When it comes to bio-mechanics, cats have got dogs licked. That’s the conclusion of Roman Stocker, a biophysicist at MIT. He decided to investigate why cats are able to lap up liquids in such a graceful way, while dogs splash it everywhere. Many animals have to use their tongues to lap up water because, unlike […]
Laptop cooling pads may do little to help prevent raised testicular temperature — a potential cause of fertility problems — according to a new study. Instead the best policy may be for men to keep their legs apart. The study, published in the Fertility and Sterility magazine, looked into ways of mitigating the effects of […]
Researchers at Oxford University have found that an electrical current applied to the brain could improve mathematical performance. It doesn’t mean we’ll all be zapping our brains and retraining as mathematicians, but it could bring new ways to treat the effects of strokes and degenerative conditions. The study involved passing a one milliamp current through […]
Hey everyone, today is Carl Sagan Day! To celebrate his legacy at the 76th anniversary of his birth (November 9, 1934), and to increase public involvement in the excitement of astronomy and space exploration, a local coalition of science and reason-based organizations announces the SECOND ANNUAL CARL SAGAN DAY, NOV. 6 2010. [Carl Sagan Day […]
A NASA spacecraft has caught up with a comet for the second time — but confusingly only the first trip was a suicide mission. EPOXI came within 435 miles of Hartley 2 this morning (US time), the planned close-point of its approach. At the time of writing, NASA was awaiting images from an on-board camera: […]
The McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon which demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. It suggests that speech perception is multimodal, that is, that it involves information from more than one sensory modality. The McGurk effect is sometimes called the McGurk-MacDonald effect. It was first described in a paper by Harry […]
In the following video, Youtube user philhellenes explains how science came to save his soul. This is one of the most beautiful and eloquent presentation I’ve had the chance to see on the subject. If you only have a little time today and can’t watch all the other things we’ve posted, be sure to take […]
This Lego reproduction of a dissected frog looks almost as educational as the real thing, minus the smell and general yuckiness of having to handle a real frog’s innards. Too bad those weren’t available back when I was in high school. Oh well, what can we do? Those days are long over now… not that […]
A United States agency is calling for the abolition of the kilogram. That’s not to say the National Institute of Standards and Technology wants to get rid of the unit of measurement itself. Instead it believes it’s time to stop using the physical object (or “artifact”) that determines the precise mass that makes up a […]
A somewhat simple and poetic explanation of the famous Drake equation by Milwaukee, WI based musician Peter Mulvey. Enjoy!