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Isoprene: Plants Can Make Their Own Pesticide But The Environmental Cost Is High

Isoprene: Plants Can Make Their Own Pesticide But The Environmental Cost Is High

Jun 16 2025 | comment(s)

As the developed world becomes more removed from science and health, it is easier to embrace beliefs that science and medicine are not needed at all, with some claiming that vaccines and pesticides are not really needed, the natural world can do it without modern tools.

Companies will cater to that also. If enough people mobilized by politicians and activists insist they don't want some harmless food coloring or BPA, companies will remove those and simply charge more. The products won't be healthier, just more costly. Yet sometimes mimicking the natural world can be beneficial, like with neonicotinoid seed treatments based on natural pesticide effects and have reduced mass spraying and off-target effects so well that bees have rebounded and now exist in record numbers.
Marshall McLuhan Hated TV But He Might Like AI

Marshall McLuhan Hated TV But He Might Like AI

Jun 14 2025 | comment(s)

Today’s large language models (LLMs) process information across disciplines at unprecedented speed and are challenging higher education to rethink teaching, learning and disciplinary structures.

As AI tools disrupt conventional subject boundaries, educators face a dilemma: some seek to ban these tools, while others are seeking ways to embrace them in the classroom.

Both approaches risk missing a deeper transformation that was predicted 60 years ago by Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan.

Yelling Fascism Is The Fashion, But The Left Is Actually Less Diverse

Yelling Fascism Is The Fashion, But The Left Is Actually Less Diverse

Jun 13 2025 | comment(s)

If you think you are in a totalitarian regime because the US President federalized National Guard troops, you may need to get a little more intellectual diversity. An experiment instead showed that those on the right are more likely to look into the facts and learn that federalizing the National Guard first happened in 1794. By order of President George Washington. Then it happened again in 1799, by order of President John Adams.
Meta-Analysis: Flower Strips With Two Or More Species May Reduce Pesticides

Meta-Analysis: Flower Strips With Two Or More Species May Reduce Pesticides

Jun 12 2025 | comment(s)

A new paper has found that flower strips along fields and ditches may be more than just a gimmick that lets people feel like they are improving the environment or saving bees. They may attract pests that eat pests that eat crops.

If so, this could help Europe, which has declared it wants to reduce pesticides 50% by 2030 but found its efforts stymied when they had to engage in limited boycotts of its primary food exporter, Russia. Even though they exclude Organic™ pesticides from their goals, despite those being up to 600% more chemicals per calorie produced.(1)
With New Acceptance Of Vaccines, The Left Needs To Rethink Pesticides Next

With New Acceptance Of Vaccines, The Left Needs To Rethink Pesticides Next

Jun 11 2025 | comment(s)

A few short years ago, the western left - America and Europe - had a holy trinity of things they opposed; medicine, food, and energy. There is no hope for energy, even 100% higher electricity rates in places like Germany and California won't get them to budge from insisting solar and wind are viable, but all it took for them to rethink vaccines was for one of their former chief evangelists, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to become a member of the Trump administration.
Editorial: This Week’s LA Non-riots

Editorial: This Week’s LA Non-riots

Jun 09 2025 | comment(s)

A Facebook friend opined that Los Angeles protesters could “turn LA into another Portland.” I expand for you my rejoinder to his post:

The Lizard Poop Of Madagascar

The Lizard Poop Of Madagascar

Jun 09 2025 | comment(s)

Some 88 million years ago, Madagascar broke off from India.

Isolated from all other landmasses, plants and animals evolved in seclusion, creating a biodiversity hotspot unlike anywhere else on Earth. One way biodiversity spreads is by endozoochory, which is the process name for animals eating plant seeds and then pooping them out somewhere else, which may cause them to grow in the new location. Birds are an obvious mode of transport but a new study takes a look at the role lizard poop has played. 
Chinese Researchers Are Rewiring Brains Using Interfaces

Chinese Researchers Are Rewiring Brains Using Interfaces

Jun 09 2025 | comment(s)

Human evolution and culture have been shaped by our increasing ability to communicate.

A new review from China believes that brain-computer interfaces mark the next leap: a direct connection between mind and machine. They note breakthroughs in neural signal decoding, AI, and bioengineering but what should really worry residents of a communist dictatorship is how they believe it will shape autonomy, identity, and mental privacy.
Win A MSCA Post-Doctoral Fellowship!

Win A MSCA Post-Doctoral Fellowship!

Jun 08 2025 | comment(s)

Applications for MSCA Post-doctoral fellowships are on, and will be so until September 10 this year. What that means is that if you have less than 8 years of experience after your Ph.D., you can pair up with a research institute in Europe to present a research plan, and the European Commission may decide to fund it for two years (plus 6 months in industry in some cases).

In order for your application to have a chance to win funding, you need to: 
  1. have a great research topic in mind, 
  2. be ready to invest some time in writing a great application, and 
  3. pair up with an outstanding supervisor at a renowned research institute. 
Soft Robot With Inflatable Actuators And Kirigami Skin Debuts

Soft Robot With Inflatable Actuators And Kirigami Skin Debuts

Jun 07 2025 | comment(s)

University of Southern Denmark recently demonstrated a soft robot capable of navigating complex terrains using a combination of inflatable actuators and a patterned "kirigami" skin, all moving via rectilinear motion.

You probably think it looks like a worm and it can certainly go places only small things could go.

It's not very fast, only 11 millimeters per second, but it can twist, turn, and navigate through tight spots thanks to its anisotropic anchoring and flexible skin.


Credit: SDU Soft Robotics