Posts

More than half a million people in the U.S. have died from HIV infection, and more than a million currently live with the virus, but a relative handful of people infected with HIV never get treatment for it and never get sick from it. The immune systems of this small population—perhaps 50,000 Americans—somehow control the virus for long periods of time. Of course, there is typically a bell curve of response to any disease, but figuring out how these people control the virus is one of the most vexing mysteries of the AIDS pandemic....

On Thursday, July 17, four science experts served as witnesses at the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing, “The Federal Research Portfolio: Capitalizing on Investments in R&D.” The hearing considered the federal government’s role in research and development (R&D), and the nation’s STEM education and outreach initiatives. Attendees in the Capitol hearing room were Mariette DiChristina, editor in chief and senior vice president of Scientific American; Vinton G....

On January 30, 1864, the Confederate warship CSS Alabama entered what its captain described as a “remarkable patch of the sea.” The Alabama, sailing southwest along the Horn of Africa, was one of several Confederate vessels cruising the world’s oceans during the U.S. Civil War, weakening the Union by raiding its merchant ships. Formidable pirates though they were, Captain Raphael Semmes and his crew were spooked by the sea they encountered that January evening....

Adapted from Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, by Amir Alexander, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and Zahar (Brazil). Copyright © 2014 by Amir Alexander. All rights reserved. Editors’ note: Countless students learn integral calculus—the branch of mathematics concerned with finding the length, area or volume of an object by slicing it into small pieces and adding them up. What few realize is that their calculus homework originated, in part, in a debate between two 17th-century scholars....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Temple of Athena Nike, on the southwest bastion of the Acropolis, is smaller than the other buildings behind it but no less impressive. It was completed in 420 BCE during the restoration of Athens after the Persian invasion of 480 BCE and was designed to greet those visiting Athena’s complex....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. It is likely that many people in Iron Age Britain would have died from diseases as babies or children. Many of those people who survived to be adults rarely lived beyond the ages of 35-45. Only about a third of all adults lived longer. Studies of the bones of Iron Age people suggest that at least a quarter suffered from arthritis in their backs from an early age....

In some circles, it’s known as climate reparations. In others, payments for “loss and damage.” Whatever the term, there are growing calls for a new process that would pay developing countries for damages they’ve suffered from climate change—a problem they did little to create. Wealthy nations such as the United States have opposed the idea for years. But its advocates have stayed persistent as climate impacts have grown more severe, and the topic is expected to be one of the main issues—and potentially the most divisive—at the next round of international climate talks next month in Egypt....

Do the virtual particles in quantum mechanics really exist? —J. Fleming, Madison, Wis. Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, answers: Virtual particles are indeed real—they have observable effects that physicists have devised ways of measuring. Quantum theory predicts that every particle spends some time as a combination of other particles in all possible ways. Quantum mechanics allows, and indeed requires, temporary violations of conservation of energy....

Colors exist on a seamless spectrum, yet we assign hues to discrete categories such as “red” and “orange.” Past studies have found that a person’s native language can influence the way colors are categorized and even perceived. In Russian, for example, light blue and dark blue are named as different colors, and studies find that Russian speakers can more readily distinguish between the shades. Yet scientists have wondered about the extent of such verbal influence....

The Department of Energy is scrapping plans for a zero-emissions coal plant in Illinois and going for plan B. In what it is calling “FutureGen 2.0,” the department announced yesterday it was providing $1 billion in stimulus money to retrofit a shuttered coal plant in Meredosia, Ill., rather than build a new one with experimental carbon-cutting technology. There, engineers plan to swap out a boiler in the 200-megawatt plant, replace it with one that can capture C02 and pipe the resulting gas across the state to a storage spot in Mattoon, Ill....

By Aleksandar Vasovic BELGRADE (Reuters) - One person died in Serbia and authorities scrambled to evacuate hundreds of others from villages threatened by rising rivers, officials said on Tuesday, in scenes recalling the devastating May flooding that killed dozens. The Serbian government has declared a state of emergency in three eastern municipalities along the River Danube - Kladovo, Negotin and Majdanpek - after several days of heavy rainfall. In neighboring Croatia, around two-thirds of 21 counties were inundated with rain over the weekend and thousands were evacuated....

First comes a cacophony of gongs, then flutters of chimes, then a deep melodic whale call—these are the sounds of the first musical instrument powered by biotechnology. The music comes from a black box in the home lab of Josiah Zayner, a biophysicist at the University of Chicago. Inside the box blue lights pulse on vials of proteins, which in turn trigger the sounds. Zayner calls it the chromochord. “Chromo” refers to the colored lights and “chord” refers to the strings of a musical instrument....

For centuries wild pigs caused headaches for landowners in the American South, but the foragers’ small populations remained stable. In the past 30 years, though, their ranks have swollen until suddenly disease-carrying, crop-devouring swine have spread to 39 states. Now, wild pigs are five million strong and the targets of a $20-million federal initiative to get their numbers under control. Settlers first brought the ancestors of today’s pigs to the South in the 1600s and let them roam free as a ready supply of fresh pork....

A question that has been simmering for years in the veterinarian community is now attracting the interest of physicians as well: Do the bacteria that cause cat scratch disease—a typically mild illness with flulike symptoms—also cause chronic fatigue syndrome? Decades of case reports hint at associations between fatigue, chronic headaches, numbness, pain and cognitive impairment and infection with Bartonella. Yet researchers still do not have clear answers. Recent research found fragments of Bartonella species’ DNA in 41 percent of 296 patients examined by a rheumatologist....

Dear EarthTalk: My daughter loves those press-on tattoos, and they’re frequently given out at birthday parties and other events. But I’ve noticed the labels say they’re only for ages three and up. Are they safe? If not, are there alternatives?—Debra Jones, Lansing, Mich. For the most part, so-called temporary tattoos are safe for kids and grown-ups alike, even if they do contain a long list of scary sounding ingredients including resins, polymers, varnishes and dyes....

Dear EarthTalk: We will need to replace our house gutters soon. What are our best options from an environmental perspective? – Jodie Green, Dallas, TX First understand clearly why your gutters need to be replaced. Are they rusted or broken? Are the fasteners no longer holding them in place? Or have the gutters leaked and failed to keep water out of your house? Answers to these questions will help you decide which type of gutter to choose....

One major polar challenge remains left to achieve, and 68-year-old British Expeditioner Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his crew are determined to change that. Fiennes and his five colleagues will embark on what they are calling “The Coldest Journey,” a winter expedition across Antarctica beginning March 21, 2013. The team seeks to spend six months traveling nearly 2,000 miles, crossing the polar plateau at an average height of 10,000 feet above sea level....

The federal government should begin a major effort to measure greenhouse gas emissions tied to the nation’s booming natural gas industry, a Department of Energy advisory panel said today in a series of proposals on air and water quality issues. The seven-member advisory panel under Energy Secretary Steven Chu released its first report outlining steps that regulators and companies drilling in vast U.S. shale gas reservoirs should take to avoid significant environmental damage and assuage public concern....

It turns out that not all the hairlike cilia projecting from the surfaces of many cells in the human body are equal—there are the myriad ones for sweeping, swimming and other functions, and then there is the until recently mysterious primary cilium. Nearly all human cells contain these numerous microscopic projections. The more abundant variety of cilia are motile; they act like oars, paddling in coordinated waves to help propel cells through fluid, or to sweep material across cellular surfaces (as in the respiratory system, where millions of cilia lining the airways help to expel mucus, dead cells and other bodily debris)....

By the middle of the 19th century, rapid urban growth spurred by the industrial revolution had created urgent social and environmental problems. Cities responded by building centralized networks to deliver clean water, energy and safe food; to enable commerce, facilitate transportation and maintain order; and to provide access to health care and energy. Today these century-plus-old solutions are increasingly inadequate. Many of our cities are jammed with traffic. Our political institutions are deadlocked....