22.02.11

Frogs in Peril: A Race to Save a Threatened Frog With Risky Experimental Techniques

Scientists douse frogs with experimental bacteria to halt mass amphibian death For years, every time Vance Vredenburg visited his study area in Kings Canyon National Park in California, he tallied about 100 Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs. But in 2005, all the San
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Formerly Common Little Brown Bat May Be Headed For Endangered Species List

Biologists are asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether the little brown bat - formerly one of the most common mammals in North America - should be added to the endangered species list, bat conservationists said Thursday. "The little brown
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Five Contests That Recognize The Science Achievements of the Everyman

There's a long tradition of offering big cash prizes to entice talented and creative individuals to solve problems that have stymied industry and governments for decades. For example, in 1810, French cook Nicolas Appert won a 12,000-franc government prize for a food preservation
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Cement From Thin Air

A biologist's plan for radically reducing carbon emissions As a marine-biology student in the 1980s, Brent Constantz was astonished to discover how simply corals conjure their stony mass from nothing more than seawater. The trick? They combine the calcium and bicarbonate
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FYI: Can Skyscrapers Prevent Tornadoes?

It's true that the plains of Kansas are a more familiar backdrop for tornadoes than Times Square, but the funnels can form just about anywhere if the conditions are right. The reason Tornado Alley, the area stretching from Texas to South Dakota and from the Rocky
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Researchers Call For 'Physical Internet' To Ferry Freight Through a Series of Tubes

Hungry? Better turn on your linear induction motor and send a metal capsule through an underground polyethylene tube to retrieve some groceries. That's the vision of Foodtubes,
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Wind-, Solar-, and Hydrogen-Powered Ferry to Lady Liberty to be Completed in April

Transportation to some of America's most iconic tourist destinations will be a little more high-tech and eco-friendly come April. Statue Cruises, which provides ferry service to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, has signed an agreement with Derecktor Shipyards in
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NASA's Newly Discovered Arsenic-Loving Bacteria Are Fascinating, but Not Aliens [Updated + Video]

So everyone chill out. It does raise interesting questions for alien life-hunters, however Biologists have isolated a bacterium that can use a deadly chemical in place of one of life's key building blocks, in a finding NASA says could have major implications for astrobiology
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A New Way of Flying

How a record-breaking pilot made it through the night in a sun-powered plane Born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1952, the year the first commercial jet airliner took flight, André Borschberg grew up longing for the skyward frontier and the "freedom of three dimensions."
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Breeding Silicon and Solar Power in the Middle of the Desert

The forbidding sands of the Sahara might seem an unusual place for farming. But if you're farming silicon to make solar panels, the conditions in the Sahara are more or less optimal. At least, that's the thinking behind the Sahara Solar Breeder Project. The plan, a joint
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Munich Deploys Custom Bacteria at Oktoberfest to Devour Ubiquitous Stink of Stale Beer

Bavarian beer purveyors concerned about a smelly Oktoberfest are hoping bacteria can make the experience more enjoyable. They plan to pour a solution of live bacteria on the
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Five Contests That Recognize The Science Achievements of the Everyman

There's a long tradition of offering big cash prizes to entice talented and creative individuals to solve problems that have stymied industry and governments for decades. For example, in 1810, French cook Nicolas Appert won a 12,000-franc government prize for a food preservation
Read more...


Planned Portuguese Eco-City Is Controlled By A Central Computer Brain

A new eco-city planned in Portugal takes a cue from biology, using a centralized computer "brain" to control functions like water use, waste processing and energy consumption. It's the biggest attempt at
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Optical Speedbumps Create Illusion of Little Girl Darting Out In Front Of You

Civil authorities around the world have tried all kinds of tricks to get drivers to slow down: speed bumps, rumble strips, flashing lights, the decoy police cruiser, and of course the good old-fashioned speed trap. The British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic
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Qatar unveils awesome solar stadium designs for 2022 World Cup

As soccer fans prepare for next month's World Cup, 11 nations around the world are already vying for the one that starts 12 years from now. Qatar's plans, unveiled Friday, won't bring 3D images of soccer action to your doorstep, but the stadiums will probably be worth visiting
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UK-designed smart house learns your desires and adjusts to make you happy

Smart house tech is about to go a step beyond your average energy-efficiency monitoring systems. What about a house that prepares a fresh pot of coffee when you wake up, plays your favorite music without being told to, and sets the thermostat to your ideal setting? Now that's
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MIT's Self-Assembling Solar Cells Recycle Themselves Repeatedly, Just Like Plant Cells

Plants are extremely efficient converters of light into energy, more or less setting the bar for researchers creating photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. As such, researchers are constantly trying to mimic the tricks that millions of years of
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Philadelphia Eagles to Be Powered by On-Site Renewable Energy in 10 Months

Those spiky things around the stadium's top? Those are 20-foot-tall wind turbines. 80 of them The Philadelphia Eagles announced a partnership with Solar Blue to completely re-green their
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Video: Electric Version of Tiniest Manned Plane Ever Takes to the Skies

An ultralight kit plane designed in the 1970s has become the first four-engined electric plane to take to the skies. Weighing in around 175 kilograms -- including the pilot -- the
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Divers use bar codes on tablet computers to visually control underwater bots

First dolphins caught on. Now underwater robots are using iPads to communicate, thanks to a new system designed at York University in Toronto. As Technology Review reports,
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The Future Is Clear Now

While Toyota and Volkswagen – the world’s two biggest car makers – are locked in a battle for global sales leadership over the next decade, driven by a new generation of hybrid and electric cars, Japanese maker Honda is working on technology that may well leapfrog them both. Most big
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Satellite creates first global gravity map of Earth

Using only two months of data, the GOCE gravity-tracking satellite has built the first-ever full map of Earth's gravitational field. The map, called a geoid, reflects the bumps and valleys of Earth's gravitational effects. The map shows what the Earth would look
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LEDs Dethrone Compact Fluorescents as King of Eco-Friendly Lightbulbs

Never mind that twisty compact fluo­rescent. The new energy-efficient way to light your home is with LEDs. An upcoming crop of bulbs draw 12 watts or less, edging out a typical fluorescent, and they have a more conventional shape, contain no mercury, and last at least
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Autonomous Roving Robot Seeks Out Polluted Water to Sustain Its Onboard Plant Symbiotes

What if we could use our pollution as fuel? That notion seems intractable within the current energy paradigm, in which so many of our pollutants are byproducts of our fuels. But it's precisely that idea that inspired Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza to create "Nomadic
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Why Can't Planes Fly Through Volcanic Ash? NASA Found Out the Hard Way

If you've been anywhere near a television or Web enabled device in the last week (and you must have been), you know that a volcanic eruption in Iceland has grounded airline flights across Europe and even halted a few flights into the northeastern-most
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Ubisoft Goes Green-Friendly

It's a question many experienced gamers have probably asked: Why do video game software publishers continue to print instruction manuals for their games? It's not as though games aren't already furnished with comprehensive training modes and option menus that can't be summarily skipped by players
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Asteroid crater found in Timor Sea linked to Antarctic formation

An underwater dome in the Timor Sea was made by a huge asteroid impact more than 35 million years ago, scientists have revealed. New research from a team at the Australian National University has found the crater, which is believed to have
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Underwater survey finds volume of leaked oil unprecedented 'in human history'

There's been a lot of rather vague back and forth regarding the magnitude of the Gulf oil leak -- it's worse than the Exxon Valdez, but not as bad as 1979's Ixtoc I leak, but worse than the Pittsburgh Pirates, etc. etc. Now researchers have qualified
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Novel cloth material designed to counter bio-attacks can absorb, detoxify crude oil

It's easy not to think much about oil spill remediation technology until something like the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster happens, but materials scientists spend a lot of time thinking about how different materials respond to all kinds of offending substances. In
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Are we living inside a black hole?

Scientists trying to explain the universe's accelerating expansion usually point to dark energy, which seems to be pushing everything apart. But an Indiana University professor has a new theory, reports New Scientist:
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