Science Headlines for August 10, 2009

Flooding And Damage From 2008 Myanmar Cyclone Assessed

Tropical cyclone Nargis made landfall in the Asian nation of Myanmar on May 2, 2008, causing the worst natural disaster in the country's recorded history. Researchers now report on a field survey done three months after the disaster to document the extent of the flooding and resulting damage.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm

Reactions to Sept. 11 Attacks: How Power Influences Interpretation

A newly completed study of public reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks concludes that people in positions of power, from government officials to managers working on Wall Street to military personnel, tended to interpret the events in more abstract terms and with more certainty and positivity than ordinary individuals.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm

A Step Toward Preventing Lung Cancer From Spreading To The Brain And New Clinical Trial Results

Medical researchers have announced two significant advances in treating lung cancer. New research could eventually help prevent lung cancer from spreading to the brain. Researchers have also described results from two Phase I clinical trials for a drug called TH-302.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm

Function Of Potential Cancer-causing Gene Product Uncovered

Scientists have uncovered a previously unknown function of a gene product called Amplified in Liver Cancer 1 (Alc1), which may play a role in the onset of cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm

Saturn To Pull Celestial Houdini On August 11

In 1918, magician extraordinaire Harry Houdini created a sensation when he made a 10,000 pound elephant disappear before a mystified audience of over 5,200 at New York's famed Hippodrome theatre. But a vanishing pachyderm is nothing compared to the magnificent illusion to be performed by our solar system's own sixth rock from the sun on Aug. 11. On that day, the planet Saturn, with no help from either Jupiter or Uranus, will make its 170,000-mile-wide ring system disappear.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm

New Research Provides Insight Into Ice Sheet Behavior

A new study takes scientists a step further in their quest to understand how Antarctica's vast glaciers will contribute to future sea-level rise. They describe how a new 3-D map created from radar measurements reveals features in the landscape beneath a vast river of ice, 10 times wider than the Rhine, in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm

Young Early Stage Ovarian Cancer Patients Can Preserve Fertility

A new study finds that young women with early stage ovarian cancer can preserve future fertility by keeping at least one ovary or the uterus without increasing the risk of dying from the disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm

Dogs' Intelligence On Par With Two-year-old Human, Canine Researcher Says

Although you wouldn't want one to balance your checkbook, dogs can count. They can also understand more than 150 words, and intentionally deceive other dogs and people to get treats, according to a psychologist and leading canine researcher.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm

Baby Bathwater Contains Fragrance Allergens

Chemists have developed a method to quantify the fragrance allergens found in baby bathwater. The researchers have analyzed real samples and detected up to 15 allergen compounds in cosmetics and personal hygiene products.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm

Colon Capsule Endoscopy Diagnoses 64% Of Total Polyps Detected By Conventional Colonoscopy

Capsule endoscopy for exploring the colon in a minimally invasive manner diagnoses 64% of all lesions located by means of conventional colonoscopy. The endoscopy capsule for exploring the colon is a device which houses two cameras that enable pictures to be taken in front and behind as it passes through the colon - at a rate of 4 images per second.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm

UK assesses future food security

The government launches a debate on how the UK can ensure its food supply will remain secure in the future.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:34 am

Official says 400 unaccounted for in Taiwan storm (AP)

AP - An estimated 400 Taiwanese are unaccounted for after a mudslide spawned by Typhoon Morakot struck their isolated mountain village, a police official said Monday, and a newspaper quoted a resident as saying as many as 600 were buried.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:29 am

Hyundai chief heads to NKorea to discuss detainee (AP)

AP - The chairwoman of South Korea's Hyundai Group conglomerate headed to Pyongyang on Monday to try to win the release of a detained employee and to discuss restarting joint projects in North Korea.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:01 am

Treasure trove

Himalayan species under threat from climate change
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:55 am

Food issues

Why meeting the world's food needs depends on science
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:45 am

The Nation's Weather (AP)

AP - Active weather will again sweep through the eastern third of the country on Monday. A long front will drag through the Plains and Northeast, providing areas of heavy rain and thunderstorms. The heaviest of these thunderstorms will pop up in the Mississippi Valley.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:34 am

Higher oil prices 'boost Gulf fiscal outlook' (AFP)

AFP - Oil-rich Gulf economies are expected to see better-than-expected budgets in 2009 despite the economic slowdown, thanks to higher world crude prices, an economic report said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:27 am

New Zealand sets greenhouse gas emissions target (AP)

AP - New Zealand announced on Monday that it will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, the country's climate change minister said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:53 am

India says to roll out solar power plan by Dec (Reuters)

Reuters - India will roll out a 20 gigawatt solar power plan by the end of December, the country's renewable energy secretary said on Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:48 am

UN chief says climate change biggest challenge (AP)

AP - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that climate change is the greatest challenge facing a world beset by crises and called on governments to reach a deal on the environment at a meeting in Denmark later this year.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:19 am

Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat (AP)

AP - The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometers) of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Aug 2009 | 7:19 pm

Eye in the sky

Satellite images reveal secretive North Korea
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Aug 2009 | 5:58 pm

Brain radiotherapy affects mind

Radiotherapy used to treat brain tumours may lead to a decline in mental function many years down the line, say Dutch researchers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Aug 2009 | 5:06 pm

Under threat: Flying frogs and the world's oldest mushroom

The 350 new species found over past 10 years under pressure from demand for land and climate change, warns the WWF

A pretty ultramarine blue flower which changes colour in response to temperature, a flying frog and the world's oldest mushroom preserved in amber are among the 350 new species discovered in the Eastern Himalayas over the past 10 years. But experts warn the new discoveries are under pressure from demand for land and climate change.

A report published today by the WWF, The Eastern Himalayas – Where Worlds Collide, lists 242 new types of plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, two birds and two mammals and 61 new invertebrates. The cache, quality and diversity of species newly discovered between 1998 and 2008 make the mountainous region one of the world's most important biological hotspots.

The WWF is asking the governments of Bhutan, India and Nepal to commit to cooperate on conservation efforts in the geographic region that transcends the borders of the three countries to protect the landscape and the livelihoods of people living in the Eastern Himalayas.

Population growth, deforestation, overgrazing, poaching, the wildlife trade, mining, pollution, and hydropower development have all contributed to the pressures on the fragile ecosystems in the region, the report says. Only 25% of the original habitats in the region remain intact and 163 species that live in the Eastern Himalayas are considered globally threatened.

Because the region sits at the biogeographical crossroads of two continental plates, it contains a wide range of biodiversity and landscapes from both worlds. The Indo-Malayan lowlands are home to Asian elephants, clouded leopards, wild water buffalo, gaur, hornbills, cobras and geckos. The elevated Palearctic to the north is home to snow leopards, red pandas, black bears, and wolves.

The world's highest mountains sit in close proximity to some of the world's deepest gorges in a region that also contains the world's most northerly tropical jungles, temperate forests, tall grasslands, savannas and rich alpine meadows. A great deal of the rugged region, which also includes small areas of China and Burma, is difficult to access and has made biological surveys extremely difficult and left large areas biologically unexplored. But the intrepid are richly rewarded with new discoveries.

Impatiens namchabarwensis, or the blue diamond impatiens, is one of the 242 new plant species to have been discovered in the past 10 years. The highly endemic ultramarine blue flower was discovered during an epic expedition undertaken by Chinese botanists who trekked 60 miles from the nearest road and descended into the Namcha Barwa canyon, a gorge measuring almost 402 miles long and, in places, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, which can reach depths of up to 6,000 feet. The rare plant can grow as tall as 60cm and flowers all year round.

The flower is perhaps the best symbol of the effects of climate change in the region as its colour changes according to temperature and exposure. In a cool climate, its appears pure blue, but darkens to a purple when the temperature rises.

A bright green, red-footed tree frog was described in 2007, and called a "flying frog" because its long, webbed feet allow it to glide when falling.

An amber mine in far north Burma has also thrown up some important new discoveries: a 100m-year-old gecko, the oldest-known mushroom and fern have all been unearthed preserved in amber.

Mark Wright, WWF's conservation science adviser said: "These exciting finds reinforce just how little we now about the world around us. In the Eastern Himalayas we have a region of extraordinary beauty and with some of the most biologically rich areas on the planet. Ironically, it is also one of the regions most at risk from climate change, as evidenced by the rapid retreat of the glaciers, and only time will tell how well species will be able to adapt – if at all."

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Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 9 Aug 2009 | 5:05 pm

Backing up the Earth's biodiversity

Cary Fowler from the Global Crop Diversity Trust discusses his plans to develop a global system for conserving the biodiversity of all agricultural crops, which would include installing giant freezers inside a mountain at the North Pole.

In the newsjam, we look at plans for high-speed rail in the UK, the carbon footprint of babies, what triggers geckos' famous grip, and why beekeeping is becoming the latest craze.

Tents, scruffy people, mud, primitive latrines ... and quantum physics? A group called Guerilla Science has been pitching both its tent – and a scientific message. Frank Swain reports from the Latitude festival as the scientists got down and dirty with the revellers.

The Guardian's Science Book Club has been tackling Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Our literary guru Tim Radford kicked off proceedings and stirred up a hornet's nest by suggesting that one of the ingredients for the book's phenomenal success might be Hawking's boast that he was trying to "understand the mind of god".

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Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 9 Aug 2009 | 5:01 pm

Freak wave 'hot spots' identified

Variations in ocean depth and strong currents increase the chances of freak waves occurring, a study reveals.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Aug 2009 | 4:06 pm

Blood test for mothers could save lives of hundreds of unborn babies

• Risk-free screening may replace amniocentesis test
• Diagnosis would use maternal blood sample

The NHS is developing a simple blood test that could save the lives of hundreds of unborn babies who are put at risk when doctors try to establish whether they are developing healthily in the womb, the Guardian has learned.

The test could put an end to the use of invasive procedures such as amniocentesis, which cause some women to miscarry.

The Guardian has been given exclusive access to the NHS's £2m research into a new technology which, if successful, would benefit the thousands of women a year whose babies are identified as being at high risk of being born with a condition such as cystic fibrosis, Down's syndrome or Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

The early signs are so promising that the professor leading the programme says that the risk-free test could be the standard method of detecting babies with some genetic conditions inherited from the father within two to three years and those with Down's syndrome within five – and in the process save the lives of an estimated 265 mostly normal babies a year.

Hospitals find out if a baby has one of these conditions through the mother-to-be undertaking either an amniocentesis test or chorionic villus sampling (CVS). These are invasive tests, because in each procedure a needle is put into the womb to withdraw some of the child's amniotic fluid.

This is risky, because one in 100 women who have such a test will miscarry within a few days and lose a potentially normal, healthy child.

The NHS's research arm, the National Institute for Health Research, is funding research into alternative ways of assessing foetal risk of handicap using just a sample of maternal blood, called non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD), which senior doctors hope will ultimately replace both those tests.

Scientists have developed new ways of analysing the baby's cell-free foetal DNA that circulates in its mother's blood during pregnancy. The hope is that testing the maternal blood within weeks of conception may reveal vital genetic information about the child before it is born.

Professor Lyn Chitty, an expert in foetal medicine at the Institute of Child Health and University College Hospital in London, is the doctor leading the NHS-funded Reliable Accurate Prenatal non-Invasive Diagnosis (RAPID) study into the viability of NIPD. She said: "NIPD is exciting because it could mean that in future many thousands of women will not have to undergo invasive tests, which carry a risk of miscarriage, to diagnose genetic and chromosomal conditions in developing babies.This test could remove the agonising which couples experience over whether or not to have an invasive test."

It could also save lives. About 25,000 women a year in Britain have an invasive test for Down's syndrome and another 1,500 for single gene disorders, which affect one in 300 births and are a significant cause of both learning and physical disabilities.

Such conditions include cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and Huntington's disease. Chitty says that if NIPD can be made reliable and accurate, between 250 and 265 mostly healthy babies who currently die through miscarriage would survive.

NIPD would also be easier to undertake than the invasive tests, give quicker results and deliver them earlier in the pregnancy, so a couple told their child has one of these conditions would then have more time to consider whether to continue. Many opt for termination, however. Conducting fewer invasive tests could also save the NHS money, added Chitty. The NHS already deploys NIPD on a small scale and is expanding its use. It carries out about 250 non-invasive tests a year to discover the gender of children who are at risk of having a disabling sex-linked disorder because of their parents' genetic makeup. If it is a boy, an invasive test may be needed to confirm if he has, for example, Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Using NIPD for this has led to a 45% drop in the number of mothers in such cases having an invasive test.

Second, NIPD has almost entirely replaced amniocentesis and CVS tests in rhesus negative women whose baby is at high risk of having potentially fatal anaemia or jaundice. Doctors have been sufficiently impressed with the accuracy of NIPD in such patients that they use it to establish if such a woman's baby is rhesus negative or positive. If it is rhesus positive, its mother's pregnancy then has to be monitored closely. At the moment all the 100,000 rhesus negative women who become pregnant in any one year are routinely given anti-D, a human blood product, to prevent their baby getting these problems. In the future NIPD will be used to identify which women are carrying rhesus negative babies and so do not need anti-D, which involves a very small risk, said Chitty.

In some conditions, treatment of the baby while it is still in the womb or immediately after birth can prevent serious complications. "NIPD is already proving useful to NHS doctors' management of some of these conditions", said Chitty. Jane Fisher, director of the charity Antenatal Results and Choices, said: "The number one call we get on our helpline is from women agonising over whether to have an amniocentesis test, especially for Down's syndrome.

"Their dilemma is: are they prepared to put what is for them a wanted pregnancy at risk in order to have a definitive answer as to whether their baby has Down's? With NIPD, that risk is taken away." However, she added, that does not remove the harrowing decisions about what to do for women told that their child will be seriously disabled. More than 90% of women with a Down's baby decide to have a termination.

But NIPD is arousing concern as well as hope. Healthcare staff will have to take time and use great sensitivity while explaining the test so that women are prepared for the implications of a positive result.

In addition, doctors and midwives are worried about what to do if women who hear about the growing promise of NIPD start seeking to have it rather than an invasive test before further research has shown that these tests are as reliable and accurate as the current method.

Some private companies and websites in America already offer private NIPD testing for foetal sex determination. For example, California-based Pink or Blue promises that its Early DNA Gender Test is more than 95% accurate. But a similar claim by Baby Gender Mentor of Massachusetts led to a class action lawsuit after scores of women who had used its test, including some in Britain, were given the wrong result. And in April San Diego-based genetic analysts Sequenom had to postpone the planned launch of an NIPD test for Down's syndrome after staff "mishandled" test results and data.

Medical ethicists also warn that a potential boom in websites offering a still unproven technology could lead to NIPD being used for non-clinical purposes, such as to prove who a child's father is, or, in countries such as India and China, the infanticide of unborn female children.Meanwhile, German researchers writing in the British Medical Journal last week voiced another fear – "that widespread availability of this technology increases stigmatisation of people with disabilities".

Prenatal testing in Britain is overseen by the UK National Screening Committee, which advises the government and the NHS on the best way of detecting conditions including cancer.

Dr Anne Mackie, its director of programmes, said: "The preliminary results on non-invasive prenatal diagnosis, although promising, are very much still in development and certainly not at a stage where we would consider using this as an NHS population screening programme. However, this will be kept under constant review as new evidence becomes available."

Genetic conditions

International studies have reported NIPD has been useful in cases of:

Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Affects about one in 4,000 boys, causing difficulty in walking. Patients need wheelchairs by their teens.

Cystic fibrosis

Chronic, life-shortening lung condition. NIPD could help prenatal diagnosis in some, but not all, cases.

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia

Enzyme disorder that can cause abnormalities of the genitalia. Estimated to affect about one in 15,000 births.

Achondroplasia

Affects bone growth in arms and legs, causing significantly short stature.