Science
« Previous EntriesEvaluating ecosystem services
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008Environmental conservation efforts have traditionally focused on protecting individual species or natural resources. Scientists are discovering, however, that preserving the benefits that whole ecosystems provide to people is more economically and environmentally valuable.
At the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), ecologists will explore the application of ecosystem services approaches to conservation.
Ecosystem [...]
Military use of robots increases
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008War casualties are typically kept behind tightly closed doors, but one company keeps the mangled pieces of its first casualty on display. This is no ordinary soldier, though — it is Packbot from the iRobot Corporation.
Robots in the military are no longer the stuff of science fiction. They have left the movie screen and entered [...]
Key to virulence protein entry into host cells discovered
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 Researchers from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech have identified the region of a large family of virulence proteins in oomycete plant pathogens that enables the proteins to enter the cells of their hosts.
The protein region contains the amino acid sequence motifs RXLR and dEER and has the ability to carry [...]
NASA Denies Rumors Of Finding Life on Mars
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008NASA has denied media and internet speculation that the Phoenix Lander has found life on the ‘Red Planet’, Mars and has also denied that the White House in the United States has been briefed on such matters that would lead up to an announcement by NASA later this week. This comes just after NASA stated [...]
Obama on Space: We Need a Clear Vision
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has had plenty to reason to celebrate over the last fifty years. But for those of us who grew up on a steady diet of moon rockets and planetary voyagers, NASA’s future is cause for concern. Barack Obama spoke eloquently on that uncertain future to a packed audience in [...]
The Wildlife Conservation Society Find Mother Lode Of Gorillas
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008The world’s population of critically endangered western lowland gorillas has received a huge boost. A new, groundbreaking census released by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) shows massive numbers of these secretive great apes alive and well in the Republic of Congo.
In addition, the researchers discovered the highest gorilla densities ever recorded, as high as [...]
