Whether you agree or not, the funding machine for solar and wind energy is in motion and it is hard to stop - look at the debate over ending ethanol subsidies.
One way to make an informed policy decision is to truly know just how much solar energy will be provided in a 'smart' grid scenario, beyond optimistic projections by lobbyists. U.C. San Diego Professor Jan Kleissl and Matthew Lave, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Jacobs School, say they can do it. They developed a software program that allows power grid managers to predict fluctuations in the solar grid caused by changes in the cloud cover - and even discovered a solar variability 'law'.
Researchers say that a protein expressed in the human retina, human cryptochrome 2 protein (hCRY2), can sense magnetic fields when implanted into Drosophila, leading to an interesting topic in sensory biology; perhaps humans have an innate magnetic sense.
Migratory birds and sea turtles do, and that ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field is how they navigate long-distance voyages during migration.
A study in Canada says Canadian pre-schoolers prefer to play with kids more like them.
Are Canadian parents ingraining bias in their kids? Or French-Canadians? Hard to know. Participants were recruited from six daycares located in Montreal and its suburbs: 30 mostly second-generation Asian-Canadians and 30 French-Canadians. Children were paired with peers they had known for at least three months. According to the research team, social mores likely prompted a lack of interaction between cultures.
A new study shows that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years - and a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
A group of biologists have discovered seven previously unknown species of mammals on Luzon Island in the Philippines.
All of the species are forest mice, and each species lives only in a small part of Luzon. Two of the new species live only in the Zambales Mountains (on Mt. Tapulao), two live only on Mt. Banahaw (south of Manila), two only in the Mingan Mountains of Aurora Province, and one lives only in the Sierra Madre of northeastern Luzon.
Scientists at Karolinska Institutet
and Helsinki University
are reporting that DCDC2, a gene linked to dyslexia, has a surprising biological function: it controls cilia, the antenna-like projections that cells use to communicate.
Pilot Study: Fibromyalgia Fatigue Improved By TENS Therapy
High Meat Consumption Linked To Lower Dementia Risk
Long Before The Inca Colonized Peru, Natives Had A Thriving Trade Network
Mesolithic People Had Meals With More Tradition Than You Thought
