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The Return Of Karl Popper: Is Social Science Really Different Than Natural Science?

Social Scientist have contended for much of the last century that we cannot approach the study...

Earthquake Rocks the World Off Axis

The recent earthquake in Chile was so big, it altered the earths rotation.  So if you notice...

PMC-BioPhysics: A New Open Access Journal

“I am very pleased to be working with PhysMath Central as I believe open access is the future...

No Ontology without Epistemology: Of God and Mathematicians

On the Big Ideas Blog there is a post about the different types of reasoning, Analytic vs. Synthetic...

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Nicholas HortonRSS Feed of this column.

I'm a graduate student in mathematics at Portland State University. My areas of study are Quantum Game theory and Mathematical Biology with a focus in Evolution. Outside of Math, my science interests... Read More »

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Were Dinosaurs Warm Blooded?

Were Dinosaurs Warm Blooded?

Jan 05 2009 | comment(s)

During the 1990’s there was a lot of discussion (yelling?) over the question of whether or not Dinosaurs were endothermic, that is, warm blooded. In the regular media there is still a pretty solid leaning toward the idea that they were.


I’m inclined to say they weren’t. Here are two reasons why:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Altruism: Gene-culture Coevolution and the Internalization of Norms (A Review)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Altruism: Gene-culture Coevolution and the Internalization of Norms (A Review)

Jan 05 2009 | comment(s)

In an article for the Journal of Theoretical Biology, Herbert Gintis provides a model that shows that:

“if an internal norm is fitness
enhancing, then for plausible patterns of socialization, the allele for

Tuberculosis Diversity and Genetic Drift

Tuberculosis Diversity and Genetic Drift

Jan 05 2009 | comment(s)


Bacteria often provide vivid examples of
how powerful the forces of evolution can be.  In keeping with that,
Hershberg, et al., in a paper published in PLoS, show that evolutionary forces may increase the number of drug-resistent strains of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (MTB).


They attribute the increase of these strains to both human
demographic conditions (global travel, urbanization, population growth)
and genetic drift.