BBC: Construction on a giant underground laboratory that will help take physics into a new era is reaching a major milestone.
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Once a rite of passage, science fairs lose luster
Orlando Sentinel: Science fairs used to be big deals — competitions that exercised critical-thinking, research and public speaking.
It’s also a blast to set off papier-mache volcanoes and grow tiny Sea-Monkeys.
But participation in county science fairs has dropped dramatically among Florida high-school students — ironically, at the same time the state has ordered teachers to focus more intensely on biology, chemistry and other sciences.
Blueprint for new energy institute
San Francisco Chronicle: A brain trust of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists will staff the university’s new Energy Biosciences Institute funded by British Petroleum, and a top plant research professor at Stanford appears likely to be selected to lead the facility.
Iran’s pursuit of nuclear power raises alarms
The Christian Science Monitor: Does access to fuel ease nations toward nuclear weapons? Rising demand has nonproliferation experts unsettled.
European research council gets billon dollar budget
BBC: Europe has a new flagship agency to fund the brightest ideas in science.
US Government Reconsiders future of Los Alamos
Daily Nexus: Despite increases in facility security and program redevelopment, the University of California-managed Los Alamos National Laboratory is currently facing several threats to its funding and longevity from government officials.
New South Pole telescope to study mysterious dark energy
USA Today: The new South Pole Telescope (SPT) has successfully collected its first light as part of a long-term project to unravel one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology, researchers announced today.
Practical Fusion, or Just a Bubble?
The New York Times: Explosive devices based on fusion have been built for years. The challenge is a reactor that generates more energy than it consumes.
2007 International Polar Year
Various: The UN will launch tomorrow the 2007 International Polar Year. The research project, which will cost $350-million to $1.5-billion, involves more than 60 countries and 10,000 scientists studying climate, geology, and biology of the two polar regions. Nearly every major media outlet is reporting the start of the IPY, including the Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Middle East Times. The IPY is the fourth such integrated Artic and Antarctic science effort since 1882 says the New York Times. The last such effort, the International Geophysical Year was fifty years ago. Unlike the IGY, the IPY “is a very grass-roots effort,” says Robin Bell, a senior scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y to the Christian Science Monitor.
Iran Says It Launched Suborbital Rocket Into Space
The New York Times: Iran announced Sunday that it had launched a research rocket that attained a suborbital altitude, a test that appeared to move it closer toward its aim of putting its own satellites into space.