A team of European scientists has triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time - deliberately.

They did it by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. Next, they say, could be man-made lightning.

At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity akin to Benjamin Franklin's silk kite string. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves.

The nature vs. nurture debate is familiar to most people, and modern conclusions usually predict a balance between the two. A new paper shows that there is a similar balance between inherited genes - nature - and the environment - nurture - in determining thousands of traits in yeast.

As we approach the age of personal genomics, in which each of us knows something about the genetic variations we carry, it is important to understand how genes and the environment interact in order to draw medically sound conclusions from the information available, e.g. whether exercise can reduce risks that are increased because of a genetic predisposition towards a certain illness.

LONDON, April 14 /PRNewswire/ --

Over five million of the 13 million hay fever sufferers across Britain could be taking inappropriate medicines, putting their health at risk. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) is encouraging people experiencing the symptoms of hay fever to visit their community pharmacist after new research revealed that the public often misdiagnose the condition and fail to get the correct treatment.

Allergic rhinitis, known as hay fever, is a condition which is caused by the pollen of specific seasonal plants, airborne chemicals and dust particles. It is commonly characterised by the symptoms of sneezing, runny nose and itching eyes(x).

DEARBORN, Michigan, April 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Hundreds of SEIU Staff Bused in to Smash Into Meeting to Attack RNs and Break Up Conference on Union Democracy

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee tonight condemned a brutal assault by busloads of purple cloaked staff of the Service Employees International Union who smashed into a conference of union members Saturday night in Dearborn, Mi. and physically assaulted women and union members who stood in their path.

"I am deeply concerned about this heightened attack on women and nurses, directed by SEIU President Andrew Stern," said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, who was scheduled to speak about the campaign for genuine healthcare reform at the banquet.

LONDON, April 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- "Coronary Artery Disease Can be Silent, Like a Volcano Lying Dormant. Now we are Able to Accurately Predict a Coronary Eruption."

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dubai School of Government is hosting tomorrow April 14, together with Business Week and in cooperation with DNM Strategies, the third annual "State of the Region" Forum. The theme of this year's Forum was "Leveraging Opportunity, Managing Risk."

The Forum, sponsored by the Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD), Sama Dubai and Etisalat, connects representatives from both the public and private sectors in the UAE and neighbouring countries. The event provides a unique opportunity to examine and analyze key trends and critical developments affecting the Arab world and to devise strategies to mold the future of the region.

Robot soccer is an ambitious high-tech competition for universities, research institutes and industry. Several major tournaments are planned for 2008, the biggest of which is the ‘RoboCup German Open.’

From April 21-25, over 80 teams of researchers from more than 15 countries are expected to face off in Hall 25 at the Hannover Messe. In a series of soccer matches in several leagues, they will be putting the latest technologies on display. The tournament is being organized and carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin.

UK astronomers have produced the most sensitive infrared map of the distant Universe ever undertaken. Combining data over a period of three years, they have produced an image containing over 100,000 galaxies over an area four times the size of the full Moon. Some of the first results from the project were presented by Dr Sebastien Foucaud from the University of Nottingham at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast.

Due to the finite speed of light, these observations allow astronomers to look back in time over 10 billion years, producing images of galaxies in the Universe's infancy. The image is so large and so deep that thousands of galaxies can be studied at these early epochs for the first time. By observing in the infrared, astronomers can now peer further back in time, since light from the most distant galaxies is shifted towards redder wavelengths as it travels through the expanding Universe.

In research published in Nature, researchers at Rockefeller University and the University of Tokyo state that insects have adopted a strategy to detect odors that is radically different from those of other organisms -- an unexpected and controversial finding that may dissolve a dominant ideology in the field.

They state that insects use fast-acting ion channels to smell odors, a major break with current ideology, and that this means Darwin's tree of life will need to be redrawn.

Since 1991, researchers assumed that all vertebrates and invertebrates smell odors by using a complicated biological apparatus much like a Rube Goldberg device. For instance, someone pushing a doorbell would set off a series of elaborate, somewhat wacky, steps that culminate in the rather simple task of opening the door.