Week in science, with unusual amounts of insanity
It was a crazy week for science. Normally, when we say that, we mean there was a lot of important news going on; this week, some of the actual stories involved a fair degree...
Indiana backing away from bill allowing creation "science" into classrooms
Earlier this week, we reported on efforts by an Indiana state legislator who was interested in getting creationism inserted into the state's science classrooms. He managed to get a modified bill, one that was less sectarian but ......
Study of deadly flu sparks debate amidst fears of new pandemic
The 2009 flu pandemic, although not especially deadly, revealed just how quickly a new influenza virus could elude surveillance and spread internationally. It also left health experts eying the disease that many fear could......
Ars and nature.com at the American Museum of Natural History: good stuff
For nearly a year now, Ars has worked with nature.com to organize a monthly panel discussion called Science Online NYC. We're pleased to announce that, in February, we'll also be working with the American Museum of Natural Histo......
Resignations, fallout from recent bizarre scientific publications
The strange paper that made its way from an obscure journal called Life to headlines at a number of ostensible news sites has continued to make waves this week. As we noted in our update to the story,...
Researchers boycott publisher; will they embrace instant publishing?
Many scientists were miffed by the introduction of the Research Works Act, which would roll back the US government's open access policy for research it funds. Some of that annoyance was directed toward the commercial publishers ...
How the craziest f#@!ing "theory of everything" got published and promoted – UPDATED
Physicists have been working for decades on a "theory of everything," one that unites quantum mechanics and relativity. Apparently, they were being too modest. Yesterday saw publication of a press release claiming a...
Jumping spiders pounce using blurry green images of prey
A picture is two-dimensional and yet, when we look at it, we perceive depth. A number of visual cues tip us off to the relative distances of items in a photo. One of...
We’ve hit "peak oil"; now comes permanent price volatility
Since 2005, the global production of oil has remained relatively flat, peaking in 2008 and declining since, even as demand for petroleum has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the...
Crowd-sourced biotech: gamers tweak protein, give it big activity boost
"Citizen science" is a recent movement to get interested members of the public involved in scientific research. Participants—who may or may not have scientific training—can perform tasks that can't be automate...
Results are in: 2011 was hot, but not that hot
A number of organizations (NASA, NOAA, and the UK's Met Office) all track the changes in global temperatures. With 2011's data complete, all of them have now run the numbers, and their results are roughly in agreement. Differe......
Researchers evolve a multicellular yeast in the lab in 2 months
When we think of life on Earth, most of us think of multicellular organisms, like large mammals or massive trees. But we're only aware of multicellular life evolving three times, which suggested it might be a major hurdle....
