HFO-1234yf, a climate-friendly alternative refrigerant for car air conditioning systems touted by environmental activists, may instead be a greater problem than the products they insisted was causing pollution.
Did music evolve before language? It's not a trivial idea and there has been debate about it since literally the days of Darwin - Sir Charles himself proposed the notion in "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex" that a 'musical protolanguage' model could mean that music came before language.
It's often the case that attending a conference like AAAS means you have to choose between competing programs, like the good stuff, the fun stuff and the stuff you will make fun of. This morning I had one of each at the same time but since I didn't get to the one I would likely have made fun of, I will leave that out.Instead I had to make a tough call between Eugenie Scott and "How Can Scientists Support Policy Makers?" and "The Science of Superheroes" - Genie won, at least in the beginning.
This is a science site and not a political or economics one and therefore we have poor grasp of things we know nothing about, like how missing cigarette tax revenue can possibly be responsible for bloated governments being unable to pay their bills.
But apparently it is and a new method of securing cigarette tax stamps from counterfeiting and falsification could save nations otherwise losing more than $50 billion annually - which, like 'jobs saved' is a number you can believe if you want, because someone said it - that's all according to a group of companies that make holograms designed to ... prevent counterfeit cigarette tax stamps.
The New Cosmetic Surgery Journalism Prize will be awarded by DDr. Heinrich for outstanding reporting on New Cosmetic Surgery techniques.
That's right, journalists. You can win a prize from a cosmetic surgery company if you simply write about the techniques used by their cosmetic surgery company. Sure, it's like being a public relations flack but since it's a prize rather than a paid puff piece you won't feel dirty. They want your contribution to be be well-researched and include general legal disclaimers and information, like that cosmetic surgery is not actually taught in public hospitals for a reason.
Scientific Blogging fave Greg Critser has a new book out, Eternity Soup: Inside The Quest To End Aging(available at fine retailers everywhere, or at that link if you want us to make a nickel) and in celebration he has put together a short quiz to find out what you know.
'Invisibility' has long been a staple of science fiction. The ability to go unseen has benefits, mostly involving mischief, but there are some ways where being invisible need not involve the optical realm - it could involve the physical. In a poor country like Haiti, where it would be impossible to retrofit all of the buildings to withstand an earthquake, it may soon be possible to make earthquakes simply pass them by.
Sure, Christmas is a religious holiday and science and religion share common people but not often common ground. That doesn't mean we can't all join together and share some Christmas science ... and an awesome electric car (5 MPH!) I assembled for my youngest kids last night (picture to come later). Like Rock'em Sock'em Robots, even adults think miniature cars are cool. If you're the environmental type, I am basically teaching my kids to like a Prius - and it goes about as fast. So thank me by reading some of the terrific science below:
Tuesday began as a day like any other. Rolled out of bed at 10AM, read some awesome science blogging (here, where else?) over coffee, then went to the office where I was looking forward to a round of golf and a nap before playing some X-box before going home.I arrived at the office and remembered I hadn't eaten breakfast; golf would have to wait. "Hey Bloggy," I said, "want to go to Mels? It's biscuit and honey day."No answer. I looked over at where Bloggy would usually be boring into me with his wee beady eyes, making sure work gets done, but it was empty. Instead there was just a note. It read:
You've heard of the Discovery Channel - if you want to learn about sharks, they're the place to go. Heck, they even whacked me this summer as part of their promotional campaign.Unfortunately, if you want to see more than you can stand about the Shroud of Turin, that's also the Discovery Channel. Animal Planet on the one hand and Jon&Kate Plus 8 on the other. There's no question Discovery Channel is successful, in large part due to the efforts of Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav, former chief of NBC Universal's cable effort.When most cable companies are concerned about declining viewers, Discovery Channel was up 10.4% this last quarter. Revenue: $3.48 billion
It's World Series time, which means it's time to talk about physics and baseball once again. This season, among other things, we've covered the farthest homerun ever hit and how fast a pitcher really can throw (1) and today we're going to cover the curveball. But that's more that just physics, it's also vision.
I had relatives visiting from out of town and, because they had never been to Las Vegas, we took a two day, one night, short plane trip over the mountains. Naturally, I won some money. Is that because I am a mathematical genius? No, everyone except the truly elite is going to lose money in a casino by knowing just enough probability to be dangerous while the truly stupid are going to be the foundation of any gambling town.
When Republicans were told, as part of a recent study, that diabetes results from social factors that mitigate personal responsibility, like a lack of neighborhood grocery stores or government-funded places to exercise, they were not inclined to want to enact legislation to rectify that - but Democrats reacted better to a government approach when culture was to blame rather than individuals.Both were equally supportive when diabetes was presented in terms of genetic factors.Was the lesson that framing is bad and science is good? Well, no, though personally I am inclined to think that way.
