Today is World Environment Day. Ask not what your planet can do for you, but what you can do for your planet.
- Breakthrough brings Star Trek’s teleporter a step closer.
- Polynesians – and their chickens – arrived in the Americas before Columbus.
- 82,000 year old jewellery found in a limestone cave in Morocco.
- Archaeological finds shine light on the pre-history of London.
- Fathers of the zodiac tracked down: Astronomer shows when and where his ancient counterparts worked.
- Scientists say our solar system is travelling in a different direction to the rest of the Milky Way.
- Scientists present new results from Huygens probe on Titan.
- Astrophysicists find a star-like object with a surface temperature just one tenth that of the Sun.
- Travel forward in time a hundred billion years, and you’ll land in a universe that has stopped expanding – a vast, empty space at a standstill. Or at least it will appear that way.
- US drastically scales back efforts to measure global warming from space.
- Had a long day? Global warming could be the answer.
- UN warns of effects of global thaw.
- Geoengineering: A quick fix with big risks.
- Himalayan glaciers could be gone in 50 years.
- China’s new ‘green wall’ aims to hold back the Gobi desert.
- Physicists develop device that turns heat into sound and then into electricity. They say it’s similar to what happens when you hit the nerve in your elbow.
- New invention can extract 48 liters of fresh water per day from the air in almost any climate.
- A purple fluorescent frog is one of 24 new species found in the South American highlands of Suriname.
- Sharks use strange trick to hunt prey.
- Researchers find mechanisms that may unlock answers to Alzheimer’s.
- At James Watson’s request, his DNA sequence will be made publicly available – except for one gene that is one of the strongest predictors for the development of Alzheimer’s.
- Sixty year study offers remarkable insight into brain development.
- Cumulative memory traces in the brain’s prefrontal cortex may be the cause of chronic pain. A drug used to treat phobic behavior may help.
- Blocking certain memories helps the brain remember what’s important.
- Simultagnosia – when a person can perceive only one object at a time.
- Scottish scientists uncover a striking link between genes for brain size and tonality in spoken language.
- Childhood origins of adult resistance to science (pdf – scroll down).
- A perceptual deficiency may make us better foragers.
- People gauge how responsive their partners are primarily by how they themselves respond to their partners – not the other way around.
- Study finds the lower subjects’ brain MAO A activity level, the more they answered ‘yes’ to statements about taking advantage of others, causing them discomfort, having a short temper, vindictiveness, and enjoying violent movies.
- The ewww factor: Time takes a look at the psychology of disgust.
- People tend to think one person’s often-repeated opinion is a popular opinion.
- Switching off the brain’s perception of ghostly images with electromagnets.
- An intensive form of talk therapy, known as transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP), found to help individuals affected with borderline personality disorder. BPD is so notoriously hard to treat that many therapists refuse to see patients with this diagnosis.
- New treatment for depression – marriage: New study shows tying the knot helps unhappy people more than happy ones, even if the marriage is so-so.
- The futility of predicting unlikely events.
Quote of the Day:
For Therapeutic Purposes
I have not been quite right in the head
Like a balding tyre, I’ve been losing my grip
I have been given various medications
to help me cope
anti-depressants
anti-psychotics
And my brother has given me
a skipping rope.
A poem from John Hegley’s Uncut Confetti (Amazon UK).
