News

The NIH recently published its annual report on funding levels for various research, condition, and disease categories. Since the NIH is a government institution, it should come as no surprise that the biggest changes came in areas that have been the subject of fierce political debate, the most volatile area of which being stem cell research.
| 4 min read

Algae--already being eyed for biofuel production--could be put to use right away to remove nitrogen and phosphorus in livestock manure runoff, according to an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist. That could give resource managers a new eco-friendly option for reducing the level of agricultural pollutants that contaminate water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
| 2 min read

Physicists at JILA have demonstrated a new tool for controlling ultracold gases and ultracold chemistry: electric fields. As described in the April 29 issue of Nature,* JILA scientists discovered that applying a small electric field spurs a dramatic increase in chemical reactions in their gas of ultracold molecules.
| 3 min read

Researchers have found evidence that "marine snow"--aggregates of organic material floating in water bodies--may act as microscopic, island-like refuges for pathogens, or disease-causing organisms. This detritus may skew water sampling procedures and mathematical models used to predict the transmission of waterborne diseases to humans.
| 2 min read

Hydrogen would command a key role in future renewable energy technologies, experts agree, if a relatively cheap, efficient and carbon-neutral means of producing it can be developed. An important step towards this elusive goal has been taken by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energys (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley.
| 3 min read










