Discover Magazine

Awesome Eight-Year-Olds Publish Bee Study in Legit Scientific Journal

by Jamie Frevele | 12:55 pm, December 22nd

This is both adorable and encouraging: A group of eight- to ten-year-olds in England wrote and published a journal article in the very legit “high-powered” scientific journal Biology Letters. According to an excerpt from the article’s abstract, the study covers “whether bees could learn to use the spatial relationships between colours to figure out which flowers [to visit].” With the exception of the abstract, the kids wrote the entire article themselves. What have our kids been doing lately?

The 25 kids, who attend Blackawton Primary School in Devon, England, conducted the study through the educational science program, “i, scientist,” which encourages children to conduct their own scientific research and is overseen by the kids’ head teacher, David Strudwick, and neuroscientist Beau Lotto, whose son, Misha participated in the study. (There’s a half-hour video about the program here.) The kids are officially “the youngest scientists to publish an article in a Royal Society journal.”

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The title pretty much says it all

NASA to Students: Help Crash our Satellite, Please?

by James Plafke | 11:23 am, September 3rd

University of Colorado at Boulder undergraduates piloted a multi-million dollar NASA satellite to its fiery oceanic death. NASA’s response: Thanks guys.

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Pulitzer Winning Cartoonist Banned From App Store Will Be Allowed to Resubmit

by Susana Polo | 10:03 am, April 17th

In December, Mark Fiore submitted an app to Apple that would allow his fans to view his political animated cartoons. Apple rejected his app, saying that his cartoons were “objectionable content.”

Well, on Monday, Fiore’s work was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning to go to an online only cartoon. Apple is now asking him to resubmit his app.

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This Exists

A Living Planet: Avalanches on Mars

by Susana Polo | 11:34 am, March 15th

We usually think of the other planets in our solar system as relatively peaceful, unchanging. It’s sort of a “tree falls in the forest” situation. If there’s no life, how active can they really be? The storm on Jupiter is a swirling maelstrom, sure, but it’s a swirling maelstrom that’s been around for over two hundred years.

And yet… spring is approaching the northern hemisphere of Mars, thawing the carbon dioxide ice that’s built up along cliff faces. And when you get thawing ice on cliff faces, you also get…

Avalanches.

Read on...

14 of the Best Geekiest Beers

Given beer's pervasive place in human history, it's not surprising that the geeky pastimes of drinkers would eventually rub off on the beers themselves. The result is a veritable cornucopia of nerdy beers, 14 of which are right here.

Tweetosystem

Eric Limer I'm trying to come up with a control scheme where I can use my xbox 360 controller for leisurely web surfing. It's....interesting.
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James Plafke For a show about a sport I don't really dig, Friday Night Lights is an alright show.
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Eric Limer Just spent a few hours playing Kyntt. Stunning, cute little game. Highly recommended.
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Max Wanna create work flows, wanna make it all work work work.
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James Plafke I am jealous Elmo got to make out with Kristin Chenoweth.
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Eric Limer I swear under my breath A LOT. This must make people near by me very uncomfortable. That being said, I have no intentions of stopping.
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Max Court is now in session at the Burp Castle.
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Eric Limer I don't look at my finances as often as I should which is the main reason why I don't often want to look at my finances.
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Max Desert PolyBus: The game where you drive to Reno and then die.
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Eric Limer If I wrote a webcomic, every strip would be titled "Get it? GET IT?!"
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Max Got chili oil on my hands and face. It hurts. A lot.
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Eric Limer Suddenly I remember what I hate about PC gaming. Mainly never having a computer that can actually do it.
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James Plafke The halftime show taught me that football-watching men drinking beer who love seeing muscular men beat each other up really like to vogue.
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Max Pestering your friends at 8am is how you show you care, right? #hopeso
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Eric Limer Twitter is like RiffTrax for EVERYTHING.
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James Plafke I know global warming is scary, but not having a winter was pretty cool. I didn't have to spend money on shoes for the snow.
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Eric Limer I hereby apologize to all persons --past, present and future-- who have the misfortune of hearing me "sing" dubstep songs.
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Max Even Facebook's Timeline thinks I could have done more with my life.
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Max I did that thing where Facebook turns your Timeline into a movie. Mine had pictures of ducks and foliage set to really dramatic music.
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Max "But I don't wanna go to the dog show!"
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