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300,000 Books Published Before 1800 Made Available Online

300,000 Books Published Before 1800 Made Available Online

Mar 20 2012 | comment(s)

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

A Toy Model For Q<sub>8</sub>

A Toy Model For Q<sub>8</sub>

Mar 20 2012 | comment(s)

The idea for this blog was dead simple. In my second blog at Science 2.0, "Quaternions for a Third Grader",  I showed of my clay and pipe cleaner model of quaternion multiplication. A few months ago, David Halliday and I started talking about the finite group Q8, which over the real numbers becomes the quaternions. David pointed out my tetrahedron was half the cube it needed to be to represent Q8. That was the idea for the blog: make a cube to represent that finite group.
Einstein's Love Letters And More Go Online

Einstein's Love Letters And More Go Online

Mar 20 2012 | comment(s)

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns Albert Einstein's papers, is pulling never-before seen items from its climate-controlled safe, photographing them in high resolution and posting them on the Internet.

Since 2003, 900 manuscript images have been posted online but a grant from the Polonsky Foundation UK, which previously helped digitize Isaac Newton’s papers, is going to make all 80,000 items available.

Want to read his love letters?  See a handwritten explanation of his theory of relativity and E=MC^2? His thoughts on fellow Jews even before Hitler rose to power?  It's all there. They also dispel another urban legend - that he did poorly in school - by publishing his grades.
Coregasm Revisited: Sex At The Gym That Won't Get You Divorced

Coregasm Revisited: Sex At The Gym That Won't Get You Divorced

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

A study by Indiana University researchers on "coregasm" says it has confirmed anecdotal evidence that exercise can lead to female orgasms.

Good news for health clubs everywhere? Maybe.  But it's been darn hard to pin down reliable data on it.  It makes the media rounds - and of course, this site - every few years.
Mathematics For Amphibians

Mathematics For Amphibians

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)


Traditional medicines have deep roots in culture: Cultural heritage helps in conservation of plants also.

Traditional medicines have deep roots in culture: Cultural heritage helps in conservation of plants also.

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

There are over 400 different tribal and other ethnic groups in India. The tribals constitute about 7.5 per cent of Indian population (Gupta, 1970). Apart from the tribal groups, many other forest dwellers and rural people also possess unique knowledge about plants. Tree worship played an important role in the religious history of India. The plants form the oldest association with human dwelling and ancient Indian cultures flourished in the midst of dense forests. They are offered in worship to several deities and different species are associated with different Gods. Some important plants like Ocimum sanctum L. (Tulsi), Aegle marmelos L. (Bel) and Musa sapientum L.
Human Brain and Mind 2: More Neuroplasticity

Human Brain and Mind 2: More Neuroplasticity

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

For many years, it was thought that new brain cells could not develop in adulthood and that the connections between nerves were fairly static after childhood.
Progress In Fake Finger Detection

Progress In Fake Finger Detection

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

It may have been predictable, but shortly after the introduction of automated fingerprint recognition systems came the invention of fake fingers.

As this research paper from May 2009 explains, fake fingers made from gelatine soon appeared, quickly followed by Play-Doh™. The authors review the “…state-of-the-art of fake finger materials and disclose the power of a, let’s say, brand new material in this field: Glycerin.“
The Move I Did Not Find

The Move I Did Not Find

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

There is nothing like computer-assisted post-mortem analysis of your chess games to get you back to reality about the potential of your brain: the computer sees so much more than you do, and so much quicker, that you can't help throwing your hands up sometimes.
Real-Life Viking Version Of An American Tail?

Real-Life Viking Version Of An American Tail?

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

Mus musculus, the common mouse, can happily live wherever there are humans. When populations of humans migrate the mice often travel with them and apparently that has long been the case. New research used evolutionary techniques on modern day and ancestral mouse mitochondrial DNA to show that the timeline of mouse colonization even matches that of the Viking invasions.

During the Viking age (late 8th to mid 10th century) Vikings from Norway established colonies across Scotland, the Scottish islands, Ireland, and Isle of Man. They also explored the north Atlantic, settling in the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Newfoundland and Greenland. They intentionally brought horses, sheep, goats and chickens but also unknowingly carried pest species, including mice. 
Common Ground For Libertarians And Science

Common Ground For Libertarians And Science

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

A number of conservatives hold strange anti-science positions and the same number of progressives do.  The non-social-authoritarians of the political spectrum, mostly those with that liber root word, mostly only deny science when it really bugs them.

No wonder that liberal science academics seem to like libertarian Ron Paul.  Paul — and libertarian philosophy in general — tackles government policy the same way a researcher tackles an experiment.
How To Get People On Food Stamps To Buy More Organic Food

How To Get People On Food Stamps To Buy More Organic Food

Mar 19 2012 | comment(s)

Food stamps are not food stamps now, they are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits - and record numbers of Americans are receiving them.
Irrigation - The Big Carbon Elephant In The Global Warming Room

Irrigation - The Big Carbon Elephant In The Global Warming Room

Mar 17 2012 | comment(s)

Rice and wheat take a lot of water to grow and no one eats more than China.  That also means no one contributes more to global warming from irrigation than China - a whopping 30 million tons of CO2 per year just from the pumping systems China uses.

Like everywhere, water usage has gone up in China with the surge in population. Groundwater used for crop irrigation in China has grown from 10 billion cubic meters in 1950 to more than 100 billion today. The pumping systems which support this immense irrigation network annually produce 33.1 MtCO2e (33.1 mega tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent), claims a new study.
This Is The Song That Never Ends: Facilitated Communication

This Is The Song That Never Ends: Facilitated Communication

Mar 17 2012 | comment(s)

Yesterday, I wrote a post about how facebook is a rapid, easy way to spread misinformation and pseudoscience, and the difficulties in figuring out how to respond to pseudoscience when you see it. I wasn't specific about what triggered it, but I reached out to a few who shared the link and provided additional information, I placed a comment where I was invited to do so, and I flooded my facebook wall with information about facilitated communication.
The Myth Of The Green Young Person

The Myth Of The Green Young Person

Mar 17 2012 | comment(s)

Young people have to be greener, right?  That crying Indian commercial(1) was 40 years ago, we have to have made progress in pollution by now.

Well, we have.  But it's not because of young people. Young people are not more likely to be 'green' than their elders, they are less - in defiance of popular perception - just like right wing people conserve energy just as much as the left, despite the perception that they care less about conservation.
First Patient Enrolled Into European Registry For Deep Brain Stimulation In Patients With Refractory Epilepsy

First Patient Enrolled Into European Registry For Deep Brain Stimulation In Patients With Refractory Epilepsy

Mar 17 2012 | comment(s)

Too Good To Be True: Facebook As A Medium To Spread Pseudoscience

Too Good To Be True: Facebook As A Medium To Spread Pseudoscience

Mar 16 2012 | comment(s)

We engage in wishful thinking all the time. Infomercials continue to exist because people continue to buy the products. Diet pills fly off the shelves because we want an easy fix. The HCG diet is popular because, of course, the weight falls off when you restrict your calories to 500 a day--drops be damned.
The Microbe “Brain” – Sensory, Neuronal, Attributes of Microbes

The Microbe “Brain” – Sensory, Neuronal, Attributes of Microbes

Mar 16 2012 | comment(s)

The brain receives a variety of sensory information, then synthesizes and analyzes the data by sending it into various centers and loops.  It then determines a course of action and communicates with others.

The microbe seems to do much of this without neurons and a brain.  Individual microbes solve complex problems, such as locating food, evading predators, and communicating for complex group activity.   Microbes carry out these functions using at least six capacities that we have traditionally attributed only to brains:

Snoring: Researchers Measure How Annoying It Is

Snoring: Researchers Measure How Annoying It Is

Mar 16 2012 | comment(s)

“There exists no gold standard for the measurement of snoring.”