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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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Rarity - Koro, A Brand New Language, Discovered

Rarity - Koro, A Brand New Language, Discovered

Oct 06 2010 | comment(s)

I had no idea there were entire languages left to discover.   Then again, I had no idea there was a group called the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages either, but exist they both do.  
The linguists, doing a project for National Geographic, thought these people in the northeast corner of India were speaking a dialect of the Aka culture of the Himalayas - but it turns out they have a different vocabulary and linguistic structure.
Why People Unfriend You On Facebook - The Science Answer

Why People Unfriend You On Facebook - The Science Answer

Oct 06 2010 | comment(s)

Some of the most pressing questions in science aren't how to better treat cancer or solve global warming, they're instead practical things like why a stranger on the Internet takes you off of a pretend friend list.

In the old days, email lists had filters, so when your brother-in-law sent you the 50th forwarded list of lawyer jokes, you just sent them right into the trash.  On Facebook, it is not so simple - okay, actually it is, there is a hide feature built right in so you never see some things.   But people still unfriend someone, which can lead to drama.
Shock Therapy Improves Name Recall

Shock Therapy Improves Name Recall

Oct 06 2010 | comment(s)

Temple psychologist Ingrid Olson, who dedicates her research to understanding human memory,  has found a way to improve the recall of proper names - electricity.

Electric stimulation of the right anterior temporal lobe of the brain using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) improved the recall of proper names in young adults by 11 percent - that will sure teach those kids.
Science Friday On NPR Faces A Funding Crisis

Science Friday On NPR Faces A Funding Crisis

Oct 06 2010 | comment(s)

NPR, National Public Radio, is in a tough spot - they are constantly accused of liberal bias (and, let's be honest, they have never done a story on how taxes hurt poor people or how much better the environment is than 40 years ago, so there is something to that perception (1)) and no one who gets taxpayer money likes being a political football and having people in government asking what they do with the money but that is the price of taking government money.
Can Science 2.0 Make You Fat?

Can Science 2.0 Make You Fat?

Oct 05 2010 | comment(s)

I am on a diet, to the delight of my impossibly chic wife, who has no problem at all eating cake and pasta in front of me while I consume bland chicken.

I had assumed that my increasing weight was due to eating too much and no exercise but a new Université de Montréal study says it is my job doing it to me.  Whew.  I dodged a bullet there.

Regardless, in two weeks I will be back where I want and if it is true that workplace related obesity is real, my job took four years to make me a weight I did not want so four weeks is not so bad to suffer.
The Wacky World Of Andre Geim: From Ig Nobel To Nobel

The Wacky World Of Andre Geim: From Ig Nobel To Nobel

Oct 05 2010 | comment(s)

Is the name Andre Geim familiar to you?  If you are in science, you know him because he just won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on graphene with Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester.

If you instead like to make fun of science, you may know Geim because he received an Ig Nobel prize for levitating a frog with magnets.  No, really, here is his paper Of flying frogs and levitrons.   He probably took the Ig Nobel in stride and had a good time at the dinner, since he said he wasn't even aware it was Nobel season before he got the call that he was the newest Nobel laureate in Nobel's most prestigious category.