Posts

If you, like me, are not medically compromised and have been working from home over the past year while drawing your full salary, you have two options. You can sit patiently until some institution calls you to get vaccinated. Or, you can proactively organize with other people to make sure your government is distributing vaccines equitably to people who need them the most, especially those who don’t have many advocates—such as the millions of people who are living in congregate care settings, in prisons, or tent cities in the U....

Researchers reported last month that an inexpensive, widely available pill substantially reduced hospitalizations and deaths in a large study of individuals with mild COVID symptoms who were at high risk for complications. It is the only existing oral medication with promising peer-reviewed data from multiple randomized COVID trials—and it is already used by millions of people worldwide. The drug is fluvoxamine, and it is approved in the U.S. for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression....

NEW YORK CITY—For nearly a year and a half, one of the most important scientific posts at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) here went vacant: curator of biological anthropology, whose broad responsibilities include carrying out research in primatology and human origins as well as managing the museum’s huge skeletal collection. The gap resulted from a long and tumultuous #MeToo saga that sent shock waves through the AMNH and the international anthropology community....

We are all familiar with the fact that women are under-represented in positions of power. Women account for less than 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, less than 15 percent of executive officers, less than 20 percent of full professors in the natural sciences, and only 6 percent of partners in venture capital firms. There have been zero female presidents of the United States. This gender imbalance in high-level position has attracted the attention of scholars across disciplines for years....

When a man died some 4,000 years ago in what is now western Greenland, he probably had no idea that his remains would provide the first genetic portrait of people of his era. This man, known now as “Inuk” (a Greenlandic term for “human” or “man”) left for posterity just four hairs and a few small fragments of bone frozen in permafrost, but that is now all researchers need to assemble a thorough human genome....

Miller spoke with Space.com about how he first began photographing these sites more than 30 years ago, and what he hoped to convey with his particular approach to this visual documentation. In addition to the photographs, the book includes essays by Miller, and people connected to the various sites. “I always joke with people that [if it weren’t] for the fact that I wear glasses and about 40 or 50 IQ points, I’m sure I could have been an astronaut,” Miller told me when I asked him about his connection to NASA and space exploration....

Researchers cracking open the latest edition of the journal Science will find an author in the table of contents whose name is usually attached to executive orders. On Monday, President Obama published a piece that lays out his legacy on clean energy and what he thinks comes next. This the first time Science has published a sitting president. By laying out his views in one of the world’s leading academic journals, Obama is signaling that he believes fact-based analysis matters more than ever....

SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. Compared with coal natural gas emits roughly half the carbon dioxide for each unit of usable energy produced. As a result, the transition in baseload electricity generation underway in the U.S. provides the biggest available opportunity to quickly slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production. Yet methane venting and leaking from the natural-gas supply chain could reduce or even erase those gains....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. As tensions mount between Russia and the West over Ukraine, the threat of Russian cyberattacks against the U.S. increases. The Department of Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin on Jan. 23, 2022, warning that Russia has the capability to carry out a range of attacks, from denial-of-service attacks on websites to disrupting critical infrastructure like power grids....

Wastewater treatment plants may be responsible for emitting up to 23 percent more greenhouse gas than previously thought because of fossil fuels in detergent-laden water from residential showers, household washing machines and industrial sites, new research shows. Treatment plants emit greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide when they purify drain water containing detergents and personal care products derived from petroleum. International tallies of greenhouse gas emissions are underestimating the plants’ effect on the climate, however, because they do not account for carbon dioxide emissions when that water is processed, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology....

If you could pause time for an instant and make yourself small enough to discern individual molecules, the far right of this image is what you might see when one brain cell communicates with another across a synapse—the point of contact between two nerve cells. How the brain senses, thinks, learns and emotes depends on how all its nerve cells, or neurons, communicate with one another. And as a result, many laboratories are working feverishly to understand how synapses function—and how psychiatric drugs, which target them, improve patients’ lives....

The National Hurricane Center is stepping up its warnings about storm surge and will start publishing maps this summer that show where tropical storms are likely to cause flooding along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Storm surge color maps will perform the same warning function as the center’s traditional hurricane maps, which President Trump famously altered last year with a Sharpie to inaccurately show Hurricane Dorian possibly hitting Alabama. The new storm surge maps will highlight in red the coastal areas that face possible flooding and will show the expected height of the storm surge at numerous locations....

Key concepts Physics Gravity Motion Pendulums Introduction Did you know that playground swings can provide a good lesson in physics—as well as lots of fun? The back-and-forth motion of a swing is an example of a pendulum. We see pendulums in other areas of our lives as well, such as in grandfather (also known as longcase) clocks. But pendulums can do more than provide fun at recess and help tell the time—among other scientific applications, they can show that the earth is huge!...

By Jon HerskovitzAUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Dallas Safari Club will auction a permit to hunt a black rhino in Namibia, possibly fetching up to $1 million with proceeds going to protect the endangered animals in a move seen by some animal rights groups as ethically dubious conservation.The license being auctioned on Saturday is supposed to allow for the killing of a single, post-breeding bull, with Namibian wildlife officials on hand for the hunt to make sure an appropriate animal is selected....

Whether you’re a casual user of social media sites like facebook and twitter or an avid online dater accessing eHarmony or Match.com, chances are you’ve created a personal online profile and been faced with a decision: What should you post for your profile picture? Many people post head shots or selfies, while others opt for pictures of their children, spouses, pets, or even favorite quotes or symbols. If your goal is to be perceived as attractive (and let’s be honest, whose isn’t?...

Crystals are nature’s most orderly substances. Inside them, atoms and molecules are arranged in regular, repeating structures, giving rise to solids that are stable and rigid—and often beautiful to behold. People have found crystals fascinating and attractive since before the dawn of modern science, often prizing them as jewels. In the 19th century scientists’ quest to classify forms of crystals and understand their effect on light catalyzed important progress in mathematics and physics....

In a misguided effort to enhance economic productivity, Nicolae Ceausescu decreed in 1966 that Romania would develop its “human capital” via a government-enforced mandate to increase the country’s population. Ceauescu, Romania’s leader from 1965 to 1989, banned contraception and abortions and imposed a “celibacy tax” on families that had fewer than five children. State doctors—the menstrual police—conducted gynecologic examinations in the workplace of women of childbearing age to see whether they were producing sufficient offspring....

Last week’s deadly attacks on Paris have reignited the debate over whether climate change is a distraction from legitimate security threats like terrorism, or a contributor to them. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) lit the match during Saturday’s Democratic presidential debate, which was overshadowed by the previous night’s assault on the French capital by Islamic State Group operatives. Climate change, the presidential contender said, is “absolutely” the largest single largest threat to U....

Imagine two nearby exoplanets orbiting the same sun, each with its own indigenous civilisation. They’re going through history either as companionable neighbours or deadly rivals. This is a familiar situation in science fiction, but could it ever happen? With the rapidly growing number of habitable exoplanets being discovered, this scenario may seem plausible. Now a new scientific study, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, explores this issue by examining some of the conditions affecting life in a solar system with two habitable planets....

2015 is officially in the books as the second-hottest year ever recorded for the U.S., with a major boost provided by the incredible warmth that bathed the eastern half of the country in December, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday. That second-place finish comes as both NOAA and NASA are expected to announce that the year was the hottest on record globally. While that record heat was helped in part by one of the strongest El Ninos on record, it was mainly due to the contributions of manmade global warming, scientists have said....