TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Quantum world Alan Davies heads into the world of quantum mechanics news.bbc.co.uk |
DNA study charts Melbourne's ancestry Researchers have revealed a snapshot of Melburnians' ancestry dating back thousands of years. abc.net.au |
NASA to launch sky-mapping spacecraft LOS ANGELES (AP) -- NASA's latest space telescope will scan the sky in search of never-before-seen asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies, with one of its main tasks to catalog objects posing a danger to Earth. The sky-mapping WISE, or Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, is scheduled to launch no earlier than before dawn Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast aboard a Delta 2 rocket.... hosted.ap.org |
Positive lyrics can hit home with grumpy teenagers, study says It's a scenario every parent of a teenager will recognise: the bedroom door closes, a volume dial is rotated clockwise and loud music fills the room for hours at a time. But there is some good news – this routine might actually make your child more caring and socially responsible.After years of studies purporting to show the harmful effects of young people listening to songs with violent or misogynistic themes, a psychologist has concluded that music containing a positive message has a beneficial impact on listeners.Dr Tobias Greitemeyer from the University of Sussex carried out a series of tests on groups of students in which those exposed to so-called pro-social music – one example was Help! by the Beatles – later acted in a more considerate and empathetic way than peers who had listened to songs containing a neutral or apparently meaningless lyrical message.His experiments took groups of students and split them at random into those who listened individually either to socially-conscious songs or those with a neutral message, and then used various ways to measure the apparent effect. In one, after the music had stopped, a researcher "accidentally" knocked a cup of pencils from a table and paused briefly before beginning to collect them.On average, those who had heard songs like Michael Jackson's Heal the World responded more quickly and picked up almost five times as many pencils as people in the other group.Other volunteers were asked, after listening to the music, whether they would help with a separate research project. Almost three times as many in the "pro-social" group said they would. "It's a very consistent effect. I did not expect it would be so significant," Greitemeyer said.ResearchPsychologyFamilyPeter Walkerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The best aliens are in our imagination So all aliens are likely to be humanoid, says an academic? What a pity for all those fantastic creatures of film and literatureHere we are swimming three-dimensionally through the blue dream of Avatar when some spoil-sport astro-biologist called Simon ÂConway Morris snatches off our glasses to tell us that, when the third encounter happens, aliens will be "very like us". Who needs body snatching? Carbon-based Âbipeds must, according to the laws of evolution, be roughly the same throughout the universe's 250bn galaxies. Boringly humanoid.If Dr Conway Morris is right, it will be a sad day for sci-fi, fantasy and horror. Ever since the Grendel family rose out of the Âprimeval marsh to take on ÂBeowulf in the first work of English literature, we have pictured aliens as the Âineffable "other". Fictional aliens come in all colours, shapes and Âdispositions. These are my top 10:1. Nicest alien Skye, that barbie doll from over the Milky Way in The Day The Earth Stopped (2008), who has come in the vain attempt to make humans more humane.2. Sneakiest alien Jack Finney's body snatchers – so like the guy next door that, just like communists, you can never tell the snatched from the un-snatched.3. Toothiest alien The "bitchoÂsaurus" that Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) takes on and vanquishes at the end of Aliens (1986).4. Clumsiest alien The well-meaning Tralfamadorians in ÂVonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five who, fooling around with a new explosive, Âvaporise the Âuniverse. It happens.5. Funniest alien Mork (in those far-off days when Robin Williams was still funny), the Âtomatoes in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978), or the Martians who take on Tom Jones in full Vegas gear in Mars Attacks!.6. Brainiest alien The ÂMartians in HG Wells's War of the Worlds, who have evolved into all brain and no body. Luckily, they forgot to pack antibiotics in their great clanking death chariots. (In the 2005 Tom Cruise film, advances in astronomy made ÂMartians nonsense. We never learn where the things come from.)7. Most Christlike Âalien Valentine, in Robert Heinlein's 1960s hippy-commune classic Stranger In A Strange Land, who comes to Earth to bring peace. He was ÂCharlie Manson's Âfavourite alien.8. Most enigmatic alien Those strange travelling salesmen of the universe in 2001: A Space Odyssey who leave incomprehensible bleeping monolithic turds behind them. Is there some reason?9. Most invincible alien Ask any scientist under 30 what their Âfavourite sci-fi novel is and chances are they'll tell you Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Ender is the wunderkind who, if the human race is lucky, can defeat the insectoid Â"buggers" [sic] who are about to invade Earth.10. Most inept alien The "blob" – a giant amoeba which, in the 1953 movie, terrorises the small community of Downington PA. Steve McQueen had no difficulty out-acting a giant lump of jello.One award you'll never come up with in the sci-fi/fantasy genre is "most boring alien". But that, apparently, is what future history has in store for us. Thank you, Dr Conway Morris.SpaceScience fiction and fantasyScience fiction, fantasy and horrorJohn Sutherlandguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |