One of the aspects in which modern economics has departed further away from the neoclassical paradigm is the treatment of information after the seminal works of Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz, who rightly won the Nobel prize for their contributions. Some theoretical models were introduced to explain economic phenomena that did not fit well in the […]
We have already introduced the first half of a paper by Lowell Beineke and Robin Wilson, which traces the origins of the crossing number of a graph. After focusing on the brick factory problem, proposed by the Hungarian number-theoretist Paul Turán, the second half of the paper is devoted to the crossing number of the […]
Natural non-wetting structures, particularly lotus leaves (Fig. 1a), have inspired the development of synthetic liquid-repellent surfaces. These surfaces rely on the formation of a stable air–liquid interface, but present limited repellency to oils with high contact angle hysteresis, failure under pressure and inability to self-heal. The paper by Wong et al. presents a novel approach […]
The illusion of control rests at the heart of superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs. It is a belief that we are controlling events which are actually occurring independently of our behavior. This is a very common illusion that occurs in most people, particularly when desired events occur frequently though uncontrollably. Examples abound not only in real […]
The way in which nature manages to create functional diversity in matter is probably the wisest guide for biomaterials engineers, who are always looking for new creative processes to come up with new materials. The conventional way of designing complex materials with new functionalities is explained by the so-called top-down approach , in which a […]
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How science goes wrong Scientific research has changed the world. Now it needs to change itself The Economist Astronomers find a “tilted” solar system Scientists have discovered a “tilted” solar system, according to a report in Science. While looking at Kepler-56, a star about 2,800 light-years away, they were surprised to find that the plane […]
Cajal famously described the fly visual system as “stupendous, indeed disconcerting, and with no precedent in other animals”. By comparison, the vertebrate retina seemed “gross and deplorably simple”. Now we know that this simplicity is only apparent, but we can use the more clearly structured fly retina to help us study basic problems in visual […]
Todays story seems fairly simple: a magnetar has been seen spinning down. Impressive, isn’t it? You might be wondering what the hell is magnetar and why we should care about its spin. As it happens many times in science, we find nature behaving just the opposite to what we supposed it should. For scientists, this […]
Bikes are becoming a much more interesting mean of transport in urban areas due to the local policies to minimize traffic impact on the daily city life. City councils are building bike lanes, converting streets to mixed pedestrian-bike traffic, and similar solutions for encouraging the use of this clean mean of transport. However, this comes […]
We saw in the second entry of this series that predicates like “…is true” have the following linguistic function: applied to an expression that designates a sentence X, they render a new (pro)sentence (“X is true”) that expresses exactly the same as the first proposition. This has lead some philosophers (not a majority, really) to […]