Monthly Archives: March 2012

What lies ahead for science and science writing?

The MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing turns 10 this year, and this Saturday saw many of the program’s 61 alumni back on campus to catch up and reminisce with fellow graduates, professors and mentors. A daylong symposium, titled “Telling the Stories of Science,” was a celebration of the past 10 years of science writing […] … learn more→

Tuvalu: to be or not to be, a personal experience

The idyllic coral atolls of Tuvalu are west of the International Date Line and north of Fiji in the Pacific Ocean. These islands, just 4.5 metres above sea level, have been the focus of recent climate change debate. What will the country do in the face of predicted climate change? The main coral atoll, Funafuti, […] … learn more→

10,000 simulations show warming of 1.4-3ºC by 2050

A project running almost 10,000 climate simulations on volunteers’ home computers has found that a global warming of 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 is ‘equally plausible’ as a rise of 1.4 degrees. The study, the first to run so many simulations using a complex atmosphere-ocean climate model, addresses some of the uncertainties that previous forecasts, […] … learn more→

A new dimension for solar energy

Intensive research around the world has focused on improving the performance of solar photovoltaic cells and bringing down their cost. But very little attention has been paid to the best ways of arranging those cells, which are typically placed flat on a rooftop or other surface, or sometimes attached to motorized structures that keep the […] … learn more→

Growth in World contraceptive use stalling; 215 million women’s needs still unmet

In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, recognized reproductive health and family planning as fundamental human rights. Delegates committed to making voluntary family planning services universally available by 2015. Now just three years from that deadline, at least 215 million women want to prevent or delay pregnancy but are not […] … learn more→

Uplifting news in the world of geology

The huge changes in the earth’s crust that shaped the face of the African continent are being re-defined according to research published in Nature Geoscience. The Great Rift Valley of East Africa – the birthplace of the human species – may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed. Lead author Dr Eric Roberts, […] … learn more→

Breakthroughs may lead to more energy efficient transistors

Researchers at Penn State and the University of Notre Dame have announced breakthroughs in the development of tunneling field effect transistors (TFETs), a semiconductor technology that takes advantage of the quirky behavior of electrons at the quantum level. Transistors are the building blocks of the electronic devices that power the digital world, and much of […] … learn more→