After nearly a full term in office, fewer than half (49%) of voters correctly identify Obama as Christian. Around 1-in-5 (17%) voters continue to incorrectly say that Obama is a Muslim, up from 12% in 2008. Most strikingly, 31% of voters say they are unsure of his religious beliefs. Other questions confirm this identification problem:…
The loss of Arctic ice is massively compounding the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, ice scientist Professor Peter Wadhams has told BBC Newsnight. White ice reflects more sunlight than open water, acting like a parasol. Melting of white Arctic ice, currently at its lowest level in recent history, is causing more absorption. Prof Wadhams calculates…
A Japanese deep sea drilling vessel, Chikyu, recently set a new world record, by drilling down over 2,111 meters below the seafloor to collect rock samples. The ship is off Shimokita Peninsula of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean, as part of the Deep Coalbed Biosphere expedition, which aims to collect high-quality samples from the…
An international team of researchers has published their paper demonstrating quantum teleportation between two Canary Islands. While quantum teleportation doesn’t lead to instantaneous communication, what it does lead to is incredibly secure communications. That’s because no matter what instructions the sender sends over normal communications channels, those instructions are completely useless without the receiver’s entangled…
The Voyager 1 spacecraft’s 35th anniversary is proving to be unexpectedly exciting, as scientists gathered to examine new hints that the spacecraft is on the verge of leaving our solar system. Voyager 1 is now more than 11 billion miles away from Earth. It blasted off in September 1977, on a mission to Jupiter and…
Deforestation can have a significant effect on tropical rainfall, new research confirms. The findings have potentially devastating impacts for people living in and near the Amazon and Congo forests. A team from the University of Leeds and the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology found that for the majority of the Earth’s tropical land surface,…
Almost a decade after the U.S. human genome project was completed, scientists say they have mapped the underlying regulatory system that switches DNA on and off, potentially spurring a wave of new research into the molecular basis of complex diseases such as Type 1 diabetes. Many parts of DNA previously termed “junk” by scientists are,…
The U.S-based Wildlife Conservation Society says Asian governments must take action to protect Asian species that are at a conservation crossroads. The species include the tiger, orangutans, Mekong giant catfish, Asian rhinos, Asian giant river turtles and Asian vultures, a release from the society’s New York headquarters said. The WCS is urging governments to follow…
To see a hopeful future for science education, look no further than the Raccoon Creek watershed in rural Ohio. There, Vinton County High School students are literally getting their feet wet, testing water and examining fish to investigate the impact of acid drainage from more than a century’s worth of coal mining in the Appalachians….
A new study by Stanford researchers has added fuel to a debate about the differences between organic and conventionally grown foods. The Stanford report, an analysis of 237 studies of organic produce, meats and dairy foods, concluded that organic foods are no more nutritious than their conventional counterparts. Advocates of organic foods, meanwhile, say that…