En un comienzo de año terrible, en el que Reino Unido ha batido su récord de contagios desde el comienzo de la pandemia, el ministro de Sanidad, Matt Hancock, ha vuelto a alarmar sobre la dispersión de las nuevas variantes de coronavirus. Si el 14 de d…
We left behind this troubled 2020, and as has been tradition (in addition to set new goals for the new year), it is advisable to look back, recapitulate and organize achievements and mistakes. At Xataka Ciencia we are going to present you some of the achievements.
Specifically, at the democratic level: the entries that have had the most audience, more readings, more massive success (which naturally does not mean that they are the most elaborate, interesting or original entries, but we still do not have a way to objectively measure these parameters). Below you have the Top 10 entries published during 2020.
This is the oldest known living vertebrate: It is a shark that has been swimming for almost four centuries. This is a 393-year-old Greenland shark that was found in the Arctic Ocean. It has been roaming the ocean since 1627. It is the oldest known living vertebrate on the planet.
People who have tattoos are psychologically different from people who do not have them.. Until recently, wearing tattoos in countries like Spain was more associated with a licentious, even quarrelsome, life; In fact, in countries like Japan this continues to be the case. Nowadays, having tattoos is so mainstream that not wearing them could even seem slightly rebellious. However, according to a study published in 2019, there are relevant psychological differences among people who on average have tattoos.
The iMASC system is proposed as a reusable alternative to N95 masks. Given the shortage of N95 masks, a team of bioengineers and clinical experts from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing, still in prototype form, a new sustainable solution for healthcare workers to provide protection during the pandemic.
Losing weight while walking: what science tells us about losing weight without diet and walking. When it comes to losing weight, not only our appearance and losing weight are at stake, but also our health: overweight and obesity are risk factors for many serious diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems or cancer, among others.
According to this model there are up to six levels of critical thinking: from thoughtless thinkers to master thinkers.. We all like to be right. Reduce complex issues until they are simple and, if possible, Manichean. We're also happy to slip superficial thoughts into typical bar conversation, more cathartic than reflective. We even like to debate, but not so much to confront ideas and enrich our own, but as a social act, an interaction similar to a dance.
It's not a spider or a dog, even though it looks like one: it's a murgaño. Although it looks like a grotesque spider holding a kind of dog or wolf head, we are dealing with pareidolia (a psychological phenomenon where a vague and random stimulus is mistakenly perceived as a recognizable shape). In reality, this strange creature is a murgaño or reaper (Metagryne bicolumnata), one of the many species that live in the Amazon.
These photorealistic portraits of Roman emperors have been created from historical references using a neural network. The main technology behind Artbreeder is a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), a class of artificial intelligence algorithms used in unsupervised learning. Thanks to GAN, Photoshop and a good handful of historical references, photorealistic portraits of the main Roman emperors have been created: a total of 54 ranging from 27 BC to 285 AD. C.).
Electron microscopes have reached the resolution to see atoms and offer us images this impressive. They are beginning to rival X-ray crystallography, because electron microscopes have reached the resolution necessary to see atoms. Specifically, they already move in dimensions of 1.2 angstrom (Å), a unit of measurement equivalent to one ten billionth of a meter: 0.000 000 000 1 meters. There are 100 million angstroms in one centimeter. That is, 120 picometers (pm), twice that of an oxygen atom (50 picometers). The atomic diameters are between 50 pm to 600 pm.
The ugliest people tend to be progressive, the most beautiful people tend to be conservative.. People who identify as more attractive are more likely to also identify as conservative. On the contrary, those who are perceived as less attractive tend to be on the other side of the political spectrum. This is at least what the following study by researchers at the University of Illinois suggests.
A new black hole is discovered and it is the most massive that has been seen so far: the equivalent of 34 billion suns. The giant black hole studied, known as 'J2157', was discovered by the same research team in 2018. New research led by the Australian National University (ANU) has revealed how massive it really is.
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The news
The most read entries in Xataka Ciencia throughout 2020
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
Reading code activates a general-purpose brain network, but not language processing centers, which shows that the programming language is not assimilated as if it were an ordinary language that we use to communicate.
Thus, although computer code has the characteristics of a language, reading it activates a distributed network called multiple demand network, which is also used for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.
A programming language It is a formal language (or artificial, that is, a language with well-defined grammatical rules) that provides a person, in this case the programmer, the ability to write (or program) a series of instructions or sequences of commands in form. of algorithms in order to control the physical or logical behavior of a computer. But it activates different regions in our brain when we read.
An example of source code written in the Java programming language, which will print the message "Hello World!" to standard output when compiled and executed
However, although reading code activates the multiple demand network, it seems to depend more on different parts of the network than mathematical or logical problems, suggesting that coding also does not accurately replicate the cognitive demands of mathematics. That is, the code is not processed as language, nor as mathematics.
There are two schools of thought regarding how the brain learns to write code.. One maintains that to be good at programming, you must be good at math. The other suggests that, due to parallels between coding and language, linguistic skills might be more relevant. Therefore, to shed light on this issue, the researchers set out to study whether the patterns of brain activity when reading code would overlap with brain activity related to language.
The researchers say that while they did not identify any regions that appear to be dedicated exclusively to programming, such specialized brain activity could develop in people who have much more experience in coding. The findings suggest that there is no definitive answer to whether coding should be taught as a math-based skill or a language-based skill.
The two programming languages that the researchers focused on in this study are known for their readability: Python and ScratchJr, a visual programming language designed for children ages 5 and up.
Evelina Fedorenko, Frederick A. and Carole J. Middleton Career Development Associate Professor of Neuroscience and member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is senior author of This studio, which has been published in eLife. Researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Tufts University also participated in the study.
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The news
When reading a programming language, the same regions of the brain are not activated as when reading a normal language.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
A group of botanists have discovered a new species of flower on a remote Hawaiian hillside. The new plant is called Cyanea heluensis and features curved white flowers.
The newly discovered flower is so rare that there is only one plant of its species.
The plant was discovered in the city of Lahaina by botanists Hank Oppenheimer and Jennifer Higashino, as the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources press release notes. Scientists were studying the area's steep, rugged slopes when they found the flower. The inaccessibility of the site and the difficulty of traversing the terrain probably contributed to the fact that this plant had not been found before.
The white flower has similarities to a native plant called Haha, but its curved flowers are quite different. They are pollinated by birds and eventually produce orange fruits that are eaten by local fruit-eating birds while they disperse the seeds. Botanists have been scouring the area where the rare plant was found, trying to find more seeds of this type, but they haven't achieved it yet.
The plant has been added to the list of 250 species monitored by the University of Hawaii's Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP). Safeguards have been installed at the discovery site, especially against slugs, rats, pigs and goats.
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The news
This newly discovered plant is so rare that only one of its kind has been found so far
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
La humanidad lleva décadas intentando conseguir para sí la energía casi ilimitada y limpia del Sol. Varios proyectos en todo el mundo intentan recrear pequeñas «estrellas en miniatura» para conseguir una tecnología que las emule aquí, en la Tierra, per…
Not everyone’s had a bad time.
