Tiny, 540-Million-Year-Old Human Ancestor Didn't Have an Anus

A speck-size creature without an anus is the oldest known prehistoric ancestor of humans, a new study finds.

Researchers found the remains of the 540-million-year-old critter — a bag-like sea organism — in central China. The creature is so novel, it has its own family (Saccorhytidae), as...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/tiny-540-million-year-old-human-ancestor-didnt-have-an-anus/

What the Rapid Growth of Computer Science Means for the Future

What is next for Computer Science education in the next 10-20 years? originally appeared on Quora – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.


Answer by Bill Poucher, CS Professor at Baylor University and Executive Director...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/what-the-rapid-growth-of-computer-science-means-for-the-future/

What is the Devil? | The Huffington Post

From An Opinionated Dictionary of Religion at uponreligion.comDEVIL. Noun. A felon on license from God to wreak havoc on Earth.


The notion that unfortunate events are caused by unseen evil entities is prehistoric and ubiquitous. Every tribe has had its dastardly creatures responsibly...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/what-is-the-devil-the-huffington-post/

Analogue black hole could be made from plasma mirror

Black-hole analogue: an accelerating plasma mirror
An analogue to the creation of Hawking radiation at the event horizon of a black hole could be made by firing an intense laser pulse at specially designed targets. That’s the conclusion of physicists in Taiwan and France, who say that...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/analogue-black-hole-could-be-made-from-plasma-mirror/

Scientists speak out against U.S. President Trump’s immigration ban

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Protestors rally outside JFK Airport in response to an immigration issued ban issued by U.S. President Donald J. Trump.
Credit: Linda Rosier/Polaris/Newscom



President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on Jan. 27 barring travel to the U.S....

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https://skpsoft.com/science/scientists-speak-out-against-u-s-president-trumps-immigration-ban/

Are Earth's Magnetic Poles About to Flip?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The Earth’s magnetic field surrounds our planet like an invisible force field – protecting life from harmful solar...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/are-earths-magnetic-poles-about-to-flip/

5 Ways to Empower Girls to Code

Part two of the Everyday Empowerment series for girls and women


Imagine a brand new language is replacing English as THE leading international means of communication — its vocabulary is growing exponentially, soon only those who speak it fluently will be able to fully participate...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/5-ways-to-empower-girls-to-code/

What Is An Atheist ?

“So shall I do to the freshest things now reigning, and make stale the glistering of this present” (TIME, as the Chorus in The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare)


ATHEIST. noun. One unconvinced about the God of his epoch.


I am supposing human ingenuity will arrest or...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/what-is-an-atheist/

Light recorded mimicking a sonic boom

Making waves: a photonic Mach cone has been captured by ultrafast, single-shot technique
The optical equivalent of a sonic boom has been filmed for the first time. The feat involved two important breakthroughs, slowing the light to create the effect and developing an ultrafast imaging...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/light-recorded-mimicking-a-sonic-boom/

Trump sets U.S. on new path | January 30, 2017 Issue - Vol. 95 Issue 5

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On the first business day after his inauguration, President Donald J. Trump issued a presidential memorandum formally withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Credit: Ron Sachs–Pool via CNP/Sipa US/Newscom



During his first...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/trump-sets-u-s-on-new-path-january-30-2017-issue-vol-95-issue-5/

US Can't Kick Soda Habit

Soda habits among kids and adults in the U.S. are still going strong: About two-thirds of children and half of adults report drinking at one least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day, two new reports find.

One report focused on children and teens ages 2 to 19; it found that 63 percent of...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/us-cant-kick-soda-habit/

How Can We Get More Girls and Women in Tech?

Folks, it’s important to support women in tech. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68% of women enroll in college (compared to 63% of men), and women increasingly outnumber men in college graduation rates. Despite these stats, women still make up only a quarter of the tech...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/how-can-we-get-more-girls-and-women-in-tech/

What is the End of the World ?

Every year of the calendar, for ages and ages, up to and including this year, there have been religious persons convinced that the end of the world was coming soon. People in numerous religions have held this view. But the end never comes.


It would disclose a high degree of vanity in me...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/what-is-the-end-of-the-world/

Flash Physics: Sound can halt tsunamis, scientists to march on Washington, H0LiCOW measures Hubble constant

Flash Physics is our daily pick of the latest need-to-know developments from the global physics community selected by Physics World‘s team of editors and reporters

Sound waves could halt tsunamis
Sound idea: acoustic gravity waves could mitigate tsunami damage
The devastating effects...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/flash-physics-sound-can-halt-tsunamis-scientists-to-march-on-washington-h0licow-measures-hubble-constant/

U.S. science community reacts to Trump Administration | January 30, 2017 Issue - Vol. 95 Issue 5

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The planned March for Science is being compared with 2013 demonstrations in Canada like this one held in Ottawa.
Credit: Kevin O’Donnell



Scientists and science advocates are among millions expressing concern over U.S. President Donald ...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/u-s-science-community-reacts-to-trump-administration-january-30-2017-issue-vol-95-issue-5/

Tiny, Underwater Robots Offer Unprecedented View of World's Oceans

A group shot of the M-AUEs in Jaffe’s lab, awaiting deployment.
Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography




Robots the size of grapefruits are set to change the way scientists study the Earth’s oceans, according to a new s...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/tiny-underwater-robots-offer-unprecedented-view-of-worlds-oceans/

Australian Zoo Begs Public To Catch Deadly Spiders For Milking

An Australian zookeeper on Tuesday urged people to catch and donate deadly funnel-web spiders, to help replenish stocks of antidote running low after a spate of spider bites.


The Australian Reptile Park, the country’s sole supplier of funnel-web venom to antidote producers since 1981, r...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/australian-zoo-begs-public-to-catch-deadly-spiders-for-milking/

This is How Far Web Development Has Come in Twenty Years

What are the major milestones in Web Development over the last two decades? originally appeared on Quora – the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

It’s worth noting that a lot has changed in web development over the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/this-is-how-far-web-development-has-come-in-twenty-years/

Only A Minority Is Right

‘It is possible that none of the religions are true, and it is absolutely impossible that more than one can be true.’ — Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, 45 BCE


‘Each religious disputant triumphs in his turn while he carries on an offensive war and exposes the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/only-a-minority-is-right/

J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.: What is a Cult ?

The word ‘cult’ is never benign in religious terminology as it is in the world of art, where Johnny Stonenoggin filmster extraordinaire may cult-ivate a cult following for his eccentricity in artistry. Eccentricity in religion, if recent enough, is rarely welcomed with approving...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/j-h-mckenna-ph-d-cult/

Justin Kitch: From Tug of War to Excel Errors: This Week's Curios

Every day of the year, Curious.com CEO Justin Kitch writes a quirky fact, known as the Daily Curio, intended to tickle the brains of lifelong learners everywhere. This is a weekly digest.


Last week’s Curios covered the Million Dollar Homepage, the origin of Auto-Tune, and an Excel...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/justin-kitch-tug-war-excel-errors-weeks-curios/

Shocking the Brain: The Wild History of Electroconvulsive Therapy

Carrie Fisher’s ashes are in an urn designed to look like a Prozac pill. It’s fitting that in death she continues to be both brash and wryly funny about a treatment for depression.
The public grief over Carrie Fisher’s death was not only for an actress who played one of the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/shocking-brain-wild-history-electroconvulsive-therapy/

Wild monkey filmed mounting deer and trying to have sex with it

She’s just not that into you

Alexandre Bonnefoy – Éditions Issekinicho


By Andy Coghlan
Oh deer! A male Japanese macaque monkey has been caught in the act of trying to mate with two Sika deer by leaping on their backs, rodeo-style.
Captured in November 2015 by researchers monitoring the maca...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/wild-monkey-filmed-mounting-deer-trying-sex/

Warming Oceans Could Boost Dangerous Toxin In Your Shellfish Dinner

Dungeness crabs for sale at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. California’s Dungeness crab season was shut down in 2015, when record high ocean temperatures and lingering toxic algae blooms raised the domoic acid in shellfish to unsafe levels. A new study links dangerously...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/warming-oceans-boost-dangerous-toxin-shellfish-dinner/

Test your smarts on the tenacious hagfish and your body’s newest organ!

Take the Science Quiz and test your knowledge of the week’s hottest science news. Play now for your chance to win a free subscription to Science!

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Website. Note: Content may be edited for style, length and contents to maintain the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/test-smarts-tenacious-hagfish-bodys-newest-organ/

D.C. Museum's 'Nasty Women' Tour Celebrates Art History's Feminist Heroes

During the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton was responding to a question about social security when Donald Trump notoriously interrupted her, muttering the phrase “Such a nasty woman,” not so under his breath.


What Trump meant by those words was immediately and abundantly clear to ...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/d-c-museums-nasty-women-tour-celebrates-art-historys-feminist-heroes/

Sanjna Verma: When Things Trend Wrong

It was interesting to have an Indian film industry icon, Kareena Kapoor Khan, pop up on my news feed, but the reason she popped up surprised me.


Kareena Kapoor Khan started trending on my news feed two days ago, after she was seen “eating with friends”. The exact dialogue that...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/sanjna-verma-things-trend-wrong/

How Can Scientists Solve Case With 50-Year-Old DNA?

The news that 50-year-old DNA provided a break in the Boston Strangler murder case may have you wondering: just how long does DNA last?


Yesterday, investigators on the Boston Strangler murders, which occurred in the 1960s, said that DNA taken from a blanket at one crime scene was a very...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/can-scientists-solve-case-50-year-old-dna/

J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.: Advice to Young Ph.D.s in Religious Studies

Circumstances may have changed. But in 1993 when I earned a newly minted Ph.D., a senior scholar gave me the following advice:

“As a freshly minted Ph.D. in Religious Studies you must embrace epoche as an indispensable approach to the study of religion. Pronounce it epokay, with the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/j-h-mckenna-ph-d-advice-young-ph-d-s-religious-studies/

Germans Advised To Walk Like Penguins On Ice

German trauma surgeons advised the public on Wednesday to walk like penguins to avoid slipping on pavements with freezing temperatures forecast nationwide over the next few days.


An advisory published on the website of the German Society of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery said that walking...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/germans-advised-walk-like-penguins-ice/

Learning a Second Language Linked to Synesthesia

People with synesthesia experience the sensory world in a unique way — for example, they “taste” words or “hear” colors. Now, new research suggests that people who learn a second language but aren’t exposed to that second language very early in life are more l...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/learning-second-language-linked-synesthesia/

How Hummingbirds Sense Movement While Hovering

Anna’s hummingbirdFLICKR, MICK THOMPSONHummingbirds are efficient hoverers, suspending their bodies midair using rapid forward and backward strokes. Aside from their unique ability to hover, the tiny avians are also the only known birds that can fly in any direction, including sideways....

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https://skpsoft.com/science/hummingbirds-sense-movement-hovering/

Radio Bursts Traced to Faraway Galaxy, but Caller Is Probably ‘Ordinary Physics’

More recently, searches for radio signals from a set of stars with anomalous spectral features and another star known as Tabby’s Star that has shown suspicious variations in its light seem to have come up empty.

Continue reading the main story

So at least for now, the skies appear to be b...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/radio-bursts-traced-faraway-galaxy-caller-probably-ordinary-physics/

China to plow $361 billion into renewable fuel by 2020

BEIJING China will plow 2.5 trillion yuan ($361 billion) into renewable power generation by 2020, the country’s energy agency said on Thursday, as the world’s largest energy market continues to shift away from dirty coal power towards cleaner fuels.
The investment will create over...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/china-plow-361-billion-renewable-fuel-2020/

Prince Harry 'constantly in trouble' at school, Diana told steward

Letters sent by Princess Diana to a Buckingham Palace head steward reveal that Prince Harry was “constantly in trouble” at boarding school.
Diana sent the six handwritten notes – which are expected to sell for thousands of pounds at auction – to Cyril Dickman in the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/prince-harry-constantly-trouble-school-diana-told-steward/

The Extinction Of The Dinosaurs Was Party Their Own Fault

The dinosaurs have had a pretty tough time since their extinction around 65 million years ago.


Not content with being summarily wiped out by what could have been a giant asteroid it now appears as though our scaled cousins also suffered from another particularly unlucky roll of the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/extinction-dinosaurs-party-fault/

Melanie Walker: SDGs Made with Code: Giving women and girls the power to change the world

Originally published by the World Bank Group: http://blogs.worldbank.org/ic4d/sdgs-made-code-giving-young-women-power-change-world


Co-authored with Mariana Dahan


Increasingly more aspects in our lives are powered by technology, yet women aren’t represented in the roles that create...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/melanie-walker-sdgs-made-code-giving-women-girls-power-change-world/

Hungry Kids Used As Guinea Pigs By Government Scientists, Historian Says

Canadian government scientists used malnourished native populations as unwitting subjects in experiments conducted in the 1940s and 1950s to test nutritional interventions. The tests, many of which involved children at state-funded residential schools, had been largely forgotten until they...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/hungry-kids-used-guinea-pigs-government-scientists-historian-says/

J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.: What is Marriage ?

Surveying world religions and cultures, marriage can be described as a life-long agreement between two or more people typically involving three commitments: some degree of cohabitation, some degree of exclusivity in sexuality, and some degree of mutual effort in the rearing children.


Given...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/j-h-mckenna-ph-d-marriage/

Wearable That 'Tastes' Skin Could Help Diabetics and Athletes

Diabetics and athletes alike could soon be able to test their blood sugar and lactic acid levels to measure those health stats with a wrist-worn device that can virtually “taste” through the skin, according to device maker PKvitality.
The company’s $149 K’track Glucose...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/wearable-tastes-skin-help-diabetics-athletes/

Ants craft tiny sponges to dip into honey and carry it home

Soaking up a liquid lunch

J. Coelho/CC-BY


By Kata Karáth
Ants may be smarter than we give them credit for. Tool use is seen as something brainy primates and birds do, but even the humble ant can choose the right tool for the job.
István Maák at the University of Szeged in Hungary and his te...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/ants-craft-tiny-sponges-dip-honey-carry-home/

Astronaut Honors Carrie Fisher's Legacy for Women in Space

Princesses shouldn’t be passive, girls have character & ability to lead.The world needs them to fulfil their potential–thanks @carrieffisher pic.twitter.com/2FLJm317dt
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) December 28, 2016
This week the world lost an icon of powerful women, Carrie Fish...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/astronaut-honors-carrie-fishers-legacy-women-space/

News Analysis: In Shift, China to Shut Ivory Market — but Will That Save Elephants?

• African elephants face other threats, including habitat destruction and increasingly deadly contacts with humans. In Kenya, a truck speeding down a highway recently rammed into an elephant and killed it.

Continue reading the main story

• Many elephants are also hunted for bush meat. Chi...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/news-analysis-shift-china-shut-ivory-market-will-save-elephants/

These nine different creatures have been named after Barack Obama

Though U.S. President Barack Obama is leaving office soon, he will be forever immortalized in taxonomy thanks to scientists who have named species after him. Nine different species from extinct lizards to trapdoor spiders got their names from the 44th U.S. president, which is more than any of...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/nine-different-creatures-named-barack-obama/

New Experiment Puts Einstein To Test

The speed of light is considered to be the ultimate cosmic speed limit, thanks to Einstein’s special theory of relativity. But physicists aren’t content to assume this limit without testing it.


That’s where a new experiment with electrons comes in. Physicists measured the...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/new-experiment-puts-einstein-test/

J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.: What is a Koan ?

Koans are the special short questions of spiritual masters in the Chan and Zen traditions. (Chinese Chan became Japanese Zen). Some seventeen hundred koans have lasted for over a thousand years and have been itemized in various collections.


Koans are used to move students beyond reason,...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/j-h-mckenna-ph-d-koan/

NASA's Curiosity Rover Spots Purple Rocks on Mars

This new image from the Mars Curiosity rover captures purple-colored rocks on the surface of lower Mount Sharp.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS


Mars may appear red when viewed from Earth, but NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured an up-close photo of the planet’s mountainous...

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https://skpsoft.com/science/nasas-curiosity-rover-spots-purple-rocks-mars/