No Evidence That WHO-recommended Treatment For Insecticide Poisoning Improves Survival

A new study finds no evidence to suggest that a controversial antidote recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to treat patients poisoned with highly toxic insecticides improves their chance of survival. The results may even add weight to existing concerns about pralidoxime, the treatment recommended by the WHO, by suggesting that it could be harmful in patients who have deliberately poisoned themselves with insecticides.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2009 | 3:00 am

Researchers Unveil Whiskered Robot Rat

Scientists have developed an innovative robot rat which can seek out and identify objects using its whiskers. The SCRATCHbot robot will be demonstrated at an international workshop looking at how robots can help us examine the workings of the brain.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2009 | 3:00 am

Does Study Design Influence Clinical Outcome?

Response and remission rates to antidepressants are significantly affected by study type and duration. Clinicians and researchers must consider the study design when interpreting and designing RCTs of antidepressant medications, researchers urge.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2009 | 3:00 am

Castor-oil Plants Genetically Altered To Produce New Bio-lubricants

Researchers have genetically altered castor-oil plant so as to use it as a factory to produce bio lubricants.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2009 | 3:00 am

First Wave Of Swine Flu Hit Young People Harder Than Expected

A mathematical epidemiologist is researching the A(H1N1) influenza pandemic strain circulating around the world. The new study's findings reveal an age shift in the proportion of cases toward a younger population when compared with historical patterns of seasonal influenza in Mexico. "For the 1918 ("Spanish flu") influenza pandemic, this was the pattern -- first a mild wave, and then a severe one with higher case fatality rates," notes one of the researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2009 | 3:00 am

Clocking Salt Levels In The Blood: Link Between The Circadian Rhythm And Salt Balance

New research suggests a link between the circadian rhythm and control of sodium (salt) levels in the blood of mice. Specifically, the circadian clock protein Period 1 was found to function downstream of the hormone aldosterone (a known controller of blood sodium levels and thereby blood pressure) to regulate levels of the alpha-subunit of the epithelial sodium channel in the mouse kidney.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Jul 2009 | 3:00 am

World's First 'Self-Watering' Plant: Desert Rhubarb

Researchers have managed to make out the "self-irrigating" mechanism of the desert rhubarb, which enables it to harvest 16 times the amount of water than otherwise expected for a plant in this region based on the quantities of rain in the desert. This is the first example of a self-irrigating plant worldwide.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm

A Young Brain For An Old Bee

Scientists have found that by switching the social role of honey bees, aging honey bees can keep their learning ability intact or even improve it. The research team is hoping to use them as a model to study general aging processes in the brain and how to prevent or ameliorate cognitive impairments associated with old age.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm

Secrets Revealed About How Disease-causing DNA Mutations Occur

Scientists have shed light on the processes that lead to certain human DNA mutations that are implicated in hundreds of inherited diseases. The results one day could influence the way couples who seek to have children receive genetic counseling.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm

Accelerated Fertility Treatment Leads To Shortened Time To Pregnancy And Cost Savings

For couples beginning infertility treatments, an accelerated path to in-vitro fertilization can offer a shorter time to pregnancy, cost savings of nearly $10,000, and a lowered risk of multiple births.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm

First Asian elephant born in Australian zoo (AP)

AP - A 265-pound (120-kilogram), big-eared and long-nosed bundle of joy was welcomed in Australia as an important step in helping to save the endangered Asian elephant.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 11:22 am

California water plan aims to save Puget Sound orcas (McClatchy Newspapers)

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — A plan to restore salmon runs on California's Sacramento River also could help revive killer whale populations 700 miles to the north in Puget Sound, as federal scientists struggle to protect endangered species in a complex ecosystem that stretches along the Pacific coast from California to Alaska.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 10:00 am

SKorea firm buys into Canada uranium producer: report (AFP)

AFP - South Korea's state-run power company has bought a 17-percent stake in a Canadian uranium producer, securing a stable source of fuel for its nuclear power plants, a report said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 8:03 am

Vietnam northern floods kill 15, dozen missing (Reuters)

Reuters - Heavy rains triggering floods and landslides in mountainous northern regions of Vietnam have killed at least 15 people, destroyed houses and damaged roads, the government and state-run radio said on Sunday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 7:01 am

Iconic skyscrapers find new luster by going green (AP)

AP - When owners of the Empire State Building decided to blanket its towering facade this year with thousands of insulating windows, they were only partly interested in saving energy. They also needed tenants.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jul 2009 | 4:55 am

Hope for blindness cure with laser breakthrough

Pulses of light clean key membrane to prevent the onset of macular degeneration

Millions of people could have their eyesight saved thanks to ground-breaking laser treatment that has the potential to eradicate the most common cause of blindness.

One of Britain's leading eye experts has developed a technique to reverse the disabling effects of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which leaves many older people unable to read, drive or live independently, and eventually robs them of sight in one or both eyes.

Professor John Marshall has developed a way of "cleaning" eyes which, due to the ageing process, have accumulated tiny particles of debris which start to cloud their sight. His pioneering technique uses a painless "short pulse" laser to solve the otherwise intractable problem of how to help the eye's waste disposal system do its job after it has been weakened by age.

Marshall, a senior ophthalmologist at King's College London, said he hopes this "retinal regeneration therapy" could prevent and reverse the onset of AMD.

The technique works by rejuvenating a thin membrane behind the retina, called Bruch's membrane. Over time this membrane becomes so "clogged" with the by-product of cell renewal that vital nutrients can no longer cross from the bloodstream into the retina and excess material becomes trapped, unable to pass in the other direction. This leads to the death of retinal cells and, in time, to AMD and eventual blindness.

Marshall's technique promises to prevent and even reverse the process, allowing the eye to return to something like its youthful, uncluttered state. In a clinical trial involving more than 100 diabetics, Marshall found that focusing a laser beam on one part of the retina helps stimulate the release of enzymes, which then set about cleaning up the waste material. Participants reported this led to a marked improvement in their sight.

Marshall now plans to conduct a wider trial among those suffering the early stages of AMD. In most cases the "clogging" begins when people reach their mid-40s, but does not always lead to significant sight loss. Some are more at risk, because of a number of factors in addition to their age. These include genetics - such as a family history of AMD. Women are more likely to suffer, and environmental factors can play a part, with smokers at greater risk.

AMD is the leading cause of blindness in those aged over 60 in the western world. Initially it causes blurred or distorted central vision, but worsens over time leaving sufferers unable to do everyday tasks. About a quarter of all over-60s in the UK suffer some loss of vision as a result of the condition.

Eye specialists say Marshall's discovery could mark a breakthrough in tackling the condition. There is currently no effective treatment for "dry" AMD - the less serious form of the disease. The drugs Lucentis and Avastin are used to treat the more disabling and aggressive "wet" version, but these usually do little more than stabilise the condition. Marshall's use of laser technology to restore an ailing eye could therefore open up a whole new method of treatment.

Conventional lasers have been used previously, but they have damaged the eye's light-sensitive cells in the process. Marshall said: "The laser I've used is a totally new soft-pulse laser which doesn't cause any damage to any of the nearby tissues, unlike conventional lasers. All it does is stimulate the required chemical reaction. And it treats both 'dry' AMD and the effects of ageing."

Marshall's next clinical trial of the technique will be with patients who are already being treated for AMD in one eye. He hopes that it will prove that treating the patient's other eye will delay the onset of AMD by up to seven years.

If further trials are successful, it could open many possibilities. "In the short term it could benefit anybody with a family history or with diagnostic signs that they are at high risk of AMD," Marshall said. "In the longer term it could be that we all decide to have our retinas cleaned so that we don't develop these problems later in life."

Eyesight specialists say Marshall's research could be of huge importance. Tom Pey of Guide Dogs for the Blind, which funded the work, said: "This is potentially a huge breakthrough for millions of people across the world."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jul 2009 | 11:01 pm

One thing is sure, it was a man's step

Where the Eagle dared

The Moon landings bear remarkable testimony not so much to "human" or "American" achievement but to the achievements of western, that is, European, civilisation, the culmination of more than 2,500 years of cultural, scientific and technological developments (not forgetting the contributions of Babylonian, Islamic, Hindu, Chinese and other civilisations) ("Apollo ... the dream that fell to Earth", 21 June).

They also provide evidence of European man's continuing drive for power and advantage over others, and his ability to rationalise and deceive himself into believing that his motivations are noble.

The actual motivations for putting men on the Moon were contemptible (a Darwinian demonstration of power), but then so too were the motivations for commissioning much of our greatest works of art. If only we were to recognise ourselves for the apes that we still are, we might yet save ourselves from self-destruction.
Roger Hicks
Ilford

Robin McKie calculates the cost of the Apollo programme at "about $1 trillion in today's money". All spent on reaching a lifeless environment incapable of supporting life. One wonders how far $1tn would go in averting climate change catastrophe on Earth by replacing fossil fuel with renewable sources of energy such as wind and sunshine.
Chris Opie
Melbourne, Australia

To add some perspective, whilst the Apollo programme may have cost $24bn in 1960s money, the Vietnam war cost $111bn.
Chris Gooch
London

Robin McKie's excellent overview of the Apollo project is a striking story of brave men, technology, money and cold war competitive folly. But the other hidden histories behind the Apollo era involve the women, all great pilots, who were trained by NASA but then ditched in an act of blatant sexism. These women, the Mercury 13, were all selected by NASA at end of the 1950s to be trained for the space programme. Jerri Truhill was the leading light, a glamorous, tough-talking Texan, wife and mother and a superb aviator (she flew perilous reconnaissance missions over Cuba during the 1960s missile crisis).

In Ulrike Kubatta's documentary She Should Have Gone to the Moon, Truhill tells how the women outperformed men in all the training tests (including water tank isolation) but how ultimately, the authorities, with the approval of President Johnson, stipulated that they would "rather send monkeys into space than a woman".
Mark Lonsdale
Producer, She Should Have Gone to the Moon
London SW9

Architecture's young guns

In the context of HRH vs Rogers ("The young generation with new vision to build Britain", 21 June), you might as well read Sergison Bates, Caruso St John, Fretton and a host of others for FAT and Muf, as they all came to prominence at about the same time and are all besotted with different takes on the 'contextualism' agenda.

In this post-post modern age of global warming, with the failures of the 60s and 70s behind us, it is all too easy for those simply lucky enough to be born sometime after 1960 to make fun of their artistic and professional forebears. Let's see how besotted they are with contextualism if they ever get an opportunity to do a big project.

The avant garde are always doomed to become the orthodoxy. The first is spring, the second is winter, and the media play a major part in changing the seasons. The young guns, always desperate to be noticed, are willing accomplices in the game.
Michael Badu
Croydon

review@observer.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jul 2009 | 11:01 pm

Striking opposites

Bangladeshis grapple with their contradictions
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jul 2009 | 9:20 pm

Bugs: The Forgotten Victims of Climate Change (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. If it were up to Jessica Hellmann, insects such as butterflies and beetles would wield just as much conservation clout as traditional conservation icons, such as polar bears, tigers and dolphins.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jul 2009 | 1:35 pm

Thai zoo's 1st baby panda goes on display (AP)

AP - Thousands of excited visitors flocked Saturday to a zoo in northern Thailand for the first public viewing of a baby panda, which has been featured on Thai front pages almost every day since her birth six weeks ago.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jul 2009 | 10:57 am