Is Neuroscience Underpowered? “Power Failure” Revisited

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Back in 2013, a Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper appeared called Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience. This paper got a lot of attention at the time and has since been cited a dizzying 1760 times according to Google. ‘Power Failure’ made waves for its stark message that most neuroscience studies are too small, leaving neuroscience lacking statistical power, the chance of detecting signal in the noise. As the authors Kate Button et al. wrot ...read more

The First Australians Arrived 65,000 Years Ago

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Newly discovered archaeological evidence suggests the first Australians arrived at least 65,000 years ago, which challenges the increasingly shaky conventional timeline for human evolution and migration. New archaeological evidence supports an idea previously suggested by genetic studies: The first humans arrived in Australia at least 65,000 years ago. This earlier arrival date means humans were present Down Under before its widespread megafauna extinction, an event in which human activity  ...read more

Finding the Common Culture: Uniting Science and the Humanities in Citizen Science

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

By Brad Mehlenbacher (North Carolina State University) and Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher (University of Waterloo) Through citizen science projects, the Bodleian Library is improving access to their music collections, the Smithsonian is transcribing important documents, and researchers at the University of Oxford are transcribing Ancient Greek text from Greco-Roman Egypt. Although these projects represent promising examples of the humanities and social sciences, citizen science projects in these field ...read more

Artificial Intelligence Experts Respond to Elon Musk's Dire Warning for U.S. Governors

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: OnInnovation) If you hadn’t heard, Elon Musk is worried about the machines. Though that may seem a quixotic stance for the head of multiple tech companies to take, it seems that his proximity to the bleeding edge of technological development has given him the heebie-jeebies when it comes to artificial intelligence. He’s shared his fears of AI running amok before, likening it to “summoning the demon,” and Musk doubled down on his stance at a meeting of ...read more

Join the Hunt for Planets Around Our Closest Neighboring Stars

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

CHRX 73 B is a 12-Jupiter-mass planet circling a red dwarf star like the stars under investigation by the Red Dots campaign. (Credit: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon [STScI]) The Pale Red Dot team is coasting off the success of their discovery last year of a planet in the Proxima Centauri system system by casting its net even wider as the Red Dots campaign. Whereas Pale Red Dot focused just on Proxima Centauri, Red Dots is looking toward Barnard’s Star and Ross 154 as well. These three ...read more