In the previous entry we saw how the so called ‘Representational Theory of Measurement’ appeared to solve one of the deepest problems in the empiricist account of scientific knowledge: how to justify the use of numbers in science (and the calculations that used them), taking into account that all knowledge was supposed to be grounded […]
Humanities & Social Sciences • Science • Technology • Weekly Selection
Bumblebees’ emotional buzz charted Happy bumblebees are productive bumblebees, according to a study published in Science that charted how the insects’ changing moods affected their decision-making behavior. The findings are the first clues that primitive emotional states exist in bees. ScienceNews Astronomers see spiral arms surrounding new star for first time Spiral arms like those […]
The purpose of this note is to introduce the reader to the notion of Lipschitz structure and its potential applications to the spin geometry required to globally formulate string theory and supergravity on a differentiable manifold. Spinors are a crucial ingredient in the global formulation of string/M-Theory and its low energy limit supergravity, since these […]
Cataglyphis , the desert ant, is a genus in the subamily Formicinae. The most famous species is C. bicolor , the Sahara Desert ant. There, the midday sun is so hot that even the permanent residents, sand lizards, insects and a few birds, have to take shelter. But this is when, for not much than […]
Humanities & Social Sciences • Science • Technology • Weekly Selection
Acoustic holograms can move objects with 3D sound shapes Acoustic holograms of blocks of 3D-printed plastic can create 3D sound shapes that can move objects without touching them Live Science Circadian rhythm gene linked to breast cancer spread A gene related to circadian rhythm has been linked to the spread of an aggressive form of […]
Consider a country with two left-wing and two right-wing parties. In each side of the political spectrum one of the parties is a radical and the other is a moderate. Consider also that the moderates attract more voters than the radicals. To fix ideas consider that the percentage of supporters are 15, 33, 30 and […]
Author: Estibaliz Capetillo-Zarate got her Ph.D. from Bonn University in 2006. Since 2007 she has worked for the Weil Cornell Medical College. Currently she is an Ikerbasque Research Fellow affiliated to UPV/EHU and the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience. She investigates the role of neurons and microglia in Alzheimer’s disease. We might be still a […]
The definition of life is not a simple one. According to classical textbooks, “living things are born, grow, reproduce and die”. But one doesn’t have to look too far to find some caveats in this interpretation. For example, when bacteria divide, can we really say that one is “giving birth” to the other? The part […]
Since we were kids (unless under the spell of a creationist education), we have been told that genetics is the reason for the colour of our eyes, our hair, our height and whether we look more like mum or dad. In the last few years, it might seem to many that gene association studies have […]
Infectious prion shaped like mattress spring Scientists have glimpsed the shape of an infectious mammalian prion, according to findings published in PLOS Pathogens. The prion, which can cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans as well as mad cow disease, is shaped like a mattress spring. The Scientist Astronomers study nearby star cluster for clues about […]