Car companies predict that self-driving cars will save millions of lives. They talk about a future without personal auto ownership, drivers’ licenses, car insurance or the search for parking. When you need a ride, simply use an app to call an autonomous taxi. But not everyone is sold on the dream. In fact, 73 percent of respondents told the American Automobile Association in a recent survey that they wouldn’t want to ride in a self-driving car....
Under a new global treaty that limits the use of mercury, some light bulbs will be banned. Some batteries, thermometers and medical devices will be banned too. But mascara is exempt. Last week, about 140 countries signed the United Nations’ Minamata Convention, which includes a ban on mercury in cosmetics and soaps. But mascara and other eye makeup is exempt because “no effective safe substitute alternatives are available” and “the intention is not to cover cosmetics, soaps or creams with trace contaminants,” the treaty says....
A drink of alcohol, any kind; “rails” of white powder; a pill prescribed by a pediatrician to assist with attention deficit disorder. Whatever the poison, addiction can take a powerful toll. Nor is it limited to drugs—food, sex and even death-defying stunts can exert the same pull. But it seems to be a particular breed of person who succumbs to addiction, most recently exemplified by the late singer Amy Winehouse. She joins the “27 Club” of rock stars who died, via addictive behavior, too young—Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison....
It started out as “sort of a stupid thing to do”, recalls Joe Bondy-Denomy, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. As a graduate student in the early 2010s, he tried to infect bacteria with viruses that, on paper, shouldn’t have stood a chance. He knew that these viruses, or phages, were susceptible to CRISPR–Cas, the bacterial defence system that scientists have harnessed as a powerful tool for gene editing....
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way to an intriguing asteroid named Bennu, and Dante Lauretta couldn’t be happier. Lauretta, the mission’s principal investigator, said he was on pins and needles leading up to Thursday evening’s (Sept. 8) launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But everything went off without a hitch, as OSIRIS-REx sailed smoothly into the heavens atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket....
Sunspots have long been known to appear and disappear from the sun’s surface. The powerful magnetic fields that block light from escaping the sun’s interior burst into being on the surface and slowly fade as they migrate toward the poles. A new model may help predict the intensity and timing of such solar outbursts as well as reveal the underlying mechanism of the sunspot cycle. Mausumi Dikpati and her colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo....
After seven years of toiling, scientists at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Harvard School of Medicine report they have isolated stem cells from a new source: amniotic fluid. The researchers not only succeeded in separating the progenitor cells from the many cells residing in the watery fluid in the placenta surrounding an embryo, but were also able to coax the cells to differentiate into muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, liver and nerve cells....
The National Academy of Medicine yesterday launched an initiative to reduce the U.S. health sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. But even leaders of the so-called Climate Collaborative fear that it faces insurmountable obstacles from the ongoing pandemic. The public-private partnership among NAM; the Department of Health and Human Services; and more than 50 partners, including big-name health care organizations like Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealth Group, will explore ways to cut emissions from all aspects of the health care industry....
By Daniel Cressy of Nature magazine Many people affected by mental illness are facing a bleak future as drug companies abandon research into the area and other funding providers fail to take up the slack, according to a new report. Produced for the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), the report warns that “research in new treatments for brain disorders is under threat”. With current treatments inadequate for many patients, it says, “withdrawal of research resources is a withdrawal of hope for patients and their families”....
By David Beasley ATLANTA (Reuters) - Record-breaking low temperatures across the southern United States on Wednesday made July feel more like October, with the mercury dipping to 49 degrees Fahrenheit in Alabama. In Atlanta, the low was 59 degrees, breaking the previous record of 61 degrees set in 1936, according to the National Weather Service. The normal low for Atlanta is about 71 degrees, the National Weather Service said. “It was a pretty chilly morning, very pleasant out,” said Jessica Fieux, an Atlanta-based National Weather Service meteorologist....
MUSEUMS/EXHIBITIONS San Francisco Psychedelic An amorphous artistic and musical movement emerged in the late 1960s—pivoting around a suite of chemicals dedicated to inducing cognitive distortion and other bizarre psychological effects—and created an enduring slice of social history. This exhibit shows the work of the photographers who captured on film the idealistic pioneers of the counterculture movement. A companion exhibit at the museum, San Francisco Psychedelic Posters, shows contemporaneous concert posters. Minneapolis Institute of Arts February 10–June 10 888-MIA-ARTS (888-642-2787) www....
By Eric HandWhen the Falcon 9 rocket makes its inaugural test flight, expected later this month, it will carry with it NASA’s hopes for a new generation of low-cost rockets to ferry cargo and people into space.The rocket–touted as a possible savior of human spaceflight–could also solve a serious problem facing the next generation of space probes. Satellites that observe Earth and nearby planets, as well as space telescopes able to look deep into the cosmos, are about to be hit by the retirement of the Delta II rocket, a workhorse that has launched 60 percent of NASA’s science missions during the past decade....
For the uninitiated, personalized books are print or digital books that have been tailored to a specific child. They come with various levels of adjustment options and interactivity, but all follow a simple formula: the publisher provides the users with a template, which parents populate with children’s data. With I See Me personalized books, the caregiver selects the character’s name, gender, hair color and skin tone, and inserts the child’s date of birth and photograph into a predesigned story....
To understand how the sky cleanses itself, a team of Australian and US researchers is heading to Antarctica to track down the atmosphere’s main detergent. By drilling deep into polar ice, the scientists hope to determine how the sky’s capacity to scrub away some ozone-depleting chemicals and potent greenhouse gases has changed since the Industrial Revolution—information that could help to improve global-warming projections. The first members of the project travelled to Law Dome, their drilling site in East Antarctica, this week....
Dear EarthTalk: Is it better to drive an older, well-maintained car that gets about 25 miles per gallon or to buy a new car that gets about 35 miles per gallon? – Edward Peabody, via e-mail It definitely makes more sense from a green perspective to keep your old car running and well-maintained as long as you can‚ especially if it’s getting such good mileage. There are significant environmental costs to both manufacturing a new automobile and adding your old car to the ever-growing collective junk heap....
The creators of a male birth control gel designed to inhibit sperm production—while maintaining healthy testosterone levels in the bloodstream—will soon start recruiting 420 couples from around the world to enroll in a new clinical trial. Male participants will apply the hormonal gel to both shoulders once a day. Then, after lab testing indicates their sperm counts have been suppressed to extremely low levels (which could take two to three months), the couples will be tracked for a year while they use the gel as their lone form of contraception....
The wait has been long, but the discipline of neuroscience has finally delivered a full-length treatment of the zombie phenomenon. In their book, Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, scientists Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek cover just about everything you might want to know about the brains of the undead. And if you learn some serious neuroscience along the way, well, that’s fine with them too. Voytek answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook....
What causes insomnia? —H. York, England Henry Olders, assistant professor of psychiatry at McGill University, explains: PEOPLE CAN EXPERIENCE sleep difficulties for a variety of reasons, including medications, alcohol, caffeine, stress and pain. When the underlying cause is removed, these bouts usually get better on their own. For many people, however, sleep problems turn into insomnia, the chronic inability to either fall asleep or keep sleeping. Whereas many insomniacs believe that they lack sufficient sleep, evidence is mounting that they are in fact getting at least as much as they require and possibly more....
Key concepts Animals Biology Adaptations Evolution Introduction Have you ever wondered how different species animals can survive—and thrive—in all sorts of environments, even when the animals seem closely related? For example, polar bears swim in the Arctic Ocean where they face negative temperatures whereas other bears live in warm, southern California. How do they do it? The answer is adaptations! Their bodies have special features that allow them to live in their environments....
The International Energy Agency announced Friday that energy-related CO2 emissions last year were unchangedfrom the year before, totaling 32.3 billion metric tons of CO2 in both 2013 and 2014. It shows that efforts to reduce emissions to combat climate change may be more effective than previously thought. “This is both a very welcome surprise and a significant one,” IEA Chief Economist and incoming IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement....
