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.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital say they have extracted stem cells from human ovaries and made them generate egg cells. The advance, if confirmed, might provide a new source of eggs for treating infertility, though scientists say it is far too early to tell if the work holds such promise. Women are born with a…
A new paper published in Perspectives in Psychological Science (open access) suggests there is “a fundamental design flaw that potentially undermines any causal inference” in much psychology research. Way back in the 1950’s a phenomenon called the Hawthorne effect (AKA the observer effect) was observed, an experiment to discover whether workers in the Hawthorne Works…
Use your brain to control the world. That’s the promise of the brain-machine interface, a system that directly translates your thoughts into actions. At the South by Southwest Interactive conference, Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova, technologists from the Near Future Laboratory, have showed how popular culture has explored the possibilities of the devices—for both good…
For over a millennium the Chinese have used an herb known as Chang Shan to treat fevers associated with malaria. While its effectiveness in treating the disease has long been confirmed by modern medicine, its exact function has remained mystery. However, in a recent study, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) say they have…
From Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie’s blog at Huffington Post: The Yom Kippur liturgy does not allow one to focus on the fun of religion and to push aside the reality of evil and sin. The words are utterly uncompromising. They do not speak of sin broadly and abstractly, but concretely and specifically, thus forcing a…
Reservoirs behind dams have been identified as new culprits in global warming, releasing greenhouse gases as water levels go up and down, U.S. researchers say. Researchers at Washington State University-Vancouver measured dissolved gases in the water column of a reservoir in Clark County and found methane emissions jumped 20-fold when the water level was drawn…