Diversifiers of the world – Unite!
On my computer screen right now are two molecules. They are both large rings with about thirty atoms each, a motley mix of carbons, hydrogens, oxygens and nitrogens.
"biology"
Biology
Fact or Fiction?: People Swallow 8 Spiders a Year While They Sleep
Should we worry about arachnids crawling into our mouths while we’re in dreamland?
Measure Yourself by the Standard of the Capybara
We all know a lot of measurements about ourselves. You are some number of feet or meters tall. You weigh some number of pounds, kilograms, or stone.
Physics envy: The last emotion you ever want to feel
This is a guest post by my friend Pinkesh Patel, a data scientist at Facebook. Pinkesh has a PhD in physics from Caltech during which he worked on LIGO, the gravitational wave detector.
Health
Toxins in Nutrition Supplements Still Escape FDA Oversight
When young and middle-aged adults started showing up at the hospital with liver failure last spring, doctors in Hawaii struggled to find the thread that connected the patients.
On the varieties of killing: Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction”
Elizabeth Kolbert combines the sharp observational powers of a field biologist with the literary skill of a seasoned and thoughtful writer.
Chemistry
Why Do Onions Make Us Cry?
Anyone that's chopped into an onion is familiar with the noxious fumes and irritating pain induced by an otherwise delicious vegetable. Scientific American editor Ferris Jabr explains how this bulbous member of the Allium genus can bring us to tears...
16 Arms + 6 Hearts = Love? Watch an Octopus Blind Date Live
This Valentine’s Day, two octopuses are getting set up on a blind date. And you can watch what happens. Ace, a male giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) between 40 and 50 pounds and two-and-a-half to three-years old, and YoYo, a female of a similar size and age, will be introduced for the first time [...]..
A Simple Way to Slash Unnecessary Drug Prescriptions
Treating the sniffles or a common cold with drugs is ineffective and unnecessary, yet too often patients are leaving their doctors appointments with a prescription in hand, helping to fuel the epidemic of antibiotic resistance...
Baby Octopuses: Pickier Eaters Than Baby Humans
Baby octopuses are notoriously difficult to keep alive in captivityas in, almost impossible. Like their adult parents, they’re sensitive to water pH and temperature and all of that jazz...
Brainy Watson Computer to Tackle Cancer and Other Medical Research
After vanquishing humans on Jeopardy!, IBM says its Watson computer is ready to help save human lives. The company on Thursday announced it has created a new business unit specifically to advance Watson and deliver its artificially intelligent wisdom to research organizations, medical institutions and businesses so that they can process big data” for detailed [...]..
What Ultramarathons do to the Body
Its hard for many people to imagine running (or walking) a standard marathon of 26.2 miles, let alone topping that distance with a so-called ultramarathon that could stretch to as much as 100 miles or more...
Counting Fish: Wrap Up and Conclusion
Since July 2012, Ive been posting about a study of artificial reefs along the Texas coast. Scientists at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies in Corpus Christi conducted the research, funded by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, to determine whether these structures increase fish populations, and whether their location, type and [...]..
Are Genes Really Selfish? [Video]
Biologist Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “the selfish gene” with his best-selling book of the same name. “Selfish”, however, was perhaps an unfortunate word choice because genes lack their own will and can actually drive altruistic behavior...
Mind & Brain
Plenty of Pheromones in the Sea
As we sat in my car outside a silent movie theater in Los Angeles, my friend anxiously opened a plastic bag containing a white T-shirt she’d slept in for the past three nights.
The Hallmarks of Cancer: 7 – Genome Instability and Mutation
All cancers share ten underlying principles, also known as the Hallmarks of Cancer. You can read about the first six here. The seventh is defined as genome instability and mutation.
Winners of the Dance Your PhD Competition Revealed
For the past 6 years, Science magazine and its publisher, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have challenged researchers to explain their doctoral research through interpretive dance...
Winning two Nobel Prizes, revolutionizing genomics, turning down knighthoods: The legacy of Fred Sanger (1918-2013)
British biochemist Fred Sanger died today at 95. He’s the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in chemistry, an achievement that is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.
Public Health
Superstitions Fuel Violence against Tanzania's Albinos
Being born without skin pigmentation in the U. S., a condition called albinism, does not usually shorten an individual’s lifespan. But in Tanzania, it can be a death sentence.
My God, Man! XPRIZE Unveils Medical Tricorder Teams
In the Star Trek universe, handheld medical tricorders became standard issue for Starfleet vessels as early as the mid-22nd century. Here in a little place we like to call “reality,” a competition seeks to help deliver such all-in-one health analyzers at least 100 years ahead of schedule...
