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NORWICH (Reuters) - Air from the oldest ice core confirms human activity has increased the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, scientists said on Monday. Bubbles of air in the 800,000-year-old ice, drilled in the Antarctic, show levels of CO2 changing with the climate. But the present levels are out of the previous range. "It is from air bubbles that we know for sure that carbon dioxide has increased by about 35 percent in the last 200 years," said Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey and...

<p>LEWISTON, Maine -- After one of the warmest winters on record, this coming winter will be much colder than normal from coast to coast, according to the latest edition of the venerable Farmers' Almanac.</p> <p>The nearly 190-year-old almanac, which says its forecasts are accurate 80 percent to 85 percent of the time, correctly predicted a "polar coaster" of dramatic swings for last winter, editor Peter Geiger said. For example, New York City collected 40 inches of snow even though it was one of the warmest winters in the city's history.</p>

A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian, offers a more certain projection of climate change than the body's forecasts five years ago. For the first time, scientists are confident enough to project a 3C rise on the average global daily temperature by the end of this century if no action is taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Draft Fourth Assessment Report says the temperature increase could be contained to 2C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are held at current levels. In 2001, the scientists predicted temperature rises of between...

Very obese women should be denied fertility treatment, experts say. The British Fertility Society is recommending women with a body mass index of 36 and over should not be allowed access to fertility treatment. Underweight women and those classed just as obese (BMI over 29) should be forced to address their weight before starting treatment, the society said. NHS guidelines say overweight women should be warned of the health risks, but do not impose any ban on treatment. Being overweight can put both the health of the mother and child at risk through problems such as gestational diabetes and high...

"The British Fertility Society is recommending women with a body mass index of 36 and over should not be allowed access to fertility treatment. Underweight women and those classed just as obese (BMI over 29) should be forced to address their weight before starting treatment, the society said. "

... I sat in a roomful of journalists 10 years ago while Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider lectured us on a big problem in our profession: soliciting opposing points of view. In the debate over climate change, Schneider said, there simply was no legitimate opposing view to the scientific consensus that man - made carbon emissions drive global warming. To suggest or report otherwise, he said, was irresponsible. Indeed. I attended a week's worth of lectures on global warming at the Chautauqua Institution last month. Al Gore delivered the kickoff lecture, and, 10 years later, he reiterated Schneider's directive. There is...

TUESDAY, Aug. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Adult obesity rates increased in 31 states during the past year, leaving an estimated two-thirds of Americans vulnerable to fatal diseases such as diabetes, stroke and cancer.This, despite federal and state government efforts to curb the overweight epidemic, according to a new report from the Trust for America's Health.The report, titled F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing America, 2006, was released Tuesday and is the third in a series of annual reports by the trust detailing state obesity rates as well as the effectiveness of government policies to fight the problem.According...

While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality -- tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds. "As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in...

Global warming could be causing some glaciers to grow, a new study claims. Researchers at Newcastle University looked at temperature trends in the western Himalaya over the past century. They found warmer winters and cooler summers, combined with more snow and rainfall, could be causing some mountain glaciers to increase in size. The findings are significant, because temperature and rain and snow trends in the area impact on water availability for more than 50 million Pakistanis. Researchers focussed on the Upper Indus Basin, which is the mainstay of the national economy of Pakistan and has 170,000 sq km of irrigated...

At the APA Conference in New Orleans — where APA President Koocher commented about the ethicality of sexual reorientation therapy — Clinton Anderson, director of the APA Office of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns, offered further commentary.* Mr. Anderson said he does not dispute that some people leave homosexuality. "I don't think that anyone disagrees with the idea that people can change, because we know that straight people become gay and lesbian — so it seems totally reasonable that some gay and lesbian people would become straight. The issue is not whether sexual orientation changes...the issue is whether therapy changes...

TORONTO (AFP) - US boys hooked on gospel, techno and pop are more at risk of HIV infection than devotees of other musical styles, including "bling, bling" hip hop, according to a new study. Musical tastes may offer clues to rates of HIV infection, said researchers who tried to decipher the complex behaviors and attitudes of young men in the United States, at a global AIDS conference.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science claims for its journal Science “the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million.” Be that as it may, Science is the Dan Rather of science journalism. “Fake Data, but Could the Idea Still Be Right?” in the July 14 issue actually makes the following statement (emphases mine): European investigators last week confirmed that a pioneering oral cancer researcher in Norway had fabricated much of his work. The news left experts in his field with a pressing question: What should...

UC Davis researchers today described in unprecedented biochemical and anatomical detail how cigarette smoke damages the lungs of unborn and newborn children. The findings illustrate with increased urgency the dangers that smokers' families and friends face, said UC Davis Professor Kent Pinkerton, and should give family doctors helpful new insight into the precise hidden physical changes occurring in their young patients' lungs. "Smoke exposure causes significant damage and lasting consequences in newborns," Pinkerton said. "This research has a message for every parent: Do not smoke or breathe secondhand smoke while you are pregnant. Do not let your children breathe secondhand...

Brilliant men always betray their wives Einstein's affairs should surprise no one, says Desmond Morris. It is all in the genius's genes So Albert Einstein did not, after all, spend all his waking hours chalking up complex symbols on a blackboard. According to letters newly released this week, he devoted quite a bit of it to chasing the ladies. And with considerable success. To many, the idea of Einstein having 10 mistresses does not fit the classical image of the great, remote genius. Why was he wasting his valuable time with the exhausting business of conducting a string of illicit...

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say. “American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University. The researchers combined...

Aug. 7, 2006 — - Last week President Bush underwent his annual physical. It revealed he was in pretty good health, except for one thing. According to his body mass index, he's overweight. His BMI was 26, putting him in the lower range of the overweight category. He weighs 196 pounds, meaning he has gained 5 pounds since last year and his percentage of body fat has increased to 16.8 percent, which is, overall, pretty good for a man who just turned 60. (To calculate your BMI, go here). Still, the appropriate body weight range is 157 to 192 pounds...

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met with more than a dozen top business officials to discuss climate change -- executives who have gathered in support of mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. Imagine that: Big Business stepping up to the plate, but the Bush administration refusing to take a seat at the table. That's a conspicuous absence for a president who says that climate change "is a challenge that requires a 100-percent effort; ours and the rest of the world's." But it's not surprising for a president whose preferred policy is to rewrite science to protect...

10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part III) [Note: This is the third part in the list of ways in which neo-Darwinist critics are helping to promote the theory of intelligent design.] SEE HERE FOR PART 1: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1677236/posts HERE FOR PART 2 : http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1679245/posts #8 By separating origins of life science from evolutionary explanations. – Nature is too complex to be encompassed in any one field. That is why it’s necessary for scientific disciplines (physics, biology, chemistry) to be broken down into sub-disciplines (cosmology, zoology, biochemistry, etc.). But while most scientists may not have no problems thinking in unconnected categories,...

Just out of curiosity, I did a little research about Google trends to see which countries other than the USA are interested in the issue of Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. SEE THE RESULT HERE : http://www.google.com/trends?q=Intelligent+Design&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all Now, Click on the “regions” tab. What is interesting is... it shows that our good ally in the War on Terror, Australia has about half the searches for Intelligent Design that we do. But please note that Australia’s population is about 20 million. The USA on the other hand has about 280 million people. This shows that Australia's INTEREST for ID is about 6...

Sport hunting of mountain lions in the American West does not reduce the number of attacks by the animals, also called cougars and pumas, against man and livestock, said a study released on Tuesday "Sport hunting is nothing more than the random shooting of mountain lions for fun, it does not reduce attacks on people or livestock, as far as we can tell from any of the evidence," said Lynn Sadler, president of the Sacramento, California-based Mountain Lion Foundation which initiated the study. "What we would like to see is that states manage them according to science, and not just...