National Science Foundation
Plastic Brain Outsmarts Experts
Can human beings rev up their intelligence quotients, or are they stuck with IQs set by their genes at birth? Until recently, nature seemed to be the clear winner over nurture.
Medicine & Health / Medical research
Jun 05, 2008 |
4.5 / 5 (73) |
1
Racing the clock: Rapid climate change forces scientists to evaluate extreme conservation strategies
Scientists are, for the first time, objectively evaluating ways to help species adapt to rapid climate change and other environmental threats via strategies that were considered too radical for serious consideration as recently ...
May 25, 2009 |
4.1 / 5 (76) |
8
Desert Dust Alters Ecology of Colorado Alpine Meadows
(PhysOrg.com) -- Accelerated snowmelt--precipitated by desert dust blowing into the mountains--changes how alpine plants respond to seasonal climate cues that regulate their life cycles, according to results ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jun 29, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (50) |
1
Scientists replicate key evolutionary step in life on earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on Earth's surface began forming multi-cellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals.
Jan 16, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (46) |
500
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From Sugar to Gasoline
Following independent paths of investigation, two research teams are announcing this month that they have successfully converted sugar-potentially derived from agricultural waste and non-food plants-into gasoline, diesel, ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Sep 18, 2008 |
4.5 / 5 (47) |
9
Yellowstone's ancient supervolcano: Only lukewarm?
The geysers of Yellowstone National Park owe their eistence to the "Yellowstone hotspot"--a region of molten rock buried deep beneath Yellowstone, geologists have found. But how hot is this "hotspot," and ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 27, 2008 |
4.4 / 5 (40) |
3
How 'spooky' quantum mechanical laws may affect everyday objects (Update)
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a study published in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature, Dartmouth researchers describe one example of the microscopic quantum world influencing--even dominating, they say--the behavi ...
Jul 01, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (39) |
20
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The Secret of Life May Be As Simple As What Happens Between the Sheets -- Mica Sheets
(PhysOrg.com) -- That age-old question, "where did life on Earth start?" now has a new answer. If the life between the mica sheets hypothesis is correct, life would have originated between sheets of mica that ...
Aug 06, 2010 |
4 / 5 (40) |
265
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A New Way to Think About Earth's First Cells
A team of researchers at Harvard University have modeled in the laboratory a primitive cell, or protocell, that is capable of building, copying and containing DNA.
Biology /
Jun 05, 2008 |
4.4 / 5 (35) |
14
New Blow for Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Theory
(PhysOrg.com) -- The enduringly popular theory that the Chicxulub crater holds the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some 65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, is challenged in a paper ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 27, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (32) |
14
Solar cycle linked to global climate
Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 16, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (30) |
47
Scientists find 'great Pacific Ocean garbage patch'
Scientists have just completed an unprecedented journey into the vast and little-explored "Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch."
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 27, 2009 |
3.8 / 5 (37) |
29
Newly discovered extrasolar planet is the smallest known and has smallest host star
Astronomers have discovered an extrasolar planet only three times more massive than our own, the smallest yet observed orbiting a normal star. The star itself is not large, perhaps as little as one twentieth ...
Jun 02, 2008 |
4.7 / 5 (28) |
1
Peaceful bonobos may have something to teach humans
Humans share 98.7 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, but we share one important similarity with one species of chimp, the common chimpanzee, that we don't share with the other, the bonobo. That similarity ...
Mar 08, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (25) |
161
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Why 'scientific consensus' fails to persuade
Suppose a close friend who is trying to figure out the facts about climate change asks whether you think a scientist who has written a book on the topic is a knowledgeable and trustworthy expert. You see from the dust jacket ...
Sep 14, 2010 |
3.2 / 5 (37) |
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