RadioLab had a good program this week on altruism and how nice behavior could emerge out of natural selection. The first part dealt with the tragic story of George Price, the eccentric but brilliant scientist who developed an equation that showed why someone might sacrifice their life for another. But he personally could not deal with the conclusion that all altruism was not a freely chosen act. [Read more…]
The clip below discusses why it is so disorienting to go into one of those rooms that are just like normal rooms, except that they are tilted. Even being aware of the source of the effect does not prevent people from feeling a strong sense of discomfort, even nausea. [Read more…]
Walt Mossberg has written the personal technology column at the Wall Street Journal for 22 years. In his final column, he lists the top 12 new items that he feels changed the industry. It is interesting to see that it was not that long ago that the things that are all around us and seem to have been around forever were invented, and how quickly those that were similarly ubiquitous before but did not last (Netscape, Palm Pilot) disappeared from our memories.
I used to drive a station wagon and one of its best features, especially useful in winter, was the rear window windshield wipers. They were so useful that I wondered why they were standard equipment only on wagons and hatchbacks and came to the conclusion that this must be because those rear windows were pretty much flat, while the curved and the sloping rear windshields of other cars made it technologically difficult. I am not sure if that is the real reason since it seems like engineers could have overcome that. [Read more…]
The person who voiced the original iPhone Siri has revealed herself as Susan Bennett, although Apple won’t confirm it. But what interested me in the story was how the system was created. [Read more…]
Carl Zimmer has an interesting article on the biology of smell. It is truly remarkable how our noses can detect the presence of a tiny amount of one type of molecule in the vast expanse of other molecules.
He first describes the process by which we register the presence of a smelly molecule. [Read more…]
Major science journals issue science journalists with press releases about papers that they think will make a splash and give them embargoed advance copies of the articles so that journalists can research them and write their articles with the understanding that the articles won’t be published until the journal is released. [Read more…]
A new paper has looked into the question of whether the masses of particles change with time. That this may be an issue may have not occurred to people (at least it had not occurred to me) but when you think about it, it is a valid concern: Are the masses of particles the same now as they were at the beginning of the universe? [Read more…]
Scientist Ed Stone of CalTech and formerly of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains the significance of the Voyager mission that was blasted off in 1977 for what was hoped to be at least a four year mission that would be able to photograph two out the outer planets (Jupiter and Saturn) but is still going strong nearly four decades later, passing Neptune and Uranus and has just almost left the solar system and entered interstellar space, and is still sending back information. [Read more…]
Physics tends to be highly under-represented when it comes to women, with them comprising only 13% of faculty in degree-granting institutions. There are many suggested reasons for this but one heartening sign is that physics department faculty and professional organizations have recognized that this deficit does not reflect well on us and have made concerted efforts to increase interest in physics among young girls and to encourage more women to major in the subject and to pursue it as a career. [Read more…]