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Next Generation Digital Maps Are Laser SharpNew airborne laser elevation, or lidar, surveys of the earth provide a 10-fold improvement in the precision of digital topographical maps, geologists report. This revolution in mapping will soon benefit anyone who relies on map data for work or recreation.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm How We Think Before We Speak: Making Sense Of SentencesHow does the brain turn seemingly random sounds and letters into sentences with clear meaning? Recent findings suggest that, as we read or have a conversation, our brains are continuously trying to predict upcoming information. These findings reveal that our brains very rapidly draw upon a wide range of information, including what was stated previously and who the speaker is, in helping us understand what is being said to us.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Field Of Germs: Food Safety Is In Farm Worker's HandsFood safety policy experts say protocols need to look beyond dirty processing plants. Farm workers aren't required to be vaccinated, which presents an increased threat for the spread of disease, particularly among foods that do not require cooking.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm X-ray Eyes Bring Us Closer To Early Diagnosis Of Parkinson's DiseaseIt is estimated that 4 million people world-wide are suffering from Parkinson's, a complex disease that varies greatly among affected individuals. Understanding the brain chemistry that leads to the onset of Parkinson's is vital if we are to develop methods for early MRI diagnosis and new treatments for this devastating disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Lab-made Proteins Neutralize Multiple Strains Of Seasonal And Pandemic FluScientists have identified a small family of lab-made proteins that neutralize a broad range of influenza A viruses, including the H5N1 avian virus, the 1918 pandemic influenza virus and seasonal H1N1 flu viruses. These human monoclonal antibodies, identical infection-fighting proteins derived from the same cell lineage, also were found to protect mice from illness caused by H5N1 and other influenza A viruses.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm Fructose-sweetened Drinks Increase Nonfasting Triglycerides In Obese AdultsObese people who drink fructose-sweetened beverages with their meals have an increased rise of triglycerides following the meal, according to new research. This effect was especially pronounced in insulin-resistant subjects, worsening their already adverse metabolic profiles and potentially increasing their risk for heart disease and other metabolic disorders.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm New Method To Eliminate Ibuprofen From Polluted Waters Using UltrasoundScientists have developed an ultrasound treatment to remove ibuprofen from waters polluted with this drug. This method could be used in water purification plants, which would avoid the emission of pharmaceutical pollutants into rivers, lakes, seas and other surface waters.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm Most Extreme Gamma-ray Blast Ever, Seen By Fermi Gamma-ray Space TelescopeWith the greatest total energy, the fastest motions, and the highest-energy initial emissions ever before seen, a gamma-ray burst recently observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is one for the record books. The spectacular blast also raises new questions about gamma-ray bursts.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm Radioimmunotherapy: Promising Treatment For HIV Infection And Viral CancersScientists have piggybacked antibodies onto radioactive payloads to deliver doses of radiation that selectively target and destroy microbial and HIV-infected cells. The experimental treatment -- called radioimmunotherapy, or RIT -- holds promise for treating various infectious diseases, including HIV and cancers caused by viruses.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm Herpes Virus: To Vaccinate Or Not To VaccinateScientists have followed up on an intriguing study showing that mice persistently infected with certain forms of herpes virus, which can establish lifelong latent infections, are resistant to infection with bacterial pathogens. Researchers are concerned with the implications of such research for the development of vaccines against herpesvirus infections.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 4:00 pm Ministers get close look at Antarctic ice threat (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 11:22 am Hurricane Season 2008 (weather.com)weather.com -Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 11:05 am Brain injury raises epilepsy risk for years: studyLONDON (Reuters) - A severe brain injury puts people at high risk of epilepsy for more than a decade after they are first hurt, a finding that suggests there may be a window to prevent the condition, researchers said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 12:30 am Fanfare as Vietnam opens first oil refinery (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2009 | 12:23 am Go figure ... When you last used your supermarket loyalty card, or pulled up just as the traffic lights turned red, you probably weren't thinking much about maths. Why would you? Most of us see mathematics as baffling school algebra that has no application in real life. But you probably meet hundreds of bits of complex maths every day without realising it: the discounts on your loyalty card are the result of deep data analysis, and those traffic signals run on an algorithm that determines when the lights will switch to green. In fact, large bits of modern lives are secretly underpinned by complex algorithms - the mathematical equivalent of cookery recipes, which take a piece of information and turn it into an action or decision. Algorithms are like computer programs or flowcharts - a sequence of steps that examines what is happening and comes to a conclusion. Take traffic lights: the computer controlling them asks a series of related questions. What time of day is it? When did the lights last go red? Has a pedestrian pushed the button at the crossing? The algorithm guides the computer, step by step, to change the lights. Algorithms are pervasive, even controlling, in our lives. Book a low-cost flight and an algorithm will determine how much the tickets will cost, depending on supply and demand; arrive at the airport and air-traffic algorithms will determine which place in the queue your plane gets. Watch the weather forecast on TV and the predictions will have been fine-tuned by an algorithm; listen to the radio and the playlist may have been generated by one. Supermarkets, in particular, are a hotbed of algorithms. Almost every aspect of their operation - from deciding the order that products are stacked on the shelves to picking which special offers to run - is determined by a computer. And since computers are increasingly dominant in our lives, algorithms are increasingly important - and nowhere is this more apparent than on the internet. In the online world, mathematical analysis isn't just important: the algorithm is king. Everywhere you turn online, companies are using algorithms in their quest for success. From Google's search results and Apple's music recommendations to Amazon telling you that "customers who bought this item also bought ... " algorithms are at work. "There is no way, with the size of the internet, that one can do exhaustive searches," says Marcus du Sautoy, professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford, and one of Britain's leading mathematicians. "So you have to rely on mathematics to give you clever and fast ways to get information." Online supermarket Ocado, for instance, analyses every detail of every activity - from the choices shoppers make to warehouse movements - to make sure there is enough stock in the right places, and to help the company plan future strategies. "We're using complicated forecasting algorithms to predict demand," says Jon Rudoe, head of retail. "The customer sees nothing. It all looks very simple, but it's actually governed by complex mathematics in the background" - mathematics we can put to use because we now have technology that didn't exist a decade ago. Since these recipes have helped internet companies cook up billions in profits, the precise details of the mathematical mechanisms are jealously guarded as among the companies' most valuable assets. Forget the recipe for Coke or the Colonel's blend of herbs and spices, these are the trade secrets of the 21st century. And wherever there are secrets, there are people desperate to unlock them. Around the world, countless hours and millions - perhaps billions - of pounds are spent trying to unravel the inner workings of the web's most powerful algorithms. Among those rooting for answers is Russell Davies, an advertising consultant from London. His fascination started when he decided to try to understand how to lift his book - a guide to Britain's greasy-spoon cafes called Eggs, Bacon, Chips and Beans - up Amazon's rankings. On the surface, the Amazon charts seem straightforward. They are largely based on sales, but there is also analysis of buying activity so that a sudden rush of orders can push a book, CD or DVD up the chart. The rewards for chart-topping are enormous: it can drive thousands more sales. But there are other benefits too, including (crucially) a shot at appearing in the algorithmically generated "customers who bought this also bought ..." section, which is hugely popular. Davies thought he could try a variety of tricks to shift his book up the bestseller list and - if he succeeded - work out the secret ingredients behind Amazon's recipe. "I started to think about what makes the number change and realised that it's a big secret, which made it more interesting," he says. Over the course of several months it became a minor obsession; after all, for writers and publishers, even a small insight into Amazon's algorithm could be like discovering the Rosetta Stone: "The Amazon ranking is the only feedback the average author gets on how their book is doing, and you're desperate for feedback." Davies wrote about the book in newspapers and online; he asked friends to buy copies and even bought a few himself, all the time closely monitoring whether his actions were reflected by his place in the rankings. But although he had a few moments when he seemed close to a breakthrough, he hasn't cracked the code. "I learned that you can't really influence it," he concludes. "Thinking about it, it's not that surprising - you're in such a massive pool of data that a few sales here or there are just invisible." Amazon is not alone in working hard to keep its methods confidential. EBay's reputation system is largely based on user feedback, but the company constantly works on adaptations aimed at stopping scammers from getting status they don't deserve. Apple, similarly, has mathematical secrets that are increasingly important to its business, among them a recent addition to the iPod, the new "Genius" function that creates playlists of similar songs. On the surface, Genius looks like hi-tech wizardry. It takes a song you own and works out similar music that you might like to hear: stick in a shiny happy song and you'll get 25 tracks of sunshine back; give it a mournful dirge and you'll end up with a mixtape to die to. Underneath all the whizziness, though, the Genius function is really about number crunching. Apple analyses the song choices of millions of other iTunes users around the world and, based on this, is able to take a stab at which songs match your seed track. And it's profitable, too: Genius can encourage users to hear and buy songs from iTunes that they knew nothing about. Another aspect of Apple's business it keeps quiet about is the way its iTunes charts are put together. While the charts appear largely based on sales and the number of times people listen, iTunes is also believed to use a so-called "decay algorithm" to give more weight to very recent activity. The company refuses to confirm how the system works, although little pieces of information have slipped out in the past. Its podcast chart, apparently, is "driven purely by an algorithm that looks at new subscriptions during the past week", for example. Nobbling the mathematics behind iTunes is almost impossible, but some people have learned how to subvert it the old-fashioned way. Little-known group Hit Masters rode high in the charts earlier this year with a karaoke cover of the recent Kid Rock hit All Summer Long. They managed a modern twist on the age-old tactic of riding somebody else's success, when they noticed that the original version was not available to buy on the US iTunes store. Their speedily produced cover appeared high in the search for the Kid Rock song, making them more likely to get downloaded; more downloads meant a higher placing in the chart, which itself generated more sales. It's a self-fulfilling cycle that eventually pushed Hit Masters to a chart high of 19 in the US Billboard Hot 100. But the efforts of Amazon, eBay and Apple pale in comparison to the most famous algorithm on the web: Google's algorithm is the mathematical engine that drives the web's most powerful company. "It's not that Google is smarter at the maths, it just had a better recipe," says Danny Sullivan, editor of the SearchEngineLand.com website. "It had ingredients that other people didn't." Given Google's dominance of web search, getting a high ranking there is a guarantee of more clicks - and more clicks means more money. With so much at stake, decoding Google's algorithm has become an industry in itself. Experts in search engine optimisation (SEO) know the basics of Google's operations - they are well documented - but the California company now spends vast amounts of time and energy trying to keep its formula secret. "Large sites such as Amazon and Google are tweaking the internals of their systems almost constantly," says Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell University in New York state. "The front end of Google looks the same to us, but behind the scenes they can be busily swapping out ideas." Kleinberg believes the internet is making so much data available about how we relate to each other that we could soon be able to create algorithms for the social interactions we always thought were too complicated for maths, such as controversy, disagreement or fame. "They've always been fleeting, ephemeral, invisible and essentially unknowable," he says. "Now we can try to get in there and understand why, at a microscopic level." All of which will have potential applications, both corporate and individual. Your PC could use algorithms to recognise exactly what document you are looking for, or to predict which news stories you might be interested in when you log on. Your mobile phone could recognise you are in a bad mood and screen your calls automatically, allowing only people that it has determined are your closest friends to get through. Learning to sift through the vast amount of information being sent across the internet every second to divine people's feelings or intentions could, Kleinberg believes, be the next great technological leap. Mathematicians rule! 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 | 23 Feb 2009 | 12:01 am Butterflies to go under hammerIn many ways Harrow school is lucky to have one of the most significant private collections of butterflies in its storerooms because the man who donated them was so unhappy there. "Jew hunts, such as I experienced, are a very one-sided amusement," Charles Rothschild once wrote. But donate them he did. The astonishing collection of more than 3,500 brightly coloured and rare specimens is to be removed from the mahogany drawers, in a room used to store computers, and sold at auction. The sale also shines a light on the fascinating lives of Charles and his older brother Walter, a man who almost ruined himself financially by spending the Rothschild family fortune on his natural history obsessions. In the next edition of Bonhams quarterly magazine, the documentary maker Hannah Rothschild - great granddaughter to Charles - tells how Walter used the family fortune to amass "the greatest collection of animals ever assembled by one man" from starfishes to giraffes and including 144 giant tortoises and 20,000 birds eggs. She describes her great-great uncle as a "huge stuttering bear of a man" who kept the whole house - and it was a big house - awake with his thunderous snoring. His private life was evidently complicated. "He never married, though he did have two mistresses, one of whom bore him an illegitimate daughter, while the other blackmailed him for most of his life." That Rothschild was eccentric may be an understatement as he once drove a zebra-harnessed carriage to Buckingham Palace to prove the animals could be tamed. Hannah Rothschild also quotes her great-aunt Miriam's memories of the children's daily walk through the Rothschild great park at Tring. "There were fallow deer in the park. There were kangaroos, there were emus and rheas and cassowaries, although the cassowaries had disgraced themselves, so they were put into part of the park we no longer really walked in. And the emus were the birds that frightened me the most because they made a curious drumming sound with their feet and followed the prams because they hoped to get food. They had nasty gimlet-like eyes and long beaks and they terrified me." The scale of Walter's collecting is eye-boggling and now forms a significant chunk of the Natural History Museum's collection. Rothschild used the banking fortune to fund a global network of collectors - in places as far flung as Queensland, Timor, Guam and the Sula Islands - who could feed his voracious passion. According to Hannah, there have been many notable Rothschild collectors but none who allowed their collecting to get them into financial trouble and "none showed Walter's single-minded profligacy". He spent so much of the fortune that at one stage he had to sell his vast collection of bird skins to the American Natural History museum in New York to get himself out of trouble. Between 1899 and his death in 1937, butterflies became the main focus of his attention. According to Hannah: "Nothing man-made - no painting by Ingres or Velázquez, none of the jewels of Catherine the Great nor the intricacies of Mughal art - can come to the shocking beauty of these creatures ... My great-aunt Miriam used to send out a Christmas card and got great pleasure from correcting those who assumed that the image of swirling colours could be a lesser known work of some famous Impressionist painter. "You are looking at the greatly magnified reproductive organ of a butterfly," she would tell princes and statesmen with glee." The Harrow butterflies were collected by Walter and Charles and donated by Charles. Hannah says she was surprised her forebear did so given his unhappy school days. She quotes from a letter he wrote: "If I ever have a son he will be instructed in boxing and jiujitsu before he enters school, as Jew hunts such as I experienced are a very one-sided amusement and there is apt to be a lack of sympathy between the hunters and the hunted." She added: "Perhaps my great-grandfather donated this collection in the hope that it would serve as an escape for other unhappy boys." Hitoshi Takano, a Harrow old boy and consultant for the sale, remembers his joy at finding out the Harrow butterflies existed. "In my first year I told one of my teachers about my interest in wildlife and butterflies and he said they were in the process of mounting an exhibition. I jumped at the chance to get involved. "It's such an amazing collection. I'd only seen them in books and here they were in drawers in an IT storage room under the chemistry schools." He said it was understandable that the school would want to sell. "The butterflies aren't being studied at Harrow and it costs a lot to look after them." He agrees that Charles, who wrote a book while at school called Butterflies of Harrow, probably gave them in the hope it would excite and cheer up boys at the school. For Charles life ended sadly: after a long bout of encephalitis he took his own life in 1923. Takano hopes the butterflies will be bought as a job lot - the estimate for the 27 May sale is £60,000 to £80,000 - and by someone who can keep them together and allow public access and study. 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 | 23 Feb 2009 | 12:01 am Indiana Jones of conservationIn this week's podcast we meet Lawrence Anthony, adventurer, conservationist and head of the Earth Organisation – the man who saved Baghdad Zoo, despite a war raging around him. No stranger to danger, he also persuaded murderous rebel armies in the Democratic Republic of Congo not to harm the ultra-rare white rhino population, and trained a herd of delinquent elephants to live peacefully near his home in South Africa. Guardian environment correspondent David Adam went to meet him. See pictures of the visit here. Ian Sample, our science correspondent, talks to physicist Paul Davies, who says that nobody is looking for alien life here on Earth. He reckons it could be right under our noses (in microbial form at least). Or even in them. And, with the help of environment web editor James Randerson, we hear why trees are getting bigger, the polar ice caps are melting faster and Nasa is releasing rap records. Feel free to comment below, or on our Facebook wall. Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2009 | 12:01 am Stinky Fermented Soy Goo Could Fight Alzheimer's
Natto is a soybean product that is sticky, slimy, and smelly, but it might be able to ward off Alzheimer's disease. Once a theme ingredient on Iron Chef, natto contains an enzyme called nattokinase that can shred brain plaque, and chemists think it could become a game-changing medication. In theory, the soy substance, would break up the deadly amyloid protein that forms fibrous deposits in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. "The ability of nattokinase to degrade amyloid fibrils is quite promising," says Li Gan, an Alzheimer's expert at the Gladstone Institute for Neurological Disease. "Since the enzyme comes from a type of health food, it might have fewer side effects." There is no cure for Alzheimer's, a degenerative illness that affects more than 5 million people. Some drugs can provide a modicum of relief for people who suffer from moderate memory loss. But scientists need a better understanding of the disease, and a fresh strategy for treating it. Chemist Rita Chen and her team at National Taiwan University showed that the soy enzyme can destroy three different types of toxic protein fibers. In a recent report to the Journal of Food and Agricultural Chemistry, they wrote that the experimental medicine can reach many parts of the body when taken orally, but it might not be able to enter the brain — the place where Alzheimer's patients need it most. But if the enzyme can work its magic in the brain, chemists will finally know how to undo the damage, rather than just treating the symptoms. But chopping up the protein fibers might make things worse. "Breaking down the fibrils may not always be beneficial," says Gan. "For example, if the fibrils are broken down to smaller, non-fibrillar aggregates, they could be even more toxic." For that reason, both Chen and Gan agree that it is time to test the enzyme on animals. In the report, Chen pointed out that there may be an even simpler way to get some answers — an epidemiological study. If people who eat a high natto diet have a lower risk of getting the disease, she could be on to something. The jury is still out on whether nattokinase will become a blockbuster Alzheimer's drug. But it is is readily available in the freezer section of Japanese markets and often served with rice, sushi or pork. So you might want to develop a taste for the unusual food. But that could take a while. See Also:
Video: Iron Chef Natto Battle Source: Wired: Wired Science | 22 Feb 2009 | 11:18 pm Fermilab, European accelerator race for glory (AP)AP - So, does the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron accelerator have a shot against the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland?Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2009 | 6:22 pm Antibodies protect against bird flu and moreWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have discovered human antibodies that neutralize not only H5N1 bird flu but other strains of influenza as well and say they hope to develop them into lifesaving treatments.Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Feb 2009 | 6:13 pm Rare Jaguars Spotted in Arizona and Mexico (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - The once-common jaguar has become a rare sight in North America, thanks to hunting and habitat fragmentation.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2009 | 4:05 pm India moves to protect traditional medicines from foreign patentsIn the first step by a developing country to stop multinational companies patenting traditional remedies from local plants and animals, the Indian government has effectively licensed 200,000 local treatments as "public property" free for anyone to use but no one to sell as a "brand". The move comes after scientists in Delhi noticed an alarming trend – the "bio-prospecting" of natural remedies by companies abroad. After trawling through the records of the global trademark offices, officials found 5,000 patents had been issued — at a cost of at least $150m (£104m) — for "medical plants and traditional systems". "More than 2,000 of these belong to the Indian systems of medicine … We began to ask why multinational companies were spending millions of dollars to patent treatments that so many lobbies in Europe deny work at all," said Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which lists in encyclopaedic detail the 200,000 treatments. The database, which took 200 researchers eight years to compile by meticulously translating ancient Indian texts, will now be used by the European Patent Office to check against "bio-prospectors". Gupta points out that in Brussels alone there had been 285 patents for medicinal plants whose uses had long been known in the three principal Indian systems: ayurveda, India's traditional medical treatment; unani, a system believed to have come to India via ancient Greece; and siddha, one of India's oldest health therapies, from the south. Researchers found that in Europe one company had patented an Indian creeping plant known as Brahmi — Bacopa monnieri — for a memory enhancer. Another patent was awarded for aloe vera for its use as a mouth ulcer treatment. "We have shown the authorities that ayurveda, unani and siddha medicinal uses were known in India. We would like the patents therefore lifted," said Gupta. In the past India has had to go to court to get patents revoked. Officials say that to lift patents from medicines created from turmeric and neem, an Indian tree, it spent more than $5m. In the case of the neem patent, the legal battle took almost 10 years. "We won because we proved these were part of traditional Indian knowledge. There was no innovation and therefore no patent should be granted," said Gupta. Yoga, too, is considered a traditional medicine and one that is already a billion-dollar industry in the US. Gupta said the Indian government had already asked the US to register yoga as a "well-known" mark and raised concerns over the 130 yoga-related patents issued. "We want no one to appropriate the yoga brand for themselves. There are 1,500 asanas [yogic poses] and exercises given in our ancient texts. We are transcribing these so they too cannot be appropriated by anyone. "We have had instances where people have patented a yoga technique by describing a certain temperature. This is simply wrong." India is also unusual in that it has seven national medical systems — of which modern medicine is but one. Almost four-fifths of India's billion people use traditional medicine and there are 430,000 ayurvedic medical practitioners registered by the government in the country. The department overseeing the traditional medical industry, known as Ayush, has a budget of 10bn rupees ($260m). India's battle to protect its traditional treatments is rooted in the belief that the developing world's rich biodiversity is a potential treasure trove of starting material for new drugs and crops. Gupta said that it costs the west $15bn and 15 years to produce a "blockbuster drug". A patent lasts for 20 years, so a pharmaceutical company has just five years to recover its costs — which makes conventional treatments expensive. "If you can take a natural remedy and isolate the active ingredient then you just need drug trials and the marketing. Traditional medicine could herald a new age of cheap drugs." Medicines ancient and modern Ginger: Patented to treat obesity. However, officials have found that in a Siddha preparation, extracts of ginger root are used in a treatment for obesity Citrus peel extract: Patented to treat skin disorders and injuries. Recorded in Ayurvedic texts as a key ingredient to treat skin diseases Phyllanthus amarus (Himalayan stem herb): Patented "for the inhibition of the replication of a nucleosidic inhibitor resistant retrovirus and/or a non-nucleosidic inhibitor-resistant retrovirus, wherein said retrovirus is an HIV." Indian traditional texts show the drug is used for immuno-suppressive emaciating diseases Brassica rapa (mustard): Patented to normalise bowel function or for the prevention of colonic cancer. Unani has for years prescribed it for stomach ailments 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 | 22 Feb 2009 | 4:04 pm
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