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Oceans’ rising acid levels have emerged as one of the biggest threats to coral reefs, acting as the “osteoporosis of the sea” and threatening everything from food security to tourism to livelihoods, the head of a U.S. scientific agency said. The speed by which the oceans’ acid levels has risen caught scientists off-guard, with the…
Prominent scientists are in a bitter struggle over the origins of kindness. But the root of this conflict may be the most ironic part of all.
A 2011 report about STEM workforce needs from the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University indicates that by 2018, 92% of STEM workers will need post-secondary education. Of that total, around 65% will need a Bachelor’s degree or higher, while 35% will be comprised of those with sub-baccalaureate training. The breakdown in…
Scientists say they’ve identified ‘internal compass needles’ in the noses of rainbow trout, helping explain the way many creatures can navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. Neuroscientists recently discovered ‘GPS maps’ in pigeons’ brains, explaining how information on magnetism is encoded in the brain – but until now, nobody’s ever been able to pinpoint the…
Mummies found off the coast of Scotland are Frankenstein-like composites of several corpses, researchers say. This mixing of remains was perhaps designed to combine different ancestries into a single lineage, archaeologists speculated. The bodies were first unearthed in 2001 during excavations beneath the foundations of an approximately 3,000-year-old house on South Uist, an island in…
Making progress on family planning will require not only principles and commitments, but successful implementation, which must include four crucial elements, says John May of the US-based think tank Centre for Global Development. Millions of women, particularly in developing countries, lack information on — and access to — family planning services. This not only jeopardizes…
It is natural for those not deeply involved in the half-century quest for the Higgs Boson – one of the most important missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is nature – to ask why they should care about this seemingly esoteric discovery. There are three reasons. First, it caps one of the most remarkable…
Physicists at CERN delivered big news when they announced the almost certain discovery of the Higgs boson — the so-called “God particle” thought to be the key to the formation of matter, and life. They were able to detect what they believe to be the Higgs boson by firing particles around a giant, $10 billion…
A mysterious wave discovered in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy is still ringing like a bell from a galactic collision, a crash that possibly occured within the last 100 million years, scientists say. Astronomers discovered that stars north and south of the midplane of the galaxy are distributed differently, suggesting that some recent event…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) consistently disregarded scientific advice when determining how much land to protect for endangered species during the George W. Bush Administration, a new study shows. The analysis, which includes decisions made between 2002 and 2007, shows that the agency was much more likely to ignore expert advice to increase…