Area Of Brain That Makes A 'People Person' Discovered

Researchers have discovered that whether someone is a "people person" may depend on the structure of their brain: the greater the concentration of brain tissue in certain parts of the brain, the more likely they are to be a warm, sentimental person. This area is in the same region linked to processing of pleasures such as sweet tastes and sexual stimuli.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

Influenza Virus Evades Body's Immune Response Through Newly Discovered Mechanism

Researchers have identified a critical molecular mechanism that allows the influenza virus to evade the body's immune response system.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

Immunotherapy Effective Against Neuroblastoma In Children

A phase III study has shown that adding an antibody-based therapy that harnesses the body's immune system resulted in a 20 percent increase in the number of children living disease-free for at least two years with neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma, a hard-to-treat cancer arising from nervous system cells, is responsible for 15 percent of cancer-related deaths in children.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

Robotic Therapy Holds Promise For Cerebral Palsy

Over the past few years, MIT engineers have successfully tested robotic devices to help stroke patients learn to control their arms and legs. Devices can help children learn to grasp and manipulate objects. Now, they're building on that work to help children with cerebral palsy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

New 'Broadband' Cloaking Technology Simple To Manufacture

Researchers have created a new type of invisibility cloak that is simpler than previous designs and works for all colors of the visible spectrum, making it possible to cloak larger objects than before and possibly leading to practical applications in "transformation optics."
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

Snail Venoms Reflect Reduced Competition

A study of venomous snails on remote Pacific islands reveals genetic underpinnings of an ecological phenomenon that has fascinated scientists since Darwin.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 6:00 pm

Protein From Algae Shows Promise For Stopping SARS

A protein from algae may have what it takes to stop severe acute respiratory syndrome infections, according to new research. A recent study has found that mice treated with the protein, Griffithsin, had a 100 percent survival rate after exposure to the SARS coronavirus, as compared to a 30 percent survival for untreated mice.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Cancer Stem Cells May Be Related To Prognosis In Primary Breast Cancer

Breast cancer patients who received chemotherapy prior to surgery had heightened levels of cancer-initiating stem cells in their bone marrow, and the level of such cells correlated to a tumor's lymph node involvement, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

'Junk' DNA Has Important Role, Researchers Find

Researchers who have been studying the genome of a pond organism have found that junk DNA may not be so junky after all. They have discovered that DNA sequences from regions of what had been viewed as the "dispensable genome" are actually performing functions that are central for the organism. They have concluded that the genes spur an almost acrobatic rearrangement of the entire genome that is necessary for the organism to grow.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

Agricultural Aromatherapy: Lavender Oil As Natural Herbicide

Could essential oils extracted from lavender be used as a natural herbicide to prevent weed growth among crops? Research carried out in Italy suggests the answer may be yes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 May 2009 | 3:00 pm

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - A cold front racing across the Midwest, persistent rain across Florida and thunderstorms in the Southwest were expected to be the most significant weather developments on Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 9:48 am

Sweden helps SKorea convert food waste into biogas (AP)

AP - The South Korean city of Ulsan lets water generated from processing food waste run off into the ocean, which can generate methane gas harmful to the environment.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 9:27 am

Orangutans seen eating own babies

Two unrelated female orangutans have been seen cannibalising the bodies of their recently deceased babies.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 21 May 2009 | 8:49 am

Atlantis crew wraps mission, testifies to Senate (AP)

AP - Tests and testifying will take up what NASA hopes is the last day in orbit for the space shuttle Atlantis.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 8:38 am

UN study advises caution over dams (AP)

AP - A dam-building spree in China poses the greatest threat to the future of the already beleaguered Mekong, one of the world's major rivers and a key source of water for the region, a U.N. report said Thursday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 8:33 am

Astronauts Prepare Shuttle Atlantis for Friday Landing (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - HOUSTON - Atlantis astronauts will prime their spacecraft for a planned Friday landing as they enter the homestretch of NASA's last-ever visit to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 8:30 am

Scientists to probe Mexican town's flu mystery (AP)

AP - No one has identified ground zero in the swine flu epidemic. Just where or when the new strain of influenza first jumped from a pig and began infecting people is a scientific mystery — one that a group of flu detectives is determined to solve.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 7:42 am

Flash flooding, winds whip Australia's northeast (AFP)

AFP - Tens of thousands of homes were without power and hundreds of schools closed on Thursday as a wild storm front lashed Australia's northeast coast.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 7:15 am

Scientists develop dental filling using bile acids

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Canada and China have developed a hardy material using human bile acids, which they hope can be used to fill dental cavities.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 7:13 am

City chiefs seek bigger say in UN climate summit (AFP)

AFP - Leaders of the world's biggest cities called for a bigger say in upcoming UN climate change talks as they wrapped up a three-day summit on ways to combat global warming.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 7:07 am

Whaling Commission head says Japan must compromise (AFP)

AFP - The outgoing head of the International Whaling Commission has voiced regret that his controversial drive to reach a compromise on protecting whales had failed, and said Japan needed to cede more ground.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 2:36 am

Shuttle Atlantis in Good Shape for Friday Landing (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - HOUSTON - The vital heat shield on the space shuttle Atlantis received a clean bill of health Wednesday as its astronaut crew prepares to return home after successfully overhauling the Hubble Space Telescope.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 May 2009 | 2:33 am

Space 'anomaly'

Britain won't pay additional funds to train its astronaut
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 11:59 pm

Space Drink of Choice: Recycled Urine

Astronauts drank recycled urine today. Apparently it was fine.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 11:49 pm

Hubble's troubles surprised shuttle crew

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Years of training didn't prepare the shuttle Atlantis astronauts for the problems encountered during NASA's final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 May 2009 | 11:40 pm

Former army pilot will be Britain's first official astronaut

Six newly trained European astronauts could be among the first to walk on the moon since the end of the Apollo missions in 1972

A 37-year-old helicopter test pilot has joined the European Space Agency as Britain's first official astronaut.

Timothy Peake, from Salisbury in Wiltshire, is one of six new recruits to join the space agency's ageing astronaut corps and was chosen from more than 8,000 applicants after a gruelling year-long selection procedure.

The appointment, announced at a special ceremony at the space agency's headquarters in Paris yesterday, is surprising because Britain has a long-standing policy of refusing to fund human spaceflight.

Although Britain is the fourth largest contributor to Esa, its £200m annual donation is used exclusively for satellites and robotic missions.

Major Peake, who is married and has a four-month-old son, Thomas, joins the space agency after an 18-year career in the army during which he rose to become one of the force's top helicopter pilots.

"I'm absorbing what's happened and looking forward to my new role as an astronaut in Esa," he told the Guardian. "I harboured a childhood dream to become an astronaut, but there's always the reality that makes you think it's never going to happen. It's an incredibly privileged position to be in."

Peake received his commission from the Army Air Corps in 1992 and served as a platoon commander on an eight-month attachment with the Royal Green Jackets in Northern Ireland. He gained his wings in 1994 after completing the army pilots' course.

Following a posting to the US, he returned to Britain in 2002 as one of the first pilots qualified to instruct trainees in flying Apache helicopters. He went on to graduate from the prestigious Empire Test Pilot School at Boscombe Down and conduct special forces operations.

He retired from the army earlier this year and joined the aircraft company Augusta Westland as a senior helicopter test pilot. He has clocked up 3,000 hours of flying in more than 30 different aircraft.

The six new astronauts were announced after the Esa director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain, conducted in-depth interviews with 30 candidates over the past two weeks.

"These new astronauts will become, step by step, the representatives of Europe in space," said Dordain as he announced the recruits at yesterday's press conference.

The astronauts, including five men and a woman, will begin 18 months of intensive training in September, during which they will learn to work on the International Space Station and to fly aboard Russia's Soyuz rocket, which from next year will be the only means of transporting astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. The next stage of training will ready them for specific space missions.

It will be at least three-and-a-half years before any of the astronauts take part in an orbital mission. More distant ambitions in the pipeline at Nasa and Esa mean the new recruits could be among the first to walk on the moon since the end of the Apollo missions in 1972.

Esa's decision to select a British astronaut will put pressure on the UK government to contribute to the agency's human space programme. Other nations contribute significant sums to be involved in the astronaut programme.

Mr Dordain said: "When we have top candidates, even when they are Brits, we cannot refuse a good one. It is clear that I hope that this will stimulate the British government, because with such a good guy, how can they continue to not contribute?"

But Lord Drayson, the science minister, said yesterday that there had been no change in government space policy.

"It's not costing the British taxpayer an additional penny to do this, but it is brilliant that we have now got an official British astronaut," he said. "We believe that space is extremely important both scientifically and economically in the future, but we have chosen to focus on those areas where we believe the UK can most effectively contribute."

In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to go into orbit, in a one-off deal between the government and the Russian space agency. The chemist from Mars – the confectionery company – visited the Mir space station, which a decade later plunged into the South Pacific Ocean after being intentionally de-orbited in 2001.

Other British-born people have visited space after gaining US citizenship and joining Nasa's astronaut corps, or by paying the Russian space agency to fly as a tourist. The three serving Nasa astronauts born in Britain are Piers Sellers, Nick Patrick and Michael Foale.

The recruitment campaign will introduce much-needed fresh blood into Europe's astronaut corps, whose average age is around 50. The eight existing astronauts are all men and come from France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The new recruits may have a long wait before they are assigned to their first space mission. When the space shuttle is decommissioned next year, Esa will be competing with Nasa for seats aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket. There are only seven seats put aside for the European astronaut corps until 2020.

Esa does not yet have its own means of ferrying astronauts into space, but it is investigating the possibility of making its existing Ariane rocket safe enough to carry astronauts.

The five other astronauts are Samantha Cristoforetti from Italy, Alexander Guest from Germany, Andreas Mogensen, a Danish scientist working at the University of Surrey, UK, Luca Parmitano from Italy, and a Frenchman, Thomas Pesquet.

Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal and president of the Royal Society, welcomed the announcement. "It's very good news to be doing this as part of the European Space Agency," he said.

Martin Barstow, head of science and engineering at Leicester University, said: "This is a welcome success for the UK but will produce a political headache for the government, as the UK does not contribute to the Esa human spaceflight programme. We hope this will be an opportunity to change the current policy and for Britain to become active in the human spaceflight arena."

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 May 2009 | 11:16 pm

IVF twins 'sicker in early life'

IVF twins face more health problems in early life than naturally conceived twins, experts show.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 11:04 pm

Why turmeric could be the spice of life

Eating high-fat curries may not be as bad for us as we thought - at least, not if we lace them with turmeric. Scientists at Boston's Tufts University found that mice fed a high-fat diet that contained curcumin, a component of turmeric, put on less weight.

This puts the spice in that magic group of foods with health-giving properties - along with garlic, ginger and fish oils.

Like ginger, turmeric is a rhizome, a horizontal stem of a plant that grows underground. Generally speaking, it is prized more for its colour than its flavour: turmeric is the oldest natural food dye in the world, and is now seen in ingredients lists as E100. In my opinion, however, this downgrading from flavour to colour is largely due to the spice we get in Britain being old and dull by the time it reaches us. In Zanzibar, I got the shock of my life when I cut into a nugget just dug from the earth: it had an intense smell, was dazzlingly bright and practically orange in colour, with an interesting, bitter, earthy flavour.

Indispensable all over Asia, turmeric forms the basis of most curry powders, and during the Raj, we Brits loved it in our piccalilli and kedgeree. These days it is commonly used in the batter for fish and chips, and (mistakenly) as a replacement for expensive saffron in dishes from paella to fish pie or sauces such as rouille.

It is the unsung hero of the spice rack, though, so my advice to unlocking the inner flavour would be to go to the kind of shop or market where you are more likely to encounter turmeric that was ground in this century, then fry it gently with something simple to let the flavour come out.

Turmeric seems to respond particularly well to other roots, such as carrots and spuds - especially with a few mustard seeds - as well as the bigger meats such as mutton and lamb. Tomatoes, too. It is only by giving it a chance to go pretty-much solo that we cooks can really get to grips with its hidden depths.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 May 2009 | 11:01 pm

'Ida' Fossil Hype Went Too Far

Despite press-conference claims, no textbooks will be rewritten any time soon.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 9:15 pm

New Warning System Could Save Manatees

Scientists test out an alarm to warn manatees of approaching ships. In the first test, without the alarm, the boat needs to turn sharply to avoid hitting the manatee. In the second test, with the alarm, the manatee steers clear of the boat.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 9:10 pm

Shuttle Crew Over the Moon at Hubble Success

Astronauts celebrate the closure of a successful, if grueling, mission to Hubble.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 7:50 pm

How to fit 300 DVDs on one disc

A new recording method could allow 300 times the amount of data on a standard DVD to be packed on to a single disc.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 6:47 pm

Life on Earth May Have Begun Much Earlier

Primitive life forms may have survived a period of intense bombardment on early Earth.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 6:30 pm

Introducing the Fuel-Efficient Cow

Will genetic engineering be the solution to livestock methane emissions?
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 6:20 pm

Study turns back clock on origins of life on Earth

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A heavy bombardment by asteroids the size of Ireland was not enough to wipe out life on Earth 3.9 billion years ago, researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that turns back the clock of life by 500 million years.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 May 2009 | 6:14 pm

Amid Media Circus, Scientists Doubt 'Ida' Is Your Ancestor

A new primate fossil has made waves among scientists and non-scientists.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 6:13 pm

UN hopeful about climate change

Head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change says recent negotiations have been "encouraging".
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 6:11 pm

Flu Pandemics May Lurk in Frozen Lakes

The next flu pandemic may be hibernating in an Arctic glacier or frozen Siberian lake, waiting for rising temperatures to set it free. Then birds can deliver it back to civilization.

New research suggests an influenza virus could go into hiding in the ice when earlier generations of humans, birds or other hosts developed immunity strong enough to drive the virus to extinction. It’s a sort of evolutionary loophole.

“It can bring a set of viral genes back to life that have been frozen for centuries or thousands of years,” said environmental biologist Scott Rogers of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “If hosts haven’t seen the virus in a while, then there may be no active immunity.”

Rogers and Zeynep Koçer, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, found that influenza viruses can easily survive freezing in pond water, and emerge from the melting ice strong enough to infect bird eggs. They presented their latest evidence today at the American Society for Microbiology meeting in Philadelphia.

Rogers calls this evolutionary strategy “genome recycling.” He thinks migrating waterfowl regularly deliver influenza viruses to Arctic glaciers and lakes, where it becomes frozen in ice. When the ice melts, birds pick the virus up and transport it back south where it can infect humans.

The research comes amid a global alert over a new swine flu strain, H1N1, that has so far killed at least 80 people and could be headed toward full-blown pandemic. Influenza pandemics have struck periodically in historic times. The worst in recent memory were the Spanish flu in 1918, the Asian flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong flu in 1968.

These pandemics are hard to predict or trace back to their origins. Some researchers have proposed Siberia as a hub for the evolution of flu pandemics that eventually emerge in other locations — carried there by birds.

Scientists have in fact detected influenza viruses frozen in the ice and mud of lakes in Alaska, Siberia and elsewhere. These Arctic lakes are the summer grounds for ducks that migrate to China, Southern Asia, Europe and North America.

Dany Shoham, who studies biological warfare at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Bar-Ilan University in Israel, first sidled up to the idea that influenza viruses may hide in ice during the 1990s. As influenza viruses pass from one person, or bird, to another, they normally pick up random changes in their genes because of errors in viral replication. This “genetic drift” happens at a constant rate.

But Shoham noticed something strange: Influenza viruses isolated decades apart sometimes showed little sign of genetic drift. One strain that came from Russia in 1977, was nearly identical to a strain of the virus last seen in 1950.

“In some cases,” he said, “they are absolutely identical.”

To Shoham, it seemed as though these viruses spent the intervening decades not infecting birds or people, but rather frozen in suspended animation — something like Buck Rogers spending 500 years drifting in space.

Shoham and Rogers believe that ice provides a perfect explanation. When they tested their theory with Siberian lake ice in 2006, they found an influenza virus almost identical to one that had infected people in the 1930s, and again in the 1960s.

“This phenomenon may take place regularly,” Shoham said, “far beyond what we witness.”

They are now trying to prove the viruses found in lake ice can actually survive well enough to re-infect birds when the ice melts. So far it has been shown only in lab experiments, but there’s already some indication that influenza has evolved a special capacity for surviving cold.

When cells and viruses are cooled, their membranes often change suddenly — similar to the way water molecules reorganize during freezing — and this can rupture the membrane and kill the cell. So, biophysicist Joshua Zimmerberg of the National Institutes of Health cooled an influenza virus below freezing while monitoring the properties of its membrane coating using a new technique called “magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance.”

But the membrane coating of influenza was “like none we had ever looked at before,” said Zimmerberg, who published his results last year in Nature Chemical Biology. Influenza’s membrane capsule gradually hardened from an oily fluid into a hardened gel, without sudden changes. “It’s remarkably stable with freezing and thawing,” he said. “That’s the unique thing about influenza.”

The idea that influenza may hide out in ice has struck a chord among some experts. “One of the challenges is where does this virus persist between pandemics?” said virologist Richard Slemons of Ohio State University, who has studied bird flu for 35 years. “The idea needs to be considered and explored.”

Rogers believes global surveillance for influenza outbreaks should keep an eye on Arctic ice. Many other viruses may have evolved to lay dormant in ice when their host populations develop resistance, says Shoham. He suspects waterborne viruses such as polio, hepatitis A, and rotavirus (which causes diarrhea) could all potentially survive in ice. Even smallpox — a virus against which Americans are no longer routinely vaccinated — might survive in the bodies of victims buried in Arctic permafrost.

Meanwhile, Rogers and John Castello of State University of New York in Syracuse have isolated a plant virus called tomato mosaic virus from Greenland glacial ice up to 140,000 years old. “It’s our opinion that they are probably still viable,” says Rogers, “but we weren’t able to show that.”

And Koçer is screening ice from Antarctic lakes that have remained frozen for at least hundreds of years, using a technique which can detect any type of virus — whether they infect, plants, animals, or bacteria.

“I want to see everything,” she says. One preliminary run turned up genetic sequences for what could be over 100 viruses.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 May 2009 | 6:11 pm

Down's syndrome reveals one key to fighting cancer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People with Down's syndrome rarely get most kinds of cancer and U.S. researchers have nailed down one reason why -- they have extra copies of a gene that helps keep tumors from feeding themselves.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 May 2009 | 6:07 pm

Myth of the Missing Link

The fact is that there is no such thing as "the missing link" between different stages of evolution.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 5:59 pm

Scientists unveil ancient fossilized primate

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists on Tuesday unveiled the well preserved fossilized remains found in Germany of a primate from 47 million years ago that may have been a close relative of the common ancestor of monkeys, apes and people.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 May 2009 | 5:48 pm

Gallery of Fantastic Fossils

The ancient past is revealed by the study of fossils, from bugs and fish to human ancestors.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 5:48 pm

Mars may have been both cold and wet

LONDON (Reuters) - Mars may have once been both cold and wet, researchers said Wednesday, suggesting a freezing Martian landscape could still have produced water needed to sustain life.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 May 2009 | 5:27 pm

Researchers create DVDs with massive storage

LONDON (Reuters) - "Five-dimensional" discs with a capacity 10,000 times greater than current DVDs could be on the market within 10 years, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 May 2009 | 5:05 pm

Life Could Have Survived Earth's Early Bombardment

Heavy asteroid bombardment could have helped life on Earth, instead of killing it off
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 5:02 pm

DNA Nanotech Gains a Third Dimension

The field of DNA nanotechnology has literally gained another dimension.

Using pieces of DNA like so many Legos, researchers made a series of complex, three-dimensional structures. The technique could eventually be used to design custom-shaped, nano-scale drug-delivery systems and diagnostic devices.

“Imagine that you could encode different charge patterns on your Lego bricks, so that they only fit together in a very specific manner,” said molecular biologist William Shih of Harvard Medical School, co-author of a study Wednesday in Nature. “We make linear sequences of DNA, throw them into a pot, and let them find each other.”

Nanotechnologists like Shih use the double-stranded encoder of life’s instructions not for its information-carrying capacity, but the predictable binding tendencies of its four chemical base units. Adenine automatically links to thymine, and cytosine to guanine — A to T, and C to G.

This allows researchers to synthesize DNA segments with custom-lettered chemical configurations that will only fit in a particular way, as if the Legos of Shih’s analogy were also pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But until now, this technique could only be used to manufacture two-dimensional objects.

Nanotechnologists could link DNA “tiles” into a sheet, or fold a long strand of DNA back on itself again and again until it formed a flat surface. The resulting pieces could technically be linked together, as with a recently described DNA box, but the resulting forms are far less complex than the cell-navigating DNA machines that nanotechnologists someday hope to build.

“Imagine those Lego bricks are limited to thin bricks” that can’t be stacked, said Shih. “You could build wireframe 3-D objects, where each strut was just one of those thin strips, but what we’ve done is create multi-layer bricks” — and then stack them.

Shih’s team built on the long-folded-strand method, but figured out how small segments of DNA could be used as “staples” that hold its folds together, allowing the strand to form complex shapes. The stapled strands could then be linked to each other in even more complicated forms.

“Hierarchical structures, constructed from several repeating subunits, are a much sought-after goal of nanotechnology,” wrote DNA engineer Thomas LaBean of Duke University in an accompanying commentary in Nature.

LaBean called DNA structures like the aforementioned box “highly innovative,” but fundamentally limited. The method used by Shih’s team “heralds a new era for the field of structural DNA nanotechnology,” he wrote.

“With our technology, we can get greater rigidity. We can create very detailed pockets, because the structure has depth,” said Shih.

Those pockets could be molded to fit specific cellular features, said Shih, allowing for the design of drug-delivering or diagnostic molecules targeted at a single type of cell.

“Let’s say you’re trying to find some particle in the bloodstream. If you can grab it from multiple directions, you can grab on more strongly than if you bind from only one surface,” said Shih.

The resulting shapes are proofs of principle, said Shih, and his process still needs to become more efficient and precise before it can be applied.

“We’d like to build larger and larger structures,” he said. “It’s like the evolution of integrated circuit microprocessors. We’ve been able, over time, to increase the number of transistors on each circuit. We’d like to follow the same trajectory with molecularly engineered objects.”

See Also:

• Nano-Scale Glassblowing Makes DNA Funnel
• Start Hacking Life: Desktop DNA Synthesizers
• Bioartists Create Sculptures from Living Human Tissue

Citations: “Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes.” By Shawn M. Douglas, Hendrik Dietz, Tim Liedl, Bjorn Hogberg, Franziska Graf & William M. Shih. Nature, Vol. 459 No. 7245, May 21, 2009.

“Another dimension for DNA art.” By Thomas H. LaBean. Nature, Vol. 459 No. 7245, May 21, 2009.

Image: Nature. Scale bar is 20 nanometers long.

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 May 2009 | 5:01 pm

Clue to Why Autism Affects Boys More

Gene related to why boys get the disorder four times more than girls.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 5:00 pm

Why 'Ida' Inspires Navel-Gazing at Our Ancestry

The mishmash of features in a new primate fossil reminds us that the story of our past might be more complicated than we think.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 4:33 pm

Birds Know Who We Are

Birds used to just fly around and amuse us, but in recent years we're learning that they are incredibly smart.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 May 2009 | 3:32 pm

Rare white elephant seal caught on camera in the sub-Antarctic

A white elephant seal has been spotted on a beach in the sub-Antarctic, the first confirmed sighting of such an animal.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 2:47 pm

Listening to biscuits? A strange history of measurement science

The National Physical Laboratory undertakes some odd missions in its quest to define, standardise, and oversee the science of measurement.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 2:13 pm

Sea Creatures Inspire CO2 Sponge

The porous structure of echinoderms offer a model for a greenhouse gas sponge.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 2:00 pm

'Sardonic Grin' Has Roots in Poisonous Herb

A plant that causes facial paralysis could be behind the phrase "sardonic grin."
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 2:00 pm

Magnets in Ant Antennae Work as Internal GPS

Tiny magnets found in ant antennae may explain the insects' sense of direction.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 1:10 pm

Honeybee Decline Slows Slightly

The mysterious decline of honeybee colonies has slowed slightly since last fall.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 May 2009 | 1:00 pm

Road test

Washington embarks on the route to cleaner air
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 12:21 pm

Largest wind farm to expand

Europe's largest onshore wind farm is to be expanded further, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond announces.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 11:29 am

Europe unveils British astronaut

Timothy Peake, a 37-year-old test pilot, is announced as Britain's first European Space Agency astronaut.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 May 2009 | 11:27 am

It's climate models or seaweed

MIT scientists forecast a global temperature rise of 5.2C by 2100 - but climate change deniers reject models devised by the world's finest minds. So what do they suggest instead… seaweed?

What happens if we do nothing? If, in other words, we do as Vaclav Klaus and many other suggest, and let climate change take its course?

Six years ago the climate modellers at MIT suggested that the median probability was a global temperature rise of 2.4C by 2100. Since then they've refined the model. Now the median estimate is 5.2C by 2100. This is another way of saying the end of life as we know it.

What has changed? Unlike other models, MIT's Integrated Global Systems Model makes detailed assessments not just of climate science but also of the likely changes in human activity. The difference between the two outcomes arises from several factors, such as new economic data showing that our greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely – if there are no constraints – to be as low as previously thought, and new oceanic temperature data, showing that the deep oceans are not removing heat from the atmosphere as quickly as scientists expected.

Even the new figure could be an under-estimate, the team suggests, because it doesn't account for the full range of positive feedbacks, such as melting permafrost releasing methane and carbon dioxide.

Climate change deniers hate these models. Why, they say, should we base current policy on scenarios and computer programmes rather than observable facts? But that's the trouble with the future: you can't observe it. If you reject the world's most sophisticated models as a means of forecasting likely climate trends, you must suggest an alternative. What do they propose? Gut feelings? Seaweed? Chicken entrails?

Computer models are only as good as the assumptions they contain, which is why those assumptions are constantly tested and updated. No one claims to have a definitive answer; instead the models test hundreds of different likely scenarios, then find the median result. There is no attempt to make the future look either rosier or grimmer than it is.

What they give us is the best available estimate of the consequences of doing as Mr Klaus and others suggest, and letting events take their course. The MIT model suggests that even the most profligate climate change programme the world's governments could devise would do nowhere near as much economic and humanitarian damage as our failure to act. Nothing is certain: it's all a matter of probability. But which risk do you want to take?

monbiot.com

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 May 2009 | 11:26 am

Scientists discover that ducks like water

Oxford University defends three-year research into the animals' behaviour but is dismissed by farmers

The assumption has always been that rainy weather is good for ducks. Now a three-year study funded to the tune of £300,000 by the taxpayer has proved it.

Two scientists from the University of Oxford gave a lucky group of farm ducks access to a pond, a water trough and a shower. They discovered that the ducks spent an awful lot of time under the shower, sometimes just standing there, others drinking from it.

Perhaps inevitably, the revelation that ducks seem to enjoy water washing over them has not impressed everyone. Susie Squire of the Taxpayers' Alliance, called the research a "bonkers waste of money".

She said: "It is common sense that ducks like rain and water. The last thing the government should be allocating scarce resources to is this sort of nonsense."

The Devon chairman of the National Farmers Union, Anthony Rew, said the study proved that Defra, the government department that oversees the care of farm animals, was – wait for it – "quackers".

He said: "They need to get out of London and get on a farm to see how the countryside works, to put policies in place that are practical and well costed. If they asked a farmer, he would tell them ducks like water."

It would be wrong to suggest the criticism washed over the scientists and Defra like water off a duck's back – but they did defend it stoutly.

Marian Stamp Dawkins, professor of animal behaviour at Oxford, said many would have expected the ducks to spend most of their time swimming in the pond. In fact, they seemed to prefer the shower to the pond, suggesting they were not very bothered about swimming.

She said it was unfair to portray the study as finding out simply that ducks liked water. It had been carried out to find the best way of providing water to farmed ducks because ponds quickly became dirty, unhygienic and took up a lot of water, making them environmentally questionable.

Defra insisted that the study did go further than just establishing that rainy weather was good for ducks, arguing it was all about making sure that farmed birds were well cared for.

Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 May 2009 | 11:21 am