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Surfing The Net Helps Seniors Cope With PainSurfing the Internet could provide significant relief for seniors with chronic pain, according to new research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Tiny 'Lab-on-a-chip' Detects Pollutants, Disease And Biological WeaponsFor centuries, animals have been our first line of defense against toxins. A canary in a coalmine served as a living monitor for poisonous gases. Scientists used fish to test for contaminants in our water. Even with modern advances, though, it can take days to detect a fatal chemical or organism. Until now. Working in the miniaturized world of nanotechnology, researchers have made an enormous -- and humane -- leap forward in the detection of pollutants.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Pathologically Elevated Blood Fat Levels In Obesity: Molecular Causes DiscoveredScientists have discovered a mechanism in liver metabolism that is responsible for pathologically elevated blood fat levels found in severe metabolic disorders. Mice suffering from metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes produce only small amounts of a molecule called LSR in the liver. As a result, only small amounts of fat are transported from the blood into the liver and blood fat levels rise immensely.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Air-filled Bones Extended Lung Capacity And Helped Prehistoric Reptiles Take First FlightIn the Mesozoic Era, 70 million years before birds first conquered the skies, pterosaurs dominated the air with sparrow- to Cessna-sized wingspans. Researchers suspected that these extinct reptiles sustained flight through flapping, based on fossil evidence from the wings, but had little understanding of how pterosaurs met the energetic demands of active flight.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Nanotube's 'Tapestry' Controls Its GrowthMaterials scientists have put a new "twist" on carbon nanotube growth. The researchers found nanotubes grow like tiny molecular tapestries, woven from twisting, single-atom threads. The research finds a direct relationship between a nanotube's "chiral" angle -- the amount it's twisted -- and how fast it grows.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Nanotechnology: Lithium-Ion Batteries Have Better Performance With New Electrode MaterialResearchers have created hybrid carbon nanotube metal oxide arrays as electrode material that may improve the performance of lithium-ion batteries.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Bin Laden's Hide-out? Geographers Urge US To Search Three Structures In Pakistan For Bin LadenWhile U.S. intelligence officials have spent more than seven years searching fruitlessly for Osama bin Laden, geographers say they have a good idea of where the terrorist leader was at the end of 2001 -- and perhaps where he has been in the years since.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm Could Nanotechnology Make An Average Donut Into Health Food?European food companies already use nanotechnology in consumer products, but few voluntarily inform consumers. "The promise of nanotechnology," a Dutch scientist said, "is that it could allow re-engineering ingredients to bring healthy nutrients more efficiently to the body while allowing less-desirable components to pass on through."Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm New Light On Longstanding Medical Mystery That May Link Cardiovascular Disease, Osteoporosis And Perhaps Even Alzheimer's DiseaseA researcher finds a clue to the calcification process by studying how a genetic mutation in rats makes them resistant to poison but also leaves them susceptible to arterial calcification and, potentially, osteoporosis.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm New Guideline For Prescribing Opioid Pain DrugsA national panel of national pain management experts has published the first comprehensive, evidence-based clinical practice guideline to assist clinicians in prescribing potent opioid pain medications for patients with chronic non-cancer pain.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm Storm will feature snow and severe t-storms (weather.com)weather.com -Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 11:05 am Grizzlies reveal 'fancy footwork'Underwater cameras reveal how grizzly bears use their feet to collect dead salmon from the bottom of pools.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Feb 2009 | 8:48 am Australian shark attack diver to lose leg (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 8:31 am Vaccine book brings out hidden support: authorWASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the letters and e-mails started to pour in, Dr. Paul Offit braced himself.Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 7:41 am Cache of Ice Age fossils found in Los Angeles (AP)AP - Scientists are studying a huge cache of Ice Age fossil deposits recovered near the famous La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of the nation's second-largest city.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 5:33 am Giant Flying Reptiles Had Bird-Like Air Sacs (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Long before birds took flight, giant reptiles called pterosaurs dominated the skies. Their wingspans ranged from that of a sparrow to a Cessna.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Feb 2009 | 4:28 am High-Resolution Imaging Unlocks Viral Secrets
Called a capsid, the sheath protects viral DNA from cellular defense mechanisms. If scientists can crack it, they might have a clear shot at the virus — and now they know what it looks like. The image, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was made from hundreds of crystallographic x-rays, each providing a multi-layered picture of the capsid's structure. Combined, they formed a fully three-dimensional image. With it, researchers were able to show the capsid's composition from repeating copies of a single four-protein block. Earlier studies had identified the protein, but not its precise arrangement. The researchers used a capsid belonging to Penicillium stoloniferum, the virus that makes penicillin, but the findings may be applicable to the several hundred viruses that share its spherical capsid shape. Other viruses have helical capsids; images still need to be assembled for them, but the same imaging techniques may be applied. Image: J. Pan & Y.J. Tao / Rice University Citation: "Atomic structure reveals the unique capsid organization of a dsRNA virus." By Junhua Pan, Liping Dong, Li Lin, Wendy F. Ochoa, Robert S. Sinkovits, Wendy M. Havens, Max L. Nibert, Timothy S. Baker, Said A. Ghabrial, and Yizhi Jane Tao. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 7, Feb. 16, 2009. See Also:
Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Feb 2009 | 3:52 am Science Funding Survives Stimulus Cuts
Despite Congressional attempts to make science funding a casualty in their shrinking of the economic stimulus plan, the bill signed Tuesday by President Barack Obama contains more than $20 billion for science. During his inaugural address, Obama promised to "restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost." America, he said, would "harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories." The stimulus plan, originally budgeted at more than $1 trillion, was Obama's first chance to make good on this promise. However, legislators in both the House and Senate included science-related funding among their proposed trimmings. The final plan will cost $787 billion. Fortunately for science — and for an economy whose recovery may be tied to developments in clean energy, along with people whose health may be saved by medical advances — Congressional attempts to scrap science were unsuccessful. The final NIH budget, for example, contains $10.4 billion; the House version of the package allotted them just $3.9 billion. The National Science Foundation will receive $3 billion dollars, up from $1.2 billion in the Senate version. Altogether, research and development accounts for $21.5 billion — up from $13.2 billion in the House and $17.8 billion in the Senate. Most of the money will go to biomedical, energy and climate research. The budget figures were collated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science's R&D Budget and Policy Program. Their in-depth funding breakdown is here. Image: David Beyer See Also:
Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Feb 2009 | 3:08 am Long-Lived Rat May Hold Clues to Combatting Aging
Like short-lived mice, the cells of naked mole rats are suffused with free-floating, cell-damaging oxygen free radicals. Unlike the mice — and every other species that appears compromised by oxidative deterioration, including humans — they've found a way to live with it. "When we compare the lab mouse with the naked mole rat, we find a striking difference in their systems," said study co-author Asish Chaudhuri, a University of Texas Health Science Center biochemist. "Their proteins are still working. Even when damaged, the functions are maintained." The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represent a new wrinkle in the oxidative-stress theory of aging. According to the theory, mitochondria — cellular machines that produce our bodies' energy — pump out highly reactive oxygen molecules during respiration. Called free radicals, these molecules bind easily with other molecules, including DNA. Over time, DNA breaks down, compromising cellular function. Eventually whole tissues and organs no longer function. Multiple studies have found evidence of mitochondrial malfunction in a range of diseases that become more common with age, from heart disease to neurodegeneration to cancer. Drugs designed to rejuvenate mitochondria have shown promise in treating diabetes, and are celebrated as possible therapies for other conditions. Chaudhuri's team's findings don't contradict the role of mitochondria, but expand the theory to include cellular proteins other than DNA. They also explain a condundrum: some long-lived species display plenty of oxidative damage. "We've studied a dozen species, half short-lived and the others long-lived. One long-lived species would have lots of oxidative damage, and another would have little. The one thing that seemed to be consistent was protein stability," said University of Texas Health Sciences Center gerontologist Steven Austad, who was not involved in the current study. "Until recently I've focused on DNA damage and repair, but this strikes me as even more fundamental. For DNA repair to work, you need all the repair proteins to work properly." Mole rats caught the researchers' attention because they can live for 30 years, or ten times longer than lab mice, even though the two are similarly sized. They found that mole rats do have efficient mitochondria that release fewer free radicals than expected. But their mitochondria aren't perfect. Free radicals still gather and cause damage. Two-year-old mole rats show just as much oxidative stress two-year-old mice — and then live for another quarter-century. The key appears to be their proteins, which continue to function despite damage. Study co-author Rochelle Buffenstein, a University of Texas Health Sciences Center physiologist, likened the phenomena to rusting cars: in other species, the axles rust, but in naked mole rats, it's just the doors. With heat and urea — both of which typically cause complex protein spools to unfold — the researchers tried to break down the proteins, but to no avail. "You can basically hit them with a sledgehammer, and the proteins don't unfold," said Buffenstein. "Something makes them inherently more stable. There might be small molecules that tack on to proteins and help them retain structure in the face of cellular stress." Mole rats also appear to delay protein repair until the last possible moment, thus saving energy and resources. When proteins finally do break down, mole rats do an especially efficient job of cleaning them up. Only a tiny bit of ubiquitin — the chemical tag used to label damaged proteins for disposal — is required. Finally, specialized protein-disposal structures, called proteosomes, don't appear to break down with age in mole rats. The researchers will next try to determine what maintains the mole rat's proteins and proteosome. If, as Buffenstein suspects, it turns out to be an as-yet-unidentified protein protectant, scientists could apply the findings to people. "If we can identify those proteins, we can use them to study aging and age-related diseases. These animals don't have any symptoms of neurodegeneration, even in old age," said Chaudhuri. "Then we can design peptides that act like the protein, and take it as a drug." Citation: "Protein stability and resistance to oxidative stress are determinants of longevity in the longest-living rodent, the naked mole-rat." By Viviana I. Perez, Rochelle Buffenstein, Venkata Masamsetti, Shanique Leonard, Adam B. Salmon, James Meleb, Blazej Andziak, Ting Yang, Yael Edrey, Bertrand Friguet, Walter Ward, Arlan Richardson and Asish Chaudhuri. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 7, Feb. 16, 2009. See Also:
Image: Rochelle Buffenstein Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Feb 2009 | 2:41 am Giant Flying Reptiles Had Bird-Like Air SacsBalloon-like air sacs extended from the pterosaurs' lungs into much of the skeleton.Source: Livescience.com | 18 Feb 2009 | 2:02 am Semiconductor Tech Diagnoses Eye Disease Over the Internet
An imaging analysis technique developed to find defects in semiconductors is being used to diagnose the eye problems associated with diabetes over the internet. Pictures of a diabetic patients' retina, the inner surface of the eye, are uploaded to a server that compares them to a database of thousands of other images of healthy and diseased eyes. Algorithms can assign a disease level to the new eye image by looking at the same factors, mainly damage to blood vessels, that an eye doctor would. Right now, ophthalmologist Andrew Chaum of the University of Tennessee double checks the system's work, but he expects the algorithms to be diagnosing patients on its own within three months. "At that point, the system becomes completely automated with just oversight from me," Chaum said. "That's unique. There isn't anything like that going on anywhere in the world." Chaum's work goes beyond telemedicine, in which physicians connect to patients through data networks, to automated medicine. There are huge advantages to the system: Chaum is expensive, while a bit of computer processing power is cheap. Also, like other telemedicine systems, it moves images over the internet, instead of patients through a health care network, which is easier for everyone involved. Patients get faster, cheaper care and doctors can spend their time treating patients that computers have already spotted as needing help. Increasing acceptance of these types of technologies could mean better medical care for people in areas of the country and world in which access to doctors is limited. "We don't want to manage the patients, we want to manage the images [of their eyes] and leverage the power of the connectivity of the internet and image analysis methods," Chaum said. "We collect large numbers of images and manage that data and do the screening through data processing." More than 25 million Americans suffer from diabetes, which, if left untreated, can cause blindness, among other physical problems. The huge numbers of people who need to be screened for diabetes-linked eye problems have created a problem that our health care system, and its relatively small number of ophthalmologists, is not well-structured to solve. Because of the time and expense involved, only half the people who should be getting screened so they won't go blind actually go in for tests. But new technology could help, reducing the cost and increasing the availability of screening for the eye problems that impair the vision of thousands of patients each year. In the rural, poor areas of the Mississippi Delta where the special internet-linked retinal cameras are being installed, preventative care could be transformed for a population in which diabetes affects up to 20 percent of the population. "Basically, we're putting these cameras in communities in which there are no eye doctors," Chaum said. "Certainly, there are no retina specialists who can diagnose and refer those patients in a way that makes sense to get them in for the care that they need at the time that they need it." The project spun out of a chance visit by Chaum to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He listened to Ken Tobin, an engineer at the lab, who'd developed the image-processing ideas for the semiconductor industry. In that world, they'd used huge databases filled with images of defective products to help engineers spot similar types of failures. As Tobin described his work looking for defects in the wafers to the visiting Tennessee faculty, Chaum realized the same image-recognition system could be geared to find diseased eyes by using his huge database of retinal pictures (like those at the top of this story). "As he was describing his methodology to me, it became very clear that what he was doing was exactly what I do as a physician when I'm examining a patient with diabetic retinopathy," Chaum said. "I look for specific features that are present in that retina and I go into my own [mental] library — thousands and thousands of patients I've seen over the eyars — to say, 'This is diabetic retinopathy of a certain level.'" After several years of collaboration, Chaum has successfully transferred that knowledge from his brain into the server that does the calculations. "The computer is a reflection of my perspective," Chaum said. Now, Tobin claims that the system correctly identifies between 90 and 98 percent of the diabetic patients, tagging patients on a scale from healthy to severe versions of the disease. "We're looking for lesions. They are like the defects on a semiconductor device. White spots or dark spots," Tobin said. "By finding those and knowing how many there are, and certain combinations of bright and dark lesions, we can tell not just whether they have the disease but how bad it is." The retinal images are particularly well-suited for analysis by computers. Tobin describes them as nearly two-dimensional with well-defined areas of light and dark. Other areas of the body are tougher. Mammograms and lung X-rays, for example, look at areas with more depth and less well-defined disease indicators. "In a chest x-ray, you are looking for things that are sort of cloud-shaped amongst other cloud-shaped objects," Tobin said. "It's not really something where it's at a point where it could replace an oncologist or radiologist." That's why automated diagnosis faces an uphill battle for widespread acceptance in the health care industry. The presence of a doctor just seems necessary — and institutions are loathe to take chances with a computer misdiagnosis when doctors do a generally adequate job. It doesn't help automated diagnosis that, as described in a review article on the use of computers in diagnosis, early missteps led many medical practitioners to write off the technique based on outdated technology from the previous decades. One doctor wrote, "We do not see much promise in the development of computer programs to simulate the decision-making of a physician." The other big hurdle is that insurance companies require a doctor's sign-off for reimbursement. Practically, that's a deal-breaker for most clinics. Chaum and Tobin's automated system could be groundbreaking in providing the first in-the-field test of an automated diagnostic system that the pair are confident will work. That could turn some heads in the medical field and get more doctors thinking about how to treat more patients for less money by using technology. "What we're trying to show is that at least in a screening environment, we can take the ophthalmologist out of the loop," Tobin said. See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and project site, Inventing Green: the lost history of American clean tech; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Feb 2009 | 12:03 am Clare TurnerOur friend Clare Turner, who has died aged 67, combined a successful career as an educational psychologist with bringing up four daughters, despite struggling for many years with severe rheumatoid arthritis. Born Clare Hoben in the north-east of England, to parents who were teachers, and with twin elder brothers, she attended the University of Manchester, where we met. After graduating in psychology, she taught for two years before returning to qualify in educational psychology. She was married to Stephen Turner, had a career break while her daughters were young and then joined the Royal School for the Deaf in Manchester in 1981, working collaboratively at the Rycroft Centre, a multi-professional assessment centre, to identify the strengths and requirements of some of the most complex children in the UK. Clare's professional life blossomed and she found the work deeply rewarding. Her colleagues appreciated her contribution to the understanding of hearing-impaired children. She established a way of working where deafness and multiple disability was the rule rather than the exception. She valued the children, looking for ability as well as need, and emphasised the importance of observation. As well as being a keen listener, she had the great gift of being able to talk to parents and other colleagues who knew the child well, drawing out information that, until then, had been ignored, forgotten or not seen to have significance. She was a founder member of EPHIC (Educational Psychologists working with Hearing Impaired Children). Clare developed rheumatoid arthritis and eventually it reduced her mobility to such an extent that she felt it affected the quality of her work and she retired in 2000. She was incredibly brave about coping with her illness, even when she was wheelchair-bound. She fought for every new treatment available but nothing seemed to help. She was sustained by her inner strength, her deep spirituality and the support of her daughters Louise, Elizabeth, Camilla and Antonia, all of whom survive her. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 18 Feb 2009 | 12:01 am SpacewatchLast week's collision between the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 satellites 789km above Siberia has generated two expanding sprays of shrapnel that will pose a hazard to other satellites for decades or centuries to come. While it is possible that a handful of pieces may have already re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, I doubt if any have been observed. Certainly, a daylight fireball seen over Texas on Sunday was a meteor and had nothing to do with debris from the collision, despite a statement to the contrary by the US Federal Aviation Administration. Most of the debris is likely to be in orbits that feel very little atmospheric drag, the force that causes them to spiral slowly to lower altitudes. Early reports suggested that some 600 objects were being tracked, though actual orbital data has still to be released for any of them. The number is certain to grow as further pieces are recognised. For example, the count of items of debris from China's deliberate destruction of one of its own meteorological satellites two years ago surpassed 2,500 with the cataloguing of another 150 pieces only last week - and only 2% of the total have re-entered so far. One puzzle concerns why the US-owned Iridium was not manoeuvred. It was part of an active constellation of communication satellites and could have been boosted up or down, and potential hazardous approaches between satellites are computed on a routine basis. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 18 Feb 2009 | 12:01 am Haemophiliac infected with vCJD from blood donorThe first case of an NHS patient contracting the human form of BSE after being treated with infected blood products was confirmed yesterday by the Health Protection Agency (HPA). It released details about an unnamed man with haemophilia who was injected with a blood-clotting agent made from an infected donor's plasma. The man, who was over 70, died from an unrelated condition after showing no symptoms of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) or any other neurological condition. The infection was identified during a postmortem on his spleen. The HPA said: "It is known that the patient had been treated with several batches of UK-sourced clotting factors before 1999, which is when measures to improve the safety of blood in relation to vCJD were introduced." The treatment included one batch of the clotting protein Factor VIII that had been taken from the plasma of a donor who went on to develop symptoms of vCJD six months after donating it in 1996. Professor Mike Catchpole, director of the HPA's centre for infections, said: "This new finding may indicate that what was until now a theoretical risk may be an actual risk to certain individuals who have received blood plasma products, although the risk could still be quite low. "We recognise that this finding will be of concern for persons with haemophilia who will be awaiting the completion of the ongoing investigations and their interpretation. The priority is to ensure that patients are informed of this development ... as soon as possible." The HPA issued an alert five years ago to all patients with bleeding disorders including haemophilia, who were treated with UK-sourced pooled plasma products between 1980 and 2001. It said they should be classed as "at risk" of vCJD due to the possibility of infection. The agency said the latest discovery would not change the at risk status. Chris James, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, said: "This terrible news is causing huge worry and concern to families all over the UK. It is vital that, following the mishandled release of this news, the Department of Health now acts swiftly to give people the full details and offer them the appropriate support. Detailed information about recent developments must be made available immediately to all those who have been treated with potentially infected plasma products. "Unfortunately, the risks are higher than they might have been because health authorities in England and Wales continued to use products derived from human blood to treat haemophilia long after most other developed countries had switched to safer, synthetic recombinant treatments." Since 1995, 164 people in Britain have died from vCJD, but there was just one death last year. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 18 Feb 2009 | 12:01 am Bolivia's Morales calls on Total to up investment (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2009 | 10:08 pm Satellite Crash: Who's to Blame? (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - WASHINGTON - The in-orbit collision that destroyed an operational Iridium communications satellite over Siberia last week underscores the difficulty of predicting and avoiding such events despite the increasingly sophisticated orbital surveillance technology in use, U.S. government and industry experts said.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2009 | 9:21 pm Space Junk Clean-Up Program LaunchesThe European Space Agency is on the lookout for rogue space debris.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 9:15 pm Reptiles May Overheat in Warmer FutureCold-blooded animals' ability to stay cool will become tougher with warming, research shows.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 8:55 pm Backward green comet makes one-time only visit (AP)AP - An odd, greenish backward-flying comet is zipping by Earth this month, as it takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system. The comet is called Lulin, and there's a chance it can be seen with the naked eye far from city lights, astronomers say. But you'll most likely need a telescope, or at least binoculars, to spot it.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2009 | 8:23 pm Old Photos Document Dramatic Decline in Trophy Fish SizeArchival photographs spanning more than five decades reveal a drastic decline.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 8:08 pm Growling at Your Dog Won't WorkGrowling at or hitting your dog is not likely to improve its aggressive behavioral problems.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 6:20 pm Most People Believe Dreams Are MeaningfulDreams might mean nothing, but we take them seriously as Sigmund Freud did, nonetheless.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 6:19 pm UK 'eyes' to hunt for other EarthsThe US space agency will incorporate British detectors on its Kepler mission due to launch in just a few weeks' time.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2009 | 5:47 pm Bond with Mom Helps Kids Make FriendsA child who has a strong relationship with Mom during preschool years tends to form closer friendships in grade school.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 5:21 pm Robot plays rock, paper, scissorsOne of the most sophisticated robots created in the UK, Berti makes its public debutSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2009 | 5:19 pm Mass Extinctions May Follow One-Two PunchA new "Grand Unified Theory" of mass extinctions suggests Earth is entering a new one.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 4:35 pm Polar Oceans Rich With Diverse LifeA survey finds an astonishing richness of marine life in the polar oceans.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 4:35 pm Cave secretsBBC team comes face-to-face with the assassin bugSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2009 | 4:31 pm Protective Shell of a Virus ImagedScientists image the protective protein shell that surrounds many known viruses.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 4:03 pm Robot Does Breast BiopsyA robot for breast exams and breast biopsy is being developed at Duke University.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 4:02 pm Idea of Infinity Stretched Back to Third Century B.C.The first mathematical use of the concept of actual infinity has been pushed back some 2,000 years.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 3:49 pm Climate curbs need 'people power'The battle against climate change can only be won "in the hands of the many, not the few", warns a top scientist.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2009 | 3:37 pm UV Teeth Bleaching Not a Bright IdeaUltraviolet light can damage your gums, lips and eyes during a light-assisted teeth bleaching.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 3:25 pm Robot Does Breast BiopsyGuided solely by 3-D ultrasound images, an autonomous robot places its biopsy needle precisely on a metallic target within a Nerf ball.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2009 | 3:15 pm Fluctuating Temperatures Affect Malaria SpreadClimate change's influence on malaria is more complicated than previously thought.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 3:10 pm First carbon-free polar station opens in AntarcticaPRINCESS ELISABETH BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - The world's first zero-emission polar research station opened in Antarctica on Sunday and was welcomed by scientists as proof that alternative energy is viable even in the coldest regions.Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2009 | 2:43 pm Search for 'Alien Life' Could Start on EarthIf life arose twice on Earth, it probably exists elsewhere, too. Let the hunt begin.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 2:30 pm People powerClimate battle 'needs hands of the many, not the few'Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2009 | 2:27 pm Drinking Water to Become More CorrosiveAs drinking water becomes more scarce it's also likely to become more polluted.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Feb 2009 | 2:20 pm Painful memory? Forget itWouldn't it be nice if we could get rid of unhappy or unsettling memories? A simple memory eraser that would delete the pain of having been mugged, or the sad end to a love affair? Or to erase the guilt of the soldier who kills or rapes civilians? How about going further, and with a simple drug enable the politician to forget that he promised to abolish boom and bust, or take us to war on a lie? George Orwell's 1984 had its memory hole, in which past news was buried and false pasts created. But that involved armies of desk workers. More recently, in Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, erasing memories of a relationship gone sour involved clamping the sad lover's head into a helmet and passing a strong magnetic field across his skull. Actually that might even work, though it didn't in the film; love proved stronger than mere technology. But in the US the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is more than mildly interested in trans-cranial brain stimulation (Darpa, for short, with its inadvertent echoes of Star Wars, has been funding this sort of stuff for decades). Science fiction apart, one reason for wanting to erase memories could be the belief that people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) can have their symptoms relieved by reliving and coming to terms with their traumatic experience and an small army of professional grief and stress councillors has emerged, especially in the US. Now a group of Dutch researchers has hit the media with the suggestion that a commonly available pill, a blood pressure-lowering beta-blocker, might help do the trick. In fact, the idea isn't new. For some decades it has been known that emotional memories engage a region of the brain called the amygdala and a neurotransmitter related to the hormone adrenalin. Blocking the effects of adrenalin with a beta-blocker also impairs the emotional memory (I've even done experiments of this sort myself). But why might one want to do such a thing? The idea is to give a person the drug and then re-invoke the painful memory, in the hope that the drug will erase it. While most memory research has focused on developing drugs that might improve memory – so-called cognitive enhancers – the thought that if one drug improved memory, another that blocked the effect of the first might impair it attracted a number of small start-up biotech companies interested in cashing on the potential PTSD market. But even before the current market collapse at least two such companies, well bankrolled and with scientific luminaries on their boards, went belly-up. So is it even such a good idea? Some psychotherapists argue that it is better to enable people to come to terms with bad memories rather than erase them; others might urge suppression. But for sure, as long as the pharmaceutical industry keeps generating new drugs, some people – and some state agencies – are going to want to mess with the mind. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2009 | 1:00 pm Cheap food 'damages the environment'The culture of cheap food has damaged public health, farming and the environment, according to the head of Waitrose . Mark Price, the supermarket chain's managing director, attacked aggressive price cutting championed by his larger rivals such as Tesco and Asda. He blamed the government for encouraging a trend of cheap food after the second world war, which consumers "have now got used to". "The headlong rush since the end of the second world war for ever greater quantities of cheap food has not only made us fatter, it has led to fewer, more indebted farms and an impoverished environment," Price told the National Farmers' Union conference yesterday. "Food is seen as a disposable commodity that does not merit more than passing consideration. Food is seen as cheap. Food is neither of these things." With price cutting moving up the agenda after years of rising prices and more recently growing unemployment and job insecurity since the economic downturn, Price defended Waitrose's higher prices. Like-for-like products were less than 5% more expensive than in Tesco or Sainsbury's, and the difference between the cheapest chicken in rival supermarkets and Waitrose was only £1, Price told the Guardian. Waitrose could demand better standards for a relatively small extra cost by making less profit on these products, something the supermarket could afford to do because it had a higher proportion of high-value, high-margin fresh food and top-range produce, said Price. "Despite the recession, on average, Britons are financially and materially better off than at any other point in history," he told the conference in Birmingham. "This is not to say that some families are not suffering very badly. They are. But the fact is that food now makes up a smaller portion of household expenditure than ever before. "This may be good for our pockets, but it isn't good for our farmers, our health, our communities or our attitude to the natural environment – and that means it isn't good for anyone." As well as naming his rival supermarkets, Price made an indirect attack on Tesco's chief executive Terry Leahy, linking him in his introduction to a clip of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko making his infamous "greed is good" speech in the 1980s film Wall Street. A Tesco spokeswoman said the company did not want to respond directly to Price's speech, but added: "We're wholly committed to British farming, but equally customers need us to be able to offer them great value." Price also criticised the boss of Asda, Andy Bond, for putting down celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Heston Blumenthal. "His [Bond's] criticism centred on a belief that asking consumers to pay a little more for high-quality, ethically reared meat is out of step with public mood," said Price. Peter Kendall, the NFU president, welcomed recognition of the pressures on farmers, which he said had increased during the credit crunch. Methods used by supermarkets included forcing down prices after contracts were signed by changing products from normal to cheap "value" ranges, and demanding more money for marketing and promotions, said Kendall. More education was needed to persuade people that cheap food was not good "value", said Kendall. "A lot of people here have built a good business on the back of [supermarkets], they have got some long-term relationships with them. But there's an air of short-termism which does damage our long-term supply base," he said. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2009 | 12:05 pm
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