Scientific American

Why do top athletes suddenly develop “the yips,” a tendency to choke under pressure?

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The arrival of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) at the Red Planet in 2006 ushered in a whole new era of Mars observation. With its ultrapowerful HiRISE camera, the orbiter has spied on the Martian surface to study curious features, some of them possibly linked to the presence of water, in unprecedented detail. And along the way HiRISE has also uncovered a few new phenomena. [More]

[caption id="attachment_483" align="alignleft" width="291" caption="Glass octopus courtesy of R. Larsen/Fish and Wildlife Service/R. Harbison, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/YouTube"] [/caption]Octopuses that live in the deep open ocean are difficult enough to find. But try locating a "glass" octopus, which is nearly transparent. Floating in the dim midwaters, this gelatinous octopod looks almost like a be-suckered jellyfish. [More]

Hot on the heels of detecting the two highest-energy neutrinos ever observed, scientists working with a mammoth particle detector buried in ice near the South Pole unveiled preliminary data showing that they also registered the signal of 26 additional high-energy neutrinos. The newfound neutrinos are somewhat less energetic than the two record-setters but nonetheless appear to carry more energy than would be expected if created by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere--a prodigious source of neutrinos raining down on Earth. The particles thus may point to unknown energetic astrophysical processes deeper in the cosmos .

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Living in Los Angeles for the last six years, I've become quite familiar with the spread of wildfires, with a corresponding deepening respect for Nature's power. Given the devastation an out-of-control wildfire can cause, it's not surprising that there's been quite a bit of research into modeling the specifics of how forest fires spread over the last few decades , with an eye towards developing ever-more efficient methods for stopping the flames in their tracks. And now it seems as though the way that fires spread has something in common with the propagation of so-called "magnetic avalanches" that occur in magnetic crystals, according to a new paper published in Physical Review Letters this week.The very word "avalanche" calls to mind snowy avalanches and sand piles, but materials get their properties, like magnetism, from atomic structure, putting this is the realm of quantum mechanics. We're really talking about a cascade of "spin flips" that culminate in a reversal of the sample's magnetization -- a not-well-understood phenomenon called magnetic deflagration. "Spin" is the quantum mechanical version of angular momentum -- electrons have spin, and hence angular momentum -- except it's never so simple at the atomic scale. I'll let Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles give you the "toddler" version (there's a lot more detail and a fun toddler-centric video at that link): [More]

[caption id="attachment_1449" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Harmonia axyridis, a colorful beetle that is turning into an invasive species (Image: Wikipedia Commons)"] [/caption]When the Europeans discovered the "New World", they infamously brought with them diseases which that world had never before encountered. Infectious agents like smallpox, typhus and cholera were generously shared with the local population - often deliberately so - and were responsible for significantly decimating the natives' numbers. It's a common theme; a species colonizes an ecosystem occupied by another and whether by accident or design, spreads invasive pathogens which quickly overwhelm the untrained immune system of the native species. Whether it's humans or ladybugs, invasive pathogens have always been a reliable weapon to bring about genocide. [More]

Ladybugs love to snack on aphids and other pests. So people began importing an Asian species called the harlequin ladybird as natural pest control. But in their new environments, the harlequins wiped out native ladybugs. And they have their parasites to thank. That’s according to research in the journal Science . [Andreas Vilcinskas et al, Invasive Harlequin Ladybird Carries Biological Weapons Against Native Competitors ]

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The Autistic Brain: Thinking across the Spectrum Temple Grandin Richard Panek Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013 ($28)

When Grandin, best-selling author and autism activist, began giving lectures on the disorder in the 1980s, it wasn't difficult to spot the audience members with autism because they were mostly on the severe end of the spectrum. Today, however, her audiences are filled with shy kids and those she calls “Steve Jobs, Jrs.” The shift is indicative of the increasing visibility and broadening definition of autism spectrum disorders, which, by the latest estimate, affect one in 88 children. In The Autistic Brain , Grandin and science writer Panek trace the evolution of autism and look ahead to scientific advances and educational reforms.

Diagnosed with autism in 1949 at age two, just two years after it was first proposed as a disorder, Grandin has had a front-row seat to the entire history of autism. Psychoanalytical theories of the 1950s and 1960s that blamed cold, distant mothers gave way to diagnostic categories based on checklists of behaviors. Although these categories are tweaked, the idea that autism is defined by its behaviors has stuck. Grandin believes that a new era of science will finally look beyond these outward manifestations to the biological underpinnings of autism.

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A portrait of John James Audubon shows the artist and naturalist in a dark wolf-skin cloak, cradling a gun and sporting curly dark hair that was likely smoothed back with bear grease. The picture was painted during Audubon's 1826 trip to England and Scotland, when he was playing up his role as the American woodsman to raise money for his opus, The Birds of America . Once completed, the collection included 435 prints of birds flying , eating, perching and fighting. Audubon is still lauded for his contributions to the fields of ornithology and art.

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After a slow start this year, tornado season made a deadly debut Wednesday night. An estimated dozen tornadoes touched down in north Texas. The damage included at least six people killed and whole houses that were suddenly yanked off their foundations to join the airborne debris.

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Probably Approximately Correct: Nature's Algorithms for Learning and Prospering in a Complex World [More]

Invisibility cloaks made of plastic can now be created at home using 3D printers, researchers show.

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NASA's long-lived Opportunity Mars rover is the new American champion of off-planet driving, breaking a distance record set more than 40 years ago by an Apollo moon buggy.

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It's time to spot some mountains on the moon.

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From Nature magazine

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This week I had a fascinating discussion on BBC Radio 4 with Dr Geordie Rose , the CTO of DWave , triggered by the news that NASA and Google are investing in DWave's "quantum computer" . The idea is to set up a facility that is used by both NASA and Google but also allows academics to book time on the system to try out new ideas.Our radio conversation brought out an important issue that has dogged this subject for several years: when is a quantum computer not a quantum computer? [More]

The word rational is widely misused. Scientists often apply it unnaturally, in ways that conflict with our biology. Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Gary Becker, and their respective schools of thought, are on opposite sides of this breach with our nature. They revive an old struggle between prudent empiricism and blinkering "theorism" (an overreliance on idealized models)." In common language a rational person is certainly reasonable ," and "generally in tune with reality," writes Kahneman. But economists generally use rational to mean " logical coherence--reasonable or not ." For example, Becker in "A Rational Theory of Addiction," says rational means having " a consistent plan to maximize utility over time ." Utility is a theoretical equivalent for profit or pleasure (see Bentham's bucket error ). Becker and his so called rational-agent school, by focusing exclusively on utility, tune out key realities. For them drug addiction is just another method of maximizing utility. [More]

From Mystic Chemist: The Life of Albert Hofmann and His Discovery of LSD , by Dieter Hagenbach and Lucius Werthmüller. Copyright © Synergetic Press, May 15, 2013.

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On a rooftop in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, two students are collecting soil samples from boxes planted with species from two native plant communities: Hempstead Plains, which are grasses belonging to a prairie community originally found on Long Island, and Rocky Summit grasslands,which grow on the tops of mountains and ridges throughout southern New England and all of New York State. They carefully place the dirt from the soil core into a plastic bag and seal it up to be taken to the lab for analysis.

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