Tag: General AAAS News

  • Science & Tech

    Brain stem role in speech perception reassessed

    The brain stem plays a greater role in speech perception than previously thought, according to Jackson T. Gandour, a professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences at Purdue University. “We have found that early activity in the brain stem is shaped by a person’s language experience, even while the person is asleep,” Gandour said. The…

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  • Science & Tech

    Violators of environmental treaties should have to pay

    Countries that do not comply with environmental treaties should be hit hard in their pocketbooks, MIT professor Lawrence Susskind said at a special lecture delivered today at the AAAS Meeting in Boston. Susskind pointed out contrary to their intentions, international environmental treaties are not playing a real role in slowing the pace of ecological damage.…

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  • Science & Tech

    Sharks being hammered by over-fishing

    Shark-eating humans are putting pushing this finned species to the brink of extinction, Julia Baum today warned during a presentation at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston. A member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group, Baum blamed the sharks’ decimation on overfishing. Increased demand for shark fins and meat, along with recreational…

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  • Health

    To lose weight – eat less; exercise more

    How to lose weight and keep it off? Consume fewer calories and burn more calories than you consume, says Rena Wing, director of the Weight Control & Diabetes Research Center at The Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island. The Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University presented new research findings on weight loss and control…

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  • Science & Tech

    Public funding of science no business for public

    The public should not be asked to decide which science programs should receive public funding, says Daniel Sarewitz, director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University. Sarewitz gave a presentation today at the AAAS annual meetingon the negative aspects of excessive voter involvement in science funding . “While increased democratization…

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  • Health

    Fish on ‘the pill’

    Human birth control pills are creating problems in the sex lives of fish.

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  • Science & Tech

    U.S. lagging in ability to trace nuclear materials

    The United States must renew its resources in tracing unidentifiednuclear materials, specialists say. Michael May, a professor emeritus at Stanford University and the head ofa panel of nuclear forensic experts studying the issue, said at today’s session of the AAAS annual meeting in Boston that the United States is on the verge of losing its…

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  • Science & Tech

    Religious beliefs shape views of science

    Religion greatly influences the American public’s views of technology, says Dietram Scheufele, a professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Presenting new survey results today at the AAAS Meeting in Boston, Scheufele said that a significant percentage of Americans did not find nanotechnology morally acceptable. Nanotechnology is the science…

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  • Science & Tech

    Warming of Antarctic oceans endangers marine life

    Global warming is endangering marine life in Antarctic waters for the first time in millions of years, said specialists participating on a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s 2008 annual meeting here in Boston today. Sven Thatje, a professor at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, said that rising…

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