Astronomers seek to explore the cosmic Dark Ages
No place seems safe from the prying eyes of inquisitive astronomers. They've traced the evolution of the universe back to the "Big Bang," the theoretical birth of the cosmos 13.7 billion years ago, but there's still a long stretch of time -- about 800 million years -- that's been hidden from view. | 10/13/09 16:29:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Study: H1N1 flu deadliest to young, healthy people
Patients with the H1N1 swine flu virus who become severely ill and those who die tend to be relatively young adults without underlying medical conditions, according to a new Canadian study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. | 10/12/09 16:07:51 By - Fred Tasker
BPA chemical exposure linked to aggressive behavior in girls
Pre-birth exposure to a chemical widely used in plastics appears to be linked to more aggressive behavior in little girls, according to research published Tuesday by a scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill. The findings, which are preliminary and call for more study, are the first to connect behavior problems in humans with the chemical bisphenolA, which is a key component of plastic bottles, the liners inside canned goods and medical devices. | 10/07/09 07:34:28 By - Sarah Avery
Scientists seek to manage dopamine's good and bad sides
The good, the bad and the ugly: That's a quick summary of the effects of dopamine, a natural brain chemical that's linked to pleasure, addiction and disease. | 10/06/09 15:18:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Kansas City-based Cerner Corp. to announce flu tracking initiative
Swine flu hot spots and seasonal flu outbreaks will trigger a quicker and more coordinated public health response through a national initiative involving North Kansas City-based Cerner Corp. The medical software company is expected to announce this morning its Flu Pandemic Initiative with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. | 10/06/09 07:13:55 By - Mark Davis
California native wins Nobel Prize in medicine
Carol Greider, a scientist who grew up in Davis California and graduated from Davis Senior High School in 1979, was among three researchers who on Monday shared the Nobel Prize in medicine. Greider, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, won for her discovery in 1984 of telomerase an enzyme that regulates the length of chromosome ends and governs the division and death of cells in the human body. | 10/06/09 06:43:23 By - Hudson Sangree
Meet 'Ardi,' the newest oldest human ancestor
Move over, Lucy. A 4-foot- tall female nicknamed Ardi, who lived 4.4 million years ago in Africa, has replaced you as the earliest best known ancestor of the human species. | 10/01/09 16:47:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Stimulus funds to give scientific research a boost in N.C.
Researchers in the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill area of North Carolina won a massive infusion of $145 million in federal stimulus money Wednesday for scientific projects large and small — including an ambitious effort to seek cancer treatments by unraveling the complex genetics of tumors. | 10/01/09 07:26:25 By - Sarah Avery and David Bracken
Utilities quit group over its opposition to climate change bill
Exelon, the nation's biggest operator of nuclear power plants, said Monday that it's quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of the business group's lobbying against climate and energy legislation. Last week, two other large energy companies, Pacific Gas and Electric and PNM Resources, also quit the Chamber over objections to its stance on climate change. | 09/28/09 18:49:00 By - Renee Schoof
Experts: Careless work of Texas medical examiners costly
Over the years, Texas medical examiners have misidentified bodies, botched examinations and had to do a double take on cases of individuals later exonerated by law enforcement. That has opened the door for innocent men and women to go to prison and killers to go free. The slapdash work of some medical examiners could also allow public health threats, wrongful deaths and preventable medical errors to go undetected, experts warn. | 09/27/09 20:14:38 By - Yamil Berrad
He witnessed hurricane as kid; now, he brings you the weather
Twenty years ago this month when Hurricane Hugo struck the Carolinas, Scott Williams, who loved the weather, decided he would be a meteorologist. Hugo blasted from the coast up through York County, creating havoc that wasn't lost on a young man at Sylvia Circle Elementary. Today he's on the Weather Channel. | 09/27/09 15:29:25 By - Andrew Dys
Human trials of HIV vaccine aim to replace drug 'cocktails'
As an HIV vaccine breakthrough in Thailand stirs interest and hope, a pioneering AIDS researcher at the University of Miami Medical School says she is preparing to start human trials for a new vaccine. If successful, the vaccine could replace the two- and three-drug "cocktails" of antiretroviral drugs now used to improve and prolong the lives of people with HIV. | 09/24/09 21:02:10 By - Fred Tasker
Alaska senator's effort to block EPA on carbon emissions fails
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wanted to limit for a year the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and other stationary sources of pollution. Murkowski objected to the agency's using the Clean Air Act to limit emissions, as required by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling. | 09/24/09 17:58:12 By - Erika Bolstad
Sebelius: Swine flu vaccine will be available in October
The first doses of vaccine for the H1N1 flu virus will be available the first week of October, federal officials said Thursday, with millions more shipped every week after that. | 09/24/09 16:32:00 By - Steven Thomma
Answer to U.S. search for clean coal may lie in China
As the United States begins spending $3.4 billion in stimulus money to seek a commercially viable way to capture carbon dioxide from coal burning and bury it underground, some energy experts say that doing some of the work as a joint project in China would cut costs and time. | 09/24/09 16:39:00 By - Renee Schoof
Researchers unravel brain's wiring to understand memory
Neuroscientists are performing cutting-edge experiments in the latest efforts to understand the mysteries of how the brain learns, remembers and forgets. The work is shedding new light on how the brain handles memory storage, loss, fear, addiction and aging. Some explore the role of sleep — even a brief nap — in consolidating long-term memories. | 09/22/09 15:19:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
A tooth for an eye? Woman can see again after rare surgery
Sharron Thornton says she was shocked when Dr. Victor Perez told her what he wanted to do: "Who in the world would take a tooth out of your mouth and put it in your eye?" she asked. Now, after nine years of seeing only shadows, Thornton can recognize faces and read a newspaper. | 09/17/09 15:25:41 By - Fred Tasker
'Crazy' ants take over Texas, leaving path of destruction
Crazy ants, so named because they move in all directions rather than in a straight line, first surfaced in Houston seven years ago. Now the ants have been seen in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, alarming researchers who say the ants are so voracious they force other wildlife to flee. | 09/09/09 16:49:00 By - Bill Hanna
Money woes likely to hobble NASA's planned moon mission
NASA, with its history of landing men on the moon and producing Mars rovers that last far longer than they were designed to, helped cement America's reputation as the world's technological leader. But a series of money woes threaten its hopes of remaining the globe's leader in space exploration. There's not enough money for a new moon landing and science missions are running way over budget. | 09/03/09 16:35:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Study finds more evidence rapid Arctic warming isn't natural
The Arctic was cooling for 1,900 years because of a natural change in Earth's orbit, according to a study published Thursday in Science magazine. The orbit hasn't changed, adding evidence that warming is caused by burning fossil fuels, the study concludes. | 09/03/09 14:17:00 By - Renee Schoof
Study: Florida's HIV-AIDS rates among men are increasing
HIV/AIDS among Florida's men has reached critical levels, according to a new state report, and the highest rate in any racial/ethnic groups was in Miami-Dade County. | 09/03/09 06:58:10 By - Fred Tasker
Site of 1960s California commune becomes archeological dig
An old Marin County California commune where the Grateful Dead and other bands used to romp is being excavated and items catalogued by state park archaeologists at Olompali State Historic Park. Among the artifacts: the classic hippie beads, a marijuana "roach clip," fragments of tie-dyed clothes, and a reel-to-reel tape. | 09/02/09 06:46:45 By - Susan Ferriss
Do TV medical shows provoke higher health costs?
Pushing medical practice to the extreme may be the cost of keeping viewers hooked on Fox's hit show, which dramatizes the diagnoses of rare maladies. However, for patients treated in Mercer County, N.J., where "House's" mythical hospital is, that sequence of tests probably would tally charges of more than $9,200, according to New Choice Health, a Web site that compares hospital charges, and MTBC, a physician billing company. | 09/01/09 16:58:00 By - Christopher Weaver
Miami customs agents find S. African insect never before seen in U.S.
The discovery of the bug comes at a time when invasive whiteflies and red bay ambrosia beetles are threatening South Florida's landscaping and avocado farming industry, but entomologists are saying there isn't enough information about the South African visitor to know whether the bug's presence could be damaging. | 08/30/09 04:09:10 By - David Smiley
Germ phobes can't win: We're all host to trillions of microbes
Scientists are beginning a large-scale effort to identify and analyze the vast majority of cells in or on your body that aren't of human origin. Only about 10 percent of the trillions of cells that make up a person are truly human, researchers say. The other 90 percent are bacteria, viruses and other microbes. | 08/27/09 14:53:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Staghorn, elkhorn coral reefs rebounding in Florida Keys
After the discovery of a "farm-raised" coral spawn, Florida researchers have hopes of reversing the decline of two reef-building species. | 08/24/09 07:10:29 By - Curtis Morgan
Alaska's Rat Island apparently rid of its namesake pest
After two centuries of an epic infestation, Alaska's Rat Island finally may merit a name change. The island, part of a national wildlife refuge in the sprawling Aleutian chain, appears to be pest-free for the first time since rats overran it after a Japanese sailing ship wrecked there in the late 1700s. | 08/24/09 06:00:00 By - Erika Bolstad
Health officials to students: Stay home if you have the flu
Hoping to stop swine flu in its tracks this fall, U.S. health officials on Thursday advised university students, faculty and staff to "self-isolate" themselves in their dorm rooms or off-campus homes if they develop flu-like symptoms. College students are a high-risk group for the 2009 H1N1 virus, which has spread to at least 168 countries after emerging in Mexico this spring. The latest data from the World Health Organization reports at least 182,166 confirmed cases and 1,799 deaths worldwide. | 08/20/09 18:46:00 By - Tony Pugh
Drop in world temperatures fuels global warming debate
Has Earth's fever broken? Official government measurements show that the world's temperature has cooled a bit since reaching its most recent peak in 1998. That's given global warming skeptics new ammunition to attack the prevailing theory of climate change. | 08/19/09 16:03:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
New data: Mega-quake could strike near Seattle
Using sophisticated seismometers and GPS devices, scientists have been able to track minute movements along two massive tectonic plates colliding 25 miles or so underneath Washington state's Puget Sound basin. Their early findings suggest that a mega-earthquake could strike closer to the Seattle-Tacoma area, home to some 3.6 million people, than was thought earlier. | 08/16/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
June's record ocean warmth worries fishermen, environmentalists
Ocean surface temperatures around the world were the warmest on record for the month of June, according to federal scientists, though they caution that one month doesn't necessarily imply global warming. | 08/16/09 06:00:00 By - Brendan Doyle
Science meets football: Players swallow electronic monitors
By gulping down a pill containing a battery, thermometer and radio transmitter, 18 University of North Carolina football players on Tuesday began sweating out data that will be used later this season to help determine whether higher body temperatures increase the possibility of concussions. The data also will help coaches better regulate drills during practice and during games in heat that often reaches the high 90s. | 08/12/09 06:52:38 By - Robbi Pickeral
Community health centers vital to any health overhaul
While the health care debate rages on Capitol Hill, the Walker-Jones Health Center in northeast Washington is just a mile away, one of about 1,200 federally qualified community health centers across the country that provide free and reduced-cost care to millions of Americans. | 08/11/09 00:42:00 By - Andrew Villegas
Science called key to economic, energy, health care challenges
Science and technology are key to solving the interconnected challenges of the economy, energy, climate change and health care, President Barack Obama's science advisers said this week. | 08/07/09 16:48:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Study finds 3 Northwest glaciers shrinking faster
Climate change is shrinking three of the nation's most studied glaciers at an accelerated rate, and government scientists say that finding bolsters global concerns about rising sea levels and the availability of fresh drinking water. | 08/06/09 18:54:00 By - Les Blumenthal and Erika Bolstad
Poll: Americans claim that they're not so fat
Despite government data that show a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States over the past 20 years, most Americans don't think they have much of a weight problem, according to a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll. | 08/06/09 15:43:00 By - William Douglas
Blame the EPA: Lead mining threat lingers in a Kansas town
The Environmental Protection Agency has bought out the residents of Picher, Okla., because of the remaining threat from leftover lead tailings and cave-ins from the mining industry that essentially collapsed in 1970. But in Treece, Kan., literally across the street, there's been no similar action. Why? The two towns are in different EPA districts. | 07/30/09 07:04:21 By - Scott Canon
Older people not on priority list for swine flu vaccinations
Pregnant women, children and people who have certain health conditions are considered the most vulnerable to complications from the new flu virus, and they will be given priority for the shots this fall. Older people, who are among the hardest hit for seasonal flu, are not on the list. They appear to have some immunity to the new bug, perhaps from exposures to related H1N1 viruses that circulated before 1957. | 07/30/09 06:45:02 By - Sarah Avery
Summer break: U.S.'s cleanest beaches are in the northeast
The nation's cleanest beach-waters are along the upper half of the Atlantic seaboard, in Virginia, Delaware and New Hampshire, a national environmental group says. At the other end of the spectrum, Louisiana has the most contaminated waters, followed by Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. | 07/29/09 20:39:00 By - James Rosen
FDA: Mercury-based fillings pose no serious health hazard
The Food and Drug Administration's decision that mercury-based dental fillings are safe fulfilled a procedural act Congress first ordered back in 1976 but that had languished as the dental industry, consumer advocates and scientists fought over the safety of "dental amalgams." Consumer groups, which have pushed for a ban on mercury in fillings, promised a court challenge. | 07/28/09 18:30:00 By - Tony Pugh
Florida senators push more funding for hurricane research
Florida's senators on Tuesday renewed a push to boost federal funding for research into predicting, modeling and preventing damage from hurricanes. | 07/28/09 18:06:00 By - Lesley Clark
1969: Man on moon, but pictures had to be hand-delivered
In the pre-Internet days of 1969, Newsweek intern Guy Mendes was to hop a flight from Houston to New York and deliver the moon landing photos to the magazine's headquarters on Madison Avenue in time for them to make it into the next issue. | 07/20/09 17:49:05 By - Karla Ward
Big, mysterious blob floating off Alaska coast? It's algae
A sample of the giant black mystery blob that hunters discovered this month floating in Alaska's Chukchi Sea has been identified. Not bunker oil seeping from an aging, sunken ship. Not a sea monster. It looks to be a stringy batch of algae. | 07/17/09 15:29:00 By - Kyle Hopkins
Prehistoric crocodile found in Texas fossil field
Texas fossil hunters have uncovered more than 50 bones from a prehistoric crocodile skeleton, including its thumb-length teeth, in far north Arlington. | 07/16/09 07:48:29 By - Susan Schrock
Gravity wells could provide 'parking lots' for spaceships
Some NASA folks call them "parking lots" in space. They're unusual locations where gravity loses its pull and a spaceship can loiter, rather like a marble at the bottom of a cup, without using a lot of fuel. Three of them are 930,000 miles outside Earth's orbit. One is between the Earth and the sun, and another is hidden on the far side of the sun. | 07/14/09 15:45:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Dallas hospital to study estrogen's effect on traumatic brain injuries
A single dose of the female hormone estrogen could protect the brain after a traumatic injury, but researchers won't know for sure until they test it on humans. That's what they're doing beginning this week as part of a clinical trial at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. | 07/09/09 07:43:18 By - Jan Jarvis
Former astronaut Bolden vows to restore NASA's glory
At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, Charles Bolden vowed to help the National Aeronautics and Space Administration regain its luster and romance for young Americans. | 07/08/09 20:05:00 By - James Rosen
New wonder material, one-atom thick, has scientists abuzz
Imagine a carbon sheet that's only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips. | 07/08/09 14:47:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Confirmation hearing set for first black to head NASA
Charles Bolden will tell senators Wednesday how he plans to restore U.S. space exploration to its 1960s-era glory days at a confirmation hearing for the first African-American nominated to head NASA. | 07/07/09 17:35:00 By - James Rosen
Swine flu spreading in Southern Hemisphere
As the number of diagnosed cases of swine flu recedes in the Northern Hemisphere, several countries in the Southern Hemisphere are now struggling with how to respond to the H1N1 virus. | 07/01/09 16:25:00 By - Sara Miller Llana
DNA's repair system studied in hopes of better cancer treatments
For a human cell, this is a scary world. Each of the 60 trillion or so cells in the average person's body is damaged tens of thousands, perhaps a million, times a day, scientists say. The results can be deadly. | 07/01/09 15:48:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
EPA list shows dangerous coal ash sites found in 10 states
The Environmental Protection Agency wanted to limit distribution of the list to members of Congress, but agreed to make the list public under pressure from Sen. Barbara Boxer. The list included 44 coal-fired power plant waste sites in 10 states with a high hazard potential, including 12 sites in North Carolina, seven in Kentucky and a large storage pond in Pennsylvania. | 06/29/09 18:52:00 By - Renee Schoof
When shuttle retires, who will deliver in space?
NASA is turning to private space companies to plug a worrisome five-year gap in its ability to boost astronauts into orbit and return them safely to Earth. | 06/26/09 15:26:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Lawmakers, activists battle over mountaintop removal mining
Coal industry advocates and environmentalists converged on Capitol Hill Thursday at a congressional hearing on the impact of mountaintop removal mining on Appalachian streams and rivers. | 06/25/09 19:59:00 By - Halimah Abdullah
Wind energy race on as feds grant first offshore leases
The leases issued Tuesday will allow wind companies to build testing stations on federal land off the New Jersey and Delaware coasts. Research already has shown that the Northeast has relatively shallow water and few strong hurricanes, which make it a good candidate for existing offshore wind technology. | 06/23/09 17:32:00 By - Renee Schoof
Not space junk yet: Mars rovers carry on despite age, ailments
In one of the most remarkable engineering feats of our time, the aging Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still taking orders and sending home pictures more than five years after they were supposed to turn into slabs of space junk. | 06/23/09 14:56:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Energy bill nears vote in House, but what's in it for consumers?
How much will it cost the average American household to reduce the U.S. share of global warming pollution and shift to cleaner sources of energy produced at home? If Congress passes a law that puts the country on a path to that outcome, the answer on costs will depend on what kind of consumer protections are part of the new policy. | 06/22/09 15:38:00 By - Renee Schoof
Land Warrior System keeps a networked eyes on battlefield
Technology continues to play an increasingly greater role in modern warfare. The Land Warrior System is real-time network the Army believes should make missions in Iraq and Afghanistan quicker, more efficient and less prone to accidents. | 06/22/09 09:55:50 By - Scott Fontaine
Microsoft chief: In 10 years, computers will know your intent
Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer described computer systems that can figure out what you meant to do and devices as flexible as a sheet of paper as the technologies that would change the way we live in the next few years. | 06/19/09 22:23:32 By - Andrew Dunn
Smithsonian interested in S.C. fossil hunter's finds
Linda Funk calls the glass jars of black shark teeth she keeps in her kitchen "gifts from God." And now, a little bit of the collection she plucked from local beaches are part of her gift to the Smithsonian Institute, too. | 06/19/09 07:46:12 By - Liz Mitchell
Fertilizer industry finds its alternative energy: corncobs
A California start-up company is preparing to open a plant that will make fertilizer in the U.S. and reduce fossil fuel emissions from agriculture. The raw ingredient for the same ammonia-based fertilizer farmers have used for decades is something many already have and don't really need: corncobs. | 06/15/09 16:00:00 By - Renee Schoof
Northwest utilities turn to nuclear, 25 years after industry collapsed
A consortium of utilities in the Pacific Northwest once known as "Whoops," synonymous with the collapse of the nuclear power industry, wants back in the game. | 06/14/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Projection: It'll be years before jobs return to much of U.S.
Unlike the labor market collapse that killed millions of U.S. jobs in a matter of months, the nation's return to peak employment will not be nearly as uniform nor as swift. While signs indicate that the worst of the recession may be over, only six metropolitan areas across the country are expected to regain their pre-recession employment levels by the end of 2009, according to projections from IHS Global Insight, a leading economic forecaster. | 06/14/09 06:00:00 By - Tony Pugh
Texas wind farms deploy radar so birds, not feathers, can fly
Wind on the Texas coast is tempting for energy companies. Unlike other parts of Texas — the nation's No. 1 wind energy state — the coast has breezes that blow consistently on summer days, when energy demand peaks. But there's risk, too. | 06/11/09 17:06:00 By - Renee Schoof
New era of gene-based 'personalized medicine' dawning
Since scientists announced six years ago the completion of the Human Genome Project, a historic effort to decipher each of the 3 billion letters in the genetic instruction book for our species, thousands of people have submitted DNA to a wide array of follow-on studies. That's opened a new era of "personalized medicine'' that seeks to tailor therapies to patients based on their unique genetic makeups and medical histories. | 06/10/09 15:44:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
What might help automakers: Junk the gibberish car names
What exactly is a Cadillac DTS or a CTS and how is a Mercedes CLK different from an SLK? More to the point, why do today's carmakers name so many of their products with gibberish seemingly plucked from secure passwords? | 06/10/09 15:11:00 By - Brendan Doyle
U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags
Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday. The bags, used primarily to handle produce and groceries, were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts found during the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day. | 06/08/09 18:31:00 By - Grace Chung
Why it's good to be a dreamer: Solutions often come during sleep
A California dream researcher has proven something that wouldn't surprise Mozart or Keith Richards. It's that dreaming is a great way to solve creative problems. | 06/08/09 16:31:00 By - Frank Greve
Famous musicians, inventors and scientists dreamed it up
"I always dream music," Mozart said. 'I know all the music I have composed has come from a dream." And Mozart's one of many profoundly creative dreamers. | 06/08/09 16:31:00 By - Frank Greve
How Congress might tax your health benefits
If you work at a company that reimburses employees for joining a gym, you pay income taxes on the value of that perk. If you get life insurance through work, there's a good chance that you pay taxes on a portion. Health benefits could be next. | 06/08/09 16:22:00 By - Julie Appleby
DNA shows jet that landed in Hudson struck migrating geese
Regulating local birds populations wouldn't have prevented the accident that forced U.S. Airways Flight 1549 to ditch in the Hudson River in January. The birds that brought down the New York-to-Charlotte flight were migrating Canada geese, according to DNA testing on bird remains found in the plane's engines. The resultsw ere released Monday by the Smithsonian. | 06/08/09 11:21:37 By - Barbara Barrett
Washington state health panel could be model for U.S.
When it's judging the value of medical treatments it pays for, Washington state imposes a tough standard, the kind that might save tens of billions of dollars a year if it were applied nationally. | 06/05/09 15:43:00 By - Harris Meyer
Many health insurers have their own assessment panels
As many patients discover, doctors don't have the last word on treatment. Insurers generally deny coverage for anything they think hasn't been proved to work. | 06/05/09 15:43:00 By - Harris Meyer
Deadly bat disease spreading fast, scientists warn Congress
A mysterious disease that's killing tens of thousands of bats in the Northeast is spreading so fast that it could reach California within five years, biologists and officials of the Agriculture and Interior departments told lawmakers Thursday. | 06/04/09 16:51:00 By - Carrie Wells
Technology redefining the meaning of 'disabled'
Devices that allow the blind to 'see' and prosthetic limbs that react to brain signals will be on display in Miami this weekend at the No Barriers Festival, an international gathering of physically limited athletes, wounded soldiers, disabled kids and hopeful parents, and the scientists and doctors who develop the technology that lets them match the able-bodied step for step. | 06/04/09 07:16:07 By - James H. Burnett III
Patenting human genes thwarts research, scientists say
Rapid advances in biology and genetics are raising fresh concerns about the spreading practice of patenting human genes. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents to at least 4,382 human genes, including genes related to Alzheimer's, asthma, cancer, muscular dystrophy and other serious diseases. | 06/03/09 14:39:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Universities prefer women for science jobs, but few apply
Women with advanced degrees in math, science and engineering are more likely than men to be chosen for faculty positions and promotions — when they apply. | 06/02/09 15:27:00 By - Carrie Wells
Obama seeks funding cuts for wave, tidal energy research
The Obama administration has proposed a 25 percent cut in the research and development budget for one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the Northwest — wave and tidal power. | 05/31/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
For all the debate about interrogation, little research exists
The heated debate in recent weeks about harsh interrogation treatments at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere highlights what some scientists have been warning the U.S. for years: that almost no research exists to tell interrogators the best way to get information out of suspected terrorists. | 05/30/09 06:00:00 By - Barbara Barrett
New limit advised for weight gain during pregnancy
Telling a pregnant woman to eat for two is bad advice, especially if the mother-to-be is overweight or obese, a blue-ribbon panel of health experts cautioned Thursday. For the first time, the panel advised an upper limit for weight-gain for obese pregnant women — no more than 20 pounds. | 05/28/09 18:59:38 By - Brendan Doyle
Aviation biofuel proves itself in tests, but is there enough?
Initial flight tests have found that jet fuel made partly of camelina, algae or other bio-feed stocks can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes by more than 50 percent, doesn't affect performance and presents no technical or safety problems, a top Boeing official said Thursday. | 05/28/09 16:54:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Beating, dripping pig heart: It's gross, but it saves lives
The sight of a dripping-fresh, human-sized heart, it turns out, is both repulsive and attractive. Especially when it's suspended in the open among an elaborate array of tubes, pumps and valves. And when it's pulsing as though alive. | 05/28/09 15:11:00 By - Jay Price
Kansas girl names 'Curiosity,' NASA's new Mars rover
When the new Mars rover blasts off for the red planet later this year, the launch will carry special significance for a 12-year-old Lenexa girl. The name it will bear — "Curiosity" — was provided by Clara Ma, a sixth-grader at Sunflower Elementary School. | 05/27/09 16:59:27 By - Jim Sullinger
The good news on damaged ecosystems: Some recover fast
That's the conclusion of a study published Wednesday by two ecologists who studied such disasters as the Exxon Valdez oil spill and deforestation in the Amazon River basin. The upbeat findings should spur more restoration efforts, the study's authors conclude. | 05/27/09 15:52:00 By - Frank Greve
Some GPS satellites could fail before replacements arrive
GPS satellites originally scheduled to head skyward in 2006 in a $7 billion-plus program aimed at keeping the system going are awaiting launch in 2010. The delay means pieces of the high-altitude network could start falling out of service as early as next year. Such decay in the system could ultimately foul everything from the accuracy of U.S. bombs to the reliability of your neighborhood cash machine. | 05/27/09 07:18:22 By - Scott Canon
Finally, space station gets to fulfill its science mission
On Wednesday, three astronauts — a Russian, a Canadian and a Belgian — are to ride a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan up to the nearly completed space station, the first long-term human habitat in space. They're due to arrive Friday morning. When they join the three others already on board, it'll be the first time the space station has had a full crew complement. | 05/26/09 15:40:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Miami park plan would keep ancient Indian artifact hidden
The Miami Circle is a 2,000-year-old Native American site that taxpayers shelled out $27 million to buy 10 years ago. Now a frugal plan would create a low-key park around the ancient landmark. But the circle itself would remain hidden because no one has a plan or the money to display it. | 05/26/09 15:59:25 By - Andres Viglucci
Obama works with Graham on new detainee policy
South Carolina Republican senator says Obama should reconsider plan to transfer some suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to maximum security prisons in the United States. | 05/23/09 17:56:37 By - James Rosen
Obama gives NASA's new pilot a challenging flight plan
Charles Bolden's task as NASA's new chief will be more difficult and complex than merely restoring the space agency's glory days of the 1960s. | 05/23/09 17:38:00 By - James Rosen
Medical evidence on marijuana blows both ways
When the arguments for legalization of marijuana, both for medicinal and recreational use, are put forth, solid medical science often gets clouded in an ideological haze. | 05/22/09 14:12:49 By - Sam McManis
U.S. Forest Service closes caves over bat-killing disease
Stay out of caves. That's the message from the U.S. Forest Service, and even caver organizations, as bats continue to die from a mysterious disease called white-nose syndrome. On Thursday, the Forest Service closed all caves in national forests in the southeast for a year. | 05/22/09 12:53:32 By - Andy Mead
Earthquake fault much larger, more dangerous than thought
An earthquake fault previously believed to be limited to an area south of Washington state's Whidbey Island actually stretches 250 to 300 miles, from Victoria, B.C., to Yakima, Wash., crossing the Cascade Mountains and capable of producing a major earthquake, new research shows. | 05/21/09 17:43:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Obama, Bolden discuss future of NASA
President Barack Obama met Tuesday with former astronaut Charles Bolden to discuss his increasingly likely nomination as NASA chief and explore the former Marine Corp. general's vision for the beleaguered space agency. | 05/19/09 19:36:29 By - James Rosen
It's nature's law: When people arrive, animals vanish
It seems to be a law of nature that when people come, animals go. It happened in the past, and it's happening again now. | 05/19/09 15:53:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Kentucky professor to examine scrolls buried by Vesuvius
On Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Italy's Mount Vesuvius exploded, burying the Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii under tons of super-heated ash, rock and debris in one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history. Somehow, hundreds of papyrus scrolls survived in a villa at Herculaneum. University of Kentucky professor Brent Seales will use an X-Ray CT scanning system to collect interior images of the scrolls' rolled-up pages. | 05/19/09 07:36:41 By - Jim Warren
Chile investigating rash of penguin, flamingo and sardine deaths
Chilean scientists are investigating three mysterious ecological disasters that have caused the deaths of hundreds of penguins, millions of sardines and about 2,000 baby flamingos in the past few months. | 05/19/09 07:03:34 By - Gideon Long
Zombie fire ants wander in Texas — until heads fall off
It sounds like something out of science fiction: zombie fire ants. But it's all too real. Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound. Eventually their heads fall off, and they die. The strange part is that researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service say making "zombies" out of fire ants is a good thing. | 05/12/09 07:43:43 By - Bill Hanna
N.C. budget cuts threaten tick studies
A small pool of money to study tick-borne illnesses in North Carolina and educate people about avoiding tick bites is threatened by budget cuts, leading advocates to question the state's commitment to curbing the infections. | 05/11/09 07:31:00 By - Sarah Avery
With flu fizzling, health experts rethink school closures
With more data suggesting the swine flu outbreak may not be as deadly as first feared, U.S. health officials are reconsidering their earlier advice on when schools should be closed over health concerns about the virus. | 05/04/09 18:14:00 By - Tony Pugh
Europe is about to take an astronomical lead over U.S.
The world's astronomers are about to get a trio of powerful new eyes on the sky that can see better and farther than existing space telescopes. | 05/04/09 15:30:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Swine flu will likely subside during summer
Here's the good news: The swine flu that is busy spreading across the globe may soon be headed for a summer vacation. The bad news: There's a distinct possibility it could return with a vengeance in the fall. | 05/04/09 07:27:27 By - Alan Bavley
All we do now to save salmon could mean nothing
No matter what actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gases, river temperatures in more than half of the lower-elevation watersheds may exceed 70 degrees by 2040 - too hot for salmon. | 05/03/09 10:17:55 By - Rocky Barker
Inspectors find safety problems at nuclear weapons complex
Contractors at one of the nation's major nuclear weapons complexes repeatedly used substandard construction materials and components that, could've caused a major radioactive spill, a recently completed internal government probe has found. One of the materials used at the Savannah River Site on the South Carolina-Georgia border failed to meet federal safety standards and "could have resulted in a spill of up to 15,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste," the Energy Department's inspector general found. | 05/02/09 23:00:00 By - James Rosen
Researchers can't agree on severity of swine flu outbreak
More than a month into the swine flu outbreak that has now affected 13 countries, medical experts are wondering aloud whether the contagious disease will ever become the deadly pandemic that everyone fears. With at least 143 infections now confirmed in 23 states, the H1N1 virus continues to spread via person-to-person transmission. But they overwhelmingly have been mild. | 05/01/09 19:33:00 By - Tony Pugh
Scientists trace ancestry of swine flu virus to 1998 outbreak
The new H1N1 influenza virus that continues to spread through the U.S. has ancestry in a swine flu outbreak that first struck a North Carolina hog farm more than 10 years ago, according to scientists studying the strain's genetic makeup. | 05/01/09 18:19:00 By - Barbara Barrett
Company warned officials of flu 18 days before alert was issued
A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert about a public health emergency of international concern. | 04/30/09 18:53:00 By - Les Blumenthal
World health officials urge governments to prepare for pandemic
The global threat from the swine flu outbreak reached its highest level yet on Wednesday as the World Health Organization urged government, business and health officials to start planning in earnest for a pandemic, which now appears unavoidable. | 04/29/09 18:58:00 By - Tony Pugh
Q&A: The facts and fiction about swine flu
Here are some questions and answers about the science of swine flu — the H1N1 virus that's sweeping the world. | 04/29/09 15:45:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Discovery of gene connected to autism raises new hopes
Researchers have identified a gene associated with autism, giving them hope that one day there may be better ways to diagnose, treat and maybe even prevent the condition. One of the researchers said the discovery could lead to practical resutls within a decade. | 04/29/09 15:50:11 By - Fred Tasker
World's largest economies start push for agreement on climate
The top U.S. climate negotiator, Todd Stern, said Tuesday that he was "a bit more optimistic" that the world could solve the global warming crisis after meeting with high-level officials from the countries that produce the bulk of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. | 04/28/09 19:44:00 By - Renee Schoof
First U.S. death from swine flu reported in Texas
The first fatality is a 23-month-old child, but no other details of the child's illness or death were immediately available. With the number of swine flu cases jumping in the U.S. from 45 to 64 on Tuesday, federal health officials had said it was only a matter of time before the highly contagious disease claimed its first American fatality. | 04/28/09 19:17:00 By - Tony Pugh and William Douglas
CDC expects more swine flu will be found in U.S.
U.S. officials Sunday declared the rapid spread of swine flu to be a public health emergency and freed up 12.5 million doses of antiviral medication to help fight the disease, which has now infected 20 people in five states. In Mexico, where the outbreak originated, nearly 90 people have died and thousands of others have become ill from swine flu in the last several weeks. | 04/26/09 17:38:00 By - Tony Pugh
Astronaut talks about what it's like to be back on Earth
The fresh ocean breeze was the first thing that Sandra Magnus noticed after the Space Shuttle Discovery landed in Florida. "I didn't even realize I hadn't had a fresh air breeze like that in 4 1 / 2 months because I'd become so used to the air on the space station," she said. | 04/26/09 15:29:41 By - Jennifer A. Bowen
Meningitis outbreak has Florida health experts baffled
Health officials are having trouble understanding the cause and course of 12 cases of a rare, virulent form of meningitis that has killed four people in South Florida since December. | 04/24/09 07:12:14 By - Fred Tasker and John Dorschner
Bill would give utilities, customers Yucca Mountain 'rebates'
A bill introduced Thursday would provide "rebates" from a $30 billion fund to build the stalled Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada. | 04/23/09 19:08:00 By - James Rosen
Regulators give go-ahead for offshore wind farms
The federal government has cleared the way for developers to plant wind farms in offshore waters on the Outer Continental Shelf. | 04/22/09 17:25:00 By - Barbara Barrett
Antibiotics might get a boost from slime-fighting molecule
A slime-busting substance developed at N.C. State University could help restore potency to antibiotics that have lost their punch against deadly germs. | 04/22/09 07:23:24 By - Sarah Avery
For the first time, EPA to limit mercury from cement plants
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday called for the nation's first limits on mercury emissions from the more than 100 cement factories across the U.S. | 04/21/09 19:07:00 By - Renee Schoof
What's driving a shift away from manual transmissions
Stick shifts could be going the way of whitewall tires, running boards and rumble seats. As recently as 1985, more than 50 percent of male car buyers said they wanted a stick shift. Last year, only 11 percent did, according to market researchers, and sales totaled 7 percent of the new car market. | 04/21/09 16:01:00 By - David Coffey
Robots are narrowing the gap with humans
Robots are gaining on us humans. Thanks to exponential increases in computer power — which is roughly doubling every two years — robots are getting smarter, more capable, more like flesh-and-blood people. Matching human skills and intelligence, however, is an enormously difficult — perhaps impossible — challenge. | 04/20/09 15:26:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Citizen sleuths follow trail of elusive hijacker D.B. Cooper
It's among the coldest of cold cases. While a team of citizen sleuths, with the help of the FBI, have turned up some tantalizing new clues, the fate of D.B. Cooper after he jumped out of a hijacked airplane with a parachute and $200,000 in cash nearly 38 years ago may never be known. | 04/20/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
EPA declares fossil fuel emissions a health threat
Capping years of work by U.S. government scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday declared that the heating of Earth's climate from fossil fuel use threatens human health and the environment. | 04/17/09 17:50:00 By - Renee Schoof
Progress: Cheap pens that write right (and don't smear)
Disposable pens used to be things you wanted to dispose of by throwing them across the room. They skipped. They had to be muscled across the page. They leaked sticky ink that smeared good words — and shirt cuffs if the writer was left-handed. Sometimes America progresses, however, and it has, thanks to generations of Japanese engineers driven by dreams of better pens. | 04/16/09 15:50:00 By - Frank Greve
Kaiser study finds link between dementia, diabetic hypoglycemia
People with diabetes whose blood sugar plummets so low that they have to go to a hospital are likelier to get dementia later in life, a new study from Kaiser Permanente shows. | 04/15/09 13:44:37 By - Carrie Peyton Dahlberg
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Attention readers: The RSS feed for the Science section on McClatchyDC.com has moved here as part of an upgrade to improve service. Please update your subscription in your RSS reader. | 04/13/09 17:57:58 By -
Congresswoman's cancer bill draws surprising opposition
Two days after she disclosed her private battle with cancer, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz began championing legislation that calls for spending $45 million over the next five years to boost awareness of breast cancer risks among younger women. A leading breast cancer prevention researcher and the National Breast Cancer Coalition have panned the legislation as unnecessary and even potentially harmful. | 04/10/09 18:46:00 By - Lesley Clark
GM says Volt isn't dead yet, despite panel's bleak report
The White House may have sounded a bit bleak on the Chevrolet Volt last week, but both the company and the Obama administration say don't read that as early news of the much-advertised electric car's demise. A company spokesman said the Volt remains the No. 1 product development program at GM despite the White House assessment that it won't be commercially viable because of its high price. | 04/08/09 17:37:00 By - Renee Schoof
Modern life's pressures may be hastening human evolution
We're not finished yet. Even today, scientists say that human beings are continuing to evolve as our genes respond to rapid changes in the world around us. | 04/08/09 13:49:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Duke study indicates new factors in developing diabetes
As the prevalence of diabetes has doubled in North Carolina and the nation over the past decade, doctors are only now beginning to unravel the complex series of cellular events that cause some people to develop the chronic disease, while others remain healthy. | 04/08/09 07:29:16 By - Sarah Avery
Sometimes DNA tests prove guilt of inmates
In an era of DNA exonerations, where headlines scream of wrongful convictions and photos highlight vindicated inmates leaving prison, not as much is heard about the inmates who plead for DNA testing — and get it — knowing full well they're guilty. | 04/07/09 07:15:19 By - Laura bauer
Asarco gets $6 billion award; could fund mine-site cleanups
A mining company controlled by one of Mexico's richest families has been ordered to pay Asarco an estimated $6 billion in stock and damages — money that eventually could be used to pay for the cleanup of dozens of seriously polluted mining and smelting sites across the West. | 04/03/09 18:09:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Coast Guard to move oil from near simmering Alaska volcano
A Coast Guard official said this afternoon that a tanker is scheduled Saturday to begin taking 6.3 million gallons of crude oil from storage tanks that could be affected by the continuing eruption of the Mount Redoubt volcano. | 04/02/09 19:56:16 By - Richard Mauer
As Alaska's Redoubt simmers, concern for oil storage tanks
Alaska's Mount Redoubt continued blowing gas, steam and ash Wednesday as officials worked on plans to forestall risks to oil storage tanks at the Drift River terminal, located in the volcano's shadow. Air cargo service was disrupted though passenger flights went largely as scheduled on Wednesday. | 04/02/09 06:40:57 By - James Halpin and Elizabeth Bluemink
Fruit flies earn no respect, except among scientists
That annoying kitchen pest, the fruit fly, occupies an honored place in science and medicine, despite slurs from politicians such as Sen. John McCain and his 2008 sidekick, Sarah Palin. | 04/01/09 15:28:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Drug-resistant TB may 'spiral out of control,' U.N. says
The world is on the cusp of an explosion of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases that could deluge hospitals and leave physicians fighting a nearly untreatable malady with little help from modern drugs, global experts said Wednesday. Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization, urged health officials from 27 countries to recognize the warning signs of what looms ahead. | 04/01/09 13:22:00 By - Tim Johnson
UN: Killer strains of tuberculosis may 'spiral out of control'
The world is on the cusp of an explosion of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases that could deluge hospitals and leave physicians fighting a nearly untreatable malady with little help from modern drugs, global experts said Wednesday. | 04/01/09 10:38:54 By - Tim Johnson
Jindal may not like volcano monitoring, but this Republican does
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Monday she'll introduce legislation this week to establish regular funding for the Alaska Volcano Observatory, just one month after fellow Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized the stimulus bill pushed by President Barack Obama for containing spending for volcano monitoring. | 03/31/09 04:38:12 By - Erila Bolstad
Alaska Air cancels Anchorage flights as Redoubt spews ash
With Mount Redoubt volcano continuing to spew a steady flow of black ash into the atmosphere, Alaska Airlines announced Monday afternoon that it is once again canceling all flights in and out of Anchorage until further notice. | 03/30/09 17:52:30 By -
Volcano monitoring: Redoubt sends more ash into Alaska sky
The active volcano, one of four in the Cook Inlet area, is about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage and directly across the Inlet from Kenai, situated in a location where it can disrupt flights to and from Anchorage when belching ash. It erupted three times Friday night, disrupting air travel. | 03/28/09 07:09:35 By - Richard Mauer
Jobs or lives? Tobacco makes its case against regulation
Hoping to build opposition to legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration oversight over tobacco, tobacco farmers and their supporters testified that the ripple effect of regulating and taxing tobacco would be the loss of manufacturing jobs that pay better than most private industries. | 03/26/09 19:20:17 By - Lisa Zagaroli
Shriver, Gingrich push for Alzheimer's 'Manhattan Project'
Sargent Shriver once walked the halls of Congress pressing senators and members of the House of Representatives for more money for the Peace Corps, Head Start and Job Corps. Now, at 93, the one-time adviser to two presidents doesn't remember his daughter, Maria Shriver, thanks to the ravages of Alzheimer's, the disease that's left him entirely dependent on others. | 03/25/09 18:28:00 By - Lesley Clark
Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own
The unmanned bombers that frequently cause unintended civilian casualties in Pakistan are a step toward an even more lethal generation of robotic hunters-killers that operate with limited, if any, human control. | 03/25/09 00:06:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
EPA moves to halt 'mountaintop removal' coal mining
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released letters it had sent to the Army Corps of Engineers, challenging permits that had been requested by two mining companies in Kentucky and West Virginia to use the controversial technique. Environmentalists hailed the move as a sharp break from the eight years of the Bush administration. | 03/24/09 17:08:28 By - Andy Mead
Ash fall advisory in parts of Alaska as Redoubt erupts again
A series of six explosions that started Sunday night, persisted through the early hours Monday, then struck again Monday evening canceled commercial airline flights and spurred Alaskans north of Anchorage to protect their cars and homes. | 03/24/09 06:50:52 By - George Bryson
High schoolers invent solution to computer cord tangles
A capital rite of spring — the swarming of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History by tourists — took on a new dimension Friday when scores of award-winning young inventors set up their works in the museum's lobby. | 03/20/09 18:35:00 By - David Coffey
U.S. now has no takers for its spent nuclear bomb materials
Duke Energy was the only U.S. utility that had agreed to use so-called mixed-oxide fuel in its nuclear plants, and it has let its contract expire. The fuel contains a small percentage of weapons-grade plutonium taken from retired nuclear warheads and is part of the government's plan for disposing of surplus plutonium. | 03/17/09 13:39:48 By - Bruce Henderson
U.S., China worlds apart on climate change curbs
China's top climate negotiator's visit to Washington on Monday sent a fresh signal that the two countries, which account for about half the world's greenhouse gas emissions, have a long way to go to reach a common agreement on how to cut emissions to prevent serious climate change. | 03/16/09 19:14:00 By - Renee Schoof
Antibiotic resistant bacteria killed healthy teen in just 5 days
Ryan Robinson went from a healthy, 17-year-old soccer player at the peak of his form to another victim of a deadly drug-resistant strain of bacteria — all within the span of five days. | 03/15/09 16:08:48 By - Greg Kocher
Here's another earmark: More privacy for red wolves to breed
When the few remaining red wolves try to breed, they prefer a little privacy. That's become a bit of a problem, and that's why Congress stepped in with $870,000 to build a better home for the once nearly extinct species. | 03/13/09 15:58:00 By - Lisa Zagaroli
University of Miami study shows obesity harmful to young kids
Health problems caused by childhood obesity may begin as early as age 3 with the onset of risky cholesterol and artery inflammation levels that often portend heart disease, diabetes and other health problems in young adulthood. | 03/12/09 10:52:53 By - Fred Tasker
Scientists harness anti-matter, ordinary matter's 'evil twin'
Tom Hanks' new movie, ``Angels and Demons,'' tells of a secret plot to blow up the Vatican and everyone inside it by using ``the most terrible weapon ever made'': anti-matter. | 03/11/09 14:59:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
South Florida doctors ready to begin stem cell research
For more than a decade, Dr. Dalton Dietrich has worked in a lab at the University of Miami Medical School, trying to unlock the secrets of spinal-cord injury and paralysis. He got a new tool Monday when President Barack Obama lifted a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. | 03/10/09 07:07:30 By - Fred Tasker and Jaweed Kaleem
Obama vows to put science first as he lifts stem-cell ban
President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order allowing federal financing of medical research using stem cells from discarded human embryos, the vanguard of a broader effort to end what he calls a Bush-era "war on science." He also signed a memo ordering a "strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making." | 03/09/09 18:36:00 By - Steven Thomma
N. Carolina man admits fraud in sales of human tissue
A man who ran a human tissue harvesting company in Raleigh pleaded guilty Monday to federal mail fraud charges, stemming from allegations that he fabricated the identities of tissue donors to hide their diseases. The case raised alarms about the safety of donated body parts used in more than 1.5 million knee reconstructions, heart valve repairs, skin grafts and other procedures each year. | 03/09/09 16:58:50 By - Sarah Avery
California scientists await Obama's lifting of stem cell ban
Well before word emerged that President Barack Obama would lift the ban on federal funding for most embryonic stem cell research, UC Davis scientists had already chosen four stem lines they're planning to order. | 03/09/09 06:38:23 By - Carrie Peyton Dahlberg
Obama to lift restrictions on stem-cell research funding
President Barack Obama plans on Monday to lift President George W. Bush's eight-year-old restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, a step long awaited by scientists and people who say it could speed treatments for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and other diseases. | 03/06/09 20:12:00 By - Margaret Talev and Tony Pugh
Obama reverses Bush change to Endangered Species Act
Reversing a last-minute Bush administration rule change, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he'd require federal agencies to consult with government wildlife experts about whether new government projects such as highways or dams would harm endangered or threatened species. | 03/03/09 18:18:00 By - Renee Schoof
Will early hydrogen fuel cell investment pay off for South Carolina?
South Carolina leaders urge patience, saying seeds being planted now for hydrogen fuel cells will take 20 years to payoff. But criitics say USC putting eggs in one basket | 03/02/09 07:39:36 By - Jeff Wilkinson
Obama's emphasis on science welcomed by researchers
Weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama has moved on several fronts emphasizing scientific research. The stimulus package puts the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and the DOE Office of Science on track to double their budgets in the next seven to 10 years. The bill also provides billions of dollars for infrastructure improvement at universities and national laboratories. | 03/02/09 07:11:48 By - Malcolm Garcia
Attempt to move Forest Service across town could spark turf war
In what eventually could become a major bureaucratic turf war, there have been stirrings on Capitol Hill about moving the U.S. Forest Service from the Agriculture to the Interior Department. | 02/28/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Environmentalists, landowners help endangered falcons soar
The endangered Northern Aplomado Falcon, a regal gray bird with beige markings that was common across Texas and the Southwest until 1952, is making a comeback. | 02/27/09 19:10:00 By - Maria Recio
Price of emissions: House bill would send taxpayers a check
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said on Wednesday that he'll soon introduce a climate bill that does something different — it would return at least 90 percent of the money from the sale of emissions permits to every American man, woman and child. | 02/25/09 19:38:00 By - Renee Schoof
Carbon emissions will last for millennia, expert says
Until now, most discussion of climate change has been about what scientific evidence shows is likely to happen between now and 2100. However, scientific research shows that the carbon dioxide gas released from burning fossil fuels lasts in the atmosphere much longer than mere decades. | 02/25/09 03:09:10 By - Renee Schoof
Study indicates Alaska students' weight trends leveling off
The bad news: One in three Anchorage School District students is overweight. The good news: That number plateaued five years ago and is remaining steady. | 02/24/09 06:46:54 By - Megan Holland
Study: Drugs cheaper, as effective as stents, for treating heart attack
It's much cheaper and just as effective to treat some heart attacks with drugs instead of also trying to snake a stent into a clogged artery, scientists at Duke University report Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. | 02/19/09 07:27:36 By - Sarah Avery
Watchdog: Bush FDA decision put patients in danger
The Food and Drug Administration put patients' lives at risk by halting enforcement of 30-year-old requirements that medical device makers meet federal laboratory standards prior to testing their products on humans, a watchdog group charges in a new report. | 02/18/09 00:05:00 By - Greg Gordon
Some of your body's cells have a 'license to kill'
Millions of "natural killer cells" — nature's first line of defense against cancer, viruses and other infectious microbes — are on constant patrol inside your body. | 02/17/09 13:56:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
How broken arm led scientists to genome of Neanderthals
About 38,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man living in what's now Croatia broke his left arm, forcing him to use his other arm for most tasks. That increased the mass and density of the bone in the upper right arm, and preserved his DNA for researchers — using a dentist's drill — to recover many millennia later. | 02/12/09 16:14:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Kentucky foal is first horse of its kind — diabetic at birth
A foal has been diagnosed as the only horse ever documented to have been born with Type 1 diabetes. | 02/09/09 18:44:56 By - Amy Wilson
Global warming studies often depend on average citizens
As scientists track global warming, they're using sometimes centuries-old data to assess its impact on plants, animals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Increasingly, they're discovering that it can take only one seemingly insignificant change to disrupt an entire ecosystem. And to spot those changes, researchers are turning more and more to citizen scientists for help. | 02/08/09 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Internal clocks keep you, all living things ticking
Like kids taking apart a fine Swiss watch, scientists are laboring to understand what makes the biological clock that's inside every living creature tick. Many questions remain to be answered, however, such as how the clocks work at the level of individual molecules. | 02/05/09 14:55:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Boxer pushes clean energy bill as another kind of stimulus
Sen. Barbara Boxer on Tuesday announced that the Environment and Public Works Committee would draft a new climate bill that would help consumers avoid higher prices and create new jobs in clean energy, but also suggested it's unlikely Congress will pass climate legislation this year. | 02/03/09 17:50:00 By - Renee Schoof
Alaskans are on edge as volcano continues to rumble
The uncertainty surrounding a volcanic eruption has prompted hundreds of people to call scientists to get the skinny and thousands more to flood the Alaska Volcano Observatory's Web site, crashing it on Friday. But the No. 1 question is one scientists can't answer: When is this thing going to blow? | 02/03/09 16:03:51 By - James Halpin
Bone treatments leading to growing dental problems
The growing use of drugs to treat osteoporosis is creating another concern for dentists nationwide. It is called osteonecrosis of the jaw, or ONJ, a condition in which the gums become painful and infected, exposing underlying areas of dead bone in the jaw. | 02/03/09 07:47:24 By - Alan Bavley
Tremors shake Alaska volcano as state awaits eruption
The 10,197-foot mountain 106 miles southwest of Anchorage has been under close observation for several days due to elevated seismic activity and the release of steam and gases near the summit. Three high intensity tremors shook the mountain today. | 02/02/09 18:23:09 By - Wesley Loy
Alaska on alert as evidence mounts that volcano is stirring
Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage showed stunning pictures from a Saturday flyover to demonstrate the immense forces at work within Mount Redoubt, located 106 miles southwest of Anchorage. | 02/02/09 07:49:26 By - Wesley Loy
Lithium could be Bolivia's future, if politics don't get in way
With the largest stores of lithium reserves in the world, Bolivia hopes to profit big-time from the automakers' push to develop electric cars that will run on lithium ion batteries. But first, it'll have to figure out how to exploit it. Bolivia's leaders are deeply suspicious of foreign companies, a sentiment the companies return after nationalizations and protests over natural-gas exports. | 01/30/09 14:47:00 By - Tyler Bridges
Air Force drops plan to make fuel from coal in Montana
The Air Force on Thursday dropped plans to build a coal-to-liquid plant to produce fuel for its aircraft, a plan that would've reduced dependence on oil but increased the emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. | 01/29/09 18:39:00 By - Renee Schoof
Scientists hope satellites will solve riddle of missing CO2
Only half of the carbon emissions that world dumps into the atmosphere evey day actually stays there. Scientists, however, have never understood where the rest of it goes. Now they're hoping a pair of satellites, one from NASA, the other from Japan, will help identify the forests, pastures, crops and soil — even golf courses — that soak up carbon dioxide. | 01/29/09 17:09:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Evolution war still rages 200 years after Darwin's birth
Two centuries after Charles Darwin's birth on Feb. 12, 1809, people still argue passionately about his theory of evolution. | 01/26/09 11:55:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
What Bush action can Obama undo next? Emissions standards
State leaders and environmentalists are pressing for quick approval of a waiver that would let California and at least 13 other states impose tougher air-quality standards than are allowed under federal law. The Bush administration rejected the request a year ago, but that could be reversed by President Barack Obama and his environmental team. | 01/22/09 17:17:00 By - Rob Hotakainen
Is 80 too old for major surgery? Increasingly, the answer's no
More and more, patients inching toward the century mark are undergoing cancer operations, open-heart surgery and joint replacements at an age when previously they might have been told to take it easy and let nature take its course. Credit improvements in medical technology, coupled with a healthier aging population. But such advances have not arrived without controversy. | 01/18/09 13:43:58 By - Sam McManis
Report calls on EPA to ban coal-waste storage in mines
A day after the nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency promised to look into the problem of coal ash storage in ponds such as the one that burst in Tennessee last month, a new report says another disposal strategy is just as dangerous: using the coal waste to fill in active or abandoned mines. | 01/15/09 19:14:00 By - Renee Schoof
Advanced car battery makers seek juice from stimulus plan
The U.S. is struggling to catch up with China, Japan and Korea in a race to build the advanced batteries needed to power the electric cars of the future. | 01/15/09 14:29:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Energy nominee: Coal, nuclear an 'important part' of power mix
Energy-Secretary-Designate Steven Chu told a Senate Committee on Tuesday that the incoming administration would have an increased commitment to alternative energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal, but also made clear coal and nuclear would be part of the energy mix. | 01/13/09 17:37:00 By - Les Blumenthal
Study of pollution's effects on children's health launched
The largest study of children's health ever undertaken in the U.S. kicked off on Tuesday. | 01/13/09 17:04:00 By - David Coffey
Environmentalists hope stimulus package will push 'green' goals
As Congress gets to work this week on an economic stimulus plan, environmentalists are arguing that installing more wind and solar energy, making homes and government buildings less dependent on fossil fuels and expanding mass transit would be the best way to add jobs quickly and jolt the economy | 01/11/09 19:22:00 By - Renee Schoof
Astronomers honor Galileo with a telescopic jackpot
Four hundred years after Galileo spied craters on the moon with the world's first telescope, astronomers this year will get a windfall of new and improved telescopes of unprecedented power with which to explore the universe. To honor Galielo, astronomers have declared 2009 the International Year of Astronomy to honor Galileo. | 01/08/09 15:26:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
DNA tracks ancient Alaskan's descendants as far as Chile
An ancient mariner who lived and died 10,000 years ago on an island west of Ketchikan probably doesn't have any close relatives left in Alaska. But some of them migrated south and their descendents can be found today in coastal Native American populations in California, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. | 12/30/08 07:45:54 By - George Bryson
Researchers' vision: restoring sight through artificial retinas
Scientists are testing artificial retinas that they hope can restore partial sight to people who've lost their vision to the most common causes of blindness. Retinitis pigmentosa, which ruins peripheral vision, and macular degeneration, which causes a blurred or blind spot in central vision, affect millions of people, especially the elderly. | 12/29/08 14:54:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Scientists doubt inventor's global cooling idea — but what if it works?
Backed by a computer model, a little-known inventor is making public a U.S. patent petition for what he calls the most "practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable" and beneficial way to curb global warming and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise. Spray gigatons of seawater into the air, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, and let Mother Nature do the rest. | 12/21/08 06:00:00 By - Greg Gordon
Water vapor's effects on atmosphere are debated
Ron Ace's idea to cool the planet by evaporating water could provoke controversy because it collides head-on with a concern of environmental scientists: that water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas. | 12/21/08 06:00:00 By - Greg Gordon
Obama pick for science signals new view on global warming
John P. Holdren's selection sends a strong signal that Obama sees global warming as an urgent problem and wants bold suggestions for action. The Harvard University environmental policy professor has argued that the world already is experiencing dangerous climate change as a result of fossil fuel combustion. | 12/19/08 18:19:00 By - Renee Schoof
Holiday sex: Christmas season is peak for mating
The Christmas-New Year's period produces a year-high spike in sexual activity and conceptions in the U.S., according to biorhythm researchers and makers of sex-related products. They attribute the increase to holiday leisure and New Year's resolutions to have children. New Year's irresolution fueled by alcohol and partying is another contributing factor. | 12/19/08 15:45:00 By - Frank Greve
Forget the economy: Killer asteroids could pose real danger
Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study of how to avoid an catastrophic collision with an asteroid after scientitsts couldn't eliminate an extremely slight chance that an asteroid called Apophis would slam into Earth in 2036. The program has spent $41 million, but now is running out of money. | 12/17/08 11:55:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
NASA reports 2008 is ninth warmest year since 1880
The year 2008 was the ninth warmest year since instrumental temperature measurements began in 1880, and all of the nine warmest years have occurred in the past 11 years, NASA reported on Tuesday. | 12/16/08 18:04:00 By - Renee Schoof
The downside of zoo life: even elephants can get fat
The basic cause of chubbiness is no different for moray eels and wildebeests than for humans: "If the energy going in exceeds the energy going out, you're going to get fat," said Karen Lisi, a nutritionist at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. But how do you know an oyster's too fat and needs to slim down? | 12/13/08 18:18:50 By - Jay Price
Tree's rapid decline sounds alarm on global warming
The whitebark pine, a tree found in the high elevations of the western U.S. and Canada, is being killed as a consequence of global warming and should be protected as an endangered species, an environmental group formally told the Interior Department Tuesday. | 12/09/08 00:01:00 By - Renee Schoof
Little-known little protein packs punch in cancer fight
It's a tiny molecule with a nondescript name — "p53" — but it has an awesome responsibility: preventing more than half of all human cancers. Some scientists call it the "guardian angel," "guardian of the genome," or the "dictator of life and death." | 12/08/08 15:01:00 By - Robert S. Boyd
Salmon-tracking network upends some sacred cows
A salmon's life in the ocean has always been one of nature's best kept mysteries. However, scientists using the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking network have made some startling discoveries that challenge long-held beliefs about salmon survival and raise new cautions about how global warming may affect salmon and other marine species. | 11/30/08 06:00:00 By - Les Blumenthal
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