Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine has been listening to the mice as the tiny Casanovas sing to impress the babes:
It has been known for some time that house mice (Mus musculus) produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during courtship but it has generally been assumed that these are no more than squeaks. However, recent spectrographic analyses have revealed that USVs [...]
Into the K-hole and out of altogether darker hole… NPR looks at the new use for an old club drug (and veterinary anesthetic):
[O]ne of the challenges in treating these severely depressed patients is that there simply isn’t any drug that provides quick relief, says Anu Matorin, medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Center [at the Texas Medical Center].
…
Mental [...]
E.D. Leavitt, Massachusetts mechanical engineer, designed many huge machines in the 1870s.They moved things, macerated and mangled them, mined and melted them. Leavitt’s machines did things measured in the millions of gallons.
And his niece was one of the great women of astronomy, too.
[image via Old Book Illustrations]
Popular Mechanics recently investigated the forensics of the zombie head shot:
Dr. Steven Schlozman, has written extensively about the brain function of undead zombies (as opposed to voodoo victim zombies). He’s co-director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and, much more importantly, on the advisory board of the Zombie Research Society.
His self-appointed mission is [...]
Scientists have come one step closer to creating artificial life by building a cell membrane from scratch:
“We don’t understand this really fundamental step in our existence, which is how non-living matter went to living matter,” [Neal Devaraj, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego] said. “So this is a really ripe area to try to [...]
The Chronicle of Higher Education is watching closely as a tenured Stanford professor leaves his secure job to teach at an online startup:
Sebastian Thrun, a professor of computer science at Stanford, revealed today that he has departed the institution to found Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online classes.
…
Mr. Thrun told the crowd his move was motivated in [...]
I never thought that within my lifetime, we’d be planning – as PopSci reports – to send flying robots to find aliens on Saturn’s moons:
Physicist Jason Barnes has designed a robotic aircraft that could cruise the methane skies of Saturn’s moon Titan almost indefinitely, beaming data and images back to Earth and terminating with extreme prejudice any terrorist [...]
SONG: “Bioluminescence at the Dragon Vent.” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)
ARTIST: Squid Pro Crow.
SOURCE: Based on “Exotic creatures discovered living at deep-sea vent in Indian Ocean”, Guardian, 28 Dec 2011, as used in the post “Creatures of the Dragon Vent”.
ABSTRACT: This song was a result of a thing that I found [...]
This early ’60s vision of the future (in all likelihood, right now) was painted by visual futurist Syd Mead, who worked in industrial design as well as making films like Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron look like tomorrow.
I found it on Professor Michael Stoll’s Flickr account, where he describes how he found it:
Sometimes students [...]
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