May 2010 Archives
May 28, 2010 5:39 PM
Third Time's a Charm for COMPETES Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation today that endorses healthy spending increases for three federal research agencies. The Democrats—and a handful of Republicans--who backed the bills had twice...
May 28, 2010 5:02 PM
|
Blogging Scientists Tracking 'Second Plume' in Gulf
Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia is on a 2-week research cruise to study the deepwater plumes from the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. The research vessel Walton Smith...
May 28, 2010 3:31 PM
|
Emergency Toxics Lab Just in Time for Gulf Disaster
Analytical chemist Vincent Paez, an official with analytical chemistry giant Thermo Fisher Scientific, set up the new Food Safety Response Center in Dreieich, Germany, this year after feeling that...
May 28, 2010 3:05 PM
|
Royal Society Fellows Question Body's Climate Change Statements
For the past several years, the United Kingdom has taken the lead in rallying the world to fight global warming-or at least trying to rally it. While he was...
May 28, 2010 1:42 PM
|
Sand Berm Approved to Fight Oil; Scientists Skeptical
The state of Louisiana is poised to begin a large experiment in blocking oil from reaching its fragile wetlands. On 27 May, the Army Corps of Engineers granted an...
May 28, 2010 12:43 PM
|
University of Virginia Fights the State on Scientist Subpoena
The University of Virginia (UVA) decided yesterday to fight Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's subpoena of documents related to Michael Mann, a climate scientist who worked at the state...
May 27, 2010 4:51 PM
|
Congress Considers Synthetic Biology Risks, Benefits
A week after J. Craig Venter announced success in synthesizing a genome and using it to control a self-replicating cell, he was at the microphone again, this time testifying...
May 27, 2010 2:58 PM
Plumbing the Depths
NOAA's research vessel Gordon Gunter is headed toward the site of the oil leak to help investigate a key question: How much oil is spreading under water? The 68-meter-long fisheries...
May 27, 2010 1:41 PM
|
Gulf Spill Big But Not Enormous, Yet
A federally convened expert team has estimated that oil has been gushing from the wrecked Gulf of Mexico well two to four times faster than first guessed. At 12,000...
May 27, 2010 12:52 PM
Scientists Join Protests Against Award in Honor of African Dictator
Scientists—including two Nobel Laureates—and public health groups have joined protests against a new, highly controversial UNESCO award sponsored by and named after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of...
May 27, 2010 12:23 PM
|
How to Kill a Well With Gravity
Oil giant BP plc has a very long straw stuck 3048 meters into the Gulf of Mexico sea floor with oil and gas spouting out the top at several...
May 27, 2010 11:30 AM
|
European Universities Expect Lasting Damage From Spending Cuts
A report out last week from the European Universities Association (EUA) warns that recent government spending cuts across Europe in the wake of the economic slump will have a...
No Solution Yet to ITER's Budget Crunch
With only a few weeks to go before an important meeting of ITER's governing council, European nations failed at a meeting yesterday to agree on a way to guarantee...
May 27, 2010 11:10 AM
Cosmology, Pain, and Esoteric Mathematics Merit Million Dollar Shaw Prizes
For "profound" work in mathematics and for elucidating how the skin senses pain, respectively, Jean Bourgain of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and David Julius...
May 26, 2010 5:23 PM
|
Obama NASA Plan Comes Under Heavy Fire in House
Following a shellacking in the Senate 2 weeks ago, NASA brass pitching President Barack Obama's plan to reorient the U.S. space program took it on the chin from former...
May 26, 2010 5:20 PM
|
Follow the Top-Kill Procedure, Now Under Way
A helpful animation from CNN explains how mud will slow the oil flow and concrete will stop it completely—if the procedure works. In a detailed, 13-minute video produced by...
May 26, 2010 4:15 PM
Last Hurrah From National Academies Stem Cell Committee
Even though the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued stem cell guidelines last year, there's still a need for guidelines for research that remains off-limits for U.S. government-funded labs....
May 26, 2010 3:07 PM
|
Toxicity Aside, Dispersants Could Undermine Natural Oil-Eaters
Dispersants, which include molecules called surfactants, work much like dish detergent, helping clean up oil spills by breaking oil blobs into tiny droplets. Natural microbes in the ocean can...
May 25, 2010 11:57 AM
|
Flying Telescope Escapes 13-Year Purgatory to Glimpse Heavens
After cost overruns and delays that threatened to keep it grounded forever, a NASA airplane observatory is finally ready to take to the skies. Being launched today from Primdale Palmdale,...
May 25, 2010 11:38 AM
|
Brake Lines Cut on California Researcher's Car
Late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, someone cut the brake lines on an SUV parked in the driveway of a researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz....
May 24, 2010 6:05 PM
|
As Scientists Encounter Oil Some Find Death 'All the Way Down'
Scientists in the Gulf of Mexico are beginning to see oil from the blown Deepwater Horizon well intrude on their research sites. Nancy Rabalais, a biological oceanographer at the...
May 24, 2010 3:40 PM
|
Atlas of Gene Activity in Human Brain Launches
The Allen Institute for Brain Science has launched its map of gene expression in the human brain. The institute, started in 2003 with $100 million in seed money from...
Stay of Execution for British Science Funding
The United Kingdom's new ruling coalition government fulfilled a pledge today by announcing about £6 billion in cuts to this year's budget—and British science has seemingly survived the day....
May 21, 2010 5:26 PM
Can UNESCO's Tainted Science Prize Be Stopped?
Winning a UNESCO prize for your work in the life sciences—including a trip to Paris, a medal, and a $300,000 check—sounds quite prestigious. But what if the award was named...
May 21, 2010 12:44 PM
|
Official Responds to Scientists' Concerns on Human Remains
Archaeologists and anthropologists are concerned that a new rule implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, covering human remains and cultural objects that can't be culturally affiliated...
May 20, 2010 6:57 PM
|
Obama Orders Review of Synthetic Biology
President Obama has asked his bioethics commission to study the implications of research published today in Science describing the creation of a synthetic genome. In a letter today, Obama...
May 20, 2010 6:48 PM
|
Gulf Oil Threat to Florida Waning Fast
No one is lowering their guard just yet, but the chances are diminishing that significant amounts of oil from the ongoing Deepwater Horizon spill will soon make it to...
May 20, 2010 6:22 PM
|
Science Education May Not Be Rocket Science, Wieman Tells Senate
NASA has the right stuff for space exploration, says Carl Wieman, the Nobelist who President Obama has tapped to oversee the Administration’s heightened effort to improve science, technology, engineering, and...
May 20, 2010 5:43 PM
Oil Reaches Louisiana Marshes in Earnest
After several days of trickles and tarballs, serious oil slicks have arrived on the Louisiana coast. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) has 22 biologists in the...
May 20, 2010 5:02 PM
|
Researchers Fear 'Incalculable' Loss From Reburial Rule
Leading lights of anthropology have submitted a plea to the Department of the Interior to change a rule concerning how museums and universities are to dispose of "culturally unaffiliated...
May 20, 2010 4:48 PM
|
Congress Intends to Probe Genomics Companies
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce announced it would be investigating three personal genomics companies—23andMe, Navigenics, and Pathway Genomics Corp.—to determine how the companies analyze results and store...
May 20, 2010 4:46 PM
|
Nix the Florida Tarball
It was indeed a tarball that was collected from a Florida Keys beach, but the U.S. Coast Guard has analyzed it and found that it is not from the...
May 20, 2010 4:43 PM
|
Pentagon Directs Basic Research Funds to Applied Projects, Says Report
A scientific advisory group has found that the Department of Defense is spending a considerable portion of its basic research dollars to fund short-term, applied research projects, weakening the...
May 20, 2010 4:42 PM
|
BP Ordered to Switch Dispersants
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday ordered BP to switch to a dispersant that is less toxic than the ones currently being used, Corexit 9500A and 9527A. Representative Edward Markey (D-MA)...
May 20, 2010 4:35 PM
|
First Turtle Rescued
Michael Ziccardi, an Oiled Wildlife Care Network veterinarian advising the spill response in Louisiana, blogs that the first oiled turtle since the spill, a 2-pound Kemp's ridley, has been rescued...
May 20, 2010 3:56 PM
|
What's Happening to Marine Life?
Just after the spill, researchers at the state-funded Dauphin Island Sea Lab off the Alabama coast stepped up their existing research to trawl for plankton along a 56-kilometer stretch south...
May 20, 2010 3:45 PM
|
What's Happening to Fisheries?
On 18 May, NOAA shut down fisheries in a 118,000-square-kilometer area in the gulf. The move has threatened the lucrative shellfish industry. But the government says it is crucial...
May 20, 2010 3:41 PM
|
What's Happening to Life on the Sea Floor?
Two types of communities exist on the deep sea floor of the gulf. Where hydrocarbons seep out of the sediment, clams and mussels live with symbiotic bacteria that tap...
May 20, 2010 3:40 PM
|
What is Happening With the Oil?
The magnitude of the catastrophe will depend on the oil's fate: the amount of oil released, how the oil is transformed chemically and physically, and how far and wide...
May 20, 2010 3:36 PM
|
What is Happening to Coastal Ecosystems?
Coastal wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico have been under siege for decades. Chronic exposure to large amounts of oil could worsen their plight, killing marsh grasses and the creatures...
Upcoming:
Recent Articles
Categories
- Anthropology (29)
- Asia (196)
- Astronomy (17)
- Biomedicine (606)
- Botany (2)
- Budget (361)
- Defense (88)
- Earth Science (8)
- Ecology (154)
- Education (218)
- Energy (175)
- Environment/Climate (411)
- Europe (369)
- Evolution (5)
- Genetics (2)
- Medicine (12)
- Physical Science (81)
- Physics (76)
- Science Community (48)
- Space (128)
- Swine Flu (124)
- Technology (69)
- Top Story (112)
- White House (140)
Questions or feedback on this page?
Let us know.
News | Science Journals | Careers | Blogs and Communities | Multimedia | Collections | Help | Site Map | RSS
Subscribe | Feedback | Privacy Policy | About Us | Advertise With Us | Contact Us
© 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, eIFL, PatientInform, CrossRef, and COUNTER.