2007 June

Is believing that aliens alerted to human life on Earth will be friendly a naive and dangerous assumption? Tim Walker of the Belfast Telegraph writes:
We’ve been trying to make contact with aliens for years. Now the day is fast approaching when we might finally succeed. But will our extraterrestrial friends come in peace? Or will […]

A new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, AT&T Labs, and the University of Nevada, Reno suggests that an Internet where all traffic is treated identically would require significantly more capacity than one in which differentiated services are offered.
Findings from the study were presented June 22 at the Fifteenth IEEE International Workshop on Quality […]

Want to make a special breakfast for that special someone? Or just make a little something other than just bacon and eggs? Here is a simple and tasty breakfast item that is sure to please.
This dish is a classic for anyone who likes to kick off the day with a slightly sweeter flavor. And the […]

A USC Information Sciences Institute researcher thinks she has found a new source of artificial intelligence computing power to solve difficult IT problems of information classification, reliability, and meaning.
That tool, according to ISI computer scientist Kristina Lerman, is people, human intelligence at work on the social web, the network of blogs, bookmark, photo and video- […]

The body may hold a secret to normalizing skin cell growth that is over zealous in psoriasis and non-melanoma skin cancers and too slow in aging and sun-damaged skin, researchers say.
Phosphatidylglycerol, a natural body lipid or fat, appears to signal cells to normalize growth and maturation or differentiation. "When we apply it to skin cells, […]

A bio-friendly nano-sized light source capable of emitting coherent light across the visible spectrum, has been invented by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley. Among the many potential applications of this nano-sized light source, once the technology is refined, are […]

World Wildlife Fund today announced its opposition to a plan by Planktos, Inc. to dump iron dust in the open ocean west of the Galapagos Islands. The experiment seeks to induce phytoplankton blooms in the hopes that the microscopic marine plants will absorb carbon dioxide. The company is speculating on lucrative ways to combat climate […]

Allergies, like the common cold and asthma, have basically defied the best efforts of modern medicine to cure them. Now, a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Pharmacy has come up with a new approach that offers hope for getting rid of them.
For his efforts, Chilean-born Ido Bachelet, a first cousin […]

NASA’s Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) field campaign will begin this summer in San Jose, Costa Rica, with an investigation into how chemical compounds in the air are transported vertically into the stratosphere and how that transport affects cloud formation and climate.
The study will begin the week of July 16 with coordinated observations […]

Consumers’ media perceptions and habits are changing as the Internet becomes an increasingly important medium for information and entertainment, according to a new Internet and Multimedia 2007 report by Edison Media Research. Consumers age 12 and older were asked to choose the “most essential” medium in their life; 33% chose the Internet, just behind television […]

As we get closer to iPhone’s launch day, perhaps the most anticipated gadget of 2007, you have to wonder how the launch will play out. If PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii launches were any indications, you can bet the iPhone launch will put the console launches to shame. With Apple getting ready to ship millions […]

A prototype of what may be the next generation of personal computers has been developed by researchers in the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering. Capable of computing speeds 100 times faster than current desktops, the technology is based on parallel processing on a single chip.
Parallel processing is an approach that allows […]

Two Michigan State University professors, Volodymyr Tarabara and Tom Voice, are leading an ambitious project to purify the world’s waters.
Tarabara and Voice are leading an international partnership of environmental engineers and scientists from two U.S. research universities, two research centers in France, and three institutions in Ukraine and Russia that will create new technologies for […]

With research backgrounds ranging from materials engineering to molecular biophysics, seventeen leading scientists issued a statement (PDF) today announcing that, much as the discovery of DNA and creation of the transistor revolutionized science, there is a new scientific field on the brink of revolutionizing our approach to problems ranging from eco-safe energy to outbreaks of […]

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have determined how a substance derived from the bark of the South American lapacho tree kills certain kinds of cancer cells, findings that also suggest a novel treatment for the most common type of lung cancer.
The compound, called beta-lapachone, has shown promising anti-cancer properties and is currently being used […]

Think your job is tough? Can’t wait for summer vacation to “get away from it all?” Just wait, says a Rutgers University-Camden researcher. In the not-too-distant future, some jobs will challenge workers placed far, far away from it all.
On the moon, in fact.
According to Chester Spell, an associate professor of management at the Rutgers School […]

A team of chemists at Brown University has devised a simple way to synthesize iron-platinum nanorods and nanowires while controlling both size and composition. Nanorods with uniform shape and magnetic alignment are one key to the next generation of high-density information storage, but have been difficult to make in bulk.
The technique, published online June 22 […]

Pioneering work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research — and ultimately remove them from laboratories altogether — has received a major boost at The University of Nottingham.
A laboratory devoted to finding effective alternatives to animal testing has been expanded and completely remodelled in a £240,000 overhaul designed to hasten the development of […]

Forests in the United States and other northern mid- and upper-latitude regions are playing a smaller role in offsetting global warming than previously thought, according to a study appearing in this week’s issue of Science.
The study, which sheds light on the so-called missing carbon sink, concludes that intact tropical forests are removing an unexpectedly high […]

David H. Ingbar MD, president of the American Thoracic Society, today called the proposed standards issued by the Environmental Protection Agency for ozone pollution-commonly known as smog-”unhealthy for America’s kids, unhealthy for America’s seniors, and unhealthy for America.”
“The science is clear,” Dr. Ingbar said, “ozone pollution is causing unnecessary, illnesses and death in America. The […]