- Convergence Solves Problems That Don’t Fit In One Field – Science News
- …the emerging field of convergence…integrates engineering, the physical sciences and life sciences to solve problems in health care, energy and other sectors. …an integration of disciplines that will require changes to the peer review system, funding mechanisms, the structure of academic departments and the training of science's next generation.
"…So for example, in 1967 the clinicians…wanted to make an artificial heart and they asked what object kind of resembles a heart in their house, and they thought of a lady's girdle. …today, 43 years later, that's still what the artificial heart's made out of. …But if you think about it, something designed to be a lady's girdle probably isn't the best material to put in contact with blood. And this problem pervades all of medicine…
"[We asked] from an engineering, chemistry and biology standpoint, what do you really want? And then, could you just synthesize the material?"
- Stage Set Early For Success, Or Failure – Science News
- Low levels of conscientiousness, perseverance and other elements of self-control in youngsters as young as age 3 herald high rates of physical health problems, substance abuse, financial woes, criminal arrests and single parenthood by age 32, says an international team led by psychologists Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi of Duke University in Durham, N.C…
Home and school programs designed to strengthen self-management show promise in early trials, Moffitt holds. Researchers need to confirm the effectiveness of these approaches so they can be adapted for widespread use, in his view.
Interventions exist that parents and teachers can use to strengthen children’s self-control… programs grounded in behavioral rewards, training in coping skills and role-playing stimulated by videotaped situations worked best in boosting kids’ self-control.
- How Did The Elephant Cross The Road? Underneath It – Manchester News Story – WMUR Manchester
- …three elephants crossed through Africa's first dedicated elephant underpass – a new solution to the increasing problem of animal-human conflict in Africa.
It was 6:47 p.m. when a gleaming set of white tusks poked through the end of the newly built underpass. A second set of tusks appeared. Then a third. Moving cautiously, the three young males climbed a bank of dirt, made a sharp left turn and crashed into the forest.
…"The first time we had a report about an elephant going under the underpass it was very exciting. We didn't expect it to happen so quickly," said Susie Weeks, executive officer of the Mount Kenya Trust, one of the partners in the tunnel project. "They actually managed to go through it within days of it being opened."…
The new elephant underpass reconnected wilderness areas on Mount Kenya's highlands and the lower forests and plains, linking 2,000 elephants on Mt. Kenya with 5,000 more below.
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- Synthetic marijuana marketers: “Don’t agonize, organize!”
- [PLoS Blogs - David Kroll]
Once again we visit another angle of the synthetic marijuana story [link], a blogfodder gift that just keeps on giving.
As regular readers are likely to know, synthetic chemicals that behave like the active constituents of marijuana – cannabimimetics, if you will – have been all the rage across the US as legal alternatives in “herbal incense” products such as K2 Spice.
- Short Sharp Science: Do you speak the language of love?
- …the impact of stable long-term exclusive relationships on longevity is well established. In a study of one billion person years across seven European countries the married persons had age-adjusted mortality rates that were 10 to 15 per cent lower than the population as a whole.
More specifically, men enjoyed better physical health whilst women enjoyed better mental health.
…"not all relationships are beneficial, and it is better to be single than in a strained relationship."…
Psychologists from the University of Texas at Austin have found that analysing the way that couples speak to each other can predict whether the relationship is destined for success or doomed to fail…
What it comes down to is the way we use simple words such as "a", "that", "will" and "am" says study co-author James Pennebaker, in a press release. How we use these words constitutes our writing and speaking style.
- Bad science education in the US : Pharyngula
- …public schools suck at teaching basic biology. You already knew this, too, though, didn't you? The question has always been, "How bad?"
We can now say how many high school biology teachers do a good job, teaching the recommendations of the National Research Council and also, by the way, obeying the requirements of most state science standards: 28%.
…13% of our biology teachers are openly and unashamedly creationists who teach creationism in the classroom.
…The authors have two major suggestions, and here's where I get to feel rebuked. One problem is that many of the timid teachers also do not feel adequately trained to address evolution well, and that's a significant factor in their reluctance to press the topic…
- The best is lost : Pharyngula
- ["Dirge without music" is] a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay. This could be part of the godless liturgy for coping with funerals; it's so true to the spirit of our thinking, and so antagonistic to Christian attitudes.
- 5 Myths of Challenger Shuttle Disaster Debunked
- On the 25th anniversary of the space shuttle disaster, find out what really happened to Challenger. For starters, there was no explosion.
- Africa’s Lone Wolf: New Species Found in Ethiopia
- The newly discovered wolf had been masquerading as a golden jackal.
- Pictures: Volcano Lightning Electrifies Japan Eruption
- A volcano in a James Bond setting flared to life Wednesday, sparking lightning and a huge ash plume as well as prompting evacuations.
- How many species of humans were there?
- …while Science’s reporting about evolution and ecology is pretty dire…the work of Ann Gibbons is an exception. …she always seeks out any significant dissent in the scientific community, and weighs in critically herself.
…only the cases seen in nature count. …Zoos break down reproductive barriers: animals hybridize because they’re bored, horny, and there’s simply nothing else to mate with.
…Species are not arbitrary divisions of an organic continuum. In sexually reproducing taxa they form distinct groups, well separated in “morphospace” and “genospace.” We need to understand why that is.
…So what about “modern” H. sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans? Clearly they hybridized…traces of Denisovan and Neandertal genes remain in our genomes. …
…I’d guess that they wouldn’t be separate species, especially because humans have much longer generation times than other primates and so would speciate even more slowly.
- ‘How Everybody Exists’ Doesn’t Have To Be
- [Potter is a health insurance industry whistleblower who exposed the corporate-funded campaign to discredit Michael Moore's movie Sicko and to sway pubic opinion against healthcare reform.]
My error, according to Pierce, is…that I failed to acknowledge the role that other big special interests played in funding Health Care America…
Pierce admitted in a few words that one of the core truths of my book is indeed true: the near-total control exerted by corporate special interests over the democratic process in America is simply, and in the most literal way possible, business as usual.
The irony seems to be lost on Pierce, however. What’s the big deal, he asks?…
…this dynamic threatens the very foundations of our democracy.
[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. Signal boosts are awesome! --L.]
The Of interest (Fri, Jan 28th, 10am) by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.