Topic: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
All Content
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Focus
A way to curb global warming: Suck carbon emissions right out of the air?Most efforts to address carbon emissions focus on preventing them from entering the atmosphere in the first place. But how to get rid of CO2 already there? Start-ups are developing prototype air-capture systems.
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Lake Erie: big algae problems, more to come
Lake Erie's huge algae bloom in 2011 covered nearly a fifth of the lake. A new report says warming climate and modern farming are creating ideal conditions for big algae blooms to clog Lake Erie.
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Want to really know people? Take a look at their Facebook 'likes.'
A new study indicates that Facebook 'likes' say a great deal about a Facebook user.
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Will ships sail through the North Pole by 2050?
Melting Arctic ice will create new sea routes, a new study says, including the potential for light ice-breakers to reach the North Pole. New Arctic shipping routes would still be seasonal rather than year-around.
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Scientists link extreme weather to giant atmospheric waves
A new study links extreme weather events to interference in global air-flow patterns.
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Neanderthal species may have died out much earlier, according to study
If true, the study, casts doubt on the idea that modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed — and possibly even interbred — for millennia, because humans aren't believed to have settled in the region until 42,000 years ago.
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Ancient Antarctic microbes isolated for millennia may provide clues to alien life
The findings shed light on the extreme limits at which life can live not just on Earth, but possibly alien worlds, scientists added.
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New smell discovered: It's 'olfactory white' as in white noise
New smell discovered: Scientists have created a 'white smell,' a 40-compound blend of scents in the middle of the pleasant-edible scale. The new smell was discovered by scientists in Israel.
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Editor's Blog How poor is poor? How rich is rich?
Everyone from the US Census Bureau to the United Nations has a definition of poverty. A reasonable income is unquestionably important. But income alone doesn't determine whether someone is poor. Or rich.
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Fraud in scientific research: It happens, and cases are on the rise
Of 2,000 retractions of published scientific papers since 1977, 866 were because of fraud, a new study finds. Another 201 were plagiarized. But it's hard to know if more scientists are cheating, or if detection is simply better.
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Great Barrier Reef declining faster than ever, coral cover could be 5 percent in a decade (+video)
Globally, reefs are being assailed by myriad threats, particularly rising sea temperatures, increased ocean acidity and more powerful storms, but the threat to the Great Barrier Reef is even more pronounced, a study published on Tuesday found.
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Half of Great Barrier Reef lost to starfish and cyclones in less than 30 years (+video)
That overall 50-percent decline, they estimate, is a yearly loss of about 3.4 percent of the reef.
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As Antarctic ice streams speed up, major ice melt triggered inland
New simulation results may also add to forecasts about Antarctica's contribution to global sea levels, researchers pointed out.
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Mayan collapse mystery solved? Deforestation exacerbated a drought
Mayan collapse: One new study blames the collapse of the Mayan empire on deforestation combined with drought. Environmental and trade problems caused the Mayan collapse, says another new study.
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When did modern humans first arrive in Asia? Skull pieces could hold clues. (+video)
An anatomically modern human skull uncovered in Laos's 'Cave of the Monkeys,' could shed light on human migration patterns out of Africa.
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Focus
Weather? Climate change? Why the drought is persisting and growing.Several factors, including La Niña events, have contributed to the expanded drought, meteorologists say. Conditions in the West may be setting up for a 'megadrought' by century's end, researchers warn.
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Is global warming behind the recent heat waves? (+video)
The unusual heat waves felt in Texas, Oklahoma, Moscow, and elsewhere in recent years are almost certainly a result of global warming, according to a study led by NASA scientist and climate activist James Hansen.
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When did modern culture begin? (+video)
Researchers have found new evidence of modern culture's beginnings in a cave in South Africa. These findings may indicate that 'modern behavior as we know it' has existed for longer than previously thought.
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Start date for human civilization moved back 20,000 years or so
An analysis of artifacts found in a South African cave reveals that humans were making tools, beads, and even poison some 20,000 years earlier than previously thought.
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Polar bears, brown bears interbred during warm periods. Is it happening again? (+video)
Polar and brown bears diverged between 4 million and 5 million years ago, but they continued to interbreed when the climate warmed, finds a new study led by the University at Buffalo and Penn State. Now, there is evidence that it is happening again.
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Rodent thieves explain mystery of tree survival
Thievery by rodents moved an estimated 87 percent of seeds beyond the immediate vicinity of the parent tree, according to a study.
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Fish appear to steer with magnets
Scientists have zeroed in on the likely source of some animals' sense of direction. Rainbow trout seem to be guided by an 'internal compass' of sorts.
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Did all predatory dinosaurs have feathers? (+video)
A 150-million-year-old predatory dinosaur fossil points to evidence that dinosaurs evolving into birds were not the only ones to have feathers.
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World's oldest known pottery discovered in China
A team of Chinese and American experts have determined that pottery found in a Chinese cave is some 20,000 years old.
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Condors threatened by 'epidemic' lead poisoning from hunters' bullets (+video)
A review of more than 1,154 blood samples taken from wild California condors and tested from 1997 to 2010 found that 48 percent of the birds had lead levels so high, they could have died without treatment.
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