Uncategorized
- Materials Science
Networking with Friends: Nanotech material reconnects severed neurons
A new material made of nanometer-sized protein particles appears to be able to bridge the gap between severed nerves.
- Earth
Shaken but Not Stirred: Rock formations reveal past quakes’ size limit
Dozens of precariously balanced rocks in southern California tell a consistent story that earthquakes at nearby faults in recent millennia haven't exceeded magnitude 7.
- Health & Medicine
Stent Repair: Coated replacements better than radiation
To clear clogged stents, the small mesh cylinders that doctors implant to prop open blood vessels, inserting a second, specially-coated stent works better than treatment with radiation.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Triumph: Satellite confirms birth theory of universe
The most detailed portrait ever taken of the radiation left over from the Big Bang provides fresh evidence that the universe began with a tremendous growth spurt, expanding from subatomic scales to the size of a grapefruit in less than a trillionth of a second.
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19656
This article states that the early universe expanded “from subatomic scales to the size of a grapefruit in less than a trillionth of a second” or one picosecond. This would correspond to a velocity many times the speed of light (light only travels about 0.012 inch in a picosecond). How can this statement be reconciled […]
- Earth
Manufacturers agree to phase out nonstick chemical
Complying with a request from the Environmental Protection Agency, the companies that make the likely carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) have agreed to phase out its release worldwide by 2015.
- Anthropology
Evolution persisted in agricultural era
Natural selection has continued to propagate survival-enhancing gene variants in human populations over the past 10,000 years, according to a new genetic analysis.
- Plants
Small difference factored big in rice domestication
A change in a single letter of a rice plant's genetic code gave it the ability to hold onto grains until harvest.
- Tech
Viral building blocks
Proteins taken from a spherical virus and combined with pieces of DNA can form tubular nanostructures, researchers report.
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19655
I am rather surprised at all the attention the find mentioned in this article is getting. Some would think that these mammals caused the downfall of the dinosaurs, but the fossil record suggests a very different scenario. There is no evidence of possum-to-coyote–size mammals for the 70-odd million years that the dinosaurs ruled the planet. […]
- Paleontology
Out of the Shadows
An ongoing flurry of fossil finds is triggering a reevaluation of how early mammals and their close kin eked out an existence during the Age of Dinosaurs.
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19654
Light pollution is a side effect of cheap fossil fuels. As such, we may be closer to the end of this problem than most people think. Electricity is still the best bargain in the civilized world, but blowing it off into the night sky has always been folly. When energy prices reach a high-enough level, […]
