Science & Policy News

September 2008

CO2 Flow Speeds Up; Poor Countries Now Lead: A network of scientists tracking emissions of carbon dioxide, released its latest update, and it shows that emissions are accelerating and are close to the highest scenarios considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year.
September 29th, 2008

NASA May Delay Repair Mission to Hubble: NASA said Monday it is delaying its shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope until next year because of an unexpected breakdown of the telescope.
September 29th, 2008

Revisions Sharply Cut Estimates on Malaria: The world has many fewer cases of malaria than previously thought, the World Health Organization is reporting. But the agency says the apparent drop is not a result of mosquito nets, miracle drugs and DDT spraying — just better statistical techniques.
September 24th, 2008

Gray Wolves Off Endangered Species List: The federal agency that removed the gray wolf from the endangered species list in March has changed its mind and is asking a federal judge to vacate the decision.
September 24th, 2008

Solar Panels Vanishing and Reappear on the Internet: Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves.
September 23rd, 2008

Collider Operations on Hold Until Next Year: The world’s newest and largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, will not begin operations again until April, officials at the European Center for Nuclear Research said Tuesday..
September 23rd, 2008

Portland Tops a Sustainable Cities List: Portland, Ore., has done it again, topping SustainLane.com's new ranking of the 50 biggest American cities in order of their environmental and social sustainability.
September 22nd, 2008

Tapping Power From Trash: When talk turns to alternative energy and global warming, let us not forget stinking piles of garbage. Buried in airless pockets deep inside landfills, the organic matter in these great mounds of waste is consumed by bacteria that give off gas rich in methane, increasingly used to generate electricity and heat.
September 15th, 2008

Seeking Mates for Furred and Clawed: A lively koalo bear is seeking a mate, and this is being made possible with the development of new information technology. Zoos around the world are developing what they call "studbooks" to help stimulate mating and diversity in captivity.
September 15th, 2008

As Barriers Disappear, Some Gender Gaps Widen: When men and women take personality tests, some of the old Mars-Venus stereotypes keep reappearing. On average, women are more cooperative, nurturing, cautious and emotionally responsive. Men tend to be more competitive, assertive, reckless and emotionally flat.
September 11th, 2008

For Stem Cells, a Role on the Battlefield: When people envision using human embryonic stem cells for “regenerative medicine,” they often talk about making neurons to treat Parkinson’s disease, cardiac cells to repair the damage caused by a heart attack, or pancreatic islet cells to replace those destroyed by diabetes.
September 11th, 2008

Scientists Activate Particle Collider: Science rode a beam of subatomic particles and a river of champagne into the future on Wednesday. After 14 years of labor, scientists at the activated the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest, most powerful particle collider and, at $8 billion, the most expensive scientific experiment to date.
September 10th, 2008

Why the Earth could end when the new collider fires up: When European physicists bring their monstrous supercollider to life, will it swallow up Fermilab? Could it even spell doom for planet Earth? Tribune science reporter Jeremy Manier explains.
September 8th, 2008

Assessing the Value of Small Wind Turbines: With the California blackouts of 2001 still a painful memory, Chris Beaudoin wants to generate some of his own electricity. He marveled the other day at how close he is to that goal, gazing at two new wind turbines atop his garage roof. They will soon be hooked to the power grid.
September 4th, 2008

For the Brain, Remembering Is Like Reliving: Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it.
September 4th, 2008

About Death, Just Like Us or Pretty Much Unaware: As anybody who has grieved inconsolably over the death of a loved one can attest, extended mourning is, in part, a perverse kind of optimism. Surely this bottomless, unwavering sorrow will amount to something, goes the tape loop.
September 4th, 2008

Beyond Carbon: Scientists Worry About Nitrogen’s Effects: Public discussion of complicated climate change is largely reduced to carbon: carbon emissions, carbon footprints, carbon trading. But other chemicals have large roles in the planet’s health, and the one that a growing number of other researchers are also concentrating on, is nitrogen.
September 3rd, 2008

Strongest Hurricanes May Be Getting Stronger: A new study finds that the strongest of hurricanes and typhoons have become even stronger over the last two and a half decades, adding grist to the contentious debate over global warming and its ability to unleash more destructive storms.
September 3rd, 2008