Worm-and-mouse Tale: B Cells Deserve More Respect

By studying how mice fight off infection by intestinal worms -- a condition that affects more than 1 billion people worldwide -- scientists have discovered that the immune system is more versatile than has long been thought. The work with worms is opening a new avenue of exploration in the search for treatments against autoimmune diseases like diabetes and asthma, where the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Geeks May Be Chic, But Negative Nerd Stereotype Still Exists, Professor Says

Despite the increased popularity of geek culture and the ubiquity of computers, the geek's close cousin, the nerd, still suffers from a negative stereotype in popular culture, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Safer Methadone Use For Treatment Of Pain And Addiction

New findings may significantly improve the safety of methadone, a drug widely used to treat cancer pain and addiction to heroin and other opioid drugs.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Archaeologists Find Earliest Known Domestic Horses: Harnessed and Milked

Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known evidence of horses being domesticated by humans. The discovery suggests that horses were both ridden and milked. The findings could point to the very beginnings of horse domestication and the origins of the horse breeds we know today.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Drug Blocks Two Of World's Deadliest Emerging Viruses

Two highly lethal viruses that have emerged in recent outbreaks are susceptible to chloroquine, an established drug used to prevent and treat malaria, according to a new basic science study in the Journal of Virology.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Environmentally-friendly Energy: Sunlight Turns Carbon Dioxide To Methane

Dual catalysts may be the key to efficiently turning carbon dioxide and water vapor into methane and other hydrocarbons using titania nanotubes and solar power, according to researchers. Burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Rather than contribute to global climate change, producers could convert carbon dioxide to a wide variety of hydrocarbons, but this makes sense to do only when using solar energy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

What Determines The Size Of Giant Dunes?

Physicists have shown that the size of giant dunes is controlled by the depth of the atmospheric convective boundary layer. More specifically, the physicists have shown that such dunes grow through the accumulation of small superimposed dunes, and that their growth is limited by interaction with a part of the atmosphere called the inversion layer, which confines wind flow around the dunes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 9:00 am

Virus-free Embryonic-like Stem Cells Made From Skin Of Parkinson's Disease Patients

Deploying a method that removes potentially cancer-causing genes, researchers have "reprogrammed" human skin cells from Parkinson's disease patients into an embryonic-stem-cell-like state. Scientists then used these so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to create dopamine-producing neurons, the cell type that degenerates in Parkinson's disease patients. This marks first time researchers have generated human iPS cells, successfully removed the potentially problematic reprogramming genes, and seen the cells maintain their embryonic stem-cell-like state.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 9:00 am

Sudden Collapse Of Healthy Athletes May Be Due To Hereditary Cardiac Disease

When young, apparently healthy athletes suddenly collapse, it can be due to hereditary cardiac disease. Researchers have now discovered a genetic modification that leads to cardiac weakness in an animal model. Just one "false" amino acid can give zebrafish a heart condition. Since the fish have a genetic makeup similar to that of humans, these defects could be critical for humans as well.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 9:00 am

Muscling In On Type 2 Diabetes

Research by kinesiology investigators has shown that muscle in extremely obese individuals produces large amounts of a protein called myostatin, which normally inhibits muscle growth -- suggesting that for Type 2 diabetics, and the very obese, the task of getting healthy may be more difficult than initially thought.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 9:00 am

Obama to End Stem Cell Ban Monday (HealthDay)

HealthDay - SATURDAY, March 7 (HealthDay News) -- President Barack Obama will lift the eight-year ban on embryonic stem cell research on Monday, the White House has announced.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Mar 2009 | 4:48 am

Stem cells may repair breast cancer damage

British team pioneers reconstruction technique using enriched tissue

A remarkable reconstruction technique is being trialled by British surgeons, who are harvesting stem-cell-enriched fat from women's bodies to plug the dip often left by breast cancer operations.

The procedure appears to restore the softness and suppleness of breast tissues, undoing the damage frequently caused by lumpectomy and radiotherapy. Early signs indicate that it also eases the considerable pain with which patients are often left after treatment.

More than 31,000 women a year in Britain with early-stage breast cancer undergo operations in which just the lump and a healthy margin of tissue around it are removed. The cavity left in the breast following surgery can vary from a dimple to a mini-crater, but the dip invariably becomes more pronounced following radiotherapy, which most patients need. Irradiation damages the blood supply to the breast and shrinks and toughens overlying skin so that it sticks to the chest wall. Nerves can get trapped in the resulting scar tissue, causing constant discomfort. Although some surgeons have had short-term success with simple fat transfers - liposuctioning fat from elsewhere and injecting it into the breast hollow - the blob of fat struggles to get a decent blood supply.

The alternative has been more surgery, either to reduce the size of the healthy breast so it is a better match with the other or, perhaps most upsettingly, a total mastectomy and full breast reconstruction on the lumpectomy side. Scientists believe the stem-cell fat will reduce the need for this sort of revision surgery by suppressing inflammation and encouraging the laying down of a healthy blood supply so that fat loss is minimised.

The organs and tissues of the body are a natural cache of adult stem cells ready to repair damage when injury occurs. Ironically, it is the chameleon-like attributes of stem cells that fuelled doubts in the minds of some British surgeons before the start of the trial last summer. "Cancer is all about the proliferation of cells, so our theoretical worry was that we could be putting cells into the breast that would encourage rapid growth of surrounding tissue, resulting in another cancer," said Philip Turton, a consultant breast surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary.

Lead investigator and consultant plastic surgeon Eva Weiler-Mithoff says she is impressed with the results so far. "What is striking is the softness and suppleness the technique gives the skin and tissues. When I see these stem-cell-enhanced patients after three months, their skin is significantly softer."

Patients have their fat harvested under general anaesthetic. Half is set aside; half is washed in a processor, where the stem cells are distilled. This concentrate is then mixed with the set-aside fat and injected under local anaesthetic.

Surgeons had two more nagging concerns before the study got under way - that cysts could develop in the breast if the new fat liquefied and that dying fat could misleadingly show on a mammogram as tiny specs of calcification, the first sign of breast cancer, giving rise to false positives.

But if, as expected, results show that more than 90% of the fat survives, then any doubts should be quashed. Weiler-Mithoff said: "This technique should help us to restore a natural-looking breast with minimal risks. Patients don't need a big operation and they'll be left with no scars. It's a win-win."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 8 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Five titans of psychology

From Freudian slip(per)s to Beck's Hopelessness Scale, Stuart Jeffries introduces five couch crusaders and their key contributions to the field

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

One-time cocaine user, genius who was notoriously uncertain about what 51% of the population (that's you, ladies) want, and man whose iconic face appears on pairs of Freudian slippers (geddit?) that are sold at his Hampstead museum for £19.40 - the man born Sigismund Schlomo Freud was the father of psychoanalysis.

Influential theories include the idea that exploring the unconscious helps to understand conscious behaviour; dividing human headspace into three feuding imps called the id, ego and superego; the theory that the unconscious can be accessed through dream analysis and bank-balance-depleting couch time; the oedipal complex, which suggests everybody desires incest (even you) but has to repress it; the suggestion that females desire to have what they don't (phalluses); positing both a life drive (Eros, the libido) and a death drive (Thanatos, a longing for the calm of death). Critics derided his phallocentrism, but Freudians could retort that they're overcompensating for psycho-physical shortcomings.

Aaron T Beck (born 1921)

Aaron Temkin Beck is father of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and the man whose ideas explain why there has been such a recent rash of so-called happiness centres in Britain. Beck cast off his Freudian mindset of instinctual drives and unconscious impulses in favour of a cognitive model, and developed a form of therapy based on the thoughts and beliefs that patients had about themselves. CBT is less fatalistic than Freudianism, though, to some, fatuously optimistic. Beck developed the jaunty-sounding Beck Hopelessness Scale, which can be used to predict if you're likely to commit suicide. Beck's daughter Judith is also an upbeat behavioural therapist. Her self-help book, Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person, claims you can use CBT skills to be a successful dieter for life. Fat Freudians remain sceptical.

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Jung's first conversation with Freud lasted for 13 hours. After it, both tried to charge each other £95 an hour for the session. I made the last sentence up, but they certainly enjoyed analysing each others' dreams, until Jung developed his own analytical theories.

Key Jungian concepts include: ego, identified with the conscious mind; collective unconscious, which is like a psychic inheritance influencing everything we do, and different from the personal unconscious; and persona, which comes from the Latin for mask. He also developed the distinction between anima (feminine) and animus (masculine), which he argued form each and everyone's true inner selves in different proportions. For Jung, the mind is a self-regulating system and mental illness is disunity of personality.

Melanie Klein (1882-1960)

Klein claimed that the infant has a primary object relation to the mother, and a psychic life dominated by sadistic fantasies prompted by an innate aggressive drive. Born in Vienna to a reportedly domineering mother, she settled in London and overturned Freudian orthodoxy by suggesting and practising the heresy that children can benefit from psychoanalysis. As a result, she had a fall out with Freud's daughter Anna, which divided the British Psychoanalytical Society into two factions.

Klein's troubled life included the early deaths of two siblings and her son. Her daughter Melitta, also an analyst, was publicly critical of her mother's contributions to psychoanalysis. They remained estranged until the end of Klein's life. Klein's final work explored the themes of envy, gratitude, and reparation in the mother-infant relationship.

RD Laing (1927-1989)

Laing lost his licence to practice medicine after a patient alleged he had been "intoxicated and unprofessional". He took LSD with colleagues and patients. He wrote terrible poetry. He played the clavichord to dinner guests while his wife sang. Despite all this, Ronald David Laing was a significant thinker associated with the anti-psychiatry movement. He insisted that falling ill can be the first step in self-cure and that, in safe surroundings, this existential journey can be a route to recovery from the emotional misery that is rooted in our experiences of others. Laing died of a heart attack while playing tennis. Not his existential choice, but there are worse ways to go.

Brain box: four more key thinkers

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

One-time Freudian who theorised the inferiority complex, possibly because he felt inferior to Freud.

Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

A Holocaust survivor who tried to help inmates in Theresienstadt overcome despondency and developed a form of existential analysis called logotherapy.

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

French psychoanalyst who suggested that the unconscious is structured like a language, thereby influencing cry-makingly unreadable structuralist and post-structuralist thinkers.

Hanna Segal (born 1918)

A 90-year-old leading interpreter of Klein's ideas in Britain.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 8 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Scientists to issue stark warning over new sea level figures

Rising sea levels pose a far bigger eco threat than previously thought. This week's climate change conference in Copenhagen will sound an alarm over new floodings - enough to swamp Bangladesh, Florida, the Norfolk Broads and the Thames estuary

Scientists will warn this week that rising sea levels, triggered by global warming, pose a far greater danger to the planet than previously estimated. There is now a major risk that many coastal areas around the world will be inundated by the end of the century because Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting faster than previously estimated.

Low-lying areas including Bangladesh, Florida, the Maldives and the Netherlands face catastrophic flooding, while, in Britain, large areas of the Norfolk Broads and the Thames estuary are likely to disappear by 2100. In addition, cities including London, Hull and Portsmouth will need new flood defences.

"It is now clear that there are going to be massive flooding disasters around the globe," said Dr David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey. "Populations are shifting to the coast, which means that more and more people are going to be threatened by sea-level rises."

The issue is set to dominate the opening sessions of the international climate change conference in Copenhagen this week, when scientists will outline their latest findings on a host of issues concerning global warming. The meeting has been organised to set the agenda for this December's international climate talks (also to be held in Copenhagen), which will draw up a treaty to replace the current Kyoto protocol for limiting carbon dioxide emissions.

And key to these deliberations will be the issue of ice-sheet melting. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - when it presented its most up-to-date report on the likely impact of global warming in 2007 - concluded that sea-level rises of between 20 and 60 centimetres would occur by 2100. These figures were derived from estimates of how much the sea will increase in volume as it heats up, a process called thermal expansion, and from projected increases in run-off water from melting glaciers in the Himalayas and other mountain ranges.

But the report contained an important caveat: that its sea-level rise estimate contained very little input from melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. The IPCC forecast therefore tended to underestimate forthcoming changes.

"The IPCC felt the whole dynamics of polar ice-sheet melting were too poorly understood," added Vaughan. "However, we are now getting a much better idea of what is going on in Greenland and Antarctica and can make much more accurate forecasts about ice-sheet melting and its contribution to sea-level rises."

From studying satellite images, scientists have watched the sea ice that hugs the Greenland and Antarctic shores dwindle and disappear. Sea-ice melting on its own does not cause ocean levels to rise, but its disappearance has a major impact on land ice sheets. Without sea ice to prop them up, the land sheets tip into the water and disintegrate at increasing rates, a phenomenon that is now being studied in detail by researchers.

"It is becoming increasingly apparent from our studies of Greenland and Antarctica that changes to sea ice are being transmitted into the hearts of the land-ice sheets in a remarkably short time," added Vaughan. As a result, those land sheets are breaking up faster and far more melt water is being added to the oceans than was previously expected.

These revisions suggest sea-level rises could easily top a metre by 2100 - a figure that is backed by the US Geological Survey, which this year warned that they could reach as much as 1.5 metres.

In addition, in September, a team led by Tad Pfeffer at the University of Colorado at Boulder published calculations using conservative, medium and extreme glaciological assumptions for sea-level rise expected from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. They concluded that the most plausible scenario, when factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, will lead to a total sea level rise of one to two metres by 2100.

Similarly, a commission of 20 international experts, called on by the Dutch government to help plan its coastal defences, recently gave a range of 55cm to 1.1 metres for sea-level rises by 2100. "Equally important, this commission has highlighted the fact that sea-level rise will not stop in the year 2100," said Professor Stefan Rahmstorf of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "By 2200, they estimate a rise of 1.5 to 3.5m unless we stop the warming. This would spell the end of many of our coastal cities."

This point was backed by Dr Jason Lowe of the Hadley Centre, the UK's foremost climate change research centre. "It is still not clear exactly how much the sea will rise by the end of this century, but it is certain that rises will continue for hundreds of years beyond that - even if we do manage to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions and halt the rise in atmospheric temperature. The sea will continue to heat up and expand. In addition, the Greenland ice sheets will continue to melt," he said.

This latter effect could, ultimately, have a particularly destructive impact. Scientists have calculated that if industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases eventually produce a global temperature increase of around 4C, there is a risk that Greenland's ice covering could melt completely. This could take several hundred years or it might require a couple of thousand. The end result is not in doubt, however. It would add around seven metres to the planet's sea levels. The consequence would be utter devastation.

Such a scenario is distant, but real, scientists insist. However, at present, the most important issue, they argue, is that of short-term sea-level rises: probably around one metre by 2100. When that occurs, the Maldives will be submerged, along with islands like the Sunderbans in the Bay of Bengal, and Kiribati and Tuvalu in the Pacific. The US - which has roughly 12,400 miles of coastline and more than 19,900 square miles of coastal wetlands - would face a bill of around $156bn to protect this land. Cities such as London would require massive investments to provide defences against the rising waters. Others, such as Alexandria, in Egypt, would simply be inundated.

Rising oceans will also contaminate both surface and underground fresh water supplies, worsening the world's existing fresh-water shortage. Underground water sources in Thailand, Israel, China and Vietnam are already experiencing salt-water contamination.

Coastal farmland will be wiped out, triggering massive displacements of men, women and children. It is estimated that a one-metre sea-level rise could flood 17% of Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, reducing its rice-farming land by 50% and leaving tens of millions without homes.

Such destruction would not be caused merely by rising sea levels, however. Other effects of global warming will also worsen the mayhem that lies ahead: in particular, the increase in major storms. "When we talk about the dangers of future sea-level rises, we are not talking about a problem akin to pouring water into a bath," added Dr Colin Brown, director of engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineering. "Climate-change research shows there will be significant increases in storms as global temperatures rise. These will produce more intense gales and hurricanes and these, in turn, will produce massive storm surges as they pass over the sea."

The result will be the appearance of the super-surge, a climatic double whammy that will savage low-lying regions that include Britain's south-eastern coastline, in particular East Anglia and the Thames Estuary, along with cities such as London, Portsmouth and Hull, which are rated as being particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise.

In addition to these hotspots, the country will also face massive disruption to its transport and energy systems unless it acts swiftly, according to a report - Climate Change, Adapting to the Inevitable - published last month by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Many rail lines run along river valleys that will be flooded with increased regularity while bridges carrying trains and lorries often cross shipping lanes and may have to be redesigned to accommodate rising water levels.

"Power supplies will also be affected," added Brown. "The Sizewell B nuclear plant has been built on the Suffolk coast, a site that has been earmarked for the construction of several more nuclear plants. However, Sizewell will certainly be affected by rising sea levels. Engineers say they can build concrete walls that will keep out the water throughout the working lives of these new plants. But that is not enough. Nuclear plants may operate for 50 years, but it could take hundreds of years to decommission them. By that time, who knows what sea-level rises and what kinds of inundations the country will be experiencing?"

Most scientists believe Britain remains relatively well placed to combat sea-level rises. "The government has been fairly far-sighted over this issue, with projects such as Thames Estuary 2100 being set up to prepare flooding defence projects," said Professor Robert Nicholls, of Southampton University.

This does not stop the controversy, however. In its report, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers warned that many areas would have to be abandoned because they are simply too expensive to protect. In particular, large areas of the Norfolk coastline would be left to be inundated, a massive loss of human habitat.

But this approach represents an abrogation of national duty to many people - particularly those whose homes will be destroyed, individuals such as Martin George, former chairman of the Broads Society. "A country that has the technological know-how to extract oil and coal from below the North Sea should surely be capable of finding a way to protect a concrete sea wall against the effects of climate change. We should do our damnedest to safeguard our heritage," he said.

• Additional research by Lisa Kjellsson

Why the sea is rising

• Thermal expansion. All bodies expand when they are heated, and that is true for the water that covers 70 per cent of the planet. The oceans are expanding - upwards. It is estimated this increase in volume will raise levels by 10-40 cms.

• Melting glaciers and mountain ice caps - outside Greenland and Antarctica - are also adding water to rivers that flow to the oceans. However, these remain a modest source of sea-level rise. Possibly around 10 cms.

• The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets represent vast reserves of frozen fresh water. The former would add 7m to sea levels if melted completely; the latter would bring a further 60m rise to the levels of the world's oceans.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 8 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Freud and the oedipal complex

Of all theories of relationships, Sigmund Freud's oedipal complex has probably caused the most controversy. It began with the study of a boy known as Little Hans. In 1909, Freud's paper, Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy, outlined Hans' fear of horses. Freud believed the boy's terror was due to feelings of anger he had internalised that related to his parents.

Freud theorised that all small boys select their mother as their primary object of desire. They subconsciously wish to usurp their fathers and become their mothers' lover. Typically, these desires emerge between the ages of three and five, when a boy is in what Freud defined as the "phallic" stage of development. Because the child suspects that acting on these feelings would lead to danger, desires are repressed, leading to anxiety.

The oedipal complex is named after Sophocles' protagonist, who unwittingly murders his father and marries his mother. There is a female equivalent, known as the electra complex, but Freud was more concerned with what he termed female "penis envy".

Few people believe today that the oedipal complex has any real bearing on our lives.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 8 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

The born identity

Does birth order play a part in who we are? Sarah Wilson looks at the evidence ...

The idea that the person we become is partly defined by the order in which we come in our family was first proposed by Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler. Adler believed that sibling hierarchy has a profound effect on our personalities, and can influence everything from the career choices we make to the people we fall in love with.

Studies suggest that the differences between oldest, middle and youngest siblings have more to do with nurture than nature. Oldest children often have higher IQs, but this isn't necessarily because they are genetically more intelligent. It's more likely that they will have had both more input from their parents, and taken on the role of teacher for their younger siblings, thus strengthening their own knowledge.

Although Adler's theories have been challenged over the years, there are certain characteristics and life choices that seem remarkably consistent in oldest, middle, youngest and only children.

Oldest children

Typically responsible, confident and conscientious, they are more likely to mirror their parents' beliefs and attitudes, and often choose to spend more time with adults. Oldest children are often natural leaders, and their role at work may reflect this.

Because they are more likely to have authority over younger siblings, or take on the role of surrogate parent, they have a tendency to be bossy and want things to be done their way. Oldest children can be perfectionists and worriers, and may put pressure on themselves to succeed.

Middle children

Likely to be adaptable, diplomatic and good at bringing people together, middle children are often popular and patient. However, because their role in the family changes from youngest to middle, it is thought that they often struggle to establish a clear role for themselves, and many go through a period of rebellion.

Middle children can be competitive: they do not have the time on their own with their parents that oldest children enjoy, and their role as the baby of the family is supplanted, so they have to find other ways of getting their parents' attention.

Youngest children

Charming, impulsive and good

at getting their own way, the youngest child's role as baby of the family means that he or she is likely to be indulged. This may mean fewer responsibilities and more opportunities for fun, but youngest children often find that they aren't taken as seriously or given the independence they crave. Youngest children often rebel as a way of distinguishing themselves from older brothers and sisters. They are more likely to take risks, and often choose a career that is different from other members of their family.

Only children

Only children enjoy the same parental attention as first-borns and are often confident, conscientious and socially mature, due to the amount of time they spend in a largely adult world. They may have a tendency to assume that others know how they are feeling, or think the same way as they do, without question. They may be dependent on their parents for longer than other children, spending more time at home and delaying decisions about their future.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 8 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Is language instinctive or learned?

Claiming that humans are born with an innate capacity for language, psychologist Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct reignited a long-running debate. On one side were evolutionary theorists like Pinker, who used Noam Chomsky's ideas, among others, to argue that language evolved through a process of natural selection, and that children are born with a genetic instinct for speech.

On the other were linguists like Geoffrey Sampson, whose 1997 book Educating Eve: The 'Language Instinct' Debate used Karl Popper's theories of learning to suggest that we are born knowing nothing, but are able to learn anything: "Eve was not born a know-all. She was ignorant. But she was a good learner."

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, published in 2003, was Pinker's response: attacking the idea that a child's mind is a "blank slate" ready to be written upon.

In his latest book, The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window Into Human Nature, Pinker argues that the words we use, the verbs and nouns, metaphors and grammatical structures, can tell us a great deal about the societies we live in, as well as our own minds and the way they work. He believes all humans share a "language of thought" and that studying the way this works can reveal how we strive to make sense of the world around us.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 8 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Shoes Found in 13th Century Trash Pile (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A batch of well-preserved shoe soles have been found in an ancient trash dump in Lyon, France. They date from the 13th to the 18th centuries.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Mar 2009 | 11:30 pm

Stem-cell policy change liberating to researchers (AP)

AP - Eight years of frustration are close to an end for scientists seeking ways to use embryonic stem cells to combat illness and injury.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Mar 2009 | 6:39 pm

Obama Stem Cell Decision Called 'Deadly Executive Order'

Obama is expected to reverse limitations for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Source: Livescience.com | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:16 pm

NASA launches telescope to scout for Earths

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA launched a pioneering telescope on Friday to survey a corner of the galaxy in hopes of learning if other planets like Earth exist.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 7 Mar 2009 | 4:36 pm

Shoes Found in 13th Century Trash Pile

A batch ancient shoe soles have been found in an ancient trash dump in Lyon, France.
Source: Livescience.com | 7 Mar 2009 | 4:26 pm

Judge faults gov't plan to save Pacific NW salmon (AP)

AP - The federal agency in charge of saving salmon in the Columbia River Basin from extinction should have a plan in place to remove dams on the lower Snake River if necessary, a federal judge said Friday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:13 pm

Telescope blasts into space to find other Earths (AP)

AP - NASA's planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, rocketed into space Friday night on a historic voyage to track down other Earths in a faraway patch of the Milky Way galaxy.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:01 pm

Taking the Pulse of the Forest

Goal: Try and figure out how forest trees use water.
Source: Livescience.com | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:36 pm

Wine and Beer May be Good for Your Bones

A glass of wine or a bottle or two of beer a day may strengthen the bones of older men and women.
Source: Livescience.com | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:12 pm