Mercury's Surface Dominated By Volcanism And Iron-deficiency

Multispectral data on the composition of rock untis of the surface of Mercury show a widespread role for volcanism and an apparent deficiency in iron in the rocks' minerals.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2008 | 12:00 am

Women Over 90 More Likely To Have Dementia Than Men

Women over 90 are significantly more likely to have dementia than men of the same age, according UC Irvine researchers involved with the 90+ Study, one of the nation's largest studies of dementia and other health factors in the fastest-growing age demographic.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2008 | 12:00 am

Undergraduates Forge New Area Of Bioinformatics

A group of undergraduate students have forged a new area of bioinformatics that may improve genomic and proteomic annotations and unlock a collection of stubborn biological mysteries. Their work will be published in the journal Genome Research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2008 | 12:00 am

Agriculture Linked To Frog Sexual Abnormalities

A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot. But scientists have found the opposite is true. In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians, zoologists have found that toads in suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms -- where some individual animals had both testes and ovaries.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2008 | 12:00 am

Bone Marrow Alternative: Stem Cells From Umbilical Cord May Be Used To Treat Hepatic Diseases

Researchers from the Universities of Granada and León have shown that mononuclear blood cells from human umbilical cord can be an effective alternative to bone marrow. This work, to be published in the journal Cell Transplantation, could potentially mean a great advance in regenerative hepatic medicine.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2008 | 12:00 am

Scientists Set Out To Measure How We Perceive Naturalness

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory are working towards producing the world's first model that will predict how we perceive naturalness. The results could help make synthetic products so good that they are interpreted by our senses as being fully equivalent to the "real thing," but with the benefits of reduced environmental impact and increased durability.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2008 | 12:00 am

Puzzle In The Control Of Cell Division Unraveled

A puzzle in the control of cell division, one of the most fundamental processes in all biology, has been unraveled. Although the steps of cell division are familiar to all pupils studying biology in schools, the details of how cell division is controlled and errors avoided have still to be sorted out.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2008 | 6:00 pm

Music Went With Cave Art In Prehistoric Caves

Thousands of years later, we can view stone-age art on cave walls, but we can't listen to the stone-age music that would have accompanied many of the pictures. Researchers report that the most acoustically resonant place in a cave -- where sounds linger or reverberate the most -- was also often the place where the pictures were densest. In many sites, flutes made of bone are to be found nearby.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2008 | 6:00 pm

Coronary Arterial Calcium Scans Help Detect Overall Death Risk In The Elderly

Measuring calcium deposits in the heart's arteries can help predict overall death risk in American adults, even when they are elderly, according to a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2008 | 6:00 pm

Seizures In Newborns Can Be Detected With Small, Portable Brain Activity Monitors

Compact, bedside brain-activity monitors detected most seizures in at-risk infants. That means the compact units could assist clinicians in monitoring for electrical seizures until confirmation with conventional EEG, the researchers assert in an article in Pediatrics.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2008 | 6:00 pm

Study: Orangutan populations declining sharply (AP)

In this Nov. 8, 2007, file photo, Moni, a 17-year-old orangutan, carries her four-day-old baby at Gembira Loka zoo in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The numbers of orangutans in Indonesia and Malaysia had declined sharply mostly due to illegal logging and the rapid expansion of palm oil plantations, a researcher said. (AP Photo/Slamet Riyadi, FILE)AP - Orangutan numbers have declined sharply on the only two islands where they still live in the wild and they could become the first great ape species to go extinct if urgent action isn't taken, a new study says.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jul 2008 | 10:05 am

Bad science: Plagues of wasps, squirrels, rats? Let's see the data

Ben Goldacre finds out the truth behind the so-called 'top secret' data - collected by PR agencies
Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 4 Jul 2008 | 11:22 pm

UN chief to G8: climate change, food crisis linked (AP)

A member from the international relief group Oxfam personates the likes of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, center, as he leads other Oxfam members portraying other Group of Eight leaders to belt it out karaoke tunes at Sapporo, northern Japan, on Saturday, July 5, 2008. The G8 leaders, representing the U.S., Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy and Canada, will descend in this northern Japanese island of Hokkaido for the summit meeting to discuss global warming and food crisis, among others. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)AP - The global food crisis will only worsen because of climate change, the U.N. climate chief said Friday, urging leaders of the world's richest countries meeting in Japan next week to set goals to reduce carbon emissions within the next dozen years.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 10:47 pm

Phoenix scientists soon will analyze Martian ice (AFP)

This NASA handout image, released on June 13, 2008 shows the Robotic Arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander with a sample of martian soil as it prepares to move to the spacecraft's microscope station. Scientists with the US Phoenix lander will make their first analysis of Martian ice fragments in coming days but it could be the last done in one of the probe's small ovens, NASA said on Friday.(AFP/File/Ho)AFP - Scientists with the US Phoenix lander will make their first analysis of Martian ice fragments in coming days but it could be the last done in one of the probe's small ovens, NASA said on its website Friday.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 6:28 pm

Italy declares Pompeii emergency

Italian ministers declare a "state of emergency" at the ancient ruined city of Pompeii as it sinks deeper into disrepair.
Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 4 Jul 2008 | 6:26 pm

A tomato by any other name? Experts set food rules

GENEVA (Reuters) - Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination.


Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 5:41 pm

No revamp of EU rules on GMO crops: ministerial meeting (AFP)

This file picture shows a genetically modified corn crop near Paillet. A review of the European Union's procedures for vetting genetically modified crops does not imply the policy will undergo far-reaching change, a French environment minister said Friday.(AFP/File/Jean-Pierre Muller)AFP - A review of the European Union's procedures for vetting genetically modified crops does not imply the policy will undergo far-reaching change, a French environment minister said Friday.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 5:32 pm

Crumbling Pompeii site in "state of emergency"

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government declared a state of emergency at the Pompeii archaeological site on Friday to try to rescue one of the world's most important cultural treasures from decades of neglect.


Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 4:25 pm

Sulston argues for open medicine

Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston says medical profits are taking precedence over the needs of patients.
Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 4 Jul 2008 | 4:06 pm

New West Nile virus strain may worsen epidemic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday.


Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 3:46 pm

Climate regrets

Japan rues being bundled into a Kyoto deal
Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 4 Jul 2008 | 2:23 pm

Weather around the U.S.A. (AP)

AP - Weather around the U.S.A.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jul 2008 | 1:14 pm

Smallest planet shrinks in size

The smallest planet in the Solar System has become even smaller, studies by the Messenger spacecraft show.
Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 4 Jul 2008 | 11:42 am

Australia 'needs carbon trading'

An Australian government advisor on climate change calls for a national emissions trading scheme to combat global warming.
Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 4 Jul 2008 | 11:09 am