Category: Blog

While Darwin had provided the clue about where to see evolution, he thought any observations of change would be minute: big changes would take millions of years. We found change happened much quicker. The evolutionary process that Darwin outlined is character displacement (or divergence) caused by competition with another species. Over a period of nearly…

…using the immune system’s all-purpose killer: the T cell, which the body sends to neutralize pathogens of all sorts, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites, but not (usually) cancer. By extracting T cells from a patient’s blood, editing the cells’ DNA in a lab, and reintroducing them at the site of the tumor, they had gotten the…

The former will become the world’s most powerful radio astronomy facility while the latter, the world’s largest camera, will be able to image the entire visible sky every three or four nights, and is expected to help discover millions of new galaxies and stars. Both facilities are set to start observations in the next few…

The final pillar of how I try to build Yvette’s self-esteem is with what I call “sanctuaries”. All kids need them, and every day in the clinic I help build them with families. Sanctuaries are like rituals – activities we do or places that we go together that are only for joy. They have to…

One of the things that happens when people become teenagers is that their brain becomes more sophisticated, and it allows for self-conscious emotions. Before age 13, kids are concrete in their thinking. They can’t always see things from another perspective. Then around 13 or 14, the ability to picture oneself on the outside, to imagine…

La plupart des personnes aujourd’hui en âge de procréer ont elles-mêmes grandi en tant qu’enfant unique, ce qui a nécessairement un impact en matière de normes sociales et familiales », analyse Patrick Gerland. Un défi inédit, surtout dans un pays d’une telle taille. — Read on www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2024/07/11/la-population-de-la-terre-devrait-atteindre-son-maximum-avant-la-fin-du-siecle_6248844_3244.html

Working with AI has made me even more impressed with the kinds of things that every two-year-old is doing. It has also made the intelligence of octopuses, brine shrimp, and all the other creatures around us more vivid. On the other hand, I would not have assumed that we could learn as much just from…

Depression is neither disease nor disorder rather an adaptation that evolved to serve a purpose — Read on marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/06/what-we-got-wrong-about-depression-and-its-treatment.html

L’amnésie infantile pourrait donc être « une innovation évolutive récente qui facilite la transition d’une dépendance parentale complète à un comportement plus autonome », estime Tomas Ryan. Parce que les souvenirs formés dans la petite enfance s’appliqueraient mal aux exigences de la vie plus âgée, « l’amnésie infantile existerait pour les supprimer et ainsi encourager un comportement plus…

Cela posé, le métro à 36,5 milliards d’euros permet-il de réduire « les déséquilibres sociaux, territoriaux » de la métropole, comme la loi du Grand Paris de 2010 le stipule ? Sur ce point, Daniel Béhar est ferme. « Le GPE améliore la vie des gens, facilite l’accessibilité aux aménités métropolitaines, mais il ne change pas grand-chose dans la structure…