Science Headlines for May 18, 2009

Tasers: Medical Consequences Of Police Use Of Force During Restraint Examined

Scientists examined the medical records of nearly 900 patients subdued by the Seattle Police Department with a Taser over a six-year period.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Cigarette Smoke Can Prevent Allergies, Study Suggests

Everyone knows that smoking can kill you, but new research suggests that it may help with your allergies. A study of mouse mast cells shows that cigarette smoke can prevent allergies by decreasing the reaction of immune cells to allergens.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Biological Particles Trigger Ice Formation In High-altitude Clouds

Chemistry researchers have moved closer to what is considered the "holy grail" of climate change science, making the first-ever direct detection of biological particles within ice clouds. The team sampled water droplet and ice crystal residues at high speeds from an aircraft flying through clouds in the skies over Wyoming. Analysis of the ice crystals revealed that they were made up almost entirely of either dust or biological particles such as bacteria, fungal spores and plant material.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Identification Of A Key Molecular Pathway Required For Brain Neural Circuit Formation

Scientists have made a discovery which could help treat spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Enriched Environment Improves Wound Healing In Rats

Improving the environment in which rats are reared can significantly strengthen the physiological process of wound healing, according to a new article. Researchers found that giving rats living in isolation the opportunity to build nests led to better healing of burn injuries than was seen in isolation-reared rats without nest-building materials.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Biomass As A Source Of Raw Materials

Scientists have developed a new catalytic process to convert components of bio-oil directly into alkanes and methanol.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Genetic Marker May Predict Early Onset Of Prostate Cancer

Researchers have identified a genetic marker that is associated with an earlier onset of prostate cancer in Caucasian men who have a family history of prostate cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

Future Of Personalized Cancer Treatment: New System Delivers RNA Into Cells

In technology that promises to one day allow drug delivery to be tailored to an individual patient and a particular cancer tumor, researchers have developed an efficient system for delivering siRNA into primary cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

Golden Rice An Effective Source Of Vitamin A

The beta-carotene in so-called "golden rice" converts to vitamin A in humans, according to a new article.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

New Red Alga Discovered In Mediterranean Sea

Scientists have described a new species of red algae (Leptofauchea coralligena) in the western Mediterranean. This is the only species of the Leptofauchea genus currently known to be in the Mediterranean.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:00 pm

Hubble Telescope Gets Last Spacewalk Tune-Up (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - HOUSTON - The Hubble Space Telescope will get its final tune-up Monday by a pair of spacewalking astronauts, the last two people who will ever touch the aging observatory.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 11:30 am

Toyota rolls out new Prius amid hybrid price war (AP)

AP - Toyota rolled out the revamped Prius on Monday, and said it already had 80,000 advance orders in Japan for the remodeled hybrid amid intensifying competition with Honda's rival offering, the Insight.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 10:46 am

Dolphins seen trying to kill calf

Adult tucuxi dolphins have been seen attempting infanticide, a behaviour that is rarely seen in cetaceans.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 May 2009 | 9:56 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - A south-moving cold front was expected to drop down to Florida on Monday, bringing drier weather across most of the eastern U.S. behind it.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 9:06 am

Blue whales returning to former Alaska waters (AP)

AP - Blue whales are returning to Alaska in search of food and could be re-establishing an old migration route several decades after they were nearly wiped out by commercial whalers, scientists say.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 9:03 am

London bids to be world's greenest city (AFP)

AFP - Mayor Boris Johnson outlined plans to make London "the cleanest, greenest city on earth" by the 2012 Olympics and called for commitments from other world cities at a climate change conference.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 7:43 am

Antarctic team boosts medical care with 3D ultrasound

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Australia's Antarctic research stations, cut off for nine months of the year, are taking lessons learned from space to try to improve the diagnosis and treatment of staff remotely.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 5:36 am

How Sand Dunes Grow Huge (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Anyone who has seen giant sand dunes, the tall ones stretching many hundreds, even thousands, of feet across the desert floor, has surely wondered how they get to be so big. Scientists, too, have deliberated the question for years.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 4:10 am

Brute force helps Hubble renewal

Astronauts upgrading the Hubble telescope have conducted another marathon space walk to perform repairs to its camera.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 May 2009 | 2:44 am

Astronauts revive Hubble imaging device

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Space shuttle Atlantis astronauts on Sunday repaired a failed instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope used to discover black holes and other galactic phenomena following a tedious spacewalk mired by equipment glitches.

Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 1:09 am

Astronauts Repair Key Hubble Device in Tough Spacewalk (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - HOUSTON - Two embattled astronauts fought through a stuck bolt and dead battery on Sunday to fix a key instrument in the Hubble Space Telescope in a frustratingly long spacewalk.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:51 am

Obama calls for understanding in Notre Dame speech (AP)

AP - President Barack Obama strode head-on Sunday into the stormy abortion debate and told graduates at America's leading Roman Catholic university that both sides must stop demonizing one another.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 May 2009 | 11:27 pm

The science of Angels & Demons

On this week's podcast, we find out whether you can blow things up with antimatter. Mark Lancaster, a particle physicist at University College London, comes in to debunk the plot of the new film starring Tom Hanks, Angels & Demons, in which there's an attempt to annihilate the Vatican with the power of anti-matter.

You can probably guess the team's reaction to the film, so why not skip the movie altogether and instead listen to our Cerncast from last year.

We go exploring with the remarkable Catlin Arctic Survey. After more than 70 days of arduous trekking, they've come home having nearly reached the North Pole. We take you through their highs and lows and the science they did on the way.

Plus, we introduce Herschel and Planck - Europe's shiny new space telescopes now orbiting the Earth - we consider whether Obama's climate plan is under threat, and we ask whether vegetarians could save the world.

Dont forget to ...

• Mail us at science@guardian.co.uk
• Get our Twitter feeds for programme updates and daily science news
• Join our Facebook group

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 17 May 2009 | 11:05 pm

Menstruation genes discovered

Scientists say they have begun to crack the genetic code that helps determine when a girl becomes a woman.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 May 2009 | 11:02 pm

Keep working 'to avoid dementia'

Keeping the brain active by working later in life may help ward off Alzheimer's disease, research suggests.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 May 2009 | 11:02 pm

U.S. average gasoline price rises: survey (Reuters)

Reuters - The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States increased nearly 25 cents in the past three weeks on a rise in crude oil prices, according to the Lundberg survey released on Sunday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 May 2009 | 9:32 pm

Built on brainpower

Labour will use science as the primary means to achieve a healthy and prosperous Britain

Is scientific inquiry that seeks to understand the building blocks of our universe fundamentally different from – or somehow better than – science directed at building a wind turbine? In practice, the distinction between pure and applied science is seldom clear. All science involves asking questions and pursuing the insights yielded in various directions. My former company developed a device that injects medicines as fine particles, thereby dispensing with needles. The principles of fluid dynamics and supersonic flow that lie behind it can be traced back to Oxford scientists, who were seeking an urgent solution to Spitfires crashing during the war.

That's what scientific serendipity means: questions about why planes go into tailspins increased understanding of basic physics, eventually spawning unanticipated medical applications. That's precisely the kind of research our country needs, however experts label it – the key point missed by George Monbiot in these pages last week.

We are a knowledge economy. Britain's greatest natural resource is brainpower. Our prospects for success, and ability to compete fully in global markets, depend on harvesting the insights of all kinds of science. More than that, we need brainpower to devise the renewable energy sources that commentators such as Monbiot regard as critical.

I'm optimistic about the future, but if we fail to create wealth by building a lead in the next-generation industries like green tech, our tax base will suffer. That will mean less money for schools and hospitals, and less for scientific research. This we must avoid. By more than doubling investment in real terms over 10 years, the government has funded a renaissance in science. It is now world class, and our facilities state of the art.

Today, despite immense pressure on public finances, we remain committed to sustained investment. The science budget continues to be ringfenced. And unlike many parts of government, the efficiency savings we've sought from the research councils (£106m from a total of around £4bn) will be reinvested by them in scientific research, pure and applied. But we must also prioritise investment – as other nations are – to thrive in growth markets, tackle problems like climate change, and reassure taxpayers concerned about jobs and prosperity. That means focusing on areas like the environmental and life sciences. But it's for scientists, not ministers, to identify the key disciplines and most promising research.

Indeed, focusing effort within science is nothing new, whether during war or peacetime. Nor is accountability. Scientists have benefited from massive public investment. It is entirely reasonable to expect them to describe the possible impact of their research in grant applications. I also expect them to communicate the significance of their work to the wider public. That's important for our democracy, and for attracting future generations of researchers.

So, there's no U-turn under way in British science; no retreat from excellence; no undermining a diverse base capable of interdisciplinary research; no challenging the independence of scientists, who remain governed by research councils and peer review. What has changed is our sense of urgency to use science as the primary means to achieve a healthy and prosperous Britain.

People will soon have the chance to vote on whether that urgency is appropriate. They face a clear choice: between maintaining an optimistic course of investment explicitly predicated on science and technology; or a pessimistic one defined by austerity, silence on the value of research, and a history of starving science of the investment it needs.

To me, the long-term consequences of an impoverished research base don't bear thinking about. I'd like to believe that scientists feel the same.

Lord Drayson is the minister for science and innovation

Research funding

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 | 17 May 2009 | 9:00 pm

Genes Found Related to Onset of Menstruation and Menopause (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Girls who begin menstruation earlier than average have a greater chance of being short and fat and are at greater risk for breast cancer and endometrial cancer later in life.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 May 2009 | 8:55 pm

Genes Found Related to Onset of Menstruation and Menopause

Genes involved in determining the onset of menstruation and menopause are found.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 May 2009 | 8:49 pm

Cannes falls in love with maths

Democritus's atomic theory and Aristarchus's heliocentric model of the universe are not subjects that can often be said to delight audiences at the Cannes film festival.

But Alejandro Amenabar's Agora did just that in its premiere today, with Rachel Weisz starring as the 4th-century mathematician and astronomer Hypatia, who was killed by an angry Christian mob in Romano-Egyptian Alexandria.

The film, part of the festival's official selection but not competing for the Palme d'Or, received cheers. According to Edward Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hypatia's "flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells". Amenabar spares his heroine quite such a grim end – but he does portray her as an areligious, Enlightenment heroine destroyed by brutal fanatics.

"Once we started researching the film we recognised a lot of echoes with contemporary times and realised we could make a film about the present," he said. Some viewers have even likened the depiction of the members of the parabolani, an early-Christian brotherhood, to the modern Taliban. "It's true the parabolani [in the film] resemble a little bit the Taliban," said Amenabar. But it is not deliberate. Agora, which co-stars Max Minghella as Hypatia's slave Davus, gives all religions a hard time: Jews, Christians and pagans are all depicted as, at times, vengeful and violent, with Hypatia and her pupils representing the forces of reason.

The historical Hypatia was probably around 60 when she died, rather than the youthful martyr depicted here.

A neoplatonist, she was said to have edited the works of Apollonius and Diophantus on geometry and arithmetic.

One of the more colourful anecdotes told about her in antiquity was that she presented a besotted suitor with a blood-stained sanitary towel - an episode Amenabar incorporates into his script.

Her father was Theon, the last president of the Mouseion, the centre of Alexandria's higher education.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds