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
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
