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Helping Cats to Make Their Way Back Home
By SINDYA N. BHANOO, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
Less than 2 percent of cats in animal shelters make it back to their owners, whereas about 15 to 19 percent of dogs are returned, and one reason is that more dogs wear collars.
Putting collars on some of the country’s 88 million cats may help change this situation, according to a new study published in The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
( Read more... )
Biotech Company to Patent Fuel-Secreting Bacterium
By MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
A biotech company plans to announce Tuesday that it has won a patent on a genetically altered bacterium that converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into ingredients of diesel fuel, a step that could provide a new pathway for making ethanol or a diesel replacement that skips several cumbersome and expensive steps in existing methods.
( Read more... )
Tug of War Pits Genes of Parents in the Fetus
By NICHOLAS WADE, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
Under Mendel’s laws of inheritance, you could thank mom and dad equally for all the outstanding qualities you inherited.
But there’s long been some fine print suggesting that a mother’s and father’s genes do not play exactly equal roles. Research published last month now suggests the asymmetry could be far more substantial than supposed. The asymmetry, based on a genetic mechanism called imprinting, could account for some of the differences between male and female brains and for differences in a mother’s and father’s contributions to social behavior.
( Read more... )
Rape: Rights Group Calls Test to Determine Sexual Activity a ‘Second Assault’ in India
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, September 13, 2010
An international human rights group urged India last week to ban a “degrading and unscientific” test commonly performed on rape victims to see if they have previous sexual experience.
In the test, a doctor inserts fingers into the victim during the forensic examination to test for “vaginal laxity” and is expected to deliver a medical opinion as to whether she appears to be “habituated to sexual intercourse.” The group, Human Rights Watch, argued that the test constituted a second assault on a traumatized woman.
The test is required by courts in some Indian states — including those of Delhi and Mumbai, the national and financial capitals — and, according to local reports, is in the forensic examination still endorsed by the Indian Medical Association.
( Read more... )
Russia Finds Last-Days Log of 1912 Arctic Expedition
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
MOSCOW — Russian explorers said Monday that they had found a sailor’s log from aboard a legendary Arctic expedition that vanished as it sought to forge through the ice-choked Northeast Passage in 1912.
For decades, mystery clouded the fate of Georgy Brusilov, the captain of the first Russian crew to seek the elusive Arctic trade route from Asia to the West. His expedition’s disappearance inspired a generation of books and films.
But the voyagers’ remains and a journal — dated to May 1913 from aboard their vessel, the St. Anna — were found this summer on the icy shores of Franz Josef Land, Europe’s northernmost landmass.
( Read more... )
By SINDYA N. BHANOO, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
Less than 2 percent of cats in animal shelters make it back to their owners, whereas about 15 to 19 percent of dogs are returned, and one reason is that more dogs wear collars.
Putting collars on some of the country’s 88 million cats may help change this situation, according to a new study published in The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
( Read more... )
Biotech Company to Patent Fuel-Secreting Bacterium
By MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
A biotech company plans to announce Tuesday that it has won a patent on a genetically altered bacterium that converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into ingredients of diesel fuel, a step that could provide a new pathway for making ethanol or a diesel replacement that skips several cumbersome and expensive steps in existing methods.
( Read more... )
Tug of War Pits Genes of Parents in the Fetus
By NICHOLAS WADE, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
Under Mendel’s laws of inheritance, you could thank mom and dad equally for all the outstanding qualities you inherited.
But there’s long been some fine print suggesting that a mother’s and father’s genes do not play exactly equal roles. Research published last month now suggests the asymmetry could be far more substantial than supposed. The asymmetry, based on a genetic mechanism called imprinting, could account for some of the differences between male and female brains and for differences in a mother’s and father’s contributions to social behavior.
( Read more... )
Rape: Rights Group Calls Test to Determine Sexual Activity a ‘Second Assault’ in India
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, September 13, 2010
An international human rights group urged India last week to ban a “degrading and unscientific” test commonly performed on rape victims to see if they have previous sexual experience.
In the test, a doctor inserts fingers into the victim during the forensic examination to test for “vaginal laxity” and is expected to deliver a medical opinion as to whether she appears to be “habituated to sexual intercourse.” The group, Human Rights Watch, argued that the test constituted a second assault on a traumatized woman.
The test is required by courts in some Indian states — including those of Delhi and Mumbai, the national and financial capitals — and, according to local reports, is in the forensic examination still endorsed by the Indian Medical Association.
( Read more... )
Russia Finds Last-Days Log of 1912 Arctic Expedition
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, The New York Times, September 13, 2010
MOSCOW — Russian explorers said Monday that they had found a sailor’s log from aboard a legendary Arctic expedition that vanished as it sought to forge through the ice-choked Northeast Passage in 1912.
For decades, mystery clouded the fate of Georgy Brusilov, the captain of the first Russian crew to seek the elusive Arctic trade route from Asia to the West. His expedition’s disappearance inspired a generation of books and films.
But the voyagers’ remains and a journal — dated to May 1913 from aboard their vessel, the St. Anna — were found this summer on the icy shores of Franz Josef Land, Europe’s northernmost landmass.
( Read more... )
