Featured Articles

Essays On Emergence Part II

Essays On Emergence Part II

Oct 26 2012 | comment(s)

Last time we examined Robert Batterman’s idea that the concept of emergence can be made  more precise by the fact that emergent phenomena such as phase transitions can be described by models that include mathematical singularities (such as infinities). According to Batterman, the type of qualitative step that characterizes emergence is handled nicely by way of mathematical singularities, so that there is no need to invoke metaphysically suspect “higher organizing principles.” Still, emergence would remain a genuine case of ontological (not just epistemic) non-reducibility, thus contradicting fundamental reductionism.
Fomalhaut B Status As Planet Both Challenged And Reaffirmed

Fomalhaut B Status As Planet Both Challenged And Reaffirmed

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

Does the nearby star Fomalhaut host a massive exoplanet? It depends on who you ask. 

A new paper says that the planet, named Fomalhaut b, is a rare and possibly unique object that is completely shrouded by dust. Wasn't it already a planet?
First Human Heart Cell Model Developed Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

First Human Heart Cell Model Developed Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

Researchers have successfully created a human heart cell model of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), an inherited heart muscle disorder that puts carriers at high risk of developing life-threatening arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.
Why Europe’s Pleistocene Hippos Shrank To Pygmy Size

Why Europe’s Pleistocene Hippos Shrank To Pygmy Size

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

1.8 million years ago, giant German hippopotamuses wallowed on the banks of the Elbe.

Hippos were all over Europe then, along with other megafauna like woolly mammoths and giant cave bears.  What went wrong?  Palaeontologists blame global cooling during the Pleistocene Era, which may have forced Europe’s hippos to shrink to pygmy sizes before finally driving them to warmer climes.
Iron Curtain Political Prisoners Still Have Psychological Problems

Iron Curtain Political Prisoners Still Have Psychological Problems

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

Decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany, one third of political prisoners of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) still suffer from sleeping disorders, nightmares and irrational fear, say professor Andreas Maercker and PD Matthias Schützwohl, who have examined the post-traumatic consequences in former political prisoners over a period of fifteen years.
Beetle Air Conditioning, Silicon Boots, And A Ball Of Dung

Beetle Air Conditioning, Silicon Boots, And A Ball Of Dung

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

In the African savannah can reach 149° Fahrenheit in the middle of the day, which leads to burning sand and an obvious problem for anything that lives there,  including small insects that spend their lives on the surface of the sand. Some insects seek protection in the shade or climb up blades of grass to escape the worst of the heat.

But South African dung beetles have come up with a unique strategy to escape the heat of the sun; they climb on top of their rolled-up meal, which happens to be a ball of dung. These dung balls are a kind of air conditioning unit because the ball is made from the moist dung of a large(ish) mammal. When the moisture in the dung ball evaporates in the heat, the ball is cooled down. 
1878: Oldest American Recording Also Has World's First Blooper

1878: Oldest American Recording Also Has World's First Blooper

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

Want to hear the world's first blooper?

You can, along with the oldest recording of an American voice and the first-ever recording of a musical performance. It is now digital, not on tinfoil. The recording was originally made on a Thomas Edison-invented phonograph in St. Louis in 1878.

The recording opens with a 23-second cornet solo of an unidentified song, followed by a man's voice reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Old Mother Hubbard." The man laughs at two spots during the recording, including at the end, when he recites the wrong words in the second nursery rhyme. "Look at me; I don't know the song," he says.
Why Is There More Light In The Universe Than There Should Be? A New Hypothesis

Why Is There More Light In The Universe Than There Should Be? A New Hypothesis

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

When is a theory not a theory?  When no one can even agree on what the theory is and competing ones are disproved once a year. Astronomers disagree about why they see more light in the universe than should be seen; that is, why the infrared light they observe exceeds the amount of light emitted from known galaxies. 

When looking at the cosmos, astronomers have seen what are neither stars nor galaxies nor a uniform dark sky but mysterious, sandpaper-like smatterings of light, what UCLA professor of physics and astronomy Edward L. (Ned) Wright refers to as "fluctuations".
Green Walls: Vertical Gardens Flip Parks On Their Sides

Green Walls: Vertical Gardens Flip Parks On Their Sides

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

When visitors arrive at Edmonton International Airport in Alberta, Canada, they are greeted by a 1,440 square foot living wall; a “green wall” arranged like a modern art canvas with 8,000 plants encompassing 32 different species. “It is the largest living wall inside any building in the world,” says Patrick Poiraud, design consultant and principal with Green Over Grey, the designers behind the installation.

Do You Choose Organic Food Or Green Energy?

Do You Choose Organic Food Or Green Energy?

Oct 25 2012 | comment(s)

Which do you love more, organic food or green energy?  Because you may have to choose.

Oregon is the site of a conflict between food and energy, though it is a state that claims it loves both - but the people who love each primarily do so because it makes them money. You really can't love both anyway, because environmental activists are in a never-ending war against the bulk of society and its bad habits, and also in a war with each other.  They not only love Gaia more than you do, they love Gaia more than other environmentalists.
Reidus Hilli: New 100 Million-Year-Old Fish Species Discovered In Texas

Reidus Hilli: New 100 Million-Year-Old Fish Species Discovered In Texas

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

The coelacanth has one of the longest lineages, 400 million years, of any animal and is the closest living fish to all vertebrates alive on land. Now it has a new member.

Pieces of tiny fossil skull found in Fort Worth have been identified as 100 million-year-old coelacanth bones, according to paleontology graduate student John F. Graf of Southern Methodist University.  That places it in the the Cretaceous geologic period, which extended from 146 million years ago to 66 million years ago. 
Desulfobulbus: Filamentous Bacteria Are Living Power Cables

Desulfobulbus: Filamentous Bacteria Are Living Power Cables

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

Researchers have discovered bacteria that transmit electrons thousands of cell lengths away.

The Desulfobulbus bacterial cells, which are only a few thousandths of a millimeter long, are so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye. And yet, under the right circumstances, they form a multicellular filament that can transmit electrons across a distance as large as 1 centimeter as part of the filament's respiration and ingestion processes. They are living power cables.
The Cult of Gene-centrism

The Cult of Gene-centrism

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

 

An advocate for gene-centrism recently wrote that the concept is a reductive mechanism for the understanding of evolution.
The first part of that statement is correct; it is reductive, and is therefore lacking those qualities that are necessary for properly understanding a “big-picture” process such as evolution.

The second part of the statement is not correct. Gene-centrism did not develop as an explanation of evolution; it began as, and has remained a political movement within evolutionary biology, the goal of which is to destroy group selection as a credible evolutionary process.
In Search Of 'the Telepathy Center'

In Search Of 'the Telepathy Center'

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

Some believe in the power of telepathy. Some believe in the power of fMRI. And putting the two together led a team of experimenters from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, and the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation, Bangalore, India to perform :

“Probably the first fMRI study to analyse the neuroanatomical correlates of telepathy.”

Quantum Casino - Less Than Zero Chance

Quantum Casino - Less Than Zero Chance

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

Human thought has led to a variety of remarkable and profound insights. Many of these insights are well established and have been embraced by a significant portion of the global population.

The earth being round, the atomistic nature of matter, our unremarkable place in the universe, and us being a product of evolution, all being examples of such insights. Other insights, although unanimously embraced by experts, have a long way to go for a larger population to accept them. More than for any other subject, this holds for quantum physics. No other product of human thought is as profoundly mysterious as quantum theory.
Eugenics: Is Genetically Engineering Babies A Moral Obligation?

Eugenics: Is Genetically Engineering Babies A Moral Obligation?

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

Both eugenics and social Darwinism had their moments in their sun, the optimistic goal of progressive techno-elites 100 years ago who wanted to use science to make the world a better place.

Sounds terrific, right?  Isn't that what vaccines and genetically modified food do also? 

Indeed, but vaccines and GMOs are for all people and not against some, the way eugenics was.  The experience of eugenics may be why so many progressives, the group that embraced and mandated and enforced it as social policy, are so anti-science today; they don't trust science or themselves when science is under their control.
Why Don't We Know If There Are More Planets Around Alpha Centauri?

Why Don't We Know If There Are More Planets Around Alpha Centauri?

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth other than our own sun.  So one would think if it had planets, we would know by now, right?  Wrong, apparently.  Astronomers just announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet in Alpha Centauri, although it's closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun, so unlikely to have life.  However, there may actually be even more planets further out from the star!  So why are we only just now discovering planets in our nearest neighboring solar system, and why don't we know yet if there are more?
9 Gigapixel Image Shows 84 Million Stars In The Center Of The Milky Way

9 Gigapixel Image Shows 84 Million Stars In The Center Of The Milky Way

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

International astronomical photographers have created a catalog of over 84 million stars in the central parts of the Milky Way; 10X more stars than previous catalogs and a great leap forward in making some sense of our home galaxy. The image gives viewers an incredible, zoomable view of the central part of our galaxy. It is so large that, if printed with the resolution of a typical book, it would be 9 yards long and 7 yards high
New Study Lends Additional Support To Grandmother Hypothesis

New Study Lends Additional Support To Grandmother Hypothesis

Oct 24 2012 | comment(s)

Kids driving you crazy? Most parents don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call grandma when they need a hand in caring for their children. Grandparents are often an invaluable resource when it comes to childrearing, and can be a lifesaver for frazzled parents everywhere. 

A study led by Kristen Hawkes with mathematical biologist Peter Kim found that in a computer simulation of a population of chimpanzees the contribution of grandmothers in caring for infants and children increased the average lifespan by almost 25 years. Their findings ultimately support the ‘grandmother hypothesis’, which attempts to explain why humans survive long after their childbearing years have passed, a quality which is somewhat unique to humans.