A new study shows that record-breaking ocean heat pumped up Hurricane Harvey, contributing to catastrophic flooding
An animation of infrared imagery from the GOES-16 weather satellite shows the evolution of Hurricane Harvey between Aug. 25 and 28 2017. (Note: The animation may take awhile to fully load and play smoothly. Source: RAMMB/CIRA)
The North Atlantic hurricane season last year was extraordinary for a number reasons, but none more memorable than these:
Irma, Maria a ...read more
Cichlidogyrus attenboroughi. (Credit: Nikol Kmentová)
Let’s talk about soul mates.
It’s a nice concept, but functionally unworkable. There are just too many people out there for any one person you meet to be “the one”. In reality, it’s probably more like “one of roughly several million people, some marginally better than others”. And if we take the thought experiment at face value and assume that there were truly just one soul mate for each of u ...read more
I remember passing notes in grade school. Oh, the thrill of exchanging “secret” messages with friends. In reality, teachers and classmates saw it happening and were probably super annoyed. Not to mention the repercussions if the message were intercepted.
But now, there’s a better way to keep your messages secret. A group of computer scientists from Columbia University created FontCode — a way to unobtrusively hide secret messages in the very shapes of printed letters the ...read more
A new paper in ACS Chemical Neuroscience pulls no punches in claiming that most of what we know about the neuroscience of learning is wrong: Dendritic Learning as a Paradigm Shift in Brain Learning
According to authors Shira Sardi and colleagues, the prevailing view which is that learning takes place in the synapses is mistaken. Instead, they say, ‘dendritic learning’ is how brain cells really store information.
If a neuron is a tree, the dendrites are the branches, while the synaps ...read more
An international team of astronomers was able to determine the chemical composition of Kuiper Belt Object 2004 EW95, an asteroid 2.5 billion miles (4 billion kilometers) away from Earth. Its makeup revealed elements that are prominent in the inner solar system, suggesting a significant outward migration. (Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)
It’s believed that our solar system’s gas giants caused quite a ruckus in their infancies. As they exited their tight orbits and began outward migr ...read more
A USGS scientist measures the temperature of gases emitted from a fissure at Leilani Estates on May 9, 2018. USGS/HVO.
The eruptions at Kilauea took a bit of a break over the last day — at least at the surface. The fissures that opened in Leilani Estates (see above) haven’t erupted much new lava, but the are still emitting copious amounts of volcanic gases like sulfur dioxide. So, right now, that is the biggest hazard for people on the east side of the big island: the threat of volca ...read more
(Credit: Review News/Shutterstock)
This just in: Europe is stealing life satisfaction from the U.S.
No, it’s got nothing to do with immigrants or trade tariffs; it seems that the dastardly Europeans are denying us our happiness through an even more insidious channel: The power of song.
Well, I doubt it’s a coordinated effort to rob us of well-being, but a recent study in the journal BMC Public Health did finds that doing well in the Eurovision song contest (which America, ...read more
Which way is out again? (Credit: Szasz-Fabian Jozsef)
Graduate psychology students can attest to the monotony of studying lab rats. Drop the animals into a maze, take diligent notes as they scurry around, repeat ad nauseum.
Mazes have been a mainstay in psychological research for more than a century, with scientists running rodents through contraptions to test their memory, learning and spatial skills. But they’ve always had limitations.
Now modern technology is finding its way into maze ...read more
Signs of leprosy mark a skull found in a Danish cemetery in use from the 13th through 16th centuries. (Credit Dorthe Dangvard Pedersen)
One of the most dreaded diseases for millennia, leprosy is still with us — though it has lost much of its menace. But some of its mystery remains, particularly its origins. In a study out today, researchers turned to ancient DNA to discover leprosy’s roots, and the path they followed took them to a surprising place.
Leprosy results from a ...read more
