A Pet In Your Life Keeps The Doctor Away

Lowers blood pressure, encourages exercise, improves psychological health -- these may sound like the effects of a miracle drug, but they are actually among the benefits of owning a four-legged, furry pet.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

New Nanostructure Technology Provides Advances In Eyeglass, Solar Energy Performance

Chemical engineers have invented a new technology to deposit "nanostructure films" on various surfaces, which may first find use as coatings for eyeglasses that cost less and work better. Ultimately, the technique may provide a way to make solar cells more efficiently produce energy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

New Vaccine Delivery May Be More Effective Against Measles

Researchers are developing new methods for delivering measles vaccines that could potentially reduce costs and improve safety. While vaccines exist to protect children against measles, the vaccines are often difficult to store, costly to transport and may be prone to contamination when shipped to developing countries.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Evolutionary Origins Of Prion Disease Gene Uncovered

Scientists have uncovered the evolutionary ancestry of the prion gene, which may reveal new understandings of how the prion protein causes diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as "mad cow disease."
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

High-heels Linked To Heel And Ankle Pain

Women should think twice before buying their next pair of high-heels or pumps, according to researchers in a new study of older adults and foot problems.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Electric Fish Plug In To Communicate

Just as people plug in to computers, smart phones and electric outlets to communicate, electric fish communicate by quickly plugging special channels into their cells to generate electrical impulses, researchers have discovered.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Few Side Effects Found From Radiation Treatment Given After Prostate Cancer Surgery

The largest single-institution study of its kind has found few complications in prostate cancer patients treated with radiotherapy after surgery to remove the prostate. Men in this study received radiotherapy after a prostate-specific antigen test following surgery indicated their cancer had recurred.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

Impaired Kidney Function Linked To Cognitive Decline In Elderly

A new study suggests that impaired kidney function is a risk factor for cognitive decline in old age.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

Did The Great Depression Have A Silver Lining? Life Expectancy Increased By 6.2 Years

The Great Depression had a silver lining: during that hard time, US life expectancy actually increased by 6.2 years, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

Global View Of Valleys On Saturn's Moon Titan Shows North-South Contrast

Scientists are presenting the first results of a global analysis of spatial patterns, occurrence and origin of river channels on Saturn's moon Titan.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

23 dead as Typhoon Ketsana roars into Vietnam (AP)

AP - Typhoon Ketsana roared into central Vietnam on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people as it brought flooding and winds of up to 90 mph (144 kph), disaster officials said. Some 170,000 were evacuated from its path.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 3:55 am

Giant fish 'verges on extinction'

A three-year survey fails to find a single Chinese paddlefish, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 3:55 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Wet weather was forecast to persist in the Northeast while diminishing across the Southeast as a front pushed off the East Coast on Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 2:54 am

Atomic future will fight climate change: Indian PM (AFP)

AFP - India's prime minister vowed on Tuesday that a massive increase in nuclear power generation over the next four decades would allow the booming country to reduce its impact on global warming.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:53 am

Malaysia's catfish sport-fishing plan makes waves (AFP)

AFP - A plan to promote sport fishing by introducing the Mekong giant catfish to a Malaysian lake has infuriated environmentalists who fear the huge fish will damage the local ecosystem.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:35 am

Climate pact must include forest scheme: WWF (AFP)

AFP - A leading environmental group on Tuesday urged delegates at UN climate talks in Bangkok to include plans to reward nations for saving their forests in any deal on global warming.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:28 am

Eden drying out

Disastrous drought threaten Iraq's farmlands
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 12:38 am

Mathematics to build cancer model

Mathematicians in Dundee are to develop a virtual model of cancer growth in an effort to predict how it spreads.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Sep 2009 | 11:24 pm

Electric Fish Equipped With 'Dimmer' Switch (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Fish that generate electric fields to navigate, fight and attract mates are equipped with a dimmer switch of sorts that can turn down their signals to save energy, a new study finds.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 6:16 pm

Electric Fish Equipped With 'Dimmer' Switch

Electric fish are equipped with a dimmer switch to save energy.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 6:02 pm

Electric Fish Turn Down Charge for Energy Efficiency

Fish that use electric fields to sense their environments dim their signals to save energy during the day when they are resting.

Sternopygus macrurus, a South American river fish, is a natural practitioner of energy efficiency. It can reshape the charged-molecule channels in its electricity-producing cells to tone down its electrical signature within a matter of minutes.

“This is a really expensive signal to produce. The fish is using up a lot of its energy budget,” said neurobiologist Michael Markham at the University of Texas at Austin, lead author of a paper in PLoS Biology on the fish. “These animals are saving energy by reducing the strength of the signal when they are not active.”

Thousands of fish and other oceanic creatures use electrical fields to help them perceive their environments. The most famous is the electric eel, which a colleague of Markham’s termed “a frog with a cattle prod attached,” but most animals use the electrical signals in more subtle ways.

The fish’s standard electrical signal runs at 100 hertz; if you turn the electrical signal into sound, it sounds like a high whine. In laboratory experiments, the fish can detect tiny bugs half a centimeter wide and easily navigate obstacles by detecting the changes the objects cause in the electrical field.

Other fish put out different types of electrical fields, some of which vary a lot more. Markham’s team chose S. macrurus specifically because its discharge is fairly regular.

All fish generate electricity with a specialized type of cell called an electrocyte. These cells can generate current by manipulating the amount of charged sodium and potassium ions that they allow to flow into and out of themselves. An electrical current propagates on the membrane of the cell as a result. Thousands of cells combine to generate the 5 millivolts per centimeter electrical field the fish uses. By using fewer sodium channels, the signal gets dimmed and energy is conserved.

“The wave form of the electric signal changes and at the level of the individual cell, it is changing its discharge,” Markham said. “This is the first time in a vertebrate animal that you can show such a clear connection between an animal’s behavior and the changes at the molecular level.”

For Markham, the system is interesting because the ways cells reshape their membranes — scientists call the process ion channel trafficking — are very similar to the ones that our hearts and nervous systems use.

The same molecular machinery that drives our nervous system, muscles and heart has evolved into an organ just to produce electricity, he said. The specialized organ, then, acts as a kind of biological laboratory for evolutionary experiments with electricity production.

“If there is a slight mutation in the ion channels in your heart, that’s very likely to be a fatal mutation,” Markham said. “The electric organ from an evolutionary standpoint is a much more forgiving place for experimentation.”

In the future, they hope to use their research on ion channels to better understand the kinds of electrical malfunctions that cause disorders like epilepsy.

“There’s a kind of gee whiz interest factor to working with these fish, but obviously, we’re pursuing a bigger agenda,” Markham said.

See Also:

• Cows Really Do Have a Magnetic Sixth Sense
• Telegraphs Ran on Electric Air in Crazy 1859 Magnetic Storm
• Top 5 Real Biology Concepts in BioShock
• Fish Poison Makes Hot Things Feel Icy and Cold Things Feel Burning
• Direct Brain-to-Muscle Electrical Circuit Helps Paralyzed Monkeys

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 | 28 Sep 2009 | 6:00 pm

NASA's Moon-Crashing Spacecraft Gets New Crater Target (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A NASA spacecraft destined to crash into a moon crater in the hunt for hidden caches of water ice has a new target, the space agency announced Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 5:16 pm

Why mafia mobsters avidly watch gangster movies

Life imitates art as mob members avidly watch The Godfather to find out how to do their jobs

Bada-bing. For some people, The Godfather is no mere movie but a manual – a guide to living the gangster's life. They lap up all that stuff about going to the mattresses and sleeping with the fishes. The famous scene in which a mafia refusenik wakes up next to a horse's head may be macabre make-believe, but in some quarters it's treated like a tutorial.

So who are these apparent innocents taking their cues from Hollywood? None other than the mafia themselves, writes Diego Gambetta in his new book, Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate. The Oxford sociologist offers example upon example of gangsters apeing Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece – or what he calls "lowlife imitating art".

There's the Don who took over a Sicilian aristocrat's villa for his daughter's wedding – with 500 guests revelling to the film's soundtrack; the building contractors of Palermo who receive severed horse's heads if they get in the mob's way; and John Gotti's former lieutenant, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, who confessed that plagiarism ranked among his (lesser) crimes: "I would always tell people, just like in The Godfather, 'If you have an enemy, that enemy becomes my enemy.'"

Yet Mario Puzo, The Godfather's inventor, admitted that he "never met a real honest-to-God gangster", while many of the film's most quotable lines (remember "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli"?) were improvised. So what accounts for its influence not just among the mafia but with Hong Kong triads, Japanese yakuza and Russian mobsters?

Well, strip away the mystique and organised crime is a business – one with big handicaps. It may be called "the Firm", but managing a poorly educated, violent workforce is a challenge, advertising job vacancies only attracts the law, and appraisals for underperforming staff can err on the brusque side. The Godfather and other gangster movies plug those holes, says Gambetta. They give criminals an easy-to-follow protocol and a glamour that serves as both corporate feelgood and marketing tool. Uncomfortable though it may be to acknowledge, the underworld is not above taking its cues from the upperworld.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Sep 2009 | 5:05 pm

WATCH: Death Toll Combines Local Counts

Tropical cyclones often mean widespread damage and, unfortunately, high death tolls.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

Feds to decide on listing ice seals as threatened (AP)

AP - A federal agency must decide within three weeks whether spotted seals, which depend on sea ice off Alaska's coast, should be listed as a threatened or endangered species.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:24 pm

Quantum Entanglement Visible to the Naked Eye

By linking the electrical currents of two superconductors large enough to be seen with the naked eye, researchers have extended the domain of observable quantum effects. Billions of flowing electrons in the superconductors can collectively exhibit a weird quantum property called entanglement, usually confined to the realm of tiny particles, scientists report in the September 24 Nature.

“It’s an exciting piece of work,” comments physicist Steven Girvin of Yale University. “People are interested in pushing the boundaries of quantum mechanics.”

Entanglement is one of the strangest consequences of quantum mechanics. After interacting in a certain way, objects become mysteriously linked, or entangled, so that what happens to one seems to affect the fate of the other. For the most part, researchers have only found signs of entanglement between tiny particles, such as ions, atoms and photons.

John Martinis and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara looked for entanglement between two superconductors, each less than a millimeter across. These superconducting circuits, made of aluminum, were separated by a few millimeters on an electronic chip. At low temperatures, electrons in the superconductors flow collectively, unfettered by resistance.

Despite each superconductor’s relatively large size, the electrons within move together in a naturally coherent way. “There are very few moving parts, so to speak,” Girvin says, which helped the scientists spot evidence of entanglement. “It’s a general fact that the larger an object is, the more classical it is in its behavior, and the more difficult it is to see quantum mechanical effects.”

In the new study, researchers used a microwave pulse to attempt to entangle the electrical currents of the two superconductors. If the currents were quantum-mechanically linked, one current would flow clockwise at the time of measurement (assigned a value of 0), while the other would flow counterclockwise when measured (assigned a value of 1), Martinis says. On the other hand, the currents’ directions would be completely independent of each other if everyday, classical physics were at work.

After attempting to entangle the superconducting circuits, Martinis and his team measured the directions of the currents 34.1 million times. When one current flowed clockwise (measured as a 0), the team found, the other flowed counterclockwise (measured as a 1) with very high probability. So the two were linked in a way that only quantum mechanics could explain.

“It has to be in this weird quantum state for you to get those particular probabilities that we measure,” Martinis says. “The percentages of those different things are not something that you can classically predict.”

Finding entanglement between superconductors is “a fairly important milestone,” comments Anthony Leggett of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The new study “does seem to be rather unambiguous evidence for entanglement.”

Such entangled superconductors might be used as a component in a powerful quantum computer, Leggett says. “People are very interested in the possibility of building a quantum computer,” and these kinds of systems may be quite good for that, he says.

Martinis says that the technology for building advanced electrical circuits may be used to build quantum circuits, too. “The hope is that since we know how to put together integrated circuits in complex ways, that maybe we can make very complex quantum circuits in the same way,” he says.

He cautions, though, that a good quantum computer is a long way off. Researchers still need to find a way to make entangled superconducting circuits last longer. And a good quantum computer would need more than two circuits. Martinis says his group will try to entangle three and four such circuits next.

In addition to providing technological advances, the new results add to the debate over where to draw the line between quantum mechanics and the everyday physics that governs large-scale phenomena. Researchers want to know how far quantum weirdness can go.

“It’s interesting to test quantum mechanics on a large scale,” Girvin says. “Do things look classical on large scales because there’s something wrong with quantum mechanics? Personally, I think that’s wrong, but one never knows.”

Image: Erik Lucero

See Also:

• Science News stories on Wired Science
• “Sudden Death” Threatens Quantum Computing
• Last Days of Big American Physics: One More Triumph, or Just Another Heartbreak?
• Next-Gen Atom Smashers: Smaller, Cheaper and Super Powerful

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:41 pm

The Best Approach for Avoiding Zombies

Physics could help if you're trapped by the staggering undead.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:32 pm

Champagne bubbles' flavour fizz

Scientists find that the bubbles in champagne contain high concentrations of chemicals that give the drink its flavour.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:13 pm

Champagne Bubbles Burst with Flavor

Champagne bubbles create a mist that wafts the aroma to the drinker.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Dark Matter Hunters Construct a New Weapon

That dark matter has never been found is no deterrent to the physicists who are looking for it.

“Even if we don’t know what dark matter is, we know how it must act,” said Eduardo Abancens, a physicist at Spain’s University of Zaragoza and designer of a prototype dark matter detector.

According to physicists, only around five percent of what makes up the universe can presently be detected. The existence of dark matter is inferred from the behavior of faraway galaxies, which move in ways that can only be explained by a gravitational pull caused by more mass than can be seen. They estimate dark matter represents around 20 percent of the universe, with the other 75 percent made up of dark energy, a repulsive force that is causing the universe to expand at an ever-quickening pace.

At the heart of Abancens’ team’s detector, which is called a scintillating bolometer and resembles a prop from The Golden Compass, is a crystal so pure it can conduct the energy ostensibly generated when a particle of dark matter strikes the nucleus of one of its atoms.

To prevent interference by cosmic rays, the bolometer is sheathed in lead and kept underground, under half a mile of rock. It’s also frozen to near-absolute zero, the temperature at which all motion stops. At the edge of absolute zero, it’s possible to measure expected changes of a few millionths of a degree Fahrenheit.

Researchers like Abancens call this “a high heat signal.”

As described in a paper published in the August Optical Materials and released online Friday, the bolometer is currently able to distinguish between the vibrations produced by trembling nuclei and spinning electrons. Abancens said it could be operational in five years.

But in order for the bolometer to work reliably, it needs to become even more sensitive, and maintain that sensitivity as it’s scaled up from the 46-gram prototype to a half-ton working model, said Rick Gaitskell, a Brown University physicist who was not involved in the research.

At near-absolute zero, conducting research is “quite challenging,” said Gaitskell, who spent a decade trying to make detection systems work at that temperature.

“Now we’re using using liquid xenon. It’s relatively warm, only minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit,” he said. “You can nearly get to that in an industrial-strength refrigerator.”

See Also:

• Preponderance of Positrons Points to Dark Matter
• Physicists Find Dark Matter, or Something Even More Strange
• Mapping Dark Matter’s Invisible Super-Clumps
• High-Energy Particle Physics Demystified

Citation: “A BGO scintillating bolometer as dark matter detector prototype.” By N. Coron, E. García, J. Gironnet, J. Leblanc, P. de Marcillac, M. Martínez, Y. Ortigoza, A. Ortiz de Solórzano, C. Pobes, J. Puimedón, T. Redon, M.L. Sarsa, L. Torres and J.A. Villar. Optical Materials, Vol. 31 Issue 10, August 2009.

Image: The blue glow comes from the photographer’s flash.
IAS/SINC

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecosystem and planetary tipping points.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:54 pm

Spacecraft to Fly by Mercury for Third Time (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A NASA spacecraft is closing in on Mercury to snap pictures of uncharted territory Tuesday when it whips around the planet for the final time.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:16 pm

Researchers: Champagne's aroma comes from bubbles (AP)

AP - Don Ho was right. It is the tiny bubbles. A team of researchers — in Europe not surprisingly — found that Champagne's bursting bubbles not only tickle the nose, they create a mist that wafts the aroma to the drinker.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:53 pm

Four degrees of warming 'likely'

The global average temperature could rise by 4C (7.2F) as early as 2060, according to a new study by the UK Met Office.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:04 pm

Secret to Champagne Flavor is Right Under Your Nose

Scientists find bubbles bring champagne's flavor to your nose.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:01 pm

Are Recessions Good for Our Health?

The Great Depression was actually good for U.S. health, according to a new study.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:01 pm

Champagne science: study reveals chemical components in bubbles

Bubbles bursting from a glass of champagne release a host of chemicals that make every sparkling glass an uplifting sensory experience, a study has shown.

French researchers used a mass spectrometer to analyse component chemicals as wines effervesce. Led by Professor Gérard Liger-Belair, from the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, they estimated that an average 75cl bottle of champagne produces 100m bubbles and releases 5 litres of carbon dioxide.

The champagne test, described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed "hundreds" of chemical components in bubbles. Many are "organoleptic" – meaning they affect the senses, through taste, odour, colour or feel. "As champagne is poured into a glass, the ascending bubbles collapse and radiate a multitude of tiny droplets above the free surface into the form of refreshing aerosols," Liger-Belair wrote.

The authors said the aerosols contained an over-concentration of compounds that were either aromatic, or the precursors of aromas. These tended to be "surface active substances" – surfactants – double-ended compounds with one end attracted to water and another that shuns it.

The research suggested that the surfactants clump on to champagne bubbles with one end inside the bubble and the other in the liquid. The bubbles then drag the compounds upwards and, when the bubbles pop, release the aromatic compounds. Liger-Belair has spent his life studying champagne science. Research for his 2004 book, Uncorked: The science of champagne, used slow motion photography to challenge theories about how champagne bubbles are created.

The latest research showed that the surface of sparkling wine behaves much like the surface of the sea. The champagne bubbles produce an "exchange surface" – the total surface area across which gaseous chemicals can pass – of around 80 square metres.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:00 pm

Stem Cells Point to Space Ills

Stem cells in microgravity express different proteins and could explain some space ills.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 11:50 am

Zoom In on Lagoon Nebula with Super-High-Res Image

A huge new image of the Lagoon Nebula, covering an area of the sky eight times larger than the full moon, has been released by the European Southern Observatory.

Located four to five thousand light-years away in the direction of Sagittarius, the nebula is a cloud of dust and gas about 100 light-years across. Bright, star-forming clusters can be seen scattered throughout the reddish nebula, which acquires its color from small particles that scatter white light.

The full 668-megabyte TIFF is available, and an online zoomable version, too.

The image is the third in a “trilogy” plotted and executed by the ESO for the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The previous GigaGalazy Zoom images showcased the best the unaided human eye and an amateur telescope could do. The latest photo steps up to the pro level by using the 67-million-pixel Wide Field Imager attached to the 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in the Atacama desert of Chile.

See Also:

• Stunning Views of Glaciers From Space
• Giant Star Blows a Glowing Space Bubble
• Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space
• Photo: Docked Space Shuttle and Station Cross the Sun
• See more: Mindblowingspacephotos

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 | 28 Sep 2009 | 11:14 am

Evidence for Stone Age Multitasking

Glue-making may demonstrate that our ancient ancestors multi-tasked.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 11:10 am

Hyenas Surprisingly Good at Cooperative Tasks

Hyenas cooperate and solve problems better than chimps.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 10:56 am

WATCH: Search for the Smoking Gene

A new genetic test for lung cancer may make it easier to find out who's at risk.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 9:45 am

Two hundred pages to save the world

Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory

Interactive: Beginner's guide to the negotiating text

It is a blueprint to save the world. And yet it is long, confusing and contradictory. Negotiators have released a draft version of a new global agreement on climate change, which is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming.

Running to some 200 pages, the draft agreement is being discussed for the first time this week as officials from 190 countries gather in Bangkok for the latest round of UN talks. There is only one short meeting after this before they meet in Copenhagen aiming to hammer out a final version.

The draft text consolidates and reorders hundreds of changes demanded by countries to the previous version, which saw it balloon to an unmanageable 300 pages. It has no official status yet, and must be formally approved before negotiators can start to whittle it down. Here, we present key, edited sections from the text and attempt to decipher what the words mean.

The text includes sections on the traditional sticking points that have delayed progress on climate change for a decade or longer.

• How much are rich countries willing to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and by when?

• Will large developing nations such as China make an effort to put at least a dent in their soaring levels of pollution?

• How much money must flow from the developed world to developing countries to grease the wheels and secure their approval? How much to compensate for the impact of past emissions, and how much to help prevent future emissions?

According to the UN rules, for a new treaty to be agreed, every country must sign up – a challenging requirement. The new treaty is designed to follow the Kyoto protocol, the world's existing treaty to regulate greenhouse gases, the first phase of which expires in 2012. Because the US did not ratify Kyoto, the climate talks have been forced on to awkward parallel tracks, with one set of negotiations, from which the US is excluded, debating how the treaty could be extended past 2012. This new text comes from the second track, which lays out a plan to include all countries in long-term co-operative action.

Behind the scenes, pessimism about the Copenhagen talks is rising. Despite references in the text to a global goal and collective emission cuts of 25-40% by 2020 for rich countries, many observers believe there is little chance such an approach will succeed.

Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated Kyoto for the US, said: "Copenhagen is more likely to be a way station to a final agreement, where each country posts the best that it can do... The key thing is let's not go into Copenhagen with all the same kind of guns blazing like we did in Kyoto."

A top European official told the Guardian: "We've moved on from the idea that we can negotiate on targets. That's naive and just not the way the deal will be done. The best we can get is that countries will put in what they want to commit to."

Once all the carbon offsets – buying pollution credits instead of cutting emissions – and "fudges" are taken into account, the outcome is likely to be that emissions in 2020 from rich countries will be broadly similar to those in 1990, he said. "That's really scary stuff."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Sep 2009 | 9:37 am

Feathered Dino Predates Oldest Bird

Fossils of a feathered dinosaur may help scientists' understanding of bird evolution.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 9:35 am

Viking 2 Likely Came Close to Finding H2O

If the 1976 Viking lander had dug a couple of inches deeper, it may have hit water.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Harrabin's notes

Will the rich pay for clean energy in poor countries?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Sep 2009 | 7:58 am

BIG PIC: Mercury on the Horizon

A NASA spacecraft captures a stunning view of the solar system's innermost planet.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 7:30 am

China shows its soft side in Packham v pandas debate

Comments by the BBC presenter Chris Packham have provoked a rare outpouring of affection for animals in the notoriously pragmatic nation

"Abandon the pandas, Rescue the dogs." Judging by the headlines last week, it seems China is not only overtaking the UK as an economic superpower, it might also be becoming more cuddly and sentimental towards animals.

This will come as a shock to many Brits, who pride themselves on loving their four-legged friends a lot more than their two-legged neighbours. It may even raise a few eyebrows in China, where the educated urban middle classes are often embarrassed at compatriots who eat dogs, drink tiger-bone tonic, milk bile from bears and go fishing with explosives.

Consider, however, the biggest animal news stories in the two countries last week.

In supposedly sentimental Britain, BBC presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham urged us not to waste our money trying to save the giant panda. The symbol of global conservation, he said, had lumbered down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. It was time to pull the plug on Ol' Black Eyes.

Notoriously pragmatic China, meanwhile, was showing signs of a soft spot. The top news stories were on the completion of the long-awaited draft of an animal welfare bill and, of course, a backlash at Packham's assertion that the Chinese national symbol was a lost cause.

The nation's top panda experts said Packham did not understand the animal. Far from being reproductively incompetent, the beast had managed to survive for half a million years, and bred quite happily in the wild.

Cuteness was an asset worth paying for, they said, especially for an "umbrella species" like the panda. Get the public to donate money and put pressure on the government to protect its habitat, and many other smaller, less-popular creatures in the same eco-system would benefit, the experts argued.

A growing affection for animals may also have played a part. Pet ownership is on the rise as China grows richer and more urban, and there is a small but growing conservation movement including young activists who campaign to get endangered wildlife taken off the menu.

Animal rights have increasing support among the public and in the government, says Chang Jiwen, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who drafted the new welfare bill.

He told me that polls by the two main news portals, Sohu and Sina, found more than 75% of people support the reclassification of animal abuse as a serious crime. His draft bill, influenced by Britain's RSPCA, promised to do this and offer rewards to informers. However, he says, it won't be passed for five to 10 years. China is not yet ready for really progressive measures.

One's week's headlines do not confirm a trend, and animal activism here is starting from a terrifyingly low base. Unfortunately, China is not catching up on conservation as quickly as it has in economic terms.

However, as hard as it is now to imagine an animal-loving China, traditions can change. The British bulldog, after all, was bred for baiting. The practice is now illegal – but we haven't abandoned the animal to its evolutionary cul-de-sac.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Sep 2009 | 7:20 am

Roman Statues Found in Blue Grotto Cave

Italy's Blue Grotto sea cave was once decorated by statues of sea gods, surveys reveal.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Sep 2009 | 6:50 am

Creationists may have the last laugh

The price that Paul Bettany's Darwin pays for his fateful discovery highlights the benefits of self-delusion

Perhaps it was indeed resistance to evolution that consigned Creation to a mere five US screens. By suggesting as much, producer Jeremy Thomas certainly found a receptive audience. In Canada as in Europe, nothing prompts rueful head-shaking like the supposed idiocy of benighted Yankee creationists. Nonetheless, the film does Charles Darwin's momentous doctrine few favours. Were anti-evolution pastors to take a chance to see it, even the most rabid of them might find comfort in its message.

Creation doesn't question the incontestability of its hero's thesis. Nor does it take great pains to explain it. Instead, it concentrates on the theory's implications, and glum indeed they turn out to be. Reel after reel, Darwin languishes in wearisome despond. Part of the reason is a mysterious indisposition, but that's considered psychosomatic. His real problem is that theory of his. Mind-blowing and elegant it may be, but it brings him nothing but anguish.

He worries about its likely impact. If God didn't make all creatures great and small on the sixth day, how will people react when they find out? Religion might lose its grip, and with it would go the social order it sustained. On this one, his concern seems to have proved well-founded. Something else, however, troubles him more personally.

When Darwin's beloved daughter dies, his devout wife is at least partially consoled by thoughts of the heavenly bliss their darling must be enjoying. Yet, if people aren't creations of divine purpose, the benefits of an afterlife are unlikely to be forthcoming. Ensnared by his great idea, Darwin himself is thus forced to remain forever crippled by his loss.

You can see why creationist cinemagoers might start feeling a little smug. On the Origin of Species didn't dispose of religion. Through whatever process life took shape, there's still as much or as little reason to believe in a Prime Mover. What evolution certainly does, however, is to wipe out human exceptionalism. No longer are we alone created in God's image. We must take our place amid the beasts we have disdained, and accept the part played in our behaviour by brute instinct.

It's not just Main Street's rednecks who find this notion profoundly unappealing. For example, even some of the Guardian's hyper-rationalist readers balk at the idea that evolutionary biology might play a part in the human mating process. Male promiscuity, they insist, mustn't be linked to natural selection. That would let men off the hook. It must continue to be seen entirely as sinful departure from the path of righteousness.

This is understandable. The Darwinian universe isn't people-friendly. As someone says in Creation, if God has no plan for us, nothing matters – not love, not trust, not honour. Godless societies are coming to discover what this means, and it isn't very inspiring. The creationists may be mistaken, but that doesn't stop them from being happier than so many cheerless atheists. Perhaps their perversity shouldn't be put down simply to stupidity. Darwin's message is available to them. It's not that they can't understand it; it's that they don't want to. To some extent they may be willing themselves to reject it in favour of the alternative they prefer.

People have a strange capacity to believe things they know on some level to be untrue. We defy reason whenever we read our horoscopes, apply wrinkle cream or buy a lottery ticket. According to Creation, even Darwin was capable of overriding his convictions. At one point, he promises to believe in God as part of a bargain with his non-existent Creator. All God has to do is to let his child live. No dice, unfortunately.

The creationists have come to their own opaque arrangement with reality. They've sacrificed reason for something they value more. If you want to engage them in debate, they're happy enough to argue the toss, but they're not actually open to persuasion. Deride them if you like, but who's going to have the last laugh? It could be those who reject the fateful tidings of this film's protagonist.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:56 am

China finds bird-like dinosaur with four wings

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese researchers have unearthed the fossil of a bird-like dinosaur with four wings in northeastern China, which they suggest is a missing link in dinosaurs' evolution into birds.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:38 am

Sir David's delight

Fifty Attenborough classics evolve an online existence
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:34 am

Humpbacks may lose 'endangered' tag

The population of humpback whales has been growing steadily, prompting a review of its status in the US – but not everyone wants it delisted

The US government is considering taking the humpback whale off the endangered species list in response to data showing the population of the massive marine mammal has been steadily growing in recent decades.

Known for their acrobatic leaps from the sea and complex singing patterns, humpback whales were nearly hunted to extinction for their oil and meat by industrial-sized whaling ships well through the middle of the 20th century. But the species has been bouncing back since an international ban on their commercial whaling in 1966.

"Humpbacks by and large are an example of a species that in most places seems to be doing very well, despite our earlier efforts to exterminate them," said Phillip Clapham, a senior whale biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The US government is required by law to review the endangered species status of an animal or plant if it receives "significant new information". The National Marine Fisheries Service, a NOAA agency, received results last year from an extensive study showing that the north Pacific humpback population has been growing 4-7% a year in recent decades.

Public comment is being accepted until 13 October on the upcoming review, which is expected to take less than a year. It is the first review for humpbacks since 1999.

A panel of scientists will then study the data and report on their analysis in late spring or early summer. It is unclear what the decision on delisting the humpback will be.

Some environmental groups are already opposing the possibility of a delisting.

Miyoko Sakashita, the ocean programs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that ongoing climate change and ocean acidification are emerging threats that may hurt humpback whales.

"Ocean conditions are changing so rapidly right now that it would probably be hasty to delist the humpbacks," Sakashita said.

Ralph Reeves, who chairs the cetacean specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said the US should remove humpbacks from the list if populations have sufficiently recovered.

He said conservationists must "be prepared and willing to embrace success" if they're to maintain what he called a "meaningful" endangered species program.

"The whole process, the credibility of it, depends on telling people that things are really bad when they're really bad and telling people that they aren't so bad when they aren't so bad," Reeves said.

There are an estimated 18,000-20,000 humpbacks in the north Pacific, up from just 1,400 in the mid-1960s. A survey in the early 1990s of humpbacks in the north Atlantic showed the population at 10,600. The results of a follow-up to that study, expected by the end of the year, are likely to show this population has grown, too.

The global humpback population is estimated to be about 60,000, according to the Swiss-based Conservation of Nature union.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:26 am

High tech may pinpoint Antarctica sea rise risks

OSLO (Reuters) - Dismayed by ice and storms, British explorer Captain James Cook had no regrets when he abandoned a voyage searching for a fabled southern continent in 1773.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:06 am

Subliminal messages work - especially negative ones

People can perceive subliminal messages particularly if the message is negative, according to a UK study.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:05 am