Tag Archives: latest news
NASA Joins Euclid
The European Space Agency (ESA) has been joined by NASA in its Euclid mission, a space telescope scheduled to launch in 2020 in order to study both dark matter and dark energy in space. Only 4 percent of the universe is made up of the “normal” matter we can see and touch, so determining what makes up the other 96 … [ Read more ]
Dung Beetles Are Astronomers
Today’s edition of Current Biology features a story about dung beetles. Before you skip this, the remarkable aspect is that members of Scarabaeus satyrus are also astronomers who steer by starlight. More accurately, they steer by moonlight at night while by day they use the sun’s position as a reference point. “It’s just another example of how wonderful the animal … [ Read more ]
Online Engagement Needs To Be More Active, Less Passive
In May 2012, after the discovery of the mummified body of former B-movie star Yvette Vickers, author Stephen Marche wrote a thoughtful piece for The Atlantic titled “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” Vickers had been dead for almost a year when her body was found, and Marche noted that as she grew older and her world shrunk, she had turned … [ Read more ]
Asteroid Mining A Reality
Approximately 1,000 small asteroids reasonably close to the earth are discovered every year, and after Planetary Resources, a Bellevue, Washington-based company announced a program last year that would seek out asteroids to mine their resources, a second company has followed suit. California-based Deep Space Industries will be sending a 55-pound (25-kg) hitchhiker spacecraft aboard a commercial rocket to mine nearby … [ Read more ]
How High Will The Oceans Rise?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its fifth report on climate change later this year, and a leaked draft document already features some alarming figures, with sea levels predicted to rise by 56cm to 96cm by 2100, with a rise of between 8mm and 15mm a year over the century’s final decade. While these are unsettling numbers, … [ Read more ]
ADHD Diagnoses Rise
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurobehavioral disorders of childhood, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, leading to health care costs of between $36 billion and $52 billion per year. A new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics (formerly Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine) has revealed a dramatic rise in … [ Read more ]
Boost For Life Beyond Earth
Two separate pieces of good news today for those dreaming of life beyond earth: planetary scientists at NASA have announced the potentially exciting news that an impact crater on Mars may have once been a standing lake fed by groundwater, while entirely separately, a paper in the journal Astrobiology outlines the prospects for life on extrasolar planets. First, Mars. McLaughlin … [ Read more ]
Perceived Threats Make Us… Kinder?
There are two distinct aspects of this Arizona State University study published in the October 2012 issue of Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes. Analyzing data from 54 countries, the study discovered that the more a nation spent on its military, the more its citizens were self-reportedly pleasant and agreeable, which led to the slightly counter-intuitive conclusion that feeling threatened makes … [ Read more ]
Julius Caesar Stabbing Site Pinpointed In Rome
Archeologists from the Spanish National Research Council believe they have found the precise spot where Julius Caesar was stabbed in Rome–and what they think happened is pretty dramatic. The scientists said in a written statement that they found a concrete structure, about three meters wide, inside the Pompey’s Theater in Rome’s historic Torre Argentina square. This new research notes where … [ Read more ]
Coffee Linked to Vision Loss
A new Harvard study has discovered a high incidence of vision problems among men and women who drank three or more cups of coffee a day. The research, published in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, linked heavy consumption of caffeinated coffee with increased likelihood of developing exfoliation glaucoma, an eye disorder that affects about 10 percent of adults over age … [ Read more ]
