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The 17%, LIGO VIRGO GO!, Bird Beak Beginnings, Sleepy Jellies, Multitasking Pigeons, Growing Up Neanderthal, A Memory Molecule, Secrete Life Of Finger Tips, World Robot Domination, More Old Life, And Much More…
DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER!!!
We live in interesting times…
Too interesting in some ways…
It’s nothing like the old days…
Ah the good old boring days…
Back before the smart phone…
Back before the internet…
Back before television, radio and the printing press…
Back before the pulley, the lever and the invention of the wheel…
Back further still, before the written alphabet, before the domestication of animals…
Before socks…
because I’m pretty sure socks predate all those other inventions…
I’m talking about way way back…
Early man sitting gathered together round a fire at the entrance of a cave…
Some pondering the images within the flickering shadows at the back of the cave wall…
Others carefully gauging the distance at which feet can be held from the fire to give warmth…
yet not cook like mammoth steaks…
Some speculating about the meaning of the migration of the twinkling lights in the night sky…
While others knap away, hoping to make the worlds best stone axe…
in preparation for the next hunt..
And while we may think of these evenings of early humans as boring by todays standards…
They did hold great promise for the curious minded…
For so much interesting new knowledge was waiting out there for these early humans…
Knowledge that we now take for granted in our interesting times…
Though chances are…
if we run the clock of humanity forward…
we won’t need to go thousands of years into the future, but maybe just a few hundred…
We may find that the humans of today have much more in common with cave men gathered round a fire…
Than with the humans of tomorrow…
Who will look back at our simpler times…
with a vast landscape of discoveries still ahead of us and say…
These humans had it so easy,
why they even had This Week in Science…
coming up next…
This Week in What Has Science Done for me Lately?!?
“As a technophile I surround myself with technology news, technology trends and technology futurism fully on a daily basis.
Technology is the real world application of scientific principles.
It is from the work of electrical engineering, the material sciences, quantum mechanics and many other disciplines working together that we live in this world of connectivity and mobile and cloud computing. The full power of data centers and super computers has gone from the ivory tower to my pocket. ??
Science and technology work in a virtuous spiral. Science gives us better technology, better technology gives us more precise ways to do better science and so on. It is for this reason that I look forward to the future. I do so with anticipation for what new thing, what new discovery is right around the corner.
One fan of many,
Dale Moore”
The 17%
If you are a TWIS minion, you are the 17%… the 17% of Americans who actively seek out science. Thanks for joining us.
LIGO VIRGO GO!
Together, three gravitational wave detectors confirmed the detection of a binary black hole collision.
How’d that happen?
Bird Beaks explained
Tarnation! I’m as sleepy as an upside-down jelly on a descending mesh tube!
Jellies have shown, as the first animal without a brain, to sleep, according to new research. What’s more, they pay for it when they miss out on their downtime.
Bird Brain Indeed!
You may fancy yourself a multitasking expert, but you’ve got nothing on pigeons.
Support us on Patreon!
Growing up Neanderthal
Less talking, more walking!
A Memory Molecule
More evidence supports the idea that a calcium modulating molecule in the synapses of neurons is responsible for long-term memory.
Secrete life of finger tips
They do what they want.
Neuron Chips
Not a tasty snack, but a potential method for creating neuron-mimicking computer chips.
Nunchuks For Robots?
In a demonstration of a new intuitive learning technique researchers describe how they taught their robot to use nunchuks. We are doomed.
More Old Life
Do the Saglek block rocks of Labrador hold evidence for the earliest life ever discovered?
Giant coconut cracking rat
Yup.
Billionare looks to build electric car…
Good luck with that.
Pluto’s Knives
Pluto has blade-like structures made of methane ice at high elevations near its equator thanks to climate variation that sublimates the methane.
Cute But Deadly
Smilodon kittens started out ready to pounce.
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