Science Headlines for December 10, 2008

Dual-head Gamma Camera Increases Ability To Detect Breast Tumors Not Seen On Mammography

A dual-headed dedicated gamma camera used during molecular breast imaging can accurately detect small breast tumors less than 2 cm in size, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

Keeping Track: Software Locates People And Objects, Immediately Detects Unauthorized Persons

Aircrafts and fueling vehicles move around, cleaning brigades come and go. Security staff keep watch on everything to ensure nobody gets into danger. A software will soon help them with their task: It locates people and objects and immediately detects unauthorized persons.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

Production Line For Artificial Skin

A fully automated process is set to improve the production of artificial tissue: medical scientists can perform transplants with skin produced in the laboratory. This tissue is also suitable for testing chemicals at a low cost without requiring animal experiments.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

New Classification Of Spinal Deformity Defines Range Of Normalcy

A neurosurgeon who has spent his career helping people with severe spine problems stand up straight has spearheaded the creation of a new spinal deformity classification system.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

Plastic Made To Conduct Electricity

Plastic that conducts electricity and metal that weighs no more than a feather? It sounds like an upside-down world. Yet researchers have succeeded in making plastics conductive and cutting production costs at the same time.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

Thinking Like A President: How Power Affects Complex Decision Making

Presidential scholars have written volumes trying to understand the presidential mind. Do those seeking office have a unique approach to decision making? Studies have suggested that power changes not only a person's responsibilities, but also the way they think. Now, a new study in Psychological Science indicates that having power may lead people to automatically think in a way that makes complex decision-making easier.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

New 3-D Views From Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

The team operating the highest-resolution camera orbiting Mars has posted 362 stereo images, providing three-dimensional views of mounds, canyons, gullies and other features.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Enzyme May Hold Key To Successfully Treating Pancreatic Cancer With Targeted Immunotherapy

An enzyme that is overexpressed in pancreatic cancer cells may hold the key to successfully treating the disease with targeted immunotherapy. The enzyme is IDO2.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Drug Reduces Aggression, Wandering And Paranoia In Alzheimer's Patients

Cholinesterase inhibitors, used to treat cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, are also a safe and effective alternative therapy for the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, according to a study in the journal Clinical Interventions in Aging.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Clothing With A Brain: 'Smart Fabrics' That Monitor Health

Researchers are reporting progress toward a simple, low-cost method to make "smart fabrics," electronic textiles capable of detecting diseases, monitoring heart rates, and other vital signs. These straight-out-of-science-fiction-fibers are made of carbon nanotubes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

The Energy Debates: Geothermal Energy (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Editor's Note: "The Energy Debates" is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas. We invite you to join the debate by commenting directly on each article. The Facts An extraordinary amount of heat is trapped below Earth's surface, as erupting volcanoes show with their violence. Geothermal energy seeks to use this heat to generate electricity and warm up buildings and roads. ...
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:46 pm

The Energy Debates: Geothermal Energy

The Energy Debates is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas.
Source: Livescience.com | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:41 pm

Black gold fever

Canada's giant oil sands industry faces testing times
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:07 pm

'Mercy' ad campaign urges Saudis to treat foreign workforce humanely (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Christian Science Monitor - The one-minute video airing on Saudi-owned satellite channels shows an Arab businessman screaming at his maid, pleading poverty when a domestic server asks to be paid, and denying an employee time off to visit his daughter in the hospital.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

PTSD Risk Rooted in Stress and Genetics (HealthDay)

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 9 (HealthDay News) -- A decade-long study into post-traumatic stress disorder among combat veterans and their identical twins has yielded critical information on the root causes of this devastating condition.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 4:47 am

Possible tornadoes wreck homes in north Texas (AP)

AP - Severe storms tore through north Texas with probable tornadoes, damaging or destroying more than 20 homes and injuring one person, authorities said Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 2:24 am

Man cited for jumping into rhino enclosure at zoo (AP)

AP - A man who authorities say jumped into a black rhino enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo has been cited. Neither the man, whose name has not been released, nor any animals were hurt in Monday's incident. But zoo officials say he was lucky the rhino did not go after him. The man was cited for violating a park code that restricts people from bothering zoo animals.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 2:14 am

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

A half-century later, Klaatu and Gort are back.
Source: Livescience.com | 10 Dec 2008 | 1:19 am

Food Allergy Hysteria Is Nuts

Bans on nuts in schools may worsen the very problem they aim to address.
Source: Livescience.com | 10 Dec 2008 | 1:12 am

House ethics panel expands Rangel investigation (AP)

AP - The House ethics committee is expanding an investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. The ethics panel issued a statement Tuesday saying it had voted to expand an already far-ranging probe into the New York Democrat to examine whether he protected an oil drilling company from a big tax bill when the head of that company pledged a $1 million donation to a college center named after the congressman.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:58 am

Brain swelling blamed in many Mount Everest deaths

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A brain swelling condition related to low oxygen levels in the air may have caused many of the deaths of people climbing Mount Everest, researchers said on Tuesday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:31 am

New Observations Detail Milky Way's Big Black Hole

Scientists have imaged stars orbiting our galaxy's central black hole.
Source: Livescience.com | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:22 am

Wetter and wilder: the signs of warming everywhere

Joao da Antonio's eyes are full of tears. If good rains do not come, he says, he will pack his bag, kiss his wife and two children goodbye and join the annual exodus of young men leaving hot, dry rural north-east Brazil for the biofuel fields in the south.

Da Antonio, 19, can earn about £30 a month for 10 hours gruelling work a day cutting sugar cane to make ethanol, and more than a million small farmers like him migrate south for six months of the year because the land can no longer support them. Tens of thousands a year never return, forced to move permanently to Sao Paulo or another of Brazil's cities in search of work.

"Life here is one of suffering," Da Antonio said. "I will do anything to earn some money. None of us want to die, but the lack of water here will kill us. "

Around the world, millions of people like Da Antonio are feeling the force of a changing climate. As UN negotiations towards a global climate deal continue in Poznan, Poland, this week, evidence is emerging of weather patterns in turmoil and the poorest nations disproportionately bearing the brunt of warming.

While rich countries at the talks seek to set up global carbon trading, using financial markets to tackle - and profit from - climate change, poor countries want justice. They are seeking environmental justice: money to adapt their economies to climate changes they did not cause, and technology and resources to allow them to escape poverty while preserving their forests and ecosystems.

The fast and unpredictable shifts in weather are not threats for the future, but happening right now. "The frequency of heatwaves and heavy precipitation is increasing; cyclones are becoming more frequent and intense; more areas are being affected by droughts; and flooding is now more serious," says Sheridan Bartlett, a researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development in a new study looking at the effects of climate change on children.

"Increasingly unpredictable weather now affects hundreds of millions of farmers, resulting in food and water shortages, more illnesses and water-borne diseases, malnutrition, soil erosion, and disruption to water supplies," she says. Such changes confound the received wisdom of how to live on the land.

North-east Brazil has always known droughts, but they are becoming longer and more frequent, say scientists and farmers. "Climate change is biting. It is much hotter than it used to be and it stays hotter for longer. The rain has become more sporadic. It comes at different times of the year now and farmers cannot tell when to plant," says Lindon Carlos, an agronomist with Brazilian group Acev.

Brazilian scientists have recorded changes in the lifecycles of plants, greater oscillations in temperature and more water shortages, all consistent with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions of a devastating 3-4C rise in temperatures within 60 years if climate change is not halted. "All the research points to it becoming drier [in north-east Brazil]. In the last 30 years temperatures have risen by 1C. There is more very heavy rainfall over short periods and more evaporation," says Eneida Cavalcanti, a desertification specialist at the Joaquim Nabuco foundation in Recife.

On the other side of the world, the changing climate is wreaking havoc in a different way on low-lying and populous Bangladesh. There, government meteorologists this year reported a 10% increase in intensity and frequency in major cyclones hitting the country - two of the most powerful cyclones ever recorded have hit the country in the last three years.

"We are getting too much water in the rainy season and too little in the dry season. All this has implications for food security," says Raja Debashish Roy, Bangladesh's environment minister.

"We are learning about climate change," said Anawarul Islam, chair of the Deara district of about 2,500 people in the far south of the county. "This village is experiencing more rainfall and flooding every year. It has led to more homeless people and more conflict. "

"It's far warmer now," says one villager, Selina. "We do not feel cold in the rainy season. We used to need blankets, but now we don't. There is extreme uncertainty of weather. It makes it very hard to farm and we cannot plan. We have to be more reactive. The storms are increasing and the tides now come right up to our houses."

The balmy Caribbean is also being churned up with increasing frequency and ferocity. This year, the region experienced eight hurricanes and five major hurricanes, the second highest ever, and the hurricane season lasted a record five months.

"A warmer climate poses in some cases insurmountable challenges to the region. We face more hurricanes, coral bleaching and flooding," said Neville Trotz, science adviser to the Caribbean community climate change centre.

Across the Atlantic, in Africa, the theme unfolds further: climate change turning already bad situations in poor countries into potential catastrophe, and driving people to absolute poverty. Alexandre Tique, at Mozambique's national meteorological institute, says: "Analysis of the temperature data gathered in our provincial capitals, where we have meteorological stations that have kept continuous data over the years, shows a clear increase in temperature. Extreme events are becoming more frequent. We now see many more tropical cyclones that bring flooding, destruction and loss of lives."

Other African communities are suffering. In the village of Chikani, in Zambia, the farmers last year prepared their fields for planting in November, as they have always done, but the rains were very late for the third year running.

"We waited, but the first drop didn't fall till December 20. After a day, the rains stopped. Three weeks later, it started to rain again. But then it stopped again after a few days. Since then, we have had no rain. We have never known anything like this before," says Julius Njame.

From the plains of Africa, to mountaintop Nepal, where there is no respite from the weather in flux. Villages like Ketbari expect a small flood to wash off the hills every decade or so, now they seem to be annual and getting more serious.

"We always used to have a little rain each month, but now when there is rain it's very different. It's more concentrated and intense. It means that crop yields are going down," says Tekmadur Majsi, whose lands have been progressively washed away by the Trishuli river.

Nepalese villagers observe the minutiae of a changing climate. Some say that forest pigs now farrow earlier, others that some types of rice and cucumber will no longer grow where they used to. The common thread is that the days are hotter, some trees now flower twice a year and the raindrops are getting bigger.

The anecdotal observations of farmers are backed by scientists who are recording in Nepal some of the fastest increases in temperatures and rainfall anywhere in the world. Many lakes in Nepal and neighbouring Bhutan, which collect glacier meltwater, are said by the UN to be growing so rapidly that they could burst their banks.

Melting glaciers are creating anxiety about water supplies across the Earth. In Tajikistan, at current rates of change, thousands of small glaciers will have disappeared completely by 2050, causing more water to flow in spring followed by what is expected to be a disastrous decline of river flow in most rivers. In Peru, temperature increases have led to a 22% reduction in the total area of its glaciers in the last 35 years.

The developing nations on the climate frontline will argue strongly in Poznan that rich countries should pay to help them adapt to climate change. But development groups such as Oxfam and Tearfund say that almost all the money pledged so far has come out of existing aid funds. With a worldwide recession, many analysts expect rich countries to resist paying more.

The UN has established two funds - the Least Developed Countries and Special Climate Change funds - to raise money for the poorest countries to adapt, but the G8 countries have only pledged $6bn (£4bn). All the money is to be diverted from existing aid money.

"Every [official development assistance] dollar that goes to climate adaptation would mean a dollar less for health and education [programmes] in developing countries," said Antonio Hill, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam.

The scale of what is needed for adaptation is immense. Bangladesh says it needs £250m over three years to adapt, Ethiopia £450m, and other countries similar amounts. Development groups estimate that a minimum $50bn a year is needed worldwide.

"The resources currently available for adaptation are grossly inadequate to meet the needs of the least developed countries who bear the brunt of increased climate variability and unpredictability resulting from climate change," said Bangladesh's finance minister, Mirza Azizul Islam.

Back in north-east Brazil, the Pernambuco state environment minister, Aloysio Coasta, says: "In 20 years' time we could be a desert region. In some communities there are no young people left at all. This is an emergency. Food production is going down in many areas."

Joao da Antonio's wife, Luiza, is resigned to becoming a "drought widow". Clearly distressed, she says: "If there is no water, then he must leave."

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 | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:13 am

English pupils get better at maths and science - but enjoy them less

English school children have seen their position rise sharply in an international league table of maths and science skills, placing them only marginally behind the world leaders in the Pacific Rim.

The study of maths and science skills of 10 and 14-year olds, conducted across the globe every four years, reveals strong improvements in English pupils' knowledge of algebra and physics, but a dramatic slide in their enjoyment of the subjects.

Ministers yesterday hailed the findings of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) as vindication of Labour's policies including the key Blairite introduction of the numeracy hour, which the pupils in the study would have had throughout their schooling.

Scottish students - who have not had the same maths strategy - slipped in the study, prompting the Scottish Executive to launch an urgent inquiry into maths and science to address what the minister called "unacceptable failings".

Researchers in 59 countries tested pupils' basic maths and physics skills and asked them questions about their experiences in schools. In England 143 primaries and 136 secondaries were selected with 30 pupils randomly chosen at each by researchers at the National Foundation for Education Research.

At age 14, England went up from 18th to seventh place in the maths ranking, and from seventh to fifth in science. 10-year-olds went from tenth to seventh in maths but fell from fifth to seventh in science. The researchers said that the fall in science was not statistically significant.

Meanwhile, "enjoyment" levels among 14-year-olds have dropped by 25 percentage points in maths and 21 percentage points in science since 1999, the report shows. The study also reveals the lifestyles of pupils who are likely to do better in maths and science lessons: they read for enjoyment at home, relish their homework and often play a musical instrument as well. Those who lag behind go home and watch TV, play on the computer, listen to music and chat to their friends.

Jim Knight, the schools minister, said there was a culture of "scepticism" about science in England and too many people believed it was "funny" to be bad at maths. He said: "They value it more and see the importance of maths in their futures. That in turn is reflected in the fact that they are doing well. They are knuckling down ... getting on with it even though it's not their first love."

He said he was planning a visit to Hong Kong, which scored at the top of the tables along with Taipei, Korea, Singapore and Japan, to learn from their examples.

Sir Peter Williams, chancellor of Leicester University, who led a government commissioned review of early maths teaching published in June, said he was not surprised by the Asian nations' success. "I have been at homes of Korean friends when their children have come back in from crammers at 10pm to go straight to bed. It's not a system I would wish to see us copy."

The improvements in England came as a surprise to many as Sats test results have stalled recently and the UK plummeted in other international league tables for literacy and science last year. The Conservatives said England was in a "second league" after Asian countries and pointed out that Kazakhstan rated higher than England in maths results for 10-year-olds.

Alan Smithers, director of education at Buckingham University, said the countries in the TIMSS study were a "mixed bag". "We are comparing ourselves with Qatar and Tunisia and Finland and the Netherlands aren't included, so that acts to push-up our schools."

He added: "As in sport, a lot of the ultimate satisfaction in maths comes from long hours of practice that have to be put in to striving to reach the top of potential. That's not always fun."

Christine Blower, the acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, welcomed the findings. She added: "The obvious question is whether test and examination hot-housing is actually turning off young people's enjoyment of those subjects, despite their undoubted attainment."

Top of the table

Top 10 countries according to maths skills of 10-year olds

1 Hong Kong

2 Singapore

3 Taiwan

4 Japan

5 Kazakhstan

6 Russian Federation

7 England

8 Latvia

9 Netherlands

10 Lithuania

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 | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:13 am

Vitamins 'do not cut cancer risk'

Taking vitamin C, E or selenium does not reduce the risk of prostate cancers - or other forms of the disease, studies suggest.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Dec 2008 | 12:01 am

Henry Miller: How Obama's team can revise or eliminate programmes at the food and drug administration

Henry Miller: The US food and drug administration is severely dysfunctional. It is time to overhaul its flawed policies and programmes

Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 9 Dec 2008 | 10:00 pm

Half-Dose Flu Shots Work In Adults, Study Finds

Half-dose flu shots are effective in adults, a government study found.
Source: Livescience.com | 9 Dec 2008 | 9:01 pm

Cancer to pass heart disease as No. 1 killer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cancer is on pace to supplant heart disease as the No. 1 cause of death worldwide in 2010, with a growing burden in poor countries thanks to more cigarette smoking and other factors, global health experts said on Tuesday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 8:53 pm

Black hole confirmed in Milky Way

There is a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, a study by German astronomers has confirmed.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Dec 2008 | 8:45 pm

CO2 found on "hot Jupiter" planet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Carbon dioxide has been seen on a hot planet outside our solar system -- another piece of evidence supporting the possibility that life could develop elsewhere, astronomers said on Tuesday.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 9 Dec 2008 | 8:43 pm

Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on Extrasolar Planet

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside of the solar system, a significant step in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Though the planet is more similar to Jupiter than Earth and is too hot to harbor life, the ability to identify organic compounds on other planets is key to being able to find other habitable worlds, and potentially life.

"The carbon dioxide is kind of the main focus of the excitement, because that is a molecule that under the right circumstances could have a connection to biological activity as it does on Earth," astronomer Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a press release. "The very fact that we're able to detect it, and estimate its abundance, is significant for the long-term effort of characterizing planets both to find out what they're made of and to find out if they could be a possible host for life."

The planet, called HD 189733b lies 63 light-years from Earth. Using Hubble's infrared camera, Swain identified the telltale wavelengths of light of both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Earlier this year, Hubble had detected water vapor and methane on the planet.

But Hubble's discoveries are just the start. Astronomers hope the more powerful James Webb Telescope, set to launch in 2013, will be able to use the same technique to spot the byproducts of life on rocky, Earth-size planets.

This video describes the secondary-eclipse method astronomers used to detect the carbon dioxide.

See Also:

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Dec 2008 | 8:36 pm

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