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In The War Between The Sexes, The One With The Closest Fungal Relationship WinsThe war between the sexes has been fought on many fronts throughout time -- from humans to birds to insects, the animal kingdom is replete with species involved in their own skirmishes. A recent study demonstrates that certain plants, with some help from fungal friends, may also be involved in this fray.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Small Asteroid 2009 VA Whizzes By EarthA newly discovered asteroid designated 2009 VA, which is only about 7 meters in size, passed about 2 Earth radii (14,000 km) from Earth's surface Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST. This is the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Preventing Spinal Cord Damage Using A Vitamin B3 PrecursorSubstances naturally produced by the human body may one day help prevent paralysis following a spinal cord injury, according to researchers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Researchers 'Notch' A Victory Toward New Kind Of Cancer DrugScientists have devised an innovative way to disarm a key protein considered to be "undruggable," meaning that all previous efforts to develop a drug against it have failed. Their discovery lays the foundation for a new kind of therapy aimed directly at a critical human protein -- one of a few thousand so-called transcription factors -- that could someday be used to treat a variety of diseases, especially multiple types of cancer.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Quantum Gas Microscope Offers Glimpse Of Quirky Ultracold AtomsPhysicists have created a quantum gas microscope that can be used to observe single atoms at temperatures so low the particles follow the rules of quantum mechanics, behaving in bizarre ways. The work represents the first time scientists have detected single atoms in a crystalline structure made solely of light, called a Bose Hubbard optical lattice.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Exoplanets Clue To Sun's Curious ChemistryA ground-breaking census of 500 stars, 70 of which are known to host planets, has successfully linked the long-standing "lithium mystery" observed in the Sun to the presence of planetary systems. Using ESO's successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that sun-like stars that host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than "planet-free" stars.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm Possible Origins Of Pancreatic Cancer RevealedCancer biologists have identified a subpopulation of cells that can give rise to pancreatic cancer. They also found that tumors can form in other, more mature pancreatic cell types, but only when they are injured or inflamed, suggesting that pancreatic cancer can arise from different types of cells depending on the circumstances.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Novel Mouse Gene Suppresses Alzheimer's Plaques And TanglesA new study reveals that a previously undiscovered mouse gene reduces the two major pathological perturbations commonly associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The research finds that the novel gene interacts with a key cellular enzyme previously linked with AD pathology, thereby uncovering a new strategy for treating this devastating disorder.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Why Can't Chimps Speak? Key Differences In How Human And Chimp Versions Of FOXP2 Gene WorkIf humans are genetically related to chimps, why did our brains develop the innate ability for language and speech while theirs did not? Scientists suspect that part of the answer to the mystery lies in a gene called FOXP2. When mutated, FOXP2 can disrupt speech and language in humans. Now, a new study reveals major differences between how the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 work, perhaps explaining why language is unique to humans.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Tiny Injector To Speed Development Of New, Safer, Cheaper DrugsEngineering researchers have fabricated a palm-sized, automated, micro-injector that can insert proteins, DNA and other biomolecules into individual cells at volumes exponentially higher than current procedures, and at a fraction of the cost. This will allow scientists to vastly increase preclinical trials for drug development and genetic engineering, and provide greater control of the process.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am Frenzied bees enter deadly combatMale Dawson's bees kill each other en mass in a bid to mate with females, a bloody battle filmed by a BBC natural history team.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 3:08 am Sniff test to preserve old booksThe key to preserving old, treasured books is contained in the compounds that produce their smell, say scientists.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 2:42 am Major Asian cities face climate disaster: WWF (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 1:45 am Warming drives off Cape Cod's namesake, other fish (AP)AP - Fishermen have known for years that they've had to steam farther and farther from shore to find the cod, haddock and winter flounder that typically fill dinner plates in New England.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 1:40 am Stuck Mars rover to begin moving (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 1:35 am China seeks 'fair' climate deal (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 1:19 am The LHC Black Hole No-BranerDid you hear the one about the particle accelerator that created a micro-black hole? You know, the one where this black hole exponentially grows into an Earth-eating behemoth, destroying all life as we know it? You probably did hear that ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:27 pm U.S. science group seeks cooperation with CubaHAVANA (Reuters) - A group led by the head of the United States' biggest science organization is in Cuba this week to discuss ways to rekindle scientific cooperation as U.S.-Cuba relations slowly improve under U.S. President Barack Obama.Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 7:52 pm Australian scientists plan to regrow breasts after cancerSYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists have developed a surgical technique that may allow cancer-suffering women to regrow their breasts after having a mastectomy, with human trials planned to start within three to six months.Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:42 pm Scientists: New dinosaur species found in SAfrica (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:25 pm Auctioneer: T. rex fossil headed for museum (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:12 pm The Fight for the Ninth Planet
If there’s still someone out there who thinks science and politics never mix, the story behind the Battle of Prague should change your mind. Some have cast the debate that took place in the Czech capital during the summer of 2006 as a battle against American scientists who wanted to keep the only planet discovered by an American on an unreasonably high pedestal. On the other side of the argument, there are those who suspect that the rest of the world wanted to see Pluto demoted to punish America for its unpopular foreign policy. But we’re not talking about that kind of politics. We’re not even talking about a battle between the fans and foes of Pluto per se. Instead of thinking in terms of Republicans versus Democrats, or Plutophiles versus Plutoclasts, you have to think in terms of planetary conservatives versus liberals — or, more accurately, dynamicists versus geophysicists. The skirmishes over the definition of planethood that took place in Prague weren’t so much about poor little Pluto, but about two different ways of seeing the solar system. One way focuses on the dynamics of a planetary system: How are things moving around, and how do those things affect one another? If a celestial body doesn’t have much of a gravitational effect on other bodies, that object is hard to detect and hard to track. If lots of celestial bodies are in similar orbits, they all tend to blur together. Pluto may be the solar system’s brightest object beyond Neptune, as seen from Earth. It may account for as much as 7 percent of the entire mass of the Kuiper Belt, a ring-shaped region that covers more real estate than the space inside Neptune’s orbit. But because there are lots of other objects in the Kuiper Belt, dynamicists see a crowded celestial neighborhood in which Pluto doesn’t stand out.
Another way of looking at a celestial body would be to look at it rather than around it. What’s it made of? What kinds of geological processes are at work? Does it have a crust and a core? Is there an atmosphere, and weather? Are there volcanoes, and if so, what are they spewing out? Water? Sulfur? Methane? Such a world doesn’t have to be a planet to be of interest. In fact, some of the most interesting worlds nowadays aren’t planets, but moons. The Saturnian moon Enceladus is just 300 miles wide, far smaller than Pluto’s diameter of 1,430 miles, but it boasts geysers that could conceivably be spewing life- laden water. This is the province of the planetary scientists — a breed of astronomers who focus on the way a world is put together. As a rule of thumb, if it’s big enough to crush itself into a round shape due to self-gravity, it’s big enough to be a planet. If it’s not big enough to get round, it’s a failed planet, taking on the potato or peanut shape normally associated with asteroids or comets. “These objects that we call planets have shaped themselves into spheres,” said Alan Stern, the planetary scientist who worked for seventeen years to get a probe sent to Pluto. The significance of the shape isn’t merely that a round object makes for a pretty, planetlike picture. Rather, the important thing is that such a degree of self-gravity makes it possible for a planet to have a layered composition, an active geology, perhaps even volcanic activity beneath the surface, or an atmosphere above. “It’s about the physics,” Stern said. Stern likes to talk of a Star Trek test for planethood: “The Starship Enterprise shows up at a given body, they turn on the cameras on the bridge and they see it. Captain Kirk and Spock could look at it and they could say, ‘That’s a star, that’s a planet, that’s a comet.’ They could tell the difference.” Roundness would provide an instant way for Mr. Spock to tell. In contrast, Stern said, having to determine whether the round thing was one object among others at the same orbital distance would force Spock to put Kirk’s question on hold: “We have to make a complete census of the solar system, feed that into a computer, and do numerical integrations to determine which objects have cleared their zone.” For dynamicists, roundness just doesn’t cut it. If Kirk and Spock are looking at a point of light from tens of AU away, as Clyde Tombaugh did in 1930, they might not be able to tell if the object they’re looking at is round. But by closely monitoring its motion, and the motion of other bodies, they could figure out where everything fits in a planetary system — even if it takes sixty or seventy years, as in the case of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. “We dynamicists know all about the orbits and can say what’s going on,” Brian Marsden said, “but the physical people can’t say a damn thing.” This back-and-forth between the dynamicists and the geophysicists was what stymied the initial efforts to resolve its planet problem. Whenever the question was considered by the nineteen members of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on the Definition of a Planet, one faction would essentially filibuster the other. “Achieving a consensus among them was about as hard as trying to herd a group of 19 feral cats into a room with several open doors and windows,” said Alan Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who was a member of the panel. In addition to the scientific differences, there was a cultural split as well, having more to do with language than physics: Should the planets of the solar system be a category so special that you can count their number on two hands, or would it be okay if the category was open-ended, with the potential of adding tens or hundreds or thousands of members? For planetary conservatives, the idea of recognizing even thirty or fifty planets in the solar system was just too much. The liberals, however, were fine with having hundreds of planets. You could break that category down into subcategories: giants like Jupiter, terrestrials like Earth, and dwarfs like Pluto. And even if you had scores of planets, you wouldn’t have to force kids to memorize them all, just as you don’t force them to memorize all the world’s rivers or mountains. All these issues — the scientific as well as the cultural considerations — were dropped into the lap of a brand-new panel set up by the IAU in preparation for the Battle of Prague. This seven-member panel included five astronomers who were familiar with the issues but not counted among the leading Plutophiles or the Plutoclasts: MIT’s Richard Binzel, the Universit é Denis Diderot’s Andr é Brahic, Junichi Watanabe from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Iwan Williams from Queen Mary University of London, and the IAU’s president-elect, Catherine Cesarsky. Another member was science writer Dava Sobel, the author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, and The Planets. The chairman was Owen Gingerich, an astronomer and historian who worked alongside Brian Marsden at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In April 2006, the committee was told to come up with a definition of planethood in time for the IAU’s triennial general assembly that August, and to keep its deliberations secret, to avoid the kind of sniping that had stymied past efforts. Gingerich tried to avoid dwelling on the particulars of Pluto’s case. “We never asked who wanted Pluto in or out,” he said. But the ground rules favored an approach that would lean more toward the geophysicists than the dynamicists. “We wanted to avoid arbitrary cutoffs simply based on distances, periods, magnitudes, or neighboring objects,” he said. After flurries of e-mails, the panel met in person to hash out their decision in June at the Paris Observatory, where Le Verrier had once worked to calculate Neptune’s orbit. According to Gingerich, it didn’t start out smoothly. “On the second morning several members admitted that they had not slept well, worrying that we would not be able to reach a consensus,” he reported. “But by the end of a long day, the miracle had happened: we had reached a unanimous agreement.” The resulting definition emphasized Stern’s roundness requirement, but also distinguished between the solar system’s “classical planets” — that is, the planets identified before 1900— and the “plutons” in the Kuiper Belt. Any world that orbited the sun and had a roundish shape due to its self-gravity, a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium, would fit under the definition of a planet. But what if the planet’s shape couldn’t be seen in detail? In that case, there was a rule of thumb based on estimated diameter and mass: Objects at least 800 kilometers wide with masses of at least 5 x 10 20 kilograms, or about 4 percent of Pluto’s mass, would be brought into the planet fold, with borderline cases decided as further observations became available. That would put Pluto as well as Xena in the pigeonhole for planets, along with the eight bigger planets and smaller Ceres, the rocky world that was hailed as a planet in 1801 but reclassified as an asteroid decades later. And what about Charon? Pluto’s moon is nearly half as big as Pluto itself, and so, unlike every other planet, the two worlds actually orbit a common center of gravity in space, like two stars in a binary system. Some astronomers thought that would qualify Pluto and Charon as a binary-planet system, and that’s what the earlier IAU panel on planethood had suggested in a footnote to their report. “That footnote in the previous committee’s report got stuck in without my quite realizing it,” Gingerich said. It was one of several twists in the deliberations that he would come to regret. Another twist had to do with the hush-hush nature of the panel’s work. The IAU’s Executive Committee insisted that the resolution be kept secret until the Prague meeting began. “It worked out that keeping it secret, in effect, backfired,” Gingerich said. Word that Pluto would stay in the planetary fold leaked out a few days before the Prague meeting — and although the members of the panel thought their proposal would be widely accepted, others had grave doubts. Boss recalled the tempests he and his colleagues had weathered during past discussions of the planethood issue. In an interview with the journal Nature , he predicted that a definition based on roundness would be met with “a long line of people waiting for the microphone to denounce it.” And he was right. Excerpted from by The Case for Pluto by Alan Boyle. Copyright © 2009 by Alan Boyle. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Images: 1) NASA. 2) Robert Hood/msnbc.com. 3) NASA. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm Pluto 2015: Journey to the Rim of the Solar System
An epic 10-year, 3-billion-mile journey from Cape Canaveral to the rim of the solar system is almost halfway complete, and in 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will allow us to lay eyes directly on the mysterious, beloved Pluto for the first time. “Every time that we go to a new kind of place, we find out stuff that just blows our minds,” said planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, leader of the New Horizons Mission. When the spacecraft launched in 2006, NASA called it the beginning of “an unprecedented journey of exploration to the ninth planet in the solar system.” Of course, after Pluto’s official demotion from planet to dwarf planet, the mission can no longer claim to be exploring the final planet frontier. But regardless of the controversy, Pluto remains an intriguing object that astronomers and the public alike can’t wait to learn more about. And after conducting the first in-depth, close-up study of Pluto and its moon Charon, the unmanned spaceship will venture even further into the Kuiper Belt, a vast strip of icy objects that sit just outside of Neptune’s orbit, roughly 50 astronomical units from the Sun. “When Pluto was first discovered in 1930, it just looked like an oddball,” Stern said. “We had the four rocky, terrestrial planets and the four big gas giants, and then we had this odd thing Pluto.” But with the discovery of the Kuiper Belt in the 1990s, scientists discovered that the small, icy orb was hardly unique. “We found out that there are a lot of Plutos,” Stern said. “In fact, it’s the dominant class of planets in the solar system. This transformed our view not only of the solar system, but also of the importance of sending a spacecraft to Pluto. We realized that we had never sent a spacecraft to the most common type of planet.”
In 2001, a special committee from the National Academy of Sciences met to advise NASA on its 10-year goals for planetary exploration, and the group picked exploration of the Kuiper Belt, including Pluto and Charon, as its highest scientific priority. Part of the motivation for exploring the Kuiper Belt was the recognition of just how little we know about this cold, dark region at the fringe of our solar system. Late last month, an astronomer from Queen’s University in Belfast reported the existence of a red spot on the surface of Haumea, one of the largest and weirdest objects in the Kuiper Belt. Scientists guess the mysterious crimson streak is either evidence of a recent collision or a gas leak coming from Haumea’s hot interior. Either way, it’s the first time astronomers have observed this kind of surface detail on an object in the Kuiper Belt. By sending a spacecraft to Pluto, we’ll get much closer look. Stern expects that the most exciting result of our mission to the Kuiper Belt will be something that we can’t possibly predict ahead of time. “No one expected Venus to be the poisonous hell that it is, or Mars to have the river valleys that it does,” he said.
“It was a horse race to make that launch,” Stern said. Remarkably, everything went without a hitch, and in February 2007, New Horizons got the necessary push from our solar system’s biggest planet, snapping a few beautiful pictures of the red giant along the way. Currently, New Horizons is midway through its eight-year “interplanetary cruise” from Jupiter to Pluto. During most of this trek, the spacecraft is in hibernation mode, with all but the most critical electric equipment turned off to conserve energy. During these periods of “sleep,” New Horizons is powered by a single radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which uses less power than a pair of 100-watt household light bulbs. Once a year for about 50 days, the spacecraft turns back on for a checkup and recalibration. So far, Stern says, NASA engineers have had to do very little in the way of trouble-shooting. “You know, it’s amazing,” he said. “Everything on the spacecraft works, and we’re not using any backup systems. We’ve had some software glitches and put up some software patches, and there are some differences in the way we run it compared to how we expected to run it. But overall, we are right on course and right on schedule.” Once New Horizons reaches Pluto, she’ll use her seven different scientific instruments to map the surface of the dwarf planet and characterize its unique atmosphere, which is thought to contain trace amounts of carbon monoxide and methane gases. All data collected by the spacecraft will get beamed back to Earth using a radio transmitter and an 83-inch diameter radio antenna. “It will take months to get it all home, and I’m sure it will take years to digest it all,” Stern said. “But we will likely have great pictures and other kinds of data sets even on the first day.” Of course, that first day isn’t for another five and a half years — a long time to wait if you’re one of the eager Plutophiles who wants to see your favorite dwarf restored to its former planet status. For Stern, however, 2015 seems right around the corner. “I’ve already been waiting since 1989,” he said, “so five and a half years sounds like we’re almost there.”
Images: 1) Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute. 2) NASA/JHU/APL. 3) The New Horizons mission bumper sticker/APL. See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm Dwarf-Planet Rebranding Contest
Pluto is no longer a planet. Sorry, folks, those are just the facts. But that doesn’t mean that Pluto will be a lonely exile without any friends. In fact, there are four other dwarf planets to keep it company, and maybe even more on the way. Dwarf planets have been defined by the International Astronomical Union since 2006 as celestial bodies that are roundish like their larger cousins in the solar system, but which haven’t gobbled up all the other planetesimals near themselves. Pluto-lovers are outraged that the ninth planet in our solar system has been transformed into a mere dwarf among gas giants, but we think they’re just looking at it the wrong way. There’s no reason that Pluto and its four merry friends have to be just also-ran planets. They just need renaming, like Patagonian toothfish, now known as Chilean sea bass, or x86 Intel processors, which became known as Pentium. The new name for dwarf planets need not reference their size or relation to locations like Earth and Mars. We say it’s a new day and they should get a new, better name. Perhaps something like “darksiders,” because they are as far out as Pink Floyd. Yes, we know that’s lame. That’s why we’re asking you to submit your own names for the celestial bodies formerly known as dwarf planets in the Reddit widget below. And while you’re at it, maybe you can come up with names with a bit more pizazz than Ceres, Haumea, Makemake and Eris — the current names of Pluto’s new buddies. Not that their current names are bad, but they don’t seem quite as stage-ready as, say, Venus. 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm Underdog Planet: Why We Love Pluto
For such a small member of the solar system, about which relatively little is known, Pluto has an impressive following. When the news that the ninth planet had been stripped of its planethood got out, the public outcry was immediate. From school children to space enthusiasts, and many in between, people leapt to Pluto’s defense. PLUTOMANIA: Exclusive Excerpt from “The Case for Pluto” Wired’s Dwarf Planet Rebranding Contest NASA’s Mission to Pluto: New Horizons 2015 How did it inspire so much support from so many corners? Why did the International Astronomical Union decide to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet? Is there any hope the popular celestial object will regain its planetary status? To find out, Wired.com spoke with science journalist Alan Boyle, who reported on the events that culminated in Pluto’s ouster for his blog Cosmic Log as they unfolded. Now Boyle has reported the rest of the intriguing story in his new book “The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference,” which comes in an appropriately endearing little package. ——— Wired.com: Why does the public care so much whether or not Pluto is a planet? Boyle: Some people say it’s because of the Disney dog, that kids that grew up with Pluto the pup just have a natural affinity for Pluto the planet. And that’s definitely part of it, but I think that there’s something more to it. Throughout most of the history of that little world, we’ve thought of it as a poor little oddball that didn’t fit in with the rest of the kids in the solar system and really needed to be protected. So to my mind it’s really not so much about the dog, but it’s about the underdog. Wired.com: Why is it important to scientists whether we call Pluto a planet or not? Boyle: Some scientists will go to the barricades to make sure that it’s called a planet and other scientists will resist that idea. I think when you get right down to it, I’m not sure the name makes a lot of difference in terms of the scientific study of these planets. It’s more a question of how, for example, the general public thinks about how our cosmos is structured. There might be a slight difference in the way projects are funded if there’s a perception that these are just cosmic leftovers and they really don’t count for much in the solar system. That might have a marginal effect on what sort of space missions are funded, what sorts of observational campaigns are taken on. I think that the scientists are really keyed in on that. And even Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, whose Twitter handle is @plutokiller, even he is fascinated with these objects that are out there.
Wired.com: How does Pluto’s planetary status affect how the general public views the cosmos? Boyle: I think the case of the asteroids is a good illustration of what’s going on. When people memorized the nine planets they completely forgot about this string of small bodies, the asteroids. The biggest of these, Ceres, is now a dwarf planet. Strangely enough this whole controversy has elevated the profile of Ceres at the same time that it’s made people wonder a little bit about Pluto. We’re finding out that for all sorts of reasons, the asteroids are a pretty important element in the solar system. They could be a great source of resources in the future. They could pose a threat as we’ve seen recently with July’s “Great Black Spot” — the collision of some object with Jupiter. And just this month there was a pretty significant bolide — what people think was an asteroid came into the atmosphere over Indonesia and was one of the biggest blowups that has been observed yet. I think you can extend some of that example of asteroids to the far zone of the solar system as well. We really need to keep that in consciousness when we’re thinking about the solar system. If you limit your understanding of the solar system to just memorizing eight or nine names, you’re really missing out. Wired.com: So the asteroids and the rest of the outer solar system have benefited from Pluto being demoted? Boyle: It’s kind of like what celebrities sometimes say, that I don’t care if you speak ill or well of me, as long as you spell my name right. The fact that people are finding this interesting enough to quarrel over helps put the spotlight on those regions of the solar system that were maybe in the shadows before. And I think that having a wider view of what you call a planet really helps to 1) emphasize the diversity in the solar system, and 2) keep in mind that there are very interesting objects that could be weirder than we imagined but still can fit into the planetary tribe. Wired.com: How was Pluto first discovered? Alan Boyle: There had been another planet, which came to be known as Neptune, which was found by figuring out how the gravitational interactions of all the planets came together. They figured that there had to be something extra there. So some people thought it was the same situation as after Neptune was found: There had to be some sort of extra gravitational pull. A lot of people theorized that there had to be another planet, Planet N or Planet O, P, Q or whatever. So this guy named Percival Lowell tried to find that planet but couldn’t do it. He died in 1916, and it took a while for the Lowell Observatory, which he founded, to get back into the search.
Wired.com: Where did the name Pluto come from? Boyle: There were three names that had been bandied about. One was Minerva, but people found out there was already an asteroid named Minerva. One was Cronus, but astronomers at the Lowell Observatory decided that they didn’t want to name it Cronus because an astronomer they didn’t like came up with that name, and they were afraid that the astronomer would steal the credit if they used that name.
But, on the other hand, they did have this telegram from Britain where an 11-year-old girl named Venitia Burney had suggested this name. So there was really definitely a cute factor from the beginning of Pluto’s christening. And they went with that. And then the Disney dog of course. That added to the cuteness factor. Wired.com: Pluto was found in 1930, so why did it take until just recently to find any of these similar things? Boyle: The simple answer is telescopes and patience. The telescopes had to be powerful enough to find dim objects on the edge of the solar system. And it also takes a lot of patience to do the sort of thing that Clyde Tombaugh did, where you compare pictures back and forth. So really, it took a couple of patient people, David Jewitt and Jane Luu, to get the imagery of the area where these faraway objects might be found. They also employed computers, which were coming onto the scene, and the computers could automate these sorts of tasks. That has really revolutionized the field. It’s unimaginable that people could do this sort of astronomy without having high-powered computers to help with the task. Wired.com: Why do scientists care so much about Pluto? Boyle: Pluto, when you look back at it, was actually the first object of the great third zone beyond the part of the solar system that people knew about: the inner rocky planets and the outer giant planets. Clyde Tombaugh was the first to find one of these icy worlds on the very rim of the solar system, and that sparked a lot of discussion about how it got there and how solar systems are created anyway. And whether you call Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet or a sleazy ice ball, you’ve got to admit that Pluto really pioneered the exploration of that icy zone of the solar system and helped us to find the ice worlds, the rings of ice that exist in other solar systems as well. So naturally astronomers want to find out more about this frontier, and there are a lot of interesting attributes. It could have been the place that provided the building blocks for life. It could be the last redoubt of life millions of years from now when the sun gets big and hot. There’s a lot to look at in that area of our solar system, and it sparks great questions about what’s happening in other planetary systems as well. Wired.com: What does it take to qualify as a planet now? Boyle: The way the [International Astronomical Union] sees it, it’s an object that’s going around the sun and has the mass sufficient to crush it into a round shape — so-called hydrostatic equilibrium. And then you’ve got the standard that it has to have cleared out its orbital neighborhood. And that is the standard that caused all the controversy and continues to cause all the controversy. Even people who were kind of in favor of the way the IAU decision turned out admit that that standard really needs to have some work done. It depends on how you define the neighborhood, and how you define the biggest thing in the neighborhood. Arguably, Pluto could be the biggest thing in its zone because it makes as much as 7 percent of the Kuiper Belt by mass. Some researchers have tried to come up with a quantifiable way of defining that “clearing out the neighborhood” standard, but there is some strangeness involved in that. For instance, if you were to put Earth out where Pluto is, it would not be considered a planet. So a lot of people say that any standard that does not have an Earth-size object as a planet is not an acceptable standard. But that sparks a whole new debate over whether Earth would exist or if it’s possible for an Earth-size object to exist in that kind of environment. That gets into the whole question of Planet X — the idea that there might be a pretty significantly massive body out in the even farther reaches of the solar system known as the Oort cloud. The folks who are trying to shore up the IAU standard argue that such a planet, even if it was as big as Earth, could not be considered a planet. They’re trying to come up with another term for that kind of body, for example calling it a scattered planet. It’s a little tricky to work out all the implications of this somewhat confusing standard. Wired.com: How many fellow dwarf planets does Pluto currently have? Boyle: Right now, going by the IAU’s criterion, there are four dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt, in that far zone of the solar system. And then you have one in the asteroid belt — that’s Ceres. So there are five in all, including Pluto. It could be that there are more. We’re using the IAU criterion here that a dwarf planet is something that is massive enough to crush the object into a round shape, but that the object is among other objects at the same orbital distance — they don’t meet the so-called clearing-out-the-neighborhood standard. Wired.com: What happened at the IAU meeting in Prague in 2006 that led you to name a chapter of your book “The Battle of Prague“? Boyle: It just really demonstrates how political the scientific process can get. When you look at the deliberations that came before the general assembly and the maneuvering that came during the general assembly, it reads almost like one of these political novels where one side is trying to put forward one idea, and the other side becomes the opposition and uses the bureaucratic process to do a little bit of jujitsu and get the outcome that they wanted. Wired.com: Will Pluto ever be a planet again? Boyle: The IAU, I don’t believe they have any intention of touching this issue again with a 10-AU-long pole. They don’t want to get into this again. It was so divisive and so unpleasant. I think it will be a long time before the IAU goes anywhere near trying to define a central concept in science like this again. And then on the other side, some people might ask, ‘Why don’t the defenders of Pluto’s dignity come out and try to get it reversed by the IAU?’ And the answer is that these are the very people who say the IAU has lost their legitimacy. So it would be like someone saying that such and such a tribunal is a kangaroo court and we can’t get a fair hearing there, and then the next year coming back and trying to get something from that very same court. It just wouldn’t work. Wired.com: Where do you stand on Pluto’s planetary status? Boyle: I would say that it should be considered a different kind of planet. I’m fine with calling it a dwarf planet or a minor planet or whatever. But I don’t think that it’s really the right decision to say that dwarf planets are not planets. I think that is what’s going to confuse people.
Wired.com: What was your gut reaction when you heard Pluto had been demoted? Boyle: I was intrigued. One of the stories I worked on in the wake of that was, what’s this going to do to all the websites, all the textbooks, all the toys that are out there? Are people suddenly going to be selling just eight planets in their solar-system kit rather than nine? I did think that it was kind of a done deal, that OK, the decision’s made and we’ll just kind of move on, and sure, there are problems but they’ll get ironed out as time goes on. I said so in the Cosmic Log, that no matter how you stand on it, now that the IAU has spoken, that’s gonna be something that scientists and the general public are going to have to live with. That’s when I heard from the people on the other side of the question who said it ain’t over yet. And I found that intriguing, that even though an authoritative body spoke out on this, there was still debate that continues to this day. So that’s an interesting phenomenon in science to see that. There are parallels to other controversies, over stem cells or climate change or whatever. And it illustrates that science is not something that’s decided by a vote. It’s almost like you have a quantum state of superposition where something is a planet and is not a planet at the same time, and it takes a while for it to collapse into one state or the other. I think it’s still a little bit up in the air. We have some uncertainty about this whole question yet. And I think that will continue at least until 2015 when the New Horizons probe goes to Pluto and people see with their own eyes what this thing, whether you call it a dwarf planet or a planet or whatever, what this thing looks like. Wired.com: Will Pluto’s status affect how we handle planets outside of our solar system? Boyle: Of course there are about 400 extrasolar planets that have been found right now, and some of them are as weird as Pluto, if not weirder. There’s one planetary system where you have two planets that are about Saturn- or Jupiter-size that are stuck in the same kind of resonance that Pluto and Neptune are stuck in, and it’s fascinating to see. This is obviously a planetary system where neither planet can clear out its orbit and yet they’re both considered planets. So it’s another argument for not trying to get too precise about how you define a planet at this point. That’s going to be a big thing going forward with Kepler and Corot and all the exoplanet searches: As we see more diversity in planets, I think that will cause us to rethink our basic concepts on this whole question of planets. Images: 1) NASA. 2) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 3) Advertising Ephemera Collection - Database #A0160, Emergence of Advertising On-Line Project, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/. 4) NASA.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm Shark Performs Cesarian SectionA shark has performed a C-section, according to the New Zealand Herald, Eco Worldly, and other media reports today. According to these sources, a shark at Kelly Tarltons Underwater World bit a pregnant female shark in the stomach. (Image: Albert ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pm Israel displays coins from ancient Jewish revolt (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:11 pm DNA database: Acid testEvidence-based policy is proving elusive at the Home Office. Alan Johnson's sacking of Dr David Nutt, followed by multiple resignations from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs that he chaired, is still reverberating around Whitehall. Yesterday a new front opened when the home secretary announced his latest proposals on the DNA database. They would allow DNA from those arrested but against whom no further action was taken to be retained for up to six years. Critics suggest that the key piece of research supporting this period relates to opinion among the government's persistent critics in the House of Lords. It is likely to be just one more in a long series of small retreats from an indefensible policy based more on populism than science – one that has allowed the security state to tower over the right to privacy. DNA matching is an invaluable but not infallible tool in securing conviction, particularly in serious crimes like murder and rape and some terrorism cases. It depends on matching DNA gathered at a crime scene with that of the offender. A database of those convicted of serious offences is clearly justifiable. Much more contentious is the value of DNA from people who have been arrested and released without charge, and whether, for how long and for what kind of offence it might be retained in the interest of protecting the public. A year ago, the European court of human rights condemned as "blanket and indiscriminate" the government's policy of indefinite retention. Six months ago, the Home Office proposed substituting a time limit of 12 years instead, and produced research that purported to show that people who had been arrested once were as likely to offend as people already convicted. It was derided for its lack of rigour and then disowned as "unfinished" by the Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science that had supplied it. In September the ECHR's compliance body said the proposal failed to meet its ruling, and in October the Lords rejected the legislation introducing it. Yesterday's proposal for retention for six years – with indefinite retention for the DNA of those suspected of terrorist offences – is unlikely to be acceptable to the European court, either. There is still no discrimination between those arrested for minor offences and those suspected of more serious ones. Although some juveniles will have DNA retained only for three years, 15 and 16-year-olds will have their DNA retained for the maximum of six, contravening the UN rights of the child which insists they are treated differently from adults. It is also the case that black men are disproportionately represented on the DNA database. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the profiles of an astonishing three quarters of all black men between 16 and 34 are on it. Although black defendants are less often convicted than white, black men are four times more likely than white men to have their DNA on the database. The Equality and Human Rights Commission fears Asian men are also disproportionately represented. No other European country has adopted such a blanket approach. In a test case in Canada, the court found that DNA contained "the highest level of personal and private information" and ruled that the retention of a juvenile's DNA would be "grossly disproportionate". In Scotland, no DNA profiles are retained unless the suspect has been charged with a violent or sexual offence, and only for a maximum of five years. Yet in England and Wales, chief police officers have made it clear they will continue to hold on to all profiles until there is "political consensus" on what is to be done – even as shrinking budgets mean that crime scene DNA is now collected in less than 1% of cases. Proper research underpinning a reasoned balance between individual privacy and public security is long overdue. 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm Pass notes No 2,682: T rexIs our image of the prehistoric predator a little wide of the mark? Age: 68m years, give or take. Appearance: Does just what it says on the etymological tin – it looks like a tyrant lizard king. I know the one – huge legs, massive tail, mighty jaws, weirdly tiny and endearing arms waggling about at the front? Best thing in the Natural History Museum? That's the one. Wouldn't it have been exciting to have seen one alive? The ultimate predator, lashing his tail from side to side, scouring the landscape with his unblinking eye and dispatching his victim with one crushing blow! He didn't. What? He didn't. Mounting evidence suggests that T-Rex was a lumbering scavenger. Warm-blooded, too. You're either lying or the gullible ingestor of foul velociraptor propaganda. Not unless they're working for the University of Washington in St Louis. Scientists there have worked out that the amount of energy required for a T-Rex would have necessitated the ability to generate their own heat. And the lumbering scavenging? Computer modelling by the Royal Veterinary College two years ago suggested that the beast would have been too front-heavy, bad at turning and slow-running to hunt successfully. But . . . And there was another US report seven years ago that estimated that a T-Rex would need an impossible 99% of its muscle in its legs if it were going to predate with useful vigour. So the T-Rex as we know it, the iconic bestial warrior is no more? Are all our hankerings for epic grandeur and brutality doomed to be ground under the unforgiving heel of science this way? Not necessarily. The St Louis scientists actually think that being warm-blooded means they were more agile than the others suggest. Then they would have been able to kill stuff rather than pick dismally off carcasses. So there's hope? One day, the jeep-stomping, attorney-chomping legend of Jurassic Park may be restored to us? Jurassic Park wasn't tru – oh never mind. Yes, yes he might. Do say: I'm going to back slowly away without attracting attention. Don't say: Hey, slowpoke! Can't catch me! Can't ca – oh. 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm Scheme Thwarts Pacemaker HackersResearchers have a plan to protect the devices against wireless attacks.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm Why are we seeing an epidemic of short-sightedness?Increasing numbers of children are suffering from myopia. One sufferer looks for the reasons behind it The day the optician told me I needed glasses, I burst into tears. I was 10 years old – gawky, bookish, rubbish at sport – and the chalk-marks on the school blackboard were looking increasingly blurry. Now, the optician said, I'd be able to see again – but only by attaching to my head what looked like an instrument of torture designed to extract the maximum potential for teasing. With their thick curved lenses and speckled green frames, my first glasses looked like something Timmy Mallett would wear. And that was definitely not a good thing. Now, it seems, increasing numbers of children and teenagers are sharing my pain. Over the last couple of decades, there's been a massive surge in short-sightedness in young people around the world (the condition is usually diagnosed in teenagers). According to New Scientist, 80% of young adults now need glasses in Asian countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan – so many that you wonder whether the teasing tables have been turned (do the kids with 20-20 vision get called "two-eyed"?). Rates are lower over here – between 30 and 50% – but ophthalmologists agree that myopia is on the rise. "We can't be sure of the numbers," says Winfried Amoaku, consultant ophthalmologist at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, "but the increase in myopia, especially in eastern countries, really is quite rampant." So what lies behind this myopia epidemic? The traditional explanation has been reading, which some scientists think can cause the lenses in children's eyes to elongate, blurring the image recorded by the retina. Myopia does still seem to afflict bookish types more (just glance round your local library), but no one has found a definitive link. "Being short-sighted does not," Amoaku explains curtly, "mark you out as an intellectual." Kids have been reading for centuries, anyway – and most prefer TVs and computers these days. So are screens to blame? Most ophthalmologists agree that excessive screen-watching can accelerate myopia – though Amoaku says it's fine as long as you stay at "piano-distance" from the screen (defined, quaintly, as the distance you'd sit from an upright piano). The fall-off in school sport could also be a factor. Playing sport does seem to have a positive effect on children's eye health: one recent American study of eight-year-olds found that around one in five became myopic within four years – and almost all of those that did played little or no sport. But even more remarkably, our increasing tendency to keep kids indoors could actually be to blame. In a recent study of more than 2,000 12-year-old Australians, playing sport indoors turned out to be of no benefit for the eyes – but sitting around in the fresh air was. Diet could also play a part. In 2002, the American evolutionary biologist Loren Cordain linked myopia with a high-carb diet, though that doesn't explain why the Asian diet – traditionally carbohydrate-rich – should only now be affecting sight. For Amoaku, then, the answer is to "do all the normal, healthy things, with a good diet and exercise". And even if that doesn't work, most short-sighted kids will eventually find – as I did – that wearing glasses is really nothing to cry about. 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm Bad weather blamed in blackout for 60M in Brazil (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 4:58 pm Crime rings boost ivory smugglingThe last year has seen a big increase in illegal ivory trade with organised crime involved, says the world's monitoring agency.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm Why Can't Chimps Talk?A genetic mutation may explain why our closest relatives, chimpanzees, don't speak.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm Following Feathers from Birds to DinosaursOrnithologist follows the evolution of feathers, shedding light on dinosaur colors.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 3:45 pm US takes brown pelican off endangered species list (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 3:07 pm 60-Year-Old Solar Mystery Finally Explained (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - The search for planets beyond our solar system may be a little easier, thanks to a new comparison of sun-like stars that has revealed a key difference in the chemistry of stars that have planets and their barren cousins and solved a long-standing mystery about our own sun's chemistry.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 2:46 pm Lithium clue for planet-huntersAstronomers tell the journal Nature that Sun-like stars with orbiting planets tend to be depleted in the element lithium.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm Stress and Sugar -- Are They Linked?I've been under some stress lately. Not the minor kind that everyday life usually brings, like ferrying kids to and fro, working, or the usual frustrations of owning a house. I'm talking about the big stresses that can clobber us, ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 1:42 pm 10 Things You Must Know About Malware InfectionsThe latest semi-annual Security Information Report (SIR) from Microsoft has been released, and its 232 pages carry reminders of some important facts about personal computer security.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 1:23 pm Stellar Lithium Points Way for Exoplanet Hunters
Astronomers have identified an easy-to-measure chemical fingerprint for determining which sunlike stars are likely to host planets. The marker — a low abundance of lithium in the atmosphere of these stars — could prove an invaluable guide for planet hunters trying to determine which of the myriad sunlike stars to select for long-term study.
In the Nov. 12 Nature, Israelian and his colleagues report that the majority of sunlike stars hosting planets in the HARPS sample have, on average, one-tenth the amount of lithium of those without planets. It’s been known for decades that Earth’s sun shows such a depletion. “Those sunlike stars with low lithium will have a higher chance to bear planets,” Israelian says.
One explanation for the lithium finding, he notes, is related to a star’s rotational history. According to a leading theory, stars born with a swirling disk of dust and gas — the disk from which planets coalesce — tend to rotate more slowly than stars born without such disks. The planets that form out of the disk retain some of the rotational energy that the star would otherwise have. The slower a star’s rotation, the easier it is for lithium at the top of a star’s atmosphere to mix into deeper, hotter layers, where it burns up. “There is a good case to make that the rotation of the parent star is influenced by whether planets form around it or not,” says astronomer Marc Pinsonneault of Ohio State University in Columbus, who wrote a commentary accompanying the report in Nature. “The bottom line is that planets aren’t just debris left over from star formation,” he says. “Planet formation changes the basic properties of the star that they orbit.” The link between low lithium abundance and planets holds true only for sunlike stars, says Israelian. Cooler, lower-mass stars destroy most of their lithium early on, during their first 10 million to 100 million years of life. Stars more massive than the sun and with temperatures some 200 kelvins warmer can’t mix as much lithium into deeper layers, making it difficult to destroy the element. Researchers have previously found evidence that any star, regardless of whether its mass approximates that of the sun, is more likely to have planets if the star has a high abundance of metals such as iron. Looking for sunlike stars that have both traits — small amounts of lithium and high amounts of iron and other metals — may offer the most powerful strategy for finding planets beyond the solar system, says Israelian. Image: ESO/L. Calçada See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:46 pm Gene therapy strengthens muscles in monkeysWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gene therapy treatment that stops the breakdown of muscle appeared safe in monkeys and may build up muscle, too, researchers reported on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pm David Nutt row referred to chief scientific adviserProfessor John Beddington to report to PM on freedom of drug advisers to publicly criticise government policy The issue at the centre of the row between the home secretary and his drug advisers – their freedom to publicly criticise government policy without being dismissed – has been referred to the chief scientific adviser to resolve. A joint statement issued tonight, signed by Alan Johnson and the remaining members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said Professor John Beddington would report to the prime minister by Christmas. Johnson has agreed to implement Beddington's recommendations and promised he would not publicly prejudge the work of his drug advisers before they published their reports. He also promised to meet their chairman more regularly. Three more advisers resigned yesterday over Johnson's sacking of Professor David Nutt as chairman of the council. 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:40 pm Why can't chimps talk? It's more than just genesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Why can humans talk and chimps cannot? Researchers said on Wednesday they have another clue and it lies not simply in the genetic code, but in how the genes function.Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:37 pm New species may help explain why dinosaurs grew so bigA newly discovered dinosaur species that roamed the Earth about 200m years ago may help to explain how the creatures evolved into the largest animals on land, scientists in South Africa said today. Aardonyx celestae was a 23ft-long (7m) small-headed herbivore with a huge barrel of a chest. It walked on its hind legs but could also drop to all fours, and scientists believe it could be a missing evolutionary link. Palaeontologist Adam Yates, of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at the University of the Witwatersrand, who led the research, said the species had a "very significant position in the family tree of dinosaurs". The creature, which was found in South Africa five years ago, weighed about 500kg (1,100lb) and was about 10 years old when it died, possibly after a drought, added Yates. The species shared characteristics with herbivores that walked on two legs, Yates said, but also had similar attributes to dinosaurs known as sauropods, or brontosaurs, that grew to huge sizes and walked on all fours. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "The discovery of Aardonyx helps to fill a marked gap in our knowledge of sauropod evolution, showing how a primarily two-legged animal could start to acquire the specific features necessary for a life spent on all fours," said Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Why and how dinosaurs grew into such big creatures is a question that scientists have been trying to answer for a long time. Walking on all fours allowed animals to carry more weight, and size was often their only defence against sharp-toothed carnivores, said one of the report's co-authors, Matthew Bonnan of Western Illinois University. 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:27 pm Warm-Blooded Dinosaurs Worked Up a SweatPaleontologists for years have debated whether or not dinosaurs were warm or cold-blooded. New research suggests most were warm-blooded like us, according to the following Washington University in Saint Louis release: Were dinosaurs “warm-blooded” like present-day mammals and birds, or ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:22 pm Chocolate Reduces Stress, Study FindsGo ahead, grab a chocolate bar. New evidence is in that eating dark chocolate every day can reduce stress.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:13 pm Cover Shmover: Judge an Old Book by Its Odor
Take an antique leather-bound book, open it up, and inhale deeply. There’s just something about that old-book smell. And thanks to a new analytical chemistry technique, the volatile organic compounds that compose the aroma could help preservationists keep their collections safe from old-age damage. Just sniffing an old book can tell chemists a lot about the state of the paper in a vintage volume, including its level of acidity, lignin and rosin, which are all important variables for deciding how to approach preserving the text. “During my research work, I noticed that conservators would often smell paper as if they could tell whether certain degraded papers smell differently to others,” said Matija Strlic, a chemist at University College London, and lead author of a new paper in Analytical Chemistry. “Being a chemist, I thought, if that’s what they do, perhaps there is a scientific way of sniffing out the degraded paper.” “The aroma of an old book is familiar to every user of a traditional library. A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness, this unmistakable smell is as much part of the book as its contents. It is a result of the several hundred identified volatile and semivolatile organic compounds (VOCs) off-gassing from paper and the object in general.” The solution he developed is called “material degradomics.” It relies on identifying the set of compounds associated with degrading paper, using chromatography and spectroscopy. Using a benchmark set of papers of varying ages that have been well-characterized, the researchers were able to associate different smells with different papers in varying states of preservation. Eleven smell components were correlated with important paper qualities. Though Strlic noted that this first journal article was just a proof of concept, once the details are worked out, he thinks the technique could be used on site at the world’s archives and museums. “I can imagine that in the future, one might have even a handheld instrument to sniff objects and try to tell which ones are more or less degraded,” he said.
How could knowing the paper’s profile help preservationists? Paper produced until about 1850 was made to last for millenniums. The development of new wood-pulping techniques in the middle of the 19th century and the use of rosin sizing reduced the longevity of paper. The acidity of paper made with these techniques causes them to degrade more quickly than the older papers — or newer ones made with different methods after 1990. “These papers are particularly unstable,” Strlic said, with lifespans that are measured in only hundreds of years. Now, paper made in 1850 or so is getting old, and some of it has begun to degrade. It’s become imperative to identify which texts are most vulnerable — and that’s what Strlic’s new technique allows. Other conservation tests can also tell conservators how badly degraded paper is, but they all destroy at least some of the material they’re trying to preserve. “All of the tests I know of are destructive, meaning they consume some of the material or one needs to touch the object,” Strlic said. “In some cases, especially if you are dealing with a very valuable object, even touching is something that is not allowed, so conservators very often like to see methods which are entirely noninvasive.” If they do find that a book could be susceptible to degradation, preservationists have options. They can dip the paper in a chemical bath that neutralizes its pH, as seen in the photo below. It could also be placed in special settings like the Declaration of Independence. While the paper and digital realms are usually seen as competitors, this is one area in which the power of computation is helping to preserve, not destroy, print. “The computational power had not been there until about 10 years ago,” Strlic said.
Top photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:12 pm World's Hardiest Life Form ExplainedThis release just in from The Swedish Research Council: Got food poisoning? The cause might be bacterial spores, en extremely hardy survival form of bacteria, a nightmare for health care and the food industry and an enigma for scientists. Spore-forming ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 12:01 pm Human-Chimp Gene Comparison Hints at Roots of Language
By comparing how a gene critical for language works in humans and chimpanzees, researchers have identified an entire network of genes involved in the incredible linguistic powers of Homo sapiens. The findings don’t explain how language functions at the biological level, or exactly what changes were needed to put an otherwise unremarkable monkey on its chattering, Earth-dominating trajectory. But they do give researchers a foundation for investigating these questions. “We know a fair amount about the brain structures involved in speech and language, but we know very little about how that evolved, or how genes contribute to that,” said Daniel Geschwind, a University of California, Los Angeles neurogeneticist. The target of Geschwind’s analysis was FOXP2, a gene that rose to scientific prominence during the study of a London-based family afflicted by hereditary speech disorders. Of the extended family’s 30 members, one-half have severe linguistic deficiencies, as well as a FOXP2 mutation. Those who don’t have the mutation are able to speak normally. That connection was revealed in 2001, and subsequent research has shown FOXP2 to be play a role not only in acquiring grammar and syntax, but in developing motor skills and helping brain cells form new connections. Studies also suggested FOXP2 had mutated rapidly in the Homo sapiens lineage, and worked differently in humans than in chimpanzees, our closest genetic relative. But though FOXP2 has been dubbed “the language gene,” language is certainly far more complicated, involving hundreds and probably thousands of genes, interconnected and ever-shifting in their activity. Researchers needed an approach that delved into this complexity, and in a paper published Wednesday in Nature, Geschwind and fellow UCLA neurogeneticist Genevieve Konopka provide this approach. “We were able to identify a network of genes connected to FOXP2,” said Geschwind. “Maybe this will give us an entry into to the broader view of what’s going on. We won’t just study one gene, but the whole biological network related to language. FOXP2 is the window, but the network is going to be the story.”
Armed with a list of genes linked to FOXP2 in both species or just one, the researchers then measured the activity levels of those genes in brain tissue samples from humans and chimps. This revealed 116 genes connected only to the human version of FOXP2, which indeed appears to have accumulated many new functions in humans. “We found that the targets of the gene are not only involved in brain function. Some of them are involved in the development of non-nervous system tissue and cranial structures involved in speech production. That’s remarkable,” said Gerschwind. “This is a fascinating and important study with important implications for human evolution,” said Ajit Varki, a University of California, San Diego glycobiologist who studies the molecular differences between human and chimpanzee cells. Varki was not involved in the study. His assessment was echoed by Yale University neuroscientists Pasko Rakic and Martin Dominguez. In a commentary accompanying the analysis, they call the findings a “starting point for future studies of the molecular basis of language and human evolution.” Geschwind’s research “does what important discoveries usually do: It answers many questions, but raises even more,” wrote Rakic and Dominguez. Among the questions is what this gene network actually does, which other genes and networks they’re connected to, and what part they might play in language and developmental disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia. “Now that we have these targets, we can ask what each of them does,” said Geschwind, who envisions running the same type of experiment with the new genes, and using brain imaging techniques to connect their activity with neurological function. “Because this identified pathways and networks, there are a bunch of directions to go in,” said Geschwind. Images: 1. Flickr/Hryck 2. A map of the gene networks activated by human and chimpanzee FOXP2 genes. Overlapping genes are in red. See Also:
Citations: “Human-specific transcriptional regulation of CNS development genes by FOXP2.” By Genevieve Konopka, Jamee M. Bomar, Kellen Winden, Giovanni Coppola, Zophonias O. Jonsson, Fuying Gao, Sophia Peng, Todd M. Preuss, James A. Wohlschlegel & Daniel H. Geschwind. Nature, Vol. 462 No. 7269, November 12, 2009. “The importance of being human.” By Martin H. Dominguez and Pasko Rakic. Nature, Vol. 462 No. 7269, November 12, 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 11:44 am New Apple Takes a Bite Out of RotFind a bad apple in the bunch? Researchers in Australia want to fix that. A Queensland team has spent 20 years developing a deep red variety that they claim is naturally long-lasting. The new, sweet apple with the decidedly non-catchy ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 11:15 am Fool's Gold a Golden Opportunity for SolarFool's gold, or pyrite, could be a real gold mine for the solar panel industry.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 11:15 am Human Speech Gene FoundA gene found in brain cells could explain how we acquired speech.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 11:13 am Arctic Circle: The Loneliness of Coal TownTake a desktop journey to a very different place: An icy Russian coal mining town on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. David Rothenberg does a great job bringing this remote outpost home in his OnEarth blog post. I'm still shivering. ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am South African find gives clue to dinosaur evolutionJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A huge dinosaur discovered in South Africa is a previously unknown species that sheds light on the evolution of the largest creatures ever to walk the earth, a scientist said Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:59 am Human Evolution: The Origin of Tool UseWhy did we start using tools? What do other tool users in our family tree say about our early evolution?Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:54 am New Milky Way Image Shows Best of All Spectra
A new multi-telescope image has revealed the beauty of the center of the Milky Way across the electromagnetic spectrum. The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes teamed up with the Chandra X-ray Observatory to provide a glimpse of our galaxy that shows far more than our human eyes can see. The effort allows a tremendous amount of data to be grasped in one glorious, mind-blowing space photo. Spitzer investigated the infrared light (red in the final image) emanating from the region, which largely comes from glowing dust clouds created by stellar radiation and wind. Chandra captured the X-rays (blue and violet in the final image) emanating from stellar explosions and the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. And the Hubble looked at the near infrared light closest to the visible part of the spectrum (yellow in the final image) to reveal hundreds of thousands of stars. If you want to know more about how amazing photos like this are made by amateur and professional astronomers alike, check out our story on the making of a mind-blowing space photo. Image: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, STScI See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:52 am The Relative Size of ThingsBack in the 70s or 80s, IBM made a video called The Power of 10, which showed the relative size of things from the universe to the cell and the effect of adding a zero. In other words going from ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:46 am Skunk's First Line of Defense is Black and WhiteA skunk doesn't even have to stink to ward off predators. Just their shape and distinct black-and-white coloration does the trick.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:22 am Making a change?How the Marine Bill could affect one area in DorsetSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am Rare Monkey Interbred with Baboons, Study SuggestsA rare monkey may have mated with baboons in the past.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 10:01 am Bones Show Biggest Dinosaurs Had Hot Blood
The infamous T-Rex may have been a cold-blooded killer, but new evidence suggests he probably had warm blood.
Paleontologists have debated the issue of dinosaur metabolism for decades: Did those ancient, lumbering beasts rely mostly on the sun’s warmth to regulate their body temperature, like today’s reptiles and amphibians, or could they generate their own body heat like mammals and birds? Respected scientists have come down on both sides of the issue, and there’s a host of arguments to support each theory. Now, using a biomechanical model that predicts the energy cost of walking and running based on the size of an animal’s leg bones, researchers have shown that the biggest dinos couldn’t have gotten around without a warm-blooded metabolism. “Using studies of living animals, we can figure out the relationship between limb design and the amount of muscle an animal needs to support its body weight as it walks and runs,” said anthropologist Herman Pontzer of Washington University in St. Louis, who co-authored the paper published Thursday in PLoS ONE. “The size of muscle is very good predictor of how much energy you need, because to turn on muscle, you need oxygen.”
Because warm-blooded animals have much greater aerobic capacity than their cold-blooded counterparts, finding bigger muscles and higher energy demands in dinosaurs would favor the warm-blooded hypothesis. Indeed, when Pontzer and colleagues looked at anatomical models of 14 different species of extinct dinosaurs, they were surprised to find that even at a slow walk, most dinos needed more energy than a cold-blooded metabolism could provide. Of course, drawing conclusions about extinct dinosaurs from a model based on modern-day animals involves making some assumptions. Pontzer acknowledges that it’s possible dinosaurs had a physiology completely unlike anything alive today, a cold-blooded metabolism that provided enough energy to meet the needs of these fast, muscular creatures. “That’s a limitation of this analysis,” he said, “and maybe a limitation of any similar analysis that uses what we see in the world today. But it just seems to us more likely that they’re warm-blooded than that they have some bizarre form of physiology that we have no record of today.” The new research fits well with a previous study on dinosaur cardiovascular anatomy, based on a CT scan of a 66-million year old dinosaur fossil with a preserved heart. Imaging revealed a four-chambered, double-pump heart with a single aorta — essentially, the heart of a warm-blooded mammal or bird, not a cold-blooded reptile. But other anatomical studies have led to different conclusions: A survey of dinosaur noses, for example, found that dinos lacked special bones in their nose, called turbinates, that protect against water loss during rapid breathing and are found in 99 percent of warm-blooded animals. Paleontologist John Ruben of Oregon State University, who led the turbinate study, questions much of the recent evidence on dinosaur metabolism, and he rejects the idea that higher energy demands mean dinos couldn’t have been cold-blooded. Regardless of whether animals are warm-blooded or cold-blooded, and whether they’re upright or not, “the net cost of all locomotion is roughly similar in all extant terrestrial vertebrates,” Ruben wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. To accept the paper’s conclusions, he says you’d have to accept the idea that the net cost of walking and running in dinosaurs increased as they became larger — and not all paleontologists agree with that assumption. Pontzer, whose primary research involves the biomechanics of ancient human locomotion, says the argument over dinosaur metabolism isn’t going to end soon. “Our data, as far as the method goes, are pretty clear that the big guys are probably warm-blooded,” he said. “But it won’t be the last word, surely. These big debates will, and perhaps should, be debated for awhile.” Image: Figure 1 from “Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs.” Pontzer H, Allen V, Hutchinson JR, PLoS ONE 4(11), 2009. See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Nov 2009 | 9:55 am Six-year limit on DNA of innocentThe DNA of most innocent people arrested in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will not be kept for more than six years, the Home Office says.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 9:52 am Poor nutrition 'stunting growth'Poor nutrition is still causing major problems in the developing world - despite some progress being made.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 9:09 am Soviet H-bomb scientist Ginzburg diesMOSCOW (Reuters) - Vitaly Ginzburg, a Russian physicist who survived Stalin's purges by working on the Soviet atomic bomb project and later won the Nobel Prize for physics, died in Moscow late on Sunday after a long illness. He was 93.Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Nov 2009 | 8:37 am Poor nations vow low-carbon pathPoor countries vulnerable to climate change plot a low-carbon future and challenge richer states to match them.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 8:09 am 9/11's cancer legacy for rescue workersA spate of cancer-related illnesses among New York's rescue services who worked at Ground Zero sparks fear of an epidemic A spate of recent deaths of New York police and fire officers who took part in the emergency operation at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks has heightened fears that it could be the start of a delayed epidemic of cancer-related illness. Five firefighters and police officers, all of whom were involved in the rescue and clear-up at the site of the collapsed Twin Towers, have died of cancer in the past three months, the oldest being 44. Three died last month within a four-day period. Those three were Robert Grossman, a Harlem-based police officer who spent several weeks at the emergency site and died of a brain tumour aged 41; fellow police officer Cory Diaz, 37; and firefighter Richard Mannetta, 44. In addition, John McNamara, a 44-year-old firefighter, died in September; and Renee Dunbar, a police officer in her late 30s, died in August. The cluster of cancer deaths comes as Congress is under pressure to pass legislation that would provide federal help to emergency workers who have contracted illnesses since 9/11. Campaigners hope that a bill will be put to the House of Representatives by the end of the year that would set up a $10bn (£6bn) national fund for hundreds of people who now have cancer, respiratory illnesses and other diseases that may be linked to their work at the World Trade Centre site. Up to 70,000 people took part in the massive operation at Ground Zero, including police, firefighters and construction workers who came to New York voluntarily from all over the US. Many worked for months amid a toxic soup of dust and chemicals. Amid the pollutants within the giant pile of 1.8m tons of debris and the surrounding air were 90,000 litres of jet fuel from the two stricken planes, about 1,000 tons of asbestos that was used in the construction of the Twin Towers, pulverised lead from computers, mercury and highly carcinogenic by-products from the burning of plastics and chlorinated chemicals. No official tally is available for the number of those who have died as a result of the 9/11 clear-up. The New York state health department has recorded 817 deaths of emergency workers but it cannot confirm categorically how many of those were directly linked to the site. Federal funds for ill emergency workers ran out in 2003 and, since then, the onus has fallen on cash-strapped New York city, which is facing up to 10,000 claims for compensation through the courts. Families of those who have died say that the burden should be shouldered by the nation as a whole. Robert Grossman's father, Stephen, drew a parallel with the $3bn the federal government spent this year on buying up old cars under the "cash-for-clunkers" scheme. "They spent that, but they don't have a dime for people who volunteered after 9/11 and ended up giving their lives for their country." The 911 Police Aid Foundation, a group run by and for sick police officers, says it is helping more than 100 officers who worked at Ground Zero and who now have cancer. The group is receiving new cases at a rate of about one a week, many of which are extremely rare at such young ages. Michael Valentin, who volunteers for the group, spent about four months working around the pile of debris from the towers. He now has lymphatic tumours in his chest, as well as asbestos poisoning. "We all have terminal illnesses, we are all going to die. We just want to help others by showing them that they are not alone," he said. The bill currently before Congress, which is named after James Zadroga, a police officer who died in 2006, would provide for the health monitoring and treatment of an additional 15,000 emergency workers. Paradoxically, it would not cover cancer, which was not perceived as a priority at the time the legislation was drafted though numbers have escalated since then. Claire Calladine, a campaigner who runs the organisation 9/11 Health Now, said the fear was that the recent rise in cancer cases was just the start. "We have only seen the tip of the iceberg. How bad will it get – that is the big question." 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 7:36 am What’s Menopause and When Does It Begin?There are detectable signs when a woman is nearing the end of her child-bearing years.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am Robots to Swarm the SeasSwarms of soup-can-sized robots will soon plunge into the ocean seeking data on poorly understood phenomena from currents to biology.Source: Livescience.com | 11 Nov 2009 | 7:21 am Marine Bill enters final stagesThe Marine Bill, which will pave the way for creation of marine conservation zones, is set to become law.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am The deep-sea crab with an unusual woody watery dietDeep under the ocean, a species of crab survives by eating wood that has sunk to the sea floor, scientists discover.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Nov 2009 | 4:31 am Vatican ponders extraterrestrials | Riazat ButtPontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome asks whether aliens would present a challenge to church teaching Questions about extra-terrestrial life are "very interesting and deserve serious consideration" the Vatican said yesterday, as one of its officials presented a summary of its first conference on astrobiology. Speaking at the conclusion of a study week, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Vatican Observatory, Father Jose Funes explained why the Vatican had turned its attention to the subject. "Although astrobiology is an emerging field and still a developing subject, the questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very interesting and deserve serious consideration. These questions offer many philosophical and theological implications". Funes has previously said there is no clash between believing in Catholic doctrine and believing in the possibility of alien life. In an interview published last year with L'Osservatore Romano he said: "I think there isn't [a contradiction]. Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures over the earth, so there could be other beings, even intelligent [beings], created by God." "This is not in contradiction with our faith, because we cannot establish limits to God's creative freedom. To say it with St Francis, if we can consider some earthly creatures as 'brothers' or 'sisters', why could we not speak of a 'brother alien'? He would also belong to the creation." Not everyone agrees. Paul Davies, who was one of the speakers at the Vatican event, told the Washington Post: "I think the discovery of a second genesis would be of enormous spiritual significance." The theoretical physicist and cosmologist from Arizona State University added: "The real threat would come from the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, because if there are beings elsewhere in the universe, then Christians, they're in this horrible bind." "They believe that God became incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ in order to save humankind, not dolphins or chimpanzees or little green men on other planets." 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 | 11 Nov 2009 | 3:45 am
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Much of what astronomers have learned about the solar system since William Herschel’s day has come to light because of dynamical analysis. This is how Le Verrier and Adams found Neptune. It is how Clyde Tombaugh could figure out how far away Pluto was, even though he saw it as a mere speck of light. And seventy-five years later, it is how Mike Brown identified Xena, the dynamical blip that was farther away and bigger than Pluto. So you can’t really sell the dynamicists short.
But eventually this guy named Clyde Tombaugh, a Kansas farm boy, started the search. Tombaugh was a really interesting guy because he was a very detail-oriented young man. He undertook a very meticulous, dedicated search of the parts of the sky that were imaged by the Lowell Observatory’s telescope, and eventually he found it just by sticking with it. At first they didn’t know what it was, people started talking about the ninth planet, and the rest is history.
I really favor having a big tent for the planet category, and it’s OK if you have 50 or 100 or 200 or 500 planets out there. These things that are massive enough to have a round shape have lots of important characteristics that bring them together into a very broad category. The point is not so much, ‘Gee it’s in a nice round shape.” The point is that when you have that massive of an object you have differentiation, you have the potential for geologic activity. People think that there might be ice volcanoes on Charon, there happens to be an atmosphere on Pluto — these qualities are things that are central to planetary science. So I think it would be wrong to try to make this formalistic how-many-pigeon-holes-do-you-have type of decision on this very central term in planetary science.
