Science Headlines for October 22, 2008

Contact Lenses Are Home To Pathogenic Amoebae

Contact lenses increase the risk of infection with pathogenic protozoa that can cause blindness. New research shows that a high percentage of contact lens cases in Tenerife are contaminated with Acanthamoeba that cannot be killed by normal contact lens solution.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 6:00 pm

A Large Spiral Galaxy, NGC 7331, In All Its Splendor

The spiral galaxy NGC 7331, in Pegasus, can be seen with small telescopes under dark skies as a faint fuzzy spot. It is an island universe similar to our own Galaxy (or maybe somewhat larger) and placed at a distance of 50 million light-years. NGC 7331 was discovered by Wilhelm Herschel in 1784, and it shows all its magnificence in long-exposure photographs taken through large telescopes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 6:00 pm

Egg Whites Solve The 3-D Problem

The real world is three-dimensional. That's true even in the laboratory, where scientists have to grow cells to study how they develop and what happens when their growth is abnormal. More and more laboratories are seeking to develop three-dimensional cell culture systems that allow them to test their new techniques and drugs in a system that more closely mimics the way in which cells grow. However, a big sticking point is the cost of commercial media for growing such cultures.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 6:00 pm

Physicists Find New State Of Matter In 'Transistor': Huge Implications For New Electronic Devices

Scientists have discovered a new state of matter, a quasi-three- dimensional electron crystal, in a material very much alike those used in the fabrication of modern transistors. This discovery could have momentous implications for the development of new electronic devices.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 6:00 pm

Allergy Patch Test: Children Tend To React To Different Allergens Than Adults

Adults and children who are referred for patch testing of allergens appear equally likely to have allergic contact dermatitis, although they tend to react to different allergens, according to a new report.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 6:00 pm

Scientific Hunch Poised To Save Thousands From Toxic Fish Poisoning

A neuroscientist has found a way to combat a debilitating illness that affects an estimated 50,000 people a year in tropical regions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 6:00 pm

‘Waterless’ Concrete Seen As Building Block On Moon

A new article demonstrates a concept of creating concrete structures on the lunar surface without the use of water.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm

Study Of Polar Dinosaur Migration Questions Whether Dinosaurs Were Truly The First Great Migrators

A recently released study of northern and southern polar dinosaur migration indicates that some species may have migrated nearly 3,000 km in a six month period- far short of the distance needed to reach warmer climes. What's more, the study also revealed that other species would have been forced to endure polar winters and exhibited characteristics similar to today's nonmigratory animals when dealing with hibernating, foraging and even burrowing.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm

Education Protects Against Pre-Alzheimer's Memory Loss

People with more education and more mentally demanding occupations may have protection against the memory loss that precedes Alzheimer's disease, according to a study in Neurology.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm

Tick-borne Encephalitis Virus Reveals Its Access Code

Biologists have identified an amino acid switch that flaviviruses flip to gain access to cells. Flaviviruses such as tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), yellow fever, and dengue are dangerous human pathogens.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 3:00 pm

Jennifer Swift: Amendments to the human fertilisation and embryology bill have been slipped in at the last moment

Jennifer Swift: Amendments to the embryology bill have been slipped in at the last moment, paving the way for experimentation without permission
Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 22 Oct 2008 | 11:00 am

Experts call for campaign to boost nation's mental health

A "five-a-day"-style campaign to boost the mental health of the nation is needed to combat rising rates of depression, anxiety and drug abuse, government advisers say today.

Ministers are being urged to consider the proposal following a two-year report into the country's mental wellbeing by the government's horizon-scanning think tank Foresight.

The Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing, which is backed by the government's chief science adviser John Beddington, draws on advice from more than 400 international experts and examines experiences and lifestyle factors that boost or diminish mental wellbeing throughout life.

It warns that mental illness caused by stressful working conditions, a lack of exercise and a breakdown in family and social networks is likely to be exacerbated by the economic downturn and rising average age of the population.

Mental ill health already costs £77bn a year in England alone, with direct costs to the economy approaching £49bn.

The proposed campaign, which would be akin to the "five portions of fruit and vegetables a day" guidelines promoted by the Food Standards Agency, identifies five actions that people can take to boost their mental health. These are: developing friendships, being physically active, fostering curiosity about the world, continuing education throughout life and doing voluntary work.

It lists activities such as mending a bike and gardening as examples of possible ways to maintain good mental health.

"These five simple things can make a profound difference to a person's mental wellbeing," said Felicia Huppert, a co-author on the report and director of the Well-being Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The report is one of the first to highlight a strong link between debt and mental illness and calls on banks, credit card and utility companies to be aware that indebted customers may be suffering from mental health problems. Around half of those in debt in Britain have a mental illness, compared with 16% of the wider population.

The authors recommend better training for teenagers to ensure they can manage their finances when they come to pay bills and take on mortgages.

Picking up learning difficulties early in children's school careers was also crucial to help people achieve good exam results and find better jobs, the authors say.

The report also calls for wide-ranging changes in the workplace, where absenteeism due to stress and other mental health problems accounts for an estimated 10m to 14m days of lost productivity, at a cost of around £750m a year. The economic costs are compounded by a significant minority who are not productive as they might be at work because of poor mental health.

Cary Cooper, a co-author and professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University, said managers and companies should be held to account for having high levels of absenteeism.

"A good manager gives you autonomy, flexible working conditions, a good work-life balance and ensures you don't work excessively long hours. In Britain we already work more hours than any other country in Europe. If people can work flexible hours, they have better job satisfaction, are healthier and are more productive," he said.

Mental ill health is expected to become an increasing problem in Britain as the population ages. In the next 30 years, the cost of treating dementia is expected to rise from £17bn to £50bn.

LA councilman seeks to halt zoo elephant exhibit (AP)

AP - Bob Barker, Alicia Silverstone and other celebrities are joining a city councilman's effort to move elephants from the Los Angeles Zoo to a massive sanctuary where they can roam free or at least close to it.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:47 am

UK positioned for sat-nav prizes

A UK company wins the European Satellite Navigation prize for a satellite positioning-enabled smart lifejacket.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:44 am

India launches first unmanned moon mission (AP)

AP - India launched its first mission to the moon Wednesday, rocketing a satellite up into the pale dawn sky in a two-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:34 am

India launches first Moon mission

India successfully launches the unmanned Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft - the country's first mission to the Moon.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Oct 2008 | 9:54 am

India chases China to moon with unmanned mission

SRIHARIKOTA, India (Reuters) - India launched its first unmanned moon mission on Wednesday following in the footsteps of rival China, as the emerging Asian power celebrated its space ambitions and scientific prowess.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 9:27 am

Russia may create oil reserve to influence prices (Reuters)

Reuters - Russia may create an oil reserve to influence global prices, the country's top energy official said on Wednesday, as OPEC's Secretary General prepared for his first ever meeting with a Russian president.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 9:11 am

India launches first moon mission

SRIHARIKOTA, India (Reuters) - India launched its first unmanned moon mission on Wednesday following in the footsteps of Asian rival China, as the country celebrated its space ambitions and scientific prowess.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 1:21 am

Why eating males pays off, for spiders

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Female spiders who eat would-be suitors produce more babies, and those babies are stronger and bigger, than spiders who stick to more mundane fare, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Oct 2008 | 12:19 am

India Launches Lunar Probe, Hopes and a U.S. Ice-Hunting Radar

India's first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, is set to launch tomorrow and has the whole country talking — even the cabbies.

"Often when I go to India the cab drivers will ask me why I am there," said geologist Paul Spudis of the Lunar Planetary Institute in Houston, TX. "When I tell them it's to work on a lunar mission they say, 'Oh, you are working on Chandrayaan!'"

Spudis is one of the lead scientists for an ice-hunting instrument that will be aboard Chandrayaan. It will be the first radar imaging device sent to the moon. Chandrayaan will have 10 other instruments on board including a cutting-edge X-ray camera designed to map the Moon's surface on board, built by the United Kingdom's Science and Technology Facilities Council. There will also be instruments from the Indian Space Research Organization, the European Space Agency, NASA and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

India's orbiter will have the company of lunar satellites from Japan and China, and will be joined by the United States' Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in early 2009.

Chandrayaan's data may not conclusively locate ice, but the four missions collectively can build a very solid case for whether there is or is not water ice at the poles of the moon. The answer could make a difference for planning future human expeditions to the lunar surface.

The ice-hunting Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar, or MiniSAR will deliver good coverage of the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also have MiniSAR on board and coordinate with Chandrayaan so that the two spacecraft can get more data than each of them could separately. When both missions are flying, they can simultaneously aim the radars on the south pole and produce a bistatic image, which means that that one spacecraft acts as the transmitter and the other as the receiver. This can help differentiate between a signal that is caused by a rough lunar surface and one that indicates the presence of water ice.

One person that contributed a great deal to India's space program and championed the idea of a lunar mission is former President Abdul Kalam. An aerospace engineer, Kalam project director for India's first indigenous rocket vehicle in the late 1970's before serving as president from 2002 to 2007.

Kalam's focus is on "transforming India into a developed nation by 2020." He sees the lunar mission as a way to inspire the next generation and told the Times of India, "Already, the young in India are aspiring to become astronauts."

The Chandrayaan mission will take off from an island off the southeast coast of India, take five and a half days to cruise to the moon, and then take measurements in orbit around the Moon for two years. It weights 590 kg, is roughly cube shaped and its name in Sanskrit (language of Ancient India) means "Lunar Craft." You can learn more about the mission, its payloads and watch the countdown clock tick away at www.chandrayaan-i.com.

See Also:

Image: ISRO

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 21 Oct 2008 | 10:24 pm

Dinosaur Graveyard Yields Fossil Bounty (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A "dinosaur graveyard" full of fossils has been discovered in a former river bed in Utah, presenting an opportunity for a decade's worth of Jurassic research by paleontologists, it was announced this week. Scientists and technicians with the Utah Thornbury Dinosaur Expedition unearthed an abundance of sauropod (an herbivorous long-necked dinosaur) finds, as well as the bones of several carnivorous dinosaurs, said paleontologist Luis Chiappe, director of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County's Dinosaur Institute. ...
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 9:47 pm

First Apollo Flight Crew Last to be Honored (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Forty years after flying NASA's first manned Apollo mission, the crew of Apollo 7 was honored with the space agency's highest award, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 9:45 pm

Helping flippers

How volunteers in Cyprus assist turtles on their way
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 21 Oct 2008 | 9:18 pm

Want a Chimp? Endangered Animals for Sale Online

Maybe there really isn't anything that you can't buy online.

Endangered animals, including chimps, marmosets and leopard cubs, are being bought and sold online, according to a new report.

Over six one-week observation periods earlier this year, the International Fund for Animal Welfare found more than 1,400 live, exotic animals being traded online. IFAW data released to Wired.com revealed that most of the advertisements were for birds, but in the United States alone, 13 primates, five big cats and two rhinos were offered.

Barbara Cartwright, who heads up the IFAW's efforts to restrict wildlife trade on the internet, said her organization believes that many online advertisements lead to offline transactions beyond the reach of their tracking.

"If I put up an ad for a chimpanzee, you call me, and then we can talk about what I really have," Cartwright said, describing a possible offline networking scenario between illegal animal traders.

While many animals are legal to trade, endangered species are not. The IFAW's Killing with Keystrokes report found that the internet's global reach has enabled buyers and sellers of rare species — and the products derived from them — to find each other more easily. As is often the case, regulators have been a step behind the marketplace in their efforts to stop illegal activities.

Last night, ahead of the release of the report, eBay instituted a complete ban on the sale of elephant ivory through the auction service. EBay did not cite the report in announcing the ban and did not return solicitations for comment. Nonetheless, the IFAW hailed the action as a victory.

Stamping out the live animal trade could prove more difficult, however, as the number and nature of websites involved in the trade is different. Whereas most of the ivory trade could be directly traced to eBay, live animal trafficking takes place across dozens of American, British and Russian websites, largely forums and classified ad sites.

While the United States had the largest number (1,034) of live animal advertisements, Russia had the most varied list of species including two types of tigers, a crocodile, an ocelot and a bonobo.

Cartwright said that extensive efforts were undertaken to ensure the animals advertised in the IFAW were not hoaxes or scams, but represented an actual animal being sold.

Image: flickr/Lukas Vermeer

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and webpage; Wired Science on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 21 Oct 2008 | 9:11 pm

IBEX Launches to Study Solar System Force Field

NASA's just-launched Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission will image the "force field" that protects our solar system from radiation.

Galactic cosmic rays can hurt astronauts and electronics that venture beyond Earth's protective atmosphere. But a bubble of protective solar winds that ward off even more radiation from entering the solar system from the interstellar medium beyond.

The interstellar boundary between the solar system's protective heliosphere and the rest of the galaxy is out beyond Pluto where the hot solar wind hits the cold interstellar gases of space and slows from its million mile-an-hour speed.

The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are already out near the edge of the heliosphere, but they represent just two data points, like two weather stations, out on that huge bubble. To get good weather data you need more then two weather stations, you need something that can give you a bigger perspective— help you see the whole hurricane from above. That is exactly what IBEX will do by rotating a full 360 degrees every six months, collecting data all the while.

I spoke to mission scientist Eric Christian today about what makes the mission most interesting to him, he said,

"We know we are going to be surprised," IBEX program scientist Eric Christian said. "Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are already out there 10 billion miles from Earth and 10 billion miles away from each other and everything they have discovered about energetically neutral atoms has been different from what we expected."

Energetically neutral atoms are produced at the interstellar boundary when collisions strip them of their electric charge. The neutral atoms that travel back towards Earth and hit the IBEX detectors will enable scientists to image what is going on out there.

IBEX will be in a highly elliptical orbit between the Earth and the Moon, in a high orbit to avoid Earth-based sources of neutral atoms.

Christian also stars in the DIY video above on how you can make a demo of the solar wind gases slowing down as they approach the interstellar medium, in your own kitchen sink.

IBEX successfully launched on Oct. 19 from the Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific off an air-launched Orbital Pegasus rocket and is currently undergoing system checkouts. It is expected to take a few weeks to get up to its full 200,000-mile-high orbit and begin its six month mapping mission.

See Also:

Video: NASA

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 21 Oct 2008 | 9:04 pm

Bird flu pushed back, pandemic threat remains: UN

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - International efforts have pushed back the spread of bird flu this year, but the risk of a global influenza pandemic killing millions is as great as ever, the United Nations and World Bank reported on Tuesday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 7:58 pm

Explorers to measure Arctic's vanishing summer ice

LONDON (Reuters) - British explorer Pen Hadow is to return to the North Pole five years after his record solo trek, in an attempt to establish when Arctic summer sea ice will disappear for good.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 7:28 pm

Safety a problem for new generation drugs, too (AP)

AP - Nearly a fourth of widely used new-generation biological drugs for several common diseases produce serious side effects that lead to safety warnings soon after they go on the market, the first major study of its kind found.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 7:23 pm

Dinosaur Graveyard Yields Fossil Bounty

A "dinosaur graveyard" full of fossils has been discovered in a former river bed in Utah, presenting an opportunity for a decade's worth of Jurassic research by paleontologists, it was announced this week.
Source: Livescience.com | 21 Oct 2008 | 6:57 pm

Video Podcast No. 8: Quake Tech Brings Down the House

If you live in one of the world's earthquake zones, technology could save your life at some point.

In this Wired Science video podcast, we visit the epicenter of quake-proofing technology, the University of California's Earthquake Engineering Research Center, where earthquake simulators help figure out how to keep buildings standing.

Unlike, say, electrical engineering, where much of the work can be done with pure computer models, most buildings have unique designs that must be tested with real-world experiments. And that makes earthquake engineering research centers a lot more fun than your average Intel clean room.

Among the incredibly useful toys at the EERC are a 400-square-foot "shake table," a 4-million pound press (pictured), and some of the most powerful hydraulic pistons you're likely to lay eyes on. Scientists and engineers have been using the tools to pioneer technologies like base isolation, in which rubber-steel bearings act as shock absorbers for skyscrapers.

We should warn you, though: This week's video podcast has an incredible amount of things quaking, breaking, deforming and snapping. But it could be quite exciting, if you're into that sort of thing.

Every week, Wired Science will bring you videos on the latest in science, medicine, energy and space. You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, too, so check us out there.

A special thanks should go out to the variety of organizations who helped secure video footage of tests for us, including UC Berkeley, nees@berkeley, a site in the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, the Earthquake Engineering Research Center and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.

UPDATE: 3:02pm PST: Video fixed. Thanks for your comments.

UPDATE 2:57pm PST: We are experiencing technical difficulties with the video. It'll be back up momentarily. Thanks for your patience.

See Also:

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 21 Oct 2008 | 6:52 pm

Electric Eel Cells Inspire Energy Source

The same cells electric eels use to shock their prey could power implanted medical devices.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 6:05 pm

Seed Size: Climate Change Clue

Seeds near the equator are up to 320 times bigger than those further north.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:56 pm

This Week's Best Science Images

The coolest photos from the world of science during the week of 10/6/08.
Source: Livescience.com | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:17 pm

Italy museum says da Vinci writings gather no mold (AP)

AP - Curators of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus said Tuesday that fears the collection of drawings and writings had been infiltrated by mold are groundless.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:15 pm

American Dream a Biological Impossibility, Neuroscientist Says

What if people are biologically unsuited for the American dream?

The man posing that troubling question isn't just another lefty activist. It's Peter Whybrow, head of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior at UCLA.

"We've been taught, especially in America, that happiness will be at the end of some sort of material road, where we have lots and lots of things that we want," said Whybrow, a 2008 PopTech Fellow and author of American Mania: When More Is Not Enough. "We've set up all sorts of tricks to delude ourselves into thinking that it's fine to get what you want immediately."

He paints a disturbing picture of 21st century American life, where behavioral tendencies produced by millions of years of scarcity-driven evolution don't fit the social and economic world we've constructed.

Our built-in dopamine-reward system makes instant gratification highly desirable, and the future difficult to balance with the present. This worked fine on the savanna, said Whybrow, but not the suburbs: We gorge on fatty foods and use credit cards to buy luxuries we can't actually afford. And then, overworked, underslept and overdrawn, we find ourselves anxious and depressed.

That individual weakness is reflected at the social level, in markets that have outgrown their agrarian roots and no longer constrain our excesses — resulting in the current economic crisis, in which America's unpaid bills came due with shocking speed.

But with this crisis, said Whybrow, comes the opportunity to rethink how Americans live, as individuals and as a nation, and build a country that works.

"We're primed for doing things immediately. We're poor at planning for the future, unless we get into circumstances like these, where we're forced to think cleverly about what to do next," he said. "In a way, this financial meltdown is a healthy thing for us. We'll think intuitively again."

Foremost among Whybrow's targets is the modern culture of spending on credit. "The instinctive brain is well ahead of the intellectual brain. Credit cards promise us that you can have what you want now, and postpone payment until later," he said. Buying just feels good, in a biological sense — and that instant reward outweighs the threat of future bills.

Of course, many people use credit cards to pay bills and put food on the table, rather than buy flat-screen televisions and new computers. "That unfortunate reality," said Whybrow, "is produced by an out-of-control economic system" geared toward perpetual growth. That is no more natural a state for markets than a mall food court is natural for individuals whose metabolic heredity treats fats and sugars as rarities.

"Once upon a time, this economic system worked. But for the invisible hand of the free market to function, it needed to be balanced. And that balance is gone," he said.

Markets were once agrarian institutions, said Whybrow, which balanced the gratification of individuals with the constraints of small communities, where people looked their trade partners in the eye, and transactions were bounded by time and geography. With those constraints removed, markets have engaged in the buy-now, pay-later habits of college kids who don't read the fine print on their credit card bills.

"You can think about markets in the same way as individuals who mortgaged their future — except markets did it with other people's money," he said. "You end up with a Ponzi scheme predicated on the idea that we can get something now, rather than having to wait. And it all comes back to the same instinctual drive."

And now that the fundamental excesses of our economy have been so painfully exposed, with trillions of dollars vanishing from the American economy in just a few days, we have to think about changing both the economy and ourselves.

The answers aren't easy, Whybrow cautioned — but they do exist. People can think creatively about jumping from the treadmills of bad jobs and unmeetable needs; and even if this isn't always possible, they can teach their children to live modestly and within their means. Urban engineers can design cities that allow people to live and work and shop in the same place. Governments can, at the insistence of their citizens, provide the social safety nets on which social mobility, stagnant for the last 50 years, is based. And we can — however much it hurts — look to Europe for advice.

"America has always believed that it was the perfect society. When you have that mythology driving your culture, it's hard to look around and say, 'Is someone else doing it better than us?'" said Whybrow. "But you can trace the situation we're in to our evolutionary origins. Now that we find ourselves in the middle of this pseudo-abundance, we're in trouble. And the fantasy that we can restart the American dream just isn't true."

See Also:

Wired's PopTech 2008 Coverage

Image and video: SqueakyMarmot / Peter Whybrow on the Charlie Rose Show

WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:03 pm

Sidelined CERN collider gets a new, formal sendoff (AP)

AP - The world's largest scientific machine may have malfunctioned soon after its spectacular start and still be out of action. But that didn't stop dignitaries, donors and diplomats from inaugurating the broken atom smasher Tuesday with pomp and pageantry.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 4:38 pm

Big Bang experiment inaugurated despite glitch

GENEVA (Reuters) - The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) officially inaugurated its experiment to probe the origins of the universe on Tuesday, even though a technical hitch last month shut it down within days of starting.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 4:11 pm

Genes shed light on moles' "blindness" (AFP)

AFP - Moles are famously short-sighted thanks to disruption of genes that help to grow the lenses of their eyes, scientists said on Tuesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 4:04 pm

SLIDE SHOW: Crystals, Flakes Grown in Lab

Researchers grow nano crystals and flakes to advance energy harvesting devices.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:26 pm

Magnet Approved to Treat Depression

A device that beams magnetic pulses through the skull could treat chronic depression.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:12 pm

Solar Cells Go Organic

Diane Hinkens was a clothing designer. Now she's designing solar cells.
Source: Livescience.com | 21 Oct 2008 | 2:30 pm

Inkjet Printers Eyed to Make Human Heart

A researcher believes a 3-D inkjet printer could be used to make human hearts.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 2:12 pm

Huge Mountain Range Should Not Be There

Scientists will search for an Antarctic mountain range hidden beneath 2.5 miles of ice.
Source: Livescience.com | 21 Oct 2008 | 2:02 pm

New TB blood test seen more accurate

LONDON (Reuters) - A new blood test will allow doctors more accurately to pinpoint patients likely to develop the symptoms of tuberculosis, researchers said on Monday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:32 pm

Scientists to Make Personal Genomes Public

The "Personal Genome Project" will be a resource for scientists studying genetic diseases.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:18 pm

Tropical Cyclones Wash Away Carbon

New research finds that tropical cyclones may sequester carbon.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:10 pm

MoD scientists 'deployed in UK'

Scientists from Porton Down have been deployed in the UK a "number of times this year", a counter-terrorism chief tells MPs.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:07 pm

Trick or Treat? Corn Syrup's New Disguise

If only half-truths could add up to the whole truth.
Source: Livescience.com | 21 Oct 2008 | 12:31 pm

Geologists discover `dinosaur dance floor' (AP)

AP - Geologists say they have discovered prehistoric animal tracks so densely packed on a 3/4-acre site that they're calling it a "dinosaur dance floor."

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Oct 2008 | 11:48 am

Pandemics: Google takes on real viruses

Google has pledged to try to stop the next global pandemic by investing $15m in a series of hi-tech health schemes.

Money from the internet giant will provide funding for six projects that aim to detect new diseases and understand the conditions that help them spread – potentially saving millions of lives in the process.

"Business as usual won't prevent the next Aids or Sars," said Dr Larry Brilliant, the executive director of Google.org. "The teams we're funding today are on the frontiers of digital and genetic early-detection technology."

In the first round of grants, $15m (£8.8m) is being spread among organisations working to identify and prevent infectious diseases that have the potential to become global pandemics.

Among the biggest beneficiaries is the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, a group that collects blood samples from humans and animals around the world in order to spot dangerous pathogens that leap from animals to humans.

Examples of pandemic diseases that have followed this route include HIV, Sars and bird flu – even if the link has taken years or even decades to be determined.

The initiative will receive $5.5m from Google.org in order to expand its remit. Its founder, Dr Nathan Wolfe, said that the development could have a huge impact.

"Every hour, on every continent, viruses move from animals into people," he said. "Working in animal markets, with restaurant workers and with hunters at the end of the road, we sort through this traffic to stop deadly diseases before they spread."

Google will also be contributing $2.5m to a scheme run by the Mailman School of Public Health, based at Columbia University in New York, which aims to speed up its programme to discover new pathogens.

The other organisations receiving grants as part of the announcement include the International Research Institute for Climate and Society – also at Columbia – and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which will both receive $900,000 to improve weather prediction and forecasting.

Although it may not appear that the weather has a strong influence on the spread of diseases, Google.org programme director Frank Rijsberman said it was crucial to improve forecasting in conjunction with the identification of disease "hot spots" across Africa and south-east Asia.

"We think it has a critical role to play," he said. "For example, the last major outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Kenya – which affects cattle and spills over into people – was actually predicted several months in advance through a weather forecast. It was going to be wet, and that meant there were going to be a lot more mosquitos, and the mosquitos – if they reach a certain threshold – were likely to pass on the disease."

The Woods Hole Research Center, based in Massachusetts, will receive $2m to produce satellite images of forests in the developing world to help understand how the environment affects the spread of diseases.

Google has pledged to contribute 1% of all its profits to charity, as well as giving Google.org 3m shares in the parent company – currently valued at more than $1bn.

As part of its wide-ranging mission to develop new ideas in energy, the environment and global poverty, the organisation has already made significant investments in geothermal energy, solar technologies and wind power.

Rijsberman said that how much more was put into these schemes would depend on how successful they become.

"In renewable energy we have started with large investments, while in this initiative we have started with grants but expect to move into investments in diagnostics companies later. Over the next several years we expect some of them might be more successful than others, or we might find better ways of putting our resources to work."

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