Science Education & Policy

TOKYO, February 21 /PRNewswire/ -- - Environmental Technologies to be on Display at 20 Venues Around the World Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., announced today that it will co-sponsor "The Science of Survival," the first exhibition of its kind, which opens at the Science Museum, London, on Saturday April 5. The London exhibition will last until Sunday Nov. 2 before embarking on a five-year global tour. In this fun, interactive exhibition, which explores what our lifestyles could be in 2050, Nissan will showcase several of its environmental technologies in the "Moving" area, including its compact…

A team of academic, industry and independent researchers has demonstrated a new class of computer attacks that compromise the contents of “secure” memory systems, particularly in laptops. The attacks overcome a broad set of security measures called “disk encryption,” which are meant to secure information stored in a computer’s permanent memory. The researchers cracked several widely used technologies, including Microsoft’s BitLocker, Apple’s FileVault and Linux’s dm-crypt. The team reports that these attacks are likely to be effective at cracking many other disk encryption systems because…

There are lots of journals out there, more than I could name in any one article, but as you get into science communication, the number of peer-reviewed publications drops considerably. That seems odd, since communicating with the public, and therefore with the voters on policy, is so crucial to keeping science funding in place. A group of volunteers had that same thought, so they secured some funding from the European Space Agency's Hubble Space Telescope group and set out to fill that gap. CAP Journal was born. CAP Journal stands for Communicating Astronomy with the Public. It's a new…

BASINGSTOKE, England and PHILADELPHIA, February 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY) the global specialty biopharmaceutical company announces results for the twelve months to December 31, 2007 - a year which has seen significant growth in launched products. - All $ values are in US$ Financial Highlights 2007 Full Year Q4 2007 - Product sales up 41% to $2,170m - Product sales up 55% to $661m - New product sales $489m, 23% of product - New product sales $210m, 32% sales(1) of product sales (1) - Total revenues up 36% to $2,436m - Total revenues up 46% to $725m -…

PARIS, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- - The Electrical and HVAC Engineering Group is Following a Robust Acquisitions Policy. SPIE crossed a significant threshold in 2007 in its ambition to become the European leader in its sector by making two major acquisitions, Controlec in the Netherlands and Matthew Hall in the United Kingdom, as well as nine other companies in France, with total sales exceeding EUR600 million. Strengthening SPIE's European presence In Northern Europe, the acquisitions of Matthew Hall in the United Kingdom, Controlec in the Netherlands and Anca-Tech in the Benelux…

CHICAGO, February 20 /PRNewswire/ -- - New SAQ available in TrustKeeper(R) compliance management portal Trustwave, the leading provider of information security and compliance management solutions for businesses and organizations throughout the world, has upgraded TrustKeeper with the new Self-assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) Version 1.1, issued by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) earlier this month. TrustKeeper, a Web-based, real-time compliance management tool used for compliance validation with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) by…

There are several human characteristics considered to be genetically predetermined and evolutionarily innate, such as immune system strength, physical adaptations and even sex differences. These qualities drive the nature versus nurture debate and ask of our species, who is more successful and why? Psychologists Agneta Herlitz and Jenny Rehnman in Stockholm, Sweden asked an even more complicated question of human predisposition: Does one’s sex influence his or her ability to remember every day events? Their surprising findings did in fact determine significant sex differences in episodic…

When the public considers competing arguments about a new technology’s potential risks and benefits, people will tend to agree with the expert whose values are closest to their own, no matter what position the expert takes. The same will hold true for nanotechnology, a key study has found. The study results appear in a report issued today by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). The study was based on experiments involving some 1,600 American adults and was carried out by the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School — an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Yale…

Scientists from four well-known institutions say the next major disease like HIV/AIDS or SARS could occur in any of a number of developing countries concentrated along the equator. They encourage increased surveillance to prevent the spread of a potential outbreak. Using global databases and sophisticated computer models to analyze patterns of emerging diseases, the researchers -- from the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM) at Wildlife Trust, N.Y., the Institute of Zoology, London, U.K., Columbia University, N.Y., and the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. -- are able for the first…

BRACKNELL, England, February 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Monday's BBC Panorama programme highlighted the environmental cost of drinking bottled water and interviewed environment minister Phil Woolas who urged UK consumers and businesses to rethink their choices. The programme also featured a meeting at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) where tap water was served in a jug. The BBC website attracted comments from consumers who applauded the call for reduction in the use of plastic bottles. However, they also highlighted the fact that in some areas of the UK, while…