Weekly Roundup | Science and Space: Top 20 stories of the week of Jan 6 - 13th, 2017
Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors. - Stephen Jay Gould
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1 +17y+ ago
How ‘Sherlock of the library’ cracked the case of Shakespeare’s identity
Literary detective Heather Wolfe reveals how her passion for manuscripts helped unravel mystery of who the bard really was.
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Submitted on January 9th 2017 by gladsdotter with 3 comments
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2 +17y+ ago
At what age do people stop shopping at IKEA?
The credit and financing company Earnest recently analysed more than 10,000 American shoppers’ spending habits to address a pertinent question: When do consumers ditch IKEA? Turns out our taste in furniture changes significantly over time.
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Submitted on January 10th 2017 by swift528491 with 1 comments
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3 +17y+ ago
NASA plan for housing astronauts on Mars borrows from Eskimos
NASA’s latest plan: ‘Mars Ice Home’ could be the key to providing astronauts with a place to stay for months on end while living on the Red Planet. By Weston Williams.
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Submitted on January 7th 2017 by AdelleChattre
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4 +17y+ ago
These Simple Laws Explain How the World Works
Bubbles, toasters, and the internet—most aspects of everyday life are influenced by physics. British physicist Helen Czerski, author of "Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life," elaborates on the importance of bubbles (her specialty), the physics lessons taught by your toaster, and why it doesn't help to bang the bottom of the bottle if no ketchup comes out.
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Submitted on January 10th 2017 by gladsdotter
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5 +17y+ ago
Drunk Mice Get the Munchies
If you give a mouse a beer, he’s going to ask for a cookie—and another, and another. If you give a person enough beer, she might find herself wolfing down a plate of greasy nachos. But why does binge drinking make us binge eat as well? The reason may lie not in the stomach but in the brain, recent research suggests. A study published today in Nature Communications found alcohol activated brain cells that control hunger, sending drunk mice scampering for snacks even when they were not really hungry.
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Submitted on January 10th 2017 by mariogi with 4 comments
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6 +17y+ ago
Biological Aging Is A Disease And It Is Time To Recognize It As Such
Aging is often described as a risk factor for disease (Niccoli and Partridge, 2012). Indeed, the risk for hundreds of diseases, the so called age-related diseases, is increased with age and some of these diseases (such as Alzheimer’s disease) never occur in young people. I and others have argued that aging itself should be called a disease (Bulterijs et al., 2015; Gems, 2011, 2015; Lustgarten, 2016; Zhavoronkov and Bhullar, 2015). Interestingly, aging has been described as a ‘disease complex’ in the older literature (Perlman, 1953).
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Submitted on January 10th 2017 by rawlings
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7 +17y+ ago
How much does it hurt?
Aching, throbbing, searing, excruciating – pain is difficult to describe and impossible to see. So how can doctors tell how much it hurts? John Walsh finds out about new ways of assessing the agony.
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Submitted on January 12th 2017 by gladsdotter with 2 comments
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8 +17y+ ago
New technique stores summer heat until it's needed in winter
Making the move away from using fossil fuels for heating is a necessary part of creating a sustainable future, but it's often a difficult ask for many people when turning up a thermostat on a gas or electric heater provides instant, trouble-free warmth. If people are to be convinced to switch to more renewable sources, it makes sense that there need to be easy-to-use systems available to encourage them to do so.
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Submitted on January 13th 2017 by ppp
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9 +17y+ ago
Explorers find disease-cursed City of the Monkey God and nearly lose their faces to flesh-eating parasite
Legend has it that the locals fled Honduras’ City of the Monkey God in the 16th century fearing that it had been cursed with disease. Five-hundred years later, a group of explorers excavating the lost city became the latest victims to incur the wrath of the monkey god when they nearly lost their faces to a rare flesh-eating parasite. “The parasite migrates to the mucous membranes of your mouth and your nose and basically eats them away,” Doug Preston, an author who documented the trip, said. “Your nose falls off, your lips fall off, and eventually your face becomes a gigantic, open sore.”
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Submitted on January 13th 2017 by Chubros
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10 +17y+ ago
The Couple Who Saved China’s Ancient Architectural Treasures Before They Were Lost Forever
As the nation teetered on the brink of war in the 1930s, two Western-educated thinkers struck out for the hinterlands to save their country’s riches. By Tony Perrottet.
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Submitted on January 8th 2017 by AdelleChattre
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11 +17y+ ago
Scientists Have Twisted Molecules Into The Tightest Knot Ever
This new knot has eight crossings, far more than previous molecular knots.
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Submitted on January 12th 2017 by jedlicka
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12 +17y+ ago
Eyes Over Baltimore
How Police Use Military Technology to Secretly Track You. By Benjamin Powers.
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Submitted on January 8th 2017 by AdelleChattre
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13 +17y+ ago
Scientists say kids made without mothers will be sooner than we think
Late last year, a team at the University of Bath discovered that sperm and skin cells - or any other kind of non-egg cell - might be all you need for conception. Now experts say it could happen soon.
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Submitted on January 13th 2017 by TNY
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14 +17y+ ago
The White House Plan to Defend Against Killer Asteroids Is Here
In one of its final acts, the Obama Administration released a report outlining how federal agencies should prepare for an ‘Armageddon’-sized impact. By Daniel Oberhaus.
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Submitted on January 7th 2017 by AdelleChattre with 1 Related Links:
1. National NEO Preparedness Strategy [PDF] [Mirror this before Trump replaces it with a Rosie O’Donnell joke] Added by AdelleChattre on January 7th 2017.
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15 +17y+ ago
How to master your sense of smell
Some perfumers can distinguish individual odors in a fragrance made of hundreds of scents; tea-experts have been known to sniff out the exact location of a particular tea; and the NYC Transit Authority once had a employee responsible only for sniffing out gas leaks. But can anyone learn to smell with the sensitivity of those experts? Alexandra Horowitz shares three simple steps to a better nose.
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Submitted on January 12th 2017 by gladsdotter with 1 comments and with 1 Related Links:
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16 +17y+ ago
Researchers track eels on their journey across the Atlantic to settle a centuries-old migration mystery
In the early 20th century, Danish biologist Johannes Schmidt solved a puzzle that had confounded European fisherman for generations. Freshwater eels—popular for centuries on menus across northern Europe—were abundant in rivers and creeks, but only as adults, never as babies. So where were they coming from?
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Submitted on January 9th 2017 by swift528491
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17 +17y+ ago
DIY gene therapy is on the rise
In a dream Brian Hanley told me about, he’s riding a bus when he meets a man in dark leather clothing. Next thing he knows, he is splayed across a tilted metal bed, being electrocuted. The dream was no doubt connected to events that took place last June at a plastic surgeon’s office in Davis, California. At Hanley’s request, a doctor had injected into his thighs copies of a gene that Hanley, a PhD microbiologist, had designed and ordered from a research supply company. Then, plunging two pointed electrodes into his leg, the doctor had passed a strong current into his body, causing his muscle cells to open and absorb the new DNA.
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Submitted on January 11th 2017 by Pfennig88
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18 +17y+ ago
Plants can see, hear and smell – and respond
Plants perceive the world without eyes, ears or brains. Understanding how can teach us a lot about them, and potentially a lot about us as well
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Submitted on January 12th 2017 by gladsdotter
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19 +17y+ ago
Mountain Pine Beetle Update: SciShow Talk Show
SciShow welcomes back Diana Six to talk to us about current news on the Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak. Then, Jessi Knudsen Castañeda stops by and brings a familiar friend whose anatomy may help scientists develop better hypodermic needles.Published on Jan 11, 2017 · 35 minutes ago
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Submitted on January 11th 2017 by b1ackbird
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20 +17y+ ago
Rocky Mountains From Orbit
Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency photographed the Rocky Mountains from his vantage point in low Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. He shared the image with his social media followers on Jan. 9, 2017, writing, "the Rocky mountains are a step too high – even for the clouds to cross." Image Credit: ESA/NASA
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Submitted on January 12th 2017 by gladsdotter
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Here are this week's top five Science & Space tribes:
/t/research 151 posts, 41 comments, 690 votes.
/t/science 89 posts, 28 comments, 434 votes.
/t/neuroscience 39 posts, 13 comments, 187 votes.
/t/futurism 28 posts, 27 comments, 326 votes.
/t/discoveries 28 posts, 6 comments, 142 votes.
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