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Con el calentamiento global y el derretimiento del hielo, ya no es fácil ser un oso polar. Algunos estudios han pronosticado que los osos polares podrían muy bien estar extintos para finales de siglo. La buena noticia es que no todos los investigadores piensan que los osos están absolutamente condenados. Los científicos del Museo Americano de Historia Natural (AMNH por sus siglas en inglés) han publicado un nuevo documento que indica que las cosas podrían no ser tan sombrías para los osos polares como se cree.

This Saturday at a conference in Quebec, Canada an international research team will present the first online data portal on global permafrost. In the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost researchers first collect all the existing permafrost temperature and active thickness layer data from Arctic, Antarctic and mountain permafrost regions and then make it freely available for download. This new portal can serve as an early warning system for researchers and decision-makers around the globe. A detailed description of the data collection is published today in an open access article on the Earth System Science Data portal.

Although the world's permafrost is one of the most important pieces in Earth's climate-system puzzle, to date it has been missing in most climate models. The reason: data on temperature and the active layer thickness were neither comprehensive nor were they available in a standard format suitable for modelling. With the new Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P), scientists from 25 countries have now filled this gap in the data.

Rutgers engineers have developed a breakthrough device that can significantly reduce the cost of sophisticated lab tests for medical disorders and diseases, such as HIV, Lyme disease and syphilis.

The new device uses miniaturized channels and valves to replace “benchtop” assays – tests that require large samples of blood or other fluids and expensive chemicals that lab technicians manually mix in trays of tubes or plastic plates with cup-like depressions.

“The main advantage is cost – these assays are done in labs and clinics everywhere,” said Mehdi Ghodbane, who earned his doctorate in biomedical engineering at Rutgers and now works in biopharmaceutical research and development at GlaxoSmithKline.

Sometimes it is good to take stock, sit back and take a look at the wider picture in relation to the electric car market. Each day seems to bring yet another raft of criticism, concerns and cheap shots at an industry which has come on in leaps and bounds over the last decade. While where we are today is certainly some way from the finish line there is no doubt that amazing progress has been made with the likes of Tesla pushing the industry to new highs.

So, why are people so negative about electric cars and unable or unwilling to appreciate the technology which it has created?