Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Another magnificent piece of writing from Zimmer. This time on arctic adventurers, fish, and "one of the most crucial transitions in history of life": How the first tetrapods emerged from water, and started to move about on dry land
Inside the world of DIY synthetic biology. Where amateurs attempt genetic engineering in homemade labs. Will it lead to a wave of scientific breakthroughs, and valuable new life forms? Or a new generation of Dr Frankensteins?
Notion that there are more universes separate from ours is one of the most polarising concepts to have emerged from physics in decades. Is it the next phase in our understanding of reality, or nonsense? And why should we care?
Son's plea to let his mother go. "By promoting longevity and technologically inhibiting death, we have created a new biological status held by an ever-growing part of the nation, a no-exit state nearly as remote from life as death"
Report from symposium on cutting-edge physics research. Updates on the hunt for the Higgs Boson, supersymmetry, dark matter. And whether new theories of physics that go beyond the standard model are needed
Enjoyable blogpost on how people interact with museum exhibits. Suggests we often look at paintings for just three seconds, and very rarely for more than 45. Fine art encourages us to walk in orderly fashion, but not so modern art
The future has arrived: Two tetraplegics, paralysed and unable to speak, have regained some independence. They can control robotic arms by power of thought alone. Tiny electrodes implanted in the motor cortex work the magic
"Waking up after a good night’s sleep, you feel restored, and many studies have shown the benefits of sleep for learning, memory, and cognition. Yet if sleep is beneficial, what is the mechanism?" Recent research suggests an answer
Interview with Sara Seager, science advisor to Planetary Resources, billionaire-backed firm which plans to harvest precious metals from asteroids. "The hope is that in addition to mining asteroids we open up a new frontier in space"
Short history of the neuron. The Spaniard Santiago RamĂłn y Cajal first proved that the nervous system was made up of distinct building blocks in 1887. Term "neuron" coined shortly after in 1891 by German anatomist Wilhelm Waldeyer
Is our financial behaviour decided by genes? A group of young economists believe so. They've gone beyond neuroeconomics, and established a new field – genoeconomics. Here's what they hope to achieve. And the issues they face
James Watson's "Double Helix" was a fine science book when published in 1968. Time has turned it into a work of literature. "Now, of course, I can see what I couldn’t then: An epic of the loss of innocence, writ small and large"
Xanadu Observatory. The Veil Nebula
