According to Biblical accounts, 2,000 years ago something appeared in the sky which led a group of wise men to Jerusalem to see the birth of the new king of the Jews. But what was this bright light in the heavens? Let’s take a look at some of the prevailing theories. ; Comets Comets have been in the news quite a bit lately, what with the landing of the Rosetta mission on a moving comet....
On a snowy April day in 2016, then-Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead announced a competition that he hoped would save the state’s beleaguered coal industry. The aim of the contest was straightforward, even if achieving its objective was not. The goal was to find a way to turn carbon dioxide emissions into products that could be sold. The playing field would be a coal-fired power plant in Gillette, Wyo. The winner of the Wyoming competition would split a $15 million purse with the winner of a similar contest at a gas-fired power plant in Alberta....
Twenty years ago IBM’s Deep Blue computer stunned the world by becoming the first machine to beat a reigning world chess champion in a six-game match. The supercomputer’s success against an incredulous Garry Kasparov sparked controversy over how a machine had managed to outmaneuver a grand master, and incited accusations—by Kasparov and others—that the company had cheated its way to victory. The reality of what transpired in the months and years leading up to that fateful match in May 1997, however, was actually more evolutionary than revolutionary—a Rocky Balboa–like rise filled with intellectual sparring matches, painstaking progress and a defeat in Philadelphia that ultimately set the stage for a triumphant rematch....
The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting brings a wealth of scientific minds to the shores of Germany’s Lake Constance. Every summer at Lindau, dozens of Nobel Prize winners exchange ideas with hundreds of young researchers from around the world. Whereas the Nobelists are the marquee names, the younger contingent is an accomplished group in its own right. In advance of this year’s meeting, which focuses on physics, we are profiling several promising attendees under the age of 30....
Key concepts Engineering Physics Design Vibration Introduction Have you ever ridden in a car over a pothole or a speed bump? You might feel the bumps and get tossed up and down in your seat a little bit, but not nearly as much as you would if the car did not have suspension. Try this engineering project to learn how suspension can help give you a smoother ride! Background You might not give it much thought if you are riding down a smooth, nicely paved road, but a car’s suspension is very important when driving on a bumpy road or over obstacles....
On December 26, 2019, Erin Pettit trudged across a plain of glaring snow and ice, dragging an ice-penetrating radar unit the size of a large suitcase on a red plastic sled behind her. The brittle snow crunched like cornflakes underneath her boots—evidence that it had recently melted and refrozen following a series of warm summer days. Pettit was surveying a part of Antarctica where, until several days before, no other human had ever stepped....
It is a whopper of a catch, in more ways than one: China is under-reporting its overseas fishing catch by more than an order of magnitude, according to a study published on 23 March. The problem is particularly acute in the rich fisheries of West Africa, where a lack of transparency in reporting is threatening efforts to evaluate the ecological health of the waters. “We can’t assess the state of the oceans without knowing what’s being taken out of them,” says Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who led the study....
Bright crumbs that were visible earlier this week in one of the trenches dug by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander are no longer there, according to images released yesterday by the space agency. Mission scientists said the disappearing act leaves them with only one conclusion: the material was ice that vaporized directly from the solid form in the dry, frigid Martian polar atmosphere. Phoenix’s mission is to seek out and study the polar ice believed to be buried up to a few inches beneath the Martian soil....
The human brain is complex. Along with performing millions of mundane acts, it composes concertos, issues manifestos and comes up with elegant solutions to equations. It’s the wellspring of all human feelings, behaviors, experiences as well as the repository of memory and self-awareness. So it’s no surprise that the brain remains a mystery unto itself. Adding to that mystery is the contention that humans “only” employ 10 percent of their brain....
Most toddlers who were exposed to Zika in the womb and born with birth defects still suffer from many long-term problems at age two, according to the first report characterizing the longer-term health effects of prenatal exposure to the virus. These children often continue to have seizures as well as an inability to respond to noises in their surroundings or follow objects with their eyes, researchers found. The findings are based on follow-up exams of Brazilian kids born with smaller than normal heads, a birth defect called microcephaly....
With the goal of mimicking the mechanical properties of soft tissue, bioengineers William R. Wagner and Michael S. Sacks of the University of Pittsburgh have fashioned an inexpensive polymer, polyester urethane urea, into a biodegradable scaffold. This cylindrical scaffold’s strength resembles that of a pulmonary valve because it responds to stress differently depending on the direction in which the stress is applied. A patch of this biomaterial infused with smooth muscle cells (right) functions as vascular tissue, promoting healing and reducing formation of scar tissue in the hearts of rats recovering from cardiac arrest....
Editor’s Note (12/21/21): This article is being showcased in a special collection about equity in health care that was made possible by the support of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The article was published independently and without sponsorship. Recent analyses by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest an association between smoking and the severity of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. CDC data also show that African Americans are experiencing a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths compared with other racial and ethnic groups....
Virtual reality is touted as having the potential to transform how doctors diagnose and treat a number of mental illnesses, and the front lines of this revolution may be forming in China. The country’s troubled psychiatric services are notoriously swamped, a situation signaling that its market is wide open for innovation—and that developers have an opportunity to leapfrog past traditional care models and make China an early adopter of VR psychiatry on a large scale....
A total eclipse of the sun occurs somewhere on Earth about every 16 months on average. But the narrow band of complete darkness often falls on remote areas, for a brief time. The upcoming August 21 total eclipse is uncommon because it will darken populated areas across the entire continental U.S. The last such event over the U.S. was on February 26, 1979, and that was limited to the northwestern region of the country, along with western Canada....
Key concepts Mathematics Geometry Fractals Scale Introduction Do you ever wonder what mathematicians study—and why? Most of what they do is complex and difficult to understand, but fractal art might give us a glimpse. Mathematicians study fractals, which are naturally occurring figures used in many branches of science and technology. But you don’t have to be a mathematician to appreciate their beauty. Did you know you can also create one? In this activity you will get to take out some paint to make artwork—and discover how common fractals are....
NASA’s first Orion space capsule—which made its spaceflight debut at the beginning of this month—has returned to Florida after more than a week in transit. The capsule, designed to bring humans farther into space than ever before, flew to space for its first unmanned test flight on Dec. 5 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft then splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 4.5 hours later, when the U....
Public health officials have long known that extreme temperatures are linked to more deaths, but in one Australian city, researchers have calculated how many years of life were lost due to heat waves and cold snaps. Using this information, scientists also projected how a climate change scenario would affect life expectancies. “We’ve seen an increase in deaths in Australia in cold and hot weather before, but that’s just the number of deaths....
Actually, the work covers a wide variety of indoor situations. One chapter looks at architectural design that encourages exercise. For example, apartment building planners stumbled on this shocking strategy: to get people to use the stairs more, make the stairwells wider and well lit. You know, nicer to use. Another entry analyzes ways to contend with flooding, namely, throw in the towel: build homes with “buoyancy blocks” that absorb H2O. The blocks then—get this—expand and lift the house....
Although we do not have X-ray vision like Superman, we have what could seem to be another superpower: we can see infrared light — beyond what was traditionally considered the visible spectrum. A series of experiments now suggests that this little-known, puzzling effect could occur when pairs of infrared photons simultaneously hit the same pigment protein in the eye, providing enough energy to set in motion chemical changes that allow us to see the light....
ELEPHANTS IN CAPTIVITY Your editorial, “Free Willy—And All His Pals” [Science Agenda], fails to accurately reflect the facts about elephants and orcas in human care and reaches the wrong conclusion in asserting elephants and orcas that “can be, should be” released. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) sets high and rising standards for animal care and welfare, which is especially important for elephants and orcas. AZA’s science-based accreditation standards are the best way to make sure large and intelligent animals receive the higher level of care they need....
