In June, an Arizona woman was told by her doctor that her nine-week-old fetus had no heartbeat and that she was miscarrying. She was given a prescription for misoprostol, a drug that would help induce her body to clear the dead fetus. She went to a local Walgreens to get that medication, but the pharmacist there refused. Instead he told her she could return when he was not working or have her prescription passed along to another pharmacy....
I slunk into my social studies classroom with my head down. Graded homework assignments sat on the corner of my teacher’s desk. As my fellow seventh grade students chatted before class began, I casually slid my late homework into the middle of the pile. When our teacher later distributed the papers, he would see mine was not graded, assume he’d missed it, and I’d be off scot-free. Indeed, my ploy worked like a charm....
It is the greatest disappearing act in the universe. Quasars—luminous beacons powered by ravenous supermassive black holes at the cores of distant galaxies—have been caught vanishing, sometimes fading in less than a year. Afterward what seem to be standard, humdrum galaxies emerge from the diminished glare. Although astronomers have long known that any quasar will eventually become quiescent as its central black hole exhausts its feedstock of gas and dust, such objects are so immense in scale that the process should take tens of thousands of years....
By Mark Schrope of Nature magazineLast summer, intrepid surfers flocked to Florida’s east coast to ride the pounding swells spawned by a string of offshore hurricanes. But they were not prepared for a different kind of hazard washing towards shore–an invasion of stinging moon jellyfish, some of which reached the size of bicycle wheels. The swarms of gelatinous monsters grew so thick that they forced a Florida nuclear power plant to shut down temporarily out of concern that the jellies would clog its water-intake pipes....
By Janelle WeaverHumans are not the only ones to grimace when they are in pain, scientists have found. Mice show their discomfort in the same way.Decoding animals’ facial expressions may allow researchers and veterinarians to monitor spontaneous pain over long timescales. This may also aid the discovery of painkillers, because this type of pain is similar to that experienced by humans.Researchers typically detect pain in mice by eliciting specific reactions. Poking the hind paw, for example, causes a mouse to reflexively withdraw the paw; heating the tail makes it flick....
Magic, Mystery or Mechanism Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness by Daniel C. Dennett. MIT Press, 2005 ($28) Consciousness puzzles scientists and philosophers as much as it baffles the rest of us. Elusive, enigmatic, and difficult to define and probe, consciousness has a peculiar quality that rouses people to insist that somehow it differs from the rest of the physical world and that there is something unique about each person’s subjective experience....
The mice behaved just like others of their kind, as far as scientists could tell, and they also looked the same—except for the human mini brain that had been implanted into each rodent’s own cortex, made visible by a little clear cover replacing part of their skull. The report on Monday by scientists at the Salk Institute is the first publication describing the successful implant of human cerebral organoids into the brains of another species, with the host brain supplying the lentil-sized mini cerebrums with enough blood and nutrients to keep them alive and developing for months....
SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology. By 2022, the U.S. is projected to have a deficit of at least one million college-trained workers in science- and technology-related fields. We need more college students to earn degrees in these fields and fill jobs in growing high-tech industries. Yet the potential talents of women and minorities are not fully tapped at present—not by a long shot....
There is no scientific definition of picky eating, but parents say they know it when they see it, and according to new research, they are likely to be right. Their kids are different. But picky eaters are not all the same, this study finds. What parents call picky eating is actually a broad spectrum of behaviors, and knowing which category a child falls into may help parents develop constructive responses. The researchers gathered 170 two- to four-year-olds, about half of whom were described by parents as choosy....
“Spooky action at a distance” is how Albert Einstein famously derided the concept of quantum entanglement—where objects can become linked and instantaneously influence one another regardless of distance. Now researchers suggest that this spooky action in a way might work even beyond the grave, with its effects felt after the link between objects is broken. In experiments with quantum entanglement, which is an essential basis for quantum computing and cryptography, physicists rely on pairs of photons....
Blowing the Whistle In “Danger in School Labs” [News Scan], Beryl Lieff Benderly lists four fatalities from lab accidents. She notes that the Protecting America’s Workers Act would expand the jurisdiction of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to include state employees, in particular those of state colleges and universities. Whistleblower protections would also improve. Sadly, 5,000 Americans die every year from workplace hazards. Sadder still, although dead bodies usually get Congress to pass better protections, opposition from the U....
YOU PROBABLY LOOK in a mirror every day without thinking about it. But mirrors can reveal a great deal about the brain, with implications for psychology, clinical neurology and even philosophy. They can help us explore the way the brain puts together information from different sensory channels such as vision and somatic sensations (touch, muscle and joint sense). In doing so, they can reveal a lot about our sense of self....
By Kate Kelland LONDON(Reuters) - Spending $25 per woman per year on full sexual health services would dramatically reduce mother and baby deaths and give women the choice of smaller, healthier and more productive families, according to a UN report on Thursday. The report, by the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA and the Guttmacher Institute, described “a staggering lack of basic sexual and reproductive health services in developing countries” which means 225 million women who want to avoid pregnancy don’t have access to modern contraceptives to help them....
Scientists have long been intrigued by the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes, those tiny straws of pure carbon measuring less than a hair’s width across. Now one research team has unveiled an improved design for transistors based on the minuscule tubes, one that could substantially reduce the lower limit on transistor size. The size of conventional transistors made of metal oxide semiconductors (MOS) has shrunk over the years and can now be as small as about 100 nanometers across....
The history of modern communications systems has been marked by flashes of startling insight. Claude E. Shannon, mathematician and engineer, launched one such revolution almost 60 years ago by laying the foundation of a new mathematical theory of communications–now known as information theory. Practical outgrowths of his work, which dealt with the compression and reliable transmission of data, can be seen today in the Internet, in landline and wireless telephone systems, and in storage devices, from hard drives to CDs, DVDs and flash memory sticks....
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a Bird—the electric scooter brand, that is. As people grow tired of congested commutes, many are opting to zip around cities on dockless electric scooters. Several brands have already sprung up to meet their needs, including Bird and Lime. With lower carbon footprints than cars, electric scooters are seen as a good choice by some eco-conscious consumers. The transportation sector recently surpassed the power sector as the country’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions....
Much of the anguish and the elation in our lives begins with a glance, a kiss and then—a lifelong struggle to make sense of the verb to love. Patients have faith that their doctor can set a broken bone or offer pills to adjust their blood pressure. But poets, philosophers and psychologists alike have long seen love as intangible and nebulous, beyond our abilities to define. As one young man with whom I worked said, “I don’t think anyone has ever had any real idea about this love thing, and you don’t either....
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Water regulators in California approved stringent new conservation measures on Tuesday to limit outdoor water use, including fines of up to $500 a day for using a hose without a shut-off nozzle. The new restrictions prohibit watering gardens enough to cause visible runoff onto roads or walkways, using water on driveways or asphalt, and in non-recirculating fountains. “An emergency requires action, and today’s announcement is a much-needed response to California’s drought emergency," said Ed Osann, senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supported the regulations....
Data science is not entirely new to Washington, D.C.—nor is DJ Patil, who was recently named as the U.S.’s first chief data scientist. Pres. Barack Obama’s administration launched Data.gov nearly six years ago and required all agencies to publish at least three “high-value” data sets to the publicly accessible Web site. Now it is Patil’s job, at least in part, to ensure that the government continues to release data in a variety of areas while ensuring that the information is not misused....
(Credit: Andrew Hoyle/CNET) It isn’t everything the rumors promised, but Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S5 smartphone on Monday, touting faster data connections, a bigger display, an improved camera, and a built-in fingerprint sensor. The phone has a 5.1-inch display HD screen and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with a bunch of bells and whistles that are supposed to improve the experience of taking and viewing images, according to Samsung. The company revealed the latest iteration of its flagship phone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona....
