Bears and riddles
You’re sitting in a room with an all-southern view. Suddenly, a bear walks by the window. What color is the bear?
Young Sherlock Holmes. Barry Levinson (1985)
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is one of the most unmistakable […]
Gone with the waves: the ups and downs of oceans and corals
News on global warming and sea-level rise flood our daily life. Even a modest decimeter increase of the current sea level will affect millions of people . Despite this gloomy scenario, we lack precise models to predict sea level changes […]
MI weekly selection #15
Bat-eating spiders are more common than you think
Bat-eating spiders are more common in the world than once believed. These spiders are found on all continents except Antarctica. Almost 90% of the web-building spider and tarantula species live in warmer […]
Artificial distinction and real discrimination: Manipulating physical appearance
Scientific experiments using animals frequently involve the marking of animals that artificially changes their phenotype. For instance, penguins with flipper bands have been used to study climate change. However, as Saraux et al. show, this banding reduces penguins’ survival rate. […]
Chimpanzees know which tool will be effective
Many animals —including mammals, birds and fishes— acquire from others knowledge and skills which may develop into behavioural traditions. Outside of humans, it is in the primates —specially chimpanzees— where socially transmitted behaviour patterns, such as tool use and social […]
Experiments in fairness
This is the ultimatum game: You are provisionally allocated USD10 with the following instructions. You have to decide a way to divide this money with another person. If she or he agrees, the division is carried out. If not, you […]
An almost luminical spin for a supermassive black hole
NGC1365 is a beatiful galaxy. It is big and bright enough to be observed with a medium-sized amateur telescope. Sometimes mis-located at the southern constellation of Eridanus, it is indeed located in the smaller Fornax constellation and it is one […]
A seven-in-one novel instrument for thin film characterization
Thin films are defined as material layers ranging from nanometers to several micrometers of thickness that are deposited onto a matrix in order to modify its physical characteristics. Although solar cells conform a relevant field of application, it may be […]
MI weekly selection #14
3-body problem gets 13 more possible solutions
Scientists have come up with 13 new solutions to the “three-body problem,” a situation in which three objects orbit each other in a pattern. The discoveries, which will help astrophysicists further understand planetary […]
Mysterious vaults and neuronal regeneration
From a certain point of view, eukaryotic cells could be described as microscopic power plants equipped with factories and energy-generating platforms, inside of which highways and compartments are constantly built and rebuilt, and a fluent traffic provides a constant recycling […]