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大家好!胖胖翔最近在准备托福,先从听力开始~ 不废话了,上次有同学反映科技文中关于生物的比较多,所以这次增加了一些新内容: NASA干了一件费力不讨好的事情; 想不到网络用户也可以掌握主动权; 二氧化碳原来可以放到岩石中~ Part I：Speed
【Time 1】
Article 1 If Facebook Can Profit from Your Data, Why Can’t You?
It has become the Internet’s defining business model: free online services make their money by feeding on all the personal data generated by their users. Think Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and how they serve targeted ads based on your preferences and interests, or make deals to share collected data with other companies (see “What Facebook Knows”).
Before the end of this year, Web users should be able to take a more active role in monetizing their personal data. Michael Fertik, cofounder and CEO of startup Reputation.com, says his company will launch a feature that lets users share certain personal information with other companies in return for discounts or other perks. Allowing airlines access to information about your income, for example, might lead to offers of loyalty points or an upgrade on your next flight.
The idea that individuals might personally take charge of extracting value from their own data has been discussed for years, with Fertik a leading voice, but it hasn’t yet been put to the test.
Proponents say it makes sense to empower users this way because details of what information is collected, how it is used, and what it is worth are unjustly murky, even if the general terms of the relationship with data-supported companies such as Facebook is clear.
“The basic business model of the Internet today is that we’re going to take your data without your knowledge and permission and give it to people that you can’t identify for purposes you’ll never know,” says Fertik.
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Resource: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517356/if-facebook-can-profit-from-your-data-why-cant-you/
这篇文章还有一部分，有兴趣的同学可以点击链接看完！
【Time 2】 Article 2 Giant Dinos Shared the Salad Bar
Things got pretty crowded in western North America about 75 million years ago. Back then, the region was an island less than one-third the size of today’s North America but hosted as many as eight species of herbivores that weighed a ton or more—a number unseen in today’s ecosystems and almost unprecedented at any time in the fossil record. Perhaps the dinos were just slow eaters, or maybe the ecosystems were exceptionally productive, researchers thought. But a new analysis of fossils found in southern Alberta suggests that the giants got along because they ate different things, a trend called “dietary niche partitioning” that didn’t put them in direct competition with each other. In an ecological study broader than any other for dinosaurs of this era, researchers looked at a dozen different aspects of the skulls and jawbones of dinosaurs from 12 groups of species representing three major lineages of megaherbivores: horned ceratopsians (left), duck-billed hadrosaurs (browsing on trees in background at center right), and the group that includes ankylosaurs and nodosaurs (second from left and at right in foreground, respectively). The analysis showed that each group had a distinct set of characteristics and therefore probably had different food preferences, the researchers report today in PLOS ONE. Surprisingly, the scientists say, even animals from within the same broad group of dinosaurs had diets sufficiently different from their cohorts for them to thrive among large numbers of herbivorous brethren. No throwing elbows at the salad bar, guys.
字数[246] Resource: http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/07/scienceshot-giant-dinos-shared-salad-bar
【Time 3】 Article 3 'Space Vikings' Spark NASA Inquiry
For Ved Chirayath, an aeronautics and astronautics graduate student and amateur fashion photographer, a photo project that involved NASA researchers dressed as Vikings was just a creative way to promote space science. “I started this project hoping maybe one day some kid will look at it and say, ‘I want to work for NASA,’ ” says Chirayath, a student at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who also works nearby at NASA’s Ames Research Center (ARC).
He never suspected that his fanciful image would put him in the crosshairs of a government waste investigation triggered by a senior U.S. senator.
Earlier this month, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, wrote to NASA chief Charles Bolden, asking him to investigate whether Chirayath’s photos involved the possible misuse of ARC funds and staff time. An “interested observer” had brought the photos to Grassley’s attention, Jill Gerber, the senator’s communications manager, tells ScienceInsider. In his 10 July letter, Grassley raised concerns about NASA spending on “non-mission critical activities” and asked Bolden to help him “better understand the participation of NASA employees and resources in this for-profit photography exhibit.”
Soon, agency investigators were asking questions—much to Chirayath’s surprise. “They made contact with just about every person who took part in the shoot,” he says. But there’s no smoking gun, he adds. His effort was strictly not-for-profit and didn’t involve ARC funds.
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【Time 4】
It all started in 2011, when Chirayath—a photo enthusiast whose subjects have included astronomical objects, marine and natural subjects, and nonprofit work he did in Kenya—was looking for ways to combine his love of fashion photography, laboratory-grade optical effects, and scientific topics. He applied for and won two Stanford University grants—totaling $4400—to create Physics in Vogue, an exhibition featuring 10 images that explore “profound contemporary physics discoveries.”
Last year, Chirayath began working at ARC, where he helps develop small, compact research satellites known as “CubeSats.” The technology, developed in part at Stanford, reminded him of Viking explorers who, from the eighth through 11th centuries, “travelled farther and saw more in much smaller ships than had been used before their time.” That connection inspired his Space Vikings photos, which led to a shoot this past December at a Palo Alto park on a weekday afternoon.
To stage the scene, Chirayath partnered with the Vikings of Bjornstad, a living history group that likes to dress up. He also recruited ARC Director Simon Worden, Chief of Staff Karen Bradford, and executive secretary Carolina Rudisel to slip into costume. The satellite mock-ups were on loan from Pumpkin Inc., run by a Stanford engineering professor.
After he posted the pictures online, Chirayath heard rumblings from co-workers that a blogger took issue with the executive staff’s appearance. He thought little of it until investigators started asking questions.
In the past, Grassley and other lawmakers have taken issue with ARC’s use of money, including whether it improperly housed aircraft owned by Google at NASA facilities. In this case, all Grassley wants is “a simple explanation” of the photos, Gerber says. “And that’s what he’s hoping to receive from NASA.”
NASA News Chief Allard Beutel says that although the agency has yet to send an official reply, it has concluded that “there were no taxpayer funds used” for Space Vikings. “The employees were on their time, not on work time.”
The flap has left Chirayath perplexed. “NASA can’t afford to promote their missions in this way and this is partly why I started this project,” he says. And that’s ironic, he adds, because “more was probably spent in taxpayer employee man-hours investigating me, my exhibition, and those involved than it might have cost” to produce the photos professionally.
字数[384] Resource: http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/07/space-vikings-spark-nasa-inquiry
【Time 5】
Article 4 Forty-Three University of Tokyo Papers Are Tainted, Says Japanese News Report
A leading Japanese newspaper reported today that a University of Tokyo investigative committee has identified 43 papers by a former university researcher that contain falsifications and fabrications. The Asahi Shimbun also reports that the researcher, molecular signaling specialist Shigeaki Kato, will ask journals to retract the papers. The front-page article reported that the problematic data were mostly manipulated images and appear in publications stretching back 16 years.
A university spokesperson tells ScienceInsider that the committee's report, apparently seen by at least one reporter, is not being released and could not confirm the claims made by the newspaper. Kato could not be reached for comment.
Questions about the Kato group's publications arose in January 2012 when an anonymous whistleblower posted a video online exposing allegedly duplicated and manipulated images in a number of papers. Kato resigned from the university's Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences in late March 2012. According to the Retraction Watch blog, Kato now has five retractions, including one from Nature, and has five Molecular and Cellular Biology papers subject to an expression of concern.
The Asahi article says that the report does not assign responsibility. But in a Q&A with Kato, the article quotes him as saying, "there is no doubt that there was impropriety." He is also quoted as apologizing and explaining that he didn't catch the impropriety because he trusted his lab members.
The university official said that the committee has concluded phase one of its investigation but could not say when the probe would be completed or when results would be released.
字数[258] Resource: http://news.sciencemag.org/education/2013/07/forty-three-university-tokyo-papers-are-tainted-says-japanese-news-report
Part II： Obstacle
【Time 6】
Article 5
Pilot Projects Bury CO2 in Basalt Two experiments are testing the viability of sequestering emissions in porous layers of hard rock
By early August, scientists will have pumped 1,000 tons of pure carbon dioxide into porous rock far below the northwestern United States. The goal is to find a permanent home for the carbon dioxide generated by human activities.
Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington, began the injections into the Columbia River Basalt formation near the town of Wallula on 17 July. The rock contains pores created as many as 16 million years ago, when magma flowed across what is now the Columbia River Basin. Bubbles of CO2 migrated to the edges of the magma as it cooled, forming layers of holes sandwiched between solid rock (see 'Rock steady').
In pumping emissions back underground, “we are returning the carbon dioxide from whence it came”, says Pete McGrail, an environ mental engineer at the PNNL who is heading the experiment, part of a larger energy-department program on ways to sequester carbon.
The Wallula project is the second of two worldwide to target basalt formations, which scientists hope can hold — and permanently mineralize — vast quantities of gas. In basalt, dissolved CO2 should react with calcium and magnesium to form limestone over the course of decades. Until the gas is locked away, the porous basalt layers are capped by solid rock that will prevent leaking. That should eliminate concerns about leakage that have dogged other proposals to store CO2 deep underground, often in sandstone reservoirs.
The basalt reactions are part of a natural weathering process that has helped to regulate atmospheric CO2 levels throughout geological time. Scientists have analyzed mineralization in the lab, but it is only now being tested in the field.
Researchers working on the other basalt project, based in Iceland and run by a consortium of US and European scientists along with Reykjavik Energy, made their first CO2 injections last year and will conduct another round this year. Early results look promising, says Juerg Matter, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, who is working on the Iceland project. “The mineralization reaction is most likely faster than what we in the community had thought,” says Matter, who has also contributed to the Wallula project. Assuming that holds true for basalt generally, “you reduce the risk of leakage, and you can pretty much walk away from your storage reservoirs”.
In Wallula, researchers are already monitoring a series of shallow wells around the injection site for signs of CO2 leaking into the soil and groundwater. Once the injection is finished, they will start taking samples from the injection well to monitor water chemistry, track changes in carbon isotopes and check for other evidence of reactions. Lab tests and computer simulations suggest that in general, around 20% of the CO2 should be mineralized within 10–15 years, says McGrail.
The pilot project, however, is operating on a shorter timescale. Fourteen months after the end of injection, the team plans to drill another well and pull up a core of rock to assess the results, says McGrail. “At that point, we are hoping to have some carbonized rock in our hands.”
But achieving sequestration is only half the battle: scientists and engineers must still work out how to capture CO2 from industrial facilities and transport it to the sequestration site cost-effectively. And even if a carbon-mineralization industry took off, establishing it on a global level would require an undertaking on the scale of rebuilding the oil industry.
Scientific opinions differ over whether it would be more desirable to stop burning fossil fuels than to undertake massive carbon-sequestration ventures — but if sequestration were to be favored, many think that basalt could be important. And although backers of large-scale basalt sequestration have so far explored formations in the US northwest and southeast as well as in India, many are also looking offshore, where the sea floor could accommodate CO2 emissions for centuries to come.
Carbon-sequestration research has until now tended to focus on sandstone reservoirs rather than basalt. There are two main reasons, says David Goldberg, a marine geologist at Lamont-Doherty. The oil industry is used to working with sandstone, and such formations are relatively common — making it easier to transport CO2 from a power plant or other source to a sequestration site. That might mean that sandstone is more economically viable than ocean basalt, at least in the short term. But Goldberg says that the best place to bury globally significant volumes of CO2 is offshore, where they will be safely capped by sediments and sea water.
A single formation off the US west coast, with an estimated storage volume of 685 cubic kilometers, has the potential to hold all the CO2 emissions the country produces in a century, Goldberg notes. “If we can make it work,” he says, “the oceans have a lot of advantages.”
But none of this will be cheap, says Kevin Johnson, a geochemist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu who has worked on lab experiments with McGrail’s team. “It’s a question of social importance — and whether the climate situation gets dire enough to justify the cost.”
字数[864] Resource: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pilot-projects-bury-co2-in-basalt&page=1 | 
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发表于 2013-7-30 22:35:30
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