Astronomers from the University of Florida will take a second look this summer at a rare cosmic cradle for the universe's largest stars, the constellation Carina. The massive gas cloud is located 8,000 light years away in the Southern sky and is home to stars that grow up to have 50 times the sun's mass.

The constellation was once part of the larger constellation Argo Navis until it split into three. The cloud is in the early stages of collapsing in on itself, offering astronomers an unusual vista on the first contractions of behemoth star birth.

Steroid use has been a serious problem in professional sports for many years now. Famous baseball players, Olympic athletes, pro wrestlers and many others have been caught using performance enhancing substances. Concern over the practice has come from fearful parents, officials from various sports leagues worried about their games' reputations, and even the United States Congress, because they have nothing more pressing to deal with.

Why Plants Can't Sequester Excess CO2


Plants love CO2, right?

More CO2 makes plants grow more, right?

It follows that a global rise in atmospheric CO2 will produce healthier plants globally, right?

Wrong!  Wrong!  Wrong!



Try this simple experiment.  Place a paper towel on a work surface.  Add water a drop at a time.  At first the paper will absorb every drop of water.  Eventually, though, there must come a time when the paper is so loaded with water that any excess is not absorbed.  This illustrates a fundamental principle of all systems:

What Is A Tipping Point ?


The term 'tipping point' is in widespread use in English, but what does it mean?


Imagine a child's seesaw with an empty bucket on each end.  The seesaw is initially at rest with one end touching the ground.  If left alone, nothing would happen - there would be no motion.  The whole mechanical contraption would be in a static configuration - in static, or stable equilibrium.

Every two years particle physicists meet at a conference which is just a bit more important, more well-attended, and more prestigious than all the others that pester our agendas every other week. This conference is called ICHEP - the International Conference on High-Energy Physics - and it is usually the favourite and most favourable place where to present or to listen to groundbreaking results, important advancements, thorough review talks.

Musical Clowns

Why is it that so often a genius of comedy has brilliant musical talent?
Or is it the other way round?

I've also noticed that geniuses of comedy tend to be geniuses of language.  For example, I think Ken Dodd knows more about language than most professional linguists.  Victor Borge was also very talented in that department.

What a fascinating topic this could be for a research project.  How many well-known singers, musicians or dancers are comedians; how many comedians have musical talents?  How do you rate ability anyway, without being subjective?  And what is it in the human psyche that makes a combination of music and humor so universally enjoyable?

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of Matt Ridley’s The Origins of Virtue at a second-hand bookstore, (never give a gene-centric a royalty, I always say!) but I must say that it is well-written, interesting, loaded with facts without being tedious, and worthy of a royalty. It’s worthwhile because it is an honest attempt (in the main) at tackling issues of evolution that deserve to be tackled.

The very issues I have covered in my articles here in fact, and there’s a reason for that.

"What is autism" is a medical science question.  "How can people with autism adapt to society" is a social science question.  "Why would someone pay to see a movie in a theater with the lights on, the sound turned down, and anyone in the audience able to dance or yell during the show" is a scientificblogging.com question.

Movie chain AMC runs a monthly sensory friendly film.  And in their own words:

The auditoriums dedicated to the program have their lights up, the sound turned down and audience members are invited to get up and dance, walk, shout or sing!

Our University’s former Safety-Office-in-Chief, who retired about ten years ago, had a line in horror stories while presenting training lectures.  One of his “things” was always radiation checking a new piece of equipment before releasing it for use.

Federal Regulators Allowed Oil Companies To Decide Safety Issues


I noted in my recent article Oil Spills And Troubled Waters:

When safety depends on the ability to shut down a system by blocking a fluid flow it is absolutely imperative that the system should incorporate 'fail safe' design principles: the system should fail into the safest possible state.

The most widely known fail safe devices are fuses and circuit breakers.  It is basic common sense that a fault condition should shut off power rather than risk fire or electrocution.