The word ‘Nerd’ is thought to have originated in the US in the early 1950s – but it took three full decades before a comprehensive academic paper describing ‘Nerdism’ appeared. As the authors of the study explained at the time :

“It is not clear why a social transformation of such depth and proportions has so long escaped the scrutiny of social scientists; perhaps they are too close to the issue.”

A joint study conducted by researchers from the University of L'Aquila in Italy and Mars, Incorporated says that the regular consumption of dietary cocoa flavanols may improve cognitive function in elderly subjects with early memory decline. The study shows the impact of regular cocoa flavanol consumption on cognitive function in a population with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

Next generation toilets showcased at the Gates Foundation offer innovative sanitation solutions that can save and improve lives around the world.

Bill Gates today has announced the winners of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, an effort to develop "next-generation" toilets that will deliver safe and sustainable sanitation for 2.5 billion people worldwide who don't have it. The awards recognize researchers (sorry, inventors, academics only) who have developed new ways to manage human waste and help improve the health and lives of people around the world.

As the prevalence of obesity rises around the world, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(NAFLD) is a growing concern, especially among the vulnerable Hispanic population.  Perhaps most alarming is that NAFLD, traditionally a disease of middle age, has become increasingly prevalent in childhood, where studies show that ~38% of obese Hispanic children and adolescents have liver fat levels in the range of clinically diagnosed NAFLD.

Want to feel good about your body image?  Go to Mississippi. They may be a lot less anti-science than people in Washington state, but they are also a lot more pro-pizza, it seems.

The 2011 obesity map from the Centers for Disease Control, detailing adult obesity prevalence for all U.S. states based on Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data,  is out and it doesn't look good. Rates of adult obesity remain high, ranging from 20.7 percent in Colorado to 34.9 percent in Mississippi.

Little less than one year ago the world of fundamental physics was shaken by the bold claim of the OPERA collaboration, which produced a measurement of the time of flight of neutrinos traveling underground from Geneva to the Gran Sasso mine in central Italy. The beam of neutrinos, produced by the CERN SpS proton synchrotron, was observed to produce interactions in the large mass of the OPERA detector with about 60 nanosecond anticipation with respect to what would be expected for a particle traveling at exactly the speed of light (2439096.1+-0.3 nanoseconds, since the flight path is of 731221.95+-0.09 meters).

Forty hectares of remains have been found in Alken Enge bog located in in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø in East Jutland, Denmark.

The so called "memristor" is an intriguing case for the sociology of science [2] and it still unfolds. Especially annoying are critics who do not grasp the core issue. They hand easily refuted charges to Goliath so he can point to them laughing: “Look, all that criticism is mere envious pseudo-science”.

UPDATE: new article on that the memristor has not been found now published by Nature group

This paper seeks to address hypermasculinity and the settled heteronormative value system embodied in public-policy actors, primarily the White-centered hegemonic masculinity that has created negative performative aspects of cultural identity constructions in this multicultural and globalized era.