|
|
|
|
Biology Of Flushing Could Renew Niacin As Cholesterol DrugDeft molecular detective work suggests that scientists may soon be able to resurrect niacin as one of the best and cheapest ways to manage cholesterol.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Climate Change Leads To Major Decrease In Carbon Dioxide StorageThe North Atlantic Ocean is one of the Earth's tools to offset natural carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, the 'carbon sink' in the North Atlantic is the primary gate for carbon dioxide entering the global ocean and stores it for about 1500 years. The oceans have removed nearly 30 per cent of anthropogenic (man-made) emissions over the last 250 years. However, several recent studies show a dramatic decline in the North Atlantic Ocean's carbon sink.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Cool Stars Have Different Mix Of Life-Forming ChemicalsLife on Earth is thought to have arisen from a hot soup of chemicals. Does this same soup exist on planets around other stars? A new study hints that planets around stars cooler than our sun might possess a different mix of potentially life-forming, or "prebiotic," chemicals.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Parkinson's Disease Medication Can Trigger Destructive Behaviors, Study FindsA new study reports that one in six patients receiving therapeutic doses of certain drugs for Parkinson's disease develops new-onset, potentially destructive behaviors, notably compulsive gambling or hypersexuality.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Gene Linked To Deadly Disorder In Newborns IdentifiedAfter 12 years of searching, scientists have tracked down the first known gene mutation responsible for a heartbreaking disorder that kills newborn babies. These findings will allow for earlier testing of embryos at risk for the disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Novel Needle Could Cut Medical ComplicationsEach year, hundreds of thousands of people suffer medical complications from hypodermic needles that penetrate too far under their skin. A new device developed by engineers aims to prevent this from happening by keeping needles on target.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Chicken Soup May Fight Blood Pressure: Passover's Matzoh Ball Soup May Be Good For Your HealthWith the Jewish holiday of Passover beginning at sundown April 8, a staple of the traditional dinner -- chicken soup with matzoh balls -- takes on medicinal importance based on new findings. The popular home remedy for the common cold sometimes known as "Grandma's Penicillin" may have a new role in fighting high blood pressure, scientists in Japan are reporting.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 3:00 pm Life Sticks: Bioengineers' Sticky Insights Illuminate Biological ProcessesSticky is good, according to bioengineers whose research is providing new insights on the "stickiness of life." The big idea is that cells, tissues and organisms hailing from all limbs of the tree of life respond to stimuli using basic biological "modules." For example, the researchers outlined similar strategies across biology for fulfilling the tasks of "sticking together" (cell-cell interactions), "sticking to their surroundings" (cell-extracellular matrix interactions), and responding to forces.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 3:00 pm Gene Discovery Could Lead To Male ContraceptiveA newly discovered genetic abnormality that appears to prevent some men from conceiving children could be the key for developing a male contraceptive, according to scientists.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 3:00 pm Radiologists Can Dramatically Lower Cardiac CT Radiation Dose In Some PatientsRadiologists can now lower the radiation dose delivered by cardiac CT angiography by 39 percent in adult patients weighing 185 pounds or less, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 3:00 pm Water monitor eyes farm runoff in Gulf of Mexico (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 7:55 am Standing watch over a crowded spaceEurope's space agency is forging ahead on a project designed to protect its space-based systems.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Apr 2009 | 7:15 am Stem Cell Breakthrough May Lead to MS Treatments (HealthDay)HealthDay - THURSDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. scientists say they've coaxed human embryonic stem cells into generating cells that might someday be used to repair nerves damaged by multiple sclerosis.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 3:48 am US wages war on bugs afflicting troops abroad (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 3:45 am Scientists start to unlock secrets of bird flight (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Apr 2009 | 1:59 am Charles Darwin's egg rediscoveredAn egg collected by Charles Darwin has been rediscovered at Cambridge University's Zoology MuseumSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Apr 2009 | 1:25 am Odd Illusion: Seeing Is FeelingPeople are made to feel fixed things move by what watching other movement.Source: Livescience.com | 10 Apr 2009 | 12:12 am Step Made Toward Lightning ControlResearchers have taken a first step in bending laser beams.Source: Livescience.com | 10 Apr 2009 | 12:00 am Fat Feet: British Shoe Sizes GrowObesity and taller average heights are at play.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 11:37 pm Signs of earliest Scots unearthedArchaeologists discover the earliest evidence of human beings in Scotland at a ploughed field in South Lanarkshire.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Apr 2009 | 11:37 pm In praise of ... Easter eggsWith ingenious good timing, Cambridge University's Zoology Museum announced yesterday that it had found a broken chocolate-brown egg in its collection. This Easter surprise was laid by a tinamou, a small ground-living bird, in 1832, and was collected by the young Charles Darwin, travelling down the Atlantic coast of South America on HMS Beagle. "The great man put it into too small a box and hence its unhappy state," recorded Professor Alfred Newton, of the cracked fragments that any chocolate-gobbling Easter addict would leap at. Quite why eggs are such a symbol of a once pagan, then Christian and now - for many - secular spring festival is a matter of lively debate. Nor is it known why in Britain we buy chocolate ones to eat. Others seem content with elaborately painted real ones, while the US has developed a quirky tradition of Easter Monday egg-rolling across the White House lawn. This has been given a progressive twist this year by President Obama, who this year invited gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender organisations to join in - an improvement on 2006, when 100 gay parents were accused of trying to gatecrash President Bush's own reactionary eggy event. An attempt to roll an egg down Downing Street would probably result in arrest. Britain has to be content with eating them - cheaper than ever now that the collapse of Woolworths, which had ordered 20 million eggs ready for 2009, has flooded the market with excess stock. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 9 Apr 2009 | 11:01 pm Charles Darwin egg leaves Cambridge museum thrilled after cracking codeJust in time for Easter, a cracked brown egg, believed to be the last of a batch personally collected and then cackhandedly packed by Charles Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle, has turned up in the collection of Cambridge University's zoology museum. The egg was found by a volunteer, Liz Wetton, who has been helping to catalogue the museum's gigantic collection of birds' eggs for ten years. She sorted, labelled and carefully repacked the egg, recording the fact that it bore the handwritten inscription C Darwin, and then moved on to the next drawer. It was only when collections manager Mathew Lowe was reviewing her work that he realised the specimen was unique. With Mike Brooke, curator of ornithology, he traced the acquisition of the egg back to the notebook of a late 19th century zoology professor, Alfred Newton, a friend of Darwin and his son Frank. The notebook also proved, lest anyone doubt her, that Wetton's handling of the egg was blameless, the damage was done over 150 years earlier. Newton recorded: "One egg, received through Frank Darwin, having been sent to me by his father who said he got it at Maldonado and that it belonged to the Common Tinamou of those parts." "The great man put it into too small a box, and hence its unhappy state." Tinamous are related to rheas and ostriches, though they can fly. They are now more commonly known as Nothura, and one is named in the naturalist's honour, Nothura darwinii. Darwin would have stolen his specimens from a male bird, which incubate the eggs and raise the chicks. It was the extraordinary variety of adaptations of species to their surroundings which fascinated the young naturalist on his five-year journey around the world on the Beagle. He brooded over his observations for years - until he finally published On The Origin of Species in 1859. "To have discovered a Beagle specimen in the 200th year of Darwin's birth is special enough, but to have evidence that Darwin himself broke it is a wonderful twist," Lowe said. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 9 Apr 2009 | 11:01 pm Hurricane Season 2008 (weather.com)weather.com -Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 10:05 pm Can Life Thrive Around a Red Dwarf Star?Not astrobiologists' first choice, red dwarf stars have now gained acceptance as potential hosts for habitable planetsSource: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 8:31 pm Edge of Space FoundNew instrument detects boundary between Earth's atmosphere and solar particles.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 8:31 pm Great Golfer's Brains Have More Gray Matter (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - As Tiger Woods goes for his fifth green jacket in this weekend's Masters Tournament, mortal golfers wonder what's inside his head that keeps him winning. Well, chances are his brain actually has more gray matter than the average weekend duffer.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 7:42 pm Solar-powered cooker nabs climate prizeOSLO (Reuters) - A $6 cardboard box that uses solar power to cook food, sterilize water and could help 3 billion poor people cut greenhouse gases, has won a $75,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming.Source: Reuters: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 7:16 pm Solar-powered cooker nabs climate prize (Reuters)Reuters - A $6 cardboard box that uses solar power to cook food, sterilize water and could help 3 billion poor people cut greenhouse gases, has won a $75,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 7:16 pm Obama Should Support Climate Hacking Research
Presidential science adviser John Holdren's comments about planetary climate hacking were scary at first, just like any hypothetically life-changing decision that one finally starts taking seriously. Moving to a different city, changing jobs, starting a family — they make for great daydreams and bar talk. But when it's time to make actual plans, your stomach clenches and you wonder if it's necessary after all. Geoengineering feels the same way, except scaled up by a factor of 6.77 billion or so. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be evaluated. The most unsettling of Holdren's comments, made Tuesday in an interview with the Associated Press, involved planet-enveloping stratospheric mirrors. By pumping light-reflecting aerosol particles into the sky, enough sunlight could be reflected to mask the effects of global warming — but only partly and temporarily, with potentially disastrous results. Stratospheric aerosols could deplete the ozone layer. They wouldn't do anything about carbon dioxide, which would continue to build up. If humanity stopped pumping them, all that offset heat would kick in with a vengeance, turning atmospheric aerosol pumps into Doomsday Device-in-waiting. And oceans would still turn acidic. So when Holdren said, "It's got to be looked at," and that "We don't have the luxury ... of ruling any approach off the table," my reaction fit with that of the science watchdog ETC Group. "If this is somebody’s trial balloon to test Obama’s acceptance of geoengineering, the White House should shoot it down immediately," said executive director Pat Mooney in a press release. But once my shock subsided, Holdren's statements made a lot more sense. He didn't call for an active geoengineering program, but the study of every option. "We have to look at the possibilities and understand them because if we get desperate enough it will be considered," explained Holdren in an email sent last night to some scientists and journalists. Holdren's right. If Earth's climate starts hitting proposed tipping points, and expected famines and droughts and dislocations appear imminent, people — nations, scientists, entrepreneurs, even tycoons — will consider stratospheric aerosols. They've already started considering many other types of geoengineering, from artificial trees to oceanic plankton. And knowledge about their effects is desperately needed — not only to see what might work, but what might not work. Rather than asking Obama to ignore Holdren, we should demand that he pay attention. Making the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit
permanent would be a nice start, but what's really needed is a massive
investment in geoengineering simulations and responsible real-world
testing, like the Energy Department's carbon burial project. The National Science Foundation barely funds such
research, and Obama's economic stimulus package contained no direct
funding for it. The Obama administration needs to decide whether
America is prepared to play climate cowboy — and, if not, make sure that nobody else can. See Also:
Image: NASA Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Apr 2009 | 7:14 pm Anti-Smoking Drug Succeeds When Antidepressants Fail
For years now, doctors have been using antidepressants to help people quit smoking, and now a drug that helps people kick their nicotine addiction may be effective as an antidepressant. Not long after Chantix hit the market, several doctors noticed it
could drastically improve the moods of depressed smokers who didn’t
respond to established antidepressants. Last year they started a small clinical trial to test the effect. At the time, the FDA had just warned that Chantix could cause suicidal behavior after a musician who was taking the anti-smoking pill became aggressive and was shot dead by his girlfriend’s neighbor. When that incident made headlines, scores of people wrote blog and message board comments saying that the drug had made them feel miserable or suicidal. But those stories did not dissuade the researchers, who had seen evidence to the contrary. "Varenicline (Chantix) demonstrated an ability to augment the effects of ongoing antidepressant treatment," says Noah Philip, a psychiatrist who led the study. "Also importantly, no patients became suicidal during the study." Philip gave the drug to eighteen depressed smokers, along with their other medications. Ten of them responded remarkably well to the medication. The drug may be able to help the half of people who suffer from depression who don’t get better when they take traditional antidepressants. Most of those drugs work by slowing the uptake of signal-sending chemicals called neurotransmitters. Chantix works in a completely different way, by interfering with two brain proteins that are stimulated by smoking. "It holds promise, but additional much larger, placebo-controlled trials would be necessary to reach conclusions of effects and best doses and regimens as a treatment option," says Jotham Coe, a chemist who invented the drug while working for Pfizer. Chantix has some other problems
that could keep it from becoming a blockbuster medication. It can cause
stomach upset, trigger psychedelic dreams, and may not be suitable for
long term use — most people take it for less than 24 weeks. See Also:
Photo courtesy of Pfizer Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Apr 2009 | 7:03 pm Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Blazar: Time-Lapse Video of Gamma-Ray SkyThe Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has been orbiting Earth and scanning the sky for high-energy gamma ray photons since last summer, and its first 87 days of observations are now combined into less than four minutes in this time-lapse video. The video shows a soft blue sky aglow with gamma radiation, punctuated by colorful bursts from bright gamma-ray sources. Most of the blazes are aptly-named blazars, galaxies with active nuclei that shoot jets of plasma directly at Earth. Several are pulsars, remnants of dead stars that shine lighthouse-like beams on the sky as they rotate. Some of them (like PSR J1836+5925, singled out in the video) are gamma-ray–only pulsars, a new class of pulsars discovered by the Fermi telescope. The constant campfire-like glow at the bottom of the screen is the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. Every so often, a ball of fire seems to fall along an arc from the top right side of the screen to the bottom. This is our own sun, which gives off gamma radiation nearly a billion times more energetic than visible light when cosmic rays strike its photons. NASA and the Fermi Large Area Telescope team released a series of time-lapse videos like this one of the twinkly gamma-ray sky. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Apr 2009 | 6:47 pm Triple Junction of Crusts Caused 2007 QuakeAnalysis of a 2007 quake shows even young crust can produce big temblors.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 6:40 pm Great Golfers' Brains Have More Gray MatterExpert golfers have more gray matter in their brains.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 6:18 pm Deadly Pacific quake keeps surprising scientists (AP)AP - The 2007 earthquake in the Solomon Islands that launched a deadly tsunami is raising a host of challenges for scientists working to understand what happened.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Next-Gen Flying Robots Inspired by Birds, BatsFuture flying robots could be easier to steer, thanks to a new study on animal flight.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm Secret Law of Flying Could Inspire Better Robots
A unifying theory of winged locomotion could explain the magical mid-air maneuvers of birds and insects, and guide the design of flying robots. Hedrick's team used 1,000 frame-per-second video cameras to watch hawkmoths and hummingbirds hovering before a feeder. As each turned away, one wing flapped faster on its down-stroke, while the other flapped faster on its up-stroke. The asymmetry causes flyers to lose speed as soon as they start to turn. The effect is strongest when velocity is highest. "The moment they start turning their wings and stop symmetrically flapping, their bodies act like a brake," said Hedrick. Measurements of the motion provided a model that, adjusted for size differences, predicted the mid-air turn motions of four insect species, a cockatoo, a hummingbird and a bat. In animals with proportionally similar bodies, rates of wing
flapping — not body size — controlled turning ability. Agile hummingbirds
and fruit flies flap their wings the same number of times to complete a
turn. "To understand the importance of this result, consider the array of
solutions that flying animals have at their disposal to modulate
aerodynamic forces," wrote Tobalske. "The fact that the flapping
counter-torque model is robust over a wide range of body size indicates
that it represents a universal model," he wrote. The study's other co-authors, Darpa-funded University of Delaware mechanical engineers Xin-Yan Deng and Bo Cheng, will use the findings to refine their insect-inspired unmanned aerial vehicles. As for Hedrick, he next plans to study mechanisms used in more complicated aerial maneuvers, perhaps equipping swallows and other small birds with sensor-filled backbacks. "Animals
are doing things so smoothly and gracefully that we don't even realize
that these are very hard tasks," Hedrick said. "In a robot, we have
trouble replicating that behavior." Images: 1. Flickr/peasap See Also:
Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Apr 2009 | 5:59 pm Spy satellite agency boss resigns (Reuters)Reuters - The head of the U.S. spy satellite agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, has announced his resignation, a spokesman said on Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 5:32 pm QUIZ: People in SpaceHow much do you know about the privileged few who have ventured to space?Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 5:10 pm Pet Shop Boys spurn rescue shelter remix (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 4:08 pm "Brown fat" may help adults lose weightBOSTON (Reuters) - A sparse form of fat that helps keep newborns warm is more common in adults than previously thought and that discovery that could lead to a new way to lose weight, researchers said on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 9 Apr 2009 | 3:23 pm Back to the futureThe UK's academy of science, The Royal Society, celebrates its 350th anniversary next year with a new report looking to the next 50 years. But, says Tim Radford, it should beware the perils of predicting the future The Royal Society plans to celebrate its 350th anniversary next year with a new report on the challenges, rewards and wealth creation opportunities of the next 50 years. This exercise is not to be confused with a government foresight strategy, in which experienced scientists look at where we are now, and calculate where it would be good to be in five or 10 years – a tricky enough game – but something much more ambitious. A panel of politicians, industrialists, Nobel laureates and scholars will spend the next 11 months pondering the direction of British science and innovation policy over the next two generations and then pop back early in 2010 with a report called The Fruits of Curiosity: science, innovation and future sources of wealth. A body like the Royal Society, steeped in the trenchant lessons of history, and stuffed full of really smart people, doesn't need to be told how hard it is to guess the future correctly. The fellows have, in their way, been trying to see the future and get ready for it since the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge first met in 1660, under the patronage of the newly-restored monarch Charles II (and who'd have predicted the Restoration, even five years beforehand?) It certainly began with a membership ready for the future: the great diarists Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn in their different ways are seemingly as alive today as they ever were, and Isaac Newton and his contemporaries set British research going in a way that placed it sometimes in the lead, and always in the first wave, for the next three centuries. But even when Royal Society fellows got the science incontestably right, they were quite likely to get the future wrong. It is the sorry fate of all great men of achievement – including the giants of industry and science – to be asked for an opinion about the future, and then have that opinion recalled for all time, usually in mockery. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible," said Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society in 1895. "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value," said Marshal Foch in 1911. "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" asked Harry M Warner of Warner Brothers in 1927. "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," the chairman of IBM allegedly said in 1943. "Space travel is utter bilge," said Richard van der Riet Woolley, the astronomer-royal in 1956. And so on. It's an easy game to play. In some respects, the future really is unguessable. HG Wells and JBS Haldane had a go, and got things wrong, but they also, very astutely, got quite a lot right. When they did get things right, they didn't get them right enough, or soon enough, or they did not foresee the difficulties that had to be overcome and that would delay the future. In his 1999 update of his 1962 classic Profiles of the Future, the late Arthur C Clarke – the man who foresaw communications satellites and space travel – once divided scientific advances into the expected and the unexpected. Humans predicted automobiles, spaceships, submarines, telephones and robots before they happened: they also predicted invisibility, levitation, teleportation, telepathy and communication with the dead, and these have yet to happen. But nobody, not even their discoverers, foresaw x-rays, nuclear energy, photography, sound recording, quantum mechanics, relativity, transistors, lasers or superconductors. The science fiction author and scientist Michael Crichton, in the 2003 Caltech lecture in which he poured scorn on global warming predictions, quite rightly made the same points: people in 1900 rode horses. They did not know what an atom was. "They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, or an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite …" People in 1900 could not have known about the "internet, interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, speed dialling, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, Prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags …" I think he might have been wrong about leotards. And the notoriously libidinous Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, and his drinking companions in 1900 could certainly have imagined lap dancing. But Crichton by then had made his point, and he challenged his audience. "You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about." And at that point, alas, Crichton lost me. Of course the future is worth thinking about. We place a bet on the future at almost every turn of our lives, except paradoxically, when we go to Las Vegas or Plumpton racetrack. We demonstrate a theory about the future when we open a savings account, propose to a lover, take a mortgage, look for a job, engender children, apply for a visa, learn a language or just read the travel supplements. Every student who enrols at university is thinking about the future. We make reasonably accurate assumptions about the immediate future whenever we get on a bus, but we also, when we subscribe to a pension fund, make an assumption about a future 50 years ahead. So the Royal Society's panellists have taken on a tough one: none of them is very young, and so many of them are being asked to imagine the course of science beyond their own probable lifetimes. Most of them will be aware of Clarke's first law: "When a distinguished and elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." Clarke defined elderly in physics and mathematics as "over 30". The danger is not that the Fruits of Curiosity report will turn out to be plain wrong, the danger is quite possibly that the predictions won't be bold enough. But bold prediction, too, is a dangerous game; it presupposes a bold society. After the Apollo landing on the moon, vice-president Spiro T Agnew predicted a manned landing on Mars by 1984. Everybody at the time thought: why not? And then, shortly afterwards, the Washington administration, correctly guessing the levels of public distraction and apathy, thought: why bother? Clarke himself, in the earliest edition of Profiles of the Future almost 50 years ago, correctly predicted a lunar landing and a space lab; he then added nuclear rockets, translation machines, the deciphering of whale and dolphin languages, the colonisation of planets, fusion power, personal radio, sea mining, artificial intelligence, cyborgs and weather control, all by the year 2000. Bioengineering, however, would not be available until 2030. Ironically, bioengineering has been with us for more than two decades, but after 50 years of costly research, fusion power is as distant as ever. If you spread your bets on the future, you will certainly get some things right. But the Royal Society may be making an even cooler calculation than that: if you invest in science, in the enrichment of our understanding of the physical world, you cannot lose. Knowledge is power. Understanding is wealth. And somewhere along the line, some of this research will turn into jobs, economic growth and financial wealth too. It's just a question of which. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 9 Apr 2009 | 3:03 pm Job Promotions Unhealthy, Study FindsGetting a promotion might boost your salary and self-esteem, but it can be bad for you.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 2:37 pm Can science be used to prove the existence of God?The quantum physicist turned Anglican priest John Polkinghorne discusses invisible superbeings, resurrection and how humans would shrivel up if they ever saw God Earlier this year, a former Cambridge physicist, John Polkinghorne, published a book called Questions of Truth: God, science and belief. I interviewed John shortly after it came out, and as Easter is now upon us, it seemed as good a time as any to post the whole interview. Polkinghorne ditched science many moons ago to be ordained into the Anglican ministry. His book is essentially a paper incarnation of a website run by Polkinghorne's former pupil, Nicholas Beale, where the two post answers to questions sent in by readers. I was interested in talking to John because I wanted to try and understand how he could believe extraordinary things for which there is no evidence. This is what fascinates me about people with religious beliefs. What is going on in someone's brain that allows them to believe there is an invisible, all-knowing, omnipresent superbeing out there? By what process does someone come to the conclusion that there is a God? Of course it might be true, but it's a major thing to sign up to, so surely one would want some pretty hefty evidence before even considering it? John believes that something called God literally became man. He believes that a chap called Jesus was literally raised from the dead. He believes that after his own death, he will be re-embodied by God in a form of matter that is not of this world. There are plenty of people out there bashing religion, and many of the awful things that are done in its name. I had no interest in attacking Polkinghorne's beliefs, as baffling as I find them, but I did want to know why he holds the beliefs he does. Annoyingly, I didn't end up with the kind of insight I was hoping for. Apparently it takes a long time to explain why such beliefs are held, and it's all very complicated. I felt John re-asserted his beliefs more than explained why he held them. There was plenty in Polkinghorne's book I found offensive. In one passage, he says that God hides from us because if we ever clapped eyes on an infinite being, we'd be unable to carry on as we are. We'd be overwhelmed to the point of hopelessness. As John says in the interview: "We'd sort of shrivel up." It's extraordinary stuff. And surely a bit patronising. My reaction to superbeings in comics has always been excitement and mild envy (great powers, but not sure I could go with the outfits). If I was to see the ultimate superbeing, I'd be very excited for a long time. I might even get a poster and go around praising them. But I think I could carry on a life of human mediocrity. John finishes on a positive note about the teaching of Creationism and Intelligent Design in classrooms. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 9 Apr 2009 | 2:25 pm How Nickel Kick-Started EvolutionLife may owe its existence to fluctuating levels of a humble metal in the primordial sea.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 2:10 pm Resurrection: A History of MythsJesus is the best-known example of a resurrected figure, but he is far from the only one.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 1:51 pm 'Brown' Fat Could Offer Key to Weight LossA fat that burns calories in infants is found to linger in smaller quantities in adults.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 1:40 pm New 'Dracula Fish' Has Fake FangsA newly discovered "dracula" fish spent 30 million years developing vampire-looking teeth.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 1:30 pm Unemployed? Get a Face Lift!One type of plastic surgery has been at least partly buoyed by the bad times.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Apr 2009 | 1:09 pm Seattle Skyline Could Collapse in Big QuakeSeattle is in serious danger of being flattened by a major earthquake, say experts.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 1:00 pm Plastic Found in One-Third of Leatherback TurtlesNecropsies of leatherback turtles revealed plastic inside more than a third of the animals.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Apr 2009 | 1:00 pm Prize for 'Sun in the box' cookerA solar cooker made from a cardboard box, invented in Africa, wins a competition for bright environmental ideas.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Apr 2009 | 11:30 am Balloon telescope's star visionThe "baby-boomer Universe" is seen in unprecedented detail by a telescope slung beneath a balloon.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Apr 2009 | 11:07 am Arctic team: 'we have a problem'It has emerged that British explorers studying the Arctic are struggling with a series of technical problems.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Apr 2009 | 10:59 am FameLab talent search beginsA search gets under way for the next generation of graduates who are able to communicate science to the public.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Apr 2009 | 10:31 am The hidden beauty of rockHighly magnified images of rocks and minerals from the world's largest private collectionSource: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 9 Apr 2009 | 9:19 am
|
