In Star Trek lore, the first Starship Enterprise will be built by the year 2245. But today, an engineer has proposed — and outlined in meticulous detail – building a full-sized, ion-powered version of the Enterprise complete with 1G of gravity on board, and says it could be done with current technology, within 20 years….
As the climate changes over the next century, the ranges of nearly 90% of mammal species will shrink – in many cases because animals won’t be able to get to areas where the climate is going to become suitable for them, says new research. Across the Western Hemisphere, the study also found, nearly 10% of…
Carson C. Chow deploys mathematics to solve the everyday problems of real life. As an investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, he tries to figure out why 1 in 3 Americans are obese. He spoke with The New York Times at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Association…
Amber from 100-million-year-old deposits in Northern Spain has preserved and revealed the first ever record of insect pollination, scientists say. Specimens of tiny insects covered with pollen grains in two pieces of Cretaceous era amber are the first record of pollen transport and social behavior in this group of animals, researchers said. The amber featured…
Ever wonder exactly where grizzly bears live on this continent? Or where you might find Myotis lucifungus, the fuzzy, adorable little brown bat that is currently threatened with extinction because of white-nose syndrome? Now you can track them on Google Maps, thanks to a new program that aims to plot the location of every single…
Global Biodiversity Down 30 Percent in 40 Years: Humanity is essentially using the resources of one and a half Earths every year.
It seems obvious that how different living things in a community or ecological system bump up against one another would affect how they evolve. That would include everything from the mix of fish in a lake to the bacteria, fungi and insects that coexist in rainwater that pools in the roots at the base of…
Fears that sex-linked chromosomes, such as the male Y chromosome, are doomed to extinction have been refuted in a new genetic study which examines the sex chromosomes of chickens. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how genes on sex-linked chromosomes are passed down generations and linked…
One day after new test results showed that only 32 percent of U.S. 8th graders are proficient in science, a group of 26 states has helped draft a document that may bring about a major overhaul of science education in this country. Known as the Next Generation Science Standards, the draft sets ambitious new expectations…
As universities move from being national institutions to international ones, they shift from managing national reputations to seeking international identities. Reputation management may not be at the forefront of many academics’ minds, but when professors go abroad and meet colleagues who have no idea what kind of institution they come from, their interest may pick…