Calvin And Hobbes, Add The Bacon
Bill Watterson stopped drawing “Calvin and Hobbes” in late 1995. Everybody noticed. Dan and Tom Heyerman stopped drawing “Pants are Overrated” late in 2011. I noticed. The Heyermans’ online comic strip was about two brothers who know much too much about each other (not surprising, since Dan and Tom are in fact, brothers), who get [...]
VIDEO: A Tornado On The Sun
Here’s something you don’t see every day: a tornado on the surface of the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory posted this stunning video, which shows the sun’s plasma sliding and spinning around in the star’s magnetic fields for 30 hours earlier this month. Terry Kucera, a solar physicist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told [...]
WHO Panel Supports Publication Of Bird Flu Details, Eventually
The full details of two controversial experiments on bird flu should be published openly, says a panel convened by the World Health Organization. But information about the studies should remain secret a while longer so that there’s time to address public concerns, the group recommends. The experiments should stay on hold, too. The research in [...]
WHO Affirms Use Of Birth Control Injections After Weighing HIV Risks
Women living with HIV, or at high risk of infection, should continue to use hormone injections to prevent pregnancy, the World Health Organization said Thursday. But the advice stressed that couples should use an additional protective method, like condoms, to prevent HIV transmission between partners. The update comes after an expert review of data on [...]
Nuking My House On Line (You Can, Too)
I blew up my neighborhood today, courtesy of Alex Wellerstein, science historian. Wellerstein works at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland. After hours, he is a mad bomber — but a careful, data-driven, history-minded mad bomber. His newest creation, which I found on his blog, is called NUKEMAP. It allows you to [...]
Questions About Bird Flu Research Swirl Around Private WHO Meeting
A closed-door meeting to discuss controversial bird flu research is drawing to a close at the World Health Organization in Geneva, and the WHO plans to publicly report on what happened once it’s officially over. “We’re very aware that there’s a lot of interest in the meeting and that people will want to know, you [...]
The ‘WHO’s Who’ Of Virologists Meet To Talk Bird Flu In Geneva
A closed-door summit on controversial bird flu research starts today, and the newly released guest list reveals that the event will be dominated by virologists. Erasmus Medical Center’s Ron Fouchier, one of the virologists whose experiments with bird flu drew attention in the first place, will be there. So will his boss, Albert Osterhaus, head [...]
Methane, Soot Are Targets Of New U.S. Climate Initiative
The United States and five other nations are embarking on a new program to limit pollutants connected to global warming. But they’re not targeting carbon dioxide with this effort — instead, they’re looking at methane gas, and soot. NPR’s Richard Harris filed this report for our Newscast desk: “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the [...]
StateImpact: A Windy Path in Oklahoma for Turbines
The Sooner State could near the top for wind energy, but there aren’t the workers with the training to maintain turbines.
Scientists Debate How To Conduct Bird Flu Research
Scientists working with bird flu recently called a 60-day halt on some controversial experiments, and the unusual move has been compared to a famous moratorium on genetic engineering in the 1970s. But key scientists involved in that event disagree on whether history is repeating itself. “I see an amazing similarity,” says Nobel Prize winner Paul [...]
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