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Physical Science

Water Can Get Hotter than the Sun
March 9, 2005
When vacuum bubbles form in turbulent water, they can collapse violently in a process called cavitation.  Scientists reporting in Nature1,2 March 3 showed that the energy of cavitation can heat the plasma in the bubble to 15,000 degrees Kelvin – hotter than the surface of the brightest stars.  The resulting flash can sometimes be seen […]
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Physics

Watch for Falling Ants
February 9, 2005
Did you know some ants are gliders?  When Stephen Yanoviak (U. of Texas) was studying insects in the rain forest canopy in Peru, he was struck by the fact that ants kept landing on his arm.  This launched his team’s investigation into gliding ants.  They took video cameras into the jungle and documented their unique […]
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Physics

Octopus Arms Have Optimal Design
February 9, 2005
The tentacles of an octopus are soft and flexible, whereas bony creatures like us have joints that, while good for moving objects around, limit our freedom of movement.  Wouldn’t it be cool to have both?  An international team of neurobiologists, publishing in Nature,1 watched an octopus snare its food, using the flexibility of its tentacles, […]
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Physical Science

How Are Radioactive Dates Determined?
October 6, 2004
To most of us, the practice of radioactive dating seems like a highly-technical, incomprehensible skill that nevertheless (we are told) yields absolute ages of things.  We don’t know exactly how they arrive at the results, but are led to trust them because very smart people get their answers using hard science with extremely accurate equipment.  […]
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Physical Science

Solar Wind Erodes Mars’ Atmosphere
September 28, 2004
Physics Web has a summary of a report that appeared in Science Sept. 24.1  First results from an experiment on ESA’s Mars Express called Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA-3) are in.  They show that the solar wind penetrates deep into Mars’ atmosphere, as far as 270 km above the Martian surface.  Since […]
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Physical Science

Editorial
August 3, 2004
Rodney Stark (Baylor University) has written an article very critical of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and the other early promoters of evolution, and their modern counterparts, in American Enterprise Online.  Stark claims that Darwin never proved his central thesis, the origin of species, and was well aware of the problems in his thesis even while […]
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Amazing Facts

Your Brain Learned Physics and Calculus Before You Did
July 29, 2004
Tilt your head to the right while moving to the left.  The neurons in your brain just solved Newton’s equations of motion, and performed complex vector calculus equations almost instantaneously.  That’s what four neurologists Washington University of Medicine (St. Louis, MO) essentially claimed in Nature July 29,1 describing how your brain interprets the information coming […]
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Awards

Modern Cosmology Goes Schizophrenic
July 27, 2004
According to Charles Seife writing in Science,1 more cosmologists are taking parallel universes seriously.  This is a consequence of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, one possible mathematical solution to the effects of quantum “weirdness.”  If you think our headline is too harsh, read Seife’s opening in a Rod Serling voice while playing the […]
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Physical Science

Is Earth’s Magnetic Field Reversing?
July 13, 2004
The New York Times and World Net Daily have stories about Earth’s magnetic field.  The strength of the field has declined 10-15% over the past 150 years.  If undergoing a reversal, which some physicists say is overdue, it could have profound effects on migratory animals like birds and turtles, and allow more dangerous radiation to […]
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Physical Science

Saturn Runs Rings Around Cassini
July 1, 2004
“Shocked” was how Carolyn Porco, lead Cassini imaging scientist, described her initial reaction to new pictures of Saturn’s rings.  Precious images began to pour in early July 1 from science observations right after the previous night’s perfect orbit insertion maneuver (see 06/30/2004 headline).  Even though the imaging team had been confident in the capabilities of […]
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Physics

Cassini to Rewrite Textbooks on Saturn
June 30, 2004
Hundreds of scientists and engineers are waiting with eager anticipation for SOI: Saturn Orbit Insertion, as the schoolbus-sized Cassini spacecraft races for its closest approach to the ringed planet tonight.  Just before closest approach, Cassini will fire its main engine for 96 minutes to slow down the spacecraft and allow Saturn to capture it in […]
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Cosmology

Cosmos Ages a Billion Years in One Day
May 28, 2004
Physicists have found that a portion of the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen reaction thought to participate in fusion reactions inside stars runs two times slower than previously thought.  The measurements were made in the Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (LUNA), a lab nearly a mile underground in Italy that offers more protection from cosmic rays.  The ripple effect […]
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Physical Science

How Little We Know What Lies Below
April 2, 2004
Those cutaway views of the earth, with its core, mantle and crust, make nice diagrams in textbooks.  But without a Hollywood-style probe and time machine to the center of the earth, how do we know what’s down there, and how it got that way?  We know surprisingly little, admits David Stevenson (geologist, Caltech) writing in […]
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Cosmology

Privileged Planet Website Opens
March 16, 2004
A website featuring a new book by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, The Privileged Planet, has opened.  The subtitle of the book is How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery.  The authors take issue with pessimistic views, such as those of Steven Weinberg and Carl Sagan, that our planet is “pointless” or […]
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Geology

Rethinking the Geological Layers
March 5, 2004
One of the most formative ideas in Darwin’s intellectual journey was the concept of gradualism, the principle of “small agencies and their cumulative effects.”  This idea became a dominant motif in his philosophy of life.  Describing how the assumption of gradualism permeated his last book (on earthworms) shortly before his death, Janet Browne, in her […]
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