Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

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The Year in Science Stories


29 Dec

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I love end of year lists. They let me sort through things and find what I’ve missed. It’s not my full time job to find interesting movies or books, or scientific breakthroughs, even though I love all of those things. Reading the year end lists from those whose full time jobs it is, means that I get to catch up.

To that end, over the next week or so, you’ll probably be seeing a number of posts by me from the Cosmic Log’s year end round ups of the biggest stories in outer space, archeology, and science stories in general.

Culture is more inclusive than that


26 Dec

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I find this headline misleading “Culture may trigger evolution of human features, study finds.” Why? Because it implies that culture as a whole- religious practices, laws, artwork, literature, plays a part in human evolution. And that’s not what their study has shown at all.

They are talking about one very specific part of “culture”, the part that deals with marriage and procreation. It seems rather obvious to me that if one mans’ sons (not all his children, just his sons) comprise one quarter of the population, then that man’s genetic traits are going to be passed down to future generations.

The Law Code of Ur Nammu


23 Dec

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Have you heard of Ur Nammu? He was the ruler of Ur(part of Mesopotamia) about 4,000 years ago. He developed a set of laws long before the more famous code of Hammurabi (an eye for an eye). Recently translated cuneiform texts present us with the earliest known written version of the law code of Ur Nammu.

What I love about this law code is that it specifically mentions working women. That’s right, there’s a specific law about taxing any beer a female tavern keeping put on your tab during the summer. (And you thought current IRS regulations were nit-picky.)

Space Harpoon


21 Dec

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NASA is developing a harpoon. They aren’t looking for blubber (Star Trek IV taught us not to kill the whales), but for other natural resources, in comets.

This isn’t an offensive weapon. It’s a research tool. The goal is for astronauts to be able to harpoon a comet and bring samples back so that they can study what comets are made of and how they are formed. But, knowing how comets are made could help us learn how to deflect them away from the earth.

And, we’ll leave the tip of the harpoon in the comet. What a nice souvenir.

Avoiding Bed Bugs


12 Dec

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No one likes bugs in their bedding. Not even people living 77,000 years ago wanted bugs in their beds.

So that’s probably not the most important scientific takeaway that will come from the stack of bedding found in a South African cave. The oldest of the mats are 50,000 years older than the previously known oldest plant bedding. And the use of these particular plants reveals that the inhabitants had a strong understanding of the world around them.

All of this is fascinating, but my favorite parts it that they used a plant whose crushed leaves are naturally insect repellant.

Walking Again


09 Dec

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I like medical miracles. They remind us that there are depths to the human brain and body that we still don’t understand. I love this story about a former Paralympian who has regained the use of her legs and is now on a pro-cycling team.

On the other hand, I hate medical miracles, because they make too many people think they’ll be the miracle when miracles just do not happen all that often.

I actually think the best part of this story is that Monique was making the best of her life with a disability, not waiting for a miracle.

More MythBusters Mayhem


08 Dec

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No new MythBusters last night so I’m still talking about the accident that had them sending a 30lb softball (I know, what’s soft about a ball weighing 30lbs) into a neighborhood near the bomb range where they conduct many experiments.

Jamie and Adam went to visit the home and help clean up. The show has insurance for exactly this reason. Everyone is grateful for the fact that no one was hurt.

However, some people in the neighborhood don’t want them back if they’re going to be doing “dangerous” things. My response to that- dude, you live near a BOMB range.

Can you say “Oops”?


07 Dec

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The surprise isn’t that this happened. The surprise is that it hasn’t happened before, like a hundred times before. In an experiment gone awry, the MythBusters appear to have shot a cannonball through a house near the gun range where they normally test their artillery myths.

Apparently, the cannonball took some weird bounces, and went through two walls of a nearby house. Having once lived near a rifle range, I can tell you, the owners never thought anything like this could happen.

It does, however, make you wonder what happened to Jamie’s perfect period cannonball from the tree cannon myth.

The Goldilocks Planet


06 Dec

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You all know I love space exploration. I am excited by the discovery of Kepler-22, the first potentially human habitable planet discovered by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. But here’s what gets me. Notice how I said “human habitable”. Everyone else just say “habitable”. There is the assumption that life couldn’t have formed on a planet that humans couldn’t live on. Hydrogen based life, perhaps, couldn’t form on a planet without water as we know it, but why are we so certain that all intelligent life has to be hydrogen based? And why are we certain the planets need to be Earth-size?

The Arabian Route


03 Dec

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Every once in a while, I regret my decision not to follow through and become a trained “historian”. The truth is, I wouldn’t have been involved in this kind of expedition anyway, since Paleolithic would not have been my era, and I hate the heat, so tramping around the deserts of Arabia would have been totally off the list.

But still, how cool is this that they are finding a trail of breadcrumbs that indicates humans started leaving Africa earlier than expected and by a different route than most theorize.

The story of humanity is being written before our eyes.

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