Shifting descriptions of schizophrenia. Shutterstock

By Huw Green, City University of New York

In an attempt to move away from the traditional language used to describe psychosis and schizophrenia, the British Psychological Society (BPS) has launched an update to its thinking on this issue.

The foreword of the report it has published sets out the vision:

There is such a thing as 'too precise' when it comes to numbers. So what's appropriate? Erik Olsson, CC BY-NC-SA

By Jonathan Borwein (Jon), University of Newcastle and David H. Bailey, University of California, Davis

How is this for the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage: A new tiny nanopore includes all the components of a battery though it is just is a tiny hole in a ceramic sheet that holds an electrolyte to carry the electrical charge between nanotube electrodes at either end - and 1,000,000,000 can fit in the size of a postage stamp. 

The existing device is a test but the nano-sized battery performs well - and it can be fully charged in 12 minutes, thousands of times.  

This has as much in common with actual paleolithic culture as the paleolithic diet does. Flickr/George , CC BY-NC-SA

By Darren Curnoe

Kelly Abbott/Flickr, CC BY-NC

By Tim Trudgian, Australian National University

Consider a standard pizza box containing a standard circular pizza. How much more would you be willing to pay for a square pizza that filled the box?

 have to warn everyone that there is going to be a little math at the start, but not much, only one easy equation that you need to have a sense of if you are going to understand what drugs that inhibit enzymes do.  

This equation is universal and can be easily expanded to describe most molecular interactions.  Actually the most basic form of it is the IC50 equation which has been used as a crutch for describing drug interactions for years.  So if nothing else you might get a sense of what researchers are referring to when they get excited about IC50 values. 

The golden ratio is known as the divine proportion because it is found so often in nature. It has fascinated mathematicians since Euclid. A golden ratio is when the ratio of two numbers is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities.


Credit: Wikipedia

Represented by the Greek letter phi (φ), its value is 1.61803399.

Good news for Christmas party season: A new compound has been shown to reduce the harmful side-effects of ‘binge drinking’. It also has the potential for new ways to treat Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases that damage the brain but showing that would take $1 billion in clinical trials and 10 years of approval and then some generic company would just poach it a few years later anyway. If they simply go the alternative medicine route, the inventors could save themselves the double-blind clinical trials and get right to selling it.

Fantasies shouldn't be confused with wishes or behaviors. conrado/Shutterstock

By Christian Joyal, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)

Can we use unusual sexual fantasies to identify sexual deviancy?

Is there a link between what people fantasize about and how they actually behave?