Biology
Wrecked Rivers of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ Teem With Life Once More
“The river sweats / Oil and tar / The barges drift / With the turning tide,” wrote T. S. Eliot in an ode to the River Thames in The Wasteland. Indeed, oil and tar and other industrial pollutants for years plagued Britain’s rivers, from the “Great Stink” of 1858 when human waste choked London’s Thames [...]
July 03, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Easter Island Drug Makes Mice Happier, Smarter
Out of Polynesia emerges a drug that may have potential for preventing cognitive decline associated with old age. ScienceDaily describes a study just published in the journal Neuroscience: Rapamycin, a bacterial product first isolated from soil on Easter Island, enhanced learning and memory in young mice and improved these faculties in old mice, the study [...]
July 03, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Chimps Celebrate the End of a Research Era
For 30 years, countless chimps have lived out their days at Bioqual, a research facility where the Humane Society described treatment of some animals as “unethical.” Now, the last four chimps living at Bioqual are bidding goodbye to the facility, thanks in part to a recent report calling most chimp research unnecessary. The Washington Post [...]
July 02, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Extreme Geese Reveal High-Altitude Secrets in Wind Tunnel
Next time you’re cruising on a short flight in Mongolia or Tajikistan, take a peep out the window and see if you can spot any bar-headed geese sharing the air space. The birds soar up to 20,000 feet on their migration routes between Central and South Asia where they have to scale pesky obstacles like [...]
July 02, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
The Genetic Engineering Plan to Turn Trees Black and Cool the World
According to Scientific American Editor-in-Chief Mariette DiChristina, who is reporting from this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, Michel said that through the means of genetic engineering and old-school plant selection, scientists could make photosynthesis even better at pulling carbon dioxide from the air.
July 02, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
Virtual Pigeon Attracts, Baffles Randy Males
Pigeons get a bad rap, but they’re clever little guys. They can distinguish between a Picasso and a Monet, and the visual cues they use to identify objects are almost the same as the ones used by humans. As a result, researchers delight at putting pigeons into awkward and peculiar situations in the name of [...]
July 02, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Hemingway’s Old Man Inspires Shark Oil for HIV Vaccine
Two pharma giants are teaming up to test the latest HIV vaccine, taking a hint from Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, reports Bloomberg. People on the coasts of Norway and Sweden have used shark liver oil for centuries to help heal wounds and treat respiratory and digestive illnesses, according to the American Cancer Society. In Hemingway’s book, which [...]
June 29, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Not All Calories Are the Same, Says Harvard Study
A new Harvard study challenges the traditional understanding of calories, postulating that it’s all about quality and not quantity. For those looking to lose weight, the source of those calories is more influential than the sheer number. ABC News reports on the results: The kind of calories the body gets may affect how efficiently people [...]
June 27, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Recessions Lead to Lipstick Lead to Babies, Says Science
t Sarah Hill and her colleagues say there could be a basic explanation for the lipstick effect: Women are trying to enhance their reproductive potential in a "period of scarcity," when baby-making (before perishing from hunger) is a greater priority.
June 27, 2012 |
By Sarah Laskow
Bacteria, Plants Turn Garbage Dump into Beautiful Park
Thanks to the help of some hungry bacteria and plants, a 150-foot high garbage dump in Colombia is being transformed into a public park. The microbes and greens are neutralizing the contaminated soil, sucking up heavy metals and feasting on chemicals. Wired’s Olivia Solon describes how the project got off the ground: A team from [...]
June 27, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Movie of the Inside of a Woman’s Body as She Gives Birth
Imagine being crammed into a narrow crevasse. Giant magnets are thrumming all around, and you’re being told not to move too much. Now, do all this while giving birth. New Scientist first reported in 2010 on a German woman who gave birth in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, and now they have video proof. The video [...]
June 26, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
The Last of His Kind, Tortoise Lonesome George Dies, Leaving No Offspring
For the first half of his life, Lonesome George lived on Pinta Island in the Galapagos. Once a thriving tortoise mecca, by the time a snail biologist discovered George there in 1971, the tortoise was the last of his subspecies, Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni. Dubbed “the world’s rarest creature,” George was transported to his new home, [...]
June 25, 2012 |
By Sarah Laskow
‘World’s Rarest Toad’ Not Extinct After All
A toad that pulled a disappearing act back in 1876 has miraculously reappeared in Sri Lanka. The Kandyan dwarf toad was discovered in a Sri Lankan stream in 1872, but almost as soon as the warty little guy turned up in the annals of biology, it was written off as a lost cause. Exhaustive surveys turned [...]
June 22, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Scientists Save Bats and Birds from Wind Turbine Slaughter
In the past two decades, wind generation in the United States has increased almost 50 times over, now comprising nearly a full quarter of the country’s renewable energy. Arising from this push, though, is a huge problem for the birds and bats that live near wind farms, reports Meera Subramanian in Nature. “The troubling issue with [...]
June 20, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
Want to Be Healthy? Manage Your Microbes Like a Wildlife Park
Our bodies are slurries of living microbial organisms, without which we’d be rendered ill or worse. Science is only now on the cusp of unraveling the roles that only a handful of our 100 trillion microbes play to keep our bodily systems running smoothly. Carl Zimmer explains the emerging field of medical ecology in the [...]
June 20, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Unraveling the Mysteries of the Ocean Sunfish
Marine biologist Tierney Thys and researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium are learning more about one of the largest jellyfish eaters in the sea
June 07, 2012 |
By Megan Gambino
Better Feet Through Radiation: The Era of the Fluoroscope
In the 1940s and 50s, shoe stores were dangerous places. At the center of the shopping experience was the shoe-fitting fluoroscope—a pseudoscientific machine that became a token of mid-century marketing deception.
April 04, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
The Forest Of The Future
An ambitious project in Singapore will boast 18 supertrees, climbing up to 160 feet tall
April 2012 |
By Mark Strauss
The Way of the Wolverine
After all but disappearing, the mammals are again being sighted in Washington's Cascade Range
January 2012 |
By Eric Wagner
The Sperm Whale's Deadly Call
Scientists have discovered that the massive mammal uses elaborate buzzes, clicks and squeaks that spell doom for the animal's prey
December 2011 |
By Eric Wagner
