Dealing with Futile Fears

Keeping up with bioterrorism fears

The threat of bioterrorism has had a recent airing in the UK with radio adverts calling for volunteers to test a new anthrax vaccine. But even if the threat is relatively minor in comparison to real and possible natural disasters such as AIDS or influenza, its presence in political and public debate implies that the scientific community has to deal with it in some way. In November 2003, the Wel...

Dealing with

This paper proposes how to extend Pappi, a principles and parameters parser which can currently parse ten languages based on the same core grammar, to handle nominalization constructions in Mandarin Chinese by deliberately revising the periphery file without affecting the other languages. There are four categories of nominalizations: relative clauses with a head noun as an adjunct, relative cla...

Childhood Fears

G20 fears

37 per cent of all human-induced methane, which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain. Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, the report says, mostly on permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land — used to produce feed for livestock, the report ...

Jab fears

Antarctic summer saw the largest ship ever visit Antarctica: the Star Princess with 3,500 passengers and crew sailed amongst humpback whales and colonies of gentoo penguins. But, at a meeting this month in New Zealand of the treaty nations, several regulations are expected to be tightened for the southern high latitudes with knock-on effects for the Arctic. The meeting may also finally prohibit...

Coral fears

reached so far to the south-east of Africa as Natal, seems to me extraordinary”, wrote Witherby. The primary purpose of bird ringing was to map bird migration, and much information about migration routes and winter and summer destinations has been obtained over the past century. Ringing is still based on the original principles but techniques have been refined and improved. And researchers have...