TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Broadband Network under fire An economic policy think-tank says the National Broadband Network could end up being a waste of money, without proper public consultation. abc.net.au |
Hope for Copenhagen The panel begins by looking at how COP 15, the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, will work and whether the summit has been killed off before it has even begun. (2:00) Alun Anderson, a former editor of New Scientist magazine, looks at how changes in the Arctic suggest we have already left things too late. He has just finished a book about the crisis called After the Ice. (8:10)Environment editor John Vidal recently returned from a journey to witness climate change first-hand. He started by looking at glaciers in the Himalayas and headed down rivers to Bangladesh. (11:39) John met some of those whose lives are already affected by climate change.Saleemul Huq, head of climate change at the International Institute for Environment and Development, suggests ways to help mitigate the problems. From our Washington DC studio, US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg tells us how far she thinks President Obama is willing to go to help save the global ecosystem. (19:04)Suzanne also speaks to James Hansen from the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies who, surprisingly, wants the Copenhagen summit to fail. He explains why. Jonathan Watts in Beijing tells us about China's green ambitions and what other developing countries are looking to get out of the talks. (29:12)The programme ends by sketching what a successful summit might look like. (38:08)Post your comments below.Join our Facebook group. Listen back through our archive.Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).Alok JhaAndy DuckworthSuzanne GoldenbergJonathan Watts guardian.co.uk |
Essay: The Joy of Physics Isn’t in the Results, but in the Search Itself The search for the meaning of the universe may lead to inventions whose purpose is often ambiguous. feeds.nytimes.com |
Family under the microscope Nature v nurture – what are the latest genetic findings?The nature-nurture Âdebate remains a hardy perennial for parents: why are siblings so Âdifferent to each other? The latest evidence makes it look increasingly likely that genes play little or no part. Many naturally incline to the cosy answer that "it's a bit of both" but the evidence I presented eight years ago in my book They F*** You Up already showed that, even if you accepted the validity of studies of identical twins (which I do not) on which nearly all claims about the role of genes were based, they did not Âsupport this idea. For the vast majority of common traits, such as sociability, memory or creativity, heritability was closer to a quarter.Then came the findings of the ÂHuman Genome Project in 2001. To the horror of geneticists, Craig Venter, one of the main researchers, pointed out that the fact that we only have about 25,000 genes meant psychological Âdifferences between individuals could not be much determined by them – "our environments are critical," he concluded.Initially, geneticists disputed this, but the last decade has seen an Âincreasingly rapid retreat. After many millions of pounds and thousands of studies, attempts to identify genes that have much effect on our psychology have failed. The most distinguished researchers now admit that it is Âextremely unlikely that there are single genes for major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. After decades of hearing from such people that there would be a gene for almost everything, I admit to having felt a twinge of smugness.Their fallback position is that it's lots of different genes interacting together that matters, but that much Âremains to be seen. And now comes the first sign that the geneticists may eventually have to admit defeat.This month's editorial of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry is entitled "It's the environment, Âstupid!". The author, Edmund Sonuga-Barke, confesses that "serious science is now more than ever focused on the power of the environment … all but the most dogged of genetic determinists have revised their view of the primacy of genetic factors."In Sonuga-Barke's own field, ADHD, he states that "even the most comprehensive genome-wide scans Âavailable, with thousands of patients using Âhundreds of thousand of genetic Âmarkers … appear to account for a relatively small proportion of disorder expression." In plain English, genes hardly explain at all why some children have ADHD and not others.Another fallback is to claim that genes create vulnerabilities that environments may or may not cause to be expressed. This position took a massive blow at the end of last year. Some studies had shown that people with a particular gene variant were more likely to become depressed if they were maltreated as children: the variant created a vulnerability. This was all but disproved.An analysis of the 14,250 people whose DNA had been mapped in 14 studies showed that those with the variant were not at greater risk of Âdepression than those without it. Nor were they more likely to be depressed when the variant was combined with childhood maltreatment.In Darwinian terms, it has always made much more sense that we should be born plastic. Obviously, genes confer fundamentals, such as the Âcapacity for humour or anger, but how much and how we express these is in response to our particular family Âsituation, for which we need flexibility, not predetermination. If genes play little part in how our children turn out, that is incredibly good news. Unlike our DNA, we can do something about them.Sonuga-Barke: 2010, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51, 113-5Depression vulnerability: Risch, B et al, JAMA, 301, 2,462-2,471. More Oliver James at selfishcapitalist.comFamilyGeneticsOliver Jamesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Astronauts finally get Internet access in space CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- In a high tech first - really, really high - astronauts in space finally have Internet access.... hosted.ap.org |