On:

One would assume this refers to cussing or name-calling, but that’s not it: ordinary words such as "dance," "dinosaurs," "birthday," "Halloween," "divorce," and have been banned from standardized tests in New York City, lest they offend certain religious groups.

In the New York Post, Yoav Gonen quotes a Dept. of Education spokesman as saying, "This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction," but other officials say such exclusions are normal procedure.
read more

On:

When plants talk to each other, what do they say? Some of them compare notes on how to survive a drought and plants that have been subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience.

This discovery could lead to development of crops better able to withstand drought. This research also confirms what home gardeners and nursery professionals have often learned through hard experience: Transplants do better when water is withheld for a few days to harden them to drought before they’re moved.
read more

On:

We recently reported that changes in the Arctic could halt the Gulf Stream–maybe changing our climate permanently. Now climatologists are warning us that the world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter.

We have only about 10 years left to control greenhouse gas emissions, and if we don’t (and it doesn’t look like we will), the world will reach thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests.
read more