Science News for Writers

Chart shows the enormous uptick in species loss over the last century. Biologists using highly conservative estimates to prove that species are disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs' demise. For writers of fiction and film, everything that happens or might happen is fair game, subject only to the writer's imagination. On our small planet we're facing many challenges; a writer's job is to help educate people about what is happening and what may come of the changes - and how the changes might impact a character's life. It would be surprising if people aren't aware of the rapid decline of bees, the pesky little visitors to our backyard picnics that we rely on for food and the impact their decline could have on all of us. The loss of pollinators isn't the story, it's a symptom of a much larger story, a story that impacts us all.     As this report below points out, the decline of species goe...

Early man huddles up to discuss the next play in their game against their hated rival, the Mastodons .   For anyone who longs for the mythical, mystical "good old days", bad news.  People were people even then, one hundred thousand years ago. In scientific terms: according to research out of Stony Brook University,  "'behavioral modernity' is a flawed concept. In truth, early humans were not much different from us." Oh, the humanity.  104 thousand years and we're still pretty much the way we were back then.  We've put men on the moon but still club each other over the heads with whatever is at hand. Sure, our toys and tools are somewhat more advanced, but men still scratch, rub, belch and fart much as we did in pre-history.  Women are just as disgusted, still exhibiting the eye roll now as they did then. Think; in that period we've domesticated the wolf, ibex and horse, we've domesticated plants, do...

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech   This artist's concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. Smaller black holes also exist throughout galaxies.     I f you think physics is an obscure, difficult to understand science, you ain't read nothing yet.   To set this up, last week Daniel Grumiller and co-researchers at TU Wien in cooperation with the University of Edinburgh, Harvard, IISER Pune, MIT and the University of Kyoto announced that, "Our own universe could in fact be two dimensional and only appear three dimensional -- just like a hologram."   If you don't know what that means, don't feel bad.  I don't know and I doubt more than a handful of the 7 or 8 billion people on this planet have more than a clue.  And half of them are probably lying.   So here we are, mindi...

For the writers of crime drama and police procedurals, this report offers an understanding of what really predicts serious crime in a neighborhood.  It's not the existing crime rate per se, it's the number of interpersonal conflict calls received.  It could be a landlord - tenant dispute, domestic violence, vandalism or any in a range of essentially minor problems - not necessarily crimes - between people in a community. Based on this new research from Northeastern University and Harvard University, it is people facing stressful conflicts with others who may respond violently leading to an overall increase in a neighborhood crime rate. Here's the full report: *  *  *  *  * Interpersonal conflict is the strongest predictor of community crime and misconduct "Private conflicts, for example, domestic violence or friendship disputes over money or girlfriends, can and do spill over into public spaces, be it on stoops or str...

Credit: TU Wien   What we perceive as three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge cosmic horizon.     "Our own universe could in fact be two dimensional and only appear three dimensional -- just like a hologram ." I have long been a science geek, even though my degree and work experience has little to do with science.  Yet, I've followed science over the years, often in total bewilderment.   The story out of the University of Vienna is full of promising lines like this: "It is like finding out that equations from an astronomy  textbook can also be used to repair a CD-player."  People still have CD players? Never mind.   This story intrigues, but I must admit I haven't a clue about the science.  The universe may be two dimensional?  And only appears three dimensional?  This reminds me of a sophomore philosophy course.  Something about a cave with images cast on a ...

Credit: A. de Kraker   This photograph shows remnants of the former breach made here in February 1584, now a tidal channel. The marshland visible in the picture is former arable land.   Floods as War Weapons A new study shows that, from 1500 until 2000, about a third of floods in southwestern Netherlands were deliberately caused by humans during wartimes. Some of these inundations resulted in significant changes to the landscape, being as damaging as floods caused by heavy rainfall or storm surges. The work, by Dutch researcher Adriaan de Kraker, is published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, a journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). During the Eighty Years' War, as the Spanish army fought to recapture territory in what is now northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands in the late sixteenth century, the Dutch rebels led by William of Orange decided to use the low-lying, flood-prone landscape to their advantage. In an attempt to liberate B...

This study out of the University of Chicago deals with a topic common in fiction and film - a good person is put in a position of temptation and gives in. Why do they do this?  As you might imagine, they often don't think through the consequences and give in to an urge that they may later regret.  How many thefts, killings and other crimes happen this way? There are some people who don't think about consequences ever, but are they "normal?"  But the average person when faced with temptation, that is the story that most readers or viewers identify with.  One poor decision can turn a person's life on its head, leading to consequences that that can last a lifetime. Here's the story: *  *  *  *  *   Why good people do bad things Honest behavior is much like sticking to a diet. When facing an ethical dilemma, being aware of the temptation before it happens and thinking about the long-term consequences of misbehaving co...