December 8, 2008
We tend to think of race as a fixed part of our identity, a trait that is set at the moment of conception and stays unchanged for our entire lives. But a new study shows just how fluid our conceptions of race can be.
By following a group of people over almost two decades, Andrew Penner and Aliya…
December 6, 2008
And by roar, I mean babble for a straight hour. A couple of weeks ago, I did a Bloggingheads chat with fellow Scienceblogger, Abbie Smith (she of ERV fame). See video below to hear us chat about science communication, journalism, HIV research, being bloggers and, in a fantastic non-sequitur that…
December 6, 2008
Since the time when humans and chimps evolved from our common ancestor, our species appears to have come on by leaps and bounds. We walk on two legs, we have spoken language and while there is no doubt that chimps are intelligent, there is even less doubt that our brainpower outclasses theirs.…
December 5, 2008
I don't usually do memes, but I couldn't resist this one and it gives me a chance to remind myself (and you) of some really amazing recent research. So without further ado...
Top Ten Bacteria - the Not Exactly Rocket Science edition
10. Carsonella ruddii
Possessor of the smallest bacterial…
December 4, 2008
Is punishment a destructive force that breaks societies or part of the very glue that holds them together? Last year, I blogged about two studies that tried to answer this question using similar psychological games. In both, volunteers played with tokens that were eventually exchanged for money.…
December 2, 2008
A ridiculous number of science-fiction TV series and films have moments where characters exchange minds, from the brilliance of Quantum Leap to the latest season of Heroes. Body-swapping is such a staple of imaginative fiction that it's tempting to think that it has no place being scientifically…
December 2, 2008
A quick reminder for anyone interested in ordering a copy of Not Exactly Rocket Science: the Book.
According to Lulu, to guarantee yourself a pre-Christmas delivery using the cheapest possible shipping method, you'll have to order by 10 December or 12 December depending on which part of the world…
December 1, 2008
You are not alone. Even if you're currently reading this in complete isolation, you are still far from a singular individual. You're more of a colony - one human, together with microbes in their trillions. For every one of your own genes, your body is also host to thousands of bacterial ones. Some…
November 30, 2008
Following last week's parrotfish, here's another underwater snap taken at the Whitsunday Islands. This is a bluespot stingray, and it was later joined by a second individual.
More pics and a video beneath the fold...
A video of the same ray...
And another species, the cowtail ray, spotted at…
November 29, 2008
As Charles Darwin learned several centuries ago, islands are havens for evolution. Newcomers to these isolated worlds find themselves unshackled from the predators that dogged them on the mainland. They celebrate their freedom by diversifying into a great variety of species. But predators still…
November 28, 2008
For some reason, I've only just discovered the navel-gazing blogger meme that started at Nature Network a few weeks ago. But I've written up a shed-load of science this week and I'm feeling lazy and introspective. So better late than never...
1. What is your blog about?
Not Exactly Rocket Science…
November 27, 2008
It goes without saying that we are capable of noticing changes to our bodies, but it's perhaps less obvious that the way we perceive our bodies can affect them physically. The two-way nature of this link, between physicality and perception, has been dramatically demonstrated by a new study of…
November 26, 2008
Clad in hard, armoured shells, turtles have a unique body plan unlike that of any other animal. Their shells have clearly served them well and the basic structure has gone largely unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs. But this unchanging nature poses a problem for anyone trying to understand…
November 26, 2008
Throughout our language, the vocabulary of physical cleanliness is also used to describe moral cleanliness. We describe saints as pure and thieves as dirty; consciences can be clean and sins can be washed away. But more and more, psychological studies tell us that these concepts are entwined in a…
November 25, 2008
Animal fossils are usually the remains of hard structures - bones and shells that have been petrified through enormous pressures acting over millions of years. But not all of them had such hard beginnings. Some Chinese fossils were once the embryos of animals that lived in the early Cambrian…
November 24, 2008
Have you ever seen someone that you're sure you recognise but whose face you just can't seem to place? It's a common enough occurrence, but for some people, problems with recognising faces are a part of their daily lives. They have a condition called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, which makes…
November 22, 2008
Buying an underwater case for my digital camera was an excellent decision. This shot was taken at Pickford Reef in the Whitsunday Islands.
November 21, 2008
Over the past decade, some coastal waters have started turning red with alarming frequency. The cause is not some Biblical plague, but dense concentrations of microscopic algae called dinoflagellates. Red tides can often contain more than a million of these cells in a mere millilitre of water. Many…
November 20, 2008
Imagine walking through a neighbourhood and seeing graffiti, litter, and shopping trolleys strewn about the place. Are these problems to be solved, or petty annoyances that can be ignored in the light of more serious offences? A new study suggests that the former is right - even the most trivial of…
November 19, 2008
About 18,545 years ago, give or take a few decades, a woolly mammoth died. Succumbing to causes unknown, the creature was buried in Siberian snow. Many other mammoths must have met similar fates but this one, which we now know as M4, is special. Almost 20 millennia later, its beautifully preserved…
November 18, 2008
There's a glut of awesome science coming out towards the end of this week and not much at the start, so I'm sticking the Revisited post up early (it's usually on a Saturday) to clear the schedule later.
Imagine you are a man who has just learned, through a genetic test, that your son carried…
November 16, 2008
Many naturalists become so familiar with the animals they study that they can recognise individuals within a population using just their shapes and patterns. If that's too difficult, animals can be ringed or tagged. These tricks give scientists the invaluable ability to track the fates of…
November 15, 2008
Climate change is not just about surface warming and glacial melting. The carbon dioxide that human activity is pumping into the atmosphere also dissolves in the world's oceans, slowly increasing their acidity over time. And that spells trouble for corals.
Corals may seem like immobile rock…
November 14, 2008
When we think about cooperative behaviour, most of us would think of animals like ants, meerkats, lions or, indeed, humans. But don't rule out yeast. The small, single-celled fungus has provided us with much of our knowledge of genetics and molecular biology and now, it's shedding light on the…
November 13, 2008
So we've done koalas and cephalopods - let me actually show you something I saw in the wild. This delightful little creature is the thorny devil or moloch, names which sit uneasily with its placid nature. The spines that decorate its body are impressive and provide the lizard with a strong defence…
November 12, 2008
Hair, or fur, is one of the hallmarks of mammals, the group of animals to which we belong. It is an evolutionary innovation that provides us with protection and helps us to maintain our constant body temperature And while hair is a uniquely mammalian feature, its genetic building blocks are…
November 11, 2008
Folks, I have big news...
I've just published a book based on this little blog. Some of you may remember me doing a quick poll about this a while back. Well since then, I've collected about 80 or so of my favourite posts from the last year and converted them from pixels to paper.
The book is now…
November 11, 2008
Fast-food restaurants like to bedazzle consumers with choice, offering a smorgasbord of different foods and drinks with varying flavours and sizes. And yet, these options have more in common than you might think. According to a new study, this multiplicity of choice hides the fact that the…
November 10, 2008
If you're anything like me, then you will find that the onset of spring is a time of great rejoicing and equally great woe. The longer days, rising temperatures and greening world also signal the arrival of pollen, microscopic granules of hell determined to make you breathe fresh air only in the…
November 9, 2008
I'm an immensely big fan of cephalopods (octopus, squid and cuttlefish) and Sydney Aquarium gave me a really good ceph-fix.
This squid was a highlight of the trip. It was hauntingly beautiful, exuding both grace and intelligence. Anyone care to take a stab at the species?
Common octopus
