Posts

“Space archaeologist” would be a fine job description for a fictional character on an interplanetary mission to unearth the ruins of an alien civilization. But a handful of real-life archaeologists are already making a bid to study culture in space—of the human, not alien, variety. A new effort, called ISS Archaeology, seeks to understand the “microsociety” aboard the International Space Station. The plan is to treat the space lab like archaeologists would treat an ancient site....

Actor Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed the iconic logical Vulcan Spock on the TV’s “Star Trek” and in feature films, has died. He was 83. Nimoy’s career spanned TV, feature films, art and photography, but he was perhaps best known for playing Spock, the logical Vulcan on the starship the USS Enterprise, in “Star Trek.” Nimoy died from complications due to “end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” according to the New York Times, which first reported the actor’s death Friday morning (Feb....

When you want the taste of food but none of the calories, it might seem like a harmless compromise to chew it up and spit it out, but new findings show otherwise. Chewing and spitting is common among patients receiving inpatient treatment for eating disorders, and previous research has linked the practice with greater illness severity. A study published last year in Eating Behaviors confirmed those results and was the first to investigate co-occurring symptoms and personality traits....

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR anti-impotence drugs are everywhere. The brand name Viagra—the “little blue pill”—has quickly become a household word and for understandable reasons. Studies show that more than 50 percent of American men ages 40 to 70 experience at least occasional erectile difficulties, episodes that increase with age. Yet a little-acknowledged statistic is that pharmaceuticals fail to help from 25 to 33 percent of men with erectile dysfunction. Are millions of males, and their partners, simply out of luck?...

The idea that organisms might attack themselves with immune systems that evolved to defend them from diseases in the outside world made little sense to immunologist Paul Ehrlich. In 1901 the future Nobel laureate dismissed such a theory—he called it “horror autotoxicus”—as farfetched. Today patients and physicians know that autoimmune diseases are all too real. There are roughly 80 autoimmune conditions that affect millions of people worldwide. The variety and numbers shown in the chart on the next two pages are daunting....

Things have been very hush-hush over at Modern Meadow since it was disclosed in August that the company had received funding from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel’s foundation to 3-D bioprint meat and leather. But in an exclusive interview with Txchnologist, company cofounder and CEO Andras Forgacs has broken the silence and revealed some details about Modern Meadow’s goals. Their first project? In vitro leather production. “Our emphasis first is not on meat, it’s on leather,” Forgacs says....

Early Mars rovers had little more intelligence than a fancy remote-controlled car. NASA’s Curiosity rover is somewhat more evolved: It can navigate around simple obstacles and spot a dust devil on its own. Much more brainpower would be required for a robotic exploration of Saturn’s moon Titan. Home to one of the solar system’s liveliest environments outside of Earth, Titan has tidal seas of methane, a stormy atmosphere and perhaps ice volcanoes....

The Trump administration has reopened the Obama-era greenhouse gas standards for vehicles manufactured between 2021 to 2025. U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao yesterday signed and published a notice asking for comments on the rules. President Trump announced he would review the tailpipe standards at the request of automakers in March. The opening of the docket marks one of the first formal steps of the process, which could end in lowered stringency....

A rapidly growing body of research shows plastic pollution accumulating around the planet at an alarming rate. Tiny bits known as microplastic result from the breakdown of larger items and have proven especially pervasive, turning up everywhere from oceans to rivers to soil, even hanging in the air we breathe. As public awareness grows and concerns mount, cities, states and countries have been looking for ways to curb the release of plastic into the environment and to slow production of the material....

The world’s most worrisome military flashpoint is arguably not in the Strait of Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, Iran, Israel, Kashmir or Ukraine. In fact, it cannot be located on any map of Earth, even though it is very easy to find. To see it, just look up into a clear sky, to the no-man’s-land of Earth orbit, where a conflict is unfolding that is an arms race in all but name....

A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck right along the coast of the Indonesian island of Lombok, near Loloan village Sunday night local time (Aug. 5), according to Indonesian authorities. At least 91 people are reported dead from the quake, with shaking felt as far away as the island of Bali, the Associated Press reported. Damage in the north of Lombok was “massive,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency in the area, told a news conference, as reported by the AP, that also noted the damage included collapsed bridges, blackouts and roads blocked by debris....

The World Health Organization confirmed on Wednesday that Chinese authorities believe a new coronavirus—from the family that produced SARS and MERS—may be the cause of mysterious pneumonia cases in the city of Wuhan. The Chinese government has not yet publicly stated that a coronavirus is the cause of the illness, which has infected at least 59 people. But the Wall Street Journal reported that was the case earlier Wednesday, citing unnamed sources....

A mild winter and a hot, dry summer are part of the reason West Nile virus is spreading like wildfire throughout the country, researchers say. The mosquito-borne illness, which can cause aches, fever and even death, has sickened at least 1,118 people so far, compared with 712 for all of last year. The conditions are ripe for the mosquitoes that spread the virus, said researcher Krisztian Magori, a forestry and wildlife scientist at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala....

To win the White House, candidates in the presidential race will need to change minds. Bernie Sanders may try converting Hillary Clinton’s superdelegates to gain the Democratic nomination. If frontrunner Clinton gets it, she and Republican Donald Trump will need to win over reluctant voters who supported their competitors. And to change opinions, candidates will have to contend with neurobiology. Scientists say there’s a tension in the brain between responding to new information and resisting overwhelming amounts of conflicting data—and the latter can prevent opinion change....

Should your smartphone be your therapist? Thousands of mobile apps claim to help people improve their mental health. Some offer relationship advice and productivity tips; others aim to make psychiatric disorders easier to manage. Yet the vast majority of them have no solid scientific basis, as a recent study concluded. Last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it would begin regulating medical apps that claim to diagnose various conditions, such as heart disease and sleep apnea....

The latest report, which indicated that rain had improved conditions in parts of Texas and the Plains states, revealed that California got no relief. In fact, a heat wave likely worsened the impacts of the drought in the state, including the wildfires that flared up this week. The drought in California, which has been building for the past few years, really took hold this winter. December-March is supposed to be the region’s wet season, but this year turned out to be a bust....

Perhaps the most menacing and widespread aspects of climate change are the droughts that can come with climbing temperatures. They’re not like violent hurricanes, which slam into a region with devastating force and then leave abruptly. Storms get names and television time. Droughts don’t. Scientists call them a “creeping phenomenon” whose arrival is hard to identify. So is their exit. In agricultural areas, the creeping effect can subtly change the rhythms of life over a period of years....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. I was in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2008 and lucky enough to examine the bones of one of the most controversial hominin species that has ever been discovered. The skeletal remains belonged to an ancient people with tiny brains, and so short that they have been nicknamed “hobbits”. These important fossils, like so many others, were essentially found by mistake....

In 2015 a worried father asked Rhema Vaithianathan a question that still weighs on her mind. A small crowd had gathered in a basement room in Pittsburgh to hear her explain how software might tackle child abuse. Every day the area’s hotline receives dozens of calls from people who suspect that a child is in danger; some of these are then flagged by call-center staff for investigation. But the system does not catch all cases of abuse....

If you’ve ever watched late-night TV, you’ve likely seen unfortunate advertisements for diet pills that claim to rid you of belly fat that arose from high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body. The pills are bunk, but the relation between cortisol levels in the body and chronic stress are real. Stress response is a vital evolutionary adaptation that allows us to run from predators or catch a train....