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Current U.S. summer weather is 'what global warming looks like'

If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks. Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho. These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it's far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.

 

Excitement builds over Higgs data

Higgs Boson

Excitement is building ahead of a conference to be held in Melbourne, Australia, in July where scientists are expected to present new findings in their search for the Higgs boson.

 

Scientists hunt ways to stall Alzheimer's earlier

Look for a fundamental shift in how scientists hunt ways to ward off the devastation of Alzheimer's disease - by testing possible therapies in people who don't yet show many symptoms, before too much of the brain is destroyed....

 

Gene variants increase risk of childhood obesity, study finds

Childhood Obesity

Scientists have discovered two gene variants that appear to play a critical role in the development of common childhood obesity, according to a large genetic study released Sunday. The discovery could eventually lead to treatments and specific lifestyle advice for heavy children.

 

Doctors find clue in quest to predict heart attack

California scientists are hunting ways to predict who's about to have a heart attack, and they say they've found a key clue....

 

New frog species spotted in NYC

Frog

Scientists say they have found a new species of frog living in heavily-populated urban areas of New York.

 

Physicists Create a Working Transistor From a Single Atom

Nanotechnology

The team of scientists say their achievement lays the groundwork for quantum computing, which would involve technology much smaller and faster than is currently possible.

 

Stephen Hawking to turn 70, defying disease

British scientist Stephen Hawking has decoded some of the most puzzling mysteries of the universe but he has left one mystery unsolved: How he has managed to survive so long with such a crippling disease. The physicist and cosmologist was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease when he was a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University. Most people die within a few years of the diagnosis, called motor neurone disease in the U.K. On Sunday, Hawking will turn 70.

Senh: It's probably because he keeps himself mentally alert.

 

Now you see it, now you don't: Time cloak created

Time Cloak

It's one thing to make an object invisible, like Harry Potter's mythical cloak. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see. They have invented a time masker. Think of it as an art heist that takes place before your eyes and surveillance cameras. You don't see the thief strolling into the museum, taking the painting down or walking away, but he did. It's not just that the thief is invisible - his whole activity is.

Senh: This is an interesting approach. Slowing down light, so something can happen before it reaches our eyes. This seems like the most elegant solution, but it's probably way too difficult to do practically.

 

Real 'Benjamin Button'? Stem cells reverse aging

Benjamin Button

Scientists may one day slow down aging with a simple injection of youthful stem cells. They’ve just proven this can be done in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications. The mice, which had been engineered to mimic a human disease called progeria, would normally have grown old when they were quite young. But that changed when researchers injected muscle stem cells from healthy young mice into the bellies of the quickly aging mice. Within days, the doddering and frail mice began to act like they were living the storyline of “The Strange Case of Benjamin Button” as they started looking and acting younger.

Senh: That's getting scary. By the time this becomes useful, we'll hopefully have colonized the moon and Mars for the increasing population.

 

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