Search Content

Displaying results 5701 - 5750 of 87950

Off in the wilds of... Melbourne

Hi folks. It's conference time again, and of course we have organised to have the Australasian Association of Philosophy/Australasian Association for the History Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (AAP/AAHPSSS) conferences in the coldest place on the mainland - my home town Melbourne, at the depths of winter. At least it's not Vancouver. So I'm going to be a bit quiet for a while. Play Mornington Crescent amongst yourselves until I get back (not you, Grossman. You're supposed to be fully engaged at the conference. If I see you in the comments after Sunday, I shall refuse to buy you a…

She offered me pleasure, satisfaction, and a flower. What I really wanted was a million dollars.

I was fifteen or so years old. That was back in the old days, before everyone who was 15 was world-wise and even world weary. I was a bit world wise for my age, though, as I was living on my own and was fully supporting myself with a couple of paying jobs. Waling home from work one day, a pretty young woman approached me, as though she was asking for directions. She was foreign and her English was poor, but I eventually came to understand that she wanted me to come over to her house later that evening for dinner. She promised a nice dinner, and she promised more. She was using words like…

Some Money for the Blind?

Being able to see is so fundamental to the daily activities of the vast majority of us that we rarely give it a second thought. Take away that ability to see, though, and suddenly everyday tasks become a little trickier. Much of this difficulty can be overcome--to a degree at least--by a variety of means, including seeing-eye dogs for getting around or braille for reading. If you are a blind American and need to buy a mid-afternoon snack, though, you might be out of luck--unless, of course, you're willing to blindly trust the honesty and generosity of every stranger with whom you exchange…

What is "ethnic skin"?

One of my bibles of clinical medicine is Fitzpatrick's Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology. It's basically a field guide to skin, with hundreds of pictures matched up with brief summaries. The introduction states, "We have endeavored to include information relevant to gender dermatology and a large number of images showing skin disease in different ethnic populations." The book devotes a section on each disease to racial differences. For example, the section on superficial spreading melanoma (p. 312) states that "white-skinned persons overwelmingly predominate. Only 2% [of…

Health Insurance in Mass

So one of the most important stories over the past week (besides the immigration bill in congress), was the health insurance bill in Massachusetts. I won't give you a summary of what's been going on but instead give you some links to articles & opinions on the whole topic. Then I'll give you some interesting links to Malcolm Gladwell's view on American style Healthcare vs. the Canadian Healthcare system. So about the Mass plan: Boston Globe: Mass. bill requires health insurance Legislative leaders say their plan would: Cover 92,500 people by bringing more people onto MassHealth, the…

More money = more sex?

A lot of evolutionary psychology goes into the "They did a study on what?" category. So check out Daniel Kruger's paper, Male Financial Consumption is Associated with Higher Mating Intentions and Mating Success: Cross-culturally, male economic power is directly related to reproductive success. Displays of wealth and social status are an important part of human male mating effort. The degree of male financial consumption may be related to variance in life history strategies, as differences in life history patterns are fundamentally differences in the allocation of effort and/or resources.…

Sunday Sermon: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is...

...the Crazy Twenty-Sevens. From driftglass: If you replay the video, and listen under Stephanopoulos' interruption, this is point Koppel was trying to get across: "And I think there is just a small but significant fraction of Americans for whom...the truth in this instance is never going to matter." Which sounds like a small thing, but for me it was almost a cultural event, because it is almost the only time in my memory when a Big Time Newscritter sat in front of a camera and called bullshit on some specific, identifiable group other than "bureaucratsinwashington" or "liberalelites".…

You Don't Have to Be in Academia to Be a Scientist

I'm currently working my way through Unscientific America, and I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm going to wind up agreeing with ScienceBlogling Janet's assessment (actually, it will probably be harsher). But speaking of Janet, I want to take exception with one thing in her review: her emphasis on academic science. From her review (italics mine): In addition to the research, the grant writing, the manuscript drafting, the student training, the classroom teaching, the paper and grant refereeing, and the always rewarding committee work, academic scientists should be working hard to…

Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $250,000 Per Year (Haven't We Been Through This Before?)

The Fiscal Times, a propaganda arm for Pete Peterson (although how one could tell the difference between The Fiscal Times and the ostensibly non-partisan Washington Post), has an article that purports to describe how difficult it is for the 'average' family that makes $250,000 per year. If we spot The Fiscal Times most of the expenses (I'll return to that in a bit), the article really shows the effect of hidden assumptions. Two big expenses are saving for college ($8,000) and retirement ($33,000), as well as healthcare (~$13,0000--in a nation where the median household income in $50,000.…

Esterline Industries to Massachusetts Workers: Drop Dead

Or, at least, don't obey Massachusetts law and receive the healthcare they are entitled to. Esterline Technologies demonstrates that much of what passes for 'rational business decision making' is actually ideology combined with petty personal vendetta. From Yves Smith: This story illustrates how far some companies are willing to go to preserve their bottom lines and assert their right to operate in an unfettered manner, even when that includes breaking the law and violating contracts... Esterline is in the process of shuttering its Tauton manufacturing operation, Haskon Aerospace, which…

Elsevier boycott: Time for librarians to rise up!

A little while back the Cost of Knowledge site started up a boycott pledge list in response to mathematician Timothy Gowers' pledge to stop contributing to Elsevier's operations by ceasing writing, reviewing and editing for them. Here is the call to action: Academics have protested against Elsevier's business practices for years with little effect. These are some of their objections: They charge exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individual journals. In the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for many libraries is to agree to buy very large "bundles", which will…

Friday Fun: How to argue with a scientist

OK, the blog post in question isn't actually that funny. But the title is. And, it's really worth reading for the seriously intentioned message it contains. How to argue with a scientist: A guide. I notice it all the time- on Facebook, in the comments of a science blog, over family gatherings, or listening to a radio talk show. Someone, maybe you, is patiently trying to explain how vaccines cause autism, perhaps, or why so-called "anthropogenic" global warming is really just due to sunspots or some other natural cycle. Perhaps you are doing pretty well at first, making use of passionate,…

Melamine: tastes like chicken

Lots of us knew melamine as a heat resistant plastic polymer found in kitchen items, like plastic plates. Despite its reputation for heat resistance it would melt in an oven, although it doesn't catch fire. It is used in a lot of other places: floor tiles, white boards, fabrics, filters, even the cleaning product called Magic Eraser. Now we know it is also used by crooked Chinese food manufacturers to make it appear their products have more protein than they really do. This works because melamine is loaded with nitrogen, also a key atom in the building blocks of proteins, amino acids. Here…

What To Eat Week

it has been quiet around here because late last Tuesday we got a placement of two boys, C., 7 and K., 8. In the chaos of getting everyone settled, dealing with all the legal requirements, paperwork and appointments that a foster placement entails and getting them back to school, the blog has taken a backseat, but I'm more or less back. The boys are doing great, and are truly sweet, wonderful kids. They've had a really rough time, but everyone is really getting used to each other and having a blast. They'll be with us until at least mid-June, so we are in for some spring fun with six boys…

"bite me"

is, loosely translated, what the leader of the opposition "red-green alliance" said to a government member of Alþing in Iceland, who claimed the opposition had been procedurally delaying the setup and start of investigation into the Icelandic banking crisis. This came during a vote of no confidence in the government. The vote failed by a huge margin. Surviving Iceland is a new and interesting blog - anecdotal and free associating news "as it happens" from Reykjavík. I was somewhat flabbergasted to also hear that just now has someone put a motion to use emergency powers to freeze the assets…

Review of: Makers by Cory Doctorow

I actually read the freely downloadable version of Cory Doctorow's novel Makers on my Kobo ereader, even though I did buy the hardcover when it came out last year. Mostly, I wanted to check out the experience of reading a long text on my reader. Overall, the Kobo reading experience was terrific, not much different from reading a paper book. I tried it on both long inter-city bus rides and my regular commute as well as just sitting around the house. The Kobo is pretty bare bones, as these readers go, but it was good enough to consume fairly simple text. The Makers text was in epub format…

The face of uninsurance: One blogger's story

Everyone should read the personal story by Kevin Zelnio, a marine biologist and blogger at EvoEcoLab, about his son's recent medical emergency. Having a six-year-old child whose flulike symptoms turn into a struggle to breathe must be scary enough -- but this family's troubles are compounded by not having health insurance. Zelnio is self-employed, and he and has wife have been unable to find affordable insurance for themselves and their two children. He cites uninsurance as one reason why they didn't bring their son to an urgent care facility as soon as his fever reached 103. They did get…

London Weekend With Both The Young Dudes

Spent Friday though Sunday in London with Junior and his buddy, both 14. My original plan had been to find a gaming convention with both a video game track and a boardgame track. But failing that, I got tickets for the Eurogamer Expo at the Earls Court Convention Centre in London, which is all video games. My once substantial interest in such has long evaporated, but I kept the Saturday free for other activities. In order to be sure to get the boys into the fair I had to buy a ticket for myself as well, and I checked out the place without finding anything that caught my interest. It was all…

Afghani Women's Rights Activist Murdered

The AP reports: Gunmen on a motorbike Monday killed an Afghan women's rights activist who ran an underground school for girls during the Taliban's rule -- the latest victim of increasingly brazen militants targeting government officials and schools. Safia Ama Jan, a provincial director for Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs, was slain outside her home in the southern city of Kandahar as she was on her way to work, said Tawfiq ul-Ulhakim Parant, senior adviser to the women's ministry in Kabul.... Mullah Sadullah, a regional Taliban commander, claimed responsibility for the killing in a…

Ford and the Anti-Gay Lobby

I've written several times in the past about the homophobe lobby and Ford. They've been urging a boycott of Ford because - gasp! - they advertise and sell cars to gay people. Apparently gays are supposed to walk everywhere, or hitch rides with the Amish in their buggies. But their latest attack on Ford is incredibly brazen. At the annual shareholder's meeting, going on right now in Deleware, they tried to pass a resolution amending the company's equal employment opportunity rules to take out sexual orientation. Now, there's no point in removing sexual orientation from the discrimination rules…

DaveScot Joins Luskin's Band of Stupidity

Boy oh boy, Judge Jones being named as one of the 100 most influential people of recent times sure has the ID crowd's panties in a bunch. First we had Casey Luskin's inane and shameful insinuation that he didn't write the Dover ruling himself. And now we have DaveScot's even more shameful reaction to it. He arbitrarily picks out bad guys that Time has named "Person of the Year" in the past in order to denigrate Jones: The magazine who made these men "Man of the Year" 1938 - Adolf Hitler 1939 - Joseph Stalin 1942 - Joseph Stalin 1957 - Nikita Krushchev 1979 - Ayatullah Khomeini now brings you…

A Tablet PC For $170

I have another tablet review for you. (See the bottom of the post for some followup on my last review.) This is a "tablet PC" meaning a tablet that runs a full on PC operating system, as opposed to a tablet-oriented operating system. With the keyboard (not supplied, buy separately). The Jumper EZpad 5SE Tablet PC is a pretty high performance tablet with an exceptionally low cost, and worth a look especially if you are a Windows user. The tablet comes with Windows 10, and a most notably, a magic "magnetic stylus." The screen and stylus use electromagnetic technology. So, you can…

The Aristocrats

Okay, I finally got to see the movie The Aristocats, a documentary about perhaps the most famous - and filthiest - joke ever told. First of all, I picked the wrong day to watch it. I have a terrible cold today and it's not very pleasant to be laughing that hard while coughing up chunks of phlegm the size of hamsters. But if you haven't seen this movie and you have a strong stomach for dark humor (very important, this is definitely not for everyone), you should find it and watch it by any means necessary. The lineup of comedians is staggering. Everyone from Shelley Berman to Robin Williams…

The Aristocrats

Okay, I finally got to see the movie The Aristocats, a documentary about perhaps the most famous - and filthiest - joke ever told. First of all, I picked the wrong day to watch it. I have a terrible cold today and it's not very pleasant to be laughing that hard while coughing up chunks of phlegm the size of hamsters. But if you haven't seen this movie and you have a strong stomach for dark humor (very important, this is definitely not for everyone), you should find it and watch it by any means necessary. The lineup of comedians is staggering. Everyone from Shelley Berman to Robin Williams…

My Libraries

Inspired yet again by the Carlquist & Järv anthology of library history I mentioned recently, I decided to write something about the libraries of my life. I'm fortunate in that I have always been able to take libraries for granted. I feel at home in them. Learning to read at age four or five, I may have been taken about that time to some forgotten library in Greenwich, Conn. But the first one I remember and one of the two most important ones in my life so far is Saltsjöbaden public library, located at the Dump, Tippen, the local mall which took its name from being built on the site of a…

One Game Too Many

The phenomenon is familiar to anybody who plays pick-up basketball. (It might be unique to pick-up hoops-- none of the other sports I play regularly involve multiple discrete games.) You get a bunch of players together, and you play a game to 15. Then a second game to 15. And, hey, that's a pretty good run right there, and lunch hour is almost over, and maybe you should get back to work... "One more game," somebody says. The justification is always different. If the teams split the first two games, it's a rubber match. If one team won both, it's a chance for the other team to get redemption.…

Stephen Meyer

6.55-- AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! SALLY KERN IS HERE!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! 7.06-- Pretends hes talkin up Darwin. DIRP! John Lynch would be having a seizure. 7.09-- Intelligent Design>Evilution 7.10-- Meyer is clueless on origin of life and Darwin. He sounds exactly like a parrot. I know the people studying origin of life, and they are waaaaaaay beyond this kindergarten shit Meyers talkin bout. This is like listening to a fourth graders report on 'origin of life'. My god this hour is going to be long... 7.18--…

Relativity, Quantum, and the Internet

When Kate and I were walking Emmy last night, we were talking about the historical development of relativity. As one does, when walking the dog. I mentioned a couple of the pre-1905 attempts to explain things like the Michelson-Morley experiment, and how people like Lorentz and FitzGerald and Poincare were on the right track, but didn't quite get it all together. Kate asked about what it would've been like to be a physicist working at that time, when both relativity and quantum mechanics were being born, trying out new approaches and not really knowing whether a given approach would turn out…

Volume Packing of Breakfast Cereal

We're working on moving SteelyKid from formula to milk (which isn't going all that well-- dairy seems to make her gassy). This has led me to switch over to cereal in the mornings, since we're buying milk anyway, which frees up the time otherwise spent waiting for the toaster. Cereal-wise, I tend to alternate between Cheerios (which we also buy for SteelyKid) and Raisin Bran-- my parents never bought sugary breakfast cereal, so I never developed a taste for any of those things. Being the ridiculous geek that I am, I've noticed something about the relative amounts of milk and cereal I use for…

Local look at dichloroacetate (DCA) hysteria

I hope Orac won't mind but with him in a surgical conference in DC right now, he may not have seen Matt the Heathen post in the comment thread at Respectful Insolence about a superb article that appeared in today's Edmonton Journal, "Possibly fatal at $2 a pop," by Jodie Sinnema. Jodie's interview with the University of Alberta investigator and author of the original DCA anticancer paper illustrates the level of interest in this public-domain chemical: Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, the cardiologist and researcher whose academic paper sparked the worldwide fervour surrounding DCA, said people…

Why do I bother?

I've got a post up at my other blog, where I write about climate change for the Weather Channel's Forecast Earth site, that briefly discusses James Hansen's new paper on appropriate targets for CO2 levels. I still intend to write something more consequential here, but in the meantime, I thought I'd draw ScienceBlogs readers' attention to the reaction at the TWC blog. Here's a selection: After we are done manipulating global carbon dioxide plant food levels to within a couple parts per million of sheer evolutionary perfection, then we'll get to work on that thermostat-wired-over-to-the-sun…

It's that time of year again...

The snows are melting (we hope), the flowers are starting to bloom, and here in FL it's not quite obnoxiously hot out. It's spring, and with it comes one of my favorite yearly holidays - Earth Day! That's right - April 22nd is Earth Day 2009. Started in the 1970s by a smart senator from Wisconsin as a way to "shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda", Earth Day has been pushing for environmental action for almost 40 years. Lots of communities have organized fairs, festivals, or clean-ups to celebrate. But even if you don't want to join the masses at…

You Will Get Wet! Loggerheads, Longlines, and Lopez Mateos

Loggerhead sea turtles captured the imagination of marine enthusiasts everywhere long before Crush made his big screen debut in Finding Nemo. They're among the oldest creatures on earth and have remained essentially unchanged for 110 million years. That's a pretty long time considering we boring 'anatomically modern' homo sapiens have only been wandering around for about 200,000 years. No contest. Loggerheads are endangered and the North Pacific population has been decimated by hunting, bycatch, and loss of nesting beaches. And yet, a chance to do something that might make a difference…

Review of 'Rebuilt' But Michael Chorost (His Story of a Cochlear Implant)

Cochlear implants are true cyborg technology. They stimulate the auditory nerve of deaf individuals to allow them to interact with the sounds of the world again--although those new sounds are at first alien and foreign. A few months back I posted here about Michael Chorost, a science writer and recipient of a cochlear implant, who wrote a terrific piece about his quest to experience his favorite piece of music, "Bolero," once again. We made contact after that, and Michael was kind enough to send me his book, which I read as well as my friend who researches new applications for cochlear…

Authors Anonymous

Shhhh...I have a secret. When we send out information about the World Science Festival, the producers commonly use the phrase, "a Festival meant to engage and inspire the public about science." For me, there's no better way to inspire than to offer the public a  chance to meet one-on-one with scientists. And I'm not talking about rushing the stage after an in-theatre program, in the hopes that you'll be shoved to the front of the geeked-out mosh pit and win a chance to graze Leonard Mlodinow's foot. I'm talking about calmly and cool-ly walking up to a scientist and having the…

California uses zoning changes to cut carbon emissions

In a move that should've been taken eons ago, California's legislature is moving to bring civic planning under a unified framework that will reduce carbon emissions and reduce traffic: The bill yokes three regulatory and permit processes. One focuses on regional planning: how land use should be split among industry, agriculture, homes, open space and commercial centers. Another governs where roads and bridges are built. A third sets out housing needs and responsibilities — for instance, how much affordable housing a community must allow. Under the pending measure, the three regulatory and…

Rorty on Hauser

My vacation is over. Your humble blogger is now back to work, complete with some awkward tan lines and a slightly jet-lagged brain. I'd thought I'd begin by making sure everybody read Richard Rorty's scathing review of Marc Hauser's new book, Moral Minds, in the NY Times. Hauser's claims are simple: he holds that "we are born with abstract [moral and ethical] rules or principles, with nurture entering the picture to set the parameters and guide us toward the acquisition of particular moral systems." Thus, he believes that neuroscience will soon discover "what limitations exist on the range…

Rebooting science journalism - on blurring boundaries, money, audiences and duck sex

   No, this doesn't have Flash or a camera either. Nice text resolution, though...This post is long overdue. It has now been over two weeks since ScienceOnline'10 and the withdrawal symptoms (along with the SciPlague and jet-lag) have now subsided. I've already talked about how much I enjoyed attending the conference, catching up with old new friends, and moderating a panel on rebooting science journalism with three excellent gents - Carl Zimmer, John Timmer and David Dobbs. The session video still isn't up, but many of the key points have been ably captured through Twitter by Janet Stemwedel…

More on whether a name is destiny

There was a lot of buzz online a couple months back when an article entitled "Moniker Maladies" made what seemed to many to be a startling claim: Baseball players strike out more often when their names start with "K"; Students with the initials "C" and "D" get worse grades than others. Actually, this effect, known as the "name-letter effect," has been known for several years. If your name -- even your last name -- starts with T, you're more likely to live in Tacoma or Tulsa than San Francisco or Springfield. Chris at Mixing Memory wrote an excellent summary of the research, so I won't repeat…

Uh-Oh. The GOP Has Been Rebranded

(from here) That's gotta hurt Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon discusses a shocking development--a majority of voters view Democrats as the fiscally responsible party: There is a shocking poll that should be a wake-up call to conservatives and Republicans nationwide. If I were a Republican strategist today, my heart would be in my throat. From The Corner at the conservative National Review Online: A survey of 1200 likely voters taken in 12 swing districts this past Sunday and Monday might explain why Republicans might have a long night ahead of them. The veteran GOP pollster says he…

Behavior Genetics & NRO

Over at The Corner at National Review Online John Derbyshire has been getting into a debate with his colleagues over Judith Rich Harris' work, and her two books The Nurture Assumption and No Two Alike. I find it amusing when scientific controversy comes crashing into the punditocracy, though I think it is also a good thing. To frame the issue properly, there is consistent evidence that the majority of non-genetic variation in personality is due to non-shared (i.e., non-home) environment. Judith Rich Harris proposes that peer groups account for this non-shared environment, though this is…

Best Science Books 2012: Booklist Online

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Booklist Online Top 10 Science and Health Books. The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding…

Best Science Books 2012: Boing Boing Gift Guide

Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists are here. This post includes the following: Boing Boing Gift Guide. The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science by Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and David Macaulay Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks Illustrated Guide to Home…

Oops. The Sunday Times apologizes

Few stories about climatology generated as much attention, positive and negative as one by Jonathan Leake in London's Sunday Times back in January. "UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim" claimed that references to threats to the Amazon rainforest from global warming were "based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise." As pretty much anyone without an ulterior motive who bothered to look into the matter quickly discovered, that wasn't true. Now, more than five months later, the Times has apologized for the story. Joe at Climate…

TV for teachers

"And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. " - BoB Dylan Tired of Simpson reruns and the exploits of Friends? [From the WSTA] NOVA is broadcasting an entire series of shows on hurricanes, Katrina, and what the experts predicted would happen should a hurricane ever hit New Orleans. Check out the schedule below. NOVA Presents "Storm That Drowned a City" Broadcast: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 http://www.pbs.org/nova/orleans/ (NOVA airs on PBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Check your local listings as broadcast dates and times may vary.…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Scientist's Persistence Sheds Light On Marine Science Riddle: When he started compiling an online database of seashells 15 years ago, Dr. Gary Rosenberg did not envision that his meticulous record-keeping would eventually shed light on a 40-year-old evolutionary debate. The debate involves the mechanism underlying the island rule: that small animals isolated on islands evolve to be larger than their mainland relatives, and large animals evolve to be smaller. If the name of Craig McClain - one of the authors of teh paper - rings the bell, it may be because you are reading his delightful blog…

Mapping your sickness

A mashup, in online talk, is a site or application that combines content from several sources. Google Map is a favorite matrix for mashups and one of the most intriguing (for us) is one called "Who is Sick?" It's a voluntary geographically-based reporting system for sickness: A new Google Maps mashup helps you track colds, flus and other bugs in your community. Start by entering your city or ZIP code to see if other users have reported any sicknesses. You'll see a Google map dotted with icons that indicate symptoms like runny nose, cough, fever and headache. You can also post your own illness…

Is it in the public domain?

Traveling and busy as hell, but wanted to share this. The ever expanding copyright laws is one of my pet peeves, but almost as irritating as the increasing length of copyright is the difficulty in knowing if something is still under copyright. The copyright date and name of the copyright holder in the frontmatter of a book is not a sufficient indication since it only tells you who used to have the copyright, not who does or does not have it now as a result of a renewal. For books published in the US between 11923 there is now a new tool to use: For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963,…

How bats fly out of hell

Flying like a bat out of hell is supposed to mean sudden, fast and wild.But how do bats fly? It turns out they have some unique tricks: Bats have a clever aerodynamic trick to make flying easier, researchers have found: the sharp edge at the front of their wings cuts through the air in such a way as to create a vortex on top of the wing, producing up to 40% of the lift needed to stay aloft. "It explains how these animals are able to fly at very slow speed," says Anders Hedenström from Lund University in Sweden, who led the research -- published in Science 1 -- that showed the effect with a…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Chimpanzee Facial Expressions Are Helping Researchers Understand Human Communication: Behavioral researchers led by Lisa Parr, PhD, director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center Cognitive Testing Facility and Chimpanzee Core, have found understanding chimpanzee facial expressions requires more attention to detail than researchers initially thought. Correctly interpreting the subtleties within chimpanzees' facial expressions may be key to understanding the evolution of human emotional communication. Ladybugs May Be Cute, But Watch Out When They Get Near Wine: Ladybugs may look pretty…