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Number Of Large Earthquakes Dropped 60 Percent In 2014

Number Of Large Earthquakes Dropped 60 Percent In 2014

Jan 10 2015 | comment(s)

The number of large earthquakes fell considerably in 2014, down to 12 from 19 in 2013. The trend was similar worldwide. Only 11 earthquakes reached magnitude 7.0-7.9 and one registered magnitude 8.2, in Iquique, Chile on April 1st. That was the lowest annual total of earthquakes magnitude 7.0 or greater since 2008, which also had 12. On average, since 1900 there have been 18 large earthquakes each year.

Millions of earthquakes occur throughout the world each year but most go undetected because they have very small magnitudes or hit remote areas.  In the United States, the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) publishes the locations for about 40 earthquakes per day. 
2015 Is The Year To Try 3-D Printing At Home

2015 Is The Year To Try 3-D Printing At Home

Jan 10 2015 | comment(s)


The first Kinematics dress, now acquired by the MoMA. Nervous System

By Martijn Gommeren, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Have you considered buying a 3D printer? A major spectacle at the Consumer Entertainment Show in Las Vegas for the last two years, they’re now available for as little as £300 – around the same price as the latest Xbox One or Playstation 4.

Watch Comet Lovejoy Tonight

Watch Comet Lovejoy Tonight

Jan 10 2015 | comment(s)

A comet is a magical sight in the heavens. Comets visible to the naked eye are a uncommon event, and sometimes they put up very suggestive shows in our skies. Those of us who have witnessed the apparition of a bright comet do not forget that experience easily. 
The recent landing on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko of the Rosetta spacecraft has made even more fascinating the observation of comets from the ground, as we got treated by close-ups of the comet surface that resemble mountainous terrains on Earth. Imagining a rock streaming in the sky, coming nearby after a long trip from the Oort cloud, and maybe returning sometimes in the future, or maybe getting lost forever, is truly remarkable.
Why Are Reusable Rockets So Hard To Make?

Why Are Reusable Rockets So Hard To Make?

Jan 10 2015 | comment(s)


Giving it a go... EPA

By Angelo Niko Grubišić, University of Southampton

SpaceX is attempting a huge feat in spacecraft engineering.

It is seeking to land the first stage of its Falcon 9-R rocket on a floating platform at sea. Normally this would end up at the bottom of the ocean. If successful, SpaceX will shake the rocket launch market, by shaving millions of dollars off launch costs.

In Natural Selection, Why Doesn't One Color Win Out Over Others?

In Natural Selection, Why Doesn't One Color Win Out Over Others?

Jan 10 2015 | comment(s)

In many species of plants and animals, individuals from the same population often come in different color variants. It's always been that way but why one color doesn't eventually replace the others through natural selection is something of an evolutionary biology mystery.

Namely, how and why do variants of the same animal exist in nature? In theory, different color morphs (variants) should be equally subjected to natural selection. 
What Your Online Avatar Says About Your Personality

What Your Online Avatar Says About Your Personality

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Can your online avatar say something about your personality that you haven't carefully chosen to be your public representation? It might say that some people are cats, or, since 85 percent of the female avatars of massively multiplayer online games are actually males, it might say that MMO participants have identity issues, but that does not mean it is so.

Nonetheless, psychologists at York University wanted to determine what personality traits are conveyed by a user's avatar - based on the belief that individuals typically choose and prefer avatars perceived to be similar to themselves.  Other studies claim they were who we want to be.
After Fires Comes Salvage Logging - Then We Can Salvage The Ecosystem

After Fires Comes Salvage Logging - Then We Can Salvage The Ecosystem

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

After a wildfire burns a large swath across timberlands, logging companies come in to do salvage logging - they clean up the timber that has not been completely destroyed by the fire. It's a good idea to get economic benefit from devastated land and otherwise it is just rotting tinder for the next fire.

Environmentalists, who object to even the most basic forest management in order to prevent fires, hate logging - even after a fire has burned the place down. They have been raising the alarm about salvage logging because the ecological effects are...unknown.

Stanley Milgram's 'Dark Side' Experiments Show How To Keep Atrocities From Happening

Stanley Milgram's 'Dark Side' Experiments Show How To Keep Atrocities From Happening

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

As World War II ended and the Holocaust became shockingly more real than the rumor or propaganda some believed it was, people wondered how it could happen. Why, somewhere along the way, did not more Germans involved in the genocide object? The same was asked of Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia.

In 1961, psychologist Stanley Milgram set out to answer that, undertaking a series of now infamous experiments on obedience and reprehensible behavior. About two-thirds of Milgram's nearly 800 study subjects, pressed by an authoritative experimenter, were willing to administer increasingly powerful electric shocks to an unseen stranger despite cries of agony and pleas to stop.
Teixobactin Antibiotic Kills Pathogens Without Developing Resistance

Teixobactin Antibiotic Kills Pathogens Without Developing Resistance

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection has gotten a lot of attention. It is caused by a strain of staph bacteria that's become resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to fight it, but antibiotic resistance is not new. For as long as antibiotics have been manufactured (and nature shows evidence of it well before that) resistance evolves. 

Science has to stay a step ahead in the interests of public health and a new paper details a newly discovered antibiotic that eliminates pathogens without encountering any detectable resistance, which holds great promise for treating chronic infections like tuberculosis and those caused by MRSA. 

#JeSuisAhmed , I am a muslim police officer killed defending freedom. UPDATED

#JeSuisAhmed , I am a muslim police officer killed defending freedom. UPDATED

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Nothing justifies the killing of people for expressing ideas no matter how repugnant one finds them. However, these things don't happen in a vacuum. These things are not simply the fault of the minority other person and their refusal to see how superior the majority is and adopt their ways.  The Marianne LePen's of France are more the reason for this than Charlie Hebdo is.  Charlie was just a soft target that those cowards decided to attack.  Hearing a major political candidate advocate for the deportation of a large group would tend to make radicalism more likely. 
Meningitis A Vaccine For Infants About To Roll Out Across Africa

Meningitis A Vaccine For Infants About To Roll Out Across Africa

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

An affordable vaccine that has all but rid the 'meningitis belt' of a major cause of deadly epidemics is now going to be available for infants all across sub-Saharan Africa. 

Academia's Dark Arts - Why Journals Must Do More To Tackle The Problem

Academia's Dark Arts - Why Journals Must Do More To Tackle The Problem

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)


Academic wizardry. Shutterstock

By Nick Butler, Lund University and Sverre Spoelstra, Lund University

In Norway, Being Born In A Year With Sunshine Meant Higher Mortality

In Norway, Being Born In A Year With Sunshine Meant Higher Mortality

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Northern Europeans pride themselves on being tougher than the rest of Europe when it comes to enduring weather. While most people are more likely to die in bad weather, a new paper finds that Norwegian kids were more likely to die when the weather was good.

By studying church records from 1750 to 1900 and looking at life history variables, such as how old women were when they had their first child and their last and how many years passed between the birth of each child and how many of these children survived, Gine Roll Skjaervoe at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Biology made a strange finding - kids born in years with a lot of sunshine died more, and that meant fewer grandchildren. 
Circumcision Linked To Autism - Epidemiology

Circumcision Linked To Autism - Epidemiology

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

A paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine links circumcision in boys to autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The results were drawn from part a cohort of all children born in Denmark between 1994 and 2003. During the study, over 340,000 boys were followed up to the age of nine between 1994 and 2013 and almost 5,000 cases of ASD were diagnosed. They found that regardless of cultural background circumcised boys may run a greater risk of developing ASD. The researchers also made the observation of an increased risk of hyperactivity disorder among circumcised boys in non-Muslim families.  Risk was particularly high for infantile autism before the age of five, at least in epidemiology.  
Blueberries Lower Blood Pressure In Post-menopausal Women

Blueberries Lower Blood Pressure In Post-menopausal Women

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Hypertension - high blood pressure - affects up to 80 million people in the United States and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death so lowering blood pressure has the potential to save lives.

For most people, exercise and diet are enough and a new study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics finds that daily consumption of blueberries for eight weeks resulted in significant reductions of both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Fact Or Myth? Cancer Biopsies Can Spread Cancer

Fact Or Myth? Cancer Biopsies Can Spread Cancer

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Can cancer biopsies spread more cancer? Some patients, and a few doctors think so. 

Fine needle aspiration is a minimally invasive technique that uses a thin and hollow needle to extract a few cells from a tumor mass. Some contend that a biopsy can cause some cancer cells to spread and it has become a strongly-held belief, but is it true?

It came about because some people who got biopsies did have cancer spread but it was so rare that answers were difficult to find. A recent study of more than 2,000 patients by researchers at Mayo Clinics concludes it is a myth and that patients who received a biopsy had a better outcome and longer survival than patients who did not have a biopsy.
Emissions-Free Hydrogen Cars Get A Little More Viable

Emissions-Free Hydrogen Cars Get A Little More Viable

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Hydrogen fuel cells may be the best option for powering zero-emission vehicles, Toyota will make them available in the United States in 2015, but those fuel cells require an electrocatalyst -- a platinum surface -- to increase the reaction rate, and the cost of the precious metal makes it hard for hydrogen fuel cells to compete economically with the internal combustion engine. 

Why I Have The Right To Be Pissed Off By The Paris Terrorist Attack, And Maybe You Do Not

Why I Have The Right To Be Pissed Off By The Paris Terrorist Attack, And Maybe You Do Not

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

The terrorist attack of two days ago in Paris to the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo left most of us hit hard by the blow to freedom of the press and freedom of thought, which are among that core set of rights on which we have built our society and which we feel we really cannot give up.

I confess I have never unfolded a copy of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, but I am quite familiar with the work of Wolinski, the 80-year-old cartoonist, who perished in the attack along with his colleagues. I liked his sense of humor and his cartoons a lot, and I am quite pissed off by those two morons taking that away from me.
Society Makes It Worse For People Who Self-Harm

Society Makes It Worse For People Who Self-Harm

Jan 09 2015 | comment(s)

Social attitudes are reinforcing the negative beliefs towards people who self harm, according to an analysis of the life stories of people who self-harm and who were also diagnosed with a personality disorder revealed that several spoke of being refused pain relief while being sutured by hospital staff. Others had met staff who thought they were immune to pain because they self-harmed.

An estimated 5% of adults have self-harmed with the aim of relieving psychological distress.

The was carried out by Dr. Jane Simpson from Lancaster University with Charlotte Morris, Mark Sampson and Frank Beesley from the NHS. The researchers said, “The responses of others had the potential to exacerbate distress and even trigger further self-harm.”