The Arctic Ocean sea ice cover emerged 2.6 million years ago - and it hasn't changed since. Not in all of the recurring warming cycles we have had and not even in 2006, when pundits predicted it would be melted by 2014.

It wasn't always that way. Between 4 and 5 million years ago, the extent of sea ice cover in Arctic was much less than it is today. Recent IPCC reports believe that the expanse of the Arctic ice cover has been quickly shrinking since the 1970s and that 2012 was the known sea ice minimum in that time.

A growing number of scholars are using social media data to write articles about both online and offline human behavior - it's cheap, it's as accurate as surveys if properly controlled, and no one ever has to leave the office.

But surveys are not science for an obvious reason and yet, in recent years, studies have claimed the ability to predict everything from summer blockbusters to fluctuations in the stock market. They all get mainstream media attention despite obvious evidence of flaws in many of these studies.

How is this for the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage: A new tiny nanopore includes all the components of a battery though it is just is a tiny hole in a ceramic sheet that holds an electrolyte to carry the electrical charge between nanotube electrodes at either end - and 1,000,000,000 can fit in the size of a postage stamp. 

The existing device is a test but the nano-sized battery performs well - and it can be fully charged in 12 minutes, thousands of times.  

The golden ratio is known as the divine proportion because it is found so often in nature. It has fascinated mathematicians since Euclid. A golden ratio is when the ratio of two numbers is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities.


Credit: Wikipedia

Represented by the Greek letter phi (φ), its value is 1.61803399.

Good news for Christmas party season: A new compound has been shown to reduce the harmful side-effects of ‘binge drinking’. It also has the potential for new ways to treat Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases that damage the brain but showing that would take $1 billion in clinical trials and 10 years of approval and then some generic company would just poach it a few years later anyway. If they simply go the alternative medicine route, the inventors could save themselves the double-blind clinical trials and get right to selling it.

Dietary masochists say you should endure the most difficult brown bread imaginable because 1,000 years ago people had no choice. It's vaguely healthier, we are all told, though if you read more than a few epidemiology studies and saw the lack of methodology you know it casts on doubt almost every health claim made by matching populations to specific foods, not to mention the bizarre beliefs promoted by prominent nutrition 'experts'.