Posts

Let’s talk about Earth In June, scientists, politicians and campaigners of all stripes will flock to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations’ fourth Earth summit, devoted to sustainable development and the green economy. The conference—undoubtedly the major environmental meeting of 2012—comes 20 years after the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed at the first UN Earth summit, also in Rio. The source of Martian methane NASA’s car-sized rover, Curiosity, is set to arrive on Mars in August....

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Cristina Eisenberg’s book The Wolf’s Tooth. A doe burst out of the forest and tore across the meadow, two wolves in close pursuit. This drama unfolded not twenty feet from where my young daughters and I knelt in our garden peacefully pulling weeds, our pant legs wet with morning dew. One black, the other gray, the black wolf in the lead, they closed in on the doe’s haunches....

CHARLESTOWN, R.I. – Rain and sleet smack the surface of Ninigret Pond as oyster farmer Jules Opton-Himmel fumbles with a stalled outboard motor. Not much is going his way this morning. He’s under pressure to harvest on this mid-February day to make an on-time afternoon delivery to a local raw bar. On-board, he’s trying to impress a top chef from one of Newport’s most exclusive restaurants – and his pontoon boat is stuck in a field of slushy ice not even halfway out into the lagoon where he grows oysters....

As the clock neared 9 P.M. on July 14, 2015, I stood with then NASA administrator Charles Bolden and others in our mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. Within about a minute we were due to receive the first signals from the New Horizons spacecraft, some three billion miles away, after its daring, one-shot flyby of Pluto and its system of five moons. That signal, racing at the speed of light to giant NASA antennas on Earth, would tell us whether or not the flyby had worked....

THE PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS is one of the most important developments in modern science, although it dates from the 1860s. In addition to unifying a huge variety of chemical and physical phenomena, it contributed significantly to the development of atomic physics and eventually to the theory of quantum mechanics. These days the periodic table has become something of a cultural icon—a meme, if you will. Web sites have spawned “periodic tables” of anything and everything that can be classified, from fruits and vegetables to famous guitar players....

Scientists have long dreamed of developing quantum computers, machines that rely on arcane laws of physics to perform tasks far beyond the capability of today’s strongest supercomputers. In theory such a machine could create mathematical models too complex for standard computers, vastly extending the range and accuracy of weather forecasts and financial market predictions, among other things. They could simulate physical processes such as photosynthesis, opening new frontiers in green energy....

More than 100 years ago, American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois was concerned that race was being used as a biological explanation for what he understood to be social and cultural differences between different populations of people. He spoke out against the idea of “white” and “black” as discrete groups, claiming that these distinctions ignored the scope of human diversity. Science would favor Du Bois. Today, the mainstream belief among scientists is that race is a social construct without biological meaning....

Although most rain on Earth falls over the oceans, lightning at sea is surprisingly rare—and for decades scientists weren’t sure why. A recent study suggests salt spray could be getting in the way of clouds charging up for a lightning strike. Thick clouds that form overhead during storms can become electrified when upward-moving air helps them grow tall enough that the upper parts of the cloud freeze into a mixture of granular, rounded snow pellets called graupel and microscopic ice crystals....

From the confirmation of long-sought elementary particles to the discovery of a lost lake on Mars, 2013 has been an exciting year in science. But did it live up to expectations? Researchers confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson particle in March, made a strong case for human-caused climate change in September and analyzed the oldest-known human DNA in December. They explored the site of a former lake on planet Mars, and speculated that perhaps fresh water still flows on the Red Planet....

By Harriet McLeodNORTH CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - South Carolina’s Clemson University on Thursday cut the ribbon on a $108 million wind-turbine research facility that experts say could spur more U.S. wind power development in the southeastern United States.Clemson’s Energy Innovation Center, located in an 82,000-square-foot former Navy warehouse, will house the world’s most advanced testing rigs for wind turbine drivetrains. The facility was built with $45 million in grant money from the U....

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once pondered what would happen if the cassette “tape of life” were rewound and played again. Synthetic biologists have tested one aspect of this notion by engineering chromosomes from scratch, sticking them into yeast and seeing whether the modified organisms can still function normally. They do, according to seven papers published today in Science that describe the creation, testing and refining of five redesigned yeast chromosomes....

If Juan Pablo Tosar hadn’t been so forgetful, he would never have stumbled across a finding that threatens to upend a basic tenet of cell biology. In 2016, two months after he was awarded his PhD, in a laboratory at the Pasteur Institute of Montevideo in Uruguay, Tosar was tasked with processing samples of breast cancer cells. The aim was to discard the cells and membrane-bound structures so that researchers could study just the molecules that existed in the fluid between cells....

When most people think about biodiversity they envision rainforests or coral reefs. Filmmaker Jeremy Monroe is on a mission to change that and teach about the amazing species that live in freshwater. Many people know only the freshwater animals that are commonly caught as sport fish, such as the largemouth bass. “I grew up in the culture of sportfishing, which celebrates selected game species,” says Monroe, director of Freshwaters Illustrated. “I had to go to college and study aquatic biology to learn the great diversity of freshwater life that isn’t seen in the popular sportfishing image, and that’s where I began to see the aesthetic of these diverse species in their underwater habitat, a beauty that few of us get to see....

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte has long been fascinated by frogs, fish and salamanders—particularly by their ability to regrow lost limbs. He has spent decades, first in Europe and then at the Salk Institute in the U.S., tracing the genetic and developmental steps that allow these animals to regenerate legs and fins, among other things. But his latest research project has focused more on mammals—specifically humans, pigs, cows and sheep. Building on his earlier work understanding regeneration, Izpisua Belmonte is coaxing human tissue to grow inside animal embryos....

The unique wildlife of Madagascar is facing an invasion of toxic toads that could devastate the island’s native species. Snakes feeding on the toads are especially at risk of poisoning, as are a host of other animals unique to the island — such as lemurs and endemic birds — and the species could cause harm to humans as well. In a letter to Nature published today, 11 researchers warn that Asian common toads (Duttaphrynus melanostictus) were observed near Toamasina, the African country’s largest seaport, in March....

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in two cases related to affirmative action: Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. At the heart of these cases is the question of whether race-conscious admissions in higher education are constitutional. In other words, can universities in the United States consider race among the multitude of factors, such as grades, standardized testing scores and extracurricular activities, that lead them to admit a student....

The common view is that cardiovascular disease mainly affects men, but it is also the leading cause of death in women worldwide. And, as with men, morbidity and mortality in women increase drastically with age. Despite its burden, cardiovascular disease is considered to be largely preventable. Reports from the World Health Organization, as well as heart-health agencies around the globe, conclude that the onset of cardiovascular disease can be avoided by controlling several risk factors, including cholesterol levels, blood pressure and tobacco use....

HAVANA—Heated charges have flown back and forth for months between the two countries that bracket the Strait of Florida. U.S. State Department officials contended Cuba staged a sonic attack on employees of the American embassy, causing a variety of neurological symptoms. Cuba has not only denied such an attack ever took place but has also emphasized the physical impossibility of a sound wave causing neurological damage trained on such a distant target....

Six of the largest banks in the United States have vowed to align their lending portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement. These massive lines of credit are laden with investments in carbon-intensive companies. Every one of the banks made those promises in the last six months. Three did so in the past week. The wave of net-zero commitments indicates Wall Street is preparing for the risks of climate change—or, at least, responding to intensifying public pressure to do something about it....

Science of the Magical: From the Holy Grail to Love Potions to Superpowers by Matt Kaplan Scribner, 2015 (($26)) Science and magical thinking might seem at odds, but science journalist Kaplan demonstrates that they can inform and even influence each other. In every chapter, Kaplan examines a putative supernatural phenomenon, such as an ability to predict events or heal someone with water from a sacred spring, through a scientific lens. He pulls back the curtain on the seeming magic, drawing on his own investigations and conversations with experts to determine whether tales of the supernatural have scientific explanations and what these stories reveal about human life and thought at the time and place of their origin....