The very idea of fibers made of carbon nanotubes is neat, but Rice University scientists are making them
The post Researchers’ acid-free approach leads to strong conductive carbon threads has been published on Technology Org.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the most recognizable scientists and advocates for the public understanding of science in the world.
That means that when he speaks, the world listens. Carefully. And recently, his critics have found errors in some of his public statements.
Sean Davis, former economic adviser to Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and co-founder of the conservative blog The Federalist, has discovered a few holes in some of Tyson's recent presentations. He found Tyson using the term "average" to mean "median" in a lecture on popular misconceptions of data and statistics. He nailed Tyson for...
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A big link between climate change and severe weather may be lurking 30,000 feet above your head. More and more scientists are interested in the links among the increasingly weird behavior of the polar jet stream and the disappearance of ice and snow in the Arctic and other extreme weather trends. The linkage is suggestive, though not proven, but if true would clearly demonstrate that what happens in the Arctic affects more than just polar bears.
What's happening to the polar jet stream
One of the biggest drivers of weather in North America is the polar jet stream, a ribbon of high-speed winds...
MoreEarly this year, the journal Nature published two papers with some completely surprising results. Researchers had only recently figured out how to use a small set of genes to reprogram mature adult cells into a stem-cell-like state. The new papers suggested you could forgo the genetic engineering entirely; a short time in an acidic environment, followed by some carefully controlled growth conditions, could completely reprogram the cells. It was a potentially revolutionary finding.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the wheels to fall off. Other researchers quickly pointed out possible instances of improperly manipulated figures and plagiarism, and one of the researchers involved had already had some ethical issues in the past. Initial attempts to replicate the experiments in other labs failed. By the summer, there was an official finding of misconduct; shortly thereafter, one of the researchers involved committed suicide. In July, the papers were formally retracted by the remaining authors.
That's a relatively quick resolution to a problem like this, but it leaves a rather significant question: how did these papers get published in the first place if the problems became apparent so quickly? That question only got more bewildering this week, as people have started to leak the reports of peer reviewers who had evaluated the papers.
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The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Also known as M31, the spiral galaxy is a mere 2.5 million light-years away. NGC 206 is near top center in this gorgeous close-up of the southwestern extent of Andromeda's disk, a remarkable composite of data from space and ground-based observatories. The bright, blue stars of NGC 206 indicate its youth. In fact, its youngest massive stars are less than 10 million years old. Much larger than the open or galactic clusters of young stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, NGC 206 spans about 4,000 light-years. That's comparable in size to the giant stellar nurseries NGC 604 in nearby spiral M33 and the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Star forming sites within Andromeda are revealed by the telltale reddish emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen gas.A comprehensive look at how tiny particles in a lithium ion battery electrode behave shows that rapid-charging the
The post Study sheds new light on why batteries go bad has been published on Technology Org.
