Science Headlines for December 9, 2008

Ship-in-a-bottle Kit On A Microchip

Remote-controlled with a magnetic field, aggregates of plastic particles on a microchip function like stirrers and pumps.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

No Association Found Between Fat, Protein, And Meat Consumption And Kidney Cancer

There is no association between consumption of fat, protein, or meat and kidney cancer, according to a pooled analysis of prospective studies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Mediterranean Diet Plus Nuts May Be Helpful In Managing Metabolic Syndrome

A traditional Mediterranean diet with an additional daily serving of mixed nuts appears to be useful for managing some metabolic abnormalities in older adults at high risk for heart disease, according to a new report.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Key To 'Curing' Obesity May Lie In Worms That Destroy Their Own Fat

A previously unknown mutation discovered in a common roundworm holds the promise of new treatments for obesity in humans, researchers say.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

For Nanotechnology, Religion In U.S. Dictates A Wary View

When it comes to the world of the very, very small -- nanotechnology -- Americans have a big problem: nano and its capacity to alter the fundamentals of nature, it seems, are failing the moral litmus test of religion.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Snail, Slug Invasions In Hawaii

Hawaii's ongoing problem with invasive species such as snails and slugs, including their serious impact on plant nurseries and other aspects of the local horticultural industry, has been investigated and documented.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Smart Pills: The Truth About Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs

Drugs used to make people smarter are riddled with side effects.
Source: Livescience.com | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:25 pm

Sweet Find in Search for Alien Life

Scientists say a basic ingredient of life is abundant in our galaxy.
Source: Livescience.com | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:18 pm

Black gold

The world needs a global carbon permit scheme
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:17 pm

Genetic Variant, Poor Glycemic Control Linked To Coronary Artery Disease

A common genetic variant associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease in the general population is also linked to an even higher risk for people with diabetes, particularly those with poor glucose control.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:00 pm

Developing A Global Antidote For Snake Bites: 100,000 People Die From Snake Bites Each Year

Globally snake bite affects the lives of some 4.5 million people every year, and conservative estimates suggest that at least 100,000 people die from snake bite, and another 250,000 are permanently disabled. The world's leading authorities on snake bite are launching a Global Snake Bite Initiative aimed at developing practical solutions to prevent and treat what is one of the world's most neglected tropical conditions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:00 pm

Dinosaurs Were Airheads, CT Scans Reveal

Paleontologists have long known that dinosaurs had tiny brains, but they had no idea the beasts were such airheads. Scientists suggest that newly discovered large air spaces helped lighten the load of the head, making it about 18 percent lighter than it would have been without all the air. That savings in weight could have allowed the predators to put on more bone-crushing muscle or even to take larger prey.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:00 pm

Prostate Cancer Spurs New Nerves

Prostate cancer -- and perhaps other cancers -- promotes the growth of new nerves and the branching axons that carry their messages, a finding associated with more aggressive tumors, said researchers in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:00 pm

Website Identifies Toxic Chemicals in Toys (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Just in time for holiday toy purchases, the Michigan-based Ecology Center has released its second annual consumer guide to what toxic chemicals have been found in toys, including lead, mercury and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:46 pm

Website Identifies Toxic Chemicals in Toys

Annual consumer guide shows what toxic chemicals have been found in toys.
Source: Livescience.com | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:39 pm

N. Texas storms destroy at least 2 homes, hurt 1 (AP)

AP - Authorities say storms in northern Texas have destroyed several homes and left one person with minor injuries.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 11:40 am

Earthquakes can 'spark eruptions'

Very large earthquakes can trigger an increase in activity at nearby volcanoes a scientific study claims.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Dec 2008 | 11:17 am

Allergy explosion

Remote Tristan da Cunha may hold the answer
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Dec 2008 | 10:10 am

Regulators must clamp down on genetic testing firms

Genetic testing companies operate in a regulatory abyss. For the sake of public safety and confidence that has to change, writes Stuart Hogarth

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 9:49 am

Panda bites park keeper in Hong Kong (AP)

AP - A giant panda named Peace bit a park keeper's left leg while he was laying bamboo leaves in the animal's pen at a Hong Kong amusement park, officials said Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 7:52 am

Brain cell hope for hearing loss

Scientists believe a transplant of brain cells may one day be able to reverse a common form of hearing loss.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Dec 2008 | 7:52 am

11 New Cholesterol Genes Identified (HealthDay)

HealthDay - MONDAY, Dec. 8 (HealthDay News) -- An international research team that screened the genes of more than 40,000 people has identified 11 more regions that govern levels of blood fats such as LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:47 am

Fire Ant Invasions Are Ecological Karma

If humans didn't make it so easy for them, invasive fire ants wouldn't invade.

So concludes one of the first experimental tests of the hypothesis that invasive species are not uniquely superior to local species, but take advantage of ecological niches opened by human disturbance.

It's a lesson people would do well to learn.

To test the idea, Florida State University biologists added fire ants — the stinging scourge of southern shopping malls and subdivisions — to forest plots that had been mowed and plowed.

Plowing destroyed existing ant colonies, and fire ants soon thrived. But when introduced to undisturbed forest, they couldn't find a foothold.

"Fire ants are 'passengers' rather than 'drivers' of ecological change," wrote the researchers in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They dubbed the ants "disturbance specialists," and suggest that other species may also specialize in disturbance.

Understanding this is "critically important," because human activity affects most of the Earth's surface.

But what can be done about it? Humans aren't about to stop developing land — but perhaps we could do so a little more carefully.

Experimental evidence that human impacts drive fire ant invasions and ecological change [PNAS]

Image: A sidewalk fire ant nest in Tallahassee, Florida / Walter Tschinkel

See Also:

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Dec 2008 | 4:04 am

Feds laud conservation deal with private entities (AP)

AP - The federal government signed agreements Monday with an oil and gas company and a rancher to help protect two rare New Mexico species, deals that federal officials hope will pave the way for cooperative conservation efforts across the country.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:11 am

Wait a second: 2008 gets extended by timekeepers (AP)

AP - With a brutal economic slowdown, 2008 may feel as if it will never end. Now the world's timekeepers are making it even longer by adding a leap second to the last day of the year.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:00 am

Studies show dogs have sense of fairness (AP)

AP - No fair! What parent hasn't heard that from a child who thinks another youngster got more of something? Well, it turns out dogs can react the same way. Ask them to do a trick and they'll give it a try. For a reward, sausage say, they'll happily keep at it. But if one dog gets no reward, and then sees another get sausage for doing the same trick, just try to get the first one to do it again. Indeed, he may even turn away and refuse to look at you.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:00 am

Complex Medical Test Made From Paper and Tape for Three Cents

A sophisticated medical test that checks for dozens of diseases at the same time can be made from little more than paper and double-sided tape, bringing the cost within reach for the developing world.

The devices, known as microfluidics chips, operate much like a home pregnancy test, in which liquid creeps up a cellulose strip toward a color-changing line. But unlike the pregnancy test, these new chips can split a single stream of liquid into dozens of channels. Each of those canals could be used to perform a different diagnosis for diseases such as HIV, Dengue Fever or Hepatitis.

With a bit more work, the Harvard University chemists who devised the paper test could build a user-friendly, multi-layered microfluidics device with raw materials that cost roughly three cents.

"Our work was intended to bring greater capability to paper-based analytical systems, by making them three-dimensional," said Andres Martinez, a co-author on the report which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday.

In the developing world, cost, durability and ease of use are stumbling blocks for many medical technologies. But a cheap, simple device like a paper microfluidics chip could be used in health care, environmental monitoring, water and food quality monitoring, as well as for monitoring the health of plants and animals.

The material most commonly used for microfluidics, a rubber called PDMS, is not suited for mass production, said Michelle Khine, a microfluidics expert at the University California, Merced. Plastics would be better, but it is hard to carve complicated patterns in them without expensive equipment. Even if someone could make cheap chips, hooking them up to pumps is a huge hassle.

"For microfluidic chips to become ubiquitous, I think we still need to solve a bunch of technical problems," she said.

By switching to tape and paper, the team was able to get around several of those problems. Since paper wicks moisture, they don't need any pumps to force fluid through the system. Even better, they can slice patterns in the tape with an off-of-the-shelf laser cutter, instead of using a multimillion-dollar semiconductor fabrication lab.

"It's so simple, it's brilliant," Khine said.

Harvard chemist and lead author George Whitesides and his team have a reputation for doing amazing things with ordinary materials and making tools that could be used for health care in the developing world. Not long ago, several other students in the same group built a centrifuge from an egg beater.

Those experiments make them rather unusual customers at the hardware store.

"When I tried to describe what I was hoping to do with the double-sided tape, the sales reps usually looked at me as though I had completely lost it," said Martinez. "After that initial interaction, and probably more out of pity than anything else, they were very helpful in showing me the double-sided tapes that they had in stock."

That awkward shopping spree may have solved one of the biggest problems in microfluidics engineering.

Citation: "Three-dimensional microfluidic devices fabricated in layered paper and tape" by Andres W. Martinez, Scott T. Phillips, and George M. Whitesides. PNAS: doi/10.1073/pnas.0810903105

See Also:

Images: Whitesides Laboratory / Top: Prototypes with four inputs on the top of the chip, they distribute the four samples into different patterns of test zones on the bottom of the device. Right: Three dimensional device with four channels in a basket weave pattern. Four dyes are wicked from the sample reservoir through the channels and cross each other multiple times without mixing.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:31 am

Malaria vaccine trial offers hope

Trials in Africa of a new malaria vaccine have shown it more than halves the number of serious bouts of the disease in small children, it was revealed yesterday.

Expectations are high for the vaccine, which has already shown promise in early trials. The latest trial results, published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), are better than before.

Early trials in Mozambique found the vaccine reduced by almost a third the number of cases of malaria warranting clinical care. In the new trials in Tanzania and Kenya, it reduced such cases by 53% in five- to 17-month-old babies. Malaria kills almost a million people a year, mostly babies and small children in Africa.

This is the latest of a series of trials designed to test the efficacy of the vaccine RTS,S - which is being developed by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals. The improved efficacy in Kenya and Tanzania resulted from using a different adjuvant system, a compound used to enhance the body's response to the actual vaccine.

"Today's study results strongly show that our investments in developing malaria vaccines are beginning to pay dividends," said Christian Loucq, the director of the global Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative. "We are closer than ever before to developing a malaria vaccine for children in Africa. History has shown that vaccines are the most powerful tool to control and eliminate infectious diseases."

A second study also published by the NEJM shows that the malaria vaccine can be safely given at the same time as the standard infant vaccinations for diphtheria, whooping cough and other diseases.

A trial in Tanzania involved 340 babies who were given the malaria vaccine at eight, 12 and 16 weeks of age, together with the combined DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) and Hib vaccine. That trial found that the malaria vaccine did not interfere with the protection children received against other diseases.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:16 am

Letters: Fading claims of MMR link to autism

Letter: It's worth emphasising that there is no evidence for any association between measles vaccine, autism and intestinal disease

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:16 am

Emine Saner: Mistletoe: endangered species or ripe for the picking?

Last week, a crop of headlines seemed to suggest that our mistletoe was doomed ("Christmas kissing at threat because of mistletoe shortage," warned the Daily Telegraph). Then, over the weekend, other newspapers reported that a bumper harvest had provided "the kiss of life". What is going on?

"There is no threat to mistletoe as a species, because it grows wild in taller trees," says Jonathan Briggs, an ecologist and mistletoe expert, "but we could find that within a couple of decades there won't be enough to harvest." Mistletoe, a parasite, likes to grow on apple trees but orchards have been disappearing; there has been a 57% decline in the last 50 years. The other problem, says Briggs, is that fewer people know how to manage mistletoe. Only the female plants produce berries, so only the female plants are harvested from the trees and sold. "Either through neglect or naivety, people are leaving the male mistletoe behind. Across the counties, trees now have between 60-90% male mistletoe growing on them, which is not a natural situation."

This puts stress on the tree - in winter it can make the trees top-heavy and vulnerable to blowing over, and in dry summers the thirsty plant can take more than its fair share of water - which in turn leads to fewer trees, and therefore fewer places where mistletoe can grow.

That said, this year's harvest has been one of the biggest ever, thanks to last year's mild winter and a wet summer. Britain's mistletoe capital is the rural Worcestershire town of Tenbury Wells, where almost all of Britain's crop - or rather, England's, since it is harvested mainly in Gloucestershire, Somerset, Herefordshire and Worcestershire - has been bought and sold for 150 years (the last auction of 2008 takes place today). "There are lots of mistletoe species around the world, but ours is the original species of legend," says Briggs. "We have seen an awful lot of berries this year, we've had a beautiful crop of mistletoe."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:16 am

James Randerson tries out the controversial but increasingly popular DNA analysis

Everything about Genetic Health's opulent Harley Street clinic says "money". As I sit nervously thumbing through copies of Harrods magazine in a comfortable armchair, smartly dressed secretaries in high-heels glide past, over the varnished wood floors.

I'm waiting for a consultation with Dr Paul Jenkins, who will talk me through what the company calls its "Premium Male" service - an analysis of my genetic makeup. Some weeks ago I sent Genetic Health a handful of swabs that, as per the company's instructions, I had rubbed around the inside of my mouth. This inelegant procedure picks up the cells needed for the DNA analysis.

At a cost of £825 Genetic Health creates a personalised readout of 42 genes which, according to the website, will allow me to "take control of your life and your health". This is a long way from a full genome sequence, but the company says it looks for crucial genetic changes that have been linked to disease.

"Based on your individual genetic profile," reads its blurb, "one of our medical experts will guide you on which lifestyle changes to make as well as which supplementation to take that will improve the quality of your life, extend the active period of your life, and most possibly enable you to live longer."

The genetic testing industry in the UK is still small. Brian Whitley, Genetic Health's director, estimates that between 2,000 and 5,000 people here have used a gene-testing company, but this is set to grow rapidly as the costs come down. 23andme, a US company which is part owned by Google, has dropped the price of its services to $399 (£270), and held a "spit party" during September's New York fashion week at which guests including Rupert Murdoch, Ivanka Trump and Chevy Chase were invited to gob into a plastic cup to find out more about their genes.

The pitch from the companies is that knowledge is power. If you discover that your genes make you more prone to obesity say, then you might put more effort into eating better and going to the gym. But critics say that regular exercise and a good diet yield important health benefits whatever your genetic makeup, so knowing your DNA changes nothing. Worse, it might offer false reassurance that you will not develop one disease while worrying you unduly that you are at high risk of another.

I'm still not sure whether I want to peer at my genetic horoscope. If I decide to sit in front of the TV chain-smoking Marlboros and stuffing my face with cream cakes washed down with tequila shots I have no one to blame for the consequences but myself. But my genes are different. There is nothing I can do to re-shuffle my genetic deck and if I don't like Genetic Health's analysis I can't go back and un-know the information. My grandmother died a long, drawn-out and distressing death from Alzheimer's disease. Do I really want to find out, for example, that I'm at high risk of that disease when there is no immediate prospect of a cure?

And the decision to take the test does not just affect me. My six-month-old daughter shares half of my genes, so the answers will say a lot about her genetic future too, whether she wants to know about it or not.

Your genes can reveal some sobering information about you. A small number of rare mutations cause serious conditions such as Huntingdon's disease and cystic fibrosis with 100% certainty. Others, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, lead to a three-to seven-times increased risk of breast cancer in women and a raised likelihood of other cancers. Geneticists are now also going after DNA changes that confer a more subtle risk. This requires massive long-term studies with thousands of volunteers. But the science is in its infancy and the results are difficult to interpret because the effect of any one gene is typically insignificant and depends on other genes as well as your lifestyle.

"The state of the scientific art is probably a long way short of where we want it to be in terms of predictions," says Professor Mark McCarthy at Oxford University's Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism.

One way to think about it is to imagine your genome as a poker hand. Predicting whether you will develop high blood pressure by testing a handful of genetic variants is like trying to guess whether you will win the hand by looking at just one card.

A hand with an ace of hearts is statistically more likely to win than a hand with a five of diamonds, but it depends on your other cards. And of course your genome is much more complicated. There are around 25,000 genes that interact in complex ways.

This type of gene testing, says Andrew Hattersley, professor of molecular medicine at the Peninsula Medical School, "gives an air of precision to the prediction of future risk of disease that the science of molecular genetics cannot support". He adds that for conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and most common cancers, the conventional practice of estimating risk based on family history is more effective.

My own family medical history does not - so far as I know - hide any horrible secrets. None of my immediate family has died early and my grandparents all had reasonably good innings, except for my paternal grandfather who died of a heart attack in his 60s. But could the gene test reveal some hitherto unexpected defect?

Jenkins leads me into his lavish consulting room, sits at his desk and leans forward, framed by the massive carved fireplace behind him. This would be a rather intimidating way to receive bad news, I think to myself.

"We have a saying ... that the tea-leaves don't lie," he says. "Your genes are your genes, and yours are very favourable."

According to Genetic Health's analysis, I am at low or average risk of almost all the diseases the company has considered. For the genetic region linked to Alzheimer's - the test I was most worried about - I share my profile with 60% of the population so am firmly at average genetic risk. I do not have the best Alzheimer's genotype, but it is by no means the worst.

The relief is short-lived though when I show my clean bill of health to five leading experts. They describe the predictions and advice from Genetic Health as "poor", "flawed, "misleading" and "baloney".

"I am very sceptical about the scientific basis of this advice and think the public should be aware of the problems," says Professor Bruce Ponder, an expert in cancer genetics at Cambridge University.

Dr Paul Pharoah, a genetic epidemiologist at Cambridge University, agrees. "I think that there is little hard science behind most of what is claimed by Genetic Health." He says that for some of the conditions looked at by the company, they were simply looking at the wrong genes - ones with very flimsy evidence linking them to the disease.

"I would not regard any of the genetic variants they have tested as being associated with prostate cancer," adds Pharoah, by way of example, "[but] the genes that we know are associated with prostate cancer they just haven't tested."

McCarthy says that the variants chosen by the company linked to heart disease were mostly backed up by flimsy evidence that had not been replicated in later studies. "It seems quite bizarre to me, and potentially misleading, that customers are paying for a bunch of variants, many of which have questionable relationships with the diseases concerned."

When I tell Jenkins about the verdicts of the experts I had consulted he responds: "I would accept that it is an ongoing field and it is going to be for some time. It is science in its early stages." But he says that Genetic Health did respond to new developments and points out that the company tests for variants of the FTO and TCF7 genes which have been linked to obesity in large studies published in the past few months.

Meanwhile, Whitley says in Genetic Health's defence, that it is important, in general, to leave time for new research to bed down before applying it to patients. "You can't just offer a new gene. It would be totally irresponsible," he says, adding that unlike other companies, theirs offers a personal consultation with a doctor to help clients understand their results.

The experts also evaluated the health advice provided by the company. My report said, for example, "An interesting study showed that consumption of black tea (six mugs of black tea per day) significantly decreases the levels of good cholesterol (HDL) in ApoE3 carriers." That's me, so should I give up the tea? According to Hattersley, definitely not. This statement was based on a small study published 10 years ago in the British Journal of Nutrition. The

scientists who carried out the research billed it as a "pilot study" which involved just 65 people, and the reduction in HDL levels they measured was tiny. Using this as the basis for specific advice for patients is "a combination of bad science and pseudo science", he says. "These are unjustified dietary suggestions based on a very small and unreplicated study which is probably reporting a false positive result."

At my consultation, Jenkins gives me contradictory advice, "The consensus of all studies is that [green and black tea] are good and they lower one's risk of heart disease." When I point out this was the opposite of what was stated in my report he says he will clarify the information given out by the company in future.

Genetic testing is rapidly becoming big business, but in many countries - including the UK - companies have a virtually free rein over how they operate. Scientists and many in the industry, including Genetic Health, now say that better regulation is essential. Even potential commercial conflicts of interest go unchecked. In my report for example, Jenkins wrote: "if you remain concerned about your current propensity for lung cancer, you may wish to undergo a low dose CT scan of your lungs ... [European Scanning] employ one of the UK's most experienced lung specialists in the UK for interpreting the scans." The European Scanning Centre - which shares Genetic Health's Harley Street address - is cited as an affiliate company on Genetic Health's website and Dr Paul Jenkins is one of its directors.

Hattersley says selling services or products based on genetic tests is highly inappropriate. "These decisions should be made on the basis of clinical symptoms, clinical risk factors and simple first line clinical investigations like an ECG or chest x-ray."

"I would completely refute there is any hard sell," says Jenkins. "If somebody has an increased genetic risk of diseases then [a scan] is something I offer them. And sometimes people want it and sometimes people don't want it. It is entirely up to them."

Stuart Hogarth, a sociologist at Loughborough University and an expert on the regulation of genetic testing, likens the industry to a lawless wild west. "We made a huge public investment in the human genome project," he says. "It's not unreasonable that we need some kind of investment in a regulatory system that can make sure that the downstream clinical applications of the science are ... helping people rather than harming them."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:16 am

Oil giants could soon face lawsuits over climate, says Oxford University scientist

People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said.

Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade.

He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important."

Allen's team has used the new technique to work out whether global warming worsened the UK floods in autumn 2000, which inundated 10,000 properties, disrupted power supplies and led to train services being cancelled, motorways closed and 11,000 people evacuated from their homes - at a total cost of £1bn.

He would not comment on the results before publication, but said people affected by floods could "potentially" use a positive finding to begin legal action.

The technique involves running two computer models to simulate the conditions that led to extreme weather events. One model includes human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, the second assumes the industrial revolution never happened and that carbon levels in the atmosphere have not increased over the last century. Comparing the results pins down the impact of man-made global warming. "As the science has evolved this is now possible, it's just a question of computing power," he said.

Allen and his colleagues previously demonstrated that man-made warming at least doubled the risk of heatwaves such as the 2003 event that killed 27,000 people across Europe. No legal action resulted, but Allen said that was partly because most of the deaths were in France, where the legal system makes such cases difficult.

"We can work out whether climate change has loaded the dice and made extreme weather more likely. And once the risk is doubled, then lawyers get interested," he said.

Peter Roderick, director of the Climate Justice programme, said the most likely route for seeking damages would be tort cases, which deal with civil wrongs. Several have been attempted by US states against power and car companies only to be rejected by the courts.

Roderick said developing countries such as Nepal could also sue for compensation over damage caused by global warming. "As the issue of damages gets worse and worse, the chances of this happening will get greater and greater," he said. "I hope it happens."

Lawyers say it is only a matter of time before class actions are brought. However, Stephen Tromans, an environmental law barrister, said establishing causation would be one of the main difficulties. "It is one thing to be able to link levels of greenhouse gases with a specific event causing damage but, even assuming you can do that, quite another to establish causation against a particular company or industrial sector."

There are legal precedents for making exceptions to normal rules of causation. One example is the decision of the House of Lords on mesothelioma, where past employers can be liable for having contributed to the overall exposure, though the harm cannot be scientifically attributed to any specific period of employment.

"In that case an exception was made to the normal rules on causation in order to prevent an injustice that would otherwise have occurred," Tromans said.

There may also be grounds for a case on the basis that firms have tried to misinform the public - as in US cases against tobacco firms - about the effects of their business.

Owen Lomas, head of environmental law at City firm Allen & Overy, said: "If you look at the extent to which certain major companies in the US are accused of having funded disinformation to cast doubt on the link between man-made emissions and global warming, that could open the way to litigation."

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Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:15 am

George Monbiot: Cyberspace has buried its head in a cesspit of climate change gibberish

We all create our own reality, and shut out the voices we do not want to hear. But there is no issue we are less willing to entertain than man-made climate change. Here, three worlds seem to exist in virtual isolation. In the physical world, global warming appears to be spilling over into runaway feedback: the most dangerous situation humankind has ever encountered. In the political world - at the climate talks in Poznan, for instance - our governments seem to be responding to something quite different, a minor nuisance that can be addressed in due course. Only the Plane Stupid protesters who occupied part of Stansted airport yesterday appear to have understood the scale and speed of this crisis. In cyberspace, by contrast, the response spreading fastest and furthest is flat-out denial.

The most popular article on the Guardian's website last week was the report showing that 2008 is likely to be the coolest year since 2000. As the Met Office predicted, global temperatures have been held down by the La Niña event in the Pacific Ocean. This news prompted a race on the Guardian's comment thread to reach the outer limits of idiocy. Of the 440 responses posted by lunchtime yesterday, about 80% insisted that manmade climate change is a hoax. Here's a sample of the conversation:

"This is a scam to get your money ... The only people buying into 'global warming' have no experience with any of the sciences."

"If we spend any money or cost one person their job because of this fraud it would be a crime. When will one of our politicians stand up and call this for what it is, bullshit!"

"What a set of jokers these professors are ... I think I understand more about climate change than them and I don't get paid a big fat salary with all the perks to go with it."

And so on, and on and on. The new figures have prompted similar observations all over the web. Until now, the "sceptics" have assured us that you can't believe the temperature readings at all; that the scientists at the Met Office, who produced the latest figures, are all liars; and that even if it were true that temperatures have risen, it doesn't mean anything. Now the temperature record - though only for 2008 - can suddenly be trusted, and the widest possible inferences be drawn from the latest figures, though not, of course, from the records of the preceding century. This is madness.

Scrambled up in these comment threads are the memes planted in the public mind by the professional deniers employed by fossil fuel companies. On the Guardian's forums, you'll find endless claims that the hockeystick graph of global temperatures has been debunked; that sunspots are largely responsible for current temperature changes; that the world's glaciers are advancing; that global warming theory depends entirely on computer models; that most climate scientists in the 1970s were predicting a new ice age. None of this is true, but it doesn't matter. The professional deniers are paid not to win the argument but to cause as much confusion and delay as possible. To judge by the Comment threads, they have succeeded magnificently.

There is no pool so shallow that a thousand bloggers won't drown in it. Take the latest claims from the former broadcaster David Bellamy. You may remember that Bellamy came famously unstuck three years ago when he stated that 555 of the 625 glaciers being observed by the World Glacier Monitoring Service were growing. Now he has made an even stranger allegation. In early November the Express ran an interview with Bellamy under the headline "BBC shunned me for denying climate change". "The sad fact is," he explained, "that since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming I've not been allowed to make a TV programme." He had been brave enough to state that global warming was "poppycock", and that caused the end of his career. "Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line and I wasn't doing that."

This article, on the web, received more hits than almost anything else the Express has published; so 10 days ago the paper interviewed Bellamy again. He took the opportunity to explain just how far the conspiracy had spread. "Have you noticed there is a wind turbine on Teletubbies? That's subliminal advertising, isn't it?"

There is just one problem with this story: it is bollocks from start to finish. Bellamy last presented a programme on the BBC in 1994. The first time he publicly challenged the theory of manmade climate change was 10 years later, in 2004, when he claimed in the Daily Mail that it was "poppycock". Until at least the year 2000 he supported the theory.

In 1992, for instance, he signed an open letter, published in the Guardian, urging George Bush Sr "to fight global warming ... We are convinced that the continued emission of carbon dioxide at current rates could result in dramatic and devastating climate change in all regions of the world." In 1996 he signed a letter to the Times, arguing: "Continued increases in the global emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels are likely to lead to climate change at a rate greater than the Earth has experienced at any time during the last 10,000 years." In the same year he called for the replacement of fossil fuels with wind power. In 2000 he announced that he was supporting a plan to sue climate change "criminals": governments and industries that blocked attempts to stop global warming (all references are on my website). But Bellamy's new claims about the end of his career have been repeated as gospel in several newspapers and all over the web.

In his fascinating book Carbon Detox, George Marshall argues that people are not persuaded by information. Our views are formed by the views of the people with whom we mix. Of the narratives that might penetrate these circles, we are more likely to listen to those that offer us some reward. A story that tells us that the world is cooking and that we'll have to make sacrifices for the sake of future generations is less likely to be accepted than the more rewarding idea that climate change is a conspiracy hatched by scheming governments and venal scientists, and that strong, independent-minded people should unite to defend their freedoms.

He proposes that instead of arguing for sacrifice, environmentalists should show where the rewards might lie: that understanding what the science is saying and planning accordingly is the smart thing to do, which will protect your interests more effectively than flinging abuse at scientists. We should emphasise the old-fashioned virtues of uniting in the face of a crisis, of resourcefulness and community action. Projects like the transition towns network and proposals for a green new deal tell a story which people are more willing to hear.

Marshall is right: we have to change the way we talk about this issue. You don't believe me? Then just read the gibberish that follows when this article is published online.

www.monbiot.com

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:14 am

Violent Star-Forming Nebula Caught by Spitzer Telescope

A brand new photo of the Swan Nebula taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals chaotic star-making in action.

In this infrared view, the gooey-looking red stuff is made up of tiny particles of dust. The sinister green glow represents superhot gas, and the brilliant white regions are where gas and dust interact.

Located about 6,000 light-years away, the Swan Nebula, or M17, is a turbulent circus where huge hot stars spew out radiation and fierce winds of charged particles. The gaseous gusts are thought to carve out a large cavity in the dust at the center of the picture, where new stars are forming. As the cavity pushes out, winds from other giant stars nearby push back, forming ripples of gas called bow shocks, like the ripples that pile up in front of speeding boats.

"The gas being lit up in these star-forming regions looks very wispy and fragile, but looks can be deceiving," said researcher Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, in a press release. "These bow shocks serve as a reminder that stars aren't born in quiet nurseries but in violent regions buffeted by winds more powerful than anything we see on Earth."

The observations could help point the way toward a better understanding of how stars like our own sun first came into being, and how they spawned solar systems.

See Also:

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Wisc.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:29 pm

Astronomer on the Set of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - I met my first alien, and he looked like a tall Canadian.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:17 pm

Dog Unto Others: Canines Have Sense of Fairness

Man's best friend expects a fair treat for doing tricks, canine cognitive scientists at the Clever Dog Lab in Austria report.

Like humans and chimpanzees, dogs seem to expect fairness in their dealings with humans. When two dogs sitting next to each other complete the same action — shaking paws in this case — but don't receive the same reward, the jilted dog stops playing along.

"I think it's an important finding because it goes beyond primates," said evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, author of a forthcoming book on animal morality, Wild Justice, who was not involved with the study. "It calls attention to the fact that animals are a heck of a lot smarter and more emotional than we give them credit for.

The new study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is part of a growing body of research showing that many social animals, including dogs, wolves and marmosets, have emotions previously considered unique to humans. While biologists have long thought that mammals experience primary emotions like fear, more recent studies have found strong evidence that a range of animals also feel more nuanced, secondary emotions like a sense of fairness.

"Our results suggest that species other than primates show at least a primitive version of inequity aversion, which may be a precursor of a more sophisticated sensitivity to efforts and payoffs of joint interactions," wrote Friederike Range and her colleagues from University of Vienna.

Dogexperimentalsetup

To test this, the Austrian cognitive scientists placed two dogs side by side in front of a person. Both animals could clearly see a bowl filled with (delicious) sausage and dark bread treats. The animals were asked to "give the paw," generally known in American English as "shaking." The researchers then measured the amount of times (out of 30) that the animals gave the paw under various conditions.

In treat-heavy conditions, the dogs give their paws for nearly every trial. When neither dog was given rewards, the dogs only gave their paws 20 out of 30 times and they required more verbal prompting to do so. But, when one animal was rewarded and the other was not, the unrewarded dogs only shook 12 times and displayed considerably more agitation than in either of the other tests.

Bekoff said that social animals like the wolves and coyotes he has studied had to evolve the ability to read cues from other animals in order to display the levels of group cooperation that they do.

"I'm not at all surprised by this because I've spent years studying social carnivores," Bekoff said." The people who are surprised by this are the people who haven't spent as much time watching animals."

One such nonplussed scientist, Clive Wynne, a psychologist at the University of Florida, told the AP that he wasn't sure the experiment measured fairness at all.

"What it means is individuals are responding negatively to being treated less well," Wynne said.

But Bekoff took issue with Wynne's interpretation of the data.

"They are responding negatively to being treated to less well, but it also means they are picking up on what being treated less well means, and that's really important," Bekoff said. "The animals are aware of being treated less well."

With researchers discovering humanlike cognitive and emotional characteristics in all sorts of mammals, Bekoff said humans will have to come to terms with what makes us unique.

"In two areas, we're unique," he said. "We're the only species I know of that cooks food and [we have an] incredible propensity for evil."

See Also:

Image: Chuck, our beloved, poorly-behaved dog who never learned to shake but had excellent moral sense. RIP. Salvador Madrigal/Wired.com

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and green tech history blog; Wired Science on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:52 pm

EU wants end to old-style bulbs

An EU report recommends banning incandescent light bulbs by 2012 to save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:50 pm

Proof That Meteors Could Have Sparked Life on Earth

If meteors hitting Earth's primordial oceans can be represented by balls of iron and carbon shot into a stew of water and ammonia, then meteor strikes may have triggered the evolution of life.

The simulation, conducted by a team of Japanese planetary materials scientists, produced compounds required to form the first cell and every subsequent organism.

"We use shock experiments to recreate the conditions surrounding the impact of chondritic meteorites into an early ocean," wrote the researchers in Nature Geoscience. "Organic molecules on the early Earth may have arisen from such impact syntheses."

Half a century ago, University of Chicago chemist Stanley Miller showed that lightning strikes in a primordial atmosphere could produce amino acids — the protein-forming building blocks of life.

Those results remain a powerful proof-of-principle for life's origins, but meteors have replaced lightning strikes as likely catalysts for life-friendly chemical reactions.

Researchers also say that Earth's atmosphere didn't resemble the mix of methane, hydrogen and ammonia in Miller's experiments. A more plausible substrate is a mix of ammonia and water, which composed Earth's early seas.

"It is easy to produce biomolecules" in an atmosphere like Miller's, wrote study co-author Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University. "Our study shows that biomolecules could be produced on early Earth by reactions among meteorites, water and atmosphere."

And four billion years ago, Earth was frequently struck by meteors. Not long after, life emerged.

Furukawa launched his pellets from a propellant gun at 4,500 miles per hour into a stainless steel container of water and ammonia. The impacts generated temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Within this momentary crucible, iron and carbon from the pellets reacted with hydrogen and nitrogen from the ammonia to form fatty acids, amines and an amino acid called glycine. Fatty acids are a component of cell walls, and amines are a basic component of amino acid.

Jack Szostak, a Harvard University chemist who was not involved in the research but has wondered if meteor strikes might produce the chemical requisites of life, called the results "interesting and somewhat encouraging."

"It's very nice to see some some experimental data in support of that possibility," he said, though he cautioned that more research is needed to extrapolate the results to larger impacts.

"Would we get a lot more organics made, or not so much? In terms of forming protocell membranes, it would be important to form longer-chain fatty acids than were seen in the current experiments," he said.

Furukawa's team plans to repeat their experiment in other ocean conditions. They are confident, they write, that meteor impacts explain explain the "bulk of organic molecules necessary for life's origins."

Many explanations, however, may be required.

"Different conditions may have led to the accumulation of a wide array of organic compounds," said Antonio Lazcano, a National Autonomous University of Mexico biologist and one of the world's foremost experts on early Earth chemistry.

A former student of Stanley Miller, Lazcano recently revisited one of Miller's forgotten experiments. Considered a dud at the time, fresh analysis showed that it generated amino acids under conditions that likely existed on primordial volcano slopes.

The building blocks of life "have been reported by simulating drying ponds, hydrothermal vents, volcanic eruptions and collisions of chondrites with the primitive ocean," said Lazcano. "Good!"

Biomolecule formation by oceanic impacts on early Earth [Nature Geoscience]

Images: 1. Visualization of oceanic meteor strikes / Yoshihiro Furukawa 2. Propellant gun / Yoshihiro Furukawa

See Also:

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:16 pm

Go Nuts for Good Health

Adding nuts to a healthy diet may lower the risk of high cholesterol and heart disease.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:48 pm

Robot Jumps Like a Grasshopper, Rolls Like a Ball [No Sound]

The “Jollbot” can jump over obstacles and roll over smoother terrain.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:08 pm

Court readmits evidence in NASA astronaut case

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - The trial of former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak for an attack on a romantic rival has been cleared to resume after an appeals court readmitted suppressed evidence from a police search of her car.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:40 pm

Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise

An experimental malaria vaccine is shown to be more than 50 percent effective.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:40 pm

2008 Will Be Just a Second Longer

A leap second will be added to atomic clocks to correct for Earth's slowing rotation.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:10 pm

Oh, No! I Have That?!

A new study finds that technical medical terms really do scare people.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:08 pm

Seth Shostak on the Set of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'

A half-century later, Klaatu and Gort are back.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:44 pm

Texas, NC students win $100,000 science contest (AP)

AP - Medical research projects by a student from Texas and a team from North Carolina won $100,000 prizes Monday in a prestigious high school science competition.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:29 pm

Video - Learning from Leonardo: Dino-Digestion

Paleontologist Robert Bakker takes you on a journey through the guts of Leonardo, an exceptionally well-preserved dinosaur fossil. The duck-billed hadrosaur liked to eat leaves and chew them into tiny bits.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:09 pm

Dinosaurs Were Airheads

T. rex's noggin was filled with air.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:07 pm

Video: Finding Leonardo: Dinosaur Superstar

One of the world's most perfectly preserved dinosaur fossil was unearthed in Montana in 2002. Leonardo the duck-billed dinosaur has since taught paleontologists much.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:01 pm

Dogs have a sense of fair play

Dogs are prone to bouts of envy and refuse to play if they are not treated fairly, scientists have found.

The animals stopped cooperating with researchers and began to show signs of distress if they were not offered the same tasty rewards given to other dogs, the study showed.

Affronted dogs refused to offer their paws when invited to and began scratching and yawning, indicating that their stress levels were rising, the scientists report.

The finding suggests that dogs may share the sense of fairness seen in other social animals that engage in cooperative behaviour, such as monkeys.

Some scientists believe a sense of justice could be crucial for social animals and may have played a role in the evolution of cooperation.

Experiments led by Friederike Range at the University of Vienna tested how pairs of dogs reacted when each was given a different reward – either a piece of bread, some sausage, or nothing – in return for offering a paw to researchers.

In one of the tests the first dog was given a piece of bread as a reward, while the second received nothing. When the test was repeated a number of times, the dog that went without quickly began to display what appeared to be envy.

When the dogs were tested on their own, they continued to offer a paw even if they were not given a reward, suggesting they only became distressed if they thought they were being treated unfairly.

"It tells us that dogs are sensitive to unequal rewards. Is it envy, is it a sense of fairness? It's hard to say, because a lot depends on how you define those words," said Range, whose study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Writing in the journal, the researchers conclude: "Our results suggest that species other than primates show at least a primitive version of inequity aversion, which may be a precursor of a more sophisticated sensitivity to efforts and pay-offs of joint interactions."

They now plan to test wolves in the same way.

Last year, Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta conducted similar experiments on capuchin monkeys. In this case, the monkeys were trained to give small stones in return for an edible treat. When de Waal tried to give out the treats unfairly, by offering some monkeys cucumbers instead of tastier grapes, the monkeys either refused the food, or took it and threw it on the floor.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:59 pm

Envy is a dog's life, study finds

LONDON (Reuters) - Dogs can sniff out unfair situations and show a simple emotion similar to envy or jealousy, Austrian researchers reported on Monday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:56 pm

NYT: The Trash Market Has Crashed

After years of stacking cash by recovering valuable materials from piles of trash, the recycling industry is in free fall, reports The New York Times. Plummeting commodity prices — tin is down 98 percent from its high of $327 a ton earlier this year to $5 a ton — have kneecapped the industry.

The economic downturn has decimated the market for recycled materials like cardboard, plastic, newspaper and metals. Across the country, this junk is accumulating by the ton in the yards and warehouses of recycling contractors, which are unable to find buyers or are unwilling to sell at rock-bottom prices.

All of which raises a key question: can the market for green products weather difficult economic times, sustained by good will alone?

“Before, you could be green by being greedy,” Jim Wilcox at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley told the Times. “Now you’ve really got to rely more on your notions of civic participation.”

Link: NYT: Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up
Link: MetalPrices.com

Image: flickr/Fredrik Thommesen

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:46 pm

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