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Single Molecules As Electric ConductorsResearchers report an important advance in the understanding of electrical conduction through single molecules.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Chemicals Found In Fruit And Vegetables Offer Dementia HopeA group of chemicals found in many fruits and vegetables, as well as tea, cocoa and red wine, could protect the brain from Alzheimer's disease, a dementia expert reports.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Ecologist Brings Century-old Eggs To Life To Study EvolutionSuspending a life in time is a theme that normally finds itself in the pages of science fiction, but now such ideas have become a reality in the annals of science.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Increase In Thyroid Cancer Not Explained By Screening AloneStudies have reported an increasing incidence of thyroid cancer since 1980. One possible explanation for this trend is increased detection through more widespread and aggressive use of screening tests. Researchers found incidence rates increased for all sizes of tumors, suggesting that screening is not the only explanation for the rise.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm The Fancier The Cortex, The Smarter The Brain?Why are some people smarter than others? A new article describes how certain aspects of brain structure and function help determine how easily we learn new things, and how learning capacity contributes to individual differences in intelligence.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Toxin Detection As Close As An Inkjet PrinterA method for printing a toxin-detecting biosensor on paper has been developed. The process involves formulating an ink like the one found in computer printer cartridges but with special additives to make the ink biocompatible.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm Where were you when Apollo 11 landed? Not born yet (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 4:57 pm 40 years later, moon still giant leap for mankind (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 4:55 pm India takes firm line with Clinton on climate change (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 4:49 pm India sees climate change "pressure," U.S. upbeat (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 4:44 pm Russia still blue over moon landing 40 years later (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 4:22 pm Astronauts deal with flooded toilet in orbit (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 4:22 pm President Nixon Was Prepared for Apollo Disaster (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - The triumphant success of NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing 40 years ago is a familiar story to most Americans, but it may be a surprise to some that then-President Richard Nixon was ready for disaster.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 3:45 pm Stealthy Gene Network Makes Brain Tumors FlourishThe brain tumor afflicting Sen. Edward Kennedy -- a glioblastoma -- is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. But scientists have discovered the tumor's vulnerability. They have identified a network of genes that create the perfect environment to allow the tumor to mushroom to the size of an apple in a just a few months. Researchers also identified a new gene whose level in the tumor predicts how long a glioblastoma patient will survive. The discoveries offer new targets for therapies.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Why Winning Athletes Are Getting BiggerA new theory by engineers has showed that not only have Olympic swimmers and sprinters gotten bigger and faster over the past 100 years, but they have grown at a much faster rate than the normal population.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Case For Preventive Prostate Cancer Treatment BolsteredFor the last six years, doctors have faced a dilemma about whether to treat men at risk of prostate cancer with the drug finasteride. Now new research appears to show that the drug did not cause those more aggressive forms of prostate cancer but simply made them easier to diagnose. The findings suggest that doctors can be less cautious in use of finasteride.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm King Crabs Go Deep To Avoid Hot WaterResearchers have drawn together 200 years' worth of oceanographic knowledge to investigate the distribution of a notorious deep-sea giant - the king crab. The results reveal temperature as a driving force behind the divergence of a major seafloor predator; globally, and over tens of millions of years of Earth's history.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 3:00 pm Clinton in US-India climate pleaVisiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she hopes the US and India can tackle climate change together.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jul 2009 | 2:20 pm Astronauts To Perform Complex Robotic Work (SPACE.com)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 11:30 am UK set to take back Brazil wasteThe UK is working with Brazilian authorities to organise the return of more than 1,400 tonnes of British toxic waste.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Jul 2009 | 11:22 am The Nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 9:04 am Heavy rains hit NKorea, raising fears of floods (AP)AP - Heavy downpours have hit the capital and other parts of North Korea, the country's state news agency reported Sunday, raising the specter of a repeat of massive floods two years ago that left hundreds of people dead and devastated farmlands.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 8:21 am Astronauts install porch on space stationHOUSTON (Reuters) - Spacewalking astronauts secured a "front porch" on Saturday to the International Space Station that will expose scientific experiments to the cold vacuum of outer space.Source: Reuters: Science News | 19 Jul 2009 | 1:56 am Astronauts on ISS spacewalkAstronauts from the shuttle Endeavour complete the first of five spacewalks at the International Space Station.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jul 2009 | 11:10 pm Buzz Aldrin checks the lunar module19 July 1969: Aldrin enters the Eagle to carry out checks on the final day before the landing. Author of the new Haynes guide to Apollo 11 Christopher Riley provides the commentary
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Jul 2009 | 11:06 pm How Michael Collins became forgotten astronaut of Apollo 11As Armstrong and Aldrin took their famous walk on the moon, a third member of the team sat alone in the mothership plagued by terrors of returning to Earth alone. Robin McKie reports It was the secret terror that gripped astronaut Michael Collins throughout the Apollo 11 project 40 years ago. As his spacecraft, Columbia, swept over the lunar surface, Collins - the mission's third and largely forgotten crewman - waited for a call from fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to say their lander craft had successfully blasted off from the Moon. The message would banish Collins's deepest fear: that he would be the only survivor of an Apollo 11 disaster and that he was destined to return on his own to the United States as "a marked man". The realisation that the normally icy-cool astronaut was so obsessed by such an outcome puts a fresh perspective on the celebrations that will, this weekend, absorb the United States as it commemorates the moment, on 21 July 1969, that an American first walked on another world. Apollo 11 will be presented as a flawless technological triumph at jamborees across the nation, including a special reception at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, which all three Apollo 11 astronauts are scheduled to attend. Yet at the time, worries that the mission would end in disaster consumed nearly all of those involved in the programme - despite their apparent calm. And no one was more stressed than Collins, it appears. In his case, the astronaut was obsessed with the reliability of the ascent engine of Armstrong and Aldrin's lander, Eagle. It had never been fired on the Moon's surface before and many astronauts had serious doubts about its reliability. Should the engine fail to ignite, Armstrong and Aldrin would be stranded on the Moon - where they would die when their oxygen ran out. Or if it failed to burn for at least seven minutes, then the two astronauts would either crash back on to the Moon or be stranded in low orbit around it, beyond the reach of Collins in his mothership, Columbia. All three astronauts believed there was a real chance such a disaster would occur. Armstrong thought his prospects were only 50-50 of making it back to Earth. And so did Collins, the pilot of Columbia and one of the world's most experienced aviators. Nor were the astronauts alone. Richard Nixon, then US president, had even prepared a speech that he would deliver in the event of the Eagle's engine failing. "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace," it ran. "These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice." Thus Collins - alone in Columbia as the world focused on Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the lunar surface - fretted about his two companions below him on the Moon and revealed, in a note written at the time, that he was now "sweating like a nervous bride" as he waited to hear from the Eagle. "My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone; now I am within minutes of finding out the truth of the matter," he wrote. "If they fail to rise from the surface, or crash back into it, I am not going to commit suicide; I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it." Then Armstrong and Aldrin prepared their lander for its launch. Armstrong pressed the engine's firing button and Eagle soared perfectly above the lunar surface towards the waiting Collins. His worst fear had not materialised and he returned safely to Earth in the company of Armstrong and Aldrin, unmarked by the experience. He would not suffer a fate of global notoriety. In fact, the opposite happened. Collins was forgotten. Today most people still know the names of the two first men on the Moon and recall the words, delivered by Armstrong, about taking a giant leap for mankind. But the name Michael Collins is rarely recalled, despite his critical role in the historic flight of Apollo 11. Not that he holds grudges. "It was an honour," he said last week. In fact, he was - in many ways - the unsung hero of the Apollo 11 mission, a point that was underlined at the time by the great American aviator Charles Lindbergh. He wrote to Collins, not long after his safe return, to tell him that his part of the mission was one of "greater profundity ... you have experienced an aloneness unknown to man before". It is an intriguing remark and an apposite one, it turns out - a point that can be appreciated by looking at the very set-up of the mission. Apollo 11 consisted of a spindly lunar lander, Eagle, and an orbiting mothership, Columbia, that were both blasted into space on a giant Saturn V rocket on 16 July 1969. For three days, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins cruised towards the Moon inside Columbia and spent their time gazing "out the window at the Earth getting smaller and smaller and checking the spacecraft", according to Aldrin. Then, on 20 July, Armstrong and Aldrin crawled into Eagle and flew it down to the Moon's surface. "Keep talking to me, guys," radioed an initially panicky Collins as the pair drifted away from his ship. Minutes later, Columbia swept behind the Moon and Collins became Earth's most distant solo traveller, separated from the rest of humanity by 250,000 miles of space and by the bulk of the Moon, which blocked all radio transmissions to and from mission control. He was out of sight and out of contact with his home planet. "I am now truly alone and absolutely alone from any known life. I am it," he wrote in his capsule. Lindbergh's remarks were certainly accurate. Such solitude would have unnerved most people. But not Collins. He says the emotion that he experienced most during his day alone in lunar orbit was that of exultation. And certainly he appears to have relished his time as the loneliest member of his species. He also emerged from the post-Apollo years relatively unscathed. Aldrin lapsed into alcoholism and depression, while Armstrong became a virtual recluse. Both men subsequently divorced. By contrast, Collins - shaded from the glare of publicity - has avoided such personal traumas and is still with his wife, Patricia, whom he married in 1958. The couple have three grown-up children. Collins was born in Rome on 31 October 1930. His father, Major-General James Lawton Collins, was then serving overseas with the US army. Collins later graduated from West Point and joined the US air force. An early assignment was to the 21st Fighter-Bomber Wing at George Air Force Base, where he learned how to drop nuclear weapons. He joined the astronaut corps in 1962 and flew on one of America's two-man Gemini capsules with veteran astronaut John Young, who flew on a later Apollo mission. Then came his selection for Apollo 11. After his return to Earth, Collins gave up space travel and pursued a career in bureaucracy and business. He was director of the National Air and Space Museum until 1978, before being appointed vice-president of LTV Aerospace in Arlington, Virginia. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business. Today he remains cheerful about his role on Apollo 11, although he describes himself as becoming increasingly grumpy. "At age 78, some things about current society irritate me, such as the adulation of celebrities and inflation of heroism," he said last week. Neither description fits him, he added. "Heroes abound, but don't count astronauts among them. We worked very hard, we did our jobs to near perfection, but that is what we had been hired to do." He describes himself today as moderately busy, "running, biking, swimming, fishing, painting, cooking, reading, worrying about the stock market and searching for a really good bottle of cabernet for under $10". As to his claim to fame, that was simple fate, he added. "Neil Armstrong was born in 1930. Buzz Aldrin was born in 1930, and Mike Collins, 1930. We came along at exactly the right time. We survived hazardous careers and were successful in them. "But in my own case at least, it was 10% shrewd planning and 90% blind luck. Put Lucky on my tombstone." • Full multimedia coverage of the Apollo 11 mission and moon landing. 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 | 18 Jul 2009 | 11:01 pm I love you. That's £163,424 you owe meWhich would you prefer to receive: a declaration of love or a gift of £163,424? It's OK. Don't feel bad. There is a recession on. Anyone might have said the same. In fact, according to impressively scientific-sounding organisation BrainJuicer, these two offers are exactly equivalent. Having polled 1,000 British people on the happiness inspired by "significant life events", researchers compared their findings to the contentment brought on by lottery wins, then calculated that hearing the words "I love you" brought precisely £163,424 worth of pleasure. If you are a generous-spirited person, therefore, you should really make the effort to shout "I love you!" at least once today. (Unless, of course, you are a working prostitute. That would be negative economics, causing a large likely drop in future earnings.) The study found that good health is worth £180,105 on the happiness scale. That's a terrific sum; just think how many fags you could buy with it. Going on holiday is worth £91,759. Be sure to remember that in a fortnight's time, when you are shrieking: "I spent £750 on this hellhole, you thieving bastard" at a recalcitrant travel agent. £91,759 is the fair price, eh? I shall certainly be inviting these BrainJuicer people to rent my flat for the summer. I might even do them tea in the morning. Making love equates to £105,210 - better news for our hard-working prostitute - although researchers point out that this is worth less than the £108,021 value of laughing regularly. Then again, looking at some of the people who actually frequent prostitutes, it should be possible for our girl to do both at once. This gripping survey was commissioned by Steve Henry, author of You Are Really Rich: You Just Don't Know it "People are looking for something to replace money as a general criterion for value," explains Mr Henry. "The book is about a new alternative to a purely financial system." Well, it isn't, is it? It just takes a lot of nice things and shoves them into a financial system. Nevertheless, you must have enjoyed that paragraph from Steve Henry because "reading is worth £53,660". Go on, treat yourself; read it again. But the truly telling nugget, buried in this list of life values, is that "being in a stable relationship" is worth £154,849. And this is based on a real survey of real people. Can you see what's weird about it? What's weird is that hearing "I love you" is worth £163,424. That means we believe, to the unarguable tune of £8,575, that a happy and stable relationship is not as valuable as a random romantic declaration. The words are worth more than the actions. We'd be quicker to invest in the fly-by-night, silver-tongued gigolo than the solid, faithful guy who forgets to talk like Julio Iglesias. At last, we are able to put an exact price on the inherent masochism of the human race: £8,575: that is what we'd pay to be told we are loved by someone who is offering nothing and doesn't really mean it. Sick, we are all sick. Those words bring nothing but pain and yet we beg for it. "I love you", without the stability, is exactly what we shouldn't want to hear. We might just as well accord a positive financial value to hearing these statements: "The postal strike will begin on Friday morning": £2,800. "Outlook for the weekend: rain": £6,570. "There seems to be a problem with your card ...": £34,312. "Please listen carefully to the following selection. If you are calling about a fault with your service, press 3 ...": £487,060. "Screw you!": £37.50. That last one was a trick. Swearing actually is demonstrably beneficial, according to scientists in a different preposterous news story entirely. Psychologists at Keele University have found that obscenity is good for us. Fuck me, who'd have thought? Their research involved asking 64 students to plunge their hands into a tub of iced water. If the students swore constantly, they could keep their hands submerged for an average of two minutes. But if they shouted ordinary words that they would use to describe a table, they could tolerate the ice for only one minute and 15 seconds. Therefore, swearing reduces pain and promotes good feeling. I'm no boffin, but I can spot a flaw in these tests. "Words that they would use to describe a table"? What are these words? Flat? Brown? Flat? (Here I demonstrate my dazzling professional vocabulary. I would not expect young students, their brains presumably addled by weed and stress and too many episodes of Cash in the Attic, to come up with quite so many clever and colourful adjectives.) No wonder their tolerance went down, if they had simultaneously to freeze their hands and work out how to describe a table. What if one of the students, desperately running out of interesting ways to talk about furniture, shouted: "Wooden, badly constructed and shittingly wonky?" What would that do to the pain scale? Would it count? But those are just my own unscientific quibbles. Thanks to Dr Richard Stephens, research leader, it is now official: shouting balls or bum is a Good Thing for the human race. And if you think about it, that is empirically true. There are many situations in which a few noisy profanities do, somehow, make one feel better. So where does that leave us, as we set off for our social Sunday lunches or our quiet afternoons with nearest and dearest? Conversation has moved on since the days when Eliza Doolittle was advised to discuss only the weather and everybody's health. There is surely only one conclusion from these twin scientific findings. You should tell a random acquaintance that you love him, because he will feel good immediately. Then scream foul abuse into his face, and so will you. 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 | 18 Jul 2009 | 11:01 pm Britain plans its own NASABritain could soon establish its own independent space agency to launch and operate satellites and interplanetary probes. The agency would be modelled on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), which set up America's Apollo programme. The UK science minister, Lord Drayson, said last week he is to set up an inquiry into the status of the National Space Centre, which organises UK space activities. "The centre does not have its own budget and arranges projects, including the building of satellites, by seeking bids for funds from other government bodies," Drayson told the Observer. "We need to find out if that is still the best way to proceed or if we should set up a space agency like Nasa that has its own budget and can establish its own priorities." However, Drayson stressed that there would be no extra cash for a new agency. "We spend around £250m a year of public money on space projects, and that generates more than £6bn for the economy in terms of contracts for the manufacture of satellites, robotics and other industrial work. We get a tremendous bang for the buck when it comes to space, but we have to ask if there is a better way to do it." 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 | 18 Jul 2009 | 11:01 pm New images of Moon landing sitesA US spacecraft takes pictures of Apollo landing sites on the Moon, showing footprints and hardware left behind decades ago.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jul 2009 | 3:51 pm
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