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California scientists may have discovered a source of unlimited clean energy by recreating the process of nuclear fusion which powers the sun. Researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in Livermore were able to spark a fusion reaction that briefly sustained itself - a major feat because fusion requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out. The experiment was performed in August, but reported for the first time earlier this month. Similar tests have been performed before, but this was the first one that generated more energy than was used to create...

It is now possible to tell the story of mankind's presence and evolution on the planet by analyzing trends in soil and sediment accumulation of fecal sterols, chemical compounds which are crucial in human physiology. Scientists at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes of the National Research Council (CNR-IDPA) have identified and dated traces of sterols within the sediments of two New Zealand lakes, thus proving the presence of the Maori people who, starting from around 1280, colonized the two oceanic islands and cleared them of forests in just a few decades...

Genetic researchers may have resolved a long-standing dispute by proving there are two species of African elephant.Savannah and forest elephants have been separated for at least three million years, they say, and are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants are from the extinct woolly mammoth. The researchers also made what they say are the first sequences of nuclear DNA from the extinct American mastodon. > "The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths," said Michi Hofreiter, a specialist in ancient DNA at the UK's York...

Climate Change: Some in Congress think global warming is so important it should be an issue of national defense, not science. It's a wrongheaded and dangerous idea, one that shows how crazy the debate has become. Unfortunately, the proposal to make global warming a matter of national security is bipartisan, with Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, joining Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, as co-sponsors. If nothing else, this proves neither party has a monopoly on wisdom. According to the Boston Globe, their plan calls for the U.S. intelligence chief to produce a "national intelligence estimate" on global warming....

<p>A division of the National Institutes of Health gave $263,038 in research grants to the Kinsey Institute during the past five years, congressional investigators have learned.</p> <p>The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development disclosed its grants to the Kinsey Institute in a letter to Rep. Mark Souder, Indiana Republican and chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources.</p>

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCERhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/136294_firstperson25.html First Person: Looking for liberals? Follow brainsMonday, August 25, 2003By GREG JAMESGUEST COLUMNISTFor several years I've been listening to folks of the conservative persuasion going on about the liberal bias in the media, in Hollywood and among elites on the West and East coasts. There's no denying that liberals outnumber conservatives on the two coasts. It is also apparent if you work in certain fields like education, the arts, or high tech that liberals also greatly outnumber conservatives there, too. Is this some kind of conspiracy or is it just a fact that you get many more liberals...

At a time when religious and conservative right-wing groups are attempting to dismiss homosexuality as "unnatural," a leading zoologist has said gay people could be seen as the "pinnacle of evolution." Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Clive Bromhall said that humankind's evolution has resulted in our present state of "infantilism," in which we break the primate mold by being playful, creative and childlike right into adulthood. "From men's obsession with swollen breasts to our constant search for a pseudoparental God, everything about the human species is infantile," Bromhall said in a lecture. "Like baby chimps, we have soft, downy...