Tag Archives: tweet

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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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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Revolutionary eye implants have restored sight to the blind [Breakthrough]

By tucking high-tech implants inside people’s eyes, researchers in Germany have given three blind people the ability to see.
The implants only work for those suffering from a hereditary condition called retinal dystrophy, which causes the eye’s light … 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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Why do light bulbs burn out just as they’re turned on? [Madscience]

Light bulbs are living on borrowed time, but why do their timers tend to expire just as you turn on a light, instead of flickering out randomly?
Everyone has had the experience of coming home from a long day, turning on the lights, and having the ligh… Continue reading

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Biologists reveal why mosquito repellent DEET is doomed to fail [Bug Overlords]

Everyone’s favorite mosquito repellent, DEET, works by making a smell that mosquitoes can’t stand, or by blocking their ability to smell humans, depending on who you ask. But even the greatest repellents won’t stop all mosquitoes. New evidence suggest… 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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The Sun is changing the rate of radioactive decay, and breaking the rules of chemistry [Mad Science]

The Sun is changing the supposedly constant rates of decay of radioactive elements, and we have absolutely no idea why. But an entirely unknown particle could be behind it. Plus, this discovery could help us predict deadly solar flares.It’s one of the … Continue reading

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Is evolution pushing our DNA towards diabetes? [Evolution]

Eighty DNA variants associated with type-1 diabetes have undergone positive selection, increasing in prevalence over recent generations. Here’s the crazy part – 58 of those variantsincrease the risk of the deadly disease. Why is evolution seemingly out… Continue reading

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String theory and black holes show a possible path to practical superconductors [Mad Physics]

A leading candidate for room temperature superconductors is the copper compound cuprate, but no one knew how cuprates facilitated superconductivity…until some brave souls looked inside a black hole and broke out the string theory to explain how they … Continue reading

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