Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Orangutans shed light on obesity in people
Tue,13 Dec 2011 04:53 PM PST
Reuters - CHICAGO (Reuters) - In lush times, orangutans on the island of Borneo gorge themselves on forest fruits, packing on extra pounds in preparation for leaner years, when they live off leaves and bark and their own stored fat. This behavior of overeating is all too common in humans, but rarely seen in nonhuman primates, and studying it may offer some clues about obesity and eating disorders in people, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. ... Full Story | Top |
Microsoft co-founder Allen launches space project
Tue,13 Dec 2011 02:16 PM PST
Reuters -  SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen is planning to build a spaceship that could replace the Space Shuttle and put paying passengers into orbit this decade. Lifelong space enthusiast Allen is hoping to launch unmanned rockets from a massive flying carrier plane to put government and commercial satellites into space and eventually evolve to human space missions. The initiative comes only months after the United States retired the Space Shuttle program after 30 years, opening the door to private enterprise to supply space vehicles. ...
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The Higgs boson: What has God got to do with it?
Tue,13 Dec 2011 01:00 PM PST
Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - "We don't call it the 'God particle', it's just the media that do that," a senior U.S. scientist politely told an interviewer on a major European radio station on Tuesday. "Well, I am the from the media and I'm going to continue calling it that," said the journalist - and continued to do so. The exchange, as physicists at the CERN research centre near Geneva were preparing to announce the latest news from their long and frustrating search for the Higgs boson, illustrated sharply how science and the popular media are not always a good mix. ... Full Story | Top |
Factbox: What is the Big Bang?
Tue,13 Dec 2011 07:44 AM PST
Reuters -  (Reuters) - Scientists at the CERN physics research centre said on Tuesday they had found signs of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle believed to have played a vital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang. Leaders of two experiments, ALTAS and CMS, revealed their answer in which finding the Higgs was a key goal for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC), designed to re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself. ...
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The Higgs boson: Vital to life but is it there?
Tue,13 Dec 2011 07:28 AM PST
Reuters -  GENEVA (Reuters) - It has been called "the brick that built the universe," "the angel of creation" and "the god particle." It is thought to have emerged from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and have brought much of the rest of the flying debris together to form galaxies, stars and planets. It is a key component of the "Standard Model" - the all-encompassing theory developed by physicists of how the cosmos as we know it works at its basic level of particles and forces. ...
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The Higgs boson: vital to life but is it there?
Mon,12 Dec 2011 03:17 PM PST
Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - It has been called "the brick that built the universe," "the angel of creation" and "the god particle." It is thought to have emerged from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago and have brought much of the rest of the flying debris together to form galaxies, stars and planets. It is a key component of the "Standard Model" - the all-encompassing theory developed by physicists of how the cosmos as we know it works at its basic level of particles and forces. ...
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Nuclear industry seeks end to regulatory spat
Mon,12 Dec 2011 03:06 PM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - The nuclear industry asked the White House and Congress on Monday to resolve a nasty power struggle at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an internal fight that will be scrutinized at two Congressional hearings this week. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the main lobby group for the utilities and power companies that run the country's 104 nuclear reactors, said the fight has put the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's credibility at stake. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: Durban deal may do little to cool heating planet
Mon,12 Dec 2011 07:03 AM PST
Reuters -  DURBAN (Reuters) - The world is forecast to grow hotter, sea levels to rise, intense weather to wreak even more destruction and the new deal struck by governments in Durban to cut greenhouse gas emissions will do little to lessen that damage. Climate data from U.N. agencies indicates that the accumulation of heat-trapping gases will rise to such levels over the next eight years - before the newly agreed regime of cuts in emissions is supposed to be in place - that the planet is on a collision course with permanent environmental change. ...
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Psychedelic gecko, "Elvis" monkey in new Mekong finds
Sun,11 Dec 2011 04:15 PM PST
Reuters -  (Reuters) - A wildly-colored gecko, a fish that looks like a gherkin, and a monkey with an Elvis-like hairstyle are among the more than 200 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong region last year, environmental group WWF said on Monday. The area's diversity is so astonishing that a new species is found every two days, but regional cooperation and decision-making must take centre stage to preserve its richness, the group added. The dangers posed to local wildlife were highlighted earlier this year, when WWF said that Vietnam's Javan rhinos have been poached into extinction. ...
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CERN set to report probable Higgs sighting this week
Sun,11 Dec 2011 10:16 AM PST
Reuters -  GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists predicted this weekend that sighting of the first strong signs of a particle vital to support Einstein's ideas on the working of the universe will be reported Tuesday by the CERN physics research center. While warning there would be no announcement of a full scientific discovery, they said even confirmation that something like the long-sought Higgs boson had been spotted would point the way to major advances in knowledge of the cosmos. ...
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Analysis: World still in arrears on climate change pledges
Sun,11 Dec 2011 05:22 AM PST
Reuters - DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - When the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only legally-binding pact to tackle climate change was adopted in the economically-booming 1990s, it was meant to be a down payment. Sunday's tentative promise, thrashed out over days of talks, that all the big emitters will eventually join an international scheme of carbon reduction targets is the latest small installment and allows U.N. law to retain some value in trying to stop the planet from overheating. Environmentalists want much more. ... Full Story | Top |
Instant View: U.N. climate talks reach modest deal
Sun,11 Dec 2011 05:22 AM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, reached a deal that for the first time would bring all major emitters into international efforts to limit global warming, but which environmentalists said did not go far enough. Following is reaction from key players and observers. CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, UNFCCC EXECUTIVE SECRETARY "I salute the countries who made this agreement. They have all laid aside some cherished objectives of their own to meet a common purpose, a long-term solution to climate change. ... Full Story | Top |
What U.N. climate talks agreed in Durban
Sun,11 Dec 2011 05:22 AM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - U.N. climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, agreed a package of measures early on Sunday that would eventually force all the world's polluters to take legally binding action to slow the pace of global changing. After more than two weeks of intense talks, some 190 countries agreed to four main elements -- a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, the design of a Green Climate Fund and a mandate to get all countries in 2015 to sign a deal that would force them to cut emissions no later than 2020, as well as a workplan for next year. ... Full Story | Top |
Private sector finance eyed for U.N. forest projects
Sun,11 Dec 2011 05:22 AM PST
Reuters - DURBAN (Reuters) - Private investors may be allowed to earn carbon credits by paying poor countries to halt the destruction of tropical forests, but a U.N. climate summit failed to agree the details needed to get the ambitious program off the ground. The felling of trees that capture the heat-trapping gases responsible for global warming accounts for about 20 percent of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions, and studies show an acre (0.4 hectare) of forest is lost every second around the globe. ... Full Story | Top |
Gene therapy proves effective for hemophilia B
Sat,10 Dec 2011 07:11 PM PST
Reuters - SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A single treatment with gene therapy, an experimental technique for fixing faulty genes, has been shown to boost output of a vital blood clotting factor, possibly offering a long-term solution for people with hemophilia B. Researchers said the same technology was also being studied as a treatment for hemophilia A, the far more common type of the inherited bleeding disorder. "It is a technique for potentially permanently curing patients," said Dr. ... Full Story | Top |
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