if anyone here keeps up with science drama and statistical malfeasance, big news: niels birbauer, one of the big name neuroscientists working on brain computer interface communication tools for patients who are completely paralyzed, committed serious academic misconduct (two links). the way his team analyzed the data, their results all but had to be statistically significant. so that's a huge disappointment for BCI communication research, but not the end of the world, since amazing studies like this one, in which adrien owen's team uses fMRI to demonstrate conscious awareness in someone assumed to be in a vegetative state, still seem to hold up. check out owen's work if you haven't already. it's astounding.
My favorite science fun fact because I was reminded recently: The researchers who discovered the cannabinoid neurotransmitter Anandamide named it that from the Sanskrit word for happiness because that's what they felt when they discovered and confirmed it and if that's not absolutely the cutest shit ever I don't know what is.
A fairly recent paper that described 3 new hypothetical bacterial taxa used European water folklore creatures for inspiration (the bacteria are aquatic Planctomycetes). So now there are 3 groups tentatively called Nemodlikiaceae, Vodnikaceae and Nixeaceae. (the whole paper is super cool and I got to see the first author give a talk at ISME 17.)
A breakdown of how the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine works, on the RNA level. Super cool. Some of the analogies will make more sense for computer people but I think it should be pretty accessible even if you don't know how to program.
The BBC Eyewitness series is apparently available on Youtube. I... I suppose that isn't really science news, but those tapes were my JAM as a kid. Sadly some of the videos seemed to be blocked... by the BBC. Despite being posted by the BBC. Oh, U-tub.
The Perseverance rover landed on Mars yesterday. It's going to collect rocks for later pickup (so that they can be examined in a lab rather than in situ) and look for possible signs of life.
Elon Musk, way back in 2017, Did His Thing, thus necessitating someone else (in this case no Perdue university and no less than Buzz Aldrin) do some very interesting feasibility studies.
