PhysOrg.com

New study points to agriculture in frog sexual abnormalities
A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot. But University of Florida scientists have found the opposite is true. In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians, UF zoologists have found that toads in suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms - where some had both testes and ovaries.

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Probing Question: What is the history of tattooing?
You might not think the sullen, tattooed teenager skulking around your local record store has anything in common with Winston Churchill, but you would be wrong. Sir Winston, King George V, and the slaves of ancient Greece — to name a few — all have their place in the colorful history of skin decoration.

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IBM Technology to Protect Customer Data in the Call Center Industry
Researchers at IBM's India Research Laboratory have developed advanced data masking technology that helps call centers protect critical data without disrupting customer service or business operations. As IBM continuously seeks new methods to ensure privacy and security, the company intends to utilize this capability in its own call center operations to further protect information for its services clients around the world.

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Prevalence of religious congregations affects mortality rates
LSU associate professor of sociology Troy C. Blanchard recently found that a community's religious environment - that is, the type of religious congregations within a locale - affects mortality rates, often in a positive manner. These results were published in the June issue of Social Forces, a leading journal in the field of sociology.

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Neither Rain Nor Sleet Will Stop NASA's Ares Rockets
Barry Roberts wants to help build a better rocket…one that can fly despite record low temperatures, one that hail and rain can`t stop.

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Ancient marine invertebrate diversity less explosive than thought
Diversity among the ancestors of such marine creatures as clams, sand dollars and lobsters showed only a modest rise beginning 144 million years ago with no clear trend afterwards, according to an international team of researchers. This contradicts previous work showing dramatic increases beginning 248 million years ago and may shed light on future diversity.

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Nature reserves attract humans, but at a cost to biodiversity
Rather than suppressing local communities in developing nations, nature reserves attract human settlement, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Local elite rule over small villages in Indonesia
Dutch-sponsored researcher Y. Argo Twikromo has investigated how the local ruling elite have retained their political control over the local population. He has tried to understand and analyse the dynamic processes of state formation and the interaction between national states and local communities.

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UN's climate change guru sees record oil price as a positive
The UN's top climate change official said Thursday that record oil prices, which have surged to 146 dollars a barrel, were positive for the environment.

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Japan beefs up undersea quake monitoring system
Japan, one of the most tremor-prone countries in the world, started work Thursday to beef up its undersea earthquake monitoring system.

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