter lists are now public knowledge (I no longer see the request not to tweet about it). As such, I’ve been gradually adding…
 
 
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    Livescience.com

  • Art Meets Science in Amazing Images

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:24 pm
    Check out some award-winning scientific images and the stories behind them.

  • Science Nation

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:34 pm
    Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.

  • Virtual Newscast

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:32 pm
    Scientists at Northwestern's Intelligent Information Laboratory are working on a project that creates customized newscasts, read by online avatars based on individual preferences. The program automatically generates a virtual news show.

  • Music Improves Brain Function

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pm
    Researchers examine how the brain experiences and benefits from musical training.

  • Horror Movies: Why People Love Them

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:25 am
    If horror movies scare us so much, why do we watch them?
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    PopTech Blog

  • Distributing White on White

    4 Nov 2009 | 5:57 am
    “A country Road. A Tree. Evening. [wow.episode.01]” is the first installment of Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation’s new video project called White on White. It is six minutes long and is the fifth multiple published by Compound Editions in New York. White on White promises to be a protean experiment in the distribution of digital and video art. Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation, “A country Road. A Tree. Evening.” Original music by Lumendog. If you have ever seen an exhibition of digital or video art, you may have asked yourself how the artist is able to make a living.

  • First PopTech 2009 Videos Released: Social Innovation Fellows

    2 Nov 2009 | 3:43 pm
    In our first batch of video releases from PopTech 2009: America Reimagined, we are excited to share the fine presentations of the 2009 Social Innovation Fellows from October 22nd and 23, 2009, when they captivated a packed Camden Opera House and global live stream audience. During the days leading up to the PopTech 2009 conference, this extraordinary group of Fellows and their faculty met at a retreat center in Maine. For more on their week, see previous blog entries on their introductions to each other and what they learned. The Fellows and faculty will continue to be in touch as they begin…

  • Follow Friday: PopTech Fellows and 2009 Speakers + Vote Vittana!

    30 Oct 2009 | 10:38 am
    Congrats to PopTech Social Innovation Fellow Kushal Chakrabarti of Vittana (facilitating education microloans throughout the world) who is in the Huffington Post's Top Ten for Ultimate Game Changers in Philanthropy. You can vote for Kushal here. CC image of Kushal Chakrabarti at PopTech 200 by Kris Krüg. You can lend money to students right now on the Vittana.org home page. We also have a few Twitter lists we are developing for our community: * You can follow all the PopTech Social Innovation Fellows on Twitter in the PopTech Fellows Twitter list. * Follow the 2009 PopTech speakers,…

  • PopTech 2009: Videos and Images

    25 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    Thank you to everyone for a wonderful PopTech 2009: America Reimagined conference. Below are videos from the conference; you can find beautiful images of each speaker by Kris Krüg from Thursday and Friday on his personal site. More images are in the PopTech Flickr account, the PopTech 2009 Flickr set, and the PopTech 2009 Flickr group pool. We have made videos with highlights of each day along our special 2009 Social Innovation Fellows video and Science Fellows announcement, and we hope you will share these videos widely--each has a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike…

  • James Fowler and the Power of Connections

    24 Oct 2009 | 3:23 pm
    Scientist James Fowler is a professor at University of California San Diego, where he studies the intersection of social and natural sciences. His most recent book is Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. For years, he has studied the role our real-life networks play in our health outcome. CC image by Kris Krug. You hear social networks these days and what do you think of? Twitter, Facebook etc. But Fowler is interested in "what became before".  Part of what makes us human, says Fowler, is that we live in "webs of humanity". Who are we going…
 
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    SciGuy

  • Mars: Up close and personal

    Eric Berger / Houston Chronicle
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:28 am
    The Mars Express spacecraft recently flew over the boundary between Kasei Valles and Sacra Fossae, a fault system that extends for more than 600 miles, on Mars. The image below has a resolution of 21 meters (about 70 feet) per...

  • Ida weakens, aiming toward Gulf, but likely not Texas-bound.

    Eric Berger / Houston Chronicle
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:55 am
    As expected Ida has weakened during the last 24 hours over Nicaragua and Honduras, and it's now a depression. However, the system should move back into the Caribbean Sea in the next 12 to 24 hours, where the waters are...

  • The chasm between scientists' and the general public's view of God

    Eric Berger / Houston Chronicle
    5 Nov 2009 | 10:44 am
    A survey of more than 2,500 U.S. scientists has confirmed that they hold starkly different views about God than the general public. Just 33 percent of scientists believe in God, with another 18 percent believing in a universal spirit or...

  • Ida weakens, likely not a threat to Texas. Still, there's a tropical twist in our forecast.

    Eric Berger / Houston Chronicle
    5 Nov 2009 | 4:49 am
    NOON UPDATE: Ida has weakened into a strong tropical storm, as expected. The models appear to be coming into agreement that Ida, in some form or another, will reach the Gulf of Mexico by late Monday or early Tuesday. Still...

  • New study appears to support theory of abiotic oil

    Eric Berger / Houston Chronicle
    4 Nov 2009 | 2:14 pm
    You may have heard of abiotic oil, the notion that oil is not the result of ancient biomass --hence the term fossil fuels -- but rather from compressed methane seeping up from the Earth's mantle. Most petroleum engineers spurn abiotic...
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    Wired: Wired Science

  • Glow-in-the-Dark Shark Turned on by Hormones

    Rachel Ehrenberg, Science News
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:01 pm
    The safe answer to how a lantern shark turns its luminescence on and off is: “Any way it wants.” Now researchers have looked into the belly of the beast and found that three hormones act as on-off switches for these glow-in-the-dark sharks. It is the first discovery of hormones controlling bioluminescence in animals, the scientists report in the November 15 Journal of Experimental Biology. Belgian researchers identified melatonin, prolactin and alpha-MSH, three hormones known to control sharkskin coloration, as key players in setting sharks aglow. In all animals investigated up to this…

  • Vet School 2.0: Stick Your Hand Up a Virtual Cow Butt

    Hadley Leggett
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:04 pm
    There’s nothing tidy about sticking your arm deep into a cow’s backside, getting up to your elbows in warm and gooey bovine innards. But for new vet students, there’s no avoiding the procedure: To diagnose pregnancy or check for infection, you’ve got to reach into a cow’s rectum and feel for the uterus, ovaries and stomach. Unfortunately, proper palpation is a tough skill to teach, because once your arm is buried inside a cow butt, no one can see what you’re doing. That’s why veterinarian and computer scientist Sarah Baillie has created the…

  • Signature of Antimatter Detected in Lightning

    Ron Cowen, Science News
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:25 pm
    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has now recorded some more down-to-Earth signals. During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial lightning storms. The flashes occurred just before, during and immediately after lightning strikes, as tracked by the World Wide Lightning Location Network. During two recent lightning storms, Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could only have…

  • Close Encounter with Saturn Moon’s Fantastic Plumage

    Hadley Leggett
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:56 am
    Earlier this week, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took its deepest dive ever through the center of the icy plume shooting out from the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. NASA reports that the spacecraft survived Monday’s flyby in good health, and is now transmitting eagerly awaited data and images back to Earth. At its closest point, Cassini dipped just 60 miles above the surface of Enceladus. Although previous flybys have gotten even closer, this trip included the spacecraft’s deepest foray into the south polar plume, which was discovered in 2005 and is known to…

  • Out of the Blue: Islands Seen From Space

    Betsy Mason
    5 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm
    << previous image | next image >> Islands are some of the most beautiful, peaceful, violent, desolate and unique places on Earth. While experiencing a tropical island from its sandy beaches, or a volcanic island from its towering peaks is wonderful, experiencing them from above can be inspiring as well. We’ve collected images taken by astronauts and satellites from space of some of the most interesting islands on the planet. Atafu Atoll, Tokelau, Pacific Ocean Around 500 people live on Atafu Atoll, mostly in a village that can be seen on the corner in the left of the image…
 
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    Eye on DNA

  • American Genes Don’t Exist

    Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD
    3 Nov 2009 | 9:17 pm
    Congratulations to Meb Keflezighi of Eritrean descent, who won the New York City Marathon last Sunday and was the first American to do so since 1982! Why did I mention that he was born in Eritrea? Because critics say that an immigrant like Keflezighi who moved to the U.S. at age 12 isn’t a legitimate American. A post on Letsrun.com said: Give us all a break. It’s just another African marathon winner. How about making that African-American? Silly me. I thought that naturalized American citizens equal American citizens at birth with the same rights and privileges (with the exception of…

  • Knowledge about Genetic Risk is Power or is it Fear?

    Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD
    1 Nov 2009 | 8:21 am
    A little over two years ago, I confessed that I was “just a little scared of genetic testing.” I have two young children and almost every day I see traits in them that I’m pretty sure they inherited from me whether via genes or behavior. If you’re a parent, I’m sure you can imagine that there’s a lot of self-blame going on in our house. So when it comes to genetic testing, I should want to know but I don’t. At least not right this minute. Haven’t I got enough to worry about? From Middletown Journal’s month-long series on the battle against cancer – Many with cancer gene…

  • Murderer Gets Reduced Sentence Because His Genes Made Him Do It

    Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD
    31 Oct 2009 | 1:57 am
    Hey criminals! Here’s how you get out of taking full responsibility for your dastardly actions: Fake your DNA sample Blame it on your identical twin See if you have the genes that predispose you to whatever crime you’ve committed Murderer Abdelmalek Bayout and his attorneys chose option three. Bayout admitted in 2007 to stabbing and killing Walter Felipe Novoa Perez in Italy. During the first sentencing, he was found to be mentally ill. This year, neuroscientists also found abnormalities in brain-imaging scans and five genes linked to violent behavior, including MAOA. Although there have…

  • Video: Knome’s Ari Kiirikki Speaks with Medgadget

    Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD
    30 Oct 2009 | 8:31 am
    via Medgadget

  • DNA in the Wild – NTUC Income

    Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD
    29 Oct 2009 | 9:24 pm
    NTUC Income, an insurance provider in Singapore, has been running an ad prominently featuring the DNA double helix. Their Facebook fan page is even running a photo contest asking people to post photos of themselves with one of their DNA ads. Very fun to see DNA in the wild. Here’s one of my favorites.
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    Neuromarketing

  • Emsense Raises $9 Million

    Roger Dooley
    3 Nov 2009 | 9:09 am
    Neuromarketing firm Emsense has raised $9 million in additional capital. The new round was led by an investment from Technology Partners with existing investor the Foundry Group also participating. This funding will allow EmSense to continue its global expansion in support of its many market research partners. The funds will also enable the company [...]

  • Want Some Emotion with That Website?

    Roger Dooley
    3 Nov 2009 | 5:01 am
    As a web community guy, one of the most common problems I see is the failure to communicate emotion properly when people interact online. A remark intended as humorous can be perceived as a personal attack, or an expression of sympathy can be taken as cruel sarcasm. While I always suggest caution (particularly [...]

  • College Branding: What if Harvard Moved Next Door?

    Roger Dooley
    2 Nov 2009 | 5:06 am
    Why do most college branding efforts end up as meaningless pablum? I think it’s because most colleges have been relatively insulated from the effects of devastating competition. In fact, historically there have been major barriers to competition in the cozy world of higher education. The biggest have been geography, cost, and reputation. [...]

  • Scent Marketing vs. Social Media

    Roger Dooley
    30 Oct 2009 | 5:23 am
    The other day, Ad Age’s CMO Strategy Section ran a column by Harald Vogt on scent marketing. Vogt may not be entirely impartial on the topic – he is the founder and chief marketer of the Scent Marketing Institute – but he makes some good points when he questions why so few marketers employ [...]

  • Sugar as Brain Food

    Roger Dooley
    29 Oct 2009 | 5:22 am
    This isn’t great news for dieters, but sometimes sugar can be a good thing. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University, had subjects perform a mentally taxing task – watching a video while being careful to ignore random words scrolling across the bottom of the screen. (Apparently, it takes quite a bit [...]
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    SCIENCEFRIDAY

  • SciFri Video:CreatureCast: Why Cells Cooperate

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:04 am
    How did multicellular organisms evolve? Sophia Tintori and Cassandra Extavour, a developmental biologist at Harvard, talk about the development of multicellular organisms, and in particular the specialization of reproductive cells. Visit CreatureCast.org for more intriguing animal stories.

  • SciFri Blog:Meat and heat

    5 Nov 2009 | 10:05 pm
    Steak...

  • SciFri Radio:Synthetic Biology Competition

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    We'll get the results of a recent student competition centered around the design and construction of living machines.

  • SciFri Radio:Sylvia Earle: 'The World Is Blue'

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Ira talks with ocean explorer Sylvia Earle about the state of the world's oceans, and what actions need to be taken to protect them from catastrophic damage.

  • SciFri Radio:Health Care and Values

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Equality, justice, fairness -- in this segment, we'll talk with bioethics experts about the values Americans hold dear, and how those values influence out health care policy decisions.
 
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    Cognition and Language Lab

  • Changes in this blog

    coglanglab
    4 Nov 2009 | 7:39 am
    As I've mentioned in a previous post, I'm in the process of renovating the lab website. There will also be significant structural changes to this blog (probably a regular schedule for posting, for instance). All this renovation is taking a considerable amount of time, and you may have noticed the lack of frequent posting. This will continue until the new site is launched, hopefully in the next month.Read the blog: http://coglanglab.blogspot.com Do the research: http://coglanglab.org

  • Magic babies

    coglanglab
    29 Oct 2009 | 12:22 pm
    There's an interesting article today over at Slate (Why Babies Crave Magic) that features work from one of my favorite local labs.Read the blog: http://coglanglab.blogspot.com Do the research: http://coglanglab.org

  • Making Super-babies

    coglanglab
    26 Oct 2009 | 9:44 am
    Parenting advice is no doubt as old as time itself. There is good advice, and then there are myths.The Walt Disney Company is, in a roundabout fashion, owning up to one myth, which is that their Baby Einstein videos make babies smarter. This has been a well-known myth in scientific circles -- the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no videos of any type for children under 2. Controlled experiments are tough, since it's hard to assign children to either watch or not watch TV (this tends to correlate with parental factors), but a quick search found a conference paper showing that toddlers…

  • Vaccination and the Assault on Health

    coglanglab
    23 Oct 2009 | 5:53 am
    I had always though that refusal to get a flu vaccination was relatively harmless masochism. Refusal to vaccinate one's own children, on the other hand, should probably be prosecuted as child abuse, but at the least the negative consequences stay close to home.Yesterday, however, I read two articles on vaccination. One in Slate looks at the risks the unvaccinated pose to people with immunity problems (she's unable to get childcare for her child, who is undergoing cancer treatment, because the risk of being around unvaccinated children is too high). If that seems like a parochial problem ("my…

  • Why do so many homophones have two pronunciations?

    coglanglab
    19 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am
    An interest in puns has led me to start reading the literature on homophones. Interestingly, in appears that in the scientific literature "homophone" and "homograph" mean the same thing, which explains why there are so many papers about mispronouncing homophones. Here's a representative quote:"...reports a failure to use context in reading, by people with autism, such that homophones are mispronounced (eg: 'there was a tear in her eye' might be misread so as to sound like 'there was a tear in her dress").'Sticklers will note that "tear in her eye" actually does involve a homophone (tier), but…
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    neurodudes

  • Penn Neuroscience Bootcamp 2010

    Bayle
    5 Nov 2009 | 4:31 pm
    “….a chance for individuals without a neuroscience background to quickly gain a working knowledge of [neuroscience]” ….thought I might have something of interest to your readers, especially those who were trained in robotics. This summer, Penn is hosting our second Neuroscience Boot Camp, a chance for individuals without a neuroscience background to quickly gain a working knowledge of the subject. The program is specifically targeted so that participants can apply this information to other fields. You’ll find the full information below. Please let me know if you…

  • Crowdsourcing the Brain with the Whole Brain Catalog

    Stephen
    24 Oct 2009 | 9:42 am
    A very cool article on a new open source, online system to crowd source the assemblage of data in neuroscience from the Voice of San Diego.  From the article: Traditionally, the study of the brain was organized somewhat like an archipelago. Neuroscientists would inhabit their own island or peninsula of the brain, and see little reason to venture elsewhere. Molecular neuroscientists, who study how DNA and RNA function in the brain, didn’t share their work with cognitive specialists who study how psychological and cognitive functions are produced by the brain, for example. But there has…

  • Henry Markram on TED – video online

    Stephen
    22 Oct 2009 | 10:20 am
    We had read that Dr. Henry Markram of the Blue Brain project had given a talk at TED (technology, entertainment, design), but the video wasn’t released until this month.  This talk is geared towards a general audience, rather than getting into the specific details of the Blue Brain project, as he has before.  It is engaging and includes many suggestions towards the future of neuroscience and AI. Watch it online at the TED website.

  • Neurodudes is on Twitter

    Neville
    18 Oct 2009 | 1:38 am
    Stephen Larson has decided to try and boost our SfN presence with Twitter. If that’s your thing, feel free to follow us (neurodudes). Since I have never used twitter before, this could be a short-lived experiment but you never know. Hope everyone is enjoying the conference so far (aside from the almost complete lack of wireless!)

  • SfN party update

    Neville
    18 Oct 2009 | 1:29 am
    Neurodudes is out at SfN this year (well 2/3rds of us, at least!) Being from MIT, as I run into old friends on the poster floor, it seems like this year I’m getting asked more about “When and where are the MIT parties?” (which we are known to be epic) than, say, “How’s it going?” or “When is your poster?” You should be ashamed of yourselves! (And, really, don’t you want to hear about our cool images of growing axons? Come by poster B9 on Monday afternoon to see some neat stochastic modeling techniques applied to this data to find some…
 
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    Mind Hacks

  • 2009-11-06 Spike activity

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

  • Psychologist says

    5 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    I've discovered that if you search for "says psychologist" on Google, you get a giant avalanche of wtf. I encourage you to try it for yourself, but here are a few of the highlights, all taken from headlines of news stories. Twitter makes you dumb, says psychologist Boys have it worse, says psychologist Faith schools breed terrorism, says psychologist Change is possible for gays, says psychologist Music tugs at monkeys' hearts, says psychologist Pakistan no longer fear failure, says psychologist Killer of 4 feared loss of love, says psychologist Britney has lost control and needs help, says…

  • The mind and brain in 2010

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am
    The latest issue of Wired UK has a cover feature on breaking ideas for 2010. Mind and brain innovations feature strongly and several are freely available online. I might immodestly recommend the piece on 'neurosecurity' and how researchers are having harden neural implants against hackers, as it was written by me. Regular readers will know we broke the story back in June, although it was great to have it selected as one of the 'ideas of the future' by Wired UK. There's also a fascinating piece on 'hyperopia' - a cognitive bias where people falsely assume they'll be happier in the future by…

  • Señor Roboto

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Some impressive graffiti of a brain-powered robot from the future, found on a wall near the Hospital San Vicente de Paúl in Medellín.

  • Dr Smile

    4 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    The Philip K. Dick novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch features a portable device which allows patients to consult with the virtual psychiatrist Dr Smile. If I'm not mistaken, the system seems to have re-invented by this research team: Virtual patient: a photo-real virtual human for VR-based therapy Stud Health Technol Inform. 2004;98:154-6. Kiss B, Benedek B, Szijártó G, Csukly G, Simon L, Takács B. A high fidelity Virtual Human Interface (VHI) system was developed using low-cost and portable computers. The system features real-time photo-realistic digital replicas of multiple…
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    NPR Topics: Science

  • Babies May Pick Up Language Cues In Womb

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:45 am
    A new study reveals that the melody of a newborn's cries seems to be influenced by the sound of the parents' native tongue. The findings suggest that crying infants may be imitating the patterns of the language they heard before they were born.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Can Oceans Survive The Human Appetite For Seafood?

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    Faced with declining fish stocks, many nations are looking for sustainable ways to have their fish — and eat it too. But how much fishing is too much? Oceanographer Sylvia Earle discusses this and other topics in her book The World is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Building A Better Lightbulb

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    The U.S. Department of Energy is offering $10 million to the first individual or company to develop an energy-efficient LED replacement for the standard 60-watt incandescent bulb. DOE lighting program manager James Brodrick discusses the L Prize, and what makes a better bulb.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Students Build Living Microbial Machines

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    At the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, undergraduates from all over the world unveiled the living machines they'd created with snippets of DNA, from bacteria that change color when they detect pollutants to ones that secrete non-toxic superglue.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

  • Health Issues Follow Natural Gas Drilling In Texas

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am
    Vast new natural gas fields have opened up thanks to an advanced drilling technique. While natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal or petroleum, extracting it is still hard, dirty work. Some people who live near the massive Barnett Shale gas deposit in north Texas, have complaints. Health and environmental concerns are prompting state regulators to take a closer look.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us
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    Not Exactly Rocket Science

  • South African wildlife - Wait, that's not a trunk...

    7 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    This is a bull elephant firmly establishing why it is he, and not the lion, who is king of beasts. The elephant's penis is not only massive but prehensile. As we watched in baffled amusement (and the faintest tinge of inadequacy), he used his penis to prop himself up (as in the photo), swat flies from his side and scratch himself on his stomach. David Attenborough never showed us that... There's good reason for elephants to have prehensile penises. It's hard enough for a six-tonne animal to get into the right position for sex, let alone having to do the rhythmic thrusting that's required. So…

  • Discriminating butterflies show how one species could split into two

    5 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am
    Walk through the rainforests of Ecuador and you might encounter a beautiful butterfly called Heliconius cydno. It's extremely varied in its colours. Even among one subspecies, H.cydno alithea, you can find individuals with white wingbands and those with yellow. Despite their different hues, they are still the same species... but probably not for much longer. Even though the two forms are genetically similar and live in the same area, Nicola Chamberlain from Harvard University has found that one of them - the yellow version - has developed a preference for mating with butterflies of its own…

  • Native language shapes the melody of a newborn baby's cry

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am
    Telling the difference between a German and French speaker isn't difficult. But you may be more surprised to know that you could have a good stab at distinguishing between German and French babies based on their cries. The bawls of French newborns tend to have a rising melody, with higher frequencies becoming more prominent as the cry progresses. German newborns tend to cry with a falling melody. These differences are apparent just three days out of the womb. This suggests that they pick up elements of their parents' language before they're even born, and certainly before they start to babble…

  • Mid-continent earthquakes are often aftershocks of centuries-old tremors

    4 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    Small earthquakes in unexpected locations are often a cause for concern. The worry is that these rumbles are harbingers of bigger quakes to come. But not always - a new study suggests that many of these tremors aren't warnings, but aftershocks. In particular, those that happen in the middle of continents, far away from the major fault-lines that separate tectonic plates, probably reflect past quakes rather than future ones. Earthquakes are a common occurrence on the boundaries between tectonic plates, and they occur at predictable spots. But they can often strike areas that are far away from…

  • Even without practice, sleep improves memory of movements

    4 Nov 2009 | 5:30 am
    When we think of memory aids, we consider repeating what we've learned, using clever mnemonics, or breaking information down into bite-size chunks. But one of the best memory aids we have available to us is something we all do on a daily basis - sleep. Studies have found that sleep enhances our memories of facts and physical skills alike. It can even help us remember movements that we see others do. But this only works within a short window. Ysbrand van der Werf from the Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience found that people who saw a video of someone tapping keys on a laptop remembered the…
 
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    National Geographic News

  • New Type of Supernova Discovered

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    A star explosion that blazed as bright as ten billion suns but faded away within 20 days might be the first proof of a theoretical new class of supernova, astronomers suggest.

  • 2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Supposed Maya predictions of the end of the world in 2012 have some people seriously scared. See what experts say about the unknown planet predicted to pummel Earth, the cataclysmic "galactic alignment," and more.

  • PICTURES: 2012 Doomsday Myths Debunked

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Asteroids slamming into Earth, a planet sneaking up on us, an angry sun singing the planet—find out why these and other end-of-the-world events won't be happening in 2012.

  • Sesame Street Goes Global, From HIV+ Muppet to Iraq War

    4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Sesame Street character Cookie Monster is gobbling Google's logo for the show's 40th anniversary. But around the world it's other Muppets that steal the show—and reflect the cultures and conflicts of each region.

  • APOCALYPSE PICTURES: 10 Failed Doomsday Prophecies

    4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Just as some people today believe a Maya calendar pinpoints 2012 as the end of the world as we know it, people through centuries and across cultures have long forecast our collective doom.
 
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    PLoS Computational Biology

  • A Hidden Markov Model for Single Particle Tracks Quantifies Dynamic Interactions between LFA-1 and the Actin Cytoskeleton

    Raibatak Das et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Many important biological processes begin when a target molecule binds to a cell surface receptor protein. This event leads to a series of biochemical reactions involving the receptor and signalling molecules, and ultimately a cellular response. Surface receptors are mobile on the cell surface and their mobility is influenced by their interaction with intracellular proteins. We wish to understand the details of these interactions and how they are affected by cellular activation. An experimental technique called single particle tracking (SPT) uses optical microscopy to study the…

  • Optimal Experimental Design for Parameter Estimation of a Cell Signaling Model

    Samuel Bandara et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Differential equation models of signaling processes are useful to gain a molecular and quantitative understanding of cellular information flow. Although these models are typically based on simple kinetic rules, they can often qualitatively describe the behavior of biological systems. However, in the quest to transform biomedical research into an engineering discipline, biologists face the challenge of estimating important parameters of such models from laboratory data. Measurement noise as well as the robust architecture of biological circuits are causes for large uncertainty…

  • Robust Models for Optic Flow Coding in Natural Scenes Inspired by Insect Biology

    Russell S. A. Brinkworth et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Building artificial vision systems that work robustly in a variety of environments has been difficult, with systems often only performing well under restricted conditions. In contrast, animal vision operates effectively under extremely variable situations. Many attempts to emulate biological vision have met with limited success, often because multiple seemingly appropriate approximations to neural coding resulted in a compromised system. We have constructed a full model for motion processing in the insect visual pathway incorporating known or suspected elements in as much…

  • Evolution of Resistance to Targeted Anti-Cancer Therapies during Continuous and Pulsed Administration Strategies

    Jasmine Foo et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Recently, the field of anti-cancer therapy has witnessed a revolution by the discovery of targeted therapy, which refers to compounds targeting specific pathways causing abnormal growth of cancer cells. The clinical success of such drugs has been limited by the evolution of acquired resistance to these compounds, which leads to a relapse after initial response to therapy. Current dosing procedures are not designed to optimally delay the emergence of resistance; the identification of such optimal dosing schedules represents an important challenge in clinical cancer research.

  • Looking at Cerebellar Malformations through Text-Mined Interactomes of Mice and Humans

    Ivan Iossifov et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary We described and made publicly available the largest existing set of text-mined statements; we also presented its application to an important biological problem. We have extracted and purified two large molecular networks, one for humans and one for mouse. We characterized the data sets, described the methods we used to generate them, and presented a novel biological application of the networks to study the etiology of five cerebellum phenotypes. We demonstrated quantitatively that the development-related malformations differ in their system-level properties from…
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    PLoS Genetics

  • Localized Plasticity in the Streamlined Genomes of Vinyl Chloride Respiring Dehalococcoides

    Paul J. McMurdie et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Dehalococcoides are free-living sediment and subsurface bacteria with remarkably small, streamlined genomes and an unusual degree of niche specialization. These strictly anaerobic bacteria gain metabolic energy exclusively through a novel type of respiration that results in reductive elimination of chlorides from organochlorines, many of which are priority pollutants. In this article, we compare the first complete genome sequences of Dehalococcoides strains that grow via respiration of vinyl chloride (VC), a human carcinogen and abundant groundwater pollutant. Our work provides…

  • The Germ Cell Nuclear Proteins hnRNP G-T and RBMY Activate a Testis-Specific Exon

    Yilei Liu et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary This study investigates tissue-specific alternative splicing, which plays a key role in generating diversity in animal cells. We found a new testis-specific exon in a human homologue of the important Drosophila developmental regulator Groucho, which is activated by germ cell RNA binding proteins. By analyzing splicing control of this exon, we elucidated how variations in the activity and expression of splicing regulators together counterbalance splicing activation, and achieve more tightly regulated physiological splicing patterns. We find that although this new human…

  • Mutations in the Caenorhabditis elegans U2AF Large Subunit UAF-1 Alter the Choice of a 3′ Splice Site In Vivo

    Long Ma et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Eukaryotic genes contain intervening intronic sequences that must be removed from pre-mRNA transcripts by RNA splicing to generate functional messenger RNAs. While studying genes that encode and control a presumptive muscle potassium channel complex in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, we found that mutations in two splicing factors, the U2AF large subunit and SF1/BBP suppress the rubberband Unc phenotype caused by a rare missense mutation in the gene unc-93. Mutations affecting the U2AF large subunit caused the recognition of a cryptic 3′ splice site generated by the…

  • The Sir2-Sum1 Complex Represses Transcription Using Both Promoter-Specific and Long-Range Mechanisms to Regulate Cell Identity and Sexual Cycle in the Yeast Kluyveromyces lactis

    Meleah A. Hickman et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Sir2 deacetylases are found in organisms ranging from bacteria to mammals. Sir2 from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae deacetylates histones and is part of the SIR complex that spreads across chromatin to repress gene expression. A related histone deacetylase, Hst1, interacts with a DNA–binding protein, Sum1, to repress genes in a promoter-specific manner. Hst1 and Sir2 are paralogs, arising from a duplication about 100 million years ago. To understand how Sir2 and Hst1 have diverged, as well as to investigate the evolutionary relationship between spreading and non-spreading…

  • Functional Evolution of cis-Regulatory Modules at a Homeotic Gene in Drosophila

    Margaret C. W. Ho et al.
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary The fertilized animal embryo is a mass of uniform cells that becomes a complex, segmented, and highly organized structure of differentiated cells through the process of development. This vital process is controlled by networks of developmental genes interacting with each other on the molecular level. Because these genes are crucial for animal development, they are conserved both in function and at the DNA sequence level in related species. We have examined critical DNA sequence modules which regulate genes that pattern the early embryo in different species of the fruit fly. We…
 
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    PLoS Pathogens

  • A Neutralizing Human Monoclonal Antibody Protects against Lethal Disease in a New Ferret Model of Acute Nipah Virus Infection

    Katharine N. Bossart et al.
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Nipah virus and Hendra virus are closely related and highly pathogenic zoonoses whose primary natural reservoirs are several species of Pteropus fruit bats. Both Nipah and Hendra viruses can cause severe and often fatal disease in a variety of mammalian hosts, including humans. The henipaviruses are categorized as biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) agents, which has limited the development of animal models and the testing of potential therapeutics and vaccine countermeasures. We show here a new ferret model of Nipah virus pathogenesis in which the underlying pathology closely mirrors…

  • Autocrine Production of β-Chemokines Protects CMV-Specific CD4+ T Cells from HIV Infection

    Joseph P. Casazza et al.
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary HIV infection results in a significant loss of CD4 T cells, particularly HIV-specific CD4 T cells. In contrast to this, CMV-specific CD4 T cells persist in large numbers, even in individuals with AIDS. We compared the functional profile of HIV-specific and CMV-specific CD4 T cells and found that unlike HIV-specific CD4 T cells, CMV-specific CD4 T cells rapidly produce MIP-1β when stimulated with cognate antigen. CMV specific CD4 T cells also produce another β chemokine when stimulated with cognate antigen, MIP-1α. Addition of both of these chemokines to in vitro incubations…

  • Systematic Genetic Nomenclature for Type VII Secretion Systems

    Wilbert Bitter et al.
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  • Comparative Transcriptional and Genomic Analysis of Plasmodium falciparum Field Isolates

    Margaret J. Mackinnon et al.
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    Author Summary Malaria parasites are particularly good at adapting to the variable environments they encounter during their life cycle. This property helps explain their widespread prevalence and persistence despite massive malaria control campaigns. The genes responsible for this adaptability are largely unknown. In this study we analyzed gene expression profiles of P. falciparum parasites recently taken from the field and compared them to those from laboratory-adapted parasites. Many of the genes that were up-regulated in field isolates coded for proteins which are exported, or involved in…

  • Malaria Vaccines: Where Next?

    Anthony A. Holder
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
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    PLoS ONE Alerts

  • Egg Eviction Imposes a Recoverable Cost of Virulence in Chicks of a Brood Parasite

    Michael G. Anderson et al.
    11 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Background Chicks of virulent brood parasitic birds eliminate their nestmates and avoid costly competition for foster parental care. Yet, efforts to evict nest contents by the blind and naked common cuckoo Cuculus canorus hatchling are counterintuitive as both adult parasites and large older cuckoo chicks appear to be better suited to tossing the eggs and young of the foster parents. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we show experimentally that egg tossing imposed a recoverable growth cost of mass gain in common cuckoo chicks during the nestling period in nests of great reed warbler…

  • New Policies, New Technologies: Modelling the Potential for Improved Smear Microscopy Services in Malawi

    Andrew Ramsay et al.
    10 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Background To quantify the likely impact of recent WHO policy recommendations regarding smear microscopy and the introduction of appropriate low-cost fluorescence microscopy on a) case detection and b) laboratory workload. Methodology/Principal Findings An audit of the laboratory register in an urban hospital, Lilongwe, Malawi, and the application of a simple modelling framework. The adoption of the new definition of a smear-positive case could directly increase case detection by up to 28%. Examining Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) sputum smears for up to 10 minutes before declaring them negative has…

  • The Prevalence of Depression in White-European and South-Asian People with Impaired Glucose Regulation and Screen-Detected Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

    Navneet Aujla et al.
    9 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Background There is a clear relationship between depression and diabetes. However, the directionality of the relationship remains unclear and very little research has considered a multi-ethnic population. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression in a White-European (WE) and South-Asian (SA) population attending a community diabetes screening programme, and to explore the association of depression with screen-detected Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and impaired glucose regulation (IGR). Methodology/Principal Findings Participants were recruited from general…

  • Dynamics of the Leaf-Litter Arthropod Fauna Following Fire in a Neotropical Woodland Savanna

    Heraldo L. Vasconcelos et al.
    9 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Fire is an important agent of disturbance in tropical savannas, but relatively few studies have analyzed how soil-and-litter dwelling arthropods respond to fire disturbance despite the critical role these organisms play in nutrient cycling and other biogeochemical processes. Following the incursion of a fire into a woodland savanna ecological reserve in Central Brazil, we monitored the dynamics of litter-arthropod populations for nearly two years in one burned and one unburned area of the reserve. We also performed a reciprocal transplant experiment to determine the effects of fire and litter…

  • Inverse Symmetry in Complete Genomes and Whole-Genome Inverse Duplication

    Sing-Guan Kong et al.
    9 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    The cause of symmetry is usually subtle, and its study often leads to a deeper understanding of the bearer of the symmetry. To gain insight into the dynamics driving the growth and evolution of genomes, we conducted a comprehensive study of textual symmetries in 786 complete chromosomes. We focused on symmetry based on our belief that, in spite of their extreme diversity, genomes must share common dynamical principles and mechanisms that drive their growth and evolution, and that the most robust footprints of such dynamics are symmetry related. We found that while complement and reverse…
 
 
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    Reuters: Science News

  • Another reason to cover your cough: pets at risk

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:56 pm
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who think they may have H1N1 flu need to stay away from work, avoid sneezing on their spouses and children and now, they have someone else to worry about infecting too -- their pets.

  • Study suggests peat CO2 credits more valuable

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:03 am
    JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesia-based study shows carbon-rich tropical peat lands trap more greenhouse gases than first thought, driving up their potential value on the carbon market and strengthening a case for their protection.

  • WHO says pandemic flu on rise in China, Japan

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:07 am
    GENEVA (Reuters) - H1N1 swine flu is on the rise in China and Japan after triggering an unusually early start to the winter influenza season in Europe, Central Asia and North America, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

  • Hu says China seeks peaceful use of airspace

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:57 am
    BEIJING (Reuters) - China supports the peaceful exploration and use of space, President Hu Jintao said on Friday, days after its top air force officials sparked concerns with talk of a "Great Wall of steel in the blue sky."

  • Canada to investigate disappearing Pacific salmon

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:23 pm
    VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canada will launch an investigation into why far fewer sockeye salmon than scientists had predicted returned to the Fraser River on the Pacific Coast this summer.
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    Sciencetext Tips and Tricks

  • Feedburner Feedcount

    David Bradley
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am
    When did you last check your blog’s subscriber numbers? It’s been quite a while for me. But, this week, I decided to take a quick look at my Feedburner stats. Seems that Sciencetext, SciScoop, and Sciencebase are all doing rather well. In fact, the former two are doing a lot better than expected… …which was worrying. Visitor rates had not changed much. Traffic has gradually climbed over the last few months and individual posts occasionally get retweeted or bookmarked on various social media sites. However, the leap for Sciencetext specifically since the last time I…

  • On being a Facebook slut

    David Bradley
    4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am
    I’m a Facebook slut. I keep LinkedIn for parallel monogamous business connections but will friend almost anyone on Facebook. It’s all about reaching out, after all. I want as many friends as possible on Facebook, I want to share and poke and comment on their walls and I want them to reciprocate. You got a problem with that? Thought not. But, something odd is happening. At the time when I had fewer than 100 Facebook friends, it was rare that I’d have any friends in common with new pokers and pokees. Occasionally, a new contact would have one or two mutual friends, but never…

  • Socializing online shopping

    David Bradley
    2 Nov 2009 | 10:05 am
    People rarely go shopping together online. Okay, occasionally I’ll show my wife that I can buy some item or other we need cheaper online than at the mall, but that’s usually just to save the car journey. Online shopping is essentially a solo occupation, as are many other internet activities. Fundamentally, there is none of the social side of window shopping with friends, of trying outfits, of the Stadtbummel Germans apparently enjoy so much, and no opportunities to stop off for a skinny iced cinnamon dolce latte café and check emails at a wi-fi hotspot. And, apparently, this…

  • Cookies for Comments

    David Bradley
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am
    A few weeks ago, I heard about a new antispam plugin called Cookies for Comments. After a couple of months of testing, I confess that it’s the most impressive plugin for blocking spam on a Wordpress blog. I was reluctant to mention it here, for fear of alerting spammers to its existence and offering them insight into how it works and how they might circumvent it, but a few days ago it was publicized more widely, and I reasoned that stealth and obfuscation really isn’t a defense. Cookies for Comments works by adding a stylesheet to your blog’s html source code. When a browser…

  • What’s wrong with copyright?

    David Bradley
    26 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am
    Without copyright protection creative types would not create. That, apparently, is one of the defenses put forward by the likes of the RIAA and the MPAA. These organizations chase after file sharers and attempt to gain millions of dollars of recompense each year from people who swap music and movie torrents. But isn’t this defense simply justification for a whole new industry that could outgrow the music and movie industries themselves? It’s fairly well documented that many recording artists in the past were offered draconian record company contracts and received little…
 
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    FlowingData

  • 7 Visualization Groups On Flickr to Find Inspiration

    Nathan
    5 Nov 2009 | 11:01 pm
    I've always thought of Flickr as a place where I can share my photos with friends and family; however, I'm starting to see there's a whole lot more than that. It's a great place to find inspiration for infographics and visualizations or to just browse the giganto collection of work from others. Here are some awesome data-related Flickr groups that are worth a look. Info Graphics "Charts, graphs, facts - anything that is about information or visualising information" [link] Guardian Datastore "Take our data, mash it up and create great visualisations with it - then post them on here" [link]…

  • Make Thematic Maps With Cartographer.js

    Nathan
    4 Nov 2009 | 11:43 pm
    Like it or not, Google Maps mashups continue to be a Web favorite. It's just so easy to use. Stick a few lines of javascript in your web page, and voila, you've got an interactive map. That's for point-wise data though. It gets a little trickier beyond "you are here" pointers. Cartographic.js, in its first release, aims to make thematic mapping with the Google Maps API easier. The above is a bubble map for Twitter user locations, and below is a simple choropleth demo. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but the above only required a couple lines of code, which I think is something every…

  • Unemployment, 2004 to Present – The Country is Bleeding

    Nathan
    3 Nov 2009 | 11:32 pm
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the most recent unemployment numbers last week. Things aren't looking good for the unemployed, I'm afraid. I showed my younger sister the maps. Her response: "It looks like the country is bleeding." While the recession is "over" the unemployment rate rose to 9.8% in September from 9.7% in August. That's 214,000 more people who are jobless in the United States. The last time unemployment was this high was back in June 1983 when it was 10.1%. Check out the more detailed view here: From 2004 to 2007, unemployment was actually decreasing, but things went…

  • Fictional Character Interactions Over Time

    Nathan
    2 Nov 2009 | 11:54 pm
    Popular nerd comic xckd takes a look at character interactions over time in Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. The horizontal axis is time and the vertical axis indicates which characters are together at any given time. The result is something that looks like famed Minard graphic. Well, sort of. And of course it's all hand drawn, which adds to the nerd-ish charm. [Thanks, Wesley & Dave & Everyone else] FlowingPrints - Get cool data prints, spread awareness, and support data.

  • FlowingData is On CNN – A new way of looking at the world

    Nathan
    2 Nov 2009 | 10:24 am
    Just a quick note. There's an article up on CNN right now by Manav Tanneeru about the growth of visualization: A new way of looking at the world. There's a blurb in there about your.flowingdata, but mainly read it for the other sources. There's some nice tidbits from Martin Wattenberg, Ben Fry, et. al. Thanks, Manav for including me. FlowingPrints - Get cool data prints, spread awareness, and support data.
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    ScienceDaily

  • New Way To Attack Inflammation In Graves' Eye Disease

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    A small group of patients with severe Graves' eye disease experienced rapid improvement of their symptoms -- and improved vision -- following treatment with the drug rituximab. Inflammation around their eyes and damage to the optic nerve were significantly reduced. The same patients had not previously responded to steroids, a common treatment for Graves' eye disease.

  • 1930s Drug Slows Tumor Growth: Gonorrhea Medication Might Help Fight Cancer

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    Drugs sometimes have beneficial side effects. A glaucoma treatment causes luscious eyelashes. A blood pressure drug also aids those with a rare genetic disease. The newest surprise discovered by researchers is a gonorrhea medication that might help battle cancer.

  • Drunken Fruit Flies Help Scientists Find Potential Drug Target For Alcoholism

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    Drunken fruit flies have helped researchers identify networks of genes -- also present in humans -- that play a key role in alcohol drinking behavior. This discovery provides an indication of why some people seem to tolerate alcohol better than others, and points toward a potential target for drugs aimed at preventing or eliminating alcoholism.

  • New Computer Simulator Helps Design Military Strategies Based On Ants' Movements

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    Researchers in Spain have designed a system for the mobility of military troops within a battlefield following the mechanisms used by ant colonies to move. The scientists have used settings of Panzer General, a commercial war video game, for the development of this software.

  • Magnetic Nanoparticles To Simultaneously Diagnose, Monitor And Treat

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    The future for magentic nanoparticles (mNPs) appears bright With the design of "theranostic" molecules. Magentic nanoparticles could play a crucial role in developing one-stop tools to simultaneously diagnose, monitor and treat a wide range of common diseases and injuries.
 
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    SCIENCENTRAL NEWS

  • Hawaiian Heat

    ScienCentral
    12 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    With climate change forecasts calling for tough times in tropical climates, scientists in America’s tropical paradise of Hawaii are carefully monitoring nature for signs of change, and citizen scientists are helping them find those signs in the ocean’s coral reefs.

  • 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal Winner: Lotfi A. Zadeh

    ScienCentral
    6 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    The 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering is presented to Lotfi Zadeh for his invention and development of the field of fuzzy logic, a mathematical system that captures aspects of the ambiguity of human language and thought, which has solved problems in areas such as artificial intelligence and the automated control of machines.

  • Naps and Creativity

    ScienCentral
    29 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Telling your boss you need a nap might not be the smartest thing to do at work, but scientific evidence is now on your side. As this ScienCentral News video explains, sleep researchers just released a new study that says naps over an hour long may boost creative problem solving.

  • Street Corner Science with Stephen Benkovic

    ScienCentral
    22 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm
    ScienCentral is taking science back to the people with our second installment of "Street Corner Science," the radical yet-simple concept in which a film crew and a renowned scientist are plunked down amidst a busy city center, and an impromptu Q&A session with the public ensues.

  • Girls Vs. Boys at Math

    ScienCentral
    10 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Are men naturally better at math than women or is that just an out-dated stereotype? When former Harvard president Larry Summers said publicly in 2005 that men are innately better at math, many women were outraged. So a couple of women scientists decided to research it. This ScienCentral News video explains their report published this week.
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    The Why Files

  • Apnea treatment = Golfer’s glory?

    svmedaris
    5 Nov 2009 | 2:25 pm
    Golfer-doctor finds that treating apnea cuts golf scores; sees new motivator for wearing nighttime masks.

  • Tar sands

    admin
    29 Oct 2009 | 1:04 pm
    Canada's oil-drenched sands give it the second-largest oil reserves in the world. Using the "tar sands" pollutes air and water, destroys forests and could cause cancer. Should we leave oil sands alone?

  • Internet: The fastest teacher?

    svmedaris
    21 Oct 2009 | 10:51 am
    MRI scans of older people show major differences between searchers and non-searchers. After seven hours of Internet experience, those differences disappear. Honest? Could changing the brain be this easy?

  • Raising (Whooping) Crane

    admin
    15 Oct 2009 | 12:46 pm
    Ultralight aircraft are guiding crane chicks toward Florida wintering grounds. Dangers remain, but it's a step ahead for Americas' largest flying bird, once reduced to 21 animals.

  • SciMax Theater

    admin
    15 Oct 2009 | 10:22 am
    Owning a StarCAVE, an interactive virtual reality theater where scientific models are projected stereoscopically on every surface, including the floor, is probably a biologist’s single best bet at getting on MTV’s “Cribs.” Now showing: RNA. “You can fly over a strand of DNA and look in front, behind and below you, or navigate through the superstructure [...]
 
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    BBC News Player | Sci-Tech

  • Prof Heinz Wolff on science

    6 Nov 2009 | 2:48 am
    Prof Heinz Wolff puts a mince pie into a 'large hadron collider' to show the usefulness of science - before admitting scientists sometimes get it wrong.

  • Scientists call for independence

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:29 am
    Some of Britain's leading scientists are calling for a new deal to ensure government advisors can work independently and speak publicly about their findings.

  • Climate deal 'unlikely' this year

    5 Nov 2009 | 8:59 pm
    It is unlikely a binding deal to combat climate change will be achieved at the Copenhagen summit in December, a senior UN official has said.

  • Laser-powered robot aiming for space

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:54 am
    A laser-powered robot, which could signal the future of space travel, has climbed a wire dangling from a helicopter almost a kilometre above the Mojave Desert in California.

  • Obama urges new effort on climate

    3 Nov 2009 | 10:32 pm
    US President Barack Obama has said he will stand shoulder to shoulder with Europe at the Copenhagen Summit on climate change in December.
 
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    Scientific American

  • Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite: Pest Management Proves More Effective than Pesticides

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:04 am
    In a large apartment building, it’s impossible to avoid the neighbors. You can hear the Bruce Springsteen that the tenant in 7B cranks while vacuuming, the kids in 8A directly above tromping around, and if someone decides to paint, the fumes reach everyone on the floor. So when a building supervisor notified owners in a sixty-unit co-op building in Brooklyn that one of the apartments had a bedbug infestation, Eddie Rosenthal feared that it was only a matter of time until the bugs spread to his home. [More]

  • Hot Spot Hot Rod: The Internet Invades the Automobile

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am
    With U.S. commuters spending an estimated 500 million hours per week in their vehicles , carmakers, software companies and content providers are trying to figure out how to take advantage of new high-speed wireless network technologies to help drivers have better Internet access during this often idle time. [More]

  • Can Closing the Ozone Hole Also Help Combat Climate Change?

    5 Nov 2009 | 1:31 pm
    Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse culprit in human-generated global warming , most scientists agree, but CO 2 itself, and a handful of other substances, are now being promoted as good alternatives to commonly used refrigerants that threaten Earth's atmosphere and climate. [More]

  • Being Green: 10 Earth-Friendly Habits You Can Adopt

    5 Nov 2009 | 11:27 am
    A Bus with Legs Remember the good ol’ days when kids walked to school? Those treks weren’t as rough as some people recall them--five miles through the snow, uphill both ways!--but they did burn calories instead of fossil fuels. Today kids need more opportunities for exercise, but many parents feel it’s not safe for them to walk alone. One simple solution is to organize a “walking school bus” or “bicycle train” for your neighborhood, with one or more adults supervising a group of children traveling together. It’s a good way to build muscles and…

  • Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?

    5 Nov 2009 | 11:01 am
    Theorists and observational astronomers are hot on the trail of dark matter , the invisible material thought to account for puzzling mass disparities in large-scale astronomical structures. For instance, galaxies and galactic clusters behave as if they were far more massive than would be expected if they comprised only atoms and molecules, spinning faster than their observable mass would explain. What is more, the very presence of assemblages such as our Milky Way Galaxy speaks to the influence of more mass than we can see. If the mass of the universe were confined to atoms, the clumping of…
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    Eurekalert

  • Poll: Many parents, high-priority adults who tried to get H1N1 vaccine unable to get it

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    A new national poll from Harvard School of Public Health researchers found that a majority of adults who tried to get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves or their children have been unable to do so.

  • SNM applauds House action to build medical isotopes reactor in the US

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    SNM applauds the US House of Representatives for its passage of H.R. 3276 -- the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2009.

  • AIBS publishes Darwin articles open access

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Two articles about Charles Darwin and his development of the theory of evolution by natural selection have been published in the AIBS journal BioScience and have been made open to the public in honor of the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species." The articles are by Kevin Padian and James T. Costa. Together the articles dispel some common myths about Darwin the man and detail his efforts over many years to develop a theory to explain nature's diversity.

  • Computer predicts reactions between molecules and surfaces, with ‘chemical precision’

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    An international team of scientists from the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Argentina and the United States has shown in a paper to be published in Science shortly how the chemistry of surface reactions underpinning catalysis can be modeled accurately with computers.

  • Prevention experts urge modification to 2009 H1N1 guidance for health care workers

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Three leading scientific organizations specializing in infectious diseases prevention issued a letter to President Obama today expressing their significant concern with current federal guidance concerning the use of personal protective equipment by health care workers in treating suspected or confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza.
 
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    NOVA scienceNOW

  • Chasing Down Dinner

    WGBH Science Unit
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm
    Evolving an ability to run long distances might have been key to survival for early humans. In this podcast, we talked to Dan Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, to find out why. Podcast produced by David Levin. Original interview by Gaia Remerowski. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical…

  • How We Became Human

    WGBH Science Unit
    29 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm
    Today, humans are rapidly changing the world's climate-but some anthropologists think climate may have once changed us. In this podcast, Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, explains why a rapidly shifting environment could have shaped early human behavior. Podcast produced by David Levin. Original interview by Graham Townsley. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major…

  • Portland Science Pub

    WGBH Science Unit
    15 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm
    In this podcast, Neil deGrasse Tyson visits Portland, Oregon, to participate in a monthly event called the “Science Pub.” Sponsored by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the “Pub” invites researchers to talk about their work, answer audience questions, and have a beer. It's a science conversation done Oregon style. The original event lasted over two hours, but we trimmed the Q&A down to about 30 minutes. Podcast edited by David Levin. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the…

  • Cosmic Perspective: Looking Up

    WGBH Science Unit
    26 Aug 2009 | 10:00 am
    As an astrophysicist, NOVA scienceNOW host Neil deGrasse Tyson has a unique view of the universe. Hear his "Cosmic Perspective" on looking up at the night sky. Audio editing by David Levin. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Additional funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This material is…

  • Cosmic Perspective: Bad News

    WGBH Science Unit
    17 Aug 2009 | 10:00 am
    As an astrophysicist, NOVA scienceNOW host Neil deGrasse Tyson has a unique view of the universe. Hear his "Cosmic Perspective" on bad news. Audio editing by David Levin. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Additional funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This material is based upon work…
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    Nerdy Science Blog

  • Malaysian Researcher Wins Japanese Award

    WTJ
    5 Nov 2009 | 2:49 pm
    A young researcher Dr Kevin Ng from Sabah, Malaysia has won the Japan International Award 2009 for Young Agricultural Researchers at University of Tokyo, Japan.  The award was presented by Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF). Dr Kevin Ng joined Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) as a researcher in August 1999 after graduating from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).  He works at the FRIM Biotechnology Division Genetics Laboratory ever since and wins the award at age 34.  The award is accredited to those with outstanding contribution to technological…

  • Kiss to Spread Germs

    WTJ
    1 Nov 2009 | 8:31 pm
    According to Dr Colin Hendrie who wrote in the journal Medical Hypotheses, man passed a bug named Cytomegalovirus to woman through kissing to build up immunity against it. Cytomegalovirus can be found in saliva and it is harmless normally. However it can be dangerous in pregnancy by causing birth defects or killing unborn babies. Dr Colin Hendrie suggested the best way to build up immunity protection is kissing the same person for about six months. So does that means after six months you either get pregnant or breakup? (news [pic])

  • Romantic Sperm

    WTJ
    29 Oct 2009 | 12:27 am
    There are billions of sperms but only one sperm is allowed to fertilize egg.

  • Teddy Bear Hospital

    WTJ
    27 Oct 2009 | 7:53 pm
    Children often have perception about hospital and feel anxious when visiting doctor.  Irum Sunderji and Pri Vijayakumar, medicine students from Monash University, Gippsland, Australia, try to reduce children’s anxiety when visiting a doctor by establishing a Teddy Bear Hospital. Establishment of the hospital is helped by students at Morwell Park Primary School.  The primary school students will act as parents of their Teddies to visit Teddy Bear Hospital.  They will learn about surgery, ambulance, nutrition, exercise and related medical practises in medical environment with their…

  • Vioguard UVKB50 Self-Sanitizing Keyboard for Microbiology Laboratory

    WTJ
    26 Oct 2009 | 10:50 pm
    When I first saw this Vioguard UVKB50 Self-Sanitizing Keyboard, the first thing strike into my mind was that its market can be extended to microbiology laboratories. Vioguard Self-Sanitizing Keyboard bathed the keyboard with germicidal ultraviolet light (UV-C) automatically when it is unused.  UV-C is a well-known disinfectant, and it was proven capable of killing more than 99.9% harmful microorganisms within seconds. Technical specifications: Keyboard: 88-key low profile UV-resistant keyboard Pointing device: Advanced multitouch trackpad Proximity sensor: Infrared, 1-3″ range Computer…
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    ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed

  • South African wildlife - Wait, that's not a trunk... [Not Exactly Rocket Science]

    7 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    This is a bull elephant firmly establishing why it is he, and not the lion, who is king of beasts. The elephant's penis is not only massive but prehensile. As we watched in baffled amusement (and the faintest tinge of inadequacy), he used his penis to prop himself up (as in the photo), swat flies from his side and scratch himself on his stomach. David Attenborough never showed us that... There's good reason for elephants to have prehensile penises. It's hard enough for a six-tonne animal to get into the right position for sex, let alone having to do the rhythmic thrusting that's required. So…

  • Photo of the Day #756: American avocets [Laelaps]

    7 Nov 2009 | 4:48 am
    American avocets (Recurvirostra americana), photographed at Antelope Island, Utah. Read the comments on this post...

  • Barbara Ehrenreich on the swine flu supply problem [Effect Measure]

    7 Nov 2009 | 3:46 am
    I first read Barbara Ehrenreich in 1971 when she wrote The American Health Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics with her (then) husband John Ehrenreich (Health PAC, 1971). She was by then a PhD in cell biology (Rockefeller University) and anti-war activist. We traveled in the same circles and I knew her slightly at the time. Her next book, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (with Deirdre English) was a new reading of women in medical history. It was an influential text in the emerging women's health movement. Since then she has published many books, several making the…

  • An Open Letter... [On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess]

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:54 am
    ...to the guy next to me in seminar yesterday morning. Dear Dr. Hot-Shot, I realize that you thought you were being discrete by turning your phone to vibrate while you texted at a break neck pace during seminar, but when your phone buzzes louder than my vibrator, it is not at all discrete. Then again, if I could text as quickly as you I probably wouldn't need my vibrator and then I would be more discrete. Best, Isis the Scientist Read the comments on this post...

  • Fallows on the Fort Hood shootings: "Don't mean nothing." [Neuron Culture]

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:18 am
    James Fallows gets the shootings right, as he does so much else: In the saturation coverage right after the events, the "expert" talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too. Looking back, we can see that all such efforts are futile. The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre "mean"? A decade later, do we "know" anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy. In America, they do so with guns;…
 
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    Bad Astronomy

  • Reminder: Carl Sagan Day

    Phil Plait
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm
    A quick reminder: the Carl Sagan Day celebration will be at Broward College in southern Florida on Saturday! Speakers include James Randi, Jeffrey Bennett, David Morrison, and me. There will be lots of stuff for kids and astronomy enthusiasts of all ages. Check my blog post from Monday for more info. Also, there will be a reception that night at 8:00 p.m. as well. Requested donation is $10. I hope to see some BABloggees there!

  • Pray this doesn’t get passed

    Phil Plait
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am
    I was going to write about how Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and John Kerry (D-MA) were trying to somewhat slimily slip a provision into the health care bill about paying for prayer-based health services, but then wouldn’tyouknowit, Steve Novella (who apparently does not need to sleep or eat or breathe) beat me to it. Besides his take-down of the odd and wholly unrealistic beliefs of Christian Scientists, I’ll note that is has been pretty definitively proven that prayer doesn’t work in healing. So not only is this provision unconstitutional, it’s just an all-around bad…

  • Careidolia

    Phil Plait
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am
    OK, I know that some people see the face of their religious icons in random things. I’ve written about this a zillion times. And I know that sometimes it’s just pareidolia, our tendency to see faces in random objects. And I know that people will think it’s a miracle, when really it’s the end-product of thousands of generations of the evolution of our pattern-seeking abilities. But then there’s stuff like this: a guy is "clueless" about how the face of Jesus appeared on his truck window, and why it persists day after day. Oh, I have a clue. It’s…

  • The Universe Has Us in Its Crosshairs

    Phil Plait
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am
    Looking for something to do this weekend, and for the next month? Are you anywhere near New York City? Then I am very pleased to let you know that a group of artists there have created an exhibit based on my book, Death from the Skies! The exhibit is hanging at the ABC No Rio site, and runs from now until November 25 (actually it started last week). The viewing times are Sundays 1:00 – 3:00pm and Wednesdays & Thursdays 4:00pm – 7:00pm. This is very cool, and I am deeply honored they based their work on my book. I was contacted by artist Brian George about it some time ago.

  • LRO sees a Moonslide

    Phil Plait
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:08 pm
    The hi-res Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s camera captured a pretty cool image of a (what I’m guessing is an ancient) landslide on the Moon. Check this out: [Click to embrobdingnangate.] The slide is down the steep slope of a crater called Marius, located in Oceanus Procellarum, a vast smooth-surfaced area on the Moon (generally called "maria" — singular is "mare" — and easily visible to the naked eye). The crater itself is pretty old; the floor is covered with the same smooth surface as the mare around it, so it predates Oceanus Procellarum which we…
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    Bitesize Bio

  • The Perfect Learning Tool for Science: Video

    Suzanne
    4 Nov 2009 | 4:42 pm
    I don’t need to tell you that you can find (virtually) everything you need to know on the internet — encylopedias are a thing of the past. Now, you have an app for that on your phone. You don’t even need to wait to get home. So it makes total sense that for science, we would learn techniques via the internet. But not just a literary “how-to” guide anymore. Videos as a learning tool are starting to take a bigger role in teaching. A live demonstration speaks a thousand words! In a previous article, I talked about JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) and how…

  • Immunoscience or Immunoalchemy?

    Christopher
    1 Nov 2009 | 9:20 pm
    First of all let me say the technique of labeling tissues (immunohistochemistry, IHC), and cells (immunocytochemistry, ICC) is indeed science NOT alchemy, though at times it may certainly seem like alchemy! But to scientists inexperienced in this technique, who typically see the results of IHC/ICC experiments in the form of pretty pictures, it can certainly seem like alchemy. While these pictures can be pretty in their own right, the pictures display a range of important scientific information. The illusion of seeing such a pretty picture is the observer often thinks the process, time and…

  • A Halloween Treat: 10 Molecular Bio Tips

    Nick
    30 Oct 2009 | 8:25 am
    This Halloween we want to treat you with some molecular biology goodies in the shape 10 juicy tricks. We’ve been bringing you advice since August 2007, but some of our readers may just be discovering our hallowed grounds. Join with us in this bringing some of these old tricks back to life. 1. Save money by recycling electroporation cuvettes Article: Re-cycling Electroporation Cuvettes 2. Ditch the LB and get rich cultures for super-productive plasmid preps by using PDM, a stoichiometrically optimised medium for plasmid production. Article: Pimp Your Plasmid Growth Medium 3. Using LB-grown…

  • Don’t Miss This Free Online Bioconference

    Nick
    27 Oct 2009 | 1:25 am
    How would you like to participate in a free, online Bioconference? Watch and participate in live presentations from the biggest names in the life science industry and the thought leaders of the research community? And do it all from the comfort of your own computer? Well Bioconference Live allows you to do just that on 17-19 November (2009). And I think this is a not-to-be missed event. As well as lining up some great speakers, the Bioconference Live team have worked hard to capture the conference experience, offering the opportunity to field questions to speakers, view posters, mingle in the…

  • Hot Stuff at Addgene

    Eric Perkins
    23 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
    Addgene, the non-profit plasmid repository, turned 5-years-old this year. That’s five years longer than some of the scientists Addgene first approached to deposit plasmids thought we would last (I can say “we” because I’m a Senior Scientist at Addgene). Not only have we lasted, but we’ve thrived. Addgene recently stored its 10,000th plasmid, and our hard-working technicians are sending out nearly 200 plasmids a day to labs all over the world. Not too shabby, but to maintain its position as the place to go for plasmid archiving and distribution, Addgene has added…
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    Nature Network Blog Posts

  • A Hi in the Snow (from steffi suhr's blog)

    steffi suhr
    7 Nov 2009 | 12:11 am
    This picture of people in the snow at Palmer Station was taken on 2 November from a NASA plane on a flyover that was part of Operation Ice Bridge. Stacie Murray, who is the Chef at Palmer this season, describes the situation: “We knew that the plane was going to be in the area and that they might fly over us. The weather has been so bad, in Chile and here, that it’s been a bit of a delay for our station’s fly by, a week or so. It was just a normal work day when they radioed us and said they would be over us in 8 min. So we did an “all-call” [a public announcement…

  • Take off (some time) (from Stephen Curry's blog)

    Stephen Curry
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Last week, the engine on NASA’s brand new Ares 1-X flamed into life and the oddly thin white tube slowly raised itself from the launchpad. It accelerated impressively quickly and arced into the blue Florida sky. Within about two minutes it was travelling at almost five times the speed of sound. Aiming high (picture courtesy of NASA).   Right on cue, explosive bolts fired to initiate stage separation. But that’s when things began to go wrong. The booster and payload stages unexpectedly started a slow tumble as they lost speed and fell to earth. Then, on its descent, only one…

  • Quit while you're ahead (from Ian Brooks' blog)

    Ian Brooks
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:57 pm
    I spent a day working on a nice piece of toggle code in JavaScript. Admittedly I inherited it. Well, finally trouble shooting is through and at BANG ON 5PM, I got the little bastard to work. Click a link and a nested URL drops down, as if by magic. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to make a series of nested links drop out of one toggle. But. Did I quit while I was ahead, basking in the warm glow that comes from making my computer obey me (for a change) by nothing more than the application of logic and nice code? No. Sadly. I didn’t. Bolstered by enthusiasm, I spent an hour…

  • Gene therapy can work! (from Heather Etchevers' blog)

    Heather Etchevers
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:08 am
    Much like the reflected glory of working in an institution with Nobel prize-winners, I am basking in the reflected glory of working at an institution that has more or less successfully applied gene therapy to alleviate the suffering of children with incurable genetic diseases. And they’re fighting the good fight, because sometimes, they win. Luigi Naldini wrote, in his Perspective: [This study is] the successful first clinical testing of an HIV-derived vector in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)–based gene therapy. The procedure was used to treat a severe neurodegenerative disease,…

  • Bioentrepreneur: Growing Your Biotech Startup (from Caryn Shechtman's blog)

    New York
    5 Nov 2009 | 7:42 pm
    Last night I had the opportunity to attend another Meet the Author event sponsored by Bioentrepreneur. As discussed in a previous post, Bioentrepreneur is a site sponsored by Nature Biotechnology, designed as a educational resource for scientists interested in commercializing their research. The speaker was Thomas Gunning, vice president and general counsel at EMD Serono. Gunning offered some advice for building a successful startup. As outlined in his article, published in Nature Biotechnology last year, Gunning discussed five key elements to developing a successful business. First off,…
 
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    ScienceAlert - Latest Stories

  • Feature: Cyber sticks and stones

    5 Nov 2009 | 8:14 am
    Bullying via the internet, or 'cyber-bullying' is an elusive and dangerous game in which victim and victimiser are hard to immediately spot.

  • Irradiated cancers stay down

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    In a recent study, high-risk cancer patients who were given radiation therapy after surgery were less likely to have the cancer show up again.

  • Horse genome sequenced

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    An international team has mapped the horse genome, and it's already helping scientists understand horse breeds and health problems.

  • Algae crop grows in salt

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Scientists have grown useful algae in open, saline ponds, creating a biofuel crop that thrives in Australia and doesn’t need fresh water.

  • Stressed bacteria play it safe

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Researchers have made bacteria evolve bet-hedging in the lab – they switch at random between forms that suit different conditions.
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    PHD Comics

  • 11/04/09 PHD comic: 'Command structure'

    5 Nov 2009 | 2:35 pm
    Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Command structure" - originally published 11/4/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

  • 11/02/09 PHD comic: 'Mike's motto'

    2 Nov 2009 | 7:05 pm
    Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Mike's motto" - originally published 11/2/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

  • 10/31/09 PHD comic: 'Detained! Part 3'

    31 Oct 2009 | 9:44 am
    Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Detained! Part 3" - originally published 10/31/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

  • 10/28/09 PHD comic: 'Detained! Part 2'

    28 Oct 2009 | 10:18 pm
    Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Detained! Part 2" - originally published 10/28/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

  • 10/26/09 PHD comic: 'Detained! Part 1'

    27 Oct 2009 | 1:06 am
    Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "Detained! Part 1" - originally published 10/26/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!
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    Brain Waves

  • Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications

    30 Oct 2009 | 10:56 am
    Floyd Bloom and team have done all of us a service with this extensively researched and well thought out analysis. I'm using the findings right now on a new piece of legislation in development. Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications makes 17 recommendations that focus on utilizing current scientific research and development initiatives to improve performance and efficiency, collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to employ neuropharmaceuticals for general sustainment or enhancement of soldier performance, and improving cognitive and behavioral performance using…

  • Neurotech Clusters: Leading Regions in the Global Neurotechnology Industry

    22 Oct 2009 | 2:45 pm
    This reports really represents the economic geographer in me wondering how the neurotech industry is developing across space. After months of data collection, writing and analysis here are the results. Go to the NIO website to download the 100 page report. According to NeuroInsights and NIO, the top nine neurotech regions with composite scores are: 1. San Francisco Bay Area, CA (100) 2. Greater Boston, MA (98) 3. New York/New Jersey (91) 4. London, United Kingdom (84) 5. San Diego, CA (83) 6. Los Angeles/Irvine, CA (81) 7. Baltimore, MD (69) 8. Greater Philadelphia, PA (66) 9. Minneapolis, MN…

  • The Young and the Neuro "Revolution"

    14 Oct 2009 | 8:02 am
    From prefix to adjective and now David Brooks makes "the Neuro" a noun. The meme lives.

  • 2010 Translational Neurotech Summit, Call For Speakers

    8 Oct 2009 | 2:27 pm
    The Neurotech Development Foundation is organizing a Translational Neurotech Summit on May 18, 2010. This one day gathering of scientists, entrepreneurs, executives and investors will be held coordination with The 5th annual Neurotech Investing and Partnering Conference May 19-20, 2010. The goal of the summit is to facilitate the movement of promising neurotechnology (pharmaceuticals, biologics, cell-based therapeutics, devices and diagnostics) from universities, government labs and research institutes into the private sector. CALL FOR SPEAKERS Showcase your translational research project to…

  • Half the Sky - The Greatest Moral Issue of Our Time

    24 Sep 2009 | 2:20 pm
    Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have joined forces to publish "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women" which was released earlier this month. I just ordered my copy. Here is their reasoning why. IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape. Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical…
 
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    Physics Today Newspicks

  • Large Hadron Collider scuttled by baguette

    Physics Today
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:59 pm
    The Register: A bird dropping a piece of bread onto outdoor machinery has been blamed for a technical fault at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week which saw significant overheating in sections of the mighty particle-punisher's subterranean 27-km supercooled magnetic doughnut. According to scientists at the project, had the LHC been operational—it is scheduled to recommence beaming later this month—the snag would have caused it to fail safe and shut down automatically. This would put the mighty machine out of action for a few days while it was restarted, but there would be no…

  • Why so few East German Max Planck directors?

    Physics Today
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:57 pm
    Science: When the Max Planck Society planted institutes across the former East Germany, it recruited scientists from around the world for its ambitious project. But only two out of more than 60 directors in the newly founded institutes were recruited from the East itself. Today, the society has 267 active directors; only five grew up on the eastern side of the divided Germany. And only one started a career before 1989. Those statistics are a sign of the mixed blessings that reunification brought for East German scientists. For many, especially the younger ones, it was a great opportunity. But…

  • Iran may have tested advanced warhead explosives says IAEA report

    Physics Today
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:37 pm
    The Guardian: The International Atomic Energy Agency has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, says the Guardian. The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and the UK, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the IAEA, Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. A two-point implosion device, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads…

  • Prosthetics do not give sprinters unfair advantage

    Physics Today
    6 Nov 2009 | 10:35 am
    guardian.co.uk: Prosthetics worn by disabled sprinters confer no speed advantage, scientists have found. If anything, they may reduce the top speed a runner can achieve. The research supports the case made by the South African Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius, who uses flexible carbon-fiber blades in races. Pistorius has long argued that he should be allowed to compete alongside able-bodied athletes in races, but athletics authorities banned him from doing so in last year's Olympic games, claiming that his blades gave him an unfair advantage over able-bodied athletes. But the new study by…

  • Is there a future for JDEM?

    Physics Today
    5 Nov 2009 | 3:09 pm
    Nature News: The rise and fall this year of the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM)—a satellite meant to pin down the repulsive force that is accelerating the universe's expansion—is partly due to strife between two US agencies, NASA and the Department of Energy, and a third potential partner, the European Space Agency. In addition, scientists working on the JDEM designs have not presented a unified front, owing to disagreements over the best observational method to use at a time when an influential astrophysics panel is about to prioritize the next decade's best and most organized…
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    Physics Today We Hear That

  • Eugene Commins Named First AAPT J.D. Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Teaching Award

    American Association of Physics Teachers
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:50 am
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE College Park, Maryland, United States, October 29, 2009. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) announced today that the first AAPT J. D. Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Teaching Award winner is Eugene Commins, physics professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. This award is given in recognition of contributions to graduate physics teaching and awardees are chosen for their extraordinary accomplishments in communicating the excitement of physics to their students. This prestigious award will be presented to Commins at a Ceremonial…

  • Mary Beth Monroe Recognized for Creative Leadership in Physics Education

    American Association of Physics Teachers
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:44 am
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE College Park, Maryland, United States, October 29, 2009. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) announced today that The Melba Newell Phillips Medal has been awarded to Mary Beth Monroe, Professor of Physics at Southwest Texas Junior College, in recognition of her creative leadership and dedicated service that have resulted in exceptional contributions within AAPT. The Medal will be presented to at a Ceremonial Session of the AAPT Winter Meeting at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, DC, on Monday, February 15, 2010. Lila Adair, Chairman,…

  • Penrose Albright, former Homeland Security Secretary, named Global Security leader at Lawrence Livermore

    Physics Today
    5 Nov 2009 | 10:01 am
    LIVERMORE, Ca — Penrose. C. "Parney" Albright, former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, has been named the Principal Associate Director of Global Security at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Albright will join the Lab on Nov. 30, Director George Miller announced. The Global Security Principal Directorate applies multi-disciplinary science and technology to anticipate, innovate and deliver responsive solutions to complex global security needs, from energy and environmental security to domestic security and nonproliferation. "Parney is extremely well…

  • Los Alamos National Laboratory names six scientists as 2009 Fellows

    Physics Today
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:56 am
    LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, November 5, 2009—Antoinette "Toni" Taylor, Stephen Becker, Joachim Birn, Lowell Brown, Patrick Colestock, and Samuel "Tom" Picraux have been designated 2009 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows in recognition of sustained, outstanding scientific contributions and exceptional promise for continued professional achievement. The title of Fellow is bestowed on only about 2 percent of the Laboratory's current technical staff. The new Fellows come from myriad scientific disciplines and have sustained high-level achievement important to the Laboratory, become…

  • AAPT Executive Board Adopts A Statement on Research Experiences for Undergraduates

    American Association of Physics Teachers
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:24 am
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE College Park, Maryland, November 2, 2009 -- During their fall meeting, members of the AAPT Executive Board developed and adopted an official statement endorsing research experiences for undergraduates. AAPT Statement on Research Experiences for Undergraduates (Adopted by the AAPT Executive Board on November 1, 2009) "The American Association of Physics Teachers urges that every physics and astronomy department provide its majors and potential physics majors with the opportunities and encouragement to engage in a meaningful and appropriate undergraduate research…
 
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    HowStuffWorks: Science Daily RSS Feed

  • Can you really fight fire with fire?

    30 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am
    At some point in your life, a coach may have enthusiastically told you to "fight fire with fire." Coach, of course, was speaking metaphorically. Do firefighters actually employ this strategy?

  • How Atoms Work

    30 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am
    What exactly is an atom? What is it made of? What does it look like? The pursuit of the structure of the atom has married many areas of chemistry and physics in perhaps one of the greatest contributions of modern science!

  • Mummy Pictures 

    30 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am
    A mummy is a body that sticks around long after death. After death, the human body will start to decompose, but in mummies, the body's soft tissue remains, whether through deliberate preservation or through certain environmental conditions.

  • Complete this puzzle: Skyscraper

    30 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am
    Skyscrapers are a modern marvel of engineering that incorporate beautiful elements such as glass and steel. Try building this skyscraper puzzle.

  • How did Nicola Tesla change the way we use energy?

    30 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am
    Who made it possible to light up your home at night? Thomas Edison, right? Yes, but without the work of Nikola Tesla, we would be living in a different world.
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    FT.com - Science & Environment

  • Science briefing: Scents and early memories

    5 Nov 2009 | 8:31 pm
    Research shows that the first time someone smells a particular odour, whether pleasant or unpleasant, the memory is imprinted in their brain in a way that is unparalleled by other sensations

  • Intel

    5 Nov 2009 | 1:09 am
    Even though the company faces fresh scrutiny of its market power, the structure of the industry is likely to remain unchanged

  • Science briefing: Horses help in race to beat flu

    29 Oct 2009 | 7:13 pm
    Researchers have carried out a study relating the evolution of equine flu to vaccination of horses, an important step that will help in understanding the dynamics of epidemics

  • Science briefing: Advantages to having a male

    22 Oct 2009 | 8:19 pm
    A study argues that self-fertilising populations of roundworms are more susceptible to harmful genetic mutations and are slower to adapt to environmental conditions

  • Crop science investment call

    20 Oct 2009 | 2:41 pm
    The government has been asked to invest an extra £50m a year to help prepare the UK for expected global food shortages
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    NASA Earth Observatory

  • Spring Bloom and Dust off Argentina

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    The arc and waves of a pale brown plume of dust complement the swirls of blue and green in the South Atlantic Ocean in this photo-like image from November 5, 2009.

  • Haze over China

    6 Nov 2009 | 1:11 pm
    A gray-white film of haze or fog blankets eastern China in this photo-like image from November 6, 2009.

  • Spring Bloom and Dust off Argentina

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:02 pm
    The arc and waves of a pale brown plume of dust complement the swirls of blue and green in the South Atlantic Ocean in this photo-like image from November 5, 2009.

  • North Atlantic Fish Populations Shifting as Ocean Temperatures Warm

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from US waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study. (NOAA press release)

  • Snows of Kilimanjaro Shrinking Rapidly, and Likely to be Lost

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    The remaining ice fields atop famed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone within two decades and perhaps even sooner, based on the latest survey of the ice fields remaining on the mountain. (Ohio State University Institute press release)
 
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    SEEDMAGAZINE.COM

  • Sad Sacks

    boustead@seedmediagroup.com
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:25 am
    As a UK adviser is fired over politically unpalatable advice and an English teacher is suspended over an article about animal sexuality, the fate of facts is on the line.

  • Seed's Daily Zeitgeist

    boustead@seedmediagroup.com
    5 Nov 2009 | 2:33 pm
    Seed's Daily Zeitgeist The ultimate experiment in financial forecasting (source: The Arxiv Blog) Swiss econophysicist Didier Sornette has had some surprising success predicting market bubbles--but now, to test if his forecasts are truly bona fide, he's sealing them in an electronic envelope and entrusting them to the arXiv, to be opened next May. Threatened by fault lines, Iranian capital to be moved (source: Highly Allochthonous) When geology meets policy, the results can be radical. Iran has rubber-stamped plans to move the nation's capital to a brand new or existing city in an area less…
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    HowStuffWorks Daily Feed

  • 18 Memorable TV Theme Songs

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    A hit TV show is not complete without a memorable theme song. In fact, you probably know all the words to the theme songs included on this list. Read our list of 18 memorable TV theme songs, including the theme from 'Happy Days.'

  • What's the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal?

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    The traditional Thanksgiving menu in the United States generally consists of a few staple items with a variety of side dishes, depending on family traditions. But do you have to break the bank to create this extravagant meal?

  • Top 10 Public Enemies

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    Public enemies threaten the well-being of the populace, committing serial murders, genocide or financial piracy. What 10 public enemies make our list?

  • Today's Video - Understanding: Cloning a Cow

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    Learn more about the cloning of a cow and other animals on TLC's "Understanding."

  • What can I do for extremely dry hands?

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am
    If the skin on your hands is always dry, simple tasks like picking up objects or shaking hands can be uncomfortable. What can you do to lock in more moisture?
 
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    Scienceray

  • How Many Whiskers Does a Walrus Have

    4 Nov 2009 | 12:59 am
    A walrus is a very big flippered animal that lives in seas and on ice in the Arctic and sub-Arctic areas of the Northern hemisphere. There are actually three different species of this fabulous looking beast. There is the Atlantic walrus, the Pacific walrus and the rosmarus laptevi which lives in the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean. Image via Wikipedia Adult male Pacific walruses can weigh as much as four thousand five hundred pounds which is a very large lump of tusked blubber to carry around.  Females usually weigh about two thirds of that.   Image via Wikipedia The indigenous…

  • November Meteor Sky Cast: NASA Predicts Meteor Showers for November 17th

    4 Nov 2009 | 12:51 am
    Astronomers predict that more than 500 meteors per hour will streak across the early morning sky as the constellation of Leo appears in the East before sunrise on November 17th.  Since meteor showers receive their names from the constellation from which they appear to fall, or radiate, this slew of meteors is called the Leonids’ Meteor Shower. These particular meteors come from the trail of dust formed by the 55/Tempel-Tuttle comet as this debris stream crosses the earth’s path–a yearly occurrence since 1466.  A comet, of course, makes an…

  • Rats

    2 Nov 2009 | 5:19 am
    Black Rats: (Rattus rattus) There are far fewer black rats in the UK than brown rats. They prefer to be around ports and this is why they are commonly referred to as ‘Ship Rats’. Black rats were the ones that carried the flea that was responsible for the bubonic plague. In the wild, they dwell in trees and are excellent climbers. They usually weigh approximately 225 grams but they have longer tails than brown rats. Although they eat different types of plant and animal matters, they prefer to eat grain. The female can produce up to 6 litters a year, each of around 8 young rats.

  • An Explanation for Floaters, Specks, and Cobwebs

    31 Oct 2009 | 5:05 pm
    Ordinarily, a posterior vitreous detachment (or PVD) goes mostly unnoticed, although middle-aged and older adults may see an increase in these floaters particularly against a clear, blue sky or a computer screen, but it can also be quite alarming if one has already suffered from several retina detachments previously. Such was the case early this September when I noticed a marked increase in these bug-like specks floating in front my left eye; and since I had vision only in that eye,  I immediately phoned my local ophthalmologist to find out what was…

  • Radio-Controlled Bats

    31 Oct 2009 | 12:35 am
    The radio controlled bat, will be equipped with micro sensors that can detect, chemical, nuclear and biological agents. And unlike tiny airplanes and helicopters, it will have better maneuverability and the size to complete missions without being detected. Imagine bats spread out in a large area laying in wait, for the slightest hint of any agent, ready to sound the alarm. I think it would be the perfect early warning system for such attacks and could help save lives. It could also help detect the spread of agents, and get unaffected people and first responders out of harms…
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    Brain And Consciousness Research

  • What is unique in the brain of an Arabic speaker?

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    "The cognitive disparity between the two languages is similar to the difference between a native and a second language. This offers an explanation for the objective and day-to-day difficulties that confront Arabic-speaking students when attempting to learn to read the nonspoken language," the researcher explains. The new study has been published in the Journal of Psychology Research and Behavior Management.

  • Researchers unlock the 'sound of learning' by linking sensory and motor systems

    5 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    Learning to talk also changes the way speech sounds are heard, according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory. The findings could have a major impact on improving speech disorders.

  • Precuneus region of human and monkey brain is divided into 4 distinct regions

    4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    A study published this week in PNAS provides a comprehensive comparative functional anatomy study in human and monkey brains which reveals highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution. An international collaboration co-led by scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City examined patterns of connectivity to show that the precuneus, long thought to be a single structure, is actually divided into four distinct functional regions.

  • No pain, no gain: Mastering a skill makes us stressed in the moment, happy long term

    3 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online this week in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests.

  • This is your brain on fatty acids

    2 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm
    Saturated fats have a deservedly bad reputation, but Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that a sticky lipid occurring naturally at high levels in the brain may help us memorize grandma's recipe for cinnamon buns, as well as recall how, decades ago, she served them up steaming from the oven.
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    ZME Science

  • Negative thinking might not be so negative after all

    Mihai Andrei
    4 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am
    A study conducted by professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales showed that bad moods can actually turn out good for you, as it makes people less gullible by increasing their ability to judge and also is a big memory boost. The study proved that people who were experiencing bad moods were more critical and paid more attention to the surrounding environment than happier people, who were more likely to believe everything that they were told. “Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods…

  • Fishing boat sunk by giant jellyfish

    Mihai Andrei
    4 Nov 2009 | 6:28 am
    A while ago I was telling you about how big and how dangerous jellyfish can be; it’s all about size this time, as a fishing boat capsized, throwing it’s three members overboard after failing to haul up a net that was too heavy, loaded with giant Nomura jellyfish. Jellyfish captured in China Each of these aquatic giants can grow up to 2 meters in diameter and easily weigh over 200 kgs. They seem to be more and more of a problem, especially around Japan, and swarms of them are actually not an uncommon sight. “Jellies have likely swum and swarmed in our seas for over 600…

  • Meet the world’s most powerful X-Ray laser

    Mihai Andrei
    3 Nov 2009 | 1:55 pm
    The first experiments with this laser (Linac Coherent Light Source) have been given the green light at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The illuminating of objects and processing speed will take place at an unprecedented scale, promising groundbreaking research in physics, chemistry, biology and numerous other fields. “No one has ever had access to this kind of light before,” said LCLS Director Jo Stöhr. “The realization of the LCLS isn’t only a huge achievement for SLAC, but an achievement for the global science community. It…

  • Rift in African desert will become ocean

    Mihai Andrei
    3 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pm
    In 2005, a huge 35 mile rift broke the Ethiopian desert apart and immediately led to geological claims that a new ocean was appearing there because two parts of the African continent were being pulled apart. However, the claims were quickly dismissed as being too controversial. However, a new study published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters comes to back that idea up as the birth of at least a sea there seems inevitable. It has to be understood that we are talking in geological time here. The extremely active volcanic areas around the rift along the edges of the tectonic…

  • Social media require ‘Community Relations 2.0′

    Mihai Andrei
    1 Nov 2009 | 1:04 pm
    Imagine an average day in your life; the odds are, it’ll include either logging onto facebook, tweeting, browsing some pics on flickr and videos on youtube, or some of these combined. The blazing speed at which social media is developing is catching many off guard and forcing numerous persons and firms (even corporations) to adapt. However, when it comes to firms, many are dragging their feet, at least according to the November issue of Harvard Business Review. No longer are we living the days when the corporations (even the big ones) can survive merely on the strict rigid way of…
 
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    Science & Technology Videos

  • Breast Augmentation 3

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am
    http://www.BreastAugmentationGuide.com/ Breast Augmentation is one of the most common elective surgical procedures performed annually by members of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, otherwise referred to as Breast Enhancement and Breast Implant Surgery.Author: jhonwilliamsKeywords: breast augmentation breastaugmentation Added: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:42:51 GMTVideo codes to display this video on your website!http://www.livevideo.com

  • Buy Frontline dogs 23-44 lbs

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:21 am
    http://buyfrontline.org/buy-frontline-dogs-23-44-lbs Buy Frontline Dogs 23-44 lbs. Fleas and ticks can silently invite themselves onto your pet & harm your pet. FRONTLINE kills fleas & ticks on your dog/cat & prevents re-infestation.Author: katerae0529Keywords: Buy Frontline Dogs 23-44 lbs Buy Frontline Buy Frontline for Dogs Buy Frontline for Cats Buy Frontline Flea Control Buy Frontline Flea Treatment Frontline Added: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:21:32 GMTVideo codes to display this video on your website!http://www.livevideo.com

  • Buy Frontline Dogs up to 22 lbs

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:14 am
    http://buyfrontline.org/buy-frontline-dogs-up-to-22-lbs Buy Frontline Dogs up to 22 lbs. Fleas and ticks can silently invite themselves onto your pet & harm your pet. FRONTLINE kills fleas & ticks on your dog/cat & prevents re-infestation.Author: katerae0529Keywords: Buy Frontline Dogs up to 22 lbs Buy Frontline Buy Frontline for Dogs Buy Frontline for Cats Buy Frontline Flea Control Buy Frontline Flea Treatment Frontline Added: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:14:57 GMTVideo codes to display this video on your website!http://www.livevideo.com

  • Skin And Vein Laser Center

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am
    http://www.skinandveinlasercenter.com The solution that works is laser liposuction. SmartLipo is quickly becoming one of the most popular fat reduction methods. A person in good health with about 10 pounds of fat to lose in specific areas is a great candidate, just see our webpage www.skinandveinlasercenter.comAuthor: jnford82Keywords: skin and vein laser center laser center skin and vein smartlipo smart lipo lipo liposuction smartliposuction houston smartlipo Houston smart lipo smartlipo center smart lipo center liposuction center lipo laser liposuction laser smartlipo in houston liposuction…

  • Windows 95 on NTFS file system (better proof & explanation)

    6 Nov 2009 | 6:56 am
    EN: Windows 95 on NTFS file system (better proof & explanation) It was a great idea to show that, because no one still can't believe that you can use Windows 95 somehow on NTFS. So then you'll need to have a better information scientist's brain to get that right. A video response to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjuuQQbk0zo just to make it real. Recorded on: 20th October 2009. PL: Windows 95 w systemie plików NTFS (lepszy dowód i objaśnienie) To był świetny pomysł, aby to pokazać, bowiem wielu nadal nie wierzy, że można jakoś korzystać z Windows'a 95 w NTFS. Tak więc…
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    BEYONDBones

  • HMNS Expansion: Breaking Ground Nov. 19!

    Erin F
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:12 pm
    We’re breaking ground on our new Duncan Family Wing on Nov. 19, 2009 – but we still have $25 million more to raise before we can complete the expansion.We need your help! We’ve come a long way in 100 years- and we’re going even farther. We’re expanding science education in Houston for the 21st century and working to build the finest science museum in the country. And we need your help! We’ve raised over $60 million from generous individuals, foundations and corporations that are committed to our mission of science education, and know how important science and a…

  • 100 Years – 100 Objects: Zuni Pottery

    Steven
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:07 am
    The Houston Museum of Natural Science was founded in 1909 – meaning that the curators of the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been collecting and preserving natural and cultural treasures for a hundred years now. For this yearlong series, our current curators have chosen one hundred exceptional objects from the Museum’s immense storehouse of specimens and artifacts—one for each year of our history. Check back here frequently to learn more about this diverse selection of behind-the-scenes curiosities—we will post the image and description of a new object every few days. This…

  • Moths: Butterflies’ Mysterious Cousins

    Erin M
    5 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm
    photo credit: e³°°° Butterflies are probably the most popular insects ever! But what about moths? What’s their story? Why are they less popular than butterflies, considering the fact that there are nearly 250,000 species of them compared to only about 20,000 species of butterflies? This is one fact among a plethora of others that I’m sure you all would like to know about moths! The question we get asked the most here at the CBC is what is the difference between butterflies and moths? It can be a little tricky to explain. They are two completely different types of insects.

  • Find Fun Fossils at Dino Days 2009! This Saturday

    David
    4 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pm
    Join us Saturday, Nov. 7 for HMNS Dino Days, a family paleo festival that features fossil related activities and arts and crafts. Museum paleontologist Robert “Bob” Bakker will be on hand to answer any of your dinosaur questions. This is a great chance for enthusiasts of all ages to come learn and discuss dinosaurs. We encourage you to bring in your own rocks, fossils, and other unique objects for identification. While you are here, take some time to help our volunteers sift through soil to recover bone fragments, teeth, and claws spanning 287 million years of natural history. Some of…
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    HarvardScience

  • Quantum gas microscope offers glimpse of quirky ultracold atoms

    404132862
    5 Nov 2009 | 11:39 am
    Harvard physicists have created a quantum gas microscope that can be used to observe single atoms at temperatures so low the particles follow the rules of quantum mechanics, behaving in bizarre ways. The work, published this week in the journal Nature, represents the first time scientists have detected single atoms in a crystalline structure made solely of light, called a Bose Hubbard optical lattice. It's part of scientists' efforts to use ultracold quantum gases to understand and develop novel quantum materials.read more

  • Materials scientists find better model for glass creation

    404132862
    4 Nov 2009 | 9:09 am
    Harvard materials scientists have come up with what they believe is a new way to model the formation of glasses, a type of amorphous solid that includes common window glass.Glasses form through the process of vitrification, in which a glass-forming liquid cools and slowly becomes a solid whose molecules, though they’ve stopped moving, are not permanently locked into a crystal structure. Instead, they’re more like a liquid that has merely stopped flowing, though they can continue to move over long stretches of time.read more

  • Orphan army ants join nearby colonies

    404132862
    3 Nov 2009 | 9:01 pm

  • Face it:

    404132862
    30 Oct 2009 | 12:53 pm
    Gay men are most attracted to the most masculine-faced men, while straight men prefer the most feminine-faced women, according to the results of a new study by a Harvard researcher.The findings suggest that regardless of sexual orientation, men’s brains are wired for attraction to sexually dimorphic faces — those with facial features that are most synonymous with gender.read more

  • To tell the truth

    404132862
    29 Oct 2009 | 12:25 pm
    The rationale behind systemic torture is that pain will make the guilty confess, but a new study by Harvard researchers finds that the pain of torture can make even the innocent appear guilty. In the study, participants met a woman suspected of cheating to win money.  The woman was then “tortured” by having her hand immersed in ice water while study participants listened to the session over an intercom.  She never confessed to anything, but the more she suffered, the guiltier she was perceived to be.read more
 
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    Periodic Tabloid

  • Carlson Vs. Moore

    Tom Tritton
    5 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am
    In one corner, we have Moore’s law. In the other corner, there is Carlson’s curve. Moore’s law— named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel—famously predicted over 40 years ago that the transistor density of integrated circuits would double about every two years. So far, it’s been right. Carlson’s curve—named after biologist Rob Carlson—refers to a graph showing the diminishing cost per base of sequencing DNA over time. Like transistor density, DNA sequencing prowess is similarly exponential, and showing no signs of slowing down. Of course, neither of these is a…

  • Mind-Boggling Numbers

    Tom Tritton
    22 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am
    The universe is a big place. Estimates vary, but there are something like 1010 galaxies, 1022 stars, and 1080 atoms. Such numbers are hard to get your mind around, even in an era when trillions (1012) is commonly used when measuring government debt. But this is just the observable universe. Cosmologists are now pretty convinced that the true reality is a multiverse, or many parallel universes existing at the same time. Naturally, one wonders how many such universes there might be. Imponderable as this question may seem, a duo of physicists at Stanford University has taken a stab at answering…

  • Cancer News, Good and Bad

    Tom Tritton
    15 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am
    One of the reasons cancer therapy is effective is that conventional drugs are somewhat indiscriminate toxins. Thus, they kill lots of tumor cells, even if those cells are not similar in their molecular properties. This is a good thing since most tumor masses are thought to be heterogeneous at the cell and molecular levels. The bad news is that indiscriminate toxins can also damage normal tissues. Hence, the agony of awful side effects that accompanies cancer treatment. A new study (with 30 authors from several research centers in Canada and Britain) describes an incredibly detailed look at…

  • On the iPod, Kindle, and Bedside Table

    Tom Tritton
    8 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am
    Like most contemporary people, I am a voracious consumer of information.  I readily concede that possession of information does not ensure wisdom, but at least it raises the possibility of a more informed judgment about the state of the world. Leaving aside television and the Internet (and who wouldn’t be better off leaving these aside?), my main info sources are podcasts and books. Here are a few current favorites from each category. My iPod is a constant companion on early-morning runs in whatever city I happen to find myself. Favored  science-related podcasts: Distillations, CHF’s…

  • Bacterial Hanky Panky

    Tom Tritton
    1 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am
    You probably never considered the possibility that tiny bacteria have active sex lives. Rest assured they do, at least if you think the exchange of genetic information from one to another to be akin to a sex life. But why should you care what these microscopic creatures do in the privacy of their own … wherever? Because the DNA they exchange by a Kama Sutra-like variety of mechanisms can contain genes encoding drug resistance. And if a harmless bug transfers drug resistance to a nasty pathogen, look out, because it just might have abolished your chances of effective therapy. If things…
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    Fisheye Perspective

  • What you call this? Linguistic morphology of chemical names and lost in translation

    5 Nov 2009 | 6:44 am
    Here is a real world example how Linguistic morphology of chemical names may have unwanted secondary effectsFor example, English search engines such as Google and Yahoo! are unable to find "chlorobenzene" by searching for "benzene". Interestingly, in other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, or Korean (CJK languages), this is less of a problem, where for example the Japanese "(chlorobenzene) can usually be found by querying for"(benzene).So next time you visit Japan and wish to buy an Aspirin be sure what you are asking for. Similarly when chemical names fluorescin and fluorescein…

  • Lowering Pharma firewalls: Just for Bioinformatics or Chemoinformatics also

    4 Nov 2009 | 8:02 am
    Notion of pre-competitive collaboration has been in under experiment steadily for quite sometime now. Notable examples are the Airbus consortium of European aircraft manufacturers, the Sematech consortium of US semiconductor manufacturers, banks working together to launch Visa and Mastercard, our recent moon lust and many more. But this was never a case for pharmaceutical industry until now which is now lowering industry firewalls to shift funding and focus from early- to late-stage projects by developing cooperation in the areas with little potential for differentiation most notably a shared…

  • Gladwell states as guidlines for a better omics data management

    31 Oct 2009 | 9:45 am
    Universal application of high throughput omics technologies have enabled scientists to measure tens of thousands of data points in a single experiment. As a result of this scientific world has become deluged with data. This has greater implications the way science will be done in coming years. There is a general accord that science has turned more into a data management problem. Put the technical aspect of scientific data management aside, and ask can we depict useful and practically relevant conclusions from our past experiences in scientific data management, and what makes few data…

  • Optical Cell 2 Duo lac operon: Bridging the gap between Bacteria and Yeast

    28 Oct 2009 | 5:47 pm
    Students from iGEM Harward team are using the optical communication to create a physically distributed lac operon between a bacteria and an yeast cell which normally occur within the same cell. Idea is to use the principles of synthetic biology to decouple the single cell lac operon events such as de-repression and transcription into two different cells in order to create a spatially separation between these events. In this new system bacteria send optical signal to yeast that the operon has been de-repressed and in response the yeast complete the operon’s function and express…

  • Mackenzie Cowell's Fascination with Synthetic Biology

    27 Oct 2009 | 8:31 am
    Mackenzie Cowell is one of the founders of DIYbio.org, an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety. Mackenzie was recently interviewed by MAKE magazine for an ongoing series of video interviews with notable working scientists and technologists. These interviews were recorded at SciFoo, an un-conference on Science and Technology organized by O'Reilly Media along with Nature Publishing Group and Google. Mac is fascinated about emerging discipline of synthetic biology,In…
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    findingDulcinea Science

  • Putting a New Face on Animal Testing

    6 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm
    Studies show Americans’ support for animal research has declined significantly. In response, biomedical researchers have launched a national campaign to defend and promote animal testing.

  • Is Your Brain Male or Female?

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm
    Mounting evidence suggests that the differences between male and female brain structure may be more heavily influenced by environment than previously thought.

  • Stanford Researchers Create Germ Cells in the Lab

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:30 pm
    Germ cells, the cells that compose eggs and sperm, could provide insight into the earliest stages of human development, and maybe even prevent infertility, birth defects and genetic diseases.

  • Boys Are Becoming Girls: Cause for Alarm or Old News?

    26 Oct 2009 | 8:25 pm
    A Danish report on the level of contact that 2-year-old children in the developed world have with feminizing chemicals has been met with shock and concern by some, and frustration by those that say this is a new take on old news.

  • Britain Drops Proposal to Keep Innocent in DNA Database as US Database Grows

    19 Oct 2009 | 7:30 pm
    In many U.S. states, the DNA of those arrested but not convicted is held indefinitely. In Britain, however, the Home Office dropped a DNA database proposal due to strong public opposition and a European court ruling.
 
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    2020 Science

  • Could some nanoparticles inflict harm across normally tight biological barriers?

    A new paper published on-line today in Nature Nanotechnology hints that some nanoparticles could cause damage to cells on the other side of normally tight barriers - such as the blood brain barrier or the placenta - without actually crossing the barriers.  It's a study that could raise concerns over ...

  • Speaking power to truth – the unfortunate case of David Nutt

    Sitting 3000 miles away from London in Washington DC, I've been following the dismissal of Professor David Nutt as the UK government's senior scientific advisor on the misuse of drugs, with interest.  Not being steeped in British drugs politics, I was only vaguely aware of the tensions between the Advisory ...

  • Do scientists encourage misleading media coverage?

    As scientists, how we love to rail against the incompetence of the media.  As self-proclaimed keepers of the truth, we decry - usually rather vocally - the misinterpretation and misuse of our precious studies.  And as we commiserate together on the injustices of the world, we inevitably get to thinking ...

  • Risk Innovation… You what?! (Desparately seeking advice!)

    Here's something I've been chewing over for the past few weeks:  How do you capture succinctly the idea of developing innovative new approaches to identifying, assessing, managing and otherwise dealing with risks to human health? What I've ended up with is "Risk Innovation" - but I'm not convinced it works. So I ...

  • Riding the wave: Rethinking science & technology policy

    Part 8 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century Much to my embarrassment, I’ve just realized that it was over four months ago that I wrote the previous blog in this series – a series that was supposed to evolve over just a few weeks!  Most ...
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    TreeHugger

  • Wash your clothes by pedaling your bike (with video)

    7 Nov 2009 | 5:08 am
    Credit: Dave Askins, homelessdave.com. You don't need electricity to do the laundry. It's as easy as riding a bike. My wife's 90-year-old aunt still washes her laundry by hand, and dries it with a wringer. God bless her. But if you're a little busier, you can keep your clothes clean with pedal power. GreenovationTV has a segment on the low-tech solution.... Read the full story on TreeHugger

  • Mavizen's 130 MPH TTX02 Electric Motorcycle Runs on Linux

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:56 pm
    Why did you stop? Well, I was recompiling my kernel and got a segfault... Mavizen has decided to offer a new electric bike based on the previous winner of the TTXGP so that other teams can have a solid foundation to build on for next year. The TTX02 is based on the KTM RC8 with a Agni powerplant. The twist is that t... Read the full story on TreeHugger

  • Ice Loss in Antarctic Peninsula Unprecedented in 14,000 Years

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:08 pm
    Scientists reconstructed the ancient climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands. Photo: Barry Thomas via flickr. In case you wanted another piece of evidence that current melting in Antarctica is really a product of global warming, researchers of the UK's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton say that the widespread loss of glacial ice in th... Read the full story on TreeHugger

  • Good News! Water Use in the U.S. Less in 2005 Than 1975

    6 Nov 2009 | 11:52 am
    Despite 30% Population Growth We always hear about how we're using more of this and more of that, so it is welcome new to learn that apparently the people of the U.S. were using less water in 2005 than in 1975 despite a significant increase in population. Daily water consumption in the U.S. is 410 BILLION gallons of water, and 49% of those are being used for for producing electricity at thermoelectric power plants. Irrigation is 31%, and public use is 11%. "The remaining 9 percent of the water was for self-supplied industrial, livestock, aquaculture, mining and rural domestic uses."... Read…

  • 200 of the World's Dirtiest Power Plants Revealed - 60% are in the US & East Asia

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:05 am
    Full map here: Interactive: The World's Dirtiest Power Plants It's interactive map time! Forbes.com has a really cool map showing 200 of the dirtiest power plants in the world (hat tip to Earth First...) that's worth checking out. Scroll down for some highlights:... Read the full story on TreeHugger
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    Sara Bellum Blog

  • Real Teens Ask: How Old Are Kids who Start Using Drugs?

    admin
    5 Nov 2009 | 7:02 am
    Lots of teens have questions about drugs. Each year, NIDA scientists spend a day chatting online with high school students and answering their questions. At the last Drug Facts Chat Day, soccerstar0 asked: “On average how old are kids who start using drugs?” Research shows that drug use often starts in the teen years. You might have heard that, but here’s something you may not know—the science shows that the younger you are when you start using drugs, the more likely you are to get addicted later on. Doing drugs can also cause problems with friends, in sports, and in…

  • Covering Addiction: How Common is Drug Use in College?

    admin
    2 Nov 2009 | 6:57 am
    Last February, NIDA held its first “Covering Addiction” Roundtable discussion for college journalists. Fifteen students from universities around Washington, D.C. picked the brains of NIDA scientists and professional health reporters, asking them about careers in science and health journalism. The student journalists got tips from pros who have worked for ABC News, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post on how to write about sensitive health topics like drug abuse and addiction. Overall, students said they got a lot out of the experience, but some said they would have liked…

  • Word of the Day: Cerebellum

    admin
    29 Oct 2009 | 5:49 am
    Our word for today is: Cerebellum Cerebellum: A portion of the brain that helps regulate posture, balance, and coordination during activities such as playing ball, picking up objects, and balancing. Why do I like this word so much? Say it again: “cer·e·bel·lum” (sĕr’ə-bĕl’əm)—yup, it’s my namesake! When we walk down the street or concentrate on keeping our balance, our cerebellum is guiding us. The cerebellum coordinates our voluntary muscle movement as well as our posture and balance, like a puppeteer helping us put one leg in front of the other.

  • Real Life: Student Athlete’s Battle with Steroid Abuse, Taylor’s Story

    admin
    27 Oct 2009 | 8:46 am
    Let me introduce you to Taylor-a 17-year old, high school athlete from Plano, Texas. You might be a student-athlete yourself or have friends who are student athletes, so Taylor’s story might speak especially to you. Taylor took his own life on July 15, 2003, as a result of abusing steroids. With Taylor’s death came the Taylor Hooton Foundation formed by his parents, family, and friends to honor his memory, after they became aware of the growing problem among high school athletes across the country.  Not too long before Taylor’s death, NIDA noticed a sharp increase in the…

  • NIDA News: A Bridge to Recovery

    admin
    22 Oct 2009 | 7:28 am
    Question: What happens when 10,000 people in recovery from drug abuse and addiction get together to celebrate their sobriety? Answer: Inspiration! SBB was part of the team that went with NIDA Director Nora Volkow last month to march across the Brooklyn Bridge as part of Recovery Month.  Celebrated every September, Recovery Month honors the thousands of Americans who have kicked their addictions. Recovery Month is sponsored by government and other organizations dedicated to fighting substance abuse. Image Courtesy of A&E Entertainment The event at the Brooklyn Bridge was an amazing…
 
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    Naked Science Articles

  • Tripping over Psychoactive Toads

    13 Oct 2009 | 2:25 pm
    For anyone fresh out of frogs and tempted to kiss a toad instead, this article has a word of warning. Although certain species of toads do make hallucinogenic chemicals linked to a lively "trip", many produce a lethal cocktail of cardiotoxic compounds that could turn such a trip into a once in a lifetime experience, en-route to the mortuary. So which toads should you watch out for...?

  • Deconstructing Chomsky - Re-writing the Innate Rules of Grammar

    1 Oct 2009 | 12:47 am
    Noam Chomsky, a rookie professor at MIT, published a ground-breaking book called Syntactic Structures, which set out a theory of Generative Grammar. He suggested that a Universal Grammar (UG) of basic linguistic principles and a Transformational Grammar of rules responsible for putting sentences together was hard wired into all of us. Some don't agree including one Linguist who lived in the Amazon to learn more, as Andrew Caines explains...

  • Pandemic! - Where do new viral infections come from?

    15 Aug 2009 | 7:51 am
    Swine flu, SARS, Bird Flu, HIV, Dengue, Hepatitis C, Ebola - the human race is awash with new infections - but where did they come from and what else may be waiting to pounce? In this article Cambridge University virologist Chris Smith looks at the origins of emerging viral infections...

  • Once a Knight is Not Enough

    15 Jun 2009 | 2:46 am
    Sure, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and has received a number of other honours, but has Sir Tim Berners-Lee yet received his due? Douglas Richards argues that for a man who brought into being a tool - the hypertext language around which the Internet is based - that will have as profound an impact on human civilization as the wheel or electricity, the answer is an emphatic no...

  • To sit or not to sit

    17 May 2009 | 2:29 pm
    Is urine bad? Yes, when it ends up on the bathroom floor. What can be done to avoid these unaesthetic accidents? As with many of the challenges confronted by humanity over the millennia, scientific insight might save the day, but the solution will demand a paradigm shift in our excretory habits, as John Gamel explains...
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    The Mr Science Show

  • Ep 117: The Science of Superheroes - Mystique (X-men)

    31 Oct 2009 | 4:59 am
    Ever wondered whether it is scientifically possible to become a superhero? In a new series of podcasts, Dr Christopher Pettigrew (aka Dr Boob*) and I are going to tackle this question. Chris is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in University College Cork, and in these podcast episodes - which we will publish more than a few times a year - we will uncover whether it is possible now to possess the powers of superheroes, and if we can't, whether in the near future we could engineer ourselves to become superheroes. The first superhero we are tackling is Mystique from…

  • Ep 116: Terence Tao and Prime Numbers

    19 Oct 2009 | 2:05 am
    Terence Tao is a Professor at the Department of Mathematics, UCLA and one of Australia's most acclaimed mathematicians. Indeed, he is arguably the world's greatest living mathematician. In 2006, he was awarded a Fields Medal, which is the top prize a mathematician can win, and at 24 became the youngest ever full professor at UCLA. I recently went to Tao's Clay–Mahler Lecturer at UNSW, which was a fascinating look at prime numbers. I managed to grab Terence for a quick chat. Listen to this podcast here: Primes are integers that can only be divided by themselves and one. For example, the…

  • Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change

    18 Oct 2009 | 7:39 pm
    October 15 is Blog Action Day 2009 and this year's topic is Climate Change. The idea is to raise awareness of the topic, so I thought I'd get in on the act - it is still October 15 in some parts of the world... Climate Change is arguably our most pressing human concern. If you are interested in what it is, who’s responsible and why we should care, then an easy way to enter the debate is to have a listen to our 2007 Beer Drinking Scientists episode on the topic. Grab the mp3 here, or listen below: We recorded this in 2007 over a beer or three, and so some of the more recent discoveries and…

  • Name your 2009 Science Highlights, and win!

    7 Oct 2009 | 1:20 am
    Somehow we are already near the end of 2009, and therefore it's time to start reflecting on the year that was. Each year we run a competition in which you, dear readers and listeners, can write in and let us know what science events turned you on throughout the year. If you are an Aussie, was it the news that Australian Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for medicine? Was it the ever-increasing scientific body of evidence behind human-induced climate change? Or was it perhaps the 2009 science dance contest? Whatever it was, let us know, and you will go into the draw for an assortment of…

  • 2009 Podcast Awards

    7 Oct 2009 | 12:21 am
    The 2009 Podcast Awards are now open for nominations. If you would like to nominate The Mr Science Show in the science and technology section, then that would be lovely! Check out the rules - essentially, don't be dodgy or game the system. And make sure you vote in the other sections too. Get over to the Podcast Awards website to nominate - cheers!
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    EurekAlert!

  • Poll: Many parents, high-priority adults who tried to get H1N1 vaccine unable to get it

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    A new national poll from Harvard School of Public Health researchers found that a majority of adults who tried to get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves or their children have been unable to do so.

  • SNM applauds House action to build medical isotopes reactor in the US

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    SNM applauds the US House of Representatives for its passage of H.R. 3276 -- the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2009.

  • AIBS publishes Darwin articles open access

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Two articles about Charles Darwin and his development of the theory of evolution by natural selection have been published in the AIBS journal BioScience and have been made open to the public in honor of the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species." The articles are by Kevin Padian and James T. Costa. Together the articles dispel some common myths about Darwin the man and detail his efforts over many years to develop a theory to explain nature's diversity.

  • Computer predicts reactions between molecules and surfaces, with ‘chemical precision’

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    An international team of scientists from the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Argentina and the United States has shown in a paper to be published in Science shortly how the chemistry of surface reactions underpinning catalysis can be modeled accurately with computers.

  • Prevention experts urge modification to 2009 H1N1 guidance for health care workers

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Three leading scientific organizations specializing in infectious diseases prevention issued a letter to President Obama today expressing their significant concern with current federal guidance concerning the use of personal protective equipment by health care workers in treating suspected or confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza.
 
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    science-in-the-news

  • Mark Varner: Women 'better at picking up on emotions than men' - Telegraph

    FriendFeed
    24 Oct 2009 | 3:34 pm
    Science In The News: Mark Varner Women 'better at picking up on emotions than men' - Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science... October 24 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like "The research found that women were better than men at processing facial expressions and completing assessments, something that had always been suggested but never conclusively proved." Does this have implications for reproductive and mating behavior? - Mark Varner

  • Mark Varner: High protein diets 'could cause Alzheimer's' - Telegraph

    FriendFeed
    22 Oct 2009 | 8:13 am
    Science In The News: Mark Varner High protein diets 'could cause Alzheimer's' - Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health... October 22 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like "Researchers found that mice fed meals similar to those of the original Atkin's Diet had brains five per cent lighter than all the others. They also found that the hippocampus part of the brain, which is responsible for memory, were less developed in those rodents on the high protein diet. Scientists say the findings, published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, suggest the ravages of…

  • Mark Varner: Internet use 'may improve brain function in adults', says UCLA study - Telegraph

    FriendFeed
    22 Oct 2009 | 6:19 am
    Science In The News: Mark Varner Internet use 'may improve brain function in adults', says UCLA study - Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science... October 22 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like "Using the internet for just a few days alters our brains – and may help improve cognitive function in the elderly, according to new research." This report attracts an 'old geezer' like me, of course, but what could lead to such results? - Mark Varner

  • Mark Varner: BBC - Earth News - Barnacles' sticky secret revealed

    FriendFeed
    19 Oct 2009 | 11:00 am
    Science In The News: Mark Varner BBC - Earth News - Barnacles' sticky secret revealed - http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth... October 19 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like ""We've found homologous enzymes in barnacles and humans, which serve the same function of clotting proteins underwater, despite roughly a billion years of evolutionary separation," says Dr Dickinson." The homology of the enzymes suggest conservation of the DNA sequences for the whole mechanism. Why is this important in reproduction? - Mark Varner

  • Mark Varner: BBC NEWS | Health | 'Ethical' stem cell crop boosted

    FriendFeed
    19 Oct 2009 | 10:48 am
    Science In The News: Mark Varner BBC NEWS | Health | 'Ethical' stem cell crop boosted - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2... October 19 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like "US researchers have found a way to dramatically increase the harvest of stem cells from adult tissue." Why is this so important? - Mark Varner
 
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    The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

  • Strange Neutron Star Solves Mystery of Milky Way's Youngest Supernova

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am
    Scientists have finally identified the mysterious source of X-ray emissions at the center of our galaxy’s youngest supernova: Inside the remains of Cassiopeia A sits a baby neutron star  surrounded by a thin layer of carbon. Discovered in Chandra's "First Light" image obtained in 1999, the point-like X-ray source at the center of Cas A was presumed to be a neutron star, or pulsar, the typical remnant of an exploded star, but it surprisingly did not show any evidence for X-ray or radio pulsations. Pulsars rank at or near the top of freaky phenomena found in our Universe. In the early 1930s,…

  • Extragalactic Solar Systems: Signals Observed Shining Across Millions of Light Years

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:58 am
    With exoplanets apparently all around us (galactically speaking), a global team of researchers have kicked it up a notch.  Signals shining across millions of light years, from other galaxies, indicate the birth of solar systems - and we can see them.The work is based on spectroscopy, the science of examining what wavelengths of light come in and extracting all kinds of information from it (far more than our eyes, which just say "that's blue" and call it a day).  Every material has a unique emission spectrum (very specific wavelengths they emit) and any intervening material absorbs it…

  • A New African Ocean Emerging with Spectacular Speed

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:18 am
    In 2005 an Ethiopian volcano erupted, tearing a thirty-five mile rift in the country in a matter of days.  That might be slightly slower than the average Michael Bay event but it's still incredibly fast in geological terms - especially since this may well be the first sign of an incoming Ethiopian Ocean.  Nature seems to like keeping us on our toes.It's known that new oceans form as magma forces its way into rifts between tectonic plates, but since every other such system worked - and is now under miles of ocean - we can't actually get down there for a detailed look.  Instead, an…

  • Image of the Day: Einstein's Cross

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:14 am
    The Einstein Cross is a gravitationally lensed quasar that is quadruply imaged, hence its name, Einstein Cross, forming a nearly perfect cross, with the lensing galaxy at its center. The quasar is located about 8 billion light years from Earth, while the lensing galaxy is located at a distance of 400 million light years. Many scientists believe quasars are powered by giant black holes feeding on nearby gas. Gas trapped in the black hole's powerful gravity is compressed and heated to millions of degrees, giving off intense light and/or radio energy. Most quasars lurk in the outer reaches of…

  • "me.exe": Mind Hacking, the Next Tech Frontier

    Casey Kazan Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:10 am
    There is no doubt that brain-computer interfaces will arrive - because they're already here, in simple forms, and we'll have movie-style mind links within a decade at most.  Which makes the movie idea of mind-hacking (as in Ghost In The Shell) an extremely serious problem.  Never mind how you keep all your most important files up there (little things like "me.exe") - if it gets damaged, unless you're a Buddhist there's no Ctrl-Alt-Delete. The risk comes from the combination of the very best of technologized humanity with the worst: when medical experts and mindologists are building devices…
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