Topic: Science & Technology

Suspected family of contaminants are used in nonstick coatings and as additives in a wide variety of goods including cookware, furniture fabrics, carpets, food packaging, fire-fighting foams and cosmetics.

The same chemicals that keep food from sticking to our frying pans and stains from setting in our carpets are damaging the livers and impairing the immune systems of loggerhead turtles—an environmental health impact that also may signal a danger for humans.

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NIST research biologist Jennifer M. Keller taking a blood sample from a loggerhead turtle as part of her study looking at the health impacts of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) on the endangered marine reptile.

What does the condensation and freezing of water have in common with the activity patterns of neurons in the human brain? The same rules of physics that govern molecules as they condense from gas to liquid, or freeze from liquid to solid, also apply to the activity patterns of neurons in the human brain..

The same rules of physics that govern molecules as they condense from gas to liquid, or freeze from liquid to solid, also apply to the activity patterns of neurons in the human brain. University of Chicago mathematician Jack Cowan offered this and related insights on the physics of brain activity last week in Boston during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Jack Cowan, Professor of Mathematics and Neurology at the University of Chicago. He works primarily to understand the workings of the brain, using mathematical theory to understand how neural circuits generate stable patterns of activity.

As vast and far-reaching as the world’s oceans are, every square kilometer is affected by human activities, according to a study in the journal Science by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and others.

An international team of scientists has integrated global data from 17 aspects of global change – from overfishing to global warming – that threaten 20 different marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs and continental shelves, to create a global threat map of the oceans. Similar to an online satellite map that lets you add layers of highways, retail stores, schools, parks, etc., to find the most congested areas or the highest concentration of fast food restaurants, the global threat map highlights areas in the ocean where threats overlap.

It seems that the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has gone hareless. No jack rabbit sightings can be confirmed in Yellowstone since 1991, and only three in Grand Teton since 1978.

A new study by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society found that jack rabbits living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have apparently hopped into oblivion. The study, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Oryx, also speculates that the disappearance of jack rabbits may be having region-wide impacts on a variety of other prey species and their predators.

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Jack rabbits like this one have mysteriously vanished from Yellowstone National Park a Wildlife Conservation Society study says.

Through the miracle of the Internet, you can now watch in on an ongoing Egyptian excavation. As Walter Cronkite once said, "You are there."

Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and her team are again sharing their work with the world through an online diary, a digital window into the day-to-day life on an archaeological expedition.

A new species of dinosaur found in Mexico is giving scientists some clues about what life was like when reptiles ruled the earth.

A new species of dinosaur unearthed in Mexico is giving scientists fresh insights into the ancient history of western North America, according to an international research team led by scientists from the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.

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Artist's rendering of what Velafrons coahuilensis, the new duck-billed dinosaur from
Mexico, would have looked like.

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.

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An illustration explaining Georgia Tech's plan for a sustainablecarbon economy for vehicles and other small engines.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a iota of good news on the global warming front. Some scientists think there may be a natural thermostat the keep already warm ocean waters from getting even warmer. Unfortunately, this is only a maybe. Even the scientists aren't sure.

Natural processes may prevent oceans from warming beyond a certain point, helping protect some coral reefs from the impacts of climate change, new research finds. The study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), finds evidence that an ocean "thermostat" appears to be helping to regulate sea-surface temperatures in a biologically diverse region of the western Pacific.

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The Western Pacific Warm Pool, which lies northeast of Australia, contains some of the warmest ocean waters in the world. Water temperatures in the warm pool have risen less than elsewhere in the tropics, which may explain why reefs there have experienced less coral bleaching.

Climate mechanism could explain 1940s crash that led to demise of Cannery Row on the Monterey Peninsula.

The mid-20th century crash of the sardine fishery off California for decades has vexed marine ecologists searching for the root causes of large fluctuations in the sardine population. Before its collapse, the fishery was one of the world’s most productive and formed the setting of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row in Monterey, Calif.

A new book by prize-winning scientist James Trefil makes the case for scientific literacy in today's society.

In the midst of presidential primary session, it seems the list of topics in which we want our nation's next president to be well-versed is endless - the economy, the Iraq War, global warming, the price of oil, health care, the war in Afghanistan, science… Why science?

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