Another alarming study regarding global warming has surfaced, revealing that tropical species are also in trouble. According to the UCLA and the University of Washington, warming can cause population of animals and insects in the tropics to decline, which adversely hurts the ecosystem. See the full article for details.

It's very probable that alien life exists out there. But when we finally encounter such life forms, how do we know that the figure we're staring at is indeed an alien?

The US National Academy of Sciences is convinced that trying to search for any life forms similar to those on Earth would cause us to easily miss the actual aliens that take on a more bizarre appearance.

NASA commissioned a report from the National Research Council regarding the search of alien life forms. The resulting report's gist can be summed up as thus: "Nothing is quite as it seems."

Space experts said that those looking for aliens should be searching with an open mind. "The purpose of this whole report was to be able to look for life on other planets and moons with an open mind ... and not maybe miss some other life form because we are looking for some obvious life form", said John Baross, a professor of oceanography for the University of Washington.

Recent discoveries of organisms lurking in places where life shouldn't be possible under normal circumstances (called extremophiles) are changing the scientists' perception on where and how life exists in outer space. Prof. Baross also added that the existence or non-existence of water is not necessary critical in the search of alien life.

With so many concepts cropping up with each new discovery in outer space, it's entirely possible that strange chemicals such as methane and ammonia are being used by other organisms in the same way as humans and most Earth-dwelling creatures use oxygen. "There are so many theories about what life is and what could be a living system," Prof. Baross said.

For the meantime, NASA as well as other groups are still on the search for alien life forms. Robots dropped off in Mars are hard at work looking for water, or traces of water. Telescopes scan the outer space for planets with bodies of water.

NASA has been advised to look within our own solar system again for clues of life, such as Venus or even Saturn's moons, Titan and Enceladus. Baross said that it would be best to try and think out of the box for a bit, and find other ways or possibilities on how life exists on other planets besides water.

Natural beats artificial? According to a study released by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, at least 40, 000 birds in North America die every year due to striking electricity-generating wind turbines. The figure is further broken down to the estimate that it takes around 30 turbines to kill one bird every year.

In comparison, bird deaths due to the domestic house cat have been attributed to figures in the hundreds of millions.

Similar studies conducted in Europe seem to point at similar figures, with a published report in Spain - the third largest wind power-producer in the world - indicating similarly low bird deaths attributed to their turbines.

But while these reports indicate a gradual debunking of the strongly held belief that wind turbines are a major cause of avian death, environmentalists from Europe don't appear to be thoroughly convinced.

"My personal opinion is that the evidence base is very poor," says Andrew Pullin head of the Birmingham, UK-based Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation regarding the US report.

Spanish environmentalist Alvaro Camiña, who monitors 70 of his home country's 140 wind farms comments that the numbers don't provide for all important details. He states the case of the griffon vulture: "It's important to know the mortality of large birds because they have a lower number of offspring. Even a small number of deaths can affect a population."

On the other side of the fence, wind turbine-dependent power firms assert that the bird deaths attributed to their machinery is  taken out of context. "I heard that over 1,000 birds a year run into the Washington Monument. Should we tear that down?" said PowerWorks president Rich Koebbe regarding the matter. "We're out here trying to do a job to save the Earth. We even save birds, since they are twice as vulnerable to pollution as humans."

You all know that up and coming Olympic Games 2008 will be held next year in Beijing, China. No problem? Well, not really because historical data states that the event will be greeted by rains starting from the opening ceremony on August 8, 2008 and way past the closing ceremony two weeks after.

Chinese meteorologists are saying though that they will force rain to fall way before the Olympics begin with the help of cloud-seeding. The process, basically, cleans up the air to ensure clear skies. But cloud-seeding is not something we can refer to as a scientific process yet as that matter is still being debated by scientists.

Actually, China has been trying to tweak the atmospheric conditions for decades now but the majority of the scientific community maintain that the science behind "cloud-seeding" is just plain weak. In fact, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences had already questioned this way back in 2003.

China, on the other hand, answered back that it is proven to increase rainfall. Last May 2006, Beijing Weather Modification Office claimed that they were able to generate more rainfall by firing seven rocket shells containing 163 cigarette-size sticks of silver iodide over the city's skies. This, then, caused chemical reactions that forced four-tenths of an inch of rain.

The point is, we all want a sunny Olympics event. It has not been confirmed yet if cloud-seeding actually works or not. But for the benefit of the event, we well wish that it does.

People frown upon stuff that are genetically modified because they are deemed unnatural. But would you mind having genetically modified mosquitoes around if in the end they would be able to eradicate malaria?

This is the impending question underlying the fact that GM mosquitoes have been produced to be resistant to the malaria parasite, which has been known to kill three million people annually. The initial impression is that GM mosquitoes are naturally weaker than the hardcore wild ones. But all that's about to be debunked now as the National Academy of Sciences has garnered sufficient proof to show that the GM mosquito can actually go head to head, and even outrun them natural bloodsuckers.

The team, with Dr. Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena of the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, tweaked with the insects so that they will be able to create a protein which will block the malaria parasite from getting into the mosquito's system after drinking blood from its victim. With this, they will no longer be carriers of malaria.

Now the only thing left for them to do is to breed some more of them genetically modified mosquitoes. Hmmm... I wonder if they can also make one that doesn't bite.

Family reunions usually happen only after a long interim (unless you're from Italy where they have reunions like thrice a week, hehe). And no matter who you are, who your parents are, who your grandparents are, you will always have a somewhat distant aunt who would pinch your cheeks during family reunions and say: "Oh lordy! My, how you've grown! You look so much like your mother/father now!"

But those are just usually based on facial features. The same jaw, the same nose, same eyes... But sometimes, when you've had enough of the cheek-pinching, you wince. Your aunt then exclaims, "Oh lordy! That was such a face your mother/father would do!"

Yes. Facial expressions are now believed to be passed down. There's been a study from the University of Haifa in Israel (published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences") involving a group of men who were born blind. They and their relatives were all interviewed and told to make facial expressions of joy, anger, sadness. And upon analysis, the same signature of a facial expression was similar between the blind person and his relatives. Since they have been blind since birth, there would have been no way for them to have seen and copied their relatives' facial expressions.

The only explanation the researchers were able to come up with was genetics. This, however, is still not founded on any hard data of which specific genes will trigger the signature of the facial expression. The scientists are hopeful though. Meanwhile, those family reunion pictures of yours might help you find out where you "inherited" that smile.

The skeletal remains that were found in Liang Bua cave on the Central Indonesian island of Flores have created so much buzz among scientists after it has been theorized that the said remains may be that of a new and previously-unknown species of humans which were dubbed as Homo floresiensis. However, recent analysis which was done by a team of Indonesian, American, Australian and Chinese researchers has rejected this 2004 theory of "hobbits".

In the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group of scientists proposed that these skeletal remains belonged to the Homo erectus species of human ancestors who first inhabited Flores about 840,000 years ago, a date which was established by analyzing stone tools that were also found on the island. The most complete skeleton, dubbed as "LB1", actually suffered from microcephaly, a neurological disorder which is characterized by the circumference of the head which is smaller than average for the person's age and gender. Scientists believe that this may also be due to the "island effect" in the place which shrinks large-bodied species over time, thus turning Homo erectus into the dwarf-sized Homo florensiensis.

As for LB1's unusual cranium, face, teeth and stature, Robert B. Eckhardt, a professor of developmental genetics and evolutionary morphology at the Pennsylvania State University, and his team found that some of these keys features are still present in Flores' indigenous Rampasasa pygmies (sometimes spelled Rampapasa), one community of which is located less than a mile from the Liang Bua cave.

Eckhardt said that " to establish a new species, paleoanthropologists are required to document a unique complex of normal traits not found in any other species, but this was not done. The normal traits of LB1 were not unique, and its unusually small braincase was not normal."

Jaws are one of the most common weapons for animals. Lions use it. Crocodiles use it. Hell, ants use it as well, but in a slightly different way. Instead of just biting their preys (they may not have any because they're so little), the Costa Rican ant snaps its jaws shut with such force that it propels itself backwards to be out of harm's way when the "prey" fights back.

It's interesting to note that the little crawler, scientifically know as Odontomachus bauri, was recently declared to have the fastest jaws in the animal kingdom. This declaration was based on scientific findings by the National Academy of Sciences.

Lead by Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology Sheila Patek, the pool of researchers from University of California, Berkeley recorded the strike of the ant by using high-speed cameras. They found out that it indeed is the fastest, surpassing the record set before by the mantis shrimp. According to them, "the average time for a strike was 0.13 milliseconds, some 2,300 times faster than the blink of an eye."

Studies made by the The National Academy of Sciences lead to the conclusion that Earth is at its hottest in 400 years and possibly the past 2,000 years.  According to their report presented to the US Congress, the average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere was up by about 1 degree during the 20th century. This means the  fever was fanned mostly by human activities.

While the rise in temperature may not appear significant, other researches showed that global warming produced about half of the extra-strength hurricanes in the North Atlantic last year. Gerald North, a geosciences professor at Texas A&M University who chaired the academy's panel also pointed to retreating glaciers as evidence of the global warming's potentially devastating effects on the environment.

The scientists based their findings on evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources as well as indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps. Although they admitted they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600, they considered it reliable enough to conclude there were sharp increase in carbon dioxide and methane beginning in the 20th century. This after the level remained fairly level for the past 12,000 years. Carbon dioxide and methane are two major greenhouse gases thought to be responsible for for trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Although volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations between 1 A.D. and 1850 also caused changes in greenhouse gas levels, they were less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas caused by pollution since the mid-19th century. The Bush administration contends threat of global warming is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that could make 5 million Americans lose their jobs.