| New worm species found in unusual habitat: dead whale carcasses Living whales may seem scarce in the world's vast oceans--and their carcasses even more rare. But to animals and bacteria that feed on these graveyards, they are a rich source of life. And to one doctoral researcher in Sweden, they proved to be a source of several new species. [More] rss.sciam.com |
What Is the Right Number to Combat Climate Change? This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to add more hot air to efforts to combat climate change. That is so because although the impacts humanity would like to avoid--fire, flood and drought, for starters--are clear, the right numbers to halt global warming are not. Despite decades of effort, scientists do not know precisely what temperatures or greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere constitute a danger. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Busting Big Myths in Popular Psychology (preview) Parts of this article are adapted from 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior , by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry L. Beyerstein. Copyright © Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Popular psychology has become a fixture in our society, and its aphorisms, truths and half-truths permeate our everyday existence. A casual stroll through our neighborhood bookstore reveals dozens of self-help, relationship, recovery and addiction books that serve up heaping portions of advice for steering us along life’s rocky road. About 3,500 self-help books are published every year, and numerous new Internet sites on mental health sprout up every month. [More] rss.sciam.com |
City Scales Back Plan to Thin Out Art Vendors The new rules, to be released on Friday, would allow as many as 140 sellers in Central Park and other popular spots. nytimes.com |
Rare Earths: Elemental Needs of the Clean-Energy Economy A massive wind turbine--capable of turning the breeze into two million watts of power--has 40-meter-long blades made from fiberglass, towers 90 meters above the ground, weighs hundreds of metric tons, and fundamentally relies on roughly 300 kilograms of a soft, silvery metal known as neodymium--a so-called rare earth.This element forms the basis for the magnets used in the turbines. "Large permanent magnets make the generators feasible," explains materials scientist Alex King, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DoE) Ames Laboratory in Iowa, which started making rare earth magnets in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project. The stronger the magnets are, the more powerful the generator--and rare earth elements such as neodymium form the basis for the most powerful permanent magnets around. [More] rss.sciam.com |