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| The latest news from the Academies
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Dec. 9 -- Energy efficiency technologies that exist today or that are likely to be developed in the near future could save considerable money as well as energy, says a new report from the National Research Council. Fully adopting these technologies could lower projected U.S. energy use 17 percent to 20 percent by 2020, and 25 percent to 31 percent by 2030.
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Dec. 8 -- The D.C. premiere of the documentary WHIZ KIDS will be held at the National Academy of Sciences on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. The film by award-winning filmmakers is about three passionate 16-year-old scientists who vie to compete in the Intel Science Talent Search. Bob Edwards, host of the “Bob Edwards Show” on Sirius XM Radio and Public Radio International, will moderate a discussion with the “whiz kids” themselves and the filmmaking team following the screening. Local students can participate in a podcast competition based on the film for prizes up to $300.
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Dec. 3 -- Past controversies over historical temperature trends and access to research data have resurfaced amid a stir over old e-mail exchanges among climate scientists that were stolen from a university in the U.K. Two National Research Council reports in particular address these issues. Guiding principles for maintaining the integrity and accessibility of research data were recommended in a report released earlier this year, and a 2006 report examined how much confidence could be placed in historical surface temperature reconstructions. [more]
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Dec. 4 -- Continuing education for health care professionals needs to be reconsidered if they are to provide high-quality care, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The report considers ways to improve the system and concludes that a new public-private institute is the best way to support a culture of learning for all health professionals. Also, an expanded vision of professional development provides a promising approach to improve the quality of learning through a more comprehensive system.
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| Breaking stories in science
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Dec. 7 -- Leaders from across the globe convened today in Copenhagen for a United Nations conference to discuss a plan to combat climate change. One of the goals of the summit, which runs through Dec. 18, is to work on a follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
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Dec. 4 -- After four years of collaboration, researchers have nearly completed sequencing the B73 corn genome, cataloging over 32,000 genes (more genes than are in human DNA) and 2.3 billion base nucleotides. Corn is one of the most widely grown grains in the world, and the B73 strain -- one of the most common -- has the largest genetic blueprint discovered for any plant species mapped to date. The completed mapping has implications for developing higher yield, disease resistant, drought resistant, and more nutritious crop strains.
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Nov. 23 -- President Obama today announced a new nationwide effort to create public-private partnerships to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and encourage more students to pursue careers in these fields. The campaign, called Educate to Innovate, will focus on mobilizing resources to help already-successful programs reach more young people and on using media such as video games and television to aid learning in math and science, among other goals.
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Nov. 19 -- Last week, for the first time in four years, a competitor in NASA’s "space elevator" challenge qualified for one of the contest's cash prizes. Part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program, the contest challenges participants to transmit power from a remote transmittor to a device that climbs a cable suspended one kilometer high.
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Nov. 9 -- A new report from the national science academies of seven African countries estimates that the lives of nearly 4 million women, newborns, and children in sub-Saharan Africa could be saved every year if already well-established, affordable health interventions reached 90 percent of families. The report was released at the annual conference of the African Science Academy Development Initiative in Accra, Ghana.
[more]
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