H1N1: Mechanical Ventilation For Patients With Lung Damage Don't Always Work As Planned

As more people are diagnosed with H1N1 influenza infection, some will be admitted to hospital. The most severely affected may be treated in the intensive care unit and placed on a mechanical ventilator to help them breathe while they recover from the infection.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

Nanotech In Space: New Experiment To Weather The Trials Of Orbit

Novel nanomaterials are scheduled to blast off into orbit on November 16 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. The project seeks to test the performance of the new nanocomposites in orbit. The materials will be mounted to the International Space Station's outer hull and exposed to the rigors of space.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

Teens Less Likely To Wash Hands When Cooking, More Likely To Cross-contaminate Raw Food Than Adults

A new study has shown that when preparing frozen foods, adolescents are less likely than adults to wash their hands and are more susceptible to cross-contaminating raw foods while cooking.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

Futuristic Communications Systems Could Help Protect Frontline Troops

Researchers are working to develop futuristic communications systems that could help protect frontline troops. Building on work completed recently for the UK Ministry of Defence, the project is aimed at investigating the use of arrays of highly specialized antennas that could be worn by combat troops to provide covert short-range person-to-person battleground communications.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

Greenland Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Ever

Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate, according to a new study. This mass loss is equally distributed between increased iceberg production, driven by acceleration of Greenland's fast-flowing outlet glaciers, and increased meltwater production at the ice sheet surface.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

To Make Memories, New Neurons Must Erase Older Ones

Short-term memory may depend in a surprising way on the ability of newly formed neurons to erase older connections. A new article provides some of the first evidence in mice and rats that new neurons sprouted in the hippocampus cause the decay of short-term fear memories in that brain region, without an overall memory loss.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

Researchers Have Immune Cells Running In Circles

Researchers have identified the important role a protein plays in the body's first line of defense in directing immune cells called neutrophils toward the site of infection or injury.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Two Earth-sized Bodies With Oxygen Rich Atmospheres Found, But They're Stars Not Planets

Astrophysicists have discovered two earth sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres; however, there is a bit of a disappointing snag for anyone looking for a potential home for alien life, or even a future home for ourselves, as they are not planets but are actually two unusual white dwarf stars.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Shape Of Things To Come: Structure Of HIV Coat Could Lead To New Drugs

Structural biologists have described the architecture of the complex of protein units that make up the coat surrounding the HIV genome and identified in it a "seam" of functional importance that previously went unrecognized. Those findings could point the way to new treatments for blocking HIV infection.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Device Enables World's First Voluntary Gorilla Blood Pressure Reading

Zoo Atlanta recently became the first zoological institution in the world to obtain voluntary blood pressure readings from a gorilla. This was made possible by the Gorilla Tough Cuff developed by Georgia Tech students.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Europe's comet chaser makes last call home (AFP)

AFP - A billion-euro (1.5-billion-dollar) European spacecraft made a final flyby of Earth on Friday, using the planet as a gravitational slingshot to speed to a rendezvous with a comet in 2014.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 3:31 am

Predatory coral eats jellyfish

A coral is recorded eating a jellyfish for the first time, in intriguing photographs taken by scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 3:07 am

Clinton: No binding climate deal at Denmark talks (AP)

AP - Next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen is not likely to produce a legally binding treaty to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are widely blamed for global warming, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 3:03 am

A sorry tale of shoddy science

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould exposes the shameful history of research into race and IQ

Earlier this year Glenn Beck, the US Fox News commentator, called President Barack Obama "a racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture". The subtext of the statement seemed to be that it is justified to be fearful and suspicious of people of another race if they hate and fear you. Or possibly it was just a more than usually sanctimonious form of racism. But for me it was also the spur to take a closer look at a book that charts the way American and European scientists have handled the debate about race, culture, intelligence and economic and political success.

That book is Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, which seemed ground-breaking when it first appeared in 1981. It still seemed pretty good when Gould revised and expanded it in 1996, two years after two academic researchers published The Bell Curve, a book claiming to show that some hereditary lineages are innately less intelligent than others, leaving readers to draw the implication that money spent on educating them might be wasted. You can guess which lineages the authors might have included in this subset.

What Gould's book reminds us over and over again is that even very clever, generous and thoughtful people who are raised with a set of ingrained assumptions are likely to find evidence to support those assumptions.

Benjamin Franklin wanted a white America: he asked "Why increase the Sons of Africa, by planting them in America, when we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red?" Thomas Jefferson thought that "the blacks … are inferior to the whites in endowment both of body and mind." Abraham Lincoln contemplated the physical differences between black and white and came out "in favour of having the superior position assigned to the white race".

The great 19th century scientists Cuvier, Humboldt, Lyell and Darwin all said things that betrayed an unquestioning belief in innate Caucasian superiority. Their successors set out to confirm this belief. Louis Agassiz, a great 19th century scientist now in the US Hall of Fame, thought social equality between black and white a "practical impossibility" and intermarriage "a perversion of every natural sentiment."

Some 19th century biologists argued that black people were the product of a separate creation, others that black people were inferior varieties of the same human species. A physician from Louisiana even argued in scientific papers that the people of Africa were "unable to take care of themselves" because of a disease of inadequate breathing "conjoined with a deficiency of cerebral matter in the cranium".

The idea that intellect had something to do with cranial capacity was – and to some people, still is – an attractive one, and generations of researchers tried to find new ways to measure brain size and shape, and match it with apparent intellectual performance. These experiments tended to prove that white people were cleverer than black people because they were bigger-brained.

In The Mismeasure of Man, Gould revealed that they could only prove this by massaging the results, cooking the data, and eliminating the unwelcome findings. One researcher found that German brains, on average, weighed 100 grams more than French brains. He was, of course, German. Measurements also produced inconsistencies: some Caucasian geniuses had very big brains, other intellectual giants had a quite modest cranial capacity.

So the anthropologists, anatomists and pioneer psychologists started looking for other things. They tried to grade the intellectual status of men, apes and women; of Nordic, Slavic and Mediterranean races; of long-headed and broad-headed peoples; they graded them according to the average distance between penis and navel, on the closeness of their eyes, on the lowness of their foreheads.

Then they began looking for ways to quantify the intellectual performance of different national and ethnic groups: and came up with bizarre results, which ought to have eliminated discrimination purely on the grounds of colour or race but somehow did not. In the early 20th century HH Goddard tried out his intelligence tests on new migrants and found, says Gould, that "83% of the Jews, 80% of the Hungarians, 79% of the Italians and 87% of the Russians were feeble-minded."

Robert Yerkes, another scientist still honoured among US researchers, tested military recruits and produced data that seemed to show that the mental age of the average white American was "about 13 years". Yerkes' tests suggested that the group whose intellects were below this average of 13 years included "37% of whites and 89% of negroes". This extra-low mental age did not disqualify black people from the Army because, said Yerkes, all officers seemed to agree "that the negro is a cheerful willing soldier, naturally subservient".

And so the whole, sorry, miserable story continues. These transparently silly and shameful "findings" were used to justify racial segregation in the American south, and to limit black youngsters' access to higher education. These limits, constraints and segregation laws continued well into the second half of the 20th century – well into Gould's lifetime, and mine.

This book should make any sensible person wary of attaching too much value to IQ tests (there's some glorious stuff on the quixotic allotment of IQ ratings) and should make anybody very suspicious of statements about "group IQ" or the presumption that some races are innately more clever than others. If we all got it so shockingly wrong 150 and 100 years ago, and even 50 years ago, then why would we have got it right now?

But there is another, deeper lesson in this book. The people who debased the science of humankind rubbed shoulders with the people who successfully shaped the rest of modern science, from Faraday to Einstein and Dirac, from Thomas Henry Huxley to Watson and Crick.

Scientists find it possible to be objective about the consequences that follow from the discovery of the speed of light in a vacuum, or the architecture of the double helix, or almost any subject except perhaps the human race. But when we look at ourselves, we see from a limited viewpoint.

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan," said Alexander Pope, "The proper study of mankind is Man." Alas, when we contemplate ourselves, we can hardly claim to be objective.

The International Year of Astronomy is drawing to a close, but the great adventure goes on. Next month, we take a look at Seeing And Believing: How the Telescope Opened our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens, Richard Panek's history of the instrument that launched the scientific revolution 400 years ago. The discussion starts on Friday 18 December

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 1:43 am

Ready for "Genesis 2" The Sequel?

Today’s opening of the special-effects-on-steroids film “2012” and accompanying news media frenzy is a reminder of our morbid fascination with end of the world predictions. Now it’s time for me to make my own prognostication. Move over Nostradamus. Rather than ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:56 pm

Report: Toyota plans bigger Prius with new battery (AP)

AP - Toyota is planning a larger version of its popular Prius hybrid, which will be powered by a new kind of battery, a Japanese newspaper reported Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:51 pm

Gene Therapy Brings New Muscle to Monkeys (HealthDay)

HealthDay - THURSDAY, Nov. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers are reporting that injections of genes into the leg muscles of monkeys helped the animals gain muscle size and strength without side effects.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:49 pm

Flight Over Earth's 'East' Pole

The glacier-shrouded mountains of the Tibetan Plateau are sometimes called the Earth's Third Pole. This is because, as reported today by NASA's Earth Observatory, it ranks 3rd -- right after the Antarctic and the Arctic -- for ice content. It's ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 7:51 pm

Welcome to the Clone Farm

ENID, Oklahoma (Reuters) - To the untrained eye, Pollard Farms looks much like any other cattle ranch. Similar looking cows are huddled in similar looking pens. But some of the cattle here don't just resemble each other. They are literally identical -- clear down to their genes.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 6:24 pm

UK climate targets 'unachievable'

UK government plans to make carbon emission cuts of 80% by 2050 are impossible to achieve, according to an analysis.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 6:17 pm

Welcome to the Clone Farm (Reuters)

Reuters - To the untrained eye, Pollard Farms looks much like any other cattle ranch. Similar looking cows are huddled in similar looking pens. But some of the cattle here don't just resemble each other. They are literally identical -- clear down to their genes.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 6:07 pm

Breast cancer: Survivor's view

Hilary Lennon, 66, underwent reconstructive surgery in November 2004, a month after being diagnosed with breast cancer. "My tumour was 2.2cm long. The first thing the surgeon said was, 'Big tumour, small breast mastectomy.' I was in shock. But I'd seen a friend who had lost a breast and I was determined there was no way I was losing mine."

Lennon, a former teacher from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, underwent a quadrantectomy and latissimus dorsi flap, a procedure in which part of the breast is removed and then muscle from the patient's back is used to rebuild it.

"The surgeon was brilliant but it was a long and intricate operation," she said. "There were complications. They had to delay my chemotherapy because my wound didn't heal and had to be scraped and sewn up again.

"It doesn't look particularly good now and I have to wear a prosthesis. I've suffered pain in my back and my shoulder. I can't swim, and I can't use a computer or drive for a long time.

"My daughter, who was diagnosed a year after me, had a double mastectomy and she's also having problems. If this treatment had been on offer it would have been wonderful. It would be fantastic if you could basically grow your own new breast.

"The surgery was the right decision at the time but in retrospect it was not the right decision. I have pain, but it's not major pain. I'm glad to be alive."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Nov 2009 | 5:53 pm

'Big drop' in Amazon deforestation

The rate of deforestation in the Amazon drops by 45% to the lowest on record, Brazil's government says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 5:38 pm

Fewer tress cut down in Brazil's Amazon jungle (AFP)

AFP - Brazil's sprawling Amazon jungle this year lost 7,000 square kilometers (2,700 square miles) of rain forest, a huge area but also a whopping 45 percent drop from 2008 losses, an official reported Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 5:19 pm

Under-18s face ban on using sunbeds

• Legislation planned after voluntary action by industry fails
• Studies show worrying levels of sunbed use by young people

Under-18s will be banned from visiting sunbed salons in a move by the government to reduce the risk of young people developing skin cancer.

Gillian Merron, the public health minister, said that voluntary action by the sunbed industry to stop children had failed and that ministers planned to introduce legislation to tackle the problem.

The proposed ban comes as research reported in today's British Medical Journal shows that more than 250,000 children aged 11-17 in England are thought to use sunbeds. It shows that up to half of all girls aged 15-17 in some areas undergo artificial tanning, which experts warn seriously increases the risk of malignant melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer.

Two studies of children's tanning habits highlighted in the BMJ, which were government-funded and commissioned by Cancer Research UK (CRUK), found that 6% of 9,000 children aged 11-17 interviewed had used a sunbed. The average age of first use was 14, they found. If translated across England that would mean that around 250,000 children in that age group had done so. Girls, children of both sexes from deprived communities and those in the north of England are disproportionately likely to use sunbeds.

"We are determined to protect young people from the dangers of using sunbeds," said Merron. "Cancer Research UK's report clearly shows worrying levels of sunbed use by under-18s. The report confirms that voluntary action by the industry is not protecting young people, and points to the need to introduce legislation."

The Department of Health said: "We are currently looking at options on how to introduce such a ban on under-18s using commercial sunbeds."

Jenny Morris, of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), said: "These numbers are appalling. We must act now to limit the future damage to health. The CIEH has long campaigned to ban the use of sunbeds by under-18s and the provision of unsupervised facilities, and to ensure facilities provide supervision by well-trained staff. Scotland has taken action, Wales has made a firm commitment to take action. England should act swiftly to ensure it does not offer lower levels of protection."

The health department decided to act after growing concern about the links between sunbed use and later development of malignant melanoma, which is four times more common now than in the 1970s. Rates are rising four times faster than for any other type of cancer. More than 10,400 cases were diagnosed in the UK in 2006, 10% of which were in under-35s. The disease, the riskiest and most lethal form of skin cancer, kills more than 2,000 people a year. Some teenagers have suffered horrendous burns after visiting sunbed salons, especially coin-operated premises with no staff.

Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: "We would rightly be horrified if children had such easy access to cigarettes, so there is no reason why sunbeds should be any different, given that we know they can cause cancer."

However, Merron's pledge covers only commercial tanning places, such as high street salons and leisure centres. Today's research shows that 23.2% of children who use sunbeds do so at home. The move also does not meet the demands of bodies such as CRUK and the CIEH for more wide-ranging action, including the closure of unsupervised sunbed premises and ensuring that local authority enforcement officers can inspect salons to ensure minimum standards are being upheld.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organisation's cancer arm, recently declared ultraviolet radiation exposure, including radiation from sunbeds, to be "carcinogenic to humans". And the government's own adviser, the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, has also previously called for tough action against sunbeds.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm

Broken Urine Recycler May Affect Space Mission (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A broken device that recycles astronaut urine into clean drinking water on the International Space Station may have a slight impact to life onboard next week when NASA's shuttle Atlantis arrives to boost the number of people there to 12.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm

Brazil: Deforestation sees biggest drop in 20 yrs (AP)

AP - Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped nearly 46 percent from August 2008 to July 2009 — the biggest annual decline in two decades, the government said Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 3:59 pm

New Brain Cells May Knock Out Old Memories

Old memories may get the boot from new brain cells.

A new rodent study shows that newborn neurons destabilize established connections among existing brain cells in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory. Clearing old memories from the hippocampus makes way for new learning, researchers from Japan suggest in the November 13 Cell.

Other researchers had proposed the idea that neurogenesis, the birth of new neurons, could disrupt existing memories, but the Cell paper is the first to show evidence supporting the idea, says Paul Frankland, a neuroscientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Scientists have known that memories first form in the hippocampus and are later transferred to long-term storage in other parts of the brain. For some amount of time the memory resides both in the hippocampus and elsewhere in the brain. What’s not been known is how, after a few months or years, the memory is gradually cleared from the hippocampus.

Researchers have also debated the role of neurogenesis in learning and memory. The hippocampus is one of only two places in the adult brain where scientists know that new neurons form. On the basis of previous studies, many researchers think new neurons stabilize memory circuits or are somehow otherwise necessary to form new memories.

The new study suggests the opposite: Newborn neurons weaken or disrupt connections that encode old memories in the hippocampus.

Kaoru Inokuchi, a neuroscientist at the University of Toyama in Japan, and his colleagues used radiation and some genetic tricks to block neurogenesis in rats and mice that had been trained to fear getting a mild electric shock when placed in a particular cage. Control animals, with normal neurogenesis, eventually were able to bypass their hippocampi and retrieve the fear memory directly from long-term storage. But animals in which neurogenesis had been blocked still depended on the hippocampus to recall the fear memory, the researchers found.

Running on an exercise wheel, which boosts neurogenesis, also sped the rate at which old memories were cleared from the hippocampus.

But that doesn’t mean new neurons aren’t necessary to teach old brains new tricks, says Inokuchi.

“Our findings do not necessarily deny the important role of neurogenesis in memory acquisition,” Inokuchi says. “Hippocampal neurogenesis could have both of these roles, in erasing old memories and acquiring new memories.”

Essentially, the new neurons may aid formation of new memories by keeping the hippocampus from filling up with old ones.

Frankland adds, “This is about as novel as it gets in the field of neurogenesis and memory. It pretty much represents an entirely new framework that other researchers will chip away at for years to come.”

Image: Hippocampal neuron/NIH

See Also:

• Memory Switch Could Enable Brain Hacks
• The Messy Future of Memory-Editing Drugs
• Memory Disruption Could Aid Addicts
• Video: US Memory Champ Helps You Program Your Memory
• Marijuana Could Be Good for Memory — But Not if You Get High …

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Nov 2009 | 3:44 pm

'Project Get Ready' Got Set and Went in Houston

Houston is making an electric vehicle recharge grid. How do you actually go about accomplishing such a massive undertaking? By starting somewhere. By doing something. This month the City of Houston will unveil ten charging stations to go with their ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 3:13 pm

NASA to try to free stuck Mars rover Spirit (AP)

AP - For NASA's stuck Mars rover, the Spirit may be willing, but the wheels could prove too weak. The space agency on Thursday outlined a rescue plan to try to free the rover Spirit, which has been bogged in a sand trap on the red planet for half a year. The risky operation is expected to last several months.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pm

Comet Hunter’s Last Look at Earth Is Haunting

This gorgeous image of a blue arc of the Earth against the blackness of space was captured by the Rosetta spacecraft as it swung by our planet.

The European Space Agency mission is on its way to intercept the comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The ship will deploy a lander onto the comet’s surface, the first such attempt to be made.

To gather up the necessary energy to reach the comet out past Mars’ orbit, Rosetta needed three swings past Earth. This is its third and final flyby. It will reach the comet in early 2014.

Unlike the most famous pictures of Earth, which show most of the blue marble, this photo presents a planet in darkness, just the South Pole awash in light.

Image: ESA. High-resolution image of planet Earth from Rosetta.

See Also:

• Out of the Blue: Islands Seen From Space
• Stunning Views of Glaciers Seen From Space
• Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space
• Erupting Volcanoes on Earth as Seen From Space
• First-Ever Asteroid Tracked From Space to Earth
• Time-Series Photos From Space of Aral Sea Death

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 | 12 Nov 2009 | 2:51 pm

Show Him the Money

Via New Scientist's awesome new blog, Culture Lab, we learn that controversial conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has turned his keen post-modernist eye to constructing a new economy based on (I kid you not) antimatter. For those unfamiliar with his work, ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 2:43 pm

Underwater Glider Hunts, Records Cryptic Whales

The mysterious beaked whale is the target of a new undersea glider trying to track the deep-diving mammals by their high-frequency clicks and squeals.

A Seaglider unmanned underwater vehicle with an underwater microphone began patrolling the coast of Hawaii on October 27 and will finish up its initial mission on November 17. By then, it will have collected half a terabyte of data.

By applying software that automatically picks up beaked whale sounds from the rest of the sounds of the ocean, the researchers hope to gain a deeper understanding of how these rare whales live.

“They live far off shore, and they are not very obvious. When they surface, they are only up for a second or so and they are hard to see,” said Dave Mellinger, a marine scientist at Oregon State University who focuses on the automatic detection of whales from acoustic signals. “They are pretty cryptic. That makes them good acoustic candidates.”

The Seaglider is one of a host of new acoustic tracking tools that are helping scientists better understand the behavior of deep sea whales. Using autonomous underwater gliders, hydrophones, and sophisticated algorithms, they are a key tool in the race to map where whales live while whales are still living. For example, dedicated-listening buoys help protect right whales near Cape Cod while providing valuable scientific data.

The beaked whale appears to be particularly sensitive to the powerful sonar used by the world’s naval fleets. Over the past decade, dozens of these rare whales have died in a series of incidents that seem linked to naval exercises, even if it’s hard to prove the connection.

The carcasses that wash up on shore are consistent with the hypothesis that the whales respond to the sonar by surfacing too quickly, inducing the bends (.pdf). Nitrogen, and other gases that had been dissolved into the liquids inside their bodies by the high-pressure at depth, transform back into gas as the pressure is released. If they rise too fast, the amount of gas overwhelms the body’s natural systems for expelling it, causing bubbles to form in the bloodstream and tissues.

The only sure way to make sure that the whales aren’t injured by military sonar use is to ensure that there aren’t any whales in the area when the naval soundings occur. But that would require figuring out how to find and track the whales, which has proven difficult. It’s a big ocean and the high-frequency noises they make don’t carry in the water like the bass calls of a blue whale or humpback.

The U.S. Office of Naval Research, though, has been pouring money into learning more about the whales. Mellinger’s project received $1.5 million.

“We’ve been focusing on beaked whales because of the conservation implications of being able to find them,” Mellinger said.

A single glider can’t provide the breadth of monitoring they would need, but it’s possible fleets of gliders could.

The next step for Mellinger and his teammates could be to integrate and calibrate their data with information from U.S. Navy hydrophone arrays. Most of the Navy’s systems can’t record the high frequencies used by the beaked whales to locate their small squid prey, but some are sensitive enough to use.

“What we’d like to do is track a beaked whale using the Navy hydrophones and have a glider operating nearby,” he said. “We’re hoping to do that next year.”

via Rex Dalton/Nature

See Also:

• Male Humpback Whales Sing Duets
• Whales Might Be as Much Like People as Apes Are
• Unique Killer-Whale Pod Doomed by Exxon Valdez
• Hidden Whale Culture Could Be Critical to Species Survival
• Bird Cam Captures Albatross, Killer Whale Rendezvous
• Supreme Court: National Security Trumps Whales, Environmental Law
• Hydrophones Help Scientists Pinpoint, Protect Right Whales
• World’s Freakiest Worm Gets Expanded Family Tree

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 | 12 Nov 2009 | 2:21 pm

Origin of Household Dust Pinned Down (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - No matter how much you clean, dust always comes back, and you might have wondered how it all gets there. Now, researchers have created a new computer model to explain what happens.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 2:06 pm

Greenland ice loss 'accelerating'

Satellites, models and ground stations give scientists a better view than ever before of how the Greenland icecap is melting.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 1:29 pm

T. Rex Finally Has a Buyer, We Just Don’t Know Who

The Tyrannosaurus rex that was featured in a Las Vegas auction in October finally has a home. We just can’t tell you where.

Samson, as the giant fossil is affectionately known, failed to fetch enough at the live auction to satisfy the owner. In October, Tom Lindgren, who curated the natural history auction for Bonhams & Butterfields, estimated the skeleton was worth between $2 million and $8 million and could go for more than $10 million.

Now the auction house says it has a new owner, but won’t reveal who that is just yet.

“Bonhams & Butterfields was very pleased by the post-auction interest and ultimate sale price, and we expect ‘Samson’ to be displayed publicly in the future,” Lindgren said in a press release.

We hope he’s right. Of the 46 T. rex skeletons unearthed to date, Samson is the third most complete and has what may be the finest skull. It would be disappointing if such a beautiful, rare fossil wasn’t kept in a public setting where it can be properly admired.

The October auction featured around 50 awesome specimens, some of which sold at impressive prices, including a $485,000 duck-billed dinosaur.

See Also:

• Third Most Complete T. Rex to Be Auctioned in Vegas
• Want Your Own Dinosaur? Place Your Bids
• 4-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap
• Fossil Catches Dinosaur Red-Handed, Evolving Into Bird
• For Sale: Slightly Used Spacesuit, $500K OBO

Follow us on Twitter @betsymason and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:50 pm

Spirit's Last Stand?

After almost six years exploring the surface of Mars, NASA’s intrepid rover Spirit may have settled in its final resting place. NASA is not overly optimistic attempts to free the rover from a sand pit, where its been stuck for ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pm

Canada doctor uses glue to aid open-heart recovery

TORONTO (Reuters) - A new surgical technique using glue to repair breastbones intentionally broken during open-heart surgery speeds up recovery time and is "substantially less painful" for patients, a University of Calgary scientist said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm

Scientists Rush to Save World's Smallest Rhino

The world's smallest rhinoceros, the Sabah rhino, is very close to extinction. The following release and images from Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB) detail how scientists are teaming up to save the tiny rhino. International scientists and zoo experts started together ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:18 pm

Record-high U.S. temps outpace record lows: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In another sign of a warming planet, there were twice as many record-high temperatures in the United States as record lows over the last decade, climate scientists reported on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:07 pm

Greenland ice loss accelerating: study

OSLO (Reuters) - Greenland's ice losses are accelerating and nudging up sea levels, according to a study showing that icebergs breaking away and meltwater runoff are equally to blame for the shrinking ice sheet.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Nov 2009 | 12:04 pm

Rosetta makes final home call

Europe's Rosetta probe is making its final Earth flyby as it seeks to position itself to chase down a comet in 2014.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 11:54 am

Video Close-Up: The Sun’s Surface in Swirling Detail

A telescope carried by balloon to the edge of Earth’s stratosphere has returned the most detailed video of the sun’s surface to date.

Released Wednesday by an international research team led by astronomers from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the video shows what the naked human eye could never see, even if we could look at the sun without blinding ourselves.

Near-ultraviolet wavelengths and magnetic fields are visualized on the video, which is all the more clear because telescope’s stratospheric positioning puts it beyond the light-scattering veil of Earth’s atmosphere.

If you can’t get enough solar video, then check out the footage below, which was taken by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft and released in October. It takes a wide-angle perspective, and shows filaments formed by cooling gas and bound by magnetic fields as they waft across the sun.

Videos: 1. Max Planck Institute 2. NASA

See Also:

• Photo: The Sun Gets Its Spots (Back)
• Big Solar Flare Portends Sun’s Return to Normal
• Photo: Docked Space Shuttle and Station Cross the Sun
• How NPR Stays on Air as Sun Blanks Sat Transmission
• First View of the Dark Side of the Sun

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 | 12 Nov 2009 | 11:12 am

Bounce-Less Bungee Cord Promises Gentler Jump

A synthetic material modeled after the egg cases of snails could have a range of applications from bungee cords to artificial ligaments.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

Space Station Gets New Parking Space

A Russian docking port arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, becoming the 11th module to be hooked up to the orbiting outpost. The new room, named Poisk -- a Russian word for "search" -- will double as a ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:59 am

Find H1N1 Vaccine Through Google

I'm recovering from a cold. Some sniffling, coughing. When I first came down with the symptoms this past Monday, I thought for sure I had the flu. I was achey, had the chills. Of course, the first thing I thought ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:25 am

Secret Math of Fly Eyes Could Overhaul Robot Vision

By turning the brain cell activity underlying fly eyesight into mathematical equations, researchers have found an ultra-efficient method for pulling motion patterns from raw visual data.

Though they built the system, the researchers don’t quite understand how it works. But however mysterious the equations may be, they could still be used to program the vision systems of miniaturized battlefield drones, search-and-rescue robots, automobile navigation systems and other systems where computational power is at a premium.

“We can build a system that works perfectly well, inspired by biology, without having a complete understanding of how the components interact. It’s a non-linear system,” said David O’Carroll, a computational neuroscientist who studies insect vision at Australia’s University of Adelaide. “The number of computations involved is quite small. We can get an answer using tens of thousands of times less floating-point computations than in traditional ways.”

The best-known of these is the Lucas-Kanade method, which calculates yaw — up-and-down, side-to-side motion changes — by comparing, frame by frame, how every pixel in a visual field changes. It’s used for steering and guidance in many experimental unmanned vehicles, but its brute-force approach requires lots of processing power, making it impractical in smaller systems.

In order to make smaller flying robots, researchers would like to find a simpler way of processing motion. Inspiration has come from the lowly fly, which uses just a relative handful of neurons to maneuver with extraordinary dexterity. And for more than a decade, O’Carroll and other researchers researchers have painstakingly studied the optical flight circuits of flies, measuring their cell-by-cell activity and turning evolution’s solutions into a set of computational principles.

In a paper published Friday in Public Library of Science Computational Biology, O’Carroll and fellow University of Adelaide biologist Russell Brinkworth put these methods to the test.

“A laptop computer uses tens of watts of power. Implementing what we’ve developed can be done with chips that consume just a fraction of a milliwatt,” said O’Carroll.

The researchers’ algorithm is composed of a series of five equations through which data from cameras can be run. Each equation represents tricks used by fly circuits to handle changing levels of brightness, contrast and motion, and their parameters constantly shift in response to input. Unlike Lucas-Kanade, the algorithm doesn’t return a frame-by-frame comparison of every last pixel, but emphasizes large-scale patterns of change. In this sense, it works a bit like video-compression systems that ignore like-colored, unshifting areas.

To test the algorithm, O’Carroll and Brinkworth analyzed animated high-resolution images with a program of the sort that might operate in a robot. When they compared the results to the inputs, they found that it worked in a range of natural lighting conditions, varying in ways that usually baffle motion detectors.

“It’s amazing work,” said Sean Humbert, a University of Maryland aerospace engineer who builds miniaturized, autonomous flying robots, some of which run on earlier versions of O’Carroll’s algorithm. “For traditional navigational sensing, you need lots of payload to do the computation. But the payload on these robots is very small — a gram, a couple of Tic Tacs. You’re not going to stuff dual-core processors into a couple Tic Tacs. The algorithms that insects use are very simple compared to the stuff we design, and would scale down to small vehicles.”

Intriguingly, the algorithm doesn’t work nearly as well if any one operation is omitted. The sum is greater than the whole, and O’Carroll and Brinkworth don’t know why. Because the parameters are in constant feedback-driven flux, it produces a cascade of non-linear equations that are difficult to untangle in retrospect, and almost impossible to predict.

“We started with insect vision as an inspiration, and built a model that’s feasible for real-world use, but in doing so, we’ve built a system almost as complicated as the insect’s,” said O’Carroll. “That’s one of the fascinating things here. It doesn’t necessarily lead us to a complete understanding of how the system works, but to an appreciation that nature got it right.”

The researchers drew their algorithm from neural circuits attuned to side-to-side yaw, but O’Carroll said the same types of equations are probably used in computing other optical flows, such as those produced by moving forward and backwards through three-dimensional space.

“That’s more challenging,” said O’Carroll. “It may involve a few extra neurons.”

Images: 1) Flickr/Tambako the Jaguar. 2) PLoS Computational Biology.

See Also:

• Blowflies Get Virtual Reality in Flight Simulator
• Scientists Mimic Beetle’s Liquid Cannon
• To Build a Better Bridge, Make Like a Conch
• Mantis Shrimp Eyes Might Inspire New High-Def Devices
• Secret Law of Flying Could Inspire Better Robots

Citation: “Robust Models for Optic Flow Coding in Natural Scenes Inspired by Insect Biology.” By Russell S. A. Brinkworth, David C. O’Carroll. PLoS Computation Biology, November 6, 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 | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:21 am

Cell Phone Use Linked to Brain Changes

Study finds an association between cell phone use and an increased amount of a protein called transthyretin in the blood.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:20 am

We're Feeling the Heat

The warming climate is making itself felt in the daily weather across the United States, tilting the odds in favor of a daily record high temperature to two-to-one over a record low. In a world without a warming climate, the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Nov 2009 | 10:11 am

New Method to Regrow Breasts After Surgery

A stem-cell procedure could allow women to regrow breasts after a mastectomy.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:21 am

Indian elephants to go from zoos

The Central Zoo Authority in India confirms to the BBC that elephants will no longer be allowed to be kept by zoos or circuses in the country.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

Critics Challenge 'Dog Whisperer' Methods

Dog training techniques on the hit show are found to be questionable.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 8:05 am

NASA to Subject Monkeys to Radiation

NASA plans to subject a group of monkeys to radiation to study what might happen to humans on long-term space missions, such as trips to the moon and Mars.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 7:55 am

Origin of Household Dust Pinned Down

A new computer model that simulates how dust comes into and out of homes may help communities dealing with contaminated waste sites
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 7:31 am

The misuses of Darwin

The idea that Darwin is to blame for high school massacres and far-right politics is a huge intellectual mistake

For evolutionary scientists there is no such thing as "Darwinism". Instead we have a scientific theory that, in combination with Mendel's work, provides the modern or neo-Darwinian synthesis, which explains the development of life on Earth. Although this is a rather succinct definition it effectively sets the limits of the usefulness of Darwin's theory. However, in the last 150 years, there have been many attempts to take Darwin's idea and apply it outside of the context for which it was developed, hence the influence of social "Darwinism" on concepts such as eugenics and a more recent Darwinian nihilism that absolves the individual of any moral or social responsibility.

There is an inherent danger in extrapolating science beyond the realm for which it was intended, but ironically this human trait is perhaps best understood as an evolutionary hangover from the development of our massively expanded brainpower. We have an innate need to expand and develop ideas in order to explain our wider existence or justify our behaviours.

This inherent danger of using Darwin's theory outside of its biological context has lead to attempts to portray Darwin as the de facto cause of 20th century genocide: see, for example, Andre Pichot's book The Pure Society. There is a fallacy at the core of this line of thinking – can scientists really be held responsible for what is done with their ideas when they are misunderstood and corrupted by groups such as the Nazis? I would argue that they cannot: the actions of criminals do not need such highbrow justification and trying to do so merely lends a pseudo-scientific veneer the actions of the Third Reich.

A newer and perhaps more insidious attempt to blame "Darwinism" for human atrocity comes in the form of Dennis Sewell's book The Political Gene: How Darwin's Ideas Changed Politics. Sewell cites Darwin's work as the reason for the development of something that he broadly categorises as a form of moral detachment from societal rules and norms: evolution is random and without purpose therefore I can do whatever I please. He argues that this moral vacuum can lead to disturbed teenagers perpetrating horrific crimes such as the Columbine school massacre. Sewell does not propose that Darwin's theory leads inevitably to such actions, however he suggests that some of Darwin's other writings were racist and not in keeping with modern views. This is hardly a stunning revelation: Darwin was a man of his time and of his society. Sewell is making a common mistake in grafting the faults and flaws of Darwin the man onto Darwinian evolution. Darwin the man has been venerated and condemned during the 2009 celebrations – surely it is now time to move on from either hero worship or iconoclasm to a more nuanced view, just as evolutionary biology has developed since 1859.

An interesting parallel can be seen in how Islamists subvert the essentially peaceful message of Islam into a justification for violence and vitriolic hate. One can no more blame the actions of misguided Islamists on Muhammad than the Nazis or high school shooters can be blamed on Darwin.

Humans have a tremendous capacity for selflessness and creativity but we also have an equally developed ability to cause destruction and misery. Both extremes are a result of our evolutionary heritage. If we blame Darwin for the dark side of human nature, logically we must also credit him with all that is good.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Nov 2009 | 7:14 am

The Science Behind 'Stop Me If I've Told You This'

We might not be wired to remember to whom we tell information.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 6:45 am

One Key Found for Living to 100

An inherited cellular repair mechanism thwarts aging and perhaps helps prevent disease.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Nov 2009 | 6:45 am

Breast regrowth procedure trialled for mastectomy patients

Human trials to begin of surgical treatment that could allow women to regrow their breasts after a mastectomy

Scientists have developed a revolutionary surgical treatment that could allow women with cancer to regrow their breasts after a mastectomy.

Human trials for the procedure, which scientists hope could replace breast reconstructions and implants, will start within three to six months, it was revealed in Melbourne, Australia. It is likely to be three years before the technique is fully developed, researchers said.

The procedure involves inserting a biodegradable chamber into the woman's chest, contoured to match her natural breast shape and containing stem cells from her own fat tissue. These cells will divide and grow to recreate the permanent fat found in breasts.

Phillip Marzella, of the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery, said in an interview with ABC radio: "We are starting what is called a prototype trial in the next three to six months – a proof of principle trial with about five to six women just to demonstrate that the body can regrow its own fat supply in the breast. Rather than have silicone implant or more complex surgery, we implant them with a device that we've developed."

The first trials would involve a non-biodegradable chamber, Marzella said. "What we are hoping to do in the next two years is develop a biodegradable chamber so that the fat can grow inside the chamber and then the chamber will vanish naturally."

Two approaches were involved, he said. "One is actually that nature abhors a vacuum so the chamber itself, because it is empty, it tends to be filled in by the body on itself. The second approach we have also developed is a gel-like substance that we can inject inside the chamber and that can also stimulate that growth.

"We will know within three to four months that you are actually getting fat and we are hoping to get a fully formed fat within six to eight months."

Preclinical tests in animals encouraged the researchers to be confident about starting human trials. Similar techniques had been tried for the bladder, but this was the first time a procedure had been developed for the breast, Marzella said.

"We are hoping to move on to other organs using the same principle – a chamber that protects and contains cells as they grow and they restore their normal function. So it is a pretty major leap for regenerative surgery and medicine."

Marzella said the procedure could replace breast reconstructions and implants within three years if it worked.

"We are hoping to be with a biodegradable prototype within 24 months, so at the end of these three years we will have to have another half a dozen patients. Certainly [it] doesn't relieve [patients] of the trauma of the cancer but it could be offering patients an alternative and some sort of relief from the diagnosis of breast cancer to know that they can regrow the breast."

He said the procedure had potential for cosmetic surgery, although he did not see it being used for such purposes in the near future.

"Certainly the same principle can be used for defects, so people that might have lost a piece of a face or the end of the nose, we are thinking we can use the same technology using a biodegradable scaffold that can then be filled with the patient's own tissue and cells," he said.

"In terms of the cosmetic use, we probably don't envisage this in the next five to 10 years, so I think in the first instance [it is] very much reconstructive therapies that would benefit from it."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Nov 2009 | 5:04 am

Depression's punitive conscience | Dorothy Rowe

Robert Enke's tragic death stemmed from a need to self-punish familiar to anyone who's suffered depression

Among the many critics of Gordon Brown's letter of condolence to Jacqui Janes, whose 20-year-old son was killed in Helmand, were those whose criticism implied that Brown should not have claimed to be able to empathise with a mother who young adult son had died. After all, his firstborn child had died 10 days after birth, while James Janes was a young man with his adult life ahead of him. Such an attitude shows a complete lack of understanding of how many parents feel about their children. It also shows an ignorance of what happens to many good, obedient children who grow up to be conscientious, self-critical adults.

Good people believe that, as they are, they are not good enough. They must work hard to become better but, as much as they try, they can never really succeed. They have set themselves standards that are impossible to reach. Robert Enke was one such person. To become a world-class sportsman or woman, a person has to work unceasingly to become better. There can be no sitting back and taking it easy. The person has to take responsibility for reaching and maintaining the highest standards. Their strictest and most demanding coach is inside their head. Strict, demanding coaches punish failure. If you believe that, as you are, you are not good enough and you have to work hard to be good, that, for you, the only acceptable standard is perfection, you don't need someone else to punish you. You do it to yourself. I have often wondered how many of the injuries Jonny Wilkinson has suffered were him punishing himself. At least Jonny's conscience lets him expiate his sin of not being perfect by enduring a period of suffering. Robert Enke's cruel, punitive conscience told him that he was so wicked he did not deserve to live.

When we turn against ourselves and hate ourselves, we create the prison of depression. There is never any point in telling a depressed person who is in the depths of depression that they should not be so hard on themselves. In saying this, you reveal that you do not maintain the high standards that the depressed person does and in which the depressed person takes great pride. Enke must have been told many times that he should take life easy by someone who did not know that his cruel, punitive conscience would become even more so if he dared to rest.

Good people with punitive consciences are experts in finding things about which to feel guilty. They cannot accept that there are many events that are the result of chance. When they become parents, they are presented with a cornucopia of things about which to feel guilty. If their baby dies, they blame themselves. Gordon Brown's Presbyterian conscience would have told him to inspect himself and find the fault that led to Jennifer's death. Perhaps he blamed himself for being so old when he became a father. Enke would have heard all the critical voices from his childhood telling him how wicked he was. When the people around Brown and Enke told them that their pain would pass, that they should "come to terms with their loss" and "get on with their life", Brown and Enke would have known that the people around them did not understand what their suffering was. Many parents love their children before they are born. Their death is a loss for which there is no recompense, no reward, but is a loss that must be endured for the rest of their life. Jacqui Janes had other people she could blame for her son's death, but Brown and Enke blamed themselves. Brown saw his task as having to work harder and get things right, while Enke saw himself as not deserving to live. So he walked up the track to welcome the oncoming train.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Nov 2009 | 4:30 am

Deepest southern hemisphere fish caught on camera

The deepest living fish ever spotted in the southern hemisphere are caught on camera.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 4:07 am

Bees captured on film fighting to death over females

In a rare example of a species killing each other en masse, male Dawson's bees are filmed in deadly combat in a bid to mate with females.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Nov 2009 | 3:08 am

Sniff test to preserve old books

The 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