In the 1980s, scientists captured the precise mechanics of a protein machine. It looked strange, to researchers its tall thin structure with stubby legs invoked the enchanted broomstick that stole the show in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Disney's 1940 Fantasia film.
America talks a lot about body image, but only as it relates to girls. The war on thin women is in full swing, obesity is all the rage. Even lingerie companies have plus-sized models and when a European engineer wore a shirt that a female artist friend made for his birthday, America was outraged - because it had thin women on it.
Yet these movements are one-sided, to a point they might be considered sexist. Young males are the forgotten demographic, even though a new study finds that up to 25% of boys are on diets, whether they need them or not. Almost one third of male adolescents inaccurately perceive their own weight.
Vegetable juice ice-melt? Ice-free pavement? "Smart snowplows"?
Cold-climate researchers at Washington State University are clearing the road with 'green' alternatives to salt.
In the 1960s, there was talk of a dystopian future where the masses starved because the ghost of Malthus came home to roost and the world could no longer feed its people.
Instead, Norm Borlaug and science ushered in a "Green Revolution" and countries that embrace science, like America, have reduced environmental strain while producing more food than ever dreamed possible. One other interesting effect the boost in agriculture has had: changing the amplitude of atmospheric carbon dioxide by about 15 percent during the last five decades.
A new atmospheric model called VEGAS estimates that on average, the amplitude of the seasonal oscillation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at the rate of 0.3 percent every year.
The Earth has a magnetic field that functions as an in-built force-field against galactic cosmic rays, particles from space which prompt a chain-reaction of events in thunderclouds that trigger lightning bolts.
The only thing more powerful than our magnetic field is that of the Sun, and it may be playing a part in the generation of lightning strikes on Earth by temporarily 'bending' the Earth's magnetic field and allowing more energetic particles to enter the upper atmosphere. Over a five year period, the UK experienced around 50% more lightning strikes and researchers found that correlates to when the Earth's magnetic field was skewed by the Sun's own magnetic field.
Each year, the biosphere balances its atmospheric budget: The carbon dioxide absorbed by plants in the spring and summer as they convert solar energy into food is released back to the atmosphere in autumn and winter. Levels of the greenhouse gas fall and rise with growth and harvesting.
Iowa corn farmers have a lot of clout during the political cycle in America. Former US Vice-President Al Gore even sided with environmentalists and embraced ethanol - which all of science said was a bad idea - and later acknowledged it was just to appeal to Iowa. They help pick presidents and now it turns out that their 2.2 billion bushels of corn are helping to save the planet too.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible picture of Tropical Storm Adjali on Nov. 19th at 9:05 UTC (1:05 A.M. Pacific) curving to the southwest on its trek through the Southern Indian Ocean.
The MODIS image showed that the storm began curving to the southwest, and despite slight weakening, thunderstorms circled around the low-level center.
In bean sprouts, a collection of amino acids called a protein complex allows them to grow longer in the darkness than in the light. In humans, there is a similar protein complex called CSN, and its subunit CSN6 is now believed to be a cancer-causing gene that impacts activity of another gene (Myc) tied to tumor growth.
The Lacey Act, introduced in 1900 by Republican Congressman John F. Lacey of Iowa, was originally designed to stop illegal game across state borders but was then expanded, notably by President Ronald Reagan, to include illegal logging and breaking the laws of foreign governments.
The LHCb experiment collaborators at the Large Hadron Collider have announced discovery of two new particles in the baryon family. The particles, known as the Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-, were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been seen before. A related particle, the Xi_b*0, was found by the CMS experiment at CERN in 2012.
Bacteria are everywhere and so efforts to make cleaner energy using them are ongoing.
A report today shows how electrons hop across otherwise electrically insulated areas of bacterial proteins, and that the rate of electrical transfer is dependent on the orientation and proximity of these electrically conductive 'stepping stones'. It is hoped that this natural process can be used to create viable 'bio batteries' which could produce energy for portable technology such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops - powered by human or animal waste. So using your tablet on the toilet would then make even more sense.
Historical acid deposits have greatly reduced calcium levels in Canadian lakes and that is dramatically impacting populations of calcium-rich plankton such as Daphnia - water fleas that dominate these ecosystems.
