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Cradle Of Manufacturing? World's Oldest Stone Tools Discovered In Kenya

Cradle Of Manufacturing? World's Oldest Stone Tools Discovered In Kenya

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Scientists have found stone tools dating back 3.3 million years, long before the advent of modern humans, and by far the oldest such artifacts yet discovered.

The tools, whose makers may or may not have been some sort of human ancestor, push the known date of such tools back by 700,000 years and may challenge the notion that our own most direct ancestors were the first to create new technology.

The discovery is the first evidence that an even earlier group of proto-humans may have had the thinking abilities needed to figure out how to make sharp-edged tools. The stone tools mark "a new beginning to the known archaeological record," say the authors of a new paper about the discovery. 
Tropospheric Hot Spot Predicted In Global Warming Models Detected

Tropospheric Hot Spot Predicted In Global Warming Models Detected

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Researchers have confirmed strong warming in the upper troposphere, known colloquially as the tropospheric hotspot, long expected as part of the global warming hypothesis. 

Though the tropospheric hotspot appears in many global climate models, the inability to detect it has been used to suggest climate change is not occurring as a result of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. 

How CRISPR Became A Gene-Editing Sensation

How CRISPR Became A Gene-Editing Sensation

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Just a few years ago, molecular biologists hoping to alter the genome of their favorite organisms faced an arduous task and likely weeks of genetic tinkering.

Today, those scientists can quickly destroy or edit a gene with a new technology called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat)/Cas9.

CRISPRs were interesting mainly to microbiologists until 2012 when a team figured out they could combine crRNA and tracrRNA into a single, artificial guide RNA, which they could then use to aim the DNA-slicing enzyme at a sequence of their choosing.

The implications were thrilling...

Amber Dance at PNAS has the history.
Not All Genetic Scientists Are Against GMO Labeling

Not All Genetic Scientists Are Against GMO Labeling

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Some Americans may regard the half of U.S. science that works in academia as overtly partisan due to a lack of political diversity, but it doesn't affect science issues. Though the anti-vaccine, anti-GMO and anti-energy movements are overwhelmingly populated by the left, scientists readily attack those positions because evidence matters most to American scientists.

Not so much in Europe. American academia may have a political litmus test for getting a faculty job but that doesn't bleed over into science research. In much of Europe you are more likely to need to check off all of the correct cultural boxes to get a job in the first place. And you had better not deviate from the plan.
Sense Of Self: Whether You Place It In The Brain Or Heart Says A Lot About You

Sense Of Self: Whether You Place It In The Brain Or Heart Says A Lot About You

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

If you think of your 'sense of self', do you locate it in your heart or your brain? 

It can tell people a lot about your decision-making process. Obviously, advertising is one area.  Messages targeted at people with independent self-construals (your head tells you buying this car is the right decision because it has good value) will work better for those people than messages targeted at people with interdependent self-construals (Your heart tells you buying this car is the right decision because it has the highest safety ratings for families.) 
Wisconsin Republicans Want To Restrict Food Stamp Purchases To Essentials

Wisconsin Republicans Want To Restrict Food Stamp Purchases To Essentials

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

It's hard to imagine that people on food stamps are buying lobsters and crab but Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin want to make sure it happens a lot less: a new bill would require that two thirds of food be from a restricted list like beef, pork, poultry, potatoes, dairy products and foodstuffs available under the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. 
Google maps racist results target not only African Americans but Italians, Jewish, Polish, and Arab as well.

Google maps racist results target not only African Americans but Italians, Jewish, Polish, and Arab as well.

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Google Maps searches for the words "Nigger House" will bring up a map pin pointing the white house and the underground railroad museum in Chicago.  Searches for racial and ethnic slurs on other groups produce MORE questionable results.   In fact the most targeted group is your generic "white" American.

Google says sorry over racist Google Maps White House search results. Searches using a racist slur return results pinpointing the White House in Washington DC (UK Guardian). 
People Who Don't Subscribe To Moral Relativism Support Harsher Criminal Punishments

People Who Don't Subscribe To Moral Relativism Support Harsher Criminal Punishments

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Our belief in evil influences our feelings about capital punishment, according to Donald Saucier, associate professor of psychology at Kansas State University and Russell Webster at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

They drew their conclusion after about 200 participants were given a summary of a case in which a murderer confessed to his crime. They then asked each participant about his or her support for different types of sentences, such as jail time with community service, jail time with the opportunity for parole, jail time without the possibility for parole and other options.

Comet Wild 2 Dust And The Birth Of The Solar System

Comet Wild 2 Dust And The Birth Of The Solar System

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Our solar system started as a disk of microscopic dust, gas, and ice around the young Sun and the amazing diversity of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets came from this primitive dust. 

NASA's Stardust mission has returned to Earth with samples of comet Wild 2, a comet that originated outside the orbit of Neptune and was subsequently kicked closer to Earth's orbit in 1974 when Jupiter's gravity altered Wild 2's orbit. 

Progressive Elites Aren't Just Against Food Science, They're Against Poor People

Progressive Elites Aren't Just Against Food Science, They're Against Poor People

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Norm Borlaug, “Father of the Green Revolution,” got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work advocating science to feed the poor. Because of his work, a strain of “miracle rice” 10 times more productive than its predecessors was in fields across Asia, third world grain production has tripled since the 1960s, and India is now a major rice exporter. 

Borlaug was the prototype for a science-based environmentalist but today, environmentalism is instead a Political Action Committee and their positions have nothing to do with food or helping the poor, and are instead progressive self-identification and creating a First World idyll certain to doom the developing world.
Why Does The Public Worry About GM Foods But Embrace Biotech Medicine?

Why Does The Public Worry About GM Foods But Embrace Biotech Medicine?

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Can scientists learn from listening to public reaction to the products they develop? And should they?

As a philosopher by training (and as a science journalist by profession) I am delving into ethical questions surrounding genetic modification. My reflections were triggered by an article by my friend Alle Bruggink, a professor in industrial chemistry at the University of Nijmegen in The Netherlands. He explored why the public remains suspicious about biotechnology – a surprise to many biotechnological researchers.

S!!t literally $82,000 below her Pay Grade: Help Grundy Earn Appropriately

S!!t literally $82,000 below her Pay Grade: Help Grundy Earn Appropriately

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

An open letter to the office of the president of Boston University
 Dear Sirs!
Resilient: Tortoise Missing Since 1982 Found When Family Cleans House

Resilient: Tortoise Missing Since 1982 Found When Family Cleans House

May 20 2015 | comment(s)

Back in 1982, the Almeida Family was saddened to learn that their beloved pet, Manuela, a young red-footed tortoise, had gone missing.

Their house was under renovation at the time, so the family just assumed that the slow-moving animal had slipped out through a gate left open by the construction crew -- disappearing into the forest near their home in Realengo, Brazil.

The truth was far more odd. 

Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
New Photocathode With Artificial Photosynthesis Potential

New Photocathode With Artificial Photosynthesis Potential

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

Many of us are familiar with electrolytic splitting of water from their school days: if you hold two electrodes into an aqueous electrolyte and apply a sufficient voltage, gas bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen are formed. If this voltage is generated by sunlight in a solar cell, then you could store solar energy by generating hydrogen gas.This is because hydrogen is a versatile medium of storing and using "chemical energy".

Leprosy May Have Spread To Britain From Scandinavia

Leprosy May Have Spread To Britain From Scandinavia

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

An international team, including archaeologists from the University of Southampton, has found evidence suggesting leprosy may have spread to Britain from Scandinavia.

The team, led by the University of Leiden, and including researchers from Historic England and the universities of Southampton, Birmingham, Surrey, and Swansea, examined a 1500 year old male skeleton, excavated at Great Chesterford in Essex, England during the 1950s.

The bones of the man, probably in his 20s, show changes consistent with leprosy, such as narrowing of the toe bones and damage to the joints, suggesting a very early British case. Modern scientific techniques applied by the researchers have now confirmed the man did suffer from the disease and that he may have come from southern Scandinavia.

No, We're Not Being Pickled In Deadly Cell Phone Radiation

No, We're Not Being Pickled In Deadly Cell Phone Radiation

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

Tomorrow at TedX Sydney’s Opera House event, high-profile neurosurgeon Charlie Teo will talk about brain cancer.

Last Saturday Teo was on Channel 9’s Sunrise program talking about the often malignant cancer that in 2012 killed 1,241 Australians.

During the program he said:

Unfortunately the jury is still out on whether mobile phones can lead to brain cancer, but studies suggest it’s so.

Clinical Trial Demonstrates Non-Invasive Expulsion Of Kidney Stones

Clinical Trial Demonstrates Non-Invasive Expulsion Of Kidney Stones

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

At the 2015 American Urological Association annual meeting in New Orleans, Dr. Jonathan Harper will present the findings of an FDA-registered "first in humans" trial to non-surgically propel and expel kidney stones from the body.

Harper and colleagues in the Department of Urology and Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington have invented a new way to facilitate kidney stone passage or dislodge large obstructing stones, using ultrasound.

 Ultrasound technologies have been successfully used for many years on the International Space Station (ISS), primarily to perform imaging of the astronauts' eyes, bones, and internal organs.
Lemur Females Rule - Because They Have Male Hormones?

Lemur Females Rule - Because They Have Male Hormones?

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

Males rule in most of the animal world. But when it comes to conventional gender roles, lemurs -- distant primate cousins of ours -- buck the trend. Lemur girls behave more like boys, thanks to a little testosterone.

Companies Have A Moral Obligation To Present The Truth About GMOs

Companies Have A Moral Obligation To Present The Truth About GMOs

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

Everyone recognizes that the public needs honest answers about genetically-modified foods - oddly corporations are the ones least likely to defend science. Not only will they not defend them, they go even farther and won't do anything more than pay generic public relations firms after the latest bit of fear and doubt hits the media.
Toward Successful Uterus Transplantation To Restore Fertility

Toward Successful Uterus Transplantation To Restore Fertility

May 19 2015 | comment(s)

Swedish clinicians recently reported the first live birth after uterus transplantation, which was followed by two more uneventful births and another pregnancy that is near term.

In a new Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica commentary, one of the leaders behind these successes, Professor Mats Brannström, provides insights into how the Swedish uterus transplant project was initiated and its long research journey that spans over more than a decade. The first clinical uterus transplantation trial, which enrolled nine women, was initiated in early 2013 and is currently ongoing.

The preliminary results of the trial offer hope for women who lack a uterus--either from birth or due to a hysterectomy--or whose uterus is not functional.