Medical News Week

Hence rotten thing! Or I shall shake thy bones out of thy garments.

(more…)

Bookmark it:

Talented roaches

Category: Art
Posted on: November 30, 2007 4:04 AM, by PZ Myers

Cute, weird collection of bug art. This was painted by a cockroach?

(more…)

Bookmark it:

It looks as though the Jehovah’s Witnesses have claimed another life. This time, though, it wasn’t an adult, as it was recently. This time, though, through the indoctrination inherent in the Jehovah’s Witness religion and, incredibly and inexcusably, the acquiescence of our legal system to their irrational and dubious interpretation of a text written thousands of years before blood transfusion was ever contemplated, the life lost was that of an adolescent:

(more…)

Bookmark it:

The ability to actively maintain more information in memory, known as “working memory,” seems to benefit performance in a variety of tasks. One idea is that these tasks require controlled attention, allowing for better control over behavior.

(more…)

Bookmark it:

Anyone interested in Venus will be very happy with this week’s issue of Nature, which has published a raft of papers detailing the latest findings of the European Space Agency’s Venus Express probe, which has been orbiting our inner planetary neighbour for the last 19 months. Even better, they’re freely accessible to all.

(more…)

Bookmark it:

Chris Comer’s firing has been getting a lot of attention, and one question keeps getting asked: “What kind of soul-torturing electronic missive about an academic talk could be so dastardly as to result in someone getting fired merely for forwarding it?”

(more…)

Bookmark it:

Apparently, the Virginia Republican Party has been getting nostalgic for the good old days at the end of the Cold War. You remember those days, right? Ronald Reagan was saying things like, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” and “we begin bombing in five minutes” . Ollie North was sitting in front of Congress and claiming to have the memory of a repeatedly concussed goldfish. And the Republicans looked likely to hold onto the White House forever. Given present circumstances, it’s easy to see why the Virginia GOP might be getting a wee bit nostalgic. Unfortunately, in their enthusiasm to channel some of that good old Cold War mojo, they seem to have somehow forgotten just which side they’re supposed to be on:

(more…)

Bookmark it:

Contrary to current thinking, people that have lost their personal memories due to a brain injury may still be able to understand the feelings and intentions of others. It is commonly believed that such understanding is based on our own memories. It’s known as the “Theory of Mind” and it is thought to be the basis of our ability to socialize.

(more…)

Bookmark it:

Somehow termites convert to wood into energy to power their festering hordes, and now a group of scientists and engineers–representing a consortium of government and corporate institutes–intends to learn how humans can do the same to power our Ipods. The November 22nd issue of the science journal Nature discusses this new, novel approach to producing biofuels.

Ok, ok, so power plants of the mid-2000s might not be filled to the brim with writhing piles of termites as implied by the title of this article, but it’s still kind of interesting. Really, the scientists are hoping to break down the wood-digesting microbes inside of termite’s stomachs, and sequence their genomes.

(more…)

Bookmark it:

One good reason to subscribe to the New York Times is that they have what I consider far above average science reporting for a newspaper. Their Tuesday Science Times section is a must read for me pretty much every week. Over the last three weeks I’ve been keeping track of the stories that were run in Tuesday’s science section. By my count, three weeks ago there were two stories which might be considered as articles about physics, one of which the categorization is a stretch (swarm models have been studied by physicists, but I doubt many physicists would consider this physics), and since two weeks ago, not a single article on physics has appeared. So the question is whether the reason for this is (1) not much is happening in physics that is newsworthy, (2) physics is, after many years of being hailed as achieving great public relations, losing its public relations touch, (3) biology and medicine are much more important, interesting, and newsworthy, (4) the New York Times hates physics, physicists, and even physicist’s children, or (5) none of the above?

(more…)

Bookmark it: