South Korea surrenders to creationist demands. Klaus Honal/Naturfoto Honal/CORBIS The evolution of Archaeopteryx will be excluded from some South Korean high-school textbooks after a creationist campaign.
Mention creationism, and many scientists think of the United States, where efforts to limit the teaching of evolution have made headway in a couple of states1. But the successes are modest compared with those in South Korea, where the anti-evolution sentiment seems to be winning its battle with mainstream science. A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. The move has alarmed biologists, who say that they were not consulted.
Bill Clinton on rebuilding Rwanda. China’s restrictive rare earth mineral policy draws global ire. A recent report from the Congressional Research Service (PDF) suggests that China's restrictive policy on rare earth mineral exports isn't going to change anytime soon.
The report comes on the heels of a renewed call for a rare earth production boost in Europe and a dispute settlement filed in March by the United States, Japan, and the European Union with the World Trade Organization over alleged unfair trading practices concerning rare earth minerals. "From 2002 to 2011, the value of US rare earth imports from China rose by 1,376 percent," the CRS report states.
"From 2010 to 2011, the value of US rare earth imports from China increased by 305 percent. " For a few years now, there has been a lot of talk about rare earth minerals. Google guilty of infringement in Oracle trial; future legal headaches loom. In what could be a major blow to Android, Google's mobile operating system, a San Francisco jury issued a verdict today that the company broke copyright laws when it used Java APIs to design the system.
The ruling is a partial victory for Oracle, which accused Google of violating copyright law. But the jury couldn't reach agreement on a second issue—whether Google had a valid "fair use" defense when it used the APIs.
Economy. Environment.