[News & Analysis] U.S. Science Policy: Hints of Detente Between NSF and Republicans
Congressional Republicans and the National Science Foundation (NSF) appear to be creeping toward common ground in their yearlong fight over how the agency manages its $7 billion research portfolio. Last week, a key panel endorsed a bill to reauthorize NSF's programs that is markedly less radical than earlier versions, although the scientific community is still unhappy with several provisions. And NSF acting Director Cora Marrett says the agency is taking a much more active role in explaining what it funds, addressing a major concern for many Republican legislators.
Author: Jeffrey Mervis (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 21, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Jeffrey Mervis Tags: U.S. Science Policy Source Type: research
[News & Analysis] Cosmology: First Wrinkles in Spacetime Confirm Cosmic Inflation
Cosmologists have spotted traces of gravitational waves—undulations in the fabric of space and time—rippling through the infant universe. If it holds up, the discovery fulfills a key prediction of a theory called inflation. According to this theory, in its first sliver of a second, the cosmos expanded like a gargantuan balloon at greater than light speed. It also shows for the first time that gravity must follow the same rules of quantum mechanics that other forces such as electromagnetism do.
Authors: Adrian Cho, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 21, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Adrian Cho Tags: Cosmology Source Type: research
[News of the Week] Newsmakers
The U.S. Senate has confirmed astrophysicist France Córdova, formerly chair of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, as the new director of the National Science Foundation. (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 21, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
[News of the Week] Random Sample
When an intern at the Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow in Scotland discovered a slide of the Blarney Stone in the museum collection, geologists there put its mythical origins to the test. (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 21, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
[News of the Week] Around the World
In science news around the world, the European Parliament approves tighter data privacy rules, a report from U.K. scientists criticizes the European Union's approval process for genetically modified crops, and more. (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 21, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
[News of the Week] This Week's Section
Follow the links below for a roundup of the week's top stories in science, or download a PDF of the entire section.
Around the WorldFindingsRandom SamplesNewsmakers (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 20, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
[News Focus] Water's Tough Skin
Surface tension is a force to be reckoned with, especially if you are small. It enables a water strider to skate along the water's surface and not sink. It makes water cling like quicksand to ants unlucky enough to blunder in. Biologists have tended to ignore the air-water interface, but at a recent symposium, the power of surface tension became clear and not just for small creatures. Surface tension helps seeds bury themselves by causing awns to coil and uncoil. It enables a floating fern to maintain an air layer, even when submerged. And it makes a beetle fly in two dimensions, not three. Surface tension also allows huma...
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Elizabeth Pennisi Source Type: research
[News Focus] Talking Back to Madness
Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that afflicts about 1% of the world's population at one time or another, and is often characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and severe emotional and cognitive problems. For decades, antipsychotic drugs have been the main line of defense, but they have serious side effects and lots of patients end up not taking them. Recently, a number of clinical trials have suggested that psychological approaches, including old-fashioned "talk" psychotherapy and a method called cognitive behavioral therapy, can be moderately effective in many cases. These techniques engage with the huma...
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Michael Balter Source Type: research
[News & Analysis] Paleoclimate: How Earth Can Cool Without Plunging Into a Deep Freeze
Geochemists have now incorporated in their models some details of the way naturally acidic rainwater dissolves rock. This weathering is part of the cycling of carbon through air, land, and ocean that has controlled climate over the eons. These researchers found how the rising of great mountains like the Himalayas can cool climate without sending Earth into an endless global ice age.
Author: Richard A. Kerr (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Richard A. Kerr Tags: Paleoclimate Source Type: research
[News & Analysis] HIV/AIDS: Cancer Genes Help HIV Persist, Complicating Cure Efforts
Reservoirs of cells that harbor HIV DNA woven into human chromosomes have become the bane of researchers trying to cure infections. New research reveals that many of the infected cells in reservoirs are clones that have gained an evolutionary leg up by HIV weaving into cancer genes.
Author: Jon Cohen (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Jon Cohen Tags: HIV/AIDS Source Type: research
[News & Analysis] U.S. Science Funding: The Future Is Flat in White House's 2015 Spending Request
Researchers dependent on government funding would face a flat future under the White House's $3.9 trillion budget request for the 2015 fiscal year, which begins 1 October. Overall, it calls for about $135 billion in spending on research and development. That would be a 1.2% increase over 2014 levels, but would not keep pace with the forecast inflation rate of 1.7% for 2015. The biggest civilian science funders—the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science—would all get budget increases that would not keep pace with inflation. The White House also pr...
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: David Malakoff Tags: U.S. Science Funding Source Type: research
[News & Analysis] Eastern Europe: Ukraine's Science Reformers Seize the Moment
In the shadow of the crisis in Crimea, Ukrainian legislators are weighing a pair of science and education bills that would set up a competitive grant system, root out moribund institutions, give greater autonomy to universities, and make it easier to ship reagents and biological samples into and out of the country.
Author: Richard Stone (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Richard Stone Tags: Eastern Europe Source Type: research
[News of the Week] Newsmakers
Geologist and climate scientist Maureen Raymo becomes the first woman to win the British Wollaston Medal in the 183-year history of the prize. And the U.S. Smithsonian Institution chooses David Skorton, a cardiologist and president of Cornell University, as its new secretary. (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
[News of the Week] Random Sample
As a middle school student, Suvir Mirchandani launched an ambitious project to investigate a simple cost-saving technique for the federal government: changing the font of its printed documents. (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
[News of the Week] Around the World
In science news around the world, Korea's premier poultry research center loses its flock to the new H5N8 avian flu strain; the World Health Organization releases draft guidelines that halve recommended sugar intake; the U.S. House of Representatives takes up a controversial bill affecting research and education programs at the National Science Foundation; and more. (Source: Science: This Week)
Source: Science: This Week - March 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Stewart Wills (mailto:swills at aaas.org) Source Type: research
