The key to octopuses’ uncanny intelligence is in their genes.
Nature reports that the octopus has, for an invertebrate, a really large genome – including a long sequence of genes that regulates intelligence in “higher” […]
Science Art: Mirounga leonina 01, by H. Zell
This is a southern elephant seal, the largest marine mammal that isn’t a whale. They’re about twice as weighty …
Read moreScience Art: What can make any tape recorder sound a little more like an Ampex?, 1963.
This is an ad for Ampex tape from the August 1963 edition of Electronics Australia, a magazine (which I found o…
Read moreScience Art: Cygnus region in emission lines, 2025
This is a photo of space with a bit of color amplification so we can tell what we’re looking at. Nebulas on the…
Read moreScience Art: Heart apical two-chamber view myocardial regions, by Patrick Lynch
This is an illustration of a particular perspective in a cardiac echocardiogram. An “apical view” is one of the…
Read moreSONG: Sleeping Cathedrals
SONG: “Sleeping Cathedrals”. (OGG version here.)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “World’s biggest whale g…
Read moreScience Art: Build Your Own Lie Detector, 1955
This is the opener for an article in the May 1955 issue of Popular Electronics. You can read the article here, …
Read moreThe Lost Colony… found?
New York Times reveals what might be the ultimate fate of the Lost Colony of Roanoke: They call the spot Site X. Down a dusty […]
Graphene’s tin cousin
Nature greets a new one-atom-thick material – a super-thin sheet of tin scientists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University are calling “stanene”: Stanene (from the Latin […]
Science Art: Experience the Gravity of a Super Earth, NASA/JPL Exoplanet Travel Bureau
Click to embiggen Apparently, since last December at least, NASA has been creating vintage-style travel posters for exoplanets – the planets we’ve been discovering around […]
Emotions help you remember information
Science Daily processes a University of Haifa finding about why first impressions are so important – and how *feeling* a thing helps you *know* a […]
Teens and two-year-olds: The ages most vulnerable to trauma.
Quartz opens a window on the two periods of brain development when traumatic events do the most damage: According to Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and […]
Oh, and your picky eater is doomed, too.
OK, I’m overstating things for dramatic effect… but another Science Daily report reveals even moderately picky eaters face health risks: According to the study, published […]
You don’t know how (un)happy your children are.
Science Daily reveals that parents are (as we suspected) getting it all wrong – they think their 10-year-olds are happier – and their 15-year-olds are […]
Fish juice and shrimp shell sunscreen.
Not sure how it smells once you rub it on (despite assurances it doesn’t), but New Scientist is looking toward a blend of fish extract […]
Makin’ babies with Neanderthals *changed* us.
As a species. In some pretty profound ways, Nature says. They highlight a few of the “outsize effects” our Neanderthal genes have on our lives: […]
Windbots to explore Jupiter – the bumpier the ride, the better.
Sky News looks up to report on NASA’s airiest plans for exploring Jupiter. They’re designing a flock of turbulence-fueled “windbots” – cheap, floating robots to […]
The gene technology that will change everything.
Wired revels in the newest scientific revolution – the ability to rewrite our genes with ease: The stakes, however, have changed. Everyone at the Napa […]
Four-legged snake fossil rewrites reptile evolution.
Nature has more on the Brazilian “hugging” snake with legs… that’s changing the way we look at reptile origins: Although it has four legs, Tetrapodophis […]
Science Art: Soaking Up the Rays of a Sun-Like Star, by NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle, 2015.
Click to embiggen This is an artist’s impression of a planet just discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission that’s gotten the folks at SETI all excited. […]