New book ‘Going Viral’ explores nature, impact of Internet virality
How will we of the early 21th century be remembered? By our technological innovations, social movements and many wars, to be sure. (more…)
Author Archives: Guest Post
Creative classroom: In ‘books of secrets,’ historian’s students find an unexpected past
One afternoon Nell Meosky ’14 was sitting at a table in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library with her classmates in the undergraduate seminar “Spies, Secrets, and Science.” She eagerly began to leaf through pages of a late medieval text, when an exclamation of “Wait!” by her professor, Paola Bertucci, made her take pause. (more…)
NASA Snow Mapper Reaps Big Benefits for California
Unprecedented snowpack maps from NASA’s prototype Airborne Snow Observatory mission helped water managers for 2.6 million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area achieve near-perfect water operations this summer, despite the driest year in California’s recorded history. (more…)
Death and Dying in the Movies
“Death in Classic and Contemporary Film: Fade to Black” features essays edited by two members of the UA psychology department.
Most of us can recall a death scene from a movie that struck a particular chord. Perhaps it was an emotional deathbed goodbye between two lovers or a bloody display on the battlefield. Or maybe it was a spine-chilling moment splattered across the screen of a horror movie. (more…)
Holistic Cell Design by Berkeley Lab Scientists Leads to High-Performance, Long Cycle-Life Lithium-Sulfur Battery
Battery could find use in mobile applications, and eventually, electric vehicles with 300-mile range
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated in the laboratory a lithium-sulfur (Li/S) battery that has more than twice the specific energy of lithium-ion batteries, and that lasts for more than 1,500 cycles of charge-discharge with minimal decay of the battery’s capacity. This is the longest cycle life reported so far for any lithium-sulfur battery.
Demand for high-performance batteries for electric and hybrid electric vehicles capable of matching the range and power of the combustion engine encourages scientists to develop new battery chemistries that could deliver more power and energy than lithium-ion batteries, currently the best performing battery chemistry in the marketplace. (more…)
Great Barrier Reef in Gefahr: Australien erlaubt Kohle-Hafen-Ausbau
Ein einzigartiges Naturparadies ist in Gefahr: Am Great Barrier Reef an der australischen Nordostküste darf der Kohle-Hafen Abbot Point ausgebaut werden. Die indische Adani Gruppe kann somit beginnen, rund drei Millionen Kubikmeter Meeresboden auszubaggern – das abgebaggerte Material soll ins nahegelegene Great Barrier Reef-Gebiet abgeladen werden.
Die Entscheidung des Umweltministers Greg Hunt, die Industrialisierung des Reefs zu erlauben, bringt die Umwelt in massive Gefahr. “Minister Hunt ignoriert wissenschaftliche Beweise und zeigt den Bedenken seriöser Wissenschaftler, Touristenverbände und Fischer über den Einfluss der Baggerungen auf das sensible Ökosystem eine lange Nase”, so Greenpeace Queensland Campaigner, Louise Matthiesson. “Mit den Baggerungen am Abbot Point, 50 Kilometer vor den Whitsunday Inseln, stellt der Umweltminister die Interessen der Kohlelobby über den Schutz des Great Barrier Reef.” (more…)
Evolution, Civil War History Entwine in Fossil Find
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A fossil leaf fragment collected decades ago on a Virginia canal bank has been identified by a University of Maryland doctoral student as one of North America’s oldest flowering plants, a 115- to 125-million-year-old species new to science. The fossil find, an ancient relative of today’s bleeding hearts, poses a new puzzle in the study of plant evolution: did Earth’s dominant group of flowering plants evolve along with its distinctive pollen? Or did pollen come later?
The find also unearths a forgotten chapter in Civil War history reminiscent of the film “Twelve Years a Slave,” but with a twist. In 1864, Union Army troops forced a group of freed slaves into involuntary labor, digging a canal along the James River at Dutch Gap, Va. The captive men’s shovels exposed the oldest flowering plant fossil beds in North America, where the new plant species was ultimately found. (more…)
Study asks: Is a ‘better world’ possible?
For years, policymakers have attempted to create communities where a diverse group of residents not only live close to one other but also interact freely – in other words, neighborhoods that are both integrated and socially cohesive.
But that might be a lost cause, a Michigan State University sociologist argues in a new study. (more…)