Getting an edge with high tech and lowly microbes.
In 13th-century China, a field worker was killed with a sickle — and all villagers’ sickles were alike. So the investigator had every worker lay down his tool in a field, and observed that just one sickle attracted blowflies, which were known to seek out blood. Its owner, the culprit, immediately confessed. The Chinese sickle slaying is one of the first reported cases of forensic investigation. The role of science in evidence co ...read more
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Communities of tiny plants and organisms protect arid landscapes. Now their survival is threatened.
On a cool September morning, a caravan of international scientists rumbles past the iconic formations of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Over the eons, wind and water have carved this landscape into a maze of stunning red sandstone arches and spires. The researchers marvel at the formations, so different from their own backyards — places as distant as China, Niger, Australia and Spai ...read more
When we’re presented with a choice, we carefully weigh the alternatives and choose the option that makes the most sense — or do we? Only recently has science begun to unravel how we really make decisions.
In the face of stress or time pressure, or even seemingly unrelated cues, our assessment of situations and the choices we ultimately make can be colored by innate biases, flawed assumptions and prejudices born of personal experience. And we’re clueless about how they influence ...read more
More than 350 million years ago, our distant fishy ancestors traded in the life aquatic for land. Once ashore, these four-limbed vertebrates, called tetrapods, branched into an impressive range of animals: amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds and mammals. The fossil record shows that as species evolved to fill particular ecological niches, a few of the tetrapod clan lost limbs (snakes), turned arms into wings (bats, birds and pterosaurs) or decided the heck with dry land and headed back to sea ...read more
Even before we’re born, human beings are sensitive to face-like shapes, according to a paper just published in Current Biology.
British researchers Vincent M. Reid and colleagues of the University of Lancaster used lasers to project a pattern of three red dots onto the abdomen of pregnant women. The lasers were bright enough to be visible from inside the womb. The dots were arranged to be either “face-like”, i.e. with two “eyes” above one “mouth”, or in ...read more
Have you heard of the idea that smiling actually makes you joyful? Perhaps you know of the experiment where researchers got people to hold a pen in their mouth, so they had to smile, and it made them find cartoons funnier.
If you’re familiar with this idea, then you’re familar with the work of German psychologist Fritz Strack, who carried out the famous pen-based grinning study, back in 1988.
Now, Strack has just published a new piece, called From Data to Truth in Psychological Sci ...read more
This article was originally posted on August 21, 2013 but we thought this project provided a great way to celebrate World Oceans Day even if you can’t make it to the beach!
Calling all citizen scientists! It doesn’t matter where you are. You can still be an ‘honorary’ diver to help with this project. The idea is simply to look at seafloor photos on your computer and catalogue what you find.
Explore the Sea Floor is part of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) usi ...read more
(Credit: Shutterstock)
SecondMuse, an agency that collaborates with organizations to help solve complex problems, looked to the latest drone and 360 video technologies to help showcase aquaculture — the farming of aquatic life-forms — in Tanzania.
Last year, the Blue Economy Challenge awarded 10 projects for their creative uses of aquaculture. Led by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s InnovationXchange, in partnership with SecondMuse, the goal was to awa ...read more
