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Drinking Alcohol Associated With Smaller Brain VolumeThe more alcohol an individual drinks, the smaller his or her total brain volume. Brain volume decreases with age at an estimated rate of 1.9 percent per decade, accompanied by an increase in white matter lesions, according to background information in the article.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm High Powered New Explosive DevelopedScientists have developed a novel tetranitrate ester, which is solid at room temperature, is a highly powerful explosive, and can be melt-cast into the desired shape.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm Playing Pinball With Atoms: How To Turn Nanotech Devices On And OffWith nanotechnology yielding a burgeoning menagerie of microscopic pumps, motors, and other machines for potential use in medicine and industry, here is one good question: How will humans turn those devices on and off?Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm Nanoscopic Screening Process To Speed Drug DiscoveryResearchers are using nanotechnology to search for new cancer-fighting drugs through a process that could be up to 10,000 times faster than current methods.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm Toward An Effective Treatment For Spinal Muscular AtrophyScientists are reporting a key advance toward developing the first effective drug treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a genetic disease that involves motor neuron loss and occurs in 1 out of every 6,000 births. SMA is the leading cause of hereditary infant death in the United States.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm Bacteria That Can Cause Bone Infections Related To Tuberculosis PathogenScientists have discovered that a bone infection is caused by a newly described species of bacteria that is related to the tuberculosis pathogen. The discovery may help improve the diagnosis and treatment of similar infections, according to an article in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm New crew, U.S. tourist dock with space stationMOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying U.S. video game developer Richard Garriott docked with the International Space Station Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:38 pm Do Mouthwashes Work? (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Over-the-counter mouthwashes do put a stop to bad breath. But some of them also stain teeth, according to a new report on mouthwash effectiveness.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:25 pm Do Mouthwashes Work?Mouthwashes can zap bad breath.Source: Livescience.com | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:10 pm Tropical storm expected to form from depression (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:10 pm New Gene Found That Helps Plants Beat The HeatPlant scientists have discovered another piece of the genetic puzzle that controls how plants respond to high temperatures. That may allow plant breeders to create new varieties of crops that flourish in warmer, drier climates.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:00 pm Vision Loss More Common In People With DiabetesVisual impairment appears to be more common in people with diabetes than in those without the disease, according to a new report.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:00 pm Tropical Wetlands Hold More Carbon Than Temperate MarshesTropical wetlands are able to absorb and hold onto about 80 percent more carbon than can wetlands in temperate zones, according to a new study. The scientists extracted soil cores from wetlands in Costa Rica and in Ohio and analyzed the contents of the sediment from the past 40 years. Based on their analysis, they estimated that the tropical wetland accumulated a little over 1 ton of carbon per acre per year, and the temperate wetland accumulated .6 tons of carbon per acre per year.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:00 pm Common Variant Increase Risk Of Most Common Form Of Skin Cancer By 170%Scientists report the discovery of common versions of two single-letter variations in the human genome (SNPs) that confer risk of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the most common cancer among people of European ancestry. Unlike the four sets of SNPs previously found by deCODE to confer risk of BCC and cutaneous melanoma, those reported today are not linked to fair pigmentation traits that also make certain people prone to freckling and sunburn.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:00 pm Closure call for tuna 'disgrace'Major tuna-fishing nations - including Spain - back calls for a temporary closure of the Mediterranean tuna fishery.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Oct 2008 | 11:55 am New crew, U.S. tourist dock with space station (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 11:54 am Russian spacecraft docks with orbital station (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 11:43 am 5-Star Hospitals Might Not Kill YouYou have a 70 percent lower chance of dying at a top-ranked facility compared to the lowest-ranked onesSource: Livescience.com | 14 Oct 2008 | 11:38 am New Crew, Space Tourist Arrive at Space StationSpace tourist Richard Garriott and a new crew arrived at the space station Tuesday.Source: Livescience.com | 14 Oct 2008 | 11:05 am Infant Stars Caught FeedingThe Very Large Telescope gives astronomers glimpse at gases around young stars.Source: Livescience.com | 14 Oct 2008 | 11:03 am School Bans Birthday SweetsThe real tragedy is that the actual carrying of a tray of cupcakes is about the only exercise many of these kids get.Source: Livescience.com | 14 Oct 2008 | 10:53 am The Water Cooler: Life Gets Sexy at 50Science news from around the web.Source: Livescience.com | 14 Oct 2008 | 10:29 am Forest plan may 'fuel corruption'The UK prime minister launches a plan to save threatened rainforests - but already it is running into opposition.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Oct 2008 | 10:18 am Chimps: Not Human, But Are They People?
News of such a decline, announced today in Current Biology, would be saddening in any species. But should we feel more concern for the chimpanzees than for another animal — as much concern, perhaps, as we might feel for other people? "They are a people. Non-human, but definitely persons," said Deborah Fouts, co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. "They haven't built a rocket ship to the moon. But we're not that different." Fouts is one of a growing number of scientists and ethicists who believe that chimpanzees — as well as orangutans, bonobos and gorillas, a group colloquially known as great apes — ought to be considered people. It's a controversial position. If being a person requires being human, then chimpanzees, our closest primate relative, are still only 98 percent complete. But if personhood is defined more broadly, chimpanzees may well qualify. They have self-awareness, feelings and high-level cognitive powers. Hardly a month seems to pass without researchers finding evidence of behavior thought to belong solely to humans. Some even suggest that chimpanzees and other great apes should be granted human rights. So argued advocates for Hiasl, a chimpanzee caught in an Austrian custody battle, and the framers of an ape rights resolution passed by the Spanish parliament. The question of rights is practically thorny — how could a chimp be held responsible for, say, attacking another chimp? — but the fundamental question isn't practical, but rather scientific and ethical. "They have been shown to have all kinds of complex communication and cognitive powers that are similar to humans," said Yerkes National Primate Research Center researcher Jared Taglialatela. "They have feelings, they have ideas, they have goals."
The capacity of chimpanzees to feel, vividly illustrated when primatologist Jane Goodall documented the grief of a chimp named Flint for his mother, is the least ambiguous of chimpanzee characteristics. More ambiguous is their ability to think abstractly and empathically. "They don't have time. They can't talk about yesterday or tomorrow. Their communication is very much instantaneous: 'A neighbor is coming, let's go. A female's in heat, so check me out.' It's not, 'How are you today?'" said Pascal Gagneux, a University of California, San Diego primatologist. He considers chimpanzees to be persons, but fundamentally different from humans by virtue of their profoundly different communicative range. But Fouts, who has trained her chimpanzees to use sign language, disagrees. "They do remember the past. When people come that they haven't seen in many years, they use their name signs," she said. Taglialatela echoed Fouts. "I don't know if they think about what they want to be when they grow up," he said, "but they understand the concept that something will happen later." Taglialatela has shown that chimpanzees utilize parts of their brain similar to our own Broca's and Wernicke's areas, which in humans are considered central to speech production and processing. When communicating, chimpanzees choose circumstance-appropriate forms: gesturing by hand to someone who looks at them, or calling out to someone who looks away. "We're seeing this rich communicative repertoire. It's not simply, 'I see a piece of food and make some emotional sound,'" he said. "They're using different perspectives to communicate." Researchers have also found that chimps use hand gestures that vary according to context. The same gesture can be used for purposes as diverse as requesting sex or reconciling after a fight, a linguistic subtlety that suggests a capacity for high-level abstraction. Chimpanzees even appear capable of altruism, being willing to help strangers in the absence of anticipated reward. But their empathy, said Gagneux, who proposes treating research chimps in the manner of human subjects incapable of giving informed consent, does not translate to compassion. Of course, compassion is hardly universal among humans. "How many times do you find yourself seeing someone on the news, or walking by someone on the street, and being apathetic towards them?" said Taglialatela. And Fouts, who said that chimpanzees "feel pain and anger and love and affection and the kinds of feelings we feel," said that her sign language-trained chimpanzees can indeed inquire about the well-being of their handlers. "They don't use it very often, but it doesn't mean they don't understand," she said. So what of the situation in the Ivory Coast, where chimpanzee numbers have plummeted so dramatically that researchers say they're not merely endangered, but critically endangered? Should they be mourned as animals, or people? Perhaps semantics are irrelevant. "This is a tragedy, for lack of a better word," said Taglialatela. Images: Linda Kenney / Buffa WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 14 Oct 2008 | 10:00 am Tourist arrives at space stationA spacecraft carrying a new crew for the International Space Station (ISS) docks with the orbiting outpost.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Oct 2008 | 8:35 am Exotic spiders crawl into the UKExotic species of spider are making their homes in the UK- could the black widow be next?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Oct 2008 | 4:50 am Republican Smith Buffeted by Economy in Oregon Re-Election Bid (Bloomberg)Bloomberg - Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senator Gordon Smith bucked the White House on the Iraq War and stem-cell research, worked with Democrats such as Ted Kennedy, and favorably features Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in campaign ads.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Oct 2008 | 4:01 am 'New pathway' for African exodusResearchers find a possible new route taken by early modern humans as they expanded out of Africa to the rest of the world.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Oct 2008 | 1:07 am Pound for Pound, All Life Uses Same Amount of Energy
No matter whether you're talking elephants or bacteria, a new study proposes that, pound for pound, all living things' at-rest metabolisms use similar amounts of energy. Though living things vary greatly in complexity and size, their energy usage falls between 3 and 90 watts per kilogram of biomass. For comparison, a MacBook Pro is supposed to draw about 12 watts when operating from its battery. "Our interpretation is that there aren't very many accidents in nature, so it's not just a coincidence that all these different organisms fall within this narrow window," said Peter Reich, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota, and a co-author of the work. "That suggests that natural selection selects for this range." Using energy to stave off entropy is one of the basic functions of life. Different forms of life use different energy sources. Plants use photosynthesis to turn sunlight into chemical energy. Other organisms feed on plants or other organisms to obtain the energy needed to sustain themselves. The new paper suggests that no matter how an organism gets its energy, the basic biochemistry of life requires that all organisms' cells use energy at fairly similar rates. The new work means that if you had an elephant-sized mound of bacteria, it would use, within about an order of magnitude of variation, the same amount of energy as an actual elephant. That contradicts earlier, highly-influential studies led by James Brown, Brian Enquist and Geoffrey West, of the University of New Mexico, University of Arizona and Los Alamos National Laboratory respectively. They found a strong correlation between the size of an animal and its metabolism. Under their rubric, small creatures used energy efficiently while large creatures did not. As organisms grow larger, they produce less energy relative to their bulk. The UNM ecologists claimed that this relationship between size and metabolic rate, known as allometric or power scaling, was a general law of life that resulted from the difficulty of transporting nutrients around larger and larger bodies. "It's been a very exciting theory that people tend to love or hate," Reich said. "It sounds like a general theory of relativity for biology.... It's a major advance because they are proposing something novel to unify us all and how we understand the world." But when scientists in individual areas, like Reich who specializes in forest ecology, began to look at the data, they found that the law didn't seem to hold for all types of living things. The old model predicts that organisms' metabolisms would vary by thousands of times, but Reich and his colleagues found that the metabolisms of living creatures were much more similar than that. For example, an elephant is one trillion million times larger than a single-celled bacterium — that's 20 orders of magnitude — but their metabolisms fall roughly within an order of magnitude. "If there was power scaling, you'd have a 4000-fold metabolic variation. Whereas we only see a 30-fold variation," Reich said. "They're not even anywhere in the ballpark of power scaling." Instead, the new Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences paper provides strong evidence that the basic energy usage of living creatures is much more universal than scientists' anticipated. "There are fundamental sweet spots for life," Reich said. And it appears his team has found one, at least here on Earth. Image: flickr/John & Mel Kots See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and webpage; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:13 am Fresh eyesIndian specialist takes on leading conservation roleSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Oct 2008 | 12:06 am Reprimanded Purdue scientist claims defamation (AP)AP - A Purdue University scientist who was reprimanded for research misconduct over claims he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments is suing two other faculty members for alleged defamation.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 11:54 pm Fertility reform held up by MPs, says watchdogPlans to overhaul UK fertility laws held up by political squabbling over abortion rights, argues HFEASource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 13 Oct 2008 | 11:10 pm Iraqi minister meets oil companies in London (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 10:38 pm Whale deal falls at last minuteHope for consensus between environmentalists and whalers in Barcelona is derailed by a last-minute Australian intervention.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Oct 2008 | 10:01 pm The Water Cooler: Chicken Soup and WineScience news from around the web.Source: Livescience.com | 13 Oct 2008 | 9:46 pm Call for ban on primates as petsA loophole in UK animal welfare laws that allows primates to be kept as household pets needs to be closed, an MP urges.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Oct 2008 | 9:44 pm Giant Cyclones Seen on SaturnGiant cyclones swirl on Saturn's north and south poles.Source: Livescience.com | 13 Oct 2008 | 9:29 pm Taking stockIs the action plan to save Earth's frogs working?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Oct 2008 | 9:23 pm Forest capitalTime to recognise the wealth in nature's capitalSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Oct 2008 | 9:01 pm Video: Kilauea's Latest Explosive Eruption
The world's most-active volcano, Kilauea has had a particularly eventful year. Instead of the gurgling lava flows that typify the volcano's behavior, Kilauea has been exploding. That kind of eruption hasn't been seen regularly since way back in 1924. Scientists aren't sure what's going on, but you can follow their observational process in amazing detail by sorting through the data, video and analysis at the USGS Kilauea update page. Video: USGS. WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and webpage; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 Oct 2008 | 8:49 pm Miniature Horse Gets Prosthetic EyeA miniature show horse that lost its eye shortly after birth could get a second chance.Source: Livescience.com | 13 Oct 2008 | 8:11 pm Analog's Twilight: Slowly, Digital Trumps PhysicalPhysical keepsakes are being replaced with digital ones.Source: Livescience.com | 13 Oct 2008 | 7:50 pm EU warns youth: turn your MP3 players down!BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Millions of youngsters across Europe could suffer permanent hearing loss after five years if they listen to MP3 players at too high a volume for more than five hours a week, EU scientists warned Monday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 7:32 pm "Good" bacteria seen unlikely to curb eczemaNEW YORK (Reuters Health) - There is no evidence that probiotics can relieve the bothersome symptoms of eczema and there is some evidence that they may occasionally cause infections and gut problems, conclude researchers based on a review of the best available research on the topic.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 6:22 pm Probe to Examine Our Space in SpaceA robotic probe will help scientists understand the fringes of our solar system.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 Oct 2008 | 6:11 pm Hippie apes make war as well as love, study findsLONDON (Reuters) - Despite their reputation as lovers not fighters of the primate world, bonobos actually hunt and eat other great apes, German researchers said Monday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 5:35 pm Scientists Map Giant Panda GenomeA newly mapped genome of the giant panda confirms it is a subspecies of bear.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 Oct 2008 | 4:31 pm Scientists map panda genome: Chinese media (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 4:08 pm Step-on scanner lets air passengers keep shoes onLOD, Israel (Reuters) - Israel has introduced a step-on scanner that spares airline travelers the nuisance of having to remove their shoes so they can be X-rayed for hidden weapons, though the new device cannot yet sniff out explosives.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 3:51 pm Boost for material that turns waste heat into electricityThermoelectric device could be attached to car exhaust to recycle wasted heat to power engineSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 13 Oct 2008 | 3:26 pm The Next Collapsing Industry: Fishing
The numbers might not seem like much when compared to the ongoing economic crisis or the cost of deforestation -- $1.5 trillion lost from Wall Street in weeks, between $2 trillion and $5 trillion of forests cut down annually. But the losses, calculated in terms of declining productivity, are a troubling warning sign. Despite better equipment, larger fleets and ever-growing markets, the industry is catching the same amount of fish now as it did 30 years ago. The reason: oceanic fish populations have been decimated. Some researchers say that the world will run out of wild seafood within 40 years. There will still be farm-raised fish — which now account for 50 percent of all fish production — but the $80 billion global fishing industry, which employs some 200 million people, will be as depleted as North Atlantic cod. Speaking to the Victoria Times Colonist last month about the consumption of fish that were once considered waste, University of British Columbia fisheries director Daniel Pauly asked, "If we have to have substitutes for the substitutes and substitutes for the substitutes' substitutes, when does it end?" He answered his own question: "It ends when we have nothing left." WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 Oct 2008 | 3:13 pm Rickshaws Get Boost From Solar PowerThe humble, yet green, cycle-rickshaw in India is equipped with a solar battery.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 Oct 2008 | 2:56 pm U.S. space tourist blasts off in Russian rocketBAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - U.S. video game magnate Richard Garriott blasted off into space aboard a Russian rocket on Sunday watched by his father, a NASA astronaut who went into space at the height of the Cold War.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 2:55 pm Ozone Pollution to Worsen Under Climate ChangeSurface-level ozone is likely to increase as the planet warms, say researchers.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 Oct 2008 | 2:19 pm AIDS vaccine focus shifts after disappointmentsWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A global AIDS vaccine conference this week will seek fresh strategies against the HIV virus, with experts weighing the value of basic laboratory research against large-scale human clinical trials after a string of disappointments.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 1:31 pm Helmet to Convey Messages by Thought, AloneThe U.S. Army is developing thought-based communication technology.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 Oct 2008 | 1:25 pm Two more genes linked to common skin cancerLONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found two new genetic variations that appear to increase the risk of the most common skin cancer among people of European descent.Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Oct 2008 | 12:28 pm
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Kilauea, one of the five volcanoes that form the Big Island of Hawaii, spewed forth with 
