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Researcher estimates two-thirds of the population experiences "social jet lag"

LONDON (Reuters) - Field trials are under way in England of a genetically modified (GM) wheat that strikes fear into aphids and attracts a deadly predator to devour them, providing an alternative to the insecticides now used to control the crop pest. The wheat emits a pheromone which aphids release when they are under attack to create panic and prompt the insects to flee, John Pickett, scientific leader of chemical ecology at Rothamsted Research in eastern England, said on Wednesday

Water, water, everywhere. But will we always have enough to drink? Wash away our waste?

That sound you do not hear is a half-million people not sighing in relief as the reservoir that slakes the thirst of the population of Raleigh, NC, and many surrounding smaller towns nears capacity for the first time in nearly a year. And on this World Water Day, when many turn their attention to the billions in the world who lack access to clean water, it s worth reminding ourselves that those of us who do have access to water take it for granted shamefully. Which makes it nice that Raleigh has joined dozens of cities in signing an open letter created by Corporate Accountability International to President Obama requesting better funding for the nation s water infrastructure

Last week President Obama signed a sweeping aviation bill that, among other things, will open the skies to “unmanned aircraft systems,” more commonly known as drones. Much of the discussion regarding the coming era of domestic drones has been focused on the many important questions regarding their use at low altitudes. To what extent will it be legal, for example, for drones to hover 300 feet above residential neighborhoods snapping pictures into backyards and windows?

The death of an adult female kakapo ( Strigops habroptila ) on New Zealand’s Anchor Island this past weekend brings the population of these rare flightless parrots down to just 127 birds. The late kakapo, known as Sandra, was killed when her transmitter harness got entangled in a tree. All kakapos are outfitted with transmitters to help rangers in the Kakapo Recovery program keep track of the birds.

(Reuters) - A slithering, surging population of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, many of them escaped or abandoned pets, appears to be eating its way through many animals native to the sensitive wetlands, according to a new study. Researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienc e found what they characterized as "severe declines" in the population of small and mid-sized native mammals in the 1.5 million-acre national park and linked it to the growing presence of Burmese pythons.

WHY CRIME DROPPED In “ How New York Beat Crime ,” Franklin E. Zimring refers only incidentally to a decline since 1990 in the “percentage of the population in the most arrest-prone bracket, between 15 and 29,” in both New York and the nation.

This year has been the worst in recent history for natural disasters in the U.S., with record-level floods, fires, and hurricanes.

The 800-pound Goliath grouper was near extinction before conservation measures brought it back from the brink. What happens when it starts being harvested again? The fisheries in the Atlantic ocean--from North Carolina to the Caribbean--are best characterized by what's missing: snappers, groupers, redfish, lobster and the host of other species that once patrolled hundreds of miles of the Gulf Stream

When honey is your main ingredient, the prospect of bees dying is quite real and dire. Hence Honeydrop's plan to donate profits to bees, to keep its supplies flowing. Honeybees are more important than their small size might indicate--they pollinate one-third of U.S

From Nature magazine Fatu, a female northern white rhinoceros who lives in a Kenyan conservation park, is one of just seven of her kind left in the world. But millions of her stem cells, stored in a freezer in California, might one day help boost her population's ranks.

By asking peers to decide who deserves the most government aid--instead of using empirical measurements--money can have more lasting effects. When governments and NGOs plan on giving assistance to the most needy, how do they know who needs the most assistance? It's a question people are at great pains to answer, yet social welfare programs around the world are still plagued by error and abuse

Living in a city can be easy without a car: Just take the bus or train.

As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Although some of us are clearly better than others at dodging the