M.D. Anderson biochemist's work alters our view of cell division - and possibly disease.
For the first time, scientists have captured detailed images of life's essence.
The dazzling pictures reveal a key step in the process of cell division, which all organisms must undergo to survive. The moment occurs deep within a cell, as two proteins work in concert to unzip a strand of DNA to create two new cells.
Science & Technology
© SVM Clube
In the meantime, a friend of mine (who is a climate scientist at a major U.S. research facility) turned me on to an interesting find, a paper addressed to the European Office of Aerospace Research and development, dated June 4, 1996, entitled: "The Hazard to Civilization from Fireballs and Comets" by S.V.M. Clube. (For the uninitiated, Clube is an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford).
In this short (4 pages) letter and summary statement, Clube writes (emphases in the original, make of them what you will):
Asteroids which pass close to the Earth have been fully recognized by mankind for only about 20 years. Previously, the idea that substantial unobserved objects might be close enough to be a potential hazard to the Earth was treated with as much derision as the unobserved aether. Scientists of course are in business to establish broad principles (eg relativity) and the Earth's supposedly uneventful, uniformitarian environment was already very much in place. The result was that scientists who paid more than lip service to objects close enough to encounter the Earth did so in an atmosphere of barely disguised contempt. Even now, it is difficult for laymen to appreciate the enormity of the intellectual blow with which most of the Body Scientific has recently been struck and from which it is now seeking to recover.
It was billed as a fond farewell to the technology industry from Bill Gates: a chance for the billionaire businessman to pay tribute to the hi-tech world one last time before he steps down from his duties at Microsoft later this year.
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| ©Unknown |
| Antarctic balloon flights can last much longer than flights in other places because of the polar vortex and because there is very little atmospheric or temperature change. Constant daylight in Antarctica means no day-to-night temperature fluctuations on the balloon, which helps it stay at a nearly constant altitude during the flight. |
NASA and the National Science Foundation have achieved a new milestone in conducting scientific observations from balloons, by launching and operating three long-duration flights within a single Antarctic summer. Having three long-duration balloon science missions flying simultaneously is a record-setting event.
A Stanford scientist has spelled out for the first time the direct links between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in human mortality, using a state-of-the-art computer model of the atmosphere that incorporates scores of physical and chemical environmental processes.
The new findings, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, come to light just after the Environmental Protection Agency's recent ruling against states setting specific emission standards for this greenhouse gas based in part on the lack of data showing the link between carbon dioxide emissions and their health effects.
The new findings, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, come to light just after the Environmental Protection Agency's recent ruling against states setting specific emission standards for this greenhouse gas based in part on the lack of data showing the link between carbon dioxide emissions and their health effects.
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| ©Unknown |
| This study finds that the effects of carbon dioxide's warming are most significant where the pollution is already severe. Given that California is home to six of the 10 U.S. cities with the worst air quality, the state is likely to bear an increasingly disproportionate burden of death if no new restrictions are placed on carbon dioxide emissions. |
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| ©Unknown |
| The Global Navigation Satellite Systems, which include the U.S.-based Global Positioning System, the Russian GLONASS system, and the upcoming European Galileo system, are used for accurately determining the geographic position of any point on Earth. |
NOAA will lead an international effort to pinpoint the locations of more than 40 global positioning satellites in Earth orbit, which is vital to ensuring the accuracy of GPS data that millions worldwide rely upon every day for safe navigation and commerce.
Cars that drive themselves - even parking at their destination - could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say.
GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles.
"This is not science fiction," Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles.
"This is not science fiction," Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
Where the Champs Elysee, the Eiffel Tower and sprawling vineyards now stand, there might once have been an Amazon-like jungle.
A new analysis of amber fossils collected in France suggests that the country was once covered by a dense tropical rainforest.
The 55-milllion-year-old pieces of amber (fossilized tree sap) were found near the Oise River in northern France. The trees that once oozed them are long gone.
Amber from different sites tends to have different chemical compositions.
A new analysis of amber fossils collected in France suggests that the country was once covered by a dense tropical rainforest.
The 55-milllion-year-old pieces of amber (fossilized tree sap) were found near the Oise River in northern France. The trees that once oozed them are long gone.
Amber from different sites tends to have different chemical compositions.
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| ©2007 American Chemical Society |
| Oise ambers and insect inclusion (Trichoptera) in Oise amber. |
A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late yesterday when the cycle's first sunspot appeared in the sun's Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said.
For 5,000 years, great tongues of ice have spread over the 3-mile-high slopes of Puncak Jaya, in the remotest reaches of this remote tropical island. Now those glaciers are melting, and Lonnie Thompson must get there before they're gone.
To the American glaciologist, the ancient ice is a vanishing "archive" of the story of El Nino, the equatorial phenomenon driving much of the world's climate.
More than that, the little-explored glaciers are a last unknown for a mountaineering scientist who for three decades has circled the planet pioneering the deep-drilling of ice cores, both to chronicle the history of climate and to bear witness to the death of tropical glaciers from global warming.
To the American glaciologist, the ancient ice is a vanishing "archive" of the story of El Nino, the equatorial phenomenon driving much of the world's climate.
More than that, the little-explored glaciers are a last unknown for a mountaineering scientist who for three decades has circled the planet pioneering the deep-drilling of ice cores, both to chronicle the history of climate and to bear witness to the death of tropical glaciers from global warming.
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| ©AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato |
| Lonnie Thompson stands in the 'cold room,' where ice cores are stored in the minus-30-degree freezer at Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University Friday, Dec. 21, 2007 in Columbus, Ohio. |
Comment: Continue to Part Three: Cosmic Turkey Shoot