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  • new-bees-ft
    • How Your Bee-Friendly Garden May Actually Be Killing Bees

    • Even as they try to help the bees, people may inadvertently poison them by planting pesticide-laden plants purchased from big-box garden centers, suggests a new report. More than half of ostensibly bee-friendly plants sampled at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart garden centers contained high levels of neonicotinoids, which are considered highly toxic to bees, butterflies and other insect pollinators.

  • disco-clam-ft
    • How This Mysterious Clam Puts on an Underwater Light Show

    • New research published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface confirms that C. ales—divers and aquarium enthusiasts call it disco clam—is one of the few marine creatures that use micro-scale structures to reflect light. The disco clam does it so well that for years divers and scientists alike both believed that it was generating its electric display with through bioluminescence, or light-producing chemical reactions.

  • worldcup-countries-ft
    • Every World Cup Country, Seen in Beautiful Images From Space

    • Watching the various playing styles of different countries in the World Cup this year got me thinking about all the things that influence how each team plays the game. Culture is certainly a big one, genetics is another. But what about the terrain? Do countries dominated by deserts play differently than those that are lush […]

  • ff_deathstalker_th
    • A Doctor’s Quest to Save People by Injecting Them With Scorpion Venom

    • Deathstalker scorpion Christopher Griffith Because it’s so late on a Monday afternoon, there is a listless vibe inside the University of Washington lecture hall where Jim Olson is about to speak. The audience consists of a few dozen grad students struggling with end-of-day fatigue. They scarf down free chocolate-chunk cookies as they prepare to take […]

  • wolf-eyes-feat
    • Wolves Might Use Their Eyes to Talk to Each Other

    • It’s no secret that wolves, foxes, and dogs are highly social animals. But beyond all the wagging, pawing and yipping we like to try to interpret, canids may have yet another way to communicate. New research hints at the possibility that dogs and their ilk could be sending each other signals with their eyes.

  • dwave-quantum-feat
    • Quantum Computers Still Aren’t Faster Than Regular Old Computers

    • A speed test between quantum and classical computers has ended in a draw. New research suggests the commercial quantum computer sold by Canadian company D-Wave Systems isn’t faster than the PC on your desk. In theory a quantum computer, which uses the quirks of quantum mechanics to perform calculations, should leave today’s most powerful machines […]

  • observatory-livestream-ft
    • Watch: Blowing Up a Mountain to Make Way for World’s Biggest Telescope

    • The best thing about the future of astronomy is that it starts with a bang. Today, you can watch as the European Southern Observatory takes the first step in building the world’s biggest ground-based telescope—the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)—by blowing up the top of a mountain in Chile. The blasting event will start at […]

  • redskins-animals-ft
    • Let’s Rename the Redskins After a Native Species

    • This morning, the US Patent and Trademark Office cancelled six trademarks on the Washington Redskins’ team name. This effectively pulls the rug out from under team owner Daniel Snyder, who had been standing firm against accusations that the nickname is wildly offensive to Native Americans. But, this is an opportunity to find a great new team nickname. Besides, since the D.C. metro area is over a swamp full of snakes, spiders, and rodents, the only people they run the risk of offending are the politicians.

  • pygmy-seahorse-feat
    • Baby Pygmy Seahorses Are Even Cuter Than You Think

    • For the past three weeks, Richard Ross has been spending his mornings next to a small tank in a back room at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. He leans in close. Not only is the room dark, but the fish inside this tank are masters of hiding in plain sight. They are Bargibant’s pygmy […]

  • traffic-jam-feat
    • What’s Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse

    • The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more. Though some traffic engineers made note of this phenomenon at least as early as the 1960s, it is only in recent years that social scientists have collected enough data to show how this happens pretty much every time we build new roads.

  • Exchange Womens Bridge Club
    • How to Win at Bridge Using Quantum Physics

    • Contract bridge is the chess of card games. You might know it as some stuffy old game your grandparents play, but it requires major brainpower, and preferably an obsession with rules and strategy. So how to make it even geekier? Throw in some quantum mechanics to try to gain a competitive advantage.

  • Opening Ceremony Of The 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil
    • Science Stunts: Can Creating a Spectacle Pay Off?

    • It’s been a wacky week in science. First there was that computer that supposedly passed the Turing test, a 50-year old benchmark in artificial intelligence research. Then, yesterday, a paralyzed boy in a robotic exoskeleton took the opening kick in the World Cup in Brazil. All of which raises the question: Are spectacles like this bad for science? Or can taking science out of the lab and into the limelight serve a greater purpose?

  • ai-feat
    • Forget the Turing Test: Here’s How We Could Actually Measure AI

    • A chatbot pretending to be a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy made waves last weekend when its programmers announced that it had passed the Turing test. But the judges of this test were apparently easily fooled, because any cursory exchange with ‘Eugene Goosterman’ reveals the machine inside the ghost. Maybe the time has come, 60 years after Alan Turing’s death, to discard the idea that imitating human conversation is a good test of artificial intelligence.

  • Alan M Turing and colleagues working on the Ferranti Mark I Computer, 1951.
    • That Computer Actually Got an F on the Turing Test

    • Over the weekend, a group of programmers claimed they built a program that passed the famous Turing Test, in which a computer tries to trick judges into believing that it is a human. According to new reports, this is a historic accomplishment. But is it really? And what does it mean for artificial intelligence?

From the Science Blogs
  • Volcano World Cup: Round of 16

  • The Group Stage of the Volcano World Cup is over! Above you can see the Round of 16 bracket as we march towards crowning the champion of volcanism. The voting for the first four Round of 16 games will start tomorrow, with the other four appearing on Monday.

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  • Thursday, June 26
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  • Productive Bugs

  • Software is buggy. As computer programs become more complicated and more interconnected, the likelihood that there is a problem somewhere just has to increase. In general, these bugs are bad, causing things to break or otherwise create problems. But every now and then, some software bugs can do something special. If you’ve ever done any […]

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  • Thursday, June 26
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group H

  • We’ve made it to the last Group of the Volcano World Cup! If you haven’t yet, vote in the rest of the Group Stage: A, B, C, D, E, F and G Group H has one of the Volcano World Cup favorites plus some upstarts: Algeria, Belgium, Russia and South Korea Algeria: I bet you didn’t […]

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  • Wednesday, June 25
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  • A World Cup Visitor: Polio from Africa in Brazil

  • The World Health Organization announced on Monday that a polio sample was collected in March at Viracopos International Airport in Campinas, which is about 60 miles outside Sao Paulo, and is where many of the World Cup teams have been landing. The agency said no cases of polio have been identified and there is no evidence the disease has been transmitted.

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  • Wednesday, June 25
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group G

  • We’re nearing the end of the Group Stage here in the Volcano World Cup. Check out the voting for Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E and Group F. Today we have a group that might most closely resemble its real world counterpart in terms of difficultly – the dreaded Group G: […]

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  • Tuesday, June 24
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group F

  • The Group Stage of the Volcano World Cup continues! If you haven’t yet, vote for Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D and Group E. Today we have Group F: Argentina, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Iran and Nigeria. This group might end up being closer than it seems. Argentina: Many of the volcanoes that make […]

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  • Monday, June 23
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group E

  • The Volcano World Cup rolls on. Remember, vote in Group A, Group B, Group C and Group D. Today we tackle Group E: Ecuador, France, Honduras, and Switzerland. Ecuador: If any country has a true cakewalk to the Round of 16, it might be Ecuador. Their competition can’t hold a candle to the multitude of active […]

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  • Saturday, June 21
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  • Get to Know a Projection: The Space-Oblique Mercator

  • For his 50th birthday, John Parr Snyder’s wife bought him a special gift: a ticket to “The Changing World of Geodetic Science,” a cartography convention in Columbus, Ohio. Geodesy, an esoteric branch of geography studying the shape of the earth, had been one of Snyder’s lifelong hobbies. As a keynote, the 1976 conference featured a […]

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  • Friday, June 20
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group D

  • Be sure to check out the voting for Group A, Group B and Group C. Onto Group D: Costa Rica, England, Italy and Uruguay. Someone is going to go home disappointed. Costa Rica: For being a relatively small nation, Costa Rica is full of volcanic wonders. Arenal, Poas, Irazu, Turrialba and Rincon de la Vieja […]

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  • Friday, June 20
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group C

  • Volcano World Cup moves on — be sure to vote in Group A and Group B. Here’s Group C: Colombia, Greece, Ivory Coast, Japan. Might be the toughest group for the Volcano World Cup. Colombia: Few countries can boast as many rumbling volcanoes as Colombia. No less than five different volcanoes are on elevated alert […]

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  • Thursday, June 19
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  • Volcano World Cup: Group B

  • You’ve had a chance to vote for Group A (although voting for all groups will be open until June 26 at noon EDT), so now its time to move to Group B: Australia, Chile, the Netherlands and Spain. Australia: If you’re looking for a continent free of most tectonic disasters — earthquakes and volcanoes — […]

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  • Wednesday, June 18
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  • Introducing the Volcano World Cup

  • I love the World Cup. I have no shame in that and even though the United States may never understand “the game” (remember, this is the nation that decided that football was a game to play with your hands), my Colombian roots mean that I get wrapped up in the Cup every four years. During […]

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  • Tuesday, June 17
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  • Alert Status for Semisopochnoi in Alaska Raised to Yellow

  • Brief update here this weekend on some activity in Alaska. The Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the aviation alert status of Semisopochnoi to Yellow after a new earthquake swarm (check out the webicorder) was noted at the remote volcano. No eruption has occurred, but is far from any human settlements on the very far western (eastern?) end […]

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  • Saturday, June 14
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  • Pluto: Doorway to the Stars (1962)

  • In just about a year, the New Horizons spacecraft will begin daily observations of the dwarf planet Pluto. A month later, on 14 July 2015, the piano-sized 478-kilogram probe will fly by Pluto at a nominal distance of only 10,000 kilometers moving at a velocity of 14 kilometers per second. At that speed and distance, […]

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  • Saturday, June 14
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  • Prince Rupert: Philosophic Warrior

  • When you drop molten glass into water, it creates a droplet shape with a long tail. The droplet head is unbreakable, yet the slightest touch of the tail makes the entire piece of glass explode. We now call this Prince Rupert’s Drop, named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who first demonstrated it to the […]

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  • Thursday, June 12
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  • The Physics of Keeping Cool

  • There are several ways to reduce the temperature of things - like a person or a beer. The history and physics of cooling things can be quite interesting. I'm not a historian, so I am only going to speculate on the timeline of events in the life of refrigeration. However, I feel comfortable explaining the physics in each method.

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  • Thursday, June 12
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  • Very Serious Superbugs in Imported Seafood

  • Breaking news today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, out of its open-access journal Emerging Infectious Diseases: Researchers in Canada have identified a very highly resistant bacterium in squid imported from South Korea and being sold in a Chinese grocery store.

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  • Wednesday, June 11
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  • Amazing Video of a Pyroclastic Flow at Santiaguito in Guatemala

  • Santa Maria (which is known also as Santiaguito) in Guatemala put on quite a show, with impressive explosive eruptions that produced numerous pyroclastic flows (also known as pyroclastic density currents, or PDCs) during May 2014. As many of you know, pyroclastic flows are some of the most deadly of the volcanic hazards. However, an intrepid geologist […]

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  • Wednesday, June 11
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  • How to Search Your Hotel Room for Bed Bugs

  • You're packed for your trip, your boarding passes are downloaded... and then that little moment of terror hits. What if the hotel you're going to stay in has bed bugs? It's a real concern, but by being vigilant, you can reduce your chances of bringing home some unexpected souvenirs.

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  • Thursday, June 5
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  • Who’s Faster? Flash or Quicksilver?

  • Flash is the super fast superhero from DC Comics and part of the Justice League. Quicksilver is the super fast superhero from Marvel Comics and sometimes an Avenger. In recent clips, Quicksilver has blazing speed. But is Flash holding back?

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  • Thursday, June 5
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  • New Eruption at Alaska’s Pavlof Intensifies

  • Over the weekend, a small eruption began at Alaska’s Pavlof. Now it seems like that eruption has begun to intensify, with new reports from pilots near the volcano saying that the plume now reaches more than 6.5 km (22,000 feet) and the latest update from the Alaska Volcano Observatory reports that the plume is seen […]

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  • Monday, June 2
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  • Measuring the Complexity of the Law

  • Our legal codes are complicated technologies, growing and becoming more interconnected over time. But how complicated are our laws? In a working paper titled “Measuring the Complexity of the Law: The United States Code”, Daniel Katz and Michael Bommarito of Michigan State University recently set out to measure exactly that.

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  • Monday, June 2
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