Physicists Measure Elusive 'Persistent Current' That Flows Forever

Physicists have made the first definitive measurements of "persistent current," a small but perpetual electric current that flows naturally through tiny rings of metal wire even without an external power source.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Rockets Can Run On Toffee, Engineer Demonstrates

An engineer in the UK has helped to demonstrate that rockets can run on toffee.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

In Amoeba World, Cheating Doesn't Pay

Researchers are peeling back the layers of strategy that determine how colonies of social amoebas resist the efforts of cheaters to alter the balance of power.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Toward Better Solar Cells: Chemists Gain Control Of Light-harvesting Paths

Chemists have pioneered a method to tease out promising molecular structures for capturing energy, a step that could speed the development of more efficient, cheaper solar cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Air Quality Improvements Over The Last Decade May Be A Factor In Fewer Ear Infections

Strides in improving the nation's air quality over the past 10 years may be a factor in fewer cases of ear infections in children, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

Blood Counts Are Clues To Human Disease

New research examines that most important and diverse of tissues -- blood -- for genetic markers important in health. Scientists have found 15 new genetic variants associated with diseases including anemia, infection and blood cancers. Among these, they show that one variant associated with heart disease arose and spread in European peoples only 3,400 years ago. Further characterization of the regions uncovered could improve our understanding of how blood cell development is linked with human diseases.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

New Strategy For Mending Broken Hearts?

By mimicking the way embryonic stem cells develop into heart muscle in a lab, bioengineers believe they have taken an important first step toward growing a living "heart patch" to repair heart tissue damaged by disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

Mechanism That Helps Bacteria Avoid Destruction In Cells Identified

Infectious diseases currently cause about one-third of all human deaths worldwide, more than all forms of cancer combined. Advances in cell biology and microbial genetics have greatly enhanced understanding of the cause and mechanisms of infectious diseases. Researchers have now found a way in which intracellular pathogens exploit the biological attributes of their hosts in order to escape destruction.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

New Findings About Brain Proteins Suggest Possible Way To Fight Alzheimer's

The action of a small protein that is a major villain in Alzheimer's disease can be counterbalanced with another brain protein, researchers have found in an animal study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

Researchers Report Benefits Of New Standard Treatment Study For Rare Pediatric Brain Cancer

Researchers are addressing the treatment of a rare pediatric brain tumor. New findings suggest a new standard protocol could improve survival nearly two-fold for pediatric patients with choroid plexus tumors.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Most of the nation will experience a chilly Columbus Day with areas of scattered, mixed precipitation throughout Monday afternoon. A very cold high pressure area in the northern Midwest will advance eastward, spreading into the Northeast during the day.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:49 am

Relics give a glimpse of life on board the Mary Rose

Carefully preserved relics revealing what life was like on board Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose are revealed.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:36 am

UK 'needs step change' on climate

The government needs new policies if it is to meet climate targets, say the official advisers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:28 am

Epic cheetah hunt filmed in HD

Stunning footage is captured of three cheetahs cooperating to hunt and bring down an adult ostrich.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:11 am

23 arrested over green protest at British parliament (AFP)

AFP - Twenty-three people who climbed on to the roof of Britain's Houses of Parliament for a protest to urge ministers to overhaul climate change policies have been arrested, police said Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:44 am

Green walls taking root in green building design (AP)

AP - The next big thing in green building design might be to turn an existing idea on its side.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:42 am

Juggling's 'white matter' effect boosts brain power

Oxford University scientists find that a complex skill such as juggling causes changes in the white matter of the brain.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Oct 2009 | 12:35 am

First clown in space hosts show to save Earth's water

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Wearing a red clown nose, the Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil hosted an out-of-this-world performance event on Friday, saying he wanted to use his trip as a space tourist to highlight the scarcity of water on Earth.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 8:43 pm

Big Cats Picky About Habitat

Many species of large cats, including the leopard, are particularly fussy about where they live.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:59 pm

Birth Rates Rise in Wealthiest Nations (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - For decades, demographers have reported that the more developed a country is in terms of wealth, health, and living standards, the lower its citizens' fertility rate - so much so that most rich European and North American nations cannot sustain their populations without immigration. (The United States is a notable exception.) Eco-activists tend to welcome such news, foreseeing an end to overpopulation. But many economists and sociologists worry, because low fertility rates entail population aging, which often brings on socio-economic problems.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:46 pm

Birth Rates Rise in Wealthiest Nations

Study still finds a negative correlation between national fertility rates and the United Nations' development index.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:42 pm

New fears for species extinctions

Scientists warn of an alarming increase in the extinction of animal species due to loss of biodiversity.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:22 pm

Commercial focus 'is harming scientific research'

• Scientists warn lower funding will hit environmental research
• Report calls for Lord Mandelson's department to be broken up

Pressure on scientists to deliver commercial benefits is compromising research, marginalising blue skies work and making universities behave more like businesses, according to a report published today .

The independent group Scientists for Global Responsibility argues that government policy has "driven a corporate agenda into the heart of universities", undermining their openness and independence. It calls for Lord Mandelson's newly formed Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to be broken up.

"There is very obviously a trend pushing in the direction of commercialisation. It is as strong under Labour as it was under the Conservatives," said Stuart Parkinson, co-author of the report, Science and the Corporate Agenda. "We have gathered extensive evidence of the damaging effects of the commercial influence. Urgent action – by government and others – is needed to resolve these problems. The trustworthiness of science and scientists is at stake."

The report also raises concerns that commercial funding of research often results in only findings favourable to the funder being reported. It explored commercial influences on research in pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, defence, biotechnology and tobacco. In pharmaceuticals researchers found industry influence can lead to a focus on treatments for wealthier communities, rather than more common global diseases. Oil and gas industry influence "can lead to a focus on fossil fuel-based technologies or controversial biofuels" rather than controlling energy demand.The report chimes with concerns raised by a growing number of academics over the government's emphasis on science's role in a knowledge-based economy. Scientists and universities are worried that the recession has intensified the focus on short-term commercial benefits from science and that blue skies research will suffer as public spending gets tighter.

Parkinson warned that funding constraints will also affect basic research with social and environmental goalsenvironmental research.

"Science is about establishing knowledge, understanding how things work," he says. "Our understanding of issues like climate change and biodiversity is important in helping decrease our environmental impact," he said.

He cited two instances of the government's drive to commercialise research. First, the merger this year of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills with the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform to form Mandelson's BIS department. It has been criticised by academics who believe higher education should be in a department dedicated to education, not commerce. Secondly, the two most recent appointments as science minister: Lord Sainsbury and Lord Drayson. "[They are] scientists who have made a lot of money out of the commercialisation of science and want to see this agenda pushed further forward."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:06 pm

Science Weekly: Penisology

Ed Sykes is hosting a lecture at University College London called Penisology. Everything you never wanted to know about sex. He talks about the strange world of animal mating and looks at the science of human sex.

Thomas Steitz of Yale University is a winner of this year's Nobel prize for chemistry. He tells us how he got the news, and we discuss whether the awards need to be updated. We also check the progress of Barack Obama's science promise.

Environment correspondent David Adam looks at what a Conservative government would mean for science in Britain.

Nasa's LCROSS mission has bitten the dust. The two missiles plummeted into the moon's surface last week. We join science correspondent Ian Sample as he live-blogged the event.

WARNING: contains explicit sexual language

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Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:01 pm

Haemophiliacs with HIV to sue drugs firm

Bayer owned company to face victims in Taiwan and Hong Kong over its marketing of infectious blood products

Haemophiliacs in Taiwan and Hong Kong have been given permission to sue a multi-national drugs firm in the US over allegations that they contracted HIV from contaminated blood products that the company knowingly dumped in Asia.

The decision comes as US pharmaceutical firms meet UK victims of the scandal, which affected nearly 6,000 people with haemophilia in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. Haemophiliacs in the UK were refused permission to sue in the US courts by a judge who said the British courts were better placed to hear the evidence.

Nearly 2,000 of the UK victims have now died in what Lord (Robert) Winston has called "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS".

One man, Haydn Lewis, who contracted HIV from contaminated blood he believed came from the US and then unwittingly passed the virus to his wife, said: "The main reason was to get a judgment in a court of law which suggests which of the two parties were at fault – the companies who provided the products or the Department of Health, which purchased them. For years we've had this denial of responsibility. We are still … unaware of who is the guilty party."

The charges by the Taiwanese victims against the company, Cutter, which is now owned by Bayer, are particularly dramatic. The UK and other European authorities refused to buy blood products that had not been heat-treated in the 1980s, for fear of HIV contamination. Documents in the possession of US lawyers show, however, that Cutter did its utmost to continue marketing the products in Asia.

Cutter made a product called Koate, given to haemophiliacs to enable their blood to clot in the event of an injury. Documents in the court case brought on behalf of the Taiwanese haemophiliacs showed that some of the donated blood used to make the drug came from paid prisoners. Prisons had exceptionally high levels of inmates with HIV.

In the mid-1970s it was known that blood products carried a danger of infection from hepatitis, and that those coming from the US were particularly risky.

In the 1980s, once it was recognised that HIV was blood-borne, Cutter's market for non-heat-treated Koate began to dry up. Its executives, it is alleged, decided to carry on supplying the far east regardless. Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, the US lawyers representing Taiwanese haemophiliacs who contracted HIV from blood transfusions, allege that Cutter put sales above lives. A copy of Cutter's 1985 far east region marketing plan suggests that the strategy was to offload stocks of Koate before the "hysteria over Aids" set in and caused a slump in sales.Sales in New Zealand had been hit as the US products were replaced by local and Commonwealth supplies, the document says. "What Koate business Cutter had left in New Zealand, as of 1982, was terminated when Aids became an issue there," it says. "Aids has not become a major issue in Asia. Perhaps it is because the region has so many other health hazards of greater, more common, concern."

The document says: "The hepatitis risk of American-made concentrates is not of such concern in a region where hepatitis B is so prevalent. If we see a need for a heat-treated product in the far east, we will react to the demand swiftly. Otherwise, we will try to continue to dominate the markets with low-cost … Koate and Konyne."

Of 1,200 people in the UK with haemophilia who were infected with HIV, only about 300 are now alive. Of those, some 180 still have cases in the UK courts.

Lawyers for the US drug firms have offered compensation to those affected in the UK, and say the offer will be withdrawn unless 95% of claimants agree to it.

A spokesperson for Bayer said of the Taiwanese case: "Bayer is committed to the highest ethical standards, to promoting our medications responsibly and to providing life-saving therapies for the global haemophilia community."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Oct 2009 | 4:43 pm

Phase 1 of PCB removal on Hudson wrapping up (AP)

AP - Crews dredging a polluted stretch of the upper Hudson River this year battled high water, old logging debris and unexpected levels of PCB contamination that slowed progress.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 3:18 pm

Mammoth remains from the Russian permafrost offer up rich bounty

Discoveries give scientists insight into animals' demise as reindeer herders turn chance finds into lucrative paydays

It was 15 years ago when Vasily Ivanovich spotted something curious poking out of the side of a lake. Scrambling down a reed-lined bank, the reindeer hunter gently coaxed the object from the mud. "It was a mammoth tusk," Ivanovich said. "It wasn't very big," his wife, Valentina, pointed out. "There are lots of them," she added.

Ivanovich is one of a group of nomadic reindeer herders who live in Russia's remote Yamal peninsula, a vast wilderness of frozen tundra in north-west Siberia. It was here that in May 2007 another reindeer herder stumbled on the corpse of a perfectly preserved female baby woolly mammoth – which he named Lyuba, after his wife.

Some 9,700 years after woolly mammoths became extinct, mysteriously dying out at the end of the last ice age, more mammoth remains are emerging from Russia's thawing permafrost. Russian experts say that the question of why the mammoth died out may shed light on our own prospects of survival in a world gripped by rapid climate change.

"Dinosaurs died out. Mammoths died out. Maybe we're next," mused Fedor Romanenko, a mammoth specialist and senior scientist from the geography department of Moscow State University. "Mammoths are a window into changing climate and ecology," he added.

Armed with an old-fashioned Soviet box camera, and a sturdy shovel, Romanenko spent several days last week prodding the tundra.

This latest Greenpeace-organised expedition to study the effects of climate change did not turn up any fresh mammoth remains. But on previous trips Romanenko has stumbled across skulls, molars and tusks left behind by the 5 million mammoths that once roamed across the icy steppes of northern Eurasia, co-existing with early humans.

Romanenko is also one of few explorers to have visited Wrangel Island. The inaccessible Arctic territory – belonging to Russia – was home to a population of dwarf woolly mammoths until as recently as 3,700 years ago. "It was their refugium," Romanenko marvelled.Asked why he thought the mammoths had eventually perished, he answered: "Two reasons. First a changing environment. Second humans."

But the estimated five tonnes of mammoth tusks unearthed across Russia every year are not merely objects of scientific curiosity. They are also big business. In Yakutia, Russia's Europe-sized far-eastern republic, teams of professional collectors scour the tundra from May to September dodging bears, travelling by boat and helicopter, and digging in squelching riverbanks.

Depending on quality, five-metre-long mammoth tusks can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Russia even has its own mammoth "oligarch" – palaeontologist Fedor Shidlovsky. Shidlovsky runs Moscow's popular Ice Age museum, where you can have your photo taken with a giant mammoth. You can also meet woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions, musk-oxen, bison, giant reindeer, and extinct Pleistocene horses.

There is evidence that mammoth tusks have been traded for at least 2,000 years. The first tusk was sold in London as far back as 1611 and by the 18th century tusks were so abundant they were being transformed into chess sets, billiard balls, piano keys and even snuffboxes.

The Bolshevik revolution destroyed the thriving private mammoth industry, when all discoveries became the property of the state. But the collapse of the Soviet Union saw a revival of mammoth excavation in the anarchic 1990s, much of it done illegally, with tusks smuggled out of the country by mafia gangs to rich western enthusiasts.

Last week, families were touring Moscow's Palaeontology Museum, which has a large woolly mammoth discovered in Yakutia in 1842 displayed in its upstairs exhibition.

Museum employees admit the film Ice Age and its two sequels, the latest released this summer, have done for the mammoth what Jurassic Park did for dinosaurs.

Ice Age features a cast of lovable prehistoric creatures including a sloth, a sabre-tooth tiger and a mammoth – the grumpy Manny. "People have always been interested in mammoths. But at the moment there is a bit of a mammoth craze," said Alexander Tarletskov, research fellow at the museum. Asked whether Hollywood had got Manny right from a scientific point of view, Tarletskov replied: "He's not bad."

Back on the tundra reindeer herders say that finding mammoth remains is largely a matter of luck. The 435-mile-long peninsula is covered in snow for most of the year. It contains an endless number of shimmering mini-lakes – some as vast as oceans, others over-sized puddles. Any of them might conceal a mammoth graveyard or the next mummified Lyuba, they point out.

The reindeer herder who discovered Lyuba sold her for two snowmobiles and a year's supply of food.For several days the mammoth sat outside his reindeer-skin tent, and may have been gnawed by hungry sled dogs. Scientists later established that the calf had died some 40,000 years ago, aged just one month. Lyuba had choked to death in the mud.

The frozen carcass turned out to be the most complete specimen of a prehistoric animal discovered. But Lyuba still has not answered the question of why mammoths vanished from the Earth after a successful stint of hundreds of thousands of years. "Mammoths existed for a long time until about 9,000 years ago. Then they disappeared," Romanenko said, surveying the endless tundra. "I want to find out why."

Hairy history

Woolly mammoths lived in northern Europe, Siberia and north America up to 10,000 years ago. Climate change, hunting by early humans, and even a meteorite are among theories for their abrupt disappearance. A population of 3 metre-tall dwarf mammoths survived on Russia's Wrangel Island until 3,700 years ago. They were closely related to the modern elephant. Some scientists suggest a possible return of mammoths using DNA from frozen mammoth carcasses in Siberia.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Oct 2009 | 3:13 pm

Tropical depression forms in Pacific off Mexico (AP)

AP - Forecasters say a tropical depression has formed in the Pacific off Mexico's western coast, and it could become a tropical storm in the next day.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 2:44 pm

Russian spacecraft with circus tycoon lands safely (AP)

AP - The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte and two other space travelers landed safely in Kazakhstan on Sunday, ending the entertainment tycoon's mirthful space odyssey.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 1:19 pm

Pallas is 'Peter Pan' space rock

Hubble provides new insight on 2 Pallas, the huge asteroid that never quite grew up into a full planet.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pm

Cern physicist admits links with al-Qaida

Frenchman of Algerian origin corresponded online with a contact in north Africa's al-Qaida branch

A French physicist arrested last week while working at the world's largest atom smasher has told investigators he corresponded over the internet with a contact in north Africa's al-Qaida branch, a judicial official said today.

The exchange vaguely discussed plans for terror attacks, but nothing concrete was planned, the French official said, speaking on condition that his name not be used because the investigation is ongoing. The 32-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin was one of more than 7,000 scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. He and his brother were taken into custody Thursday in south-eastern French city of Vienne.

The brother was released from custody on Saturday. The physicist was still being held in the Paris area on Sunday, with no charges filed against him. Under French law, terror suspects can be held without charges for up to four days.

US monitors picked up the exchange between the scientist and his contact in the militant group, known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. The north African group regularly targets government and security forces in Algeria, and occasionally attacks foreigners.

At work, the physicist had no contact with anything that could be used for terrorism, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research has said. He worked on one of a series of research projects along the 17-mile (27-km) circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:22 am

Smart grid gets island test in Maui resort area (AP)

AP - A 4-square-mile patch of Maui in the nation's most fossil-fuel dependent state soon will be home to a new kind of power grid, one that saves energy by turning off household appliances when electricity is expensive and makes better use of wind and solar power.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:00 am

Borlaug and the bankers

Perhaps one of the worst effects of financial greed was to deprive the world of more people like Norman Borlaug

The recent death of Norman Borlaug provides an opportune moment to reflect on basic values and on our economic system. Borlaug received the Nobel peace prize for his work in bringing about the "green revolution", which saved hundreds of millions from hunger and changed the global economic landscape.

Before Borlaug, the world faced the threat of a Malthusian nightmare: growing populations in the developing world and insufficient food supplies. Consider the trauma a country like India might have suffered if its population of half a billion had remained barely fed as it doubled. Before the green revolution, the Nobel prize-winning economist Gunnar Myrdal predicted a bleak future for an Asia mired in poverty. Instead, Asia has become an economic powerhouse.

Likewise, Africa's welcome new determination to fight the war on hunger should serve as a living testament to Borlaug. The fact that the green revolution never came to the world's poorest continent, where agricultural productivity is just one-third of Asia's, suggests that there is ample room for improvement.

The green revolution may, of course, prove to be only a temporary respite. Soaring food prices before the global financial crisis provided a warning, as does the slowing rate of growth of agricultural productivity. India's agriculture sector, for example, has fallen behind the rest of its dynamic economy, living on borrowed time, as levels of ground water, on which much of the country depends, fall precipitously.

But Borlaug's death at 95 also is a reminder of how skewed our system of values has become. When Borlaug received news of the award, at four in the morning, he was already toiling in the Mexican fields, in his never-ending quest to improve agricultural productivity. He did it not for some huge financial compensation, but out of conviction and a passion for his work.

What a contrast between Borlaug and the Wall Street financial wizards who brought the world to the brink of ruin. They argued that they had to be richly compensated in order to be motivated. Without any other compass, the incentive structures they adopted did motivate them – not to introduce new products to improve ordinary people' lives or to help them manage the risks they faced, but to put the global economy at risk by engaging in short-sighted and greedy behaviour. Their innovations focused on circumventing accounting and financial regulations designed to ensure transparency, efficiency, and stability, and to prevent the exploitation of the less informed.

There is also a deeper point in this contrast: our societies tolerate inequalities because they are viewed to be socially useful; they are the price we pay for having incentives that motivate people to act in ways that promote societal wellbeing. Neoclassical economic theory, which has dominated in the west for a century, holds that each individual's compensation reflects his marginal social contribution – what he adds to society. By doing well, it is argued, people do good.

But Borlaug and our bankers refute that theory. If neoclassical theory were correct, Borlaug would have been among the wealthiest men in the world, while our bankers would have been lining up at soup kitchens.

Of course, there is a grain of truth in neoclassical theory; if there were not, it probably wouldn't have survived as long as it has (though bad ideas often survive in economics remarkably well). Nevertheless, the simplistic economics of the 18th and 19th centuries, when neoclassical theories arose, are wholly unsuited to 21st century economies. In large corporations, it is often difficult to ascertain the contribution of any individual. Such corporations are rife with "agency" problems: while decision-makers (CEOs) are supposed to act on behalf of their shareholders, they have enormous discretion to advance their own interests – and they often do.

Bank officers may have walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars, but everyone else in our society – shareholders, bondholders, taxpayers, homeowners, workers – suffered. Their investors are too often pension funds, which also face an agency problem, because their executives make decisions on behalf of others. In such a world, private and social interests often diverge, as we have seen so dramatically in this crisis.

Does anyone really believe that America's bank officers suddenly became so much more productive, relative to everyone else in society, that they deserve the huge compensation increases they have received in recent years? Does anyone really believe that America's CEOs are that much more productive than those in other countries, where compensation is more modest?

Worse, in America stock options became a preferred form of compensation – often worth more than an executive's base pay. Stock options reward executives generously even when shares rise because of a price bubble – and even when comparable firms' shares are performing better. Not surprisingly, stock options create strong incentives for short-sighted and excessively risky behaviour, as well as for "creative accounting", which executives throughout the economy perfected with off-balance-sheet shenanigans.

The skewed incentives distorted our economy and our society. We confused means with ends. Our bloated financial sector grew to the point that in the United States it accounted for more than 40% of corporate profits.

But the worst effects were on our human capital, our most precious resource. Absurdly generous compensation in the financial sector induced some of our best minds to go into banking. Who knows how many Borlaugs there might have been among those enticed by the riches of Wall Street and the City of London? If we lost even one, our world was made immeasurably poorer.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:00 am

Red-nosed circus billionaire returns to Earth

KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte returned to Earth on Sunday wearing his trademark clown's red nose, landing as planned in Kazakhstan after a landmark space performance to highlight water scarcity.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:39 am

Russia says to bear brunt of space missions

KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - Russia expects to extend the life of the International Space Station beyond 2015, although Moscow must bear the brunt of flights after the United States retires its shuttles, officials said on Sunday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 4:01 am

Russia says to bear brunt of space missions (Reuters)

Reuters - Russia expects to extend the life of the International Space Station beyond 2015, although Moscow must bear the brunt of flights after the United States retires its shuttles, officials said on Sunday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 4:01 am

Rainy-day oil funds see Mideast through downturn (AP)

AP - The Middle East has weathered the global economic downturn better than other parts of the world because its energy exporters were able to tap billions of dollars in oil profits collected when prices were booming, the International Monetary Fund said Sunday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Oct 2009 | 3:53 am