Wednesday, 8 February, 2012

The ocean’s most valuable fish are caught in a vise. Areas known as dead zones are encroaching on their living zones and pinning them closer to the surface, where they are more vulnerable to becoming the day’s catch. The predicament is yet another side effect of climate change.

For 15 years, we’ve presented the science behind the news. The Why Files are accurate, engaging, entertaining and educational. Check our links from national science teaching standards to specific Why Files — all 750 of them! Whether it’s geology or archaeology, weather or human behavior, The Why Files has it covered.

Experiment finds Earth “dragging” spacetime, as Einstein predicted. For 100+ years, scientists have been proving that Einstein knew his physics. Bending light, gravity lenses, shifting spacetime, spinning neutron stars: Einstein called them all. If so many top physicists are brilliant, why do we keep coming back to Einstein?

Earth’s orbit subtly changes over thousands of years, in complex cycles that affect the timing and delivery of sunlight to various regions of the globe. Climatologists have said that when this “Milankovitch cycle” warms the Arctic, it somehow warms the Antarctic. A new study finds that the cycle acts more directly.

High-speed movies of popping bubbles show a ring of “daughter” bubbles forming around the edge. A close look reveals a third generation of “granddaughter” bubbles. How does this happen? Does this matter to real-world medicine and climatology? And can we get paid to play with bubbles?

Adding nanotubes makes a stronger plastic, but adding several nano-structures greatly increases the benefit, according to a new study from India. Read about the frontier of material science.

Underground nuclear tests have been the biggest roadblock to a comprehensive test ban. How are these explosions detected, and how reliably?

400 years ago, Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter. We discover water from 11 billion years ago, volcanoes at Titan, a moon of Saturn, and good reasons to shun light pollution.

Each hour, the ocean dissolves 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel. As the water grows more acidic, sound travels further. What will happen to marine mammals, which rely on an exquisite sense of hearing?

Lasers read and write CDs and DVDs, form the heart of fiber-optics, and are being used in climate prediction, chemical identification, high-tech manufacturing, even the battle against influenza.