Tag: science

Animals News Science

Zebra Dung May Be New Fuel Source

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Thanks to zebra dung, cars could one day run on fuel made from old newspapers.

Today, we use mostly oil and gas to run our cars; oil and gas come from fossilized plants and animals. But fossil fuels are expensive, and there aren’t enough of them. Scientists are looking for cheaper and more plentiful fuels.

David Mullin is a biology professor at a university in New Orleans. He and his students are trying to make a fuel from plants. Plant-based fuels are called “biofuels.”

He knew that if he could break down “cellulose,” he could turn it into a fuel that could run vehicles.

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Kids Lighter Science

Are Parents Smarter Than Their Kids In Math And Science? Maybe Not

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Do you think you know more about science than your parents do? You could be right.

At a big science fair in England last November, 2,000 moms and dads were asked what sort of questions their kids had about science, and how they answer them.

Most of the parents said they found it hard to answer their children’s questions. A few of them said they think their kids know more about science than they do.

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Health News

No More Cases Of Polio In India

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India made history this month when it announced that there were no more cases of polio in the country.

The victory came after years of work by India’s public-health workers. They travelled to the most remote places and the poorest areas in the country. They gave vaccines—medicine that prevents diseases—to 172 million children.

Polio is a viral infection that can paralyze (stop movement in) the body, especially in people’s arms and legs. It can also make people’s breathing difficult is if they have very bad asthma. It can even be fatal.

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News Science

Stephen Hawking Turns 70

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Stephen Hawking turned 70 on Jan. 8.

Cosmologists – scientists like Hawking who study the origins of the universe – gathered in Cambridge, UK, to pay tribute to him.

Hawking was a mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge for 30 years. He retired from that job in 2009. He still works for Cambridge, in cosmology research.

Hawking is a mathematical genius, who changed the way scientists think about the universe.

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News Science

Two Earth-Sized Planets Discovered

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Two planets have been discovered, about 1,000 light years away from Earth.

Both of the planets are about the size of Earth. Kepler-20e is slightly smaller, and Kepler-20f is slighty larger than Earth.

The surface of the planets are too hot for water to exist on them; it would not be possible for life to exist on them either. They are hot because they orbit close to a star very much like our sun.

Kepler-20e has a termperature of about 760 degrees Celcius. (In contrast, Earth’s average surface temperature is 14 degrees Celsius.)

The planets were discovered during a mission by NASA using the Kepler space telescope. They have been combing the skies searching for planets since about 2009.

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Entertainment Lighter

The Mythbusters Accidentally “Bust” Someone’s House

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Usually they’re busting myths, but this time they busted a house – and a minivan.

Mythbusters is a popular television show in which scientists – led by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman — try to figure out if certain “myths” are true.

For instance, there is an idiom about someone who is clumsy being like “a bull in a china shop.”

The Mythbusters crew filled a shop with china and brought in several 1,800-pound bulls to see whether that “myth” was actually true.*

A big part of their show is that they often perform outrageous scientific stunts, like blowing up things or setting things on fire to prove or disprove the myths.

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News Science Technology

Phobos-Grunt Mission To Mars Misfires

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In the 1970s, a space project called the Phobos-Grunt project was proposed by Russian space experts.

At the time, it represented a dream for the Russian space program. To build a vehicle that could go all the way to Mars, to collect information from one of its moons, Phobos. It would be Russia’s first deep-space mission, developed entirely in the post-Soviet era.

The project had lots of problems over the years. They include mismanagement, political issues and serious technical problems, according to Russian journalist Anatoly Zak.

However, the Russian space agency persisted, and eventually the Phobos-Grunt became a reality.

The Phobos-Grunt launched on Nov. 9.

Unfortunately, the unmanned vehicle would not make it to Mars.

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Science

The First Mummy In 3,000 Years

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The body of Alan Billis, who died of cancer recently will be the first one in the modern world to be mummified like the ancient Egyptians were.

While he was terminally ill with lung cancer, Billis—a taxi driver in the UK—signed up for the procedure.

Dr. Stephen Buckley is a scientist who has been working for nearly 20 years to figure out how to mummify bodies in the same way Egyptian bodies like Tutankhamun’s were preserved.

His process was filmed for a television documentary on Britain’s Channel Four TV station.

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Health Politics

We Are Turning Seven Billion Strong

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The population of the world is about to hit a new milestone.

As of Oct. 31, demographers say there will be seven billion people living on earth.

Back in 1804, we hit the one-billion mark. It took another 123 years to reach two billion.

By 2083, the population rate could be much faster or slower, depending a few factors including average life expectancy.

It is the poor who are always hit hardest by population increases, researcher John Bongaarts told The Globe and Mail newspaper.

There are more people drawing on the earth’s resources—food and energy, for instance.

More than 900 million people in the world don’t get adequate nourishment.

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News Science

Canadian Nobel Winner Allowed To Keep Award

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A Canadian-born scientist recently won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine is one of five Nobel Prizes given out each year for achievement in various scientific fields.

This year, a very unusual situation occurred – one that required a special emergency meeting of the Nobel Prize committee.

When the Nobel Foundation announced that it was giving the award to three scientists: Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Canadian Ralph Steinman, it didn’t realize that Steinman had died from cancer three days earlier.

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