The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why by Amanda Ripley. Crown Publishers/Random House, 2008 ($24.95) Your plane just crash-landed. You can’t see anything through the suffocating smoke around you, yet you know you have to get out of the plane. Do you jump up and feel your way to the nearest emergency exit or stay put, paralyzed with fear? Do you help others around you or fend only for yourself?...
Proteins, the fundamental nanomachines of life, have provided scientists like me with many lessons in our own efforts to create nanomachinery. Proteins are large molecules containing hundreds to thousands of atoms and are typically a few nanometers (billionths of a meter) to tens of nanometers across. Our bodies contain at least 20,000 different proteins that, among other things, cause our muscles to contract, digest our food, build our bones, sense our environment and tirelessly recycle hundreds of small molecules within our cells....
Engineers can build autonomous vehicles capable of cruising city streets without the aid of a human driver, as demonstrated two years ago in the DARPA Urban Challenge. A team of researchers is now looking to translate that success to the medical field by building so-called “smart wheelchairs” with artificial intelligence that uses lasers, sensors and mapping software to operate and navigate powered chairs for riders who cannot do so on their own....
A new analysis of data from the Cassini spacecraft indicates that Saturn’s highly cratered moon Hyperion is truly spongelike, filled with small pores that may take up 40 percent or more of its volume. Repeated Cassini flybys allowed researchers to gauge the moon’s density and composition, which they report is probably a mix of ice and carbon-based molecules. High porosity would explain the profusion of craters on Hyperion, the largest of Saturn’s irregularly shaped moons, says planetary scientist Peter Thomas of Cornell University, co-author of one of two papers describing the findings online today in Nature....
During the past 10 years, a contagious and fatal cancer has decimated the world’s Tasmanian devils. Pustulant tumors that become infested with maggots deform their faces, forcing teeth from their jaws. The devils eventually starve, but not before passing on the virulent cancer. Concerned that the disease could wipe out the devils, conservationists have already started planning how they might reintroduce the species if it goes extinct. Resembling a small black dog with white splotches, these marsupial carnivores once lived in mainland Australia but today remain only on its island state of Tasmania....
By Daniel CresseyAt 21:53 UTC yesterday, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The US Geological Survey (USGS) says that it was the most violent earthquake to strike the impoverished country in a century.Nature examines the causes and repercussions of the quake.What caused this earthquake?The island of Hispaniola, with Haiti on the western half and the Dominican Republic on the eastern half, lies on the northern edge of the Caribbean tectonic plate....
University of Texas researchers have developed a sophisticated new mapping tool showing where vulnerability to climate change and violent conflicts intersects throughout the African continent. More than a year in the making and part of a $7.6 million, five-year Department of Defense grant, the Climate Change and African Political Stability project culls data on riots, civil unrest and other violent outbursts dating back to 1996. It overlaps with information about climate-change-induced vulnerabilities like drought, as well as the type of aid that is being delivered to various parts of Africa....
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today will announce a $15 million, six-country coalition dedicated to curbing non-carbon dioxide pollutants that cause global warming. The Climate and Clean Air Coalition, made up of the United States, Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden and led by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), will target so-called short-lived “climate forcers.” Those substances – methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – remain in the atmosphere only days or weeks, unlike carbon dioxide, which lasts generations....
Earlier this year in a high-stakes summit meeting, the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, and U.S. president Donald Trump failed to agree on a way to end North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons program. Within days of the summit, satellite imagery showed that Kim was rebuilding some of North Korea’s rocket facilities. In 2017 Kim’s government had tested its first long-range missiles and soon followed up with a test of what appeared to be a powerful hydrogen bomb....
What would happen if solar panels were free? What if it were possible to know everything about the world—not the Internet, but the living, physical world—in real time? What if doctors could forecast a disease years before it strikes? This is the promise of the World Changing Idea: a vision so simple yet so ambitious that its full impact is impossible to predict. Scientific American’s editorial and advisory boards have chosen projects in five general categories—Energy, Transportation, Environment, Electronics and Robotics, and Health and Medicine—that highlight the power of science and technology to improve the world....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Canons of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) were rules one was expected to follow in order to be a member of the Catholic Church and, according to the Church’s teachings, merit the grace of God and eternal life in heaven after death. The canons specifically addressed the claims of the Protestant Reformation, which were condemned as heretical....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Greece, the ‘cradle of western civilization’, is home to a large number of spectacular sites from the ancient world, several of which have been placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. These sites of great historical importance, interest, beauty, and impact do not all reflect the civilization we call Classical Greece - they range from prehistoric citadels via Classical temples to Byzantine monasteries and beyond....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Romans built roads over ancient routes and created a huge number of new ones. Engineers were audacious in their plans to join one point to another in as direct a line as possible whatever the difficulties in geography and costs. Consequently, many of the Romans’ long straight roads across their empire have become famous names in their own right....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. In the religion of the ancient Celts who lived in Iron Age Europe from 700 BCE to 400 CE, certain natural sites like springs, river sources, and groves were held as sacred. These places, as well as some urban sites, often had purpose-built temples, shrines, and sanctuaries. Here, druids performed rituals and prayers while votive offerings of precious goods, as well as animal and human sacrifices, were given to the Celtic gods to gain their favour and ensure the continued success of the community....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Middle Kingdom of ancient Egypt (2000 BCE – 1700 BCE) saw the start of more formal writing which included religious scripts, administrative notes, and more in-depth fictional writing. One of the most iconic pieces of writing to come out of the Middle Kingdom was The Tale of Sinuhe....
By Olive HeffernanPhil Jones holds himself defensively, his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest as if shielding himself from attack. Little wonder: Jones has spent the past three months being vilified for his central role in what is now called “climategate.“Jones was director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, when, last November, more than 1,000 e-mails and documents were illegally obtained from the university and posted on the Internet....
In the western United States, winter precipitation is key to providing the water states like Colorado and California need to survive their dry summers. The snow and rain that comes in the cold season runs off into reservoirs, where it is stored for drinking water, agriculture, hydropower and other uses. Now, researchers have linked airborne dust and other particles from as far away as the Sahara and Asian deserts with the precipitation that falls over California’s Sierra Nevada mountains....
Nearly 7 Billion people on the planet Over 3 million doctors Tens of thousands of hospitals 6000 prescription medicines, 4000 procedures and operations Countless supplements, herbs, alternative treatments Who gets what, when, where, why and how? When a 58 year old, active, lean, intelligent financier from Florida came to see me for a second opinion, I should not have been surprised. For Valentine’s Day the prior year, his wife’s present was a computed tomography (CT) scan for his heart....
In the rolling foothills of the madison range in southwestern Montana, a cabin-style house sits beside a washboard dirt road. A few horses loiter in a corral outside, and spotted ranch dogs bark and jump at the fence. James Stuart, manager of Sun Ranch, lives here with his wife and three kids. Christian, the oldest at four years, just got his first pony. Stuart, who comes from a long line of rugged Scots who settled this region, has auburn hair and eyes lined from squinting—or smiling—in bright sunlight....
If the world’s cities focused their investments on expanding public transportation, walking and cycling, they could save more than $100 trillion in public and private capital and urban transportation operating costs between now and 2050, according to a report released today by the University of California, Davis, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). In a “high shift” scenario with far greater urban passenger travel by clean public transport and nonmotorized vehicles, as compared to a base-line scenario matched to mobility forecasts by the International Energy Agency, roughly 1....
