Science2.0
Can People Laugh At Themselves - Study
“…there is no authoritative definition of the sense of humor, and it is also not yet clear what ‘laughing at oneself’ is, or if it even actually occurs in people’s everyday behavior.”
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Type 2 Diabetes: The Search For An Epigenetic Fix
Type 2 diabetes has a strong hereditary component, and while we can't change the genes we were born with, if epigenetics says a father eating a Twinkie before conception can lead to bad grades for the child in high school, why can't we modify the function of the genes through the epigenetic changes that take place in the course of life?
Cuprate Superconductors - Where Are The Missing Electrons?
While there are still plenty of mysteries in electromagnetics, electrical engineers are sure of one thing; current is carried through materials by flowing electrons.
In physics, Luttinger's theorem states that the number of electrons in a material is the same as the number of electrons in all of its atoms added together. Much-studied conducting materials, such as metals and semiconductors, have held true to the idea.
The Boson Quandary
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Elite Athletes Are Cognitive Elites Too
The term 'elites' gets a bad rap in modern culture, mostly because political pundits use it to mean 'me and people I like' - elitism - rather than understanding what elite means.
Yet in sports we still recognize that there are elites. Don't like Usain Bolt's politics? Beat him in a race.
Some new research says that, as much as it might bother us, some elites are elite in many ways. Olympic medalists in volleyball, for example, perform better than the rest of us in how fast their brains take in and respond to new information, even if they are Republicans and social psychologists insist their brains are inferior.
A Biological Basis For Gender Differences In Math?
It may have taken so long because legacy education methods fight biology and not the persistent claims that there is subtle bias (hidden, stereotype threat and other sociological rationalizations), even in countries with high gender equality. Sex differences in math and reading scores persisted in the 75 nations examined by a University of Missouri and University of Leeds study; girls consistently scored higher in reading, while boys got higher scores in math.
Instead of being gender-based, gaps are linked and vary with overall social and economic conditions of the nation. -->
Superposition Principle And Causing Collapse
One of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics is the superposition principle - a system can be in more than one state, that is to say it can exist in multiple realities, at once.
This phenomenon exists only until the system is observed or measured in some way way. As soon as such a system is measured, its superposition collapses into a single state. Thus, we, who are constantly observing and measuring, experience the world around us as existing in a single reality.
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Marsupials: Climb To The Pouch Begins In Utero
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Gambling Is An Evolutionary Function, Say Psychologists
A new psychology paper evolution and basic survival techniques adapted by early humans influence the decisions gamblers make when placing bets.
So if current counseling options for problem gamblers don't work, we can blame biology.
The scholars examined how gamblers made decision after they won or lost. They found that gamblers relied on their past experiences to predict what might happen in the future. But in games of chance where the outcome is completely random, this strategy doesn't work.
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Leaping Lunar Dust! On The Moon!
Electrically charged lunar dust near shadowed craters can get lifted above the surface and 'jump' over the shadowed region, bouncing back and forth between sunlit areas on opposite sides.
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The Impact Of Earth's Interior Cycles On Climate Change
Ancient rises in sea levels and global warming are partially attributable to cyclical activity below the earth's surface, according to a new analysis of geological studies.
New York University's Michael Rampino and Carleton University's Andreas Prokoph analysis considers long-term fluctuations in global climate, diversity of marine organisms, and sea level changes, aiming to identify a unifying cause for these changes. While much scientific study has centered on phenomena above the earth's crust, less attention has historically been paid to changes deep inside our planet.
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Rugby: Gloves Or Not, What Is The Best Way To Hold Onto The Ball?
Engineers at the University of Sheffield have been doing some science of rugby - measuring the dynamic friction between the material of the ball and the skin on the fingertips and palm, and the mitts that some players choose to wear under different weather conditions to find the best way to limit the risk of a player fumbling the ball.
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First Whale Skeleton Found On Ocean Floor In Antarctica
In a first, a whale skeleton has been found on the ocean floor near Antarctica, almost a mile below the surface in an undersea crater. With it were at least nine new species of deep-sea organisms thriving on the bones.
How Ghosts Helped The Best Of Schools
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'Reverse Pharmacology' Approach To GPCR-Focused Drug Discovery
A new paper in Molecular Pharmacology describes how 'reverse pharmacology', enabled by Heptares Therapeutics StaR(R) technology, can be applied to and accelerate GPCR-based drug discovery.
The paper utilized the study of isolated GPCRs locked in conformations that correspond to agonist or antagonist pharmacology, and the elucidation of their respective 3D structures. These StaRs and structures can be used to select and design compounds with specific pharmacologies, such as inverse agonist, partial agonist or full agonist, based on their ability to bind differentially to the agonist and antagonist StaRs. For example a full agonist will preferentially bind to the agonist StaR.
The Postmodern Core Insight Vs Consistency As Meta-Truth, Last Bastion Against New Totalitarianism
Can anything fundamental be described and what is the, potentially undesired, outcome if we should succeed?
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Lazarus Project Recreates Extinct Australian Frog
The Lazarus Project team says they have been able to recover cell nuclei of the extinct gastric-brooding frog, Rheobatrachus silus,
from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer.
The genome of
Rheobatrachus silus, extinct since 1983, has been revived and reactivated by a team of scientists using
somatic cell nuclear transfer
to implant a "dead" cell nucleus into a fresh egg from another frog species.
Rheobatrachus silus is famous for swallowing its eggs, brooded its young in its stomach and giving birth through its mouth. The "de-extinction" project aims to bring the frog back to life.
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Where's The Missing Oil From The BP Oil Spill? 'Dirty Blizzard' May Explain It
The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil spill dumped more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico yet government assessments have been unable to account for all of it.
Microbes likely processed most of the oil within months of the spill, but not all of it. A new hypothesis suggests the oil acted as a catalyst for plankton and other surface materials to clump together and fall to the sea floor in a massive sedimentation event - what they have termed a "dirty blizzard."
Rossby Waves And The Moving 'Hot Spots' Of Jupiter
On Jupiter, cloudless patches are so rare that the larger visible ones get the special name 'hot spots.'
How do these clearings form and why they are they only found near the planet's equator?
It's a mystery, by Jove, but using images from the Cassini spacecraft, scientists have found new evidence that hot spots in Jupiter's atmosphere are created by a Rossby wave, a pattern also seen in Earth's atmosphere and oceans. The team found the wave responsible for the hot spots glides up and down through layers of the atmosphere like a carousel horse on a merry-go-round.
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