Gallup: Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop.
“In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question.”
NY Times: Switching to Grass-Fed Beef.
”Beef from grass-fed animals has lower levels of unhealthy fats and higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are better for cardiovascular health. Grass-fed beef also has lower levels of dietary cholesterol and offers more vitamins A and E as well as antioxidants.”
Miller-McCune: Get Your Nose Out of That Book.
“At long last, scientists have developed a ‘sniff test’ to measure the telltale aroma of old books and irreplaceable historical documents. You know the smell — that ‘combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness,’ as the authors put it. Inhale and smell the Industrial Revolution!” A Kindle or iPad will never attractively pong ... unfortunately.
Discovery News: Animal Suicide Sheds Light on Human Behavior.
”Organisms of all sorts are known to self-destruct in one way or another, usually in order to protect their relatives — and so to save their genes.” One’s mind runs to lemmings, but that dogs and other animals would do so ... that’s new to me. That horribly abused animals might have a voluntary ‘out’, actually brightens my perceptions.
Miller-McCune: Sparking Creativity Via Multiculturalism, Thinking Like a Child.
“Looking at practical applications, the researchers suggest games and ’guided imagery exercises designed to facilitate a childlike mindset‘ could help foster originality in both the classroom and the workplace.” I look at the photographs I used to take in early high school, and still remain in awe of my simple curiousity and natural ability to gather graphical shapes into B&W;photos. Perhaps I shouldn’t chase that muse, but just try to reimagine the world as a 9th grader would.
New Scientist: The green revolution sweeps into the bathroom.
And here I was just posing a question the other day, where the recycling, self-cleaning toilets of the 21st century were. Not there yet, but at least someone’s *thinking* about it. Bonus points go to this article for the link to using dog poop as fuel.
Guardian.UK: Libel tourism is a public health risk.
“Libel laws have good reason to exist — to stop irresponsible reporting. However, British laws so favour one side they are used to intimidate journalists in other countries — ‘libel tourism.’ A US citizen can write for a US paper and be called up before courts here.” Laws that reach beyond borders ... lovely. As if we don’t have enough libel/liability problems here in the US already.
YouTube: Ant Superhighway.
Wow. Like an iceberg, it’s all about what lies beneath.
NY Times: P.S.A. prostate screening is inaccurate and a waste of money.
“Last year, The New England Journal of Medicine published results from the two largest studies of the screening procedure, one in Europe and one in the United States. The results from the American study show that over a period of 7 to 10 years, screening did not reduce the death rate in men 55 and over.” [Note: I always keep an eye on prostate issues because we believe my grandfather died of prostate cancer. We can’t be sure, but I believe in ‘safe’ over ‘sorry.’]
WSJ: TV Host Silvano Vinceti Probes History’s Coldest Cases.
“For many months, Mr. Vinceti and a team of scientists have been exhuming remains they believe are Caravaggio’s in hopes of performing a belated autopsy. After digging up dozens of bodies, Mr. Vinceti has narrowed the field to a handful of long-buried corpses.” Lovely.
Jalopnik: Dude, Where’s My Flying Car?
Ah, finally ... someone delivers.
Discover: The Earth *Really* Moved.
“Studying precise GPS images of the area struck by the quake, a team led by earth scientist Mike Bevis discovered that the Chilean city of Concepción had moved 10 feet to the west. The epicenter of the quake was 71 miles northeast of Concepción, which is Chile’s second largest city.” Cued for your listening pleasure.
Reuters: Tax soda, pizza to cut obesity, researchers say.
SF Gate: Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin, evolution.
“If I’m planning to write a curriculum, and I want to write it in a way that will appeal to home-schoolers, I’m going to at least find out what my demographic is.” Once again, capitalism doesn’t give a damn about what is right ... only about what is profitable. Simple social responsibility would dictate that you’d want to encourage kids to have the tools they need to create the next engineering or scientific marvels, raising us all up ... instead, they’re being primped as Wal-Mart cart corral managers.
Newsweek: Turkey: Archeological Dig Reshaping Human History.
”The site isn’t just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture — the first embers of civilization.”
BBC News: Dinosaur extinction link to crater confirmed.
“The explosion of hot rock and gas would have looked like a huge ball of fire on the horizon, grilling any living creature in the immediate vicinity that couldn’t find shelter. [snip] The final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs happened when blasted material was ejected at high velocity into the atmosphere. This shrouded the planet in darkness and caused a global winter, killing off many species that couldn’t adapt to this hellish environment.” Cue Pat Benatar.
NY Times: Study Says Undersea Release of Methane Is Under Way.
“Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the university and a leader of the study, said it was too soon to say whether the findings suggest that a dangerous release of methane looms. In a telephone news conference, she said researchers are only beginning to track the movement of this methane into the atmosphere as the undersea permafrost that traps it degrades.”
EurekAlert!: A magnetometer in the upper beak of birds?
”More than about 500 dendrites in the periphery encode the magnetic field information, which is composed in the central nervous system to a magnetic map. It obviously does not matter, whether birds use this magnetic map for their long distance orientation or do not — the equipment can be found in migratory birds, like robin and garden warbler, and well as in domestic chicken.” Now I wonder why we have the old saying, “follow your nose” ...
The Nation: Back Talk: Martha C. Nussbaum.
“Disgust, though, is different because it has this singular type of irrationality. It’s not noncognitive; it has an idea. But the idea repudiates some aspect of ourselves. It embodies a kind of self-loathing.”
NY Times: Human Culture Plays a Role in Natural Selection.
“The best evidence available to Dr. Boyd and Dr. Richerson for culture being a selective force was the lactose tolerance found in many northern Europeans. Most people switch off the gene that digests the lactose in milk shortly after they are weaned, but in northern Europeans — the descendants of an ancient cattle-rearing culture that emerged in the region some 6,000 years ago — the gene is kept switched on in adulthood.” I imagine this makes lactose intolerant individuals feel less isolated.
Discover Magazine: Etched Ostrich Eggs Give Window on Stone Age Humans’ Symbolic Thinking.
“A cache of ostrich eggshell fragments discovered by archaeologists in South Africa could be instrumental in understanding how humans approached art and symbolism as early as the Stone Age. The eggshells, engraved with geometric designs, may indicate the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers [Discovery News].” So, artists are actually ... the original eggheads?
BBC News: Human gut microbes hold ‘second genome’.
”There is a huge diversity. We have about 100 times more microbial genes than human genes in the body. We also have 10 times more bacterial cells in our body than human cells.” There’s a fungus among us. I tell you, if I had things to do over again, I’d go into bacterial research.
Discover: Female Dung Beetles Evolved Elaborate Horns to Fight for the Choicest Poop.
This begs for a few choice puns, but I fear I’ll be gored to death for committing them.
Wired Science: Backpack Hydroelectric Plant Gives You 500 Watts on the Move.
30 pounds. Not bad, all in all. Plenty of year-round mountain streams around here to tap.
BusinessWeek: Virgin to test rocket-powered spaceship next year.
“Meanwhile, Virgin is working to finish a launch site in New Mexico, which this week enacted a law that aims to promote commercial space flight by requiring passengers to give their consent and be informed of the risks involved.” Hey, if you’ve got any extra seats, I’ll write here about the experience ...
