Coronary Imaging Techniques Helps To Identify Plaques Likely To Cause Heart Attacks

Late-breaking results from the PROSPECT clinical trial shed new light on the types of vulnerable plaque that are most likely to cause sudden, unexpected adverse cardiac events, and on the ability to identify them through imaging techniques before they occur.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Scientists Discover How To Send Insects Off The Scent Of Crops

Scientists have discovered molecules that could confuse insects' ability to detect plants by interfering with their sense of smell. This could reduce damage to crops by insect pests and contribute to food security.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Spot Discovered On Dwarf Planet Haumea Shows Up Red And Rich With Organics

A dark red area discovered on the dwarf planet Haumea appears to be richer in minerals and organic compounds than the surrounding icy surface.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Sheep Shed Light On Personality Differences

Scientists recently completed a study showing the link between personality, survival and reproductive success in male bighorn sheep. In addition to being a significant advance in our knowledge of these mammals, the research offers insight into personality differences in animals and humans, from an evolutionary perspective.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Diabetes Drug Shows Promise In Fighting Lethal Cancer Complication

Insulin resistance, the hallmark of type 2 diabetes and a condition often associated with obesity, is paradoxically also an apparent contributor to muscle wasting and severe fat loss that accompanies some cancers, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Use Of Statins Favors The Wealthy, Creating New Social Disparities In Cholesterol, Study Finds

Since the introduction of statins to treat high cholesterol, the decline in lipid levels experienced by the wealthy has been double that experienced by the poor. Statin use may have contributed to expanding social disparities in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Toad Venom In Cancer Treatment: Traditional Chinese Medicine Is Well-tolerated, Study Shows

Huachansu, a Chinese medicine that comes from the dried venom secreted by the skin glands of toads, has tolerable toxicity levels, even at doses eight times those normally administered, and may slow disease progression in some cancer patients, say US researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Detailed Glimpse Of Chemoreceptor Architecture In Bacterial Cells

Using state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques, researchers have for the first time visualized and described the precise arrangement of chemoreceptors -- the receptors that sense and respond to chemical stimuli -- in bacteria. In addition, they have found that this specific architecture is the same throughout a wide variety of bacterial species, which means that this is a stable, universal structure that has been conserved over evolutionary time.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Ultrasound Can Predict Tumor Burden And Survival In Melanoma Patients

Researchers have shown for the first time that patterns of ultrasound signals can be used to identify whether or not cancer has started to spread in melanoma patients, and to what extent. The discovery enables doctors to decide on how much surgery, if any, is required and to predict the patient's probable survival.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Engineers Track Bacteria's Kayak Paddle-like Motion For First Time

Engineers have for the first time observed and tracked E. coli bacteria moving in a liquid medium with a motion similar to that of a kayak paddle. The findings will help lead to a better understanding of how bacteria move from place to place and, potentially, how to keep them from spreading.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Ugandan gorillas get friendly on Facebook (AP)

AP - He's hairy, his table manners are atrocious, and he wants to be your friend on Facebook.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 3:23 am

Climate talks resume in Bangkok with deal in doubt (AP)

AP - Two years ago, governments from around the world came together on the island of Bali and agreed to urgently rein in the heat-trapping gases blamed for deadly heat waves, melting glaciers and rising seas.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Sep 2009 | 2:18 am

Rare Space Object Discovered by High Schooler (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Major breakthroughs in astronomy aren't only reserved for professional scientists, as proven by a high school student who recently helped discover a new astronomical object.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 5:16 pm

Pernicious film of Aids denialist propaganda

This week, listening to the Guardian science podcast, I had a treat. Caspar Melville, editor of New Humanist magazine, leader of something called the Rationalist Association, had been to see two films at the Cambridge film festival. One was a dreary creationist movie that famously misrepresented the biologists interviewed for it. This was obvious bad science, he explained. But the other was different: House of Numbers, a new film about Aids, really had something in it.

I have now seen this film. It presents itself as a naive journey by one young film-maker to discover the science behind HIV. In reality, it's a dreary and pernicious piece of Aids denialist propaganda.

All the usual ideas are there. It's antiretroviral drugs themselves that are the cause of symptoms called Aids. Or it's poverty. Or it's drug use. HIV doesn't cause Aids. Diagnostic tools don't work, Aids is simply a spurious basket diagnosis invented to sell antiretroviral medication for a wide range of unrelated problems – and the drugs don't work either.

It would take two months of columns to address all the bogus claims of this film, and that blizzard, perhaps, is the point of making it, with all the classic rhetorical devices that have been honed by Aids denialists and creationists over decades. It engages, for example, in repeated overstatement of marginal internal disagreements about the details of HIV research, to the extent that 18 doctors and scientists interviewed for the film have issued a statement saying that the director was "deceptive" in his interactions with them, that it perpetuates pseudoscience and myths, and that they were selectively quoted to make it seem as if they are in disagreement and disarray, when in fact they agree on all the important facts.

At one point there is an extended sequence explaining that you can't take a picture of the HIV virus: or maybe you can, but if you can, different scientists disagree on how, and whether their method is best.

This is an infantile world view where stuff only exists when you can easily take a photograph of it, and where the internet, compound interest and magnetism don't exist either.

There is a memorable skit on diagnostic tests, where the film-maker manages to find one woman working in a marquee in a shopping centre in Africa giving HIV tests, who accidentally misinforms him about why she is asking for information on his health risk behaviours.

In the film, this becomes a dramatic expose: the HIV diagnosis is a tautology, they suggest, a basket diagnosis for sick people of any kind who engage in risk behaviours, the blood test is unreliable, a piece of theatre, and the diagnosis is only made because the tester has asked if you are gay or inject drugs.

But people working on the frontline of HIV testing are often told to ask about risk behaviours during a test, because testing is also a great opportunity for education about prevention. Furthermore, as an interesting statistical aside, knowledge about your pre-test likelihood of having a condition also helps the tester to correctly interpret any diagnostic test.

In any case, HIV tests are so reliable that in 2007 an HIV-negative woman won $2.5m in damages after she was treated for Aids without a proper diagnosis, because there was no excuse for the mistake that her doctor made.

But am I protesting too much? As you read these words, is doubt creeping in? So tests aren't so good? So there is controversy? It's all so complicated. So many details. Maybe there's no smoke without fire. And so, maybe, I should ignore this film: but it's so profoundly misleading that you can't stop yourself.

There is an interview with Christine Maggiore, who talks about her difficult decision to go against medical advice by declining to take Aids medication, and how much better she felt as a result.

What the film doesn't tell you, as you shout at the screen, is that Christine Maggiore's daughter Eliza Jane died of Aids and PCP pneumonia three years ago, at the age of three, and, as I reported nine months ago, Christine Maggiore herself died two days after Christmas 2008 of pneumonia, aged 52 (the film finally acknowledges her death in the last 2 seconds of the film, at the end of the lengthy credits, in small letters).

We see Neville Hodgkinson, the Sunday Times health correspondent who drove their denialist reporting in the 1990s. There is Peter Duesberg, who you will remember from a recent column, when academic publishers Elsevier forcibly withdrew an article by him in one of their journals. I could go on.

Do you give idiots a wider audience when you respond to them? Are they marginal and irrelevant? I'd like to believe that they are. But the duping of Caspar Melville (who has since recanted from his uncritical response to the film, albeit only on his blog), and the attention-seeking smugness of Cambridge film festival in putting on such a moronic film, both suggest otherwise. I will never know the right way to deal with any of these people, and I will always welcome advice.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Sep 2009 | 5:05 pm

The Challenge of Making Real 'Surrogate' Skin

Can it be done? Not easy.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 5:04 pm

The science of uranium enrichment

Gas centrifuges are used to enrich uranium to make either fuel for nuclear reactors or fissionable material for nuclear weapons. To make enough fuel for a commercial reactor takes tens of thousands of centrifuges, which must be connected together and timed to run simultaneously.

Raw uranium ore as dug from the ground contains less than 1% Uranium-235, the type of uranium atom that can easily be split to produce energy. The rest is a heavier form, Uranium-238. Enrichment plants produce either low enriched uranium for nuclear power plants, which contains around 5% Uranium-235, or high enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, which contains 85%-90% Uranium-235.

Processing begins with uranium ore, which is milled to produce a compound called 'yellow cake'. This is converted into uranium hexafluoride gas, which is pumped into a gas centrifuge and spun around at high speed. The heavier gas molecules, containing Uranium-238, are drawn to the outer wall, while the lighter gas molecules, containing Uranium-235, collect in the middle. From here, the enriched gas can be siphoned out. Connecting thousands of centrifuges together creates what nuclear engineers call a "cascade".

Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz was upgraded to house 8,000 gas centrifuges earlier this year, and is eventually due to contain 50,000 devices. But in two years of operation, the site has produced little more than 1500kg of low enriched uranium. The country's nuclear plant in Busher needs a supply of around 20,000kg of nuclear fuel every year.

"In terms of producing a commercially viable, commercial scale enrichment facility, it makes absolutely no sense from either a technical or an economic point of view to have a small facility in a mountain with 3,000 centrifuges in it," said Jacqueline Shire, an analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington DC. "If you need to produce nuclear fuel for a reactor, you need tens of thousands of centrifuges running. If you want to produce bomb-grade material potentially, you only need 3,000," she added.

Another analyst said the facility could be a research and development centre, or a hardened store to protect nuclear enrichment equipment away from the more vulnerable Natanz facility.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Sep 2009 | 4:39 pm

U.S. Launches Two Experimental Missile Defense Satellites (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A NASA-managed rocket launched two experimental satellites designed to track ballistic missiles Friday in a test flight for the United States Missile Defense Agency.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 4:31 pm

Reader Photo Gallery: Awesome DIY Astronomy

Wired Science has some great amateur astronomers among our readers and followers. Our first reader-contributed space photo was an eerie glowing space bubble. We asked on Twitter and in a post for more of your photos of space, and we got some beautiful images in return. Thanks!

Above: Elias Jordan sent us this superb shot of the Pelican Nebula that he took in June with an astronomical camera (SBIG STL11000M) and a telescope (Takahashi FRC 300). The exposure time was 114 minutes. How awesome is it that someone can get an image this nice of something 2,000 light years away, basically from a backyard in New Mexico?

Below: Arran Hill shared this terrific image of the Pacman Nebula, more officially known as NGC 281. This star-forming region 10,000 light years away got its nickname from its overall shape, which resembles an open-mouthed Pacman. This image required 69 15-minute exposures, for a total of more than 17 hours divided among three different filters. Sulfur gas appears reddish, hydrogen is green and oxygen is blue.

“This gives a false color,” Hill wrote in an e-mail. “But by using it, more delicate and subtle structure is revealed in the image.”

If you’ve got some super space shots you’d like to see featured on Wired Science, let us know by e-mail or on Twitter @wiredscience.

See more images by all three of our reader astrophotographers on the next page.

More images on the next page.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Sep 2009 | 4:30 pm

Indian PM on climate deal: 'I'm not an astrologer' (AFP)

AFP - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Friday he could not predict whether the world will meet a deadline on a climate deal, saying a summit here only took up global warming in broad terms.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 4:19 pm

Moon Myths: The Truth About Lunar Effects on You (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - The moon holds a mystical place in the history of human culture, so it's no wonder that many myths - from werewolves to induced lunacy to epileptic seizures - have built up regarding its supposed effects on us.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 3:41 pm

SLIDE SHOW: The Week's Top Stories

Take a look at the past week's top news in the Flashback Slide Show.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 3:30 pm

BIG PIC: Space Station Spotting

A photographer snaps a shot of the space station from more than 180 miles below.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 3:30 pm

G-20 leaders take aim at fossil-fuel subsidies (AP)

AP - G-20 nations are vowing to collaborate to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and push the world toward investment in cleaner energy sources.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 3:15 pm

Tropical depression forms in open Atlantic (AP)

AP - A tropical depression has formed in the eastern Atlantic, but doesn't pose any threat to land.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 3:08 pm

Calif. OKs fee to pay for global warming program (AP)

AP - Despite industry objections and threats of lawsuits, California air regulators on Friday approved the nation's first statewide carbon fee on utilities, oil refineries and other polluting industries.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 2:52 pm

UK warned as plague of bee-eating hornets spreads north in France

• Pesticides and traps fail to halt steady colonisation
• British summer could be their downfall, says expert

For five years they have wreaked havoc in the fields of south-western France, scaring locals with their venomous stings and ravaging the bee population to feed their rapacious appetites. Now, according to French beekeepers, Asian predatory hornets have been sighted in Paris for the first time, raising the prospect of a nationwide invasion which entomologists fear could eventually reach Britain.

Claude Cohen, president of the Parisian region's apiculture development agency, said a hornet nest had been found this week in the centre of Blanc Mesnil, north-east of the capital.

If confirmed by further testing, the find will raise fears that the spread of the bee-eating Vespa velutina is no longer limited to the Aquitaine region near Bordeaux, where it is believed to have arrived on board container ships from China in 2004, and the surrounding south-west.

Denis Thiery, a specialist at the National Institute for Agricultural Research, said the hornets were likely to push on with a relentless colonisation of their adopted country until they become a common sight in vast swaths of France – and ultimately in other European states.

"We are seeing a real geographical expansion," he said, adding that an eventual invasion of southern England, which has a relatively mild climate the hornets would enjoy, could not be ruled out.

Biologists insist that this variety of Asian hornet, which can grow to an inch long, is no more ferocious than its European counterpart, although its stings, which contain more poison than those of wasps, can be very painful and can require hospital attention.

This summer swarms of the insects were reported to have attacked a mother and baby in the Lot-et-Garonne department, as well as pursuing passersby and tourists on bikes.

But the hornet's menace to human beings pales into insignificance in comparison with the destruction it wreaks on its chosen habitat. In south-western France, where its population surges each year, beleaguered beekeepers claim that they are being driven into the ground by the insect's destructive eating habits.

"We have literally been invaded," said Raymond Saunier, president of the Gironde department's beekeeping union. "In the past two to four years we have lost 30% of our hives. All it takes is two or three hornets near your hive and you've had it."

He added: "It's not just about us trying to make honey. What's even more serious is the effect they have on the pollination process [by killing so many bees]. It's really a disaster."

Faced with a demographic explosion which Thiery said had seen thousands of nests documented last year in the city of Bordeaux alone, entomologists are unsure of the best way to halt the hornets' seemingly unstoppable advance. Neither pesticides nor traps have proved particularly effective, largely because the creatures nest high off the ground in trees. The Vespa velutina has no natural predator on European soil.

Because of this, and a gradual shift in climate which experts believe could encourage the hornets to move north, many experts are adamant that the French scourge will at some point cross the Channel.

But the threat is not immediate, said Stuart Hind, head of the Natural History Museum's centre for biodiversity in London. "[A UK invasion] is very likely," he said. "It is entirely plausible. But it could be 10 to 15 years before they come knocking on our door."

But, he added, "If anything were to stop them it would be the good, old-fashioned British summers. They wouldn't cope well with heavy rain."

Insect invasions

March 2002

The pelargonium brown, a butterfly native to South Africa, was found to be eating its way through France by environmental research group Cemagref. It was considered a harmless addition to French insect life, although experts worried that it could oust local species. Thought to have ventured north because of warmer winters.

July 2005

Huge swarms of locusts ravaged the southern French region of Aveyron after a drought helped thousands of eggs to hatch. They wreaked havoc on hundreds of farms.

September 2009

In Britain's south-west, environmentalists were delighted by a surge in the population of one of the UK's most endangered butterflies. Experts recorded the second highest count of marsh fritillaries since weekly recording began in 1994.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Sep 2009 | 2:35 pm

Mars probe watches water-ice fade

Water-ice in new meteorite craters suggests Mars has considerable ice deposits in its near-surface layers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Sep 2009 | 2:31 pm

Iceland plans huge whale meat export to Japan: firm (AFP)

AFP - Iceland's fin whaling company said on Friday it plans a huge export of about 1,500 tonnes of whale meat, mainly to Japan, after wrapping up its hunting season for this year.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 2:14 pm

Supervolcano Eruption Was Tough on Teeth

Ash from an ancient supereruption would have made it difficult for humans and animals to eat.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 2:00 pm

Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap

BRISTOL, England — A newly described, profusely feathered dinosaur may give lift to scientists’ understanding of bird and flight evolution, researchers report. The lithe creature, which stood about 28 centimeters tall at the hip, is the oldest known to have sported feathers and is estimated to be between 1 million and 11 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the first known bird.

Several fossils of the creature, which has been dubbed Anchiornis huxleyi, have been unearthed in northeastern China, Xing Xu reported September 25 at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The strata that contained those feathered fossils were laid down as sediments between 151 million and 161 million years ago, he and his colleagues note online September 24 in Nature.

Two types of feather adorn the creature, said Xu, of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. One kind, commonly referred to as “dino-fuzz,” resembles a frayed bundle of filaments. The other type, similar in overall structure to the feathers of modern-day birds, consists of small filaments that branch from a larger shaft-like filament.

The dino-fuzz decorates the creature’s head and neck. About two dozen of the shafted feathers adorn each forelimb, and a similar number embellish each lower leg and foot, the researchers report. Unlike most feathered dinosaurs described previously, which have the longest forelimb feathers near the tip of the limb,
Anchiornis’ longest forelimb feathers are on the wrist, Xu said. Feathers on the legs and feet appear to have overlapped each other, creating aerodynamic surfaces that would have, in essence, given Anchiornis a wing on each of its four limbs. A similar configuration has been seen in other feathered dinosaurs, including Microraptor (SN: 1/27/07, p. 53) and Archaeopteryx (SN: 9/23/06, p. 197).

With so many species with this arrangement, the four-winged configuration must have been an important phase in the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds, says James M. Clark, a vertebrate paleontologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Larry D. Martin, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, agrees. The profuse plumage on Anchiornis’ feet, he notes, also suggests that the creature was a tree dweller, bolstering the notion that flight developed from the trees down, not from the ground up. “No dinosaur could walk well with feathers on its feet like that,” he adds.

Many scientists scoff at the suggestion that the filamentary structures found on some dinosaurs, especially those unearthed in China in recent years, represent nascent feathers. But those creatures lived many millions of years after Archaeopteryx, which had feathers indistinguishable from those on modern-day birds. The new find is important because it undoubtedly includes the oldest known feathers on any creature, says Mike Benton, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England and cochair of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.

“These exceptional fossils provide us with evidence that has been missing until now,” Xu said. “Now it all fits neatly into place, and we have tied up some of the loose ends.”

Images: 1) Zhao Chuang/Xing Lida. 2) Xing Xu et al.

See Also:

• Fancy Feathers Predated Flight in Dinosaur-Bird Hybrid
• Paleontologists Find Dinosaur Protofeather
• More Science News stories on Wired Science
• CT Scans Show Dinosaur Tail Was a Bone Crusher
• Vote for Your Favorite Dinosaur Illustration
• First-Gen T. Rex Was No Bigger Than You
• Want Your Own Dinosaur? Place Your Bids

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Sep 2009 | 1:10 pm

Burning problem

Is Africa's charcoal trade worsening climate change?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Sep 2009 | 12:57 pm

How to Truck 66 200,000-Pound Antennas to 16,000 Feet

After a 17-mile trek up to a plateau in the Chilean Andes, scientists installed the first of 66 giant antennae on the European Southern Observatory’s Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope this week.

The antenna, which weighs about 100 tons and measures 40 feet in diameter, was carried to its operations site at 16,400 feet by a massive, custom-built transporter. Eventually, the antenna will be linked with dozens of others to form a single, enormous telescope. Scientists hope the extremely dry air on the Chajnantor Plateau will help ALMA study some of the coldest and most distant objects in the observable universe.

But because of the harsh conditions on the plateau, each antenna must be built at a base camp at 9,500 feet and then transported up to its concrete pad at the observation site. Once there, the array must be able to survive harsh winds and freezing temperatures, while still maintaining enough precision to point out a golf ball from about 10 miles away.

The first antenna began its journey when one of the two ALMA transporters, affectionately called “Otto,” hoisted the enormous white disk onto its back (below).

While the transporter can theoretically travel more than seven miles per hour with an antenna on its back, the vehicle moved extra carefully on its first trek, taking a total of seven hours to travel 17 miles across the Chilean desert.

Once the antenna reached its new home, the transporter used laser-guided steering and ultrasonic collision detectors to guide the disk into its docking station, a concrete pad equipped with power and fiber optic connections.

As more and more antennae are added to the array, the transporter’s special sensors will be crucial to keep it from accidentally colliding with an antenna. Even after ALMA is fully operational, ESO scientists say they’ll use the custom-built transporters to move antennae between the concrete pads, which will adjust the telescope’s view of the sky.

Images: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

See Also:

• Sky’s Limit for Telescope Tech
• Building a Texas-Sized Telescope
• Mammoth Telescope to Be Built in Hawaii
• Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Readies for Launch
• X-Ray Telescope’s First 10 Years of Awesome Images

Follow us on Twitter @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Sep 2009 | 12:31 pm

Crowd Control: How the 'Sonic Cannon' Works

Pittsburgh officials said it was the first time the sound blasters, sometimes called sound weapons, were used publicly.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 12:31 pm

Climate Change Threatens Mekong Species

More than 160 new species from the Mekong region are at risk of extinction.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm

Iceland plans big whalemeat trade

The company which is behind Iceland's fin whaling industry is planning a huge export of whalemeat to Japan.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Sep 2009 | 11:33 am

There's only one giant panda

In our online poll, an overwhelming 78.8% of you voted to continue conservation efforts to save the beleaguered panda

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Sep 2009 | 11:30 am

Moon Myths: The Truth About Lunar Effects on You

The moon holds a mystical place in the history of human culture, so it's no wonder that many myths exist.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 10:43 am

WATCH: Digging for Dinos

Few things are as addictive as cutting through dirt hoping to unearth a fossil.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 10:15 am

Treasure Trove Found in Farmer's Field

Gold artifacts from the Dark Ages were discovered by an amateur treasure-hunter.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 10:15 am

Water Ice Exposed in Mars Craters

Fresh craters expose subsurface water ice on Mars, hint at recent wetter climate.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 9:58 am

Sydney’s Apocalyptic Dust Storm Seen From Space

On September 23, Sydney woke up to a surreal scene that looked more like Mars than Australia. The entire city had turned red due to an enormous dust storm. Our readers in Sydney sent us their eerie photos of this event as it was happening. NASA’s Terra satellite also captured the incredible event in these images with a spectroradiometer.

Above, the wall of dust blown from inland stretches along the populated coast around Sydney on the morning of September 23. The outline of the continent is faintly traced in the image for reference. Individual point sources for the dust can be discerned. And, according to NASA and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, some of them were identified as rectangular agricultural plots that have been dried out by several years of drought in Australia. A high-resolution image is available from NASA.

Below, the Terra satellite imaged the dust beneath storm clouds the next morning, September 24, as it blew south across the Tasman Sea toward New Zealand, which is in the bottom right corner of the image. The picture covers 1,450 miles from north to south with a resolution of 155 miles per pixel. At this point, the plume had stretched 2,700 miles, roughly the width of the continental United States. A high-resolution image is available from NASA.

Images: NASA

See Also:

• Reader Photo Gallery: Crazy Dust Storm Turns Sydney Red
• Erupting Volcanoes on Earth as Seen From Space
• Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space
• Stunning Views of Glaciers From Space
• Eclipse Shadow on Earth Seen From Space

Follow us on Twitter @betsymason and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Sep 2009 | 9:54 am

High School Student Develops Chemical-Detecting Robot

Autonomous robot finds and responds to chemical spills, potentially saving human lives.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 9:47 am

Eel reveals its migration secrets

Scientists find out where European eels go during the early part of their mysterious migration to the Sargasso Sea.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Sep 2009 | 8:56 am

Cold, Scared Dinosaurs Dug Burrows

Small Australian dinosaurs escaped bitter cold and predators by digging shelters.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 8:45 am

Fanged Frog and Other Bizarre Species Discovered

Just discovered last year in Asia, various species face extinction, report says.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 8:35 am

Scientists See Numbers Inside People's Heads

Scientists can watch brain activity to decipher what number you're thinking of.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Sep 2009 | 7:36 am

BLOG: Ashton Kutcher Irked by Space Hero?

Ashton Kutcher allegedly takes John Glenn to task over criticism of social networks.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 7:15 am

MRI, solar cells, aging work lead Nobel predictions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists who discovered the secrets of how cells age, who made efficient solar cells possible and who figured out how to watch the brain work in real time are all leading contenders for Nobel prizes, Thomson Reuters predicted on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 6:48 am

DARPA Wants Space Cleaning Ideas

The Pentagon is soliciting new ideas for clearing space junk from Earth orbit.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Sep 2009 | 6:45 am

Russia hopes U.S. to extend shuttle operations

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia hopes the United States will extend the deadline to retire its space shuttles beyond 2011 and has heard unofficially it is possible, the head of Russia's space agency was quoted as saying on Friday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Sep 2009 | 6:03 am

Leopard gecko among new species discovered in Mekong

WWF announces wealth of new species discovered in Mekong river region but warns creatures' survival at risk from climate change
In pictures: The Mekong's fanged frogs and gaudy geckos

The world is reassuringly stranger than we thought: another fanged frog has hopped into view, along with a leopard striped gecko, a tube nosed bat and a bird called the Nonggang babbler, all recently discovered in the Mekong delta in south-east Asia.

The announcement comes weeks after the revelation by a BBC team of their fanged frog, a different newly identified species, along with rats as big as cats, grunting fish and a teddy bear-like tree-climbing silky cuscus, all found on an expedition to a volcanic crater in Papua New Guinea.

The new bird-eating fanged frog, which lies in wait along the riverbank for prey including birds and large insects, is among a wealth of new species announced today by WWF International.

In 2008, scientists discovered 100 plants, 28 fish, 14 amphibians, two mammals and the new bird species in the region – on top of over 1,000 new species identified there in the previous decade.

Scientists believe the frog, found in eastern Thailand, and named Limnonectes megastomias, uses fangs as intimidating as any snake's in combat with other males, as well as to catch prey.

The leopard gecko, Goniurosaurus catbaensis, turned up on Cat Ba island in northern Vietnam. It has large beautiful cat-like eyes, and leopard stripes along the length of its body.

The scientist who found it, Lee Grismer from La Sierra University in California, said he was so engrossed in trying to capture it, it took his son to point out that his hand was resting on a rock inches away from the head of a pit viper.

"We caught the snake and the gecko, and they both proved to be new species," he said.

The bat was found in south-eastern Vietnam, and the Nonggang babbler bird in the rainforest on the border between China and Vietnam.

"After millennia in hiding, these species are now finally in the spotlight, and there are clearly more waiting to be discovered," said Stuart Chapman, director of the WWF Greater Mekong Programme.

He warned, however, that climate change, including floods and drought, threatened the survival of many of these species, just as the world learned of their existence.

"Some species will be able to adapt to climate change, many will not, potentially resulting in massive extinctions. Rare, endangered and endemic species like those newly discovered are especially vulnerable because climate change will further shrink their already restricted habitats."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Sep 2009 | 5:07 am

Arachnophobes look away now - it's a bumper autumn for spiders

Conservationists say there could be more spiders and daddy long legs than usual this autumn because of favourable breeding conditions
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Sep 2009 | 4:57 am

Creation finally secures US distributor

The film will be handled by the same independent distributor that helped Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to box-office success

Much tongue-wagging had been sparked by the fact that the Charles Darwin biopic Creation, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as the scientist and his God-fearing wife, did not have a US distributor. Now it does: Variety reports that independent outfit Newmarket has picked up rights to the Jon Amiel drama, which depicts the personal torment that Darwin went through before the 1859 publication of his seminal work on evolution.

Rumours did the rounds that the film was simply too controversial for American audiences. Jeremy Thomas, the producer, declared earlier in the year that it was "unbelievable" that the movie did not have a US distributor. "There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days," he said. "It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules."

Remarkably, the feature will now be handled by the same firm which helped make Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ such a huge box-office hit in 2004. Newmarket is reportedly aiming for a December release for the biopic.

Creation was generally well received when it opened proceedings at the Toronto international film festival two weeks ago, though some complained of a lack of chemistry between the leads, while others suggested that Darwin the man was not as interesting as his ideas.

"Bettany is appealing but this Charles is at times nearly a sickly bore, while Connelly, not an actor with much lightness, is OK but emphasises Emma's grave concern and disapproval to the exclusion of nearly every other quality," wrote Variety's Dennis Harvey. "In the weird tradition of so many real-life acting couples, onscreen these two stars don't have much chemistry." Peter Bradshaw of this parish, however, described it as a gentle, heartfelt and well-acted film.

Creation, which also features Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch as fellow scientists who urge Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species, opens at UK cinemas today.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Sep 2009 | 4:29 am