Kenneth Libbrecht is that rare person who, in the middle of winter, gleefully leaves Southern California for a place like Fairbanks, Alaska, where wintertime temperatures rarely rise above freezing. There, he dons a parka and sits in a field with a camera and a piece of foam board, waiting for snow. Specifically, he seeks the sparkliest,…
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Another reason to get your arse off the couch. In the 1990s researchers announced a series of discoveries that would upend a bedrock tenet of neuroscience. For decades the mature brain was understood to be incapable of growing new neurons. Once an individual reached adulthood, the thinking went, the brain began losing neurons rather than…
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Erecting a new building ranks among the most inefficient, polluting activities humans undertake. The construction sector is responsible for nearly 40% of the world’s total energy consumption and CO2 emissions, according to a UN global survey (pdf). A consortium of Swiss researchers has one answer to the problem: working with robots. The proof of concept comes in…
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One of the things with biomedical research of any genre is that so much of any benefit can only be seen with complex and powerful statistical tools. And more often than not these tools are applied to studies that have taken place in a laboratory on populations of mice that have been specially bred for…
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Fascinating collection of old trading docs hats off to Tracy Alloway for curating this. A little cringe worthy in places but a good way to spend the morning.
Apparently Blockbuster opened their first store 30 years ago. In 1989 they had 1,000 stores In 1999 they had 6,500 stores In 2009 they had 7,400 stores In 2019 they had a single remaining store in the US which serves as an odd sort of tourist attraction. In 2000 they had the opportunity to buy…
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The “Flynn effect” refers to a pattern observed by James Flynn, a professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. It points out that for most of the 20th century, scores on IQ tests have been rising. The reasons behind this pattern have been a subject of controversy. For example, are the rising IQ…
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