As silly as it may look, I am going to start this post by publishing for the third time in a row the same figure. That is because I want to keep the promise I made earlier that I would explain in terms as simple as possible (although not simpler) the details hidden behind the coloured curves and functions pictured there. I will also take this chance to come down a little from the level of technicality of the recent posts: after all, this blog is supposedly for everybody, and not just for Ph.D. students and recipients.

Neanderthals were stoutly-built and human-like and lived at the same time and in the same areas as some modern humans.  But they went extinct.

Anthropologists have tried to solve the mystery of Neanderthal's fate since the first fossils were discovered in the small valley of the river Düssel called Neandertal, about 7 miles east of Düsseldorf in Germany.

Speculation is they they inter-bred with modern humans or failed to compete for food or resources  or perhaps were even hunted to extinction by humans.

How evolution can bridge the gap between two discrete physiological states is a question that puzzles biologists and therefore delights critics.

Most evolutionary changes happen in tiny increments; an elephant grows a little larger, a giraffe's neck a little longer and if those tiny changes prove advantageous there is a better chance of passing them to the next generation, which might then add its own mutations until you may end up with a huge pachyderm or the stretched neck of a giraffe.

But when it comes to traits like the number of wings on an insect or limbs on a primate there is no apparent middle ground. How are these sorts of large evolutionary leaps made?

Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of a massive object like a star can curve space and time, has been successfully used to predict the bending of starlight by the sun, small shifts in the orbit of the planet Mercury and the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

The Voynich Manuscript : An Enigma, Part #3


The Voynich manuscript, Beinebecke Library's MS 408 is a handwritten parchment codex of about 240 pages measuring 225 x 160 mm.   The manuscript is in an unreadable script.  Most of its pages are illustrated.  For nearly 100 years, not one person or group has managed to decode even a single word of it.

According to a recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation, 27 percent of Americans say economic concerns are keeping them awake at night.

But it may not be just stress.  According to the poll, 47 percent of the sleepless are very likely to use caffeinated beverages like coffee, tea and sodas during the day to compensate for their sleepiness and the use of artificial stimulants and insomnia are correlated. The majority of people who have difficulty sleeping report using those substances. 

“Stress and anxiety can definitely impact sleep,” says Sunil Mathews, M.D., medical director of the Sleep Center at Baylor Medical Center at Irving. “And unfortunately, insomnia can turn into a vicious cycle.”

It seems people still use the intelligence quotient (IQ) test even though minorities in America claim there is cultural bias that invalidates it as a measure of intelligence.

Researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health have gone even further than cultural bias; they say prenatal exposure to environmental pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can affect a child's IQ, according to their study of black and hispanic women living in New York City.

PAHs are chemicals released into the air from the burning of coal, diesel, oil and gas, or other organic substances such as tobacco. In urban areas motor vehicles are a major source of PAHs.

A study by the University of Barcelona (UB) has analysed which facial features our brain examines to identify faces. Our brain adapts in order to obtain the maximum amount of information possible from each face and according to the study the key data for identification come from, in the first place, the eyes and then the shape of the mouth and nose.

British young men aren't regarded as all that even-tempered in the best of circumstances; England, Wales and Scotland are the top three most violent developed countries.   Among those, young men who stay at home with their parents are more violent than those who live independently, according to new research at Queen Mary, University of London.

The new study indicates that men still living at home in their early twenties have fewer responsibilities and more disposable income ... and they spend it on alcohol.  These young men make up only 4 percent of the UK's male population but they are responsible for 16 percent of all violent injuries in the last five years.