Science News

The presence of strong gusts and flat, wide-open spaces would appear tailor-made for the production of electricity from wind energy, yet the reality of harvesting renewable energy is never that straightforward. As Scientific American reported last week , Latin America is beginning to tap into the wind as a source of clean (or at least not fossil fuel-derived) energy. But further investigation into the situation in Colombia reveals the difficulties inherent in building out a wind-energy infrastructure. [More]

Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species , Darwin's stock soared higher than Apple's. It's 2010--time for a market adjustment.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett once called the theory of evolution by natural selection "the single best idea anyone has ever had." I'm inclined to agree. But Darwinism sticks in the craw of some really smart people. I don't mean intelligent-designers (aka IDiots) and other religious ignorami but knowledgeable scientists and scholars.

By Jane Qiu

SHANGHAI, China--China is setting its sights on exploring and exploiting the deep sea. [More]

By Timothy Gardner and Tom Doggett

This week, the University of California, Berkeley will mail saliva sample kits to every incoming freshman and transfer student. Students can choose to use the kits to submit their DNA for genetic analysis, as part of an orientation program on the topic of personalized medicine. But U.C. Berkeley isn't the only university offering its students genetic testing. Stanford University's summer session started two weeks ago, including a class on personal genomics that gives medical and graduate students the chance to sequence their genotypes and study the results. [More]