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3 Billion-Year-Old Plankton Microfossils Found

General - June 6, 2013 - 9:35pm

Spindle-shaped inclusions in 3 billion-year-old rocks are microfossils of plankton probably inhabited the oceans around the globe during that time - but these inclusions in the rocks were not only biological in origin, they were also likely planktonic autotrophs - free-floating, tiny ocean organisms that produce energy from their environment. 


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Spooky Action Entanglement States Get Organized

Science2.0 - June 6, 2013 - 9:00pm

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics," spoke American physicist, educator and quote machine Richard Feynman — underlining the idea that even leading scientists struggle to develop an intuitive feeling for quantum mechanics. 

One reason for this is that quantum phenomena often have no counterpart in classical physics, as we see in quantum entanglement: Entangled particles seem to directly influence one another, no matter how widely separated they are. It looks as if the particles can 'communicate' with one another across arbitrary distances. Albert Einstein, famously, called this seemingly paradoxical behavior "spooky action at a distance."


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Spooky Action Entanglement States Get Organized

General - June 6, 2013 - 9:00pm

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics," spoke American physicist, educator and quote machine Richard Feynman — underlining the idea that even leading scientists struggle to develop an intuitive feeling for quantum mechanics. 

One reason for this is that quantum phenomena often have no counterpart in classical physics, as we see in quantum entanglement: Entangled particles seem to directly influence one another, no matter how widely separated they are. It looks as if the particles can 'communicate' with one another across arbitrary distances. Albert Einstein, famously, called this seemingly paradoxical behavior "spooky action at a distance."


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Bmp4: Why The Embryonic Chicken Penis Stops Growing

Science2.0 - June 6, 2013 - 5:36pm

In animals that reproduce by internal fertilization, as humans do, the penis is invaluable, from an evolutionary point of view. 

Yet birds have evolved to not need them. Developmentally speaking, birds' penises have gone. Land fowl, which have only rudimentary penises as adults, have normally developing penises as early embryos. Later in development, however, the birds turn on a genetic program that leads their budding penises to stop growing and then wither away.


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Categories: Science2.0

Bmp4: Why The Embryonic Chicken Penis Stops Growing

General - June 6, 2013 - 5:36pm

In animals that reproduce by internal fertilization, as humans do, the penis is invaluable, from an evolutionary point of view. 

Yet birds have evolved to not need them. Developmentally speaking, birds' penises have gone. Land fowl, which have only rudimentary penises as adults, have normally developing penises as early embryos. Later in development, however, the birds turn on a genetic program that leads their budding penises to stop growing and then wither away.


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Categories: News

A Tool For Etymologists

Science2.0 - June 6, 2013 - 2:44pm
A Tool For Etymologists

Advances in science frequently generate new words and phrases.  Accordingly, a good source of etymological information can often help pin down the era in which a new discovery was made.  Similarly, a knowledge of the history of discovery can help to pin down the era in which a word or phrase was coined.
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Categories: Science2.0

A Tool For Etymologists

General - June 6, 2013 - 2:44pm
A Tool For Etymologists

Advances in science frequently generate new words and phrases.  Accordingly, a good source of etymological information can often help pin down the era in which a new discovery was made.  Similarly, a knowledge of the history of discovery can help to pin down the era in which a word or phrase was coined.
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Categories: News

TW Hydrae - Maybe Our Sun Was A Feisty Toddler Too

Science2.0 - June 6, 2013 - 1:30pm

Astronomers can look back in time by gathering light from distant stars that was sent billions of years ago. Another way to learn about the past is to study similar stars to our own, but at a much younger age.

New work  studying the young star TW Hydrae, located about 190 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Hydra the Water Snake, suggests that our Sun was both active and "feisty" in its infancy, growing in fits and starts while burping out bursts of X-rays.


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TW Hydrae - Maybe Our Sun Was A Feisty Toddler Too

General - June 6, 2013 - 1:30pm

Astronomers can look back in time by gathering light from distant stars that was sent billions of years ago. Another way to learn about the past is to study similar stars to our own, but at a much younger age.

New work  studying the young star TW Hydrae, located about 190 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Hydra the Water Snake, suggests that our Sun was both active and "feisty" in its infancy, growing in fits and starts while burping out bursts of X-rays.


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Genome Reduction In Bladderworts Vs. Leg Loss In Snakes

General - June 6, 2013 - 11:00am

In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by extension, my area of research in genome size evolution) that the subject gets regular media attention.

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Categories: News

Genome Reduction In Bladderworts Vs. Leg Loss In Snakes

Science2.0 - June 6, 2013 - 11:00am

In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by extension, my area of research in genome size evolution) that the subject gets regular media attention.

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Idea to Fix Publication Bias

RealClearScience - June 6, 2013 - 8:30am
Categories: RealClearScience

Atheists Find Comfort In Faith Too: Belief In Science

Science2.0 - June 5, 2013 - 9:11pm

Studies have shown that religious people are actually helped by faith in stressful situations.

Oxford University psychologists suggest atheists are also helped by belief during times of crisis; the explanatory and revealing power of science increases in the face of stress or anxiety, they have found.

The social psychologists argue that a 'belief in science' may help non-religious people deal with adversity by offering similar comfort and reassurance that religious people get from spirituality.


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Atheists Find Comfort In Faith Too: Belief In Science

General - June 5, 2013 - 9:11pm

Studies have shown that religious people are actually helped by faith in stressful situations.

Oxford University psychologists suggest atheists are also helped by belief during times of crisis; the explanatory and revealing power of science increases in the face of stress or anxiety, they have found.

The social psychologists argue that a 'belief in science' may help non-religious people deal with adversity by offering similar comfort and reassurance that religious people get from spirituality.


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Can Laser Light Irradiation Influence Cloud Formation?

Science2.0 - June 5, 2013 - 8:40pm

Karlsruhe's Institute of Technology, Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Geneva set out to determine whether and how far laser light and plasma can influence cloud formation.


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Can Laser Light Irradiation Influence Cloud Formation?

General - June 5, 2013 - 8:40pm

Karlsruhe's Institute of Technology, Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Geneva set out to determine whether and how far laser light and plasma can influence cloud formation.


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Categories: News

Archicebus Achilles: Oldest Known Primate Discovered

Science2.0 - June 5, 2013 - 8:00pm
The world’s oldest known fossil primate skeleton, unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China’s Hubei Province, near the course of the modern Yangtze River, represents a previously unknown genus and species that has been named Archicebus achilles, according to the paper in Nature

The new fossil takes its name from the Greek arche (meaning beginning or first; the same root as archaeology) and the Greek kebos (meaning long-tailed monkey). The species name achilles (derived from the mythological Greek warrior Achilles) highlights the new fossil’s unusual ankle anatomy.
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