News
- Tech
Loopy Light: Rings that delay photons may advance microchips
Chains of tiny, high-precision, light-conducting loops of silicon may open the door to using optical circuits to carry enormous data flows within computer chips.
- Health & Medicine
Bad to the Bone: Acid stoppers appear to have a downside
Popular acid-reducing drugs called proton-pump inhibitors may increase the risk of hip fractures in people over 50.
- Humans
When budgeting for quakes, dig deep
If earthquakes that struck the United States since 1900 are any guide, the nation can expect to suffer seismic damages of about $2.5 billion dollars each year in the future.
- Earth
Scraping the bottom
A survey of deep waters in western Lake Superior has revealed the tracks left by massive icebergs scraping bottom there during the last ice age.
- Earth
Glaciers give major boost to sea level
The ongoing disappearance of glaciers and other small ice masses worldwide makes a larger contribution to sea level rise than the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica does.
- Earth
Dating a massive undersea slide
Pieces of moss buried in debris left along the Norwegian coast by an ancient tsunami have enabled geologists to better determine the date of the immense underwater landslide that triggered the inundation.
- Humans
Longer work hours may warm climate
U.S. workers put in more hours than most other workers around the world, and one consequence is dramatically higher energy and environmental costs per employee.
- Chemistry
For sweat’s sake
Soldiers and emergency crews may one day find comfort as well as safety in their chemical-protection gear, now that researchers have created a breathable, chemical-blocking composite material.
- Tech
Ahead of the Curve: Novel morphing wing may reduce aircraft’s fuel use
A prototype aircraft wing has demonstrated in its first flight tests that its morphing might save fuel.
- Earth
Irony on High: Global warming cools, thins upper atmosphere
Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the air, which cause temperatures at Earth’s surface to warm, will turn the upper layers of the atmosphere cooler and thinner in coming decades, new research suggests. This counterintuitive phenomenon, first predicted in the late 1980s and recently inferred from satellite data, will probably lead […]
- Planetary Science
The Big Picture: Cassini spies Titan’s tall mountains
A spacecraft has discovered the largest mountains known on Titan, Saturn's smog-shrouded moon.
- Health & Medicine
AIDS Avoidance: More studies find that circumcision deters HIV
Two large trials in Africa find that male circumcision limits HIV infection, which could prompt governments on that continent to promote or subsidize the operation.
