The pick of this week's science news
Science Bus heading to Turin
If you fancy a four-week round trip to the Italian city of Turin on the Science Bus, get moving, because the closing date for applications is tomorrow.
The bus leaves from Dublin on June 20th and will visit several sites of scientific interest in Europe before arriving at Turin, the host of European City of Science 2010, which takes place from July 2nd to 7th.
The trip forms part of the publicity campaign for Dublin’s role as the 2012 City of Science, and passengers are expected to have an interest in science and communicate about their progress.
See science.ie
We mated with Neanderthals!
If you ever feel the urge to refer to someone as a Neanderthal, bear in mind that you could be partly correct, according to a new genetic study.
The research, published in the journal Science last week, analysed DNA from 80,000-year-old Neanderthal bones and compared the genetic material with samples from five people living today.
Their findings indicate that people of European and Asian origin share around 1 to 4 per cent of their nuclear DNA with Neanderthals, while people of African origin do not, suggesting that early modern humans interbred with Neanderthals after our ancestors moved out of Africa.
“We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything
From a letter published in Sciencemagazine and signed by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences