On the Record
“It is not enough to be a corpse any more. Now you have to be a politically correct corpse.”
Michigan funeral director Thomas Lynch on ‘green’ cemeteries, which use biodegradable coffins.
“It could potentially be a showstopper if somebody gets suicidal on the way to Mars.”
Psychiatrist Nick Kanas tells NASA it should worry about astronaut stress.
“We realized that using a cruise liner makes it impossible for many participants to rightfully cover their expenses.”
A meeting organizer explains why the First International Symposium on Nanotoxicology has shifted venue from a Caribbean cruise ship.
Scorecard
White bread
After eight years and millions of dollars spent on research, US scientists figure out a way to sneak whole grains into white loaves.
Urine
Singaporean physicists have developed a paper battery that generates power from pee. They say it could be used in cheap biological home-testing kits, but will consumers go for it?
Lab safety
An employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally brings americium-241 to family homes, and ships some to Pennsylvania, triggering a four-state sweep for radiological material.
Datapoint
Percentage of scientists who say they don't believe in God.
Biologists 41%
Physicists 41%
Chemists 27%
Source: Elaine Ecklund and Christopher Scheitle, unpublished work presented at the 2005 meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion.
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Sidelines. Nature 436, 898 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/436898a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/436898a
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