Attempts to understand and control new synthetic recreational drugs are being hindered by analysis laboratories’ inability to obtain pure samples of the compounds, experts say. [More]
Publication of the genome of the North American green anole lizard has filled a yawning genome-sequence gap in the animal lineage. The paper, which appears today in Nature , is the first to sequence the genome of a non-avian reptile. “This fills out a clade that has been completely ignored before,…
Even veteran disaster investigators were stunned by the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 . The next thoughts of the researchers who probed the calamity, aside from outrage, were how and why it happened from an engineering perspective. Why did WTC 1 stand nearly twice as long as WTC 2 after the impact of the aircraft? How could World Trade Center Building 7, which a plane did…
The space shuttle era is finished, its vehicles museum-bound . The deep-space forays of Apollo astronauts are long gone, their final moon voyage nearly 40 years in the past . And still, space today is more crowded than ever. [More]
How do people value a better life? The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released the Better Life Index, an interactive graphic that lets you rank 11 different dimensions (income, environment, life satisfaction, etc.) to see how different countries perform, and then “share” your ranking. [More]
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Does a blind person reading Braille process words in the brain differently than a person who reads by sight? Mainstream neuroscience thinking implies that the answer is yes because different senses take in the information. But a recent study in Current Biology finds that the processing is the same, adding to mounting evidence…
Burning fossil fuels releases significant quantities of carbon dioxide, aggravating climate change. Although it gets less attention these days, combustion also emits volumes of pollutants, which can cause a variety of illnesses. The most extensive consequences across the U.S. are noted below. — Mark Fischetti [More]
Deadly accidents involving nuclear reactors, oil rigs and coal mines in recent months remind us that all forms of energy generation carry risks. In developed countries, coal is the most hazardous ( bottom left ), according to the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, which studied more than 1,800 accidents worldwide over nearly 30 years. For coal, mining tends to be the most dangerous step; for oil and gas, most accidents occur during distribution; and for nuclear, generating plants …
By Scott Malone and Grant McCool WEST DOVER, Vt./WEST CALDWELL, New Jersey (Reuters) – Vermont planned to airlift food and water to inland towns cut off by Hurricane Irene, which left much of the northeast paralyzed on Tuesday two days after causing the worst flooding in decades. [More]
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YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. – On any given summer evening about 60 tourists gather in campground amphitheatres here for park ranger presentations. Astronomy, geology, human history, fire ecology are on the regular schedule of program topics. Wilderness safety and Yosemite’s notoriously aggressive black bears are also popular. But one July evening Yosemite ranger Matt Holly popped something different onto his projector screen: “Yosemite’s climate: Past…and
The most precious fluid in the world isn’t black. [More]
Here’s something amazing: a new bird species has been discovered in the U.S. [More]
Pimples are part of teenage life about as dreaded and unavoidable as the SATs. To get rid of these blemishes, Americans spend more than a billion dollars each year. But just how well do widely used treatments work against these common bacterial infections? [More]
Three-dimensional television and the like got a major marketing push nearly two years ago from the consumer electronics and entertainment industries, yet the technology still has major limitations. Whereas glasses-free 3-D on television screens and computer monitors is seen as crucial to generating widespread interest in new consumer electronics, for the most part, viewers still need to wear glasses to experience stereoscopic 3-D images, although glasses-free TVs are starting to hit in Japan . [More]
Help track oil still coming ashore from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster [More]
From Nature magazine Most everyone knows that stress can cause a clenched, gurgling, unhappy stomach. What’s less well known is that the relationship goes both ways. [More]
Smart phones can provide music, movie times, bus schedules. They can even make phone calls! And now, they might help cut down fuel use while driving. That is, if enough are used in a system called SignalGuru developed by researchers at MIT and Princeton. [More]
Disputed study puts social forces at root of sex disparity
Gut microbes can change neurochemistry and influence behavior
Yesterday, Hurricane Irene weakened to become Tropical Storm Irene – but not before leaving at least 4 million homes without power and causing fuel shortages along the United State’s Atlantic coast. [More]
The above question was posed by Vincent M. [More]
It looks like we have a new neighbor. It’s actually been there all along, but astronomers have only now spotted what could be the seventh closest star system to the sun. [More]
The International Space Station may have to start operating without a crew in November if Russian engineers don’t figure out soon what caused a recent rocket failure , NASA officials announced today (Aug. 29). The unmanned Russian cargo ship Progress 44 crashed just after its Aug. 24 launch to deliver 2.9 tons of supplies to the orbiting lab. The failure was caused by a problem with the Progress’ Soyuz rocket, which is similar to the one Russia uses to launch
Wind from Hurricane Irene downed trees and power lines caused interruption of power for approximately 4 million people. North Carolina [More]
Two hundred years ago it was enough to rely on natural advantages to build a great city. Cities were built on the intersections of rivers or along gentle bays that launched commerce and trade on mighty oceans. Those days are long gone. Today our greatest competitive advantages are the qualities that attract the best and brightest from around the world to come here: our freedom, our diversity, our tolerance and our dynamism. New York became the world’s greatest city because New Yorkers dared to dream it and build it. Today we are looking far into the future once…
* 21 killed but New York City spared brunt of storm * Power knocked out for 5 million customers [More]
A mother’s age is often considered a genetic risk factor for offspring, but research is now pointing the finger at fathers, too–particularly when it comes to the mental health of their progeny. Males may have the advantage of lifelong fertility, but as they grow older, the rate of genetic mutations passed on via their sperm cells increases significantly–putting their children at increased risk for psychiatric disorders, especially autism and schizophrenia. Two recent studies support this link at least associatively, but experts remain uncertain if age is the cause …
MIT’s SignalGuru Christine Daniloff via MIT News The perceived future of driving tends to revolve around a networked traffic infrastructure in which cars, traffic signals, and other roadway implements talk to each other electronically to optimize traffic flow and make driving more efficient all around. But MIT researchers think we can do many of these things on an existing…
Plastic Sun Dome: April 1966 PopSci explores the geodesic dome’s brief wave of popularity When it comes to practicality, geodesic domes are a contractor’s worst nightmare. Where can you get windows that conform to hexagonal panels? Where should you install the pipes? Would a chimney look out of place? In spite of all these questions, we spent a good portion of the 1970s and ’80s touting geodesic structures as the next big suburban fad. The trend began, of course, after R. Buckminster Fuller received a patent for his geodesic domes…
Mitchell Feinberg’s Maxback Sensor Mitchell Feinberg This 8×10-inch sensor–about 60 times the size of a full-frame DSLR sensor–is the creation of photographer Mitchell Feinberg , who was sick of spending thousands of dollars on expensive film previews of his work. The sensor (which, he says, cost as much as “a good-sized house–before the housing crash”) replaces the Polaroid backs that many photographers use to test exposure. But since these professional-grade…
While Irene is posing the greatest danger to lives this weekend, it is not the only tropical woe in the Atlantic Basin. Tropical Storm Jose is nearing Bermuda, while the formation of Katia may be on the horizon. [More]
New Supernova Type Ia supernova PTF 11kly, the youngest ever detected, is seen above over three successive nights. The left image, taken Aug. 22, shows the event before it exploded supernova, approximately 1 million times fainter than the human eye can detect. The center image, from Aug. 23, shows the supernova at about 10,000 times fainter than the human eye can detect. The right image, from Aug. 24, shows that the event is 6 times brighter than the previous day. Click here for a ginormous closeup. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Astronomers…
Irene traveled up the East Coast of the U.S. [More]
Talk about eery timing. [More]
By Daniel Trotta and Basil Katz NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hurricane Irene lashed New York with heavy winds and driving rain Sunday, knocking out power and flooding some of Lower Manhattan’s deserted streets but so far the feared major devastation was avoided as the storm lost some of its punch. [More]
By Nina Chestney LONDON (Reuters) – Global concern about climate change has risen only very slightly over the past two years, as consumers have focused on more immediate economic worries, according to an opinion poll published on Sunday. [More]
Everywhere we look, new life emerges. Bats the size of bumblebees. A roundworm that feasts on bacteria more than a kilometer underground . Even microbes that fill the air and cause rain or snow. [More]
Chest X-Ray Wikimedia Commons Doctors whose bodies are regularly exposed to x-rays may be adapting at the cellular level to protect themselves against radiation, according to a new study. The research hints that humans could adapt to withstand radiation exposure. In a small study, interventional cardiologists, who perform heart operations using catheters guided by x-rays, had higher levels of hydrogen peroxide in their blood, which indicates potentially harmful changes. But they also had higher levels of an antioxidant that protects against cell damage, and their white blood cells had more of an enzyme involved in programmed …
Hurricane Irene Swirls Northward Hurricane Irene is seen swallowing nearly the entire eastern seaboard in this satellite image from Friday morning. The image of Earth’s full disk was captured by the GOES-13 satellite at 10:45 a.m. EDT. Click here to embiggen . NASA Goddard Space Flight Center If you live in the eastern time …
Hard Drive Platter Closeup Approximately 200,000 of these hard drives make up IBM’s new array. Wikimedia Commons Researchers at IBM’s Almaden, California research lab are building what will be the world’s largest data array–a monstrous repository of 200,000 individual hard drives all interlaced. All together, it has a storage capacity of 120 petabytes, or 120 million gigabytes. There are plenty of challenges inherent in building this kind of groundbreaking array, which, says, IBM, is destined to be used for, as Technology Review writes, “an unnamed client that needs a new …
Social media can be problematic for professionals who don’t want their bosses to see unflattering college party photos. But it’s even worse for people whose livelihood literally depends on anonymity , like undercover cops. What happens if the gang you’ve infiltrated finds your grinning mug in Facebook photos from the police union annual picnic? We’ve seen how easily biometrics can be used to identify people based on their …
By Selam Gebrekidan and David Sheppard NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City braced for widespread blackouts as Hurricane Irene churned up the East Coast on Saturday, leaving more than 1 million homes and businesses without power in coastal states further south. [More]
Jurassic Shrew Juramia sinensis , a shrew-like mammal, is the earliest placental mammal found to date. Mark A. Klingler/Carnegie Museum of Natural History Our ancestors evolved from “Jurassic Mother” This pointy-nosed shrew, a new fossil find from China, may be the earliest grandmother of all placental mammals , scientists report in a new study. Or perhaps she is the oldest great-aunt. Either way, it’s another big find this week in paleontology. The new shrew, Juramia sinensis , is the…
Atoms’ fuzzy energy levels could be exploited to enhance photovoltaics and semiconductor lasers, study suggests
By Earth standards, Hurricane Irene is a monster storm. But it’s just a baby compared to the massive cyclones of Jupiter and Saturn. Our planet is not the only one in the solar system that boasts huge, hurricane-like storms . The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, for example, churn out spinning squalls that can be bigger than the entire Earth. While these storms aren’t fed by warm ocean water the way terrestrial hurricanes are, they’re similar in a lot of ways, scientists say. [More]
Six years ago, experts waited until after Katrina to start arguing over whether the hurricane was a consequence, at least in part, of global warming. [More]
Every year, 50-100 million people are infected with the dengue fever virus, which is transmitted to humans through the bites of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, mainly in South East Asia and South America. With no vaccine and no specific treatment, it is a leading cause of hospitalisation and death among young children. [More]
