• If you give away your lotto ticket, is it more likely to win? John Tierney discusses the science of tempting fate.
• Mark Alpert offers a breakdown of why the only scientists in novels are mad ones.
• Ever wonder why there isn’t a Web site sharing the latest in cutting-edge teaching methods? Look no further: Edutopia has arrived—courtesy of none other than George Lucas.
• Terra Sigillata takes on the “Are there too many female doctors?” debate.
• Wired brings us this video that turns an interview with Yearning for Zion Ranch wives into a “weirdo dance-music mashup”—though it’s hard to get much weirder than the original interview.
• We’ve covered how useful dogs are as drug sniffers. So why not take the best noses around and clone them? (Along with the rest of the dog, that is.)
• Framing Science offers an analysis of the controversial cover for Time magazine’s global warming issue, as well as the debate surrounding it.
• Tom Simonite at New Scientist asks: Will a tanking economy in real life lead to a booming economy in Second Life?
• Feeling secure in your mastery of the universe? Take John Tierney’s three-question astronomy quiz. (Answers here.)
We here at DiscoBlog would like to introduce the Weekly Science Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the best news from around the sci-blogosphere. Here are some links for this week:
• A group of Japanese researchers discovers that daisies may contain a chemical cocktail that lowers triglycerides in mice. Watch for The Daisy Diet to hit shelves soon.
• If Tom Cruise came out, would it put a dent in homophobia? Perhaps, according to new research showing that exposure to celebrities identified as gay or lesbian decreased the test subjects’ bias.
• Finnish glass plant specializes in making drinking glasses out of recycled beer bottles. The real trick? They’ve never been crushed.
• Discovery of ancient human feces in Oregon cave results in samples of the oldest DNA ever found in the Americas.
• Five of the biggest technological inventions in the history of music.
