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TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima power plant, shut its last operating nuclear reactor on Monday for regular maintenance, leaving just one running reactor supplying Japan's creaking power sector. Japan has 54 reactors, but since the tsunami last March triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima plant, it has been unable to restart any reactors that have undergone maintenance due to public safety concerns. Tepco said it shutdown the No.6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, the world's biggest nuclear power plant, raising concerns about a power crunch this summer when electricity demand peaks due to hot weather.

By Ron Cowen of Nature magazine A chemical analysis of lunar rocks may force scientists to revise the leading theory for the Moon's formation: that the satellite was born when a Mars-sized body smacked into the infant Earth some 4.5 billion years ago. If that were the case, the Moon ought to bear the chemical signature of both Earth and its proposed 'second' parent.

By Ron Cowen of Nature magazine A chemical analysis of lunar rocks may force scientists to revise the leading theory for the Moon's formation: that the satellite was born when a Mars-sized body smacked into the infant Earth some 4.5 billion years ago. If that were the case, the Moon ought to bear the chemical signature of both Earth and its proposed 'second' parent. [More]

You can almost hear the law of unintended consequences at work among the flora and fauna of northwestern New Mexico. [More]

What are the structural differences in the brain between animals that are self-aware (humans, apes) and other vertebrates? [More]

On Tuesday, March 19 th , Alan Jacobs posted a technology article for The Atlantic titled Jobs of the Future: A Skeptic’s Response . In the article, he voices his doubts that a skillset promoted by the internet and social networking would usher in a new wave of future employment: Where are these jobs that will require such rapid “searching, browsing, assessing quality, and synthesizing the vast quantities of information”?

Sleep has many functions--including facilitating learning. [More]

A mouse’s nerve cell has broken open to showcase vibrantly colored sacs, which house its neuro transmitters, the chemical messengers neurons use to communicate with one another and with other cells. [More]

[First, you may want to read The Promise & Perils of Pinterest by Glendon and Pinterest Terms of Service: Word by Terrifying Word by Kalliopi. There's also a Link Round-Up on The Flying Trilobite.] [More]

Opera and classical music can relax you – and maybe your immune system, if results with mice extend to us. Because mice that got heart transplants and who listened to opera and classical music had better outcomes than those exposed to other sounds. The work is in the Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

A few months ago, I went to a talk by a health economist. How many of you think cost will factor into your decision-making with patients?

THE WOODLANDS, Tex.--Today's Mars is a frigid desert, a place where water--the key to life as we know it--has gone into hiding. Whatever water may have once existed on Mars in rivers, lakes or even oceans is now frozen into ice caps, locked up in hydrated minerals or buried in debris-coated glaciers

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Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us (John Wiley & Sons, 2012), by Maggie Koerth-Baker. [More]

The Social Conquest of Earth [More]