Deutsche Welle: Big data reveals Shakespeare co-authored 17 of his plays. “Shakespeare got help in writing 17 of his world-famous plays – including from his supposed arch rival Christopher Marlowe. The mixed authorship was revealed in a new edition of his works that relied on big data.”
Category Archives: Science
Schiaparelli Mars lander hit the planet hard — and possibly exploded.
NPR the two-way: Schiaparelli Mars Lander May Have Exploded On Impact, European Agency Says.
“”Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometers, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h [186 mph]. The relatively large size of the feature would then arise from disturbed surface material. It is also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as its thruster propellant tanks were likely still full.””
“It started with a fortuitous chair squeak.”
NPR two-way: A Spider Across The Room Can ‘Hear’ You, Study Finds. By Merrit Kennedy.
“Scientists have discovered a new kind of spidey sense.
We already knew that jumping spiders have exceptional vision. We knew that they are great at perceiving vibrations. We even knew that they can “hear” at extremely close range.
But in research published in Current Biology, researchers at Cornell University found that a common species of jumping spider called Phidippus audax can actually hear from much farther away than we thought — at distances of 10 feet away, or more.”
Apes, like very young infants, understand subjectivity and the limits of perspective.
NPR Science: Apes May Be More Like Us Than We Thought. By Alva Noë.
“Suppose I take the candy from the cabinet where you left it and put it someplace else. Where will you look for it when you get home?
Children younger than 5 will rarely get this right. When questioned, they will say, mistakenly, that you will look for the candy at its new location. […] If you measure not what they say, but what they do, in particular, where they look, it turns out that they are able to anticipate that you will look for the candy where you mistakenly believe it still is.
We now know the same is true of apes.”
From a catastrophe to a new theory
Physics Girl: The Ultraviolet Catastrophe.
“How did the field of quantum mechanics come about in the first place? The Rayleigh-Jeans catastrophe, also known as the ultraviolet catastrophe was a prediction by the Rayleigh-Jeans law that a blackbody would radiate infinite amounts of ultraviolet light. It wasn’t until Max Planck came along and predicted that light came in packets or quanta that the field of quantum mechanics emerged and unintentionally solved the ultraviolet catastrophe.”