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Sunday, December 22, 2013

ScienceDaily: Top News

ScienceDaily: Top News


Natural gas saves water, even when factoring in water lost to hydraulic fracturing

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:08 AM PST

A new study finds that in Texas, the US state that annually generates the most electricity, the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation is saving water and making the state less vulnerable to drought.

Optical rogue waves: The storm in a test tube

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:36 AM PST

Random processes in nature often underlie a so-called normal distribution that enables reliable estimation for the appearance of extreme statistical events. Meteorological systems are an exception to this rule, with extreme events appearing at a much higher rate than could be predicted from long-term observation at much lower magnitude. One such example is the appearance of unexpectedly strong storms, yet another are rare reports of waves of extreme height in the ocean, which are also known as rogue waves or monster waves.

Producing electricity on the Moon at night

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST

Scientists have proposed a system of mirrors, processed lunar soil and a heat engine to provide energy to vehicles and crew during the lunar night. This would preclude the need for batteries and nuclear power sources such as those used by the Chinese rover that recently landed on the moon. The lunar night lasts approximately 14 days, during which temperatures as low as -150 ºC have been recorded. This complicates vehicle movement and equipment functioning on the lunar surface, requiring the transport of heavy batteries from Earth or the use of nuclear energy, as exemplified by the Chinese rover Yutu.

Birth control at the zoo: vets meet the elusive goal of hippo castration

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:33 AM PST

One method for controlling zoo animal populations is male castration. For hippopotami, however, this is notoriously difficult, as the pertinent male reproductive anatomy proves singularly elusive. Veterinarians have now demonstrated a successful method for castrating male hippos.

An earthquake or a snow avalanche has its own shape

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:33 AM PST

Predicting earthquakes or snow avalanches is difficult, but to for instance reduce the related risks it is of high importance to know if an avalanche event is big or small. Researchers found that such events or say the acoustic sound bursts coming from the tearing of paper have a typical form independent of whether they are big or small.

Dual catalysts help synthesize alpha-olefins into new organic compounds

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 05:01 PM PST

Chemists have developed a method to convert chemicals known as alpha-olefins into new organic compounds. Combining a pair of catalytic reactions in sequence converted inexpensive chemicals into new organic compounds that are highly sought after by researchers in medicine and the life sciences.

ScienceDaily: Top Science News

ScienceDaily: Top Science News


Moa or less: Extinct 'robust' birds of New Zealand might not have been so robust after all

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:08 PM PST

Giant moa bird (Dinornis robustus, literally meaning 'robust strange bird') may not have actually had robust bones, according to new research. The leg bones of one of the tallest birds that ever existed were actually rather like those of its modern (but distant) relatives, such as ostrich, emu and rhea, the study shows.

Tropical forests mitigate extreme weather events

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST

Tropical forests reduce peak runoff during storms and release stored water during droughts, according to researchers in Panama. Their results lend credence to a controversial phenomenon known as the sponge effect, which is at the center of a debate about how to minimize flood damage and maximize water availability in the tropics.

Companion's comets the key to curious exoplanet system?

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 06:58 AM PST

The nearby star Fomalhaut A hosts the most famous planetary system outside our own Solar System, containing both an exoplanet and a spectacular ring of comets. Astronomers have just announced a new discovery with the Herschel Space Observatory that has made this system even more intriguing; the least massive star of the three in the Fomalhaut system, Fomalhaut C, has now been found to host its own comet belt.

ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

ScienceDaily: Strange Science News


Is space-time smooth or grainy? Testing Einstein's laws of Special Relativity

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:01 AM PST

A new article is a systematic review of the methods devised by scientists since the 90s to test Einstein's laws of Special Relativity, up to the highest observable energies. These types of tests are important: deviations from Special Relativity could in fact indicate that space-time is not continuous but grainy.

ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

ScienceDaily: Most Popular News


Natural gas saves water, even when factoring in water lost to hydraulic fracturing

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:08 AM PST

A new study finds that in Texas, the US state that annually generates the most electricity, the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation is saving water and making the state less vulnerable to drought.

Optical rogue waves: The storm in a test tube

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:36 AM PST

Random processes in nature often underlie a so-called normal distribution that enables reliable estimation for the appearance of extreme statistical events. Meteorological systems are an exception to this rule, with extreme events appearing at a much higher rate than could be predicted from long-term observation at much lower magnitude. One such example is the appearance of unexpectedly strong storms, yet another are rare reports of waves of extreme height in the ocean, which are also known as rogue waves or monster waves.

Toy commercials continue to transmit different values to boys and girls

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST

Dolls for the girls, cars for the boys. A study which analyzed 595 toy advertisements broadcast on television at Christmas 2009, 2010 and 2011 showed that they promoted values that associate beauty with girls and strength and power with boys.

Producing electricity on the Moon at night

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST

Scientists have proposed a system of mirrors, processed lunar soil and a heat engine to provide energy to vehicles and crew during the lunar night. This would preclude the need for batteries and nuclear power sources such as those used by the Chinese rover that recently landed on the moon. The lunar night lasts approximately 14 days, during which temperatures as low as -150 ºC have been recorded. This complicates vehicle movement and equipment functioning on the lunar surface, requiring the transport of heavy batteries from Earth or the use of nuclear energy, as exemplified by the Chinese rover Yutu.

Birth control at the zoo: vets meet the elusive goal of hippo castration

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:33 AM PST

One method for controlling zoo animal populations is male castration. For hippopotami, however, this is notoriously difficult, as the pertinent male reproductive anatomy proves singularly elusive. Veterinarians have now demonstrated a successful method for castrating male hippos.

An earthquake or a snow avalanche has its own shape

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:33 AM PST

Predicting earthquakes or snow avalanches is difficult, but to for instance reduce the related risks it is of high importance to know if an avalanche event is big or small. Researchers found that such events or say the acoustic sound bursts coming from the tearing of paper have a typical form independent of whether they are big or small.

Dual catalysts help synthesize alpha-olefins into new organic compounds

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 05:01 PM PST

Chemists have developed a method to convert chemicals known as alpha-olefins into new organic compounds. Combining a pair of catalytic reactions in sequence converted inexpensive chemicals into new organic compounds that are highly sought after by researchers in medicine and the life sciences.

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News


Birth control at the zoo: vets meet the elusive goal of hippo castration

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:33 AM PST

One method for controlling zoo animal populations is male castration. For hippopotami, however, this is notoriously difficult, as the pertinent male reproductive anatomy proves singularly elusive. Veterinarians have now demonstrated a successful method for castrating male hippos.

An earthquake or a snow avalanche has its own shape

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:33 AM PST

Predicting earthquakes or snow avalanches is difficult, but to for instance reduce the related risks it is of high importance to know if an avalanche event is big or small. Researchers found that such events or say the acoustic sound bursts coming from the tearing of paper have a typical form independent of whether they are big or small.

Moa or less: Extinct 'robust' birds of New Zealand might not have been so robust after all

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:08 PM PST

Giant moa bird (Dinornis robustus, literally meaning 'robust strange bird') may not have actually had robust bones, according to new research. The leg bones of one of the tallest birds that ever existed were actually rather like those of its modern (but distant) relatives, such as ostrich, emu and rhea, the study shows.

Tropical forests mitigate extreme weather events

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST

Tropical forests reduce peak runoff during storms and release stored water during droughts, according to researchers in Panama. Their results lend credence to a controversial phenomenon known as the sponge effect, which is at the center of a debate about how to minimize flood damage and maximize water availability in the tropics.

Describing biodiversity on tight budgets: Three new Andean lizards discovered

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST

Three new Andean lizards discovered by Peruvian and American biologists establish an improved way to describe biodiversity based on different lines of evidence. The research article is a midpoint between the use of large expensive molecular data sets, vs. the use of morphological data alone to delimit species and document biodiversity.

ScienceDaily: Living Well News

ScienceDaily: Living Well News


Toy commercials continue to transmit different values to boys and girls

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST

Dolls for the girls, cars for the boys. A study which analyzed 595 toy advertisements broadcast on television at Christmas 2009, 2010 and 2011 showed that they promoted values that associate beauty with girls and strength and power with boys.

The Cynical Girl: Day Off: Someday at Christmas

The Cynical Girl: Day Off: Someday at Christmas

Link to The Cynical Girl

Day Off: Someday at Christmas

Posted: 21 Dec 2013 03:45 AM PST

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News


Natural gas saves water, even when factoring in water lost to hydraulic fracturing

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:08 AM PST

A new study finds that in Texas, the US state that annually generates the most electricity, the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation is saving water and making the state less vulnerable to drought.

Optical rogue waves: The storm in a test tube

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:36 AM PST

Random processes in nature often underlie a so-called normal distribution that enables reliable estimation for the appearance of extreme statistical events. Meteorological systems are an exception to this rule, with extreme events appearing at a much higher rate than could be predicted from long-term observation at much lower magnitude. One such example is the appearance of unexpectedly strong storms, yet another are rare reports of waves of extreme height in the ocean, which are also known as rogue waves or monster waves.

Producing electricity on the Moon at night

Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST

Scientists have proposed a system of mirrors, processed lunar soil and a heat engine to provide energy to vehicles and crew during the lunar night. This would preclude the need for batteries and nuclear power sources such as those used by the Chinese rover that recently landed on the moon. The lunar night lasts approximately 14 days, during which temperatures as low as -150 ºC have been recorded. This complicates vehicle movement and equipment functioning on the lunar surface, requiring the transport of heavy batteries from Earth or the use of nuclear energy, as exemplified by the Chinese rover Yutu.

Dual catalysts help synthesize alpha-olefins into new organic compounds

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 05:01 PM PST

Chemists have developed a method to convert chemicals known as alpha-olefins into new organic compounds. Combining a pair of catalytic reactions in sequence converted inexpensive chemicals into new organic compounds that are highly sought after by researchers in medicine and the life sciences.

Is space-time smooth or grainy? Testing Einstein's laws of Special Relativity

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:01 AM PST

A new article is a systematic review of the methods devised by scientists since the 90s to test Einstein's laws of Special Relativity, up to the highest observable energies. These types of tests are important: deviations from Special Relativity could in fact indicate that space-time is not continuous but grainy.

New method for reconstructing long-gone historic buildings in 3-D

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:01 AM PST

Researchers have recreated the palace that belonged to Ambassador Vich, a Gothic-Renaissance jewel that was demolished in the 19th Century. The technique, which uses historical and archaeological data of the building, can be utilized to learn more about other architectural monuments that have been destroyed.

Diamonds in Earth's oldest zircons are nothing but laboratory contamination

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:12 PM PST

In 2007 and 2008, two research papers reported in the journal Nature that a suite of zircons from the Jack Hills included diamonds. Now geologists have discovered using electron microscopy that the diamonds in the Jack Hills of western Australia are not diamonds but broken fragments of a diamond-polishing compound that got embedded when the zircon specimen was prepared for analysis by the authors of the Nature papers.

'Macrocells' influence corrosion rate of submerged marine concrete structures

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:30 AM PST

Using numerical modeling, an Italian research team has discovered the role 'macrocells' play in the corrosion of hollow submerged marine concrete structures such as tunnels and parking structures.

First plant-based 'microswimmers' could propel drugs to the right location

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST

In the quest to shrink motors so they can maneuver in tiny spaces like inside and between human cells, scientists have taken inspiration from millions of years of plant evolution and incorporated, for the first time, corkscrew structures from plants into a new kind of helical "microswimmer." The low-cost development could be used on a large scale in targeted drug delivery and other applications.

Toward lowering titanium's cost and environmental footprint for lightweight products

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST

A novel method for extracting titanium, a metal highly valued for its light weight, high strength, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility, could lower its cost and make it more widely accessible, for example, for producing lighter car parts to improve fuel efficiency. The method significantly reduces the energy required to separate it from its tightly bound companion, oxygen.

Polymer coatings based on molecular structures

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 06:58 AM PST

A novel method enables manufacturing of polymer layers with tailor-made properties and multiple functions: A stable porous gel for biological and medical applications is obtained from a metal-organic framework grown on a substrate.

Companion's comets the key to curious exoplanet system?

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 06:58 AM PST

The nearby star Fomalhaut A hosts the most famous planetary system outside our own Solar System, containing both an exoplanet and a spectacular ring of comets. Astronomers have just announced a new discovery with the Herschel Space Observatory that has made this system even more intriguing; the least massive star of the three in the Fomalhaut system, Fomalhaut C, has now been found to host its own comet belt.