People concerned about climate change recently can look no farther than the world's rainforests to see the diversity that arises from different ecological conditions.  History and geology, not current ecology, are likely what has made tropical forests so variable from site to site, according to a new study published in Science.

Measurements of variation in biodiversity from place to place, called beta diversity, are actually very similar as you move from the tropics to the poles when you account for the number of species present in the first place.  And forests in Canada and Europe may have much more in common with tropical rainforests than previously believed. 

Research examined 19,349 twins between the ages of 12 and 41 yrs of age and had participants complete  a questionnaire at the start and end of the study to compare alcohol intake with the risk of developing asthma over 8 yrs. The results showed that the lowest risk of asthma was seen in the group which had a moderate intake of alcohol, as less than 4% of those who drank 1-6 units per week developed asthma.

Drinking alcohol in moderate quantities can reduce the risk of asthma, the researchers concluded. Drinking 1-6 units of alcohol a week could reduce the risk of developing the condition. 

Powerful lobby groups opposed to genetically modified (GM) food are threatening public acceptance of the technology in Europe, research suggests.  They are also hampering Europe's response to the global challenge of securing food supplies for current and future generations, the researchers claim.  Of course, it instills an anti-science mentality as well, which makes it more difficult to overcome obstacles toward vaccines and pollution changes.

Drawing upon a decade of evidence, researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Warwick University say that Europe's regulation of GM crops has become less democratic and less evidence-based since the 1980s.

If a school system overburdened by costs cuts drama programs, celebrities get on television and lament the loss.  Athletics gets support from boosters if their programs are in danger but if a gifted program goes on the chopping block, the presumption is 'they are smart, they will do well anyway'.

It takes about 90 minutes to transmit a high-resolution image from Mars, but a new NASA optical communications system that NASA plans to demonstrate in 2016 will be so much faster it will even allow the streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the Moon. 

This dramatically enhanced transmission speed will be demonstrated by the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), one of three projects selected by NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) for a trial run. To be developed by a team led by engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., LCRD is expected to fly as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite developed by Space Systems/Loral, of Palo Alto, Calif.

Researchers have sequenced the genome of a man who was an Aboriginal Australian and used that to show that modern day Aboriginal Australians are the direct descendants of the first people who arrived on the continent some 50,000 years ago and that those ancestors left Africa earlier than their European and Asian counterparts.