science – News Stories About science - Page 20

Docs Accused Of Hurrying Death To Harvest Organs

Apr 12, 2007 11:24 AM CDT

Docs Accused Of Hurrying Death To Harvest Organs

"They were waiting like vultures," the patient's sister said

(Newser) - A 47-year-old man was wrongly declared brain dead by two doctors apparently eager to harvest his organs, reports the LA Times. "They were waiting like vultures, so they could scoop them up," says the patient’s daughter, Melanie Sanchez. A third doctor determined that her father, who had...

Sorry, Al: Tree Planting May Speed Warming

Apr 10, 2007 9:06 AM CDT

Sorry, Al: Tree Planting May Speed Warming

Outside the tropics, trees merely trap heat, study shows

(Newser) - Planting trees to offset your carbon footprint not only won't slow global warming, it may worsen its effects, a new study claims. Trees growing outside a small band of tropical zones don't cut the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by enough to offset the heat their foliage traps,...

Conjoined Twins Are Freed

Apr 6, 2007 9:59 AM CDT

Conjoined Twins Are Freed

Thai twins joined at the heart and liver healthy after surgery separates them

(Newser) - A pair of conjoined twins attached at the liver and the heart are alive and separate after a surgery Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital calls a "world first." The 10-month-old girls' hearts were joined at the atrium, and the blood flow was connected, but the organs were not dependent...

Bacteria Battle Depression

Apr 6, 2007 8:55 AM CDT

Bacteria Battle Depression

Research shows brain produces serotonin as an immune response

(Newser) - Clinical depression may be treatable with bacteria, doctors at Bristol University posit. They got the idea when they observed lung cancer patients inoculated with harmless Mycobacterium vaccae who showed reduced symptoms and improved mental health. The brain produces serotonin as an immune response, the docs hypothesized, raising the low serotonin...

UN Report: Climate Change Will Hit Poor Hardest

Apr 6, 2007 8:46 AM CDT

UN Report: Climate Change Will Hit Poor Hardest

Poorest will be hit hardest

(Newser) - Expect floods, droughts, fires—and resulting starvation, conflict, and mass migration—as climate change becomes more pronounced, says a U.N. report released today. And expect the poor to get hit the hardest, as deserts get drier, deltas flood more often, and small islands are overwhelmed.

They Pay the Price of Warming

Apr 3, 2007 5:37 PM CDT

They Pay the Price of Warming

when it comes to global warming, we're not in it together

(Newser) - The obligation of people who live in countries that contribute the most to climate change--the developed nations— to those who will suffer most from it —the poor ones—is the subject of a provocative piece in the New York Times.

Docs Tell Younger Women: Avoid Mammograms

Apr 3, 2007 8:16 AM CDT

Docs Tell Younger Women: Avoid Mammograms

Younger women should think twice before x-raying breasts, docs say

(Newser) - Forty-something women should consider skipping their annual mammograms, the American College of Physicians is suggesting after a new review of research. Docs point to danger from radiation and unnecessary biopsies, surgery and chemotherapy, thanks in part to a high rate of false positives. "We don't think the evidence...

EPA Must Regulate Greenhouse Gases

Apr 3, 2007 7:52 AM CDT

EPA Must Regulate Greenhouse Gases

Supreme Court ruling a rebuke to Bush's hands-off policy on auto emissions

(Newser) - Carbon dioxide must be regulated by the federal government unless it can provide a scientific reason not to, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 5-4 decision, which ordered the EPA to consider CO₂ an "air pollutant" as defined by the Clean Air Act, was a blow to the Bush...

NASA Shutters Ideas Factory

Mar 22, 2007 8:47 AM CDT

NASA Shutters Ideas Factory

(Newser) - In a cost-cutting move, NASA is shutting down its futuristic think tank, source of way-ahead-of-the-curve ideas, many of them worthy of a Star Trek script. Closing the Institute for Advanced Concepts will save $4 million out of NASA’s $16 billion dollar budget. But former NASA scientist Keith Cowing describes...

Glowing Wounds Will Signify Infection

Mar 12, 2007 10:11 AM CDT

Glowing Wounds Will Signify Infection

British-designed polymers to be used to identify bacteria in moments

(Newser) - Bacterial infections could be diagnosed in moments with the use of glowing polymers developed by British scientists. The designer molecules are made to identify bacteria, bind to it, and then change shape, causing them to emit light that would give the wound a glow that's discernible to the naked eye...