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Less than a billion years after the Big Bang, two titans speed toward each other. NRAO/AUI/NSF; D. Berry ======================================================================= Just 780 million years after the universe formed in the Big Bang, two galaxies speed to confront each other in a head-on collision that will lead to a merger between the two—and one of them is towing along a clump of dark matter larger than any spotted before. The research paper, published today in Nature, highlights a little-understood era of the universe known as the Epoch of Reionization. This is when the first galaxies came together and lit up the universe...

Plans by the Trump administration to promote coal as a solution to climate change at a major UN meeting have angered environmentalists. An adviser to the president is expected to take part in a pro-coal presentation in Bonn next week. Separately, a group of governors will say that the US is still committed to climate action despite Mr Trump's rejection of the Paris agreement. The talks begin on Monday and aim to flesh out the rules for the Paris pact This meeting, officially known as COP23, will be the first full gathering of climate negotiators since President Trump vowed to...

The White House has sought to downplay a major climate change report, which was compiled by 13 US federal agencies. The study is at odds with assertions from President Donald Trump and several members of his administration. It says it is "extremely likely" human activity is the "dominant cause" of global warming. A spokesman for the White House said it supported "rigorous scientific analysis and debate" but added that the climate was "always changing". White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said it was not certain how sensitive the Earth's climate was to greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Trump, who...

The White House has sought to downplay a major climate change report, which was compiled by 13 US federal agencies. The study is at odds with assertions from President Donald Trump and several members of his administration. It says it is "extremely likely" human activity is the "dominant cause" of global warming. A spokesman for the White House said it supported "rigorous scientific analysis and debate" but added that the climate was "always changing". White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said it was not certain how sensitive the Earth's climate was to greenhouse gas emissions. Mr Trump, who...

A group of feminist professors will publish a new anthology in November extolling the merits of the emerging field of “queer feminist science.” The anthology, Queer Feminist Science: A Reader, will be released on November 16, and is edited by a team of Women’s Studies professors including New York University’s Cyd Cipolla, Wake Forest University’s Kristina Gupta, South Florida University’s David A. Rubin, and Mount Holyoke College’s Angela Willey, who specifically teaches “feminist science.

Houston has barely begun to dry out from Hurricane Harvey, and Florida faces a massive rebuilding effort after the Irma catastrophe. These two storms, among the most powerful in American history, are typical of the extreme weather events that are likely to become more common as the planet warms. So why isn’t the public heeding scientists and demanding climate action by politicians that could help deal with these destructive extremes? You can point fingers at the influence of fossil fuel companies, at misinformation from climate deniers and at political obstructionism, notably from a fragmented Republican party. But a much deeper...

The 'slowdown' in global warming is over, the Met Office has said. While the world remained at near-record levels of warmth in the early 2000s, analysis of rolling 15-year trends shows that the rate of warming slowed between 1999 and 2014, the experts confirmed. But a change in the natural pattern of warm and cool phases in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, which have an impact on global temperatures, has brought the slowdown to an end.

It’s like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Canada’s Competition Bureau, an arm’s length agency funded by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to the tune of almost $50 million annually, investigated three organizations accused of denying mainstream climate science for over a year, following a complaint from an environmental group. The bureau discontinued its 14-month probe in June, citing “available evidence, the assessment of the facts in this case, and to ensure the effective allocation of limited resources”, according to Josephine A.L. Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner of Competition, Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate. But it will re-open its investigation should it receive...

The victims of Hurricane Harvey have a murderer - and it’s not the storm. The horrors hurled at Houston and the Himalayan lowlands in late August were heartbreaking - but also infuriating. How many times must we see this disaster movie - titled Hurricane Harvey in 2017 - before we intervene and change the ending? And how long before we hold the ultimate authors of such climate catastrophes accountable for the miseries they inflict? What makes this so infuriating is that it shouldn’t be happening. Experts have warned for decades that global warming would increase these sorts of weather extremes...

Let's not dance around the issue: Hurricane Harvey was a direct consequence of global warming, which in turn is a direct consequence of human activities. It's ironic that Texas (and Houston in particular) has an economy that is dominated by on oil and fossil fuels. Burning these fuels is what got us in this mess. It's also ironic that Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is now at the front of the line asking for a federal government rescue package, is a scientifically illiterate climate change denier. Maybe with cooler temperatures, we'd have had a hurricane anyway–but it would have been...

"How to Lower Your Child's IQ," "Why Spanking Does Not Work," and other videos.

DETROIT (WWJ) – Would you like to lose weight, have more energy, better health? Then stop eating cheese. That’s according to Dr. Neal Barnard, who’s down on dairy. Barnard says while Americans seem to have a love affair with cheese, it’s more of an unhealthy addiction. He makes his case in his book “The Cheese Trap.” “I think it’s addicting; and I don’t use the addicting word lightly,” he told WWJ’s Dr. Deanna Lites. “There are actually opiate chemicals in it that attach to the very same brain receptors as other opiates, and I’m going to argue that it’s probably...

Scientists have responded furiously to claims about climate change made in a live BBC radio interview. Experts told BBC News that the assertions made by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson on Radio 4's Today programme were simply untrue. Lord Lawson had claimed that global temperatures had "slightly declined" over the past 10 years. However, scientists working in the field said the records showed the complete opposite to be the case. BBC Radio 4's Today programme defended its decision to interview Lord Lawson on Thursday morning in a segment on climate change. The BBC argued that it had a duty to inform...

WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the...

Prepare to be “nudged” by Obama's new “behavioral science” squads — for your own good, of course. Under the guise of better “serving” the American people through government, Obama signed an executive order this week calling for federal agencies and departments to deploy emerging “behavioral science” techniques against the public.Among other goals, the expansion of federal mind manipulation is supposed to help more Americans access government welfare programs, take their “recommended” vaccines, supply more information about themselves to the federal government, and accelerate the transition toward what Obama called “a low-carbon economy.” The controversial decree, signed on September 15, explicitly...

When it comes to sheer friendliness, few humans can match the average dog. But people with Williams syndrome may come close, their unusual genetics granting them a puppyish zeal for social interaction. Now, scientists have found that extreme friendliness in both species may share common genetic roots. A friendly condition Williams syndrome, also known as Williams-Beuren syndrome, occurs when people are missing of a chunk of DNA containing about 27 genes. The syndrome affects about one in 10,000 people, and it is associated with a suite of mental and physical traits, including bubbly, extroverted personalities, a broad forehead, full cheeks,...

One of the hallmarks of the “Ugly American” is the habit of thinking foreigners will understand what you’re saying if you just shout it louder and louder. The Ugly Environmentalist does something similar. He exaggerates the challenge of global warming by using ever more hysterical rhetoric, thinking that if the last doomsday prediction didn’t work, this one will. For instance, Stephen Hawking, the famous astrophysicist, recently said that the consequences of Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord were monumental: “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees...

Junk science endangers lives. Forensic junk science in the hands of overzealous prosecutors, ignorant police detectives and reckless experts threatens liberty. There is a crisis in America's government-run crime labs -- and it's not just the result of a few rogue operators. The problem is long-festering and systemic. In April, Massachusetts state crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan made national headlines after investigations and lawsuits over her misconduct prompted the state's Supreme Judicial Court to order the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in U.S. history. Prosecutors were forced to dismiss a stunning 21,000-plus drug cases after Dookhan admitted to forging signatures,...

In the days, weeks, and months since Donald Trump's surprising victory, there's been endless speculation and debate about what cost Hillary Clinton the presidential election. In May, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight wrote that the October 28 Comey Letter very likely cost Clinton the presidency. There's also evidence that sexism, both conscious and unconscious, helped tear down one of the most qualified candidates in history. And all of this is to say nothing of potential Russian interference. Well, here's a new one: Members of the astrological community believe that the exact time of Clinton's birth on October 26, 1947, may be...

Sorry, everybody. We’re just not that special. In more than five decades of scanning the heavens, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has found no sign of alien life. Yet now two American astronomers, in the scientific equivalent of a back-of-the-envelope calculation, are estimating that over the course of its history the universe has seen at least half a trillion technologically advanced species. Remember, 420 billion intelligent civilizations is the “pessimistic” estimate. But sadly—or happily, depending on your view of aliens—it doesn’t make us any less alone.