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Gardening joys - ants & magnolias
As a tropical biologist, TPP has a lot of experience with ants, and while fascinating creatures, a lot of these experiences have not been good. Generally temperate zone ants are much less aggressive...
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The PSA test for prostate cancer: more harm than good?
Millions of men are tested each year for high levels of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, which is designed to detect early signs of prostate cancer. The test is covered by insurance, so most men...
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Some facts about Rubik's cube
posted by @ulaulaman about #RubikCube Rubik's cube is a 3d puzzle game crated by Ernő Rubik. In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid...
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‘Supernova in a bottle’ will help create matter from light
In 1934, two physicists came up with a theory that described how to create matter from pure light. But they dismissed the idea of ever observing such a phenomenon in the laboratory because of the...
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The English Grammars of the World
It's widely observed that not everybody speaks English the same way. Depending on where you grew up, you might say y'all, you guys, or just you. You might pronounce grocery as if it were "groshery" or...
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Religion and happiness: maybe it's not a country-specific effect after all
Last week I highlighted a failure to replicate a study on women, fertility and religion. Here's another study that sought to replicate an earlier one, but didn't.Steven Pirutinsky (Columbia University,...
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Phil Baran is a man of style. We, of course, knew that for a while.
Thanks to @ChemicalBiology I just came to know about a piece of news that may simultaneously help resurrect chemistry's moribund public image and disintegrate multiple damsel hearts as efficiently as...
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Happy birdday, F1!
About 6 hours ago TPP awoke to celebrate the exact anniversary of the F1's birth (about 3:15 AM), either that or TPP had to use the bathroom. My celebration was joined by the...
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Scientific field work - equipment attrition
Field work is hard on both the researchers and the equipment. TPP's back is not getting any younger. One of the adventures each spring is to discover all of the "equipment" you and your students lost...
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Findings: Which English -- updated dialect chart
I have updated the dialect chart based on the results for the first few days. Since the new version shows up automatically in the frame in the previous post, I haven't added it in here. And you can get...
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Friday Fabulous Flower -' Lemon Sunset' Evening Primrose
Yesterday was pretty busy, so missed this post by a day. A new evening primrose has been added to our gardens making a total of three species, Oenothera macrocarpa (previously missouriensis), O....
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#MicroTwJC 49 Expanding the Genetic Alphabet
Recently scientists have achieved a feat the like of which has not been seen in billions of years, they have added new letters to the genetic alphabet of a living organism. What did they do? How did...
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An attempt at setting the information balance right
The problem is not that there is too much information, but that there is too little of the right kind In his brilliant book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson shows through many...
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Urban gardening ignorance & defeatism
Elizabeth Gunnison Dunn is a NYC person, and this usually means two things: they are opinionated and they don't know crap about gardening. Now Liz is entitled to her opinions, but to label urban...
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The Infinite Improbability Drive
#towelday #InfiniteImprobabilityDrive #DouglasAdams The Infinite Improbability Drive is a faster-than-light drive. The most prominent usage of the drive is in the starship Heart of Gold. It is based on...
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Wasps with Fangs on their Feet?
Theronia septentrionalis, photographed by Stephen Cresswell.The ichneumons are one of the more familiar groups of parasitoid wasps for the general public. The species in the photo above is a member of...
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Deforestation and clear cutting
TPP is basically opposed to deforestation and clear cutting. It's basically a rape nature with a bulldozer mentality. However at times drastic action is needed, and in this case it was lawn that...
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Dr. House Was Right
I’m a big fan of the show House, which ran on the Fox TV network for 8 years and is now on Netflix. Gregory House, masterfully played by actor Hugh Laurie, is an brilliant doctor who diagnoses patients...
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Garden rebuilding - one plant at a time
Nothing like a long weekend to give you enough time to get the garden in shape for the rest of the summer, mostly. A number of things need almost complete rebuilding. Some new plants, of three...
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Watch out! This material may cause you to think!
For some time now, since the news of this first appeared, TPP has been going to write about students requesting "trigger warnings" on books, articles, and indeed, course syllabi. Fortunately this...
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