(Credit: agsandrew/Shutterstock)
Menstruating women experience no changes in cognition, according to a new study from Swiss and German researchers.
It’s a pervasive stereotype: cognitive performance is different when women are on their periods. It’s an idea that has implications for women’s professional lives, extending even to the last presidential election. However, there isn’t reliable scientific research backing this ill-informed belief up, and what little exists is ...read more
It sure looks that way in this animation showing the Sun up close and personal. And there are two other ‘holes’ visible as well.
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A big dark area in the north polar region makes it appear as if the Sun has blown its top. And in a way, it has.
You can see what’s going on by watching the animation above. It’s based on data acquired by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft over 48 hours, starting on July 3rd and continuing into today ...read more
Guest post by Earlene Mulyawan
Yogurt is an ancient food that has been around for several millennia. One theory of the discovery of yogurt is that during 10,000 – 5,000 BC, when Herdsmen began the practice of milking their animals, they stored their milk in bags made of the intestinal gut of the animals. The intestines contain natural enzymes that cause the milk to curdle and sour. The herdsmen noticed that this method of storing milk extends its shelf life and preserves it. When they cons ...read more
Meet megapredator Razanandrongobe sakalavae of Madagascar’s Jurassic. My, Razana, what big teeth you have. (Credit Fabio Manucci)
Out of Madagascar comes a megapredator the stuff of nightmares: a massive croc-like carnivore that walked erect and had a mouthful of steak knife teeth more like those of T. rex than modern crocodiles. While this might sound like some crazy hybrid creature dreamed up for the next Jurassic Park sequel, this animal was real, and finding new pieces of it sheds lig ...read more
The medical journal Prenatal Diagnosis recently played host to a vigorous debate over whether a male fetus was spotted engaging in masturbation on ultrasound.
The alleged case of antenatal autoeroticism was reported by Spanish gynecologists Vanesa Rodríguez Fernández and Carlos López Ramón y Cajal in September last year. Their paper was called In utero gratification behaviour in male fetus. Here’s the ultrasonic evidence of the act:
Rodríguez Fern&aacu ...read more
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This Fourth of July, as you and your family settle on a sandy beach or grassy lawn to watch a fireworks display, you’re probably not thinking about the science behind the explosives you’re witnessing. In fact, you probably are not even thinking of them as explosives. But that’s exactly what they are—-and there’s a lot of science that goes into creating that dazzling display of fire and colors.
Fireworks often comprise mixtures of oxidizers a ...read more
Examples of researchers’ mazes, and the solutions. (Credit: Bae, et al)
Scientists are bringing wrinkles into style with self-organizing mini-mazes that could someday serve as digital fingerprints for secure technology.
In a study published Friday in Science Advances, a team of researchers, led by Wook Park of Kyung Hee University in South Korea, demonstrated a fabrication technique that offers greater control over how wrinkling, usually a random process, occurs on a silica-based substra ...read more
The Kemper power plant. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A once-promising clean coal plant in Mississippi is set to switch to natural gas instead.
The facility, run by utility provider Southern Company, is over budget and behind schedule, and has failed to achieve its goal of producing electricity from coal with significantly reduced carbon emissions. A review by the Mississippi Public Service Commission gave the plant until July 6 to begin planning its future and recommended a switch to natur ...read more
Five years ago I blogged about the debate over whether the blue-for-boys, pink-for-girls color convention used to be the other way around. My post focused on a 2012 paper by psychologist Marco Del Giudice arguing that the idea of a cultural “pink–blue reversal” in the English-speaking world in the early 20th century is a myth.
Now, Del Giudice has published an ‘update’ revisiting the issue. Based on text data from late 19th and early 20th century American news ...read more
