Perceptual Learning Relies On Local Motion Signals To Learn Global Motion

Researchers have long known of the brain's ability to learn based on visual motion input, and a recent study has uncovered more insight into where the learning occurs.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Microchip That Can Detect Type And Severity Of Cancer Created

Researchers have used nanomaterials to develop a microchip sensitive enough to quickly determine the type and severity of a patient's cancer so that the disease can be detected earlier for more effective treatment.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Was Mighty T. Rex 'Sue' Felled By A Lowly Parasite?

When pondering the demise of a famous dinosaur such as 'Sue,' the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex whose fossilized remains are a star attraction of the Field Museum in Chicago, it is hard to avoid the image of clashing Cretaceous titans engaged in bloody, mortal combat. But a new study provides evidence that Sue, perhaps the most famous dinosaur in the world, was felled in more mundane fashion by a lowly parasite that still afflicts modern birds.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

New Device Finds Early Signs Of Eye Disease In Preemies

Tell-tale signs of a condition that can blind premature babies are being seen for the first time using a new handheld device.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Sugar + Weed Killer = Potential Clean Energy Source

Researchers have developed a fuel cell that harvests electricity from glucose, using a common herbicide as a catalyst.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Key To Subliminal Messaging Is To Keep It Negative, Study Shows

Subliminal messaging is most effective when the message being conveyed is negative, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Air Pollutants From Abroad A Growing Concern, Says New Report

Plumes of harmful air pollutants can be transported across oceans and continents -- from Asia to the United States and from the United States to Europe -- and have a negative impact on air quality far from their original sources, says a new report by the National Research Council.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

Nanoresearchers Challenge Dogma In Protein Transportation In Cells

New data on signaling proteins, called G proteins, may prove important in fighting diseases such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer. For many decades scientists have wondered how signaling proteins transport and organize in specific areas of the cell. Researchers have just provided new, still unrecognized, clues to solve this mystery.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

New Chemically-activated Antigen Could Expedite Development Of HIV Vaccine

Scientists working to develop a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus report they have created the first antigen that induces protective antibodies capable of blocking infection of human cells by genetically-diverse strains of HIV. The new antigen differs from previously-tested vaccines by virtue of its chemically-activated property that enables close sharing of electrons and produces strong covalent bonding. Researchers used a mouse model to generate the antibodies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

Improving Stem Cell Techniques Using Protein Found In Moss

Scientists have discovered a new use for the Polycomb group protein found in moss that have an important role in telling stem cells how to develop.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

Canadian circus billionaire heads to space station (AP)

AP - A Canadian circus tycoon, an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off in a spacecraft from the Kazakh steppe Wednesday on a journey to the International Space Station.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 4:31 am

UN: climate change impact on agriculture dire (AP)

AP - A U.N. agency warns that the climate change will badly affect agriculture and hit developing nations hardest, leading to unreliable food production and higher prices.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 4:17 am

Soviet cosmonaut Pavel Popovich dies at 78 (AP)

AP - Former Soviet cosmonaut Pavel Popovich, the sixth man to go into orbit, has died at age 78.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 4:14 am

British toddler killed in tsunami on Samoa (AFP)

AFP - A British toddler is believed to have been killed in Samoa as a result of the massive South Pacific earthquake and tsunami, the Foreign Office said Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 4:05 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Drier conditions were expected for the Eastern U.S., while a strong storm would continue tracking over the Rockies.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 3:26 am

Canadian circus tycoon makes journey into space

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte blasted off in a Russian Soyuz spaceship from Kazakhstan on Wednesday to become the world's seventh space tourist.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 3:03 am

Clown, Cosmonauts and Kids Choose Space Mission's Symbols (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - From a stuffed lion to a faux film poster, a colorful badge to a red clown's nose, the three cosmonauts who launched early Wednesday morning to the International Space Station (ISS) outfitted their Soyuz capsule and spacesuits with symbols representing their lives on Earth and missions in orbit.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Sep 2009 | 2:46 am

'Vegetarian' monkeys develop a taste for eggs

Howlers monkeys are caught on film eating bird's eggs, the first time they have been observed rejecting a vegetarian diet.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Sep 2009 | 2:46 am

Deadly tsunamis strike in Pacific

Tsunamis caused by a powerful earthquake in the Pacific kill more than 100 people in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Sep 2009 | 1:57 am

Climate change will hit developing world harvests hardest

Report quantifies link between global warming and food security.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/_sljCLiK_t0" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 30 Sep 2009 | 1:30 am

'Clown' tourist blasts into space

Circus entrepreneur Guy Laliberte is to become the "first clown in space" as he lifts off in a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 30 Sep 2009 | 1:17 am

China, U.S. risk rifts in Middle East: former Chinese envoy (Reuters)

Reuters - China and the United States risk deepening rifts over influence and oil in the Middle East, Beijing's former envoy to the region has said, urging his nation to bolster ties with Iran and other energy-exporting powers.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:41 pm

Many support $100 billion a year on climate change (AP)

AP - Many world leaders have expressed support for a proposal that would earmark $100 billion a year for the next decade for concrete actions to curb greenhouse gases and help countries cope with the impact of climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:25 pm

Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome (AP)

AP - Not only was Nero a Roman emperor, it turns out he may also have been the father of the revolving restaurant. Archaeologists unveiled Tuesday what they think are the remains of Nero's extravagant banquet hall, a circular space that rotated day and night to imitate the Earth's movement and impress his guests.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 7:42 pm

Skull piece thought to be Hitler's is from woman (AP)

AP - A piece of skull with a bullet hole through it that Russian officials claimed belonged to Adolf Hitler actually came from a woman, scientists at the University of Connecticut concluded.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 7:34 pm

Weird, Rare Clouds and the Physics Behind Them

In August, we posted a photograph of some odd, rare clouds known as Morning Glory clouds without providing an explanation for how they form. In response to reader interest, we followed up with meteorologist Roger Smith of the University of Munich, who has studied their formation.

“Over the years we’ve developed a good understanding of them,” Smith said. “It’s no longer a mystery, but still very spectacular.”

The Morning Glory phenomenon is the result of the particular configuration of the land and sea on the Cape York Peninsula, in a remote part of Australia. The peninsula tapers off from about 350 miles wide to 60 miles as it extends north between the Gulf of Carpentaria to the west and the Coral Sea to the east. The easterly trade winds push the sea breeze across the peninsula during the daytime, which meets the sea breeze from the west coast in the late evening. The collision produces a wave disturbance moving inland to the southwest that is a key part of the cloud formation.

As moist sea air is lifted to the crest of the waves, it cools and condensation forms a cloud. Sometimes there is just one wave, but Smith has seen as many as 10 together in a series.

“If you look at the clouds, it looks as if they are rolling backwards,” Smith said. “But in fact the clouds are continuously formed at the leading edge and continuously eroded at the trailing edge. That gives a rolling appearance.”

These clouds do occur elsewhere, including Munich, where they form about once in a decade. Cape York is unique because they happen regularly in the fall above the small town of Burketown. And they can also be particularly impressive there as well, growing up to 600 miles long. Pilots fly into the area every year, hoping to see the intriguing clouds.

Not many scientists study them, or really any weird clouds, because their very rarity makes them relatively unimportant for studying precipitation or climate. So, oftentimes, their formation is poorly understood.

“It’s hard to get funding to study something that’s neat looking,” said cloud physicist Patrick Chuang of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

On the following pages, we’ve gathered photos of some of the strangest, most beautiful cloud types and asked scientists to help us understand how they form.

Images: Above: Ulliver/Wikimedia Commons. Below: Mick Petroff/APOD

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:06 pm

'Adolf Hitler's skull' turns out to have belonged to a woman

A bone fragment believed to part of Adolf Hitler's skull has been revealed as being that of an unidentified woman, US scientists say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:24 pm

Macabre 19th century autopsy misdiagnosed mummy's cause of death

A macabre 19th century autopsy of the mummy of a 50-year-old woman named Irtyersenu misdiagnosed her cause of death

The mysterious death of an Egyptian woman, whose mummy became a public spectacle in Georgian Britain, has been solved by a team of researchers in London.

Forensic analysis of tissues taken from the 2,600-year-old corpse has revealed signs of tuberculosis, a disease that was widespread in Egypt.

The mummy of Irtyersenu or "lady of the house" became the first to go under the surgeon's knife in an autopsy in 1825, when England was in the grip of mummy mania.

The remains were unveiled to a large crowd in a macabre lecture by Dr Augustus Granville who, in a theatrical flourish, lit the room at the Royal Society with candles made from wax scraped from the shrivelled corpse.

The examination revealed that Irtyersenu "had very considerable dimensions", was around 50 years old when she died, and had borne several children. Her body was so well preserved, Granville said he could identify the cause of death as ovarian cancer.

The corpse, which has been dated to 600 BC, had been removed from the necropolis in Thebes by a young explorer called Archibald Edmonstone, who had passed it on to Dr Granville to investigate. The autopsy laid the foundations of the scientific study of Egypt's mummies.

Irtyersenu was bought by the British Museum in 1853, but lay forgotten in a storage room until the 1980s when John Taylor, an Egyptologist at the museum, stumbled upon a large chest containing her remains.

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers at University College London and the British Museum describe how they performed a modern autopsy on the mummified remains.

Dr Granville was right in identifying ovarian cancer, but the tumour – roughly the size of an orange – was a benign type called a cystadenoma and so could be ruled out as the cause of death.

The researchers, led by Helen Donoghue, analysed tissue from Irtyersenu's thigh bones and hand, and also from her lungs, gall bladder and other organs. The tests revealed the presence of DNA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the pathogen that causes TB, in the lungs and gall bladder, and in other tissues that are thought to have come from her diaphragm or from her pleura, the thin membrane that covers the lungs. Further signs of the disease were detected in her thigh bones.

"We are able to enhance the original paper by Granville to the Royal Society by concluding that there is evidence of an active tuberculosis infection in the lady Irtyersenu and that this rather than a benign ovarian cystadenoma, was likely to be a major cause of her death," the authors write.

John Taylor at the British Museum said Irtyersenu provides a rare insight into the health of the ancient Egyptians because her internal organs were preserved so well. "A lot of her organs were present that are not normally found in Egyptian mummies," Taylor told the Guardian.

When wealthy individuals were mummified they usually had their organs removed, with the brain being pulled out through the nose and the rest through an incision in the abdomen. "In this mummy it was totally different. Most of the organs were left inside, so the digestive and reproductive systems and some of her organs were in good condition," Taylor said.

The technique used to preserve Irtyersenu suggests that she was not from the higher social classes, but ornate paintings on her coffin suggest she was not among the poorest either.

The investigation has shed light on another puzzle surrounding Irtyersenu and the public lecture that brought Dr Granville fame in 1825. The doctor believed the woman had been preserved by being submerged in a tank of hot beeswax mixed with bitumen. It was this material he believed he had removed from the corpse to make candles for his lecture.

However, the latest study found no evidence of beeswax or bitumen on Irtyersenu's remains. Instead, the researchers suspect the wax Dr Granville collected was a substance called adipocere, which is produced when fat breaks down in decomposing bodies.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:05 pm

Social isolation 'worsens cancer'

Social isolation may trigger biological changes that make cancer more deadly, US research on mice suggests.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

Mummy autopsy result 'was wrong'

The first scientific autopsy on an ancient Egyptian mummy probably got the cause of death wrong, research suggests.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

Study Questions Whether Women Are More Selective at Dating

Maybe at least a part of that selectivity is due simply to environmental factors and social norms.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 4:27 pm

Massive Earthquake Triggers Tsunami Near Samoa

A magnitude 8.3 earthquake struck Samoa, triggering a tsunami as coastal residents fled to higher ground.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Magnetic Fields Guide Star Birth

Magnetic fields more important in stellar birth than turbulence in gas clouds.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 2:41 pm

Cosmic Rays Hit 50-Year High

Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 2:40 pm

T. Rex Bite Marks Actually Festering Infections

The biggest problem for Tyrannosaurus rex could have been a single-celled parasite in a paleolithic turn on the tiny-fells-mighty, War of the Worlds story.

A relative of lowly Trichomonas, a microbe commonly found today in pigeons, may have killed off Sue, the famous T. rex skeleton at the Chicago Field Museum, and many other tyrannosaurids, too.

Paleontologist Ewan Wolff of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues use evidence from modern predatory bird species to argue that the protozoan parasite could have formed lesions along the tyrannosaur mandible, eroding the bone away.

In some cases, the illness might have been bad enough to prevent the animals from feeding, leading to their death from starvation, and creating telltale holes in the jaws of the great beasts.

“I think it’s very tempting when you see a hole in a bone to say it’s bite marks, but there are innumerable disease you could list that cause holes in bones that have nothing to do with bite wounds,” said Ewan Wolff, lead author of a new paper describing the work published Sept. 29 in PLoS One.

There are three pieces of evidence against the bite-wound hypothesis, Wolff said. First, the holes are generally nicely circular or ovoid, not obviously tooth-shaped. Second, dinosaurs obviously had many teeth, not just one, and the holes don’t seem to come in groups. Third, there are no smaller marks or scrapes on the bone surrounding the holes.

“We’re definitely familiar with what predation traces look like from tooth marks in tyrannosaurus,” Wolff said. “And this is not it.”

Furthermore, they found evidence in predatory birds that trichomonosis can cause holes in the mandible that look quite similar to those found in nine tyrannosaurid specimens.

The disease could have been passed to dinosaurs from their prey or from tyrannosaur to tyrannosaur during combat, mating, or cannibalism.

“Head or face-biting behavior relating to intraspecific territoriality, social dominance, courtship, feeding or some other unknown aspect of tyrannosaurid behavior would have provided the ideal mechanism for the transmission of this trichomonosis-like disease,” Wolff and colleagues wrote.

Other researchers, notably dinosaur anatomy expert Elizabeth Rega of Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, have argued the holes were disease-induced. But Rega’s culprit was a bacteria on the model of actinomyces.

Wolff, however, argued that much of the damage that actinomycosis causes in humans is due to pus. Birds don’t actually create puss, and the same was likely true of dinosaurs. It’s not part of the avian immune response. Instead, birds coat invading organisms with a fibrous protein.

“So instead of getting puss, you get this very cheesy inflammatory area,” Wolff said. “You get chronic infection that just doesn’t go away.”

He said that the actinomycosis-trichomonosis debate showed how his team’s approach differed from other paleopathologists.

“In the past, a lot of comparisons of paleopathological specimens have been made to humans or domesticated animals,” Wolff said, instead of with dinosaurs’ closer relatives, birds and reptiles. “It makes a lot of sense to look at animals that share a close evolutionary relationship to each other and the diseases that they have. The approach in this article is to do just that and that’s relatively novel in the paleopathological community.”

Still, not everyone is sold on the new idea about Sue’s holey jaw.

Rega called Wolff’s idea an “intriguing hypothesis” but one that wasn’t “a perfect match” for the data. She noted that any disease that can make holes in bone has to stick around for a long time, wearing away at the material. She doesn’t see trichomonosis as a good fit on that score.

“What the T-rex symptoms demand is chronically affected animals who don’t recover but who don’t die. In this way, a long standing disease (acting like actinomycosis) fits the data better,” Rega wrote in an email to Wired.com. “And if trichomonas is indeed the culprit, the natural history of trichomonas suggests it was more chronic and less acute in its non-avian dinosaur phase in the late Cretaceous.”

And some still contend that bite marks could be responsible for the holes, too.

“My suspicion is that it’s not valid,” said Bruce Rothschild, a medical doctor and paleopathologist at the University of Kansas.

Rothschild said the holes in Sue’s jaw look a lot like the marks made by trepanation — the practice of puncturing of the skull — in ancient humans.

“I’m not saying it was trepanation,” Rothschild said. “I’m saying it was a bite.”

And he disputed that the modern examples of presumed trichomonas jaw holes matched up “exactly” with the tyrannosaur fossil holes.

“To me, it’s not exactly the same,” he said.

Rothschild said that the tyrannosaur fossils showed just “a hole with simple infilling,” without the more complex features associated with lesions.

What might be next is looking at dinosaur specimens for other signs of starvation, suggested Thomas Holtz, a tyrannosaur specialist at the University of Maryland.

“I don’t know if you’d see maybe bone loss as a sign of starvation,” Holtz said.

Wolff said his team could follow up with exactly that type of observation. Another line of inquiry could run in the molecular direction, trying to determine if parasites like trichomonas did in fact exist 65 millions of years ago.

“I don’t know to what degree anyone can confirm that this particular group of organisms were around during the Cretaceous,” Holtz said. “We don’t have a fossil record for them.”

Update: 9/29, 5:07pm. Added comment from Elizabeth Rega. Updated the whereabouts of Sue to the Field Museum.

Image: Pex Rex. Chris Glen/University of Queensland

See Also:

• First-Gen T. Rex Was No Bigger Than You
• Third Most Complete T. Rex to Be Auctioned in Vegas
• Want Your Own Dinosaur? Place Your Bids
• Tyrannosaurus Rex
• You Couldn’t Outswim a T. Rex, Either

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 | 29 Sep 2009 | 2:27 pm

Earthquakes and Tsunamis: How They Work

How deep-sea earthquakes can generates devastating walls of water.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 2:24 pm

BLOG: Roman Emperor Nero's Dining Room Found

Nero's banquet hall has been discovered in his sumptuous residence on the Palatine Hill.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 2:00 pm

Pollution Travels the Globe, Study Confirms

Pollution in other countries can affect the air quality in your neck of the woods.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:23 pm

BLOG: Mercury Looms

The Mercury probe MESSENGER makes its closest approach to the planet.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:23 pm

Major South Pacific Quake Spawns Tsunami

A major earthquake struck in the Somoa Islands region of the South Pacific Ocean.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:20 pm

Two meter sea level rise unstoppable-experts

OXFORD, England (Reuters) - A rise of at least two meters in the world's sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 29 Sep 2009 | 1:18 pm

Good vs. Evil: The Fine Genetic Line

The sociopath and the altruistic do-gooder are not so different, research shows.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 12:12 pm

Megafauna Extinctions Not Entirely Humans’ Fault

BRISTOL, England — Studies that have mostly blamed the arrival of humans for die-offs among Australia’s large mammals 50,000 years ago missed the role played by a changing climate, new research suggests.

Most assessments of Australian extinctions have used evidence gathered at sites that typically include fossils from only one narrow interval of time, Gilbert Price, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Queensland in St. Lucia, Australia, reported September 23 here at the meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. But he and his colleagues have analyzed fossils of creatures both large and small from Darling Downs, a site in eastern Australia with a fossil record that extends from about 120,000 to about 55,000 years ago. In all, the team has tallied about 70 species that lived nearby at some point during that interval.

The data doesn’t support a previously proposed human-only cause for Australian megafaunal extinctions, Price noted. From strata deposited about 120,000 years ago, the researchers recovered the remains of 15 species of large mammals. About 90,000 years ago, only eight species of large mammals lived there. By 55,000 years ago, still several millennia before humans arrived in the area, only four large mammal species remained.

That long-term drop in diversity also appeared among small creatures, and the types of species that disappeared suggest climate change played a role, Price said. Sediments deposited from 120,000 to 90,000 years ago contain the fossils of rodents, frogs and land snails as well as large mammals, suggesting that the surrounding area was a patchwork of woodlands, vine-choked thickets and open grasslands. By 55,000 years ago, however, many of the wet-loving and forest-adapted species had largely disappeared, signaling a transition to drier, more open conditions.

The new findings don’t pin the blame for Australia’s final spate of mammal extinctions on either climate change or human presence, Price cautioned. The long-term trend in species diversity at Darling Downs does hint, however, that climate change caused some species to die out. And the changes may have reduced the populations of other species enough that human arrival easily tipped them over the edge to extinction.

Image: Gilbert Price at Darling Downs in 2006. / Erika Fish, QUT Marketing & Communication

See Also:

• Humans Didn’t Kill the Woolly Mammoth
• Third Most Complete T. Rex to Be Auctioned in Vegas
• Evidence for Bone-Crushing Wolves Discovered
• If Climate Didn’t Doom Neanderthals, Did Humans?
• Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion
• A New Explanation for Ancient Mass Extinction
• Google Algorithm Predicts When Species Will Go 404, Not Found
• Latest Extinction is the Greatest
• Climate Change Produces (Icky) New Species

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:37 am

Bacteria Engineered to Trace Faces, Images

Bacteria are engineered to trace outlines of famous faces and images.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:33 am

Spies Clueless About Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program

Iran either stopped efforts to build a nuclear weapon in 2003 or has restarted the effort, or it was never stopped.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:13 am

Genetically Modifying Songbirds to Study Human Brain Growth

By genetically modifying the brains of songbirds for the first time, scientists may have a devised useful new tool for studying neurological growth and healing in humans.

“Songbirds have become a classic tool for studying vocal learning and neuron replacement. This will bring those two topics into the molecular age,” said neuroscientist Fernando Nottebohm of Rockefeller University, author of a study published September 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nottebohm’s team successfully added fluorescent protein-producing genes to 23 zebra finches, a feat that — in the age of pet dogs clones and Alba the glow bunny — may not seem extraordinarily noteworthy at first glance. But unlike many other animals, including chickens and quail, songbirds have been remarkably hard to genetically modify. That’s frustrating to scientists, who study the birds’ ability to change their songs according to setting and experience.

That ability, known as vocal learning, is believed to rely on a version of the same neurological systems that eventually allowed a clever branch of the primate tree to acquire language and become human. It makes the birds an important model of human learning, language and neural development.

Nottebohm rose to fame during the 1990s, after finding that songbirds grew new brain cells in order to learn seasonal songs. That ran contrary to the conventional neurological truth of adults having a set number of brain cells. After being dismissed as fantasy, the ability has been found throughout the animal kingdom, including in humans.

All this has made songbirds as potentially important to understanding the growth of our brains as mice are to understanding our bodies. And now, just as it’s possible to genetically modify mice, scientists might do the same in songbirds.

“When you talk about underlying mechanisms at the cellular level, you have to be able to manipulate genes. Otherwise, all your hypotheses are untestable,” said Nottebohm. “It will open the door to a whole new generation of work on vocal learning that has not been possible.”

Nottebohm’s team injected 256 zebra finch embryos with viruses that traveled into the birds’ genomes and inserted a gene that produced a fluorescent protein. When the birds hatched, cells containing the protein glowed.

The method is still in proof-of-principle stages, requiring between 10 and 20 injections per embryo. That repeated trauma could explain why just 23 of the embryos hatched, and only three passed on the genetic changes to their offspring.

“There’s got to be a better way. We’re delighted that we got it that far, but as we come to understand how this works, we would like to bring up the efficiency,” said Nottebohm.

However, the importance of the technique is not in those early numbers, but the the possibility they represent, he said.

“We can test hypotheses that might explain how and why cells in the brain are replaced,” said Nottebohm.

Images: 1. Scharff Lab 2. PNAS

See Also:

• Culture May Be Encoded in DNA
• Flying Transformers: Birds Gear Up for Migration
• Reverse-Engineering the Quantum Compass of Birds
• Songbird Brains Rewire On the Fly

Citation: “Transgenic songbirds: An opportunity to develop
a genetic model for vocal learning.” By R. J. Agatea, B. B. Scott, B. Haripal, C. Lois, and F. Nottebohm. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106, No. 39. September 29, 2009.

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 | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:03 am

Home Computers to Hunt for Artificial Life

EvoGrid would model the pre-biotic chemical environment which was the precursor stage to evolution and life arising on Earth.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 11:02 am

Warning: Homegrown Tobacco Still Deadly

Tobacco seeds sales have sharply risen this year as smokers try growing their own.
Source: Livescience.com | 29 Sep 2009 | 10:51 am

Superheavy Element 114 Finally Re-created

By firing calcium isotopes into a plutonium target inside a particle accelerator, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have finally confirmed the Russian discovery of the superheavy element 114.

It wasn’t easy. It took more than a week of running the experiment to generate a measly two atoms of the stuff, which they reported in Physical Review Letters last week. It’s basic science at the outer limits of matter.

“We’re learning the limits of nuclei,” said Ken Gregorich, a nuclear physicist at LBL. “How many protons can you pack into a nucleus before it falls apart?”

Uranium, which has 92 protons in its nucleus, is the heaviest element found in substantial quantities in nature. The first man-made “transuranic” elements like plutonium were discovered and synthesized during the 1940s in the run-up to the creation of nuclear weapons. Since then, it’s gotten harder and harder to produce new elements, but scientists have kept at it. One reason is they hypothesized that certain isotopes of very heavy particles might exist in an “island of stability” that would allow them to stick around longer than the fractions of a second most synthetic elements last.

So, it was with great excitement that scientists received the news in early 1999 that the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna appeared to have discovered Element 114 — and it lasted for whole seconds.

“It’s fantastically important work,” Neil Rowley of the Institute for Subatomic Research in Strasbourg, France told New Scientist in 1999.

Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize winner, adviser to presidents, and a big advocate of the island theory of superheavy elements, was even delivered the news of the Russian discovery on his death bed by an old friend.

“The term ‘magic’ was continually used — Seaborg and others spoke of a magic ridge, a magic mountain and a magic island of elements,” wrote Oliver Sachs of the search for the island. “This vision came to haunt the imagination of physicists the world over. Whether or not it was scientifically important, it became psychologically imperative to reach, or at least to sight, this magic territory.”

After decades of swimming through particle accelerator data, the island had been reached. It was tremendously big news.

Or so they thought.

As the years went by, the Russian team published a series of papers about Element 114, but other teams couldn’t confirm their initial discovery of the extraordinarily long-lived particle. There were two reasons for this. One, the experimental apparatus required to check the findings were only available in a small number of labs around the world. Two, it appears the Russians were wrong.

“I think back in ‘99 they were learning how to do this and I think they had a random correlation of unrelated events that appeared to be Element 114,” Gregorich said.

It’s not that they didn’t eventually discover Element 114. They did. It’s just that their first observation, the most exciting one, turned out to be incorrect. In four separate publications from 2000 to 2004, they came up with better data, and those are the observations that Gregorich said his lab has confirmed.

And the island of stability? It is actually there, Gregorich said, but its effects are less pronounced than (at least) Seaborg hoped. The particular combinations of protons and neutrons do yield longer lasting elements, just not … magic ones.

“Our results and the Dubna results show that there is some stability there,” Gregorich said. “If we didn’t have extra stability due to the shell effects, these things would decay faster than we could ever detect them with lifetimes on the order of 10^-20 seconds rather than 10^-1 seconds.”

The search, though, for a more perfect superheavy element does go on.

“There are still predictions that if you could use more neutron-rich projectiles, if you could produce these elements but with more neutrons, some of them would be pretty long lived,” he said.

Unfortunately, the particle accelerators in operation and currently planned won’t reach the power necessary to get to create the theoretically most stable elements.

“The present and next generation of radioactive beam machines don’t have high enough beam intensities,” Gregorich said. “The technology doesn’t exist today but it might in another 20 or 30 years.”

Image: The Berkeley Gas-filled Separator, the detector used in the experiment, in situ.
Ken Gregorich/LBL.

See Also:

• Scientists Use Superconducting Cyclotron to Make Super-Heavy Metals
• Newly Discovered Element Needs a Clever Name
• Jargon Watch: Cowpooling, Tweetups, Dark Trading
• Last Days of Big American Physics: One More Triumph, or Just
• The Large Hadron Collider’s New Name Is

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 | 29 Sep 2009 | 10:48 am

Did Sue die of a sore throat?

A parasite that infects pigeons made it increasingly difficult for the T. rex to swallow and led to starvation, a new study suggests

Dinosaur enthusiasts are revising their image of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex after discovering that the most famous specimen on public display was felled not in mortal combat, but by an infection that causes sore throats in pigeons.

Nicknamed Sue, the seven-tonne T. rex at the Field Museum in Chicago is the largest and most complete example of the prehistoric predator ever unearthed. The fossil, which stretches 13m from nose to tail, cost curators a record-breaking $8.4m at auction in 1997.

The 65m-year-old beast is known to have survived violent skirmishes that left her with three broken ribs, torn tendons and a damaged shoulder. But acccording to a study of Sue's remains, her death was far more mundane than her combat-scarred remains suggest.

Researchers led by Ewan Wolff at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, examined gouge marks in Sue's jaw that were thought to have been inflicted in one-on-one battles with other tyrannosaurs.

But closer inspection of the holes revealed striking similarities with indentations seen in modern birds that are caused by a common parasite that infects the mouth and throat. The disease, called trichomonosis, causes bone loss in the jaw in its later stages.

"The cause of these holes in tyrannosaurs has previously been attributed to tooth gouges from biting or bacterial infections, but we think a trichomonosis-type disease is much more likely given the position and nature of the holes," Dr Wolff said.

As the infection spread, Sue would have found it increasingly difficult to swallow and may eventually have starved to death, according to a report in the journal Public Library of Science One.

The parasite, which today causes mild infections in pigeons, doves and other wild birds, probably spread rapidly between predatory dinosaurs who transmitted the infection through their bites. Facial wounds from biting are common among all the tyrannosaur specimens that show evidence of trichomonosis.

Steve Salisbury, a member of the team at the University of Queensland, said: "It's ironic to think that an animal as mighty as Sue probably died as a result of a parasitic infection. I'll never look at a feral pigeon the same way again."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 29 Sep 2009 | 10:30 am

Odd Rituals Surround Russian Space Flights

Russian space flights involve long-held rituals involving vodka, urination, music and movies.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 10:03 am

WATCH: Swimming with Sharks

Discovery News' Kasey-Dee dives in to swim with sharks and explains how you can too.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:05 am

Species Census Reveals Extinction Threat

A catalog of all known plants and animals finds that 10 percent of major species are at risk.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

Number of Earth's species known to scientists rises to 1.9 million

The world's most comprehensive catalogue of plants and animals has been boosted by 114,000 new species in the past three years

The number of species on the planet that have been documented by scientists has risen to 1.9 million, according to the world's most comprehensive catalogue of plants and animals.

The new figure has been boosted by 114,000 new species discovered since the catalogue was last compiled by Australian researchers three years ago – a 6.3% increase.

The was report hailed by the naturalist Sir David Attenborough as a "crucial reference point for all those who are acting to protect our planet for future generations". It estimates there are 11 million species living on the planet.

But many of them will disappear before they are even found, according to the researchers. Lists of threatened species "lag well behind discovery and … thus are likely to provide underestimates," the report says.

Australia, with one of the highest extinction rates in the world is the only nation to keep a comprehensive list of threatened species. Scientists compiled the Number of Living Species in the World report for the Australian government which says it is the only comprehensive catalogue of plants and animals in the world.

This is the second time that Australian scientists have scoured the globe for published information on identified species of which there are now 1.9 million, 6.3% more than when the report was first published in 2006.

However, the total number of species on the planet is estimated to be much higher. Scientists' calculations vary from 3 million to 100 million, but the report says the number is closer to 11 million.

"Unless we can be certain of exactly what organism we are considering, we cannot protect it. Listing species is the beginning of that essential process," Attenborough said in a statement accompanying the report.

Australia has identified 147,579 of its plants and animals but scientists estimate there are almost 500,000 more species yet to be found. In the three years since the last report, scientists have identified an additional 48 reptiles, eight frogs, eight mammals, 1,184 flowering plants and 904 spiders, mites and scorpions in Australia. As many as 93% of reptiles and 87% of mammal species on the island continent are found there and nowhere else.

But this crucial reservoir of biodiversity is under threat. Of the 388 mammal species found in Australia, 78 are listed as vulnerable, endangered or extinct in the wild while nearly 14% of amphibians, 5% of reptiles and 6% of birds are at risk of extinction.

"We need this essential information to do a better job of managing our biodiversity against the threats of invasive species, habitat loss and climate change," the federal environment minister, Peter Garrett, said.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 29 Sep 2009 | 8:53 am

Bearded Vultures 'seen in India'

About 200 Bearded Vultures have been spotted in a remote part of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, reports say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 7:27 am

Fungus Hitting Frogs Hard

A fungal infection eliminating rare species means strains on the food web and tourism.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 7:17 am

Probe's pass and brake at Mercury

Nasa’s Messenger probe will use its third and final fly-by of Mercury to slow itself sufficiently to get into orbit in 2011.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:18 am

Prehistoric Shark Nursery Spawned Giants

The breeding ground of the world's largest, prehistoric predator is found.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 29 Sep 2009 | 6:17 am

Diverse fish reduce coral disease

Coral reefs where lots of different fish species swim are healthier than overfished ones, scientists show.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:48 am

Census reveals extinction threat

Almost 10% of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are at risk of extinction, says an Australian report.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:44 am

Cervical cancer vaccine: the facts

A consultant addresses concerns about the HPV vaccine following the death of a young girl shortly after she received a dose

What do we know about the vaccine?

Cervarix vaccine prevents infection with the two commonest types of HPV involved in cervical cancer. Even with the cervical screening programme, in England, each year, there are:

• 21,617 cases of advanced precancerous disease.

• 2,221 cases of invasive cancer of the cervix.

• 899 deaths from cancer of the cervix.

The vaccine will probably prevent around 70% of these. It has been used in this country for just over a year, and more than a million doses have been given. Worldwide, many more doses have been administered with a good safety record.

What happened?

All we know at this stage is that a 14-year-old girl tragically died the same day as she was given the vaccine. We do not know her past medical history, and a post-mortem has yet to be held to ascertain the cause of death.

Is her death linked to the vaccine?

It is impossible to say until further investigations have taken place, but it may have been a coincidence. Unfortunately, some young people do die suddenly for a variety of reasons, including cardiac causes. Sometimes they have been entirely well until their death.

Is the vaccine safe?

Extensive safety studies were performed prior to the introduction of the vaccine, but they may not have picked up very rare events. However, since the vaccine was introduced (it is now licensed in over 90 countries), its safety has been monitored very carefully. In spite of millions of doses being given, we are not aware of any similar occurrence previously.

Rarely, a person does have a life-threatening allergic reaction after a vaccine, medicine or food. This is very rarely fatal after a vaccine.

Could there be a problem with a particular batch of vaccine?

Until we know more, this is impossible to say. However, as a precaution, the batch from which this young girl was immunised (AHPVA043BB) has been quarantined and should not be used until further notice. It should not be discarded. No other significant problems have been reported with this batch.

What if I/my daughter has already had a dose from this batch?

Even in the unlikely event that the tragic death was related to the vaccine, you can be reassured that any similar reaction would be apparent by now. You have no need to be concerned.

Should we go on using the vaccine?

Other batches of the vaccine can be used. The worldwide track record of this vaccine is such that it is most unlikely there is any problem with the vaccine in general.

• Dr David Elliman is a consultant in community child health at Great Ormond Street hospital for children

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 29 Sep 2009 | 5:17 am

Finally, a bid to save our soil

Hilary Benn's recognition that we need to look after our soil is long overdue – a fixation with chemistry threatens our civilisation

It's good to know the government has realised we need to take rather better care of our soil if we're to stand a chance of surviving on this planet.

Announcing a new soil protection strategy, the rural affairs secretary, Hilary Benn, declared: "Good quality soils are essential for a thriving farming industry, a sustainable food supply and a healthy environment."

Quite so, Mr Benn. But what took you so long? For an old farming hack like me it has been obvious for years that the way we've been treating our soils is bad for our health as well as for our environment.

In a nutshell, the constant pounding we've given our farmland, both with chemicals and with giant machines, has seriously compromised its ability to go on feeding us. If we go on treating it in such a cavalier way our civilisation is likely to go the way of all the others who wrecked their soils – starting with Mesopotamia.

The roots of our own particular form of soil abuse lie in the ideas of an influential 19th century chemist called Justus von Liebig. He propounded the theory that soil fertility was principally a matter of chemistry. You simply totted up the amounts of plant nutrients taken off in a crop and replaced them in the form of fertiliser.

In this way the land could be induced to go on producing crops indefinitely, Von Liebig reasoned. It's this 19th century paradigm that has underpinned our food system ever since. Around the world farmers have thrown a few major chemical elements onto their fields – principally nitrogen, phosphate and potash. And that's about it.

The idea that you might also need to apply some organic fertiliser such as animal manure has disappeared on many lowland farms.

Judged solely on the basis of crop yields the system would appear to have worked reasonably well. But serious drawbacks have begun to appear with real implications for human health. Many everyday foods are now depleted in health-protecting nutrients. And the soil itself – the only guarantor that we can go on feeding ourselves in the future – is losing its structure and eroding away.

Prof Bob Watson, chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), sounded the alarm bells last year when he reported on a World Bank-funded investigation into global farming technology. He said: "We are putting food that appears cheap on our tables; but it is food that is not always healthy and that costs us dearly in terms of water, soil and the biological diversity on which all our futures depend."

The fatal flaw in our food system is that it is fixated on chemistry while taking little account of the life forms in soil which are the true builders of fertility. Von Liebig became known as the founder of agricultural chemistry. Unfortunately there was no one around to make the case for agricultural biology, which, if anything, was more important.

Commerce has been happy to perpetuate this myopic view of soil fertility. A handful of large corporations have made handsome returns from peddling chemical fertilisers to farmers. Why would they be worried about soils becoming damaged and breaking down?

One of the consequences of soil damage is that crops are unable to take up the nutrients they need. As a result they become unhealthy and vulnerable to attack by pests and diseases. This hands another revenue stream to the chemical companies, who are then able to cash in with the sale of pesticides.

It appears from Benn's pronouncement that the proverbial penny has finally dropped. Farmers are being encouraged to abandon damaging techniques such as ploughing and substitute techniques like "minimal tillage", a less brutal and invasive way of preparing soil to receive a new crop.

The aim of the strategy is to increase the level of soil "organic matter", an all-encompassing term for life below ground. It includes living organisms from microbes to earthworms, by way of nematodes and fungi. It also includes the dead and decaying remnants of animals and plants. It's these myriad life forms, together with the materials they work on, that supply nutrients for crop plants, for grazing animals and ultimately for us human beings.

Thankfully the government has recognised that soil fertility is not simply – or even principally – a matter of chemistry. The challenge for farmers is to create the conditions that allow life below ground to flourish. When soils are genuinely healthy and fertile, the future of our food supply – and its quality – is assured. So is the future of the planet.

Fertile soils represent a far greater store of carbon than damaged ones. Even as farmers begin to rebuild levels of organic matter in their soils, they'll be removing carbon dioxide from the air and locking it up safely below ground.

Soil represents the largest terrestrial carbon sink. It contains three times more than all the world's vegetation. That's why Benn's new protection strategy is good news for all of us. Unless, of course, you happen to have shares in the farm chemical industry.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 29 Sep 2009 | 3:30 am