By Jeff Tollefson of Nature magazine Seen from space, Earth can look dressed up or downright dowdy, depending on the location. In some spots, swathes of cloud cloak the dark ocean, offering a stunning contrast of hues. In others, power plants spew out plumes of grey haze and desert storms cover vast regions in palls of dust. Together, those clouds and the fine particles, which are known as aerosols, do more than just obscure the planet’s surface....
Placing strict limits on a handful of common air pollutants could pay big dividends for efforts to limit climate change, improve public health and increase agricultural productivity, according to a new U.N. report. Curbing emissions of black carbon, a component of soot, along with methane and tropospheric ozone, could cut projected climate warming by 0.5 degree Celsius, or about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2070. Such cuts could be made with existing technology, the report says, and would “have immediate and multiple benefits for human well-being....
Magicians hold details in high regard, so it’s fair to inquire about one of the key details related to stunt artist David Blaine’s feat that begins today at Pier 54 in New York City’s West Village: How will Blaine’s team handle all the excess ozone gas produced with each million-volt discharge from the Tesla coils? For three days and nights, Blaine plans to stand atop a six-meter-tall pillar while Tesla coils, controlled by spectators, zap him with electricity....
Almost three quarters of Earth’s surface is covered with water, but most of it is too salty to drink. And the 2.5 percent that is freshwater is locked up either in soil, remote snowpacks and glaciers or in deep aquifers. That leaves less than 1 percent of all freshwater for humans and animals to drink and for farmers to use to raise crops—and that remnant is shrinking as rising global temperatures trigger more droughts....
As the Ebola death toll spirals into the thousands in West Africa, the outbreak could have a spillover effect on the region’s deadliest disease. The outbreak has virtually shut down malaria control efforts in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, raising fears that cases of the mosquito-borne illness may start rising — if they haven’t already. So far, at least 3,000 people are estimated to have died of Ebola in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the current outbreak, although World Health Organization (WHO) staff acknowledge that official figures vastly underestimate the total....
On April 11, 2020, John Horton Conway died of COVID-19 at the age of 82 in New Brunswick, N.J. The areas of research covered by this remarkable mathematician included group theory, node theory, geometry, analysis, combinatorial game theory, algebra, algorithmics and even theoretical physics. Conway’s inclinations and talent led him to invent a remarkable cellular automaton called the Game of Life, which continues to fascinate after 50 years. Conway also devised elegant puzzles for packing boxes of blocks that can only be solved efficiently with clever reasoning....
Adapted from The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids—And the Kids We Have, by Bonnie Rochman, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US), China Renmin University Press (China). Copyright © 2017 by Bonnie Rochman. All rights reserved. In 2010 in Texas, Jennifer Garcia had a baby, a little brother for her four-year-old son. She named him Cameron. Garcia had opted to do prenatal testing for conditions that included Down syndrome and cystic fibrosis with both boys....
By Gwyneth Dickey Zakaib for Nature magazineFor Scott Cornman, the honeybee genome is a prized resource, yet he spends much of his time removing it. Cornman, a geneticist for the Bee Research Laboratory of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Beltsville, Maryland, is trying to characterize the various pathogens that plague the honeybee (Apis mellifera), arguably the world’s most important insect. His strategy is to subtract the honeybee genome from every other stray bit of genetic residue he can find in bee colonies, healthy and diseased....
Many hotels are making small moves to lessen energy usage or waste, but the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa in American Canyon, Calif., would really please its namesake, the Greek earth goddess. Owner Wen Chang told his builders to install energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning, along with tubular skylights in every room, and to apply only low-volatile organic-compound paints. He chose carpeting that contained postconsumer recycled material and recycled tiles for restrooms....
In what could give hope to the 2.5 million sufferers of multiple sclerosis (MS) worldwide, a new study reports that the hormone prolactin, the levels of which spike during pregnancy, mended nerve damage in mice. MS is a chronic degenerative disease that causes inflammation of the central nervous system. The onset of this disorder, which strikes women twice as frequently as men, is typically between the ages of 20 and 40 and is characterized by a multitude of symptoms ranging from muscle fatigue and short-term memory loss to complete loss of motility in severe cases....
P. Andrew Karam, an adjunct professor of physics at the Rochester Institute of Technology, explains. Nuclear reactors generate energy through fission, the process by which an atomic nucleus splits into two or more smaller nuclei. During fission, a small amount of mass is converted into energy, which can be used to power a generator to create electricity. In order to harness this energy, a controlled chain reaction is required for fission to take place....
The biggest knock against sending robots to explore the solar system for signs of life has always been their inability to make intuitive, even creative decisions as effectively as humans can. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) promise to narrow that gap soon—which is a good thing, because there are no immediate plans to send people to explore Mars’s subterranean caves or search for hydrothermal vents below Europa’s icy waters. For the foreseeable future those roles will likely be filled by nearly autonomous rovers and submarines that can withstand hostile conditions and conduct important science experiments, even when out of contact with Earth for weeks or even months....
Starting with the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953, the story of molecular biology has featured more characters than a Russian novel. Biologists have identified tens of thousands of molecules that direct and shape the organized chaos within the body’s cells, and they have exploited those findings with thousands of drugs and treatments. For decades the stars of the drama came from two camps: DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, which acts as a near permanent repository of genetic information, and proteins, which do the genes’ handiwork....
Working long hours is considered a hallmark of a medical residency. But in recent years, concerns have risen about how shifts that can last days affect a doctor’s ability to function. The results of a new study quantify the negative effects and show that the performance of fatigued residents is comparable to how they would act after imbibing three or four cocktails. An 80-hour limit for a resident’s workweek was introduced in July 2003 in response to concerns about overwork....
The discovery that a California woman was likely infected with the novel coronavirus by a previously unrecognized case in her community is proof of an enormous problem the country is facing at the moment, according to public health experts. It’s clear that the virus is spreading undetected in the United States—but how broadly it’s spreading is an utter mystery. Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits—and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits—meant very little testing has been done in the country....
Editor’s Note: “Climate at Your Doorstep” is an effort by The Daily Climate to highlight stories about climate change impacts happening now. Find more stories like this at www.dailyclimate.org/doorstep. Help build the next generation of science journalism and support more reporting like this by donating to the Daily Climate’s Kickstarter campaign. Justine Donnelly’s medical journey began the day that her mother’s 30-year quest to solve her own health mystery ended. The 26-year-old Pilates instructor in Charlottesville, Va....
Experts used to think nearly all nitrogen in soil came directly from the atmosphere, sequestered by microbes or dissolved in rain. But it turns out scientists have been overlooking another major source of this element, which is crucial to plant growth: up to a quarter of the nitrogen in soil and plants seeps out of bedrock, according to a study published in April in Science. Apart from a few scattered studies, “the [research] community never thought to look at the rocks,” says lead study author Benjamin Z....
Older adults who spend a lot of time sitting may be at increased risk of having a disability, regardless of how much they exercise, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed information from more than 2,200 adults ages 60 and older who wore a pedometer to track their movement for at least four days. While they were awake, participants spent about nine hours a day sitting down. Every additional hour spent sitting was linked with a nearly 50-percent increase in the odds of having a disability, the study found....
THE FAT SWITCH In “The Fat Gene,” Richard J. Johnson and Peter Andrews argue that ancient apes adjusted to seasonal scarcity by storing fat. What started the seasonal fat accumulation? “Fruit sugar (fructose)” obtained by gorging on fruit flipped “the fat switch” on. But in the conclusion, the authors say that we should be “cutting way back on our fructose intake—and getting most of it from fresh fruit” (emphasis mine). So which is it?...
Cindy writes, “Recently I’ve been seeing ads on television saying that corn oil is better than olive oil for lowering cholesterol. I’ve always used olive oil and canola oil. Now, I’m thinking of changing from canola oil to corn oil. Should I make the switch?” I bet Cindy’s not the only one who has been seeing these ads. Makers of corn oil are spending a lot of money right now to promote the results of a study showing that a diet rich in corn oil reduced cholesterol more than a diet rich in olive oil....
