ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 546
March 5, 2016
Fish Grow More Like Their Partners
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When you look at them, you wouldn't think they had many marital differences to sort out. Chloé Laubu
They say opposites attract, but it seems when they do, they don't stay opposites for long. At least, that is, if convict cichlids (Amatitlania siquia) are anything to go by. These monogamous fish prefer to pair up with others of similar personality, but if that doesn't happen, they adapt to find common water.
Latest CERN Results Indicate There Is Something Very Wrong With Particle Physics
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Computer simulation of rare decay of Bs meson in the LHCb detector. CERN
Science is always pushing the limit of accepted theories until we find that they don’t work anymore. And the latest results from CERN indicate that we might be on the verge of new physics.
The data looks at a special particle called a B meson. The current theory of particle physics, the Standard Model, has very specific predictions on the frequency and angle at which the B meson decays, but it doesn’t match what has been seen in the experiment.
A Dozen Cretaceous Lizards Were Perfectly Preserved In Amber
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Lizard preserved in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. Daza et al. Sci. Adv. 2016
A dozen lizards have been discovered in Cretaceous-aged amber from Myanmar. These specimens represent multiple species from five major lineages, and they’re the oldest, and likely most diverse, tropical lizard assemblage ever recovered from amber, according to findings published in Science Advances this week.
Crucial Superconducting Theory Confirmed
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Magnetic levitation is only one of the many properties of superconducting materials. ktsdesign/shutterstock
Superconductivity promises to revolutionize our world with efficient transport, cheaper electricity, and even hoverboards. Although it's still a long road to that technology, a crucial theory has just been confirmed that could help.
Something Very Weird Happens When You Put Marshmallows In A Vacuum
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Kozlenko/Shutterstock
Ever wondered what happens when you put marshmallows in a vacuum? Probably not. But when those spongy little cubes of sugary sweetness are no longer bound by the normal atmospheric pressure, something peculiar happens.
March 4, 2016
Scott Kelly Happy to Be Back on Earth: ‘This Feels Great’
Photo credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA
By Jeffrey Kluger
It would take a brave astronaut to eat the dates, raisins and sweetened dough they serve up during the welcome home ceremony at Zheskagzan airport in Kazakhstan. Dates, raisins and sweetened dough would surely look good to a space station crew member who has just put in the average six-month hitch in orbit—to say nothing of Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko after nearly a full year.
But what an astronaut’s stomach says and what an astronaut’s otoliths say are two different things, and when you’re back on Earth and feeling the tug of gravity after a long period in weightlessness, it’s the otoliths—the little stones of floating calcium in the inner ear that govern balance and motion sickness—that rule.
For that reason, nobody ate a bite as Kelly, Kornienko and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, who only two hours before had landed in the steppe in their Soyuz spacecraft, were helped to their chairs in the airport receiving area, while Kazakh, Russian and American dignitaries applauded, a fusillade of cameras flashed, and four young women in traditional Kazakh costume—long, bright, yellow and green dresses with bright green head pieces—brought in the traditional foods.
There were other gifts too for the men who had begun their day 250 miles overhead, circling the planet once every 88 minutes. There was a medal for Volkov, who had commanded the spacecraft on its return. There were Russian nesting dolls with the likeness of each astronaut painted on the front.
And for Kelly, who has now flown four missions and holds the American record for longest unbroken stay in space, there was the inevitable question: “Would you consider going back?”
His answer was succinct: “I would always consider flying in space,” he said, “no question.”
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Another Candidate for Arizona State House Comes Out as an Atheist
Photo credit: Facebook
By Hemant Mehta
Arizona seems to be the state where atheist politicians come out to play.
This month, we’ve already seen candidacy announcements from atheists Cara Prior (State House) and Scott Prior (State Senate).
We can now add Athena Salman to that list. She’s running for the seat currently held by another atheist politician Juan Mendez, who will be running for State Senate himself.
Speaking to the Secular Student Alliance at Arizona State University this week, Salman went public with her own atheism as she told the group that she would be running for the State House in District 26. Mendez sat next to her as she gave her speech.
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New “Finding Dory” Trailer Hints At Anti-Captivity Message
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"Finding Dory" appears to have been influenced by the recent outrage against SeaWorld's treatment of its animals. YouTube/TheEllenShow
A trailer for Pixar’s hotly awaited sequel to "Finding Nemo" appears to allude to the film’s anti-captivity message. "Finding Dory," which stars Ellen DeGeneres as the voice of the eponymous character, contains scenes in which unhealthy-looking fish are seen in display tanks, while other marine critters are harassed by humans reaching into their enclosure and trying to grab them.
There Are Twice As Many Sumatran Orangutans As We Thought
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Sumatran orangutan. Serge Wich
Orangutans live in two places: Borneo and Sumatra. In 2004, we thought there were only 6,600 Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) left in the wild, but this week, researchers conducting nest surveys on the Indonesian island report a new astounding estimate: 14,613 Sumatran orangs in 2015.
SpaceX Will Attempt Its Latest Rocket Launch Today – Here’s How To Watch It Live
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SpaceX hasn't yet performed a successful barge landing. SpaceX
Here we go again: SpaceX will attempt to launch the SES-9 mission on a Falcon 9 rocket today for the fifth time, together with a daring attempt at a landing.
The mission is scheduled to launch this evening, with the launch window opening at 6.35 p.m. EST (11.35 p.m. GMT) and closing at 8.06 p.m. EST (1.06 a.m. GMT tomorrow), from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Four previous attempts at launching have had to be scrubbed due to issues with the rocket and the weather.
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