Electric Vehicles Beat Gas Cars on Climate Emissions over Time New research says building electric vehicles leaves a bigger carbon footprint than making gas-powered cars, though EVs make up the difference in the long run By Mike Lee & E&E News Traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, June… Continue reading Electric Vehicles Beat Gas Cars on Climate Emissions over Time
Category: Quantum Stuff
Successful Reforestation Is Keeping the Eastern U.S. Cooler
Successful Reforestation Is Keeping the Eastern U.S. Cooler Parts of the southeastern and central U.S. haven’t warmed as much as the rest of the country. Reforestation could be partially responsible for this “warming hole” By Jude Coleman Dolly Sods Wilderness, now a protected part of the Monongahela National Forest in the Allegheny Mountains of West… Continue reading Successful Reforestation Is Keeping the Eastern U.S. Cooler
Why Children’s Medications Are Not Fully Tested
Mark Turnerhas worked in pediatrics for more than 30 years, and he’s tired of telling parents there’s nothing he can do for their children. Very few medicines are developed with young people in mind, he said. “It’s just very difficult, watching them be sick, watching babies die.” Turner is referring to the lack of research… Continue reading Why Children’s Medications Are Not Fully Tested
How ‘Idle’ Egg Cells Defend Their DNA From Damage
Having lots of mitochondria is normally risky for cells because their chemical activity generates toxic byproducts known as free radicals. But when Böke peered inside dormant human and frog oocytes, they weren’t overloaded with free radicals at all. As she reported in a Nature paper published in 2022, the oocytes’ mitochondria were doing something surprising:… Continue reading How ‘Idle’ Egg Cells Defend Their DNA From Damage
Strangely Curved Shapes Break 50-Year-Old Geometry Conjecture
In an old Indian parable, six blind men each touch a different part of an elephant. They disagree about what the elephant must look like: Is it smooth or rough? Is it like a snake (so thinks the man touching the trunk) or a fan (as the man touching the ear proposes)? If the blind… Continue reading Strangely Curved Shapes Break 50-Year-Old Geometry Conjecture
Vaccine-resistant Mothers Blame Bad Experiences in Health Care
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Why would a mother reject safe, potentially lifesaving vaccines for her child? Popular writing on vaccine skepticism often denigrates white and middle-class mothers who reject some or all recommended vaccines as hysterical, misinformed, zealous or ignorant. Mainstream media… Continue reading Vaccine-resistant Mothers Blame Bad Experiences in Health Care
Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count
Let’s return to Hamlet, but this time your working memory — consisting of a whiteboard — has room for just 100 words. Once the play starts, you write down the first 100 words you hear, again skipping any repeats. When the space is full, press pause and flip a coin for each word. Heads, and… Continue reading Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count
Scientists Find a Fast Way to Describe Quantum Systems
The new result is the fruit of several years’ worth of scientific labor. Prior research by Anshu and others got part of the way there. Those researchers developed an algorithm that could deduce a system’s Hamiltonian using a reasonable amount of sample data: The amount needed increased only as a polynomial function of the number… Continue reading Scientists Find a Fast Way to Describe Quantum Systems
How Do Chemicals in Plastics Impact Your Endocrine System?
The translucent exterior of a plastic soda bottle hides a secret in plain sight: hundreds of synthetic chemicals embedded in its seemingly innocuous material. These chemicals give the plastic its structure, flexibility and durability, among other qualities—the same traits that also make plastic last for centuries, causing it to accumulate and endure in nature. Before… Continue reading How Do Chemicals in Plastics Impact Your Endocrine System?
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes
The genomes of prokaryotes, however, tend to collapse in size in the face of genetic drift, as suggested by work done by Howard Ochman of the University of Texas, Austin and Louis-Marie Bobay, now at North Carolina State University. It’s not clear why, but it may be because gene regulation in prokaryotes is much less… Continue reading The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes