Issue # 248 _ October 2016

Cover

The fragile health of adolescents: Two national studies warn of elevated levels of excess weight, hypertension, total cholesterol and sedentariness
Turbulent times: One third of Brazilian adolescents show signs of psychological distress

S&T Policy

Challenges made-to-order

Eighteen São Paulo private institutes conduct research to respond to demands in health, technology, agriculture, and social sciences

DISSEMINATION

How to use knowledge

British report rates experiments to broaden the reach of information based on scientific evidence

EPHEMERALITY

Time for transformative innovation

Conference marks 50 years of the Science Policy Research Unit, a leader in economics and science policy

Science

ASTRONOMY

Titan’s landscape

Liquid methane creates canyons and lakes, while winds shape dunes and plains on the icy surface of Saturn's largest moon

GEOLOGY

The turbulent formation of an ocean

Researchers disagree on how the ocean advanced into what is now Brazil’s inland Northeast 115 million years ago and connected the North and South Atlantic oceans

BIOINFORMATICS

Programs for an integrated biology

New software examines the role of gene networks in triggering diseases

ZOOLOGY

Obama crosses the Atlantic

A flatworm native to Brazil and named after a U.S. president is now spreading across Europe

BIODIVERSITY

Appearances are deceiving

Integrated genetic and ecological studies reveal evolutionary processes

ECOLOGY

Aquatic America

Habitat degradation could threaten the stability of the world’s largest fish diversity

Melanoma

Less severe melanoma

Protein action may promote a milder progression of skin tumors

Immunology

Zika vaccines

Volunteers in the United States and Canada receive first doses of two vaccine candidates intended to prevent Zika virus infection

Technology

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Faster and more interactive

Brazilian researchers are working on developing the 5G system for mobile devices, forecast for the 2020s

Interconnectivity

Traffic on the net

Even without an Internet connection, this system enables vehicles to exchange information about urban traffic conditions

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Combating dry land

When combined with soil, super absorbent natural polymers can make agricultural crops viable in arid regions

Humanities

IMMIGRATION

Unity from a distance

At first strongly attached to their regions of origin, Italians in Brazil developed the notion of Italianness

Urbanism

A place to live

Research indicates that urban areas marked as priority for low-income housing only function as complementary measures