Geologists at the University of Illinois have confirmed the discovery of Earth’s inner, innermost core, and have created a three-dimensional model that describes the seismic anisotropy and texturing of iron crystals within the inner core.

“For many years, we have been like blind men touching different parts of an elephant,” said U. of I. geologist Xiaodong Song. “Now, for the fist time, we have a sense of the entire elephant, and see what the inner core of Earth really looks like.”

Using both newly acquired data and legacy data collected around the world, Song and postdoctoral research associate Xinlei Sun painstakingly probed the shape of Earth’s core.

LONDON, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

Green groups tackling climate change and carbon emissions are facing yet another challenge - public apathy.

Thirty percent of people feel there is too much coverage in the media about CO2 emissions, and over half of these are 'bored hearing about it,' a YouGov survey conducted on behalf of the by the Environmental Transport Association reveals.

The poll also showed that although environmental apathy is a problem equal across social grades and regions, the same is not true for the sexes: Men are twice as likely as women to be bored by messages about CO2 emissions.

The news comes ahead of a 'green' Budget, set for 12th March, expected to deliver a range of proposals to tackle climate change.

PARIS, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Canada's Bell Mobility is Trialing the Alcatel-Lucent 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG) to Optimize the Delivery of Advanced Wireless Data Offerings

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced the Alcatel-Lucent 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG), the industry's first mobile network management solution that addresses a critical emerging need by carriers for enhanced visibility in third-generation (3G) and emerging 4G networks. Unaddressed, this gap in network visibility could lead to network disruption as wireless network operators increasingly support new data services, devices, and applications.

NEW YORK, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- The World's Fastest Growing Telecom Market Is Examined in a New, Free Report from Light Reading

With the country's 13 mobile operators signing up some 8 million new customers every month, India is certainly the hottest market for telco equipment and services.

But who are the country's major service providers? What geographic areas do they cover? What licenses do they hold? How extensive are their networks? What U.S. companies are lining up to compete there?

Those questions are all addressed in a new report from UBM's Light Reading (www.lightreading.com): "A Guide to India's Telecom Operators." This six-page report, available free of charge, can be viewed by visiting:

LOS ANGELES, March 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Chrysler cites Bunkspeed 3D rendering tools as 'key ingredient' responsible for reinventing the auto company's marketing imagery process

Bunkspeed, Inc. announced today that Chrysler Group has selected its 3D rendering applications to turn CAD data into professional-quality marketing imagery. Among other benefits, Chrysler expects to significantly decrease ad production costs.

Nearly 25 million U.S. women between the ages of 14 and 59 are infected with HPV, and the annual cost of screening and treating cervical abnormalities is about $4 billion, according to a statement from the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists.

For many unvaccinated women HPV infections clear up naturally without causing any cervical problems, as do many pre-malignant lesions. In other cases, HPV prompts cell changes that can gradually put women at greater risk of cervical cancer.

A significant drop in abnormal Pap test results happened after girls and women were given the vaccine named Gardasil to prevent cervical cancer, according to a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

While the findings are not definitive that Gardasil prevents cancer, they do signal the vaccine will spare thousands of women a diagnosis of cell abnormality or malignant changes that may lead to more tests and possibly surgery, said Warner Huh, M.D., associate professor in the UAB Division of Gynecologic Oncology and the doctor chosen to present the data.

In Vadose Zone Journal, researchers state that a much smaller spatial resolution should be used for modeling soil water.

Soils are complicated porous media that are highly relevant for the sustainable use of water resources. Not only the essential basis for agriculture, soils also act as a filter for clean drinking water, and, depending on soil properties, they dampen or intensify surface runoff and thus susceptibility to floods. Moreover, the interaction of soil water with the atmosphere and the related energy flux is an important part of modern weather and climate models.

An accurate modeling of soil water dynamics thus has been an important research challenge for decades, but the prediction of water movement, especially at large spatial scales, is complicated by the heterogeneity of soils and the sometimes complicated topography.

The Hercules Beetle is remarkable not only for its strength, able to carry up to 850 times its own weight, but also the protective outgrowth of its exoskeleton, which also changes from green to black as its surrounding atmosphere gets more humid.

It's the strongest creature in the world but the color-changing trick is what scientists have long sought to understand. A new investigation into the structure of this peculiar protective shell which could aid design of ‘intelligent materials.’

I feel like I am going to be preaching-to-the-choir with this blog. The fact that you are reading it puts you in the "choir." I would encourage all of you to read the first two columns of the article "A New Bottom Line For School Science" by Jeffrey Mervis in Science Vol. 319, p. 1030-33, Feb. 22, 08.

The quote from this article that has me upset is "I don’t use a textbook or assign written homework because so many of them (the students) wouldn’t be able to read it." If this were a quote from a third grade teacher in a rural school for the children of migrant workers, I would still be upset but I could understand the teacher’s dilemma.

Genome-wide association studies are increasingly widely used to discover genetic variations that increase the risk of common diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Intuitively they're quite straightforward: take a few thousand individuals with a disease (cases), a few thousand healthy individuals (controls), examine hundreds of thousands of genetic variations in both groups using new large-scale genotyping technologies, and see which variants are more common in cases than controls. This simple approach has turned out to be a powerful tool, uncovering genes involved in a multitude of common diseases.