Science & Technology

The National Institutes of Health should retire most of its chimps that are currently living in research facilities, according to a working group put together by the NIH to look at the future need for biomedical research on chimps.

The group did recommend keeping a small number of chimps in reserve in case they are needed for studies later on. But it also laid out a detailed description of the kind of living conditions that would be needed for those chimps, and said any proposed research should go through a review committee that includes members of the public.

President Obama pulled out a surprise in his inaugural address on Monday. After barely mentioning climate change in his campaign, he put it on his short list of priorities for his second term.

"We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations," he said. Today the White House had scant detail on what the president plans to do.

A French judge will decide this week if Twitter must hand over the identities of users sending anti-Semitic tweets. The case, brought against Twitter by a Jewish student organization, pits America's free speech guarantees against Europe's laws banning hate speech.

The controversy began in October, when the French Union of Jewish Students threatened to sue Twitter to get the names of people posting anti-Semitic tweets with the hashtag #unbonjuif, or "a good Jew."

January 2013 marks the 125th birthday of the National Geographic Society. Over the decades, the magazine has transported readers to faraway places, introduced the world to new species and provided a window into a world of exploration and discovery.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee might have its first-ever smart phone app, but for the hundreds of thousands of onlookers flooding into the National Mall on Monday, there were plenty of other reasons to be clutching a mobile device. Many just wanted to say, "We came."

The Presidential Inaugural Committee released a smart phone app this week to help people follow inaugural events in real time. It has maps of the parade route, volunteer opportunities and real-time updates. It also has an invisible feature — the app could be mining data for Democrats.

Laura Sydell gives a look ahead to the week in tech news. She covers the launch of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's latest website and the rollout of what Facebook is calling its "graph search."