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The Four Layers of Earth
In a letter dated to March 30, 1759 the Italian mining engineer Giovanni Arduino(1714-1795) proposed to the physician and fossil collector Prof. Antonio Vallisnieri the subdivision of earth’s crust in...
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Ted Cruz is not as smart as Galileo, whatever he claims
Global temperatures for the past 125 years. It's getting hot!The word in Washington lately is that Senator Ted Cruz–who just announced that he’s running for President–is supposed to be a very smart...
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It must be spring - tell tale signs
After a long, cold winter, the human spirit just loves signs of spring, those little tell tales that let you know the season is changing. Here's a mess of crocus that occupy space around and under...
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Neuroscience and other theory-poor fields: Tools first, simulation later
I have writtenabout the ‘Big Brain Project’ a few times before, and I wrote a post about it for the Canadian TV channel TVO last year. The project basically seeks to make sense of that magnificent...
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It just might happen! Or not.
Hoo boy, what a possibility! Tom Tomorrow really scared TPP with this one, but President Cruz is a possibility, however implausible. And a guy can dream, can't he? And this is the country where...
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Australian Government Unveils Plan to Fix Australia's Conservation Crisis
The federal government revealed its proposal today to solve the conservation crisis in Australia, by ensuring populations of species are kept to an acceptable minimum, and preventing the description of...
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No April fools around here
The governor of Hoosierhome, the state that keeps Lincolnland from bumping into Ohio, really tried to put a prank over on us in this morning's news by saying that the Religious Freedom Act he recently...
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Frauds, Fakes and Fossils
“What are they?Creations of mind?- The mind can make Substance,and people planets of its ownWith beings brighter than have been, and giveA breath to forms which can outlive all flesh”“The Dream“, Lord...
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"In surprise advance announcement, 2013 Nobel Prize in physics awarded to...
In honor of April Fool's day I am posting an old post from Scientific American which I wrote not on April 1st but on September 30th, a few days before the announcement of the Nobel Prize awarded that...
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FieldNotes: this is not your grandparents' neuroscience!
Let's start with three thought-provoking posts about the way the most fundamental ideas about neurobiology are being questioned and are changing as we speak:Watching a paradigm shift in neuroscience by...
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April 2015 Desktop Calendar
Another moss from my adventures in Chile. I think the peltate/umbrella shape of this moss is really great! 1 - Single click on the image to open it up in a new window. (If you use the image directly...
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Friday Fabulous Flower - Light blue lawns
Unlike in the burbs, the Phactors live in a historic district with old houses and old lawns, owned by old people (actually only a few of us) and here abouts, old lawns sometimes means blue lawns,...
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In drug discovery, what counts is asking the right question
The other day I was having a discussion with a colleague about the drug Velcade which has been used quite successfully to treat multiple myeloma. Velcade is probably the only bestselling drug that has...
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Friday Fabulous Flower - Blue lawn addendum
OK, who hit the publish button on the FFF blog on Thursday? Dang, no one else to blame, but my dear readers you will get another installment of blue as a result. While strolling through our blue lawn...
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Cassini ovals
#HappyEaster from @ulaulaman with #math via commonsA Cassini oval is a quartic plane curve defined as the set (or locus) of points in the plane such that the product of the distances to two fixed...
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Spring bits and pieces
Here's some bits and pieces that have popped up along with the spring flowers. First, remember when planting new trees and shrubs, especially those that have been grown in plastic pots, to tease out...
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Top 10 popular chemistry books for the general reader
An aerogel, one of the wonders of modern chemistrydescribed by Mark Miodownik in "Stuff Matters"Steven Weinberg - with whom I once had the great pleasure of sharing a panel on 'Big Science' - has noted...
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Dot Snails
A dot snail Punctum pygmaeum crawls over a mountain bulin Ena montana (itself not a very large snail). Copyright Stefan Haller.The dot snails of the family Punctidae are one group of animals that...
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Electric bicycle casts a long shadow
Electric bicycles have long been possible, but the trailing cord was a real problem. So here's an electric bicycle with the solar panels built into the disks of the wheels where there is a considerable...
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If computational recipes were like food recipes...
...the menu at Boston's elegant L'Espalier might look something like this.Maine beef tenderloin: Carrot tagliatelle al ragù, gorgonzola mornay, sunny side up quail egg, crispy shallots10 ns molecular...
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