Selected Science Stories

As this is the first of these alliteratively titled "Selected Science Stories" entries, I should briefly describe now I intend them to work. As the name might suggest, they will contain links to a variety of scienced-based articles published over the previous week which I think would be of interest to Pugwash members. The content and focus of the posts can of course be varied in future according to demand.

Listed below are a few pertinent articles from the past week:

• "The South African government yesterday announced; a dramatic reversal of its approach to the country's Aids crisis, promising increased availability of drugs and endorsing the efforts of civic groups battling the disease" - The Guardian;
  
• The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change will be published on Monday 30th October, the result of 15 months investigation into the potential economic impacts of climate change, associated with both mitigation and adaptation. The BBC anticipates the results;
• The US nuclear-weapons complex is too large and is likely to remain so, given its plan to build a new facility capable of producing 125 plutonium "pits" per year - Brief review article in Nature;
• "The theory of evolution is a lie," Mirosaw Orzechowski, Poland's deputy education minister, told the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza on 14 October. "It is an error we have legalized as a common truth." - Fifty leading scientists in Poland have signed an open letter in protest against an aggressive anti-evolution campaign launched by the League of Polish Families (LPR), the ultra-right-wing coalition partner in the conservative Polish government. - Nature.