Plagued by jet lag? If
we can send a rocket to the moon why can't we figure out how to fly to different time zones and still be fresh? Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the University of Michigan say they have developed a software program that prescribes a light exposure regimen for avoiding jet lag.
The Pacific Northwest is an area of extreme natural beauty and rich fossil deposits. While we do not have the dinosaur bragging rights of our cousins to the east and south, we have beautiful plant, mammal and marine fossils that can be counted as some of the best in the world.
In the first article on this topic, I suggested that we can measure what people prefer and value, but we don’t know the “why” behind those preferences and values.
An evolutionary psychologist from the London School of Economics, Satoshi Kanazawa, wrote a paper on the origin of individual values and preferences that suggests values are tied to IQ, and you can theoretically predict the values of a nation based on its average intelligence.
Renate Matzke-Karasz from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich has led an international team of scientists who are studying sperm specimens from the London Natural History Museum’s collections. Their research has revealed fossilized evidence for reproduction using giant sperm in a group of small aquatic crustaceans, called ostracods, dating back to 100 million years ago.
A Science Of Human Language - Part #1
Quistic Grammar : A New Universal Grammar
In this series of articles I hope to build, on a sure foundation, a theory which explains language as a means by which evolution can encode information of value to the survival of a species so that it may be transmitted between individuals without the use of genes. The core of the theory suggests that language, in order to transmit information most effectively, encodes that information as 'packets of ideas' which form the answers to simple questions.
Introductory Remarks
Caution: No redeeming scientific value. That said, this post might save your life. It will certainly enrich it.
On March 30, 1999, the hunky Italian supermodel was hit in the face by a goose while riding the Apollo’s Chariot roller coaster in Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, VA. Fabio was rushed to the emergency room at Williamsburg Community Hospital and later claimed his survival was “a miracle.” It took one stitch to close the cut on his nose. The goose was killed. You can still find the video online.
The University of Leicester’s School of Management wonders if more religious control of banks might have lessened the impact of the global financial crisis.
Buying into the notion that a 'sub-prime' housing market led to the latest global financial crisis, they say developing new practices which can address the issues that led the world to the brink of collapse are a vital part of recovery.
Professor Martin Parker, Director of Research for the Management School, thinks a banking system consistent with the principles of Islamic law (Sharia) may be a solution so the university is hosting a conference to consider potential lessons from the Islamic Banking and Finance sector.
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science say we've been making a mistake using DNA to contend that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees. The fossil record says otherwise, they report in the Journal of Biogeography.
Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences and president of the World Academy of Art and Science, and John Grehan, director of science at the Buffalo Museum, conducted an analysis of the physical features of living and fossil apes that suggested humans, orangutans, and early apes belong to a group separate from chimpanzees and gorillas.
You've heard legends of snakes that hypnote their prey - Kaa in "The Jungle Book" did it and Disney is renowned for their scientific accuracy - but a tentacled snake from South East Asia has gone hypnosis one better; it startles its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake's head to flee instead of turning away. In addition, the fish's reaction is so predictable that the snake actually aims its strike at the position where the fish's head will be instead of tracking its actual movement.
Scientists have discovered the presence of a natural deep earth 'pump' that is a crucial element in the formation of ore deposits and earthquakes. The process, called 'creep cavitation', involves fluid being pumped through pores in deformed rock in mid-crustal sheer zones, which are approximately 15 km below the Earth's surface.
The fluid transfer through the middle crust also plays a key role in tectonic plate movement and mantle degassing.
The discovery was made by examining one millimeter sized cubes of exposed rock in Alice Springs, which was deformed around 320 million years ago during a period of natural mountain formation.
