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Tumor Suppressor Gene In Flies May Provide Insights For Human Brain TumorsIn the fruit fly's developing brain, stem cells called neuroblasts normally divide to create one self-renewing neuroblast and one cell that has a different fate. But neuroblast growth can sometimes spin out of control and become a brain tumor. Researchers have found a tumor-suppressing protein in the fly's brain, with a counterpart in mammals, that can apparently prevent brain tumors from forming.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Many Floors In U.S. Homes Have 'Measurable' Levels Of PesticidesInsecticides used in and around homes -- including products voluntarily removed from the market years ago -- were measured on the floors of U.S. residences, according to the first study large enough to generate national data on pesticide residues in homes.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Alterations In Brain's White Matter Key To Schizophrenia, Study ShowsResearchers have used a novel form of brain imaging to discover that white matter in the brains of adolescents at-risk of developing schizophrenia does not develop at the same rate as healthy people. Further, the extent of these alterations can be used to predict how badly patients will, or will not, deteriorate functionally over time.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm New Method To Detect Quantum Mechanical Effects In Ordinary ObjectsPhysicists have developed a new tool that can be used to search for quantum effects in an ordinary object.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm 'Milking' Microscopic Algae Could Yield Massive Amounts Of OilScientists are proposing a surprising new solution to the global energy crisis —"milking" oil from the tiny, single-cell algae known as diatoms, renowned for their intricate, beautifully sculpted shells that resemble fine lacework.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Higher Drinking Age Linked To Less Binge Drinking -- Except In College StudentsNew research has found substantial reductions in binge drinking since the national drinking age was set at 21 two decades ago, with one exception: college students. The rates of binge drinking in male collegians remain unchanged, but the rates in female collegians have increased dramatically.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 6:00 pm Curb A Cancer's Deadliness? Potent Metastasis Inhibitor IdentifiedResearchers have isolated a potent metastasis inhibitor produced by tumor cells, one that could potentially be harnessed as a cancer treatment. The protein, prosaposin, reduced metastases by 80 percent in a mouse model and significantly prolonged survival, the researchers report. Currently, there are no approved therapies for inhibiting or treating metastases.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm How Aerosols Contribute To Climate ChangeWhat happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens on the way there is a different story. Scientists have analyzed the air blown by winds between San Diego and Las Vegas and now know what gives the road to Sin City a distinctive look.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Cancer Is Second Most Frequent Cause Of Death In Individuals With SchizophreniaPeople with schizophrenia die from cancer four times as often as people in the general population. The study's results suggest that extra efforts should be made to improve cancer prevention and early detection in patients with schizophrenia.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm 54-million-year-old Skull Reveals Early Evolution Of Primate BrainsResearchers have developed the first detailed images of a primitive primate brain, unexpectedly revealing that cousins of our earliest ancestors relied on smell more than sight.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm When cows attackWhy do these gentle giants suddenly charge?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 2:36 pm Whaling peace talks 'to continue'A compromise between pro- and anti-whaling groups has proved intractable at the International Whaling Commission meeting.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 2:31 pm Obama to push healthcare, energy reform (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 2:28 pm Kofi Annan urges rich nations to lead on climate (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:54 pm Live From the Moon: NASA Probe Beams Home New Lunar Views (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - A new NASA probe beamed down live images of the moon early Tuesday to reveal a stark surface littered with craters, as it flew toward a planned crash at the lunar south pole later this year.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:45 pm Iraq oil minister insists strategy is on track (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:43 pm First Moon Photo from Just-Arrived NASA ProbeA new NASA probe beamed down live images of the moon early Tuesday.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:41 pm Plasma Torch Disinfects TeethA tiny torch deploys cold plasma -- the material normally found in stars -- to clean teeth.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:38 pm Primitive Primate's Brain Builthave constructed a virtual model of an early primate brain using an ancient skull.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:34 pm Boy vs. WildA 9-year-old, lost in the forest, thinks to himself: What would Bear Grylls do?Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jun 2009 | 1:05 pm Neanderthals Made Mammoth JerkyNeanderthals wore tailored clothes and dried big game meat.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Jun 2009 | 12:38 pm Pitcher Plant Doubles as Toilet (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - When you gotta go you gotta go, and for small tropical mammals called tree shrews, a pitcher plant serves as a handy toilet, new video research finds.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 12:21 pm Gazprom is king of the hill in Russian region (AP)AP - Coming soon to the stunning snowcapped peaks of southern Siberia probably the world's highest billboard.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 12:16 pm Ancient Holy Land quarry uncovered, team saysJERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls.Source: Reuters: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 12:11 pm Pitcher Plant Doubles as ToiletA tropical pitcher plant feeds on an animal's feces.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jun 2009 | 12:06 pm NASA Returns to Moon With Unmanned Probe (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - A powerful robotic lunar scout, NASA's first in more than a decade, arrived at the moon early Tuesday on a mission to seek out potential landing sites and hidden water ice for future astronauts.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 12:01 pm Jump start for electric car trialMinisters launch electric and low carbon car trials across the UKSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 11:00 am Intact ancient tomb uncovered in Bethlehem (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 10:43 am Indonesian elephant fossil opens window to past (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 10:15 am The Nation's weather (AP)
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News: Science News | 23 Jun 2009 | 9:17 am Blue-blooded Barbary lions benefit from conservationists' stud bookA royal stud book created by conservationists could help return the majestic Barbary lion to the wild.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 9:04 am Whale-watching 'worth billions'The whale-watching industry generates far more income than whale hunting, according to a report.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 8:33 am Himalayan glacier studies commenceScientists have embarked on field studies of Himalayan glacial lakes, which are feared to be swelling dangerously as glaciers melt.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 8:06 am Amazon battleKey ruling on land ownership keenly awaitedSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 8:01 am Many conservation areas 'at risk'More than 700 conservation areas in England are at risk of neglect, decay or damaging changes, English Heritage says.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Jun 2009 | 5:06 am Is Nothing Safe Anymore?Raw cookie dough is like any other raw food: it may contain bacteria. Duh!Source: Livescience.com | 22 Jun 2009 | 11:18 pm More harm than good?Sales of vitamin supplements containing antioxidants are booming. But research suggests they don't always work - and may even increase the risk of disease. By Justine Davies 'Rich in antioxidants" is an advertiser's dream slogan. It ensures food and drinks are snapped up in the hope of preventing ageing, cancer or heart disease. Last year, 22 million of us took a supplement and 13% of supplements sold in the UK boasted on the label that they contained antioxidants. Antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C and E, are marketed as good for our health but what is the evidence? The antioxidant story started more than 40 years ago when scientists discovered that chemicals called Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) react with components of our cells causing damage, sometimes irreversible. This process is called oxidative stress. ROS refer to any chemical that damages the cell by causing this stress. The "damaging free radicals" you hear about are one kind. Unfortunately, ROS are not avoidable; they are chemicals continually produced within our cells that generate the energy we need to stay alive. So cells also contain a battery of defences to protect us against oxidative stress. Our cells run into trouble when these defences are overwhelmed, for example when we encounter large amounts of ROS; then oxidative stress is associated with heart disease, cancer and ageing. These insurmountable quantities of ROS may be from the environment, for example from cigarette smoke, or pollution, or they may be produced by our own bodies when we're sick. Recognition that ROS cause disease was the first step towards our fascination with antioxidants; the substances that mop up ROS. Barry Halliwell, a professor of biochemistry at Singapore University and a world expert in free radicals, says that when research started in the mid-1990s it showed "diets rich in plants were associated with lower risk of developing many age-related diseases and most people would have better health if they ate more fruits and vegetables". Plants contain large amounts of antioxidants to protect them against the ROS they produce during photosynthesis, so scientists concluded fruit and veg were beneficial for us because they contained antioxidants. After this, it was assumed that taking antioxidants in the form of vitamin pills would help prevent disease. "The assumption often was that free radicals cause diseases, and antioxidants will prevent and/or cure them," says Halliwell. The media then picked up the antioxidant baton, and marketing firms began promoting "anti-oxidant" vitamins and skin creams, and rebranding antioxidant-rich foods as "superfoods". Unfortunately, matters weren't that simple. Although studies had shown the link between eating fruit and veg and a lower risk of disease, randomised controlled trials - where one group given antioxidant vitamins were compared with a similar group given a placebo - were needed to prove antioxidants actually worked. These trials involved thousands of patients. Although a small number showed antioxidants can be beneficial in diseases such as macular degeneration, the findings on antioxidants and diseases such as cancer, heart disease and strokes have been shocking. A paper combining the results of all previous studies showed antioxidant vitamins were not beneficial, and some even made diseases worse. In particular, giving Beta-carotene supplements, which our bodies turn into vitamin A, to smokers probably increased the risk of lung cancer. But, despite the fact that antioxidant vitamin supplements are of no value or may even increase death rates, because the marketing industry is in full stride, the best evidence has passed unnoticed. Another twist is that new research shows small amounts of oxidative stress can actually protect our cells. Dr Toren Finkel, who studies ROS for the National Institute of Health in the US, says, "While ROS have for many years been viewed as purely destructive, the cell can also harness these molecules for useful purposes. These observations complicate the blanket use of antioxidants because, while inhibiting the destructive effects of ROS might be good, inhibiting the beneficial effects of free radicals might have unintended consequences." Professor Trey Ideker at the University of California, San Diego, has shown that ROS may trigger hormesis, where exposure to a small amount of a detrimental substance elicits protection against later doses. Ideker says it's rather like when a mild amount of sun every day gives you a healthy tan, which then helps you from getting burned later. In his experiment, exposure of yeast to a small amount of oxidative stress activated a gene that led to the cell stopping more free radicals entering. His next step is to identify similar pathways in human cells. This research may allow the development of drugs to prevent damaging amounts of ROS entering cells. However, he is cautious at this early stage: "If the pathway works along similar lines in humans and if it can be manipulated as in yeast, then one can imagine very useful therapeutic possibilities relating to cancer and ageing." So, if taking antioxidants doesn't work and a small amount of oxidative stress is good, does eating fruit and veg really work? "Despite decades of research, it is currently impossible to state what, if any, contribution is made to the health-promoting effects of fruits and vegetables by the antioxidants present," says Halliwell. Nevertheless, advice to eat vegetables is still sound; even if they are not combating oxidative stress, they still contain other essential vitamins and minerals, and are high in fibre as well as low in fat. And encouragingly, sales of fruit and veg are currently increasing faster than sales of vitamin supplements, which means that this message is at last getting through. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm The secret life of numbersHow do you spark off an interest in maths when the curriculum seems dreary? It's all about mystery, big stories and journeys to infinity and beyond, says Marcus du Sautoy My son is 13. In his English lessons, he spends time learning the grammar and vocabulary of the language - basic necessities for anyone leaving school. But he has also been exposed to some of the great works of literature that have been created using these building blocks. He has already read Richard III and George Eliot's Silas Marner. He probably didn't understand the intricate complexities and subtleties of these great works, but he was excited by the contact with such stimulating literature. In mathematics, he has also been learning the basic grammar and vocabulary of the world of numbers. Percentages, long division, some basic algebra and geometry. Techniques that are also regarded as core skills that every child should leave school with. But the curriculum has not exposed him yet to the creative possibilities of mastering these tools. And nor is the curriculum likely to, even as he advances through the school system. The teachers are required to teach a utilitarian and unadventurous curriculum that leaves them no room to explore the creative side of the subject. Indeed, most people are utterly surprised to discover that there is any creativity in mathematics. When I was 13, I hadn't caught the mathematical bug yet. I wasn't particularly interested in mathematical computations. But then my mathematics teacher took me aside after one lesson and recommended a few books that he thought might interest me. He conspiratorially intimated that the maths we were doing in the classroom wasn't really what maths was about. It was something much more exciting, creative, imaginative. Those books provided me with a key to the secret garden of mathematics. In that garden I discovered that mathematics also has great stories. Unsolved mysteries like the enigma of prime numbers. Magical mathematical machines that could help you see in four dimensions. Mathematicians who had journeyed to infinity and beyond, discovering that there are many sorts of infinity, some bigger than others. Like my son reading Shakespeare, I certainly didn't understand everything I read, but it inspired me to want to navigate this world, to put in the hard graft to master the language and grammar of maths so that I could read and one day create my own mathematical stories. One of the books my teacher recommended was GH Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology. At the time, I was very interested in music, I was learning the trumpet, hanging out with the arty crowd, doing plays and singing in choirs. Science hadn't really captured my imagination. But I also had a desire for things that made logical sense, for solving puzzles, for a rational perspective on the world. A Mathematician's Apology suddenly opened up a bridge between these two competing desires, these two cultures. As I read Hardy's book, there were sentences which revealed to me that mathematics shared a lot in common with the creative arts. It seemed to be compatible with things I loved doing: languages, music, literature. Here for example is Hardy writing about being a mathematician: "A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas." Later he writes: "The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." For Hardy, mathematics seemed to be a subject with a sense of aesthetics. His book contained two proofs. Like playing a delicate mathematical minuet, he explained the ancient Greeks' discovery that there are infinitely many primes. It was a revelation that one could prove with such a simple piece of logical reasoning that these indivisible numbers with no discernible pattern spiral off to infinity. That our finite minds could master the infinite was inspiring. Here was the power of analytical thinking to get you to new places, new discoveries, new knowledge. The other proof he explained was the discovery that the square root of 2 cannot be written as a fraction, another proof for which the ancient Greeks were responsible. It led to the creation of a whole new sort of number called irrational numbers. Mathematics is full of these extraordinary moments of creativity and discovery, breakthroughs that have had an impact on understanding the world we live in. The creation of a number whose square is -1 seems a moment of absurdity, but led to the maths that allows us to formulate quantum physics. Imagining new geometries that exist beyond our three-dimensional world and will never have a physical reality gave birth to the physics of relativity. Creating strange new symmetrical objects has inspired the invention of codes that are the basis of the telecommunications industry. But mathematics doesn't always need to be linked to a technological or scientific breakthrough to accentuate its potency. Discovering that there were many different sorts of infinity (in fact infinitely many) was an exciting moment in my own mathematical career, as it was for the first mathematicians who discovered it at the end of the 19th century. It doesn't need to have an application to be exciting. I'm a maths nerd. I love maths for its own sake. But for others the subject comes alive when they learn how mathematics is not an isolated subject, but runs seductively below the surface of many other subjects in the curriculum. I've never understood why education is so compartmentalised. My son looks at his timetable: maths first lesson, history second lesson, music before lunch. The curriculum gives no hint at how integrated all these subjects are. To look at the historical evolution of mathematical ideas provides an invaluable perspective on why the mathematics was created in the first place. The volume of a pyramid is a third the base times the height. Its discovery was first recorded in the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus. The Egyptians wanted to know how much stone would be needed to build the pyramids in Giza. A cosine is the adjacent divided by the hypotenuse. It was developed to allow ancient astronomers to measure distances in space without ever having to move from the comfort of their observatories. In music, there are so many interesting mathematical themes and variations that can be investigated: Ghanaian and Indian rhythms exploit the indivisibility of the primes; the tension between fractions and irrational numbers like the square root of 2 is the key to problems of musical harmony; and modern music by Schoenberg and Messiaen is a musical expression of the mathematics of symmetry. In art, the mathematics of symmetry is fundamental to understanding the beautiful designs of the Moorish artists in the Alhambra. Baroque art and science are both attempting to understand how to capture things in motion: one with paint, the other with calculus. Just like Riemann before them, the cubist painters are trying to see beyond our three-dimensional world into hyperspace. The architecture that adorns our modern skylines is the physical embodiment of many different themes from the mathematical palette. In English and theatre, I've done workshops with maths and theatre teachers exploring ideas of infinity as part of my collaboration with the theatre company Complicité. The condition to join the workshop was that a theatre teacher had to bring a maths teacher with them. They went away wondering why they'd never talked to each other in the common room before. As Stoppard and Frayn discovered, mathematics is full of wonderful ideas to explore theatrically. Even Shakespeare's poetry is full of interesting mathematical structures. Mathematics could come alive for so many more people if it wasn't kept behind walls. I am not an educationalist. I am a mathematician. But I know what turned me on to the subject. It was being shown what mathematics is really about. It was being exposed to the big stories, the Shakespeare of mathematics that inspired me. Why are more children not given the key to this secret garden? Why can't we include the Shakespeare of maths in the curriculum? I admit it's not for everyone, just as Shakespeare doesn't work for every child. English has two GSCEs: literature and language. There is talk of having two GCSEs in maths. Why not dedicate the second GSCE to studying the great stories of maths? We are not frightened to throw Richard III at 13-year-olds. Let's be more brave and throw Riemann at them, too. • Marcus du Sautoy is professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science. He is author of The Music of the Primes and Finding Moonshine (both HarperPerennial) 5 puzzles for pupils1 What's the next number in this sequence: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13... 2 What are the chances that two people in the class have the same birthday? 3 Is there more than one infinity? 4 Primes go on for ever, but what's the biggest prime so far discovered? 5 A one-dimensional line has two ends. A 2D square has 4 corners. A 3D cube has 8 corners. How many corners do you think a 4D cube has? The Answers:1 21. Each number is got by adding the two previous numbers together. These numbers are the key to mating rabbits, musical rhythms, growing shells and Le Corbusier's buildings. Over to youIs your school doing exciting creative things? We want to hear about it. Education Guardian's Creative Summer project aims to show what schools are doing to brighten the curriculum. Send your pictures, poems, videos and ideas to us at creativity intheclassroom@guardian.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you. See some of the results on EducationGuardian.co.uk guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Jun 2009 | 11:01 pm Huge Dinosaur Tooth Found in SpainAn allosaurid tooth as long as a tall man's finger has been found in Spain, making it the largest tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur ever found there.Source: Livescience.com | 22 Jun 2009 | 10:13 pm Scrappy Post-Apollo Lunar Science Sets Stage for New Missions
When a NASA spacecraft returns to lunar orbit Tuesday morning for the first time in a decade, the space agency will be building on 40 years of largely unheralded, but fundamentally important discoveries wrung out of shoestring-budget missions. Scientists in the post-Apollo era have been quietly revealing the secrets of our satellite and laying the groundwork for a new wave of moon missions. Their efforts have turned up tantalizing evidence that water ice exists on the moon, which would make the long-held dream of sending manned missions to other planets just a little bit easier. Race Back to the Moon The new race to the moon is no two-horse race. India’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, sent a Moon Impact Probe down into the south pole, much like LRO/LCROSS. Results from the mission are expected by the end of the year. The Chinese space program also has its sights set on the moon with its multi-part Chang’e mission. It will culminate in 2012 with an actual moon landing. The Japanese Kaguya lunar probe impacted in a crater earlier this month. The European space authorities have a craft in lunar orbit, too. The NASA mission is only the third American trip to the moon since those famed Apollo missions of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Early Tuesday morning, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will be live-streaming a flyby as it swings into orbit around the moon, where it will await instructions to plunge into a dark crater on the moon’s surface. That will throw up a plume of debris that LCROSS’ counterpart, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, will fly through, allowing it to determine whether water ice exists below the surface of the moon. If water ice is indeed confirmed, it would be a major victory for post-Apollo lunar science, which has suffered from a lack of public interest since the end of manned missions. “In general, the exploration of the moon has been driven by the manned program,” said Steven Dick, NASA chief historian. “Before the Apollo program, you had the Ranger, the Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter missions, the unmanned missions. Those were all driven so that people could land there.” Now, as NASA builds the capability to go back to the moon, unmanned missions like LCROSS are again making their way to our satellite. As they generate a new wave of interest, the importance of the missions between Apollo and the new wave could increase.
Immediately in the wake of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the other shoe dropped on the program’s funding. With the United States mired in Vietnam and burdened by a list of other expenditures, Dick said that the will to put money into lunar exploration fell away. Americans set their sights on domestic issues close to home as well as on farther-flung targets in space. “The general consensus was ‘We beat the Russians, and that’s what we set out to do,’” he said. The U.S. spent an estimated $25 billion in 1969 money on the Apollo program. That would be at least $115 billion in 2008 money and as much as $362 billion, depending on the method of calculation. (NASA’s 2009 budget came in at $18.1 billion.) The last three Apollo missions were canceled and for 22 years, no spacecraft visited the moon. Why bother? It was lifeless. It seemed impossible that water could survive. We could do a lot of lunar observations from Earth. Really, it became one of the least interesting objects in the solar system, despite its proximity.
Bouncing radio waves to the bottom of permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s south pole, astronomers back on Earth detected reflections that didn’t look as if they’d hit silicate rock. The waves that the Deep Space Network antenna on Earth picked up looked as if they’d hit water ice. This wasn’t entirely shocking, but it was exciting. It had been suggested as far back as 1961 that water ice might exist on the moon in areas that are never exposed to sunlight. Water left over from the moon’s infancy or deposited there by meteorites or comets could have just stuck around in the craters at temperatures that never rise above minus-280 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, there was some experimental evidence to suggest that there was water ice on the moon. Though more recent observations called the original finding into question, the little mission sparked renewed interest in the moon. NASA worked up its first lunar mission in a quarter century, the Lunar Prospector, to investigate the possibility of ice, among other lunar mysteries. The Prospector’s neutron flux data returned evidence of large amounts of hydrogen, “probably” in the form “abundant water ice.” To confirm the observation, at the end of the Prospector’s useful life, the team attempted to crash the craft into a crater and send up a plume of debris with some water ice in it. Unfortunately, no water ice was detected in the plume, but there were a variety of reasons that could have happened. The high-risk experiment didn’t rule out the presence of ice on the moon. And there the science sat until President Bush started to ramp up manned solar system exploration through the Constellation Program. As with the Apollo program, robotic missions are preceding the possible return of humans to the moon in the Constellation program. “The idea now is to go back with the unmanned missions as reconnaissance to go back to the moon with manned missions,” Dick said. Humans would need water to explore the solar system, so the possible ice on the moon suddenly became a whole lot more interesting. Come Oct. 9, when LCROSS plows into the moon more than 40 years after the Apollo program began, we could finally know for sure whether there’s ice hiding in a deep, dark crater. “This mission is the culmination of a dedicated team that had a great idea,” said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames Research Center in a release. “And now we’ll engage people around the world in looking at the moon and thinking about our next steps there.” See Also:
Image: 1. NASA 2. NASA/DOD 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 | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:42 pm Human role in big kangaroo demiseA study of giant kangaroo fossils adds weight to the theory that hunters caused the extinction of Australia's "megafauna".Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:25 pm SLIDE SHOW: Great White Sharks AttackGreat white sharks hunt like serial killers, research shows. Watch them in action.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:08 pm The Most Lifeless Place in the Ocean FoundScientists have discovered what may be the least inhabited place on Earth.Source: Livescience.com | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm Oldest Elephant Relative FoundRemains of an ancient elephant relative trace the animals further back in time.Source: Livescience.com | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm Canadian scientists breeding cows that burp lessTORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian scientists are breeding a special type of cow designed to burp less, a breakthrough that could reduce a big source of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Jun 2009 | 8:38 pm What It Sounds Like to Be a Whale
When the International Whaling Commission meets this week to discuss the future of whale hunting, aquatic noise pollution will be low on the agenda, if it’s discussed at all. But noise from humanity’s ships may pose as great a threat to the magnificent creatures as any hunting fleet’s harpoons. Whales evolved in an environment where visibility is limited but sound practically unimpeded. They rely on hearing to find food, navigate, and communicate, calling to each other with elaborate vocalizations that can be heard for hundreds of miles, even, in the case of species like the blue whale’s low sonic frequencies, across an entire ocean. Hearing is as important to whales as sight is to humans, if not more. In the last decade, scientists have realized that noise generated by ships often drowns the natural sounds of the sea. Some types of sonar, especially those used by military vessels, can be heard for hundreds of miles. Together with engine noise, these produce an aquatic roar heard across Earth’s oceans, often at levels that humans associate with airports and rock concerts. To get a first-person sense of what it’s like to be a whale, plug some headphones into your computer, close your eyes, and listen to this humpback whale song. It was recorded in a noise pollution-free environment. Then listen to this song, recorded in the waters off New York Harbor. The effects of oceanic noise pollution are still being quantified. Awareness of the phenomenon is relatively new, and studying whale behavior is difficult. But loud noises have been linked to mass beachings and the departure of some species from traditional habitats. That may be just the beginning, especially when it comes to the effects of noise on whale communication and culture. “We know very little about the effects of noise pollution, though the more we learn, the scarier it is,” said Hal Whitehead, a Dalhousie University biologist and one of the world’s foremost experts in whale vocalization. “And we know little about whale talk, though the more we learn, the more interesting it is.” See Also:
Image: NOAA Audio: Natural Resources Defense Council Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 22 Jun 2009 | 7:49 pm Iraq urges scientists to come homeBAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq appealed on Monday for scientists living abroad to return home and use their expertise to help rebuild their homeland's economy after years of war.Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Jun 2009 | 7:29 pm Beijing Olympics' Air Pollution: Worse Than L.A.Air pollution at the Beijing Olympics last summer was bad on several counts, and the Chinese hid the extent of it, new research suggests.Source: Livescience.com | 22 Jun 2009 | 6:59 pm SLIDE SHOW: Extreme Space ToolsFor space construction, engineers must build tools that hold up under extremes.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 22 Jun 2009 | 6:38 pm Brain Sees Tools as Extensions of BodyAfter using a mechanical grabber that extended their reach, people behaved as though their arm really was longer.Source: Livescience.com | 22 Jun 2009 | 6:10 pm Science can bridge national dividesAs the Obama administration uses the tools of soft diplomacy to repair America's tarnished image around the world, science could prove one of the most effective What do you get when you put representatives from Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey around one table? Answer: the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, and the only forum in the region where scientists from countries in conflict can come together. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an experienced diplomat) to work out that this is no mean feat. And it won't do half bad science either. According to project president Christopher Llewellyn-Smith, "This is not the best facility in the world ... but with the right idea you could get a Nobel prize with it." And it's not bad for international relations either. Small wonder that science diplomacy – admittedly a fluid concept still searching for a precise definition – has caught the attention of the Obama administration as it kits itself out with the tools of soft diplomacy to repair America's tarnished image in the Middle East and elsewhere. A number of key US advisers including Hillary Clinton's science adviser Nina Fedoroff and Harold Varmus, the co-chair of Barack Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, are known to be strong advocates. Varmus extolled the value of science in diplomacy in a recent interview for The Times, arguing that, "one very healthy way to build relationships up when they have deteriorated is to get the scientists together … we're used to internationalism, it's part of the way we live." President Obama himself gave a nod in the direction of science diplomacy in his Cairo speech to the Muslim world earlier this month. We must, "listen to each other... learn from each other ... seek common ground," he said – before announcing a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries to help transfer ideas to the marketplace and create jobs. With this new focus, however, come warnings about the dangers of mixing science (put over-simply, the search for truth and answers to problems) and diplomacy (the art of "letting someone have your way"). And of course if scientists were simply to become pawns in an inter-state power play then the whole thing collapses. Scientists should and do have more self-respect and dedication to their field of inquiry than that. Science diplomacy works when there is shared interest and that shared interest is scientific progress – not leveraging state power through the proxy of science. Science diplomacy need not be a zero-sum game in which what is good for one nation state is necessarily bad for another. The imperatives of globalisation have brought into sharp focus the need for countries to collaborate on a multitude of issues. Granted, the stimulus for collaboration remains the selfish national interest, but increasingly what is good for the one is good for the many. Efforts to combat trans-border health threats such as Sars and swine flu are cases in point. Science diplomacy in the modern world should be seen as a tool for good used by states where national interests intersect with the goals of others. Seeing it any other way risks obscuring the very real benefits it can bring for science and for the global community – namely the establishment of non-threatening, collaborative environments in which to build bridges between individuals from different states where shared scientific goals overshadow pre-existing conflicts. The Synchrotron project in Jordan is a perfect example. Scientists can clearly benefit from science diplomacy. More money, more heads, more research, more results. Approached honestly – with an understanding that science diplomacy necessarily needs national self-interest to be self-sustaining – it has a lot to offer. For governments, it is admittedly more difficult to measure the benefits in any rigorous scientific way. But it is hard to see how any government that offered tangible health improvement, for example, to a nation with whom it wished to develop stronger diplomatic links would not gain a deeper relationship with its people. No wonder Obama is keen to use science to prise open the doors of countries that are minded to slam them shut in his face. America's reputation may be in the pits, but that of its scientists is not. So science diplomacy has enormous potential as a political framework for delivering the dual goals of improving the scientific outcomes of a target population (in essence for good) and improving relations between countries (rather than efforts to take power). It will not by itself help negotiate peace treaties, draw up boundaries between warring states or solve disputes over scarce global resources. Nor should it try. But delivered thoughtfully and rigorously, science diplomacy can open doors between peoples in conflict, keep them open when relationships are tough, and help unlock the potential of our global, collective body of knowledge. David Kerr is professor of cancer therapeutics at Oxford University and research director at the Sidra Medical and Research Centre guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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