In The News

Not Going Abroad and Not Coming Home

Beryl Lieff Benderly August 2, 2013
Asian graduate students and post-doctorate fellows dominate some math and science programs in the West. Attitudes about such cross-border exchanges were analyzed by researchers, working separately, in China and Japan. “Japan needs to send more people abroad to study science, while China needs to do a better job of luring foreign-trained scientists back home,” suggests Beryl Lieff Benderly for...

Genius

John Bohannon August 1, 2013
A research team based in China, including scientists in the United Kingdom and the United States, has 2,000 DNA samples and expects to collect thousands more around the globe to determine the source of intelligence, writes John Bohannon for Wired. A US researcher has theorized that genetic mutations may reduce intelligence, and a hunt is on to isolate variations, identify a genetic basis for high...

Bacteria “Can Produce Diesel Biofuel”

Rebecca Morelle April 29, 2013
A genetically modified form of E. coli bacteria can convert sugar into diesel-like oil, UK researchers report in a journal of the US National Academy of Sciences. The development is part of “a push to increase the use of biofuels around the world,” reports Rebecca Morelle of BBC News. Currently most biofuels are not “fully compatible with modern engines” and require blending with some petroleum....

The Second Cooing: Raising Passenger Pigeons From the Dead

Philip Bethge April 24, 2013
Groundbreaking research in genetics draws both fascination and alarm. A California researcher is collecting DNA of passenger pigeons, extinct since 1914, from museums of natural history. “The Tasmanian devil, the wooly rhinoceros, the mammoth, the dodo and the gastric-breeding frog are all on the list of candidates for revival,” reports Philip Bethge, who explains how the animal’s flocking...

Warming Sign: 1600 Years of Ice in Andes Melted in 25 Years

Justin Gillis April 9, 2013
Researchers are documenting glacier ice in the Peruvian Andes. “Rapid melting there in the modern era is uncovering plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago,” reports Justin Gillis for the New York Times. “Dating of those plants, using a radioactive form of carbon in the plant tissues that decays at a known rate, has given scientists an...

CDC Begins Work on Vaccine for China Flu

Donald G. McNeil Jr, Andrew Jacobs April 8, 2013
US researchers are developing a vaccine to block H7N9 flu that’s killed six in China. China reports that “No cases of human-to-human transmission have been confirmed, even though China’s disease control agency has traced hundreds of people who had contact with the 14 known cases,” report Donald G. McNeil Jr, Andrew Jacobs for the New York Times. Global cooperation to tackle the flu is underway,...

Google Glass to Be “Made in USA”

Tim Bradshaw April 3, 2013
Google Project Glass is a wearable computer, much like a smartphone, that connects a user via voice-recognition software to an array of programs and apps, including maps, email, calendar and more. The company announced that the digital eyewear will be manufactured in California, near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters with many Asian components. “Google is working with Hon Hai Precision...