The Balkan Chronicle

Less knowledge, more power as study finds uninformed can be vital to democracy

"The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all," said John F Kennedy. "The most violent element in society is ignorance," said Emma Goldman via the back of some yuppie's Subaru. And of course there's "Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil," from Plato. Thomas Jefferson was a bit more circumspect, saying, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," while ceding "ignorance is preferable to error." This is the classic view: ignorance is democracy's sickness. But a paper out last week in Science has some other ideas, gleaned from evolutionary processes, about the role — the neccessary role, perhaps — of ignorance in a democracy.

Separated For 20 Million Years: Blind Beetle Clarifies Questions

One of the smallest ever cave-dwelling ground beetles (Carabidae), has recently been discovered in two caves in the Rhodopi Mountains, Bulgaria, and described under the name Paralovricia beroni. The beetle is completely blind and is only 1.8-2.2 mm long. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Suriname team find 46 new species in tropical forests

An expedition to a tiny South American country has revealed more than 40 species that scientists believe to be new to science.

The expedition to the pristine tropical forests of Suriname was led by the charity Conservation International.

The collaboration between scientists, indigenous people and students recorded 1,300 species in total.

World-record 'Split Magnet' Makes Its Debut

A custom-built, $2.5 million "split magnet" system with the potential to revolutionize scientific research in a variety of fields has made its debut at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University.

The world-record magnet is operating at 25 tesla, easily besting the 17.5 tesla French record set in 1991 for this type of magnet. ("Tesla," named for early 20th-century inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla, is a measurement of the strength of a magnetic field.) In addition to being 43 percent more powerful than the previous world best, the new magnet also has 1,500 times as much space at its center, allowing room for more flexible, varied experiments.

Islamic Physicians

Medicine in Islam passed through three stages:

I. The first stage is the stage of translation of foreign sources into Arabic. It extended mainly during the seventh and eighth centuries.

II. The second stage is the stage of excellence and genuine contribution in which the Islamic physicians were the leaders and the source of new chapters to medicine. This stage extended during the ninth through the thirteenth centuries.

III. The third stage is the stage of decline where medicine, as well as other branches of science, became stagnant and deteriorated. The stage started mainly after the thirteenth century.

Sea Urchins Cannot Control Invasive Seaweeds

Exotic marine species, including giant seaweeds, are spreading fast, with harmful effects on native species, and are increasingly affecting the biodiversity of the Mediterranean seabed. Some native species, such as sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus), can fight off this invasion, but only during its early stages, or when seaweed densities are very low.

We’re closer to mind-reading than you may think

If you thought mind-reading was impossible, think again. Recent discoveries by the University of Minnesota show that it is within reach.

The Economist reports that Prof. Bin He and his colleagues were able to give test subjects the ability to control a digital helicopter through a virtual, three-dimensional space using the power of thought. The brain control was registered using electrodes attached to the subjects’ scalps. The discovery was originally published in the Public Library of Science.

War among evolutionists!

There is a war among evolutionists. Most evolutionists are Neo-Darwinian, believing in gradual change from one form of life to another, but a good growing minority of evolutionists believe in Punctuated Equilibrium which teaches life forms changed suddenly from one form into another through massive random genetic mutations caused by massive radiation.

Knowledge is power

In learning to maximise the power of the mind, Tony Buzan has inspired thousands, sharing his secrets in The Mind Map Book

Mind Mapping is both a creative and effective way of thinking; it’s a tool used by top global organisations such as NASA, Walt Disney, Microsoft, Harper Collins, Vodafone and IBM. Created by Tony Buzan, with the help of his brother Barry Buzan in the 1960s, their work, The Mind Map Book, promises to unleash your brain’s real potential by tapping into that very force field that’s locked in our heads, waiting to be opened, explored and nurtured towards putting thoughts into action. 

God's Big Bang

Last month saw miniature versions of the "Big Bang" being created within the Large Hadron Collider, based under the Alps at CERN. Scientists are cheering at the achievement, which generated temperatures of over 10 trillion degrees, a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun; this achievement opens up a new era in particle physics research.

Dr David Evans, a member of the UK team who worked on the experiment was thrilled by the success, "At these temperatures even protons and neutrons – which make up the nuclei of atoms – melt, resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a quark-gluon plasma."