5/9/2008 - Time Magazine
Scientists said they have mapped the genetic makeup of the platypus--one of nature's strangest animals with a bill like a duck's, a mammal's fur, and snake-like venom.
5/9/2008 - The New York Times (requires free registration)
Six thousand years ago, northern Africa was a place of trees, grasslands, lakes, and people. Today, it is the Sahara--a desolate area larger than Australia. In today's issue of the journal Science, researchers report that the climate transition occurred gradually.
5/9/2008 - NewScientist
Flakes of iron snow could be falling inside the planet Mercury, according to a new experiment. This hot metal snowfall might help generate Mercury's puzzling magnetic field.
5/9/2008 - eSchool News
Long a hotbed of environmental activism, America's campuses are blooming green, Forbes reports. Schools are committing to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, they're funneling endowment money into renewable-energy investment funds, and students--the engine behind much of this growth--are pushing for more.
5/8/2008 - NewScientist
Two whirling dust devils towering nearly a kilometer high have been seen at the exact spot where the Phoenix Mars lander is due to touch down in a few weeks. The dust vortices should pose no threat to the landing, but could provide dramatic views from the probe when it alights on the flat, relatively barren landscape.
5/8/2008 - The New York Times (requires free registration)
A profusion of online programs that can track a student's daily progress, including class attendance, missed assignments and grades on homework, quizzes and tests, is changing the nature of communication among parents and children, families, and teachers.
5/8/2008 - CBC News
Work that requires decision making, negotiating with others, analysis, and making judgments builds up your "cognitive reserve"--a level of mental function that helps you avoid or compensate for age-related mental decline.
5/8/2008 - National Geographic
Debate has heated up over a controversial theory that suggests huge comet impacts wiped out North America's large mammals nearly 13,000 years ago.
5/8/2008 - Time Magazine
People who sleep fewer than six hours a night--or more than nine--are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies.
5/7/2008 - Discover Magazine
Captive breeding may sound great, but the captives don't do so well in nature. A disturbing new study reveals that captive breeding projects are rarely successful in the long run.
5/7/2008 - BBC News
Many tropical insects face extinction by the end of this century unless they adapt to the rising global temperatures predicted. Researchers say insects in the tropics are much more sensitive to temperature changes than those elsewhere.
5/7/2008 - ScienceNow Daily News
Uranium pollution from high-tech armor and munitions is one of the dangerous legacies of the wars in the Balkans and Iraq. But a naturally occurring fungus might help combat the spread of that pollution into local ecosystems. The fungus transforms the uranium into a stable form that shouldn't work its way into the food chain, a new study shows.
5/7/2008 - Scientific American
In research that could give doctors a way to reassign sex in cases of unclear gender, scientists report this week that they have figured out why some children with genes that should make them boys are instead born as girls.
5/7/2008 - eSchool News
In what is becoming a national trend, leading businesses and education groups are launching new initiatives aimed at increasing the number of minorities--and Hispanics in particular--in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
5/5/2008 - National Science Foundation
Excellent teaching in math and science can make a crucial difference to students' mastery of these subjects, and to decisions about future study and careers. Teachers who bring such teaching to their classrooms are being honored by President Bush as winners of the 2007 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
5/5/2008 - eSchool News
University of Chicago Law School officials have a simple message for their students: less web surfing, more listening. The school announced that the distractions afforded by wireless internet access no longer will be available during class time, although laptops still will be permitted for note taking. Although many professors have taken steps to block internet access during their instruction, the University of Chicago Law School is believed to be among the first to implement a school-wide ban.
5/5/2008 - ScienceNOW Daily News
Biologists have long sought chemical reactions that can home in on and alter particular molecules while leaving everything around them untouched. Now, chemists have developed a reaction that targets specific sugars that decorate proteins and other molecules. It could one day offer doctors better ways to deliver radioactive imaging agents to tumors or diseased blood vessels and catch cancer and heart disease in their earliest stages.
5/5/2008 - Scientific American
Records stretching back to 1960 prove what climate models had predicted: warmer oceans contain less oxygen.
5/5/2008 - BBC News
Children who live in tree-lined streets have lower rates of asthma, a New York-based study suggests. They believe more trees may aid air quality or simply encourage children to play outside, although they say the true reason for the finding is unclear.
5/5/2008 - The New York Times (requires free registration)
Brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. In fact, the more new things we try--the more we step outside our comfort zone--the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.
5/2/2008 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinjak
How do you get rid of expired or unwanted medications safely? This seemingly simple question posed by ecology teacher Paul Ritter was the impetus for a pharmaceutical reclamation program designed and implemented by Pontiac Township (Illinois) High School students.
5/1/2008 - Time Magazine
Dutch researchers are developing a blood test that could predict the onset of menopause and the decline of fertility.
5/1/2008 - eSchool News
Education needs $20 billion for infrastructure, according to a report released by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI). To narrow the digital divide, funding for up-to-date video and voice technology in schools should be a focus of federal and state decision makers from coast to coast.
5/1/2008 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinjak
Most alternative teacher certification programs are not truly alternative, according to "Thinking Outside the University," a paper recently published by the Center for American Progress (CAP). Approximately half of all alternative certification programs are run by colleges and universities and have coursework requirements similar to traditional programs, says Davida Gatlin, who wrote the paper last year as a Thomas B. Fordham Fellow at CAP. "We need to move licensing to consider the skills a person brings to the work, not just courses" taken.
5/1/2008 - National Science Foundation
Tiny marks on the teeth of an ancient human ancestor known as the "Nutcracker Man" may upset current evolutionary understanding of early hominid diet.