Culture

ARGONNE, Ill. (March 13, 2009) — The process to turn propane into industrially necessary propylene has been expensive and environmentally unfriendly. That was until scientists at U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory devised a greener way to take this important step in chemical catalysis.

"Using platinum clusters, we have devised a way to catalyze propane not only in a more environmentally friendly way, but also using far less energy than previous methods," Argonne scientist Stefan Vajda said.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – On Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced a new education reform, calling for a merit-pay system for teachers in hopes of improving student performance. As the nation's public schools spend $187 billion in salaries, based on the latest Department of Education data, University of Missouri researcher Michael Podgursky has found a link between teacher pay and student achievement.

Nyiragongo, an active African volcano, possesses lava unlike any other in the world, which may point toward its source being a new mantle plume says a University of Rochester geochemist. The lava composition indicates that a mantle plume—an upwelling of intense heat from near the core of the Earth—may be bubbling to life beneath the soil of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The findings are presented in the current issue of the journal Chemical Geology.

A new Rice University report released yesterday, exactly six months after Hurricane Ike slammed the Texas Gulf Coast, suggests that people did not practice the lessons learned from Hurricane Rita.

ATLANTA — Even though tobacco use is expected to kill 6 million people worldwide and drain $500 billion from the global economy each year — according to a new report co-authored by a Georgia State University tobacco expert — the recession will most likely do nothing to reduce use.

The third edition of The Tobacco Atlas, co-authored by Michael Eriksen, director of Georgia State's Institute of Public Health, lays out a comprehensive picture of global tobacco use, regulations, financial costs and health tolls.

COLLEGE PARK, Md -- A University of Maryland-led team has compiled the first decades-long database of aerosol measurements over land, making possible new research into how air pollution changes affect climate change.

Using this new database, the researchers show that clear sky visibility over land has decreased globally over the past 30 years, indicative of increases in aerosols, or airborne pollution. Their findings are published in the March 13 issue of Science.

When a single female is nearby, female antbirds will sing over the songs of their male partners in an apparent attempt to keep their messages from getting through, according to a new report published online on March 12th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Males respond to that interruption by singing a different tune.

The findings offer the first evidence that such "signal jamming" and "jamming avoidance" occur between mates, according to the researchers.