High food prices and global grain shortages may force governments from China to Britain to rethink opposition to genetically modified crops, analysts say.
Asian manufacturers are buying genetically modified corn for food stuffs, U.S. wheat growers look to biotechnology to boost yields and European agricultural leaders view engineered crops as a way to alleviate the strain on the worldwide agriculture market, The New York Times reported Monday.
Science & Technology
Just how birds use the earth's magnetic field to navigate has puzzled researchers for decades.
But in recent years, a growing body of evidence points to the possibility that a weak magnetic field can influence the outcome of a certain type of chemical reaction in bird retinas involving radical ion pairs.
But in recent years, a growing body of evidence points to the possibility that a weak magnetic field can influence the outcome of a certain type of chemical reaction in bird retinas involving radical ion pairs.
Comment: The quantum Zeno effect "describes the situation in which an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. This occurs because every measurement causes the wavefunction to 'collapse' to a pure eigenstate of the measurement basis."
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| ©NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team |
| Image of Spider Crater taken by NASA's ASTER satellite. |
The spectacular "spider crater" in Western Australia mountainous Kimberley region has been photographed by a NASA satellite tracking system.
Think of a chicken egg. Sometimes you can see a tiny embryo amid the yolk and the egg white, which - if you weren't going to eat them scrambled - would be all the embryo needs to become a fluffy, yellow chick.
Now, consider the human placenta, an advanced version of the yolk and the egg white. It supports a growing baby for months, constantly delivering oxygen and nutrients from its mother. It is the only mammalian organ that grows in adulthood. It's also the only one with a natural expiration date, as it is expelled after childbirth.
Now, consider the human placenta, an advanced version of the yolk and the egg white. It supports a growing baby for months, constantly delivering oxygen and nutrients from its mother. It is the only mammalian organ that grows in adulthood. It's also the only one with a natural expiration date, as it is expelled after childbirth.
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| ©AFP/British Museum |
As Indiana Jones gets set to hit cinema screens with a new death-defying adventure in the "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", a Paris museum acknowledged Friday that its own star exhibit crystal skull was not what it was cracked up to be.
People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.
Researchers at the medical university Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University have now demonstrated a correlation between general intelligence and the ability to tap out a simple regular rhythm. They stress that the task subjects performed had nothing to do with any musical rhythmic sense but simply measured the capacity for rhythmic accuracy. Those who scored highest on intelligence tests also had least variation in the regular rhythm they tapped out in the experiment.
Researchers at the medical university Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University have now demonstrated a correlation between general intelligence and the ability to tap out a simple regular rhythm. They stress that the task subjects performed had nothing to do with any musical rhythmic sense but simply measured the capacity for rhythmic accuracy. Those who scored highest on intelligence tests also had least variation in the regular rhythm they tapped out in the experiment.
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| ©Mats Bäcker |
| Fredrik Ullén. |
A radar instrument co-sponsored by NASA on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has looked beneath the surface of Mars and opened up a new dimension for planetary exploration.
The technique's success is prompting scientists to think of other places in the solar system where they would like to use radar sounders. The radar sounder on Mars Express is the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Imaging, or MARSIS. It was built to map the distribution of liquid and frozen water in upper portions of the planet's crust.
A complementary radar sounder, the Shallow Subsurface Radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, uses a different radio frequency to see greater detail but to a lesser depth.
The technique's success is prompting scientists to think of other places in the solar system where they would like to use radar sounders. The radar sounder on Mars Express is the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Imaging, or MARSIS. It was built to map the distribution of liquid and frozen water in upper portions of the planet's crust.
A complementary radar sounder, the Shallow Subsurface Radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, uses a different radio frequency to see greater detail but to a lesser depth.
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| ©NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/University of Rome/Washington Universtiy in St. Louis |
| Two complementary radar sounder instruments work together to discover hidden Martian secrets. |
Louisville -- Along Florida's Gulf Coast, water is everywhere. From the bay to the beach to the town of Clearwater, that is where we found Denny Klein. A man driven by water, literally.
Klein has invented the world's first water powered car. It runs on what he calls "Aquygen." Aquygen is water or H2O, broken down and turned into HHO gas, something scientists once thought impossible.
Klein has invented the world's first water powered car. It runs on what he calls "Aquygen." Aquygen is water or H2O, broken down and turned into HHO gas, something scientists once thought impossible.
Behold the full moon. Ancient craters and frozen lava seas lie motionless under an airless sky of profound quiet. It's a serene, slow-motion world where even a human footprint may last millions of years. Nothing ever seems to happen there, right? Wrong.
NASA-supported scientists have realized that something happens every month when the moon gets a lashing from Earth's magnetic tail.
"Earth's magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the moon and, once a month, the moon orbits through it," says Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to electrostatic discharges."
NASA-supported scientists have realized that something happens every month when the moon gets a lashing from Earth's magnetic tail.
"Earth's magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the moon and, once a month, the moon orbits through it," says Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to electrostatic discharges."
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| ©NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center- Conceptual Image Lab |
| Earth's magnetic field responds to the solar wind much like an airport wind sock: It stretches out with its tail pointing downwind. |
Could microbial life exist inside Enceladus, where no sunlight reaches, photosynthesis is impossible and no oxygen is available? To answer that question, we need look no farther than our own planet to find examples of the types of exotic ecosystems that could make life possible on Saturn's geyser moon. The answer appears to be, yes, it could be possible. It is this tantalizing potential that brings us back to Enceladus for further study.
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| ©Li-Hung Lin. Image courtesy of NASA |
| About two miles below the ground in a South African gold mine, scientist Duane Moser stands next to the fracture zone (white area) where he and Li-Hung Lin found bacteria that live in an ecosystem driven by radioactive decay with no oxygen, no light and no organic input. |
Comment: Yes, alleviating the food crisis is a laudible aim, however this article only serves to confuse the issue. The food crisis is not caused by some mysterious all-pervasive substandard crop quality to be fixable by some genetic 'magic bullet'.
Food-price shocks are a result of financial manipulation of the world's markets. Starvation is caused by economic and military destruction. No amount genetically engineered tomatoes can alter the fact that genocide, economic blockades, corporate/political theft on a global scale, are what cause hunger.
Genetically modified foodstuffs are being heavily pushed by the same players who participate in all the above, so why? The most significant result of genetically modified crops, to date, is that 'terminator seeds' have been developed and are widely pushed. These seeds are sterile, producing only a single generation of crop that cannot produce its own seeds. So, farmers are 'locked in' to keep re-buying seeds from the manufacturer, year after year. How in the world, does THAT alleviate the food crisis?! Obviously it doesn't, it simply adds to the hunger and poverty, and feeds the greed of the pathological corporations that set up this situation.