TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| The Urban Phantom: Why bears are like drug addicts The suspect was first reported rummaging through trash in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood shortly before midnight on Sunday, and pretty soon 14 police were in hot pursuit with flashing lights and a bear-scenting dog, according to the The Seattle Times. The derelict had several known aliases, including Leif Bearickson and Urban Phantom. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Did China's Nuclear Tests Kill Thousands and Doom Future Generations? Enver Tohti remembers the week that it rained dust. That summer of 1973 he was in elementary school in Xinjiang Province, China’s westernmost region, which is inhabited mostly by Uygurs, one of the country’s minority ethnic groups. “There were three days that earth fell from the sky, without wind or any sort of storm. The sky was deadly silent--no sun, no moon,” he recalls. When the kids asked what was happening, the teacher told them that there was a storm on Saturn (its Chinese name translates into “soil planet”). Tohti believed her. It was only years later that he realized it was radioactive dust raised by the test detonation of a nuclear bomb within the province.Three decades on, Tohti, now a medical doctor, is launching an investigation into the toll still being taken--and one that the Chinese government steadfastly refuses to acknowledge. A few hundred thousand people may have died as a result of radiation from at least 40 nuclear explosions carried out between 1964 and 1996 at the Lop Nur site in Xinjiang, which lies on the Silk Road. Almost 20 million people reside in Xinjiang, and Tohti believes that they offer unique insight into the long-term impact of radiation, including the relatively little studied genetic effects that may be handed down over generations. He is establishing the Lop Nur project at Sapporo Medical University in Japan with physicist Jun Takada to evaluate these consequences. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Alien Invasion? An Ecologist Doubts the Impact of Exotic Species Last November, Mark Davis spoke at a special meeting in South Africa to honor the 50th anniversary of Charles Elton's seminal book, The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants . From Asian kudzu conquering the U.S. South to brown tree snakes wiping out birds on Guam, the ecological havoc wrought by exotic plants and animals has become--along with habitat destruction and climate change--one of the most talked about problems in species conservation.But as Davis took the podium, he let his sport coat swing open to reveal his flip-flopped necktie , the skinny end stretching to his belt buckle--a not-so-subtle jab at the late Charles Elton, a notoriously inept dresser. [More] rss.sciam.com |
A Military Past, an Unknown Future New guides to metropolitan attractions include “Governors Island: The Jewel of New York Harbor” and “New York’s Unique and Unexpected Places.” travel.nytimes.com |
Some airborne particles pose more dangers than others Mort Lippmann noticed a strange phenomenon in his laboratory mice. For 14 straight days, their hearts were racing. [More] rss.sciam.com |