In an attempt to evaluate the efficacy of the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA)--arguably one of North America's most crucial conservation tools--a pair of researchers from the University of Ottawa has sifted through decades of congressional reports outlining the recovery progress of threatened species. Their final assessment? Either the ESA is not nearly as effective as scientists and legislators once thought, or we simply don't have enough species recovery data in order to make a thorough and accurate evaluation of the bill's impacts.

Which countries are the best at providing higher education?

 The Universitas 21 Ranking was announced today at Lund University in Sweden. Universitas 21, a network of research universities, has developed their own ranking as a benchmark for governments, education institutions and individuals to highlight the importance of creating a strong environment for higher education institutions that will contribute to economic and cultural development, provide a high-quality experience for students and help institutions compete for overseas applicants. 

So calibrate accordingly when the metrics for 'higher education' don't actually mention education.

Here's a pretty good kickstart for a science resume; inventing a disease-fighting, anti-aging compound using nano-particles from trees at age 16.

Anyone who has spent much time watching animal behavior has probably, at some point or another, wondered what goes on inside (non-human) animals' brains--Are they thinking, or just acting intuitively? Do they have minds, or just a collection of neural matter? Although the answers to these questions may not immediately seem to have any practical purpose, human perceptions of animal cognition actually play an important role in determining our attitudes towards animals and animal use. As a result, these issues may have serious implications for policies related to medical testing, scientific research, husbandry practices, and the pet trade, to name a few examples.

“Let’s play “Jeopardy.” Round One: Science Literacy. Category: Evolution. For $500: Which is the largest demographic group to reject Darwin’s theory of evolution?”

We carry some press releases on Science 2.0 and of course that is what Science Codex in our sidebar is. It's been an intentional effort since the communications arm of Science 2.0 began in 2006. The first, and most important reason, for that is because we think the audience is smart and don't need journalists putting context to most stories. Our audience just wants to know first so if something looks interesting, it will hit this page on the minute the embargo lifts. Everything else is written by scientists or at least (mostly) knowledgeable people(1).

The National Academies Press will roll out some new national science standards for K-12 educators and for the first time, those standards will include guidelines on teaching climate change.

Good luck with that.  As No Child Left Behind showed, positive results and the welfare of kids will not matter in a political fight - any attempts to create an education standard and accountability are going to flop unless education unions buy into it and any attempts to create a science standard for climate education will flop unless teachers do.  And a lot of them don't.

Teachers of all grades often struggle to find memorable, useful, and affordable techniques for exposing their students to science; students often long for an innovative, hands-on way to learn about science without sitting through a tedious series of lectures. A group of educators from the Los Angeles area have created a program, Project Brainstorm, to solve both of these problems, while simultaneously improving relationships between academic institutions and local communities.