© Photograph by Seth Perlman/AP
He's conducted research since 1997 on genetically engineered (GE) crops, and in this interview he reveals how GE crops and glyphosate impact soil ecology and biology.
Science & Technology
He's conducted research since 1997 on genetically engineered (GE) crops, and in this interview he reveals how GE crops and glyphosate impact soil ecology and biology.
Various solutions have been offered about how to protect your privacy while connected to the Internet or when using your mobile phone, but one new product holds the potential to protect you at the source: your home. It's not quite tinfoil but it does claim to offer a physical shield against surveillance and attack.
Conductive Composites is a company based in Utah (home of the NSA's mega data center interestingly), which makes small cases and enclosures for shielding electronics. The company claims that their lightweight material made by layering nickel on carbon could be scaled up and essentially turn your entire home into a Faraday cage capable of blocking efforts at snooping, while also offering protection from electromagnetic radiation and EMP attacks.
© NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
This illustration of a recently observed tidal disruption, named ASASSN-14li, shows a disk of stellar debris around the black hole at the upper left. A long tail of ejected stellar debris extends to the right, far from the black hole. The X-ray spectrum obtained with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (seen in the inset box) and ESA's XMM-Newton satellite both show clear evidence for dips in X-ray intensity over a narrow range of wavelengths. These dips are shifted toward bluer wavelengths than expected, providing evidence for a wind blowing away from the black hole.
This illustration of a recently observed tidal disruption, named ASASSN-14li, shows a disk of stellar debris around the black hole at the upper left. A long tail of ejected stellar debris extends to the right, far from the black hole. The X-ray spectrum obtained with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (seen in the inset box) and ESA's XMM-Newton satellite both show clear evidence for dips in X-ray intensity over a narrow range of wavelengths. These dips are shifted toward bluer wavelengths than expected, providing evidence for a wind blowing away from the black hole.
When a star comes too close to a black hole, the intense gravity of the black hole results in tidal forces that can rip the star apart. In these events, called tidal disruptions, some of the stellar debris is flung outward at high speeds, while the rest falls toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare that can last for years.
A team of astronomers, including several from the University of Maryland, has observed a tidal disruption event in a galaxy that lies about 290 million light years from Earth. The event is the closest tidal disruption discovered in about a decade, and is described in a paper published in the October 22, 2015 issue of the journal Nature.
© Leah Green
But now a group of Harvard physicists has taken a major step toward solving that puzzle, and have brought us one step closer to ultra-fast, light-based computers.
The physicists, led by Professor Eric Mazur, have created a material where the phase velocity of light is infinite. Their results were published in Nature Photonics on Oct. 19th.
In a study published in this week's advance online publication of Nature, the scientists detail the manner by which bacteria living in communities communicate with one another electrically through proteins called "ion channels."
"Our discovery not only changes the way we think about bacteria, but also how we think about our brain," said Gürol Süel, an associate professor of molecular biology at UC San Diego who headed the research project. "All of our senses, behavior and intelligence emerge from electrical communications among neurons in the brain mediated by ion channels. Now we find that bacteria use similar ion channels to communicate and resolve metabolic stress. Our discovery suggests that neurological disorders that are triggered by metabolic stress may have ancient bacterial origins, and could thus provide a new perspective on how to treat such conditions."
"Much of our understanding of electrical signaling in our brains is based on structural studies of bacterial ion channels" said Süel. But how bacteria use those ion channels remained a mystery until Süel and his colleagues embarked on an effort to examine long-range communication within biofilms--organized communities containing millions of densely packed bacterial cells. These communities of bacteria can form thin structures on surfaces--such as the tartar that develops on teeth--that are highly resistant to chemicals and antibiotics.
Hidden beneath the surface and entangled in the roots of Earth's astonishing and diverse plant life, there exists a biological superhighway linking together the members of the plant kingdom in what researchers call the "wood wide web". This organic network operates much like our internet, allowing plants to communicate, bestow nutrition, or even harm one another.
The network is comprised of thin threads of fungus known as mycelium that grow outwards underground up to a few meters from its partnering plant, meaning that all of the plant life within a region is likely tapped into the network and connected to one another. The partnership of the roots of plants and the fungi is known as mycorrhiza and is beneficial for both parties involved; plants provide carbohydrates to the fungi and in exchange, the fungi aids in gathering water and providing nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen to its partnering plant.
Though farming is well known in many social insects, such as ants and termites, bees have always been thought to depend solely on pollen and nectar for sustenance.
But for the Brazilian stingless bee, Scaptotrigona depilis, fungus may mean the difference between life and death.
What's more, if other bees also depend on fungus for survival, the discovery has serious implications for the use of fungicides in agriculture.
Cristiano Menezes of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, was studying the bees in the lab and originally mistook the white Monascus fungus growing in their hive for contamination.
© David Carrier, University of Utah
The human hand evolved partly to make a clenched fist that would reduce the chance of injury during a fistfight. Open-fist and open-handed punches placed more strain on the hand bones.
The human hand evolved partly to make a clenched fist that would reduce the chance of injury during a fistfight. Open-fist and open-handed punches placed more strain on the hand bones.
The researchers say their macabre experiments support the hotly debated idea that human hands evolved not only for manual dexterity, but also for fistfights.
However, some scientists vehemently argue that the new research does little to support this notion.
David Carrier, a comparative biomechanist at the University of Utah, and his colleagues have controversially suggested that fist fighting might have helped to drive the evolution of not only the human hand, but also the human face and the human propensity to walk upright.
Humans possess shorter palms and fingers, as well as longer, stronger and more flexible thumbs, than their ape relatives. Scientists have long thought that these features evolved to help give humans the manual dexterity to make and use tools.
© Stephen Lam/Reuters
There will be an earthquake in Los Angeles - that much is certain - although it's impossible to be certain about exactly when, where, and how powerful it will be. However, using methods doubted by some seismologists, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) seem to be convinced that they have a pretty good idea. On October 7, the peer-reviewed Earth and Space Science journal published the group's shocking findings.
JPL based its incredible 99.9 percent figure on previous quakes, including last year's M5.1 earthquake in La Habra, located 21 miles east of Los Angeles; GPS data, and aerial radar. The USGS, using what it considers the true scientific process, swooped in to more or less correct the record with their own figure - an 85 percent likelihood of such an event.
"As scientists, we were not putting out an official forecast. We are putting out something in a paper to test," said Andrea Donnellan, a JPL research scientist, to the Los Angeles Times. "If an earthquake happens in three years, we're both right." Others aren't as convinced, however.
"As far as I'm concerned, there has never been a successful earthquake prediction and a scientific breakthrough would be required for us to make a scientifically based prediction," Thomas Heaton, an engineering seismology professor and director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory at Caltech, said in an interview with the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. "While the authors are credible scientists, this paper does not meet my definition of science," said Heaton, who is unaffiliated with either finding, while commenting on the JPL study.
Co-author of the JPL study and UC Davis physics and geology professor John Rundle told the LA Times, "once you get to 1,000 magnitude 3 earthquakes, you expect a magnitude 6," referencing what is known as the Gutenberg-Richter relationship. It states that for every 1,000 M3 earthquakes, there are 100 M4's, 10 M5's, and one M6.
© NASA
Comet Lovejoy
Comet Lovejoy
This is the first discovery that has witnessed a comet releasing ethyl alcohol in such amounts - 500 bottles of wine every second.
"We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity," the paper's lead author, Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory in France, said in a paper published October 23 in Science Advances.
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