Culture

As climate change is credited as one of the main drivers behind soaring food prices, the Global Crop Diversity Trust is undertaking a major effort to search crop collections—from Azerbaijan to Nigeria—for the traits that could arm agriculture against the impact of future changes. Traits, such as drought resistance in wheat, or salinity tolerance in potato, will become essential as crops around the world have to adapt to new climate conditions.

Durham, N.C. – September 17, 2008 – In many retail industries, the most successful firms are the ones that offer the widest selection. For example, Home Depot and Staples offer a wide array of products at competitive prices. Maintaining this variety requires substantial firm-level investments.

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC – (September 17, 2008) Mangled bodies, gunfire, high-speed chases and injured children are just a few events witnessed by police officers and soldiers serving in dangerous hot spots around the world. These traumas take a high toll on the police officers and soldiers, who suppress human emotions to get the job done and can be reluctant to share their experiences in an effort to spare others from their ordeals, according to a September Police Quarterly article (published by SAGE).

The earth will warm about 2.4° C (4.3° F) above pre-industrial levels even under extremely conservative greenhouse-gas emission scenarios and under the assumption that efforts to clean up particulate pollution continue to be successful, according to a new analysis by a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

WASHINGTON -- The importance of research in solving many of our national challenges, including economic ones, was emphasized today in a new report titled SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR AMERICA'S PROGRESS: ENSURING THE BEST PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS IN THE NEW ADMINISTRATION. The report, sent to John McCain and Barack Obama with guidance for whomever is elected president in November, provides suggestions on filling key science appointments after the election.

Burnaby, British Columbia – September 17, 2008 – A new study in The Financial Review establishes a relationship between political beliefs of corporate stakeholders and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of their firms. Companies with a high CSR rating tend to be located in Democratic states, while companies with a low CSR rating tend to be located in Republican states.

MADISON, WI, SEPTEMBER 15, 2008–Nitrate is the most common chemical contaminant in the world's ground water, including in aquifers used for drinking-water supply. Nitrate in drinking water of the United States is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) because of concerns related to infant health and possible cancer risks. Use of man-made synthetic fertilizers has steadily increased since World War II, raising the potential for increased nitrate contamination of the nation's ground water, despite efforts in recent decades to improve land-management practices.

Bringing in a new coach rarely solves problems, regardless of when it is done. This is the conclusion of a study from Mid Sweden University about hiring and firing coaches in the Swedish Elite Series ice-hockey league during the period 1975/76-2005/06. Despite this fact, coaches are nevertheless very publicly fired. The study shows that it is a mistake to replace the coach.

The Swedish elite hockey season is getting underway, and people are already speculating about which coaches will be fired. Five were let go last season alone.

Microscopic coprophilous or dung-loving fungi help make our planet habitable by degrading the billions of tons of feces produced by herbivores. But the fungi have a problem: survival depends upon the consumption of their spores by herbivores and few animals will graze on grass next to their own dung. Evolution has overcome this obstacle by producing an array of mechanisms of spore discharge whose elegance transforms a cow pie into a circus of microscopic catapults, trampolines, and squirt guns.

Jeanne Mager Stellman, PhD, professor and chair of environmental and occupational health sciences at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, told the President's Cancer Panel that government policy and a "lack of the will to prevent occupational disease, death and disability" are responsible for the failure to control cancer-causing chemicals in the workplace. Meeting in East Brunswick, New Jersey on Sep 16, the panel heard Dr. Stellman say that decades have been wasted examining the problem of carcinogens while not doing enough to stem their threat to public health.

In a finding that could speed the use of sensors or barcodes at the nanoscale, North Carolina State University engineers have shown that certain types of tiny organic particles, when heated to the proper temperature, bob to the surface of a layer of a thin polymer film and then can reversibly recede below the surface when heated a second time.

Imagine taking a picture of your favourite sports team every year for a generation. Looking back over a quarter of century, the changes you'd see are significant.

Researchers in the University of Alberta Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation looked at an NHL team over a 26-year cycle and discovered players have become bigger and fitter.

September 16, 2008— Studies published in a special issue of the online journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy by the University of California Press reveal that abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programs fail to change sexual behavior in teenagers, provide inaccurate information about condoms, and violate human rights principles. Edited by John S. Santelli, MD, MPH, professor and chair of the Heilbrunn Department of Family and Population Health and Leslie M.

ITHACA, N.Y. — For the first time in waters surrounding New York City, the beckoning calls of endangered fin, humpback and North Atlantic right whales have been recorded, according to experts from the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

Key differences in immune system signaling and the production of specific immune regulatory molecules may explain why some primates are able to live with an immunodeficiency virus infection without progressing to AIDS-like illness, unlike other primate species, including rhesus macaques and humans, that succumb to disease.