Month: April 2022

  • Seven from MIT elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 2022 | MIT News

    Seven from MIT elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 2022 | MIT News

    Seven MIT faculty members are among more than 250 leaders from academia, the arts, industry, public policy, and research elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced Thursday. One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy…

  • Dog breed is a surprisingly poor predictor of individual behavior

    Dog breed is a surprisingly poor predictor of individual behavior

    Turns out we may be unfairly stereotyping dogs. Modern breeds are shaped around aesthetics: Chihuahuas’ batlike ears, poodles’ curly fur, dachshunds’ hot dog shape. But breeds are frequently associated with certain behaviors, too. For instance, the American Kennel Club describes border collies as “affectionate, smart, energetic” and beagles as “friendly, curious, merry.” Now, genetic information…

  • Neanderthals of the north | HeritageDaily

    Neanderthals of the north | HeritageDaily

    Were Neanderthals really as well adapted to a life in the cold as previously assumed, or did they prefer more temperate environmental conditions during the last Ice Age? To answer these questions, it is worthwhile to examine Neanderthal sites on the northern periphery of their range. After all, it was there that environmental fluctuations were…

  • Leonardo da Vinci’s rule for how trees branch was close, but wrong

    Leonardo da Vinci’s rule for how trees branch was close, but wrong

    Leonardo da Vinci was wrong about trees. The multitalented, Renaissance genius wrote down his “rule of trees” over 500 years ago. It described the way he thought that trees branch. Though it was a brilliant insight that helped him to draw realistic landscapes, Leonardo’s rule breaks down for many types of trees. Now, a new…

  • Ancient oak trees to shed light on the climate of the past 4500 years | HeritageDaily

    Ancient oak trees to shed light on the climate of the past 4500 years | HeritageDaily

    Researchers will soon be able to reconstruct the climate of north-west Europe including the UK over the last 4500 years, and to date wooden buildings and objects more accurately, by analysing the chemistry of ancient oak trees, through a new Swansea-led project just selected for €3 million in European funding. Analysis of tree rings –…

  • Breakfast of Champions – Chemistry | Weizmann Wonder Wander

    Breakfast of Champions – Chemistry | Weizmann Wonder Wander

    Even the smallest organism can have a major influence on the evolution of life on Earth. Microscopic algae that inhabit the sunlit waters of the ocean surface are not only responsible for about half of the photosynthesis on the planet but are also valuable as a nutrient-rich food source sustaining the entire marine ecosystem. In…

  • Here’s what came after the death of the dinosaurs

    Here’s what came after the death of the dinosaurs

    Excerpted from The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black. Copyright © 2022 by Riley Black and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a day like most any other, a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana about 66 million years ago. The…

  • An easier way to teach robots new skills — ScienceDaily

    An easier way to teach robots new skills — ScienceDaily

    With e-commerce orders pouring in, a warehouse robot picks mugs off a shelf and places them into boxes for shipping. Everything is humming along, until the warehouse processes a change and the robot must now grasp taller, narrower mugs that are stored upside down. Reprogramming that robot involves hand-labeling thousands of images that show it…

  • Spiking the Particle – Technology & Applications | Weizmann Wonder Wander

    Spiking the Particle – Technology & Applications | Weizmann Wonder Wander

    Prof. Yosef Shaul was a postdoc at the University of California, San Francisco in the 1980s when he read about the recently discovered genome of the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Already widely associated with liver cancer, the virus turned out to be a tiny DNA virus which uses RNA to replicate. “At the level of…

  • Marine mollusc shells reveal how prehistoric humans adapted to intense climate change | HeritageDaily

    Marine mollusc shells reveal how prehistoric humans adapted to intense climate change | HeritageDaily

    Current global climatic warming is having, and will continue to have, widespread consequences for human history, in the same way that environmental fluctuations had significant consequences for human populations in the past. The so-called ‘8.2 ka event’ has been identified as the largest and most abrupt climatic event of the past 11,700 years, caused by…