Declining Male Fertility Linked To Water Pollution

New research strengthens the link between water pollution and rising male fertility problems. The study shows for the first time how a group of testosterone-blocking chemicals is finding its way into UK rivers, affecting wildlife and potentially humans.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Pathogenic Microorganisms And Phenotypic Noise: Combat Zone Reconnaissance

Phenotypic noise is a novel concept in biology that explains the division of labor among pathogens. Researchers have now developed a new method that simplifies the process by which the genes carrying the pathogenic properties are found.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Blast Overpressure Is Generated From The Firing Of Weapons, And May Cause Brain Injury

Blast overpressure is generated from the firing of weapons and may cause brain injury. The brain may be injured by the noise, which is produced when, for example, an anti-tank weapon (Bazooka, Karl Gustav) or a howitzer (Haubits) is fired. Scientists have demonstrated mild injury to brain tissue.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Earthquakes, El Ninos Fatal To Earliest Civilization In Americas

First came the earthquakes, then the torrential rains. But the relentless march of sand across once fertile fields and bays, a process set in motion by the quakes and flooding, is probably what did in America's earliest civilization.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

How Aging Undermines Bone Healing

Researchers have unraveled crucial details of how aging causes broken bones to heal slowly, or not at all, according to an article in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. The research team also successfully conducted preclinical tests on a potential new class of treatments designed to "rescue" healing capability lost to aging.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Advance Toward First Saliva Test For Type 2 Diabetes

Scientists in Oregon and India are reporting an advance toward developing the first saliva test to diagnose and monitor effectiveness of treatment for Type 2 diabetes. The number of cases of that disease (18 million in the United States alone) has doubled during the last 30 years in parallel with the epidemic of obesity.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Gene Switch Sites Found Mainly On 'Shores,' Not Just 'Islands' Of The Human Genome

Scientists who study how human chemistry can permanently turn off genes have typically focused on small islands of DNA believed to contain most of the chemical alterations involved in those switches. But after an epic tour of so-called DNA methylation sites across the human genome in normal and cancer cells, scientists have found that the vast majority of the sites aren't grouped in those islands at all, but on nearby regions that they've named "shores."
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 4:00 pm

NASA Radar Provides First Look Inside Moon’s Shadowed Craters

Using a NASA radar flying aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists are getting their first look inside the moon's coldest, darkest craters.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 4:00 pm

Salt Reduction May Offer Cardioprotective Effects Beyond Blood Pressure Reduction

Decreasing one's sodium intake can improve blood vessel health and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, along with many other health benefits.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 4:00 pm

The When, Where, Why Of Road Accidents

European researchers are re-examining the causes of road accidents and studying which technologies can make our roads safer for everyone.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 4:00 pm

Fast-Spinning Stars Get New Image

Fermi telescope finds gamma-ray only pulsars, redraws models of the spinning stars.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Jan 2009 | 3:05 pm

Ozone Levels: Now a Wintertime Concern

The first-ever ozone alert during winter is noted near a natural gas field in Wyoming.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Jan 2009 | 2:10 pm

Coffee Could Fuel You, and Your Car

Will used coffee grounds be the next big thing in biofuels?
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Jan 2009 | 2:10 pm

Runway-loving birds threaten planes in Antarctica

ROTHERA BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - The world's most southerly bird has become a threat to planes in Antarctica after developing a love for sitting on warm, snow-free airstrips.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 1:56 pm

Russia gas flow to Europe resumes after deal with Ukraine (AFP)

AFP - Supplies of Russian natural gas piped to Europe through Ukraine resumed Tuesday, signaling an end to the EU's worst-ever gas crisis which has deprived millions of heat in the depths of winter.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 1:08 pm

Cost of caring

DR Congo gorilla ranger shot dead in militia ambush
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Jan 2009 | 12:20 pm

Old disease

Is plague, which wiped out millions, still a killer?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Jan 2009 | 10:57 am

Head of science

Why scientists are applauding the Obama factor
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Jan 2009 | 10:19 am

Plenty spent on endangered species list's tortoise (AP)

AP - Leathery, shy and a bit world-weary, the Mojave desert tortoise doesn't come across as a high-roller.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 10:07 am

Japan study group says cloned animals safe for food (Reuters)

Reuters - A study group for Japan's top safety watchdog said cloned animals are safe for food, the first step in a series of decisions needed before the watchdog makes recommendations to the government.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 8:20 am

Australia state declares massive monsoon disaster (Reuters)

Reuters - Australia's tropical Queensland state Thursday declared a flood disaster over an area the size of France and Germany after recent monsoon storms.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Jan 2009 | 7:04 am

Sex smell lures 'vampire' to doom

An artificial pheromone could help clear North America's Great Lakes of their "vampire fish" by luring them into traps.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Jan 2009 | 5:10 am

Concern over premature baby drugs

Some medicines routinely given to premature babies expose them to potentially harmful levels of chemicals, UK research suggests.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Jan 2009 | 2:52 am

Tiny motors may ease road for robotic surgery

The smallest mechanical motor yet designed could be used in tiny robots for surgical procedures.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Jan 2009 | 1:07 am

MPs criticise science adviser for defending homeopathy policy

MPs have launched a bruising attack on the government's chief scientist for failing to challenge ministers over their policies on homeopathy and cannabis.

Professor John Beddington, who replaced Sir David King as chief scientific adviser last January, has defended the government's stance on alternative medicine and drugs classification, despite there being a lack of scientific evidence to support them, MPs said.

The government funds homeopathic medicines – which contain no active pharmaceutical ingredients – through four specialist NHS hospitals, and will this month reclassify cannabis as a class B drug, against the recommendation of its own independent panel of drug advisers.

In a report published today by the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, MPs criticise Professor Beddington for failing to question the government's use of scientific evidence in making the policies.

"In both the case of cannabis reclassification and homeopathic treatments we are concerned that the government chief scientific adviser has not chosen to challenge departments where no evidence was produced," the report says.

"Professor Beddington is the government chief scientific adviser and we are surprised that rather than champion evidence-based science within government he appears to see his role as defending government policy or, in the case of homeopathy, explaining why there is no clear government policy," the report adds.

Phil Willis, who chairs the committee, said MPs expected Professor Beddington to be more active in challenging government departments over the next 12 months. "There's a danger in him becoming part of the civil service rather than the challenging figure the government chief scientific adviser should be," Willis said.

Speaking before his official appointment in 2007, Professor Beddington told MPs his role as chief scientist was "really trying to ensure that, when a new policy is made, it is based on the best possible scientific advice that is available at the time".

But speaking to the select committee about NHS funding for homeopathy last year, he said that "wider factors other than science may be relevant". Professor Beddington's predecessor, David King, openly criticised the department of health's provision of alternative medicine through the NHS and warned it risked putting patients' health in danger.

Since Professor Beddington joined the government, individual departments have appointed their own chief scientists, who often collaborate on the scientific advice they give ministers.

"The government should be using scientific evidence to make policy and the chief science adviser should hold the noses of ministers and departmental chief scientists to the grindstone on that. And if you don't do it within the department of health, frankly where do you do it," said Willis.

A spokesman for Professor Beddington said yesterday: "There will of course be times when contradictions exist between scientific advice and other policy imperatives but the chief scientist has and will continue to challenge policy on scientific grounds when he feels it is right to do so."

The report was commissioned to examine the performance of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, which was set up 18 months ago. It concluded that the department's annual report was "impenetrable" and "peppered with jargon", and raised doubts about the department's figures, which it recommended should in future be reviewed by independent statisticians.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Jan 2009 | 12:21 am

Final allocations for university funding may see some big institutions miss out

Tomorrow, the broad principles determining what funding universities receive next year will be set. The final allocations for university funding in 2009-10 are not due until 4 March, but vice-chancellors are already lobbying for their financial futures.

Around £1.5bn a year in research funding is at stake as officials at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) work out what money will follow December's research assessment exercise (RAE). The national project to judge the quality of British research revealed a much wider spread of top researchers than before. With over half the research (54%) submitted in 2008 deemed to be either world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*) - and found in 150 of 159 universities - the funding that follows will inevitably be more thinly spread.

Vice-chancellors of big, research-intensive universities are particularly worried. The Russell group claims that without continued "selectivity" - at the moment 29 universities receive 82% of Hefce's research funding - world-class universities with the capacity to compete globally will be jeopardised.

The annual grant letter in which the secretary of state for universities, John Denham, sets out his expectations of the sector is also due this week and may suggest priorities. It could state that science, technology, engineering and medicine subjects should continue to receive extra support from Hefce.

Beating the recession

But vice-chancellors who have met with the higher education minister, David Lammy, suggest he is less interested in hearing about research funding than what universities can do to help the country out of recession.

"Ministers understand the importance of research selectivity and concentration and having world-class universities, particularly as a mechanism to accelerate out of the bottom end of the recession and gain advantage. But whether that will translate through, we don't know," says Professor Michael Arthur, vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds. "Other VCs are saying this is classic Russell group protectionism, but take it to its extreme and you end up with lots of universities in the middle and nobody at world-class level. That would be bad for the country.

"If I had £9m and nine faculties, I wouldn't distribute the money willy-nilly, I would want to concentrate on clever ideas. I'm very worried about the selectivity curve flattening off - where the bottom end gains money but not enough to compete on the world-class stage, and others don't have sufficient funding to maintain world-class environments and staffing levels and [the country's competitive edge] drops away."

Professor Ian Leslie, pro vice-chancellor for research at the University of Cambridge, argues that the funding for the best research should be far more than for lower bands. "We would argue that the ratio of 4* to 3* funding should be quite high, as should 3* to 2*. If you have to value excellence wherever it's found, then you have to be pretty strong about those ratios."

Other vice-chancellors, however, want funding to go where the RAE revealed the best research to be. Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 group of smaller research-intensive institutions, says: "RAE 2008 was run on the new profile system precisely to identify excellence more sensitively and wherever it was found. Hefce must now fund on that basis."

Professor Les Ebdon, vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and chair of the Million+ group of post-92 universities, is also urging Hefce not to introduce further selectivity.

Professor Andrew Wathey, vice-chancellor of Northumbria University, in the University Alliance group, points out: "Because of the stepped grading system in 2001, you could argue that 5* departments were overfunded. Those that excluded researchers went up a grade and got more money. This is a correction in funding that we are seeing, not a distortion."

More funding

Russell group members, however, are keen on a premium. Universities that won a 4* with a high number of researchers would get a higher rate of funding than a smaller department with the same proportion of 4* research. But Hefce is thought likely to fund the results "straight", rather than fix the concentration of research funding enjoyed up to now.

Hefce could change the amount of money available for each subject area, or with the way the "quality-related" - or core research - funding to universities is divided up. Making more money available for postgraduate researchers, for instance, would help big science departments. Universities with big science and medical departments will also be helped by the fact that, in this RAE, not only academic staff will be counted, but also researchers leading projects on permanent contracts and staff half-funded by the NHS.

Some observers suggest the funding proportions could be on a scale of 1 for 4* research, 0.3 for 3*, and 0.1 for 2* - with no funding for "nationally excellent" 1* research. So if, for example, 4* research got £1m, 3* research would get £300,000 and 2* would get £100,000. This could see millions of pounds leaking away from the Russell group.

Imperial College London was rated one of the top universities in the UK, with most of its research deemed to be of the highest quality. But funding predictions suggest it could be one of the biggest losers, mainly because its medical school did not do as well as last time round.

Michelle Coupland, Imperial's strategy and planning, RAE project director, says: "The college is proud to have the greatest concentration, at 73%, of research assessed as world-leading and internationally excellent and this must be rewarded in the funding that results. It is no accident that the UK is home to four universities regarded as among the global top 10. The world's most pressing problems can be solved by these top universities, since they have recognised strengths across a broad range of disciplines.

"These universities have demonstrated consistent excellence in successive exercises and investment in them will thus enable the UK to maintain a globally competitive edge."

• The Scottish funding council's board meets on 23 January to discuss research funding before publishing its decisions on 2 April. The Welsh funding council expects to announce funding for its universities later in April.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Jan 2009 | 12:01 am

Response: Our research was not about prenatal screening for autism

Your front-page article on 12 January was given the headline "New research brings autism screening closer to reality" and the strapline "Call for ethics debate as tests in the womb could allow termination of pregnancies". It showed a photo of a foetus, which was given the caption, "The discovery of a high level of testosterone in prenatal tests is an indicator of autism." And inside the paper a double-page spread was devoted to the details of the study, and given the headline "Disorder linked to high levels of testosterone in the womb".

All four of these statements are inaccurate. The new research was not about autism screening; the new research has not discovered that a high level of testosterone in prenatal tests is an indicator of autism; autism spectrum disorder has not been linked to high levels of testosterone in the womb; and tests (of autism) in the womb do not allow termination of pregnancies.

To be fair to the reporter, Sarah Boseley, the content of her articles was mostly correct. But the headlines and photo captions have led to emails from hundreds of worried parents of children with autism erroneously believing that our research is being conducted with a view to wanting to terminate children with autism in the womb - a nasty and sinister example of eugenics that my co-authors and I oppose.

The Guardian was reporting on our new study in the British Journal of Psychology that found a correlation between levels of foetal testosterone (FT) and the number of autistic traits a child shows at the age of eight. The study was not about prenatal screening for autism, and indeed did not even test children with autism.

What it did was to test 235 typically developing children, measuring their FT (we all have some) and later measuring their autistic traits. Autistic traits are also normal - it is just a matter of how many of these you have. Children with autism have a high number of autistic traits, but our 235 children were all typically developing children. The aim of the study was simply to understand the basic mechanisms causing individual differences in autistic traits in an otherwise typical sample.

Your article covered two very different issues: our new research, which aims to study the causes of individual differences in children; and prenatal screening for autism. The two should have been kept distinct. Indeed, a prenatal screening study of autism would have needed an entirely different design.

Such a study would have had to look at autism, which ours did not; and it would have had to look at issues to do with how sensitive the test was to detect autism, which kind of autism, how specific it was, or whether it also picked up other outcomes.

For the record, on prenatal screening, I believe that if there was a test for autism (and there is none yet), while some parents may exercise their legal right to opt for a termination, I am not in favour of discriminating against a foetus purely because it might develop the condition.

• Professor Simon Baron-Cohen is director of the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University sb205@cam.ac.uk

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Jan 2009 | 12:01 am

Natural disasters doomed early civilization (AP)

AP - Nature turned against one of America's early civilizations 3,600 years ago, when researchers say earthquakes and floods, followed by blowing sand, drove away residents of an area that is now in Peru. "This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, boom, they just got the props knocked out from under them," anthropologist Mike Moseley of the University of Florida said in a statement.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jan 2009 | 11:17 pm

Mellow Demeanor May Stave Off Dementia (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - People who are socially active and mellow may be less likely to develop dementia, a new study finds. Dementia is a loss of mental function, such as memory and reasoning, that is severe enough to interfere with everyday life. Several diseases can cause dementia, including Alzheimer's (the most common cause of dementia in the United States) and Parkinson's disease as well as nutritional deficiencies, stroke and infections that affect the brain. About one in seven Americans aged 71 and older has some form of dementia, the study researchers say. ...
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jan 2009 | 9:20 pm

Mellow Demeanor May Stave Off Dementia

Personality and lifestyle impact dementia risk.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Jan 2009 | 9:17 pm

Greening the US

Why Barack Obama must not ignore the environment
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jan 2009 | 9:01 pm

DR Congo cancels timber contracts

The DR Congo government cancels nearly 60% of contracts to cut timber in the world's second-largest tropical rainforest.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jan 2009 | 8:55 pm

Scientists to solve astronomical riddle using Galileo DNA (AFP)

AFP - Italian scientists are trying to get Galileo's DNA in order to figure out how the astronomer forged groundbreaking theories on the universe while gradually becoming blind, a historian said Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jan 2009 | 6:34 pm

Ancient Persians 'gassed Romans'

Ancient Persians were the first people to deploy chemical warfare against their enemies, a study says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jan 2009 | 5:12 pm

Winter X Games Tricks: Are There Physical Limits?

Is there a physics-based limit to the spins and flips?
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Jan 2009 | 5:05 pm

Catholic Bioethics v the cruel world

I was talking last week to a woman whose eldest son was 1 when he started to regress. She was pregnant with her second child at the time who had been born by the time the eldest was diagnosed with a rare, genetic and invariably fatal illness which meant that he would never learn to walk or talk, and would gradually lose his sight along with everything he had learned in the first year of life. He was expected to die at about the age of four.

The second born child was tested and found to be free of the disease, though his life, of course, was horribly affected by the way the whole family was now centred on the elder son and his needs. The parents had learned that they were both carriers of the defective gene that causes the disease, so that any child they had stood a 50% of being a carrier, as they were, a one in four chance of being quite free of it; and one chance on four of getting both bad copies and dying.

The mother became pregnant twice more. On both occasions, tests in the womb showed that the foetus was carrying the genes for the disease. They were aborted. Her third child was born after a course of IVF, in which the embryos were genetically screened before implantation to ensure that the child would be a healthy one.

The firstborn is still alive, after heroic medical interventions, aged nine. But he is in a home, needing round the clock nursing. The detail of his illness that stays with me is this: at one stage he had acid reflux so badly that the juices coming up from his stomach stripped the enamel from his teeth – and this is a child to whom one could never explain what has happening.

It is stories like this that make Catholic bioethics repugnant to me. I can understand the opposition to abortion, though in this case I can't really imagine anyone agreeing with it. But when it comes to embryos the line seems insane. To oppose the kind of research that led to these embryos being screened, or the kind of technique which allows such a mother to have a healthy child seems to me quite simply wicked.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 19 Jan 2009 | 4:58 pm

Europe's lost mist 'boosts heat'

The number of foggy, misty and hazy days is diminishing across Europe, amplifying warming, say scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jan 2009 | 4:47 pm

The Worst Inaugural Addresses Ever

Some inaugural speeches totally forgotten, or at best remembered for how bad they were.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Jan 2009 | 3:56 pm

Sport-loving student took minutes to adapt to bionic hand, the i-LIMB

A sport-loving student said today that it took him just a few minutes to adapt to an advanced bionic hand fitted after he lost his own in an accident.

Evan Reynolds, a sports biology student at the University of the West of England in Bristol, is one of the first people in the UK to be fitted with the i-LIMB technology.

The rugby-playing 19-year-old, from Haslemere in Surrey, was devastated when his left hand was ripped off in an accident as a friend drove him home following a day out. He was sitting in the passenger seat with his hand resting on the wound-down window ledge when the car scraped a wooden post at a car park exit. Reynolds's hand was taken off instantly.

"It was very nasty. It was amputated in a second," he said. "At the time I thought I'd just lost my thumb. I guess because of the adrenalin, the only pain I could feel was from the tourniquet."

He regained full consciousness two days later and his father broke the news that surgeons could not reattach the hand.

Reynolds, who had dreamed of joining the army, said: "Even though I was still off my face on morphine, I kind of knew it already in the back of my mind.

"The most devastating thing was that I wouldn't be able to go to Sandhurst. It had always been my dream to join the military and perhaps the Parachute Regiment. Now that was completely dashed. Plus I also thought I'd never play rugby again."

But Reynolds's older brother Richard saw a television report about the i-LIMB and contacted the Scottish manufacturer, Touch Bionics.

The firm was still working on a prototype at the time, but after a number of tests and meetings with prosthetic experts, Reynolds had the i-LIMB fitted in February last year.

The bionic hand is controlled by electronic muscle signals from the remaining part of the limb. "The most amazing thing about it was how quickly I adapted to it," said Reynolds. "I put it on and within minutes I was using it as well as I can today.

"People always ask how it's changed my life, but there's no specific thing. It's the hundreds of everyday things you take for granted, which I can do again – like peeling a potato, catching a ball, holding a bottle of water. I'm incredibly grateful.

"It's so sensitive I can grip a bottle of water or a paper cup without crushing it and even swing a racket. All I have to do is imagine picking something up or gripping it and the fingers and thumb move automatically."

Reynolds still plays rugby, which he loves, but makes sure he removes the expensive appendage first. He also plays squash and is planning to go on his first skydive – again without the i-LIMB.

Touch Bionics has won a string of awards. In the US, American soldiers who have been injured in action are among those who have benefited. Reynolds was the second Briton to be fitted with the hand.

The company says that one of the advantages of its design is that each finger can be quickly removed by simply removing one screw. This means that a prosthetist can easily swap fingers that require servicing and patients can return to their everyday lives after a short clinic visit. Traditional devices would have to be returned to the manufacturer, often leaving the patient without a hand for many weeks.

Reynolds said: "Sometimes I forget how cool that is. But then I show people how it works and I think, wow! Actually that is really amazing."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 19 Jan 2009 | 2:57 pm