Science News

[zombie67]

Ebola: As a desease, it is pretty pathetic. Sure, its symptoms are spectacular. But it can't be spread through the air, and requires contact with someone's bodily fluids. So the rate at which it spreads is pathetic. In 2014 outbreak, as of July 2014 more than 1320 cases have been identified globally. For comparison, the plain old flu spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in about three to five million yearly cases of severe illness and about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths, rising to millions in some pandemic years. That is about 100+ times as many deaths is a light year as ebola. Now that's a respectable disease! Or look at drowning. From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day. An additional 347 people died each year from drowning in boating-related incidents.

(most of that was grabbed from wiki and cdc)

Isn't it odd what grabs our attention?

[Duke of Buckingham]

Ebola: As a desease, it is pretty pathetic. Sure, its symptoms are spectacular. But it can't be spread through the air, and requires contact with someone's bodily fluids. So the rate at which it spreads is pathetic. In 2014 outbreak, as of July 2014 more than 1320 cases have been identified globally. For comparison, the plain old flu spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in about three to five million yearly cases of severe illness and about 250,000 to 500,000 yearly deaths, rising to millions in some pandemic years. That is about 100+ times as many deaths is a light year as ebola. Now that's a respectable disease! Or look at drowning. From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day. An additional 347 people died each year from drowning in boating-related incidents.

(most of that was grabbed from wiki and cdc)

Isn't it odd what grabs our attention?

That is true zombie67, other point of view about virus is the potential for evolution and some seem to have more than others like flu, as an example. Some virus are potentially very dangerous because of that capability of small changes in their DNA. If Ebola could switch to infect people as an air borne virus that could be very problematic, but I agree with you, in this stage it seems personally dangerous in spite of the means it uses for contaminate new hosts.


What Do Great Musicians Have in Common? DNA
New study shows it’s a myth that a lot of practice will necessarily bring greatness
Aug 5, 2014 |By Bret Stetka


Genetics plays a powerful role in shaping our abilities
Credit: Thinkstock

At age 13, jazz great Thelonious Monk ran into trouble at Harlem's Apollo Theater. The reason: he was too good. The famously precocious pianist was, as they say, a “natural,” and by that point had won the Apollo’s amateur competition so many times that he was barred from re-entering. To be sure, Monk practiced, a lot actually. But two new studies, and the fact that he taught himself to read music as a child before taking a single lesson, suggest that he likely had plenty of help from his genes.

The question of what accounts for the vast variability in people’s aptitudes for skilled and creative pursuits goes way back — are experts born with their skill, or do they acquire it? Victorian polymath Sir Francis Galton — coiner of the phrase "nature and nurture" and founder of the “eugenics” movement through which he hoped to improve the biological make-up of the human species through selective coupling — held the former view, noting that certain talents run in families.

Other thinkers, perhaps more ethically palatable than Galton ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20140806

[Duke of Buckingham]

Net Loss: Is the Internet Killing Solitude and Downtime?
In his new book, The End of Absence, journalist Michael Harris explains why we should save room for “nothingness”
Jul 15, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

Credit: Thinkstock

When it comes to information and connection, we rarely want for anything these days. And that’s a problem, argues journalist Michael Harris in his new book The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (Current, August 2014). Harris suggests that modern technology, especially the smartphone, has taken certain kinds of absence from our lives—it has eliminated our time for solitude and daydreaming, and filled even short moments of quiet with interruptions and distractions. Harris worries that these “absences” have fundamental value in human lives, and maintains that we ought to try to hold on to them.

Certain generations alive today will be the last to remember what life was like before the Internet. It is these generations who are uniquely able to ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar..._TECH_20140812

[Duke of Buckingham]

Genius, Suicide and Mental Illness: Insights into a Deep Connection
The death of actor Robin Williams has raised questions about creativity, bipolar disorder and possible new treatments against profound despair
Aug 12, 2014

Bering in Mind
Being Suicidal: What It Feels Like to Want to Kill Yourself
Suicide, an “escape from the self,” is driven by a flash flood of strong emotions, not rational, philosophical thoughts

Does some fine madness plague great artists? Several studies show that creativity and mood disorders are linked, finds Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University who battled bipolar disorder since her early adulthood.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/re...SA_MB_20140813

[Duke of Buckingham]

Biology Student Faces Jail Time for Publishing Scientist's Thesis on Scribd
The thesis, about amphibian taxonomy, was posted with the intention of helping fellow students with their fieldwork, but prosecutors say the move was criminal
Aug 14, 2014 |By David Reay and Nature News Blog
Originally posted on the Nature news blog
Posted on behalf of Michele Catanzaro


A poisonous Cauca frog
A poisonous Cauca frog and focus of the thesis by Diego Gómez Hoyos.
Credit: Mauricio Rivera Correa via Wikimedia Commons

A Colombian biology student is facing up to 8 years in jail and a fine for sharing a thesis by another scientist on a social network.

Diego Gómez Hoyos posted the 2006 work, about amphibian taxonomy, on Scribd in 2011. An undergraduate at the time, he had hoped that it would help fellow students with their fieldwork. But two years later, in 2013, he was notified that the author of the thesis was suing him for violating copyright laws. His case has now been taken up by the Karisma Foundation, a human rights organization in Bogotá, which has launched a campaign called “Sharing is not a crime”.

“It is a really awful, disturbing case ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_SP_20140818

Dinosaur Feathers Came before Birds and Flight
A long-cherished view of how and why feathers evolved has now been overturned
By Richard O. Prum and Alan H. Brush

on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...A_EVO_20140818

[Duke of Buckingham]

1,000-Robot Swarm Created by Researchers
The tiny troupe could shed light on collective behavior in animals and humans
Aug 14, 2014 |By Mark Zastrow and Nature magazine


Tiny robots called Kilobots can form different shapes by collective action.
Credit: MICHAEL RUBINSTEIN/HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Scientists have created a swarm of over a thousand coin-sized robots that can assemble themselves into two-dimensional shapes by communicating with their neighbours.

At 1,024 members, this man-made flock — described in the August 15 issue of Science — is the largest yet to demonstrate collective behaviour. The self-organization techniques used by the tiny machines could aid the development of 'transformer' robots that reconfigure themselves, researchers say, and they might shed light on how complex swarms form in nature.

The puck-shaped robots, called Kilobots, cost roughly $20 each and are programmed with a simple set of rules and an image of the shape to be formed. To begin with, the robots are ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar..._TECH_20140819


More Parents Nixing Anti-Bleeding Shots for Their Newborns
Vitamin K injections, given after birth, can prevent potentially fatal hemorrhaging in infants, but anti-vax parents are extending their fears into a general rejection of all shots
Aug 19, 2014 |By Tara Haelle


A tiny percentage of parents have always declined the shot but the numbers are growing, according to a new study.
Credit: Thinkstock

All babies lack sufficient vitamin K at birth, putting them at risk for severe bleeding in the brain or intestines until they get the vitamin by eating solid foods, typically around six months of age. The vitamin is essential for blood clotting, and a vitamin K injection after birth eliminates this bleeding risk.

A tiny percentage of parents have always declined the shot but the numbers are growing, according to a new study. The research also found ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar..._HLTH_20140819

[Duke of Buckingham]

Is Fluoride in Private Wells Causing an IQ Decline?
Excess fluoride, which may damage both brain and bone, is leaching out of granite and into Maine's drinking water—and potentially other New England states
Aug 20, 2014 |By Dina Fine Maron


Credit: NYC.gov

Locals call it the “Switzerland of Maine” for its breathtaking mountains and picturesque waters, yet Dedham is just one of a cadre of communities in The Pine Tree State where tap water may not be as safe as it appears.

Like the majority of the state, many of Dedham’s denizens rely on private wells for the water they drink, bathe in and perhaps use to make infant milk formula. But the water trickling from the tap—unlike water from its public water sources—goes untested and is not subject to any state or federal guidelines. And although homeowners are encouraged to get their water regularly tested to ensure that worrisome levels of bacteria or naturally occurring minerals have not crept in, many residents do not follow that advice.

Yet newly available data, released in recent months, indicates that in some 10 communities ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20140820


The New Science of Human Origins
Awash in fresh insights, scientists have had to revise virtually every chapter of the human story
By Kate Wong

Through the Post Box, up the Dragon's Back, down the Chute and over to the Puzzle Box. Last fall the world followed, via tweets, blogs and videos, as scientists negotiated these fancifully named landmarks of the underground system of caves known as Rising Star just outside Johannesburg, South Africa. The tight squeezes and steep drops made for difficult, dangerous work. The researchers, however, had their eyes on the prize: fossilized remains of an extinct member of the human family. Paleoanthropological fieldwork is usually done in secret, but this time the scientists posted thrilling multimedia missives along the way for all to see.

Cavers had spotted the bones in September while surveying the lesser-known caves of the famed Cradle of Humankind region. Researchers were certain the bones were ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20140820

[Duke of Buckingham]

Special Evolution Issue: Humanity’s Journey
Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina introduces the September 2014 issue of Scientific American
Aug 19, 2014 |By Mariette DiChristina


Mariette DiChristina
Credit: Nick Higgins

As I type, I am in the cavernlike McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. Frank Sinatra is crooning through the speakers. People are bustling along with their bags, tucking into a sandwich before boarding for their flights and, of course, foolishly dropping their hard-earned money into the ringing, glowing slot machines. I've just come from giving a keynote at the Amaz!ng Meeting, the annual gathering of evidence-based thinkers run by the James Randi Educational Foundation. The irony of the location for such a meeting is not lost on me. At. All.

Not for the first time, I'm marveling at how some seemingly unremarkable primates evolved into ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...A_EVO_20140825


The New Science of Human Origins
Awash in fresh insights, scientists have had to revise virtually every chapter of the human story



On http://www.scientificamerican.com/ed...A_EVO_20140825

[Duke of Buckingham]

Multitasking Gene May Help Drone Operators Control Robotic Swarms
A genetic variant that keeps dopamine levels high could lead to personalized training and also benefit personnel in ERs and air traffic control towers
Aug 26, 2014 |By Jeremy Hsu

Munitions are loaded onto a drone at a Nevada air base. Controlling these drones, especially in battle, can pose a complex challenge.
Credit: U.S. Air Force

For thousands of years generals such as Caesar and Napoleon have molded citizens into soldiers en masse by using the same drills and training techniques for everyone. A recent study suggests how genetic testing could enable more personalized training for today's drone operators who remotely control missile-armed Predators and Reapers.

The small study, funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, looked at how different variants of the catechol-O-methyltransferase, or COMT, gene affected people’s multitasking performances. The gene makes an enzyme that breaks down certain neurochemicals such as ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20140827


Do You Know a Fat Dog When You See One?

By Julie Hecht | August 26, 2014 |

We’ve all met dogs with a small head and large body who bear a striking resemblance to the people with shrunken heads from the movie Beetlejuice. Some dogs naturally come with this particular head-to-body ratio, but for others, it’s often man-made.

Yes. Some dogs are overweight. Peter Sandøe, professor of bioethics at the University of Copenhagen, estimates that about one third of companion dogs in developed countries are overweight. On top of that, Sandøe suggests that “more than one in 20 is obese.”

Over in the UK, fat dogs are receiving ...

More on http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...n-you-see-one/

[Duke of Buckingham]

Strange Neutrinos from the Sun Detected for the First Time
An underground neutrino detector has found particles produced by the fusion of two protons in the sun’s core
Aug 27, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

The Borexino neutrino detector uses a sphere filled with liquid scintillator that emits light when excited. This inner vessel is surrounded by layers of shielding and by about 2,000 photomultiplier tubes to detect the light flashes.
Borexino Collaboration

Deep inside the sun pairs of protons fuse to form heavier atoms, releasing mysterious particles called neutrinos in the process. These reactions are thought to be the first step in the chain responsible for 99 percent of the energy the sun radiates, but scientists have never found proof until now. For the first time, physicists have captured the elusive neutrinos produced by the sun’s basic proton fusion reactions.

Earth should be teeming with such neutrinos—calculations suggest about 420 billion of them stream from the sun onto every square inch of our planet’s surface each second—yet ...

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...A_SPC_20140828


Can Humans Cause Earthquakes? - Instant Egghead
August 25, 2014 |

We're digging deeper into Earth's crust than we ever have before, pulling water up and pumping it down. As Scientific American editor David Biello explains, these are just a few of the many ways humans are triggering severe seismic activity.

More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/vi...GYSUS_20140828