Monday Science Links

Here's this week's sciency goodness.

• At Bad Astronomy, Phil looks at a black hole devouring a star: Deep in the heart of a globular cluster orbiting an elliptical galaxy, it looks very much as if a massive black hole is in the process of tearing apart and devouring the remnant of an old star. And how do we know we’re witnessing this violent stellar demise? Black holes are messy eaters.


• At Backreaction, Bee wonders if humans are cognitively biased: Recently we discussed the question “What is natural?” Today, I want to expand on the key point I was making. What humans find interesting, natural, elegant, or beautiful originates in brains that developed through evolution and were shaped by sensory input received and processed. This genetic history also affects the sort of question we are likely to ask, the kind of theory we search for, and how we search. I am wondering then may it be that we are biased to miss clues necessary for progress in physics?


• At his blog, David Crystal debunks the teenagers use 800 words myth: A Sunday Times correspondent rang up last week to ask what I thought about the claim made by Jean Gross (described as the new UK 'communications czar') that 'the average teenager uses just 800 words in daily communication'. It was one of those waste-of-time interviews, where I spoke to the reporter for about 20 minutes, explaining how simplistic statements of that kind are rubbish, and what the linguistic realities are, and got one sentence in the report for my pains. Plus an ignoring of all the issues. The report was headed 'Youngsters are using just 800 words in everyday speech', as if this was a fact. I'm already receiving emails asking whether this is true, and I expect more as the week proceeds. So this post is to try to save a lot of time by summarizing the issues. In short: it isn't true, and I would call it the biggest load of chicken-droppings... except that I've already used that line in this blog [the post about the 'millionth word in English' claim - also, incidentally, listed as a fact in this Sunday Times report. Heigh ho... :( ]


• At the New York Times Kenneth Chang answers the question if there's global warming why is it so dang cold?: A bitter wind has been blowing over parts of North America, Europe and Asia. Some places have been colder than ever, like Melbourne, Fla., which dipped to 28 degrees last Thursday, a record low. Europe has been walloped by snowstorm after snowstorm. What’s going on? Global cooling? Nope. A mass of high pressure is sitting over Greenland like a rock in a river, deflecting the cold air of the jet stream farther to the south than usual. This situation is caused by Arctic oscillation, in which opposing atmospheric pressure patterns at the top of the planet occasionally shift back and forth, affecting weather across much of the Northern Hemisphere. What’s notable this year is that the pattern of high pressure over the Arctic is more pronounced than at any time since 1950.


• At Cognitive Daily Dave looks at how outfielders catch fly balls: It's football season in America: The NFL playoffs are about to start, and tonight, the elected / computer-ranked top college team will be determined. What better time than now to think about ... baseball! Baseball players, unlike most football players, must solve one of the most complicated perceptual puzzles in sports: how to predict the path of a moving target obeying the laws of physics, and move to intercept it. The question of how a baseball player knows where to run in order to catch a fly ball has baffled psychologists for decades.

Enjoy!