Carbon Nanotubes: Innovative Technology Or Risk To Health Or Environment?

On the one hand, carbon nanotubes raise hopes for innovative applications in fields ranging from technology to medicine, promising considerable economic benefits. On the other hand, there is still need for much more thorough research on if and how these tubes may adversely affect the environment and human health.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Flight Of The Bumble Bee Is Based More On Brute Force Than Aerodynamic Efficiency

Brute force rather than aerodynamic efficiency is the key to bumblebee flight, Oxford University scientists have discovered.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Protecting Rescue Workers Deployed In A Catastrophe

How can we better protect rescue workers when they are deployed in a catastrophe -- or find avalanche victims more efficiently? Researchers are currently working on a localization solution that combines satellite-based positioning with terrestrial guidance tools and situation-based sensor systems (such as integrated toxic gas sensors).
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Climate Adds Fuel To Asian Wildfire Emissions

In the last decade, Asian farmers have cleared tens of thousands of square miles of forests to accommodate the world's growing demand for palm oil, an increasingly popular food ingredient. Ancient peatlands have been drained and lush tropical forests have been cut down. As a result, the landscape of equatorial Asia now lies vulnerable to fires, which are growing more frequent and having a serious impact on the air as well as the land.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Key Protein Keeps Chronic Infection In Check

A new study explains how a protein released by immune cells during chronic infection could restrict viruses like HIV and hepatitis C from spreading through the body.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Glioma: Origin Of Brain Tumor Discovered

Glioma is the most common and most serious form of brain tumors that affect adults. It has not yet been determined which specific type of cell in the brain is the source of the tumor, but now scientists can show that glioma can start from immature support cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Bacteria Play Role In Preventing Spread Of Malaria

Bacteria in the gut of the Anopheles gambiae mosquito inhibit infection of the insect with Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria in humans, according to new research. Scientists found that removing these bacteria, or microbial flora, with antibiotics made the mosquitoes more susceptible to Plasmodium infection because of a lack of immune stimulation.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Erosion Of The Yucca Mountain Crest

The Yucca Mountain crest in Nevada has been proposed as a permanent site for high level radioactive waste. But a new study shows that there may be erosion of the crest.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Skin Color Clue To Nicotine Dependence

Higher concentrations of melanin -- the color pigment in skin and hair -- may be placing darker pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter skinned smokers, according to scientists.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Greenland's Constant Summer Sunlight Linked To Summer Suicide Spike

Suicide rates in Greenland increase during the summer, peaking in June. Researchers speculate that insomnia caused by incessant daylight may be to blame.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Space shuttle ready to fix Hubble for grand finale

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Space shuttle astronauts return this week to outfit the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope for its final -- and perhaps greatest -- series of observations that edge close to the beginning of time.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 10 May 2009 | 2:39 pm

Space shuttle ready to fix Hubble for grand finale (Reuters)

This NASA file image shows the Hubble Space Telescope resting in the Space Shuttle Discovery?s cargo bay during a repair mission in 1999. Put into orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometers (360 miles) by the shuttle Discovery in 1990, Hubble has transmitted more than 750,000 spectacular images and streams of data from the ends of the universe, opening a new era in astronomy.(AFP/HO/File)Reuters - Space shuttle astronauts return this week to outfit the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope for its final -- and perhaps greatest -- series of observations that edge close to the beginning of time.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 May 2009 | 2:39 pm

An ape escape - but then the orangutan has second thoughts

Adelaide zoo is evacuated after an orangutan escapes from its enclosure - only to let herself back in minutes later.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 May 2009 | 2:33 pm

Kuwaiti emir in China to focus on energy ties (AFP)

Sheik Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah -- the emir of Kuwait -- addresses the opening session of an Arab summit in 2008. Chinese President Hu Jintao has met the emir as energy-hungry China and the oil-rich Gulf state look to push economic ties to a higher level.(AFP/HO/File/null)AFP - Chinese President Hu Jintao met on Sunday with the visiting emir of Kuwait as energy-hungry China and the oil-rich Gulf state look to push economic ties to a higher level.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 May 2009 | 12:05 pm

Russia to sign nuclear pact with Japan: reports (AFP)

A 'radioactive' sign is seen during a protest in Moscow against the importation of radioactive debris from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has told Japanese media his country expects to sign a nuclear power pact with Japan during his visit to the country this week, reports have said.(AFP/File/Maxim Marmur)AFP - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has told Japanese media his country expects to sign a nuclear power pact with Japan during his visit here this week, reports said Sunday.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 May 2009 | 7:29 am

NASA clears Atlantis for Monday launch to Hubble (AP)

A wild pig grazes in the grass near the space shuttle Atlantis Saturday May 9, 2009 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Seven astronauts are making final preparations for their 12-day mission includes the fifth and final servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)AP - After months of delay, NASA cleared space shuttle Atlantis for a Monday launch to the Hubble Space Telescope.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 May 2009 | 5:54 am

Cave Painting Depicts Extinct Marsupial Lion (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Modern Australia lacks big land predators, but until about 30,000 years ago, the continent was ruled by Thylacoleo carnifex, the marsupial "lion."
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 May 2009 | 12:31 am

Across the universe

Myriad galaxies, including some of the ­cosmos's remotest objects, are caught by the Hubble Space Telescope, providing astronomers with key information about the universe's early history. The newly-released image was one of the last taken before this week's repair mission to the telescope, which orbits Earth, by the space shuttle Atlantis. Repair flights were cancelled after the Columbia disaster but a public outcry forced a Nasa rethink. Engineers say this should extend Hubble's life by five years or more. After that, new robot observatories – requiring no servicing by astronauts – should be in place.

Hubble's glorious, detailed images of the heavens have been extraordinarily popular with the public. By contrast, manned missions have excited little interest, despite their enormous cost. Researchers have been equally unimpressed with their scientific usefulness. The international space station, to be visited by astronauts in a Russian capsule this week, is set to cost around $100bn, for example.

Now President Obama has called for a review of future manned missions – in particular, the US constellation programme, which would involve constructing new rockets to take astronauts back to the moon, and later, to Mars. The plan was proposed by President George W Bush but critics have questioned the $150bn bill and argued the money would be better spent on unmanned probes. The review's timing, as America prepares to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, is controversial. Nevertheless, it is overdue. Returning men to the moon and taking them to Mars was always a dubious scientific enterprise. We should limit our space thrills to images like this one and to the work of robot ­missions like the Hubble and its successors.

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 May 2009 | 11:01 pm

'Big, big firework' will lift European satellites a million miles into space

European scientists will attempt their most audacious space launch yet when they blast a pair of giant satellites – Herschel and Planck – into orbit on the same rocket on Thursday. The two spacecraft have been designed to study the deepest recesses of space, unravel the early history of the universe and probe the creation of stars, galaxies and planets.

Their combined price tag of £2bn makes the launch the single most valuable science mission in the history of European space activity. Should their launcher fail or explode, it will take years to rebuild the two craft, scientists admitted last week.

"We will be extremely nervous until we have the rocket off the planet," said Professor David Southwood, science director of the European Space Agency. "You take all this very sensitive, hi-tech work – very complex – and you put it on top of a big, big firework. That's nerve-wracking.

"It is, I'm afraid, what space is all about, and we cannot make the measurements we want to make with Herschel and Planck unless we go off the planet."

The Planck spacecraft has been described as the "coolest spaceship ever built". Its instruments will be chilled to within a tenth of a degree of absolute zero, the lowest temperature possible in nature. It will then hover in space a million miles from Earth, searching the skies for faint traces of radiation left over from the universe's explosive big bang birth 14 billion years ago. The aim is to discover how matter first formed and later coalesced into stars, galaxies and, finally, living things.

By contrast, Herschel – which has the largest telescope mirror ever put in orbit – will examine the dust ejected by dying stars, probe the birth of new stars from cosmic gas clouds and analyse the composition of comets and planets in our solar system.

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 May 2009 | 11:01 pm

Rescue shuttle at launch pad for Hubble trip (AP)

FILE - In this April 17, 2009 file photo, space shuttles Atlantis, left, and Endeavour stand on their launch pads at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Endeavour will be available in the unlikely event that a rescue mission is necessary during the upcoming Atlantis mission, slated to launch Monday, May 11, to service NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)AP - In what's expected to be the last time ever, both of NASA's shuttle launch pads are occupied. Atlantis is on one, primed for a flight this coming week to the Hubble Space Telescope. Endeavour sits on the other a mile away for a mission no one wants.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 May 2009 | 10:53 pm

Rare prehistoric pregnant turtle found in Utah (AP)

This undated image provided Montana State University shows CT technician, Tanya Spence preparing to run a 75 million-year-old turtle fossil through a CT scanner at Deaconess Hospital in Bozeman, Mont. Paleontologists say a prehistoric turtle uncovered in a remote area of southern Utah is just the second ever found to still have a clutch of eggs inside. The fossil was found at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 2006 but scientists only recently discovered it had eggs inside. Scientists this week are examining CT scan images of the turtle taken in Montana. (AP Photo/Montana State University, Kelly Gorham)AP - Paleontologists say a 75-million-year-old turtle fossil uncovered in southern Utah has a clutch of eggs inside, making it the first prehistoric pregnant turtle found in the United States.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 May 2009 | 9:04 pm

Obama won't fight global warming with bear rules (AP)

FILE - This undated file photo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Alaska Image Library shows a polar bear.The Interior Department is letting stand a Bush administration regulation that limits protection of polar bears from global warming, three people familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, FILE)AP - The Obama administration, which promised a sharp break from the Bush White House on global warming, declared Friday it would stick with a Bush-era policy against expanding protection for climate-threatened polar bears and ruled out a broad new attack on greenhouse gases.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Warning: Sunspot cycle beginning to rise (AP)

FILE - In this undated image provided by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) shows a new sunspot, upper right, which after many weeks of a blank sun with no sunspots and very few sunspots this entire year, emerged Sept. 23, 2008. When the sun sneezes it's Earth that gets sick. It's time for the sun to move into a busier period for sunspots, and while forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems here. (AP Photo/NASA/ESA, FILE)AP - When the sun sneezes it's Earth that gets sick.



Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 May 2009 | 8:55 pm