Science Etcetera, Venusday 20090522

Posted in Science Etcetera on May 22nd, 2009

The movie Terminator Salvation exploits the uncanny valley effect to disturb audience members, but surprisingly there is very little scientific research exploring the phenomenon.

Terminator Salvation
Publicity Photo

Five successful space walks later, the Hubble is better than ever, and the human capability to overcome unplanned obstacles during the mission argues for why robots can’t yet take our place when venturing into the cosmos.

Ida is not the missing link, as David Attenborough said, every missing link we discover creates two more.

Possible evidence that a human butchered and ate a Neanderthal child 28k-30k years ago.

Tiny magnets discovered inside tropical ant antennae, which may give them an onboard GPS system that would explain how they always seem to know where they are going.

Ants and Aphids, Backlit
Credit: binux

Dittoheads continue to argue that CO₂ can’t be a pollutant because we breathe it… point in fact: it’s in our Coca-Cola even.

Paul Pearson is fighting a legal battle for the right to convert cars to electric vehicles.

Israel is pushing to eliminate toxic pesticides from it farming practices, which poison animals that are not pests, by encouraging birds of prey to roost in the fields and control vermin populations.

Malay Eagle Owl