Science News

Charles Darwin’s trip to the Galapagos Islands significantly influenced his thinking and paved the way for his theory of evolution. Since the 1970s, Princeton biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant have been studying Darwin’s Finches and now claim that they’ve witnessed evolutionary change because of competition first hand. Read the rest

More older women are opting for fetal testing to ensure their babies won't have a congenital disease such as Down syndrome. Right now, the main way these genetic tests are done is by extracting some of the fetus' cells via amniocentesis - when the doctor uses a needle to draw fluid from the sac surrounding the fetus - or chorionic villus sampling - when the doctor takes a sampling of the placenta. However, both procedures have a 1-2% chance of ending in miscarriage. Read the rest

Last year, paleogeneticist Svante Paabo announced he was going to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome. Now, Paabo estimates he'll have a draft completed within two years. Read the rest

Author: Michael Shermer
Publisher: Times Books
Year Published: 2006
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I've always liked Michael Shermer's witty, skeptical approach to virtually everything in his Scientific American columns. Regardless of whether I agree with his conclusions, he always offers me a new perspective on various, obscure topics. So it was with great interest that I picked up his new book, Why Darwin Matters. Read the rest

Author: Michael Bellomo
Publisher: AMACOM
Year Published: 2006
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Human stem cell research is a major hot button topic that divides the conservative and scientific communities. Religious conservatives see it as tampering with nature and even playing God. Scientists, on the other hand, see the potential to treat many of the life threatening diseases of our times - from heart disease and diabetes to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Read the rest

Author: Ian Wilmut, Roger Highfield
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Year Published: 2006
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On July 5, 1996, Dolly, the first animal ever to have been cloned from an adult cell, was born under the watchful eyes of Ian Wilmut and his team of researchers at the Roslin Institute. Dolly's birth sparked all sorts of political and ethical concerns while providing hope that cloning might one day cure major illnesses like Parkinson's and diabetes. In After Dolly, Wilmut has teamed with award winning science journalist Roger Highfield to defend cloning and argue for continued scientific research. Read the rest

According to a new study conducted by Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, people that take psilocybin (pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin), an illegal drug made from mushrooms, can have a profound spiritual experience. Read the rest

Al Gore's An Inconventient Truth has made it onto the front cover of Entertainment Weekly, now that his documentary has surpassed the $15 million mark in the US.

Laurie David, wife of Curb Your Enthusiasm creator, Larry David, saw an abridged version of Al Gore's slide presentation on Global Warming back in May 2004. At that time, she was convinced it should be a movie. She says:

Right away I knew this should be a movie - I just knew it in my gut. So I asked Gore to come to Los Angeles and do the show for some of my friends. I booked a hall at the Beverly Hilton, hired caterers, and called everyone I knew.'

The timing was right, and there was enough talk about global warming that many people contributed services for free. The final production cost just over $1 million to make. Read the rest

There's been quite a bit about global warming in the news recently, with The National Academy of Sciences reporting to Congress that

recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia. Read the rest

There may be a huge backlash to Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and its message of global warming, but that's not stopping the government from funding a new study on how sea ice affects the movement of water in the Arctic Ocean. Read the rest