Originally published on Tue January 22, 2013 12:14 pm
Here's a new, sly (and frankly selfish) way to think about global warming: Instead of worrying about the whole planet and all its oceans, how about asking a more personal question ...
What about me? What about where I live? Or where my grandma lives? Or the North Pole? Or Siberia? What if I could take my cursor, plop it onto any place on Earth and find out what's happened to temperatures right there.
A United Airlines 787 Dreamliner arrives at O'Hare international Airport in Chicago in November. Aviation authorities in the U.S. and abroad have grounded the planes because of problems with batteries on board.
Credit Adrian Dennis / AFP/Getty Images
A Qatar Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner takes part in a flying display during the second day at an air show in England on July 10, 2012. Aviation authorities in the U.S. and abroad have grounded the planes because of problems with batteries on board.
Credit AP
This photo, provided by the Japan Transport Safety Board, shows the distorted main lithium-ion battery and its lid, left, of the All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787, which made an emergency landing Wednesday in Japan. At right is the battery in normal condition.
Boeing announced late Friday that it is postponing deliveries of its new 787 Dreamliner because of problems with its big batteries. Aviation authorities in the U.S. and abroad grounded the new jetliners after those batteries failed in two planes operated by Japanese airlines, including one battery that burned while the plane was on the ground.
These lithium-ion batteries are new to jetliners. They're powerful and lightweight, and, unfortunately, they're also fragile.
Originally published on Wed January 23, 2013 9:57 am
As the flu season grinds on from news cycle to news cycle, there's some flu news of a different sort. Federal regulators have approved a next-generation type of flu vaccine for the second time in two months.
The two new vaccines are the first fruits of a big government push to hasten and simplify the laborious production of flu vaccines.
Astronomers have discovered a clump of 73 quasars that spans four billion light years at its widest point--that's like 40,000 Milky Way galaxies lined end-to-end. The only problem? Theory says the quasar cluster is too big to exist. Astronomer Gerard Williger and reporter Ron Cowen discuss this cosmological oddity, and other news about the cosmos.
Last weekend, air pollution in Beijing reached record highs, raising concerns about the cost of China's rapid industrialization. David Pettit, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, discusses the pollution problem in China's capital, and why severe smog can be deadly.
Aside from getting the flu shot, how do you outsmart the wily virus? Hoard hand sanitizer? Dodge door knobs? Or quietly slink away from coughing commuters? Dr. Nicole Bouvier, a flu researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, talks about what works--and what doesn't--in avoiding influenza.
Originally published on Fri January 18, 2013 1:03 pm
Data scientist Edward Tufte (dubbed the "Galileo of graphics" by BusinessWeek) pioneered the field of data visualization. Tufte discusses what he calls "forever knowledge," and his latest projects: sculpting Richard Feynman's diagrams, and helping people "see without words."
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Flora Lichtman, filling in for Ira Flatow today. Solar wind, geothermal - now there's a new renewable energy source to add to that list. It's free, completely reliable and totally unlimited: the force of gravity. Two British designers have invented a lamp that runs on gravity alone. Their GravityLight - yes, that's its name, aptly named - uses, you guessed it, the pull of gravity on a weight to generate up to 30 minutes of light.
In the Broadway play The Other Place actress Laurie Metcalf ("Jackie" on the TV show "Roseanne") plays a scientist suffering from the dementia she studies. Playwright Sharr White discusses the play and the challenge of presenting complicated science on a theater stage.
