Monoclonal Antibodies Primed To Become Potent Immune Weapons Against Cancer

New research suggests that monoclonal antibody therapy of cancer can be improved to be much more powerful than it is today.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Periodic Table's Blank Spaces Filled In By Solving A Subatomic Shell Game

Physicists have filled in some longtime blank spaces on the periodic table, calculating electron affinities of the lanthanides, a series of 15 elements known as rare earths.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Fast Magnetic Fix For Sepsis? Micromagnetic-microfluidic Device Could Quickly Pull Pathogens From The Bloodstream

An innovative new device uses magnetism to quickly pull disease pathogens out of an infected bloodstream. The device could become a first-line defense for blood infections like sepsis, which causes over 200,000 deaths in the US per year.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Neuroscientists Identify Physiological Link Between Trial And Error And Learning

Learning through trial and error often requires subjects to establish new physiological links by using information about trial outcome to strengthen correct responses or modify incorrect responses. New findings establish a physiological measure linking trial outcome and learning.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Asteroid Impact Helps Trace Meteorite Origins

The car-sized asteroid that exploded above the Nubian Desert last October was the first instance of an asteroid spotted in space before falling to Earth. Researchers rushed to collect the resulting meteorite debris, and a new study reports on this first-ever opportunity to calibrate telescopic observations of a known asteroid with laboratory analyses of its fragments.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Fructose Metabolism By The Brain Increases Food Intake And Obesity, Review Suggests

Scientists have built on the suggested link between the consumption of fructose and increased food intake, which may contribute to a high incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Genetic Link To Blood Cancers Revealed

A new study has shown that susceptibility to a series of blood cancers, known as myeloproliferative disorders (MPDs), is linked to a particular area of the patient's DNA, which is prone to developing mutations.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

Anesthesia Exposure Linked To Learning Disabilities In Children

Researchers have found that children who require multiple surgeries under anesthesia during their first three years of life are at higher risk of developing learning disabilities later.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

When Intestinal Bacteria Go Surfing: Molecular Signal Pathway In Diarrhea Illnesses Identified

The bacterium Escherichia coli is part of the healthy human intestinal flora. However, E. coli also has pathogenic relatives that trigger diarrhea illnesses: enterohemorrhagic E.coli bacteria. During the course of an infection they infest the intestinal mucosa, causing injury in the process, in contrast to benign bacteria.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

Gene Exchange Common Among Sex-manipulating Bacteria

Certain bacteria have learned to manipulate the proportion of females and males in insect populations. Now researchers have mapped the entire genome of a bacterium that infects a close relative of the fruit fly. The findings reveal extremely high frequencies of gene exchange within this group of bacteria. In the future sex-manipulating bacteria may be used as environmentally friendly pesticides against harmful insects.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm

Shuttle gets 1 more inspection before heading home (AP)

AP - Space shuttle Discovery will get one more safety inspection before it heads home from the international space station.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 10:38 am

Hurricane Season 2008 (weather.com)

weather.com -
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 10:05 am

U.S. software mogul set to roar into space history

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi will roar off into space aboard a Russian rocket on Thursday to make history as the first tourist to make the odyssey twice.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 9:51 am

Biologists worry over increased turtle harvest (AP)

AP - Surging demand for turtle meat in southeast Asia has prompted a huge jump in turtle harvesting, leading to concerns that populations of the reptiles could suffer permanent damage.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 9:43 am

US billionaire promises productive space trip (AP)

AP - The first time U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi peered out from the international space station he was awe-struck. He's vowing to be a little more productive on his second time trip.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 9:14 am

Kenya wildlife perishes in nets bought with US aid (AP)

AP - Plastic fishing nets — some bought for poor fishermen with American aid money — are tangling up whales and turtles off one of Africa's most popular beaches.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 9:12 am

Discovery leaves space station after upgrades

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Space shuttle Discovery eased away from the International Space Station on Wednesday, ending an eight-day visit that left the outpost with its first Japanese astronaut and enough power for full-time research and three more residents.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 7:45 am

You Pay, Computer Prays For You (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Information Age Prayer is a site that charges you a monthly fee to say prayers for you. A typical charge is $4.95 per month to say three prayers specified by you each day.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 6:00 am

Astronomers catch a shooting star for 1st time (AP)

AP - For the first time scientists matched a meteorite found on Earth with a specific asteroid that became a fireball plunging through the sky. It gives them a glimpse into the past when planets formed and an idea how to avoid a future asteroid Armageddon.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 4:33 am

Tracked asteroid debris collected

Scientists collect remains from an asteroid that was tracked as it fell to Earth, offering a unique chance to study its make-up.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2009 | 2:10 am

Bid to aid daddy longlegs numbers

A conservation charity is trying to boost cranefly populations in an effort to prevent 'local extinctions' of upland birds.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2009 | 1:54 am

Ready for lift-off

Preparing a space launch on the Kazakh steppe
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:24 am

Scientists find new species in Papua New Guinea (AP)

AP - A brilliant green tree frog with huge black eyes, jumping spiders and a striped gecko are among more than 50 new animal species scientists have discovered in a remote, mountainous region of Papua New Guinea.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:13 am

'Hello Space Station, this is Barack Obama'

It is easy to forget that the International Space Station is orbiting 240 miles above our heads, so we should thank President Obama for reminding us. This week, Obama, several schoolchildren and a few excited senators made a 28-minute phone call to the astronauts on board - it can be seen on the Nasa website - seven from the crew of the space shuttle Discovery, which docked last week to deliver supplies; three who had already been living on the space station.

One schoolgirl asked: "What do you eat?" "Dehydrated food and ready meals." A boy asked: "Have you found any life forms?" "We haven't found anything here," said flight engineer and scientist Sandra Magnus, the one female astronaut who has been on the space station for four months and is due to return home with Discovery on Saturday. "I think we'll have much more success finding new types of life when we go to the moon and Mars." "Do you love doing your job," asked another child. "Ever since I saw the lunar landing when I was five," said Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to live and work on the station.

The space station is a working research laboratory. "[We are] understanding combustion and materials. We're understanding how people's bodies change in space, and this is in preparation for long-duration missions to the moon and Mars," said Magnus, whose hair, when weightless, creates a large halo around her head. Obama asked why she keeps it long. "I think ideally a short hair cut would be the way to go, but on me it wouldn't be so nice." Magnus's cookery skills are also noted on the Nasa website. Apparently, when it comes to women, these things matter. Even in space.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

China's giant step into nanotech

Nanotechnology is big business conducted on an atomic scale. China is a major player, using it for a speaker just 1mm thick - or super-strong armour

Seated inside one of China's most advanced science laboratories, two PhD students dressed from head to toe in protective white suits listen intently to Mariah Carey's pop classic Hero. It is not the song, but the millimetre-thin, transparent strip making the sound that captures their attention - a nano-speaker they hope will revolutionise where, and how, we listen to music.

"This is cutting edge," says Professor Shoushan Fan, director of the nanotechnology lab at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University. Without a cone, magnet or amplifier, the speaker, which looks little more than a slim film of see-through plastic, can be used to transform almost any surface into an auditorium. It is made from nanocarbon tubes which, when heated, make the air around them vibrate, producing the sound. "The speaker's bendy and flexible," says Fan. "You could stick it to the back window of your car and play music from there."

Mega investment

Fan's nano-speaker is just the tip of the iceberg in China's sweeping nanotech programme, which has the potential to transform its export-based economy and nearly every aspect of our lives, from food and clothes to medicine and the military.

Nanotechnology - the manipulation of matter on an atomic scale to develop new materials - is an industry predicted to be worth nearly £1.5tn pounds by 2012, and China is determined to corner the biggest chunk of the market.

Its investment has already surpassed that of any other country after the US. Since 1999, China's spending on research and development (R&D) has gone up by more than 20% each year. A further boost will come from the £400bn economic stimulus package announced by the Chinese government this year, £12bn of which has been ringfenced for R&D.

Tiny superpower

"The overall trends are irrefutable," says Dr James Wilsdon, director of the Science Policy Centre at the Royal Society, and author of the Demos report "China: The Next Science Superpower?". "China is snapping at the heels of the most developed nations, in terms of research and investment, in terms of active scientists in the field, in terms of publications and in terms of patents."

Fan hopes the economic crisis, which has led to thousands of Chinese factories closing, will force the country to move from the manufacture of low-end products such as toys and trainers to more hi-tech goods such as nano-touchscreens for mobile phones. His team is working on a material to replace the indium tin oxide (ITO) used in the kind of touch panels found on BlackBerrys and iPhones. "ITO is very expensive and breaks if bent," he says. "We're developing thin nanotube films to replace ITO. It can bend and it's much cheaper."

China now produces more papers on nanotech than any other nation. Nanotech plants have sprung up in cities from Beijing in the north to Shenzhen in the south, working on products including exhaust-absorbing tarmac and carbon nanotube-coated clothes that can monitor health. Last month, researchers from Nanjing University and colleagues from New York University unveiled a two-armed nanorobot that can alter genetic code. It enables the creation of new DNA structures, and could be turned into a factory for assembling the building blocks of new materials.

"There's no end of areas in which nanotech is already being used," says Wilsdon. "It's the product of targeted investment for the development and refinement of novel nanomaterials. And the reason the Chinese focus on that area is because it's closer to the market."

Small-scale war

China, like the US, is also assumed to be focusing much of its R&D investment on military applications. "There's a lot of concern about the use of nanotech with weapons," says Wilsdon. "I'm sure China is spending significant amounts of their R&D budget on military uses."

Tim Harper, who heads the nanotech consultancy CMP Cientifica, says carbon nanotube composites could be used to strengthen armour, that non-scratch nano-coatings are being developed for cockpits and researchers are trying to find a nano replacement for military-use batteries. "The US is working on all of these things, so I'm sure the Chinese are doing much the same," he says.

Underlying these developments are serious safety concerns. Nanoparticles are so small they are easily inhaled and absorbed through the skin. Dr Andrew Maynard, the chief science advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, says that some nanoparticles could be deadly. "Nothing has yet been confirmed, but there are strong suggestions that inhaling these particles could cause lung cancer or lung disease," he says. "If carbon nanotubes behave anything like asbestos, we won't know what the health impacts are for about 20 years, because that's how long it can take from exposure to the onset of the disease."

Most experts agree that a system of stringent safety regulations and comprehensive quality inspection checks is needed before China's nano-coatings, cosmetics and clothes are stocked by supermarkets. "The economic crisis could prove the catalyst that Chinese nanotech companies need to get this system in place," says Harper.

Under the microscope

The global nanotechnology market could top $2tn by 2012, predicts Tim Harper, founder of the nanotech consultancy CMP Cientifica. "What we see is a big take-off in 2011, and by 2012 the industry is really going to be booming," he says. "We've been pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the nanotech industry for the last decade and we're finally getting to the point where we're seeing products being manufactured and sold."

Harper predicts that by 2010, areas of nanotechnology and biology will have merged, setting in motion the production of a wealth of new drugs and clinical equipment (such as the vials of nanomaterials for use in health products, clothes and cosmetics). His research sees nanotech pharmaceutical and healthcare products worth an estimated $3.2tn by 2012, with military-use nanotech products taking 14% of the total market and worth $40bn.

Nanotech products for the motor industry will make up a 4% chunk of the market, while nano-foods are likely to corner up to 2%. Nanotech products designed to tackle water, air and soil pollution will also be big business in 2012. "In terms of environmentally beneficial materials, in some ways the Chinese are further along in their thinking than even the US," says Harper. "They are already putting together a system to work out how we can use these technologies for the good of the environment." The US may still lead the nano surge overall, but Harper believes China will be on a par with the EU and US by 2012.

Richard Appelbaum, from the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California, puts the global nanotech market figure at $2.6tn by 2014, or 15% of manufacturing output in that year. China, along with 40 other countries including the US, UK and Japan, is investing in nanotechnology "as a major key to global economic competitiveness", he says.

If any one nation succeeds in cornering the giant's share of the market, it "would be sufficient to confer global economic leadership on the country", he adds.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am

British therapists still offer treatments to 'cure' homosexuality

Survey suggests a significant minority of mental health professionals continue to provide treatments to gay men and lesbians despite no evidence they can change orientation and concerns they are harmful

Gay men and women in Britain are being offered controversial treatments to reverse their homosexuality, despite there being no proof that such therapies are effective and fears that they are actually harmful.

A survey of more than 1,300 therapists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists throughout the country found more than 200 practitioners had attempted to change at least one patient's sexual orientation, while 55 said they were still offering the therapy.

Some counsellors said they were motivated to help people change their sexuality because of their own moral and religious views, while others said they thought it might help those under pressure from discrimination.

Michael King, a psychiatrist at University College London who led the study, said: "There is a significant minority of counsellors offering these treatments and they are ignorant and misguided. There is no evidence they change anyone's sexual orientation and undoubtedly they cause harm."

"There are many men and women who are distressed about discovering they are gay, and some will go to counsellors, or be told to go by their parents, and say they can't cope and can they be changed," he added. "Some of these therapists might have the best motives, but what they should be doing is helping these people adjust and to cope. They need to know it's society's problem, not theirs."

King's team sent questionnaires to 1,848 practitioners selected at random from the membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Psychological Society, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. Each was asked whether they would offer to help someone change their sexual orientation, and whether they had ever done so.

Of the 1,328 forms that were correctly filled in and returned, 222 practitioners gave details of at least one patient they had tried to treat. There has been no decline in the number of patients being treated in recent years, according to the study in the journal BMC Psychiatry.

Most counsellors said they would try to help patients come to terms with their sexuality if they felt it was problematic, but a small number were openly discriminatory. One counsellor who is a member of the British Psychological Society said: "Although homosexual feelings are usual in people, their physical expression, and being a person's only way of having sexual relations is problematic. The physical act for male homosexuals is physically damaging and is the main reason in this country for Aids/HIV. It is also perverse."

The research coincides with the launch of a website, www.treatmentshomosexuality.org.uk, set up by the Wellcome Trust to raise awareness of the issue, by gathering histories from people who have offered or been given treatment to change their sexual orientation.

Derek Munn at the gay and lesbian equality organisation Stonewall said: "So-called gay cure therapies are wholly discredited. The conclusions of this research are a welcome reminder that what lesbian and gay people need is equal treatment by society, not misguided treatment by a minority of health professionals."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2009 | 12:00 am

You Pay, Computer Prays For You

Information Age Prayer is a site that charges you a monthly fee to say prayers for you.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 11:48 pm

Biogen hopes to have PML-related test by year-end

BOSTON (Reuters) - Biogen Idec Inc said on Wednesday it is developing a test that can identify the presence of a virus that can cause a potentially deadly brain infection in certain patients taking its multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri, and hopes to have it available by year-end.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Mar 2009 | 10:39 pm

Biogen hopes to have PML-related test by year-end (Reuters)

Reuters - Biogen Idec Inc said on Wednesday it is developing a test that can identify the presence of a virus that can cause a potentially deadly brain infection in certain patients taking its multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri, and hopes to have it available by year-end.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Mar 2009 | 10:39 pm

Lone Star Scientists Posse Up to Defend Evolution in Schools

A debate over evolution education in Texas could shape science classes in the southern United States for years to come.

The Texas Board of Education will vote Thursday and Friday on amendments to the state's proposed science curriculum. The amendments convey doubt about evolution that, according to scientists, simply does not exist.

"They haven't mentioned creationism or the age of the Earth," said Steve Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, a nonprofit science education and policy watchdog. "It's not openly creationist, but it's anti-science. It demeans and devalues science."

The most recent prominent science-curriculum battle took place last year in Florida, where a statewide campaign engineered by intelligent-design supporters fell short of obtaining science curricula that called for classroom evolution education to be balanced with "alternatives."

Members of the Discovery Institute, an intelligent-design think tank, helped draft critiques of evolution in Texas as well as Florida. According to Schafersman, the seven Texas Board of Education members who've supported the amendments are Young Earth creationists.

Because teaching creationism as fact in public schools is illegal, supporters have resorted to language about "alternatives" and "strengths and weaknesses" into science curricula. There's little danger of students learning that the Earth is 4,000 years old, or that a supernatural entity carefully arranged dinosaur fossils to look natural. But students might not learn that science is a process of testing hypotheses and accumulating evidence to produce theories, like that of evolution. And when a few outlying critiques are presented as valid alternatives to scientific consensus, critical thinking suffers.

The consequences of the Board of Education's decision won't be limited to Texas, said Schafersman, but will affect students in other southern states.

"Texas schoolbooks are used throughout the south," he said. "If we win, this will be the standard."

The amendments involve the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills guidelines, which determine what the state's public school students must learn. A committee of science-education experts wrote the science section, and removed previous language referring to evolution's "strengths and weaknesses" — a de facto code phrase for so-called creation science. 

The draft guidelines passed by an 8-7 vote in January, but Board chairman Donald McLeroy, a Young Earth creationist,  unilaterally added amendments that, though avoiding mention of "strengths and weaknesses," fail to pass scientific muster.

One amendment requires biology teachers to "analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record.” That all complex organisms are descended from a common ancestor is commonly accepted by evolutionary biologists.

Other amendments to planetary-science guidelines "introduce unwarranted uncertainty to long-settled scientific issues," wrote Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and 23 leading members of Texas' science community in a letter delivered to McLeroy on Tuesday.

"These amendments serve only to undermine sound science education in Texas," they wrote.

Some observers of the Board of Education controversy have worried that Texas' position as the nation's second-largest purchaser of textbooks would result in changes to nationally used texts. That was historically the case, said Schafersman, but publishers now produce region-specific books. However, the demands of Texas schools still affect books used throughout the south.

The board's vote will conclude Friday, and the resulting curriculum will be enforced for the next 10 years.

Right now, said Schafersnan, when a schoolbook "is stamped 'Texas edition' on the front, that means it's been censored to keep the students ignorant." But if the board votes as it did in January, that will no longer be the case.

Image: Flickr/Kevin Dooley

See Also:

• On Darwin's Birthday, Dover Still Isn't Over
• Evolution on Trial in Texas Board of Education Battle
• Evolution Wins as Creationists (Accidentally) Switch Sides in Florida
• A Libertarian Solution to Evolution Education Controversy: No More Public Schools
• McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School
• Why Evolution Is Important in the Classroom
• Famed Microbiologist on Teaching Evolution: Don't Start Until College

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Mar 2009 | 10:07 pm

Clean Energy Plays Dirty in Mexico (OneWorld.net)

OneWorld.net - WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (OneWorld.net) - Despite promises to the contrary, a monumental new wind-power project in Oaxaca, Mexico is encroaching on the lands and livelihoods of local farmers and indigenous people, writes Latin America expert Zach Dyer.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Mar 2009 | 9:33 pm

Given "Expert" Advice, Brains Shut Down

A brain-scanning study of people making financial choices suggests that when given expert advice, the decision-making parts of our brains often shut down.

The problem with this, of course, is that the advice may not be good.

"When the expert's advice made the least sense, that's where we could see the behavioral effect," said study co-author Greg Berns, an Emory University neuroscientist. "It's as if people weren't using their own internal value mechanisms."

Berns' specialty is neuroeconomics, a once-obscure field of research that's received heightened attention since the global economic slowdown left people at a loss to explain how the market's invisible hand picked their pockets.

Of course, describing a few behavioral tendencies is no substitute for a detailed analysis of market deregulation, poorly conceived derivative contracts and all the other factors that fueled the slowdown. But studies like Berns', published Tuesday in Public Library of Science ONE, and another on hormones and day trading (testosterone is good for individual traders, but possibly bad for everyone else), have cast scientific doubt on a central tenet of free-market fundamentalism.

Contrary to neoliberal economic theory, markets are not always driven by individuals acting rationally in their own best interests.

"Many economists live in a peculiar world inhabited by other economists. It's called the world of rational decisionmaking," said Berns. "In this world, you take advice, integrate it with your own information, and come to a decision. If that were true, we'd have seen activity in regions that track decisions. But what we found is that when someone receives advice, those relationships went away."

In the study, Berns' team hooked 24 college students to brain scanners as they contemplated swapping a guaranteed payment for a chance at a higher lottery payout. Sometimes the students made the decision on their own. At other times they received written advice from Charles Noussair, an Emory University economist who advises the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Though the recommendations were delivered under his imprimatur, Noussair himself wouldn't necessarily follow it. The advice was extremely conservative, often urging students to accept tiny guaranteed payouts rather than playing a lottery with great odds and a high payout. But students tended to follow his advice regardless of the situation, especially when it was bad.

When thinking for themselves, students showed activity in their anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — brain regions associated with making decisions and calculating probabilities. When given advice from Noussair, activity in those regions flat lined.

The findings, based on a small number of college students in a controlled setting, are necessarily preliminary, but their implications are common-sense. Berns recommended that investors do their own research, be careful, and remember that fancy credentials and financial pedigrees are no guarantee of economic wisdom.

In the future, however, Berns said it might be possible to construct a brain-scanning device that lets people know when their decision-making faculties go to sleep.

The question then, he said, is whether people would still make sensible decisions.

"That's a great study," said Berns. "Maybe I'll apply for some stimulus money to do it."

Citation: "Expert Financial Advice Neurobiologically 'Offloads' Financial Decision-Making under Risk." By Jan B. Engelmann, C. Monica Capra, Charles Noussair, Gregory S. Berns. Public Library of Science ONE, March 24, 2009.

Image: PLoS ONE

Video: YouTube/Politiclips

See Also:

• MRI Lie Detection to Get First Day in Court
• Climate Models Trump Financial Models — Phew!
• Financial Crisis Has Biological Roots, Too

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Mar 2009 | 9:19 pm

Powerful Ideas: Teaching an Old House New Tricks

Retrofitting old houses could do more to save energy than increasing the energy of new homes.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 8:50 pm

First-Ever Asteroid Tracked From Space to Earth

For the first time, scientists were able to track an asteroid from space to the ground and recover pieces of it. The bits are unlike anything ever found on Earth.

The asteroid was spotted entering Earth's atmosphere over Sudan in October and was believed to have fully disintegrated, but an international team found almost 280 pieces of meteorite in a 11-square-mile section of Sudan's Nubian Desert. The largest was the size of an egg. Lab analysis showed that the rocks belong to a rare class of asteroid that has never been sampled in such a pristine state, so it could fill some gaps in our understanding of the solar system's early history.

"It's the first time we've been able to track something through the air and watch it fly apart and then find pieces of it," microbial ecologist Rocco Mancinelli of SETI, a co-author of a study on the meteorite pieces Wednesday in Nature, told Wired.com.

Finding the meteorites was a long shot, but because the rocks would be so important, meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of SETI, lead author of the study, took a bus loaded with 45 students and staff from the University of Khartoum deep into the desert to hunt for them. A 10-hour bus ride and an 18-mile trek through the sand took them to the remote area where scientists thought the rocks, if they existed, would be. The group began sweeping the desert in a line and two hours later the first meteorite was found by a student.

"It was very, very exciting. Everybody was celebrating," Jenniskens said. "You have to remember how important it is to find a piece linked to an asteroid we have seen in space."

Scientists use asteroids to learn about the early solar system because they are among the oldest objects in the universe and can remained relatively unchanged from when they formed, providing a historical snapshot. It is estimated that hundreds of meteorites fall to Earth each year, but only a few end up in the hands of scientists.

Because asteroids are typically surrounded by a shroud of dust as they travel through space, they reflect light differently in flight than they do in the lab, making it difficult to connect meteorites found on Earth with particular types of asteroids. But because the car-sized Sudan asteroid was spotted 20 hours before it hit Earth's atmosphere, scientists were able to determine that it was an unusual type of asteroid that falls between the two most common types.

For the first time, scientists can begin to connect the light signatures of asteroids in space to signatures of meteorites in the lab.

"This is like the first step toward a Rosetta Stone for classifying asteroids," said study co-author, cosmic mineralogist Michael Zolensky, at a press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center Wednesday.

The team, led by Jenniskens, hopes the intermediate meteorites will reveal details about how planets formed in the early solar system.

"It gives a window on the past," Jenniskens told Wired.com. "You see a little piece of early history coming into focus."

The Sudan meteorites are from a rare class of asteroids known as ureilites, which contain a lot of carbon, much of it in the form of graphite, as well as diamonds produced by shock. The Sudan specimens show evidence of volcanic activity, which means they came from a parent body that was almost big enough to call a planet.

"It's showing us that this asteroid had planet-like activity on it," said astronomer Lucy McFadden of the University of Maryland, who was not involved in the study. "We're lucky that the Earth was in the right place and placed itself in front of this new meteorite."

But that planet shut down, lost its heat source and quit growing, Zolensky said. This gives scientists a glimpse of a specific stage in the evolution of planets.

"What this does is give us first-hand knowledge of what happens when planetesimals form from one that fell apart and failed to become a planet," Mancinelli said. "It really tells you what happens when these rocks bang into each other and some actually stick to each other and form a planetesimal."

There's nowhere else to find this sort of information, he said, because you need the planet forming process to stop before it becomes a full-fledged planet.

"This is highly unusual," Mancinelli said. "It is key to understanding the early solar system."

Space scientist Ted Bunch at Northern Arizona University studies these rare meteorites. "Of the tens of thousands of meteorites that have been found, there's probably only 100 that are ureilites," he said.

Ureilites are interesting in that they have a very primitive composition, Bunch said. And the Sudan ureilite pieces are even more rare because they were picked up so soon after they fell. Meteorites that have been lying around on Earth for a long time can become contaminated.

"To see something which is pristine, the chance of contamination is pretty low," Bunch said. "Whatever you see in the stone is what came from outer space, with no contribution from Earth."

Image 1: The contrail left by the asteroid's passage through the atmosphere.Credit: Muawia Shaddad.
Image 2: Typical meteorite fragment. Credit: Muawia Shaddad.
Image 3: This space-based view of the Nubian Desert shows altitude in kilometers (in white circles) and meteor locations in red. Credit: NASA Ames/SETI/JPL.
Image 4: Students from the University of Khartoum line up to go meteorite hunting in the Nubian desert. Credit: Muawia Shaddad.

See Also:

• Meteor Explodes Over Sudan — Right On Schedule
• Meteor Predicted to Hit Earth's Atmosphere Tonight
• Surprise! That Comet Is an Asteroid, Sort Of
• Odds of Asteroid Hitting Mars This Month Increase to 1-in-25
• Triple Asteroid System (Yes, That Means Mini-Moons) Spotted Near
• Iowa State University Center Maps Out Asteroid Defense Strategies
• Asteroid to Pass By Earth Tonight, Visible Though Home 'Scopes
• Nukes Are Not the Best Way to Stop an Asteroid

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Mar 2009 | 7:29 pm

New animal research rules 'will disrupt medical progress'

Work on conditions like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease could be abandoned if the EU brings in tighter regulations on the use of animals, say leading research organisations

Medical research into serious and debilitating diseases will be held up or abandoned in Britain if changes to European Union laws governing animal experiments are passed, scientists warned today.

The new regulations are designed to put the research on an equal footing in member states, but threaten to turn Europe into a "scientific backwater" without improving the welfare of the animals used, leading scientists said.

The proposals seek to place severe restrictions on the use of monkeys, which scientists claim are essential for a small number of experiments being conducted into incurable neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

The proposals as they stand would also see hens' eggs, which are used to produce vaccines, dealt with under vivisection regulations, a move that would drive up costs and increase bureaucracy, the scientists said.

Nine research organisations, including the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Association of Medical Research Charities, issued a "declaration of concern" over the directive, which will be sent to officials in Europe.

Sir Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said proposed changes to the size of mouse cages would see research costs rise substantially without any improvement in the animals' wellbeing.

"Some of the amendments as currently drafted will bring no animal welfare benefits, and paradoxically could lead to an increased number of animals used," he said.

"As it stands, the directive looks set to make some good contributions to animal welfare, but includes some proposals that defy belief," said Sophie Petit-Zeman of the Association of Medical Research Charities. "Animal welfare is an absolutely crucial flipside to the patient benefit argument, but what we're worried about is that we're going to end up with EU-led legislation which essentially piles a whole load of bureaucracy on the shoulders of busy scientists and ends up not doing anything at all for animal welfare, and delays potentially life-saving research."

Under the new regulations, scientists will be prohibited from using non-human primates for basic research, such as experiments aimed at understanding brain function or the immune system. Instead, monkeys would only be used if the experiments focused on "life-threatening or debilitating" diseases.

No great apes, such as gorillas, orang-utans and chimpanzees, have been used in research in Europe for six years and the UK has a de facto ban on their use.

Emily McIvor, policy director at the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, which funds studies on alternatives to animal research, said: "The animal research industry is lobbying aggressively to destroy virtually every reasonable animal welfare improvement, including a ban on using offspring born to wild-caught primates. The arguments they are using are often little short of scaremongering, exaggerating the validity of animal tests and seeking to convince MEPs that new welfare measures are prohibitively costly."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 25 Mar 2009 | 7:14 pm

Space 'Rosetta Stone' Unlike Anything Seen Before

Meteorite fragments of asteroid that exploded over Sudan found, analyzed.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 6:18 pm

'Crunch year' for world's forests

Failure to agree a deal on deforestation in 2009 could critically hamper efforts to halt dangerous climate change, researchers will warn.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Mar 2009 | 6:07 pm

Volcano Plumes Spin Like Tornadoes

Volcanic plumes found to rotate like tornado systems, producing dust devils and lightning.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 6:03 pm

Shooting Star Hunt Yields Meteorite

Scientists find a meteorite linked to a recently tracked asteroid's plunge to Earth.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 5:42 pm

TOP 10: Parts of a Smart Highway

Is the road of the future already here? In some ways, yes.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 5:42 pm

Chemo Researcher Does the Right Thing

Ravi Bellamkonda ditched his plan to become a doctor, because he found he could help more people as a scientist.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 5:39 pm

Drugs Found in Fish Near Treatment Plants

Fish caught near water treatment plants are found to carry residues of pharmaceuticals.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 4:55 pm

New Spiders and Frogs Discovered in Papua New Guinea

Expedition in Papua New Guinea finds new species of spiders, frogs and geckoes.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 4:54 pm

'Desert rats' put on the pill

Pika, relation of the rabbit, blamed for increasing desertification. But experts claim rodents help sustain biodiversity

China's authorities have scattered 200kg of rodent contraceptive pellets across the Tibetan plateau to control what they describe as a "plague of desert rats".

The growing number of rodents have been blamed for destroying fragile high-altitude grasslands and accelerating the spread of deserts.

Biodiversity experts warn, however, that the extermination campaign could worsen the problem of soil degradation and the poisons could damage other parts of the plateau ecosystem.

China's chemists custom-designed the drugs to induce abortions and prevent pregnancy in "gerbils", according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. It is possible they are referring to pika, a small cousin of the rabbit with rounded ears and long whiskers that has long been the target of government eradication campaigns.

Government workers began spreading the contraceptive in the Gurbantunggut desert last May, leaving it in pellet form near the entrance of burrows. Since then they have reportedly distributed 200kg of the drug over 49,000 hectares in China's western region of Xinjiang. They say the drug will have a minimal impact on other animals.

"It's a good way to tackle the desert rat plague," local forestry official Du Yuefei was quoted as saying. He claimed populations of the pest have declined almost 10% as a result of the eradication campaign.

Pika and other rodents are accused of contributing to China's alarming desertification problem by over-eating grass and digging into the soil.

But foreign zoologists say the epidemic of the small mammals is a symptom rather than the cause of grassland degradation, which is mainly the result of human behaviour such as the exploitation of water resources and over-grazing.

"That the pellets have 'little effect' is highly debatable," said a conservationist who asked for anonymity. "All drugs have an effect when put into a system, on other rodents, on birds of prey that eat the rodents and so forth … It's business as usual — attack nature and hope for the best."

Conservationists say the small animals are an important source of food for bigger species such as bears, eagles and leopards, while their burrowing adds to the moisture of the soil.

Previous attempts to cull pika numbers, including mass poisoning campaigns and the construction of hundreds of perches for owls and eagles, have failed or had limited success.

Mass poisonings and the deliberate introduction of disease can hurt other wildlife and spread across borders, as was the case when Australia introduced myxomatosis to reduce the rabbit population in the 1950s.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 25 Mar 2009 | 4:23 pm

China puts rampant desert gerbils "on the pill"

Chinese authorities use contraceptive pills to cut down the number of gerbils in a province plagued by the rodents.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Mar 2009 | 4:21 pm

At 2009 Iditarod, Dog Deaths Stir Controversy

Were six Iditarod dog deaths a statistical fluke or the result of animal cruelty?
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 4:20 pm

Research threatened by new funding rules

Chemists and other physical scientists who submit several unsuccessful research proposals to be blacklisted

Britain's largest research council is to "blacklist" academic researchers who submit three unsuccessful research proposals in any one year and have a low personal success rate of winning grants.

The moves have prompted fears among chemistry academics, in particular, that careers will be blighted and departments potentially closed.

Under new rules from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, academics who have submitted three or more funding bids that are ranked low by the panel reviewing the proposals, and those who have a lower than 25% personal success rate in applying for research grants, will be excluded from applying for a year.

The EPSRC said the proposal was to manage demand for research grants when resources are limited and had been part of a wider consultation on peer review in 2006.

But chemists fear the high failure rate of funding bids in the subject over the last year will mean more researchers' careers will be hit.

A petition posted on the Number 10 website last week against the proposals has already garnered over 1,000 signatures.

Prof Joe Sweeney, Royal Society Industry Fellow in Reading University's chemistry department, said: "This has come like a bombshell. The EPSRC didn't even consult the people who are supposed to advise them on policy. Nobody knew about it.

"Somebody's going to be in the bottom half of the peer review rankings, no matter how good their proposals are."

In a statement, the Royal Society of Chemistry said the new measures had angered the chemistry community.

"The EPSRC's failure to give adequate advance notification of new demand management procedures is causing confusion and concern on some campuses where important new research is being performed," it said.

All UK chemists could find it difficult to "maintain momentum in their research programmes" and younger, less experienced researchers might not get the support they need to launch their research careers, the RSC warned.

Leading organic chemist Karl Hale said the proposals would give university managers another tool with which to pressurise already beleaguered academic staff. "Basically, now that the EPSRC has decided to go down this path, it will effectively decide which chemistry, or physics, or mathematics, or any physical science department in the UK university system can remain viable, and which must close," he said.

"If you have 30 people in a faculty, and 15 of them are banned, vice-chancellors are going to have to look at the viability of that department, because they rely on research council grants.

"It's essentially a punishment for working hard and coming up with ideas. It creates a stigma for researchers."

David Reid, the EPSRC's head of communications, said: "We're facing a 3% to 5% shortfall in funding available for blue-skies research.

"A small number of people put a disproportionate burden on the peer-review system. We're talking about weeding out consistently low-quality proposals."

The policy would affect 5% of applications and the temporary ban should force researchers to get help with writing research grant bids, he added.

"Chemists have a culture of putting in lots of short, small proposals to us. We would like to see chemists be more ambitious in their proposals and work hard on one or two bigger proposals in a year."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 25 Mar 2009 | 3:50 pm

Radar Tech Takes Aim at Fruit Frost

A technology originally developed to detect aircraft is applied to keep fruit from freezing.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 3:40 pm

It Walks! - Robots Perambulate with Extreme Caution

Human footsteps are actually a controlled kind of falling. Robot technologists try to be as brave as human toddlers, on the path to building truly mindful Artificial Intelligence. [Story]
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 3:34 pm

Robot Madness: Walk Like Humans Do

Robots struggle to balance form versus function in walking.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 3:25 pm

Midwest Fault System Could Be Shutting Down

The New Madrid fault system might be in the process of shutting down, despite previous forecasts for a big one there.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 3:12 pm

New species found in Papua-New Guinea

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jumping spiders, a striped gecko and a chirping frog are among more than 50 new species discovered in Papua-New Guinea, the environmental group Conservation International reported on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Mar 2009 | 2:42 pm

The Japanese man who survived two atomic bombs

Japan certifies a man aged 93 as the only known survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Mar 2009 | 2:30 pm

SLIDE SHOW: New Species From Papua New Guinea

A trove of new species are found in a remote region of Papua New Guinea.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 2:00 pm

Mass Grave of 19th Century Immigrants Found

The grave of five dozen 19th century cholera victims is unearthed in Pennsylvania.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 2:00 pm

Snail Shells Getting Longer

Atlantic Ocean snails' shells have grown longer over the last century.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Mar 2009 | 1:44 pm

Pesticide Lingers in Atmosphere, Trapping Heat

A common anti-termite pesticide is a potent greenhouse gas, new research shows.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Mar 2009 | 1:10 pm

Poland reverses to spare wetland

Poland has chosen a new route for a planned motorway to save a pristine wetland, the environment minister says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Mar 2009 | 12:34 pm

Delta force

Mozambique moves people off flood plains, but at a cost
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Mar 2009 | 12:18 pm

All-women team set for South Pole

An eight-strong team of women plan to trek the South Pole to mark the Commonwealth's 60th anniversary.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Mar 2009 | 12:04 pm

Scientists' group lambasts Daily Express

• Light bulb article contained eight factual errors, say scientists
• Daily Express stands by claims low-energy bulbs are harmful

A row has broken out between the Daily Express and a lobby group representing scientists over the paper's coverage of the potential dangers of low-energy lightbulbs.

The Science Media Centre (SMC), which describes itself as an independent organisation set up to promote accurate reporting of scientific issues in the media, has complained to the Express following a front-page story earlier this month based on one of its press briefings.

On Saturday 14 March the Express splashed with a story claiming that low-energy light bulbs were potentially hazardous, headlined: "Dangers of Low Energy Lightbulbs: They contain poisonous mercury powder". The article quoted several scientists who spoke at the SMC briefing.

The SMC has written to Penny Stretton, the Daily Express journalist who wrote the article, to complain about what it claims was the paper's "sensationalised" and "inaccurate" front page.

In the email, seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk, the SMC's director, Fiona Fox, said: "Over six years we have run hundreds of these trademark 'background briefings' on some of the most controversial issues of the day and ... we rarely encounter mis-reporting."

Fox also claimed the story contained eight factual errors. These included giving one of the experts quoted in the article, Dr Robert Sarkany, the wrong title, she said. Fox also pointed out that compact fluorescent lightbulbs contain mercury vapour not powder, as the Express reported.

The Express news editor, Greg Swift, said the paper stood by its story, describing it as "a factual and accurate account of the SMC briefing".

Swift added that he was unhappy about the way the SMC had chosen to complain. "The correct way to address the issue would be to write a letter to the paper and give us time to respond," he said.

In her email to the Express, Fox also said that "after this experience" the SMC had decided to bar journalists from passing personal invitations to its briefings on to colleagues.

"We will be writing to all the science, health and environment reporters who frequent these briefings to tell them that in future invitations to background briefings are not transferable," she added.

The SMC then sent a second email to journalists at rival media organisations confirming that, following the Express story, it plans to change the rules governing its press conferences. In that email, Fox told reporters: "It's really unfair for them [scientists] to have to wake up to this kind of inaccurate story."

Swift denied the Express story was "sensationalist", arguing that every paper had the right to report the facts as they saw fit.

He added that the second email sent by Fox's to reporters contained "inaccurate and damaging allegations" and criticised her decision to send it. "It's unfair to single out a journalist," he said.

Other media organisations have already complained about the SMC's proposed new arrangements for its briefings, pointing out that it could prevent them from sending journalists to cover them. It is thought that the SMC has already agreed to make exceptions in many cases.

Fox emphasised that the SMC had always enjoyed a good relationship with the Express and was confident that it would continue.

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Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 25 Mar 2009 | 11:48 am

Sydney summers by 2060 could be deadly: scientist

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The forecast for Sydney in summer 2060 is hot, polluted and deadly to the elderly.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Mar 2009 | 10:33 am