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Cannabis hope for inflammatory bowel diseaseChemicals found in cannabis could prove an effective treatment for the inflammatory bowel diseases ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, say scientists. Laboratory tests have shown that two compounds found in the cannabis plant – the cannabinoids THC and cannabidiol – interact with the body’s system that controls gut function.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Sixty headless skeletons -- 3,000 years old -- discovered in Pacific Ocean archipelago VanuatuA find of 60 headless skeletons summer 2009 may reveal the identity of the people who first inhabited the Pacific Ocean archipelago Vanuatu 3000 years ago.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Computer algorithm identifies authentic Van GoghA researcher in the Netherlands has developed computer algorithms to support art historians and other art experts in their visual assessment of paintings. His digital technology is capable of distinguishing a forgery from an authentic Van Gogh based on the painter's characteristic brush work and use of color.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Having children makes you more like your own parents“I’ll never be like my parents.” Many youngsters must have said this at least once in their lives. The truth emerges as soon as you have your own children: you increasingly become more like your own parents.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Physicist sees through the opaque with 'T-rays'"T-rays" may make X-rays obsolete as a means of detecting bombs on terrorists or illegal drugs on traffickers, among other uses, contends a physicist who is helping lay the theoretical groundwork to make the concept a reality. In addition to being more revealing than X-rays in some situations, T-rays do not have the cumulative possible harmful effects.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Use and misuse of alcohol and marijuana can be traced to common set of genesMarijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. Roughly eight to 12 percent of marijuana users are considered "dependent" and, just like alcohol, the severity of symptoms increases with heavier use. A new study has found that use and misuse of alcohol and marijuana are influenced by a common set of genes.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm Bioactive glass nanofibers producedResearchers have developed "laser spinning," a novel method of producing glass nanofibres with materials. They have been able to manufacture bioglass nanofibres, the bioactive glass used in regenerating bone, for the first time.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am Black holes in star clusters stir up time and spaceWithin a decade scientists could be able to detect the merger of tens of pairs of black holes every year, according astronomers. By modeling the behavior of stars in clusters, the team finds that they are ideal environments for black holes to coalesce. These merger events produce ripples in time and space (gravitational waves) that could be detected by instruments from as early as 2015.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am Better understanding of the defective protein that causes cystic fibrosisScientists studying the protein that, when defective or absent, causes cystic fibrosis has made an important discovery about how that protein is normally controlled and under what circumstances it might go awry.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am Daily Pot Smoking May Hasten Onset of PsychosisProgression to daily marijuana use in adolescence may hasten the onset of symptoms leading up to psychosis, a new study finds.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am Astronauts blast off on Christmas space voyage (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 3:33 am The nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 2:56 am Gas could be the answer in global warming fight (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 2:44 am EPA, USDA push farmers to use coal waste on fields (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 1:34 am India's last "dancing", endangered bear set free (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 1:34 am Astronauts blast off for Christmas space mission (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Dec 2009 | 12:10 am Record-breaking storm closes US federal government (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 11:01 pm Philippine volcano gets louder, could blow up soon (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 10:25 pm Russian rocket blasts off to space outpostKOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three astronauts on board blasted off from Kazakhstan on Monday to join a U.S.-Russian duo manning the International Space Station (ISS).Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm Has peak theory reached its tipping point?We have all heard of peak oil? But now there is peak wood. And peak gold. And even peak rock music . . . First there was peak oil. Then came peak wood and peak gas. What is it with all these peaks ? Is the world really running out of the raw materials it needs to make it tick, move and communicate? Or should the next peak be in stories about peaks? Attributed to American geophysicist M King Hubbert, peak theory assumes that resource production follows a bell-shaped curve. Early on, the production rate increases as discoveries are made and infrastructure built. Later in the curve, after the eponymous Hubbert's peak, production declines as reserves run dry. US oil production reached its Hubbert's peak in the early 70s and has declined since. But what about the rest? Peak coal Coal started the whole peak theory craze when Hubbert used records of how its production levelled off to forecast future peaks in US oil supply. Conventional thinking says there are hundreds of years of coal supplies left, but are the figures accurate? Predictions are complicated by there being several types of coal, with much of the high-grade stuff already burnt. Although production keeps rising, the total energy obtained may peak sooner. Peak oil and gas Every schoolchild is taught that world supplies will eventually run out. But when? Supporters and critics of global peak oil theory argue about the timing of the peak, with some insisting it has already been reached. Reliable, independent estimates of discoveries and production are rare, and most governments rely on statistics from the International Energy Agency, which has long been accused of painting too rosy a picture. Peak gold Earlier this month, Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold company Barrick Gold, reportedly warned there was a strong case that the world was already at peak gold. Global output has fallen steadily since 2000 and, Regent said, it was becoming harder and harder to find ore. Peak water There is a serious academic school of thought that says the Earth's water was delivered from outer space on the back of wet asteroids and comets. But there is growing concern that the water is running dry. As Alex Bell describes in his book Peak Water, we are using more water than is available in the places where we live. For some, in the wet regions, peak water will never occur, but for the people of the US, Africa, southern Europe, India, Middle East and China, he says, it is already here. Peak wood At an energy conference in Abu Dhabi earlier this year, the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander warned that we should learn a lesson from history. When the Roman empire collapsed, he said, large parts of Europe had been deforested for farmland and to provide firewood. "Wood and food were essential to maintain the Roman empire," he said. "So the demise of a seemingly invincible civilisation was partially due to the unsustainable use of their prime energy resource. What the Romans were experiencing, we would now describe as peak wood." Peak rock music Most of the good musical ideas really have been used up. Last year, popular culture blog Overthinking It analysed Rolling Stone magazine's top 500 songs of all time, and found that rock music peaked in the late 1960s. "It would seem that, like oil, the supply of great musical ideas is finite. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, the Motown greats and other genre innovators quickly extracted the best their respective genres had to offer, leaving little supply for future musicians." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm Stonehenge bones may be evidence of winter solstice feastsSheffield University archaeologists believe enigmatic prehistoric monument was used for ritual banquets on special occasions Some 4,500 years ago, as the solstice sun rose on Stonehenge, it is very likely that a midwinter feast would already have been roasting on the cooking fires. Experts believe that huge midwinter feasts were held in that period at the site and a startling picture is now emerging of just how far cattle were moved for the banquet. Recent analysis of the cattle and pig bones from the era found in the area suggests the cattle used were walked hundreds of miles to be slaughtered for the solstice celebrations – from the west country or west Wales. Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield and his team have just won a grant of £800,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to answer some of the riddles about the enigmatic prehistoric monument. The grant is to fund Feeding Stonehenge, his follow-up research on the wealth of material, including animal bones, pottery and plant remains, which they found in recent excavations at Durrington Walls, a few miles from the stone circle – a site which Parker Pearson believes key to understanding why Stonehenge was built and how it was used. His team fully excavated some huts but located the foundations of scores more, the largest neolothic settlement in Britain. To his joy it was a prehistoric tip, "the filthiest site known in Britain", as he dubbed it. "I've always thought when we admire monuments like Stonehenge, not enough attention has been given to who made the sandwiches and the cups of tea for the builders," said Parker Pearson. "The logistics of the operation were extraordinary. Not just food for hundreds of people but antler picks, hide ropes, all the infrastructure needed to supply the materials and supplies needed. Where did they get all this food from? This is what we hope to discover." Stonehenge was begun almost 5,000 years ago with a ditch and earth bank, and developed over 1,000 years, with the circle of bluestones brought from the Preseli hills in west Wales, and the double decker bus sized sarsen stones. It was too early for the Phoenicians, the Romans or the largely mythical Celtic druids. The Anglo Saxons believed Stonehenge was the work of a race of lost giants, and a 12th-century historian explained that Merlin flew the huge stones from Ireland. It has been explained as a place of druidic sacrifice, a stone computer, a place of witchcraft and magic, a tomb, a temple or a solar calendar. It is aligned on both the summer and winter solstice, crucial dates which told prehistoric farmers that the time of harvest was coming, or the shortest day of winter past. Although not all archaeologists agree – Geoff Wainwright and Tim Darvill have dubbed Stonehenge the stone age Lourdes, a place of healing by the magic bluestones – Parker Pearson believes it was a place of the dead, while Durrington Walls, with its wooden henge, was the place of its living builders, and the generations who came to feast, and carry out rituals for their dead, moving from Durrington to the nearby river and on by the great processional avenue to Stonehenge. He found no evidence that Durrington was permanently inhabited or farmed, and the first tests on the pig and cattle bones support his theory that it was a place where people gathered for short periods on special occasions. The pigs were evidently slaughtered at mid-winter, and he expects the cattle bones to back this. What the sample already tested shows is that they were slaughtered immediately after arrival, after travelling immense distances. "We are going to know so much about the lives of the people who built Stonehenge," Parker Pearson said, "how they lived, what they ate, where they came from." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Dec 2009 | 4:32 pm UK libel law has gagged me, says leading Danish radiologistA leading medical scientist is refusing to speak in England about findings from his work because he fears being sued for libel. Henrik Thomsen, a Danish radiologist, has said the health of patients in England is being put at serious risk because he and other scientists are prevented from sharing their knowledge, due to what they see as an increasingly draconian atmosphere in London's libel courts. His decision follows a claim against him in the high court from a subsidiary of the conglomerate General Electric, which alleges Thomsen defamed it at a conference of his peers in Oxford in 2007 by warning that a drug manufactured by GE Healthcare had potentially fatal side-effects. Thomsen told the other scientists that Omniscan, a contrast agent used to improve the legibility of MRI scans, caused a potentially fatal condition in some patients with kidney problems. He claimed the problem – nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) – emerged in around 30 patients where he worked at Copenhagen University hospital. GE Healthcare is understood to have already run up legal bills of more than £380,000 pursuing Thomsen, even though the case is unlikely to reach court for 18 months. Thomsen will have to meet the company's costs, which are likely to increase significantly, if he loses the case. His defence lawyers, Carter Ruck, have written to Jack Straw, the justice secretary, pointing out that although the potential side-effects of Omniscan have been publicly discussed on television and in the press in Denmark, and in the press in the US, there has been no legal action taken in either territory. Straw has announced plans to review England's libel laws, which he has said have "a chilling effect" on democracy. "I am not giving lectures any more in the UK where it seems you can be sued for telling the truth," said Thomsen. "This is serious for me and my family, serious for patients and serious for society as a whole. My lecture in Oxford was about what I experienced over 18 months, and that story can't be changed. We thought we had an excellent drug and it turned out we disabled a lot of patients. The only way to improve treatment for other patients is to share this knowledge." GE Healthcare alleges Thomsen claimed it marketed Omniscan despite knowing about its adverse side-effects. It alleges he claimed the firm suppressed the information and concealed it from radiologists, and was therefore guilty of exposing patients who used the drug to a condition that causes tightening of the skin. It claims that Thomsen may also have defamed the company "by way of innuendo". The proceedings relate to a 15-minute presentation made by Thomsen to between 30 to 40 people at a "management in radiology" conference in Oxford in October 2007, and statements made in an article published in Thomsen's name in Imaging Management, a specialist magazine for managers in the field of radiology, with a circulation of about 1,000 copies within the jurisdiction of the English court. Thomsen's lawyer, Andrew Stephenson, said his client's defence would be that the presentation and article were covered by qualified privilege, which can protect freedom of speech. He said Thomsen would argue he had a duty to report his experience in managing the crisis which arose at his hospital when the link arose between Omniscan and NSF, and his audience had a legitimate interest in receiving that information. GE Healthcare claims the privilege does not apply because he acted maliciously. "We are defending the integrity of General Electric against comment which we believe are defamatory," the firm said. "We wrote to Henrik Thomsen and asked him to retract his statements in writing. This is not something we have done lightly." Omiscan is one of several contrast agents sold by GE . The company said more than 120m doses of its range had been sold in the last 20 years, and 99.5% of patients suffered no side-effects. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:39 pm New Crew Launches Toward International Space Station (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - A Russian Soyuz spacecraft soared into space Sunday carrying three new residents for the International Space Station (ISS).Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:30 pm Gas 'gold rush' ignites in rural New York (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Dec 2009 | 1:31 pm Four white rhinos shipped to KenyaFour of last eight rhinos from endangered subspecies are sent to Kenya from Czech zoo with aim of repopulating their homeland Four of the world's last eight northern white rhinos landed in Kenya today and were transported to a game park where officials hope the endangered animals will reproduce and save their subspecies. No white rhinos are known to remain in the wild, and the transported animals have produced no offspring after nearly 24 years in a Czech zoo. So wildlife workers hoping to save the subspecies loaded two males and two females into wooden crates and began the effort to return them to what was once their savannah homeland. When teams of Kenyan wildlife workers opened the crates, two of the rhinos lingered several minutes before moving to a larger pen as Czech animal handlers coaxed them out. The rhinos' handlers and park officials said they hoped the two females will bear as many young as possible for several years but all those involved acknowledged it was not a sure bet that the rhinos would reproduce. The northern white rhino is the world's rarest large mammal. "Objective No 1 is to get as many offspring as you can from the females – at least one calf out of each within two years," said Rob Brett, the director of Fauna and Flora International, the organisation that helped arrange and finance the move. The rhinos were transported in large wooden crates by the international shipping company DHL on two flatbed trucks. On the side of the crates was written "Last Chance to Survive." The four were flown from a zoo in the Czech Republic to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy – about 180 miles north of the capital, Kenya – where a black rhino population has made strong gains and the rhinos will be protected from poachers. Two northern whites remain behind in the Czech zoo; two others are in San Diego. The aim of the project – years down the line – is to reintroduce the rhino to southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, said Patrick Omondi, of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Alastair Lucas, the vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs in Australia, helped finance the rhinos' move to Kenya, a project he became involved with earlier this year after visiting Uganda and being told parks there no longer have rhinos. He declined to say how much he donated or the cost of moving the animals. "Shipping rhinos across the world is not cheap. They don't fit in economy seats," he said. "I had to fly them business class." The rhinos will remain penned in the Kenyan park as they adapt to the climate and vegetation. They will be given more room to roam in coming weeks and will eventually be released to the entire park. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Dec 2009 | 10:38 am A Look at Titan's LakeThe Cassini science team has released humanity's first picture of what sunlight glinting off a lake looks like on another world. This is Titan, Saturn's largest moon, which has lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on its surface. NASA says its scientists ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Dec 2009 | 10:36 am Mars missions get final go-aheadEuropean states approve the re-shaping of their plans to explore Mars with separate orbiter and rover missions.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Dec 2009 | 7:38 am Birds Favor Most Promising OffspringBirds use egg speckles to predict parasitism.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Dec 2009 | 7:26 am Desperate bid to save rare rhinosFour rare Northern White rhinos are flown from a Czech zoo to Kenya in a bid to save the species from extinction.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Dec 2009 | 5:56 am No glitterHigh environmental price of gold mining for Peru's riversSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Dec 2009 | 5:00 am Asian giants hail Copenhagen dealChina and Indonesia hail the UN climate summit's outcome, despite its cool reception from some campaigners.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Dec 2009 | 3:40 am
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