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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the slumping price of oil - the lowest in six years - and what this entails for the industry: half a trillion in debt collectively owed by 168 companies, more than $200 billion in shelved exploration and research projects, and hundreds of thousands of jobs sacked. You'd think that producers, pressured by these tough times, would cut production. The laughing matter is that, in fact, the whole ordeal is caused by producers (*cough Saudis) who have flooded the market with oil. In the short run, everybody is bound to lose money. On the long run.. well, we might be in for some dramatic shifts no sooner than two or three years from now. There will definitely be some sore losers.
Humans are naturally lazy, as they'll always find a way to execute a movement, even a simple act like walking, with the least expenditure of energy. Our nervous system, it seems, is hot-hired to find the optimal energy balance for any movement. It's so good at it, that it adapts to a new gait or environment within a matter of minutes.
According to a report issued by the Pew Research Center, American adults have a sub-par knowledge of basic science. The organization surveyed 3,278 Americans of various social, racial and academic backgrounds. The questionnaire involved a simple set of 12 questions that assessed basic science competencies. Despite the quiz was far from demanding, most test-takers answered only 7.9 questions out of 12 correctly. That's 66% or a big fat 'D'.
This fashionable triangle-shaped glassware isn't an office decoration, but a true vestige of the early analytical chemistry. It's called the kaliapparat, a hollow glass tubular device used to measure carbon content in substances in 1830 by German chemist Justus Liebig, widely considered the father of organic chemistry.After it first appeared, because it was so reliable, it spread throughout labs in Europe and North Africa within a matter of years. Look at this device again. Does it look familiar? It's none other than the American Chemical Society's logo - the same logo still in use today more than a century later. As such, the kaliapparat is one of the most important chemistry vessel and analytical tool in history. It's also one of the most obscure. Few chemists know about it. Most ACS members have no clue what it is or what the logo means for that matter.
A promising diagnosis test can accurately detect cancer in 7 out of 10 patients just by reading telltale genetic mutations found in the blood. While it will not replace invasive biopsies when the test runs negative, the procedure could help identify tumours earlier. When cancer is involved, the faster you find it, the better the chance of surviving it.
An innovative 'kirigami' design allows solar cells to flex and twist to follow the sun throughout the day. This means 20 to 40 percent more energy per year generate than cells stacked in fixed panels you see on rooftops. The design is based on origami, with the addition of cutting besides from folding.
Shipping cyanobacteria to Mars or dumping greenhouse gas into its thin atmosphere might be too slow. Elon Musk is in a hurry, considering he wants to see an 80,000 people colony on Mars during his lifetime. A more drastic, quick fix way of terraforming Mars might be nuking its poles, Musk suggested on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, this Wednesday. "You're a supervillain!" Colbert said. "That's what a supervillain does!"
Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns among other things Fox News, also known as the most despicable garbage journalism outlet in the whole world, bought National Geographic.
A daring team of researchers squeezed themselves through a long vertical chute and descended some 40 meters beneath the surface. It was here inside the Rising Star cave, located in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Johannesburg in South Africa, that the researchers discovered one of the most important collection of hominins in the world - 1,500 bone fragments belonging to 15 skeletons. The remains clearly belonged to a human ancestor, and the team involved claims we're talking, in fact, about a totally new hominin.
On an explosive growth trajectory, the total operational solar photovoltaic capacity in the US just passed the 20 GW milestone after 1,393 megawatts of PV were installed last quarter.
Basques - an ethnic group from modern day Spain - were thought to be direct descendants of hunter-gatherers who had managed to remain isolated during the initial wave of migration of early farmers in Western Europe. A comprehensive genetic analysis performed by scientists at Uppsala University suggests the Basques are more related to early farmers than hunter gatherers. Instead, what likely happens is that these early farmers kept to themselves and resisted breeding with later migratory waves.
A insightful incursion into the lives of sperm whales shows just how similar these gentle marine giants are to us. Not only do these highly social animals communicate through a language, made up of patterned sets of clicks called codas, but they also have dialects. These dialects may be unique to each clan of sperm whales, which may include thousands of individuals. Moreover, the language is learned and not inherently transmitted - a prime example of culture, if anything else.
Researchers detected unusually high levels of toxic metals, including the dangerous neurotoxin methylmercury, in a pristine coastal area and lake. This was surprising given there were no nearby industrial sites or other runoff pollution sites. They found that the toxic substances were leached by two unexpected sources: moulting elephant seals and bacteria.
Networked gadgets and gizmos embedded in every day items - collectively known as the Internet of Things - are beginning to permeate our way of life. In your very own kitchen, a smart, networked refrigerator that identified items could give you suggestions on what you could cook or what was your calorie intake for the past week. The more data, the better the network effect and there might be no better place to reap the most rewards from the Internet of Things than sports. We're just beginning to discover how networked devices could change sports, for better or worse, and the first baby steps have been taken by the NFL.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope jointly used their instruments to identify the oldest galaxy yet seen. Dubbed EGS8p7, this unusually luminous galaxy was formed just 600 million years after the Big Bang. When you peer that far into space and time, you're bound to find some freaky stuff. EGS8p7 did no disappoint. Already, the 13.2 billion-year-old galaxy is raising questions about how we think the Universe evolved during its infancy.
It's been only a decade since the Human Genome Project finished its task of mapping all the code that makes up our DNA. The hard part came later, though - identifying what each piece of code does or, oddly enough, does not. According to the most recent estimate for instance, only 8.2% of the code embedded in the human genome is actually useful, in the sense that it performs a function whether activating a gene, regulating it, and so on. The rest is what scientists class as "junk DNA".
There's no cure for Alzheimer's - the devastating neurodegenerative disease which causes progressive dementia in 5.3 million Americans - only treatments that help slow down a certain outcome. A milestone research may have finally broken the dry spell in Alzheimer's research looking for the much sought after cure. While current drugs help mask symptoms, a intravenous drug developed by US researchers actually treats the disease itself with patients showing marked improvements in memory and cognition. At the brain level, new blood vessel formation and an increase in neuronal cell counts was registered. The bad news is that the Alzheimer's patients are rats and experience has taught us that Alzheimer's research seldom translates to humans. Seldom, not never though.
This is the biggest news that no one seems to notice. Sunvault Energy and the Edison Power Company quietly announced they're incorporating a new company called the the Edison Motor Cars Corporation which will focus on selling hydrogen powered cars running on a graphene-based fuel cells. Based on the press release, this is the dream vehicle the world was promised by the now disappointing hydrogen economy: a car that only runs on water and a bit of electricity, is lightning fast, has a high autonomy, is safe and charges within minutes to be ready to hit the road again. To top everything over, the car will allegedly be ready in 2016. That's less than a year from now. But we don't know how the car looks like and considering all these bombastic claims, it all looks like a bunch of star dust in the eyes.
The rate of growth in the number of high paying jobs in the US has steadily declined since 2000, which some attribute to automation. Historically, analytical skills like mathematics, physics or other STEM variations have been rewarded with much revered "dream jobs" - steady, high pay and status. Computers today, however, have become ever more apt at solving complex analytical tasks. You still need competent people plugging in the numbers, programming the computers and so on, but you no longer need a whole team of engineers to crunch numbers. Instead, social skills have become increasingly important according to David Deming, an associate professor of economics at Harvard who studied how the labor market has changed since the 1980s and built a model that showed which are the desired traits employers look for today.
The right music can evoke powerful emotions seemingly out of the blue, but under the influence of LSD the musical experience is enhanced even further. This according to the Beckley/Imperial Psychedelic Research Programme which tested this long held assumption under a modern placebo-controlled study for the very first time.
A wormhole - a tunnel that connects two distant region in space by creating a shortcut through the spacetime - is thought as the only viable way to visit far away worlds and galaxies. Otherwise, you're stuck with traveling at the speed of light which, considering the vastness of interstellar space, is arduously slow. While for all practical reasons gravitational wormholes remain a staple of science fiction, the same can't be said about magnetic wormholes which were demonstrated for the first time by a group of Spanish physicists.
Americans' love affair with coffee has turned into an obsession. More than half report drinking coffee at least 3.1 cups each day, totaling a $40 billion market. For some, regular coffee isn't enough so they go for the extract: powdered caffeine. The drug is unregulated and can be sold over the counter in any pharmacy. You can even buy a one kilo bag (2.2 pounds) off Amazon and have it delivered to your doorstep. So, what's the problem? It's caffeine right? Well, to problem is that even a few teaspoons of the powdered caffeine mixed with a drink can potentially kill you. It's really, really easy to overdose and, case in point, two teenagers passed away last year in separate incidents. They had no idea what they were doing, and the confusing labeling might have had something do with it. Now, the FDA has officially sent warning letters to the biggest US producers of powdered caffeine that they should change their labeling in 15 days from the issued order.
When your plastic device breaks, there's basically nothing else to do but shrug, try to glue it then go on with your life. But wouldn't it be useful if the plastic itself could fix itself? Let me illustrate with the latest creation to come off the Pennsylvania State University lab: a bioplastic containing a novel mix of proteins derived from squid sucker ring teeth that can fuse back together when water is added. Once its 'healed', the bulk bioplastic return to its previous compression and tensile strength, so its not fragile.
It's ludicrous, but it might just be crazy enough to work. On Monday, during the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SPACE conference, Masahiro Ono unveiled one of NASA's most recent concepts: hitching a ride on a comet. In short, once a spacecraft is close enough it would launch a tether with a harpoon on the other side, attach to the comet or asteroid then basically reel in until touch down. Once there the probe stays put, recharging its batteries by harvesting energy all while performing some science experiments. When it's done, the probe can detach in search of a new piggyback ride.
An innovative concentrated solar power design called the "Solar Sunflower" was recently demonstrated by Swiss researchers at Airlight Energy and IBM Research in Zurich. The energy generator concentrates 5,000 suns onto a semiconductor chip to generate both electricity and heat at 80% efficiency. This meas roughly 60 times more power generated over the same surface area than a typical roof-mounted solar panel - granted, the parabolic dish array, which is quite big, isn't included. The electricity and hot water generated by one single Solar Sunflower can meet the needs of a couple homes.
A startling report by The Guardian reveals how the American Egg Board (AEB) - a government-backed board which gets a levy of 20 cents per case of eggs sold by its constituent members - lobbied against a food startup that's been gathering steam lately. Feeling threatened, AEB used its influence to put pressure on the FDA, USDA and Unilever to basically ruin Hampton Creek's business. Hampton Creek is a Silicon Valley startup which has so far gathered $120 million in funding. Its flagship products include eggs made out of plants and egg-less mayo, called Just Mayo which Joanne Ivy, president of the American Egg Board, refers to as “a crisis and major threat to the future of the egg product business.”
Seahorses are a unique oddity seeing how males, not females, carry the pregnancy and deliver the young.
Right now the coal business is arguably living through its most dire days ever. Nearly 300 mines have closed in the past five years, 200 coal-powered plants have been scheduled for closure, and coal corporations are basically ruined. For instance Peabody Energy, the world's biggest coal company, sold stocks below $1 when it used to be $72 in 2011. And it could get worse. Alpha Natural Resources, the second biggest coal company in the US, filled for bankruptcy along with other smaller firms. Basically, investors wouldn't touch coal nowadays not even with a ten foot pole. Winter is coming, but apparently coal companies execs aren't all that stressed. While their employees have had their pays cut and thousands fired, managers and CEO have actually substantially increased their salaries. When the ship sinks, might as well grab what you can, I guess.
Doctors found that a British man has been excreting live polio virus for nearly 28 years, despite being vaccinated. These sort of cases aren't unique, but this is by far the longest cases seen thus far. Moreover, the immune deficiency has allowed the virus to mutate and replicate inside the man's body. Doctors say, however, that there are no health hazards involved since the man lives in a immunized community.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), there's now a mature El Niño present in the Pacific Ocean. As is the case with such events, the biggest sign of an El Niño shaping up is rising surface water temperatures. Right now, the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean waters are likely to exceed 2° Celsius above average, which suggests this could be one of the strongest since 1950, placing it along similar events like 1972-73, 1982-83 or 1997-98.
This bizarre creature looks like a cross between a scorpion and a boat, which is pretty accurate considering it was actually as big as a boat. Pentecopterus decorahensis, named after the ancient Greek warship, likely dominated the Ordovician ocean waters some 460 to 248 million years ago, paleontologists say. Sporting a thick head shield, a paddle for a tail, large grasping limbs and 1.7 meters in length (5.5 feet), this sea beast was a force to be reckoned with.
Littered with over 150 trees and boasting a stunning asymmetrical architecture, 25 Verde - an apartment complex in Turin, Italy - is not your typical residence. Though its roots may be made of steel and concrete, this apartment building rises like a forest or urban oasis.
One of the largest banks in the world says choosing not to invest in renewable energy and divest from fossil fuel might come at a significant financial cost. Up to $1.8 trillion through 2040 or $44 trillion by 2060, when compared to the business-as-usual model.
Don't you just hate it when you just bought a delicious ice cream cone only to see it dripping before your very eyes just 30 seconds after it came out of the freezer? Well, science to the rescue. A group at Universities of Dundee and Edinburgh mixed a naturally occurring protein with ice cream and found this took significantly longer to melt in the sun. Additionally, because it's a substitute for the various fat molecules used in the industry to stabilize the water and the oil found in cream cream, the added protein makes ice cream healthier.
This amazing collection of space posters will light up your living room.
Is this our most obvious, useless headline yet? Might be, but don't hate the messenger. I'm just reiterating the findings of Canadian and Dutch researchers who performed two distinct studies to see what's the best relief against hangovers. Their conclusions are stark: there is no proven remedy against hangovers. If you want to avoid feeling like train wreck in the morning you should simply drink less.
Just like wristwatches in an age when everybody has a mobile phone, hourglasses today are kept out of aesthetic, and less for practical use. There's something romantic about seeing sand crumbling piece by piece, just like the fleeting moments the hourglass keeps track off. Danielle Trofe, a designer from Brooklyn, NY, once again infused the iconic hourglass with a practical motif by fitting it with LED lights.
Cryogenic sleep is usually the stuff of science fiction, most recently featured in the award winning blockbuster Interstellar. Of course, the most epic display of cryosleep can be found in Alien, in my humble opinion. Nevertheless, the theme is the same: cosmic voyagers are suspended in a sort of low metabolic state where vital functions are kept to a bear minimum by cooling the body, while not actually killing the person. It's quite useful, especially when you consider interstellar travel involving years, decades or even perhaps centuries of traveling. It's no wonder then that NASA is interested in actually turning this into a real-life application.
A month ago the New Horizon spacecraft made a historic flyby over Pluto, marking the first time a man-made instrument has ventured this far in the planetary solar system. The journey took nine years, which might seem like a lot, but you need to remember we're talking about nine billion miles. That's quite fast, around 4 km/second actually. To get a sense of the kind of velocity involved, Clay Bavor - a Google product VC - made this GIF showing what flying at 11,278 metres would like from the cockpit of a Boeing 747, a SR-71 Blackbird and, finally, New Horizons. It quite speaks for itself.
Generally speaking, men and women seem value money differently.
In just a couple of weeks the price of oil, and commodity in general, have plunged. This Friday, oil was trading on the international market for $47 a barrel, while the American benchmark is currently sitting at $41.5. The low pricing - the lowest in six years - is driving a lot of companies bankrupt, while large companies like Exxon and Shell have been forced to cut down on their losses firing employees and shutting down exploration and exploitation projects.
Life expectancy has gone up by six years on average throughout the world since 1990, according to a survey led by scientists at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The extensive survey analyzed records from 188 countries. Japan tops the list with an average life expectancy of 83 years. While there's reason to rejoice in the news, it's worth mentioning that living with disabilities and illness has also been prolonged. The same advances that helped us live longer have also prolonged our suffering and this is where scientists are trying to invest their energy: focus less on extending life expectancy and more on the quality of our last years on this planet.
The trend is clear: medicine is becoming more and more personalized. Ultimately, when you'll enter a hospital for a diagnosis or treatment, a (likely digital) doctor will use tailored solutions to address your health needs, all based on your past medical and genetic records. Considering diagnosis, just a few drops of blood will be enough to diagnose a plethora of afflictions. Take the latest news coming from the The Institute of Cancer Research in London, for instace. There, British doctors were able accurately predict which breast cancer patient will relapse next by tracking key mutations of residual cancer cells found in the blood. It's a very powerful tool - one that will probably become standard practice soon.
The Department of the Navy (DON) announced it will make the largest investment in renewable energy by an federal entity. Its plan is to install a huge 210 megawatt (MW) solar facility - enough to power 80,000 Californian homes - in the Arizona desert, which would serve electricity to 14 US Navy installations. The agreement was signed last month and marks the latest in a slew of measures meant to make the Department of Defense less dependent on oil - not just by the navy, but also the military or air force.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists report the Grand Canyon's food webs are contaminated with dangerously high levels of mercury and selenium. The source of the runoff pollution can be tracked down hundreds of miles upstream, coming from coal-burning electrical plants and other human sources. This shows that "remote ecosystems are vulnerable to long-range transport and subsequent bioaccumulation of contaminants," the researchers write.
Nothing to freak out about. This is perfectly normal.
Nothing can escape a black hole, not even light, any scientists schooled in modern physics will tell you. Eminent British physicists, Stephen Hawking, suggests however that information is still retained at the boundary of black holes, known as the event horizon.
Peter Ward might be the luckiest biologist ever. In 1984, he and colleague Bruce Saunders were among the first to identify a new nautilus species called Allonautilus scrobiculatus. Since then, the spiral shelled creature was only spotted once then disappeared for nearly three decades. This year, Ward returned to Papua New Guinea to survey nautilus populations and found the rare nautilus species once again!
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In a bid to curb global emissions, the carbon credit scheme was introduced by the UN as an annex to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Apparently, this honestly good idea has backfired after some participants in the scheme, most notably from Russian and Ukraine, took advantage. Lack of international oversight means a couple of factories have turned in a huge profit while emissions have actually gone up to support the scheme. A classic case of perverse incentive or good idea gone bad. This time, at the global climate's expense.
We're all guilty of bringing home useless items like flyers or old computer electronics from time to time, hoping that one day we'll use them. Don't kid yourself. It rarely happens. For some people though, hoarding seems to be a way of life, bordering obsessive compulsive disorder. In fact, psychologists class hoarding behavior as a distinct disorder which affects 2 to 5 percent of Americans.
