Nature reporters are still at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. Here are some recent dispatches from the science news front line. Full coverage is over on our In the Field blog.
Whenever I see Elaine Ostrander talk about dogs, I feel sorry for human geneticists. Ostrander, a researcher at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute on Bethesda, Maryland, studies the hundreds of dog breeds that exist in the world. And because human breeders have simplified dog genetics enormously, it’s a lot easier to answer questions about the genetic basis of all kinds of traits in dogs than it is in humans.
Ordinarily, Paul Ekman is to be found doing rigorous, detailed studies of facial expression, body movement, emotion and deception…
Climate issue getting “more complicated”
A leader of the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told the meeting today that the world’s climate is likely to change much faster than predicted, leaving the world with two choices: start cutting carbon emissions earlier, or make the cuts deeper.