Scores of animal scientists employed by public universities have helped pharmaceutical companies persuade farmers and ranchers to use antibiotics, hormones, and drugs to make their cattle grow bigger ever faster. With the use of these products, the average weight of a fattened steer sold to a packing plant is now roughly 1,300 pounds—up from 1,000…
Researchers at Rice University and Penn State University have discovered that adding a dash of boron to carbon while creating nanotubes turns them into solid, spongy, reusable blocks that have an astounding ability to absorb oil spilled in water. That’s one of a range of potential innovations for the material created in a single step….
The Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating in its slide into the ocean, like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day. According to the University of Colorado Boulder, massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes are speeding up sea level rise. During summer, meltwater pools into lakes on the ice sheet’s surface. When the…
Fertilizers used in growing feed crops for cattle produce the most potent of the greenhouse gases causing climate change
Despite government efforts to ban unapproved stem cell treatments, companies around China still offer them openly.
Brain size and smarts are, to some extent, genetic — and now, a team of more than 200 researchers has uncovered specific genes that are linked to both brain volume and IQ. Though scientists have suggested bigger brains are “smarter,” this study is the strongest case yet for a genetic connection to brain size and…
The Himalayan glaciers are the planet’s largest bodies of ice outside the polar caps. New research shows some Himalayan glaciers got bigger between 1999-2008.
Scientists and engineers worldwide can submit papers for a conference dedicated to brainstorming ideas for future Mars exploration.
Even though bacteria in Lechuguilla Cave have been cut off from the surface for millions of years and were never exposed to antibiotics for medicine or agriculture, most of the 93 strains analyzed in a new study are resistant to several antibiotics. Bacteria found in the cave have ways of fighting off up to 21…
Researchers studying different African communities of wild chimpanzees have pooled their data and found that the apes sometimes kill each other nearly everywhere they’ve been studied. Chimp homicides occurred most frequently in groups with the most adult males, anthropologist Michael Wilson reported at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists’ annual meeting. Chimps spend most of…