In a new report, a blue-ribbon panel decries India's systemic failure to capitalize on basic research findings. The report, released last week by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, offers a stinging indictment of India's scientific frailties, noting that science here is "severely hampered by oppressive bureaucratic practices and inflexible administrative and financial controls." Titled India as a Global Leader in Science, the "vision document" also offers a blueprint for strengthening Indian science—one that will require heaps of money to implement.

Fungal degradation of plant biomass may provide insights for improving cellulosic biofuel production. We show that the model cellulolytic fungus Neurospora crassa relies on a high-affinity cellodextrin transport system for rapid growth on cellulose. Reconstitution of the N. crassa cellodextrin transport system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae promotes efficient growth of this yeast on cellodextrins. In simultaneous saccharification and fermentation experiments, the engineered yeast strains more rapidly convert cellulose to ethanol when compared with yeast lacking this system.

In a report, a blue-ribbon panel decries India's systemic failure to capitalize on basic research findings. The report, released last week by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, offers a stinging indictment of India's scientific frailties, noting that science here is "severely hampered by oppressive bureaucratic practices and inflexible administrative and financial controls." Titled India as a Global Leader in Science, the "vision document" also offers a blueprint for strengthening Indian science—one that will require heaps of money to implement.

Observers in relative motion or at different gravitational potentials measure disparate clock rates. These predictions of relativity have previously been observed with atomic clocks at high velocities and with large changes in elevation. We observed time dilation from relative speeds of less than 10 meters per second by comparing two optical atomic clocks connected by a 75-meter length of optical fiber. We can now also detect time dilation due to a change in height near

One concrete goal adopted by some policy-makers is to reduce the risks associated with climate change by preventing the mean global temperature from rising by more than 2°C above preindustrial levels.

Large-scale deforestation in the Amazon has declined by 47.5% over the past 12 months, according to a preliminary survey by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment using a low-resolution satellite. The figure is one of the largest declines since measurements began 20 years ago.

2010, the international year of biodiversity, celebrates Earth's glorious variety of species and ecosystems. But many are threatened or damaged.

Over the past decade, scientists on Borneo have found insects, plants, fish, and even a bird that are new to science at the rate of about three per month. This hidden diversity is not just on Borneo.

In 2008, Brazilian researchers embarked on a major effort to develop a comprehensive list of the nation's plants by 2010, the deadline for the goals set forth in the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty on the conservation of flora and fauna worldwide.

The continued growth of human populations and of per capita consumption have resulted in unsustainable exploitation of Earth’s biological diversity, exacerbated by climate change, ocean acidification, and other anthropogenic environmental impacts.

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