When it comes to human health and the planet’s well-being, certain activities are simply untenable. Researchers also know that self-regulation never works.
Tag: science
The self/other theory of immunology rests on the xenophobic assumption that ‘others’ are always dangerous and need to be removed.
Local investors and entrepreneurs should learn from past mistakes to harvest the best results from the country’s decision to authorize marijuana production.
Part of our fear around AI comes from its misleading moniker. It’s a momentous innovation, sure. But it isn’t really intelligent at all.
NEW DELHI — In an article in The Atlantic, Patrick Collison and Michael Nielsen express their concerns about the perceived slowdown of scientific progress. With “more scientists, more funding for science, and more scientific papers published than ever before,” they ask whether the rising investment in scientific research is yielding proportionately rising dividends, or whether we are “investing vastly more merely to sustain (or even see a decline in) the rate of scientific progress?” Yet, as they concede, it’s unclear how to measure the rate of scientific progress. Much ink has been spilled on the misplaced reification of the Nobel […]
One study says it will take at least 100 years to bridge the global gender gap. And 217 years to close the pay gap. But we can do something now.
PARIS — The French capital was set to be the world capital of science. On May 17-18, no fewer than 50 conferences in the fields of aerospace, mechanics, energy, the environment, civil engineering, economics, computer science, social sciences and chemistry were to be held under the same Parisian roof. On that day, in a hotel […]
Can a clone have a birthday? Well, let’s just say that Dolly the sheep was delivered 22 years ago on July 5 — the world’s first cloned mammal to see the light of day. The result of a successful cloning experiment at The Roslin Institute in Scotland, the wooly work of science sparked public outcry back in 1996, eventually leading to an extension of the ban against embryo research in the United States. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/-uYYsNf61WA expand=1] Hello Dolly! — OneShot (© Roslin Institute) Fears of cloning linger: Earlier this year, Chinese researchers were busy trying to convince the public that […]
Bright ideas to limit ways that motherhood so often leads to gender pay gaps and blocked careers for female scientists.
Scientists are investigating why 68 dolphins — most of which were dead —washed ashore this week in the central province of Chubut.
NEW DELHI — A recent photo posted on Facebook by the Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, Ashutosh Sharma, featured 41 heads of Indian educational and research institutions. It didn’t take long for Shobana Narasimhan, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru, to point out that not a single one was a woman. Only 20% of tenured faculty positions in Indian educational and research institutions are held by women. Other numbers are even more skewed: only 12 women are Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences (there are 197 men); only 3 women […]
New tools rely on the influence of experts in behavioral economics, risk psychology and neuroscience to limit errors humans make to raise risk of online attacks.
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Unsinkable Legend
That’s no gator — this here is Captain Nemo’s mighty Nautilus, born from French 19th-century author Jules Verne“s imagination. About as soon as I learned to read, I’d immerse myself in Captain Nemo’s adventures aboard this futuristic submarine, in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. Later, when I was in high […]
A Tunisian doctoral student has joined several poorly informed American celebrities in reopening the question of whether the Earth is flat or round.
GENEVA — At the Geneva University Hospitals, pneumologist Jean-Paul Janssens receives patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This rare disease is caused by the degeneration of motor neurons and kills patients within a few years. It is incurable. And yet patients often receive invitations from private clinics or doctors promising a miracle cure using […]
Being creative is often just a matter of connecting the dots — though they better be the right dots.
PARIS — Researchers are on the hunt for the perfect bee. Today, pesticides, mites, viruses and other parasites decimate tens of millions of colonies of pollinators on the planet. Researchers are now trying to select genes from bees that would build colonies resistant to external attacks. Doing so would help save natural pollination, which is […]
BERLIN — Is our intelligence determined by our genes? That’s the question driving genetic and psychological research ever since these scientific disciplines were born. But to this day, the question has yet to be answered. Our cognitive skills are determined by our genes, yes, but they are also influenced by the environment around us. But […]
Foreign scientists working in the U.S. are seeking job prospects in Switzerland as they contemplate leaving a country under an unfriendly administration. For one Swiss agency, that’s not necessarily good news.
Several decades of reflection and study have led neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changeux to stake out a new field that shows how art influences the brain.
PARIS — Find the distribution of random paths on a directed graph. Of course, when you say it like that, such a problem will hardly excite the masses. But if you had managed to find this mysterious distribution, you would have obtained the PageRank algorithm. And if you have PageRank, you have Google, now the […]
LAUSANNE — Imagine a brain the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen. Now imagine that this brain can spontaneously generate an electric charge, just like a human brain could. Well, imagine no more because this tiny human brain replica, a so-called mini-brain, actually exists. Over the past five years, techniques to manufacture these […]
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Inside A Church — Video Quote Of The Day
“Hello fetus listeners …” The Babypod is a speaker that, inserted vaginally, will expose a fetus to music of your choice inside the womb. But what kind of music should we choose?
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Laboratory Tests — Video Quote Of The Day
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February 28
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Extra! First Case Of Long-Term HIV Remission
Libération, July 21, 2015 What is being hailed as the world’s first known case of long-term remission from HIV, in an 18-year-old French woman born with the virus, is featured in today’s Paris-based newspaper Libération with the headline, “Curing HIV.” The girl, who was born in 1996, contracted the virus that causes AIDS from her […]
A Swiss group has unveiled new white solar panels intended to blend in better with the country’s architecture.
The holes in Swiss cheese have stumped scientists for nearly a century. Now a team in Switzerland says they’ve found the holy grail.
Transportable and cheap, a made-in-Italy DNA kit prototype promises to allow molecular analysis directly in the field, sending collected data instantly across the world.
The UK’s second-largest city has struggled to reinvent itself for the post-Industrial age, but it’s now looking to thrive as a startup hub known as the “Silicon Canal.”
Locals used to cook their food in bubbling pools of steaming groundwater. Now a project is underway to turn it into electricity.
BEIJING — Over the past two months, China has green-lighted the importation of three varieties of genetically modified corn and soybean from the United States. Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Agriculture has also renewed the expired safety certificates of the country’s own genetically modified crops. While that’s good news for the industry, it may be premature […]
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Echolocation, How To See With Your Ears
Ever heard (no pun intended) of echolocation? It’s the ability of some animals, most famously dolphins and bats, to emit sound waves to determine the location and size of objects around them, which helps them “see.” Scientists have long known that some blind humans shared this skill and were able to also emit clicking sounds […]
Especially since the breakthrough on the Higgs Boson particle, running CERN in Geneva may be the most influential job in physics. For the first time it will be filled by a woman.
“Science needs time. Bear with us, while we think,” declares a new movement of researchers pushing back against the demands to always make breakthroughs and publish findings.
The Chinese-born fashion designer creates clothes that react to light, sound, even a passing glance. What would Lady Gaga think?
PARIS — The 3D printing revolution promises to change the very way products are manufactured and sold, across a vast array of sectors. Inevitably this has sparked a race to directly print living cells of human beings. This technology is now available in the US and Japan, dubbed 3D bioprinting, with wide-eyed investors flocking to […]
Falsely considered a type of magic, achieving hypnotic trance is already part of our everyday lives. Its potential applications for medical science are vast, if still largely unexplained.
There are medically proven explanations for why our minds and bodies generally feel better when the season changes. So, goodbye Winter Blues, and hello Spring Euphoria!