Tag Archives: Fb

The hagfish eats in the most disgusting way possible [Biology]

The hagfish is an evolutionary throwback that definitely lives up to its name. When the eel-like creature finds a carcass on the seafloor, it burrows inside the dead meat and starts eating…not just with its mouth, but with its skin.
The trick of abso… Continue reading

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Fish in polluted waters have evolved into toxin-resistant super mutants [Evolution]

The Atlantic tomcod that live in the heavily polluted Hudson River have come up with an extreme solution to deal with all the toxins surrounding them: mutate, and mutate fast. But though their super-speedy adaptation has allowed them to survive over th… Continue reading

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To defeat ticks, we must first defeat the lizards [Mad Science]

The Western fence lizard was once believed to be our best defense against lyme disease. That’s because ticks carry lyme disease, but lizards carry a lot of ticks. In fact, ticks are so enamored of lizard blood that they basically act as a buffer zone … Continue reading

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The biggest roadblock to getting good information about scientific breakthroughs [Science Scandal]

What’s blocking your access to accurate scientific information? Often, it’s the representatives of research institutions themselves. Today on Embargo Watch, science journalism watchdog Ivan Oransky reports on just one example of how universities try t… Continue reading

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Carbon dating shows the world’s most mysterious document may be older than previously thought. [Lost History]

The Voynich Manuscript first came to (modern) light in 1912. It is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a rare book dealer who plucked the forgotten tome from a dusty shelf in a Jesuit college near Rome, and made it famous. Illustrations of planets, plants, an… Continue reading

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Awesome discovery of the week: Glass melts when it gets too cold [Quantum Mechanics]

Anyone who’s seen enough old Sesame Street episodes or been to enough Renaissance Fairs knows that when glass gets hot enough, it turns to liquid. Applied heat pumps energy into the solid pieces of glass, getting their molecules jiggling. As the heat d… Continue reading

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New discovery explains why a mundane book of poetry stayed in print for a century [Secret History]

Do you want to read The Works of the Earls of Rochester and Roscommon, a volume of eighteenth century poetry? No? Well, other people did. They read it so repeatedly, and recommended it to their friends so assiduously, that it was reprinted over twenty… Continue reading

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The original Battlestar Galactica series bible is Ron Moore’s rebuke to Star Trek [Battlestar Galactica]

Ron Moore’s original series bible for Battlestar Galactica is online, and it’s full of critiques of “bumpy-headed aliens,” “techno-double-talk” and other Star Trek mainstays. The most important thing to remember about the Cylons? “They are not the Borg… Continue reading

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What happens when you put a Luneburg lens on a silicon chip [Physics]

Recently British physicists announced to the world that they managed to put a Luneburg Lens on a silicon chip. Here’s why this odd bit of news could change the world.
Well, at least the world of data processing.
A Luneberg lens is a perfectly spherica… Continue reading

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It’s been proven: You’re either a hypocrite or delusional [Madscience]

I love it when science explains why human beings are awful. A recent set of experiments proves the punishment you dole out to people is always worse than what they did to you.
Strange chart by Michael Lewy.
Apparently there is a game out there called … Continue reading

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Loop quantum gravity could unite physics and take us back to the Big Bang [Mad Science]

General relativity and quantum mechanics are the twin foundations of modern physics, but there’s a problem: they’re mutually exclusive, at least according to our current understanding. A new model using loop quantum gravity might have the beginnings of… Continue reading

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String theory fails first major experimental test [Mad Science]

String theory is one of the more popular candidates to combine quantum mechanics and relativity into a grand unified theory. But it had remained completely untestable until recent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. The early results don’t look g… Continue reading

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Polar bears may survive global warming after all [This Is Awesome]

Many have mourned the plight of polar bears, whose habitat is literally melting away as the ice caps shrink. But several new predictions from geophysicists show that the bears may be frolicking on huge regions of ice for centuries.
Nature News reports… Continue reading

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If You Begin a Sentence with Well, There’s a Good Chance You’re Lying [Lying]

If you think someone’s lying, you can’t really subject them to a polygraph test. But, it turns out that if they start their sentence with the word “well,” you won’t have to. More »

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The strange behavior of positronium could unlock the secrets of the universe [Mad Science]

Positronium is a particle created when you bind together an electron and its antimatter counterpart, the positron. It doesn’t interact with other atoms in the way we would expect, and this discovery could help us solve the universe’s biggest mysteries…. Continue reading

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The explosive that became a heart medicine [Mad Science]

Nitroglycerin destroys lives by exploding, and saves them by stopping heart problems. How can it do both?
Most moviegoers have watched a scene or two where nitroglycerin has been used to blow the doors off of a bank vault. They’ve also seen scenes when… Continue reading

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Are you seeing patterns in numbers everywhere? You’re not crazy – it’s Benford’s Law. [Spooky Science]

Pick any large set of random data you like. Look at the first digit of all the numbers. You’re going to see a lot of ones. It’s not just a coincidence. It’s the law.
Benford’s Law was discovered by Simon Newcomb, who was thumbing through a book of loga… Continue reading

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You have taste receptors in your lungs [Biology]

It sounds like the plot of a Troma flick, but yes, your lungs contain taste receptors. When these receptors encounter bitter compounds, they open up your airways — this discovery could radically improve the treatment of lung conditions like asthma.
T… Continue reading

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Dark matters could be hiding in the Sun and affecting neutrinos [Mad Physics]

We’re pretty much certain that dark matter exists, but we’re still working to nail down precisely what dark matter is. One leading candidate, known as the WIMP, might be trapped inside the Sun, sucking heat away and altering fusion reactions.If WIMPs -… Continue reading

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Charles Darwin performed the world’s first terraforming experiment [Mad Science]

Nearly two centuries ago, famed scientists Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker transformed the barren volcanic island of Ascension into a lush artificial ecosystem, unwittingly inventing terraforming. Now, Darwin’s incredible achievement could help us tra… Continue reading

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