Earth and Science News- Earth and Science Videos and News // Current

^#21

5 "Oddball" Crocs Discovered, Including Dinosaur-Eater

BoarCroc was a 20-foot-long (6.1-meter-long) "saber-toothed cat in armor" that ate dinosaurs for dinner. The creature... more

ras_menelik
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3 comments

1 day ago

^#22

Frigid Antarctica loaded with viruses

Antarctica's icy lakes are home to a surprisingly diverse community of viruses, including some that were previously unidentified, a new study finds.

At first glance, Antarctica's freshwater lakes don't seem very hospitable to life. They remain frozen for a good nine months out of the year, and they contain very few nutrients. Some of these lakes have little animal life and are dominated by microorganisms, including algae, bacteria, protozoans and viruses.

With few animal and microbial predators around, viruses likely play an important role in controlling the abundance of other microorganisms, the researcher say. However, these viruses have been historically hard to study since many cannot be grown in a laboratory. But thanks to new genome sequencing technology, scientists can identify viruses without needing to grow them.

"We are just starting to uncover the world of viruses, and this is changing the way we think about viruses and the role they play in microbial ecosystems," said Antonio Alcami, a researcher from the Spanish Research Council.

A virus is little more than a package of DNA surrounded by a capsule structure. To survive, viruses must hijack, or infect, living cells and use the host's equipment to replicate.

Alcami and his colleagues analyzed DNA from viruses found in water samples collected from Antarctica's Lake Limnopolar, a surface lake on Livingston Island. They found nearly 10,000 species, including some small DNA viruses that had never before been identified. In total, the viruses were from 12 different families, some of which may be completely new to science, the researchers suggest.

The results reveal this Antarctic lake supports a virus community that's more diverse than most aquatic environments studied in the world so far — a surprising find considering that the polar region is generally thought to have low biological diversity due to the extreme environmental conditions. The scientists speculate the newly discovered viruses may have adapted specifically to thrive in such harsh conditions.

The team also found the community of viruses changed dramatically depending on the season. When the lake was ice-covered in the spring, the liquid water under the ice was inhabited by mostly small viruses, but in the summer months when the ice melted, the lake was home to mostly larger viruses.

"It looks like a completely different lake in summer," Alcami said. The scientists think the shift might be due to an increase in algae in the summertime, which the larger viruses infect.
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Good reason to not dig too deep.Antarctica's icy lakes are home to a surprisingly diverse community of viruses, including some that were previously... more

JanforGore
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7 comments

8 days ago

^#23

Babies begin learning language in the womb

Science Daily reports findings from a new study which suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first... more

Tyrannous
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13 comments

16 days ago

^#24

Tiger Attack: the Full Story

A tigress attacked forest rangers in Kaziranga National Park, India, in 2004. This is the story of what actually happened that... more

WildernessFilmsIndiaLtd
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9 comments

8 days ago

^#25

Scientists: eating too much soy not a good thing

Considering that the soy we eat in America is now largely GM soy, are these results based on soy in general, or effects now being... more

JanforGore
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34 comments

20 days ago

^#26

Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink

"Evolution in humans is commonly thought to have essentially stopped in recent times. But there are plenty of examples that... more

DeliaTheArtist
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15 comments

11 days ago

^#27

VIDEO: Sea "Mucus" Blobs Pose Threat

AS if we didn't have enough to worry about, it's the return of THE BLOB.

quanta
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0 comments

1 month ago

^#28

House of straw passes fire test

A house built from straw-bales and panels of hemp has passed an industry standard fire safety test which exposed it to... more

JackHerer
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3 comments

3 days ago

^#29

To Kill a Pig: Swine flu is an ironic disease

Swine flu is an ironic disease, for it makes the infected crave human meat instead of pig. The infected will attempt to eat the... more

CarolynGillis
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8 comments

1 day ago

^#30

Terrafon plays the earth as an instrument

If the earth could make music, what kind of songs would it sing? This crazy contraption, called the Terrafon, actually lets us... more

Tyrannous
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17 comments

10 days ago

^#31

Billion Dollar U.S. Weather Disasters In 2008

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) describes itself as the “Nation’s Scorekeeper in terms of addressing severe... more

JacquesHalle
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0 comments

8 months ago

^#32

Imagine Earth with 2/3 of ozone gone...

Imagine the year 2065. Two-thirds of Earth’s ozone is gone. The infamous ozone hole over Antarctica is a year-round fixture... more

julesrs007
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0 comments

7 months ago

^#33

Heart of the Milky Way Photos From NASA

really amazing composite image of the Milky Way released by NASA. They combined infra red, visible, and x-ray images taken by... more

Tyrannous
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8 comments

12 days ago

^#34

Can the old Animal Forest Park and Funland in York Beach, Maine follow a new sustainable path?

It would make my heart sing to be allowed, by the forces that be, to be able to help develop and renovate my father and his... more

CarolynGillis
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3 comments

15 days ago

^#35

Extraterrestrial rafting: Hunting off-world sea life

IF LIFE is to be found beyond our home planet, then our closest encounters with it may come in the dark abyss of some... more

retro_Syl
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10 comments

14 days ago

^#36

Why a high IQ doesn't mean you're smart

IS GEORGE W. BUSH stupid? It's a question that occupied a good many minds of all political persuasions during his turbulent eight-year presidency. The strict answer is no. Bush's IQ score is estimated to be above 120, which suggests an intelligence in the top 10 per cent of the population. But this, surely, does not tell the whole story. Even those sympathetic to the former president have acknowledged that as a thinker and decision-maker he is not all there. Even his loyal speechwriter David Frum called him glib, incurious and "as a result ill-informed". The political pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough accused him of lacking intellectual depth, claiming that compared with other US presidents whose intellect had been questioned, Bush junior was "in a league by himself". Bush himself has described his thinking style as "not very analytical".

How can someone with a high IQ have these kinds of intellectual deficiencies? Put another way, how can a "smart" person act foolishly? Keith Stanovich, professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada, has grappled with this apparent incongruity for 15 years. He says it applies to more people than you might think. To Stanovich, however, there is nothing incongruous about it. IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties, he says, including logic, abstract reasoning, learning ability and working-memory capacity - how much information you can hold in mind.

But the tests fall down when it comes to measuring those abilities crucial to making good judgements in real-life situations. That's because they are unable to assess things such as a person's ability to critically weigh up information, or whether an individual can override the intuitive cognitive biases that can lead us astray.

This is the kind of rational thinking we are compelled to do every day, whether deciding which foods to eat, where to invest money, or how to deal with a difficult client at work. We need to be good at rational thinking to navigate our way around an increasingly complex world. And yet, says Stanovich, IQ tests - still the predominant measure of people's cognitive abilities - do not effectively tap into it. "IQ tests measure an important domain of cognitive functioning and they are moderately good at predicting academic and work success. But they are incomplete. They fall short of the full panoply of skills that would come under the rubric of 'good thinking'."

Read the full article here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427321.000-clever-fools-why-a-high-iq-doesnt-mean-youre-smart.html?full=trueIS GEORGE W. BUSH stupid? It's a question that occupied a good many minds of all political persuasions during his turbulent... more

retro_Syl
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38 comments

22 days ago

^#37

Ex-Pharmaceutical Rep. Speaks Out

CarolynGillis
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10 comments

12 days ago

^#38

Iowa's wind power surging

Iowa has become the second-largest producer of wind power in the U.S., and some credit an aggressive and supportive role played by local government.

That support is seen in numerous ways: Wind-energy producers and equipment makers enjoy state tax breaks, and projects of 25 megawatts or smaller don't need to be certified by the utilities board. In addition, producers know ahead of time that they will be able to recover their costs from customers, which makes them more likely to invest. Iowa counties, meanwhile, appreciate the revenue and the jobs that wind farms produce, and have few zoning regulations for wind turbines.

"Iowa shows that concentrated and consistent leadership from governors and consistent support from the state regulatory commission can get a lot done," says Hans Detweiler, director of state policy at the American Wind Energy Association, or AWEA, a trade group based in Washington, D.C.

Indeed, as more states and the federal government seek to encourage more production of renewable energy, Iowa may point the way.

"There's very little regulation," says Terry Monson, who deals with permitting and legal work at independent power developer Renewable Power Markets Access Inc., based in Juno Beach, Fla. "It's very expeditious." Mr. Monson's company has eight wind projects established or under development in Iowa.

Flat Is Good

Nature and geography have lent a hand, too, of course.

Iowa may point the way as more states seek to encourage production of renewable energy
."First, it's relatively flat, making it easy to build," says Scott Jacobson, managing director of wind power finance at Iberdrola Renewables SA, a Spanish engineering and renewable energy company that entered the state in 2003 and now has more than 300 megawatts of local wind projects. Iowa is also "relatively rural, making land control easy," Mr. Jacobson says.

What's more, winds there are strong, and the state lies in an enviable position on the grid—close to load centers like Chicago and Milwaukee.

Last year, Iowa added 1,600 megawatts of wind capacity, jumping ahead of California for second place behind Texas. At the end of the second quarter of 2009, Iowa had 3,043 megawatts of total wind capacity, compared with 8,361 megawatts in Texas and 2,787 megawatts in California, according to the wind-energy association. Iowa's wind now powers about 15% of the state's electricity consumption, which represents a lofty goal for many other states.

The so-called Corn State began promoting renewable-energy sources as early as 1978, when, in response to the oil shock, it passed a property-tax exemption for wind, solar and other types of generators whose electricity was used on site. Then, in 1983, the state adopted the first renewable-energy mandate in the U.S., requiring that its investor-owned utilities draw power from 105 megawatts of renewable generation by 1990.

That's not much by today's standards, but it got the ball rolling. During the 1990s, Iowa added a few megawatts of wind installations a year, until 1999, when the total jumped to 232 megawatts installed, thanks largely to new federal tax credits and the arrival of powerful new European turbines. Iowa met its renewable-power mandate goal in 1997.Iowa has become the second-largest producer of wind power in the U.S., and some credit an aggressive and supportive role played by... more