Tech

Chemistry

Study reports hints of phthalate threat to boys’ IQs

You may have a hard time spelling phthalates, but there’s no avoiding them. They’re in the air you breathe, water you drink and foods you eat. And this ubiquity may carry a price, particularly for young boys, emerging data suggest. Including a drop in their IQ.

Tech

Smokin’ entrees: Charcoal grilling tops the list

At the American Chemical Society meeting, earlier this week, I stayed at a hotel that fronted onto the kitchen door of a Burger King. This explained the source of the beefy scent that perfumed the air from mid-morning on – the restaurant’s exhaust of smoke and meat-derived aerosols. A study presented at the meeting confirmed what my nose observed: that commercial grilling can release relatively huge amounts of pollutants.

Chemistry

Building a cheaper catalyst

Using perovskite instead of platinum in catalytic converters could shave many hundreds of dollars off the cost of a diesel car.

Chemistry

Cool roof coating: Mechanism kept under wraps

The American Chemical Society held a news briefing March 21 to feature a new energy-saving technology. It’s an ostensibly “smart” coating for roofing materials that knows when to reflect heat, like in summer time, and when to instead let the sun’s rays help heat a structure.

Earth

Frogs: Weed killer creates real Mr. Moms

Several months back, a Berkeley undergraduate began witnessing distinctly odd behavior in frogs she was caring for in the lab. At about 18-months old, some frisky guys began regularly mounting tank mates, as if to copulate. Except that their chosen partner was invariably male. He had to be. Because genetically, every animal in the tank was male.

Tech

Leasing car batteries to the power company

Most people, on average, drive their cars only an hour or two a day. The rest of the time, those pricey vehicles sit parked on the street or in some garage. But if those cars had a big bank of batteries – typical of today’s gasoline hybrids or soon-to-hit-the-road plug-in hybrids – they could be earning their owners money while sitting parked. Maybe $5 to $10 a day, just by serving as a back-up energy-storage system for the electric-utility grid.

Computing

Leaf veins loopy for a reason

A computer simulation finds that leaves' circular networks are efficient at getting around damaged spots and varying distribution load.

Earth

Tsunamis could telegraph their imminent arrival

Telecommunication cables could give early warnings of giant waves.

Tech

2009 Science News of the Year: Technology

A polymer doped with a color-changing molecule turns red seconds before snapping. Credit: D. Stevenson, A. Jerez, A. Hamilton, D. Davis About to breakEngineers one day may not need to guess when a bridge is near its breaking point. New materials that flush red in response to damage may provide a visual warning sign of […]

Chemistry

Batteries made from nanotubes … and paper

Scientists have made batteries and supercapacitors with little more than ordinary office paper and some carbon and silver nanomaterials.

Earth

Countering Copenhagen’s Carbon Footprint

The United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, beginning Monday (Dec. 7), will draw legions of people to Copenhagen from 192 countries. Traveling to Denmark — sometimes from the far corners of the Earth — will expend huge amounts of energy. And spew plenty of the very carbon dioxide that the meeting negotiators are trying to rein in. So several bodies will be offsetting the carbon footprint of this gathering — with bricks. Or brick ovens, anyway.

Computing

First programmable quantum computer created

System uses ultracold beryllium ions to tackle 160 randomly chosen programs.