Contrary to conventional wisdom, the use of fossil fuels for household cooking and heating may make more environmental sense for the estimated 2 billion rural poor in the world, according to a researcher from the University of California, Berkeley.

Because they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuels have been largely dismissed as a viable alternative for the one-third of the world’s population who now use coal and local biomass – including wood, crop residues and dung – for c

A California research team has mapped an entire group of human enzymes, providing important information for the development of a new generation of drugs to treat cancer and other diseases. The findings will be published in the Dec. 6 issue of Science.

In the study, the team from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the biotechnology company SUGEN created a detailed catalog of the 518 protein kinase genes encoded by the human genome. Protein kinases are among the most important regu

Scientists have discovered that elevated atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) can suppress plant growth when increases of this important greenhouse gas are combined with a broad suite of already-occurring environmental changes. According to Christopher Field, project leader and director of the new Department of Global Ecology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, “We are now getting a much richer picture of ecosystem responses to global environmental changes, and the traditional view that elevated

On Thursday 5 December 2002 an ESA-coordinated demonstration in medical telediagnostics was carried out on board the French hospital ship Sirocco.

In a project initiated by ESA in association with the Department of Space Medical Physiology at the University of Tours, the Vision and Robotics Laboratory at Bourges, Sinters Toulouse, and CNES, this was the first real-time demonstration of the use of a teleoperated robotic arm for echographic diagnosis in a remote situation.

The object

A comparison of the newly completed, publicly available, genome sequence of the mouse with the prior sequence of the mouse from Celera Genomics Inc. and with the human genome provides a consensus view of the mouse and important insights into human genes. Hot on the heels of the mouse genome sequence published in this week’s Nature by the Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium of publicly funded laboratories, Genome Biology publishes the first comparison of this ’public’ mous

A European website designed to stimulate informed debate on future energy sources this week launches a multi-lingual survey to gauge public attitudes to, and knowledge of, crucial energy issues.

The INTUSER website (www.intuser.net) is a new on-line forum for both the general public and energy experts to communicate about energy issues – from nuclear power and global warming to alternative energy sources such as solar and wave power.

Renewable energy expert Robin Saunders, of the Un