Once more, we at Darwin Central bring you a weekly wrap-up of the not-so-monumental science news of the week.

Leading off this week’s science news odds ‘n ends we have an announcement by 4-H of a program to “develop 1 million new scientists and engineers in the next five years.”  To kick off this effort, 4-H is featuring a National Science Experiment at their National Youth Science Day (Oct. 8).  Considering that of late we’ve seen an unabashed war on science from just about every quarter of American society, this is awesome news.

One of the major wellsprings of the anti-science movement in this country has often been religious fervor.  Numerous voices on either side have tried to reconcile religion and science to one degree or another.  Now Francis Collins of the Human Genome Project has added his voice to the mix.  Collins addressed a small crowd at Yale’s Battel Chapel Thursday on the “interplay of spirituality [and] science.“  As Collins pointed out:

“I don’t think that science has to win and God has to lose or that God has to win and science has to lose,”

Amen, brother.

Following up last week’s installment involving milk and milk products from China we hear the Chinese Science Ministry is looking for a test for presence of melamine.  More power to them.

On the lighter side of things, the Ig Nobel Prize has released its list of honorees.  This year’s winners include a couple of folks who demonstrated, mathematically, why hair or string tangles; a researcher who blew up sperm cells using Coke (the drinking kind, not the snorting kind); and a team who managed to get people to eat stale potato chips by playing loud, crunching noises.

Who says science is boring?