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The Chicxulub Meteorite Killed The Dinosaurs But Made Forests Great

The Chicxulub Meteorite Killed The Dinosaurs But Made Forests Great

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

66 million years ago, a 10 km diameter meteorite hit the Yucatan peninsula with the force of 100 teratons of TNT. It left a crater more than 150 km across and the resulting mega tsunami, wildfires, global earthquakes and volcanism are believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and made way for the rise of the mammals.

Epigenetic Drugs?

Epigenetic Drugs?

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

We inherit certain traits that are predetermined but the field of epigenetics postulates that we might be able to change genes play by taking certain drugs or changing diets.  

Artworks Are People Too?

Artworks Are People Too?

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

Not all objects are equal in our minds. A Picasso sculpture is not the same way as a hammer, no matter how fancy the hammer. 

The reason? We see the Picasso more as a person than an object, according to a new paper from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. And in some cases, we make distinctions between artworks — say, an exact replica of a piece created by the artist, versus one created by a different artist.

Art, in other words, is an extension of the creator, write Professor Daniel M. Bartels of Chicago Booth, and Professor George E. Newman and Rosanna K. Smith, a doctoral student, both of Yale University School of Management.

Social Motives And Social Networks Close The Science Gap

Social Motives And Social Networks Close The Science Gap

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

America leads the world in adult science literacy, science output and social media. That means broad social networks.

And it means, unless some field of science is your particular hot-button issue, the US is doing better in science acceptance than every other country, and spending time and money doing awareness is not really helping much.

California: Prop 65 Is Coming For Your Coffee

California: Prop 65 Is Coming For Your Coffee

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

Proposition 65, which mandates warning labels on just about every product in every store in the state, insures that Californians have no clue what actually can be harmful or not. What doesn't 'cause cancer' if an epidemiologist can torture data long enough that it confesses?
Emotion Recognition Software

Emotion Recognition Software

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

Facial recognition software works pretty well. It measures various parameters, such as the distance between the person's eyes, the height from lip to top of their nose and various other metrics and then compares it with photos of people in a database.

Why not create emotion recognition software that can use its own custom parameters? 

Dev Drume Agrawal, Shiv Ram Dubey and Anand Singh Jalal of the GLA University, in Mathura suggest in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics
has taken a three-phase approach to a software emotion detector.

It's Flagella Against The Cantilever For The Fate Of Bacteria

It's Flagella Against The Cantilever For The Fate Of Bacteria

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

A team of researchers has developed a new model to study the motion patterns of bacteria in real time and to determine how these motions relate to communication within a bacterial colony.

The researchers chemically attached colonies of Escherichia coli bacteria to a microcantilever – a microscopic beam anchored at one end, similar to a diving board – thus coupling its motion to that of the bacteria. As the cantilever itself isn't doesn't generate any vibrations, or 'noise,' this allowed the researchers to monitor the colony's reactions to various stimuli in real time.

Wild Mushrooms: You May Eat Something Even Science Doesn't Know About

Wild Mushrooms: You May Eat Something Even Science Doesn't Know About

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

For lovers of wild foods, autumn means things like mushrooms and fungi of dizzying variety.

Intrepid treasure hunters scour the woods in search of delectable wild mushrooms and their not-quite-meat, not-quite-vegetable qualities.

A bonus: If you find some, you may be eating something not even known to science.

The Fungi Kingdom is enormously diverse and completely under-documented. Species are tough to know, and that is without counting the billions that have gone extinct without us ever knowing about them, but of the 10 million species likely out there, only about 100,000 have been described.

Wearable Computing And Privacy Invasions You Might Want To Think About Now

Wearable Computing And Privacy Invasions You Might Want To Think About Now

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)


You lookin’ at me?Gareth Fuller/PA

By Tom Foulsham, University of Essex

Are you being recorded? Thanks to the ubiquity of CCTV and camera phones, the answer is more than ever before likely to be “Yes”. Add to this the growth of wearable technology such as Google Glass and people are increasingly exposed to devices that can monitor and record them, whether they realize it or not.

Genetically Modified Kamikaze Mosquitoes Take Out Diseases

Genetically Modified Kamikaze Mosquitoes Take Out Diseases

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

By Marsha Lewis, Inside Science

(Inside Science TV) – One of the deadliest forces on earth is the humble mosquito. Mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, chikungunya, yellow fever and West Nile virus infect more than 350 million people and kill another 1 million people every year.

Now, scientists in Florida hope to wipe out some of these deadly diseases by genetically modifying their winged carriers.

“Mosquitoes are probably the most dangerous animal in the world. More people are killed by them [than] by anything else," said Michael Doyle, an entomologist at the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District in Key West, Florida.

Pseudouridine: RNA Modifications In Some Unexpected Places

Pseudouridine: RNA Modifications In Some Unexpected Places

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

That DNA makes RNA which makes protein is a simplified explanation molecular biologists use to explain for how genetic information is deciphered and translated in living organisms.

The process is more complicated than the schema first articulated nearly 60 years ago by Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA's double-helix structure. Now it is known that there are multiple types of RNA, three of which—messenger RNA (mRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), and ribosomal RNA (rRNA)—are essential for proper protein production. Moreover, RNAs that are synthesized during the process known as transcription often undergo subsequent changes, which are referred to as "post-transcriptional modifications."

ATLAS Higgs Challenge Results

ATLAS Higgs Challenge Results

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

After four months of frenzy by over 1500 teams, the very successful Higgs Challenge launched by the ATLAS collaboration ended yesterday, and the "private leaderboard" with the final standings has been revealed. You can see the top 20 scorers below.


Rapidly Evolving Lizards Show How Some Creatures Can Adapt To Beat Climate Change

Rapidly Evolving Lizards Show How Some Creatures Can Adapt To Beat Climate Change

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)


Can the brown anole lizard outrun climate change? Credit: Ianaré Sévi, CC BY

By Amanda Bates, University of Southampton

Radical Rethink: Sugars Are The Only Cause Of Tooth Decay

Radical Rethink: Sugars Are The Only Cause Of Tooth Decay

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

If we get sugars down to 3% of total energy intake, it may put dentists out of business, according to a paper in BMC Public Health which analyzed the effect of sugars on tooth decay and found that sugars are the only cause of tooth decay in children and adults.

Free sugars are defined by the World Health Organisation Nutrition Guidance Advisory Group as "Free sugars include monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates." 

Being Too Analytical Could Push Ethics Out The Door

Being Too Analytical Could Push Ethics Out The Door

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

Calculating the pros and cons is a time-honored method for making analytical decisions but focusing too much on numberscalculations, especially those involving money, can lead to negative consequences, including social and moral transgressions, says a new paper.

Based on several experiments, researchers concluded that people in a "calculative mindset" as a result of number-crunching are more likely to analyze non-numerical problems mathematically and not take into account social, moral or interpersonal factors.

Chen-Bo Zhong. Credit: Rotman School

Seeking An Easy Win On Carbon Emissions? Cut Global Trade

Seeking An Easy Win On Carbon Emissions? Cut Global Trade

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)


Is this really necessary? Credit: EPA

By John Weeks, SOAS, University of London

The Obama administration has proposed several ad hoc multi-country economic agreements, and in doing so has abandoned de facto the World Trade Organization (WTO) as insufficiently malleable to its interests. The two most important of these are the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the more recent Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Here's To Wine, Chocolate And A Long Healthy Life

Here's To Wine, Chocolate And A Long Healthy Life

Sep 16 2014 | comment(s)

Good nose. Credit:  Lowjumpingfrog, CC BY

By Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, University of Liverpool

WelO5: New Halogenation Enzyme Discovered

WelO5: New Halogenation Enzyme Discovered

Sep 15 2014 | comment(s)

Molecules containing carbon-halogen bonds are produced naturally across all kingdoms of life and constitute a large family of natural products with a broad range of biological activities. 

The presence of halogen substituents in many bioactive compounds has a profound influence on their molecular properties and a goal of chemical science has been to find the late-stage, site-specific incorporation of a halogen atom into a complex natural product by replacing an sp³ C-H bond (one of the most inert chemical bonds known in an organic compound) with a C-X bond (X=halogen).

There has been no reliable synthetic or biological method known to be able to achieve this type of transformation but in Nature Chemical Biology

Concussion: The 'Hidden Injury' In Sports

Concussion: The 'Hidden Injury' In Sports

Sep 15 2014 | comment(s)

In 2010, McGill Redmen receiver Charles-Antoine Sinotte suffered a concussion during his last home game. "It was like nothing I had experienced before," recalls Sinotte. "I felt like I was out of my body."

Although he received medical attention and missed the rest of the game, he admits he downplayed his symptoms in order to play in the next game – his last before leaving McGill.