Science & Society

By carefully selecting which varieties of food crops to cultivate, much of Europe and North America could be cooled by up to 1°C during the summer growing season, say researchers from the University of Bristol, UK. This is equivalent to an annual global cooling of over 0.1°C, almost 20% of the total global temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution.  The growing of crops already produces a cooling of the climate because they reflect more sunlight back into space, compared with natural vegetation. Different varieties of the same crop vary significantly in their solar…

Along with a 223-page instruction manual, the NIH offers gems like this to help clear up the confusion: # What part of the application/award number is the IC and serial number?NIH's grant application/award numbers consist of the following parts: * A single-digit Application Type * A three-digit Activity Code * A two-letter IC Code * A six-digit Serial Number * A two-digit Grant Year (preceded by a dash to separate it from the serial number) * Additional suffix information that may include the letter "S" and related number for a particular supplement record, the letter "A" and related number…

A lot of time and money is spent thinking about special needs children, says Florida State University professor Steven I. Pfeiffer, while there is an assumption that no educational resources need to be provided for 'gifted' kids to help them thrive in school. "There is a view occasionally expressed by those outside of the gifted field that we don't need programs devoted specifically to gifted students," Pfeiffer, member of the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, said. "'Oh, they're smart, they'll do fine on their own' is what we often hear. And because of this anti-…

Let's remember that scientists like fun and get ready for dates by studying for them. Well, I mean dates like the Inauguration Day, the first in the history of ScientificBlogging.com, January 20, 2009.  My column comes handy in this quick review for Mr Obama. You know he is interested in jobs:  Happiness is a Green Job (Mayors)  Old to New Green Jobs (4.2 Million)  Renewable energy? Energy efficiency?What's the Renewable Energy Directive? Physicists' Energy Report Shrinkage of Another Kind (Reduce energy use by 50%) Biofuels?Pre-Election Action on Biofuels…

London South Bank University designer Sarah Elenany says there is a lack of fashionable clothing that meets Islamic cultural requirements so she has launched an eponymous clothing line that unites urban chic with Islamic culture.   Elenany, 24, calls her new label ‘Elenany’ and says she has drawn inspiration from Islamic art and combined it with contemporary styling for a truly innovative brand. “As a Muslim woman I have always found that the only options for me are the traditional Islamic clothes, or buying high-street brands in sizes too big so that I was covered. There was no…

Many of the battles to desegregate buses, water fountains and colleges were fought in public but some were virtually unknown and are just now getting attention.   A new University of Georgia study reveals how two men traveled the Deep South, facing hostility and risking violence, to ensure that students received fair and impartial treatment when it came to standardized testing, an important barrier to getting into many universities even then. College entrance exams such as the SAT require that students be tested impartially and under the same conditions but in the 1950s black students in…

Once upon a time, I worked in an office that had a beat-up, steel bookcase in the break room.  This was our unofficial lending library, where anyone could drop off a book they had read and were willing to part with, and swap it for another selection on the shelf that had been left by someone else.  The concept is a simple one, and probably still exists today on bookshelves in buildings across the country.  But the next generation of the lending library is here.  And now you can browse available books - as well as movies, music, and games - from bookshelves far beyond just…

Adam Drewnowski, director of the Nutrition Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle,  says that an ongoing recession will lead to even more obesity.    Drewnowski has a PhD in Psychology but is also Professor of Epidemiology and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine.  That's a broad range of expertise for any scientist, and I respect that, but in the nearly two years since Scientific Blogging and our cadre of my favorite science bloggers has been in existence we've had a lot of articles discussing the causes of obesity- and recession may not be…

In my last article, I ended with the observation that: While we cannot reject Cook's scientific contribution simply on thebasis of his embrace of racist pseudoscience, we also can't simplyignore it either. Sloppy thinking, after all, is sloppy thinking. This is a question that has plagued me for a long time.  In what context can you safely separate the person from the work that person has created?  According to Patrick French's biography The World Is What It Is, Trinidadian author V.S. Naipaul is a thoroughly awful person.  While that doesn't make him any less deserving of his…

When Charles Darwin published his landmark book On the Origin of Species(*) in 1859, his theories on evolution were quickly accepted by the vast majority of scientists. The general public, however, was not as eager to accept Darwin’s ideas, due largely to the fact that they challenged established religious beliefs. Today, 150 years after the publication of Darwin’s book, science and religion remain as conflicted as ever when it comes to the subject of evolution. “There is a real disconnect between what science says and what the public believes, at least in the United States,” says Ben Pierce…