Uncategorized
- Astronomy
Gauging Star Birth: Spacecraft uses gamma rays as stellar tracer
Using radioactive material spewed into space by dying stars, astronomers have measured the star-formation rate in our galaxy over the past few million years.
- Earth
Mass movement
Two satellites designed to note small changes in Earth's gravitational field detected effects of the magnitude 9.3 earthquake that occurred west of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004.
- Physics
Quantum Chip: Device handles ions as if they were data
A new microchip can trap and move an ion, preliminary steps toward carrying out quantum computations on a chip.
- Animals
Locust Upset: DNA puts swarmer’s origin in Africa
The desert locust was not an ancient export from the Americas, according to a new DNA analysis.
- Humans
Letters from the January 7, 2006, issue of Science News
Death in the Americas I was wondering if researchers have given any thought to the idea that in the same way that disease devastated human populations after the European discovery of the Americas, perhaps disease was a contributing factor in the demise of much of the fauna of the Western Hemisphere (“Caribbean Extinctions: Climate change […]
- Chemistry
Molecular Car Park: Material packs in carbon dioxide
A porous, crystalline material composed of metal and organic building blocks holds more carbon dioxide than other porous substances do.
- Earth
Gunning for the Gut: Tiny particles might fight invasive zebra mussels
By modifying a technique used to flavor foods, researchers have made a substance that poisons the zebra mussel.
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It seems to me irresponsible even to float the idea, as neurologist David M. Holtzman does in this article, of chemically suppressing idle thought and daydreaming in people. Who can claim a basis for clinical discrimination of “bad” idle thought and daydreaming from the “idle thought” of intuitive problem solving and poetic imagination? More of […]
- Health & Medicine
Alzheimer Clue: Busy brain connections may have downside
Brain areas that are chronically activated have excess amyloid beta, the waxy protein associated with Alzheimer's disease.
- Anthropology
Stone Age Footwork: Ancient human prints turn up down under
An ancient, dried-up lakeshore in Australia has yielded the largest known collection of Stone Age footprints, made about 20,000 years ago.
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This article brought a strange conundrum to mind. If Paleolithic man was in Australia 40,000 years ago, why were the aboriginal people still living in the Stone Age when the first Europeans arrived? There were advanced cultures in the Americas by 100 B.C.E., whose ancestors had arrived by 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. Norbert EdwardsBuffalo, […]
- Earth
Estimating a temblor’s strength on the fly
New analyses of ground motions caused by large earthquakes suggest that it may be possible to estimate the full magnitude of such quakes immediately after they start rumbling.
