Broadcasters in US and elsewhere censor BBC’s Frozen Planet series by omitting the episode about climate change.

Is the wavefunction a mathematical convenience predicting probabilities for different observations of a particle, or does it have physical reality? A new mathematical theorem suggests the wavefunction is a real physical object.

The blackest known exoplanet. It’s the size of Jupiter, too hot to have clouds in the atmosphere, and would be even blacker if it weren’t just about red hot.

Experiments using a split treadmill. Among other things, it turned out that people can quickly learn to simultaneously walk forwards and backwards at different speeds with different legs, and that it takes about the same length of time to readjust to normal walking afterwards.

“According to research that hasn’t yet been performed … ” “In a controversial move, popular sicence journal The Daily Mail … ” “The scientist, who doesn’t actually use Twitter, said … ” Wonderful spoof article by Martin Robbins.

More brilliant book titles, including The History and Social Influence of the Potato (I don’t know why potatoes are funny, but they are.)

Fluid flow follows similar equations to those used in relativity, meaning parallels to phenomena such as black holes can be created in the lab and studied. In this instance, they created a parallel situation to one where time turns into space.

bytesushi:

The full list is wonderful. I particularly like The Treatment of Final Vowels in Early Neo-Babylonian and Understand Your Tortoise, though I’ll admit that at least one of those sounds as though it might actually be quite interesting …

Brief corrective summary of misinformation in the referendum campaigns for and against changing the British voting system. Though I have to say that the misinformation from the No campaign is by far the most blatant and cynical.

We may have evolved not to argue rationally, but to find arguments which will persuade others of our point of view.