Mayim Bialik: Again on Nature

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Mayim Bialik, the actress with a PhD in neurobiology. Now, she's featured again in Nature. There's an interview with Dr. Bialik in Nature this week, where she talks about having children as a neuroscientist grad student and about her experiences on The Big Bang Theory. She's a pretty interesting …

No new smell neurons for you

A recent paper in Neuron presents the findings of a study examining the age of neurons in human olfactory bulbs. As the ScienceNow article states, your olfactory bulb neurons are the same age as you. In other words, according to the results of this study, we are not generating new neurons to help process smells. …

Red in the Face

A recent study published in Biology Letters  and publicized in a ScienceNow article studied temperature changes in women during social interactions. The researchers discovered that neutral conversation topics (which did not elicit any emotional response, as reported by the subjects), caused an increase in temperature by ~0.1 degree. Touching on the arm, palm, face, or chest (under the …

Fracking

Fracking seems like such a promising idea; rather than drilling for oil, to which we don't have great access, let's tap into the natural gas right underneath my house! But as a recent Nature news article demonstrates, and as environmental groups have been saying for years, it comes with some costs. A recent paper in …

Evolution of birds

When most people think of dinosaurs, they usually think of overgrown reptiles. However, ever since I took an upper-level geology class freshman year, I've known that most dinosaurs are actually more closely related to birds than reptiles. A recent study examined the skulls of modern day birds, birds' intermediate ancestors, and dinosaurs and were able …

White House petitioned to make research free to access

There is a White House-backed petition being sent around trying to pass mandates that government-funded scientific research be made available on open-access websites. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Personally, I have mixed thoughts on the matter. Generally speaking, I am definitely in favor of making research available to the general …

The Black Widow: Debate

There has been some debate, among me and my friends as well as among others on the internet, about whether or not people liked the Black Widow character in The Avengers. She was the only female hero in the movie, which I discussed a little bit in a previous post, and I personally think she …

Coexist

I saw this image on y Google+ feed, and figured my readers would enjoy it too: Thanks to Peter Smalley for posting it, and to Philip Plait for re-posting!

Happy 35th Birthday, Star Wars!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.... Star Wars: A New Hope came out 35 years ago today, and to celebrate I'm posting up some cool links with Star Wars-related stuff. First up is an article with 35 of the best Star Wars references from TV, movies, and commercials (they're all youtube videos). For …

The Science of a Tasty Tomato

This is a sorta weird, but interesting article about the attempts to identify the essential taste of a tomato. One line really stood out to me as I read it: I always get asked, ‘Are we raising a generation of people who don’t know how a tomato should taste?’ --Henry Klee. My response is, "Who is …