The Ecuadorian government has devised a novel, albeit idealistic, plan to prevent gas and oil development in the Yasuní National Park in hopes of protecting biodiversity and combating climate change. The proposal, known as the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, would leave untouched nearly
one billion barrels of oil that lie beneath the national Park in Ecuador.

When you use popular search engines like Google or Yahoo to find something on the internet, the information you input is collected and built into a profile that helps those companies market products you may find interesting. Your favorite search engines justify this practice by claiming that it allows them to learn about your interests and offer more efficient responses as a result.

That's well and good if you don't care about privacy. But if you do, a team of researchers has developed a new protocol based on cryptographic tools to distort the user profile generated by internet search engines, in such a way that they cannot save the searches undertaken by internet users and thus preserve their privacy.

People living in volcanic areas may face a higher risk for thyroid cancer, says a new study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

While the increasing incidence of thyroid cancer has been attributed to more sensitive screening, recent evidence suggests that this may not be the only cause. Various environmental factors, such as those associated with volcanoes, have not been excluded as risk factors.

The authors point out that a volcanic environment—which can produce toxic compounds that are suspended particulate matter and gases and elements that may pollute the water—could increase the incidence of thyroid cancer; however, the mechanism by which it affects risk is unknown.

Biologists say they have found a population of tropical butterflies that may be on its way to a split into two distinct species. The cause of this particular break-up? A shift in wing color and mate preference.

In a paper published this week in the journal Science, the researchers describe the relationship between diverging color patterns in Heliconius butterflies and the long-term divergence of populations into new and distinct species.

Comics have typically been shunned by educators and parents who want to promote literacy among children. After all, kids should be reading "real" books, which are more complex and require more effort to understand than colorful, picture-filled comic books. 

But according to University of Illinois library scientist Carol L. Tilley, this critical view of comics is unnecessary--and even harmful. Tilley says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of literature, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other types of books.

A photograph of John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle and a copy of The Militant communist paper in 1963 is authentic, says Dartmouth Computer Scientist Hany Farid, a pioneer in the field of digital forensics, who digitally analyzed the iconic image of Oswald pictured in a backyard a few months before the assassination. 

Oswald and various conspiracy theorists claimed that the incriminating photo was a fake, stating the lighting and shadows were inconsistent, but after analyzing the photo with modern-day forensic tools, Farid says the photo almost certainly was not altered.

Experts long ago said that this image had not been tampered with, but a surprising number of skeptics still assert that there was a conspiracy.