Science Education & Policy

Wild relatives of plants such as the potato and the peanut are at risk of extinction, threatening a valuable source of genes that are necessary to boost the ability of cultivated crops to resist pests and tolerate drought, according to a new study released today by scientists of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The culprit is climate change, the researchers said. According to the study, in the next 50 years as many as 61 percent of the 51 wild peanut species analyzed and 12 percent of the 108 wild potato species analyzed could become extinct as the…

It's a scenario straight out of Gray's Anatomy – a paramedic or doctor plops a mask over the face of a person struggling to breathe and begins dispensing pure oxygen. Yet growing research suggests that inhaling straight oxygen can actually harm the brain. For the first time, a new UCLA brain-imaging study reveals why. The findings fly in the face of national guidelines for medical practice and recommend a new approach adding carbon dioxide to the gas mix to preserve brain function in patients. "For decades, the medical community has championed 100 percent oxygen as the gold standard for…

An outbreak of drug-resistant wound infections among soldiers in Iraq likely came from the hospitals where they were treated, not the battlefield, according to a new study in the June 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, currently available online. The outbreak of drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex (ABC) infections among U.S. service members injured in Iraq has been of major concern to military health care workers since it was first detected in 2003. ABC bacteria are commonly found in soil and water. They sometimes also exist on the skin of healthy people. The…

A new study in this month’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology explains why NPR listeners always think they are right. When it comes to financial decisions or even concerns about terrorism, people are likely to be influenced by what others think but repeated exposure to one viewpoint can have almost as much influence as exposure to shared opinions from multiple people. Hearing an opinion multiple times increases the recipient’s sense of familiarity and in some cases gives a listener a false sense that an opinion is more widespread then it actually is. In a series of six…

As societies emerge from conflict, men's dominance at all levels of decision-making ensures women never feel truly secure according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In a unique study of women's security and participation in three post conflict societies—Northern Ireland, South Africa and Lebanon—researchers found that women see security differently from men. And because men dominate the institutions of peace-making and peace-building, they often fail to consider the specific security needs of women. The investigation, which was part of the ESRC's…

People who do well on a series of decision-making tasks involving hypothetical situations tend to have more positive decision outcomes in their lives, according to a study by decision scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and the RAND Corp. The results suggest that it may be possible to improve the quality of people’s lives by teaching them better decision-making skills. The paper marks an important step forward for decision science, because it shows that tasks developed to study decision-making errors in psychological labs can be used to gauge decision-making ability in real life. The…

Illinois State University’s Board of Trustees today approved a new bachelor’s degree in renewable energy, which will include a technical sequence and an economics and public policy sequence. The degree is a multi-disciplinary undergraduate major that provides a broad overview of renewable energy industries. Renewable energy is a fast-growing industry that will call for many new workers in the future. The degree will be administered by the Department of Technology, but will draw from existing courses in the Agriculture, Economics, Health Sciences, Geography-Geology, Mathematics Politics and…

Up to 25,000 people may die needlessly each year due to the failure to prevent blood clots known as venous thromboembolisms (VTE) in UK hospitals, say experts in this week's BMJ. Their warning follows the publication of official guidelines on the issue last month by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which are also summarised in this week's journal. It is estimated that VTE kills around 60,000 people every year in the UK and the condition accounts for 10% of all hospital deaths, write David Fitzmaurice and Ellen Murphy from the University of Birmingham. This is…

A new study says that Pycnogenol natural pine bark extract from the French maritime pine tree helps prevent damage that high blood pressure causes to the heart. The study demonstrates Pycnogenol counteracts the "wearing out" of the heart, which may aid the five million Americans living with heart failure. Previous studies have shown Pycnogenol supplementation to be associated with improved cardiovascular health, such as cholesterol reduction, blood pressure control and prevention of thrombosis. In hypertension, the over-worked heart gradually wears out, resulting in the weakening of the…

Tropical deforestation is the source of nearly a fifth of annual, human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. During droughts, emissions from tropical rainforest fires can be double that. Halving deforestation rates by mid-century would account for 12 percent of total emissions reductions needed to keep concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere at safe levels. A policy mechanism is needed that rewards those tropical nations that succeed in lowering their emissions of heat-trapping gases from deforestation and forest degradation. This is a particularly…