ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 496
May 4, 2016
How To Capture The Violent Tumult Of Our Roiling Universe, Moment By Moment
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All is not calm in the cosmos. ESA/Hubble and NASA, CC BY
The hustle and bustle of daily life is a stark contrast to the tranquility of the night sky.
How Half Our Brain Keeps Watch When We Sleep In Unfamiliar Places
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One part of our brain keeps a lookout when we sleep in a new environment. Duy Nguyen/Flickr, CC BY
Have you ever arrived in a hotel room after a long flight and, despite being exhausted, found it painfully difficult to fall asleep? And even once you managed to get to sleep, did you still wake frequently in the night, or too early in the morning, feeling groggy and desperate?
Researchers have long known about this phenomenon in an experimental setting, terming it the “first-night effect”. Sleep study participants often sleep poorly during their first experimental session in a new environment and sleep quality usually improves dramatically on the second night.
May 3, 2016
Sony Is Trying To Patent A Contact Lens That Can Record And Play Video At The Blink Of An Eye
Photo credit:
Sony Corporation/U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Sony has a filed a patent for smart contact lenses that will allow you to record and play back video. The Japanese tech giants describe the idea as “a contact lens and storage medium capable of controlling an image pickup unit provided in the contact lens.”
Black Holes Spotted Eating Stars So Fast, That The Winds Reach One Quarter Of The Speed Of Light
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Artist’s impression depicting a compact object – either a black hole or a neutron star – feeding on gas from a companion star in a binary system. ESA/C. Carreau
We are used to thinking of black holes as cosmic plugholes, sucking in all the material that surrounds them, but their appetite actually sometimes leads them to spit out what they were trying to eat. Rarely have we seen it as fast as this, though.
Astronomers Have Discovered The First Known White Dwarf Pulsar
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Colour image of Te 11 made from images showing light from hydrogen and nitrogen (red), oxygen (green), and visual light (blue). SALT
The end is not really the end, at least if you’re a star. When their life comes to an end, stars simply change into something else. Supernovae, black holes, and white dwarfs are all well known final stages of stars, but the universe can still surprise us.
Study Concludes That There Are Over One TRILLION Species On Earth
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Flowering plants are incredibly diverse, but they wouldn't even exist without microbial lifeforms. dk tazunoki/Shutterstock
Life on Earth, thanks to the mechanisms of natural selection and evolutionary biology, is incredibly diverse. Darwin once waxed lyrical about “endless forms most beautiful,” and he wasn’t wrong: Life can be found everywhere, from the top of brand new volcanic islands to the dark depths of the planet’s crust.
DNA Study Confirms That This Bizarre Venomous Mammal Diverged From Other Mammals Long Before The Extinction Of The Dinosaurs
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Watch your fingers – they bite! Seb_az86556/Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0
There’s a good chance that you’ve never heard of the solenodon before, and even if you have, you’re incredibly unlikely to have ever seen one in the flesh. These placental mammals, which are only found on the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, physically resemble portly shrews with long, flexible noses and tails. They’re also extremely venomous, which is a thoroughly rare ability for a mammal of any sort to possess.
Heartbeats Of Dogs And Their Owners Sync-Up When They’re Reunited
Photo credit:
Christin Lola/Shutterstock
Every dog lover knows the bond between humans and their canine counterparts run deep. According to a recent study, that connection could be so close that even the hearts of dogs and their owners can become in sync with one another.
Just One Teaspoon Of This Legal Drug Could Kill You
Photo credit:
ziviani/Shutterstock
Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug. For many of us, the day doesn’t start without a dose. But you’d be wrong to think it isn’t without its dangers. Two young people have died in the past few years from taking caffeine in its powdered form, sparking new debate about how we see this drug, whose danger is hiding in plain sight.
What’s The Most Expensive Object In The World?
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Hinkley Point C will join the A and B power plants in Somerset, U.K. Richard Baker via WikiCommons
The thought of the most expensive object on Earth might bring up mental images of skyscrapers and extravagant buildings, but a new nuclear power plant in the U.K. is raising eyebrows, with some calling it the most expensive single object on Earth.
So, how does it compare to other constructions?
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