lunes, 22 de agosto de 2011

Science


Microfossils found in Western Australia are the latest salvos in the battle for scientific glory.

Large Zone Near Japanese Reactors to Be Off Limits

A government survey has found radioactivity that far exceeds safe levels around the plant, meaning the areas may be uninhabitable for decades.
Centrifuges for purifying uranium at a plant owned by the energy company USEC in Piketon, Ohio. A breakthrough with lasers promises to make the enrichment process easier and cheaper, allowing for much smaller plants.

Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear

General Electric’s success with a half-century-old idea for enriching nuclear fuel more easily, using lasers, has critics worried that rogue states might use the method to make bomb fuel.
The Yokosuka power plant creates 900,000 kilowatts of electricity, and abundant fumes.

Japan Quake Is Causing Costly Shift to Fossil Fuels

To meet electricity demand, Japan has fired up fossil-fuel plants at great environmental and economic costs.
President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus.

Belarus Suspends Pact to Give Up Enriched Uranium

The suspension of the deal, in which Belarus had agreed to give up its supply of highly enriched uranium, comes in response to the latest wave of economic sanctions imposed by Washington.
LIFE OUT THERE
An artist's rendering of a hypothetical interstellar craft on a test flight near Jupiter.

Offering Funds, U.S. Agency Dreams of Sending Humans to Stars

Darpa, the government agency that helped invent the Internet, is studying what it would take to send humans to another star.

Black Scientists Less Likely to Win Federal Research Grants, Study Reports

A black scientist seeking a grant from the National Institutes of Health is one-third less likely than a white counterpart to receive financing, according to a study commissioned by the institutes.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's never-completed Bellefonte nuclear plant in Hollywood, Ala.

Alabama Nuclear Reactor, Partly Built, to Be Finished

The revived reactor in Hollywood, Ala., is not expected to be completed before 2018 to 2020 — or about a half-century after the project was first announced.

To Get to Cats, Parasite Hijacks Rats’ Arousal Circuits, Study Finds

Researchers say Toxoplasma gondii twists rats’ instincts, making them lose their fear of cats — the parasite’s ideal host — by stimulating neurons normally engaged in sexual attraction.
Science Times: Aug. 16, 2011
NETHERWORLD Elinor Ng Eaton cloned DNA at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Researchers are finding clues that pseudogenes lurking within
Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times
NETHERWORLD Elinor Ng Eaton cloned DNA at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Researchers are finding clues that pseudogenes lurking within "junk" DNA might play a role in cancer.
Recent discoveries in cell biology have complicated the basic principles of the last decade of cancer research.
MAMA GRIZZLY A bear with her cubs drinks up in Yellowstone National Park.

Grizzlies Return, With Strings Attached

Along the Rocky Mountain Front, the grizzly bear population has been thriving, and expanding its range to human habitats.
BOOKS ON SCIENCE
HIGH AND MIGHTY If experts are correct and seas rise by two or even three feet by the end of the century, development along Australia's Gold Coast would suffer flooding.

Shorelines, Sandy or Otherwise, That May Not Last

Four coastal scientists have come to the aid of the beach curious with a comprehensive, readable guide to the physical features of many kinds of beaches and the threats they face.
PARKLIKE Semakau Landfill, a popular getaway off Singapore, is home to more than 700 types of plants and animals.

Refuse Collects Here, but Visitors and Wildlife Can Breathe Free

Semakau Landfill, a popular local getaway in Singapore, is the only active landfill that receives incinerated and industrial waste while supporting a thriving ecosystem.
MIMICRY The Brazilian butterfly known as Heliconius numata has seven different wing patterns, each of which mimics that of a differ- ent local species of butterflies. Heliconius numata has somehow locked what should be a continuous range of natural variation.

A Supergene Paints Wings for Surviving Biological War

An evolutionary mystery — how butterflies changed their wing patterns to mimic neighboring species and avoid being eaten by birds — has been solved.
Health News
ESSAY
PUBLICITY Efforts to counter H.I.V. infection rates have had some success in Africa, but much stigma remains, leaving many victims to die rather than get tested.

Pathogens May Change, but the Fear Is the Same

To the mortals they mow down, all epidemics are emotionally alike — an onslaught of fear, awe, repulsion, stigma, denial, rage and blame — and doctors would be wrong to forget that.
More Multimedia

INTERACTIVE FEATURE: Name That Scientist!

How many of these scientists can you recognize?

VIDEO: Life Out There: Eden in a Test Tube

To better recognize extraterrestrial life should they come upon it, scientists are working to create simple life forms in a lab. But, as Dennis Overbye reports, they first have to agree what life is.

INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: 30 Years of the Space Shuttle

An interactive timeline of the 135 space shuttle missions.

VIDEO: Nora Volkow

An interview with the neuroscientist in charge of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who also happens to be the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky.
From the Sunday Magazine

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?

The very act of making decisions depletes our ability to make them well. So how do we navigate a world of endless choice?
SCIENTIST AT WORK BLOG
The park is named after its orchids, a prominent component of its flora.

A Paradise for Plant Diversity

Botanists begin to catalog the flora of Las Orquideas National Park in Colombia, a biologically diverse region that remains understudied and largely unexplored.
GREEN BLOG

Candid Camera for Mammals at Risk

Some 52,000 photos of 105 species show that a breakdown in natural habitats is causing a decline in the diversity of mammals.
Representative Michele Bachmann says the E.P.A. should be called the “job-killing organization of America.”

Bashing E.P.A. Is New Theme in G.O.P. Race

Republican presidential hopefuls are portraying the Environmental Protection Agency as a symbol of a heavy-handed regulatory agenda that they say is strangling the economy.
Science Columns
Q & A

As the Worm Turns

There are thousands of species of earthworm around the world, and they all have a sense of direction.
OBSERVATORY
A cross section of a plant thought to be 407 million years old. It is the first known instance of wood.

Early Plants Grew Wood as Plumbing, Study Says

Two small plants from France and Canada, both about 400 million years old, are the oldest known examples of wood, according to a new study.
OBSERVATORY

In Future Math Whizzes, Signs of ‘Number Sense’

Researchers say that children as young as 3 whose intuition about the concepts of more and less appears stronger may have greater mathematical aptitude.
OBSERVATORY
A chimpanzee family at the zoo in Tulsa, Oka.

Charting Brain Growth in Humans and Chimps

Although human babies and baby chimpanzees both start out with undeveloped forebrains, a new study reports that the human brain increases in volume much more rapidly early on.
Podcast: Science Times
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This week: A disease with a mind of its own, looking for the oldest forms of life on Earth, and is it a boy or a girl?
Health Columns
WELL

For Some in Menopause, Hormones May Be Only Option

For women hoping to combat the symptoms of menopause with nonprescription alternatives like soy and flaxseed supplements, recent studies have held one disappointment after another.
PERSONAL BEST

Perks of Cross-Training May End Before Finish Line

If you want to improve your performance and avoid injury, cross-training is not the definitive scientific answer.
PERSONAL HEALTH

In Decline, Stillbirths Continue to Devastate

Even with advanced technology to monitor the unborn, each year 27,000 fetuses that pass the 20th week of gestation and 13,000 that reach the 28th week or beyond are born dead.
REALLY?

The Claim: To Prevent Migraines, Drink More Water

Dehydration causes blood volume to drop, researchers say, resulting in less blood and oxygen flow to the brain.