Creationism, the rejection of the scientific basis of evolutionary theory, is experiencing a resurgence among Europeans. The Department of Biology and Didactics of Biology at the TU Dortmund has organized an international conference addressing the issue, titled “Attitude and Knowledge concerning Evolution and Science in Europe (AKESE)”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education.
On February 20th, researchers from different scientific backgrounds and seven European countries will meet at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology in Dortmund to discuss the scientific significance of evolutionary theory, its lack of social acceptance and the negative attitude towards science that rejection of evolution entails.
It would seem that in a bad economy, tax cuts make the most sense. Letting people keep their money instead of letting the government spend money to collect taxes, spend money to institute government programs and then pay government employees to write checks is believed to lead to a great deal of waste.
How many Cardinals can fit on the head of a pin? Still unknown, but Stanford physicists can at least tell us how many letters formed by quantum electron waves can fit on the surface of a sliver of copper - two; as in "S" and "U." That's for 'Stanford' and 'University' if you haven't caught on and Cardinals are their ... oh, never mind, if you didn't already get it you stopped reading by now.
So how small is that? The letters in the words are assembled from subatomic sized bits as small as 0.3 nanometers, or roughly one third of a billionth of a meter. Bonus: the wave patterns even project a tiny hologram of the data, which can be viewed with a powerful microscope.
Biology exists in a physical world and cancer researchers are increasingly looking to include concepts of physics and mathematics in their efforts to understand how cancer develops -- and how to stop it.
Traditional cancer biology involves taking a sample of cells and holding them in time so they can be studied. Then the researchers look at that slice of cells to understand what signals and pathways are involved. But that doesn't capture the full picture, says Sofia Merajver, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the Breast Oncology Program at the University of Michigan Health System Comprehensive Cancer Center.
When it comes to assessing the romantic playing field -- who might be interested in whom -- men and women were shown to be equally good at gauging men's interest during an Indiana University study involving speed dating -- and equally bad at judging women's interest.
Researchers expected women to have a leg up in judging romantic interest, because theoretically they have more to lose from a bad relationship, but no such edge was found.
In almost every diet book you read, they tell you to never get hungry. You will binge if you do, they all say, because of temptation and that gnawing in your stomach. Yet all those snacks and meals have corresponded to a ballooning obesity problem which gets instead blamed on trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, salt - you name it.
It may be that all those self-help books and catering to mental weakness has caused a drop in self-control, says psychological theory. If you want to lose weight, keep a house full of chocolate.