BBC Science/Nature

Smallest planet shrinks in size
The smallest planet in the Solar System has become even smaller, studies by the Messenger spacecraft show.
4 Jul 2008 at 6:42am


Sulston argues for open medicine
Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston says medical profits are taking precedence over the needs of patients.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:06am


Badger cull proposals 'rejected'
The government has decided against a cull of badgers in England to control TB in cattle, the BBC understands.
4 Jul 2008 at 3:30am


Italy declares Pompeii emergency
Italian ministers declare a "state of emergency" over the disrepair at the ancient city of Pompeii.
4 Jul 2008 at 1:26pm


Physics names winners and losers
UK physics and astronomy will spend nearly £2bn in the next three years, but some programmes face cuts.
3 Jul 2008 at 7:57am


Stolen fossils back in Argentina
Four tonnes of dinosaur bones and other fossils stolen from Argentina are back home after being seized in the US.
3 Jul 2008 at 10:15pm


Australia 'needs carbon trading'
An Australian government advisor on climate change calls for a national emissions trading scheme to combat global warming.
4 Jul 2008 at 6:09am


Diamonds hint at 'earliest life'
Tiny slivers of diamond may contain the earliest traces of life on Earth, a study finds.
2 Jul 2008 at 12:13pm


Extinction risk 'underestimated'
Current methods used to assess species on the brink overlook some key factors, a team of scientists claim.
3 Jul 2008 at 6:37am


US 'pregnant man' gives birth to baby girl
An American man who was born female but underwent gender reassignment gives birth, US media report.
3 Jul 2008 at 5:10pm


Feeling the heat - centuries of knowledge of surviving in world's drylands at...
Centuries of knowledge needed to survive in the world's drylands are being sacrificed in the name of progress.
17 Jun 2008 at 5:45am


Mechanics of curbing climate change
Despite recent criticisms, the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism is delivering the goods.
10 Jun 2008 at 7:24am

Climate regrets
Japan rues being bundled into a Kyoto deal
4 Jul 2008 at 9:23am

Machine music
Punk-loving robots pogo in the name of science
4 Jul 2008 at 3:55am

Ocean robbery
Illegal fishing is a blight on nature and the poor
2 Jul 2008 at 6:55pm

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 Space.com

Giant Jupiter Shines Bright
Three planets are now putting on a show as prominent evening luminaries.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Volcanoes on Mercury Solve 30-year Mystery
First MESSENGER flyby confirms volcanism, gives data on Mercury's magnetic field.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

The Future of Space Robots
Future robots may cooperatively explore alien worlds.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Mars Lander's Next Bake Test Could Be Its Last
NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander's next whiff of Martian dirt could be its last.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Adopt a Scientist
A new regular feature highlights research undertaken by SETI scientists.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Strange Asteroid Shapes Explained
A vast database that shows asteroids are shaped by small impacts over time.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Voyager Spacecraft Reveals Solar System Edge
Voyager examines energy and magnetic forces at the solar system's edge.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Blog: The Road to Spaceport America
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

2 Men Charged in Killing of NASA Engineer, 3 Others
Police arrested and charged two men in the slayings of a NASA engineer and three others.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Physics and Fitness Meld for Space Tourist, NFL Player
Space tourist and former NFL player create sports for space.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Gamma-Ray Hunter Powers Up
NASA's new space telescope powers up for its mission.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Scientists Eager for Hubble's Facelift
Astronauts will fly the final shuttle trip to fix Hubble Space Telescope.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Phoenix Scrapes Up Water Ice Samples
Phoenix uses rasp to scrape ice samples, will deliver to onboard instruments.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

NASA to Deploy Solar Sail This Summer
Scientists hope to deploy a solar sail called NanoSail-D this summer.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

Earth's Cries Recorded in Space
Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles.
4 Jul 2008 at 11:04am

 Yahoo Science

Syria returns stolen marble artifact to Iraq (AP)

AP - Syria has returned a marble artifact to Iraq that was stolen from one of the country's archaeological sites.

AP - The Phoenix lander's first chemical sniff of Martian soil did not turn up any trace of the building blocks of life. Its next whiff could be its last.

AFP - Scientists with the US Phoenix lander will make their first analysis of Martian ice fragments in coming days but it could be the last done in one of the probe's small ovens, NASA said on its website Friday.

Reuters - A Chinese man who bought an emaciated pig who survived for 36 days under rubble after May's massive Sichuan earthquake and promised to care for it for life has been given an award by an animal rights group.

AP - North Korea said Friday it will not take further steps to dismantle its nuclear program until the U.S. and its other negotiating partners award fuel oil and political benefits promised under an aid-for-disarmament deal.

AFP - A review of the European Union's procedures for vetting genetically modified crops does not imply the policy will undergo far-reaching change, a French environment minister said Friday.

 RedNova

U.S. Bald Eagle Numbers Making Recovery
By H. JOSEF HEBERT WASHINGTON - The American bald eagle, a national symbol once almost wiped out by hunters and DDT poisoning, has not only survived but is thriving.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:00pm

Study: 'Grease' Good Electrical Conductor
U.S. scientists have discovered a process by which a kind of grease can make some plastics vastly better electrical conductors.
27 Jun 2007 at 3:01pm

Crash Dumps Pool Chemicals on A1A
By Kathleen Mcgrory, The Miami Herald Jun. 27--A truck carrying pool supplies and a tractor-trailer collided in Fort Lauderdale late Wednesday morning, sending pool chemicals splashing onto the road and causing traffic delays along the beach.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

New 3M Chemical Find Prompts State to Offer Bottled Water to Six Homes
By Bob Shaw, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn. Jun. 27--A chemical manufactured by the 3M Corp. has been found in a new area of Cottage Grove -- at high enough levels so the state is providing bottled water to six homes.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

AG Secretary Says PA's Dairy Efforts Increase Economic Impact By $185 Million
To: BUSINESS EDITORS Contact: Jean Kumm
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

Watching Over the Stampede Watermelon Feed
By Meghan E. Murphy, Greeley Tribune, Colo. Jun. 27--Dorothy Zabka inspects each slice of watermelon laid out on the table, wiping a speck of dirt from a rind here, combining two small slices on a plate there.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

Report Shows Significant Flaws in Briny Breezes Redevelopment Plan
The Florida Coalition for Preservation today released a report from the respected Iler Planning Group showing the proposed density of the Briny Breezes redevelopment project is grossly incompatible with the surrounding area.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

A Timeline of the Bald Eagle's History
By The Associated Press A timeline tracking the bald eagle's history, from its brush with extinction to its recovery.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

WIND-FARM PLAN STALLS - Power Agency Dies in House
By Timothy C. Barmann; Journal Staff Writer Language creating a power authority to enable renewable energy projects is stripped from a bill in the final hours of the Assembly session.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

Tahoe Fire Update: Fire Trucks at the Ready in South Lake Tahoe
By Mike Zapler and Leslie Griffy, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Jun. 27--Firefighters battling the stubborn Lake Tahoe fire brace for a day of erratic winds that are expected to wreck havoc with their efforts to corral the blaze.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

Bald Eagle Soars Back From the Brink
To: ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS Contact: Tony Iallonardo of the National Audubon Society, +1-202- 861-2242 ext.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

Tahoe Firefighters Brace for High Winds
By John Simerman, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif. Jun. 27--SOUTH LAKE TAHOE -- What happened Tuesday was unexpected. Today, they know it could get worse.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

Allard Secures Funds for Water
By Bill Jackson, Greeley Tribune, Colo. Jun. 27--WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., has secured almost $79 million in funding for Colorado as part of the 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

EPA: Dow Chemical Must Clean Up Tittabawassee Hot Spots Immediately
To: ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS Contact: Karen Thompson, +1-312-353-8547, thompson.karen@epa.gov, of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency CHICAGO, June 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 today notified Dow Chemical Co.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

CITGO Petroleum and Subsidiary Found Guilty of Environmental Crimes
To: LEGAL AFFAIRS EDITORS Contact: U.S. Department of Justice, +1-202-514-2007, TDD: +1- 202-514-1888 WASHINGTON, June 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A federal jury in Corpus Christi, Texas, found CITGO Petroleum Corp., and its subsidiary, CITGO Refining and Chemicals Co.
27 Jun 2007 at 6:04pm

 New Scientist

Cleaner fish calms predators with caresses
The parasite-eating fish turns its "cleaning stations" into reef safe havens, not only for itself, but for other species too

4 Jul 2008 at 10:26am

Giant rubber snake could be the future of wave power
A flexible water-filled cylinder that produces electricity as it is hit by waves is very efficient and offers benefits over other sea-energy devices

4 Jul 2008 at 8:09am

Body-sensing shirt could sharpen up your tennis swing
Clothing that can reveal exactly which of a person's muscles are active provides detailed feedback to sportsmen and women

4 Jul 2008 at 8:06am

Solar sail gets another chance for launch
As early as the end of July 2008, NASA plans to test solar sail technology in orbit with a tiny spacecraft called NanoSail-D

4 Jul 2008 at 6:53am

Do we have the technology to build a bionic human?
Electronic eyes give sight to the blind, while functioning penises are grown in the lab.
4 Jul 2008 at 5:59am

3D modelling gets the measure of stone axes
Archaeology is set to become more precise by using imaging software to get objective measurements of artefacts like stone axes (full text available to subscribers)

4 Jul 2008 at 4:10am

Mercury: The incredible shrinking planet
Data from the Messenger probe suggests Mercury has a molten core that is cooling and causing the whole planet to contract

3 Jul 2008 at 2:44pm

Pulsar's wobble provides new Einstein test
An extremely rare alignment between Earth and a pair of dense stars called pulsars reveals how bodies wobble in the presence of gravity

3 Jul 2008 at 2:00pm

Brain chemical may have role in cot death
Infant mice that produce less serotonin are more likely to die soon after birth – the finding may lead to ways to predict the deadly condition

3 Jul 2008 at 1:00pm

Greenland ice sheet slams the brakes on
Fears that meltwater could increase the speed at which glaciers flow into the sea, rapidly destroying the ice sheet, may be unfounded

3 Jul 2008 at 1:00pm

Wine chemical improves health but not longevity
Two studies find ways to improve the health of mice, but fail to find any life-extending effect with either the chemical or a key ageing protein

3 Jul 2008 at 11:44am

Microwave ray gun controls crowds with noise
A weapon that can project sounds directly into people's heads causes pain and incapacitation, and could be built inside a year

3 Jul 2008 at 11:06am

Lack of cracks may explain Peru meteorite mystery
A meteorite that hit the town of Carancas last year may not have fragmented in the atmosphere because it was unusually tough

3 Jul 2008 at 9:25am

Interview: It's a dog's life... again
Will you miss your dog when it's gone? Willing to fork out on a clone? Then biotech entrepreneur
3 Jul 2008 at 7:38am

Why satnavs are a detective's best friend
The location records routinely stored by in-car GPS units are a treasure trove of personal data, police investigators say

3 Jul 2008 at 7:22am

 Scientific American

Coal War: Georgia Court Halts Construction of New Coal-Fired Plant [News]

A Georgia court this week halted construction of a new 1,200-megawatt coal-fired power plant on the Chattahoochee River, dubbed Longleaf, because backers failed to provide a plan to limit climate change–causing carbon dioxide emissions from it. [More]

FLORENCE, TEX.--"Look at that--isn't it gorgeous?" Sandy Peck asks as she rinses dirt from a flaked stone about the length and width of a pinky finger. Peck runs a hose over soil on a fine-mesh screen, prodding at stubborn clods of clay with a muddy glove. "Look, there's another one."

View Slide Show of the Dig

The first flyby of the planet Mercury in more than 30 years is resolving some long-standing puzzles about the closest planet to the sun. Among the findings: the planet's iron-rich core seems to be shrinking, causing its crust to buckle and crack. [More]

What makes the unique sound of a Stradivarius violin?The wood, of course. Using x-ray images taken from multiple different angles, radiologist Berend Stoel of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands proved that the spruce and maple wood used in five violins made either by Antonio Stradivari or Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù--the rival master luthiers of Cremona--had fewer variations in their density than that in seven contemporary violins. The density of the wood determines how a violin resonates with sound, which may explain why Stradivarius and Guarnerius violins are coveted by musicians worldwide and fetch prices of several million dollars. It may also allow modern instrument makers to finally match the perfection of past masters. [More]

In a major step toward controlling the spread of tree-destroying gypsy moths, China has agreed to allow scientists to inspect forests near shipping ports to gauge the risk of the pests there hitching rides on ships to the U.S.

View Gypsy Moth Slide Show

Editor's Note: This story will be published in the next issue of Scientific American Mind.

The deadliest and most common type of brain cancer has a strange bedfellow: cytomegalovirus, a kind of herpes present in about 80 percent of the U.S. population. Now scientists are exploiting this coincidence to treat the cancer with a vaccine that targets the virus and slows tumor regrowth.

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

It took 13 years and countless hours of research to unravel the human genome. Now neuroscientists want to do their field’s version. A small group of researchers is advancing the emerging field of what they call “connectomics.” As genomics moved from individual genes to the entire genome, so connectomics wants to take us from individual neurons in our brain to the connections and wiring in the entire nervous system network. That involves nerve cells, the axons that stretch out like wires, the synapses that transmit information.

Capital punishment is legal in 36 states, but that does not necessarily mean all of the condemned will be executed. Some will languish behind bars for life and others may actually be exonerated and set free. Now researchers say they have built a computer system that can predict with 92 percent accuracy which death row inmates are most likely to be executed, a development they hope will lead to a fairer appeals process. [More]

Dear EarthTalk: How is it that hydrogen can replace oil to run our cars? There seems to be a lot of controversy over whether hydrogen can really be generated and stored in such a way to be practical? -- Stephane Kuziora, Thunder Bay, ON

Talk about milking an issue. Adding a new twist to the debate over the safety of hormones in milk, a new industry study concludes that injecting cows with a growth hormone known as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) designed to increase their milk production is environmentally friendly. Why? Because it has the potential of reducing the number of greenhouse gas–emitting dairy cows on the planet without decreasing milk production. [More]

Hurtling through space 31 years after its launch, the Voyager 2 spacecraft has sent back the most detailed view yet of the shock wave that marks the thinning of the solar wind, the charged particles streaming from the sun. [More]

To wear the winner's distinctive yellow jersey when this year's Tour de France ends in Paris on July 27, cyclists must make every second count throughout the race's 21 stages and 2,208 miles (3,554 kilometers). A bad day biking through the Alps can push a rider off the leader's list and deep into the pack, which makes access to the latest high-tech cycling equipment crucial.

View slideshow [More]

Dear EarthTalk: What initiatives are taking place on college campuses to reduce the footprints of these large users of energy and other resources?-- Shawna Smith, Hamilton, NY

The number 14 turns up conspicuously in discussions of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the soon-to-be world's biggest particle accelerator. Construction of its underground, 17-mile (27-kilometer) ring on a site near Geneva, Switzerland, has taken 14 years. It is designed to reach energies of 14 tera- (trillion) electron volts (TeV), or about seven times that of the Tevatron, the world's currently reigning accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.

And project leaders at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced today that next month workers should be done chilling the machine's 50,000 tons of magnets to temperatures colder than deep space--a bracing –456.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.9 kelvins)--making them ready to whip opposing beams of protons to near light speed and collide them so researchers can pick over the debris.

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]

Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps heat even better than carbon dioxide. It comes from a variety of sources, including fossil fuel production and even farming. Cows give off methane, ya know, after they eat. Even the surface waters of the ocean contain substantial amounts of this gas. But where that marine methane comes was a mystery. Until now.

 USGS Earthquake Activity

M 3.9, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska
July 04, 2008 16:41:20 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 11:41am

M 4.3, Central Alaska
July 04, 2008 14:35:49 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 9:35am

M 4.5, Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska
July 04, 2008 14:24:36 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 9:24am

M 2.5, Northern California
July 04, 2008 13:32:06 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 8:32am

M 3.8, northern Alaska
July 04, 2008 13:02:44 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 8:02am

M 3.0, Puerto Rico region
July 04, 2008 12:44:32 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 7:44am

M 4.7, near the north coast of New Guinea, Papua New Guinea
July 04, 2008 10:18:03 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 5:18am

M 3.0, Southern Alaska
July 04, 2008 08:08:07 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 3:08am

M 4.9, Ecuador
July 04, 2008 06:02:49 GMT
4 Jul 2008 at 1:02am

M 5.0, Laptev Sea
July 04, 2008 04:55:05 GMT
3 Jul 2008 at 11:55pm

M 3.1, Northern California
July 04, 2008 04:27:56 GMT
3 Jul 2008 at 11:27pm

M 3.2, Southern Alaska
July 04, 2008 04:26:38 GMT
3 Jul 2008 at 11:26pm

M 2.6, Fox Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska
July 04, 2008 04:13:26 GMT
3 Jul 2008 at 11:13pm

M 3.1, Puerto Rico region
July 04, 2008 04:00:54 GMT
3 Jul 2008 at 11:00pm

M 4.0, Guerrero, Mexico
July 04, 2008 02:15:48 GMT
3 Jul 2008 at 9:15pm

 Science Books at Amazon