With Genomes, Bigger May Really Be Better

Biologists analyzing DNA in search of the molecular underpinnings of life have consistently favored species with small genomes, which are cheaper to sequence and lack the repetitive "junk" that clutters bigger genomes. But a new study suggests that when it comes to figuring out how genes are controlled, bigger genomes are much more useful.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Brain Differences Found Between Believers In God And Non-believers

Believing in God can help block anxiety and minimize stress, according to new research that shows distinct brain differences between believers and non-believers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

New Technique For Cancer Screening

Current research suggests that a new technique to determine tumor methylation status can be used in archived tissue samples.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Two Food Additives Have Previously Unrecognized Estrogen-like Effects

Scientists in Italy are reporting development and successful use of a fast new method to identify food additives that act as so-called "xenoestrogens" -- substances with estrogen-like effects that are stirring international health concerns. They used the method in a large-scale screening of additives that discovered two additives with previously unrecognized xenoestrogen effects. 
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Depression Increases Risk For Heart Disease More Than Genetics Or Environment

A history of major depression increases the risk of heart disease over and above any genetic risks common to depression and heart disease, according to researchers at the School of Medicine and the VA. The findings are reported this week at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society this week in Chicago.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Mars Life? Computer Analysis Hints At Water – And Life – Under Olympus Mons

The Martian volcano Olympus Mons is about three times the height of Mount Everest, but it's the small details that astronomers are looking at in thinking about whether the Red Planet ever had -- or still supports -- life.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Why Is Obama Going Gray? (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - News reports today point out that President Obama is going a little gray at the temples. Is it the stress of the job, or is he due to go gray about now anyway?
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 2:30 pm

Why Is Obama Going Gray?

President Obama is going a little gray at the temples. Is it the stress?
Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2009 | 2:27 pm

Lunar Cycle Turns Hurricanes Into Beasts

Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean are found to strengthen when the moon is new or full.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 Mar 2009 | 2:10 pm

Reports: Russia building anti-satellite weapons (AP)

AP - Russia is working to develop anti-satellite weapons to match efforts by other nations, a deputy defense minister was quoted as saying Thursday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 2:06 pm

Iraq passes sharply reduced budget for 2009 (AP)

AP - Iraq's parliament passed a $58.6 billion budget Thursday after agreeing to sharp cuts amid falling oil prices.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 2:02 pm

New footage shows rare rhinos in Indonesia (AFP)

AFP - New infra-red footage released Thursday captures hitherto unseen images of elusive Javan rhinos, the most endangered mammal in the world with less than 60 individuals believed to remain alive.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:58 pm

Archaeologists find statues of ancient Egypt king

CAIRO (Reuters) - A team of Egyptian and European archaeologists have discovered two statues of King Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt roughly 3,400 years ago, the Supreme Council for Antiquities said Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:29 pm

Tropical Lizards Can't Take The Heat Of Climate Warming

Lizards living in tropical forests in Central and South America and the Caribbean could be in serious peril from rising temperatures associated with climate change. In fact, those forest lizards appear to tolerate a much narrower range of survivable temperatures than do their relatives at higher latitudes and are actually less tolerant of high temperatures, according to biologists.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Medical Radiation Exposure Of The U.S. Population Greatly Increased Since The Early 1980s

In 2006, Americans were exposed to more than seven times as much ionizing radiation from medical procedures as was the case in the early 1980s, according to a new report. In 2006, medical exposure constituted nearly half of the total radiation exposure of the U.S. population from all sources.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Enhanced Skin Cancer Risk Linked To Defects In Cellular Aging Controls

Dysfunction of genetic "end caps," or telomeres, can lead to increased skin cancer risk and pigmentation.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Two Or More Drinks A Day May Increase Pancreatic Cancer Risk

Men and women who consume two or more alcoholic drinks a day could increase their risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Wet weather was forecast for the Northwest and the Plains on Thursday, while high pressure was keeping much of the East dry and warm.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 12:13 pm

Bee mystery

The US beekeeper whose livelihood is under threat
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2009 | 11:56 am

World's 'oldest' spider web found encased in amber

Two brothers discover what is thought to be the world's oldest recorded spider's web encased in amber on a Sussex beach.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2009 | 11:45 am

Cosmic cousins

If we found Earth's missing twin, would we regret it?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2009 | 11:44 am

'No proof' of bee killer theory

Scientists say there is no proof that a mysterious disease blamed for the deaths of billions of bees actually exists, the BBC learns.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2009 | 10:27 am

Darwin worship

Andrew Marr on why Darwin should not become a deity
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2009 | 10:08 am

Phew! Asteroid's passing was a cosmic near-miss (AP)

AP - An asteroid about the size of one that leveled more than 800 square miles of forest in Siberia a century ago just buzzed the Earth. The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 48,800 miles from Earth when it zipped past early Monday, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:56 am

Martian Volcano Could Be Reservoir for Life

Scientists searching for life on Mars should start digging under Olympus Mons.

New research shows that liquid water probably once sloshed beneath the 15-mile-high volcano. It may still be there, and it may be nice and warm, thanks to volcanic heat. 

"Olympus Mons is a favored place to find ongoing life on Mars," said the study's lead author, geophysicist Patrick McGovern of Houston's Lunar and Planetary Institute, a branch of the Universities Space Research Association. "An environment that's warm and wet, and protected from adverse surface conditions, is a great place to start looking."

McGovern and co-author Julia Morgan of Rice University modeled the formation of Olympus Mons using computer simulations. They determined that the volcano's strange asymmetry — it has a gently sloped northwest flank and a much steeper southeast side — is the result of what lies beneath it. Lava probably spread so oddly because it slid on something slippery, they argue in a new study, which appeared in the February issue of Geology.

"In order for the volcano to have that unusual shape, you need some sort of low-friction base," McGovern said.

Clay, which is deposited by water, is the most likely foundational material. The same phenomenon is seen in some Hawaiian volcanoes, according to McGovern. And we already know there is clay on Mars: the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has already detected it.

Olympus Mons is about 340 miles wide, so clay beneath it "would correspond to a huge amount of water," said geochemist Jennifer Blank of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who was not involved in the study.

Better yet, unlike the long-suspected water ice that the Phoenix lander sampled for the first time, if water does exist under Olympus Mons, it might well be piping hot. The lack of of impact craters on the volcano's surface indicates that it was active until no more than 10-20 million years ago.

"On our time scale, that's pretty close to current," McGovern said.

Despite what seems like a lack of recent eruptions, the volcano could still be warm on the inside, although the researchers admit that's still speculative.

If the environment beneath Olympus Mons is hot, wet, and dark, it would mirror the conditions that many scientists believe gave rise to life on Earth.

"Some of the most primitive life forms on Earth are thermophiles," Blank said. "And they're underground. They don't need light."

Other discoveries also hint that life may exist–or may once have existed–on Mars. Over the years, scientists have found equivocal evidence of life in Martian meteorites and on the Martian surface.  And in January, researchers documented methane burps on the Red Planet, which could indicate microbial activity. But so far, it's all about "if" and "could be."

"These things are all teasers," Blank said.

Citation: "Volcanic spreading and lateral variations in the structure of Olympus Mons, Mars." By Patrick J. McGovern, Julia K. Morgan. Geology vol. 37, February 2009.

See Also:

• Life Hunters Target Methane Plumes on Mars
• Life Thrives in Earth's Most Mars-Like Environment
• Top 5 Bets for Extraterrestrial Life in the Solar System
• NASA: Mars Soil Could Support Extreme Life Forms, Maybe
• Water, Water Everywhere on Mars
• Chemical Test Confirms Water on Mars

Image: NASA

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 Mar 2009 | 1:38 am

Universities share £8bn funding

There are winners and losers as England's university funding council allocates money for 2009-10.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2009 | 12:48 am

NASA plans to launch shuttle one day earlier

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA on Wednesday moved up the launch date of space shuttle Discovery one day to March 11, confident safety issues over fuel valves that prompted four previous delays have been resolved.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 Mar 2009 | 12:23 am

Nanotechnology goes to war

The Pentagon is pioneering micro technology for just about every device, from 10g video cameras to tiny atomic clocks on a chip

Wouldn't it be handy if everything we needed to build the next generation of portable devices and robots were available on a microchip? You could just plug in a navigation system, a radar sensor, cryogenic cooling system, or even a miniature power unit. For laboratory applications, there would be micro versions of everything from mass spectrometers to magnetic sensors. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the Pentagon's extreme science wing, aims to provide all this, and more, in handy "matchbook size" electronic packages.

Forty years ago, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, accurately predicted that the cost of processing power would halve every two years. We have come to expect devices to get smaller, cheaper and more powerful over time. Now the revolution is spreading to other types of device. The development of mems (microelectromechanical systems) has already paved the way for "lab-on-a-chip" chemical analysis. Such breakthroughs tend to come from the military rather than industry.

"Darpa was instrumental in helping support much of the initial development of lab-on-a-chip in the early 90s," says Jon Cooper, Wolfson chair of bioengineering at the University of Glasgow. "The technologies enabled a number of US startup companies to develop miniaturised chips for faster biological analysis, giving them the necessary long-term support to grow."

Cool runnings

Now Darpa is miniaturising many new devices. Some electronics require very low temperatures, such as superconducting circuits and infra-red sensors, and the entire component is chilled by a bulky cooling system. The low-power micro-cryogenic cooler program will cool only the exact spot needed.

The key element is a "micro-machined thermal isolation structure", a tiny deep-freeze made of bismuth telluride. This cools by the thermoelectric effect when a current is applied. The micro-cooler will chill a space of about four cubic centimetres down to 200 degrees below zero, using just 0.1 watts.

Lab-on-a-chip devices already use pumps to move gas or liquid. But these pumps are not able to maintain the "hard" vacuum required for devices such as mass detectors for analysing airborne chemicals and bolometers to measure irradiation. The chip-scale vacuum micropumps program aims to produce pumps capable of producing a pressure of one millionth of an atmosphere.

Some items are for specific applications. Microsensors for imaging will deliver an infrared video camera on a chip weighing just 10g; this is specifically for uncrewed aircraft and night-vision goggles. But most of the technology will simply be made available to industry for use in future military electronics. Other programs include an atomic clock on a chip, radar on a chip, gas analysers and other sensors, radio-frequency and photonic devices. Some would have multiple uses, such as the chip-scale atomic sensors program. These tiny, high-resolution sensors can be reconfigured instantly to measure temperature, pressure, magnetic fields or other environmental factors. It's an ambitious program, but the US defence sector has a record of getting the microtechnology it needs.

In recent years, the possibility of bioterrorism prompted Darpa to provide chip-based analytical tools for homeland security. Cooper cites several developments, including advances in rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) used to analyse DNA. This technology now has a much wider use in diagnosing infectious diseases. However, chip-based doesn't always mean portable.

"The concept of lab-on-a-chip is of an analytical system which benefits from its reduced size, although many instruments are chips-in-a-lab, rather than labs-on-a-chip," says Cooper. "Often the instrument needs to be plugged into the mains."

"Truly handheld lab-on-a-chip technology is still elusive," agrees Matt Mowlem of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton. "Building stand-alone systems requires integrated systems and solutions to the problematic engineering issues surrounding system design, interconnects between the chips and off-chip systems, packaging and support systems, etc."

But Darpa wants it all to be self-contained, enthusing in budget documents about "matchbook-size, highly integrated device and micro-system architectures", including "low-power, small-volume, lightweight microsensors, microrobots and microcommunication systems". Much of the effort is to integrate different components so that "electronic, mechanical, fluidic, photonic and radio/microwave technologies" all work together on the same chip.

Socket to 'em

Then there is the need to plug into that wall socket. Darpa is addressing the need for mobile power with tiny heat engines and devices that scavenge energy from the environment. Being military, it also walks where others fear to tread. The micro isotope power source is a tiny atomic battery, occupying less than a cubic centimetre and generating 35 milliwatts.

Industrial funding is limited. Darpa, which is not looking for profit, can sink money into unlikely schemes.

"As with all blue-sky research there is a high risk of failure," says Mowlem, "but a small chance of a world-changing discovery." Darpa is not afraid of failure, and has its eye on world-changing success. After all, it did invent the internet.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Jack Harris

A nuclear scientist, he feared the spread of atomic weapons

Jack Harris, who has died aged 76, was a scientist, science writer and campaigner. He spent much of his career in the nuclear power industry and was a strong advocate of nuclear energy, yet he was deeply concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons.

In 1995 he attended the Pugwash conference at Hiroshima, held on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the city, comprising scientists working towards the abolition of all nuclear weapons, and he subsequently became a leading figure in British Pugwash, serving as its vice-chairman from 2002 until 2008. At the start of that period, he was offered the position of Pugwash secretary-general, but reluctantly declined because of all the travel involved. Lord Rees, current president of the Royal Society, called him "a fine example of the 'activist' and socially concerned scientist. We need more like him."

Harris was born near Newport, Monmouthshire, and educated at Larkfield grammar school, Chepstow. He was a fine athlete, excelling at the 100 and 220-yard sprints, and played wing three-quarter for the Larkfield rugby team. His best subject at school was English, but coming from a working-class background, he felt under pressure to pursue science, seen as more likely to lead to useful employment, and so he studied metallurgy at Birmingham University, from which he gained a BSc (1953) and PhD (1956).

In 1959 he joined the Central Electricity Generating Board, and was seconded to Sheffield University for two years before transferring to the newly opened Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories, Gloucestershire, which had been instituted to carry out research into topics associated with the UK's nuclear power programme. A particularly important facility at Berkeley dealt with the examination of the highly radioactive spent fuel rods, and in 1965 Harris was appointed leader of the group carrying out this work.

In the late 1960s, several unforeseen problems arose concerning the materials used in fuel rods from the first generation of reactors, and the work of Harris's team, in collaboration with work carried out by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), was largely responsible for not only solving these problems but for extending the useful lifetime of the fuel well beyond its original design. For this achievement, Harris was awarded the Royal Society's Esso energy award in 1979, jointly with Vernon Eldred of the UKAEA's Windscale nuclear laboratories. In 1981 Harris was appointed MBE.

The topic that most interested Harris was metal corrosion, and the realisation that this process could impart strain on the underlying material. This manifested itself in the distortion of the "fins" that surrounded nuclear fuel cladding and in the cracking of some of the steel bolts that were required to maintain the integrity of reactor cores.

He identified a similar process as being responsible for damage to the historic railings around St Paul's cathedral, and his writings on the topic led to him becoming an honorary adviser on the repairs at St Paul's and other historic buildings. The effects of chemical attack on metals and stone became his main academic interest, and he lectured on the subject at the Tate Gallery, the Molecule Club and the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Harris took early retirement in 1990 but continued his scientific activities with visiting professorships at Bristol, Oxford and Swansea universities, dealing mainly with ethics. He also devoted much of his time to writing and was the editor of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews from 1996 until 2002. He wrote many articles, making philosophical points on various popular topics, notably in monthly pieces for Materials World. Recent topics ranged from the madness of King George III to the perils of being an expert witness and the possibility of life on other planets.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1987 and a fellow of the Royal Society the following year. When his brother, Rex, also a materials scientist, was also elected a fellow of the Royal Academy in 1994, they became the only two brothers to have received this honour.

Through his membership of the Labour party, Harris was appointed to the board of visitors of Leyhill prison, Gloucestershire, and to membership of the Home Office working party on adjudications in prisons (1974). During a trip to the US in 1980, he visited the Brushy Mountain prison, Tennessee, where he enjoyed meeting inmates, to whom he gave a number of talks on his wide-ranging interests. In recognition of his work there, he received the award of "honorary convict" - one of his proudest honours.

Harris was a shrewd yet modest man with a dry sense of humour - typified by his entry in Who's Who which, under "club", refers to his local drinking haunt "Cam Bowling (non-playing member)". He was also a kindly man, always willing to help and encourage younger scientists. A lover of art, he was particularly keen on the St Ives group of artists, several of whom he knew.

He married Ann Foote in 1956. She survives him, along with their two sons and two daughters.

• John Edwin "Jack" Harris, nuclear scientist, born 2 June 1932; died 3 February 2009

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Research funding for top universities cut

• Gains for media studies and sports science
• Cambridge, Imperial and UCL among losers

Top universities including Imperial College London, University College London and Cambridge face substantial cuts this year after losing out in the allocation of £1.6bn of research funding.

Budgets for every university in England are revealed today, along with new evidence of a dramatic decline in research in traditional science and language subjects as academia shifts its focus to areas such as sports science and media studies.

A total of 53 universities face cuts after being allocated below-inflation increases in funding for research and teaching for next year. The Russell group of leading universities complains that its members face some of the toughest reductions, and may be forced to lay people off. Imperial College London, UCL, King's College London and Cambridge all have funding allocations below the rate of inflation (currently 3%), while Oxford has increased its share by 4.7%.

The allocations follow changes in last year's research assessment exercise (RAE), which have had the effect of spreading funding to more universities.

This year, ministers ringfenced money for the sciences, anticipating concerns that the new system would penalise some major players. But that has triggered cuts for social sciences and arts subjects, with the London School of Economics (LSE) among the biggest losers. The LSE said it faced a 13% reduction in research funding, making it "a victim" of the government's decision to prioritise science subjects.

Malcolm Grant, chair of the Russell group, said: "If you don't receive a total grant that keeps pace with inflation, something has got to give. Across Russell group institutions, there will be reviews of staffing. Some institutions will want to reduce staff or not hire new staff. It's going to be quite tight."

Imperial, UCL, Cambridge and Oxford share 27% of the research budget allocated for next year by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce). But Russell group institutions as a whole receive a 3.3% increase in funding, compared with 120% (from a low base) for the 28 former polytechnics represented by the lobby group Million+.

Sir Roy Anderson, the rector of Imperial, said: "The Russell group, which represents the major UK research-intensive universities, has collectively suffered a reduction in its share of the sector allocation of these funds."

Pam Tatlow, chief executive of Million+, welcomed the boost in funding for new universities. "Post-92 universities have paid back with abundance the very modest levels of research funding received in the past," she said.

Evidence published alongside the grant allocations reveals the numbers of top-quality researchers in every subject, and how that has changed since 2001, when the RAE was last carried out.

Universities have recruited thousands of academics in media studies, dance and drama, sports studies and business to meet student demand. There has been a 239% increase in media studies academics alone.

Equivalent staffing in chemistry, biology and physics increased by 3%, 9% and 12% respectively - below the 29% average increase across all subjects. Languages were hardest hit, with declines of 13% in French, 12% in German and 7% in Italian. Research funding for French will drop by £3m and German by £1.6m.

Pam Moores, chair of the University Council of Modern Languages, said: "It's a major concern ... The overall number of language researchers across the country is changing and some departments are strong but others are folding."

David Eastwood, chief executive of Hefce, said: "The changes in subjects are following student demand ... Universities will face quite hard choices over the next few months."

Ups and downs

Top ten winners

(Additional research funding, 2009-10)

University of Nottingham £9.95m

University of Oxford £9.3m

Queen Mary, University of London £7.4m

University of Liverpool £6.55m

Loughborough University £6.25m

University of Bristol £5.8m

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine £5m

University of Plymouth £4.95m

Brunel University £4.7m

University of Kent £3.9m

Top ten losers

(Reduced research funding, 2009-10)

Imperial College London £4.95m

University of Reading £4m

University of the Arts, London £3m

University of Southampton £3m

London School of Economics and Political Science £2.1m

Institute of Cancer Research £2m

University of Surrey £1.9m

University of Essex £1.35m

University of Sussex £1.15m

London Business School £1.1m

Source: Hefce

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

NASA moves space shuttle launch to next Wednesday (AP)

AP - NASA is now targeting next Wednesday for the launch of space shuttle Discovery.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 11:23 pm

Researchers Want to Add Touch, Taste and Smell to Virtual Reality

Virtual reality schemes have long tantalized geeks with unrealized visions of holodecks and long-distance cybersex.

Now, a group of British researchers want to round out the experience with virtual touch, taste and smell. To simulate the real world, they argue, all five of your senses must be stimulated. Toward that end, they've mocked up a "Virtual Cocoon" with a separate glove that — at least in theory — could tickle your tongue as it, uh, nukes your nose.

To differentiate themselves from virtual reality schemes that have come and gone, the researchers are re-branding their effort as "real virtuality."

"The crucial thing for 'real virtuality' is that it will hit all five senses in a highly realistic manner," said Alan Chalmers, a professor at the University of Warwick Digital Lab. "You can't ignore the crossmodal effect. We need to have smell, we need to have taste."

Virtual reality has been long on promise and short on delivery for more than two decades. Way back in the second issue of Wired magazine in 1993, we delivered a massive story on Jaron Lanier's virtual reality dreams. Though computing power has continued its exponential rise over the last 16 years, virtual reality feels little more "real" than it once did. Certainly, no one would mistake Second Life for real life or a virtual reality "CAVE" used in oil exploration for the geological formations themselves. Even with huge improvements in graphics, virtual reality has remained more virtual than real.

Chalmers and his collaborator, David Howard, head of the Audio Laboratory at the University of York, could be onto something with their multi-sensory approach, even if it is a daunting task. What gives them hope is that the simulations of every sense don't need to be perfect, they just need to work — and work well together.

Drawing on cognitive neuroscience literature about how the brain prioritizes sensory inputs, they can deliver the right level of detail with maximum engineering efficiency. Cognitive neuroscientists call these crossmodal attention affects. For example, when you pay close attention to one thing — say someone's voice on the telephone — you pay less attention to your peripheral vision. Using that information could allow the researchers to build a VR system that functions with far less brute force than you might think was necessary — stimulating one or two senses at a time, rather than all of them at once. Howard compared it to the way the JPG format compresses image files.

"The amount of brain power given to sight, once sound, smell and touch are introduced, reduces dramatically. For instance, when you are driving around looking for a road sign you will probably turn down the volume on your car stereo," Chalmers explains on his website. "This is because you need more brain power diverted to the sight sense. This means that, with other stimuli introduced to a virtual environment, we could reduce still further the amount of rendering needed."

Or so they think. Right now, all the researchers have are a mockup and a research plan, plus enough funding from the U.K.'s Engineering and Physical Science Research Council to get started. Chalmers said it would take "on the order of millions of pounds" to deliver a working prototype in "three to five years."

They will face some daunting technological challenges, said Jane Mulligan, a virtual reality researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"Visually, we'd say that our most advanced technology is the virtual worlds of games," Mulligan said. "But even those, it's difficult to make them compelling and like you're really there."

She pointed to haptics, the sense of physical presence, as the key stumbling block.

"Your sense of touch is extremely precise," she said. "Most people that I've talked to, people who do haptics, say that today's technology is not really there."

One area that sounds tricky is smell, but it might not be as tough as it seems. The biggest attempt to commercialize synthetic scent technology came from DigiScents, a high-profile startup that crashed during the dot-com bust. But the company's co-founder, John Bellenson, now CEO of Upstream Biosciences, said that his smell-o-matic technology worked.

"The technological limitations were not the limiting factors for us," Bellenson said. "We had a functional device that was able to make thousands of smells with a scent palette of 64 elements."

He blamed bad timing for his company's ultimate failure.

"Sony had warned us that we would need $100 million from beginning to end to create a new product category," he said. "We had raised about $25 million."

The final straw, as the market turned, were the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

"We narrowly missed being at the World Trade Center that day. We had accidentally canceled our appointment with Merrill Lynch," he recalled. "A month or two later, I was looking at our calendar, and saw we were supposed to be there. We said, 'Maybe this is a sign.'"

Although DigiScents' iSmell has entered the history books as a massive failure, earning a spot on PC World's Top 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time, Bellenson says that we should mark up digital scent technology as a missed opportunity, not a failed product.

"If we'd have started the company a year earlier, we would have raised all the money we needed," Bellenson sighed.

In fact, the British researchers see clear paths to most of the technologies they need.

"The sight and sound, we pretty well know how to do that," Howard said. "The smell, we have an idea of how to do it."

Taste, they say, is generated largely through the sense of smell, but they are considering a mouthpiece that could simulate different textures of things that you're chewing on.

Put it all together and they think they can trick the brain into looking around, smelling the orange, feeling the tree's bark, hearing the birds and saying, "I'm in an orchard."

"If you start to join some of the dots with pieces of sensory information," Howard concluded, "The brain will suspend the belief of where it actually is."

Now all they need is money.

See Also:

• How to Use Neuroscience to Become Your Avatar
• Better Balance Through Virtual Reality
• People More Paranoid Than Suspected, Say Psychiatrists
• Turn Your iPhone Into 3-D Virtual Reality Goggles?
• Drawing on Air Brings Virtual Reality to the Artist Pad
• Augmented Reality Lab Makes You See Cars in Space
• Police Find Insane Use For Virtual Reality Headsets
• VirtuSphere: The Virtual Reality Hamster Ball

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 | 11:07 pm

Common ingredient offers AIDS protection

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A cheap ingredient used in ice cream, cosmetics and found in breast milk helps protect monkeys against infection with a virus similar to AIDS and might work to protect women against the virus, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 10:46 pm

Radical Approach to Block HIV Gets Some Results

Faced with the continued failure of HIV-targeting microbicides, scientists have devised a radically different approach to preventing transmission of the killer virus: ignoring it.

Instead of aiming at the virus itself, they're focusing on the body's response to HIV's initial attack. By muting distress signals sent by HIV's first cellular victims, researchers hope to prevent the white blood cells on which HIV preys from responding and becoming infected themselves. 

This cutting-fuel-to-the-fire approach is highly experimental, and has only been tried with a single compound. But it prevented infection in four of five macaque monkeys exposed to a close relative of HIV, signifying a potentially new direction in the fruitless search for a microbicide.

"If you can break one of the links in that chain, you can break the influx of target cells the virus needs," said University of Minnesota microbiologist Ashley Haase, co-developer of the new microbicide, described Wednesday in Nature.

The science is still uncertain, but so is the entire field of anti-HIV microbicides. Hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of researchers have yet to produce a substance that, when applied before sex, can reliably prevent transmission of a virus that kills nearly 3 million people every year.

A growing number of scientists think the progression of the disease is driven by inflammation. Previous research showed that exposure to SIV — the simian equivalent of HIV — prompts the immune system to summon specialized white blood cells, which are the primary victims of both HIV and SIV. Once under attack, they call in more white blood cells. These also fall prey. The cycle repeats until infection is firmly entrenched.

"We're trying to interfere with the host response on which the virus depends to establish infection," Haase said.

His team previously found that glycerol monolaurate, an FDA-approved antimicrobial compound normally used in soaps and other household products, dampened the inflammatory response in cell cultures. Now they've shown the same effect in monkeys.

Whether human immune response to HIV parallels the monkeys' response to SIV is unproven, but there are hints that it does: The same mechanisms can be observed in laboratory cultures of human cells, and high levels of vaginal inflammation are linked to higher HIV infection risks.

"Whether this particular drug would work in humans, nobody knows," said Leonid Margolis, a National Institutes of Health HIV researcher who was not involved in the study. But its significance, he said, resides less in these early tests than in signaling a conceptually new approach to microbicides.

Haase's team made its microbicide from a mix of glycerol monolaurate and K-Y lubricating gel. After testing its basic safety on macaques, they treated five monkeys who were then exposed to SIV. Over the next two weeks, only one of the monkeys became infected. In an unprotected control group, all five monkeys became infected.

The microbicide didn't appear to otherwise affect the monkeys, and left their vaginal bacterial flora — important to maintaining an environment hostile to infection — fully intact.

The macaques used by Haase's are far from a perfect model for studying HIV treatments, but are considered useful for modeling the disease's transmission. Still, said Haase, more and longer-term research is needed in monkeys before glycerol monolaurate can be tested in humans.

If it has even a small protective effect, "you could combine it with other approaches into a microbicide that targets several things the virus needs," said Haase. "Such an approach might be very effective — more effective than the components themselves might be."

Should glycerol monolaurate itself not work, some other inflammation-dampening compound might do the trick. "Inflammation is, in my mind, the engine that drives HIV infection," said Margolis.

Other scientists, however, warn against premature optimism.

Glycerol monolaurate also has surface-tension lowering properties in liquid, which could have directly inactivated the virus independent of any anti-inflammatory effects, said Robin Shattock, an HIV transmission specialist at St. George's University of London and chair of the International Partnership for Microbicides.

Another surfactant microbicide candidate, nonoxynol-9, showed promise in monkeys but actually increased HIV transmission risk during clinical trials.

Even if glycerol monolaurate worked by reducing inflammation, said Shattock, it's unclear whether it could sufficiently reduce real-world inflammation, which is often caused by multiple, sexually transmitted infections, of which HIV is only one.

"Only time will tell whether this is a major breakthrough, or if it is just another flash in the pan," he said.

Citation: "Glycerol monolaurate prevents mucosal SIV transmission." By Qingsheng Li, Jacob D. Estes, Patrick M. Schlievert, Lijie Duan, Amanda J. Brosnahan, Peter J. Southern, Cavan S. Reilly, Marnie L. Peterson, Nancy Schultz-Darken, Kevin G. Brunner, Karla R. Nephew, Stefan Pambuccian, Jeffrey D. Lifson, John V. Carlis & Ashley T. Haase. Nature, Vol. 457 No. 7233, March 4, 2009.

Image by Ashley Haase
Abstract of viral progression from SIV contact to systemic infection in macaques. Green crosses signify clusters of infected cells at 4, 7 and 10 days following exposure.

See Also:

• HIV Hack Lets Scientists Study Human AIDS in Monkeys
  
• HIV Evolution Outpaces Vaccines
• Trial Begins for HIV Gene Therapy
• Cellular 'Bullets' Destroy HIV, Raise Vaccine Possibilities
• Gene Variant Points to Personalized HIV Treatments
• A New Tactic Against HIV: T-Cell Tweaks

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Mar 2009 | 8:55 pm

Shall we dance? Two big black holes found together

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two colossal black holes appear to be orbiting one another in sort of a cosmic minuet at the center of a faraway galaxy formed when two separate galaxies collided, U.S. astronomers said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 8:51 pm

Over budget $1B, NASA gets $1B more from stimulus (AP)

AP - NASA can land a spacecraft on a peanut-shaped asteroid 150 million miles away, but it doesn't come close to hitting the budget target for building its spacecraft, according to congressional auditors. NASA's top officials know it and even joke about it.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2009 | 8:38 pm

Wildly Over Budget, NASA Mulls Stimulus Funds

Even with $1 billion in stimulus funds, NASA will have a hard time meeting budget goals.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 8:29 pm

Birds Facing Dire Future Under Warming

Three out of four bird species in Europe are facing declines under warming.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 8:09 pm

Mars Volcano Could Harbor Life

The largest volcano on Mars may hold water and the possibility of life.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 7:58 pm

Powerful Ideas: Humans as Renewable Sources

Humans can make power while they work out at the gym, push open a door or just walk.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 7:52 pm

Black Holes Bound to Join Forces

Spectrum of quasar shows evidence of orbiting binary black hole system.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 6:09 pm

Earth Seen 'Healing' After Big Quake

Satellite radar sees subsidence around fault zone after earthquake.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 6:07 pm

Dancing black hole twins spotted

Astronomers believe they have seen the first pair of black holes orbiting each other at the centre of a distant galaxy.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 6:01 pm

Modern Problem: Everyone's an Expert

Scientists face a growing number of people challenging their expertise, even on issues where strong scientific agreement exists.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 5:59 pm

BLOG: Old 'Trophy Fish' Photos Tell Sad Story

Decades-old family photos from Key West, Fla., reveal changes in fish populations.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 5:55 pm

Industry is in denial over climate change, says science minister

Lord Drayson says there is an urgent need to restate the scientific evidence for global warming and calls for companies to focus on their environmental obligations

Senior figures in the manufacturing industry do not accept that human activities are driving global warming or that action needs to be taken to prepare for its effects, the UK government's science minister said today.

Lord Drayson said recent discussions with leaders in the car industry and other businesses had left him "shocked" at the number of climate change deniers among senior industrialists. Of those who acknowledged that global temperatures were rising, many blamed it on variations in the sun's activity.

Speaking in London to mark the launch of a new centre that will gather information from satellites to improve understanding of how the Earth's environment is changing, Lord Drayson said there was an urgent need to restate the scientific evidence for global warming and called for companies to focus on their environmental obligations despite the pressures of the economic downturn.

"There is a significant minority of senior managers who do not accept the evidence for climate change and don't see the need to take action," Drayson said. "It really shocked me that those views are held, and it's not limited to the car industry."

"The industrialists are faced with a very difficult challenge, which is huge infrastructure investment in existing ways of doing business and very difficult global economic circumstances.

"The temptation is to say we'll get round to dealing with climate change once we've fixed all this other stuff. We need to present them with the evidence to say this can't wait, we need to fix both," he added.

The new centre will receive £33m over the next five years and will coordinate research using Earth-observing satellite data at 26 British universities and institutions. Known as the National Centre for Earth Observation, it will focus on ways to improve climate change models, sea level rise estimates, flooding forecasts and ways to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It also hopes to develop improved weather forecasting software ahead of the London Olympics in 2012.

A major task for the centre will be to use real-time measurements of sea ice melting, droughts and atmospheric conditions to hone computer models that climate scientists use to predict future warming and its effects.

"Earth-orbiting satellites are revolutionising our understanding of planet Earth, in terms of how it works and what forces work against it, not least from climate change. But in order to get more from that data, to get climate information on 10 year scales, and on regional scales, we've got to iron out some significant issues we have with the computer models," said Alan O'Neill, director of the centre.

Some environmental processes are so poorly understood that they hinder the ability of climate models to make accurate predictions. The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere from deforestation in the tropics is so uncertain that estimates range from 0.7 to 2.6bn tonnes a year. Other scientists say that some feedback processes in the atmosphere are so unclear they do not even know if they will speed up global warming or slow it down.

The centre was due to take data from Nasa's ill-fated Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite, which crashed into the ocean near Antarctica shortly after take-off last month. The satellite was designed to bolster understanding of climate change by mapping levels of CO² in the atmosphere.

Three new Earth observing satellites are scheduled to launch this year, including the European Space Agency's Goce probe, which by mapping the Earth's gravity field will reveal details of changes in ocean currents. Another satellite, Smos, will measure soil moisture and ocean salinity, with the third, cryosat-2, monitoring the thickness of continental ice sheets and sea ice cover.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 4 Mar 2009 | 5:40 pm

Terrifying night for Arctic explorers

Pen Hadow's Catlin Arctic Survey team had to make a rapid exit after the ice around their tent began to crack up

Explorer Pen Hadow's mission to reach the North pole on foot and collect data on the sea ice has got off to a bumpy start.

Hadow cracked a tooth while biting into a piece of frozen chocolate (it is -26C out there, which apparently is unseasonably mild). Ironically, it was left over from his birthday celebrations that happened before the team left from their base in Resolute in northern Canada. Hadow will survive though.

Much more serious was a terrifying experience on Monday night, that could have resulted in them and their tent ending up in the freezing Arctic ocean.

After covering 3.5 miles during the day they stopped at 5pm to pitch camp and do some ice drilling to collect data for the survey. As team-member Ann Daniels explains in this audio recording from the ice they were woken up suddenly in the night by the sound of the ice literally cracking around them.

At 3am Pen was woken up with a shuddering jolt as a new [crack] opened not far from the door – around 10 metres. We really thought that we had to make a move and get out of there.

It was quite scary. We had to get dressed fairly quickly...we really felt a need to move out of the volatile area.

They skied through the night for 2.5 hours to an area of more stable ice.

We put the tent up and crawled back into our beds at around 5.30 in the morning - very cold and a little bit shaken and just prayed that we wouldn't be moving again in the night.

Let's hope it gets better than this!

The team were dropped off on the ice at 10.15 GMT on Saturday evening after a short delay due to equipment problems.

catlinarcticsurvey.com

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 4 Mar 2009 | 5:26 pm

'Moonlet' Found in Outer Saturn Ring

A little moon about a third of a mile wide is found in one of Saturn's more mysterious rings.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 4:09 pm

Drying up

California's farmers struggle as drought withers crops
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2009 | 3:55 pm

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 | 3:49 pm

Whale Sonar: Two Pings Are Better Than One

Some whales do double-duty when it comes to "seeing" their surroundings.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 3:49 pm

Scary Headlines Inflate Radiation Risk

The average American’s exposure to radiation from medical procedures has risen, but the hype may be unwarranted.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 2:52 pm

Call them 'climate change creationists'

Climate change creationists is a more accurate way to describe those who deny evidence that human-induced global warming is occurring

In a previous post I explained why I'm uncomfortable with the phrase
"climate change denier". That's not because I don't think the likes of
George Will, Sarah Palin and Christopher Booker deny some very well established scientific facts – they do so recklessly and I believe sometimes deliberately. My point is a tactical one of wanting to avoid the link between their position and Holocaust denial.

As I argued previously, the denial phrase allows them to claim that the debate around global warming is a purely political argument. It isn't and it is dangerous for that notion to gain any traction. Plus I've seen the phrase "eco-Nazi" repeated too many times on blogs to want to sink to that level of debate.

George Monbiot has no intention of making the link with the Holocaust, but he has pointed out that the alternative phrase –
climate sceptic – just won't do.

The OED defines a sceptic as, "A seeker after truth; an inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite conclusions." This is the opposite of what people like Booker, Bellamy and Tomlinson are. They have their definite conclusion and will defend it against all comers. However, many inconvenient truths might stand in the way.

He's correct. The likes of Booker and David Bellamy do not
deserve the honourable mantle of "sceptic". So he is right in his
challenge to find something better.

He is also in good company. President Obama, for example, has used the D word.

Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences too serious.

Also, blogger Mike Greenfyre distinguishes carefully between deniers and sceptics, but also refers to the denialosphere – which I must admit has a certain ring to it.

So what can we replace it with? How do you sum up an intellectual stance that has a pre-conceived position that is unyielding to the most compelling evidence; ignores mounting and alarming data from numerous scientific fields backing up the opposing position; and clutches at the most ephemeral of straws that can be twisted to support its arguments? How to capture the sheer head-in-the-sand-fingers-in-the-ears bloody mindedness?

Let me give you just one example of this mindset. When the Guardian broke the story in December that 2008 would be a relatively cool year by recent standards, the response was predictable and depressing. Wilfully ignoring the fact that this was the tenth hottest year on record and a scorcher by the standards of Charles Dickens' era, many commentators leapt on the data as incontrovertible proof that climate change has gone into reverse. That was despite the calm words from climate scientists that they had expected 2008 to be a colder blip in the warming trend because of a short term climate phenomenon called La Niña.

How on Earth do we sum up such dim-witted obstinacy in a single phrase?

Climate change fact-ignorers? A little too cumbersome I think. Climate obfuscators? Better, but still not quite right. Climate change creationists. A suggestion from a friend that I believe sums them up perfectly. Although people have linked the two groups before, as far as I can see no one has used the phrase before.

Think about it. They operate in very similar ways. They have a fixed position and ignore evidence that does not fit their case. And they cherry-pick shreds of data that do appear to back them up.

They play up the "it's just a theory" debate just like the creationists and they paint themselves as valiant scientific mavericks who are supposedly ignored and vilified by the establishment. Worst of all they have been pushing their own version of "teach the controversy".

This dishonest and sterile position has paralysed policy-makers for too long. We must leave it behind.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 4 Mar 2009 | 2:52 pm

Radio ID Chips to Help Stem Cacti Theft

Cacti in Arizona will be injected with radio frequency ID tags to prevent theft.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 2:49 pm

New Moonlet Found Circling Saturn

Cassini images moonlet in ring arc of tenuous outer G ring.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2009 | 2:38 pm

Worldwide She-Male Fish Mystery Widens

A new class of chemicals takes part of the blame for feminized male fish.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 2:30 pm

Chimpanzees Invent Brush-Tipped Tool

Chimps in central Africa use carefully crafted "paint brush" probes to haul up termites.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Mar 2009 | 1:55 pm