–The Human Genome turns ten years old this summer. Ten years ago President Clinton and British Prime Minister Blair announced that a draft copy of all 3 billion letters of the genetic code had been finished. The combined public and private effort cost nearly $3 billion and took eleven years. Ten years after completion, what progress has science achieved for these efforts? Continue reading The Human Genome: Ten years later
–When BP CEO Tony Hayward admits that “this is an environmental catastrophe” and President Obama proclaims from the Oval Office “already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,” the gravity of the crisis cannot be denied. Eleven workers killed. Fishing industries shut down. Ecosystems under siege. All the while, oil continues to gush from an undersea well at a rate of up to two and a half million gallons a day. We are saddened and overwhelmed, but we are also curious about the science behind the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. What steps led to this catastrophe? How long will it last, and where do we go from here? Continue reading The BP Oil Spil