Posts

Hurtling through space 31 years after its launch, the Voyager 2 spacecraft has sent back the most detailed view yet of the shock wave that marks the thinning of the solar wind, the charged particles streaming from the sun. Researchers say the crossing confirms that the heliosphere—the region swept out by the solar wind—is actually lopsided, perhaps due to a tilted magnetic field in local interstellar space. The shock wave, or heliospheric termination shock, occurs when the supersonic wind thins to the point that it can no longer rebuff the denser haze of charged particles flowing through interstellar space....

Try this simple thought experiment. Name 10 female geniuses from any period in history. Odds are you ran out of names pretty quickly. The message is clear: something is rotten in the state of genius. Besting most of one’s species is an accident of circumstance. The sequences of DNA nucleotides, arranged just so to impart intelligence, curiosity and passion, are part of that fluke event. More serendipitous still are the conditions needed for a person to devote decades to an idea or calling, deaf and blind to the distractions bound up in being human....

Where did the universe come from? Where is it headed? Answering these questions requires that we understand physics on two vastly different scales: the cosmological, referring to the realm of galaxy superclusters and the cosmos as a whole, and the quantum—the counterintuitive world of atoms and nuclei. For much of what we would like to know about the universe, classical cosmology is enough. This field is governed by gravity as dictated by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which doesn’t concern itself with atoms and nuclei....

The Man Who Wasn’t There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self by Anil Ananthaswamy Dutton, 2015 (($26.95)) “From the Buddha to the modern neuroscientist and philosopher, humans have pondered the nature of the self,” writes science journalist Ananthaswamy, but the “self” remains largely shrouded in mystery. Here he probes selfhood by exploring neurological conditions that rob people of something we often consider integral to human identity—from body integrity identity disorder (which makes people feel that a part of their body is not their own) to Alzheimer’s disease....

An artificial intelligence (AI) network developed by Google AI offshoot DeepMind has made a gargantuan leap in solving one of biology’s grandest challenges — determining a protein’s 3D shape from its amino-acid sequence. DeepMind’s program, called AlphaFold, outperformed around 100 other teams in a biennial protein-structure prediction challenge called CASP, short for Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction. The results were announced on 30 November, at the start of the conference — held virtually this year — that takes stock of the exercise....

The disgust that we feel at the sight of blood or the taste of spoiled milk is familiar. And while this disgust is unpleasant to experience, it’s generally thought to be beneficial—an emotional response that helps protect us against the pathogens that may lurk in what we’re repulsed by. But assessing the value of the disgust that we feel about moral matters is a more complicated affair. While disgust of this sort seems valuable when we feel it toward things like racism or those who take advantage of the elderly, it’s problematic when experienced toward minorities or the MAGA crowd....

A drop in U.S. carbon dioxide pollution in recent years stems from burning natural gas instead of coal. Or does it? Given that the U.S. bid to combat climate change through actions like the Clean Power Plan relies on more burning of gas than coal in power plants, that answer is both politically and scientifically important. Compared with coal, burning natural gas results in roughly half the amount of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity....

John Marino was the most driven man I ever met, a monomaniac on a mission to break the U.S. transcontinental cycling record–which he did in 1980, covering the 3,000 miles in 12 days, three hours. I wanted to be like John, so that year I took up serious cycling. In addition to pedaling hundreds of miles a week with him, I followed his training regimen of vegetarian meals, megavitamin dosing, fasting, colonics, mud baths, iridology (iris reading), negative ions, chiropractic, massage and acupuncture....

The wonder material. It’s just one atom thick but 200 times stronger than steel; extremely conductive but see-through and flexible. Graphene has shot to fame since its discovery in 2004 by UK-based researchers Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, for which the University of Manchester pair were awarded the 2010 Nobel prize in physics. We’ve heard the facts. We’ve read about how graphene could push the boundaries of today’s technology in almost unlimited ways....

Wildfires have burned about 1.5 million acres in Texas since January, egged on by a drought that federal forecasters say is the worst to hit the state in 45 years. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say their weather models predict the severe drought that has parched the southern United States will continue to midsummer – and beyond. “Predictions over weeks to one to three months suggest the drought will continue, and even intensify, in some areas as we struggle to get any rainfall,” said David Brown, director of climate services for NOAA’s Southern Region....

A crack is growing in Rattlesnake Ridge, a red-dusted hilltop near the town of Union Gap in Washington State’s Yakima County. The fissure is causing a huge amount of ground perched above a small neighborhood to slip down. Since late October four million cubic yards of land have edged down the slope, raising the risk of a landslide. The failure point, geologists think, is approaching in the next weeks or months....

The world is now in a race against the clock, warns a new U.N. climate report. The U.N. Environment Programme report released yesterday found that Group of 20 nations will fall short of the Paris Agreement’s goals unless they take drastic measures to get back on track. After a three-year period of stabilization, the report found that global carbon emissions are on the rise, leading to an “emissions gap“—the gap between anticipated emission levels in 2030 compared with levels consistent with limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and 1....

When glial cells were discovered in the 1800s, they were thought to be passive, supporting structures—the “glue”—as their Greek name implies—that holds neurons together in the brain and throughout the nervous system. In recent years, however, neuroscientists have discovered that far from being passive, these small cells play an astonishing variety of roles in both the development and functioning of the brain. Some of the latest discoveries suggest that glia play complex roles in regulating appetite and metabolism, making them a possible target for treating obesity....

Researchers have been left empty-handed so far in their quest to uncover some measurable biological signal that could be used to diagnose autism spectrum disorder, leaving clinicians to identify the condition just based on a child’s behavior. But on Wednesday, scientists reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine that a hormone that regulates blood pressure could be one of those signposts. They found that low concentrations of the molecule—called arginine vasopressin, or AVP—in the cerebrospinal fluid corresponded to autism-like social behavior in male monkeys, while a high AVP concentration signaled the most social animals....

Half a century ago, thousands of pregnant women in 46 countries took a drug for morning sickness that would later be discovered to cause severe malformations in developing fetuses. Worldwide, roughly 10,000 affected children nicknamed “thalidomide babies” were born with multiple defects, including the characteristic shortened upper limbs (a condition known as phocomelia, Greek for “seal limbs”), before the drug was discontinued in 1961 after four years on the market....

NASA is preparing to launch a satellite designed to study aerosols’ influence on Earth’s climate and continue a long-standing record of solar energy, measurements that could help improve the accuracy of climate models. Known as Glory, the satellite is set to launch Feb. 23 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California aboard a Taurus XL rocket. Once in space, it will settle into an orbit roughly 440 miles above the Earth....

Every human being is unique. But some are more unique than others, especially when it comes to spreading contagious diseases like SARS or Ebola. They are what epidemiologists term superspreaders. In a report published today in the journal Nature, researchers describe how they combined statistical studies with a mathematical model to determine how superspreaders affect the emergence of new diseases. Its relatively easy to predict how sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS will spread, because its possible to estimate who is at risk, and to ask victims how many partners theyve had....

An aqua-blue bay filled with white boats surrounds Balboa Island, an exclusive enclave with water views from multimillion-dollar homes. The bay is a major reason that 3,300 people live on the island. It’s also increasingly treacherous. In recent years, the bay has gushed over an aging sea wall when major storms strike at high tide. The island, built on dredged sand and silt, sits below high tide. Projections for sea-level rise estimate the water here will climb 6 inches by 2035 and 1....

Greg K. was only three when the problem began. During a family vacation he saw two crashed cars burning. Soon after that, his parents recall, the boy began stuttering. Even today, at the age of 40, Greg is more likely to order lasagna in a restaurant and forgo his favorite pizza, capricciosa, because he cannot manage words that begin with explosive sounds like the letter “k.” Speaking is precision work, yet most people merely have to open their mouths and a well-ordered flow of words pours out....

A few months ago a group of scientists warned about the rise of “extinction denial,” an effort much like climate denial to mischaracterize the extinction crisis and suggest that human activity isn’t really having a damaging effect on ecosystems and the whole planet. That damaging effect is, in reality, impossible to deny. This past year scientists and conservation organizations declared that a long list of species may have gone extinct, including dozens of frogs, orchids and fish....