A new study out of Carnegie Mellon University reveals that people who regard themselves as humanitarians are even more likely than others to base donations to the poor on whether they believe poverty is a result of bad luck or bad choices.

The study by Christina Fong, a research scientist in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon, supports previous findings that people are more likely to give money to the poor when they believe that poverty is a result of misfortune rather than laziness. What’s surprising is that this effect is largest among people who claim to have more humanitarian or egalitarian beliefs. In fact, humanitarians give no more than others when recipients are deemed to be poor because of laziness.

A new study raises the issue of a direct link between breast cancer incidence and use of postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT).

Breast cancer incidence and mammography screening rates during 1980–2006 showed similar but not synchronous periodic fluctuations. The implication that HT use equates to the risk of breast cancer is therefore too simplistic and inappropriate.

The medical community has been debating for many years whether, and to what extent, postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) use is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer, says Professor Amos Pines, President of the International Menopause Society.

A team of researchers is seeking to determine if an ingredient found in shrimp and lobster shells might make future missions to Mars safer for space crews who could be injured along the way.

Scientists from Harvey Mudd College (HMC) in California and the University of Louisville are collaborating with bioengineering and biomaterials company BioSTAR West on research efforts to better understand how to treat injuries aboard long space flights. This effort is directed and led by Hawaii Chitopure Inc., a Honolulu based biomaterials company specializing in the U.S. manufacture of ultra-pure chitosan, a polymer developed from the shells of crustaceans, such as lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. The team has developed experiments using chitosan, which has recently gained approval in the U.S.

Sounds like heresy, right? "Renewable and nuclear heresies" is the name of the paper written by Jesse Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment for the Rockefeller University in New York.

Ausubel was one of the main organizers of the first UN World Climate Conference in Geneva (1979) so he was an early proponent of getting the global warming issue on scientific and political agendas. Following that, he led the Climate Task of the Resources and Environment Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (1979-1981), an East-West think-tank created by the U.S. and USSR academies of sciences.

He's as green as it gets.

The emergence of nanotechnology brings with it the opportunity to manipulate materials at practically the molecular level. So, could a nanotech computer be built?

Robert Blick and colleagues in the department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison think so. They propose a new type of electromechanical computer built from components a millionth the thickness of the human hair.

Mechanical? Before silicon chips or even transistors there were fictional dreams of levers, ratchets and cogs, complete with brass fittings that could solve mysteriers.

Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center have identified a genetically-transmitted metabolic defect that can lead to obesity in some individuals. The defect involves decreased production of liver enzymes needed to burn fat and may help to explain why some people become obese while others remain thin.

The global obesity epidemic is thought to be caused in part by the increased availability and intake of high calorie foods rich in fat and carbohydrates. These foods promote weight gain in humans and other animals, leading to a diet-induced obesity. The propensity to gain weight and become obese when consuming a high-fat diet is at least partially controlled by genes.