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The first generation of World Wide Web capabilities rapidly transformed retailing and information search. More recent attributes such as blogging, tagging and social networking, dubbed Web 2.0, have just as quickly expanded people’s ability not just to consume online information but to publish it, edit it and collaborate about it--forcing such old-line institutions as journalism, marketing and even politicking to adopt whole new ways of thinking and operating.

Science could be next. A small but growing number of researchers (and not just the younger ones) have begun to carry out their work via the wide-open tools of Web 2.0. And although their efforts are still too scattered to be called a movement--yet--their experiences to date suggest that this kind of Web-based “Science 2.0” is not only more collegial than traditional science but considerably more productive.

The Wright 30-horse-power aeroplane in flight above the North Carolina coast, in a  drawing prepared from descriptions by observers of the experiments.  [More]

Africa needs a green revolution. Food yields on the continent are roughly one metric ton of grain per hectare of cultivated land, a figure little changed from 50 years ago and roughly one third of the yields achieved in the rest of the world. In low-income regions elsewhere in the world, including China and India, the introduction of high-yield seeds, fertilizer and small-scale irrigation boosted food productivity beginning in the mid-1960s and opened the escape route from extreme poverty for huge populations. A similar takeoff in sub-Saharan Africa is both an urgent priority and a real possibility. 

Until this change happens, Africa’s vast rural areas, which are home to two thirds of its population, will remain mired in poverty, hunger and high child mortality and will stay isolated from the world market economy. Proven technologies--high-yield seeds, new water-management techniques for Africa’s mainly rain-dependent crop lands and new ways to replenish soil nutrients--are already achieving three to five tons per hectare in many parts of Africa but too often only in small demonstration projects.

One of the biggest scientific findings in recent years is the discovery that the universe is not only expanding, but it is also accelerating in its expansion. Under the influence of a mysterious dark energy, the universe will eventually thin out to nothingness and die a cold death. For the Insights story, "Dark Forces at Work," appearing in the May 2008 Scientific American, David Appell talked with Saul Perlmutter of the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the leaders of the group that came to the astonishing conclusion. Here is an edited excerpt of that interview.

In finding that the universe is on a path to runaway expansion, you had to find type Ia supernovae, which can act as distance markers. How did you get involved with supernova searching? [More]

Trick and treat: Workers divulge computer passwords for the promise of candy

Worried about someone stealing your identity? Hopefully you're more careful than our friends across the pond. Organizers of the Infosecurity Europe computer security trade show were alarmed to discover this week that 121 of 576 subway riders (21 percent) at London's Liverpool Street Station were prepared to reveal their computer passwords in return for a chocolate bar. The only comforting thing about the survey is that more people kept their mouths shut this time than they did last year when 64 percent of those polled were willing to part with their secret code in return for chocolate. It seems that women were most vulnerable on this score: 45 percent of women compared with 10 percent of the men surveyed gave up their passwords to researchers. "This research shows that it's pretty simple for a perpetrator to gain access to information that is restricted," says Claire Sellick, event director of Infosecurity Europe, set to begin in London on April 22, "by having a chat around the coffee machine, getting a temporary job as a [personal assistant] or pretending to be from the IT department." We hope the chocolate was good, at least. [More]

On July 29, 2006, there was a roughly 11-billion-gallon (0.044–cubic kilometer) lake that stretched more than two square miles (5.6 square kilometers) and covered the western portion of Greenland's massive ice sheet. In the span of 16 hours, it was gone. The reason: water pressure cracked through the more than half-mile (980-meter) thick ice, draining the lake as its water rushed through the new funnel and gathered below the giant ice sheet, raising it nearly four feet (1.2 meters) and moving it nearly three feet (0.8 meter) to the north. [More]

And you thought Frodo had it hard. In what is shaping up to be a battle of Tolkienian proportions, the tiny remains from Flores, Indonesia--paleoanthropology's hobbit--have once again come under attack. [More]

Podcast Transcript: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science.  Hi, Steve Mirsky here.  I’m going over our usual one minute.  By now, you’ve probably heard of Expelled, the new Ben Stein anti-evolution crockumentary.  It officially opens today as I speak, that’s April 18th.  Because of my job, I’ve had the misfortune of sitting through this film twice now.  As least I was getting paid.  The film tries very hard to connect Darwin with the Holocaust. [More]