One Drug May Help People Both Lay Down The Drink And Put Out The Cigarette

A popular smoking cessation drug dramatically reduced the amount a heavy drinker will consume, a new study has found. Heavy-drinking smokers in a laboratory setting were much less likely to drink after taking the drug varenicline compared to those taking a placebo.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

New Study Shows Long-term Dangers Of Severe Concussions

More than a half million kids go to the hospital with concussions each year. Some are worse than others, but nearly all of them are treated exactly the same. Doctors depend on the patients to tell them when they feel better. A new study says that may not be enough.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Common Marine Sponges May Provide Super-antibiotics Of The Future

No matter how sophisticated modern medicine becomes, common ailments like fungal infections can outrun the best of the world's antibiotics. In people with compromised immune systems (like premature babies, AIDS victims or those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer) the risk is very high: contracting a fungal infection can be deadly.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Long-Term Use Of Nutrient Supplements May Increase Cancer Risk

Long-term use of beta carotene and some other carotenoid-containing dietary supplements may increase the risk of lung cancer, especially among smokers, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Cassini Maps Global Pattern Of Titan's Dunes

Titan's vast dune fields, which may act like weather vanes to determine general wind direction on Saturn's biggest moon, have been mapped by scientists who compiled four years of radar data collected by the Cassini spacecraft.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Newfound Moon May Be Source Of Outer Saturn Ring

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found within Saturn's G ring an embedded moonlet that appears as a faint, moving pinprick of light. Scientists believe it is a main source of the G ring and its single ring arc. Cassini imaging scientists analyzing images acquired over the course of about 600 days found the tiny moonlet, half a kilometer (about a third of a mile) across, embedded within a partial ring, or ring arc, previously found by Cassini in Saturn's tenuous G ring.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Gene Variant Associated With Both Autism And Gastrointestinal Dysfunction

A specific gene variant that links increased genetic risk for autism with gastrointestinal conditions has been identified.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

New Test For Detecting Fake Organic Milk

Scientists in Germany are reporting development of a new, more effective method to determine whether milk marketed as "organic" is genuine or just ordinary milk mislabeled to hoodwink consumers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Gene That Modifies Severity Of Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease Found

Researchers have discovered a gene that modifies the severity of lung disease in people with the lethal genetic condition, cystic fibrosis, pointing to possible new targets for treatment, according to a new study in Nature. This is the first published study to use a genome-wide approach to look for genes that modify cystic fibrosis lung disease severity, said researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Earth's Highest Known Microbial Systems Fueled By Volcanic Gases

Gases rising from deep within the Earth are fueling the world's highest-known microbial ecosystems, which have been detected near the rim of the 19,850-foot-high Socompa volcano in the Andes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Ukrainian security agents raid Naftogaz offices (AP)

AP - Ukrainian national security service agents raided the headquarters of the country's troubled natural gas company Wednesday and began questioning a top accountant and searching for documents, officials said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 11:19 am

Hurricane Season 2008 (weather.com)

weather.com -
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 11:05 am

Big ideas

Tackling climate change needs big and bold solutions
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 10:42 am

Regional sheep 'more vulnerable'

A survey highlights the heightened risk of disease faced by regional breeds of sheep.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 10:01 am

Fish feast frenzy caught on film

A feeding frenzy featuring thousands of sharks, dolphins and seabirds feasting on sardines is captured on camera.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 8:53 am

Study: Athletes Indeed Need Supporters

Having support from friends and family can improve an athlete's performance, a new study suggests.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:25 am

Calories Count, Diets Fail

Health meets physics in a real good study.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:18 am

Half of Americans See Technology Lead Slipping

Half of U.S. residents in a new survey expect another country to emerge this century as the world's leader.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:14 am

Rare Arizona Jaguar Euthanized

A rare jaguar captured and collared in Arizona two weeks ago was euthanized after falling ill.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:03 am

5 Myths of Fertility Treatments (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Just as the invention of contraceptives freed sex from the concerns of baby-making, new reproductive technologies have freed baby-making from sex.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 3:55 am

Overexposed: Imaging tests boost U.S. radiation dose

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Americans are exposed to seven times more radiation from diagnostic scans than in 1980, a report found on Tuesday as experts said doctors are overusing the tests for profit and raising health risks for patients.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:58 am

5 Huge Green-Tech Projects in the Developing World

Any solution to global climate change will eventually have to involve the whole globe, not just the richest countries.

That's why deals like the one announced Tuesday between Pasadena's eSolar and the Indian conglomerate Acme Group are essential to any truly green global future. ESolar will sell Acme 1,000 megawatts worth of solar thermal technology, so that the latter can build a network of solar power plants in India's northern state of Haryana.

"India is an enormous electricity market with enormous demand for growth," said Rob Rogan, vice president of corporate communications for eSolar. "We see this as our chance to be part of a long-term renewable energy solution in India."

To date, most wind and solar power has been deployed in the rich, industrialized nations. A 2008 report found that the world's developed countries had installed 207 gigawatts of renewable-power generation, excluding large hydro. That's only a few percent of the rich countries' power generation, but it's a lot more than the 88 gigawatts of clean power that had been built in the developing world.

Now, even with the Obama-led United States looking increasingly green-friendly, that trend could reverse. Falling renewable-energy costs and the desire to use domestic energy sources have helped green tech make inroads in fast-growing countries. Renewable-energy investments jumped 91 percent in 2007 in China. and India expects add 6 gigawatts of wind power between 2007 and 2012.

Here we present five of the largest green tech projects that have broken ground, or plan to, in 2009. Each one of them is slated to be among the largest green-tech projects in the world. Though each is as big as a large coal plant, your average fossil fuel plant will generate more kilowatt-hours because they can burn round the clock every day the year, not just when the sun is shining or the wind blowing.

(It's difficult to find out the exact number and size of solar, wind and geothermal projects in the developing world: The English-language paper trail is disappointingly thin. If you know about other projects or initiatives that are planned or complete, let us know in the Comments section, so we can add them.)

Leyte Geothermal Field
Location: Leyte, Philippines
Current capacity: 708.5 megawatts
Planned capacity: 708.5 megawatts
The jumble of tectonic plates underneath the Philippines has created the perfect situation for tapping geothermal power, particularly at the five-plant array of sites near Leyte. Geothermal development has gone so well that a major energy producer swore off coal in January of this year, choosing to buy into the government-run geothermal company, Energy Development Corporation, instead.

Suzlon Wind Farm
Location: Near Dhule, India
Current capacity: 650 megawatts
Planned capacity: 1,000 megawatts
Estimated completion date: 2010
Built by Suzlon, a homegrown Indian energy compay, the Suzlon wind farm near Dhule will be the world's largest when it's completed in 2010. Already, it's creeping up on Florida Light and Power's Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, which has a capacity of 735 megawatts. It's the brainchild of Tulsi Tanti, Suzlon's founder and something of an international hero — but not everyone is happy about Tanti's low-cost approach to wind-farm development. Der Spiegel reported that the farmers who toil under the giant turbines are demanding more money for their land. "If Suzlon refuses to pay, the farmers block the access routes with their buffaloes," the magazine wrote.
(Image: flickr/ramkrsna)

Acme Solar Thermal Plants
Location: Haryana, India
Current capacity: 0 megawatts
Planned capacity: 1,000 megawatts
Estimated completion date: 2019
Acme, an Indian technology conglomerate, announced its intentions to build up to 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal power Tuesday. The company providing the technology, eSolar, makes 46-megawatt modular power plants that concentrate the sun's rays onto a central boiler to generate steam to drive a turbine. ESolar's Rob Rogan said that the companies would break ground on the first 100 megawatts of solar power within the year. 

Qaidam Basin Solar PV Installaton
Location: Qinghai Province, China
Current capacity: 0 megawatts
Planned capacity: 1,000 megawatts
Estimated completion date: ?
Two local Chinese firms announced their intentions to install up to 1,000 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels in northwestern China in January. The China Technology Development Group Corporation and Qinghai New Energy Company will start with a more modest 30 megawatts. They expect to break ground during 2009. 

Econcern Wind Farms
Location: ?
Current capacity: 0 megawatts
Planned capacity: 720 megawatts
Estimated completion date: ?
The Dutch energy company Econcern will partner with a major Chinese oil firm and a hydroelectric company to build four wind farms that will generate around 720 megawatts of power. Work is expected to begin this year, but Econcern's CEO recently admitted that the clean-energy industry faces a serious slowdown that could cause his company to cut jobs.

See Also:

• EPA Coal Decision Levels Playing Field for Wind, Solar
• DOE Report: Wind Could Power 20 Percent of US Grid by 2030
• DOE Report Says More Wind Than Coal Planned for US Grid
• Utilities Jumping Into the Solar Game
• Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We're Talking Gigawatts
• Solar Goes From Gardens to Gigabucks
• See-Through Solar Hack Could Double Panel Efficiency

Image at top of post: The Tongonan geothermal plant in the Philippines. flickr/penmanila

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 | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:27 am

Bionic eye gives blind man sight

One of only three people in the UK to be fitted with a bionic eye talks about how he can see for the first time in 30 years.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:26 am

Upping the ant-e: Clever chimps boost termite catch (AFP)

AFP - Chimpanzees not only use a tool to snare termites but are able to modify it as well, a skill that requires conceptual and cultural skills, scientists said on Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 12:16 am

Climate 'hitting Europe's birds'

Climate change is already having an impact on European bird species, according to British scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 12:15 am

Life Thrives in Earth's Most Mars-Like Environment

A region of Earth so barren and desolate that it's often compared to Mars is home to simple but thriving ecosystems, suggesting that life could indeed survive on the Red Planet. 

"If you have just a few basic things," said University of Colorado at Boulder microbiologist Steven Schmidt, "you can get a complex ecosystem going, even in one of the harshest places on the planet."

Schmidt's team studied soil from the upper flanks of the Socompa volcano, high in the Andes mountains. Straddling Chile and Argentina, the volcano is surrounded by the Atacama desert, one of the few spots on Earth to contain regions devoid of any life form.

At 20,000 feet above sea level, the Socompa's upper flanks are especially harsh: there's little oxygen, and ultraviolet radiation passes easily through the thin atmosphere. But where steam from the volcano bursts through the ground, there's methane and water. Add that to atmospheric carbon dioxide, and conditions resemble what once existed — and may still exist — on Mars.

Scientists recently found that Mars still belches methane into its carbon-dioxide rich atmosphere. And though NASA's Mars Rover found water only in ice, rather than the liquid necessary for life as we know it, many geologists suspect water is present beneath the planet's surface, warmed by the Mars' still-hot core.

"The Socompa microbial ecosystem is an extremely exciting Earth analog for investing how life on Mars may survive in hydrothermal oases, where water, heat and nutrients are being provided from deep within," said California Institute of Technology biochemist Adrian Ponce, who was not involved in the study.

Schmidt's team sampled soil around volcanic vents, and from regional soils thought to be lifeless. In the vent soil, they identified moss, algae and about 500 species of bacteria. Apart from the discovery of a new species of mite, said Schmidt, these findings are most significant for their level of genomic detail, since the organisms were already known to exist.

Far more surprising was the presence of roughly 100 species of bacteria in earth taken miles from volcano's vents. No life at all was thought to exist in that parched soil.

"That's the more Mars-like soil," said Schmidt. "There's definitely a microbial community there."

According to study co-author Elizabeth Costello, a University of Colorado at Boulder biologist, the bacteria "may stay in a dormant state until a snowfall occurs and water is provided to them."

This, she said, might occur "fairly rarely" — an understatement for a region in which years can pass between rainstorms.

"We have no idea what they're doing or how they're living," said Schmidt, who plans to further study the unlikely bugs.

Lisa Pratt, a NASA astrobiologist who was not involved in the study, mirrored Ponce's excitement, saying the Socompa vents "may be the best example yet of an Earth analogue for habitable surface and near-surface environments on Mars."

"If water, a carbon source and energy for metabolism are present, then life seems to manage daunting extremes," said Pratt.

That is, if it can get started. Some scientists question whether the chemistry on Mars has ever been conducive for life to begin, even if we know organisms can evolve to survive those same conditions.

But life didn't necessarily need to bootstrap itself on Mars: it could have arrived there on rocks knocked into space by an asteroid's collision with some other, more temperate planet.

Bacteria are, after all, able to withstand the vacuum of space and simulated meteorite impacts. Just as Earthly microbes likely drifted through the upper atmosphere onto the Socompa volcano, extraterrestrial microbes could have drifted to Mars.

"Certain microbes have spore forms that can survive in space," said Schmidt. "It's conceivable."

Citation: "Fumarole-Supported Islands of Biodiversity within a Hyperarid, High-Elevation Landscape on Socompa Volcano, Puna de Atacama, Andes." By Elizabeth K. Costello, Stephan R. P. Halloy, Sasha C. Reed, Preston Sowell, and Steven K. Schmidt. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 75. No. 3, March 2, 2009.

Image: Steve Schmidt / University of Colorado

See Also:

• Primordial Earth Echoed in Arsenic-Eating Bacteria
• Forgotten Experiment May Explain Origins of Life
• Self-Replicating Chemicals Evolve Into Lifelike Ecosystem
• Proof That Meteors Could Have Sparked Life on Earth
• Life Hunters Target Methane Plumes on Mars
• Top 5 Bets for Extraterrestrial Life in the Solar System
• Primordial Mars Resembled Primordial Earth
• Extraterrestrial Terraforming Starts With Bacteria
• One-Organism Ecosystem Discovered in African Gold Mine

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Mar 2009 | 12:13 am

What is science anyway?

Britain's Science Council has spent the past year working out a new definition of the word 'science'. But how does it measure up to the challenge of intelligent design and creationism?

It might have been the 16th century philosopher Francis Bacon who coined the term "science", but even if it wasn't, the word must have come into common usage around his time, in the western world at least.

Perhaps with an eye on that, the Science Council has seen fit to spend a year working out a new definition of science. It may be, they claim, the first "official definition of science" ever published.

Here's what they've come up with:

"Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence."

Not bad for a year's work ... But why bother with a new definition? In a statement from the Council, chief exec Diana Garnham says:

"In an era where practices such as homeopathy are becoming widespread, and 'detox' is an acceptable aim for a diet, a definition creates a clear distinction between what is genuine science, and what is pseudoscience."

So there you go.

I ran the definition past a couple of experts to see what they made of it. David Edgerton, professor of the history of science and technology at Imperial College, made two points:

"It defines science as a pursuit, an activity, related to the creation of new knowledge, rather than established knowledge itself. Science is seen as a species of research. Yet a definition of science needs to define the nature of the knowledge not the means of its creation only."

and

"The definition would include historical research and indeed some journalism! It does not demarcate something called science from the humanities. This is a good and sensible thing. From the context of the press release this is not something the Science Council seem to have realised."

The philosopher AC Grayling thinks the Council has done a good job:

"Because 'science' denotes such a very wide range of activities a definition of it needs to be general; it certainly needs to cover investigation of the social as well as natural worlds; it needs the words "systematic" and "evidence"; and it needs to be simple and short. The definition succeeds in all these respects admirably, and I applaud it therefore."

The new definition has left me with two mildly nagging doubts, though. I wonder what it means for those who suggest that intelligent design or creationism are based on science? And who are the Science Council anyway?

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 4 Mar 2009 | 12:08 am

Chimps craft ultimate fishing rod

Scientists believe they have solved the mystery of why some chimpanzees are so good at collecting termites.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 12:08 am

Spacewatch: Kepler telescope

One aftermath of Nasa's failed launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory last week has been a slight delay to the launch plans for its Kepler spacecraft. Even so, it is expected to lift off aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral within the next few days. Kepler will not enter Earth-orbit though. Instead it will trail the Earth in orbit around the Sun from where it will have an unbroken view of star-fields in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, looking for Earth-sized planets about other stars.

With a 95 megapixel sensor, its camera is the most powerful ever launched into space, while its primary mirror of 1.4 metres aperture is the largest ever to go beyond Earth-orbit. Yet it will still not image the planets directly. Instead, it is to monitor the precise brightness of some 100,000 stars in our Galaxy, looking for any minute dimming of a star's light as its planet passes in front of it. Any periodicity in the dimming will tell us the planet's "year", while the way the light dims and recovers could betray its size. Knowing the star's energy, and the orbital period of its planet, would tell us whether that planet is in the star's habitable zone where liquid water might persist and life as we know it might be possible.

Such transit techniques have been used successfully before, for example by the less-sensitive French/ESA Corot satellite which has so far discovered at least five so-called exoplanets, all larger than the Earth.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 4 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Surprise! Saturn has small moon hidden in ring (AP)

AP - Scientists have found a new moon hidden in one of Saturn's dazzling outer rings. The international Cassini spacecraft spotted the moon, which measures about a third of a mile wide. The discovery was announced Tuesday in a notice by the International Astronomical Union.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2009 | 8:47 pm

Underwater Creatures Emit Laughing Gas

When water is polluted with nitrate, animals emit the greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 8:14 pm

How Esa keeps tabs on orbiting garbage

After last month's collision between two satellites, Esa reveals the measures it is taking to track the swarm of disused spacecraft and debris in orbit

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2009 | 4:42 pm

BLOG: China Plans Military Outpost in Space

China has turned over a planned space station to military control.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 4:13 pm

Male Lizards Disguise as Female to Avoid Attack

Young, male lizards are shown to take on female colors to mate while avoiding attack.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 4:06 pm

Note to Readers: Changes to Community

This week you'll find new and improved Community tools.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2009 | 3:51 pm

Road Salt Seeps Into Rivers, Lakes

It may keep icy roads safe for drivers, but road salt has a flip side that's not so sunny.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 3:46 pm

Earth's Highest Microbial Ecosystem Found

Scientists discover thriving microbe community atop Andean volcano.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2009 | 3:34 pm

Trio of Galaxies Play Tug of War (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Three galaxies are playing a game of gravitational tug-of-war that may result in the eventual demise of one of them. A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the push and pull in action.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2009 | 3:16 pm

Giant Space Rock Whizzes by Earth

A huge space rock zooms past Earth at a distance of less than 45,000 miles.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 3:16 pm

Space rock makes a close approach to Earth

An asteroid which may be as big as a ten-storey building has passed close by the Earth, astronomers say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2009 | 3:07 pm

Interview: Bear Boss, Yosemite National Park

Tags, traps, pyrotechnics: just another day in the life of a bear technician.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 2:58 pm

Kepler Spacecraft Sets Sights on Earth-like Planets

New Kepler telescope will look for evidence of Earth-sized planets moving in Earth-like orbits.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2009 | 2:22 pm

Abandoned plutonium traced back to second world war

A jug found in a battered safe at a disused waste burial ground in the US held the world's oldest sample of weapons-grade plutonium, produced during the Manhattan Project.

The safe containing the one-gallon vessel was unearthed in 2004 during a clean-up operation of a waste trench at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state. The clean-up team noticed the jug was partially filled with a mysterious white slurry and sent it for testing.

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland have now revealed that the jug contained several hundred milligrams of bomb-grade plutonium, which they have dated to 1944 when the US nuclear programme was still in its infancy.

Analysis of the jug's contents shows that the material did not originate at Hanford but can be traced back to the world's first industrial-scale nuclear reprocessing site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Jon Schwantes, who led the team of investigators, describes their work as "nuclear archaeology" in the latest issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry.

The US nuclear bomb programme was set up in 1939 in response to fears that Nazi Germany was developing a similar weapon. Research and production for the project was based at three sites – Hanford, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos in New Mexico – under the watchful eye of Robert Oppenheimer.

During the Second World War, the Hanford facility produced bomb-grade plutonium for Trinity, the first nuclear weapon to be tested, and later for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in Japan.

Schwantes said the forensic techniques used to identify the nuclear relic will come in useful for tracing material confiscated from smugglers caught with black market nuclear materials.

"It is likely that with the current nuclear renaissance and greater access to these materials by the public, smuggling events involving fissionable materials may rise in the near future," Schwantes said.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2009 | 2:21 pm

Darwin's Pianist Wife Influenced Theories

Listening to his wife, Emma, play the piano influenced Charles Darwin's work.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Mar 2009 | 2:15 pm

5 Myths of Fertility Treatments

There are common misperceptions about "test-tube" and "designer" babies.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2009 | 2:06 pm

Portrait of Peter Higgs unveiled

A painting of the British physicist whose work triggered the worldwide hunt for the "God particle" went on display in Edinburgh yesterday

There are a few phrases that are guaranteed to unify scientists in uproar, and "God particle" is one of them. But let's put that to one side for a moment.

Yesterday saw the unveiling of a new portrait of Peter Higgs, the eminent physicist who worked on a concept called spontaneous symmetry breaking in the 1960s. The painting – on display at the School of Informatics, Edinburgh University – is by Ken Currie, one of Scotland's leading artists. I quite like it, but hope Professor Higgs didn't have to stand up for much of the, erm, sitting. In May he will celebrate his 80th birthday.

When Higgs first published his theory, it was arcane even for the world of theoretical particle physics. But over the past 40 years, it has endured as the prevailing explanation for how elementary particles acquire mass. It's a big deal. Without it, quarks and electrons would zip about at the speed of light and never combine to form atoms ... or planets ... or us. At least that's how the theory goes.

Higgs and others, notably the Anglo-American group of Gerry Guralnik, Richard Hagen and Tom Kibble, plus two Belgian theorists, Robert Brout and Francois Englert, put forward the idea almost simultaneously. Together, they suggest there's an invisible field pervading the entire universe that drags on particles and makes them heavy. Just as electromagnetic fields come with a particular particle, the photon, so the Higgs field comes with its own, the Higgs boson.

Finding the boson is now the focus of a frenzied hunt. Right now, the only machine with a chance of finding it is the Tevatron, the world's most powerful particle collider, at Fermilab on the outskirts of Chicago. It was a former director of the lab, the Nobel prizewinner Leon Lederman, who dubbed it the God particle. Come September, it will become the prime target of Europe's most expensive broken toy, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern near Geneva.

For the latest on the Higgs race, there's a nice summary on the Cosmic Variance blog.

I know scientists hate the name God particle, and it's hard to disagree with any of their reasons for objecting. But I can't help thinking they should lighten up a little. The name has stuck for a reason. At the very least, Lederman boosted the chances of particle physics being written about by the lay media. That has to be good news for the public, who pay for these giant machines to be built, and for the wages of many of those working on them.

Moving on. The other night I was kicking around on Vimeo, a site where I've found some truly brilliant movies, when I stumbled upon the Colliding Particles project. It's run by particle physicists Gavin Salam, Jonathan Butterworth and Adam Davison, who looks remarkably like that bloke out of Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Mummy.

It's testament to the team's passion for science, their film-making skills and real knack for storytelling that I watched all three episodes back to back. At least I hope that's the explanation.

You can watch the movies below, but I'd recommend you also check out their website, which has a wealth of extra material, and you can sign up for future instalments. It's a great project.

Episode one is here:

Episode two is here:

And episode three is here:

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2009 | 12:29 pm

Friendflation

Should you keep just five friends and cull the rest?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2009 | 11:27 am