Technology Review asked the prominent climate scientist, Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Centerin Asheville, North Carolina, to weigh in.

1. What's causing the recent heat waves and droughts?

This heat wave has a contribution from human activities, and you can expect these kinds of things to become even more extreme during both your and my lifetimes as we continue to increase greenhouse gases. As temperatures warm, they affect extreme weather events. It's quite clear that we're seeing, not only here in the U.S., but across the globe, events that we've never before witnessed in our instrumental record, and it's quite apparent there's a human contribution.

This was the second hearing that has been held this year on the nation’s supply of helium, driven by the very real concern that a legislative mandate will worsen already significant supply and price fluctuations. In May, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing on S. 2374, the Helium Stewardship Act of 2012. This 15-page bill, introduced by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) would require changes in the management of the nation’s federal helium reserve in Texas. Indicative of the interest there is in this problem are the nineteen Democratic and Republican senators, with a wide range of political philosophies, who have cosponsored this bill.

The July 20 House hearing demonstrated similar bipartisan concern. In his opening comments, Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) spoke of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) helium reserve and its impending closure, calling helium “vital to national security,” and warning of the “significant economic disruption” there will be to American manufacturers. Of note, he spoke of a global shortage of Helium-3. “The impending shortage of helium and H-3 could have disastrous consequences for U.S. industries that are dependent on helium to innovate, manufacture, and provide jobs for Americans,” Lamborn said. “Having identified these issues, the question is what is the solution? Clearly, Congress cannot simply allow this huge economic dislocation and national security threat, when action can be taken on alternatives. However, neither can Congress simply continue along in the process that has resulted in this critical juncture.”

Scientists have suggested that it might be possible to improve this ratio by exploiting Mott insulators in transistors. Mott insulators are materials that should behave as metals according to conventional band theories but that act as insulators under certain conditions owing to quantum-mechanical correlations between neighbouring electrons. For reasons that are complex and not entirely understood, however, sudden phase transitions can be induced between the insulating state and the metallic state. Among other things, this metal–insulator transition can be induced by an electric field. While the gate voltage in an ordinary transistor simply modulates the resistance of a semiconductor, the gate voltage in a Mott transistor could turn an insulator into a metal.

The study of quantum dots began in the 1980s. Quantum dots are very small amounts of semiconductor material (nanoparticles) whose size affects the allowed energy levels of the material. The electrons of the material usually reside in the lowest band of energy levels called the valence band. When the electron absorbs energy it is excited to a higher band of energy levels, levels called the conduction band, leaving behind an empty spot known as a hole. When the electron returns to the lower valence energy level it emits energy. How far apart the valence band and conduction band are depends on the size of the particle. The size of the particle controls what is known as the confinement energy, Figure 1. This means that the size of the particle can be used to control the different types of light the particles absorb and emit. Quantum dots have been created that absorb ultraviolet light and emit all of the colors of the rainbow depending on their size, rather than just what it is made of.

Quantum Dots and Cells

How does the quantum dot make a neuron fire? When a quantum dot is excited by light shining on it, it becomes polarized so that one part of the material is more positive and the other is more negative. This in turn sets up an electric field, which can interact with a neuron or other cell of interest. How strong that interaction is depends on how close the polarized quantum dot is to the cell. The closer it is, the stronger the interaction. The strength of the interaction also depends on the type of ion channel on the cell membrane. If the field set up by the quantum dot is strong enough, it can cause the ion channels to open and a transfer of ions out of and into the cell. For a neuron, this is "firing" the neuron or switching it on.

NASA: Astronaut bio - Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.

Nanopores and their rolled up version, nanotubes, consist of atoms bonded to each other in a hexagonal pattern to create an array of nanometer-scale openings or channels. This structure creates a filter that can be sized to select which molecules and ions pass into drinking water or into a cell. The same filter technique can limit the release of chemical by-products from industrial processes.

Graduate students are intellectually curious; not omniscient. They are human, and many quite young.

It is a skill we could all spare to learn.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall." Confucius

IEEE Spectrum: Nanoparticle Completely Eradicates Hepatitis C Virus

The Higgs boson is a subatomic particle whose existence was confirmed by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (known by its French acronym, CERN) on July 4. The discovery of the particle provides the last remaining bit of empirical evidence necessary for the Standard Model of physics, which seeks to explain the existence of all forces in the universe except gravity.

"Living well is the best revenge." George Herbert, English clergyman & metaphysical poet (1593 - 1633).

Steele and his colleagues found that when women were reminded — even subtly — of the stereotype that men were better than women at math, the performance of women in math tests measurably declined. Since the reduction in performance came about because women were threatened by the stereotype, the psychologists called the phenomenon "stereotype threat."

Stereotype threat isn't limited to women or ethnic minorities, Steele wrote elsewhere. "Everyone experiences stereotype threat. We are all members of some group about which negative stereotypes exist, from white males and Methodists to women and the elderly. And in a situation where one of those stereotypes applies — a man talking to women about pay equity, for example, or an aging faculty member trying to remember a number sequence in the middle of a lecture — we know that we may be judged by it."

NPR: How Stereotypes Can Drive Women to Quit Science