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Is Karzai's Accusation That Coalition Forces Are Polluting Afghanistan with Nuclear Material Accurate or an Over-Reaction?

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Larry Greenemeier - Jun. 25 (News Report) - President Obama has called for the withdrawal of 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan over the next year and the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014, but questions linger regarding what the troops are leaving behind after more than nine years of combat. In particular, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has accused U.S. and NATO-led coalition troops of littering

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Why Are Americans So Ill-Informed on Climate Change?

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Robin Lloyd - Feb. 23 (Special Report) - As glaciers melt and island populations migrate from shores to escape rising seas, many scientists remain baffled as to why the research consensus on human-induced climate change remains contentious in the U.S.

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Why Johnny Can't Name His Colors

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Melody Dye - Jul. 17 (News Report) - No, the kid's probably not color blind. A trick for teaching children colors at a younger age -- and why it is otherwise so hard for them.

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How close are we to catastrophic climate change?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By David Biello - Jun. 28 (Opinion) - As you may have noticed, scientists remain convinced that humans are altering the global climate with an excess of greenhouse gas emissions—soot, methane and the ever-present carbon dioxide we pump out from our lungs and coal-burning power plants. The question is: how bad is said climate change going to get?

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Lasting Menace

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 08:36:51 -0700

Scientific American - By David Biello - Jun. 20 (News) - More than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez foundered off the coast of Alaska, sea otters still dig up oil in their hunt for clams in Prince William Sound. Nearly 25 years after an oil storage tank ruptured near mangrove swamps and coral reefs of Bahia Las Minas in Panama, oil slicks still form in the water. And some 40 years after the fuel-oil barge Florida ran aground off Cape Cod, the muck beneath the marsh grasses makes the area smell like a gas station. Similar damage may be in store for the U.S. Gulf coast, given that millions of gallons of light sweet crude spewed from BP’s broken well 1,500 meters down and approximately 65 kilometers off the Louisiana coast.

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Local Power: Tapping Distributed Energy in 21st-Century Cities

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By David Roberts - Jun. 15 (News Report) - Residents of Hammarby Sjöstad, a district on the south side of Stockholm, Sweden, don't let their waste go to waste. Every building in the district boasts an array of pneumatic tubes, like larger versions of the ones that whooshed checks from cars to

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How home solar arrays can help to stabilize the grid

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By George Musser - Jun. 01 (Special Report) - Electricity has traditionally been distributed using a wheel and spoke grid: power travels from a large central generator to loads distributed around it. In some cases, energy travels very long distances, perhaps 500 to 1,000 miles, before being used. That model is changing. Since solar and wind inject energy at numerous local points, the grid is coming to look more like a network than like a wheel -- making it even harder than it already is to keep power flowing smoothly. Two recent developments promise to help. The first is a new generation of microinverters, and the second is the growth of the interconnected smart grid.

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More Wind Farms Mean Cheaper Energy

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Susan Kraemer - May. 25 (News Report) - Just as we Americans are finally really and truly internalizing the real cost of sticking with fossil fuels, due to the Gulf sea floor gusher, a timely NREL study finds wind power makes electricity that’s not just cleaner, but it’s also much cheaper.

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A Spin on Efficiency: Generating Tomorrow's Electricity from Better Turbines

Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By David Biello - May. 10 (News) - At the spinning heart of the modern electric grid lies what used to be called the dynamo—a generator composed of stacks of copper rotating in an electromagnetic field. But it's a turbine that spins the dynamo—and efforts to squeeze more efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution from a smart grid may rest on improving this core technology.

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U.S. Electrical Grid Undergoes Massive Transition to Connect to Renewables: Scientific American

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Jennifer Weeks, The Daily Climate - Apr. 28 (News) - To shrink the electricity sector's carbon footprint, experts say, the nation needs to build thousands of miles of new transmission lines over the next 20 years to connect more renewable resources to electricity demand centers. A 21st-century grid will also have to balance fluctuating power flows from wind and solar generation, small-scale distributed sources, and plug-in electric vehicles. And it must be interactive so that customers can manage their electricity use.

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How Long Will Iceland's Volcano Keep Planes Grounded?

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Katherine Harmon - Apr. 16 (Interview) - As the volcano in Iceland continues to erupt, travelers in Europe are left to wonder how long local airspace will remain closed. A volcanologist from the Smithsonian explains why this eruption could cause long-term disruption

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How Texas Lassoed the Wind

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Peter Behr - Apr. 09 (Special Report) - At the end of 2009, the capacity of Texas wind turbines, reaching to the horizons of farm and prairie land, totaled 9,410 megawatts, well more than the combined total of the next three largest wind-power states, Iowa, California and Washington. Over the course of a year, wind power is providing 5 percent of Texas' demand, and that would more than double if the state's grid goals are achieved.

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Obama's nuclear policy takes one step forward and two steps back

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By John Horgan - Mar. 30 (Opinion) - Obama has recently taken one step toward a nuclear free world, and two steps away from it. First, the forward step. Last week, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to slash their strategic nuclear arsenals from 2,200 warheads each to 1,500. The U.S. and Russia will still have almost 20,000 warheads between them, but this step still deserves a big yay. In February, however, Obama took another step that will make it harder to rid the world of nuclear threats once and for all. He announced that the Department of Energy would provide $8 billion in loan guarantees to help a utility build two new reactors in Georgia.

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Genetically Modified Forest Planned for U.S. Southeast

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Paul Vooses - Feb. 24 (News) - International Paper Co. and MeadWestvaco Corp. are planning to transform plantation forests of the southeastern United States by replacing native pine with genetically engineered eucalyptus.

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Solar at Home: Should you get solar now, or wait?

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By George Musser - Dec. 09 (Special Report) - It’s the eternal question: Buy now or wait? Assuming you want to install solar panels on your roof, should you go for it or hold off for better technology or lower prices? I don't have a definitive answer, but let me offer a few thoughts that might inform your decision.

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Arctic Climate Threat--Methane from Thawing Permafrost

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Katey Walter Anthony - Dec. 08 (Special Report) - Arctic permafrost is already thawing, creating lakes that emit methane. The heat-trapping gas could dramatically accelerate global warming. How big is the threat? What can be done?

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Joining the Energy Underground: Residential Geothermal Power Systems

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - Nov. 23 (Special Report) - In essence geothermal energy is power harnessed from the Earth itself. Heat from the Earth’s core, which averages about 6,650 degrees Fahrenheit, emanates out toward the planet’s surface. Heated springs and geysers up to three miles underground can be accessed by special wells that bring the hot water (or steam from it) up to the surface where it can be used directly for heat or indirectly to generate electricity by powering rotating turbines. Since the water under the Earth’s surface is constantly replenished, and the Earth’s core will continue to generate heat indefinitely, geothermal power is ultimately clean and renewable.

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Are there asexuals among us?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Jesse Bering - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - some scientists believe that there may be a fourth sexual orientation in our species, one characterized by the absence of desire and no sexual interest in males or females, only a complete and lifelong lacuna of sexual attraction toward any human being (or non-human being).

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How the Brain Reveals Why We Buy

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Lone Frank - Nov. 09 (Special Report) - Neuromarketing is a young and growing field–some won’t even admit that it is a field yet–that is striving to reveal the inner mechanisms of our consumer behavior. You might say that this interest and the issues it raises are a natural extension or offshoot of neuroeconomics and the more general studies of how we make choices and decisions. Every so often, there is also a conspicuous overlap between neuroeconomists and researchers in neuromarketing. The studies in neuromarketing are just more specific and much more directed. And the Holy Grail lies in predicting what the brain wants.

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The New Science of Temptation

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Scientific American - By Piercarlo Valdesolo - Nov. 03 (News Report) - The power to resist temptation has been extolled by philosophers, psychologists, teachers, coaches, and mothers. Anyone with advice on how you should live your life has surely spoken to you of its benefits. It is the path to the good life, professional and personal satisfaction, social adjustment and success, performance under pressure, and the best way for any child to avoid a penetrating stare and a cold dinner. Of course, this assumes that our natural urges are a thing to be resisted – that there is a devil inside, luring you to cheat, offend, err, and annoy. New research has begun to question this assumption.

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The Other Peak Oil: Demand from Developed World Falling

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Ben Geman - Oct. 13 (News) - Reduced petroleum demand in developed nations could make their economic growth less vulnerable to oil price shocks, the report states. Nonetheless, global oil demand is still expected to grow, overall, driven by China and other developing nations as the world economy recovers. But demand for oil that has fallen in recent years in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, nations won't be made up, the analysts say.

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Birth of a Notion: Implicit Social Cognition and the "Birther" Movement

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Steve Mirsky - Oct. 01 (News Report) - A black president, however, causes great cognitive dissonance in some. But members of the “birther” movement have found a clever solution: Obama isn’t really president! Because he wasn’t really born in the USA!

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Europe Eyes Africa for Solar Power

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Paul Voosen - Jul. 24 (Special Report) - European government and industry have been eyeing tracts of sun-drenched, vacant land in North Africa and the Middle East for some time. And now, officials and business executives are beginning to sweat out the details that could see renewable power sprouting in the desert.

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Did China's Nuclear Tests Kill Thousands and Doom Future Generations?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Zeeya Merali - Jun. 22 (News Report) - Three decades on, Tohti, now a medical doctor, is launching an investigation into the toll still being taken—and one that the Chinese government steadfastly refuses to acknowledge. A few hundred thousand people may have died as a result of radiation from at least 40 nuclear explosions carried out between 1964 and 1996 at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang

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The World's 10 Largest Renewable Energy Projects

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Christopher Mims - Jun. 04 (Special Report) - If renewable energy is going to be a bigger player and have a significant impact in cutting the greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that are driving climate change, it's going to have to grow quickly.

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