Are climate change and carbon emissions inextricably linked? New research published in Carbon Balance and Management suggests that this may not be the case, although it may be some time before we reach this saturation point.

The land and the oceans contain significantly more carbon than the atmosphere, and exchange carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 emissions absorbed by the land or the oceans vary in response to changes in climate (including natural variations such as El Nino or volcanic eruptions). So current theories suggest that climate change will have a feedback effect on the rate that atmospheric CO2 increases; rising CO2 levels in turn add to global warming.

The link between the carbon cycle, and human effects caused by emissions, energy use and agriculture, may only be relevant for the next 'several centuries,’ suggest Igor Mokhov and Alexey Eliseev from the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS, in Moscow, Russia. The authors used a climate model known as IAP RAS CM to study how feedback between our climate and the carbon cycle changes over time. In their simulations, the authors assumed that fossil fuel emissions would grow exponentially with a characteristic timescale from 50 to 250years.

Nitric oxide has emerged as an important signaling molecule in plants - as in mammals including people. In studies of a tropical medicinal herb as a model plant, researchers have found that nitric oxide targets a number of proteins and enzymes in plants.

In collaborative work with the research group of Renu Deswal, a faculty member, and her doctoral student at the Botany Department, University of Delhi, India, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Autar Mattoo has identified 19 such targeted proteins and enzymes in Kalanchoe pinnata, also known as "miracle leaf."

These proteins and enzymes are involved in regulating processes from seed germination to cell development to plant death.

As a futurist I speak and write about trends and the future. I am often asked questions about the future of one thing or another. In most cases I speak to general trends, not specific outcomes. In some areas I can be somewhat specific as I have taken the time to analyze and then cross reference what I have learned with the trends and forces I see. One of those areas is the price of oil. In early 2007, when the price of oil was $53 a barrel I was invited on a business program to predict what I thought the price of oil might be by the end of the year. At that time I said that I thought that oil would exceed $80 a barrel and could well approach $100, though I didn’t think it would cross that barrier in 2007. The reporter, who had never spoken with a futurist, calling me a ‘so-called futurist’ was trying to contain her sputtering disbelief. The opposite side was some ‘oil industry analyst’ who spoke about a price fluctuation between $50-70 for the remainder of the year. About eight months ago, I wrote that I thought that the near term trading range for the price of oil for the next couple of years would be $80-125. At the time I stated that while there was little on the horizon to create a downward pressure below $80, there was much on the horizon that could cause an upward pressure to $125 and that the long term trend would be ever upward and that downward pressure would provide only temporary dips.

Depending on which variant of the gene CYP1A2 a woman has, a coffee consumption rate of at least two cups a day can either reduce the total risk of developing breast cancer or delay the onset of cancer, according to new research from Lund University and Malmö University in Sweden.

The effect of coffee is related to estrogens - female sex hormones. Certain metabolic products of these hormones are known to be carcinogenic and various components of coffee can alter the metabolism so that a woman acquires a better configuration of various estrogens.

Coffee, of course, contains caffeine, which also hampers the growth of cancer cells.

'Functional foods' are those that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition and more people are recognizing that they are an important part of a lifestyle that leads to long-term fitness and even longevity.

Liz Sloan, writing in Food Technology, has identified the top 10 trends in functional foods. The article noted that a majority of Americans, 69 percent, are incorporating foods into a preventative lifestyle, while 27 percent are utilizing food as a treatment to manage a preexisting health condition. One-third of shoppers (36 percent) are trying to reduce the risk of developing a health condition, follow a doctor’s advice (30 percent) or manage/treat a specific condition on their own (25 percent), according to the Food Marketing Institute¹ data.

“Today’s consumers are extremely sophisticated, and they are attracted to functional foods’ ability to help manage health and wellness,” said Institute of Food Technologists(IFT) spokesperson Roger Clemens, PhD. Simply put, Americans are relying heavily on the foods they consume to improve their well-being.

Top 10 Food Trends

At Abercrombie & Fitch, little girls were sold thong underwear tagged with the phrases "eye candy" and "wink wink." In Britain, preschoolers could learn to strip with their very own Peekaboo Pole-Dancing Kits, complete with kiddie garter belts and play money. And 'tween readers of the magazine Seventeen discovered "405 ways to look hot" like Paris Hilton.

This kind of sexualization of 'tween girls - defined as those between the ages of 8 and 12 - in pop culture and advertising is a growing problem fueled by marketers' efforts to create cradle-to-grave consumers, a University of Iowa journalism professor argues in her new book.

"A lot of very sexual products are being marketed to very young kids," said Gigi Durham, author of The Lolita Effect. "I'm criticizing the unhealthy and damaging representations of girls' sexuality, and how the media present girls' sexuality in a way that's tied to their profit motives. The body ideals presented in the media are virtually impossible to attain, but girls don't always realize that, and they'll buy an awful lot of products to try to achieve those bodies. There's endless consumerism built around that."

Are you exhausted? Do you have pain all over but can’t figure out what’s wrong? If so, you may be suffering from fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that causes exhaustion, sleep disturbances and diffuse pain in your muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

Fibromyalgia patients experience a range of symptoms of varying intensities that increase and decrease over time and often resemble other conditions. For years, because of their complex nature and a lack of research on the condition, many doctors misdiagnosed fibromyalgia symptoms or dismissed them as being in the patient’s head. Even today, it is estimated to take an average of five years for a fibromyalgia patient to get an accurate diagnosis.

There is no laboratory test available to diagnose fibromyalgia. Doctors must rely on patient histories, self-reported symptoms, a physical examination and an accurate manual tender point examination.

Maybe I’ve had elevators on my mind because the one in our building has gone through endless repairs of late, none of which apparently improved its speed or reliability. Or perhaps you simply cannot live in New York City without taking into account elevators as a major component of your life. But then my wife pointed out to me this snippet from an article published recently in The New Yorker (every self-respecting newyorker reads The New Yorker while in the subway):

Evolutionary trees, or "phylogenies", are a major part of modern evolutionary science. They depict hypotheses regarding the relationships among taxa, and are therefore important in reconstructions of the historical path of evolution (Gregory 2008a,b).

Various approaches can be taken to formulating phylogenetic hypotheses, including analyses based on morphological, fossil, and/or molecular data. These methods often agree well, but sometimes one or another can throw up some surprises and challenge previous hypotheses about the relationships among groups of organisms.

Reconstructing the tree of life is a difficult and complicated process, and one should expect there to be significant refinements and revisions along the way. This is especially true of the deepest branches of the tree, which are often the most difficult to resolve.

Case in point, the Tree of Life Web Project gives the following summary of deep branches among major animal lineages:

An international team of scientists has detected that some of the glow of Earth’s aurora is polarized, an unexpected state for such emissions. Measurements of this newfound polarization in the Northern Lights may provide scientists with fresh insights into the composition of Earth’s upper atmosphere, the configuration of its magnetic field, and the energies of particles from the Sun, the researchers say.

If observed on other planets, the phenomenon might also give clues to the shape of the Sun’s magnetic field as it curls around other bodies in the solar system.

When a beam of light is polarized, its electromagnetic waves share a common orientation, say, aligned vertically, or at some other angle. Until now, scientists thought that light from energized atoms and molecules in planetary upper atmospheres could not be polarized. The reason is simple: in spite of the low number of particles at the altitudes concerned (above 100 kilometers (60 miles)), there are still numerous collisions between molecules and gas atoms. Those collisions depolarize the emitted light.