Scientists have shown, for the first time, that changes in a large-scale climate system can synchronize population fluctuations in multiple mammal species across a continent-scale region. The study, to be published in the 14 November 2002 issue of the journal Nature, compares long-term data on the climate system known as the North Atlantic Oscillation with long-term data from Greenland on the population dynamics of caribou and muskoxen, which are large mammals adapted to breeding in the Arctic.

A step to further understanding of the process whereby genes are turned on and off in living organisms has been achieved by a team of researchers at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School. Understanding of this process has substantial consequences for furthering the use of medical genetic engineering to grow new tissue to replace damaged or defective organs or to halt the growth of undesirable tumors.

The achievement is described in an article in the current issue of Nature magazine

At best, a yachtsman far out to sea experiences an exhilarating solitude to equal any space traveller. But too much isolation at sea can give rise to loneliness, disorientation and multiple dangers.

A new ESA-developed technology enables boat crews to check their positions, stay in constant contact with shore, receive urgent emergency warnings, and enable friends and family to remotely track them on the internet.
If a boat becomes dangerously water-logged or its power system is o

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are developing robotics technology that can aid in the cleanup of hazardous waste sites while helping to protect humans from serious injury in the process.

The telerobotic manipulation system enables cleanup efforts to be conducted remotely from a distant location, performing chores that would have to otherwise be done on site by humans.

Developed by the Department of Energy’s Robotics Crosscutting program, the system may be used in th

The European DataGrid (EDG)* project has taken a major step towards making the concept of a world-wide computing Grid a reality. Its latest release of middleware – the software that makes a Grid of computers work together seamlessly – will support production quality Grid computing. Markus Schulz, one of the chief software developers at CERN**, explains, “This release will take the EDG project from the laboratory bench into the real world”.

One of the main aims of the European DataGrid proje

An ambitious, multi-disciplinary, 15-20 year program to fill in and flesh out the Tree of Life has just been launched by the National Science Foundation.
Field Museum scientists will help lead three of the seven grants recently awarded to researchers around the world to construct a new framework for understanding the evolutionary relationships between all species, extinct and living.

These three projects (listed below) will focus on birds, spiders, and archosaurs (birds, dinosaurs, pt