Science

(Phys.org) —In malaria-ridden parts of Africa, mosquito netting protects people from being infected while they sleep; now, a University of Florida entomologist wants to improve the netting by coating it with insecticide toxic only to mosquitoes.

According to She Figures 2012, which analyses gender equality in research, in 2010 women accounted for only 10 % of university rectors in Europe and 15.5 % were heads of institutions of the higher education sector. Although, the research has shown that the number of PhD graduates in general is getting closer to gender balance.

(Phys.org) —Ammonia must overcome an energy barrier to join sulfuric acid and water to create clusters that can lead to cloud formation, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Delaware.

Technology that's used in smartphones and other electronic devices also is being used by veterinarians at the University of Illinois to help horses recover safely from anesthesia.

European researchers have developed and tested a light-weight device capable of detecting extremely minute quantities of explosives from up to 20 metres away, providing an invaluable law-enforcement tool in the fight against bomb attacks.

Stronger warning labels on slug and snail baits containing metaldehyde may have led to a huge drop in calls to a national pesticide hotline about possible dog poisonings, according to Oregon State University.

In a study, Assistant Professor Sonia Ghumman from the UH M?noa Shidler College of Business found that Hijabis (Muslim women who wear headscarfs) encountered discrimination when seeking employment.

Three QuestionsHow can it be that the one sure thing worth repeating from a year that slips between the hands like kite string, and is hauled into the next like a favorite kite, is what I think is a Japanese maple from the far end of November, firing through half a suburban block with its not yet burnt- through extravagance of orange? Or that that one tree on that one block seen on that one day in the course of this one short life is enough, though clearly, despite the lies its leaves are, or my need to trust the impossible stories hanging from its limbs, it is enough? Or even that the world, even this one, can offer so little and so much at once and mean them both?..by Ralph Black from Turning Over The Earth Milkweed Editions

“Did they ever meet?” I would get the question all the time. People would ask what I was working on, and I would say a book about Einstein and Freud, and then would come the question. Same thing with my next book. People would ask what I was working on, and I would say a book about dark matter and dark energy. Figuring these words were more foreign than Einstein and Freud, I would add, “Maybe you’ve heard about this,” or, “I don’t know if you’re familiar with these terms.” “So it’s like…black holes?” “No,” I would say. “Scientists actually know what black holes are. But dark matter and dark energy are parts of the universe that are totally unlike anything else we’ve ever encountered. We know they’re there, and we know they make up 96 percent of the universe, but we don’t know what they are.” A month later, maybe two, I would run into the same person at a party or on the street. And then, inevitably, would come the question: “Hey, how’s that book of yours going—the one on black holes?” These questions, I realized, were telling me something important. They were telling me, in the case of Einstein and Freud, what people wanted to know and, in the case of dark matter and dark energy, what they needed to know. They were telling me that in order to avoid any misunderstandings, I should answer these questions right at the start. And they were telling me that I could turn these answers to my narrative advantage. I try to impart this lesson to my creative writing students. Anticipate what readers want to know or need to know. Then in satisfying that curiosity, give readers what you want them to know. In the book on dark matter and dark energy, The 4% Universe, the relevant material appeared less than two pages into the prologue: “This is not ‘dark’ as in black holes or deep space.” Then I introduced the major theme of the book: “This is ‘dark’ as in unknown for now, and possibly forever…The ‘ultimate Copernican revolution,’ as [scientists] often call it, is taking place right now.” In The Invisible Century, the relevant material about Einstein and Freud came even earlier—in the opening sentence: “They met only once.” Then I spent the rest of that paragraph as well as the next setting up the major theme of the book—that even though their lives rarely overlapped, Freud and Einstein each needed to break with a purely empiricist understanding of the scientific method and make a creative leap. Problem solved! Not quite. While promoting The Invisible Century, I found myself in a television studio in San Francisco being interviewed by a perky young woman who had clearly not read the book. So it came as no surprise when she asked, “Did they ever meet?” I gave her a condensed version of what I wrote in the opening paragraphs of the book. Yes, they met, but only once. Einstein called on Freud during the New Years’ season of early 1927 when they both found themselves in Berlin. But it was hardly a meeting of the minds. When a friend wrote Einstein just a few months later suggesting that he undergo psychoanalysis, Einstein answered, “I should like very much to remain in the darkness of not having been analyzed.” For his part, Freud wrote to a friend regarding Einstein immediately after their meeting, “He understands as much about psychology as I do about physics, so we had a very pleasant talk.” By this point in my relationship with the book—discussing it, writing it, promoting it—I had actually memorized those two quotes. I had given my standard reply. I had done my job. Now it was her turn. “So,” she said, nodding seriously, “they were buds.” I froze. I didn’t want to embarrass her while a guest in her studio, but I didn’t want to mislead viewers, either. I did some quick calculus. The fact is, Einstein and Freud would later correspond from time to time, mostly expressing mutual admiration amid birthday wishes, and when the League of Nations’ Institute for Intellectual Cooperation enlisted Einstein to engage in a public

The immortality of James Bond, something nasty in the water, the healing power of words, and more (full text available to subscribers)