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Boring lessons, geeky stereotypes and poor careers advice have turned many pupils off science. That has to change, says science minister Lord Drayson, as a new children's science education centre opens in LondonBlue Peter presenter Helen Skelton assumed her cousin Kate's job was boring. Kate was a scientist, after all. It was only since Kate died a fortnight ago, aged 27, that Skelton realised how wrong she had been.She discovered that Kate was in fact a globetrotting atmospheric chemist who measured the ozone layer around the world and had just finished a PhD.'I never really asked what she did,' Skelton says. 'I thought it was just some boring science thing. When I found out, I was blown away. Maybe if I'd known more about science, I would have gone into that too.'Skelton was speaking to scientists and teachers as she opened a new children's science education centre, Centre of the Cell, in Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, in east London, last week.So why do so ma

[NEWS] A study that tracked genetic mutations through the human equivalent of about 5,000 years has demonstrated for the first time that oxidative DNA damage is a primary cause of the process of mutation - the fuel for evolution but also a leading cause of aging, cancer and other diseases. The research, just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also indicated that natural selection is affecting the parts of the genome that don't contain genes – supposedly “junk&…

Aquaculture, once a fledgling industry, now accounts for 50 percent of the fish consumed globally, according to a new report by an international team of researchers. And while the industry is more efficient than ever, it is also putting a significant strain on marine resources by consuming large amounts of feed made from wild fish harvested from the sea, the authors conclude. Their findings are published in the Sept. 7 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

A new method for 'recycling' hydrogen-containing fuel materials could open the door to economically viable hydrogen-based vehicles. In a new study, researchers describe a significant advance in hydrogen storage science.

Targeted investments in climate science could lead to major benefits in reducing the costs of adapting to a changing climate, according to new research. The study shows that investments made now, can lead to as much as 10-20 percent improvement in climate predictions for the UK and Europe in the coming decades, and up to 20 percent across the rest of the globe.

The Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), today announced the launch of a 3-Dimensional (3D) Through-Silicon Vi...

LYON, France (Reuters) - Robots that can make their own decisions have so far been confined to science fiction movies, but a child-sized figure with big eyes and a white face is trying hard to turn fiction into reality.

This summer, a group of scientists and students -- as well as a Canadian senator, a writer, and a filmmaker -- set out from Resolute Bay, Canada, on the icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent. They were headed through the Northwest Passage, but instead of opening shipping lanes in the ice, they had gathered to open up new lines of thinking on Arctic science.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry convenes its 56th Annual Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii October 27-November 1, 2009. Registration for the meeting is free for credentialed journalists. Who More than 3,500 child and adolescent psychiatrists and allied experts on childhood and adolescent mental illnesses from the United States and more than 100 countries.

(DOE/Joint Genome Institute) Through a novel genomic approach detailed in the Sept. 7 online edition and on the cover Sept. 14 of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists led by the University of New South Wales and the DOE JGI demonstrates how the microbial diversity of the oceans can be analyzed without necessarily cultivating samples in the laboratory.