Scientific American

How Bad Is the Rebound from Energy Efficiency Efforts?

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:30:00 EST

A car that gets better mileage or a more tightly sealed home may tempt you to drive farther or crank the air conditioning up higher, but fears of these efficiency rebounds are largely overblown, at least in the United States, according to experts.

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Tornado Alley: Twister Devastates Oklahoma City Suburb

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:00:00 EST

What measures can be taken to better protect against dangerous weather? [More]

Search for Survivors Races On as 91 Feared Dead in Tornado-Hit Oklahoma

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:15:00 EST

Pre-dawn emergency workers searched feverishly for survivors in the rubble of homes, primary schools and an hospital in an Oklahoma City suburb ravaged by a massive Monday afternoon tornado feared to have killed up to 91 people and injured well over 200 residents.

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Winning the War against Cervical Cancer

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:08:00 EST

I've yet to meet anyone who loves cancer. When President Nixon began the war on cancer in 1971 with the signing of the National Cancer Act, it was intended to "...strengthen the National Cancer Institute in order to more effectively carry out the national effort against cancer." Despite the billions of dollars spent, and a few scattered victories (e.g. childhood leukemia) the casualties continue to mount in this 40 year campaign with no end in sight.Diseases such as smallpox and polio have both succumbed to our relentless attack with vaccines, yet cancer has largely remained immune to our assaults. We are not winning this war. [More]

Without Glia, the Brain Would Starve

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:00:00 EST

The brain is voracious: compared with other organs, it consumes 10 times more oxygen and nutrients, receiving them by way of dense networks of blood vessels. Scientists know how these networks initially grow, but a surprising new study suggests that they are stabilized in early life by stem cells in the brain called radial glia. The finding could have significant implications for our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, a condition characterized in part by brainwide vascular problems.

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Your Lady Parts Don t Like It When You Get Sick: Relationships Between Immune Health and Reproductive Hormones

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:56:00 EST

Life history trade-offs are the bread and butter of biological anthropology. The way we understand the importance of certain traits and life events is in how they vary in response to selection pressures like energy availability or climate, but also cultural beliefs and practices.That's why it matters to us when you got your first period, or what your birth weight was, or how closely you decided to space your children, or if you had them at all. And we will delightedly explain the different selection pressures that push and pull on these events and traits, like how the travel soccer team you were so serious about as a kid might have delayed puberty for you just a little, but how that's great because later puberty can lead to a lower lifetime hormone exposure and a lower risk for reproductive cancers. [More]

You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:30:00 EST

In April 15, 2013 Dove launched a 3-minute video entitled “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” The video achieved instant popularity and has been watched millions of times -- a successful viral campaign which has been widely talked about . In the video, a small group of women are asked to describe their faces to a person whom they cannot see. The person is a forensic artist who is there to draw pictures of the women based on their verbal descriptions. A curtain separates the artist and the women, and they never see each other. Before all this, each woman is asked to socialize with a stranger, who later separately describes the woman to the forensic artist. In the end, the women are shown the two drawings, one based on their own description, the other based on the stranger’s description. Much to their amazement and delight, the women realize that the drawings based on strangers’ descriptions depict much more beautiful women. The video ends: “You are more beautiful than you think.”

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Why Google Glass is Creepy

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:15:00 EST

Every new technology causes initial public discomfort. It took society a long time to accept cell phones as commonplace. Before that, television. And before that, tractors.

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No-Kill, High-Resolution 3-D Movies of Cells Now Possible [Video + Infographic]

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

Lillian Fritz-Laylin is observing a strain of leukemia cell that zips along at about 10 to 20 microns per minute. She’s looking for the motive secret of how these speed demons of the cellular world get around, and she’s doing it by making a high-resolution 3-D micro movie.

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Why Penguins Cannot Fly

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:30:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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Wild wallabies in the UK

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:30:00 EST

I haven't had time to provide answers on the previous article , sorry about that. Busy with preparation for the International Symposium on Pterosaurs , this year being held in Rio. Purely for the sake of adding something new ( TetZoo podcast followers will understand the motivation, I hope), here's some recycled text from Tet Zoo ver 2 (though with new pictures). Enjoy![caption id="attachment_7375" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Reclining Bennett's wallabies at Marwell Wildlife, UK. Photo by Darren Naish."] [/caption] [More]

Good Gut Bacteria May Keep Bad at Bay

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:59:08 EST

Most E. coli bacteria are harmless. It’s the rare, pathogenic strains that can cause bloody diarrhea, kidney disease, or death. But many of us may already be carrying the antidote--a healthy colony of gut bacteria. Because a study finds that when bad E. coli get in, beneficial microbes appear to keep them at bay. In mice, at least.

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Large 200 MPH Tornado Hits Suburb of Oklahoma City

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:35:00 EST

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Angelina Jolie and the One Percent

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:46:00 EST

After learning that she had inherited a mutation on one of the so-called breast cancer genes, actress Angelina Jolie decided to have a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer. She also plans to have her ovaries removed to reduce her risk of ovarian cancer. It may sound like a drastic measure, but mutations on the breast cancer genes ( BRCA1 and BRCA2 ) increase the overall risk of developing several cancers, including prostate, pancreatic, testicular, ovarian, and breast. On average, a woman with a BRCA1 mutation (the one Jolie has) has a 65 percent risk of developing breast cancer and a 39 percent risk of ovarian cancer by the age of 70. Jolie's mother died of ovarian cancer at age 56, after ten years of living with the disease. Jolie explained her medical decision in an op-ed in The New York Times , saying that she decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much [she] could.Since the Angelina Jolie story broke, there's been a flurry of discussion about risks, medical interventions, access to medical care, body image, genetics and gene patents, reconstructive surgeries, and of course, health literacy and the role of celebrities in disseminating health information. These are useful conversations that I hope will continue. In the meantime, we should remember an important caveat about Angelina Jolie's situation. Namely, that it doesn't apply to most women. [More]

The s**t hits the fan - FDA, INDs, and fecal microbiota transplants

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:40:00 EST

[caption id="attachment_4663" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Bristol Stool Chart"] [/caption]This weekend, the proverbial s**t hit the fan over the Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to require an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for stool transplants--formally known as "fecal microbiota transplants (FMT)"--for the treatment of C. difficile colitis. "C. diff," as it is known, is a severe inflammation of the bowel complicating treatment of other infections with antibiotics or treatment with chemotherapy. [More]

See Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in Tightest Night Sky Cluster until 2026

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:05:00 EST

[caption id="attachment_12513" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Credit: StarDate"] [/caption]Cicadas aren't the only scientific rarity expected this month. At the end of May three planets will be visible to the naked eye in one small area of the sky. The planets Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will form "the tightest gathering of three naked-eye planets that the world will see until 2026," according to the venerable Sky & Telescope magazine. [More]

The Rise of the Suburban Poor

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:00:00 EST

By Ariel Schwartz

In 2004, a documentary called The End of Suburbia predicted that the suburbs were potentially "destined to become the slums of tomorrow" thanks to the impending threat of peak oil. [More]

Drought Gobbles Up Texas Turkey Hunt

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:50:00 EST

Turkey hunting in Texas dried up along with the state's water due to the epic drought of 2011. And while the drought has relented, turkey season hasn't been the same.

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Pesticide Makers Seek Answers as Bee Losses Sting Agriculture

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:21:07 EST

By Carey Gillam

(Reuters) - Monsanto Co is hosting a "Bee Summit." Bayer AG is breaking ground on a "Bee Care Center." And Sygenta AG is funding grants for research into the accelerating demise of honeybees in the United States, where the insects pollinate fruits and vegetables that make up roughly a quarter of the American diet.

The agrichemical companies are taking these initiatives at a time when their best-selling pesticides are under fire from environmental and food activists who say the chemicals are killing off millions of bees. [More]

Heat Deaths in New York City Predicted to Rise

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:30:00 EST

Residents of Manhattan will not just sweat harder from rising temperatures in the future, says a new study; many may die.

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U.S. Coal-Fired Power Plants: Update or Close?

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:00:00 EST

If one were to sketch a family tree of eastern U.S. power plants, the Gallatin Fossil Plant outside Nashville, Tenn., and the Big Sandy Power Plant in eastern Kentucky might be distant cousins. Separated by 300 miles of Cumberland Plateau, the two hulking coal burners share lineage as power plants that helped industrialize the South after World War II.

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Cancer, genomics and technological solutionism: A time to be wary

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:57:00 EST

[caption id="attachment_1465" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Genetic sequencing may provide easy data but the truly useful missing data might lie at the level of protein signaling pathways (Image: Yaffe, Science Signaling, 2013, doi: 10.1126/scisignal.2003684)"] [/caption]In his new book "To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism", the philosopher of technology Evgeny Morozov develops the concept of "technological solutionism", the tendency to define problems primarily or purely based on whether or not a certain technology can address them. This is a concerning trend since it foreshadows a future where problems are no longer prioritized by their social or political importance but instead by how easily they would succumb under the blade of well-defined and easily available technological solutions. Morozov's solutionism is a more sophisticated version of the adage about everything looking like a nail when you have a hammer. But it's all too real in this age of accelerated technological development, when technology advances much faster than we can catch up with its implications. It's a problem that only threatens to grow. [More]

The Overwhelming Odds Of Climate Change

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:30:00 EST

If you listen to global warming deniers, or even much of the public , it seems like there is some stack of scientific studies somewhere that refute anthropogenic--human-caused--climate change. If someone would just let them reach into that pile and pull out a paper, we'd all see that climate change is "a hoax," or so it seems in our fractured discourse.

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Stress Makes Gorilla Glass Stronger

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:22:00 EST

This story was originally published by Inside Science News Service .

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DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:00 EST

Like many psychiatrists, I have been amazed by the debates surrounding the DSM-5 , the first major revision of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in nearly twenty years, which was just released. Never before has a thick medical text of diagnostic nomenclature been the subject of so much attention.Although I was heartened to see more and more people discussing the real-world issues and challenges--for patients, families, clinicians and caregivers-within mental health care, for which the book offers an up-to-the-minute diagnostic GPS, I was also alarmed at the harsh criticism of the field of psychiatry and the APA. Consequently, I believe that as you read and watch this increased coverage, it's important to understand the difference between thoughtful, legitimate debate, and the inevitable outcry from a small group of critics --made louder by social media and support from dubious sources --who have relentlessly sought to undermine the credibility of psychiatric medicine and question the validity of mental illness.. [More]

Hovering "Home Drone" Puts Burglars on Display

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:35:17 EST

Japanese security firm Secom has a warning for would-be robbers - keep your eye on the sky because a soon-to-be-launched security drone will track you down.

These Students Created a High-Tech Baby Monitor That Knows When Something Is Wrong

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:30:00 EST

By Ariel Schwartz

Like so many consumer technology products, the baby monitor has changed dramatically over the years. [More]

China's One-Child Policy Affects Personality

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:00:00 EST

In 1979 China instituted the one-child policy, which limited every family to just one offspring in a controversial attempt to reduce the country's burgeoning population. The strictly enforced law had the desired effects: in 2011 researchers estimated that the policy prevented 400 million births. In a new study in Science , researchers find that it has also caused China's so-called little emperors to be more pessimistic, neurotic and selfish than their peers who have siblings.

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Why Feeling Anxious about a Vaccine Makes It More Effective (and Other Benefits of Short-Term Stress)

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:00:00 EST

[caption id="attachment_761" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Source: CDC, via Wikimeda Commons"] [/caption]SAN FRANCISCO--Standing at a podium in front of an audience of psychiatrists, clinicians and scientists, Firdaus Dhabhar brings up a video of his infant son on a large projector screen and presses play. Smiling and wriggling, Dhabhar's son rests on his back in a doctor's office--perfectly content. "Watch for the immediate reaction," Dhabhar tells the audience. A nurse expertly injects his son's thigh with a vaccine. For half a second, nothing changes. Then the child stops moving; his eyes widen; his face twists into misery as he begins to cry. Meanwhile, the nurse has not missed a beat, injecting several more vaccines. As she leaves she turns to the camera and says, "Sorry I couldn't make him cry more." [More]

Can Patents Keep Up with Technology?

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

The U.S. patent system is a popular target. Recently we have heard that big portfolios of large companies pose a threat to small inventors, “patent trolls” who exist solely to sue real companies have hijacked the marketplace for new ideas and colossal lawsuits prove that America's patent system is broken.

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Mystery of Moon's Magnetic Field Deepens

Mon, 20 May 2013 06:10:00 EST

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Penitent Hacker Aims to Protect World's ATMs

Mon, 20 May 2013 05:34:01 EST

A Romanian hacker serving a prison term for manipulating ATMs says he has invented a device that can make the world's cash dispensers impregnable even to tech-savvy criminals.

Childhood ADHD Linked to Obesity in Adulthood

Mon, 20 May 2013 05:00:00 EST

Identification and treatment issues surrounding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are challenging enough. Now research is shedding light on long-term outcomes for people with ADHD. A May 20 study in Pediatrics reports that men who had ADHD in childhood are twice as likely to be obese in middle age, even if they no longer exhibit symptoms of the disorder.

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Illegal Sea Turtle Egg Poaching on the Rise in Costa Rica

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:00 EST

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Becoming an individual twin isn't about genetics or environment, but how you experience them

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:07:00 EST

Have you ever known a pair of identical twins? Not just the ones that look alike, but identical twins that really were part of, at some point, the same egg and sperm combination, that then split early in development to create two "identical" people, with the same genetics.If genetics really were the be all and end all of our behavior, you might expect these identical twins to look the same, act the same, speak the same, move the same. They have the same DNA, they should essentially, be the same people. [More]

Fight Is On for North Dakota's Fracking-Water Market

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:48:32 EST

By Ernest Scheyder

WATFORD CITY, North Dakota (Reuters) - In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting."

It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. [More]

At Margins of Shale Oil Boom, A Tempered Euphoria

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:09:29 EST

By Kristen Hays and Jonathan Leff

HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - For the past three years, the boom in the U.S. [More]

Xbox Next: What to Expect at Tuesday's Xbox Reveal Event

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:01:00 EST

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At Least 1 Reported Dead as Tornadoes Hammer Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:21:26 EST

By Chris Francescani

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A tornado half a mile wide struck near Oklahoma City on Sunday, part of a massive storm front that hammered the central United States. [More]

For Plants, Polyploidy Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:37:00 EST

[caption id="attachment_3011" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="The sacred Asian water lotus, Nelumbo nucifera -- the pedestal of choice for a variety of Egyptian and Indian deities. It's easy to see why. Public Domain. Click image for link."] [/caption][caption id="attachment_3017" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Creative Commons ehamburg. Click image for license and source."] [/caption] [More]

Extreme Global Warming Seen Further Away than Previously Thought

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:06:02 EST

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Extreme global warming is less likely in coming decades after a slowdown in the pace of temperature rises so far this century, an international team of scientists said on Sunday.

Warming is still on track, however, to breach a goal set by governments around the world of limiting the increase in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, unless tough action is taken to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"The most extreme rates of warming simulated by the current generation of climate models over 50- to 100-year timescales are looking less likely," the University of Oxford wrote about the findings in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The rate of global warming has slowed after strong rises in the 1980s and 1990s, even though all the 10 warmest years since reliable records began in the 1850s have been since 1998.

The slowdown has been a puzzle because emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have continued to rise, led by strong industrial growth in China.

Examining recent temperatures, the experts said that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere above pre-industrial times - possible by mid-century on current trends - would push up temperatures by between 0.9 and 2.0 degrees Celsius (1.6 and 3.6F).

That is below estimates made by the U.N. [More]

Chimps in Uganda: Resilience

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:46:00 EST

Their chorus of pant hoots gave them away in dramatic fashion. The chimpanzees we'd been looking for were nearby, and we knew exactly where to find them. Though farmland and trees blocked our view, we could hear that the chimpanzees had arrived at a particular fig tree laden with ripe fruits. As ripe fruit specialists, chimpanzees seek out fruiting figs like this Ficus exasperata . On a good day, we can use our knowledge of when these figs are ripening to help us find the chimpanzees.[caption id="attachment_3955" align="alignright" width="299" caption="Chimpanzees feed in a Ficus exasperata tree. Photo: Jack Lester."] [/caption] [More]

Dear American Consumers: Please Don t Start Eating Healthfully. Sincerely, the Food Industry

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:51:00 EST

Dear Consumers: A disturbing trend has come to our attention. You, the people, are thinking more about health, and you're starting to do something about it. This cannot continue. Sure, there's always been talk of health in America. We often encourage it. The thing is, we only want you to think about and talk about health in a certain way--equating health with how you look, instead of outcomes like quality of life and reduced disease risk. Your superficial understanding of health has a great influence over your purchasing decisions, and we're ready for it, whether you choose to go low-calorie, low-fat, gluten-free or inevitably give up and accept the fact that you can't resist our Little Debbie snacks, potato chips and ice cream novelties. [More]

Dogs and Cats in the Home: Happiness for All?

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:15:00 EST

'Dogs and Cats in the Home: Happiness for All?' was a Finalist in the inaugural ScienceSeeker Awards * in the category Best Post About Peer-reviewed Research (winners and finalists listed here ). Congrats to all those recognized and many thanks to the judges** for putting in how many hours? A version of this post first appeared at Do you believe in dog? (Twitter @ DoUBelieveInDog ) a joint pen pal blog between myself and Mia Cobb , an animal welfare scientist and canine researcher just outside Melbourne, Australia. [More]

Airline Emissions Deal May Not Come before EU Deadline

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:42:43 EST

By Allison Martell

(Reuters) - Hope is fading for a global deal to regulate the airline industry's greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a fall deadline, even though failure could push the industry back to the brink of a trade war over the European Union's emissions trading system.

Last November the EU suspended its controversial scheme to force all airlines to buy carbon credits for any flight arriving in or departing from European airspace.

The scheme had pitted European states against China, the United States, India and others, who said it violated their sovereignty. [More]

Very Fine Art: 6 Stunningly Beautiful Nanoscale Sculptures [Slide Show]

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:00:00 EST

Artists and material scientists alike bend, melt and mold materials into useful and aesthetically pleasing forms. But nothing human hands have made can match the intricacy of convoluted corals or the delicate and unique geometry of a snowflake. In a study published yesterday in Science researchers exploited nature’s sculpting methods to create visually stunning 3-D structures that may change the way nano- and micro-materials are made.

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What Is It? Mystery Spots

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:00:00 EST

Mystery spots: In southwestern Africa's Namib Desert, the lack of rainfall keeps vegetation sparse. Yet in some areas, mysterious rings of grass with bare centers appear and thrive. Now scientists have discovered these so-called fairy circles are indeed created by wee little creatures--termites.

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'Apps for Asia' Offers Solutions to Poverty-Related Problems

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:35:43 EST

Tech innovators and app designers attending the recent "Apps For Asia - Redesigning Development" program in India, say technology holds the answer to many of Asia's poverty-related problems.

Who's Paying the Price for Global Warming?

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:08 EST

Climate change is already melting the Arctic, queering weather and threatening food supplies. So who's paying the price for all these global warming impacts?

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33 Years Ago Today...

Sat, 18 May 2013 21:52:00 EST

... Mount St. Helens exploded with a fury that surpassed expectations.[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Mount St. Helens in eruption on May 18, 1980 showing portion of crater and Mount Adams in background. Skamania County Washington. Image and caption courtesy USGS."] [/caption] [More]