Dead gharials began washing up on the banks of India’s Chambal River in December 2007. Over the following weeks, the body count grew. By mid-January, the dead reptiles—some the length of two tall men, lined up end to end—numbered in the dozens. By March, more than 110 of the skinny-snouted creatures had been found dead, most along a 30-kilometer (18-mile) stretch of river.
At the time, there were thought to be just 200 to 250 breeding-ag ...read more
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
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine