Science Education & Policy

  Regular readers know that I have long predicted the current price of oil and that we are now moving through Peak Oil These subjects were included in my “Forecast for 2008” To quote from that January 9, 2008 column: “In 2008, gas will, for a period of time reach $4 on the national level. A year ago I predicted that oil would rise above $80. Three months ago I predicted that the price would rise to $100 and that the trading range for oil will be $80 – 125 a barrel for the next year…but there could be several situations that could drive the price above $125.” Well sure I was…

If you're a pessimist, the primate known as the "Kipunji'"discovered just three years ago, is already bordering on extinction. If you're more of an optimist, you may think that its small numbers are why it was never discovered until recently so 1,117 of them are nothing to be alarmed about. The Wildlife Conservation Society is in the alarm business so they're saying that the first-ever census of the forest-dwelling primate showing 1,117 individuals, according to a study released in the July issue of the journal Oryx, is worrisome. Kipunji Discovered in 2005, the kipinji made headlines again…

Almost every metropolitan area in America has a "dead man's curve", a road notorious for fatalities. If you've moved to a new location, you may not know of it. Using the interactive maps on www.saferoadmaps.org developed by University of Minnesota researchers, you can learn which roads near your home or work are considered dangerous simply typing in your address. Researchers in the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS) have mapped out every fatality in the nation with details on each death. "When drivers type in their most common routes, they're shocked how much blood is…

Exposure to ultraviolet light can contribute to skin cancer and, despite increased education about sunscreens, farmers, construction workers and others who spend long hours exposed to sunlight are among those most at risk. Plus, sunscreens are not alway effective for these high-risk people because they have to be re-applied frequently. Professor Chandradhar Dwivedi, head of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department in the College of Pharmacy at South Dakota State University, says their group is working with new types of molecules that will not only boost sunscreen protection but even reverse…

Officials from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and FAU’s Center for Ocean Energy Technology (COET) in the College of Engineering and Computer Science accompanied Florida Governor Charlie Crist on a recent visit to several universities and organizations in the United Kingdom to continue discussions, exchange information and formalize agreements in areas of clean ocean energy, environmental issues and climate change. Last year, Florida and the UK signed a partnership agreement on global climate change, physically tying one to the other by the Gulf Stream, that massive ocean current which is…

An enormous research effort by Europe’s leading broadband players has helped accelerate dramatically the rollout of next-generation broadband services reaching speeds in the 10s of Mbit/s in many European countries. That is just the start. The deployment of broadband services in the 10s of megabits per second (Mbit/s) is accelerating across the continent, thanks to the research efforts of Europe’s main broadband players. Even 100Mbit/s has become economically feasible and deployments have started. Two years ago Europe’s leading telecoms, ISP companies, and its top technology vendors and…

MIAMI, July 24 /PRNewswire/ -- - Comprehensive Content Security Solutions Now Available for South American Enterprises and Security-as-a-Service Providers Optenet, a leading global IT security company and a provider of intelligent, integrated content security solutions, today announced the launch of its Latin-American operations and the opening of its regional headquarters in Miami. Led by Maurico Alanis, Sales Country Manager, Optenet will sell its award-winning content security solutions to service providers and enterprises throughout Latin America. Optenet's product suite, which includes…

Somewhere, people got the idea that girls were not as good at math as boys and that was a cultural issue - discrimination on one side or favoritism on the other - and it had to be fixed, usually with legislation and money for social activists. Is there any truth to it? After sifting through mountains of data, including SAT results and math scores from 7 million students who were tested in accordance with the No Child Left Behind Act, a team of scientists reporting in Science says the answer is 'no.' Whether they looked at average performance, the scores of the most gifted children or…

If you walk down a US city street and don't think a lot of people are overweight, you probably are. Likewise, thin people will increasingly be regarded as an anomaly to be eliminated out of concern as people get heavier. In a culture of obesity, thin is like a cancer. Research by economists at the University of Warwick, Dartmouth College, and the University of Leuven, finds that people are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them - human beings keep up with the weight of the society they live in, which can lead to a spiral of imitative obesity. The researchers will…

Although state lotteries, on average, return just 53 cents for every dollar spent on a ticket, people continue to pour money into them — especially low-income people, who spend a larger percentage of their incomes on lottery tickets than do the wealthier segments of society. A new Carnegie Mellon University study sheds light on the reasons why low-income lottery players eagerly invest in a product that provides poor returns. In the study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, participants who were made to feel subjectively poor bought nearly twice as many lottery tickets as a…