The 2010 edition of Science and Engineering Indicators omits any mention of evolution and the big bang in its chapter on public attitudes toward science and technology because they forced the public to "conflate knowledge and beliefs."

Author: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

Last week, more than 500 French researchers signed a letter asking French Science Minister Valérie Pécresse to disavow former science minister Claude Allègre's scathing attack on the climate research field by publicly expressing her confidence in French climate science.

Author: Martin Enserink

Last week, a federal judge in New York City used sweeping language to invalidate a handful of human gene patents, casting doubt on hundreds more.

Author: Eliot Marshall

On pages 195 and 205 of this week's issue of Science, researchers describe a group of fossils found since 2008 in Malapa cave north of Johannesburg and dated as early as 2 million years ago, which they say may be the best candidate yet for the immediate ancestor of our genus, Homo.

Author: Michael Balter

ScienceNOW reported this week that the mass of the common quark has finally been nailed down, thalidomide stances bleeding, wind turbines could support a stable electrical grid on the U.S. East Coast, and a new study reveals how much water is used by various industries, among other stories.

In a paper published online this week in Science, researchers report new evidence that Venus is still reshaping its surface—as well as cooling its interior—through volcanic outpourings like Hawaii's or Iceland's.

Author: Richard A. Kerr

Chilean scientists have estimated that the magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the country on 27 February caused some $200 million in damage to research facilities and equipment.

Author: Antonio Regalado

The social science and survey research communities that rely upon the data are watching anxiously as new procedures are being ironed out for determining which questions get asked on the American Community Survey (ACS), a monthly sampling of 3 million households a year that asks residents 75 questions about everything from their incomes and disabilities to how long it takes them to get to work.

Author: Jeffrey Mervis

ScienceInsider reported this week that the United Kingdom plans to create the world's largest marine reserve—an area larger than California—in its territorial waters in the Indian Ocean, among other stories.

A provocative model suggests that a shift in what and how we remember may have been key to the evolution of human cognition.

Author: Michael Balter

The idea that a better working memory made Homo sapiens smarter than its ancestors is attracting attention from psychologists, archaeologists, and neuroscientists alike (see main text). But now some researchers are challenging some of the basic tenets of the model it's based on.

Author: Michael Balter

The first archaeological signs of art and symbolism may mark new heights of social interaction rather than a cognitive leap.

Author: Elizabeth Culotta

A computer tournament has revealed the benefit of copying someone else's actions over solving a problem solo, a finding that has implications for cultural evolution.

Author: Elizabeth Pennisi

The pair of graduate students who designed the winning computer program in a recent social-learning tournament (see main text) obsessively spent hundreds of hours perfecting their social-learning strategy.

Author: Elizabeth Pennisi