In his Dot Earth blog, Andrew Revkin writes about Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Minnesota, and a scientist on the leading edge of climate change analysis: Foley proposes an end run around paralyzing climate disputes by focusing on energy and forest policies with multiple benefits and on…
Scientists have recognized for some time that there is a harmful gap in understanding between their work and much of the rest of the world—one that can hold back scientific progress. Scientists urgently need to be able to speak with clarity to funders, policy-makers, students, the general public, and even other scientists
Quantum physics deals with the realm of the very small, and most of us never expect to see the weird world it describes. But could we? Recently, scientist Geraldo Barbosa of Northwestern University designed an experiment to answer that question. The quantum effect Barbosa is hoping to see is called quantum entanglement, in which two…
A foot buried beneath Scottish soil for at least 345 million years pushes back the timeline for the appearance of the first four-legged creatures that spent their lives on dry land. The specimen, 20 million years older than any known five-toed fossil, is just 10 millimeters across and comes from an unknown species. It’s one…
Evolution may be the mysterious “antientropic force” that generates complexity, at least in the living world and, just perhaps, in the universe at large. (Although, of course, evolution is not a force at all.) The evolving biosphere and econosphere have both exhibited astonishing increases in diversity and complexity over time. One common biological ancestor diversified,…
New evidence supports the idea that a huge space rock collided with our planet about 13,000 years ago and broke up in Earth’s atmosphere, a new study suggests. This impact would have been powerful enough to melt the ground, and could have killed off many large mammals and humans. It may even have set off…
Scientists working with electrical components called memristors have found that the components function similarly to brain cells and so the goal of building a computer that works like a human brain appears to be one step closer. With the help of memristors, computers can be developed in a way that they can independently deviate from…
Does attending college actually make you more liberal and less religious? Research indicates that the answer is: not so much. Contrary to conservative rhetoric, studies show that going to college does not make students substantially more liberal. A study analyzing changes in student political attitudes between their freshman and senior years at 38 colleges and…
Big defense budgets during the aughts financed the deployment of thousands of robots, including unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles, to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s fascination with robots hasn’t slackened even in these more austere times. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is funding Boston Dynamics’ development of a prototype robot called the Cheetah….
The fringes of Antarctica are being invaded by alien plants and tiny animals, scientists have found. Researchers scoured the clothes and boots of tourists and scientists visiting the continent and found that most were carrying plant seeds. The research team says the plants are likely to spread as the climate warms, estimating that about 70,000…