News Articles

Four living presidential science advisors, Democrats Drs. John H. Gibbons and Neal F. Lane and Republicans Drs. Edward E. David and John. P. McTague, have written an article called "Making a Critical Connection: Science Advice and the Next President", which highlights the need for the swift appointment of a science advisor whom President-elect Barack Obama trusts. 

In times of economic distress and plenty, ninety percent of Americans pray, more than half of us once a day or more. We pray for big things—to stay healthy, to keep our jobs, and to strengthen our relationships. And we pray for small things—to find parking spaces and missing items. Some of us are sure God exists and others pray simply to cover the bases. 

For years, pear-shaped people who carry weight in the thighs and backside have been told they are at lower risk for high blood pressure and heart disease than apple-shaped people who carry fat in the abdomen. But new findings from nutrition researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggest body-shape comparisons don't completely explain risk.In two studies, they report excess liver fat appears to be the real key to insulin resistance, cholesterol abnormalities and other problems that contribute to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Having too much fat stored in the liver is known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

New images taken by instruments on board ESA's Venus Express provide a unique insight into the windy atmosphere of our neighbouring planet and reveal that global patterns at the Venus cloud tops are the result of variable temperatures and cloud heights.Using the spacecraft's ultraviolet and infrared cameras, the Venus Express team, including UK scientists, have been able to compare what the planet looks like at different wavelengths, allowing them to study the physical conditions and dynamics of the planet's atmosphere. These results appear today (4th December) in the journal Nature.

Can radiation from cell phones affect memory?The debate continues but in rat experiments done at the Division of Neurosurgery, Lund University, in Sweden, Henrietta Nittby studied rats that were exposed to mobile phone radiation for two hours a week for more than a year and says these rats had poorer results on a memory test than rats that had not been exposed to radiation.The memory test consisted of releasing the rats in a box with four objects mounted in it. These objects were different on the two occasions, and the placement of the objects was different from one time to the other.

No one really feels left out if they don't have an iPod.  An MP3 player is nice to have but not essential to the human condition.   But Spanish researchers who have carried out a study looking into the potential future impact of robots on society say that the enormous automation capacity of robots and their ability to interact with humans will cause a technological imbalance over the next 12 years - between those who have them and those who do not.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) today released a comprehensive analysis clarifying major challenges and offering an assortment of options that could help negotiators reach a global agreement on reducing carbon emissions tied to forest destruction and degradation.
The report, Moving ahead with REDD: Issues, options and implications, is set to be released as officials from around the world have gathered here under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Negotiators are seeking to outline a new global agreement for reducing greenhouse gases, which will set the stage for final decisions scheduled for 2009 in Copenhagen.

If you're happy and you know it, thank your friends—and their friends. And while you're at it, their friends' friends. But if you're sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego have found that "happiness" is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques. Happiness is also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion. 

The decline of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region. 

How a bacterium overcomes a tomato plant's defenses and causes disease, by sneakily disabling the plant's intruder detection systems, is revealed in new research published in the December issue of Current Biology. The new study focuses on a pathogen which causes bacterial speck disease in tomato plants. This bacterial invasion causes black lesions on leaves and fruit. Severe infection can cause extensive and costly damage to tomato crops, and researchers believe that understanding more about how this microbe works could lead to new ways of tackling it, and other plant diseases, without the need for pesticides.

Research carried out at MIT's Alcator C-Mod fusion reactor may have brought the promise of fusion as a future power source a bit closer to reality, though scientists caution that a practical fusion powerplant is still decades away.Fusion, the reaction that produces the sun's energy, is thought to have enormous potential for future power generation because fusion plant operation produces no emissions, fuel sources are potentially abundant, and it produces relatively little (and short-lived) radioactive waste. But it still faces great hurdles."There's been a lot of progress," says physicist Earl Marmar, division head of the Alcator Project at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). "We're learning a lot more about the details of how these things work."

Scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have determined the first 3D structure of ZP3, a protein essential for the interaction between the mammalian egg coat and sperm. The findings, presented in Nature, gives a first glimpse into the molecular architecture of animal egg coats, with important implications for the future of human reproductive medicine and the possibility of developing novel contraceptives.