A bit of fun for those involved, but funnily enough plant science has actually investigated this over many decades. Go to a search engine of your choice and look up "waxy cuticle" and "trichomes". Sorry if I appear snide, but this is rather like someone posting an article about how they were amazed at what is inside their desktop PC, with photos and everything, as if no one had looked inside one previously. Neither the word cuticle nor the word trichome appear in that article, which shows they made no attempt to find out anything about their subject. Nice videos though, would be good for teaching!

Interesting that you should mention that as I removed it last week. I haven't cancelled my account, just taken it off my phone. I'll check it weekly or so via my desktop browser I guess. It was annoying me on the phone though. Now I keep getting emails from Facebook telling me I'm "missing" stuff.... I'm over 30 by the way.

Since they were stated out of context to suggest a meaning that wasn't in line with the actual fact stated.

I'd be interested to see how these figures compare to other sciences. I am a mid-career biologist (did eight years as a post-doc and have had a permanent research position for the last seven years). I've always felt that we lose about half of PhD graduates to other areas, partly because they don't want and to partly because there aren't enough jobs, and then about half of post-docs don't continue in science for the same reasons. Doesn't seem that different. I do remember that, when I was a post-doc, an eminent prof (multiple Nature papers) in my field once said to me that he didn't know anyone who was 'really' determined to continue in science who didn't make it as a career. I'd say that is still true. It is a tough career that doesn't pay that well (compared to other professions with equivalent training), but a rewarding one.

I don't want to appear to be joining any anti-US bandwagon or proffering an opinion on any perceived rights and wrongs, but the irony of your post is quite amazing. The origin of much anti-US feeling is that people see the US as interfering in their region, whereas you are complaining that those who have anti-US feeling should do without US involvement in their region...

Just to be clear, for people not alive in the UK in the 80s the name of the band UB40 came from the code on the unemployment benefit form.

Great link! Indeed, if his beliefs weren't enough to discredit him in the first place, having what is basically a PhD in bullsh*t should. Also, what kind of institution provides a PhD in kinesiology? Not a very reputable one I suspect....

Yes, but the airflow is required for it to work. Evaporative fridges have been used for a very very long time, but require energy input in the form of wind. The bottle is inverted in comparison to the evaporative fridge, thus it requires a fan or it would only accumulate a very very small amount of water...

The bottle requires an energy input, they are using solar. The submitted article is based on a slightly fuller one: http://www.pri.org/stories/science/technology/scientist-takes-inspiration-from-natural-world-to-create-self-filling-water-bottle-12154.html

Why isn't this modded up? It's the single most useful post to this story. I've just read the actual Nature article as the submitted link was indeed horrible (with flash video auto-starting to boot), and it makes none of the claims that that the submitted article or the summary make. It is still rather interesting though.

Offline maps. When I got rid of my Nokia N8 and bought a Samsung SIII, there were two things I missed, one is the camera (the N8's was far better in several ways), the other is the maps. With the Nokia you got offline maps for the entire world and the app itself was excellent (though it had teething problems to start with). Turn by turn directions that don't sound like a robot (I'm looking at you Google), were as good as or better than most commercial Sat Nav devices, accurate (looking at you Apple), regularly updated and, I'll say it again, offline maps! In Australia at least you can be quite often out of range of a decent data connection.

The commercial Navigon app that I got bundled with my SIII is definitely inferior and you only get maps for Oceania, I have to buy the European/US ones if I need them.

Oh my goodness, because I live in Australia I have to wait a week before seeing a TV show? How do I manage?

Sometimes I can't quite believe the world we live in.

Indeed, and I have to say, I can't really see that the economic effect would be that great either (impact on any dot.com 2.0 bubble aside). If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, just how would that have any large effect on the economy? Even Zynga isn't totally relying on Facebook and nobody has shops that only operate through Facebook either to the best of my knowledge.