In China, over a million poplar trees have been planted since 2002 to combat deforestation. But the move has not been widely applauded by everyone. The poplars, which are genetically engineered, are China's first foray into the world of transgenic forestry -- or "frankenforests" -- and other countries are not far behind.
As the biotech industry continues to lay the groundwork for genetically engineered crops -- poorly tested, widely debated and yet plugged as a technological wonde... (more)
We all want to believe our pet is as smart as it seems, and every now and then a dog or cat does something astonishing. In 2003 in Kentucky, a dog named Scooby limped to a vet’s office after being hit by a car. A year later in Richland, Wash., a rottweiler named Faith hit 911 on the speed dial with its nose and barked into the phone after its owner fell out of her wheelchair.
Are these slam-dunk cases of animal intelligence? The answer used to be a definitive “no,&rdqu... (more)
The U.S. Air Force has unveiled a 25-year program for developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The document lays out a strategy for the project and lists the necessary technologies for this new field of aviation. Military experts say UAVs will mainly carry air-to-air and air-to-surface guided missiles, as well as smart aviation bombs and cluster bombs, including submunitions with different guidance systems. In the future, new kinds of weapons systems may be installed o... (more)
The use of wi-fi networks in classrooms should be immediately supsended until an inquiry has fully investigated the health threat to millions of schoolchildren, teachers have urged.
Philip Parkin, the General Secretary of The Professional Association of Teachers, said that children were effectively acting as guinea pigs while the cancer risk posed by wireless networks had not yet been throughly considered.
June 25, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Creative scientists have until next week to submit proposals for creating a shape-shifting military robot that can shrink and then reconfigure itself to normal height and shape.
The description of the robot, at a high level, is somewhat reminiscent of the villainous liquid-state cyborg of the sci-fi movie Terminator 2 -- except that this robot would be dispatched to save lives on the battlefield. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenc... (more)
The heated debate on global warming seems to be cooling down, as, after a review of the relevant factors - including 'increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases'; 'global changes to land surface, such as deforestation' and urban heat islands; 'increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols' (1); and even some ideas that seem to be out in space, such as cosmic rays and variations in sun ac... (more)
MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory hope that their work could lead to the first drug to treat the millions of adults who suffer each year from persistent, debilitating fears - including hundre... (more)
Fear is not a disease, it is a survival mechanism which all living creatures need.
Cloned red meat could hit British supermaket shelves in just two years, according to scientists linked with Dolly the sheep.
And American authorities are expected to approve meat from offspring of cloned livestock being sold before the end of the year - without any extra labelling.
The move raises the prospect of British tourists in the US being served such meat without knowing.
"Labelling needs to be handled very carefully, as... (more)
Technology developed by an Irish firm that allegedly defies basic laws of physics to produce free power today goes on public display for the first time.
Steorn is challenging worldwide cynicism over its claims to have stumbled upon a revolutionary discovery that creates clean, constant energy and could end the global fuel crisis.
While 22 scientists continue their exhaustive tests on the Orbo technology the inventors are asking the public to come and see a demonst... (more)
The dead bees under Dennis VanEngelsdorp's microscope were like none he had ever seen before.
He had expected to see mites or amoebas, perennial pests of bees. Instead, he found internal organs swollen with debris and strangely blackened. The bees' intestinal tracts were scarred, and their rectums were abnormally full of what appeared to be partly digested pollen. Dark marks on the sting glands were telltale signs of infection.
Creating armor that renders a soldier invisible. Stimulating the brain to suppress sleep for days. Arming sharks with chemical implants and cameras to work as spies.
This year the Pentagon will spend $78 billion -- about half of all government research and development dollars -- on a variety of projects, according to the American Association for the Advancement for Science (AAAS).
The vast majority - about $68 billion - goes to traditional spending, like weapons dev... (more)
Maybe this is just a very strange coincidence with the massive disappearance of the Honey Bee, but my Hummingbird population is quickly dwindling. Normally at this time of year in the gorgeous and verdant Rogue Valley of Oregon, I have to mount three Hummingbird feeders to nourish a normal population of about 40 birds at my home alone.
I have maybe four left, and this is the height of the breeding season. Today, my wife, Liz, saw one particularly large Hummingbird flying erratica... (more)
THE government’s policy of promoting biofuels for transport will come under harsh attack this week from one of its senior science advisers.
Roland Clift will tell a seminar of the Royal Academy of Engineering that the plan to promote bioethanol and biodiesel produced from plants is a “scam”.
Clift, professor of environmental technology at Surrey University, sits on the scientific advisory council of Defra, David Milib... (more)
Scientists have sounded the death knell for the plug and power lead.
In a breakthrough that sounds like something out of Star Trek, they have discovered a way of 'beaming' power across a room into a light bulb, mobile phone or laptop computer without wires or cables.
In the first successful trial of its kind, the team was able to illuminate a 60-watt light bulb 7ft away.
The team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who call their invention 'W... (more)
Insurance firms may use genetic information to increase premiums unfairly, a senior doctor has warned.
Dr Richard Ashcroft, professor of biomedical ethics at the University of London, said there was a risk that people would be discriminated against on the basis of a poor understanding of genetics.
The concerns come a day after scientists announced they had discovered a series of genes linked to common diseases affecting 20million Britons.
A robot could soon be a soldier's best friend on the battlefield under a proposal being developed by the Pentagon.
The mechanical warrior, called Bear, looks like an oversized toy with a teddy bear's face. However, it can squeeze through doorways while carrying a wounded serviceman.
The 6ft-tall remote-controlled device can travel long distances over bumpy terrain and carry out the toughest assignments.
Bear, short for Battlefield Extraction-Assist Ro... (more)
WASHINGTON, May 28 (UPI) -- A study by government scientists in Washington indicates humans are hard-wired to be unselfish.
Neuroscientists Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman of the National Institutes of Health say experiments they conducted have led them to conclude unselfishness is not a matter of morality, The Washington Post reports.
Rather, the two say altruism is something that makes people feel good, lighting up a primitive part of the human brain that usually r... (more)
WASHINGTON, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - The United States has the inherent right of self-defense to protect its national interests in space and can deny its adversaries the use of hostile space capabilities, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.
"The United States views purposeful interference with its space systems as an infringement on its rights and will take actions necessary to preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space including denying, if necessary, ... (more)
Google’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.
Human beings are directly responsible for more than 110,000 chemical substances which have been generated since the Industrial Revolution. Every year, we “invent” more than 2,000 new substances, most of them contaminants, which are emitted into the environment and which are consequently present in food, air, soil and water. Nonetheless, human beings are also victims of these emissions, and involuntarily (what is known in this scientific field as “inadvertent exposure”). E... (more)
In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the two bullets that struck and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist ... (more)
Free will and true spontaneity exist … in fruit flies. This is what scientists report in a groundbreaking study in the May 16, 2007 issue of the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
"Animals and especially insects are usually seen as complex robots which only respond to external stimuli," says senior author Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin. They are assumed to be input-output devices. "When scientists observe animals responding differently even to the same externa... (more)
A leading zoologist has found evidence that genes used to modify crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria to mutate, prompting fears that GM technology could pose serious health risks.
A four-year study by Professor Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a respected German zoologist, found that the alien gene used to modify oilseed rape had transferred to bacteria living inside the guts of honey bees.
The research - which has yet to be published and has not been reviewed ... (more)
There is a movement by many states and localities to ban incandescent light bulbs and convert to total use of fluorescent bulbs (CFL) to save energy. And yet there are few who have read the small print on the tiny inside package label of fluorescent bulbs or heard about the EPA’s problems with regard to mercury contamination. What should you know about fluorescent light bulbs?
1) Heat resistant glass is used in these bulbs. The quartz arc tube, when operating creates light b... (more)
Toddlers will be taught how to talk in an attempt to arrest the shocking decline in children's communication skills.
A recent study revealed that half of them are unable to string a sentence together at age five.
As a result, ministers are encouraging the use of the special "early talk" programme, targeted at infants from their earliest months to age five, which uses signing, gestures and symbols to expand vocabulary.
"Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a seat in Ottawa's House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% for Canada's fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the provincial wing of her party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:
I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepe... (more)
