If we're lucky, fossils can at least tell us whether an extinct species was carnivore or vegetarian but the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds;the first solid evidence of nut-eating in any dinosaur.
Paleontologists discovered the new dinosaur, which they've named Psittacosaurus gobiensis, in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia in 2001, and spent years preparing and studying the specimen. The dinosaur is approximately 110 million years old, dating to the mid-Cretaceous Period.
Stress and strain research got a boost thanks to research from NIST, where scientists have recently found evidence of an important similarity between the behavior of polycrystalline materials, like metals and ceramics, and glasses.
Most metals and ceramics used in manufacturing are polycrystals. The steel in a bridge girder is formed from innumerable tiny metal crystals that grew together in a patchwork as the molten steel cooled and solidified. Each crystal, or “grain,” is highly ordered on the inside, but in the thin boundaries it shares with the grains around it, the molecules are quite disorderly.
One odd characteristic of H1N1 influenza A (swine flu) in 2009 is that it seems to hit children much harder than the elderly, an about-face from ordinary flu. So targeting children may be an effective use of limited supplies of flu vaccine, according to research at the University of Warwick funded by the Wellcome Trust and the EU. The study suggests that, used to support other control measures, this could help control the spread of pandemics such as the current swine flu.
Fluctuating temperatures in Africa have always made reliable agriculture production difficult and global warming could make it even worse. If local varieties of maize and other food staples are unsuitable, the food security of many Africans will depend on farmers in one country gaining access to climatically suitable varieties now being cultivated in other African nations, and beyond, according to a study published in Global Environmental Change.
A new National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) assay using a “glow or no glow” technique may soon help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defend the nation against a spectrum of biological weapons that could be used in a terrorist attack.
One very dangerous toxin on the list is ricin, a protein derived from castor beans that is lethal in doses as small as 500 micrograms—about the size of a grain of salt.
People make value judgements about others based on their facial expressions, according to a new study carried out by Spanish and Brazilian researchers. After looking at a face for only 100 milliseconds, we can detect expressions of happiness and surprise faster than those of sadness or fear.
Our brains get a first impression of people's overriding social signals after seeing their faces for only 100 milliseconds (0.1 seconds). Whether this impression is correct is another question. An international research group has carried out an in-depth study into how we process emotional expressions, looking at the pattern of cerebral asymmetry in the perception of positive and negative facial signals.
SINGAPORE, June 17 /PRNewswire/ --
- Innovative Approach Empowers Subscribers to Personalize and Manage Mobile Data Usage, Set Limits and Notifications, Receive Special Offers, and Prevent Bill Shock
Bridgewater Systems (TSX: BWC), the mobile personalization company, today announced Bridgewater's myPolicy(TM) solution. It features the new myPolicy application for the Apple(R) iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry(R), and policy control components that communicate with network and IT systems to provide a real-time view of mobile usage.
Darwin didn't miss much, I think we all agree, and came up with a lot given the limited science of his day. One thing he missed, that by this time tomorrow will be the source of outrageous titles from every schlock science publication in existence, was that sexual selection that goes on even after actual sex.
Confusing? It's not so difficult to understand. Some female critters are trampy and have sex with more than one guy, for example (what, you think other parts of the animal kingdom don't have Jenna Jameson?) so there's sperm competition but there are also other factors having to do with the internal workings of the female body (i.e. that magical place), so let's catalog a few of post-copulatory sexual selection's greatest hits:
LONDON and NEW YORK, June 16 /PRNewswire/ --
**38 AUCTIONS COMPLETED TO DATE IN 2009**
During the week of June 8, 2009, Markit and Creditex conducted Credit Event Auctions (CEAs) to facilitate settlement of credit derivative trades referencing five global companies, including General Motors. The auctions have been used to settle transactions in connection with the defaults of 38 companies so far this year in the U.S. and Europe and are an integral part of efforts by International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) to standardize critical elements of the credit default swap (CDS) market through the Big Bang Protocol, which came into force on April 8, 2009.
Now that I am officially a philosopher (i.e., my salary is going to be paid by a philosophy, instead of a biology, department), I can indulge full time in reading philosophy without feeling guilty. I haven’t mastered the skill (of not feeling guilty) yet, but I’m working on it.
This is also why I’m starting an occasional series of blog posts devoted to individual philosophers, picked among those that strike my fancy for one reason or another. Obviously, a blog post is not the appropriate venue for even a superficial look at the entire body of work of a major philosopher, so what I’ll do instead is to briefly comment on a number of major themes relevant to each particular case, and hope to stimulate people to read more about that philosopher.
