Archive by date | September 2010

Indian academies’ GM crop report slammed

Indian academies' GM crop report slammed

Posted for Priya Shetty India’s reputation as an emerging world power has already taken a hefty beating with the seemingly doomed Commonwealth Games. Now its scientific reputation is under threat too. This week, a much-anticipated report on GM crops released by India’s top six science academies, which advocated the introduction of GM brinjal (aubergine), turns out to contain several lines plagiarised from two reports by GM advocate Anand Kumar, at the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology in Delhi, India. Yesterday, Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh rejected the report, saying it “lacked scientific rigour”. Earlier this year, Ramesh had put  … Read more

Obama green team in hiring probe

Obama  green team in hiring probe

Allegations of improper hiring practices at a flagship office for the Obama administration’s vision of a Green Economy have been referred to the U.S. Special Counsel, a prosecutorial office within the White House, according to a report from the Department of Energy’s Inspector-General (IG) released today. The office is Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) , headed by Assistant Secretary Cathy Zoi. It received $16.8 billion in Recovery Act funds and is a major funder of research into alternative energy technologies. The IG report says that witnesses to its inquiry of an unnamed EERE program said that pressure to get  … Read more

Can science help Millennium Development Goals succeed?

Can science help Millennium Development Goals succeed?

As participants of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit took stock of stalled progress on objectives set in a decade ago to measurably ease global poverty by 2015, the UN on Wednesday announced a $40 billion dollar push – the money pledged by numerous nations and organizations – to prevent the deaths of as many as 16 million mothers and children in the world’s poorest countries. [Reuters]

Game over for British science?

Game over for British science?

Following yesterday’s letter from the House of Lords science and technology committee to Science Minister David Willetts urging a rethink of science cuts, Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, and five heads of prominent universities held a press conference at the Royal Institution today to send the same message.

Ruth’s Reviews: Everyday Practice of Science – Frederick Grinnell

Ruth’s Reviews: Everyday Practice of Science – Frederick Grinnell

Ruth Francis, Nature’s Head of Press, is reviewing all the entries shortlisted for the Royal Society’s science book prize. She’ll be reading one per week and posting her thoughts on The Great Beyond every Friday between now and the prize ceremony on 21 October.