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In Focus: Primordial Soup’s On: Scientists Repeat Evolution’s Most Famous Experiment
Their results could change the way we imagine life arose on early Earth
Douglas Fox

A Longevity Gene
Producer Chad Cohen reports on a new study probing the secret to living long.
NOVA scienceNOW

Bio Snapshot | Oil Spill on the Lebanese Coast

Oil Spill on the Lebanese Coast
Mediterranean Sea

The conflict in Lebanon has caused an oil spill feared to be the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history.

On July 13 and 15, bombs hit storage tanks at an oil-fueled power plant. Between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of oil leaked from the tanks and is drifting in the Mediterranean Sea. Satellites have helped monitor the spill, but due to the instability of the area, site visits and initial cleanup began only recently.

Scientists are concerned about the hazards the oil poses to biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea. It may coat bluefin tuna eggs floating in the water, and block young green sea turtles from swimming out to sea after hatching.

Image Credits 
Middle East, August 2004 (Blue Marble Next Generation: satellite: NASA Terra, sensor: MODIS)
Lebanon, July 16, 2006 (Satellite: NASA Terra, sensor: MODIS)
Lebanon/Syria (satellite: NASA Landsat 7, sensor: ETM+)
Oil slick data July 21/Aug 3, 2006 (Satellite: ENVISAT, sensor: ASAR, map: ©DLR 2006)
Oil fire and spill (AP)
Bluefin tuna (Tuna Research & Conservation Center, Stanford University)
Green sea turtle (U. Keuper-Benett/P. Bennett, www.turtles.org)

Related Science Bulletins
Massive Oil Spills Stain Louisiana (September 26, 2005)
Alaskan Oil Spill Cleanup Continues (January 17, 2005)

Focus on test and measurement

Reviews: Is Beauty Truth and Truth Beauty?
Why Beauty Is Truth looks at how Keats’s famous line applies to math and science
Martin Gardner

Engineering Fiction
Will MIT roboticist Karl Iagnemma soon be hobnobbing with the Hollywood jet set? One of Iagnemma’s acclaimed short stories has caught the attention of Brad Pitt. Hear more about it?and more?in this interview.
NOVA scienceNOW

Island of Stability
Follow the decades-long quest to create the elusive element 114.
NOVA scienceNOW

Bio Snapshot | Oil Spill on the Lebanese Coast

Oil Spill on the Lebanese Coast
Mediterranean Sea

The conflict in Lebanon has caused an oil spill feared to be the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history.

On July 13 and 15, bombs hit storage tanks at an oil-fueled power plant. Between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of oil leaked from the tanks and is drifting in the Mediterranean Sea. Satellites have helped monitor the spill, but due to the instability of the area, site visits and initial cleanup began only recently.

Scientists are concerned about the hazards the oil poses to biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea. It may coat bluefin tuna eggs floating in the water, and block young green sea turtles from swimming out to sea after hatching.

Image Credits 
Middle East, August 2004 (Blue Marble Next Generation: satellite: NASA Terra, sensor: MODIS)
Lebanon, July 16, 2006 (Satellite: NASA Terra, sensor: MODIS)
Lebanon/Syria (satellite: NASA Landsat 7, sensor: ETM+)
Oil slick data July 21/Aug 3, 2006 (Satellite: ENVISAT, sensor: ASAR, map: ©DLR 2006)
Oil fire and spill (AP)
Bluefin tuna (Tuna Research & Conservation Center, Stanford University)
Green sea turtle (U. Keuper-Benett/P. Bennett, www.turtles.org)

Related Science Bulletins
Massive Oil Spills Stain Louisiana (September 26, 2005)
Alaskan Oil Spill Cleanup Continues (January 17, 2005)

Highway shut for butterfly travel
A major road in Taiwan is to be partially closed to protect more than a million butterflies on a mass migration.

Seeing is believing? Sonographic artifacts
Several physical assumptions go into the production of a sonogram from an ultrasound examination. When those assumptions are violated, the sonogram incorrectly images anatomical structures and blood flow.