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Photonic Radiative Cooling! What?!?, Atmospheric Annihilation, Dried Up Dwarves, Radiation Station, Smarter Mice, Worms Eat Plastic, Drill Bugs Drill, King Richard Remains, Odor Me This, Panda Flexibility, Reef Sounds, Ceasing Smoking, Seeing The Unseeable, And Much More…
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The world is full of details…
Innumerable levels of complexity from every size to every scale
There’s a something to see, where ever you look…
Some of it is even alive!
And with all this complexity abounding we then add humanity…
Sentient humanity with all of its conceptual complexity
Making laws out of rational and irrational thoughts alike
Peering back in time thousands, millions and billions of years…
And sometimes denying that any of it ever existed
We built science as a tool of knowledge to separate
the rational from the irrational, and have seen it wielded it as a weapon against tyranny…
And we have seen it wielded by tyrants…
As a result, sentient humanity with all of its conceptual complexity can fall into two categories…
Those who trust in the scientific method and those who do not
While both sides of this divide have their reasons for choosing where they stand
If you look up at a starry night and all you see is lights
You are missing the view of the Milky Way, and a billion suns burning bright
Here on This Week in Science… Coming up next!!!
Photonic Radiative Cooling! What?!?
Stanford researchers have developed a device for our rooftops that passively cools up to 5 degrees below ambient temperature and beams the excess heat into space.
Atmospheric Annihilation
MIT scientsists have calculated the probability of Earth losing its atmosphere due to the impacts of many small objects, and found it quite high.
Radiation Station
The MATROSHKA mission discovered that astronauts might not receive as much radiation as estimated.
Dried Up Dwarves
Old M-class dwarf stars might have burned too brightly early on in their planetary system development cycle to allow water-based life to form on so-called Goldilocks planets.
Smarter Mice
Adding human glial cells to developing mouse brains resulted in smarter mice.
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Worms Eat Plastic
Researchers discovered that a species of worm harbors gut bacteria that eat plastic. Might be good news for degrading plastics in the environment.
Drill Bugs Drill
Studies of how microbes attack cells have shown that they mechanically drill through the cell membrane to gain access to the cell interior.
King Richard’s Remains
They were found in a parking lot… well, under a lot being constructed that is.
Odor Me This
Kittiwakes likely use odor to choose mates. Scientists found that preen gland scents resemble genetic factors for immunity.
Panda Flexibility
Wish Blair was here for this one! Pandas can live more places than thought!
Reef Sounds
Coral reefs impacted by human activity and climate change are quiter than healthy reefs. This can impact all sorts of aspects of life on the reef.
Ceasing Smoking
Changes in brain activity in specific brain areas predict success in smoking cessation, and potentially point toward development of better approaches to the challenge.
Seeing The Unseeable
Technology to produce 3-dimensional shapes in middair that can be felt has been developed using ultrasound.
Infrared Vision
When pulsed properly, human eyes can see infrared light even though it is supposed to be outside our frequency range.
Ebola Update
Ebola continues to spread through Sierra Leone with death tolls rising.
Less Virulent HIV?
Adaptation of HIV to human immunity factors might be reducing its virulence.
Let’s Go To Mars!
Make sure to check out the results of tomorrow’s important Orion capsule launch.
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I'm the host of this little science show. 
For the year end show – can Blair do a rundown of all the invertebrate sex tales? I feel like there is a very disturbing “Night Before Twissmas” is the titles.
Great show!
Justin,
Vaping got me off of cigarettes two and a half years ago. Prior to that I had never tried to quit and had no interest in quitting, however a safer alternative did interest me. Based on the research available, it is safe to say that it is significantly safer than cigarettes, not surprising since the carcinogens are in the tar and byproducts of combustion. In the future, try not to make such baseless claims.
Dustin already got to it, but I wanted to add my thoughts to the whole vaping thing, being a user of vapes myself.
First, of course, some disclaimers:
I’m fully aware that anecdotes are not data. I’m not claiming otherwise. I’m following the science on vaping very closely and am ready to accept whatever the final verdicts are, be they in favor of vaping or against it, because science beats personal opinion every time.
Also, regulation, to me, is a good thing. So bring on the regulation! I’m all for it, and have yet to hear, in my years of debating this, a legitimate point against regulations.
With all that out of the way…
I have friends who have been able to quit nicotine entirely because of vapes, and I myself use them in order to quit.
I became a serious smoker twice: once when I was 15, and once earlier this year due to a job I had (and have now quit because of how bad it was for my mental health). Since the addiction was there from when I was 15, I immediately jumped into 3 packs a day when I started back up earlier this year. So a friend got me into vaping, and my brother cemented it for me. Now, I take in a lot less nicotine a day than I did when I was smoking, and my goal is to take it to the point where I’m not vaping any nicotine at all.
It does seem to work for some people. It’s also clear that the science isn’t completely in, yet, and much more studying needs to be done. So yes, it could be a placebo. But I’d argue that we don’t actually know, yet, scientifically, at least.
However, it has to be safer than cigarettes just based upon the basic ingredients used in the juices as compared to the ingredients used in cigarettes. Of course there’s nicotine (that’s kinda the point). There’s also vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, and flavorings. Personally, I seek out places that use natural and organic flavorings and sweeteners and avoid those that don’t. My main provider of juice actually keeps an extremely close eye on the science and what’s used, and if any particular flavoring proves to be harmful, he pulls it from the shelves immediately and doesn’t sell it again. And if he can’t recreate the flavor using safer ingredients, then the flavor is discontinued.
Compare that to cigarettes, which can include things like the ingredients for beer, tar, cement, as well as numerous poisons, and let’s not forget about all the carcinogens.
The science for vaping is not complete. A breakdown of what’s used in juices and how safe such ingredients are for being vaped is still being studied. Further, I think it would be prudent for the FDA to regulate what kinds of ingredients are allowed in juices as well as the methods and tools used to make juices. Obviously age limits are smart, as well, and limiting where people can vape (like the idiot in one of my college classes last semester who ripped off a HUGE cloud in the middle of class with his vape) is a good idea, too.
Though I would be absolutely against a full-out ban, unless it’s banning nicotine outright, but I’d still be against that because… seriously… when has prohibition *ever* worked? It certainly failed for alcohol and the War on Drugs is a complete and total failure, as well.
But there are those out there for whom vaping has actually helped with their efforts to quit, so it’s worth, at the very least, looking in to.
I do get being against it outright if you’ve not ever dealt with nicotine addiction, or even if you have but have managed to not only quit but put it behind you. Just… please… do more research before outright assuming it doesn’t work. The science not being in doesn’t mean it’s automatically pseudo-science. It just means that it needs more study.