In an unexpected move, the Obama administration vetoed an earlier ruling by the U.S. International Trade Commission that would have resulted in a sales ban of some older Apple devices. That ban, set to formally begin Monday, was decided in early June after Samsung accused Apple of infringing on its patents. The president had 60 days to review the decision and intervene, something that hadn’t happened with an ITC decision since 1987....
Key concepts Biology Microorganisms Microscopic Metabolism Carbon dioxide Introduction Did you know that dry yeast is actually alive? Add the right ingredients, and presto, the mixture becomes a bubbly, oozing mess of life. But just what are the conditions required for this to happen? What does that yeast need to become active and thrive? Try this science activity to find out for yourself! Background Yeasts are tiny, microscopic organisms—or microorganisms—that are actually a type of fungus....
By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s Kruger National Park is inviting bids for rhinos under a plan to move 500 of the animals to safety to counter a wave of poaching for their horns, highly prized in some Asian countries as a sign of wealth. In newspaper ads on Sunday, South African National Parks invited potential buyers to “make a written offer to purchase white rhinos in batches of 20 or more”....
Was the big bang really the beginning of time? or did the universe exist before then? Such a question seemed almost blasphemous only decades ago. Most cosmologists insisted that it simply made no sense—that to contemplate a time before the big bang was like asking for directions to a place north of the North Pole. But developments in theoretical physics, especially the rise of string theory, have changed their perspective. The pre-bang universe has become the latest frontier of cosmology....
Key concepts Chemistry Boiling point Food science Introduction Whether you’re gathered around a fire or drinking hot chocolate after a day in the snow, nothing says sweet, squishy fun quite like a marshmallow! Even its name is soft and spongy! Have you ever wondered how marshmallows are made? Long ago people made marshmallows with ingredients from the marshmallow herb, but today we usually make them with other ingredients, namely gelatin, corn syrup and sugar....
Our deep need to delve into how things began is the inspiration for a new academic initiative. Scientific American columnist (Critical Mass, which begins with the September 2009 issue) and theoretical astrophysicist Lawrence M. Krauss, head of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, organized the first Origins Symposium, held in April 2009. The event drew 80 scientists from a variety of disciplines, many of them Nobel Prizewinners. We asked Krauss to describe the results of the symposium....
WASHINGTON—In a wide-ranging State of the Union address Tuesday evening, President Trump endorsed Congress’s efforts to pass a bill allowing access to experimental treatments for patients with terminal conditions. So-called “right-to-try” legislation was passed by the Senate last fall, but the effort has since stalled in the House. Vice President Mike Pence has endorsed a right-to-try bill. In February Trump gave his support to the legislation but he had not spoken publicly about the issue prior to Tuesday’s address....
Astronomers have discovered the largest explosion in the universe–one that has endured for more than 100 million years and generated as much energy as hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts. The source of this mayhem? An apparently insatiable supermassive black hole. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed the eruption, located in a galaxy cluster known as MS 0735.6 + 7421. Specifically, the Chandra images show two cavities, each some 650,000 light-years across, that were scoured out by jets of energy emanating from the black hole, which itself may be a billion times the mass of our sun....
Apple is investigating a complaint that its pre-2008 Mac Pros emit fumes from the chemical benzene. One user told Apple that he noticed a strong smell when he unpacked his Mac last year, and that 10 days later, he developed nose and throat irritation, reports the French newspaper Liberation. (A clunky English translation of the report can be found here.) “We have not found anything that supports this claim, but continue to investigate it for the customer," Apple spokesman Bill Evans said in an email....
Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem demonstrates that mathematics contains true statements that cannot be proved. His proof achieves this by constructing paradoxical mathematical statements. To see how the proof works, begin by considering the liar’s paradox: “This statement is false.” This statement is true if and only if it is false, and therefore it is neither true nor false. Now let’s consider “This statement is unprovable.” If it is provable, then we are proving a falsehood, which is extremely unpleasant and is generally assumed to be impossible....
Many situations require us to make categorical decisions. Jurors look at testimony and judge whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. Police officers take aim at suspects and have to determine whether they see a gun in the suspect’s hand, or something that just resembles a gun. A man in his 40s begins to sweat and experience mild pain in his arms, and needs to decide whether it’s serious or not....
2008 was a year of sweeping change, as China reinvented itself for its Olympic close-up and relative newcomer Barack Obama fought his way to victory in an election that carried hefty implications for the future of science policy in the U.S. But it was also a time of frustrating stasis: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ground to a halt shortly after its heralded start-up and sits dormant as the year draws to a close, and the 25th anniversary of the identification of the virus that causes AIDS passed without a cure in sight....
Scientists claim to have discovered the first new human prion in almost 50 years. Prions are misfolded proteins that make copies of themselves by inducing others to misfold. By so doing, they multiply and cause disease. The resulting illness in this case is multiple system atrophy (MSA), a neurodegenerative disease similar to Parkinson’s. The study, published August 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds weight to the idea that many neurodegenerative diseases are caused by prions....
Black holes may be massive, but they are also extraordinarily compact. That combination of properties makes them challenging regions to evaluate across vast cosmic distances. To learn more about these objects’ physical properties, astronomers must therefore come up with measuring tricks. An international team of astronomers recently invented a new one: in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the members report how to determine a black hole’s spin using the interactions of two giant holes bound in mutual orbit....
Scientific American presents Math Dude by Quick & Dirty Tips. Scientific American and Quick & Dirty Tips are both Macmillan companies. Remember the famous story (that I totally made up) of Knot Dude and Papa Knot? You know, the one where the clever young son (that’s Knot Dude) of a big-shot ancient Egyptian pyramid builder (that’s Papa Knot) used his mathematical curiosity about knots to discover the Pythagorean Theorem and in so doing to solve his dad’s problem of figuring out how to build pyramids with perfectly square bases?...
The companionship of our furry friends may seem best suited for leisure time, but new research found that having one’s dog or cat around—or even just in mind—helps people generate more goals, feel more confident about achieving those objectives and handle stress better. In two related experiments published in the July Journal of Research in Personality, participants were assigned to one of three conditions. Either the subject had a pet nearby, simply thought about a pet or, in the control group, had no pet involvement....
A lag in improving the energy efficiency of buildings has made them the second-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. The resulting economic impacts from energy expenses falls heavily on people who live in low-income housing. The Department of Energy is trying to address that by launching an experiment with architects, construction experts and public housing agencies to develop energy efficiency techniques that could spread into other areas of the country, said Kelly Speakes-Backman, a principal deputy assistant secretary at DOE....
No one can deny that it was an epic trip. The European Space Agency’s comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft has arrived at its quarry, after launching more than a decade ago and travelling 6.4 billion kilometers through the Solar System. That makes it the first spacecraft to rendez-vous with a comet, and takes the mission a step closer to its next, more ambitious goal of performing the first ever soft landing on a comet....
Will this Sony smartwatch soon have to compete against Samsung’s Galaxy Gear? (Credit: Aloysius Low/CNET) Apple’s long-rumored iWatch might be beaten to the market by a Samsung alternative, according to one Samsung executive. Speaking to Korea Times in an interview published on Tuesday, Samsung’s executive vice president of mobile Lee Young-hee said that the company plans to unveil a smartwatch on September 4, to be known as “Galaxy Gear.” According to Lee, Gear will be a “concept device....
By Laura Zuckerman (Reuters) - The Obama administration used flawed research in devising a plan to strip gray wolves across the continental United States of Endangered Species Act protections, and discounted evidence that failed to support it, a scientific panel said in a report released on Friday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said last June said wolves in the lower 48 states no longer faced extinction after decades of recovery efforts and proposed removing them from the U....
