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Portuguese Scientists Discover New Mechanism That Regulates Formation Of Blood VesselsResearchers have discovered a novel mechanism which regulates the process whereby new blood vessels are formed and wounds heal, including chronic wounds, such as those found in diabetic patients and those suffering from morbid obesity. These findings have implications for the development of new therapeutic approaches to healing damaged blood vessels and building new ones.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am Farming And Chemical Warfare: A Day In The Life Of An AntOne of the most important developments in human civilization was the practice of sustainable agriculture. But we were not the first; ants have been doing it for over 50 million years. Just as farming helped humans become a dominant species, it has also helped leaf-cutter ants become dominant herbivores and one of the most successful social insects in nature.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am How Binge Drinking May Drive Heart DiseaseAs the holidays arrive, a group of researchers has identified the precise mechanisms by which binge drinking contributes to clogs in arteries that lead to heart attack and stroke. The works adds to a growing body of evidence that drinking patterns matter as much, if not more, to risk for cardiovascular disease than the total amount consumed. Irregular, heavy drinking pattern clogs blood vessels.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am Does Hormone Treatment Predispose Patients To Breast Cancer?Breast cancer, the leading cause of death among women in France, is the most commonly occurring cancer in women. Sporadic breast cancer, which is non-hereditary, turns out to be the most widespread, representing 85 to 90% of all cases, but remains the least well-known. Researchers have just discovered the cause of 50% of sporadic breast cancers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am Rabies Barrier To Save World's Rarest WolfConservationists are battling to save the world's rarest wolf from a rabies outbreak by creating a 'barrier' of vaccinated wolf packs.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am Pavement Sealcoat Linked To Urban Lake Contamination In The Central And Eastern United StatesDust collected from coal-tar sealcoated parking lots in Central and Eastern U.S. cities contains concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are about 1,000 times greater than levels found in Western cities where coal-tar sealcoat is less commonly used, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am Space shuttle Endeavour begins descent to Calif. (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 8:23 pm Congo's war-baby gorillas bring hope for endangered species (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 8:08 pm Ultrasound Waves Aid In Rapid Treatment Of Deep Vein ThrombosisThe use of ultrasound waves for deep vein thrombosis may help dissolve blood clots in less time than using clot-busting drugs alone, according to researchers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 7:00 pm Common Cold Virus Came From Birds About 200 Years Ago, Study SuggestsA virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to an article in the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 7:00 pm Climate Change Opens New Avenue For Spread Of Invasive PlantsA team of researchers from the Netherlands and Florida has found that plants that range beyond their normal distribution because of warming climates may have advantages over native plants. Global warming-induced biological invasions may represent an additional threat to biodiversity.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 7:00 pm Exercise And Rest Reduce Cancer RiskExercise is good for more than just your waistline. A recent study suggests that regular physical activity can lower a woman's overall risk of cancer -- but only if she gets a good night's sleep. Otherwise, lack of sleep can undermine exercise's cancer prevention benefits.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 7:00 pm NASA to attempt California touchdown after two failed Florida bids (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 6:45 pm NASA reroutes shuttle to land in CaliforniaCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard space shuttle Endeavour closed their ship's cargo bay doors on Sunday and prepared to land in California after bad weather prompted NASA to bypass the prime Florida landing site.Source: Reuters: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 5:41 pm Food crunch opens doors to bioengineered crops (AP)AP - Zeng Yawen's outdoor laboratory in the terraced hills of southern China is a trove of genetic potential rice that thrives in unusually cool temperatures, high altitudes or in dry soil; rice rich in calcium, vitamins or iron.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 4:48 pm Wind Scuttles Fla. Space Shuttle LandingDangerously high wind and a stormy forecast prevented space shuttle Endeavour from landing at its home base Sunday.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Nov 2008 | 4:30 pm Problems prompt manual docking at space station (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 4:18 pm Poland adopts 24-bln-euro economic aid package (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 4:03 pm Beached whales die in AustraliaAbout 150 pilot whales die in a mass stranding in a remote coastal area of the Australian island of Tasmania.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Nov 2008 | 4:01 pm 150 whales die in stranding in Australia (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 7:18 am OPEC braces for tough times as global recession bites (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Nov 2008 | 3:55 am Pregnant, two kids under five... and cancer. What would you do?Breast cancer among pregnant women is a growing risk needing tough decisions. Do you abort - or endanger your baby's health with a toxic onslaught of chemotherapy? Pamela Paul investigatesSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:26 am Teachers demand HIV guidelinesUnions demand direct guidance for head teachers on how to treat pupils with HIVSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:10 am How the beat of our feet can generate powerThe beating of a patient's heart, the shudder of a tube train and the pounding of thousands of commuters' feet on crowded platforms are being exploited as new sources of power. Engineers and scientists are developing tiny generators that turn the kinetic energy of everyday movements into electricity which can then power sensors or provide electricity for remote installations. The technology, known as power harvesting, is already being tested in helicopter frames, the floors of discos and in volunteers' knee joints in order to generate electricity. In the near future, harvesters could be used to recharge iPods and mobile phones, say researchers. 'The idea is a not a new one,' admitted Dr Steve Beeby, of Southampton University. 'Self-winding watches are fitted with devices like these to recharge their batteries so they don't have to be replaced all the time. However, the latest versions are far more sophisticated and will have a much greater impact on everyday life.' Beeby has fitted harvesters at oil refineries. Vibrations from pipes and pumps drive the devices which in turn generate electricity for sensors. These sensors provide data that show if the refinery is operating safely and effectively. 'Without these devices we would have to link our sensors with miles of cables: a hazard and a waste of money,' added Beeby who is now working on fitting power harvesters to the frames of aircraft so embedded sensors can provide data readings about metal stress. Power harvesters are also being developed to help cardiac patients. At Imperial College, London, Dr Paul Mitcheson is working on a pacemaker that is kept constantly charged by the beating of a person's heart. Such a device, he said, could mean that pacemaker replacement operations - which are typically carried out every six or seven years - might become a thing of the past. The idea of using human energy to power electronic devices was originally developed by Trevor Baylis for his wind-up radio more than a decade ago. Modern versions are becoming more sophisticated, however. Even the gyrations of dancers are being used to generate power at the Bar Surya in London. Crystalline harvesters under its disco floor create tiny pulses of energy each time a dancer pushes down. The electricity created this way is used to offset the bar's utility bills. Installed on a large scale, in tube and rail stations, these underfloor harvesters could provide a considerable output of electricity. UK and US military researchers are exploring the potential of energy-harvesters that could be built into soldiers' boots to provide precious power in remote and dangerous settings.P guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:10 am Ban on kidney cancer drugs liftedA ban on drugs that can give kidney cancer patients many months of extra life is to be lifted. At least two, and possibly all four, of the medicines that had previously been deemed too expensive to prescribe will be approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) early next year. The move is a major victory for campaigners, patients and cancer specialists. They had described Nice's refusal to approve the drugs - which cost up to £70,000 a year per patient - as unfair, inhumane and condemning patients to an unnecessarily early death. Oncologists believe Sutent, Nexavar, Avastin and Torisel could benefit about half of the 7,000 people a year who are diagnosed with kidney cancer. No other drugs are as effective at extending life in patients with advanced forms of the disease or in whom cancer has returned after a period of remission. In August, medicines watchdog Nice refused to approve the drugs because they did not represent good value for money. But sources at Nice now say that Sutent will be given the green light when its appraisal committee holds its final meeting to discuss the drugs on 14 January. At least one more drug - likely to be Avastin or Nexavar - will also be approved, the sources added. The move follows Health Secretary Alan Johnson's decision this month to overhaul the way new medicines are assessed for terminally ill patients. Denying cancer patients access to drugs that are widely available abroad has become a major political issue. Nice immediately promised to be more flexible when examining the merits of such drugs, even if they were so costly they failed to meet its appraisal criteria. It has also been revealed that manufacturers of kidney cancer drugs have held talks with the Department of Health about introducing a pricing arrangement that might persuade Nice to approve their products. One scheme being discussed is to 'cost-share', a scheme that would see the NHS paying for a drug if it extended a patient's life by an agreed time, while the pharmaceutical company would refund the cost if the patient experienced no benefit and died. The Observer understands that both Pfizer and Roche, which make Sutent and Avastin respectively, have talked to the DoH about cost. Pfizer confirmed it had offered to cut the price of Sutent by 5 per cent and provide a first course for free, but said it had not had any discussions about risk-sharing. Nice has also been studying new clinical trial data from Pfizer about the benefits Sutent can bring to kidney cancer sufferers. That and further evidence from Roche have prompted 'further critical review of the evidence base' on the four drugs. A spokeswoman for Nice said the organisation was looking again at all the drugs because 'there was more evidence submitted during a couple of periods of the appraisal process by manufacturers, which needs to be discussed by the [appraisal] committee. We will publish a next draft within four weeks of the committee's meeting in January and issue final guidance in March 2009.' At present, Nice rarely approves a drug which costs more than £30,000 a year, even if it is proven to extend patients' lives. The spokeswoman confirmed that upper limit could rise as a result of ongoing public consultation. Pat Hanlon, of the charity Kidney Cancer UK, said: 'All four are marvellous, brilliant drugs, which provide a way of treating people with a horrible disease. If we can provide them on the NHS, thousands of people's lives would be extended. We feel strongly that all four should be recommended for funding.' Hanlon said the four drugs complied with new requirements, which Professor Mike Richards, the government's cancer tsar, said Nice should consider when examining end-of-life medicines. All four would benefit patients not expected to live more than two years; offer 'a substantial average extension to life compared to current treatment' and apply to a patient group whose number does not increase by more than 7,000 a year. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:06 am The Apollo 8 mission that changed everythingIt has proved to be the most enduring image we have of our fragile world. Over a colourless lunar surface, the Earth hangs like a gaudy Christmas bauble against a deep black background. The planet's blue disc - half in shadow - is streaked with faint traces of white, yellow and brown while its edge is sharply defined. There is no blurring that might be expected from the blanket of oxygen and nitrogen that envelops our planet. Our atmosphere is too thin to be seen clearly from the Moon: a striking reminder - if we ever needed one - of the frailty of the biosphere that sustains life on Earth. This is Earthrise, photographed by astronaut Bill Anders as he and his fellow Apollo 8 crewmen, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, orbited the Moon on Christmas Eve, 1968. His shot, taken 40 years ago next month, has become the most influential environmental image, and one of the most reproduced photographs, in history. Arguably, his picture is also the most important legacy of the Apollo space programme. Thanks to this image, humans could see, for the first time, their planet, not as continents or oceans, but as a world that was 'whole and round and beautiful and small,' as the poet Archibald MacLeish put it. Certainly, Earthrise is a striking reminder of Earth's vulnerability. We may have forgotten the men who risked their lives getting to the Moon and who explored its dead landscape - a 'beat-up' world as they put it - but the view they brought back of that glittering blue hemisphere continues to mesmerise. 'Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark,' the US astronomer, Carl Sagan, noted. 'There is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.' The opinion is shared by Sir David Attenborough. 'I clearly remember my first sight [of the Earthrise photograph]. I suddenly realised how isolated and lonely we are on Earth.' Indeed, says the UK space historian Robert Poole, the first popular expressions of ecological concern can be traced to the publication of that picture: dazzling blue ocean, the jacket of cloud and the relative invisibility of the land and human settlement. 'It is a rebuke to the vanity of humankind,' says Poole. 'Earthrise was an epiphany in space.' In fact, Nasa [the National Aeronautics and Space Administration] had not intended to fly to the Moon in 1968. Its lunar hardware was still unproven and Apollo 8 was slated merely to test equipment in low Earth orbit. However, that autumn, the agency was told, incorrectly, by the CIA that the Soviet Union was preparing its own manned lunar mission. So the Apollo programme - established to fulfil President John Kennedy's call for a US manned lunar landing by the end of the decade - was accelerated and Apollo 8 designated for a journey to the Moon, though there would no lander to take men to the lunar surface. That would come on later missions. The decision was controversial. Nasa's giant Saturn V rocket, the only launcher capable of taking men to the Moon, had been bedevilled by flaws and instrument failures on its two test flights. Worse, there had been the fire in 1967 in which three astronauts - Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee - were burned to death during a ground test of an Apollo capsule. Sending Lovell, Anders and Borman in an almost identical spacecraft to the Moon, on an unsafe launcher, was a gamble, to say the least. As a result, most press conferences in the run-up to the launch were dominated by questions about the risks the astronauts faced and, although the mission turned out to be a success, and surpassed all subsequent Apollo missions for the precision of its flight path and lack of glitches, it was dogged at the start by control-room nerves and tension. Finally, at 6.31am, on Saturday 21 December, the Saturn V - at 360ft, the tallest, most powerful rocket ever built and for the first time carrying a human crew - blasted Borman, Anders and Lovell into space. The launch was shattering. 'The Earth shakes, cars rattle and vibrations beat in the chest,' as Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the writer and wife of the aviator Charles Lindbergh put it. In the event, the rocket performed perfectly and put Apollo 8 safely into orbit. Using a 'state-of-the-art' computer - which had less power than a modern hand calculator - Lovell keyed in the commands that fired the launcher's third stage and sent their craft hurtling on its three-day journey to the Moon. The spaceship had become the first manned vehicle to slip the surly bonds of Earth and head to another world. The outward trip was not without its mishaps. As the astronauts settled down for their first night in space, cramped into a craft the size of a minivan, they found it difficult to sleep. So Borman tried a sleeping pill. This was a mistake. A couple of hours later, he was struck by a fit of vomiting and diarrhoea, a tricky affliction in zero gravity, as Robert Zimmerman recalls in Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8. 'Borman, Lovell and Anders found themselves scrambling about the cabin, trying to capture blobs of faeces and vomit with paper towels. So much for the glamour of space flight.' Certainly, it was an inelegant way to travel to another world. Early on Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 reached its destination. The astronauts fired the craft's Service Propulsion System (SPS) rocket to slow as it swept past the Moon and the little ship slipped into lunar orbit. For its first three revolutions, the astronauts kept its windows pointing down towards the Moon and frantically filmed the craters and mountains below. Reconnaissance for subsequent Apollo landings was a key task for the mission. It was not until Apollo 8 was on its fourth orbit that Borman decided to roll the craft away from the Moon and to point its windows towards the horizon in order to get a navigational fix. (The capsule's astronauts still used sextants to guide their craft.) A few minutes later, he spotted a blue-and-white fuzzy blob edging over the horizon. Transcripts of the Apollo 8 mission reveal the astronaut in a rare moment of losing his cool as he realised what he was watching: Earth, then a quarter of million miles away, rising from behind the Moon. 'Oh my God! Look at the picture over there. Here's the Earth coming up,' Borman shouts. This is followed by a flurry of startled responses from Anders and Lovell and a battle - won by Anders - to find a camera to photograph the unfolding scene. His first image is in black-and-white and shows Earth only just peeping over the horizon. A few minutes later, having stuffed a roll of 70mm colour film into his Hasselblad, he takes the photograph of Earthrise that became an icon of 20th-century technological endeavour and ecological awareness. In this way, humans first recorded their home planet from another world. 'It was,' Borman later recalled, 'the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life, one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any colour to it. Everything else was either black or white. But not the Earth.' Or as Lovell put it, our home world is simply 'a grand oasis'. Last week, I spoke to Lovell, now a vigorously healthy 80-year-old and owner of the Lovells of Lake Forest restaurant in northern Chicago, where his son, Jay, is chef. An experienced astronaut even before he flew on Apollo 8, he achieved his greatest fame as commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission - which only narrowly survived a fuel-tank explosion en route to the Moon in 1970. (Lovell was played by Tom Hanks in Ron Howard's film, Apollo 13, in 1995.) 'Apollo 8 was a high point for me without a doubt. Apollo 13 was certainly less pleasant. It was touch and go, after all.' Nor does he fail to appreciate the importance of that photograph. 'The predominant colours were white, blue and brown,' he recalled. 'The green of the Earth's grassland and forests is filtered out by the atmosphere and appears as a bluish haze from space.' The effect is to give Earth an added, especially intense blue veneer. 'Bill [Anders] had the camera with colour film and a telephoto lens,' he said. 'That is what makes the picture. Earth is about the size of a thumbnail when seen with the naked eye from the Moon. The telephoto lens makes it seem bigger and gives the picture that special quality.' (Seven months later, Neil Armstrong - standing on the lunar surface - also noted he could blot out the Earth with his thumb . Did that make him feel really big, he was asked years later? 'No,' the great astronaut replied, 'it made me feel really, really small.') By Christmas Day, the whole world had become engrossed in Apollo 8's epic journey: 1968 had been a particularly traumatic year and the planet was desperate for a diversion. In the US, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been assassinated, the Vietnam War had worsened dramatically and civil and student conflict was spreading through US cities. In Europe, the Prague 'spring' had been crushed by Soviet tanks. People needed cheer and the realisation that humans had reached the Moon provided that uplift perfectly. There was a further twist to the mission's timing. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke's visionary epic 2001: A Space Odyssey was then showing in cinemas round the globe. (The Apollo 8 crew had attended its Houston premiere three months earlier.) The film ends with the embryonic Star Child hanging in space above the Earth: a tiny, glittering blue disc very like the one that had just been pictured by Anders. The links between Apollo 8 and 2001 went further than that, however. The film depicts space travel as commonplace and there, to prove the accuracy of its vision, were men orbiting the Moon. It seemed to many people - including myself, then a university student and a space-programme devotee - that all those dreams of science fiction writers and film-makers might soon be realised. It was a wondrous Christmas. Indeed, it can be fairly claimed that Apollo 8 was the real Man on the Moon story. By the time, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reached the Moon on Apollo 11, the world had already got used to the idea of manned lunar flight. By contrast, Apollo 8 took many people unawares. Certainly, you could easily argue that it, and not Apollo 11, deserves the title of the greatest event of the 20th century. Lovell believes that. 'I sat beside Charles Lindbergh at the launch of Apollo 11. "It's a great event," he said, "but you know you were the ones who really spearheaded the moon programme".' Anders, Borman and Lovell orbited the Moon 10 times. Then, as they prepared to head back to Earth, the astronauts held a last televised press conference. Each then took turns to read out the first 10 verses of the book of Genesis as they skimmed, at a height of 70 miles, over the lunar surface. The Old Testament struck many people as an odd choice for a final lunar reading. But all three (at the time, at least) were deeply religious: Borman and Lovell were Protestants, Anders a Catholic. None of them saw any ambiguity in reading out a version of creation that was at complete odds with the version supported by the scientists who had got them there. In any case, the reading went down well in America. A few hours later, Lovell fired the SPS engine again and Apollo 8 began its homeward journey, splashing down in the Pacific on 27 December. As the astronauts waited to be picked up by the navy, 10ft waves pounded their craft. Borman, once again, was sick. Apart from that, their homecoming was a triumph. After that, Anders' colour film was processed and passed to the media. Time ran the photograph with single word 'Dawn' while Life published a lengthy display of images from the mission, including a poster-sized spread of the Earthrise photograph. Seven months later, Apollo 11 reached the lunar surface. It was the beginning of the end for space programme. Three years later, Apollo 17 lifted off from the Moon, the last human visit to this dead world. The US public, who had funded the programme, tired of the Moon and turned to concerns closer to home. 'Looking back, it is possible to see that Earthrise marked the tipping point, the moment when the sense of the space age flipped from what it means for space to what it meant for Earth,' says Robert Poole in his recent book Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth Humans had spent billions in an attempt to explore another world and in the end rediscovered their own. It was a point stressed by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, one of the last men on the Moon. 'Like our childhood home, we really see the Earth only as we prepare to leave it,' he wrote. However, of all the efforts to sum up the story of Earthrise, the best is made by TS Eliot in last of the Quartets: 'We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.' • Additional research by Hermione Hoby Fly me to the moon: The three astronauts who made historyJim Lovell Apollo 8 pilot (later commander of Apollo 13) Like his Apollo 8 companions, Jim Lovell came from a modest background. He was born on 25 March, 1928, the son of a Philadelphia coal furnace salesman who died when Lovell was 12. As a result, Lovell had to rely on a US navy scholarship to see him through university. He served in the Korean War before becoming a navy test pilot and then a Nasa astronaut in 1962. He flew on two Gemini missions before Apollo 8. Of its three crewmen, Lovell was the only one to return to space - as commander of Apollo 13. Thus he became one of only three men to travel twice to the Moon. Gene Cernan (on Apollos 10 and 17) and John Young (on Apollos 10 and 16) are the others. However, of this trio, Lovell was the only one who never made it to the surface. Although he was scheduled to land with Apollo 13, a fuel tank explosion forced its crew to abandon their landing and to struggle back to Earth. Today, Lovell helps run the Lovells of Lake Forest restaurant near Chicago, where his son, Jay, is chef, and raises money to help young students study science and become involved in the US space programme. Bill Anders Apollo 8 pilot The son of a US nvay lieutenant, Anders was born in October 1933 and grew up in San Diego, California, before becoming a jet pilot, joining the Apollo programme in 1963. Apollo 8 was his only space mission, though he can claim to have made as great an impact as any other seasoned space traveller on that trip: his image of Earthrise has become the environmentalists' icon. The mission affected him profoundly. Once a devout Catholic, he found his experience of space made a mockery of his beliefs and he gave up religion. Anders served in a number of senior US government offices before becoming CEO of General Dynamics. He retired in 1994. Frank Borman Apollo 8 commander Born on 14 March 1928, Borman was brought up in Tucson, Arizona, and after graduating from West Point, served as a fighter pilot before becoming a US air force test pilot and then an astronaut in 1962. After Apollo 8, Borman left Nasa, joined Eastern Air Lines and eventually became its CEO in December 1975. Borman retired from the airline in 1986. He now lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he rebuilds and flies Second World War and Korean War aircraft. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:06 am Caroline Davies on the first British conjoined twins to be separated and to surviveIt is 11 years since Joan Varley gave birth to the first British conjoined twins to be separated and to surviveSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:05 am Advances in surgery raise survival rates for conjoined twinsConjoined twins are identical twins whose bodies are joined together and who often share vital organs. The condition is rare, occurring about once in every 200,000 births, with the highest incidence occurring in south-west Asia and Africa. Females are more often affected than males. The birth of conjoined babies can be extremely traumatic. It is estimated that between 40 to 60% of these births are delivered stillborn, with 35% surviving only one day. Of those conjoined twins that survive: • 70% are connected at the chest or upper abdomen; • 25% are connected lower down and share hips or legs; • 5% are connected at the head. Improved medical imaging techniques and operating procedures in recent years have increased patients' survival prospects. However, the position of the twins' connections and the extent of their sharing of organs, such as hearts, lungs or livers, also has a crucial bearing on the outcome of separation surgery. In the past, a shared organ such as a liver or kidney meant that surgery was impossible, but doctors now tackle such operations. In 2006 four-year-old conjoined twin girls Kendra and Maliyah Herrin were successfully separated after undergoing a 16-hour operation in Utah, USA, despite the fact that they had been born with their bodies joined at the abdomen and with a shared pelvis and kidney. Similarly, Joan Varley's daughters Niamh and Aoife shared a liver. However, by dividing bits of the organ between each twin doctors were able to separate them safely. The extent to which Faith and Hope Williams are connected is not known. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:05 am Humble mouse turns 40 and loses its touchThe name was never meant to stick. When Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California designed a computer controller encased in a carved-out wooden block, with wheels mounted on the underbelly, one researcher nicknamed it a 'mouse'. 'We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name,' Engelbart recalled later. 'But it didn't.' Engelbart's invention became the mouse that soared, an essential piece of computer hardware. Its 40th birthday will be celebrated next week when Engelbart returns to Stanford (now known as SRI International). The mouse was first shown to the world when he gave a presentation of a working network computer system in San Francisco on 9 December, 1968, which is still revered as 'the dawn of interactive computing'. Yet in one sense Engelbart, now 83, was far ahead of his time. He never received royalties, partly because his patent ran out just before the tech revolution that saw the computer and mouse supplant pen and paper. Now the mouse faces growing competition from a new generation of touchscreens. Engelbart first started making notes for the mouse in 1961, after deciding that he could do better than the standard gadget, a light pen which had been used on radar systems during the Second World War. 'We had a big heavy tracking ball - it was like a cannonball,' he said. 'We had several gadgets that ended up with pivots you could move around. We had a light panel you had to hold up right next to the screen so the computer could see it. And a joystick that you wiggle around to try to steer things.' One of Engelbart's collaborators, Bill English, built an 'x-y positioning device' made from a wooden shell with wheels and a connecting cord, or 'tail', at the back. The cord got in the way when it was used, however, and so it was moved to the front. 'We set up our experiments and the mouse won in every category, even though it had never been used before,' Engelbart recalls on his website. 'It was faster, and with it people made fewer mistakes. Five or six of us were involved in these tests, but no one can remember who started calling it a mouse. I'm surprised the name stuck.' Xerox developed the mouse during the Seventies and launched the first commercial product with the Xerox Star computer system in 1981. It failed to take off, but when Apple bought the mouse patent for its Macintosh in 1984 success was assured, and it was eventually taken up by the mass PC market for use with Microsoft Windows. By then Engelbart's patent had expired, meaning that he missed out on a potential fortune, although later mice used different mechanisms which could have been claimed not to infringe the original patent if the matter had ever gone to court. The Stanford Research Institute licensed the mouse to Apple for just $40,000, according to the book Inventors and Inventions, published by Marshall Cavendish, which tells how in 1989 Engelbart lost both his laboratory and his house - the latter burnt down while he and his family stood outside helpless. But together with his daughter, he set up the Bootstrap Institute to promote his ideas, and in 1998 he was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Bill Clinton for 'creating the foundations of modern computing'. The mouse now faces unprecedented competition. Laptops which make no use of a mouse are an increasingly popular alternative to desktop computers for workers on the move. Apple's popular iPhone and Nintendo's Wii have shown the potential for touchscreens and movement sensors. HP is pushing a mouse-less TouchSmart PC. Microsoft has invested millions of dollars in a coffee table-shaped 'Surface' computer which responds to natural hand gestures, touch and physical objects. Splendid, a digital innovations agency in London, is one of the first companies to adopt Surface. Paul Bishop, its managing director, said: 'It's much more collaborative and natural and people find it very intuitive.' Steve Prentice, an analyst at Gartner Research, also predicts the mouse's demise. 'I very much doubt that we'll be using the mouse in 40 years' time,' he said. 'They will be still be around in four or five years, but will they be the standard we see today? We're starting to see more complex and intuitive controls develop and the mouse will be left behind.' guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 30 Nov 2008 | 12:05 am Mysterious Drop in Visitors to National ParksVisits to the national forests are off 13 percent.Source: Livescience.com | 29 Nov 2008 | 7:55 pm
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