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Sleep Apnea Therapy Improves Golf GameA new study finds that golfers with obstructive sleep apnea who received nasal positive airway pressure for their disorder improved their daytime sleepiness scores and lowered their golf handicap by as much as three strokes.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Scientists Launch Effort To Sequence The DNA Of 10,000 VertebratesScientists have an ambitious new strategy for untangling the evolutionary history of humans and their biological relatives: Create a genetic menagerie made of the DNA of more than 10,000 vertebrate species. The plan, proposed by an international consortium of scientists, is to obtain, preserve, and sequence the DNA of approximately one species for each genus of living mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Lung Tissue Generated From Human Embryonic Stem CellsScientists in Belgium have successfully differentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESC) into major cell types of lung epithelial tissue using a convenient air-liquid interface. The technique could provide an alternative to lung transplants for patients with lung injury due to chronic pulmonary disease and inherited genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Portable 3-D Laser Technology Preserves Texas Dinosaur's Rare FootprintUsing portable 3-D laser technology, scientists have electronically preserved a rare 110 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur footprint excavated in 1933, and built into the wall of a bandstand at a Texas courthouse. The laser image preserves an original track used to describe a species of dinosaur identified in 1935 as ichnospecies Eubrontes glenrosensis.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm TV Bombards Children With Commercials For High-fat And High-sugar FoodsChildhood obesity in the United States is reaching epidemic proportions. With more than one fourth of advertising on daytime and prime time television devoted to foods and beverages and continuing questions about the role television plays in obesity, a new study examines how food advertising aimed at children might be a large contributor to the problem.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Carbon Atmosphere Discovered On Neutron StarEvidence for a thin veil of carbon has been found on the neutron star in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This discovery resolves a ten-year mystery surrounding this object. In Earth's time frame, the estimated age of the neutron star in Cas A is only several hundred years, making it about ten times younger than other neutron stars with detected surface emission. Therefore, the Cas A neutron star gives a unique window into the early life of a cooling neutron star.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Test Proves 'The Eyes Have It' For ID VerificationThe eyes may be the mirror to the soul, but the iris reveals a person's true identity. A new report demonstrates that iris recognition algorithms can maintain their accuracy even with compact images, affirming their potential for large-scale identity management applications.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Postmenopausal Women With Higher Testosterone May Have Greater Heart Disease RiskPostmenopausal women who have higher testosterone levels may be at greater risk of heart disease, insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome compared to women with lower testosterone levels, according to a new study. This new information is an important step, say researchers, in understanding the role that hormones play in women's health.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am 'Spoonful Of Sugar' Makes The Worms' Life Span Go DownIf worms are any indication, all the sugar in your diet could spell much more than obesity and type 2 diabetes. Researchers say it might also be taking years off your life.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Statins May Worsen Symptoms In Some Cardiac PatientsA new study has found that statins have beneficial effects on patients with systolic heart failure, but those with diastolic heart failure experienced the opposite effect, including increased dyspnea, fatigue and decreased exercise tolerance.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Video guide to testicular cancerAuthoritative information from the British Medical Journal on testicular cancer, including the symptoms and the treatment options Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Nov 2009 | 3:30 am Swallowed whole: Pelicans filmed gobbling gannet chicksIn a bizarre reaction to dwindling fish stocks, great white pelicans have turned to eating live gannet chicks.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Nov 2009 | 3:01 am At least 98 dead as Vietnam flood toll rises (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 2:51 am Harrabin's NotesLatest assault against carbon trading assessedSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Nov 2009 | 2:09 am Great Whites hang out in Pacific's 'shark cafe' (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Nov 2009 | 1:54 am Australia launches probe into massive oil spill (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 10:39 pm Unhealthy Food Ads Pervasive on Kids' Shows (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - If you think SpongeBob puts junk in your kids' heads, then you need to pay closer attention to the commercials.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 7:41 pm Frost-Covered Mars Lander Photographed From Above (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - The long-defunct Phoenix Lander is covered in frost on the frozen Martian wasteland, as seen in new images taken from orbit.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 7:36 pm Success in 'space elevator' competition (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 7:04 pm Friends of the Earth attacks carbon tradingAn FoE reports says 'cap and trade' carbon markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by corruption and inefficiency The world's carbon trading markets growing complexity threatens another "sub-prime" style financial crisis that could again destabilise the global economy, campaigners warn today. In a new report, Friends of the Earth says that to date "cap and trade" carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions but have been plagued by inefficiency and corruption that render them unfit for purpose. As the world heads towards the Copenhagen climate summit, Britain and other developed countries want to see carbon trading expanded worldwide. The carbon market, mainly based in Europe, was worth $126bn in 2008 and is predicted to mushroom to $3.1tn by 2020 if a global carbon market takes off. However, FoE fears that the area has been hijacked by speculators on the financial markets. Sarah-Jayne Clifton, the report's author, said: "The majority of the trade is carried out not between polluting industries and factories covered by carbon trading schemes, but by banks and investors who profit from speculation on the carbon markets – packaging carbon credits into increasingly complex financial products similar to the 'shadow finance' around sub-prime mortgages which triggered the recent economic crash." The FoE claims that the first phase of the European emissions trading scheme between 2005 and 2007 failed. And the second phase, from 2008-2012, is likely to fail too, it said. FoE is calling on governments to use more reliable instruments such as carbon taxes, which are harder to avoid and can be effective at changing people's behaviour and reducing emissions. A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "We agree that domestic action by developed countries as well as public finance is essential to meet the challenge of climate change and … the UK is going all-out to get an ambitious, fair and effective deal. "But carbon trading can also play a role, making it far more likely that we tackle dangerous climate change, get cost-effective emissions reductions and get money to the poorest countries of the world." 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 5:18 pm Unhealthy Food Ads Pervasive on Kids' ShowsIf you think SpongeBob puts junk in your kids' heads, then you need to pay closer attention to the commercials.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 5:02 pm BLOG: 2012 Stars Discuss 'Doomsday' PlansFind out what John Cusack will be doing on December 21, 2012.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm 'Genetic Zoo' Could House 10,000 Animal SpeciesThe proposed genetic zoo could provide a better understanding of the evolution of vertebrates.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm INTERVIEW: Dr. Mike Brown, Pluto KillerMike Brown, an expert dwarf planet hunter, discusses killing Pluto, hate mail and Planet X.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm The End of Silicon May Be in Sightsilicon, toptenreviews, ttr, Gallium, computers, pc,Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:24 pm This Is Your Brain, on Sofa
It’s either the ultimate in couch comfort or a totally bizarre idea dreamed up by a pair of designers obsessed with neuroscience. Either way, the “Brainwave Sofa” is clearly a one-of-a-kind piece of furniture. The couch’s lumpy, bumpy shape is a three-dimensional version of a brain scan, specifically a three-second recording of designer Lucas Maassen’s alpha brain waves as he closed his eyes and thought of the word “comfort.” Data from the electroencephalograph was processed by BioExplorer, a 3-D visualization program, and then fed directly into a milling machine that cut the shape out of soft foam. “The process is a wink to a rather futuristic design process,” the couch creators wrote in a press release, “for which a designer merely has to close his or her eyes, or merely rest, to have the brain do all the work, and create the data needed to have the CNC machine cut the shape of the sofa.” The x-axis of the couch represents Maassen’s brain waves in hertz, while the y-axis shows the amount of alpha activity as a percentage, and the z-axis is the time in milliseconds. Once the foam core of the sofa was completed, the designers covered it by hand in soft gray felt and decorated the valleys of the brain waves with buttons. The Brainwave Sofa goes on display Wednesday at the Bits ‘n Pieces Exhibition in New York. If you happen to stop by the show, please have a seat on the brain couch — and let us know if it’s comfy. Or just weird.
Images: Lucas Maassen and Dries Verbruggen/Unfold. See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:22 pm Bypass surgery safer using heart-lung pump: studyBOSTON (Reuters) - Allowing the heart to keep beating during coronary bypass surgery is riskier than stopping the heart and using a heart-lung machine to keep the patient alive, researchers reported on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm Human Evolution: Our Closest Living Relatives, the ChimpsChimpanzees offer many clues as to how we evolved our human traits.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 2:24 pm Major quakes could be aftershocksMany earthquakes may be aftershocks of large quakes that occurred hundreds of years ago, say scientists.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm Gadgets and Ideas to Revolutionize Healthcare
The TEDMED conference gave 400 people a glimpse at the future of healthcare last week, bringing together an eclectic group of innovators, from photographers to stem cell experts, each with a different point to make. Here are some of the highlights. Craig Venter said he has spent the last twenty years digitizing biology. Now, the genomics pioneer is doing something with all of that data. His lab has been transplanting entire genomes from one microorganism to another, building synthetic life forms with machines, and decoding a random soup of genes from seawater using high speed sequencing machines. Venter made a convincing argument that those DNA sequences discovered during his voyages will be put to good use. Aquatic microbes are constantly waging chemical warfare with each other, and 10,000 antibiotics remain to be discovered in the seas, he said. By studying the genes from those combative organisms, researchers could develop a wide range of new medications. Synthetic life itself could be used as a medication, according to Andrew Hessel, founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, a group that aims to fight breast cancer with customized cancer-killing viruses. His organization aims to turn medical research on its head by offering individualized treatments through a member-owned organization, rather than supporting the development of one-size-fits-all drugs, which are peddled by big drug companies. Hessel aims to conduct human trials on an open-minded breast cancer patient who has no attractive medical alternatives, after testing sets of the cancer-destroying viruses on cells taken from her own tumor. Image Above: Craig Venter talking about genomics and synthetic biology./Michael Timmons.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Nov 2009 | 12:44 pm Researchers link asthma risk to folic acid during pregnancy• Study showed no hazard from leafy vegetables Babies born to women who have taken folic acid supplements during their pregnancy are up to 30% more likely than other children to develop asthma, researchers have found. Mothers-to-be who take folic acid when they are between 30 and 34 weeks pregnant as a health measure may inadvertently prompt the breathing condition in their offspring, a new study says. The research, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, claims that its findings may help explain the huge global rise over the last 50 years in asthma, especially among children, which has puzzled experts and led to speculation over the causes of the increase. "We believe that this is the first published study in humans to demonstrate that increasing consumption of folic acid, and specifically supplemental folate during late pregnancy, significantly increases the risk of physician-diagnosed asthma in the child at 3.5 years, persistent asthma (at 3.5 and 5.5 years), and possibly asthma at 5.5 years," write the authors, led by associate professor Michael Davies of the Research Centre for the Early Origins of Health and Disease at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Davies and his team studied the effect of 557 Australian expectant mothers' folate consumption on their child's later development of asthma by examining their diet during pregnancy and how many of their children had asthma at 3.5 years and 5.5 years. However, while intake of folic acid supplements in later pregnancy was potentially problematic, intake of folate – the natural form of folic acid – through consumption of green leafy vegetables, certain nuts and fruits involved no risk, said Davies. Nor did folic acid intake in early pregnancy, he added. His research showed how changing diet patterns, and especially over-use of a supplement, could play a role in explaining childhood asthma, he added. The Department of Health recommends that women should take folic acid for a month before they conceive and during the first trimester of pregnancy, but not beyond, as a way of reducing the number of babies born with neural tube defects, notably spina bifida. While a third of mothers take it pre-pregnancy, some continue to take it throughout, either as a single supplement or as part of a range of vitamins. But Prof Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said he doubted the research was very important. "The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health strongly supports the use of folic acid in pregnancy. It will significantly reduce the number of children born with serious abnormalities of the brain or spine and the associated disabilities. These conditions have profound implications for the child and parents or carers," he said. "The study published this week suggesting a link between folic acid in pregnancy and subsequent increased risk of childhood asthma is not a randomised trial. It relied on a postal questionnaire with a 76% response rate. The increased risk, if there is any, is only just statistically significant. Asthma is treatable whereas spina bifida is a serious and lifelong condition." Leanne Metcalf, of Asthma UK, said: "The benefits of taking folic acid supplements in pregnancy, particularly with regards to prevention of birth defects like spina bifida, far outweigh the risk of developing asthma." That view was also supported by Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of Netmums, a social networking site for mothers which claims to have 2.4 million users. "It's better to have the folic acid and take my chances of asthma against the really serious risk of spina bifida that low folate intake in your diet can cause. The best thing is to take folic acid before you conceive, if you can, and for the first three months, and then get folate naturally from then on through eating things such as spinach," she said. The government is coming under pressure to introduce the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid as a way of reducing neural tube defects. The move is backed by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), its official advisers, and the Food Standards Agency (FSA). 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm Metal detectorist on first trip finds iron-age treasureA man who bought a metal detector because he wanted a hobby that got him out in the fresh air struck gold the first time he used it when he discovered an iron age treasure hoard possibly worth £1m. Safari park keeper David Booth, 35, had owned his metal detector for five days when he discovered four 2,000-year-old gold neckbands in a Stirlingshire field. The neckbands date from between the 1st and 3rd century BC and represent the most important hoard of iron age gold in Scotland to date. Booth, the chief game warden at Blair Drummond safari park, near Stirling, joined experts at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh as the treasure, unearthed in September, was revealed today . "It's absolutely unbelievable," he said. "I don't think it's really sunk in yet since the moment I discovered it. "I'd just practised around the house with nails and bits and pieces. I went with it for the first time, parked the vehicle up, got out, picked a direction to set off on, and about seven yards away that was the first thing I came across. I was completely stunned, there was a bit of disbelief. This was my first find." Booth took the bands, known as torcs, to his home near Stirling and contacted the authorities. Under Scottish law, the crown can claim any archaeological objects found in Scotland. Finders have no ownership rights and must report any objects to Scotland's Treasure Trove Unit. But Booth may receive a reward equal to the value of the jewellery. "There are loads of figures getting banded about, so you just need to wait and see what the valuation committee values it at," he said. "I'm trying not to speculate about it at the moment." Despite the realisation that he might never match his initial find, Booth said he would stick with his new hobby. "A lot of people say you might as well throw it away, but I'll keep on going, there might be other stuff out there," he said. "It's a good hobby and it gets you out in the fresh air." Experts said the hoard was of European significance, showing the wealth and connections of people in Scotland at the time. The exact location of the find is being kept secret to stop it being flooded by other metal detectorists. The Treasure Trove Unit, an independent body based at the National Museum of Scotland, is continuing to excavate the site. The collection consists of two ribbon torcs in a local style made from a twisted ribbon of gold, half an ornate torc of southern French origin and a unique braided gold wire torc that shows strong influences of Mediterranean craftsmanship. Dr Fraser Hunter, iron age and Roman curator at the National Museum of Scotland, said he "almost fell off my seat" when he first saw photographs of the discovery. "The archaeological value is stunning," he said. "Archaeologically speaking, this is a remarkable find. It's one of the most important hoards from Scotland ever. We haven't found anything of this quality. A similar band found in Newark, Nottinghamshire, in 2005 sold for £350,000. Earlier this year, metal detector Terry Herbert unearthed the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, in a Staffordshire field. 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm BLOG: Earth to Wolf: Make a MessSloppy wolves are good for the environment when they litter the ground with scraps.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:40 am Forests in the desert: the answer to climate change?Climate change could be cancelled out in a staggeringly ambitious plan to plant the Sahara desert and Australian outback with trees Some talk of hoisting mirrors into space to reflect sunlight, while others want to cloud the high atmosphere with millions of tonnes of shiny sulphur dust. Now, scientists could have dreamed up the most ambitious geoengineering plan to deal with climate change yet: converting the parched Sahara desert to a lush forest. The scale of the ambition is matched only by the promised rewards – the scientists behind the plan say it could "end global warming". The scheme has been thought up by Leonard Ornstein, a cell biologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, together with Igor Aleinov and David Rind, climate modellers at Nasa. The trio have outlined their plan in a new paper published in the Journal of Climatic Change, and they modestly conclude it "probably provides the best, near-term route to complete control of greenhouse gas induced global warming". Under the scheme, planted fields of fast growing trees such as eucalyptus would cover the deserts of the Sahara and Australian outback, watered by seawater treated by a string of coastal desalination plants and channelled through a vast irrigation network. The new blanket of tree cover would bring its own weather system and rainfall, while soaking up carbon dioxide from the world's atmosphere. The team's calculations suggest the forested deserts could draw down around 8bn tonnes of carbon a year, about the same as emitted from fossil fuels and deforestation today. Sounds expensive? The researchers say it could be more economic than planned global investment in carbon capture and storage technology (CCS). "The costs are enormous but the scale of the problem is enormous," says Ornstein, who is best known for pioneering a cell biology technique called polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the 1950s. "It's a serious suggestion in that I believe it is the most promising and practical option in terms of current technology to solve the biggest parts of the problem." The scheme could cost $1.9tn a year, he says. "When that's compared to figures like estimates of $800bn per year for CCS, our plan looks like a loser. But CCS can address only about 20% of the problem at the $800bn price. Mine addresses the whole thing. And CCS would involve a network of dangerous high-pressure pipelines coursing through the most developed neighbourhoods of our civilisations, compared to relatively benign water aqueducts in what are presently virtually uninhabited deserts." Planting trees to combat rising carbon dioxide levels is controversial on a large scale, because most places where it has been suggested, such as Canada and Siberia, are in the northern hemisphere where the resulting change in surface colour, from predominantly light snow and rock to predominantly dark trees, could soak up more sunlight and cancel out the cooling benefit. Ornstein says subtropical regions, such as the Sahara and the Australian outback, do not have this problem. The areas have only minimal "human occupation, agricultural food and fibre resources and competing natural biomes" the team says. "We must bite the bullet, global warming will not go away by itself ... solar, geothermal and wind power can make modest contributions. All of these are other parts of a fix. But the quicker a forest can be grown, the more time will be available to choose among and to implement such adjustments, and perhaps to develop more attractive substitutes." Ornstein says several desert-heavy countries are suitable, including large chunks of Saudi Arabia and a string of African nations west of Egypt. The scheme would provide jobs and investment, he says, as well as a long-term source of sustainable wood that could be used as a biofuel to replace fossil fuels. Other plans for the desert region, such as the installation of giant arrays of mirrors and solar panels to generate electricity would not be affected, he says. Tree-planters, and the resulting clouds, would stick to the flatter regions further south. Since the paper was published a few weeks ago, Ornstein has attempted to seed serious discussions on specialist websites, with little success. Critics have pointed out that the deserts are not total wildernesses, but rich and diverse ecosystems in their own right, which would be destroyed. Ornstein says: "If sacrifices are required to stem global warming, the almost non-existent ecosystems of the central Sahara and the outback seem like reasonable candidates compared to the alternatives." The scheme does have some support. "It is incredibly important and definitely worth taking seriously," says Rick Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "While there are many practical and political difficulties of afforestation of regions this large, the benefits could be enormous and go well beyond carbon sequestration." 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:35 am X-ray machine voted top modern discovery in pollThe x-ray has been voted the most important modern discovery by participants in a poll to mark the Science Museum's centenary year. Members of the public were asked to vote on 10 of the greatest achievements in science, engineering and technology selected by its curators. Nearly 50,000 votes were cast by visitors to the museum in London and on its website. Penicillin was voted second; followed by the DNA double helix; the Apollo 10 capsule; the V-2 rocket engine; the steam engine Stephenson's Rocket; the Pilot ACE, one of the first computers; the Ford Model T car; and the electric telegraph. 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:33 am Identity of Puzzling Star Revealed (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - The supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, one of the youngest in our galaxy and one that has long puzzled astronomers, is likely a dense type of star called a neutron star swathed in a carbon atmosphere, a new study finds.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am Sacked drugs adviser Nutt may set up new bodyScientist removed for views on cannabis says government's advisory council is fatally flawed and should be independent The government's drug advice body is "fatally flawed" and should be reconstituted as an independent organisation along the lines of the Bank of England, according to former government drugs adviser David Nutt, who was sacked last week in a row over the classification of cannabis. Nutt said that if the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) was not given more autonomy in future he would consider setting up an alternative committee to provide independent advice on drugs. "Unless this issue is resolved properly, you're going to have to have an independent group. I know several members of the council will join me if things aren't resolved next Tuesday," he said. "It's obvious the politicians are out of step, that the rest of the world has a more mature view about drugs than politicians. Next week the remaining members of the ACMD will meet the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to decide on the future for the group. Speaking at a briefing today, Nutt said that an independent drug advisory body would keep the issue out of party politics. "Most scientists would prefer an independent body that says 'these are the harms of drugs, we'll rate them on a classification system then you decide on what the appropriate penalties are'. Politicians cannot decide on harm, they can only decide on matters in their province." Nutt said that the row over his sacking had affected the future work of the ACMD, with several reviews on the recreational use of emerging drugs halted. These include spice, a herbal mixture sprayed with psychoactive compounds, the sedative GBL and the amphetamine-like BZP. In addition, the arguments had stopped work highlighting the dangers of alcohol. "Liver disease will become the biggest medical problem, outside psychiatric disorders, in the next 10 years," said Nutt. "Most of that is driven by the toxic effects of alcohol on the liver. Government has to wake up to this timebomb of alcohol." He said he supported chief medical officer Liam Donaldson's recent proposals to increase the cost of alcoholic drinks, though Nutt went as far as to say alcohol should triple in price. Nutt was also critical of Tory policy on drugs. "The Tories have been making quite a lot of old-fashioned statements about the need to go back to 'get them off and keep them clean and lock them up' sort of approaches to drug abuse. That I think would be potentially very dangerous." Though he supported the idea of helping people off drug dependency, he said that the risks for people who relapse should be considered carefully. "There's good evidence now that in a society where you have abstinence-based approaches, the death rates go up. The reason is quite clear – when you stop using heroin, you lose tolerance, so when you start again with the dose you used to take, you're dead." 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:28 am Recent Midwest Quakes Called Aftershocks from 1800ssmall earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone may actually be aftershocks from the large earthquakes that occurred there in 1811 and 1812Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:04 am Early Life Hedged Its Bets to Survive
By forcing bacteria to evolve in ever-changing conditions, scientists have induced a behavior in which colonies formed by microbes with identical genes take radically different forms, as if one sibling in a set of identical quadruplets could sprout gills. Technically known as “stochastic switching between phenotypic states” — or, more conversationally, hedging your bets — the ability may have been critical to the success of primitive forms of life. Bet hedging “may have been among the earliest evolutionary solutions to life in variable environments,” even preceding the ability to turn genes on and off, wrote researchers in a study published Wednesday in Nature. Scientists have known for decades about bet hedging, which is widespread in the natural world. One well-known example comes from disease-causing bacteria, which randomly produce different surface proteins, a few of which are bound to escape immune system detection. For all its ubiquity, however, bet-hedging behavior was at first considered counter-intuitive, even baffling. After all, in any given instance, it’s better to have the right surface protein. But it’s not always possible to know what’s right in advance, especially in highly variable environments. In the 1960s, evolutionary biologists made mathematical models suggesting that bet hedging made sense over the long run. Some researchers even speculated that it was a basic component in the toolbox of early life, allowing primitive microbes to adapt rapidly, without being able to sense their environments or adjust gene activity — a sophisticated ability that probably took hundreds of millions of years to emerge. But for all this theorizing, the evolution of bet-hedging had until now never been directly observed. “Almost every biologist knows about this and is fascinated by it,” said study co-author Hubertus Beaumont, a Leiden University biologist. “We go one step further, and see this evolving in real time.” Beaumont started the experiment with a population of genetically identical Pseudomonas fluorescens, a common bacterium that divides every 45 minutes and has a relatively small genome, making it easy to study. From that strain, they seeded 12 different bacterial lines, each growing in a tube of undisturbed, nutrient-rich broth. After three days, a sample was taken and spread on agar plates to see what type of colonies formed. The bacteria divided and spread across each plate. The researchers then took a single sample of the healthiest colony and transferred it to a tube of shaken broth. After another three days of growth, the P. fluorescens in that tube were again sampled, spread on agar, and the healthiest put back into unshaken broth. From a human perspective, it was as if tribes that thrived in a forest were suddenly tossed in a desert, then thrown back as soon as they’d started to adjust. The switch was performed a total of 16 times, with the researchers sequencing the survivors’ genomes at each step. Earlier research by Paul Rainey, a Massey University evolutionary geneticist and co-author of the study, showed that different types of broth drove the evolution of different colony types. Shaken broth favored colonies that, in their aggregates of millions of microbes, had a smooth, rounded appearance. Unshaken conditions favored the evolution of wrinkled, fast-spreading colonies. As the rounds of selection continued, some P. fluorescens lines evolved back and forth between wrinkly and smooth types. But in two of the lines, something special happened: In the very same tube, sharing the very same genetic inheritance, were cells that formed completely different types of colonies. Some were wrinkled, and others were smooth. It was as if those P. fluorescens strains had planned for an unpredictable future. When the researchers looked at the genomic histories, they found that bet hedging required nine genetic mutations. The first eight were linked to traits that helped microbes survive in shaken and static tubes. The ninth, involving a gene important in metabolism, triggered the ability to produce multiple colony forms. The researchers ran the experiment multiple times, with similar results. An average of one line in twelve would evolve bet hedging, always as a result of the same accumulation of mutations. This ability “could reasonably—one might think—take tens of thousands of generations to evolve,” wrote the researchers. Instead, it took a few months. That it emerged so rapidly hints at the role it may have played for microbes that hadn’t yet evolved ability to to sense changes in temperature or nutrient availability, much less respond to them. “For them, the world was completely unpredictable,” said Beaumont. “I suspect that if you go back in time, you’d find organisms with one genotype that could express a wide range of strategies.” Richard Lenski, a Michigan State University evolutionary biologist known for his decades-long studies of evolutionary dynamics in E. coli colonies, said that it’s difficult to know exactly what happened early in life’s history. “But their results do show that such adaptations evolve pretty easily, so it’s certainly possible,” said Lenski, who was not involved in the study. As for what caused colonies to take radically different forms from their genetically identical neighbors, or why that ninth mutation in particular was so critical, Beaumont doesn’t yet know. Although we know the mutations, the details of the mechanisms underlying evolution, even in simple bacteria, are often “still hidden in a black box,” he said. “We want to know what’s going on in that box,” said Beaumont. “We’re going beyond theory. We’re doing experiments with evolution itself.” Image: Hubertus Beaumont See Also:
Citation: “Experimental evolution of bet hedging.” Hubertus J. E. Beaumont, Jenna Gallie, Christian Kost, Gayle C. Ferguson & Paul B. Rainey. Nature, Vol. 461 No. 7269, November 4, 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am Baby Neutron Star Found Inside Supernova Remnant
Scientists have finally identified the mysterious source of X-ray emissions at the center of our galaxy’s youngest supernova: Inside the remains of Cassiopeia A sits a baby neutron star surrounded by a thin layer of carbon.
Twenty times heavier than our sun and 11,000 light years away, Cassiopeia A was a dense star whose explosion was observed from Earth roughly 330 years ago. The supernova left behind a dense central core 12.5 miles wide that was first spotted in 1999 by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. But until now, astronomers hadn’t come up with a model to explain the object’s confusing X-ray emission spectrum. Previous attempts had come up with a stellar radius too small to be a neutron star, or a non-uniform surface temperature, which didn’t make sense.
Published Wednesday in Nature, the findings make Cassiopeia’s core the youngest neutron star scientists have ever encountered. “This discovery helps us understand how neutron stars are born in violent supernova explosions,” astrophysicist Craig Heinke of the University of Alberta said in a press release. “This neutron star was born so hot that nuclear fusion happened on its surface, producing a carbon atmosphere just 10 centimeters thick.” Images: 1) A Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, NASA/CXC/Southampton/W.Ho. 2) A close-up of the same image, with an artist’s rendering of the neutron star at the center of the remnant, NASA/CXC/M.Weiss. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am Genes may be important in back, neck pain (Reuters)Reuters - A person's genetic makeup may play an important role in the odds of suffering neck or back pain, new research suggests.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 10:31 am Earth WatchSolid stand-off: Climate clock looks set for zero hourSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 10:21 am Sea Lion Brain Mapped to Study Toxins' EffectsChemical pollutants are causing brain damage in sea lions.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 10:10 am Climate change, justice and faith | John HoughtonThe effects of climate change will fall hardest on the developing world. Our sense of justice demands we act now There is compelling evidence that the world is warming and the climate changing – largely because of human activities in burning coal, oil and gas. Through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world scientific community has been able to give detailed information about what is likely to happen. Increased global temperatures make climate extremes more likely. For instance, a heat wave in central Europe in 2003 of unprecedented intensity led to the premature deaths of over 20,000 people. Higher temperatures also lead to more energy entering the atmosphere's circulation that in turn brings more frequent and intense floods, droughts and storms. Further, because ocean water expands as it warms and because of increased melting of ice in polar regions, the sea level is rising at a rate of about one metre per century. These climate change impacts are already evident. Within a few decades they will severely affect billions of people in many parts of the world. The damage will be greatest for poor countries in the developing world – it is there that climate extremes will be most severe and where there is little capability to adapt to them. By mid century, there could be 150 million or more environmental refugees whose homes are no longer habitable either because of rising sea level, gross flooding or persistent drought. The way these effects fall on the world's poorest peoples immediately raises an issue of justice on which all people of faith agree. It is a particular challenge to those of us in developed countries where, over 200 years since the industrial revolution, we have grown rich through cheap energy from the burning of fossil fuels. We have not realised its effect on the world's climate nor that the damage falls disproportionately on the world's poorest. There is therefore an inescapable moral imperative for rich countries to take the first action, first, to avoid further damage by rapidly reducing their carbon emissions and secondly, to share their wealth and skills with developing countries to enable them to adapt to climate change and build their economies sustainably. For people of faith this imperative comes over with particular potency. We live in times when we are raping the Earth and exploiting the poor. The Bible, for instance, from its first chapters, through the prophets, the ministry of Jesus and to its last book, puts high priority on our responsibilities for caring for the Earth and caring for the poor. One of the best known stories in the early Judeo-Christian scriptures (Genesis chapters 37-47) and in the Qur'an (chapter 12, 4-102) is that of Pharoah, king of Egypt about 4000 years ago who had a worrying dream. The dream's interpretation that God gave to Joseph was a forecast of a climate crisis – seven years of plenty to be followed by seven years of severe famine. Joseph was put in charge of storing the grain during the years of plenty and of distributing it when the famine came. Joseph's brothers travelled 300 miles from Canaan to buy grain. Joseph eventually made himself known to them and said, "Do not be ... angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you." A strong message from that story is that God really cared about the peoples of Egypt and nearby countries threatened by starvation because of the climate crisis. Today, we face a climate crisis of enormous magnitude and proportions, not local but global, not of 7 years duration but lasting indefinitely. Information about it has not come through dreams but through science. To many, science and God are not connected. But if we believe in a creator God, the science we do is God's science. Two important messages climate change science is bringing are of the severe impact on billions of the world's poorest people and the threat to millions of the world's species. When Tony Blair spoke at the beginning of this seminar series, he emphasised the importance of faith communities getting together in actions to combat climate change pointing out the mutual benefit that is gained through co-operative action. In particular we need to learn to share our resources much more genuinely. In the developed world, within our own neighbourhoods and communities a lot of sharing occurs both of wealth and skills. However, across the divide between rich and poor countries, there is much less sharing. Although substantial aid flows from the rich to the poor world, if aid and trade are added together, the net flow of wealth in the world is overwhelmingly from the poor to the rich – a statistic that should make us all blush with shame! Great progress could be made if people of faith in the rich world could do more to partner together with those in the developing world, sharing their wealth and skills especially on local scales, to enable communities to develop sustainably. Four thousand years ago Joseph had seven years to prepare for his climate crisis. Today, action is required just as urgently. Global carbon emissions are still rising rapidly. Within about seven years, well before 2020, global emissions need to peak and begin rapidly to reduce – an extremely challenging goal. The means to achieve it are available and the cost affordable. But is the will there to do it? In December, the world's nations meet in Copenhagen to set targets and a timetable for action. People of faith are calling for worldwide prayer and many are saying it is the most important meeting the world has ever seen. A tremendous challenge and unmistakeable opportunity are presented to the world's Abrahamic faith communities, Jews, Christians and Muslims, to shoulder these God-given responsibilities in two main ways – through urging action by governments and through mobilising practical action within our faith communities. And we do not have to do it on our own, God is there to help us. It was Jesus who said when talking about stewardship, From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. This speech will be delivered as part of a series of seminars exploring faith and development hosted by The Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the Department for International Development, Islamic Relief, World Vision and Oxfam and debated on Comment is free: belief. 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am Going Up? Use the Space ElevatorA contest to develop a space elevator pushes for a new wave of space travel.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Giant ants' nests given special protectionInsects' towering structures will be safeguarded during timber removal process in Northumberland woodland A rare British "skyscraper city" made by ants has been given the equivalent of listed building protection and a place on maps to safeguard it from forestry work. Nests up to two metres (7ft) high, constructed from millions of conifer needles in Northumberland woodland, will be monitored during the felling of "intrusive" 20th century conifers amid the ancient oaks of Holystone, near Rothbury. Naturalists have plotted the whereabouts of 69 of the structures, made over years by successive colonies of the hairy northern wood ant. The red and black-coloured species is Britain's largest, but on a human scale the nests dwarf the ants by a greater measure than the Empire State Building. The new protection at Holystone, one of only three Forestry Commission colonies of the ant in the north-east, is designed to safeguard the nests during the removal of 10,000 tonnes of timber. "The work will help the restoration of ancient woodland which is one of our priorities," said Richard Pow of the Forestry Commission. Holystone is one of the most important ancient sites in the 200,000 acres of Commission land in the north-east. Areas immediately surrounding the conical nests will be left untouched, as the ants select sites carefully. Building and maintenance is done by worker ants which seek clearings to "sunbathe", before going inside the nests to release heat and keep unhatched eggs warm. Nick Brodin, regional biodiversity officer for Natural England, said: "It's great news that these amazing ant nest stacks in Holystone Wood will be safeguarded thanks to satellite technology, which has given each one an exact GPS location." The hairy northern wood ant is one of the more exotic locators of England's north south divide, with colonies confined to areas north of the river Trent. 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 | 4 Nov 2009 | 8:53 am Eating Fast May Make You FatEating quickly could lead to overeating.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 8:53 am Light down a wire for solar powerA modification to commercial optical fibre could be a promising route to solar power without large arrays, say researchers.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 8:48 am Frozen, Hard to Reach, and Worth ItA giant iceberg is spotted from space.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 8:38 am Test-firing rocket for Bloodhound supersonic carBritish engineers fire up a rocket that they hope will propel their supersonic car into the record books Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Nov 2009 | 8:17 am Spider’s Color-Changing Camouflage Is a Mystery
Crab spiders can scuttle, but apparently they can’t hide.
Nor does a yellow spider on a yellow flower get a color-coordination bonus, says study coauthor Rolf Brechbühl of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He and his colleagues reached this conclusion after videotaping some 2,000 occasions when an insect buzzed over to a flower that held a spider. Sitting on a bloom ready to pounce on pollinators, the spider supposedly shifts to match her background by switching between white and yellow. To human eyes, she looks as if she’s becoming harder for her prey to see. The study “finally shatters the myth of crypsis by color matching in crab spiders,” comments behavioral ecologist Marie Herberstein of Macquarie University in Sydney, who was not part of the study. “I suspect that textbooks may now need to be rewritten.”
Another possible direction — protection from the spider’s own predators — also doesn’t look encouraging in the new study. Brechbühl says that his research focused on spider prey, but he points out that all this videotaping took place in a field with plenty of birds and other possible menaces around. Even though he frequently moved spiders to flowers of the wrong color, he recorded only one predator (a bird) nabbing a spider. Ideas about crab spider coloration have been unraveling since 2001 when Lars Chittka, also of Queen Mary, pointed out that bees see ultraviolet wavelengths but that non–UV-reflecting spiders often sit on UV-reflecting flowers. To test for an effect of color on M. vatia crab spiders’ hunting, Brechbühl and his colleagues set up clusters of yellow, white and violet wildflowers in a field. The researchers filmed each spider for three days, tallying all potential prey. Spiders caught only 3.5 percent of insect visitors, and in terms of volume of insect meat, color-coordination didn’t make a difference to the catch. Musing about other possible benefits of color changing, Ings notes that only adult females change color. “So is there a specific advantage to crypsis in mature females about to lay eggs?” he says. Or perhaps the color change worked against other predators or prey in the past and has not been lost. Images: 1) Flickr/jomike. 2) Flickr/ClifB. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Nov 2009 | 7:25 am Gamma Ray 'Race' Proves Einstein Right AgainBy clocking two gamma rays over 7.3 billion miles, scientists confirm Einstein's theory.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am 10 Failed Doomsday PredictionsMany have foreseen the end of the world. Luckily, they're predictions have been a bit off.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 6:23 am GPS used to preserve ants' nestsGPS satellite technology is used to record the locations of rare ants' nests ahead of work to fell thousands of trees.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 6:03 am Pentagon eyes crash analysis on 1,300 satellitesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Tuesday it is now tracking 800 maneuverable satellites on a daily basis for possible collisions and expects to add 500 more non-maneuvering satellites by year's end.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 5:50 am Rare whale gathering sightedIn a rare sight, marine biologists spot 60 enigmatic Arnoux's beaked whales gathering off the Antarctic coast.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 5:24 am Pollution from Underground Coal Fires TalliedThousands of coal fires ooze greenhouse gases through cracks in the ground.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Nov 2009 | 5:15 am Breathing InArtist seeks out planet's most, and least, polluted airSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 4:11 am Space junk storm will up mission costs: expertsLONDON (Reuters) - A growing storm of debris flying around in space is dramatically increasing the risk of orbital crashes, and steps to avoid them will add greatly to the costs of future space flight, British space experts say.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:58 am Messenger spies iron on MercuryThe Nasa Messenger probe's observations of Mercury show the planet is even more of an "iron planet" than scientists thought.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:57 am The nation's weather (AP)AP - Mild weather was expected over the Central U.S. as light showers continued over the Great Lakes on Wednesday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 am Salvagers want to raise VictoryAn American salvage company hopes it will be allowed to raise the wreck of the original HMS Victory, which lies in the English Channel.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Nov 2009 | 3:04 am
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Color changing probably has some adaptive benefit for the spiders, according to ecologist Thomas C. Ings of Queen Mary University of London. What those benefits might be still isn’t clear, he says, “but this paper is exciting, as it shows that we may be focusing our attention in the wrong direction.”