"Have you got a spare seat on the journey to Berlin?" Many weekend commuters use opportunities to travel together, instead of driving alone. It's more companionable and saves petrol, money and CO2. Something similar could also become reality for goods consignments from companies located close to one another: pooling of transport on rail and road reduces the environmental burden and saves costs – experts put the figure at around 15 percent.
Culture
Companies with female board members fare worse on the stock market, despite performing as well on all other measures as those with all-male boards. This is the finding of a new study by the University of Exeter, published today (13 August 2009) in the British Journal of Management.
The research suggests that shareholders respond negatively to women being appointed to their boards, causing share values to decline. This is consistent with other recent research that has examined responses to the appointment of female CEOs in the United States.
A University of Arizona anthropologist has discovered that humans living at a Paleolithic cave site in central Israel between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago were as successful at big-game hunting as were later stone-age hunters at the site, but that the earlier humans shared meat differently.
"The Lower Paleolithic (earlier) hunters were skilled hunters of large game animals, as were Upper Paleolithic (later) humans at this site," UA anthropology professor Mary C. Stiner said.
The project, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), found that many young volunteers travelled long distances from cities to short-term projects in rural areas and felt they were being punished for being disruptive or naughty at school. They saw the conservation work as having no relevance to their future employment, or educating them on green issues.
A new study reveals that treelines are not responding to climate warming as expected. The research, the first global quantitative assessment of the relationship between climate warming and treeline advance, is published in Ecology Letters and tests the premise that treelines are globally advancing in response to climate warming since 1900.
(PHILADELPHIA) – Breast cancer survivors who lift weights are less likely than their non-weightlifting peers to experience worsening symptoms of lymphedema, the arm- and hand-swelling condition that plagues many women following surgery for their disease, according to new University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine research published in the August 13 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
STANFORD, Calif. — The labeling information that comes with prescription drugs tells you what's known about the medication, but researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine think it's high time that the labeling tell you what isn't known.
New research indicates that decreased cravings for pleasure may be at the root of a core symptom of major depressive disorder. The research is in contrast to the long-held notion that those suffering from depression lack the ability to enjoy rewards, rather than the desire to seek them.
The research, led by Vanderbilt psychologists Michael Treadway and David Zald, was published Aug. 12 by the online journal PLoS One.
An insulator can now be transformed to conduct electricity by an ordinary camera flash.
A Northwestern University professor and his students have found a new way of turning graphite oxide -- a low-cost insulator made by oxidizing graphite powder -- into graphene, a hotly studied material that conducts electricity. Scientists believe graphene could be used to produce low-cost carbon-based transparent and flexible electronics.
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Injuries can occur during a sporting competition at any time. However, new research finds that during football, injuries sustained at the beginning or middle of a game are more severe compared to injuries sustained during the end or in overtime. This finding suggests that the changes of intensity throughout competition influence risk of severe injury.
Reconstructions of past hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean indicate that the most active hurricane period in the past was during the "Medieval Climate Anomaly" about a thousand years ago when climate conditions created a "perfect storm" of La Niña-like conditions combined with warm tropical Atlantic waters.
Folsom, CA – August 11, 2009 – On Monday, August 17th at 1:30PM in Hensill Hall 113, attendees of the 90th Annual Pacific Division Meeting of the AAAS in San Francisco will get to learn about the latest efforts in science communication from some of the brightest minds in the field.
The symposium is called “Good Science is Only Part of the Job: Communicating Science to the Public.” (Online link: http://www.sou.edu/aaaspd/2009SANFRANCISCO/Symposia09.html#15).
PRINCETON, N.J. – Finding the best way to pack the greatest quantity of a specifically shaped object into a confined space may sound simple, yet it consistently has led to deep mathematical concepts and practical applications, such as improved computer security codes.
When mathematicians solved a famed sphere-packing problem in 2005, one that first had been posed by renowned mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1611, it made worldwide headlines.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Mothers and fathers play different roles and make different contributions to a child's upbringing, but a father's influence upon a child's academic success later in life is felt the most when he's involved from the very beginning, says a University of Illinois expert in early childhood education.
While a mother's involvement in school was found to be positively related to a child's academic achievement, a father's involvement was found to be negatively related to later student achievement, according to Brent McBride, a professor of human development at Illinois.
London's oldest timber structure has been unearthed by archaeologists from Archaeology South-East (part of the Institute of Archaeology at UCL). It was found during the excavation of a prehistoric peat bog adjacent to Belmarsh Prison in Plumstead, Greenwich, in advance of the construction of a new prison building. Radiocarbon dating has shown the structure to be nearly 6,000 years old and it predates Stonehenge by more than 500 years.