Science & Society

Researchers from St. Petersburg State University have designed a brandy analyzing device which can distinguish the ‘young’ drink from the seasoned one and even to distinguish among variants of brandy. This is of great help both to manufacturers and analysts on the hunt for counterfeits. This ‘electronic tongue’ won't replace the cooper just yet but it is suited for routine work. The fun part - drinking - is still up to people. The concept of ‘electronic noses’ and ‘electronic tongues’ are widespread in analyst circles but are sometimes confusing to laypeople. It means the device is intended…

Ikerlan-IK4 (CIC microGUNE Microfluidics Unit - the Basque Micro and Nanotechnologies Research Centre) has patented a device that enables the verification of the optimum conditions for a human organ prior to its transplant. By means of a microelectrode that measures the impedance and temperature of the tissues, the system enables the state of any organ to be monitored from the moment of its extraction, during its transport, to the moment of the surgical operation to transplant it into a patient. The Ikerlan-IK4 device, designed in collaboration with the National Centre for Microtechnology (…

The newspaper, that daily chronicle of human events, is undergoing the most momentous transformation in its centuries-old history. Online versions are proliferating, attracting young readers, and generally carving out a sizable swath of the news business. In the United States alone, 34 million people have made a daily habit of reading an online newspaper. An online news site can change minute by minute and generate a different front page for each reader. The most interesting and useful customization involves capturing information about the readers' interests from their past behavior. There's…

You may not be aware of it - they might not be aware of it, but the people in your work environment might be slowing you down. New research by University of Calgary, Faculty of Kinesiology researcher Dr. Tim Welsh says that regardless of their intentions, having an individual working on a different task - within your field of vision - could be enough to slow down your performance. “Imagine a situation like a complex assembly line,” said Welsh If you are doing a particular task and the person across from you is doing a different task, you’ll be slowed down regardless of their performance.” The…

The Journal "Open Medicine" has published a very thoughtful editorial on "Open science, open access and open source software at Open Medicine" by Sally Murray, Stephen Choi, John Hoey, Claire Kendall, James Maskalyk and Anita Palepu. Not only are they writing about it but they want to get their hands dirty as well: Open Medicine is an open access journal because we believe that free and timely access to research results allows scientific knowledge to be used by all those who need it, not just those who can afford expensive journal subscriptions or user fees for individual articles. But is…

UK space scientist Emeritus Professor Alan Wells is to speak at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston in February on: International Cooperation in Developing Swift and its Scientific Achievements. Professor Wells' presentation will be on Saturday 16th February at around 11.00 a.m. as part of a symposium entitled: Worldwide Hunt to Solve the Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts. In it, he will discuss the breadth of international collaborations, including the prominent contributions from UK scientists, in new discoveries about gamma ray bursts obtained from the Swift…

Less smoking or less time eating in restaurants because of a ban on smoking? Either way, the number of acute coronary events such as heart attack in adults dropped significantly after a smoking ban in public places in Italy, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers in Rome compared acute coronary events in the city for five years preceding a public smoking ban with those occurring one year after the ban. They found an 11.2 percent reduction of acute coronary events in persons 35 to 64 years and a 7.9 percent reduction in those ages 65 to 74…

The American Chemical Society will be offering a virtual poster session in Second Life from selected posters at the Sci-Mix session taking place April 6, 2008 at the next national meeting in New Orleans. I'm helping out with that effort and I'm pleased to say that we have our first submission from Jodye Selco, Mary Bruno and Sue Chan: "Safe and economical chemistry inquiry for the K-12 classroom". ACS island has the same shape as its logo of a phoenix, thanks to the skilled hand of Eloise Pasteur who carved out the Drexel island's dragon shape. The posters will be placed on the right wing…

How can today's wired, multitasking scientists ever compete with the great scientists of the past? One feature of Darwin's work as a scientist was that it proceeded slowly, very, very slowly. He wrote massive groundbreaking books, compiled huge amounts of data on orchids, barnacles, and Galapagos animals, but all over a long period of time. Scientists in Darwin's day had hours to kill on long voyages, took long walks out in the field, and waited while their scientific correspondence leisurely wended its way across oceans or continents. Even in the first half of the 20th century, great…

Heterogeneity provides stability, say scientists from the Universities of Fribourg and Bonn, whether this is in a shower, in power grids or even on the stock market. It's a big reason why the electrical grid does not break. When Al Gore had the brilliant idea to have everyone watching his Live Earth concerts shut off their lights as a symbolic gesture, he had to be reminded that the surge when people turned the lights back on would put a lot of people in danger. The grid could not take it. In the shower example, showers in youth hostels can be risky when there is not enough hot water for…