Novel Therapy May Prove Effective In Treatment Of 30 Percent Of Cancers

A ground-breaking Canada-wide clinical trial has shown that a common anti-viral drug, ribavirin, can be beneficial in the treatment of cancer patients.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Formaldehyde Exposure Associated With Risk Of Blood And Lymph System Malignancies

Individuals exposed to relatively higher amounts of formaldehyde had a higher rate of death due to blood and lymph system malignancies than those exposed to lower levels of formaldehyde in a large cohort study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

See The Force: Mechanical Stress Leads To Self-sensing In Solid Polymers

Parachute cords, climbing ropes, and smart coatings for bridges that change color when overstressed are several possible uses for force-sensitive polymers being developed by researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

An Amnesic Patient With An Extraordinary Distorted Memory

If somebody asks you “Do you remember what you did on March 13, 1985?” you are very likely to answer “I don’t know”, even if your memory is excellent. Researchers have now been studying a patient with severe amnesia reported detailed false memories in answering this type of question.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Liquid Lens Creates Tiny Flexible Laser On A Chip

Like tiny Jedi knights, tunable fluidic micro lenses can focus and direct light at will to count cells, evaluate molecules or create on-chip optical tweezers, according to engineers. They may also provide imaging in medical devices, eliminating the necessity and discomfort of moving the tip of a probe.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Spitzer Catches Star Cooking Up Comet Crystals

Scientists have long wondered how tiny silicate crystals, which need sizzling high temperatures to form, have found their way into frozen comets, born in the deep freeze of the solar system's outer edges. The crystals would have begun as non-crystallized silicate particles, part of the mix of gas and dust from which the solar system developed.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Nigerian rebels hijack oil ship, hold 15 sailors (AP)

AP - Nigerian rebels said they hijacked an oil industry ship and were holding 15 foreign sailors hostage Thursday and demanded that all oil workers leave the southern Niger Delta by Saturday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:44 pm

Owners struggle to find sanctuaries for chimps (AP)

AP - Russ Cochran fondly recalls the fun he had with his chimpanzee when the animal was younger, taking him for rides in the car and to his cabin on the river. Boaters would stop to see Sammy, who would jump in canoes and help himself to food and drinks from the cooler.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:43 pm

Medicinal Plant Kava Safe And Effective In Reducing Anxiety, Study Suggests

Researchers in Australia have found a traditional extract of Kava, a medicinal plant from the South Pacific, to be safe and effective in reducing anxiety. The results of a world-first clinical trial which found that a water-soluble extract of kava was effective in treating anxiety and improving mood. The kava was prescribed in the form of tablets.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

Muscular Dystrophy Diagnosis Delayed Almost 2.5 Years In Boys

A simple and inexpensive blood test for any boy with symptoms and signs of motor delays and abnormalities could speed up the process of potentially diagnosing Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

More Critically Endangered Birds On IUCN Red List Than Ever

The latest evaluation of the world's birds reveals that more species than ever are threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Researchers found 1,227 species (12 percent) are classified as globally threatened with extinction.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

Heart Protein Regulates Blood Vessel Maintenance

Researchers have identified a protein that regulates the physical state of blood vessels. The biochemical processes involved in this regulation are important in the study of cardiovascular health.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

Spanish study shows cocaine in the air in 2 cities (AP)

AP - Air pollution has long been a fact of life in Spanish cities, but scientists now say it is not just smog that chokes people as they walk to work or stroll through the park. A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is also laced with at least five drugs — most prominently cocaine.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 11:58 am

Brain chemical may play key role in anxiety

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A chemical important for brain development may play a role in explaining why some people are genetically predisposed to anxiety and could lead to new treatments, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 11:38 am

New tool can help predict Alzheimer's risks: study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have developed a checklist that can accurately predict whether a person over 65 is at high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease within six years.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 11:38 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - A storm that produced tornadoes, hail and damaging winds across the central Plains and mid-Mississippi Valley a day earlier was marching eastward Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 11:33 am

Telescopes ready for rocket ride

Europe prepares to launch the 1.9bn-euro Herschel and Planck observatories from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2009 | 11:23 am

Atlantis astronauts set for first Hubble spacewalk (AFP)

AFP - Astronauts from the US space shuttle Atlantis prepared Thursday for an ambitious spacewalk to overhaul the Hubble space telescope and extend its working life.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 11:01 am

A remarkable vision of the female form from pre-history

A remarkable ivory carving is arguably the oldest sculpture of a human figure yet found, scientists say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2009 | 10:52 am

Astronauts Begin Spacewalk Marathon to Fix Hubble (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - HOUSTON – Atlantis astronauts will kick off an ambitious five-day marathon to fix the ailing Hubble Space Telescope Thursday when two spacewalkers float outside their shuttle to boost the observatory's vision.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 10:45 am

Relief as Arctic quest concludes

Three explorers who endured frostbite and food shortages have mixed feelings at the end of their Arctic expedition.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2009 | 10:32 am

Nations demand oceans be included in climate talks (AFP)

AFP - Ministers and officials from more than 70 nations called Thursday for oceans to be included on the agenda of global climate change talks aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 10:20 am

Climate 'biggest health threat'

A leading medical journal describes climate change as the single largest threat to health in the 21st century.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2009 | 10:14 am

The approaching 2009 hurricane season (weather.com)

weather.com -
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 10:05 am

Aqua plane

Beneath the waves with the Super Falcon submersible
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2009 | 9:13 am

Astronauts prepare for 1st spacewalk to fix Hubble (AP)

AP - The hard work of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope begins soon.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 7:49 am

The public deserves the full picture on climate change

Simplistic stories and cliché pictures of polar bears have failed to engage people in the true debate, says Nasa scientist

Like many of the important issues facing society, climate change involves a complex intersection of science, culture and politics, and a huge array of consequences impinging on a wide range of vulnerabilities. Yet on all sides, people are bombarded with simplistic slogans, misleading headlines and soundbites shorn of the caveats that make them valid.

The media is the main conduit for people to learn more, but the disconnect between the need for education and the journalistic mission to provide news means that climate stories are often missing the context needed to understand the bigger picture.

Similarly, many photographers working in environmental fields have become frustrated at the limited palette of images used to illustrate these stories. One described it as "extreme weather all the time and a polar bear". None of this does justice to the complexities of the issue and instead reduces it to the level of cliché.

Anyone trying to glean a full picture from traditional sources faces a daunting task. Indeed, many people will recognise quickly that there is a huge amount of information that is never made explicit. Stories about results from climate models never describe what a climate model is, descriptions of dramatic new observations rarely discuss what makes them interesting, and commentaries on policy debates seldom rise above reporting the partisan posturing.

Given some of the missteps that have occurred in recent decades, in how mad cow disease and vaccines have been dealt with by both the government and the media, there is a latent mistrust of statements from authority about science – whether they are from the academic world or the government. This in turn leaves the field wide open for peddlers of disinformation to fill the blogosphere and opinion pages with conspiratorial fairytales that take advantage of some people's confusion.

A few years ago, I helped start the blog RealClimate.org, which allowed the public and working scientists to interact directly and to provide some of the missing background for stories that hit the headlines. But, over the years, it has become clear that there is a hunger – at least among some readers – for more than what a few ephemeral blog postings can provide. Yet few people have the time or inclination to go back to college, and most books on the subject are either dry technical treatises or political calls to action, neither of which are particularly conducive to greater general understanding.

So is there room for a new approach? I think the answer is yes, and it lies in recognising that people need to be engaged in the subject, given access to the how the information is obtained and trusted to deal with the complexities and uncertainties that still abound.

Great imagery – whether from photography or satellites – can be immensely useful in drawing people into an issue and revealing subtleties that would otherwise escape attention. Direct access to the scientists can build respect for the logistic, physical and intellectual challenges they face in the field and in the lab. Eschewing the polemics in favour of objective explanations can provide a welcome respite from the constant bickering that all too often passes for debate in climate change discussions.

One manifestation of this approach is a new book, Climate Change: Picturing the Science, which photographer Joshua Wolfe and I have put together. The book brings together our two communities to demonstrate in words and images how we are exploring what is happening now, what happened in the past and what might happen in the future. We don't expect this suddenly to transform the public's understanding of the science or the policy debate, but it is a resource that many will hopefully find accessible and useful. Citizens deserve a more mature discussion, and together, scientists, journalists and photographers should provide it.

•Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and co-author of "Climate Change: Picturing the Science", published this month by W. W. Norton.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 14 May 2009 | 7:00 am

The Lasting Fallout of a Nuclear Meltdown’s Data Gaps

LIVERMORE, California — Thirty years ago, half the core of a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear complex melted down, but government officials and the utility running the place didn’t know that. And they wouldn’t know for six more years.

In fact, as the crisis extended from its start on March 28, 1979, the amount of information available about the nature of the accident remained slim. Key pieces of data were missing. Nobody knew exactly what was happening inside the containment vessel and, more importantly, what was coming out of it. The sensors designed to measure radioactive release were overwhelmed.

The limitations of data collection and computation made precise predictions and good decisions difficult to make. As intermittent emissions of radioactive gas tumbled into the sky, the uncertainty about how severe the accident had been rose with them.

The information vacuum didn’t just impact what was happening on the ground during that frightening week. It has rippled down through time as the debate over what the Three Mile Island accident meant to society became clouded with doubts over what actually happened out in the Susquehanna River. Both pro- and anti-nuclear groups used the accident to illustrate their points, but material facts about the reactor’s core were still coming out six years after the partial meltdown.

“The instrumentation that was put in that plant and in several other plants at the same time, was not designed to handle the scope, the scale of the release that happened at that plant. Even though it was small, it was beyond the range of the instruments that were in the containment vessel,” said Tom Sullivan, a former Livermore scientist who helped respond to the disaster. “So, what happened is that the accident moved into the realm of the unknown and as soon as that happened people started to imagine things.”

If a Three Mile Island-like accident happened today, we have a datacenter-full of new capabilities to assess any damage. The accident, in part, called into being a new force within the Department of Energy: a group of meteorologists whose sole job is to model how dangerous particles from anything from nuclear fallout to chemical explosions will cross a landscape. Headquartered at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center is an under-appreciated link in our chain of defenses against nuclear and chemical accidents or attacks.

We only truly built its capability in the aftermath of the worst nuclear power accident in American history. In one of the most underrated outcomes of the disaster, Three Mile Island confirmed the value of having better data, and the geeks who could understand it.

Without it, the authorities found themselves scrambling. The utility was trying to figure out what had gone wrong. The public was fearful and angry. The government was in damage-control mode. Everyone wanted to know the thing that no one could provide: Exactly how much of the tasteless, odorless, invisible radiation was released and where was it heading? The impact of the confusion would have much longer-lasting impacts than anyone could have imagined.

Walter Cronkite led off the CBS Evening News broadcast by delivering the bad news to the world.

“The world has never known a day quite like today,” he said from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “It faced the considerable uncertainties and dangers of the worst nuclear power plant accident of the atomic age.”

Those words reflected the terror that a fundamentally new kind of danger had entered the world, one that we manifestly were not prepared to measure. Into the data vacuum rushed fear and DOE staff.

Marv Dickerson, another former Livermore scientist, got the call in the United Red Carpet Room at O’Hare Airport.

“We cleared out an area and started work right there in the airport,” Dickerson said. Shortly thereafter, he was on a plane bound for Harrisburg, where he’d become intimately involved in the response to the accident, briefing decision makers.

Meanwhile, Sullivan headed back to Livermore to crank out calculations based on the data that was beginning to flow into the system. They pushed everyone else off the Lab’s computers and started working. The setup back then was crude.

“The big computers were at the other end of the lab, and we had no electronic connections. People would run back and forth with a big reel of tape,” Sullivan said, recalling a time when memory was stored in BPI, or bits per inch of tape. “We would run it from the big computers to the little computers we had that would then make [a map] that we would make a hard copy of, hand label, and put in a fax machine. Talk about primitive.”

Even with that ’70s setup, which is about as foreign to us now as a polyester leisure suit, they were able to produce a rudimentary model of the release in Harrisburg, but it was missing some key details.

“When we first responded to Three Mile Island, we didn’t even have topography in the model,” Sullivan said. “Basically it was a Flat Earth Society model. We were very worried about that. The first 48 hours, we probably put in 24 man hours trying to get the topography into the little grid.”

There was no accounting for turbulence, and the resolution wasn’t too high, either. But their projections were still immensely valuable in guiding the measurement taking of helicopters and ground crews.

At Livermore’s modern NARAC facility, they are several orders of magnitude more precise in their calculations now, and they’ve responded to more than 150 events. What used to take hours now takes minutes. Real-time data availability might not have headed off the divisive clash over what happened at Three Mile Island, but it would have helped protect citizens while providing a common basis for argument over the atomic energy’s risks.

As it was, the confusion made having a real conversation about the meaning of the accident at Three Mile Island’s second reactor impossible. While the accident was certainly not as bad as the darkest fears of some, it turned out to be considerably worse than industry and government officials believed (or let on) at first.

Richard Lyons, reporting on the front page of The New York Times, wrote that John G. Herbein, Metropolitan Edison vice president, said “that the mishap was not all that unusual in his eyes since similar accidents had happened ‘two or three times’ to the first reactor unit at the plant that opened in 1974. But he conceded that there was one major difference: the leak of contaminated water into the building next to the reactor this time.”

It’s clear, in retrospect, that Herbein didn’t really understand what had happened in the three-month old reactor.

“It was a bit of an engineering nightmare because they didn’t understand how the plant was functioning at that time,” Sullivan said.

At first, utility and government officials contended that only 180 or maybe 360 of the 36,000 containment rods had melted. Those numbers were up to 9,000 rods shortly after the accident, but the cooler heads prevailed a little too well in this case. For a while in the early 1980s, nuclear power industry officials maintained that no melting had occurred — and that was a major reason for claiming the coverage of the affair was overblown.

“Little, if any, fuel melting occurred, even though the reactor core was uncovered. The safety systems functioned reliably,” said D.B. Trauger, a nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, at an engineering conference eight months after the accident. “Based on the conservative licensing analyses, the core was subjected to conditions that would have produced a total melt…. This accident has revealed that reactors are orders of magnitude safer than previously assumed.”

In fact, it took excavation of the containment vessel in the mid-’80s to glimpse the true extent of the damage. What workers found was shocking. The Washington Post’s Three Mile Island timeline summarized the new severity estimates, “Core temperatures reached 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit; as much as 50 percent of the fuel melted.”

Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recognizes that half the core melted.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 14 May 2009 | 4:00 am

More U.S. Counties Gain Non-White Majorities

More of the 3,142 counties in the United States are becoming majority-minority.
Source: Livescience.com | 14 May 2009 | 12:32 am

Group says 3 more birds close to extinction (AP)

AP - An Ethiopian lark, a Galapagos finch and a spectacularly colored hummingbird only recently discovered in Colombia have been added to the list of the world's most threatened species, an environmental group said Thursday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2009 | 12:03 am

Teetering birds

Red List finds 12% of all known avians to be at risk
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 May 2009 | 11:06 pm

NASA prepares for mission it hopes never to fly

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The space shuttle Endeavour is perched on a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center and ready to lift off within days. But this mission is one NASA hopes will never fly.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2009 | 11:02 pm

Microfluidic paper passes the litmus test

Harvard University professor George Whitesides is making very sophisticated litmus paper. Unlike the simple acid or alkali strips familiar from school, his pioneering work owes more to microfluidics than pH sensitive dyes. The development of cheap and simple paper diagnostics may now help revolutionise third-world medical testing.

While everyone takes it for granted, paper is more than a surface for writing on. Its porosity can ensure that drops of liquid quickly spread out by capillary action or wicking. As the capillary effect provides a useful free pump, a sample drop may be moved across the paper into test wells, reacting there to produce visible colour changes. "The basic idea of making channels and directing fluids - that was clearly a good idea," says Whitesides.

By harnessing a photoresist technique, he created polymer-lined channels to direct and manipulate minute quantities of fluids. Chromotography paper is soaked with a light-sensitive polymer photoresist that hardens when exposed to UV light. This leaves walls inside the paper once the unexposed polymer is dissolved. "This photoresist technique is still the highest resolution we have for making channels in paper," he says.

The stamp-sized paper devices are capable of being printed in high volumes. A single drop of blood can be channelled to different test wells containing reagents and results appear as simple colour changes, making it ideal for third world use. "I think it's going to be possible to do sophisticated biological chemistry and cell biology using these methods," says Whitesides, who has co-founded the non-profit Diagnostics for All, which plans to deploy paper-based liver-function tests in Africa.

Dr Caje Moniz, the clinical director of clinical biochemistry at King's College Hospital, London, is responsible for a diagnostic blood sciences lab. From a 5ml sample, autoanalysers perform up to 40 tests. King's also runs Europe's largest liver transplant programme with patients travelling just to give blood to assess liver status. Dr Moniz says there are strip tests for cholesterol, urine, and pregnancy but not key liver enzymes. "Liver function might be a good one... the surgeons have been asking me: is there nothing we can do to get the result by post?"

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2009 | 11:01 pm

The Truth about Angels, Demons and Antimatter

An antimatter explosion in "Angels and Demons" leaves physicists unfazed by this plot.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 10:01 pm

Air Sacs in Bones Could Be Key to Evolution of Flight

Paleontologists and biologists have lacked consensus on the evolution of flight. New research says it's in the bones.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 10:00 pm

World's Greatest Illusions Chosen

The three best visual illusions in the world were chosen.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 9:59 pm

Jerky Curveball: It's All An Illusion

Look at the spinning ball directly. It seems to fly straight. But look at the blue dot and the ball's spin fools your brain into thinking that the ball is curving. A flying baseball passes from central to peripheral vision so it appears to jerk.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 9:54 pm

See Your Brain Play A Colorful Game

In this picture, clouds in the sky flash red for a split second. A white dove will seem to turn red long after the flash, showing that an afterimage color can linger in our vision and bleed into empty spaces.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 9:48 pm

Is Torture Okay? Depends on Your Religion

15 percent say it's often justified. But among white evangelical Protestants, the number is higher.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 7:47 pm

Video of Tissues Forming in Zebrafish Embryo

A new technique for watching the developing embryo has led to insights into how a homogeneous ball of cells transforms into an embryo with different types of tissues.

In the normal zebrafish embryo, certain signaling molecules make sure the ball of cells turns into more than just a bigger ball of cells: They tell different parts of the embryo to turn into different types of tissue, such as muscle, brain, skin and bones. The molecules, called cyclops and squint, because fish lacking these proteins develop with fused eyes (and a host of other severe abnormalities), act through a protein called Smad2 that transcribes genes specific to these different types of tissue.

Researchers Steven Harvey of the University of Cambridge and James Smith of the National Institute for Medical Research in London wanted to know how the same signals could make one embryonic cell develop into heart cells while turning another into the lining of the lungs.

To visualize the process, Harvey and Smith fused Smad2 to a fluorescent yellow protein called Venus. They hacked Venus such that it would only glow when Smad2 was activated and thus capable of transcribing a gene.

By quantifying their Smad2 beacon, Harvey and Smith found that the concentration of signaling molecules was determining the different cell types: Low concentrations of the signals made cells become skin and nervous tissue, while higher concentrations resulted in muscle and internal organs. Although this had been hypothesized, it had been difficult to prove without this visualization technique.

Harvey and Smith also discovered the signals aren’t just important for different tissue types, but also determine which part of the embryo becomes the top and which becomes the bottom.

In the video, he cells in the zebrafish embryo shine brightly when a signal activates specific genes, which determine the cell’s eventual fate as part of a heart, brain, or other type of tissue. By analyzing the location, timing and brightness of the signal.

Citation: “Visualisation and Quantification of Morphogen Gradient Formation in the Zebrafish” by Steven A. Harvey and James C. Smith. PLoS Biology, 7(5): e1000101. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000101

See Also:

• Video of the First 24 Hours of an Embryo’s Cells
• Zebrafish Embryos Could Provide Toxin Detection System
• Water Pollution May Fuel Cancer

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 May 2009 | 7:12 pm

Oldest Known Sculpture Is Busty Clue to Brain Boom

From a cave in southwestern Germany, archaeologists have unearthed the oldest known piece of figurative art. More than an ancient artistic impulse, it may signify a profound change in modern human brains.

Carved from ivory and depicting a woman with exaggerated sexual features, the pinkie-sized sculpture is 36,000 years old, or about 5,000 years older than the next-earliest piece of figurative art.

Though 77,000-year-old carvings have been found in South Africa, they consist of cross-hatched lines. Such abstractions are relatively simple compared to representational art, which requires high levels of cognition to both conceive and make.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the rise of figurine-carving modern human cultures in Europe coincided with the decline of Neanderthals. Some anthropologists suspect that humans of the era experienced a leap in mental abilities, fueled by random genetic mutation or the neurological nourishment of language and culture.

“The advent of fully representational, ‘figurative’ art seems at present to be a European phenomenon, without any documented parallels in Africa or elsewhere earlier than about 30,000 years ago,” writes University of Cambridge archaeologist Paul Mellars in a commentary accompanying the discovery, published Wednesday in Nature.

“How far this ‘symbolic explosion’ associated with the origins and dispersal of our species reflects a major, mutation-driven reorganization in the cognitive capacities of the human brain — perhaps associated with a similar leap forward in the complexity of language — remains a fascinating and contentious issue,” he wrote.

See Also:

• Neanderthals Not Dumb, but Made Dull Gadgets
• Saharan Snapshot of Stone Age Life
• Evidence of Modern Smarts in Stone Age Superglue

Citations: “A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany.” By Nicholas J. Conard. Nature, Vol. 459 No. 7244, May 14, 2009.

“Origins of the female image.” By Paul Mellars. Nature, Vol. 459 No. 7244, May 14, 2009.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 May 2009 | 6:29 pm

'Climate change biggest threat to health'

Senior doctors today published a report warning that climate change is the biggest threat to global health of the 21st century.

Rising global temperatures would have a catastrophic effect on human health, the doctors said, and patterns of infection would change, with insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever spreading more easily.

Heatwaves such as occurred in Europe in 2003, which caused up to 70,000 "excess" deaths, will become more common, as will hurricanes, cyclones and storms, causing flooding and injuries.

"We have not just underestimated but completely neglected and ignored this issue," said Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, which published the report commissioned from University College London. "This has not been an issue on the agenda of any professional body in health in the last 10 years in any significant way. This report is one of the stepping stones in changing that culture within the health sector. It is the biggest employer in Britain and it should be a leading voice in the debate."

The lead author of the report, Prof Anthony Costello, a paediatrician who works on maternal and newborn health in the developing world, said his own views had changed. "I thought there were other priorities 18 months ago," he said. Now he believed that mitigating the impact of rising temperatures was urgent. "Every year we delay, the costs go up. We are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely turbulent."

The biggest impact could be in food and water shortages, which in the past have led to war and mass migration.

Prof Hugh Montgomery, of UCL's institute for human health and performance, who was one of the report's authors, noted that Mikhael Gorbachev had linked 21 recent conflicts to water instability.

The report says that the poorest people in the world will be worst affected. Although the carbon footprint of the poorest billion people is about 3% of the world's total footprint, loss of life is expected to be 500 times greater in Africa than in the wealthy countries.

Despite improvements in health, 10 million children still die every year, more than 200 million children under five are not developing as well as they should, 800 million people are hungry, and 1,500 million people do not have clean drinking water. All those things could worsen very significantly, the report says.

The impact of heatwaves, flooding and global food shortages will be felt in Britain too, the authors warned. "This is an immediate danger. It is going to affect you and it will certainly affect your children. While there is the injustice that the poorest will be worst affected, you will be affected too," said Montgomery.

The report says evidence on greenhouse gas emissions, temperature and sea-level rises, the melting of ice-sheets, ocean acidification and extreme climatic events suggests the forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 might be too conservative. The UK target, to limit global warming to two degrees more, is unlikely to be achieved.

Costello, however, said the message from the report was not entirely negative. "There is an awful lot we can do," he said. Reducing carbon emissions would encourage people to cut use of vehicles, and if that led to more walking and cycling it would tend to lower stress levels, reduce obesity, and lessen heart disease, lung disease and stroke risks.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2009 | 6:27 pm

Chimp That Mauled Woman Was on Drugs

A chimp mauled a Connecticut woman while on the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, according to blood tests.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 6:07 pm

Astronauts Grab Hubble Space Telescope

Astronauts set the stage for five days of treacherous spacewalking repairs.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

Obit Photos Getting Younger and Younger

Photos in newspaper obituaries are getting younger and younger, reflecting societal attitudes toward age.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 5:53 pm

Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory

A fundamental but elusive step in the early evolution of life on Earth has been replicated in a laboratory.

Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients of RNA, a molecule from which the simplest self-replicating structures are made. Until now, they couldn’t explain how these ingredients might have formed.

“It’s like molecular choreography, where the molecules choreograph their own behavior,” said organic chemist John Sutherland of the University of Manchester, co-author of a study in Nature Wednesday.

RNA is now found in living cells, where it carries information between genes and protein-manufacturing cellular components. Scientists think RNA existed early in Earth’s history, providing a necessary intermediate platform between pre-biotic chemicals and DNA, its double-stranded, more-stable descendant.

However, though researchers have been able to show how RNA’s component molecules, called ribonucleotides, could assemble into RNA, their many attempts to synthesize these ribonucleotides have failed. No matter how they combined the ingredients — a sugar, a phosphate, and one of four different nitrogenous molecules, or nucleobases — ribonucleotides just wouldn’t form.

Sutherland’s team took a different approach in what Harvard molecular biologist Jack Szostak called a “synthetic tour de force” in an accompanying commentary in Nature.

“By changing the way we mix the ingredients together, we managed to make ribonucleotides,” said Sutherland. “The chemistry works very effectively from simple precursors, and the conditions required are not distinct from what one might imagine took place on the early Earth.”

Like other would-be nucleotide synthesizers, Sutherland’s team included phosphate in their mix, but rather than adding it to sugars and nucleobases, they started with an array of even simpler molecules that were probably also in Earth’s primordial ooze.

They mixed the molecules in water, heated the solution, then allowed it to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of hybrid, half-sugar, half-nucleobase molecules. To this residue they again added water, heated it, allowed it evaporate, and then irradiated it.

At each stage of the cycle, the resulting molecules were more complex. At the final stage, Sutherland’s team added phosphate. “Remarkably, it transformed into the ribonucleotide!” said Sutherland.

According to Sutherland, these laboratory conditions resembled those of the life-originating “warm little pond” hypothesized by Charles Darwin if the pond “evaporated, got heated, and then it rained and the sun shone.”

Such conditions are plausible, and Szostak imagined the ongoing cycle of evaporation, heating and condensation providing “a kind of organic snow which could accumulate as a reservoir of material ready for the next step in RNA synthesis.”

Intriguingly, the precursor molecules used by Sutherland’s team have been identified in interstellar dust clouds and on meteorites.

“Ribonucleotides are simply an expression of the fundamental principles of organic chemistry,” said Sutherland. “They’re doing it unwittingly. The instructions for them to do it are inherent in the structure of the precursor materials. And if they can self-assemble so easily, perhaps they shouldn’t be viewed as complicated.”

See Also:

• Forgotten Experiment May Explain Origins of Life
• Organism Sets Mutation Speed Record, May Explain Life’s Origins
  
• Proof That Meteors Could Have Sparked Life on Earth
• A Theory of Evolution for Evolution
  
• Humans and Aliens Might Share DNA Roots

Citations: Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions Matthew W. Powner, Beatrice Gerland & John D. Sutherland. Nature, Vol. 460, May 13, 2009.

“Systems chemistry on early Earth.” By Jack W. Szostak. Nature, Vol. 460, May 13, 2009.

Image: Universitat Pampeu Fabra

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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 May 2009 | 5:40 pm

Improved Diode Lights Offer Bright Future

Scientists make organic light-emitting diode lights more energy-efficient.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 May 2009 | 5:35 pm

Shuttle reaches Hubble telescope

Space shuttle Atlantis has reached the Hubble telescope in a repair mission to give it a new lease of life.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 May 2009 | 5:15 pm

Sexy "Venus" may be oldest figurine yet discovered

LONDON (Reuters) - A sexually suggestive Venus figurine with oversized breasts and thighs dates back at least 35,000 years and shows ancient humans had sex on their minds, researchers said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2009 | 5:13 pm

Obsession with Naked Women Dates Back 35,000 Years

Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric pinup, the oldest known artistic representation of a woman.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2009 | 5:05 pm

Busty Figurine Likened to 'Paleolithic Playboy'

The first known female figurine is surprisingly sexy, say its discoverers.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 May 2009 | 5:00 pm

WWF warns vast coral reef in south-east Asia may disappear by end of the century

Pollution and deforestation have already destroyed almost half of the Coral Triangle, home to 3,000 fish species

Two fifths of the planet's most significant marine environment, a stunning expanse of coral reefs stretching across south-east Asia, has been lost and the rest is set to disappear by the end of the century, a World Wildlife Fund report warns.

Pollution, overfishing and climate change is destroying the area known as the Coral Triangle, which covers an area about half the size of the United States and is home to more than 30% of the world's corals and more than 35% of coral-reef fish – around 3,000 species.

"More marine species exist in the Coral Triangle than are found in all the other tropical oceans put together," the report, The Coral Triangle and Climate Change, says.

Within this biological wonderland – which spans Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste – are 18,500 islands rich in mountain forests and woodlands. The escalation of modern practices, such as deforestation, coastal reclamation, destructive fishing and the pumping of pollution and sewage into sea, over the last 40 years have already destroyed about 40% of coral reefs and mangroves in this unique environment.

If such practices are unchecked, half the species in the Coral triangle will continue to disappear at a rate of 1-2% a year.

"You don't have to be a brain surgeon to see that within 40 years we could lose the rest. This may sound alarming but this is not alarmist. This is probably what we are going to experience if we don't get our act together," said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, writer of the report and director of the Centre for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland.

Based on a review of more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific studies in fields such as biology, economics and fisheries, the report also predicts a dark future for the six nations within the Coral Triangle – and the surrounding the area.

Of the 150 million people who live across this string of islands, about 100 million depend on the mangroves and seagrass beds for food and building materials. The reefs, which also support industries such as fishing and tourism, are also the nursery for numerous fish species.

The report paints two future scenarios. The worst case would be if the global agreement to cut carbon emissions, signed in Copenhagen in December, fails significantly and carbon emissions continue apace. This would, the report predicts, result in region being struck increasingly by severe drought, typhoons and political unrest.

Food supplies would shrink, being halved by 2050 and cut by 80% before the end of the century, while fresh water supplies would be swamped by rising sea levels. Thousands of people would be forced to migrate from the coast to increasingly impoverished and crowded urban areas inland.

Traditional cultural and family structures would be likely to break down as a result and large numbers of people would flee to nearby neighbours such as Australia and New Zealand.

"Reduced food and water security and the resulting social disruption represents a potent threat to regional security," the report says, predicting that a process of radicalisation is likely among those who stay in the region.

But even bleaker is the stark warning in the report that "the pathway that the world is on today exceeds the worst-case scenario described in this report".

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2009 | 4:03 pm

Russia to charge NASA $51 million per space flight

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will charge U.S. astronauts $51 million per return trip to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2012 and will resume selling seats to space tourists, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2009 | 3:49 pm

Roman Ruins Survive Thanks to Volcanic Ash

Ancient ruins reveal a trademark secret of Roman architects: volcanic ash.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 May 2009 | 3:39 pm

If Darwin has really killed God, when was the funeral?

A debate between believers and non-believers in Westminster Abbey was entertaining, but failed to change anyone's mind

Last night in Westminster Abbey, just yards from the final resting place of Charles Darwin, two believers and two atheists slugged it out before the altar.

On the side of the atheists were Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London, and Nancy Rothwell, a professor at the faculty of life sciences, University of Manchester. On the side of the angels were the broadcaster and fertility expert Robert Winston, professor of science and society at Imperial College, London, and Denis Alexander, director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.

They were debating the question "Did Darwin kill God?" at a sell-out event organised by the theology think tank Theos. God himself appeared to intervene early in the debate by muting Professor Jones's microphone and preventing anyone from hearing what he had to say, but a replacement mic was quickly found.

The debate was chaired by Sarah Montague of Radio 4's Today programme, who kicked off proceedings by asking the panellists whether they thought Darwin would have minded being buried in the Abbey. Jones said Darwin would have been "adamantly opposed" to the idea. Winston quipped that rather than Darwin killing God, perhaps God had killed Darwin.

Joking aside, Winston was keen to point out that his own religion, Judaism, had no problem with the theory of evolution because Genesis had always been considered an allegorical account of creation that most Jews did not take literally. When challenged by Montague to reveal the kind of God that he did believe in, however, Winston insisted "I'm not prepared to state what my belief is. It's personal."

Alexander was not so shy, saying he believed "everything that exists exists because of the will of God" and that God resided "outside the space-time continuum". He had no problem with evolution, which he saw as a different kind of narrative that did not conflict with his own belief. However, he believed that God had somehow set the plot or storyline of the universe. He had done this in a non-deterministic way which still allowed humans genuine free will and gave them moral responsibilities.

Jones, meanwhile, revealed that he would "love to believe in God", because it would offer some degree of comfort. But he said he stopped believing in God as a child as soon as he discovered that what he was learning in school biology classes conflicted with the kind of things he had been taught in Sunday school – like dinosaurs and humans walking the earth at the same time.

He insisted that Darwin had indeed "killed God" for many 19th century believers, by destroying the creationist underpinnings of their faith.

Despite their disagreeing about the existence of God, the panellists were united in their condemnation of intelligent design. Alexander said it was "a great way to turn people against religion" and "an aberration from both a religious and a scientific point of view". Rothwell said intelligent design was "pseudoscience" that tried to dress up religious belief as science. Winston agreed, saying it was "bad religion and bad science".

Three of the panellists were also united in condemning Richard Dawkins for his suggestion that it was time to confront believers with a display of "naked contempt". Winston said Dawkins was doing a "grave disservice to science" with such comments, which he said were preventing serious debate and helping to polarise society. He said Dawkins was "a fantastic writer" but The God Delusion was "not well written". Alexander went further, saying that while he would recommend all Dawkins' other books to his own pupils, he wouldn't recommend The God Delusion, which he described as "poorly researched and inaccurate. It makes people ashamed to be atheists." Rothwell agreed that Dawkins "goes out of his way to shock".

It was left to Jones to defend Dawkins' confrontational style, comparing him to another prominent figure in modern biology, James Watson. They were both at times "rude, unpleasant, aggressive," he said. "They don't apologise. But they teach people a lot of biology."

What's the point of debates like this, apart from their obvious entertainment value? This one lacked any real fire, because none of the panellists was a creationist or anti-religious firebrand. All four seemed comfortable with the others' beliefs. They were happy to disagree. The same was true of the audience – a show of hands revealed that the majority thought religious belief could comfortably coexist with Darwin's theory of evolution. Only seven people out of the audience of around 800 considered themselves to be creationists (and were brave enough to raise their hands when Montague asked them).

When she asked whether the arguments put forward in the debate had led anyone in the audience to change the way they thought about either religion or the theory of evolution, only a handful raised their hands.

If Darwin has killed god, the news hasn't yet reached the ears of the faithful.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2009 | 3:16 pm

Penguins' Secret Ocean Food Stash Found

In spring, some penguins leave home for months. Now, we know where they go.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 13 May 2009 | 1:29 pm