Friday, November 20, 2009
Under Pressure: Bathers Duck Weak Shower Heads
From The Wall Street Journal:
Water Shortages Spur Restrictions and Low-Flow Designs, but Some People Aren't Willing to Sacrifice, and Skirt the Rules
One way to ruin someone's day is to mess with a good morning shower. That was the hard-learned lesson of past campaigns to conserve water -- and a mistake that could be easy to repeat.
Margy Barrett, a store manager in Dallas, will make some environmental sacrifices. She recycles, and she carts reusable cloth bags to the grocery store. But this month, when she couldn't stand her weak shower head any longer, she replaced it with one that sprays hard enough, she says, to help erode "all the stress involved in today's life."
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Remembering Dr. Paul Zamecnik
Although Dr. Paul Zamecnik was nominated repeatedly for the Nobel and rumors circulated each year that he would finally receive it, the prize never came. He did, however, win a 1996 Lasker Award, the prestigious American prize that is often a precursor of the Nobel, and the National Medal of Science in 1991. (Mercer Photography / University of Massachusetts Medical School)Dr. Paul Zamecnik Dies At 96; Scientist Made Two Major Discoveries -- L.A. Times
He discovered transfer RNA, a crucial molecule in the synthesis of proteins in the cell, and antisense therapy, in which strands of DNA or RNA are used to block the activity of genes.
Most scientists are fortunate if they can make one major discovery in their lifetime. Dr. Paul Zamecnik made two, each of which should have won him a Nobel Prize.
Working with Dr. Mahlon Hoagland, he discovered transfer RNA, a crucial molecule in the synthesis of proteins in the cell. Later, he invented the idea of antisense therapy, in which strands of DNA or RNA are used to block the activity of genes -- a concept that is now being turned into a new class of drugs for cancer, HIV and a host of other diseases.
Zamecnik died of cancer Oct. 27 at his home in Boston. He was 96.
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Seeking Wind Energy, Some Consider The Sea
Click Image to EnlargeFrom The New York Times:
LAST June in a fjord in southwestern Norway, a 213-foot-tall wind turbine did something large wind turbines normally don’t do: it headed out to sea.
Towed by tugboats, the newly built turbine, with three 139-foot rotor blades and a 2.3-megawatt generator atop the tower, which itself was bolted to a ballasted steel cylinder extending more than 300 feet below the waterline, made its way to a spot six miles off the coast. Once in position it was moored with cables to the seafloor, about 700 feet below.
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"Shangri-La" Caves Yield Treasures, Skeletons
Climber Renan Ozturk watches a local Tibetan look at an illuminated manuscript found in 2008 in a cave in the ancient kingdom of Mustang—today part of Nepal. The 15th-century folio is part of a treasure trove of Tibetan art and manuscripts uncovered in the remote Himalayan caves. The team that made the discovery, which is featured in a pair of November 2009 documentaries, thinks the sacred hoard could be linked to the fictional paradise of Shangri-La. Photograph courtesy Kris Erickson From National Geographic:
A treasure trove of Tibetan art and manuscripts uncovered in "sky high" Himalayan caves could be linked to the storybook paradise of Shangri-La, says the team that made the discovery.
Few have been able to explore the mysterious caves, since Upper Mustang is a restricted area of Nepal that was long closed to outsiders. Today only a thousand foreigners a year are allowed into the region.
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'Big Bang' Experiment To Re-Start
The Compact Muon Solenoid is one of two multi-purpose detectors at the LHCFrom BBC:
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment could be re-started on Saturday morning at the earliest, officials have said.
Engineers are preparing to send a beam of sub-atomic particles all the way round the 27km-long circular tunnel which houses the LHC.
The £6bn machine on the French-Swiss border is designed to shed light on fundamental questions about the cosmos.
The LHC has been shut down for repairs since an accident in September 2008.
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Analyst: Timing Of The Apple Tablet Is Irrelevant
From CNET News:
A new report from Digitimes on Thursday says Apple's anticipated tablet will not be released in the first part of 2010 as originally thought, but rather in the second half of the year. One industry analyst said the timing of the release is irrelevant to Wall Street.
According to Digitimes, Apple will delay the release of the long rumored tablet because it has decided to change some of its components. Citing unnamed sources, the report says Apple will launch a model using a 9.7-inch OLED from LG.
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Yawning Is Part Of What Makes Us Human
Chimps do it, dogs do it, lions do it, even babies in the womb do it Photo: AFP From The Telegraph:
Far from being bad manners, yawning is a sign of our deep humanity, says Steve Jones.
What may become 2010's Conference of the Year has just been announced. The International Congress of Chasmology will take place in June in Paris, and papers are solicited now. Anyone bored by that statement should read further, for the topic to be discussed is not diving but yawning ('chasmology' deriving from the Greek word for the pastime).
Why do we yawn? Dogs do it, lions do it, even babies in the womb do it - but nobody really knows why. Theories abound. We open wide when we are tired, bored, or hungry. Some have suggested that a sudden drop in blood oxygen, or a surge of carbon dioxide pumped out by a tired body, sparks it off – but no, breathing air rich in that gas, or with extra oxygen, makes no difference.
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
Bigger Not Necessarily Better, When It Comes To Brains
Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger animals, despite only having a brain the size of a pinhead, say scientists at Queen Mary, University of London. (Credit: Image courtesy of Queen Mary, University of London)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Nov. 18, 2009) — Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger animals, despite only having a brain the size of a pinhead, say scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.
"Animals with bigger brains are not necessarily more intelligent," according to Lars Chittka, Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary's Research Centre for Psychology and University of Cambridge colleague, Jeremy Niven. This begs the important question: what are they for?
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Strange Ancient Crocodiles Swam the Sahara
Paleontologist Paul Sereno and his colleagues unearthed a bizarre bunch of crocodile remains in the Sahara. The crocs sported snouts and other traits that resembled some modern-day animals and inspired nicknames, including SuperCroc (weighed 8 tons), BoarCroc (upper right), PancakeCroc (lower right), RatCroc, DogCroc and DuckCroc. Credit: Photo by Mike Hettwer, courtesy National Geographic.From Live Science:
From a crocodile sporting a boar-like snout to a peculiar pal with buckteeth for digging up grub, an odd-looking bunch of such reptiles dashed and swam across what is now the Sahara Desert some 100 million years ago when dinosaurs ruled.
That's the picture created by remains of three newly identified species of ancient crocs plus fossils from two species previously named.
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The History Of The Internet In A Nutshell
From Six Revisions:
If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time online. However, considering how much of an influence the Internet has in our daily lives, how many of us actually know the story of how it got its start?
Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.
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Movie Popcorn Still A Nutritional Horror, Study Finds
A worker makes popcorn at a Denver theater. A Center for Science in the Public Interest study found that 20 cups of one chain's popcorn contains 1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat, and 980 milligrams of sodium. (Matthew Staver, Bloomberg / October 16, 2009)From The L.A. Times:
A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The group's second look at movie theater concessions -- the last was 15 years ago -- found little had changed in a decade and a half, despite theaters' attempts to reformulate.
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Sounds During Sleep Aid Memory, Study Finds
From The New York Times:
Science has never given much credence to claims that you can learn French or Chinese by having the instruction CDs play while you sleep. If any learning happens that way, most scientists say, the language lesson is probably waking the sleeper up, not causing nouns and verbs to seep into a sound-asleep mind.
But a new study about a different kind of audio approach during sleep gives insight into how the sleeping brain works, and might eventually come in handy to people studying a language, cramming for a test or memorizing lines in a play.
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Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out
DPAFrom Spiegel Online:
At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.
Alcohol 'Protects Men's Hearts'
From The BBC:Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests.
The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.
Female drinkers did not benefit to the same extent, the study in Heart found.
Experts are critical, warning heavy drinking can increase the risk of other diseases, with alcohol responsible for 1.8 million deaths globally per year.
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Yahoo Adds Photos, Tweets To News Search
From CNET News:Yahoo is adding more context to news searches, bringing photos, videos, and even tweets into its search results page.
Searchers on Yahoo--who are dwindling--will find new results for newsy events Thursday, when Yahoo launches new tabs on the Yahoo News Shortcut. You've long been able to find links to news stories about a given search query through the shortcut, but you can now find other ways of telling the story with the new tabs, said Larry Cornett, vice president of consumer products for Yahoo Search.
Killer Bees: Nasty Sting, Not So Smart
From New Scientist:Killer bees may be among the most feared of all insects - but they ain't too smart.
A new study has compared the wits of Africanized killer honey bees with those of a more docile European breed.
Killer bees - which result from a cross between African honey bees and a Brazilian variety in the 1950s - have spread from Central American into the southern United States. Increased intelligence had been suggested as one reason for this expansion.
Apparently not.
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Are The Earth's Oceans Hitting Their Carbon Cap?
Remi Benali / CorbisFrom Time Magazine:
Like the vast forests of the world, which continually suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen, the planet's oceans serve as vital carbon sinks. Last year the oceans absorbed as much as 2.3 billion tons of carbon, or about one-fourth of all manmade carbon emissions. Without the action of the oceans, the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere would have flame-broiled the planet by now.
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Your Brain On Books
Photo: Neuroscientist Stanislas DehaeneFrom Scientific American:
Neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene explains his quest to understand how the mind makes sense of written language.
Stanislas Dehaene holds the chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France, and he is also the director of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at NeuroSpin, France’s most advanced neuroimaging research center. He is best known for his research into the brain basis of numbers, popularized in his book, “The Number Sense.” In his new book, “Reading in the Brain,” he describes his quest to understand an astounding feat that most of us take for granted: translating marks on a page (or a screen) into language. He answered questions recently from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.
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Dozen Lesser-Known Chemicals Have Strong Impact on Climate Change
Chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur and nitrogen fluorides stood out in their warming potential because of their efficiency to trap radiation in the atmospheric window. (Credit: iStockphoto)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Nov. 18, 2009) — A new study indicates that major chemicals most often cited as leading causes of climate change, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are outclassed in their warming potential by compounds receiving less attention.
Purdue University and NASA examined more than a dozen chemicals, most of which are generated by humans, and have developed a blueprint for the underlying molecular machinery of global warming. The results appear in a special edition of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry A, released Nov. 12.
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Drilling Into Ice To See Into Earth's Past, Future
Jim White, professor of Geological Sciences and the Director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, an expert on global climate change. Credit: Jim White, University of ColoradoFrom Live Science:
Jim White is a professor of Geological Sciences and the Director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and is leading research being conducted on the Greenland ice sheet. White is also the director of The Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), which focuses on studying the effects of environmental changes in high altitude and high latitude regions. White's research on the Greenland ice sheet is part of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project. Fourteen nations are collaborating in the NEEM research, with the common goal of obtaining samples of core ice from the Eemian Period, which was the last interglacial period, about 120,000 years ago. The samples will help researchers interpret the atmospheric environment present during the Eemian period, and relate those interpretations to the present day atmosphere. The ultimate goal of this research is to learn more about how the Earth's climate functions, and what, if anything, can be done to counteract any adverse environmental conditions. The core ice samples will also help researchers identify the causes behind the Earth's increased warming, including those driven by human activity. Below, White answers the ScienceLives 10 Questions.
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