Scientific American

NASA-funded monkey-radiation experiment raises hackles

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:59:00 EST

A nonprofit group that promotes animal rights in medical research has taken issue with a NASA grant funding an assessment of the long-term effects of radiation on monkeys. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), based in Washington, D.C., sent an appeal Thursday to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, urging that the radiobiology study, intended to test the effects of radiation encountered in long-range spaceflight, be suspended. [More]

What will it take to force political action on climate change?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:21:00 EST

As utilities fire up their "clean coal" machines and international negotiators haggle over the precise definition of a tree , only one entity has the courage to stand and deliver the hot air the world so desperately craves on climate change: the U.S. Senate. After a hectic couple of weeks, filled with Republican walkouts and Democratic intransigence, the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee has pushed a bill to the Senate floor that would cut carbon dioxide. [More]

Google Droid is here: Can it go toe-to-toe with Apple's iPhone?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:18:00 EST

The flood of Google Droid mobile phone reviews in the past week suggests that if the two devices stepped into the ring together, it would end like the first Rocky movie . Like Apollo Creed, the iPhone would still be the champ by a split decision by virtue of its status as the smooth-stepping veteran in the marketplace (not to mention its friendship with iTunes), but the Droids that debuted Friday on Motorola and HTC devices have come out swinging and win a few key rounds. [More]

First Look at Carbon Capture and Storage in a West Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plant [Slide Show]

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:01:00 EST

NEW HAVEN, W.Va.--A 100-story smokestack belches a roiling, white cloud of water vapor, carbon dioxide and other leftover gases after burning daily as much as 12,000 tons of coal at the Mountaineer Power Plant --a total of 3.5 million tons a year. The facility just outside the town of New Haven boasts a single 65-meter-high boiler capable of generating enough steam to pump out 1,300 megawatts of electricity--enough to power nearly one million average American homes a month--continuously. And now roughly 1.5 percent of the CO 2 billowing from its stack is being captured in an industrial unit rising from the concrete in its shadow and then pumped underground for storage. In case you were wondering, this last phase is called "clean coal". [More]

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite: Pest Management Proves More Effective than Pesticides

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:04:00 EST

In a large apartment building, it’s impossible to avoid the neighbors. You can hear the Bruce Springsteen that the tenant in 7B cranks while vacuuming, the kids in 8A directly above tromping around, and if someone decides to paint, the fumes reach everyone on the floor. So when a building supervisor notified owners in a sixty-unit co-op building in Brooklyn that one of the apartments had a bedbug infestation, Eddie Rosenthal feared that it was only a matter of time until the bugs spread to his home. [More]

Earliest Pollinator?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

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Babies Already Have An Accent

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:51:08 EST

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

How can you tell the difference between a French baby and a German baby? No, it’s not that one is wearing a saucy little beret while the other is tucked into tiny pair of lederhosen. Well, maybe that’s part of it. But a new study in the journal Current Biology shows that the babies actually sound different. Because the melody of an infant’s cry matches its mother tongue. [More]

MIND Reviews: The Human Spark

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

TELEVISION The Human Spark [More]

Last chance to save the vaquita porpoise from extinction?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:59:00 EST

This is a crucial time for the critically endangered vaquita porpoise ( Phocoena sinus ). Despite conservation efforts, the vaquita population has dropped more than 50 percent in the past three years as hundreds of porpoises have died in commercial fishing nets. Now just 150 vaquitas remain in their sole habitat, a portion of the Gulf of California off the coast of Mexico, and the species exists at the razor's edge of extinction. [More]

Hot Spot Hot Rod: The Internet Invades the Automobile

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

With U.S. commuters spending an estimated 500 million hours per week in their vehicles , carmakers, software companies and content providers are trying to figure out how to take advantage of new high-speed wireless network technologies to help drivers have better Internet access during this often idle time. [More]

MIND Reviews: Brainy Gifts

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

Catch Some Slow Waves Zeo sleep monitor ($399) [More]

Beyond North and South: Evidence for Magnetic Monopoles

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST

Editor's note: The original online version of this story was previously posted.

Magnets are remarkable exemplars of fairness--every north pole is invariably accompanied by a counterbalancing south pole. Split a magnet in two, and the result is a pair of magnets, each with its own north and south. For decades researchers have sought the exception--namely, the monopole, magnetism’s answer to the electron, which carries electric charge. It would be a free-floating carrier of either magnetic north or magnetic south--a yin unbound from its yang.

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Mongolia eyes horse meat amid H1N1

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:33:00 EST

A delay in flu vaccines has prompted Mongolians turn to traditional flu remedies, such as eating horse meat.

Breast Milk Is Best for Newborns, but the Bottle Is Fine, Too

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: What are the pros and cons of feeding babies formula versus breast milk? And if I purchase formula, should I spend the extra money on the organic variety? --Suzy W., via e-mail [More]

Frozen Antarctic lakes yield new viruses

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:57:00 EST

In the chilly depths of one of Antarctica's freshwater lakes, a surprising number of novel viruses thrive. [More]

Can Closing the Ozone Hole Also Help Combat Climate Change?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:31:00 EST

Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse culprit in human-generated global warming , most scientists agree, but CO 2 itself, and a handful of other substances, are now being promoted as good alternatives to commonly used refrigerants that threaten Earth's atmosphere and climate. [More]

"On-pump" heart bypass surgery beats out beating-heart technique

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:38:00 EST

The best bypass surgery choice may be to use a heart–lung machine, after all, according to a new study published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine . [More]

Newborns may start honing their mother tongue with their first cries

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:00 EST

The cry of newborn babies may seem like nothing more than inescapable shrills, but they could be infants' first attempts to imitate the language they hear while in the womb. [More]

Being Green: 10 Earth-Friendly Habits You Can Adopt

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:27:00 EST

A Bus with Legs Remember the good ol’ days when kids walked to school? Those treks weren’t as rough as some people recall them--five miles through the snow, uphill both ways!--but they did burn calories instead of fossil fuels. Today kids need more opportunities for exercise, but many parents feel it’s not safe for them to walk alone. One simple solution is to organize a “walking school bus” or “bicycle train” for your neighborhood, with one or more adults supervising a group of children traveling together. It’s a good way to build muscles and communities. For details on how to get started, see www.walkingschoolbus.org . [More]

Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:01:00 EST

Theorists and observational astronomers are hot on the trail of dark matter , the invisible material thought to account for puzzling mass disparities in large-scale astronomical structures. For instance, galaxies and galactic clusters behave as if they were far more massive than would be expected if they comprised only atoms and molecules, spinning faster than their observable mass would explain. What is more, the very presence of assemblages such as our Milky Way Galaxy speaks to the influence of more mass than we can see. If the mass of the universe were confined to atoms, the clumping of matter that allowed galaxies to take shape would never have transpired. [More]

Brain disease treated by gene therapy

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

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Hungry 'roos plague outback town

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:31:00 EST

Large numbers of kangaroos invade a drought-striken Australian town under nightfall in search of food and water.

Capturing Carbon Dioxide

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:08 EST

That's the sound of clean coal. Well, cleaner coal. A relatively small unit attached to the smokestack at the Mountaineer Power Plant in West Virginia is capturing some 1.5 percent of the carbon dioxide the coal-fired plant would otherwise belch into the sky.

The loud thrum comes from the whirring of fans that cool the flue gas and the jostling of an agitator that keeps things moving in the tower where the reaction to actually capture the CO 2 takes place. There’s also the chug of the compressor, which turns the odorless, colorless greenhouse gas into a milky liquid at 1,400 pounds per square inch (psi).

[More]

Mars rover plans its escape

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:12:00 EST

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Oldest American artefact unearthed

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:15:00 EST

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Good Sprinters Have Long Toes

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:24:08 EST

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

Through the years, evolution has cooked up some pretty remarkable adaptations. The finch’s beak, the giraffe’s neck and sprinter’s toes. Yes, scientists at Penn State University have found that for runners who ace the 100-yard dash, the thrill of victory may spring from the ankles and the feet. [More]

True Love: How to Find It (preview)

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

Adapted from the book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives , by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler. Copyright © 2009 by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. http://www.connectedthebook.com/

Nicholas and his wife, Erika, like to joke that they had an arranged marriage, South Asia–style. Although they lived within four blocks of each other for two years and were both students at Harvard, their paths never crossed. Erika had to go all the way to Bangladesh so that Nicholas could find her. In the summer of 1987 he went to Washington, D.C., where he had grown up and gone to high school, to care for his ailing mother. He was a medical student, single and, he foolishly thought, not ready for a serious relationship. His old high school friend, Nasi, was also home for the summer. Nasi’s girlfriend, Bemy, who had come to know Nicholas well enough that her gentle teasing was a source of amusement for all of them, was also there. She had, as it turned out, just returned from a year in rural Bangladesh, doing community development work.

[More]

The Dawn of the Green Economy

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

Can the economy be more green and still grow? [More]

Will E.T. Look Like Us?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST

What are the odds that intelligent, technically advanced aliens would look anything like the ones in films, with an emaciated torso and limbs, spindly fingers and a bulbous, bald head with large, almond-shaped eyes? What are the odds that they would even be humanoid? In a YouTube video, produced by Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, I argue that the chances are close to zero ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKAXrmkx12g ). Richard Dawkins himself made this interesting observation in a private communication after viewing it:

I would agree with [Shermer] in betting against aliens being bipedal primates, and I think the point is worth making, but I think he greatly overestimates the odds against. [University of Cambridge paleontologist] Simon Conway Morris, whose authority is not to be dismissed, thinks it positively likely that aliens would be, in effect, bipedal primates. [Harvard University biologist] Ed Wilson gave at least some time to the speculation that, if it had not been for the end-Cretaceous catastrophe, dinosaurs might have produced something like the attached [referring to paleontologist Dale A. Russell’s illustrated evolutionary projection of how a bipedal dinosaur might have evolved into a reptilian humanoid].

[More]

Is the World Outsourcing Its Greenhouse Emissions to China?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: Has China been making any progress reducing its output of global warming gases, and/or in tackling other environmental problems? --Bill W., Saugus, MA [More]

Jurassic Start: Fossil Pushes Tyrannosaurs' Origin Back 10 Million Years

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST

Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives were North America's dominant predators in the late Cretaceous period, about 99 million to 65 million years ago, but a new analysis of a toothy fossil skull suggests that the early history of this group includes smaller meat-eating ancestors that date as far back as 170 million years ago. [More]

Gorillas versus charcoal update: Biomass project reaches halfway point

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

What do comic books, a reggae band and alternative fuels have in common? They are all part of a project to help save critically endangered mountain gorillas ( Gorilla beringei beringei ) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). [More]

Al Gore advocates for gender equality, political action to slow climate change

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:20:00 EST

Slowing climate change is neither inevitable nor impossible, former Vice President Al Gore said in a speech Tuesday night in New York City. Gore, who was launching his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis , said that he has "absolute conviction that we have all the tools to solve [several] climate crises." [More]

Buying Green: 9 Goods for Sustainable Living [Slide Show]

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:13:00 EST

With the holiday shopping season around the corner, don't forget the eco-lover on your list. [More]

Gene-makers put forward security standards

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:42:00 EST

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Aftershocks can last for centuries

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:01:00 EST

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Government Incentives Can Help Finance Energy-Efficient Home Improvements

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: Since Obama took office, have any new incentives been put in place for homeowners looking to increase energy efficiency and reduce the overall environmental footprints of their homes? --Rob Felton, Little Rock, AK [More]

How You Learn More from Success Than Failure

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

Have you ever bowled a string of strikes that seems like it came out of nowhere? There might be more to such streaks than pure luck, according to a study that offers new clues as to how the brain learns from positive and negative experiences.

Training monkeys on a two-choice visual task, researchers found that the animals’ brains kept track of recent successes and failures. A correct answer had impressive effects: it improved neural processing and sent the monkeys’ performance soaring in the next trial. But if a monkey made a mistake in one trial, even after mastering the task, it performed around chance level in the next trial--in other words, it was thrown off by mistakes instead of learning from them.

[More]

El Niño Cycles Threaten Some New World Monkey Populations

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean wreak havoc on monkey populations, either in the midst of the periodic hot and dry spells or in their chilly aftermath, according to the results of a new study. [More]

Sneezes Provoke Fears Beyond Illness

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:00:08 EST

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

With H1N1 on the rise and flu shots hard to find, few things are as terrifying as [sneeze sound]. But now a report in the journal Psychological Science suggests that coughing and sneezing can spread more than viruses. They also spread fear, of germs and more. [More]

The Future of Cars (preview)

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST

For a glimpse into what automobiles will be like 20 years from now, contributing editor Stuart F. Brown conducted a group interview with executives at General Motors, Tesla Motors and Toyota and also spoke separately with a program manager at the Electric Power Research Institute. The interviewees, whose comments have been edited for length, foresee increased communication among cars and a combination of vehicle types. Some, like Tesla’s current sports cars, will draw their energy from a battery pack. Others, in common with today’s Toyota’s Prius and the 2010 Chevy Volt, will be hybrid designs, relying on both electric motors and small internal-combustion engines. Many forthcoming hybrids will charge batteries by plugging into the electric grid, and hydrogen fuel cells might be a reality. But that is not all that the participants see. Read on. --The Editors

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An Elemental Solution: Using Zinc to Stave Off Childhood Diarrhea in Developing Countries

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:53:00 EST

Childhood diarrhea can be a tricky public health issue. Not only is it an unpleasant subject to discuss, but eradicating it, especially in poorer nations, can often mean expensive infrastructure projects and bigger battles than many strapped governments can take on. [More]

Is BPA Contaminating Your Soup?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:01:00 EST

New research results show the controversial plastics additive bisphenol A , or BPA, is commonly found in a wide range of canned foods, including some marked "BPA free" or organic.

"The findings are noteworthy because they indicate the extent of potential exposure," said Urvashi Rangan at Consumers Union , which publishes Consumer Reports and released the results yesterday.

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Hearing Our Heartbeats

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:00:08 EST

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Stellar deal: NASA awards $2 million to X PRIZE winners for helping develop a lunar lander

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:13:00 EST

Less than one month after NASA crashed its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into the moon's surface in order to analyze the resulting plume of debris for signs of water , the U.S. space agency is handing out nearly $2 million on Thursday to engineers developing technology for a much softer landing on the lunar surface as part of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge . [More]

How Threatened Are Killer Whales in the Wild?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: How are populations of the world’s orca whales faring these days? Are we still in danger of losing them all in the wild? --J. Witham, Bangor, ME [More]

Human Evolution II: Recent Evolution; and "Becoming Human" NOVA Preview

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:50:08 EST

The transcript of this podcast wil be posted in two to three weeks.

Anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison talks about recent human evolution, especially of our ability to digest lactose. [More]

Sugar Negates Worm's Life-Extending Mutation

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:55:08 EST

[ The following is an exact transcript of this podcast. ]

For worms fed a sugary diet, life is sweet. But short. According to a new study published in the journal Cell Metabolism , consistently adding a small amount of sugar to a worm's regular diet of bacteria shortened its lifespan by 20 percent. The research was performed on C. elegans, tiny roundworms that typically live an average of two weeks.

[More]

Emission Impossible?: Is Dark Matter Behind the Hazy Radiation at the Milky Way's Center?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

A haze of radiation at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy that appears in sky maps taken by two spacecraft at two different wavelengths likely results from a population of high-energy electrons, according to a new analysis of gamma rays in the galaxy. Curiously, some researchers maintain, those electrons are not readily explained by known astrophysical processes--and work is under way to determine if dark matter particles might be responsible. [More]

Wireless tech taking a toll on Earth science and astronomy

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:35:00 EST

Nearly lost amidst the breathless anticipation of all things wireless--whether it's the latest smart phone, free Internet hot spot or GPS navigation system--is the potential impact these gadgets may have on scientific instruments that likewise need access to the electromagnetic spectrum. Yet the proliferation of wireless technologies, licensed and otherwise, grabbing increasingly more spectrum bandwidth is interfering significantly with scientists' ability to monitor radio emissions from the Earth and space that "yield vital information" about our planet and its place in the universe, according to a report released Monday by the National Research Council's Scientific Use of the Radio Spectrum committee . [More]