Policies that predict and direct innovative research might seem to be a practical impossibility, says David H. Guston, but social sciences point to a solution.
San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) agreed last week to purchase power from two solar-panel manufacturers in the state. OptiSolar, based in Hayward, will build a 550-megawatt plant, to be accompanied by a 250-megawatt plant from SunPower of San Jose.
Shipping is one of the most fuel-efficient ways to move freight, but the industry still produces significant greenhouse-gas emissions, including more than a quarter of the world's nitrogen oxides emissions. And it also produces more sulphur dioxide emissions than all land transportation combined. In the latest of Nature's our Future Transport series, Duncan Graham-Rowe looks at the new wave in shipping.
Where does innovation come from? How can it best be nurtured and encouraged? These questions are taking on global significance as fast-developing nations such as China, India and Brazil increasingly see leadership in innovation as key to their economic competitiveness. Although the link between innovation and economic strength is a matter for debate, the power of innovation to shape and transform society makes it worth studying. (Editorial)
Swedish researchers have launched a scathing attack on the scientific credentials of an international advisory body on biodiversity, warning that its effectiveness is being undermined by the increasing dominance of politicians and professional negotiators. Their concerns about the work of the scientific body that advises the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are widely shared, the convention's own executive secretary, Ahmed Djoghlaf, has told Nature.
The lay-off last week of a senior political scientist involved in helping poor countries prepare for climate change has exposed a stark division in opinions on the core purpose of a key US climate-research institution. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, says its hand was forced by several years of largely stagnant budgets. These have resulted in the loss of 12% of its core workforce during the past five years
The onset of major glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere about 2.7 million years ago was most probably induced by climate cooling during the late Pliocene epoch. These glaciations, during which the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets successively expanded and retreated, are superimposed on this long-term climate trend, and have been linked to variations in the Earth's orbital parameters.
More than 40 negotiators from Asia, Europe and the United States converged on Washington DC last week for what was billed as the first major war game involving global warming. The Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based national-security think tank, gathered together climate scientists and experts in security, environmental policy and business for the role-playing exercise.
