It’s that feeling of anxiety that you get when you look on Twitter and see all your colleagues are headed out to conferences, concerts, parties, or movies. If you don’t go, you worry, if you don’t do something, if you don’t have your own status updates and Instagram photos to share, opportunities are going to […] … learn more→

When an art student at the University of Washington wanted to bring her vision of a futuristic animal to life last semester, she didn\’t draw, paint, or sculpt it. She printed it—in three dimensions—using a machine that rendered her design from powdered bone. The student, Juliana Meira do Valle, has since printed 3-D replicas of […] … learn more→

Much has already been said and written about the wave of protests about the anti-Islam trashy trailer ‘The Innocence of Muslims’. So as expected, many so-called Muslim ‘leaders’ have sprung up to explain, contextualise, restrain and advise. Some are even offering apologies to the wider society about the actions of the radical few who as […] … learn more→

This post deals with the information you provide to your potential participants when you are recruiting for your research project. Two items come into this category: an information sheet about your project and the consent form itself. I have seen the information sheet referred to in various ways: as the “Plain Language Statement” (PLS), the […] … learn more→

The term \”pseudoscience\” gets thrown around quite a bit these days, most notably in debates about the dominant consensus on anthropogenic climate change. Say \”pseudoscience,\” and immediately a bunch of doctrines leap to mind: astrology, phrenology, eugenics, ufology, and so on. Do they have anything in common? Some posit unknown forces of nature, others don\’t. […] … learn more→

By integrating genetics with high resolution historical climate reconstructions, scientists have been able to predict the timing and routes taken by modern humans during their expansion out of Africa. Their research reveals that the spread of humans out of Africa was dictated by climate, with their entry into Europe possibly delayed by competition with Neanderthals. […] … learn more→

Extreme precipitation in the tropics comes in many forms: thunderstorm complexes, flood-inducing monsoons and wide-sweeping cyclones like the recent Hurricane Isaac. Global warming is expected to intensify extreme precipitation, but the rate at which it does so in the tropics has remained unclear. Now an MIT study has given an estimate based on model simulations […] … learn more→

On February 21, a week before the beginning of Eastern Christianity\’s Great Lent, five members of the guerrilla feminist punk collective Pussy Riot walked into Moscow\’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, took off their winter gear, put brightly colored balaclavas over their heads, walked up to the altar, and started jumping around, punching and kicking […] … learn more→

You couldn’t have witnessed the recent massacre of elephants at Bouba N’Djida National Park and not be worried about the future of biodiversity. The park, in northern Cameroon, is supposed to be a refuge for rare wildlife such as the African forest elephant and painted hunting dog. But earlier this year, armed poachers invaded the […] … learn more→

September estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show 2012 U.S. corn yields at 123 bushels per acre, down by a fourth from the 2009 high of 165 bushels per acre. Yields are the lowest since 1995 and well below the average of the last 30 years. The summer heat and drought also hit […] … learn more→