Category Archives: Science

SOMETIMES EATING THE MARSHMALLOW IMMEDIATELY MAKES SENSE.

SOMETIMES EATING THE MARSHMALLOW IMMEDIATELY MAKES SENSE. I have posted, including here, about the marshmallow experiment. Children who showed on the “marshmallow test” that they could defer gratification did better academically and had fewer behavior problems in later life. (The … Continue reading

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A MAP OF PANGEA.

A MAP OF PANGEA. Here is a map of Pangea from the i09 website (link via Instapundit). The modern political borders help you orient yourself. Pangea apparently began to break apart about 200 million years ago. The comments ask what … Continue reading

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FAT BIRDS.

FAT BIRDS. Megan Gannon’s article says that: “the introduction of new predators like birds could also force periodical cicadas into smaller areas.” I remember a friend commenting in a cicada year that he had never seen such fat birds.

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“OU SONT LES CICADAS D’ANTAN?”

“OU SONT LE CICADAS D’ANTAN?” The question is Mary Jane’s. The inundation of cicadas that was predicted for Connecticut has not yet reached our part of Fairfield County. This article on Yahoo by Morgan Gannon says we’re not the only … Continue reading

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SAVING A LIFE WITH 3-D PRINTING

SAVING A LIFE WITH 3-D PRINTING. I have posted several times on 3-D printing, including this explanation of how it works. Just about a year ago, I was remarking on how Mary Jane and I found the concept hard to … Continue reading

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THE 23 WORDS THAT MAY BE 15,000 YEARS OLD.

THE 23 WORDS THAT MAY BE 15,000 YEARS OLD. This analysis in the Washington Post by Wilson Andrews and David Brown graphically presents the 23 words that researchers have identified as “ultraconserved”, having persisted approximately 15,000 years. Cognates for these … Continue reading

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HOW LONG DO WORDS LAST?

HOW LONG DO WORDS LAST? Lee Bryant sent me this article by David Brown in the Washington Post about the persistence of words. Researchers have taken the controversial position that they have identified 23 words that have survived for 15,000 … Continue reading

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WAITING YEARS FOR A DROP OF LIQUID.

WAITING YEARS FOR A DROP OF LIQUID. I posted here in February 2012 about an experiment that had been running for 85 years to determine how viscous tar pitch is. In the 85 years, eight drops of tar pitch had … Continue reading

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A BLOG THAT REPORTS ON RETRACTIONS.

A BLOG THAT REPORTS ON RETRACTIONS. The article by Yudhijit Battacharjee contains a link to the Retraction Watch blog, which is devoted to reporting on scientific articles which are retracted. The number of retractions is surprising. I counted posts on … Continue reading

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A PREFERENCE FOR CLEAR RATHER THAN MESSY RESULTS.

A PREFERENCE FOR CLEAR RATHER THAN MESSY RESULTS. The New York Times magazine (April 28) had an article by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee about Diederick Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist, who published a number of fraudulent papers based on data which he … Continue reading

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