orange offbeat

On Thursday morning, workers filing into the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California were surprised to find 200 gallons (750 liters) of seawater soaking into their spanking new, ecologically sensitive flooring. It turns out that a curious two-spotted octopus had disassembled a water recycling valve and directed a tube to spew out of the tank for about 10 hours, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It found something loose and just pulled on it,” the aquarium’s education manager Tara Treiber told the Times....

One glaring fact from the latest report on the Ebola outbreak is that five of the many study authors are dead, killed by the disease that is roiling west Africa. The new analysis, published in the August 29 issue of Science, reveals that the current Ebola outbreak stemmed from an earlier initial leap from the wild into humans, rather than the virus repeatedly jumping from a natural reservoir—perhaps infected animals—to humans....

CT SCANS AND CANCER In “How Much Do CT Scans Increase the Risk of Cancer?” Carina Storrs accurately discusses the reasons diagnostic imaging with computed tomography scans has increased and the limited scientific knowledge of the effects of this increased radiation exposure on inducing cancer in patients. As a radiologist, I find that Storrs neglects to include one cause for the increase in CT scans: the current structure for how these exams are ordered in the U....

By Antoni Slodkowski and Kentaro HamadaNIIGATA, Japan (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co must give a fuller account of the Fukushima disaster and address its “institutionalized lying” before it can expect to restart another nuclear station, the world’s largest, said a local government official who holds an effective veto over the utility’s revival plan.“If they don’t do what needs to be done, if they keep skimping on costs and manipulating information, they can never be trusted,” Niigata Prefecture Governor Hirohiko Izumida told Reuters in an interview on Monday....

Although there’s no standard definition for an environmentally responsible office, most people would define it in common sense terms: a work space that uses the least amount of energy and other resources, creates the least amount of waste, and provides a healthy environment for the people working there. The idea that being green requires untold expense and inconvenience is a fallacy born of stereotypes: that environmental responsibility in business (or in life) demands doing without, sacrificing convenience, and buying premium-priced products that may be inferior to their conventional (and cheaper) countertypes....

Donald Trump probably leaves the water running while brushing his teeth. Heck, he probably leaves it running while he’s at work. After all, turning faucets can be mildly inconvenient and if science has taught him anything, it’s that our planet is doing just fine when it comes to conserving its natural resources and its long-term environmental prospects. Indeed, given his very high profile remarks questioning climate change and the science upon which it is based, I think we can safely assume he doesn’t lose any sleep over his consumption habits or the size of his carbon footprint....

Walk into any fast-food restaurant, and you can watch a small crowd of ordinary people doing something that is utterly irrational: eating junky, excess-weight-inviting food likely to leave them feeling bad about their bodies and open to a host of serious ills. We literally line up to trade our health and self-image for a few minutes of pleasant mouth feel and belly comfort—because the latter is right here, right now, whereas the former is months, years and decades away....

Imagine drifting over Antarctica’s icy expanse. A white continent extends below you, and it’s smothered in enough frozen water to drown every coastline in the world in a 216-foot (66 meters) wave if it were to melt. But scientists now believe that, deep beneath almost 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) of ice and a relatively thin slice of rocky crust, one region of the frozen continent hides a column of red-hot magma, straining toward the surface, according to a new study....

Latanya Sweeney attracts a lot of attention. It could be because of her deep affection for esoteric and cunning mathematics. Or maybe it is the black leather outfit she wears while riding her Honda VTX 1300 motorcycle around the sedate campus of Carnegie Mellon University, where she directs the Laboratory for International Data Privacy. Whatever the case, Sweeney suspects the attention helps to explain her fascination with protecting people’s privacy. Because at the heart of her work lies a nagging question: Is it possible to maintain privacy, freedom and safety in today’s security-centric, databased world where identities sit ripe for the plucking?...

On July 12, NASA released a small set of images from its recently launched James Webb Space Telescope. The dazzling pictures are sure to jolt your imagination, if not give you a healthy bout of goosebumps (see “NASA Triumphantly Unveils Full Set of Webb’s First Images”). After decades of strife, a heart-pounding launch, and even getting hit by a micrometeoroid, the Webb telescope seems well on its way to transforming our understanding of the universe....

By Anna Flávia Rochas and Roberto Samora SAO PAULO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Southeastern Brazil is getting some rainfall a year after a record drought started, but not enough to eliminate worries about an energy crisis, water shortages or another season of damaged export crops, meteorologists said. Record-high temperatures and the most severe drought in at least 80 years punished southeastern Brazil last year, a region accounting for 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product....

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is usually treated as a stand-alone mental illness. A growing body of research is now finding that some cases of OCD may stem from trauma. For these patients, successful treatment may hinge on targeting the coexisting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Over the past decade researchers have discovered that for some people, obsessive behaviors such as repetitive washing or hoarding may be a way of coping with post-traumatic stress....

ZAGREB (Reuters) - As many as two-thirds of 21 Croatian counties are struggling with flooding, with the worst occurring in central Croatia, the national rescue agency DUZS said on Sunday. Heavy rain has been falling since Wednesday, causing rivers to rise, closing roads and threatening houses and factories. No deaths or injuries have been reported so far. The biggest threat is in flooded areas around the central towns of Sisak, Hrvatska Kostajnica and Karlovac....

Legend has it that Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white the night before she was guillotined. Presumably the stress of impending decapitation caused her locks to lose color within hours. Extremely unlikely, scientists say, but stress may play a role in a more gradual graying process. The first silvery strands usually pop up around age 30 for men and age 35 for women, but graying can begin as early as high school for some and as late as the 50s for others....

Whether Caribbean coral reefs retain their vibrant colors or turn a deathly white depends in part on how much dust there is in the atmosphere. Climate scientists have long known that aerosols cool the atmosphere and that the Pacific warming called El Niño globally influences the climate and warms the Caribbean, but now researchers have shown that these effects influence bleaching of the over a million square miles of Caribbean coral reefs....

Once, in broad daylight, Bill Choisser encountered his mother on a sidewalk in a local shopping district. He walked toward her and passed her within two feet. He said nothing as he ambled by–an omission for which his mother has never forgiven him, or so he writes in his online book, Face Blind! Choisser meant no ill will toward his mother, however; he simply did not recognize the woman who raised him....

Aptly named for its location behind a ball field in New York City’s Central Park, Umpire Rock may offer a useful vantage point for calling balls and strikes. For scientists, however, it has served as a speed gun for calculating the trajectory and timing of an ancient glacier that once played an active role in global climate change. “The Laurentide coughs and the climate will change,” says Joerg Schaefer, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory....

Key concepts Chemistry Solutions Miscibility Polarity Surfactants Surface tension Introduction Are you in need of cards for family or friends? No problem—in this activity you will create beautiful artwork and practice science at the same time! The only materials you need are shaving cream, food coloring and sheets of paper. Ready to discover where the science is hiding? Go ahead and find out! Background Paper marbling is an artistic method in which colors floating on a liquid surface are transferred onto paper to create a marbled pattern....

Conventional wisdom suggests that women are drawn to men who help out around the house. Yet new research indicates that some divisions of labor may be sexier than others. A February paper in the American Sociological Review reported that married couples in which men take on a greater share of the dishes, laundry and other traditionally female chores had sex less often than average, which in this study was about five times a month....

NIGHTTIME PROCESSING The Twenty-Four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives by Rosalind Car twright. Oxford University Press, 2010 ($27.95) Less than six hours of nightly sleep can lead to obesity and even death, but sleep plays an equally important role in regulating our emotions. In The Twenty-Four Hour Mind psychologist Rosalind Cartwright gives an engaging account of the history of sleep research. She skillfully weaves in her 50 years’ worth of work in the field, delving into her own theories about the purpose of dreams and highlighting the importance of sleep to maintain our physical and mental well-being....