Science & Technology

How birds evolved big brains 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 25, 2020
Brain evolution traced from tyrannosaurs to modern crows

By David Aragorn
CBC accused by Quebecor of ‘disgracefully and unscrupulously’ exploiting COVID-19 crisis 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 23, 2020
CBC is forbidden by regulation from selling advertising on public radio, but Quebecor says clients who buy ads elsewhere in the network are given interviews and ‘non-sponsored live coverage on radio’ — an unfair workaround

By David Aragorn
Study: Long-Duration Spaceflight Affects Brain Volume 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology, Space
- April 22, 2020
A new study led by Professor Larry Kramer from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston suggests that the impact of microgravity is far-reaching, potentially causing brain volume changes and pituitary gland deformation.

By David Aragorn
Scientists Are Tired of Explaining Why The COVID-19 Virus Was Not Made in a Lab 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 22, 2020
It’s a rumour that just won’t die. When asked whether the COVID-19 virus was genetically engineered in a lab, scientists have already said “no” rather firmly, but the matter of the new coronavirus’ origin is unlikely to be put to rest so easily.

By David Aragorn
DNA Could Hold Clues to Varying Severity of COVID-19 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 18, 2020
Hundreds of scientists around the globe are launching studies in search of genes that could explain why some people fall victim to coronavirus infection while others escape relatively unscathed.

By David Aragorn
The Covid-19 puzzles that scientists are still trying to answer 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 16, 2020
The Observer’s science editor looks at questions such as why the disease does appear not to infect children, and whether men are really more susceptible

By David Aragorn
New quantum computers can operate at higher temperatures 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 16, 2020
Silicon chips raise hopes for scaling up devices to millions of quantum bits

By David Aragorn
Matter-antimatter difference found in neutrino oscillations 0
- From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 16, 2020
One of the great scientific puzzles of our time is why we live in a universe full of matter rather than antimatter. Wherever we look, we observe that matter dominates over antimatter, yet we believe that matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts soon after the Big Bang. To reconcile these two facts there must be some difference in the way matter and antimatter behave.

By David Aragorn
Scientists digitally reconstruct skulls of dinosaurs in fossilised eggs 0
- Ancient Archeology, From Around the Web
- April 11, 2020
Research on Massospondylus carinatus embryos sheds new light on animals’ development

By David Aragorn
A study compares the parietal lobes in Neanderthals and modern humans 0
- Ancient Archeology, From Around the Web, Science & Technology
- April 10, 2020
The Paleoneurobiology Group of the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), led by Emiliano Bruner, has just published a morphological analysis of the brains of Neanderthals and modern humans in the Journal of Human Evolution, whose results suggest that the more rounded shape of modern human brains is due in part to larger and bulgier parietal lobes, on average.

By David Aragorn