Featured Articles

Economic crisis, bank failures and plague in the Middle Ages.

Economic crisis, bank failures and plague in the Middle Ages.

Apr 29 2017 | comment(s)

A.D. 1200 has been called the golden age, as characterized by a booming economy combined with widespread prosperity. Europe's population had reached the height of its growth, reaching about 70 million people, beyond which, according to historians, it would have been incompatible to resupply of food products, with the technologies of the time. The hot weather was optimal for harvesting in the fields, flourishing agriculture.

Rocket salad, enantiomers, and nomenclature

Rocket salad, enantiomers, and nomenclature

Apr 29 2017 | comment(s)

Yet another article in the Telegraph: this time Supermarket rocket salad healthier than homegrown. featuring the vegetable kingdom this time:

Sensible And Pragmatic Proposal For Implementing The EC's Criteria For Identifying Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

Sensible And Pragmatic Proposal For Implementing The EC's Criteria For Identifying Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

Apr 28 2017 | comment(s)


A Visit To GSI

A Visit To GSI

Apr 27 2017 | comment(s)

GSI, the Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, is a laboratory located near the town of Darmstadt, in central Germany, just a few miles away from the Frankfurt airport. The centre was founded in 1969, and has since then been a very active facility where heavy elements are studied (six rare heavy ones were in fact discovered there, including the one they named Darmstadtium!), and where a wide research plan of nuclear physics is carried out.

Pig Study Shows Dairy 'Excellent' Source Of Protein For Human Kids Too

Pig Study Shows Dairy 'Excellent' Source Of Protein For Human Kids Too

Apr 27 2017 | comment(s)

In 2011, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations propose using animals like pigs to study the best way of evaluating protein quality in foods eaten by children.

The researchers behind a new study calculated protein scores for eight sources of protein, derived from both plants and animals. Protein scores compare the amount of digestible amino acids in a food with a "reference protein," a theoretical protein which contains fully digestible amino acids in the proportions required for human nutrition at a particular stage of life.
Thiamethoxam: Study Claims Neonicotinoid Causes Erratic Bee Flight

Thiamethoxam: Study Claims Neonicotinoid Causes Erratic Bee Flight

Apr 26 2017 | comment(s)

Thiamethoxam is a compound in the class of targeted pesticides known as "neonicotinoids", because they are chemically similar to nicotine, which has natural insect repellent properties.

Neonicotinoids are used in crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton and have been controversial because of environmental campaigns claiming a "colony collapse disorder" was caused by them. Yet bee numbers have not declined so concern has migrated to wild bee populations and sub-lethal effects - bees not killed but changed. These two arguments are easier to maintain because there is no way to count wild bees, only a few species even have hives, and therefore one guess is as good as another. Sub-lethal effects could also mean anything - like the ability to fly.
The Pollution In Toronto's Subways

The Pollution In Toronto's Subways

Apr 25 2017 | comment(s)

Though subways reduce overall pollution emissions in cities, what is good for society may not be good for the poor people who ride mass transportation. A new study finds that Canadian subways personal exposure to certain pollutants, and that Toronto has the highest levels in Canada.

Sounds awful for city dwellers, right? Breathe easy, the pollutant they measured has yet to be linked to any harm, and no acute deaths, outside government claims when they want to restrict businesses. 
Emotional Feeding Leads To Emotional Eating

Emotional Feeding Leads To Emotional Eating

Apr 25 2017 | comment(s)

If you hand food to a child when they are sad, or angry, or anything else, they will begin to associate food with those feelings. As adults, this emotional eating will be a tough habit to break. In youth, it will be even more difficult because kids aren't always aware that good things can be bad for you in excess.
Government: There Is More To Science Than Government-Funded Jobs

Government: There Is More To Science Than Government-Funded Jobs

Apr 19 2017 | comment(s)

For the better part of this century, the federal government has promoted the notion that only government-funded science is real science, and the private sector is the icky kind that, let's face it, the kind of people who overwhelmingly prefer to stay in academia dislike. (1)
Wonky Rockets? Wonky Theory!

Wonky Rockets? Wonky Theory!

Apr 19 2017 | comment(s)

Wonky Rockets? Wonky Theory!


The British tabloids Express, Metro, Daily Star, Sun and others seem to think that some or all of the rockets displayed in North Korea recently are bogus.  The "proof" is the wonky nosecones shown in a BBC video.

It's not the Rockets that were wonky.  Rather, the "news" reports demonstrate wonky thinking. Media reports about wonky rockets prove only that some reporters tend to write stories based on their own lack of knowledge.  Due diligence is obviously not a term with which these scribblers are familiar.
Can IARC Be Salvaged?

Can IARC Be Salvaged?

Apr 19 2017 | comment(s)

The IARC monograph program on Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks must be reformed and brought into the 21st century – or it should be abolished

The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph program is an outmoded cancer classification scheme that has remained fundamentally unchanged since the monograph program was established in the early 1970s. In the intervening 45 years, scientific understanding of cancer causation has deepened and provided decision makers with an evolving appreciation of how effects seen in laboratory animals should be used to protect human health.

LHCb Measures Unity, Finds 0.6

LHCb Measures Unity, Finds 0.6

Apr 18 2017 | comment(s)

With a slightly anti-climatic timing if we consider the just ended orgy of new results presented at winter conferences in particle physics (which I touched on here), the LHCb collaboration outed today the results of a measurement of unity, drawing attention on the fact that unity was found to be not equal to 1.0.
Predicting Methane Rise, Using A Hydroxyl Radical Estimate

Predicting Methane Rise, Using A Hydroxyl Radical Estimate

Apr 17 2017 | comment(s)

In the late 2000s, after natural gas uptake caused American carbon dioxide emissions to plummet, panicked environmentalists began to scramble for new ways to campaign on ending so-called fossil fuels. Methane, with 23X the warming power of CO2, was ideal, but they had just spent a decade insisting methane could explain increased warming, because it did not persist long enough.

And it would have started long before then, if the methane were linked to global warming by frozen tundra melting and releasing its methane. But it wasn't detected.
Kuphus Polythalamia: Giant Sulfur-Powered Shipworm Is The Stuff Of Science Fiction

Kuphus Polythalamia: Giant Sulfur-Powered Shipworm Is The Stuff Of Science Fiction

Apr 17 2017 | comment(s)

A newly named species, a giant, black, mud dwelling, worm-like animal, doesn't seem to eat much, instead it gets its energy from a form of sulfur. 

The public is often confused what 'discovery' means in science. It means it is being identified as a new species, not never seen before. The three- to five-foot long, tusk-like shells that encase the animal were first documented in the 1700s and are fairly common, it's the living animal inside that is being identified as a new species.  
Bee Science Could Help Dismantle Terrorist Networks

Bee Science Could Help Dismantle Terrorist Networks

Apr 17 2017 | comment(s)

A new bio-inspired algorithm seems to use the social behavior of bee colonies, which allows them to attack in an optimal way, could help dismantle social networks linked to organized crime, jihadist terrorism, or facilitate the design of vaccination strategies capable of containing the spread of a pandemic.

The tool automatically detects and identifies the most dangerous actors or nodes within a given social network and the density of the interconnected relationships between them, which may help law enforcement authorities make their decisions and act in the most efficient way possible.
Starbursts In Virgo

Starbursts In Virgo

Apr 16 2017 | comment(s)

Starburst galaxies are where stars are forming at such a breakneck rate that the galaxy is eating up its gas supply faster than it can be replenished. There are several different factors that can lead to such an ideal environment in which stars can form at such a rapid rate. Crucially, there has to be a sufficiently massive supply of gas. This might be acquired in a number of ways -- for example by passing very close to another galaxy, in a full-blown galactic collision, or as a result of some event that forces lots of gas into a relatively small space.
Science And The Structure Of An Argument: How To Sort Good Information From Bad.

Science And The Structure Of An Argument: How To Sort Good Information From Bad.

Apr 16 2017 | comment(s)

    This content of this blog is adapted from my lecture on Cognitive Bias in Decision Making, for the module Cognition and Emotion. I present this lecture to third year Psychology students at the University of Roehampton, London.

The Structure of an Argument

How to sort good information from bad!

Scientific Method: Concepts Review and Students' Activity

Scientific Method: Concepts Review and Students' Activity

Apr 16 2017 | comment(s)

This  post is intended for students in general chemistry class.  

March For Science phfft! Marching for Science Literacy Would Be Better

March For Science phfft! Marching for Science Literacy Would Be Better

Apr 15 2017 | comment(s)

A so-called "March for Science" will occur April 22nd 2017.  I have half a mind to show up either wearing a sing extolling the climate change fighting virtues of nuclear power OR with a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide AND another petition banning all use of vaccines.  I'll bet I'd get at least 1 out of every 10 people at any such march to sign for those bans.
Do We Really Want a Technological Explosion?

Do We Really Want a Technological Explosion?

Apr 14 2017 | comment(s)

Often the term technology explosion is used to indicate the rapid growth of technology in areas such as information technology or biotechnology. Usually, the assumption is that innovation creates great new approaches and products that will improve our conditions. Often this advance is true and beneficial but do we really want technology advances to explode? The word explode is often associated with reactions that are out of control and usually cause significant damage. We often feel some technology out of our control when we are bombarded with new IT systems that promise efficiencies but often are incompatible with each other and shift the burden of the workflow.