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  1. #221
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    Re: Science News


    5 Hard Questions about Emerging Technologies We Can’t Afford Not to Ask
    In the near future access to information and new technology may make profits and privacy obsolete, and force us to redefine the boundaries between humanity and machines
    November 12, 2014 |By Kristel van der Elst


    Which economic systems will be most successful in providing equal access to the social and economic benefits of technology?
    Credit: U.S. Marine Corps via flickr


    SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology.

    Editor’s note: This week the World Economic Forum is holding its Global Agenda Council meetings in Dubai. More than 1,000 experts (including Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina) have gathered to discuss big world problems such as climate change, poverty, water shortages, energy and innovation. This is the last in a series of articles by WEF’s Kristel van der Elst, head of Strategic Foresight, on discussions that have taken place in the past year under the Forum’s auspices about ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar..._TECH_20141118



    What Impact Will Emerging Technologies Have on Geopolitics?
    By Fred Guterl | November 12, 2014 |



    The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council meetings are going on this week in Dubai. More than 1000 experts (including Scientific American editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina) have gathered to discuss big world problems such as climate change, poverty, water shortages, energy and innovation. Here we are publishing a series on discussions that have taken place in the past year under the Forum’s auspices about emerging technologies, written by WEF’s Kristel van der Elst, Head of Strategic Foresight (her first was this article on impacts to society). Here is her piece on impacts to geopolitics.

    Four geopolitical questions we can’t avoid when we think about emerging technologies


    by Kristel van der Elst, World Economic Forum

    Not so far in the future, resources might no longer be closely linked to territories, it might be possible to visualize another person’s thoughts and predict the actions and decisions of world leaders before they act. What would this mean for our geopolitical landscape? ...

    Read more on http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...n-geopolitics/
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    Tongue Shocks Hasten Healing
    Electrically stimulating the tongue may help repair neural damage
    Oct 16, 2014 |By Esther Hsieh


    RADIO

    A little-known fact: the tongue is directly connected to the brain stem. This anatomical feature is now being harnessed by scientists to improve rehabilitation.

    A team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison recently found that electrically stimulating the tongue can help patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) improve their gait. MS is an incurable disease in which the insulation around the nerves becomes damaged, disrupting the communication between body and brain. One symptom is loss of muscle control.

    In a study published in the Journal of Neuro-Engineering and Rehabilitation, Wisconsin neuroscientist ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20141119



    Learning About Your Family’s Elevated Alzheimer’s Risk—as Early as Age 8
    By Gary Stix | November 15, 2014 |


    Hugo, a participant in a pioneering Colombian drug trial, along with two nieces, Mariana and Daniela.

    A Colombian university is providing regular workshops on brain basics and genetics to grade schoolers from families who face a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s in the prime of life from a rare genetic mutation. The “talleres” set up by the University of Antioquia in Medellin attempt to prepare these youngsters for the all-too-frequent possibility of a mother or father starting to lose their memories just before the age of 50, marking the beginning of a relentless decline that results in their deaths 10 years or so later.

    In the course of these educational sessions, the youngsters also learn the unsettling information that they, too, risk becoming the next generation of patients. The Colombian department of Antioquia has the largest group in the world of relatives at risk for familial Alzheimer’s. In this form of the disease, inheritance of a genetic mutation from even one parent means that a person is virtually destined to get Alzheimer’s at an early age. The so-called paisa genetic mutation—nicknamed for the people of Antioquia and surrounding areas—changes the way ...

    Read more on http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...-as-age-eight/
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    7 Solutions to Climate Change Happening Now
    Even as the world continues to spew more carbon pollution, change has begun—and is accelerating
    November 17, 2014 |By David Biello


    Clean Energy Boom: Big dams and little solar panels like these in China are helping produce electricity with less greenhouse pollution, one of several solutions to climate change advancing around the world.
    © David Biello


    A man who once flew all the way to Copenhagen from Washington, D.C., just to tell journalists that climate change wasn't that big a deal is likely now to return to lead (or at least strongly influence) the environment committee of the U.S. Senate. As Sen. James Inhofe (R–Okla.) said at that time, in December 2009, he came to Copenhagen to "make sure that nobody is laboring under the misconception that the U.S. Senate is going to do something" about climate change. His thinking likely will not change by 2015; in fact, Inhofe has already decried the new U.S.–China climate agreement as a "nonbinding charade."

    Even though the U.S. is responsible for the largest share of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the country will not be able to ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...GYSUS_20141120



    A Wacky Jet Stream Is Making Our Weather Severe
    Extreme summers and winters of the past four years could become the norm
    By Jeff Masters

    From November 2013 through January 2014, the jet stream took on a remarkably extreme and persistent shape over North America and Europe. This global river of eastward-flowing winds high in the atmosphere dipped farther south than usual across the eastern U.S., allowing the notorious “polar vortex” of frigid air swirling over the Arctic to plunge southward, putting the eastern two thirds of the country into a deep freeze. Ice cover on the Great Lakes reached ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...GYSUS_20141120
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    Neutrinos on Ice: How to Build a Balloon
    By Katie Mulrey | November 15, 2014 | Comments2


    Panorama view of Mount Erebus. (Photo credit: Christian Miki)

    Editor’s Note: Welcome to ANITA, the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna! From October to December, Katie Mulrey is traveling with the ANITA collaboration to Antarctica to build and launch ANITA III, a scientific balloon that uses the entire continent of Antarctica for neutrino and cosmic ray detection. This is the third installment in a series, “Neutrinos on Ice,” documenting that effort.

    It has officially been two weeks since we’ve seen the sun set! It’s been surprisingly easy to get into a routine here. We work seven days a week to make sure ANITA will be ready on time ...

    Read more on http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...ild-a-balloon/



    A Day in the Life of an Ebola Worker
    Denial, violence and fear make it difficult to stamp out Ebola in west Africa
    November 21, 2014 |By Dina Fine Maron


    Community health workers and volunteers are an essential part of the Ebola response in Liberia.
    Credit: Morgana Wingard/ UNDP/Flickr


    Rebecca Robinson does not wear gloves on the job. A misstep while removing them, she says, could increase the risk of infecting herself with Ebola. Instead, she dons a rain jacket and boots and clutches a bottle of hand sanitizer as she travels by motorbike from house to house in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia. Her objective: to help trace the complex web of Ebola’s spread and to instruct apparently healthy people who may have had contact with an infected person to stay home for 21 days. Such quarantines, the Liberian government says, are a precautionary step to keep the virus from potentially moving even farther afield.

    Robinson is one of the thousands of people working to quell the Ebola epidemic in west Africa through an age-old public health practice called contact tracing. She interviews people who may have potentially been exposed to others infected with the virus and ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_BS_20141121
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    Hydrogen May Prove Fuel of the Future
    Will the most common molecule in the universe make for pollution-free cars?
    November 18, 2014 |By Julia Pyper and ClimateWire


    Hyundai ix35 hydrogen fuel cell car.
    Credit: Revolve Eco-Rally via flickr


    First of a three-part series.

    Humans have harnessed hydrogen for a variety of applications, from blasting rockets into space to making common household products like toothpaste. Now, after decades of development, hydrogen is about to find its way into the family car.

    In June, Hyundai Motor Co. began leasing its Tucson Fuel Cell and has pledged to produce 1,000 units globally by 2015. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. will start sales of their next-generation fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) next year. Yesterday, Toyota released a video showing the Mirai, its first commercial fuel cell car.

    Several other automakers are aiming to release fuel cell cars in 2017.

    One benefit is that FCVs ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_SP_20141124



    4 Workers Killed at DuPont Chemical Plant
    Methyl mercaptan leak appears to be responsible for the deaths at the industrial accident site in Texas
    November 18, 2014 |By Andrea Widener and Chemical & Engineering News


    The DuPont facility, located east of Houston, uses methyl mercaptan to manufacture insecticides and fungicides, according to CSB. However, the chemical is more widely known as the additive in natural gas that gives it a distinctive rotten cabbage smell.
    Credit: KHOU TV


    Investigators from the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) are in Texas probing an apparent chemical leak that killed four workers and injured a fifth at a DuPont plant in La Porte, Texas.

    The workers probably died from exposure to methyl mercaptan while responding to a valve leak around 4 AM on Nov. 15, DuPont said in a statement. The community around the plant was not at risk, the company adds.

    “Our goal in investigating this accident is to determine the root cause and make recommendations to prevent any similar accidents throughout the industry,” CSB Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso says.

    Methyl mercaptan is a ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_SP_20141124
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    Can China Cut Coal?
    By David Biello | November 25, 2014 | Comments2


    An old coal-fired power plant on the banks of the Yangtze River. © David Biello

    On a visit to China a few years back, I asked a local official about pollution controls after enjoying my first sour, gritty taste of the country’s air. China’s new coal-fired power plants and other industrial boilers often came equipped with expensive scrubbers to clean acid rain and smog-forming sulfur dioxide out of the hot mix of gases that went up and out the smokestack. But the scrubbers required energy to run, this official noted, and therefore were shut off except on days when dignitaries (or foreign journalists) visited.

    According to Hu Tao, an ecologist and environmental economist who directs the China program ...

    Read more on http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...hina-cut-coal/



    Cities to the Rescue
    As nations dither on meaningful steps to combat climate change, localities are stepping in with their own measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases
    Nov 18, 2014 |By David Biello


    The People's Climate March in New York City brought thousands to the streets.
    GETTY IMAGES


    In the city that never sleeps, the lights burn all night. And New York City needs energy for those lights, as well as for heating, air-conditioning and many other services. To meet these demands, the Big Apple belched nearly 60 million metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in 2005.

    Eight years later, despite a rise in population and new construction, emissions of greenhouse gas pollution had dropped by more than 11 million metric tons. How did Gotham manage to go so green? By banning the dirtiest oil used for heating and benefiting from a switch to natural gas for generating electricity.

    New York is not alone in taking climate change seriously. Cities across the globe are ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...GYSUS_20141127
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    Electron Beam Points to Origins of Teotihuacan Stone Faces
    New microscope analysis of artifacts from the ancient city also can find fakes in museums
    November 20, 2014 |By Josh Fischman


    Courtesy Smithsonian

    Dramatic stone masks, iconic finds in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan, were supposed to be made from a jadelike stone. Many researchers also thought the large faces were made on the site of the pre-Columbian metropolis. Instead, they seem to have been made in workshops a great distance to the south of the city. And they are made of softer stone like serpentinite and polished with quartz. Quartz does not appear around Teotihuacan, bolstering the notion that the masks were made far away. “Almost everything that has been written about the making of the Teotihuacan masks is untrue,” says Jane Walsh, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

    New details about the manufacture of these old and valuable masks are coming to light, thanks to modern technology: a special analytical scanning electron microscope that can identify the atoms and minerals that make up the stone, and show ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_BS_20141128



    The Secret to a Successful Thanksgiving: Free Will
    Psychologists examine where gratitude comes from
    November 25, 2014 |By Piercarlo Valdesolo


    I appreciate that you had a choice
    Credit: Thinkstock


    Google “successful Thanksgiving” and you will get a lot of different recommendations. Most you’ve probably heard before: plan ahead, get help, follow certain recipes. But according to new research from Florida State University, enjoying your holiday also requires a key ingredient that few guests consider as they wait to dive face first into the turkey: a belief in free will. What does free will have to do with whether or not Aunt Sally leaves the table in a huff? These researchers argue that belief in free will is essential to experiencing the emotional state that makes Thanksgiving actually about giving thanks: gratitude.

    Previous research has shown that our level of gratitude for an act depends on three things: ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_BS_20141128
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    DNA Can Survive Reentry from Space
    Genetic blueprints attached to a rocket survived a short spaceflight and later passed on their biological instructions
    November 26, 2014 |By Dina Fine Maron


    Credit: Stockbyte Royalty Free Photos

    If a cascade of meteors struck Earth billions of years ago, could they have deposited genetic blueprints and forged an indelible link between Earth and another planet?

    Perhaps. Although that puzzling question remains unanswered, scientists have uncovered a new clue that suggests it is possible for DNA to withstand the extreme heat and pressure it would encounter when entering our atmosphere from space.

    In a new study published today in PLOS ONE, a team of Swiss and German scientists report that they dotted the exterior grooves of a rocket with fragments of DNA to test the genetic material’s stability in space. Surprisingly, they discovered that ...

    More on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...A_EVO_20141201
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    Re: Science News


    DNA Can Survive Reentry from Space
    Genetic blueprints attached to a rocket survived a short spaceflight and later passed on their biological instructions
    November 26, 2014 |By Dina Fine Maron


    Credit: Stockbyte Royalty Free Photos

    If a cascade of meteors struck Earth billions of years ago, could they have deposited genetic blueprints and forged an indelible link between Earth and another planet?

    Perhaps. Although that puzzling question remains unanswered, scientists have uncovered a new clue that suggests it is possible for DNA to withstand the extreme heat and pressure it would encounter when entering our atmosphere from space.

    In a new study published today in PLOS ONE, a team of Swiss and German scientists report that they dotted the exterior grooves of a rocket with fragments of DNA to test the genetic material’s stability in space. Surprisingly, they discovered that ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar..._HLTH_20141202



    Is the Blood of Ebola Survivors an Effective Treatment?
    By Dina Fine Maron | December 1, 2014 | Comments2


    Credit: PhotoDisc/ Getty Images

    When the World Health Organization recently named blood transfusions from Ebola survivors as its priority experimental therapy for the disease ravaging west Africa there was only one major problem: no data indicating that such transfusions work. Blood plasma from survivors contains antibodies that could potentially trigger an immune system response in patients, which would bolster their ability to fight the virus, but clinical data suggesting it has helped patients beat back the virus does not exist.

    In the absence of any other approved therapy or vaccine for Ebola, however ...

    Read more on http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...ive-treatment/
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    Brain Training Doesn’t Make You Smarter
    Scientists doubt claims from brain training companies
    December 2, 2014 |By David Z. Hambrick


    Try exercise
    Credit: Thinkstock


    If you’ve spent more than about 5 minutes surfing the web, listening to the radio, or watching TV in the past few years, you will know that cognitive training—better known as “brain training”—is one of the hottest new trends in self improvement. Lumosity, which offers web-based tasks designed to improve cognitive abilities such as memory and attention, boasts 50 million subscribers and advertises on National Public Radio. Cogmed claims to be “a computer-based solution for attention problems caused by poor working memory,” and BrainHQ will help you “make the most of your unique brain.” The promise of all of these products, implied or explicit, is that brain training can make you smarter—and make your life better.

    Yet, according to a statement released by the Stanford University Center on Longevity and the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Development, there is no solid scientific evidence to ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20141203



    Photons Double Up to Help Us See Beyond the Visible Light Spectrum
    Our little-known ability to see infrared light could occur when pairs of photons combine their energies to appear as one "visible" photon
    December 2, 2014 |By Katharine Sanderson and Nature magazine


    Although we do not have X-ray vision like Superman, we have what could seem to be another superpower: we can see infrared light — beyond what was traditionally considered the visible spectrum.
    Credit: Sam Bald via Flickr


    Although we do not have X-ray vision like Superman, we have what could seem to be another superpower: we can see infrared light — beyond what was traditionally considered the visible spectrum. A series of experiments now suggests that this little-known, puzzling effect could occur when pairs of infrared photons simultaneously hit the same pigment protein in the eye, providing enough energy to set in motion chemical changes that allow us to see the light.

    Received wisdom, and the known chemistry of vision, say that human eyes can see light with wavelengths between 400 (blue) and 720 nanometres (red). Although this range is still officially known as the 'visible spectrum', the advent of lasers ...

    Read more on http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...SA_MB_20141203
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