Wash Post Science
- Seismic Science: Is number of earthquakes on the rise?
Are the recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Turkey a coincidence or a sign of increases seismic activity? Dr. Michael Blanpied, associate program coordinator for the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, takes your questions about the causes of the recent quakes, earthquake forecasting and more.
- Dinosaur extinction followed asteroid impact 65 million years ago, panel says
It's official: The extinction of the dinosaurs and a host of other species 65.5 million years ago was caused by a massive asteroid that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, creating worldwide havoc, according to an international team of researchers.
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- Obama's plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism
Harrison Schmitt's credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronaut, who is also a former U.S. senator, is aghast at what President Obama is doing to the space program.
- Federal faces: David Fahey, research physicist at NOAA
Research physicist Earth System Research Laboratory, Chemical Sciences Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Wooly mammoth carcass from Siberia reveals information about ice-age creatures
For 42,000 years, Lyuba, a baby woolly mammoth, was preserved almost perfectly intact, right down to her baby fat, in frigid Siberian river muck. Now released from her icy grave, she is being preserved in much the same manner as another famous Russian relic: the body of revolutionary Vladimir Lenin....
- Dry cleaning usually uses a toxic chemical, but the safety picture is unclear
I live around the corner from a dry cleaner, but there's also a "green" dry cleaner on the other side of town. Am I total jerk if I keep going to my regular spot?
- Mosquito season approaches
First it was just swatting. Then poison. Then sterilizing males. Is there anything people won't try in the war against mosquitoes? The latest idea: Genetic engineering that results in flightless females.
- Math and blogging
Wired magazine, March issue It's the hottest topic in applied math today: compressed sensing (as opposed to all those other topics that we've been so, ahem, diligently tracking). CS is an algorithm that takes low-resolution files and transforms them into sharp images. For instance, a blurry digit...
- For scientists, Chile becomes the ideal lab for studying seismic activity
TALCA, CHILE -- When an aftershock nearly as big as Haiti's earthquake jolted this city on Friday, those already reeling from last month's huge quake shuddered in fear. But Jeff Genrich, a 53-year-old earthquake scientist from California, lolled in bed.
- Japan says it won't comply with bluefin tuna ban
TOKYO -- Japan and the United States keep rubbing each other the wrong way.
- U.S. backs international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna
The U.S. government announced Wednesday that it supports prohibiting international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a move that could lead to the most sweeping trade restrictions ever imposed on the highly prized fish.
- Study: Weedkiller in waterways can change frogs' sex traits
A new study has found that male frogs exposed to the herbicide atrazine -- one of the most common man-made chemicals found in U.S. waters -- can make a startling developmental U-turn, becoming so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs.
- Sensing devices are becoming more adept at detecting toxins and pollutants
Local boozers were breathing a bit easier yesterday following news reports that an audit by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department found some 80 percent of its "breathalyzer" alcohol monitors may have been giving faulty readings.
- With tax breaks, geothermal system promises deep cuts in heating, cooling costs
Just before Thanksgiving, my family swore off fossil fuels to heat and cool our 4,400-square-foot suburban home. Instead, we're relying on the Earth itself: We've converted to geothermal energy, which taps the constant temperature of the ground below our house. ¶ The project took us into complete...
- Debating the environmental impact of feeding pets
You're always going on about the environmental impact of the food we eat. What about the food our pets eat? Cats and dogs consume a lot of meat, after all.
- Mars rover makes most of opportunity
Spirit has always been the unluckier of NASA's twin Mars rovers.
- Assessing bids for geothermal system helped homeowner understand the technology
Once we decided on a geothermal system, the first steps were getting educated and getting bids -- and the two processes were not unconnected.
- Spider-Man and other comic-book characters help explain scientific ideas
- Manure becomes pollutant as its volume grows unmanageable
Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, this is irony: The United States has reduced the manmade pollutants that left its waterways dead, discolored and occasionally flammable.
- Climate change panel seeks outside review on reports
Because of recent criticism of its work, the Nobel Prize-winning international panel studying global warming is seeking independent outside review for how it makes major reports, the panel said.
- FDIC to test principal reduction for underwater borrowers
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is developing a program to test whether cutting the mortgage balances of distressed borrowers who owe significantly more than their homes are worth is an effective method for saving homeowners from foreclosure.
- SeaWorld will keep whale despite trainer's death
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Despite calls to free or destroy the animal, SeaWorld said Thursday it will keep the killer whale that drowned its trainer, but will suspend all orca shows while it decides whether to change the way handlers work with the behemoths.
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- Under the world's greatest cities, deadly plates
Megacities are something new on the planet. Earthquakes are something very old. The two are a lethal combination, as seen in the recent tragedy in Port-au-Prince, where more than 200,000 people perished -- a catastrophe that scientists say is certain to be repeated somewhere, and probably soon, w...
- Dinosaurs found in China had colorful, striped feathers, scientists declare
- Olympic champions must train hard, but the right genes are also essential
Speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno trained for the Vancouver Olympics for two years. He sprinted up mountains, lifted weights, ran, biked and skated. He often worked out twice a day, sometimes more. In his first event of the 2010 Games, he won a silver medal.
- Road salt melts snow, but it contaminates groundwater and damages habitats
With all the snow, road crews have been spreading loads of salt all over the sidewalks and roads. I know it wreaks havoc on my car. What does it do to the environment?
- nature
Above, winter 2009-2010 issue The new issue of the eco-art magazine Above hit U.S. newsstands in early February with the somewhat startling price of $10 -- but it is imported from England and 218 chlorine-free, fully recyclable pages long. The mag's goal is to showcase the scientists, artists and...
- Book review: 'Being with Animals' by Barbara J. King
Animals are an integral part of our lives and culture. We can find them in children's books as talking characters, in our living rooms snuggled up on the couch or on our dinner plates next to a heap of mashed potatoes. In "Being with Animals," anthropologist Barbara J. King explains how this unique relationship came to be by tracing it back to our earliest human ancestors.
- Scientists scour Haiti for clues to past and potential earthquakes
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- As engineers inspect cracked and sagging buildings here, a team of U.S. scientists is probing deeper, hoping to learn what caused the earth to shudder and where it might rumble again.
- Genomes of Archbishop Tutu, Bushman decoded in developing-world health push
Scientists have deciphered the genetic blueprint of South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu and an indigenous Bushman from Namibia as part of an ambitious and controversial project to bring modern genomic medicine to the developing world.
- The Pacific Ocean's Garbage Patch needs more study
I keep reading about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that floating island of trash between California and Hawaii. Can we ever clean it up? And should we even bother?
- Pluto, the red-faced demoted planet
Recent computer-processed images of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show that it is not simply a ball of ice and rock, but a dynamic world that undergoes dramatic atmospheric changes produced by its seasons. The images show an icy and dark, molasses-colored world that is highly mottled ...
- Olympians have Alpine skiing down to a science
No matter who wins the Alpine skiing events at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the whole world will be pulling for them. That's because those events are among the very few in all of sports that are powered entirely by Earth's gravitational field. The skiers' job is to exploit gravity by converting pote...
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- Evolution: Unbridled enthusiasm
"The Rise of Horses" (Johns Hopkins University Press, $65)
- Book review: 'The Whale' by Philip Hoare
Philip Hoare's "The Whale" is equal parts almanac, literary study, celebration, elegy, eulogy and literary travel essay.
- Google makes a push into super-fast broadband access
Google staked a claim on another corner of the technology universe Wednesday, saying it now wants to turbocharge your Internet connection.
- Obama overhauls NASA's agenda in budget request
Nearly half a century ago, President John F. Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon. Earlier this month, by killing NASA's Constellation program, President Obama essentially challenged the space agency to do something other than put a man back on the moon.
- Rafting to Madagascar
Madagascar, the large island off the east coast of Africa, is home to dozens of species of lemurs and other small mammals found nowhere else in the world. The question that has long puzzled scientists is: How did they get there?
- Haitian earthquake seems to have had little impact on country's ecosystem
The human toll of the earthquake in Haiti has been devastating, but what, if anything, does the disaster mean for the environment?
- Achenblog
President Obama has decided to kill NASA's Constellation program, which would have sent astronauts back to the moon. Here are a few lessons from Constellation, adapted from The Post's Achenblog.
- Greetings, Earthlings
NASA.gov NASA started streaming live video from the international space station on Feb. 1, offering the Earth-bound glimpses into the daily life of an astronaut. (Go to http://www.nasa.gov/station and click on the "Live Space Station Video" link.) You may see one or more of the five astronauts fl...
- 5 workers killed in explosion at Middleton, Conn., power plant
CONNECTICUT An explosion that sounded like a sonic boom blew out the walls of an unfinished power plant in Connecticut and set off a fire during a test of natural gas lines Sunday, killing at least five workers, injuring a dozen or more, and leaving crews picking through debris for more possible...
- Book review: 'From Eternity to Here' by Sean Carroll
Young Caltech physicist Sean Carroll offers his theories on the mystery of time in the accessible "From Eternity to Here."
- AOL reverses steep fourth-quarter loss but revenue drops 17%
Reporting quarterly results for the first time in a decade as an independent company, AOL said Wednesday that it earned $1.4 million in the fourth quarter, reversing a steep loss from a year earlier.
- NASA's new plan: Technology comes before the destination
NASA has a brand-new strategy for human space flight. But now it needs to decide where to go.
- Obama budget proposal scraps NASA's back-to-the-moon program
The Obama administration is killing Constellation, NASA's ambitious back-to-the moon program. The decision represents a thunderous demolition of the Bush-era strategy at the space agency, which had already poured $9 billion into a new rocket, the Ares 1, and a new crew capsule, Orion.
- Science and engineering are ways for student to make an impact, senator says
Prism, January edition As the only engineer in the Senate, Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) emphasizes the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education: "Young people today, kids in middle school and high school, want to make a difference. The problem is, they don't view...
- SCIENCE NEWS
The thick black eye makeup worn by Egyptian men and women during the time of the pharaohs was not just for beauty. According to researchers with the Louvre and the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, the distinctive makeup, so clearly portrayed on the famous death mask of King Tut, contained...
- Anacostia River shows decades-long failure to improve water quality, ecosystem
Take a walk, or take a canoe, down the Anacostia River. Here -- in the story of one smelly, trashy and sporadically beautiful stream -- is the unfinished business of the American environmental movement, 40 years after the first Earth Day.
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- Kosher and halal meat is no safer or better for the environment than other meat
I usually buy organic, sustainably raised meats, but sometimes when I can't find them, I get kosher meat instead. Does that make environmental sense, or is the stuff approved by rabbis just as bad as anything else?
- Airport scanners will soon use radiation to detect explosives and chemicals
Long before the Christmas airplane bomber affair highlighted the threat of weaponized underwear, the Transportation Security Administration had begun test deployments of "whole-body" scanners that detect not only knives, guns and the like but also soft explosives or pouches of lethal chemicals th...
- NASA budget for 2011 eliminates funds for manned lunar missions
NASA's grand plan to return to the moon, built on President George W. Bush's vision of an ambitious new chapter in space exploration, is about to vanish with hardly a whimper. With the release Monday of President Obama's budget request, NASA will finally get the new administration's marching orders,...
- D.C. Mayor Fenty's approval ratings plummet, poll finds
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's approval rating has plummeted over the past two years, with support eroding in all parts of the city and across demographic groups, particularly among African Americans, according to a new Washington Post poll.
- China spends billions to study dinosaur fossils at sites of major discoveries
ZHUCHENG, CHINA -- What killed the dinosaurs? Scientist Wang Haijun thinks the answer may be buried inside a 980-foot-long ravine in the Chinese countryside 415 miles southeast of Beijing where hundreds of the creatures may have huddled in the final moments before their extinction.
- Genetic tests give consumers hints about disease risk; critics have misgivings
Last fall, Sgt. Timothy Gall, an Army medic stationed at Fort Belvoir, sought clues to the multiple sclerosis and heart disease that ran in his family by looking into his DNA. All it took was some spit and about a thousand bucks.
- Pain and dying are explored by doctors in new books
LAST ACTS Discovering Possibility and Opportunity at the End of Life
- Contact lenses produce trash, but their environmental impact is minimal
Instead of glasses, I wear contact lenses. This means throwing out scraps of plastic (as well as their packaging) every two weeks, in addition to using cleaning fluid (which comes in plastic containers) and plastic lens cases. How much better would it be for the planet if I switched to glasses?
- Boys vs. girls on cellphones
We've heard about the gender divide in knowledge and use of technology. It seems the gap may start with the simplest of technologies -- cellphones -- and at a fairly young age -- middle school.
- Science Scan
- Fatherless shark pups can survive over long term
Shark offspring born to virgin mothers can survive over the long term, according to a new study published Monday.
- U.N. climate panel chief: Error shouldn't derail global warming efforts in India
NEW DELHI -- For many Indians, the most powerful and urgent reason to battle global warming arose from a report warning that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035.
- Book review: 'The Hidden Brain' by Shankar Vedantam
In "The Hidden Brain," Shankar Vedantam reviews this new science and applies it speculatively to practical circumstances in which our subconscious leanings might mislead us.
- Genetic scientists explore how centuries of breeding have altered dogs' DNA
Dog genes that code for such signature pet traits as the furrowed skin of the Shar-Pei have been identified in a study that shows how centuries of breeding gave rise to 400 kinds of domestic dogs.
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- Be careful about which trash items should and shouldn't be sent for recycling
I wonder about this one when I'm sorting kitchen waste: If you don't know whether something is recyclable, what's the best approach? Is it better to put the inscrutable item in the blue recycling bin, or should you just throw it in the trash?
- Laser light proves to have many uses in business, health, communications
This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most portentous events in the history of science: the creation of the laser. Like many a transformative development, it was met initially with thunderous public indifference, although there were a few mutterings about "death rays." A number of te...
- Pop-up ads, more distracting than you think
Pop-up ads, software-update reminders and instant messages can be annoying when they appear on your computer screen. It turns out they're also far more distracting than you might assume.
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- Meet Daniel Irwin of NASA, a scientist focused on the Earth, not the stars
Daniel Irwin, research scientist and director of SERVIR,
- Book World: Review of Get Me Out by Randi Hutter Epstein
Physician and medical journalist Randi Hutter Epstein is here to tell us in "Get Me Out," her engrossing survey of the history of childbirth, that even with all of today's whiz-bang technology, "We are still in the dark about so many things that go into making babies."
- Doomsday Clock set back by a minute
Man is the only creature that knows it's going to die, and atomic scientists are the only professionals who measure the amount of time before man annihilates himself.
- New Siemens U.S. chief to work from Washington
The German electronics and engineering giant Siemens said a new president and chief executive for its U.S. business will be based in Washington. Eric Spiegel, who was based in the District previously as senior partner at the management consulting firm Booz & Co., is scheduled to start later in...
- New FDA deputy to lead food-safety mandate
A year ago, Michael Taylor was sitting in his office at George Washington University, considering a basic mission of the federal government: making sure food is safe. He'd devoted his career to food safety, working in and out of government, and he was finally in academia where he could think deep...
- Common herbicide might affect frogs
One of the herbicides most widely used to fight a broad range of weeds in cornfields and on other cropland appears to affect the sexual development of frogs when it gets into the waterways in which they live, according to researchers at the University of Ottawa.
- As more planets emerge, astronomers are confident they'll find one like Earth
It seems increasingly likely that, as they stare at the heavens, astronomers are going to find an Earth out there, or at least something that they can plausibly claim is a rocky planet where water could splash at the surface and -- who knows? -- harbor some kind of life. But it's also clear that,...
- Which is better for the environment, fake fur or real fur?
Now that fur is back in vogue, I've been thinking about splurging on a coat this winter. I'm not too keen on the idea of a real fur, but isn't fake fur essentially made out of oil? Is it any greener than real fur?
- PBS lends a 'Spark' to new series
- Scientists say mountaintop mining should be stopped
Mountaintop coal mining -- in which Appalachian peaks are blasted off and stream valleys buried under tons of rubble -- is so destructive that the government should stop giving out new permits to do it, a group of scientists said in a paper released Thursday.
- Kepler telescope discovers five new planets, all bigger than Earth
In their search for a planet that looks like Earth -- comfortably bathed in sunshine in a pleasant solar system where life would be easy come easy go -- astronomers keep turning up the strangest things.
- Computers guide traffic lights to reduce congestion for commuters, other drivers
There probably are just two times when you think about a traffic light.
- SCIENCE NEWS
A 20-foot-long crocodile with three sets of fangs -- like wild boar tusks -- once roamed parts of northern Africa, researchers reported recently. While this fearsome creature hunted meat, not far away another type of croc with a wide, flat snout like a pancake was fishing for food. And a smaller,...
- Time marches on, measured in billionths of a second
When you're having the time of your life, time doesn't matter. So when the big ball in Times Square hit bottom on New Year's Eve, you probably didn't much care if it was precisely midnight, especially if you were engaged in the annual ritual epic smooch.
- Fake fireplace logs can be better for the environment than real wood
I keep seeing fake logs for sale, made from "green" materials such as recycled cardboard and coffee grounds. Are these synthetic products any greener than a piece of real wood?
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- Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States -- from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners -- nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officia...
- Claire M. Fraser-Liggett, Institute for Genome Sciences
In my senior year of college, I did research with a doctor that got me excited about what a career in medical research was all about.
- Mars gets the new year off to a very bright start
Start seeing red: Mars begins 2010 with a bright show.
- Book review of 'Rewilding the World' by Caroline Fraser
In "Rewilding the World," Caroline Fraser follows individuals who are making bold attempts to save species without resorting to booby traps.
- Book review of Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King by Brad Matsen
Longtime aquatic author Brad Matsen sets out to correct this slight to our water-covered planet with his new biography, offering us, if not total immersion, at least a fast and thrilling dive through Cousteau's aquatic life.
- Russians plan to use cloud seeding to curtail heavy snowfall in Moscow
MOSCOW -- In the snow-hushed woods on Moscow's northern edge, scientists are decades deep into research on bending the weather to their will. They've been at it since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin paused long enough in the throes of World War II to found an observatory dedicated to tampering with ...
- Search for extraterrestrial life gains momentum around the world
HAT CREEK, CALIF. -- The wide dishes, 20 feet across and raised high on their pedestals, creaked and groaned as the winds from an approaching snowstorm pushed into this highland valley. Forty-two in all, the radio telescopes laid out in view of some of California's tallest mountains look otherwor...
- Alaskan waters and wildlife still feel effects of Exxon Valdez oil spill
Okay, so you've brought us up to speed on acid rain and the Amazon rain forest. Here's another hot-button environmental issue from the past I'd like an update on: the Exxon Valdez spill. Is everything up there copacetic, or what?
- Science News
Women in late pregnancy seem to become more attuned to the emotional states of people around them, perhaps because they're getting ready for the demands of protecting and nurturing a newborn, according to a new British study.
- Science Scan
- A champion for cleaner oceans
Holly Bamford, director and chief, Marine Debris Program, National Oeanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- Submersible glider spent months collecting data on Atlantic waters
She was at sea for 221 days. She was alone, often in dangerous places, and usually out of touch. Her predecessor had disappeared on a similar trip, probably killed by a shark. Yet she was always able to do what was asked, to head in a different direction on a moment's notice and report back witho...
- Different cheeses have varying environmental impacts; sheep cheese is harshest
I'm planning a big holiday shindig, and I was going to put out my usual enormous cheese-and-cracker spread. This year I've been wondering: What's the environmental impact of cheese?
- Digital cameras use megapixels and semiconductors to capture everyday images
Getting a digital camera for Christmas? Before you fire it up to capture Uncle Wally's fateful fifth trip to the punch bowl, take a moment to picture this: You've got a genuine scientific marvel in your mitts. In fact, it took nothing less than two Nobel prizes and a revolution in physics in orde...
- Murals found at Mexican excavation depict everyday life of the Maya
Newly discovered Mayan murals, uncovered during an excavation at Calakmul, Mexico, offer a glimpse of the life of ordinary people instead of the more common depictions of the concerns and lives of Mayan ruling elites, according to the researchers who found the artworks.
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