From the category archives:

scientific current events

The Problem with Overpopulation Problems

April 15, 2010

Image via Wikipedia I am always amazed at how the meme of global overpopulation persists in our society. It’s like some form of urban legend. “And in 100 years, the people will be as thick as locusts, and we will all be starving!, and then we will all diiiieeeeee.” Seriously, even rather sophisticated thinkers often [...]

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The Patenting Gene

April 8, 2010

Image via Wikipedia I could not resist the pun in the title there. For the past twenty years or so, we have been slowly moving towards a confrontation between the patent process by which many drug and R&D companies protect their discoveries and the huge advances in human genetics. The fight is over the patenting [...]

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Bringing You the Boffinry

December 7, 2009

Image via Wikipedia The Royal Society has put together a fantastic interactive timeline with all sorts of random, esoteric scientific history and discovery. Obviously, I have wasted a lot of time on this site, since, as YTP readers know, I love a beautifully rendered cascading script timeline as much as I love the scientific trivia [...]

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The Science of Language

October 27, 2009

Image via Wikipedia One of the biggest trends in education today, especially elementary education, is language immersion. People tout the political, cultural, and intellectual benefits of learning another language almost constantly with claims like “It makes America look bad that so few people speak a second language.” “People who speak a second language are smarter.” [...]

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Earth Science Current Events: Killer Waves Quite Common

September 30, 2009

Image via Wikipedia The Science Channel as been showing a great program about evolutions in wave theory, specifically killer or rogue wave theory. Two things about the show are particularly amazing: 1) They feature a new satellite technology that allows scientist to scan the oceans at once and detect killer waves as they happen. So [...]

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One of Cloud Science’s Top 10 Pictures – Ever

February 8, 2009

describes a photo of Mt. Rainier surrounded by lenticular clouds

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The Sun Will Come Out (But Not Tomorrow)

October 23, 2008

The dedication of researches at the United States’ scientific exploration station in Antarctica is discussed as well as difficulty of living without sun.

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Recommended: Keeping Up With the Space Junkies

October 15, 2008

A hearty endorsement of Jim Lebans’ The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space: 42 Questions (and Answers) About Life, the Universe, and Everything with funny commentary on physics and space issues.

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World View from the Bottom of a 30-foot Wave

October 12, 2008

This amazing picture of a large ship in the trough of a monster wave is part of an ongoing research project in the Denmark Strait on ocean currents.

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Ocean Currents See Red

October 8, 2008

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute created an ocean circulation model that revolutionizes the way scientists can see ocean currents.

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