Science Headlines for November 17, 2008

Astronauts Unpack Endeavour's Cargo

After a safe docking at the space station, Endeavour's astronauts are ready to unpack.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:40 pm

Shuttle Astronauts to Move In Aboard Space Station (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - It's moving day at the International Space Station today as astronauts aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour prepare to deliver a portable room packed with new home additions for the orbiting laboratory.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:33 pm

Open thread: Is there such thing as a sixth sense?

The science minister, Lord Drayson, claims to have a 'sixth sense'. Is there such thing?
Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:30 pm

British Science Minister Claims Sixth Sense

Lord Drayson apparently thinks he can foresee the future.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:28 pm

Big particle collider repairs to cost $21 million (AP)

AP - Fixing the world's largest atom smasher will cost at least 25 million francs ($21 million) and may take until early summer, its operator said Monday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:18 pm

New friends

Why environmental groups are as relevant as ever
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:11 pm

Greenpeace: Japanese whalers leave for annual hunt (AP)

AP - Anti-whaling activists protested Monday as the mother ship in Japan's whaling fleet left for the country's annual hunt in the Antarctic, after last year's expedition was cut short by high-seas clashes with a protest ship, the environmental group Greenpeace said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:02 pm

Whalers slip out of Japanese port

Japan's factory whaling ship reportedly leaves port without fanfare on a seasonal hunt, following protests last year.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:58 pm

Natural Gas Rush Stirs Concerns

Advanced drilling techniques blast millions of gallons of water into shale formations.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:29 pm

Broken Gadgets Can't Be Fixed

Can anyone fix this stuff when it breaks?
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:24 pm

Astronauts prepare to unpack Endeavour's cargo (AP)

AP - Astronauts aboard the international space station and the newly arrived shuttle Endeavour planned Monday to start unpacking a new toilet and a contraption that purifies urine and sweat into drinkable water at the orbiting outpost.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:23 pm

A Key to Sharp Old Minds Found (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A handful of people seem to reach very old ages with their brains remaining super-sharp. Scientists call their brains "super aged."
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:20 pm

The Healthiest City in America

It appears to be Burlington, Vt.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:19 pm

Power projects sought for firth

Marine power developers are invited to submit projects proposals in the Pentland Firth and surrounding waters.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:18 pm

A Key to Sharp Old Minds Found

A handful of people seem to reach very old ages with their brains remaining super-sharp.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:10 pm

Indonesia quake kills 4, buildings collapse (AP)

AP - A powerful earthquake jolted eastern Indonesia on Monday, killing at least four people, damaging hundreds of homes and briefly triggering a region-wide tsunami warning, officials said as they surveyed the damage.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 11:54 am

Did Science Build a Better Turkey?

One turkey dominates the competition at the supermarket: the broad-breasted white turkey.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 11:26 am

In Egg, Frog Knows Predators Already

A wood frog can learn to identify predators while still in the egg.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 11:09 am

Medical researchers are not a threat to NHS patient privacy

Giving professional medical researchers better access to patient records could help develop more effective treatments, says Simon Wessely
Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 17 Nov 2008 | 11:09 am

Classical music: Elgar helps calm zoo elephants

The rousing, patriotic sweep of Elgar's Nimrod, the mournful tones of Nessun Dorma and the urgent eight-note allegro con brio opening to Beethoven's fifth – they have all been helping animal behaviour experts to make life more comfortable for the elephants at Belfast zoo.

The researchers have discovered that playing classical music to the animals reduces abnormal behaviours such as swaying, pacing and trunk tossing, although they said elephants don't seem to have a favourite composer.

"We tend to see in some situations that elephants don't cope well with captivity just because they have this inherent instinct to roam vast distances," said Dr Deborah Wells at Queen's University in Belfast. "The rationale underlying this study is really to try and improve their welfare and in particular to try to improve these stereotypic patterns of behaviour that elephants are prone to."

Her team recorded the behaviour of four female Asian elephants every minute for four hours a day over three five-day periods. "Every single behaviour the elephants could perform, we recorded," said Wells.

During the first five days the animals were not exposed to any music. In the second five days the researchers placed a speaker in their enclosure playing a CD of classical music by the likes of Mozart, Elgar, Handel and Beethoven. During the final five days the speaker was switched off.

The team report in the journal Animal Welfare that the frequency of abnormal behaviours dropped dramatically while the music was playing whereas normal behaviours, such as feeding, remained unchanged.

"Elephants are incredibly sensitive beasts," said David Field, zoological director of London and Whipsnade zoos."Their appreciation of noise communication is far beyond our hearing range. They communicate in deep infrasonic vibrations ... so it wouldn't surprise me at all if [classical music] has this calming effect."

He said keepers at London and Whipsnade zoos often put a radio on in the enclosures of animals that have to be kept on their own – for example sick animals or new arrivals at the zoo. Whipsnade's elephants in particular seem to appreciate background music. "We always do tend to have music on but we certainly wouldn't stick to classical music and I think our elephants are a bit partial to Terry Wogan and Chiltern FM," he said.

Wells has already investigated the effect that music has on dogs and gorillas. "Classical had the most beneficial effect. Heavy metal had quite an adverse effect on the dogs," she said.

She said dog shelters have begun playing classical music to calm their animals as result of that study.

She stressed that as yet the team can't be sure why elephants react well to classical music or whether other genres would work as well. "We really don't know what their perception of the music was," she said. It may simply be that it masked unpleasant background noises – for example from the zoo's visitors.

Field believes that as intelligent animals elephants may turn out to be quite discerning. "I think they would have very eclectic tastes actually," he said.

India Slams Probe into the Moon

India's Chandrayaan 1 releases its impact probe to lunar surface.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 4:44 am

Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Off Toward Space Station

Shuttle Endeavour launches on a mission to help overhaul the space station.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 4:42 am

After 'Remarkable' Night Launch, Complex Shuttle Flight Ahead

A challenging mission awaits shuttle Endeavour astronauts at the space station.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Nov 2008 | 4:41 am

Shark-cam captures ocean motion

A BBC crew films a whale shark - the world's biggest fish - expelling food waste.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Nov 2008 | 2:52 am

Shuttle docks at international space station

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Space shuttle Endeavour docked at the International Space Station on Sunday on an outer-space home improvement mission to add amenities like a new toilet and kitchen to the 10-year-old orbital outpost.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Nov 2008 | 1:33 am

Colossus of Rhodes to be rebuilt as giant light sculpture

One of world's seven ancient wonders to be reconstructed, but not copied, thanks to new funding
Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:07 am

Mark Miodownik: It just keeps on growing. Our hair's story is entwined with that of evolution

Mark Miodownik: Strands of Darwin's beard are a fitting display, our hair's story is entwined with that of evolution
Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:06 am

Science Weekly podcast: Dark Matter, John Gribbin, a carrot mob, Nasa's Martian probe and Darwin's beard

This week's guest is astronomer and prolific author John Gribbin. We discuss dark matter and why the moon is so important. Plus, why the Earth, the universe and everything is rather pretty average really.

We chew over Charles Darwin's beard and why the Natural History Museum is missing a trick when it comes to merchandising.

Nanotechnology and Google Flu Trends get a mention too.

James Randerson reports back from The American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco. We speak to the man whose work has resulted in the birth of the first baby following an ovary transplant.

We meet a carrot mob in London's Covent Garden. They are trying to make businesses more energy efficient by using consumer power. A 'carrot' rather than a 'stick' approach.

And we have a, surprisingly emotional, tribute for Nasa's late great Martian probe, the Phoenix lander.

Another full studio with science correspondents Ian Sample and James Randerson, as well as Nell Boase from our arts desk.

Feel free to post your comments about the show on the blog below.

You can also join our facebook group, where you can scrawl your thoughts on our wall.

Thanks this week go to Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, for spending far too much of his time turning tweets into computer speech!

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 17 Nov 2008 | 12:06 am

Starwatch: Cepheus and Cassiopeia

Jupiter and the more brilliant Venus are heading for a spectacular conjunction low in the SW at nightfall. As they sink towards the horizon, a pair of celestial royalty is wheeling overhead. The constellations of Cepheus and Cassiopeia represent the mythical king and queen whose daughter, Andromeda, was rescued from the sea monster, Cetus, by the hero Perseus. All the players in the tale, including Perseus's steed Pegasus find their place in our autumn sky.

To locate the area depicted on our chart, face a few degrees N of E at nightfall and tilt your head back. The overhead point lies in the upper-right of the chart but migrates to the lower-right corner by 21:00 BST as the sky turns above us. The most obvious pattern is the quashed "W" or "M" of Cassiopeia, half as long as the Plough. Just as the end stars of the Plough, the Pointers, indicate Polaris, so Schedar and Caph, at the corresponding side of Cassiopeia, point to Alderamin, the leader of Cepheus.

Polaris itself lies just beyond the left of the chart and both Cassiopeia and Cepheus are circumpolar in that they remain forever above our horizon as they turn about the pole. Indeed, the slow wobble of the Earth's axis means that Alderamin will become our pole star by about AD 5,500. Cepheus, though, is generally dim and its form may be hard to distinguish amid the stars of the Milky Way which washes through this region. On the best moonless nights, even the stars of Cassiopeia may be almost swamped by the stellar backdrop.

Mu Cephei, Herschel's Garnet Star, is a striking red supergiant and one of the largest stars known. Best admired through binoculars, it pulses slowly between the third and fifth magnitudes. Delta is the prototype of the Cepheid variable stars which have proved invaluable in plumbing intergalactic distances. With their periods of pulsation tied to their absolute brilliance, if we measure the apparent brightness and period of a Cepheid in a distant galaxy, we can infer its distance. Delta itself varies between mag 3.5 and 4.4 every 5.37 days.

Gamma may be Cassiopeia's most famous variable. Young blue-hot and spinning rapidly, it varies unpredictably as it sheds material into space. Now near magnitude 2.1 and the brightest star in Cassiopeia, it was even brighter in the past while as recently as 1940 it shone more weakly than any of its partners in the "W". Rho is one of the largest and most luminous stars we know. Its variable light around mag four or five reaches us across some 12,000 light years making it one of the most distant individual stars we can see easily without a telescope.

Astronomy

Vitamins do not reduce cancer risk, says study

Taking vitamin A and E supplements does not lower your risk of cancer, according to the results of a large clinical trial involving nearly 15,000 men in the US.

Both vitamins are powerful antioxidants - substances that can tackle harmful byproducts of the body's metabolism which can cause DNA damage and hence trigger cancer. However, the study shows that taking the vitamins in supplement form has no effect at all on cancer.

"There have been a number of previous studies that have suggested that vitamin E and vitamin C might be important in the prevention of cancer," said Dr Howard Sesso, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. These were mostly small lab studies or research on animals. But a 1998 study of men in Finland suggested that vitamin E supplements reduced prostate cancer cases by 32% and deaths by 41%.

"The lack of an effect that we observe for vitamin E or C on cancer does convince us that these particular doses that we tested really have no role for recommendation for cancer prevention," said Sesso.

His team recruited 14,641 male doctors and assigned them to four groups which took a different combination of the supplements or their placebos. The team looked at the number of deaths from cancer and found no statistical differences.

Sesso reported the results of the Physicians Health Study II trial at the American Association for Cancer Research's meeting in Prince George's county, Maryland.

Ed Yong, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said there was growing evidence vitamin supplements did not prevent the risk of cancer. He said having a healthy diet was more important.

Elgar hits right note for elephants

The rousing, patriotic sweep of Elgar's Nimrod, the mournful tones of Nessun Dorma and the urgent eight-note allegro con brio opening to Beethoven's fifth - they have all been helping animal behaviour experts make life more comfortable for the elephants at Belfast zoo.

The researchers have discovered that playing classical music to the animals reduces abnormal behaviour such as swaying, pacing and trunk tossing, although they said that the elephants do not seem to have a favourite composer.

"We tend to see in some situations that elephants don't cope well with captivity because they have this inherent instinct to roam vast distances," said Dr Deborah Wells at Queen's University in Belfast. "The rationale underlying this study is really to try and improve their welfare and in particular to try to improve these stereotypical patterns of behaviour that elephants are prone to."

Wells's team recorded the behaviour of four female Asian elephants every minute for four hours a day, over three five-day periods. "Every behaviour the elephants could perform, we recorded," she said.

Shuttle docks with space station

Space Shuttle Endeavour docks with the International Space Station on an "extreme make-over" mission.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Nov 2008 | 10:50 pm

Discovery offers way of tracking cancer in blood

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tiny sacs released from tumor cells and circulating in the blood carry genetic information about the tumor, offering a new way to track and treat the cancer, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Nov 2008 | 6:03 pm

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