Category archives: Humanities & Social Sciences

Irakurri euskaraz Pear-shaped nuclei in some atoms may help explain antimatter Researchers have used a particle accelerator called REX-ISOLDE at CERN in Switzerland to discover an atom with pear-shaped nuclei. The discovery could lead scientists to extend the Standard Model in physics and help to explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the […]

Irakurri euskaraz Jamestown settlers turned to cannibalism to survive, bones show The scarred skull of a 14-year-old girl reveals that English settlers in Jamestown, Va., may have engaged in cannibalism to survive. A brutal winter in 1609 brought a food shortage, killing off 80% of the population. Marks on the girl’s skull and tibia are […]

At my workplace, we received recently a survey to measure our engagement at work. We were asked to evaluate different aspects of our daily job, such as the work atmosphere, productivity, performance…, and each question would accumulate points for our working team. For those items in which our team scored less, we were required to […]

Irakurri euskaraz Malaria reduced by preserving biodiversity of forests Researchers at Brazil’s University of Sao Paulo found that malaria could be kept from spreading while still preserving the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest. The traditional view is that clearing such forests curbed the spread of the disease. Using a mathematical model, researchers found that the […]

That knowledge is valuable is just a truism within our ‘knowledge driven economies’, but it is not that (economic) kind of value what I will talk about in connection to knowledge. I want to introduce, instead, a current and vivid debate in an arcane corner of philosophy. It is a debate about the nature of […]

Irakurri euskaraz Could cellulose feed the world? Researchers have discovered a way to turn cellulose into starch, a technique that could be used to create more food to feed the hungry. Science Now Chun You eta al (2013) Enzymatic transformation of nonfood biomass to starch PNAS DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1302420110 Fire ants prefer shortest route in terms […]

When analyzing the economic consequences of copyright protection one must consider first how it affects the number and quality of the works that it protects; second, which are the effects on the availability of these works, and third, how are the benefits and costs shared by the different agents of the market (consumers, authors, producers […]

Irakurri euskaraz An abrupt and widespread climate shift in the Sahara 5,000 years ago The Sahara Desert’s shift from lush grasslands to barren sands happened quickly and simultaneously across the entire region. Scientists say the brief African Humid Period began and ended suddenly, about 5,000 years ago. MIT news D. McGee, P.B. deMenocal, G. Winckler […]

Strange as it may sound to many people, the fact is that some of the most interesting work on epistemology that is being currently done in Spain is carried out at the headquarters of the Spanish gendarmerie (the well known force called Guardia Civil), in particular, at the Area of Statistics within the corps’ Service […]

How can we begin to ‘think’ the twentieth century? How do we start to make sense of the masses of figures, events and ideas that gave shape to it? How can we reconcile its horrors and its achievements in our mind within a graspable synthesis? How can we understand the world of Verdun and Hiroshima […]