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Amount of gene surplus determines severity of mental retardation in males, researchers findResearchers have discovered a new explanation for differences in the severity of mental illness in males. The more excess copies of a certain gene, the more serious the handicap. The genetic defect is situated on the X-chromosome; and it is suspected that it is the amount of copies of the GDI1 gene that is responsible.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm 3-D microchips for more powerful and environmentally friendly computersScientists are working on 3-D microprocessors cooled from the inside through channels with a liquid coolant. The method is expected to boost the performance of future computers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm How the autistic brain distinguishes oneself from othersScientists have discovered that the brains of individuals with autism are less active when engaged in self-reflective thought. The study provides new evidence for the neural correlates of self-awareness and a new window into understanding social difficulties in autism spectrum conditions.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm New biosensors reveal workings of anti-psychotic drugs in the living brainScientists have resolved a question about how a popular class of drugs used to treat schizophrenia works using biosensors that reveal previously hidden components of chemical communication in the brain.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Universal quantum mechanism: Physicists find reappearing quantum triosUsing atoms at temperatures colder than deep space, physicists have delivered overwhelming proof for a 1970 theory that was largely scoffed at when it first appeared. They offers experimental proof of a universal quantum mechanism that causes trios of particles to appear and reappear at higher energy levels in an infinite progression. The triplets, or trimers, form in special cases where pairs cannot.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Are angry women more like men?"Why is it that men can be bastards and women must wear pearls and smile?" wrote author Lynn Hecht Schafran. The answer, according to a new article may lie in our interpretation of facial expressions.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Understanding apples' ancestorsA species of wild apples that could be an ancestor of today's domesticated apples are native to the Middle East and Central Asia. A new study comparing the diversity of recently acquired wild apple varieties from Georgia and Armenia with previously collected varieties originating in Russia and Turkey narrows the large population and establishes a core collection.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am New genes for lung disease discoveredScientists have discovered five genetic variants that are associated with the health of the human lung. The research by an international consortium of 96 scientists from 63 centers in Europe and Australia sheds new light on the molecular basis of lung diseases.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am Moderate weight loss in obese people improves heart functionObese patients who lost a moderate amount of weight by eating less and exercising more improved their cardiovascular health, says a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am Magnetic power revealed in gamma-ray burst jetA specialized camera on a telescope operated by UK astronomers has made the first measurement of magnetic fields in the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am UK envoy: Solve climate issues now, before leaders (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:17 am Clock ticking to get UN climate deal: Miliband (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:14 am World's mayors tackle climate change on their own (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:36 am UK warns on 'acidifying oceans'A senior UK minister will warn about acid levels in the world's oceans as the Copenhagen climate summit resumes.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:17 am The nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:01 am Berlusconi Attacked By Flying Object (He's Not The First)On Sunday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was attacked and injured during a political rally in Milan. The embattled politician sustained two broken teeth, a fractured nose and cuts after a member of the crowd hurled a scale model of ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:31 am Anti-HIV gel hopes dashed by trial resultsPromising microbicide piloted in British-funded trial turns out to be ineffective Hopes of a breakthrough that would allow women to protect themselves from HIV have been dashed with today's revelation from a large, British-funded trial that a promising microbicide has turned out to be ineffective. Britain's Medical Research Council (MRC) and the department for international development (DfID) had backed the trial in four African countries, involving 9,385 women. But after four years and significant investment, scientists have been forced to conclude that the PRO 2000 gel does not prevent HIV/Aids. Dr Sheena McCormack of the MRC, chief investigator of the trial known as MDP 301, said they were deeply disappointed, but that the search must go on. A microbicide, in the form of a vaginal cream or gel that kills the virus, would give women in Africa and Asia the power to defend themselves against HIV given the refusal of many men to wear condoms. The trials in Africa showed that both men and women found its use acceptable. Expectations were raised in March when a smaller US-led trial of PRO 2000, involving 3,099 women, found a 30% reduction in infections, but the actual numbers of people who became HIV positive were not large enough to give conclusive results. "I have to say then we got quite excited," said McCormack. "But in a big trial you get closer to the truth, and unfortunately the truth is it didn't work. It is bitterly disappointing for us, but it will inform the way we go forward." Half the participants were given PRO 2000 while the other half got an inactive gel. There were 130 infections among those who used the real thing and 123 among those who had the placebo. The hunt for a microbicide was given a big boost when Clare Short, as international development secretary, enthusiastically endorsed it in 2002 as a gender and equity issue. Her department gave £14m to the MRC, Imperial College and five African countries. The final cost to DfID of the PRO 2000 trial has been £40m, with £2m from the MRC – a substantial sum, but tiny compared with the cost of pharmaceutical company trials. Other gains were made, however, despite the results. Professor Gita Ramjee, who enrolled 2,385 women at her centre in Durban, South Africa, said they had received health checks and treatment for conditions from high blood pressure to potential cervical cancer that would not otherwise have been picked up. All the women and their partners had also been counselled on avoiding HIV and given condoms. But Ramjee, who has conducted five separate microbicide trials, said she felt "very despondent" at having to tell her staff and the participants that the gel did not work. "A lot of my staff are HIV positive and do a lot of counselling and they hear the pleas of women who say we desperately need something to prevent HIV infection because our partners don't want to wear condoms," she said. About 2.7 million people were infected with HIV last year. A number of African countries have run out of money to put newly diagnosed people on drugs to keep them alive and will struggle to continue to treat those already taking them if donations fall because of the economic crisis. There is a danger, said McCormack, that it is "going to go wrong again for Africa". If PRO 2000 had worked, it could have been made available cheaply over the counter to any woman who wanted it. Scientists have turned their attention to the possibility of adapting anti-retroviral drugs given to stop HIV becoming Aids. One of the possibilities is a gel form of Tenofovir, a drug that could also be taken daily in tablet form to prevent HIV infection. But such gels or tablets would have to be given out through clinics with supervision, and there are fears that the virus could become resistant to them. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:00 am Baby-by-Number: Parents’ New Obsession With Data
Allen Fawcett admits he and his wife are mildly addicted to keeping track of their babies’ schedules. The pair of economists have been recording every diaper, feeding and nap since they became parents. With the help of the Trixie Tracker website, they know they’ve changed exactly 7,367 diapers for their three-year-old son and 969 for their three-month-old daughter. They also have a graph of precisely how many minutes each of their children slept on nearly every day since birth. During their daughter’s first month, the data shows she averaged 15 hours of sleep a day, which is two hours more than her brother at the same age and well above average for other Trixie Tracker babies. “People look at us and say, ‘My goodness, how do you spend so much time on this?’” Fawcett said. “But each record takes just a few iPhone clicks, so it’s really not as time-consuming as it looks.” The Fawcett family may take baby tracking to the extreme, but they’re certainly not the only parents who are measuring, recording and comparing minute details of their kids’ lives. Fifteen years ago, tracking your baby’s development meant going to the pediatrician every few months and recording his growth on a simple height and weight chart. Today, baby tracking is a booming business. In addition to websites that let you track your infant’s schedule, there are iPhone apps that translate and record your baby’s cries, wearable devices that keep track of how much you talk to your child, and even electronic toys that record how your child plays with them, so you can compare his progress to developmental norms. As a soon-to-be mom expecting my first child in less than a month, I sympathize with the desire to keep close tabs on a baby. Almost the instant a second line appeared on my pregnancy pee stick, I found myself seized by a strong desire to make sure my baby was developing normally. I managed to refrain from buying a home Doppler device to monitor my kid’s heartbeat, and I skipped the special Kickbee belt that detects fetal kicks and tweets every time baby wiggles in the womb. But once my first son makes his appearance, I know I’ll be tempted to try some of the infant-tracking technology. Who wouldn’t want more ways to record their child’s health and well-being? According to pediatricians and child development experts, however, this new obsession with quantifying our kids has a potential downside, especially when parents cross the line from merely tracking an infant’s schedule to obsessing over developmental milestones and worrying about how baby measures up to her peers.
“As a pediatrician and researcher, I applaud anything that gets parents more interested in their child’s development,” said Dimitri Christakis of the University of Washington, who studies the impact of technology on early childhood. “But I would hate to find out that a parent is spending an hour a day entering data on their child’s development, especially if that hour of data entry comes at the expense of spending an hour with your kid, or an hour somehow recharging your battery so you’re better able to engage with them in the future.” Christakis recognizes that tracking certain aspects of infant development can be incredibly helpful. For instance, parents who use Trixie Tracker say having all the data is a life-saver when you’re trying to understand why your baby is awake all night for the fourth time in a row, or suddenly develops a rash after trying a new food. Data-loving parents like Fawcett say tracking is also just plain fun: For instance, in the time-lapse video below, you can see Fawcett’s graph of his son’s sleep patterns from age zero to one, where a blue bar means sleeping and yellow means awake. He loves that the data “neatly shows how we emerged from that tunnel of sleep deprivation, how the chaos of newborn sleep patterns blossomed into this nicely ordered set of days and nights.” But as we keep track of more and more statistics on our kids, and spend more time comparing our offspring’s numbers to the national averages, some experts fear we’re becoming a generation of neurotic parents, obsessed with making sure our children are at the top of the pack. Preoccupied with percentagesDIY Autism Screening
Some baby-tracking products do more than track kids’ schedules or how they play with toys: One new device assesses language ability and calculates risk of autism and developmental delay. The digital recorder was developed by the nonprofit LENA Foundation as an autism research tool. Now, for about $200, parents can buy their own LENA Language and Autism Screen. After recording at least 12 hours of speech, parents mail the device and some questionnaires about their kid’s behavior to LENA, and get a full report back of their child’s language ability, including an autism risk score and a calculation of developmental age. “A lot of times parents may suspect something is wrong,” said LENA spokeswoman Mia Moe. “But there aren’t a lot of great automatic screening tools that they have access to.” Parents can bring up concerns at their child’s yearly checkup, Moe says, but 15 minutes with a pediatrician is often inadequate to diagnose a problem or get a referral to a specialist. “A lot of times they say, ‘Let’s just wait and see,’ and then children end up getting these diagnoses at age 5 or even later,” Moe said. But early intervention programs can be very effective, so it makes sense for parents to want to detect problems early. But not everyone thinks home screening is the answer. Although devices like LENA can be very useful for research or professional assessment, marketing the tools to parents isn’t appropriate, says University of Rochester developmental psychologist Lucia French. “Certainly, keep an eye on your kid and make sure they’re doing better in everything today than they were yesterday,” French said. “But to do a formal screening and then worry that your child isn’t quite normal yet, that’s going way too far for parents’ knowledge level.” “I’ve seen this developing over the last decade or so,” said developmental psychologist Lucia French, who studies language and cognitive development at the University of Rochester. “Parents have more information available, but they don’t always know how to use that information.” For instance, French said, there’s a huge amount of data on the internet about normal developmental milestones — when most kids start to crawl, say their first word, or learn the alphabet — but such information often lacks the disclaimer that 50 percent of children will fall either above or below the average range. The same goes for products like LENA Home, a digital recording device that tracks how often parents talk to their children, and how often their kids talk back. Parents get a graph of the number of “conversational turns” they have with their kids throughout the day, and they can compare their performance with that of other users across the country.
“Not everybody can be average,” French said. “If you have everyone average or above average, who’s going to be in the below average range? Mathematically, it doesn’t work. And there’s no point either, because everyone gets to walk and everyone learns to talk, so if they do it one or two months earlier or later, it really doesn’t matter.” That’s not the message most parents get from the media or marketplace, however. In the past decade, there has been an explosion of digital toys, movies and computer programs marketed for the two-and-under crowd, and many of these new products claim to enhance your baby’s development or help teach critical skills. Christakis calls the new industry the “build-a-brainier-baby enterprise,” and he says it has resulted in a national neurosis around how to make sure your child is as smart as he or she can possibly be. “The truth is that those of us who are interested in early childhood are somewhat to blame for this,” Christakis said. “We’ve succeeded over the last 10 to 15 years in convincing people that the early years are critical to long-term brain development. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, what that’s done is created a marketing juggernaut preying on parent’s vulnerabilities and concerns.” Toys that teach — and trackIn addition to targeting specific skills, the latest electronic toys also record how children are playing with them, so that mom and dad can hook the toys up to the computer using a USB connection and see what Junior has been doing all day. Last month, I visited the Emeryville, California, headquarters of LeapFrog Enterprises, one of the most popular brands of kid-friendly technology and the leading manufacturer of the new kid-tracking toys. Although most of LeapFrog’s USB-connected products are designed for children three and older, their free program for tracking child development, called the Learning Path, begins at birth. Parents who sign up for the Learning Path receive regular e-mails about their child’s developmental milestones, along with tips and activities to help enhance learning at each stage. Of course, the program also suggests LeapFrog products that parents can buy to help their babies master new skills.
“If you have Tag Junior, we can tell you that this is the page that your child enjoyed the most,” said Jeff Grant, vice president of web products at LeapFrog. “When you get into the older products like Leapster and Tag, which both start at age four, that’s when we’ll start telling you which questions they’re getting right or wrong.” The products are designed to encourage specific skills and track a child’s progress, but the Learning Path team actually cautions that focusing too much on a kid’s performance isn’t a good idea. “Even though we’ll tell you the correct answer percentage, we have some information there that says there are lots of reasons why kids will get the wrong answer,” said Tina O’Shea, senior producer on the Learning Path team. “It can be because they think it’s hilarious, or because they’ve reached the top level of the game and now they just want to get everything wrong to see what happens.” But despite the disclaimer, some over-eager parents are bound to obsess about how well their child is doing compared to other kids or their grade level, and that’s one of the reasons many experts are hesitant about kid-tracking toys. “Anything that gives you a number, you need to realize it’s about what the number represents,” said pediatrician Gwenn O’Keeffe, a member of the Council on Communications and Media at the American Association of Pediatrics. She says focusing too much on a specific number — whether it’s how many hours a baby sleeps through the night, or the percentage that a toddler scores on a computer game — can make parents forget that the real focus should be on their child. “It’s like when a child has a fever,” O’Keeffe said. “I really don’t care how high the fever is. What I care about is how does your child look? Are they zipping around the house with a 104-degree fever, or are they lying limp on the couch?” Similarly, to assess a child’s development, O’Keeffe says parents don’t need to rely on digital toys or tracking programs. They just need to look at their kid, trust their instincts and consult an expert if they’re concerned. In praise of blocks and crayonsIn addition to encouraging parents to obsess over numbers and percentiles, it turns out that not all of the so-called “educational” products actually enhance cognitive development. For example, although “Baby Einstein” clearly sounds like a product that will make your child smarter, there’s no data to suggest that babies learn anything from watching Baby Einstein videos. Even worse, recent research has shown that infant television programs may actually stunt language acquisition rather than support it. “What’s fundamentally lacking here, quite honestly, are standards and enforcement about what constitutes educational toys,” Christakis said. Companies can label their products ‘educational’ without doing any research on the toys’ effectiveness, he said, as long as they don’t explicitly state that the toys have been proven to teach a particular skill.
“The names and the marketing have successfully convinced parents that this is actually really good for their children,” Christakis said. “Parents often ask me, ‘Well if my child doesn’t watch Baby Einstein, are they somehow losing out? Are other children at a competitive advantage because they’re getting this high-tech intellectual stimulation?’” According to Christakis, the opposite is actually true. “You’re giving your child a leg up if you spend more time with them, read to them more, sing to them more, play with them more,” he said, “not if you park them in front of a DVD or an iPhone app.” Even the folks at LeapFrog caution that electronic toys shouldn’t replace the tried-and-true childhood staples of previous generations. Plain old wooden blocks can be an incredibly valuable learning tool, says Jim Gray, a former child development researcher who now heads the learning team at LeapFrog. “I would recommend that parents have a healthy toybox,” Gray said, “with a variety of types of toys. Electronic toys are one type, wooden blocks are one type, rubber balls are another type. Dress-up toys, even a piece of paper and crayons are wonderful as a learning environment.” Perhaps parents would do well applying this idea of a healthy toybox across all of the baby tracking technologies. In the end, most of the experts I talked with concluded that it’s all about balance. While there’s nothing wrong with data-loving parents tracking their baby’s schedule for the fun of it, at the end of the day there’s no reason to obsess about the numbers. “Kids have been raised by parents without tools like this for generations,” O’Keeffe said. “What parents need is a good inoculation of common sense and some self-esteem, to realize that they can do this without a tool. Just because we have computers and hand-held devices, doesn’t mean we need a tracking device. What we need to do is look at our kids and realize they’re developing just fine.” Images: 1) LeapFrog’s Violet tracking toy with 6-month-old June./Jim Merithew/Wired.com. 2) Courtesy of Mia Moe/LENA Baby. 3) Watching Baby Mozart from Disney’s Baby Einstein series./ FLickr/texasgurl. 4) 2-year-old Ella with LeapFrog’s Tag./Betsy Mason/Wired.com Video: Allen Fawcett and Michael Lennon Disclosure: Wired Science editor, Betsy Mason’s sister works in LeapFrog’s finance division. See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm Meet "Antonio"- A New Italian DinosaurToday I'd like to introduce you to "Antonio," a remarkable dinosaur that represents a new species, Tethyshodros insularis, described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. (Reconstruction of Tethyshadros (artwork by Lukas Panzarin) based on the fossil nicknamed “Antonio.") According ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 9:00 pm Animal OceanographersTracking tech reveals the secret lives of sharks, squids, whales, turtles, seals and the oceans themselves.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 8:25 pm The Al Gore InterviewLast week, former United States Vice President Al Gore met with Discovery News’ Kieran Mulvaney and Lori Cuthbert in New York. He discussed his new book, Our Choice, and the Copenhagen climate summit. Here is the full transcript: Discovery News: ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:37 pm Talking with Al GoreFormer United States Vice President Al Gore says that he "chooses to be optimistic" about the climate change negotiations presently underway in Copenhagen, and that, depending on how the meeting resolves this week, "there’s an excellent chance that we will ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:35 pm Woodside Petroleum announces share sales (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:23 pm BP Texas City FCC malfunctions, shuts down (Reuters)Reuters - Gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit No. 3 malfunctioned and shut down late on Saturday night at BP Plc's 475,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Texas City, Texas, according to a notice filed on Sunday with state pollution regulators.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Dec 2009 | 6:46 pm Doctor offers diagnosis in Darwin medical mysteryAuthor of On the Origin of Species suffered from cyclical vomiting syndrome, says Australian doctor "Survival of the fittest" may have been the phrase adopted by Charles Darwin to dramatise his ideas, but the proponent of evolution was himself rarely a healthy man. Now an Australian doctor has offered a belated diagnosis of the recurrent bouts of debilitating illness from which the celebrated 19th-century scientist suffered. John Hayman, associate professor at Monash Univerity in Melbourne, suggested that the author of On the Origin of Species was the victim of an unusual inherited disorder known as "cyclical vomiting syndrome". The precise nature of Darwin's condition, which intermittently erupted into a peculiar set of physical symptoms, has long been a historical and medical mystery. Nausea, vomiting, headaches, stomach and skin problems troubled him for most of his adult life. At times he was so disabled by his illness that he became a virtual recluse. Even before he set out on his pioneering voyage to South America on the survey ship HMS Beagle in 1831, he recorded anxieties in his diary about his medical state. "I was … troubled with palpitations and pain about the heart, and like many a young ignorant man, especially one with a smattering of medical knowledge, was convinced that I had heart-disease," he wrote. "I did not consult any doctor, as I fully expected to hear the verdict that I was not fit for the voyage." In the past, there has been speculation that Darwin may have been a hypochondriac, experienced panic disorders, been emotionally scarred by "repressed anger towards his father", nervous about relations with his wife or have felt guilt over conflicts with his earlier religious belief. Possible physical diagnoses have included middle ear infection, arsenic poisoning and tropical parasitic infections, such as Chagas disease. Hayman, of the anatomy and developmental biology department at Monash University, argues in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal that it is time to "refute the many fanciful proffered diagnoses, both physical and psychological or psychoanalytical". He said cyclical vomiting syndrome mainly affects children but can appear for the first time in adulthood. "The syndrome is related to migraine but is linked to genetic abnormalities. Classic symptoms of cyclical vomiting syndrome include severe sickness, headaches, anxiety and intense abdominal pain. Many patients also suffer from eczema and recurrent skin infections." Darwin's mother and members of her family suffered from many of these conditions, Hayman said. Darwin's mother died from severe abdominal pains when he was eight. "Darwin was not aware of mitochondria or of genes and genetic mutations but he was very aware of random variations within species." This was the keystone for his theory of the survival of the fittest, the driving mechanism of evolution. "His personal inherited genetic variation made him substantially 'less fit', but his survival prospects were greatly increased by his driving intellect; loyal colleagues; devoted wife, family, and household servants; and personal wealth." The illness did not impair his fertility, as Hayman also observed. As well as being the father of modern biology, Darwin fathered 10 children, "all conceived during his long period of ill health". guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Dec 2009 | 5:06 pm Disease eradication: Yesterday's ambitionIf ever there was a single moment of lost innocence in global medicine, it came with the triumph of disease over the best efforts of rich nations to transfer their knowledge and expertise to the rest of the world. Yet – as veterans of the campaign to eradicate smallpox will remember at commemorative events next spring – 30 years ago they believed that soon other major infectious diseases would be similarly defeated. Instead they persist to devastating effect, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria remains the biggest killer of children under five and where polio, although much reduced, is back on the march even in countries like southern Sudan where it once was under control, while TB kills more than HIV/Aids. And the bigger the challenge, the hotter the politics. What is often forgotten is that the victory over smallpox between 1967 and the declaration of its eradication in 1980 was, like Waterloo, a close-run thing. The very idea of a global campaign was contentious, and donor countries were slow to fulfil their promises of cash. Its success – on the back of the development of a highly effective vaccine – was due less to generous funding than to a series of other factors: smallpox's disfiguring blisters, carried by everyone who contracted the disease, made it easy to recognise and isolate; the simple technology required for immunisation (including a fork-like needle manufactured by a sewing machine company) made it possible to vaccinate contacts quickly and cheaply, while the disease's high death rate meant health workers were eagerly welcomed. Polio, malaria, TB and HIV all pose more complex questions than smallpox – questions that have to be answered against a backdrop of disillusionment with the efficacy of aid. Academic observers of the progress against these killers fear that the cash that comes from the UN's Global Fund, and from other organisations such as the Gates Foundation, although producing dramatic results in specific areas – nearly 5 million lives saved, the Global Fund claimed last month – do so at the expense of scarce resources in the local community, absorbing medical effort that is desperately needed for other killers such as childbirth or diarrhoea. Better, they say, to strengthen health infrastructure and ensure local buy-in to programmes through enabling choice. Rubbish, retort NGOs such as Christian Aid, pointing to the disastrous 1990s, when the World Bank adopted that strategy. These days most effort is channelled through local organisations and is as likely to support Aids orphans at school as it is antiretroviral drugs. Where they might agree, though, is that eradication is yesterday's ambition. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Dec 2009 | 5:06 pm GM isn't the solutionProfessor Winkler's comments (Letters, 11 December) reflect part of the latest PR push regarding GM technology, which revolves around its purported ability to "feed the world". GM is now being peddled not only as a solution to hunger in less developed countries, a false assertion based on spurious claims, but as a way of solving malnutrition for the world's poorest people. However, the development of "nutritional" GM crops is based on the same risky and failing technology as the agronomic applications. Malnutrition arises from a deficiency of many micronutrients, and cannot be solved simply by the development of crops engineered to provide specific nutrients. What is needed is a varied diet based on a diversity of crops; promoting further monoculture cultivation through GM seeds will not solve the problem. Moreover, such agricultural systems rely on high inputs of artificial fertilisers and pesticides. A diversity of traditional crops adapted to be resilient to local climatic variation, and grown under organic systems, offer a solution. As the large-scale IAASTD report concluded, agro-ecological farming, exemplified by organic farming, represents the best prospect for feeding the world, and should be the focus of future research efforts. Isobel Tomlinson guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm Bank of England urged to put climate scientist on MPC• MPC needs green advocate, says former scientific adviser The government's former chief scientific adviser is calling for a climate scientist to be given a seat on the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, saying the bank currently operates without regard for the environment. The proposal today from Sir David King, scientific adviser under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, is known to have the support in principle of some MPC members. King also criticises the Treasury under Alistair Darling, saying "it is pulling in the wrong direction" and not doing enough to promote a green economy. Writing in Prospect magazine, King lambasts the Treasury "for a wasted opportunity", saying it was "shaming and frustrating" that only 10% of its economic stimulus package could be classified as green. "Most of that money could have been directed into low-carbon projects, such as energy-efficiency boosts for our ageing housing stock. This also would put unemployed construction workers back to work," he writes. He points out that South Korea committed 80% of its stimulus money to low-carbon growth and China managed 50%. He suggests that in Britain: "At best, the Treasury sees carbon reduction as a distraction from their primary focus: GDP growth, reducing unemployment and raising productivity. At worst, they follow the Nigel Lawson school: that even if climate change is real, we should let pure markets operate to solve it. "The same is sadly often true for central bankers, who rarely even consider carbon as an important by-product of a stable money supply and low inflation". He writes that the only effective international response to the threat of climate change is market intervention through a global carbon price. But at a national level, effective government interventions to reduce carbon can be undone by monetary policy including the setting of interest rates very low to stimulate growth. "The problem is that any big levers the government might support – carbon pricing, long-term rules forcing more renewables and nuclear energy into the grid, much higher road tax and congestion charges – could be partially undone by the Bank if monetary policy is used to push for less sustainable patterns of growth." He suggests the current arms-length climate change committee, chaired by Lord Turner, should be relocated to the Bank. Traditionally, the Bank has been wary of anything that might dilute its aim of targeting inflation. But MPC members such as Andrew Sentance, who is on the green fiscal commission, could be interested in discussing King's ideas. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm Carols for godless peopleComedian Robin Ince joins the pod to tell us about the latest unholy incarnation of his show Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People. It's produced in association with the Rationalist Association and New Humanist magazine. Robin is offering tickets if you send him an answer to his question via Twitter @robinince. Listen to the podcast for details. In the newsjam we look at new temperature figures released by the Met Office, the BMJ makes allegations about Tamiflu, and Richard Branson's unveiling of his shiny new space ship. We also ask, is the Royal Institution in crisis? UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon tells Suzanne Goldenberg, our US environment correspondent, about the influence President Barack Obama is likely to have on the climate summit in Copenhagen. We introduce Aunt Carole, our science website's new evolutionary agony aunt. In her weekly column, Carole Jahme will be shining the cold light of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems. Our religious affairs correspondent Riazat Butt visits a conference about Darwin and evolution in Alexandria, Egypt. The Observer's science editor Robin Mckie, and the Guardian's science correspondent Ian Sample are also in the studio. WARNING: contains strong language Post your comments below. Join our Facebook group. Listen back through our archive. Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science. Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed). Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Dec 2009 | 5:01 pm Giant Panda Genome Reveals Why It Eats Shoots and Leaves
What’s black and white and read all over? The giant panda genome. All 2.4 billion DNA base pairs of a 3-year-old female panda named Jingjing have been cataloged, researchers report online Dec. 13 in Nature. The information will help researchers understand panda traits such as finicky diets. A thorough understanding of panda genetics may aid conservation efforts for the endangered bear.
An international consortium led by scientists in China found that the panda genome is smaller than the human genome, which comprises about 3 billion base pairs. Despite the difference in total size, the panda genome contains an estimated 21,000 genes that encode proteins, a number similar to that of humans. Surprisingly, the panda genome turned up no signs of inbreeding. Jingjing’s two copies of DNA in each of her cells differed in many places, demonstrating a surprisingly high rate of heterozygosity. That finding suggests that the decline of the panda population has not been caused by inbreeding, says study coauthor Jun Wang of BGI-Shenzhen in China and the University of Copenhagen. Jingjing, named for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games mascot, has a mixed genetic heritage from two regions of wild giant pandas in China, so her genome may be more diverse than that of other pandas, Wang notes.
Although the team found high diversity between the two copies of Jingjing’s DNA, other genetic studies indicate that pandas’ genetic makeup changes less from generation to generation than that of humans and other mammals, rendering the rate of evolution slower. This slow rate of evolution is consistent with the notion that the panda is a “living fossil,” says Wang.
Pandas possess all the requisite genes for digesting meat, but none of the genes required for digesting bamboo, Wang and colleagues found. The researchers guess that pandas rely entirely on communities of gut microbes for extracting nutrients from bamboo. Microbiome expert Julie Segre of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., calls the result fascinating and says that it “underscores the concept that the panda — and similarly the human — genetic landscape is truly made up of their own organismal and microbial genomes.” Images: Zhihe Zhang See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 Dec 2009 | 3:05 pm Skywatchers take in meteor showerSkywatchers in the northern hemisphere turn their heads to the sky to gaze at the annual Geminids meteor shower.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Dec 2009 | 1:54 pm Cap and Fail?With negotiators now working on a draft text at the Copenhagen climate summit, the prospects of an agreement that should lead ultimately to an international treaty seem reasonably strong. The devil, of course, is in the details, and observers are ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 1:10 pm Archbishop of Canterbury says fear hinders climate change battleRowan Williams tells Copenhagen service corporations and governments are afraid to make choices to bring real change People are so paralysed by fear and selfishness they cannot save the planet, the archbishop of Canterbury said on Sunday during a church service in Copenhagen. Rowan Williams was preaching in the Danish capital as crucial UN climate change talks entered their second and final week. He said that fear paralysed individuals, corporations and governments from making the choices needed to affect real and lasting change. "We are afraid because we don't know how we can survive without the comforts of our existing lifestyle. We are afraid that new policies will be unpopular with a national electorate. We are afraid that younger and more vigorous economies will take advantage of us – or we are afraid that older, historically dominant economies will use the excuse of ecological responsibility to deny us our proper and just development." Yesterday church bells in Denmark and other countries rang 350 times to represent the figure many scientists believe is a safe level of carbon dioxide in the air: 350 parts per million. Joining Williams at Copenhagen's Lutheran cathedral was Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and religious leaders from Tuvalu, Zambia, Mexico and Greenland. Williams, who led the ecumenical service, said a paralysing sense of fear and selfishness would deny future generations a "stable, productive and balanced world to live in" and instead give them a world of "utterly chaotic and disruptive change, of devastation and desertification, of biological impoverishment and degradation." There was even a sense that people were not frightened enough by this apocalyptic vision and cautioned against this approach, saying it would "drive out one sickness with another." "It can make us feel that the problem is too great and we may as well pull up the bedclothes and wait for disaster. It can tempt us to blaming one another or waiting for someone else to make the first move," he added. But humans were not "doomed to carry on in a downward spiral of the greedy, addictive, loveless behaviour" that had brought mankind to this crisis and he urged people to scrutinise their lifestyles and policies and how these demonstrated care for creation. Hecalled on people to consider what a sustainable and healthy relationship with the world would look like. His message for conference delegates centred on trusting each other in a world of limited resources. "How shall we build international institutions that make sure that resources get where they are needed – that 'green taxes' will deliver more security for the disadvantaged, that transitions in economic patterns will not weigh most heavily on those least equipped to cope?" Williams has had a busy few week: railing against the UK government for its religious illiteracy, condemning proposed anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda, grappling with fresh dissent in the Anglican Communion and travelling to the landmark environment summit.In an interview with Channel 4 News last Saturday Williams warned that there were no "quick solutions" to global warming and said that there was a finite amount that individuals could do to make a difference. He said: "I don't think there are any quick solutions, any absolutes here, but I think these are the sorts of issues about energy use particularly, whether it's travel or domestically, that have to be really up in front of our minds." Foreign holidays were not an "easy call, frankly" while he decreed that everyone should use public transport as much as possible while at the very least enquire about ecologically sustainable travel. He said that high-energy consuming vehicles in a city where there were alternatives were an irresponsible way of dealing with the crisis. "We use a hybrid car for that reason as my official car in London. I'm also coming back from Copenhagen by train on this occasion rather than flying," he added. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Dec 2009 | 12:51 pm Turtles Act Like Chameleons (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Freshwater turtles' skin and shells often match the color of their habitat's substrate, which may help them deceive predators and prey alike. But what happens if turtles change abodes, from a black swamp, say, to a sandy-bottomed pond?Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:05 am Wild Dingoes Remember Human GesturesOur former pets still know how to read us.Source: Livescience.com | 13 Dec 2009 | 8:42 am Fury at Copenhagen police tacticsClimate activists criticise Danish police for heavy-handed tactics after they detained 968 people at a Copenhagen summit rally.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 Dec 2009 | 8:34 am Aussie, Chinese officials urge pandas to reproduce (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Dec 2009 | 8:17 am Best Meteor Shower of 2009 Peaks Tonight (SPACE.com)
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A talking stuffed dog named Scout or Violet (pictured at the top of the page) is supposed to teach first words and early number sense, while a set of electronic maracas are designed to help babies explore colors, music and even Spanish vocabulary. For kids two and older, LeapFrog offers a digital book reader called Tag Junior, which reads aloud or asks questions when a child points the device at text and pictures in a book. The system also tracks how long a child spends on each page, so parents know what skills or activities their toddler is focusing on.
Parents often miss this subtle nuance, however, and some are quite angry about the false advertising. In fact, to avoid a class action lawsuit claiming “unfair and deceptive marketing practices,” Disney now offers a full refund on any of their Baby Einstein DVDs purchased between June 5, 2004 and September 4, 2009.
The panda genome gives clues to understanding the panda’s strict bamboo diet. It turns out that pandas have mutations in two copies of a taste gene called T1R1, which encodes a protein that senses the savory taste of meats, cheeses, broths and other high-protein foods. These mutations may have robbed pandas of the ability to taste meat, pushing them toward their bamboo diet, the researchers suggest.
