Weedy weather
US farmlands will get weedier over the next few decades, as climate change is expected to give a bigger boost to weeds than to crop plants. The prediction is one of many in a study of the effects of climate change on US ecosystems released this week by the US Department of Agriculture.
Who cares what happens?
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The more Democrats know about global warming, the more concerned they are. But Republicans who consider themselves well informed on the topic seem no more worried than those who profess ignorance. This is because conservative news sources are often highly sceptical of climate science, say a pair of political psychologists at Stanford University.
Monkey-robot harmony
A monkey has made a robotic arm convey tasty treats to its mouth using thought alone. The arm鈥檚 creators, led by Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, say this is the first practical task performed by a brain-controlled robotic arm and a big step towards a device that could help amputees and paraplegics (Nature, ).
First micro-RNA trial
A drug that knocks out the 鈥渕icro RNAs鈥� that usually halt protein production has entered clinical trials as a possible treatment for hepatitis C. Other forms of RNA interference work by silencing genes, but this approach increases the amount of protein that gets translated, providing a new way to treat disease.
How the snowball melted
An outpouring of methane 635 million years ago may have ended 鈥渟nowball Earth鈥� 鈥� a time when ice shrouded the globe. According to Martin Kennedy鈥檚 team at the University of California at Riverside, instability in the ice sheets or local warming may have triggered the release. The gas鈥檚 warming effect released yet more methane, quickly melting the ice (Nature, vol 453, p 642).