Joy is not the only experience that people try to avoid, to their detriment. Many people cannot tolerate the feeling of uncertainty, and according to mounting evidence, this fear affects mood and health. Intolerance of uncertainty is linked with mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, researchers confirmed in a paper in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology; their results also revealed a strong link to panic disorder....
If there are any intelligent aliens in the GJ 273 system, they can expect to hear from us about a dozen years from now. Last month, scientists and artists beamed a message to GJ 273, a red dwarf also known as Luyten’s star that lies 12.36 light-years from Earth, project team members revealed today (Nov. 16). Luyten’s star hosts two known planets, one of which, GJ 273b, may be capable of supporting life as we know it....
Key Concepts Biology Osmosis Cells Chemistry Concentration Water transport Introduction Have you ever wondered how plants “drink” water from the soil? Water uptake in plants is quite complicated. A process called osmosis helps the water move from the soil into the plant roots—and then into the plant’s cells. In this activity you will see for yourself how you can make water move with osmosis! Background Most water in the ground is not pure water....
After a grimy day of tussling with yet another alien species, the crew of the average Star Trek franchise might shower off with sound waves and don fresh uniforms courtesy of the ship’s replicator. “I wish we had those things,” Stephanie Walker says of the replicators. As a systems manager for flight crew equipment at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Walker remains keenly aware of the limitations of life in space....
By Alistair Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Tiny marine algae can evolve fast enough to cope with climate change in a sign that some ocean life may be more resilient than thought to rising temperatures and acidification, a study showed. Evolution is usually omitted in scientific projections of how global warming will affect the planet in coming decades because genetic changes happen too slowly to help larger creatures such as cod, tuna or whales....
Several devastating earthquakes have rumbled beneath the Pacific in the past 15 months. In February 2010 a magnitude 8.8 temblor slammed central Chile; last September a 7.0 quake walloped Christchurch, New Zealand, leading to a 6.3 aftershock in February. The magnitude 9.0 mega quake that flattened Japan in March is tied for fourth largest in the past 110 years. These events have led many people to wonder if they are somehow linked....
Knowledge is the fruiting body of light, and light the fruiting body of photons at the end of traveling through our nights to reach the velvet chair, the common snipe, where we see that in an object’s reflection, knowledge is the fruiting body of light. Just a slice of electromagnetic wavelength and sight is ours, a blindness gone at the end of traveling through our nights. All this way and yet something’s not right....
MOST SCHOLARS concerned with the material basis of consciousness are cortical chauvinists. They focus on the two cortical hemispheres that crown the brain. It is here that perception, action, memory, thought and consciousness are said to have their seat. There is no question that the great specificity of any one conscious perceptual experience—such as the throbbing pain of the socket following extraction of the lower right wisdom tooth, the feeling of familiarity in dj vu, the aha experience of sudden understanding, the azure blue of a high mountain vista, the despair at reading about one more suicide bombing—is mediated by coalitions of synchronized cortical nerve cells and their associated targets in the satellites of the cortex, thalamus, amygdala, claustrum and basal ganglia....
From our footsteps to our button presses, humans are constantly expending energy, and researchers are tapping into these movements to power the world around us. Harvesting energy from one’s surroundings or activities rather than from a battery or a wall outlet has some key advantages: The electricity sources are free and the devices are more mobile. This is particularly useful for medical electronics like insulin pumps and pacemakers. Energy harvesters could also prolong battery life in smartphones and laptops....
Light is a wonderful medium for carrying information. Optical fibers now span the globe, guiding light signals that convey voluminous streams of voice communications and vast amounts of data. This gargantuan capacity has led some researchers to prophesy that photonic devices–which channel and manipulate visible light and other electromagnetic waves–could someday replace electronic circuits in microprocessors and other computer chips. Unfortunately, the size and performance of photonic devices are constrained by the diffraction limit; because of interference between closely spaced light waves, the width of an optical fiber carrying them must be at least half the light’s wavelength inside the material....
Starting in the mid-1980s, a serial killer murdered at least 10 women in the Los Angeles area. Nicknamed the “Grim Sleeper” because of the long dormancy between his crimes, he eluded capture for nearly 25 years. Then, in 2010, police arrested a man in California for what appeared to be a totally unrelated felony weapons charge. State law required the man to submit a DNA sample for a national DNA database....
Comedian Bernie Mac died on Saturday (August 9) of complications from pneumonia. In the coverage of his death, the media has reported that in 1983, doctors diagnosed him with a mysterious ailment called sarcoidosis. His publicist says that his three-week battle with pneumonia and his sarcoidosis were unrelated, and CNN reported earlier this week that Mac said his sarcoidosis had entered remission in 2005. But it can be fatal: Sarcoidosis of the heart and lungs was implicated in the death of pro football Hall of Famer, Reggie White, in 2004....
The new animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars picks up where Episode II: Attack of the Clones left off: Civil war has broken out in the Galactic Republic, which has mounted an army of cloned storm troopers to counter the Separatists and their legions of droids. The story focuses on the young but powerful Jedi, Anakin Skywalker, who along with his fellow lightsaber–slingers are battling the Separatists led by General Grievous and Count Dooku....
Submit your questions for the next round of Ask the Experts by clicking here and posting in the YouTube comments (Google account required). And while you’re there be sure to subscribe to our Spacelab channel for weekly videos on space and astronomy. The question with the most “likes” will be answered in the next video by a new guest expert. Previous episodes have featured astronomer Caleb Scharf, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and Scientific American’s own editor in chief, Mariette DiChristina....
IN 1984 KIRK BLOODSWORTH was convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl and sentenced to the gas chamber—an outcome that rested largely on the testimony of five eyewitnesses. After Bloodsworth served nine years in prison, DNA testing proved him to be innocent. Such devastating mistakes by eyewitnesses are not rare, according to a report by the Innocence Project, an organization affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University that uses DNA testing to exonerate those wrongfully convicted of crimes....
Leading military space strategy experts are pondering the role of cislunar space in the context of President Donald Trump’s plan to establish a U.S. Space Force. Just how valuable is that stretch of space between Earth and the moon’s orbit? Might this celestial real estate become hot property as an extension of military arenas in low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit, and geosynchronous orbit? Given forecasts of 21st-century activity on and around the moon by both private and government entities, could this be an economic area of development that needs protection in sthe years and decades to come?...
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Lexical lists are compilations of cuneiform signs and word readings written on clay tablets throughout Mesopotamia. From the late 4th millennium BCE up to the 1st century CE, scribal communities copied, modified, and passed on these cuneiform lexical lists and preserved them for as knowledge for a variety of purposes....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Margaret of Valois’ eyewitness account of St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is among the most famous and the only written record of the event left by a member of the royal family of France at the time. Her account appears in her memoirs as Letter V, describing the night before the massacre and the events she witnessed during it....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Agriculture arose independently at several locations across the world, beginning about 12,000 years ago. The first crops and livestock were domesticated in six rather diffuse areas including the Near East, China, Southeast Asia, and Africa in the Old World, and Mesoamerica, South America, and Northeastern North America in the New World....
Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Was Theodora I, the wife of Emperor Justinian of Byzantium (reigned 527 - 565 CE), a heroine? The historian Treadgold calls her a protectress of women, as she used her influence to help them gain rights. She is also seen in popular legend as a protector and defender of the poor and weak....
