Science News

Each of us harbors a unique collection of bacteria, on our outsides and our insides. Now, scientists are finding that the bacteria you get at birth may depend on how you got here. Because babies born vaginally have a different set of microbes than those that arrive by Caesarean-section. The work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . [Maria Dominguez-Bello et al., http://bit.ly/c1KYK9 ] [More]

In the months after Nissan’s announcement last year that it would soon introduce the Leaf, the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle, the company embarked on a 24-city “zero-emission tour” to show off the technology. The Leaf’s electric motor draws its energy from a battery pack that plugs into an outlet in your garage. It has no engine, no gas tank and no tailpipe. And during the time the car is on the road, it is truly a zero-emission machine. But at night, in your garage, that battery pack must refill the energy lost to the day’s driving with fresh electrons culled from a nearby power plant. And zero emission it ain’t.

The Leaf should be the first all-electric car off the starting grid, but followers are whirring hot behind it. Chevrolet is introducing the Volt, an electric car supplemented with a small internal-combustion engine that keeps the battery charged. Ford will come out with an electric version of its Focus in 2011, followed by models from Toyota, Volvo, Audi and Hyundai.

By Daria Sito-Sucic

DRACE, Croatia (Reuters) - Despite two decades of hardship, war and a loss of markets, Matko Jasprica has kept his Croatian fish farm alive and now hopes to start exporting sea bass and sea bream to the European Union.

By Amanda Mascarelli

Plans to distribute monies from BP's 10-year Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) have been thrown into turmoil by a last-minute edict from the White House.

On June 15, BP announced that it would distribute $25 million in fast-track funding across three research institutions in its first step towards fulfilling a $500-million pledge for high-priority studies to assess environmental damage from the oil spill.

BP had planned to put out a request for proposals for the remaining $475 million within days of the announcement and said that large-scale research centers would be established as part of its mission.

But on June 16, the White House issued a vaguely worded statement that could slow the effort. [More]

Editor's Note: Marine biologist William Gilly is on an expedition to study Humboldt squid on the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research vessel New Horizon in the Gulf of California. He and other scientists are learning about the giant squid, their biology and ecology on this National Science Foundation-funded expedition. This is his third blog post about the trip. [More]