Dogs’ sniffing powers have helped to detect bombs and smell signs of cancer. Now they’re being used to track down endangered wildlife — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A spider that preys on the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted to the odour of sweaty socks, according to a study — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A schoolgirl from Cairns in far north Queensland has won a top science award for making a hangover-free wine — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington is stepping up the war on pseudoscience with a call to his fellow government scientists to be grossly intolerant
if science is being misused by religious or political groups.
In closing remarks to an annual conference of around 300 scientific civil servants on 3 February, in London, Beddington said that selective use of science ought to be treated in the same way as racism and homophobia. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality… We are not—and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this—grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method,
he said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Yesterday, my colleague David Whelan asked if AOL’s $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post meant that the internet giant would start believing, as some HuffPo writers have asserted, that vaccination is linked to autism — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Whale sharks, the world’s biggest fish, could be even bigger than previously recorded, a new study reveals — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scientists have identified a pheromone produced by female squid that triggers immediate and dramatic fighting in male squid that come into contact with it. The aggression-producing pheromone, believed to be the first of its kind discovered in any marine animal, belongs to a family of proteins found in vertebrates, including humans. Results of the study appear in the February 10th issue of Current Biology — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Public school science teachers who want to teach intelligent design
alongside evolution and want to challenge the accepted scientific views about global warming would be protected under a bill introduced in the House — via jarandhel.newsvine.com
Ancient stone faces carved into the walls of a well-known limestone cave in East Timor have been discovered by a team searching for fossils of extinct giant rats — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Human brains have shrunk over the past 30,000 years, but it is not a sign of decreasing intelligence, according to scientists who suggest that evolution is making the key motor leaner and more efficient in an increasing population — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Inspired by the humble cicada, Australian scientists have shown for the first time that optical fibre nanosensors – tiny devices that can be used to detect trace amounts of chemicals – can be mass-produced — via redwolf.newsvine.com
James Randi launched a bold challenge Saturday that aims to debunk so-called homeopathic drugs. The fraud-busting magician even offered $1 million to any manufacturer who could prove they work as directed — via redwolf.newsvine.com
New research suggests omega-3 fatty acids can help prevent retinopathy, an eye disease that can lead to blindness in premature babies and people with diabetes — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A team of researchers from the National Association for Producers of Canned Fish and Shellfish (Anfaco-Cecopesca) have initiated a study to genetically identify cephalopods with the most commercial interest, such as squid, giant squid and octopus.
Those involved in the research believe that the development of rapid methods for the authentication of raw materials and their subsequent implementation in production plants, facilitate its entry into the production line and ensure proper labeling
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
An international team of researchers has found a clue to one of the leading causes of blindness, which they hope could eventually lead to a cure — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scientists in New Zealand say they have linked the modern-day decline of a common forest shrub with the local extinction of two pollinating birds over a century ago.
They say the disappearance of two birds – the bellbird and stitchbird – from the upper North Island of the country has lead to a slow decline in common plants, including the forest shrub New Zealand gloxinia.
Ship rats and stoats imported into the country around the year 1870 are blamed for the birds’ demise — via coloradobob1.newsvine.com
A groups of scientists in Melbourne are this morning claiming to have unlocked what they think could be the key to curing HIV — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Children with Type 1 diabetes are nearly 10 times as likely to also have a viral infection than healthy children, Australian research suggests — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The phenomena of path dependence and lock-in can be illustrated with many examples, but one of the most vivid is the gear we use to launch things into space. Rockets are a very old invention. The Chinese have had them for something like 1,000 years. Francis Scott Key wrote about them during the War of 1812 and we sing about them at every football game. As late as the 1930s, however, they remained small, experimental, and failure-prone — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Squid can hear, scientists have confirmed. But they don’t detect the changes in pressure associated with sound waves, like we do. They have another, more primitive, technique for listening: They sense the motion generated by sound waves — via redwolf.newsvine.com
RSS – Posts