New works in the public domain since 1987.
This full kaleidoscope of skin colors was a relatively recent evolutionary development, according to biologists, occuring alongside the migration of modern humans out of Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence.
By applying a method of calculating gravity that was first developed for the moon to data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, known as Grace, JPL researchers have found a way to measure the pressure at the bottom of the ocean.
when researchers described the man as single, 59 percent of single women were interested in pursuing him. However, when they described the exact same man as being in a committed relationship, 90 percent of the women were interested. Men did not show this preference, and neither did women who were already in a relationship.
Help to make sense of the Daily Mail’s ongoing effort to classify every inanimate object into those that cause cancer and those that prevent it.
I know very little about the climate, geology, the sun, space, oceanography… I know very little about very many things. Fortunately my profound ignorance matters little. I am not in any position to make public policy, establish budgets for research or government spending, evaluate the findings of professionals, etc. I barely know whether I should wear a jacket during much of the year, and I am often wrong in my choices. My ignorance influences only myself and only a small amount. This is fortunate, because if I was in charge of things the potential for grave error would be unacceptably large.
At the same time, I know a little bit about how science works, how people behave in groups, the difference between consulting and trusting authorities, and a few more things. Most importantly, I know how to teach myself new information: ask questions, then ask more questions. When it comes to climate change, I’m still asking questions. I and everyone who matters agrees that the climate changes, and that it has some patterns of change. When sunlight is blocked during the rotation of the Earth, temperatures drop. As the Earth rotates on its axis and orbits the sun, seasons occur. I hope we are all in agreement with what I’ve claimed so far. There seems to be longer patterns of climate change, some older than humanity. These longer patterns seem to be influenced by solar activity, can occur rapidly and have nothing at all to do with humanity.
Small Fluctuations In Solar Activity, Large Influence On Climate: Subtle connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe [...] Chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean respond during solar maximum in a way that amplifies the Sun’s influence on some aspects of air movement. This can intensify winds and rainfall, change sea surface temperatures and cloud cover over certain tropical and subtropical regions, and ultimately influence global weather.
Sunlight Has More Powerful Influence On Ocean Circulation And Climate Than North American Ice Sheets: The distribution of sunlight, rather than the size of North American ice sheets, is the key variable in changes in the North Atlantic deep-water formation during the last four glacial cycles. The new study goes back 425,000 years.
Tracking Down Abrupt Climate Changes – Rapid Natural Cooling Occurred 12,700 Years Ago: Researchers in Germany, Switzerland, and the United States have shown, for the first time, that an extremely fast climate change occurred in Western Europe. This took place long before human-made changes in the atmosphere, and is causatively associated with a sudden change in the wind systems.
Where I and many others part ways is how much (if at all) human activity is influencing climate change. I lean toward the claim that humanity has had little if any influence on climate change, but I could be wrong. Any claim that gives humanity a special place in the world, that speaks of our wickedness spawned by our cleverness, that imagines a primal perfect state, that offers a single-bullet theory as to the planet’s calamities, that is offered as a complex argument when it is in reality a catch phrase, any claim such as these pushes my superstition button. I’m confident that models of climate prediction are offered as tentative by the scientists that present them and as gospel fact by the masses that read them. I’m confident that the best minds and resources on the planet are still wrong most of the time when it comes to predicting next month’s weather, much less the next hundred years. The literature of climate studies is likely larger than I or anyone could take in during a lifetime, and even specializing in humanity’s possible influence during the past few hundred years would mandate being a professional. I don’t know what’s going on, I’m asking questions, and I hope you’ll keep asking questions too. When global warming is offered as an explanation for why glaciers are melting, ask why global warming can also be an explanation for glaciers growing. When global warming is offered as a danger to living things, ask why it can be a boon.
Mysterious Glaciers That Grew When Asia Heated Up: Ice, when heated, is supposed to melt. That’s why a collection of glaciers in the Southeast Himalayas stymies those who know what they did 9,000 years ago. While most other Central Asian glaciers retreated under hotter summer temperatures, this group of glaciers advanced from one to six kilometers. [...] As Central Asia’s summer climate warmed as much as 6 degrees Celsius, shifting weather patterns brought more clouds to the Southeast Himalayas. The additional shade created a pocket of cooler temperatures. Temperatures also dropped when higher winds spurred more evaporation in this typically humid area, the same process behind household swamp coolers.
Climate Change, Acid Rain Could Be Good For Forests: After more than 20 years of research in the northern hardwood forests of Michigan, scientists at Michigan Technological University’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science have reached a surprising conclusion: Moderate increases in temperature and nitrogen from atmospheric pollution actually improve forest productivity.
Climate focus ‘good news for species’: Climate change could actually benefit some of the world’s most endangered species, says Conservation International president Russell Mittermeier. He explains that conservationists should capitalise on the worldwide attention being given to global warming.
I’m not advocating that you wait until we have the final answer about what’s going on and what to do before you do anything. But I do think we can advocate a more efficient industrialized planet (cleaner and cheaper is a good start) entirely without global warming. Spending less on transportation is its own reward, as are cleaner air and water. We can try to make the world a better place because humans are wonderful and we like wonderful things. No nee for a boogieman of global warming or an overestimation of our importance in the world. These can only distract from attempted solutions to real problems, of which we have more than enough.
when it comes to pain control, the “placebo effect” involves evolutionarily old pain control pathways in the human brainstem, the part of the brain that is continuous with the spinal cord.
It’s Not All In Your Head: Descending Neural Mechanisms Of Placebo-induced Pain Control
This is the first time that genomes have been transferred between branches of life—from a prokaryote to eukaryote and back to a prokaryote.
BBC: Has climate change hijacked the wider environmental agenda? If so, why? And does it matter? [...] Mike Hulme, who led the influential UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research until recently, believes the climate issue is rather enticing for the modern leader.
“The characteristics of climate change are quite convenient for politicians to use and to deploy both at a popular level but also at a political level,” he says.
He argues that climate change is seductive to politicians because it is a long-term issue – so decisive action is always posited for some time in the future, at a time that can always be made yet more distant – and someone else can always be blamed. So Europeans used to blame the US, the US would blame China and India, and developing countries would blame the entire developed West.
“It’s very easy to pass responsibility for failure somewhere else… and in the process of doing that, one is able to keep one’s own credibility and record, with the appearance of being much more progressive and constructive.”
According to this analysis – and in contradiction to Al Gore’s famous phrase – climate change has acquired its huge profile largely because it is a far more convenient truth than poor air quality or biodiversity loss or fisheries decline, where the actions needed are more likely to be national or local – and certainly more convenient than tackling the issues that underpin everything else, the size of the human population and our unsustainable consumption of the Earth’s resources.
2009 marks 400 years since Galileo exhibited his telescope, 150 years since the publication of On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and 40 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The calendar and anniversaries and mathematics are human inventions. The small satisfied feeling I get from nice round numbers and overlapping anniversaries is something like a superstition. I act on my superstition by writing a blog post and I don’t expect anyone to act on my superstition, so it seems harmless enough. Compared to how the professionally superstitious responded to Galileo’s telescope and Darwin’s theory, I think I’m doing pretty good. On this anniversary of three nice round numbers, take a moment to consider what science has revealed and what superstition has concealed about the universe.
By successively acquiring culture in the form of values, ideas, and actions throughout their lives, humans influence future learning and the capacity for cultural evolution. The number of learning opportunities a person is exposed to is of great importance to that individual’s cultural evolution during his/her lifetime
Cultural Evolution Continues Throughout Life, Mathematical Models Suggest
Infants who excel at processing new information at 6- and 12-months-old, typically excel in intelligence and academic achievements as young adults in their 20′s [behavior and biology]
Ability To Process Information As A Baby Continues Into Adulthood
A major Danish study shows a clear connection between the ability to reproduce and longevity.
counting money — just handling the bills — can make things less painful.
those that had positive outlooks towards their recovery actually recovered over three times faster than those who did not. [behavior and biology]
Positive Expectations Help Patients Recover From Whiplash Three Times Faster
Crows can spontaneously use up to three tools in the correct sequence to achieve a goal, something never before observed in non-human animals without explicit training.
Crows Can Use ‘Up To Three Tools’ In Correct Sequence Without Training
A new high-tech glove enables the translation of sign language into written text, facilitating communication for the hearing or speech impaired
Breaking Sound Barriers — Electrical Engineers Develop Glove That Translates Sign Language
The way people with autism see and process the body language of others could be preventing them from gauging people’s feelings
Autism Study Finds Visual Processing ‘Hinders Ability’ To Read Body Language
Patients who made more errors were slower to stop looking at pictures ruled out by the relative clause when they had heard only as far as that clause’s verb. But at the ends of sentences, they were not slower to rule out pictures that disagreed with the main clause, despite the memory demands imposed by the intervening relative clause. [behavior and biology]
