Science

Scientists create world's tiniest drops of liquid in biggest atom smasher

Clara Moskowitz, Space.com — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:00:40 GMT

Scientists think they've created the smallest drops of liquid ever — the size of only three to five protons.The droplets were made inside the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, where particles are sped up to near light speed and then smashed together. When researchers collided protons with lead nuclei, they were surprised to find that the result was tee...

Puzzling! Swine flu virus detected in elephant seals off West Coast

Megan Gannon, LiveScience — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:00:40 GMT

The H1N1 virus strain that caused a 2009 swine flu outbreak in humans was detected in northern elephant seals off the coast of central California.Scientists say this is the first time marine mammals have been found to carry the H1N1 flu strain, which originated in pigs. The seals seem to have picked up the virus while at sea, but it's unclear how this happened."We thought we might find influenza v...

Buggy hordes of cicadas sighted in Virginia ... but New York? Not yet

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:00:39 GMT

There's been a groundswell of 17-year cicadas in Virginia and other southern states, as revealed by a fresh wave of photos and eyewitness reports. In some areas, the outbreak has been accompanied by the insects' loud chorus call. And that's music to the ears of University of Connecticut entomologist John Cooley."That's where I'm heading," Cooley told NBC News. The weather is still too cool in New ...

Virgin birth or hanky-panky? Anteater mom sparks a scientific debate

Cosmic Log — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:06:21 GMT

Is it a case of anteater virgin birth, a hormonal quirk or just some desperate hanky-panky? Whatever it is, Armani the anteater's surprising pregnancy has sparked a debate over what animals are capable of when it comes to sex.The story unfolded at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center in Greenwich, Conn.: Last month, Armani gave birth to a cute baby pup named Archie. The only problem was, Archie ...

'Ciudad Blanca' found? Scientists share images of lost city in Honduras

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:19:25 GMT

A high-tech team of scientists and filmmakers shared pictures of what appears to have been a centuries-old civilization in Honduras, one year after they used laser-mapping technology to identify traces of structures in the thick jungle.The square-shaped and rounded structures, seen in computerized elevation maps of a rugged rain forest, may have been the last vestiges of pyramids, palaces and hous...

2,300-year-old Maya pyramid bulldozed for Belize road project

Mark Stevenson and Patrick E. Jones, The Associated Press — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:06:06 GMT

BELIZE CITY — A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize's largest Maya pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced Monday.The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back ...

In Dan Brown's 'Inferno,' numeric riddles and controversial science mix

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:21:58 GMT

Dan Brown's "Inferno," the latest thriller from the author of "The Da Vinci Code," is another globe-trotting, world-saving adventure — and a chance for readers to ponder a new set of mathematical and scientific puzzles.In "The Da Vinci Code," Robert Langdon, the world's best-known fictional symbolologist, follows a trail that highlights a controversial reading of the relationship between Jesus and...

Beautiful plankton blooms viewed from space

Science — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:37:51 GMT

By Douglas MainLiveScienceAs weather warms up off the coast of France, blooms of plankton have once again begun to form, creating a beautiful, multicolored swirl visible from space.NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites acquired these images of the colorful blooms on April 20 and May 4, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. On the later date, a noticeably larger bloom occurred, fueled by nutrient ru...

Earth's rotating inner core shifts speeds

Science — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:07:22 GMT

By Charles Q. ChoiLiveScienceEarth's solid-metal inner core is a key component of the planet, helping to give rise to the magnetic field that protects us from harmful space radiation, but its remoteness from the planet's surface means that there is much we don't know about what goes on down there. But some secrets of the inner core are being revealed by acoustic waves passing through the planet's ...

The cat who couldn't spy: A CIA fail

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:05:38 GMT

The CIA once recruited a feline agent to spy on enemies, according to a new book that sheds light on the elite cat and its abysmal failure during "Operation Acoustic Kitty."Emily Anthes, author of the new book "Frankenstein’s Cat", told Discovery News that felines weren’t the only non-human field agents.There were "cyborg insects as well as cyborg rats (called ratbots)," she said, adding that ...

Seeking gamers: Document power plants, fight climate change

John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:35:00 GMT

Sometimes, drinking a few beers after class can save the planet. A just-launched online "game" dreamed up during one such beer-drinking session aims to do that by encouraging people around the world to supply much needed data about the world's power plants that burn fossil fuels.While the general whereabouts of these plants is known, in much of the world details are fuzzy on the kind of fuel they ...

'Junk' DNA mystery solved: It's not needed

Tia Ghose, LIveScience — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:34:59 GMT

One person's trash may be another person's treasure, but sometimes, trash is just trash.So-called junk DNA, the vast majority of the genome that doesn't code for proteins, really isn't needed for a healthy organism, according to new research."At least for a plant, junk DNA really is just junk — it's not required," said study co-author Victor Albert, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the Univer...

Project aims to track big city carbon footprints

Alicia Chang, AP — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:32:17 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Every time Los Angeles exhales, odd-looking gadgets anchored in the mountains above the city trace the invisible puffs of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that waft skyward.Halfway around the globe, similar contraptions atop the Eiffel Tower and elsewhere around Paris keep a pulse on emissions from smokestacks and automobile tailpipes. And there is talk of outf...

Much of England's 'Atlantis' survives beneath sea

Science — Fri, 10 May 2013 22:04:11 GMT

By Stephanie PappasLiveScience The sharpest look yet at an underwater medieval town dubbed England's "Atlantis" reveals that the lost city was once almost as large as the modern City of London, a major district in central London.Medieval Dunwich was a thriving port in the Middle Ages. Major storms beginning in the 1200s swept the city out to sea and silted up the Dunwich River, choking off the Dun...

Fears realized: 26 elephants killed by poachers

Science — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:36:05 GMT

GRAPHIC WARNING: Contains images which some viewers may find disturbing. By Denise ChowLiveScience At least 26 elephants were killed in Central Africa after a group of armed poachers raided a protected sanctuary on Monday, according to wildlife officials.Seventeen poachers armed with Kalashnikov rifles entered Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic earlier this week, repres...

Carbon dioxide level breaks 3-million-year record

Science — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:14:04 GMT

By Stephanie PappasLiveScienceThe proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere broke 400 parts per million Thursday, according to one of the best climate records available.NBC News.com contributing writer John Roach takes an in-depth look at this greenhouse gas problemThe Keeling Curve, a daily record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, has been running continuously since March 1958, when a carbon di...

Die-off of southern right whales still a puzzler

Science — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:56:39 GMT

By Megan GannonLiveScienceScientists still don't know why hundreds of baby southern right whales are turning up dead around Patagonia, a decade after observers first saw signs of the worst die-off on record for the species, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).With no evidence of infectious diseases or deadly toxins in whale tissue samples, scientists are scrambling to determine a ...

Plague may have helped end Roman Empire

Science — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:45:10 GMT

By Charles ChoiLiveSciencePlague may have helped finish off the Roman Empire, researchers now reveal.Plague is a fatal disease so infamous that it has become synonymous with any dangerous, widespread contagion. It was linked to one of the first known examples of biological warfare, when Mongols catapulted plague victims into cities.The bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, has been linked...

17-year-old cicadas are kicking off 'Swarmageddon' in North Carolina

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:55:20 GMT

People are getting all twitchy about the bugs that are coming out in New York and New Jersey after a 17-year buildup, but when it comes to cicadas, Billy Tesh is seeing the real deal in North Carolina."I was so excited," Tesh told NBC News from Greensboro, where he runs a company called Pest Management Systems. "I've never seen so many in one location in my life. They were on almost every blade of...

Pop the Champagne: Bubble mystery solved

Science — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:17:19 GMT

B: Denise ChowLiveScience Anyone who has lathered up soap or seen frothy suds form on top of freshly poured soda has witnessed the delicate science of bubbles in action. But while bubbles and foamy materials are common in everyday life, scientists have struggled to model suds’ complicated behavior — the way clusters of bubbles grow, change shape and ultimately pop.Now, researchers at the Universit...

Time-lapse map chronicles decades of global change as seen from space

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Fri, 10 May 2013 01:21:40 GMT

Satellite imagery can serve as a time machine, revealing dramatic change in just a few seconds — but can you imagine documenting almost three decades' worth of all that change, across most of our planet's land mass? A team of imaging experts, computer scientists and journalists did. Now they've unveiled the result: a global database of zoomable, animated satellite views known as Timelapse."We beli...

Unique sealife found at East Coast methane seep

Science — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:31:46 GMT

By Douglas MainLifeScienceWhile surveying the seafloor last fall, a research vessel spotted bubbles rising from the depths.Now, another ship has gone back to investigate, and found a variety of life on the seafloor surrounding a methane seep, according to an update from researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).On May 8, the NOAA ship Ron Brown deployed an unmanne...

Meet the hopbeard plunderfish -- he's new here

Science — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:51:32 GMT

By Douglas MainLiveScienceTo catch Antarctic toothfish, you must bait your hook with Peruvian squid and cast it into the depths of the Ross Sea. This is what a team of Ukrainians did on a fishing trip near Antarctica. But sometimes, Mother Nature trips you up. Sometimes, you catch a hopbeard plunderfish.In 2009-2010, Ukrainian mariners happened to pull up three fish that looked unfamiliar. Further...

Ice-free Arctic in our future, ancient climate record suggests

John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:18:45 GMT

About 3 million years ago, evergreen forests — not tundra — carpeted the Arctic, Greenland was green, and sea ice only formed for a few months in the winter, if it formed at all, according to analysis of sediment pulled from a Russian lake. "Where we are going is into this warmer world," Julie Brigham-Grette, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told NBC News.At the time — the P...

Abraham Lincoln's funeral train: A mystery is solved

Science — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:39:55 GMT

By Denise ChowLiveScienceBefore President Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest, a train carried his body on a two-week funeral procession across the Northern U.S. states in 1865. Mourners from New York to Illinois gathered to see the train and pay their final respects, but despite drawing millions of spectators, one detail of the much-publicized event was thought to have been lost to history: The colo...