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Explosion On The Moon
Smart Science 2.0 readers are already wondering how there can be an 'explosion' when the Moon has no oxygen atmosphere. Lunar meteors hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that even a pebble can make a crater several feet wide and so the flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site. No oxygen or combustion needed.
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Is Cold Fusion For Real ?!
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Chemtrails Or Acid Rain ?
The idea that acid rain is some sort of hoax or scam is ludicrous. Sulfuric acid and its environmental effects have been known since ancient historical times. If acid rain is a hoax, then the ancient Sumerians and Greeks were certainly in on it. Modern science has been accumulating facts about environmental damage caused by sulfuric acid since at least 1736, when sulfuric acid was first produced industrially in Britain. When deniers of anthropogenic global warming claim that acid rain is a hoax they demonstrate, not their knowledge of science, but their political preferences, as here for example.
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Engineered Photosynthetic Cyanobacteria Can Grow Without Light
A new strain of photosynthetic cyanobacteria have been engineered to grow without the need for light.
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Some People Trust Researchers More Based On Gender And Race
In order for research to be most effective, the people included need to be as diverse as possible. That is why the hundreds of papers each year that are surveys of psychology undergraduates who got extra credit come up with the kind of crazy conclusions mainstream media love to write about, but don't have the credibility of clinical trials.
In America, diversity in research is a struggle. Black and female patients are less likely to agree to participate in research, despite being offered more frequent opportunities to participate.
Agriculture May Have Been In Xincun China 5,000 Years Ago
In Europe, the arrival of the farmers who replaced Mesolithic hunter-gatherers happened in force 9,000 years ago but it was happening elsewhere prior to that. In Syria, there is even evidence of scientific trait selection in grains in 10,000 B.C. but in other parts of the world agriculture came much later.
A region in sub-tropical China which did not have agriculture until the arrival of domesticated rice from elsewhere may have gotten agriculture prior to that - as far back as 3,000 B.C., according to a new paper.
Female Reproductive Ability May Be Related To Immune System
Because energy resources in the body must be optimized as much as possible, a new paper says, tasks inherently related to survival, like immune function, take priority. Any leftover energy is then dedicated to reproduction.
Crystal Flowers At Micron Scale Self-Assemble In A Beaker
By simply manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, researchers have been able to create delicate flower structures - not at the scale of inches, but microns.
These minuscule sculptures don't resemble the cubic or jagged forms normally associated with crystals, though that's what they are. Rather, fields of carnations and marigolds seem to bloom from the surface of a submerged glass slide, assembling themselves a molecule at a time.
Bach To The Blues: Are Brains Wired To Make Color-Music Connections?
Do you see music the same way as your neighbor? Apparently so. U.C. Berkeley psychologists say people in both the United States and Mexico linked the same pieces of classical orchestral music with the same colors, suggesting that humans share a common emotional palette – when it comes to music and color – that appears to be intuitive and can cross cultural barriers. They suggest that
our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel
Mic Stand Telescope Mount (or Camera Mount)
My wife’s cousin, the break-dancing radiologist, broke the microphone clip off my mic stand while singing karaoke on Thanksgiving (my wife and I host Thanksgiving at our house for the family every year). I had another microphone clip and replaced it so we could continue with karaoke, but I decided to keep the broken pieces of the old clip for the junk drawer.
-->What's The Weather Forecast For Uranus And Neptune? Even Worse Than Kentucky
Uranus and Neptune have a lot in common, climate-wise, even though Uranus is tipped on its side with the pole facing the sun during winter. They are both home to extreme winds blowing at speeds of over 1000 km/hour, they have hurricane-like storms as big as our whole planet and immense weather systems can last for years.
But what about their origins? Do the atmospheric patterns arise from deep down in the planet, or are they confined to shallower processes nearer the surface? Understanding the atmospheric circulation is not simple for a planet without a solid surface, where Earth-style boundaries between solid, liquid and gas layers do not exist.
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Hierarchical Social Networks: Can A Math Model Of "Seepage" Clobber Terrorism?
Terror networks are comparable in their structure to hierarchical organization in companies and certain online social networks, say the authors of a paper outlining how
a mathematical model to disrupt flow of information in a complex real-world network, like a terrorist organization, can work, using minimal resources.
In those hierarchical social networks, information flows in one direction from a source, which produces the information or data, downwards to sinks, which consume it.
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Journal Impact Factor Under Attack
A group contends that the journal impact factor (JIF), which ranks scholarly journals by the average number of citations their articles attract in a set period, has increasingly become an obsession in science. Impact factor of articles is used in evaluating research for funding, hiring, promotion, or institutional effectiveness.
Hofstadter's Butterfly Effect Confirmed
Hofstadter's Butterfly, a complex pattern of the energy states of electrons that resembles a butterfly, has appeared in physics textbooks as a theoretical concept of quantum mechanics for nearly 40 years but had never been directly observed - until now.
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US Government Updates Draft Rule For Hydraulic Fracturing On Public And Indian Lands
Following the release of an initial draft proposal in 2012, the Department of the Interior received over 177,000 public comments that helped shape today’s updated draft proposal. The new proposal maintainssafety standards, improves integration with existing state and tribal standards and increases flexibility for oil and gas developers. The updated draft proposal will be subject to a new 30-day public comment period.
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Reed Warbler, Who Be Your Daddy?
Depending on the species, males have different strategies to try and insure that they reproduce, rather than just being a step-parent.
They may try to ensure paternity by increased surveillance and fighting off the competition, they may have more frequent sex with their long-term partners, they may physically punish unfaithful females or refuse to parent potentially unrelated offspring.
Wilhelm Sinsteden - Inventor Of The Lead-Acid Battery
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The Diet Of The First New Zealanders
What was the diet and movements of the first New Zealanders like?
Isotopes from their bones and teeth can tell us. Researchers say they have been
able to identify what is likely to be the first group of people to colonize Marlborough's Wairau Bar, possibly from Polynesia around 700 years ago. They also present evidence suggesting that individuals from two other groups buried at the site had likely lived in different regions of New Zealand before being buried at Wairau Bar.
The researchers undertook isotopic analyses of samples recovered from the koiwi tangata (human remains) of the Rangitane iwi tupuna (ancestors) prior to their reburial at Wairau Bar in 2009.
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Karoo Array Telescope First Results: Giant Outbursts From Binary Star System Circinus X-1
The Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) in South Africa, the pathfinder radio telescope for the $3 billion global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, has released its first results.
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