Hundreds of leads generated in fight against H1N1 pandemic

Scientists have generated hundreds of new leads in the fight against the H1N1 flu pandemic, according to two new studies. Both research teams took comprehensive approaches to understanding the interaction of H1N1 strains with human cells, yielding results that point toward new targets for therapy and perhaps also new tools to speed vaccine production, the researchers say.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Avatar's moon Pandora could be real, planet-hunters say

In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable -- and inhabited -- alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Video games: Racing, shooting and zapping your way to better visual skills

Do your kids want a Wii, a PlayStation or an Xbox 360 this year? This holiday gift season is packed with popular gaming systems and adrenaline-pumping, sharpshooting games. What's a parent to do? Is there any redeeming value in the hours that teens spend transfixed by these video games?
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Scientists use light to map neurons' effects on one another

Scientists have used light and genetic trickery to trace out neurons' ability to excite or inhibit one another, literally shedding new light on the question of how neurons interact with one another in live animals.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Calorie intake linked to cell lifespan, cancer development

Researchers have discovered that restricting consumption of glucose, the most common dietary sugar, can extend the life of healthy human-lung cells and speed the death of precancerous human-lung cells, reducing cancer's spread and growth rate.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Water droplets shape graphene nanostructures

A team of chemists reports the ability to bend and reshape graphene, opening up the possibility of forming new and novel devices in the nanoscale. They use an everyday household ingredient to perform the work -- a droplet of water.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Synthetic red blood cells developed: Red-blood-cell-like particles carry oxygen, drugs, and more

Scientists have developed synthetic particles that closely mimic the characteristics and key functions of natural red blood cells, including softness, flexibility, and the ability to carry oxygen.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Enzyme may create new approach to hypertension therapy

New research has found that an alternative therapy may be possible for treating some types of hypertension using an enzyme called ACE2.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Umbilical cord could be new source of plentiful stem cells

Stem cells that could one day provide therapeutic options for muscle and bone disorders can be easily harvested from the tissue of the umbilical cord, just as the blood that goes through it provides precursor cells to treat some blood disorders, say researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Stellar Nursery: Inside the dark heart of the Eagle

Herschel has peered inside an unseen stellar nursery and revealed surprising amounts of activity. Some 700 newly-forming stars are estimated to be crowded into filaments of dust stretching through the image.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Uncertainty over Copenhagen deal

Leaders gather for the final day of the UN climate summit, amid uncertainty over the shape of any eventual deal.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:25 am

Acid oceans: the 'evil twin' of climate change (AP)

AP - Far from Copenhagen's turbulent climate talks, the sea lions, harbor seals and sea otters reposing along the shoreline and kelp forests of this protected marine area stand to gain from any global deal to cut greenhouse gases.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:03 am

Farming with the Prince of Darkness | Graham Harvey

Small, mixed farms could climate-proof our food supply. Once again, Mandelson's political instincts are right on the button

Who'd have thought it? Lord Mandelson, Prince of Darkness, Grand Wizard of the Political Arts, harbours a secret desire to become a farmer. Or so he confided to Fraser Nelson from the Spectator.

It seems the scourge of the Tories longs to be – like many of them – the master of his own acres. His dearest wish is to gaze into a lowering sky and worry about getting his wheat harvested. Or whistle up his faithful sheepdog to move the ewes or gather in his happily free-ranging hens. He might even, he confesses, be willing to take on the odd dairy cow – all to be done organically, of course.

As someone who has watched the desperate decline of British agriculture over the years, I'm convinced Lord Mandelson's planned career change can't come too soon.

What the business secretary is dreaming of – the crops, the hens, the grazing animals – is the classic small-scale mixed farm. And according to one leading scientist it's small-scale mixed farming that the world needs to undo the damage of modern, high-input crop production and to climate-proof the global food supply.

A study based on the work of 400 scientists and other specialists reported earlier this year that current, high-input farming methods were damaging soils on a massive scale. They were also squandering scarce water resources. Study director – Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – called for scientific knowledge and new technologies to be targeted at small farmers who made efficient use of soil nutrients and water.

In other words, it was small, mixed farmers who would feed the world as the effects of climate change become ever more severe. So unerring are Lord Mandelson's political instincts that even when he's daydreaming he appears to come up with the right answers.

Sadly for the planet, the business secretary doesn't intend taking up his small country living any time soon. As he made clear in his interview, it's something for his retirement, probably around 2029.

This is a pity. Like many others he sees saving British industry as a worthwhile career objective. Rescuing the world from war and starvation can wait until his twilight years. No wonder our agriculture is in such a parlous state.

With luck, circumstances may intervene. It's just possible his lordship will find himself with considerably less to do after the spring or summer of next year. Perhaps then he will decide to advance his plans. He can lead a new army of small farmers in their re-occupation of the British countryside, allowing us all to eat in the coming decades.

If he wants to discover the importance of such changes he could so worse than attend an event in Oxford next month. It's called the Oxford Real Farming Conference and it will explore the best ways of feeding the planet in the 21st century. If the business secretary can make it I'm sure the organisers will be delighted to reserve him a seat.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A potent storm system was forecast to deepen throughout Friday as it moved from the Gulf of Mexico across the Florida Peninsula and began its trek up the East Coast.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:59 am

Obama hopes to seal the climate deal in Copenhagen (AP)

AP - President Barack Obama joined scores of fellow world leaders Friday for the final day of an international climate conference, hoping his personal intervention would help seal a broad agreement to combat global warming.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:55 am

The first glimpse of dark matter?

US scientists have reported detecting signals that could indicate the presence of dark matter.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:21 am

Obama lands, climate talks in serious disarray (AP)

AP - The U.N. climate talks were in serious disarray Friday, with delegates blaming both the U.S. and China for the lack of a political agreement that President Barack Obama, China's premier and more than 110 other world leaders are supposed to sign within hours.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:16 am

No deal on CO2 cuts as climate talks enter final day (Reuters)

Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama joined other world leaders in a last push for a new global climate deal on Friday, but with no agreement on the core issue of greenhouse gas emissions they faced an enormous task.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:10 am

Yao Ming aims to quell China's appetite for shark fin (AFP)

AFP - NBA star and Shanghai Sharks owner Yao Ming urged China on Friday to say no to shark fin soup to stop the overfishing of some species amid growing demand for the delicacy.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 1:47 am

Towards a deal?

Has climate deadlock been broken?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Dec 2009 | 1:40 am

Retracted papers linked to 2007 extortion attempt

Researcher was sent e-mail demanding money.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/q9fT8JewIYU" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Dec 2009 | 11:44 pm

Breakfast briefing: Dark matters for physicists, but a burst of light for BlackBerry

• How could we ignore the news that scientists believe they may have - finally - detected dark matter? We couldn't. The announcement yesterday possibly marks the end of nearly 80 years of searching to find the material which, we're told, keeps the universe glued together. I'm rubbing my hands together in glee at the prospects for a sudden burst of development in physics. Surely teleportation can only be a few years away now.

• Canada's BlackBerry-making Research in Motion surprised quite a few people when it announced a surge in profits for the past quarter, on the back of more than 10m handsets sold around the globe. And according to ComScore, the BlackBerry continues to extend its lead in mobile phone web browsing - with the iPhone now creeping up to a point where it has now overtaken Windows Mobile.

• Mark Shuttleworth, the open source pioneer who is a driving force behind the popular Linux OS Ubuntu announced yesterday that he was stepping down as CEO of his company, Canonical. He still plans on being heavily involved in the Ubuntu community, but didn't really give a solid explanation on why he's stepping back now. For more insight, check out an interview we did with him last year, and (for comparison) another one from 2002 focusing on his role as a space tourist.

You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (@guardiantech, or our personal accounts) or by watching our Delicious feed.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 11:00 pm

Most Stem Cells Used in Research Come From Whites (HealthDay)

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Human embryonic stem cell lines currently used for research come mostly from white donors, a new report finds.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Dec 2009 | 9:50 pm

See a UFO? Might Want to Check Here First

Before announcing your next UFO sighting to the world, you might want to compare notes. An amateur astronomer has launched a website for sky-watchers to report "unexplained aerospace phenomena." It’s not little green men in warp-speed spaceships that astronomer Philippe ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:59 pm

Report: Obama to Ramp Up Human Space Program

Science magazine is reporting tonight that President Obama has made his decision about the future of the U.S. human space flight program, with a plan to turn over space taxi services to the International Space Station to commercial companies and ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:54 pm

Monument lifted from Cleopatra's underwater city (AP)

AP - Archaeologists on Thursday hoisted a 9-ton temple pylon from the waters of the Mediterranean that was part of the palace complex of the fabled Cleopatra before it became submerged for centuries in the harbor of Alexandria.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:39 pm

Robot records deepest erupting undersea volcano (AP)

AP - Scientists have recorded the deepest erupting undersea volcano ever seen, capturing for the first time video of fiery molten lava bubbles exploding 4,000 feet beneath the Pacific Ocean.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:39 pm

When Polar Bears Attack ... Other Polar Bears

The town of Churchill, Manitoba is the undisputed polar bear capital of the world. Every year from mid-October to late November, the town's 800 permanent residents are joined by a total of 12,000 visitors and seasonal workers, who take advantage ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:33 pm

'Fried Egg' off Azores could be impact crater from space object

Portuguese scientists find a fried egg-shaped depression on the Atlantic Ocean floor they think may be an impact crater.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:32 pm

Footage of the deepest undersea volcano eruption ever recorded

Extraordinary video is obtained in the Pacific Ocean of the deepest undersea volcano eruption ever recorded.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:00 pm

N. America's biggest fish slips toward extinction (AP)

AP - As efforts falter to save North America's largest freshwater fish — a toothless beast left over from the days of dinosaurs — officials hope to stave off extinction by sending more water hurtling down a river so the fish can spawn in the wild.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Dec 2009 | 6:16 pm

Avatar's "Pandora" Could be a Reality

Artist's impression of a hypothetical gas giant exoplanet with an Earth-like exomoon similar to the moon Pandora in the movie Avatar (David A. Aguilar, CfA) As James Cameron's animated sci-fi movie Avatar goes on general release, astronomers point out that ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 5:58 pm

More people could have vCJD than previously thought

More people may be incubating variant CJD, the human version of so-called "mad cow disease", than was previously thought, according to scientists who today report an unusual case of the disease. All those tested worldwide since 1994 when the first cases were identified have been MM homozygous.

However, a 30-year-old man who died of vCJD in January this year was found to have a different genetic makeup from the rest of the 200 or so people diagnosed around the world. Six months before the man was diagnosed with the disease, he had been admitted to hospital with personality changes, unsteadiness in walking that became progressively worse and intellectual decline. He told doctors he had severe leg pain and memory problems. Two months later, he developed visual hallucinations. The symptoms got progressively worse and an MRI scan confirmed vCJD. The symptoms and the course of the illness were not unusual for vCJD, but the man had a different genetic makeup from the rest of the 200 or so people diagnosed around the world to date.

Variant CJD is caused by prions, infectious agents which are made up mainly of proteins. The same prions cause vCJD and also BSE - bovine spongiform encephalopathy - which was dubbed "mad cow disease" because cattle who contracted it staggered when they tried to walk. Prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue and are currently untreatable and fatal.

Doctors from the MRC Prion Unit and National Prion Clinic at the UCL Institute of Neurology and National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, report the unusual case in today's Lancet medical journal. Tests showed that the man had a particular form of the human prion protein gene. All those tested world-wide since 1994 when the first cases were identified have been MM homozygous. However, this patient was MV heterozygous.

The observation could be of concern. In some other human prion diseases, such as kuru - thought to be linked to cannibalism in Papua New Guinea - people who are MV heterozygous have incubated the disease for longer than those who are MM homozygous before symptoms have shown. Some MV heterozygous patients are reported to have incubated kuru for over 50 years.

It is possible, doctors say, that vCJD takes longer to develop in people who are MV heterozygous than in MV homozygous people.

"The majority of the UK population have potentially been exposed to BSE prions but the extent of clinically silent infection remains unclear," say the authors of the paper. About a third of the population have the MM homozygous genotype - and until now all the cases came from this group. If individuals with other genotypes are similarly susceptible to developing prion disease after exposure to BSE, further cases would be expected, they say. However, they add, it is possible that susceptibility to vCJD and incubation period may be influenced by other genetic factors which have not yet been identified.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

Letters: The EU must step up in Copenhagen

Gordon Brown is right to warn that failure at Copenhagen is a real possibility (Report, 16 December). If the talks do fail, it will be in no small part down to the frustrating reluctance of EU leaders to step up the EU's negotiating position – and show leadership where it is so desperately needed.

As an MEP involved in the negotiations on the EU's position going into COP15, I am alarmed by reports in the last few days that the EU is drawing up a weaker "plan B" on emissions reduction – potentially replacing its commitment to 30% cuts by 2020 with 30% by 2025. Such a move would send a damaging signal at a time when momentum is already lagging. If the EU pursues an unconditional 30% by 2020, it could change the pessimistic mood; to discard it could be a nail in the coffin of a deal.

What's more, there is a keen irony in the fact that the EU is trying to position itself in COP15 as a key actor on climate change, at the same time as ministers in Brussels are signing off a very weak agreement on deforestation legislation. Why promise millions of euros for measures in developing countries to prevent deforestation but fail to close all loopholes in EU law on importing illegal timber?

If this wasn't bad enough, it now seems possible that the current proposals for a new climate deal in COP15 could even lead to a rise in emissions. Current loopholes in the climate negotiations – notably on "hot air" (surplus permits to pollute) and the accounting of emissions from land use and forestry – could actually lead to an increase in industrialised country emissions by 2020. No wonder the developing nations are so cynical about what is currently on the table.

Caroline Lucas MEP

Leader, Green party

• Copenhagen and the recent Commonwealth summit in Trinidad have rightly put the focus on the resources which developing country governments – both central and local – need to tackle climate change. Now the EU, led by Britain and France, has urged the IMF to consider a global levy on financial transactions, with revenues earmarked to help poorer countries cut emissions. Despite the squeals of outrage from financiers and speculators, such a Tobin tax must be the way forward after the disappointments of Copenhagen: it has been estimated that a levy of only 0.025% on all transactions would yield over $100bn a year – more than enough to make genuine progress on climate change.

Carl Wright

Secretary general, Commonwealth Local Government Forum

• Some of the proposed alternatives to fossil fuel energy systems still need to be demonstrated as reliable enough for widescale implementation. This could involve stop/start progress that may take years if not decades to work through.

Much as Emeritus Professor Bob Ryan (Letters, 16 December) favours "the very best" , rather than what he deems "immature" climate science, the point has been reached where the reliable deliverability of solutions must come into play as part of a comprehensive climate risk management strategy. This argues for concerted defensive action now, while the scientific process continues. The alternative would be a big gamble at uncertain odds.

There are other reasons why a precautionary approach is advisable, including the ocean acidification due to CO₂, as well as the apparent increase in frequency of some extreme meteorological events. We can only hope that effective common ground for responding to this multiplicity of threats emerges at Copenhagen .

Anthony Robson

Former principal engineer (environment), Central Electricity Generating Board

• As the Copenhagen conference appears increasingly less likely to produce a major breakthrough, surely there is one limited step that could be agreed – to begin to tax aviation fuel. The rate could be set internationally in a basket of currencies, starting modestly and increasing to a realistic rate over five to eight years. Half the proceeds could be retained by national exchequers and the other half put into an international environment fund to assist poorer countries. It would have the additional benefit of making the world's dwindling oil reserves last longer. Even Michael O'Leary might see the benefit of that.

Graham Sowter

Langho, Lancashire

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

Photo: Shining Lake Confirms Presence of Liquid on Titan

SAN FRANCISCO — A glint of light from a large lake confirms the presence of surface liquid in Titan’s northern hemisphere. This image, released Thursday here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, was captured on July 8, using the Cassini spacecraft’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer.

“This one image communicates so much about Titan — thick atmosphere, surface lakes and an otherworldliness,” said Cassini project scientist Bob Pappalardo, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a press release. “It’s an unsettling combination of strangeness yet similarity to Earth.”

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has a dense nitrogenous atmosphere and is the only place, other than earth, containing stable pools of liquid on its surface. In 2008, Cassini confirmed liquid methane lakes in Titan’s southern hemisphere using infrared data.

Cassini has been looking for this mystical glint since reaching Saturn in 2004, but winter had shrouded the northern half of Titan. The sun began shining on this area, which contains more lakes than the southern hemisphere, in August 2009 during the moon’s spring equinox.

The glint comes from the southern shoreline of the sprawling Kraken Mare lake, which covers about 400,000 square kilometers of Titan’s surface. The image proves the lake has been stable for at least three years, indicating that Titan cycles liquid methane to its surface, said Ralf Jaumann, Cassini team member at the German Aerospace Center in Berlin, Germany.

“These results remind us how unique Titan is in the solar system,” Jaumann said in a press release. “But they also show us that liquid has a universal power to shape geological surfaces in the same way, no matter what the liquid is.”

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/DLR

See Also:

• Titan’s Strange Shape May Explain Polar Lakes
• The Lagoons of Titan: Oily Liquid Confirmed on Saturn Moon
• First-Ever Photo of Liquid on Extraterrestrial World
• Cassini Sends Back More Images of Titan’s Lakes
• Titan’s Organic Hydrocarbons Dwarf Earth’s Oil Reserves

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Dec 2009 | 4:13 pm

Has dark matter been detected?

Hunt may well be over for a mysterious and invisible substance that accounts for three-quarters of the mass of the universe

For 80 years, it has eluded the finest minds in science. But tonight it appeared that the hunt may be over for dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance that accounts for three-quarters of the mass of the universe.

In a series of coordinated announcements at several US laboratories, researchers said they believed they had captured dark matter in a defunct iron ore mine half a mile underground. The claim, if confirmed next year, will rank as one the most spectacular discoveries in physics in the past century.

Tantalising glimpses of dark matter particles were picked up by highly sensitive detectors at the bottom of the Soudan mine in Minnesota, the scientists said.

Dan Bauer, head of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS), said the group had spotted two particles with all the expected characteristics of dark matter. There is a one in four chance that the result is due to some other effect in the underground detectors, Bauer told a seminar at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago.

Rumours that Bauer's group was on the verge of making an announcement surfaced on physicists' blogs a few weeks ago. Though tentative, tonight's results triggered an immediate wave of excitement in the science community.

"If they have a real signal, it's a seriously big deal. The scale on which people are looking for dark matter is vast," said Gerry Gilmore at Cambridge University's institute of astronomy. "Dark matter is what created the structure of the universe and is essentially what holds it together. When ordinary matter falls into lumps of dark matter it turns into galaxies, stars, planets and people. Without it, we wouldn't be here," Gilmore said.

Scientists have debated the existence of dark matter since 1933, when the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky argued that a distant cluster of galaxies would fall apart were it not for the gravitational pull of some vast but invisible cosmic substance. It was named dark matter because it does not reflect or absorb light, making it impossible to observe with telescopes.

Last year, the Hubble telescope photographed indirect evidence in the form of a ghostly halo around a distant galaxy, caused by clumps of dark matter bending light from stars as it passed by. A year before that, scientists led by the British astronomer Richard Massey, at the California Institute of Technology, published the first 3D map of dark matter, which revealed how it clung around galaxies and held clusters of them together.

Dark matter is likely to be made up of a variety of invisible particles that not only explain the missing mass of the universe, but shed light on some of the most profound mysteries in science.

Some dark matter particles could explain why ordinary matter is not radioactive, while others may help scientists understand why time – so far as we know – always runs forward.

"The real impact of this is psychological, in that it shows we're getting close to being able to do a whole new kind of physics," Gilmore said. "We know there are properties of the universe that should correspond to new families of particles. One of the great mysteries is why time only goes in one direction, and one candidate to explain that is a dark matter particle."

Many scientists believe dark matter particles will turn out to be proof of a theory called supersymmetry, which predicts that every kind of particle in the universe is paired with a heavier twin. Finding evidence for supersymmetry is one of the major goals of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, in Switzerland.

Dark matter particles are peculiar because they pass through objects as if they were not there. Their aloof nature has led scientists to name them weakly interacting massive particles, or Wimps. Vast amounts of these are thought to be constantly moving through the Earth and everything on it, us included, as the solar system spins around our galaxy.

The detectors at the Soudan mine are buried underground to shield them from other kinds of particles that bombard Earth from space. To detect dark matter, scientists have to wait for the extremely rare occasion when a dark matter particle knocks into an atomic nucleus in the detector and makes it vibrate.

Detectors in the mine will be upgraded in the new year before the search for more dark matter continues, Bauer said.

The hunt for dark matter

What is dark matter?

The night sky might seem full of stars and planets, but what we see is only 4% of the stuff of the universe. Some three-quarters is dark matter, an invisible substance that scientists believe is there because of the gravitational force it exerts.

What does dark matter do?

Dark matter stretches throughout space where it attracts ordinary matter that coalesces into galaxies of billions of stars and planets. It forms a kind of cosmic skeleton that gives the universe its structure. Many scientists believe they will find a family of invisible dark matter particles, each of which plays a different role in nature. Some may even explain why time always goes in the same direction.

Who came up with the idea?

The Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky postulated dark matter in 1933. He noticed that a distant cluster of galaxies would fall apart were it not for the extra gravitational pull of some mysterious unseen mass in space. Astronomers verified his prediction by showing that stars swirling around distant galaxies zipped around so fast they must be held in place by extra gravitational forces.

Does everyone believe in dark matter?

A minority of astronomers and physicists dismiss dark matter as a fudge. Instead, they suspect that the strength of gravity varies from place to place, in a way that explains why stars do not hurtle out of spinning galaxies. The theory is known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics (Mond).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 4:00 pm

Scientists discover natural flu-fighting proteins

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers have discovered antiviral proteins in cells that naturally fight off influenza infections, a finding that may lead to better ways to make vaccines and protect people against the flu.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Dec 2009 | 3:46 pm

'Screaming Roadrunner' Ran Circles Around Dinos

This loudmouth bird must have kept dinosaurs on their toes during the Late Cretaceous.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Iraq rebels 'hack into US drones'

Insurgents in Iraq have hacked into live video feeds from unmanned American drone aircraft, US media reports say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 2:40 pm

First Ever Video of Deep-Sea Volcanic Eruption

SAN FRANCISCO — Molten lava has been observed flowing on the seafloor for the very first time, by a robotic rover exploring the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered.

In high-definition video released Thursday here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, lava bubbles explode as the eruption’s deep rumble fills the bass end of the spectrum.

“We thought we could just show the video over and over and not say anything,” joked oceanographer John Resing of the University of Washington, who led the expedition.

But the new video is more than just spectacular to look at, it also provides scientists with their first look at the geological process that creates the seafloor.

“On our very own home planet, we haven’t seen lava flowing on the seafloor,” said Resing. “We haven’t seen new ocean crust being made.”

And now they have. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency had been sponsoring submarine volcano research for more than two decades without ever observing lava on the seafloor. “This is historic,” Resing said.

The new footage was captured in May about 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean near Samoa, at an underwater volcano called West Mata. Scientists on a University of Washington research vessel gathered around monitors to watch the Jason remotely operated submarine as it approached the volcano. As the sub neared the summit, warm water, which shimmers like a highway on a hot day, began to stream out of the rocks.

“We turned and saw this willowy, wispy white smoke-like fluid coming up off the side of the steep volcano. We knew we were at the right site,” said Bob Embley, a marine geologist with NOAA who co-led the expedition. “Then it was up to the pilot to very skillfully maneuver down to the site then turn to look at it. When we turned around, we started to see the red flashes of light, and we knew we were seeing the primordial eruption on the sea floor that we’d never seen before.”

They named the spot Hades. And now, you can see what they saw in the videos posted here. (Editor’s tip: put on your headphones and turn up the bass.)

The discovery came in part because of NOAA’s effort to do more ocean exploration to simply find out more about the vast, largely mysterious oceans that cover 70 percent of the Earth.

“When we go exploring, we make discoveries,” said Steve Hammond, chief scientist at NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

In fact, West Mata is the second underwater volcano discovered by NOAA, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation. The previous one was discovered in much shallower water in the Mariana Arc.

See Also:

• Photos of Alaskan Volcano’s Eruption
• Alaska Volcano Erupts
• Martian Volcano Could Be Reservoir for Life
• Life Thrives in Earth’s Most Mars-Like Environment
• 8 Hot Volcanic Eruptions
• Massive Volcanic Eruptions Could Have Killed Off the Dinosaurs
• Erupting Volcanoes on Earth as Seen From Space

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 | 17 Dec 2009 | 2:03 pm

Isis Temple Fragment Dates Back to Cleopatra Era

A sunken piece of Cleopatra's underwater city has been lifted from the depths of the sea.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 2:00 pm

Motherly Behavior Grows New Brain Cells

The act of mothering may give rise to new neurons, according to a study in rats.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 1:40 pm

Over the Arctic, Auroras Collide

Cameras over poles spot auroras colliding for first time.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 1:34 pm

SkyGrabber: the $26 software used by insurgents to hack into US drones

"SkyGrabber is offline satellite internet downloader," the page begins confidently, at once informing the native English speaker that the page wasn't written by one. In fact SkyGrabber is a Russian programme – the site is apparently run by Cherkashyn Vyacheslav in Nab Podeba, Ukraine.

SkyGrabber is a simple enough concept: grab the signals that spill from a satellite broadcast (or even narrowcast), aimed from a satellite towards a specific location, and turn them into TV feeds you can look at. Or as the website puts it: "You don't have to keep an online internet connection. Just customise your satellite dish to selected satellite provider and start grabbing."

The US drones would send their video up to a US military satellite (the "uplink") that cannot be intercepted. The signal would then be beamed by that satellite or a linked one down to the controllers – who might be in Afghanistan or Iraq. Because that signal was unencrypted, anyone who tuned their satellite dish to the correct frequency and location in the sky could pick up the signal, and decode it. And because any satellite downlink signal spreads a little, the area where it can be picked up is potentially huge.

The weakness has been known for a very long time. In February this year Adam Laurie, an "ethical hacker" who has spent a lot of time looking at satellite feed hacking, told the BlackHat conference that "anyone with a [satellite] dish can see data being broadcast" and that "things you would expect to be secure turn out not to be secure. The most worrying thing is you can just see all this data going by." He has been at it since the 1990s – and in 1997 could see French TV reporters beaming back closed circuit coverage of Princess Diana's death to the UK over unsecured feeds.

The only surprise is that the US army is surprised – given that it has known since the 1990s that the "downlink" (from the satellite) of the drone video was unencrypted. The internet may have been invented in the US, but its knowledge has spread far and wide — and insurgents have used websites and computer networks to organise themselves for years.

The thinking of the author of SkyGrabber is clear enough, given the other products he touts: they include Tuner4PC – for establishing internet connections via satellite uplink and downlinks – and LanGrabber, which "intercepts network downloads started by other users and saves information on your hard disk". The latter is what hackers call a "sniffer", seamlessly picking up the data that others are transferring and making a copy for you.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 1:32 pm

Feeling the heat -- from corn to cabernet

U.S. agriculture could begin feeling the heat of climate change during the next few decades. Growing seasons in major wine regions could become too hot, new research suggests, and winter seasons in cornfields could become too warm to curb the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 1:12 pm

US drones hacked by Iraqi insurgents

• $26 (£16) software let militants view potential targets
• American official says flaw was identified and fixed

One of America's most sophisticated weapons in the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the unmanned drone, has been successfully penetrated by insurgents using software available on the internet for $26 (£16).

Insurgents in Iraq intercepted live video feeds from the drones being relayed back to a US controller and revealing potential targets. A US official said the flaw was identified and fixed in the past 12 months.

The problem only came to light after the US found many hours' worth of videotaped recordings on militant laptops late last year and earlier this year.

The insurgents used software programmes such as Skygrabber, developed by a Russian company and originally intended to download music and videos from the internet.

The drones have become one of the most important parts of the US armoury. Their use has increased sixfold over the past five years. They are able to hover over suspect sites and launch missiles against alleged militants in Iraq and alleged al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border region.

The use of the drones in Pakistan is particularly controversial, in part because some Pakistanis see it as US infringement of the country's sovereignty, but also because civilians are often hit too.

The potential problem with the hacking was that insurgents, if they knew the locations being targeted, would be able to take evasive action.

A US source with knowledge of the programme today confirmed the report, first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, but said that the quality of the pictures seen by the insurgents would have been of limited value. The pictures would have been fuzzy, making it nearly impossible to determine the location of a target in the deserts or mountains, the source said.

The US air force is responsible for drones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the CIA for those in Pakistan. The CIA video feeds are reported to have been encrypted, while some of the air forces ones were not.

The Pentagon had been aware of the problem for many years, but had assumed the insurgents would not have the technical knowledge to intercept the feeds.

Air force Lieutenant General David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, said: "Any time you have a system that broadcasts information using omnidirectional signals, those are subject to listening and exploitation. One of the ways we deal with that is encrypting signals."

When asked about the problem, a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright, indicated that it had been addressed. He said: "The department of defence constantly evaluates and seeks to improve the performance and security of our various ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] systems. As we identify shortfalls, we correct them as part of a continuous process of seeking to improve capabilities and security."

One defence official, however, said that upgrading the encryption in the drones would be a long process because at least 600 of the unmanned planes are in use, along with thousands of ground stations.

The first the US apparently knew about the interception was last year, when video feeds from a drone were found on the laptop of a Shia militant in Iraq who was allegedly backed by Iran. The US and Britain have both accused Tehran for years of interfering in Iraq. More laptops were found in the summer that suggested that the insurgents shared the video feeds.

While the US hints that Iran is the culprit behind the problem, it could simply be that an Iraqi searching for a football game or other broadcast came across the signal.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 1:02 pm

Mysterious Collapse of Reindeer Herd Blamed on Freak Storms

SAN FRANCISCO — On a remote island in the Bering Strait during World War II, a tiny band of Americans ran a radar station. Twenty-nine reindeer were placed on St. Matthew Island with them, to be eaten in case of emergency.

The emergency never came, and population biologist Dave Klein counted 6,000 reindeer on the island by 1963, spread out over just 50 square miles of land. Then, sailors started to report seeing bleached reindeer skeletons dotting the island. When Klein returned in 1966, there were only 42 left and no males with the ability to reproduce. The herd dwindled and eventually went extinct.

There this strange mystery sat for decades until extreme weather specialist John Walsh of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and University of Nebraska climatologist Martha Shulski teamed up with the now 80-year-old Klein to solve it. They announced their findings this week here at the American Geophysical Union meeting.

It turns out that a series of winter cyclones comparable in intensity to a Category 2 hurricane buffeted the island in early 1964. Overpopulated and isolated as the island was, the reindeer herd proved vulnerable to the extreme storms, which brought much heavier than normal snowfall, stronger winds, and lower temperatures.

The question that remains is why these extra-strong storms occurred. For reasons that still aren’t understood, a series of weather systems sweeping across the Pacific from Japan intensified just east of the dateline and then headed north.

Over that winter, the closest weather station to reindeer’s home, St. Paul Island, got more than six and a half feet more snow than normal. The barometric pressure differential between the low of the strongest storm and the regional high in Siberia was the highest in the 60-year period for which measurements are available. The reindeer were no match.

See Also:

• Roman Coin Hoards Show More War Means Fewer Babies
• Hidden Orangutan Population Discovered
• China: The Wrong Way to Do Population Control
• Dung Fungus Provides New Evidence in Mammoth Extinction
• ID Error Leaves Fish at Edge of Extinction
• Google Algorithm Predicts When Species Will Go 404, Not Found
• A New Explanation for Ancient Mass Extinction

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 | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:53 pm

Fossil find is 2009's top breakthrough

The discovery a "central character in the story of human evolution" is named the scientific breakthrough of 2009.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:44 pm

Rhino Befriends Warthog Family

My Christmas card this year from Johnny Rodrigues, chairman for the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, came with the below unexpected, pleasant surprise. The above photo shows Tatenda, a male black rhino, on the left. Tatenda's mother was gunned down by ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:23 pm

Happiest States Revealed by New Research

Objective measures of happiness match up with personal accounts of well-being, a new study finds.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:02 pm

Racial Bias Broadcast from TV Character to Viewer

Characters on television shows can transmit subtle cues that perpetuate racial stereotypes among viewers.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:01 pm

Happiest U.S. States Pinned Down

Louisiana and Hawaii get top spots, while New York and Connecticut fall to the bottom of the list.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Human Ancestors Were Homemakers

Early humans were dividing their living spaces into kitchens and work areas much earlier than previously thought, a new study found.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Redd letter day

Copenhagen must include rainforests in climate deal
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 11:45 am

Piece of the pie

Who will get to control massive climate fund?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 11:28 am

Bones find from abandoned village 'show tough life of medieval women'

Skeletons from Wharram Percy have much larger bones than those of city contemporaries

The fearsome northern woman of legend and cliche, broadchested and with a frying pan poised to whack sense into her man, has proved to have genuine historic origins.

Analysis of bones from Britain's biggest medieval excavation has unearthed a race of real-life Nora Battys, ruling a Yorkshire roost nearly 1,000 years ago.

Skeletons from Wharram Percy, a village on the Yorkshire Wolds abandoned after the 14th century Black Death, have much larger bones than those of contemporaries elsewhere.

"The differences are really quite pronounced," said Simon Mays, of English Heritage, who has measured 120 sets of women's bones from the site. "Women at Wharram were much more muscular and bigger boned than their city counterparts. Whilst they were still doing the domestic chores and looking after children, they clearly also mucked in with the hard labour in the fields, building up their arm strength."

Whether they used this to assert themselves in the running of the village is likely to remain conjecture, but the archaeology suggests that social roles were less divided than they later became. Grinding poverty, if nothing else, obliged the "gentler sex" to multi-task in the fashion of many modern women.

"The research underlines the way that the sexual division of labour was much less marked in rural areas than in the cities of the time," said Mays. "The evidence from the Wharram bones speaks volumes, and reinforces that notion that life in the village was far from a rural idyll."

Like the archetypal Nora, a West Riding dragon played by Kathy Staff in the long-running TV comedy Last of the Summer Wine, the Wharram women were substantial as well as strong. Their bones are wider than average and with thicker walls, a sign of calcium and other components being deposited as muscles are worked harder and gain mass.

Wharram's insights on the state of medieval Britain are set to continue, as work continues on hundreds of thousands of remains excavated between 1950 and 1990. The site, surrounding a lonely church in a remote grassy valley, is the best-preserved of Britain's 3,500 abandoned villages.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 10:53 am

The plus side of an arms race with Iran | Meir Javedanfar

The west should see it as a powerful way to gradually bleed the Iranian leadership of what keeps it alive – economic viability

Iran's testing of its "Sajjil 2" missile grabbed headlines in the international media. It was described as "an upgraded version of an advanced missile capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe".

Judging by the reaction of the western press, it seems that the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become very adept at convincing them of its superior military capabilities.

And the fact that the Iranian government was able to do two tests of its Sajjil missiles in the space of seven months (the previous one being in May) is a sign that Iran is making significant advances in its missile programme. This missile also uses solid fuel, which is more advanced than liquid fuel, used by Iran's other missiles. Solid fuel can also stay in the rockets for months, while liquid fuel missiles need to be fuelled right before being launched, thus making them easier to detect and destroy.

However, what the west should not forget is that Israel was already within the range of Iranian missiles before this test. And although the solid fuel capabilities of the missile make it more difficult to detect, Israel's new Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV), which can fly over Iran for up to 36 hours, and its sophisticated spy satellites, which have greatly improved its intelligence-gathering capabilities, should not be overlooked.

Iran is estimated to have roughly 100-150 missiles that can reach Israel. Most of these are Shahab-3 missiles, which have a low accuracy rate and a payload of only 1,200kg. Israel has an Arrow anti-missile system which is conservatively expected to stop at least 50% of them, if not more. Hezbollah, which is estimated to have at least 30,000 missiles (some have put the number at double that amount), could hit as far as Tel Aviv. However, again, one should not forget the Israeli Air Force's capabilities in this case. During the last war in 2006, all of Hezbollah's long-range missiles were destroyed within a few hours. The same could happen again, as Hezbollah's missiles are more difficult to hide. They are also much more within the range of Israel.

What the west should focus on is that within Iran's perceived strength of developing new missiles lies a significant weakness. By engaging the west in an arms race, Iran could set itself up for a battle it could lose. Not only technically in terms of which missile has a longer range, but also politically.

Israel and the west both have larger economic stamina than Iran in keeping up in such a competition over a long period of time. The Iranian government, whose already damaged economy is about to take a major hit through sanctions, over time will find it more and more difficult to pour resources into expensive military plans, at the expense of important social needs and projects. However, if it does, this could have the same impact on Iran as on the former Soviet Union – economic neglect caused by mismanagement and huge defence budgets, causing the ultimate collapse of the economy and subsequently the regime.

Therefore instead of being concerned about an arms race with Iran, some western policymakers should welcome it. This could be a powerful way to gradually bleed the Iranian leadership of what keeps it alive – economic viability.

Expensive Russian MiG fighter jets or intercontinental ballistic missiles could not hold the communist regime together for long. The same could work in Iran, especially after the post-election upheavals there. The more Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ignores the economic plight of his people due to excessive focus on the military, the more unpopular his regime will become. And now that the green movement has proved its popularity by continuing with its protests for six months, the chance that public resentment could turn into viable opposition that could endanger his regime is much higher. Engaging him in an arms race could be one way to make sure he falls into this trap.

As the old saying goes, in every cloud, there is a silver lining. This includes the clouds of smoke emanating from Iranian missile launches.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 10:07 am

Seeing is believing at Vesuvius

The serenity surrounding Naples, and the tectonic turmoil underneath it, is the perfect metaphor for the unreliability of our eyes

The other day I looked at Joseph Wright of Derby's spectacular 18th-century painting of Vesuvius in eruption at Tate Britain. I've been impressed before by its burst of golden light and river of pink fire surrounded by cloudy, smoky darkness. But this time, I looked at the painting a couple of days after returning from a trip to Naples and seeing the mountain itself. And the gap between the scene I saw with my own eyes and Wright's depiction of what Vesuvius is capable of strikes me as mystifying.

Vesuvius is surely the most famous volcano in the world. The ancient naturalist Pliny the Elder was killed while observing the eruption in AD79 that destroyed Pompeii. His nephew described the eruption in a letter still used as evidence by vulcanologists today.

For Vesuvius is an active volcano. It can still blow. It last did so in the 1940s, and an eruption is overdue. Not only that, but the entire landscape around Naples, which I flew over last week, is honeycombed with magma chambers and craters. It is on the faultline between Africa and Europe and has long been a heartland of geological investigation. In his book The Earth, Richard Fortey says the area north of Naples is even more primed to explode than Vesuvius itself.

So what troubles me is – if this terrain is so dangerous, why can't we see its danger? Or more precisely, why is it so hard to imagine Vesuvius erupting when you look at it today?

Gazing across the Bay of Naples, what you see is a beautiful, calm, shapely mountain framed against the blue sky. No smoke. No visible fire. And it would take a very melodramatic soul (or a clued-up geologist) to find its stillness scary, its silence sinister.

I think this tells us something about looking. We believe what we see. We like to think, at the same time, that by looking hard enough we can discover the truth. But many truths are quite simply invisible. Many appearances truly are deceptive.

Vesuvius, hiding its violence under a placid appearance, is a metaphor for the unreliability of our eyes.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Dec 2009 | 10:05 am

Hot Tub = Time Machine?

Everyone loves a good time travel fantasy, and the 1980s film Back to the Future is pretty much the cassic example of the genre. But Marty McFly stands to get some serious competition from John Cusack's comedic crew in Hot ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Dec 2009 | 9:57 am

Earth's Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically

When sun is at minimum in solar cycle, outer layers of Earth's atmosphere cool substantially.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 8:42 am

Why Earth's Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling

Emissions of carbon dioxide may warm the lower atmosphere, but they cool the upper atmosphere. NCAR scientist Stan Solomon explains how it works, but essentially the difference has to do with the density of the atmospheric layer.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 8:34 am

Tech Trends to Expect in 2010

Look for 3-D, tablets, and green tech to make a splash in 2010.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:35 am

LED TV Prices to Drop in 2010

Fierce competition among LED TV manufacturers could be good news for consumers.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Dec 2009 | 7:28 am

Bees 'mummify' their enemy alive

A stingless bee in Australia mummifies its enemy by entombing alive in wax and resin.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Dec 2009 | 6:05 am

Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists

The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image.

New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds may be partially responsible for the dearth of women in the field, as shown by National Science Foundation statistics.

“What this research shows is that the image of computer science — this geeky, masculine image — can make women feel like they don’t belong,” says lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington.

“I think this is an important contribution to the literature,” says Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton of the University of California, Berkeley. He says it raises questions about how much conscious control people have over their choices.

Previous research has found that a person can get a good sense of what another individual is like just from spending a few minutes perusing that person’s bedroom. Cheryan wondered if the same was true of classrooms.

“You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with,” Cheryan says. “You walk in, see these objects and think, ‘This is not me.’”

Cheryan and colleagues tested this idea by alternately decorating a computer science classroom with objects that earlier surveys pegged as stereotypically geeky—Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books — or with objects that the surveys found to be neutral— coffee mugs, plants and art posters. Thirty-nine college students spent a few minutes in the room, then filled out a questionnaire on their attitudes toward computer science.

Women who spent time in the geeky room reported less interest in computer science than women who saw the neutral room. For male students, however, the room’s décor made no difference.

In follow-up tests, a total of 215 students were asked to imagine they were joining either a geekily decorated or a neutrally decorated company after graduation. For every possible scenario, women preferred the non-geeky space.

“It’s a consistent effect,” Cheryan says. “The environment can communicate a sense of belonging, but it also communicates a sense of exclusion, or a sense that this is not a place where I would fit in.”

Cheryan acknowledges that the geeky classroom setup is a caricature of computer science. But, she points out, people respond to that stereotype whether it’s true or not, and study participants found the nerdy room believable.

“There’s this idea that people develop interest in their major or their chosen career through some kind of internal passion they have,” Mendoza-Denton says. “These studies show that in fact the spaces that you walk into can have those kinds of effects. Those are very subtle things that we can miss.”

Cheryan suggests that nonstereotypical depictions of computer science, in the media and in classrooms, could help update the field’s image.

Mendoza-Denton adds that the results can be put to use in other fields in which minorities are underrepresented. But first, he says, “People have to begin to take it seriously.”

“The scientific basis for making the case that the décor of a particular room matters is very clear,” he says. “But whether institutions or companies or universities decide to take those steps to increase diversity really is up to people listening to the research.”

Image: TACD/Flickr

See Also:

• Star Trek Gallery: Then and Now
• Star Trek: A Military Analysis
• Trekker Re-Creates Classic Star Trek Scenes With Legos

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Dec 2009 | 4:00 am