Category: Energy and Environment
In recent years, the government has made moves to support making the results of taxpayer-funded research available to taxpayers for free. A new bill in Congress attempts to pull the plug.
As I wrote recently, Stephen Quake has been writing about conflicts of interest in research over at The Wild Side blog. He proposes solving these problems with peer review. I like the article, and he has many thoughtful things to say on the topic, but I don't really understand this proposal.
This week's New Scientist has the kind of cover story that makes me wonder if warnings about the effects of global warming have gone over the top.
Students have a laundry list of reasons why writing is one of their least favorite subjects. How do we adjust this mind set through incorporating science?
This article will explore tips, tricks, and techniques of using science to actually excite students about writing in school at all age levels K-12. Teachers and students- you no longer have to dread writing time!
The problem of conflicts of interest in science is not going to go away.
What's in the Stimulus Package for science?
Globally, tropical trees in undisturbed forest are absorbing nearly a fifth of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels.
Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.
Could hamsters help solve the world's energy crisis? Probably not, but a hamster wearing a power-generating jacket is doing its own small part to provide a new and renewable source of electricity.
Biodiversity feeds on itself, researchers found, as evolving animals open niches for other new species. Such is the case, says a Michigan State University researcher, with a parasite found to be evolving in sequence with an emerging host insect in western Michigan apple trees.
A team of Los Alamos researchers led by Victor Klimov has shown that carrier multiplication—when a photon creates multiple electrons—is a real phenomenon in tiny semiconductor crystals and not a false observation born of extraneous effects that mimic carrier multiplication.
Taking a chemical approach, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a two-step method to convert the cellulose in raw biomass into a promising biofuel.
An in-depth study by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corp. has found that plant and forestry waste and dedicated energy crops could sustainably replace nearly a third of gasoline use by the year 2030.
Two BYU researchers who just returned from Antarctica are reporting a hardy worm that withstands its cold climate by cranking out antifreeze.
A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than conventional shocks.
