Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are the masters of this new universe. Each dominates an overlapping realm of activity and enterprise on the Internet – social media, search engine, hardware design, software and online commerce. And each is now so huge that they can kill or buy most competitors and set the standards for…
It is very much worth checking out an item on Real Climate, from two Dutch scientists. They have found a paper by James Hansen and others from 1981, before climate change was even an occasion for political disagreement.Hansen is now famous in the world of climate studies, and infamous to the right wing, but back then he was a 40-year-old…
Bias on the part of high school math teachers is hampering girls who want to study mathematics, an analysis of a U.S. educational study found. Researchers analyzing data collected in a national Educational Longitudinal Study in 2002 said teachers tend to rate white girls’ math abilities lower than those of white male students even when…
A study of rhesus macaque monkeys may have solved a long-standing puzzle on a link between social rank and health. A study of 10 social groups of macaque females showed that the activity level of an individual’s immune genes was an accurate predictor of her social rank. In a paper in Proceedings of the National…
A trio of recent studies faults a common family of corn pesticides for disorienting honeybees, potentially leading to colony collapse disorder. The German chemical company Bayer, which manufactures the pesticides, disagrees.
Humans now consume some 18 trillion watts of energy in a variety of forms. Every aspect of our contemporary lives depends on this tremendous flow of energy.
An energy-hungry Earth is in need of transformational and sustainable energy solutions. For decades, researchers have been appraising the use of power-beaming solar-power satellites. But the projected cost, complexity and energy economics of the notion seemingly short-circuited the idea. Now, a unique new approach has entered the scene, dubbed SPS-ALPHA, short for Solar Power Satellite…
Was Jesus Happy? How you answer that question says a lot about the culture that influenced you most.
Fossil fuel derived carbon dioxide has a serious impact on global climate but also a disturbing effect on the oceans, know as the other CO2 problem. When CO2 dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid and results in a drop in pH, the oceans acidify. A wealth of short-term experiments has shown that calcifying organisms,…
The United States is at risk of ceding its leadership in science, a number of physicists said, though there was less of a consensus on a clear solution to the problem. Five physicists shared their worries about America’s scientific future during a panel discussion at the April 2012 meeting of the American Physics Society, agreeing…