Pond scums were an animal’s best friend. 540 million years ago, oxygen was scarce in the atmosphere and ocean, and animals needed to find oxygen to make a livi

Meditation advocates from three schools say a lower ability to cope with the pain of being rejected by others leads to violence, but that people greater levels of mindfulness, a psychological fad where practitioners maintain attention on and awareness of the present moment -- are better able to cope with such pain. 

While preparing for another evening of observation of Jupiter's atmosphere with my faithful 16" dobsonian scope, I found out that the satellite Io will disappear behind the Jovian shadow tonight. This is a quite common phenomenon and not a very spectacular one, but still quite interesting to look forward to during a visual observation - the moon takes some time to fully disappear, so it is fun to follow the event.
This however got me thinking. A fully eclipsed jovian moon should still be able to reflect back some light picked up from the still lit other satellites - so it should not, after all, appear completely dark. Can a calculation be made of the effect ? Of course - and it's not that difficult.

A survey sent to 1,500 pediatricians, most practicing physicians for more than 15 years and nearly all in primary care, found that 74 percent of the responding pediatricians did not approve of spanking and 78 percent thought spanking never or seldom improved children’s behavior.

A federal judge's recent discussion about why glyphosate should not have a warning label in California, despite the efforts of trial lawyers and the environmental groups they pay, not only shows the label would have no scientific validity, it calls into doubt Proposition 65 itself.<

A team of psychologists hope to win a battle in the "reading wars," emphasizing the importance of teaching phonics in establishing fundamental reading skills in early childhood. 

By synthesizing findings from more than 300 research studies, book chapters, and academic journal articles published across a variety of scientific fields, they hope to create an evidence-based account of how children learn to read. 

A few years ago a cultural anthropologist levied a bombastic charge against her own field; using uncontrolled anonymous surveys with undefined terms she claimed almost every woman doing field work had been subjected to sexual harassment or even rape. It got a lot of attention but it lacked serious methodology, even for surveys.

An experimental study which sought to determine perceptions of sexual text (sext) messaging situations concluded that men and women were judged differently by the sext messages they sent, even when they were the same.

When messages were unsolicited, men were judged as creepy while women were judged as more appropriate.

The strange conclusion by the authors from their finding was not the obvious one, that men were being discriminated against, "slut shaming" for guys, but that consent is important in sexting. 


Sexting. Vaguely date rapey when a guy does it. But when a woman does it, hegemonic masculinity stereotypes gave more women a free pass.

Liberals in the United States and Germany felt more empathy than conservatives toward protesters injured during an overcrowded demonstration in the United States and Germany, according to survey results of 1,046 participants who read a fake newspaper article the non-real incident. The protesters were either described as liberals, conservatives, or non-partisan local residents. 

Liberals were more likely to want to help the protesters by donating money for the medical treatment and both conservatives and liberals felt more empathy for their political allies.

Trump has had a lot of criticism after the summit, with many saying he conceded too much to Kim. I don’t think he did at all myself. The main thing he gave him was a meeting with him, and a couple of days of his time. And he built trust. He thinks that’s important. Previous presidents didn’t think it was important, they proceeded on a basis of distrust. He is trying something new.