Science

The author playing with his cool lab toys. Chris Lee This story was originally published as a series of four articles. Although the series will continue, we thought that a revised compilation would make better reading for those who haven't read the whole series. One of the great untold stories in science is the process of science itself. I don't mean stories about what scientists have discovered and what those discoveries tell us; we (and many others) cover those every day. I also don't mean stories about the pure joy of discovery and the excitement of finding out that everything you thought you understood was total nonsense. We cover that here at Ars occasionally, and there are plenty of books on the subject if you're hungry for more. What's missing is the background for these stories of discovery. How do you take an idea from its beginning as a casual musing all the way through an actual research program? What's involved in that process? How do you sort out the good ideas from the bad and choose what to pursue and what to abandon? That's the story I want to tell. Read 91 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Venus, Jupiter and Mercury will be in conjunction his weekend. Watch the western sky Sunday beginning about 30 minutes after sunset for the peak. (Reuters) - Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets in the sky this month, will be joined by tiny Mercury for a rare celestial show this weekend. Typically, Venus, the second-closest planet to the sun, and Jupiter, which orbits beyond Mars, are tens of millions of miles apart. But they have been cycling together while moving ever closer to each other this month, joined by the innermost planet Mercury. The celestial show peaks on Sunday when the trio will appear as a bright triangle of light in the western sky beginning about 30 minutes after sunset. Triple conjunctions are relatively rare, according to NASA. The last one was in May 2011 and the next one will not occur until October 2015. "This triple is especially good because it involves the three brightest planets in May's night sky," the U.S. space agency said on its website.

A baby gorilla has been born to first-time parents at an Ohio zoo.

A new military communications satellite has been launched into space.

Online video site Hulu is again up for sale, with Yahoo and pay TV operators DirecTV and Time Warner Cable among the seven bidders, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

An atomic research lab in northern Japan has reported a radiation leak that may have affected about 50 people, though none were hospitalized and no impact was expected outside the facility, the lab's operator said Saturday.

An injured turtle found by a fisherman in Florida has been returned to the sea after being treated at a rescue centre.

Today is the first day of the “Ways to Protolanguage 3” conference. which takes place on 25–26 May in in Wroc?aw, Poland. The Plenary speakers are Robin Dunbar, Joesp Call, and Peter Gärdenfors Both Hannah and I are at the conference and we’re also live-tweeting about the conference using the hashtag #protolang3 Hannah’s just given her talk Jack J. Wilson, Hannah Little (University of Leeds, UK; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) – Emerging languages in esoteric and exoteric niches: evidence from rural sign languages (abstract here) And I’m due tomorrow. Michael Pleyer (Heidelberg University, Germany) - Cooperation and constructions: looking at the evolution of language from a usage-based and construction grammar perspective (abstract here) The Programme can be found here: (Day 1 / Day 2)

This composite image of a galaxy illustrates how the intense gravity of a supermassive black hole can be tapped to generate immense power. The image contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), optical light obtained with the Hubble ...

May 20 – 24 Paleo-BS or solid science? This week, Cassie investigated the new obsession with intermittent fasting. Cameron examined the void that lurks on the far side of achievement. Christie revealed some of the most surprising and least expected effects of guns. Heather told us how experimental archaeology is helping answer the question of what people wore on intercontinental boat trips during the ice age. Richard tells us that Einstein and Freud met once. Draw your own conclusions. Happy Memorial Day, Americans!