|  Calculated Risks: How Radiation Rules Manned Mars Exploration  | Nearly everything we know about the radiation exposure on a trip to Mars we have learned in the past 200 days. Once on the Martian surface, cosmic radiation coming from the far side of the planet is blocked.
| Read More » New Species of Mammal Is a Sex Fiend  | The creature's discoverers caught the little lothario in Australia's Springbrook National Park with traps baited with peanut butter and oats. They've dubbed it the black-tailed antechinus. Mammalogist Andrew Baker of the Queensland University of Technology had previously found two new species of the genus Antechinus in southeastern Queensland. The researchers first saw the black-tailed antechinus in May 2013.
| Read More » 'Microbial Pompeii' Found on Teeth of 1,000-Year-Old Skeletons  | A "microbial Pompeii" has been found on the teeth of 1,000-year-old human skeletons. Just as volcanic ash entombed the citizens of the ancient Roman city, dental plaque preserved bacteria and food particles on the skeletons' teeth. Researchers analyzed dental plaque from skeletons in a medieval cemetery in Germany, and found that the mouths of these aged humans were home to many of the same bacterial invaders that cause gum disease in the mouths of modern humans. "One thing that is clear about the population we studied is that they didn't brush their teeth very often, if at all," said study leader Christina Warinner, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
| Read More » 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Accepting a Job Many job seekers are inclined to jump at the first job offer that comes their way. Heather Huhman, a career and workplace expert for the online career site Glassdoor, said that while those who have experienced a long-term job search probably feel as though they should take what they can get, there are other options. "When you encounter offers you don't completely love, you must ask yourself if you will accept the job offer, attempt to negotiate or wait for a better opportunity to come along," Huhman wrote in a recent blog post. Read More » Unemployed? 5 Ways to Keep Your Job Search Alive Some job seekers have been told that being unemployed will land their application in the trash. While a significant gap in your résumé may raise some questions from potential employers, it doesn't always mean an automatic "no." "Most companies today want to hire people with the right skills and right cultural fit, regardless of their current employment situation," said Diane Domeyer, executive director of The Creative Group staffing company. "It's important to keep busy, both for your own sanity and to be able to explain [to hiring managers] that you are keeping active," said Jane Trnka, executive director of the Career Development Center at Rollins College Crummer Graduate School of Business. Read More » Rivers of Hydrogen Gas May Fuel Spiral Galaxies  | Inpouring rivers of hydrogen gas could explain how spiral galaxies maintain the constant star formation that dominates their hearts, a new study reports. Using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, scientists observed a tenuous filament of gas streaming into the galaxy NGC 6946, known as the "Fireworks Galaxy" because of the large number of supernovae observed within it. "We knew that the fuel for star formation had to come from somewhere," study lead author D.J. Pisano, of West Virginia University, said in a statement. Located 22 million light-years from Earth on the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus, NGC 6946 is a medium-sized spiral galaxy pointed face-on toward the Milky Way.
| Read More » Mystery Solved: How Huge Young Stars Hang On to Gas  | After decades of wondering why young massive stars don't blow away the gas surrounding them, astronomers have finally found a process that explains how these stellar youngsters hang on to their gassy envelopes. Using models, astronomers then supposed that the gas falls unevenly on the star, creating the filaments.
| Read More » Elusive Top Quark Particle Created In Lab  | Scientists have found traces of an ultra-rare process to form top quarks, the particles that make up protons and neutrons. And that process seems to operate just as predicted by the Standard Model, the long-standing, yet incomplete, model that describes the subatomic particles that make up the universe. Though the new results don't rule out other physics theories to explain the existence of dark matter and energy, they do suggest scientists have to look elsewhere for any hint of as-yet unknown physics. In 1995, scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., discovered the top quark, the heaviest subatomic particle known.
| Read More » Cancer Risk in Fukushima Area Estimated  | For people living in areas neighboring the Fukushima nuclear power plants, the worst of the radiation exposure may have passed. New research suggests that any increase in cancer risk due to radiation exposure after 2012 is likely to be so small that it is not detectable. Researchers found that people living in three areas located about 12 to 30 miles (20 to 50 kilometers) from the power plant received a radiation dose of between 0.89 and 2.51 millisieverts from their food, soil and air in 2012, one year after the explosions at the nuclear facility caused by a tsunami. This dose was similar to the 2.09 millisieverts of radiation per year that people in Japan are exposed to on average from natural sources.
| Read More » Death of Spouse Increases Risk for Heart Attack, Stroke  | Widows and widowers are at increased risk for heart attack or stroke in the month following their spouse's death, a new study from the United Kingdom suggests. And after more than three months, people who had lost their partner were just as likely as people who had not lost their partner to have a heart attack or stroke. The study results support previous research suggesting that major life events, including the death of a spouse, can lead to a temporary increase in the risk for heart problems, the researchers said. Fifty participants in the first group, or 0.16 percent, experienced a heart attack or stroke within 30 days of their partner's death, compared with just 0.08 percent of those whose partners were still alive during this time period.
| Read More » Vegetarian Diets Lower Blood Pressure Best Scientists are reporting results today that might boil the blood of some people on the Atkin's and other low-carb diets: Vegetarian diets rank as superior in reducing the risk of high blood pressure, or hypertension, and subsequent heart damage, the study found. The research, by scientists in Japan and the United States, was a meta-analysis of 39 high-quality, previously conducted hypertension studies from 18 countries, with a total of more than 21,000 participants. Hypertension is a leading risk factor for stroke, heart disease, kidney disease and shortened life expectancy. Vegetarian diets were associated, on average, with a 6.9-point drop in systolic blood pressure and a 4.7-point drop in diastolic pressure. Read More » People Who Believe Hell Are Less Happy Fire, brimstone, eternal suffering — hell is not a pleasant concept. But research has pointed to the societal benefits of a belief in supernatural punishment, including higher economic growth in developing countries and less crime. Read More » Sun Unleashes Monster Solar Flare, Biggest of 2014  | The sun fired off a major solar flare late Tuesday (Feb. 24), making it the most powerful sun eruption of the year so far and one of the strongest in recent years. The massive X4.9-class solar flare erupted from an active sunspot, called AR1990, at 7:49 p.m. EST (0049 Feb. 25 GMT). NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured high-definition video of the monster solar flare. The spaceecraft recording amazing views the solar flare erupting with a giant burst of plasma, called a coronal mass ejection, or CME.
| Read More » Mysterious Egyptian Spiral Seen on Google Maps  | But what people are actually seeing in the desolate reaches of the Egyptian desert, just a short distance from the shores of the Red Sea, is in fact an environmental art installation. Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou and Stella Constantinides worked as a team to design and build the enormous 1 million square foot (100,000 square meters) piece of artwork — called Desert Breath — to celebrate "the desert as a state of mind, a landscape of the mind," as stated on the artists' website. Constructed as two interlocking spirals — one with vertical cones, the other with conical depressions in the desert floor — Desert Breath was originally designed with a small lake at its center, but recent images on Google Maps show that the lake has emptied. The art piece joins other mysterious images and environmental artworks that fascinate viewers on Google Earth, Google Maps and other online platforms.
| Read More » Fukushima's Radioactive Ocean Water Arrives At West Coast | Radiation from Japan's leaking Fukushima nuclear power plant has reached waters offshore Canada, researchers said today at the annual American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu. Two radioactive cesium isotopes, cesium-134 and cesium-137, have been detected offshore of Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers said at a news conference. The detected concentrations are much lower than the Canadian safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water, said John Smith, a research scientist at Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Tests conducted at U.S. beaches indicate that Fukushima radioactivity has not yet reached Washington, California or Hawaii, said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass.
| Read More » Huge Landslide Photographed in Alaska  | A commercial pilot has captured images of a massive, snow-strewn landslide that cascaded down a slope in remote southeastern Alaska last week, providing the first on-the-ground evidence of what geologists think might be the largest natural landslide since 2010. Columbia University geologists detected the reverberations of what they thought was a landslide on Sunday, Feb. 16, from remote seismic instruments, but had not received on-the-ground confirmation until pilot Drake Olson decided to go searching for the evidence on Friday (Feb. 21). "It stands out like a sore thumb," Olson told Live Science. The scientists estimate that the slump contains roughly 68 million metric tons of rock, which is equivalent to roughly 40 million SUVs, geologist Colin Stark, a researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Live Science last week.
| Read More » Geoengineering Ineffective Against Climate Change, Could Make Worse  | Current schemes to minimize the havoc caused by global warming by purposefully manipulating Earth's climate are likely to either be relatively useless or actually make things worse, researchers say in a new study. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat, so as levels of the gas rise, the planet overall warms. In addition to efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some have suggested artificially manipulating the world's climate in a last-ditch effort to prevent catastrophic climate change. These strategies, considered radical in some circles, are known as geoengineering or climate engineering.
| Read More » Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy Linked to Child's ADHD Risk Children of women who use the painkiller acetaminophen during pregnancy may be at higher risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a new Danish study. Acetaminophen, also called paracetamol or the brand name Tylenol, is the most commonly used drug during pregnancy. For pregnant women suffering from common aches or fevers, doctors often recommend acetaminophen as a safer alternative to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen. Using the country's national medical database, researchers followed the children to see how many were diagnosed with ADHD, including a severe form of ADHD called hyperkinetic disorder. Read More » Museum of Sci-Fi Joins Forces with Science Channel  | The planned Museum of Science Fiction will be partnering with the Science Channel to provide sponsorship and content for the new venture, the museum announced today (Feb. 25). The Science Channel will be the museum's exclusive media sponsor, providing video content and promotional support for exhibits, having a physical presence in the museum and collaborating on joint events in Washington, D.C., where the museum will be located. "We are delighted by the prospect of working with the Science Channel to help the Museum of Science Fiction fuel a cycle of imagination to reality, and to continue driving interest in our plan to create a new attraction for the Washington area," Greg Viggiano, executive director for the Museum of Science Fiction, said in a statement. The Science Channel's leaders are equally excited about the partnership.
| Read More » What Is Vasculitis? After suffering from vasculitis for years, actor and director Harold Ramis died of the disease yesterday (Feb. 24) at his Chicago-area home. The term vasculitis describes a group of diseases that cause inflammation of the blood vessels. Vasculitis often targets certain parts of the body such as the lungs, kidneys or skin, according to the American College of Rheumatology. There are several types of vasculitis. Read More » Moon punched in the face by a meteorite By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A meteorite as large as 4-1/2 feet in diameter smashed into the moon in September, producing the brightest flash of light ever seen from Earth, astronomers said this week. Similarly sized objects pummel Earth daily, though most are destroyed as they plunge through the planet's atmosphere. NASA says about 100 tons of material from space enter Earth's atmosphere every day. The moon, with no protective atmosphere, is fair game for celestial pot-shots. Read More » SpaceX Adds Landing Legs to Falcon 9 Rocket for Next Launch, Elon Musk Says (Photo)  | The private spaceflight company SpaceX is strapping landing gear onto the rocket that will launch the company's unmanned Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station next month. Putting landing legs on the Falcon 9 rocket, which is slated to blast off on March 16, marks another step in SpaceX's quest to develop a fully reusable launch system. But current plans don't call for the Falcon 9 to actually touch down on the legs after next month's liftoff, said SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. "Mounting landing legs (~60 ft span) to Falcon 9 for next month's Space Station servicing flight," Musk said Sunday (Feb. 23) via Twitter, where he posted a photo of the rocket.
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