John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website

Since the mid-1960s John Brockman has been at the cutting edge of ideas. He is a passionate advocate of both science and the arts, and his website Edge is a salon for the world's finest minds

This video was produced to allow scientists to explain, in their own words, the importance of evolution to science -- and the related importance of teaching evolution in schools. Our goal is to convey the fact that evolution is an amazing, uplifting discovery that has served as the genesis of countless advances in many fields of science. We also wanted to highlight female role models in the science community.

For information on what you can do to support evolution in education, please visit these sites. These organizations are not associated with this video in any way, but we think they do great work: National Center For Science Education: http://ncse.com/ and American Association For The Advancement Of Science: http://www.aaas.org/.

Visit http://www.standwithscience.org/ We encourage everyone--grad students, former grad students, and all other supporters of science--to sign the letter. Tell Congress how important it is to choose cuts carefully and avoid ruining our future while attempting to save it.

Are males necessary?

Maybe not for long, at least in an insect species whose females have begun to develop sperm-producing clones of their fathers—inside their bodies.

These integrated experimental modeling studies show for the first time that with sufficient information about the neural coding of memories, a neural prosthesis capable of real-time identification and manipulation of the encoding process can restore and even enhance cognitive mnemonic processes...

The idea of a Space Elevator is one that dates back to the first rocket scientists.  It’s a reasonably simple idea, you set off a huge cable into orbit at the same rate as the spin of the Earth.  You can then send things up the cable, just like an elevator.  This would allow masses to be sent up to space without the huge burst of energy a rocket uses.  The reason it cannot be done at the moment is that the cable would need to be both extremely light and strong to endure the tension forces.  One of the most promising ideas is to use nanotechnology, to use super elastic carbon nanotubes. 1 gram of these can stretch 18 miles! [more] 

1,000 Scientists in 1,000 Days ... The idea is simple. We seek scientists who are willing to volunteer to advise on curricula, answer a classroom's questions, or visit a school—for instance, to do a lab or to talk about what you do.

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Our galaxy could be home to a whopping 50 billion planets, say scientists working on NASA's Kepler planet-hunting telescope.

(AFP) – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON — Everyone knows that liberals and conservatives butt heads when it comes to world views, but scientists have now shown that their brains are actually built differently.

Liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology.

"We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.

Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which political views a person holds, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions.

"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London, where the research took place.

"Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."

The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their political views on a scale of one to five from very liberal to very conservative, then agreed to have their brains scanned.

People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions," the study said.

Liberals are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts," it said.

"Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views."

It remains unclear whether the structural differences cause the divergence in political views, or are the effect of them.

But the central issue in determining political views appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.

"Our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty," the study said.

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