Reuters: The torrential rain that the NorthEast of the United States has experienced has raised questions in the public over whether the extreme weather was caused by global warming. Jason Szep reports that the Atlantic is warming faster than scientists projected even a decade ago. Storms such as the one seen this week from Virginia to New York will become more common. The Insurance Information Institute says that Northeast looked "woefully unprepared" to the risk of floods.
BBC: Energy costs associated with semiconductor silicon chip manufacture could be dramatically cut if a new manufacture process goes into widespread use. Currently silicon dioxide, the basis of silicon chips are made by heating silicon to 1000 C to form silicon dioxide. A team from University College London has found a method that uses low-temperature, ultraviolet lamps to make the compound. The UV technique operates at room temperature. "This finding means that the industry's energy, and subsequent cost savings, could reduce the prices of electronic devices for consumers and, of course, create a positive environmental impact," said Professor Ian Boyd of UCL, a member of the team behind the discovery.
USA Today: As the space shuttle prepares for a July 1 launch, NASA's long term future appears to be spinning out of orbit. Traci Watson takes a closer look at the budget and vision constraints facing NASA with its shuttle, space station, and Moon Mars programs, and how they are squeezing the science program in a rush for funds.
Nature: Miniature fuel cells have long been proposed as an alternative to batteries in powering portable devices. In theory, a fuel cell could power a laptop all day or a phone for a week on just a few cubic centimeters of fuel. At least four major companies, Toshiba, Samsung, Sanyo, and Panasonic are researching the technology but despite their investment says Nature's Kurt Kleiner, it is still unclear whether a commercial consumer product will actually be developed.
Nature: Violence is common currency in Iraq, but one group is increasingly and persistently singled out — academics. Declan Butler reports on the risks run by researchers as they struggle to pursue their studies.
Update. Science magazine also picks up the story. Richard Stone reports that more than 400 academics are on a hit list for assasination.
BBC: A global switch to efficient lighting systems would trim the world's electricity bill by nearly one-tenth.
The Christian Science Monitor: We think of Earth as a rotating sphere. It would be more accurate to consider it a wobbling top. Like a top spinning on a table, Earth's spin axis undergoes a complex mix of wobbles. Scientists have tracked the larger loops and dips for over a century. Thanks to the exquisite accuracy of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and a break from Mother Nature, they now have found patterns in which the axis traces small loops over an area no bigger than a sheet of typing paper every few days.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: A Senate Appropriations subcommittee has recommended a bigger increase than President Bush requested for scientific-research spending next year by the U.S. Department of Energy.
New Mexican: Energy Department officials want to quadruple the number of plutonium pits, or triggers, for nuclear bombs that can be made at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
MSNBC: Balky camera could be back on line July 3, agency says
Business Week: As his cash-rich firm snaps up thousands of patents, fears emerge that it will become a leader in litigation—not innovation.
The Seattle Times: Something lit up the Norwegian sky on June 7. A streaking fireball, caught on film, followed by an earth-shaking impact recorded at the Karasjok seismic lab at 2:13:25 a.m.
It became international news when University of Oslo astronomer Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard told a local newspaper: "If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb."
The Reigster: The main camera on the Hubble Space Telescope has broken down, leaving ground-based engineers with a puzzle on their hands. As of Sunday, NASA was still not sure what was wrong with the telescope.
USA Today: Thank goodness for science. How else would we know the best way to nab those barely-used weed whackers, dumbbells or duck-shape salt shakers on eBay? In a study that gives the lie to the notion that eggheads don't like to eyeball online auctions like normal folks, a study by South Korean physicists confirms via some elaborate mathematical modeling that "sniping" — waiting for the very last second to submit your bid on that Elvis-shape throw rug — is indeed "a rational and effective strategy to win in an eBay auction."
The New York Times: In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick oceans into soaking up more heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
Wired: Japan hopes to slash greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming with a plan to pump carbon dioxide into underground storage reservoirs instead of releasing it into the atmosphere, an official said Monday.
Northwest Florida Daily News: Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli didn't suffer fools gladly. Fond of calling colleagues' work "wrong" or "completely wrong," he saved his worst epithet for work so sloppy and speculative it is "not even wrong."
MSNBC: ‘Emotionally aware’ device could interpret facial expressions.
BBC: One of the great scientific experiments of our age is now fully underway.
The New York Times: Dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown.
Los Angeles Times: Growing Washington acceptance of climate change is seen in the top science body's finding.
Science: Last week, a House spending panel told the National Science Foundation to use some of its $6.02 billion "for innovation-inducement prizes … of an appropriate scale." It also gave NSF the green light to find potential backers for the prizes among high-tech companies and private foundations that share his concern about the health of the U.S. research enterprise.
Nature: Eastern Germany is landing major electronics industry investments — but needs to build up its own innovative capacity, reports Ned Stafford.
San Francisco Chronicle: New satellite evidence has confirmed fears among scientists that seismic stresses are rising along the southern segment of the San Andreas fault system, making the heavily populated Los Angeles area vulnerable to an overdue major earthquake.
BBC: England's bid for World Cup glory could be boosted by scientists who claim to have discovered the formula for the perfect penalty.
The Independent: The world's scientific community united yesterday to launch one of the strongest attacks yet on creationism, warning that the origins of life were being "concealed, denied or confused".
Space.com: Black holes are known for their strong gravitational tugs, but gravity alone isn't enough to send matter tumbling into the center of one.
Magnetism provides the final nudge, a new study finds.
Nature: There's more to science at the movies than Lex Luthor's attempts to synthesize kryptonite. In the first of two features on film, John Whitfield looks at how a cinematographic technique can provide insights into the perception of reality. In the second, Alison Abbott meets Ben Heisenberg, a director whose first film is a taut moral fable of laboratory life.
The Sacramento Bee: For his tireless efforts in the field and on astate commission, Arthur Rosenfeld will receive a prestigious presidential award.
ScienceNow: Purdue University officials today announced that they have completed a review on controversy swirling around Purdue nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan, the chief proponent of the contentious notion that sound waves can cause bubbles to collapse in a way that yields energy. Contrary to earlier statements by the university, officials now say they have no plans to make the review public or to reveal any potentially forthcoming disciplinary actions. "Specific recommendations of the examination committee and any subsequent steps by the university will be treated as confidential internal matters," said Purdue University Vice President for Research Charles Rutledge in a statement.
Boston Herald: Carve a wrong turn in the deep powder of the video game "Stoked Rider: Big Mountain Snowboarding" and you’d better brace for an avalanche of swirling white snow engulfing everything as it crashes down the mountainside.
ScienceNow: Pluto's baby twin moons, formerly known as S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2, have been christened Nix and Hydra. The objects, discovered last year by the Hubble Space Telescope, received their names from the International Astronomical Union (IAU). A formal announcement will be issued this Friday, 23 June.
The New York Times: When scientists consider the possible effects of global warming, there is a lot they don't know. But they can say one thing for sure: sea levels will rise.
International Herald Tribune: Beijing Like an otherworldly emperor, Stephen Hawking rolled his wheelchair onto the stage of the Great Hall of the People, bringing with him the royalty of science and making China, for this week at least, the center of the cosmos.
Wired: The keys to the secrets of the universe draw tantalizingly closer as the largest telescopic array in the Northern Hemisphere cleared its last major hurdle before its installation in Utah.
Guardian Unlimited: Pro-Israel activists used such hardball tactics during a British faculty union’s debate last month over a proposed boycott of Israeli academics that the effort to defeat the proposal failed, according to an analysis in today’s Guardian. Members of the British union were bombarded with e-mail messages with subject lines like “Subject: Jew Hater!” and bearing obscenity-laden accusations of anti-Semitism for even discussing the proposal, the analysis says.
The Economist: America's most famous weapons laboratory is under new management
Science: On 5 June, the U.S. government decided to strip several climate instruments off a suite of polar-orbiting satellites intended to provide the next generation of weather and climate-monitoring data for military, civilian, and scientific users.
Ars Technica: Some of the hardest problems in physics are phase transitions, such as freezing water or cooling a metal until it can superconduct. When a physical system goes through a phase transition its fundamental properties change. Even if we understand the material in either state, the behavior right near the phase transition can be very complex and difficult to understand. In developing our understanding of what happens during phase transitions physicists have developed some sophisticated mathematical tricks to help them. So how does this help with drug development?
Science: NASA's space science program is at risk, according to a recent report from a National Research Council (NRC) panel. The panel, which was tasked with assessing the impact of the proposed FY 2007 NASA budget, concluded that the budget provides the agency with insufficient funds to allow it to meet all of its mandates while remaining strong in science. "NASA is being asked to accomplish too much with too little," says the report.
Science: Scientists from the developing world who work in more developed countries are often underutilized resources and should be cultivated for the benefit of their countries of origin.
Nature: Why the first strike counts.
MSNBC: Study: Carbon contained in frozen ground would release to atmosphere.
The Independent: Russia is to press ahead with the world's first floating nuclear power station despite environmental concerns. The first "floating Chernobyl" could be ready in four years.
Nature: Trend for financial incentives spreads in Asia.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The House of Representatives panel that oversees spending on science voted on Wednesday to go along with President Bush's proposal to increase the National Science Foundation's budget by 8 percent in the 2007 fiscal year, a $439-million jump to just over $6-billion.
MSNBC: Inventions include next generation DVDs, solid-state lighting
The New York Times: The Bell Labs building has been sold, and the public will be invited in for at least one date while it remains, which may not be much longer.
USA Today: Some U.S. tech companies are trimming research and development budgets to save money — sparking fears that the country eventually could become less competitive.
The Scientist: After plans for US program are scaled back, other countries may be able to step in.
Technology Review: The new U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology hopes a large federal research database will help spur innovation.
The Washington Post: In regard to nuclear proliferation and arms control, the fundamental problem is clear: Either we begin finding creative, outside-the-box solutions or the international nuclear safeguards regime will become obsolete.
Aftenposten: As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
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