If you’ve been near a garden lately, chances are your nose has picked up on the unmistakable scent of the roses in full-bloom in many places right now. The sight of the rose certainly holds a great amount of symbolic meaning in cultures throughout the world, though it can be argued that smell is even more important. According to an article on the "attar" or fragrant oils of the rose in the May 1921 Scientific American Supplement , “Supreme among the charms of the rose is its exquisite and haunting fragrance, a fragrance at once delicate and powerful…Small wonder that the ancients felt the perfume to be the soul of the rose…” [More]
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Feed SubscriptionTroubled Probe Upholds Einstein
By Eugenie Samuel Reich of Nature magazine An epic victory over daunting challenges, or a costly project that should never have flown? After nearly half a century of work and US$750 million spent, Gravity Probe B, one of NASA's longest-running mission programs, has finally achieved some scientific closure. [More]
Read More »Can Renewables Power the World? IPCC Thinks So
UNITED NATIONS -- The world's leading climate change research organization issued a report yesterday that has renewable energy boosters cheering, as it foresees substantial growth in alternative energy sources over the next 40 years.
Read More »When, and why, did everyone stop eating gluten?
Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease in which the ingestion of gluten induces enteropathy, or inflammation of the gut, in genetically susceptible individuals. This destruction of the gut means that nutrients cannot be absorbed, leading to a variety of clinical symptoms: anemia due to the lack of iron, atherosclerosis due to the lack of calcium, failure to thrive in children, and GI stress, among others.
Read More »Psychologists Put "Character" Under the Microscope — and it Vanishes
What can science reveal about our “character” -- that core of good, or evil, that shapes our moral behavior? The answer, according to a new book, is that there may not be much of a core, after all.
Read More »Chile OKs divisive mega hydroelectric dam project
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile gave the green light on Monday to the divisive $3.5 billion HidroAysen hydro-power dam project that promises to ease energy squeezes, despite objections that it will ruin pristine Patagonian valleys.
Read More »Deadline Pressure Distorts Our Sense of Time
This time of year is deadline season for many people.
Read More »Japan nuclear evacuees face stark reality, unsure future
By Shinichi Saoshiro KAWAUCHI, May 10 (Reuters) - Residents of a Japanese village [More]
Read More »Corals Find an Effective Way to Spawn Despite Being Cemented in Place
It is hard to court the opposite sex when you are cemented in place, which explains why polyps--the tiny creatures whose exoskeletons form corals--do not reproduce by mating. Instead they cast millions of sperm and eggs into the sea, where they drift up to the ocean surface, collide, form larvae and float away to form new coral reefs
Read More »Sink or Swim: Muscle versus Fat
Key concepts Density [More]
Read More »Arctic nations eye future of world’s last frontier
By Andrew Quinn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of Arctic nations gather in Greenland this week to chart future cooperation as global warming sets off a race for oil, mineral, fishing and shipping opportunities in the world's fragile final frontier.
Read More »Arctic nations eye future of world’s last frontier
By Andrew Quinn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of Arctic nations gather in Greenland this week to chart future cooperation as global warming sets off a race for oil, mineral, fishing and shipping opportunities in the world's fragile final frontier. [More]
Read More »Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas Pollutes Water Wells
Drilling for natural gas is booming in Pennsylvania--thanks to fracturing shale rock with a water and chemical cocktail paired with the ability to drill in any direction. Despite homeowner complaints, however, research on how such hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is impacting local water wells has not kept pace. Now a new study that sampled water from 60 such wells has found evidence for natural gas–contamination in those within a kilometer of a new natural gas well.
Read More »Array of Hope: Australia and South Africa Vie for Massive Radio Telescope Project
MURCHISON SHIRE, Western Australia--The pilot of the eight-passenger Cessna turboprop lines up the nose of his plane with a red-dirt landing strip ahead, a band of cleared Earth not all that different from the flat, sparsely vegetated terrain below.
Read More »Renewables Could Be 80 Percent of Energy by 2050
By Stanley Carvalho ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Renewable sources such as solar, wind and hydropower could fulfill almost 80 percent of the world's energy demand by 2050 with the right policies, according to a U.N. report which won backing from governments on Monday.
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