By Joan Gralla (Reuters) - While Pennsylvania, northwestern Louisiana and gas-rich areas around the Gulf of Mexico are losing jobs and revenue as the fracking industry shrinks after a price collapse, oil-rich North Dakota and Texas are in the midst of a boom. Other winners in the fracking lottery include central and southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Wyoming, where the economy is expanding and revenues are climbing.
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Feed SubscriptionGene Linked to Increased Risk of PTSD
By Mo Costandi of Nature magazine European researchers have identified a gene that is linked to improved memory, but also to increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dominique de Quervain of the University of Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues recruited around 700 healthy young volunteers, obtaining DNA samples from them to analyze the sequence of their PRKCA gene.
Read More »What Are Science’s Ugliest Experiments?
When I teach history of science at Stevens Institute of Technology, I devote plenty of time to science’s glories, the kinds of achievements that my buddy George Johnson wrote about in The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)
Read More »Prime Suspect: Did the Science Consultant Do It?
It’s no secret that Jen-Luc Piquant is a huge fan of the TV series Bones , and last week’s episode was particularly amusing because it poked fun at Hollywood and science consultants. Entitled “The Suit on the Set,” the plot brought Booth and Brennan to Tinsel Town to visit the set of a fictional movie being made of Brennan’s (equally fictional) bestselling novel
Read More »Astronomers Detect Smallish Exoplanet’s Infrared Glow
Here’s a hot topic: astronomers have detected infrared radiation from a faraway planet not much bigger than our own. [More]
Read More »Google-Backed Wind Power Line Clears Hurdle
(Reuters) - A planned $5 billion transmission line to send power from wind farms off the East Coast cleared a hurdle, allowing the Google Inc-backed project to move to the next step in the approval process, officials said. The Department of the Interior declared on Monday there was "no overlapping competitive interest" in proposed areas for building the line off the mid-Altantic coast. [More]
Read More »Know Your Neurons: The Discovery and Naming of the Neuron
Different Types of Neurons (click to enlarge). A. Purkinje cell B
Read More »Look, Computer, No Hands!
It's common for us to address our computers using hand gestures, although many convey frustration and may involve a single finger. In the future, however, sign language could become an effective way of surfing the Web, managing files or manipulating virtual objects on screen. [More]
Read More »Asian Demand Forecasts Boom for Coal
China will widen its gap with the United States as the world's largest coal-producing country by the end of the decade, riding continued strong demand from its electric power and steel-making sectors, according to a new analysis from New York-based GBI Research. [More]
Read More »Research opens doors to UV disinfection using LED technology
Research from North Carolina State University will allow the development of energy-efficient LED devices that use ultraviolet (UV) light to kill pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. The technology has a wide array of applications ranging from drinking-water treatment to sterilizing surgical tools.
Read More »Spin polarized supercurrents optimized with a simple flip
(Phys.org) -- Researchers from Michigan State University, the NIST Center for Neutron Research, and the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology have discovered the key to controlling and enhancing the lossless flow of a current with a single electron spin state in a standard superconducting device.
Read More »The new world of gamma-ray optics
Scientists discover that certain materials like silicon or gold exhibit a surprisingly large refractive index for extremely high energetic gamma-rays.
Read More »Time to Can the Round Numbers
Ever notice that we ve got a thing for round numbers? We like our data neat and tidy. The world of ocean pollution and litter prevention is filled with nice round numbers
Read More »A physicist and an inventor
As a boy growing up in Croatia, Marin Soljacic wanted to be an inventor. But he wasnt interested only in designing new products; he wanted to discover physical phenomena that would enable completely new technologies.
Read More »Livestock bacteria are as old as the livestock they kill
Aurochs were the ancestors of domestic cattle.
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