Discoblog » Blog Roundup

6 Servings of Thanksgiving Science: Ideal Turkey Diet, Black Friday Sales Tricks, Turkey-Phobia…

Valerie Ross — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:17:23 +0000

It’s almost Thanksgiving here the US. Before you tuck into your stuffing, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce, save a little room for a big helping of science. Here are a few of our favorite Thanksgiving science stories from around the Internet, detailing the research behind fattening turkeys, giving thanks, post-holiday shopping, and more:

Discovery News takes a look at what turkeys have for dinner before becoming dinner. Typical feed pellets are made of, among other things, “soybean meal, animal by-products, [and] distillers’ grains.” But a professor at the University of Missouri has developed ”the Missouri Ideal Turkey Diet,” carefully designed turkey food that costs 8 to 10 percent less than typical feed pellets while packing the same nutritional punch. Yum. As you think about what you’re thankful for this year, the New York Times offers one more thing to add to your list: the very act of giving thanks is good for you. Even a little bit of gratitude, scientists have found, makes people happier and healthier. If you’re thankful for health and happiness already, you’ve got the start of a nice little feedback cycle there. And if you’re not feeling particularly grateful, as ...

Why Men Get Sick And Must Lie On The Couch Whenever The Game Is On

Douglas Main — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:25:13 +0000

He may be smiling, but it’s no laughing matter: he’s got the man-flu the game is on.

Either British women are, uh, kind of slow, or English guys are more persuasive than we realized. According to Reuters, a survey found that one in five British ladies believe that “man-flu” is real, a condition which leaves afflicted gentlemen laid up on the couch watching sports. If I had known this could work, I would have caught this fictional bug long ago. This silly survey of 2,000 British adults found that many believed in a surprising amount of myths and old wive’s tales—although perhaps the “man-flu” would be better described as an “old husband’s tale.”

The survey also found that almost half of the people agreed that men exaggerate their symptoms to get attention. Apparently, though, this doesn’t apply to imaginary diseases, in which they prefer to bask in the curative radiation of sports television.

One in 10 Brits supposedly believe that eating more carrots can improve your night vision. This myth allegedly comes from World War II British propaganda that said as much to explain the increased numbers of German fighters being shot down. The borderline-plausible explanation was ...

Weekly Weird News Roundup: Feeding Coyote Skulls, Cow-Dung Toothpaste, and More

Allison Bond — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:15:20 +0000

• Coyotes are what they eat: Feeding pups soft food changes their bones and muscle structures, making it more difficult for them to chomp on harder stuff later in life. That bites.

• About one-quarter of the food in the U.S. is wasted each year–and 16 percent of our energy goes toward food production. The result? We waste more energy in the food we throw out than is available via offshore drilling.

• If you get bored this weekend (and have $8,000 to spare), fret not. You can always build and launch your very own satellite.

• Run DMC: Listening to music in which the tempo matches a runner’s stride increases athletes’ endurance by about 15 percent.

• Cow-dung toothpaste, a deer penis, and guinea pigs: just a few of the bizarre items travelers have been caught attempting to smuggle through JFK International Airport. No wonder it takes so long to go through customs.

Yo Readers: Who Are You? And What Would You Name a Subatomic Particle?

Joseph Calamia — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:23:48 +0000

We’re copying DISCOVER’s other bloggers and calling out to commenters. Here we give you, Discoblog readers, a chance to speak your minds.

Ed Yong on Note Exactly Rocket Science, Carl Zimmer on The Loom, Razib Khan on Gene Expression, Daniel Holz at Cosmic Variance, and Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum on The Intersection want to know who you are, what your background is and what you do…

If you want to shout back with more about you and how you found our little piece of the interwebs, that’s great. Or, feel free to answer to any of these questions:

1) What animal would you never want to be?

2) You can have one superpower, but is has to be based on an iPhone app. What would you choose and why?

3) Name one science acronym that you find questionable.

4) You discover a subatomic particle, new species, or near earth object. You have to name it after a science fiction character or living scientist. What did you find and what did you name it?

Also feel free to just tell us how we’re doing, topics you’re ...

Weekly News Roundup: Bad Headlines, Martian moons, and Rotating Houses

Brett Israel — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:41:53 +0000

• Worst science headline of the week? Switching a gene in adult mice easily transforms females into males. Yeah, it’s a little more complicated than that.

• Exposed! Martian moons Phobos and Deimos have been caught on camera together for the very first time.

• Want to track your data consumption? There’s an app for that.

• Not sure what to get that Sri Lankan farmer in your life this holiday season? Send them a package of poo… seriously.

• Australian family lives in an electric motor-powered rotating house that guarantees a different view every time they wake up.

The 15 Weirdest Science Stories of 2009

Andrew Moseman — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:30:09 +0000

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Weekly News Roundup: Pesky Pirates, Online Orangutans, and Space Suds

Brett Israel — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:51:34 +0000

• Avast ye matey! Indian Ocean pirates arrr trouble for lily-livered climate researchers. OK jokes aside, Somali pirates are such a serious threat that the scientists studying Indian Ocean conditions need an armed escort to carry out their work.

• Nonja the Orangutan can update her own Facebook page. Apparently, she’s also a fan of the camera-phone-too-close-to-the-face profile pic.

• The Iron Curtain not only isolated Eastern Europe, it also kept alien bird species from colonizing it.

• Nepal’s cabinet met today to discuss climate change’s effect on the Himalayas—5,242 meters high at the base of Mount Everest.

• Finally, it’s Friday. Time to kick back, crack open a few space beers, and enjoy the weekend.

Weekly News Roundup: A Klingon Dad, Russian Space Bloggers, & Black Market Fat

Brett Israel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:04:44 +0000

• Gardak! To learn about children and language, Dad speaks to son only in Klingon for first three years of the child’s life.

• In Soviet Russia, blog writes you! Maksim Suraev, a Russian cosmonaut, joins the blogosphere with a healthy dose of cold war humor about life on the International Space Station.

• In a case of Project Mayhem gone terribly bad, Peru police say a gang drained the fat from their murder victims and sold it on the black market for use in cosmetics.

• Wisconsin looks to become the first state to recognize an official state microbe. Of course the bacterium, Lactococcus lactis, ferments the state’s $18 billion per year cheese industry.

• An Italian art collector found a mummified tooth, thumb, and finger of Galileo Galilei that have been missing since 1905, according to Florence’s History of Science museum.

Weekly Weird News Roundup: Friday the 13th Edition!

Brett Israel — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:46:06 +0000

• Today is Friday the 13th—again. It’s the third and final time that Friday falls on the 13th this year. Yep, three times a year is rare, happening only once every 11 years.

• Paraskavedekatriaphobia got you down? You’re in good company at least. FDR, Henry Ford, and Napoleon all avoided doing anything important on Friday the 13th.

• Avoiding travel or business on Friday the 13th are just two examples of how superstitious people can get over the number 13.

• Speaking of triskaidekaphobia, it’s just one in a long list of bizarre phobias that may or may not actually exist.

• So is Friday the 13th actually dangerous? Some scientists are actually trying to answer this question.One group found that females are more likely to die in car crashes on Friday the 13th, but the study was later debunked.

Weekly News Roundup: Hairless Bears, Narcoleptic Meerkats

Brett Israel — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:00:05 +0000

• Where’s my fur coat? Hairless bear in Germany is the saddest thing you’ll see today.

• “Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination” opens at the California Museum of Science. On display is a giant Darth Vader mask made of old electronics. All lesser nerds tremble in its presence.

• I did what last night? Woman has a terrible case of the morning afters—transient global amnesia to be exact—that can be triggered by sex.

• Will learning foreign languages be irrelevant one day? Space-age glasses that translate foreign languages are under development.

• If the hairless bear weirded you out, then put a smile on your face with these cute little narcoleptic meerkats that fall asleep while standing up.

Weekly News Roundup: Special Halloween Edition!

Brett Israel — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:34:30 +0000

• Sure, haunted houses can be scary, but for a real fright, turn to scientists.

• Sex offenders really aren’t anything to fear on Halloween, according to new research.

• Take a look at some of the spookiest species discovered this year.

• No costume idea? How about the iguyPhone.

• And in the odd event that teenagers don’t smash your pumpkin, do it your self…with a catapult.

Image: iStockphoto

Weekly News Roundup: Greening the Red-Light District

Brett Israel — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:26:36 +0000

• Hit the red-light district on the cheap: Berlin brothels are offering discounts to “green” customers that arrive on bike.

• New robotic prosthetic hand lets users regain their sense of touch.

• Do space flights make people crazy? The European Space Agency is looking for a few volunteers to spend 520 days in total isolation to study space travel’s psychological effects.

• Going green? Not if you own a pet. A new book argues that owning a dog has the same carbon footprint as driving 6,000 miles a year in a Land Rover.

• Mix & match brains: Scientists try to create a bird chimera to study the evolution of birdsong.

Weekly News Roundup: Burning Bunnies and Stolen Hands

Brett Israel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:26:22 +0000

• Waste not, want not: Stockholm burns culled bunnies for heating fuel.

• Helicopters search for radioactive rabbit poop near the Hanford nuclear reservation. Workers to begin removing the poop soon, which might be the worst job ever.

• Mathematician predicts an ESPN fantasy—a Dodgers-Yanks World Series. FOX Sports also has its fingers crossed.

• Doctors enjoy the five-fingered discount by pocking watches, severed hands from hospitals.

• Think technology is invasive now? A new camera is under development that could capture your entire life.

Weekly News Roundup: Giant Sea Blobs Attack!

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:38:10 +0000

• Giant blobs of mucus are invading the oceans. Yes, you read that right—giant blobs of mucus. Movie version coming soon.

• Hey, Obama won the Nobal Peace Prize! And it’s taken over Twitter!

• Forget polygraphs: Art projects are the new lie detector tests.

• New spectrometer-laden scalpel can actually sniff out tumors as it cuts.

• And now, for something completely different: Miami has the hottest and least intelligent people in the nation, according to a completely opinion-based unscientific survey done by Travel & Leisure.

Weekly News Roundup: Judical Tweets and Lamps that Want Your Blood

Brett Israel — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:56:55 +0000

• ZOMG! U.K. court tweets its ruling against a Twitter impostor.

• Nerds rejoice as “time-telescope” is unveiled, possibly changing the way data is shared on the interwebs.

• Want some light? Cut your finger: New vampire lamp runs on human blood.

• Big brother satellites can spot illegal toxic waste from space.

• Kids that pig out on candy are more likely to be violent adults, says a new correlative study that has enraged sweet tooths everywhere.

Weekly News Roundup: The Passion of Kirk Cameron

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:28:19 +0000

• The “iFart” v. “Pull My Finger” legal battle comes to a close. The solution? Release a new app, “Clear the Air.”

• He’s ba-ack: Kirk Cameron defends his nutbag anti-evolution claims, and proposed vandalism.

• How Wal-Mart gift cards are being used to battle STDs.

• Can Xbox 360 fight heart disease?

• Indonesian woman gives birth to a 19-pound baby. As in, 19 pounds AT BIRTH.

• The Huffington Post launches No Impact Challenge: Can you make no environmental impact for a week?

Weekly News Roundup: Lost Your Job? Try Growing Pot!

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:48:17 +0000

• One market that has boomed in the recession: marijuana growing.

• Think you can hide in modern society? Good luck.

• Digitizing patient medical records? YES PLEASE!

• Isabella Rossellini’s legendary bug porn, profiled in depth.

• Want to make more money? Try being nice to other people (seriously).

• Happy 25th birthday, DNA fingerprinting! Now change.

• And finally, 18 awesome animated mad scientists (not that we’re supporting stereotypes that all scientists are crazy…just the animated ones).

Monday News Roundup: Bowie Spiders, Masshole Sharks, and Killer Ladybugs

Melissa Lafsky — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:36:25 +0000

• It’s arachna-Bowie! A rare, hairy, and yellow spider has been named after the master of Ziggy Stardust himself. It’s new title: Heteropoda davidbowie.

• Today’s flabbergast: If Fruit Loops are a healthy food, our derriere is a color television set.

• Swimmers of Amity Island, beware—great white sharks have been tagged up in New England (hear that, Robert Shaw?).

• It was only a matter of time: Porn hits Twitter.

• Meanwhile, Boulder, CO is being taken over by ladybugs.

Weekly News Roundup: The Great Bangladeshi Newspaper Fail

Allison Bond — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:25:37 +0000

• Bangladeshi newspapers get punked, bigtime (and for once, it wasn’t even deliberate).

•Worst excuse ever for underage sex? Or best?

• Do science raps ever get old? The answer: no. Maybe this one about the swine flu will, er, go viral.

• Sure, some people are more vertically challenged than others, but height actually varies very little among humans, compared to other species… and scientists still aren’t sure why.

• Is global warming forestalling an ice age?

• A hair-brained idea? Gel does wonders for your coif, and now it may be able to fix your brain, too.

• Do you sue Yahoo? This woman tried to but was unsuccessful; she didn’t like the links that a search of her own name brought up.

• Bottoms up! An unsuspecting man found a decaying frog inside his can of soda. No word yet on whether the animal croaked before or after it somehow slipped into the beverage…or what stage of drinking the soda the dude was in when he discovered the critter.

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Weekly News Roundup: Robot Chauffeurs and Hand-Holding Otters

Allison Bond — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:30:14 +0000

• Back away from the game controller: Venezuela is laying out a plan for a new law that would ban violent video games in an effort to cut back on rampant crime in the country, even though studies have been unable to prove a link between gaming and violent behavior.

• Because walking, trams, and moving walkways are so last millennium, business travelers at London’s Healthrow Airport will soon be able to hitch a ride on driverless podcars. The battery-powered, robotic cars constitute the first personalized rapid transit system that lets riders control their destination.

•In a meaty ode to the food web site This is Why You’re Fat, here are 10 structures made entirely out of meat. Feats of engineering, no doubt.

• How one scientist hopes to turn chicken embryos into dinosaurs. Not only is it scientifically implausible, but it seems like there was a movie based on a similar idea—and it didn’t turn out well (for the humans, that is).

• Can red help you score? It seems red doesn’t just make women more attractive to men; it can also help make sports teams

Weekly News Roundup: Astronauts With Poor Movie Tastes

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:51:04 +0000

• Will wearable kidneys spell the end of dialysis forever? And do they come in pink?

• At last! A scientific explanation for why you get chills down your spine during that Jimmy Page solo.

• The animal kingdom’s most gruesome weapon: The Spanish ribbed newt “pushes out its ribs until they pierce through its body, exposing a row of bones that act like poisonous barbs.”

• If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a video ad in a print magazine.

• Ok, so maybe the human dissections of the early 1900s were a bit gruesome—but at least they didn’t use stolen dogs.

• What movies are the ISS residents watching in space? Hint: It ain’t all The Right Stuff.

Weekly News Roundup: Wine from Space!

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:59:12 +0000

• Bizarre condition of the day: phantosmia, where you smell something and can’t stop smelling it, sometimes for months.

• Thank goodness we’re doing something productive in space: A satellite is tracking and improving French wine harvests.

• The Romantics managed to mesh science and poetry. Any hope for the rest of us?

• Technology can be sexist; news at 11.

• Is the double-secret hangover cure really…asparagus?

Weird Science Roundup: Ants v. Bees: A Showdown

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:38:03 +0000

• The bees are dying of some mysterious illness! Oh wait, no they’re not! Instead,they’re being attacked by Rasberry crazy ants. (Yes, we said Rasberry crazy ants.) It’s like Alien v. Predator, except in Houston.

•PopSci, answering life’s existential science questions. Like “Why does Coke taste different out of a glass bottle than a plastic one?”

• True “out of body experiences” one step closer with virtual reality. It’s not quite Total Recall yet, but it’s getting close.

• A new lifelike doll on the market in Spain will breast feed from its “mother.” Cue the raging debate over child psychology.

• I’m sorry I didn’t call you back—a pelican swallowed my cell phone! I swear!

• Google Earth pic captures a “gate to Heaven.” Where’s it located? Brooklyn, ‘natch.

• And finally, we bring you: PandaCam.

Weird Science Roundup: The Robot Revolution Has Begun

Allison Bond — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:37:53 +0000

• Robots are fighting fires in London, and thereby sparing humans from the dangers of blazes started by explosive industrial gas.

• Meanwhile, researchers are looking to pizza parlors for techniques to help them come up with a way to make robots more dexterous.

• He shoots, he scores! Check out this video of a soccer-playing robot. What’s next—World Cup, Robot Edition?

• Batter up! Make way for the robo-pitcher.

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Weird Science Roundup: The Science Is Broken Edition

Melissa Lafsky — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:42:48 +0000

• First it was toilets in space. Then spacesuits. Then the LHC (well, it was already broken—but now it’s even more broken). Leading one to conclude: The science is broke! Fix It!

• Earthquakes not only move us, they move islands too. (More news for Joe Barton.)

• So yeah, the 40th anniversary of the moon landing happened. But what human achievements will top it? Here’s 5 ideas.

• Cool tech video of the day: a Canon 5D shutter in slooow motion.

• Looking to hit the beach in Texas? Beware the basketball-sized blobs of oil.

• Also, we are official fans of this blog. As should be anyone who cares about science.

Weird Science Roundup: Killer Kelp, Science Movies, and the World’s Fastest Everything

Allison Bond — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:36:23 +0000

• The kelp best known as an ingredient in miso soup has invaded the San Francisco Bay, worrying environmentalists because of the risk it could pose to the area’s delicate ecosystem. Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water…

• One small step for man, one giant leap for Twitterkind! Nature News is twittering the Apollo 11 mission in real-time as it happened 40 years ago.

• If you’ve ever yearned for the chance to re-make Star Wars: New Hope, here’s your chance: The Web site Star Wars: Uncut is crowd-sourcing the movie, offering 472 15-second clips of the film to re-make.

• The Toronto International Film Festival will commence with a documentary of Charles Darwin, brought to you by movie stars and real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, who star as Darwin and his wife, respectively.

• And finally, check out this video of, well, the world’s fastest everything…clapper, cup stacker, sprinter. We got tired just watching it.

Weird Science Roundup: Drunk Badgers, Zoo Battles, and Citrusy Tires

Allison Bond — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:42:21 +0000

• Tires made with orange oil instead of petroleum are in the making! Perhaps they’ll exude a light citrus scent on the highway.

• A badger intoxicated from a binge on overripe (and therefore alcoholic) cherries disrupted traffic in Berlin when he parked himself in the middle of the road. Apparently the little guy got pretty belligerent, too: “Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom,” according to Reuters.

• The owners of a runaway dog are pretty pissed off. They’re following the canine’s example in the hopes of bringing the pup back: Spraying their own urine around their neighborhood. Let’s hope they don’t try using, er, option number two.

• The zoo-against-zoo fight in Germany over celebrity polar bear Knut is finally settled…to the tune of $600,000.

• Cell phones: They’re not just for talking anymore, and some of the pictures people take with them are surprisingly high-quality. Check out these awesome cell phone pics sent in by readers to the New York Times.

Monday Weird News Roundup: Ramen Robots, Glucose Games, and Goldman Codes

Melissa Lafsky — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:19:12 +0000

• Is the world’s most valuable source code currently out in the open? And has anyone told Goldman Sachs?

• A ramen-making robot lets Japanese customers choose the flavoring they want. So where’s the cheesecake robot?

• Who says gaming has no value? BigPharma firm Bayer has created a DS plugin to let diabetic kids turn monitoring their glucose levels into a game.

• An amazing spider builds life-size decoys of itself to distract hungry predators. Sarah Palin is reported to be examining a similar strategy.

• A popular online gamer ran up debt, stole from the virtual bank he ran, and exchanged it for actual cash on the black market. And then got busted. No doubt Paramount is buying the story rights as we speak.

Weird Science Roundup: Invasion of the Jellyfish!

Allison Bond — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:00:08 +0000

• Between global warming and trans fats, there are plenty of things to worry about. But we bet you forgot about this one: A massive jellyfish invasion that some Japanese researchers fear could occur this year.

• If you think you’re important, think again—unless you have a fish or insect christened in your honor. Check out this list of species named after famous people.

• Always having to see with your eyes can get tiring. Luckily, you can use sound to “see” by using echolocation, the same technique used by dolphins and bats to guide themselves and find prey. Experts in Spain say it takes just a few weeks of training to master the method.

• Add one more thing to the list beer can do: Send you into space on Sir Richard Branson’s spacecraft. Guinness is offering one lucky winner the chance to hurtle 68 miles above the Earth at three times the speed of sound. The contest is accessed via the company’s Web site and is open to people in 28 countries.

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Weird Science Roundup: Wallabies on Drugs, Microsoft Lawsuits, and Predatory Nymphs

Allison Bond — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:31:39 +0000

• Humans aren’t the only ones who can feel the narcotic effects of opium; wallabies can, too. In fact, farmers in Australia have reported that the animals “get high” from munching on the stuff, which grows in open fields, then form crop circles when they repeatedly hop in circles.

• Hey, lay off my layout! Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, has been accused of plagiarism by Kayak, a web site that helps customers find inexpensive plane fares. Apparently, Bing looks so similar to Kayak, it’s confounding customers.

•Talk about DIY: The woman who biopsied and treated her own breast cancer in 1999 while at the South Pole died on Tuesday, June 23.

•Remember those one-legged frogs deformed by chemical pollution? Turns out that there may be another explanation for those missing limbs: dragonfly nymphs, which feed on tadpole legs. Tasty!