Innovation for Social Change
Innovation researcher Maria Clara Couto Soares calls for a new debate on expanding the reach of grassroots social innovations.
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Grand Canyon-Sized Rift Speeding Antarctic Ice Melt
A rift in the Antarctic rock as deep as the Grand Canyon is increasing ice melt from the continent, researchers say. A U.K. team found the Ferrigno rift using ice-penetrating radar, and showed it to be about 1 mile deep. Antarctica is home to a geological rift system where new crust is being formed, meaning…
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Brain Sees Men as Whole, Women as Parts
A glimpse at the magazine rack in any supermarket checkout line will tell you that women are frequently the focus of sexual objectification. Now, new research finds that the brain actually processes images of women differently than those of men, contributing to this trend. Women are more likely to be picked apart by the brain…
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Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Loneliness
A new study has provided the first evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces loneliness in older adults. The researchers, led by Carnegie Mellon University’s J. David Creswell, also found that mindfulness meditation — a 2,500-year-old practice dating back to Buddha that focuses on creating an attentive awareness of the present moment — lowered inflammation levels, which…
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Anti-Matter Universe Sought By Space-Based Detector
A seven metric ton particle detector parked for over a year on the International Space Station (ISS) aims to establish whether there is an unseen “dark universe” woven into the cosmos, the scientist leading the project said. And the detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or AMS, has already broken all records in registering some 17…
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Kepler Spots Perfectly Aligned Alien Worlds
When NASA’s Kepler space telescope started finding planets at odd angles to their parent stars, scientists wondered if our solar system’s tidy geometry, with the planets neatly orbiting around the sun’s equator, was an exception to the rule. That idea can be laid to rest thanks to an innovative use of the Kepler data which…
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Forest ‘Disruption’ Greater Threat Than Climate Change
Deforestation of protected areas and illegal hunting of endangered species that live there has a greater impact on biodiversity than climate change, overfishing and the degradation of coral reefs, according to a researcher. The “rapid disruption” of protected tropical forests is the greatest threat to wildlife, Bill Laurance, a professor at James Cook University in…
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What Sally Ride Did For STEM Education
From the editors at SciAm: Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, died on July 23 of pancreatic cancer. She was 61. Outside her trail-blazing career as an astronaut, Ride was also a major champion of STEM education. In 2010, she helped found an initiative called Change the Equation [a CEO-driven initiative to increase…
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‘Impossible’ Stars Found in Super-Close Orbital Dances
Four pairs of what astronomers are calling “impossible stars” — stellar twins in orbits so close they defy explanation — have been found in our Milky Way galaxy, scientists say. Astronomers using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope in Hawaii discovered the four star pairs, each of which is a binary system in which two stars…
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What We Know About Climate Change and Drought
As farmers in the United States slog through the country’s largest drought in 50 years, a lot of people are asking about the connection between global warming and the arid landscape in the Midwest. Is climate change causing this drought? Didn’t the United States suffer worse droughts in the past? And what will happen if…