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New Ancient Fungus Finding Suggests World's Forests Were Wiped Out In Global CatastropheTiny organisms that covered the planet more than 250 million years ago appear to be a species of ancient fungus that thrived in dead wood, according to new research. Scientists believe that the organisms were able to thrive during this period because the world's forests had been wiped out. This would explain how the organisms, which are known as Reduviasporonites, were able to proliferate across the planet.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Color Plays Musical Chairs In The BrainThe brain's neural mechanisms keep straight which color belongs to what object, so one doesn't mistakenly see a blue flamingo in a pink lake. But what happens when a color loses the object to which it is linked? Research shows for the first time, that instead of disappearing along with the lost object, the color latches onto a region of some other object in view -- a finding that reveals a new basic property of sight.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Parasite Bacteria May Help Fight Spread Of Mosquito-borne DiseasesInfecting mosquitoes with a bacterial parasite could help prevent the spread of lymphatic filariasis, one of the major neglected tropical diseases of the developing world, according to new research in the journal Science.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Estrogen Link In Male Aggression Sheds New Light On Sex-specific BehaviorsTerritorial behavior in male mice might be linked to more "girl power" than ever suspected, according to new findings at UCSF. For the first time, researchers have identified networks of nerve cells in the brain that are associated with how male mice defend their territory and have shown that these cells are controlled by the female hormone estrogen.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Better Control Of Carbon Nanotube 'Growth' Promising For Future ElectronicsResearchers have overcome a major obstacle in efforts to use tiny structures called carbon nanotubes to create a new class of electronics that would be faster and smaller than conventional silicon-based transistors.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am New Kind Of Search For Dark Energy: First Light For BOSSBOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, is the most ambitious attempt yet to map the expansion history of the Universe using the technique known as baryon acoustic oscillation. Part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, BOSS achieved "first light" on the night of Sept. 14-15, when it acquired data with its upgraded spectrographic system across the entire focal plane of the Sloan Foundation telescope at Apache Point Observatory.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am 'Natural Killer' Cells Keep Immune System In BalanceResearchers have discovered that the natural killer, or NK cells, help prevent T cells from over-responding when a virus hits. This balance helps prevent T cells, which ordinarily serve the immune system, from causing harm.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am Breast Milk Should Be Drunk At The Same Time Of Day That It Is ExpressedThe levels of the components in breast milk change every 24 hours in response to the needs of the baby. A new study shows, for example, how this milk could help newborn babies to sleep.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am Genetic Conflict In Fish Led To Evolution Of New Sex ChromosomesBiologists have genetically mapped the sex chromosomes of several species of cichlid fish from Lake Malawi, East Africa, and identified a mechanism by which new sex chromosomes may evolve.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am New Approach For The Treatment Of Malignant Brain TumorsInitial chemotherapy alone after surgery is just as successful as initial radiation therapy for patients from whom a very malignant brain tumor (anaplastic glioma) was removed, a new study has found. With this treatment, the patients survive on average more than 30 months without a recurrence. Patients in primary therapy benefit to the same extent from chemotherapy alone as from radiation alone.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am Craft carrying circus tycoon reaches space station (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 4:08 am Cluster of dinosaur eggs found in Tamil Nadu (Reuters)Reuters - Geologists have found a cluster of fossilised dinosaur eggs, said to be about 65 million years old, in a village in Tamil Nadu, according to media reports.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 4:01 am Polar bear cub hitches a rideA cub is seen hitching a ride on its mother's back in the Arctic Ocean, a rarely sighted behaviour that may help it keep warm.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:52 am Cluster of dinosaur eggs found in southern IndiaCHENNAI, India (Reuters) - Geologists have found a cluster of fossilized dinosaur eggs, said to be about 65 million years old, in a village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, according to media reports.Source: Reuters: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:50 am The nation's weather (AP)AP - Unsettlement was expected over most of the country Friday as two strong systems were forecast to continue kicking up wet weather.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:18 am River of mud floods Sicilian city, at least 6 dead (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:13 am Circus tycoon docks at space station (Reuters)Reuters - Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte, dubbed the first clown in space, arrived at the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:11 am Circus tycoon docks at space stationKOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte, dubbed the first clown in space, arrived at the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Friday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:11 am Warped worldWhat insect does your country most resemble?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:05 am Acrobat, Astronauts Dock At Space Station (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Two new crewmembers and a space tourist arrived at the International Space Station Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 3:01 am How do you train a fish?Researchers are training fish to respond to sound in a bid to improve fish farming.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Oct 2009 | 2:02 am Herschel scans hidden Milky WayA remarkable view of our Galaxy in the early stages of creating stars is obtained by Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Observatory.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 2 Oct 2009 | 1:23 am Report: USFS ordered Calif. firefighters reduced (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Oct 2009 | 1:02 am UK research 'G8's most efficient'UK science is the most productive and efficient in the G8, according to a report published by the government.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Oct 2009 | 6:41 pm Great expectations: today's babies are likely to live to 100, doctors predict• Authors see no lifespan limit in developed nations Most babies born in the past few years in the UK will live to be 100 if current trends continue, experts say. And people could be living not only longer, but better, according to doctors writing in the Lancet medical journal, who say that most evidence shows the under-85s are tending to remain more capable and mobile than before. They have more chronic illnesses, such as cancers and heart conditions, but people survive them because they are diagnosed earlier and get better treatment. Professor Kaare Christensen and colleagues at the ageing research centre at the University of Southern Denmark calculate that at least half the babies born in the UK in the year 2000 will reach their 100th birthday. Life expectancy is increasing so fast that half the babies born in 2007 will live to be at least 103, while half the Japanese babies born in the same year will reach the age of 107. The bad news is that the ageing populations of rich countries such as the UK threaten to unbalance the population. It "poses severe challenges for the traditional social welfare state," write Christensen and colleagues. But they have a radical solution: young and old should work fewer hours a week. Over a lifetime, we would all spend the same total amount of time at work as we do now, but spread out over the years. "The 20th century was a century of redistribution of income. The 21st century could be a century of redistribution of work," they write. "Redistribution would spread work more evenly across populations and over the ages of life. Individuals could combine work, education, leisure and child rearing in varying amounts at different ages." It is a theory that is beginning to receive "some preliminary attention", the authors say, citing a study in the Science journal three years ago which suggested that shorter working weeks would help young people and increase western Europe's flagging birth rate. Shorter working weeks might further increase health and life expectancy, Christensen and colleagues write. But redistribution of work will not solve all the problems caused by a society with a large number of very old people. Beyond a certain point, the old will need younger people to look after them – although technology is likely to provide some help in advanced countries such as the UK. Over the 20th century there have been huge increases in life expectancy – more than 30 years – in most developed countries. Breakthroughs in saving babies from infectious diseases and mothers from the complications of childbirth were responsible for the big increases in life expectancy until the 1920s. Then people started to live to greater ages. "This reduction in old-age mortality was unprecedented and unexpected," the authors write. "Since the 1950s, and especially since the 1970s, mortality at ages 80 years and older has continued to fall, in some countries even at an accelerating pace." Japan holds the record. In 2007, the life expectancy of a woman was 86 years – confounding theorists who had suggested in 1980 that 85 years was the limit for human life expectancy. The Danish authors say they see no reason why life expectancy should not continue to rise. "The linear increase in record life expectancy for more than 165 years does not suggest a looming limit to human lifespan," they write. "If life expectancy was approaching a limit, some deceleration of progress would probably occur. Continued progress in the longest-living populations suggests that we are not close to a limit, and further rise in life expectancy seems likely." But with low mortality and people having fewer babies in developed countries, further population ageing is inevitable. They cite Germany as an example. Even allowing for immigration, its population in 2050, they say, "will be substantially older and smaller" than it is now. The analysis suggests, however, that the health of the elderly is improving. Studies have rarely looked at people over 85, but improvements in their health are likely to translate into improvements also for the very elderly. Although the number of cancers is rising as people live longer, and chronic diseases such as diabetes and arthritis are increasing, better diagnosis and treatment means that people can live good lives in spite of them. Obesity is expected to cause more health problems, but its consequences can be modified by the use of drugs. "Traditionally, man has three major periods of life: childhood, adulthood and old age," they write. "Old age is now evolving into two segments, a third age (young old) and a fourth age (oldest old)." Some experts have said the prospects for the fourth age are poor – "characterised by vulnerability, with little identity, psychological autonomy and personal control". But a Danish study found that 30-40% of people today were independent between the ages of 92 and 100. A US study showed that 40% of 32 supercentenarians (those more than 110 years old) needed little assistance or were independent. These studies, Christensen and colleagues write, "do not accord with the prediction that the fourth age is in a vegetative state". guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 6:23 pm Forest Service backs Devil's Staircase Wilderness (AP)AP - The U.S. Forest Service has endorsed designation of a new wilderness area in an area of Oregon's Coast Range known for a remote waterfall called the Devil's Staircase.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 5:52 pm Life-support - bra gas mask creators among Ig Nobel winnersDesigners of an "emergency bra" that converts into gas masks are among the winners of 2009's Ig Nobel Prizes.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Oct 2009 | 5:52 pm Ig Nobel awards: The gas-mask bra and the power of panda pooBritons gain spoof gongs for studies with more questions than answers The nation can hold its head up high. Once again, Britons have been honoured in the annual Ig Nobel awards ceremony, the second most important event on the scientific calendar. The Ig Nobels, or Igs, are an annual exercise in irreverence that celebrate research that "cannot, or should not, be repeated". They are given to scientists whose results first make people laugh, and then make them think. The ceremony took place at Harvard University, with the coveted prizes handed out by real Nobel laureates. This year's recipients were allowed no more than 60 seconds to deliver their acceptance speech, a time limit enforced by an eight-year-old girl. The event is hosted by the Harvard-based journal Annals of Improbable Research, and is timed to coincide with the far more lucrative and legitimate Nobels, which are due to be announced in Stockholm next week. The Ig Nobel awards were: Veterinary medicine prize Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson at Newcastle University's school of agriculture share the award for the groundbreaking discovery that giving cows names such as Daisy increases their milk yield. "It's the highlight of my career," said Douglas. "The work amused the public, but it addressed a serious issue about the welfare of animals and points to an easy way to improve yields by reducing stress in cattle." Peace prize Awarded for research on whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full beer bottle or an empty one, the prize went to Stephan Bolliger and colleagues at the University of Bern in Switzerland. "Empty beer bottles are sturdier than full ones," the researchers reported. "However, both full and empty bottles are theoretically capable of fracturing the human neurocranium." Public health prize Awarded to Elena Bodnar of Hinsdale, Illinois, for patenting a bra that, in an emergency, can be converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the owner and one for a needy bystander. "It was inspired by the Chernobyl nuclear accident," said Bodnar, who is originally from Ukraine. "This way, the mask is always readily available." Medicine prize To Donald Unger, a doctor in Thousand Oaks, California, who cracked the knuckles of his left hand, but never those on his right, every day for 60 years to investigate whether it caused arthritis. Unger, now 83, told the Guardian: "After 60 years, I looked at my knuckles and there's not the slightest sign of arthritis. I looked up to the heavens and said: 'Mother, you were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong.' " Chemistry prize Javier Morales shares the award with two colleagues at the National University of Mexico for turning the national drink, tequila, into diamonds. Thin films of diamond were produced by heating 80%-proof tequila blanco in a pressure vessel. Physics prize Awarded to Katherine Whitcome at the University of Cincinnati and colleagues for a detailed explanation of why pregnant women do not topple over. "Pregnancy presents an enormous challenge for the female body," Whitcome explained. "It turns out that enhanced curvature and reinforcement of the lower spine are key to maintaining normal activities during pregnancy." Biology prize Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University graduate school of medical sciences in Japan share the prize for demonstrating that kitchen waste can be reduced by more than 90% by using bacteria extracted from giant panda excrement. Taguchi suspected panda faeces must contain bacteria capable of breaking down even the hardiest of foods because of the bear's vast consumption of bamboo. Mathematics prize Awarded to Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple way of dealing with a wide range of numbers. Gono ordered his bank to print notes with denominations ranging from one cent to one hundred trillion dollars. Literature prize Awarded to the entire police force of Ireland for issuing more than 50 penalties to a man they supposed to be the most persistent driving offender in the country: a Mr Prawo Jazdy, whose name in Polish means "driver's licence". An investigation held earlier this year revealed officers had mistakenly taken down the wrong details from motorists' documents. Economics prize Awarded to the directors, executives and auditors of four Icelandic banks: Kaupthing bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir bank and Central Bank of Iceland, "for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa – and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy". guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm The secrets of ancient RomeThe discovery of a major new archaeological site in Italy is a reminder that the world is still stuffed with secrets Look down from a height at any landscape in this slanting autumn light, and you'll see that the ground is only a thin blanket thrown over the remains of the past. The faint marks of fields and walls, houses and roads, show up even in the heart of cities – in relics as humble as the outline of a lost Edwardian rose bed, marring the bland green perfection of a suburban lawn. The past week has shown once again how hard it is to destroy anything built by man so that it vanishes without a trace. Days after the discovery was announced of a hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold that could have come straight out of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings – but actually came from a dull field in Staffordshire – archaeologists from Southampton University revealed something else that history had completely forgotten. Half an hour's drive from the modern city of Rome, north of the Tiber and close to Fiumicino airport, a large octagonal pond in marshy ground marks the vast artificial harbour of Portus, dug from the Mediterranean in the second century to feed the capital of the empire. And here, we now know, there once stood an amphitheatre on the scale of the Colosseum. Archaeologists have been poking around this site for a century, but they either missed or misunderstood the giant heap of rubble, overgrown with weeds. Robbed of its fine marble facing and cut stone blocks, this great building, perhaps used by the emperor himself, was reduced to a ruin almost 2,000 years ago. More than 140 years ago, the Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani discovered the building, but seems only to have traced half of it and so interpreted it as a theatre. Professor Simon Keay and his team uncovered the other half, which dramatically changes the understanding of the life of the port. A nearby building is now believed to have been an imperial palace where emperors, including Hadrian, stayed before and after their travels overseas, and possibly received distinguished visitors. The discovery of a superbly carved, colossal marble head – possibly Ulysses – suggests high status, elaborately decorated buildings, not just workaday warehouses and wharves. Keay compares the importance of the site, and the window it opens on the economic lifeblood of the greatest empire the world had known, to Stonehenge or the great temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In a world where it sometimes feels as if everything interesting is already known, analysed and available on the internet at the click of a mouse, the ground remains stuffed with secrets. Archaeologists are still working on another great ancient harbour, built when the capital of the Roman empire shifted east to Constantinople. The Emperor Theodosius built his new harbour in the fourth century, and it was found again, complete with shipwrecks still full of their last cargo, when workmen began digging a railway tunnel. Archaeologists have been feeling their way in for more than 15 years in the murky waters of Alexandria, since divers realised that a new sea wall of huge cement blocks was actually being built on the foundations of a legendary building – the Pharos, the great lighthouse that was one of the seven wonders of the world. Among the treasures they believe may still lie in the sewage-polluted water are Cleopatra's palace, and her tomb. And in the hectic heart of Mexico city, magnificent carved stones now on display in the British Museum's exhibition on Moctezuma were found when workmen started to dig a new metro station, and hit instead the great temple of the Aztec's island capital Tenochtitlan. Climate change is exposing many more secrets. As lakes shrivel, coastlines shift and sand blows, lost worlds are uncovered: villages built on stilts in German lakes, flint tools still lying where they were dropped on what is now the bed of the North Sea, whole cities buried in the sands of the Middle East. Often they carry a grim message which modern man might profitably brood over: the sites were lost because the weather worsened, the river changed course, the parched land cracked, the mud brick crumbled, the animals died – and nobody ever lived there again. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 5:05 pm Exercisers Drink More Alcohol (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Here's a question for your buddies at the next golf outing or bowling league night: Are we more active because we drink more or do we drink more because we're more active? Recent research showed that there is a correlation between the two, but could not offer a solid reason.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 4:36 pm Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 4:33 pm Lamp Runs on Human BloodA lamp that uses blood to create light is meant to make people rethink how they use energySource: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 4:06 pm How Earth’s Hum Could Help Us Map Mars
The once-mysterious planetary hum of the Earth is getting put to use by scientists mapping the planet’s interior. Ocean wave interactions, primarily along the Pacific coast of North America, generate a vibration with a frequency of about 10 millihertz, the background buzz of the globe. As the hum moves through the Earth’s crust, it speeds up and slows down in response to the different materials it moves through. Scientists know from many experiments tracking how earthquake waves move through the Earth that colder, denser materials tend to speed waves up and hotter ones tend to slow them down. By looking at those changes, a team led by Kiwamu Nishida of the University of Tokyo generated a map of the interior of the planet, as reported Thursday in the journal Science. “I think it looks good,” said Peter Gerstoft, a University of California, San Diego, geoscientist who studies the Earth’s hum. “It clearly has potential to be developed.” The new approach is not a radical departure from previous work in the field of tomography, which studies how waves move, but it provides an excellent check on other ways of modeling the interior of the Earth. The new data appears to be in general agreement with maps generated by studying earthquakes. And, in an intriguing twist, the authors argue that the technique “could conceivably be used in planetary exploration for investigating the deep internal structures of Mars or other bodies.” We don’t think there are quakes on Mars, which would rule out the standard tomographic methods.
“As the existence of marsquakes is questionable, the applicability of conventional earthquake tomography is not guaranteed,” the authors write in a online supplement to their paper. “However, Martian atmospheric disturbances might excite background long-period Rayleigh waves on this planet.” Those waves would be the Martian hum. Gerstoft and his colleague Peter Bromirski at UCSD weren’t convinced that the technique would work on Mars. They pointed out that on Earth, oceans generate the hum, and “what we are sure of is that there is no oceanic-hum excitation on Mars!” Gerstoft wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. Without oceans, the winds would have to hit the ground with significant force. Bromirski said there is little evidence this happens on Earth and the situation could be worse on Mars. “The low-density Martian atmosphere would be less likely than Earth’s to couple atmospheric energy into seismic,” Bromirski said. Image: Kiwamu Nishida/Science. See Also:
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 | 1 Oct 2009 | 3:44 pm Grounding Flights Won't Stop FluExperts say travel limitations won't affect the spread of swine flu.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 3:10 pm Discovery in Ethiopia casts light on human originsWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The skeleton of an early human who lived 4.4 million years ago shows that humans did not evolve from chimpanzee-like ancestors, researchers reported on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 1:17 pm Hungary, Czechs, Romania to host laser projectSZEGED, Hungary (Reuters) - Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania will host a 500-million-euro ($728.5 million) pioneering laser facility with a wide range of advanced scientific applications, Hungary said Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 12:10 pm Mosquito Parasite Fights Infectious DiseaseMosquito-borne diseases could be controlled using a parasite known as Wolbachia.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 12:01 pm Mice Get Benefits of Dieting Without the DietBy deleting a single gene, scientists have given mice the same life-extending benefits as dieting.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 12:01 pm Obituary: John WildInfluential surgeon who pioneered clinical scanning procedures John Wild, who has died at the age of 95, was the father of modern-day ultrasonic scanning, a procedure that has brought immense benefit to millions, including pregnant women and cancer patients. Commencing in the late 1940s, his work anticipated by some 20 years the invention of the other two common scanning procedures – X-ray computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging – and has provided a universally used technique for visualising the soft tissues of the body. Wild was born in south-east London, the son of an accountant, and grew up in Chiswick. He attended Merchant Taylors' school in the City of London where, at 14, he invented a valve that allowed hot and cold water to flow evenly from bath taps, which he patented. In 1933 he began studying at Downing College, Cambridge, gaining a degree in natural science, and in 1942 he graduated as a bachelor of medicine. During the second world war, he worked as a surgeon at the North Middlesex and other London hospitals, treating casualties from the blitz. A quintessential angry young man, he soon left the restrictions of postwar Britain. In 1946 he joined the department of surgery at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where he continued his wartime interest in bowel failure following impact trauma. This led him to look for a non-invasive means for assessing the condition and thickness of the bowel wall. In Britain he had got to know Donald Sproule, inventor of an echo-testing method for detecting cracks in armour plate, and in Minneapolis he met up with Donald Neale, who was working at the nearby Wold-Chamberlain naval air base, using the same principle as the basis of a radar trainer. In this, the ultrasonic echo signals were reflected back from a similarly scaled-down map of "enemy" territory. Wild was able to smuggle in pieces of dog bowel and later women with breast lumps to replace the "enemy targets". By the end of the 1950s, Wild and his collaborators had explored the possibilities for using this technique to investigate and scan a wide variety of clinical problems and had published a considerable series of journal papers describing their work. His work was largely ignored, particularly by his American colleagues. However, a few researchers picked up on it, notably Val Mayneord, professor of physics at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, who saw in it possibilities for accessing the brain. Mayneord's interest, in turn, attracted the attention of Ian Donald, newly appointed professor of mid-wifery at Glasgow, who recognised the potential of ultrasound in obstetrics and gynaecology and went on, with the help of his engineering colleague Tom Brown, to develop what became the world's first commercial ultrasonic scanner – and the first scanner of any kind. This began the scanner revolution in medicine, largely the consequence of Wild's imagination and initiative. Wild was not alone, but his approach – recording, displaying and making quantitative use of the greatest possible range of tissue echoes – eventually became universal practice. In 1953 he founded a research unit at St Barnabas hospital, Minneapolis, where he worked until 1960, then became director of the research department at the Minnesota Foundation, St Paul. His funding for echographic cancer detection, which came from the US National Cancer Institute, was being administered by the foundation, with which Wild had strenuous arguments. It responded by stopping his grant and locking him out of his laboratory in 1963. They had misjudged their man. He took them to court and, in 1972, after years of litigation, a sympathetic jury awarded him $16m punitive damages, later reduced on appeal, on the grounds of defamation and wrongful interruption of the course of cancer research. Shortly after that, Wild appeared at my front door wearing what seemed to me a very opulent overcoat. When I suggested that this might have been bought out of his winnings, I was smartly put in my place. "This coat? Salvation Army, $10." He had his priorities right. Ironically, the same National Cancer Institute, a year after the trial, had to invite to Washington myself and two Royal Marsden colleagues to explain how ultrasound might detect cancer. When Betty Ford, the wife of the then president, Gerald Ford, was diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1970s, there was nowhere closer than London where she could be scanned for possible secondary growths. Meanwhile, Wild worked as director of the Medico-Technological Research Institute in Minneapolis until 1999. He once wrote of himself: "I think I must have come into this world with a propensity for making chaos out of order, since I always seem to be upsetting those concerned with maintaining conventional levels of orderliness and humbleness. In my ultrasonic work I have met many people who did not believe the evidence of their own eyes, even when the miracles of pulse-echo ultrasound were demonstrated to them." Maybe this had something to do with the failure, in 1985, of his nomination for a Nobel prize. Some consolation came in 1991 with his award of the Japan prize. He is survived by his wife, Valerie, their daughter Ellen, and his two sons from a former marriage, Douglas and John, and three granddaughters. • John Julian Wild, surgeon, born 11 August 1914; died 18 September 2009 guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:57 am How Common Is Erectile Dysfunction?More men may experience ED as they age, but there are ways to improve the situation.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:47 am Exercisers Drink More AlcoholA study suggests that combining alcohol and exercise is not such a bad idea.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:15 am Throwaway GPS Info Reveals Snow Depth Data
GPS receivers installed to measure the movements of tectonic plates and help you find tacos could find yet another purpose: measuring snow depth. By analyzing the way the GPS signals are transformed as they travel through snowpack, a team of scientists from the University of Colorado, Boulder, may have found a cheap, easy way to optimize an important variable in climate models. “It’ll be hard, but it looks pretty good so far,” said Kristine Larson, a GPS specialist at CU, and lead author of a paper on the technique published earlier this month in Geophysical Research Letters. Her team, basically, is using waste data from the global positioning process. When a wave leaves a GPS satellite heading for a receiver, not all of it reaches the antenna directly. Some of it bounces off the ground around the actual antenna. For standard GPS purposes, people try to suppress this “multipath” signal, but Larson realized it could yield valuable information about the surfaces it’s hitting. A few years ago, they trialed measuring soil moisture data based on the reflectivity of the ground. Snow, theoretically, should reduce the frequency of the multipath wave. “It’s one thing to say that you used a signal from a GPS satellite to estimate the depth of the snow, but unless I go out there with a yardstick and say this is 18 inches of snow, you don’t know,” Larson said.
So, after securing a seed grant and setting up the experiment, she went out there with a yardstick, husband and 10-year old son in tow. They drove out on Highway 36, past the Costco, and took measurements of snow depth and density. Though it might not have been the most glamorous fieldwork, it revealed two very important problems with existing measurement systems like the National Weather and Climate Center’s SNOTEL sensor network. First, point measurements — no matter how accurate — do not account well for snow-depth variability due to wind or other hyperlocal conditions. “The snowpack can be 12 inches here and you walk one foot and it can be 18 inches there,” Larson said. “That’s your signal plus or minus 50 percent.” GPS can measure a wider area than any current ground-based method, allowing it to account for that variability. Theoretically, one could measure snow depth from space and get very broad area coverage. Unfortunately, no current satellite can do it. And any space-based system would be vastly more expensive and have a relatively limited life-span, maybe five years. Second, climate modelers aren’t interested in snow depth in the way that a skier might be. Really, what they’re after is how much water is locked up in the snow. To calculate that, you need both the depth and the density of the pack. Right now, the best way to get snow density remains low-tech. “We literally took plastic piping that you’d use in your house and you put that into the snow, then cover up the bottom, then you pull it up,” Larsen said. “Then you wait for it to melt.” A little bit of high school math later, and you’ve got a density measurement for the snow in the PVC pipe. By matching up GPS signals with those density measurements, you can calibrate a model that yields snow density from GPS information alone. With the depth and density in hand, you can calculate the snow-water equivalent data that climate modelers covet. Someday soon, the hundreds of GPS receivers scattered around the world’s wintery wonderlands could be sending out snow data. It’s about as close to getting something for nothing as a scientist could hope for. “You’ve got to convince people that are measuring what you say you’re measuring. You have to have people with sticks. You have to have ultrasonic snow-depth sensors,” she said. “I’m not there yet, but it’s a good first step.”
See Also:
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 | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:11 am Loss of Top Predators Causing Ecosystems to CollapseThe catastrophic decline around the world of "apex" predators is causing major economic and ecological disruptions.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:10 am Winds of changeMalawi boy whose windmills could fan Africa's destinySource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:04 am New Nobel prizes are 'unlikely'Calls for new Nobel prizes to 'reflect modern science' are unlikely to be answered, say Nobel officialsSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Oct 2009 | 11:01 am BLOG: 'Earth-Like' Planets Not So Earth-LikeWe may be too eager to label newly-found planets as Earth-like.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am First Darwin, now global warming reaches GalapagosGALAPAGOS, Ecuador (Reuters) - Climate change could endanger the unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islands, and scientists are trying to figure out how to protect vulnerable species such as blue-footed boobies and Galapagos Penguins.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 10:22 am Blood Makes Lamp GlowCAUTION: Potentially disturbing content: The blood lamp uses the chemical luminol to light up when mixed with blood, as demonstrated here.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 10:04 am Recession Effect: Dead Bodies Pile UpBodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the morgue freezer in Detroit.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 9:18 am The 'Ardi' Discovery: A HandbookTake an interactive tour detailing the discovery and analysis of the new hominid.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 9:15 am Field Journal: Finding ArdiBrowse through exclusive photographs from the Ardi project co-director, Tim White.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 9:13 am Our Ancestor: Not Chimp, Not HumanEarliest hominid remains shed light on human origins.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 9:07 am SLIDE SHOW: Ardi: What She Tells UsFind out what the new hominid fossil, Ardi, tells us about our own evolution.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am China's weather fix works like magicBeijing transformed by clear blue skies after massive cloud seeding operation The Chinese air force claimed today that the biggest weather modification operation in the country's history cleared the skies over Tiananmen Square just in time for the National Day parade. I write this post under gorgeously azure skies. Instead of the dull haze I have grown used to in Beijing over the past few years, the light is so sharp that it almost hurts my eyes. The transformation is so dramatic it is eerie. When I flew into Beijing yesterday, the city was shrouded in what looked like a thick smog. Weather forecasters said it would rain around midnight and, hey presto, the first drops of rain started to fall almost on the dot. Even so, when I left the house at 4am this morning, it was still so gloomy that my taxi driver slowed the car because visibility was poor. "Wuran" (pollution), he explained. But was it? By 5.30am, when I arrived at the media centre for the National Day parade, the skies had cleared sufficiently to be able to see a star. But there were still thick clusters of cloud and some mist. It might rain again, I thought. We were bussed to the press gallery outside the Forbidden City by about 7.20am. A band of cumulus lingered over the Great Hall of the People. They had darkened when I called a friend an hour later. Just before I rang off, I described the skies to him. "It might still rain on the parade, but I think the odds are now on their [the organisers'] side," I said. Once the march started, I concentrated on that, but I recall being impressed by the unusual vividness of the sky on some of the images on the giant screens. Other colleagues told me they found it remarkable that the clouds seemed almost to be held back from the square, even though there were still some around the edges. By the time of the fly-past around 11am, the skies were clear until air force jets left behind lines of coloured smoke-trails. Now, six hours later, Beijing is still enjoying perfect conditions. What happened? According to Chinese Meterology News, there were four attacks on a bank of clouds that approached Tiananmen from the south-west between 7.30am and 9.05am. In total 432 rockets were fired to achieve the desired result. Xinhua news agency reports that the authorities also had the capacity to delay rainfall. "Only a handful countries in the world could organise such large-scale magic-like weather modification," it quoted Cui Lianqing, a senior air force meteorologist as saying. But cloud seeding is generally considered far too imprecise a technique to guarantee the results seen today, which begs several questions. If clearing the skies is this easy, why don't the authorities do it all the time? Is it the cost? Concern about over-use of chemicals? Or were the authorities just lucky today? guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:58 am Fungi-Infested Violin Beats StradScientist and violin maker create instruments made from wood treated with fungi.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:57 am Humanity Has New 4.4 Million-Year-Old Baby Mama
As of today, humankind may have a new mother, and she looks nothing like we expected her to. Described in a series of papers published Thursday in Science, Ardi — short for Ardipithecus ramidus — likely walked upright one million years before Lucy, the famous fossil skeleton whose species was regarded as the first member of the human lineage. That position now belongs to Ardi, and the reconfiguration of our family tree is not merely cosmetic. Lucy’s story placed humanity’s origin on the savannah; Ardi took her first steps in the forest. From the shape of Lucy’s bones, scientists reasoned that the last common ancestor of humans and other great apes had resembled a chimpanzee; Ardi does not. “This is a landmark,” said Dean Falk, a University of Florida evolutionary anthropologist who reviewed the findings. “The field will go into a frenzy.” Falk’s assessment was echoed by paleontologists around the world, who have waited for 15 years since a handful of 4.4 million-year-old fossils, belonging to an unknown hominid species, were found in sediments along the Awash River in Ethiopia.
Even then, the fossils were clearly special. The name of the species, chosen by paleontologist discoverers Tim White, Gen Suwa and Berhane Asfaw of the Middle Awash Project, means “root ground ape” in local dialect. The fossils likely “represent a long-sought potential root species for the Hominidae,” they wrote in a 1994 Nature paper (.pdf). From that original site, the Middle Awash team has since collected hundreds more A. ramidus fragments from 35 individuals, including a partially complete skeleton of the 4-foot-tall, 110-pound female now known as Ardi.
Ardi “occupied the basal adaptive plateau of hominid natural history,” wrote the researchers in one of the Science papers, and “is so rife with anatomical surprises that no one could have imagined it without direct fossil evidence.”
That interpretation fits the environment implied by thousands of plant and animal fossils, as well as ancient soil deposits, also collected at the site. Most belonged to residents of woodlands, not grasslands: Whereas Lucy ventured onto the savannah, Ardi lived in a world of patchy, sun-dappled forests. The savannah-as-cradle narrative is not the only conventional wisdom upset by Ardi. From Darwin on, most scientists thought that the last common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas would be chimplike. The discovery that chimps share 99 percent of our DNA, and possess many of the skeletal features found in Lucy, supported this. But A. ramidus lacks many typical features of chimpanzees, including large male canine teeth — a sign, say the researchers, that the ultra-aggressive social behaviors seen in chimpanzees were lost early in the human lineage. If so, male A. ramidus may have competed for female attention by bringing them food, rather than fighting each other. That could have contributed to the evolution of pair-bonding behavior, which later took the form of monogamous reproductive relationships. Ardi’s hands and pelvis were relatively humanlike; so, perhaps, was her heart. All this suggests that chimpanzees and other great apes have changed far more than thought since we split from them, and are perhaps not the near-human analogues that scientists presumed. “One effect of chimpanzee-centric models of human evolution has been a tendency to view Australopithecus as transitional between an apelike ancestor and early Homo. Ardipithecus ramidus nullifies these presumptions,” wrote C. Owen Lovejoy, a Kent State University anthropologist, in Science. “No ape exhibits an even remotely similar evolutionary trajectory to that revealed by Ardipithecus.” William Jungers, a Stony Brook University paleoanthropologist, called the fossils “incredibly important.” He disagreed with the researchers’ interpretation of A. ramidus‘ ability to walk upright — a skepticism seconded by Falk — but stressed the difference between this research and the hoopla that followed Ida, a 47 million-year-old lemur whose evolutionary importance was overhyped in May. The fossils “will be intensely scrutinized and debated for years to come,” said Jungers. “The Ardipithecus saga impacts many aspects of human evolution in genuinely profound ways.” Images: Science See Also:
Citations: “Ardipithecus ramidus and the Paleobiology of Early Hominids.” By Tim D. White, Berhane Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, C. Owen Lovejoy, Gen Suwa, Giday WoldeGabriel. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus.” By C. Owen Lovejoy. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “The Great Divides: Ardipithecus ramidus Reveals the Postcrania of Our Last Common Ancestors with African Apes.” By C. Owen Lovejoy, Gen Suwa, Scott W. Simpson, Jay H. Matternes, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “Combining Prehension and Propulsion: The Foot of Ardipithecus ramidus.” By C. Owen Lovejoy, Bruce Latimer, Gen Suwa, Berhane Asfaw, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “The Pelvis and Femur of Ardipithecus ramidus: The Emergence of Upright Walking.” By C. Owen Lovejoy, Gen Suwa, Linda Spurlock, Berhane Asfaw, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “Careful Climbing in the Miocene: The Forelimbs of Ardipithecus ramidus and Humans Are Primitive.” By C. Owen Lovejoy, Scott W. Simpson, Tim D. White, Berhane Asfaw, Gen Suwa. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “The Ardipithecus ramidus Skull and Its Implications for Hominid Origins.” By Gen Suwa, Berhane Asfaw, Reiko T. Kono, Daisuke Kubo, C. Owen Lovejoy, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “Paleobiological Implications of the Ardipithecus ramidus Dentition.” By Gen Suwa, Reiko T. Kono, Scott W. Simpson, Berhane Asfaw, C. Owen Lovejoy, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “Macrovertebrate Paleontology and the Pliocene Habitat of Ardipithecus ramidus.” By Tim D. White, Stanley H. Ambrose, Gen Suwa, Denise F. Su, David DeGusta, Raymond L. Bernor, Jean-Renaud Boisserie, Michel Brunet, Eric Delson, Stephen Frost, Nuria Garcia, Ioannis X. Giaourtsakis, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, F. Clark Howell, Thomas Lehmann, Andossa Likius, Cesur Pehlevan, Haruo Saegusa, Gina Semprebon, Mark Teaford, Elisabeth Vrba. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “Taphonomic, Avian, and Small-Vertebrate Indicators of Ardipithecus ramidus Habitat.” By Antoine Louchart, Henry Wesselman, Robert J. Blumenschine, Leslea J. Hlusko, Jackson K. Njau, Michael T. Black, Mesfin Asnake, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. “The Geological, Isotopic, Botanical, Invertebrate, and Lower Vertebrate Surroundings of Ardipithecus ramidus.” Giday WoldeGabriel, Stanley H. Ambrose, Doris Barboni, Raymonde Bonnefille, Laurent Bremond, Brian Currie, David DeGusta, William K. Hart, Alison M. Murray, Paul R. Renne, M. C. Jolly-Saad, Kathlyn M. Stewart, Tim D. White. Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. 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 | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:54 am Ticket to the moonThe tensions behind the US-India space relationshipSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:54 am Fossil finds extend human storyAn ancient ape-like creature that may be a direct ancestor to our species is described by an international team of researchers.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:45 am Scary Film 'Paranormal Activity' Is Disappointingly NormalNew film explores the paranormal in cinema verite style.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:34 am 'Ardi,' Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled"Ardi" dates to 4.4. million years and may be the oldest human ancestor ever found.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:30 am Fossil Ardi reveals the first steps of the human raceArdi evolved from the common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and was equally at home walking on the ground and swinging through the trees The remains of a woman who lived and died at the dawn of humanity have been uncovered in Ethiopia, giving the clearest picture yet of the origin of our species. The partial skeleton, the oldest from a human ancestor ever discovered, belonged to a female who walked on two legs but was adept at climbing trees and moving through the forest canopy some 4.4m years ago. Experts have described the find as the most important regarding human evolution in the past century. The woman, named Ardi by the researchers who worked on her, belongs to a new species Ardipithecus ramidus and may be the earliest human ancestor ever discovered that was capable of walking upright. The finding sheds light on a critical but unknown period of evolution at the root of the human family tree, shortly after our ancestors split from chimpanzees more than 6m years ago. Remnants of the skeleton, skull, pelvis, hands, feet and other bones were excavated from the reddish-brown sediments of an ancient river system near the village of Aramis in northern Ethiopia, along with fragments from at least 35 other individuals. Fossil hunters first glimpsed the new species in 1992 when a tooth belonging to Ardipithecus was spotted among pebbles in the desert near Aramis. Over the next two years, the researchers scoured the area on hands and knees and slowly uncovered pieces of bone from the hand, ankle and lower jaw, and finally a crushed skull. A total of 47 researchers then spent a further 15 years removing, preparing and studying each of the fragments ahead of the publication tomorrow of an in-depth description of the species in 11 papers in the US journal Science. Their investigation shows Ardi stood four feet (1.2m) tall and weighed a little under eight stone (50kg), making her similar in size and weight to a living chimpanzee. But many of Ardi's features are far more primitive than those seen in modern apes, suggesting chimpanzees and gorillas have evolved considerably after they split from the common ancestor they shared with humans. The discovery of Ardi provides vital clues about the earliest human ancestor that lived at the fork in the evolutionary road that led to humans on one side and chimps on the other. "Darwin was very wise on this matter. Darwin said we have to be really careful. The only way we're really going to know what this last common ancestor looked like is to go and find it," said Tim White, a lead author on the study and professor of human evolution at the University of California, Berkeley. "Well, we haven't found it, but we've come closer than we've ever come, at 4.4 million years ago." The remains of animals, seeds and pollen uncovered at the excavation site reveal it to have been a woodland where colobus monkeys swung in trees full of swifts, doves and lovebirds, and spiral-horned antelope, elephants, shrews and early forms of peacock roamed the forest floor below. The discovery is being seen as more important than Lucy, the 3.2m-year-old skeleton of a potential human ancestor which proved at a stroke that early humans walked upright before evolving large brains. The remains of Lucy, who belongs to the species Australopithecus afarensis, were uncovered in another part of Ethiopia in 1974. "We thought Lucy was the find of the century but, in retrospect, it isn't," palaeontologist Andrew Hill at Yale University told Science. "It's worth the wait." Measurements of Ardi's skeleton reveal she had a brain the size of a chimp's, but very long arms and fingers, and opposable toes that would have helped her grasp branches while moving through the forest. Though Ardi would have spent much of her time in the trees, her pelvis was adapted to walking upright when she came down to the forest floor. Her unusual skeleton led White to comment of her species that "if you wanted to find something that moved like these things, you'd have to go to the bar in Star Wars." Analysis of Ardi's teeth points to a diet of figs and other fruit, leaves and small mammals. Remarkably, both male and female Ardipithecus had very small incisors and canines, which are enlarged in modern apes. The finding suggests that unlike chimpanzees, baboons and gorillas, the male did not bare its teeth in battles over females and was already part of a more cooperative social group. It was probably involved in the parenting process. "Natural selection has led to the reduction of this male canine tooth very, very early in time, right at the base of our branch of the family tree." It may take years to confirm exactly where Ardi fits in the history of human evolution. One possibility is that she is a direct ancestor of Lucy's species, Australopithecus. "The most important thing in the broader sense is that we now no longer have to guess about where we came from ... We now have an evidentiary basis for understanding that we didn't get here in the form we see today, we evolved," said White. Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said: "This is as important as the Lucy skeleton in terms of what it tells us about an even earlier stage of human evolution." "The assumption among many researchers is that while humans have evolved a lot, chimps haven't changed much, so we can use them as a model of the common ancestor we shared. But why shouldn't chimps have changed? Everything evolves." "We are really trying to establish what set us off on our evolutionary path," he added. "What would start the process off? That is one of the great mysteries." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 8:30 am Emissions reductions are 'misleading'UK's true energy footprint is twice as big as on paper, according to Professor David MacKay Britain's reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases are misleading, according to the government's new chief scientist. Professor David MacKay told the BBC that greenhouse gas emissions created by Britons are probably twice as bad as official figures suggest. The figures are distorted because developing countries now made the goods that Britain buys, he said. "Our energy footprint has decreased over the last few decades and that's largely because we've exported our industry," MacKay said. "Other countries make stuff for us so we have naughty, naughty China and India out of control with rising emissions but it's because they are making our stuff for us now." MacKay, a Cambridge University physicist who starts his new job at the Department of Energy and Climate Change(Decc) today, was speaking unofficially in a previously recorded interview. His comments come as talks on a global climate deal continue in Bangkok. The issue of allocating emissions has been highlighted by developing countries including China, whose top climate change negotiator Li Gao earlier this year said developed countries should take responsibility for the emissions generated in making goods. Mackay added: "It's been estimated by Dieter Helm from the University of Oxford that roughly half of our energy footprint actually lives overseas so our true footprint is twice as big as it looks on paper." The Helm study, published in December 2007, showed that rises in pollution from aviation, shipping, overseas trade and tourism, which are not measured in the official figures, means that UK carbon consumption has risen significantly over the previous decade. Under the Kyoto protocol, Britain must reduce its greenhouse gas output to 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2012. According to official figures filed with the UN, Britain's emissions are currently down some 15% compared with 1990. But the analysis by Helm's team said that UK carbon output has actually risen by 19% over that period, once the missing emissions are included in the figures. The report said: "This is a dramatic reversal of fortune. It merits an immediate, more detailed and more robust assessment. It suggests that the decline in greenhouse gas emissions from the UK economy may have been to a considerable degree an illusion." Decc said: "While some emission reductions have resulted from the trend for manufacturing to move overseas, it's internationally accepted that emissions from manufacturing are counted by the country of production." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am EU launches free satellite system to fine-tune GPSBRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union launched a free satellite navigation network on Thursday that could help pilots, drivers and blind people by fine-tuning the accuracy of the U.S. global positioning system (GPS) to around 2 meters.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Oct 2009 | 6:04 am
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