Posts

1 How Did Life Begin? The moment when the first living beings arose from inanimate matter almost four billion years ago is still shrouded in mystery. How did relatively simple molecules in the primordial broth give rise to more and more complex compounds? And how did some of those compounds begin to process energy and replicate (two of the defining characteristics of life)? At the molecular level, all of those steps are, of course, chemical reactions, which makes the question of how life began one of chemistry....

By Jo Marchant of Nature magazineThe beautifully preserved leather trappings of an ancient Egyptian chariot have been rediscovered in a storeroom of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Researchers say that the find, which includes intact harnesses, gauntlets and a bow case, is unique, and will help them to reconstruct how such chariots were made and used.The ancient Egyptians used chariots–typically with one or two riders and pulled by two horses–for hunting and warfare as well as in processions....

On a shallow reef in the Florida Keys, a young Caribbean spiny lobster returns from a night of foraging for tasty mollusks and enters its narrow den. Lobsters usually share these rocky crevices, and tonight a new one has wandered in. Something about the newcomer is not right, though. Chemicals in its urine smell different. These substances are produced when a lobster is infected with a contagious virus called Panulirus argus virus 1, and the healthy returning lobster seems alarmed....

For years health officials have thrown money at ways to prevent young children from dying, with little global data on effectiveness. Recently a pattern has emerged: mortality drops in proportion to the years of schooling that women attain. The relation holds true for rich countries and poor, as seen above in each rising line. Whether education rises from high levels (say, 10 years to 11) or low levels (from one year to two), child mortality drops (the lines get thinner)....

When Robotic Technology, Inc., and Cyclone Power Technologies announced earlier this month they had completed the first phase of their project to build a robotic vehicle that could scavenge sticks, grass, leaves and other biomass to fuel itself, the companies had no idea that their proposed machine would set off one of humanity’s worst fears: the dawn of an artificially intelligent race of self-sufficient mechanical devices with a hunger for organic meals (including people)....

Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us by Murray Carpenter Hudson Street Press, 2014 ($25.95) “Let’s get personal— this substance courses through my veins as I write these words. It is a drug, and I have been under its influence … for the last 25 years. And I am in good company,” writes journalist Carpenter in Caffeinated. His book examines the caffeine industry, the coffee and other products it churns out, and the complex effects the chemical has on our bodies....

President Obama’s election to a second term means America can “push the reset button” on the turbulent U.N. climate change negotiations, World Resources Institute President Andrew Steer said yesterday. Steer, who served as the World Bank’s climate change envoy before joining WRI in August, said it is time for the administration to show “real leadership” on climate change. Others called on U.S. diplomats to embrace the goal of keeping global average temperatures below a 2 degrees Celsius rise over preindustrial levels and to show how they intend to cut carbon at home....

By Rex DaltonAt the northern end of the Gulf of California, where the Baja peninsula joins the rest of Mexico, the world’s most endangered marine mammal is inching closer to extinction.With adults only 1.5 meters long, the vaquita (Phocoena sinus), a rare porpoise found only in these waters, epitomizes the plight of small cetaceans, which bear the brunt of pollution, ship traffic and fishing because they live in rivers and coastal areas....

Female reproductive health has frequently been wrapped up in politics and patriarchy. In 2019 millions of women globally are still ostracized for menstrual bleeding. American lawmakers are trying to roll back the legal right to abortions and have cut off funding for contraception and sex education. The contraceptive devices known as IUDs are being promoted as a “set it and forget it” solution to poverty. This uneasy dance between science and society has a long history, as evidenced in a 1933 article in Scientific American....

“A typical candle flame produces light, heat, carbon dioxide and water vapor. The heat causes these combustion products to expand, which lowers their density, and they rise due to buoyancy. Fresh, oxygen-containing air can thus get into the flame, further fueling combustion. Because gravity is necessary for density differences, neither buoyancy nor convection occur in a zero-gravity environment such as space. Combustion products accumulate around the flame, preventing sufficient oxygen from reaching it and sustaining the combustion reaction....

The long and divisive fight over U.S. health care reform exposed basic weaknesses in the processes of governance. As is so often true in American politics these days, politicians and lobbyists kept complex subjects to themselves, pushing expert discussion and systematic public debate to the sidelines. Although the final legislation expands coverage, and I favor it for that reason, it falls far short of the changes we need to lower costs and improve health outcomes....

In 1912, on the ancient lava fields of Haleakalā on the Hawaiian island of Maui, a single tree stood near death. Fifteen feet tall, its bark encrusted with lichens, it was down to its last flower. The Hawaiians called this tree hau kuahiwi, the mountain hibiscus. Unlike the more familiar Hawaiian hibiscus, which grows in moist valleys and opens wide in a welcoming aloha, the mountain hibiscus grew only on the dry, well-drained lava fields of Hawaii’s volcanoes....

The chairman of the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has resigned at the request of the White House. Members of Congress had called on President Barack Obama to fire Rafael Moure-Eraso, charging that he mismanaged the small independent agency that investigates accidents at chemical facilities and refineries. Moure-Eraso, who had just three months left in his five-year term as head of CSB, announced his resignation to staff in an e-mail sent on Thursday evening....

A single dose of morphine can block a process in the brain associated with learning and memory for as long as a full day after being ingested, according to a new study. The disruption causes a neuronal imbalance that researchers say could be the first step in the development of addiction. They add that therapies designed to prevent this from happening during drug use could one day help to thwart chemical dependency....

Not all tyrannosaurs had short, brutish faces like that of Tyrannosaurus rex. Paleontologists in China have unearthed the remains of a slender, long-snouted tyrannosaur — and nicknamed it ‘Pinocchio rex’ for its impressive nose. Earlier discoveries had hinted at tyrannosaurs with elongated snouts. The new finding confirms that not only did they exist, but that they make up an entirely new class of dinosaurs. Pinocchio rex “tells us pretty unequivocally that these long-snouted tyrannosaurs were a real thing”, says Stephen Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK....

Digital video surveillance has become a staple of security systems used by banks, supermarkets and other businesses in the past few years because the technology produces better quality video that is easier and cheaper to archive than tapes. The technology’s Achilles’ heel, however, has been its rudimentary search capabilities that use video time stamps to help locate specific footage. This is changing, as technology companies pour resources into making video search engines that they hope will do for surveillance footage what Google, Yahoo and other search engines have done in making the Web’s vast resources more accessible....

PROFILE NAMES Kelly Baustian TITLE Postdoctoral research fellow LOCATION School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, England The microphysics of cloud formation and the impact of clouds on climate are some of the biggest unresolved questions in climate change research right now. As part of Ben Murray’s research group at the University of Leeds in England, my work focuses on ice nucleation, which refers to the formation of ice crystals in clouds....

It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; as these two species are now man’s closest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere. So mused Charles Darwin in his 1871 work, The Descent of Man. Although no African fossil apes or humans were known at the time, remains recovered since then have largely confirmed his sage prediction about human origins....

Researchers are finally beginning to cobble together the basic elements of a quantum computer on a chip. Two teams report they have forged the first chip-based version of a quantum bus, a tool for mixing and swapping information between quantum bits (qubits). The groups say their results are a key step along the way to making a full-scale quantum computer by piggybacking on modern chipmaking technology. In normal computers, a bit is either 0 or 1, but a qubit can enter a so-called superposition of 0 and 1 simultaneously....

This month I learned that senior editor Jen Schwartz is an evil genius at media manipulation. She produced our cover package about misinformation, including a story about her own role in an Election Day drill in which she demonstrated how easily bad actors can disrupt honest news coverage. It’s funny and chilling and a little too real for comfort, and I’m more grateful than ever that she is working for the side of truth and reality rather than disinformation....