|
|
|
|
Mechanisms Of Self-control Pinpointed In BrainWhen you're on a diet, deciding to skip your favorite calorie-laden foods and eat something healthier takes a whole lot of self-control -- an ability that seems to come easier to some of us than others. Now, scientists have uncovered differences in the brains of people who are able to exercise self-control versus those who find it almost impossible.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Simple Lasers Used To Detect Melamine In Baby FormulaWith equipment readily available to health officials and businesses, a researcher has found a way to detect trace amounts of melamine in infant formula.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Cousin Of The 'Ice That Burns' Emerges As Greener New Way To Fight FiresResearchers in Japan are reporting development of a new type of ice that may provide a more efficient, environmentally-friendly method for putting out fires, including out-of control blazes that destroy homes and forests.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Social Separation Stops Flu Spread, But Must Be Started SoonA disease spread simulation has emphasized that flu interventions must be imposed quickly, if they are to be effective. Researchers have shown that staying at home, closing schools and isolating infected people within the home should reduce infection, but only if they are used in combination, activated without delay and maintained for a relatively long period.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Schizophrenia And Manic-depressive Disorder: Genetic Variant Impairs Communication Within BrainFor some time now it has been known that certain hereditary factors enhance the risk of schizophrenia or a manic-depressive disorder. However, just how this occurs had remained obscure. Researchers are now able to answer this question, at least for one common genetic variant: this impairs the interoperation of certain regions of the brain.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 9:00 pm TIP30 Inhibits Lung Cancer Metastasis, Study SuggestsResearchers in China suggest that TIP30 prevents metastatic progression of lung cancer. TIP30 is a putative tumor suppressor with decreased expression in numerous cancers including melanoma, breast cancer, and colon cancer.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Origin And Evolution Of Planet Mercury Revealed With Multispectral ImagesUsing high-resolution and multispectral images, researchers have started the difficult process of determining the composition of Mercury's crust and chronicling its origin and evolution.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Swine Flu Or Bird Flu: Scientist Warns Of Six-month Time Lag To Manufacture Pandemic Flu VaccineNew research warns of a six-month time lag before effective vaccines can be manufactured in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. By that time, the first wave of pandemic flu may be over before people are vaccinated.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Bones Made From Human Skin Connective TissueCartilage, bones and the internal walls of blood vessels can be created by using common connective tissue cells from human skin. Researchers in reconstructive plastic surgery have successfully manipulated these tissue cells to take on different shapes depending on the medium they have been cultivated in.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 6:00 pm New Biosensor For Most Serious Form Of Listeria Food Poisoning BacteriaScientists in Indiana are reporting development of a new biosensor for use in a faster, more sensitive test for detecting the deadliest strain of Listeria food poisoning bacteria. That microbe causes hundreds of deaths and thousands of hospitalizations each year in the United States, particularly among people with weakened immune systems.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Fertilisers 'reducing diversity'Excess fertilisation reduces plant diversity, as fast growing species block some plants' access to sunlight, a study shows.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 May 2009 | 10:45 am Africa's genetic secrets unlockedA decade-long genetic study reveals Africa's huge diversity, linking culture, language and genes for the first time.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 May 2009 | 9:41 am Lithium in water 'curbs suicide'Drinking water which contains the element lithium may reduce the risk of suicide, a Japanese study suggests.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 May 2009 | 9:22 am Swine flu: Tests expected to reveal first case of UK transmissionPrime minister says plans in place to fight virus as tests expected to confirm UK's first case of human transmission A Scottish man is expected to find out today whether he is the first case of human-to-human transmission of swine flu in Britain as more such cases emerged around the world. Graeme Pacitti, 24, who came into contact with Iain and Dawn Askham, the Scottish couple who became the first confirmed British cases of the H1N1 virus earlier this week, is a "probable" case, the Scottish government said. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, today urged people with swine flu symptoms to seek advice and said Britain was well placed to deal with the outbreak. "There will be more cases," he said on a visit to an NHS Direct call centre in Beckenham, south-east London. "This is happening in every country of the world, but we are better prepared. "We have preparations in place so that people can get the Tamiflu antiviral drug and can be treated if they get the disease. "As long as people can seek the information quickly and get the answers and then take the action that is necessary, using NHS Direct, using the local GP, using the internet service that's also available on NHS Direct, then we can help people get the information so that action can be taken quickly enough. We are doing everything we can and will continue to do everything we can to contain this." Brown said the government was increasing the number of face masks available to the NHS and looking at different vaccines. He added that all the cases in the UK had come from Mexico and were mild. Pacitti, an NHS clerical worker from Falkirk, was initially cleared but continued to show symptoms. Further tests found low levels of influenza A virus, and the samples were flown to the Health Protection Agency's main laboratories at Colindale in north London to establish whether he has swine flu. Pacitti, who works at Falkirk Royal Infirmary, has received antiviral drugs and is now in quarantine at his home, along with his mother and other members of his family. Health officials are following up people he has recently been in contact with. Dr Harry Burns, Scotland's chief medical officer, said Pacitti was "probably more likely than less likely" to have swine flu because of his contact with the couple and the fact that influenza A viruses are rare at this time of year. Burns said: "My understanding is he is through the worst of it. He has had Tamiflu as a contact." The German health ministry confirmed that a nurse had been confirmed as the first case of human-to-human swine flu transmission within the country. The World Health Organisation increased its tally of confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus around the world from 257 to 331. The number of confirmed cases in the UK has reached eight after doctors diagnosed three new infections in England, the Department of Health said. Two of the cases are in London and one in Newcastle. All are said to be responding well to treatment. The HPA's laboratories are investigating a further 230 possible cases. The Askhams believe they caught the swine flu virus on the flight back to Britain from their honeymoon. The couple, who left hospital six days after being admitted, told the Daily Record that five men sitting near them on the Cancún to Birmingham flight had been coughing and sneezing throughout the journey. Pacitti plays football on the same six-a-side team as Askham and fell ill after they went for a team night out at a local pub. The Scottish health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, said: "Obviously the circumstances around this individual do give us cause for concern ‑ the symptoms don't give us cause for concern, but the circumstances give us cause for concern." But Dr Alan McNally, senior lecturer and influenza diagnostics researcher at Nottingham Trent University, said human-to-human transmission within the UK would not be a significant development. He said: "I don't think it is any more significant. We know that it is transmitted from human to human, it has happened in other parts of the world and we know it will happen here." But he added: "I know that there will be interest in it because members of the public will see that they don't need to have been to Mexico to get it." He said the vast majority of the UK's 230 possible cases being investigated are likely to have originated from contact with other infected people. Last night it emerged that a US security aide who helped arrange Barack Obama's trip to Mexico was suffering from flu-like symptoms, while Canada recorded its first case of person-to-person transmission of the virus, in Nova Scotia. The outbreak has caused 12 deaths in Mexico and health authorities revised official figures, confirming 300 swine flu cases among 679 people tested so far. There are now also two confirmed cases in Virginia, a man and a woman who had both travelled to Mexico. It is understood they are recovering well. The latest confirmed British cases involve a woman in Newcastle upon Tyne and two people in London. All eight confirmed cases contracted the flu in Mexico and have shown relatively mild symptoms after treatment with antiviral drugs. The sharp rise in suspected cases over the previous 24 hours – from 78 to 230 – may indicate the heightened state of public awareness and alarm as much as a sign of the disease's rapid spread. EU governments failed last night to agree on pooling medical resources to combat the flu, and rejected French calls for a blanket ban on air travel to Mexico. The emergency meeting in Luxembourg of health ministers from the 27 countries in the EU agreed to co-ordinate policies and efforts, but indicated this amounted merely to sharing information on monitoring the speed of the virus's spread. The newly confirmed case in Newcastle is a woman, recently returned from Mexico, who shared a flat with two students. Newcastle University said it would not close its facilities as a precaution. "This [patient] is not a student or a member of staff," the university said in a circulated email. "Neither of the students [who share the flat] has so far displayed any flu-like symptoms. "Both students have received the antiviral Tamiflu. They and the university have been advised by the HPA that there is no need for the students to isolate themselves from the community unless they show symptoms." Health officials in Paignton, where a 12-year-old girl was confirmed as having swine flu, said yesterday that dozens of other people in the area had complained of symptoms. The girl, who is said to be "improving", is a pupil at Paignton Community and Sports College in Devon. Yesterday the school was shut and 340 pupils and staff issued with Tamiflu. Dr Sarah Harrison, public health consultant for Torbay Care Trust, said: "We are aware of people who have flu-like symptoms. A number of people in this area are being tested. The numbers are more like dozens than hundreds." After releasing the latest tally, the HPA said: "At this stage close contacts who should be offered antivirals as a precaution are individuals who have been exposed to a probable or confirmed case within the previous seven days, for longer than one hour, and within a distance of one metre. All cases up to now have been associated with travel to Mexico." The government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said he believed the UK would see "many more cases" of swine flu as the virus spreads, but that most people would make a good recovery. He described himself as "concerned, but not alarmed" by the decision by the WHO to raise the global alert level to phase five. 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 | 1 May 2009 | 9:14 am Study: Grazing threatens wildlife habitat in West (AP)AP - Conservationists say livestock grazing poses a threat to a wide variety of fish and other wildlife across more than three-fourths of their dwindling habitats on federal land in the West.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 8:15 am Africans have world's greatest genetic variation (AP)AP - Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 6:18 am Genes May Affect Complications After Heart Surgery (HealthDay)HealthDay - THURSDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- Testing for a gene variant that increases the risk of shock and kidney complications after heart surgery could help guide post-surgery treatment, say Australian and German researchers.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 3:48 am New flu virus may be a real mongrel, study showsWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new virus that has killed as many as 177 people and spread globally is a mongrel that appears to have mixed with another hybrid virus containing swine, bird and human bits, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 3:08 am World fights new flu virus with latest scienceHONG KONG (Reuters) - When millions of people started dying around the world in 1918, doctors and scientists hadn't a clue what was happening. As the epidemic spread, people blamed it on everything from tiny plants to old dusty books.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 3:05 am NASA to begin layoffs as shuttle retirement nearsCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space agency NASA plans to eliminate 900 manufacturing jobs over the next five months as it prepares to retire its space shuttle fleet in 2010, NASA officials said on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 2:18 am Swine flu name change? Flu genes spell pig (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 1:44 am NASA to begin layoffs as shuttle retirement nears (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 May 2009 | 12:02 am Record Amount of Supercomputer Time Means New Science
The Department of Energy is releasing a record amount of supercomputing time, 1.3 billion processor hours, which has astrophysicists, biologists and everyone in between drooling in anticipation. Starting in 2010, some of them will have the chance to run the biggest and most intricate simulations ever, creating experimental galaxies, plasma fusion reactors and global climates to help solve some of science’s most complex problems. They’ll be competing for time on the Cray XT system “Jaguar” at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the IBM Blue Gene/P “Intrepid” at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, two of the most powerful supercomputer facilities in the world. Unlike many of the DOE’s big machines, they’re dedicated to open, unclassified research. “This is an incredible increase in computing power, which was itself a huge increase from the year before,” said DOE spokesman Jeff Sherwood. “It’s for research that would not be possible without petascale computing.” In 2009, 900 million processor hours were up for grabs (a million processing hours would take 1,000 processors 1,000 hours, or around 41 days), but both computers received huge performance boosts this year. Jaguar’s processor count has shot up from 31,328 to 180,832, while Intrepid now boasts 163,840 from 32,768. Jaguar’s peak performance is now a blistering 1.64 petaflops (a quadrillion and a half floating point operations per second), making it the second most powerful supercomputer on Earth. The only number cruncher with more power is IBM’s “Roadrunner” at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which runs simulations of nuclear weapons, and sits behind the rather impenetrable firewall of national security. The boost will allow scientists to tackle traditionally cantankerous problems that involve multiple simultaneous physical phenomena. In enormous, high-resolution simulations, they can tweak an unprecedented multitude of conditions to test their theories. “These are the only places in the world where you can do these types of simulations,” said Bronson Messer of ORNL, whose simulations of core-collapse supernovae were allocated 75 million processing hours in 2009, more than any other project. “In the case of stars and dark matter, there’s a lot of physics going on. They’re very attractive targets for a big machine like this.”
Messer hopes to understand how stars more than 10 times the mass of our sun die. Such deaths are the dominant source of elements in the universe. Giant stars live much shorter lives than sun-size stars — about 10 million years rather than 5 to 15 billion — and they do not die quietly. The iron core collapses from a couple thousand miles in diameter to about 35 miles in half a second, reaching a density equivalent to the mass of all humans on Earth packed into a sugar cube. The core then rebounds with a blast of neutrinos and a shock wave that rips the star apart. As the saying goes, these supernovae “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse,” but astrophysicists don’t understand some of the basic mechanisms of how the alluring explosions take place. “People have been trying to attack this on computers for 40 to 50 years,” Messer said. “We’re using simulations to basically pick a neutrino and ride along as it flies out of the star, and do this with as many neutrinos as possible. We’re finally starting to see some hints of what’s happening, and we’re pretty jazzed about it.” The team has used Jaguar to simulate the supernova up to about 100 milliseconds after the shock wave begins, and they hope to reach half a second. “If we can use 180,000 processors, we’ll get much more accurate physics,” Messer said.
Madau’s simulations, the largest ever performed for the Milky Way, will divide the halo into 30 billion parcels of dark matter and will simulate their evolution over 13 billion years. In an earlier simulation on Jaguar, he produced the most detailed picture of the Milky Way’s halo, showing that small clumps of dark matter from the early galaxy survived to present day. “In fact, the entire galaxy is decidedly clumpy, including our own neighborhood,” he said. “Earlier simulations on less powerful systems had shown the dark matter smoothing out, especially in the galaxy’s dense inner reaches, because they did not have the resolution to resolve the unevenness.” Astrophysics projects get the biggest allocation of Jaguar’s processing time — between 18 and 19 percent of the total. But other areas involving vast scales and multiple physical phenomena, like climate and combustion, also get sizable chunks of processing time. Jackie Chen of Sandia National Laboratories is using 30 million processor-hours on Jaguar to simulate the combustion process of alternative fuels, like biofuel and ethanol. Her modeling of flames, ignition and turbulence can influence engine design, allowing for higher-efficiency and lower emissions vehicles. “To understand the underlying physics of what’s going on in the internal combustion engines with alternative fuels,” said Chen, “we need some of the world’s largest calculations.” Other ongoing projects seek to understand how proteins misfold in neurodegenerative diseases, develop thermoelectric materials to capture wasted heat from tailpipe emissions and create high-resolution climate models. See Also:
Images: 1) Dark matter simulation. Piero Madau/UC Santa Cruz, Sean Ahern/Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 2) Jaguar Cray XT supercomputer. ORNL. 3) simulation of an ethylene-air jet flame. H. Yu/Sandia National Laboratories, K. L. Ma/ SciDAC Institute for Ultrascale Visualization
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 30 Apr 2009 | 11:28 pm Eels in crisis after 95% decline in last 25 yearsMysterious disappearance could lead to limits on fishing and ban on exports They ought to be wriggling through briny water and marshy flatlands in their hundreds of thousands right now. But the mystery of the vanishing eels is troubling fisheries officials, conservationists and fishermen who for generations have hunted the curious animal. A conference in Somerset on the plight of the eel, which was attended by experts from across Europe, has been hearing this week that the eel is in crisis. The number of European eels across the continent has declined by as much as 95% in the last 25 years, the Environment Agency says. Officials report that the number of young eels arriving in Britain's estuaries, rivers and streams this spring is significantly down on last year. Andy Don, an Environment Agency fisheries officer who has studied the eel for 20 years, said: "There is no doubt that there is a crisis. People have been reporting catching a kilo of glass eels this year when they would expect to catch 40 kilos. We have got to do something." But the action the Environment Agency is about to take is upsetting those who rely on the eel for their livelihoods. A ban on exporting eels out of Europe - they are a popular dish in the far east - is proposed, along with a plan to severely limit the fishing season and the number of people who will be allowed licences. Some argue that such moves will effectively kill off eel fishing. Don admitted that it was not at all clear why eels seemed to be vanishing in such large numbers. "The bottom line is we just don't know why they are struggling so badly," he said. One reason may be that man-made structures such as weirs and dams are stopping glass eels - young eels a few centimetres long - reaching the freshwater habitats where they mature. If this is true, the plight of the eel could get much worse as hundreds of hydro projects are planned in Europe. Another theory is that a parasite may be killing them off, while some blame illegal fishing methods. At one point a kilo of young eels was worth as much as £500, tempting some fishermen to use illegal nets to scoop as many up as possible. A kilo is still worth £210. Many believe the shifting of the Gulf Stream means that not so many glass eels are being swept from the Sargasso Sea close to Bermuda, where they are born, to the shores of Europe, while others say there was a surge in the number of eels a quarter of a century ago and the population is now returning to normal. The Environment Agency has launched schemes - such as building fish passes - across England and Wales to help the glass eels. In East Anglia traps are set up to catch eels, which are released further upstream ahead of impassable obstructions. In the south west of England CCTV cameras record the glass eels coming in from the estuaries on to the Somerset Levels. Not everybody is convinced. Peter Wood, managing director of UK Glass Eels in Gloucester, called for much more investment in measures to protect the creature rather than fishing being restricted. "In some European countries they spend hundreds of thousands of pounds," he said. "Here they spend hardly anything." Wood was opposed to measures such as limiting the season. He said that his main business now involved catching glass eels and selling them for farming and restocking projects in Europe. "We need every glass eel we can get hold of," he said. David Bunt, vice chairman of the Institute of Fisheries Management, which speaks on behalf of commercial and recreational fishermen and women, said the organisation supported action to protect the eel but warned that many individuals would be angry if their livelihoods were affected. Roger Castle, who has fished for silver eels - the mature eel that returns to the Sargasso Sea to breed after growing in European waters for as long as 40 years - believes the Environment Agency is paying only "lip service" to the fishermen and really wanted to see an end to eel fishing. Castle, who has fished the Rivers Avon and Stour in Hampshire and Dorset for 30 years, said: "Limiting the season will mean it is not worthwhile for people like me." The eels, he argued, do not arrive and depart at set times to tie in with a restricted season. "I would much rather they imposed a quota that limited the number of eels we take out but allow us to go whenever we want," said Castle, whose eels are sold on to a smokery. "They will put people like me out of business if they try to restrict us. And it would be a shame to lose those old skills." A fish's taleThe eel remains one of the world's most mysterious creatures. It is generally accepted that European eels - Anguilla anguilla - are born in the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda. As leaf-like larvae, they are swept by the Gulf Stream towards Europe, a journey that may take a year. When the larvae reach the continental shelf they change into "glass eels" and in the spring begin to move through estuaries and into freshwater. The animals develop pigmentation, at which point they are known as elvers and are similar in shape to the adult eel. Elvers continue to move upstream and again change colour to become brown or yellow eels. When the fish reach full maturity - some can live to 40 and grow to 1m long - they migrate back to the ocean. Females are reported to carry as many as 10m eggs. They return to the Sargasso Sea, spawn and die. 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 | 30 Apr 2009 | 11:01 pm The number cruncher who foresaw the financial crashPaul Wilmott feels vindicated after warning banks not to believe their mathematical models Paul Wilmott, one of the world's leading financial mathematicians, looks like a 30-something, although he is 49. Mathematics keeps him in shape, he says, relaxing in his jeans and trainers in his Bayswater flat. Wilmott has made his name and fortune by applying mathematics to finance and now claims to run the biggest "quantitative analysis" website in the world. So-called "quants" combine maths and finance to produce many of the models that underlie the complex derivatives blamed for causing the credit crunch. Wilmott had been warning for years that the models used by banks to value their assets were wrong. "Reality has vindicated me," he says. "I stood up in front of paying audiences and told them that they trusted the formulas too much and that they were also paid too much." A few people stormed out of his conferences, slamming the door, he adds. The banking system crash has seen $1tn wiped off banks' assets worldwide after the complex formulas were proved wrong: the assets had been overpriced and the relationships between them were different from what was initially thought. If a sub-prime mortgage collapsed, millions of others followed suit. "Following the formulas was like relying on your seatbelt to drive crazily: it's not going to save your life. People in risk management don't know a fraction of what they should; they're not sceptical, they haven't tested the data or used their imagination to find solutions." Wilmott is also critical of the government's approach to the crisis. He claims its plan to insure more than £500bn of banks' toxic assets is based on a model and won't work as it only involves two banks (HBOS and RBS) leaving others outside the programme. Involving only a few banks won't kick-start the circular nature of inter-bank lending as all banks need to be involved. "Governments know nothing of this subject, they spent two minutes thinking about it, without considering the consequences or getting [advice from] consultants," Wilmott says. "They're like rabbits caught in headlights. They are only talking to the bankers who got us into this mess, or lords or ladies who know nothing. They should be getting advice from people like me, who saw this coming." According to Wilmott, the Financial Services Authority isn't much better. "They can't afford to pay the best people; we should send regulators to derivatives courses so they could ask questions to the banks." Wilmott is angry about the amount of "idiots" who got the world into the present financial crisis. He was one of the thousands of protesters against the recent G20 summit. "Why weren't there more people there?" he wondered. Wilmott is an evangelist for maths and its application to everyday life. His book on quantitative finance is used around the world by hordes of bankers who run the world's top trading desks. Wilmott goes one step further than most of his peers, as he also tries to integrate into his analysis the financial world's biggest challenge to rationality: human behaviour. "You can model electromagnetic waves: a mathematical model that shows molecules of air moving around a plane, making it fly," he says. "But in a financial model, you need more than numbers. The models in finance are not very good. In this field, it matters if you're not psychologically synchronised; people don't behave rationally. You can't rely on people following equations. It's half maths and half human." Juggling The son of an accountant and an entrepreneurial mother, both Paul and his brother became mathematicians. From an early age, at a grammar school in Birkenhead, Wilmott says he was always good at maths - and business. As a child, he put together his vast collection of pets and organised a zoo that neighbours paid to visit. As an undergraduate at Oxford, he earned his pints from street performing with his juggling clubs. Ventures followed as the years went by, including a £170m hedge fund, which closed about four years ago after a fall-out between the partners. Wilmott's two sons are also interested in maths; Zachary, 17, is preparing for his A levels in maths and Oscar, 19, is studying maths at Imperial College, London. His children may have followed his path because "I am an enthusiast, and they are intelligent," he says, adding that he didn't flood his sons with numbers from an early age. "Mathematicians don't use numbers. Mathematics is about abstraction, all we use are symbols. If we keep educating in adding numbers, they won't go beyond a McDonald's desk." Calculus and algebra, which deal with concepts such as links between variables, are much more practical and important in life. "Politicians say maths needs to be more practical, but you have to be more abstract. Mathematics makes your brain think in a very different way; a lot of people are afraid of it, but it's fun and intellectually satisfying." Wilmott has focused on practical - and financial - rewards, since his days at Oxford, where he read maths and also got a PhD in fluid mechanics. At university, Wilmott designed a model that analysed the speed and efficiency of a double-razor shaving machine aimed at determining how far apart the blades should be, and which angle and speed would make the shaving most effective. As the years went by, he also designed models on turbine plates for jet engine maker Rolls Royce, and other models for British Steel, British Telecom and for an explosives company that needed to calculate how to best blow up a mountain - "close to the edge of the mountain, but not too close," Wilmott remembers. He travels the world lecturing bankers and regulators about quantitative finance and valuation methods. He also focuses on his teaching in 7City, a City-based professional training centre, and on his quants book, which he published in 1993 for the first time and keeps updating. His next challenge would be to develop a product that can make life more comfortable, and turn it into a business, he says. Constants "I'd never go and work for a bank, I am not an employee type. I don't respond well to orders. I am spoiled, I've done all my life what I wanted, my parents didn't stop me, so I've had an interesting life with lots of variety." Business and maths are the two constants in his life - the professional one, at least. "Maths ruins your personal life," he concedes. "Some mathematicians have no connection with the real world and it's very hard to talk to them. But I am a fairly normal human being even if I am a mathematician. Others don't have any empathy, but I am in tears in half of the movies that I see." He plugs into life by spending time with his American wife and his two children, skiing, or driving one of his three cars. Other mathematicians forget the real world, or see it in their own terms, Wilmott says. "I am talking the colours of the rainbow and they only see black and white." Still, he admits applying maths to his personal life: while arguing with his wife, he sometimes uses the "reductio ad absurdum" principle to prove a point. In a delicate or tense conversation, bringing up extremes may not be the best way towards consensus, he acknowledges. But the mathematical habit of challenging assumptions has always been a constant in his life, and he swears it always will be. "The natural thing for me is to think there is something wrong if everybody is agreeing." CV: Paul WilmottBorn 8 November 1959 Marital status Married to second wife. Two children Education BA maths, PhD, applied maths, St Catherine's College, Oxford Career 2002-present: Course director for certificate in quantitative finance 2002-2005: Partner in Caissa Capital Fund Management (NY and Bermuda) 1999: Academic director for Oxford University department for continuing education programmes in mathematical finance; founder of the diploma in mathematical finance 1997-1999: Group leader and founder of mathematical finance group at Oxford University 1996-present: Wilmott Associates. Clients include: Banco Santander; British Telecom; Citibank; IBM; Nationwide 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 | 30 Apr 2009 | 11:01 pm In praise of ... David MacKayThe debate over climate change and energy is often conducted in unreal terms. If only we stuck wind turbines on our homes or unplugged those mobile-phone chargers, the argument runs, what a difference that would make. Which is where David MacKay comes in. A physicist at Cambridge, he wants to cut UK emissions - but first he hopes to reduce the "emissions of twaddle" generated by an argument heavier on emotion than arithmetic. Dr MacKay has published Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (available to download free from withouthotair.com), which presents the sums for sustainable energy use and supply - and leaves it to readers to draw their own conclusions. Rather than talk in megawatts or all the other terms that pollute the discussion, Dr MacKay uses a single measure: kilowatt hours per day (kWh/d). The average Briton gets through 125 kWh a day, he shows, while the average American consumes 250 kWh. Set against that total, many of the actions we are urged to take are minuscule. Unplugging that phone charger (a device, Dr MacKay notes, painted as if it is "as evil as Darth Vader") would save 0.01 kWh - or 0.01% of the typical Briton's daily consumption. Such trivial measures may make us more mindful about energy use, but a lot more needs to be done. Dr MacKay has written a book that is accessible rather than professional ("I took it to the loo and almost didn't come out again" it says at the front; hardly conventional publishing blurb), but most of all it is necessary. 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 | 30 Apr 2009 | 11:01 pm Make me a superhero: The pleasures and pitfalls of body enhancementWe should welcome with open arms the rich possibilities of technologically enhancing our bodies. Just so long as we don't all end up looking, and thinking, and acting the same If you could choose the colour of your child's eyes, what colour would you choose? If you could rebuild damaged leg cartilage and, in doing so, make it stronger and more flexible than any natural biological substance, would you? What if you could take a pill that would allow you to concentrate intensely over a short and crucial period in your life, when distraction could mean the loss of something very important, like somebody's life? These decisions and many others like them are now upon us and they have reached the attention of the European Parliament. Over the next few months, MEPs will establish an advisory committee on all aspects of human enhancement, the first committee of its kind. Meanwhile the US has gradually been transforming health care into enhancement care and, perhaps by implication, losing sight of basic healthcare needs. In a world that is increasingly concerned about technological domination and dependence, we are becoming enhancement junkies. We nip here, tuck there, whiten our teeth, reduce the width of our waists, and even go on game shows for the chance of winning expensive, invasive cosmetic surgery. What is it that people seek by undergoing such transformations? I think it has something to do with what I call the accumulation of biocultural capital. The expectation is that such alterations will make us wealthier in some sense. This might take the form of actual monetary gain. For instance, if we have better eyesight, we might be in a stronger position to access certain professions where this is important, such as being a pilot or an astronaut. We might even become a better golfer, which might explain why Tiger Woods had LASIK eye surgery. In other cases, the capital we acquire is cultural when we buy into the idea that by sculpting our bodies in a particular way we enhance our attractiveness to others. Of course, we have always dabbled in this area. We make ourselves presentable before important meetings, or when going on dates, altering our body odour with cologne, removing blemishes with make-up and so on. However, today's technology takes this desire to a completely new level. Nowadays we can lengthen our legs, chemically enhance our mental ability and perhaps even genetically modify ourselves to become stronger, faster or more resilient to wear and tear. Critics of such practices point to their irreversible or invasive character. They note that the fashions we covet when altering our appearance are ephemeral and we might find ourselves worse off rather than wealthier by pursuing them. Others are concerned that we will modify ourselves to such an extent that we will lose all sense of our fragile humanity. Becoming a DIY superhero could rob us of some essential quality that has to do with being vulnerable. Should we continue to embrace this dramatic move towards the posthuman, or outlaw radical technological transformations? One of the difficulties is that there is no clear distinction between the way we use technology to make ourselves well and how we might use it to become better than well, or superhuman. So, when it comes to imagining how the technology might progress, our relentless pursuit of health might already commit us to enhancement. We might even be enhanced already. We are a remarkably modified species, from the sophisticated clothing we wear to the laser eye surgery we utilise. We have always been beings in transition. We also bring a large amount of aesthetic content to our new technological culture. Whether it is the size of our breasts, the length of our legs or the colour of our makeup, we adopt new ways of altering ourselves to make them our own, to give them personal integrity and meaning. One of the difficulties is that we cannot know in advance what precise aesthetic content will emerge from any given body modification or how such an alteration will be interpreted over time or, indeed, over our lifetimes. This is part of the risk we take when buying into any lifestyle enhancement. Consider tattooing, for instance, which has become a remarkably personalised practice over the years. What does the tattoo of a 20-year-old mean to that same person when they are 80 years old? Like other body modifications, tattoos have gone through numerous social and cultural shifts and today they are practically a mainstream body modification. Some would say they still signify deviant behaviour, though in a much more modest sense than they did when we used tattooing to brand criminals. Tattoos are also a great example of our willingness and desire to experiment with our bodies. Should this uncertainty about what we will gain – or lose – from enhancements make us more reluctance to use them? Far from it. Instead, we should find more ways to support their responsible use. Technology is not value-laden. The practice of cosmetic surgery per se is not a good reason to be concerned about the particular culture of use we see among us. If we want to foster a more enlightened use of the technology, we have to begin with culture, not with the technology itself. Here we get to the crux of the issue: the ways in which we utilise technologies of body or mind modification will always be informed by our broader cultural values, but, more significantly, cultural trends. This is why we need to take hold of such innovations and, through our use of them, question what we consider to be beautiful, or what would count as an enhancement to humanity. Sometimes, our use of them simply signals that we are part of some tribe, such as the tribe that can afford botox. For this reason we must also critically engage with how tribes are often created by commercial structures, through advertisements and long-standing relationships between pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies and the medical industries. The kinds of enhancements we must seek for humanity should not lead us towards a world where we all aspire to look the same as each other, which is a criticism often levelled at the cosmetic surgery industry. Rather, we should encourage human enhancements that amplify human variation. That's what I expect from human enhancement technologies and this is what humanity excels in, as the history of fashion reveals. So, as the European Parliament proceeds with its discussions about how best to govern this brave new world, we would do well to remember that the problem is not the proliferation of enhancement technologies, but this peculiar period where there are only a few options available to us. Once we have access to the fullest range of human modifications, we will find less cause to mimic our favourite celebrity or, at least, our favourite celebrities will be much more varied in their appearance and their talents. Instead of converging around a single notion of beauty, we will invent new forms of human beauty. New functional possibilities will also transform our aspirations. If we were all able to run a 100m sprint in 8 seconds, we might value some other Olympic event more highly or we might find more cause to value an activity that isn't an Olympic event. Alternatively, if we all had perfect pitch (a trait for which there is a rather simple genetic cause), we might invent some radical new forms of making music or, at least, destablise the dominance of certain musical genres, as the value of a perfect voice will be diminished. These rich possibilities are likely to be enabled by a culture of enhancement and governing them will keep the European Parliament busy for quite some time. Of course, the MEPs unique problem will be how to develop policies that accommodate the entire spectrum of European values, so as to avoid the chaotic consequences of "enhancement tourism". Once we have expanded the options as far as possible, we will be able to observe how the choices of technological enhancement are as rich and complex as the choices we make about other aspects of our identity. 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 | 30 Apr 2009 | 11:00 pm Fish Feel Pain, Study Finds (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - When you hook a fish, does it hurt? Yes, a new study suggests.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Apr 2009 | 10:12 pm Boogie birdie: Animals shown to 'dance' to music (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Apr 2009 | 9:33 pm Obama Restores Endangered Species Act (OneWorld.net)OneWorld.net - WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (OneWorld.net) - The Obama administration restored Tuesday a regulation requiring U.S. federal wildlife experts to review before implementation any government project that may impact threatened or endangered species.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Apr 2009 | 8:41 pm Africans Have World's Greatest Genetic VariationA new study helps narrow the location in Africa where humans first evolved.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 7:18 pm Energy prices waver with new signs of weak economy (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Apr 2009 | 7:17 pm Pet Trade Introduces Diseases, CostsInvasive species, often introduced as pets, increase risk to diseases and lead to heavy costs.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 7:03 pm Swine flu source spawns wild theoriesLONDON (Reuters) - Dead pigs in China, evil factory farms in Mexico and an Al Qaeda plot involving Mexican drug cartels are a few wild theories seeking to explain a deadly swine flu outbreak that has killed up to 176 people.Source: Reuters: Science News | 30 Apr 2009 | 6:27 pm This Just in: Mercury More Exciting Than Mars
Mercury was once seen as a cold, dead little world, spinning around the sun unchanged for the past 4 billion years. No longer: Observations from the Messenger spacecraft say it’s anything but. NASA’s orbiter is sending back evidence of massive volcanism, strange impact craters and magnetic tornadoes that funnel plasma directly from the sun to the planet’s surface. “It’s definitely not this picture of an ancient world where everything that happened to it happened billions of years ago and nothing happened since then,” said Tom Watters of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. “We’re seeing a very dynamic planet that has a lot going on today.” A slew of papers in Science report what Messenger (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) saw on its Oct. 6 flyby of the small rocky planet. The spacecraft (whose admittedly contrived name was chosen because Mercury was the messenger to the gods in Roman mythology) launched in 2004, and will fly by Mercury a total of three times before settling into orbit in 2011.
And it looks weird. Superficially, Mercury looks a lot like the moon: small, grayish-brown and pockmarked with craters. Some scientists assumed that Mercury’s surface formed the same way the moon’s did, with lighter rocks rising to the surface of a magma ocean and congealing into a brittle crust early on. But the new observations reveal that 40 percent of the surface was formed by volcanoes. “Up until before Messenger’s arrival, we weren’t even sure that volcanism existed on Mercury,” said Brett Denevi of Arizona State University, lead author on a paper describing the evolution of Mercury’s crust. “Now we’re seeing it’s very widespread across the surface.”
Most were probably effusive volcanoes, in which molten muck bubbles up from cracks in the surface and spreads, filling in crater basins and smoothing the landscape. But a few were explosive volcanoes, what Denevi described as “big fire fountains of magma” whose ejected material turned to glass before hitting the ground. Messenger also spotted an impact basin that is “unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere in the solar system,” said Watters, the lead author on a paper focusing on this funny feature. The basin, dubbed Rembrandt, is one of the biggest and youngest craters on Mercury. If it were on Earth, its edges would extend from Boston to Washington, D.C. But for Rembrandt, size doesn’t matter. It’s what’s inside that counts. Most impact basins — craters more than 186 miles in diameter — are formed by impacts so forceful that they crack the planet’s crust all the way to a liquid or molten layer underneath. The molten rock oozes into the basin and fills it up. The basin sags under the weight of all this extra material, and deforms the ground around it. The interior of the basin crinkles up into ridges, and the edges stretch into troughs. Rembrandt is only partially filled with volcanic material. Even stranger is its pattern of ridges and troughs, which lie side by side in a radial pattern from the center, rather than being confined to either the rim or the middle. “That pattern is like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Watters said. “We’re going to have to go back and rethink the way that we generate these stresses in these basins.” Observations from Messenger might help solve a few mysteries, in addition to creating new ones. Scientists wondered if Mercury had a stable magnetic field fueled by a liquid core like Earth, or a ghostly magnetic field left over from a once-liquid core that’s since frozen, like Mars. The Messenger flyby clinched it in favor of an active magnetic field — and though it’s weak, it’s really active. Earth has an atmosphere and a strong magnetic field to protect it from the constant stream of ions ejected from the sun at supersonic speeds known as the solar wind. Mercury is not so lucky. Its magnetic field is just 1 percent the strength of Earth’s, and it has no atmosphere to speak of. What atmosphere it has is tenuous and extremely variable, made up mostly of sodium one day and mostly calcium the next. This leaves its surface vulnerable to being ravaged by the solar wind at the best of times. Messenger flew by at a particularly bad moment, and ran right through a magnetic tornado. Magnetic tornadoes form when the magnetic field in the solar wind links up to the field generated by a planet, a process called magnetic reconnection. Bundles of magnetic field lines connect the surface of the planet directly to the surface of the sun, and as the solar wind pushes them away from the sun, they twist and whirl like cyclones. On Earth, these cyclones (technically called “flux transfer events”) dance on the ionosphere, creating the Northern Lights and messing up GPS systems. On Mercury, though, the twisters were 10 times as strong as any magnetic cyclones observed on Earth. With so little atmosphere to interfere, Mercury’s magnetic tornadoes are great spinning chutes that ionized gas can slide down. “They act as magnetic channels or open windows that allow solar wind plasma from the sun, very fast and very hot, to come right down those field lines and impacts the surface,” said Jim Slavin of NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center. When the gas hits the surface, it knocks off neutrally-charged atoms and sends them on a loop high into the sky. Slavin thinks that could explain Mercury’s inconsistent atmosphere. “People had hypothesized that it was because of day-to-day changes in the solar wind, and how much is able to reach the surface and sputter off neutral atoms,” he said. “We may have discovered the answer to that longstanding question, why is the atmosphere so variable: Because reconnection, when it occurs, is just so intense.” See Also:
Image: 1) Science/AAAS. 2) NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Smithsonian Institution/ Carnegie Institution of Washington
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 30 Apr 2009 | 6:13 pm Sizzling summer?How much trust can we place in seasonal forecasts?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Apr 2009 | 5:37 pm NASA Scales Back New Space CapsuleNASA's new space capsule, Orion, will now house a crew of four, not six.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 5:03 pm Dancing Birds Feel the BeatSome birds can boogie to the beat in almost-perfect tempo. How do they do it?Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 4:43 pm Video evidence of birds' remarkable talent for dancingSome birds have a remarkable talent for dancing, two scientific studies suggest.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Apr 2009 | 4:02 pm Evidence of Water Found on Saturn Moon EnceladusIce volcanoes on Enceladus are probably rooted in a subsurface sea of liquid water.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 3:23 pm Cuttlefish at Risk From Desalination PlantA desalination plant may pose a threat to populations of the giant Australian cuttlefish.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 2:53 pm Spider sex violent but effectiveSpiders in Israel have been spotted injecting their sperm through holes they make in females' abdomens.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Apr 2009 | 1:59 pm New Toxin Detected in Forest Fire SmokeScientists discover a new pollutant emitted from forest fires that can alter human DNA.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Apr 2009 | 1:14 pm Philippines threatens to deport foreign protesters (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Apr 2009 | 12:57 pm Earth WatchWhy carbon caps may put jam in the climate worksSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Apr 2009 | 12:01 pm Invisibility cloak edges closerA tiny "carpet cloak" that makes objects invisible to optical light has been made by a US research team.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Apr 2009 | 11:23 am
|
Another astrophysics project on Jaguar led by Piero Madau at the University of California, Santa Cruz will use 5 million processor-hours to explore the invisible halo of dark matter that surrounds the Milky Way.
Combined with mapping by 