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Whats the No. 1 cause of blindness in older adults in the United States? A. Science|Causes of Blindness Vary for Older Adultshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/science/causes-of-blindness-vary-for-older-adults.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 5, 2016Q. Whats the No. 1 cause of blindness in older adults in the United States?A. It sounds like a simple question, but theres no perfect answer, said Dr. Susan Vitale, a research epidemiologist at the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health. It depends on age, how blindness is measured and how statistics are collected. For example, some studies have relied on the self-reported answer to the vague question: Do you have vision problems?The best available estimates, she said, come from a 2004 paper aggregating many other studies, some in the United States and some in other countries, updated by applying later census data.This paper and others have found striking differences by age and by racial and socioeconomic groups, Dr. Vitale said. In white people, she said, the major cause of blindness at older ages is usually age-related macular degeneration, progressive damage to the central portion of the retina. In older black people, the major causes are likely to be glaucoma or cataracts. In older people of working age, from their 40s to their 60s, the major cause, regardless of race, is diabetic retinopathy, damage to the retina as a result of diabetes.Many studies have shown that white people are more likely to have age-related macular degeneration, Dr. Vitale said, but as for cataracts, for which blindness is preventable by surgery, there are questions about access to health care and whether those affected can get the needed surgery. It is not known why black people are at higher risk of glaucoma. There are also some gender differences, she said, with white women more likely than white men to become blind. Studies have not found the same difference by gender in black and Hispanic people.Because many of the causes of blindness at all ages are preventable, Dr. Vitale said, it is essential to have regular eye checkups, even if there are no obvious symptoms. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 340 |
A huge phytoplankton bloom has lit up the Black Sea and the Bosporus. TrilobitesCredit...Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated PressJune 16, 2017The Black Sea isnt black, and its not usually turquoise either. But a huge bloom of phytoplankton has illuminated it and the connected Bosporus and the Golden Horn of Istanbul with beautiful swirls of milky blue-green. This aquatic artwork appears every summer, but this years bloom is one of the brightest since 2012, according to Norman Kuring, a NASA scientist. Its so bright, it can be seen from space.NASA created this composite image of the bloom with data and satellite images on May 29. It has gotten brighter since and appears to be nearing its expected peak, around the summer solstice. After a particularly luminous weekend, thousands of people began talking about the opaque, jewel-toned water on social media.The marine artists responsible are most likely phytoplankton, teeny organisms that live off energy derived from a combination of dissolved nutrients and their ability, like plants, to break down sunlight. In the Black Sea, and the eastern European rivers Danube and Dnieper that feed it, live a common group of phytoplankton called coccolithophores.Coccolithophores do well in warm, stratified waters, where they often dominate, surviving even with few nutrients. They multiply asexually, and boom what a pretty picture.ImageCredit...Norman Kuring/NASAThese microscopic algae build their own armor by surrounding themselves with dozens of limestone, or calcium carbonate, scales. All bundled up, they look like tiny, crocheted marbles under a microscope. But gathered in the trillions, they cloud up the bath of blue-green water as they die, dropping their shells, which scatter sunlight. Its like a painters palette: Drop a dab of white paint into a greenish blue, and you get turquoise.The optical effect is striking, said William M. Balch, a researcher at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. If you are in a boat, the turquoise water goes from horizon to horizon.The algae live only a few days, but the turquoise water can last weeks longer as the reflective, chalky armor slowly sinks at a rate of nearly four inches a day.Theyre sort of the dandruff of the ocean, Dr. Balch said.These types of phytoplankton blooms are common in the Black Sea, but scientists cant say for certain why this years bloom burst so brilliantly. Perhaps warmer, more stratified water, increased light availability, the absence of the specific nutrients that their main competitors eat or a reduction in other species that can eat them allowed the coccolithophores to thrive, Dr. Balch said. Its possible that heavy rains brought in nutrients like iron, which is important for coccolithophores from the Sahara, according to The Associated Press. | academic interests | 438 |
What happens to diamonds when they are billions of years old?. Science|Are Diamonds Really Forever?https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/science/diamonds.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsJune 12, 2017Q. Will a diamond look the same in a billion years? What happens to these giant carbon molecules over very long periods of time?A. It depends on where the diamond spends those years, said George E. Harlow, a gem curator at the American Museum of Natural History, who is also an adjunct senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.Diamonds, which form eight-sided crystals called octahedrons, can be billions of years old, Dr. Harlow said. They are datable by minute inclusions of other minerals, retained inside them since they were formed deep in the Earth.Lots of ancient diamonds that have been down there for close to two billion years will still look like octahedrons, Dr. Harlow said.But the Earth is dynamic, moving all the time and most diamonds show the effects of being squooshed to some extent, he said. They are not inert, but may deform and crystallize again.As the crystals are squeezed and heated, the molecular bonds are weakened, with the edges and flat surfaces of the crystals being particularly vulnerable, Dr. Harlow explained. Many diamonds end up with rounded shapes rather than being sharply defined.As the internal planes of the crystal slide past one another, tiny cavities may be created because atoms are missing from the crystal structure. It is these cavities that are believed to create a brown or pink color, Dr. Harlow said. As for very rare red diamonds, the theory is that they are the result of cavities of a very uniform size.If a diamond gets raised to a shallower level or heated a lot, he said, it may wind up being in the stability field of graphite, the more common form of carbon. We know this because there are plenty of documented cases of graphite with the shape of a diamond.Diamonds that reach the surface are often blasted there very quickly, at speeds of 30 to 50 miles per hour by volcanic elevators called kimberlites, Dr. Harlow said. If these elevators are too slow, however, that leaves diamonds vulnerable to being dissolved in the fluid they are brought up in. The sharp edges go first.Once they are near Earths surface, it is very difficult to get rid of diamonds, Dr. Harlow said. They are very stable at low temperatures, and the amount of energy required to break their bonds and change them is not available, so they would essentially stick around in the same form forever. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 423 |
Watch the Eta Aquariid meteor shower peak Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Science|Watch the Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower Peak in Night Skieshttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/science/meteor-shower-eta-aquarid-tonight.htmlWatch the Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower Peak in Night SkiesCredit...W. Liller/NASAMay 4, 2022Wednesday night into Thursday morning will be one of the special dates scattered throughout each year when skywatchers can catch a meteor shower as a multitude of flares potentially burst in the darkness.Meteor showers occur when our planet runs into the debris field left behind by icy comets or rocky asteroids going around the sun. These small particles burn up in the atmosphere, leading to blazing trails of light. The regularity of orbital mechanics means that any given meteor shower happens at roughly the same time each year.The latest shower is the Eta Aquariids, sometimes also spelled Eta Aquarids. They have been active since April 15 and go to May 27, but they will peak May 4 to 5, or Wednesday night into early Thursday morning.The Eta Aquariids are one of two showers resulting from the debris field of Halleys comet, along with the Orionids in October. Debris will enter over Earths Equator, meaning it will be visible in both hemispheres all over the world.Moonlight will be minimal during peak times, which should be between 3 a.m. and twilight on May 5. But the shower should be highly active for roughly a week before and after that date. In past years, the Eta Aquariids have produced between 45 to 85 meteors per hour in dark sky conditions.And there are more meteor showers to come. Visit The Timess list of major showers expected in 2022, or sync our curated collection of major space and astronomy events with your personal digital calendar.How to see a showerThe best practice is to head out to the countryside and get as far away from artificial light sources as possible. People in rural areas may have the luxury of just stepping outside. But city-dwellers have options, too.Many cities have an astronomical society that maintains a dedicated dark sky area. I would suggest contacting them and finding out where they have their location, said Robert Lunsford, the secretary-general of the International Meteor Organization.Meteor showers are usually best viewed when the sky is darkest, after midnight but before sunrise. In order to see as many meteors as possible, wait 30 to 45 minutes after you get to your viewing location. That will allow your eyes to adjust to the dark. Then lie back and take in a large swath of the night sky. Clear nights, higher altitudes and times when the moon is slim or absent are best. Mr. Lunsford suggested a good rule of thumb: The more stars you can see, the more meteors you can see.Binoculars or telescopes arent necessary for meteor showers, and in fact will limit your view. | academic interests | 467 |
'Magnifying the World of Beauty That Lives Under a Microscope': The work of Carl Strwe. Science|Magnifying the World of Beauty That Lives Under a Microscopehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/science/carl-struwe-microscopic-photography.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Carl StrweApril 5, 2016In the 1920s, before matter could be magnified millions of times under electron microscopes, a German graphic designer was developing his own techniques for capturing the minute wonders of organic life.Carl Strwe never gained fame during his lifetime, but over the decades his stark images of diatoms, spermatozoa and other life under the microscope have gathered admirers for their distinctive artistry. A selection of his works will go on display at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York starting April 14.ImageCredit...Carl StrweWhen Mr. Strwe began making photographs, he used microscopes that could only magnify items up to 2,000 times. The traditional scientific view under a microscope was rounded, so Mr. Strwe cut black pieces of paper into rectangular shapes and set them over the biological subject matter in his slides. He then pointed his camera into the eye of the microscope, capturing the scene he had composed under the microscope.The thoughtful way that he positioned his subjects in the microscope his canvases is what made his work so pioneering, said Gottfried Jger, a photographer in Bielefeld, Germany, who is the administrator of Mr. Strwes estate. Mr. Strwe saw great artistic potential, Mr. Jger said, where before him, many only saw the objectivity of science.ImageCredit...Carl StrweMr. Struwes work had little impact outside of Germany during his life because he lacked resources and did not speak languages other than German.He was a poor man, not very successful with his work during his own life, said Mr. Jger.Mr. Strwe did make some appearances in the United States, including a Brooklyn Museum show in 1949. A number of his photos were also used in scientific texts, including this biology textbook from 1957.ImageCredit...Gottfried JgerThe work of Carl Strwe may mean more to art history than to science. But Mr. Jger believes there is something to be learned from these photographs, even if they do not do much to further objective knowledge.They open a window in this fantastic, non-visible world, he wrote in an email. He visualizes its meaning and beauty as its own reality. | academic interests | 366 |
A cloud atlas provides clues to life on Earth. Science|A Cloud Atlas Provides Clues to Life on Earthhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/science/a-cloud-atlas-provides-clues-to-life-on-earth.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Adam WilsonApril 4, 2016After countless years of daydreamers being told otherwise, theres now a good reason to keep your head in the clouds. Scientists combed through satellite photographs of cloud cover taken twice a day for 15 years from nearly every square kilometer of Earth to study the planets varied environments.By creating cloud atlases, the researchers were able to better predict the location of plants and animals on land with unprecedented spatial resolution, allowing them to study certain species, including those that are often in remote places. The results were published last week in PLOS Biology.ImageCredit...Adam WilsonClouds directly affect local climates, causing differences in soil moisture and available sunlight that drive photosynthesis and ecosystem productivity.The researchers demonstrated the potential for modeling species distribution by studying the Montane woodcreeper, a South American bird, and the King Protea, a South African shrub.In thinking about conserving biodiversity, one of the most important scientific questions is Where are the species? said Adam Wilson, an ecologist now at the University at Buffalo, who led the study. The maps also could help monitor ecosystem changes.ImageCredit...Adam Wilson | academic interests | 197 |
'Dinosaurs' may have been in a 10-million-year decline at the time of their apocalypse. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/science/hot-dinosaur-summer.htmlScience TimesPublished July 3, 2021Updated Oct. 21, 2021Dinosaurs, which ruled the planet for roughly 170 million years and were one of the most successful animals ever, may have been in a 10-million-year decline at the time of their apocalypse, according to research published this week.ImageA study in the journal Nature Communications contends that rates of extinction increased and the evolution of new species began to decrease 76 million years ago, before the coup de grce of the Chicxulub impact some 66 million years ago. The reason, scientists suspect, was a changing climate cold temperatures caused a cascade of collapse and calamity. The paper is the latest entry in a long-running debate over why the dinosaurs died off, and not all paleontologists agree that a steady decline was underway when the space rock struck.The research serves as a backdrop to consider this weeks heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, and the precariousness of any animals time on Earth. Including how quickly a more adaptive critter might take over.In the dinosaurs case, it turned out to be the mammals. The dinosaurs were mostly so huge they probably hardly knew that the furry little mammals were there in the undergrowth. But the mammals began to increase in numbers of species before the dinosaurs had gone, and then after the impact they had their chance to build new kinds of ecosystems which we see today, said Fabien Condamine, the papers lead author and a research scientist at the Institut des Sciences de lEvolution de Montpellier in France.Which makes me wonder: What animals might take over if we humans cant adapt? Are they currently underfoot, unnoticed?Other scientists this week discovered a previously unknown beetle species in the coprolites, or fossilized feces, of dinosaur ancestors that lived more than 200 million years ago. Perhaps, 200 million years from now, super-evolved bugs will have their day, studying our coprolites for clues to our existence as the circle of life continues.What were metabolizing latelyPlease do not try to recycle your bowling ball.Please do try to understand what the Delta variant of the coronavirus means for masking, vaccination and living your life.How about a little political science? A great chart that shows how ranked-choice voting shook out in New York Citys complicated Democratic mayoral primary election.Are you being pursued through the forest by a hungry bear? Maybe math can save you.50 years ago this month, American automobile culture landed on the moon. A book by Earl Swift looks at NASAs Lunar Roving Vehicles, and how they really opened up the moon for the later group of Apollo astronauts. | academic interests | 443 |
Cats can infect each other with coronavirus, but they probably won't get sick. Science|Cats Can Transmit the Coronavirus to Each Other, but They Probably Wont Get Sick From Ithttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/science/cats-coronavirus.htmlThe six cats in a laboratory experiment cleared the virus from their bodies on their own. And there are no reports of humans contracting the virus from cats.Credit...Pascal Rossignol/ReutersMay 13, 2020Cats can infect each other with the novel coronavirus, but they may not have any symptoms, researchers reported on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.The report follows earlier laboratory research and cases of domestic cats, as well as tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo, that tested positive for the coronavirus. In several cases, those cats showed mild symptoms, but the six cats in the new experiment didnt get sick at all and cleared the virus from their bodies on their own.Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine and Peter Halfmann of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, along with other researchers from both the United States and Japan, conducted the study, in which three domestic cats were inoculated with the virus and three additional uninfected cats were put in cages, one with each of the inoculated cats.First the cats that had been given the virus tested positive. Then their cage mates also caught the virus. None were sick, and all were virus free after, at most, six days.Cats have also contracted the virus from humans, but there are no reports of a person becoming infected with the virus from a cat, although the authors suggest that the possibility deserves more research.The cats, once infected, shed virus particles in the same way that humans do. And it is the same coronavirus that infects people. That makes it theoretically possible for cats to give the virus to humans, said Dr. Karen Terio, chief of the Zoological Pathology Program at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. Still, Dr. Terio, who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email that given the limited social circle of most domestic cats, cats are most likely to become infected after contact with a human member of their household.The researchers urged people not to forgo the comforts of feline companionship; humans are the clear dangers in terms of disease transmission, not pets.If someone with a cat has the virus, Dr. Halfmann, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said to use common sense. No cat kisses, he said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as other organizations suggest keeping pets away from humans who have tested positive.If you are healthy, Dr. Halfmann said, life can go on as usual, My cat sleeps on a pillow right next to me. Asked if the results of the experiment had changed that habit, he said, he was there last night. | academic interests | 467 |
How good is a bad night's sleep?. Science|How Good Is a Bad Nights Sleep?https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/science/how-good-is-a-bad-nights-sleep.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsNov. 28, 2016Q. Is a nights sleep physiologically beneficial even if it includes emotionally disturbing nightmares?A. Almost certainly yes, said Dr. Neomi Shah, a specialist at the Mount Sinai Integrative Sleep Center in New York. Despite the problems nightmares can cause, sleeping and having them is better than not sleeping, research suggests.Nightmares can make it difficult to sleep and interfere with daytime functioning, but physiological indicators of sleep patterns and quality do not differ in people who have nightmares, Dr. Shah said.Frequent long, distressing and vivid dreams often wake people and cause problems like insomnia and poor sleep quality, she said. Research has also consistently demonstrated that nightmares can harm general well-being, affect mood and elevate stress.Some studies suggest there are measurable sleep problems for people who have nightmares, while others show no difference. The studies that show such a link found that people who woke up stayed awake longer and that certain stages of sleep did not last as long. But people in those studies who had nightmares also had longer periods of rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, when most dreaming occurs.A weakness of these studies is that they were not conducted in the subjects normal sleeping environment. A more recent study in such an environment found no differences in so-called sleep architecture, sleep-cycle and REM durations, or sleep patterns for just the nights with nightmares.Therefore, Dr. Shah said, despite upsetting nightmares, sleep architecture appears to be preserved, and subjects with frequent nightmares are likely deriving the physiological benefits of sleep. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 268 |
There was a global warming pause, so climate change is bunk, says James Yang. Science|Dont Be Fooled by a Climate Change Pausehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/science/climate-change-misconception-pause.htmlMisconceptionsCredit...James YangMarch 31, 2016Misconception: There was a global warming pause, so climate change is bunk.Actually: Thats like saying a temporary dip in the stock market means that the best long-term investment strategy is keeping your cash under the mattress.Those who deny the science of climate change and the role of human activity in causing it often claim that global warming paused for more than a decade until recently, and that the pause means that climate change is not happening.There is, in fact, an active debate among scientists about whether the pause even happened at all. Data on global temperature appeared to show a slower comparative rise in the years following 1998, the end of the last El Nio event. But last June, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a paper in the journal Science stating that the pause probably didnt occur at all, or was at least greatly overstated; they blamed inaccurate data for giving a misimpression of a hiatus in warming.Because that isnt complicated enough, the paper became the target of a political attack by a member of Congress, Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who heads the House Science Committee, and disputes the overwhelming scientific evidence underlying climate change. He called the paper evidence of the Obama administrations suspect climate agenda.Then in February, yet another paper in the journal Nature Climate Change took the opposite view, claiming that a slowdown, at least, is real.Feeling whipsawed yet? Dont. This kind of disagreement among scientists happens every day, and when the subject is less politicized it can be fascinating to watch. This is how scientific inquiry moves forward: Putting hypotheses out there and testing them. Most days, it makes a lot more sense than politics does.In any case, whether or not there was a pause in warming for a dozen years or so has no bearing on the underlying scientific validity of climate change. Even the lead author of the February paper that argued the pause is real says that the findings do not undermine global warming theory. Besides, record global temperatures for 2014 and 2015 suggest that warming has resumed. But even more important, the long-term trend is clear: Climate change is about the long haul, not short-term variability.A post by Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist, on the blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists put it this way: Even as a car slows down to go over a speed bump, there is no question the car is still advancing down the road. | academic interests | 438 |
Johnson & Johnson says Covid vaccine is effective against Delta variant. Science|Johnson & Johnson says its vaccine protects against Delta, adding to the arsenal against the variant.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/science/johnson-johnson-says-its-vaccine-protects-against-delta-adding-to-the-arsenal-against-the-variant.htmlCredit...James Estrin/The New York TimesJuly 2, 2021Johnson & Johnson said its Covid vaccine was effective against the highly contagious Delta variant, adding to the growing body of evidence that the most widely available Covid shots offer protection against its most dangerous variants.Even eight months after inoculation, the single-shot J.&J. vaccine is proving to be highly effective against Delta, the company reported on Thursday, a reassuring finding for the 11 million Americans who have gotten the shot and for countries around the world betting on receiving the vaccine. In the United States, the variant, first identified in India, now accounts for an estimated one in four new cases, and the C.D.C. has listed it in 23 states.Johnson & Johnson said its vaccine showed a small drop in potency against the Delta variant, compared with its effectiveness against the original virus, and a larger drop against the Beta variant first identified in South Africa. That is the same pattern seen with the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.The intense discourse about Deltas threat has left some people who are vaccinated feeling anxious about whether they are protected. The variants global spread has prompted new restrictions from Ireland to Malaysia.Frustration had been building about the lack of clarity around the Johnson & Johnson vaccines efficacy against Delta. And reports of a cluster of cases among players on the Yankees baseball team who had received the Johnson & Johnson shot, though all asymptomatic or mild, did nothing to assuage fears.Studies have shown that the Delta and Beta variants slightly lower the efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. For Pfizer, studies show that two doses offer 88 percent protection against the Delta variant, just below the 93 percent protection against Alpha. The Moderna vaccine has performed similarly to Pfizers in earlier studies.Johnson & Johnson has collected less data than its peers on the vaccines, and the study released on Thursday was small and has not yet been published in a scientific journal. Updates on the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been slow because it was rolled out later than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the United States. The vaccine offered about 72 percent protection against early versions of the virus. | academic interests | 397 |
Asteroid 2013 TX68 will not hit Earth, but you wouldn't want to be there if it does. Science|Its Very Unlikely That Asteroid 2013 TX68 Will Hit Earthhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/science/its-very-unlikely-that-asteroid-2013-tx68-will-hit-earth.htmlTrilobitesCredit...NASA/JPL-CaltechMarch 2, 2016Were going to get an extraterrestrial visitor, perhaps early next week, when asteroid 2013 TX68 zips past Earth. Theres been some agitated chatter about just how close the speeding rock will get.What we know for sure is that it will not collide, said Sean Marshall, a Cornell University doctoral candidate who observes near-Earth asteroids. So dont panic.The size of 2013 TX68 is estimated to be 100 feet in diameter, about the size of a large yacht. This makes it slightly larger than the speeding rock that in 2013 exploded over the Russian city Chelyabinsk, damaging hundreds of buildings and injuring at least 1,500 people, mainly as windows shattered.The exact time and distance of the closest approach will not be known until after the encounter. Mr. Marshall said Tuesday that 2013 TX68 could zip through Earths ring of geostationary satellites which orbit at a height of 22,300 miles or travel as far away as 40 times the distance to the moon.NASAs calculations last month put the flyby at around March 8. 2013 TX68 is not on the agencys list of potentially hazardous asteroids, which come closest to Earth and are big enough to survive atmospheric re-entry and cause damage on a regional scale. Their diameters are greater than 330 feet, or about 100 meters.But the extraterrestrial rock might eventually make the hazard list if new observations made during this months close pass reveal its diameter to be larger than expected.Its possible but unlikely, Mr. Marshall said of the larger size in an interview. Still, you wouldnt want to be there if it hit. It could still wipe out a city. | academic interests | 297 |
Earths shadow draped over the moon Sunday, a reminder our world is one of many in harmony with other heavenly bodies. Skip to contentSkip to site indexScienceLog inTodays PaperScenes From Sundays Lunar EclipseBy Michael Roston and Matt McCannMay 16, 2022 Scenes From Sundays Lunar EclipseMichael Roston and Matt McCannWatching the Moon Scenes From Sundays Lunar EclipseMichael Roston and Matt McCannWatching the Moon Irwindale, Calif.Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated PressBlood moon. Flower moon. Total eclipse. Whatever you called it, Earths shadow draped over the moon Sunday, a reminder our world is one of many in harmony with other heavenly bodies. Look back at lunar eclipse photos from around the world Better Understand Space and AstronomyWe can help you keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe.Never miss a rocket launch, astronaut landing or other events that are out of this world with The Timess Space and Astronomy Calendar.The solar system is filled with robotic explorers. Learn more about the spacecraftstudying the secrets of the sun, moon and other worlds.Keep track of the major meteor showersthat light up night skies all year long.Confused by black holes? Youre not alone. Let us unpack some of the universes most mysterious forces for you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySite IndexGo to Home Page newsHome PageWorldCoronavirusU.S.PoliticsNew YorkBusinessTechScienceClimateSportsWildfire TrackerObituariesThe UpshotInternationalCanadaEspaolToday's PaperCorrectionsTrendingOpinionToday's OpinionColumnistsEditorialsGuest EssaysLettersSunday ReviewOpinion VideoArtsToday's ArtsArt & DesignBooksBest Sellers Book ListDanceMoviesMusicPop CultureTelevisionTheaterWhat to WatchVideo: ArtsLivingAutomotiveGamesEducationFoodHealthJobsLoveMagazineParentingReal EstateStyleT MagazineTravelListings & MoreReader CenterThe AthleticWirecutterCookingHeadwayLive EventsThe Learning NetworkTools & ServicesPodcastsVideoTimesMachineNYT StoreManage My AccountNYTLicensingnewsHome PageWorldCoronavirusU.S.PoliticsNew YorkBusinessTechScienceClimateSportsWildfire TrackerObituariesThe UpshotInternationalCanadaEspaolToday's PaperCorrectionsTrendingOpinionToday's OpinionColumnistsEditorialsGuest EssaysLettersSunday ReviewOpinion VideoArtsToday's ArtsArt & DesignBooksBest Sellers Book ListDanceMoviesMusicPop CultureTelevisionTheaterWhat to WatchVideo: ArtsLivingAutomotiveGamesEducationFoodHealthJobsLoveMagazineParentingReal EstateStyleT MagazineTravelMoreReader CenterThe AthleticWirecutterCookingHeadwayLive EventsThe Learning NetworkTools & ServicesPodcastsVideoTimesMachineNYT StoreManage My AccountNYTLicensingSubscribeHome DeliveryDigital SubscriptionsGamesCookingEmail NewslettersCorporate SubscriptionsEducation RateMobile ApplicationsReplica EditionInternationalCanadaEspaol | academic interests | 284 |
Is there any new treatments in the pipeline for age-related macular degeneration? Science|Fighting Macular Degenerationhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/science/macular-degeneration-cure.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 19, 2016Q. Are there any new treatments in the pipeline for age-related macular degeneration?A. Current treatments for the so-called wet form of macular degeneration, involving injections inside the eye, are already very effective compared with laser treatments, which were used before intravitreal injections, said Dr. Ronald C. Gentile, the surgeon director at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.But several ways to improve their results are in the works, he said.The shots deliver drugs that fight a substance called vascular endothelial growth factor, and thus shrink the growth of what amounts to an abnormal blood vessel harming the retina. A major hurdle now involves the frequency and cost of the needed treatments.Once the drug is inside the eye, the effects wear off and a new injection is needed, Dr. Gentile said. The shots are also less effective in some patients. Even when they work well, some people need a shot as often as every four weeks, while some can wait two or three months. If both eyes are affected and the period of effectiveness is short, doctor visits can be very frequent, so drugs that last longer in the eyeball are being pursued.Researchers are working on slow-release medications as well as a delivery system that acts like a tiny pump in the eye, with a tank that can be refilled every six months.There is also a new drug target: a substance called platelet-derived growth factor that causes abnormal vessel growth as well. Combination drug treatments may be more effective against macular degeneration, Dr. Gentile said.The so-called dry form of macular degeneration, which often underlies the wet form, is harder to fight, he said, and although advances are being made, current antioxidant treatments with vitamins and minerals do not improve vision; they just prevent it from worsening.There has been a lot of hype on using stem cells, Dr. Gentile said, but added that more research was needed. Some vaunted treatments outside regular channels could be potentially harmful as well as expensive, he said.Such work needs to be done in clinical trials by real scientists, he said. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 365 |
Why are some apples mealy while others are crisp?. Science|The Secret to a Really Crisp Applehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/science/apples-taste.htmlQ&AMarch 3, 2017Credit...Victoria RobertsQ. Why are some apples mealy while others are crisp?A. When apples are mealy, the cells split apart from each other when you bite into the fruit, whereas with crisp fruits the cells rupture and release juice, said Susan Brown, an expert in apple breeding at Cornell University who has helped develop several varieties.The cells of crisp apples stay intact and full of juice until they are bitten into, while cell walls of mushy fruit have weakened and simply separate from each other upon pressure without providing any snap.There can be several reasons for the differences, Dr. Brown said. The genetics of the variety can influence the taste and feel, she said, with Snapdragon and Honeycrisp known for their juiciness. But often mealy fruit can come from bad handling.If consumers store fruits at room temperature, rather than in the refrigerator, they will soften and get mealy sooner, Dr. Brown said.The differences between varieties can be striking. One study compared the relatively new variety Honeycrisp with the Macoun and Honeygold varieties.The researchers found that the Honeycrisp fruit maintained its cell wall integrity after six months of storage, even without controlled atmosphere conditions, while cell walls of Macoun and Honeygold apples had deteriorated, releasing their juices prematurely. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 224 |
How hot does the water have to be to get germs out of domestic laundry?. Science|How to Kill Germs in the Laundryhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/science/how-to-kill-germs-in-the-laundry.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 13, 2017Q. How hot does the water have to be to get germs out of domestic laundry?A. It is hard to find standard guidelines on water temperatures for domestic laundry, said Dr. Alexandra Sowa, an internist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides only a vague recommendation: Hot water washing is not necessary for all household laundry. Read and follow the clothing and soap or detergent label instructions. Wash and dry clothing in the warmest temperature listed on the clothing label.But some studies suggest that water does not have to be as hot as often thought to get clothes acceptably clean, Dr. Sowa said. One study, done in Britain and published 12 years ago, showed that washing the very dirty clothes of hospital staff members at approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a home washing machine was just as effective at killing one type of bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus) as washing it at a much higher temperature.Dr. Sowa pointed out that the study also found that washing the clothes resulted in contamination with new environmental bacteria, very likely from the washing machine itself.To rid the clothes of any pathogens picked up in the wash cycle, the clothes just had to be tumble-dried for 30 minutes or ironed, she said. The heat from a low dry cycle or an iron was sufficient to get the clothes free of the studied bacteria.Dr. Sowa recommended that washing machines be periodically cleansed of their considerable load of bacteria by running them for a regular cycle with bleach and water but without clothing.She said she would err on the side of caution when it came to washing certain items, like dish towels, the clothes of family members with infections and hospital scrubs, by using water heated to 140 degrees. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 324 |
Jeff Bezos thanks Amazon workers and customers for his vast wealth, prompting backlash. Science|Bezos thanks Amazon workers and customers for his vast wealth, prompting backlash.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/science/bezos-amazon.htmlBezos thanks Amazon workers and customers for his vast wealth, prompting backlash.Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesPublished July 20, 2021Updated Sept. 30, 2021From groceries and streaming subscriptions to web servers and Alexa, Amazon has become one of the most powerful economic forces in the world. And after Jeff Bezos returned from his brief flight to space on Tuesday in a rocket built by his private space company, Blue Origin, he made remarks that drew attention to the vast wealth the company had created for him.I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this, Mr. Bezos said during a news conference after his spaceflight.Mr. Bezos comment prompted swift critical reactions, including from a member of the House of Representatives who serves on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.Space travel isnt a tax-free holiday for the wealthy, said Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon. We pay taxes on plane tickets. Billionaires flying into space producing no scientific value should do the same, and then some!Mr. Blumenauer expressed concerns about the environmental effects of such space tourist flights. He said he had introduced legislation he called the Securing Protections Against Carbon Emissions (SPACE) Tax Act, aiming to make passengers on such flights pay a tax to offset their pollution impact.He wasnt alone in connecting Mr. Bezos spaceflight with concerns about how Amazons business practices have affected his companys employees as well as small businesses.While Jeff Bezos is all over the news for paying to go to space, lets not forget the reality he has created here on Earth, Representative Nydia Velazquez, Democrat of New York, said on Twitter. She added the hashtag #WealthTaxNow on Tuesday morning and included a link to an article about how much Amazons employees had been paid.While those congressional Democrats offered criticism, the message from the White House was more welcoming.This is a moment of American exceptionalism, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said when asked about the flight during a Tuesday news conference. | academic interests | 358 |
An ice sheet with more water than Lake Superior may slake the thirst of future astronauts on Mars. Science|An Ice Sheet the Size of New Mexico Hidden in Martian Craterhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/science/mars-ice-sheet.htmlTrilobitesCredit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of ArizonaNov. 25, 2016An ice sheet with more water than Lake Superior may slake the thirst of future astronauts living on Mars.Using radar soundings from NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, scientists probed what lies in Utopia Planitia, a 2,000-mile-wide basin within an ancient impact crater.For decades, the region looked intriguing because of polygonal cracking and scalloped depressions in the landscape. In places on Earth like the Canadian Arctic, patterns like these arise from ice beneath the surface. The ground cracks as ice underneath expands and contracts with the changing temperatures; the scallops, as if carved by an ice cream scoop, are places where the surface sinks as the ice melts.Wed say, It looks like theres ground ice there, Cassie Stuurman, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, said about Utopia Planitia. What we havent known is how much is there.An older NASA orbiter, Mars Odyssey, found the region dry, but its instruments could only investigate about a yard beneath the surface. Ground-penetrating radar on Reconnaissance could peer much deeper into the ground, collecting data as the orbiter made more than 600 passes.Ms. Stuurman, the lead author of an article in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that described the findings, said the radar reflections revealed that the ice sheet, ranging in thickness from 260 to 560 feet, covered an area larger than New Mexico.The ice is fairly pure at least 50 percent frozen water with dirt, rocks and porous empty spaces mixed in, researchers believe.Thats kind of what Im imagining, Ms. Stuurman said.Water ice is plentiful at the Martian poles, but Utopia Planitia might be a more attractive landing site for future astronauts, because it is in the more temperate mid-northern latitudes. Water ice cannot persist on this part of the Martian surface. The solid ice would transform to water vapor and float away. But hidden by a layer of soil, the ice remains.In addition to providing something to drink, water could be split into oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel.Ms. Stuurman said the vast deposit of ice suggests that it accumulated as snowfall during one of the planets ice ages and was later buried. She said there were no signs that this snow ever melted into a lake. | academic interests | 401 |
New comet SWAN makes closest pass to Earth at 52 million miles. A New Comet A recently discovered comet made its closest pass to the Earth on Tuesday, at a distance of 52 million miles a little more than half the distance from Earth to the Sun. The comet, known as Comet SWAN but officially named C/2020 F8 (SWAN), is now visible to the naked eye in the Southern hemisphere. Comet SWAN on May 2.Damian Peach An animation of Comet SWAN on April 29.Gerald Rhemann Comet SWANs faint tail on April 17.Gerald Rhemann Finding Comet SWAN The comet was discovered in early April by Michael Mattiazzo, an amateur comet hunter who noticed a faint smudge on images from the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) instrument on the SOHO spacecraft. An early image of the comet by Mr. Mattiazzo showed a greenish halo with a faint tail. Comet SWAN on April 10.Michael Mattiazzo The comet brightened over time and now appears as a white ball moving diagonally across the SWAN images. An animation of SWAN images from late April and early May.NASA and ESA The SOHO spacecraft was launched in 1995 to study the sun and the solar wind, but its images of the sky have led to more than 3,000 comet discoveries. An artists impression of the SOHO spacecraft.NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center Other Recent Comets Last month the Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 30th birthday and captured images of comet ATLAS breaking into fragments. Fragments of comet ATLAS on April 20.NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA), Quanzhi Ye (Univ. of Maryland) And in March a fragment broke off of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, which swung past the sun in December. Comet Borisov in front of a distant spiral galaxy on Nov. 16.NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt | academic interests | 294 |
Surfers will ride a wave in the Amazon this week. Science|This Week Surfers Will Ride a Wave in the Amazonhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/science/amazon-river-tidal-bore-wave-surfing-pororoca.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Tarso Sarraf/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 14, 2016The beast that river-dwellers have long feared is coming later this week.Its a wave called Pororoca, the great roar, and its low bellow can be heard up to an hour before it arrives. It tumbles in from the ocean and travels up the Amazon on a path of destruction. While the regions residents accept the rivers wrath and start moving their boats and animals, daredevils called bore riders grab their surfboards.This beast that they will ride is called a tidal bore, a wave that flows in from the ocean and propagates to dozens of rivers around the world. Along the Amazon, one of the strongest bore tides brings big waves that travel for miles and seem to last forever, perfect for a long ride.Local legend has it that three mischievous children travel up the Amazon playing practical jokes. But the scientific harbinger of this curse or gift if youre a surfer is that familiar force we call gravity.During new and full moons, when the river is relatively shallow and the ocean tide is high, water flows in from the Atlantic, rather than the other way around. As river and ocean collide, the Amazons flow reverses and a water swell speeds upstream with incredible force.The strongest tidal bores occur on biannual equinoxes in September and March, when the sun, moon and Earth align; their combined gravitational pull brings ocean tides to their peak. A full moon on March 23 combined with the equinox means good news for bore riders like Serginho Laus, a surfer and Pororoca pioneer. He broke records in 2003 for his 33.25-minute, 6.3-mile ride along the pororoca of the Araguari, a river in the Brazilian Amazon basin.Surfing the Amazonian bore tides is dangerous, Mr. Laus says, not only because of their force he compares it to a tsunami but because these rivers carry the blood of a breathing jungle. Youre the stranger in a land of jaguars, crocodiles, snakes, piranhas, parasites and tropical diseases.You cant go alone, he says. You need to have a crew, with boat pilots and locals that know the way of the river.Even if youre not ready to ride, you can attend one of a number of festivals celebrating the Pororoca in Brazil this spring. The most famous is So Domingos do Capim in Para State. But Mr. Laus says he prefers the rawness of the river at Mearim in Maranhao State.We have the real Amazon beside us without cities, without people just us and nature, he said.Dates depend on the moon and are still being announced, but you can learn about a few of the surfing competitions on this Facebook page and website. | academic interests | 465 |
Is the plague still alive in Musty 14th-century Tomes?. Science|Is the Plague Still Alive in Musty 14th-Century Tomes?https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/science/is-the-plague-still-alive-in-musty-14th-century-tomes.htmlQ&ANov. 7, 2016Credit...Victoria RobertsQ. Are people who work with books and manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries at risk from disease-causing bacteria or viruses from that time?A. Almost certainly not, because of how diseases spread and how long most microbes can survive on dry surfaces.The disease that springs to mind from outbreaks during that time is bubonic plague. That illness, an infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is very hard to spread even from person to person, unless there is direct contact with liquid bodily secretions.As for other disease-causing bacteria and viruses, many, including some kinds of Enterococcus, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus, can survive outside the body for significant lengths of time on dry surfaces, a systematic review in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases found. But their survival is measured in days, weeks or months, not centuries.One possible exception is anthrax, which forms protective spores that can survive in some cases for decades and perhaps centuries. One researcher speculated that it was the cause of mysterious outbreaks beginning in 1485 of an illness called English sweating sickness.No cases of anthrax transmission by way of medieval manuscripts have been reported, however. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 208 |
NASA isn't the only space program celebrating a year on Mars. Science|NASA Isnt the Only Space Program Celebrating a Year at Marshttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/15/science/mars-china-emirates.htmlNASA Isnt the Only Space Program Celebrating a Year at MarsChina and the United Arab Emirates have also had a successful 12 months on the red planet.Credit...China National Space Administration, via Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFeb. 15, 2022The other country was an unexpected newcomer: the United Arab Emirates. Without much experience in spaceflight, it collaborated with engineers at the University of Colorados Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to build Hope, a spacecraft about the size of a small car.ImageCredit...Kamran Jebreili/Associated PressHope is smaller in size and ambition than Perseverance or Tianwen-1, but building it provided on-the-job training for budding Emirati engineers and scientists who worked side-by-side with their American counterparts in Boulder, Colo.Hope entered orbit around Mars and continues looping around the planet, making measurements of the atmosphere. It has made some unexpected findings, particularly the quantity of oxygen in the upper atmosphere.When we were comparing it to the models, it was around 50 percent higher than were expected, said Hessa al-Matroushi, the missions science lead. So that was surprising.Hopes instruments found structures in the upper atmosphere with higher concentrations of oxygen. Scientists are trying to figure out the significance of the surprise.Another spacecraft, the ExoMars 2022 mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, is planned for launch to Mars this year. It was originally scheduled for launch in 2020, but technical problems and the pandemic the mission was postponed. The next opportunity for launch opens in late September.ExoMars is carrying a rover named Rosalind Franklin, which is to look for indications of past life in Oxia Planum, a 120-mile-wide plain near the equator that possesses clay-rich minerals. | academic interests | 296 |
Earth isn't getting bigger, but its getting smaller. Here's why. Science|Is Earth Getting Bigger Over Time?https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/science/earth-size-mass.htmlGood QuestionThe planet is a magnet for stuff: space dust, dead leaves, old refrigerators. Is all that mass adding up?Dec. 10, 2019Has Earth grown larger from the buildup of decaying vegetation through the ages? Robert in Spartanburg, S.C.Earth isnt getting bigger. Its actually getting smaller!Decaying vegetation does pile up across the planet, but not everywhere equally. Wind and rain erode the ground over time, and even where leaves and other vegetation do gradually accumulate, like peat bogs and river deltas, that material doesnt add to Earths bulk. ImageTrees are built from air well, air and water. The water comes from the rain and the ground, but most of the rest of a tree is carbon and oxygen that was extracted, by photosynthesis, from the carbon dioxide in the air. And that carbon dioxide came from somewhere else on Earth. None of these processes actually makes the Earth bigger or smaller no mass is being created or destroyed. Atoms are just getting moved from one place to another.But Earths size isnt quite constant. Space around Earth is dusty; its full of asteroid debris, comet trails and ionized particles streaming away from the sun. And as our planet flies through that dust, our gravity vacuums it up.The dust enters the atmosphere, drifts around and eventually settles on the surface. This steady flow of dust along with occasionally larger chunks in the form of meteorites adds about 43 tons of mass to Earth every day. Its possible that a few molecules of the dust on your dresser recently arrived from another planet.But that 43 tons a day is small potatoes compared to Earths mass, which is about 5,972,200,000,000,000,000,000 tons.Moreover, and in spite of the added space dust, the planet is actually losing mass over all, because our atmosphere leaks. Gravity does a decent job of keeping Earths air wrapped around us, but a faint stream of lightweight gasses mostly hydrogen, but also helium and oxygen is continually escaping from the fringes of our atmosphere. These streams are particularly dense near the poles, where gas ionized by the sun flows out along the magnetic field lines in the form of the polar wind.Thanks to our leaky atmosphere, Earth loses several hundred tons of mass to space every day, significantly more than what were gaining from dust. So, overall, Earth is getting smaller.Dont worry: At the current rate, it would take quadrillions of years for Earth to evaporate completely, millions of times longer than the expected lifetime of the sun. But if the air leak bothers you, you could always try to convince NASA to build a giant lid.Randall Munroe is the author of the web comic XKCD and, most recently, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real World Problems. | academic interests | 471 |
Scientists created a simulation of how a forest might react to varying amounts of rainfall over the next 1,000 years. Science|Imagining a Forest of the Futurehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/science/imagining-a-forest-of-the-future.htmlTrilobitesVideotranscripttranscriptA Forest Growing Over a MillenniumScientists created a simulation of how a forest might react to varying amounts of rainfall over the next 1,000 years.eScientists created a simulation of how a forest might react to varying amounts of rainfall over the next 1,000 years.March 24, 2016This cyber forest shows what trees would look like a thousand years in the future, depending on how much rain falls on the Northeast.A pair of mathematicians at Washington State University Vancouver constructed a digital simulator to help visualize how a variety of factors, including carbon dioxide levels, wildfires and drought, can alter tree ecosystems. Simulations like this can help forest managers better understand which species to plant, if they want to create forests that will survive for centuries amid climate change.In this particular scenario, they grew the forest for a millennium under varying moisture levels, including extremely dry (top left), very dry (top right), mildly dry (bottom left) and normal conditions (bottom right). The bubbles inflating and bursting in the video show the tops of two different types of trees engaged in a centuries-long battle for sunlight.Green represents Eastern Hemlocks, which are shade tolerant plants, and orange stands in for Eastern White Pines, which are shade intolerant. Both need sunlight to survive, but the green trees can make do with less light than their counterparts an advantageous characteristic, until drought enters the equation.Its not much of a surprise that both species grow better when they get water barely a tree sprouts in the super dry, or xeric, soil, top left. But in the other two dry scenarios, Eastern White Pines, the usual underdogs, come out on top.Jean Linard, a co-author on the paper published in Royal Society Open Science, put the takeaway like this: Forested areas will not go through their full development, with shade tolerant species dominating the forest, when water is scarce. | academic interests | 335 |
Why is the top of a leaf the most colorful, sometimes bright red, while the underside is drab? Science|Explaining the Other Side of Autumn Leaveshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/science/explaining-the-other-side-of-autumn-leaves.htmlQ&ANov. 21, 2016Credit...Victoria RobertsQ. As the autumn leaves change color, why is the top of a leaf the most colorful, sometimes bright red, while the underside is comparatively drab?A. Within the complex layered structure of a thin leaf, the largest share of the pigments involved in the color change is found in a type of cell near the top surface called palisade cells, or the palisade parenchyma.Inside the palisade cells, in structures called chloroplasts, most of the leafs business of photosynthesis is carried on using the familiar green pigment called chlorophyll. The cells are near the top of the leaf, allowing the chlorophyll to absorb light energy to power the process.The cells of the underside, with far fewer chloroplasts, carry out other functions that do not rely on sunlight. For example, guard cells control pores for moisture, oxygen and carbon dioxide balance.Responding to signals from the changing light, the aging leaf shuts down the water supply to its chlorophyll factories in the fall, often revealing yellow to orange pigments, called xanthophylls and carotenoids, that are already present.The leaf also increases production of the predominantly red pigments called anthocyanins, which are deposited in the palisade cells. Recent research has suggested that the anthocyanins have a protective role, keeping the leaf from suffering too much damage from sunlight and oxidation as its function tapers off. They, too, may show bright red as chlorophyll fades away.Eventually, all these bright pigments fade, leaving only the drab brown tannins. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 269 |
'Flamingos are very good dancers,' say researchers. Science|Flamingo Mating Rules: 1. Learn the Funky Chickenhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/science/flamingos-dancing-sexual-display.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Jean E. Roche/Minden PicturesNov. 28, 2016Flamingos are very good dancers. They twist and preen, they scratch their heads, they march in unison. They poke a wing in one direction and a leg in another.They bend forward, sticking their tails up; they vigorously flap their wings in a flashy red and black display.Flamingos are serially monogamous. They mate for one year, get divorced, and find a new mate the next year. New mates are mutually agreed upon males and females both dance in search of a compatible partner.Now researchers have discovered that birds with the largest repertoire of dance moves, and the ability to switch quickly and often from one move to another, are the ones who most often succeed in finding mates.Scientists carefully watched and photographed 50 male and 50 female birds during the mating season in the Camargue, in southern France, recording the type, timing and frequency of their gyrations. The birds, all tagged since birth, ranged from 4 to 37 years old.During the average five-minute courtship sequence, the number of postures varied between two and eight, while the number of transitions between postures varied between two and 17.Combining the two numbers, the researchers created a sexual display complexity score for each bird. Then they tracked the dancers to see who succeeded in producing chicks.As the mating season progressed, all the flamingos improved their dancing with more varied moves and transitions, but both the youngest and the oldest birds received lower scores than the 20-year-olds.In the end, successful breeders averaged 61 in sexual display complexity, while those that remained single came in at 41. But pairs tended to have similar scores good dancers preferred similarly skilled partners.But why?Good motor function is necessary in reproduction, said the lead author, Charlotte Perrot, a doctoral candidate at the University of Montpellier.Breeding in a very dense colony where space is limited requires birds to be adroit, and foraging to feed a chick also requires good motor performance. | academic interests | 338 |
Star Trek legend William Shatner is among the paying passengers on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/space/blue-origin-crew-new-shephard.htmlOct. 13, 2021, 6:01 a.m. ETOct. 13, 2021, 6:01 a.m. ETCredit...Blue Origin, via Associated PressThree other passengers will join Mr. Shatner on Wednesdays flight:Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president who oversees New Shepard flight operations; like Mr. Shatner, she did not have to pay for her seat.Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of Planet Labs, a company that builds small satellites, also known as CubeSats, that are used by assorted clients for monitoring Earth from orbit.Glen de Vries, a chief executive and co-founder of Medidata Solutions, a company that built software for clinical trials.Fortunately for all three, none will be wearing a red Starfleet uniform during the flight.Dr. Boshuizen or Mr. de Vries are the second and third paying passengers to fly on a Blue Origin flight. The first was Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old man from the Netherlands. The company has not said how much any of these customers paid for their seats on the flights.As ticket-purchasing customers, they are something like early investors in an industry executives hope will one day be cheap enough for a broader swath of the public to take advantage of.Ms. Powers all but flew to space on New Shepard in April, when she and three other company executives were stand-in astronauts for Blue Origins 15th flight of the New Shepard rocket. She and her colleagues essentially performed a dress rehearsal for the missions with astronauts aboard. The executives went through all the motions of getting ready for a launch climbing up the rocket tower, boarding the capsule, closing its hatch and testing out its communications system until about 15 minutes before liftoff when they exited the capsule and left the pad. | academic interests | 292 |
Re Amid a Graying Fleet of Nuclear Plants, a Hunt for Solutions: The fading of enthusiasm for nuclear power in the U.S. is part of the pattern of our failure to address climate change. Science|Letters to the Editorhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/science/letters-to-the-editor.htmlReactionsMarch 28, 2016Nuclear PowerShort-Term ThinkingTO THE EDITOR:Re Amid a Graying Fleet of Nuclear Plants, a Hunt for Solutions, (March 22): The fading of enthusiasm for nuclear power in the United States is part of the pattern of our abysmal failure to address climate change. It is a function of markets that are distorted to reward the very short term and to neglect indirect costs. The biggest competitor to nuclear, and to unsubsidized wind and solar, is natural gas. Cheap now, but costly in greenhouse gases emitted. While some regions are finally getting the message, providing potential subsidies to keep their nuclear units running, it is far from adequate.Theodore M. Besmann Columbia, S.C.The writer is a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of South Carolina.AppendicitisMerits of AntibioticsTO THE EDITOR: Re A Choice for Treating Appendicitis, March 22: As a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy in 1945, I was already aware of the use of antibiotics in the treatment of appendicitis. If a Corpsman had the responsibility of treating a person with appendicitis while out at sea, it was preferable to use penicillin (available at that time to the armed forces) and local freezing rather than attempt to do an operation for which we were inadequately prepared.Dr. Sheldon Lichtblau, Fort Lee, N.J.TO THE EDITOR:I had an intelligent patient in my office, just yesterday, who related that his appendix had ruptured last September, while his providers had put him on antibiotics, as they watched and waited. He volunteered that, if he had not been able to reach the hospital rapidly after his symptoms suddenly took a turn for the worse, he may have died. Before CT scans and M.R.I.s, before antibiotics, surgeons knew, not to let the sun set on an acute abdomen and that, if the surgical pathology report did not come back negative for appendicitis 5-10 percent of the time (upon which, todays plaintiffs lawyers would pounce), the surgeon was underoperating. This meant that the surgeon was, therefore, missing life-threatening cases of true appendicitis. Contrary to Ms. Brodys contention, this was not a matter of surgeons greed, it was a matter of saving lives.Barry Miles Belgorod, M.D.New YorkParrotsA Special BirdTO THE EDITOR:Re Parrots Are a Lot More Than Pretty Bird, (March 22): Having lived in Venezuela for many years, I had close contact with these uniquely beautiful creatures. A baby parrot I brought up after it fell from the nest was bilingual and loved only me and greeted me with outspoken affection: Hola and then Goodbye when I left; in short, imprint marked our relationship. It would fly in and out of its large cage and one day did not return. I chose to think it had found a mate that surpassed me.Mara Arreaza-CoyleRockford, Ill. | academic interests | 492 |
The ExoMars 2016 mission blasts off from Kazakhstan. Science|Mars Mission Blasts Off From Kazakhstanhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/science/mars-mission-blasts-off-from-kazakhstan.htmlCredit...Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 14, 2016The ExoMars 2016 mission, a collaboration between the European and Russian space agencies, blasted off from Kazakhstan on Monday.The spacecraft, which consists of an orbiter that will measure methane and other gases in the Martian atmosphere and a lander that will study dust storms, lifted off at 3:31 p.m. local time on top of a Russian Proton rocket. The European Space Agency broadcast the launch online.A series of burns by an upper-stage engine sent ExoMars out of Earths orbit and toward a path to Mars. The spacecraft is expected to arrive in October.Three days before arriving, the lander, named Schiaparelli, after the 19th-century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, will separate from the orbiter. It will enter the atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour and will quickly decelerate on its way to settling down on the surface.The main objective of Schiaparelli is to demonstrate its landing system. (The European Space Agencys last attempt to land on Mars the Beagle 2 spacecraft, which accompanied the Mars Express orbiter in 2003 failed.)Schiaparelli carries instruments to measure Marss atmosphere during the height of the dust storm season. Its batteries are expected to last only two to four days.The Trace Gas Orbiter is expected to operate much longer, until at least 2022, circling Mars at an altitude of 250 miles. Its instruments will measure gases, like methane, water vapor and nitrogen, that exist in minute quantities but that could hold important clues about the possibility of life on Mars.Methane is the most intriguing trace gas. Sunlight and chemical reactions break up methane molecules in the atmosphere. Any methane there must have been created recently, and the two possibilities for creating methane are microbes and a geological process requiring heat and liquid water.Mars Express made tenuous detections of methane, but its instruments were not sensitive enough for definitive conclusions. NASAs Curiosity rover also detected a transient whiff of methane in 2014.The ExoMars spacecraft was originally scheduled to be launched by NASA, but tight budgets led the agency to back out in 2012, and the Russians stepped in. The second half of the European-Russian ExoMars collaboration a rover is scheduled to launch in 2018, but that mission is expected to slip to 2020. | academic interests | 384 |
Randall Munroe, creator of the Internet comic xkcd, is working with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on new science textbooks. Science|Randall Munroe, XKCD Creator, Goes Back to High Schoolhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/science/randall-munroe-xkcd-science-textbook.htmlMarch 21, 2016This fall, some high school students will flip the page of their science textbooks and seeImageCredit...Randall Munroestick figures and simplistic diagrams annotated with curiously nontechnical prose.A schematic of the human body, for instance, looks more like a subway map with various organs labeled as air bag, blood pusher, thinking bag and so on.For thinking bag, the explanation is: When you read words (like these), this part of your body turns them into ideas. By choosing the right words, you can take an idea thats happening in your head and try to make an idea like it happen in someone elses. Thats whats happening right now.Some may recognize them as the drawings and droll descriptions of Randall Munroe, the creator of the Internet comic xkcd as well as two books, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions and Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, both published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is also a textbook publishing giant, and editors in that division happened to see page proofs of Thing Explainer, which attempts to explain concepts like tectonic plates, cells and nuclear bombs using just the thousand most common words in English.We just all had an a-ha moment, said Peggy Smith-Herbst, the senior vice president who oversees content development for science and mathematics. We always knew we wanted to work with him.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced on Tuesday that it was collaborating with Mr. Munroe to incorporate parts of Thing Explainer into the next editions of its high school chemistry, biology and physics textbooks, to be published this summer. Its a way of deepening the engagement level for students, Ms. Smith-Herbst said.Mr. Munroe, 31, said the project appealed to him. He recalled as a child a foldout diagram showing different animals at the starting line of a race and then sprinting/flying/crawling to show the different speeds of different species. For some reason, I fixated on that illustration, he said. It stuck with me my entire life.Mr. Munroe said he hoped his drawings would break up the monotony and pace of a typical textbook. Im hoping it will be, Oh, heres a kind of fun and unexpected component, he said.He is adding a few new drawings, including one that explains how life returns to a landscape destroyed by forest fire or other ecological disaster. Thats a really neat topic, he said. | academic interests | 419 |
Do plants remember what to do? A new study suggests they do. Science|Plants Remember You if You Mess With Them Enoughhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/science/29obs-plants.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Zohar LazarMarch 28, 2016Plants are reviving after a long winter, helped along by warming temperatures and increased light.But do plants also remember what to do? Maybe so. In 2014, Dr. Monica Gagliano and colleagues at the University of Florence in Italy decided to see if they could train a plant to change behavior.The researchers chose Mimosa pudica, more commonly known as the touch-me-not, which curls up its leaves in response to physical stimulation. Test plants in their pots were dropped onto foam from a height of about six inches to elicit the flinching response.After repeated exposure with no major harm, the plants no longer recoiled. Even after a month left alone, the plants remembered the falls werent harmful and ignored them. Dr. Gagliano, now at the University of Western Australia, concluded from the experiment that plants could learn long-lasting behaviors, sort of like memories.Touch-me-not plant (Mimosa pudica) in actionCredit...CreditVideo by Akshay MaratheBut a review published last month in Science Advances suggests that one can look at it another way as well: the mimosa pudica could be learning to forget. Peter Crisp, a molecular plant biologist at Australian National University and author on the review, suggested that plants forget to flinch when it turns out that the threat does no harm. Forgetting has a purpose, Dr. Crisp and his colleagues say: It allows plants to save energy. | academic interests | 246 |
Why were prehistoric animals so big? Here's what you need to know. Science|Animals in Extra Largehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/science/prehistoric-megafauna-large-animals.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 17, 2017Q. Why were prehistoric animals so big? Or is the real question why are their descendants so much smaller?A. Many possible explanations have been suggested for different species, from higher oxygen levels in the very ancient atmosphere to more modern human predation, but a general answer lies in the workings of natural selection.Body size is one of the obvious things that natural selection works on, said Ross MacPhee, a curator in the department of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History.Depending on the group, he said, large sizes come and go as evolutionary opportunities arise. For example, because of their physiological adaptations, large animals can extract nutrients from foods like grasses that the guts of small animals simply cannot adequately digest, Dr. MacPhee said. Thus, the existence of extensive grasslands would favor some larger species.In mammals, like elephants, large size correlates with certain life-history traits like long life spans, long gestation periods and relatively few offspring per female, Dr. MacPhee said. Small size, as in shrews or mice, correlates with shorter life spans but fast gestation and large numbers of offspring.Each size extreme would thrive better in certain environmental conditions. Because of recent extinctions, there are certainly fewer large, or megafaunal, species alive today, Dr. MacPhee said.In North America, we are down to about a dozen megafaunal mammal species, defined as those having body sizes of 100 pounds or more, he said. Twelve thousand years ago, we had roughly three times as many, including the iconic mammoths, giant sloths, saber-tooth cats, horses, camels, giant rodents, short-faced bears and many others. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 280 |
Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer, to be named for new dark energy telescope. Science|NASA Names Dark Energy Telescope for Nancy Grace Romanhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/science/nancy-grace-roman-telescope.htmlOut ThereDr. Roman was a pioneer at NASA, joining the agency in its early days and becoming its first chief astronomer.Credit...NASAMay 20, 2020NASA announced Wednesday that one of its most ambitious upcoming space telescopes would be named for Nancy Grace Roman, who pioneered the role of women in the space agency.Dr. Roman joined the agency in 1959 when NASA was only six months old, and rose to be its first chief astronomer. She is credited, among other things, with championing and spearheading the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. Around the agency and in astronomical circles she is known as the mother of Hubble. She died in 2018.The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as it is now named, is being designed to investigate the mysterious dark energy speeding up the expansion of the universe and to scan space for exoplanets belonging to distant stars. The project to build the telescope has survived several attempts by the Trump administration to kill it, and is now slated to be launched later this decade.Until now it has been known by the decidedly uncatchy name of the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or Wfirst. The acronym had a double meaning: W is the name for a crucial parameter that measures the virulence of dark energy, thus giving a clue to the fate of the universe.It is because of Nancy Grace Romans leadership and vision that NASA became a pioneer in astrophysics and launched Hubble, the worlds most powerful and productive space telescope, Jim Bridenstine, NASAs administrator, said in a statement issued by the space agency.Dr. Roman was born in Nashville on May 16, 1925, and grew up enamored of the stars in an era in which women were not encouraged to pursue science. At Swarthmore College she majored in physics against the advice of her professors. In a video clip shown as part of the announcement Wednesday, she recalled that at the University of Chicago, where she obtained a Ph.D., her thesis adviser once went six months without speaking to her.But she persisted, as the saying goes, to become a champion of astronomy in space.This is the second time in the last year that a major American observatory has been named for a woman astronomer. Earlier this year the National Science Foundation named its new telescope in Chile after Vera Rubin, another persistent woman who pioneered the study of dark matter. The study of dark energy will also be one of the primary targets of that telescope when it starts up.Dr. Rubin and Dr. Roman are thus in good company.In making the announcement Wednesday, Thomas Zurbuchen, NASAs associate administrator for science, said of Dr. Roman, Her name deserves a place in the heavens she studied and opened for so many. | academic interests | 479 |
Scientists study how ants collectively navigated around a variety of Lego blockades. ScienceTakeVideotranscripttranscriptAnt Obstacle CourseScientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studied how ants collectively navigated around a variety of Lego blockades.naScientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studied how ants collectively navigated around a variety of Lego blockades.Nov. 14, 2016How groups make decisions is a major puzzle. Not just for pollsters. And not just human groups.Helen F. McCreery studies the process in the longhorn crazy ant, which is known for its cooperative behavior in certain tasks. Admittedly, it does not solve geopolitical or economic problems, but groups of these ants can join to take a giant chunk of food, way too much for one ant to move, back to the nest.They do this naturally with a prize like a cricket. But for experimental work, the best bet is a bit of canned tuna. Food preferences vary among ant species and are not easily predictable. These ants, said Ms. McCreery who is a Ph.D. student in biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, dont tend to carry sugary items back. Although other species like fig paste, cheese, gummy bears and cat food, these ants, she said, are kind of persnickety about what they want to carry. They are, however, always really excited about tuna.She and her colleagues tested ants at two locations in Arizona by giving them tuna but blocking their way back to the nest with barriers made of Lego pieces.She wanted to find out what strategies they used to overcome the barriers. They mostly move in the direction of the nest, but when they are blocked, she found that they had different strategies, depending on the barrier.For a simple wall, the ants moved along it until they were able to resume heading toward the nest.For a cul-de-sac, that strategy wouldnt work, however. So, after a time, the ants moved in the opposite direction from the nest. She said scientists didnt know how they communicated and agreed on a change of direction. Time spent pursuing an unproductive strategy seemed to be what prompted the change, although ants just joining the group could have had new information about the barrier.But, she said, something other than the passage of time without success influenced the group actions. When she closed off a cul-de-sac, creating a trap from which escape was impossible, the ants slowed down and quit moving much more quickly than they did in a cul-de-sac that had one opening.In the trap, they start slowing down right away within a minute, she said. In the cul-de-sac, they would work for about 10 minutes, she said.The flexibility in their approach was interesting, she and her colleagues reported in Journal of Experimental Biology, because it allowed the ants to solve a simple problem, like a wall, quickly, but also allowed a second approach to more complicated problems. How they seem to figure out when they are really trapped is still a mystery.They really look like theyre just giving up, Ms. McCreery said. | academic interests | 499 |
Wind turbines kill more than 60 bats a month, study finds. Science|When Bats Look for Meals Near Wind Power, Bats Diehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/science/bats-wind-power-turbines.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Russell Cheyne/ReutersNov. 7, 2016Wind power can help the world fight climate change, but its not so great for bats.A new study of wind turbines in Britain found that each turbine killed one to two bats each month on average, with some killing more than 60. The researchers said that the efforts that are required in many countries to assess the environmental effect of planned wind farms have proved faulty and inadequate in measuring the risk to bats. There are more than 300,000 wind turbines around the world.The risks to birds of the blades of wind turbines are becoming well understood, but the risk to bats, while known, has been poorly defined until now, said Fiona Mathews, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of mammalian biology at the University of Exeter in England. Bats, she said, might be attracted to turbines, whether because of the noise the machines make or the bugs that are trapped in the air movement: Its a ready food supply.Her team found bat casualties in unexpected places like high-altitude spots, she said.Finding the bats, which are small and not colorful, presented special challenges. Using specially trained bat-sniffing dogs, the researchers found the hard-to-spot bat corpses at the bases of turbines at 46 wind farms around England. Dr. Mathews said she contacted an expert who trains dogs to sniff out bodies, bombs and the like for bat duty. He just killed himself laughing, she said, and then he told her, This is the funniest thing anybodys ever asked me to do.ImageCredit...Victoria StentDr. Mathews, who is also the chairwoman of the Mammal Society, a conservation group in England, said that the research in no way suggested that renewable power was a bad thing, but argued that wind power companies should take action to minimize the damage to bats, which pollinate plants and consume pests like mosquitoes. The risk is higher at times of low wind, in part because bats are less likely to take to the air during a hard blow; because turbines are not generating much power anyway during those times of relative calm, stilling the blades or shifting their pitch to limit motion could save many bats, as could curtailing operation during peak bat periods of the year. You can make a huge difference in the number of bats youre killing, she said. | academic interests | 409 |
Chris Hadfield performs David Bowies Space Oddity from the International Space Station. Science|Chris Hadfields spirited song in space was no oddity.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/science/chris-hadfield-space-oddity.htmlCredit...NASA TVNov. 2, 2020Although Chris Hadfields performance of David Bowies Space Oddity ranks among the International Space Stations most iconic moments, the Canadian astronaut insists he is not a backwards looking guy. He prefers to anticipate the next set of challenges in space.It seems surreal that we could be settling the moon, Mr. Hadfield said. But playing Space Oddity from the space station? For a Canadian kid who was born before the very first astronaut even flew in space, thats pretty surreal. And yet that happened so far just in my lifetime.Released in May 2013, Mr. Hadfields rendition really made the grade. David Bowie himself praised it as possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created.The video hinted at the stations potential as a stage and film set. Recent talks between NASA and Tom Cruise suggest that the actor might shoot a movie there, a reflection of the agencys push to open the I.S.S. to more commercial activities. But if Mr. Cruise makes the trip, it wont be easy.You have limited power, extremely limited circumstances, and hes not going to be able to bring any production crew up there, Mr. Hadfield said.The astronaut had to record the vocal and guitar parts in rare pockets of spare time, although he credits an international ensemble of musicians and contributors with the smashing success of the final version with full instrumentation.The wider point of the video, as far as I could see it, was highlighting the multinational contribution of the I.S.S., said Elizabeth Howell, an expert on Canadas space program.Hadfield gives us a subtle tour of the I.S.S., highlighting the contributions of many nations, she added. And the views of Earth you see in the video are of Earth as a globe, not Earth highlighted in a single region.The contributions of international partners have gone beyond sending crew to orbit. Canadas robotic arm was key to assembling the station; Japans Kibo module is an essential orbital science lab, and the European cupola has provided an unparalleled view of Earth.Its fitting that Mr. Hadfield, the first Canadian to walk in space and the first Canadian commander of the I.S.S., created such a resonant expression of the stations most enduring legacy the awesome power of human collaboration.That song isnt really done justice by just one voice and a guitar, he said. Its a lovely, big, powerful orchestral song. | academic interests | 415 |
Watch as the morning glory transforms from blue to pink. Science|A Quick, Colorful Change for a Morning Gloryhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/science/a-quick-colorful-change-for-a-morning-glory.htmlTrilobitesCredit...National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki JapanMarch 2, 2016This weeks GIF science lesson highlights one of the more colorful ways that a drastic shift in pH, can affect a plant.In natures daily show, the morning glory is a master of the costume change. With normal fluctuations in pH levels, its petals can shift in color from blue to pink, and sometimes red in the course of a single day. But unless you camped out in front of the plant all day, you wouldnt see the transformation. Heres a video showing normal color fluctuations.Credit...CreditVideo by NIBB PRTo observe this phenomenon at high speed, researchers at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan placed dry ice in an enclosed space around a Japanese morning glory flower. As the ice evaporated and carbon dioxide built up in the surrounding air, the acidity increased, causing the pigments stored in tiny vacuoles, or bubbles in the petals outer cells, to shift from blue to pink. Watch as the color changes, as if by magic, right before your eyes. | academic interests | 191 |
How Cassini will begin its date with death on Saturn. Science|How Cassini Will Begin Its Date With Death on Saturnhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/science/cassini-saturn-rings.htmlTrilobitesNov. 25, 2016Its the beginning of a spectacular, almost circuslike end for NASAs Cassini mission. For 12 years Cassini has been buzzing about Saturn, its rings and its moons. As a result we know that there are methane lakes on Titan and jets of water shooting from Enceladus, and the rings themselves have warps, ripples, hills twists and braids.Now the Cassini spacecraft has gradually shifted into an orbit that takes it over the planets north and south poles and then down into a series of increasingly vertiginous-looking dives perpendicular to the plane of its buttery glowing rings.Starting on Wednesday, as shown here, with a gravitational nudge from the moon Titan, Cassini is set to commence a series of 20 dives just outside the outer edge of the main ring system. Along the way the spacecraft will try to sample ring particles and gases that live there in its vicinity, and pass only 56,000 miles above Saturns cloud tops.In April, Cassini will shift its orbit again to slice between the planet and the rings, sneaking as close as 1,012 miles from the clouds of Saturn in 22 more orbits. Finally, on Sept. 15, at 8:07 a.m., Earth time in New York, the spacecraft will crash into the clouds of Saturn and burn up.Science will never be the same. Nor will Saturn, now forever polluted by a few stray atoms from the blue planet. Thereafter, there will always be a little piece of Earth on Saturn. | academic interests | 263 |
What could be causing black stains on the walls above each segment of our radiators? Science|Dark Wall Stains May Signal Indoor Pollutionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/science/dark-wall-stains-may-signal-indoor-pollution.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 14, 2016Q. What could be causing black stains on the walls above each segment of our radiators? Could the heating fuel be leaking from the radiators into the air we breathe?A. The stains are coming from the air, not the radiators, and while the furnace and the chimney should be checked, there are other possible sources besides heating fuel for the black material.Such stains, called ghosting by building engineers, are caused by deposits of soot, dust or ordinary dirt carried by the air and then deposited on the walls or ceilings.The pattern of the deposits depends on factors like air currents, gravity, electrostatic attraction and temperature and humidity differences. For example, the reason the stains mirror the radiator segments is probably that the wall temperature varies with the shape of the radiator.One of the most common sources of soot is partly burned carbon fuel, but soot could come from cooking fumes, cigarettes and fireplaces as well as the furnace. A surprisingly big source of the carbon that causes ghosting stains is perfumed room candles, a 2001 review of previous studies found.As for health risks, they are related to the size of the particles; the smaller the particles, the higher the risk, the Environmental Protection Agency says.The visible soot can be a signal of the presence of the more dangerous microscopic particles, less than 10 micrometers in diameter, that can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause heart and respiratory illnesses. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 264 |
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin sells first suborbital flight for $28 million. Science|What will it cost to fly on New Shepard?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/science/cost-to-fly-blue-origin-bezos.htmlCredit...Blue Origin, via Associated PressPublished July 20, 2021Updated Oct. 13, 2021For the first flight, Blue Origin auctioned off one of the seats with the proceeds going to Mr. Bezos space-focused nonprofit, Club for the Future. The winning bid was $28 million, an amount that stunned even Blue Origin officials, far higher than they had hoped. Blue Origin announced it will distribute $19 million of that to 19 space-related organizations $1 million each.The 7,600 people who participated in the auction provided Blue Origin with a list of prospective paying customers, and the company has started selling tickets for subsequent flights.Blue Origin has declined to say what the price is or how many people have signed up, but representatives of the company say there is strong demand.Our early flights are going for a very good price, Bob Smith, the chief executive of Blue Origin, said during a news conference on Sunday.During the auction for the seat on Tuesdays flight, the company said that auction participants could buy a seat on subsequent flights. It has not publicly stated what it charged those who placed bids, or how many seats have been sold.Ariane Cornell, director of astronaut and orbital sales at Blue Origin, said that two additional flights are planned for this year. So we have already built a robust pipeline of customers that are interested, she said.Virgin Galactic, the other company offering suborbital flights, has about 600 people who have already bought tickets. The price was originally $200,000 and later raised to $250,000, but Virgin Galactic stopped sales in 2014 after a crash of its first space plane during a test flight. Virgin Galactic officials say they will resume sales later this year, and the price will likely be higher than $250,000. | academic interests | 308 |
A huge canyon on Mercury may provide evidence that the planet is shrinking. Science|Mercury Is Shrinking, a Great Valley Showshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/science/mercury-great-valley.htmlTrilobitesCredit...NASANov. 21, 2016A colossal canyon on Mercury may provide evidence that the tiny planet is shrinking.Using data from NASAs Messenger spacecraft, researchers have discovered a 620-mile-long, 250-mile-wide and 2-mile-deep valley on the planets southern hemisphere. Its about the size of Montana and twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. In the elevation map above, the dark-blue chasm leads to a large purple crater known as the Rembrandt impact basin.The researchers believe the great valley formed as Mercurys interior cooled, which caused the planets crust and upper mantle to contract and bend. The findings appeared Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.Unlike Earth, which has multiple tectonic plates, Mercurys lithosphere is made of a single plate. As it cooled, it buckled like a grape shriveling into a raisin.Researchers are still piecing together all of the clues about how Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, cooled. Some scientists think it may have also undergone a more recent warming period after it formed.Mercury might have shrunk by nearly nine miles in diameter in the past four billion years, according to previous research, and might still be getting smaller. | academic interests | 205 |
How much does a ticket to space on New Shepard cost? Blue Origin isn't saying. Space & Cosmos|How much does a ticket to space on New Shepard cost? Blue Origin isnt saying.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/space/blue-origin-ticket-cost.htmlHow much does a ticket to space on New Shepard cost? Blue Origin isnt saying.Oct. 13, 2021, 11:12 a.m. ETOct. 13, 2021, 11:12 a.m. ETCredit...Blue OriginBlue Origin has declined to publicly state a price for a ticket to fly on New Shepard. The company is nearing $100 million in sales so far, Mr. Bezos has said. But its unclear how many ticket holders that includes.We dont know quite yet when Blue Origin will publicly announce a price, Mr. Bezos told reporters in July after his flight to space. Right now were doing really well with private sales.Oliver Daemen, the Dutch teenager aboard Blue Origins first crewed flight in July, was occupying a seat that the company auctioned off for $28 million, a steep number that even shocked some company executives. Of that total, $19 million was donated equally to 19 space organizations.Mr. Daemen, 18, wasnt the winning bidder. His father, a private equity executive, was the runner-up in the auction and was next in line after the actual winner. That individual, who has not been named, plunked down $28 million before postponing their trip over a scheduling conflict, Blue Origin said at the time.Tickets to the edge of space on Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo were hiked to $450,000 in August, from $250,000, when the company reopened ticket sales after a yearslong hiatus.Flights to orbit a much higher altitude than Blue Origin or Virgin Galactics trips go are far more expensive. Three passengers to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.Many wealthy customers and space company executives see the steep ticket prices as early investments into the nascent space tourism industry, hoping the money they put down can help lower the cost of launching rockets. | academic interests | 331 |
This Saturday, a comet from beyond our solar system will make its closest approach to Earth. An Interstellar Comet This Saturday, Dec. 28, a comet from beyond our solar system will make its closest approach to Earth. Comet Borisov on Dec. 9 NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA) The comets icy core is only a mile or so wide, but its surrounding cloud of gas and dust is many times larger than our planet. Pieter van Dokkum, Cheng-Han Hsieh, Shany Danieli, Gregory Laughlin (Yale) Just Passing Through The comet, known as 2I/Borisov, is moving about 20 miles a second, fast enough to slip through the solar system and escape back into interstellar space. Comet Borisov in October NASA, ESA, J. DePasquale (STScI) Discovery The comet was first spotted on Aug. 30 by Gennady Borisov, a comet hunter in Crimea who has discovered nine comets since 2013. The comet moving across background stars Gennady Borisov Comet 2I/Borisov is the second interstellar object ever observed inside our solar system, earning it the prefix 2I. The alien comet resembles other comets in our solar system, but likely formed around another star before being kicked out into interstellar space. Comet Borisov in front of a distant spiral galaxy on Nov. 16 NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA) The suns gravity will bend the comets path, but not capture it. The comet made its closest approach to the sun on Dec. 8. Comet Borisov on Nov. 12 National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/Gemini Observatory/N.S.F./AURA Oumuamua The first interstellar object found passing through our solar system was 1I/Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017 already moving away from the sun. Oumuamua is circled in blue ESO/K. Meech et al. Oumuamua was thought to be a reddish, cigar-shaped asteroid because it lacked a halo and reflected light in different ways as it turned. A glimpse of Oumuamua Gemini Observatory/AURA/National Science Foundation But recent observations suggest Oumuamua might actually be a comet with no tail, accelerating away from the sun with the slight kick of escaping gas. Astronomers should have many future chances to observe alien comets. Dozens of interstellar objects are thought to pass through the solar system every year, unseen until now. Subscribe to the Science Times newsletter and sync your calendar with the solar system. Sources: NASA, Gennady Borisov and the Jet Propulsion Laboratorys Small-Body Database Browser | academic interests | 388 |
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spies the Curiosity rover on Mars. Science|High Above Mars, a NASA Orbiter Spies the Curiosity Roverhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/science/mars-curiosity-reconnaissance-orbiter.htmlTrilobitesJune 22, 2017ImageCredit...NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/University of ArizonaThe small blue dot is Curiosity.From orbit, NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been cataloging the landscape of Mars in exquisite detail for more than a decade. Occasionally it photographs something not at all Martian.On June 5, the orbiter passed over Mount Sharp, the mountain inside a crater where NASAs Curiosity rover has been exploring since 2012. The color image, taken from a distance of 169 miles, is the combined view of three wavelength bands red, blue-green and infrared. Those wavelengths bring out differences in the materials on Marss surface, but produce a scene quite different in hue from what the human eye would see.This false-color combination makes Curiosity, which is about 10 feet long and nine feet wide, pop out as a bright blue in the terrain of tan rocks and patches of dark sand. (The rover usually has a hue like an unwashed metallic car.)The Reconnaissance Orbiter has been taking pictures of Curiosity about every three months to monitor movements in dunes, erosion of slopes and other changes in the landscape.Curiosity is not the only Earth visitor that has been spotted. In 2006, the orbiter took this image of the Opportunity rover, which showed not only the rover but also the tracks in the soil and even the shadow of its camera mast.ImageCredit...NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/University of ArizonaThe camera has also taken pictures of NASAs Viking and Phoenix landers. A Russian amateur may have also spotted Mars 3, the Soviet spacecraft that set down on Mars in 1971, although that identification was not conclusive.The orbiter has also provided hints into Mars spacecraft that failed.When the European Space Agencys Schiaparelli craft, part of its ExoMars mission, disappeared last year as it was descending, the Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted a dark scar on the surface where the lander crashed.ImageCredit...NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/University of ArizonaThe orbiter also found Beagle 2, an earlier European Space Agency lander that disappeared in 2003. In that instance, it turned out that Beagle 2 made it to the surface in one piece but not all of its solar panels deployed. With the radio antenna blocked, it was never able to send a message back to Earth.ImageCredit...NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/University of Arizona/University of LeicesterOne spacecraft, however, still eludes discovery NASAs Polar Lander that disappeared without a trace in December 1999 as it was heading toward a spot on Mars near the South Pole.Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters camera has taken images covering the area where Polar Lander is likely to be, but it remains hidden in the rough terrain. In the years since its disappearance, the debris may have also been partly hidden by dust and frost.ImageCredit...NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/University of Arizona | academic interests | 462 |
Trees adapt to climate change better than expected, new study says. Science|Trees Deal With Climate Change Better Than Expectedhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/science/global-warming-climate-change-trees-carbon-dioxide.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Getty ImagesMarch 16, 2016The bend-dont-break adaptability of trees extends to handling climate change, according to a new study that says forests may be able to deal with hotter temperatures and contribute less carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than scientists previously thought.In addition to taking in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, plants also release it through a process called respiration. Globally, plant respiration contributes six times as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as fossil fuel emissions, much of which is reabsorbed by plants, the oceans and other elements of nature. Until now, most scientists have thought that a warming planet would cause plants to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which in turn would cause more warming.But in a study published Wednesday in Nature, scientists showed that plants were able to adapt their respiration to increases in temperature over long periods of time, releasing only 5 percent more carbon dioxide than they did under normal conditions.Based on measurements of short-term temperature responses in this study and others, the scientists expected that the plants would increase their respiration by nearly five times that much.At two forest-research sites in Minnesota, scientists tested how the respiration rates of 10 different species of trees from boreal and temperate forests were affected by increases in temperature over a period of three to five years, using heating cables to warm some of the trees.The trees were monitored in two conditions: ambient, and about 6 degrees warmer than that.To demonstrate how the plants adapted to long-term temperature increases, the scientists compared three things: how much carbon dioxide the trees released in ambient conditions; how much the trees released in the warmer conditions; and how much carbon dioxide the trees released when they were exposed to the warmer temperature for a short period of time (minutes or hours).When the scientists compared the results, they found that the trees that were acclimated to the warmer temperatures increased their carbon dioxide release by a much smaller amount than the trees that were only exposed to a short-term temperature increase of the same magnitude.Boreal and temperate forests account for a third of the worlds forest areas, and if they adapt their respiration rates in the way this study suggests, the forests, the planets lungs, can breathe easy. | academic interests | 394 |
Q. When do hatching eaglets start to breathe? A. Science|Before Eagles Fly, They Must Hatchhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/science/eaglets-eggs-air-breathing.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsApril 4, 2016Q. When do hatching eaglets start to breathe? Is there air in the egg before they energetically work their way out?A. The first breath comes three or four days before hatching, thanks to the small air bubble above the chick in the porous egg shell, said Amy Ries, who writes for the Raptor Resource Project, a preservation and educational project for all raptors. The project includes a webcam that records eagles nesting and breeding in Decorah, Iowa. Just before its first breath, the eaglet chick develops an egg tooth, a small, hard calcium spike on top of the bill. It is used to pierce the membrane that separates the chick from the bubble of air. This hole is called the internal pip. The chick gets a burst of energy with its first breath, Ms. Ries wrote on the projects blog, and scratches a hole through the shell to the outside, called the external pip.As more air comes into the shell, the chick starts the final process of hatching by vigorously scratching the inside of the shell in a circular path around the entire large end.With the shell weakened, the chick is able to give a few expansive bursts and the shell parts, Ms. Ries said.It may take 12 to 48 hours for the chick to extricate itself from the shell. During that time, it undergoes several physiological adaptations, including absorbing the yolk sac within its body and fully inflating its lungs.Exhausted from its work, the eaglet has drawn enough nourishment from its yolk sac so it does not need to eat for several hours, giving it time to rest and dry off, Ms. Ries said. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 293 |
Why did Richard Branson take this risk with Virgin Galactic? Science|Why did Richard Branson take this risk?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/science/richard-branson-space-flight-risk.htmlWhy did Richard Branson take this risk?Credit...Joe Skipper/ReutersJuly 11, 2021Founding a space exploration company was perhaps an unsurprising step for Mr. Branson, who has made a career and a fortune estimated at $6 billion building flashy upstart businesses that he promotes with a showmans flair.What became his Virgin business empire began with a small record shop in central London in the 1970s before Mr. Branson parlayed it into Virgin Records, the home of acts like the Sex Pistols, Peter Gabriel and more. In 1984, he co-founded what became Virgin Atlantic to challenge British Airways in the field of long-haul passenger air travel. Other Virgin-branded airlines followed.The Virgin Group branched out into other businesses as well, including a mobile-phone carrier, a passenger railroad and a line of hotels. Not all have performed flawlessly: Both Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia filed for insolvency during the pandemic last year, while few today remember his ventures into soft drinks, cosmetics or lingerie.Virgin Galactic was announced to much fanfare in 2004 with the promise of creating a space tourism company with style. Virgin Orbit, a spinoff of that company that launches small satellites from a jumbo jet, came 13 years later. Virgin Orbit, now separate from Virgin Galactic, has carried payloads to orbit twice this year.The space tourism company is of a piece with Mr. Bransons penchant for highflying pursuits like skydiving and hot-air ballooning. And unlike many of the Virgin Groups businesses that are actually minority investments or simply licensees, Virgin Galactic has been a major focus of Mr. Bransons. He raised $1 billion for the space companies from Saudi Arabia, only to call off the deal in 2018 after the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And in a regulatory filing, the company said it had benefited from his personal network to generate new inquiries and reservation sales, as well as referrals from existing reservation holders.Weve spent 14 years working on our space program, Mr. Branson said in a Bloomberg Television interview in 2018. And its been tough, and space is tough its rocket science. He added that he had hoped to travel on one of Virgin Galactics flights by the end of that year.Virgin Galactic joined the New York Stock Exchange in 2019 after merging with a publicly traded investment fund, giving it a potent source of new funds to compete with deep-pocket competitors and publicity, with Mr. Branson marking its trading debut at the exchange in one of the companys flight suits.But while Virgin Galactic has sought to keep pace with the likes of Mr. Bezos Blue Origin, Mr. Branson has downplayed any rivalry between the two. I know nobody will believe me when I say it, but honestly, there isnt, he told The Today Show earlier this week. | academic interests | 475 |
Ritual human sacrifice helped create social hierarchies, study finds. Science|Why Some Societies Practiced Ritual Human Sacrificehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/science/ritual-human-sacrifice.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Paulus Swaen Old Maps & PrintsApril 4, 2016One thing thats definitely gotten better over time: not as much ritualistic human sacrifice.But a new study published Monday in Nature revisits the ancient practice to look for fresh insights. The scientists found that, for better or worse (and only worse for the victims, of course), human sacrifice helped create the hierarchies present in many modern societies.The scientists from the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington, both in New Zealand, found that ritual sacrifice may have spurred the transition of small, egalitarian societies to large, stratified ones. The study examined 93 traditional Austronesian cultures (speakers of a family of languages in parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania).They looked at whether and how these cultures used ritual sacrifice 40 of them practiced it and how it affected social organization. The cultures were then divided into groups: egalitarian, moderately stratified and highly stratified. They were defined by the presence or absence of social hierarchy, and the rate of social mobility.The scientists found, perhaps not surprisingly, that human sacrifice contributed to creating and preserving social hierarchies, and that it increased the chances that societies would have more fixed strata, which were inherited positions, and less mobility. It also generally helped prevent loss of social divisions once they existed.Despite its barbaric nature, human sacrifice was a useful tool for rulers, elites, and religious figures to maintain or cement their power, or even to proclaim their own divinity.In these cultures, human sacrifice usually of slaves or others with low status was sometimes called for in response to several events, including the breaking of taboos or customs, the funerals of important people, or the consecration of a new house or boat, according to the authors.The authors list some run-of-the-mill techniques for human sacrifice, but others they mention are more, lets say, specific: being crushed under a newly built canoe, or being rolled off the roof of a house and then decapitated.Human sacrifice was practiced at some point in most parts of the world, but because most major religions forbid the custom, it hasnt lasted into modern times.Even so, rumors of human sacrifice or ritual murders sometimes circulate. And popular culture helps fan the flames, too. Game of Thrones Season 6, anyone? | academic interests | 389 |
Time-lapse shows an ice flower in the middle of the night. Science|Find an Ice Flower Before It Meltshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/science/find-an-ice-flower-before-it-melts.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Mary RonanMarch 1, 2016After unseasonably warm weather, some parts of the country are expected to be blasted by winter storms over the coming weeks. There may be a tiny, fleeting bright side for those who live in places where something known as frostweed grows: ice flowers.It blossoms in the middle of the night, when the air is just at freezing and the ground is warm at least relative to the air. As supercool water seeps out from the cracks of a plant stem, the surrounding air transforms the liquid to ice by a slow, steady process, as you can see in this time-lapse photography taken by Forrest M. Mims III, an amateur scientist and author, in the woods near his Texas home in January 2004.VideotranscripttranscriptMaking an Ice FlowerOver the course of a few hours, an ice flower or has blossomed.naOver the course of a few hours, an ice flower or has blossomed.CreditCredit...Forrest M. Mims IIIThe growing ice swirls into rounded ribbons that ripple and fold like petals. If you pick it up, it may shatter. And if you wake up too late, its as if it were never even there.In the last couple of weeks, #frostflowers, as they are more commonly referred to on social media, have been photographed in Tennessee and Kentucky. The blooms have also been documented in Alabama, Texas, Indiana and Pennsylvania over the years. Jim Carter, a retired geographer at Illinois State University, has even grown them in his yard in Illinois.VideotranscripttranscriptMelting an Ice FlowerJust a bit of warmth drives these fleeting blossoms away.naJust a bit of warmth drives these fleeting blossoms away.He first stumbled upon one of these curious ice creations in East Tennessee in 2003, not knowing what it was.Ever since, he has been working to understand not only this fleeting blossom, but also other strange ice formations such as needle ice, which grows from soil and hair ice, which grows from fungus-infested wood.What he has found is that they are all formed by a process called ice segregation a process similar to the one that turns a Coke that has been sitting in a cooler of ice from liquid to slush just as you crack it open.At the most basic level, a garden requires the presence of certain plants such as frostweed and the freezing of supercold water from the soil at just the right rate. The plant, he explains, pulls water up from the ground. The water then leaks out and hits frost, which causes it to start freezing. A delicate temperature balance is essential to keep the ice growing.It stops unfurling only when the balance is broken, which is inevitable sooner or later.You get a nice sunny day, and it doesnt take long before the sun hits it, and it all sort of wilts and goes away, Dr. Carter said. | academic interests | 486 |
Why does a memory come seemingly out of nowhere? Science|A Memory From Out of the Blue https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/science/memory-mind-pop.htmlQ&APeople sometimes experience random recollections during routine tasks such as housekeeping. Scientists call them mind-pops. Nov. 24, 2018ImageCredit...Victoria RobertsQ. Why does a memory come seemingly out of nowhere?A. This kind of involuntary recall usually involves words, phrases or names, rather than events. Generally, there does not seem to be any immediate trigger or reminder.The phenomenon was given a name, mind-popping, by one of the few researchers to study it, George Mandler, a pioneer in memory research who died in 2016.He and his colleagues found that such a memory usually occurred during a task that was relatively automatic, such as routine grooming or housekeeping, which left the mind free to wander. They speculated that the recall might involve what is called long-term priming, information related to the memory that was acquired days or even weeks earlier than the actual recollection. | academic interests | 155 |
Who else was aboard the Blue Origin flight? Science|Who else was aboard the flight?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/science/blue-origin-crew-bezos.htmlPublished July 20, 2021Updated Oct. 13, 2021Mr. Bezos brought his younger brother. Mark Bezos, 50, has lived a more private life. He is a co-founder and general partner at HighPost Capital, a private equity firm. Mark Bezos previously worked as head of communications at the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity that aids anti-poverty efforts in New York City.Blue Origin auctioned off one of the seats, with the proceeds going to Club for the Future, a space-focused charity founded by Mr. Bezos. The winning bidder paid $28 million and we still do not know who that was.ImageCredit...Daemen FamilyLast week, the company announced that the auction winner had decided to wait until a subsequent flight due to scheduling conflicts.Instead, Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student from the Netherlands who was one of the runners-up in the auction, and who had purchased a ticket on the second New Shepard flight, was bumped up.The fourth passenger was Mary Wallace Funk she goes by Wally a pilot who in the 1960s was among a group of women who passed the same rigorous criteria that NASA used for selecting astronauts. | academic interests | 196 |
Watch live as bald eagles nicknamed Mr. President and the First Lady welcome their first eaglet. Science|Eaglet Emerges at National Arboretum, Live on a Webcamhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/science/bald-eaglet-hatches-arboretum-webcam.htmlVideotranscripttranscriptBald Eaglet HatchesBald eagles nicknamed Mr. President and the First Lady welcomed their first eaglet on Friday as a webcam captured the hatching.SHOWS: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (MARCH 18, 2016) (AMERICAN EAGLE FOUNDATION AND EAGLES.ORG-MANDATORY COURTESY AMERICAN EAGLE FOUNDATION AND EAGLES.ORG/MANDATORY VERBAL COURTESY TO THE AMERICAN EAGLE FOUNDATION/NO ARCHIVE/NO RESALE) 1. BALD EAGLE NESTING 2. CLOSE UP OF EAGLET EMERGING FROM EGG 3. CLOSE UP OF EAGLE NESTING 4. WIDE VIEW OF EAGLE IN NEST 5. EAGLE FLYING IN AND DROPPING FISH IN NEST 6. VARIOUS OF BALD EAGLES IN NESTBald eagles nicknamed Mr. President and the First Lady welcomed their first eaglet on Friday as a webcam captured the hatching.CreditCredit...ReutersMarch 18, 2016An eaglet broke free of its shell Friday morning at the National Arboretum in Washington, where a live webcam has been fixed on a bald eagle nest for 24 hours a day. The hatching started on Wednesday night in the first of two eggs in the nest, with one eaglet making significant progress emerging from its shell.The American Eagle Foundation said the adult bald eagle pair nicknamed Mr. President and the First Lady were the first to nest in the location, high in a tulip poplar tree at the National Arboretum, which is operated by the Department of Agriculture. The eagles began nesting there in 2014, the first to do so since 1947.The adult eagles are sticking close to the eaglet and its unhatched sibling, sometimes making visibility poor on the video stream. This is a wild eagle nest, and anything can happen, the foundations site warns. Things like sibling rivalry, predators and natural disaster can affect this eagle family and may be difficult to watch.In 1963, bald eagles were close to extinction with just 487 nesting pairs remaining, according to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. But the population has since recovered and is no longer considered endangered.Watching live footage of birds in their habitat can be both riveting and a test of patience. Long periods can go by with little happening aside from the ruffle of a feather.But for a spell in 2011, New Yorkers were fixated on a webcam showing red-tailed hawks in a nest overlooking Washington Square Park, following a tale of the health and, ultimately, the death of the mother hawk, named Violet.If you are really into watching eggs hatching, here is another webcam to keep an eye on. It shows a peregrine falcon in her nest on a ledge on the 41st floor of the Rhodes State Office Tower in Columbus, Ohio.A third egg has just appeared in the nest, the Ohio Department of National Resources said Thursday. Watch for a possible fourth egg over the weekend. | academic interests | 470 |
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to launch New Shepard rocket on July 20. Science|When is Jeff Bezos flight, and how is it different?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/science/jeff-bezos-space-flight-blue-origin.htmlCredit...Blue OriginPublished July 11, 2021Updated Aug. 5, 2021On July 20, another billionaire is scheduled to take another rocket to the edge of space. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, founded his rocket company, Blue Origin, with a vision of millions of people living and working in space in the future.But the companys first vehicle, New Shepard, has much more modest ambitions. Like Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo, it is designed to take people on short suborbital trips providing about four minutes of weightlessness.Unlike SpaceShipTwo, New Shepard is a more traditional rocket, launched upward before the capsule detaches from a booster rocket. The booster returns to make a vertical landing, much as the larger Falcon 9 rockets operated by Elon Musks SpaceX do, while the capsule descends back to the ground under a parachute.New Shepard also rises above the 62-mile-high Karman line.Blue Origin highlighted this fact, and several other features of New Shepard, in a tweet on Friday that compared the spacecraft with Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo.Mr. Bezos later wished Mr. Branson and Virgin Galactic a successful and safe flight tomorrow, in a post on his Instagram account. He added, Best of luck! | academic interests | 210 |
Tell us your story about dogs who don't belong to anyone. A dog waits to eat the remains of fish near the River Brahmaputra in Gauhati, India. Credit Anupam Nath/Associated Press Most of the dogs around the world don't belong to anyone. Instead, they go by a variety of names: street dogs, village dogs, dump dogs or neighborhood dogs. These aren't strays that escaped from their homes. They live and breed on the fringes of human society, but continue to be shaped by it. Perhaps even by a human like you. Tell us your story about the dog or dogs in your life who live around people, but don't belong to them. Whether you encounter these dogs every day where you live, or had a memorable experience with a stray while you traveled, we'd like to hear about it. We'll gather some of our favorite anecdotes and photos and publish them alongside a coming Times story. Sorry, but this form is no longer accepting submissions. See our favorite stories about dogs who belong to no one here. More on NYTimes.com | academic interests | 180 |
Your A.T.M. is covered in microbes, but mostly harmless, study finds. Science|Your A.T.M. Is Covered in Microbes, but Mostly Harmlesshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/science/atm-keypad-microbes.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 18, 2016Whenever you withdraw money from an automated teller machine, the A.T.M. deposits microbes onto you.That shouldnt be surprising because germs and bacteria are everywhere: on doorknobs, subway seats, staircases, your cat, your dog, your face. You cant avoid them, especially when youre punching in your pin.Researchers in New York City swabbed the keypads of 66 A.T.M.s at banks, bodegas and other places across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. They found that A.T.M.s are mostly covered in microbes from human skin, similar to the ones found in bathrooms, on pillowcases and on televisions.They also found that in addition to leaving bits of ourselves behind whenever we touch the keypads, we also litter the machines with leftovers. Traces of chicken, fish and other seafood were among the most commonly found microbes. In Manhattan they found a mold called Xeromyces bisporus, which is associated with spoiled cakes and other baked goods.New Yorkers love their food, its not that surprising, said Jane Carlton, an urban microbiology ecologist from New York University and an author of the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal mSphere. She added that the microbes they found were pretty consistent across boroughs and stressed that the majority of the microbes they found were harmless. Gross, perhaps, but mostly harmless.To researchers like Dr. Carlton, A.T.M.s act like miniature laboratories where they can study the DNA of the city. The machines house a unique microcosm on their keypads that reflects the people who use them every day. The team did not look at touch screen A.T.M.s.The study is part of a larger research project to investigate New York Citys urban microbiome. So far, researchers have already looked at microbes on the subway system, which provide insight into people from all around the city. The A.T.M. findings, Dr. Carlton said, were just another piece in the jigsaw puzzle of microbes in New York City.To complete their portrait they plan to next look at the citys pets and pests. That means swabbing cats, dogs, squirrels, pigeons, rats and cockroaches. | academic interests | 361 |
NASA's 22nd class of astronauts will go through two years of training before becoming full-fledged graduates. Science|NASAs Newest Class of Astronauts Is Ready to Hit the Poolhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/science/nasa-astronauts-class-2017.htmlCredit...Robert Markowitz/NASAJune 12, 2017They dont yet know where they will be going, and they dont know how they will get there, but they do have a good chance of leaving the planet in the coming years.Last week, NASA announced its 22nd class of astronauts seven men and five women were chosen from more than 18,300 applicants, the most the space agency has ever received. They range in age from 29 to 42 and include an Army doctor, an engineer at SpaceX and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Lt. Kayla Barron, U.S. Navy Zena Cardman, graduate research fellow, Pennsylvania State University Lt. Col. Raja Chari, U.S. Air Force Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Dominick, U.S. Navy Bob Hines, research pilot, NASA Johnson Space Center Warren Hoburg, assistant professor, M.I.T. Jonny Kim, resident physician, Massachusetts General Hospital Robb Kulin, launch chief engineer, SpaceX Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli, U.S. Marine Corps Loral OHara, research engineer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Maj. Frank Rubio, U.S. Army Jessica Watkins, postdoctoral fellow, CaltechOfficially, they are astronaut candidates who will now go through two years of training before becoming full-fledged graduates. They will practice for spacewalks in a 60-foot-deep swimming pool at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, learn to fly NASAs T-38 jet planes and study the ins and outs of the International Space Station.Because Russia is NASAs main partner on the space station, they will also learn to speak Russian. | academic interests | 259 |
Do birds listen when you play music? A. In all likelihood, they do. Science|Do Birds Listen When You Play Music?https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/science/do-birds-listen-when-you-play-music.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsJune 19, 2017Q. Do the songbirds on the wire outside my window listen when I practice the violin?A. In all likelihood, they do, said Timothy J. DeVoogd, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, who has long studied both human and bird brains, particularly how the brains of birds encode learned behaviors like song.He said he was aware of a good study from 2012 that suggested that bird brains respond to song in the same areas that human brains do.As a shorthand way of thinking, if a bird song sounds musical to human ears, odds are that similar human music will sound songlike to the bird, Dr. DeVoogd said.We know that with the combination of both innate and learned qualities, birds will cue into a particular frequency range, a particular tempo and that the bird then constructs his own song using those qualities.He said he predicted that species that create very elaborate songs themselves, like mockingbirds, starlings and catbirds, would be interested in a wider range of human music.But there is a question whether the bird that is hearing and responding is liking the music, or responding as if it were a potential foe, Dr. DeVoogd said.He said there was a lot of research finding that when a reproducing male hears another bird singing, and its a good song, he gets angry. question@nytimes.com | academic interests | 243 |
Jeff Bezos and crew wore blue flight suits to space. Science|What Jeff Bezos and crew wore to space.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/science/jeff-bezos-space.htmlCredit...Blue Origin, via Associated PressPublished July 20, 2021Updated Oct. 13, 2021When Jeff Bezos blasted into space on Tuesday, he wasnt channeling the Apollo astronauts in at least one respect: his sartorial choice.Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, told NBCs Today show on Monday that he wouldnt need a traditional spacesuit for the more than 62-mile jaunt above the Earth.Mr. Bezos and the three other crew members aboard the New Shepard capsule wore light flight suits with a shiny sheen that resemble the jumpsuits worn by military pilots, or perhaps even a NASCAR drivers racing suit.The blue suits, revealed in pictures and videos published by Mr. Bezos and his fellow passengers before the flight, have a mission patch on the upper left chest that features Blue Origins rocket blasting into space.It feels good to be in the flight suit, Mr. Bezos said in a promotional video that he posted on Monday on Instagram.The crew members first initials and surnames are printed in white letters on the chest area of the suits, which have black trim and the Blue Origin name emblazoned on the left sleeve. On the right arm is a flag patch, similar to those worn by astronauts and fighter jet pilots the American flag for the Bezos brothers and Wally Funk, and the Dutch flag for Oliver Daemen.Blue Origin wasnt the only company to make distinctive fashion choices in the competition between billionaires in their attempted private conquest of space.When Richard Branson realized his dream of traveling to space last week in a Virgin Galactic rocket plane, he wore a darker blue jumpsuit made by the sports apparel giant Under Armour, complete with the companys ubiquitous logo.Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, enlisted a costume designer who worked on Batman v Superman, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers and X-Men II to create the prototype for the more functional spacesuit worn by astronauts flying in SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule. | academic interests | 337 |
NASA's InSight mission to Mars will launch in two years. Science|NASA Reschedules Mars InSight Mission for May 2018https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/science/nasa-reschedules-mars-insight-mission-for-may-2018.htmlCredit...NASAMarch 9, 2016If all goes to plan, a postponed mission to probe beneath the surface of Mars will launch in two years, NASA announced Wednesday.The InSight spacecraft was to head to space this month, but in December, NASA delayed the mission when it realized that there was not enough time to fix stubborn leaks in a vacuum enclosure housing a key instrument.NASA is now aiming to launch InSight in May 2018, the next time that Earth and Mars are close enough to allow a quick six-month trip. (Because Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth and orbits more slowly, the two planets line up just once every 26 months.)Im thrilled, said W. Bruce Banerdt, a planetary geophysicist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is the missions principal investigator. We were hoping we would get the opportunity to give this another try.InSight a shortening of Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport would land on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018.However, the space agency does not yet know exactly how much the delay will add to the missions $675 million cost. Dr. Banerdt said his team had given officials at NASA headquarters a rough estimate on the order of $150 million, more or less.CNES, the French space agency, is in charge of the seismic instrument that turned troublesome.InSight is designed to listen to what is going on in the deep interior of the planet including the shaking of tiny quakes. Measuring the change of velocity of seismic waves as they pass through the planet could also offer clues about Marss crust, mantle and core.The three seismometers in the instrument, sensitive enough to detect movements as small as half the radius of a hydrogen atom, require a near-perfect vacuum to operate with precision. Tests in August revealed a small leak in the enclosure, a flattened sphere about nine inches wide. Engineers attempted to patch it, but the leak persisted.NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managing the mission, is to redesign and build a new enclosure.Dr. Banerdt will travel to NASA headquarters in Washington in about six months to present a more detailed cost estimate and report on the fixes. Theyll be watching that very closely and making sure were making good progress, he said.NASA officials could still cancel the mission, but Dr. Banerdt said he was extremely optimistic that InSight would get off the ground.Last month, Lockheed Martin, which built InSight, shipped the spacecraft back from the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to Denver, where it is now being prepared for storage. | academic interests | 446 |
What does climate change mean to the Department of Defense? Here's how it defines it. Science|Defense Department Redefines Climate Changehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/science/global-warming-dictionary-definition-military-defense-department.htmlTrilobitesMarch 18, 2016So what does climate change mean, exactly?The question is not an existential one for the Department of Defense; it is a matter of careful and literal consideration.The department recently decided that the standard Websters definition of climate change didnt quite meet its needs. So it added its own version to its homegrown dictionary, the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.Heres how it now defines climate change:Variations in average weather conditions that persist over multiple decades or longer that encompass increases and decreases in temperature, shifts in precipitation, and changing risk of certain types of severe weather events.The dictionary, which is used in part to standardize military communication, is updated monthly, and the new entry on climate change was made public in late February.The military adds definitions when the Websters dictionary entry is considered insufficient, Richard R. Osial, a spokesman for the Joint Staff, explained in an email. And definitions can have policy implications.This new explanation for climate change was added because there are many definitions for climate change floating around right now, and the department needs to ensure that whenever the term is used in Department of Defense issuances, it has a specific definition, Mr. Osial wrote.Through this definition and other policy plans, the department has acknowledged that the countrys landscapes, climates and resources will likely undergo serious changes because of rising temperatures and other risks associated with climate change.Specifically, the department anticipates increased need for air, sea and land capabilities and capacity in the Arctic region, and damage from thawing permafrost and sea ice in Alaska and the Arctic region, Mr. Osial wrote.Some additional risks they associate with climate change portend a grim future. Those risks include disruption to and competition for reliable energy and fresh water supplies and changed disease vector distribution, increasing the complexity and cost of ongoing disease-management efforts, among others, he added.The definition was added as a result of two executive orders issued by President Barack Obama, which required several government agencies to prepare for climate change or achieve certain environmental benchmarks, including reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent over the next decade.In 2014, an unofficial plan for adapting to climate change was developed by Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary at the time, and was later established as official policy for adaptation and resilience agencywide in 2015.In the beginning of this year, the department also identified nearly 80 policy areas where it can make changes to consider the effects of climate change, updates which it expects to complete by 2025, Mr. Osial wrote. | academic interests | 444 |
I read somewhere that Jupiter's gravitational force makes the sun move in its direction. Is this true? Q&ACredit...Victoria RobertsJune 26, 2017Q. I read somewhere that the gravitational force exerted by Jupiter is so great that it makes the sun move in its direction. Is this true?A. All the planets in the solar system interact gravitationally with the sun, but Jupiters great mass nearly two and a half times that of the rest of the planets combined makes this interaction visible to astronomers as a kind of dance rather than just a minuscule wobble.Any two objects in orbit around each other are actually in orbit around an invisible point called the center of mass, or barycenter.Jupiter is the only planet for which this barycenter is outside the radius of the sun.The traditional picture of the planets in an ordered parade around their star is much more complex. | academic interests | 146 |
How can the famous English gardens grow so well with the cloud cover that always seems to be hanging over them? Science|How Does an (English) Garden Grow?https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/science/english-gardens.htmlQ&AJune 5, 2017Credit...Victoria RobertsQ. How can the famous English gardens grow so well with the cloud cover that always seems to be hanging over them?A. Contrary to popular myths, England is not constantly shrouded by rain clouds, said Rowan Blaik, the director of living collections at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. As an English gardener in New York, Id say theres not an awful lot of difference between the opportunities to successfully garden here and in England.As for the hours of solar radiation needed to power photosynthesis, the Met Office, Britains government weather and climate recorders, keeps a national record of sunshine hours, Mr. Blaik said.Their most recent long-term average climate data, spanning 1981 to 2010, found a considerable range of sunshine durations. Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England, received a long-term daily average of 8.3 hours of sunlight in July, compared with 5.4 hours for Cragside, Northumbria, in the northeast.Britain has one big advantage in that it has only one climate zone, temperate, Mr. Blaik said, which is ideal for growing plants.This is especially fortunate, Mr. Blaik said, as the United Kingdom as a whole has just over 1,400 native plant species. Plant introductions from other temperate zones around the world helped give the nation such a rich horticultural history, he said.Todd Forrest, the vice president for horticulture and living collections at The New York Botanical Garden, agreed that for much of Britain throughout the year, climate conditions are ideal for a remarkable range of temperate zone garden plants.There is enough sunshine, warmth and water to support steady plant growth and flowering but not so much to spur the sort of rank growth found in warmer, wetter climates, Mr. Forrest said. Winter temperatures are cool enough to promote dormancy, but not so frigid as to cause massive winter kills. | academic interests | 334 |
Alaska volcano eases after eruption sends ash seven miles into atmosphere. Science|Alaskan Volcano Eases After Eruptionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/science/earth/alaskan-volcano-eases-after-eruption.htmlCredit...Colt Snapp/Associated PressMarch 29, 2016A volcanic eruption in Alaska that sent a cloud of ash more than seven miles into the atmosphere and forced the cancellation of more than 40 flights appeared to ease late Monday, officials said.Pavlof Volcano, 625 miles southwest of Anchorage near the tip of the remote Alaska Peninsula, began erupting on Sunday afternoon, the Alaska Volcano Observatory said, bringing heightened seismic activity with it.Lava could be seen spewing from its mouth by local mariners, pilots and residents of the town of Cold Bay, about 40 miles to the southwest, the observatory said.Strong winds carried the ash hundreds of miles into the interior of the state. A nearby village, Nelson Lagoon, was blanketed in a thin layer of it on Monday morning, The Alaska Dispatch News reported.Any danger posed by the volcano appeared to have dissipated by Monday night when the observatory downgraded its alert level from red, meaning a hazardous eruption was underway, to orange, a signal that its hazards appeared to be limited.The ash cloud created a headache for 3,300 Alaska Airlines passengers on Monday after the airline canceled 41 flights to and from six cities in Northern Alaska, the observatory said.We simply wont fly where ash is present, John Ladner, the airlines director of operations, said in a statement. | academic interests | 230 |
What is New Shepard and where will it fly? Science|What is New Shepard and where will it fly?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/new-shepard-flight.htmlOct. 13, 2021, 7:01 a.m. ETOct. 13, 2021, 7:01 a.m. ETCredit...LM Otero/Associated PressNew Shepard is the centerpiece rocket of Blue Origins space tourism business. A booster rocket at the bottom stands six stories tall, with a capsule sitting on top that can seat up to six crew.The suborbital rocket is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space in 1961 and one of the astronauts who walked on the moon. It takes off from Blue Origins Launch Site One, a launchpad in rural West Texas about 100 miles from of El Paso.The full mission lasts about 10 minutes. New Shepard launches to an altitude of roughly 63 miles, a widely recognized marker of where space begins and known as the Krmn line.At peak altitude, the booster rocket releases its crewed capsule. The booster then begins a descent back toward the ground, reigniting its single engine to land vertically on a slab of concrete five miles from where it launched.Back in space at the same time, the crew capsule is suspended in a free fall some 63 miles high. The passengers experience roughly four minutes of weightlessness in microgravity as well as views of Earths slightly curved horizon where its atmosphere meets space. Each seat has its own window of 3.5 feet by 2.3 feet.Im thrilled and anxious, and a little nervous and a little frightened, about this whole new adventure, Mr. Shatner said during an interview on NBCs Today show on Monday.During Blue Origins first crewed flight in July, passengers unbuckled and floated throughout the 530-cubic-foot capsule, amused by the weightlessness. They tossed candies to one another and did somersaults before getting back in their seats.During the capsules free fall toward land, it deploys an initial set of parachutes to brake its speed, then another set of three bigger parachutes to carry the capsule softly to land at about 15 miles per hour. Milliseconds before landing in the desert also not far from the launchpad the capsule releases a burst of air from its underside to cushion the touchdown. The seats inside are supported by a scissor-like mechanism that further limits the impact.Blue Origin had boasted that the windows on New Shepards crew capsule are the biggest to fly in space, but Elon Musks SpaceX snatched that superlative in September when it launched its Crew Dragon capsule to low-Earth orbit with a new glass dome that stretches 46 inches wide and 18 inches deep, covering 2,000 square inches in all. | academic interests | 429 |
A HuffPost examination of Zachary's case, as well as those by two others students -- based on hundreds of pages of Columbia's investigative reports and emails exchanged between university officials and students -- shows that Emma Sulkowicz's case is not an isolated incident. These documents show that both before and after the investigation of Sulkowicz's alleged sexual assault, Columbia has taken missteps in handling other cases, failing to adhere to federal guidance and standards.
Title IX, the federal law that mandates gender equality in education, advises sexual assault cases be fully resolved within 60 days of the initial reporting. Columbia's policy goes further, stating that investigations will take no longer than 30 days and that once the investigation is over, a hearing will wrap up a case two weeks later.
According to university documents, Zachary's case took seven months. In another case from 2014, a transgender Columbia sophomore said xe* waited over six months for the investigation to be resolved. And, Sarah, a rising senior, filed two sexual assault cases in 2013. One took four months to resolve; the other took six. Columbia Students Reveal University Missteps In Sexual Assault Investigations | academic interests | 191 |
As someone who runs a 24/7 digital media company and who uses every form of social media ever invented, I hope I have some street cred when I urge those of you graduating this year to build boundaries, introduce digital detoxes into your life, learn to regularly disconnect from the jumble and the cacophony and make time to reconnect with yourself. There will be many profound and fulfilling relationships ahead of you, but the relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you'll ever have. And, like any relationship, it can't be taken for granted. If there is one thing I wish I knew when I was graduating from college, it's that the Delphic admonition "Know Thyself" and Socrates' admonition that "the unexamined life is not worth living" are not ancient philosophical platitudes, but in fact the most relevant and important guiding truths for our lives. My Vassar College Commencement Speech for the Class of 2015 | academic interests | 156 |
RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh government has decided to complete the admission process in educational institutions under the existing reservation system, providing an overall reservation of 58 percent.A meeting of the state cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, made the decision based on an interim order passed by the Supreme Court. This order stayed a high court decision that invalidated a 2012 state government order to implement a 58 percent reservation in government job appointments and admissions in educational institutions.In 2012, the previous Raman Singh government revised the reservation formula, allocating 32 percent for Scheduled Tribes (STs), 12 percent for Scheduled Castes (SCs), and 14 percent for other backward classes, bringing the overall reservation to 58 percent. However, the state high court in 2022 set aside the order, asserting that any reservation exceeding 50 percent is unconstitutional. Subsequently, the matter was appealed to the Supreme Court.Due to the high court's ruling, the reservation quota for SC/ST communities was reduced to the level of undivided Madhya Pradesh—20 percent quota for STs, leading to protests from tribal communities. Amidst resentment among the tribal communities, the Bhupesh Baghel government passed two bills in December 2022 in the state assembly. These bills aimed to increase the reservation for Scheduled Tribes (STs) to 32 percent, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) to 27 percent, Scheduled Castes (SCs) to 13 percent, and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) to 4 percent. This move would have elevated the total reservation in the state to 76 percent.The bills were submitted to the then Governor of Chhattisgarh, Anusuiya Uikey, for her approval. However, she has not yet granted her assent, and the bills have been pending since then.The delay in the Governor's assent has sparked a political dispute in the state. The ruling Congress party has accused the Governor of intentionally stalling the bills to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP has refuted these allegations, asserting that the Governor is simply adhering to due process.Meanwhile, in May 2023, the Supreme Court issued an interim order staying the high court's decision. This development allowed the state to reinstate the reservation for government jobs and educational institutions to an overall 58 percent—32 percent for STs, 12 percent for SCs, and 14 percent for OBCs.Meanwhile, there are indications that chief minister would make significant announcement on August 15 related to giving free bus services to students of educational institutions having identity cards.CM Baghel had indicated considering the demand of one of the youths during the youth dialogue programme in Raipur when he asked for free bus services to commute to colleges. | academic interests | 427 |
JAMMU: The prestigious North Tech Symposium (NTS)-2023- that fosters synergy between the Indian Army, academia, and industry is all set to mark a historic milestone at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jammu's picturesque Jagti Campus from September 11-13."This year's edition will be distinct as it finds its abode in a civil establishment for the first time since its inception 15 years ago," IIT Jammu spokesperson added.He said, "The symposium, a joint initiative with the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) under the aegis of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), endeavours to bridge the gap between the needs of the Indian Army and the capabilities of academia and industry.""Among the highlights will be a grand exhibition boasting the latest products from over 200 industry participants, with special attention given to burgeoning startups. Additionally, there will be product unveilings meticulously crafted to cater to the distinctive needs of the Armed Forces.""To instill a profound sense of national pride, the Armed Forces will stage a spectacular Military Equipment Display, affording the general public, industry stakeholders, and academia an immersive and patriotic experience."With IIT Jammu playing the gracious host and the collaborative spirit of the Army, academia, and industry at its zenith, the North Tech Symposium 2023 promises to be an unforgettable confluence of intellect, innovation, and patriotism. The event aims to propel India's Defence capabilities to new heights and set a precedent for successful Army-Academia-Industry partnerships. | academic interests | 234 |
CHENNAI: The Indian Institute of Technology - Madras (IIT-Madras) will conduct the Joint Admission Test for Masters (JAM) on February 11, 2024. The registrations for the test will open on September 5. The last date to apply is October 13.Candidates, who have completed an undergraduate degree or are currently studying in the final year of undergraduate programmes, are eligible to apply for JAM 2024. There is no age restriction. Foreign nationals with Indian degrees are eligible to apply, subject to the policy of the admitting Institute.Candidates can apply online on https://jam.iitm.ac.inJAM 2024 will be conducted as a computer-based test in seven test papers -- Biotechnology (BT), Chemistry (CY), Economics (EN), Geology (GG), Mathematics (MA), Mathematical Statistics (MS, and Physics (PH) in more than 100 cities across the country.Candidates on the merit list are eligible for admission to about 3000 seats in various postgraduate programmes at IITs and over 2000 seats at IISc and NITs. Admissions to MSc, MSc - MTech dual degree and MS (research) will be based on the JAM score. JAM 2024 score is valid only for one year. | academic interests | 181 |
An Ahmedabad-origin student has launched a global project for environment conservation. A 12th grade student at Malvern College in the UK, Aarya Chiripal has started a project- AnthropoTeens in 2022 with focus on environmental education. He recently conducted workshops in the government schools students in Ahmedabad.Aarya said, “Collective action from all stakeholders like government, community, and individuals- is crucial for meaningful steps toward a sustainable future. I felt that youth can play a bigger role in environment conservation with awareness about the impact of climate change on individuals across the world.AnthropoTeens aims to introduce students to interdisciplinary strategies for conservation and encourage dialogue about the differential effects of climate change on various communities. Under this initiative, a number of educational elements have been created. It includes the AnthropoTeens Curriculum, which introduces fundamental concepts in this field, such as “What is climate change?” and “How does climate change impact individuals across the globe?”, an e-magazine titled AnthropoZine, which publishes articles from youth around the globe, and the AnthropoGreen Case Studies, a series of 5 original case studies on the impact of climate change on marginalized groups.He also recently conducted interactive workshops with over 150 students, in collaboration with Yuva Unstoppable, a nonprofit organization in Ahmedabad. He will also be conducting a series of interviews with teenagers from diverse communities and socioeconomic locations to gain greater insight into how environmental disasters affect society. | academic interests | 231 |
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched books authored by IIT Madras faculty and alumnus on July 30 at the newly inaugurated Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.Titled ‘Empowering India - Ideas for Action by Scientists and Engineers,’ one of the books has been written by Prof. T. Pradeep, a Padma Shri Awardee and Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras, and Mr. Krishnan Narayanan, President, IITMAA and itihaasa Research and Digital and explores ideas about what the leading research and educational institutions should do for India@100. In the book, the authors identified seven focus areas and outlined 30 recommendations and hundreds of case studies in science, technology, and innovation for empowering India and achieving sustainable development. The book also contains ten illustrations, each of which takes a concept that symbolizes India, rural and urban, and visualizes it in a new context infused with various elements of S&T. And produced by an AI engine and a human artist!The book has been published by the Indian Academy of Sciences and is part of the IIT Madras Alumni Association’s (IITMAA) thought leadership activities and as inputs from over 100 scientists, including about 40 alumni of IIT Madras. The proceeds from the book sales would be contributed towards the cause of science (through the Academy), IIT Madras said in an official statement.In addition, another book on ‘Mann ki Baat - Inspiring transformational capacity of a nation and its people,’ authored by Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, Mr. Venkatraghavan K.S., Mr. Krishnan Narayanan and Prof. V.R. Muraleedharan, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, has also been released.“We leveraged policy advocacy and complex living systems frameworks to analyse Mann Ki Baat and show how it has inspired the nation and created transformational capacity in the S&T ecosystem in the country, especially in the areas of research, innovation and entrepreneurship. As part of our research, we also developed a large-language-model based MKB chatbot,” Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said about the book on Mann Ki Baat. On the book, ‘Empowering India - Ideas for Action by Scientists and Engineers’, Prof. T. Pradeep, Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras, said, “We believe that the book will be of great value in building NEW India. It has 30 solid recommendations spread across 7 specific areas. If these are incorporated in our planning and policies, we are sure that India will be at its rightful place in 2047.” | academic interests | 401 |
NEW DELHI: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) declared the ICAI CA Foundation Result 2023 today, August 07. Candidates who appeared in the Chartered Accountants, CA Foundation June 2023 examination can check their results from the official website at icai.nic.in.ICAI conducted the CA Foundation June 2023 exam between June 24 & 30, 2023, across the country. Candidates can access their Foundation results by simply logging in with their 'Roll Number' and 'Registration NUmber' pon the official portal.Direct Link: ICAI CA Foundation June Result 2023Candidates can follow the step-by-step process given below to access their results.How to check ICAI CA Foundation Results 2023?Step 1. Visit the official website of ICAI at icai.nic.inStep 2. On the homepage, click on the link that reads, "Foundation: June 2023"Step 3. You will be redirected to a login page, enter your registered detailsStep 4. Your ICAI CA Foundation June 2023 result will be displayed on the screenStep 5. Download and take a printout of the result for future referenceCandidates must secure at least 40% marks in each CA Foundation paper and a combined total of 50% marks to pass the exam. | academic interests | 187 |
KEA PGCET 2023: The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has started the online registration process for PGCET 2023 today, August 07. Candidates can apply for the Post Graduate Common Entrance Test from the official website at cetonline.karnataka.gov.in.As per the schedule, the Karnataka PGCET 2023 application process will be open from August 07 to 17, 2023 till 11:59 PM. Candidates are advised to complete the registration at the earliest and not wait until the last moment. The KEA Post Graduate Common Entrance Test 2023 will be held on September 9 and 10, 2023.KEA will conduct the PGCET 2023 for admission into the 1st year/ 1st semester full-time/part-time MBA / MCA / M.E. / M. Tech. / M. Arch courses for Karnataka and non-Karnataka candidates for the year 2023-2024.Apply Here: KEA PGCET Registration 2023How to apply for Karnataka PGCET 2023?Step 1. Visit the official website of KEA at kea.kar.nic.inStep 2. On the homepage, click on the link for PGCET 2023 Step 3. Now, register yourself and fill out the application formStep 4. Upload the necessary documents and pay the registration feeStep 5. Download and take a printout of the confirmation page for future referenceDownload: Karnataka PGCET 2023 NotificationApplication FeeSubmit the necessary fees as follows: Rs. 650/- for General and OBC candidates per course, and Rs. 500/- for SC/ST and Category-1 candidates from Karnataka per course. | academic interests | 222 |
By Aditya WadhawanSeveral schools along with NCERT and EdTech are introducing several initiatives to increase mental calculation among students. In an age of calculators and other gadgets, Mental Maths is being promoted to increase calculation abilities. Recently, the Directorate of Education (DoE), Delhi Government has mandated conducting classes on Mental Maths in classes V to XII. The students will have a 40-minute class, which will consist of a Mental Maths question bank. Various question banks meant for different classes are available on the official educational website of the Delhi Government. Speaking to Education Times, Dinesh Kaushik, faculty of Maths, Directorate of Education (DoE), says, “The classes on Mental Maths would quicken calculation skills. To ensure this, the teachers will help students attempt the objective-type questions given in the Mental Maths booklets. This booklet contains the tricks, definitions and questions that will help increase the calculation speed. For instance, students are asked to subtract the square of 65 from that of 64. So the students would be taught to solve this question by using ‘a minus b whole square identity’ to arrive at the answer rather than following the conventional method. While attempting such questions, students will better understand the base knowledge of the various chapters in the Maths syllabus.” “Teachers will help in solving the questions and help them simplify Maths for the students,” informs Kaushik. Anup Kumar Rajput, professor of Maths, NCERT, “Mental Maths must not be taught separately, instead, it should be part of the syllabus in schools. By following this method, we will have a strong Mathematical foundation among the students. While teaching Maths, students should be supported by the teachers so that they can devise their methods to calculate faster.” Jinal Dedhia, co-founder, Acadzo, says, “Mental Maths is something that every student should be exposed to as it would enable them to develop faster calculative methods, which will later help them crack the competitive exams smoothly as it improves concentration levels and listening skills.” Acadzo has developed software to boost mental calculation abilities, which develops auditory skills. “As soon as the numbers are called out students can quickly calculate and give the result. This speeds up the calculation skills through visual imagery. “The mental maths abilities and problem-solving skills can be fine-tuned by games such as Rubik's Cube, Chess, Poker, and many other strategic games,” says Dedhia. | academic interests | 391 |
CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar while emphasizing the significance of rural development for the overall progress of a Nation said that rural areas play a key role in shaping the country's identity, culture, and economic foundation.“As a considerable portion of India's population is engaged in agriculture, hence the economy's reliance on this sector remains significant. Agriculture contributes not only to food security but also to the country's GDP and employment. This makes the development of villages a key priority for sustained economic growth and prosperity,” said Khattar while addressing the gathering at the inaugural ceremony of the two-day training conference organized by Regional Panchayati Raj Parishad at Surajkund on Monday.Meanwhile, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi also addressed the programme through video conferencing, while BJP National President . JP Nadda physically attended the function as Chief Guest at Surajkund.Khattar said that the focus on all-round development in villages is a crucial step toward achieving sustainable and inclusive growth across the country.“Today we have gathered here to discuss a topic which revolves around the foundational principles of the country's democracy and the well-being of every citizen. Even after 75 years of independence, the development of villages remains a primary need,” he saidHe said that in the last nine years, starting numerous schemes and conducting experiments for village development in Haryana reflects a proactive approach adopted by the present state government towards improving rural infrastructure, livelihood opportunities, and overall quality of life.Labelling Panchayats as the shield of National Unity, Integrity, Good Governance, and Democracy, the Chief Minister underscored the pivotal role played by the Panchayats in local self-governance and the democratic process.“In our country, the belief of 'Panch-Parameshwar' originated due to the justice-lovingness of the Panchayats. The three levels of Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad are the basic foundation of the democratic system of our country. Similarly, civic bodies like municipality and municipal council are also making commendable efforts in the overall development of the urban areas of the country,” said Khattar.He said that while recognizing the key role played by the Panchayats, as grassroots governing bodies, Prime Minister Modi has further empowered the Panchayats with the aim of ensuring that governance is accessible, carrying out development works in a transparent, and responsive manner.The Chief Minister said that Panchayati Raj institutions (PRIs) were empowered for the dynamic development of rural areas. Because of this, PRIs have been given key administrative and financial powers by the government.The Chief Minister said that the state government has done the work of giving 50 percent representation to women in PRIs. He further informed that in order to further financially empower PRIs, a surcharge of stamp duty equivalent to 2 percent of the property value in rural areas has been imposed. He said that the 'Gram Darshan' portal has been started for coordination between elected representatives and rural residents.BJP National General Secretary, Kailash Vijayvargiya, BJP State President,. O.P Dhankar, MLAs, Seema Trikha, Sh. Rajesh Nagar and many dignitaries remained present on this occasion. | academic interests | 498 |
HPSC Admit Card 2023: The Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) has released the MPSC HCS Main Admit Card 2022 today, August 07, 2023. Candidates who have qualified for the HCS (Executive Branch) & Other Allied Services 2022 can download their hall ticket from the official website at hpsc.gov.in.As per the schedule, the HPSC HCS Main Examination 2022 will be conducted on August 12 and 13, 2023. Candidates can download the admit card by simply logging in with their 'Application ID' and 'Password' on the official portal.Direct Link: HPSC HCS Main 2022 Admit CardHow to download HCS Main Admit Card 2023?Step 1. Visit the official website at hpsc.gov.inStep 2. On the homepage, click on the link that reads, "Click Here To Download Admit Card For The Posts Of HCS (Ex. Br.) & Other Allied Services Mains Examination - 2022 Held On 12.08.2023 &1 3.08.2023"Step 3. You will be redirected to a new page, enter your login details and click on submitStep 4. Your HCS hall ticket will be displayed on the screenStep 5. Download and take a hard copy of the same for future reference | academic interests | 184 |
NEW DELHI: The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) has released the admit card for the Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) Tier 1 Examination, 2023. The admit card northern region can be downloaded from the official website of SSC, ssc.nic.in.The CHSL Tier 1 exam is scheduled to be held on August 2 to 22, 2023. The admit card contains important information such as the candidate's name, roll number, exam date, time, and venue. Candidates are advised to carefully check the admit card and bring it along with them to the exam hall.The SSC CHSL Tier 1 exam is a computer-based test (CBT) that will be conducted in two shifts. The first shift will be held from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm and the second shift will be held from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm. The exam will consist of two sections, General Intelligence and Reasoning Ability, and Quantitative Aptitude.The SSC CHSL Tier 1 exam is a qualifying exam. Candidates who qualify in the Tier 1 exam will be called for the Tier 2 exam. The Tier 2 exam will be a descriptive exam that will test the candidate's English language skills.Direct link to download SSC CHSL 2023 Tier 1 Admit Card (Northern Region)Here are the steps on how to download the SSC CHSL 2023 Tier 1 Admit Card:Step 1: Go to the official website of SSC, ssc.nic.in.Step 2: Click on the "Admit Cards" tab.Step 3: Click on the "SSC CHSL 2023 Tier 1 Admit Card" link.Step 4: Enter your registration number and date of birth.Step 5: Click on the "Submit" button.Step 6: Your admit card will be displayed on the screen.Step 7: Download the admit card and take a printout of it for future reference. | academic interests | 283 |
BSE Odisha Supplementary Result 2023: The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) Odisha has announced the Class 10 Supplementary Result 2023 today, August 07, 2023. Students who appeared in the Odisha HSC 10th supplementary examination can check their results from the official website at bseodisha.ac.in.BSE Odisha declared the HSC 10th Annual Exam Result 2023 on May 18. This year, a total of 5,21,444 students appeared in the matriculation examination, out of which 5,12,460 students cleared the examination with an impressive pass percentage of 96.4%. Students who could not clear the exam in the first attempt were given the option to appear in the supplementary examination.Candidates can access the supplementary examination result by simply logging in with their 'Roll Number' on the official portal. Alternatively, candidates can follow the below-mentioned steps to download their Odisha HSC 10th Supplementary Result 2023.Direct Link: Odisha HSC 10th Supplementary Result 2023How to check BSE Class 10 Supplementary Result 2023?Step 1: Visit the official BSE Odisha website at bseodisha.ac.in Step 2: On the homepage, click on the link that reads, "SUPPLEMENTARY HSC EXAMINATION-2023"Step 3. A new page will open, enter your roll number or full nameStep 4. Your supplementary result will be displayed on the screenStep 5. Download and take a printout of the same for future reference | academic interests | 211 |
NEW DELHI: Jai Narain Vyas University, previously known as the University of Jodhpur, has recently made available the admit cards for various programs on its official website. These admit cards pertain to several examinations and can be accessed through the official website of Jai Narain Vyas University - https://jnvuiums.in/.The examinations for which the admit cards have been released include the following:B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B IV SEMESTER ONLY FOR ATKT AND EX STUDENTS EXAM 2023B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B II SEMESTER ONLY FOR ATKT STUDENTS EXAM 2023B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B II SEMESTER ONLY FOR REGULAR STUDENTS EXAM 2023B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B VIII SEMESTER EXAM 2023B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B VI SEMESTER ONLY FOR REGULAR STUDENTS EXAM 2023B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B VI SEMESTER ONLY FOR ATKT AND EX STUDENTS EXAM 2023The B.A.LL.B.,B.B.A.LL.B IV SEMESTER examination, specifically for ATKT and EX students, is scheduled for various dates in August 2023. Subjects and papers include English, Constitutional Law of India, Law of Evidence and Limitation, Law of Contract-II (Specific Contracts), Political Science (Major) or Strategic Management (Major), Financial Market Operations, and Philosophy (For Students admitted prior to session 2019-20).This release of admit cards marks an important step in the preparation of students for their upcoming examinations, providing them with the necessary information and details to proceed smoothly with their academic assessments. It showcases the university's commitment to facilitating a seamless examination process for its students.Sure, here are six steps on how to download Jai Narain Vyas University Admit Cards for B.A.LL.B. and B.B.A.LL.B. Exams:Visit the Official Website: Open your web browser and navigate to the official website of Jai Narain Vyas University by typing in the URL: https://jnvuiums.in/.Navigate to Admit Card Section: Look for a section on the website dedicated to "Admit Cards" or "Examination" related information. It might be labelled differently, but it should contain information about downloading admit cards.Select Exam Type: Find the specific exam you are appearing for among the listed options. In this case, choose the B.A.LL.B. or B.B.A.LL.B. exam option.Provide Necessary Details: You'll need to enter specific details to access your admit card. Typically, this includes your roll number, registration number, date of birth, and possibly a captcha code for verification.Download Admit Card: After providing the required information, click on the "Download" or "Submit" button. Your admit card for the selected exam should be generated and displayed on the screen.Save and Print: Once the admit card is visible, save it as a PDF file to your device. It's recommended to take a printout of the admit card, as it will be required for entry into the examination hall. Make sure the printout is clear and legible.Remember, each university's website may have a slightly different layout and process, so it's important to follow the instructions provided on the website accurately. If you face any difficulties during the process, you can also reach out to the university's examination or technical support for assistance. | academic interests | 462 |
Rajasthan Police Recruitment 2023: Rajasthan Police is all set to open the online registration process for the recruitment of Constables across various categories today, August 07, 2023. Interested candidates can check the eligibility criteria here and apply for recruitment on the official website at police.rajasthan.gov.in.As per the Rajasthan Police Constable Recruitment 2023, the online application process for the said post will be open from August 07 to 27, 2023. Candidates can exercise the option to edit the application form from August 28 to 30, 2023.Age LimitThe applicants should be between the age of 18 to 23 years. However, age relaxation is applicable to the reserved categories.Educational QualificationDistrict Police/ Intelligence: Passed Senior Secondary or Class 12 or its equivalent from a recognized school/ education Board.Police Telecom: Passed Senior Secondary or Class 12 or its equivalent examination from a recognized school/ education Board with Physics and Mathematics/ Science as one of the subjects.Download: Rajasthan Police Recruitment Notification 2023VacancyThrough this recruitment drive, the Rajasthan Police aims to fill a total of 3578 vacant posts of Constable (General/ Driver/ Band/ Mounted/ Dog Squad/ Police Telecom) in various districts/ units.How to apply for Rajasthan Police Constable Recruitment 2023?Step 1. Visit the Official Website at police.rajasthan.gov.inStep 2. On the homepage, go to the "Recruitment" or "Careers" sectionStep 3. Now, click on the Constable Registration link available on the screenStep 4. Fill out the application form and upload the required documentsStep 5. Pay the application fee and submit the formStep 6. Download and take a printout of the confirmation page for future referenceApplication FeeThe application fee is Rs. 600 for General, BC (Creamy Layer), and candidates from other states. For SC, ST, BC (NCL), and EWS candidates, the fee is Rs. 400. | academic interests | 285 |
BHU UG Admission 2023: The Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has released the first allotment list for BHU UG Admissions 2023 today, August 07. Students who have applied for admission to undergraduate courses at Banaras Hindu University can check their seat allotment status on the official website at bhuonline.in.Candidates who have been provisionally allotted seats in the first round of counselling are required to pay the admission formalities by August 08, 2023, till 5:59 PM. "First list for admission to various undergraduate programs has been released. The list for the main campus, paid seats and affiliated colleges have been displayed on bhuonline.in. The fee deadline under the first list is 08.08.2023," reads an official notice from BHU.Direct Link: BHU UG Round 1 Seat Allotment Result How to check BHU UG Seat Allotment Result 2023?Step 1. Visit the BHU official website at bhuonline.inStep 2. On the homepage, click on the link for BHU UG seat allotment resultStep 3. Now, enter your login details and submitStep 4. Your BHU UG selection status will be displayed on the screenStep 5. Download and take a printout of the allotment offer for future referenceNote: Candidates who do not get an admission offer in the regular allotment can go for Mop-up Round, admission for which will start after August 15th. | academic interests | 213 |
PUNE: Getting selected for the Oxford University's London, Innovation, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship program, was a transformative journey for Veddansh Gupta, said a statement issued by the school.A student of Victorious Kidss Educares, an IB World School, Veddansh said that "Collaborating with peers from across the globe, I explored business principles, innovation methods, and entrepreneurial thinking. This unique experience enabled me to incubate my idea for a successful business and equipped me with invaluable skills for my future endeavours."The highlight of the course was the 'Inventing the Future Innovation Challenge,' similar to the famous 'Shark Tank,' where Veddansh, along with his peers, presented his business idea during this challenge. Through this experience, he improved his creative thinking, business planning, presentation, and leadership abilities.Veddansh immersed himself in Oxford's historic residential colleges, living in centuries-old student bedrooms and socializing in vibrant common rooms. The prestigious lecture halls, once attended by world leaders and Nobel Prize winners, left him awestruck and inspired.Veddansh's journey exemplifies the spirit of self-realization, harmonizing learning and leadership to embrace a brighter future. Experiencing life on campus at one of the world’s most renowned academic institutions was truly a dream come true. | academic interests | 192 |
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Article and Category Dataset
Overview
This dataset contains a collection of articles, primarily news articles, along with their respective IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) categories. It can be a valuable resource for various natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including text classification, text generation, and more.
Dataset Information
- Number of Samples: 871,909
- Number of Categories: 26
Column Information
- text: The text of the article.
- target: The IAB category label corresponding to the article.
IAB Categories
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) categories are a standardized taxonomy used in the advertising industry to categorize digital advertising content. These categories help advertisers and marketers target their audience more effectively. Each category is represented by a label or code that indicates the content's topic or theme.
Potential Use Cases
- Text Classification: Use this dataset to train and evaluate text classification models to predict IAB categories for articles.
- Text Generation: Utilize the articles in this dataset as a source for text generation tasks, such as generating news headlines or summaries.
- Topic Modeling: Explore the dataset to discover underlying topics and themes in the articles.
- Information Retrieval: Build search engines or recommendation systems that use article content and categories to retrieve relevant articles for users.
Data Format
The dataset is provided in a standard tabular format with two columns: "text" and "target". You can easily load and manipulate the data using popular data manipulation libraries such as pandas in Python.
License
This dataset is available under the Apache 2.0 License. Please review the license before using the dataset for any purpose.
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Size of downloaded dataset files:
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Number of rows:
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