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The article reports on the celebration made by the Linnean Society of London for the 150 years anniversary since the reading of the seminal evolution papers by British naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace at one of the meetings of the organization in England in 1858. According to the article, the reading of the papers marks the removal of humanity from the center of creation to promote the concept of evolution that theorizes that life came into being by a process of natural selection.

Focuses on the University of Cambridge's plans to purchase scientific writings of Sir Isaac Newton from the Earl of Macclesfield at an auction in England. Intention of the university to unite the papers with their existing collection of Newton's works; Contribution from the United Kingdom Heritage Lottery Fund toward the purchase.

The article focuses on a study conducted by researchers led by Steven Bramwell of the University College London and Sean Giblin of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in London, England regarding the physical evidence for currents of magnetic monopoles. Bramwell states that the pairwise magnetic interactions between spinning atoms in spin ices stays disordered down to absolute zero. Giblin adds that a muon can be incredibly sensitive to local magnetic fields.

The article discusses postage stamps that have been issued by Britain’s Royal Mail throughout the years and examines the latest set, which commemorates the founding of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England. This set belongs to the Action for Species series, which depicts threatened species in Great Britain. Other sets of stamps have featured evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and England’s Queen Elizabeth II.

The article reports on the discovery of David Colquhoun and Lucia Sivilotti on the mechanism that explains the response of receptors to partial agonists in London, England. It reveals that many drugs work by binding to a specific cell receptors and stimulating its activity triggers a cascade of events in the cell. These drugs and the naturally occurring chemicals with the same modus operandi are called agonists but some of these elicit a powerful response while others generate smaller responses even at high levels to occupy all the available receptors. Both of them discovered a new mechanism to explain how receptors respond to partial agonists wherein they found that agonist-bound receptor can exist in one of three states, resting, partially activated or flipped from resting.

The article presents the study regarding Saturn's outermost ring, the F ring, conducted by Carl Murray and colleagues at Queen Mary, University of London in London, England. According to the author, Murray found out that constant collisions and the gravitational pull among a population of small satellites give the ring its form. It reveals that the narrow F ring of Saturn was discovered from images captured by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft in 1979. In addition, later data from Voyager 1 and 2 depicted that the ring as having a core about 1 kilometre wide surrounded by a 50 kilometre wide envelope, both supposedly held in place by the gravitational pull of Prometheus and Pandora, Saturn's shepherding moons.

Profiles Andrew Smith, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Career background; Achievements and awards; Civic activities; Biographic profile; Job responsibilities; Institutional and organizational affiliations.

Reports on the conflict between the staff of the 'New England Journal of Medicine' and one of the leaders of a movement for open access to the scientific literature. Impact of the dispute on the publication of various research works in the country; Authors of a kidney transplant study refused by the publication as a result of the dispute.

The author discusses aspects of maximizing the use of public research in Great Britain. He states that the most significant policy moves in open access in 2012 came from Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Wellcome Trust. He mentions that from April 2013, papers arising from RCUK funding must be made free to access.

The article focuses on the issue regarding assessment and funding of science-based disciplines in England. Accordingly, the Higher Education Founding Council for England has announced that the assessment and funding of science-based disciplines will in future be based on citation rates per paper, aggregated for each subject group at each institution. It is then pointed out that the changes in performance indicators always strongly influence individual and institutional behavior will no doubt become a staple of conversation. Discussions on citation practices are also discussed.

The article offers the author's insights on the policy report called "Science as an Open Enterprise" from the Royal Society in London, England concerning access to scientific papers and theories. He mentions that open inquiry to scientific research and publication of scientific papers and theories allow others to identify errors, refine theories and reuse of data. He states that everyone will benefit from a more open information access.

Reports on the chemistry research conducted by students aged 16-17 at Westminster School in London, England. First research paper of the students that has been published.

The author discusses on exhibitions, demonstrating the legacy of the final expedition of Robert Scott in Antarctica. He mentions that Scott's Last Expedition exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, England includes a full-size representation of the hut with actual artefacts. Moreover, he adds that These Rough Notes exhibition at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, England shows personnel papers of Scott and other expedition members.

Focuses on the literary exploits of novelist A. S. Byatt in London, England. Influence of science in writing her novels; Obsession in writing a novel about perception; Role of science in creating the characters of her writings.

The article reports that climatologists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England have been under pressure concerning the electronic mail (e-mail) leak issue. It affirms that the e-mail theft highlighted harassment that people inflict on climate-change researchers. It affirms that the incident shows that scientists are just human beings who make mistakes at times.

Focuses on the exhibition of medical drawings in London, England. Repair of a post-myocardial infarction ventricular septal defect; Incision in the left ventricle to get access to the ventricular cavities; Relationship of the papillary muscles and the underside of the atrioventricular valves; Reintroduction of drawing into the teaching of science and technologies.

The article reports on plagiarism in Cambridge, England physics laboratory. At least eight papers written between 1997 and 2001 by Yung Park, a materials scientist who worked at the University of Cambridge, England and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, are plagiarized, according to documents examined by the journal Nature. Park has also published at least two pairs of papers with significant overlap in separate journals. Four of the plagiarized papers have been removed from online journals, or marked as plagiarisms, following investigations into Park's publications by his former colleagues.

The article presents a research where Sergey Nejentsev at the University of Cambridge in England and his co-workers show how resequencing genomic regions associated with complex disease can help researchers pinpoint the exact gene or gene variant involved in the condition. In this study, 960 people, half of whom had type 1 diabetes, were used. Related issues are further discussed.

The article offers information on the finding that caloric restriction extends the lifespan of many organisms that led to drastic measures by humans in the hope of extending their lifespan. Dominic Withers of University College London, London , England and his colleagues found that when the gene S6k1 was removed from mice samples lived nine percent longer compared to other samples. The finding suggests that the manipulation of the gene S6k1 could be a strategy for researchers to develop drugs that copy the positive effect of the regime.

The article discusses research by John Macdonald of the University of Bristol, Great Britain, regarding the Millennium Bridge in London, England and the biomechanics of balance and stepping. Macdonald's model shows that the adjustments people make to keep their balance were adding energy to the bridge's natural wobble which increased its sway.

The author discusses his experience of being sued for libel. The author states that he and Nature Publishing Group were sued by physicist Mohamed Salah El Din Hamed El Naschie for libel because of his article in "Nature." He says that on all counts, the ruling favoured him Nature Publishing Group. He remarks that his case shows English libel law's stifling of justified discourse that includes open scientific discussion.

The author reflects on the centenary of the birth of computer pioneer, code-breaker, and polymath Alan Turing who was born in London, England on June 23, 1912. He mentions the accomplishments of Turing who was also a marathon runner with a time of two hours and 46 minutes and notes his contributions to the fields of human, artificial, and military intelligence. He also cites article by mathematician Andrew Hodges which provides an account of Turing's role in the development of computers.

The article reports on the issue concerning the method used by post-publication peer review Faculty of 1000 (F1000) in ranking scholarly journals in London, England which relies on the scores awarded to individual scientific papers. It states that such scores could be changed based on the interests and enthusiasms of reviewers. However, F1000's associate editor Richard Grant says that these rankings provide valuable measure to authors complementary to journal league tables on citation impact.

The article focuses on a conversation between a young boy and an old lady who is a cleaner at a museum situated at Trafalgar square in London, England. She is cleaning a painting titled "Velázquez's Venus" with her bleach solution and cotton rag and answering the boy's queries about her work. She divulges that she enjoy her work but now she has become old for it. The boy hands over a picture of green-brown coloured algae colonies to her, whom she analyzes with admiration and returns back.

The article reports on the study conducted by Vinod Kumar and Philip Wigge of the John Innes Centre on the plants' temperature sensitivity in Norwich, England. It states that plants are more sensitive to temperature and respond to changes by adjusting flowering times. It also found that warmer temperatures may trigger the loosening of certain nucleosomes, allowing the regulation of certain genes.

The article focuses on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) also known as the Children of the 90s, a cohort study in Bristol, England that traces how genetic and environmental factors that affect the children in their early years affect their later ones. It mentions that the project deals with phenotyping and biobanking resources of many births. It adds that researchers of the project have to study everything in order to know the things that will affect the future.

Interest in attributing the risk of damaging weather-related events to anthropogenic climate change is increasing. Yet climate models used to study the attribution problem typically do not resolve the weather systems associated with damaging events such as the UK floods of October and November 2000. Occurring during the wettest autumn in England and Wales since records began in 1766, these floods damaged nearly 10,000 properties across that region, disrupted services severely, and caused insured losses estimated at £1.3 billion (refs 5, 6). Although the flooding was deemed a 'wake-up call' to the impacts of climate change at the time, such claims are typically supported only by general thermodynamic arguments that suggest increased extreme precipitation under global warming, but fail to account fully for the complex hydrometeorology associated with flooding. Here we present a multi-step, physically based 'probabilistic event attribution' framework showing that it is very likely that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence in England and Wales in autumn 2000. Using publicly volunteered distributed computing, we generate several thousand seasonal-forecast-resolution climate model simulations of autumn 2000 weather, both under realistic conditions, and under conditions as they might have been had these greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting large-scale warming never occurred. Results are fed into a precipitation-runoff model that is used to simulate severe daily river runoff events in England and Wales (proxy indicators of flood events). The precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution remains uncertain, but in nine out of ten cases our model results indicate that twentieth-century anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased the risk of floods occurring in England and Wales in autumn 2000 by more than 20%, and in two out of three cases by more than 90%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information about contributing authors Christoph Renner and Gabriel Aeppli, who were headed for London, England in 2002 for a research project. Their destination was the London Center for Nanotechnology based at the University College London. Their work focuses on materials known as layered manganites.

This article reports that U.S. artist Ellen Gallagher's current installation, "Ichthyosaurus," in Hampstead, London, England, cites early work by Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud that he rarely mentioned in his later years. Although best known as the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud also worked as a neurologist and anatomist between 1876 and 1896. Fifteen of Freud's drawings of Petromyzon from 1876 and 1877 are displayed for the first time, in conjunction with Gallagher's installation. Gallagher has placed three glass specimen jars containing fanciful marine creatures among Freud's own objects, and has hung three mixed-media works from her "Watery Ecstatic" series, begun in 2001, on his walls.

Features new churches in east London, England. Foundations of the churches; Technique used in the construction; Commission for building the new churches.

Discusses the issues related to intellectual freedom and providing free public access to scientific literature in London, England. Launch of the guidelines supporting free access to scientific literature and reserves the right of publishers to charge for the literature; Probability to cut back on publishing activities if open access continues; Willingness of authors to pay a certain amount to publish a paper.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience in observing how the employees work in keeping the data center work at UK Wellcome TrustSanger Institute in Cambridge, England.

Focuses on Annie Cattrell's photogram exhibition at the Royal Institution in London, England. Abstract visualizations in science; Iconographical theme.

The article presents information on the concept of species in taxonomy. Georgina Mace, head of the population biology programme at Imperial College, London, England, and her colleagues have documented the changes in the number of species influenced by taxonomic inflation. Mace believes that the prevalence of the phylogenetic species concept, rather than the biological species concept has led to the development of the taxonomic inflation.

Discusses the contributions of England-based Cambridge University graduate Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac on the field of quantum mechanics. Uncanny ability to invent deep mathematical concepts that were new to physicists; Development of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics; Creation of quantum electrodynamics.

More than twice as much carbon is held in soils as in vegetation or the atmosphere, and changes in soil carbon content can have a large effect on the global carbon budget. The possibility that climate change is being reinforced by increased carbon dioxide emissions from soils owing to rising temperature is the subject of a continuing debate. But evidence for the suggested feedback mechanism has to date come solely from small-scale laboratory and field experiments and modelling studies. Here we use data from the National Soil Inventory of England and Wales obtained between 1978 and 2003 to show that carbon was lost from soils across England and Wales over the survey period at a mean rate of 0.6% yr-1 (relative to the existing soil carbon content). We find that the relative rate of carbon loss increased with soil carbon content and was more than 2% yr-1 in soils with carbon contents greater than 100 g kg-1. The relationship between rate of carbon loss and carbon content is irrespective of land use, suggesting a link to climate change. Our findings indicate that losses of soil carbon in England and Wales—and by inference in other temperate regions—are likely to have been offsetting absorption of carbon by terrestrial sinks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the genome reconstruction of Yersinia pestis, a bubonic plague bacterium, which was recovered from the Black Death victims' remains at East Smithfield, England. It says that when Alexandre Yersin linked Y. pestis to plague, scientists suspected that the pathogen was also behind a spate mass die-offs. It mentions the book "The Decameron," by Giovanni Boccaccio, which contains clues and symptoms of the pathogen. It adds that fleas spread the disease to human.

The article offers information on executable biology, a biological modelling approach developed by Jasmin Fisher of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England. It states that the approach was used by Fisher and her colleagues to make a discovery in molecular biology. She says that the program could make cell simulations and their components, making it more easier for researchers to build, understand, and verify experimentally. She adds that each set of biological knowledge pictured on the screen corresponds to a programming statement on the first screen.

The article discusses the effort of Michael de Podesta of the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, London, England in redefining the kelvin as the basic unit of thermodynamic temperature. It states that Podesta with the help of his research team is trying to lessen the error margin in measuring the Boltzmann constant discovered by researcher Mike Moldover and his research team. The article also mentions other researchers who try to redefine the kelvin including Richard Davis, and James Mehl.

Provides information on a study which examined the effect of life-history traits on the fluctuating population respond of voles in the Kielder Forest region, northern England. Details on the body mass and maturation of the voles; Results of the study; Methodology.

Describes a complete vermiform mollusc fossil that was found in a Silurian deposit called the Herefordshire Lagerstatte. Interpretation of the fossil as a plated aplacophoran; Extrapolations from serial grinding combined with computer-based reconstruction methods.

The article discusses the warnings issued by the Francis Crick Institute, a medical research center in London, England, which held that vibrations and electromagnetic fields generated by the proposed Crossrail 2 could interfere with scientific work. The warnings first emerged from the Medical Research Council, owner of major shares of the Crick's construction budget and will move staff from the National Institute of Medical Research. Details of the proposed construction are noted.

The article reviews the exhibitions Animals Inside Out, featuring the works of anatomist Gunther von Hagens at the Natural History Museum in London, England that runs until September 16, 2012 and the exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, featuring the works of Damien Hirst that runs until September 19, 2012.

Arising from F. He & S. P. Hubbell 473, 368-371 ()(2011).Statistical relationships between habitat area and the number of species observed (species-area relationships, SARs) are sometimes used to assess extinction risks following habitat destruction or loss of climatic suitability. He and Hubbell argue that the numbers of species confined to-rather than observed in-different areas (endemics-area relationships, EARs) should be used instead of SARs, and that SAR-based extinction estimates in the literature are too high. We suggest that He and Hubbell's SAR estimates are biased, that the empirical data they use are not appropriate to calculate extinction risks, and that their statements about extinction risks from climate change do not take into account non-SAR-based estimates or recent observations. Species have already responded to climate change in a manner consistent with high future extinction risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role played by photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) in human vision. According to a study headed by Russell Foster at the University of Oxford in England, ipRGCs can determine light patterns and track overall brightness levels. Furthermore, the experiment reveals that the cells can influence circadian rhythms and cognitive processes through enabling ambient light.

The article focuses on the findings of Richard Bradley, professor at the University of Reading in Reading, England. Bradley in 2004 has travelled the whole country and also visited the offices of contract archaeological teams and local planning officials. He has discovered several reports. It is found that academic archaeologists are habitual of a system in which researchers conduct excavations and then publish their observations in monographs and journals which are then available in libraries.