Uncategorized
- Materials Science
What the mail must go through
Mail irradiation in Washington, D.C. is damaging valuable objects and documents intended for scientific study or archiving at the Smithsonian, the White House, and other government organizations.
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19111
Regarding this article, I was shocked. Not by the findings but the resources that were wasted. I have been involved in the radiation sterilization of medical devices for 30 years. Yellowing and brittleness of cellulose materials is well known, as are discoloration and damage to many plastics. Computer chips, CDs, film, and video and audiotapes […]
- Astronomy
An image to relish
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a high-resolution image of an object that looks like a giant hamburger.
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19109
The image in this article looks to me more like a yo-yo or taco than a hamburger. Then again, turned 45 to the left, it looks like the mouth of a frog with two small eyes on top. Jacky MemoleLargo, Fla.
- Computing
Writing faster with your eyes
A new method for gaze-operated, hands-free text entry is faster and more accurate than using an on-screen keyboard.
- Health & Medicine
Lost and found
Researchers have shown that a drug may shepherd a mutated protein—gone astray in people with cystic fibrosis—into its proper place.
- Health & Medicine
Processing corn boosts antioxidants
Cooking sweet corn increases its disease-fighting antioxidant activity, despite decreasing its vitamin C content.
- Planetary Science
It’s only a sharper moon
Astronomers have taken what appears to be the sharpest image of the moon ever recorded from Earth.
- Astronomy
Lonely Universe
In a universe dominated by a mysterious antigravity force, dubbed dark energy, distant galaxies will eventually recede from each other faster than the speed of light and observers in our Milky Way some 50 billion years from now will see only a handful of other galaxies in the sky.
- Math
Golden Blossoms, Pi Flowers
In the head of a sunflower, the tiny florets that turn into seeds are typically arranged in two intersecting families of spirals, one winding clockwise and the other winding counterclockwise. Count the number of florets along a spiral and you are likely to find 21, 34, 55, 89, or 144. Indeed, if 34 floret (or […]
- Health & Medicine
Inflammatory Ideas
Researchers are gathering evidence that inflammation precedes and predicts diabetes.
- Math
Losing to Win
It’s a gift to born losers. Researchers have demonstrated that two games of chance, each guaranteed to give a player a predominance of losses in the long term, can add up to a winning outcome if the player alternates randomly between the two games. This striking new result in game theory is now called Parrondo’s […]
