News Inventory

There was a lot to cheer about in the cleantech sector in 2008: record investment levels, a U.S. president-elect that supports clean power, and the extension of tax credits for renewables. But there were a lot of missed opportunities this year, too, as markets crashed, fundings were delayed and technologies hit hurdles. Below, the biggest cleantech disappointments of 2008 (next up, The 10 Biggest Cleantech Wins in 2008): 1) Tesla Hits A Wall: The embodiment of the future of electric vehicles discovered how ... Read More

KYANGJIN GOMPA, Nepal (AFP) – Standing in the Himalayan valley of Langtang, Rinjin Dorje Lama remembers where he used to play as a child in the 1960s. "When I was a kid, it was a lot longer," said Lama, pointing at the Lirung glacier surrounded by snowy peaks on Nepal's northern border with Tibet. "We used to play on the glacier, and it came right down to the monastery, but now it's about two kilometres (1.2 miles) further back." Temperatures in the Himalayas are rising ... Read More

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it will allow trace amounts of melamine in infant formula. Earlier this week, the agency said it found the industrial chemical in at least one brand of formula sold in the U.S. The new stance partly reverses the agency's October assessment that it was safe to consume food and beverages with melamine levels below 2.5 parts per million, with the exception of infant formula. The FDA said at the time that it couldn't determine if ... Read More

Like tuning a violin to produce strong, elegant notes, researchers at The Wistar Institute have found multiple receptors on the outside of the body's killer immune system cells which they believe can be selectively targeted to keep the cells in superb infection- and disease-fighting condition. In a study published online November 30 in Nature Immunology, the researchers describe their discovery of seven different receptors on T cells that can tamp down immune responses during a prolonged battle with an infectious pathogen or against ... Read More

“Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says?” “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?” While Ferris Bueller famously skipped economics (and many other classes) in his eponymous movie, many of us have endured similar torture in our science classes. Undergraduate courses at large universities are often prone to such dry, lecture-driven debacles. Institutional realities are often at fault: The real teaching in introductory biology classes—500 strong but 200 in attendance—does not take place in the lecture ... Read More