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NYT / Science News

Lottery Adds to Prizes: Now Gas as Well as Cash
08 07 2008 The state lottery in Florida is offering free gasoline for life as second prize, and some people are hoping they don’t get first.

Europeans Reconsider Biofuel Goal
08 07 2008 European officials proposed scaling back drastically on their goal of increasing Europe’s use of biofuels, a major about-face on a central environmental and energy issue.

Large Solar Energy Array Set for G.M. in Spain
08 07 2008 The solar electric system on the roof of a G.M. assembly plant in Spain will be the largest in the world, a thousand times larger than most projects.

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New Scientist / Breaking news


Global network of specialist correspondents providing comprehensive coverage of science and technology news.

Rings, dunes and geysers: The best Cassini images
09 07 2008 Experience the beauty of Saturn and its moons close-up with Carolyn Porco, head of the Cassini mission's imaging team

Eight new natural wonders added to Heritage List
08 07 2008 Sites include Surtsey, formed by volcanic eruptions in the 1960s, pristine lagoons and a Canadian fossil bed that hosts the earliest known reptiles

Why G8 climate pledge doesn't go far enough
08 07 2008 The world's leading economic powers have agreed to emissions cuts, but lack of precise figures has disappointed environmentalists

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Reuters / Science news

Hurricane Bertha weakens in Atlantic
09 07 2008 MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Bertha weakened rapidly as it headed in the direction of Bermuda on Tuesday, just a day after suddenly burgeoning into the first major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season, forecasters said.

Hurricane Bertha begins to weaken in Atlantic
08 07 2008 MIAMI (Reuters) - The first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season began to weaken on Tuesday in the open Atlantic as it headed in the direction of Bermuda, U.S. forecasters said.

New vaccine sneaks into body, then self-destructs
08 07 2008 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new type of vaccine that sneaks into the body and then self-destructs -- all without needles -- may offer a new way to protect against a range of diseases, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

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SciDev / Latest news


Latest news on science, technology and the developing world

Uganda pilots scientist�'MP 'shadowing scheme'
08 07 2008 The Uganda National Academy of Science will trial a new pairing scheme where scientists shadow MPs and vice versa.

African 'wall of trees' gets underway
07 07 2008 Preparations are rife for Africa's 'Great Green Wall', a measure to prevent desertification, three years after it was first proposed.

Cuban kids 'leading the way in science and maths'
05 07 2008 Children in Cuba have achieved the highest scores in science and maths, according to a study of 16 countries in the region carried out by the UN.

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AllAfrica / S&T


AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.

Uganda: MUK Gets Online Laboratories
08 07 2008 MAKERERE University engineering students will no longer grumble over lack of laboratory equipment to do assignments.

Nigeria: NLNG Presents 2008 Science Prize Award
08 07 2008 Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) yesterday presented the 2008 Nigeria Prize for Science award worth $50, 000 to Dr Ebenezer Meshida in Lagos for his work on solution to road potholes.

Tunisia: Minister of Higher Education Pays Tribute to Tunisian Nasa Scientist
07 07 2008 During a ceremony organized at the headquarters of the Ministry of higher education scientific research and technology, Mr Lazhar Bououni, paid tribute to the Tunisian scientist Mr Mohamed Laoucet Ayari, scientific advisor at the American National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), and stressed the desire of his ministry to strengthen ties with foreign universities.

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UNU-MERIT / Innovation & Technology news


Weekly news from the Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology

Rubber 'snake' could help wave power get a bite of the energy market
07 07 2008 A device consisting of a giant rubber tube may hold the key to producingaffordable electricity from the energy in sea waves. Invented in the UK,the 'Anaconda's' ultra−simple design means it would be cheap tomanufacture and maintain, enabling it to produce clean electricity atlower cost than other types of wave energy converter. The Anaconda is closed at both ends and filled completely with water. Itis designed to be anchored just below the sea's surface, with one endfacing the oncoming waves. A wave hitting the end squeezes it and causesa 'bulge wave' to form inside the tube. As the bulge wave runs throughthe tube, the initial sea wave that caused it runs along the outside ofthe tube at the same speed, squeezing the tube more and more and causingthe bulge wave to get bigger and bigger. The bulge wave then turns aturbine fitted at the far end of the device and the power produced isfed to shore via a cable. When built, each full−scale Anaconda device would be 200 metres long and7 metres in diameter, and deployed in water depths of between 40 and 100metres. Initial assessments indicate that the Anaconda would be rated ata power output of 1MW (roughly the electricity consumption of 2000houses) and might be able to generate power at a cost of 6p per kWh orless. Although around twice as much as the cost of electricity generatedfrom traditional coal−fired power stations, this compares veryfavourably with generation costs for other leading wave energy concepts.

Cleaned up skies explain surprise rate of warming
07 07 2008 Goodbye air pollution and smoky chimneys, hello brighter days. That'sbeen the trend in Europe for the past three decades − but unfortunatelycleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce theatmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred.Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: muchmore than expected from greenhouse−gas warming alone. Researchers at theInstitute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland tookaerosol concentrations from six locations in northern Europe, measuredbetween 1986 and 2005, and compared them with solar−radiationmeasurements over the same period. Aerosol concentrations dropped by upto 60 per cent over the 29−year period, while solar radiation rose byaround 1 watt per square metre. The latest climate models are built on the assumption that aerosols havetheir biggest influence by seeding natural clouds, which reflectsunlight. However, the team found that radiation dropped only slightlyon cloudy days, suggesting that the main impact of aerosols is to blocksunlight directly.

'Time reversal' allows wireless broadband under the sea
07 07 2008 Wireless communication in the ocean is difficult because water moleculesabsorb radio waves very efficiently, an effect exploited by microwaveovens. Acoustic signals travel better, but also degrade quickly due toechoes, ambient noise, swirling currents and, again, water absorbing thesignals. But a technique called acoustic time reversal can change that.Time reversal exploits the way undersea acoustic signals typicallyarrive clouded by echoes that travel at different speeds. For example, a'ping' may arrive as three separate sounds − one that travelleddirectly, an echo from the surface and then an echo from the oceanfloor. If the receiver transmits the same sequence of sounds backwards,they will take the same routes back to the original source. But becausethe sound that took the longest to travel is sent first, thesecond−slowest next, and the fastest last, all three will arrive atabout the same time at the original source. In effect, they converge intime, reconstructing the original signal, according to researchers atthe Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, and NATO UnderseaResearch Centre in Italy. To use this technique for communication, a person that wishes to receivea message first transmits a carrier signal. The sender time−reverseswhat they receive, and also alters it to carry a message before sendingit back. The receiver gets a clean enough version of the original signalto decode the added message. The researchers managed to use thetechnique to transmit 15 kilobits a second at a range of 4 kilometres,and 5 kilobits per second at 20 km. It even worked over 3,500 km −comparable to the distance some whales can communicate with song −although the data rate fell to only about 100 bits per second.

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Scientific American / News


Science news and technology updates from Scientific American

Pot Boiler: A New, Faster Way to Heat Water [News]
09 07 2008 Many recipes and procedures call for bringing water to a roiling boil--from making the perfect cup of tea to generating electric power. But the bubbles that denote the rapid transformation of water from a liquid to a vapor, otherwise known as steam, actually slow the process. The normal, microscopic imperfections--holes, gaps and voids--on the surfaces of everything from industrial boilers to pots and pans create pockets where air is trapped and liquid water can become steam. But the process in each void ends after a steam bubble develops and travels to the surface, because water subsequently fills the gap where it formed. [More]

World Wide Wellness: Online Database Keeps Tabs on Emerging Health Threats [News]
09 07 2008 News travels fast--especially online--and a group of scientists intends to put this to good use by monitoring and trying to stop infectious diseases in their tracks. Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School have launched a data-mining project called HealthMap. This automated system scours news services and online discussion forums, pooling information about emerging health threats worldwide. [More]

Minor Quakes Rattle Japan and Peru [News]
09 07 2008 A late-afternoon earthquake hit the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, about 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) from Tokyo, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says. About an hour and a half later, the USGS also reports, an earthquake shook Peru, 450 miles (725 kilometers) southeast of Lima. Don Blakeman, an earthquake analyst at the USGS, told ScientificAmerican.com that the two Pacific Rim tremors are probably unrelated. "We don't really see evidence for one triggering the other at those distances," he explains. [More]

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ABC Science Online / News


Australian Broadcasting Corporation's online gateway to science

Aboriginal tattoos reflect art, culture
08 07 2008 Indigenous Australian body art, such as tattoos and intentional scarring may help to unravel mysteries about where certain groups traveled in the past, what their values and rituals were, and how they related to other cultures, according to an Australian researcher.

Older men told to 'use it or lose it'
08 07 2008 There's new advice for older men who want to preserve their sexual function: have sex, and have it often, researchers say.

Microbicides could lead to tougher HIV
08 07 2008 A new mathematical model shows that microbicide gels currently being developed to prevent HIV infection in women could lead to enhanced HIV drug resistance, and paradoxically offer more protection to men.

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CBS News / Science and technology


Science & Technology News from CBSNews.com

Artists Get Creative In "Vomit Comet"
08 07 2008 Three British artists tried to make art in zero gravity - one used a cat and a mouse for a performance piece - aboard an aircraft used to train cosmonauts, but only one completed his work. The other two artists felt ill.

Keeping Text Messaging Bills In Check
08 07 2008 Recent price hikes are making it tougher, but CNET's Natali Del Conte had tips to help you, on The Early Show.

Microsoft Backs Play To Dump Yahoo Board
08 07 2008 Microsoft Corp. threw its weight behind investor Carl Icahn's effort to dump Yahoo Inc.'s board, saying that a successful shareholder rebellion would encourage the software maker to renew its bid to buy Yahoo's Internet search engine.

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MSNBC / Science / News

Stolen artifacts to be returned to Colombia
09 07 2008

Delicately carved emeralds, rare gold nose rings and clay vessels that may have held bones more than 2,000 years ago �' all plundered from ancient graves �' will be returned to Colombia.

Top 10 oddball animals
09 07 2008

From the bushy-tailed aye-aye to the seafloor-dwelling yeti crab, these wonderfully weird creatures live on nature's fringes.

Dozens of new World Heritage Sites named
09 07 2008

Fujian Tulou (China), 46 multi-storey earthen houses built between the 12th and 20th centuries over 120 km in south-west of Fujian province. They house up to 800 people each. Built for defence purposes, they were called

World heritage is a terrible thing to waste. Fortunately, for 27 places around the globe, that shouldn’t be an issue as they’ve just been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites.

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PhysOrg.com / Science and technology / news

New study finds that some plants can adapt to widespread climate change
08 07 2008 While many plant species move to a new location or go extinct as a result of climate change, grasslands clinging to a steep, rocky dale-side in Northern England seem to defy the odds and adapt to long-term changes in temperature and rainfall, according to a new study by scientists from Syracuse University and the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) published online in the July 7 issue of the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Intel, Dreamworks Animation Form Alliance to Revolutionize 3-D Filmmaking Technology
08 07 2008 Intel Corporation and DreamWorks Animation SKG today announced they have formed a strategic alliance aimed at revolutionizing 3-D filmmaking technology, beginning with Monsters vs. Aliens, which is slated for a domestic release date of March 27, 2009. As previously announced, DreamWorks Animation has committed to producing all of its feature films in stereoscopic 3-D beginning next year.

Researchers study ground cover to reduce impact of biomass harvest
08 07 2008 Ground cover may be one workable method to reduce the effects of erosion that future biomass harvests are predicted to bring. Iowa State University researchers are looking at ways to use ground cover, a living grass planted between the rows of corn, in production farming.

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