This week’s biggest stories
Well, big in all sense of the word is the news that the discovery of a new member of the tyrannosaur family has revealed that these fearsome dinosaurs had sensitive snouts that they may have enjoyed rubbing together while mating. It’s a sweet mental picture, no? Anyway, canoodling carnivores aside, there have been some really exciting breakthroughs this week, including the amazing neuroprosthetic work featured in this week’s video section below. One study that could have an enormous impact on worlds health is the discovery that the short-chain fatty acids produced by a diet rich in a certain type of fibre could prevent type 1 diabetes. We await human trials with hope and interest. Less vital, but no less interesting is the news that lonely people feel more rotten when they get a cold – but aren’t actually any more ill than their less lonely counterparts. Warning: there’s some mucus talk in the piece, so finish your sandwich before reading, eh? Finally, it seems that fruit foraging rather than social interaction may be key to the evolution of large brains in primates.
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Straight from the lab – top picks from our experts on the blog network
This is it: the one true explanation for Donald Trump’s victory | Raising HAL
Of course there are people who will disagree with me. Some might suggest that I’m biased in assuming that the thing I drone about on Facebook all day is important enough to have swung the presidential election. But then if it weren’t important, why would I care about it so much? They’re welcome to their alternative facts, but you can’t fake numbers. You can only manipulate them and use them in selective and arbitrary ways.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin the evolutionary ‘fairytale’ of coral | Lost Worlds Revisited
Once upon a time, possibly in the Precambrian, there was an ancestral hexacorallian mother who had three little orders of corals and not enough food to feed them. So when they evolved into distinct orders, she sent them out into the world to seek their fortunes ...
How to safeguard science in an era of fake news | Political science
It would be wrong to scapegoat the public for a lack of interest in science, or for not being able to understand the often complex concepts involved. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK have a strong desire to know how science affects their daily lives, but 71% believe the media sensationalises science, and 67% say they have no option but to trust those governing scientific information. Tellingly, just 28% believe that journalists check their facts when reporting scientific matters.
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Alex Bellos’s Monday puzzle
This week’s puzzle set by Ada Lovelace HERSELF (oh, ok, maybe not precisely her long-dead self) was so fiendish Alex gave you 24 hours to solve it. Were you up to the challenge?
Visit Alex Bellos’s Adventures in Numberland blog for more marvellous maths
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ESRC science writing prize
Following on from last week’s pieces by joint winner Lauren White and joint runner-up Max Gallien, this week we have work by joint winner Wilhelmiina Toivo and runner-up Elo Luik. As a recap, the competition is run every two years by the Economic and Social Research Council. The idea is to get PhD students thinking about how to share their research with the public, who both pay for it and benefit from it but are rarely given an insight into honest-to-goodness research.
Bad language: why being bilingual makes swearing easier | Wilhelmiina Toivo
Wittgenstein said: “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” This is particularly true for your second language. For fluent bilinguals living in a community where their native language is not spoken, reduced emotional resonance sets “the limits of the world”. While your language skills can be more than adequate, not being able to fully structure your surroundings through language might leave you feeling alienated; not a part of the society you live in. Or perhaps you are perceived as rude or socially awkward for using the wrong words in the wrong emotional context.
Cross-border surrogacy: exploiting low income women as biological resources? | Elo Luik
In this globalised economy, surrogacy has quickly become a lucrative business. The same women who stitch our clothes can now, thanks to biotechnology, also produce our children. The neoliberal Indian economic miracle is reaching beyond the employment of local labour in call centres and factories and into the extraction of biological vitality. The issues of worker rights and safety that continue to plague outsourced production now find new manifestations in surrogacy.
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Science Weekly podcast
In this week’s podcast, Ian Sample and one of our fave bioarchaeologists, Brenna Hassett, explore the history of our relationship with an urban lifestyle – the good, the bad, and the ugly
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Eye on science – this week’s top video
Bill Kochevar, who was paralysed from below the neck after crashing his bike into a truck, can once again drink a cup of coffee and eat mashed potato with a fork, after a world-first procedure to allow him to control his hand with the power of thought. Videos like this always get me in the feels - an exciting, life-changing advance.
