People have been ice skating for at least 3,000 years and the very earliest blades were fashioned from the metatarsi of horses (though cows were popular too). Skaters strapped the bones onto their feet with leather slipped through chiseled holes - as shown here, minus the 21st century buckle. Most of the ancient skates have been found in the cold northern parts of Europe where lakes cover more than 5 percent of the land.
Continue reading 'Your ancient Finnish ancestors ice skated on bones' >
As chilling as it sounds, the notion of robot sex has emerged from the freaky fringe and become a new topic of debate and speculation in the mainstream. In large part thanks to Dr. David Levy's new book "Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships" published by Harper Collins in November.
If you’re a “His Dark Materials” geek like me, you already know that the movie adaptation of Philip Pullman’s sci-fi novel The Golden Compass is opening in theaters across the country today. And even if you’re not a fan, you probably know this because its negative spin, shall we say, on Catholicism has been hyped and debated ad nauseum.
What appears to have been lost in all this, but was the original draw for many readers, is Pullman’s play with science, especially dark matter and quantum mechanics.
Continue reading 'The Golden Compass gets the physics all wrong. Let's throw a fit.' >
The US reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 percent in 2006 as compared to 2005, according to the government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). It’s only the third time since 1990 that our emissions have declined between years rather than risen. On average our GHG output increases by .9 percent annually.
The majority of the decline is thanks to reduced energy consumption and therefore a lowering of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
This sounds like marginally good news, and it is, but let's unpack why our energy use dropped by .5 percent as compared to 2005.
New data further supports that humans in the Americas arrived in a single wave from Siberia via the Bering Straight land bridge 12,000 years ago, fanning down the coast to today's South America.
Led by the University of Michigan, the study addresses a long debated topic among archaeologists and anthropologists: From where and when did people arrive in the New World. The land bridge's competing hypothesis strongly argues that people came by land and sea in successional waves over the past 30,000 years from various parts of Asia and/or Polynesia.
Continue reading 'Where did the first Americans come from? A new piece in the puzzle.' >
Just under 5 feet tall, weighing 245 pounds, and speaking with a feminine coo, Twendy-One the human symbiotic robot can manipulate chop sticks, bring you ketchup from the 'fridge and use her gorilla arms to support the weight a person. In the world of robot technology, she's an accomplishment in balancing dexterity with strength that has been seven years in the making with a several million dollar budget.
Continue reading 'A prototype of the Jetson's robot Rosie has arrived and her name is Twendy-One' >
It sounds like a bad horror movie, I know. And I’d love to report it that way (as it seems a lot of news outlet are) … “The invading, poisonous jellyfish that slaughtered more than 100,000 organic farm-raised salmon in Northern Ireland last week are on the move in search of their next victims…in Scotland.
In a double sting, the band of roving juvenile mauve stingers (Pelagia noctiluca) that covered 10 square miles of sea to a depth of 35 feet, hit the open ocean pens of the Northern Salmon Company. The trapped fish never stood a chance. The jelly swarm was so thick their bodies turned the water a hideous red. First they struck the adults (the day before Thanksgiving no less) and several days later moved on to the innocent young fry.”
Well, that’s how you'd spin it sitting around a campfire. And while the facts are accurate, the truth is that the massacre was more like a collision followed by slow suffocation than an attack.
Continue reading 'The real dope on the evil, evil jellyfish conniving to take over the planet' >
As if it weren’t tough enough to pick out the right holiday gift for everyone on your list, now you’ve also got to determine whether it possibly contains lead - of even minute levels.
This was the unsettling conclusion of a six-year study just released by Cornell University that found children with only five to 10 micrograms per deciliter of lead in their bloodstream had IQs five points lower compared to kids without the lead. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) draws a safe limit at 10 mcg/dl.
If there’s a time of year when our instincts for social survival go into high gear, it’s got to be the holidays. We gather with our brethren, co-workers, and friends – just about every social network that we rely on for reciprocal care.
The importance of denial in maintaining these social groups and our closest relationships is gaining attention according to today’s New York Times heath section.
Denial enables us to bear the shock of bad news, tolerate mild transgressions (like eating the pie before the turkey on Thanksgiving...I was young) and appears to be the basis for forgiveness, according to an increasing number of social scientists.
Continue reading 'Denial could make the perfect holiday gift' >
The first State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR), issued by the US government's climate change science program last week, takes stock of the carbon dioxide sources and sinks in North America in an effort to help us balance our carbon budget. Like a presidential State of the Union address, it tallies where we're spending and saving the greenhouse gas.
On average North America:
- releases 1,856 million metric tons of carbon a year by burning of fossil fuels
- extracts roughly 500 million tons annually through living vegetation
- is left with a net release of 1,350 million metric tons each year
Or so concludes a new study by Northwestern University that found the social networking site college freshmen prefer correlates with their race, ethnicity and the level of their parents’ education.
So much for the Internet bringing us all together.
Continue reading 'Social networking sites are divided along lines of race' >
IPCC summary report (pdf)
At roughly 5:00 p.m. EST, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded its week-long deliberations, sometimes running late into the night, over its forth and final report regarding the state of climate science.
The document summarizes more than 3,000 pages of findings this year and will be officially released on Saturday, November 17, by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In brief it is reported to say that human activity is to blame for rising temperatures around the globe. To avert heat waves, melting glaciers, and rising sea levels, there will need to be a severe reduction in greenhouse gases, primarily of those emitted from fossil fuels.
Photo: Hair mat with oil, courtesy of Matter of Trust.
Picture a toupee in need of grooming that measures 1 ft x 1 ft x 1/3 inch-thick and you’ve got a good idea of what volunteers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area are using to clean up last week’s 58,000-gallon oil spill.
Some 2,000 of the 1/3-pound mats have been deployed by the San Francisco–based nonprofit Matter of Trust. Co-founder Lisa Gautier said by phone today that they have received calls from Russia and Mumbai, India, in recent days asking how to get, make, use and dispose of the mats.
Continue reading 'Hair mat madness – a ‘home grown’ solution for oil capture' >
Earlier this week, the BBC's environmental correspondent Richard Black wrote a piece summarizing the top 10 arguments made by climate change skeptics as to the significance or reality of global warming. Black, who has been covering climate change for at least a decade, offers counter arguments.
To my reading, it's a first-of-its-kind distillation that presents the current state of the discussion. As Black notes, what the skeptical arguments share is the sentiment of a non-response to data indicating unequivocal warming.
Continue reading 'A top 10 list of climate change-skeptical arguments' >
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