The hunt for dark energy is on and ways to find it, such as weak gravitational lensing and baryon acoustic oscillation, hold great promise but are as yet unproven.   Supernovae studies, which depend on measuring the redshift and brightness of distant Type Ia supernovae, are the most reliable.

Cats have a reputation for being smart but dogs deserve more respect, says canine researcher Stanley Coren, PhD, of the University of British Columbia, who spoke on dog psychology (seriously) today on the topic “How Dogs Think” at the American Psychological Association’s 117th Annual Convention.

They can also understand more than 150 words and intentionally deceive other dogs and people to get treats,  Coren says. He is the author of more than a half-dozen popular books on dogs and dog behavior, and reviewed numerous studies to conclude that dogs have the ability to solve complex problems and are more like humans and other higher primates than previously thought. 

Tangential Science: it's not necessarily science, but it's still funny.

1.  Greek fire ain't what it used to be.  If you're a student of history, you know that Greek fire  (πῦρ θαλάσσιον) was popularized by the Byzantines, mostly against Arab navies.   We don't know what it consisted of because the recipe was lost to antiquity but it made enough of an impression that various other cultures copied it.   Naptha?   Saltpeter?  No one can be sure.

Greek fire was not an ingredient but instead an entire system.   It required special processing to make and was compressed so that the liquid shot out.  Thus it required expert handling as well. 

If you’re a Twit... [um, no...] if you like Tweety... [still no...] if you’re a Twitter user [there, that works] you might have been frustrated on Thursday, when Twitter had service problems. So, apparently, did Facebook and LiveJournal, all three hit with denial-of-service attacks Thursday morning. Here’s Twitter’s status message from around 7 A.M.

Do guys like Bernie Madoff do what they do because of greed ... or ego?    A Florida State professor says it's the latter.    It makes some sense because it takes a certain drive to become CEO of a large company and that takes a certain self-confidence.  

But is it more than just determination and grit and confidence?   Narcissism is the claim Wayne Hochwarter, the Jim Moran Professor of Management in the Florida State University College of Business, is trying to make.

The Struggle for Existence was the title Charles Darwin gave to Chapter Three of On The Origin of Species, and he went to some trouble to explain exactly what he meant by this struggle. Throughout the chapter we find:

“I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.”

...

“there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence,”

...

Take a number. Take a second number. Add both together to produce a third. Again, add the last two numbers to produce the next. Repeat ad infinitum.

What can be more boring?

With Big Pharma allegedly “cooperating” with President Obama’s health care reforms, and Congress wanting to limit drug advertising, might it pay to refresh our memories about how we got here in the first place?

It's time for a quiz.  

The first to get all answers correct - via posted response - will receive a free copy of my book, Generation Rx, and a free sample of Adderall (*).

A study of college students found that the more time they spent on Facebook, the more likely they or their squeeze got jealous about the information posted there, leading to more time spent on Facebook and further fueling jealousy.

Facebook could tank your relationship, says the study in CyberPsychology&Behavior, though obviously Facebook (not to exclude Twitter,  though 140 characters is too short to say anything meaningful) is a catalyst and not the source of the problem.

If there's one thing you've heard over and over, it's that mean old religion has always been the enemy of science.  

It isn't true, of course, but at least in America, with its Protestant heritage, anything that slammed Catholics got traction and, among atheists, anything that slammed religion was believed without skepticism.

A new book by James Hannam called "God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science" seeks to gain some respect for medieval scientists and, if religion gets sucked along in the jet wash, that's okay too.