How smart do you have to be to convince Albert Einstein to change his mind?

Pretty smart. He never invoked 'the science is settled' or ridiculed the political party of physicists who insisted the universe was expanding. It was static until someone proved otherwise.

Eventually they did, but it was not the urban legend that claimed in 1931 American astronomer Edwin Hubble showed Einstein his observations of redshift in the light emitted by far away nebulae - what we call galaxies now. The tipping point was instead a tortuous thought process following many encounters with some of the most influential astrophysicists of his generation.

Ecstasy, marijuana (including synthetic cannabinoids sold as ‘Spice’ and ‘Incense’) and various psychoactive ‘legal highs’ have surged in popularity and Canada has become a major criminal hub for ecstasy. 

Recent deaths have been linked to paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) in ecstasy pills and with Canadian producing most of the ecstasy in the North American market, a timely paper in Drug Science Policy and Law looks at trends in ecstasy adulteration and the facts around PMA/PMMA-linked deaths. 

In America, social authoritarians are ban-happy but the Canadian authors also argue for an alternative to a new ban.

The review finds: 

As if pretty people didn't have enough advantages, they may also give us a glance at their reproductive health, according to a paper in the American Journal of Human Biology reveals a link between Body Mass Index (BMI) and the amount of bacteria colonizing noses.

The results show that heavier men harbor more potentially pathogenic species of bacteria in their nose, compared with slimmer, more traditionally attractive men.

Julie Hartup, Mariana Islands Program Leader for the Manta Trust, has caught mantas on Guam in the act of having a party.

Several of Hartup's paddler and free diving friends told her about seeing mantas congregating in an area where surgeonfish were spawning, and they knew the exact date. With the date, Hartup was able to calculate the moon phase - many fish synchronize their spawning with the moon - and using this information she predicted when the spawning event would occur that upcoming year and was there to witness a shoal of spawning surgeonfish accompanied by a fever of mantas.

A mouse's heart beats about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, but a mouse only lives for about a year while an elephant will live to be about 70.

Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering tree and the fearful symmetry of a tiger? 

Last week, an article appeared in The Lancet Neurology (doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(13)70278-3) which reviewed studies and asserted that there is a "pandemic" of developmental toxicity. This led to a press release and a variety of stories in the media linking things like pesticides to brain disorders in children.

Does cortisol, the stress hormone, cause risk aversion and 'irrational pessimism' in bankers and fund managers during financial crises?

The authors of a paper in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
correlate the fact that traders exhibit risk averse behavior during periods of extreme market volatility – when a crashing market most needs them to take risks, according to academics not responsible for billions of dollars of someone else's money – and that this change in their appetite for risk may be "physiologically-driven", specifically by the body's response to cortisol. They suggest that stress could be an "under-appreciated" cause of market instability.

I believe I am not alone in being fascinated by the ongoing debates about this or that physics experiment being on the verge of destroying the Earth. Microscopic black holes produced by mistake in particle physics experiments sinking down to the center of the Earth and slowly eating us out, small black holes used as "clean" bombs, antimatter weapons, strange-matter bits gradually engulfing everything around.

It is quite entertaining and it would be even good for physics outreach if spun the right way, but unfortunately we should not trust too much the sense of humour of our political leaders.

Older football veterans contend that modern equipment, and its ability to protect players from injury, ironically lead to more of it. Rugby players agree. 

They may be right. A new study finds that modern football helmets do little to protect against hits to the side of the head and the rotational force that is often a dangerous source of brain injury and encephalopathy. 

Policy makers are in constant discussion about a range of climate change mitigation possibilities and among the least understood are geoengineering methods.

The injection of sulfate particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and curb the effects of global warming could pose a severe threat if not maintained indefinitely and also supported by strict reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, write  University of Washington researchers in Environmental Research Letters.