Science & Society

Can a machine taste coffee? Scientists have been working on it for decades. Researchers in Switzerland published a study on their coffee-tasting machine is scheduled for the March 1 issue of Analytical Chemistry. For the food industry, “electronic tasters” could prove useful as quality control devices to monitor food production and processing. Christian Lindinger and colleagues at Nestlé Research pointed out that coffee scientists have long been searching for instrumental approaches to complement and eventually replace human sensory profiling. However, the multisensory experience from…

NEW DELHI, India, February 9 /PRNewswire/ -- AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and AHF/India Cares today announced its strong support for a Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) call for an independent inquiry into allegations made by the World Bank (WB) concerning the second phase of National AIDS Control Programme (NACO) projects implemented throughout India. The NACO projects and efforts in question have been supported in part by these two international donors. AIDS Healthcare Foundation will also request that Manmohan Singh, the honorable Prime Minister of India, and…

The February issue of Geotimes takes a look at the complicated issues surrounding Iraq’s oil exploration and production. Though oil prices have doubled and Iraq boasts the largest untapped oil reserves in the world, the instability that comes with war, attacks on infrastructure and outdated technology in Iraq have led to the lowest reserve-to-production ratio of all oil-producing countries. Currently Iraq produces 2.0 million barrels per day (bpd), down from an average of 2.6 million prior to the invasion in 2003. Exploration and development in Northern Iraq could easily increase production…

Collaboration is a requirement for the advancement of modern science. Researchers cannot be expert at everything and must specialize to make a unique contribution. But if coordinating research within a group is challenging, effective collaboration between groups is even more so. There is often a strong temptation for research units to treat each other like black boxes. There is some logic to this - the point of having a collaborator is to distribute the responsibility of tasks in a project. If I get involved with every detail of my collaborator's work I may as well do the work within my…

Michael Barton has posted a brief essay on Open Notebook Science on his research web site: As you might expect from the name, Open Notebook Science (ONS) has similarities with Open Source Software. The clearest likeness between the two, is the belief that by sharing and collaborating, more can be achieved than through secrecy and competition. An open approach to software development is proven to be successful: the greatest achievement is the development, and increasing adoption of the Linux operating system. On this foundation other applications like the Apache web server, MySQL database, and…

There was a time when you had to be rich to be fat. Now you have to be rich to stay thin, says a new study. Researchers led by Jennifer L. Black at New York University critically reviewed ninety studies published between 1997 through 2007 on neighborhood determinants of obesity through the PubMed and PsychInfo databases. They found that neighborhoods with decreased economic and social resources have higher rates of obesity. They also found that residents in low-income urban areas are more likely to report greater neighborhood barriers to physical activity, such as limited opportunities for…

Over 70 percent of high school teachers are female and girls in high school take as many math courses as boys, yet it's believed female interest in math and science still wanes considerably in high school and college. A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pennsylvania, and Michigan State University published in Child Development says girls, more than boys, look to their close friends when they make important decisions such as whether to take math and what math classes to take, confirming how significant peers are during adolescence.…

Continued from Part 5: I interviewed Gary Taubes by phone a few weeks ago, shortly after he gave a talk about the main ideas of his new book — Good Calories, Bad Calories — at UC Berkeley. The interview lasted about 2 hours. This is part 6. SETH: When I started your book, I already kind of believed all of your main points. Not all of them, but I was sympathetic. I knew where it was going. I thought “Oh, good. More evidence. This is interesting, and that’s an interesting way to tell that story”. GARY TAUBES: The way I see it is that the establishment has an immune system to protect itself…

Honestly, did you even known there was a Department of Pedagogy anywhere? Well, there is. They teach about the science of teaching. And apparently cartoons. Pilar Casares García is a teacher in the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Granada but instead of teaching about teaching, she researches male chauvinism. In cartoons. This was apparently once a real problem once but she says it's better now; women are as intelligent, agile, attractive, strong, and heroic as their male counterparts ... or more. This is in contrast to old stereotypes like Snow White or Cinderella who didn't…

TORONTO, Canada, February 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Budding young physicists, age 16 and 17, can now apply to attend the 'International Summer School for Young Physicists' (ISSYP) at Perimeter Institute (PI), the independent, non-profit research center in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. International students from all around the world are invited to apply and be challenged by some of the most fascinating ideas about how the universe works - from the weird quantum world of atoms to black holes, warped spacetime and the expanding universe. Participation includes classes and small group mentoring sessions…