What's the minimum amount of information needed to simulate a human brain ? Do we need the whole, complete map (known as a connectome) before we begin the (computer, obviously) simulation, or some lesser knowledge threshold from which everything else…
Wait, what? New Higgs boson results? Did you think it was over? Oh hell no. "A post today":http://profmattstrassler.com/2012/11/14/higgs-results-at-kyoto/ from physicist Matt Strassler discussing the newest Higgs findings puts it well, "Knowledge…
The word "drone" comes, in part, from bees, so it's really only fitting that researchers are developing aerial drones that are the size of bees. To make them so small, researchers "at Harvard":http://robobees.seas.harvard.edu/ have had to figure out
Generally, my assumption of the ins and outs of crime scene forensics is a mythicism of field detectives performing high-tech feats in order to solve a mystery with some encrusted semen. I'd only expect that investigation units have access to some aw…
The development of highly active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART) for HIV in the '90s is widely credited with turning a certain and excruciating doom into a chronic illness. Nowadays, instead of futilely fighting off opportunistic infections as a pa…
US Patent No. 6,599,460 is barely comprehensible and not even the slightest bit sexy. It has to do with preventing irregularities in a certain kind of injection molding; like, if you were making a cheap, thin drinking cup in a mold from liquid plasti…
An Earth-ish planet orbiting a red dwarf star would be the saddest thing. A perfect ball of rock, featuring plenty of carbon and water and methane, orbiting a dark star with no visible light, and stuck in tidal lock. That is, it orbits the star so cl…
A nice, concerned and probably crazy German woman is out of luck after a higher administrative court in Muenster rejected her claim that the particle accelerator at CERN is quietly creating a black hole that will destroy all of mankind. "The plaintif…
Having whole-heartedly employed "drones":http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/6/20/who-the-hell-knows-how-many-civilians-drones-have-killed for air strikes, the U.S. military is now embarking on a project to put autonomous robots on the ground to serve a…
An increasingly discredited study led by French researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini purporting to show an increased risk of cancer in lab rats fed genetically-modified maize raised a particularly ugly flag even before it came out. Said flag had to do wit…
Imagine this: there you are, a wasp, trapped hopelessly in the web of a fine and brutal specimen of orb-weaver spider as it bears down on you. The spider isn't going to kill you with a bite or poison; instead it'll most likely wrap you tightly in sil…
Kidney failure is on the rise and the kidney donation system is so tangled that people who need the organ transplant aren’t receiving them even when they’re available. Rather than try to untangle the systemic mess, a team of scientists at universitie…
Your body talks to itself, constantly. It has its own internet in a very real sense. That network of bodily communication is performed via chemicals, like the different varieties of hormones -- adrenaline, say -- which are sent around to the differen…
Aside from the assurance that you've made a genuine contribution to humanity, winning the Nobel Prize has an upside.
There's a lot of reasons humanity is having such a hard time cutting back on greenhouse gases. It's not just fake scientists and deniers, and/or the dollars of heavy industry. There is also the actually real issue of vagueness. A study out this week
At last weekend's Beijing's College Student Robotics Competition, some 300 people from 99 teams from across China and Taiwan "showed off robots":http://beijingcream.com/2012/09/robots-do-a-little-dance-make-a-little-love that could play five-a-side s…
A solar powered 3D printer, bacteria that transmits AM radio signals, and geese on the moon -- these are just a few glimpses of the future that were on display at this year's Ars Electronica, one of biggest festivals for art and technology in the wor…
A study published last week in "the journal":http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/11/1211658109 of the National Academy of Sciences forecasts massive global urbanization between now and 2030. Researchers estimate total expansion of the planet's
There's no word yet on how many fights broke out over the new iPhone at shops around the world over the weekend between eager customers or "Apple and Samsung":http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444032404578007862126166322.html?mod=googlene…
Things I did not know: a female orgasm results in widespread shutdowns in various areas of the brain; there is a biological connection between pain and pleasure; the part of your brain that controls self-evaluation and reason turns off during sex (or…
Over the past two weeks, "our _Spaced Out_ episode":http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/9/4/motherboard-tv-meet-the-guy-who-hunts-space-bears-in-rural-virginia about the naturalist Mike Shaw and his love for "tardigrades":http://serc.carleton.edu/microb…
As you probably learned in college when you started wearing Doc Martin boots and smoking Marlboro Reds, leather jackets are expensive. That's because leather is expensive, and as cows continue to belch greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and require…
The Dark Energy Camera is just what it sounds, and then even a bit more. Located on a mountaintop in Chile, the phone booth-sized 570 megapixel camera, the tool of the "Dark Energy Survey":https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/ collaboration, is designed
