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Using Nanostructured Photonic Materials, Outer Space Can Replace Some Air Conditioners

Using Nanostructured Photonic Materials, Outer Space Can Replace Some Air Conditioners

Rather than Draconian measures to cut emissions, which will impact people in various regions and economic spheres unfairly, a better solution may be to simply keep places cooler on hot days, which will reduce fuel needed for air conditioning.And outer space can help, Stanford researchers say. They designed an entirely new form of cooling structure that cools even when the sun is shining - by reflecting sunlight back into the chilly vacuum of space. 

Nitrate Can Take A Decade To Affect Water Quality

Nitrate Can Take A Decade To Affect Water Quality

The movement of nitrate through groundwater to streams can take decades to occur and that long lag time means that changes in the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer (the typical source of nitrate) may take decades to be fully observed in streams, according to a recent study.Water quality experts have been noting in recent years that nitrate trends in streams and rivers do not match their expectations based on reduced regional use of nitrogen-based fertilizer.  The long travel times of groundwater discharge, like those documented in this study, have previously been suggested as the likely factor responsible for these observations.

Utricularia Gibba: Carnivorous Plant Deletes Its Own Noncoding "Junk" DNA

Utricularia Gibba: Carnivorous Plant Deletes Its Own Noncoding "Junk" DNA

The large majority of non-coding DNA, which is abundant in many living things, may not actually be needed for complex life in at least one carnivorous plant, Utricularia gibba, according to a paper in Nature.
U. gibba,  the carnivorous bladderwort plant, genome is the smallest ever to be sequenced from a complex, multicellular plant. The researchers who sequenced it say that 97 percent of the genome consists of genes — bits of DNA that code for proteins — and small pieces of DNA that control those genes.

Capitalism Kills Morality - And So Does Socialism, Say Economists

Capitalism Kills Morality - And So Does Socialism, Say Economists

Do you support unions, a minimum wage, dislike business and hate child labor and then tell all of your friends on your iPhone?
People rationalize moral standards when it comes to their own lives, say economists writing in Science. It's easy to lament child labor and exploitation of the work force but if you are not willing to pay $2,000 for a phone, you are part of the problem and Tweeting about social issues on that phone helps precisely no one but corporate shareholders.

Justinian Plague Of The Dark Ages Caused By Yersinia Pestis Bacterium

Justinian Plague Of The Dark Ages Caused By Yersinia Pestis Bacterium

'Pestilence', widespread outbreaks of deadly contagious disease, are known throughout history. In popular translations of the Christian Bible, Pestilence is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Today we call them pandemics but they are nothing like plagues of old, when up to 33% of a population was eradicated, like during the Black Death of the 14th century.

Medieval Dunwich: Britain's Atlantis Revealed

Medieval Dunwich: Britain's Atlantis Revealed

Using advanced underwater imaging techniques, one of the most detailed analysis ever of the archaeological remains of the lost medieval town of Dunwich - 'Britain's Atlantis' - have been revealed.

Mithraic Mysteries And The Elephant's Tomb In Carmona

Mithraic Mysteries And The Elephant's Tomb In Carmona

The Carmona necropolis in Spain is a collection of funeral structures built between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. One of them is known as the Elephant's Tomb because a statue in the shape of an elephant was found in the interior of the structure.

Cirrus Clouds And The Mineral Dust And Metallic Aerosols That Seed Them

Cirrus Clouds And The Mineral Dust And Metallic Aerosols That Seed Them

Cirrus clouds, the thin wisps of vapor that coalesce in the upper layers of the troposphere and trail across the sky, often more than 10 miles above the Earth's surface, influence our global climate, cooling the planet by reflecting incoming solar radiation and warming it by trapping outgoing heat.
Understanding the mechanisms by which these clouds form would help scientists make accurate predictions about future climate patterns.

The Carbonaceous Chondrite Common History Of Earth And Moon Water

The Carbonaceous Chondrite Common History Of Earth And Moon Water

Water found on the moon and Earth came from small meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites in the first 100 million years or so after the solar system formed, according to researchers who found evidence in samples of moon dust returned by lunar crews of Apollo 15 and 17.
Comets did not deliver the molecules, they conclude in their Science Express article.
The discovery's telltale sign is found in the ratio of an isotopic form of hydrogen, deuterium, to standard hydrogen. The ratio in the Earth's water and in water from specks of volcanic glass trapped in crystals within moon dust match the ratio found in the chondrites. The proportions are far different from those in comet water. 

Not Just Football Or Basketball - Scientists Demonstrate Pear-Shaped Atomic Nuclei

Not Just Football Or Basketball - Scientists Demonstrate Pear-Shaped Atomic Nuclei

While school-age models of atomic nuclei show them as being spherical, like a basketball, they are more like the shape of a football. 
Yet for some particular combinations of protons and neutrons, nuclei can also assume very asymmetric shapes, like a pear, where there is more mass at one end of the nucleus than the other.