News Articles

Despite media reports to the contrary, there is no evidence to support the assertion that smoking in cars is 23 times more toxic than in other indoor environments, say researchers writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). The authors say citing the inaccurate statistic has the potential to turn the public against efforts to ban smoking in automobiles. And If you're going to dictate to people how they should behave, not making things up is an important precursor.  The CMAJ article describes how a local media report of an unsourced statistic — that "second-hand smoke was "23 times more toxic in a vehicle than in a home" — led to widespread reporting of the figure in international media and peer-reviewed literature.

Sociological theory has previously linked black urban decline to poverty,  loss of manufacturing jobs and racial segregation. A new study in Social Forces claims another factor should be added into the dense cluster of black disadvantage – harsh immigration policies, which inadvertently flood low skill markets with Latino labor, displace blacks and, as a result, raise the rates of black murder.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Levant Basin Province, in the Eastern Mediterranean region, holds 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas.They say the province holds more natural gas resources than any region so far assessed in the United States. Some natural gas accumulations in the United States include the Southwestern Wyoming Province with an estimated 85 tcf, the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Province with 73 tcf, and the Appalachian Basin Province of the eastern United States and the Western Gulf Basin Province of Texas and Louisiana, each with 70 tcf.

Researchers writing in Science have discovered a remarkable amount of plasticity in how transcription factors, the proteins that bind to DNA to control the activation of genes, maintained their function over 300 million years of evolution. They say that sequence conservation is not the whole story when it comes to maintaining tissue-specific gene regulation.Scientists believe that transcription factors recognize the genes that they regulate by binding to short, sequence-specific lengths of DNA upstream or downstream of their target genes. It was widely assumed that, like the sequences of the genes themselves, these transcription factor binding sites would be highly conserved throughout evolution. However, this turns out not to be the case in mammals.

Inexpensive wireless sensors based on nanotechnology could be used to alert engineers to problematic damage to buildings, bridges, and other structures before they become critical, according to a study in the Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity.As a proof of concept, researchers have developed and evaluated two types of wireless devices for the remote monitoring of concrete structures. The devices are sensors based on microelectromechanical systems, MEMS, and were designed to monitor temperature and moisture within concrete.

Supervolcanoes have been blamed for multiple mass extinctions in Earth's history. But despite their global impact, their origin and triggering mechanisms have remained unexplained. New data obtained during a recent Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) expedition in the Pacific Ocean may help explain the sea floor giants' origins. In fall 2009, an international team of scientists participating in IODP Expedition 324 drilled five sites in the ocean floor. They studied the origin of the 145 million-year-old Shatsky Rise volcanic mountain chain. Located 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Japan, Shatsky Rise measures roughly the size of California.

Governments of developing countries have done a fantastic job managing international aid money. Today, 44% of international health aid money cannot be traced in the budgets of the receiving countries. While many assume that the money disappears into somebody's pockets, it is unclear when nor on what it has been spent.

Scientist with the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA say that Venus is still geologically active. The Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) aboard the ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has identified relatively young lava flows that suggests the planet remains capable of volcanic eruptions.ESA researchers were able to determine the relative age of the flows based on how they react  with Venus' atmosphere. On Earth, lava flows react rapidly with oxygen and other elements in the atmosphere, changing their composition. On Venus, the process should be similar, though more intense because of the hotter, denser atmosphere, chiefly of carbon dioxide. 

The surging number of autism diagnoses is driven in part by social interaction between parents, according to a study published in the American Journal of Sociology.The study found that children living near a child who has been previously diagnosed with autism have a much higher chance of being diagnosed themselves in the following year, mainly because of parents learning about autism from other parents who have a child diagnosed with the disorder.

The Hubble space telescope has snapped a spectacular image of Messier 66, the largest "player" of the Leo Triplet, and a galaxy with an unusual anatomy: it displays asymmetric spiral arms and an apparently displaced core. The peculiar anatomy is most likely caused by the gravitational pull of the other two members of the trio. The unusual spiral galaxy, Messier 66, is located at a distance of about 35 million light-years in the constellation of Leo. Together with Messier 65 and NGC 3628, Messier 66 is one third of the Leo Triplet, a trio of interacting spiral galaxies, part of the larger Messier 66 group. Messier 66 wins out in size over its fellow triplets — it is about 100 000 light-years across.

Researchers have drastically increased the toughness of a T-shirt by combining the carbon in the shirt’s cotton with boron – the third hardest material on earth. The result is a lightweight shirt reinforced with boron carbide, the same material used to protect tanks.Scientists dipped plain, white T-shirts that were cut into thin strips into a boron solution. The strips were later removed from the solution and heated in an oven. The heat changed the cotton fibers into carbon fibers, which reacted with the boron solution and produced boron carbide.

Europe's first mission dedicated to studying the Earth's ice, CryoSat-2, was launched today from Kazakhstan. From its polar orbit, the satellite will send back data leading to new insights into how ice is responding to climate change and the role it plays in our 'Earth system'.CryoSat-2 replaces the original CryoSat satellite that was lost in 2005 owing to a launch failure. The mission objectives, however, remain the same: to measure changes in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that overlie Antarctica and Greenland, as well as variations in the thickness of the relatively thin ice floating in the polar oceans.