Posts

The federal government has repeatedly pledged to encrypt sensitive information, not to mention stop the practice of storing it on employee laptops, in the wake of several serious security breaches. But apparently it has yet to make good on its promises. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed Monday that a laptop containing unsecured information about 2,500 participants enrolled in a cardiac study by its National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) was stolen from the trunk of a researcher’s car....

Between 1969 and 1972, Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth a total of nine containers of moon material that were sealed on the lunar surface. Two of the larger sealed samples were collected by Apollo 17 moonwalkers in December 1972. Three sealed samples from Apollo 15, 16 and 17 remain unopened. According to several key lunar researchers, now is the right time to consider opening at least one of the still-sealed sample containers....

Fabrics containing engineered nanosilver – used to kill odor causing bacteria in socks and sports clothing – leak fewer silver nanoparticles into the environment when washed than textiles with conventional silver coatings. The Swiss researchers say that their findings indicate that regulatory assessments of nanosilver have been overly stringent and should be brought in line with traditional silver coatings. As nanosilver – the most widely used engineered nanoparticle – is incorporated into increasing numbers of products for its antimicrobial properties, the potential risks have become a hot topic, particularly with regard to silver nanoparticles entering the environment....

Time slowed to a crawl as my little Nissan Sentra approached the BMW in front of me. With a pronounced crunch, one bumper smashed into another. The green metal hood scooted back, folding into a sharp crease near the windshield. As freeway traffic blazed by on both sides, my mind went blank. What do I do now? Fortunately, one of my passengers was already on the telephone, dialing 9-1-1 and instructing me to cautiously maneuver the vehicle to the shoulder....

Editor’s Note: This excerpt is from the first chapter of From Stars to Stalagmites: How Everything Connects, by Paul S. Braterman. Earlier in the chapter the author discusses the ideas among geologists in the 19th century that physical processes such as erosion had always occurred at the same rates and that the features of Earth were static, leading them to conclude that the planet had had no beginning nor would it have an end....

By their first birthday most children cannot walk or talk well but they can predict the results of human actions as well as adults, according to new research. Whereas six-month-old babies can only track a human hand placing a toy in a bucket, one-year-olds show the same facility in anticipating the result as adults do. Terje Falck-Ytter and his colleagues at Uppsala University in Sweden tested the responses of 11 babies, 11 toddlers and 11 adults when watching nine identical videos of an actor’s hand placing three toys into a bucket....

A number of supplements marketed for weight loss and improved athletic performance contain a synthetic compound that is similar to the drug amphetamine, and that compound has not been tested in people, according to a new study. What’s more, the Food and Drug Administration has known about the presence of this drug in supplements for two years, but still has not warned consumers about the issue or acted to take the supplements off the market, according to the study....

During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, media outlets, health experts and scholars have explained the COVID-19 vaccine divide in the U.S. as partisan, educational, racial or socioeconomic. As it stands, the overall U.S. adult vaccination rate has hovered around 65 percent for months now. But this division may go back to the founding ideals of democracy in the U.S.: Americans simply aren’t accustomed to expecting much from their government. Vaccinating everyone depends on more than the availability of vaccines; it depends on health infrastructure woven into the fabric of society....

Whether you desire to be a good long-term friend, a respected leader, a loving partner, or to have a successful brand, you must inspire loyalty in others. But what type of behavior inspires loyalty? A few answers may come to mind, such as being trustworthy, supporting others’ initiatives, being willing to sacrifice your own self-interest to improve another person’s well-being, or confiding secrets and sharing personal stories. When people are asked what it means to be loyal in a relationship, the words they most commonly mention are trust, respect, intimacy, honesty, help, and support....

In July 2016, a glacier in Tibet’s Aru mountain range suddenly and catastrophically collapsed. The resulting ice avalanche buried more than 3 square miles of land, killing nine people and hundreds of livestock. Just a few months later, a second glacier in the same mountain range also unexpectedly collapsed. In the years since, scientists have worked to understand what caused the twin avalanches. They found, in a study published in 2018 in Nature Geoscience, that climate change is at least partly to blame....

Why can most people remember a color, but only a few can remember pitch? —David Hardie, Perth, Australia Robert O. Duncan, a behavioral scientist at York College, the City University of New York, responds: ALTHOUGH MOST of us believe we are better at identifying colors than sounds, our ability to identify the exact frequency of light associated with a color is actually no better than our ability to name a pitch....

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The wood stork, a large American wading bird, is no longer an endangered species after a successful three-decade conservation effort that has seen the population spread through the Southeast, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said on Thursday. The federal agency said it had changed the status of the species to threatened. Wood storks, were deemed endangered in 1984, when the population was dropping by 5 percent a year....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Halloween is among the oldest traditions in the world as it touches on an essential element of the human condition: the relationship between the living and the dead. The observance evolved from ancient rituals marking the transition from summer to winter, thereby associating it with transformation, which is still a central theme of the holiday....

Did you like this interview? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Join World History Encyclopedia as they sit down with Dr. Bob Brier to chat all about his new book Tutankhamun and the Tomb That Changed the World, published by Oxford University Press. Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the WorldOxford University Press (Copyright) Kelly: Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today, Bob....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Underground archaeology is a niche topic and is highly specialized. We’re talking about simple structures underground, such as those of Roman North Africa (able to withstand the heat), or we can get as extreme, in a mostly urban context, as where the underground archaeological palimpsests are complex and highly suggestive....

commentary At first glance, it looks like Apple really loves Twitter. The reality, however, is that it hates Facebook. It sure seems that way, at least. Apple’s distaste for Facebook became apparent with last week’s preview release to developers of Mountain Lion, the newest version of Apple’s OS for computers. The OS includes a slew of new apps (Game Center, Reminders, Notes) and new features (Gatekeeper, Notification Center). What it doesn’t include is Facebook integration–a baked-in connection to Facebook that would make it easier for Apple users to share more on the world’s largest social network....

Nearly 200 years after their invention, and decades after first being proposed as a method of harnessing solar energy, 60 sun-powered Stirling engines are about to begin generating electricity outside Phoenix, Ariz., for the first time. Such engines, which harness heat to expand a gas and drive pistons, are not used widely today other than in pacemakers and long-distance robotic spacecraft. The 1.5 megawatt (MW) demonstration site, known as Maricopa Solar, is set to begin operations early January 2010, with units provided by the Arizona-based Stirling Energy Systems (SES)....

Michael Mann, an influential climatologist who has spent years in the center of the debate over climate science, has sued two organizations that have accused him of academic fraud and of improperly manipulating data. Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, on Monday sued the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with two of their authors, Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn. The lawsuit, Mann’s lawyer said in a statement, was based upon their “false and defamatory statements” accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky....

Cuttlefish are known for their sophisticated camouflage, as well as their kaleidoscopic displays for attracting mates and mesmerizing prey. These close relatives of squid and octopuses achieve such feats via millions of chromatophores—tiny sacs of pigment under the skin attached to muscles that squeeze or relax to push colors to the surface. In a new study, researchers report they have observed resting cuttlefish cyclically changing color and twitching their limbs in phases that resemble rapid eye movement (REM) sleep....

Design flaws caused a support structure for a magnet to fail during a stress test of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on March 27. Built to be the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the LHC will smash lead ions into one another with energies of trillions of electron volts (TeV). Repairs may delay the LHC’s target start date of November. Circumference of LHC in meters: 26,659 Energy imparted to each proton in TeV: 7...