The Economist reports of the current state of biomimicry
The Economist reports of the current state of biomimicry. Includes information about “biological patents”, which I’d never heard of before.
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kottke.org posts about science
Researching quantum honeybees
Researching quantum honeybees. Can bees detect quantum fields and use them to find food?
Old seed grows new tree
2000 year old seed grows a previously extinct Judean date tree. It’s like a plant version of Jurassic Park.
Scientist hypothesizes that Ashkenazi Jews are more
Scientist hypothesizes that Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent as a group because of natural selection. “Put these two things together—a correlation of intelligence and success, and a correlation of success and fecundity—and you have circumstances that favour the spread of genes that enhance intelligence.”
Why intelligent design isn’t
Why intelligent design isn’t. “Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design’s arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science.”
A historian disgraces himself
A historian disgraces himself. A rebuttal of “The Theory of Evolution: Just a Theory?”
The theory of evolution: just a theory?
The theory of evolution: just a theory?. “Historian Prof. William D. Rubinstein shares his doubts about the theory of evolution.”
As one gets smarter, how you use your memory changes
As one gets smarter, how you use your memory changes. “Verbatim memory is often a property of being a novice. As people become smarter, they start to put things into categories, and one of the costs they pay is lower memory accuracy for individual differences.”
How to turn a block of Antarctic
How to turn a block of Antarctic ice into a giant neutrino detector. “To turn the ice into a telescope, all you have to do is drill an array of 80 holes half a meter across by 2.5km deep using a very powerfull jet of hot water. Then lower a string of 60 optical detectors into each hole before they refreeze, conect them up to some powerful computer analysers and you are good to go.”
A selection of personal letters written by Richard Feynman
A selection of personal letters written by Richard Feynman.
Biologically odd people are pushing the limits
Biologically odd people are pushing the limits of what the human body is capable of. “In 2002, Lynne Cox swam to Antarctica, withstanding 32-degree water in only a swimsuit.”
Debate on the science of gender and
Debate on the science of gender and science between Elizabeth Spelke and Steven Pinker. “On sex differences between men and women and how they may relate to the careers of women in science”.
The Swiss are putting a blanket on
The Swiss are putting a blanket on one of their glaciers to keep it from melting.
Frank Bruni on avant guard cuisine (also called molecular gastronomy)
Frank Bruni on avant guard cuisine (also called molecular gastronomy).
Part three of three of Elizabeth Kolbert’s
Part three of three of Elizabeth Kolbert’s series on global warming for the New Yorker. This one’s all about what we can and are/aren’t doing about the situation.
Astronomers may have detected the formation of a black hole
Astronomers may have detected the formation of a black hole. “A faint visible-light flash moments after a high-energy gamma-ray burst likely heralds the merger of two dense neutron stars to create a relatively low-mass black hole.”
Mad Physics is a neat science education
Mad Physics is a neat science education site run by a couple of high school students.
Pitching slow to a young child is
Pitching slow to a young child is actually worse than pitching a little faster. “When you throw something slowly to a child, you think you’re doing them a favour by trying to be helpful. Slow balls actually appear stationary to a child.”
The Oh-My-God particle is a proton with
The Oh-My-God particle is a proton with the energy of a slow-pitched baseball. And it’s moving so fast that after travelling for a year, it would only be a few nanometers behind a photon travelling at the speed of light.
“Fads, fashions and dramatic shifts in public
“Fads, fashions and dramatic shifts in public opinion all appear to follow a physical law: one of the laws of magnetism”. “Michard and Bouchaud checked this prediction against their model and found that the trends in birth rates and cellphone usage in European nations conformed quite accurately to this pattern. The same was true of the rate at which clapping died away in concerts.”
Advancing scientific research means that chimeric animals
Advancing scientific research means that chimeric animals are on the way. “In the case of human cells’ invading the germ line, the chimeric animals might then carry human eggs and sperm, and in mating could therefore generate a fertilized human egg. Hardly anyone would desire to be conceived by a pair of mice.”
Scientists at Princeton have made a crude
Scientists at Princeton have made a crude computer out of bacteria. Earlier work showed “they could insert DNA into cells to make them behave like digital circuits [and] perform basic mathematical logic. The latest work expands this concept to vast numbers of bacteria responding in concert.”
The second of Elizabeth Kolbert’s three-part series
The second of Elizabeth Kolbert’s three-part series on global warming for the New Yorker. This one’s about how relatively short-term climate change can affect entire civilizations.
A near perfect Einstein Ring found
A near perfect Einstein Ring found. Close galaxies can act as a lens for farther galaxies, focusing the distant light with an “Einstein Ring”.
An ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct
An ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct since 1920, found alive in Arkansas. Ok, now rustle us up some passenger pigeons.
Part one of Elizabeth Kolbert’s three-part series
Part one of Elizabeth Kolbert’s three-part series on global warming for the New Yorker. “Disappearing islands, thawing permafrost, melting polar ice. How the earth is changing.”
Steven Johnson says watching TV makes you smarter
Steven Johnson says watching TV makes you smarter. The argument is that media has had to get more cognitively challenging to hold the attention of viewers. Evolutionarily speaking, attention is the scarce commodity that creates competition here, driving adaptation in the direction of more social and narrative complexity to hold that attention.
And if you ever need to move
And if you ever need to move the Earth, here’s how you might accomplish that. “The Earth is very big, moving very fast, and therefore very difficult to stop or even slow down.”
Forget how life will end, here’s a
Forget how life will end, here’s a bunch of ways you can destroy the entire Earth. This is a really fun read: “keeping the strangelet stable is incredibly difficult once it has absorbed the stabilising machinery, but creative solutions may be possible.”
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