Category archives: Science

Varied smelling ability linked to genes Scientists at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research sequenced test subjects’ genomes to see if they could predict an individual’s smelling ability, and found clusters of genes that reliably predicted the person’s ability to smell four of 10 chemicals. “All of these genes are on different […]

This article is focused on a recent paper [PDF] written by Jo Day from the Department of Classics of the University College Dublin exploring the links between botany and archaeology using case studies from ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Archaeology is more associated with the discovery of tombs and ancient human remains than with plants. However, the […]

Methane released from Arctic permafrost could cost trillions worldwide Scientists warn that large amounts of methane that could be released from the melting Arctic permafrost could have a huge global economic impact. The release of 50-gigatonnes of methane over 10 years could cost $60 trillion worldwide, according to a study published in the journal Nature […]

There is a strong tendency to consider that every scientific or technical solution to a particular problem is irrefutable. Nowadays, scientific and technological knowledge usually eludes public criticism and even we have seen how important government decision making were made by the so-called technocrats . We often forget the contingency of this knowledge, the fact […]

Choose your favorite convex polyhedron in the space. Make sure it is convex, since the current post is restricted to that kind of polyhedra An unfolding of your convex polyhedron is a development of its surface to a single polygon in the plane (possibly overla pping). In order to obtain an unfolding, the surface of […]

New study of foragers undermines claim that war has deep evolutionary roots One of the most insidious modern memes holds that war is innate, an adaptation bred into our ancestors by natural selection. This hypothesis—let’s call it the “Deep Roots Theory of War”–has been promoted by some intellectual heavyweights. A study published today in Science […]

One of the most surprising and fascinating facts about scientific research is that one never truly knows which directions investigations may take. Along the way that goes from gathering data, to the path that links our initial question and the answer we pursue, we find numerous, intriguing and unexpected little ramifications and hideous sideways that […]

Our brain constitutes one of the finest pieces of natural machinery known, and it allows us to efficiently interact with our environment: searching for food, avoiding predators, communicating with other individuals, and even some more sophisticated stuff — like enjoying a well composed piece of classical (or rock) music. However, all this comes at a […]

Dog breeds in Americas trace ancestry to Asian dogs A study found that modern breeds of Chihuahuas, Arctic sled dogs and Peruvian hairless dogs trace their ancestry to dogs that humans brought across the ancient land bridge that connected North America to Northeast Asia. The study compared DNA from Asian and European dogs with archaeological […]

The relation of cancer and the immune system has been traditionally regarded in terms of war; a force of courageous immune system soldiers representing, lets say, The United States of Your Body facing the evil forces of anarchy in the form of tumoral cells. Following this logic the immune system eradicates tumors (elimination phase) until […]