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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
By Janet Raloff - Computing
First programmable quantum computer created
System uses ultracold beryllium ions to tackle 160 randomly chosen programs.
- Tech
House passes medical isotopes bill
A spot of encouraging news emerged yesterday on the medical-isotope front. The House of Representatives voted 440 to 17 in favor of a bill to reestablish domestic production of molybdenum-99. It’s the feedstock for the most heavily used nuclear agent in diagnostic medicine.
By Janet Raloff - Tech
Large Hadron Collider suffers carb attack
Efforts to get the Large Hadron Collider up and running just encountered a temporary snag, according to yesterday's online edition of The Times of London. A crusty chunk of bread “paralysed a high voltage installation that should have been powering the cooling unit.”
By Janet Raloff - Earth
Nanoparticles’ indirect threat to DNA
Tiny metal nanoparticles can damage DNA, essentially by triggering toxic gossip.
By Janet Raloff - Computing
Quantum computers could tackle enormous linear equations
New work suggests that the envisioned systems would be powerful enough to quickly process even trillions of variables.
- Chemistry
Concerned about BPA: Check your receipts
Some cash register receipts offer the potential for relatively large exposures to an estrogen mimic.
By Janet Raloff - Tech
Nobel Prize in physics awarded for work with light
Charles K. Kao wins for discoveries enabling fiber-optic communication, and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win for inventing the charge-coupled device
By Sid Perkins - Humans
Flu: Grim stats
Though risk of death from conventional flu strains escalates dramatically, beginning around age 45, a new study finds that masks do a fair job of slowing the infection's transmission.
By Janet Raloff - Animals
Spider men weave silken tapestry
It took herculean effort, but Madagascar crafters created an extraordinary piece of woven art from spider silk.
By Janet Raloff - Physics
Neutrons for military and medical imaging
An accelerator-based neutron-production system is being designed to cull bombs at risk of exploding prematurely — and make the feedstock for a major isotope used in nuclear medicine.
By Janet Raloff - Life
Locust wings built for the long haul
Flexible wings help locusts maximize efficiency in flight, new research shows.