Cooked by geologic heat and pressure, a molecule of methane embedded in shale deep belowground rockets to the surface, freed by fracking. Captured and put into a pipeline, the tiniest hydrocarbon wafts across the country to a New Jersey office park covered with brick buildings. Behind one of the buildings hides a big machine—a series of metal cylinders, in which parts of the methane molecule will soon be turned into gasoline....
By Claire AinsworthThe maths behind the rugged beauty of a coastline may help to keep cell biology in order, say researchers in Germany. Fractals – rough shapes that look the same at all scales–could explain how the cell’s nucleus holds molecules that manage our DNA in the right location.In new experiments, Sebastien Huet and Aurélien Bancaud of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, tracked the movement of molecules within cells in a lab dish, then compared the pattern of movement against mathematical models....
By David Stanway SHANGHAI, Sept 2 (Reuters) - China’s banks had provided a total of 7.26 trillion yuan ($1.09 trillion) in “green credit” by the end of June this year, the banking regulator said on Friday, part of its efforts to steer its economy onto a more environmentally friendly course. The figure amounted to 9 percent of total loans from 21 major banks and financial institutions, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said, without giving a time period....
“Wasteland” conjures up visions of dusty desolation where life is fleeting and harsh—if it exists at all. Oceans, too, have their inhospitable pockets. Scientists are discovering that climate change—and not just fertilizer from farm use—may be spurring the emergence of barren underwater landscapes in coastal waters. Expanding dead zones not only spell trouble for biodiversity, but they also threaten the commercial fisheries of many nations. Dead zones are not new; they form seasonally in economically vital ecoystems worldwide, including the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay....
Combining coronary bypass and plaque removal from the main arteries serving the brain has become standard care for heart and stroke prevention over the past 15 years. The theory is that combining the two will lower the risk of a stroke during heart bypass as well as minimize the time a patient is under anesthesia. But patients who undergo this combination therapy may significantly increase their risk of stroke or death, according to a new study....
File this under futuristic (and perhaps a little scary): In a step toward one day perhaps deciphering visions and dreams, new research unveils an algorithm that can translate the activity in the minds of humans. Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, report in Nature today that they have developed a method capable of decoding the patterns in visual areas of the brain to determine what someone has seen. Needless to say, the potential implications for society are sweeping....
By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thousands of Ebola survivors with little to no risk of re-infection are critical to controlling the epidemic and training them has the potential to save thousands of lives and decrease the spread of the virus, experts said on Wednesday. Survivors have developed immunity and are effectively the only people in the world protected from the virus, which could allow them to care for the sick without risking their lives, said experts in the International Journal of Epidemiology....
If you carried a gene that doubled your likelihood of getting Alzheimer’s disease, would you want to know? What if there was a simple lifestyle change that virtually abolished that elevated risk? People with a gene known as APOE e4 have a higher risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in old age. Even before behavioral symptoms appear, their brains show reduced metabolism, altered activity and more deterioration than those without the high-risk gene....
The peaks of Peru’s Cordillera Blanca are home to the densest array of tropical glaciers in the world. Runoff from that ice feeds the Rio Santa, providing most of the river’s flow during the annual summer dry season – water that is used for drinking, irrigating fields and generating power along a broad swath of Peru’s Pacific coast. It’s a bounty that scientists and government officials have long expected to decrease as climate change shrinks the region’s mountain glaciers....
An attempted upgrade to iOS 5 bricked my iPod Touch, forcing me to spend hours restoring the device. What steps should you take if this happens and how do you protect yourself before you update your iOS device? The upgrade to iOS 5 started smoothly enough on my end as iTunes seemed to be chugging along updating my device. But about halfway through, an error message popped up, and the process was aborted....
Many women are popping the pill for more than its pregnancy-prevention benefit, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute. The study finds 33 percent of U.S. teens and 14 percent of all U.S. women taking the oral contraceptive are doing so solely to treat menstrual cramps or for another purpose not related to birth control. Overall, more than half of U.S. women use the pill at least in part for non-contraceptive purposes....
New detailed scans of Mars by an orbiting craft have turned up no conclusive evidence that liquid water coursed over the planet’s surface in the past decade, researchers announced today. NASA unveiled data nine months ago showing bright, riverlike shapes suddenly appearing on two sloping Martian gullies, which could be interpreted as trails left by melted ice springing from below the surface. The new images, taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), reveal four additional new tracks but also show bright material in unchanged gullies, suggesting that the flows, which all occur on steep slopes, may have been dust avalanches....
People with Alzheimer’s disease may forget faces or where they left familiar objects because their brains cannot find where they put those memories, a study in mice suggests. The study, reported in Nature, contradicts the notion that Alzheimer’s prevents the brain from making new memories. It also suggests that brain stimulation might temporarily improve the memories of patients in the early stages of the disease. The research builds on earlier work by lead author Susumu Tonegawa, a neuroscientist, and his colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge....
More than 15 million Americans drink too much, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. New research on rats may help them curb that addiction. At present, there are three approved drugs for battling alcoholism, none of which work very well. Among them: naltrexone, which is effective for some alcoholics (as well as opiate addicts) because it blocks a pain pathway in the brain associated with the pleasures of drinking....
HIV probably arrived in the U.S. around 1971—a decade before AIDS was recognized as a disease and a dozen years before scientists discovered the virus that causes it—according to a new analysis of viral genomes from New York City and San Francisco. The genetic evidence upends a longstanding myth that a French-Canadian flight attendant started the U.S. epidemic when he slept with men in California and New York in the early 1980s....
Under intense summer rays sunscreen can help protect against a wicked burn, but some of the common active ingredients in these sprays and lotions can also seep through the skin and enter the bloodstream. Although it is unclear whether this poses any risks, Yale University dermatologist Michael Girardi thinks it is worthwhile to develop alternatives. In collaboration with the university’s bioengineering department, he has developed a sunscreen formulation designed to keep chemicals on the skin’s surface....
Here is what you need to know about the radioactive water leaking from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. Scientists on both sides of the Pacific have measured changing levels of radioactivity in fish and other ocean life since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. On Aug. 2, 2013, when Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) gave its first estimate of how much radioactive water from the nuclear plant has flowed into the ocean since the disaster, the company was finally facing up to what scientists have recognized for years....
By Laila Kearney SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A rare tornado has damaged about a dozen homes in Northern California, sending roof tiles and solar panels flying and leaving residents of the city of Roseville in shock over the unusual event, officials said on Thursday. The twister descended late on Wednesday in a residential area of Roseville, about 18 miles north of the state capital, Sacramento, and ripped through a distance measuring some 100 yards, a Roseville Fire Department spokesman said....
I was 18 when I started college at the University of East Anglia in England. I had just completed eight years at a British Army school in Germany. My parents dropped me off on campus with a couple of suitcases, a guitar and a box of condoms my dad surreptitiously handed to me (“You might need these, son”). I soon gravitated to some challenging adventures. After joining the university’s climbing and caving clubs I began apprenticeships in the art of underground and aboveground suffering....
Editor’s Note (9/8/20): This article has been updated and republished in light of findings suggesting a higher rate of COVID-19 diagnoses among young adult e-cigarette users. Smoking or vaping could make you more vulnerable to a severe infection with the novel coronavirus, some experts say. Although there have not been many studies investigating this link specifically, a wealth of evidence suggests that smoking suppresses immune function in the lungs and triggers inflammation....
