Even More Eurekas!

Science headline of the week:

MORALITY ASKEW IN PSYCHOPATHS

From the Neuroscience section of Science News, under “Meeting Notes.”

Another item there is headlined: “Parasite twists rats’ innate fear.” The parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, fools the rat into mistaking the smell of cat urine for the scent of a luscious, lascivious female rat. Talk about star-crossed lovers.

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Scientific article lead of the week:
(Science News again; they never sleep):

“The graves of people who died 12,000 years ago rarely contain a woman’s skeleton pinned down in an unusual position by large stones, accompanied by another person’s foot and a menagerie of animal remains, including tortoise shells and marten skulls.”

Right. But guess what? That’s exactly what they found!

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Time-Traveling Code Crackers

The ultimate weapon against sneaks and snoops is quantum encryption. If someone steals or intercepts the key and listens in, it’s immediately obvious because, once it’s read, a transmitted unit changes from its fuzzy, indeterminate quantum state to a firmly resolved piece of data. So the sneak’s cover is blown.

But now, a team of physicists from USC report online (arxiv.org/abs/0811.1209) that if there are wormholes present (not the nematode variety; the Stephen Hawking variety), the eavesdroppers could go back in time and intercept the message before their presence is detected.

To paraphrase one of the many Jesus-Moses golf jokes, “Come on guys. Are you gonna do science, or you just gonna fuck around?”

Not-So-Secret Agents

Who Stole My Whereabouts?

Bugged

Your Money Or Your Life