Earth System Science News

Computer models show how releasing clouds of fine particles could cool the planet

A Pennsylvania company is preparing to market a genetic test that will tell healthy people whether they are at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is getting a mixed response from researchers.
Author: Jennifer Couzin

Last week, both Democratic and Republican members of the House Committee on Science and Technology complained in one voice that President George W. Bush has fallen short on his promise to bolster U.S. innovation in his 2009 budget request.
Author: Jeffrey Mervis

Harvard University has jumped into the contentious debate on open-access publishing with a plan to make research papers freely accessible online.
Author: Andrew Lawler

House Science Committee Democrats are charging that federal officials have suppressed a report on potential health threats from pollution in the Great Lakes and that officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may have punished a career federal scientist who oversaw it.
Author: Jocelyn Kaiser

HIV prevention research suffered another setback this week with the failure of the largest trial yet of a microbicide used by women to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.
Author: Jon Cohen

The use of new sampling techniques has cut by half the estimated number of wild tigers in India. A new report this week from the Indian government puts the number at 1411, compared with 3642 in 2002.
Author: Pallava Bagla

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS–At the AAAS annual meeting here from February 14 to 18, a panel of top researchers discussed what, if anything, scientists have learned about the evolution of human intelligence.
Author: Michael Balter

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS–At the AAAS annual meeting here from February 14 to 18, psychologists presented a new study aimed at showing how poverty affects children’s memory and language skills, and others suggested a partial remedy.
Author: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS–At the AAAS annual meeting here from February 14 to 18, scientists discussed new work gauging how marine life will fare as rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere make oceans more acidic.
Authors: Eli Kintisch, Erik Stokstad

Companies are pursuing an array of projects that they hope will improve math and science education in U.S. schools. Can such corporate philanthropy succeed?
Author: Jeffrey Mervis

Motorola is funding a charter school in Chicago that is expected to be a test bed for university-based work on delivering STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in an urban setting.
Author: Jeffrey Mervis

Companies are eager to describe their philanthropic efforts to improve math and science education, but Science found that they can be less forthcoming about the details.
Author: Jeffrey Mervis

Like others who have rejected creationism and embraced evolution, paleontologist Stephen Godfrey is still recovering from the traumatic journey.
Author: Jennifer Couzin

Early finds from Chikyu’s first scientific voyage hint at a coming treasure trove of data on the generation of earthquakes, tsunamis, and other geological phenomena.
Author: Dennis Normile