Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Climate
Climate chief channels Truman, but …
On Monday, long chaotic lines kept several thousand accredited conference attendees – some standing in the freezing cold for up to 11 hours -- from being allowed to register for the United Nations climate change meeting. “Who’s to blame? Me,” said de Boer, head of the United Nations climate change office. “Part of the problem that we’re facing here is that you can’t fit size 12 feet into size 6 shoes.”
- Climate
Climate: Negotiating the brackets
Representatives of 193 nations are posturing and challenging, threatening and bluffing, as they wrestle to draft a successor climate treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. The chief objective is to lower global emissions of greenhouse gases. How to do it, who will pay for it, how high to strive – all of these are up in the air. Still. Three days before the negotiators are to sign onto a statement of shared goals and intentions.
- Humans
Stereotypes steer women away from computer science
Surveys, tests of college students shows how surroundings can 'communicate a sense of belonging' or 'exclusion.'
- Health & Medicine
Nearsightedness increasing in the United States
A new study suggests that myopia has increased by more than 60 percent since the 1970s.
- Health & Medicine
New material could support stem cell development
A ’smart’ gel could help coax stem cells to develop into heart cells.
- Climate
U.N effectively locks out reporters, others in Copenhagen
For a year, the United Nations and national leaders have stumped around the world, championing the importance of the Copenhagen climate negotiations. It made this international conclave a must-see destination. And the UN responded by granting accreditation to huge numbers of government officials, UN officials, public-interest groups and journalists. In fact, to almost twice as many individuals as the conference center could hold. And that led to pandemonium today as the UN confronted literally thousands of people waiting to pick up their security badges – people this organization couldn’t or wouldn’t accommodate.
- Climate
‘Climate-gate’: Beyond the embarrassment
The United Nations Climate Change meeting, which I arrive at tomorrow in Copenhagen, is currently deadlocked on more important issues than who said what impolitic thing about somebody else in a private email to a colleague.
- Anthropology
Ancient Maya king shows his foreign roots
Copán’s first king may have been part of a colonial expansion by another, distant Maya kingdom.
- Ecosystems
Greening Christmas
I love the smell of balsam and firs and decorating holiday cookies – preferably with the sound of popular holiday standards in the background. I even enjoy shopping for and wrapping carefully chosen presents in seasonal papers festooned with huge bows. So when my hosts, this week, asked what I wanted to see during my visit, the answer was simple. Take me to one of Germany’s famed Christmas markets. And literally within a couple hours of my plane’s landing, they were already ushering me into the first of what would be a handful of such seasonal fairs. But as I also quickly learned, this first was an unusual one: a "green" bazaar.
- Humans
Another livestock drug endangers vultures
After one veterinary NSAID almost wiped out vultures in South Asia, one of the possible replacements turns out to be toxic too.
- Life
Model for powerful flu fighters from existing drugs
Computer screening mines inventory of existing drugs to find possible new drugs that the H1N1 and H5N1 flu viruses just wouldn’t be able to resist.
- Health & Medicine
Best choice for chronic leukemia treatment may change
A newer treatment outperforms current frontline drug Gleevec in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and an older drug may plug gap in coverage.
