Science

Opportunity in Algae

StarTribune: Pond scum, or blue-green algae, is a common sight in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. For Blue Water Ponds, a start-up company operated by two recent college graduates, pond scum is a business opportunity. The company, which won the student division of the 2010 Minnesota Cup challenge, aims to prevent summer algae blooms with […]

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No More Cavities?

[] 1 [DI]2: The typical human mouth contains a writhing orgy of bacteria. Most of these microscopic organisms are benign, and some are even beneficial, but one particular variety is a conspicuous troublemaker: Streptococcus mutans. These ubiquitous bacteria thrive on sugars in the mouth, which they consume while excreting lactic acid. This acid is responsible

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Coming Soon: Talking Trees

Someday soon, you’ll be able to ask your trees whether they need more water… and they’ll answer you. They won’t use human voices, rather the bubbles that form insides of water-stressed trees create a unique ultrasonic sound that is detectable with the a carefully tuned microphone. To figure out how to listen to trees, the

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Scientific Cooking Bizops

Daily Freeman: Milk, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, transglutaminase, sodium citrate… It may not sound like the last grocery list you wrote, but the growing appeal of so-called modernist cooking — a science-tastic take on haute cuisine — has more home cooks adding laboratory-worthy ingredients and gizmos to their shopping. And that, of course, has spawned a

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