NASA has a new plan to send a spacecraft closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone. The ambitious Solar Probe mission will study the streams of charged particles the sun hurls into space from a vantage point within the sun's corona -- its outer atmosphere -- where the processes that heat the corona and produce solar wind occur. At closest approach Solar Probe would zip past the sun at 125 miles per second, protected by a carbon-composite heat shield that must withstand up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit and survive blasts of radiation and energized dust at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Chemists have found a way to synthesize better bird dogs, agents that can be tailored to flush HIV out into the open where the immune system and antiretroviral therapies can destroy it. The scientists say the discovery has the promise of taking HIV therapy to the next level -- addressing issues related to eradicating the virus. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Scientists in Italy have discovered a new perspective in the study of infectious disease. They recently studied an environmental bacteria and it’s interaction with the environment and found that this provided them with vast amounts of information about how the organism causes disease. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 May 2008 | 12:00 am
A new study may end the century-old controversy over what ingredient in absinthe caused the exotic green aperitif's supposed mind-altering effects and toxic side-effects when consumed to excess. The report is the most comprehensive analysis of authentic 19th century absinthe to date. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 May 2008 | 12:00 am
An analysis of brain tissue samples from chronic alcoholics reveals changes that occur at the molecular level in alcohol abuse -- and suggests a potential treatment target, according to researchers. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Marine snails, sea urchins and other animals from the sea are teaching researchers how to make the world a better place. Consider, for example, the possibilities of designing a lightweight armor that would protect U.S. soldiers in Iraq from Improvised Explosive Devices. Or, what flexible ceramics might offer industry. Or, how everyone could benefit from new ways of producing and storing energy. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Hot and barren, Kenya's dry lands have long been unfit for agriculture, at best merely a grazing area for wild animals and livestock. Today, the landscape is more picturesque and productive, lined with golden stalks of wheat yielding precious grain for Kenya´s farms and families. The wheat is a new variety, one that is high yielding and resistant to drought. As a result, small farming families are realizing harvests on farmlands once considered too poor to cultivate, to the country´s social and economic benefit. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 May 2008 | 6:00 pm
Climate scientists using computer models to simulate the 1930s Dust Bowl on the US Great Plains have found that dust raised by farmers probably amplified and spread a natural drop in rainfall, turning an ordinary drying cycle into an agricultural collapse. The researcher say the study raises concern that current pressures on farmland from population growth and climate change could worsen current food crises by leading to similar events in other regions. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 May 2008 | 6:00 pm
Your metabolic 'fingerprint' can reveal much about the possible causes of major diseases, according to the first 'metabolome-wide' association study ever carried out. The study provides new insights into the possible causes of high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, by analysing the metabolic fingerprints of 4,630 adults in the UK, USA, China and Japan, from their urine samples. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 May 2008 | 6:00 pm
Heart specialists report what is believed to be the first wide-scale evidence linking severe overweight to prolonged inflammation of heart tissue and the subsequent damage leading to failure of the body's blood-pumping organ. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 May 2008 | 6:00 pm
CHAITEN, Chile (Reuters) - Covered in thick ash, the Patagonian community of Chaiten was a ghost town on Saturday as a volcano spewed ash a day after its first eruption in thousands of years forced nearly 4,500 people to flee.
Practice, which was banned in Europe after the BSE crisis, would save farmers millions of pounds, say officials Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 3 May 2008 | 11:03 pm
Ross McManus: I assumed it was just a cold and would pass. But I realised I had hay fever and began taking antihistamine tablets Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 3 May 2008 | 11:03 pm
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Space shuttle Discovery reached its Cape Canaveral, Florida, launch pad on Saturday in preparation for a May 31 liftoff to place a huge Japanese research complex on the International Space Station.
