Steven Pinker, who in 2001 became the first member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS), has had his genome sequenced. The New York Times has published Pinker’s firsthand account of the adventure. (Photo below is from the Times article)
Year: 2009
The confused Smarandache constants
The Smarandache constant x is the positive solution of 127x − 113x = 1. Its value is (sequence A038458 in OEIS). Smarandache conjectured that x is in fact the smallest solution xn of as n varies, where pn is the nth prime, and interpreted this as a generalization of Andrica’s conjecture. It should not be […]
Archaeology: Old tricks for new dogs?
In Fornvännen 2007:3, husband & wife historians of archaeology Drs Åsa Gillberg and Ola W. Jensen note that there are currently ongoing attempts to train dogs to sniff out archaeology, much like they have proved capable of finding illegal drugs, recently buried murder victims, even cancerous tumours. Results so far are inconclusive. The point of […]
This is how education works: Cokes & sperm
“Can Cokes kill sperm?” The Singapore government’s Actively Seeking Knowledge [ASK] program, in the person of Ang Mei Jun, Librarian, Adult & Young People’s Services, takes on this question. It’s yet another unexpected path in the dissemination of medical knowledge. The answer is based on research by Dr. Deborah J. Anderson, co-winner of the 2008 […]