Category archives: Humanities & Social Sciences

¨The chemical bond¨ is one of the most often used concepts in chemistry. It is also one of the eldest terms since the first definition of chemical bond comes from the studies of G.N. Lewis who published his classical paper on interactions between atoms in 1916 . Lewis stated that ¨ we shall say that […]

Small Jupiter-like exoplanet viewed directly by Earth-based telescope An exoplanet resembling a young Jupiter has been found by astronomers using an Earth-based telescope, the Gemini Planet Imager in Chile, according to findings published online in Science. The gas giant has been dubbed 51 Eridani b and is about 96 light-years from Earth. “To detect planets […]

Horses have distinct facial expressions much like humans Despite facial structure differences, horses have similar facial expressions to humans and use these expressions as social cues. Using their Equine Facial Action Coding System, researchers found that horses have 17 distinct facial movements as opposed to human faces, which have 27. The Christian Science Monitor Physicists […]

A prolific star-making dwarf galaxy The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a busy dwarf galaxy filled with bright, new stars and making even more. NGC 1140 resides in the constellation Eridanus, about 60 million light-years from Earth. Scientists at the European Space Agency say it can’t keep up its robust star production for long because […]

Windbots for the exploration of gas giants NASA is looking to windbots to possibly explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, all gas planets that can’t be explored with a rover like those prowling Mars. NASA is financing research into windbots, which would catch a ride on the chaotic gases and gather information that way. Tech […]

The field of population dynamics lies between mathematics and biology. Its subject of study is the evolution of biological populations with time. The natural language for dynamical problems is that of differential equations, and population dynamics is not an exception to this rule. Such a powerful tool was well known since the times of Isaac […]

Ancient tooth shows signs of early dentistry One of the first examples of dentistry has been found in an ancient molar. Researchers say the 14,000-year-old tooth had been infected and was partially cleaned using flint tools. It predates any undisputed evidence of dental and cranial surgery, currently represented by dental drillings and cranial trephinations dating […]

The European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics has awarded its 2015 Erik Kempe Award to Ralf Martin, Mirabelle Muûls, Laure B. de Preux, and Ulrich J. Wagner for their research “Industry Compensation Under Relocation Risk: A Firm-Level Analysis of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme,” published recently in the American Economic Review. I summarize their […]

Mice regain some hearing after gene therapy Researchers were able to partially repair hearing loss in mice using gene therapy, according to a study. The mice were either missing the gene TMC1, responsible for a protein required for proper inner ear hair cell functioning, or it had mutated, and scientists introduced a normal copy of […]

Signals from Milky Way’s center may be from pulsars, not dark matter The abundance of gamma rays seen at the at the center of the Milky Way in data from the Fermi satellite may just be remnants of dead stars and not evidence of dark matter. Two separate research teams say signals coming from the […]