Hank brings you the facts, as they are understood by scientists today, about the evolution of humans from our humble primate ancestors. On the way to becoming Homo sapiens, game-changing evolutionary breakthroughs led to the development of many hominin species, now all extinct. Hank will introduce us to these species & the breakthroughs responsible for […]
If you happen to be looking up at the sky at the right moment, you would be able to see the International Space Station. It is actually the third brightest thing in the sky (besides the Sun and the Moon). But how do you know when it will be overhead? In a bid (I guess) […]
With a tagline of “symptoms to solutions” you can easily guess what Symcat does. You plug in a bunch of symptoms and it then gives you a selection of ailments you may have, with percentages. You answer a few questions about yourself and your medical history and input as many symptoms as you can to […]
I don’t know if the rest of the world was aware, but Australia got to see a solar eclipse on the morning of the 14th of November – some parts up north witnessing a total eclipse. Unfortunately, I snored my way through my alarm and didn’t get a peek at it. However, the photo above […]
A team including one of the men who first published a theory for making an invisibility cloak says it’s now overcome one of the bigger practical limitations. But it’s still very much a case of learning from the process rather than being too concerned with the product itself. For some time the most basic idea […]
You’ve heard of E=mc²… but you probably haven’t heard the whole story. [minutephysics]
The origins of autism spectrum disorders has long been under debate; everything from childhood vaccines (now debunked) to prenatal care to environmental agents have been researched, and while the causes of autism are perhaps varied and unpredictable, and research is still incomplete, the best working theory involves assortative mating. Backing up the idea that specific […]
For the third election cycle in a row, Nate Silver is winning praise as the guru of election forecasting. There’s a lot of confusion about what he does and doesn’t do, so here’s a quick guide to why his record is a big win for mathematics rather than gut instinct. Who is Nate Silver? Silver […]
I had a lengthy Facebook discussion with some of my friends from physics regarding this. The conclusion was that this comic assumes that there are absolute spatial coordinates which are sun-centric. However, in reality, the (more or less) inertial frame of the Earth is no less absolute than the sun-centric system, so there is no […]
Many people know (or at least, think they know) that we are lighter in the morning than at night. But HOW? Are we magically converting matter into weightless energy? Does it all evaporate away as water? Veritasium found this puzzling and decided to look it up and set the science straight on this. He’s a […]