My trusty Xbox is out of warranty. Although it has been a real workhorse for many years, all that swapping of discs is eventually going to kill its optical drive. I’m a fixer, and if the disc drive failed in a different kind of product, I could easily repair it by installing a new part. But this particular fix is beyond hard—it is illegal. Or at least it was until late last year....
You didn’t need a crystal ball to forecast that the COVID-19 pandemic would devastate mental health. Illness or fear of illness, social isolation, economic insecurity, disruption of routine and loss of loved ones are known risk factors for depression and anxiety. Now studies have confirmed the predictions. But psychologists say the findings also include surprises about the wide extent of mental distress; the way media consumption exacerbates it; and how badly it has affected young people....
Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is one of the oldest known diseases of the plant world. Plague–known as the “black death” in medieval Europe–is one of the oldest diseases afflicting humans, and has become a focus of concern in recent years because of its potential use as a bioweapon. Now scientists have transformed TMV to infect host plants and produce immunizing proteins rather than debilitating leaf shrivel, turning greenhouse tobacco into a biofactory for plague vaccine....
Crime, congestion and pollution mar all cities, from Los Angeles to Mumbai. But another force trumps the drawbacks of urban living: cities bring opportunities for wealth and for the creative inspiration that can result only from face-to-face contact with others. In fact, the crush of people living in close quarters fosters the kind of collaborative creativity that has produced some of humanity’s best ideas, including the industrial revolution and the digital age....
A cutting-edge biological terror alert system detected a potential threat in the air one morning back in 2008, threatening to derail then-Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver for his party’s presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Initial results from a pricey national air sampling system suggested that bacteria that could cause tularemia had been detected. The microbe, Francisella tularensis, might have been weaponized to cause the infectious disease....
The Cash for Clunkers program offers a cautionarytale for the future of climate change control. The federal program paid individuals up to $4,500 to replace their “clunker” automobiles with new, higher-mileage vehicles. Part of the purpose was to give a lift to the ailing auto industry. Another part, at least it was claimed, was to mitigate climate change by getting old high-carbon-emissions vehicles off the road. But billions of dollars were spent quickly without clear answers on what we were getting for our money....
By Gene Emery (Reuters Health) - A study comparing the risks of in-hospital and out-of-hospital births in Oregon finds the odds of infant death are more than two times higher for planned out-of-hospital births. The results, published online December 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine differ from those of a recent, larger Canadian study that found newborn death rates were not higher among women who gave birth at home (see Reuters Health story of December 21, 2015, here: http://reut....
In the late 1980s thousands of chickens died from a cancer caused by a virus known as avian leukosis virus J because they were all descended from a few roosters susceptible to the disease. This is just one example of how a lack of genetic diversity can imperil livestock and agriculture. Similar instances abound from the Irish potato famine of the 19th century to cattle raised for meat—one bull named Ivanhoe passed on his genetic susceptibility to an immune system disorder to roughly 15 percent of all the Holstein bulls in the U....
Black Americans are receiving COVID vaccinations at dramatically lower rates than white Americans in the first weeks of the chaotic rollout, according to a new KHN analysis. About 3% of Americans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine so far. But in 16 states that have released data by race, white residents are being vaccinated at significantly higher rates than Black residents, according to the analysis—in many cases two to three times higher....
LAS VEGAS—With its much-anticipated Chevy Volt set to hit the streets by the end of the year, General Motors is beginning to provide a more detailed (although by no means complete) picture of life with an electric car. Focusing on the daily logistics of making sure your electric car has enough juice to get you from point A to point B, Chevy and GM subsidiary OnStar have now introduced a smart phone application to help drivers remotely manage the charging process....
BEIJING (Reuters) - China, the only country that still systematically takes organs from executed prisoners for use in transplant operations, plans to end the controversial practice from next month, a state-run newspaper said on Friday. The government has over the last year flagged plans to end the practice, which has drawn criticism from rights groups, who have accused authorities of taking many organs without consent from prisoners or their families, a claim Beijing has denied....
YULIN, China—The streets of this northwestern Chinese city were once packed with Ferraris, BMWs and other luxury cars. Now, they are all gone. Average housing prices here have dropped by a quarter in two years. Driving across the city’s downtown, you see vacant buildings and empty restaurants. “The business of coal companies here turned south since late 2012,” Yang Cheng, a local driver, explained while passing by a closed hotel. “Yulin is a coal boomtown,” Yang went on....
By Roff Smith of Nature magazineIt takes a little fiddling, a few missed turns on the old, labyrinthine lanes and a good deal of folding and unfolding of an Ordnance Survey map bought that morning, but eventually Paul Olsen and Dennis Kent manage to locate the unmarked access path that leads through the woods to a desolate stretch of shoreline on Lavernock Point, a wild, cliff-lined promontory south of Cardiff in Wales, UK....
By Andrew M. Seaman (Reuters Health) - People without reliable sources of food and medicine are more likely to have poor control over their diabetes, compared to those without such concerns, according to a new study. Researchers found the likelihood of a person having poorly controlled diabetes increased by about 39 percent for each of the so-called economic insecurities they reported. “What we found is that food and medication are a big deal and probably account for the bulk of it, but it doesn’t look like there is any one thing,” said Dr....
As NASA’s Curiosity rover celebrates one year on Mars, the space agency has begun final preparations for the launch of its next Red Planet mission later this year. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, or MAVEN, arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 2, just three days before the one-year anniversary of Curiosity’s dramatic Mars landing. MAVEN is now sitting in a cleanroom, where engineers are testing and fueling the orbiter ahead of its planned Nov....
LONDON – The spectacular growth in recent years in the number and size of renewable energy sources across the European Union – particularly wind and solar power – driven by high subsidies and government rhetoric on climate change has left the national electricity grids scrambling to cope. “Basically, governments have allowed the buildup of wind without thinking through the grid consequences,” Oxford University economist Dieter Helm told ClimateWire. “There are two responses: Stop wasting so much on the rapid development of wind and its questionable economics, or plough on regardless, in which case enormous grid investments are urgently needed....
AS A PSYCHOLOGIST, I have always found the concept of speed dating fascinating. During a series of mini dates, each spanning no more than a couple of minutes, participants in a speed-dating event evaluate a succession of eligible singles. They make split-second decisions on matters of the heart, creating a pool of information on one of the more ineffable yet vital questions of our time—how we select our mates. The concept of rapid-fire dating has gained tremendous popularity, spreading to cities all over the world....
At first blush, it might seem that a wall-crawling robot and a gecko do not have much in common. That is, until you look closely at how each adheres to the surface it is climbing, with thousands of tiny hairs attaching and detaching to provide gravity-defying traction. The biggest difference is that the diminutive lizards have been moving this way for millions of years, whereas researchers have for only the past decade been trying to emulate this natural phenomena in their mechanical creations....
Once upon a time, in a land not far away, there was a horrible virus that instilled terror in every town and home. Although most people who became infected showed no symptoms or recovered within a week, in a small fraction of cases the illness progressed, causing loss of reflexes and muscle control, paralysis and, sometimes, death. Children were especially vulnerable, so parents watched anxiously for any sign of infection, often keeping them away from swimming pools, movie theaters, bowling alleys, anywhere where there were crowds and the dreaded microbe might lurk....
“The beautiful game” will have a robotic addition at this year’s World Cup kickoff. Clad in a robotic body suit and a cap adorned with electrodes that will detect brain signals and cue leg movement, a paralyzed Brazilian will take to the pitch and move with the assistance of a specially designed exoskeleton during the opening ceremony of the World Cup on June 12. Legions of fans tuning in to watch the event will see the debut of a technology that, according to its creators, will one day use people’s brain waves to control robotic limbs and effectively make wheelchairs obsolete....
