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Frontiers for Young Minds
Name that tune: what parts of our brains do we use for naming songs?
Proper nouns are names for unique persons, places, and things. One of these “things” can be songs. Songs have specific names, such as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” or “Jingle Bells.” When you hear a song, you often think of its name. […]Keep reading »SA Expeditions
The Richest Reef: Deep Diving into the Twilight Zone
Editor’s Note: “The Richest Reef” follows members of a scientific dive team as they attempt to pinpoint the center of the most biologically diverse marine ecosystem in the world. Long considered our planet’s most species-rich piece of ocean real estate, the Western Pacific’s “Coral Triangle” is a continent-sized patchwork of habitats, populations, and communities. […]Keep reading »Life, Unbounded
Crazy, Wonderful Spacecraft Orbits
Over the years humans have deployed spacecraft into some wild, wacky and extremely clever orbital configurations to better study the cosmos. From a really long way away, the gravitational field of our solar system - due to the combined mass of a modest star and an assortment of planets and billions of small chunks - reduces to a near perfect symmetry. […]Keep reading »MIND Dog Spies
This Dog Bite "Fact" Could Get You In Trouble
Mother’s Day, Father's Day, and Scurvy Awareness Day come only once a year, but I assume you don't neglect your mom and dad the other 364 days of the year, or that you stop appreciating oranges after May 2nd. The same can be said for Dog Bite Prevention Week ( #preventdogbites ), which arrives each May to promote safe interactions between dogs and people. […]Keep reading »Cross-Check
"Infidelity Gene" Hyped in the News
The New York Times "Sunday Review" section has anointed Richard Friedman its go-to guy for touting behavioral genetics--or "gene-whiz science," as I prefer to call it. In March, Friedman, professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, proclaimed that researchers had discovered a "feel-good gene," which "makes some people inherently less anxious, and more able to forget fearful and unpleasant experiences." As I pointed out on this blog , Friedman's claim—like virtually all reported linkages of complex human traits and disorders to specific genes (see Further Reading )--is based on flimsy, contradictory evidence. […]Keep reading »Extinction Countdown
Memorializing the Wake Island Rail: An Extinction Caused by War
There’s not much to the tiny Pacific atoll known as Wake. Located roughly half-way between Guam and Hawaii, Wake is a loose u-shaped grouping of an island, three smaller islets and a sand flat, all situated around a beautiful blue lagoon. There’s not much there; in fact, there can’t be. […]Keep reading »MIND Illusion Chasers
Illusions in the Formerly Blind
Are illusions (the phenomena where subjective perception differs from objective reality) the exception or the rule in everyday vision? Do they represent visual processing errors or provide us with an evolutionary advantage? Are such misperceptions innate or something we learn? […]Keep reading »Roots of Unity
Proof, Pudding, and Pi: Math Books that Will Make You Hungry
This spring delivered not one but two books containing both mathematics and recipes to my doorstep. The first, How to Bake Pi by Eugenia Cheng , is “an edible exploration of the mathematics of mathematics,” category theory. […]Keep reading »Cocktail Party Physics
Physics Week in Review: May 23, 2015
Physicists Carved 'Logrithmic Spirals' Into Steel with Laser Vortexes. "I think this is a significant experimental step to elaborate the beauty of photons that follow a series of twisted patterns in space," MIT nanoplasmonics expert Nicholas Fang told Physics World . The Large Hadron Collider broke its own record again in 13-trillion-electronvolt test collisions, producing the first images of those collisions. […]Keep reading »Cocktail Party Physics
Science Writer Throwdown: Fear and Loathing of Physics
Breaking news: Physics has a serious image problem. Okay, that's not really news to anyone engaged in the Sisyphean task of physics-related education and outreach to the general public. But it seems the problem has spread to the science writing community. […]Keep reading »
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