Science News

Each spring and summer fertilizer from the fields of the U.S. Midwest runs off into the Mississippi River. Old Muddy carries the nutrients down the length of the continent before dumping them into the Gulf of Mexico. Once introduced, the nitrogen and phosphorus prompts a bloom in algae, phytoplankton and other microscopic plants. After the plants die they drift to the bottom and their decomposition sucks the oxygen out of the seawater. The result is a vast dead zone , lethal to sea life that cannot swim out of the way, in inhabitable waters near the Gulf Coast that is sometimes as large as New Jersey--and the as much as 3.8 million liters of oil now spilling into the Gulf per day may make it worse. [More]

As the seasons heat up annually, males and females start looking for mates, and two summers' worth of steamy drama outside of a small European town have now been caught on tape. [More]

The next time you snap the waistband on your panties or enjoy a Speedos moment at the beach, have a moment of silence for the man who made it all possible-- Wallace Carothers . The famous DuPont chemist and inventor of nylon (among other ubiquitous synthetic materials) was a very practical person, so much so that he kept a cyanide capsule tucked discreetly into a locket on his watch chain--a comforting, ever-present, portable escape from an insufferably complex mind. Carothers’s thoughts were forever tumbling into the pits of depression , anxiety and--perhaps worst of all--the incessant, worrying anticipation of having to speak about his high-profile polymer research in public. [More]

By Alla Katsnelson

Different communities of Jews around the world share more than just religious or cultural practices--they also have strong genetic commonalities, according to the largest genetic analysis of Jewish people to date.

But the study also found strong genetic ties to non-Jewish groups, with the closest genetic neighbors on the European side being Italians, and on the Middle Eastern side the Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians.

Researchers in New York and Tel Aviv conducted a genome-wide analysis on 237 individuals from seven well-established Jewish communities around the world, hailing from Iran, Iraq, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and eastern Europe. [More]

Eight scientists will share three million-dollar Kavli Prizes for their contributions in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. The announcement was made today in Oslo, Norway, by Nils Christian Stenseth , president of the Nor­wegian Academy of Science and Letters, and broadcast live at the opening of the World Science Festival in New York City. The laureates will each receive a scroll, a gold medal and a share of the $1 million prize for each of the three fields.

Jerry Nelson from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Ray Wilson formerly of Imperial College London in the U.K., and Roger Angel from the University of Arizona will share the astrophysics prize for their innovations in giant tele­scope design. Donald Eigler from IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., and Nadrian Seeman from New York University will jointly accept the nanoscience prize for illuminating the basic units of matter and the building blocks of nanotechnology . Thomas Südhof from the Stanford University School of Medi­cine, Richard Scheller from the San Franscisco-based biotech company Genentech and James Rothman from Yale University together will take the neuroscience prize for revealing how neurons communicate with each other.

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Pelamis platurus , otherwise known as the Yellowbelly Sea Snake, has a new mechanical namesake, a flexible 180-meter monster -- nearly the length of two football fields. It is floating here next to a dock, ready to go to sea.

The giant red machine is named after the serpent, one of the few known to thrive in the open sea. The device is designed so that when it's hit by big waves, it writhes snake-like in the water. As it does, its hydraulic pistons move back and forth. They power its generators to produce a rated 750 kilowatts of electricity.

In a post on Asperger's syndrome , my fellow blogger Karen Schrock manages to knock both religious believers and nonreligious rationalists in just a few paragraphs. Kudos, Karen! People with Asperger's, a mild form of autism, tend not to attribute events in their lives to a "higher power or supernatural force," Karen reports. Conversely, the tendency of supposedly healthy people to see "intention or purpose" behind random events may stem from an overactive " theory of mind ," the innate ability to sense perceptions, emotions and intentions in others. Faith is a pathology, and so is the lack thereof. Basically, we're all nuts. Who could disagree? [More]

COLD SPRING, N.Y.-- J. Craig Venter and his colleagues recently announced that they had created the first cell to run on a fully artificial genome. So what's next for this synthetic strain of microscopic Mycoplasma mycoides and the new technology? [More]

This is a response to an open letter from Joshua Hartshorne entitled “ Fantasy TV in the service of science ,” posted as a guest blog by Scientific American about Dothraki , a language created by the Language Creation Society for the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones . David Peterson (creator of Dothraki) and Sai Emrys (LCS president) emailed him immediately after its posting. David's response below takes into account what was discussed during a fairly lengthy conversation.

Zhey vichomer Joshua Hartshorne,

By Ed Stoddard

VENICE, Louisiana (Reuters) - BP on Thursday cleared the way for an attempt to cap a runaway Gulf of Mexico oil spill and funnel crude to the surface in a high-stakes effort to slow a 45-day gusher.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The official in charge of managing the U.S. response to the oil leak disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday downplayed the possibility of using a nuclear or other explosive device to try to seal off the well.

"I think that's really on the peripheral of things we ought to be talking about right now," Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said when asked about suggestions that a nuclear explosion be used to seal off the leak.

For more than 150 years researchers have tangled with competing explanations for tiny pits preserved in ancient sediments. Some have interpreted those impressions to be so-called fossil raindrops-- rainfall literally embossed in the geologic record --but others have argued for air bubbles rising through sedimentary deposits as a more likely mechanism. [More]