science news

The proton is a persistent thing. The first one crystallized out of the universe's chaotic froth just 0.00001 of a second after the big bang, when existence was squeezed into a space about the size of the solar system. The rest quickly followed. Protons for the most part have survived unchanged through the intervening 13.8 billion years—joining with electrons to make hydrogen gas, fusing in stars to form the heavier elements, but all the while remaining protons. And they will continue to remain protons for billions of years to come.

Mammoths are making a mighty big comeback. Last week, there was a stir among scientists when a controversial DNA-based study came out claiming that woolly mammoths have their roots exclusively in North America, since it has long been believed that they roamed from Western Europe to North America. Although the study is still raising eyebrows, many heads have turned to the gigantic discovery in Southern France's Auvergne region of a rare fossilized steppe mammoth skull weighing 1,300 pounds.

A new crime-fighting technique could make avoiding capture more difficult for even the most fiendish gunsels.

For decades, people referred to the non-coding bits of DNA between genes as junk DNA. Then, in the eighties scientists discovered that some of that junk DNA served an important purpose. The DNA attracted or repelled transcription factors and RNA, greatly enhancing or inhibiting the potency of adjacent genes. Now scientists have just found that one of those gene enhancers may be what separates humans and chimps.

A new study released by the University of Colorado at Boulder claims that a global sea rise of more than six feet by the year 2100 is nearly impossible.

The researchers used conservative, medium, and extreme scenarios for Greenland, Antarctica, and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. Each scenario produced a result from two feet of sea rise to no more than six feet of sea rise. When factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, the team concluded that the most plausible scenario would result in a total sea rise of roughly three feet to six feet by 2100.

Who would think to make explosives more eco-friendly? After all, if enough explosives are used, one may argue, there won't be any environment left to be friendly to. But a team of scientists in California are trying to keep the environment safe even while producing a material that helps blow it up.

There's some good news as hurricane season is getting under way: an MIT graduate student has developed a computer model that helps evacuation managers make better decisions, and possibly save lives in the process.

Weeks before Hurricane Gustav slammed into the Caribbean and the Louisiana Gulf Coast, hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University continued to warn of the higher-than-average probability of at least one intense (or major) hurricane making landfall in the United States in the remaining months of this year's hurricane season.

The problem with cancer surgery, or so we hear, is that it's difficult for surgeons to know if they've removed all of a tumor, especially in late-stage cancers when the edges get indistinct. But a new imaging technology developed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Center for Imaging Technology and Molecular Diagnostics in Boston is giving cutters visual cues on just where to aim their scalpels.

In London, Ontario, a team from the University of Western Ontario is bringing a fairy tale to life at the Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes. They don't have a wolf, but in their "Three Little Pigs" project they are literally trying to blow the roof off, subjecting full-scale houses to pressures that simulate wind forces matching those of a Category 5 hurricane: 200 mph. Researchers are looking to find the sources of structural weakness in house construction in order to improve building design in the future.

Although we still have much progress to make on reducing emissions, new research suggests the situation could be worse.

According to a study by the Desert Research Institute, pollutant levels at the beginning of the 20th century were two to five times higher than current levels of pollution. Researchers attribute the decrease in pollution levels to the advent of more efficient coal-burning technologies, as well as legislation aimed at reducing emissions.

The world may finally be ready for the awesome taste of calcium.

Chemists from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia have done research that suggests mice may have a specific taste for calcium. Because mice and humans share many of the same genes, the finding suggests that humans may have the ability to taste the elemental nutrient as well.

When most people think of gold, they think of Fort Knox, or a phat set of grillz. The exceptionally nerdy -- like some people at popsci.com -- automatically recall gold's atomic number of 79. But no one suspected gold's role as nature's nanotechnological answer for purifying air, except for a team of researchers from the Queensland University of Technology.

Not since Harry and the Hendersons has the legend of Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, aka Yowie, captured the attention of the country so thoroughly. This week, a pair of men from northern Georgia claimed they have found the body of the so-called Georgia Gorilla, and are keeping the remains in a chest freezer.

Ever wished you could have Harry Potter's invisibility cloak? Science, not magic, could make that a reality. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have created materials that have the potential to bend light and even redirect it around themselves, cloaking any object behind them. They are metamaterials, materials that gain unusual properties via their structures. While all materials found in nature have a positive refractive index, these man-made metamaterials have a negative one.