A ‘set-the-record-straight’ post from the Washington Post’s Figuring Faith blog: U.S. Catholic bishops have launched the “Fortnight for Freedom,” a response to what they claim are encroachments by the Obama administration on their religious liberty, the most well-known of which is a mandate which requires all employers (including religiously affiliated organizations) to provide birth control…
Around the world, sticking up for the environment can be deadly, and it appears to be getting deadlier. People who track killings of environmental activists say the numbers have risen dramatically in the last three years. Improved reporting may be one reason, they caution, but they also believe the rising death toll is a consequence…
The problems engineers face are increasing in complexity at an exponential pace, and as one plenary speaker at the recent ASEE conference put it, it’s essential to be able to add continuously to your skill set in order to be a practicing engineer. All the good grades in the world won’t matter if you cannot…
One of the biggest debuts in the science world could happen in a matter of weeks: The Higgs boson may finally, really have been discovered. Ever since tantalizing hints of the Higgs turned up in December at the Large Hadron Collider, scientists there have been busily analyzing the results of their energetic particle collisions to…
For a century, doctors have waged war against bacteria, using antibiotics as their weapons. But that relationship is changing as scientists become more familiar with the 100 trillion microbes that call us home — collectively known as the microbiome. This new approach to health is known as medical ecology. Rather than conducting indiscriminate slaughter, scientists…
The sandy dunes of the Sahara may seem an unlikely place for a dairy farm, but about 7,000 years ago, herders tended and milked cattle in what is now desolate desert, new research shows. About 10,000 years ago, the Sahara desert went through a phase called the Holocene African Humid Period. Fossilized bones show that…
Japanese scientists have used induced stem cells to create a liver-like tissue in a dish. Although they have yet to publish their results and much work remains to be done, the achievement could have big clinical implications. If the results bear out, they would also constitute a significant advance in the ability to coax stem…
East Asia’s status as the world’s main “extinction hotspot” is confirmed in the new Red List of Threatened Species, unveiled at the Rio+20 sustainable development meeting. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which compiles the list, says it shows the importance of nature for human wellbeing. One of the themes of the Rio…
The first-ever mission dedicated to looking for dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious entities believed to explain the composition of the universe as we know it, will be launched in 2020, the European Space Agency said. The 800-million-euro ($1-billion) Euclid project will use a satellite employing a 1.2-metre (four-foot) diameter telescope and special cameras…
The Emperor penguin’s future is looking bleak if global temperatures continue to rise and melt sea ice, scientists have warned. At nearly four feet tall, Antarctica’s largest sea bird became a global icon thanks to films like March of the Penguins and Happy Feet, but if temperatures continue to rise, it faces extinction. Unlike other…