Freeing the Language Within: on how babies extract words out of sounds.
Michelangelo famously claimed he merely carved out sculptures he saw trapped inside the stone. His genius involved a powerful internal vision that he masterly imposed on external matter. We can think of Michelangelo’s conception of sculpture when we look at […]
Mantle convective flow determines the depth of the ocean
The depth of the ocean is directly related to the behavior of the tectonic plates. Studies conducted so far have assumed that the sea floor depth depends solely on its age. However, these results do not match the experimental measurements. […]
Laser spectrochemistry beyond Earth’s boundaries: Curiosity’s Chemcam
It is well known that an accurate and energetic laser shot can melt, ionize and excite the material in which the light is focused, creating very bright plasmas after the interaction. Valuable information can be obtained from the light emitted […]
Ever since Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1813) is especially known as one of the discoverers of evolution by natural selection. However, among his various contributions to the development of modern biology we can also consider the British naturalist as the father of biogeography: […]
MI weekly selection #12
Zircon grains came from ancient continent
Grains of zircon found on the island of Mauritius may have come from the crust of an ancient continent beneath the Indian Ocean. The grains formed almost 2 billion years ago, but the island […]
Seed camouflage to counteract birds hunger
All of us know that animals use camouflage and mimicry as strategies to protect themselves from predators. Many examples have become famous with many TV documentaries showing, among others, foxes and rabbits that in higher latitudes are white to be […]
Sex and the colony
When the general media report news about genetics, there is a deplorable tendency towards gene determinism. Headlines in the vein of “Gene for X discovered”—where X is anything from a physical trait to a complex behavior—are regrettably common, and almost […]
Are we really prepared for bioplastics?
You have probably heard of the plastic island, an enormous area full of plastic garbage, gathered by oceanic currents, in the North Pacific Ocean. In the last few decades the amount of plastic debris in this area has increased […]
Cortés: Latin America’s first novelist?
Carlos Fuentes, one of the great contemporary Latin American writers, once said that La Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (‘The truthful history of the conquest of New Spain’, first published in 1632) was the true […]
Cultural traditions in orcas
Orcas or killer whales (Orcinus orca) are widely distributed and feed on a large array of prey —fish, seals and sometimes whales—. These powerful predators are highly adaptable, cooperative and live in stable matriarchal social groups of related animals. Each […]