Science News

Every nation -- developed and otherwise -- is dependent upon a stable agricultural sector, and climate change threatens that stability, a panel of experts said yesterday.

World population is expected to swell by 50 percent by 2050. This alone is a challenge for the world's supply of vital grains, said Gerald Nelson, an agricultural economist and fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute . But then you have to tack on the impacts of climate change.

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The same printer technology that sits on your desk could soon be a common fixture in rebuilding human tissue , treating burns by laying down layers of a patients' own skin or even rebuilding whole organs .

A team at Wake Forest University has built a "bioprinter" that uses cells instead of ink. It even uses an ordinary, off-the-shelf printhead, connected to test tubes full of different cell types instead of wells full of colored inks.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Communications authorities on Thursday took a small but significant step toward regulating high-speed Internet in a bid to reclaim oversight, setting the stage for an eventual legal showdown with industry heavyweights.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican U.S. representative apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday, saying BP was victim of a White House "shakedown" by having to set up a $20 billion Gulf oil spill fund, a comment that angered both Democrats and Republicans.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a search of sexually explicit text messages sent by a police officer on a department pager was reasonable and did not violate his privacy rights.

A leading psychopathy researcher has used the threat of legal action to have changes made to a research paper critical of a widely used criminological rating scale he developed 20 years ago. In the process the paper, which was accepted for publication in 2007 by Psychological Assessment , was delayed three years. It finally appeared in the journal's June issue, but the whole affair has raised questions about how legal threats can impact the progress of psychological science.

The article in question concerns the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R), which is commonly administered in serious criminal cases to help make sentencing decisions as well as in prisons and psychiatric hospitals to determine suitability for release. A high score on the PCL-R is used to diagnose psychopathy .

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Gonzalo Higuain scored the first hat-trick of this World Cup as Argentina took a huge step toward the second round when they thrashed South Korea 4-1 in their Group B match at Soccer City on Thursday.

SURATASH, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) - Makeshift camps on both sides of Kyrgyzstan's border with Uzbekistan are home to 400,000 refugees uprooted by ethnic violence, the United Nations said on Thursday, and the area remains extremely tense.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New claims for jobless aid rose last week while consumer prices notched their largest decline in nearly 1-1/2 years in May, suggesting interest rates will remain ultra low to nurse the fragile economic recovery.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Thursday it was easing a land blockade of the Gaza Strip that drew heightened international criticism after its deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Nelson Mandela joined hundreds of mourners Thursday at the funeral of the former South African president's great-granddaughter who was killed in car crash last week.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European leaders agreed on Thursday to publish details of "stress tests" showing the financial health of individual banks next month and to toughen budget rules to restore confidence in their currency union.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Finger-pointing at the G20 will be self-defeating for an international forum that should be focused on coordination, not criticism, of economic policies, a senior Chinese government official said.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's parliament backed a Swiss-U.S. tax treaty crucial to the future of UBS AG, ending months of uncertainty over the deal and paving the way for renewed recovery at the Swiss bank.

Free-range eggs may not be as healthy as consumers think, with new research showing alarmingly high levels of dioxins in free-range eggs compared to cage or barn laid eggs...

(Announcer’s call of “GOAL!”)

That’s a shout World Cup enthusiasts don’t hear too frequently. Soccer’s known for low-scoring games, which makes it difficult to find an objective means of measuring the skill of top players. In a given game, a couple might nail a goal or have an assist. But who’s the best of the best?

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A sweeping overhaul of financial regulations will include a controversial plan to insulate banks from risky swap dealing, aides said on Thursday as lawmakers hammered out a final bill.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg on Tuesday apologized for speaking "clumsily" by referring to those hurt by his company's oil spill as "small people."

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Argentina's quixotic coach Diego Maradona is to relive an old rivalry when the stylish South Americans take on a South Korea side led by the man who tried to stop him during their 1986 World Cup encounter.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BP Plc's chairman apologized on Wednesday to the American people for the catastrophic oil spill on the Gulf coast.