Category archives: Science

When a standard kilogram is not a kilogram Tens of micrograms worth of surface contamination have caused the international standard kilogram to gain weight, according to new research, causing concern that each country’s standard weight for a kilogram is now slightly different. The cylinder-shaped piece of metal is key for scientific experiments that require exact […]

In 1981 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States reported the existence of anunexplained pneumonia and Kaposi’s sarcoma by Pneumocystis jiroveci in previously healthy homosexual men from Los Angeles and New York. This represented the first time that the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was identified. Subsequently, cases of AIDS increased […]

Killing cancer cells is a key point to cure cancer. Many researchers are working on developing different therapies to do just that. The one I’m going to talk about today is a very promising one: Oncolytic Virotherapy. Just the name may scare you but it’s a very clever approach to treat some tumors lacking a […]

In the real world, children learn new information by participating in classrooms, interacting with their family and friends, and watching educational videos. While previous neuroimaging research has typically used simple tasks and short-lasting stimuli, in a new study published in PloS Biology researchers examined brain development using a more complex and naturalistic educational stimulus. Children […]

First brain cells found devoted to selective attention in an invertebrate animal. Dragonflies lack humans’ big brains, but they still get the job done, according to new research that suggests that these insects have brain cells capable of feats previously seen only in primates. Specifically, the dragonflies can screen out useless visual information to focus […]

Newton’s theory of gravitation assumes that the speed of gravity is infinite and the gravitational interaction is instantaneous. However, Einstein’s theory postulates that it is exactly equal to the speed of light. A team of Chinese physicists lead by Tang Ke Yun, at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China […]

The advances in molecular biology and the so called post-genomic era, have improved significantly the fight against many human diseases, in some cases almost leading to their eradication. However, there are still regions of our planet were people suffer from infections and other causes of mortality which are easily avoided in the most developed countries […]

We are almost sure: we have discovered the Higgs boson. Or at least, that is the most reasonable comment to do after the usual Winter Report given by the scientists that work on the two main experiments placed at the ring of the Large Hadron Collider (CERN, Switzerland), named CMS and ATLAS, the last December […]

The lifespan of words A recent analysis has found that as a language grows over time, it becomes more set in its ways. New words are always being added, according to this study, but few become widely used and part of the standard vocabulary. The scientists found that as the vocabulary of a language grew […]

From the genetic point of view, when should a man be more interested in caring for his sister’s children than his wife’s? A quantitative analysis of Alan Rogers, University of Utah, shows that this behaviour should be the choice in populations where adultery is common or permitted. In the animal world, males caring for offspring […]