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Touch Typists Could Help Stop Spammers In Their TracksComputer scientists have turned a tedious manual labeling task into an online multi-player game which can help businesses tackle spammers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Timing Is Everything: Growth Factor Keeps Brain Development On TrackJust like a conductor cueing musicians in an orchestra, Fgf10, a member of the fibroblast growth factor (Ffg) family of morphogens, lets brain stem cells know that the moment to get to work has arrived, ensuring that they hit their first developmental milestone on time.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Brain Response To Information About The Future Suggests That Ignorance Isn't BlissNew research demonstrates that single neurons in the reward center of the brain process not only primitive rewards but also more abstract, cognitive rewards related to the quest for information about the future. The study enhances our understanding of learning and suggests that current theories of reward should be revised to include the effect of information seeking.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Reintroduced Chinese Alligators Now Multiplying In The Wild In ChinaThe Wildlife Conservation Society has announced that critically endangered alligators in China have a new chance for survival. The reintroduced alligators are now multiplying on their own.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Large Epidemiologic Study Supports Brain Power Of Fish In Older PeopleA new study concludes that increased fish consumption is related to lower rates of dementia in elderly living in low- to middle-income countries.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm First Look At The Apollo Landing SitesThe imaging system on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter recently had its first of many opportunities to photograph five of the six Apollo landing sites, just days before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Scientists Locate Disease SwitchesA team of scientists has identified no less than 3,600 molecular switches in the human body. These switches, which regulate protein functions, may prove to be a crucial factor in human aging and the onset and treatment of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Asian Spice Could Reduce Breast Cancer Risk In Women Exposed To Hormone Replacement TherapyPrevious studies have found that post-menopausal women who have taken a combined estrogen and progestin hormone replacement therapy have increased their risk of developing progestin-accelerated breast tumors. Now researchers have found that curcumin, a popular Indian spice derived from the turmeric root, could reduce the cancer risk for women after exposure to hormone replacement therapy.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Targeting Specific Proteins To Halt Advanced Metastatic Breast CancerTwo specific matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) proteins have been found to contribute to bone metastasis in advanced breast cancer -- lending important new insight into the design of clinically useful small molecule inhibitors.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Apollo 11 Moon Rocks Still Crucial 40 Years Later, Say ResearchersA lunar geochemist says that there are still many answers to be gleaned from the moon rocks collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts on their historic moonwalk 40 years ago July 20.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Space: Is the final frontier all it used to be? (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 2:46 pm Spacewalk Day: Astronauts set for first outing (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 2:37 pm Clinton meets Mumbai victims, serenaded by artisans (Reuters)Reuters - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met survivors of the Mumbai attacks, talked climate change with Indian industrialists and was serenaded by village women as she visited India's financial capital on Saturday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 2:23 pm Invasive mussels imperil western water system (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 2:18 pm World's Oldest Man DiesHenry Allingham, a WWI vet, held the title for just a few weeks, gaining it last month when Tomoji Tanabe died.Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jul 2009 | 1:53 pm Tough Microbe Has The Right Stuff for Mars (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Biologists have found microbes that live in the hottest, coldest, driest and most unpleasant places on Earth. Many of these bugs don't adapt well to new surroundings, but one microbe is remarkable for withstanding a wide range of conditions. This quality might make this unique organism suitable for adapting to life on Mars. This ultimate survivor is called Methanosarcina barkeri. It is found in freshwater and marine sediments, and other places where oxygen is scarce. ...Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 1:41 pm Tough Microbe Has The Right Stuff for MarsResearchers study a lowly creature that could be a model for Mars life.Source: Livescience.com | 18 Jul 2009 | 1:18 pm Astronauts prepare for first spacewalk of mission (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 12:28 pm Shuttle Astronauts Gear Up for First Spacewalk (SPACE.com)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 11:45 am The Nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 9:13 am Brazil demands return of UK wasteBrazilian officials demand that more than 1,400 tonnes of hazardous UK waste found in three ports be returned.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jul 2009 | 8:45 am Apollo astronauts relive experiences at ceremony (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 4:45 am Five Hypertension Genes Found in Black Americans (HealthDay)HealthDay - FRIDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) -- Federal researchers have identified five genetic variants associated with high blood pressure in black Americans that could hopefully become targets for therapy to prevent and treat this major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jul 2009 | 3:49 am Shuttle crew welcomed aboard ISSThe US shuttle Endeavour docks at the space station, uniting the largest number of astronauts ever assembled in orbit.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jul 2009 | 2:32 am Home Office research so feeble someone ought to be locked upWe'd all like to help the police do their job well. They, in turn, would like to have a massive database with DNA profiles from everyone who has been arrested, but not convicted of a crime. We worry that this is intrusive, but some of us are willing to make concessions on our principles and the invasion into our privacy in the name of preventing crimes. To do this, we'd like to know the evidence on whether this database is helpful, to help us make an informed decision. Luckily, the Home Office has now published a consultation paper on the subject. They defend their database by arguing that innocent people who have been arrested are as likely to commit crimes in the future as guilty people. "This," they say, "is obviously a controversial assertion." That's not true: it's a simple matter of fact, and you could easily assemble some good quality evidence to see if it's true or not. The Home Office has assembled some evidence. It is not good quality. In fact, this study from the Jill Dando Institute, attached to their consultation paper as an appendix, is possibly the most unclear and poorly presented piece of research I have ever seen in a professional environment. Or am I having a bad day? Join me in my struggle to understand their work. They want to show that the level of criminal activity in a group of people who have been arrested, but on whom no further action has been taken, is the same as the level of criminal activity in people who have been arrested and convicted of a crime, or who accept a caution. On page 30 they explain their methods haphazardly. They describe some people sampled on 1 June 2004, 1 June 2005 and 1 June 2006. These dates are never mentioned again. They then leap to talking about Table 2. This contains data on people each from a sample in 1996, 1995, and 1994, followed up for 30 months, 42 months, and 54 months respectively. Are these anything to do with the people from 2004, 2005, and 2006? I have no idea. In fact, I have no idea what "sample" means. Crucially, I also don't know what the numbers in the table mean, because they don't explain this properly. I think it is the number of people, from the original group, who have subsequently been arrested again. Anyway. Then they start to discuss the results from this table. They say that these figures show that arrested non-convicted people are the same as convicted people. There are no statistics conducted on these figures, so there is absolutely no indication of how wide the error margins are, and whether these are chance findings. At a few hundred people, this study seems pretty small for one that is supposed to give compelling evidence that there is no difference between two groups – to prove a negative like this, you'd generally want a large sample. This research was incomprehensible and unreadable. Anybody who claims to have been persuaded by the data quoted here is telling you, loudly and clearly in the subtitles, that they don't need to understand a piece of research in order to find it compelling. If research of this calibre is what guides our policy on huge intrusions into the personal privacy of millions of innocent people, then they might as well be channelling spirits. 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 | 17 Jul 2009 | 11:05 pm Space station crew swells to 13 with shuttle teamCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Shuttle Endeavour astronauts floated aboard the International Space Station on Friday, swelling its crew to a record 13 and marking the start of an ambitious 11-day construction mission.Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Jul 2009 | 9:15 pm Endeavour Arrives at Space StationSpace shuttle Endeavour reaches its destination: the International Space Station.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jul 2009 | 9:10 pm Your Apollo Anniversary Experience
You can’t say NASA hasn’t capitalized on the Apollo 11 anniversary. The agency has literally gone hog wild with all the ways you can celebrate the moon landing, which happened 40 years ago on July 20. Here are some of the best multimedia experiences NASA has to offer. Audio time capsule: NASA is playing the entire Apollo 11 mission audio in real time + 40 years. It started on July 16, two hours and 40 years before the mission launched and will end July 24 with the splashdown of the astronauts’ capsule. New photos of moon landing sites: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the moon just in time to send us some very cool shots of the Apollo mission’s landing sites, complete with astronaut footprints. Restored historical video footage of the landing: Having taped over the original high-res tapes of the landing, NASA is going to great lengths to restore the television broadcast footage. They’ve released clips of some of the key moments in the mission. Audio that Earth didn’t hear during the mission: The on-board recordings from the mission are often garbled and out of chronological order, but exciting nonetheless. Apollo 11 astronauts share their thoughts: The crew will speak at a sold-out event at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. For those without a ticket, watch it live on NASA TV at 8 p.m. EDT on July 19. Astronaut news conference: The Apollo 11 crew will again be on hand for a press conference at 9:30-10:30 EDT from NASA headquarters, which will also stream live on NASA TV. NASA’s more complete list of Apollo anniversary activities includes local events as well.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jul 2009 | 9:01 pm Greenland Ice CoresTiny bubbles inside ice core samples contain samples of the atmosphere trapped inside when the ice was first formed.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jul 2009 | 8:49 pm 5 Myths About the Male BodyFrom rumors about feet size to sex life, here are five assumptions about men\'s bodies that are totally false.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jul 2009 | 8:31 pm Moon landing tapes got erased, NASA admitsWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Jul 2009 | 7:14 pm SLIDE SHOW: This Week's Top StoriesFlip through images from the week's lead stories on Discovery News.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm New Photos Reveal Apollo 11 at First Moon Landing SiteNASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images Tranquility base, site of Apollo 11 landing.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jul 2009 | 6:36 pm Moon memorabilia go under the hammerApollo artefacts auctioned in New York included a star chart used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and a lunar checklist from Apollo 16 containing cheeky cartoons Artefacts from the history of space exploration went under the hammer yesterday at an auction in New York. Auctioneers Bonhams presented nearly 400 lots, including many that were used on the surface of the moon. The auction coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, with over 50 items from that mission on sale. These included the star chart used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to determine their position on the lunar surface, which went for $218,000. The chart comprises two rotating plastic discs 9 inches across, and a velcro patch on the back containing traces of lunar dust. In a letter accompanying the chart, Aldrin called it "the single most critical navigational device we used while on the moon." Other high-ticket items were the flight joystick from Falcon – the lunar module of Apollo 15 – and a mission checklist that lunar explorers on Apollo 16 attached to their wrist. The checklist was intended to guide astronauts John Young and Charles Duke through their mission on the lunar surface, but Nasa engineers couldn't help inserting a few cartoons. One page depicts an astronaut's close encounter with a nude woman; another captioned "Looks Bad, Feels Good" shows Young on the lunar surface, blocking the view of a TV camera with his hand. Both items sold for $206,000. Not everything was astronomically priced, however, so there were a few bargains to be had. Two lots of charts marking the orbital paths of Apollo 14 over the Earth and moon sold for $112 apiece. A couple of crew emblems from the 1970s space station Skylab sold for the same price. Although most lots went, a few failed to attract any bidders. A dust brush from the personal collection of Fred Haise, who flew on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, did not find a buyer. Despite being coated with lunar dust, having been used to clean camera lenses during Apollo 14, no one was prepared to pay the asking price of $125,000–175,000. Some artefacts provide a glimpse into the minds of the men who flew to the moon. Having failed to obtain life insurance for their dangerous mission, Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins signed a set of envelopes featuring the Apollo 11 crew emblem. They hoped that in the event of their demise the envelopes could be sold as a means of financial support for their families. Aldrin offered his own envelopes for sale in the auction, bringing in a total of $15,860. The full catalogue of lots sold in yesterday's Apollo auction at Bonhams can be viewed online (pdf) along with the prices fetched. If you want a piece of Nasa history of your very own, another auction is being held tomorrow in London. International Autograph Auctions will be offering up a variety of space memorabilia, including the flight suit worn by Collins during Apollo 11 which is estimated to be worth £7,000-10,000. 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 | 17 Jul 2009 | 6:19 pm Potential Neurotoxin Could Be in Our Food
Long after a potentially neurotoxic flame retardant is off the market, it could linger in our food chain. One of the most comprehensive analyses yet of human exposure to PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, shows that the chemical — long used in everything from computers to sleeping bags — enters humans through their diets, not just their household. “The more you eat, the more PBDEs you have in your serum,” said Alicia Fraser, an environmental health researcher at Boston University’s School of Public Health who headed the new study, published this month in Environmental Health Perspectives. PBDEs are chemical cousins of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are known to cause birth defects and neurological impairments. PCBs were banned throughout the world by the mid-1970s, when PBDEs were gaining popularity as flame retardants. PBDEs were soon found in most plastic-containing household products. By the late 1990s, trace amounts of PBDEs had been found in people all over the world, with the highest exposures measured in the United States. Researchers became nervous: Low doses caused neurological damage in laboratory animals, and the highest human PBDE levels were found in breast milk. Whether PBDEs posed an immediate threat to humans was uncertain. Direct testing is unethical, and population-wide epidemiological studies are difficult to run. But there’s enough reason for concern that the European Union banned two of the three most common PBDE formulations in 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency, which in January admitted that it lacked the ability to establish basic standards of chemical safety, has not followed suit, but three states — California, Washington and Maine — have banned PBDEs since 2007. Many manufacturers have either stopped or plan on stopping their use. “They are persistent in the environment. They don’t get broken down. Therefore, it takes a really long time for the contamination to leave our environment and our bodies,” said Fraser. “Even though we don’t know the health effects at this point, most people would want policies that would stop us from being exposed to them.” But though well-advised, these bans won’t eliminate the threat. Most PBDE exposure research has focused on how people can absorb it from dust and other indoor sources that would ostensibly be eliminated once PBDE-containing products were discarded. Much less attention has been paid to PBDEs in food. Fraser’s team analyzed biological samples from 2,000 people, provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The same data was used in 2004 to establish baseline estimates of PBDE exposure in Americans, but that study didn’t look for patterns in food consumption. Fraser’s team found that PBDE levels were 25 percent higher in meat-eaters than vegetarians. Though the channels of food contamination by PBDEs haven’t been conclusively established, it’s possible that “the old products are being moved to landfills, and PBDEs could enter the environment that way,” said Fraser. Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that PBDEs were present in all U.S. coastal waters and the Great Lakes, with the highest levels found near urban and industrial areas. That PBDEs would be highest in meat products makes sense, as the chemicals accumulate in fat, and it wouldn’t be hard for PBDEs to enter their feed and water. Fraser suggested that the United States adopt chemical regulations similar to those in the European Union, which in 2007 mandated that chemicals be thoroughly tested and proven safe before used. That’s the opposite of the U.S. system, where chemicals are assumed to be safe until it’s proved otherwise. “The industry is finding new products to use as flame retardants, and we don’t know the health and safety implications of those products either,” said Fraser. “We need to test the health and safety implications of products before they go into use, not after.” See Also:
Citation: “Diet Contributes Significantly to the Body Burden of PBDEs in the General U.S. Population.” By Image: Curtis Palmer/Flickr Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes, Wired Science on Twitter.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jul 2009 | 6:04 pm SLIDE SHOW: Revisiting Apollo's Landing SitesAn orbiter sends fresh images of the Apollo lunar landing sites.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm WATCH: Arctic Melt Caught on VideoGreenland's Petermann Glacier is poised to lose a Manhattan-sized chunk.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm Spain, Portugal open nanotechnology research centerLISBON (Reuters) - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero Friday hailed the opening of a joint scientific research center with Portugal as the dawning of a new age of discovery for the two countries.Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Jul 2009 | 5:30 pm Why look back to Apollo when we've done so much since?If you think you'd have liked it in 1969, either you weren't there or you've forgotten what was invented since. Is it because we're unhappy with what we now have? Are you excited by the Apollo moon landing – more precisely, the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the takeoff and successful landing and return of the Apollo 11 mission and its crew? There's been no shortage of places to watch and follow it, from wechoosethemoon (named after Kennedy's famous phrase from his speech in September 1962) to CAPCOM (the person talking to the astronauts from the Canaveral Space Centre) on Twitter. There's an astronauts' get-together (though it seems Neil Armstrong isn't prepared to take even one small step out of his house to go there.) It's complete immersion. And we're certainly not immune here at the Guardian. What more could you want? Yet I suspect that what many of the people oohing and aahing over the achievements of 40 years ago really want is something unachievable: to be able to be transported back to that time as we imagine it. To live once more in a world where we hadn't gone yet to the moon; where the rare beauty of the Earth wasn't so clear; where the environmental problems weren't piling up so quickly that we barely dared to look around; where our financial straits didn't seem to bind us endlessly; where the twin pressures of feeding the world and making its vehicles run didn't work against each other. Well, tough. You can't go back to that time. And though it might sound cruel to say so, hankering for the lost days of moon-claiming is the nearest thing to crawling under the duvet and sticking your fingers in your ears that you can do while not actually doing that. What have the past 40 years brought us? Yes, lots of problems. But perhaps that's partly because we can now see our problems more clearly. And if you're really asking what those years have brought, let's detail a few: And in the field of medicine there's: Perhaps we don't like knowing so much about how extensively we've failed to grapple with the problems we're creating on this world; our self-knowledge, and capacity to enlarge that knowledge, runs far ahead of our ability to act sensibly on that knowledge. If we could see the world in the round, as those astronauts did, perhaps we would stop razing the rain forests, reduce our energy use, stop overfeeding ourselves while we overfish the seas. We know that if we really look at the distance from here to 1969, we'd suffer more existenstial angst than we do already. So we prefer just to look at that date, and what was done then. Fine: but what comes next? Reliving the succeeding missions? That will peter out. Reliving Richard Nixon's announcement – intended to mirror Kennedy's choosing of the moon as a grand target – that cancer would be conquered? That one didn't go so well. Not all grand schemes succeed. Apollo was the exception, not the rule. The trouble with nostalgia is that it's never more comfortable to indulge in than when it's cold outside. I, for one, won't be following the Apollo celebrations. I've met Buzz Aldrin, and he's an excellent ambassador for astronauts; the problem is that space has better ambassadors than it deserves, since it's a big, empty, lonely, deadly place. I'll be thinking about the things we need to fix on the planet now. Apart from anything, it's a lot more likely to make a difference … 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 | 17 Jul 2009 | 5:22 pm 5 Atrocious Science Clichés to Throw Down a Black Hole
This purging project was kicked off by our pals at Underwire. They were inspired by scientists at the Israel Institute of Technology who, while searching for Hawking radiation, recently created an acoustic black hole using Bose-Einstein condensates. So Underwire jumped on the opportunity to throw five atrocious albums into that black hole, never to be heard again. Autopia followed by launching five atrocious car models into a black hole (the regular kind out in space, of course). This week is our turn. After careful consideration and consultation with members of the local science writing community (only some of them were drunk), we have selected the five most annoying and ubiquitous clichés we think should be sucked into a black hole, forever banished from all future descriptions of science.
To me, this is the mother of all bad science clichés, the worst offender. And I recently learned I have back up on this opinion from the venerable journal Nature which has literally banned scientists from putting holy grails in their papers. But outside of Nature, grails are running rampant through science writing. A Google search for “holy grail” + science OR scientists OR researchers yields 2.6 million hits. Among those hits, the holy grail of: physics, climate change, biofuels, cancer research, crystallography, bodybuilding, pain relief, plant biology, nanoscience, cardiology, optical computing, catalyst design and human gait analysis. Here are just a few examples: Discover asks: Can Engineers Achieve the Holy Grail of Energy: Infinite and Clean? and The Telegraph UK says: ‘Holy grail’ drug can help scars heal, new research shows. And yes, Wired Science is not immune: Astronomers Closer to Exoplanet Holy Grail. But no more. I hereby decree all holy grails banned from Wired Science. Image: The splitting of water using a semiconductor immersed into an aqueous solution has been termed the Holy Grail of photoelectrochemistry. From the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
No more silver bullets, please. Apparently they are really only meant for werewolves, witches and the occasional monster. While we’re at it, magic bullets can go into the black hole as well. They attract too many angry conspiracy theorists. In a Google search, the two together, along with science terms, get you 1.7 million hits. And because Alexis Madrigal hasn’t read his werewolf texts very closely, he occasionally tries to put golden bullets into his stories, so we’ll toss those as well. A lot of these bullets are aimed at medical targets. The LA Times asks if there’s A magic bullet for pandemic flu?. And I can’t tell if this instance, Scientists to Tackle Illness with ’silver Bullet’, is made better or worse by the fact that the thing being called a silver bullet is actually silver. Things that are not silver or magic bullets: antioxidants, carbon capture, disk encryption, GM crops, vitamins, and carbon dioxide mosquito traps. At Wired Science, there is no magic or silver bullet for: cancer, the energy crisis, and cloning endangered turtles. And as long as we’re tossing all the bullets, we might as well send the smoking gun in after them. Image: National Archives photo of the magic bullet that may or may not have killed JFK.
Why must everything always be shedding light on something else? In addition to the light I shed on dark matter in 2006, light has also been shed on virtually everything you can think of: quantum computation, primate eye evolution, the connection between brain and loneliness, consciousness, catalyzed reactions, air quality, and even the Hope diamond. Googling “shed* light” + science OR scientists OR research returns 6.66 million hits, including these: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Robotic Floats Shed New Light on the Iron Hypothesis, The Washington Post: Researchers Shed More Light on Bird Flu, and The Boston Globe: Scientists shed new light on invisibility. And, of course, Wired Science has been known to shed a bit now and then. A couple gems: Semen Proteomics Sheds Light on Loyalty and Evolution, Sea Cucumber Sheds Light on Healing Mechanisms. Not everyone is trapped in this shed, however. Notably, Nature reporter Erika Check has been known to throw light on stuff like the origins of life. (Full disclosure: Erika is on my soccer team.) UPDATE: Alex Witze has taken full responsibility on behalf of Nature’s editors for any clichés that have appeared in Erika’s stories. Image: The Sydney Morning Herald caught a scientist in the act of literally shedding light on hydrogen. And a bonus holy grail is in the first sentence. Credit: Jon Reid.
Don’t even tell me you aren’t sick of all the missing links constantly being discovered. It’s an epidemic. Googling along with science terms gets you 4.2 million missing links. I mean, what could possibly still be missing after all that? There must be an unbroken, fully linked chain running from kindergarten art projects through Lucy all the way to the Creationist Museum. Of course, a huge proportion of those links are fossils, including Ida, the supposed missing link between humans and lemurs that clogged up the science news cycle for days in May. Some of the other lucky things that have found their links: black holes, cancer gene therapy, industrial relations and the southern ocean. Slate has wondered: How Many Times Will Paleontologists Find the “Missing Link”? Wired Science is also lousy with lost links including: Missing Link in Pulsar Evolution Is a Cannibal and Viral Missing Link Caught on Film. But my favorite example is this New York Daily News story on Ida: Missing link found? Scientists unveil fossil of 47 million-year-old primate, Darwinius masillae, which also has a holy grail thrown in. Image: This image can be found on Ida’s personal website, Revealing the Link, and also all over the interwebs. According to Google, science paradigms have shifted 1.9 million times. I’m actually surprised it’s not more. Because really, when you get down to it, what doesn’t qualify as a paradigm shift these days? Science writing can actually take the blame for creating this beast and then letting it escape into the rest of the world. It was first used in Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” in 1962, and yes I learned that on Wikipedia, but I also have a copy of the book on my shelf, so there. Wired Science has only shifted a handful of paradigms in fields including drug research and genetics, and happily, no paradigm has shifted since the current editor (me) joined the team. But these shifts may have infected some other corners of Wired.com including Autopia and Game Life. And elsewhere in the world, paradigms are super shifty, especially in scientific papers. For example, the journal Sexualities: Reading Porn: The Paradigm Shift in Pornography Research. According to the Institute of Physics, space science in the UK was on the verge of a shift in May (not sure of the current status of this paradigm). Even science fairs have apparently shifted: A Global Paradigm Shift in Science Fairs. Image: This shocking paradigm shift occured in the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon. Image at top: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart Let us know what you would add to the list, and vote for the worst offenders below. Show predictions that are: hot | new | top-rated or submit your own prediction
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jul 2009 | 5:21 pm Humans glow in the darkUltra-sensitive cameras reveal that our bodies emit tiny amounts of light that are too weak for the human eye to detect Amazing pictures of "glittering" human bodies have been released by Japanese scientists who have captured the first ever images of human "bioluminescence". Although it has been known for many years that all living creatures produce a small amount of light as a result of chemical reactions within their cells, this is the first time light produced by humans has been captured on camera. Writing in the online journal PLoS ONE, the researchers describe how they imaged volunteers' upper bodies using ultra-sensitive cameras over a period of several days. Their results show that the amount of light emitted follows a 24-hour cycle, at its highest in late afternoon and lowest late at night, and that the brightest light is emitted from the cheeks, forehead and neck. Strangely, the areas that produced the brightest light did not correspond with the brightest areas on thermal images of the volunteers' bodies. The light is a thousand times weaker than the human eye can perceive. At such a low level, it is unlikely to serve any evolutionary purpose in humans – though when emitted more strongly by animals such as fireflies, glow-worms and deep-sea fish, it can be used to attract mates and for illumination. Bioluminescence is a side-effect of metabolic reactions within all creatures, the result of highly reactive free radicals produced through cell respiration interacting with free-floating lipids and proteins. The "excited" molecules that result can react with chemicals called fluorophores to emit photons. Human bioluminescence has been suspected for years, but until now the cameras required to detect such dim light sources took over an hour to capture a single image and so were unable to measure the constantly fluctuating light from living creatures. While the practical applications of the discovery are hard to imagine, one can't help wondering what further surprises the human body has in store for us. 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 | 17 Jul 2009 | 5:18 pm Bush-Era Plans to Reach Moon and Beyond Still Alive Under Obama
NASA’s long-term plans to return humans to the moon and then push on to Mars remain a possibility. All week, we heard rumblings that the Human Spaceflight Plans Committee created by the Obama White House to evaluate our manned exploration program might kill off the new Ares rocket program. The committee’s head denied that any such decision had been made in a press conference Friday. “As far as our committee is concerned, it would be completely wrong to say that Ares is dead in the water,” said Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, and head of the review. With the Apollo 11 40th anniversary looming, all kinds of attention has been focused on whether NASA would return to the moon. The plans that are currently under review were born in 2004, when President George W. Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration, which included returning to the moon, building a base, then heading for Mars. That may have sounded great, but it put NASA in a tough spot. First, the agency had trumpeted its success with less expensive robotic missions, not manned flight, and Bush’s priorities seemed likely to defund robotic missions. Second, the Space Shuttle program has been slated to come to an end, leaving the United States without a national option to get up to the International Space Station or into low Earth orbit at all. So, NASA had to design a program that would get humans to orbit, to the Moon and to Mars. Working with those issues, NASA came up with the Constellation program. The plan goes like this: First, a slim rocket, Ares I, would send people in the Orion space capsule into orbit some time during the next decade, then back to the moon, and finally to Mars. A separate, larger rocket, the Ares V, would carry cargo. The program has come under fire from many parties. Some say NASA should focus on robotic science missions instead of human exploration. Others say NASA needs more sharply defined priorities. The best architecture for getting to low earth orbit probably isn’t the best way to get to the moon, which again probably isn’t the best path to Mars. Even Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, has come out against NASA returning humans there. In the battle to steer NASA policy one way or the other, all kinds of technical details are being marshaled by parties on all sides. “Some of these rather subtle technical issues get to be very important in whether options make sense,” Augustine said. But the basic problem is that NASA doesn’t have enough money to do everything that’s being asked of the agency. “Congress and the White House should reduce the ‘too much with too little’ pressure that has led to disaster in the past and that characterizes NASA’s predicament today,” argued MIT’s Space, Policy, and Society Research Group in a whitepaper released last December. The job of the Human Spaceflight Plans Committee is to figure out which pieces of the “too much” should go. They’ve asked NASA to provide several alternative plans for the Ares I, which they’ll mark up and present to the White House by the end of August. It’s unclear what they’ll recommend, but the sheer profusion of alternatives suggests that changes are likely to be made. One thing that must be said about the Committee: It has shown a persistent dedication to openness in its proceedings. While they aren’t tipping their hand about specific suggestions, Augustine and the committee are actively maintaining an excellent website where they answer questions and provide easy access to documentation. They are also holding a series of public meetings later this month in space centers in Houston, Huntsville, Coco Beach, and Washington, D.C. Correction 4:31 pm: Updated President George Bush to clarify that the Space Exploration Vision originated with George W. Bush, not his father. See Also:
Image: NASA/John Frassanito and Associates. 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 | 17 Jul 2009 | 5:02 pm Shipping emissions plan 'stalls'Plans to reduce rising emissions from global shipping have faltered at a key international meeting.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jul 2009 | 4:38 pm Vinland Map of America no forgery, expert saysCOPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map to show part of America before explorer Christopher Columbus landed on the continent, is almost certainly genuine, a Danish expert said Friday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Jul 2009 | 4:09 pm Huge Fossilized Dung Reveals a Hidden Ancient EcosystemMega-dung reveals a hidden ecosystemSource: Livescience.com | 17 Jul 2009 | 3:39 pm Oetzi Iceman's Tattoos Came from FireplaceTattoos on the 5300-year-old Oetzi iceman were made from fireplace soot.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 17 Jul 2009 | 3:25 pm Future headacheIs the UK's nuclear waste strategy in jeopardy?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jul 2009 | 3:01 pm Juvenile Justice System Breeds Adult CriminalsWhen boys are placed in juvenile delinquency centers, they are more likely to be incarcerated as adults.Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jul 2009 | 1:41 pm Why Sonia Sotomayor Won't Make HistoryOthers have had a tougher path then the Latina Supreme Court nomineeSource: Livescience.com | 17 Jul 2009 | 1:33 pm
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A black hole is the perfect place for stuff you never want to see again. So Wired Science is joining Wired.com’s extended black hole party by chucking in some of the worst, most overused science clichés.
1) HOLY GRAIL
2) SILVER BULLET
3) SHEDDING LIGHT
4) MISSING LINK
5) PARADIGM SHIFT