“Because maybe something could happen to the robots whereby they could lose a limb.”

Martin Gross, of the University of Jena in Germany, tells the BBC why making three-legged dogs run on a treadmill might help robot design (BBC, with video)

“There has been a really polarised debate in the blogosphere and the most popular blog sites are run by sceptics. As a result, climate scientists don’t want to get involved. They fear being ‘targeted’ by what some see as a McCarthyite witch-hunt.”

Nature’s own Olive Heffernan says scientists need to “emerge from their ivory towers” and engage with the public (Irish Times).

“Due to the exhaustion of old mines, we now have to dig deeper and deeper in search of coal, and it’s getting more and more dangerous.”

An executive at Russia’s second biggest coal miner discusses safety issues with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Nine people are reportedly trapped after a mine accident today (AFP).

“In the US, there are too many paper researchers. Here, they are doing things.”

S. Ming Sung, the chief Asia-Pacific representative for the Clean Air Task Force, tells the Washington Post why China is where it’s at.

“The most recent field survey conducted in 2006 suggested that there were around 1,000 individuals in the Yangtze River. This is much smaller than previous estimates, suggesting a significant population decline in the past two decades.”

Guang Yang, of Nanjing Normal University in China, says the finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) is in real trouble (BBC).

“A game featuring realistic NASA exploration scenarios.”

No one seems to have told the team developing NASA’s new video game – Moonbase Alpha – that the space agency isn’t going to the Moon any time soon.

“It’s clear that the LHC is the new boy in town, but in two years running we’re going to put Fermilab out of business.”

Mike Lamont, operation group leader at the Large Hadron Collider, talks to the BBC after the collider hits 10,000 particle collisions per second.

“It’s the first time that we’re getting to the level of knowing these animals as individuals, as families — as personalities, really. It’s a whole new step.”

Shane Gero, of Dalhousie University, talks to Wired about her new study on identifying individual sperm whales from their calls.

“The latest data shows that poor productivity in 2009 continued to be exacerbated by the low success rate for drugs in late stage development and a decline in sales from new drugs launched within the last five years.”

Hans Poulsen, head of consulting at CMR International, comments on his company’s new report showing pharma companies are making less and less money from newer medicines (Reuters).

“I would estimate the number of dead sea cucumbers to be in the thousands and their cause of death is obviously related to the oil spill.”

Rainer Amon, a marine scientist from Texas A&M, comments on a disturbing discovery on a Deepwater Horizon cruise (Scientific American, hat tip: Deep Sea News).

“I would rather lose a toe, and gain a whole hand.”

Shannon Elliott explains why she has had her big toe transplanted to her hand, which was damaged in an accident (PIX 11 News, via Fox).

“It’s clear that this government doesn’t believe in research in general and they think research is not necessary. Maybe they think that Italy can stay in the G8 just by producing bags and shoes.”

Emilio Campana, head of research at Rome’s marine institute INSEAN, discusses a planed strike by scientists on 25 June in protest at government funding cuts that threaten his and other research institutions (Research Europe, not linkable).

“These hydrocarbons are from depth and not associated with sinking degraded oil but associated with the source of the Deep Horizon well head.”

David Hollander, of the University of South Florida, says his team have discovered a second oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico (CNN).

“If efficiency and safety has not been proven, we don’t believe it should be used. As a health ministry, we must always protect the human being.”

Ileana Herrera, chief of the Costa Rican health ministry’s research council, comments on a crackdown on unauthorized stem cell treatments (Reuters).

“Genentech on Sunday said its cancer drug Avastin prompted a 39 percent improvement in the likelihood of women with advanced ovarian cancer living longer without the disease progressing.”

AP reports on the latest announcement from Genetech, made at the the American Society of Clinical Oncologists meeting in Chicago.

“The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons.”

LaSalle Leffall, of Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, and Margaret Kripke, of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, say Americans are being ‘bombarded’ with carcinogens (Reuters).

“No country of this size has seen energy demand grow this fast before in absolute terms, and those who are most concerned about this are the Chinese themselves.”

Jonathan Sinton, of the International Energy Agency in Paris, comments on the fact that China has seen the largest six-month increase in greenhouse gases ever from an individual country (NY Times).

“I expect to see more people in the rich list to come from high-tech sectors as the government is obviously shifting its support away from traditional industries such as real estate.”

Wu Binghua, an analyst at Debon Securities, comments on the fact that pharmaceutical researcher Li Li has become China’s richest man (Reuters).

“Current indications are that we have made the first oil discovery in the North Falkland Basin. We will now focus on analysing in more detail the data gathered from the well.”

Samuel Moody, managing director of Rockhopper Exploration, says his company may have struck oil off the Falkland Islands (BBC).

“In this case, additional scientific equipment and components … could be delivered to the US segment of the station. However, funding for this flight has not been provided so far.”

The Russian Federal Space Agency says the shuttle Atlantis may travel to the International Space Station in 2011, meaning the shuttle programme does not end this year (RIA Novosti).

“The good news is that most of the spouses did not develop dementia. But this does alert us to the increased risk for some of them. We need to be taking care of the caregiver and finding ways to maximize the positives of care giving.”

Maria Norton, of Utah State University, in Logan, comments on her study showing that the spouses of people with dementia are at increased risk of dementia themselves (MSNBC).