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Salamanders may be getting shorter due to climate change Appalachian salamanders have gotten shorter in the past 50 years, possibly adapting to warmer, drier weather conditions. Researchers compared specimens they collected with those collected by museums from the same areas since 1957. They found that each generation of salamanders in several species grew 1% smaller […]

Is there anyone that doesn’t know the sport of curling? Just in case: curling is a winter sport played indoors where two teams take turns sliding rocks on ice, trying to place them as close as possible to the button, a target area of four concentric rings placed about 30m away. One curler delivers the […]

Supernovae are one of the most fascinating events in stellar astrophysics. Most stars suffer explosions at some point of their last days but the most massive ones explode releasing incredible amounts of energy and rivaling in brightness with the rest of the galaxy they live in. What they leave behind is hydrogen enriched with materials […]

In a previous article I wrote about the high speed attacks of the mantis shrimps. However, my favourite feature of these crustaceans is their unique eyes. They have two apposition compound eyes, typical of many diurnal insects and crustaceans but unusual in how freely they can move on their stalks. The eye forms an image […]

Iron dust helped plankton thrive during last ice age Plankton gorged on iron dust during the last ice age, causing them to thrive and absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide in the air, according to a study published in the journal Science. Some scientists argue that by seeding areas such as the Southern Ocean in […]

A uthor: Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo, Permanent Researcher, University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) The effort of mapping ignorance in biology is especially frustrating –or, if the mood and attitude of the scientist afford it, especially motivating– because solid, definite answers remain minimal compared to the amount of open issues and uncertainties that new discoveries in this […]

The literature of experimental economics has documented that individuals consistently make voluntary payments. Two methodological questions arise from this fact. First, which are the precise drivers of this pro-social behavior and, second, whether these findings can be extended to real life situations. Tobias Regner (2014) addresses these questions comparing theoretical and laboratory results with the […]

The most distinctive feature of modern economics is probably its reliance on the methodology of mathematical model building. The final aim of scientific model building is illuminating real phenomena; furthermore, models are basically logical arguments, whose main virtue is that they allow us to see very clearly what follows, and also what does not follow […]

Favorable weather gave rise to Genghis Khan Tree-ring scientists have linked favorable weather patterns with the rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire, according a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, putting a new spin on the history of the Mongols. The steppes had an unusual 15-year period of rain […]

How are we like we are? What defines our mind, our character, and our behaviour? Men made ​​themselves these questions in all ages of humanity. From the age of myths to the age of science the answers have been very many. We do not have an adequate answer yet, maybe never. However, the rise of […]