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In the race to catch drug cheats, sports officials are turning to more sophisticated tests. Since cheaters are rarely caught red-handed, scientists devised a plan to catch them with the packaging — inside their bodies. But a plasticizer is so ubiquitous in people that it has clouded the results of these blood doping tests in the world of professional cycling. Alberto Contador, a three-time Tour de France champion from Spain, was found guilty of doping Monday after he tested positive in 2010 for a performance-enhancing drug....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Augustus is well known for being the first Emperor of Rome, but even more than that, for being a self-proclaimed “Restorer of the Republic.” He believed in ancestral values such as monogamy, chastity, and piety (virtue). Thus, he introduced a number of moral and political reforms in order to improve Roman society and formulate a new Roman government and lifestyle....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. A Very Useful Epistle (Epistre tres utile, 1539) is an open letter by the female reformer Marie Dentière (l. c. 1495-1561) to Marguerite of Navarre (l. 1492-1549) advocating for a greater role for women in the work of the Protestant Reformation. The letter was suppressed by the city council of Geneva, and Dentière’s arguments were ignored by male reformers....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Although many Christians, theologians, and denominations have advocated for the idea that all biblical texts within the canon are one in spirit, authority, and ultimate authorship, not every reader of the Bible has come to the same conclusion, historically. During the formation of the early Christian church, some heterodox readers suggested that there was a potential juxtaposition between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament....

ByGwyneth Dickey Zakaib of Nature magazine it Parker doesn’t just study traumatic brain injury in the lab, he’s also seen it at close range while serving in Afghanistan. He has since made it his mission to untangle the mechanisms that underlie the brain’s response to jarring injuries, which often result from proximity to an explosion. After the initial impact, the connections between nerve cells in the brain retract and sometimes the blood vessels constrict (vasospasm)....

Blockbuster has admitted defeat in the DVD-rental business. Parent company Dish announced Wednesday that it will shut down all remaining company-owned Blockbuster stores in the United States by early January 2014. The closure will affect around 300 remaining retail outlets as well as the company’s distribution centers. The Blockbuster By Mail service will be cut off in mid-December. Only franchised and licensed stores in the US and abroad will keep their doors open....

Based on the findings of an independent review panel, NASA has taken stock of its fleet of orbiting astrophysics telescopes and decided which to save and which to shutter. Among the winners were the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Kepler planet-hunting telescope, which will begin a modified mission designed to compensate for the recent failure of two of its four stabilizing reaction wheels. The infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, however, may be deactivated due to lack of funding....

By Sid Perkins of Nature magazineClimate change could increase the number of large wildfires in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, and the surrounding region in the coming decades. That could change the balance of species in some forests and convert others to meadows or grasslands, says a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.In many parts of the western United States, especially those blanketed with conifer forests, raging wildfires are part of the landscape....

House subcommittee chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (center) will preside over today’s hearing to discuss updating a 1986 privacy law. A proposal backed by Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, and other companies is scheduled to be discussed along with law enforcement-backed proposals.(Credit:U.S. House of Representatives)AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to capture and store Americans’ confidential text messages, according to a proposal that will be presented to a congressional panel today....

Venus may have once possessed strange oceans of carbon dioxide fluid that helped shape the planet’s surface, researchers say. Venus is often described as Earth’s twin planet because it is the world closest to Earth in size, mass, distance and chemical makeup. However, whereas Earth is a haven for life, Venus is typically described as hellish, with a crushing atmosphere and clouds of corrosive sulfuric acid floating over a rocky desert surface hot enough to melt lead....

You may never forget how to ride a bicycle, but should you forget your helmet when you hop on your two-wheeler? About a year ago a psychologist at the University of Bath in England announced the results of a study in which he played both researcher and guinea pig. An avid cyclist, Ian Walker had heard several complaints from fellow riders that wearing a helmet seemed to result in bike riders receiving far less room to maneuver—effectively increasing the chances of an accident....

Two hundred years ago the remarkable Dr. David Livingstone was born in the small village of Blantyre, Scotland. His family was poor, and he started work in a cotton mill at the age of 10. His life as a laborer did not prevent him from the Herculean task (for a poor man) of pursuing the study of medicine, and at the age of 23 he entered Anderson College in Glasgow....

The earth’s soil stores a lot of carbon from the atmosphere, and managing it with the climate in mind may be an important part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature. “Climate-smart” soil management, primarily on land used for agriculture, can be part of an overall greenhouse gas reduction strategy that includes other efforts like carbon sequestration and reducing fossil fuel emissions, the paper’s authors said....

I am a mass murderer of squid. I have cut off more Loligo pealei heads than you, and watched those heads writhe around in a bucket for a good three or four minutes post-decapitation—all in the name of federally funded science. My squid-murdering days were back in the late 1990s, as a teenager in Woods Hole, Mass. I worked for a couple of summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory, an internationally renowned independent research institute famous for its basic science work; in particular on marine model animals like squid (which have a couple of easy-to-study giant nerve cells that I dissected out hundreds of times), lobsters, sharks and many others....

By Kevin Murphy Feb 8 (Reuters) - Boston and other areas of the Northeast, already buried under about a yard of snow, braced for up to two more feet through early Tuesday while more rain and high winds were in store for parts of the Pacific coast, forecasters said on Sunday. The National Weather Service predicted a “long duration snow event” in Boston and surrounding areas of New England and issued a winter storm warning through 1 a....

Dear EarthTalk: Why were some environmental Web sites blacked out all day back on June 4? Was this some sort of protest or did they get hacked?—Ned Cooper, Detroit It wasn’t hackers this time. In fact, a group of environmental and social justice organizations representing millions of Canadians blacked out their websites for 24 hours this past June 4 to protest efforts by Canada’s conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to push through a budget bill that would significantly weaken environmental protections....

HOUSTON — NASA’s last space shuttle ever to visit the International Space Station cast off from the orbiting lab early Tuesday (July 19) to begin one final trip back to Earth. Atlantis launched July 8 on the 135th and last voyage of NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program. The orbiter delivered four astronauts and a horde of spare parts for the space laboratory, and is now packed full of trash to take back to Earth....

Productivity and equity are probably the most often cited reasons to attend to diversity in science. Gender and culture also affect the science itself, however. They influence what we choose to study, our perspectives when we approach scientific phenomena and our strategies for studying them. When we enter the world of science, we do not shed our cultural practices at the door. Evolutionary biology is one example. Despite popular images of Jane Goodall observing chimpanzees, almost all early studies of primate behavior were conducted by men....

Parents often complain that their children are spending increasing amounts of time playing computer-based video games. Kids get together and just sit in front of a computer or a television with a gaming console, and they do not talk to each. They just watch the screen, which is probably damaging to their eye sight. They don’t get out enough and do not get enough exercise. Etc. What is all this video gaming doing to young brains?...

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Speed alone may be the factor that draws many sports fans to the bobsled, luge and skeleton events at this year’s Beijing Winter Olympics. But beneath the thrilling descents of the winding, ice-covered track, a myriad of concepts from physics are at play. It is how the athletes react to the physics that ultimately determines the fastest runs from the rest of the pack....