Science & the Public

Humans

Traditional Chinese medicine: Big questions

Just because traditional Chinese medicines have been used for a long time is no guarantee they’re efficacious or safe. How would we know? It turns out this question is hard to answer — even for the Chinese.

Humans

National Academies Press offers free downloads

On June 2, the National Academies Press opened up its library to all of us. It now permits free downloads of PDFs for all of its volumes by anyone willing to free up the gigabytes on his or her hard drive.

Tech

Nuclear energy: As Germany goes…

The German government surprised many energy analysts May 30, with its pledge to phase out use of nuclear power. What makes the announcement particularly noteworthy is that this government is not offering to walk away from a bit player. Nuclear power currently supplies almost one-quarter of that nation’s electrical energy — more than its share in the United States.

Tech

Cans bring BPA to dinner, FDA confirms

Federal chemists have confirmed what everyone had expected: that if a bisphenol-A-based resin is used to line most food cans, there’s a high likelihood the contents of those cans will contain at least traces of BPA.

Life

Microbes may sky jump to new hosts

The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

Humans

It’s time to put a price on carbon, NRC says

“It is imprudent to delay actions that at least begin the process of substantially reducing emissions [of greenhouse gases],” according to a May 12 report by the National Research Council. It didn’t get a lot of press play in the past week, perhaps because its 144 pages don’t say anything readers might not have expected this august body to have proclaimed years ago. But that shouldn’t diminish the significance of this report, its authors contend.

Humans

Because some foods carry organophosphate residues

Three new papers link prenatal exposures to organophosphate (OP) pesticides with diminished IQs in children. Fruits and veggies are one continuing source of exposure to these bug killers. As to what we’re supposed to do with that knowledge — well, the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization, offers some guidance.

Health & Medicine

Simple-sugar effects aren’t necessarily simple, animal study suggests

New mouse data suggest that even among seemingly identical sugars, how they are delivered can exert subtle metabolic differences with long-term impacts on vitality -- and lifespan.

Humans

Obesity compromises ability to fend off H1N1 flu

Think you’ll easily survive a bout of H1N1 swine flu? Fat chance – if you’re really fat. New research points to a likely explanation for this weighty vulnerability: a failure of the immune system to rev up as strongly as it should.

Tech

Fishy fat from soy is headed for U.S. dinner tables

Most people have heard about omega-3 fatty acids, the primary constituents of fish oil. Stearidonic acid, one of those omega-3s, is hardly a household term. But it should become one, researchers argued this week at the 2011 Experimental Biology meeting.

Humans

Federal shutdown would muzzle federal science

Even a brief shutdown would have on the dissemination of data. Scientific data, for instance. Such as new findings from research studies with public health implications.

Humans

Record ‘Arctic’ ozone minimum expands beyond Arctic

In mid-March, our online story about the thinning of stratospheric ozone over the Arctic noted that conditions appeared primed for regional ozone losses to post an all-time record. On April 5, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud announced that Arctic ozone had indeed suffered an unprecedented thinning. And these air masses are on the move to mid-latitudes.