Research Watch

Nanotech surge

admin — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:49:51 +0000

If you’re concerned or even just curious about the health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology, keep an eye on what’s happening around you. The number of consumer products that include nanoscale ingredients has grown from 212 to 609 in a little over two years, a rate of about three and a half per week. Take a look in your pantry, medicine cabinet and garage. If what you see matches any of the products on this list from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, you may be your own best test subject.

Sulfur stinks

admin — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:28:00 +0000

The idea of spewing sulfur particles into the stratosphere to counter global warming just seems wrong on the face of it. It’s a little like trying to rescue a recipe gone horribly wrong. New ingredients might mask that accidental spice overdose, but the odds of ending up with something resembling what you set out to make are slim.

First we found out that if we tried this form of geoengineering we could never stop. Now a study shows that the process would trash the ozone layer in the Arctic and delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by 30 to 70 years.

I’ll keep you updated.

Evolution, the software

admin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:26:33 +0000

Computers are great for simulating and analyzing evolution, and now they’re also good for directing it. A nifty experiment combined a computer with a microfluidic chip to evolve a population of enzymes. In a sense, evolution becomes just another computer program.

The brain knows

admin — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:23:02 +0000

How fast do you make a decision? It might be faster than you think.

It looks like your brain does the deciding before your mind makes itself up. A study using functional magnetic resonance imaging found that people’s brains cue up decisions as much as 10 seconds before people think they’ve made them.

As Pollock as you wannabe

admin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:19:13 +0000

This site doesn’t have a lot to do with science, but it’s pretty cool. Click to change, space to clear.

The skinny on oxygen

admin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:04:45 +0000

The skin is certainly a sensitive instrument, but a chemical sensor? Scientists have found that mice sense oxygen levels through their skin, and it’s possible that we do too. When oxygen levels are low, mice increase the production of red blood cells to boost their bodies’ oxygen processing efficiency. Boosting red blood cell production is a treatment for a range of diseases, and the study could eventually leads to better ways of doing so.

Bipedal locusts

admin — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:29:47 +0000

Looks like we’re taking more than our share of the vegetables: human activities eat up nearly a quarter of the planet’s plant growth. A study of human impact on ecosystems found that we consume 23.8% of Earth’s land-based net primary production. Agriculture makes up more than half the consumption. The rest is other forms of land use and human-caused fires. This is an unprecedented dominance of the biosphere by a single species, and shows how risky large-scale biofuels production could be for the ecosystem.

Genome transplant

admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:54:41 +0000

J. Craig Venter of human genome mapping fame has pulled off a major feat: the first genome transplant operation, albeit in a humble bacteria. Researchers at Venter’s private research institute transplanted all the DNA from one bacteria into another bacteria, which converted the recipient cells into replicas of the donor cells. The move is a step toward creating synthetic bacteria and viruses that could be used to make drugs and biofuels and clean up pollution. Here’s Scientific American’s write up.

Springing ahead

admin — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:31:41 +0000

Spring comes to the Arctic two weeks earlier, on average, than it did a decade ago thanks to global warming. Global warming affects the Earth’s poles much more strongly than it’s lower latitude regions. A study of plant flowering, insect emergence and bird egg laying shows that for some species Spring arrives as much as 30 days earlier.

Plants go with the climate flow

admin — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:14:54 +0000

Home is where the temperature is right as far as plants are concerned, even when great expanses of Arctic Ocean are in the way. An Arctic Island plant study shows that the limiting factor for species migration during climate change is the local climate, not how far the seeds have to go to get there.