Basics - The Biology Behind the Milk of Human Kindness - NYTimes.com

New research suggests that oxytocin underlies the twin emotional pillars of civilized life, our capacity to feel empathy and trust.

 

Movie Review - The Road - Father and Son Bond in Gloomy Aftermath of Disaster - NYTimes.com

Political views may skew perception of skin tone, new study finds
(PhysOrg.com) -- Political affinity could influence how some people view the skin tone of biracial political candidates, according to a new study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, New York University and Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

 

Highest jobless rate in three decades causes drop in consumer confidence

(PhysOrg.com) -- Florida's consumer confidence fell three points to 69 in November amid continued concerns over the state?s high unemployment rate, according to a new University of Florida survey.

 

Gasoline Fumes May Fuel Road Rage | Autopia | Wired.com

Paying through the nose to fill up the car is enough to send anyone into a rage, but it might be the fumes you're inhaling while pumping gas that make you

 

The Road Takes Desolate Journey From Page to Screen | Underwire | Wired.com

Novelist Cormac McCarthy sets up grim stakes early on in his post-apocalyptic parable The Road. The Woman tells the father of her son: Sooner or later they

 

BBC - Gavin Hewitt's Europe: Europe's identity crisis

The blog of Gavin Hewitt, the BBC's correspondent

 

Urbanites Explore the Primal Lure of Hunting - NYTimes.com

Seeking a primal connection with what’s on the table, food-obsessed urbanites are forming classes and clubs to learn how to hunt.

 

Mythbusters at the White House! | GeekDad | Wired.com
After seven years of promoting experimentation, education, and the scientific method on Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman visited the White House

 

YouTube - Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man

http://www.ted.com Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion...

 

Cormorant fishing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Instead of Walking Miles, Indian Farmers Use Cellphones to Operate Irrigation Pumps : TreeHugger

Photo: Flickr, CC Better for Farmer and Saves Lots of Water Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), a telecom company in India, has launched a new service that allows farmers to operate their irrigation pumps remotely using a SMS-capable cellphone. This

 

Why is Phase-Changing Drywall in the News Instead of in the Home Depot? : TreeHugger

Americans think of themselves as innovators, but when it comes to green products they are not even in the ballpark. Take phase-changing drywall; we wrote about it almost five years ago in TreeHugger. It works by embedding 'phase-changing microcapsules'

 

Fighting Water Scarcity with GPS : TreeHugger

Has your GPS ever led you to water? Image credit: pizzodisevo/Flickr The western United States has a problem: water. Droughts brought on by climate change and population explosions have already had shocking effects on agriculture and drinking water reserves

 

New Method to Measure Snow, Soil Moisture With GPS May Benefit Meteorologists, Farmers | News Center | University of Colorado at Boulder
The official source for news and information on the University of Colorado at Boulder

 

Sand dams voted best solution in water crisis debate | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Roman water-saving technique that could save millions of people from drought has been voted the best solution to the global water crisis at a public debate in London

 

Dubai Sovereign Fund Asks for Time to Reorganize Debts - NYTimes.com

The Dubai government, in a blunt acknowledgment of the severity of its financial position, said that it had asked its banks for a six-month stay on its schedule of debt repayments.

 

Observatory - People Hear With Their Skin as Well as Their Ears, Study Says - NYTimes.com

Researchers have added to evidence that suggests an innate ability among humans to integrate different sensory cues.

 

Researchers discover biological basis of 'bacterial immune system'

Bacteria don't have easy lives. In addition to mammalian immune systems that besiege the bugs, they have natural enemies called bacteriophages, viruses that kill half the bacteria on Earth every two days.

 

The Gruesome Power of Raptor Talons | Wired Science | Wired.com

The most thorough study to date of raptor talons reveals their feet to be extraordinarily specialized hunting tools, perfectly suited to their gruesomely

 

Are Your Siblings Really Your Siblings?: Scientific American Podcast

What's Your Christmas Card List Got to Do With the Development of the Human Brain? - Boing Boing

BBC News - Device spells doom for superbugs

Researchers have demonstrated a device that can kill off superbugs such as MRSA in just seconds - and could help with body odour.

 

The Year of the Sex Olympics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Salahis, White House Dinner Crashers, Met the Obamas - NYTimes.com

The disclosure that a celebrity-seeking couple who sneaked into a state dinner came face-to-face with the president underscored the seriousness of the security breach.

 

Edible Schoolyard (Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School)

For Indians Trained in the West, It Can Be Hard to Go Home - NYTimes.com

India wants its emigrants and their offspring back, but many say the business climate is frustrating, and the workplace culture makes them feel unexpectedly foreign.

 

Why the hammerhead shark got its hammer - life - 27 November 2009 - New Scientist

Its widely separated eyes give it super-vision that can judge distance and so track prey better than other sharks

Lions Ex-Stadium, Once Super Bowl Host, Sells for $7.25 a Seat - Bloomberg.com

It cost more than $55 million to
build the Silverdome football stadium in Pontiac, Michigan.
Yesterday, it sold for the price of a one-bedroom apartment in
Manhattan.

 

Technology Review: A New Route to Cellulosic Biofuels

ZeaChem's pilot plant will make ethanol using termite microbes.

 

New Method to Measure Snow, Soil Moisture With GPS May Benefit Meteorologists, Farmers
(PhysOrg.com) -- A research team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder has found a clever way to use traditional GPS satellite signals to measure snow depth as well as soil and vegetation moisture, a technique expected to benefit meteorologists, water resource managers, climate modelers and farmers.

 

Dutch build more dunes against rising seas

On the beach at Monster, bulldozers painstakingly turn sand dredged from the bottom of the North Sea bed into dunes in an ambitious effort to safeguard the Netherlands from flooding.

 

Istanbul Opens World’s Largest Earthquake-Safe Building | Wired Science | Wired.com

The world's largest seismically isolated building, the new international terminal at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport, is now complete and open for

 

Malaria Gaining Resistance to Best Available Treatment | Wired Science | Wired.com

WASHINGTON — Malaria that is resistant to the best available drug is more widespread in Southeast Asia than previously reported, new research shows. The

 

Vaccine being developed to help smokers quit

(PhysOrg.com) -- Glaxo-SmithKline has joined forces with Nabi Pharmaceuticals to produce a vaccine to help smokers give up their addiction permanently.

 

Technology Review: A 25-Year Battery

Long-lived nuclear batteries powered by hydrogen isotopes are in testing for military applications.

 

Turning heat to electricity... efficiently
(PhysOrg.com) -- In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency. But new research points the way to a technology that might make it possible to harvest much of that wasted heat and turn it ...

 

Fighting climate change by turning CO2 to stone

(PhysOrg.com) -- While politicians debate the best ways to cut global carbon dioxide emissions, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory's Center for Advanced Energy Studies are charging ahead on a strategy to defuse the CO2 the world already produces. They want to inject the greenhouse gas deep underground, ...

Pilot study relates phthalate exposure to less-masculine play by boys

A study of 145 preschool children reports, for the first time, that when the concentrations of two common phthalates in mothers' prenatal urine are elevated their sons are less likely to play with male-typical toys and games, such as trucks and play fighting.

 

Novelties - From the Lab, a New Weapon Against Cholesterol - NYTimes.com

Tiny particles containing gold and other metals may someday help keep cholesterol from building up in blood vessels.

 

Op-Ed Columnist - An American Catastrophe - NYTimes.com

Detroit and its environs are suffering because of policies that resulted in the implosion of crucially important components of America’s manufacturing base.

 

How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world | Mail Online

As 50 giant oil tankers lurk off the British coast, we reveal an even more scandalous threat to the global environment.

 

Voracious Invader May Be Nearing Lake Michigan - NYTimes.com
Evidence of Asian carp, a fish that some fear could destroy the ecosystem of Lake Michigan, has been found beyond a barrier intended to keep the fish out.

 

Captured Photo Collection » Native American Prints from the Pennington Photo Studio Photos

Crawling Around with Baltimore Street Rats | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine

The “urban ecosystem” serves as a research lab for scientist Gregory Glass, who studies the lives of the Charm City’s rats

 

Facebook 'Kick a Ginger' campaign prompts attacks on redheads - Telegraph

The teenager behind a "Kick a Ginger" group on Facebook is being investigated by police after reports of attacks on redhead children.

 

Video of Tiny Tim performance mentioned in Pynchon's Inherent Vice - Boing Boing

Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Microwave Lava - Boing Boing

Economic View - What if a Recovery Is All in Your Head? - NYTimes.com

There may be credibility in the idea that rebounds from recessions are attributable mainly to public psychology.

 

Getting a charge out of Nissan's Leaf -- latimes.com [via claudio]

This thought came to me as I was piloting the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle prototype around Dodger Stadium last Friday: When gasoline-powered cars sleep at night, they dream of being electric.

 

Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough - The Globe and Mail [via claudio]

New way of thinking about debilitating disease has yielded stunning new treatments – but MS societies urge sufferers to be cautious before experimenting

 

Sugar Cane Waste to Replace Coal in Coal-Fired Power Plants? : TreeHugger

Via Green Inc Here's a promising project: Brazilian and Italian entrepreneurs are investing $114 million in a plan to convert bagasse, a waste product from sugar cane, into pellets that can be burned as fuel at your average, run-of-the-mill

 

Hidden fibres capture solar power › News in Science (ABC Science)

Dig this: RoboClam

Device could lead to 'smart' anchors, more

 

In Mississippi, Farmers' Promising Summer Washed Away by Fall Rain - NYTimes.com

In August, Southern farmers thought they had a bumper crop — the best in years. Then heavy rains in September and October spoiled the harvest.

 

Study Links Chinese Drywall and Corrosion in Homes - NYTimes.com

Federal investigators reported a “strong association” between chemicals in Chinese drywall and complaints by homeowners of metal and electrical corrosion.

 

Sewers at Capacity, Pollution Spills Into Waterways - Series - NYTimes.com

Many sewer systems are overwhelmed, spilling excrement, medical waste and chemicals into waterways.

 

A Survey Shows Pain of Recession for Artists - NYTimes.com

A major new survey of American artists and how they are weathering the economic downturn has found that slightly more than half experienced a drop in income from 2008 to 2009.

 

Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years ago
A new study provides 'incontrovertible evidence' that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, researchers report.

 

Intensive land management leaves Europe without carbon sinks

A new calculation of Europe's greenhouse gas balance shows that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide tip the balance and eliminate Europe's terrestrial sink of greenhouse gases.

 

physics0.jpg (JPEG Image, 500x247 pixels)

Remarkable Creatures - Darwinian Details on Origins of Snakes and Snails - NYTimes.com

As the world celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” some facts on snails and snakes that would have intrigued him.

 

BBC News - Dirt can be good for children, say scientists

Children should be allowed to get dirty, according to scientists who say being too clean can impair the skin's ability to heal.

 

multimediafinal

Hunger a growing problem in America, USDA reports - washingtonpost.com

The nation's economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people -- including almost one child in four -- struggled last year to g...

New Power Line De-icing System Developed

Engineers have invented a way to cheaply and effectively keep ice off power lines. The new proprietary technology is called a variable resistance cable (VRC) de-icing system. With only minor cable modifications plus some off-the-shelf electronics, the system switches the electrical resistance of a standard power line from low to high. The high resistance automatically creates heat to melt ice build-up or keep it from forming in the first place.

A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts | Popular Science

My Quest To Analyze Every Man-Made Chemical In My Body | Popular Science

Every day we're exposed to thousands of man-made chemicals, some of which seep into our bodies and remain there for decades. What that means for our health, we don't fully understand--but I subjected myself to a battery of new tests in

Carbozyme - State-of-the-art carbon dioxide separation and capture system for reducing greenhouse gases and preventing global warming

Gunmen Kill Union Leader in Mexico - NYTimes.com

Gunmen ambushed a peasant union leader and his family in northern Mexico, killing him and 14 others in an attack that bore the hallmarks of a hit by drug cartels.

YouTube - Balloon Boy Song, Im in a Box

Dedicated to Balloon Boy and his Loving Family...

In Philadelphia, a Chance to Stave Off Foreclosure - NYTimes.com
A program in Philadelphia has enabled hundreds of troubled borrowers to retain their homes.

 

Pettah Journal - Labor Shortage Threatens Coconut Industry in Kerala, India - NYTimes.com

A scarcity of people willing to do the risky work of coconut plucking threatens India’s coconut industry and illustrates the loosening of caste bonds.

One word: bioplastics

(PhysOrg.com) -- Every year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic are produced worldwide. Much of it ends up in the world's oceans, a fact that troubles MIT biology professor Anthony Sinskey.

Swiss Government and 'Suicide Tourism': Battle Looming - TIME

Concerned that it is becoming a destination for

Penguins Evolving Faster Than Thought | Wired Science | Wired.com

The evolutionary march of the penguins happened in double time, according to new genetic calculations. A study of DNA from ancient and modern Adélie

Money Trickles North as Mexicans Help Relatives - NYTimes.com [vai claudio]

Some Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support unemployed relatives in the United States.

Introducing the Honeywell Wind Turbine from EarthTronics [via claudio]

aWbgi.jpg (JPEG Image, 950x1600 pixels)

Can A Farm-in-a-Backpack Feed Sub-Saharan Africa? : TreeHugger

Photo via Rachel Zedeck at Changents Rachel Zedeck moved to Kenya with the intent to help Kenyans feed themselves through eco-friendly farming. Her solution - put everything you need into one backpack. Everything needed to get going on sustainable

Seas Grow Less Effective at Absorbing Emissions - NYTimes.com

The Earth’s oceans have recently grown less efficient at sopping up carbon dioxide from fuel emissions, new research suggests.

New research helps explain why bird flu has not caused a pandemic

(PhysOrg.com) -- Bird flu viruses would have to make at least two simultaneous genetic mutations before they could be transmitted readily from human to human, according to research published today in PLoS ONE.

Microorganism may provide key to combating giant salvinia throughout Louisiana
A team of researchers at Louisiana Tech University has found that a naturally occurring microorganism acts as a natural herbicide against giant salvinia.

 

Nov. 19, 1996: Canadian Bridge Crosses 8 Miles of Icy Ocean | This Day In Tech | Wired.com

1996: The structure of the Confederation Bridge is finished. It connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick on the mainland. At a length of 8 miles, it

The Man Who Designed America - Photo Gallery, 22 Pictures - LIFE

Arguably the most influential industrial designer of the 20th century, French-born Raymond Loewy (1893 - 1986) fashioned or utterly re-imagined a dizzying array of products and brands during a career spanning seven decades. Writer, illustrator, and co-founder of the Web's best blog, <A HREF="http://boingboing.net/" TARGET="_blank">BoingBoing</A>, Mark Frauenfelder has been fascinated by Loewy's work for years. In this gallery, Mark celebrates his favorite Loewy projects, and muses on the man's enduring appeal. Pictured: Loewy fine-tunes a model of a Studebaker sedan he designed.

Farmer Ants Fertilize Their Gardens With Bacteria | Wired Science | Wired.com

Thanks to their vast underground fungus farms, leafcutter ants are one of Earth's most successful species — and one secret of their agricultural success

Are Earth's Oceans Made Of Extraterrestrial Material?

Contrary to preconceived notions, the atmosphere and the oceans were perhaps not formed from vapors emitted during intense volcanism at the dawning of our planet. Scientists now suggest that water was not part of the Earth's initial inventory but stems from the turbulence caused in the outer solar system by giant planets. Ice-covered asteroids thus reached the Earth around one hundred million years after the birth of the planets.

You Can’t Get Whale-Penis Leather Seats After All | Autopia | Wired.com

What's the world coming to when you can get your $1.45 million bulletproof SUV with gold trim, a ridiculously expensive Vertu cellphone and three bottles of

The New Dust Bowl | Mother Jones
In the 1930s, Okies saw California's Central Valley as a Garden of Eden. Now it's dying of thirst.

 

Cornell Chronicle: Study measures nitrogen cycling in deserts

Cornell researchers have discovered that heat leads to nitrogen loss in desert soils, a finding that may require climate change models to be altered.

Technology Review: Superconductors to Wire a Smarter Grid

A superstation for connecting three independent grids could help solar and wind power.

Window Watchers in a City of Strangers - NYTimes.com

The ability to observe the private lives of strangers from the windows of our homes — and the knowledge that they can often watch us — has long been a part of city life.

2 Japanese Subs From World War II Era Are Found Off Hawaii - NYTimes.com

The vessels from the World War II era were sunk 63 years ago.

FOXP2 Speech Gene Shows Its Bossy Nature - NYTimes.com

Laboratory tests in which the chimp version of a speech gene was put into human neurons confirmed suspicions that FOXP2 is a maestro of the genome.

Doctor and Patient - Primary Care’s Image Problem - NYTimes.com
As few as 2 percent of medical students are pursuing general internal medicine, a trend that could doom efforts at universal health care.

 

A biology whodunnit: are rodents helping protect trees from fire?

Tom Parker has made an unusual find. In California forests and shrubland that burned in 2008, he has spotted Manzanita seedlings sprouting in tight clusters, suggesting that the young shrubs emerged from underground stashes of seeds. But how did they get there?

Asia Times Online :: Korea News and Korean Business and Economy, Pyongyang News

Asia Times Online. The Asia News Hub providing the latest news and analysis regarding economics, events and trends in business, economy and politics throughout Asia.

Did Texas kill an innocent man? | Democracy in America | Economist.com

Secret Math of Fly Eyes Could Overhaul Robot Vision | Wired Science | Wired.com

By turning the brain cell activity underlying fly eyesight into mathematical equations, researchers have found an ultra-efficient method for pulling motion

Not Just Hot Air | Popular Science

A relentless inventor has apparel giants rethinking the basics of insulation

Steward Advanced Materials Thiol-SAMMS | Popular Science
The toxin terminator

 

Ears Gunshot Localization System | Popular Science

Sniper finder

YouTube - Slayer - Americon

If you like this album, go get a copy when it's released on November 3rd 2009!FULL ALBUM INTERNET LEAKFrom Slayer's new 2009 album, &quot;World Painted Blood...

Desperate climate times call for oddball measures -- latimes.com [via claudio]

If there were some kind of panic button to stop global warming, what would it look like?

Future Food Production Could Be Severely Constrained by a Lack of Phosphorus : TreeHugger

We've all heard of 'peak oil' before. But 'peak phosphorus'? Buffeted by soaring global demand and rising commodity prices, scientists are sounding the alarm that we may begin to run out of the precious element, which lacks a synthetic alternative

Economic View - At Swoopo.com, a Price for the Thrill of the Auction - NYTimes.com

I’ll raise you by a penny (and pay 60 cents for the privilege): That’s one way bidders take part in auctions at a self-described “entertainment shopping” site.

Advertising - ‘Selling Detroit’ Effort Asks Agencies to Promote City - NYTimes.com
Time Inc. is sponsoring the competition, which five agencies are participating in. Visitors to the campaigns’ Web sites will be able to vote for their favorite.

 

Scientists pinpoint origin of dissolved arsenic in Bangladesh drinking water

Researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering believe they have pinpointed a pathway by which arsenic may be contaminating the drinking water in Bangladesh, a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists, world health agencies and the Bangladeshi government for nearly 30 years. The ...

Rapacious Rasberry ants march north

Poor Texas. First it was killer bees, then fire ants. Now, it's the Rasberry ants.

Deadly Leopard Seal Tries to Feed Live Penguins to Photographer (Video) : TreeHugger

Image: Screen capture from Youtube 'Bloody Hell! That's the biggest leopard seal I've ever seen!' digg_url = 'http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/leopard-seal-feeding-penguins-to-photographer-video.php';Leopard seals are pretty scary predators, especially if you're a penguin. But they can be friendly to other leopard seals, which is

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | Glowing bugs could find landmines

Bacteria that glow green in the presence of explosives could provide a safe way to find hidden landmines, scientists claim.

SF Green Festival 09 - Kijiji Creates Cool Aquaponics Systems For Kids : TreeHugger

Aquaponics has been a hot topic on TreeHugger of late. Whether you find it the coolest thing to hit urban gardening, or cruelty to fish, aquaponics are gaining popularity. Kijiji Grows demonstrated their aquaponics system at San Francisco Green

Drug Makers Raising Prices Before Reform - NYTimes.com
Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.

 

Findings - A Case in Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’ - NYTimes.com

Do laws about the ownership of ancient artifacts help or hurt archaeology?

New insights into the life of the Maya

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ancient artifacts are almost always concerned with rich and powerful religious and political leaders, but new excavations of an ancient Maya site have unearthed a pyramid decorated with murals depicting the marketing and trading of goods by ordinary people around 1,350 years ago.

Plants prefer their kin, but crowd out competition when sharing a pot with strangers

Plants don't mind sharing space with their kin but when they're potted with strangers of the same species they start invigorating their leaves, a study by McMaster University reveals.

Tiny bubbles clean oil from water

Small amounts of oil leave a fluorescent sheen on polluted water. Oil sheen is hard to remove, even when the water is aerated with ozone or filtered through sand. Now, a University of Utah engineer has developed an inexpensive new method to remove oil sheen by repeatedly pressurizing and depressurizing ...

Plastic Boat: The Building of a High-Tech Eco-Stunt | Wired Science | Wired.com

<< previous image | next image >> Not all plastics are created equal -- and to prove it, a rakish

Algae and Light Help Injured Mice Walk Again | Magazine
In the summer of 2007, a team of Stanford graduate students dropped a mouse into a plastic basin. The mouse sniffed the floor curiously. It didn't seem to

 

Teabaggers punk'd by anti-racists who get them to cheer rant against European-American immigrants | Crooks and Liars

[Video from BlueStemPrairie, at their YouTube page.] The teabaggers are getting ready for the next round of wingnuttery against the Obama administration. It sure looks like they lost on health-care reform, but they have already been organized for

Quebec's Disney-inspired solution to flu-shot chaos - The Globe and Mail

Health official dreams up a coupon system that catches on across the province