Science News Archives

A strong earthquake shook southern Iceland on Thursday, damaging roads and buildings and causing some injuries, officials and local media said.

World food prices will remain high over the next decade even if they fall from current records, meaning millions more risk further hardship or hunger, the OECD and the UN's FAO food agency said in a report ...

Better start stocking up on diapers and detergent. Consumers hit hard in recent months by sharply higher prices for gasoline and food should prepare to start paying more for various household items following ...

Orval Kent Foods has announced a voluntary recall of 23,000 pounds of Amish macaroni salad after the Ohio Department of Agriculture found E. coli in a sample package.

Love it, hate it or laugh at it - at least it's inexpensive. Sales of Spam - that much maligned meat - are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already ...

Archaeologists exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed 3,000-year-old remains from an ancient fortified city, the largest yet found in Egypt, antiquities authorities announced Wednesday.

Among the discoveries at the site was a relief of King Thutmose II (1516-1504 B.C.), thought to be the first such royal monument discovered in Sinai, said Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It indicates that Thutmose II may have built a fort near the ancient city, located about two miles northeast of present day Qantara and known historically as Tharu.

Farmers will be able to use millions of acres of idle land for making hay and grazing animals this summer.

Manila residents are taking to urban farming in bid to avert rising prices. With prices of rice, bread and other food items reaching record-highs in the Philippines, jobless folks can turn to farming even for ...

Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures, depleting the nation's water resources and contributing to outbreaks of invasive species and insects, according to a federal report released Tuesday.

Those and other problems for the U.S. livestock and forestry industries will persist for at least the next 25 years, said the report compiled by 38 scientists for use by water and land managers.

'I think what's really eye-opening is the depth and breadth of the impacts and consequences going on right now,' said Tony Janetos, a study author and director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland.

Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements.With the year not even half ...

The steepest run-ups in food prices since 1990 are hurting grocery shoppers, restaurants and school cafeterias but they're making others rich.

Antonio Martinez used to pay smugglers thousands of dollars each year to sneak him into the United States to manage farm crews.

Travel down the winding, two-lane road where oversize houses with names like "Beau Regard" or "Ville Belle" have become the biggest cash crop, and you will come to a little gravel lane leading to some of the ...

How Britain is about to be invaded by tiger mosquito carrying 20 diseases By Olinka Koster Last updated at 10:38 PM on 26th May 2008 Concern: The Asian tiger mosquito transmits up to 23 infections, including ...

Gov. Bill Ritter said Monday that President Bush has approved Colorado's request for federal disaster aid to help with the costs of the storms and tornadoes that tore through communities there last week.

Ritter signed a request Saturday for federal disaster assistance for the damage to homes, farms and businesses.

Members of Colorado's congressional delegation asked Bush to approve federal aid.

"I want to thank President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for their rapid response to our request for aid, especially over this holiday weekend," Ritter said in a written statement.

Researchers have identified seven possibilities for the next generation of mosquito repellant, some of which may work several times longer than the current standard-bearer, DEET. The next step: safety testing to make sure they're not harmful.

While the new repellants aren't likely to be available commercially for a few years, early tests on cloth were promising, with some chemicals repelling mosquitoes for as long as 73 days and many working for 40 to 50 days, compared to an average of 17.5 days with DEET, according to a study in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A Brown University professor said Monday that he is donating his share of a prestigious Israeli mathematics prize to advance the education of Palestinian students.

Paleontologists have unearthed a fossilized bone fragment of an ancient camel species that last roamed the Earth 10,000 years ago, in southeast Gilbert in Arizona, US.

When Martin Barbre got his first look three years ago at a system that would drive his tractor for him, he didn't buy the device - or the premise that it would cut costs on his farm.

Billionaire J.R. Simplot, the spud king of America whose wealth also helped create one of the world's biggest computer chip makers, died Sunday at his Boise home. He was 99.

Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said Simplot apparently died of natural causes.

The quintessential Idaho farmer increasingly dominated the state's business and political landscape for 70 years, and the company that bears his name remains a powerful force today _ in Idaho and beyond.

Simplot and his family were ranked at No. 80 on Forbes magazine's 2006 list of richest Americans, with an estimated wealth of $3.2 billion.

Surveys indicate that more than half of all farmers use at least one high-tech tool, most of them dependent on Global Positioning Systems, to plant, grow and harvest crops.

Graphic shows percentage of U.S. troops with a mental health condition or traumatic brain injury and barriers to seeking mental health care; two sizes; 1c x 4 inches; 46.5 mm x 101.6 mm; 2c x 3 1/4 inches; 96.3 ...

One of the most powerful aftershocks to hit quake-ravaged central China leveled many more homes and killed a person, leaving dozens more injured Sunday, as soldiers carrying explosives hiked to a blocked-off river to alleviate the threat of floods.

Some 260 people were injured in the aftershock Sunday afternoon, the government-run China News Service said, with 24 in serious condition. The agency said many homes had collapsed and roads were damaged, but gave no specific figures.

The magnitude 5.8 aftershock was among the most powerful recorded since the initial May 12 quake, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The China National Seismic Network, which uses a different measurement system, said the aftershock was the strongest of dozens.

By JOSEPH COLEMAN KOBE, Japan -- The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the U.N. climate chief warned on Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the ...

Astrologers foretell a healthy harvest during the annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony.

A shallow, 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit central Colombia on Saturday, shaking buildings in the capital, Bogota, and sending panicked residents into the streets, witnesses and the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Swiss agrochemicals company Syngenta said Friday it has resolved a legal dispute with U.S.-rival Monsanto over their respective corn and soybean businesses.

Scientists with UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and the Department of Urology have showed that lowering intake of the type of fat common in a Western diet helps prevent prostate cancer in mice, the first finding of its kind in a mouse model that closely mimics human cancer, researchers said.

Using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft and two telescopes on or near Earth, an international team of scientists has found that one of the solar system’s largest and newest storms – Jupiter’s Little Red Spot – has some of the highest wind speeds ever detected on any planet.

The description of an ancient amphibian that millions of years ago swam in quiet pools and caught mayflies on the surrounding land in Texas has set to rest one of the greatest current controversies in vertebrate evolution. The discovery was made by a research team led by scientists at the University of Calgary.

World rice prices that have tripled in Asia over the course of the year may come down, but overall food prices will remain high for years to come, leaving millions more hungry, a U.N. food agency warned ...

MORE TROUBLE LOOMS: Survivors of the recent earthquake in China face a new threat from heavy rains, which are creating unstable lakes in blocked rivers.

The "Big One," as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California's mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border.

A large tornado tore through several northern Colorado towns on Thursday, flipping over tractor-trailers, ripping roofs off buildings and killing at least one person.

In a stroke of cosmic luck, astronomers for the first time witnessed the start of one of the universe's most fiery events: the end of a star's life as it exploded into a supernova.

On Jan. 9, astronomers used a NASA X-ray satellite to spy on a star already well into its death throes, when another star in the same galaxy started to explode. The outburst was 100 billion times brighter than Earth's sun. The scientists were able to get several ground-based telescopes to join in the early viewing and the first results were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

A self-healing aircraft could be available in the near future, thanks to an epoxy resin developed by Bristol University aerospace engineers, that ‘bleeds’ from embedded vessels near the holes or cracks and quickly seals them up, restoring structural integrity.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the University of Texas, USA, have extracted genes from the extinct Tasmanian tiger (thylacine), inserted it into a mouse and observed a biological function – this is a world first for the use of the DNA of an extinct species to induce a functional response in another living organism.

President Bush vetoed the $300 billion farm bill on Wednesday, calling it a tax increase on regular Americans at a time of high food prices in the face of a near-certain override by Congress.

Wholesale inflation slowed in April following a big jump in March but the improvement is likely to be temporary as consumers are battered in coming months by price hikes for gasoline, food and a host of other ...

Drivers who are stopped by police and suspect racial profiling can use statistical information to make their case, and if they prove it, evidence seized during the stop should be thrown out, the state's highest ...

Scientists have discovered the tracks of a herd of 11 long-necked sauropods walking along a coastal mudflat in what is now the Republic of Yemen, the first discovery of dinosaur footprints on the Arabian ...

A University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study of nearly 2,220 pneumonia patients finds that men who come to the hospital generally are sicker than women, and have a 30 percent higher risk of dying over the next year, despite aggressive medical care.

Researchers further found significant differences in immune system response to infection, leading to speculation that future pneumonia treatments could be gender-based.

When a child has a medical problem, doctors see the child and parent together. It would be unusual to have a clinician meet alone with a minor with an illness or injury or a regular check-up. But this situation is reversed in child psychology.

A new study released today in the online edition of Physiological Genomics finds that individuals with a specific genetic variation consistently consume more sugary foods. The study offers the first evidence of the role that a variation in the GLUT2 gene – a gene that controls sugar entry into the cells – has on sugar intake, and may help explain individual preferences for foods high in sugar.

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Mark Changizi says that actions like catching a football or easily moving through a room full of people requires something more than quickly responding to a situation — it requires our ability to foresee the future.

A Chicago company is voluntarily recalling beef products because they may be contaminated with E coli, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Saturday.

JSM Meat Holdings Co., Inc. is voluntarily recalling an undetermined amount of beef products intended for use in ground products because they may be contaminated with E. coli, a release from the Department of Agriculture said.

The following products are subject to recall:

30-, 60- pound boxes, combo boxes or 47-gallon barrels of "MORREALE MEAT" beef products labeled as "Boneless Chucks," "Boneless Clods," "Flat Rounds," "Gooseneck Rounds," "Knuckle," "Heel Meat," "Scotties," "Trimmings 50," "Trimmings 60," "Trimmings 65," "Trimmings 70," "Trimmings 75," "Trimmings 80," "Trimmings 85," or "Trimmings 90." Read more

“When I saw them the last time, we celebrated together”

Two rivers blocked by landslides threatened to flood towns shattered by China's massive earthquake, sending thousands of survivors fleeing Saturday in a region still staggering from the country's worst disaster in 30 years.

A mountain sheared off by the mighty tremor cut the Qingzhu river and swallowed the riverside village of Donghekou whole, entombing an unknown number of people inside a huge mound of brown earth.

Compounding the horror for survivors, a lake rising behind the wall of debris threatens to break its banks and send torrents cascading into villages downstream. Read more

Hydrogen is touted as replacing carbon-based fuels for transportation in the future, but researchers first must develop a method to store and release large amounts of the highly flammable, odorless invisible gas economically and safely.

There are materials that are known to trap relatively large quantities of hydrogen, at normal pressures, but to date they all require heating to fairly high temperatures to release the hydrogen.

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Mark Changizi says that actions like catching a football or easily moving through a room full of people requires something more than quickly responding to a situation — it requires our ability to foresee the future.

Methane, a greenhouse gas with an impact over 20 times greater than CO2, is constantly seeping out of large methane hydrate reservoirs in the ocean floors but 80 percent of it is immediately consumed by syntrophic ("feeding together") microorganisms.

“Obviously, the oil industry is behind”

European and Latin American leaders have pledged to fight poverty, global warming and high food prices, presenting a show of unity amid a festering conflict between two South American nations.

The regions' fifth summit in a decade concluded on Friday just a day after Interpol vouched for the authenticity of documents implicating Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in efforts to support Colombian rebels. Interpol's report prompted impassioned denials from Chavez.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia opened the summit with an appeal for nearly 60 leaders or top officials to put aside petty issues and focus on setting clear strategies to combat poverty and global warming. Read more

“In your quest to become a dominating power freak, you became your own demon. You have hurt me for so many years and probably smiled inside, but look who's smiling now.”

A biochemist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid, possibly while he was still alive.

Larissa Schuster was convicted in December of murdering Timothy Schuster with the special circumstance that the murder was committed for financial gain. At the time of his death in July 2003, the Schusters were in the middle of a divorce after nearly 20 years of marriage.

Just days after Timothy Schuster was reported missing, his half-dissolved remains _ intact from only the belt buckle down _ were found inside a 55-gallon barrel concealed in a storage unit his wife had rented. Read more

“People with incomes below the poverty threshold are in dire straits because not only are food prices increasing but the food stamps they are receiving have not increased”

Danielle Brown stands outside a South Side market at midnight, braving the spring chill for her first chance to buy groceries since her food stamps ran out nearly two weeks ago. via MSNBC

The Antennae Galaxies, located in the constellation of Corvus (the Crow), are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, began interacting a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as a standard against which to validate theories about galaxy evolution.

The first genome sequencing project of a mammal that lays eggs is complete and, like the animal itself, the DNA of the platypus is something of a patchwork.

You wouldn't think that clean air would be bad for the Amazon rainforest but UK and Brazilian climate scientists writing in Nature say just that.

“The volcano is now at its limit and one possibility is that the column could collapse quickly, generating flows of pyroclastic material down its ravines”

By Antonio de la Jara

PUERTO MONTT, Chile (Reuters) - A towering plume of ash from an erupting volcano in Chile's remote Patagonia could collapse back down to devastate the surrounding area, a leading expert warned on Friday.

Luis Lara, a geologist and volcano expert with the government's geology and mining agency Sernageomin, says his models show the vast column of ash, which has soared 7.5 miles

into the air, at a critical stage.

A sudden collapse would shroud vast areas with hot gas, ash and molten rock, killing anything in its way. Read more

“It's very frustrating, especially when you see children dying.”

Science has provided the souped-up seeds to feed the world, through biotechnology and old-fashioned crossbreeding. Now the problem is the dirt they are planted in.

As seeds get better, much of the world's soil is getting worse and people are going hungry. Scientists say if they can get the world out of the economically triggered global food crisis, better dirt will be at the root of the solution.

Soils around the world are deteriorating with about one-fifth of the world's cropland considered degraded in some manner. The poor quality has cut production by about one-sixth, according to a World Resources Institute study. Some scientists consider it a slow-motion disaster. Read more

“These trends are sparking record inflation for corn prices, driving up the cost of milk, meat, eggs and virtually all food staples.”

By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boosted by high prices and good weather, the world's farmers will reap record wheat and rice crops this year, the U.S. government said on Friday, which should somewhat allay fears of scanty food supplies.

The Agriculture Department also forecast a record feed grain crop globally, used to feed livestock. Wheat and rice are the world's major food grains, consumed directly or as baked goods like cakes and cookies.

The world wheat crop was forecast to rise 8 percent to a record 656 million tonnes while global rice production is projected for a record 432 million tonnes. Read more

Geologists said a 260-foot-deep sinkhole that grew to the length of three football fields over just two days seemed to be slowing down but that it cou ... via Mochila

The U.S. Geological Survey says an undersea earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 has shaken Guam.

There were no immediate reports of damage in the U.S. territory Saturday morning. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu says the quake failed to generate a destructive, widespread tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck at 7:51 a.m. at a depth of 54.4 miles. It was located 125 miles west-southwest of Hagatna, Guam, and 250 miles southwest of Saipan in the neighboring Northern Mariana Islands. Read more

The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers. Read more

A common weedkiller in the U.S., already suspected of causing sexual abnormalities in frogs and fish, has now been found to alter hormonal signaling in human cells, scientists from the University of California ...

Not long ago, Howard Wainer, a statistician I mentioned recently , learned that his blood sugar was too high.

Over the past decades climate change and its consequences for life on our planet have given rise to a growing scientific interest in the development of alternative energies.

Scientists at Gramina, a joint biotech venture by Australia’s Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre and New Zealand rural services group PGG Wrightson Genomics, are developing a grass that will not only cut the amount of methane cows burp up when chewing the cud but will also grow in hotter climes, according to the latest issue of Chemistry & Industry.

“He was just peacefully expressing his feelings”

Troops fired into tens of thousands of rioting Somalis on Monday, killing two people in the latest eruption of violence over soaring food prices around the world. via The Dispatch

“I would not recommend anybody leaving. It's too good of a place to live.”

For eight years, Tony and Sam Bayaoa have grown thousands of bright red, yellow and pink protea flowers on their farm. Then in March, Kilauea volcano opened a new vent and began spewing double the usual amount of toxic gas.

Now about 70 percent of their crop is dried, brown and brittle.

'The first reaction was _ did someone poison the plants?' said Tony Bayaoa, whose two-acre farm is 35 miles from the volcano. 'I've lost my livelihood.'

Big Island crops are shriveling as sulfur dioxide from Kilauea wafts over them and envelops them in 'vog,' or volcanic smog. People are wheezing, and schoolchildren are being kept indoors during recess. High gas levels led Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to close several days last month, forcing the evacuation of thousands of visitors. Read more

“I think food inflation has got to go up”

Americans may be getting another helping of food inflation, and it seems likely to come from higher prices for chicken and pork. via The Modesto Bee

When it comes to manipulating your body with drugs, you have no better friend than your G-protein coupled receptors. G-protein coupled receptors (ok, you can call them GPCRs) are proteins embedded within the membrane that makes up the outer border of our cells, and their exposed cell-surface position makes them great targets for drugs.

Nearly 1,000 of our 24,000 genes encode GCPRs, which testifies to the major role this class of proteins plays in our physiology.

The risks of developing Alzheimer’s disease differ between the sexes, with stroke in men, and depression in women, critical factors, according to research published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

Gestational age has long been the factor most commonly used to predict whether an extremely low-birth-weight infant survives and thrives, but four additional factors that can help predict a preemie’s outcome have been identified by the National Institutes of Health Neonatal Research Network.

New heart research published inNature Genetics reveals how a gene called osteoglycin (Ogn), which had not previously been linked with heart function, plays a key role in regulating heart growth. The study suggests that the gene can behave abnormally in some people, and that this can lead to the heart becoming abnormally enlarged.

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new climate pattern called the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation.

“I haven't heard of the bad behavior of Chinese companies abroad, but Chinese companies which intend to expand abroad must know it is important to have a good relationship with the local people”

The rice fields that blanketed this remote mountain village for generations are gone. In their place rise neat rows of young rubber trees _ their sap destined for China.

All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked village of gaunt men and hunched women are now growing rubber, like thousands of others across the rugged mountains of northern Laos. They hope in coming years to reap huge profits from the tremendous demand for rubber just across the frontier in China.

As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping economy, it has already scoured the world for mining and logging concessions. Now it is turning to crops to feed its people and industries. Chinese enterprises are snapping up vast tracts of land abroad and forging contract farming deals. Read more

“If they were to fall on a tent camp, they would probably kill or injure the people inside”

Vacationers will have fewer places to pitch their tents this summer in Colorado and Wyoming, and they can place the blame on bugs.

The U.S. Forest Service has closed some popular campgrounds in the two states because of concern that trees killed by the bark beetles that are ravaging forests across the West could topple onto unsuspecting visitors.

Bark beetles have always been a part of forests in the West, but warming temperatures and an abundance of aging lodgepole pines that haven't been thinned by fires have allowed populations of the hungry insects to explode. They now infest nearly 3,600 square miles of forest in the two states. Read more

“The work in the cellar is overwhelming and oppressive for the investigators”

Undated police handout picture made available on April 28, 2008, shows the bathroom in the basement of a house where Elisabeth Fritzl was held imprisoned for 24 years. via Australian Broadcasting Corporation

“This algae bloom makes us even more determined to carry on.”

This sprawling, jade-hued lake in eastern China is pleasant enough on a cool spring day. via CANOE

The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude-3.0 earthquake has rattled the Sierra Nevada mountains just outside Yosemite National Park.

The quake struck at 6:25 a.m. about six miles south of Mammoth Lakes along the eastern edge of the park.

A Mono County sheriff's dispatcher says there have been no reports of damage or injuries. Read more