Publics' Ignorance Of Human Anatomy Revealed

A study of patients and members of the public has shown that most lack even basic knowledge of human anatomy. The research found that people were generally incapable of identifying the location of major organs, even if they were currently receiving relevant treatment.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

New 'Idol' Grabs The Spotlight: Enzyme That Controls 'Bad' Cholesterol Discovered

Scientists have identified a new enzyme called Idol that destroys the cell receptor for LDL cholesterol, allowing more cholesterol to circulate in the blood. In blocking Idol's activity, the researchers triggered cells to make more receptor and remove more cholesterol from the body. The findings could lead to a new drug that works in conjunction with statins, or could be taken by patients that cannot tolerate statins' side effects.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Could Power Point Presentations Be Stifling Learning?

Many instructors think that animated slides such as those used in Power Point presentations enhance student learning whereas the opposite may be true, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Childhood Obesity Increases Early Signs Of Cardiovascular Disease

By as early as 7 years of age, being obese may raise a child's future risk of heart disease and stroke, even without the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, a new study found.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Gene Therapy Technique Thwarts Cancer By Cutting Off Tumor Blood Supply

Researchers have come up with a new gene therapy method in mice implanted with human colorectal cancer cells to disrupt cancer growth by using a synthetic protein to induce blood clotting, cutting off a tumor's blood and nutrient supply.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

New Chemical Element In The Periodic Table

The element 112 has been officially recognized as a new element by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). IUPAC confirmed the recognition of element 112 in an official letter to the head of the discovering team. The letter furthermore asks the discoverers to propose a name for the new element.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Fair Trade: What We Know That Chimps Don't

Humans might be the only primates that truly understand the value of a good trade.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:20 pm

New Hope for Ending Pointless Traffic Jams

Some traffic jams have no apparent cause, but a new study has figured out a way around them.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:13 pm

Crack open the bubbly, the God particle is dead

We have a winner! Our search for a replacement for the most wince-inducing nickname in physics is over

It started as a bit of Friday fun and ended a week later with 15 pages of entries and a dash to a nearby university to drop off a crate of ale. Judging can be thirsty work.

The week before last, Peter Higgs celebrated his 80th birthday and to mark the event, we thought we'd try to oust the media's nickname for his most famous contribution to physics. Officially, it is known as the Higgs boson, but to journalists and headline writers it is the God particle.

I wrote briefly about the history of the discovery and its implications for the nature of mass when I announced the competition on 29 May.

But back to that name. Physicists hate it when people call the Higgs boson the God particle. Even though the nickname was dreamed up by a Nobel prizewinning physicist with a tremendous track record in the field, Leon Lederman, I can't think of anything that galvanises physicists so completely.

We had stacks of entries. I like to think that's because we tapped into the pent-up fury of legions who were equally despairing of the nickname. People who wanted to see such nonsense banished from the journalists' lexicon but just hadn't been given the proper outlet. People who would fight to replace it with a name that is worthy and just. I'm sure that's what happened. What else could it be?

After the entries had been dispatched for judging, I leafed through the list to pick out my own favourites. It dawned on me that the judging job was worth far more than one crate of beer.

Lots of you followed a long tradition in physics and made sure the particle's new nickname ended with "on". It would be in good company, with the electron, proton, neutron, photon and gluon.

Nattydread69 suggested the "Non-Existon", which might turn out to be prescient. Emptyjames wanted to call it "The Mysteron", and I can see why: even if the Higgs is found, physicists still need to work out why it couples more strongly to some particles than others. Tbombadil liked "Mastodon". Doogsby rustled up the "The Lardon". Any one of these would have made undergraduate physics lectures easier to show up at.

Lalulilo said the new name should have an international flavour, and suggested "Esperon", meaning "hope" in Esperanto. Platonik gets a spot in my personal top five with "Rockon". It's a shame that Rockon raises a few unpleasant childhood memories, though.

Arimbaud nodded to Chris Morris's Brasseye with "Shatner's Bosoon", while Endnote didn't worry about wordplay and stuck with the original "Shatner's Bassoon".

Some of you clearly wanted a more approachable name and offered up Steven, Colin, Dave, Pete, Nigel, Boz and Bosie. One poster suggested "Mr Bum Bum" as a suitable name for our theoretical subatomic particle. You know who you are.

Slobloch liked "Lardycake". MERidley, "The God Killer". ArmitageS opted for "The Pavarotti Particle" and Jennyanydots went all Prince on us with "The particle formerly known as the God particle".

I liked Yrddraiggoch's (The Welsh Dragon's) "The Bajingo", but only because the entry was justified on the grounds of being "a very awesomely silly word." Ditto Trhenc's "H3-Bengka Boson" was sold as being "techno-fabulous with a hint of the exotic".

DNAtheist got another place in my personal top five with the "Disconcertingly Unfalsifiable Hyperbeing Particle", or "Duh Particle". It's close to genius in my view.

Pastalin hit on something by suggesting "Your Mother". TigerRepellingRock demonstrated how it might work in casual conversation: "Your Mother is so fat, she has a mass greater than 114.4GeV at 95% confidence level." If you want to know what that was all about, John Conway explains it well on the Cosmic Variance blog.

Incidentally, if you're a fan of The Simpson's, you'll be aware of the tiger repelling rock.

But in the end there could only be one winner. Having sifted through the whole lot, the one that stood out for our physicist judges came from the very same TigerRepellingRock, who suggested "The Champagne bottle boson".

So why did it win?

"The bottom of a champagne bottle is in the shape of the Higgs potential, and is often used as an illustration in physics lectures. So it's not an embarrassingly grandiose name, it is memorable, and has some physics connection too," the judges' spokesman said.

The so-called "wine bottle potential" is also called the "Mexican hat potential" and is a critical aspect of the Higgs mechanism.

So congratulations to TigerRepellingRock and thanks to all of you who took the time to enter. The revolution is afoot.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:13 pm

Scientist Prospects for Bio-Gold at Yellowstone

Researchers have analyzed virus genes from Yellowstone National Park to hunt for codes that could be valuable to bioengineers.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:12 pm

Ozone Hole Worsens Climate Predictions

The ozone hole over Antarctica is preventing the ocean from taking up CO2.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:10 pm

New York to Gas Geese Near Airports

The killing will take place during summer molting season when the geese can't fly. But there's a problem with the strategy.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:03 pm

Moles, not magic, make worm 'grunting' work (AP)

AP - Gary Revell gets up every morning before sunrise, heads into the woods and grunts.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:59 pm

The Risks of Summer Sex (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - With its warm nights, the summer season often brings out the best and the most adventurous feelings of love and lust. Why confine sex to the bedroom, or even the house, when there are beaches and pools and hot tubs to host our most private moments?
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:45 pm

Animal Model For Schizophrenia Identifies Novel Approach For Treating Cognitive Impairments Associated With Schizophrenia

Researchers have been seeking a safe and effective way to treat cognitive impairments associated with schizophrenia by enhancing N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptors. Functional deficits in NMDA receptors may contribute to the underlying neurobiology of this disorder.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:00 pm

Biologist Discovers Pink-winged Moth In Chiracahua Mountains

Biologists have discovered a new species of moth. The moth has distinct bright pink wings, which prompted Walsh to name it after his wife.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:00 pm

Search For ET Just Got Easier: Effective Way To Search Atmospheres Of Planets For Signs Of Life

Astronomers have confirmed an effective way to search the atmospheres of planets for signs of life, vastly improving our chances of finding alien life outside our solar system.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:00 pm

Adults, Especially Women, Have Calorie-burning 'Brown Fat'

Keeping your baby fat turns out to be a good thing, as long as it is "brown fat" -- the kind that burns calories, according to a study that found adults have much more of this type of fat than previously thought. The results suggest a new way to treat obesity.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:00 pm

Researchers uncover how nanoparticles may damage lungs

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers in China appear to have uncovered how nanoparticles which are used in medicine for diagnosis and delivering drugs may cause lung damage.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:31 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected on Friday to again regale much of the United States.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:06 am

Little progress seen as climate talks head for wrap (AFP)

AFP - A fresh round of talks on forging a new agreement to tackle climate change headed for a close on Friday after amassing hundreds of proposals but little sign of consensus emerging.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:03 am

Net injury 'disables' minke whale

A minke whale scarred by fishing gear is seen feeding in a way never before recorded.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:23 am

Hawaiian Islands named habitat for endangered seal (AP)

AP - The federal government on Friday will significantly expand the critical habitat for endangered Hawaiian monk seals to include beaches and waters of the main Hawaiian Islands, officials said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:37 am

Bright Light Over Phoenix Is a Giant Balloon

A high-altitude NASA-supported research balloon floated over Arizona Thursday afternoon, June 11.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 4:57 am

Scientists 'disprove' fingerprints friction theory

Scientists have disproved the long-held theory that fingerprints improve our grip by increasing friction.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Jun 2009 | 4:29 am

India plans much solar power, slower emissions rise (Reuters)

Reuters - India will submit plans within weeks to slow its rise in carbon emissions significantly and to generate more solar power by 2020 than the whole world generates now, a senior climate official said on Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:46 am

Reindeer & Caribou Populations Plunge (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Reindeer and caribou numbers worldwide have plunged nearly 60 percent in the last three decades due to climate change and habitat disturbance caused by humans, a new study finds.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:47 am

Tight squeeze ahead on space station (AFP)

AFP - Things may get a little tight at the international space station next week when it is set to be a temporary home to 13 astronauts with the arrival of the shuttle Endeavour and its seven crew.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:42 am

Nation's largest solar plant to be built in NM (AP)

AP - Utility officials announced plans Thursday to build a giant solar energy plant in the New Mexico desert in what is believed to be the largest such project in the nation.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:57 am

Reindeer & Caribou Populations Plunge

Reindeer and caribou numbers worldwide have plunged almost 60 percent in the last three decades.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:25 am

LA zoo searches for new simians after monkey snub (AP)

AP - The Los Angeles Zoo may have the nation's only monkey lair approved by a feng shui expert. There's only one problem: No monkeys.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:08 am

Basic anatomy 'baffles Britons'

Many people in the UK are unable to identify the location of major organs, including the heart and lungs, a study suggests.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:01 am

Farm gives hope to UK flora and fauna

Rare wildlife thriving at Cornish farm thanks to 30 years of ecologically sensitive management, National Trust survey shows

An optimistic vision for the future of the British countryside has been revealed by the National Trust today, after a study on a Cornish farm, 30 years after the first biosurvey was conducted there.

The number of varieties of plants, insects and birds, many of them extremely rare, has increased threefold or more on the farm that is being seen as a model of how agricultural land can be managed in an environmentally sensitive way.

Thirty years ago Lower Predannack Farm, on the Lizard peninsula ,was the first site where the National Trust carried out a survey to find out what sort of flora and fauna was there.

Then, a modest six or seven types of plants were recorded in a typical square metre of the clifftop farm. The cliffs were covered in scrub and the arable fields were intensively farmed.

Yesterday the National Trust said that thanks to careful management, 20, 30 or even 40 types of plant were found on a typical square metre of Lower Predannack when a biosurvey team returned this week, together with many types of rare bugs, bees, butterflies, and moths.

The National Trust regards the success at Lower Predannack as proof that rare flora and fauna can thrive across the country if farmland is managed well.

Andy Foster, leader of the biological survey team for the charity, said: "It's great to see the variety of flora and fauna on this site. You look at a few square centimetres of land and find that it's heaving with life."

Foster was particularly pleased to find one of the UK's most endangered bees, the brown banded carder bee – the first time it had been spotted here. He was also delighted that the red-legged crow the chough had reappeared on the cliffs at Lower Predannack after disappearing from Cornwall in the seventies.

However, it is not all good news. The trust is worried at the encroachment of foreign invaders such as the hottentot fig, a rampant South African plant that is taking hold on the Lizard, possibly because of global warming.

And there is a lack of frogs this summer because in January the cold snap claimed a generation of tadpoles. It is normally so balmy on the peninsula that tadpoles appear much earlier than in the rest of the country – but the icy weather killed most of them this year.

The trust is warning that some species of plants and animals that thrive in the warmer climate of south Cornwall could struggle if the weather continues to be violently unpredictable.

There also continues to be tension in some parts between farmers manage their land as they want to – and do not like to be thought of as park keepers – and conservationists.

David Bullock, the head of nature conservation at the National Trust, said: "The last 30 years has been a period of continual change, with farming becoming more focused on encouraging wildlife and the changes in our climate which will see wildlife winners and losers."

But at Lower Predannack Farm this week the mood was optimistic. Andy Foster was sucking up clifftop vegetation with an adapted garden leaf blower and then combing the leaf debris for creepy-crawlies. One of his best finds was a thyme lacebug. "It's a cute little bug with lacework wings, a sweet little thing," he said.

Katherine Hearn, a member of the original survey team and now a National Trust nature conservation adviser, described how in 1979 the clifftop was swamped by scrub and tall rank grass full of thistles.

Farmers had stopped grazing cattle on the cliffs, worried that the animals would not thrive on the scrub or might plunge to their deaths. A conservation clause was added to the farm's tenancy agreement, and since then the scrub has been munched away by hardy cattle and ponies – highland and dexter cattle graze there – and hacked away by conservationists.

Hearn pointed out the many varieties of plants growing on the clifftops now, from kidney vetch with its lovely yellow flowers to dropwort, a creamy relative of meadowsweet and wild chives. Rare clovers, included long-headed clover, upright clover and twin-headed clover – all popular with the bees that nest in the cliffs – are also doing well.

"The way we manage the land has such a big impact on wildlife. We can see that 30 years of positive change has made a real difference. There are up to 30 or 40 types of plants in a square metre now. The change is huge."

Swishing his sweep net before him, invertebrate ecologist Pete Brash was thrilled at the sight of small pearl bordered fritillary butterflies. He did not even mind when a vivid green chafer beetle he had just caught began nibbling his finger. "It hasn't drawn blood. I don't care – it's just fantastic to find brilliant creatures like this here now."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:05 pm

Obituary: Jeremy Jass

Dedicated medical researcher whose contributions to studying colorectal cancer helped many

My nephew Jeremy Jass, who has died aged 57 of a brain tumour, was a dedicated medical researcher whose original contributions, particularly in the area of colorectal cancer, have had a direct impact on current medical practice and the lives of many people suffering from that disease.

An only child, born to Jewish parents in London, he displayed as a boy the interest in biology that would propel him, from William Ellis school in Hampstead, to study medicine at the Westminster medical school of London University. He began his publishing career in gastrointestinal research while still a trainee, and consolidated it as a newly qualified pathologist working at St Mark's hospital under the direction of Dr Basil Morson.

In 1988 Jeremy moved to New Zealand as professor of pathology at the University of Auckland. His meticulous work there in developing a registry for familial colorectal cancer contributed directly to the first identification of the inherited trait responsible for an important sub-group of cancer cases, a discovery that provided hope for affected families by allowing effective screening.

In 1996 and 2002 he relocated to professorial chairs at the University of Queensland, Australia, and McGill University, Canada, respectively. The move to the latter was motivated by his wish to explore fully the hypothesis that colon cancer is not a single disease as had been generally thought. He believed that there are several pathways leading to cancer, each with differing implications for strategies for prevention and cure.

Needing respite from the beautiful but cold Montreal winters, Jeremy returned to London in 2007 to take up his final appointment, as professor of gastrointestinal pathology at Imperial College London, based again at St Mark's hospital. He was in this post for only eight months before he fell ill.

Jeremy collected a number of passports during his travels and saw himself as a citizen of the world. As far as his illness allowed, he tried in the last year of his life to explore the beauties of England and to paint, a hobby he practised with some skill throughout his life.

He is survived by his wife, Johanna, two children, Simon and Joanna, from his previous marriage to Virginia, and by his father, Leon.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm

Government 'must back insulation'

The winner of a clean energy prize says government must show much greater urgency in insulating people's homes.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:00 pm

New flu has been around for years in pigs: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new H1N1 virus, which has caused the first pandemic of the 21st century, appears to have been circulating undetected among pigs for years, researchers reported on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Jun 2009 | 10:08 pm

WHO declares swine flu pandemic

The World Health Organization has declared a global flu pandemic after an emergency meeting.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:51 pm

Parkinson's Patients Go to Wii-hab

Playing virtual sports improved the mood and physical function of Parkinson's disease in a new preliminary study.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:43 pm

Recyclers Expect TV Increase Over Weekend

The digital television switch is in full effect. Electronics recyclers gear up.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:15 pm

Don't Panic, It's Just a Pandemic

This flu pandemic seems like it's taking its time. It's hard to know how worked up to get over the new elevated risk status.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:55 pm

Sick at Work? Go Home!

Those who often go to work feeling sick tend to miss more work due to illness down the road.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:05 pm

'Boom and bust' of deforestation

Using the Amazon forest for ranches and plantations creates a short economic "boom" and a long "bust", researchers find.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:58 pm

Warp Drive Engine Could Destroy Earth

New calculations show a warp drive engine would suck Earth into a black hole.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:56 pm

Wanted: Suitable name for unstable, heavyweight element

Element 112 has been officially recognised and its discoverers have just weeks to come up with an appropriate name. They need our help

Rejoice, for we have a new chemical element! Well, we have a few atoms for at least a few seconds whenever anyone can make it in a particle collider. Element number 112 (its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus) was discovered by scientists at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany.

Now the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which decides on such important things as names and symbols, has officially recognised the discovery and has sent Sigurd Hofmann, the lead researcher of the team that made number 112, a formal letter asking him to think up a name for his new element.

In time-honoured and thorough fashion, sombre chemists will consider and vet the name before finally bestowing it officially upon element 112 in about six months. Hofmann has to submit a name within weeks.

Which doesn't give the readers of this blog much time to come up with suggestions. We're not entirely sure that whatever we come up with will have any impact on the top German scientists in Darmstadt but, hey, this is the web and anything is possible, including hope.

Some information about element 112: it is the heaviest known element in the periodic table, around 277 times more massive than hydrogen. Scientists from Germany, Finland, Russia and Slovakia were involved in the experiments surround its discovery, a team of 21 in total. There isn't that much of this stuff around: the first atom was created by Hofmann's team in 1996; six years later a research team at the RIKEN Discovery Research Institute in Japan produced another atom.

To make the atoms of element 112, physicists fired zinc ions (atomic number 30) around a 120m particle accelerator at a lead target (atomic number 82), causing the nuclei of the atoms to fuse.

The laboratory at Darmstadt has a good pedigree in making new elements. Since 1981, scientists there have made elements 107 to 112 and named all but the last one so far. Element 107 is called bohrium, element 108 is hassium, element 109 is meitnerium, element is 110 darmstadtium, and element 111 is roentgenium.

So, do help out the Darmstadt team with some ideas for names. This is Darwin's year, so perhaps darwinium? Momentarium?

Oh, and no one will get any points (or kudos) for suggesting dilithium.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:27 pm

Video: Maple Seeds Ride Self-Generated Tornadoes

High-speed video reveals that maple seed pods remain airborne for miles by harnessing the power of tornado-like vortexes generated as they spin.

The flat, elongated pods are densest at their seed-containing ends, a configuration that causes them to rotate while falling.

Rotation produces the pods’ nickname — whirlybirds — and creates tiny vortexes above their leading edges. By pulling in air, a vortex lowers air pressure above a pod’s surface, effectively sucking it upwards.

The dynamics of this elegant process are described Thursday in Science by researchers who took three-dimensional flow readings of oversize plastic whirlybird models spinning through a laser-lit solution of glass beads suspended in oil and then, to validate these models, of real pods falling through smoke.

According to the researchers, the pods are fully twice as aerodynamic while falling, and more efficient than standard aircraft wings and helicopter blades. Such vortexes are also found in hovering insects and bats, and may represent “a convergent aerodynamic solution in the evolution of flight performance in both animals and plants.”

This solution could eventually inform the design of micro-helicopters and parachutes attached to planet-exploring robotic probes, raising the rather delicious possibility of humanity spreading through space like so many whirlybirds carried on a spring breeze.

See Also:

• Secret Law of Flying Could Inspire Better Robots
• Video: Leaping Lizard’s Tail-Free Mid-Air Wipeout
• The Magic of Mushroom Spores

Citation: “Leading-Edge Vortices Elevate Lift of Autorotating Plant Seeds.” By D. Lentink, W. B. Dickson, J. L. vanLeeuwen, M. H. Dickinson. Science, Vol. 324 Issue 5933, June 12, 2009.

Video & Image: David Lentink

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:04 pm

Scientists Create a Form of Pre-Life

A self-assembling molecule synthesized in a laboratory may resemble the earliest form of information-carrying biological material, a transitional stage between lifeless chemicals and the complex genetic architectures of life.

Called tPNA, short for thioester peptide nucleic acids, the molecules spontaneously mimic the shape of DNA and RNA when mixed together. Left on their own, they gather in shape-shifting strands that morph into stable configurations.

The molecules haven’t yet achieved self-replication, the ultimate benchmark of life, but they hint at it. Best of all, their activities require no enzymes — molecules that facilitate chemical reactions, but didn’t yet exist in the primordial world modeled by scientists seeking insight into life’s murky origins.

“There have been many test tube experiments of evolving chemical sequences, but there hasn’t been a system that on its own can form under enzyme-free conditions,” said Reza Ghadiri, a Scripps Research Institute biochemist. “We satisfy some of the requirements of the long-term goal of having a purely chemical system that is capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.”

Among the co-authors of the paper describing tPNA, published Thursday in Science, is the late Leslie Orgel, a pioneering biochemist who hypothesized that DNA evolved from RNA, a simple information-carrying molecule that today forms the genomes of viruses and facilitates protein manufacture in organismal cells.

The so-called RNA world hypothesis is widely accepted among scientists, but requires several critical steps that have been satisfactorily explained in a laboratory only recently, if at all. One such step is the formation of RNA’s chemical precursors. Another step involves their accumulation into RNA, which despite its relative simplicity, has resisted the attempts of scientists to synthesize it in primordial conditions.

A experiment published several weeks ago in Nature, in which a cycle of evaporation and condensation distilled a mix of primordial chemicals into several key RNA ingredients, has provided a plausible early answer to the problem of precursor formation. And the tPNA molecule in the current study may illuminate, at least in principle, how RNA might have emerged from these ingredients: in multiple stages, through a process of evolution.

“It’s the pre-RNA world. There’s a hypothesis that says RNA is so complicated, it couldn’t have arisen de novo” — from scratch — “on early Earth,” said study co-author Luke Leman, also a Scripps Research Institute biochemist. “So you need some more primitive genetic system that nature fiddled around with and finally decided to evolve into RNA.”

Other researchers have tried to manufacture a similarly proto-genetic material, but their efforts have proved inefficient and relied on the chemical reaction-enhancing presence of enzymes which probably did not exist in Earth’s early conditions. But according to the researchers, these experiments assumed that RNA — which resembles one-half the spiraling ladder form made famous by DNA — would assemble block by block, with each segment containing a fully-formed rung-and-backbone piece.

Instead, the researchers searched for a complete chemical spine to which the rungs, or nucleobases — A, T, C and G in the genetic code — could then attach. Rather than using the sugar-and-phosphate backbone found in RNA and DNA, they identified a peptide, or a small molecule composed of primordially present amino acids, that also functioned as a backbone.

“In terms of prebiotic chemistry, this is a conceptually different way of forming that genetic polymer,” said Leman.

The nucleobases automatically adhered to the peptide in a loose fashion, detaching and attaching themselves until stable. When mixed with single strands of DNA or RNA in water at room temperature, the tPNA molecules arranged themselves in complementary strands, perhaps echoing the eventual ability of those genetic materials to duplicate themselves.

Ghadiri cautioned that tPNA shouldn’t be seen as a direct analog of early life, but as demonstrating the plausibility of a similar system. “If you’re thinking that at some point these types of molecules are going to hand off to the RNA world, they should have cross-pairing interactions, and be capable of interacting with RNA,” he said. “We show both.”

Antonio Lazcano, a National Autonomous University of Mexico biologist and expert in early Earth chemistry who was not involved in the study, called the work a synthetic biology breakthrough, but repeated Ghadiri’s caveat that chemical bridges between the pre-RNA and RNA worlds are “completely unknown and can only be surmised.”

According to University of Manchester organic chemist John Sutherland, who co-authored the Nature study showing how RNA’s ingredients could have formed, the new research is less important in providing primordial insight than in furthering the eventual creation of life in a laboratory.

“Ghadiri’s important and highly innovative new work potentially relates to the origin of life as we don’t yet know it,” said Sutherland. Life’s emergence took billions of years, a process now being compressed into the passage of a few human generations. “The possibility that humans could come up with an alternative biology that outdoes that which produced us is a mind-freeing and mind-bending concept,” he said.

The researchers are now searching for different types of peptide backbones that could support more complex and stable genetic structures.

“The next phase is to see whether these molecules are capable of self-replication,” said Ghadiri. “That’s another two or three years of work.”

Asked how long it would take before fully synthetic life could be coaxed from an inert chemical mixture, Ghadiri said, “Soon. If not in our lifetime, then the next. In my opinion, it shouldn’t be longer than that.”

See Also:

• Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life
• Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory
• Forgotten Experiment May Explain Origins of Life
• Humans and Aliens Might Share DNA Roots

Citation: “Self-Assembling Sequence-Adaptive Peptide Nucleic Acids.” By Yasuyuki Ura, John M. Beierle, Luke J. Leman, Leslie E. Orgel, M. Reza Ghadiri. Science, Vol. 324 Issue 5933, June 12, 2009.

Image: Science

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Amazon deforestation leads to development 'boom-and-bust'

Study challenges argument that chopping down trees improves economic and social conditions, writes Alok Jha

Chopping down the Amazon rainforest to make way for crops or cattle has no economic or social benefit for local people in the long term, according to a major new study.

The finding undercuts the argument that deforestation, which causes 20% of the globe's greenhouse gas emissions, leads to long-term development.

Conservationists showed communities develop rapidly but temporarily when forests are cleared. But rates of development quickly fall back below national average levels when the loggers move on and local resources near depletion.

More than 155,000 square kilometres of Amazonian rainforest in Brazil have been cleared for timber or burned to make way for agricultural land since 2000. Every year, around 1.8m hectares are destroyed — a rate of four football fields every minute. The Amazonian rainforest is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, guarding against climate change by absorbing CO2 and maintaining geochemical cycles.

But some argue that local communities, which are among the poorest in Brazil, should be able to benefit from the local resources by creating farms or logging the trees. To calculate these potential benefits of deforestation for local communities, a team of international scientists analysed the life expectancy, literacy and income of people living in 286 areas around the Brazilian Amazon.

Their results, published today in Science, showed that the quality of life for local communities improved rapidly when a forest first cleared. "The monthly average income started out at 74 Reals per month," said Rob Ewers of the department of life sciences at Imperial College London, a member of the study team. "Then it went up to as much as 196 Reals per month in the middle [of the deforested area] and then to 82 once the resource is gone. Literacy went from 68% at the frontier [of the forest] up to a maximum of 83% then dropped down to 69%."

The researchers said that the cycle occurred because, at first, the newly available natural resources in an area of cleared forest attract investment and infrastructure. New roads can lead to improved access to education, medicine and an increased overall income gives people better living conditions.

But once the timber and other resources dry up, things change. "A lot of the agricultural land is only productive for a few years so once you lose that, you also lose that as a source of income," said Ewers. "On top of that you tend to have much higher populations because a lot of people have been attracted to the area."

This higher population has to survive on ever-dwindling local resources, pushing the standard of living right down again.

Ana Rodrigues of the Centre of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology in France, and lead author of the study, said: "The Amazon is globally recognised for its unparalleled natural value, but it is also a very poor region. It is generally assumed that replacing the forest with crops and pastureland is the best approach for fulfilling the region's legitimate aspirations to development. This study tested that assumption. We found although the deforestation frontier does bring initial improvements in income, life expectancy, and literacy, such gains are not sustained."

Greenpeace forests campaigner Sarah Shoraka said the research undermined any arguments that deforestation tackles poverty. "Slashing and burning rainforest to make way for cattle ranches or soya farms is simply not sustainable, because profits are short lived and the big companies simply move elsewhere. Instead we need sustained international funding to protect this massive natural resource, to make trees worth more alive than dead."

Andrew Balmford of the University of Cambridge said that the "current boom-and-bust trajectory of Amazonian development is therefore undesirable in human terms as well as potentially disastrous for other species, and for the world's climate. Reversing this pattern will hinge on capturing the value of intact forests to people outside the Amazon so that local people's livelihoods are better when the forest is left standing than when it is cleared."

This could be achieved in part, he said, by international schemes where rich countries could pay Brazilians to maintain their forests, which would lock up the carbon contained within them in a bid to tackle climate change but also provide locals with an income.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Swine Flu Upgraded to Pandemic, Sans Pandemoium

Swine flu is officially a pandemic, the World Health Organization announced today in upgrading its evaluation of the disease to its highest risk level.

It’s the first influenza pandemic pronouncement since 1968. Through June 11, the World Health Organization had confirmed 28,774 cases of swine flu and only 144 deaths, though many, many more people are believed to have been stricken.

Though the WHO officially describes the pandemic as “moderate,” the speed of the disease’s spread around the world and the possibility that it could mutate into a more virulent form convinced health officials to send a message to the world’s government’s that they must remain vigilant.

“Influenza epidemics whether moderate or severe are remarkable events because of the nearly universal susceptibility of the world’s population to infection,” said Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, in a press conference.

Officially designated influenza A (H1N1), the menagerie of previous flu genes has taken the world by storm, but that storm is, thankfully, pretty weak. Beginning with a small town in Mexico, swine flu swept the globe in April and May, sending journalists and some citizens into a frenzy. At first, it appeared the death rate could be remarkably high as dozens of Mexicans died from the disease. Of the 144 deaths, 108 occurred in that country. The reasons Mexico appeared to have a higher death rate are unclear, but the most likely scenario appears to be that many, many more Mexicans were non-fatally infected than public health officials picked up.

The same could be true in places like New York, where public health officials say that half a million people could have contracted H1N1, based on a telephone survey.

The new WHO upgrade won’t mean much for countries that have already been dealing with high levels of the disease, but countries with more limited outbreaks could ramp up some containment and mitigation efforts.

With the situation stabilizing in the hardest hit countries like Mexico and the U.S., WHO officials are turning their attention to the possible reemergence of the virus during the winter, preparing a vaccine, and monitoring poor countries in the global south that could be at risk.

“Influenza virus is full of surprises,” Chan said in calling for sustained global vigilance.

Thus far, though, the structure of the disease remains stable across different geographies and populations, Chan said. That’s a good thing because a vaccine for the current version of the virus won’t even be ready in large dosages until flu season is already under way.

Meanwhile, scientists have continued to investigate the origins of the disease. In an unrelated study that appears in Nature Thursday, researchers have determined that swine flu probably developed years ago and jumped from pigs to humans several months before the outbreak was officially recognized. The researchers, led by virologist Andrew Rambaut at University of Edinburgh, called for better tracking of pig populations to identify dangerous diseases sooner.

“[D]espite widespread influenza surveillance in humans, the lack of systematic swine surveillance allowed for the undetected persistence and evolution of this potentially pandemic strain for many years.”

See Also:

• Google Could Have Caught Swine Flu Early
• Disease Hunters Add Swine Flu Genome to Arsenal
• Swine Flu Ancestor Born on U.S. Factory Farms
• Swine Flu Genes Show Virus May Be Weak
• Swine Flu Genes From Pigs Only, Not Humans or Birds
• Tracking Internet Chatter Helps Spot Swine Flu Outbreak
• Swine Flu: What You Need to Know

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 | 11 Jun 2009 | 5:53 pm

Grand experiment: 13 people on space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts are preparing for their most ambitious experiment yet on the International Space Station: how to get along and be productive in an isolated, risky and increasingly crowded environment.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Jun 2009 | 5:44 pm

World science academies push for G8 climate action

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's richest countries and those that are developing fastest need to lead the transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy to stave off the worst effects of climate change, science academies from these nations said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Jun 2009 | 5:39 pm

Inspired by Darwin: Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful

An exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge explores the mutual influences of science and art 150 years ago when Darwin published On the Origin of Species

When Charles Darwin changed the course of science, he also created turbulence in the stream of art. A new exhibition will next week seek to demonstrate that fresh thinking 150 years ago about the evolution of landscape, living things and humankind indirectly and sometimes directly influenced painters such as Degas, Cezanne and Gauguin.

In turn, artists also influenced Darwin: an extraordinary painting of dogs by Sir Edwin Landseer may have provided some of the impetus for Darwin's late masterpiece The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

Edgar Degas is known to have read The Expression of Emotions in 1874, after its publication in French. On show will be one of his most iconic works, a bronze statue of a little dancer: it caused a stir at its first appearance a few years later.

"Degas, if you like, is looking at higher and lower forms of human, in what he does best, which is looking at his own society, and that is what makes him troubling and challenging, and a bit of a bastard, because he is provocative," says Jane Munro, curator of paintings, drawings and prints at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and one of the exhibition's creators.

"He looks at cabaret singers, little dancers, criminals. He gets special access to a court and draws criminals in the dock in a murder trial. And he gives them very animalistic expressions and he is very famously known for saying that women at their bath and their tub look like animals."

The little dancer was first displayed modelled in wax, with a gauze skirt, and under a glass case. "When she was first exhibited it was said she had very simian-like appearance, an upturned nose; that she looked like an Aztec; that she looked like something that belonged to the museum of medicine or a museum of natural history but not the museum of arts," says Munro.

"In addition to the physiognomy, there were two things that played into that assessment, and that was: one, the original was made out of wax, like things you see in the history of medicine, or natural history, so the very material she was made out of created that impression. And then she was also exhibited in a display case. You may say: so what? It wasn't common."

The exhibition was prompted by a suggestion from one of Darwin's descendants, and put together by Munro and Diana Donald from Manchester Metropolitan University, with help from the Yale Centre for British Art in the US (where it first opened in February this year on what would have been Darwin's 200th birthday).

The exhibition takes its title from the last sentence of On the Origin of Species, published 150 years ago, " ... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved".

It includes paintings that reflect some of the art world's awareness of scientific debate before 1859, along with work by artists such as the ornithologist John Gould, who certainly influenced Darwin, and a host of illustrated responses to Darwin's revolutionary thesis, some of them direct, some of them somewhat lost in translation.

In this context, paintings of the Biblical flood by Turner and others reflect an early 19th century geological preoccupation with diluvianism (could a great flood explain the presence of marine fossils in the Pennines or the Alps?).

Dramatic taxidermy involving an eagle attacking a heron – shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 – and a Landseer study of a dead stag both illustrate the poet Tennyson's famous line about "Nature red in tooth and claw."

A study by William Dyce of Pegwell Bay, complete with stratified and eroded cliffs, shows how much the new science of geology had begun to direct the observer's eye. Paintings of flowers, mammals and prehistoric creatures suggest a fresh awareness of the struggle for existence. Later studies of men and women and mythical figures dramatise a new preoccupation with human origins.

Some of the connections with Darwin are direct, some are more tenuous. The Abduction, an early study by Paul Cezanne, is usually supposed to illustrate something from Ovid's Metamorphoses. But Munro also sees a Darwinian connection.

"Cezanne was a young man, but as a young man just as he went swimming with Zola, he went with this bloke Antoine-Fortune Marion who became director of the natural history museum at Marseilles; and Marion would expound on the fossil finds and on Darwin at the foothills of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the place we all associate with Cezanne, so it seems to me why not invite a rethinking about that picture in that context?"

Paul Gauguin, too, was exposed to Darwinian ideas. The famous Tahitian painting Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? takes its title either directly or indirectly from a book by a Ludwig Buechner, a German materialist who had read Darwin and who had addressed the implications of science for religion.

"You would be right to say Darwin didn't provoke that, but Darwin was implicated. Religion isn't giving you an answer to where you are going. Can science and all the number of scientific theories that are being presented at the time? Can it?" says Munro.

Other paintings and objects have more immediate relevance. There are bird paintings by Audubon and a restored display of stuffed humming birds mounted by Darwin's illustrator John Gould, along with scientific studies Darwin would have known from his Cambridge student days, and images of Victorian poverty that reflect the Malthusian struggle for existence, another stimulus for Darwin's thinking. Among them is Landseer's Alexander and Diogenes, a deadpan painting of canine encounter.

"We laugh at it, we think it's a great joke. Landseer was immensely popular in the 19th century with his landscape paintings and somehow, now, you know, bit of a joke," she says. "Grown up people who like grown up art might think it is a bit silly. But Darwin had a photograph of this leading up to his Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals."

A painting by James Tissot evokes the panoply of sexual display by men and women as pertinently and as prettily as the sumptuously painted feathers of pheasants and peacocks and birds of paradise, or cartoons of mad millinery from the humorous magazine Punch. A scandalous 1879 series by Felicien Rops illustrating imaginary bestial sex was actually called Les Darwiniques.

"What this exhibition isn't about is cause and effect," Munro says. "This exhibition is to do with reception: it is to do with what people understood, what they didn't understand, what they got wrong, how they conflated his ideas with other things. But a significant number of the artists in the exhibition we know read Darwin or knew about Darwin one way or the other. What they then do with it is something else."

Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts is at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from 16 June to 4 October

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:31 pm

Explosion mystery

Scientists fail to detect North Korea nuclear traces
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 3:18 pm

Periodic Table to Get New, Heavy Element

The super-heavy element 112 will soon find its place on the periodic table.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Jun 2009 | 3:06 pm

Fergus On Flu

Should you be worried about a flu pandemic?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:40 pm

Human skulls found on route of new road

• Remains in Dorset burial pit may be 2,000 years old
• Theories include battle with Romans or epidemic

The skulls of scores of young men have been found in a burial pit on the route of a new road in Dorset.

So far 45 skulls, believed to be almost 2,000 years old, have been found, and more may be found as the pit is emptied. Archaeologists have called the discovery extraordinary, saying it could be evidence of a disaster, a mass execution, a battle or possibly an epidemic.

The bones recovered so far are still being examined but most appear to be of young men, and are believed to date back to the late iron age or early Roman period. They may be evidence of a fatal encounter between the invaders and the local population, buried at a site which had ritual significance for thousands of years before they died.

David Score, project manager for Oxford Archaeology, said: "There are lots of different types of burial where skeletons may be aligned along a compass axis or in a crouched position, but to find something like this is just incredible.

"We're still working on carefully recording and recovering all of the skeletons, which will be taken back to our offices in Oxford for detailed analysis, and trying to piece together the extraordinary story behind these remains."

As well as the skulls, the archaeologists found torso and leg bones buried in separate sections of the pit.

"It's very early days, but so far, after a visit to the site by our head of burial services, the skulls appear to be predominantly those of young men," Score said.

"At the moment we don't fully understand how or why the remains have come to be deposited in the pit but it seems highly likely that some kind of catastrophic event such as war, disease or execution has occurred."

The Oxford team completed the main excavation at Ridgeway Hill last year, uncovering a series of earlier burials, including cremated remains, skeletons and a man buried with a dagger under a round barrow. This year they had been monitoring the site as roadworks began, but the discovery a fortnight ago, was a complete surprise.

Construction work has stopped, the site has been fenced off and is under 24-hour security, and Dorset county council has appealed to the public to stay away and let the archaeologists get on with their work.

The pit is on the outskirts of Weymouth, where a new relief road is being built, but stands by one of the oldest roads in Europe, the Ridgeway. The site was used for ritual burials for thousands of years before the young men died: the archaeologists had already found burials from neolithic to Roman times, as well as pottery, animal bones and flint tools.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:36 pm

Bird numbers decline 'worrying'

Scotland's seabird numbers plunged by 19%, with the Northern Isles and east coast badly hit, a new report says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:29 pm

Swine Flu Hits Pandemic Status

Health authorities announce H1N1 Swine Flu has reached pandemic status.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:26 pm

Bed Bug Weapon Uses Insect's Own Juice

A new weapon against bed bugs includes the insects' own pheromones.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:06 pm

Trans-European power grid call

European countries must invest in new electricity grids to safeguard their power supplies, scientists warn.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jun 2009 | 1:39 pm

New, superheavy element to enter periodic table

BERLIN (Reuters) - A new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Jun 2009 | 1:36 pm