A new study suggests you can keep dementia at bay by developing a firm purpose in life. The findings don’t prove that having a purpose will make a difference, and it’s possible that the researchers missed another important factor that’s at play. Still, the study, published in the May issue of the Archives of General…
Wherever there is coal, there will be fire. For centuries, we have dug up the combustible rock to power our industries, and we continue to rely on it to light our homes and keep the wired world humming. But each year millions of tons of coal are burned inadvertently, too – in underground fires that…
Coaxing U.S. federal agencies to work together is no small feat. But an emerging National Ocean Policy (NOP) is attempting to do just that. The Obama Administration’s proposed NOP will help federal agencies better organize marine research efforts and inject data into policy decisions—and potentially prevent conflicts between ocean users and save money, U.S. officials…
The largest known crocodile was big enough to swallow a human being and likely terrorized our ancestors two to four million years ago. Remains of the enormous horned croc, named Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, were unearthed in East Africa. The impressive aquatic reptile exceeded 27 feet long and is described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology….
The world’s largest particle accelerator is roaring along at an unprecedented pace, delivering torrents of data to its physicist handlers. But the hundreds of millions of collisions happening inside the machine every second are now growing into a thick fog that, paradoxically, threatens to obscure a fabled quarry: the Higgs boson. The problem is known…
Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence, researchers said. British scientists have calculated the methane output of sauropods, including the species known as Brontosaurus. By scaling up the digestive wind of cows, they estimate that the population of dinosaurs – as a whole – produced 520 million tonnes of gas annually. The…
There are certain laws of nature everyone accepts. The surest way to bring about rain on an overcast day is to leave your umbrella at home. Is your line at the grocery store moving too slowly? Switch lines. That will definitely speed it up (minus you). And if you’ve hit a series of green traffic…
The age of “omes” is here. It began with the genome, continued with the proteome, branched out with the memome and reached full flowering with the notion of the omome. This probably sounds like raw material for nonsense poetry, but it’s a real biological and linguistic trend that makes sense, once you get the idea…
An unfortunate controversy has been unfolding over the relationship (or lack thereof) between physics and philosophy. Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss has published a book titled A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing. In it, Krauss explains how modern physics has been inching toward an explanation to what is, perhaps, the hardest…
Here’s a scientific clue as to why our society’s still dealing with conflicts based on skin color – something a bunch of sociologists can tell you is a completely made up thing. Racist might be a bit strong for a being that can’t even talk. But at just 9 months old, babies showed biases in…