Antimicrobial peptide from ancient organism may be effective against multiresistant human pathogens including MRSA

Researchers in Germany have identified a new antimicrobial peptide that demonstrates significant activity against a variety of bacteria, including multiresistant human strains such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). The discovery was made while investigating the ancient metazoan organism Hydra magnipapillata.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Warming climate chills Sonoran Desert's spring flowers

Global warming is giving a boost to Sonoran Desert plants that have an edge during cold weather, according to new research. Although overall numbers of winter annuals have declined since 1982, species that germinate and grow better at low temperatures are becoming more common. As a result, the composition of the desert's spring wildflower display is changing, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Cannabis damages young brains more than originally thought, study finds

The damaging effects of the illicit drug Cannabis on young brains are worse than originally thought, according to a psychiatric researcher. A new study suggests that daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause depression and anxiety, and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Fog discovered on Saturn's largest moon, Titan

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system -- aside from our home planet, Earth -- with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. According to a planetary astronomer Earth and Titan share yet another feature, which is inextricably linked with that surface liquid: common fog.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Fear of lawsuits may prompt some doctors to overprescribe antibiotics

Investigators surveyed 162 health-care providers to determine whether medical liability concerns were as important as antibiotic cost and formulary restrictions in selecting treatment regimens. They found a strong correlation between the prevalence of methicillin resistance and density of attorneys in countries in Europe and North America.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Intensive therapy for narrowed arteries linked to fewer heart events

Intensive medical therapy, including aggressive control of blood pressure and cholesterol levels, for patients with asymptomatic plaque buildup in their carotid arteries (which supply blood to the brain) appears to be associated with reduced rates of cardiovascular events and reduced risk of microemboli (microscopic-sized blood clots) in the brain arteries, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Colliding auroras produce an explosion of light

A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission has made a startling discovery about the Northern Lights. Sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing spectacular outbursts of light.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Tropical birds waited for land crossing between North and South America, study finds

Despite their ability to fly, tropical birds waited until the formation of the land bridge between North and South America to move northward, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

How cancer cells protect themselves from low levels of oxygen

Not all regions of a tumor are equal in terms of their oxygen levels. One clinically important implication of this is that tumors with large areas with low levels of oxygen (areas known as hypoxic regions) are associated with poor prognosis and treatment response. Researchers have determined that a cellular response pathway known as the unfolded protein response pathway helps protect human tumor cells from hypoxia and anticancer irradiation treatment.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Skull bone may hold the key to tackling osteoporosis

Scientists have uncovered fundamental differences between the bone which makes up the skull and the bones in our limbs, which they believe could hold the key to tackling bone weakness and fractures.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

China: Climate talks yielded 'positive' results (AP)

AP - China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, lauded Sunday the outcome of a historic U.N. climate conference that ended with a nonbinding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts — but does not require it.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:28 am

Germany's Merkel defends climate accord (AP)

AP - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is defending the much-criticized outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit as a first step that paves the way for action.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:21 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - The winter storm was expected to linger over the East Coast and bring another messy day to New England and the Northeast. A low pressure system was forecast to keep pushing northward up the East Coast and pulling cool and moist conditions into the region.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 2:47 am

East Coast hammered by severe winter storm (Reuters)

Reuters - A weekend nor'easter buried much of the U.S. East Coast on Saturday and Sunday, disrupting public transport and air travel and hampering holiday shoppers on the last weekend before Christmas.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 1:47 am

Worst-hit Bangladesh 'pleased' with climate deal (AFP)

AFP - The prime minister of Bangladesh, one of the nations worst-hit by global warming, said she was satisfied with the Copenhagen summit's outcome, and hoped rows over thorny issues would be ironed out soon.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 12:38 am

Climate summit rams through plan, amid criticism (AFP)

AFP - A UN climate summit rammed through a battle plan against global warming forged by US President Barack Obama and other top leaders, sidelining smaller states which lashed the deal as betrayal.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 12:36 am

Shark bites diver in Australia (AFP)

AFP - An Australian man was in hospital Sunday after surviving a shark attack while diving off the country's northeast coast, officials said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 11:49 pm

Team finds Australian hospital ship sunk in WW2

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian hospital ship torpedoed by the Japanese during World War Two with the loss of 268 lives has been located in waters off the coast of the northern state of Queensland, the government said on Sunday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 10:29 pm

Climate reality: Voluntary efforts not enough (AP)

AP - Around the world, countries and capitalism are already working to curb global warming on their own, with or without a global treaty.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 9:48 pm

Why I believe all is not lost – yet

The nature of the climate change deal finally hammered out yesterday is a bitter disappointment to many, but if the world can acknowledge what went wrong at Copenhagen and learn from it, then we can still step back from the brink of disaster

The Antarctic peninsula is a vast finger of land that protrudes into the Southern Ocean. It is as inhospitable a place as one can imagine; a land of ice and blizzard. Yet the peninsula is currently under- going a remarkable transformation. Over the past six decades, temperatures there have jumped by a staggering 5C. Populations of one of the peninsula's key inhabitants, the Adelie penguins, are plummeting as ice sheets crack and melt.

Now consider the other side of the planet. Sea ice cover in the Arctic is hovering at its lowest level for the time of year since records began. In a few decades, it will probably disappear completely during the summer months, say researchers. The consequences for wildlife, such as the polar bear, are perturbing.

Sandwiched in between is the rest of the planet, which is now afflicted, in every continent, by climate change driven by rising emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from factories, homes and cars.

This decade will be the warmest recorded in 160 years, say meteorologists. At the same time, rising sea levels are poisoning fresh water wells in Bangladesh, droughts are becoming longer and more frequent in east Africa, and coral reefs are dying as oceans absorb more and more carbon dioxide and become increasingly acidic.

Our world is changing and urgent action is needed to save it, which makes the feebleness of the climate change deal hammered out in Copenhagen yesterday such a bitter disappointment. The planet needed a blueprint for survival. What it got was a nebulous accord that falls desperately short on specifics. No binding limits on individual countries' emissions were established, a criterion crucial for halting the current increase of carbon in the atmosphere. Nor was any deadline agreed for establishing such limits.

Instead, delegates merely stipulated that the world needs to keep future global temperature rises below 2C, a figure that scientists say will prevent the worst impacts of climate change. The exact mechanism for achieving this aspiration was left to future negotiations, however.

Not surprisingly, the limp language of the Copenhagen accord has gone down badly with many NGOs. "Half-hearted pledges to protect our planet from dangerous climate change are simply not sufficient to address a crisis that calls for completely new ways of collaboration across rich and poor countries," said Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF's global climate initiative. Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, was equally enraged: "This toothless declaration condemns millions of the world's poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates. We need a profound change of approach from the world's wealthiest countries to secure a genuine strong and fair agreement."

You get the message. Our leaders fluffed their chance to save the planet. The question is: was this their last chance? In other words, can something still be salvaged from the Copenhagen accord? Most leaders, including Gordon Brown and Barack Obama, believe the answer is yes. As they point out, the accord – although failing to specify carbon emission cuts – does pledge a sum of $30bn to provide short-term aid to help developing nations cope with the effects of climate change while also agreeing the goal of setting up a $100bn-a-year fund by 2020 to address their longer-term needs. These are significant commitments that have raised the hopes of a number of scientists and commentators. "I think there is reason to be optimistic – it's the first time we've ever got the world to think about a single-number aspiration: that we should not cross more than two degrees of global warming," said Chris Huntingford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. "I hope that will lead to some sort of legally binding agreement."

Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, has been equally confident: "The summit has generated, for the first time, commitments on emissions reductions from the world's two largest emitters, China and the US, and they have acted for the first time to produce proposals for action. These two results represent an important breakthrough."

These are fair points and suggest that all is not yet lost. However, we should be in no doubt about the challenges and the dangers that lie ahead. Should we fail to keep global temperature rises down to 2C, and allow them to reach 3 or 4C, we will inflict immense damage to ecosytems, farmland and weather systems. Large chunks of the Amazon rainforest could burn down while deserts will spread across southern Africa, Australia and the western US. Methane and carbon dioxide, currently trapped in the frozen permafrost of the Arctic, will be released in vast quantities, triggering further jumps in global temperatures. Sea-level rises could reach 5 metres by the end of the century, submerging large parts of Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Florida. The consequences for humans, and animals, would be terrible.

But given that the Copenhagen accord includes only a vague commitment concerning the reduction of carbon emissions, how can we hope to curtail global warming? We are pumping around 47bn tonnes of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere each year. If we are to avoid temperature rises of more than 2C, emissions must peak and begin to decline by 2020 and then drop to around 35bn by 2030 and 20bn in 2050, say scientists. Each year of inaction makes these targets more difficult to achieve, however. The more carbon that is pumped into the atmosphere this year, the more stringent reductions will have to be in future years. We are piling up crises for future generations.

The cause is clearly urgent and it is crucial that lessons are learned from Copenhagen, a point stressed by Andrew Pendleton, senior fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research. "The cumbersome process and overloaded agenda meant failure was programmed into the system from the beginning," he has pointed out. "Leaders came to Copenhagen to rewrite history and left having made a few notes in the margin."

Clearly, a radical reframing of climate change policy needs to be adopted so that a proper deal can be struck at next year's climate talks in Mexico. Stern has suggested that a group of 20 nations be set up now so that its representatives can work on a draft treaty, and develop a consensus about future deals among other nations. Faced with an agenda stripped of crippling detail, our leaders will then be far more likely to agree to a formula that will allow us to tackle global warming. At the same time, individual nations and power blocs, such as the EU, need to announce their own binding carbon cut commitments and maintain the momentum of the Copenhagen talks.

In short, a deal to halt global warming can be done. We can step back from the brink if we acknowledge what went wrong in Copenhagen. Certainly, I am disappointed in the outcome of this month's summit but I am not despondent – for the moment.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 19 Dec 2009 | 5:06 pm

Copenhagen: The last-ditch drama that saved the deal from collapse

In the end it came down to frantic horse trading between exhausted politicians. After two weeks of high politics and low cunning that pitted world leaders against each other and threw up extraordinary new alliances between states, agreement was finally reached yesterday on an accord to tackle global warming. But the bitterness and recriminations that bedevilled the talks threaten to spread as environmental activists and scientists react to what many see as a deeply flawed deal

The Copenhagen accord was gavelled through in the early hours of yesterday morning after a night of extraordinary drama and two weeks of subterfuge. It is a document that will shape the world, the climate and the balance of power for decades to come, but the story of how it came into existence is one of high drama and low politics.

Amid leaks, suspicion, recriminations and exhaustion, the world's leaders abandoned ordinary negotiating protocol to haggle line-for-line with mid-level officials. An emergency meeting of 30 leaders was called after a royal banquet on Thursday evening because of the huge number of disputes still remaining.

China and India were desperate to avoid this last-minute attempt to strong-arm them into a deal. The Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh's plane mysteriously developed a problem that delayed his arrival. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao simply refused to attend, sending his officials instead. In a collapse of protocol, middle-ranking officials from the two countries negotiated line by line on a text with Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Germany's Angela Merkel and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Gordon Brown felt the only way to overcome the logjam was for leaders to descend into the detail and take on officials. Yet there was still no agreement by 7am on Friday.

"I thought it was meltdown," said Ed Miliband, Britain's secretary of state for energy and climate change. Brown returned to the fray, cranking out 13 amendments designed to overcome the objections of the developing nations and press home Europe's desire to commit to a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 and a determination to make the process legally – not just "politically" – binding on all parties. Both goals were rejected by China and India, which had formed a strong alliance.

During the day, and the flurry of different texts, the leaders battled on, trying to reach an agreement that was not just about saving the Earth from global warming, but would also play an important role in reshaping the global balance of power. Barack Obama, who had flown in on Friday morning on Air Force One, joined the discussions immediately and held two sets of direct talks with Wen, who never once participated in the closed-room group meetings.

Around 8pm, after the second of these bilateral meetings, Obama returned to the negotiating room saying he had secured an agreement from Wen on the key issue of how promises to cut emissions would be verified by the international community. But a new fight then erupted in which China bizarrely insisted that Europe lower its targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

Merkel wanted to set a target for developed nations to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, but in the last gasp, China declared this unacceptable. This astonished many of those present: China was telling rich nations to rein back on their long-term commitment. The assumed reason was that China will have joined their ranks by 2050 and does not want to meet such a target. "Ridiculous," exclaimed Merkel as she was forced to abandon the target.

But it was not to be the final battle in a bruising conflict that left the negotiators drained and the draft diluted. The final text was released shortly before midnight. The final two-and-a-half-page political agreement – the Copenhagen accord – was vaguely worded, short on detail and not legally binding. Although it was hailed as a step forward by Brown and Obama, the weak content and the final huddled process of decision-making – ignoring the majority of the 192 nations present – provoked disappointment and fury.

Part of the frustration was the lack of new ambition. Due to the leaks, hold-ups and suspicion, China barely budged and the EU refused to raise it sights. Before the Copenhagen conference, the EU said it was willing to raise its emissions reduction target from 20% to 30% by 2020 if other countries also lifted theirs. That never happened. European commission president José Manuel Barroso said not one country asked the EU to move up to the higher figure, but counterparts had pulled down EU proposals to set a target for 2050.

"It was extraordinary," he said. "This is important for the record. Other parties do not have the interest and awareness in climate change that we have." Which other party was soon apparent. That night, immediately after the accord was announced and denounced for its weakness, the Observer asked the director general of the Swedish environment protection agency, Lars-Erik Liljelund, who was to blame for blocking a 2050 target for cutting emissions.

"China," he said after a dramatic pause. "China doesn't like numbers."

The drama was not over. Without recognition by the plenary session of all the delegate nations, the agreement was almost worthless. But the anger in the hall meant that approval was far from certain. When the Danish chairman, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, gave delegates just an hour to consider the accord, he was assailed by a storm of criticism.

The Venezuelan representative raised a bloodied hand to grab his attention. "Do I have to bleed to grab your attention," she fumed. "International agreements cannot be imposed by a small exclusive group. You are endorsing a coup d'état against the United Nations."

While the debate raged, China's delegate, Su Wei, was silent as Latin American nations and small island states lined up to attack the accord and the way it had been reached.

"We're offended by the methodology. This has been done in the dark," fumed the Bolivian delegate. "It does not respect two years of work."

Others resorted to histrionics. The document "is a solution based on the same very values, in our opinion, that channelled six million people in Europe into furnaces," said Sudan's Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping.

It was too much for Rasmussen, who looked strained and exhausted after a week spent vainly trying to bridge the schisms between the parties. He raised his gavel to close the debate, which would have aborted the Copenhagen accord and condemned the summit to abject failure.

The document was saved at the last second by Miliband, who had rushed back from his hotel room to call for an adjournment. During the recess, a group led by Britain, the US and Australia forced Rasmussen out of the chair and negotiated a last-minute compromise. The accord was neither accepted or rejected, it was merely "noted". This gave it a semblance of recognition, but the weak language reflected the unease that has surrounded its inception. Copenhagen was the leakiest international conference in history. The first leak, on the second day of the conference, came after a mysterious telephone invitation to meet a diplomat in a cubbyhole at the back of one of the delegation offices.

Two sheets of paper were handed over. They were the detailed analysis of the "Danish text", a widely rumoured but never seen document prepared by a few rich countries in secret and almost certainly intended to be sprung on unsuspecting developing countries when there was an impasse at a late stage in the negotiations.

But without the actual text, the document was incomplete and hard to use. The leaker said that other papers would be handed over to the Guardian off the premises the next day, but the call never came. The day was only saved by an another leaker from another country who handed over a copy of the Danish text within 24 hours. The two leaks together exploded into the negotiations, with developing countries convinced of a conspiracy and rich countries furious as their plans were revealed. If adopted, the text would have killed off the Kyoto treaty, which puts legal demands on rich nations, but not developing ones.

As the conference went on, the leaks became more regular, until by the end there was a flood. Three days before the end, a confidential scientific analysis paper emerged from the heart of the UN secretariat, showing that the emission-cut pledges countries had made by that point would lead not to a 2C rise, as countries were aiming for, but a 3C rise that would frazzle half the world. Britain and other rich countries claimed that the figures were wrong, despite other analyses agreeing with them. But developing countries accused the UN of knowingly consigning countries to destruction.

In the last 24 hours, it became negotiation by leak. Secret documents were deliberately left on photocopiers, others were thrust into journalists' hands or put on the web. People were photographing them and handing them around all the time. All eight versions of the final text that world leaders were asked to sign up to were leaked within minutes of being published. The talks repeatedly teetered on the brink of collapse.

As the talks were snared on procedural issues inside the conference hall, civil society was getting angry. As the arrival of the 120 world leaders approached, more and more restrictions were imposed on who was allowed in. The 7,000 colourful and noisy kids, environmentalists, church groups, lobbyists, students, activists and others who had been allowed into the Bella centre every day were first reduced to 1,000 and then to just 90 on the last day.

Mainstream groups such as Friends of the Earth International and Greenpeace were cut down from hundreds of activists to only a few each. Asian and African groups were hit the hardest because entry was in proportion to membership size.

Posters went up – "How can you decide for us without us?" and "Civil society silenced" – and there were demonstrations, but by the end the Bella centre was silenced.

Before the start of the conference, it had been assumed the leaders would only have to settle two or three issues when they arrived at Copenhagen, but by the time they walked in there were still 192 disputed pieces of text in the drafts.

Rather than reopen debate following the frantic final 24 hours of horse trading, the new chair gavelled through the decision in a fraction of a second. Sudan, China and India expressed concerns, but the Copenhagen accord had been born. Though frail and unloved, this document will shape the lives of generations. Though many environmentalists claimed no deal was better than such a weak deal, those most closely involved in the negotiations said it marked progress of a sort.

"It was definitely worth saving," said Miliband. "This is the first time that developed and developing nations have agreed to deal with emissions and the first time the world has agreed on a deal on climate finance."

Money is likely to oil the deal. Only nations that accept the UN document will be entitled to some of the $30bn dollar start-up fund that will be made available over the next three years to tackle deforestation, share technology and deal with the impact of climate change.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said the negotiations that ultimately involved 113 leaders were unprecedented in UN history, but the effort had been worth while.

"Finally we have sealed the deal. Bringing world leaders to the table paid off," said Ban, who had slept only two hours in the previous two days. "It's not what everyone hoped for, but this is a beginning."

The sentiments were echoed by John Hay, spokesman for the United Nations framework convention on climate change: "At the UNFPCCC, there has been quite a bit of drama over the years. But this may top the list."

Outside the conference hall yesterday, more than 100 protesters chanted: "You're destroying our future!" Some carried signs of Obama with the words "climate shame" pasted on his face.

Friends of the Earth said the "secret backroom declaration" failed to take into account the needs of more than a hundred countries". "This toothless declaration, being spun by the US as a historic success, reflects contempt for the multilateral process and we expect more from our Nobel prize-winning president," said the group's spokeswoman, Kate Horner.

Negotiators put on a brave face. In the early hours, as he headed out into the bitterly cold, Brian Cowen, the Irish taoiseach, expressed disappointment at the outcome.

"The substance of the European Union's [offers] was robustly put, but we couldn't get the commitment of others," Cowen said. "We did not achieve everything we wanted, but the reality is that this is as much as can be advanced at this stage."

China seemed more satisfied. "The meeting has had a positive result, everyone should be happy," said Xie Zhenhua, head of the Chinese delegation.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 19 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

Computers offer a faster way to cure humanity's ills

Scientific research and medical breakthroughs increasingly depend on huge computer power

HOW DO YOU predict whether a given patient is likely to die from a heart attack? Conventional medical wisdom would base a risk assessment on factors such as the person's age, whether they were smokers and/or diabetic plus the results of cardiac ultrasound and various blood tests. It may be that a better predictor is a computer program that analyses the patient's electrocardiogram looking for subtle features within the data provided by the instrument.

A team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan analysed a large data-set of 24-hour electrocardiogram recordings collected at a Boston hospital as part of a clinical trial for a new drug. Employing a number of computational techniques involving algorithms for signal processing, data mining and machine learning, the researchers developed a way to analyse how the shape of the electrical waveform varies, a measure they dubbed morphological variability. At the heart of the approach are mathematical techniques used in speech recognition and genome analysis which allow researchers to compare individual beats. "We compute the differences for every pair of beats," reported one of the researchers. "If there is lots of variability, that patient is in bad shape."

The team then applied their algorithm to a second set of electrocardiogram recordings and found that patients with the highest morphological variability were six to eight times more likely to die from a heart attack than those with low variability. They concluded that it consistently predicted as well or better than the indicators commonly used by physicians.

In the same week, researchers at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge revealed that they had reconstructed the biological history of two types of cancer in a piece of research that, according to the Guardian report, "promises to transform medical treatment of the disease". The research exposed every genetic mutation the patients have acquired over their lifetimes, including the ones that eventually caused healthy cells in their bodies to turn into tumours.

One of the diseases studied was lung cancer. The research revealed 23,000 mutations that were exclusive to the diseased cells. Almost all were caused by the 60 or so chemicals in cigarette smoke that stick to DNA and deform it. "We can say that one mutation is fixed in the genome for every 15 cigarettes smoked," said Peter Campbell, the scientist who led the lung cancer part of the study. "That is frightening because many people smoke a packet of 20 a day."

Although these stories are reports about medical research, they are really about computing – in the sense that neither would have been possible without the application of serious computer power to masses of data. In that way they reflect a new – but so far unacknowledged – reality; that in many important fields leading-edge scientific research cannot be done without access to vast computational and data-handling facilities, with sophisticated software for analysing huge data-sets.

In many significant areas, advanced research is no longer done by individuals looking through microscopes or telescopes, but by computers enabling investigators to collate, visualise and analyse the torrents of data produced by arrays of instruments such as the Australian Square Kilometre radio Telescope or the Large Hadron Collider.

The man who did most to alert the world to the urgent need to take "computational science" seriously was Jim Gray, a much-loved visionary who worked for Microsoft Research. Towards the end of his life, Gray argued that we had moved into what he called "the Fourth Paradigm" of scientific research, which he dubbed "data-intensive scientific discovery". In 2007 he went sailing off the Californian coast – and simply disappeared. Neither he nor his boat was ever found, despite an intensive conventional search butressed by a huge online effort by volunteers who scanned satellite images of the maritime area where the boat was estimated to be.

Last week, in a touching tribute to a lost colleague, Microsoft Research published a handsome book of essays in his memory. It's entitled The Fourth Paradigm: data-intensive scientific discovery and is available as a free download. In it are 30 thoughtful essays on four areas which were central to Jim Gray's vision – environment, health, scientific infrastructure and scholarly communication. This book should be required reading for every policymaker responsible for science and technology to remind them that we now have to provide the resources to fund the IT infrastructure. If we don't give them these tools, then we cannot expect them to finish the job.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 19 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

Copenhagen climate change conference in pictures: Protests and results

As protestors make their views known, delegates struggle through the night and an agreement is reached in the early hours.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 19 Dec 2009 | 5:02 pm

Obama raced clock, chaos, comedy for climate deal (AP)

AP - It was almost unthinkable. The president of the United States walked into a meeting of fellow world leaders and there wasn't a chair for him, a sure sign he was not expected, maybe not even wanted.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 4:23 pm

The Invisible AIDS Victims: How Women Cope (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:06 pm

UN says Copenhagen deal 'a start'

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says a US-backed climate deal is a good beginning, but critics dismiss it as a failure.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Dec 2009 | 12:08 pm

Sushi set to go sky high with Japanese astronaut

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Sushi will soar to new gastronomic heights next week when a Japanese astronaut blasts off for the International Space Station with a load of raw fish.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 11:13 am

Earth Watch

Where does the world go from (No) Hopenhagen?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Dec 2009 | 10:21 am

Your Weekend "Wow!"

As you're sitting down this morning enjoying your Saturday morning coffee, be sure to check out this new short film from the American Museum of Natural History, "The Known Universe" -- a mind-blowing six-minute tour taking us from the peak ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 19 Dec 2009 | 10:13 am

GM wheat is on its way | Henry Miller and Colin Carter

Five years after scrapping its trials, Monsanto calculates that the time is now ripe for GM wheat to make a comeback

Wheat is a critical staple crop, supplying much of the world's dietary protein. In 2007 world production was 607m tonnes, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice. The grain is used to make breads, biscuits, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, noodles, and couscous, and for fermentation to make beer, vodka, and grain alcohol. Up to now, wheat has not benefited from the application of modern genetic engineering that has revolutionised the farming of maize, cotton, canola and soy. But that is about to change.

By 2004, Monsanto, the world's leader in the production of seeds for genetically-engineered crops, had made substantial progress in the development of genetically-engineered wheat varieties for North America. But suddenly in that year, the company scrapped its wheat programme, in part because of opposition from North American grain merchants and growers, as well as concerns that some major foreign importers would reject imports of all American wheat because they could be "contaminated" with genetically engineered varieties. European countries and Japan, which have traditionally imported about 45% of US wheat exports, have been resistant to genetically engineered crops and food derived from them.

In addition, food manufacturers doubted that the introduction of genetically engineered wheat would lead to a significant improvement in their profits because the cost of wheat is typically only a small fraction of inputs for most processed food products, and food processors were afraid of losing market share if environmental and consumer activists were to organise boycotts of food products containing "biotech" wheat. For the last 25 years, activists have opposed agricultural biotechnology, in spite of proven environmental, humanitarian and economic successes.

Monsanto's abdication gave competitors outside the US the opportunity to become the first to adopt new technologies for genetically improved and lower cost wheat, relinquishing what could have been a first-mover advantage – the privileged position of the initial occupant of a market segment.

However, American growers and millers have had a change of mind. In 2006, a coalition of US wheat industry organisations called for access to genetically-engineered wheat varieties with enhanced traits, and a survey released in February 2009 by the US national association of wheat growers found that more than three-quarters of US farmers wanted access to genetically engineered varieties with resistance to pests, disease, drought and frost. Such varieties are important as plant scientists and farmers continue to battle diseases such as leaf rust, the world's most common wheat disease, which can lead to yield loss of up to 20%. In Kansas, the heart of the US wheat belt, for example, leaf rust is the most significant pest, in 2007, it destroyed a shocking 14% of the wheat crop.

American growers, caught in the middle between the inclinations of some of their largest customers and the developers of new wheat varieties, lost out on substantial benefits when Monsanto opted not to follow through with creating genetically-engineered wheat. This left the field (literally and figuratively) to countries such as Australia and China, which are now ahead in their research and field trials of genetically-engineered wheat. For example, the German plant science and chemical company Bayer and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) are collaborating to develop wheat varieties with higher yield, more efficient nutrient use and greater tolerance against drought.

These developments are important for several reasons. Wheat farming is a struggling industry in the US, in large part because it has not received the technological boost from recombinant DNA technology that has benefited the corn and soybean industries. US wheat acreage is down by about one-third from its peak in the early 1980s, due to reduced profitability compared with alternative crops – in spite of the price of a bag of wheat flour having soared from $10 to a peak of $36 during the past 36 months. As a result, the US's position as a leading wheat exporter has declined over several decades, from a high of 50% of world exports in 1973-74 to only around 20% currently.

Five years after letting their biotech wheat research program wither, Monsanto recently revealed plans to resurrect it. The agribusiness company not only announced in July 2009 that it would resume development of genetically engineered wheat varieties, it also further demonstrated its commitment by buying WestBred, a Montana-based wheat-breeding company that specialises in wheat germplasm, the plant's genetic material.

Greater productivity in wheat farming achieved with improved varieties would confer an important environmental dividend: wheat is the largest crop in the world in terms of area cultivated (220m hectares) and is the second largest irrigated crop (each bushel produced requires 11,000 gallons of water on average), so enhanced productivity would conserve both farmland and water. (A more direct approach is being taken by scientists at Egypt's Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute, who have performed at least five years of field trials of drought- and salt-tolerant wheat created by transferring genes from barley into a local wheat variety.)

Monsanto's volte-face reflects the company's assessment that the various relevant factors – technology, business, public policy and customer acceptance – had now become favourable, and was spurred by the world food crisis that saw a tripling of the price of wheat and certain other food crops during 2008. But it will likely take at least eight years until the first varieties of Monsanto's genetically-engineered wheat could be commercialised in the United States.

Monsanto and the US wheat industry may already have been relegated to the position of second mover, and whoever wins the race to get desirable genetically engineered wheat varieties to the marketplace will enjoy a strong cost advantage and attract market share in many importing countries.

Henry Miller is a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of The Frankenfood Myth. Colin Carter is professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California at Davis

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 19 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

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