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45-nanometer Chips For Ultra-fast WiFiPowerful new radio technologies that promise blisteringly fast WiFi have been given a boost by a team of researchers’ cutting-edge work on miniscule microchips.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 6:00 am Older Drivers Unaware Of Risks From Medications And DrivingMost older drivers are unaware of the potential impact on driving performance associated with taking medications, according to new research. The findings indicate that 95 percent of those age 55 and older have one or more medical conditions, 78 percent take one or more medications, and only 28 percent have an awareness of the risks those medications might have on driving ability.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 6:00 am Cognitive Testing, Gender And Brain Lesions May Predict Multiple Sclerosis Disease Progression RiskCognitive testing may help people with inactive or benign multiple sclerosis better predict their future with the disease, according to a new study. Gender and brain lesions may also determine the risk of progression of MS years after diagnosis.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 6:00 am New No-needle Approach To Prevent Blood ClotsScientists have found a better way to prevent deadly blood clots after joint replacement surgery -- a major problem that results in thousands of unnecessary deaths each year.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 6:00 am Jet-propelled Imaging For An Ultrafast Light SourceA new particle gun fires liquid droplets less than a millionth of a meter in diameter, hundreds of thousands of times a second or faster. The sample jet sends the droplets across a tightly focused X-ray beam in single file, each droplet so small it contains only a single protein or virus.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 6:00 am Mars, Methane And Mysteries: Red Planet May Not Be As Dormant As Once ThoughtMars may not be as dormant as scientists once thought. The 2004 discovery of methane means that either there is life on Mars, or that volcanic activity continues to generate heat below the martian surface. ESA plans to find out which it is. Either outcome is big news for a planet once thought to be biologically and geologically inactive.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 6:00 am The Nation's Weather (AP)AP - A stationary cold front was forecast to continue kicking up wet weather over the Eastern part of the country Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:34 am Oxygen Treatment Hastens Memory Loss In Alzheimer's MiceResearchers suspect the culprit precipitating Alzheimer's disease in some elderly patients may be high concentrations of oxygen administered during or after major surgery -- a hypothesis borne out in a recent animal model study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:00 am Surveying Ships Sunk Off North Carolina In World War IINOAA will lead a three-week research expedition in August to study World War II shipwrecks sunk in 1942 off the coast of North Carolina during the Battle of the Atlantic. The shipwrecks are located in an area known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," which includes sunken vessels from US and British naval fleets, merchant ships and German U-boats.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:00 am Violent Youth Of Solar Proxies Steers Course Of Genesis Of LifeOne of the hottest topics in astronomy involves the study of the conditions favorable for the development and survival of primordial life. New research shows that compared to middle-aged stars like the Sun, newly formed stars spin faster generating strong magnetic fields that result in emission of more intense levels of radiation -- all of which could wreak havoc on budding atmospheres and have a dramatic effect on the development of life forms.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:00 am Estrogen-dependent Switch Tempers Killing Activity Of Immune CellsThe sex hormone estrogen tempers the killing activity of a specific group of immune cells, the cytotoxic T cells, which are known to attack tumor cells and cells infected by viruses. The key player in this process is a cytotoxic T cell molecule which has been known for a long time and which scientists have named EBAG9. Cancer researchers in Berlin, Germany, have now unraveled the function of EBAG9.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:00 am Why flamingos stand on one legIt is one of nature's cutest mysteries, and now scientists think they have the answer.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Aug 2009 | 2:54 am The Perseids meteor showerCloudy skies meant disappointment for many shooting stargazers in the UK, but here are some of the best views of the show from around the world
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Aug 2009 | 2:20 am Climate change turning Aussie birds smaller: study (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Aug 2009 | 2:04 am Meteor show dazzles stargazersSkygazers have observed a dazzling sky show, as the annual Perseid meteor shower reached its peak.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Aug 2009 | 1:02 am Gene Therapy Offers Hope Against Inherited Blindness (HealthDay)HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Gene therapy for an inherited form of blindness shows promise, a U.S. study shows.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 9:48 pm India's water use 'unsustainable'Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according to results from Nasa's gravity satellites.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 8:39 pm Study sees dramatic drop in Indian groundwater (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 8:27 pm Man spotted riding bicycle with gator on shoulders (AP)AP - The 3-foot-long alligator on a bicyclist's shoulders was a real attention-getter. St. Charles Parish sheriff's deputies stopped the cyclist. He allegedly ran, leaving both wheels and his toothy little rider. Capt. Pat Yoes, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said deputies booked 38-year-old Terron D. Ingram on Friday with resisting arrest, possessing drug paraphernalia, and cruelty to animals by abandonment.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 7:10 pm NASA Drone Uses Radar to Map Quake Faults in 3-D<< previous image | next image >>
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California — The looming terror of an almost-certain catastrophic earthquake is simply a reality in many parts of the world – our hometown of San Francisco, for example. Scientists tell us it’s not a matter of if, but when. In hopes of understanding California’s deadly earthquake potential better, NASA scientists are using a jet outfitted with a custom autopilot system and specialized radar to map the faults with extreme precision. The system, known as Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), consists of a 10-foot-long pod that can be mounted to a variety of aircraft. As the radar flies over the earthquake faults, the UAVSAR pod takes hi-res images beneath the Earth’s surface. Its autopilot system allows it to repeatedly fly over the same areas within a 15-foot margin of error. The data from a single flight won’t tell scientists much about the faults, but when the fault is scanned again hours, days, weeks or months later, any movement becomes evident using what is called interferometry – a practice that makes differences between multiple data sets obvious.
 NASA is currently flying the UAVSAR-equipped jet over faults in the San Francisco Bay Area, central California and southern California, and the Los Angeles Basin (a geographic region that includes the San Andreas and Hayward faults, among others). Eventually the pod will be mounted to an unmanned aerial vehicle, decreasing the cost of the project and increasing the scanning time. Using the data obtained from the scans, NASA plans to create a detailed picture of where, and how far, faults are moving. Read on for a behind-the-scenes look at the UAVSAR project and the technology NASA is using to scan quake faults. Above: The UAVSAR pod hangs below the belly of a modified Gulfstream III jet being serviced in a hangar at NASA’s Dryden research center at Edwards Air Force Base. The four vents around the pod are used to air-cool the radar equipment during flight. Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm How to Know if You Have Alzheimer's (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - This Week's Question: I've been forgetting names of people lately and I have this dread that this is an early symptom of Alzheimer's. How can I tell?Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:57 pm Report: NASA can't keep up with killer asteroids (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:29 pm Wolf release in Mexico sparks concern in US (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:23 pm Obama presents presidential medal of freedom to Stephen HawkingWinners including scientist Stephen Hawking received honours during ceremony at the White House Barack Obama has hosted poets, basketball players, bluesmen and many others from a diverse background at the White House this year. But he's never had a group as eclectic as the one gathered in the east room yesterday. Among them were a veteran of the civil rights movement, a tennis player who advocated gay rights, the last living High Plains Indian war chief and British cosmologist Stephen Hawking. They were among the first 16 recipients of Obama's presidential medal of freedom, the country's highest civil honour. This was a roll call of Obama's heroes and heroines, people who had resonated throughout his life. "This is a chance for me and for the United States of America to say thank you to some of the finest citizens of this country, and of all countries," he said. Obama is often portrayed as one of the most liberal occupants in the history of the White House and the people he chose to award reflected this, champions of civil rights, human rights, gay rights, feminism, and anti-poverty campaigns. In the case of Hawking, it was for overcoming disability to push the boundaries of science. Hawking, in a wheelchair, lined up with the other recipients on either side of Obama in front of an audience of several hundred. Obama joked that Hawking had been a "brilliant man but a mediocre student". He went on to praise the author of a Brief History of Time who "from his wheelchair has led us on a journey to the farthest and strangest reaches of to the furthest corners of the cosmos. In so doing, he has stirred our imagination and shown us the power of the human spirit here on earth." The most striking figure among the 16 was Joseph Medicine Crow, a historian and champion of American Indian culture whose grandfather had been a scout with Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn. He wore a traditional chief's feathered headdress, which made it difficult for Obama to place the medal round his neck. Obama recounted how Medicine Crow, who became the first member of the Crow tribe to complete higher education, had been a warrior, fighting in the second world war with war paint under his uniform and a feather under his helmet. Among feats that added to his reputation, he stole about 50 horses from an SS unit. Medicine Crow, who is now in his 90s, failed to stifle a yawn as Obama retold the tales. Not all the 16 were present. Senator Ted Kennedy, who has championed healthcare reform throughout his career, was too ill to attend and the award was picked up by his daughter, Kara. For Harvey Milk, the gay rights icon who became one of the first openly homosexual men to be elected to public office, it was a posthumous award, as it was for Jack Kemp, the former champion US footballer and Republican congressman. Milk, whose story was popularised in a film last year starring Sean Penn, was shot dead in 1978 at the age of 48. His nephew, Stuart, picked up the award on his behalf. Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, tripped as she entered the east room to take her place in the line-up. Her award, as a prominent crusader for women's rights, has been attacked by some Jewish organisations in the US for her criticism of Israel's human rights record. Others to receive the award included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa; Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman ever on the US supreme court; Reverend Joseph Lowery, the civil rights veteran who led the bus boycotts in Alabama in the 1950s and the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965; Billie Jean King, the tennis player who advanced gay rights by publicly declaring she was a lesbian; and Sidney Poitier, one of the first African-Americans to make it big in Hollywood. Rounding out the list were Nancy Goodman Brinker, who transformed the US approach to breast cancer; Dr Pedro Jose Greer, who fought to extend medical services to those in Florida who could not afford it; Chita Rivera, the actor famous for West Side Story; Janet Davison Rowley, the scientist for her work on cancer; and Muhammad Yunus, who has helped combat poverty by offering access to credit. 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 | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:16 pm Lobbyists elbow for influence on U.S. climate bill (Reuters)Reuters - Manufacturers and energy companies sent squads of lobbyists to the U.S. Congress earlier this year to influence the climate bill, an indication the U.S. Senate will face pressure to adjust the legislation ahead of its vote, a nonprofit investigative group said.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:06 pm NASA Needs More Money to Hunt Killer Space Rocks, Report Says (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - NASA needs more cash in order to meet its goal of finding nearby space rocks that could hit Earth in a devastating impact, a new report says.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 4:16 pm Lasting benefits seen in gene therapy for blindnessBOSTON (Reuters) - A year after receiving gene therapy for a condition that causes total blindness by age 30, three people continue to see better and one has improved enough to read the digital numbers on the clock in her parents' car, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 4:16 pm Hawking receives top US honourThe US awards its highest civilian honour - the Presidential Medal of Freedom - to 16 people praised as "agents of change".Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 3:56 pm NASA Falling Short of Asteroid Detection Goals
Without more funding, NASA will not meet its goal of tracking 90 percent of all deadly asteroids by 2020, according to a report released today by the National Academy of Sciences. The agency is on track to soon be able to spot 90 percent of the potentially dangerous objects that are at least a kilometer (.6 miles) wide, a goal previously mandated by Congress. Asteroids of this size are estimated to strike Earth once every 500,000 years on average and could be capable of causing a global catastrophe if they hit Earth. In 2008, NASA’s Near Earth Object Program spotted a total of 11,323 objects of all sizes. But without more money in the budget, NASA won’t be able to keep up with a 2005 directive to track 90 percent of objects bigger than 460 feet across. An impact from an asteroid of this size could cause significant damage and be very deadly, particularly if it were to strike near a populated area. Meeting that goal “may require the building of one or more additional observatories, possibly including a space-based observatory,” according to the report. The committee that investigated the issue noted that the United States is getting little help from the rest of the world on this front, and isn’t likely to any time soon. Another report is planned for release by the end of the year that will review what NASA plans to do if we spot a life-threatening asteroid headed our direction.
A summary of the report’s findings:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Aug 2009 | 3:51 pm Martian Life Appears Less LikelyThe rapid destruction of methane on Mars suggests an environment too hostile to support life.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 3:45 pm New planet displays exotic orbitA team of astronomers discover the first planet that orbits in the opposite direction to the spin of its star.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 1:58 pm New superbug is even harder to treat than MRSAHospitals have been put on alert about a group of new superbugs brought into the UK by patients returning home after surgery abroad, including cosmetic treatments and organ transplants. The virulent new strains of drug resistant bacteria, which are much harder for doctors to tackle than MRSA or Clostridium difficile, have killed two people and left 18 others seriously ill in 12 months. At least 17 hospitals in England and Scotland have seen cases, prompting the Health Protection Agency to issue a warning about what it calls "a notable public health risk". The bacteria can cause wound infections, septicaemia, pneumonia and gastroenteritis and are posing real problems for the NHS because they are proving resistant to all the usual antibiotics. This year hospitals have reported seeing the infections in at least nine UK nationals who appear to have acquired them while staying in hospitals in India and Pakistan after having "tummy tuck" surgery, liver and kidney transplants or surgery following a car crash. Previous cases have emerged in holidaymakers who picked up the bacteria while hospitalised in Greece and Turkey after a moped accident. But doctors are worried because the latest strains, known as enterobacteriaceae, produce enzymes that attack and counteract powerful antibiotics called carbapenems which the NHS relies on as its last line of defence against particularly damaging infections. The HPA admits that tackling the threat posed by the bacteria "presents major challenges, [as most of them] are resistant to all standard intravenous antibiotics for treatment of severe infections". John McConnell, editor of the medical journal the Lancet Infectious Diseases, said: "There's the potential for this to become a substantial problem of antibiotic resistance within UK hospitals, and there's not much we can do at the moment. "Compared to MRSA or C difficile or a regular pneumonia-type infection this is pretty small beer, purely in terms of the number of cases so far. But small beer is the way that things like MRSA started. These cases could be the start of what could go on to be a major cause of healthcare-acquired infections." The situation is so serious that the HPA is urging pharmaceutical companies to urgently start producing drugs that are effective against these types of bacteria. McConnell said the government should offer financial incentives. Dr David Livermore, the HPA's director of antimicrobial research, said doctors had been forced to fall back on two drugs which had previously been abandoned. However, one of them, Polymyxin is very toxic, which means doctors have to be very careful about the doses they give. The bugs are four categories of carbapenem-destroying enzymes known as carbapenemases. The HPA's antibiotic resistance monitoring and reference laboratory (ARMRL) "urges hospitals to be vigilant to multiresistant gram-negative bacteria in patients with recent hospital contact in the Indian subcontinent as well as the eastern Mediterranean". Samples from any patients testing positive should be sent to the lab for further investigation. Israel and the US are also classed as countries which have been "a repeated source of introduction to the UK", says the HPA. Scientists at the ARMRL are alarmed by the recent emergence of the New Delhi Metallo-1 enzyme, which has been found in patients who have been operated on in New Delhi in India and Karachi in Pakistan. However, while they warn that that strain has "been repeatedly imported into the UK from the Indian subcontinent" they are also concerned that "there may now also be UK circulation since some affected patients have no immediately identifiable overseas links". In 2007 two unconnected patients at an unnamed Scottish hospital tested positive for enterobacteriaceae, prompting speculation that a local reservoir was the source of the infection. Livermore said the NDM-1 variant had proved resistant to all usual antibiotics used in severe infections. "We are getting to our last line of antibiotics. Over the past one and a half years we have seen more and more cases. There have been two fatalities [this year], but we can't say if [carbapenem resistance] was the direct cause as they were people who were very unwell." Some 77,000 Britons travelled abroad for surgery or cosmetic or dental treatment in 2006 and it is estimated 150,000 will do so this year. Q&AWhat are these new infections that are starting to kill and damage people? They are a group of new superbugs which are resistant to carbapenems, the strong and usually effective antibiotics which doctors reserve to tackle the most virulent infections. The bacteria produce enzymes called carbapenemases which break down the carbapenems. Why are these bacteria such a problem? Because they are incredibly difficult to combat and have been "repeatedly imported" into the UK from India, Pakistan, Greece, Turkey and elsewhere, says the Health Protection Agency. The latest NDM-1 strain resists all standard antibiotics usually deployed in the NHS. What damage do they do to human health? They infect people who are already vulnerable because their immune system is weakened, especially people who have recently had surgery. They cause wound infections, septicaemia, pneumonia, gastro-enteritis and even death. Could they prove as big a threat as MRSA and Cdifficile? They certainly could turn out to be a major new source of healthcare-associated infections, which may lead to deaths and injuries, according to John McConnell, editor of The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 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 | 12 Aug 2009 | 1:49 pm Is that a U.F.O.?These flying saucer looking aircraft look as though they are from outer space, but they are not being piloted by little green men.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 1:45 pm Is that a U.F.O.?Two ancestors of today's saucer-like flying car: Paul Moller from 1965 and AVRO Canada military project begun in 1955.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 1:44 pm ET text home? Send SMSes to outer spaceCANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian website is giving texting an intergalactic touch and allowing users to send short mobile phone-type messages into space.Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 1:27 pm Stunning View of Martian Impact Crater
This fantastic Martian impact crater was captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at a slightly oblique angle that reveals new detail in the geological strata exposed in the crater wall.
The rim of the half-mile-wide Victoria Crater, located in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars, was explored by the Opportunity rover for two years ending in August 2008. Some of the rovers tracks are visible to the left of the crater. This new view, which has been color-enhanced image highlights a bright band near the rim that marks the boundary between the bedrock and the material that was excavated by the asteroid, called ejecta. The beautiful pattern on the crater floor is made up of sand dunes. The image was taken on July 18 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera. A previous photo taken from directly above the crater in 2006 isn’t as revealing. Image: NASA/JPL-caltech/University of Arizona See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Aug 2009 | 1:05 pm Killer Asteroids May Escape NASA's NoticeNASA doesn't have the funding to monitor all asteroids that threaten Earth.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 12:20 pm Stowaway mosquitoes threaten Galapagos wildlifeLONDON (Reuters) - The unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islandsis under threat from disease-carrying mosquitoes arriving on board growing numbers of aircraft and tourist boats, researchers said on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:48 am Aack, No Brakes! Giant New Exoplanet Goes the Wrong Way
A huge newly discovered exoplanet appears to be orbiting in the wrong direction. Instead of traveling around its host star in the same direction the star spins, like all other known planets, this black-sheep planet is orbiting backwards. Scientists think the renegade orb, named WASP-17, got flipped around during a near collision with another planet during its youth. “Shakespeare said that two planets could no more occupy the same orbit than two kings could rule England,” astrophysicist Coel Hellier of Keele University in the U.K. said in a press release. “WASP-17 shows that he was right.” Planets are born from the same ball of rotating gas that creates their parent star, which is why they usually orbit — and spin — in the same direction as their star. While WASP-17 is the first planet known to orbit backwards, some planets in our own solar system, such as Venus, are spinning backwards. Like WASP-17, Venus may have experienced some kind of collision during its early history, which flung it into an unusual spin. Researchers at South African Astronomical Observatory discovered the new exoplanet 1,000 light years away from Earth. In addition to its surprising orbit, the exoplanet stands out because of its size: Only half the mass of Jupiter but twice its volume, the researchers claim WASP-17 is now the largest known planet. Its bloated girth may have something to do with its odd orbit, as scientists think the planet’s highly elliptical, retrograde orbit might have created extra-strong terrestrial tides, which cause planets to expand and contract. The constant stretching could have inflated WASP-17 to its current swollen size. “This planet is only as dense as expanded polystyrene,” Hellier said. “Seventy times less dense than the planet we’re standing on.” WASP-17 marks the 17th exoplanet discovered by the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) project, conducted by eight universities in the U.K. Because exoplanets don’t give off any light of their own and are usually obscured by their super-bright host stars, the scientists find exoplanets by scanning hundreds of thousands of stars, looking for the subtle dimming that occurs when a planet passes in front its parent star. See Also:
Image: An artist’s impression of two close extra-solar planets. KASI/CBNU/ARCSEC.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:37 am How to Know if You Have Alzheimer'sOnce you hit 60, you begin to wonder if your lost keys have greater significance than they did when you were younger.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:21 am Two Worlds Collide in Deep SpaceIn a cosmic pileup, two planets orbiting a young star smashed into each other at high speeds, astronomers reported.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:13 am Mars Meteorite Reveals Clues Into Planet's PastA meteorite the size of a watermelon on Mars is revealing new clues into the planet’s environment.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:09 am Tropical Storm Spotted on Saturn's Moon TitanStorm clouds were spotted in the usually-clear tropical latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:06 am High-Fat Diet May Make You Stupid and LazyA new study on rats finds that 10 days of eating a high-fat diet caused short-term memory loss and made exercise difficult.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:06 am Newfound Planet Orbits BackwardThe star and its planet, WASP-17, are about 1,000 light-years away.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:06 am Vanishing pointErasing your files from 'the cloud' just got easierSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:03 am Climate Controls Mountain Heights, New Study ShowsRadar images, models show mountain heights most affected by glacial action.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:00 am Why the world's highest mountains are at the equatorIce and glacier coverage at lower altitudes in cold climates more important than collision of tectonic plates, researchers find Scientists have solved the mystery of why the world's highest mountains sit near the equator - colder climates are better at eroding peaks than had previously been realised. Mountains are built by the collisions between continental plates that force land upwards. The fastest mountain growth is around 10mm a year in places such as New Zealand and parts of the Himalayas, but more commonly peaks grow at around 2-3mm per year. In a study published today in Nature, David Egholm of Aarhus University in Denmark showed that mountain height depends more on ice and glacier coverage than tectonic forces. In colder climates, the snowline on mountains starts lower down, and erosion takes place at lower altitudes. At cold locations far from the equator, he found, erosion by snow and ice easily matched any growth due to the Earth's plates crunching together. Egholm used radar maps of the Earth's surface, created by Nasa in 2001, to examine the height of all the world's mountains at a single point in time. The analysis showed that mountains had a significant land area up to their snowlines, after which it dropped rapidly. In general, mountains only rise to around 1,500m above their snow lines, so it is the altitude of these lines — which depends on climate and latitude — which ultimately decides their height. At low latitudes, the atmosphere is warm and the snowline is high. "Around the equator, the snowline is about 5,500m at its highest so mountains get up to 7,000m," said Egholm. "There are a few exceptions [that are higher], such as Everest, but extremely few. When you then go to Canada or Chile, the snowline altitude is around 1,000m, so the mountains are around 2.5km." "What we show is that, once the mountain is pushed up across the snow line, a very effective erosion agent comes into play and that is represented by glaciers," said Egholm. "It's so effective that it can keep pace with any tectonic uplift rate that we have on the Earth today." Below the snowline, rivers and rock falls are the main erosion agents. 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 | 12 Aug 2009 | 11:00 am Sight & Sound Processed Same by BrainSounds and images by the brain in a similar way, a new study finds.Source: Livescience.com | 12 Aug 2009 | 10:45 am WATCH: Meteorite InvestigatorsIs that rock from Earth, Mars or the Moon? Scientists in Washington, D.C., will tell you.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 10:00 am BLOG: Michael Jackson: Pharaoh of Pop?An ancient Egyptian bust bears an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 10:00 am Galapagos Wildlife Threatened by TourismMosquitoes brought in by tourists are creating an "ecological disaster" in the Galapagos.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 9:00 am New Supernova Image Reveals Third Dimension
Chandra’s contribution to the image shows the energy intensity of the X-rays. The lowest energy X-rays are colored red, such as those in the cooler inner material which is surrounded by higher energy blue blast wave. Orange shows the highest energy X-rays. Hubble added optical details in red, green and blue including all the stars in the image. The separate contributions can be seen below, Chandra on the left and Hubble on the right. The new X-ray data is helping scientists better understand the structure of the E0102 supernova remnant and the explosion that created it. Some material is moving toward Earth and some is moving away in a cylindrical shape that is seen end-on in the image (see video). This shape may have been caused by a very asymmetrical explosion. The supernova remnant is around 190,000 light years away. Light from the explosion could probably be seen from Earth’s southern hemisphere around 1,000 years ago.
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Aug 2009 | 8:48 am Cosmos: Probably the greatest science documentary in the universeAlmost 30 years after it first aired, Carl Sagan's cosmic travel guide still educates, entertains and inspires awe I never got to watch Carl Sagan's epic science documentary Cosmos as a child. I was at boarding school in 1980 when it was released, so my TV watching was restricted. I've heard science journalist colleagues talk about the series almost with reverence, describing Sagan's commentary as "poetry". The 13 one-hour episodes of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage have just been re-released, digitally remastered and with updates on scientific progress in the quarter century that has passed since the series was created. Would it live up to such high expectations? To be honest, my first impressions were not favourable. The music was corny, the opening sequence in which Sagan strides along a clifftop above a rocky shore felt like a documentary cliché, his introduction was painfully drawn-out, the promised poetry was turning the sea air purple. Sagan himself, in the early episodes, seems to deliver his lines in a contemptuous drawl, not unlike the Matrix's Agent Smith. His veneered smile is too perfect. The bridge of the "spaceship" he flies from the farthest reaches of the universe to the shores of our own planet is straight out of Blake's Seven. But then the real business got started, and it was breathtaking. Sagan strolls through the Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC and places it in the context of the entire history of the cosmos. In the "cosmic calendar", the big bang is on 1 January, first life on Earth arrived on 25 September, reptiles and trees on 23 December ("The dinosaurs perished around the time of the first flower"), humankind turns up in the last minutes and written records in the final 10 seconds. It puts things in perspective. Four billion years in the evolution of life from molecules to man then unfolds before our eyes in around 40 seconds of animated line drawings - simple but powerful. Sagan stands beneath a tree: "This oak tree and me - we're made of the same stuff … Any tree could read my genetic code. Why are we cousins?" Then an introduction to the internal workings of cells with a beautiful, elegant computer animation of an enzyme replicating the double helix of DNA. "We are a multitude," muses Sagan. "Within us is a little universe." Cosmos is a complete science course, encompassing not just cosmology but also chemistry, physics, biology, and the history of human discovery. It should be on the science curriculum of every school. There's never a dull moment, with enough historical re-enactments for an entire movie, from Anaxagoras and Ptolemy in Ancient Greece via Copernicus to Kepler, Tycho Brahe and Christian Huygens. The production values are extremely high. Sagan and his co-writers Ann Druyan and Steven Soter pulled off the trick of relating the exploration of the Earth to the exploration of the heavens. "We have made the ships that sail the sea of space," says Sagan. The Dutch ships that sailed in the 17th century to the Spice Islands were the direct forerunners of the Voyager spacecraft sent out to explore the Solar System. In one sequence Sagan is there at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena when the first pictures from Jupiter's moon Europa arrive at the astronomers' computers, "wharves for unloading data" that will be stored in "digital warehouses". Cosmos is about a lot more than the science. Sagan was a humanist and an environmentalist long before they became fashionable. He was trying to warn us about climate change in 1980, seeing the future of Earth in the ravaged hothouse of Venus. He was deeply concerned about the possibility of nuclear annihilation. But his legacy will be the passion for exploration and discovery his words have inspired in the 600 million or so people who have watched Cosmos. He was a poet, after all. "We have lingered long enough on the shores of cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars." This review first appeared on the film and DVD review website Screenjabber 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 | 12 Aug 2009 | 8:34 am Why MSG allergy is fake scienceOur failure to differentiate between quackery and hard science has perpetuated the Chinese restaurant syndrome myth In May this year, the medical journal Clinical & Experimental Allergy published a review of more than a decade of scientific research into "the possible role of MSG in the so-called 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'". Chinese restaurant syndrome is the popular slang for allergies or adverse reactions that some people claim they get after eating food containing the flavour-enhancer monsodium glutamate, or MSG, that is widely used in many processed foods and also added to many Asian dishes. What is amazing about the publication of this research is not that it concludes MSG allergy is a myth, but that a scientific journal still needs to bother debunking such pseudoscience at all. As the New York Times put it in an article by Julia Moskin published last year, "'Chinese restaurant syndrome' has been thoroughly debunked (virtually all studies since then confirm that monosodium glutamate in normal concentrations has no effect on the overwhelming majority of people)". This newspaper published an article in 2005 by Alex Renton that says "at no time has any official body, governmental or academic, ever found it necessary to warn humans against consuming MSG". Renton also writes about experimenting on a friend of his named Nic, who claimed to have adverse reactions to MSG: Renton feeds him a meal full of the MSG and closely related naturally occurring glutamates that are found in a huge range of foods including tomatoes, cheese, Marmite, seaweed and Worcester sauce. But Nic feels no pain or adverse reaction after his glutamate-stuffed meal. That's because he did not know he was eating MSG and other glutamates: like everyone else who complains of allergy or adverse reactions to MSG, Nic has psyched himself into believing that the benign substance makes him feel bad. In China, where I live, you don't hear many complaints about MSG allergy. They're too busy gorging themselves on the stuff. Chinese people consume 1.6m to 1.8m tonnes of MSG crystals every year, according to China's "MSG King" Li Xuechun, chairman of the Fufeng Group – a company that grew big enough to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange thanks to sales of MSG. Most restaurants and home kitchens in China have a big bag of MSG crystals, known in Chinese as weijing, or "flavour essence", and they toss it liberally into all kinds of savoury dishes. Even chefs who don't use glutamate crystals use soy sauce in most recipes, and soy sauce tastes good precisely because it's chock full of glutamates. Your clothes, your kids' toys and most of the stuff you own was probably produced in factories in southern China by migrant workers who power through their overtime shifts by eating instant noodles, of which MSG is a vital ingredient. Instant noodles form a big part of the diet of the country's more than 20 million university students, and you certainly don't hear any of them complaining about Chinese restaurant syndrome. Nor do Italians complain about headaches after eating parmesan cheese (which tastes good because of the glutamates in it), Japanese don't worry about eating too much seaweed or dried shrimp (ditto), and even in Britain you don't often hear whining about adverse reactions to Marmite (ditto); you certainly don't get warnings from your doctor about the dangers of human breast milk to babies (ditto). The fact is that unless you're eating bucket-loads of the stuff, MSG and its naturally occurring cousins are not going to do you any harm. The persistence of the Chinese restaurant syndrome myth is a symptom of the hypochondria that has become fashionable in contemporary Anglo-American culture, and the failure of our educational systems to teach people the difference between quackery and hard science. 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 | 12 Aug 2009 | 8:00 am BLOG: Miniature Camera Embedded in CapsuleDoctors use this camera capsule to examine the inside of the small intestine.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 7:00 am Castle Moats: Holy for Some, Sewer for OthersAncient castle moats served functions that were not always related to defense.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 12 Aug 2009 | 6:30 am Killer whales visit 'social clubs'Hundreds of killer whales from different pods regularly meet up to socialise off the coast of Russia, scientists discover.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 6:01 am Indian land 'seriously degraded'At least 45% of Indian land is environmentally "degraded", air pollution is rising and flora and fauna is diminishing, according to a report.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:52 am Reasons to be cheerful: Study gives happiness techniques thumbs upMass participation experiment suggests that simple strategies for boosting mood – such as smiling and thinking about something good that happened yesterday – may actually work The results are in. A whopping 26,000 people took part in psychologist Richard Wiseman's mass participation experiment to see whether four simple exercises could boost the happiness of the nation. The answer is a tentative "yes". The participants were randomly assigned to one of five groups. People in each of the first four groups watched a different video showing them a technique used to boost happiness, and were asked to carry out that technique every day for five days. The four techniques were forcing oneself to grin; performing random acts of kindness; expressing gratitude for something good in one's life; and thinking about a happy occurrence the day before. The fifth group performed a "control" technique that involved simply thinking about the day before. All five groups reported feeling more cheerful during the experiment. But the most significant improvement was seen in the group that thought about something positive that had happened to them the previous day. This technique led to a 15% increase in happiness relative to the control group. Expressing gratitude and smiling led to 8% and 6% improvements respectively. Performing random acts of kindness was slightly less effective than simply thinking about the day before. Professor Wiseman had hoped that the happiness generated by these mood-enhancing tricks would prove infectious, with the benefits extending beyond the people who watched the videos to lift the entire nation's mood (70% of the participants were in the UK). In an attempt to test this hypothesis, he commissioned national surveys before and after the study, each asking a representative sample of 2,000 people to rate their cheerfulness. Sure enough, the results suggested that Britain's happiness had increased by 7 per cent by the end of the experiment. "Obviously, it is impossible to say if this rise is due to the study," Wiseman said. "After all, it might be caused by many different factors, including world events or changes in the weather. However, we like to think that we played some role in helping put a smile on the nation's face." Think the happiness-boosting techniques could work for you? You can watch the videos at www.ScienceOfHappiness.co.uk. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:42 am Drug experts advise ban on SpiceHome secretary expected to endorse verdict of Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs over 'herbal high' substance The government's drug experts today advised the home secretary to ban Spice, a herbal smoking mixture thought to be as strong as some strains of skunk cannabis. The decision, which the home secretary, Alan Johnson, is expected to endorse, marks the first official move to curb a burgeoning market in "legal highs". Sales of herbal drug substitutes that contain neither tobacco nor cannabis have grown rapidly through a network of online sites and backstreet "head shops". The government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) warns that Spice Gold, which is advertised as a herbal high and an "aromatic potpourri", is in reality far from innocuous. They say it contains synthetic chemicals that mimic the effects of some of the more powerful active ingredients in cannabis. Professor David Nutt, the ACMD chair, said: "These are not harmless herbal alternatives and have been found to cause paranoia and panic attacks. That is why we are advising the government to bring a large number of synthetic cannabinoids under the Misuse of Drugs Act. "People need to know they pose a real danger and should not be seen as safe alternatives to illegal substances." The council's advice follows a request from the former home secretary Jacqui Smith to investigate the product in March. She voiced her concern over the "wide and largely unregulated market in the sale of psychoactive legal alternatives to illegal drugs, particularly as they are actively marketed to young people in head shops and via websites. "Advice on the availability and harms of these so-called legal highs, with a particular focus on protecting young people, will be very useful in informing future government policies," Smith told the ACMD. Spice Gold has been around since 2006, when it was first imported from China. The smoking mixture costs £20 for a 3 gram pouch, and contains mostly unidentified herbal matter, with ingredients such as dried flowers, leaves and aroma extracts listed on the packet. It is sold in various "flavours", with Arctic Energy, Yucatan Fire, Diamond and Silver promising different strengths. The Trojan Horse properties of Spice were identified in December by the THC Pharm laboratory in Germany, which is developing medicinal cannabis. The research led to a ban in Germany and Austria in January. France followed suit in February. Martin Barnes, the chief executive of the drugs information charity DrugScope backed a ban on Spice products. He said making Spice a class B drug alongside cannabis could remove the incentive for its manufacture and supply as it would no longer be available as a legal alternative to cannabis. However, he said the move was unusual because it was based on evidence of potential effects of Spice, rather than evidence of actual harm to individuals and society. Professor Leslie Iversen, chairman of the ACMD committee that drew up the report on Spice, told his local paper, the Oxford Mail: "It's a very clever product, sold as a herbal smoking mixture from China, but containing chemicals which can be a lot more potent than cannabis. Users have no idea what they are taking. As a result, they are running a considerable risk of overdosing, which is not only unpleasant but potentially quite dangerous." It is expected that the ACMD will now consider the position of other legal highs including Salvia divinorum, commonly known as magic mint or Mexican sage. An official consultation over plans to ban two synthetic party drugs, GBL and BZP – also known as "herbal ecstasy" – is due to end on Thursday. 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 | 12 Aug 2009 | 5:06 am Sea eagle chicks take to the skyA giant bird of prey that was hunted to extinction in Britain by the Victorians is reintroduced to the east of Scotland.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 4:29 am Cleaner Seine hosts salmon againWild salmon are returning to the River Seine for the first time in almost a century, French scientists say.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Aug 2009 | 3:37 am
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