Suppose you're a robot. If you had a camera in your head, and you could watch a human doing a simple task, like bunching a pair of socks, could you, just by watching, learn to do it too?
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Suppose you're a robot. If you had a camera in your head, and you could watch a human doing a simple task, like bunching a pair of socks, could you, just by watching, learn to do it too?
Poet Wislawa Szymborska had an eye for the smallest, the gentlest, the hard-to-notice creatures on Earth and this week she bid them all adieu. Krulwich remembers Wislawa Szymborska.
Russian researchers in Antarctica are on the verge of piercing a hole through two miles of ice into an ancient lake, untouched by the light of day for some 20 million years. But it'll be a delicate process to break through without disturbing the pristine waters. Guest host David Green speaks with Antarctic researcher John Priscu about the process.
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A new map from the USDA has some northern gardeners hoping to grow plants that used to be considered too fragile for cold weather zones. The hardiness zone chart is about a half zone warmer than the last one issued in 1990. The USDA says the changes are not due to global warming, but to more sophisticated mapping methods. Seed sellers and buyers say that, whatever the reason, the warmer temperatures expand possibilities for planting this spring.
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For snow fans in the contiguous US, this winter has left much to be desired. The warm and mild season in the lower 48 and the wild snow dumps and cold weather up north in Alaska can be blamed largely on a weather pattern called "arctic oscillation." Audie Cornish gets an explanation of the weather phenomenon from meteorologist Jeffrey Masters.
For snow fans in the contiguous US, this winter has left much to be desired. The warm and mild season in the lower 48 and the wild snow dumps and cold weather up north in Alaska can be blamed largely on a weather pattern called "arctic oscillation." Audie Cornish gets an explanation of the weather phenomenon from meteorologist Jeffrey Masters.
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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are replacing boots on the ground in some wars. Commercially, UAVs are being used for things like crop-dusting and flood mapping. Experts discuss advances in drone technology and how to address legal and privacy concerns that stem from their use.
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A study of cocaine addicts finds that they have abnormalities in areas of the brain involved in self-control. And these abnormalities appear to predate any drug abuse.
The relatively clean gas is replacing dirty coal-fired power plants. That's good news for the environment. But in the long run, cheap natural gas might delay the transition to even cleaner sources of energy, such as wind and solar power.
The once-booming clean-tech industry is facing hard times, in part because of cheaper natural gas, the effects of the financial crisis, China's growing solar industry and the Solyndra bankruptcy. Reporter Juliet Eilperin, who covers the industry's struggles in Wired's February issue, explains.
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Researchers counted more than 5,000 ticks to calculate the risk of Lyme disease in the Eastern U.S. Turns out the risk is high in the Northeast and nearly zero in the South.
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A new study wants to rectify beef's image as an environmental miscreant. It says modern beef production is a lot kinder to the environment than it was 30 years ago.
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From oppressive regimes to editors of magazines, manipulating photos is nothing new. And technology is making these edits easier and easier: A group of grad students built a computer program that stands to make such forgeries a cinch.
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Last year it looked like stricter controls would be put in place to limit workers' exposure to dangerous silica dust. But for almost a year, the proposed regulations have been stalled at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Worker safety advocates are growing frustrated, but industry stakeholders say current regulations are sufficient.
The Florida Everglades is infested with Burmese pythons. To keep them from spreading, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making it illegal to import the pythons into the country, or transport them across state lines. Scientists have discovered the pythons are doing more damage than ever imagined.
The anesthetic and club drug ketamine seems to lift depression symptoms in a matter of hours. But how does it work? Researchers are searching for the answer in an attempt to make a new class of depression medications. "We can take care of a migraine in hours," one researcher asks. "So why do we have to wait weeks or months with depression?"
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At current rates of overfishing, jack mackerel stocks in the southern Pacific could collapse soon, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports.
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Burmese pythons have been slithering around south Florida for decades, but scientists now say the invasive constrictors are so bad, they're eating their way through the swamps. The snakes have decimated populations of mammals like raccoons, possums and white-tailed deer.
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Currently, there's no quick fix for severe depression. Antidepressants usually take weeks to work, if they work at all. But patients who received experimental doses of ketamine — long used as an anesthetic, and an illegal club drug — report an astounding relief from their symptoms in less than a day.
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Everything from the size of your plate to the color of your food may be telling you to eat more than you actually need. The good news is you can use psychology to your advantage, if you learn a few tricks of the trade.
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Scratching an itchy ankle is more satisfying than relieving an itch on your back or arm. Even if you thought you knew that, scientists now have evidence to back up your hunch.
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In his book, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Physicist Michael Nielsen discusses why scientists jealously guard their data and are slow to adopt online tools for collaboration. Nielsen talks about why attempts to create science wikipedias have failed.
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A 33,000-year-old skull of a "wolf on the way to becoming a dog" was found in a Siberian cave. Evolutionary Biologist Susan Crockford, co-author of a study about the skull in PLoS ONE, discusses why the discovery challenges common beliefs about dog domestication.
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BP released millions of gallons of dispersants to break up oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But what if dispersants could be sucked up again after doing their job? Chemist Julian Eastoe talks about an iron-containing soap he's created that can be recaptured using a magnet.
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This week solar flares sent a huge blast of X-rays and charged particles screaming towards the Earth. Solar astronomer David Hathaway and physicist Doug Biesecker discuss the sun's explosive behavior, and how that 'space weather' affects satellites, airplanes and the electric grid.
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Discover the secret life of ice--what makes it cloudy or clear, why cracks form on ponds. Science Friday visited Queens ice sculptor Shintaro Okamoto in his studio and spoke with ice researcher Erland Schulson, of Dartmouth University, to find out why ice is an interesting subject for artists and scientists.
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Reporting inThe Lancet, researchers write that a preliminary study shows embryonic stem cell therapy in two patients with macular degeneration was safe. Results suggest the patients' vision improved slightly. Dr. Robert Lanza, Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Cell Technology and co-author of the study, discusses the trial.
Community opposition helped sink plans for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Meanwhile, thousands of tons of radioactive waste are piling up at temporary storage sites around the country. As the U.S. once again looks for a new permanent storage site, an expert panel says local buy in will be key.
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The president is promoting the sale of new oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico and the promise of cars running on natural gas in two key states for his re-election campaign, Nevada and Colorado. The push comes days after he drew sharp Republican criticism for rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.
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Melissa Block speaks with John Vucetich, a wildlife ecologist from Michigan Technological University who is leading the wolf-moose winter study at Isle Royale National Park. The park is located in the northwest corner of Lake Superior. The study is in its fifth decade.
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The Obama administration released more details Thursday about the energy plan he previewed at the State of the Union this week. He announced an oil-and-gas-lease sale on nearly 38 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico — and proposals for new incentives to increase the use of natural gas in heavy trucks and buses.
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Gardeners: Take heed. An updated plant map shows that the United States is getting warmer. That means spring planting may come earlier and some plants can tolerate new northern latitudes.
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History, they say, is "one damn thing after another," but when you look down any historical list, strange, curious patterns pop out.
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Astronomers want increasingly large telescopes to peer into the depths of space. To build a solid telescope mirror nearly 30 feet across, you need an oven that heats to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit and spins around like a top.
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NASA ended the U.S. shuttle program in 2011, leaving roughly 9,000 workers at the Kennedy Space Center without jobs. Many in Cape Canaveral hope the private space industry will blossom, and lead the way back into space, and back to work.
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Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was once a small part of the natural gas industry. Then the technology improved and the production rush started. Now, there's so much gas on the market that the prices are at a 10-year low and producers are scaling back.
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In his State of the Union speech, President Obama called for more domestic oil and gas production, saying that "a future where we're in control of our own energy" is within reach, where the nation's security and prosperity would not be so closely linked to unstable parts of the world.
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President Obama's critics say he has blocked domestic oil production. But under his administration, a steady uptick in U.S. drilling operations, combined with falling overall consumption, has led to a steep drop in the percentage of oil the U.S. imports. Analysts say by 2035, the U.S. will import a little more than a third of its oil, down from 60 percent in 2005.
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Researchers found that children whose blood contained high levels of chemicals used in nonstick coatings and stain-resistant fabrics were less responsive to vaccination. The finding suggests, but doesn't prove, that these chemicals may make some children more vulnerable to infectious diseases.
California became the only state to implement greenhouse gas emission controls in January 2012, but the debate there over climate change continues. University of California history and science professor Naomi Oreskes says the time for bickering over whether or not climate change is real is over.
For more than two years she traveled on a French naval vessel with linen bandages wrapped tightly around her upper body to flatten her chest. It was a small ship with 300 men who knew her as Jean. But she wasn't Jean. She was Jeanne. Then one day, they found her out.
President Obama rejected Wednesday a proposal to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast — generating intense debate in both countries. Murray Mandryk, political columnist for the Leader-Post of Sasketchewan, offers a Canadian perspective on the controversy.
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Climate simulations show that massive technological interventions, known as "geoengineering," could protect food crops from some of the damaging effects of global warming. But researchers say local effects are hard to predict, so geoengineering may not be worth the risk.
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Humans have complicated genetic structures — not so dogs. Almost every physical trait in canines is controlled by just a few genes, which means custom-breeding a dog is only a matter of flipping a few genetic switches.
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Every few years, official clocks around the world repeat a second. It's not much, but in an age of atomic clocks it's time enough to give the matter a second thought.
Weather changes wreak havoc on the global food supply. But efforts to reduce the impact of climate change on agriculture haven't gotten much attention in climate change talks.
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Scientists working with a highly contagious, lab-created strain of bird flu will suspend their research for 60 days. The pause will make possible an international debate on the merits of the work, they say.
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Each tear you shed contains an army of enzymatic Pac-Men, ready to chase down and gobble up germs before they infect the sensitive tissues around your eye. Now scientists have found just one molecule of the germ-fighting enzyme is a potent defender.
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The International Maritime Organization has decreed that by 2015, all large deep sea ships will be required to carry the latest in electronic navigation equipment. But does state-of-the-art navigation technology prevent shipwrecks like last week's off the Italian coast? University of Southern Mississippi hydrographer Max van Norden talks about the technology.
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Science historian Howard Markel discusses the origins of the word moon and some of the lore surrounding it, including a 1638 book by the English bishop Francis Godwin entitled The Man in the Moone, which recounts a science fiction-style voyage to the moon.