[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150420101012.htm"]Technology can transfer human emotions to your palm through air, say scientists[/URL]

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32354300"]The strange afterlife of Einstein's brain[/URL]

[URL="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865626792/The-mental-health-consequences-of-a-high-IQ.html"]The mental health consequences of a high IQ[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150413161541.htm"]Meteorites key to the story of Earth's layers[/URL]

[URL="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002127"]Colour As a Signal for Entraining the Mammalian Circadian Clock[/URL]

[URL="http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/is-technology-actually-slowing-us-down/science-technology"]Is technology actually slowing us down?[/URL]

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32303622"]Dark matter becomes less 'ghostly'[/URL]

[URL="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21648607-search-extraterrestrials-goes-intergalactic-infra-digging"]Looking for Aliens: Infra Diggng[/URL]

[URL="http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/peer-review-scandals-shake-up-scholarly-journal-community/education"]Peer-review scandals shake up scholarly journal community[/URL]

[URL="http://time.com/3764545/future-of-education/"]The Future of Education According to Generation Z[/URL]

[URL="http://www.medicaldaily.com/near-death-experiences-may-be-explained-heart-brain-connection-328640"]Near-Death Experiences May Be Explained By Heart-Brain Connection[/URL]

[URL="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/536341/metamaterial-radar-may-improve-car-and-drone-vision/"]Metamaterial Radar May Improve Car and Drone Vision[/URL]

[URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150409120259.htm"]Shakespeare's plays reveal his psychological signature[/URL]

[URL="http://www.wired.com/2015/04/3-d-map-shows-colors-see-cant-name/"]3-D Map Shows the Colors You See But Can’t Name[/URL]

[URL="http://www.livescience.com/50401-brontosaurus-makes-comeback.html"]'Extinct' No Longer? Brontosaurus May Make a Comeback[/URL]

[URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/31/gifted-students-especially-those-who-are-low-income-need-more-attention-report-argues/"]Gifted students — especially those who are low-income — aren’t getting the focus they need[/URL]

[URL="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-brain-stop-thinking-start-learning-20150405-story.html"]Brain knows how to stop thinking, start learning[/URL]

o [url=www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/19/clockmaker-john-harrison-vindicated-250-years-absurd-claims] Clockmaker John Harrison vindicated 250 years after ‘absurd’ claims[/url]: [i]The pendulum clock of Longitude hero John Harrison is tested and declared a masterpiece[/i]
[quote]One of Guinness World Records’ more unusual awards was presented at the National Maritime Museum yesterday. After a 100-day trial, the timepiece known as Clock B – which had been sealed in a clear plastic box to prevent tampering – was officially declared, by Guinness, to be the world’s “most accurate mechanical clock with a pendulum swinging in free air”.

It was an intriguing enough award. But what is really astonishing is that the clock was designed more than 250 years ago by a man who was derided at the time for “an incoherence and absurdity that was little short of the symptoms of insanity”, and whose plans for the clock lay ignored for two centuries.

The derision was poured on John Harrison, the British clockmaker whose marine chronometers had revolutionised seafaring in the 18th century (and who was the subject of Longitude by Dava Sobel). His subsequent claim – that he would go on to make a pendulum timepiece that was accurate to within a second over a 100-day period – triggered widespread ridicule. The task was simply impossible, it was declared.[/quote]
I wonder how much one of the original Harrison seagoing chronometers goes for at auction these days?

o And by way of historical bonus reading - I originally intended to post this in the Soap Box MET2015 thread, but the scientific-history angle also makes it suitable here:

From the 'history of outsourcing' file: [url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_générale]Ferme générale[/url] | Wikipedia
[quote]By the end of the 18th century, the Ferme générale system became a symbol of an unequal society. The Ferme générale, with its colossal fortune, was seen as encapsulating all the perversions of the political and social system. People blamed the injustices and the annoyances - which actually arose from the complexity of the tax system - on the company itself, including the brutality of tax collecting troops and the brutal repression of smuggling. The gabelle (tax on salt) was the most unpopular of all the taxes.

The Ferme générale was thus one of the institutions of the Ancien Régime which was most criticised during the 1789 French Revolution and was depicted as a group of predatory tyrants; the Girondist politician Antoine Français de Nantes, made an early reputation for himself attacking this prominent target. The Ferme générale was then suppressed in 1790 with farmers-general paying the price at the scaffold: 28 former members of the consortium were guillotined on 8 May 1794, including the father of modern chemistry Antoine Lavoisier whose laboratory experiments had been supported by income from his administration of the Ferme générale. His wife, the chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, who escaped the guillotine, was herself the daughter of another farmer-general, Jacques Paulze.[/quote]
But the unfortunate demise of the great Lavoisier is not the only reason I decided on the change of venue for the above Wikiarticle - coming full circle we see a fascinating episode involving Voltaire, a local guild of expatriate Genevan watchmakers supported by him, and the tax farmers:
[quote]In his Voltaire, A Life[6] (pp. 427–31), Ian Davidson describes events on Voltaire's estate at Ferney, north of Geneva, in the 1770s.

In 1770, hundreds of watchmakers fled the political ructions in Geneva and went to make a new life at Ferney. Voltaire helped them to set up a new watchmaking business. He negotiated a tax exemption for the watchmakers with the duc de Choiseul, Prime Minister of France. But by 1774, the business was prospering and the tax farmers started to take an interest. Three-way negotiations between the tax farmers, Voltaire and [Limoges tax-farm superintendent and reforming economist Anne-Robert-Jacques] Turgot ensued. In December 1775, Turgot confirmed the watchmakers' exemption from the salt tax (gabelle) and from road maintenance duties (corvée) and a figure was agreed to compensate the tax farmers for loss of revenue. Voltaire addressed a public meeting on 12 December and the watchmakers accepted the settlement.

Two days later, Voltaire wrote to his friend Mme de Saint-Julien:
[i]
... while we were gently passing our time in thanking M. Turgot, and while the whole province was busy drinking, the gendarmes of the tax farmers, whose time runs out on 1 January, had orders to sabotage us. They marched about in groups of fifty, stopped all the vehicles, searched all the pockets, forced their way into all the houses and made every kind of damage there in the name of the king, and made the peasants buy them off with money. I cannot conceive why the people did not ring the tocsin [village alarm bell; from the Provençal dialect] against them in all the villages, and why they were not exterminated. It is very strange that the ferme générale, with only another fortnight left for them to keep their troops here in winter quarters, should have permitted or even encouraged them in such criminal excesses. The decent people were very wise and held back the ordinary folk, who wanted to throw themselves on these brigands, as if on mad wolves.
[/i]
According to Davidson, good sense prevailed despite this violence, Voltaire was appointed a tax commissioner, profits peaked in 1776 and the watchmaking business survived the revolution and continued "well into the nineteenth century".[/quote]
Thus inspired by tales of the pre-revolutionary French tax farmers, I could not resist a topic-apt riffing on the [url=http://www.songlyrics.com/spinal-tap/sex-farm-lyrics/]lyrics of a famous [i]Spinal Tap[/i] song[/url]:
[i]
Workin' on a tax farm
Tryin' to raise some rev'noo
Gettin' out my pitch fork
Pokin' your hay

Scratchin' in your hen house
Sniffin' at your feedbag
Slippin' out your back door
Leavin' my enseigne

Tax farm woman, I'm gonna mow you down
Tax farm woman, I'll rake and hoe you down
Tax farm woman
Don't you see my receipts risin' high, high, high?

Workin' on a tax farm
Hosin' down your barn door
Botherin' your livestock
They know what I need

Workin' up a hot audit
Crouchin' in your pea patch
Plowin' through your bean field
Plantin' my seed

Tax farm woman, I'll be your hired hand
Tax farm woman, I'll let my offer stand
Tax farm woman
Don't you hear my tumbril rumblin' by, by, by?

Workin' on a tax farm
Tryin' to raise some rev'noo
Gettin' out my pitch fork
Pokin' your hay[/i]

[url=www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/liquid-mercury-mexican-pyramid-teotihuacan]Liquid mercury found under Mexican pyramid could lead to king's tomb[/url]: [i]Researcher reports ‘large quantities’ of the substance under ruins of Teotihuacan in discovery that could shed light on city’s mysterious leaders[/i]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;400996][URL="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/liquid-mercury-mexican-pyramid-teotihuacan"]Liquid mercury found under Mexican pyramid could lead to king's tomb[/URL]: [I]Researcher reports ‘large quantities’ of the substance under ruins of Teotihuacan in discovery that could shed light on city’s mysterious leaders[/I][/QUOTE]

We are hoping to visit Mexico City for the first time, perhaps in June. Teotihuacan is high on the list of cultural wonders we hope to see.

[URL="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2015/april/oldest-fossils-controversy-resolved.html"]Oldest fossils controversy resolved[/URL]

[URL="http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/researchers-examine-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness/education"]Researchers examine link between creativity and mental illness[/URL]

[URL="http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/shipwrecked-champagne-leathery-still-pretty-good-150420.htm"]Shipwrecked Champagne: Leathery, Still Pretty Good[/URL]

[URL="http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/04/21/mmr-vaccine-and-autism-no-link-exists-even-for-children-at-risk-for-autism/"]MMR Vaccine and Autism: Yet Again, No Link Exists -- Even For Children At Risk For Autism[/URL]

[URL="http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-genetically-modify-human-embryos-1.17378"]Chinese scientists genetically modify human embryos[/URL]

[URL="http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-hubble-space-telescopes-25-most-mind-boggling-photos"]The Hubble Space Telescope's 25 Most Mind-Boggling Photos[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/20/astronomers-discover-largest-known-structure-in-the-universe-is-a-big-hole"]Astronomers discover largest known structure in the universe is ... a big hole[/URL]

Your Science posts are always a treat, Rogue. You have many sources, and diverse interests. The human embryo and 'creativity and mental illness' stories made me do a lot of thinking in a lot of different areas.

Fossils: Frequently Fascinating! Fortuitous Findings! Frenemies Forever Fulminate Ferocious Fracases! Follow Freedom Fiercely! :showoff:

I don't read everything I post and there are links I don't post. Having been around as long as I have gives me a good sense as to what people want to read.

[url]http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/[/url]

Not sure whether that is news or not but it's worth reading IMAO

Lithobraking
 

[URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32542646"]Messenger's Mercury trip ends with a bang, and silence[/URL]

Dr White is also the fellow who's trying to run experiments based on modifications to Alcubiere's "warp drive" design...

Edit: The interferometer is mentioned down near the bottom. Quite an interesting article, much more worthwhile than I was expecting based on the title, thanks.

[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/04/horribly-bleak-study-sees-empty-landscape-as-large-herbivores-vanish-at-startling-rate/]http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...farting-rate/[/url]