Read the full story of Zac Unger's research on the plight of polar bears in Manitoba. ... Read More
My Nuclear Bomb Detonates More Safely Than Your Nuclear Bomb
September 20, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
In yet another example of the serendipity of science, a University of Michigan research team applied “cocrystallization”—a process used in the pharmaceutical industry to alter the physical properties of drugs—to the production of high explosives, and discovered what may improve explosives technology in use for the last half century. Mixing two mainstays, the volatile CL-20 and the popular HMX (two parts to one), chemist Adam J. Matzger and colleagues cooked up an explosive that travels about 1 percent faster than HMX alone, the military’s explosive of choice since the 1940s. Not a ... Read More
Consider the Crawdad
September 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Recently dubbed the “ultimate survivor” by British biologists, the Louisiana red swamp crawdad and its globe-trotting adventures have made it the poster crustacean for pluck in the face of adversity. As legends go, the American export, a Gulf Coast native, first landed in Africa in the 1960s. Despite harsh conditions, food scarcity, and fierce predators, the swamp crawdad thrived—and today boasts progeny across the continent. In these challenging social and economic times, the crawdad’s superior coping skills have caught the attention of scientists the world over. Herewith, the ... Read More
Polynesian Corals Say No to Diversity
August 28, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
When it comes to the symbiotic relationship between reef-building corals and energy-producing algae, “the more the merrier” has been the rule—that is, the more algae types the corals host within their tissues, the heartier the corals, the better they can withstand environmental stress (say from climate change or ocean acidification). Right? Counterintuitive to the notion that biodiversity is essential for a balanced ecosystem, a University of Hawaii at Manoa study of corals in French Polynesia has revealed just the opposite. In the field for the National Science Foundation’s ... Read More
Plugging High-Speed Rail Into Germany’s Power Grid
May 18, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Germans, feeling the bite of necessity, have announced another use for their electrified rail network: It can carry green energy, too. The German rail system has several thousand miles of high-voltage transmission lines that can be modified to broaden the national energy grid. And because of a seismic shift in German policy, the government has to find a quick solution to a daunting problem, namely how to move large amounts of renewable energy from one region to another. Wind turbines spin in the northeast, for example; but cities are growing in the south and west. The German grid would need ... Read More
New Dinosaur Gets a Rather Large Name
April 29, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
A new dinosaur discovered in Utah has been named Brontomerus mcintoshi. Now, we have no quarrel at all with the species name, mcintoshi, because it was chosen in honor of John "Jack" McIntosh, who is described as "a retired physicist at Wesleyan University, Conn., and lifelong avocational paleontologist." But guess what Brontomerus translates into? You guessed it: "Thunder Thighs." "Brontomerus mcintoshi is a charismatic dinosaur and an exciting discovery for us," said the project's lead author Mike Taylor, a researcher in the department of earth sciences at University College London, in ... Read More
Save the Birds — With Doppler Radar
April 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
After slogging through knee-deep water, past palmetto thickets and trumpet vines dangling from the treetops, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Mike Lange stops short. He signals toward a gnarled live oak, straight out of the magical charm of The Shire, its trunk the width of a car. Crumpled resurrection ferns line its branches, waiting to sprout in green abandon with the next rains. Nearby, the trunks of an elm and a water hickory wrap around each other like a sculpture of intertwined lovers. Lange is rightly proud of these woods. Over the past 20 years, he has been largely ... Read More
Rooftop Solar Power to the People?
April 18, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
While chasing the mirage of a game-changing renewable energy source in the form of industrial-scale solar plants capable of powering hundreds of thousands of homes, the federal government has turned its back on a better, cheaper form of energy from the sun: distributed solar power generation, sometimes known as rooftop solar. At least, that's the way desert environmental advocates see it. A coalition of scientists and local land conservationists calling itself Solar Done Right envisions roofing homes, commercial buildings and parking lots throughout the Southwest with a vast network of ... Read More
Wording Change Softens Global Warming Skeptics
March 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Are you convinced climate change is real? What about global warming? Yes, that second question is redundant. But new research finds the two labels, which are widely used interchangeably, evoke remarkably different responses among self-described Republicans. Writing in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly, a research team led by University of Michigan psychologist Jonathon Schuldt reports Republicans are far more skeptical of “global warming” than of “climate change.” In an experiment conducted as part of a large survey, the researchers found 44 percent of Republicans endorsed the ... Read More
