Archive by date | September 2009

Obama visits Bethesda for stimulus announcement

Posted by Nature News Team | Categories:

Obama visits Bethesda for stimulus announcement

Posted on behalf of Meredith Wadman Seven months after signing into law $10.4 billion in economic stimulus funding for the National Institutes of Health, President Barack Obama visited the Bethesda-based biomedical agency today to announce that…$5 billion of the money has been spent. Coming as it did on the last day of the government’s 2009 fiscal year, this “major Recovery Act announcement,” as billed by the White House, was in fact considerable testimony to the speed with which the huge agency can shovel money out the door when the pressure is on. After all, only nine days ago, according to  … Read more

Bird bug behind deadly dino’s demise

Posted by Daniel Cressey | Categories: ,

Many Tyrannosaurus rex may have been laid low by a single celled parasite that is still taking down modern birds.

Many tyrannosaurid fossils have multiple smooth holes in their mandibles. These have generally been attributed to either bacterial bone infection or bite wounds.

More papers retracted in Iran plagiarism case

Posted by Declan Butler | Categories:

Two more journals, Springer’s Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology and the Taiwanese Journal of Mechanics, have told Nature that they intend to retract, on grounds of plagiarism, papers co-authored by Iran’s science and education minister Kamran Daneshjou, a professor in the school of mechanical engineering at the Iran University of Science & Technology (IUST) in Tehran, and his colleague. This follows an investigation by Nature published online this afternoon.

On Nature News

Posted by Daniel Cressey | Categories:

Cellulosic ethanol hits roadblocks – Premium content

How the financial crisis is slowing efforts to commercialize next-generation ethanol.

Climate change will hit developing world harvests hardest

Report quantifies link between global warming and food security.

Exclusive: Iranian ministers in plagiarism row

Nature investigation reveals duplications in papers by science and transport chiefs.

Chinese dam may be a methane menace

Wetlands around Three Gorges produce tonnes of the greenhouse gas.

US agriculture research gets priority plan – Premium content

Federal restructuring aims to lessen the influence of pork-barrel politics.

Mummy autopsy stands corrected

Posted by Richard Van Noorden | Categories:

Mummy autopsy stands corrected

Augustus Bozzi Granville’s sensational autopsy of an Egyptian mummy, a study that he presented to Britain’s Royal Society in 1825, was a trail-blazing first in the field, which laid the foundations for the scientific study of ancient mummies. But his conclusion – that the mummy died of ovarian cancer – was wrong, according to a follow-up analysis performed by researchers at University College London (Proc. R. Soc. B, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1484).

NFL study confirms dementia link to american football

Posted by Geoffrey Brumfiel | Categories:

NFL study confirms dementia link to american football

An independent study by researchers at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research has confirmed higher rates of dementia amongst professional (American) football players. The study was commissioned by the National Football League (NFL), which has denied a clear link in the past. The New York Times has a great story on it, here’s the bottom line:

Assume a spherical zombie…

Posted by Daniel Cressey | Categories:

Not so much following hot on the heels of the recent study on the spread of zombie infections, more shambling slowly and slightly aimlessly in pursuit, we have some new undead science for you.

But Davide Cassi, a physicist at the Università di Parma in Italy, might be slightly surprised to read this morning that he has published a paper about zombies.

Hundreds feared dead after Pacific tsunami

Posted by Daniel Cressey | Categories:

Hundreds feared dead after Pacific tsunami

A massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that has devastated Samoa and American Samoa killing dozens and perhaps hundreds.

The earthquake, which the Japanese meteorological Agency measured as a magnitude 8.3, struck at 6:48 local time at a reported depth of 32 kilometres and a distance of 190 kilometres from the Samoan islands. But most of the damage came with the tsunami waves, measuring up to 6 metres in American Samoa, that hit shore shortly afterwards.