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Readers' Q&A: The science of sex

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:41:57 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Some good and interesting QAs at the source

A couple of weeks ago we ran a review of Mary Roach's latest book, Bonk: The curious coupling of science and sex, in which Roach explains how scientists have tackled human sexuality using strange and often hilarious experiments. We invited readers to send in their sex questions for Mary Roach, and you can read a selection of the Q&As below.

Does the female orgasm serve a biological purpose?

Tags: science, sex

Dead Sea Scroll Put on Rare Display in Israel

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:36:16 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

One of the most important Dead Sea scrolls is going on display in Jerusalem this week—more than four decades after it was last seen by the public.

The 24-foot (7.3-meter) scroll with the text of the Bible's Book of Isaiah had been in a dark, temperature-controlled room at the Israel Museum since 1967. It went on display two years earlier, but curators replaced it with a facsimile after noticing new cracks in the calfskin parchment.

The museum decided to put the scroll back on show for three months as part of Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations.

The priceless manuscript, written by a Judean scribe around 120 B.C., was in a long glass case Tuesday, its neat rows of Hebrew letters distinct and legible.

The Isaiah manuscript was the only complete biblical book discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls, one of the great archaeological finds of the 20th century.

(See a time line of early Christianity.)

Tags: dead sea scrolls, jerusalem, religion

The Brain Is Not Modular

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:32:25 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: What fMRI Really Tells Us

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Metaphors, modules and brain-scan pseudoscience

The atom is like a solar system, with electrons whirling around the nucleus like planets orbiting a star. No, actually, it isn’t. But as a first approximation to help us visualize something that is so invisible, that image works as a metaphor.

Science traffics in metaphors because our brains evolved to grasp intuitively a world far simpler than the counterintuitive world that science has only recently revealed. The functional activity of the brain, for example, is nearly as invisible to us as the atom, and so we employ metaphors. Over the centuries the brain has been compared to a hydraulic machine (18th century), a mechanical calculator (19th century) and an electronic computer (20th century). Today a popular metaphor is that the brain is like a Swiss Army knife, with specialized modules for vision, language, facial recognition, cheating detection, risk taking, spirituality and even God.

Tags: brain, science

British UFO Files

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:24:33 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The National Archives is displaying previously classified files on UFOs. They include this diagram, whose author believed alien craft used decoy methods to avoid detection, carrying not humans but "fallen angels".

This is a page from a report about a famous incident in December 1980 at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, known as "Britain's Roswell".

This drawing of a UFO was made from a description given by a 78-year-old man, who claims he was taken on board an alien craft at Basingstoke Canal in Aldershot during 1983.

The reproduction of a UFO was made by a Metropolitan Police officer after three officers saw an object at Stanmore in Harrow in 1984.

One person attempted a helpful calculation, sent in to the government, as to how an alien spacecraft might be designed.

A 1979 government briefing for the House of Lords dismissed the idea of political collusion with aliens.

Tags: ufo, britain, government

Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Tue, 13 May 2008 23:05:25 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.templeton.org

a templeton conversation

This is the third in a series of conversations among leading scientists and scholars about the "Big Questions."
For the previous two questions, click here.
To request a booklet containing all the essays, click here. For a PDF, here.
To view featured debates among the contributors, click here.

Tags: science, religion

Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:13:22 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own.

A little known letter written by him, however, may help to settle the argument - or at least provoke further controversy about his views.

Due to be auctioned this week in London after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, the document leaves no doubt that the theoretical physicist was no supporter of religious beliefs, which he regarded as "childish superstitions".

Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

Tags: einstein, religion, science

Benefits of bedtime reading

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:08:53 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: education.guardian.co.uk

Reading to young children stimulates their development and gives them a head start when they reach school, according to researchers who have reviewed studies on the effects of reading. Apart from helping their reading, sharing a bedtime story with a child promotes their motor skills, through learning to turn the pages, and their memory. It also improves their emotional and social development.

"You can imagine if someone technologically came up with a widget that would stimulate all aspects of a two-year-old's development, everyone would want to buy it," said Professor Barry Zuckerman, of the department of paediatrics at Boston University school of medicine, who led the study.

Studies show that children who are read to from an earlier age have better language development and tend to have better language scores later in life. Getting children to grip pages with their thumb and forefinger improves their motor skills.

Tags: children, reading

Two New Ways to Explore the Virtual Universe, in Vivid 3-D

Tue, 13 May 2008 05:06:45 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The skies may be the next frontier in travel, yet not even the wealthiest space tourist can zoom out to, say, the Crab Nebula, the Trapezium Cluster or Eta Carinae, a star 100 times more massive than the Sun and 7,500 light-years away.

But those galactic destinations and thousands of others can now be toured and explored at the controls of a computer mouse, with the constellations, stars and space dust displayed in vivid detail and animated imagery across the screen. The project, the WorldWide Telescope, is the culmination of years of work by researchers at Microsoft, and the Web site and free downloadable software are available starting on Tuesday, at www.WorldWideTelescope.org.

Tags: virtual, universe, technology