SAN DIEGO – Richard Hatcher is devoted to saving energy, but there are some things he refuses to do to save kilowatts – like changing the strict training regimen to teach young Marines how to survive in the toughest of circumstances. The message has been clear from the beginning: Don’t mess with the Marine Corps Recruit Depot’s mission of turning fresh-faced recruits into efficient troops to win wars, said Hatcher, 54....
The frustration, at times approaching despair, has been evident for years when talk among filovirus scientists turned to Ebola vaccines. In high-containment biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratories, several vaccines have saved animals from what should have been lethal doses of the virus. Mice, guinea pigs and nonhuman primates—the best stand-ins for man—have been protected. A few of these experimental vaccines even progressed to the tantalizing point where they were injected into humans, in first-in-man trials in the U....
SAN FRANCISCO – Scientists affiliated with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted areas for future scientific focus during a presentation at the American Geophysical Union conference here. Researchers would like to improve observations of the planet, particularly in the oceans and at the poles; reduce uncertainties about clouds, aerosols and climate; and better understand the cycling of carbon through the Earth’s systems, the scientists said. In contrast, scientists are very sure about the role of humans in global warming and that the Earth is warming, said Thomas Stocker, who co-chairs the IPCC’s Working Group I, which released an update on the science of climate change in early October....
Scientific American presents Savvy Psychologist by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. This week, we answer a question from Savvy listener, Phillip L. He’s been following the latest research connecting daydreaming and creativity, and asks if daydreaming is so great, why isn’t it more satisfying? Why do we feel like we’re wasting time? The short answer is that, in a culture that values productivity and goal-directed behavior, daydreaming is looked at, at best, as a momentary distraction–and at worst, irresponsible loafing....
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced plans yesterday to pull the Garden State out of the nation’s only operating cap-and-trade system, spurring environmental anger, conservative cheers and speculation about his national ambitions. It also stirred confusion about the governor’s legal authority and what will happen to the carbon trading program, which caps utility carbon dioxide emissions in 10 Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, at a time when national climate legislation appears dead on Capitol Hill....
One of the most terrifying things about cholera is its lethal speed. A victim can consume contaminated food or water, come down with diarrhea a day later and, if untreated, be dead a day after that—having inadvertently spread the microorganism to friends, neighbors and family members in the meantime. Hence cholera’s reputation for tearing explosively through populations, mostly recently in Haiti beginning in 2010 and Yemen in 2016. Two major challenges—one diagnostic, the other preventive—make it difficult to stop cholera epidemics....
No one likes to be “in the dark” about what is going on around them, especially in times of peril. Yet when night overtakes a continent or ocean, scientists and forecasters suddenly lose important satellite imagery in the visible-light range—information that can reveal swirling storms, the choking smoke of wildfires, massive chunks of sea ice that threaten ships, and much more. A new sensor called the Day Night Band is beginning to fill that void....
The sun had just risen as Dan Shelby began pedaling his bicycle down a main thoroughfare in Philadelphia. The computer programmer had to get to work early, and the traffic was still light. Seeing no oncoming cars, he quickly stuck out his arm as a signal and made an abrupt left onto the cross street. He hadn’t spotted the sedan already bounding up that road into the intersection, right at him....
By Laura Zuckerman Feb 13 (Reuters) - The number of imperiled wolves found only in the American Southwest climbed to 109 in 2014, marking the fourth consecutive year that the population of Mexican gray wolves has risen by at least 10 percent, federal wildlife managers said Friday. Wild Mexican wolves were believed to be all but extinct in the United States in 1998 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroducing the animal to its native range....
Scientists continue to explore Mars for elusive signs of life. A new tool should help in the hunt. The Mars Organic Analyzer (MOA) can detect and identify amino acids with 1,000 times greater sensitivity than the Viking probes that landed on the Red Planet in 1976. Alison M. Skelley of the University of California at Berkeley and her colleagues designed the briefcase-size MOA, which includes laser spectroscopy, tiny pumps, valves and fluid channels....
A genetic database that holds DNA from thousands of African rhinoceroses has secured the convictions of poachers and led to stiffer criminal sentences since its establishment eight years ago, researchers say. However, not all scientists are convinced the effort is worthwhile. In an 8 January paper in Current Biology, researchers highlight the database, which has been used in more than 120 cases. In one example, rhino poacher Simon Ngomane was sentenced to 28 years in prison last year, following a 2011 shootout with rangers in South Africa’s Kruger National Park....
THE LENS IN YOUR EYE casts an upside-down image on your retina, but you see the world upright. Although people often believe that an upside-down image in the eyeball gets rotated somewhere in the brain to make it look right side up, that idea is a fallacy. No such rotation occurs, because there is no replica of the retinal image in the brain—only a pattern of firing of nerve impulses that encodes the image in such a way that it is perceived correctly; the brain does not rotate the nerve impulses....
ZHENGZHAO, Henan province, China – If you want to understand why iPhones are made in this corner of the world, look no further than Li Yue. When I met the effervescent 21-year-old, she was lined up at a kiosk outside the gates of the massive assembly plant owned by Foxconn. Li, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jean shorts and carrying a pink parasol to beat the heat on a scorcher of a June day, was among a group of a dozen or so candidates applying for a job with the Taiwanese firm....
Tennis racquets at the local sporting goods store are typically strung with synthetic materials such as nylon. The pros, however, prefer the natural stuff—and it’s not catgut as commonly believed, but cow gut. Less stiff than nylon, natural strings offer more control. It’s also more expensive: one cow can only string three racquets. With their composite frames, today’s racquets are an engineering marvel that enables pro players such as Rafael Nadal to topspin a tennis ball at 3,600 revolutions per minute, as Ainissa Ramirez, a Yale University professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, describes in her Science Xplained video here....
Editor’s note (6/1/2011): We are making the text of this July 1985 article freely available for 30 days to coincide with the publication of a paper on entropy and quantum systems by Vlatko Vedral. He authored our June 2011 cover story and blogs about his latest work, which discusses the research featured in this 1985 article. A computation, whether it is performed by electronic machinery, on an abacus or in a biological system such as the brain, is a physical process....
Earth is absorbing too much solar energy and heating up. Rather than fiddling with hybrid cars and funny-looking lightbulbs, why not just build a planet-size parasol to shade us? Or a forest of carbon scrubbers to cleanse heat-trapping gases from the air? Such grand schemes for “geoengineering” our way out of the climate crisis appeal to the dreamer in us all. If technology got us into this mess, maybe technology can get us out of it [see “A Sunshade for Planet Earth,” by Robert Kunzig]....
For many dog owners, thunderstorms are a source of angst, a walk to the dog park can be a fraught experience, and New Year’s celebrations are particularly stressful. According to a new study of thousands of pet dogs, anxiety and fear-related behavior problems are widespread. Certain breeds are particularly sensitive to loud noises or being left alone. Other breeds may engage in compulsive behaviors such as biting themselves or urinating, suggesting a genetic component to the activity....
When the Iranian oil tanker Sanchi collided with a cargo ship, caught fire and sank in the East China Sea in mid-January, an entirely new kind of maritime disaster was born. Nearly two weeks later, basic questions remain unanswered about the size of the spill, its chemical makeup and where it could end up. Without that crucial information, researchers are struggling to predict the short- and long-term ecological consequences of the incident....
SOLHEIMAJOKULL, Iceland – A fierce wind shrieks down the glacier slope, flinging ice and grit like a weather-witch from an old Icelandic saga. The glacier, Solheimajokull, a tongue of ice reaching toward Iceland’s southeast coast, has become an apologue of climate change in recent years: Retreating an average of one Olympic pool-length every year for the past two decades due to climbing temperatures, warming ocean currents and disrupted seasons. Crouching under 90-mile-an-hour gusts on a stormy autumn day, visitors to Solheimajokull see a rash of dirt cones poking through grey-streaked snow, while piles of rocks, gravel moraines and a now-empty glacial bed about a half-mile away attest to the former reach of this dying giant....
Climate deniers are accused of practicing pseudoscience, as are intelligent design creationists, astrologers, UFOlogists, parapsychologists, practitioners of alternative medicine, and often anyone who strays far from the scientific mainstream. The boundary problem between science and pseudoscience, in fact, is notoriously fraught with definitional disagreements because the categories are too broad and fuzzy on the edges, and the term “pseudoscience” is subject to adjectival abuse against any claim one happens to dislike for any reason....
