Uncategorized
- Humans
Simple water filter can nail arsenic
Field tests suggest that people who live in areas with arsenic-tainted aquifers may be able to purify their drinking water by passing it through a low-tech, low-cost filter that includes a bed of iron nails.
- Earth
Killer weather on Mount Everest
An analysis of weather patterns around Mount Everest in May 1996, when eight climbers died, suggests that a sudden drop in barometric pressure may have played a significant role in the deaths.
- Health & Medicine
Breast milk may lower cholesterol
Feeding a newborn baby breast milk instead of formula during the first month of life improves the child's cholesterol readings later on.
- Astronomy
Oddball asteroid
Astronomers have discovered an asteroid that takes only 6 months to go around the sun.
- Materials Science
Nice Threads
Once researchers figure out how to spin strong fibers out of carbon nanotubes, real-world applications such as long-distance power-transmission cables, lightweight aircraft materials, and electronic textiles become feasible.
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19426
Since the hypoxia described in this article isn’t caused directly by the fertilizer, but by the subsequent algae blooms, then perhaps an effective solution is to combat the algae. It might even be profitable to harvest the algae. If the fishing industry is capable of depleting the seas of species that we want there, then […]
- Earth
Dead Waters
Coastal dead zones—underwater regions where oxygen concentrations are too low for fish to survive—are mushrooming globally, threatening to transform entire ecosystems.
- Math
Playing Pig, Optimally
The simple dice game Pig is surprisingly complex when you're trying to find an optimal strategy for playing it.
- Humans
From the May 26, 1934, issue
Extracting bromine from the sea, a new treatment for cancer, and a novel altimeter.
- Chemistry
Chemical Knot: Scientists assemble legendary symbol by interlocking molecules
Chemists have constructed a molecular version of a Borromean knot.
- Paleontology
Crawling through Time: Fish bones reveal past climate change
The timing of ancient migrations of snakehead fish from the Indian subcontinent into Europe, Asia, and Africa tells scientists about temperature and humidity changes in those locations.
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19425
The Japanese researchers who dubbed a pachyderm secretion to be “hipposudoric acid” seem to know more about biochemistry than about etymology. The word hippopotamus is a synthesis of Latin hippo (horse) and potamus (river), apparently because of the resemblance of the face of a submerged hippopotamus to the head of a horse. Hipposudoric implies a […]
