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Doctor gagged for doubting shaken baby syndrome
A pathologist in the UK who argues that symptoms of "shaken baby syndrome" can have an innocent cause has been prevented from testifying in court

Alzheimer's unlocked: New keys to a cure
Attempts to treat the world's most common form of dementia may have been attacking its symptoms, not its root cause

GM crop produces massive gains for women's employment in India
This is a graph showing returns to labor from Bt cotton and conventional cotton in rural India. Credit: University of Warwick Research at the UK's University of Warwick, and the University of Goettingen in Germany, has found that the use of a particular

Aurora mission makes detour to moon
Two satellites that were doomed to die if they remained in orbit around Earth are heading to the moon for a life extension

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
BRUSSELS: European regulators authorised on Wednesday the import of six types of genetically-modified maize for use in animal feed after governments were deadlocked over whether to ban or approve them. The European Union has been divided for years over

Food: Inside the hothouses of industry
Extract not available.

Arguing With Non-Skeptics (Part 2 of 2)
A panel discussion on arguing with non-skeptics at the recent Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism in New York City featured James Randi, George Hrab, DJ Grothe and podcast host Steve Mirsky (picture at left).

Did planet hunter leak data about other Earths?
An online talk by a member of NASA's Kepler mission fuels speculation that the telescope has found Earth-like planets

US Government Considering Genetically Modified Animal for Human Consumption
The US government is considering, for the first time, the approval of a genetically-modified animal for human consumption.  The animal being considered is salmon, but approval could open the door for other animals as well.  Those who favor the move say

Fears over Europe's GM crop plan
Extract not available.

Kokomo GM plant reassessing business operations
Extract not available.

Kokomo GM plant reassessing business operations
KOKOMO, Ind. -- GM spokesman Kevin Nadrowski says officials at the Kokomo Integrated Circuit Fab plant met with 375 workers Wednesday to say they're "assessing the business model at the plant based on recent business developments." Nadrowski wouldn't

GM crop produces massive gains for women's employment in India, study finds
Research at the UK's University of Warwick, and the University of Goettingen in Germany, has found that the use of a particular GM crop in India produced massive benefits in the earnings and employment opportunities for rural Indian women. The research

Tasty transgenics
Image: Jing Kang, Harvard Medical School Omega-3 fatty acids are trendy, and for good reason -- their consumption is linked to better cardiovascular health and lower risks of diabetes and cancer. But they can be hard to come by in a land-locked diet,

Windsor, Ontario's Last GM Plant Closes
Extract not available.

Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Percent
A long lunch out with co-workers or a late-night conversation with a family member might seem like a distraction from other healthy habits, such as going to the gym or getting a good night's sleep. But more than 100 years' worth of research shows that having a healthy social life is incredibly important to staying physically healthy. Overall, social support increases survival by some 50 percent, concluded the authors behind a new meta-analysis.

ICESCAPE scientists reach 'Station 100' and re-don mustang suits, hard hats and steel-toed boots
Editor's Note: Haley Smith Kingsland is an Earth systems master's student at Stanford University specializing in science communication. For five weeks she's in the land of no sunsets participating in ICESCAPE, a NASA-sponsored research cruise to investigate the effects of climate change on the Chukchi and Bering seas. This is her fourth blog post for Scientific American .

St Joseph's win debate on GM crops
Extract not available.

Commission Authorises Six GM Maize Varieties
The European Commission adopted today five Decisions authorising GM maize 150759122, 591221507NK603, MON88017MON810, MON89034NK603 and Bt11GA21 and one Decision renewing the authorisation of Bt11 maize. These six decisions cover the authorisation for

Special Report: Watching grass grow in the Gulf, and cheering!
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

BIRDFOOT DELTA, Louisiana (Reuters) - Marsh grasses are the tough guys of the plant world. Left alone, they dominate coastal marshes from Texas to Newfoundland. Burn their stems and leaves, and they come back bushier than ever.

Electric Carmakers Focus on Incentives, Not Carbon Prices
LIVONIA, Mich.--With climate legislation seemingly dead in Congress, many clean-energy advocates are going back to the drawing board. But the electric-car industry, which is relying on other federal incentives to get ahead, remains upbeat.

EPA Relies on Industry-Backed Studies to Assess Health Risks of Widely Used Herbicide
Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide's health risks, records of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine's safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review.

Solar panels vs. historic districts: A conflict we need to resolve
Editor's Note: Scientific American's George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here .

A few posts ago, I talked about the tragic conflict between preserving historic homes and reducing their carbon footprint. I thought our solar array had managed to evade the controversy. Our panels were mounted on the rear of our mid-19th-century house, away from the street; the town's building department, after some delay, approved the project; and the town's inspectors signed off on the work when it was done. But two months ago I received an alarming notice from the town's building code enforcer: our array violated the historic district standards.

US worried as EU frees member states to impose GM crops ban
GA_googleFillSlot("nexttocontent"); Washington - The United States on Wednesday said it opposed a European Union decision that would free its member states to make their own decisions on whether to grow genetically modified crops.US Trade Representative

US charges scientist with economic espionage
By Sharon Weinberger

Could publishing a scientific article constitute an act of economic espionage? That question lies at the heart of charges against a Massachusetts-based scientist accused of passing U.S.

EU approves six GM maize varieties for import
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Wednesday approved six genetically modified (GM) maize varieties for import to the bloc in a sign of its desire to speed up European Union decisions on the controversial technology.

Fall of Berlin Wall was a hot moment for conservation
As East and West Germany became one, a government ecologist got huge areas of land protected – such "hot moments" are key for maximising conservation

Climategate scientist breaks his silence
With inquiries into the affair now complete, Phil Jones reflects on his bruising experiences at the centre of the storm

Morph-osaurs: How shape-shifting dinosaurs deceived us
Some dinosaurs' skulls changed so much as they matured that we've mistaken young and old for completely different species

Today on New Scientist: 28 July 2010
All today's stories on NewScientist.com, including: force fields to protect astronauts, lizards that squirt tears of blood and a crowd sourced tattoo

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
BRUSSELS (AFP) - European regulators authorised on Wednesday the import of six types of genetically-modified maize for use in animal feed after governments were deadlocked over whether to ban or approve them. The European Union has been divided for years

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
BRUSSELS (AFP) - European regulators authorised on Wednesday the import of six types of genetically-modified maize for use in animal feed after governments were deadlocked over whether to ban or approve them. The European Union has been divided for years

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
Extract not available.

GM crop produces massive gains for women's employment in India
Extract not available.

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed (AFP)
BRUSSELS (AFP) European regulators authorised on Wednesday the import of six types of genetically-modified maize for use in animal feed after governments were deadlocked over whether to ban or approve them. The European Union has been divided for years

Did emotions evolve to push others into cooperation?
The emotions you feel have evolved as tools to manipulate others into cooperating with you, says a controversial new theory

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
European regulators authorised on Wednesday the import of six types of genetically-modified maize for use in animal feed after governments were deadlocked over whether to ban or approve them. The European Union has been divided for years over

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
AFP/File – One of Monsanto's genetically-modified maize cobs, seen here in July 2007. European regulators authorised … Related Quotes Symbol Price Change -17.90 1,109.30 -4.54 2,274.94 -13.31 28 mins ago BRUSSELS (AFP) – European regulators

Monsanto hits back at claims over biotech beet
Monsanto has hit back at claims that genetically-modified sugar beet is no better than conventional varieties, saying that it farmers have confirmed productivity benefits. The seeds giant said that its Roundup Ready sugarbeet variety had been

Commission Authorises Six GM Maize Varieties
The European Commission adopted today five Decisions authorising GM maize 150759122, 591221507NK603, MON88017MON810, MON89034NK603 and Bt11GA21 and one Decision renewing the authorisation of Bt11 maize. These six decisions cover the authorisation for

Self-Fulfilling Fakery: Feigning Mental Illness Is a Form of Self-Deception

Genetics Predisposes for Heavy Drinking After Watching Heavy Drinking
Spend any time in a bar, and sooner or later you’ll hear, “I’ll have what she’s having.” It sounds like a bad pickup line, but there may be an actual biological basis for this kind of alcohol copycat behavior. Because scientists have found that having the gene for a certain dopamine receptor could predispose you to being influenced by the sight of other people drinking.

GM crop produces massive gains for women's employment in India
Contact: Dr. Arjunan Subramanian IMAGE:This is a graph showing returns to labor from Bt cotton and conventional cotton in rural India. Research at the UK's University of Warwick, and the University of Goettingen in Germany, has found that the use of a

Commission Authorises Six GM Maize Varieties
EU - The European Commission has authorised six genetically modified (GM) varieties of maize for food and feed uses.The European Commission adopted today five Decisions authorising GM maize 150759122, 591221507NK603, MON88017MON810, MON89034NK603 and

Active progress in transgenic technology rese...
This year is of great significance for carrying out the key special projects of breeding new varieties of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). As one of the 16 national key special scientific programs, this one is jointly organized and implemented by

GM off menu as Prince of Wales meets Caroline...
Always eager to put forward his views on rural affairs, the Prince of Wales has held his first private meeting with Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary. Her spokesman is keen to make clear that there was, however, one issue which remained firmly

Closing the Gap: How Desire Affects Perceptions of Distance
We often assume we see our physical surroundings as they actually are. But new research suggests that how we see the world depends on what we want from it.

People see desirable objects as physically closer than less desirable ones, according to a study in the January issue of Psychological Science . When psychologists Emily Balcetis of New

Origins: Going Back to Where the Story Really Starts (preview)
We are always telling stories about the world, the universe, ourselves. It helps to make sense of things. But sometimes, through familiarity or neglect, we get lost. We forget where a story really starts, losing sight of where it’s headed. What is biodiversity? Are electric cars new? Even the well-worn tale of human origins is missing a key chapter: how a small band of hunter-gatherers survived a climate disaster, becoming ancestors of us all. Here we provide the surprising origins of some strange and familiar things.

All In The Family

Commission Authorises Six GM Maize Varieties
EU - The European Commission has authorised six genetically modified (GM) varieties of maize for food and feed uses. The European Commission adopted today five decisions authorising GM maize 1507×59122, 59122×1507×NK603, MON88017×MON810,

U.S. farmers urge sanctions against EU's GM crop ban
The largest U.S. farm group has urged the Obama administration to begin steps towards imposing sanctions on the European Union in a longrunning dispute over the EU's treatment of genetically modified crops. The American Farm Bureau Federation, in

Midday Express of 2010-07-28
Nouvelles du rendez-vous de midi de la Direction Générale Communication European Civil Protection active in forest fire fighting in Portugal In the afternoon of Tuesday 27th of July the Portuguese authorities requested assistance through the European

Genome Nobelist: The hard numbers of population growth
John Sulston is leading a study into the future and sustainability of global human population

Experiments in body art: Crowdsourcing a tattoo
A crowdsourced tattoo could have been a brave art experiment – but did contradictory priorities make this project wide of the mark, asks Kat Austen

Apple, trackpads, and the long death of the mouse
The death of the computer mouse must rank as one of the slowest in history. Could Apple's latest offering provide the killer blow?

Zoologger: Horror lizard squirts tears of blood
If ever there was an animal that said "Don't even think about eating me," it would be the blood-spraying Texas horned lizard

Another Gulf oil leak hits Louisiana waters
Another oil leak hit Louisiana's coastal waters yesterday when a barge hit a shallow well – are such accidents surprisingly common, asks Sujata Gupta

A lasting gift
Leave a gift in your will to Friends of the Earth.

Shields up! Force fields could protect Mars missions
Interplanetary adventurers must contend with deadly solar radiation – but the moon's magnetic memories may hold the key to safe space flight

Arguing with Non-Skeptics, Part 1 of 2
A panel discussion on arguing with non-skeptics at the recent Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism in New York City featured James Randi, George Hrab, D.

A closer look at the moon and cosmic impacts
By Roberta Kwok

On the far side of the Moon, a river of dark rock spills from a 3-kilometer-wide crater and divides like a forked tongue.

Therapeutic HIV vaccines show promise
By Alison Abbott

The world buzzed last week with news that an antiretroviral gel can halve the incidence of HIV infection in women.

But a quieter buzz could be heard at the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010) in Vienna, where the gel results were unveiled.

'Spontaneous generation' of prions observed
By Daniel Cressey

After an epic series of experiments, a group of researchers has observed and reproduced what could be the spontaneous generation of prions--rogue misfolded proteins that have been implicated in the destruction of the central nervous system.

These misfolded proteins, the culprits in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and scrapie, are highly infectious.

9 automotive X PRIZE competitors move on to the final round
The original field of 136 experimental vehicles vying for a $10 million prize in Progressive Insurance's Automotive X PRIZE competition has been whittled down to just nine finalists, competition organizers said Tuesday. Each of these finalists, having passed on-track testing at Michigan International Speedway, now move onto the validation phase, where the vehicles must prove they can exceed 100 MPGe , which stands for "miles per gallon energy equivalent."

Many deaths feared as smog blankets Moscow
By Gleb Bryanski

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (Reuters) - A leading politician said hundreds of people could die as smog from peat fires blanketed a sweltering Moscow for a second day on Tuesday.

Illusions: Colors Out of Space [Slide Show]
It was just a colour out of space--a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.

Time to go atomic on space station
The most accurate clock ever sent to space will soon be hosted by the International Space Station – it could help to reveal changes in nature's fundamental constants

Of two minds: Listener brain patterns mirror those of the speaker
A new study from Princeton University reports that a female student of lead investigator, Uri Hasson, can project her own brain activity onto another person, forcing the person's neural activity to closely mirror that in her own brain. The process is otherwise known as speech.

Smart glass helps pioneering solar sail to steer
Japan's IKAROS spacecraft has used liquid-crystal layers to steer using only the pressure of sunlight – a first for solar sails

Today on New Scientist: 27 July 2010
All today's stories on NewScientist.com, including: aircon that doesn't warm the planet, the hidden secrets of biodiesel and the mathematics of rowing

Spread of Deadly Cryptococcal Disease in U.S. Northwest Linked to Global Warming
A deadly infectious disease once thought to be exclusively tropical has gained a toehold in the Pacific Northwest, and health experts suspect climate change is partially to blame.

Climategate data sets to be made public
Researchers at the centre of the climategate controversy plan to release three major temperature data sets and details of how they are processed

Biodiesel from algae may not be as green as it seems
The search is on for better ways of growing algae for fuel – current methods use more carbon emissions than the biofuel saves

How Wikileaks became a whistleblowers' haven
The release of tens of thousands of secret documents about the war in Afghanistan relied on a network of servers that cover a leaker's online tracks

Mapping the mountain of human DNA
Veteran science writer Victor McElheny recounts the fascinating story of how our genome came to be mapped in Drawing the Map of Life

How Will the Smart Grid Handle Heat Waves?
The heat wave in which much of the nation remains mired comes as a handful of communities across the country take their first steps toward implementing smart grid technology. The new meters, electricity distribution management systems, network management software and other technologies are designed to add intelligence to the way power is generated, distributed and used.

More Education Delays Dementia Signs--But Not Damage
Education has been liked to decreased risk for dementia for decades, but researchers behind a new study opened up the brains of hundreds of people who had died with the disease to try to find out why this correlation exists.

Not-so-secret seven hold keys to the internet
In times of crisis, systems that power the web must be rebooted - a responsibility that now rests with seven key holders scattered around the world

Too Much, Too Young: Brain Overgrowth Correlates with the Severity of Autism Symptoms
The average age at which children are diagnosed with autism is between three and four, but scientists have long suspected that the disorder starts much earlier.

Catastrophic Thinking: How to Ensure Oil Spill Disasters Do Not Happen Again
The oilmen were drilling deep below the Gulf of Mexico when a rise of pressure from natural gas blew out the wellhead. A safety device intended to seal the well failed, and tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day began to shoot up into the Gulf waters. Engineers tried stopping the flow with mud and junk and lowering a cap over the leak. They spent months digging relief wells to plug the hole. Eventually they stanched the flow, but it took the better part of a year and contaminated the waters with millions of barrels of crude. Fisheries had to close, birds and other wildlife perished, and vast lengths of coastline were soiled.

That catastrophe happened in 1979, when the Ixtoc 1 drilling rig sank. The parallels between its demise and the Deepwater Horizon disaster that began in April are chilling. We do not know how the ongoing story will end, and we may never be certain what happened in the ocean depths. That two events 30 years apart have followed nearly the same script shows we--not just the oil industry but the entire nation--have failed to address the underlying reasons for these debacles.

Obama's choice for warrior in chief, Gen. James Mattis, calls Iraq invasion "the dumbest thing we ever did"
James N. Mattis is the four-star Marine general whom Barack Obama just nominated to head the U.S. Central Command, with oversight of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If confirmed by the Senate (a hearing is set for today), Mattis will replace David Petraeus, who took over command of troops in Afghanistan from Stanley McChrystal after he and his staff spoke too bluntly to a Rolling Stone reporter.

The irony is that Mattis is a tough talker, too, who got in trouble in 2005 for saying that "it's fun to shoot some people." (Imagine that! A warrior who likes war !) I heard Mattis speak in May, just before his promotion, at the "Hybrid Warfare" conference that I described in a previous post . I'm not one to fawn over military leaders, but I liked Mattis. He came across as smart, earnest and reflective, if a bit scatterbrained. He sees himself as a just warrior, but he also seems to have an acute sense of war's inevitable moral ambiguities. "There is probably no one in this room more reluctant to go fight than me," he said. "But once in a fight, I give it everything I've got."

People Initially Overestimate Then Later Underestimate Their Abilities
Have you ever bought a new electronic device, or tried a new activity, and then dropped it because you were sure you couldn’t possibly master it? Well, don’t give up so quickly.

Researchers performed six experiments that involved subjects trying out new tasks--including drawing an image from looking at its reflection in a mirror, and learning to type on a new kind of keyboard. The participants were asked how long it would take them to learn the task. They tended to be overconfident and thought they’d do better on the first try than they actually did.

Laughter's secrets: Faking it - the results
Can a computer produce a realistic laugh? We asked you to judge – and here is your verdict

Anti-vaccination website poses public health risk
Australian public health watchdog says campaigners' claims about vaccines are misleading, inaccurate and may be dangerous to public health

Demand closure of Guatemalan mine
Demand closure of Guatemalan mine to stop environmental destruction.

Can Australia save the dingo from extinction?
Where did the Australian dingo go? Once present throughout that country, the feared predator ( Canis lupus dingo ) in its current form is on its way to extinction as it is either killed or breeds and hybridizes with domesticated dogs. With the disappearance of the purebred dingo comes the loss of an important part of the region's ecosystem as well as a greater chance of environmental destruction by invasive species such as foxes and feral cats.

Now the Australian state of Victoria is taking baby steps toward preserving the dingo. Eighty percent of the dingoes there are hybrids, and pure dingoes exist in only two remote, mountainous areas.

U.N. Body Probes Cases of Paying Greenhouse Gas Emitters, Which Then Produce More
UNITED NATIONS -- Starting today, the members of the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) sit down to tackle arguably the most serious controversy since the beginning of the Kyoto Protocol system for offsetting greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries.

The Bonn, Germany-based U.N. affiliate will examine a dozen projects that constitute two-thirds of all offset credits issued to date. The projects involve the destruction of hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23), a potent greenhouse gas that results when chemical companies produce a refrigerant and propellant called hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (HCFC-22).

Researchers discover how key enzyme repairs sun-damaged DNA
Researchers have long known that humans lack a key enzyme -- one possessed by most of the animal kingdom and even plants -- that reverses severe sun damage.

Scientists tap into Antarctic octopus venom
Australian and international researchers have collected venom from octopuses in Antarctica for the first time, significantly advancing our understanding of the properties of venom as a potential resource for drug-development.

Scientists test Moreton Bay as coral 'lifeboat'
An international team of scientists has been exploring Moreton Bay, close to Brisbane, as a possible 'lifeboat' to save corals from the Great Barrier Reef at risk of extermination under climate change.

Traveling microorganisms
Every day, millions of microorganisms reach Spain from the Sahara Desert and the Sahel region – by flying. Louis Pasteur demonstrated back in 1861 that germs can move through the air, but it was only recently discovered that bacteria, funguses and viruses can travel thousands of kilometers stuck onto dust particles. Satellite images show clouds that come close to the size of the Iberian Peninsula. For the first time, the international team on the Ecosensor project, funded by the BBVA Foundation, have analyzed these traveling microorganisms using molecular biology techniques. As well as identifying the species, they have found that they colonize high-mountain lakes in the Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees, and that the phenomenon is escalating with climate change.

Climate Change May Mean More Mexican Immigration
Climate change's impacts on crop yields may force as many as seven million Mexicans to emigrate to the U.S. over the next 70 years, according to research published July 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The study is among the first to attempt to put hard numbers on questions about "environmental refugees" that may be caused by climate change.

Urban Air Pollutants Can Damage IQs before Baby's First Breath
In a sweltering summer in New York City back in 1999, Yolanda Baldwin was eight months pregnant with her first child. She lived near a gas station and across the street from an intersection choked with exhaust-spewing cars and buses. Sometimes the air was so thick with pollution that she could see it, breathe it, smell it, even taste it. And she often wondered what it might be doing to her unborn child.

Now Baldwin and several hundred other mothers whose sons and daughters have been monitored for a decade have an answer: Before children even take their first breath, common air pollutants breathed by their mothers during pregnancy may reduce their intelligence .

NASA Puts the "Green" in Its Other Mission: Developing Revolutionary, Energy-Efficient Airplanes
It took 24 years for humankind to advance from the first powered flight in 1903 to Charles Lindbergh's famous crossing of the Atlantic (and even less time for the U.S. space program to go from launching the first American astronaut into suborbital space to landing men on the moon). NASA officials are now hoping 25 years into the future is enough time for the nation's aerospace engineers to come up with more ecofriendly airplanes.

Skeleton Key: Bone Cells May Play a Part in Regulating the Body's Metabolism
Insulin , the well-known blood sugar hormone, may have a newly discovered function in the body that will rattle your bones--regulating skeletal growth and breakdown.

Two new studies published online July 22 in Cell show that insulin stimulates both bone building and breakdown in mice through the hormone's effects on two types of bone cells: bone-building osteoblasts and bone-resorbing osteoclasts. What's more, these cells are involved in an intricate hormonal loop that in turn regulates not only insulin production, but also blood sugar levels and energy metabolism. The studies suggest that the skeleton may be an important regulator of whole-body energy metabolism, joining the ranks of known metabolic regulators such as muscle and fat. The authors conclude that their findings have important implications for understanding and treating metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes as well as bone conditions like osteoporosis .

Belly-Flopping Frogs Leapt While Still Bad Landers
You’d think an animal that hops would know how to land. But for a kind of frog, that’s not the case. Imagine trying to catch a frog. You reach and they jump, only to land gracefully on their feet a few feet away.

It was thought that all frogs moved this way. They'd push off with their back legs, and then once in flight, rotate the limbs forward. Then they landed fore-limbs first. But researchers compared frogs of the family Leiopelmatidae , which still sport an ancient physiology, to two more modern frog species. Unlike their more graceful cousins, the primitive frogs kept their back legs straight out after they jumped. So they don’t land on their feet. Instead, they do an ungainly belly flop, and then struggle to get to their feet and jump again. The finding is in the journal Naturwissenschaften . [Richard Essner et al., http://bit.ly/9Nk4FH ]

Pollution makes quarter of China water unusable: ministry
BEIJING (Reuters) - Almost a quarter of China's surface water remains so polluted that it is unfit even for industrial use, while less than half of total supplies are drinkable, data from the environment watchdog showed on Monday.

Inspectors from China's Ministry of Environmental Protection tested water samples from the country's major rivers and lakes in the first half of the year and declared just 49.3 percent to be safe for drinking, up from 48 percent last year, the ministry said in a notice posted on its website (www.mep.gov.cn).

The Willpower Paradox
Willingness is a core concept of addiction recovery programs--and a paradoxical one. Twelve-step programs emphasize that addicts cannot will themselves into healthy sobriety--indeed, that ego and self-reliance are often a root cause of their problem. Yet recovering addicts must be willing. That is, they must be open to the possibility that the group and its principles are powerful enough to trump a compulsive disease.

It’s a tricky concept for many and must be taken on faith. But now there may be science to back it up. Psychologist Ibrahim Senay of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign figured out an intriguing way to create a laboratory version of both willfulness and willingness--and to explore possible connections to intention, motivation and goal-directed actions. In short, he identified some key traits needed not only for long-term abstinence but for any personal objective, from losing weight to learning to play guitar.

Robot Pills (preview)
The movie Fantastic Voyage , the story of a miniaturized team of doctors traveling through blood vessels to make lifesaving repairs in a patient’s brain, was pure science fiction when it came out in 1966. By the time Hollywood remade the film in 1987 as Innerspace , a comedy, real-world engineers had already begun building prototypes of pill-size robots that could voyage through a patient’s gastrointestinal tract on a doctor’s behalf. Patients began swallowing the first commercially built pill cameras in 2000, and since then doctors have used the capsules to get unprecedented views of places, such as the inner folds of the small intestine, that are otherwise difficult to reach without surgery.

One important aspect of Fantastic Voyage that has remained fantasy is the notion that such tiny pill cameras could maneuver under their own power, swimming toward a tumor to get a biopsy, checking out inflammation in the small intestine, or even administering drug treatments to an ulcer. In recent years, however, researchers have made great strides in converting the basic elements of a passive camera pill into an active miniature robot. Advanced prototypes, now being tested in animals, have legs, pro­pellers, sophisticated imaging lenses and wireless guidance systems. Soon these tiny robots may be ready for clinical trials. Right now they are testing the limits of miniaturized robotics.