Posts

Artist, inventor and philosopher Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was without a doubt a genius. Yet, there is some criticism. In his book 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance (William Morrow, 2008) British author and retired submarine commander Gavin Menzies claims that da Vinci swiped most of his ideas from the Chinese. Menzies’s theory was poorly received by the world of science. Besides, isn’t da Vinci’s brilliance beyond question?...

A bipartisan group of defense experts and former military leaders are calling on the next administration to consider climate change as a grave threat to national security. It’s not just about protecting military bases from sea-level rise, they argue in a climate consensus statement issued this morning in advance of today’s Climate and National Security Forum. The effects of climate change present a risk to U.S. national security and international security, and the United States should advance a comprehensive policy for addressing the risk, its authors say....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. It’s NCAA basketball tournament season, known for its magical moments and the “March Madness” it can produce. Many fans remember Stephen Curry’s superhuman 2008 performance where he led underdog Davidson College to victory while nearly outscoring the entire determined Gonzaga team by himself in the second half. Was Curry’s magic merely a product of his skill, the match-ups and random luck, or was there something special within him that day?...

If Iran has indeed launched a monkey to space, the nation is following a path similar to that taken by the United States in the early days of its space program. Iran announced today (Jan. 28) that it had successfully launched a live monkey on a spaceflight and recovered the animal alive after landing. The move is a prelude to sending humans into space, which the Islamic Republic hopes to do by 2020, Iranian Space Agency officials said....

Babies and children undergo massive brain restructuring as they mature, and for good reason—they have a whole world of information to absorb during their sprint toward adulthood. This mental renovation doesn’t stop there, however. Adult brains continue to produce new cells and restructure themselves throughout life, and a new study in mice reveals more about the details of this process and the important role environmental experience plays. Through a series of experiments, researchers at the Leloir Institute in Buenos Aires showed that when adult mice are exposed to stimulating environments, their brains are able to more quickly integrate new brain cells into existing neural networks through a process that involves new and old cells connecting to one another via special helper cells called interneurons....

By Alister Doyle OSLO, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The amount of fish in the oceans has halved since 1970, in a plunge to the “brink of collapse” caused by over-fishing and other threats, the WWF conservation group said on Wednesday. Populations of some commercial fish stocks, such as a group including tuna, mackerel and bonito, had fallen by almost 75 percent, according to a study by the WWF and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL)....

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The vast deposits of water ice likely lurking at the moon’s poles could be tapped to help spur a sustainable economic and industrial expansion into space, researchers say. The lunar poles have a unique environment that can harbor water ice within permanently shadowed, super-cold craters. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been front and center in probing these sites with radar — places such as Shackleton crater, an impact feature that lies at the moon’s south pole....

Otherwise, though, the news sure sounded as though printed books are dying, right along with a slice of our cultural souls. We would lose the satisfaction of holding a sturdy bound volume, the pleasure of turning physical pages, even the beautiful covers that let us see what someone else on the subway is reading. But a funeral for the printed book is premature, for three reasons. First, it’s human to underestimate the time it takes for fanciful technologies to arrive....

By Matt Kaplan of Nature magazineThe image of a Tyrannosaurus rex racing after a jeep in the 1993 film Jurassic Park inspired a generation’s ideas about the extinct predator, but for decades studies have concluded that dinosaurs could not move quickly.An analysis now suggests that although big dinosaurs are unlikely to have been able to run, the animals could instead have reached a fair clip by power-walking.Heinrich Mallison, a palaeontologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, presented his theory last week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s annual conference in Las Vegas, Nevada....

The vernal equinox, which occurs at 7:02 a.m. EDT today (March 20), is probably the most important astronomical event of the year. Although popularly described as “the first day of spring” in the Northern Hemisphere, the annual event is actually much more important than that. More than any other event, it marks the beginning of the astronomical year. For something so important in astronomy, it’s surprising that it is something that you cannot observe in any way in the night sky....

Many people view climate change as a distant, abstract threat. But having them imagine the tangible consequences of resulting droughts or floods may help shift this perception and encourage proenvironmental behavior, a new study suggests. Researchers asked 93 college students in Taiwan to read a report on temperature anomalies, floods and other climate change-related events that have affected the island. The scientists then asked 62 of the participants to write down three ways in which such phenomena might impact their future lives....

Aid workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo began giving an experimental Ebola vaccine to health workers on 8 August—one week after the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of the virus. First responders and public-health staff are scrambling to contain the outbreak while planning how to roll out the vaccine to communities in the middle of a conflict zone. The virus is spreading in northern Kivu and Ituri, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Alexandros I Balas was a Seleucid king from 152 BC to 145 BCE. As the Seleucid king Demetrius I Soter (162-150 BCE) became more and more unpopular due to his arrogance and drunkenness, it was quite an easy task for the rival kingdoms, such as Pergamum or Egypt to stir up a revolt against him....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Elves and dwarves represent minor divine figures in Norse mythology. Elves (álfar) and dwarves (dvergar) have in common their talent for creating precious objects, skill, agility, and moral ambiguity. Dwarves appear in several important stories, such as the one about the forging of Thor’s hammer, or dragon Fafnir’s treasure....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Parthia had always been a thorn in the side of the Roman Empire. The initial campaigns by Crassus and Mark Antony were total failures, and although Trajan and Syrian governor Cassius made some progress in the 2nd century CE, both failed to eliminate the Parthians as a viable threat....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Arch of Constantine I, erected in c. 315 CE, stands in Rome and commemorates Roman Emperor Constantine’s victory over the Roman tyrant Maxentius on 28th October 312 CE at the battle of Milvian Bridge in Rome. It is the largest surviving Roman triumphal arch and the last great monument of Imperial Rome....

The entire island of Manhattan can fit within the bounds of the monstrous, nearly nine-mile loop drawn out by the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland. Of course, the purpose of that apparatus is to re-create the conditions found in the big bang, which considering all that has resulted from it–our universe, the planets, life on Earth–validates its size. But for more modest applications, such as when biologists want to determine the structures of molecules or when oncologists want to use radiotherapy on cancer patients, a smaller unit is needed....

Editor’s Note: We are posting this story from our September 2007 issue as part of our in-depth report on the recent salmonella outbreak. If a natural pathogen, or a perpetrator, contaminates food, lives will be saved if the tainted product can be quickly detected, then traced back to its point of origin so the rest of the batch can be tracked down or recalled. The following technologies, in development, could help: Microfluidic Detectors—Botulinum bacteria produce the most poisonous toxin known....

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission launched a six-month study today to determine how much renewable energy the electric grid can accommodate. FERC will work with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on the $500,000 study to validate the preliminary frequency-response tool developed by the commission to gauge the grid’s reliability if large quantities of renewable energy are sent to the system. “We need a good metric – a good yardstick, a tool – to assess how much renewable energy can be injected into the bulk power … system,” said Joseph McClelland, director of FERC’s Office of Electric Reliability....

Battered by depressed new car sales and waning political power in Washington, the automotive industry still has some fight left. An industry trade group led by Detroit’s Big Three urged lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week to oppose language in the Democrats’ energy and climate bill that would force automakers to produce more flex-fuel vehicles. “Thus far, Congress has refrained from picking technology winners; these [flex-fuel vehicles] mandate proposals do exactly the opposite,” wrote Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing the Detroit automakers, Toyota Motor Corp....