Science News Archive - December 10, 2011
Shifting a fraction of truck-borne freight onto trains would have an outsized impact on air quality in the Midwest.
A new study of how compound word formation is influenced by subtle forms of linguistic pressure demonstrates that words which "sound better" to the speakers of a language have a higher chance of being created, suggesting that, like biological organisms, words are subject to selection pressures that play a role in deciding which words become part of a language over time.
By studying the behavior of tiny particles at an interface between oil and water, researchers at Harvard have discovered that stabilized emulsions may take longer to reach equilibrium than previously thought.
After the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Department of the Interior asked the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council to convene a committee of experts to analyze the probable causes of the disaster and identify measures for preventing similar harm in the future.
New findings by Virginie Stevens (CNRS), Jean Clobert (CNRS), Michel Baguette (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle) and colleagues show that interactions between dispersal and life-histories are complex, but general patterns emerge.
Terrorist attacks with chemical weapons are a real possibility, according to a study that appears in the online open access journal, published by SAGE.
Anti-fungal and anti-bacterial additives in house paint are present in dangerous quantities in the Vauchère river basin in the city of Lausanne, says a study to be presented the 9th of December, at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco.
More peer-reviewed scientific studies of the effects on wildlife of large-scale solar energy developments and operations are needed to adequately assess their impact, especially in the desert Southwest.
A recent study shows that, over the last two decades, areas with the greatest decrease in African great ape populations are those with no active protection from poaching by forest guards.
Catching terrorists who detonate bombs may be easier by testing the containers that hide the bombs rather than the actual explosives, according to pioneering research led by Michigan State University.
