ScienceDebate2008 has come up with 14 questions they would like to see answered by the US presidential candidates. This group has been pushing for a science policy-focused debate among presidential candidates. That debate is looking more and more unlikely, but in an effort to keep some of the election focus on science, this group is now urging the candidates to answer a set of questions on science policy (abbreviated below - go read the questions in full at the ScienceDebate2008 site):

1. What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?

2. What is your position on the following measures that have been proposed to address global climate change—a cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, increased fuel-economy standards, or research?

3. What policies would you support to meet demand for energy while ensuring an economically and environmentally sustainable future?

4. What role do you think the federal government should play in preparing K-12 students for the science and technology driven 21st Century?

5. What is your view of how science and technology can best be used to ensure national security and where should we put our focus?

6. In an era of constant and rapid international travel, what steps should the United States take to protect our population from global pandemics or deliberate biological attacks?

CALGARY, Canada, July 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- Shallow Water Offshore Exploration Campaign at Ngosso and Iroko License Areas

Addax Petroleum Corporation (TSX: AXC and LSE: AXC) ("Addax Petroleum" or the "Corporation") announces the initial results of its Cameroon exploration campaign where the Corporation has recently completed drilling its first exploration wells in the Ngosso and Iroko license areas. As part of the campaign, Addax Petroleum drilled two wells plus a sidetrack at Ngosso and one well at Iroko.

Since 1969 a U.S. patent has been registered on the process of turning alcohol into powder.

This year, products, such as gelatin shots and margaritas, based from alcohol powder are set to be released by Pulver Spirits and BPNC Distillery.

Though alcohol powder is regulated the same as other alcoholic beverages in the U.S., it is only sold as a food flavoring. However, in other countries such as the Netherlands, lack of regulations make obtaining powdered alcohol within reach to minors.

BASINGSTOKE, England and PHILADELPHIA, July 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Shire Limited (LSE:SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, will announce second quarter 2008 earnings on Thursday 31 July 2008

Results press release will be issued at: 12:00 BST / 07:00 EDT Investor meeting and conference call time: 14:30 BST / 09:30 EDT

Investor & Analyst meeting and conference call:

Angus Russell, Chief Executive Officer, Graham Hetherington, Chief Financial Officer, Mike Cola, President, Specialty Pharmaceuticals and Sylvie Grégoire, President, Human Genetic Therapies will host the investor and analyst meeting and conference call at 14:30 BST/9:30 EDT.

The meeting will take place at Holborn Bars, 138-142 Holborn, London EC1 2NQ.

LUSTENAU, Austria and KRISTANSAND, Norway, July 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- IDENTEC SOLUTIONS Award-Winning Tracking Technology has Been Selected to Proactively Protect Employee Lives With one of the World's Leading Energy Suppliers

NASA's sun-focused STEREO spacecraft unexpectedly detected particles from the edge of the solar system last year, allowing University of California, Berkeley, scientists to map for the first time the energized particles in the region where the hot solar wind slams into the cold interstellar medium.

Mapping the region by means of neutral, or uncharged, atoms instead of light "heralds a new kind of astronomy using neutral atoms," said Robert Lin, UC Berkeley professor of physics and lead for the suprathermal electron sensor aboard STEREO. "You can't get a global picture of this region, one of the last unexplored regions of the heliosphere, any other way because it is too tenuous to be seen by normal optical telescopes."

The heliosphere is a volume over which the effects of the solar wind extend, stretching from the sun to more than twice the distance of Pluto. Beyond its edge, called the heliopause, lies the relative quiet of interstellar space, at about 100 astronomical units (AU) - 100 times the Earth-sun distance.

NEW YORK, July 4 /PRNewswire/ --

Matilda Cuomo, former first lady of the state of New York and chair of the Committee to Establish the Italian AP Program, Margaret Cuomo, M.D., a member of the committee, Louis Tallarini, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, and Salvatore Zizza, president of the National Italian American Foundation, today announced the incorporation of the Italian Language Foundation, Inc., a non-profit entity that will promote and help underwrite the AP Italian Language and Culture Program.

The world of geology changes rapidly - sometimes the Grand Canyon is one age and then it is found to be much older. But even in geology it's not often a date gets revised by 500 million years.

University of Florida geologists say they have evidence that a half-dozen major basins in India were formed a billion or more years ago, making them at least 500 million years older than commonly thought. If so, it might remove one of the major obstacles to the 'Snowball Earth' theory that says a frozen Earth was once entirely covered in snow and ice. It might even lend some weight to a controversial claim that complex life originated hundreds of million years earlier than most scientists currently believe.

The Purana basins – which include the subject of the study, the Vindhyan basin – are located south of New Delhi in the northern and central regions of India. They are slight, mostly flat depressions in the Earth's crust that span thousands of square miles. For decades, Meert said, most geologists have believed the basins formed 500 million to 700 million years ago when the Earth's crust stretched, thinned and then subsided.

Human emissions of carbon dioxide are loading the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases and have also begun to alter the chemistry of the ocean, according to a team of chemical researchers.

The ecological and economic consequences are difficult to predict but possibly calamitous, they say in the July 4 issue of Science, and halting the changes already underway will likely require even steeper cuts in carbon emissions than those currently proposed to curb climate change.

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, writing with lead author Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii and two co-authors*, note that the oceans have absorbed about 40% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by humans over the past two centuries. This has slowed global warming, but at a serious cost: the extra carbon dioxide has caused the ocean's average surface pH (a measure of water's acidity) to shift by about 0.1 unit from pre-industrial levels. Depending on the rate and magnitude of future emissions, the ocean's pH could drop by as much as 0.35 units by the mid-21st century.

LONDON, July 4 /PRNewswire/ --

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