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Scientific American - Basic ScienceScience news and technology updates from Scientific American Catastrophic Thinking: How to Ensure Oil Spill Disasters Do Not Happen AgainTue, 27 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST The oilmen were drilling deep below the Gulf of Mexico when a rise of pressure from natural gas blew out the wellhead. A safety device intended to seal the well failed, and tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day began to shoot up into the Gulf waters. Engineers tried stopping the flow with mud and junk and lowering a cap over the leak. They spent months digging relief wells to plug the hole. Eventually they stanched the flow, but it took the better part of a year and contaminated the waters with millions of barrels of crude. Fisheries had to close, birds and other wildlife perished, and vast lengths of coastline were soiled. That catastrophe happened in 1979, when the Ixtoc 1 drilling rig sank. The parallels between its demise and the Deepwater Horizon disaster that began in April are chilling. We do not know how the ongoing story will end, and we may never be certain what happened in the ocean depths. That two events 30 years apart have followed nearly the same script shows we--not just the oil industry but the entire nation--have failed to address the underlying reasons for these debacles. [More]Gulf of Mexico - Deepwater Horizon - Petroleum industry - Oil well - Drilling rig How Will the Smart Grid Handle Heat Waves?Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST The heat wave in which much of the nation remains mired comes as a handful of communities across the country take their first steps toward implementing smart grid technology. The new meters, electricity distribution management systems, network management software and other technologies are designed to add intelligence to the way power is generated, distributed and used. [More] More Education Delays Dementia Signs--But Not DamageTue, 27 Jul 2010 09:49:00 EST Education has been liked to decreased risk for dementia for decades, but researchers behind a new study opened up the brains of hundreds of people who had died with the disease to try to find out why this correlation exists. [More] Illusions: Colors Out of Space [Slide Show]Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:15:00 EST It was just a colour out of space--a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes. [More] Arguing with Non-Skeptics, Part 1 of 2Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:35:08 EST A panel discussion on arguing with non-skeptics at the recent Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism in New York City featured James Randi, George Hrab, D. [More] Closing the Gap: How Desire Affects Perceptions of DistanceWed, 28 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST We often assume we see our physical surroundings as they actually are. But new research suggests that how we see the world depends on what we want from it. People see desirable objects as physically closer than less desirable ones, according to a study in the January issue of Psychological Science . When psychologists Emily Balcetis of New [More] Urban Air Pollutants Can Damage IQs before Baby's First BreathMon, 26 Jul 2010 14:00:00 EST In a sweltering summer in New York City back in 1999, Yolanda Baldwin was eight months pregnant with her first child. She lived near a gas station and across the street from an intersection choked with exhaust-spewing cars and buses. Sometimes the air was so thick with pollution that she could see it, breathe it, smell it, even taste it. And she often wondered what it might be doing to her unborn child. Now Baldwin and several hundred other mothers whose sons and daughters have been monitored for a decade have an answer: Before children even take their first breath, common air pollutants breathed by their mothers during pregnancy may reduce their intelligence . [More]New York City - Air pollution - Environment - Air Quality - Products and Services Can Australia save the dingo from extinction?Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:45:00 EST Where did the Australian dingo go? Once present throughout that country, the feared predator ( Canis lupus dingo ) in its current form is on its way to extinction as it is either killed or breeds and hybridizes with domesticated dogs. With the disappearance of the purebred dingo comes the loss of an important part of the region's ecosystem as well as a greater chance of environmental destruction by invasive species such as foxes and feral cats. Now the Australian state of Victoria is taking baby steps toward preserving the dingo. Eighty percent of the dingoes there are hybrids, and pure dingoes exist in only two remote, mountainous areas. [More]Dingo - Dog - Australia - Victoria - Invasive species Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 PercentWed, 28 Jul 2010 15:45:00 EST A long lunch out with co-workers or a late-night conversation with a family member might seem like a distraction from other healthy habits, such as going to the gym or getting a good night's sleep. But more than 100 years' worth of research shows that having a healthy social life is incredibly important to staying physically healthy. Overall, social support increases survival by some 50 percent, concluded the authors behind a new meta-analysis. [More] Arguing With Non-Skeptics (Part 2 of 2)Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:05:08 EST A panel discussion on arguing with non-skeptics at the recent Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism in New York City featured James Randi, George Hrab, DJ Grothe and podcast host Steve Mirsky (picture at left). [More] EPA Relies on Industry-Backed Studies to Assess Health Risks of Widely Used HerbicideWed, 28 Jul 2010 14:00:00 EST Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide's health risks, records of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine's safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review. [More] Spread of Deadly Cryptococcal Disease in U.S. Northwest Linked to Global WarmingTue, 27 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST A deadly infectious disease once thought to be exclusively tropical has gained a toehold in the Pacific Northwest, and health experts suspect climate change is partially to blame. [More]Climate change - Pacific Northwest - Environment - Infectious disease - Opposing Views ICESCAPE scientists reach 'Station 100' and re-don mustang suits, hard hats and steel-toed bootsWed, 28 Jul 2010 15:30:00 EST Editor's Note: Haley Smith Kingsland is an Earth systems master's student at Stanford University specializing in science communication. For five weeks she's in the land of no sunsets participating in ICESCAPE, a NASA-sponsored research cruise to investigate the effects of climate change on the Chukchi and Bering seas. This is her fourth blog post for Scientific American . [More] NASA Puts the "Green" in Its Other Mission: Developing Revolutionary, Energy-Efficient AirplanesMon, 26 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST It took 24 years for humankind to advance from the first powered flight in 1903 to Charles Lindbergh's famous crossing of the Atlantic (and even less time for the U.S. space program to go from launching the first American astronaut into suborbital space to landing men on the moon). NASA officials are now hoping 25 years into the future is enough time for the nation's aerospace engineers to come up with more ecofriendly airplanes. [More] Genetics Predisposes for Heavy Drinking After Watching Heavy DrinkingWed, 28 Jul 2010 09:45:08 EST Spend any time in a bar, and sooner or later you’ll hear, “I’ll have what she’s having.” It sounds like a bad pickup line, but there may be an actual biological basis for this kind of alcohol copycat behavior. Because scientists have found that having the gene for a certain dopamine receptor could predispose you to being influenced by the sight of other people drinking. [More] Obama's choice for warrior in chief, Gen. James Mattis, calls Iraq invasion "the dumbest thing we ever did"Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:55:00 EST James N. Mattis is the four-star Marine general whom Barack Obama just nominated to head the U.S. Central Command, with oversight of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If confirmed by the Senate (a hearing is set for today), Mattis will replace David Petraeus, who took over command of troops in Afghanistan from Stanley McChrystal after he and his staff spoke too bluntly to a Rolling Stone reporter. The irony is that Mattis is a tough talker, too, who got in trouble in 2005 for saying that "it's fun to shoot some people." (Imagine that! A warrior who likes war !) I heard Mattis speak in May, just before his promotion, at the "Hybrid Warfare" conference that I described in a previous post . I'm not one to fawn over military leaders, but I liked Mattis. He came across as smart, earnest and reflective, if a bit scatterbrained. He sees himself as a just warrior, but he also seems to have an acute sense of war's inevitable moral ambiguities. "There is probably no one in this room more reluctant to go fight than me," he said. "But once in a fight, I give it everything I've got." [More]Barack Obama - David Petraeus - United States - Afghanistan - War in Afghanistan Skeleton Key: Bone Cells May Play a Part in Regulating the Body's MetabolismMon, 26 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EST Insulin , the well-known blood sugar hormone, may have a newly discovered function in the body that will rattle your bones--regulating skeletal growth and breakdown. Two new studies published online July 22 in Cell show that insulin stimulates both bone building and breakdown in mice through the hormone's effects on two types of bone cells: bone-building osteoblasts and bone-resorbing osteoclasts. What's more, these cells are involved in an intricate hormonal loop that in turn regulates not only insulin production, but also blood sugar levels and energy metabolism. The studies suggest that the skeleton may be an important regulator of whole-body energy metabolism, joining the ranks of known metabolic regulators such as muscle and fat. The authors conclude that their findings have important implications for understanding and treating metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes as well as bone conditions like osteoporosis . [More]Blood sugar - Diabetes mellitus type 2 - Insulin - Pancreas - Health Origins: Going Back to Where the Story Really Starts (preview)Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST We are always telling stories about the world, the universe, ourselves. It helps to make sense of things. But sometimes, through familiarity or neglect, we get lost. We forget where a story really starts, losing sight of where it’s headed. What is biodiversity? Are electric cars new? Even the well-worn tale of human origins is missing a key chapter: how a small band of hunter-gatherers survived a climate disaster, becoming ancestors of us all. Here we provide the surprising origins of some strange and familiar things. All In The Family [More] Too Much, Too Young: Brain Overgrowth Correlates with the Severity of Autism SymptomsTue, 27 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST The average age at which children are diagnosed with autism is between three and four, but scientists have long suspected that the disorder starts much earlier. [More] Climate Change May Mean More Mexican ImmigrationMon, 26 Jul 2010 15:01:00 EST Climate change's impacts on crop yields may force as many as seven million Mexicans to emigrate to the U.S. over the next 70 years, according to research published July 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The study is among the first to attempt to put hard numbers on questions about "environmental refugees" that may be caused by climate change. [More] |