Climate change and social upheaval, the last time around…4,000 years ago.
The National (of the UAE) reports on radical new ways to deal with climate change… from the dawn of civilization: The Bronze Age transition from […]
Science
Science Art: The moon’s influence on earth’s tides, c 1930s.
A planetary self-portrait, apparently from Wonderland of Science, a book published in the 1930s. [via scientificillustration.tumblr.com]
Oceans are hiding global warming… for now.
The Atlantic, the Pacific… are sinks. Heat sinks. So says Scientific American, explaining that temperatures haven’t risen as sharply as they could have (YET) because […]
Triathlete uses internet to defeat her rare genetic disease
The Atlantic gives hope to the new generation of WebMD obsessives with a fascinating tale of an athlete who used the internet to figure out […]
Clawed worm rewrites evolutionary history.
A prehistoric worm with claws, says Live Science, has rewritten the origin story of crabs, spiders and mosquitos: According to a new study of the […]
Gut bacteria choose what you eat.
Science Daily takes us humans out of the driver’s seat and puts the germs inside us in charge of the menu tonight: In an article […]
HIV therapy might work on MS, too.
Neomatica explains how British and Australian researchers are figuring out why HIV patients show an unusual resistance to multiple sclerosis and its symptoms. It may […]
Science Art: Excerpt from The Arabic Machine Manuscript.
Click to embiggen This mysterious water-driven machine is from a mysterious Arabic manuscript, somewhere between 200 and 500 years old. The whole document is full […]
Mummies: WAAAY older than we thought.
Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. There was no such thing as the English language, and most human beings had never even seen paper. 2,500 years […]
Anesthesia works by stealing electrons from your brain.
Scientific American has more on the weird quantum effects that make consciousness go bye-bye: General anaesthetics may extinguish consciousness through mysterious quantum biological effects that […]
Hemp really IS a super-material… in circuitry, that is.
Laboratory Equipment reveals recent findings (as cannabis becomes easier to research) that the marijuana plant might make better supercapacitors than the “wonder material” graphene: David […]
Antiperspirant makes you stinkier. In the long run.
Ain’t that modern life all over? Real Clear Science exposes the (potentially) stinky way antiperspirants alter your armpit bacteria: While most of us might only […]
Fine wines – a plummy finish, a hint of earthiness, and some sex-bending pseudohormones.
Science 2.0 has more on the discovery of lots of phthalates in fine European wines: It isn’t just the booze itself, a group of scholars […]
Science Art: The Common Angler (Lophius piscatorus) (After W. Von Wright in Smitt), 1905.
Click to embiggen This is from the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in the Biodiversity Library. I bet there’s all *kinds* of things in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous […]
My great-grandmother was stressed when she was pregnant AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!
Science Daily has yet more research on the heritability of stress, with research that shows the effects of stress on one pregnant mom can last […]