This week’s biggest stories
Is there life on the Earth-like planet GJ 1132b? Well, most probably not, but what it does have is a hot and steamy atmosphere, astronomers have discovered. It’s one of the first times an atmosphere has been spotted around a small, rocky world. Back on our own rocky planet, geologists have revealed how catastrophic flooding separated Britain from Europe 125,000 years ago (I particularly loved the artist’s impression, do check it out!). And although a group of dermatologists released a study this week examining the role of skin conditions in film portrayals of villains, the horror film fanatic in me was far more excited by archaeologists’ revelation that medieval villagers mutilated the dead to stop them rising. Running that story a close second for gory thrills was the detailed calorie counts given for human flesh and organs in a paper released this week on prehistoric cannibalism. Stick to the leg of lamb for Easter, honestly.
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Friday fanfare!
This week we announced the start of a new archaeology and anthropology blog on our network. The Past and the Curious has five expert writers from a wide range of anthropological and archaeological backgrounds and specialisms. Here’s their introductory post, and I hope you’re looking forward to reading their work over the coming months as much as I am.
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Straight from the lab – top picks from our experts on the blog network
Can pre-school children learn to do science? | Occam’s corner
Perhaps the intense curiosity of a toddler is only a developmental phase. Or more worryingly, natural curiosity might be squelched by exasperated, sleep-deprived parental rejoinders such as “just because” – or by formalised learning of long lists of scientific facts. Either way, if toddlers are naturally prone to being good scientists, are we as a society somehow missing a window of opportunity?
Happy feet: why a 61m-year-old penguin foot has researchers dancing for joy | Lost Worlds Revisited
The early evolution of modern birds is fuzzy, to say the least. Models based on molecular clocks place the origin of Neornithes as far back as the Early Cretaceous, whereas others suggest that modern birds did not diversify until the Late Cretaceous (see Brocklehurst et al., 2012 for a discussion). The sparse fossil record of Mesozoic Neornithes does little to clear things up ... This is why bird paleontologists are looking with great interests at the period beyond the Cretaceous – Paleogene extinction, because this is where the ancestors of all our modern birds are to be found.
Self-driving cars will only work when we accept autonomy is a myth | Political science
Historian David Mindell argues that ‘autonomy’ is a myth. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an autonomous system. We are all guilty of perpetuating the myth by, for example, calling unmanned aircraft ‘drones’ even though they are tightly controlled (for the time being) by humans. This myth is not just wishful thinking. It is also a set of political claims in disguise.
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Monday Mind Games
How do we search for things? It’s something we do every day of our lives – whether it’s looking for our car keys, scrabbling around for a lost contact lens, or rummaging around in a bag for a lost pen lid. In this week’s Mind Games, Pete Etchells explores how researchers have classically tested the limits of visual search – including the use of a specially designed “foraging lab”.
Visit the Head quarters blog, home of Mind Games
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Science Weekly podcast
In this week’s podcast, Nicola Davis asks theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and science communicator Professor Lawrence Krauss about the secrets of the universe
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Eye on science – this week’s top images
I’m in a holiday mood, and these stunning underwater shots from a diving expedition off Easter Island (or Rapa Nui) in the Pacific are just the ticket. The researchers made some stunning discoveries and Henry Nicholls of the Animal Magic blog was lucky enough to be sent the pictures, which he has kindly shared with you lovely readers. Enjoy!
Lab Notes is taking an Easter break, but will return on Friday 21st April.
