Los Angeles is known for many things – Hollywood, of course, and glitz. A history of smog and choking traffic. Now comes another distinction
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Feed SubscriptionThe Asian Longhorned Beetle: Hopefully Not Coming to a Neighborhood Near You
Burncoat Street is a wide, suburban avenue above the industrial center of Worcester, Massachusetts. Lined with single-family clapboard and brick houses, churches, an elementary and a high school, Burncoat Street is a typical New England neighborhood
Read More »Fukushima Will Be Wasteland
“We are definitely in uncharted waters, particularly given that the spent fuel pool appears to either not have water or have very little water.
Read More »Social media for science: Geological perspective
Last week, I spent a pleasant hour over lunch talking to my 60-year-old aunt and her 80-something husband about "this Twitter thing" and how one defines a blog. They had heard that social media had played a role in the protests in Egypt and wanted to learn more. Good students, they nodded and asked questions as I showed them the screens and tools on my computer in a restaurant chosen mostly because it had wi-fi
Read More »Which Way Is the Future?
If you had four pictures of a person at different ages, how would you lay them out in chronological order? As an English speaker, you would almost certainly put childhood scenes on the left and pictures from old age on the right. But if you spoke another language, you might arrange the photos in a column or even from east to west
Read More »A New Mom’s Changing Brain
A new mother’s body goes through many changes--among them, key parts of her brain get bigger, according to research reported in October’s Behavioral Neuroscience .
Read More »The Smallest Mind
Researchers have come a step closer to gaining complete control over a mind, even if that mind is smaller than a grain of sand. A team at Harvard University has built a computerized system to manipulate worms--making them start and stop, giving them the sensation of being touched, and even prompting them to lay eggs--
Read More »Nuclear Cover Up: World’s Largest Movable Structure to Seal the Wrecked Chernobyl Reactor
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine--Imagine a metal arch taller than the Statue of Liberty. Now picture it sliding a distance of roughly three football fields, making it the largest movable structure ever .
Read More »How Weather Could Link Japan Radiation to U.S.
Serious nuclear incidents that followed Friday's catastrophic Japan earthquake has raised fears of radiation leakage, a weather-dependent matter that could have a far-reaching impact. [More]
Read More »Female Hormone Could Be Key to Male Contraceptive
By Ewen Callaway A sperm's path to an egg is more a deadly obstacle course than a track sprint. [More]
Read More »Radiation’s Complications: Pinning Health Problems on a Nuclear Disaster Isn’t So Easy
KIEV, Ukraine--In 1986 the worst nuclear accident in history took place when reactor No. 4 in the power plant at nearby Chernobyl exploded, spewing large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Now, almost 25 years later, the lesson that scientists are learning is that radiation might not be the only cause of this disaster's long-term medical effects, and perhaps not even the main one.
Read More »Rwanda Investigating Adult Male Circumcision sans Anesthesia
The African nation of Rwanda recently set a goal of circumcising an estimated two million adult men by the end of 2012 to fight the spread of HIV, and is investigating a new nonsurgical device that is said to allow practitioners to perform the procedure in less than four minutes--without anesthesia. The patent pending PrePex device includes an elastic mechanism that fits around an inner ring, trapping the penis foreskin--the loose fold of skin that covers its glans--which cuts its blood supply
Read More »House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming
Congress has finally acted on global warming--by denying it exists.
Read More »Workers Battle Fukushima Nuclear Crisis at Personal Risk
Braving explosions and invisible hydrogen fires as well as bursts of radiation at least eight times higher than government hourly safety standards, a cohort of 50 or so workers has returned to the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. The workers represent the last line of defense in cooling the overheating reactors and spent fuel pools, such as reactor No
Read More »Fast Facts about Radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactors
Since a magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan and set loose a massive tsunami March 11, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been scrambling to avert a nuclear disaster at its hardest hit plant. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, home to six nuclear reactors, has witnessed explosions at three reactors and a fire in a spent-fuel pool at a fourth. At two reactors, units No.
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