Posts

The map rift with Google may not be Apple’s biggest misstep with the iPhone 5. Instead, it might be the company’s decision to exclude near-field communication (NFC). Most major smart phone–makers—including Samsung, Nokia and HTC—are backing the technology for its ability to turn their devices into mobile wallets, with which users can make purchases and digitally store boarding passes and coupons. As phone-makers, retailers and credit card companies work out the feasibility of NFC as a gateway to facilitating commerce, others see the technology as opening doors—literally....

A dense, magnetic star violently erupted and spat out as much energy as a billion suns — and it happened in a fraction of a second, scientists recently reported. This type of star, known as a magnetar, is a neutron star with an exceptionally strong magnetic field, and magnetars often flare spectacularly and without warning. But even though magnetars can be thousands of times brighter than our sun, their eruptions are so brief and unpredictable that they’re challenging for astrophysicists to find and study....

NEW YORK CITY—When Superstorm Sandy roared ashore with a surge of seawater in 2012, Sergej Mahnovski had been on the job directing the New York Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability for one week. He had a steep learning curve. In the wake of the storm surge 43 people were dead, Lower Manhattan lacked light at night and seven hospitals had to be evacuated. Post-Sandy, the long-term plan could quickly be reduced to two words: “never again....

A group of researchers says that the closest known evolutionary cousin of whales, dolphins and porpoises is not the hippopotamus, as conventional wisdom has it, but an extinct deer-like animal roughly the size of a fox or raccoon. In a new study, the team finds that a fossilized specimen of the extinct, 48-million-year-old mammal Indohyus bears several telling similarities to whales, including dense limb bones for ballast and a middle ear structure found only in the cetaceans, or sea-dwelling mammals, which is thought to help them hear underwater....

By Daniel CresseyThe failure of the Copenhagen climate talks to culminate in an agreement could cost the world “at least $1 trillion”, according to this year’s flagship report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).The World Energy Outlook suggests that unambitious pledges made at last year’s United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Copenhagen will mean that much tougher action is needed after 2020 if the world is to meet the goal of limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to 450 parts per million (p....

Dinosaurs — or at least their ancestors — may have gotten an earlier start than once believed. Bizarre four-legged creatures that resembled demonic dogs and predated dinosaurs branched out shortly after an extinction that wiped out most of life on land, according to a new study. Some of these creatures were the direct ancestors of dinosaurs, and their flourishing toehold in what is now Africa and Antarctica appears to have benefited from the clean slate of the mass extinction....

How much do you trust the weather forecast? Is it enough to attempt to fly an unwieldy solar-powered airplane for five days and five nights across the Pacific Ocean, when even a single stray storm could be enough to destroy the craft? There is no alternative airport, so any mishap means ditching the electric airplane in the sea. Andre Borschberg and Betrand Piccard, the two pilots of the Solar Impulse 2, think forecasts are good enough for Borschberg to take off from Nanjing in China to Honolulu on May 31....

Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food, by Frederick Kaufman. With permission from the publisher, Wiley. Copyright © Frederick Kaufman, 2012. Once upon a time, nymphs, sprites, and spirits ruled every cavern, tree, field, and brook, and a meal was plucked from a bush, scooped from the mud, or carved from the carcass of some unfortunate creature. Then everything changed. A tribe of infidels and heretics decided it could no longer leave something as important as breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the vagaries of chance and the whimsy of the gods....

Microbes similar to those on Earth would have a tough time surviving the harsh environment of Mars, but it is not inconceivable that they could persist there given a little protection, according to a new study. The finding supports similar, previous work and lends credence to the theory that if microbial life ever arose on Mars, it could exist below the planet’s surface to this day. Mars is in most respects a terrible habitat for life as we know it: winter temperatures can dip below –100 degrees Celsius, the atmosphere contains little oxygen, and without the benefit of a robust ozone layer the Martian surface is bombarded with ultraviolet (UV) solar radiation....

Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire—Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa. Perigee (Penguin), 2007 ($23.95) Evolutionary psychology, a school of thought whose influence has grown over the past decade, seeks to explain human behavior as if it were aimed at maximizing “reproductive fitness.” In other words, we do what we do because it enabled our ancestors to have more offspring than others—and thus pass on the genes that predispose us to behave in such ways....

LOS ANGELES, Jan 10 (Reuters) - A 47-year-old scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who worked on robotic systems for exploring Mars and extreme environments on Earth has died in a small plane crash in Los Angeles, officials said on Saturday. Alberto Behar spent 23 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he worked on instruments for the rover Curiosity which landed on Mars in 2012 and the Mars Odyssey orbiter that launched in 2001, the Pasadena, California-based institution said in a statement....

Too many heated arguments rely on the cliché “I’m not a mind reader” to excuse one individual’s ignorance of another’s mental states. But now scientists based at the D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro believe they can amplify affection by letting individuals read their own minds. The approach relies on neurofeedback, in which people can see and respond to their own real-time brain activity....

New Delhi may be the world’s most polluted city, but it’s making an effort to relinquish that title. With pollution from particulate matter at potentially lethal levels early last December, city officials took a drastic step: they announced that they would temporarily restrict the use of private vehicles by allowing owners to drive only on alternate days, based on the sequence of their number plates. The initial results of that 15-day trial, which began on January 1, are now in....

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is more than just a giant spiral harboring hundreds of billions of stars. It’s also the hub of a gargantuan empire that stretches over more than a million light-years and rules some two dozen lesser galaxies, which revolve around it the way moons orbit a giant planet. Of all our galaxy’s many satellites, none compares to the Magellanic Clouds—a pair of bold and beautiful galaxies far more lively and lustrous than any other in the Milky Way’s retinue....

Computer security company McAfee made quite a splash Wednesday with the release of a study covering five years of cyber attacks against at least 72 different organizations, including 22 government entities in the U.S., Canada, South Korea and elsewhere as well as 13 defense contractors. Other victims included the Asian and Western national Olympic Committees, International Olympic Committee (IOC), World Anti-Doping Agency, the United Nations and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Secretariat....

Times are tough for young psychologists. This thought has been rattling around in my head lately because we just finished searching for a new psychology professor at the university where I teach. When I met candidates, I had to ask about their field’s troubling replication—and credibility—crisis. I felt as though I was pressing them on some sordid personal matter, like whether alcoholism runs in their families, but the topic is unavoidable....

BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR Swiss Re Zurich, Switzerland A top insurer highlights the dire consequences that could result from global warming When one thinks of those trying to spread the word about the risks of global warming to society, one of the most reputedly staid industries probably doesn’t leap to mind. Global reinsurer Swiss Re is looking to change that image. Having long had its eye on climate change, the company co-sponsored a major report, released late last year, highlighting the potentially disastrous economic consequences of global warming....

As medicine becomes more targeted, a growing number of approved therapies are designed for small subsets of patients or even for particular individuals. Such personalization is positive for patients. but it comes with a downside. As the number of precision medicines grows, so may the challenge of assuring quality; distinct medicines may require a different approach to quality standards. For nearly two centuries, the US Pharmacopeia (USP) has monitored the quality of medicines in the US and the world....

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Under threat from rising sea levels and tsunamis, the authorities of a provincial capital in the Solomon Islands have decided to relocate from a small island in the first such case in the Pacific islands. Choiseul, a township of around 1,000 people on Taro Island, a coral atoll in Choiseul Bay, is less than two meters (6.6 feet) above sea level. Its vulnerability to storm surges and tsunamis caused by earthquakes is expected to be compounded in the future by rising seas....

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knows that most of the 1.9 million tons (1.7 million metric tons) of discarded cell phones, computers and televisions, among other electronic goods, went into landfills, because those are the agency’s own figures. The EPA also knows that this so-called e-waste contains cadmium, mercury and other toxic substances, and it is responsible for making sure that lead-laden monitors and television sets with cathode-ray tubes (CRT) are disposed of properly and the parts recycled....