Life May Extend Planet's 'Life': Billion-year Life Extension For Earth Also Doubles Odds Of Finding Life On Other Planets

Roughly a billion years from now, the ever-increasing radiation from the sun will have heated Earth into inhabitability; the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will disappear; the oceans will evaporate; and all living things will disappear. Or maybe not quite so soon, say researchers who've found a mechanism that doubles the future lifespan of the biosphere -- and increases the chance advanced life will be found elsewhere in the universe.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Endangered Right Whales Identified Where They Were Presumed Locally Extinct

Using a system of underwater hydrophones that can record sounds from hundreds of miles away, scientists have documented the presence of endangered North Atlantic right whales in an area they were thought to be locally extinct.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Low-fat Diet Helps Genetically Predisposed Animals Avoid Liver Cancer

In a study comparing two strains of mice, one susceptible to developing cancer and the other not, researchers found that a high-fat diet predisposed the cancer-susceptible strain to liver cancer, and that by switching to a low-fat diet early in the experiment, the same high-risk mice avoided the malignancy. The switched mice were lean rather than obese and had healthy livers at the end of the study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Laptops Linked To Male Infertility

While fatherhood might be far from the minds of most young men, behavior patterns they establish early on may impact their ability to become a dad later in life. Excessive laptop use tops this list of liabilities, according to one reproductive specialist.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Don't Stand So Close To Me: Proximity Defines How We Think Of Contagion

These results reveal that we tend to view products that are grouped close together as being "contagious." It appears that if one of the products has a prominent good or bad quality, we will see that quality as spreading among other objects which are close by, a phenomenon known as the "group-contagion effect."
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Jumping Genes Discovery Challenges Current Assumptions

Jumping genes do most of their jumping, not during the development of sperm and egg cells, but during the development of the embryo itself. The research challenges standard assumptions on the timing of when mobile DNA, so-called jumping genes, insert into the human genome.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Natural Hormone May Protect Muscle From Atrophy

Researchers have found a potential new treatment for the common problem of muscle atrophy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Maple Seeds And Animals Exploit The Same Trick To Fly

The twirling seeds of maple trees spin like miniature helicopters as they fall to the ground. Because the seeds descend slowly as they swirl, they're carried aloft by the wind and dispersed over great distances. Just how the seeds manage to fall so slowly, however, has mystified scientists. In research published in Science, researchers describe the aerodynamic secret of the enchanting swirling seeds.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Snoring Pregnant Women At Higher Risk For Gestational Diabetes

If you are pregnant and your mate complains your frequent snoring is rattling the bedroom windows, you may have bigger problems than an annoyed, sleep-deprived partner. A new study has found that women who reported frequent snoring during their pregnancy were more likely to develop gestational diabetes -- a condition than can cause health problems for the mother and baby. The study also found pregnancy increases the likelihood that a woman will snore.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

African Bird Species Could Struggle To Relocate To Survive Global Warming

African bird species could struggle to relocate to survive global warming because natural features of the landscape will limit where they can move to, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Stormy weather was forecast again across much of the nation Saturday, with hail and wind likely along the Mississippi and cool wet conditions in the Northwest.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 9:29 am

NASA scrubs Saturday morning space shuttle launch (AP)

AP - A potentially dangerous hydrogen gas leak cropped up during the fueling of space shuttle Endeavour on Saturday and forced NASA to postpone the launch by at least four days.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:37 am

Gas leak postpones space shuttle launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA canceled plans to launch space shuttle Endeavour on a construction mission to the International Space Station on Saturday due to a potentially dangerous hydrogen leak.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:50 am

Gas Leak Thwarts Space Shuttle Launch (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The space shuttle Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew will have to wait at least one more day before launching toward the International Space Station after a gas leak thwarted their planned Saturday morning liftoff.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:31 am

Endeavour shuttle launch delayed

The launch of space shuttle Endeavour is postponed hours before take-off due to a hydrogen leak, Nasa says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:27 am

Fish toss a go for veterinarians visiting Seattle (AP)

AP - Despite complaints from an animal-rights group, a national veterinary association says Seattle's famed fishmongers will be tossing dead fish at its Seattle convention next month.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:59 am

Australians demand climate action

Thousands of demonstrators rally across Australia to demand greater government action on climate change.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:20 am

Obama gives US first national ocean policy (AFP)

AFP - President Barack Obama on Friday set up a task force to craft the first US national policy for sustainably managing the country's oceans, drawing praise from environmentalists who said the move was long overdue.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 11:27 pm

Peru protestors call on Lima to scrap Amazon land laws (AFP)

AFP - Peru's indigenous groups continued blocking roads Friday in protest against unpopular decrees on farming, oil drilling and water rights in the Amazon rainforest, as support actions spread across the country.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 11:05 pm

Alaska's Rat Island rat-free after 229 years

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska's Rat Island is finally rat-free, 229 years after a Japanese shipwreck spilled rampaging rodents onto the remote Aleutian island, decimating the local bird population.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:15 pm

Hawaiian Islands eyed for endangered seal habitat (AP)

AP - The federal government said Friday it will revise the critical habitat for endangered Hawaiian monk seals for the first time in 21 years, which is likely to significantly expand the protection area to include beaches and waters of the main Hawaiian Islands.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:10 pm

Youth Baseball Injuries: Good and Bad News

Acute baseball injuries are on the decline. But overuse injuries are rising.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:59 pm

New Hope for Ending Pointless Traffic Jams (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Some traffic jams have no apparent cause - no accident, no stalled vehicle, no lanes closed for construction. There is no easy way out of these maddening messes once you're stuck in them, but a new study has figured out how to reduce the odds of them forming at all.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:01 pm

Denmark says climate talks moving 'too slow' (AFP)

AFP - Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, whose country will host a UN climate summit in December, said Friday that talks towards a treaty to tackle global warming were moving "too slow."

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:51 pm

All Systems Go for Saturday Launch

Weather looks good for Endeavour's Saturday launch to the space station.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:22 pm

Back to the FutureGen: ‘Clean’ Coal Plant Gets New Backing

The Department of Energy’s flagship “clean coal” power plant has a new lease on life, thanks to a billion dollars from last year’s stimulus package.

The plan to build the plant, which will be the first large plant to capture and bury its carbon dioxide emissions in the ground, was scrapped by the Bush Administration in early 2008.

Rekindling the FutureGen project is a signal that the Obama Administration and Energy Secretary Steve Chu won’t just be supporting wind and solar power, but some new fossil fuel technologies, too.

“This important step forward for FutureGen reflects this Administration’s commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution,” said Steve Chu, Secretary of Energy, in a DOE statement. “The FutureGen project holds great promise as a flagship facility to demonstrate carbon capture and storage at commercial scale. Developing this technology is critically important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the US, and around the world.”

Carbon capture and sequestration is a hotly debated technology among energy and climate experts. Some environmental groups argue that burying CO2 isn’t feasible in the near-term and merely acts as a rhetorical front for the fossil fuel industries. On the other hand, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N.-backed body of climate researchers, see it as a major part of the long-term energy future. If it works and it’s cheap — two huge ifs — it would provide low-carbon power 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Department of Energy, under Chu, had already announced a separate chunk of $2.4 billion for carbon burial, bringing its total support for the tech to $3.4 billion.

Politically, it’s a popular “green” technology in the coal states, particularly in the South, where renewable energy resources are more limited than in other areas of the country. And if it works really well, it’s possible that biomass could be burned, which would actually pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

The carbon burial process is geologically complex. You need just the right combination of layers of rock: one porous rock layer, such as sandstone, that can contain the CO2, and then a layer (or layers) of impermeable caprock, such as shale, on top of that to prevent the gas from escaping back to the surface. Just capturing the CO2 out of a mix of other molecules is difficult, too. It takes highly engineered materials that selectively capture CO2 and release it on command. The high-tech nature of both of components of a carbon capture and sequestration plant have soured some utility executives on the technology.

One major problem is that no one has actually tried to bury CO2 in huge quantities, or as industry folks would say, at scale. Without real-world testing, it’s hard to know whether it will be possible to scrub the CO2 from our coal plants at a reasonable cost.

The 275-megawatt FutureGen project has long been intended to be that real world laboratory. First announced by President Bush as a $1 billion project in 2003, it was supposed to prove that coal power plants could effectively capture and store their greenhouse gas emissions underground. The project advanced slowly, though, and its total cost is now estimated at $1.8 billion.

While Chu’s words were a strong indication that the project has his backing, the future of FutureGen is not entirely assured. The DOE and the collection of corporations known as the FutureGen Alliance will take another look at the feasibility of the project in early 2010 before truly moving forward.

See Also:

• FutureGen “Cleanish Coal” Plant Cancelled
• Carbon Burial Research Grows as Huge Experiment Begins
• Scientists Map Out “Dream Reservoir” for CO2 Storage
• Climate

Image: DOE

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 | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:12 pm

Swine flu drug treatment will replace containment strategy

Focus will shift from limiting spread of localised virus, to mitigating effects of widespread virus, says health secretary

More than 150 people have been diagnosed with swine flu over the past 24 hours as the rate of infection accelerates, pushing the total number of UK cases above 1,000.

The latest figures are the largest recorded daily increase, adding to pressure on the Department of Health to abandon its strategy of containment.

The Scottish government has already switched tactics, using a more targeted deployment of anti-viral drugs to treat only close contacts and those deemed most at risk.

The largest number of newly diagnosed infections – 83 – are in Scotland; the centre of the outbreak there is Glasgow. The new cases led to the closure of five further schools and nurseries in Glasgow and Paisley, taking the total number of school and nursery closures in western Scotland to at least 25. Scottish health officials have also revealed that about a third of all cases have been found in 15- 24-year-olds, with few people over 65 contracting the virus. It is thought the elderly may have better resistance because their immune systems recognise the virus from past infections.

In England 72 new cases were reported, mainly among children in the West Midlands. The figures were released after the health secretary told the Commons that the health department policy of containing swine flu outbreaks will have to be dropped soon in favour of a more targeted use of anti-viral drugs. Andy Burnham said the government had accepted from the outset it was unlikely to be able to "prevent a widespread outbreak indefinitely".

He warned MPs that "at some point, we will need to move our focus away from limiting the spread of a localised virus, towards mitigating the effects of a widespread virus".

Burnham is due to meet the civil contingencies committee next week to decide at what stage the containment strategy will be dropped in favour of using anti-viral treatments in a more selective manner.

The committee will consider how anti-virals should best be deployed once the containment stage has been passed. Doctors are concerned that the swine flu virus could develop resistance to the drug Tamiflu.

In the meantime local health authorities are to be given greater flexibility in their responses to each outbreak. The Department of Health explained that there will be "continued anti-viral treatment of all those who have the virus but more targeted use of anti-viral prophylaxis [disease prevention], based on local risk assessment and limited to contacts considered most at risk of contracting the virus".

It added: "In practice, that will be mainly household or household-like contacts or, in a school context, those at surrounding desks; and the restriction of contact follow-up to those most at risk."

Among emergency precautions being considered to prevent larger outbreaks are the mass closure of schools across local districts in the autumn. Medical planners believe schools are one of the main transmission points. Peak rates of infections are expected either once term restarts or in a cold December.

The Conservative health spokesman, Andrew Lansley, questioned what the response should be for schools. "If the virus continues to be relatively modest in its severity, there will be an argument that school closures may be an excessive response," he told the Commons.

"But there is also an argument that if there are a very large number of cases and schools look like they are places where the virus is spread very rapidly, there will be a risk that if we did not close schools for a short period of time where cases are confirmed that we would overwhelm local health service facilities."

There is concern that public health messages about the severity of the virus have become confused. The World Health Organisation, which yesterday raised the alert to that of a global pandemic, described the virus as "moderate". The Department of Health has been describing it as "mild", although its latest warnings have said that it is "generally mild in most people, but ... severe in a small minority of cases".

So far 28 people have been treated in hospital, and the majority have made a full recovery. Burnham insisted that the UK was in a "very strong position to respond to the global pandemic we now face".

The UK has enough anti-viral Tamiflu tablets to protect half of the population, but orders are in place for 50 million doses – enough to cover 80%. Pharmaceutical companies are developing a swine flu vaccine.

"We are already speaking with manufacturers to agree what this means for our own plans for full country coverage of pandemic-specific vaccine, should this be required," Burnham told MPs.

"We have advance purchase agreements which enable the UK to purchase up to 132 million doses of pandemic-specific vaccine – enough for two doses for 100% of the population, should this be necessary. On current projections we expect the first deliveries of the pandemic vaccine to arrive in the autumn."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:06 pm

WIDE ANGLE: Future of Television

As TV signals go all digital, a look at where TV tech is going, and where it has been.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:02 pm

Launching Saturday: Shuttle Endeavour Headed for Space Station (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Seven astronauts are set to blast off on the space shuttle Endeavour Saturday morning on an ambitious mission bound for the International Space Station.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:01 pm

Meteorite Strikes Teen’s Hand; He Survives

One very unlucky German teenager was struck by a meteorite this week, but survived to tell the tale.

Details are sketchy, but according to Telegraph.co.uk, as 14-year-old Gerrit Blank walked home from school, the red-hot object fell out of the sky, hit his hand, and crashed into the ground, leaving a foot-wide crater.

“At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder,” he told Telegraph.co.uk. “The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards.”

Meteorite strikes on humans and human structures are rare but not unknown. The last time there was a confirmed strike on a human was in 1954, when Ann Hodges, an Alabama housewife got smacked in the hip by a ricocheting space rock. Sadly, Hodges, a renter, got sued by her landlady for possession of the meteor. The famous rock was considered very valuable, and was anticipated to fetch $20,000 at auction, which would equate to several hundred thousand dollars today.

Less than a year after Hodges, another Alabama housewife, Mrs. W. Douglas Beardon, just missed getting crushed in her yard by a meteorite “humming like a vacuum cleaner.”

Close calls have been noted throughout history. For example, villagers watched in amazement as a large meteorite hit near the town of Ensisheim in 1492, and a meteorite smashed into Michelle Knapp’s parked car in Peekskill, New York, just a few weeks short of 500 years later (illustrated above).

A broad 1991 study of meteorite strikes on structures and near humans found that they are relatively common. The authors tabulated 69 strikes on human infrastructure since 1790, including 57 in the 20th century. They also counted 25 near misses of human beings.

See Also:

• First-Ever Asteroid Tracked From Space to Earth
• Phoenix Principal Investigator and Wife Carry a Piece of Mars
• Meteorite Makes Villagers Sick!!! Maybe.
• Seeds of Life Came From Space
• Missing 1000-lb meteorite found
• Life Thrives in Earth’s Most Mars-Like Environment

Image: This piece of meteorite totaled a Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, N.Y. in 1992./Courtesy NASA

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 | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:03 pm

Moons Cast Shadows on Saturn's Ring

Tiny moons on Saturn's rings create vertical structures that are shown casting shadows.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:52 pm

Global Biosphere Images Reveal Changes in Plant Growth

NASA has released a series of images that illustrate how the Earth's plant growth has changed over the past 11 years.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:09 pm

SLIDE SHOW: The Week's Top Stories

A look back at images from Discovery News, June 8-12.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:01 pm

Baby Stars Found in Galactic Center

Astronomers finally able to detect newborn stars in center of Milky Way.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 4:47 pm

Curse Word on Roof Spotted from Space

Students at a UK grammar school used bricks to spell out a certain word for a certain bit of male anatomy.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 4:35 pm

Photo Triggers Push for New Cloud Class

A photo of an unusual cluster of clouds inspires an effort to create a new cloud category.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:59 pm

Fergus On Flu

To avoid the infection, why it pays to be old
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:37 pm

Science policy scrutiny 'at risk'

Science and technology desperately needs its own House of Commons committee, say MPs.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:36 pm

Nude, Mona Lisa-Like Painting Surfaces

Leonardo da Vinci may have painted Mona Lisa in a number of styles -- including nude.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:20 pm

MPs demand proper scrutiny of science policy

A House of Commons committee warned today that despite the government's reassurances, science and engineering risk being lost in the 'black hole' of the newly created Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee issued a special report today calling on the government to safeguard scrutiny of science policy following the merger of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The report recommends that proposals for the creation of a separate science and technology committee be put before the House of Commons as soon as possible.

Phil Willis, chairman of the IUSS, said:

Despite all the reassurances we have heard from ministers about the importance of science and engineering in government planning and policy, yet again we face the reality that science could be lost in a black hole of this new, all-encompassing 'super department' of Business, Innovation and Skills.

We urge the government to create a science and technology select committee alongside the new Business, Innovation and Skills Committee to ensure the crucial work of science scrutiny across government is maintained.

In the past, responsibility for monitoring science in government fell to a dedicated Science and Technology Select Committee, first established in 1966. This endured in various forms until 2007, when it was supplanted by the departmental committee overseeing DIUS, in the face of opposition from members of the previous committee and from the wider scientific community.

In responding to these concerns, the IUSS committee was created with 14 rather than the usual 11 members. However, fears that its remit was too large for a single committee proved to be well-founded. The report states:

Despite the dedication of our core membership … it has proved difficult to balance the scrutiny of the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills with the demands of examining the use of science across government.

With DIUS and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform combined into the "super department" of Business, Innovation and Skills, it would be foolhardy to believe that a single committee could be expected to operate as an effective watchman over such a vast swathe of government, as well as keeping an eye on science in every other department.

But this is precisely what may happen. After the publication of several pending reports, it's expected that the IUSS will be dissolved and its duties will fall onto the over-stacked plate belonging to a new Business, Innovation, and Skills Committee.

Nick Dusic, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering in the UK, said:

The abolition of the Science and Technology Committee was a mistake that the government should rectify. Letting parliament re-establish the Science and Technology Committee would show that it is handing power back to the House of Commons.

A science and technology committee would be able to investigate science policy issues that cut right across the boundaries of individual government departments. The former Science and Technology Committee provided an important forum for informed debate on science, technology and policy.

This is an issue that touches all areas of governance in the UK. If we want to invest in initiatives that will work, be they in education or healthcare or any one of a thousand topics, it's essential that our leaders construct strong, evidence-based policies. Our ability to enforce this depends on a strong science committee.

In the past, we've seen a lackadaisical commitment to science from our leaders – for example, when the government dismissed recommendations from its own scientific advisers on the reclassification of ecstasy.

If we want to see a government that puts science at the centre of its decision-making, rather than use it as window-dressing, it is vital that the recommendations of the IUSS are acted upon.

Frank Swain is a freelance writer and blogger. He runs SciencePunk.com

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:19 pm

Plasma Waves Studied for New Electronics

Bill Stillman leaves a long career as an engineer to go back to school and learn a new field.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:13 pm

Change in the Wind - Power From Thin Air?

How planet Earth makes wind; how modern wind farms harvest energy from those blowing breezes; and how good or bad they are at doing it. The science, technology and policy questions surrounding wind energy.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:01 pm

Boy Hit by Meteorite

A 14-year old German boy was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that scared the bejeezus out of him and left a scar.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:15 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

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

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