Posts
May 20, 2013
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2:00 PM | FYI: Do Parasites Get Parasites?
Parasites of Parasites Science picture co/ Getty Images Parasites of parasites-sometimes called hyperparasites-seem to be quite common. In fact, parasites of parasites are themselves prone to parasites, leading to what might appear to be an endless progression of interspecies abuse. Studies in the lab and field have identified some of these elaborate, nested relationships. Last November, a team of researchers in the Netherlands published research on a wasp that lays its eggs inside a
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2:00 PM | FYI: Do Wind Farms Make It Less Windy?
Wind Turbines Giorgio Magini/ Getty Images Related: Do they change the surrounding temperature? Wind turbines extract kinetic energy from the air around them, and since less energy makes for weaker winds, turbines do indeed make it less windy. Technically speaking, the climate zone right behind a turbine (or behind all the turbines on a wind farm) experiences what's called a "wind speed vacuum," or a "momentum deficit." In other words, the air slows down. The effect has implications for
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April 24, 2013
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1:58 PM | FYI: Why Aren't Hovercraft More Useful?
The Hovercraft Dean Conger/National Geographic/Getty ImagesBlame the skirts. The inventor of the modern hovercraft, Christopher Cockerell, once imagined that his vehicle would cross the Atlantic at 100 miles per hour, an ocean liner coasting on air. While small hovercraft still serve a role in recreation and military landings, Cockerell's dream of hover liners is now defunct. The last significant commercial hovercraft service-which traversed the English Channel and carried 1.25 million
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April 10, 2013
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Warp Speeding Everett CollectionIt wouldn't feel like much of anything. If it were really possible to build a warp drive, using it wouldn't make you fly back into your seat as in a science-fiction movie. "Inside the spaceship, it would feel absolutely normal," says physicist Dave Goldberg of Drexel University. "You would be weightless, of course, because you wouldn't have any acceleration on you at all." That assumes you're on the inside of what's known as an Alcubierre Bubble-a hypothetical
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April 04, 2013
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7:00 PM | FYI: Do Lobotomies Work?
Side Effects bobbieo/Getty ImagesSurprisingly, yes. The modern lobotomy originated in the 1930s, when doctors realized that by severing fiber tracts connected to the frontal lobe, they could help patients overcome certain psychiatric problems, such as intractable depression and anxiety. Over the next two decades, the procedure would become simple and popular, completed by poking a sharpened tool above the eyeball. According to one study, about two thirds of patients showed improvement after
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March 20, 2013
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Eggsellent Pier/Getty ImagesShort answer: the egg. Chickens, as a species, became chickens through a long, slow process of evolution. At some point, a chicken-like bird produced an offspring that, due to some mutation in its DNA, crossed the threshold from mere chicken likeness into chicken actuality. That is to say, a proto-chicken gave birth to a real-life official chicken. And since that real-life official chicken came out of its own egg, we can say that the egg came first. Another way to
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March 01, 2013
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Thought Experiment George Marks/Retrofile/Getty ImagesIf it does, it's all in your head. The brain makes up about 1⁄50 of our body weight but consumes about one fifth of the oxygen we breathe. It's natural to assume that overtaxing the cerebrum would leave one feeling lethargic, but that's not quite true. The brain uses most of its energy just to maintain its baseline state; one tenth of our energy at rest goes to pumping sodium and potassium ions across brain-cell membranes, a simple process
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February 18, 2013
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Meteor Madness Adastra/Getty ImagesYes, but it takes a long, long time. Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through a field of cosmic debris. As that debris crosses into the Earth's atmosphere, each piece burns up, sometimes creating the blazing streaks of light we call shooting stars. These chunks of rock or ice are gone for good, so it's true that a meteor shower loses some of its material, or fuel, with every flurry. But there are ways for a shower to be replenished, says David
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January 31, 2013
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3:00 PM | The Genius Who Plays For A Living
Puzzle Master As a computer scientist, Erik Demaine uses math to model physical systems, particularly ones that fold. His work has informed biology, robotics, and design, but it all stems from the same impulse: having fun. JJ SulinCould the secret to breakthrough science be as simple as having fun? Just before he was old enough to vote but after he'd begun a doctorate in computer science, Erik Demaine arrived in New York City for the annual OrigamiUSA convention. He'd recently taken an interest
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January 24, 2013
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Snowball Fight Vintage Images/Getty Images The key is in surface moisture. Anyone who's tried to make a snowball understands the need for snow of just the right consistency. Start with powdery snow and a ball will fall apart. Start with slushy snow and it will turn into a hunk of ice. The key, then, to a killer snowball is to find snow that's in the perfect sticky state. According to Jordy Hendrikx, director of the Snow and Avalanche Laboratory at Montana State University, snow at subfreezing
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January 22, 2013
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Toxic Sight Rudi Sebastian/Getty Images The most dangerous pollutant might not even be known yet. That really depends on how you define pollutant. For the purposes of this column, let's put aside greenhouse gases and the eventual effects of climate change and focus on more tangible pollutants, starting with the ones that make their way from industry into communities nearby. A nonprofit group called the Blacksmith Institute reports on these at the end of every year. The group's most recent study
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December 03, 2012
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3:00 PM | FYI: What Makes Hair Curly?
Curly Hair Leonard McLane/Getty ImagesAnd what really makes curly hair different than straight hair? Why a strand of hair bends or falls the way it does may sound like a simple question, but the answer is rather convoluted. On one level, the texture of a person's hair derives from his or her genes. A 2009 study looked at the genetics of waves and curls and reported a heritability of between 85 and 95 percent. (That means about nine tenths of the variation in hair texture within the sample could
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November 21, 2012
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Preparing To Chow Down Superstock/Getty ImagesMost of the food weight and water retention disappears in time. Postprandial weight gain is all a matter of timing. In the short term-I mean the very short term-any food and drink that you put into your body will make you exactly that much heavier. Eat a pound of marshmallows, and you'll have added one pound to your mass, at least until your body starts to excrete the food or use it for energy. So until metabolic processes kick in, the amount you
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November 12, 2012
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Materials Varying In Hardness Wayne Scherr/Getty ImagesWe know diamonds are the hardest, but determining the softest stuff on the planet is complicated. Everyone knows the hardest material on Earth is diamond, says George Pharr, director of the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials at the University of Tennessee. But when it comes to the softest stuff on the planet, "there's no one definition," he says. Metallurgists and mineralogists might interpret "softness" to mean a material's tendency
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