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From a distance Monte Bernorio, a flat-topped mountain carpeted with grass in northern Spain, has a tranquil and inviting look. Don't be deceived, warn scholars. Recent research, including archaeological digs [...]

The article discusses the presence of Mormons from Polynesia in 19th-century Utah, examining the archaeological remains of Hawaiian islanders who built a village in Skull Valley in northern Utah in the 1880's, then left 30 years later. Commentary is provided by historical archaeologist Ben Pykles. Other topics include petroglyphs left by the Polynesians on a black basalt pillar.

The article offers information on the U.S. government crackdown on federally funded researchers who allegedly failed to disclose ties with China. Topics discussed include federal prosecutors charged on physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL); the Department of Energy on collaborating with some kinds of research with scientists; and Federal officials which scrutinizes the related activities.

In a dramatic reversal from its business as usual, the federal government has ordered that a working hydroelectric dam be reduced to rubble in order to restore a river. On [...]

The article focuses on the condition in Chernobyl, Ukraine years after the nuclear accident. Twenty-years after the nuclear reactor explosion, Chernobyl is experiencing some signs of life. Nature is reclaiming the deadly environment with the growth of plants. Animals have flourished despite the accidents. A few hundred people have also returned to the town despite the risks. They make their living by dismantling, decontaminating and carting out scrap metal and equipment that has been deemed safe.

Presents a photo essay of humpback whales in Alaska by wildlife photographer Norio Matsumoto.

Focuses on the elimination of the Urban Gardening Program (UGP) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Benefits of the UGP; Challenges encountered in running the UGP; Factors that led to the failure of the UGP; Actions which must be done to gain federal support for community gardening.

Discusses the benefits of community gardening. Categories of people-plant interactions research; Role of plants, gardens and greening on community development; Result of studies on the community benefits and perceptions of parks and gardens; Concept of an empowerment process called greenlining.

Looks at how a building's glass window becomes a death trap for birds. Tips for keeping birds away from windows; Reaction of architect Darragh Brady when she learned that the building she helped design was a bird's death trap; Implications for the environment.

Deals with the issue of global warming and the actions taken by the U.S. government to counter the environmental threat. Legislation proposed by U.S. Senators John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.) that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions; Number of U.S. states that adopted policies to address climate change; Information on the efforts of the European Union to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Focuses on the U.S. Congressional elections on November 5, 2002. Environmental agenda of Georgia senatorial candidate Max Cleland; Environmental problems in Georgia; Environmental concerns of U.S. citizens. INSET: WHAT YOU CAN DO.

Focuses on the efforts of senators in the U.S. Senate to remove a clause from a legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security that would have helped Texas A&M University in Texas to become one of the university-based centers for conducting security research and training. Criticism due to undermining the concept of basing government research awards on open, peer-reviewed competition; Arguments that supported the clause.

Reports on the controversy regarding the ruling by the U.S. court to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to halt a research cruise to Mexico that was using sound pulses to map the sea floor. Reason behind issuance of the order; Steps taken by NSF to avoid harming marine life; Legal proceedings that halted the works of the research cruise.

Reports the role of sonar pings produced by military ships on the unusual strandings of beacked whales in the Bahamas. Investigation on the stranded whales discovered by marine mammal researcher Ken Balcomb; Conclusion of U.S. Navy and National Marine Fisheries Service scientists on the case.

The article reports a study suggesting that a tiny fish may help hold back massive gas eruptions that turn a stretch of African coastline into a dead zone for marine life. In the November 2004 issue of the journal Ecology Letters, two researchers speculate that hungry schools of sardines may be clearing phytoplankton from the waters off Namibia, reducing the production of toxic gases and potentially helping curb global warming. For more than a century, people living along Namibia's Atlantic coast have reported noxious, sulfurous gases rising from nearby seas. Often, the eruptions were accompanied by mass die-offs of fish and crustaceans.

The article focuses on the effect of the recently held presidential election in the US on federal funding of stem cell research. California voters approved a $3 billion plan to make the state a mecca for stem cell research, but the reelection of President George W. Bush and the addition of several conservative lawmakers to the United States Senate dampened some researchers' hopes of easing restrictions on federal funding of stem cell studies. By a 59% to 41% margin, California voters approved Proposition 71, which calls for pumping $3 billion over the next 10 years into stem cell studies.

The article presents information about environmentalist and political activist Wangari Maathai of Kenya who has won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai, aged 64, is the first African woman to win the prize and the first to be honored for environmental work. The founder of the Green Belt Movement, which since 1976 has organized local groups to plant an estimated 30 million trees across eastern and southern Africa, Maathai was a long-time opponent of Kenya's former strongman Daniel arap Moi. Maathai's win also breaks new ground by recognizing environmental activism as worthy of the prize, along with peacemaking and human rights work.

This article presents information about an incident of firing of employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. A scientist among one of a dozen workers punished in what Director G. Peter Nanos called a move to restore public trust and confidence in the lab. Lab officials would not identify the punished workers but told reporters that three were involved in a July 2004 incident in which officials concluded that computer disks holding classified data were missing from a safe in the lab's Weapons Physics Directorate.

The article presents information that Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has fired four workers for violating safety and security rules, and another will resign under pressure. The five were among 23 Los Alamos employees suspended earlier this year after incidents in which workers lost track of classified data and a researcher's eye was damaged by a laser. The firings are the latest twist in the lab's troubles, which began on 7 July when officials concluded that computer disks holding classified data were missing from a safe in the lab's Weapons Physics Directorate.

The threat of bioterror shouldn't stop scientists from freely sharing genome data, concludes a new report commissioned by the National Science Foundation. Limiting public access to genome data on potential bioweapons is impractical and would do more scientific harm than good, says a panel of the National Academies' National Research Council in a study released today. The U.S. government typically requires all federally funded scientists to make their genome data public. Since scientists sequenced the first viral genome in 1975, they have released the genetic codes of more than 1100 viruses and 150 bacteria, including those of the dangerous pathogens that cause smallpox, anthrax, and the plague.

The U.S. government has decided to retire its most famous research submarine and build a faster, roomier, and deeper diving substitute. On August 6, the National Science Foundation put an end to a decade of debate about the submarine's future by announcing that it will shelve the 40-year-old Alvin in late 2007 and replace it with a $21.6 million craft packed with features long coveted by deep-sea scientists. Alvin entered service in 1967 and is one of five research submarines in the world that can dive below 4000 meters. Some researchers argued for replacing the aging Alvin with cheaper, increasingly capable robotic vehicles.

Citing an atmosphere of "almost suicidal denial" of security and safety rules, the head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has indefinitely suspended 19 employees — including some senior scientists — pending an investigation of possible violations. Over the last decade, it has been beset by chronic security, safety, and management problems, including the largely discredited charges that lab scientist Wen Ho Lee stole bomb secrets for China. Last year, the Department of Energy announced that it planned to put the lab's management contract up for competition, dealing a major blow to the University of California (UC), which has managed Los Alamos since its birth in 1943.

The White House came out swinging last week against critics who have accused the U.S. Government of systematically manipulating science to advance its political agenda. White House science adviser John Marburger's reply was prompted in part by a statement released in February, signed by 60 prominent scientists, that accused the U.S. Government of suppressing or ignoring technical findings that don't square with its political views. The statement accompanied a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge-based advocacy group, that listed more than 20 incidents in which it claimed the Government had politicized science, including stacking advisory panels with ideological allies and doctoring reports.

Marine conservationists are demanding that the U.S. government take emergency action to protect deep-sea corals and sponges from net-dragging trawlers. Arguing that environmental regulations haven't kept pace with new science, Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Oceana last week petitioned Secretary of Commerce Don Evans to take immediate steps to protect the sea-floor organisms in the U.S. waters. In particular, the group argues that the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act compels regulators to protect fish habitats that are rare or fragile from any disruption that is more than minimal and temporary.

Microbiologist Thomas Butler was sentenced today to 2 years in prison for mishandling plague samples he shipped to Africa and for defrauding his university, Texas. Federal Judge Sam Cummings also fined Butler $15,000 and ordered him to pay restitution of $38,000 to Texas Tech. After Butler reportedly rejected a plea bargain, prosecutors added 44 fraud counts, alleging the scientist had diverted payments from drug companies intended for clinical trials. Many scientists rallied to Butler's defense, saying he was the victim of overzealous prosecutors.

More than 60 prominent scientists are accusing the U.S. Administration of manipulating science to serve its political agenda. The researchers today released a statement that calls on politicians to safeguard the free flow of scientific information. But the White House science adviser says the group hasn't provided evidence to back its "conspiracy theory." Authors argued that the Administration altered public documents to downplay the impacts of global warming, stacked advisory panels and muzzled government scientists to silence technical dissent on environmental regulations. To "restore integrity" to government science, the researchers are calling on the White House to issue a new executive order to ensure that scientists appointed to advisory panels have solid qualifications and no serious conflicts of interest.

The campaign to save the Hubble Space Telescope has intensified, when backers leaked two internal memos challenging the decision made by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to cancel a scheduled repair mission out of concern for the astronauts who would service the orbiting telescope. NASA chief Sean O'Keefe has stunned many astronomers with the decision to cancel the last telescope servicing mission, which was due to launch between 2006 and 2008. In the wake of the Columbia disaster, O'Keefe said that it didn't make sense to risk a mission that might extend the 14-year-old Hubble's life past 2007, although he admitted it was a difficult call.

The article focuses on a $2.4 trillion 2005 budget, proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush that would hold spending essentially flat at many major science agencies. The president's blueprint calls for federal spending on research and development to rise 4.6%, to $132 billion, in the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2004. On a more positive note, the National Science Foundation's account for major new research facilities includes money to start building a high-energy physics experiment and a national ecological observatory network and to upgrade an ocean-drilling vessel. NASA's budget would increase 5.6% to $16.2 billion.

The Pentagon in Virginia needs to shape up its $300 million biodefense research program within three years or ship it out to a civilian agency, concludes a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The report, released last week, recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense create a new biodefense organization to lead the fragmented, underfunded, and so far largely fruitless effort to develop new vaccines and drugs for soldiers. The key reform is unifying biodefense and infectious disease work under a single new agency that would manage rather than merely coordinate existing programs and report directly to a top Pentagon official.

After a decade spent standing at the dock, the U.S. marine scientists are getting ready to launch a network of ocean observatories. Drawing on 5 days of talks at a meeting, an independent panel will soon start assembling a detailed plan for a $200 million project. Last week's meeting was an opportunity for enthusiasts and skeptics to share ideas. One popular concept is to use sea-floor sensors to monitor colliding crystal plates or to dispatch robotic submersibles when underwater volcanoes erupt.

The article reports that U.S. oceanic and atmospheric science programs appear headed for a significant shakeup. Advisers to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today recommended that the agency consolidate some of its dozens of laboratories, appoint a new high-level research czar, and craft a long-term science plan. The advice comes after Congress and some scientists criticized parts of the agency's research program. The $3.3 billion NOAA is one of the world's largest funders of science that probes the sea and sky, ranging from efforts to predict the weather and climate change to studies of fish populations and coral reefs.

California's budget crisis is threatening to eliminate one of the nation's best-known efforts to attract more minorities and disadvantaged students into science and engineering. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today started a statewide tour designed to build public support for his plan to trim nearly $4 billion from state spending over the next 2 years. Among the Terminator's targets, The University of California's Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) program, which aims to better prepare students for technical studies. Since it was founded in 1970, MESA has encouraged thousands of minority students to enroll in science and engineering programs through mentoring, curriculum improvements and other techniques. Last year, the program spent $13 million to reach more than 35,000 of the state's precollege and undergraduate students, according to university statistics.

Microbiologist Thomas Butler was found guilty yesterday on 47 of 69 federal charges stemming from his report last January that 30 vials of plague bacteria had gone missing from his laboratory at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. On January 14, 2003, Butler told university officials that some of his plague samples had disappeared, triggering a bioterror scare that ended after Butler wrote a statement in which he admitted to accidentally destroying the vials. The jury acquitted Butler of all seven charges that he illegally hand-carried plague samples into the U.S. from Tanzania in early 2002 and then broke the law again by transporting cultured bacteria to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado and to a U.S. Army research center in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Observers are divided on the verdict's implications for scientists, some of whom decried the government's prosecution and contributed money to Butler's defense.

The University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, California has won a fierce competition to host the first academic research center to be funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The 3-year, $12 million grant will enable a USC-led alliance to develop computer models and other tools for forecasting the economic risks posed by terrorist threats. DHS officials said that they hope eventually to establish 10 centers, each focused on a particular area, if the U.S. Congress appropriates enough money. Its new center will focus on ways to prevent or reduce the impact of attacks on critical infrastructure, such as power, transport and communications grids.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has ranked 28 major science facilities it hopes to construct in the next 20 years. Topping the DOE wish list is a multibillion dollar nuclear fusion reactor, followed by a plan to build supercomputing infrastructure. The DOE Office of Science set out last year to evaluate and rank the department's proposed major science facilities. Marking another chapter in its spectacular comeback, the International Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor (ITER) experiment stands alone as DOE's number one future science project. ITER aims to achieve a self-sustaining fusion reaction by heating a mixture of deuterium and tritium, to hundreds of millions of degrees. Spain, France and Japan are competing to host the machine. The U.S. will likely foot 10% of the bill for the $5 billion experiment.

The U.S. should take the lead in launching a new era of global ocean exploration, argues a new report from a National Academy of Sciences committee. But with the start-up costs of around $270 million, the proposal is likely to be affected. The international panel reported today on the feasibility of a global initiative to explore little-studied regions of the world. Current funding priorities favor narrow, hypothesis-driven studies that send scientists repeatedly to the same sites. The panel estimates that a" minimal" exploration program, using leased ships and submarines and targeting just a few topics, would cost $30 million a year.

Census of Marine Life, a decade-long initiative to map global ocean life that released today its first figures at a conference in Washington D.C. So far, scientists have named some 210,000 marine species, but up to 10 times more may remain undiscovered, including perhaps a million kinds of nematodes, microworms found around the world. With start-up funds from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City, the census began assembling a far-flung network of researchers working on a various projects. The ultimate goal is to construct a detailed online atlas illustrating where marine organisms once lived, where they occur now, and how patterns might change in the future.

The U.S. government has awarded eight lead institutions grants totaling $350 million over the next 5 years to establish collaborative research centers that will focus on everything from understanding potential bioterror agents to developing new vaccines. These awards, announced on September 4, 2003 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson are among the U.S. government's biggest research-related responses so far to the 2001 anthrax letter attacks.

Bowing to mounting criticism, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says it will scale back plans to require polygraph tests for thousands of nuclear weapons scientists and security officials. DOE Undersecretary Kyle McSlarrow yesterday told a U.S. Senate panel that the agency will require fewer employees to take lie detector tests. But critics say the U.S. government is still putting too much faith in a device that has earned little scientific credibility.