Ireland needs ‘stars’ of science to develop research environment

Minister for Research and Innovation Damien English: “Absolutely convinced” that investment in research was important for Ireland. Photograph: The Irish Times

Ireland needs to recruit internationally recognised scientific “stars” to help grow our research ecosystem. They help build reputation but also support the Government’s jobs agenda through their discoveries, said the director general of Science Foundation Ireland.

Prof Mark Ferguson was speaking earlier on Thursday as the foundation released its performance report for 2014 and its plans for 2015.

Ireland needed stars, internationally recognised names who are willing to move here to conduct their research. “These people are rare. We have two but we need 20 or 30.”

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170-year-old mystery of famed Irish Arctic explorer solved

In the spring of 1845, Sir John Franklin set out to explore the 300-year-old mystery of the Northwest Passage, a possible sea route through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean above Canada.
After Franklin’s death in 1847, second in command Captain Francis Crozier took over the expedition.
The Banbridge, County Down-born hero, his two ships and entire crew vanished in the frozen wasteland of the Arctic without a trace, and the mysterious disappearance has remained a puzzle for nearly two centuries
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Survival of the Nicest’ demonstrates altruism all around

Survival of the Nicest: How Altruism Made Us Human and Why It Pays to Get Along
Stefan Klein
The Experiment,
It’s comforting to assume that an altruistic nature has made us the civilized humans we are. But it’s less easy to prove. After all, we evolved from hominids who had to fight and scratch — often each other — to get by. Natural selection would seem to favor a selfish type who lives to procreate.
In Survival of the Nicest, newly released in paperback, Klein offers a slew of evidence to the contrary,
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2015 A look ahead: What's hot | What's not

British chemist Humphry Davy once said that “nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate … that there are no new worlds to conquer.” In that spirit, Science takes a look at trends and ideas that preoccupied the scientific community last year—and makes some guesses at what new themes are likely to take hold in 2015. Our—subjective!—list, in no particular order, for your consideration:
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Members of Congress request investigation into U.S. monkey lab

Four members of Congress have asked the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate psychological experiments on monkeys being carried out at an NIH lab in Poolesville, Maryland. The letter, which comes in response to an aggressive campaign by the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), claims that for more than 30 years researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have been “removing [macaques] from their mothers at birth and subjecting them to distressful and sometimes painful procedures that measure their anxiety and depression.”
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India’s major science funders join open-access push

Two of India’s major science funding agencies are joining the push to make the results of the research they fund freely available to the public.
India’s Ministry of Science & Technology earlier this month announced it will require researchers who receive even just part of their funding from its biotechnology and science and technology departments to deposit copies of their papers in publicly accessible depositories. The two departments are the primary government sources for life science research funding in India.
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Arctic Is Warming Twice As Fast As World Average

The latest word from scientists studying the Arctic is that the polar region is warming twice as fast as the average rise on the rest of the planet. And researchers say the trend isn't letting up. That's the latest from the 2014 Arctic Report Card — a compilation of recent research from more than 60 scientists in 13 countries. The report was released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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