Liking Sweets Makes Sense For Kids

New research indicates that this heightened liking for sweetness has a biological basis and is related to children's high growth rate. The findings suggest that sweet preferences decline during adolescence as physical growth slows and eventually stops.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

New Method For Detecting Explosives

Scientists have discovered a way to sensitively detect explosives based on the physical properties of their vapors. Their technology is currently being developed into prototype devices for field testing.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Female Mammals Follow Their Noses To The Right Mates

Historically, most examples of female mate choice and its evolutionary consequences are found in birds. But that doesn't mean mammals aren't just as choosy, researchers say. It just means that mammal mate preferences may be harder to spot.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Scientists Closer To Understanding How To Control High Blood Sugar

Scientists are closer to understanding which proteins help control blood sugar, or glucose, during and after exercise. This understanding could lead to new drug therapies or more effective exercise to prevent type 2 diabetes and other health problems associated with having high blood sugar.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Language Of Music Really Is Universal, Study Finds

Native African people who have never even listened to the radio before can nonetheless pick up on happy, sad, and fearful emotions in Western music, according to a new article. The result shows that the expression of those three basic emotions in music can be universally recognized, the researchers said.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Acetaldehyde In Alcohol: 'Hangover Chemical' May Be Overlooked Risk Factor For Cancer

New evidence shows that drinking alcohol is the greatest risk factor for acetaldehyde-related cancer. Heavy drinkers may be at increased risk due to exposure from multiple sources. The research team also noted, that this risk is compounded by the addition of acetaldehyde exposure from different sources.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Teeth Of Columbus' Crew Flesh Out Tale Of New World Discovery

The adage that dead men tell no tales has long been disproved by archaeology. Now, however, science is taking interrogation of the dead to new heights. In a study that promises fresh and perhaps personal insight into the earliest European visitors to the New World, researchers are extracting the chemical details of life history from the teeth of crew members Christopher Columbus left on the island of Hispaniola after his second voyage to America in 1493-94.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Nanoscopic Probes Can Track Down And Attack Cancer Cells

A researcher has developed probes that can help pinpoint the location of tumors and might one day be able to directly attack cancer cells. The professor of agricultural and biological engineering developed the nanoscale, multi-functional probes, which have antibodies on board, to search out and attach to cancer cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Cellular Discovery May Lead To Targeted Treatment For Rare Form Of Anemia

University of Cincinnati researchers have identified the specific biological mechanisms believed to lead to a rare and incurable blood disease known as Diamond Blackfan anemia. Scientists say with further investigation, their discoveries could result in drastic changes to current thinking about treatment for this disease and may lead to promising new drug therapies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Blocked Enzyme Reverses Schizophrenia-like Symptoms

Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have found that inhibiting a key brain enzyme in mice reversed schizophrenia-like symptoms.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Space station's new wings about to get stretched (AP)

AP - The international space station's newly installed solar wings are about to get stretched.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:17 pm

More People in Love Than Previously Thought

A new study found that romantic love can stand the test of time.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:15 pm

Robotic "Eye-Cyte" May Bring Vision to Blind People

Neural messages sent by cyber-circuits may supply artificial vision. Such "cyber-sight" devices will likely shrink to cellular-size.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:07 pm

Caves Reveal Evolution of Ancient Microbes

Scientists explore caves to study the Earth’s history, as they dream of traveling back in time. In this case, to the Precambrian.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:04 pm

Genetics Should Decide Warfarin Dose, Study Reiterates (HealthDay)

HealthDay - FRIDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have confirmed previously reported genetic factors that may help doctors more accurately prescribe the proper dosage of the blood thinner warfarin to people at high risk of cardiovascular problems.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:03 pm

Report: Nearly all native birds in Hawaii in peril (AP)

AP - Hawaii's native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state's birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 12:18 pm

India buys Israeli spy satellite: report (AFP)

AFP - India has bought a spy satellite from Israel with day-and-night viewing capability to boost surveillance capabilities in the aftermath of the Mumbai militant attacks, a report said Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 12:06 pm

Report: Energy contributing to birds' decline (AP)

AP - Energy production of all types — wind, ethanol and mountaintop coal mining — is contributing to steep drops in bird populations, a new government report says.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 12:04 pm

Rare reptile hatchling found in New Zealand

With its unique jaw, 'third eye' and dinosaur lineage, the tuatara was thought to be extinct on the New Zealand mainland

A hatchling of a rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found in the wild on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, a wildlife official said yesterday.

The baby tuatara was discovered by staff during routine maintenance work at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital, Wellington, said conservation manager Raewyn Empson.

"We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery," added Empson. "It means we have successfully re-established a breeding population back on the mainland, which is a massive breakthrough for New Zealand conservation."

Tuatara, which measure up to 80cm (32in) when fully grown, are the last descendants of a lizard-like reptile species that walked the Earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago, zoologists say.

There are estimated to be about 50,000 of them living in the wild on 32 small offshore islands cleared of predators, but this is the first time a hatchling has been seen on the mainland in about 200 years.

The New Zealand natives were nearly extinct on the country's three main islands by the late 1700s due to the introduction of predators such as rats.

Empson said the hatchling is thought to be about one month old and likely came from an egg laid about 16 months ago. Two nests of eggs the size of ping pong balls were unearthed in the sanctuary last year and tuatara were expected to hatch around this time.

"He is unlikely to be the only baby to have hatched this season, but seeing him was an incredible fluke," she said.

The youngster faces a tough journey to maturity despite being in the 250 hectare (620-acre) sanctuary and protected by a predator-proof fence. It will have to run from the cannibalistic adult tuatara, and would make a tasty snack for birds of prey, Empson said.

"Like all the wildlife living here, he'll just have to take his chances," Empson said.

"They've been extinct on the mainland for a long time," said Lindsay Hazley, tuatara curator at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery on South Island. He added that "you can breed tuatara by eliminating risk, but to have results like this among many natural predators (like native birds) is a positive sign."

About 200 tuatara have been released since 2005 into the Karori Sanctuary, which was established to breed native birds, insects and other creatures.

Tuatara have unique characteristics, such as two rows of top teeth closing over one row at the bottom and a parietal eye, a dot on the top of the skull that is believed to be light-sensitive and is sometimes referred to as the animal's third eye.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Mar 2009 | 11:57 am

Major Pacific earthquake (AFP)

AFP - A major 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook the South Pacific nation of Tonga Friday and sent people in low lying areas of Fiji fleeing for higher ground after a tsunami warning, officials said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 11:49 am

Spacewalkers bolt in power unit

Astronauts install the final truss, or backbone segment, to the International Space Station.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 10:16 am

UK team builds robot fish to detect pollution

LONDON (Reuters) - Robot fish developed by British scientists are to be released into the sea off north Spain to detect pollution.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 10:11 am

Pink elephant is caught on camera

A wildlife cameraman captures images of a rare baby pink African elephant in northern Botswana.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 9:17 am

Earth Watch

Conservationists seek happy ending in Madagascar
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 8:53 am

Researchers find gene that turns carbs into fat

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have found a gene responsible for turning a plate of pasta into fat, offering new clues about how the body metabolizes carbohydrates and how they contribute to obesity.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:16 am

"Ecstasy" may help PTSD victims get better

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The drug MDMA -- better known as the illegal recreational drug "Ecstasy" -- may help people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recover, a Norwegian research team suggests.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:11 am

Maggots no wonder cure for festering wounds

LONDON (Reuters) - Putting flesh-eating maggots into open wounds may not be such a great idea after all.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:09 am

Spacewalkers hook up station's solar power wings

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two visiting space shuttle astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Thursday to hook up a final set of solar panel wings to bring the orbital outpost to full power.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:07 am

Spacewalkers hook up station's solar power wings (Reuters)

Reuters - Two visiting space shuttle astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Thursday to hook up a final set of solar panel wings to bring the orbital outpost to full power.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:07 am

Port awaits liquid gas delivery

The first giant tanker carrying super-cooled gas from the Middle East to one of two new terminals in Pembrokeshire is due to dock.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 2:24 am

Fossil puzzle reveals a new monster predator (AFP)

AFP - The fossils of a monster predator with a circular jaw and a pair of claws on its head has been discovered in the old collections of the Smithsonian museum in Washington, researchers said Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Mar 2009 | 10:53 pm

Citizen Science Is for the Birds

Citizen scientists are about to become more important than ever to the future of America's birds.

The first federal State of the Birds report was released Thursday, marking the beginning of an unprecedented collaboration between government researchers and conservation groups — and the underlying data comes from you.

"The data that goes into this report is by and large not collected by a few tin-head scientists or conservation organizations, but by millions of individuals," said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology. "We can begin to put together spectacularly massive databases that show us, in great detail with fine-grained scope, what the trends are."

The trends identified by the report are generally known. Hundreds of bird species are threatened by habitat loss, pollution and climate change. But in other ways, the report is novel. "It's a break from the one-institution, or handful-of-institution, approach," said Cornell University ornithologist Andrew Farnsworth. "This kind of partnership hasn't happened before."

That collaboration, said Farnsworth, will magnify the utility of bird data that's already being gathered by thousands of Americans every year. More than 93,000 people participated in this year's annual Great Backyard Bird Count, counting 11 million birds over four days in February. Tens of thousands of other people contribute millions of sighting records year-round to efforts like the Avian Knowledge Network, eBird, the Landbird Monitoring Network, HawkCount and Project Feederwatch. All that's needed are binoculars, a bird book and a notepad.

(With any luck, these records will soon be joined by six million notecards housed in a United States Geological Survey cabinet and containing migratory records dating back to the nineteenth century. Using an online entry form, volunteers can turn scanned cards into database entries, bringing the invaluable dataset into the 21st century.)

As conservation groups are called together by the federal government, that data will be shared between researchers and used to guide future policy decisions.

"Millions of people are actively going out and looking at birds on daily basis," said Farnsworth. "The strength of that exists already, and it's going to get more powerful because of the collaboration. "

"The time has come for us to take bold actions at the scale of the threat that we face," said Fitzpatrick — and those actions will be guided "by information from citizen science."

Image: Flickr/Keven Law

See Also:

• Open Data: Help Migratory Bird Observations Fly into the Digital Age
• The Colorful Tale of Chernobyl's Irradiated Birds
• Sex-Changing Chemicals Make Male Starlings Sing Sweet Songs
• Early Birds Get the Babes
• Birds, Humans Increasingly on Collision Course

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 19 Mar 2009 | 10:42 pm

Crawling the Web to Foretell Ecosystem Collapse

The Interwebs could become an early warning system for when the web of life is about to fray.

By trawling scientific list-serves, Chinese fish market websites, and local news sources, ecologists think they can use human beings as sensors by mining their communications.

"If we look at coral reefs, for example, the Internet may contain information that describes not only changes in the ecosystem, but also drivers of change, such as global seafood markets," said Tim Daw, an ecologist at the UK's University of East Anglia in a press release about his team's new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

The six billion people on Earth are changing the biosphere so quickly that traditional ecological methods can't keep up. Humans, though, are acute observers of their environments and bodies, so scientists are combing through the text and numbers on the Internet in hopes of extracting otherwise unavailable or expensive information. It's more crowd mining than crowd sourcing.

Much of the pioneering work in this type of Internet surveillance has come in the public health field, tracking disease. Google Flu Trends, which uses a cloud of keywords to determine how sick a population is, tracks epidemiological data from the Centers for Disease Control. Less serious projects — like this map of a United Kingdom snowstorm based on Tweets about snow — have also had some success tracking the real world.

These research efforts seem to indicate that people are good sensors, but pulling the information from what they post in human-readable formats and transforming it into quantitative models of the world is tough. The Global Public Health Intelligence Network has developed an epidemic warning system that pulls in data from news wires, web sites, and public health mailing lists. The GPHIN, which is probably the most advanced and uses highly variegated information, only picks up on about 40 percent of the 200 to 250 outbreaks that the World Health Organization investigates each year.

Nonetheless, Daw and and his co-authors from the  Stockholm Univeristy Resilience Centre, say traditional ecological monitoring has its problems, too. Humans can make huge changes to ecosystems faster than the standard methods of data collection can keep up.

"The challenge is that existing monitoring systems are not at all in tune with the speed of social, economical and ecological changes," the researchers write on their blog.

By looking at human data, not just fisheries and ecological readings, they think they'll be able to detect ecosystem tipping points  before they happen.

"Web crawlers can collect information on the drivers of ecosystem change, rather than the resultant ecological responses," they write. "For example, if rapidly emerging markets for high value species are known to be socio-economic drivers which lead to overexploitation and collapse of a fishery, web crawlers can be designed to collect information on rapid changes in prices, landings or investments."

But right now, their plans remain theoretical, and while scraping data seems easy enough, turning it into knowledge is another story. John Brownstein, a Harvard bioinformaticist and co-founder of HealthMap, which does for disease what Daw wants to do for ecology, said that applying the framework to ecology could work.

"There's no reason it can't be done," Brownstein said. "The only difference is that this is more difficult. The media and other sources are sensitive and fine-tuned to things like human disease. The threshold for the reporting of a mysterious disease is different from the threshold for an ecological phenomenon."

In other words, while reporters (or Tweeters) will include individual-level death data in human stories, massive die-offs or flora changes could very well go unnoticed and probably unquantified.

And even with disease data, there are serious signal-to-noise challenges. In a paper that Brownstein co-authored last week, he showed that monitoring search terms for disease indicators could have tipped officials off to a deadly outbreak of listeriosis in Canada. But spotting emergent diseases instead of ones that have already caused major damage is a more challenging proposition.

"It's so tough to figure out why people search for specific information," he said.

See Also:

• Scientists Mimic Beetle's Liquid Cannon
• Mapping a Redwood Forest with LIDAR
• Climate Change Threatens Aquarium Favorite
• To Save Animals, Put a Price on Them
• States Fight Pharmaceutical Industry Data Mining
• Google Launches Medical-Records App
• Crowdsourcing the Flu Vaccine
• Google.Org Spends $14 Million to Battle Pandemics

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 | 19 Mar 2009 | 10:28 pm

NASA: Environmental disaster avoided on ozone loss (AP)

AP - Here's rare good news about an environmental crisis: We dodged disaster with the ozone layer. A NASA study about ozone-munching chemicals from aerosol sprays and refrigeration used a computer model to play a game of what-if. What if the world 22 years ago didn't agree to cut back on chlorofluorocarbons which cause a seasonal ozone hole to form near the South Pole?
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Mar 2009 | 9:09 pm

Mars Orbiter Spies Rust Deposits

ESA's Mars Express finds concentration of rust in Aram Chaos crater.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 8:31 pm

How to Survive the Coming California Earthquake

For the past several thousand years, there has been a major earthquake south of the San Gabriel Mountains in California every 150 or so. The last one was 300 years ago, just before farming, gold, tourism and technology exploded the human population.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 8:19 pm

Bronx Zoo Fights for Funding with Video Starring Porcupine (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - The agency in charge of the Bronx Zoo has released a video starring a porcupine named Wednesday to rally support for full funding of New York State's zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums in fiscal year 2010.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Mar 2009 | 7:14 pm

Bronx Zoo Fights for Funding with Video Starring Porcupine

A NYC-based zoo agency has released a video starring a porcupine to convince state legislators to fully fund zoos in 2010.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:43 pm

Carbon Nanotube Muscles Strong as Diamond, Flexible as Rubber

For the next installment of the Terminator franchise, Hollywood might skip the polymimetic liquid alloys — they're so 2003 — and turn to the laboratory of Ray Baughman, who has created a next-generation muscle from carbon nanotubes.

Baughman and his colleagues have produced a formulation that's stronger than steel, as light as air and more flexible than rubber — a truly 21st century muscle. It could be used to make artificial limbs, "smart" skins, shape-changing structures, ultra-strong robots and — in the immediate future — highly-efficient solar cells.

"We can generate about 30 times the force per unit area of natural muscle," said Baughman, director of the NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Carbon nanotubes have fascinated material scientists since the early 1990s, when researchers started to explore the ultra-light, ultra-strong cylindrical molecules. Though bulk manufacturing difficulties have slowed the development of commercial applications, carbon nanotubes are already used in bicycle components, and in prototypes of airplanes, bulletproof clothing, transistors, and ropes that might someday be used to tether a space elevator. (On a historical note, carbon nanotube-infused steel was used to made Damascus blades, renowned as history's sharpest swords, though the technique has been lost.)

Baughman became interested in carbon nanotubes while designing artificial muscles from energy-conducting polymers. He figured he could do the job better with linked carbon nanotubes. First he made haphazard tangles of fibers activated by charged liquids. Then he experimented with more structurally-consistent configurations, and other methods of delivering the charge.

His latest muscle, described Thursday in Science, is made from bundles of vertically aligned nanotubes that respond directly to electricity. Lengthwise, the muscle can expand and contract with tremendous speed; from side-to-side, it's super-stiff. Its possibilities may only be limited by the imaginations of engineers.

"This apparently unprecedented degree of anisotropy" — direction-dependent physical properties — "is akin to having diamond-like behavior in one direction, and rubber-like behavior in the others," wrote John Madden, a University of British Columbia material scientist, in an accompanying commentary.

Baughman's muscles rely on the tendency of an electric charge to make carbon nanotube fibers repel or attract each other, depending on their configuration.

Natural muscles, said Baughman, contract at a maximum rate of 10 percent per second. In the same amount of time, his latest nanotube sheaths can contract by 40,000 percent. Because it responds to an electrical current rather than ion movement in electrolytic liquids, it's far more efficient than his old formulations.

The nanotube bundles retain their properties at temperatures ranging from the -320 degree Fahrenheit of liquid nitrogen to the 2800 degree Fahrenheit melting point of iron.

The first applications, said Baughman, will likely be as wrappers for solar cells, with nanotubes conducting electricity and rapidly changing shape in order to produce optimally light-sensitive arrangements.

"We've characterized the activity and performance," he said. "Now we want to use them."

Citations: "Giant-Stroke, Superelastic Carbon Nanotube Aerogel Muscles." By Ali E. Aliev, Jiyoung Oh, Mikhail E. Kozlov, Alexander A. Kuznetsov, Shaoli Fang, Alexandre F. Fonseca, Raquel Ovalle, Márcio D. Lima, Mohammad H. Haque, Yuri N. Gartstein, Mei Zhang, Anvar A. Zakhidov, Ray H. Baughman. Science, Vol. 323 Issue 5921, March 19, 2009.

"Stiffer Than Steel." By John D. W. Madden. Science, Vol. 323 Issue 5921, March 19, 2009.

Image and Videos: Ray Baughman

See Also:

• German Researchers Create Nano-Scale Basis of ... Life?
• Nano-Scale Glassblowing Makes DNA Funnel
• The Smallest Welding Job Ever
• Nanobama: World's Tiniest Candidate Portrait
• Tools Needed to Study Nanotech Safety

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:24 pm

Genesis for Exploding Stars Confirmed

Before and after images reveal that red supergiant stars are responsible for Type II supernovas.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:13 pm

Spinal cord device helped mice with Parkinson's

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A spinal cord stimulator helped rodents with Parkinson's disease move more easily, offering the hope of a less-invasive way of treating the disease in humans, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:02 pm

Ancient Creature Was a Miniature Monster

Fossil fragments though to be separate creatures actually pieced together into monster sea predator.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:01 pm

BLOG: T-Rex of the Cambrian Sea

Meet Hurdia, one of the most unusual predators ever to roam the seas.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Spinal stimulation could eliminate Parkinson's symptoms

Symptoms of Parkinson's disease in mice disappeared when their brains were stimulated via spinal electrodes

A ground-breaking medical device that eliminates the symptoms of Parkinson's disease by electrically stimulating the brain could be tested in humans as early as next year, according to scientists working on the project.

The device has produced dramatic improvements in mice with a Parkinson's-like disease, raising hopes that it could transform the lives of the four million people worldwide who have the devastating condition.

In tests, mice that suffered constant tremors and were barely able to walk because of the disease started moving around, groomed themselves and began eating and drinking normally when the device was switched on.

"If we see the same effect in people as we see in rodents, then Parkinson's patients will be able to walk and move around the way they could before the disease came on. This could lead to a very dramatic improvement in their quality of life," said Miguel Nicolelis, the neuroscientist who led the study at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Nicolelis is one of the world's leading researchers on "brain-machine interfaces". In recent years, he has developed brain implants that can read people's thoughts, allowing them to move cursors on a screen and even use artificial limbs. Such devices are expected to lead to a new generation of mind-controlled prosthetics for the severely disabled.

Nicolelis got the idea for the latest device after studying brain activty in mice that had been bred to develop a disease very similar to Parkinson's disease. In humans, Parkinson's disease occurs when neurons that produce a vital brain chemical called dopamine die off.

Nicolelis noticed that as the disease progressed in the animals, vast numbers of neurons in two regions of the brain started firing at the same time. The abnormal activity looked almost identical to activity in a brain that is having an epileptic seizure.

Ten years ago, Nicolelis had found that he could stop epileptic fits by sending pulses of electricity up the spinal cord and into the part of the brain where the seizures were happening. He decided to test whether the same technique could have an affect on Parkinson's disease.

In the lab, Nicolelis's team videoed mice with Parkinson's-like disease and noticed that as the disease progressed, they developed severe tremors and their movements became ever more rigid. The researchers then implanted tiny electrodes into the vertebrae between the animals' shoulder blades and applied pulses of electricity. Moments after receiving the electric pulses, the mice began walking around, sniffing their cage and behaving normally.

When the current was switched off, the mice became severely disabled again.

Writing in the US journal Science, Nicolelis describes how the electrodes are placed in such a way that electrical signals are sent up into the brain, where they disrupt the abnormal activity caused by disease.

Patients with Parkinson's disease are usually treated with a drug called L-Dopa, which replaces missing dopamine in the brain. But over time many patients find the drug becomes less effective. In extreme cases, they can be treated with "deep brain stimulation", which involves major surgery to implant fine wires into the brain.

Nicolelis's research suggests it may be possible to control the symptoms of Parkinson's disease more easily, and with less drastic surgery, by sending electrical pulses along spinal cord nerves and into the brain. The stimulation would cause a tingling sensation, Nicolelis told the Guardian, but the brain would soon adapt to this, in the same way we become used to having clothes rubbing against our skin.

The team is now testing the technique at a lab in Brazil to see if it works in primates. If the experiments are successful, the device could be cleared for clinical trials in humans next year.

"If we can demonstrate that the device is safe and effective over the long term in primates and then humans, virtually every patient could be eligible for this treatment in the near future," Nicolelis said.

Dr Kieran Breen, director of research and development at the Parkinson's Disease Society, said: "Deep brain stimulation can be very effective in the treatment of some people with Parkinson's, but it is very invasive to the brain and can cause side effects. This new study suggests that it may be possible to stimulate the nerves in the spine to send an electrical signal up into the brain with a similar effect to that seen in DBS, without being as invasive."

"These initial studies have been carried out in animals," he added, "but if they become possible for people with Parkinson's, it could greatly increase the range of treatment options available for the condition. An operation of this kind would cost significantly less than DBS, so is likely to be more widely available."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 19 Mar 2009 | 6:00 pm

Trees of life

'Without trees, there would be no village'
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Mar 2009 | 5:52 pm

Unemployed Porcupine Copes with Draconian Budget Cuts

The continuing saga of Wednesday the Porcupine, recently laid-off from her vital job educating, illuminating and intellectually entertaining thousands of New Yorkers each day.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 5:27 pm

How Overweight Are Firefighters and Paramedics?

Fire fighters are still our heroes, but a new study raises concerns about their health and mobility.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Mar 2009 | 5:13 pm

Lightest Material Made Into Powerful Muscle

A new material, made of 99.8 percent air, is stronger than stainless steel.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 5:00 pm

SLIDE SHOW: Undersea Volcano Erupts Skyward

An underwater eruption near Tonga is hurling ash 15,000 feet into the sky.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 4:50 pm

'Stem rust' threatens global wheat harvest

New variety of an old crop disease called "stem rust" can infect crops in just a few hours and vast clouds of invisible spores can be carried by the wind for hundreds of miles

The world's leading crop scientists issued a stark warning that a deadly airborne fungus could devastate wheat harvests in poor countries and lead to famines and civil unrest over significant regions of central Asia and Africa.

Ug99 — so called because it was first seen in Uganda in 1999 — is a new variety of an old crop disease called "stem rust", which has already spread on the wind from Africa to Iran. It is particularly alarming because it can infect crops in just a few hours and vast clouds of invisible spores can be carried by the wind for hundreds of miles.

Scientists meeting in Mexico this week at a summit on Ug99 worry it will continue travelling east and infect major wheat growing centres in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, which produce nearly 15% of the world's wheat and feed more than a billion of the world's poorest people. Plant breeders are now racing against time to develop new resistant wheat strains and distribute the seeds around the world.

The fungus was thought to have largely disappeared since the 1960s when original disease-resistant varieties were developed and planted. But Ug99 has evolved to take advantage of those varieties, and it is now believed that 80-90% of all wheat varieties grown in developing countries are susceptible to the new fungus.

The Nobel prize-winner Norman Borlaug, who is credited with helping India and other countries avoid famines in the 1960s by developing high yielding crop strains, said: "This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction. It is capable of severely damaging virtually all of the world's commercial bread wheat. It is a problem that goes far beyond wheat production in developing countries. Sooner or later it will be found throughout the world, including North America, Europe, Australia and South America."

The new version of what scientists believe was one of the Biblical plagues has spread from Uganda to Kenya, and then to Ethiopia and southern Sudan. Where the spores attack, a wheat crop can be turned into a tangle of blackened and broken stems in a few days. Up to 80% yield losses were recently recorded in Kenya and Uganda, though fortunately neither of these countries wholly depends on wheat as a staple crop .

But in 2007, it jumped the Red Sea, possibly as a result of Cyclone Gonu, and is now widespread in Yemen and Iran. Wheat is a major crop in Iran, but its progress has been slowed by a long-term drought that has inhibited its growth.

"Kenya is having recurring epidemics, the situation is getting worse in southern Sudan and it is now widespread in Ethiopia," said Rick Ward, co-ordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, based at Cornell university. "The likelihood is that it has already spread beyond Iran. We would be foolish to believe that other countries in central Asia, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, are not already at risk. Places like Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine are all susceptible."

Ward predicted that Ug99 would inevitably spread much further, potentially into regions where wheat is a staple crop for hundreds of millions of people. "It is a certainty that it will expand its area," he said. "It will continue to move and wherever it is present and the crops are susceptible it will potentially lead to a disaster of catastrophic proportions, which will translate into widespread food insecurity and civil unrest." Global wind models suggest the crop disease may next spread into Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

Large wheat farmers in developed countries can buy expensive fungicides, which they must apply several times to protect their crops, but very few of the small farmers in Asia can afford the chemicals.

However, scientists at the meeting reported rapid progress in developing newly disease-resistant wheat varieties. According to plant geneticist Ravi Singh, a project leader at the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Centre in Mexico, 60 disease-resistant varieties have been developed via conventional breeding, some of which are thought to be not only resistant to Ug99, but higher-yielding than today's most popular varieties. Countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are already being helped to multiply resistant seeds for future harvests, he said.

But it usually takes at least five years to cross disease-resistant lines with wheat varieties adapted to local conditions and then grow enough seed to plant fields. "We are making rapid progress but it will take years to distribute enough new varieties" said Ward.

Ug99 "stem-rust" fungus

• Ug99 is resistant to the three major anti-rust genes used to protect nearly all the world's wheat.

• The fungus reproduces to release billions of identical spores, which can blow hundreds of miles in the wind

• It attacks the above-ground part of plants and unlike other strains, can cause 100% crop loss

• The US army produced wheat rust as part of its biological weapons programme in the 1960s

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 19 Mar 2009 | 4:47 pm

Liquid gas

What is liquefied natural gas and where is it from?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Mar 2009 | 4:29 pm

Red Flowers Pack a Cyanide Surprise

An Australian plant uses chemical warfare to protect its red flowers from being eaten.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 3:50 pm

SLIDE SHOW: Flying Car Takes to the Skies

A prototype of a part-car, part-airplane takes to the skies.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 2:25 pm

Undersea Volcano Explodes in S. Pacific

An underwater eruption near Tonga spews ash thousands of feet into the sky.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 2:04 pm

Mass Dino Graves Suggest Young Banded Together

Juvenile dinosaurs may have congregated in herds as a survival tactic.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 1:20 pm

The Fritzl family's life sentence

Psychologists detail effects of past events and the challenges ahead for Elisabeth and her six surviving children

The trial of Josef Fritzl may have ended, but for his daughter, Elisabeth, and their six surviving children, the ordeal is far from over. The family, who are believed to have new identities and to have been living in a safe house in an Austrian village, will now try to rebuild their lives as best they can.

Psychologists experienced in helping the victims of hostage taking, sexual abuse and prolonged isolation say that great care will need to be used in trying to bring some normality to the lives of Elisabeth Fritzl and her children, who are thought to have returned during the trial to a clinic where they received care following the discovery in April of Fritzl's crimes.

Lesley Perman-Kerr, who is in private practice in St Albans, Hertfordshire, said the three children who were sent by Fritzl to live upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, were likely to feel "survivor guilt". "They were the ones who got out." They would also have to come to terms with the fact their grandfather was also their father,

As for Elisabeth and all the children, "it is quite common for people who have been in this situation – and obviously it is a very extreme situation – to be very worried and very concerned they may have inherited the traits and be like that person," said Perman-Kerr. "You have to help them see themselves as apart from this individual. They have a different kind of qualities and understandings. Their ability to identify what he has done as monstrous means they have a different level of self-awareness and a certain kind of values which may well become a safeguard for them. It is a starting point for them to help build up their self-esteem and help them move away from this fear."

Perman-Kerr did not believe Elisabeth would ever recover completely from her ordeal and the trial must have been "extremely traumatic" for the children, too.

"It will be bringing things up to the surface again," she said, adding that they might all always feel imprisoned in a different way. The fact they had been given new identities meant "everything they encounter from now on is, in a sense, going to be a lie. They may never wish to reveal who they are."

Ian Stephen, who is in private practice in Scotland, said Elisabeth's children who had remained with her had grown up with a mother who must have been compromised by her own experience of adolescence. Apart from her father, there did not seem to have been any adult male involved in the family in the cellar throughout their lives.

"The whole process they have been in is one where reality has been totally distorted. You should have been safe and protected but [the environment] has been hostile and damaging. It is quite a shock to discover what you were going through was not normality."

People he had treated after being abused "feel very bitter, very angry. The perpetrator is very often a person of extreme hatred and dislike for them." Such people had been "excluded from any other kind of information" by someone who was controlling and autocratic.

James Thompson, of University College London, and a co-director of the UK Trauma Centre, said previous information on those who had suffered long-term imprisonment and/or sexual torture such as Elisabeth and her children suggested the chances of permanent problems were in "the high 70 per cents". He said : "People are incredibly resilient. It doesn't mean they will be incapable of living life but any relatively sensitive psychiatric or psychological assessment will show much higher levels of distress, more disorders, more dismay for the rest of their lives."

Most people who had not undergone such experiences may have 'downs', too, but would recover relatively quickly. "We have social networks. We can make plans. We have ambitions of one sort or another. We produce things. In behavioural terms we move about. We do go outside the house. We do explore and we go on journeys. We have natural curiosity. What we are talking about here may mean that they might be reasonably housebound, restricted in what they can do and have difficulty in making decisions."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 19 Mar 2009 | 1:14 pm

Badgers to be given anti-TB jabs

Badgers in areas of England badly affected by TB in cattle will be vaccinated, the government announces.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Mar 2009 | 1:01 pm

Feeling the heat

How to map the hottest place on the planet
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Flying Car Lifts Off in Maiden Flight

A part-car, part-airplane vehicle took off and landed successfully in its first test flight.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm

Major leap for faster computers

Super-fast quantum computers are now a step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to a breakthrough by scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Mar 2009 | 12:40 pm

The long view of the telescope's history

The telescope revolutionised our view of the heavens, but the first effects of this technological marvel were felt much closer to home

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 19 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

Risk-free virtual anaesthetics

A "virtual needle" allows spinal anaesthesia to be taught without performing the procedure on live patients.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Mar 2009 | 11:59 am