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If bacteria all glowed the way some bioluminescent species do, you’d probably go blind walking into your kitchen. An abundance of organic material and damp surfaces allows microbial life to flourish around spaces where food is prepared, but one particular item shines brightest in the bacterial firmament. It’s the kitchen sponge, that workhorse of culinary clean-ups, and it is absolutely overrun with bacteria.
Kitchen sponges have been picked out ...read more
In a post earlier this month, I discussed a new Journal of Neuroscience paper on statistical power in neuroscience. That paper was a response to and reanalysis of a previous article, and in my post I noted my surprise that the new paper hadn’t appeared in Nature Reviews: Neuroscience (NRN), where the original paper had been published.
It turns out there’s a bit of a backstory here. According to the senior author of the new paper, Jon Roiser, his group did want to submit to NRN, but ...read more
Where the heck did this storm come from?!
Tropical Storm Emily, as seen in a timelapse of GOES-16 weather satellite imagery covering two and a half hours, starting at about 7 a.m. (Florida time) on Monday, July 31, 2017. (Source: CIMSS Satellite Blog)
Seemingly out of the blue, Tropical Storm Emily has spun up off Florida’s Gulf Coast and made landfall just south of Tamp this morning. Where the heck did this storm come from?
At 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the National Hurricane Cente ...read more
A view of the website featuring some members of the XPRIZE Foundation’s Science Fiction Advisory Council. Credit: XPRIZE
The world of 20 years ago would probably seem unrecognizable to many who have grown with Internet and mobile services enabling an always-connected, everything-on-demand lifestyle. Now imagine hitting fast forward and teleporting 20 years into the future to consider how science and technology may have shaped society in the world of 2037. That’s the premi ...read more
Is a small scientific study better than none at all? A provocative piece in Frontiers in Psychology raises the question of whether we should ever do under-powered studies. The authors are Dutch researchers Rik Crutzen and Gjalt-Jorn Y. Peters.
Crutzen and Peters begin by questioning the idea that even a little evidence is always valuable. Taking the example of a study that only manages to recruit a handful of patients because it’s studying a rare disease, the authors say that:
Underpowe ...read more
(Credit: Антон Воробьев/Unsplash)
The FDA today announced plans to reduce levels of nicotine in cigarettes, a move that is aimed at lowering smoking rates in the U.S.
In a press release, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the move will cut the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to “non-addictive” levels, although he did not specify what that meant. The agency plans to issue an Advanced Notice of ...read more
There are three basic types of human smile: “reward”, “affiliative” and “dominance” smiles. That’s according to a new paper by psychologists Magdalena Rychlowska and colleagues.
Here’s the authors’ illustration of the types, as posed by actors:
Reward smiles, the authors say, are used to signal enjoyment:
Reward smiles are displayed to reward the self or other people and to communicate positive experiences or intentions… the reward s ...read more
This week is Shark Week so we wanted to celebrate by returning to three posts written about Sevengill Sharks and ways you can support their conservation through the Sevengill Sharks Tracking Project. The first post (seen below) was published in 2013 with others following in 2015 and 2016. Not really into carnivorous fish? Check out SciStarter’s Project Finder! With 1100+ citizen science projects spanning every field of research, task and age group, there’s something for e ...read more
