Worst convention ever
On May 7, an MIT time traveler convention attracted over 400 people from the present, but not a single (genuine) specimen of Star Fleet’s finest. But there was some drama during the countdown to 10 pm: a podium collapsed during an MIT professor’s lecture; later, audience members flinched when a musician dropped his guitar on a cymbal. But only fog from a smoke machine floated in the designated landing pad area as the appointed time passed. Students then raided the treats that had been set out for their time-traveling guests. Event organizers have argued only one such convention would ever be needed, since future time travelers could just attend retroactively-as long as word of it survived far into the future.
-Mike Ghenu
Source: Wired

Leprosy, influenza and small pox (oh my)
Scientists have mapped the genome of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, the cause of leprosy, hoping to find the origin of this crippling disease. Leprosy is one of humanity’s oldest diseases, and is found in nearly every country on Earth. An analysis of 175 different strains of the bacterium indicates that the variants are so similar that they are all derived from one individual bacterium, which likely came from either Central Asia or East Africa. Moreover, it appears the disease was not brought by native Americans who came to the Americas across the Bering Strait. Rather, the study indicates that leprosy came with immigrants from Europe and slaves from East Africa, adding leprosy to the long list of diseases introduced to the new world by the old.
-Zoe Cormier
Source: Science

Seas warm and fish migrate
The North Sea, located along Europe’s northeast coast between Britain and Scandanavia, warmed by 0.6°C between 1962 and 2001, and already commercial fish populations have felt the heat. Scientists report in Science this week that 21 of 36 species of fish living near the bottom of the North Sea have shifted range in response to this warming. Fifteen species moved northwards (by as much as 400 kilometres), and six moved into deeper waters. Moreover, the scientists note, warmer waters seem to make fish breeding more difficult. Together, these results indicate that fish stocks-already under serious pressure from overfishing-may plummet in the near future; the study’s authors predict that the redfish and the blue whiting will disappear from the North Sea within 50 years.
-Z.C.
Source: Nature