Science News

Federal officials have told the Idaho fish and game officials that their plan to halve the number of pelicans nesting in southern and eastern Idaho by 2013 to boost fisheries is an “eradication program” that needs more work.

Pelicans are protected under federal law, so anything to cut their numbers requires U.

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Growing up is tough. But for boys, it may be even tougher. While both boys and girls face issues - in school and out - the problems affecting boys are serious and have not been properly addressed by policy makers, according to a new review article by psychologist Judith Kleinfeld. Among the results: high rates of functional illiteracy and a troublingly high suicide rate thats become even more pronounced in recent years compared to the rate among girls.

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The worlds paramount authority on species loss has warned that pledges to roll back the threat to biodiversity by 2010 were running into the sand.

In its new report, issued on Thursday, the Swiss-based IUCN said Earth was hurtling towards a mass extinction.

The goal set by UN parties under the Convention on Biological Diversity to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 “clearly will not be met,” Jean-Christophe Vie of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) told AFP.

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A reconstruction of sea ice reveals the lowest levels in 800 years, according to new research published in the journal Climate Dynamics.

“We have combined information about the climate found in ice cores from an ice cap on Svalbard and from the annual growth rings of trees in Finland and this gave us a curve of the past climate,” Aslak Grinsted said in a press release.

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The largest commercial satellite ever built - the massive TerreStar-1 - launched into space on Wednesday, riding a European-built rocket into orbit.

The launch was the third of seven Ariane 5 ECA launches planned for 2009 by the European launch firm Arianespace. Because of its size, TerreStar-1 was the sole payload onboard the vehicle, which is typically used to place two telecommunications satellites at a time into geostationary transfer orbit.

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Animal research facilities will be required to disclosee more information online about their experiments under a court settlement signed Wednesday by the Humane Society of the United States and the Agriculture Department.

The settlement will now be submitted to the federal district court for the District of Columbia for final approval.

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Nearly 2,300 plant species are at risk of disappearing from flora-rich Brazil, many more than once thought, according to an academic study released on Wednesday.

Last year Brasilia said 472 plants were at risk in a country that contains an estimated 15 percent of the worlds flora species.

The research, carried out by 175 scientists, indicates the Brazilian government has dramatically underestimated the risk to the countrys plant species caused by deforestation, fires and urbanization.

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NASA will try to launch the space shuttle Endeavour on July 11, nearly a month late, after plugging a potentially dangerous hydrogen gas leak, top mission managers said Wednesday.

NASA initially tried to launch Endeavour on June 13, then again on June 17, but the hydrogen gas leak in the shuttles external fuel tank thwarted both attempts.

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The US space shuttle Endeavour has apparently cleared a test for potentially harmful hydrogen gas leaks that had twice delayed its high-profile launch, NASA said Wednesday.

The massive tank was filled with 526,000 gallons (two million liters) of liquid hydrogen (80 percent) and liquid oxygen (20 percent), as takes place on the launch day.

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For the first time, researchers have identified a single “master” stem cell in humans that is capable of differentiating into all three major cell types that make up the human heart.

“This means we are in a new era where we can envision entirely human-based models of cardiovascular disease,” added Chien, who is also director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cardiovascular Research Center.

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