Tuesday, 7 February, 2012

Volcanic eruptions are unpredictable, but here’s a new view of the historic eruption of a Mediterranean monster. About 3,500 years ago, Santorini’s eruption left a giant caldera and 60-meter layers of pumice. A new study of tiny crystals tracks the movement of molten magma before the cataclysm.

If many scientific quests should be marked with an academic form of caution tape: “Progress = 2 steps forward + step back,” cosmologists have been in steady retreat for decades. The “cosmo” girls (and mainly boys) who explore the origin and fate of the universe were once mocked as data-free arm wavers. Then, in 1964, cosmo was promoted into a science by the discovery that echoes of the Big Bang were rattling around the universe.

Neutrinos are odd: Extremely difficult to see, they travel through mass with scarcely a trace. A 1-billion ton detector in South Pole ice is now counting neutrinos, intent on understanding their origin and role in the universe, and even spotting echoes of the Big Bang.

The ocean’s most valuable fish are caught in a vise. Areas known as dead zones are encroaching on their living zones and pinning them closer to the surface, where they are more vulnerable to becoming the day’s catch. The predicament is yet another side effect of climate change.

Sick of stats on unemployment, the GDP or stock market? Then meet the alternative economic indicators. Some are sensible, some are zany, and some are even backed by real data. Other “indicators” are misleading, even downright dangerous.

A crash course in “sink or swim” teaches computerized robots to adapt to changing circumstances. When taught by “directed evolution,” robots that started without legs learned to walk sooner than robots that started with legs! Can you explain?

Dive deep, and meet the flashlight squid — with a billion-bacteria light bulb. Meet bacteria that live in boiling water, and the immense variety of weirder-than-weird critters that live between grains of sand. Plus a highly selected bio-freak show…

Can pigeons learn an abstract mathematical rule? Apparently, according to a new study, which asked pigeons to place, five blue dots and eight green squares, in ascending order. Now we know birds and primates can both do this, but where and why did this ability originate?

Could good come from a wave of poisonings eight decades ago? Yes, argues Deborah Blum, in a quick, entertaining read that, for better not worse, does not teach exactly what the title promises. Rather than a handbook for agents of arsenic or quaffers of chloroform, the book instead shows how a scientific establishment grew up to detect poison and deter poisoners.

Sick of the scare stories about holiday stress? Over-eating, over-this, over-that? What’s the upside of holidays, in terms of ritual and getting together with family and friends? What’s more conducive to happiness: giving or receiving?