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3T MRI Detects 'Early' Breast Cancer Not Seen On Mammography And Sonography3T MRI, a powerful tool for evaluating patients with a high risk of having breast cancer, can detect a significant number of lesions not found on mammography and sonography, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Electronic Books: Make Brighter, Full-color Electronic ReadersThinking about getting an e-reader but not sure if you like reading the dim screen? For the first time “e-paper” will achieve the brilliance of printed media. “This takes the Amazon Kindle, for example, which is black and white, and could make it full color,” one of the developers says.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Alcohol Drinkers Not Only Zone Out -- But Also Are Unaware That They DoA new study suggests that a moderate dose of alcohol increases a person's mind wandering, while at the same time reducing the likelihood of noticing that one's mind has wandered.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 6:00 pm 'Sobering' Decline Of Caribbean's Big Fish, Fisheries: Overfishing Deemed Most Likely CauseSharks, barracuda and other large predatory fishes disappear on Caribbean coral reefs as human populations rise, endangering the region's marine food web and ultimately its reefs and fisheries, according to a sweeping study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Snippet Of RNA Helps Make Individuals Remarkably AlikeUniformity, or singleness of form, is a general property of life. Biologists have long pondered how this feature is produced in the face of such great variation in genetics and environmental conditions. Researchers now have identified a microRNA that is critical to the robustness of the molecular network that helps regulate uniformity. This knowledge could lead to a better understanding of cancer cells, which do not act in controllable, uniform ways.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 6:00 pm Hepatitis C: Added Anti-viral Improves Response, Halves Duration Of Treatment, Study SuggestsThe addition of the anti-viral drug telaprevir to a standard treatment for hepatitis C can shorten the duration of therapy and increase the number of patients who can be cured of their disease, according to the results of study coordinated by investigators from the Duke Clinical Research Institute.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 6:00 pm No Clear Winner Among Fillings For Childhood CavitiesSo far, there is a not a clear winner among the types of fillings used to repair childhood cavities, according to a new review.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Estrogen Controls How The Brain Processes SoundScientists have discovered that the hormone estrogen plays a pivotal role in how the brain processes sounds.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Astronomer To Search Space For Precursors Of LifeMany of the organic molecules that make up life on Earth have also been found in space. Astronomers will use the Herschel Space Observatory to study these chemical compounds in new detail in the warm clouds of gas and dust around young stars.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Nanoneedle Is Small In Size, But Huge In ApplicationsResearchers have developed a membrane-penetrating nanoneedle for the targeted delivery of one or more molecules into the cytoplasm or the nucleus of living cells. In addition to ferrying tiny amounts of cargo, the nanoneedle can also be used as an electrochemical probe and as an optical biosensor.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Seahorses 'Stood Up' 25 Million Years AgoSeahorses adopted their upright posture to take advantage of grassy habitats.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 May 2009 | 1:16 pm Hubble FAQ: Inside the Last Space Telescope Repair Mission (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - The space shuttle Atlantis is less than a week away from blasting off to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope for the fifth and final time in its nearly 20-year lifetime, but this last flight stands out from the pack in more ways than one.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2009 | 1:03 pm Face transplant patient Connie speaksThe shotgun victim gives her story after making a full recovery from the world's most extensive face transplant
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 6 May 2009 | 12:03 pm Face transplant recipient: 'I'm not a monster' (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2009 | 11:36 am 'Ghost fishing' major sea threat: UN report (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2009 | 10:07 am How swine flu has spread through the UKSince 27 April swine flu has infected 27 people, and more than 300 people may have been contaminated
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 6 May 2009 | 9:30 am Dummy runHi-tech mannequin helps teach medical techniqueSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 May 2009 | 6:29 am Genetics Linked to How Brain 'Frames' Choices (HealthDay)HealthDay - TUESDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- Genetics influence how a person makes a decision based on whether their options are presented to them in a positive or negative way (framing effect) -- such as being told there is an 80 percent chance of surviving or a 20 percent chance of dying during an operation, U.K. researchers report.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2009 | 3:48 am By Creating Market in Fakes, eBay Protects Archaeological Treasures
By creating a market for fake antiquities, the online auction giant has actually reduced looting pressures, writes UCLA archaeologist in Archaeology. According to Stanish, communities that would once have supported themselves by raiding nearby ruins now devote themselves to churning out forgeries. “Chinese, Bulgarian, Egyptian, Peruvian and Mexican workshops are now producing fakes at a frenetic pace,” he writes. By using eBay to sell directly to customers and cutting out middlemen who once transported their finds to black-market buyers, forgers actually make more money than before, and have little incentive to loot. Their fakes are increasingly well-made, to the point where Stanish often can’t distinguish them from genuine items, and have flooded the global antiquities market. Stanish estimates that 95 percent of eBay’s purported archaeological treasures are forgeries, up from 50 percent a decade ago. Would-be buyers of authentic artifacts are more skeptical than ever, further driving down the price of genuine antiquities. “The value … of illicit digging decreases every time someone buys a ‘genuine’ Moche pot for $35, plus shipping and handling,” he writes. See Also:
Image: Flickr/Theilr Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 6 May 2009 | 1:19 am 'Anaconda' harnesses wave powerA rubber "sea snake" that can transform waves into power is tested in a giant shipping tank.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2009 | 11:35 pm Oldest Surface on Earth Discovered (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Earth's surface is mostly fresh in geologic terms.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 11:21 pm Scientists pinpoint fats dangerScientists find a genetic mechanism which appears to show which fatty deposits in the arteries have the potential to kill.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2009 | 11:06 pm Anaconda wave-power generator snakes into next stage of productionThe device is said to be at the forefront of a new generation of wave-power machines that could slash renewables costs Giant rubber sea snakes could harness the plentiful clean power off Britain's coasts within five years, according to the inventors of a new type of wave-energy generator. Yesterday, Checkmate Sea Energy unveiled the final stages of a proof-of-concept trial of its Anaconda device, seen by many experts as at the forefront of the next generation of robust, cheap wave-power machines that could slash the costs of making renewable electricity. Made from a composite of fabric and natural rubber, the Anaconda rides oncoming waves and uses the motion to drive a turbine in its tail. The test device is nine metres long but its developers say that a full-scale device could be up to 200m in length and be capable of producing 1MW of power, enough for a thousand homes, and cost £2m to build. Farms of 50 or more could be placed underwater a few miles from the coast. Harnessing wave power could contribute significantly to the UK's target of sourcing 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The Carbon Trust found that wave and tidal stream technologies could add 10-20GW of electricity capacity to the UK by 2050, in particular from areas such as north-west Scotland and south-west England. "It's a completely new kind of wave power machine," said Rod Rainey, a chief engineer with engineering design consultants Atkins and inventor of the Anaconda. "The beauty of wave energy is its consistency. However, the problem holding back wave energy machines is they tend to deteriorate over time in the harsh marine environment. Anaconda is non-mechanical: it is mainly rubber, a natural material with a natural resilience and so it has very few moving parts to maintain." Each Anaconda device is tethered to the sea floor and positioned head-on into the coming waves. Floating under the sea surface, the water-filled rubber tube swims with the waves – as a swell hits the front of the device, it creates a bulge that travels to the back of the tube, in the same way a pulse of blood travels along an artery. When the bulge wave reaches the Anaconda's tail, the energy is used to drive a turbine and create electricity. "Wave power has always been the poor relation of wind energy, but a lot of people are resentful of wind turbines on their doorstep, or in vast tracts of coastal waters," said Paul Auston, chairman of Checkmate. "What we're offering […] is a new technology which you can't see, it's under the water so it's not as intrusive and it's made of a natural material." The device has already been given a significant vote of confidence by the Carbon Trust. The Anaconda has been chosen as one of only two technologies to take part in the Trust's marine accelerator programme, which aims to push new low-carbon technology ideas closer commercial reality. "We were attracted to it because of its simplicity – in theory it's just a rubber structure," said the Carbon Trust's Stephen Wyatt. "It has the potential to be robust and quite easy and cheap to manufacture. When you look at some of the severe offshore conditions that wave and tidal devices have to face, then we realise that a structure this simple could be quite cheap." Their analysis of the technology concluded that, because of this simplicity, Anaconda could create a "step-change" in how soon wave devices became commercial. Their research showed that, while wave energy in general costs around 25p per KWh to make, the anaconda had the potential to bring prices down to around 9p per KWh. Mains electricity today form fossil fuels costs around 6p per KWh. Marine energy devices that are nearing commercial reality today include the SeaGen and Pelamis, a tidal and wave generator respectively. Both went into trials in the sea last year, SeaGen in Strangfod Lough and Pelamis off the coast of Portugal. Like Anaconda, Pelamis also uses a snake-like motion to capture wave energy by flexing its articulated metal sections on the sea surface. Both devices have had technical problems however, mainly due to the harsh conditions at sea. The Anaconda's designers stress that its key advantage is its survivability. "If the worst comes to the worst it'll only be washed up on the beach, and you can patch it up and put it back out there," said Rainey. The proof-of-concept trials have been carried out for the past few weeks in a wave tank at defence company QinetiQ in Gosport, Hampshire. When these are complete, Checkmate hopes to build a quarter-size version of Anaconda for possible sea trials. If all goes well, the Checkmate thinks the first devices in commercial production could be floating in the seas off Britain as early as 2014. 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 | 5 May 2009 | 11:05 pm Obituary: Nina FarhiEminent psychoanalyst, teacher and lecturer Nina Farhi, who has died of cancer aged 65, was an exceptional and respected psychoanalytic psychotherapist. In the 1980s she met, and subsequently became a close friend and colleague of, the psychoanalyst Marion Milner, an original theoretician who emphasised the healing power of unconscious psychic creativity. Milner suggested to Farhi that she should take her work into arenas where, for reasons of age, Milner herself could no longer go. With characteristic courage, generosity and intellectual thoroughness, Farhi took Milner's legacy as her li fe's work. She was involved, through her long career, with extremely damaged and disturbed people in intensive, four- or five-times weekly psychoanalytic therapy. She lectured extensively in London and internationally and became a visiting lecturer at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv. Her series of groundbreaking papers, in journals such as Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Dialogues, explored the ways in which, in work with patients from backgrounds of extreme emotional deprivation, she sought the most primitive elements that had enabled some form of psychological survival. Unafraid to draw from Jewish mysticism as well as a range of psychoanalytists, she could see the spark of holiness in the domain of evil, the drive towards self-realisation in bizarre and chaotic experiences with her patients. Nina had recently finished an insightful, creative extension of an initative by Milner, who died in 1998. This paper, In the Hands of the Living God (echoing the title of Milner's 1969 publication, The Hands of the Living God), will be published posthumously in Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Prior to her death Nina was compiling notes for two major papers on perversion and anorexia, both earmarked for the same journal. She was born Nina Ruth Gould in troubled lower-middle-class circumstances in north London. Her grandparents had been Polish and east Galician Jewish immigrants who had settled in the East End. Unsurprisingly, Nina became intensely involved in the class and racial politics of her day. Ill-health prevented her from pursuing a PhD thesis on a historical perspective on immigrants, particularly Jews who came to the UK in the early 20th century. Later, when her chronic condition, lobular hepatitis, became manageable, she turned to psychoanalysis and rose rapidly to prominence. Nina became an inspirational teacher and supervisor in her training organisation, the Guild of Psychotherapists, and remained on their training committee for 10 years from 1989 to 1999. For many years, she supervised the staff team at the Whittington hospital's erstwhile Belle Ridley Day hospital (now the Dartmouth Park Unit), an NHS psychiatric unit in north London committed to the long-term care and treatment of some of the most damaged people in our society. She was a founder member in 1980 of the Squiggle Foundation, the organisation devoted to the work of the pioneering psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott. During her time as director (1989-96), Nina held regular Saturday meetings in her home on themes in his work. Many of the participants became well-known clinicians and authors, within and outside psychoanalysis. As Nina was unstintingly generous in her work, so she was with her friends, colleagues and the many people who sought her counsel. She became a mentor - through her robust and sometimes proud personal example of her faith in the possibilities of what a life could achieve and become - and all this through long-term illness, disability and pain that was determinedly shrugged off. She had been afflicted with systemic lupus erythematosus from the early 1980s: this was never allowed to impinge on her plans for her own life or those of others. Her friends were so accustomed to her resolute denial of physical pain and her indomitable spirit that none of us recognised in her deteriorating physical condition the possibility of a terminal illness; and nor did she. She is survived by her husband, Musa (the novelist Moris Farhi), whom she married in 1978, her daughter Rachel (Sievers), and her granddaughter Zara. • Nina Farhi, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, born 1 December 1943; died 21 March 2009 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 | 5 May 2009 | 11:01 pm EU takes aim at Canada, bans seal products (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 10:49 pm Livestock traceback participation disappoints -USDAWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A disappointing one-third of cattle, hog and poultry farmers are enrolled in a livestock traceback system intended as a primary U.S. defense against mad cow and other diseases, an Agriculture Department official said on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 10:27 pm Study sheds light on why some plaques turn deadlyLONDON (Reuters) - A U.S. research team said on Tuesday it had found evidence why some plaque build-ups in arteries may lead to heart attacks and stroke while others do not.Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 7:50 pm Grey Wolf Taken Off Endangered ListAfter a comeback the grey wolf is no longer endangered and can be hunted in most states.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 7:45 pm Scientists unveil chocolate-fueled race car (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 7:25 pm Some Himalayan Glaciers Growing Despite WarmingA cluster of glaciers in the Himalayas are bucking the global warming trend.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 7:00 pm Viral Missing Link Caught on Film
A virus so large and strange that it’s redefined the very concept of a virus has been photographed for the first time. It’s even weirder than expected. The virus was originally discovered infecting amoebas in a Parisian water tower in 1992. It was orders of magnitude bigger than any other virus — so large, in fact, that researchers figured it was a microbe. It took 11 years for the mimivirus to be officially defined as a virus, though the definition didn’t quite fit. In addition to its enormous size, many of its genes came from bacteria. Some researchers called it a “missing link” that blurred the boundaries between viruses and living cells, between living and dead. Despite all this attention the mimivirus’ physical structure remained a blur. Like other viruses, it was made from DNA surrounded by a protein coat called a capsid, but long fibers on the capsid’s surface made it difficult to see the mimivirus’ underlying structure. To get a clearer picture, French and American biochemists dissolved mimivirus fibers with enzymes, then used an electron microscope to take thousands of pictures that were eventually combined into a three-dimensional structure. The results, published recently in Public Library of Science Biology, provide further evidence that mimiviruses straddle the boundary between virus and bacteria. Whereas the DNA of other viruses are tightly wrapped, there’s a large gap between the mimivirus genome and its capsid. In some ways, this resembles less the structure of a virus than of a living cell, in which DNA is contained in a nucleus, which in turn floats in cell-wall-enclosed cytoplasm. “The new structural finds, along with previous genetic and morphological work, confirm that mimivirus is an odd mix of genes and parts found in viruses, bacteria and even eukaryotes, the organisms that sequester their DNA in a nucleus,” write the researchers. What does this mean, then, for the mimivirus’ official status, which has caused some researchers to call for a redefinition of virus? Perhaps that’s the wrong question to ask. Eugene Koonin, a National Center for Biotechnology Information researcher who reported last year that, in another viral first, mimiviruses can actually become infected by other viruses, was nonplused by arguments over mimivirus classification. “They’re part of the biosphere, and that’s more than enough for me,” he said at the time. See Also: Citation: “Structural Studies of the Giant Mimivirus.” By Chuan Xiao, Yurii G. Kuznetsov, Siyang Sun, Susan L. Hafenstein, Victor A. Kostyuchenko, Paul R. Chipman, Marie Suzan-Monti, Didier Raoult, Alexander McPherson, Michael G. Rossmann. PLoS Biology, April 28, 2009. Image: PLoS Biology Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 May 2009 | 6:48 pm New Race Car Runs on ChocolateA race car fueled by chocolate waste is designed to reach 145 mph.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 6:31 pm Dr Pepper Artifact Points to Original FormulaAn old drugstore ledger now up for auction has a recipe for "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters."Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 6:25 pm Rome's 'Talking Statues' Get SanitizedStatues that have served as platforms for satirical Romans for centuries get a clean up.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 5:25 pm Celebs join Prince Charles and a frog to issue rainforest SOSAn array of celebrities join Prince Charles and an animated frog in a film to highlight the dangers of deforestation.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2009 | 5:10 pm BLOG: Mexico's Toughest AnimalsOn this Cinco de Mayo, explore a top 10 look at Mexico's hardiest animals.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 4:35 pm Disease Threatening Bees in South AfricaHundreds of thousands of bees are at risk from a disease sweeping through hives.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 4:05 pm Swine Flu-Bound Mexicans Turn to WebMexicans start to tire of the virtual world amid a long swine flu-induced isolation.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 3:15 pm WIDE ANGLE: Earth's Greatest MountainsGet dispatches from an Everest trek and explore how huge mountains grew.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 May 2009 | 2:25 pm Great apes suffer setback in EU animal testing voteSTRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Researchers can continue most experiments on mankind's closest relatives -- chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans -- after European Union lawmakers watered down proposals to restrict testing.Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 2:08 pm Ice team endures meagre rationsThree UK explorers surveying the Arctic sea ice survive on just 90g of food each per day until a resupply flight reaches them.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2009 | 12:58 pm Bullying may make kids psychoticCHICAGO (Reuters) - People who are bullied as children have twice the risk of having delusions, hallucinations or other psychotic symptoms as pre-teens as those who have not been bullied, British researchers said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2009 | 12:17 pm
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