tmamone_cfi
By Matt McGrath Using wood pellets to generate low-carbon electricity is a flawed policy that is speeding up not slowing down climate warming. That’s according to a new study which says wood is not carbon neutral and emissions from pellets are higher than coal. Subsidies for biomass should be immediately reviewed, the author says. Energy …
By Shelia M. Poole Jeff Newport can cite the Bible chapter and verse. He went to Christian schools, attended church every Sunday and delivered his first sermon at 13. In 1996, he was called to pastor a small Baptist church in Jesup with a congregation of about 30 for Sunday morning services. “Everything revolved around …
By Helen Briggs Four new frogs so tiny that they can sit on a thumbnail have been discovered in the forests of India. Among the smallest frogs in the world, they live on the forest floor and make insect-like calls at night. Three larger species were also found, bringing to seven the number of night …
By Rebecca Hersher Early Wednesday morning, a space capsule carrying 5,500 pounds of cargo approached the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon cargo ship was scheduled to arrive at the station around 6 a.m. ET. If all went as planned, astronauts Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency and Shane Kimbrough of NASA would use …
By David Cyranoski A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens. The move is part of a plan to build between five and seven biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs across the Chinese mainland by 2025, and has generated much excitement, as well as some concerns. Some …
By Nell Greenfieldboyce A small, faint star relatively close by is home to seven Earth-sized planets with conditions that could be right for liquid water and maybe even life. The discovery sets a record for both the most Earth-sized planets and the most potentially habitable planets ever discovered around a single star. The strange planetary …
By Hannah Devlin The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering. Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this …
By Craig Malisow The Texas Medical Board’s legal staff on Wednesday issued a proposed order that would place controversial cancer doctor Stanislaw Burzynski on probation and force him to pay $360,000 in penalties and more than $20,000 in restitution for violating standards of care in his treatment of patients between 2009 and 2013. The proposed …
By Phil Zuckerman On Dec. 14, 2012, a mentally unstable young man shot and killed 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. One of those kids, the youngest, was Noah Pozner. As a parent myself, I cannot come close to even fathoming the pain and suffering his senseless slaughter caused his parents. What could be …
By Pew Research Center On the heels of a contentious election year in which partisan politics increasingly divided Americans, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that when it comes to religion, Americans generally express more positive feelings toward various religious groups today than they did just a few years ago. Asked to rate a …
By Pallab Ghosh The head of the world’s largest scientific membership organisation has given his backing for a planned protest by researchers in Washington DC. Rush Holt, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said that people were “standing up for science”. His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is …
By Jeffrey Marlow The Curiosity Mars rover is in the prime of its robotic life, approaching dramatic layered deposits on the slopes of Mt. Sharp. But even as the four and a half year-old mission reaches the features it was initially sent to investigate, scientists and engineers are feverishly planning for the next rover mission, …