Green Comet Lovejoy Keeps Wowing Amateur Astronomers (Video, Photos)
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For Alien Planets, Atmosphere May Be Key to Day-Night Cycle
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NASA Pluto Probe Begins Science Observations Ahead of Epic Flyby
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Humans push planet beyond boundaries towards "danger zone": study
By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Human activity has pushed the planet across four of nine environmental boundaries, sending the world towards a "danger zone", according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science. Climate change, biodiversity loss, changes in land use, and altered biogeochemical cycles due in part to fertilizer use have fundamentally changed how the planet functions, the study said. Passing the boundaries makes the planet less hospitable, damaging efforts to reduce poverty or improve quality of life. "For the first time in human history, we need to relate to the risk of destabilizing the entire planet," Johan Rockstrom, one of the study's authors and an environmental science professor at Stockholm University told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Read More »
Climate change, extinctions signal Earth in danger zone: study
By Alister Doyle OSLO, Jan 15 (Reuters) - - Climate change and high rates of extinctions of animals and plants are pushing the Earth into a danger zone for humanity, a scientific report card about mankind's impact on nature said on Thursday. An international team of 18 experts, expanding on a 2009 report about "planetary boundaries" for safe human use, also sounded the alarm about clearance of forests and pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers. "I don't think we've broken the planet but we are creating a much more difficult world," Sarah Cornell, one of the authors at the Stockholm Resilience Centre which led the project as a guide to human exploitation of the Earth, told Reuters. "Four boundaries are assessed to have been crossed, placing humanity in a danger zone," a statement said of the study in the journal Science, pointing to climate change, species loss, land-use change and fertilizer pollution. Read More »
In U.S. academia, fields that cherish sheer genius shun women
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In U.S. academia, fields that cherish sheer genius shun women
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2014 Hottest Year Ever? Scientists Unveil Data Today
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The Beagle has landed: Britain's missing spacecraft found on Mars
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Scientists raise alarm on China's fishy aqua farms
By Chris Arsenault ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Fish farmers in China have been increasingly harvesting wild stocks in order to feed their caged varieties, putting new strains on the world's oceans, said new research from scientists at Stanford University. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of fish, contributing about one third of the global supply. Its production has tripled in the last 20 years, with about 75 percent coming from fish farms, according to the study published this week in the journal Science. If the industry used more waste from caught fish, along with plant proteins like algae or ethanol yeast to feed farmed fish, then aquaculture could become more sustainable, the study said. Read More »
3,000-Mile Run Across US Has Scientists Following Marathoners
"The core team runners will experience a variety of obstacles throughout the Race Across USA, and our research program is positioned to examine how they respond and how the body and mind adapts," said research director Bryce Carlson, an assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He added that significant benefits in heart health can be realized with 10 or 15 minutes of exercise a few times a week, at an intensity that leaves you speaking in broken sentences. Read More »
Women Can't Be Geniuses? Stereotypes May Explain Gender Gap
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New Trackers Claim to Measure Your Stress, But Do They Work?
The goal is to help people identify the things that trigger their stress, so they can avoid them if possible. Most of the devices that offer such stress detection measure the change in the interval between heartbeats — a measure known as heart rate variability. For instance, the Tinké by Zensorium, which costs $119, plugs into a phone and measures heart rate variability from the thumb. HeartMath's Inner Balance sensor, which costs $129, uses an earlobe clip and a plug-in phone sensor to measure heart rate variability. Read More »
Scientists raise alarm on China's fishy aqua farms - TRFN
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U.S. scientists call 2014 Earth's hottest year on record
By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Last year was Earth's warmest on record, bolstering the argument that people are altering the planet's climate by relentlessly burning fuels that belch greenhouse gases into the air, two major U.S. government agencies said on Friday. Separate studies by the U.S. space agency NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that the 10 warmest years on record have taken place since 1997. The scientists said the record temperatures were spread around the globe, including most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, the western United States, far eastern Russia into western Alaska, parts of interior South America, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia and elsewhere. "While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases," said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York. Read More »
National Geographic: First Glimpse of the Hidden Cosmos
These images appeared in the January 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine. In conjunction with the release of National Geographic's January 2015 issue of its magazine, Timothy Ferris discusses the hunt for dark matter and dark energy in this Q+A tied to his feature "A First Glimpse of the Hidden Cosmos"from that issue. Space.com: Why do dark matter and dark energy so easily capture the imagination? Dark matter and dark energy certainly seem significant: Scientists estimate that they amount to 95 percent of all the matter and energy in the observable universe. Read More »
Is 'Nano' Living Up to the Hype? (Kavli Roundtable)
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Painting Our Way to the Moon (Op-Ed)
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Can Crowdfunded Astronomy Work? (Op-Ed)
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How Congress is Cutting Science Out of Science Policy (Op-Ed)
Celia Wexler is a senior Washington Representative for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), where she focuses on food and drug safety, protections for scientist whistle-blowers and government transparency and accountability. She is the author of "Out of the News: Former Journalists Discuss a Profession in Crisis" (McFarland, 2012). She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. You can say one thing about the U.S. House of Representatives leadership. The bill would take a sledge hammer to science-informed policymaking at federal agencies. Because instead of science informing the decisions our government makes about protecting our environment, public health and safety, those decisions would be driven by the wants of regulated industries, putting average Americans in jeopardy. Read More »
Will Warming Surge as Arctic Microbes Feast on Defrosting Carbon?
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Monday, January 19, 2015
Green Comet Lovejoy Keeps Wowing Amateur Astronomers (Video, Photos)
The developmental origins of spatial navigation: Are we headed in the right direction?
The developmental origins of spatial navigation: Are we headed in the right direction?
Navigation depends upon neural systems that monitor spatial location and head orientation. Recent developmental findings have led some to conclude that these systems are innate. Such claims are premature. But also, there are more meaningful ways to arrive at answers about developmental origins than by invoking the outdated nature-nurture dichotomy. Read More » | ||||
Barren Deserts Can Host Complex Ecosystems
Digging for Space History in Surplus Sale of NASA-Flown Gold
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Barren Deserts Can Host Complex Ecosystems
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2014 Was Earth's Hottest Year On Record
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Risky Cocktail: Many Americans May Mix Alcohol with Medications
More than 40 percent of Americans who drink alcohol also take medications that may interact with their booze, a new study finds. Medications ranging from sleeping pills to blood pressure drugs can cause problems when taken with alcohol, such as nausea, headaches, loss of coordination, internal bleeding, heart problems and difficulties in breathing, said study co-author Rosalind Breslow, an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the study, Breslow and her colleagues looked at the results of surveys from nearly 27,000 men and women ages 20 and over that were conducted between 1999 and 2010. The participants reported how much alcohol they drank during the past year, and which medications they used over the past month. Read More »
Last year was Earth's hottest on record, U.S. scientists say
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Treasure Hunters Find Mysterious Shipwreck in Lake Michigan
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'Smart Shoe' Devices Could Charge Up as You Walk
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A Bit of Walking Takes Strain Out of Running a Marathon
Think that slowing down and walking a little during a marathon will ruin your time? Maybe not: A new study finds that among amateur runners, those who walked for part of a marathon had similar times compared with those who ran the whole way. The participants underwent three months of training to prepare for the marathon (which is 26.2 miles, or 42.2 km) in Kassel, Germany, in May 2013. The participants were divided into two groups: a "running-only" group, who ran the full marathon, and a "run/walk" group, who stopped and walked for 1 minute every 1.5 miles. Read More » | ||||
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Manipulating cell fate in the cochlea: a feasible therapy for hearing loss
Manipulating cell fate in the cochlea: a feasible therapy for hearing loss
Over the course of evolution, structures for sensing the flow or vibration of the external environment have developed in parallel with the neural networks to relay the resulting signals to the central nervous system (CNS). Hair cells, which are observed in a range of vertebrates, such as fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals, are specialized for this particular task. The cells have apically arranged hair bundles that vibrate in response to movements in the fluid-filled labyrinth of the ear or the surrounding medium in aquatic species with motion-sensing lateral line hair cells; this vibration is coupled to mechanotransduction channels. Read More » | ||||
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