Culture

In a world where economies are increasingly dependent upon high-level knowledge, higher education is a key national resource. But a Forward Look initiated by the European Science Foundation (ESF) shows that we need to know more about how universities, and other higher education institutions, are changing in the 21st century.

A team led by Professor John Brennan of the U.K.'s Open University has just examined what we know about today's higher education, and what we need to research further.

FAIRFAX, Va.—Though many policymakers have argued that environmental regulations can negatively impact on an organization's bottom line, a new study by George Mason University researcher Nicole Darnall shows that companies that develop green production processes can not only offset the costs of regulations, but can also reap further benefits.

Archaeopteryx is famous as the world's oldest bird, but reptiles were flying about some 50 million years earlier than that (225 million years ago), even before large dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

A new study of extinct reptiles called kuehneosaurs, by scientists from the University of Bristol, England, shows that these early flyers used extraordinary extensions of their ribs to form large gliding surfaces on the side of the body. The results are published today (15 July) in Palaeontology.

BOSTON, MA ― Two years after the implementation of a health care reform law aimed at providing health coverage for nearly all Massachusetts residents, public support for the law remains high. According to a new poll by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, over two-thirds (69%) of Massachusetts residents support the law. Just over one in five (22%) oppose the law and approximately one in ten (9%) say they do not know enough about it to give an opinion.

WHAT: Recent studies have shown that HIV causes a vigorous and prolonged immune response that eventually leads to the exhaustion of key immune system cells--CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells--that target HIV. These tired cells become less and less able to fight the virus, and the cells' fatigue contributes to the inability of an HIV-infected person's immune system to clear the virus from the body.

Washington, DC – Kids who see cigarettes as easily accessible are more likely to end up as regular smokers, particularly if they have friends who smoke, according to a new report published in the current issue of Annals of Family Medicine. The study, funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, could be valuable to smoking intervention efforts by allowing health professionals to identify and target high-risk children.

Water-wasting and uncaring about gels, shampoos and soap going down the plughole: that's how the British emerge from a survey on showering habits of western Europeans.

Women in Britain are particularly guilty of wasting shower water and not caring about contaminants, says the report for the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Bar chart showing lengths of showers for people in Western Europe.

(Photo Credit: RSC / Ipsos MORI 2008)

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. – July 14, 2008 – The outlook for air quality in Beijing during the Olympics is borderline, and there's little that the Chinese government can do to improve it. That's the conclusion drawn by a University of Rhode Island atmospheric chemist who analyzed pollution data collected regularly for the last five years by Chinese scientists.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A new mathematical model by researchers at the University of Michigan suggests that bluffing in prediction markets is a profitable strategy more often than previously thought.

The analysis calls into question the incentives such markets create for revealing information and making accurate predictions. The researchers also pose a tactic to discourage bluffing.

WASHINGTON, DC—While the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing has elicited a rallying cry for human rights among high-profile activists and organizations outside China, ordinary Chinese citizens are mobilizing to fight for their rights inside the rapidly changing country, according to sociologist Ching Kwan Lee, writing in the summer issue of the American Sociological Association's Contexts magazine.

The report: Fuel for thought – The future of transport fuels: challenges and opportunities addresses two serious issues – the need to dramatically reduce the transport sector's greenhouse gas emissions and, how to deal with the economic risks associated with increasingly costly and scarce oil supplies.

WASHINGTON -- Policymakers, universities, and employers should work together to speed the development of professionally oriented master's degree programs in the natural sciences, says a new report from the National Research Council. Graduates of these programs -- which build both scientific knowledge and practical workplace skills -- can make a strong contribution to the nation's competitiveness, said the committee that wrote the report.

LIVERMORE, Calif. - Researchers have devised a technology that can distinguish mine collapses from other seismic activity.

However much the likes of Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay might want to shake up our diets, culinary evolution dictates that our cultural cuisines remain little changed as generations move on, shows new research, published today, Thursday, 10 July, 2008, in the Institute of Physics (IOP)'s New Journal of Physics (NJP).

Naturopaths are strongly in favour of regulation of their industry, a University of Queensland researcher has found.

Naturopaths believed that regulation would lift the quality of practitioners, improve patient safety, promote research and allow for greater collaboration between complementary and conventional medicine, researcher Jon Wardle, a PhD student with the School of Population Health, said.