Sustainable development thinking got environmental issues onto the agenda but it may now be stopping us from taking serious action on climate change and other crucial planetary issues, argues John Foster, a freelance writer and teacher and honorary Research Fellow in Philosophy at Lancaster University, UK in his new book "The Sustainability Mirage: Illusion and Reality in the Coming War on Climate Change."

Sustainable development's attempted deal between present and future will always collapse under the pressure of 'now' because the needs of the present always win out, he says. Inevitably, this means movable targets and action that will always fall short of what we need. Ultimately, sustainable development is the pursuit of a mirage, the politics of never getting there.

Unlike many astronomical phenomena, meteors are best seen with the unaided eye rather than through a telescope or binoculars and are perfectly safe to watch, so be prepared to sleep outside on August 12th, the annual maximum of the Perseid meteor shower.

In doing so, you will be joining your ancestors, who have viewed what are also called "The Tears of St. Lawrence"(1) for some 2,000 years.

Meteors are the result of small particles entering the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed and in the case of the Perseid shower these come from the tail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was last in the vicinity of the Earth in 1992. To the eye, the meteors appear to originate from a ‘radiant’ in the constellation of Perseus, hence the name Perseid.

As people age, their cells become less efficient at getting rid of damaged protein, resulting in a buildup of toxic material that is especially pronounced in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have prevented this age-related decline in an entire organ — the liver — and shown that, as a result, the livers of older animals functioned as well as they did when the animals were much younger.

These findings suggest that therapies for boosting protein clearance might help stave off some of the declines in function that accompany old age.

Did you find a new bacterium and want recognition for it? For it to be recognized its name must be recorded in IJSEM, which is the single official international forum for the publication of new bacterial species names. The journal publishes research papers describing and naming almost all newly discovered bacteria. The names of newly discovered bacteria published in other journals are not valid until they have been checked and published in IJSEM.

The journal has officially validated the names of 9,263 species and genera since 1980. The list includes some important and ground-breaking discoveries. Earlier this year, scientists announced that they had made the first synthetic genome of a bacterium, dubbed Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0 but this would have been impossible without the work of earlier microbiologists.

Now they've decided to make researching the work of earlier microbiologists a lot easier by putting their archive up - for free. All issues of the journal dating back to volume 1, 1951 totalling over 25,000 pages have been scanned and made available online, providing an important resource for scientists, historians and the public.

Computing pundits claim that we are moving into a world of ubiquitous computing, a brave new world where your refrigerator and cupboards will be connected to your internet shopping accounts so that you never run out of milk or sugar again. Sensors around your home and workplace will respond to workloads, weather and even your mood by adjusting heating, lighting, and sound levels. Diagnostic devices built into door handles or the bathroom might alert your doctor or the emergency services to changes in your health.

But doing that means getting rid of your iPhone and anything else you learned how to use. Instead, this this emerging technology will only be woven into the fabric of society and our everyday living spaces when people, rather than computer screens and keyboards, are projected into the foreground.

In chemistry, just as in life, threesomes do not break up neatly.

Open-minded thinkers may disagree and say that theoretically clean three-way splits can happen, but no one had actually witnessed one – until now.

A paper in the Aug. 8 issue of Science provides the first hard evidence for the simultaneous break-up of a molecule into three equal parts, called "concerted break-ups."

Do volunteers who take part in conservation efforts do it for the wildlife they are trying to protect or just to impress their friends and because they like the way wildlife looks on their property? A University of Alberta case study says it is not altruism that drives them.

A study of purple martin landlords, those who keep and monitor special birdhouses on their land, revealed that they were more motivated to take part in the conservation project for egoistic rather than altruistic reasons.

"Though there were areas of overlap, we found that common motivations for self-benefit included interaction with the birds, a sense of achievement, social interaction, personal stimulation and enjoyment," said Glen Hvenegaard, a co-author on the qualitative study and a professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Alberta's Augustana campus in Canada.

"Big things come in small packages," the saying goes, and it couldn't be more true when discussing the mouse. This little creature has become a crucial part of human history through its contributions in understanding human genetics and disease.

In a review published in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), genetics researchers from Yale University School of Medicine and Fudan University School of Life Sciences discuss the history and future of mice as a model organism.

They predict that the next frontiers in mouse genetics – such as creating mice expressing human genes to create "humanized" mice – will continue to provide scientists with new tools to not only decipher clinical mysteries, but also to test novel therapies and cures.

Controlling body weight is a complicated process but scientists investigating the brain's intricate neurocircuitry and its role in maintaining energy balance are forming a clearer picture of the myriad events that lead to weight gain ... and weight loss.

Writing in Nature Neuroscience, a study led by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) identifies another piece of this complex puzzle, demonstrating that the neurotransmitter GABA --one of the master communicators among neurons – plays a role in controlling energy balance.

Imagine winning a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.  No really, go ahead, close your eyes and visualize it.  What did you see?  Were you standing on the medal platform looking out at the crowd, waving and taking in the scene through your own eyes, or were you a spectator in the crowd watching yourself getting the medal put around your neck?  This choice between "first-person" or "third-person" perspective actually has an effect on our motivation to achieve a future goal.