Newly Discovered Mechanism Of Insulin Production Could Lead To Better Treatment For Diabetes

How a specific gene within the pancreas affects secretion of insulin has been discovered. The work opens the way for a new understanding of possible paths to battle diabetes and diabetes-related health problems, which are on the rise all over the world.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

Gene Knockout May Cheer Up Mice

A gene in the brain that was not previously linked to mood disorders could have a role in biopolar, depression, and schizophrenic conditions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

Thinking Of A Loved One Can Reduce Your Pain

The mere thought of your loved one can reduce your pain, psychologists report. The study involved 25 women who had boyfriends with whom they had been in a good relationship for more than six months.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

Canada: Alberta's Hidden Valleys Offer Both Resources And Danger

Alberta is crisscrossed with hidden glacial valleys that hold both resource treasures and potential danger. Researchers discovered a 300-meter-deep valley hidden beneath the surface of the ground near the community of Rainbow Lake in northwestern Alberta.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

Researchers Mobilizing Global Resources To Test New Treatments For Severe H1N1 Infection

An important, ground-breaking initiative is unfolding in the global critical care community in response to the H1N1 pandemic. While front-line health-care workers and infectious disease experts around the world are working round the clock to control, treat and prevent H1N1 infection, those who deal with the most severely ill patients -- physicians working in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) -- have joined forces to develop a more coordinated, long-term approach to H1N1.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

Green Heating And Cooling Technology Turns Carbon From Eco-villain To Hero

Carbon is usually typecast as a villain in terms of the environment but researchers have now devised a novel way to miniaturize a technology that will make carbon a key material in some extremely green heating products for our homes and in air conditioning equipment for our cars.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

New Way To Biopsy Brain Tumors In Real Time

A new miniature, hand-held microscope may allow more precise removal of brain tumors and an easier recognition of tumor locations during surgery.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Gene Therapy Can Improves Muscle Mass And Strength In Monkeys, Research Suggests

Scientists are one step closer to clinical trials to test a gene delivery strategy to improve muscle mass and function in patients with certain degenerative muscle disorders.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Routine Evaluation Of Prostate Size Not As Effective In Cancer Screening, Study Finds

New research studied the association between prostate-specific antigen levels and prostate size and found that routine annual evaluation of prostate growth is not necessarily a predictor for the development of prostate cancer. However, the study suggests that if a man's PSA level is rising quickly, a prostate biopsy is reasonable to determine if he has prostate cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Lightning Strike In Africa Helps Take Pulse Of Sun

Scientists have developed a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun's rotation when sunspots aren't visible ---- and even when they are -- based on observations of common lightning strikes on Earth.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water (AP)

AP - The lunar dud for space enthusiasts has become a watershed event for NASA.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:29 am

Brazil to offer carbon cut of 36% at UN climate meet (AFP)

AFP - Brazil said Friday it would offer a "voluntary" cut of at least 36 percent in greenhouse gas emissions at the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen next month.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 3:06 am

"Kyoto principles" crucial in climate talks: China (Reuters)

Reuters - China will insist the main principles of the Kyoto Protocol are retained in any new global climate change pact, even though others are seeking to abandon them, a high-ranking climate official on Saturday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Nov 2009 | 2:53 am

Hawaii planning to replenish sand at Waikiki Beach (AP)

AP - Hawaii officials are appealing to the state's tourism authority for funds to restore part of world-famous Waikiki Beach.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:45 pm

Judge says seals can stay in California cove (AP)

AP - The seals can stay and play at a La Jolla swimming cove.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:07 pm

NASA finds water on the moon (AFP)

AFP - A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency said heralding a giant leap forward in space exploration and boosting hopes of a permanent lunar base.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 7:11 pm

Brazil proposes carbon cut target

Brazil offers to cut carbon emissions by 36% by 2020, in an attempt to encourage richer nations to reveal their plans.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 6:14 pm

Nasa strikes water after crashing spacecraft into moon

• Scientists say significant amounts of liquid found
• Mission may shed light on evolution of solar system

It might not be quite as exciting as life on Mars, but water on the moon is surely the next best thing. Nasa scientists yesterday announced that a probe that was deliberately crashed into the moon's southern polar region last month discovered at least 25 gallons of water.

"Yes, we found water," said Anthony Colaprete, a principal project investigator at Nasa's Ames research centre in California. "We didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount."

Scientists hailed the discovery as a success and finding water is a huge boost for future missions. Most believe the likeliest places for water are at the poles of the moon, where there are craters in permanent shadow.

Scientists hope future study of the probe's findings could shed light on the evolution of the solar system, in the same way as an ice core sample taken from deep beneath the earth's surface reveals data on ancient geological events.

The discovery of water is a result of preliminary analysis of data from the lunar crater observation and sensing satellite (Lcross). The probe and an accompanying rocket, Centaur, were deliberately crashed into the Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole and scientists have been studying the resulting plume of lunar dust for the past few weeks.

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbour and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbours many secrets, and Lcross has added a new layer to our understanding," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at Nasa's headquarters in Washington.

Lcross's spectrometer instrument examined light absorbed by the dust particles to determine their composition and discovered a chemical compound emitted when sunlight breaks up water molecules. The probe discovered an estimated 25 gallons of water, Colaprete said.

"We are ecstatic," said Colaprete. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high-angle vapour plume and the ejecta curtain created by the Lcross Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."

But Robert Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland and prominent sceptic of manned space flight, said the discovery means "practically nothing" to future hopes of a base or colony on the lunar surface.

"They've haven't found a big reservoir of it," he said. "I suspect this is just water clinging to the soil particles. It's of almost no value at all. The amount of machinery you'd have to move up there to try to recover it – you'd have to do a lot before you could pay for the cost of that."

The Lcross and Centaur spacecraft launched in June and travelled nearly 5.6m miles before separating on the final approach to the moon. Nasa heavily promoted the mission, which occurred during celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.

On 9 October as the craft neared the moon, Americans gathered on lawns and in parks overnight, awaiting a fireworks display. They were disappointed when the impact was invisible to the naked eye about 250,000 miles away.

The Nasa mission confirmed a previous discovery announced in September by an Indian space mission, Chandrayaan-1, which found small amounts of water in the lunar soil.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:41 pm

This column will change your life: Anger | Oliver Burkeman

Is it the best fun you can have with your clothes on?

Certain facts about human psychology are so obvious, so undeniable, that they become invisible, and we act as if they weren't true at all. For example: anger can be fun. "It feels a lot like the first rush of an opiate – a tingling warmth on the insides of your elbows and wrists, in the back of your knees," the American cartoonist Tim Kreider wrote in a recent essay, looking back at the years he spent eviscerating the Bush administration. "Once I realised I enjoyed anger, I noticed how much time I spent experiencing it. If you're anything like me, you spend about 87% of your mental life winning imaginary arguments that are never actually going to take place."

I'm not quite at 87%, but I know what he means. In so many ways, a world without provocations to anger — without the Daily Mail, or leaky headphones on public transport, or Daniel Hannan MEP, or people who use the phrase "going forward" — would be a vastly preferable one. But in another, almost secret way, it wouldn't. 

Most people, of course, will agree that anger isn't all bad: it can be justified, and righteous, and it can be a motivator to actions that need to be taken. A total inability to feel it, whatever the circumstance, would surely count as a psychological problem. But we rarely acknowledge that it can be a pleasure we seek out. Paul McKenna has yet to write a bestseller entitled I Can Make You Angry. "We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy involuntary reaction to negative stimuli thrust upon us by the world we live in, like pain or nausea," Kreider wrote, "rather than admit that it's a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again." Anger swells the ego; it enhances our feelings of being in control, energised, and alive.

And yet it may even be more than a fleeting pleasure: it may be a route to a kind of fulfilment. One recent study, probing the life-satisfaction levels of political activists, suggests that those driven to protest and demonstrate are happier than those who aren't. (To be fair, the idea that activists are more often angry than others remains speculation, but it's not an unreasonable one.) Campaigners aren't just acting with a sense of regrettable necessity, but are deriving real payoffs. Saul Alinsky, the godfather of leftwing activism, saw this well. "People hunger for drama and adventure, for a breath of life in a dreary, drab existence," he wrote in Rules For Radicals.

That's not to demean angry activism per se, which can be justified and noble. But seen through this lens, a lot of public anger does begin to look deeply suspect: it's a little problematic to be calling for an end to this or that if you're deriving pleasure from your anger at the fact that it hasn't yet ended. There is, as Kreider noted, an entire anger industry, dedicated to stoking it instead of channelling it fruitfully: Jeremy Clarkson rages against political correctness, but in a world with no trace of it, where would that leave Jeremy Clarkson? (I'm not going to address the question of whether the leftwing media may sometimes also be guilty of something similar.) "It is important to realise that blaming is fun," wrote M Scott Peck. "Anger is fun. Hatred is fun. And like any pleasurable activity, it is habit-forming. You get hooked on it." It's enraging, but he's right.

oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:11 pm

The Namibian conservation safari that keeps both animals and tourists happy

Sleeping under the stars, meeting villagers and monitoring wildlife on foot ... this Namibian conservation project gives a glimpse of an Africa rarely seen on safari

After dark we sit around the campfire listening to the sounds of the Namibian bush. An owl calls, then comes the pulsating thrum of a nightjar, plus all the insects and the unidentifiable rustlings of the leaf litter. In this dry season the mopane trees are almost leafless, but occasional flashes of lightning promise rain. Our guides, François de Wet and Neil Bone, are reminiscing about bush camps and the time their friend Dave got dragged away inside his sleeping bag by a hyena. He survived unscathed, except for some damage to his dignity.

"Never sleep with your head away from the fire," says François, laughing. "That way, the hyena will only get your feet."

I'm not sure how serious he is, but those of us greenhorns who have positioned ourselves the other way around quickly rectify the situation.

I lie back and look up at the stars in the southern sky. Orion upside down, nothing else familiar at all, except the meteorites. We are more than 100 miles from the nearest electric light, close to Namibia's northern border with Angola and deep in the bush of an area called the Caprivi Strip. To the north is Mudumu national park, scarcely visited by tourists at all, and around us is the belt of wild forest land that lies between Mudumu and a second national park, Mamili, which is closed to visitors. This 500 sq km territory between the parks is home to about 6,000 cattle-herding people, and every year they lose around one in 20 of their livestock to lions, hyenas and leopards.

That is where François and Neil come in: biologists working to understand predator behaviour and solve the problems without simply shooting the carnivores. And the rest of us – the head-near-the-fire greenhorns – are volunteer assistants whose money, and to a lesser extent muscle and brain, help keep the project going.

"We'll check the traps every three hours," says François. "If we catch anything, we'll tranquillize them and put on a radio collar." He beds down on a ragged old camping mat with his head, I notice, away from the fire.

Seconds later he jumps up with a squeal: a stick insect as long as his forearm, rather than a hyena, is attached to his head. Neil dissolves into laughter. Before it can drag François away, the insect is transferred to a distant tree. Everyone settles down.

The normal model of African wildlife tourism follows a tried and tested formula in which animals are seen at astonishingly close quarters, accustomed as they are to motor vehicles and the relative safety of the parks. After a few days of photographing animals on these "game drives", the safari tourist leaves, generally well-satisfied. The expectation is for several sightings of the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, buffalo). Occasionally, as the visitors leave the area, the surprising difference between park and non-park becomes stark: the latter has fewer trees, is less green, and features no animals except distant herds of cattle or goats. A visit to a local school or village might follow, revealing a very different world to that of the wildlife reserve. None of the locals will have ever visited the park for pleasure.

Enjoyable as such trips may be, they never resolve those two very different equations: on one side wildlife and national parks dedicated to foreign consumers, on the other under-developed communities and naked necessity. In Caprivi, Biospheres Expeditions are attempting to pull off that complex piece of African algebra, bringing local people, tourists and wildlife scientists together – it's something like a unified theory of safari.

A few days before our night camp, I walked with three other volunteers through the forest with François. The area we were in was a "conservancy", around 150 sq km of bushland that is managed by the local population. They assess the stocks of wildlife and any problem animals – cattle killers usually – then they sell hunting licences to wealthy foreigners (a trophy lion costs the hunter around £8,000). As an alternative to local people simply hunting for bush meat, the system ought to be a great improvement: wildlife stocks are monitored and any hunting gets a large financial return that is shared more equally. In 2008, however, licences for five lions were issued and none were shot. The supposition is that lions here, like elsewhere in Africa, are in big trouble. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species recently changed the animal from one of "least concern" on its endangered list, to "vulnerable".

The presence of hunters in the parks means that any wildlife sightings are rare and fleeting. Towards the end of our walk, after three hours of nothing, we are watching some woodpeckers when a small deer, a duiker, jumped up and zig-zagged away at great speed. Our sighting lasts about two seconds, but is strangely satisfying. The walk seems worthwhile. We duly marked it down on our observation records.

"By walking these same routes with the same number of people for some years," François explains, "we can build up a genuine picture of how much wildlife is out there – and that helps plan when there is money to restock."

What about the use of volunteers, I wonder: can untrained outsiders really help? "You would be surprised how much difference extra pairs of eyes can make," he says. "Also, the presence of so many conservation-minded people is important. Local people notice that the outside world is interested in their environment, and consider it important. And of course, without the money paid by the volunteers, the project would not be able to function."

The volunteers are an interesting mix drawn from some of the richer nations of the world: Britain, USA, Germany and Australia. They arrive, for the most part, thinking they offer very little to the project, but soon discover otherwise. Pelly, the British banking expert, finds she is a brilliant wildlife spotter. Murray, the Aussie pilot, is a mechanical genius and mends the project's outboard motor when no one else can. Neil, the retired music teacher, is a superb ornithologist and gets the area's bird list up-to-date. Monica makes us all laugh. I get some of the best bits of firewood ever collected. Out of 12 people, only one cannot find a reason to be there and leaves after a week with the comment: "I didn't come to Africa to collect firewood or trap animals." The scheme is certainly not for everyone, and over-idealistic expectations can soon be demolished by the raw practicalities of bush life and wildlife management.

After our walk François hands us over to Julia, who needs helpers for her community survey. The plan is to drive to a village meeting, where we will go through a questionnaire on the subject of problems with predators. After a delay while a herd of elephants pass, we bounce into a small settlement: each family has a hut inside a fence of tall reed stalks, nearby is a rudimentary kraal made of thorny branches where the cattle are kept at night. These fragile defences are, Julia tells us, part of the problem. Hyenas, in particular, will sneak in, or scare the animals until they leap out. Either way, hyenas can grab a cow before the householder can respond.

Our small meeting gets underway under an acacia tree where a group of men have gathered.

"How would you solve the predator problem?" I ask one of them.

He smiles. "Shoot the hyenas."

Often that is exactly what happens. The problem is that wild animals do not observe park boundaries: creatures that are protected in the park can wander outside it, kill cattle and then be killed. Many also undergo annual migrations: twice a year the Caprivi sees around 11,000 elephants pass through on a journey between the Angolan highlands and the Botswanan swamps.

We work through our questions, gathering local opinion on everything from hyenas to kraal construction. "What we want to do," explains Julia, "is find out what kind of improved kraal construction is possible here and if that will deter predators." Already a few locals have adopted new techniques and are benefiting, but others see change as an unnecessary expense.

Joseph, sitting next to me, doesn't seem very keen to adapt. He had received compensation for his two dead cows, which takes the sting out of any loss, but it also takes away any motivation to find a solution to the problem. He is at pains to point out that dead cattle is just one of many problems that wildlife cause. "Elephants trample our crops, and lions can kill people."

I'm intrigued. "Has anyone ever been killed here?"

"Two men – Alfred and Lester – were attacked, but they survived."

We decide to go and find the men: Alfred is an Anglican lay preacher who lives close by, and we find him at home watching his wife mix up a plaster of cow dung and termite mound dust to repair their house walls. We go inside and sit on a yellow sofa underneath a rather catholic collection of posters: venomous snakes of southern Africa, Jesus, the ministerial cabinet of Namibia.

Initially Alfred refuses to discuss his experience. "That day was like death to me. Why should I talk about it? I got nothing from anyone for it – only pain. The government want us to hear only good things about conservation, not the bad."

After a little persuasion, he tells his tale. "It was 21 January 2001 when we were visited by four lions in the night. They took some cattle, so next morning I went with my gun and 26 other men to hunt the lions." As he talks he gently massages his left knee where there are several long shiny scars.

"There was one male lion with two females and a cub. I shot the cub first, but this made its mother so angry that she attacked, knocking my friend Lester down. All the other men ran away, so I was the only one who could save him, but I couldn't shoot – they were rolling in the dirt. I jumped on the lioness' back and started punching her. We were fighting for a long time – maybe half an hour. My fingers were like this in her teeth." He demonstrates how his fingers had slotted between the lions teeth. "Eventually I punched her very hard behind the ear and it broke a bone there. After a little time she died."

We all look at his hands. Is it really possible, I wonder. But it seems ungenerous to cast doubt.

"Can the people here live with lions?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "No. Impossible."

Back at the night camp we check the traps, but find nothing. On the way back to the fire, we spot bushbabies in the trees, their eyes gleaming scarlet in the spotlight. Further on there is a large-spotted genet, a small and beautiful cat-like creature, and a pair of roan antelopes, statuesque beneath a tree. François accepts that there is a long way to go with local people and conservation. "It's early days here," he says. "There is only one small tourist lodge in the area, so economic benefits are little. And they have no government services, no electricity or piped water. But if we can improve cattle kraals and deliver some sort of predator early warning by the radio collars, maybe there is hope.'

When we reach the campfire, Neil surprises us. He has been 20km away on the busy gravel road and saved a certain predator from destruction by trucks. He hands over a plastic bag to François with a gleam in his eye. Inside, coiled up, is a 6ft rock python. After admiring the creature, we take him out into the forest on the Mudumu Park side. Then we let him wriggle away into safety: one predator who will survive, for now at least.

Getting there
Biosphere Expeditions (0870-4460801) organise one- and two-week nature study expeditions around the world in environments ranging from coral reefs to deserts. The two-week expedition studying predators in East Caprivi, Namibia, costs £1,690, excluding flights.

Flights from London to Livingstone, Zambia (four hours' drive from the project) with South African Airways (0871 722 1111, flysaa.com) via Johannesburg, start at £785.70 rtn inc taxes.

Further information
As part of its integrated approach to sustainability Land Rover sponsors Biosphere Expeditions.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:07 pm

Rosetta's distant date with a comet

Right on cue, a heavy box of instruments swooped high above the island of Java yesterday and then accelerated away into space, for the last time. It was a European spacecraft called Rosetta, and yesterday was its final loop past the home planet, as it gathered speed for a journey that will take it to a distant comet. Rosetta is a wonderful example of the long view. Momentum for the mission developed after Europe's first encounter with a heavenly visitor. That was in 1986, when the space probe Giotto met Halley's comet, to raise more questions than it answered. Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan were then both in their second terms. By the time enthusiasts had finally pushed Rosetta on to the European Space Agency's official to-do list, in 1993, John Major had won an election in Britain, and President Clinton had replaced President Bush senior. Work started on the project in 1997, the year Tony Blair took office. The timetable changed, and so did the target comet, and by the time Rosetta was launched in 2004, Blair and President George Bush junior had invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. The mission – a 10-year, five billion kilometre trajectory to meet Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it falls towards the inner solar system – required velocities that no rocket could deliver. Rosetta had to get up speed by repeatedly stealing gravitational acceleration from Earth, and from Mars.

It overtook Earth in 2005, passed Mars in 2007, and by the time it swung by Earth again in 2007, Gordon Brown had moved into 10 Downing Street. Rosetta bids farewell to Earth under Brown and President Obama, but long before it makes its rendezvous almost 700 million kilometres from the sun in 2014, there will have been elections in both Britain and the US. Rosetta will use a harpoon to pinion a landing craft called Philae to the surface of the comet, and both spacecraft will then accompany the tumbling mountain of dusty ice on its journey towards the sun, and observe its transformation as it heats up and becomes that luminous wonder, a comet with a coma and tail. By the mission's end in December 2015, the next British prime minister will have faced another general election.

The scientific pay-off from Rosetta could be huge. But contemplate the generosity of vision that made the mission possible. Some of those who lobbied for Rosetta will have died by the time the first results are delivered. Some young scientists who will build their careers on the data from Rosetta were not born when the mission was conceived. If, as Harold Wilson famously observed, a week is a long time in politics, Rosetta is a reminder that we can also think on a celestial timescale.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:06 pm

UK travel news round up

The Bath Film festival, Santa's grotto deep underground and courses in fossil collecting

It's ancient history

Those who don't know their ammonite from their belemnite can book a place at Lyme Regis's Jurassic Coast Centre next spring. In conjunction with London's Natural History Museum, it is to host short courses on palaeontology, botany, mineralogy and zoology throughout February and March. Accommodation is provided at Victoria House (non-residential guests also welcome). Prices from £210, shared occupancy.

0845 345 4071, field-studies-council.org/2010/walkingandgeology/jurassiccoast.aspx.

Hostel goes green

Youth hostels all over the country have been getting makeovers for a few years now, but this one must take the biscuit. The Lochranza Youth Hostel on the Isle of Arran has just been refurbished to the tune of £500,000 and now boasts rainwater harvesting, energy-efficient lighting and heating, new kitchen and shower facilities and six en suite family/group rooms. The whole thing – which, with five dorms as well, can sleep up to 60 – is available until February for private hire from £225 per night. From 12 February 2010, normal service will resume, with beds from £18.25pp pn (under 16s from £14.80). 

0845 293 73 73, hostellingscotland.com.

What lies beneath

Swap your ear muffs for a hard hat this winter at a Santa's grotto with a difference. At the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Mr Claus and his elves will be 140m underground. Families can tour the former working mine, and all under-12s will receive a free gift.
ncm.org.uk, pennineyorkshire.com. Weekends until 20 Dec, 10am-5pm. Children £6, adults £4.

At the pictures

Fans of classic and arthouse cinema should visit the Bath Film Festival this week. On Thursday 19, a gala preview of Michael Powell's newly-restored ballet classic, The Red Shoes, will be the main event, but if you prefer street dancing, check out Turn it Loose (Sunday 15), Alastair Siddons' breakdancing documentary. Other treats include the Coen brothers' A Serious Man (Mon 16), and Stephen Poliakoff introducing his new film, Glorious 39 (Weds 18).
01225 463362, bathfilmfestival.org.uk, various venues. Tickets from £4.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm

Exploded: myth of miracle bomb detector

It's always interesting when people take pseudoscience out of its natural habitat – north London's Islington – and off into a place where the stakes are quite high. Like the polio vaccine scare in Nigeria. Or Aids denial in South Africa. Or, in this particular case, detecting bombs in Iraq, where the New York Times and the magician James Randi have uncovered a nonsense of truly epic proportions.

A British company called ATSC is selling a device which can detect guns, ammunition, bombs, drugs, contraband ivory – and truffles. The ADE651 uses "electrostatic magnetic ion attraction" and can detect these things from a kilometre away, through walls, under the ground, under water or even from an aeroplane three miles overhead.

ATSC's device is handheld. You simply take a piece of plastic-coated cardboard for your chosen target, which has been through "the proprietary process of electrostatic matching of the ionic charge and structure of the substance", pop it into a holder connected to a wand and start detecting.

There are no batteries and no power source: you hold the device to "charge" it with the energy of your body. Then you walk with the wand at right angles to your body.

If there is a bomb on your left, the wand will drift to the left, and point at it. Like a dowsing rod.

Similar devices have been tested repeatedly and shown to perform no better than chance. No police force or security service anywhere in the developed world uses them. But, in 2008, the Iraqi interior ministry bought 800 ADE651s for $32m (£19m) and they've ordered a further shipment at $53m. These devices are being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq to look for bombs.

Last week two people working for the New York Times went through nine Iraqi police checkpoints which were using the device, and none found the rifles and ammunition they were carrying (with licences).

Major General Jehad al-Jabiri, of the Iraqi interior ministry, said: "Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs."

How would you know? There are no independent tests of the ADE651 that I could find. The simplest explanation is that nobody could really be bothered. The magician James Randi can.

For many years, in an admirably expensive act of passive aggression, he has offered a $1m cheque to anyone who can provide proof of supernatural phenomena.

Last year he invited the manufacturers of the ADE651 to come forward to see if the device works better than chance. They have not. I guess if you've trousered $85m, you don't care about The Amazing Randi's puny cheque.

General Jabiri challenged a New York Times reporter to test the ADE651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in his office. Every time a policeman used it, the wand pointed at the explosives. Every time the reporter used the device, it failed to detect anything.

"You need more training," said the general.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm

LHC to Finally Start Next Week, Again

CERN is reporting that the Large Hadron Collider could circulate particle beams through both of its pipes in just over a week. If all goes well, the first collisions would begin soon after that.

The LHC has had a rough time since it first started up in September last year. Just a week after it started up, an electrical problem shut it down again. The first down-time estimate was a day or so, then it became months. And when the repair was just about finished, vacuum leaks in July set it back several more months. It has now been more than a year.

In the meantime, scientists working at Fermilab’s Tevatron, the current leader of the high-energy particle physics world, have been furiously collecting data. They are hoping to find the Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that would support the Standard Model of physics before the LHC sneaks in and grabs the glory.

Right now, particles are circulating through six of the eight sectors of the LHC’s 17-mile track, and the last two sectors will be turned on in the coming week. If the machine doesn’t break down again, physicists will finally have their long-awaited collider and, hopefully, start answering those nagging questions about the universe.

See Also:

• An Insider’s Guide to the Large Hadron Collider
• Top 8 Large Hadron Collider Videos
• Large Hadron Collider Renaming Contest
• LHC Suffers More Leaks, and Delays
• LHC to Begin Collisions in Fall… Right?
• LHC Suffers More Leaks, and Delays
• Large Hadron Collider: Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios
• Large Hadron Collider Down Until 2009

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 Nov 2009 | 4:49 pm

"Green Caviar" to Enter Fish Market

Have you ever eaten "Green Caviar?" (Image: ayustety) It's a remarkable seaweed, sometimes also called "sea grapes," "ocean grapes," or "Umibido" (in Japan), which has the texture of caviar and even looks like caviar, as evidenced here. OK, so the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 4:29 pm

FDA finds bits of steel, rubber in Genzyme drugs (AP)

AP - Federal health regulators have found tiny particles of trash in drugs made by Genzyme, the second time this year the biotechnology company has been cited for contamination issues.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 3:54 pm

Butterflies Depart for Orbit on Monday

The 1994 "Simpsons" episode "Deep Space Homer" provided a hilarious send-up of the oft tedious and/or ridiculous realities of space exploration -- at least in the eyes of the public. There's a wonderful moment aboard the space shuttle when Homer ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 3:16 pm

Water Discovery Fuels Hope to Colonize the Moon (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Hopes, dreams and practical plans to colonize or otherwise exploit the moon as a source of minerals or a launch pad to the cosmos got a boost today with NASA's announcement of significant water ice at the lunar south pole.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 3:15 pm

Mystery numbers

Could Obama's Asia trip hold the key to climate summit?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 2:45 pm

Swine Flu Count: 4,000 Dead, 22 Million Ill

Estimates of deaths caused by the swine flu have grown to nearly 4,000 since April, roughly quadrupling previous estimates.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 2:29 pm

Google Chrome Operating System Due Next Week?

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that Google's Chrome operating system may be available for download as early as next week. Google first announced plans for the OS this past summer. If it's anything like Google's Web browser, also called Chrome, expect ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 2:28 pm

Friday News Feedbag for November 13th, 2009

If this is your first exposure to the Friday News Feedbag...we're glad to have you in the club. Welcome to Feedbag Nation. Below you'll find an audio link to a weekly podcast where you can hear three of us Discovery ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 2:25 pm

Rosetta makes final home call

Europe's Rosetta probe makes its final Earth flyby, a manoeuvre designed to position it to chase down a comet in 2014.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 2:13 pm

Google Could Squash Kindle and Nook Ebook Formats

The new Google book store could deliver a blow to the Kindle and Nook e-readers.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 2:04 pm

Earth's Magnetic Reversal Won't Kill You

“Hi James, I appreciate your attempts to get people to think about science and geophysics in particular; but, no offense, this question you pose is ridiculous.” That’s what a well-established Earth and Planetary scientist told me when I asked him ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 1:55 pm

DC rescuers evacuate shops over collapse fears (AP)

AP - Rescuers have evacuated several shops in southeast Washington, D.C., over concerns that nearby buildings under construction might collapse because the ground is soaked from recent rain.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 1:47 pm

'Significant Amount' of Water Found on Moon

NASA's LCROSS probe discovered beds of water ice at the lunar south pole when it impacted the moon last month, mission scientists announced today.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 1:37 pm

NASA begins countdown for space shuttle launch (AP)

AP - The countdown clocks at NASA are ticking toward a Monday launch of space shuttle Atlantis.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 1:25 pm

Age When Dogs Understand Human Pointing Determined

When is it pointless to point for dogs? A new study has found that you can point all you like, but dogs under a certain age won't know what the heck you're doing. (Image: Maki) The findings, accepted for publication ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 1:21 pm

Satellite Flood Prediction Could Save Lives

A powerful new tool to help predict devastating floods may prevent the deaths of thousands.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm

Video Game Requires Kissing

Japan introduced a virtual girlfriend you can actually get physical with.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:34 pm

Falluja's babies: The difficulties of pinning the blame

War's effects on health can be much harder to identify than death and horrendous physical injuries. The US department of veterans affairs recently accepted that Vietnam war veterans may have developed B cell leukaemias, Parkinson's disease and ischemic heart disease as a result of exposure to a blend of herbicides known as Agent Orange, a defoliating agent sprayed by US warplanes to deprive their enemies of cover.

Similarly, ionising radiation from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 led to medical complications such as cancers, nausea, hair loss, bleeding into the skin, inflammation of the mouth and throat and birth defects.

Professor Nigel Brown, an expert in the causes of birth defects and dean of the faculty of medicine and biomedical science at St George's, University of London, points out that war zones such as Falluja involve many of the risk factors that cause deformities in children.

"The whole of the war situation produces a very unusual set of circumstances to which the civilian population is exposed, mainly involving the destruction of the built environment and its knock-on effects," he said.

"Those include the degrading of sanitation, the stress [on people of being in a place of conflict], the disruption of the water supply, poor nutrition and air pollution caused by both chemicals and particulates."

It was impossible to identify any one of those particular factors that may lie behind the apparent dramatic increase of birth defects in Falluja.

In addition, despite suspicion to the contrary, there is no reliable evidence to show that the components of munitions causes birth defects, except for ionising radiation, Brown said.

Some American service personnel who had seen action in Vietnam and the first Gulf war believed those conflicts caused them to have children with serious malformations. However, when their concerns were investigated, no proof was found. But studies in this area have concentrated on the health of combatants and their offspring and not on civilians caught up in conflicts, so evidence is very limited.

But what of white phosphorus, which was used in Falluja in 2004? No studies have been done, among either combatants or civilians, so it is impossible to link it to the abnormalities.

"These birth defects in Falluja could be the result of multiple factors including the sheer psychological stress on the local population of being in a war zone, malnutrition, air and water pollution and a cocktail of chemicals, which may include contamination from munitions," said Brown.

Birth defects range from minor ailments, such as a discolouration of the skin, to life-threatening conditions such as hydrocephalus and spina bifida. In most countries between 2% and 3% of all babies born have some form of birth defect. However, only between 1% and 10% of those involve a neural tube defect, which are the most debilitating and likely to lead to death.

"If neural tube defects are occurring apparently quite frequently in Falluja now that would be a dramatic increase over the expected rate for what are, in normal circumstances, rare events and that would be a matter of considerable concern," said Brown.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 12:32 pm

The Beautiful Aftermath of Tropical Storm Ida

Hurricane Ida leaves behind a lasting mark on the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:34 am

Nasa 'ecstatic' after discovering water on moon

Crash of LCROSS probe on moon throws up water, promising plentiful source of drinking water and fuel for human mission

Nasa has confirmed that there is water on the moon.

The disovery, announced today, is a result of preliminary analysis of data from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS. The probe and an accompanying rocket were deliberately crashed into the Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole last month and scientists have been studying the resulting plume of lunar dust for the past few weeks.

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbour and by extension the solar system. It turns out the moon harbours many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC.

Increasing evidence in recent months has supported the idea that there could be water on the moon, though it has been unclear how much and in exactly what form it exists. Finding water is a huge boost for future human missions as it could be used not only as a source of drinking water but also as fuel. Most scientists believe the likeliest places for water are at the poles of the moon, where there are craters in permanent shadow.

Using data from the spectrometers on LCROSS, which examine light emitted or absorbed by materials, Nasa scientists were able to analyse the plume of dust after its Centaur rocket hit the moon's surface.

"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at Nasa's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high-angle vapour plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."

LCROSS was a companion mission of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and was launched in June. After 113 days and 5.6 million miles, the LCROSS satellite separated from the LRO and despatched its Centaur rocket to smash into the moon on 9 October. The resulting plume of lunar soil was examined by instruments on the LCROSS probe before it too crashed into the moon.

The new finding confirms earlier research published by the scientists behind India's Chandrayaan-1 probe, who published data about the existence of water in the lunar soil at the poles back in September.

Further analysis of LCROSS will show in what state the water exists and what other useful minerals are found at the impact site.

"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," said Colaprete. "Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:34 am

Moon crash works - there is water there

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists who crashed two spacecraft into a crater on the moon said on Friday they found water in the dust they kicked up, just as they had hoped.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:32 am

Evidence of Water Found in Moon Crater

A "significant amount" of frozen water is detected inside a lunar crater.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am

Lunar Impactor Finds Clear Evidence of Water Ice on Moon

There is water on the moon, NASA confirmed today, and lots of it.

In the first look at results from the LCROSS mission, which sent a probe crashing into the Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole, NASA’s main investigator said their instruments clearly detected water, despite the underwhelming plume.

Within the field of view of their instruments, the team measured approximately 220 pounds or about 26 gallons of water. Next, the team will try to understand how the compounds they saw in the plume relate to what’s actually embedded in the lunar regolith at the bottom of the permanently shadowed crater.

“We need to take all the information — the amount of ejecta, the size of the crater — and reconstruct the entire event and understand how it all fits back into the ground,” Colaprete said at a NASA Ames press conference.

For about a decade, lunar scientists have known the moon contained a lot of hydrogen, thanks to the Lunar Prospector mission, but it wasn’t entirely clear what form that hydrogen was stored in. Now, the LCROSS observations provide a handy explanation for the hydrogen: It’s bound with oxygen to form water.

Other analyses have also provided evidence that water exists on the moon, including most recently, the Indian satellite Chandrayaan. But the latest LCROSS observations are different.

“[Chandrayaan] could not see into the shadowed craters. Their observation is entirely unique and complimentary. We looked inside the shadowed craters. The amounts and flavors could be distinctly different,” Colaprete said. “They saw water bound and adsorbed in grains. We saw, potentially, real crystalline water ice.”

Combined with the various confirmations of water ice on Mars, it’s becoming clear that water — at least in ice form — is present throughout our solar system.

Astronomers are gaining a new appreciation for celestial bodies that once seemed rather staid.

“[LCROSS] is painting a really surprising new picture of the moon. This is not your father’s moon,” said Greg Delory of the University of California, Berkeley. “Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could be a dynamic and interesting one.”

Delory, who is not on the LCROSS team, also called the discovery “exciting and extraordinary,” saying lunar science could now move on to other fascinating questions.

“What’s equally important is what we do next,” Delory said. “Where did the water come from? How long has it been there? What kind of processes are involved in putting it there and removing it and destroying it?”

There are all kinds of sources for the water, Delory said. It could come from comets, the solar wind, the moon itself or even the Earth.

“Now that we know that water is there we can begin in earnest to go to the next set of questions,” he said.

And answering them could tell us a lot about the solar system and its planetary bodies’ relationship to water, which is necessary to all forms of life we know.

Colaprete may have another surprise in waiting, hinting that they glimpsed other interesting compounds in the plume that arose from Cabeus crater.

“This goes beyond the water, there’s a lot of stuff that came out of there,” Colaprete said, before saying he didn’t want to say “too much beyond” that.

Delory was equally excited but circumspect saying, “I’m sure the LCROSS team is going to reveal new and exciting discoveries as they continue to analyze their data.”

So, while the first LCROSS surprise — the wimpy plume — was disappointing, perhaps the next one the mission delivers will be happy.

See Also:

• Water Found on the Moon
• Water Found on the Moon
• Antifreeze Could Keep Saturn Moon Wet
• Case Builds for Water on Saturnian Moon of Enceladus
• Crash Into the Moon With LCROSS Friday Morning
• Hunt for Life on Saturnian Moon Heats Up
• More on the LCROSS mission

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 | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:29 am

Power the Planet with Renewables

If we could tap into renewable energy, really tap into it (overcome politics and naysayers), we could reduce global power demand by 30 percent and be totally green by 2030. So say civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson of ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 10:36 am

'Significant' water found on Moon

Nasa's experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, agency scientists have announced.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am

Unmanned Craft Monitors Ocean "Dead Zones"

Ocean "Dead zones" along the Washington and Oregon coasts are threatening critical U.S. fishing areas. These oxygen- depleted regions, that lose virtually all of their marine life in the summer, are expanding, and new ones are appearing.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:48 am

'Language gene' effects explored

The FOXP2 "language gene" in humans is barely different from the one in chimpanzees, but has massively different effects.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:20 am

Scientists sniff out clue to preserving books: their smell

The complex perfume of ageing books has been broken down into its component chemicals by research that could assist conservators

The dusty smell of old books is one of the joys of visiting secondhand bookshops, and now scientists, who have identified it as combining "grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness", hope it can be used to help preserve valuable ageing titles.

Researcher Matija Strlic, from University College London's Centre for Sustainable Heritage, decided to investigate the smell of old books after spotting a book expert sniffing a title to assess its age. "I noticed a conservator once who was smelling paper to assess its quality – and having seen that and knowing that the analysis of food aroma is a routine analytical problem, I decided to look for correlations between paper composition and its smell. And it worked," he said.

His team investigated 72 books from the 19th and 20th centuries, pinning the smell down to the several hundred volatile organic compounds (VOCs) "off-gassing" from the paper as it ages. "The aroma of an old book is familiar to every user of a traditional library," they wrote. "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."

Working in collaboration with curators from the National Archive in the Netherlands, they then identified the 15 most abundant VOCs, and used these to identify degradation markers which can be used to monitor the condition of ageing books by analysing the gasses they produce, without damaging the books themselves.

They hope the research will be used to help libraries and museums preserve thei. "There is more work needed to develop an application which would work outside the laboratory. However, we are optimistic," said Strlic.

The research, a joint project with partners from the UK, the Netherlands and Slovenia, was announced in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 9:02 am

Some Trees and Insects Are Made for Each Other

New research on the Joshua Tree and its pollinators suggests that coevolution may be responsible for the wide diversity of insects and plants around the world.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 7:28 am

Friday the 13th: Your Luck Is About to Change

If Friday the 13th is unlucky, then 2009 is an unusually unlucky year.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am

Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink

Shrinking brains and lactose intolerance are two signs that human evolution is still at work.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 Nov 2009 | 6:38 am

Migration is spreading creationism across Europe, claims academic

Immigration means more and more people in the UK do not accept evolution, says former director of education at the Royal Society Michael Reiss

Mass migration has led to a rise in creationist beliefs across Europe, according to a British scientist.

Michael Reiss, who is a professor of education at the Institute of Education in London and an Anglican priest, said the evolution-creationism debate could no longer be thought of as something that happened elsewhere and that more and more people in the UK did not accept evolution.

Reiss told the Guardian that countries with a higher proportion of Muslims or fundamentalist Christians in their population were more likely to reject evolution. He added: "What the Turks believe today is what the Germans and British believe tomorrow. It is because of the mass movement of people between countries.

"These things can no longer be thought of as occurring in other countries. In London, where I work, there are increasingly quite large numbers of highly intelligent 16, 17 and 18-year-olds doing Advanced Level biology who do not accept evolution. That's either because they come from a fundamentalist Christian background or from Muslim backgrounds."

This rejection of evolution even extended to young people training for the medical profession. "Around 10% of UK undergraduates in some medical schools are creationists. Some people think this is unacceptable and that such students are not worthy to become doctors."

But when asked if their patients should be concerned, he said: "I am quite comfortable with people being first-rate doctors but not accepting evolution."

He made the remarks as hundreds of scientists and academics from around the world gathered in Alexandria, Egypt, for a three-day conference to discuss evolution and society. Organised by the British Council, Darwin's Living Legacy, An International Conference on Society and Evolution will host speakers from Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Lebanon, the UK and the US.

Conference sessions will look at approaches to teaching evolution, the variety of religious responses to Darwinism, the creationist movement in America and contemporary attitudes towards evolution in the Muslim world.

Reiss, who was forced to resign his position as director of education at the Royal Society last year after expressing his views about discussing creationism in science lessons, will take part in a forum on science and education. He said he would be arguing that some students found it difficult to accept evolution and that educators should help them to understand the evidence for it. But, "we should not be surprised if a few science lessons are not enough to change their minds."

Holding the conference in Alexandria will shift the focus onto Islam and other religions, he said, adding that the belief science and faith were incompatible was widespread. "There are lots of people who are convinced that if you're Christian or Muslim you cannot accept science as an atheist would. Some atheists hold that if you have a strong religious faith that it is incompatible with a scientific mind."

While Islam did not suggest that the world was very young – a tenet of Christian creationism – its texts did say that different kinds of organisms had separate origins. He cited surveys in Muslim-majority countries suggesting a widespread belief that organisms did not share a common ancestry.

Reiss said he would like to see young people being allowed to discuss these issues in religious education lessons. But if they brought the subject up in science lessons then the teacher, if comfortable, should use the opportunity to have a discussion about the strength of the evidence for evolution.

"Some people feel that when I suggest this I'm going soft on creationism. They're worried I'm not really convinced myself of evolution. I'm very comfortable about difference in society. I'm a bit concerned about over-enthusiastic atheists who ridicule people who don't accept evolution and I'm equally concerned with people of strong religious faith who denigrate science and say [scientists] can't be moral."

Reiss attracted controversy last year when he said that creationism should be discussed in science lessons, if only to prove it had no scientific basis. The ensuing furore led to him stepping down from his post at the Royal Society.

He told the Guardian how the uproar had led to "wonderful feedback from the overwhelming majority of scientists" and that he had been "very touched" by the large numbers of people who contacted him following the episode.

He believed a lot of scientists were reluctant to express their views freely. "They keep their heads down. It's extremely important that scientists feel comfortable being able to give independent advice and talk about their findings without any worry," he said, possibly alluding to the confrontation between the Home Secretary Alan Johnson and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

But he encouraged scientific experts to have greater patience with government. "There are times when scientists do not appreciate the reality of life for politicians. What a scientist needs to understand is that there is not a simple route from scientific advice to the formulation of good policy."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:49 am

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 | 13 Nov 2009 | 5:38 am

Big profit from nature protection

Money invested in protecting nature can bring huge financial returns, according to a study backed by the UK.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Nov 2009 | 4:12 am

Predatory coral photographed eating a 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