Mini Dinosaurs Prowled North America

Massive predators like Albertosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex may have been at the top of the food chain, but they were not the only meat-eating dinosaurs to roam North America, according to Canadian researchers who have discovered the smallest dinosaur species on the continent to date. Their work is also helping re-draw the picture of North America's ecosystem at the height of the dinosaur age 75 million years ago.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Genes Linked To Spinal Disc Degeneration Identified

Lumbar disc degeneration is an uncomfortable condition that affects millions of people, but two researchers have identified some of the genes that are causing problems.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Measuring The Strength Needed To Move Chromosomes

It's about as long as the width of a human hair and only half that length across. So it's tiny -- measured in millionths of a meter -- and extremely tricky to manipulate. But the meiotic spindle plays so irresistibly important a role in separating our chromosomes during cell division that scientists are compelled to try to study it.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Shrinking In Hippocampus Area Of Brain Precedes Alzheimer's Disease

People who have lost brain cells in the hippocampus area of the brain are more likely to develop dementia, according to a study in the journal Neurology.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Black Sea Pollution Could Be Harnessed As Renewable Future Energy Source

The Black Sea harbors vast quantities of hydrogen sulfide, the toxic gas associated with the smell of rotten eggs. This noxious gas could be used as a renewable source of hydrogen gas to fuel a future carbon-free economy, according to researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

NCAA Men's Basketball: Odds Are, Seedings Don't Matter After Sweet 16

A computer science expert says that a top-3 seeded team's odds of winning games past the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament are statistically no different than a coin flip.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

A few U.S. states buck stem cell trend with bans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Oklahoma politician Mike Reynolds believes the federal government has gone too far this time.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 2:47 pm

A few U.S. states buck stem cell trend with bans (Reuters)

Reuters - Oklahoma politician Mike Reynolds believes the federal government has gone too far this time.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 2:47 pm

'Star Wars' Laser Kills Mosquitoes

Physicists have created a laser weapon that targets mosquitoes.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Mar 2009 | 2:31 pm

Gravity satellite heads skyward

The European Space Agency finally launches its gravity mapping satellite, Goce, following Monday’s postponement.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 2:22 pm

Power Lines Disorient a Cow's Compass

High-voltage power lines can mess with animal magnetism, a new study shows.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Mar 2009 | 2:05 pm

Embryonic Stem Cells: 5 Misconceptions

While stem cell research holds great promise, hype and misconceptions cloud the picture.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:52 pm

Scheme to Curb Global Warming Could Backfire

Proposed geoengineering scheme would reduce light available for solar power.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:51 pm

Researchers ID North America's smallest dinosaur (Reuters)

Reuters - Canadian researchers said on Monday they have discovered North America's smallest known dinosaur, a pint-sized predator half the size of a house cat and cousin to the ferocious Velociraptor, which roamed in what is now Alberta 75 million years ago.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:43 pm

Researchers ID North America's smallest dinosaur

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canadian researchers said on Monday they have discovered North America's smallest known dinosaur, a pint-sized predator half the size of a house cat and cousin to the ferocious Velociraptor, which roamed in what is now Alberta 75 million years ago.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:43 pm

Fossil sea monster's bite makes T-Rex look feeble

OSLO (Reuters) - A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic and known as "Predator X" had a bite that would make T-Rex look feeble, scientists said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:37 pm

Telescopes Team Up for 3-D Galaxy Views (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Distant galaxies once represented mere specks of light in the sky. But astronomers are now using Hubble and Europe's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to obtain detailed 3-D views of galaxies dating back as far as six billion years.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:30 pm

'Bracketology' Tip to Ignore Seedings After Sweet Sixteen (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Here's a tip for March Madness buffs: When making your picks for which teams will advance in the tournament, ignore a team's seeding after the first couple rounds, one computer scientist says.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:25 pm

'Bracketology' Tip to Ignore Seedings After Sweet Sixteen

Seedings in the NCAA basketball tournament lose predictive power after third round.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:19 pm

Economic crisis sets back water utilities: World Bank

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The global financial crisis could set back development in water utilities by a decade or more as investment falters and people become increasingly unable to afford water bills, the World Bank warned Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:18 pm

Egypt's 'Bent' Pyramid Opens to Public

Travelers to Egypt will soon be able to explore the "bent" pyramid near Dahshur.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:18 pm

Chicken-Sized, Meat-Eating Dino Found

The remains of a fierce, but tiny velociraptor are found in a museum drawer.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:10 pm

Platelets Linked To Sepsis-related Organ Failure

Scientists have identified a previously unknown contributor to organ failure in patients suffering from sepsis: platelets. The finding is the first time doctors have looked at and linked platelets to poor outcomes from this often fatal infection.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

RNA: Master Regulator Of Motor Neuron Firing Discovered

When the Human Genome Project was complete, DNA bowed out of the limelight and gave way to RNA as a major player in genetic regulation. Now, new findings mirror this ideological shift, revealing that one of the most important physiological events in the body — the wiring of motor neurons and muscles — is regulated at the level of RNA.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

Galactic Dust Bunnies Found To Contain Carbon After All

Stars rich in carbon complex molecules may form at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. This discovery is significant because it adds to our knowledge of how stars form heavy elements -- like oxygen, carbon and iron -- and then blow them out across the universe, making it possible for life to develop.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

DNA 'Patch' For Canine Form Of Muscular Dystrophy Developed, First Treatment For Human Muscular Dystrophy In Sight

Using a novel genetic technology that covers up genetic errors, researchers have developed a successful treatment for dogs with the canine version of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a paralyzing, and ultimately fatal, muscle disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

Hurricane Season 2008 (weather.com)

weather.com -
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 10:05 am

See a hungry whale steal a bird's dinner - in one giant gulp

Humpback whales come up with a novel way for getting an easy snack, footage reveals.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 9:08 am

Saving paradise

Maldives facing up to challenge of global warming
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 7:57 am

Researchers find pint-sized meat-eating dinosaur (AP)

AP - Imagine a vicious velociraptor like those in "Jurassic Park," but only as big as a modern chicken.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 7:51 am

Shuttle Discovery closing in on space station (AP)

AP - Space shuttle Discovery is closing in on the international space station for a 220-mile-high linkup.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 7:50 am

Madrid plans vulture rescue law

Spanish politicians are planning a novel way to save vultures - by changing the law so dead animals can be left to rot.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 7:29 am

Ministers' £1bn UK science plea

The Department for Innovation Universities and Skills is pressuring the government to pump £1bn into UK science.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 7:00 am

China seeks export carbon relief

China says importers of Chinese-made goods should pay for carbon emitted during their manufacture.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 5:23 am

Fate of polar bears seen to depend on emissions cuts

OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming is threatening polar bears as it melts their icy Arctic habitat, Norway's environment minister said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 5:05 am

Discovery closes in on space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The space shuttle Discovery closed in on the International Space Station on Monday while astronauts scoured the ship's heat shield for signs of damage from Sunday's launch.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 5:01 am

3 injured in natural gas blast in Pasadena, Calif. (AP)

AP - Three people were hospitalized after a natural gas explosion destroyed a truck and sent a flaming tank hurtling into the air near a busy street.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 4:02 am

Hormone 'to restart reproduction'

Scientists say a recently discovered hormone could form the basis of an effective and less risky fertility treatment.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 3:20 am

Bornean sun bear cubs debut at San Diego Zoo (AP)

AP - Two endangered Bornean sun bear cubs have been introduced at the San Diego Zoo.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:38 am

The Chemistry of Life: Where Oil Comes From

Despite our addiction to oil, we are not completely clear on how it gets cooked up under the ground.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:22 am

Oil boom

One man remembers the day Nigeria found oil
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Mar 2009 | 1:14 am

MRI Lie Detection to Get First Day in Court

Defense attorneys are for the first time submitting a controversial next-generation lie-detection test as evidence in U.S. court.

In an upcoming juvenile-sex-abuse case in San Diego, the defense is hoping to get an fMRI scan, which shows brain activity based on oxygen levels, admitted to prove the abuse didn't happen.

The technology is used widely in brain research, but hasn't been fully tested as a lie-detection method. To be admitted into court, any technique has to be "generally accepted" within the scientific community.

The company that did the brain scan, No Lie MRI, claims their test is over 90 percent accurate, but some scientists and lawyers are skeptical.

"The studies so far have been very interesting. I think they deserve further research. But the technology is very new, with very little research support, and no studies done in realistic situations," Hank Greely, the head of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford, wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com.

Lie detection has tantalized lawyers since before the polygraph was invented in 1921, but the accuracy of the tests has always been in question. Greely noted that American courts and scientists have "85 years of experience with the polygraph" and a wealth of papers that have tried to describe its accuracy. Yet they aren't generally admissible in court, except in New Mexico.

Other attempts to spot deception using different brain signals continue, such as the EEG-based technique developed in India, where it has been used as evidence in court. And last year, attorneys tried to use fMRI evidence for chronic pain in a worker's compensation claim, but the case was settled out of court. The San Diego case will be the first time fMRI lie-detection evidence, if admitted, is used in a U.S. court.

According to Emily Murphy, a behavioral neuroscientist at the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences who first reported on the fMRI evidence, the case is a child protection hearing to determine if the minor should stay in the home of the custodial parent accused of sexual abuse.

Apparently, the accused parent hired No Lie MRI, headquartered in San Diego with a testing facility in Tarzana, California, to do a brain scan. The company's report says fMRI tests show the defendant's claim of innocnece is not a lie.

The company declined to be interviewed for this story, but its founder and CEO, Joel Huizenga, spoke to Wired.com in September about the technology.

"This is the first time in human history that anybody has been able to tell if someone else is lying," he said.

Though the company's scientific board includes fMRI experts such as Christos Davatzikos, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, some outside scientists and bioethicists question the reliability of the tests.

"Having studied all the published papers on fMRI-based lie detection, I personally wouldn't put any weight on it in any individual case. We just don't know enough about its accuracy in realistic situations," Greely said.

Laboratory studies using fMRI, which measures blood-oxygen levels in the brain, have suggested that when someone lies, the brain sends more blood to the ventrolateral area of the prefrontal cortex. In a very small number of studies, researchers have identified lying in study subjects with accuracy ranging from 76 percent to over 90 percent (pdf). But some scientists and lawyers like Greely doubt that those results will prove replicable outside the lab setting, and others say it just isn't ready yet.

"It's certainly something that is going to evolve and continue to get better and at some point, it will be ready for prime time. I'm just not sure it's really there right now," said John Vanmeter, a neurologist at Georgetown's Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging. "On the other hand, maybe it's good that it's going to start getting tested in the court system. It's really been just a theoretical thing until now."

No Lie MRI licensed its technology from psychiatrist Daniel Langleben of the University of Pennsylvania. Langleben, like the company, declined to be interviewed for this article, but offered a recent editorial he co-authored in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law on the "future of forensic functional brain imaging."

From the editorial, it's clear that Langleben is a bit uneasy that his work has been commercially applied. He draws a clear distinction between "deception researchers" like himself and "the merchants of fMRI-based lie detection" and describes the "uneasy alliances between this industry and academia, brokered by university technology-commercialization departments."

Langleben has pushed for large-scale trials to determine the efficacy of fMRI-based deception-spotting. But in an interview conducted in late 2007, he doubted whether No Lie MRI and its competitor, Cephalos, had the resources to conduct the type of trials he wants.

"We need to run clinical trials with 200 to 300 people, so we can say, 'This is the accuracy of this test,'" Langleben told Wired.com. "But only two or three companies are trying to develop the technology. Do those companies have deep pockets? No. Do clinical trials cost a lot? Yes."

In September, Huizenga said the company was trying to get a grant for a study on a large group of people. "To date there really has been no study that has tried to optimize fMRI for lie detection," he said.

But even if the science behind a technology isn't fully established, Brooklyn Law School's Edward Cheng, who studies scientific evidence in legal proceedings, said it might still be appropriate to use it in the courtroom.

"Technology doesn't necessarily have to be bulletproof before it can come in, in court," Cheng.

He questioned whether society's traditional methods of lie detection, that is to say, inspection by human beings, is any more reliable than the new technology.

"It's not clear whether or not a somewhat reliable but foolproof fMRI machine is any worse than having a jury look at a witness," Cheng said. "It's always important to think about what the baseline is. If you want the status quo, fine, but in this case, the status quo might not be all that good."

But the question of whether Cheng's fMRI can be "somewhat reliable but foolproof" remains open.

Ed Vul, an fMRI researcher at the Kanwisher Lab at MIT, said that it was simply too easy for a suspect to make fMRI data of any type unusable.

"I don't think it can be either reliable or practical. It is very easy to corrupt fMRI data," Vul said. "The biggest difficulty is that it's very easy to make fMRI data unusable by moving a little, holding your breath, or even thinking about a bunch of random stuff."

A trained defendant might even be able to introduce bias into the fMRI data. In comparison with traditional lie-detection methods, fMRI appears more susceptible to gaming.

"So far as I can tell, there are many more reliable ways to corrupt data from an MRI machine than a classic polygraph machine," Vul said.

Elizabeth Phelps, a neuroscientist at New York University, agreed there is little evidence that fMRI is more reliable than previous lie-detection methods.

"When you build a model based on people in the laboratory, it may or may not be that applicable to someone who has practiced their lie over and over, or someone who has been accused of something," Phelps said. "I don't think that we have any standard of evidence that this data is going to be reliable in the way that the courts should be admitting."

All these theoretical considerations will be put to the test for the first time in a San Diego courtroom soon. Stanford's Murphy reported that the admissibility of the evidence in this particular case could rest on which scientific experts are allowed to comment on the evidence.

"The defense plans to claim fMRI-based lie detection (or “truth verification”) is accurate and generally accepted within the relevant scientific community in part by narrowly defining the relevant community as only those who research and develop fMRI-based lie detection," she wrote.

Murphy says that the relevant scientific community should be much larger, including a broader swath of neuroscientists, statisticians, and memory experts.

If the broader scientific community is included in the fact-finding, Greely doesn't expect the evidence to be admitted.

"In a case where the issues were fully explored with good expert witnesses on both sides, it is very hard for me to believe that a judge would admit the results of fMRI-based lie detection today," Greely said.

But that's not to say that lie-detection won't eventually find a place in the courts, as the science and ethics of brain scanning solidify.

Wired.com editor Betsy Mason contributed to this report.

See Also:

• Woman Convicted of Child Abuse Hopes fMRI Can Prove Her Innocence
• Don't Even Think About Lying
• Brain Scanners Know Where You've Been
• This Is Your Brain on Hillary: Political Neuroscience Hits New Low
• Religion: Biological Accident, Adaptation — or Both
• India's Judges Overrule Scientists on 'Guilty Brain' Tech

Image: flickr/Image Editor

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 | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:41 am

UK carbon targets 'too weak' to prevent dangerous climate change

Official advice being used to set Britain's first carbon budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change, experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research say

Proposed government carbon targets are too weak to prevent dangerous levels of global warming, according to a new analysis by leading scientists. Ministers are poised to introduce strict limits on UK carbon pollution when they announce Britain's first carbon budget next month. But experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research warn today that official advice used to set the budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change.

It comes after scientists at a global warming conference in Copenhagen last week warned that emissions are rising faster than expected, and that climate change could strike harder and faster than predicted.

The Tyndall Centre report analyses the conclusions of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which said in December that ministers should aim to cut UK carbon emissions 34% by 2020, as part of worldwide efforts to limit temperature rise to 2C.

The Tyndall scientists say the committee's report is "inevitably and significantly compromised" because it focuses on limiting temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, which the EU defines as dangerous. The committee was forced to use "highly optimistic and sometimes unclear assumptions" to hit the 2C target, they say.

Chief among these, they say, was that global emissions of greenhouse gases would peak in 2016, despite little evidence that such a U-turn in soaring emisions within seven years is "in any way viable". A peak of emissions in 2020, which the Tyndall Centre says is more realistic, would leave governments facing an impossible challenge to hit the 2C target, it adds.

"The CCC's first report is therefore inevitably and significantly compromised by its implicit need to deliver demanding but nonetheless politically palatable conclusions in line with the 2C threshold," the scientists say. "Peaking in 2020 would recast the agenda as much more radical and urgent, and well beyond the ability, even if applied stringently, of orthodox policies to deliver the necessary mitigation and adaptation."

The government should aim to cut emissions 42% by 2020 - the most stringent scenario in the CCC report - the Tyndall Centre says, and must make the cuts at home rather than buying offsets abroad. These proposals are backed by more than 90 Labour MPs – including four ministerial aides – in a parliamentary petition.

Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre said: "At a time when the message from Copenhagen is for urgent action and leadership, paying poorer communities elsewhere to make the reductions for the UK risks undermining seriously the government's hard-earned reputation as leading the international climate change agenda."

The findings of the report, commissioned by Friends of the Earth, will be presented at a special meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee today.

Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth's executive director, said: "This advice from one of the world's leading climate research centres cannot be ignored. If we are to play our part in avoiding dangerous climate change, the government must commit the UK to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 42 per cent by 2020 without buying pollution 'offsets' from abroad. The UK has one of the best renewable energy potentials in Europe. Investing in green power and cutting energy waste can create tens of thousands of jobs and help lead this country out of recession."

The CCC said: "The choice of peaking year was more determined by what we thought might be possible if a global deal was achieved in 2009. The CCC analysis drew upon, and cited, a number of studies which suggested that global emissions could peak around 2016 if the world dedicated sufficient intellectual and material resources towards solving the problem."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:05 am

If we behave as if it's too late, then our prophecy is bound to come true

However unlikely success might be, we can't afford to abandon efforts to cut emissions - we just don't have any better option

Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it's over. The years in which more than 2C of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we'll be lucky to get away with 4C. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can.

This, at any rate, was the repeated whisper at the climate change conference in Copenhagen last week. It's more or less what Bob Watson, the environment department's chief scientific adviser, has been telling the British government. It is the obvious if unspoken conclusion of scores of scientific papers. Recent work by scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, for instance, suggests that even global cuts of 3% a year, starting in 2020, could leave us with 4C of warming by the end of the century. At the moment, emissions are heading in the opposite direction at roughly the same rate. If this continues, what does it mean? Six? Eight? Ten degrees? Who knows?

Faced with such figures, I can't blame anyone for throwing up their hands. But before you succumb to this fatalism, let me talk you through the options.

Yes, it is true that mitigation has so far failed. Sabotaged by Clinton, abandoned by Bush, attended halfheartedly by the other rich nations, the global climate talks have so far been a total failure. The targets they have set bear no relation to the science and are negated anyway by loopholes and false accounting. Nations like the UK, which is meeting its obligations under the Kyoto protocol, have succeeded only by outsourcing their pollution to other countries. And nations like Canada, which is flouting its obligations, face no meaningful sanctions.

Lord Stern made it too easy: he appears to have underestimated the costs of mitigation. As the professor of energy policy Dieter Helm has shown, Stern's assumption that our consumption can continue to grow while our emissions fall is implausible. To have any hope of making substantial cuts we have both to reduce our consumption and transfer resources to countries like China to pay for the switch to low carbon technologies. As Helm notes, "there is not much in the study of human nature - and indeed human biology - to give support to the optimist".

But we cannot abandon mitigation unless we have a better option. We don't. If you think our attempts to prevent emissions are futile, take a look at our efforts to adapt.

Where Stern appears to be correct is in proposing that the costs of stopping climate breakdown, great as they would be, are far lower than the costs of living with it. Germany is spending €600m just on a new sea wall for Hamburg - and this money was committed before the news came through that sea-level rises this century could be two or three times as great as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted. The Netherlands will spend €2.2bn on dykes between now and 2015; again they are likely to be inadequate. The UN suggests that rich countries should be transferring $50 to $75bn a year to poor ones now to help them cope with climate change, with a massive increase later on. But nothing like this is happening.

A Guardian investigation reveals that the rich nations have promised $18bn to help the poor nations adapt to climate change over the last seven years, but they have disbursed only 5% of that money. Much of it has been transferred from foreign aid budgets anyway: a net gain for the poor of nothing. Oxfam has made a compelling case for how adaptation should be funded: nations should pay according to the amount of carbon they produce per capita, coupled with their position on the human development index. On this basis, the US should supply more than 40% of the money and the European Union over 30%, with Japan, Canada, Australia and Korea making up the balance. But what are the chances of getting them to cough up?

There's a limit to what this money could buy anyway. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that "global mean temperature changes greater than 4C above 1990-2000 levels" would "exceed ... the adaptive capacity of many systems". At this point there's nothing you can do, for instance, to prevent the loss of ecosystems, the melting of glaciers and the disintegration of major ice sheets. Elsewhere it spells out the consequences more starkly: global food production, it says, is "very likely to decrease above about 3C". Buy your way out of that.

And it doesn't stop there. The IPCC also finds that, above 3C of warming, the world's vegetation will become "a net source of carbon". This is just one of the climate feedbacks triggered by a high level of warming. Four degrees might take us inexorably to 5C or 6C: the end - for humans - of just about everything.

Until recently, scientists spoke of carbon concentrations - and temperatures - peaking and then falling back. But a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that "climate change ... is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop". Even if we were to cut carbon emissions to zero today, by the year 3000 our contribution to atmospheric concentrations would decline by just 40%. High temperatures would remain more or less constant until then. If we produce it, we're stuck with it.

In the rich nations we will muddle through, for a few generations, and spend nearly everything we have on coping. But where the money is needed most there will be nothing. The ecological debt the rich world owes to the poor will never be discharged, just as it has never accepted that it should offer reparations for the slave trade and for the pillage of gold, silver, rubber, sugar and all the other commodities taken without due payment from its colonies. Finding the political will for crash cuts in carbon production is improbable. But finding the political will - when the disasters have already begun - to spend adaptation money on poor nations rather than on ourselves will be impossible.

The world won't adapt and can't adapt: the only adaptive response to a global shortage of food is starvation. Of the two strategies it is mitigation, not adaptation, which turns out to be the most feasible option, even if this stretches the concept of feasibility to the limits. As Dieter Helm points out, the action required today is unlikely but "not impossible. It is a matter ultimately of human wellbeing and ethics".

Yes, it might already be too late - even if we reduced emissions to zero tomorrow - to prevent more than 2C of warming; but we cannot behave as if it is, for in doing so we make the prediction come true. Tough as this fight may be, improbable as success might seem, we cannot afford to surrender.

monbiot.com

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

A stiff test for the history books

At a 1983 lecture, Dr Giles Skey Brindley demonstrated that he could inject drugs into his penis and thereby cause an erection

Dr Giles Skey Brindley, FRCP, FRS, knows how to stand proud. At a 1983 Urodynamics Society lecture in Las Vegas, he demonstrated - with panache - that he could inject drugs into his penis and thereby cause an erection.

Brindley had developed the first effective treatment for what was then called "impotence" and today goes by the stiffer euphemism "erectile dysfunction". His appearance in Las Vegas ensured that the discovery would not go unnoticed.

Two decades later, Laurence Klotz, a University of Toronto urologist, wrote a firsthand account of his experience at that meeting. How (Not) to Communicate New Scientific Information: A Memoir of the Famous Brindley Lecture, graces the November 2005 issue of the urological journal BJU International.

Klotz reports: "[Brindley] indicated that, in his view, no normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be erotically stimulating or erection-inducing. He had, he said, therefore injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes to make it possible to exhibit the results...

"He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing. But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, 'I'd like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence.' With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row." And so on.

Brindley's activities range wide in science and medicine, and also in music. He invented a variety of bassoon, and in 1973 brought to bear many of his diverse interests in a study in the journal Nature called Speed of Sound in Bent Tubes and the Design of Wind Instruments.

The self-injection erection experiment entered the medical literature in 1986, in the March issue of the British Journal of Pharmacology, in the form of Brindley's treatise, Pilot Experiments on the Action of Drugs Injected Into the Human Corpus Cavernosum Penis. Brindley explains that: "Drugs were injected through a 0.5mm x 16mm needle into the right corpus cavernosum in the proximal third of the free penis. The penis was then massaged systematically to distribute the drug throughout both corpora cavernosa as follows..."

There follows a 307-word description of the drugs and massage technique.

The final word can be left to Klotz, who says: "Professor Brindley belongs in the pantheon of famous British eccentrics who have made spectacular contributions to science. The story of his lecture deserves a place in the urological history books."

(Thanks to Jean Monahan and Geneva Robertson for bringing this to my attention.)

• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

In their elements

Dinosaurs are one of the most successful groups of animals that ever lived, diversifying into an extraordinary range of species that occupied environmental niches on the land, in the sea and in the air.

The creatures emerged late in the Triassic period, around 225m years ago, and survived until their mass extinction 65m years ago. This huge breadth of time means many dinosaur species never saw each other.

The largest dinosaurs that walked on land were mostly sauropods and could be found almost anywhere in the world by the end of the Jurassic, 150m years ago. Some sauropods are thought to have weighed more than 130 tonnes and reached 50 metres long. Among the smallest dinosaurs were the tiny, feathered duck-like creatures called mei, meaning "sleeping dragon". Palaeontologists in China unearthed the first mei in 2004, and found it had died while taking a nap. Adults could weigh less than 100g.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

Canadian dig yields tiny dinosaur

The smallest meat-eating dinosaur ever found in North America has been identified from six tiny pelvic bones.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Mar 2009 | 11:56 pm

Egypt to open inner chambers of 'bent' pyramid (AP)

AP - Travelers to Egypt will soon be able to explore the inner chambers of the 4,500-year-old "bent" pyramid, known for its oddly shaped profile, and other nearby ancient tombs, Egypt's antiquities chief announced Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Mar 2009 | 11:37 pm

Cows Really Do Have a Magnetic Sixth Sense

For those of you disappointed to learn that cow tipping is just an urban legend, take heart: you can tell tall tales about how you once demagnetized a cow.

Satellite images of cattle and deer herds suggest that low-frequency magnetic fields disrupt the tendency of four-legged animals to align their bodies with geomagnetic fields.

When herds stand next to power lines, which emit a mild electromagnetic field, they point in different directions. In the absence of power lines, they point along a north-south axis.

The findings, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from the same biologists who used Google Earth images to identify a bovine north-south tendency. Some commentators dismissed those results, or said they didn't necessarily indicate a magnetic sixth sense.

"These findings constitute evidence for magnetic sensation in large mammals as well as evidence of an overt behavioral reaction to weak [extreme low-frequency magnetic fields] in vertebrates," write the researchers.

The next question: what are the cellular and molecular mechanisms used by the cows? Maybe salmon hold the answer.

Citation: "Extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields disrupt magnetic alignment of ruminants." By Hynek Burda, Sabine Begall, Jaroslav Cerveny, Julia Neef, and Pavel Nemec. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106, No. 11, March 16, 2009.

See Also:

• Hacking Salmon's Mental Compass to Save Endangered Fish
• Google Earth Reveals Sixth Sense of Cattle, Deer

Image: PNAS

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Mar 2009 | 11:32 pm

New North American Dinosaur Was Smaller Than Housecat

Scientists have described the smallest dinosaur in North America, and it was a carnivore.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Mar 2009 | 9:53 pm

Memory Switch Could Enable Brain Hacks

Forget the memory-boosting pills: In the future, powers of recall could be boosted with programs on a handheld PDA.

Researchers have found a telltale mental signature that predicts whether an experience will be remembered. Once deciphered, the signals could be used to help people know when their brains are primed to remember, perhaps using an iPhone app.

"Instead of looking at how the information is being processed, we're looking at how the brain prepares to process the information," said study co-author Emrah Duzel, a University College, London, neuroscientist. "It may be that the state we look at prepares the memory system for a relevant event."

Duzel's team found the signal in the medial temporal lobe, a region of the brain associated with memory formation. Exactly how medial temporal activation improves recall isn't understood, and researchers have only a vague idea of how memories are stored. As with most of the brain, memory researchers are like Eastern European hackers during the latter stages of the Cold War, trying to connect the mysterious circuitry of western computers to their functions.

Some researchers have found activity in the medial temporal lobe and other memory-processing centers when events are encoded. Other studies have found activation patterns that precede the formation of certain types of memories, such as verbal or visual.

But the new study, in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science on Monday, shows a signal that appears to precede the formation of any memory type. It could be an all-purpose memory switch, determining when the brain enters a favorable encoding state, roughly akin to the overwrite tab on an old-fashioned floppy disk.

"We can't constantly be in a state that's favorable to processing incoming information," said Duzel. "Maybe it's because we need to switch our neural systems beteween incoming information, and information that's already in the brain and needs to be processed further. In that instance, trying to figure out incoming information would disrupt internal processing."

Duzel's team used a magnetoencephalograph to record magnetic fluctuation in the brains of 24 test subjects performing a battery of memory tests. A fraction of a second before test subjects processed a prompt that was later recalled, they displayed heightened levels of so-called theta oscillations.

Theta waves are typically observed during REM sleep and moments of heightened alertness, and localized in the hippocampus — a center of navigational and short-term memory. But Duzel's team traced the oscillations to the medial temporal lobe.

"The fact that you can to some extent predict whether a person is going to remember a word before they've even seen it is quite remarkable," said University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist David Wolk, who was not involved in the study.

Some computer audio programs already offer to tweak brain rhythms, including theta oscillations, with sound. These are unproven, said Duzel, but a biofeedback approach, in which people can see their brain waves on a computer screen and learn how to control them, could work.

"We could measure the starting state, and then train subjects to enhance that particular amplitude," said Duzel. "When theta activation was high, they'd be more likely to remember information."

The hardware used to record electrophysiological signals is rapidly becoming more mobile, said Duzel.

"There's no reason not to believe that this is possible," he said. "It could be part of a PDA."

Citation: "Medial temporal theta state before an event predicts episodic encoding success in humans." By Sebastian Guderian, Bjorn H. Schott, Alan Richardson-Klavehn and Emrah Duzel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106, No. 11, March 16, 2009.

See Also:

• Brain Scanners Know Where You've Been
• Marijuana Could Be Good for Memory — But Not If You Get High
• Video: U.S. Memory Champ Helps You Program Your Memory
• Think You'd Remember the Face of Your Torturer? Think Again
• Seeing Red: Tweak Your Brain With Colors

Image: PNAS

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Mar 2009 | 9:05 pm

Don't Sweat: How to Deal with Stock Market Losses

Portfolio approach prevents loss aversion that results from looking at choices individually.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm

Climate 'Tipping Points' Weighed for Likelihood

Will Earth's climate pass the point of no return in the coming years? Scientists weigh in.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm

As Science Evolves, So Does Pluto

Pluto's status nowadays as a so-called plutoid and former planet may be official in the latest textbooks, but someone forgot to tell the astronomers.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Mar 2009 | 7:42 pm

Telescope Captures Grouping of Oddball Galaxy and Supernova

VLT captures oddball galaxy, supernova and asteroids in same image.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Mar 2009 | 7:39 pm

Future 'Bots: Robot-Human Convergence Begins

They are increasingly made in our image; yet their core technologies are changing us into entities more like them. They will "take care" of us; one way or the other...[Story]
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Mar 2009 | 7:10 pm

Climate confusion

Exactly who called for 'climate action' last week?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Mar 2009 | 6:53 pm

Prince Charles only hears the science he wants to hear

The heir to the throne pays attention to scientists when their findings match his own prejudices, otherwise he ignores them

The Prince of Wales made scientific headlines twice last week. First he was criticised by Professor Edzard Ernst, who was offended by the Prince's decision to sell a detox product. Such products are based on superstition rather than science, so according to Ernst: "Prince Charles thus financially exploits a gullible public in a time of financial hardship."

Then, a couple of days later, Prince Charles was himself quoted in a different scientific context. Speaking in Rio de Janeiro on the subject of climate change, he said:

"If we once more redouble our efforts to unite the world in meeting perhaps its greatest and most crucial challenge, then we may yet be able to prevail. And thereby to avoid bequeathing a poisoned chalice to our children and grandchildren we only have 100 months to act."

I do not understand why "100 months" is a key time frame, but on the issue of climate change, it seems as if Prince Charles listens to scientists and promotes the view backed by the overwhelming evidence, namely that global warming is real, it is largely caused by manmade greenhouse gas emissions, and we are in trouble unless we do something about it.

But on the issue of detox (and alternative medicine more generally), the Prince of Wales seems to ignore scientists. When Ernst and I wrote Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, we dedicated it to HRH The Prince of Wales and pointed out that there is no reliable evidence in favour of detox and many forms of alternative medicine. Nevertheless, he continues to promote all sorts of odd and unproven remedies.

So why does Prince Charles listen to scientists in relation to climate change, but not listen to them in relation to alternative medicine? My suspicion is that he never really pays attention to any scientists and has no real understanding of how science works. Instead, he has a set of firm prejudices, and if the science backs up the prejudice then great, and if it does not then the science must be wrong.

Instead of listening to his own voices, it would be better if Prince Charles began to listen to the scientific experts. After all, scientific expertise has to trump royal intuition. This view was most eloquently expressed by Professor Michael Baum, a cancer specialist at University College London who also had a spat with Prince Charles:

"The power of my authority comes with a knowledge built on 40 years of study and 25 years of active involvement in cancer research. Your power and authority rest on an accident of birth."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 16 Mar 2009 | 6:08 pm

Glitch delays Russian launch of European satellite

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday postponed the launch of its most sophisticated Earth observation satellites to date because of a technical glitch at a Russian cosmodrome, ESA's spokesman told Reuters.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Mar 2009 | 5:37 pm

See the Shuttle Chase the Space Station From Your Backyard Tonight

As the Space Shuttle Discovery pursues the International Space Station, parts of North America and Europe will have a chance to see the double flyby Monday night.

People in the United States and Canada can check to see if they will have a view with SpaceWeather.com's satellite tracker.

Discovery was originally scheduled to launch on February 27, but was delayed due to mechanical problems with its control valves. The mission was rescheduled for March 11, but again delayed due to a hydrogen leak. After the entire venting system associated with the link was replaced, Discovery successfully launched Sunday evening. The seven-person crew, including the first Japanese astronaut to be a long-term resident of the space station, is on its way to dock at the space station on Tuesday at 5:13 Eastern time.

The shuttle is carrying a segment of the space station's main support truss. Eight more flights are needed to complete the truss, which will be 335 feet long. The astronauts will also deliver the final set of solar panels, which will double the power available for scientific research.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Mar 2009 | 5:35 pm

Crisis hampers EU wind power in short-term: lobby

MARSEILLE (Reuters) - The economic downturn is delaying wind power projects in the European Union but the negative impact will not last because of strong sector fundamentals, a European wind power lobby said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Mar 2009 | 5:05 pm

NASA Reaching Out to Youth One Tweet at a Time

NASA turns to social networking tools like Twitter to try and appeal to younger generations.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 5:04 pm

No mutation in suspect fish from Canada oil region

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A fish that made a stir last year with an apparent mutation that critics of Canada's oil sands industry blamed on pollution was not mutated at all, a scientist said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Mar 2009 | 4:31 pm

Jurassic sea monster surfaces in Norway

The giant meat-eating reptile, known as a pliosaur, had a bite four times as powerful as T. rex. The second creature, on the other hand, may be the least scary dinosaur ever discovered

The remains of a giant meat-eating sea monster that patrolled the oceans during the reign of the dinosaurs have been unearthed on an island in the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

Norwegian fossil hunters recovered the rear half of the formidable reptile's skull in south-west Spitsbergen in what has been described as one of the most significant Jurassic discoveries ever made.

The predator has been identified as a new species of pliosaur, a group of extinct aquatic reptiles that had huge skulls, short necks and four flippers to power them through the water.

Measurements of the partial skull and 20,000 other bone fragments uncovered at the site showed that the creature was at the top of the food chain, preying on squid, fish and other marine reptiles.

The pliosaur's head was twice as big as that of a Tyrannosaurus rex and was filled with an impressive set of 12-inch teeth. Palaeontologists estimate the beast was 15 metres long, weighed 45 tonnes and hunted the oceans 147 million years ago.

"This is really big. We have parts of the lower jaw that are huge compared with anything we've ever seen," said Espen Madsen Knutsen, a palaeontologist on the team at the University of Oslo that studied the creature. "It could have eaten anything it came across."

Researchers got their first glimpse of the beast's remains on the last day of an expedition in 2007, during which they uncovered bones from a smaller pliosaur. Jørn Hurum at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum, who led the expedition, noticed some large bones sticking out of the ground. The team marked the site, took a GPS reading of the location, and returned last August to excavate the remains.

Hurum's team was stunned to find the remains were from a larger pliosaur than any uncovered to date. They have spent recent months cleaning and measuring the bone fragments to build up a picture of how the creature would have looked when it was alive.

Among the remains, the team noticed a spherical bone, called a basioccipital condyle, found in all mammals and reptiles that joins the base of the skull to the spinal cord. The bone measured 15cm across, making it the largest of any pliosaur known, and twice the size of the same bone in T. rex.

To find out how the beast moved in the water, they called in Frank Fish, an expert on the biomechanics of flippers, at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Using a wind tunnel, they reconstructed the forces that the creature's huge flippers generated and found that it probably cruised the oceans using its front two flippers only, deploying all four to lunge forwards and take its prey by surprise.

Using a CT (computed tomography) scanner on loan from the Natural History Museum in London, another team member, Patrick Druckenmiller from the University of Alaska, created a three dimensional image of the beast's brain, which showed it was small and elongated, similar to that of a great white shark.

The team then travelled to Florida's St Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Park to join evolutionary biologist Greg Erickson from Florida State University to work out how powerful the creature's bite was. Calculations based on the animal's jaw bones suggest it could have bitten into its prey with a force of 150 kilonewtons, or four times the force thought to be exerted by the jaws of a T. rex.

The discovery was announced as Canadian experts unveiled their own remarkable finding, the fossilised remains of what may have been the least fearsome predator ever to stalk the continent.

The carnivorous dinosaur, the smallest ever found in what is now North America, was the size of a small, skinny chicken, ran about on two legs wielding razor-sharp claws, and had an enlarged sickle-shaped claw on its second toe.

"It was half the size of a domestic cat and probably hunted and ate whatever it could for its size," said Nick Longrich, a palaeontologist at the University of Calgary, who led the expedition. Among its prey would have been insects, small mammals, amphibians and possibly small dinosaurs that lived in the swamps and forests of the late Cretaceous.

The remains of the diminutive dinosaur, called Hesperonychus, were excavated at the 75m-year-old Dinosaur Park Formation site in Alberta in 1982, but had lain unstudied for 25 years. When Longrich began studying the bones, he suspected they were from juveniles because they were so small, but closer inspection revealed them to be from adults, according to a report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Its discovery just emphasises how little we actually know, and it raises the possibility that there are even smaller ones out there," said Longrich.

"Small carnivorous dinosaurs seemed to be completely absent from the environment, which seemed bizarre because today the small carnivores outnumber the big ones. It turns out that they were here and they played a more important role in the ecosystem than we realised. For the past 100 years, we've overlooked a major part of North America's dinosaur community," Longrich said.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 16 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

NASA Eyes Debris as Shuttle Nears Space Station

To dodge space debris, the International Space Station may have to fire its engines.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 3:10 pm

Was Cleopatra Part African?

A new documentary claims Cleopatra was not entirely Greek.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Ozone Linked to Deadly Lung Disease

Long-term exposure to ozone raises the risk of dying from lung disease by 30 percent.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 2:15 pm

Sea Level Rise to Affect NYC, Northeast Most

New York's coasts will experience twice the sea level rise as the rest of the world.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 2:10 pm

Hippo Sweat Offers Key to Natural Sunscreen

An oily secretion keeps hippos safe from the sun. Can scientists put it in a bottle?
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 16 Mar 2009 | 2:09 pm

Esa's Goce gravity satellite launches

European Space Agency to make another attempt to launch 'Ferrari' of satellites that will measure gravity around the Earth and help scientists understand how oceans are changing as the planet heats up

Space engineers will make another attempt to fire Europe's gravity mapping satellite, Gravity and Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce), into orbit today. The probe's launch was suspended only seven seconds from blast off yesterday when controllers at the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Arkangel in north-west Russia suspended countdown.

Now mission specialists say they have fixed the fault that led to the delay and will launch the craft at 15.21 CET today.

European Space Agency said launch controllers had suspended the countdown when the tower protecting its SS-19 launcher failed to move clear to allow blast-off.

The satellite is scheduled to map tiny variations in Earth's gravity and reveal new data about the circulation of heat in the oceans. It is not known yet why the delay was ordered - or how long the launch will remain postponed.

It has been described as one of the most stylish, and important, satellites ever built by European scientists. The 16ft torpedo-shaped probe – the Gravity and Ocean Circulation Explorer, or Goce – will be blasted into space on a Russian SS-19 missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome near Arkangel.

Once in orbit the £200m satellite – constructed by the European Space Agency, Esa - will swoop over the atmosphere to measure Earth's gravity with unprecedented accuracy. The data it returns will be vital to scientists trying to understand the impact of climate change on Earth, and in particular for climate researchers who are seeking to understand how oceans transport heat around the planet.

"Gravity varies depending where you are on the planet," says Professor Marek Ziebert, of University College, London. "And those variations have an effect on how the oceans circulate. Goce will provide crucial information that will allow us to gain a new understanding of how the oceans behave."

But Goce is also distinctive because of its elegant design and its covering of silver-blue solar cells. It has been labelled the Ferrari of space probes by its manufacturers, Thales Alenia Space Italia while Volker Liebig, Director of Earth Observation Programmes at Esa described the craft as "a jewel of innovations".

Liebig added that Goce has been designed to fly at an extremely low orbit, just 250km (155 miles) above Earth, where it will encounter friction from the thin atmosphere: "For this reason it has an eye-catching aerodynamic shape and will actively compensate for the air drag by using the finely controlled thrust of its ion engine."

The probe's T5 ion rocket was built by QinetiQ in the UK and will be fired constantly throughout its 20-month mission in order to keep Goce in its correct orbit. At the same time, computers will send 10 messages a second to its engines to ensure the probe orbits at the right height. Goce will also use GPS devices to plot its exact position and a gradiometer, a machine that can detect fluctuations of a million millionth in Earth's gravity.

This data will then be transmitted daily and used to build a model of Earth's shape, one that is accurate to within a centimetre, as well as putting together a highly accurate gravity map of the planet. "Gravity is the force that drives the circulation of the oceans," added Dr Mark Drinkwater, Goce's project scientist. "Until we understand its exact role we cannot predict how the seas — and planet — will behave as the climate gets warmer. That is why Goce is being launched."

Ocean currents take a third of all the heat that falls on equatorial regions and carry it to higher latitudes. One of the most important currents is the Gulf Stream, which scientists fear could be destroyed or diverted by melting Arctic ice. But they need to know all the gravitational effects that influence the stream's course across the Atlantic before they can make accurate predictions.

The problem is that Earth's gravity is not constant. The planet is flattened at the poles, for example, so gravity is stronger there, and weaker at the equator. Gas fields, mineral deposits, groundwater reservoirs and rock strata also produce variations in gravity.

"There are all sorts of wiggles and bumps in Earth's gravity field," said Dr Chris Hughes, of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool. "Each will influence ocean currents, which have a crucial role in moving heat around the world. If we are to understand how climate change is going to affect the planet, we have to have a precise picture of its gravity field.

Once we combine the data we will get from Goce with observations of sea height and ocean current flow — information that is provided by other satellites — we will get a clear idea of what our oceans are doing. Then we will get a better picture of how the seas are changing as the world heats up."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 16 Mar 2009 | 1:53 pm