Maybe not as many new species; peer support helpful; oxygen here earlier than thought; BPA controversy; new engineered material cools roofs; France calling out to scientists, etc. working on climate control – just a few of the themes in today’s eclectic collection of SciNews. Share these stories with your students and get them excited about science.
SciNews is published twice weekly. Stay tuned for more.
Biology
Number of species depends on how you count them. Science News
Genetic methods for counting new species may be a little too good at their jobs, a new study suggests. Read more…
Bullying hurts — but peer support really helps. Science News for Students
As a child, Belinda (not her real name) got teased for being short and “more sporty” than other girls. She now realizes the kids who taunted her “were kind of jealous of me.” Read more…
Chemistry
Oxygen flooded Earth’s atmosphere earlier than thought. Science News
The breath of oxygen that enabled the emergence of complex life kicked off around 100 million years earlier than previously thought, new dating suggests. Read more…
In BPA safety war, a battle over evidence. Science Mag
In the 1930s, a U.K. biochemist made a curious observation that today remains at the centre of a raging debate about chemical safety. He noticed that the synthetic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) weakly mimics the human hormone estrogen. Read more…
Physics
New engineered material can cool roofs, structures with zero energy consumption. Science Daily
Engineers have developed a scalable manufactured metamaterial — an engineered material with extraordinary properties not found in nature — to act as a kind of air conditioning system for structures. It has the ability to cool objects even under direct sunlight with zero energy and water consumption. Read more…
Earth and Space Science
Climate scientists wary of Trump: Please come to France, says presidental hopeful. Science Mag
The mediagenic wunderkind of French presidential politics has a message for U.S. scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs working on climate change and worrying about their future under President Trump: Come to France. Read more…