Scientific Fact: Young people smell worse than old people
Despite the jaw-dropping accomplishments of impressive senior citizens, our amazing elders suffer under the malodorous stigma that they somehow stink. Plenty of jokes can be found throughout pop culture suggesting the existence of a notorious Old Person Smell. Thankfully, science is here to save the day and prove that unfounded stigma is false. It turns out that the spice scent from the Old Spice Guy is actually old after all! Read more...
NSF study raises serious concerns about U.S. investment in technology
The National Science Foundation (NSF) just released a bevy of reports detailing American investment in science and technology, and the picture's grim.
While the size of the U.S. science and engineering workforce grew 24 percent between 2000 to 2010, to reach 6.65 million, the number of Americans working in high tech manufacturing dropped by 28 percent, and it's still headed down.
Make no mistake about it, high tech jobs still drive the American economy. NSF's numbers show that "Knowledge and Technology Intensive Industries" in the United States account for 40 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, compared to 32 percent for the EU and 30 percent for Japan. But the U.S.'s share of the world revenue for knowlege-intensive service industries (business, financial, and communications) has fallen from 42 percent of the world total in 2000 to 33 percent in 2010. At the same time, China's world share has gone from 2 percent in 1995 to 7 percent in 2010, largely due to a 20 percent per year growth in China's communications industry. Read more...
U.S. losing high-tech jobs, R&D dominance to Asia
U.S. companies are locating more of their research and development operations overseas, and Asian countries are rapidly increasing investments in their own science and technology economies, the National Science Board (NSB) reported this week.
While the U.S. remains the global leader in science and technology R&D, that lead is narrowing, asserts NSB, the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation. In particular, 10 countries in Asia -- China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand -- are closing ranks on U.S. leadership in science and technology.
The U.S. share of global R&D expenditures dropped from 38% to 31% between 1999 and 2009, according to NSB's new report, Science and Engineering Indicators 2012. Meanwhile, global R&D share in the Asia region grew from 24% to 35% during the same time frame. Asia's rapid ascent has been driven largely by China, where R&D growth spiked 28% in 2008-2009, landing it in second place behind the U.S. Read more...
Toads could be used to forecast earthquakes days before they happen
Aside from ionosphere disturbances, nature has a number of ways that signify an earthquake's arrival far earlier than an iPhone can. Animals, for instance, are known to leave their homes and head to safety anywhere from a few seconds to weeks before humans can feel quakes. It was easy enough for researchers to determine the science behind the behavior seconds before ground tremors are felt, but the explanation behind instances of animal exodus days or weeks prior to any seismic activity has eluded them — until now, that is. Rachel Grant from the U.K. Open University and Friedemann Freund from NASA believe they may have figured it all out, thanks to a colony of toads. Read more...