Science Education & Policy

There has been considerable interest in the publication of the platypus genome, which is good. Unfortunately, much of the reporting has been distorted, which is bad. However, rather than picking on the press, I want to focus on an example from the scientific literature where a misconception about evolutionary relationships seems to creep in and generate confusion. Consider the following line, from a soon to be published paper about platypus sex chromosomes (Veyrunes et al. 2008). As the most basal mammal group, the egg-laying monotremes are ideal for determining how the therian XY…

LONDON, May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - A New Video Tutorial Website Enabling Music Making Enthusiasts of all Abilities to Develop Their Skills has Been Launched Today SonicAcademy.com is a new web portal for anyone interested in music production, particularly in the use of software driven music systems. Providing worldwide support for aspiring musicians DJ's and producers, SonicAcademy.com offers step by step video tutorials on the latest software and hardware products, combining an ethos of high production values with features, news and reviews as well as an online community where people can meet…

NEW YORK, May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - Third Annual Event Features Deployment, Emerging and Multi-Protocol Application Categories Liberty Alliance, the global identity community working to build a more trust-worthy internet for consumers, governments and businesses worldwide, today announced a call for nominations for the 2008 IDDY Awards. The IDDY Award (IDentity Deployment of the Year) recognizes identity-based applications built using Liberty Federation (SAML 2.0), Liberty Web Services, Liberty People Service and Liberty Advanced Client specifications. The call for nominations ends on Monday,…

NEWCASTLE-GATESHEAD, England, May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - Kurzweil, Greg Dyke, 'Fake Steve Jobs', Multimap Founder & More to Speak Some of the sharpest minds in technology, digital marketing and mobile will head to North East England from around the world later on 21-23 May to discuss the ideas and technologies that are set to fundamentally alter the way people live and work. Ray Kurzweil, a futurist who predicts computer intelligence will surpass human intelligence in 2029, Aubrey de Grey, a biogerentologist who says we can engineer a cure for the ageing process, and Greg Dyke, the former…

Designer labels aren't just cool to pretentious New York women - they're also the dream of nuclear physicists. Designer isotopes, the relatively new power scientists have to make specific rare isotopes to solve scientific problems and open doors to new technologies, will compete with nanotechnology for big breakthroughs, according to Bradley Sherrill, a University Distinguished Professor of physics and associate director for research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. Isotopes are the different versions of an element. Their nuclei have different…

GODALMING, England, May 8 /PRNewswire/ -- - With Photo On Friday 2nd May, Lord Adonis, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learners, spent a day with King Edward's School, Witley, one of the leading schools in the "Pathfinder Programme", a government and independent schools initiative that he spearheads. Still in its early stages, the "Pathfinder Programme" involves several local authorities and a number of state and independent boarding schools in placing vulnerable children in a boarding environment. This, it is hoped, will avoid them being placed in care and will enable…

Children who speak a second or third language may have an unexpected advantage later in life, a new Tel Aviv University study has found. Knowing and speaking many languages may protect the brain against the effects of aging. Dr. Gitit Kavé, a clinical neuro-psychologist from the Herczeg Institute on Aging at Tel Aviv University, together with her colleagues Nitza Eyal, Aviva Shorek, and Jiska Cohen-Manfield, discovered recently that senior citizens who speak more languages test for better cognitive functioning. The results of her study were published in the journal Psychology and Aging.…

NEW YORK, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Imtiaz Ahmad, Executive Director of Morgan Stanley's Carbon Trading group will present on the infrastructure of carbon trading in an interactive workshop setting outlining the mechanisms currently set in place and compare the pros and cons of alternative trading strategies and products. Other workshop leaders include Shawn Burns, CEO of Carbon Credit Corp, Milo Sjardin, Head of North America at New Carbon Finance, Tina Reine, Vice President, Carbon Markets at JP Morgan Chase, and Jeffrey Fort, Partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP. Some of the…

TORONTO, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Dalton Pharma Services, a privately owned Canadian pharmaceutical services provider, and Thermo Fisher Scientific have entered into an agreement under which Dalton will use a proprietary Thermo Fisher manufacturing process to produce nucleic-acid biopolymers for pharmaceutical use. Utilizing enzyme-based technology developed at Thermo Fisher Scientific's Milwaukee, Wisconsin, molecular bioreagents facility, Dalton will produce poly-inosine (Poly-I) and poly-cytosine (Poly-C) in accordance with cGMP (current good manufacturing practice) regulations. Poly-I and…

WASHINGTON, DC, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- - International Reach of 'Young Minds in Psychiatry' Awards is Boosted With AstraZeneca Support For the first time, a researcher from China has received one of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) prestigious "Young Minds in Psychiatry" awards, which were presented today at the APA's 161st Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. The awards, supported by an educational grant from AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), are helping to address the substantial shortage of psychiatric researchers worldwide. By providing career development awards, talented physicians get…