Category archives: Humanities & Social Sciences

Different electoral rules have consequences on the strategic behavior of voters, political selection and policy outcomes. There is ample literature on the links between electoral rules and policy outcomes (see, for instance, Cox, 1997 ; Persson and Tabellini, 2000 , 2005 , and Norris, 2004 ). However, the extent to which the quality of the […]

Many moons may be waiting to be discovered in our solar system There are likely more moons to be found in our galaxy, according to re-evaluation of data from the Voyager space probes and searches by the Hubble Space Telescope and with future searches by the more powerful James Webb Space Telescope set to be […]

Technique adds color to electron microscope images Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have developed a technique that adds color to black-and-white electron microscope images. The scientists create a black-and-white base layer by adding a heavy metal to the specimen, then create another layer by adding a rare earth metal that clings […]

Common swift can fly for 10 months straight The common swift can fly for 10 months without landing. The birds capture food in the air and drink by skimming water, and if they stop at all, it’s only for one or two hours before they resume their long migration between Northern Europe and Central Africa […]

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 […]