Proposals to reign in gasoline prices by curbing speculation in oil markets would likely increase costs at the pump instead of trimming them, a University of Illinois economist says.

Scott Irwin argues congressional efforts to curb trading by speculators is a "misguided witch hunt" that ignores the root of America's energy problem – a finite global oil supply that has been stretched thin by surging demand in China, India and other developing countries.

"There's a tendency to look for a scapegoat, and speculators are the convenient scapegoat," he said. "But, really, it's a supply and demand issue."

A team of European scientists working with COROT have discovered an exoplanet orbiting a star slightly more massive than the Sun. After just 555 days in orbit, the mission has now observed more than 50 000 stars and is adding significantly to our knowledge of the fundamental workings of stars.

The latest discovery, COROT-exo-4b is an exoplanet of about the same size as Jupiter. It takes 9.2 days to orbit its star, the longest period for any transiting exoplanet ever found.

An aerosol mass spectrometer developed by chemists from Aerodyne Research Inc. and Boston College is giving scientists who study airborne particles the technology they need to examine the life cycles of atmospheric aerosols – such as soot – and their impact on issues ranging from climate change to public health.

BC Chemistry Professor Paul Davidovits and Aerodyne Principal Scientist Timothy B. Onasch say their novel spectrometer allows researchers to better understand what happens to these sub-microscopic particles that can absorb and scatter light and influence the lifetime of clouds.

Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have disproved a long-standing clinical belief that the hepatitis C virus slows or stunts the immune system's ability to restore itself after HIV patients are treated with a combination of drugs known as the "cocktail."

Hepatitis C (HCV) infection is more serious in HIV-infected people, leading to rapid liver damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Intravenous drug use is a main method of contraction for both HIV and HCV and 50 to 90 percent of HIV-infected drug users are also infected with HCV.

An enormous research effort by Europe’s leading broadband players has helped accelerate dramatically the rollout of next-generation broadband services reaching speeds in the 10s of Mbit/s in many European countries. That is just the start.

The deployment of broadband services in the 10s of megabits per second (Mbit/s) is accelerating across the continent, thanks to the research efforts of Europe’s main broadband players. Even 100Mbit/s has become economically feasible and deployments have started.

Two years ago Europe’s leading telecoms, ISP companies, and its top technology vendors and research institutes finished their work on the first phase of the MUSE project. That effort led to a new set of standard specifications for broadband technology branded as the Global System for Broadband (GSB).

Officials from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and FAU’s Center for Ocean Energy Technology (COET) in the College of Engineering and Computer Science accompanied Florida Governor Charlie Crist on a recent visit to several universities and organizations in the United Kingdom to continue discussions, exchange information and formalize agreements in areas of clean ocean energy, environmental issues and climate change.

Last year, Florida and the UK signed a partnership agreement on global climate change, physically tying one to the other by the Gulf Stream, that massive ocean current which is of critical importance to the present climate and quality of life affecting each partner.