Coconut crabs (Birgus latro) are gigantic land-dwelling crabs found on islands throughout the Indo-Pacific. They can live for decades, and can grow to be more than 3 feet wide (legs outstretched) and weigh in at more than 6 pounds. So that name isn't because they're the size of a coconut—it's because they can actually tear open coconuts to eat their tender meat.
"If a coconut falls out of a tree, they'll clamp onto&A ...read more
Fellas, has that Armani suit been calling your name lately? Maybe it’s because you’ve got some extra testosterone coursing through your system. A new study in the journal Nature Communications found that higher levels of the hormone impact men’s preference for high-end products.
An international team of scientists worked with a group of over 240 men; half of them got an injection of testosterone gel while the other half got a placebo ge ...read more
A paper in Psychological Science was taking a beating on Twitter last month.
https://twitter.com/lakens/status/1004119102485614592
In this post, I'm not going to talk about the paper itself but rather, about how it came to be published and how preregistration - a concept I have long advocated - may be being misused.
The paper reports on five studies which all address the same general question. Of these, Study #3 was preregistered and the authors write that it was performed after ...read more
When Igor Ashurbeyli walked onstage to be inaugurated Asgardia’s head of state, it was a few small steps for the Russian scientist and businessman, and one dubious leap for the world’s first “space nation.�
The national anthem that preceded him fills the mind with scenes of an epic, pioneering future, and that’s just what Ashurbeyli envisions. Our descendents take up residence in â€&oelig ...read more
"No man is an island," noted English poet John Donne, but now a new study of nearly a half-million people find there may be genetic roots to loneliness.
These findings also show that some genetic variations are linked to social activities like going to the pub. The results were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Previous research has already shown that loneliness is more than just a state of mind. It's strongly linked with an increase in all causes of death, on a l ...read more
So, we're made it through the 2018 Geology World Cup Group Stage. Now it's time to vote for the countries that will make it through to the quarterfinals. To make it easier, I've created a single poll for your votes, so cast your ballot now!
The Matches:
Left bracket:
A1. Russia vs B2. Portugal: In soccer, this might lean strongly in Portugal's direction but in geology, Russia is the behemoth. I mean, Russia is big enough that it has been the site of not one but two maj ...read more
Telling people how we really feel can be... well, tricky. Even when it comes to writing a simple thank you note: "What if it's too much? Will they think I'm weird? Is it going to be awkward?" If only there were a surefire way to know how it was going to turn out! Well, this study is getting as close as we are likely to get. Here, scientists tracked how senders and receivers felt about thank you letters, and the results suggest that you should get your pen out: "Expressers significantly under ...read more
Launched in 1977, the unmanned space probes Voyager 1 and 2 carried out an extensive survey of the planets and moons of the outer solar system. Visiting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the Voyager program can only be called an unqualified success on virtually every level. The twin spacecraft returned thousands of photographs and reams of scientific data that fundamentally changed our understanding of our entire solar system. Currently in interstellar space, Voyager 1 is the farthest ma ...read more
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has entered its nearest orbit ever to the dwarf planet Ceres, an icy body in the asteroid belt left over from the formation of the solar system. And Dawn is already turning up stunning results.
The latest images sent back by the spacecraft were captured just 22 miles above a site called Occator Crater. Before June, Dawn was orbiting hundreds of miles over the surface.
This bright region first stood out to astronomers when Dawn arrived at Ceres in 2015 ...read more
In 2015, in a small town in Germany called Handeloh, a group of 29 men and women were rushed to hospital after displaying strange and sometimes violent behaviours along with other symptoms including vomiting and seizures. The victims were all attendees at a seminar on spiritual healing called 'Die sieben Quellen' - "The Seven Springs".
The patients all survived, although a number were seriously ill. The organizer of seminar, a psychotherapist, admitted to police that he had given the attendee ...read more
