Key Found To How Tumor Cells Invade The Brain In Childhood Cancer

Despite great strides in treating childhood leukemia, a form of the disease called T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) poses special challenges because of the high risk of leukemic cells invading the brain and spinal cord of children who relapse. Now, a new study reveals the molecular agents behind this devastating infiltration of the central nervous system. The finding may lead to new drugs that block these agents and thus lower the risk of relapse.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

Mate Selection: Honesty In Advertising Pays Off

Throughout the animal kingdom brilliant colors or elaborate behavioral displays serve as "advertisements" for attracting mates. But, what do the ads promise, and is there truth in advertising? Researchers theorize that when males must provide care for the survival of their offspring, the males' signals will consistently be honest -- and they may devote more of their energy to caring for their offspring than to being attractive.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

Genome Of Nitrogen-fixing, Soil-living Bacterium Sequenced

Researchers have completed the genome sequence of Azotobacter vinelandii, uncovering important genetic information that will contribute to a more complete understanding of the biology of this versatile, soil-living bacterium and pave the way for new applications, including the possible use of A. vinelandii for the production of other proteins.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

Teens Are Heading In Wrong Direction: Likely To Have Sex, But Not Use Contraception

Between 2003 and 2007, the progress made in the 1990s and early 2000s in improving teen contraceptive use and reducing teen pregnancy and childbearing stalled, and may even have reversed among certain groups of teens, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

Toward An 'Electronic Nose' To Sniff Out Kidney Disease In Exhaled Breath

Scientists have identified the key substances in exhaled breath associated with healthy and diseased kidneys — raising expectations, they say, for development of long-sought diagnostic and screening tests that literally sniff out chronic renal failure (CRF) in its earliest and most treatable stages.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

Radically Different Approach To Treating Early Breast Cancer

A radically different approach to choosing the best treatment options for early breast cancer has been proposed by an international panel of experts. The report represents the consensus on early breast cancer treatment that emerged from the conference of more than 4,800 participants from 101 countries, which took place in March 2009.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

'Weedy' Bird Species May Win As Temperatures Rise

Climate change is altering North American winter bird communities in ways that models currently favored by ecologists fail to predict. Current distributions of animals among different climate zones suggest that, as habitats warm, numbers of species will increase and that those species will be smaller in size and restricted to narrower geographic ranges, but only one of those predictions has held for North American birds over the past quarter century.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Mystery Of The Missing Sunspots Solved?

The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why. Researchers have discovered that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Cerebrospinal Fluid Shows Alzheimer's Disease Deterioration Much Earlier

It is possible to determine which patients run a high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and the dementia associated with it, even in patients with minimal memory impairment.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Protect Against Progression Of Age-related Macular Degeneration

Omega-3 fatty acids found in fatty fish such as tuna and salmon may protect against progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but the benefits appear to depend on the stage of disease and whether certain supplements are taken.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Moon Probe's Final Images Before Crash

The amazing final moments before the Japanese Kaguya lunar probe slammed into the moon.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Jun 2009 | 2:10 pm

How Jellybeans Can Reveal Neuroscience to the Public

Student scientists get creative in presenting brain science to non-scientists.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Jun 2009 | 1:56 pm

Dad: More than Just a Guy with Sperm

Biology has underestimated the role of fathers in making babies. Society has too, especially when it comes to child-rearing. That should change.
Source: Livescience.com | 19 Jun 2009 | 1:48 pm

Ancient Volcanic Blasts Kicked Off Ice Ages

Huge volcanic eruptions kicked off the freeze-thaw cycle that persists today.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Jun 2009 | 1:30 pm

How aerosols mask climate change

Uncertainty over exactly how much aerosols impact on the climate has finally been settled, scientists say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jun 2009 | 1:14 pm

The plant that pretends to be ill

A plant that feigns sickness to stop it being attacked by insect pests has been found growing in the rainforests of Ecuador.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jun 2009 | 12:57 pm

Tornado Season Is a Dud (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Tornadoes have been few and far between this year - a relief to residents of Tornado Alley, but a letdown to scientists studying the swirling storms out in the field.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 12:35 pm

Fake Skin on Moon Probe to Study Radiation

Moon probes are carrying faux human skin to measure radiation effects on humans.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Jun 2009 | 12:30 pm

Streetlights ruin a bat's commute, a study shows

Streetlights could have a negative impact on "commuting" bats, say researchers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jun 2009 | 12:17 pm

Apollo astronaut Aldrin urges US to land on Mars (AFP)

AFP - NASA should focus on sending a man to Mars and helping other nations travel in space, Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin said Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 11:48 am

Twittering Air Pollution Levels in Beijing (Time.com)

Time.com - An increasingly popular twitter feed operated by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing underscores the need for better and quicker information about the capital's dismal air pollution
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 11:35 am

Earth Watch

Climate concerns fail to quicken clean energy vision
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jun 2009 | 11:27 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Severe weather was expected to continue causing problems across the Eastern Plains, Mid-West and East on Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 9:25 am

Study: US technology key to China and climate (AP)

AP - Finding an economical way to capture carbon dioxide from existing coal burning power plants is key to getting China to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as well as for U.S. efforts to combat global warming, says a study being released Friday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 9:16 am

Are we prisoners of our genes?

In The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature,
Steven Pinker challenged the assumption that people are moulded by society and their upbringing, raising awkward questions about race and intelligence, aggression, greed and free will

In February, a commentary in Nature asked: "Should scientists study race and IQ?" An essay in April was headed "Can evolution explain how minds work?" These were questions addressed head-on by psychologist Steven Pinker when he wrote this intoxicating, instructive book in 2002. His answer to both was "Yes."

The Blank Slate might not have settled the matter then, but you'd think we'd have evidence that he was right – or wrong – seven years later.

What makes this book so intoxicating is the clarity of the writing, the brilliant choice of quotations, the insight into scientific reasoning and Pinker's trademark flair for ambiguous headlines ("British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands").

It also gives the reader a sense of eavesdropping on a furious family row, with the entomologist EO Wilson, the zoologist Richard Dawkins and Pinker himself mounting a fierce assault on the neuroscientist and Moral Maze broadcaster Steven Rose, the palaeontologist and essayist Stephen Jay Gould and the geneticist Richard Lewontin.

On first reading The Blank Slate in 2002, one felt that a lot of what Pinker said was probably right, or at least common sense. On second reading, it all looks different. There were things we thought we knew then, and the only advance since then has been that we now know that we don't – at least not yet – but we still feel passionate about it anyway.

In short, this is a book about science as ideology.

First the big picture: Darwin again. If humans, like dolphins, are creatures of evolution, then we are programmed to be human-like, just as dolphins are imprisoned in their evolved dolphin-ness. In 2001, geneticists unravelled the entire text of the human genome, complete with a shopping list of genes that would inevitably sooner or later be coupled with human traits, conditions and actions.

At around the same time, neuroscientists began to use functional brain imagery: at last they could see which parts of the brain swung into action as people thought about objects, activities or identities. They pinpointed the brain's funny bone, and stimulated it to engender laughter; they located its God spot, and identified the place of spiritual experience. They found that convicted murderers and other violently inclined people were likely to have a smaller and less active prefrontal cortex.

But what does all this mean? Are humans shaped more by nature or nurture? Are we born aggressive, violent and greedy? Do we learn to be nasty by playing Grand Theft Auto? Was there ever a state of innocence? Can we make ourselves a better, more caring, less judgmental species? Are individuals programmed to be what they are because that's what their genes dictate?

This is a debate in which the science has been abused, distorted and dismissed by the religious right and the Marxist left. But this is also a debate in which science's insiders tend angrily to accuse each other of being doctrinaire, or woolly-minded, but do so in doctrinaire ways, and then go a bit woolly-minded themselves when dealing with actual cases.

And so, having claimed there is genetic evidence that intelligence is a heritable condition, and having asserted that races are little more than large, inbred families, Pinker himself ducks the issue that generates most anger. In parentheses on page 144, he states: "My own view, incidentally, is that in the case of the most discussed racial difference – the black-white IQ gap in the US – the current evidence does not call for a genetic explanation."

Good. I believe he is right. But why does he go on to say that Steven Rose is wrong to believe that IQ tests tell you nothing useful, or that race is a doubtful biological category? And why, after arguing the science of this question for many decades, do we all still "believe" rather than "know" one way or the other?

Great chunks of this book read like common sense and some chapters perhaps reveal more passion than evidence. One of the insights this book provides is how very difficult the science of humanity is, and how much it is influenced by the humans who do it.

Another is that if you watch a no holds barred fight between intellectuals wielding knuckle-dusters, you will discover that decent, considerate humanitarians with liberal ideals (and that includes everybody named in this review) can biff and sock and head-butt with the best of them.

Yet another is the sheer venerability of this debate: Pinker quotes Hobbes and Rousseau and Dostoevsky, and he identifies scientific and societal attitudes that he labels the Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, the Ghost in the Machine and so on.

Are our attitudes and behaviours acquired, just as our native language and table manners are acquired, by experience of the family around us? Would we, without the benefit of agriculture, technology or politics, live ecologically sensitive, socially considerate, non-violent lives as hunter-gatherers? Is there some "me" inside my brain making the big decisions, or is my brain responding to stimuli and directing my actions according to my genetic programming, and then kidding me that I am in charge?

I ask, because in May, an essay in Nature returned to the theme with the question "Is free will an illusion?"

Well, is it? How could we be sure? Did those murderers with prefrontal cortex problems have a choice? And if so, what kind of prefrontal cortices do media moguls, rugby footballers, hedge fund managers and bungee-jumpers have?

The fact is, we still don't understand ourselves and we all have our ideologies. As Bertrand Russell says (in another of Pinker's brilliantly chosen quotations) we walk around wherever we go, "encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions … like flies on a summer day."

The great reward of a book like this is that it makes you think: it sets out to persuade, but it makes you think. Now that's riches indeed.

Next month, a much shorter book, a much older one, and best of all, at least six million of you already have the hardback version.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 19 Jun 2009 | 7:45 am

An exceptionally soggy June for many in US (AP)

AP - Mud season has been extended. From North Dakota to Long Island, rain after rain after rain has dampened spirits and swamped roads. Picnics and kids' baseball games have been washed out, rescheduled and rained out again. Big-time sports, too.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 3:44 am

Flood protection 'needs doubling'

With one in six homes in England at risk from flooding in the future, the Environment Agency urges a big rise in spending.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jun 2009 | 3:12 am

Tunnel vision: Swiss can't wait to party

ZURICH (Reuters) - Face covered with dust, a tired miner scrambles through a tiny gap linking two parts of what will be the world's longest rail tunnel, clutching a gold colored statuette of saint Barbara.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 1:40 am

New images show evidence of ancient Martian lake (AP)

AP - New images suggest Mars had a sizable lake on its surface billions of years ago, further evidence that the planet had a watery past.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jun 2009 | 12:54 am

Hunt for answers

Will the Air France plane crash ever be explained?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jun 2009 | 12:41 am

Partial walrus estimate alarms conservation group (AP)

AP - A partial federal assessment of Pacific walruses estimates their minimum population at just 15,164 but says the count likely missed a number of animals.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 11:40 pm

NASA launches unmanned moon shot, first in decade (AP)

AP - NASA launched its first moon shot in a decade Thursday, sending up a pair of unmanned science probes that will help determine where astronauts could land and set up camp in years to come.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 11:30 pm

NASA launches probes to scout the moon

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An unmanned Atlas rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday carrying a pair of probes to map the moon and hunt for water.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 11:28 pm

Owners of flood-damaged ND homes left wondering (AP)

AP - Craig and Marcia Strehlow's 4,400-square-foot dream home had been their sanctuary for 23 years, a wooded paradise in North Dakota river country. But after record-breaking spring floods, they and thousands of others are left wondering: Will the federal government help?

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 11:07 pm

Canada may open isotope project to private sector

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian government defended its decision to scrap the Maple isotope reactor project on Thursday, but left the door open for private groups to take over the mothballed nuclear program.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 10:35 pm

'Unlimited Potential' Seen in Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineer Niren Murthy helps design cutting-edge chemicals for the detection and treatment of diseases.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 10:00 pm

Lift off for Nasa's lunar probes

Nasa launches two spacecraft to the Moon to pave the way for a return to the lunar surface by US astronauts.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2009 | 9:34 pm

Tornado Season Is a Dud

Tornadoes have touched down less and done less damage this year compared to others.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 9:28 pm

Sex Change Operations: The Science, Sociology and Psychology

Gender-reassignment surgery addresses larger issues of gender, sexuality and sexual orientation.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 9:25 pm

12 Twisted Tornado Facts

Twelve facts about when, where and how tornadoes form, as well as how to prepare for them.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 9:18 pm

How the Moon Was Made: Cosmic Collision

Evidence that Earth's natural satellite was born of catastrophe; with planetary geo-scientists Paul Spudis, Jay Melosh and David Kring.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 8:49 pm

Scotch Goes Green

Scotch distillers pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 8:42 pm

This Week's Coolest Science Images

The images that made science news the week of June 14, 2009.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jun 2009 | 8:26 pm

Ancient crustaceans produced enormous sperm, scientists find

A new method for imaging tiny fossils has shown that ostracods had developed giant sperm more than 100 million years ago.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2009 | 6:52 pm

Moon Probes Blast Off to Scout for Water

Two moon probes are on their way to scout for water sources and landing sites.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 6:40 pm

German research points way to better anxiety drug

LONDON (Reuters) - German scientists believe they may have found a better anxiety drug that can counteract panic attacks without the side effects caused by existing treatments like Valium.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 6:21 pm

Giant sperm shows size matters for some animals

LONDON (Reuters) - Tiny mussel-like creatures living 100 million years ago made giant sperm longer than their own bodies, proving size has always mattered for some animals when it comes to sex, scientists said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 6:15 pm

Psychedelic Sunspot Video Useful for Science, Too

Behold the first complete simulation of a sunspot, the product of a new 76-teraflop supercomputer that’s allowed scientists to model the sun’s magnetic processes in unprecedented detail.

The beautiful virtual sunspot (see video below) was built using new observations about the structure of the sun. It represents an area 31,000 miles by 62,000 miles to a depth of 3,700 miles. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research used a wealth of equations that describe the interactions of particles in the environment to calculate the dynamics of the sunspot at 1.8 billion individual points.

“Advances in supercomputing power are enabling us to close in on some of the most fundamental processes of the sun,” said Michael Knoelker, director of NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory and co-author of a paper on the work appearing in Science Thursday. “With this breakthrough simulation, an overall comprehensive physical picture is emerging for everything that observers have associated with the appearance, formation, dynamics and the decay of sunspots on the sun’s surface.”

Sunspots, which wax and wane in roughly 11-year cycles, eject massive amounts of plasma into the solar system, sometimes causing disruptions of terrestrial communications and power grid infrastructure. We’ve been studying them for a 100 years, but it’s only recently that keener observations and expanded computing power have enabled us to begin to really understand them.

Still, there is a lot left to learn. Over the last year, scientists have been trying to explain the abnormally low number of sunspots. The normal cycle appeared to have been disrupted, which would have required a major rethink of the sun’s internal dynamics.

This week, though, a team at the National Solar Observatory announced at an American Astronomical Society meeting press conference that they’d pinpointed the cause: a laggard jet stream. Sunspots are generated by jet streams that originate at the sun’s poles every 11 years and migrate down to the latitude of 22 degrees. Over the past few years, a jet stream moved more slowly towards the equator than previous ones. Now that it’s finally in position near 22 degrees, we’re starting to see increased sunspot activity.

Still, really basic questions remain. For example, why did the jet stream move more slowly? Or even, why do jet streams form at all — and why the seemingly random interval?

“We still don’t understand exactly how jet streams trigger sunspot production,” said Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Nor do we fully understand how the jet streams themselves are generated.”

With the new supercomputer sunspot model, solar researchers could gain a deeper understanding of these powerful, mysterious and important phenomena. That’s good news because as sunspot activity kicks back up towards its maximum, experts warn the Earth’s electrical and communications networks could be in very serious trouble.

“If you want to understand all the drivers of Earth’s atmospheric system, you have to understand how sunspots emerge and evolve,” said Matthias Rempel of NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory, lead author of the Science paper. “Our simulations will advance research into the inner workings of the sun as well as connections between solar output and Earth’s atmosphere.”

The video shows the computer simulation of the complex magnetic fields that form sunspots. The black-and-white images show the sun’s surface, with black representing negative polarity and white positive polarity. The color simulation reveals what’s happening deep in the sun; the lighter colors in the subsurface simulation indicate greater magnetic field strength.

See Also:

• Big Solar Flare Portends Sun’s Return to Normal
• The Sun Is Acting Up Again
• Wired 7.02: Everyone Complains About the Weather
• What Makes the Sun Flare
• Prepare for the Worst, Because Solar Storms Are About to Get Ugly

Image and Video: Matthias Rempel, NCAR/UCAR.

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 | 18 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm

Buffer zone

Wildlife rule over a quiet "involuntary park" in Cyprus
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2009 | 5:51 pm

Conservationists are not making themselves heard

The conservation community is looking increasingly out of touch, overshadowed by climate change concerns. The Open Ground, a public event in London, hopes to confront the problem head-on

Asked to rank the world's most pressing problems, many people would probably mention familiar things: economic recession, poverty, terrorism, war or disease. Perhaps climate change would be on the list of many readers of this blog. One thing would almost certainly be absent from most lists, though: biodiversity loss.

How much does the loss of a few barely known species matter in the grand scheme of things? Not much, you might think – and perhaps you're right. Look out of the window and things seem to be going on pretty much as normal, don't they?

Most scientists would respond with a resounding no. Species are disappearing faster than usual – 30,000 a year according to E.O. Wilson's estimate back in 1993, a rate 100 to 1,000 times faster than the background extinction rate. This is tragic, but the statistics tend to obscure the important messages.

For example, the loss of some species has more far-reaching consequences than the loss of others. Harvesting "keystone species" – which have a disproportionately large effect on the environment relative to their abundance – can lead to the collapse of marine and rainforest ecosystems. And deforestation doesn't only ruin the lives of indigenous tribes but disrupts water cycles, leading to drought and crop failures thousands of miles away.

These are just two of hundreds of examples. We live in a globalised world, both economically and ecologically. Everyone understands the first part, but few realise the truth of the second.

The problem is this: conservationists are not making themselves heard. While climate change has become the topic du jour for environmentalists and greenwashing companies alike, the conservation community is looking increasingly out of touch. When they do make the headlines it is with yet more biodiversity bad news, such as the loss in 2007 of the baiji, the Yangtze River dolphin.

How can we address this imbalance, and, more importantly, what is the way forward for conservation?

This weekend, a group of scientists, activists, poets, journalists and economists are meeting to discuss and debate these questions. Some of them – such as Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London and author of Witness to Extinction, which chronicled his team's doomed efforts to save the baiji – think that scientists need to get better at learning from their past failures. For others such as Sea Shepherd, a buccaneering team of ship-sinking marine activists, direct action is the way forward.

What about the cute-and-fluffies, the flagship species? Is it time to give up on the panda and Siberian tiger in favour of a more pragmatic, economic-style approach? Or do aesthetic pleas for saving nature, such as those espoused by poet Ruth Padel, author of Tigers in Red Weather, still hold water? Maybe we should concentrate on the as-yet undiscovered species, as writer Caspar Henderson believes. Who knows how many life-saving Amazonian plants might be on the verge of extinction?

Perhaps the answer is an Intergovernmental Panel on Conservation, bringing all these disparate factions into a coherent whole. We're not sure. But we do know that we need your help. Whatever your background, we want to know what you think needs to be done. Join us as we head for The Open Ground on Saturday (and leave your comments below). The fate of the Earth's biodiversity isn't the sole preserve of scientists - it is in all of our hands.

The Open Ground, an event organised by Conservation Today will be held at Bash Studios, 65 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4PJ, near Old Street tube, on Saturday June 20 from 10am. The day will consist of talks, interactive panel debates, and a Royal Society of Arts exhibition. Tickets are £10 (£7 concessions) and lunch is included. Please go to www.conservationtoday.org for more information and to book your ticket.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Jun 2009 | 5:27 pm

Mekong River Dolphin Nearly Extinct

Freshwater dolphins in Cambodia and Laos are on the brink of extinction due to pollution.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 5:20 pm

UK 'must plan' for warmer future

Wetter winters, drier summers and warmer weather all year are climate changes the UK must prepare for, government says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2009 | 5:04 pm

Mars Lake Held as Much Water as Lake Champlain

Images from an orbiter offer proof of a deep, ancient lake on the Red Planet.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 4:40 pm

U.S. top court rejects right for criminals to DNA tests

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Convicted criminals do not have a constitutional right to obtain access to a state's biological evidence to conduct DNA testing when pursuing claims of innocence, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Jun 2009 | 4:05 pm

BLOG: Where to Gas Up on Alt Fuel

Alternative fueling stations may be closer than you think according to a new map.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 3:40 pm

Streetlights threaten survival of bats

Woodland bat species avoid bright lights and may go hungry or get picked off by falcons or hawks as a result

If you want bats to thrive, turn out your streetlights. Scientists have found that woodland bats will do anything to avoid lights when foraging at night, even if it means finding less food or being exposed to predators.

"If the bats come out in the daytime, they get picked off very easily – in those situations, their vision isn't good enough to pick up predators," said Gareth Jones of Bristol University. "So they've got hard-wired aversion to light and try to avoid it wherever possible. They only come out in the light if they're starving, if they have to. Indeed, predator avoidance is probably the main reason why bats are nocturnal."

To test the effect that streetlights have on bats, Bristol University graduate student Emma Stone placed lights that mimicked streetlamps along the commuting routes of woodland bats at eight different sites. These routes are used by the animals to fly between roosting and foraging sites. "As soon as the lights came on, there was a significant decrease in the number of bats using the routes," said Jones.

Being forced to take detours could mean that the bats end up in worse feeding grounds or having to fly longer to find what they need. The alternative routes taken by the bats could also provide less shelter, exposing the animals to greater risk of attack by falcons or hawks.

Previous research has shown that some species are, in fact, attracted to lights. "Especially white mercury vapour lamps that emit a lot of ultraviolet light that attracts insects, the bats come in and feed in the insects," said Jones. "But these are fast-flying bats that fly out in the open. The bats that feed in woodland seem to be light averse and these are the species that usually fly very slowly and are the ones most vulnerable to predation."

In their paper, published tomorrow in Current Biology, the researchers pointed out that light pollution was rarely considered in conservation plans, and street lighting is excluded from English and Welsh light pollution laws. "This study provides evidence that light pollution may force bats to use suboptimal flight routes and potentially causes isolation of preferred foraging sites, and therefore must be considered when developing conservation policy," they wrote.

Stone said compromises should be possible. "We really need to know what levels of lighting particular bat species can tolerate, and mitigate appropriately," she said. That could include directing light away from important flight routes or shielding the light in some way.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Jun 2009 | 3:11 pm

BLOG: Why the Presidential Fly Swat Impresses

Swatting a fly with your bare hand is no easy feat, scientists have determined.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm

Sun: Just Warming Up Now

A river of gas on the sun has finally made it to the zone where sunspots are born.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 2:45 pm

Editor quits after journal accepts bogus science article

Science journal fails to spot hoax despite heavy hints from authors

The editor-in-chief of an academic journal has resigned after his publication accepted a hoax article.

The Open Information Science Journal failed to spot that the incomprehensible computer-generated paper was a fake. This was despite heavy hints from its authors, who claimed they were from the Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology – which forms the acronym Crap.

The journal, which claims to subject every paper to the scrutiny of other academics, so-called "peer review", accepted the paper.

Philip Davis, a graduate student at Cornell University in New York, who was behind the hoax, said he wanted to test the editorial standards of the journal's publisher, Bentham Science Publishers.

Davis had received unsolicited emails from Bentham asking him to submit papers to some of its 200+ journals that cover a wide range of subject matter from neuroscience to engineering.

If their papers are accepted, academics pay a fee in return for Bentham publishing the papers online. They can then be viewed by other academics for free.

Davis, with the help of Kent Anderson, a member of the publishing team at the New England Journal of Medicine, created the hoax computer science paper. The pair submitted their paper, Deconstructing Access Points, under false names. Four months later, they were told it had been accepted and the fee to have it published was $800 (almost £500).

Davis then withdrew the paper and revealed it as a hoax. Bambang Parmanto has since stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Open Information Science Journal. Parmanto told New Scientist that he never saw the paper.

Mahmood Alam, Bentham's director of publications, told New Scientist: "In this particular case, we were aware that the article submitted was a hoax and we tried to find out the identity of the individual by pretending the article had been accepted for publication when in fact it was not." Davis told the magazine that he had not been directly contacted.

The hoax has triggered a debate about "open access" journals, some of which charge academics fees to publish their papers and allow readers access to research without subscription. Anderson said: "It's almost an inevitability that you might have several publishers tempted to take advantage of this relatively easy money."

Alex Williamson, a former publishing director of the British Medical Journal – partly open access and partly run on subscriptions – said: "There is a whole range in the quality of journals. Some that are open access are extremely good. There are a lot of awful ones, and these are probably more likely to be open access journals. Any idiot can start a journal on the web."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Jun 2009 | 2:17 pm

PETA Wishes Obama Hadn't Swatted That Fly

PETA wants Obama to be kinder to flies and is sending him a humane bug catcher.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 18 Jun 2009 | 1:25 pm