Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Science”
The new sci-fi film Ex_Machina has been teasing back into the cultural dialogue dreams of artificial consciousness: the idea that we humans, through the Faustian power of technology, can birth into being mechanisms capable of inner life, subjectivity and affection. Since these dreams are entirely based on implicit assumptions about the nature of consciousness and reality at large, I thought a few …
It was 70 years ago, on July 16, 1945, that the first atomic bomb, named Trinity, was exploded at the White Sands Proving Ground, the nuclear test site near Alamagordo, NM. It was an event that changed world history forever, and created new health and security threats that still plague all life on this planet. Details of Trinity have been …
Acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking believes humanity’s long-term future must be in space. I admire his intellectual dexterity and his accomplishments despite his paralysis, but this particular aspiration seems about as clear as a black hole. I’m not surprised that he should say it, but there is an element of arrogance in a scientist who believes he can know The Theory of …
The foreclosure crisis that drove approximately 9 million people across the United States from their homes disproportionately displaced black and Latino households and led to a spike in segregation along racial lines, a new study finds. In fact, displacement was so dramatic that Matthew Hall, assistant professor at Cornell University and lead author of the study, told Common Dreams that the crisis …
Following reports [3] that scientists at the United States Department of Agriculture are being harrassed and their research on bee-killing pesticides is being censored or suppressed, a broad coalition of farmers, environmentalists, fisheries and food-safety organizations urged an investigation in a May 5 letter [4] sent to Phyllis K. Fong, USDA Inspector General. “The possibility that the USDA is prioritizing the interests of the chemical industry …
Despite its popularity, using a weak electric current to boost brainpower doesn’t live up to the hype. A new study shows that the most common form of the treatment actually has a statistically significant detrimental effect on IQ scores. Published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, the study adds to the increasing amount of literature showing that transcranial direct current stimulation—tDCS—has …
More than 25 farmworker, environmental, and food safety organizations sent an open letter on Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture demanding that the agency investigate reports that its scientists are facing retaliation and suppression of their research on controversial neonicotinoid insecticides that pose a danger to pollinator and human health. “It is imperative that the USDA maintains scientific integrity and does …
Every day, thousands of people need donated blood. But only blood without A- or B-type antigens, such as type O, can be given to all of those in need, and it’s usually in short supply. Now scientists are making strides toward fixing the situation. In ACS’ Journal of the American Chemical Society, they report an efficient way to transform A …
Reinforcing the GOP’s reputation as anti-science, Republicans in the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on Thursday voted to slash NASA spending on the branch that studies climate change issues. According to news reports, the NASA authorization proposal, passed along party lines, would cut between $300-500 million in funding to NASA’s Earth Sciences division, which researches the planet’s natural …
Tuesday, for me and some ten thousand classmates, was the first day of climate denial school. Or, should I say, anti-climate denial school. We’d all signed up for Denial101x, a new, six-week MOOC (that’s “massive open online course,” for all you education luddites) aimed at making sense of this whole phenomenon — and at giving us the tools to fight deniers, so …
