Autism Risk Rises With Fathers’ Age
Study Finds Older Dads Are More Likely To Pass On Harmful Genetic Mutations
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Robotics ‘Critical’ to NASA’s Mission on Mars
Robotics key to rover Curiosity’s ability to drive, drill and analyze Martian surface, says NASA lead engineer
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Antarctic Peninsula Now Almost as Warm as 12,000 Years Ago
The Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out about 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers) from the western flank of the frozen continent, is one of the fastest warming places on Earth. In the past 50 years, the air temperature has increased by about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). While this rate of warming is highly unusual, it…
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Ancient Roman Tablet Holds ‘Black Magic’ Curses
An ancient Roman lead scroll unearthed in England three years ago has turned out to be a curse intended to cause misfortune to more than a dozen people, according to new research. Found in East Farleigh, U.K., in the filling of a 3rd to 4th Century AD building that may have originally been a temple,…
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A New Kind of Social Science for the 21st Century
Over at Edge.org, Harvard University physician and social scientist Nicholas A. Christakis discusses transformative changes in the social sciences in the 21st Century: These three things—a biological hurricane, computational social science, and the rediscovery of experimentation—are going to change the social sciences in the 21st century. With that change will come, in my judgment, a…
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Introducing Concepts of Moral Math
“Moral Math” refers to the study of ideas drawn from mathematics which can positively impact moral decision-making and social behavior. This essay describes a workshop designed to introduce these ideas to interested individuals of varying degrees of mathematical and theological sophistication. Created by a retired minister and former math professor, the workshop details five sets…
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As NASA Explores Space, Dinosaur Prints Found in Own Backyard
At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, some of the most brilliant minds in the world work to build the spacecraft that humans use to explore their universe. But where space scientists now roam, dinosaurs used to call home, according to dino-hunter Ray Stanford. Stanford has discovered the footprint of a lumbering, spiny dinosaur…
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Sun’s Plasma Loops Rcreated in Lab to Help Understand Solar Physics
In orbit around Earth is a wide range of satellites that we rely on for everything from television and radio feeds to GPS navigation. Although these spacecraft soar high above storms on Earth, they are still vulnerable to weather—only it’s weather from the sun. Large solar flares—or plasma that erupts from the sun’s surface—can cause…
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Thinking and Choosing in the Brain
The frontal lobes are the largest part of the human brain, and thought to be the part that expanded most during human evolution. Damage to the frontal lobes—which are located just behind and above the eyes—can result in profound impairments in higher-level reasoning and decision making. To find out more about what different parts of…
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Multiple Factors, Including Climate Change, Led to Mayan Collapse
A new analysis of complex interactions between humans and the environment preceding the 9th century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán Peninsula points to a series of events — some natural, like climate change; some human-made, including large-scale landscape alterations and shifts in trade routes — that have lessons for…