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Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents
By WILLIAM J. BROAD, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
Kiss the Mediterranean goodbye. Ditto the Red Sea and its wonderland of coral reefs and exotic sea life. And prepare for the day when San Francisco has a gritty new suburb: Los Angeles. Indeed, much of Southern California, including the Baja Peninsula, will eventually migrate up the west coast to make Alaska even more gargantuan.
Geologists have long prided themselves on their ability to peer into the distant past and discern the slow movements of land and sea that have continuously revised the planet’s face over eons. Now, drawing on new insights, theories, measurements and technologies — and perhaps a bit of scientific bravado — they are forecasting the shape of terra firma in the distant future.
( Read More )
Findings: All Is Not So Bad in the State of Denmark
By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
Sweden has more blond beauties per capita, Italy and France have far better cuisine, and most of the free world can boast of better weather. But over the past 30 years, the citizens of Denmark have scored higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction, and scientists think they know why.
In a paper appearing in the Dec. 23 issue of the medical journal BMJ, researchers review six likely and unlikely explanations, and conclude that the country’s secret is a culture of low expectations.
( Read More )
A Conversation With Nina G. Jablonski: Always Revealing, Human Skin Is an Anthropologist’s Map
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
In an era of academic hyper-specialization, Dr. Nina G. Jablonski has an amazingly broad résumé. At 53, she heads the anthropology department at Pennsylvania State University. She’s also a primatologist, an evolutionary biologist and a paleontologist.
Last year, Dr. Jablonski led an expedition to China, where she dug for human fossils in an attempt to learn how early man coped with climate change. This month, she’s in Kenya, where she and Meave Leakey are putting together a study on prehistoric monkeys.
For more than a decade, Dr. Jablonski has been trying to get her arms around a ubiquitous and yet mysterious topic: the biology, evolution and social function of human skin. The results of her studies have been published by the University of California Press as “Skin: A Natural History.”
( Read More )
Vital Signs: Remedies: Small Study Raises a Question About Echinacea
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
Some people take echinacea supplements in the hope that they will prevent or shorten colds, but a small study suggests that it may increase the number of intestinal bacteria associated with diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease and an increased risk of colon cancer.
( Read More )
By WILLIAM J. BROAD, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
Kiss the Mediterranean goodbye. Ditto the Red Sea and its wonderland of coral reefs and exotic sea life. And prepare for the day when San Francisco has a gritty new suburb: Los Angeles. Indeed, much of Southern California, including the Baja Peninsula, will eventually migrate up the west coast to make Alaska even more gargantuan.
Geologists have long prided themselves on their ability to peer into the distant past and discern the slow movements of land and sea that have continuously revised the planet’s face over eons. Now, drawing on new insights, theories, measurements and technologies — and perhaps a bit of scientific bravado — they are forecasting the shape of terra firma in the distant future.
( Read More )
Findings: All Is Not So Bad in the State of Denmark
By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
Sweden has more blond beauties per capita, Italy and France have far better cuisine, and most of the free world can boast of better weather. But over the past 30 years, the citizens of Denmark have scored higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction, and scientists think they know why.
In a paper appearing in the Dec. 23 issue of the medical journal BMJ, researchers review six likely and unlikely explanations, and conclude that the country’s secret is a culture of low expectations.
( Read More )
A Conversation With Nina G. Jablonski: Always Revealing, Human Skin Is an Anthropologist’s Map
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
In an era of academic hyper-specialization, Dr. Nina G. Jablonski has an amazingly broad résumé. At 53, she heads the anthropology department at Pennsylvania State University. She’s also a primatologist, an evolutionary biologist and a paleontologist.
Last year, Dr. Jablonski led an expedition to China, where she dug for human fossils in an attempt to learn how early man coped with climate change. This month, she’s in Kenya, where she and Meave Leakey are putting together a study on prehistoric monkeys.
For more than a decade, Dr. Jablonski has been trying to get her arms around a ubiquitous and yet mysterious topic: the biology, evolution and social function of human skin. The results of her studies have been published by the University of California Press as “Skin: A Natural History.”
( Read More )
Vital Signs: Remedies: Small Study Raises a Question About Echinacea
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR, The New York Times, January 9, 2007
Some people take echinacea supplements in the hope that they will prevent or shorten colds, but a small study suggests that it may increase the number of intestinal bacteria associated with diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease and an increased risk of colon cancer.
( Read More )
