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Rutgers Study - Forcing DEI Programs On People Increases Hostility

If you have done nothing wrong, do you want to be treated like a criminal? That was always the...

Minnesota Trial Lawyers Want To Ban Neonics - Here Is Why That Is A Mistake

Minnesota is having a challenging year, so challenging they are approaching California as the wackiest...

The Toxic Masculinity Of Disney Movies

Once upon a time, stories were just stories. They were fantasies that took people to a new world...

AI And The Poetry Problem

Artificial Intelligence is artificial, but it is not intelligence. That could change some day but...

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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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Google Exits Alternative Energy (And Other Dodgy Ideas)

Google Exits Alternative Energy (And Other Dodgy Ideas)

Nov 23 2011 | comment(s)

Google is doing some spring cleaning and booted seven projects that were outside what they regard as their core business, the most high-profile of which was its attempt to make solar energy cheaper than coal.
Tent or Tetrahedron?

Tent or Tetrahedron?

Nov 20 2011 | comment(s)

My younger kids each have a personal-sized dry erase white board and markers they use to draw things.  They make Transformers or cities or cities full of Transformers.

Yesterday, my 8-year-old son drew a tetrahedron on his and the word 'tet' and I was intrigued by that. It was simple to be sure but it was a triangular-based period to me. Tetrahedra have a special place in my heart.  As a young guy in finite element analysis, for a brief time in the mechanical world and then in electrical, creating a mesh is vital.
 
Study You Don't Need To Read - Walking Through Doorways Causes Forgetting

Study You Don't Need To Read - Walking Through Doorways Causes Forgetting

Nov 19 2011 | comment(s)

A study in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology by some folks at University of Notre Dame conducted three experiments and concluded that if you walk into a room and forget what you came to do, the doorway is responsible.

The environment can likely affect memory, we get that - I have often forgotten to take out the garbage even though my wife insists she told me to do so, because I was playing my PS3 - but doorways as 'event boundaries' means we can get away with almost anything.  The doorway to a strip club can be attributed to forgetting you are not allowed to go to those, for example;  "But honey, it was in a journal".
Anti-Science EU: Water Does Not Prevent Dehydration

Anti-Science EU: Water Does Not Prevent Dehydration

Nov 18 2011 | comment(s)

The EU is everything that can go wrong with bloated, inclusive bureaucracy.  Their proposed constitution had bits of bizarre legal fluff like 'children have a right to be heard', they don't want a strong currency because it damages their individual, heavily subsidized economies if they have to pay more to stay competitive and they make being anti-science into an art form.
Eye Evolution Gets Its

Eye Evolution Gets Its "War And Peace"

Nov 18 2011 | comment(s)

One of the biggest difficulties in understanding and acceptance of evolutionary biology is the eye.  It isn't just detractors who are trying to protect a sectarian viewpoint, it is genuinely curious people, smart people, who don't get it because it isn't easy. Science is difficult and, inside science, evolution is difficult. We've even had prominent biologists here submit the idea that perhaps, given its difficulty, evolution might be better reserved for college students, the same way quantum mechanics is reserved in physics and surgery is reserved for actual doctors even though high school students learn anatomy.
Can A Numerical Model Predict Geopolitics?

Can A Numerical Model Predict Geopolitics?

Nov 17 2011 | comment(s)

Numerical models had a tough decade to start off the 2000s.  A field that had shown itself to be both scientific and applied in areas like semiconductor physics was extrapolated out to cultural issues and economics and successfully predicted...nothing.

A new model created by an international research group claims they can now predict which European countries are more likely to become united or which are more likely to break up. It does so by not only considering demographic and economic criteria but also culture and genetics.

What?  Europe? No predicting the Arab Spring?  No riots in China?