September 2, 2008
Love is all around us and love is in the air, and if I know my mainstream science reporters, today they will have you believe that love is in our genes too. A new report suggests that variation in a gene called AVPR1A has a small but evident influence on the strength of a relationship, the…
September 1, 2008
Within a drop of blood, you can find all the information you need to reasonably guess where a person came from, without ever having to look at their face, name or passport. Small variations in our DNA are enough for the task. They can be used to pinpoint someone's place of origin to a remarkable…
August 31, 2008
Welcome to the eighth edition of Berry Go Round, the carnival that celebrates the blogosphere's coverage of all things botanical. I'm not going to try and top Bora's magnificent LOLPlant effort, so without further ado, here's the good stuff:
A Neotropical Savanna on the beautiful Bamboo Orchid and…
August 30, 2008
The complex cells that make up plants and animals only survive today because their ancestors formed partnerships with bacteria. In a previous post, I wrote about a microbe called Hatena, which provides us with a snapshot of what the early stages of this alliance might have looked like. Hatena…
August 29, 2008
Quick note: I'm hosting the plant carnival Berry Go Round this month, and you have 2 days to send me any interesting posts you've written or found. I'll stick something up on Sunday.
Cheers,
Ed
August 28, 2008
Conservationists often object to wind farms because of the possibility that they could kill birds. But birds aren't the only flying animals to be taken out by turbines - it turns out that bats often lose their lives too, and not in quite the way you might imagine.
Recently, scientists have noticed…
August 28, 2008
Hey folks,
To those of you who are going to the London Science Blogging conference on Saturday, I'll see you there. I'll be at the morning sessions and the lunch break but will probably have to leave early so if you want to say hi, catch me then.
I look like the photo on the left.
E
August 27, 2008
Yesterday, I wrote about selfless capuchin monkeys, who find personal reward in the act of giving other monkeys. The results seemed to demonstrate that monkeys are sensitive to the welfare of their peers, and will make choices that benefit others without any material gain for themselves. Today,…
August 26, 2008
There are some who say that helping others is its own reward, and many biologists would agree. The fact that selfless acts give us a warm glow is evident from personal experience and neurological studies, which find that good deeds trigger activity in parts of the brain involved in feelings of…
August 25, 2008
For centuries, farmers have known that their livestock not only gather in large herds but also tend to face the same way when grazing. Experience and folk wisdom offer several possible reasons for this mutual alignment. They stand perpendicularly to the sun's rays in the cool morning to absorb heat…
August 24, 2008
Folks,
I'm toying with the idea of publishing a book that compiles the best of Not Exactly Rocket Science from the last year. I'll select about 60 or so of my favourite pieces from 2008 and transfer them from code and pixels to ink and paper. The plan is to launch the book in early November in…
August 22, 2008
On 14 January 2005, Lawrence Summers (right), president of Harvard University spoke of the reasons behind the disproportionate lack of women in top-end science and engineering jobs. Avoiding suggestions of discrimination, he offered two explanations - unwillingness to commit to the 80-hour…
August 21, 2008
Elections are weighing heavily on our minds. In three short months, America will see the race between Barack Obama and John McCain come to a head, while we in Britain will probably have a general election within the next few years. Some people, of course, will vote based on long-held loyalties to…
August 20, 2008
Owls may be are known for their trademark hooting noises, but a new study shows that they don't just rely on sound for communication. With some species having very large and sensitive eyes, you might expect that they would use visual signals too and that's exactly what a pair of Spanish biologists…
August 20, 2008
I like anniversaries and it's a good month for them.
Last Wednesday marked two years since I started Not Exactly Rocket Science at its humble Wordpress beginnings.
Next Monday marks six months of blogging at ScienceBlogs.
And that last article on face recognition is the 300th post I've written…
August 19, 2008
When you look at someone's face, what part do you concentrate on? Common wisdom has it that the eyes are the focal point of the face and they are the features that draw attention first. But according to a new study, that may not be universally true - while Western cultures do fixate on the eyes,…
August 19, 2008
Strip away the trendy clothes, the shiny ornaments and the cosmetically enhanced body parts and consider the naked human body. Free of decorations and distractions, what makes one body more attractive than another? According to one group of scientists, symmetry is part of the answer. William Brown…
August 18, 2008
People in most parts of the world are living longer and longer, thanks to great leaps in medicine and sanitation over the last century. But these growing life expectancies bring with them a sense of unease. The biggest worry is the possibility that medical advances are artificially prolonging life…
August 17, 2008
They say that memory declines as age marches on, but that only applies to neurons - the immune system has a very different sort of memory and it stays fresh till the end of life. To this day, people who survived the 1918 flu pandemic carry antibodies that can remember and neutralise the murderous…
August 16, 2008
Imagine reading the paper to find that a new wonder drug has been created that could save your life, if only you could afford it. Alternatively, put yourself in the shoes of the authorities that must decide not to offer powerful new drugs on the NHS because they simply aren't cost-effective…
August 15, 2008
Hey folks, I've got a feature article in this week's New Scientist, which is my second for the magazine. The article describes the story of FOXP2, the "language gene" that's not really a language gene.
The story started a few years ago, when a group of scientists led by Simon Fisher found that a…
August 14, 2008
What would you do if someone asked you to help transcribe an old book onto a website? Chances are, you'd say no on the basis that you have other things to do, or simply that it just doesn't sound very interesting. And yet, millions of people every day are helping with precisely this task, and most…
August 13, 2008
Tune into the Olympic coverage over the next few weeks, and you will see many an athlete proudly raise their arms and head in victory, while a much larger number slump their shoulders and necks in defeat. We've all shown the same body language ourselves, and a new study reveals why - they are…
August 12, 2008
An international group of scientists have recruited a team of unlikely research assistants to help them study the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica - elephant seals. Boldly going where current buoys, satellites and ships cannot, the intrepid fieldworkers will help to fill blind spots in our…
August 11, 2008
Food from countries all over the world owes a lot of its flavour to a fungus. The species in question isn't one of the many edible mushrooms used for cooking, the baker's yeast that gives rise to bread, or the moulds that spread through blue cheese. It's a little known species called Fusarium…
August 10, 2008
For a sportsman, sometimes pay to have the referee seeing red. In some sports, a simple red garment can give an athlete a competitive advantage because the striking hues draws the focus of the referee. With a delightfully simple but beautifully crafted experiment, Norbert Hagemann at the…
August 9, 2008
Feeling exhausted after a long day is an all too familiar part of modern life. We drag ourselves into bed, hoping to shut down our minds for a night, waking up recharged the next day. But contrary to popular belief, your brain does anything but shut down during sleep.
Science is beginning to…
August 8, 2008
Social lives are delicate things. We've all had situations where friendships and relationships have been dented and broken, and we're reasonably skilled at repairing the damage. This ability to keep our social ties from snapping relies on being able to read other people, and on knowing a thing or…
August 6, 2008
Viruses may cause disease but some can fall ill themselves. For the first time, a group of scientists have discovered a virus that targets other viruses. This new virus-of-viruses was discovered by Bernard La Scola and Christelle Desnues at the University of the Mediterranean, who have playfully…
August 6, 2008
A good defence was a vital part of life in the Cretaceous. Plant-eaters needed effective ways of warding off the crushing jaws of Tyrannosaurus and its kin. Some species like Triceratops and Ankylosaurus had fairly obvious protective equipment, including horns, frills and armoured plates. But…
