Science Education & Policy

SAN JOSE, California, December 10 /PRNewswire/ -- - Full Featured, Extensible Wowza Media Server(TM) Pro Unlimited is Already Proclaimed 'the Smart Choice' by Customers Worldwide Wowza Media Systems, emerging leader in media streaming server software, today made Flash streaming even more affordable with an 80% price reduction for its widely popular Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited. Now priced at US$995, Wowza once again reaffirmed its price leadership on a mission to make flash streaming server technology affordable to all. Since Wowza Media Server Pro launched in February 2007, Wowza has…

Some anti-drinking advertising campaigns may be “catastrophically misconceived” because they play on the entertaining ‘drinking stories’ that young people use to mark their social identity, say researchers who have just completed a three year study of the subject. Adverts that show drunken incidents, such as being thrown out of a nightclub, being carried home or passing out in a doorway, are often seen by young people as being a typical story of a ‘fun’ night out, rather than as a cautionary tale. Whilst these adverts, such as Diageo’s thechoiceisyours campaign, imply that being very drunk…

Policy makers, employers and others can use the science of behavioral economics to steer people toward wiser choices — and dramatically improve their health — without limiting their freedom to do as they please, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The paper was written by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pennsylvania, Aetna Inc. and the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center. This approach can counter one of the underlying causes of major health problems in the United States and other developed nations — bad…

In a study of more than 6,000 Los Angeles-area children – the largest study of its kind – researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) found that both strabismus (commonly known as cross-eyed or wall-eyed) and amblyopia (often referred to as lazy eye) were more prevalent in older children than in younger children. The study was in the journal Ophthalmology. The population for this first phase of the Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study (MEPEDS) was composed equally of African-American and Hispanic youngsters, ages six months to six years, who…

NEW YORK, and DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, December 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - New Fortent AML 6.0 release enhances investigation and correspondent banking features Fortent has released a new version of the company's market-leading anti-money laundering technology, the company announced today at the Middle East-North Africa International Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing Conference & Exhibition, hosted in Dubai by the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) and the Union of Arab Banks. The latest offering in Fortent's financial crime product suite, AML 6.0 targets…

Last year, Britain imported 14,000 tons of chocolate covered waffles - and exported 15,000 tons. Doesn't make sense? It's not just bizarre waffle travels; Europeans are importing more food from overseas than ever before, even while exporting things they grow locally and get $60 billion in annual subsidies to produce. By studying what Europeans eat and from where, scientists hope to understand the economic, political, and cultural impacts of food on European society. One obvious impact of Europeans buying food from outside Europe is that it has greater impact on the environment. For example…

Until recently, a student solving a calculus problem, a physicist modeling a galaxy or a mathematician studying a complex equation had to use powerful computer programs that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. But an open-source tool based at the University of Washington won first prize in the scientific software division of Les Trophées du Libre, an international competition for free software. The tool, called Sage, faced initial skepticism from the mathematics and education communities. "I've had a surprisingly large number of people tell me that something like Sage couldn't be done –…

Scientists exploring one of the largest remaining blocks of tropical forest in Western Africa discovered significant populations of new, rare and threatened species underscoring the area’s high biological diversity and value. The findings from a 2006 expedition to Ghana’s Atewa Range Forest Reserve (Atewa) led by Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) are presented in a report made public today. The RAP discoveries include a Critically Endangered frog species (Conraua derooi) whose presence in Atewa may represent the last viable population in the world; an unusually…

The data are in. Divorce is bad for the environment. A novel study that links divorce with the environment shows a global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, has taken up more space and has gobbled up more energy and water. The findings of Jianguo “Jack” Liu and Eunice Yu at Michigan State University are published in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A statistical remedy: Fall back in love. Cohabitation means less urban sprawl and softens the environmental hit. “Not only the United States, but also…

The price of oil nearly reached $100 a barrel recently, but a new University of Delaware prototype vehicle demonstrates how the cost of the black stuff could become a concern of the past. A team of UD faculty has created a system that enables vehicles to not only run on electricity alone, but also to generate revenue by storing and providing electricity for utilities. The technology--known as V2G, for vehicle-to-grid--lets electricity flow from the car’s battery to power lines and back. “When I get home, I’ll charge up and then switch into V2G mode,” said Willett Kempton, UD associate…