Credit: EPA

By Rob MacKenzie, University of Birmingham

To exaggerate is human, and scientists are human.

Exaggeration and the complementary art of simplification are the basic rhetorical tools of human intercourse.

So yes, scientists do exaggerate. So do politicians, perhaps even when, as the UK’s former environment secretary Owen Paterson did, they claim that climate change forecasts are “widely exaggerated”.

Reading glasses have served us for centuries. Why fix a good thing? Because science and technology can. 

Presbyopia, blurriness in near vision experienced by many people over the age of 40, could one day be relegated to olden days if a thin ring inserted into the eye gains popularity.

A new study has found that people who play action video games such as the "Call of Duty" or "Assassin's Creed" seem to learn a new sensorimotor skill faster than non-gamers do. Sorry, Bungie, "Destiny" was not out when they did the study and auto-rifles would mess up the results anyway.

A new sensorimotor skill, such as learning to ride a bike or typing, often requires a new pattern of coordination between vision and motor movement. With such skills, an individual generally moves from novice performance, characterized by a low degree of coordination, to expert performance, marked by a high degree of coordination. As a result of successful sensorimotor learning, one comes to perform these tasks efficiently and perhaps even without consciously thinking about them.

Credit: Niall Carson/PA

By Saskia Vermeylen, Lancaster University

Whether you’re into mining, energy or tourism, there are lots of reasons to explore space.

Some “pioneers” even believe humanity’s survival depends on colonizing celestial bodies such as the moon and Mars, both becoming central hubs for our further journey into the cosmos. Lunar land peddlers have started doing deals already – a one-acre plot can be yours for just £16.75.

There are many different conceptions of God, and endless questions. Credit: Waiting For The Word, CC BY-NC-SA

By Graham Oppy, Monash University

Disputes about the existence of God — like most disputes about religion, politics, and sex — almost always generate heat but not light.

The question of the existence of God seems intractable. As with other philosophical questions, there is no method to follow in seeking to answer it. Moreover, there is no prospect of reaching an agreed answer to it.

       For the sake of clarity, let us consider the two widely known, nonsensical scenarios: The first is one that many scientists charge ‘idealist’ philosophers with, although no thinker beyond the dorm room bong level holds this view: All is just a dream and there is no physical world. The second nonsensical scenario is that a physical world “really exists independently out there” and it happens to be the case that consciousness arises in it although it could have conceivably been otherwise, a physical universe just being without consciousness.

Credit: EPA

By Uli Beisel, Bayreuth University

Despite it being nearly six months after the Ebola outbreak was confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), we are still hearing stories of severe shortage of gloves in health facilities in West Africa. Many nurses have been asked to reuse them or merely rub their hands with chlorine after consultations.

Image credit:  Ph0neutria via shutterstock

By: Benjamin Plackett, Inside Science

(Inside Science) — Until last year, website designers had a choice of just 22 Internet domains to use as suffixes at the end of URLs, excluding country-specific ones. The familiar “dot-com” and “dot-org” hail from the Reagan era, and the trickle of new domains since has usually been met with much discussion and occasionally debate or even discontent.

Fears of cholera coming shared a lot in common with fear of Ebola. Graetz 1883 © Historical Society of Pennsylvania

By Sally Sheard, University of Liverpool

On October 19 an inspector sent north from London to Sunderland reported a long-awaited arrival: the first British case of cholera.

It was 1831 and as part of a second pandemic cholera had again progressed from its Bengal heartland through Europe, before reaching the Baltic ports. It was only a matter of time.

When most people think of first responders, they think of paramedics or combat medics or other medically-trained personnel doing CPR and other life-saving procedures in stressful situations.

They do not think of acupuncture.
 
A review article in Medical Acupuncture - since it is a review, it is collating other articles about acupuncture, rather than science or medicine - argues that first responders should be trained in integrative medicine approaches such as acupuncture, hypnosis and biofeedback to provide adjunctive treatment to help relieve patients' pain and stress. Maybe they could teach some yoga and the benefits of organic food during the next earthquake as well.