TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| [Slide Show] Divine Idea: Plugging Dams and Tracking Underground Water, Using an Earth MRI Sri Lanka's Samanalawewa dam on the country's Walawe River has been leaking since the day it was completed in 1992. In the interim, the country has spent more than $65 million to plug the leaks in its second-largest dam, built to power the 120-million-watt Samanalawewa Hydroelectric Project. A 2005 study found that the reservoir--located near the town of Balangoda about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of the capital Colombo--was leaking continuously at a rate of 475 gallons (1,800 liters) per second. And shotgun-type methods to solve the Samanalawewa dam problem--including the use of 13,640 tons of cement to reinforce the dam and the dumping of 1.8 million cubic feet (50,000 cubic meters) of clay to plug the holes--have failed. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Weed-Whacking Herbicide Proves Deadly to Human Cells Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” -- the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. [More] Presented By:You Need the Speed of Norton 2009Introducing the revolutionary Norton Internet Security 2009. With a one-click, one-minute install, under 7MB of memory usage and fewer, shorter scans, it?s the fastest security suite anywhere. Get your FREE trial today!Click to Learn More www.norton.com/speed Ads by Pheedo rss.sciam.com |
Fungus Makes Zombie Ants Do All the Work Problem: you’re a fungus that can only flourish at a certain temperature, humidity, location and distance from the ground but can’t do the legwork to find that perfect spot yourself. Solution: hijack an ant’s body to do the work for you--and then inhabit it. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Swine Flu Vaccine--Too Little, Too Late As health care workers in the U.S. gear up for the flu season, they facea paradox: on the one hand, they will have too little vaccine against the novel influenza A (H1N1) strain to protect the entire population; on the other, some people will resist the shots that are offered to them. Sadly, both problems can be traced, at least in part, to the last time “swine flu” loomed. The 1976 national vaccination campaign against a pandemic that never materialized left the public with lingering doubts about whether the inoculations harmed some recipients and spawned lawsuits that cost the federal government nearly $100 million.Since that episode, both public mistrust of vaccines and vaccine makers’ mistrust of a litigious public have only grown--hampering the nation’s ability to respond to the current, very real, pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expect the virus to sicken up to a third of the population this fall. But the nation will have barely enough vaccine for a third of its residents because methods used to make U.S. flu vaccines have changed little in half a century. Health officials decided early in the summer to stick with slow, egg-based production techniques and to eschew dose-sparing additives that might have tripled the vaccine supply. [More] rss.sciam.com |
What would rings around Earth look like? A video currently making the rounds on the Web ponders an intriguing astronomical scenario: What if Earth had rings, as Saturn does? [More] rss.sciam.com |