Now on ScienceBlogs: The Galaxy's Biggest Valentine
My small attempt to celebrate science and to make it interesting and fun by giving jargon, confusion and elitism a solid beating with the stick of good writing.
Come and visit Ed Yong’s blog Not Exactly Rocket Science in its new home at Discover Blogs.
"One of the best sites for in-depth analysis of interesting scientific papers" - The Times
"A consistently illuminating home for long, thoughtful, and thorough explorations of science news" - National Association of Science Writers
"Ed Yong... is made of pure unobtanium and rides TWO Toruks." - Frank Swain
"Ed Yong is better than chocolate, fairy lights, and kittens chasing yarn. That is all." - Christine Ottery
Why I blog
An interview with me
The original site • Tell me about you: Part 1 Part 2
November 30, 2009
Category: Religion
A study that combines surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning has found that when Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.
Posted by Ed Yong at 3:30 PM • 81 Comments •
Category: Medicine & health
ADHD brains don't develop in fundamentally different ways to typical ones; they are just the result of a delay in the normal timetable for development. Now, Philip Shaw, Judith Rapaport and others from the National Institute of Mental Health have found new evidence to support the second theory. When some parts of the brain stick to their normal timetable for development, while others lag behind, ADHD is the result.
Posted by Ed Yong at 9:30 AM • 10 Comments •
November 28, 2009
Category: Birds
Ah, penguins. You just can't help but smile. These animals are found on Boulders Beach near Cape Town, where they come so close to the erected walkways that you could potentially reach out and grab one (if the mood...
Posted by Ed Yong at 12:06 PM • 3 Comments •
November 27, 2009
Category: Sharks
The hammerhead shark's distinctive head gives it excellent binocular vision. Even though its eyes are set widely apart, their fields of vision overlap to a greater degree than those of pointy-nosed sharks. The hammerhead can even see straight behind itself.
Posted by Ed Yong at 6:15 AM • 3 Comments •
November 26, 2009
Category: Personal
I have now written 600 posts for this blog (give or take a few - I think the "hearing with skin" story was 601). The next lot of 100 posts will start tomorrow but for the moment, a brief interlude...
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:37 AM • 35 Comments •
November 25, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
Our ears help us to hear but our skin helps too. By detecting small inaudible puffs of air created by sounds like "p" or "t", our skin can affect our perception.
Posted by Ed Yong at 1:00 PM • 12 Comments •
Category: Birds
Birds of prey, or raptors, may be familiar, but a new study reveals the varied techniques they use to kill their prey. Some attack with high-speed killing blows and others suffocate their prey to death in constricting fists. Some give their victims a merciful death by broken neck, but others eat their victims alive after slashing them open.
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:29 AM • 7 Comments •
November 24, 2009
Category: Fish
The male pipefish becomes pregnant by sheltering fertilised eggs in a pouch. But not all of his babies make it out alive - he absorbs some of them to get an extra boost of nutrients
Posted by Ed Yong at 7:00 PM • 7 Comments •
November 23, 2009
Category: Personal
Many thanks to the kind folks at PCMag for including me on their list of Top 50 blogs of 2009. However, they appear to have made a teensy little typo, where they've misspelled my name as "Patrick Jordan". Easy enough...
Posted by Ed Yong at 3:09 PM • 12 Comments •
Category: Race
People literally change the way they see a mixed-race politician, depending on whether the candidate represents their own political views. Liberal American students tend to think that lighter photos of Barack Obama are more typical of him, while conservatives think he's best represented by darker photos.
Posted by Ed Yong at 2:59 PM • 33 Comments •
Orac 02.13.2012
ERV 11.26.2011
Orac 01.26.2012
PZ Myers 02.02.2012
Jason Rosenhouse 02.12.2012
