Science News

As I type this letter, I am sitting in a hotel room in Barcelona, Spain, having just completed an important but little-known meeting: the twice-a-year gathering of editors and other members of Scientific American’s international editions. Reflecting the scientific enterprise itself, the producers of the 14 local-language editions are spread around the world. Although we are in frequent e-mail and phone contact through­out the year, we also meet in person in various cities, the better to learn from one another.

Around the long table were representatives from Brazil, China, Japan, Kuwait, Russia and essentially every European nation. Our collective readership is a diverse audience that numbers more than one million, but they all share a passion for science and technology. And we, as editors, share a common mission to comb the globe for the science that matters, the better to serve those readers. Members of the editions traded intelligence on best practices and also shared new ideas. One initiative, which I expect to be under way on www.ScientificAmerican.com by the time you read this, is to conduct global surveys about science topics , working together and also in partnership with the journal Nature (which is in the same Macmillan corporate family). I will report further in the coming months.

By Erika Solomon

DUBAI (Reuters) - Driving along brand new highways with medians of lush trees and manicured grass, one could easily forget the United Arab Emirates sits on a sweltering desert coast with rapidly diminishing freshwater resources.

Mini robot vacuums are one thing, but larger robots may soon become a part of everyday life for the elderly, performing tasks that could help delay the dreaded move of loved ones to a nursing home or assisted living facility. Researchers and robotics companies worldwide are designing prototypes to provide automated assistance to the elderly at home, targeting a market that promises to grow as people live longer. [More]

By Tom Bergin and Ernest Scheyder

LONDON/BURAS, Louisiana (Reuters) - BP shares fell on Monday after a U.S. lawmaker released an internal company document over the weekend pegging the worst-case scenario rate for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill far higher than government figures.