Can Alzheimer’s be transmitted?
Nature follows a researcher who noticed typical Alzheimer’s lesions in very untypical patients – young people who died after receiving contaminated growth hormone injections: For […]
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Electric doping (drug-free!) boosts ski performance.
Nature reports on how tDCS – zapping the brain with low-voltage electricity – can help athletes boost their performance: The USSA [(US Ski and Snowboard […]
Wee rex. Awwww.
I stole the name from Reuters, but it was Joel Achenbach at Washington Post that first pointed me toward the news that they’ve found a […]
Science Art: ISS016-E-032414 (Underside of Space Shuttle Endeavour), 2008
Click to embiggen NASA has some of the best perspectives on the planet (and some of the planet’s best perspectives). Like so. This is a […]
Why *is* there a huge mountain on Ceres?
I’m sure if you’re reading this, you’re already regularly checking out Bad Astronomy, but just in case you missed it, Phil Plait is asking a […]
Mock weapons from the Iron Age
Science Daily pores over the mysterious discovery of a collection of non-functional metal weapons from more than 2,600 years ago: Discovered in 2009, the site […]
A remarkable woman, 2,500 years ago.
The Times of Israel reports on an unusual discovery – a small seal (as in wax-and-envelope, not as in hunted-in-Arctic) that belonged to a powerful […]
China goes green.
Amid news of massive layoffs and financial uncertainty, New Scientist sheds a ray of hope on the Middle Kingdom, reporting on China’s new five-year plan […]
More orangutans than we thought.
BBC has hope for the wild men of the woods. A new population study has found more than double the number of Sumatran orangutans as […]
Science Art: LEAF Sound Horn, by ESA – A. Le Floc’h
Click to embiggen This is a big horn for making big noise. It’s the way the European Space Agency tests how satellites stand up to […]
At Marlon Brando’s island, the war on mosquitos is being won.
Stat goes to the front-line laboratories in French Polynesia, where scientists are beating back mosquitos in revolutionary ways: Hervé Bossin and his team have released […]
Why are American kids getting so good at higher math?
The Atlantic investigates the social movement behind America’s recent surprise win at the international Math Olympiad: You wouldn’t see it in most classrooms, you wouldn’t […]
Fossilized nerves.
Washington Post reports on an impossible-seeming thing – a fossil that’s not just of hard tissue like teeth and bones (and shells), but that reveals […]
So we’ve made sperm. No man necessary.
Nature cuts my last potential for productivity to the quick with news that researchers have made mouse sperm in a dish: Researchers in China say […]
Science Art: Contour plot of Rastrigin’s function in two variables, by Tos
Click to embiggen I don’t have the math language to explain what’s going on here very well. It’s a diagram of the Rastrigin function, which […]