Since September 11, terrorism has been an ever present threat gnawing at our collective peace of mind. In recent years those fears—particularly of domestic attacks by Islamic extremists—have spiked. They are up by 38 percentage points since 2011 in France, 21 points in the U.K. and 17 points in the U.S., according to a survey released by the Pew Research Center last summer. And that was before Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels....
The world’s green spotlight is tilting towards the Middle East as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) prepare to host the next two major world summits on climate change. Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh resort will be the site of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27), which begins on 6 November, and the UAE’s oil giant Abu Dhabi will host COP28 in 2023. According to a report published by UN Climate Change this week, Egypt and the UAE are among 26 countries that have updated their climate targets in line with promises made last year at COP26 in Glasgow, UK....
In the Western imagination, ancient cave paintings tend to conjure images of Lascaux, the cave complex in southwestern France that is famous for its exceptionally detailed depictions of humans and animals. The Lascaux paintings, however, are a mere 17,000 years old. The oldest known examples of figurative art, or imagery that shows more than just abstractions, occur in Southeast Asia. Now a painting of pigs discovered in a cave in Indonesia sets a new record for the earliest figurative art—at least 45,500 years old—according to research published on Wednesday in Science Advances....
A tiny sponge camouflaged as a red blood cell could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom, new research suggests. The new “nanosponge,” described April 14 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, takes advantage of the fact that many threats, from superbugs to E. coli, use the same strategies to damage cells. The nanoparticles, also called nanosponges, act as decoys that lure and inactivate the deadly compounds. When injected into mice, the tiny decoys protect mice against lethal doses of a toxin produced by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA....
An incredibly long-necked dinosaur, with leg bones the size of couches, is so massive that is has invaded not one, but two rooms at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. The enormous titanosaur—an herbivorous beast that weighed 70 tons (64 metric tons) when alive some 100 million years ago—is the newest permanent exhibit to join the museum. It measures 122 feet (37 meters) long, almost the length of three school buses....
Although public health researchers have worked to counter misinformation about vaccines and raise vaccination rates, a number of the methods they are using may be ineffective, according to a new study. In the study, researchers focused on the now-debunked idea that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (or MMR) caused autism. Surveying 1,759 parents, researchers found that while they were able to teach parents that the vaccine and autism were not linked, parents who were surveyed who had initial reservations about vaccines said they were actually less likely to vaccinate their children after hearing the researchers messages....
Editor’s Note: We are posting this feature from our March 1998 issue because of news from the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society about the phenomenon discussed here. Modern theories of the universe begin with the simplest of observations: the night sky looks dark. The darkness implies that the universe is not infinitely old, as scientists once thought. If it were, starlight would already have seeped into all corners of space, and we would see a hot, uniform glow across the sky....
Key concepts Physics Light Reflection Visibility Introduction Being outside in the evening can be relaxing as well as exciting and fun, but it can also be dangerous—especially if you are around roads. At dawn, dusk and during the night, it is difficult for drivers to see pedestrians. But do you think the types of clothes worn could make a difference in how visible pedestrians are to drivers? You probably know that camouflage makes you blend into the background....
As cell phones and smart phones take over more communication, information and entertainment functions, concerns about their possible role in causing brain cancer are buzzing on the airwaves. This year alone, several studies and review articles have posited tentative links between radiation produced by cellular phones and the development of brain tumors. A team of researchers in northern Europe, however, has now combed through three decades of cancer registries and found no increase in the rate of brain tumors in the five to 10 years following widespread cell phone adoption in that region....
Immense sand dunes hardly seem like nimble objects, but they can meander over time. In fact, researchers report that the dunes of Africa’s Kalahari Desert may soon be on the move once more as a result of climate change. The results indicate that by the end of the century the changes could have drastic environmental and social consequences in the region. Dunes shift when winds pick up sand grains and deposit them some distance away....
Scientists and public officials need to do more to show the public how climate change affects diseases and physical well-being, according to researchers. “Human health is largely neglected, if not entirely ignored, in debates about climate change,” said Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization. Speaking yesterday in a Web-based seminar, Chan said record floods in places like Pakistan put more people at risk for water-borne diseases like cholera, and record droughts in the horn of Africa are putting more people at risk for starvation while exacerbating existing medical conditions for close to 30 million people....
A cool October broke a 16-month streak of above average temperatures across the Lower 48, but temperatures are projected to remain above normal across most of the western half of the country in the coming months. In addition, the latest climate change projections put future temperature gains on the high side of various models. As of November 6, 59.5 percent of the contiguous U.S. was experiencing persistent drought conditions that are most severe in the Great Plains—North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado—where drought is expected to persist or intensify in the foreseeable future....
In a finding offering another sea-level rise warning, scientists yesterday reported the existence of deep, canyon-like valleys in the bedrock underneath the Greenland ice sheet that could facilitate the extensive flow of ice into the ocean. The analysis of Greenland’s topography from NASA and University of California, Irvine, scientists suggests that estimates of Greenland’s contribution to sea-level rise may have to be revised upward for this century and beyond. It also follows on the heels of earlier studies this year indicating that parts of Greenland and Antarctica may be far more vulnerable to warming ocean temperatures than previously believed....
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. In French Polynesia, fishing is an integral part of everyday life. The people living here fish on the flats and along the reef using nets, hooks and line, harpoons, spearguns and traditional artisanal traps. They fish for food. They are also seeing the benefits of using their traditional knowledge to guide recreational fishing tourists—a business with potential to improve long term employment security....
A conjecture called superdeterminism, outlined decades ago, is a response to several peculiarities of quantum mechanics: the apparent randomness of quantum events; their apparent dependence on human observation, or measurement; and the apparent ability of a measurement in one place to determine, instantly, the outcome of a measurement elsewhere, an effect called nonlocality. Einstein, who derided nonlocality as “spooky action at a distance,” insisted that quantum mechanics must be incomplete; there must be hidden variables that the theory overlooks....
Three years ago, the allure of the lemur brought Meredith Barrett to Madagascar. The Duke University doctoral student was fascinated by the island, one of the world’s most threatened biodiversity hot spots, and wanted to look at the impact of human development on the endangered primates that reside there. But then political turmoil and deforestation got in her way. Though the island is home to thousands of unique species that are not found elsewhere in the world, the lemurs do not live in a vacuum....
To ward off famine and potentially save millions of lives, researchers are looking for a little help from a tiny fungus. By colonizing seeds with spores from naturally occurring fungi, experiments show that rice – a major world food source – is able to withstand stresses associated with climate change, such as drought and soil salinity. The results were published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in the journal PLoS ONE....
U.S. Google will add every railroad crossing in the country to its Maps application. Visual and audio alerts will signal these potential hazards to users. The Federal Railroad Administration has asked Apple, TomTom and other companies that provide GPS services to do the same after a large year-over-year increase in crossing accidents in 2014. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Dubai will house the first fully functional 3-D-printed building, announced the city’s Museum of the Future....
A round-trip journey to Mars would probably kill a crew of astronauts, unless they had some futuristic defense against radiation from the sun and from galactic cosmic rays. Would microbes be hardy enough to survive? We may soon find out. The Planetary Society, a nonprofit based in Pasadena, Calif., has packed a handful of miniature space travelers—bacteria, yeast, even tiny invertebrate animals—into a capsule on the Russian Phobos–Grunt spacecraft, expected to launch as soon as November 8....
By Courtney Sherwood PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) - Tests of water off the U.S. West Coast have found no signs of radiation from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, although low levels of radiation are ultimately expected to reach the U.S. shore, scientists said on Tuesday. Results obtained this week in tests of water gathered by an Oregon conservation group and tested by East Coast scientists came in as expected with no Fukushima-linked radiation, and five more tests are planned at six-month intervals to see if radiation levels will climb....
