Sci/Tech

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 7, 2017 – Canola oil is one of the most widely consumed vegetable oils in the world, yet surprisingly little is known about its effects on health. Now, a new study published online December 7 in the journal Scientific Reports by researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) […]

Dec. 6, 2017 – Humans may have reached their maximum limits for height, lifespan and physical performance. A recent review suggests humans have biological limitations, and that anthropogenic impacts on the environment – including climate change – could have a deleterious effect on these limits. Published in Frontiers in Physiology, this review is the first […]

December 1, 2017 – Launched on 13 October, the Sentinel-5P satellite has delivered its first images of air pollution. Even though the satellite is still being prepared for service, these first results have been hailed as exceptional and show how this latest Copernicus satellite is set to take the task of monitoring air quality into […]

Debra Perrone and Scott JasechkoPhoto Credit:Sonia Fernandez November 27, 2017 – How safe is the water you drink? For the 45 million Americans who get their drinking water from private groundwater wells rather than a public utility, the answer is decidedly murky. The Environmental Protection Agency regulations that protect public drinking water systems don’t apply […]

November 27, 2017 – Conventional wisdom holds that prehistoric villagers planted corn, and lots of it, to survive the dry and hostile conditions of the American Southwest. But University of Cincinnati archaeology professor Alan Sullivan is challenging that long-standing idea, arguing instead that people routinely burned the understory of forests to grow wild crops 1,000 […]

November 21, 2017 – In a fitting farewell to the planet that had been its home for over 13 years, the Cassini spacecraft took one last, lingering look at Saturn and its splendid rings during the final leg of its journey and snapped a series of images that has been assembled into a new mosaic. […]

November 20, 2017 – ESA’s Integral space observatory has been orbiting Earth for 15 years, observing the ever-changing, powerful and violent cosmos in gamma rays, X-rays and visible light. Studying stars exploding as supernovas, monster black holes and, more recently, even gamma-rays that were associated with gravitational waves, Integral continues to broaden our understanding of […]

November 20, 2017 – Johns Hopkins scientists report they have successfully used two separate gene technologies to assemble the most complete genome sequence to date of Triticum aestivum, the most common cultivated species of wheat used to make bread. A report on the achievement was published in the Oct. 23 issue of GigaScience just a […]

November 20, 2017 – For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. Observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with […]

November 19, 2017 – NASA has successfully launched for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the first in a series of four highly advanced polar-orbiting satellites, equipped with next-generation technology and designed to improve the accuracy of U.S. weather forecasts out to seven days. The Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) lifted off on a […]

November 16, 2017 – University of California, Davis, researchers have identified a gene that enables resistance to a new devastating strain of stem rust, a fungal disease that is hampering wheat production throughout Africa and Asia and threatening food security worldwide. The discovery by UC Davis wheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky and his team will help […]

November 13, 2017 – One of the most spectacular achievements in physics so far this century has been the observation of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that result from masses accelerating in space. So far, there have been five detections of gravitational waves, thanks to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and, more recently, the […]