Category archives: Humanities & Social Sciences

Strange objects near neighboring galaxies brighten, then dim A pair of unknown objects near neighboring galaxies appear to produce extremely bright X-ray flares, then dim after about an hour. Astronomers aren’t sure what these objects are, noting that nothing like them has ever been spotted in the Milky Way. New Scientist Landslides appear to have […]

The two biggest questions in Economics are, no doubt, efficiency and equality. The first means no dilapidation of resources, the second means…, well, it may mean many things: equality of opportunities, resources, access to basic goods, or equality of results, among many others. Whatever we understand by equality, there are two major problems with its […]

Single-celled amoeba uses molecular mechanisms similar to complex life The single-celled amoeba Capsaspora owczarzaki has the same molecular tools as more complex organisms to help it move through various life stages. The findings suggest multi-celled mechanisms may have been in place long before animals evolved. Science News New questions raised about Lyme disease following discovery […]

Busy cells on the move in babies’ brains observed Neurons move through babies’ brains to where they are needed most in the first few months after birth, and these movements have now been seen by researchers. Researchers say the cells are most active in newborns, with activity slowing when the babies are about 5 months […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Astronomers spy most distant galaxy cluster ever observed A young galaxy cluster 11.1 billion light-years from Earth is the most distant ever observed, astronomers say. Multiple space telescopes were used to spot CL J1001+0220, where nine of its 11 galaxies are furiously giving birth to stars. Space.com Dawn images, data locate ice volcano on Ceres […]