From the discovery of the Higgs boson to the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, 2012 was an eventful year in science. Nature’s end of year round-up reviews the highs and lows in research and science policy.
Britain’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which examines ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine, recently launched a consultation on the ethics of new technologies and devices that intervene in the human brain. The three main areas of the group’s focus are brain-computer interfaces, neurostimulation and neural stem cell therapy. Author Metanexus Editors
Scientists have long suspected that the Sun’s 11-year cycle influences climate of certain regions on Earth. Yet records of average, seasonal temperatures do not date back far enough to confirm any patterns. Now, armed with a unique proxy, an international team of researchers show that unusually cold winters in Central Europe are related to low…
Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and might make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services. The results of a new analysis are preliminary, but they offer the most drastic…
He’s been called “America’s fiercest climate blogger.” And as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a former Clinton administration official on clean energy, and an MIT trained physicist, the subjects he covers are vast—ranging from energy policy to the role of rhetoric in communications. But there’s been a recurrent theme over the…
Our ability to find and share information today is potentially limitless. But how did we get here? From cave paintings to the iPad—how does human innovation bring us here? Author Metanexus Editors
In 2008, researchers found remains of a few early human-like beings in a cave in South Africa. Now, they’ve pieced them together into one of the most complete skeletons of a human ancestor ever made. The skeletons belong to a new species of australopithecine, named Australopithecus sediba, discovered for the first time at that cave…