A farmer sprays field with a nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium fertilizer. (Credit: oticki/Shutterstock)
All life needs phosphorus and agricultural yields are improved when phosphorus is added to growing plants and the diet of livestock. Consequently, it is used globally as a fertilizer – and plays an important role in meeting the world’s food requirements.
In order for us to add it, however, we first need to extract it from a concentrated form – and the supply comes almost exc ...read more
A slightly scientifically inaccurate illustration from 1909. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
If, like me, you like fossils and you like sharks, you’re in luck. A recent re-look at a fossil found more than a decade ago has answered a big question about the story of sharks’ evolution.
Published recently in American Museum Novitates, a new high-tech reinvestigation of a well-preserved fossil first described in 2003 revealed the animal was more than an Early Devonian sharklike fish.
T ...read more
How much damage can the brain take and still function normally? In a new paper, A Lesion-Proof Brain?, Argentinian researchers Adolfo M. García et al. describe the striking case of a woman who shows no apparent deficits despite widespread brain damage.
The patient, “CG”, is 44 years old and was previously healthy until a series of strokes lesioned large parts of her brain, as shown below.
García et al. say that the damage included “extensive compromise of the rig ...read more
The past year has seen the emergence of a new field of neuroscience: neuroTrumpology. Also known as Trumphrenology, this discipline seeks to diagnose and explain the behaviour of Donald Trump and his supporters through reference to the brain.
Here are some examples of neuroTrump scholarship: Donald Trump’s Lizard Brain (February 2016) and After a brain injury, I suddenly displayed some behavior similar to Donald Trump’s (August 2016). More recently we have Trump’s Lies vs. Yo ...read more
UCI chemistry professor Ken Shea (right) and doctoral student Jeffrey O’Brien (left) have developed a potential new broad-spectrum snake venom antidote. Photo credit: Steve Zylius / UCI
Living in countries like the U.S., Australia, and the U.K., it can be all too easy to forget that snakebites are a serious and neglected global medical problem. It’s estimated that upwards of 4.5 million people are envenomated by snakes every year; about half of them suffer seriou ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
