Video of the Day: Japan's Dream Machine

Japanese scientists try to record people's dreams.

Watch now:

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Video of the Day: Japan's Green Garbage

Space-starved Tokyo uses green technology to turn garbage into electricity while wooing locals with community-friendly incinerators.

Watch now:

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Innovation: More than Science and Technology

As global economic competition intensifies, more countries are deliberately using public policy to shape national systems that allow firms to access innovations that can give them a leg up, according to a special section on global innovation policy in the fall edition of Issues in Science and Technology.

The section focuses on national innovation systems in Mexico, Belgium, India, Korea, Japan, and the United States, and includes articles by R. Chidambaram, the principal scientific adviser to the government of India, Sungchul Chung, president of Korea's Science and Technology Policy
Institute, and Fientje Moerman, vice-minister-president of Flanders and minister for economy, enterprise, science, innovation, and foreign trade.

Managing a national innovation system is a constant challenge -- and struggle, according to Charles Wessner, deputy director of the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy.

"What works in one context will not necessarily work in another," Wessner writes. "What works in one decade will not necessarily work in the next. And with the global economic system in flux, every country must be ready to reexamine and revise its policies.

"These articles contain no easy answers," Wessner continues. "They offer something much more useful: candid and perceptive discussion of the successes and failures that are slowly leading all of us to a better understanding of how innovation can be tapped and directed to achieve human goals."

In the United States, substantial changes in the national innovation system will be needed, argues Christopher Hill of George Mason University. In his article, The Post-Scientific Society, Hill writes that although science and technology will continue to play a vital role in innovation,
the critical ingredients for continued U.S. economic success are likely to come from other disciplines.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Study Notes Decline in Male Births in US, Japan

A study published in this week’s online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives reports that during the past 30 years, the number of male births has decreased each year in the U.S. and Japan. In a review of all births in both countries, the University of Pittsburgh-led study found significantly fewer boys being born relative to girls in the U.S. and Japan, and that an increasing proportion of fetuses that die are male.

They note that the decline in births is equivalent to 135,000 fewer white males in the U.S. and 127,000 fewer males in Japan over the past three decades and suggest that environmental factors are one explanation for these trends.

“The pattern of decline in the ratio of male to female births remains largely unexplained,” says Devra Lee Davis, lead investigator of the study, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute’s Center for Environmental Oncology and professor of epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. “We know that men who work with some solvents, metals and pesticides father fewer baby boys. We also know that nutritional factors, physical health and chemical exposures of pregnant women affect their ability to have children and the health of their offspring. We suspect that some combination of these factors, along with older age of parents, may account for decreasing male births.”

Davis explains that environmental factors, such as prenatal exposure to endocrine--disrupting environmental pollutants may impact the SRY gene – a gene on the Y chromosome that determines the sex of a fertilized egg. Other environmental factors that also may affect the viability of a male fetus include the parents’ weight, nutrition and the use of alcohol and drugs.

In the study, Davis and her colleagues reported an overall decline of 17 males per 10,000 births in the U.S. and a decline of 37 males per 10,000 births in Japan since 1970. They also found that while fetal death rates have generally decreased, the proportion of male fetuses that die has continued to increase. In Japan, among the fetuses that die, two-thirds are male, up from just over half in 1970.

The study also examined the ratio of African-American male to female births to that of whites in the U.S. The researchers found that while the number of African-American male births has increased modestly over time, the ratio of male to female births for African-Americans remains lower than that of whites. In addition, they noted that African-Americans have a higher fetal mortality rate overall and a higher proportion of male fetuses that die.

“These results are not surprising since the black-white ratio in terms of infant mortality has remained the same for almost 100 years,” says Lovell Jones, study co-investigator and professor and director, Center for Research on Minority Health, department of health disparities research, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. “Given the higher mortality rates for African-American males in the United States, these results reemphasize the need to determine all factors, including environmental contaminants, which are responsible for this continuing health disparity.”

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Space Station Module From Japan Arrives at NASA

After traveling thousands of miles, a major component of the International Space Station is set to begin preparations for launch. The Experiment Logistics Module Pressurized Section for the Japanese Experiment Module arrived atNASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Monday, March 12.

The Japanese Experiment Module is composed of three segments and is known as Kibo, which means "hope" in Japanese.

Kibo is Japan's first human space facility and its primary contribution to the station. It will enhance the unique research capabilities of theorbiting complex by providing an additional environment in which astronauts can conduct science experiments. The Experiment Logistics ModulePressurized Section will serve as an on-orbit storage area for materials, tools and supplies. It can hold up to eight experiment racks and will attach to the top of another larger pressurized module.

The ship carrying the module departed Feb. 7 from Yokohama, Japan, for the United States. Kibo's various components will be assembled in space during the course of three shuttle missions. The first of those three missions, STS-123, will carry the Experiment Logistics Module Pressurized Section aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, targeted for launch in 2007.

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.