Symptoms Of Depression In Obese Children Linked To Elevated Cortisol

A new study connects abnormalities of the "stress" hormone cortisol with symptoms of depression in obese children, and confirms that obesity and depression often occur together, even in children.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Tiny Frozen Microbe May Hold Clues To Extraterrestrial Life

A novel bacterium -- trapped three kilometers under glacial ice for over 120,000 years -- may hold clues as to what life forms might exist on other planets.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Genetically Elevated Levels Of Lipoprotein Associated With Increased Risk Of Heart Attack

A genetic analysis of data from three studies suggests that genetically elevated levels of lipoprotein(a) are associated with an increased risk of heart attack, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Father's Sperm Delivers Much More Complex Material Than Previously Thought

It was long believed that conception does not involve equals. The egg is a relatively large biological factory compared with the tiny sperm, which delivers to the egg one copy of the father's genes. However, a new study reveals that the father's sperm delivers much more complex genetic material than previously thought. The findings could lead to a test to help couples deal with infertility.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Tunable Graphene Bandgap Opens The Way To Nanoelectronics And Nanophotonics

Graphene's electrical properties include electrons so mobile they travel at near light speed. But without a bandgap, graphene's promise for electronics and photonics can't be realized. Now researchers can precisely tune a bandgap in bilayer graphene from zero to 0.25 eV, in the infrared energy region.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Stress Makes Your Hair Go Gray

Those pesky graying hairs that tend to crop up with age really are signs of stress, reveals a new report.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

New Tidal Debris Discovered From Colliding Galaxies

Astronomers have discovered new tidal debris stripped away from colliding galaxies. New debris images are of special interest since they show the full history of galaxy collisions and resultant starburst activities, which are important in 'growing' galaxies in the early Universe.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Colon Cancer Screening Technique Shows Continued Promise In New Study

Recent clinical trials show that a new colon cancer screening technique has a high enough sensitivity that it could potentially be as or more successful than a colonoscopy in screening for colon cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Reviving American Chestnut Trees May Mitigate Climate Change

A new study shows that introducing a new hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only bring back the all-but-extinct species, but also put a dent in the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

HIV-1's 'Hijacking Mechanism' Pinpointed

Researchers may have found a chink in the armor of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the microorganism which causes AIDS.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Ghost forest in Trafalgar Square

A 'ghost rainforest' of huge tree stumps from the jungles of Africa is to form a dramatic artwork in London's Trafalgar Square.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jun 2009 | 10:31 am

Birth control

Combating malaria by sterilising male mosquitoes
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jun 2009 | 9:56 am

Beg pardon? New study suggests squid and octopi can hear

The discovery that octopi and squid can hear raises interesting questions about the behaviour of these intelligent creatures.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jun 2009 | 9:18 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Unsettled weather, including strong showers and thunderstorms, was expected Monday along a front stretching from the Carolinas to eastern Colorado.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 8:47 am

Grey sky research

Can bacteria change the weather?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jun 2009 | 8:32 am

Fresh air

Can wind save South Africa from blackouts?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jun 2009 | 8:11 am

NASA repairing leak on space shuttle fuel tank (AP)

AP - NASA is repairing a leaky hydrogen gas line on Endeavour's fuel tank in hopes of launching the shuttle on its space station construction mission Wednesday, four days after the first try was called off.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 7:56 am

Argentine glacier advances despite global warming (AP)

AP - Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 7:54 am

NASA considers Wednesday launch for Endeavour (AFP)

AFP - The US space agency NASA says it is considering a June 17 launch for the shuttle Endeavour after its mission to the International Space Station was postponed over a hydrogen leak.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 7:33 am

Nigerian rebels claim attack on Chevron facility (Reuters)

Reuters - Nigeria's main militant group said on Monday it had sabotaged an oil pumping station in the Niger Delta operated by Chevron, the fifth attack claimed against the U.S. energy company in less than a month.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 7:18 am

Charge on single atoms measured

Researchers have demonstrated a new method to measure the charge of individual atoms on a variety of materials.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jun 2009 | 6:25 am

Lifestyle melts away with Uganda peak snow cap (AFP)

AFP - In 1906, Mount Speke, one the highest peaks of Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains was covered with 217 hectares (536 acres) of ice, according to the Climate Change Unit at Uganda?s ministry of water and environment. In 2006, only 18.5 hectares remained.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 4:38 am

Top 10 Amazing Moon Facts

The moon is nearby, in cosmic terms, but we still have much to learn.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jun 2009 | 2:09 am

Scottish death spotlights UK flu strategy

The first UK death from swine flu, just days after a global pandemic was declared, will substantially increase the pressure on the public health authorities and the government to be seen to be coping with the rapidly-spreading virus.

When the World Health Organisation's director general, Margaret Chan, on Thursday last week finally declared that we were indeed in the grip of a global pandemic, she said more deaths were inevitable. Few at that time suspected that the first death outside the Americas, where the pandemic is thought to have begun, would be in Scotland.

Chan moved the global alert to the pandemic phase six, from phase five, because of its documented spread in two of the WHO's regions – the Americas and, most recently, Australia. Public health experts have been watching Australia carefully, because the winter flu season has begun there, facilitating transmission of the virus, which has spread very fast in the community.

But flu generally kills people who are not strong and healthy enough to resist it, and that can happen anywhere in the world and does not need a wide spread. Nor does it need a new strain of virus. About 6,000 people in the UK die of ordinary seasonal flu every year.

Anybody over 65, or younger but with an impaired immune system, bronchial problems, a heart condition or a range of other health issues, is urged to get vaccinated before the winter flu season sets in. While little other information has been released, we know that the person who died in Scotland had underlying health problems.

So far, most of the 1,226 confirmed cases in the UK have been mild. There may well have been more cases that were never identified as swine flu. This particular variety is attacking younger people more often than their elders. The government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said last Thursday that the human component of the virus (which consists of two parts animal, one part bird and one part human) may have been around in the past and the older generation may have some inherent immunity.

But a small minority of cases is proving severe. In both Scotland and England there have been only a handful of hospitalisations, but further deaths will substantially change public perceptions, if not the government's strategy.

The strategy has been to stamp hard on any outbreak to try to contain and eliminate the threat to other people. Where a child has been diagnosed, schools have been closed and every pupil has been given the antiviral drug Tamiflu, which can shorten a bout of illness by about a day but may also prevent it developing.

Scotland is now rethinking that strategy, but not because of yesterday's death. Once flu starts to spread widely, beyond the immediate contacts of somebody who picked it up while on holiday in Mexico, it is not possible to contain it. Scotland's health minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said the strategy needs to move on, to mitigation rather than containment, because of the rapid spread of the virus.

Nobody quite knows why Scotland has become the flu capital of the UK, with a third of the total number of cases. A number of theories have been aired, including the greater vulnerability of those in some parts of Glasgow and the west who may be poorer and less healthy than the majority. But it may also be just that it is slightly ahead of the rest of the country. The first cases were in Scotland, and there is now evidence that the increase in numbers is slowing, while those in England are rising.

Donaldson and ministers said last Thursday, after the pandemic declaration, that little would change in practical terms. The government has been putting its long-held emergency plans into practice from the moment the first cases were diagnosed.

The watershed is not now, in the aftermath of the first death, but will be in the autumn, when the normal flu season begins. It is at that point, when seasonal flu begins to overlap with pandemic flu, and in a worst-case scenario combine with it, that all the contingency plans need to be put into practice.

Those include the widespread availability of antiviral and antibiotic drugs, arrangements for GPs to cover for any colleagues who are taken sick, and a national telephone flu line, so that anybody who feels ill can call and be diagnosed without going to see a doctor and risking a further spread of the virus.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jun 2009 | 1:34 am

NASA Hopes to Launch Shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - NASA will try to squeeze in a launch attempt for the space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday, just days ahead of a different rocket also set to send two unmanned probes to the moon this week, mission managers said Sunday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jun 2009 | 12:15 am

NASA delays launch to Wednesday

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA is planning to delay the launch of its new moon probe for two days so it can try to launch space shuttle Endeavour Wednesday on a construction mission to the International Space Station, officials said on Sunday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:43 pm

Scots nature reforms target invaders

Ways in which Scotland's "outdated" wildlife legislation could be reformed will be the subject of a public consultation.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:20 pm

Eating processed meat causes cancer, say scientists

A dramatic fall in the consumption of processed meat such as bacon and ham would stop around 3,700 people a year from developing bowel cancer, scientists warn today.

Professor Martin Wiseman, scientific and medical adviser to the World Cancer Research Fund, said: "The evidence on processed meat is convincing and our scientists estimate that up to about 3,700 cases of bowel cancer could be prevented every year in the UK if everyone ate less than 70g of processed meat a week, which is roughly the equivalent of three rashers of bacon."

According to the WCRF, people should ideally eat no processed meat at all in order to minimise their cancer risk.

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK. Around 36,500 people, 45% of whom are women, are diagnosed with it annually. Half die within five years. It is the second most lethal cancer, in terms of numbers, claiming around 16,000 lives each year. It is also the second most common form of cancer affecting women.

Although alcohol, obesity and physical inactivity also cause bowel cancer, growing scientific evidence has identified consumption of red and processed meat as a risk factor. Cancer Research UK recently warned that the number of people diagnosed was likely to rise to 46,000 a year by 2024. The charity said consuming less red and processed meat, cutting down on alcohol, staying slim and eating plenty of fibre, fruit and vegetables could prevent as many as 12,000 cases a year by 2024.

A WCRF poll out today, conducted by YouGov, found that just 32% of 2,249 people questioned knew that eating processed meat heightened the risk of cancer.

But Chris Lamb, of BPEX, which represents the English pig industry, said: "The consumer very much understands that the major causes of cancer are smoking, alcohol, obesity and lack of exercise."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:05 pm

Research and university funding

Simon Jenkins (Things of wonder they may be. But a medieval outlook won't pay, 12 June) repeats the fashionable view that the universities would be better off in every sense if they could increase their tuition fees. He uses the cases of America (good: lots of private funding, unregulated fees) and Europe (no fees, too much reliance on public funds) to prove his point. In fact, both cases undermine his argument. The US state system, which caters for 80% of students, has become more expensive and less accessible as state appropriations have fallen. And if the population required to produce a Top 500 university is the criterion, the heavily state-supported Scandinavian institutions are the most successful, with four of the top eight places and the US and UK nowhere. One major cause of the British educational problem is the gulf between the best and worst resourced schools, as Gordon Brown acknowledged when he pledged to close the funding gap between state and private schools. If we want our university system to look like our school system, Simon Jenkins's policies are the ones we should follow.
Roger Brown
Professor of higher education policy, Liverpool Hope University

Simon Jenkins is quite right about the unacceptable non-financial costs of universities' over-reliance on taxpayer (not government!) funding in recent years, but quite wrong in his diatribe against research as a legitimate and important university function. When universities abandon research, as Jenkins seems to be suggesting they should, it will not just be the education that their students receive that will be impoverished.

Good tertiary teaching and learning is research-led and research-based, and if university academics don't do the research, who will? Commitment to research is precisely what distinguishes a university from a teaching college. We just need to ensure that universities do not lose their independence with respect to the research they support, as they are regrettably increasingly doing with respect to the teaching that they do, as a result of their excessive reliance on taxpayer funding and associated government managerialism.
Professor Philip Stenning
Centre for Criminological Research, Keele University

Simon Jenkins's call for a rise in a tuition fees and greater university privatisation is yet another slap in the face for people who believe in a free and inclusive education sector. Increasing fees or the other financial barriers that so many students and parents come up against when considering university is certainly not the way to deliver a world-class university system. The students of today are the doctors, nurses, social workers, engineers and architects of tomorrow. As a country we should be investing in them rather than seeking to ration access to higher education.

Thankfully, Jenkins's view on fees is not shared by the general public. Polling conducted by my union showed that over two-thirds of British adults thought university had become less attractive since the introduction of tuition fees and three in five would be more inclined to vote for a party that promised not to increase fees.

Jenkins's argument for greater university privatisation is equally spurious. If this current financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that we cannot rely upon the market to provide a fair and just system. Universities need to be run like universities not businesses.
Sally Hunt
General secretary, University and College Union

Simon Jenkins's point about research versus teaching priorities is important: as a result of the research assessment exercise, universities were given no choice but to emphasise their research above their teaching if they were to receive adequate public funding. The result has been that most research-based UK universities are unable to give much personal attention to undergraduates in their initial years.

The quality of teaching in the early years across the major universities will not improve until government requires it, students demand it and universities realise that they have to provide it.
Emeritus professor Jonathan Bard
Oxford

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm

Starwatch with Alan Pickup

The Sun reaches one peak next Sunday morning when it stands at its furthest north at the summer solstice. In another regard, though, solar activity is plumbing depths not seen in a lifetime. If the Sun's 11-year cycle of activity ran like clockwork, then the number of sunspots seen at present should be on a par with those observed in 1998. Back then, sunspot numbers had climbed halfway from their so-called sunspot minimum in 1996 to a strong maximum in 2000/2001. Our image of a spotless Sun, though, was taken by the SOHO space observatory as recently as last Wednesday and is typical of the Sun's pristine appearance on four out of five days this year, and over much of last year too.

Indeed, with more than 637 spotless days since 2004, this is the most protracted spell of solar inactivity since the minimum of 1913. Sunspots are not the only indicator of the Sun's activity but they are the easiest to observe, with detailed records stretching back over 23 cycles since the mid-18th century. Others include the strength of radio emission from the Sun and the density and speed of the solar wind, the stream of charged subatomic particles rushing outwards through the solar system.

Another is the solar irradiance, the amount of solar energy received at the Earth; perhaps surprisingly, this increases when sunspots are common. The effect appears to be tiny, but it may be no coincidence that the climate over Europe and North America was unusually cold when sunspots were virtually absent in the late 17th century, the so-called Maunder minimum.

At this point, I must stress again the need for extreme caution in observing the Sun. Never view the Sun directly through a telescope or binoculars. To do so invites serious eye damage. Instead, I suggest you use a small telescope or binoculars to focus the Sun's image on to a white card held away from the eyepiece.

Individual spots and spot groups last for a few days to several weeks, drifting westwards across the disc from day to day as the Sun turns on its axis. Akin to magnetic storms, their origins are linked to a dynamo process within the Sun. Spots erupt where lines of magnetic flux pierce the surface, initially at higher solar latitudes but migrating towards the equator as the cycle progresses.

The first high-latitude spot of the new 24th cycle was sighted 18 months ago but its successors have been slow to appear. Things may be perking up, though, with more signs of higher latitude magnetic activity, and three minor spot groups, during the past month. We have seen false dawns before, though, and the current official prediction that the next maximum may be a relatively low one in 2013 is uncertain at best.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm

Science Weekly with Michio Kaku: Impossibility is relative

In the second of our small but perfectly realised holiday specials, we squint into the future to distinguish the possible from the impossible in the world of physics. You might be surprised what we saw.

Some 80% of the technologies portrayed in science fiction like Star Trek and Star Wars – including force fields, teleportation, telekinesis, mind-reading and invisibility – will become possible within the next century. At least that's according to futurologist Michio Kaku.

Kaku, far from being an armchair dreamer, is a professor of physics at City University of New York and an expert in string theory. His latest book is Physics of the Impossible in which he maintains that what seems magical today will become commonplace tomorrow.

Within centuries to millennia, even time travel, starships and "warp drive" may become possible, says Kaku.

"What we usually consider are impossible are simply engineering problems ... there's no law of physics preventing them."

Our regular, full-length Science Weekly podcasts return on 6 July.

In the meantime, don't forget to ...

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

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:00 pm

Bing vs. Google vs. WolframAlpha

Two new upstarts are worth a look. But is Google at risk?
Source: Livescience.com | 14 Jun 2009 | 6:48 pm

Fiery Calif. freeway crash kills trucker (AP)

AP - A tanker truck hauling 8,000 gallons of ethanol crashed and exploded into an inferno that sent a river of fire into storm drains, killed the driver and blocked major highways.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Jun 2009 | 6:41 pm

Pastor Jakes says he barely avoided home blast (AP)

AP - Dallas megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes says a last-minute change of plans saved him from being killed in a natural gas explosion at his home.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Jun 2009 | 5:11 pm

Alien theories

What really happened in Roswell?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Jun 2009 | 3:51 pm

Herschel telescope 'opens eyes'

Europe's new billion-euro Herschel space observatory opens a hatch allowing its instruments to see the cosmos for the first time.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Jun 2009 | 2:56 pm

World to End in 2012: A Hoax Gone Too Far?

When a hoax designed to make money gets people genuinely worried, is it too much?
Source: Livescience.com | 14 Jun 2009 | 2:35 pm

The Gross Science of a Cough and a Sneeze (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Like people, coughs come in all shapes and sizes. They can be deep or shallow, long or short, or forced or stifled.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Jun 2009 | 2:20 pm

The Gross Science of a Cough and a Sneeze

Scientists study the ways we cough and sneeze to shed light on how viruses like influenza spread.
Source: Livescience.com | 14 Jun 2009 | 2:13 pm

Science and religion: a history of conflict?

It's popularly imagined that the history of science and religion is one of violent conflict, but the facts don't bear this out

As the battle between creationism and evolution heats up, some atheists, like Jerry Coyne, have been insisting that it is really a battle between religion and science. Coyne resists any accommodation between religious and non-religious scientists to defend Darwinism. He doesn't want to see them joining forces against the creationist common enemy in case that legitimises religion. In order for his position to make sense, he needs to show that there is some sort of existential conflict between religion and science. So it is unfortunate for him that the historical record clearly shows that accommodation and even cooperation have been the default positions in the relationship.

It's true that the popular perception of a historical conflict remains strong. That hasn't stopped all serious historians from queuing up to condemn it. John Hedley Brooke and Peter Harrison at Oxford; David Lindberg and Ron Numbers at Wisconsin-Madison; and Simon Shapin in California have all tried to put the record straight. But as Numbers ruefully admits, "Despite a developing consensus among scholars that science and Christianity have not been at war, the notion of conflict has refused to die." He has edited a new collection of essays, published by Harvard University Press, called Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion which tries to chip away some more from the edifice of popular opinion.

A strange thing about the conflict myth is that much of the evidence for it is bogus. Not only are most people ignorant of the real history, but what they think they know about it is actually untrue. Let me give some examples.

The old chestnut that the church encouraged the view that the earth is flat has been debunked so many times that it seems pointless to do so again. But despite a hundred years of effort from historians of science, the legend refuses to die. Only this year it has been repeated in The House of Wisdom, a history of Islamic science by Jonathan Lyons.

The myth that the Catholic church tried to ban zero has grown more popular in recent years. The journalist Charles Seife managed to write an entire book (Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea) about how zero was banned without ever realising his central argument has no foundation in fact. The same myth was passed on in Peter Atkin's Newton's Finger and Charles Mann's 1492.

The church also never tried to ban human dissection. I was amused to hear this story promulgated on the BBC show QI which usually prides itself in puncturing the conventional wisdom. The related myth that Vesalius, author of a famous book on anatomy published in 1543, had a run-in with the Spanish Inquisition, is also discounted by historians.

The celebrated astronomer Carl Sagan passed on the nugget that Pope Callistus III excommunicated Halley's Comet in 1456. This would have been a silly thing to do, but thankfully it never happened. The story appears to be based on misreading a contemporary chronicle.

Finally, various martyrs for science have been canonised. It is a sad fact that both Catholics and Protestants were engaged in the despicable practice of burning heretics. But no one was ever executed for their scientific views. For a long time it was supposed that the Renaissance thinker Giordano Bruno had died for his science. But we now know he was an occultist whose support for Copernicus was not based on scientific grounds and neither was it a reason for his execution. Pretty much all his cosmological thought can be found in a book by the 15th-century cardinal Nicolas of Cusa. Not even the Catholic church would burn you at the stake for repeating the published thoughts of a cardinal.

Only with the trial of Galileo, put under house arrest for life for teaching that the earth goes around the sun, does popular perception have much basis on fact. But even this case was more about the pope's self-esteem than science.

The conflict between science and creationism is real enough, but it is the exception, not the rule. For most of history, science and religion have rubbed along just fine. So, if Jerry Coyne really wants to promote evolution, he should be joining hands with the religious scientists who want to help.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 Jun 2009 | 11:00 am

Hint of planet outside our galaxy

Astronomers believe they have spotted an object six times Jupiter's mass orbiting a star in the Andromeda galaxy.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Jun 2009 | 10:40 am