R. Martin, MIT
As many as 20 nuclear plants in the United States could shut down over the next decade, and their closure could dramatically increase emissions of greenhouse gases. That was the alarming conclusion of a Department of Energy conference on the future of nuclear power yesterday in Washington, D.C.
Sam Apple, New Yorker
Late last month, a number of the leading cancer researchers in the world assembled at the Vatican for its third conference in regenerative medicine. The event, titled “Cellular Horizons,” focussed in part on immunotherapy, a form of treatment that is intended to boost the body’s innate ability to fight off tumors. It included an address by Pope Francis, who stepped down from the stage in the cavernous Paul VI Audience Hall to personally greet many of the attendees, and ended... Читать дальше...
Brian Resnick, Vox
Adel Manuel doesn't have any mutant superpowers, but he has the next best thing: He can sneeze on command.
Ferris Jabr, Hakai Magazine
Illuminating maps during war, guiding planes to safety, making genes and proteins visible—organisms get their glow on to help humans.
Dyani Lewis, Cosmos
Antibiotics that wipe out gut microbes could also be playing havoc with our memory, research in mice suggests.
Karen Schindler, Sci.
Up to a quarter of pregnancies are not carried to term; oftentimes an embryo is aborted by the body before a woman even knows she’s pregnant. The most common cause of miscarriage is egg aneuploidy—the oocyte contains too many or too few chromosomes. Aneuploidy is thus the leading genetic cause of infertility, and those embryos that are not miscarried can result in children with developmental disorders, such as Down syndrome (trisomy 21), Edwards syndrome (trisomy 18), and Turner syndrome (monosomy X).
Moshe Vardi, Plus
In March this year the Go champion Lee Sedol lost to the computer AlphaGo. Sedol is the highest-ranking Go player so far to be defeated by artificial intelligence, and the win counts as a significant advance in AI.
Jonathan Waldman, Nautilus
The creation of stainless steel took equal parts metallurgy and perseverance.
Terry Spencer, AP
Step aside, Burmese python — you may no longer be Florida's scariest invasive species. Researchers have confirmed that three Nile crocodiles were captured near Miami, and they say it's possible more of the man-eating reptiles are still out there, although no one can say for sure. The big question now: How did they get to Florida?
Alex Berezow, ACSH
For bizarre reasons that I simply do not understand, world population growth is a hot-button issue. There is a large segment of the public that seems to believe that humans will continue to reproduce until we run out of food and water. Basically, we’re just like cockroaches or bacteria. No serious demographer believes that — as world fertility has been declining for years — but facts haven’t yet extinguished this pernicious myth.
