Uncategorized
- Earth
Sewage linked to fish-gender quirks
Releases from sewage treatment plants appear to impair reproductive tissues in fish.
- Earth
Pollutants shape baby-gator gonads
The same pollutants that appear to shorten the length of a grown-alligator's phallus actually lead to this organ's lengthening in baby gators.
- Earth
POPs treaty enacted
A new United Nations treaty that seeks to phase down or eliminate production and use of 16 persistent, toxic pollutants has gone into effect.
-
Underwater balancing act
Researchers have identified a gene that influences the growth of crystals in the inner ears of zebrafish and found that modifying this gene can cause the fish to lose their sense of gravity.
- Planetary Science
Bone-dry Mars?
The presence of large amounts of olivine, a mineral that undergoes rapid chemical transformation when exposed to liquid water, argues against ancient oceans or lakes on Mars.
- Earth
Seals’ meals, plastic pieces and all
Bite-size pieces of plastic chipped from wave-battered consumer products work their way up marine food chains, suggests a study of fur seals in Australia.
- Planetary Science
Martian Invasion
If all goes according to plan, three spacecraft—one in December, two in January—will land on the Red Planet, looking for evidence that liquid water once flowed on its surface.
-
19357
In this article, the white cliffs of Dover are offered as a “notable example” of the precipitated carbonate deposits some have expected to find had Mars been wet and warm in the past. The Dover chalks are an unfortunate choice for comparison because they’re composed primarily of the calcitic remains of microscopic marine phytoplankton. As […]
- Tech
Craft Tech
The Craft Technology Group at the University of Colorado, Boulder, interweaves computation with craft materials both new and old. This Web site offers glimpses of innovative projects involving the use of software to design mechanical toys and paper sculptures, embedding computation and behavior in simple objects such as tacks and hinges, developing affordable three-dimensional printing, […]
- Math
Geometreks
Strolling down a city street or along a country road can provide a geometrical feast for the eye—when the viewing is done from a mathematical perspective. National Gallery of Art, East Building. I. Peterson To fit the National Gallery’s East Building on a trapezoid-shaped site, architect I.M. Pei based his design on a division of […]
-
19281
This article cites reports that the shape of the universe is that of a soccer ball. An image in the article shows that the soccer ball appears as a mirror image of itself when viewed through each of its faces. If the universe were a finite bubble and there were an infinite number of universe […]
- Math
The Shape of Space
The debate over the shape of space has taken some new twists with the analysis of satellite snapshots of the universe's temperature waves.
