By Davide Castelvecchi In his article “Demons, Entropy and the Quest for Absolute Zero,” physicist Mark G. Raizen describes how to cool a rarefied gas down to temperatures of just millionths of a degree above absolute zero. The starting point is to take a gas that has already been cooled to one one-hundredth of a kelvin (using a device called an atomic coilgun, also described in the text) and place it in a magnetic trap....
Preliminary results are in from NASA’s unprecedented twin study — a detailed probe of the genetic differences between astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a consecutive year in space, and his identical twin Mark. Measurements taken before, during and after Scott Kelly’s mission reveal changes in gene expression, DNA methylation and other biological markers that are likely attributable to his time in orbit. From the lengths of the twins’ chromosomes to the microbiomes in their guts, “almost everyone is reporting that we see differences”, says Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City....
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia ordered the evacuation of 15,000 residents near an active volcano in the west of the vast archipelago on Sunday as authorities raised the alert for the emergency to the highest level.Mount Sinabung on the island of Sumatra has become increasingly active in recent months, spewing columns of ash several km into the air.Authorities expanded the evacuation radius to 5 km (three miles) from 3 km and the military geared up to move residents out....
Grippe. Sweating Sickness. Flu. The ever changing names for influenza show just how long and well recognized the disease has been throughout history— and how tough and deadly it has been. Perhaps most famously, it swept the globe as the deadly “Spanish flu” of 1918. Yet recently the viral illness has returned to the headlines—in the form of “swine flu” and “bird flu”—and has generated concern within the scientific community and the public at large....
SAN FRANCISCO — After six Italian scientists were sentenced to six years in prison for failing to warn the public of a devastating 2009 earthquake, experts are rethinking how they communicate risk. The magnitude-6.3 earthquake hit the town of L’Aquila, Italy, on April 6, 2009, killing 309 people. A week prior to the quake, city officials had made reassuring statements that downplayed the risk, according to prosecutors, of a major quake linked to a series of smaller tremors....
To paraphrase Shakespeare: there are more dinosaurs in earth and rock than dreamt of by modern paleontology. Revising an earlier estimate based on discoveries to date, anatomist Peter Dodson of the University of Pennsylvania and statistician Steve Wang of Swarthmore College predict that 71 percent of dinosaur genera–the organizational grouping into which individual species fall–still remain to be discovered. “It’s a safe bet that a child born today could expect a very fruitful career in dinosaur paleontology,” Dodson says....
Pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions poured in yesterday from across the globe as countries from Korea to Iceland vowed new contributions toward what many hope will be the first truly international climate change accord. China made the biggest splash with a formal declaration to the United Nations of a promise to stop its rise in annual carbon pollution by 2030. The government also said it will slash its emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 60 to 65 percent below 2005 levels and boost non-fossil-fuel energy sources—including both renewables and nuclear—to 20 percent....
International demand for black rhinoceros horn has seen the animals killed relentlessly for decades in countries such as Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. In 1960 there were an estimated 100,000 left, and by 1995 fewer than 2,500 remained. Conservation efforts have brought the number up to around 5,600 today—but the species is still critically endangered, and poaching is among its biggest threats. Scientists have worked to protect these rare creatures by tracking them with GPS devices strapped to their necks or ankles or implanted in their horns....
U.S. EPA has found 104 chemicals that might require regulations to keep them out of tap water—the longest list of potential contaminants ever compiled by the agency. A 1996 law requires EPA to evaluate possible tap-water pollutants every five years and make regulatory determinations for at least five of them. The new list—the agency’s third—includes pesticides, commercial chemicals, disinfection byproducts and, for the first time, pharmaceuticals. “The thing that they did differently this time was they looked at a much bigger universe to start out with,” said Mae Wu, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council....
Anti-Loudness Protein Fans of club music and rock concerts who like the volume cranked up to 11 but want to save their hearing might someday pop a pill rather than plugging their ears. Scientists have pinpointed the biochemical mechanism in ears that works to limit damaging effects of loud sound. When a noise registers in the brain as too loud, the protein nAChR, located on sensory hair cells in the inner ear, kicks in to limit the ability of the hair cells to respond....
Two sea star species thrive beneath waves off the coast of Australia. Upon cursory examination, they are very similar. Both are cushion stars—a group of slightly plump sea stars—and both are colored light green with hints of slate blue. In fact, they are sister species, a term that means the same in evolutionary biology as it does in genealogy: they share a parent. But a closer look at their genes reveals that these two stars separated just a few thousand years ago—an incredibly short period of time....
If signs of life exist on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, they might not be as hard to find as scientists had thought, a new study reports. The 1,900-mile-wide (3,100 kilometers) Europa harbors a huge ocean beneath its icy shell. What’s more, astronomers think this water is in contact with the moon’s rocky core, making a variety of complex and intriguing chemical reactions possible. Researchers therefore regard Europa as one of the solar system’s best bets to harbor alien life....
Editor’s Note: Leonardo Maugeri is group senior vice president for corporate strategies and planning at the Italian energy company ENI as well as the author of the forthcoming book The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History and Future of the World’s Most Controversial Resource. In this article, a rough draft of which appears below, Maugeri points out that Earth does, in fact, hold a lot more oil beneath its surface than most people think, and the key to tapping that crude is the development of new technologies....
After marijuana was legalized for adults in the U.S. state of Washington, younger teens there perceived it to be less harmful and reported using it more, a new study found. States should consider developing evidence-based prevention programs aimed at adolescents before they legalize the recreational use of marijuana, the researchers said today in JAMA Pediatrics. “Across the country there has been a decreased perception of risk and an increase in marijuana use among adolescents,” lead author Magdalena Cerda, of the University of California, Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento, told Reuters Health by email....
Brian Williams. Anthony Weiner. Social media mogul Sean Parker. Plagiarist Jonah Lehrer. Walter Palmer, the dentist who shot Cecil the lion. The woman who sued her nephew in Connecticut for knocking her down with a hug at his eighth birthday party. The tourist who gave the finger to a “Silence and Respect” sign at Arlington National Cemetery. The woman who tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS.” By now everyone knows about Internet shaming....
U.S. buildings have grown colder in recent years. The switch from the heat-generating incandescent bulbs to light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, reduces the energy used to produce light by as much as 85 percent. The cost of LED bulbs has dropped by over 90 percent in recent years, explains David Friedman, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). “Ultimately, over the next five to 10 years, it will cut the electricity use of lighting in half....
As a medical student in Paris in the 1980s, Eric Vilain found himself pondering the differences between men and women. What causes them to develop differently, and what happens when the process goes awry? At the time, he was encountering babies that defied simple classification as a boy or girl. Born with disorders of sex development (DSDs), many had intermediate genitalia—an overlarge clitoris, an undersized penis or features of both sexes....
From Nature magazine Like many birds, penguins must travel a long way between their feeding and breeding grounds. But rather than fly, they swim. It is a hard journey that has left biologists scratching their heads over why the birds did not keep their ability to fly as their diving ability evolved. A new study argues that birds cannot be both masterful divers and flyers, because flying abilities must weaken as the animals adapt to diving....
By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazineEn route from Sydney to Perth, Australia, in the early 1920s, British ethnologist Alfred Cort Haddon acquired a tuft of human hair from a young Aboriginal man. He added it to his sizeable collection of hair from people living around the world.Ninety years later, those locks have yielded the first complete genome sequence of an Aboriginal Australian, and provided clues about the timing of human migrations from Africa to Asia (see ‘Early human explorers charted a bold course’)....
Need to learn a lot of material fast and perform well when it counts? Two new studies suggest easy ways to speed up learning and ease anxiety before a test. A simple recall drill may be the best way to solidify new information in your memory, according to a study published online January 20 in Science. Many teachers encourage students to use elaborate conceptual methods to learn complicated material, but psychologists at Purdue University found that practice at retrieving facts works better....
