Nephila, orb web weavers of golden silk traps up to five feet in diameter that snare bats in tropical regions, have a new relative that lived with the dinosaurs 165 million years ago and named it Nephila jurassica.   

The previous oldest member of the family found was Cretaraneus vilaltae from Spain and the new find stretches nephila genus evolution back another 130 million years - and to Mongolia, when the north China block was part of the Pangaeasupercontinent.

Nephila jurassica is also only the second female fossil nephilid to be described.

In its first years the development of quantum physics occurred violently. As a consequence some cracks sneaked into the fundaments of this branch of physics. A careful investigation brings these cracks to the foreground. The endeavor to repair these cracks delivers remarkable results.

In the early days of quantum physics much attention was given to equations of motion that were corrections of classical equations of motion. The Schrödinger approach was one and the Heisenberg approach was another. Schrödinger used a picture in which the state of a particle changes with time. Heisenberg uses a picture in which the operators change with time. For the observables this difference makes no difference.

Mixing Science and Religion is always a hot topic. Recently, there was for example a debate between Sam Harris and Robert Winston in the Guardian, about, you guessed it, science versus faith! Harris is all for science:

We have Christians believing in the holy ghost, the resurrection of Jesus and his possible return -- these are claims about biology and physics which, from a scientific point of view in the 21st century, should be unsustainable.

A new study says that an individual’s intestinal bacteria flora organizes itself in certain clusters and they hypothesize this intestinal bacteria flora will have an influence on how we react to diet and medicine absorbed through the gastro-intestinal tract.

That's because you never learn anything new.

[By the way: if you were coming here to learn the solution of my riddle about the mysterious plot I posted here yesterday, be patient - I will publish an answer tomorrow on that issue.]

After the disturbance created by the Higgs rumour in ATLAS, I think we can go back to normal business - in this case, keeping my word on discussing things that were left hanging.

Your response to my small riddle was quite good, forcing me to provide a timely and exhaustive explanation of what is in the plot I posted a few days ago.

As everyone in the autism community knows all too well, April is Autism Awareness month and a good time to release autism documentaries.

Dieting is hard work.  While ingesting the calories to gain weight is simple, the loss of those calories and the mental 'hunger' and the exercise it requires is no small thing.

Given that, it's no surprise dieters who look for healthy food choices are happy to suspend disbelief it it allows them to abdicate responsibility to a menu in a restaurant - and so they are more likely than non-dieters to choose unhealthy foods that are labeled as healthy, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. It seems that dieter focus on food names can work to their disadvantage.

In the 'we need to make sure all people can abdicate any responsibility for their actions' department, a new study makes obesity exculpatory by determining that a mother's nutrition during pregnancy influences the child's risk of obesity many years later.

Whew.  And here you were worried too many pizzas would influence the risk of obesity.

The downside to epigenetics studies is that they run the risk of turning legitimate aspects of biology into the DNA equivalent of evolutionary psychology by making bizarre correlation-causation claims.

Ozone is a known pollutant at low levels in the earth’s atmosphere, which causes harmful effects on the respiratory system and sensitive plants.    Ozone forms as hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides emitted into the air react with sunlight. Two of the largest emitters of these pollutants are vehicles and electricity generating units (EGUs) but as Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) have risen in popularity over the past decade the positive impact on the environment due to lack of fossil fuel exhaust fumes is offset by increased ozone.