A rift that has been wending its way across Antarctica’s massive Larsen C ice shelf just made another leap forward, growing by more than 10 miles, scientists monitoring it reported Thursday. Now, a chunk of ice bigger than New York’s Long Island is hanging on by a relative thread. When it breaks off—possibly very soon—it could put the ice shelf in a more precarious position that could eventually lead it to disintegrate....
The Objection John R. Lott, Jr., PhD, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center in Swarthmore, Pa., writes: Melinda Wenner Moyer’s article “Journey to Gunland” (October 2017) is very biased and ignores virtually all of the literature on right-to-carry laws and gun ownership since 1998. About two thirds of the peer-reviewed, published literature shows concealed carry laws help reduce crime. I even provided Moyer with those published papers, but she doesn’t provide a single reference to or quote from them....
For centuries humans believed the ocean was so vast that it was impossible to do it measurable harm. But we now know human activities can destroy critical marine habitats, dangerously pollute seawater and make sea environments more acidic. Overharvesting has disrupted food chains and directly pushed many ocean species into the critically endangered category—and has driven some animals, including Steller’s sea cow, into total extinction. This past March the smooth handfish, Sympterichthys unipennis, officially became the first modern-day marine fish to be declared extinct....
Antipsychotic drugs have alleviated the debilitating symptoms of thousands of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but often at a high price. These drugs can also trigger excessive weight gain, leading to life-threatening complications such as diabetes or heart disease. Now scientists at Johns Hopkins University have uncovered the mechanism by which these drugs stimulate the appetite—a finding that could lead to new agents without the side effect of constant hunger....
WITH THE COUNTRY on the verge of civil war in 1860, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a patriotic poem about Paul Revere, a little-known Massachusetts silversmith and minor hero of the Revolutionary War. “Paul Revere’s Ride” played fast and loose with the facts of the now famous 1775 events, but the narrative had the psychological effect the author intended. It got Americans wondering how history might have turned out differently without that heroic act—and how the country might never have come to exist....
The idea was born in Mexico, in the year 2000. It was pure improvisation, by Paul Crutzen, one of the world’s most respected scientists. The Dutch scholar was widely known for arguing that all-out atomic war would trigger a “nuclear winter” lethal to plant and animal life across the earth, and he had won a Nobel Prize for research into another global threat: human-caused destruction of the earth’s ozone layer. In Mexico he was listening to experts discuss evidence for changes in the global environment that had occurred throughout the Holocene, a distinct epoch that geologists say began 11,700 years ago and continues today....
The human genome is not entirely human. Some 8% of our DNA, in fact, originated in viruses, remnants of ancients invasions dating back millions of years. By infecting sperm and eggs, viral DNA found its way into germline DNA—the genetic information passed down to future generations—and stuck around. Researchers can find these fragments and study what they do. But because the pieces burrowed their way into our DNA so long ago, scientists haven’t been able to watch the process unfold in nature—and see how the genome puts up a fight against such an infiltration....
In the face of nearly seven million infections and 200,000 deaths, many Americans refuse to wear masks because they don’t feel the coronavirus is real. Even some of those who believe the virus exists are not concerned about getting sick. How did this happen? Putting political ill will aside for a moment, the conflicting messaging that persisted from February through the summer could confuse even the most diligent information seeker. Recommendations from credible organizations swung like a pendulum....
In 2014 SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted: “Worth reading Superintelligence by Bostrom. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.” That same year University of Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking told the BBC: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also cautioned: “I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence.” How the AI apocalypse might unfold was outlined by computer scientist Eliezer Yudkowsky in a paper in the 2008 book Global Catastrophic Risks: “How likely is it that AI will cross the entire vast gap from amoeba to village idiot, and then stop at the level of human genius?...
For most birds, eyes are essential to life on the fly. They inform split-second aerobatic maneuvers amid dense branches and pinpoint distant predators or prey. Yet when studying how birds might adapt to our quickly changing world, ornithologists have largely overlooked eye size in favor of traits such as wing length and beak shape. Now, though, a lost “treasure trove” of avian eyeball measurements offers a new view. In 1982 University of Chicago graduate student Stanley Ritland, using pickled museum specimens, meticulously measured the eyeballs of nearly 2,800 species—a third of all terrestrial birds....
The first computers were biological: they had two arms, two legs and 10 fingers. “Computer” was a job title, not the name of a machine. The occupation vanished after programmable, electric calculating machines emerged in the late 1940s. We have thought of computers as electronic devices ever since. Over the past 15 years or so, however, biology has been making a comeback of sorts in computing. Scientists in universities and biotech start-ups believe they are close to advancing the first biocomputers from mere research objects to useful, real-world tools....
It’s that time of year again when millions of migrants enter the southern United States from Mexico to a warm welcome. Monarch butterflies will soon start the second leg of their iconic migration having passed the winter in the Transvolcanic Mountains of Mexico. But future generations of monarchs faced with changing climates may have a hard time finding their way home. A monarch butterfly navigates using a sun compass in its mid-brain and circadian clocks in its antennae....
At 6:12 a.m. EST on Friday (Dec. 21), the sun will reach a point where it will appear to shine farthest to the south of the equator, over the Tropic of Capricorn, thus marking the moment of the winter solstice — the beginning of winter. Since June 20, the altitude of the midday sun has been lowering as its direct rays have been gradually migrating to the south. The sun’s altitude above the horizon at noontime is 47 degrees lower now, compared to six months ago....
A laboratory sweep at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has turned up forgotten stores of the toxin ricin and four pathogens, according to a 5 September agency memo. The agency undertook the search after discovering improperly stored vials of deadly smallpox virus in a refrigerator at its Bethesda, Maryland, campus in July. That news came just weeks after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that employees at one of its Atlanta labs were potentially exposed to anthrax because they did not follow established safety guidelines....
By Alister Doyle OSLO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Greenhouse gas emissions per capita are falling in 11 of the Group of 20 major economies, a turning point for tackling climate change, a study showed on Tuesday. The report, by a new organisation of scientists and other experts called Climate Transparency, also said 15 of the G20 members has seen strong growth in renewable energy in recent years. “Climate action by the G20 has reached a turning point, with per capita emissions falling in 11 members, and renewable energy growing strongly,” the group said in a statement....
You are what you eat, and so are the bacteria that live in your body. Microbiologists have known for some time that different diets produce different gut flora, but new research indicates that the changes take hold with startling quickness. Bacterial populations shift measurably in the first few days following a big shift in what we eat, according to a recent study. Researchers assigned volunteers to two diets—one based on animal products such as meat, eggs and cheese and one based on vegetables....
This question can be rephrased as: “How much variation (difference between individuals) in height is attributable to genetic effects and how much to nutritional effects?” The short answer to this question is that about 60 to 80 percent of the difference in height between individuals is determined by genetic factors, whereas 20 to 40 percent can be attributed to environmental effects, mainly nutrition. This answer is based on estimates of the “heritability” of human height: the proportion of the total variation in height due to genetic factors....
About a year ago I got a new laptop for work and gave my old Macintosh iBook to my mom. She’d been itching for a way to check Facebook and e-mail from the couch and had always wanted a Mac, so she was thrilled. That is, until my ham-fisted lessons on the operating system started up. “No, Mom, you don’t need to double-click on hyperlinks anymore…” “Apple-Q is quit, Mom. No, hit Apple and Q at the sametime....
U.S. A staggering 88 percent of adults viewed the total solar eclipse that swept across the continental U.S. in August, a national study found. At least 20 million traveled to see it, and many others watched it online. MEXICO Seismologists say the soft soil under Mexico City, which was once the bottom of an ancient lake, exacerbated the effects of a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that killed hundreds of people in September....
Medicine The Importance of Spotting Cancer’s Warning Signs Despite the vast resources aimed at finding ways to detect cancer early, more needs to be done December 1, 2021 — Lauren Gravitz Inequality We Must Improve Equity in Cancer Screening Eliminating disparities in routine examinations will require outreach, availability and cultural consideration December 1, 2021 — Melba Newsome Cancer The COVID Cancer Effect Oncologists are grappling with predicting—and mitigating—the effects of the pandemic...
