Topic: Science & Technology

Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming.

Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming.

A survey of Israeli scientists, which explored their personal relationship to the creative process, indicated a high correlation between spirituality and creativity. Over 60% of the respondents expressed a strong belief that they had "experienced creativity as a spiritual process." The survey, the first of its kind in Israel and possibly the world, was commissioned by the Project Mind Foundation.

A recent survey of Israeli scientists, which explored their personal relationship to the creative process, points to a high correlation between spirituality and creativity. The survey, the first of its kind in Israel -- and possibly the world -- solicited over 3300 scientists in universities and research institutes to probe their perception of the role of creativity in their professional pursuits. Over 60% of the respondents, 237 in number, indicated a strong belief that they had "experienced creativity as a spiritual process."

Innovations like Google, TiVo, iTunes and GPS-equipped phones can be handy, but they also force users to forfeit some privacy, a University of Iowa professor warns in his new book, "iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era."

Author Mark Andrejevic, associate professor of communication studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, says that the data trail left by technology users allows public and private monitoring agencies to track users' locations, preferences and life events for purposes including consumer marketing, targeting groups of voters for campaigns, background checks and government surveillance.

A diet that includes about two cooked ounces a day of eggs and meat might be friendlier to the environment than strict vegetarianism.

A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency, Cornell researchers suggest.

Genetically engineered Bt corn byproducts are showing up in streams where they threaten aquatic insects related to the pests targeted by a toxin in Bt corn.

A study by an Indiana University environmental science professor and several colleagues suggests a widely planted variety of genetically engineered corn has the potential to harm aquatic ecosystems. The study is being published online this week by the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

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Northern Indiana stream, one of several where study was conducted.

While summer daytime highs in Ohio have remained fairly constant, summer lows have risen about three degrees since the 1960s, as a direct result of global warming.

Summer nights in Ohio aren't cooling off as much as they used to -- and it's likely a sign of climatic warming across the state, researchers say.

An enormous red spinel crystal weighing over 52 kgs may be the largest red spinel ever unearthed. A significant number of stones ranging in weights between 5 and 30 carats have already been faceted and sold for several million dollars.

Mined at depth of 10 meters in a farmer's field in Mahenge, Tanzania, the pyramid shaped crystal weighing over 52kgs was discovered by a group of miners in the alluvial deposit.

During the last two winters, perennial artic ice shrunk by an area the sixe of Texas and California combined, with thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada.

A new NASA-led study found a 23-percent loss in the extent of the Arctic's thick, year-round sea ice cover during the past two winters. This drastic reduction of perennial winter sea ice is the primary cause of this summer's fastest-ever sea ice retreat on record and subsequent smallest-ever extent of total Arctic coverage.

A case study of the world’s largest open-pit coal mine reveals the hidden costs of coal from Colombia, in particular the effects on indigenous and Afro-Colombian villages.

In The People Behind Colombian Coal: Mining, Multinationals and Human Rights, University of Arkansas anthropologist Steve Striffler and colleagues Aviva Chomsky and Garry Leech have assembled a comprehensive collection of reports on the impact of the Cerrejon mine, located in La Guajira state in northern Colombia.

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A street scene in Chiriguana, Colombia, near the strip mine.

According to some Native American traditions, an albino animal represents the spirit of its species and is therefore sacred. This albino ratfish died while trying to escape its human captors to return to Puget Sound.

A ghostly, mutant ratfish caught off Whidbey Island in Washington state is the only completely albino fish ever seen by both the curator of the University of Washington's 7.2 million-specimen fish collection and a fish and wildlife biologist with more than 20 years of sampling fish in Puget Sound.

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Post doctoral researcher Sandra Stetter, and graduate students Brock Grubb,
Jon Reum and Aaron Galloway work on deck during an expedition sampling
fish to learn how the food web in Hood Canal may change when waters
become oxygen starved, something that has been occurring in the fall in
recent years. An albino ratfish was caught during work off Whidbey Island,
a site needed for comparison with Hood Canal waters.