Sniffing Out ET
Research Blogging / By / September 1, 2010
NASA's Kepler Mission states that its goal is to find habitable Earth-size planets around other stars. It doesn't expect to find planets the right size or distance from their stars for years, but bloggers are already discussing how to identify life if and when such planets are found.
Book Review
Deconstructing Death
In Final Exam, surgeon Pauline Chen takes an incisive look at society's fear of death.
Research Blogging
Dave Munger
Projectile Pooping
When it comes to eliminating wastes, some animals are overachievers.
Week in Review
Ebbs and Flows
Progress and setbacks in realms astronomical, meteorological, economic, and judicial.
Departments
World
All Consuming
With population and per-capita consumption both rising, it's hard to believe humanity's impact on the Earth is sustainable.
Culture
Saved by Science
Justine Cooper's photographs document the intersection of science, curation, and human curiosity.
Ideas
Sexy, But Biased
Too often, scientists, scholars, and the media focus only on sensational research results.
Ideas
Tiny Viruses, Big Controversy
Inside the struggle to understand how and why antiviral drugs work.
Ideas
Does Coffee Work?
A closer look at the use and efficacy of one of the world’s most popular drugs, caffeine.
Ideas
From Galileo to Cassini
What did Galileo see when he first observed Saturn through his telescope?
World
Two Wrongs from the Right
Once again, US politicians fail to deliver a meaningful solution for climate change.
Ideas
The Evolution of Cooperation
Insects that survive on plant sap alone give insight for the evolution of multicellular life.
Slideshow
The Hidden World of Ants
Mark Moffett travels around the world taking stunning close-up photographs that capture the fascinating lives of ants.
Books
Books to Read Now
Edit Staff
June releases follow a wizard-bearded scientist on his quest to end aging; mine the essence of pleasure; and explore why being wrong is central to the human experience.
Interactive
Repository of the Cosmos
We visit Neil deGrasse Tyson to talk about his role as “servant to the public appetite of the universe” and all of the odd things that accumulate in his office.
Seed's Daily Zeitgeist
September 2, 2010
- 1
Calling for an old-fashioned Green Revolution
BBC
Biodiverse farming and sound forestry, moreso than GM crops, will help deliver a sustainable green revolution in Africa, says Tensie Whelan. In this week's Green Room, she warns that failure to protect biodiversity, water supplies and forests could spell disaster for the continent.
- 2
Wanted: An IPCC for Biodiversity
Nature
Moves are now afoot to establish a body to review the science and anticipated effects of changes in biodiversity, reminiscent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Next week in Busan, South Korea, representatives from governments around the world will decide whether to create such a panel, which currently goes by the unwieldy moniker of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
- 3
"National parks" at sea
The New York Times
A group of scientists are calling for world leaders to create more marine reserves like the Great Barrier Reef of Australia — national parks at sea, as they put it. In a statement issued Tuesday and signed by nearly 250 scientists from 35 countries, they asked lawmakers around the globe to consider designating vast reserves of the ocean as protected areas.
- 4
Crowd science reaches new heights
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Today, data sharing in astronomy isn't just among professors. Amateurs are invited into the data sets through friendly Web interfaces, and a schoolteacher in Holland recently made a major discovery, of an unusual gas cloud."Crowd Science," as it might be called, is taking hold in several other disciplines, such as biology, and is rising rapidly in oceanography and a range of environmental sciences.
- 5
Opening up science
Timbuktu Chronicles
This video looks at scientific knowledge-building using wikis and other web 2.0 tools to pass along agriculture methods at the local level, but it also hints at how one could pass along science at the local level if there was the language to talk about it.
ScienceBlogs.com
Selected Posts for September 2, 2010
- The View From Mercury
Starts with a Bang!
September 1, 2010
- Teacher Evaluation and Test Scores
Uncertain Principles
September 1, 2010
- Vaccine injury and Compensation
Respectful Insolence
September 1, 2010
- Lomborg v Lomborg
Class M
October 1, 2010
Read more from ScienceBlogs.com »
