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Achieving Fame, Wealth And Beauty Are Psychological Dead Ends, Study SaysIf you think having loads of money, fetching looks, or the admiration of many will improve your life -- think again. A new study demonstrates that progress on these fronts can actually make a person less happy.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Komodo Dragons Even More Deadly Than Thought: Combined Tooth-venom Arsenal Key To Hunting StrategyThe effectiveness of the Komodo dragon bite is a combination of highly specialized serrated teeth and venom, a new study shows. The authors also dismiss the widely accepted theory that prey die from septicemia caused by toxic bacteria living in the dragon's mouth.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Cystic Fibrosis: Sodium Channel Blocker Shows Promise As Potential Treatment For CFCystic fibrosis patients may benefit from a new therapy that increases airway hydration, preventing the buildup of mucous, which is a key factor in the disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Scientists Work To Plug Microorganisms Into The Energy GridThe answer to the looming fuel crisis in the 21st century may be found by thinking small, microscopic in fact. Microscopic organisms from bacteria and cyanobacteria, to fungi and microalgae, are biological factories that are proving to be efficient sources of inexpensive, environmentally friendly biofuels that can serve as alternatives to oil, according to new research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 3:00 pm New System For Detection Of Arrival Of Single Atoms -- In Less Than One-millionth Of A SecondScientists have devised a new technique for real-time detection of freely moving individual neutral atoms that is more than 99.7 percent accurate and sensitive enough to discern the arrival of a single atom in less than one-millionth of a second, about 20 times faster than the best previous methods.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 3:00 pm How Alzheimer's Robs Sufferers Of Episodic MemoryScientists have developed new insights into how one kind of memory works. The study shows that laboratory rats have "episodic-like memory" and could open novel ways to study life-robbing loss of memory in humans.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 3:00 pm Automakers, Obama announce mileage, pollution plan (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 1:08 pm Astronauts say goodbye to Hubble for good (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 12:59 pm Smart thinkingFinding ways to save energy in the 21st CenturySource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 May 2009 | 12:31 pm Oil prices bounce above $60 in New York (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 12:12 pm New Tool Isolates RNA Within Specific CellsBiologists, using fruit flies, have created a way to isolate RNA from specific cells, opening a new window on how gene expression drives normal development and disease-causing breakdowns.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 12:00 pm Insight Into Evolution Of First FlowersCharles Darwin described the sudden origin of flowering plants about 130 million years ago as an abominable mystery, one that scientists have yet to solve. But a new study is helping shed light on the mystery with information about what the first flowers looked like and how they evolved from nonflowering plants.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 12:00 pm Temporary Transient Heart Dysfunction Found In Some Long-distance RunnersA new study using advanced cardiac imaging technology indicates that cardiac abnormalities experienced by some marathon runners following competition are temporary, and do not result in damage to the heart muscle. The study marked the first use of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, or CMR, in a post-marathon setting.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 12:00 pm New Procedure Alleviates Symptoms In People With Severe Asthma, Study ShowsA new drug-free treatment for asthma has been shown to be effective in an international study of patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma. Conducted at 30 sites around the world, the trial tested a procedure designed to reduce the ability of the lung's airways to contract and interfere with breathing.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 May 2009 | 12:00 pm Komodo dragons have venomous biteA study has shown that Komodo dragons passing on a weak venom to their prey that causes severe bleeding.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 May 2009 | 11:44 am Astronauts to Say Goodbye to Hubble Telescope (SPACE.com)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 11:15 am Earth WatchPolitics-as-usual strains sustainable future plansSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 May 2009 | 11:06 am The Nation's Weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 9:53 am Obama to curb vehicle emissionsUS President Barack Obama is to announce strict limits on vehicle pollution that will set national standards for the first time.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 May 2009 | 9:45 am GPS system 'close to breakdown'Network of satellites could begin to fail as early as 2010 It has become one of the staples of modern, hi-tech life: using satellite navigation tools built into your car or mobile phone to find your way from A to B. But experts have warned that the system may be close to breakdown. US government officials are concerned that the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) could begin to deteriorate as early as next year, resulting in regular blackouts and failures – or even dishing out inaccurate directions to millions of people worldwide. The warning centres on the network of GPS satellites that constantly orbit the planet and beam signals back to the ground that help pinpoint your position on the Earth's surface. The satellites are overseen by the US Air Force, which has maintained the GPS network since the early 1990s. According to a study by the US government accountability office (GAO), mismanagement and a lack of investment means that some of the crucial GPS satellites could begin to fail as early as next year. "It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption," said the report, presented to Congress. "If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected." The report says that Air Force officials have failed to execute the necessary steps to keep the system running smoothly. Although it is currently spending nearly $2bn (£1.3bn) to bring the 20-year-old system up to date, the GAO – which is the equivalent of Britain's National Audit Office – says that delays and overspending are putting the entire system in jeopardy. "In recent years, the Air Force has struggled to successfully build GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals," said the report. "It encountered significant technical problems … [and] struggled with a different contractor." The first replacement GPS satellite was due to launch at the beginning of 2007, but has been delayed several times and is now scheduled to go into orbit in November this year – almost three years late. The impact on ordinary users could be significant, with millions of satnav users potential victims of bad directions or failed services. There would also be similar side effects on the military, which uses GPS for mapping, reconnaissance and for tracking hostile targets. Some suggest that it could also have an impact on the proliferation of so-called location applications on mobile handsets – just as applications on the iPhone and other GPS-enabled smartphones are starting to get more popular. Tom Coates, the head of Yahoo's Fire Eagle system – which lets users share their location data from their mobile – said he was sceptical that US officials would let the system fall into total disrepair because it was important to so many people and companies. "I'd be surprised if anyone in the US government was actually OK with letting it fail – it's too useful," he told the Guardian. "It sounds like something that could be very serious in a whole range of areas if it were to actually happen. It probably wouldn't damage many locative services applications now, but potentially it would retard their development and mainstreaming if it were to come to pass." The failings of GPS could also play into the hands of other countries – including opening the door to Galileo, the European-funded attempt to rival America's satellite navigation system, which is scheduled to start rolling out later next year. Russia, India and China have developed their own satellite navigation technologies that are currently being expanded. 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 | 19 May 2009 | 9:32 am London stocks rise at open (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 8:20 am Lakes face 'complex' challengesUrgent measures are needed to protect lakes in England and Wales from pollution and global warming, say experts.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 May 2009 | 7:34 am Scientists discover deadly secret of Komodo's bite (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 7:31 am Obama to unveil dramatic new auto emissions standards (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 7:01 am Tiny, DIY Satellites Get NASA BoostSTANFORD, California — We’ve known that the DIY ethic is good for modding your Roomba or building a beer bong, but groups of college students have taken the movement to the next level: space. Working on shoestring budgets and short timelines, duct tape and tape measures, CubeSat enthusiasts build 4-inch square satellites and then piggyback their dreams on bigger missions’ rockets. They do it dirty and cheap, but their results are competitive with their spendier counterparts. The CubeSat strategy was pioneered at Stanford University in the Space and Systems Development Laboratory, now headed by Andrew Kalman, a consulting professor. In this Wired Science video, Kalman explains how CubeSats came to be, how they’re built, and why they’re important. What was just a concept 10 years ago is now a thriving way of accessing space at very low cost. Now, even NASA is giving the idea the thumbs up. Tuesday, a new nanosatellite will take a ride into orbit on a Minotaur 1 rocket. The entire satellite is just 4 inches tall and 12 inches long, like three standard CubeSats stuck together. PharmaSat, as the NASA Ames project is known, will carry a small payload of yeast, which it will feed with nutrient liquid — and then attempt to kill — over the course of 100 hours. The project is supposed to test the effectiveness of antifungals in killing microbes in space. It turns out that low-gravity conditions can do strange things to earthling cells, including making them more virulent. If we’re going to send humans, with their huge complements of bacterial ecosystems into space, we need to know how microbes react to the low-gravity environment. While the PharmaSat project adopts some of the CubeSat methods, keep in mind that it still helps to have NASA behind you. The agency spent $3 million on PharmaSat, mostly bringing the rigor of the CubeSat up to NASA standards. “I don’t think we’re using exotic or one of-a-kind products,” said Bruce Yost, PharmaSat mission manager at NASA Ames. “It’s how it’s put together.” PharmaSat grew out of an earlier proof-of-concept CubeSat project called GeneSat, which proved that engineers could send up a tiny satellite that would effectively nourish microbes and carry out detailed analysis of biological changes. “PharmaSat is kind of a version 2.0 of GeneSat,” Yost said. “It’s quite a bit lot more complicated. It will handle more valves and fluids and microwells. I tell people sometimes that it’s GeneSat on steroids.” Even though the experiment will only take 100 hours or so, the limited bandwidth available to the satellite — which maxes out at 9600 baud — means that the PharmaSat will be beaming data down for months after the yeast die. See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and book site for The History of Our Future; Wired Science on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 19 May 2009 | 4:00 am Komodo Dragons Pack Venom, TooThe Komodo dragon, already sporting huge chompers, is now said to pack venom.Source: Livescience.com | 19 May 2009 | 3:03 am Study: Mockingbirds can tell people apart, react (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 1:16 am Latest quake highlights Los Angeles seismic danger (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 May 2009 | 1:16 am Fifth spacewalk energises HubbleThe fifth and final Hubble servicing spacewalk is completed, replacing batteries and a precision pointing system.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 May 2009 | 11:24 pm Cicadas Primed for Defense
The periodical cicada is one of the world’s longest-living insects, but nobody knows why it times its death with bizarre precision: It either lives for 13 years or 17 years, on the dot. Now, Japanese researchers have developed a model that may explain the animals’ mysteriously accurate biological clocks. The noisy winged critters spend more than 99 percent of their 13 or 17 years as juveniles, sucking on roots in underground lairs. In the summertime, they crawl out en masse — up to 40,000 can emerge from under a single tree within days. Their subterranean tenures are intriguing not only because 13 and 17 years are long periods over which to remain synchronized, but also because both numbers are prime — divisible only by themselves and the number 1. “Their life cycles have been suspicious since the beginning,” said John Cooley, who collaborated on the research with researchers in Japan. “It’s a surprising and unique combination of a long life cycle and mass emergence. And on top of that, why do they have to be prime? [This study] ties that all together.” A leading theory is that long, prime-numbered life cycles minimize the likelihood that the 13-year broods and 17-year broods will ever mate. If the animals lived smaller prime-numbered lives, like 5 and 7, they’d synch up every 35 years; if their lifespans were large, non-prime numbers, like 12 and 16 years, they might inadvertently mate every 48 years. But the large prime numbers 13 and 17 only match up every 221 years. Though this theory is mathematically sound, no one could say why the animals would need to minimize hybridization, so Jin Yoshimura at Shizuoka University developed a mathematical model to explore the rationale. He thought if 13-year and 17-year broods interbred, they might produce offspring with intermediate lifecycles — for example 15 years. This would result in their emergence two years before or after the vast majority of their fellow cicadas. This is a problem, Cooley said, because periodical cicadas find strength in numbers. They’re easy to catch and don’t bite or sting, so they easily become snacks for hungry predators. But by buzzing around with hundreds of thousands of other cicadas, the probability of any one being eaten is close to zero.
Yoshimura’s model shows that this negative consequence of hybridization could explain the prime life cycles. In his model, which starts with all possible life cycles, the only way to arrive at enduring 13- and 17- year life cycles is to include this density-dependent effect. The findings were published May 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Mathemetician Glenn Webb of Vanderbilt University says the explanation is reasonable, but that there are other alternatives. “Our hypothesis is that cicada emergences minimize overlap with the periodic cycles of their predators, like birds and small animals, which are 2 to 5 years,” he said. “By choosing prime number, through evolution, cicadas avoid meshing with these shorter cycles.” Webb also mentioned another hypothesis: that the prime numbers are coincidental, and not significant at all. Cooley acknowledges the model made a number of assumptions, as the difficulty of studying cicadas leaves many mysteries around their biology and evolution. For example, it isn’t known whether hybridization actually produces offspring with intermediate lifecycles. And currently, the 13-year and 17-year broods’ habitats do not overlap, so they don’t have a chance to interbreed in present day — though their distribution has likely changed since they first diverged. “This explores the plausibility of this idea, to help understand the problem cicadas have when they get to a low population density,” said Cooley. “This is the first explicit mathematical treatment of this problem.” Citation: “Allee effect in the selection for prime-numbered cycles in periodical cicadas” by Yumi Tanaka, Jin Yoshimura, Chris Simon, John R. Cooley, and Kei-ichi Tainaka. PNAS, May 18 2009. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 May 2009 | 11:01 pm Restricted researchPaul Drayson (Scientific serendipity, 18 May) may have a case when he argues that most scientific research funded by the public purse should be done with an eye to its "possible impact". What is much less obviously justifiable is the government's obsession with extending its impact agenda outwith the sciences. The Arts and Humanities Research Council now requires grant proposals to explain the social and economic impact of work on Chaucer, Herodotus, Leibniz, and the Synod of Dort. But of course specialist research on such things has no such impact. This means that it is likely that before very long this kind of research will be near impossible in most UK universities. Here we have yet another example of politicians' and civil servants' damaging insistence upon applying to the arts and humanities models of assessment and funding suitable, if at all, only to the physical and biological sciences. By the same token, we have also yet another example of the almost gleeful philistinism of New Labour and its minions. 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 | 18 May 2009 | 11:01 pm Science alone will not save usChanging behaviour will be as vital as new technologies in tackling climate change. So where is the funding for linguists, anthropologists and sociologists? Tariq Tahir reports Naysayers aside, the world appears to have nudged its way towards the view that there is a scientific consensus that human activity has changed our climate. For many academics, the question is now about finding ways of dealing with the consequences of climate change. In that endeavour, natural scientists are increasingly being joined by other academics - most notably social scientists - in teams where many disciplines can interact. But there is concern that a government desire to protect science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subjects by ringfencing funding could, in the long term, affect the ability of these teams to conduct research. For Professor Paul Wellings, chairman-elect of the 1994 group of smaller research-intensive universities, it is a question of getting together what he calls a "dream team", comprising not just scientists, but researchers from the social sciences and humanities, to deal with the nightmare scenario recently conjured by the government's chief scientist, John Beddington, in which the world is gripped by a "perfect storm" of war, starvation and mass migration. Coming up with answers For Wellings, it is not enough simply to rely on science and technology to come up with the answers we need. Looking at individuals' behaviour and getting them to change that is, he argues, as important as new technology. While not opposed to ringfencing per se, he argues for a more nuanced approach, with support maintained for social sciences and humanities. The 1994 group estimates that the ringfencing of funding for Stem subjects during the 2008 research assessment exercise (RAE)cost its institutions 20p in the pound per researcher. "If we were asked as institutions to help solve major global challenges, and asked what is the 'dream team' that we would want to field for doing that," says Wellings, "as soon as you start to put that together, there are engineers, technocrats and very often people in the humanities and the social sciences." At the sharp end of what he is talking about are people such as Sarah Curtis, a geographer heading a group of Durham University academics working with engineers from Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University on a project to discover how storms, floods and heatwaves caused by climate change might affect the elderly and how infrastructure can be tailored to cope. "Multidisciplinary work helps engineers and scientists, as well as the professional carers, tackle extreme weather events in the future and keep services running," Curtis says. "They also need to understand from the people receiving those services what's important to them and that's where the social science perspective comes in - really being able to interpret events and problems from different social perspectives. "The social science perspective isn't just about individual behaviour, but helps us to think about the way that people work and interact together. I would argue that what's important to people and how they tackle problems is not just down to individual characteristics but also to the social circumstances they're in." She is concerned about an over-reliance on Stem subjects to provide solutions to climate change. "This isn't just about sharing academic knowledge, but also the public debate as well, because in all honesty I don't think that natural scientists have all the answers to the problems we're facing over climate change and neither do I think that social scientists have the solutions. So we are going to have to negotiate across these different points of view if we are going to move forward." Wellings, a population ecologist, says there is a pool of expertise within the 1994 group, with its strength in social science and humanities. He would like to see it drawn upon when it comes to tackling environmental issues. "If we don't get a grip on climate change we are going to see the world's largest diaspora, when a huge area of sub-Saharan Africa will be forced into absolute water shortage. At that point 300 million people could walk off the land and towards Europe. There are a family of issues that, if we get them badly wrong, will produce a perfect storm within about 40 to 50 years around some of those big picture issues. "So who are the people who understand the culture of these areas and the management of diaspora? By and large, it's not scientists but social scientists and humanities people." He points to the School of Oriental and African Studies, a member of the 1994 group. "I don't know what the future of geopolitics is, but I do know that in the future we are going to have to turn to people such as those at Soas, who are experts in languages and anthropology from that part of the world. It will be an inevitable response that we will need a world-class centre of excellence of the sort that we already have there." In the meantime, Wellings, who is also vice-chancellor of Lancaster University, fears there will be less money for academics to engage in speculative research in social sciences and humanities. "You can have a pretty shrewd guess there will be substantially less money going back into those departments than there was before," he says. "And so over the next 18 months you will see a sharp diminution in research activity. Some of that will be a reduction in the number of projects that are being run and some of it will be in the support to postgraduates. "Less money will cause colleagues to be more entrepreneurial and in the short run they will be more market-facing, or recruit more international students, but it won't maintain research capacity and that is the thing that will be eroded. The intellectual need for there to be multidisciplinary research will not go away and that will put tremendous pressure on universities to ensure that the financial resources are there." Wellings, who sits on the board of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, is calling for more transparency when it comes to the new funding mechanism that will replace the RAE, the Research Excellence Framework - in particular, in the funding of Stem subjects relative to social sciences and humanities. "In the future, there will have to be transparency about what the likelihood is of resource in each area," he says. A wider research base Diane Berry, Reading University's pro vice-chancellor for research, echoes this argument. "It is clearly important to protect funding for Stem subjects and medicine. However, we cannot afford to conceive our science base too narrowly - we must protect our wider research base. "This is because addressing current and future global challenges depends on the successful interplay of all subjects. Furthermore, the boundaries between the natural sciences and the social sciences and humanities are becoming increasingly fluid as research at the frontiers of knowledge becomes increasingly inter- and multidisciplinary." David Delpy, the chief executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, says: "Obviously, there needs to be a balance between arts and science funding. Both are important. However, there remains a shortage in physical sciences and engineering graduates. We agree that when it comes to priority areas such as climate change a cross-disciplinary approach is vital if we are to be successful." Delpy points to the Research Council UK's Living With Environmental Change programme as an example of how the seven research councils are working together "to try and solve major problems that face society". "Increasingly," says Berry, "success in markets, which many people might assume to be dominated by technological advances, depends just as much on factors such as design, economics, branding and consumer understanding. "Similarly, effectively tackling some of the most significant health and environmental challenges will depend just as much on changing people's behaviour as on advances in medicine, physics, or chemistry." 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 | 18 May 2009 | 11:01 pm Obama to Announce New Fuel StandardsNew standard said to be about 35.5 miles a gallon for 2016 models.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 10:15 pm In praise of … the Hubble telescopeIf inanimate objects had personalities, the Hubble space telescope would be described as having the hide of a rhinoceros. The launch was delayed for several years by the Challenger disaster, and by the time it went up into the upper atmosphere it had cost over six times its original estimate. Within weeks of its launch, it was found to have a flaw in its super-finely ground mirror. This was only 2.3 micrometres out at the edges, but enough for the ambitious project to be listed alongside the Titanic, the Hindenburg and other spectacular technological failures. The mirror could not be replaced in space, but nor could the telescope be brought back. So it needed the telescopic equivalent of specs – two mirrors placed in the light path – to correct the original fault. When it is released back into orbit on Thursday it will have been repaired five times in the 19 years of its operation. Almost everything that can be replaced or repaired has been, with the result that Hubble is expected to remain at the cutting edge of space exploration for five more years, until the more powerful infrared James Webb space telescope is launched. If Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer after whom it was named, was right when he said that the history of astronomy is the history of receding horizons, then our horizons have receded by 40 billion galaxies as a result of the observations the space telescope has made. Its extraordinary images are the phenomenal result of a project that refused to give up and die. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 18 May 2009 | 9:45 pm Monkey See, Monkey Really DoScientists have found neurons in monkey's brains that may be responsible for gaze-following behaviorSource: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 9:03 pm Mockingbirds bear a grudge against particular peopleIn the first published account of wild animals recognising individuals of another species, the songbirds attacked people who had threatened them in the past Mockingbirds can remember people who have threatened them and even start dive-bombing them if they see the person again, a study has found. An urban population of the songbirds ignored most passers-by, but took to the air when they recognised people who had approached their nest days before. When the birds spotted a previous offender, they started screeching and set off to harass the person with swooping dives, at times grazing the tops of their heads. The extraordinary behaviour, reported in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is thought to be the first published account of wild animals in their natural setting recognising individuals of another species. "We tend to view all mockingbirds as equal, but the feeling is not mutual. Mockingbirds certainly do not view all humans as equal," said Doug levy, a professor of biology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who led the study. The findings offer clues to why some animals are able to thrive in large cities and suburbs while others fare less well. "The real puzzle in the field of urban ecology is to figure out why certain species thrive around humans," Levy said. One idea is that the more successful creatures have an inborn ability that allows them to adapt better to the environment than other animals. Mockingbirds are one of the most common birds nesting in the trees and shrubs on and around the university's campus in Gainesville. In the study, which took place last spring and summer during the birds' nesting season, volunteers walked up to the mockingbirds' nests and gently reached out to touch the nest edges. The same individuals repeated the act for three more days. On the fifth day, different volunteers approached the nests. By the end of the study, 10 volunteers had visited 24 birds' nests. Each time, the person wore different clothes and walked a different route to the nest. Video recordings of the birds' reactions showed a dramatic change in the birds' behaviour when they recognised someone who had recently approached the nest. Within two days, the birds began reacting much more quickly to people they recognised. They started producing alarm calls earlier and left their nests to fend off the intruders with aggressive flying displays. The airborne attacks seemed to be targeted at individuals the birds recognised from previous days. On the final day of the study, when different people approached the nests, the birds stayed calm until the person was about to touch the nest. The mockingbirds seemed to recognise individuals after just two bad encounters, a skill that Levy suspects is rare among bird species. Pigeons need extensive training to recognise different people. "Sixty seconds of exposure was all it took for mockingbirds to learn to identify different individuals and pick them out of all other students on campus," Levy said. Mockingbirds may thrive in urban environments by having good perceptual powers that allow them to cope with the complexities of living in heavily populated cities. For example, they might be better at differentiating between cats that are aware of their nests and those that are simply passing by. "We don't believe mockingbrids evolved an ability to distinguish between humans. Mockingbirds and humans haven't been living in close associatioon long enough for that to occur. We think instead that our experiments reveal an underlying ability to be incredibly perceptive of everything around them, and to respond appropriately when the stakes are high," Levy said. 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 | 18 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Komodo dragons use venom to kill their preyThe powerful venom causes a sudden drop in blood pressure that sends the victim into shock Researchers have discovered that the bite of the world's largest lizard, the Komodo dragon, is venomous. The carnivorous beasts are unusual because they release their prey after biting them, apparently leaving the animals to bleed to death before eating them. But many experts have claimed the victims die after being infected with bacteria that cover the lizards' serrated teeth. Komodo dragons live on several Indonesian islands and typically grow to 3m long and weigh around 50kg. They lie in wait for prey and ambush them by charging forwards with their jaws open. The lizards can spend hours in one spot, waiting for wild boar, deer, goats and other large mammals to pass by. Scientists at the University of Melbourne used computer models to investigate the strength of the lizards' bite and found it was weak compared with other predators, such as the Australian saltwater crocodile. But magnetic resonance imaging scans revealed complex venom glands in the dragons' mouths that had never been documented before. Bryan Fry, who led the team, surgically removed the glands from a terminally ill dragon in a zoo. Tests showed they contained a similar poison to that found in Gila monsters and snakes, according to a report in Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences. The powerful venom has a devastating effect on prey, causing a sudden drop in blood pressure that sends them into shock. At the same time, the venom stops the victim's blood clotting, so it bleeds to death. The discovery suggests many more lizards may possess snake-like venom than previously thought. Until recently, only two poisonous lizards were thought to exist, the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard. Both live in southern US states and Mexico. 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 | 18 May 2009 | 9:00 pm Spacewalkers tackle final Hubble fix-up tasksHOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts finished the last of five complex spacewalks to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday, leaving the 19-year-old instrument at the height of its star-gazing prowess.Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 8:52 pm Men Are Hard-Wired to Suspect Infidelity
Evolution appears to have hard-wired men to suspect their lovers of cheating. This tendency, described in a study published Saturday in Evolutionary Psychology, may be one of many so-called cognitive biases — “psychological mechanisms that were selected not because they perceived the world accurately, but because they perceive the world inaccurately,” in the words of study co-authors Aaron Goetz and Kayla Causey. Cognitive biases are a useful mechanism for dealing with uncertain but potentially important information. For example, people are more likely to perceive male figures walking in place as approaching rather than leaving. They also tend to overestimate vertical distances, and to assume that large animals are sleeping rather than dead. The possible evolutionary advantages of such instincts are obvious. It’s better to flee sooner rather than later from a mugger, to realize that a fall is dangerous before you’ve jumped, and to let sleeping dogs lie. According to Goetz and Causey, whose poll of 60 men and 89 women found the former prone to suspicions of infidelity, assuming the worst could be especially useful to men. Infidelity poses certain risks — such as contracting sexually transmitted diseases — to both sexes, but the burdens of cuckoldry are greatest to men. Though an unfaithful woman still gives birth to her own child, her unwitting partner devotes time and energy to raising a rival’s offspring. “The sum of these costs provided selection pressure for the evolution of an arsenal of anti-cuckoldry tactics in men,” write Goetz and Causey, who argue that heightened suspicion is one of these tactics. There could be other explanations to the researchers’ results. More men than women said they planned on eventually being unfaithful, so perhaps their suspicion was a projection of their own duplicity. Conversely, women may be too quick to assume fidelity. But Goetz and Causey’s explanation are plausible. However, should men use the findings to justify especially paranoid behavior, the authors have a response. “This overperception is likely to be naturally constrained,” they write. “An unchecked and unyielding suspicion of partner infidelity would not have been adaptive.” See Also:
Citation: “Sex differences in perceptions of infidelity: Men often assume the worst.” By Goetz, A.T., and Causey, K. Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 7 No. 2, May 16, 2009. Image: Flickr/Bobster855 Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 May 2009 | 8:18 pm World's Largest Nesting Population of Leatherback TurtlesAn international team of scientists has discovered the world's largest nesting population of leatherback turtles in Gabon. The leatherback is critically endangered, so this find makes Gabon a key location in the conservation efforts for this species.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 8:16 pm New Breath Test Tells If You're KissableA pocket-size breath test can catch a whiff of bad-breath bacteria.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 7:58 pm SLIDE SHOW: The Hidden Cost of Solar PowerIs "Big Solar" ever a mistake? Some desert advocates say so.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 7:41 pm Astronauts Wrap Up Hubble WorkAstronauts finished work on the Hubble Space Telescope and shut the doors to the observatory.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 7:41 pm Weird New NASA Rovers Really Get Around
At some point on their five-year journey, Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have both gotten their feet stuck in the soil, and NASA is taking notes for the design of the next generation of rovers. In 2005, Opportunity spent five weeks spinning her wheels in a dune later dubbed “Purgatory.” Last week, Spirit sank into a sandpit scientists are calling “Troy,” and could stay there for weeks — or forever. But rovers of the future may have an easier time of it. NASA scientists are building an army of prototypes with new and ever weirder ways to rove. CLIFFBOT
The Cliffbot (known more formally as the Sample-Return Rover) gets around this by borrowing tricks from human mountaineers. It’s tethered to two “anchorbots” that belay it from the top of the cliff using modified fishing reels. This configuration lets it climb down 80 degree slopes to take pictures and soil samples at the bottom. Cliffbot is already getting its feet dirty: It spent the past three summers doing field tests in Svalbard, Norway, where it froze its batteries off and dodged polar bears.
LEMUR
Another rover tackles the climbing problem with sheer dexterity. With a typically charming NASA acronym, the Lemur (Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robots) was designed to help build things in orbit. It can crawl along a segmented mirror and climb the walls in a rock gym. Engineers hope it will be able to place “holds” in rock and soil, like rock climbers do. And at just 18 inches across, it’s downright adorable. ATHLETE
Athlete would probably be used in tandem with a lunar rover like the one featured at Obama’s inauguration. “It’s like retired people with their big Winnebago and the Jeep behind them,” said Richard Volpe, manager of Mobility and Robotics Systems Section of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “You park your Winnebago [in this case, Athlete] and it stays stationary for a week or two, and you do your little sorties in your Jeep.” One way engineers imagine getting these colossal insects to the moon is to make them collapsible. They’d fold down into discs, stack up for the flight, and self-deploy on landing like giant robot spiders popping out of a Pringles can. Another is to have them split into two three-legged “Tri-Athletes” that can click back together or dock to other robots on the moon.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 May 2009 | 7:07 pm Largest Population of Leatherback Sea Turtles FoundThe world's largest nesting population of leatherback sea turtles has been identified in Africa.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 6:44 pm Death by Human Error Trumps Technology AgainHuman error causes far more damage and kills far more people than computer or technological failures.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 6:43 pm Group Fights Revealing Airport ScansPlans to start a national campaign against whole-body airport scanners.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 6:19 pm Astronaut Looks at Earth: 'It's Too Beautiful'Astronaut Mike Massimino tries to describe the indescribable thrill of viewing Earth from space.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 6:02 pm Neutron Star Crust Is Stronger than SteelThe crusts of neutron stars may be 10 billion times stronger than steel, new research shows.Source: Livescience.com | 18 May 2009 | 6:02 pm Crowdsourcing for Plants
Hungry people may be more sophisticated sensors than any satellite when it comes to tracking the dynamic relationship between plants and climate. Thousands of Americans forage for fruits and vegetables in local parks and plots of undeveloped land. Collectively gathered, their observations could help researchers make detailed studies of changes in plant distribution and behavior. “Why not take advantage of the fact that people know this kind of information, but don’t necessarily have a way of taking it to scientists?” said Rebecca McClain, a researcher at the nonprofit Institute for Culture and Ecology. McClain is part of a team that hopes to develop a networked system that allows foragers to submit notes on the plants they see. They have applied for a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the ecological effects of urban and suburban foraging. Hundreds of plant species are routinely collected by America’s foragers, a thousands-strong subculture whose members approach their quest for inexpensive, freshly-picked natural produce with the rigor and focus of trained botanists. A system similar to that envisioned by McClain exists now for amateur birdwatchers, whose sightings are collated in efforts like the Great Backyard Bird Count, eBird, North American Bird Phenology Program and Project Feederwatch. That data has been invaluable in helping ornithologists and conservationists estimate bird population health and behavior. In the avian case, there simply aren’t enough scientists to count birds. There are similarly too few researchers to keep real-time, on-the-ground track of America’s plants, many of which are being affected by climate change in ways scientists have just started to study. Satellite imaging of vegetation is helpful, but can lack a fine-grained level of detail. “Foragers pay very close attention to fine-scale processes,” said Marla Emery, a research geographer with the U.S. Forest Service and author of the NSF proposal. “Satellite imagery is getting finer, but in general it misses these processes. And then there’s the frequency with which satellites sample a location. A lot of what’s seen by foragers is quite ephemeral. For something like mushrooms, they might need to return every three days, and devout foragers could be out there on a daily basis. They’re seeing on a very fine spatial and temporal scale.” “We don’t get this sort of information on urban and suburban ecosystems, but we could,” said Emery. The system itself would likely be relatively simple, requiring little more than a database architecture into which foragers would submit codified reports on the status and location of plants. “In the past, part of the problem with this has been being unable to pinpoint where observations are coming from,” said McLain. “But with GPS technology, especially since it’s now being built into cellphones, everyone’s got it at their fingertips.” The benefits of the program would be more than scientific, said Allaire Diamond, a graduate student in the University of Vermont’s Field Naturalist program who would handle the forager data system’s technical infrastructure. She envisions a beta version targeted at expert foragers and a later program that would help amateurs identify plants in the field, perhaps using a plant-recognizing iPhone program connected to and ethnobotanical database. “Ultimately we’re trying to connect to the land and use a piece of technology to do it,” said Diamond. “It’d be neat to replace the idea that things like iPhones and the internet are going to conflict with being in nature.” See Also:
Image: Foods gathered in New York City’s Central Park. Flickr/mecredis Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 May 2009 | 5:40 pm Blue Whales Returning to AlaskaHaving recovered from near extinction, blue whales reclaim an old migration route.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 4:51 pm Polluted Waters Bear Magnetic SignatureThe telltale traces of heavy metals could help map tainted waterways.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 3:51 pm Ethical Guide for Robot Warriors in the WorksA software package aims to guide robots to make ethical decisions in war.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 3:31 pm Austria to stay in particle physics lab after allVIENNA (Reuters) - Austria has changed its mind and will now not pull out of the international particle physics laboratory CERN over the cost, Chancellor Werner Faymann said in a statement on Monday, overruling his science minister.Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 3:30 pm SLIDE SHOW: Hubble Gets a House CallThe Hubble Space Telescope gets its final fix during a packed 11-day mission.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 2:31 pm South Korea tries recharging road to power vehiclesSEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes.Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 2:04 pm Tree Leaves Reveal Deadly Pollution LevelsA potent tool for tracking particulate air pollution is discovered -- tree leaves.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 May 2009 | 2:01 pm Antarctic team boosts medical care with 3D ultrasoundSINGAPORE (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 | 1:53 pm Cloud ice crystals carry biological matter: researchCHICAGO (Reuters) - Ice crystals plucked from clouds and quickly analyzed in flight show bits of biological material -- bacteria, spores and plants -- play a role in the formation of clouds, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:19 pm Engineered antibodies fight AIDS virus in monkeysWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers may have discovered a technique that will eventually lead to a way to vaccinate against the AIDS virus, by creating an artificial antibody carried into the body by a virus.Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 May 2009 | 12:14 pm Virgin Galactic: 'Getting into space has a very low environmental impact'Virgin Galactic's assertion that space flight can be 'green' will never get off the ground, Leo Hickman said last week. Here Virgin Galactic's president, Will Whitehorn, responds Let's put science ahead of emotion in discussing Virgin Galactic. The company is developing a 21st-century space launch system based on the principles of an entirely carbon composite construction, a unique benign hybrid rocket motor, biofuels where permissible and very high-altitude air launch and firing of the benign rocket rather than launching it from the ground. The air launch negates the need to use dirty carbon-intensive solid chemical fuelled rocket boosters. The result is a very low-energy and low environmental impact approach to getting humans, scientific payload and eventually even small satellites into space. Experimental test flying is now under way and early experience indicates the system will live up to all Virgin's hopes for it. Many leading environmental scientists such as Professor James Lovelock believe it will be a genuine breakthrough in human and scientific access to space in the future. We are not going to find better ways to get to space unless we can regularise space flight and this system will use space tourism as one means to lower the cost of space access. Finally, we believe space matters, not just for the reasons that Professor Stephen Hawking so eloquently explained to the BBC two years ago; but for the compelling reasons of earth science – it is satellites that have given us the crucial evidence on climate change. Space tourism is just the beginning in developing this. The highly efficient human and payload space launch systems will lead to an overdue industrial revolution in space. The alternative would be government funding of these new, less polluting systems – which is not an idea one can anticipate any public enthusiasm for. • Will Whitehorn is the president of Virgin Galactic 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 | 18 May 2009 | 11:43 am
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One of the toughest tasks for rovers is climbing steep slopes. Some of the most interesting bits of Martian geology, like exposed rocks on cliff faces or gullies in craters that might once have been flowing streams, are off-limits to Spirit and Opportunity. Anxious engineers fear a spill, or worry that once they’re in, they won’t be able to get back out.
The behemoth 