Scientists may have finally solved a problem that has plagued beer drinkers for ages: Insufficient foam resiliency.
As any beer drinker can tell you, a tall glass of lager without a white, foamy head on top just doesn't look right. And even if you start out with one, it can dissipate fast. And that's just sad.
Now, microbiologists have identified the specific gene in yeast responsible for a beer's head and they say this discovery can lead to stronger, longer lasting, more aesthetically pleasing foam on your favorite brews.
Credit Thorsten Wiehle / Berlin Forestry Commission
Some 3,000 wild boars are estimated to roam Germany's capital. This 2008 picture provided by the Berlin Forestry Commission shows a sow and her offspring that decided to make their home outside an apartment building. Recently, a wild boar attacked and injured four people in a Berlin neighborhood.
Credit Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson / NPR
Wild boar, shown here inside an enclosure in a Berlin city park, are considered smart and quickly learn how to avoid hunters.
Credit Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson / NPR
In Berlin, streetwise swine often tear up grassy areas in city parks, residential areas, cemeteries and stadiums as they search for food.
Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 10:29 am
"PIGS" are a hot topic in Germany's capital.
Attend any press briefing about how German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to solve the European debt crisis, and you're likely to hear that acronym, which stands for "Portugal, Ireland (or Italy), Greece and Spain."
But recently, pigs of an altogether different variety made headlines in Berlin.
Brian Shaffer tests an exoskeleton developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University at a rehabilitation center in Franklin, Tenn. The exoskeleton locks around the legs and feet. To stand up, a paralyzed person simply leans forward.
Credit Courtesy of Robert Markowitz/NASA
NASA recently announced the development of an exoskeleton for paraplegic rehabilitation use and astronaut strength training. NASA engineer Shelley Rea demonstrates the X1 Robotic Exoskeleton for resistive exercise, rehabilitation and mobility augmentation.
Credit Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
Paralyzed from the waist down, Amanda Boxtel walks with the aid of a bionic exoskeleton in London in 2011. Users learn to walk in the Ekso Bionics device with rehabilitation technicians controlling their steps before walking on their own.
Credit Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Claire Lomas, a paraplegic, walks the last mile of the London Marathon in May 2012. Starting out with 36,000 other runners, she averaged two miles a day with the help of a bionic ReWalk suit by Argo Medical Technologies.
Credit Courtesy of Parker Hannifin Corp/Ekso Bionics/Argo Medical Technologies/Rex Bionics
From left to right, the Vanderbilt exoskeleton, the Ekso Bionics exoskeleton, ReWalk by Argo Medical Technologies and Rex by Rex Bionics.
Credit Shepherd Center
A patient wears the Vanderbilt device in his wheelchair. The Vanderbilt researchers say that it has some advantages over others. It's lighter, breaks into three parts and fits in a small wheelchair.
Credit Adrian Malloch / Rex Bionics
Engineers at Rex Bionics in New Zealand developed an exoskeleton that allows people paralyzed from the waist down to walk again. Unlike other models, the Rex exoskeleton has a joystick control and doesn't require crutches.
Credit Joy Wilson / University of Houston
Steve Holbert (center), a paraplegic, demonstrates NeuroRex, a bionic exoskeleton suit augmented with a neural interface cap, developed by researchers at the University of Houston. Holbert controlled the robot's movements with his thoughts.
Credit Argo Medical Technologies
Robert Woo and Theresa Hannigan, both paraplegics, complete a one-mile walk in the ReWalk exoskeleton, developed by an Israeli company called Argo Medical Technologies. Argo's devices have been approved for personal use in Europe, but need FDA approval for sale in the U.S.
Credit Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Claire Lomas walks the last mile of the London Marathon on May 8, 2012 in London, England. After a riding accident left her paralyzed from the waist down in 2007, Lomas completed the race walking 2 miles a day over 16 days with the help of a ReWalk bionic suit (by Argo Medical Technologies).
Originally published on Wed November 14, 2012 10:31 am
Update at 10:25 a.m. ET. Pelosi Confirms:
Saying that she wants to work on "empowering women .... growing the economy ... [and] a healthy political climate," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California just confirmed that she intends to remain as leader of the Democratic caucus in the House.
Spectators react to Mitt Romney's concession speech early Nov. 7 in Boston. President Obama won virtually every swing state and comfortably won the electoral vote despite some polls projecting a Romney victory.
Originally published on Wed November 14, 2012 9:02 am
If voters were surprised to watch TV networks call the election for President Obama over Republican Mitt Romney minutes after polls closed in California last week, perhaps it was because of earlier statements like these:
--"Romney has pretty much nailed down Florida."
--"I think in places like North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, we've already painted those red, we're not polling any of those states again."
Eight days after his re-election, President Obama today holds his first full-scale news conference in the East Room of the White House since March.
It's safe to think that the White House had hoped the focus would be on subjects such as the fiscal cliff, taxes, the economy and the president's thoughts on what he can get accomplished in his second term.
Journalist Tom Ricks talks with NPR's Steve Inskeep on 'Morning Edition'
"No one should leap to any conclusions" about whether the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan did anything inappropriate when he was communicating with a Tampa socialite, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters today.
Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. A driver delivering takeout for a Chinese restaurant left his car running while he ran in an order. He comes back and guess what? No car. He called his boss, who called the next customer on the route to apologize. But they had their takeout. The car thief-turned delivery man made a few extra bucks. But at the next house on his route the cops were waiting. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
And I'm Linda Wertheimer.
More than two weeks after Sandy hit the Northeast, thousands of people in New Jersey are still unable to return to their homes. And as NPR's Laura Sydell reports, finding temporary housing has proven to be a confusing and difficult process for many storm victims.
It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
And I'm Linda Wertheimer. We've steadily been learning more about the people at the center of a military scandal. Retired general - and CIA director - David Petraeus resigned because of an affair.
INSKEEP: The affair was discovered when his mistress confronted another woman.
The word nonprofit evokes the image of a charity or a church, an educational institution, public radio station. But David Evans of Bloomberg Markets Magazine took a closer look at the world of nonprofits and discovered something that he considered suspicious. Even though many nonprofits make millions and millions in profits, they pay no taxes.
Congress is beginning a busy post-election session. Lawmakers have weeks to prevent higher taxes and spending cuts due to take effect at the end of the year. Then there are hearings on the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya and the scandal over the affair that ended the career of CIA Chief David Petraeus. Here's NPR's David Welna.
Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 9:21 am
I love Thanksgiving. It is the best food holiday on the calendar. However, one thing has always bothered me. Even the most accomplished cooks take unnecessary short cuts when it comes to preparing the Big Meal.
Some time ago, a man wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a hoodie drove a dirty Ford Explorer into a carwash in Fort Worth, Texas. As soon as the car came back clean, he got it filthy again, and drove to the next carwash. He did this with every single full-service carwash in town.
The man wasn't suffering from a strange mental disorder; Patrick Kinkade was a criminologist conducting an experiment.
Energy Of The Future? California company Sierra Energy is testing out a reactor that turns garbage — like these wood chips, metal fragments and plastics — into synthetic gas that can then be turned into a low-carbon diesel fuel.
Credit Christopher Joyce / NPR
Sierra Energy is testing a reactor that makes fuel in a warehouse at an old Air Force base near Sacramento, Calif.
California starts the ball rolling Wednesday on a controversial scheme to keep the planet from overheating. Businesses will have to get a permit if they emit greenhouse gases.
Some permits will be auctioned today; the rest are free. The big idea here is the state is putting a ceiling on emissions.
It's a gamble. And for this top-down climate plan to work, it has to usher in a greener, more efficient economy.
It was fun to call American sports commissioners czars, but once players started to have unions, a commissioner really became more like a majority leader in a legislature, trying to keep his party — the owners — together in their financial battles against the minority opposition, the athletes.
The Diamond Ring effect is shown following totality of the solar eclipse at Palm Cove in Australia's Tropical North Queensland Wednesday.
Credit Ian Hitchcock / Getty Images
A young boy gets ready to view the solar eclipse with his telescope on Wednesday.
Credit Ian Hitchcock / Getty Images
Totality is seen during the solar eclipse at Palm Cove, Australia.
Credit Greg Wood / AFP/Getty Images
The Diamond Ring effect is shown following totality of the solar eclipse at Palm Cove in Australia's Tropical North Queensland Wednesday.
Credit Ian Hitchcock / Getty Images
A spectator attempts to take a picture with his phone during the solar eclipse on Wednesday in Palm Cove, Australia. Thousands of eclipse-watchers have gathered in part of North Queensland to enjoy the solar eclipse, the first in Australia in a decade.
Originally published on Wed November 14, 2012 11:30 am
There were two minutes of stunning astronomical coincidence over Australia today.
It was a total solar eclipse and the images are just stunning:
The AP reports that people across Australia waited on boats, hot air ballons, hill tops and beaches waiting for the sublime moment. Some worried that clouds would obscure it.
But totality, or the point at which the moon completely covers the surface of the sun, lasted 2 minutes and 5 seconds and it was spectacular.
Steven Sinofsky introduces a new Microsoft tablet computer and Windows 8 software to the media in Shanghai on Oct. 23. The former president of Microsoft's Windows division has since left the company.
Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Scott Forstall demonstrates the new map application featured on iOS 6 during the 2012 Apple WWDC keynote address in San Francisco in June. Apple announced in October that he will leave the company.
In less than a month, two instrumental figures at two of the world's biggest tech companies have left their positions. Now industry watchers wonder whether the departures at Microsoft and Apple will mean dramatic changes of direction for the tech giants.
According to The New York Times, which broke the story, the law firm representing the man said he and Kevin Clash had a sexual relationship but it "was an adult consensual relationship."
California begins a new plan to ration greenhouse gas emissions from large companies on Wednesday. Big companies must limit the greenhouse gases they emit and get permits for those emissions. Above, the Department of Water and Power San Fernando Valley Generating Station, in Sun Valley, Calif., in 2008.
Credit Christopher Joyce / NPR
New energy-efficient dormitories at the University of California, Davis.
Credit Christopher Joyce / NPR
Stuart Woolf, managing director of Los Gatos Tomato Products, says he has already taken many major steps to increase his company's efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint. But he says California's new climate law is introducing new uncertainty and costs into the business.
California begins a controversial experiment to curb climate change on Wednesday: The state will start rationing the amount of greenhouse gases companies can emit.
It's the most ambitious effort to control climate change in the country. Some say the plan will cost dearly; supporters say it's the route to a cleaner economy.
Here's how the climate deal works. Big companies must limit the greenhouse gases they emit — from smokestacks to tailpipes — and they have to get permits for those emissions. The clock starts Jan. 1.
Soldiers of the U.S. Army V Corps conduct a color casing ceremony to mark the departure of V Corps headquarters from Europe on May 10, 2012, at the U.S. Army base in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Although the story so far is of a personal failing, it's possible that the widening sex scandal surrounding retired Gen. David Petraeus will begin to affect the military's reputation as a whole.
"David Petraeus suddenly falling that far off that high a pedestal is feeding into the question: Have we been giving these guys too much of a pass?" says Barbara Bodine, who teaches public affairs at Princeton University.
Political observers are still working through the rubble of the unprecedented $6 billion presidential campaign, but we're getting a steady stream of reaction and analysis.
The liberal advocacy groups U.S. PIRG and Demos have one of the most striking numerical comparisons: 1.4 million to 61.
David Petraeus, then-CIA director, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January. Petraeus resigned Friday after acknowledging an extramarital affair.
The FBI review of sensitive email messages between former CIA Director David Petraeus and his biographer-mistress Paula Broadwell has been raising big questions about Big Brother.
One of them: When can federal law enforcement review a person's private communications?
To Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, the real scandal over the Petraeus affair is not the extramarital sex, but the invasion of privacy.
France recognized the newly formed collection of rebel groups in Syria as the country's legitimate government today.
The New York Times reports that France is first European country to take that step and perhaps more importantly, France also left open the possibility of arming the rebels.
We're heading toward that time of year when self-help industry publishers rub their hands together in anticipation. The holiday season and the inevitable New Year's resolutions that follow tend to turn our minds toward happiness — getting it, keeping it and maintaining it. But journalist Oliver Burkeman says whatever your plan, you are most likely doing it wrong.
On Election Day, residents in Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Above, marijuana plants grow at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center in Los Angeles.
Credit Ron Wurzer / Getty Images
Betsy Burbank shows off her homemade flag at Seattle's Hempfest in August 2003.
Credit Newsweek Daily Beast Company
Tony Dokoupil is a senior writer for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
When reporter Tony Dokoupil was a teenager, he found out that his father had sold marijuana, but he just thought his parents "were hippies." A few years ago, while working on a story about his father's drug dealer past, he discovered that actually, in the 1970s and '80s, his father, Anthony Dokoupil, had been a big-time marijuana smuggler.
"He was arrested in the early '90s on a job selling 17 tons of marijuana," Dokoupil tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "which was enough at the time to roll a joint for every college kid in the U.S."
