around_the_web
Global warming may cause more extinctions than predicted if scientists fail to account for interactions among species in their models, Yale and UConn researchers argue in Science. Phoebe Zarnetske, the study’s primary author, said the complexity of “species interaction networks” discourages their inclusion in models predicting the effects of climate change. Using the single-species, or…
The amount of water in places of the Martian mantle is vastly larger than previous estimates and is similar to that of Earth’s, scientists have found. The finding is based on the analysis of the water content of two Martian meteorites originating from inside the Red Planet. The results not only affect what we know…
Neuroscience is new enough, and our desire for brain facts is strong enough, that dubious claims about brain types circulate widely. Take, for example, the latest Neuroscience-of-Religion news item to make the rounds, this one claiming that critical thinking undermines religious belief. Based on two studies from The Journal of Experimental Psychologies and Science, it…
Voyager will soon become the first man-made object to leave the solar system, scientists from NASA say. Voyager 1, which was launched in 1977, is expected to exit the solar system much sooner than previously thought. Voyager 1 and 2 are currently in what is known as the “Heliosheath” – the outermost layer of heliosphere…
Thanks to modern science, we know that love lives in the brain, not in the heart. But where in the brain is it — and is it in the same place as sexual desire? A recent international study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine is the first to draw an exact map of these…
For the 50,000 visitors from 190 countries streaming in for the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the welcome in Rio is a rank reminder of just how hard it will be to balance economic growth and environmental protection elsewhere across the globe. Rio, the host city, suffers from devastating and daunting air and water pollution.
With the search for the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, apparently reaching its long-anticipated-and-finally-successful conclusion, anticipation of the next set of discoveries is growing. Recently the Stanford campus hosted a smallish gathering celebrating the 60th birthday of Savas Dimopoulos, justly acclaimed by each of the attendees as…
A duo of planets some 1,200 light years from earth have been spotted passing within 1.2 million miles of each other, closer than any other known pair of planets, a new study has found.
A ‘set-the-record-straight’ post from the Washington Post’s Figuring Faith blog: U.S. Catholic bishops have launched the “Fortnight for Freedom,” a response to what they claim are encroachments by the Obama administration on their religious liberty, the most well-known of which is a mandate which requires all employers (including religiously affiliated organizations) to provide birth control…
Around the world, sticking up for the environment can be deadly, and it appears to be getting deadlier. People who track killings of environmental activists say the numbers have risen dramatically in the last three years. Improved reporting may be one reason, they caution, but they also believe the rising death toll is a consequence…