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Solar plane sets off again across US

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - May. 22 (News Report) - The Solar Impulse plane, which holds records including the longest manned zero-fuel flight, sets of for the second leg of a bid to cross the US.

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You Need Phosphorous to Live—and We're Running Out

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tom Philpott - May. 22 (Comment) - Western Sahara , a sparsely populated slice of desert on Africa's northwestern coast, doesn't get much ink as a potential crisis point in the global food system. You've probably never heard of the long-standing independence movement in the Morocco-controlled territory—or that the area harbors vast stores of an element critical to contemporary agriculture. Morocco, it is thought, holds up to 85 percent (PDF) of the globe's known phosphate rock reserve—and a lot of it lies in Western Sahara. Morocco's royal family thus controls what Jeremy Grantham, cofounder of the prominent Boston-based global investment firm Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co., called the " most important quasi-monopoly in economic history ." Who cares about phosphorus? For starters, every living thing on Earth—including humans—since all the crops we eat depend on it to produce healthy cells. Until the mid-20th century, farmers maintained phosphorus levels in soil by composting plant waste or ...

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12 Animals We Wish We Could De-Extinct

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By — By Maggie Severns, the Mother Jones news team - May. 15 (Comment) - Do you miss the mammoth? Dream of dodos? Long for Lycaena dispar dispar ? After centuries of driving species after species to extinction, we're now tantalizingly close to bringing some of them back. Using advances in genetic sequencing and molecular biology, s cientists across the world are mining extinct animal specimens for ancient DNA to try to resurrect disappeared species. The science is complicated— National Geographic has a great rundown—and so are the ethics involved. But who can resist dreaming up a de-extinction "wish list"? With more species nearing the extinction danger zone every dayâ€‹, there's no shortage of candidates, but some are more scientifically suited for resurrection than others. And even if we could bring a species back, should we? We looked to scientists to explain who they'd like to bring back, and which are best left in the past. T. rex , extinct for 65 million years Designed for "maximum bone-crushing action," Tyrannosaurus ...

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Four colossal Sun flares in 48 hours

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Paul Rincon - May. 15 (News Report) - The Sun has unleashed the most powerful eruption - a solar flare - of 2013 so far.

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Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit troubling milestone, scientists say

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Brian Vastag, Jason Samenow - May. 11 (News Report) - Human influence on the Earth’s atmosphere touched what climate scientists called a dire milestone Friday as concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide nudged up to a level unseen in about 3 million to 5 million years — long before modern humans.

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This Crater in Siberia Reveals the Future of a Globally Warmed Planet

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Damian Carrington - May. 10 (News Report) - This story originally appeared in The Guardian . The future of a globally warmed world has been revealed in a remote meteorite crater in Siberia, where lake sediments recorded the strikingly balmy climate of the Arctic during the last period when greenhouse gas levels were as high as today. Unchecked burning of fossil fuels has driven carbon dioxide to levels not seen for 3 million years when, the sediments show, temperatures were 46 degrees higher than today, lush forests covered the tundra and sea levels were up to 40 meters higher than today. "It's like deja vu," said Prof Julie Brigham-Grette, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the new research analyzing a core of sediment to see what temperatures in the region were between 3.6 and 2.2 million years ago. "We have seen these warm periods before. Many people now agree this is where we are heading." Continue Reading ...

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The Most Controversial Chart in History, Explained

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Chris Mooney - May. 09 (Opinion) - Back in 1998, a little known climate scientist named Michael Mann and two colleagues published a paper that sought to reconstruct the planet's past temperatures going back half a millennium before the era of thermometers—thereby showing just how out of whack recent warming has been. The finding: Recent northern hemisphere temperatures had been "warmer than any other year since (at least) AD 1400." The graph depicting this result looked rather like a hockey stick: After a long period of relatively minor temperature variations (the "shaft"), it showed a sharp mercury upswing during the last century or so ("the blade"). The report moved quickly through climate science circles. Mann and a colleague soon lengthened the shaft of the hockey stick back to the year 1000 AD—and then, in 2001, the UN's ...

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Do Electronic Cigarettes Really Help Smokers Quit?

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Alisa Opar - May. 07 (Special Report) - Everyone knows that cigarettes are bad for you. Yet 45 million Americans smoke , a habit that shaves a decade off life expectancy and causes cancer as well as heart and lung diseases. Nearly 70 percent of smokers want to quit , but despite the deadly consequences, the vast majority of them fail. ...

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Are Happy Gut Bacteria Key to Weight Loss?

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Moises Velasquez-Manoff - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona , a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's —specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.

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Astronomers anticipate 100 billion Earth-like planets

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

ras.org.uk - Apr. 14 (News) -

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Al Gore Is Fat, Therefore Global Warming Doesn't Exist

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Chris Mooney - Apr. 11 (Comment) - Ever notice that when conservatives want to attack the science of global warming—or the idea that we ought to do something about it—they almost always find a way to rope in Al Gore? Occasionally, they even try to debunk the science by denigrating Gore personally, in a kind of guilt-by-association gambit. One of the most striking examples came from Ann Coulter, who wrote in a column in early 2007: The only place Al Gore conserves energy these days is on the treadmill. I don't want to suggest that Al's getting big, but the last time I saw him on TV I thought, "That reminds me—we have to do something about saving the polar bears." Never mind his carbon footprint—have you seen the size of Al Gore's regular footprint lately? It's almost as deep as Janet Reno's. Funny stuff, huh? Coulter's attacks on the former vice president's weight were extreme—but new academic research on conservative syndicated columnists and their writings on global warming suggests that ...

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Lancaster, Calif., Focuses on Becoming Solar Capital of ‘Universe’

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By FELICITY BARRINGER - Apr. 09 (News Report) - There are at least two things to know about this high desert city. One, the sun just keeps on shining. Two, the city’s mayor, a class-action lawyer named R. Rex Parris, just keeps on competing. Two years ago, the mayor, a Republican, decided to leverage the incessant Antelope Valley sun so that Lancaster could become the solar capital “of the world,” he said. Then he reconsidered. “Of the universe,” he said, the brio in his tone indicating that it would be parsimonious to confine his ambition to any one planet.

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5 Ways Biotech Is Changing Our Pets and Wildlife

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Sarah Zhang - Apr. 08 (Review) - Ever since humans first tamed a friendly wolf, we've been shaping animals to conform to our needs and wants. Just look at a Siberian husky next to a poofy, orange Pomeranian. Science journalist Emily Anthes' new book, Frankenstein's Cat , explores animals created by molecular genetics or wired up to electronics, but, she says, the ethical questions that come along with these futuristic critters are not completely new.

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One Weird Trick for Getting Republicans To Care About Climate

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Chris Mooney - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - It"s a truism at this point to observe that Americans are deeply polarized—along party lines—on climate change. The surveys that have attested to this reality are, by now, too numerous to count. But beneath that depressing surface, there"s a less appreciated and more hopeful reality. If it were somehow possible to strip away the overlay of angry political rhetoric—not to mention doing something about all the scientific misinformation that is constantly being broadcast and rebroadcast by the likes of Rush Limbaugh—a bipartisan political consensus on climate change might really be possible.

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In Asteroid’s Aftermath, a Sigh of Relief

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By HENRY FOUNTAIN - Mar. 26 (News) - Scientists say luck played a role in sparing Chelyabinsk, Russia, from devastation as a space rock exploded.

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Altered T-Cell Therapy Shows Promise for Acute Leukemia

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By DENISE GRADY - Mar. 20 (News Report) - Genetically altering a patient’s immune cells has, for the first time, produced remissions in adults with a virulent blood cancer. In one patient, the disease vanished in eight days.

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Climate Change Denying Congressman to Head Subcommittee on Climate Change

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - As the new chairman of a key House subcommittee on the environment , Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) will be one of the GOP's leading actors when it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency and the growing threats from climate change. So with his first hearing as chairman on tap for Wednesday, what does the freshman Republican—and end times novelist —think about anthropogenic global warming? He's not sure. In response to an inquiry from Mother Jones , Stewart's office emailed a statement suggesting that more study was needed before he could safely say whether—as 97 percent of scientists believe—humans are responsible for rising global temperatures. And even if it was, he explained, that doesn"t mean we should act: The world's climate is changing. That has always been true. Our global climate is always in flux, and always will be. So while I accept that our climate is changing, I also understand that a great deal of research still needs to be accomplished to ...

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Monarch Migration Plunges to Lowest Level in Decades

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Michael Wines - Mar. 14 (News Report) - The monarch population has declined with extreme weather and a lack of the milkweed that the butterflies feed on, experts say.

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I-Squared Equals I'm Screwed

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - Mar. 13 (Opinion) - This January, Senators Hatch and Klobuchar introduced The Immigration Innovation Act, known as "I-Squared." It will triple the number of foreign temporary workers from about 800,000 to over 2.3 million. This will distort the labor market for jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), which has only 4 million workers all told. I-Squared will seriously depress the domestic STEM labor market.

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Mars Could Have Supported Life Long Ago, NASA Says

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Kenneth Chang - Mar. 13 (News Report) - Findings from NASA’s Mars rover show that the planet may well have been a pleasant place for tiny microbes, with plenty of water and minerals.

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US doctors cure child born with HIV

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Ian Sample - Mar. 04 (News Report) - Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented. The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe. Though medical staff and scientists are unclear why the treatment was effective, the surprise success has raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns.

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'Extinction crisis' focus for CITES

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - By Matt McGrath - Mar. 03 (Special Report) - Delegates from 178 countries will review the convention on international trade in endangered species (CITES) amidst an unprecedented extinction crisis.

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Hydrogen's energy promise improves

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - Mar. 01 (News Report) - Hydrogen produced from renewable resources is a promising source of clean energy, but the gas is difficult to handle and transport.

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When his PSA score spiked, prostate surgery loomed, but NIH offered another way

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Marilyn Fenichel - Feb. 26 (News) - A few weeks before our long-awaited trip to Italy in 2011, my husband, Jim, received a disconcerting phone call about one of the results of his annual physical. Jim’s PSA, a blood test that screens for early-stage prostate cancer, had been rising over the past couple of years. His internist was becoming concerned, and he suggested that Jim get another PSA when he returned from Europe. Read full article >>

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Asteroid Apocalypse

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Daily Beast - By Michio Kaku - Feb. 26 (Special Report) - Russia’s meteor was a fleabite. In Newsweek, Michio Kaku on the one in 2036 that could destroy our planet.

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