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Is the universe infinite?

There’s been new news around the beginnings of the universe recently, specifically related to the Big Bang: The scientists say they have found the first direct evidence of things called gravitational waves. These were predicted by famous scientist Albert Einstein… Continue Reading

Matt Teeters and the tricky dance of politics and education in Wyoming

Matt Teeters is a state representative in Wyoming who helped lead the charge for the state to officially reject the new Next Generation Science Standards, becoming the first state to officially do so. (It should be noted that the Governor of… Continue Reading

The world needs better batteries, to be sure. Could Angela Belcher create them from viruses and help us all out?

Batteries are a big industry; that’s definitely part of the excitement around Tesla right now. But the problem is, the way we make batteries currently is somewhat ineffective and can be harmful to the environment. What if, instead, we made… Continue Reading

Brief statistical interlude: Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE are the only countries where girls seem to be more comfortable with math

The chart above is from here via here and uses the metric of “feeling helpless” when confronted with a math problem. There are essentially only three countries in the world — Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — where girls are significantly ahead… Continue Reading

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The Atacama Desert, in Chile, is a mass graveyard for nine million year-old whales. What gives?

Here’s a new paper, summarized in layman’s terms here, that explains the “whale graveyard” paleontologists had found in Chile. Turns out, the whales were toppled by nothing more than simple algae. At the time of first discovery of all this, in 2010,… Continue Reading

Why are honeybees important, you might ask? They’re tied to $15 billion in produce every year. Oh, and they invented twerking.

That video above claims that honeybees (or honey bees, whatever you prefer) are essential to the development of mankind. Before you shout “HYPERBOLE!” and return to Facebook-stalking a girl you once brushed up against in college, let’s go through this for a… Continue Reading

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In which I breathlessly and irrelevantly discuss Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell was profiled on 60 Minutes last night. My wife and I were trying to make dough at the time, and it needed about an hour to rise. I had just watched the obliteration of the Colts by the Cardinals, and 60… Continue Reading

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Arroyo del Vizcaíno, in southern Uruguay, might be the most important place on Earth

Let’s begin by tracing the argument: for a good long time, the belief of the scientific/paleontology/anthropology community was that the first people to begin arriving in America were “the Clovis People.”  They seemed to appear about 13,500 to 13,000 years ago,… Continue Reading