Editor’s note (7/20/16): Neil Armstrong died on August 25, 2012 at age 82. “In my view, the emotional moment was the landing. That was human contact with the moon, the landing…. It was at the time when we landed that we were there, we were in the lunar environment, the lunar gravity. That, in my view, was…the emotional high. And the business of getting down the ladder to me was much less significant....
These new satellites have the potential to revolutionize many aspects of everyday life—from bringing internet access to remote corners of the globe to monitoring the environment and improving global navigation systems. Amid all the fanfare, a critical danger has flown under the radar: the lack of cybersecurity standards and regulations for commercial satellites, in the U.S. and internationally. As a scholar who studies cyber conflict, I’m keenly aware that this, coupled with satellites’ complex supply chains and layers of stakeholders, leaves them highly vulnerable to cyberattacks....
In this month’s Scientific American column, I wrote about Hollywood’s depiction of personal technology in the future. Lots of it is pure wishful-thinking silliness. But sometimes, you can sense the thought that’s been put into these props, and inventors eventually create them for use in the real world. “Star Trek,” of course, was one of the most influential sci-fi shows of all time. Even the technologies of the original series, which ran on TV from 1966 to 1969, have inspired all kinds of inventions that have become commonplace in the real world....
Each spring and summer fertilizer from the fields of the U.S. Midwest runs off into the Mississippi River. Old Muddy carries the nutrients down the length of the continent before dumping them into the Gulf of Mexico. Once introduced, the nitrogen and phosphorus prompts a bloom in algae, phytoplankton and other microscopic plants. After the plants die they drift to the bottom and their decomposition sucks the oxygen out of the seawater....
Some things never change. Physicists call them the constants of nature. Such quantities as the velocity of light, c, Newton’s constant of gravitation, G, and the mass of the electron, me, are assumed to be the same at all places and times in the universe. They form the scaffolding around which the theories of physics are erected, and they define the fabric of our universe. Physics has progressed by making ever more accurate measurements of their values....
Meg writes: “I recently got a free sample of Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee from an online grocer. Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed the flavor, but it’s awfully pricey. But if it does even half of what they say it does for you, it might be worth it. Do any of these claims actually hold water?” Good question! Four Sigmatic is a Finnish company that blends various medicinal mushrooms with coffee, cocoa, tea, and/or various herbs to produce a variety of beverages that supposedly will increase your productivity, energy, immunity, and beauty....
Across his years of studying auroras, University of Calgary physicist Eric Donovan had periodically seen pictures and data showing something strange: a curve of purple light swiping across the sky, linear green features glowing beneath. It was atypical, but he didn’t give it too much thought. “I put it into some bucket that I understood,” he says. That changed when he found himself at a bar with a group of amateur aurora photographers after a science talk....
The Neanderthals of El Sidrón Cave in northern Spain lived hardscrabble lives. But before they died some 50,000 years ago, they dined on mushrooms, moss and pine nuts. One individual may even have used plants and moulds to treat his ailments. This intimate portrait is revealed in an analysis of DNA from the hardened tooth plaque of five Neanderthals. The study also reconstructs the first microbiomes from an extinct hominin species, and hints at intimacy—perhaps kisses—between humans and Neanderthals....
Name: Todd Callaway Title: Research microbiologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture Location: College Station, Tex. A cow’s rumen has an incredibly thick population of microbes, somewhere between 10 billion and 100 billion microbes per milliliter of its fluid. Escherichia coli and Salmonella are two, but they are found in relatively low levels, maybe one out of 10 million cells. For years we have been trying to reduce the amount of these pathogens after the cows are killed, and those efforts do really well....
Congress should increase the country’s agricultural research budget threefold to reverse decades of financial neglect, a new paper asserts. The paper, written by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation at the request of the London School of Economics, said the United States must double its funding if it wishes to return to the same pace of innovation as 50 years ago, and increase it from $5 billion per year to $15 billion to support innovation in plant genetics, biotechnology and agricultural practices....
The insertion of one gene can muzzle the extra copy of chromosome 21 that causes Down’s syndrome, according to a study published today in Nature. The method could help researchers to identify the cellular pathways behind the disorder’s symptoms, and to design targeted treatments. “It’s a strategy that can be applied in multiple ways, and I think can be useful right now,” says Jeanne Lawrence, a cell biologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, and the lead author of the study....
Based on Telling Our Way to the Sea: A Voyage of Discovery in the Sea of Cortez, by Aaron Hirsh. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2013. On a cloudless morning in late summer, five college students climbed from the sandy shallows into the open hull of a panga, a small skiff powered by an outboard motor, and departed the fishing village of Bahía de Los Ángeles, on the Sea of Cortez....
Philanthropists Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s mayor, announced in July a $500-million commitment to fight global tobacco use, especially in developing nations, where the burden of addiction is more costly. The money will support tobacco-control efforts, such as increasing cigarette taxes, modifying tobacco’s advertising image and helping people quit. Number of tobacco users worldwide: 1 billion Number in China: 350 million Annual number of deaths worldwide: 5 million...
SpaceX’s Starship spaceflight system just took a big step on its path to Mars. The latest Starship prototype, a shiny silver vehicle known as SN8, launched on an epic high-altitude test flight today (Dec. 9), taking off at 5:45 p.m. EST (2245 GMT) from SpaceX’s facility near the South Texas village of Boca Chica. The goal was to soar about 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) into the sky, perform some complex aerial maneuvers—including a “belly flop” like the one the final Starship will perform when coming back to Earth on operational flights—and then land safely near the launch stand....
When the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 burst upon the world last winter, scientists knew it was bad. But they also thought it was stable. Coronaviruses do not mutate as readily as the viruses that cause the flu, hepatitis or AIDS, for instance—thanks in part to a molecular “proofreading” system that SARS-CoV-2 and its kin use to prevent damaging genetic errors when replicating. Researchers were only partly right. The virus is indeed bad—but it is not so stable after all....
In the run-up to the 1964 World’s Fair, the great science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov was asked what that same event might look like 50 years later. He guessed that by 2014, we’d be in the constant company of “electroluminescent panels”—used for video chat, navigation and, more deeply, “to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit [us] better.” Asimov’s future is our present. This worries many people, who think technology has left us dumber, sadder and meaner than we were before....
The United Kingdom will end its use of coal-fired power by October 2024, a year earlier than scheduled, as it pushes other countries toward greater climate ambition ahead of a global warming summit it’s hosting in November. “Coal powered the industrial revolution 200 years ago, but now is the time for radical action to completely eliminate this dirty fuel from our energy system,” Energy and Climate Change Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said in a statement yesterday....
By Michel Rose PARIS (Reuters) - France’s highest administrative court on Wednesday annulled the decree setting wind power feed-in tariffs, marking the end of a complex legal procedure that has stifled investment in the French onshore wind sector. The French government has already prepared a new decree, which was cleared by the European Commission in March and will replace the one that has now been annulled. Pressure group Vent de Colere (Wind of Anger) had seized on the previous government’s failure to notify the EU that the original decree subsidising onshore wind power production was state aid....
Cut into the trunk of a pine tree, and you will see a familiar series of concentric rings, each corresponding to a season of growth. But not all stumps tell the same story. A study published in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA reveals that the world’s oldest trees had a very different structure. Some 370 million years ago cladoxylopsid trees stood at least eight meters tall, capped by branches with twiggy appendages instead of leaves....
The presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is dominating the discussion about the upcoming US election, but it’s not the only contest to watch on 8 November. Choices that voters make will influence other levels of government—and some of these decisions will steer the course of science and science policy. Will Congress change hands? Winning the White House is only half the battle for the next president. The political balance of the two houses of Congress—the US House of Representatives and the Senate—can determine whether a president’s policies become law or die on the vine....
