Category archives: Science

For any animal, the real world is an ever-changing environment. Continuously, even then they are just remaining in a peaceful, awake state, animals receive multiple sensory signals encoding different features of their surroundings, or even carrying information about their own internal state (orientation, body movement, or internal temperature, for example). Some of these signals might […]

Since the emergence of the microscope in the early seventeenth century, many claimed its invention, but many more have tried to improve it. Many problems have been resolved on the way, allowing us to poke directly with our own eyes about the heart of the living or inert matter as far as optical physics allows […]

Unique shrub provides insights into flowering plants’ evolution The genome of the shrub Amborella trichopoda has provided researchers with clues about how flowering plants have evolved, according to a study published in Science. The shrub is known to grow natively on the island of Grande Terre in the South Pacific and nowhere else, and is […]

Much attention has been payed lately to the novice comet C/2012 S1, more widely known as comet ISON. At the crest of the wave, it was even said that the integrated brightness of the comet after the perihelion could exceed that of the full moon. It was nicknamed “the comet of the century” and everybody […]

Proportional symbol maps (also known as graduated symbol maps) are used in Cartography to visualize quantitative data associated with specific locations. For a given point on a geographic map, a symbol (usually a disk or a square) is scaled such that its area is proportional to the numerical value associated to the point. This scaled […]

Crocodiles, alligators use lures to attract prey Alligators and crocodiles use lures to entice prey, the first reported use of tools by reptiles. Researchers surveyed alligators and crocodiles at four sites in Louisiana for a year, noting that the creatures balancing twigs and sticks on their snouts to lure birds during nesting seasons. “Use of […]

Jabberwocky is the title of a famous poem by Lewis Carroll[1], a poem very much liked by linguists because it beautifully illustrates the crucial role that function words play in language. Function words are the little words no one pays much attention to, although they are the true keepers of grammar. In fact, language cannot […]

Many organisms, such as fungi and plants without seeds, produce spores as a dispersal mechanism. Spores are usually microscopic propagules, many of them are able to resist harsh environmental conditions and successfully germinate after a long period of time. We know that their size is so small (just a bunch of micrometers) that they can […]

Hummingbird species evolved to live in oxygen-thin Andes Some species of hummingbirds, which need lots of oxygen to survive, have evolved to thrive in the oxygen-poor heights of the Andes. Researchers sequenced 63 hummingbird species’ DNA and found that the mutations that allow the Andes birds to breathe at high altitudes occurred at the same […]

The functioning of the human brain goes far beyond a bunch of cells packed together; each of them is able to produce, receive, and transform electrical signals into a concrete response that affects the neighboring cells, counted by hundreds. This image is already complex, but if we say that the electric signals are constituted by […]