Basically, it was part of the anti-vaccine hysteria. Where I live, Lyme disease is a very real possibility if you go outside in the countryside or even suburbia. People have to dress with great care to avoid it, and I … Continue reading →
Maybe someday: In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced an attempted redefinition of the word “planet” that excluded many objects, including Pluto. We think that decision was flawed, and that a logical and useful definition of planet will include … Continue reading →
…than are dreamt of in your philosophy: The individual galaxies in galaxy clusters are held together by dark matter, according to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. During the universe’s first few million years, dark matter (and normal matter) began to … Continue reading →
Google has a new director of AI: The new AI boss at Google is Jeff Dean. The lean 50-year-old computer scientist joined the company in 1999, when it was a startup less than one year old. He earned a reputation … Continue reading →
This is an important and sobering article about brain function. Here’s an excerpt: At TIRR, [Kothari, an assistant professor of rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine] estimates nine out of 10 patients who come to him with a vegetative label … Continue reading →
That’s the clickbait headline for this BBC article. I thought it might be something about Neanderthal genes, or perhaps mitochondria. But no; it’s about bacteria, mainly gut bacteria: Human cells make up only 43% of the body’s total cell count. … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Today’s news is so depressing and appalling that I wanted a respite from it by going big. This is about as big as it gets.] Maria Popova writes: In our recent On Being conversation, NASA astrophysicist and exoplanet researcher … Continue reading →
A great many people know that earth has a North and South pole, and that the poles are not just geographic but magnetic as well. Fewer (but probably still a great many) are aware that the geographic and magnetic poles … Continue reading →
No, but it will seem longer. That’s my attempt at a joke. But maybe it’s not a joke. Maybe it’s true. For many years there’s been an idea—derived initially from animal research—that restricting caloric intake makes a person live longer. … Continue reading →
The extreme conditions of climbing Mt. Everest, and the risks involved, hardly seem worth it to us regular folks who can’t even imagine voluntarily subjecting oneself to such an ordeal: Just ahead of them, a man from another party was … Continue reading →
Every now and then there’s a side discussion in the comments section where I respond to someone at such great length, and with so much research involved, that I figure it makes sense to turn my comment into a post. … Continue reading →
This seems a bit far-fetched (or at least premature) to me, but wouldn’t it be nice?: The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion … Continue reading →