Wednesday, 8 February, 2012

Experiment finds Earth “dragging” spacetime, as Einstein predicted. For 100+ years, scientists have been proving that Einstein knew his physics. Bending light, gravity lenses, shifting spacetime, spinning neutron stars: Einstein called them all. If so many top physicists are brilliant, why do we keep coming back to Einstein?

A report that people were in Texas 15,500 years ago settles a long dispute: The Americans who made Clovis-style spear-points were not the first Americans — despite heavy archeological skepticism. Pre-Clovis rules! But who were the pre-Clovis people, and why are scientists so dismissive of contrary evidence?

Researchers finally accept that animals can have emotions. But is love one of those emotions, and how would we be sure? What does neurochemistry and behavioral studies tell us about emotions. Does your dog really love you? Your cat? Do they love each other?

Which came first: The empire or the administration? Conventional wisdom says the demands of empire led to the rise of bureaucracy. But a new study of six early states suggests that the specialization of power and function we call bureaucracy arises at the same time as the territorial expansion that leads to empire.

A new study finds a surprising number of fish, birds and mammals in the oceans 100 and 1,000 years ago. Can this information help regulators slow the decline of important marine animals?

4B years ago, the “late heavy bombardment” burned out all life — or not… High-temp bacteria could have survived in deep rocks.

A stone tool discovered in Polynesia came from Hawaii — 2500 miles away. Modern analytical techniques show that Polynesians did sail thousands of miles across the ocean — without a compass.

Korean scientist pulled off the biggest scientific fraud in memory. How did he do it? How is science supposed to prevent fraud? Why did it matter, and who loses out?

Ancient mathematician’s writing found, restored, after 22 centuries!