Science Raw Influencer Feed 
Raw Feeds Notice: within our raw, real-time feeds, the Sociative distillation engine has eliminated ~99% of the noise you see in a typical Twitter feed, however these feeds have not yet had the final touch of human curation you see on our home page and topics. As a result, it's normal for great stories to be accompanied by a few stories that are somewhat off topic or roughly formatted. [ more ]
Evolution, Sexism and Racism
Alom Shaha
4 mentions — 10 hours ago
Whilst I agree that you might technically be able to apply the words racism or sexism when someone says something mean about a white man, just as scientists get angry when creationists misuse the word theory, I tend to get a little annoyed when these words are used in this context.
These 31 charts will destroy your faith in humanity
washingtonpost.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Earlier this week, Rob Wile of Business Insider posted his graph-heavy opus: “31 Charts That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity.”Naturally, we here at Wonkblog were all eager to see the results. But we’d quibble a bit with Wile’s interpretations of the data. His charts all struck us ...
Dear Guardian: You’ve Been Played | Cocktail Party Physics, Scientific American Blog Network
Cocktail Party Physics, Scientific American Blog ...
7 mentions — 1 day ago
A number of people have been privately asking me about the recent Guardian article (and accompanying Op-Ed by Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy) gushing over a supposedly revolutionary new unified theory of physics by a man who officially left academia 20 years ago. Or, as I’ve taken to ...
The Cognitive Science of Star Trek | MIND Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
MIND Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
4 mentions — 1 day ago
Star Trek needs more advanced cognitive science. The work of Kahneman can augment one of its central philosophical themes. We now have less warped models of intuition, logic, and morality.Take one small but telling example from the latest Star Trek movie: Kirk, in a dire spot, says he ...
Weinstein's theory of everything is probably nothing
New Scientist
7 mentions — 1 day ago
We desperately need joined-up thinking by the world's leaders to secure future water supplies, say Charles Vörösmarty and Claudia Pahl-Wostl
Geneticist Paolo Gasparini is exploring the ancient Silk Road to find out how important our genes are in shaping what we can taste and what we likeA poetic lament ...
Ultrashort laser pulses squeezed out of graphene
Nature News & Comment
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Graphene's hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms can absorb laser light like a sponge and then release it in bursts lasting just a fraction of a nanosecond.Graphene, hailed as one of the thinnest, strongest and most conductive materials ever found, seems to have bagged one more amazing property. Experiments ...
3-D Printed Windpipe Gives Infant Breath of Life
scientificamerican.com
3 mentions — 1 day ago
A flexible, absorbable tube helps a baby boy breathe and heralds a future of body parts printed on command Kaiba Gionfriddo was six weeks old when he suddenly stopped breathing and turned blue at a restaurant. Kaiba’s parents quickly rushed him to the hospital where they learned that ...
Still Not Significant
Psychologically Flawed on WordPress.com
6 mentions — 1 day ago
You don’t need to play the significance testing game – there are better methods, like quoting the effect size with a confidence interval – but if you do, the rules are simple: the result is either significant or it is not.So if your p-value remains stubbornly higher than ...
7 Reasons Killer Whales Are Evil Geniuses
The Atlantic
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Over at Wired Science, a photographer caught a stunning sequence of a killer whale in Monterey Bay flipping a dolphin out of the water and then eating it. Apparently, they do this regularly! "I have seen this with several different species of dolphins from various places around the ...
This Is a Blog Post. It Is Not a “Blog.”
slate.com
4 mentions — 23 hours ago
MySlate is a new tool that lets you track your favorite parts of Slate. You can follow authors and sections, track comment threads you're interested in, and more.For many, using the word blog when you mean blog post is an understandable mistake. Most who make it are new ...
Khalil’s Picks (24 May 2013) | The SA Incubator, Scientific American Blog Network
The SA Incubator, Scientific American Blog Networ...
3 mentions — 1 day ago
The Oklahoma tornado disaster was chilling in terms of sheer power and devastation caused. In this week’s picks, I highlight two articles about tornadoes. The first one, by Douglas Main, examines the underlying causes of such destructive tornadoes and the second one, by Adam Kucharski, looks at the ...
There’s treasure everywhere!
Six Incredible Things Before Breakfast
2 mentions — 22 hours ago
Sometimes the object of our desire is hiding in plain sight. You’d think that we would know this, for, as a species, we seem constantly in search of those desirable things. And yet we are always on the search for some ideal – the thing that is best ...
Stem-cell cloner acknowledges errors in groundbreaking paper
Nature News & Comment
13 mentions — 2 days ago
Shoukhrat Mitalipov says honest mistakes were made in a push to get cloning results published quickly.A blockbuster paper that reported the creation of human stem cell lines via cloning has come under fire. An anonymous online commenter found four problems in the paper, which was published online 15 ...
Geological Side Trips from Interstate 80: Placerville | KQED Science
KQED Science
3 mentions — 2 days ago
Here’s a way to turn the routine roar up I-80 into a jaunt through part of the Mother Lode in Placerville. If you like warmth, the Sierra foothills can give you heat, but this side trip also takes you places to cool your feet.The route starts with US ...
Age Brings Happiness: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
2 mentions — 7 hours ago
Do people get happier or crankier as they age? Stereotypes of crotchety neighbors aside, scientists have been trying to answer this question for decades, and the results have been conflicting. Now a study of several thousand Americans born between 1885 and 1980 reveals that well-being indeed increases with ...
Patients leave a microbial mark on hospitals
Nature News & Comment
4 mentions — 2 days ago
Researchers swabbing a hospital in Chicago found around 70,000 types of microbe before the facility even opened.When people check into a hospital, the microbial communities that coat their bodies quickly colonize treatment areas, according to a research consortium based at the University of Chicago in Illinois.The finding is ...
Bowling Ball
what-if.xkcd.com
2 mentions — 4 days ago
I've been told that if the Earth were shrunk down to the size of a bowling ball, it would be smoother than said bowling ball. My question is, what would a bowling ball look like if it were blown up to the size of the Earth?Phil Plait, of ...
Does homeopathy work? Some pharmacists give poor advice
conversation.which.co.uk
3 mentions — 1 day ago
As soon as you talk about homeopathy, it divides opinion. But the debate raises wider issues when some pharmacists fail to explain there’s no clinical evidence that certain alternative remedies work, like homeopathy.There are people who swear by homeopathic remedies, and everyone’s entitled to their opinion. However, if ...
It’s not about predators, it’s about journal quality | Information Culture, Scientific American Blog Network
Information Culture, Scientific American Blog Net...
2 mentions — 1 day ago
In the past, a journal title that was unfamiliar to a researcher would be an automatic red-flag for journal quality – if I haven’t heard of it, it must not be very good. As the number of journal titles increases exponentially (Larsen and von Ins, 2010), scholars have ...
Girls Who Are Sexually Abused More Likely to Start Using Substances before Age 10: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
3 mentions — 1 day ago
Young girls who have been sexually abused are at far greater risk of picking up their first drink or using drugs as preteens, a new study finds Many studies have confirmed the link between childhood sexual abuse and substance-related problems in adulthood. But a new investigation finds that ...
Why the Internet Sucks You in Like a Black Hole: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Those are the famous last words of countless people every day, right before getting sucked into several hours of watching cat videos, commenting on Instagrammed sushi lunches, and Googling to find out what ever happened to Dolph Lundgren. If that sounds like you, don't feel bad: That behavior ...
An Unexpected Reaction: Why a Science Experiment Gone Bad Doesn't Make Me a Criminal
American Civil Liberties Union
4 mentions — 2 days ago
After model student Kiera Wilmot was arrested and removed from her high school for doing a science experiment on school property, hundreds of thousands of people across the country signed petitions asking for charges to be dropped and for her to be reinstated in school. Kiera's school's zero-tolerance ...
Scour: Why Most Bridges Fail | Overthinking It, Scientific American Blog Network
Overthinking It, Scientific American Blog Network
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Yesterday the I-5 bridge spanning the Skagit River in Washington had one of its support girders hit by a truck too wide, and the whole scene of contorting metal fell into the water below. Though a number of people and their cars went into the water along with ...
Scientists discover molecular trigger for itch
Nature News & Comment
4 mentions — 2 days ago
Researchers have discovered a protein that appears to be necessary for the itch response — at least in mice.Once thought to be a low-level form of pain, itch is instead a distinct sensation with a dedicated neural circuit linking cells in the periphery of the body to the ...
NeuroSCIence in FIction: Kill Decision | Illusion Chasers, Scientific American Blog Network
Illusion Chasers, Scientific American Blog Networ...
2 mentions — 8 hours ago
Every Friday we discuss how neuroscience is portrayed in fiction. This week we’ll be discussing Daniel Suarez’s new book, Kill Decision. It’s the story of what would happen if evil entities high up within the military industrial complex developed autonomous unmanned war machines and imbued them with a ...
Does brain stimulation make you better at maths?
theconversation.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Researchers led by Roi Cohen Kadosh at the University of Oxford trained people on two kinds of maths skills, rote learning simple arithmetic problems and practicing more varied calculations.During this learning process they applied small and continually varying electrical currents to the scalp, above the temples. A control ...
Zoologger: The tiny insect with the massive sperm
New Scientist
3 mentions — 1 day ago
In the race for world domination, cockroaches have scored another point against Homo sapiens. Their weapons? A distaste for sugar and a helping hand from evolution
The adult brain is far more malleable that we thought, and so learning can be child's play if you know how. By David ...
Google 'Trekker' cameras capture the Galapagos
New Scientist
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Fans of Charles Darwin can already tour their hero's former abode, Down House, near London, on Google's Street View service – but pretty soon they'll be able to take a similar look around the cradle of his theory of natural selection, the Galapagos Islands off the coast of ...
Net Loss: How We Continually Forget What the Oceans Really Used to Be Like [Excerpt]: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
The phenomenon of shifting baselines means that each generation fails to realize how much worse the oceans are getting Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...Read More » From The ...
Survivorship Bias
You Are Not So Smart on WordPress.com
2 mentions — 2 days ago
The Truth: When failure becomes invisible, the difference between failure and success may also become invisible.In New York City, in an apartment a few streets away from the center of Harlem, above trees reaching out over sidewalks and dogs pulling at leashes and conversations cut short to avoid ...
Prehistoric Climate Change May Have Encouraged Human Innovation: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Today's scientists are scrambling to develop technology to cope with climate change; carbon capture technology, renewable energy and drought-resilient crops are just a few examples. But researchers recently learned that ours isn't the first civilization to innovate as the Earth's climate shifts. A new study suggests "pulses" in ...
Is Global Warming Cooler than Expected?: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
LONDON– Several leading authorities on climate change have given a guarded welcome to research suggesting the Earth may warm more slowly than scientists had expected. An international research team led by Alexander Otto of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford has reported its conclusions in ...
Mary Roach Takes A Trip Down the Alimentary Canal: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
2 mentions — 1 day ago
Groucho Marx said, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” With this wisdom available for decades, the question arises: Why did author Mary Roach stick her arm inside a living cow's stomach, where it's too ...
figshare ORCID integration
figshare.com
4 mentions — 2 days ago
figshare was one of the ORCID launch partners and since said launch back in October, we have been looking for ways to take advantage of the new functionality to streamline the figshare user experience. Our first step in this is the release today of figshare-ORCID bi-directional syncing. For those who don’t know what ORCID is, here are some details:To sync your ORCID profile, simply log into figshare, go to the arrow next to your name in the top right hand corner, click 'My profile', 'edit profile' and 'Sync with ORCID'.This ...
Cockroaches evolving to evade traps
BBC News
5 mentions — 2 days ago
American scientists found that the mutant cockroaches had a "reorganised" sense of taste, making them perceive the glucose used to coat poisoned bait not as sweet but rather as bitter. A North Carolina State University team tested the theory by giving cockroaches a choice of jam or peanut ...
The Girl Who Turned to Bone
The Atlantic
4 mentions — 2 days ago
Unexpected discoveries in the quest to cure an extraordinary skeletal condition show how medically relevant rare diseases can be.When Jeannie Peeper was born in 1958, there was only one thing amiss: her big toes were short and crooked. Doctors fitted her with toe braces and sent her home.