Feed aggregator

California lawmakers are weighing a bill aimed at protecting their state's citizens from surreptitious genetic testing but scientists are voicing their growing concerns that, if passed, such a law would have a costly and damaging effect on research.

[More]

By Mike Saucier

PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona wildfire whipped up by winds and dry conditions threatened to trigger more evacuations on Sunday, just as firefighters were nearly done battling the biggest of four blazes in the state.

Fires in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado have forced the evacuation of several small towns and torched more than 65 square miles (168 square km) of forest, brush and grass in the U.S. [More]

This is not really a new post. But it is not exactly a re-publishing of an old post either. It is a lightly edited mashup or compilation of excerpts from several old posts – I hope it all makes sense this way, all in one place. The sources of material are these old posts:

Sleep Schedules in Adolescents (March 26, 2006) [More]

The honeycomb lattice is one of nature’s favorite patterns. In the two-dimensional crystal of carbon atoms known as graph­ene, for instance, the honeycomb structure arises from bonds among the atoms. Kenjiro K. Gomes of Stanford University and his colleagues have learned to make a honeycomb material in a striking new way. They place carbon monoxide molecules at regular intervals on the surface of a copper crystal, creating an imitation graphene layer. (The added molecules appear as black dots.)

[More]

A rare solar eclipse is darkening skies from China to Texas today (May 20), and has crowds of eager skywatchers and photographers hoping to see the sun transform into a dazzling "ring of fire."

[More]

This week, the U.S. government slapped tariffs (pdf) of more than 31 percent on the price of solar cells made by Chinese companies that cooperated with a recent probe. Those companies that stayed mum face even higher tariffs--as much as 250 percent.

[More]

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's Fuego volcano belched burning lava and black ash into the sky early Saturday, leading the government to issue an airplane advisory and close sections of highway.

The volcano, about 25 miles southwest of the capital, erupted about 2:45 a.m. [More]

Just one half-second before liftoff, computers aborted the launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket early this morning, delaying the dawn of the commercial space age at least until Tuesday. After all nine engines ignited, launch control detected abnormally high pressure inside the center engine and terminated the countdown. The next available launch window for an historic rendezvous with the International Space Station comes early-morning Tuesday, but NASA and SpaceX engineers will first have to inspect the engine and locate the source of the problem. You can read more about this historic mission here.

Lucky sky-watchers in the western U.S. are in for a treat Sunday: an annular eclipse. [More]

Earthquakes often precede explosive volcanic eruptions such as the devastating outburst from Mount St. Helens in 1980. But attempts to use tremors to predict the timing and force of such explosions have proved unsuccessful for decades. Now multidisciplinary teams of researchers have developed models that could help warn of disastrous eruptions hours to days before they happen.

[More]

The spiral-shaped organ of Corti, found in the cochlea, houses the sensitive hair cells that convert sound vibrations into nerve impulses. These signals then travel along the auditory nerve to the brain.

[More]

For decades, barefoot runners have dominated long distance events, leading many to believe barefoot running is more efficient. A new study from the University of Colorado says cushioned shoes actually do a better job of conserving a runner's energy.

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Large stretches of salmon-spawning streams and thousands of acres of wetlands would be wiped out if a large-scale mining project were to be built in southwestern Alaska's copper-rich Bristol Bay region, according to a report issued Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The report, while not directly addressing it, is a potential blow to the massive Pebble copper and gold mine operation proposed by an international alliance of mining interests, and opposed by environmentalists and local native groups.

Risks from building and operating such a big mine, or series of mines, range from the near-certain loss of wetlands and streams and chronic water pollution to a remote possibility of a catastrophic breach in a tailings dam planned to be taller than the Washington Monument, the report said.

The report uses elements of the Pebble plan and other information about modern mining practices to project a future scenario, an EPA manager said Friday, but the agency made it clear it is not pre-judging the Pebble mine issue.

"EPA's draft study does not provide an in-depth assessment of any specific mining project, but instead assesses the potential environmental impacts associated with mining activities," the EPA wrote in a statement on its website. [More]

Today is International Fascination of Plants Day , so I wanted to share some plant science that I have recently been fascinated by. I’ve become a bit obsessed with research on growing plants in space, how plants respond to microgravity , and the potential for space agriculture. Plant research in space focuses on growing plants for long-term space flight, where the plants can not only feed the astronauts but also scrub the air of carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, and recycle water. The exchange of nutrients and wastes between plants and astronauts can form the cornerstone of a bioregenerative life support system (BLSS) for orbiting space stations and perhaps even future space colonies.

Figure from "Seeds in Space" by Mary Musgrave, Seed Science Research, 2002.

[More]

Does an ice-cold drink actually taste better than the same beverage at room temperature? Depends on what its taste is: a new study finds that the intensity of some flavors varies with temperature. The work is in the journal Chemosensory Perception . [Martha R. Bajec, Gary J. Pickering and Nancy DeCourville, Influence of Stimulus Temperature on Orosensory Perception and Variation with Taste Phenotype ]

[More]

Dear Mount St. Helens,

Thirty-two years ago, I made you a get-well card. You’d just blown your top that morning, which looked like it must have hurt to my my five year-old eyes. I sat in front of the television with my crayons and construction paper while images of your roiling gray ash clouds filled the screen, and very upset and excited grown-ups said things I didn’t understand about you. All I really understood at the time was that you were an erupting volcano, and this was a Very Big Deal.

[More]

Point a camera at a particular patch of sky for more than 50 hours and what do you get? This image of Centaurus A, a galaxy 12 million light years away:

New image of Centaurus A. See bottom of post for link to bigger version. Credit: ESO

[More]

Annular eclipse (Credit: sancho_panza)

When the Sun is eclipsed by the Moon this Sunday, for many observers across much of the world it will be temporarily replaced by a beautiful ring of fire – a brilliant annulus of stellar plasma just peeking out around the dark lunar disk. This doesn’t always happen, partial solar eclipses merely trim away a chunk of the solar disk, and true total eclipses perfectly blank out the visible surface of the Sun. It’s all a matter of alignment between Sun-Moon-Earth and our mutual orbital gymnastics.

[More]

This Week in the Future, May 14-18, 2012 Baarbarian

A lot of people didn't agree with us that multitouch is magic. But we think those people are all doing it wrong, because this is literally what happens to us when we swipe. Our hands become instantly magnetic and we gain the power of telekinesis.

Want to win this ghostly Baarbarian illustration on a T-shirt? It's easy! The rules: Follow us on Twitter (we're @PopSci) and retweet our This Week in the Future tweet. One of those lucky retweeters will be chosen to receive a custom T-shirt with this week's Baarbarian illustration on it, thus making the winner the envy of their friends, coworkers and everyone else with eyes. (Those who would rather not leave things to chance and just pony up some cash for the t-shirt can do that here.) The stories pictured herein:

• Video: MIT's Latest User Interface Employs Gravity-Defying, Levitating Metal Orbs
• Electrical Engineer Can Feel Magnetic Fields Through Magnets Implanted in His Fingertips
• Living in the Future: Multitouch, or How I Learned to Love the Mac

And don't forget to check out our other favorite stories of the week:

• Book Review: Why You Are the Future of Video Games
• The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, May 14-18, 2012
• The Dawn of the Commercial Space Age is (Probably) Happening This Weekend
• Archive Gallery: Beauty Secrets of Popular Science
• PopSci Q&A: NASA Just Gave You A Telescope. What Will You Look At First?
• FDA Panel Endorses an Over-the-Counter HIV Test that Diagnoses in Just 20 Minutes
• Gray Matter: In Which I Play With White Phosphorus
• Test Drive: The 2013 Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG
• FYI: My Dog Is A Very Good Listener, But How Much Can He Understand?
• Engineer Details Plans to Build a Real, Burj-Dubai-Sized Starship Enterprise in 20 Years
• Electrical Engineer Can Feel Magnetic Fields Through Magnets Implanted in His Fingertips

The George Washington University engineering school's Pinhas Ben-Tzvi as RobotronMan

A recent survey by Intel found that only 28 percent of teenagers had ever considered becoming engineers and that only 5 percent associated engineering with the word “cool.” That’s not terribly surprising given that engineering ranks in the bottom half of professions with which teens are familiar, falling below teacher, doctor, nurse, police officer, chef, lawyer, musician, professional athlete, scientist, and computer programmer. (But, surprisingly, above journalist, politician and stock broker).

[More]