Research presented at a European medical meeting today suggested chocolate consumption might be associated with a one third reduction in the risk of developing heart disease. The research adds to a string of studies in recent years showing a potential health benefit of chocolate. Scientists cautioned that further research was needed to test whether chocolate [...]
Thursday, April 7, 2011
British astrophysicist Martin Rees was announced yesterday as the 2011 recipient of the £1,000,000 Templeton Prize. The award honors a living person who has made “exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” Rees, a Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, said he attends chapel on a regular basis as part of a “traditional ritual,” but neither [...]
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Beginning Monday Jan. 10th, engineers at UC San Diego will simulate a series of strong earthquakes in order to test a three-story reinforced masonry structure with shear wall systems. The two-week tests will be performed at the university’s Englekirk Structural Engineering Center, home of the world’s largest outdoor shake table. The tests will simulate earthquakes [...]
Monday, December 20, 2010
Last week, the state of California’s Air Resources Board adopted rules limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The rules will allow power plants, factories, and others to trade permits to pollute in a program known as cap-and-trade. Many manufacturers believe the program will raise costs and hurt the state’s competitiveness. Some environmentalists also [...]
Monday, November 29, 2010
The president of Peru recently announced that Yale University will return thousands of artifacts taken from the ruins of Machu Picchu nearly a century ago. American scholar Hiram Bingham excavated at the site between 1911 and 1915. Peru filed suit against Yale two years ago, arguing that the university violated Peruvian law by exporting the [...]
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Oliver Sacks is a practicing neurologist and professor at Columbia University. In such books as The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, he became well known writing about patients with unusual neurological problems. Among the cases covered in his latest book, The Mind’s Eye, are patients who suffer from prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize [...]
Monday, September 27, 2010
The journal Nature Medicine reports that scientists have discovered a faulty gene which causes migraine headaches in some patients. Previous studies have only been able to identify parts of DNA in the general population which increase the risk for migraines. This is the first time a gene directly responsible for migraines has been identified. The [...]
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
According to some, the automobile age started 125 years ago this week when a patent was filed in Germany for a two-wheeled machine driven by an internal combustion engine. Gottlieb Daimler had helped develop a single-cylinder four-stroke engine in 1884, notable for its relatively light weight. To test the engine, Daimler built a “riding car” —a [...]
Monday, July 26, 2010
Recent news headlines claiming that NASA’s Kepler spacecraft had identified 100 earth-like planets outside our solar system were incorrect, the space agency has reported. Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has sent back data which indicates the existence of over 700 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. The data must be tested using “extensive follow-up observations” in [...]
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Nicolaus Copernicus, 16th century Polish astronomer and Catholic priest, was given a hero’s burial on May 22nd in the cathedral where he served as canon. His remains, kept in an unmarked grave for nearly 500 years, were recently authenticated through DNA testing. A local bishop had spearheaded the efforts to honor Copernicus, a man little [...]
Monday, August 29, 2011
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