University of North Dakota scientist Mark Hoffmann’s version of Star Search goes a long way — a very long way — out into the universe. Hoffmann and his Norwegian colleagues Tryve Helgaker, E.I. Tellgren and K. Lange have discovered a molecular-level interaction that science had puzzled over for decades but had never seen. That discovery,…
With movements such as young-earth creationism, we certainly have seen examples of religion being shanghaied into the service of anti-science. But some recent rhetoric in opposition to environmentalism and climate change science takes the cake. For example, E. Calvin Beisner, leader of the Cornwall Alliance (a consortium of evangelical clergy) has declared that environmental movement…
A bundle of recent genetic studies have suggested that modern humans had sex with Neanderthals thousands of years ago when the two populations roamed the planet alongside each other. However, the bones left behind by the two species don’t bear any obvious traces of interbreeding and a new study of monkeys in Mexico shows why…
Setting annual meetings in massive convention centers, plus the cumulative effect of well-intentioned policies for promoting young academics, have effectively sabotaged the intergenerational culture essential for a rich sense of intellectual identity. Because of the physical restraints they impose, convention centers have conspired to stifle the informal gatherings that have always been one of the…
The annual exercise in futility and finger-pointing that is the United Nations Climate Change Conference will wrap up in Doha soon – or maybe not. “I can sit here all year,” the Qatari leader of the talks said, according to the BBC. “You decide when to leave.” As yet another Conference of the Parties comes…
UN climate talks in Doha are lurching to a close with key issues unresolved. There are outstanding disputes on finance, compensation for climate change damages and allocations of carbon permits – so-called hot air. Developing countries are furious at what they say is a lack of ambition among richer countries to tackle climate change. And…
A report sponsored by NASA has concluded that the agency is failing to inspire the world, the nation or even its own staff, and is unlikely to achieve long-term objectives such as a manned Mars landing. In a report commissioned by Congress last year, the National Research Council also says that NASA’s budget doesn’t match…
A new private venture aims to sell manned trips to the moon by 2020, its founders announced. The company, called Golden Spike (after the final spike built into the First Transcontinental Railroad), plans to sell each moon mission for about $1.5 billion — a relative bargain, said the company’s president and CEO Alan Stern, a…
Several “brainy” genes that were duplicated in a tiny sea creature nearly 550 million years ago may have led to the massive expansion in intelligence in vertebrate species, two new studies have found. The studies, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, suggest this duplication of certain genes spurred an explosion in the number of chemicals…
Some 330 million years ago, a galaxy in our cosmic neighborhood scored a bullseye, shooting right through the heart of large neighboring galaxy. The rare collision restructured the bigger galaxy, NGC 922, giving it the unusual, lopsided ring of hot pink clouds seen in images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Galaxies like NGC 922 are…