Malignant Signature May Help Identify Patients Likely To Respond To Therapy

A molecular signature that helps account for the aggressive behavior of a variety of cancers such as pancreatic, breast and melanoma may also predict the likelihood of successful treatment with a particular anti-cancer drug. The finding could lead to a personalized approach to treatment for a variety of solid tumors that are currently resistant to therapies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Plants On Steroids: Key Missing Link Discovered Could Improve Understanding of Major Human Diseases

Researchers have discovered a key missing link in the so-called signaling pathway for plant steroid hormones. This discovery marks the first such pathway in plants for which all the steps have been identified. Since this pathway shares many similarities with pathways in humans, the discovery not only could lead to the genetic engineering of improved crops, but also could be a key to understanding major human diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Electrical Circuit Runs Entirely Off Power In Trees

For the first time researchers have run an electrical circuit entirely off power in trees. The findings suggest a new power source for wireless sensors -- and a way to monitor tree health.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Taking The Stress Off Yeast Produces Better Wine

Turning grape juice into wine is a stressful business for yeasts. A researcher in Spain has identified the genes in yeast that enable it to respond to stress and is investigating ways to improve yeast performance by modifying its stress response mechanism.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Parenthood Makes Moms More Liberal, Dads More Conservative

Parenthood is pushing mothers and fathers in opposite directions on political issues associated with social welfare, from health care to education, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Rats With Part of Brain Deactivated Move Toward Food But Do Not Eat

Using an animal model of binge eating, researchers discovered that deactivating the basolateral amygdala, a brain region involved in regulating emotion, specifically blocked consumption of a fatty diet. Surprisingly, it had no effect on the rat wanting to look for the food repeatedly.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Autoimmune Response Can Induce Pancreatic Tumor Rejection

Immune responses are capable of killing tumors before they can be directed toward normal body tissue, according to new scientific findings.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Overexpressed Protein Converts Noninvasive Breast Cancer Into Invasive Disease

Active, but non-invasive breast cancer is set free to roam as invasive breast cancer when an overexpressed protein converts it to a different cell type, scientists report.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Disease-causing Escherichia Coli: 'I Will Survive'

Strains of Escherichia coli bacteria that cause food poisoning have been shown to have marked differences in the numbers of genes they carry compared to laboratory strains of E. coli. Some of these genes may enable them to survive stresses such as those caused by modern food processing techniques or exploit food sources that laboratory E. coli strains cannot use.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Bacteria Used To Make Radioactive Metals Inert

The Lost Orphan Mine below the Grand Canyon hasn't produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but a biochemistry professor is researching the use of sulfate-reducing bacteria to convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances, a much more economical solution.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Governor: Istanbul floods kills 20 (AP)

AP - Istanbul's governor says the death toll from flooding in the city has risen to 20.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:23 am

Great tits acquire taste for bats

For the first time, scientists spot and film the songbirds killing and eating hibernating bats in a cave in Hungary.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:11 am

How Air Pollution Can Damage the Heart (Time.com)

Time.com - Adding to the burgeoning evidence that air quality may have a direct impact on heart health, a new study finds a measurable increase in blood pressure due to traffic pollution.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:50 am

Medical robots

How surgery could be transformed in the next decade
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:12 am

The Nation's weather (AP)

AP - Severe weather was forecast to sweep through the Central U.S. on Wednesday as a trough continued moving eastward throughout the day.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:08 am

Sharing a bed is 'bad for your health', say experts

Couples should consider sleeping apart for the good of their health and relationship, say experts.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:07 am

Brazilian oil field holds 1.1-2 bln barrels: BG (AFP)

AFP - British energy producer BG Group on Wednesday said that an oil and gas field it helped to discover off the coast of Brazil holds between 1.1 and 2.0 billion barrels.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:01 am

Climate talks to boost momentum for deal: UN (AFP)

AFP - The one-day UN meeting on climate change in New York later this month is intended to generate political momentum ahead of a landmark climate summit in December, according to a top UN official.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:54 am

US firm wins huge solar power project in China (AFP)

AFP - US energy giant First Solar won a deal with China to build the world's largest solar power plant in the Mongolian desert which officials say could mitigate climate change concerns.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Sep 2009 | 1:47 am

Planes 'to reset climate targets'

The UK economy may have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050 to make space for aviation growth.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Sep 2009 | 12:34 am

Discovery crew, Buzz Lightyear head home to Earth (AFP)

AFP - The space shuttle Discovery is heading back to Earth carrying a triumphant pint-sized traveler who now holds the record for the longest time spent in orbit -- "Toy Story" movie star Buzz Lightyear.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 11:03 pm

Hawaii researchers explore previously unseen coral (AP)

AP - Scientists over the past month explored coral reefs in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that until recently were considered too deep for scuba divers to reach.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:29 pm

NASA strategy proposal aims for Mars over moon

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A NASA strategy proposal shifts the U.S. human space program away from returning to the moon in favor of a stepping-stone approach aimed at reaching Mars, including using commercial space launch services, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 8:32 pm

Underfunding shackles Nasa vision

The US space agency's plans for manned missions to the Moon and beyond are not viable with current funding, a panel warns.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:42 pm

White House Panel Spells Out Human Spaceflight Options for NASA (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - WASHINGTON — A blue ribbon panel tasked with reviewing NASA's manned spaceflight program delivered to the White House Tuesday a 12-page summary of its findings, including two options based closely on the space agency's current plan for replacing its aging space shuttle fleet.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:15 pm

Severed Gecko Tails Have a Mind of Their Own

Even after they’re no longer connected to a lizard brain, gecko tails can flip, jump and lunge in response to their environment — and may even be able to evade predators.

Researchers have known for centuries that some animals can voluntarily shed parts of their bodies to keep from being eaten, but few studies have looked at the behavior of disposable body parts once they’ve fallen off. Now, using high-speed video and a technique called electromyography, scientists have discovered that severed gecko tails exhibit complex behavior and even seem to react to environmental cues.

“We expected a series of rhythmic movements that would slow down over time,” said biologist Anthony Russell of the University of Calgary, who co-authored the paper published Wednesday in Biology Letters. “What we found, however, was that the tail would flip left-right-left-right for awhile, and then do a jump, pivot around, and do another flip.”

The scientists say that figuring out what controls the jumping gecko tail may help us understand why the paralyzed muscles of spinal cord injured patients sometimes exhibit spontaneous muscle contractions, which they hope could someday lead to treatments that restore some control over such movements.

After attaching electrodes to the tails of four adult leopard geckos, the researchers gently pinched the lizards to encourage them to shed their tails. As soon as a gecko felt threatened, its tail began to twitch and eventually detached from the rest of its body in an amazing, but nearly bloodless, feat.

The researchers immediately placed the severed tails into a recording arena, as shown in the video below.

Rather than using up all their energy in a single short burst, the gecko tails seemed to modulate their muscle movement to conserve energy and maximize the unpredictability of their behavior. The tails also changed direction and speed depending on what they bumped into, which suggests that the tails can independently sense and respond to their environment.

“The tail is buying the animal that shed it some time to get away,” Russell said. If the tail simply moved rhythmically back and forth, predators would quickly recognize a pattern and realize they’d been duped. Unpredictable tail movements keep predators occupied longer, and in some cases, they may even allow the tail itself to escape.

“Leopard geckos store fat in their tail, and a lot of their resources are tied up in there,” Russell said. “The tail may move far enough away that it actually evades the predator, so that the owner can come back and eat its own tail to recoup some of the resources.”

Although the researchers understand the benefits of a detachable tail with a mind of its own, they don’t yet know what’s controlling the tail’s complex movement. According to Russell, figuring out what controls severed gecko tails might help us understand and treat some aspects of human spinal cord injury. “With a spinal cord injury, what tends to happen is skeletal muscles tend to be paralyzed behind that event,” he said. “For instance, if you injure your mid back, your lower limbs are put out of commission.”

But for several days to weeks after a spinal cord injury, paralyzed muscles often exhibit spontaneous, uncontrolled bursts of activity. “People really don’t understand how that happens,” Russell said, “what’s actually bringing about these spontaneous contractions without any major central nervous system control.”

Scientists know that networks of neurons called central pattern generators, or CPGs, can produce rhythmic movements that aren’t controlled by the brain, but they don’t know exactly how these neural networks function. To study CPGs, scientists usually have to surgically damage an animal’s spinal cord in a procedure called a “spinal preparation”; geckos provide a unique model system because they naturally sever their own spinal cords.

“This is a system that has evolved to be a spinal preparation that’s out there in nature,” Russell said, “doing something valuable for the animal.”

Image: David Fairbanks/University of Calgary. Video: University of Calgary.

See Also:

• Video: Leaping Lizard’s Tail-Free Mid-Air Wipeout
• Gecko Grip Equals Better Band-Aid
• Nanoglue Stickier Than Gecko Toes
• Gecko Glue

Follow us on Twitter @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:00 pm

Yawning toons make an ape gape (AFP)

AFP - Computer animations of yawning chimpanzees provoke the same irresistible grins in real chimps, according to an unusual study released Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:15 pm

Chimps can 'catch' contagious yawning from animations

Yawning is so contagious that chimpanzees can "catch" it from watching cartoons, according to researchers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:13 pm

Great tits found hunting bats for food

In British gardens they are welcome visitors, stopping off to sing and snack on the caterpillars. But in a remote cave in Hungary they are exhibiting some unusual behaviour. There, great tits have turned into predators who search out and eat roosting bats.

Scarcity of normal dietary staples is believed to have led the birds to prey on the creatures, the first time the extraordinary behaviour has been seen.

A team of scientists, led by Peter Estók at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, reported that on hearing the pipistrelle bats squeak the great tits entered the cave in north-east Hungary and started to peck at them as they sheltered in crevices. Whether the birds are an isolated group who have learned to prey on these bats in the cave, or whether great tits in Europe are altering their eating habits in a similar way, is uncertain, the scientists say.

The researchers staked out the cave and spent 22 days observing over two winters. On hearing the bat calls the birds flew slowly along the roof of the cliff where the animals nestled. The birds were recorded killing bats 16 times.

"We found several carcasses and one was in what I would call a terminal state," said Estók. "A great tit had pecked away all of the muscle, fat and intestines and even the brain. All that was left was skin and bones. This is the first time these birds have been seen capturing and eating bats." The researchers found that when offered sunflower seeds and bacon scraps the tits stopped flying into the cave. A report on the behaviour appears today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

The cave is well served by natural light, so the tits can see to home in on their prey. To investigate whether they came across the bats by accident or were truly hunting them, the scientists broadcast bat sounds from speakers close to the mouth of the cave. On hearing the calls almost all of the great tits flew up to the speaker to take a look.

The researchers speculate that the great tits may be taking advantage of food available in their immediate environment – as blue tits in Britain have done, opening doorstep milk bottles to drink the cream.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:05 pm

Liposuction leftovers make easy stem cells: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fat sucked out of chunky thighs or flabby bellies might provide an easy source of stem cells made using new and promising technology, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:48 pm

Humans Aren’t Going to Mars — or Anywhere Else — Without More Money

American human space exploration is impossible with NASA’s current budget.

The committee tasked with examining NASA’s role in human space flight delivered that finding today while offering a mix of relatively exciting options if the agency can secure an extra $3 billion per year.

The report, posted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy website, does not chart any new territory, but it’s unusually clear about the scale and nature of NASA’s problems. The committee said what needed to be said in the interest of a reality-based space program.

“You shouldn’t underestimate the impact of the basic statement, which is that the path [NASA] is going on is going nowhere,” said David Mindell, a science and technology historian at MIT who lead a different report on NASA’s future last year. “It’s an utter rejection of the Bush plan because it’s unfundable, unbuildable and dangerous. ”

The Augustine committee, as it’s known because of its head, Norm Augustine, was tasked in May with delivering the Obama administration options for human space exploration. Industry watchers saw the committee as a way to rethink NASA’s Constellation program, which promised to return Americans to the moon en route to Mars. Over the past couple of years, two things have become increasingly clear: NASA’s funding for human exploration didn’t match its goals; and the gap between the shuttle’s retirement (originally slated for 2010) and Constellation being ready to shoulder the load will be far longer than the two years originally planned.

While reports like Mindell’s had pointed out some of these problems, which were bandied about within the aerospace community, the new summary report is a wake-up call delivered to the very highest levels of government that NASA needs new direction and more money.

“The Committee finds that no plan compatible with the FY 2010 budget profile permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way,” the committee wrote.

On the issue of the gap, many had been holding fast to the notion that it might be shortened with minor variations or small-scale changes in the program. The Committee did not agree.

“Under current conditions, the gap in U.S. ability to launch astronauts into space will stretch to at least seven years,” they wrote. “The Committee did not identify any credible approach employing new capabilities that could shorten the gap to less than six years.”

Only continuing to send the shuttle into orbit for years after its intended retirement could close the gap. But that could also take valuable funds away from new technology development or exploration.

Though the committee offered a series of options for future exploration, including attempting to go directly to Mars and going to the moon on the way to Mars, they were clearly most excited about a plan they termed the “Flexible Path.” It would focus on humans flying around space farther from Earth but without landing on Mars or the moon.

“The Flexible Path represents a different type of exploration strategy. We would learn how to live and work in space, to visit small bodies, and to work with robotic probes on the planetary surface,” they wrote. “It would provide the public and other stakeholders with a series of interesting ‘firsts’ to keep them engaged and supportive. Most important, because the path is flexible, it would allow many different options as exploration progresses, including a return to the moon’s surface, or a continuation to the surface of Mars.”

Commercial space advocates are pleased with the report, too. It provides companies like SpaceX with major backing for their efforts to completely take over low-earth orbit launches.

“Based on not just this, but what the Augustine commission members were saying in their public hearings and other public statements that the committee members were making, the message was coming across loud and clear that now is the time to hand over human spaceflight commercially,” said John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. “But obviously from our perspective, it’s great to see this come out in print.”

Because the report is a summary of a longer version that will be delivered later this month, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA both declined to comment on the report.

The White House reiterated President Obama’s support for space exploration, but also punted until the full report is out.

“The president has on numerous occasions confirmed his commitment to human space exploration, and the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving our boldest aspirations in space,” Nicholas Shapiro, a White House spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Once we receive the final report, we will release it to the public and move swiftly to review the options put forth by the Committee.”

That looks likely to happen during the first week of October at a NASA Executive Summit.

Image: Ares Rocket / NASA

See Also:

• NASA’s Most Awesomely Weird Mission Patches
• NASA Panel Faces the Facts, and Asteroids
• NASA Falling Short of Asteroid Detection Goals
• Bring Back NASA’s Crazy Idea Factory
• Photos: NASA’s New Rocket Gets Built, and Dang Is It Skinny

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:45 pm

Space Shuttle Discovery Heads Home

Discovery crew bids farewell to the space station as they near the end of their mission.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:45 pm

Shuttle undocks from station and heads home

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Seven astronauts aboard the U.S. shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday and set their sights on a Thursday landing in Florida.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:36 pm

More Clues Found in Ocean Microbe Mystery

After comparing the genomes of two marine bugs, biologists have devised a tool for investigating one of Earth’s great mysteries: the foundation of ocean life.

The two bacterial species, called Sphingopyxis alaskensis and Photobacterium angustum, flourish in the ocean equivalents of jungle and desert. Their genetic overlap and divergence gives researchers a model for interpreting the as-yet-unknown functions of other marine microorganisms.

By pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carrying it to the deep sea, those microorganisms provide Earth’s largest carbon sink. They account for a significant chunk of the planet’s total biomass, and produce about half of all the complex organic molecules on which higher life relies. But zoom closer than the big picture, and details get blurry.

That S. alaskensis and P. angustum have been so closely scrutinized makes them different from almost all other marine microbes, which as a rule are extremely difficult to study. Dip a bucket into the sea, and you’ll gather billions of cells from thousands of different plant and microbe species. Some may never before have been seen. Few will survive long enough in a lab for scientists to learn what they do individually, much less in their original, highly specialized communities — and many scientists think these communities should be considered a single organism. Making sense of that bucket’s contents is like studying a human being cell by cell, without ever seeing a body.

Now imagine dipping the bucket at different depths, over 70 percent of the planet’s surface. That’s what marine biologists and geneticists have done over the last five years, as gene collection and analysis became easier. Even if microorganisms can’t be studied directly, it’s hoped that collections of their genes extracted in bulk from seawater — metagenomes — could eventually reveal how their communities work.

To that end, the S. alaskensis and P. angustum analysis provides a platform for classifying marine bacteria. Because S. alaskensis is specialized for nutrient-poor waters and P. angustum for nutrient-rich waters, researchers were able to identify 43 genetic markers that corresponded to nutrient metabolism.

From those, researchers can determine the ecological niches into which marine microbe species fit. Some of their role can be extrapolated. As the approach becomes more fine-grained, researchers will get a better sense of how the species interact in their subtle, Earth-altering choreography.

The findings were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Image: PNAS

Citations: “The genomic basis of trophic strategy in marine bacteria.” By Federico M. Lauro, Diane McDougald, Torsten Thomas, Timothy J. Williams, Suhelen Egan, Scott Rice, Matthew Z. DeMaere, Lily Ting, Haluk Ertan, Justin Johnson, Steven Ferriera, Alla Lapidus, Iain Anderson, Nikos Kyrpides, A. Christine Munk, Chris Detter, Cliff S. Han, Mark V. Brown, Frank T. Robb, Staffan Kjelleberg, and Ricardo Cavicchioli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 36, September 8, 2009.

“The trophic tapestry of the sea.” By Matthew J. Church. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 36, September 8, 2009.

See Also:

• Wired 10.12: Supermicrobe Man
• Climate Change Could Choke Oceans for 100000 Years
• Extraterrestrial Terraforming Starts With Bacteria

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes, Wired Science on Twitter.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:01 pm

Powerful Ideas: To Hot Rocks in Earth, Just Add Water

A major study will help determine the future of geothermal energy.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 12:29 pm

US firm in China solar mega-deal

US energy group First Solar has signed a preliminary deal to build the world's biggest solar power plant in China.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Sep 2009 | 11:47 am

All the golden gossip from the British Science Festival

Sue Nelson reports from the British Science Festival
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Sep 2009 | 11:43 am

Milestone: 50 Percent of Fish Are Now Farmed

Fifty percent of fish produced for consumption are raised on farms
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 11:41 am

UK lined up to be Europe's carbon capital

Storage of carbon dioxide could bring in £5bn a year, say scientists

Britain could become the carbon storage capital of Europe by selling space beneath the North Sea to bury billions of tonnes of waste gases from the continent's power stations.

An industry offering carbon storage to the mainland could create as many jobs as North Sea oil and bring £5bn a year into UK coffers by 2030, scientists estimate.

The demand for carbon storage is expected to grow as next generation power plants are built with technology that captures waste carbon dioxide instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

Trials are ongoing to test whether it is feasible to pump the captured gas into porous rock deep beneath the seabed and store it there indefinitely.

CO₂ is a major greenhouse gas and driver of global warming. Government figures claim that using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, Britain could reduce its emissions by a third.

Although it is possible to store CO₂ at underground sites onshore, rock formations around 1km beneath the North Sea are ideal for containing the gas, scientists told the British Science Association festival in Guildford.

Beneath the waters surrounding Britain, there is enough room to store 150bn tonnes of CO₂, in depleted gas and oil fields, and in giant salt-water aquifers. The storage capacity is more than the rest of Europe combined, excluding Norway.

"There is enough room beneath the North Sea to store 100 years of carbon emissions from north-west Europe's power stations," said Stuart Haszeldine, professor of geology at Edinburgh University. "Selling that capacity could bring £5bn a year alone."

Haszeldine calculates that the cost of developing CCS technology could work out as an extra £28 on top of an annual average household electricity bill of £498.

Engineers with the Norwegian oil company, Statoil, are testing the technology needed to pump CO₂ down to depths where it liquefies under pressure. The company has pumped a million tonnes a year into the Sleipner oilfield in the North Sea since 1996.

Monitoring of the site has found no signs that the gas leaking out and rising back up to the surface.

Mike Stephenson, head of energy at the British Geological Survey, said: "If CCS is going to happen in a big way, and it has to to make an impact, then a lot of underground storage space is going to be needed."

"If we get it right, we could use our storage space to bury Europe's CO₂ and we could charge for it," Stephenson added.

Carbon storage was only a "stop-gap" solution to the problems of climate change, the scientists said and should ultimately be replaced by renewable energy sources.

The government is looking to industry to build four CCS demonstration plants, but has not given a date by which they should be ready.

Haszeldine said ministers must move faster to avoid losing out to competitors such as the US, which is racing ahead with a similar scheme in Texas.

"I'm pushing for the government to get on with it and build five of these platforms by 2016," he said.

"We're doing the usual British thing of being faint-hearted when it comes to making a business out of something. It was the same with nuclear and wind power. We are in a world-beating position and must not lose the plot."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Sep 2009 | 11:10 am

Houseplants Make Air Healthier

Houseplants can clear indoor air of ozone.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:51 am

Study questions dioxin's link to cancer

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Findings from a study of Dow Chemical workers suggest that exposure to dioxin may not increase the risk for certain cancers, as is widely believed.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:50 am

Glowing Rings in Bananas Signal Overly Ripe

Under UV light, rings around the brown spots in bananas may signal rotten fruit.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:20 am

SLIDE SHOW: Sea Monsters Real and Imagined

Take a tour of an array of sea monsters, real and imagined, from the ocean deep.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:15 am

WATCH: California Wildfire Whodunnit

Find out how an arson investigator tracks down the cause of a wildfire.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:00 am

Could Nonstop Travel Cause Our Frequent Flyer to Fly Off the Handle?

Starting Tuesday, except for near-daily flights around the country, Brendan Ross won’t step outside of an airport for 30 days. He’ll be chronicling the adventures of his travel marathon on Wired.com’s Autopia blog, and now Autopia has asked Wired Science to investigate a critical question: Will all those long lines, sleepless nights and toxic airplane fumes drive our frequent flyer crazy?

Travel experts say it’s a real possibility.

“Extreme” and “inhumane” were the words psychologist Leon James of the University of Hawaii used to describe Brendan’s travel plans, which he’s undertaking completely voluntarily. “Most people wouldn’t do that,” said James, who specializes in stress associated with travel. “It’s an extreme kind of situation and doesn’t replicate what normal travelers would encounter, because travelers would have to sleep somewhere.”

Unlike most flyers, Brendan will be camping out on airport benches or sleeping in coach-class airplane seats. James said this kind of severe sleep deprivation on its own could cause significant psychological problems. But when combined with the other stresses associated with air travel, including long waits, bad airport food, recirculated air and irritable fellow passengers, James said the experiment sounds like the recipe for a breakdown.

“There are many features about travel that create kind of a sense of panic in someone, and their reaction to trying to handle this kind of panic is what we call ‘air rage,’” James said. Like road rage, air rage can cause an exaggerated response to an otherwise minor incident. Each year, thousands of passengers become so frustrated with air travel that they end up attacking a flight attendant, causing a disturbance at the gate or even storming the cockpit.

“There have been incidents where these people have almost crashed the plane,” said air rage expert Andrew Thomas of the University of Akron, who maintains a blog listing air rage incidents. “Or where they’ve been beaten to death or suffocated. There have been serious injuries.” Air rage is most likely to affect passengers who are intoxicated or have an existing mental illness, Thomas said, but it can strike other travelers too.

“About half the incidents happen in the immediate boarding area, and the other half take place in the air,” he said. “In most cases, there were indicators previously, but some people just spontaneously, in the middle of a flight, freak out for some reason. One person’s air rage incident is another person’s customer service complaint.”

Brendan, who came up with the idea for his flight marathon, has heard about air rage and is familiar with the stress of airplane travel, but he says he’s not too worried. “I don’t get stressed very easily,” he said, “and especially it helps that I have this passion for aviation.” Although he won’t be allowed to sleep in airport hotels or leave the premises in search of a bed, Brendan hopes that at some point, airport staff will take pity on him and let him crash in one of the executive airport lounges.

“I’m used to camping and sleeping in all sorts of crazy places,” he said. “I mean, I don’t normally sleep out in the street, but I’m good at finding quieter spots in the airport, of course never on this scale before.” Brendan will have access to a phone and a laptop, and he plans to check in with his wife at least once a day to keep himself connected.

Even though Brendan will be constantly surrounded by fellow travelers, James expects isolation to be a major source of stress while traveling for days on end. “When people are under mental stress, they tend to be in a bad mood and isolate themselves,” he said. “You sit next to the person next to you but you’re not going to talk to them, you’re disconnected, unconnected, alienated.”

To combat isolation, James recommends that Brendan make extra effort to befriend his fellow passengers, and he also suggests that Brendan carry a tape recorder to keep track of his thoughts. “I would even recommend this for ordinary travelers,” he said. “The more a traveler is able to speak their thoughts out loud, the more they can vent and reduce stress.”

Wired Science plans to keep close track of Brendan’s mental health as he flies around the country, and you can too by following him on Twitter @flyered. We’ve sent him a battery of stress tests and surveys to measure his baseline stress level, and then we’ll have him complete the same examination when he’s finished with his extended airport adventure.

Of course, if Brendan’s sanity starts to crack, we’ve told him to cut the experiment short. Stay tuned to find out how he fares.

Image 1: Flickr/Marco Veringa. Image 2: Flickr/caribb.

See Also:

• Meet Wired.com’s Terminal Man
• JetBlue Hopeful: Want Pass, Will Travel
• Video: What’s in the Bag? 3-D Scanners for Airports
• Airports Seek Thermal-Scan Solution to Swine Flu Spread
• You Tell Us: What’s the Worst Airport in the World?

Follow us on Twitter @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 9:53 am

Easter Island Red Hat Mystery Revealed

The origin of the red hats atop the giant stone statues on Easter Island has been discovered.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 9:45 am

Dogs Domesticated for Meat

New genetic study suggests dogs were domesticated in southern China for their meat.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 8:44 am

Climate deal is 'in the balance'

There is a "real danger" that a UN climate deal will not be reached this year, says the UK's foreign secretary, as he embarks on a new diplomatic push.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Sep 2009 | 8:24 am

New Flexible Building Survives Powerful Test Earthquake

A new structural enhancement for buildings may prevent damage from earthquakes.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 8:09 am

Flame Retardants Found in Children's Products

A flame retardant once banned for use in children's pajamas is being used again.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 8:00 am

Milky Way Expected to Survive a Beating

Though the Milky Way is taking a good beating from nearby mini-galaxies that sometimes slam into it, our galaxy is not likely to destroyed by this process as some scientists had predicted, a new study found.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 7:50 am

New Pictures of Neptune's Moon Triton

NASA released new pictures of Neptune’s freezing moon Triton, made from data taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft on its way out of the solar system in 1989.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 7:49 am

Moths as good as mice for many drug tests: study

LONDON (Reuters) - Moths, caterpillars and fruit flies could soon take the place of millions of mice used every year by scientists testing drugs, researchers said Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 8 Sep 2009 | 7:44 am

Why 09/09/09 Is So Special

Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 7:18 am

Spaceman

Bugs and worms battle in space for medical science
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:50 am

Plasmobot Computer Runs on Slime Mold

A new, rudimentary computer uses slime mold powered by oat flakes.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:38 am

How Much Spit Does a Person Produce?

Our salivary glands churn out plenty of spit to wash down food and fight off infections.
Source: Livescience.com | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:31 am

Close race anticipated for coveted science book prize

Tim Radford reviews the books on this year's shortlist and there's a chance for two lucky readers to win copies of all the books

Six books are shortlisted for this year's Royal Society Science Book Prize. The winner will be announced on 15 September. For a chance to win a copy of all six books enter the Guardian's competition, which closes at midnight on 18 September.

What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life by Avery Gilbert (Crown $23.95)

Can humans detect 30,000 different kinds of smell? Nobody knows. Most such figures are plucked from the air. Smell – a volatile molecule interacting with a sensor up your nostril – is a subjective thing: subject to suggestion, not least because the brain does the interpretation. There is a condition called parosmia in which all smells are horrid; another called anosmia in which there is no smell. More than 300 volatiles waft from the piggery but only four molecules account for most of the swinish aroma. Corpses smell sweet as they liquefy (attracting bees and butterflies) and the characteristic smell of cadaverine wafts its warning to the neighbours on day six before fading to a hint of ammonia. Hollywood moguls 70 years ago staged a battle for the noses, with Smell-O-Vision and AromaRama. Marketing men learned to drip subliminal spendthrift scent through the shopping mall air conditioners. Marcel Proust was inspired to 11 volumes by a whiff of moist madeleine, but had little to say about the scent itself: he wasn't the first voluptuary of smell, nor the last. Steinbeck did better with Cannery Row. This book is rich in anecdote and scholarship and the writing is not to be sniffed at either.

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Harper Perennial £8.99)

Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column should need no introduction to regular Guardian readers, and this book is more than just a reprise of a young medic's columnar condemnations. Even so, regular readers will meet old friends: nutritionists who claim slender evidence or even non-existent data for improbable miracle diets; fraudsters, charlatans and dangerous deceivers who propagate harmful medical claims; and of course the homeopaths who peddle pure water as a palliative for conditions that will get better anyway or (sadly) will probably get more painful. The word "probably" is the one that matters: Goldacre is big on probability, and a relentless scourge of "science" journalism: the kind of lazy hackwork that picks up a spurious finding or a dodgy argument and presents it as evidence of cause and effect. Science journalism without the quotation marks is not spared, either. He picks his issues with sympathy and intelligence, and argues his ground with care, humour, flair and respect for the real significance of research. Duck the detox, lay off the miracle foods, discard vitamin pills, abandon miracle creams and stop worrying about MMR vaccines. A stiff dose of Goldacre works wonders for the body politic; it should be available on prescription.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Harper Press £25)

Richard Holmes calls this book a "relay race of scientific stories" that link together to explore the larger historical narrative of the second scientific revolution. The adventure begins with Banks and Cook in Tahiti, observing the transit of Venus; switches to the amazing Hanoverian musician William Herschel and his loyal sister Caroline, who took up astronomy and opened new windows on the heavens; and then follows the course of the great Humphry Davy, the man who turned electrochemistry into a high society entertainment, and then took the young Faraday on tour to Europe and set him on the road to greatness. There are other scientific adventurers, among them the mad hot-air balloonists who took up the cross-Channel challenge, and the great African explorer Mungo Park, and yes, there is skilful baton-changing, but what distinguishes this book above all is the beauty of its writing, the depth of its scholarship, the sureness of its touch and the perfect placing of its young, ambitious scientists among the philosophers and poets of the Romantic era: Keats and Coleridge and Mary and Percy Shelley and Byron all have supporting roles in this exhilarating sprint through 70 years of scientific discovery.

Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer by Jo Marchant (Windmill Books £8.99)

The Antikythera mechanism is a bit of celestial clockwork recovered from the wreck of a Greek vessel lost 2,000 years ago off the Aegean island of Antikythera. The catch is, clockwork wasn't invented for another 1,000 years and the mechanism – corroded, squashed, fragmented and incomplete – has puzzled scholars for a century. Jo Marchant tells the story of repeated attempts to make sense of the lessons locked in the mechanism's 30-odd gear wheels and enigmatic inscriptions. But this is more than a book about the Hellenic equivalent of an astronomical computer. It ventures into diving technology old and new; the challenges of preservation and restoration; the geophysical history of the eastern Mediterranean; the complexities of the calendar; the marvels of increasingly sophisticated detector technologies; the obsessions of scientists, their competitiveness and their occasional willingness to ignore awkward data in favour of a pet theory. There's a lot to be learned about astronomy and Athens and the ancient world, about Jacques Cousteau and nitrogen narcosis, and X-ray imaging systems, Hipparchus and other members of the antique Rhodes show, all deftly told in a racy narrative. This one gets my prize for the widest sample of science, delivered with classy style and a sure touch.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow (Penguin £9.99)

Probability gets a bit more personal when a doctor tells Mlodinow that the chances are 999 out of 1,000 that he will be dead within a decade and adds, "I'm really sorry", as if there were some patients for whom he wasn't really sorry. The vignette is an illustration of the value of quite technical mathematical tools such as Bayesian analysis and the challenge of the false positive, and ways in which the doctor should have assessed the results of an HIV test taken by a heterosexual, non-drug-abusing white male American. Where Ben Goldacre confines his focus mainly to medicine and the media, Mlodinow goes for the big picture: the whole history of games of chance, gambles on the future and the perplexing thousand-year study of probability and outcome. Don't believe in masters of the universe: in the great stock exchange casino, there will always be someone who seems to win more often. After reading this dazzling book, you won't confuse a winning streak with fiscal wisdom, and you'll tiptoe away from the betting shop, richer and wiser and much more aware of the eccentric history of mathematics. The HIV result, by the way, was wrong: with every trial, you learn, there is error.

Your Inner Fish: The Amazing Discovery of Our 375-million-year-old Ancestor by Neil Shubin (Penguin £9.99)

Like a fish, it had scales and it had fins. Like a land-dweller, it had a flat head. Inside the fins were bones that fitted the description of upper arm, forearm and wrist, along with shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. Best of all, it came from a stratum of Devonian rock dated at 375m years old; 10m years before this date, fossils were entirely fishy, 10m years after, they were also amphibian. So Tiktaalik – flat head, eyes on top, a neck of sorts – was a fish out of water: just out of water, an intermediate, a survivor from that historic moment when ocean-dwellers began to try their luck on land. Tiktaalik is a fish on the way to becoming a tetrapod, a class of vertebrates that includes birds, brontosauruses and book prize winners. Shubin is a very good guide to the demands of palaeontology (especially in the Canadian Arctic) but also a remarkably lively instructor in genealogy on a grand scale: the intricate lineage that runs from us now back to them then. Who appreciated that human ear bones evolved from piscine gills, or that if we were sharks we wouldn't get hernias because our gonads would be so close to our hearts?

What are the odds?

Age of Wonder 3/1

Bad Science 3/1

Your Inner Fish 7/2

What The Nose Knows 4/1

Decoding The Heavens 5/1

The Drunkard's Walk 5/1

Source: William Hill

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:38 am

Colossal Apollo Statue Unearthed in Turkey

A massive statue -- one of a dozen or so in existence -- of Apollo has been found.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:38 am

Win six books shortlisted for prize

Enter to win all the contenders for the 2009 Royal Society science books prize

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:37 am

Osteoporosis drug withheld

Better, but more expensive, treatment will not be assessed by Nice for three years

Thousands of British women are being denied modern drugs to treat a common bone-thinning disease because guidelines surrounding its use are too stringent, doctors warn.

The majority of patients who are diagnosed with osteoporosis, which causes the bones to become dangerously brittle in old age, are prescribed a weekly pill, even though a more effective once-a-year injection is available.

A significant number of patients refuse to take the weekly alendronate pill because of its uncomfortable side-effects, but are not offered the alternative of a drug infusion called zoledronate, because they are not ill enough to qualify for it, doctors said.

"It's bad medical practice. You can't tell a patient they can't have this treatment because they are not ill enough," said David Reid, professor of rheumatology at Aberdeen University.

Half of women and a fifth of men over 50 suffer bone fractures due to osteoporosis, and only a 20% of all patients who fracture a hip in a fall survive for more than a year. In Britain alone, 480,000 women are prescribed drugs to treat osteoporosis.

Alendronate is an older drug and costs £50 a year to treat each patient, but unless it is taken in line with a strict dietary regime, it can cause indigestion and other side-effects. Zoledronate costs around £250 a year, but doctors argue it could help thousands of patients who give up taking alendronate.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which advises the NHS on drug use is not scheduled to assess zoledronate for another three years, the doctors told the British Science Association festival in Guildford.

"There is a clear benefit to many patients in the ease of taking a once-a-year treatment, rather than having to take pills every day or every week, with a complex fasting regime," Rob Dawson at the National Osteoporosis Society said.

"We accept the need for Nice to put zoledronic acid through a proper appraisal, but we want this to be done through a much more enlightened process than other osteoporosis treatments have been through. Otherwise Nice stand in the way of medical progress," he added.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:52 am