Monthly Archives: December 2006
Twas the week before Christmas, and Rochester’s blogger was very busy
The University of Rochester has started a blog similar to Egghead called The Science Sideshow. Today they get a hat tip and an extra glass of eggnog for a pastiche of “A visit from St Nicholas” which crams in links …
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Virgin dragon to give birth
A Komodo dragon raised in captivity at a zoo in England is set to give birth over the holidays, despite never having mated or even being in contact with a male dragon. Flora, an eight-year old reptile, is expecting eight …
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A Bell prize for BlueGene/L
A team led by Francoi Gygi, professor of applied science, was awarded the 2006 Gordon Bell Prize for Peak Performance last month for their work using the BlueGene/L supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for simulations of molybdenum. Gygi wrote …
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The giant lemons of Lodi
A Lodi man’s backyard lemon tree decided to go a little crazy this year and started producing monster four-pound lemons. Diane Barrett, an extension specialist on fruits and vegetables, says she’s never heard of such big fruit but that overwatering …
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The dawn of time
The earliest images yet of the Universe have been released by NASA. They were taken with the Spitzer space telescope. After masking out more recent objects in the foreground (grey blobs in this image), the orange and yellow patterns show …
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Waiting for the robot farmer
Why don’t US farmers automate tasks instead of employing immigrant labor? That’s the question raised by a Wall Street Journal article today. Machines would reduce the need for human labor, and are also easier to keep clean. But they are …
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Where does E. coli come from?
The Scripps-Howard News Service has a story about Edward “Rob” Atwill’s new project to track the source of E. coli contamination in vegetable crops in California. At least nine national outbreaks have been traced back to the Salinas valley, the …
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Women in Science and Engineering: Miles to go
The ‘Science’ section of today’s New York Times leads with a major article about women in science and engineering. The piece is built around a symposium held at Rice University this fall. The keynote speaker was Deb Niemeier, director of …
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More on icy wastes
UC Davis graduate student Simone Sebalo will be on Capital Public Radio’s Insight show on Monday, talking about her work introducing composting toilets to a remote Alaskan village. Alaska is a difficult place to find environmental solutions to waste disposal, …
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The plume on Saturn’s moon
More interplanetary news: Also in today’s issue of Science is a paper with a new explanation of the plume, or geyser, erupting from Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn. The Cassini spacecraft photographed the plume erupting from the south …
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