The Complex Tale of Eisenstein Prime Numbers

Eisenstein Prime Numbers and Units - Image by Januszkaja

Last week’s “Several Different Paths to Prime Numbers” opened with this intriguing image. Unfortunately, there was no room to answer the question “What are Eisenstein primes?” An Explanation of an Eisenstein Prime Number We already know that a “prime number” is a number that can only be evenly divided by itself and the number one. [...]

Ocean Acidification: Causes and Possible Consequences

The Mississippi river is heavily affected by eutrophication - Image by NASA

New research, published October 23 in Nature online, shows that the oceans are more acidic than expected. The study was performed at the University of Georgia, studying the acidity of coastal waters impacted by nutrient-rich large rivers in the Gulf of Mexico and the East China Sea. Results showed a level of acidity higher than [...]

Losing the Plot: Can Explosions Trigger Earthquakes?

bomb

It’s a popular plot device in disaster movies. Cinema audiences sit munching their popcorn, while the villain plants a bomb (preferably nuclear) somewhere in California and holds the world to ransom with his (or her) threat to generate a mega-earthquake and destroy the world. But if you’ve ever woken in the night in a cold [...]

Icy Temperatures Chill the Bones of New Yorkers This Halloween

snow_covered_cars_3

In New York, it’s beginning to feel a lot like … Halloween? Bone-chilling cold is gripping the state, with temperatures dipping below 40 degrees. Cold, steady rain and snow flurries fell on New York this week as the temperature hovered around the freezing point. On Halloween, the temperature will rise a little and the high [...]

Parasite Gene Makes Caterpillars Do its Bidding

Gypsy moth catepiller on leaf

The first solid genetic proof of an extended phenotype, a concept postulated by Richard Dawkins in 1982, has just been reported by Kelli Hoover and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in University Park, as well as from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service in Delaware, Ohio. These researchers have identified a viral gene that induces [...]