Science & the Public
Where scienceand society meet
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Health & Medicine
Measuring citations: Calculations can vary widely
Depending on how citation tallies will be used, it may pay to cherry pick the appropriate counting house.
- Humans
Flu: Grim stats
Though risk of death from conventional flu strains escalates dramatically, beginning around age 45, a new study finds that masks do a fair job of slowing the infection's transmission.
-
EPA’s nanotoxicity research blueprint
A blueprint for federal research on the potential health and environmental impacts of nanomaterials debuted today.
- Health & Medicine
Obesity epidemic may threaten mitten industry
Hot fingers: That appears to be one consequence of big bodies.
- Humans
Schools need to test water, report results
Survey of EPA database turn up widespread problems, which may be only the tip of the iceberg.
- Earth
Protected whales found in Japan’s supermarkets
Toothless Asian whales find themselves being protected by fairly toothless regulations.
- Animals
Spider men weave silken tapestry
It took herculean effort, but Madagascar crafters created an extraordinary piece of woven art from spider silk.
- Physics
Neutrons for military and medical imaging
An accelerator-based neutron-production system is being designed to cull bombs at risk of exploding prematurely — and make the feedstock for a major isotope used in nuclear medicine.
- Health & Medicine
Peer review: No improvement with practice
To keep the quality of what they publish high, journals may have to frequently recycle the experts asked to evaluate incoming manuscripts.
- Earth
Cell phones: Precautions recommended
Scientists make a case for texting and using hand-free technologies with those cell phones to which society has become addicted.
- Health & Medicine
Cell phones: Feds probing health impacts
Senate hearing finds that biomedical research agencies aren't complacent about potential health effects of cell-phone radiation.
- Humans
Citation amnesia: Not good for our health
BLOG: Researchers fail to mention previous publications in findings
