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5 ways to hack the planet

13.09.2013 17:23
It's been a week of doom as far as the public face of science is concerned. On Tuesday we had Sir David Attenborough's depressing prognostications that the future is going to be worse for our children and their children (especially if we insist on producing more children in the first place). Now...

Gears evolved in nature long before humans 'invented' them

13.09.2013 17:05
A gear system similar to those used on bicycles has been found in insects, proving that nature developed cogs long before humans. The juvenile Issus - a plant-hopping insect found in gardens across Europe - has hind leg joints with curved, cog- like strips of opposing "teeth" that inter-mesh,...

Ugly animals rule, cute is creepy

13.09.2013 17:03
What makes an animal cute? Why would we humans decide en masse that some non-humans are more aesthetically pleasing than others? An easy answer would be that we like things that are cute and fluffy. Even primates show a preference for softer, more comforting contact , even opting for that over...

In blockaded Gaza, making gas masks with jars and paper towels

13.09.2013 16:40
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — When Gaza resident Nafez Nayef first heard that the United States might attack Syria — which Gazans fear will prompt a retaliatory chemical attack against neighboring Israel — he says he knew he had to get gas masks for his family right away. But because both Israel and...

Five diseases that are, thankfully, consigned to the past

06.09.2013 18:14
The news that Richard III suffered from roundworm reminds us how grateful we should be for the advances of modern sanitation and medicine. In both Richard's era and long after, rich and poor were horribly vulnerable to diseases that either killed you efficiently or made you wish you were dead. 1....

Conspiracy theories: the science behind belief in secret plots

06.09.2013 18:09
With constant revelations about government surveillance and possible impending war , this must be a fertile time for conspiracy theories. You know when you put the bins out and you realise there's a bag in the corner that you'd forgotten about and you pick it up but it's so old it splits and you...

Brain-training video games may help reverse cognitive decline in old age

06.09.2013 18:04
Playing brain-training video games may help reverse the natural decline in cognitive abilities among older people, according to scientists. They found that 60-year-olds who played a custom-designed video game for 12 hours over the course of a month improved their multitasking abilities to...

What's the point of sleep?

06.09.2013 18:03
Almost as much as eating food or tormenting the local wildlife, my cats love to sleep. Which is probably why I get on so well with them, because I'm also quite partial to a good nap. The trouble with sleep is that no one's quite sure why we actually do it. But a new paper published in the Journal...

Bacteria from slim people could help treat obesity, study finds

06.09.2013 17:56
Bugs that lurk in the guts of slim people could be turned into radical new therapies to treat obesity, according to a new study. The claim follows a series of experiments which found that the different populations of bacteria that live in lean and overweight people caused mice to lose or...

Numerotopy: How quantities are mapped onto the brain

06.09.2013 17:51
Different sites on the brain’s surface respond maximally to different numbers of visually-presented items. Image: Ben M. Harvey, Utrectht University Earlier this week I posted my book chapter about topographic mapping , or how sights, sounds and touch are mapped onto different parts of the brain's...
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