Deadly infection more common than realized

Staphylococcus aureus causes far more serious infections than previously realized.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

New-generation reactors help reduce nuclear waste

Advanced technologies offer ways of reducing the quantity of nuclear waste. “New types of nuclear power plants can switch to a closed fuel cycle. It means that nuclear waste wouldn’t be buried as such; instead, it would be chemically dissolved and the recyclable component re-processed into new fuel. As a result, many of the most long-lived radioactive substances could be used at new types of facilities,” says one of the researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

New human reproductive hormone could lead to novel contraceptives

Nearly 10 years after the discovery that birds make a hormone that suppresses reproduction, neuroscientists have established that humans make it too, opening the door to development of a new class of contraceptive and possible treatments for cancer or other diseases. The hormone, gonadotropin inhibitory hormone, puts a brake on the reproductive system and on release of gonadotropin releasing hormone.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Chemistry makes the natural 'wonder fabric' -- wool -- more wonderful

Scientists in China are reporting an advance that may improve the natural wonders of wool -- already regarded as the "wonder fabric" for its lightness, softness, warmth even when wet, and other qualities. They say the discovery could give wool a "brain," placing it among other "smart" fabrics that shake off wrinkles, shrinkage and "breathe" to release perspiration.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Brown dwarf pair mystifies astronomers

Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international team of astronomers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Drug and placebo: Study redefines placebo effect as part of effective treatment

Researchers used the placebo effect to successfully treat psoriasis patients with one quarter to one half of their usual dose of a widely used steroid medication, according to a new study. Early results in human patients suggest that the new technique could improve treatment for several chronic diseases that involve mental state or the immune system, including asthma, multiple sclerosis and chronic pain.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Bioengineered materials promote the growth of functional vasculature

Scientists have induced significant functional vasculature growth in areas of damaged tissue through the use of synthetic polymers called hydrogels.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 am

New, virulent strain of MRSA poses renewed antibiotic resistance concerns

The often feared and sometimes deadly infections caused by MRSA -- methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- are now moving out of hospitals and emerging as an even more virulent strain in community settings and on athletic teams, and raising new concerns about antibiotic resistance.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 am

Ultrasound-guided cortisone injections may help treat severe hip pain

Ultrasound-guided cortisone injections may be an effective treatment method for gluteus medius tendinopathy, a common, painful condition caused by an injury to the tendons in the buttocks that typically affects middle-aged to elderly women and young active individuals, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 am

Fossil shelved for a century reworks carnivore family tree: Limbs changes understanding of early carnivore locomotion

Now that an early carnivore fossil has been fully removed from its matrix (this after spending over a century on a shelf because of the associated crushed teeth), scientists are able to re-interpret the evolutionary tree of this group of mammals.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 am

Taiwan unveils Asia's biggest solar plant: govt (AFP)

AFP - Taiwan has unveiled what it calls Asia's biggest solar power plant as the island, which imports almost all its energy, seeks to tap into clean renewable resources, the government said Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:20 am

Video: Convoluted female genitalia keep male ducks at bay

Life-sized models of female duck genitalia were used to investigate whether spirals, dead ends and hairpins blocked fertilisation

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:16 am

Ban on 'legal high' drugs in force from today

GBL, BZP and chemical sprays now classed as controlled substances after series of high-profile deaths linked to the drugs

A ban on a range of so-called legal highs came into force today.

The ban covers GBL, BZP and manmade chemicals sprayed on herbal smoking products such as Spice, which are now classed as controlled substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

The crackdown comes after the high-profile case of medical student Hester Stewart, 21, who died in Brighton in April after taking GBL.

Her mother, Maryon, said the new rules did not go far enough because GBL had been classified only as a class C illegal drug. "In America, it is schedule A, which is the equivalent of a class A drug here," she said.

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, said: "We are sending out a clear message to anyone who is thinking about experimenting with [the drugs], particularly over the festive period, that not only are they putting themselves in danger, they will also be breaking the law."

Fifteen anabolic steroids are also to be controlled as class C drugs, alongside two growth promoters.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:06 am

Japanese whalers clash with militant activists (AP)

AP - Japanese whalers and militant conservationists have clashed in the Antarctic Ocean over two days, with weapons including water cannon, blinding lasers and bottles of rancid acid, both sides said Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 11:28 pm

Filipino troops try to keep volcano evacuees safe (AP)

AP - Police and soldiers donned Santa hats and red clown noses and belted out songs in crammed evacuation centers in hopes of keeping 47,000 displaced residents from sneaking back to their homes on the slopes of a lava-spilling volcano.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 11:06 pm

Bees Always Have a Safe Landing

Find out why bees never crash land, and how their technique could help engineers design new aircraft.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 10:16 pm

The sex wars of ducks

An evolutionary battle against unwanted fertilization.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/Vwlkzu7vLP4" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 22 Dec 2009 | 10:01 pm

Gene Therapy Holds Promise for Emphysema (HealthDay)

HealthDay - TUESDAY, Dec. 22 (HealthDay News) -- A single treatment with a new method of gene therapy may offer lifetime protection against the progression of the lung disease emphysema, according to the results of a study in mice.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 9:49 pm

EU lashes out as climate discord deepens (AFP)

AFP - Europe accused the United States and China of torpedoing the Copenhagen climate summit and vowed not to back down in its push for a tough, binding accord to avert the potential disaster of global warming.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 8:18 pm

Oh What a Cosmic Web We Weave

Space fans are no doubt familiar with the classic short educational film, "Powers of 10," that provides an eye-popping tour of our universe from the very big to the very small -- and ends up right back on the picnic ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 6:28 pm

Survey: The Worst Decade in 50 Years (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - When asked what they thought about the past decade, Americans by a 2-1 margin rated it negatively. In contrast, they rated every other decade since the 1960s positively.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 6:06 pm

Survey: The Worst Decade in 50 Years

Americans by a 2-1 margin rated this decade negatively.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 6:02 pm

Video reveals twists and turns of genital warfare in ducks

Female Muscovy ducks have evolved a convoluted mechanism for keeping unwanted males at bay

An extraordinary sexual arms race that has played out in duck ponds for thousands of years has been uncovered by evolutionary biologists.

Faced with unwelcome advances from undesirable males wielding large, corkscrew-shaped penises, the females have gone on the defensive.

The solution – the result of millennia of evolution – arrived in the form of vaginas that spiral in the opposite direction, so thwarting uninvited males at a stroke.

Some female ducks possess genitalia of labyrinthine complexity, with kinks, dead ends and hairpin bends, according to a report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Patricia Brennan, professor of evolutionary biology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, decided to investigate the peculiar co-evolution of male and female duck genitalia after previous work revealed stark differences between species.

In some, the males aggressively pursue and attempt to mate with females that are already paired up. The males of these species have by far the largest penises, with some extending to 40cm. In other duck species, the male sexual organ is less than 2cm long.

However, all male ducks have bendy, spiralling penises that extend for copulation.

Two years ago, Brennan's team discovered that only females of species that had to defend against well-endowed, aggressive suitors had convoluted genitalia. The implication was that it was an evolutionary adaptation to keep unwanted males at bay.

For the latest study, Brennan and her colleagues turned to high-speed videography and life-sized models of female duck genitalia to investigate whether the spirals, dead ends and hairpins successfully blocked undesirable males during mating attempts.

Slow motion footage of male Muscovy ducks showed their penises extend with explosive speed, reaching a full 20cm in 0.36 seconds. "We think this allows the male to actually force copulations on females even as they struggle to escape," Brennan said in an email exchange.

The males' attempt at insemination was barely impaired by models of straight and only slightly curved female genitalia, but the more tortuous vaginas effectively blocked the males before they got too far.

"It shows in a very clear way how females can regain control of reproduction. Even though they can't behaviourally prevent males from forcing them to copulate, they have regained control of the 'copulatory area' by preventing males from fully everting their penises when they do not want to copulate," Brennan wrote. "It is really a genital war."

When females choose to mate, they adopt a receptive position and repeatedly contract and release internal muscles that are thought to make copulation easier for preferred males.

"Ducks are absolutely amazing. They are among the most beautiful birds and their courtship displays are famous for their complexity and beauty. They also have this fascinating dark side of struggle and violence and they are teaching us a lot about the evolutionary consequences of conflict," Brennan adds.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

From the archive: Yeti scalp (they say it's 240 years old) is here – by air

Originally published on 23 December 1960

Sir Edmund Hillary and Mr Desmond Doig, who have been on a yeti-hunting expedition in Nepal, arrived in London by air yesterday with the scalp of what is believed in Khumjung village to be a yeti. With them was Khumjo Chumbi, village headman, who is guardian of the scalp.

Sir Edmund said he would rather withhold his theories until the scalp had been examined by a zoologist, and until French and American experts had completed tests of the hair. But unless "something turned up" concerning the scalp he did not believe in the existence "of a strange new animal."

Khumjo Chumbi, however, was in no doubt about the scalp's nature. He said he had heard a yeti crying three times in one day, and his children had seen one.

"We don't believe in giraffes and lions in Nepal because there aren't any there. Likewise you don't believe in yetis because you have none in your country."

With the scalp on a table in front of him Sir Edmund said: "The scalp was in the house of a frightening old woman, believed to be a witch, in Khumjung. It has been in the possession of the village for 240 years.

"The villagers hold it in great respect as a good luck charm, and we had a lot of trouble getting it out. The old woman said bad luck would befall the village if it left.

"Eventually we took it under three conditions: that we gave a donation to the village monastery; that one of the headmen came with us; and that we must give a donation towards a new village school.

"If we are not back by January 5 three Sherpas who were with us will forfeit their lands."

Khumjo Chumbi gave five low cries when asked to imitate the call of the yeti. He said: "My children saw it. They called out and it ran away. It had a human head and ran like a dog. It is about the size of a ten-year-old child."

The three men were booked to fly in the DC 8 which crashed in Brooklyn last week.

Sir Edmund was asked if he thought the good luck scalp saved them. "Personally I don't believe in good luck charms," he said. "We didn't fly on that plane because we had more work to do in Chicago. The amount of prayers that Khumjo Chumbi says before we board a taxi or plane look after us sufficiently."

When the three left the airport together for talks with the Royal Geographical Society Sir Edmund declined to say where they were staying. "I shall be spending Christmas with my sister in Norwich," he said.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

New Crew Arrives at Space Station (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A Russian spacecraft docked at the International Space Station Tuesday, boosting the outpost's population from two to five people just ahead of the holidays.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 4:45 pm

New crew reaches International Space Station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A fresh three-member crew arrived at the International Space Station on Tuesday, bolstering the two-man skeleton crew that has been keeping the outpost operational since December 1.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 4:35 pm

Soyuz docked with space station

A spacecraft carrying an international crew docks with the International Space Station, Russian mission control says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Dec 2009 | 4:31 pm

Think Koalas Are Cute? Thank Eucalyptus and Evolution

Modern koalas are known for their cuteness, nearly exclusive eucalyptus-leaf diet, and the unexpectedly weird noises they make.

Now, new research into their ancient ancestors shows that the koalas’ odd appeal arose through the evolutionary interplay between an increasing reliance on an odd food supply and the need to maintain distinct ear structures for hearing each others’ bellows.

By studying the skulls of koala predecessors that lived five to 24 million years ago in the Miocene, an Australian team argues that evolution reshaped the animals faces to enable them to eat the tough leaves while maintaining their specialized communication anatomy.

“The unique cranial configuration of the modern koala is therefore the result of accommodating their masticatory adaptations without compromising their auditory system,” write the researchers, led by Mike Archer, a paleontologist at the University of New South Wales, in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The koalas communicate across the Australian forests by making low-frequency calls that are shockingly uncute (listen to the embedded video). The upside to the sounds is that they can travel longer distances — they act like the long waves of AM radio instead of the shorter waves of FM. The researchers hypothesize that the ancient koalas evolved their communication system at a time when the Australian continent was drying out and the koala habitat becoming less dense. By lowering the frequency of their calls, they were able to maintain communication in the sparser forests.

To hear the lower frequencies, they evolved an ever larger apparatus in the middle ear. Modern koala bellows can travel more than 2,500 feet.

Meanwhile, as the Miocene wore on, those same forests were increasingly dominated by the eucalyptus, which became the koalas’ main food source. To make use of that resource, though, they had to add chewing power to deal with the tough leaves. And it’s that combination of evolutionary quirks that yielded the strange skull of Phascolarctos cinereus, the modern koala.

Citation: “Cranial Anatomy of Oligo-Miocene Koalas (Diprotodontia phascolarctidae): Stages in the Evolution of an Extreme Leaf-Eating Specialization” by Julien Louys, Ken Aplin, Robin M.D. Beck, and Michael Archer in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29(4):981–992, December 2009

Image: Dorothy Dunphy.

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 | 22 Dec 2009 | 3:37 pm

Daily Text Messages Exceed 4 Billion

Thumbs were flying in 2009: A new study reveals Americans sent an average of 17 texts per day this year.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 2:32 pm

AP Enterprise: Feds mull regulating drugs in water (AP)

AP - Federal regulators under President Barack Obama have sharply shifted course on long-standing policy toward pharmaceutical residues in the nation's drinking water, taking a critical first step toward regulating some of the contaminants while acknowledging they could threaten human health.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 2:14 pm

Chi-Med's eastern promise | Nils Pratley

Hutchison's pharmaceutical company's move to exploit active ingredients in traditional medicines may make it a good stock market bet

Here's a contender for best stock market punt of 2009. Hutchison China Meditech, or Chi-Med, stood at 40p in January but today trades at almost 200p. This is Li Ka-shing's attempt to build a Chinese healthcare company and, given the great investor's past successes, it may pay to understand what's going on, especially as the shares are still below their 2006 flotation price.

In one sense, Chi-Med has simply kept to its script. Its consumer healthcare business in China has continued to increase sales at a rate of 20%-plus a year. It has also signed a deal with US organics group Hain Celestial to distribute products such as milk powder. But the other half of Chi-Med – developing original drugs for a global market – is where the excitement lies.

This is where investors were sceptical, given that traditional Chinese medicine has produced few drugs in the west. It is clear, however, that the pharmaceutical establishment harbours fewer doubts. The top scientists at MediPharma, Chi-Med's subsidiary in Shanghai, were recruited from firms such as Pfizer, Roche and Amgen. Partnerships with the likes of Lilly and Merck have helped to bring MediPharma to the cash-generative stage. Most promisingly, there should soon be a compound in phase three trials to treat ulcerative colitis – a potentially huge market. And today Chi-Med has signed a three-year deal with the University of Cambridge to study the effects of various Chinese medicinal plants.

The tale in the next year or two could be a spin-off of MediPharma. If so, we should discover whether the analysts are right in thinking that Chi-Med, at £100m or so, is still grossly undervalued. The answer may well be "yes".

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 1:26 pm

Chinese medicine firm Hutchison Chi-Med employs Cambridge University to research remedies

Manufacturer Hutchison Chi-Med signs three-year deal with Cambridge pharmacologists to find active ingredients in traditional medicines

Hutchison Chi-Med, the Chinese medicine company backed by the firm that created mobile phone group Orange, has signed up the University of Cambridge to investigate the potential healing and anti-aging properties of a number of the group's herbal remedies.

Aim-listed Chi-Med sells traditional medicines in China and also has a research and development laboratory in Shanghai where its scientists analyse herbal remedies, some dating back 2,000 years, to establish their active ingredients.

The company already has a proprietary patent medicine for heart disease, the Shexiang Baoxin pill, and sold over 400 million doses of the drug in China over the first half of this year. It has been shown to have healing properties but the research deal announced today will focus research on the core ingredients of the pill. The medicine has been shown to control angiogenesis, the growth of new capillary blood vessels in the body. Dysfunctional angiogenesis is associated with more than 80 diseases, from cancer and diabetic eye problems to stroke.

Modulation of angiogenesis in the skin has also been shown to affect skin aging and over the three years of the Cambridge tie-up, which will be run by Dr Tai-ping Fan of the university's department of pharmacology, scientists will try to identify ingredients that could be used in skin care products to be marketed under Chi-Med's Sen consumer products brand.

Chi-Med is controlled by Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong conglomerate that owns ports and telephone companies in the UK, and is headed by Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing. Hutchison was also behind the creation of Orange in the early 1990s.

The company's key product to date is HMPL-004, a compound based on a Chinese remedy for inflammation of the bowel, which Chi-Med is hoping will prove a winning treatment for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Trials are ongoing.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 12:11 pm

Reactor Drawings Make Nuclear History Beautiful

Not all nuclear reactors are built alike. Power plant designs can vary in their fuels, coolants and configurations, a fact beautifully illustrated by a series of reactor wall charts originally published in issues of Nuclear Engineering International during the 1970s and 1980s.

Since then, the charts have been lovingly collected by Ronald Knief, a nuclear engineer at Sandia National Laboratory. Recently, he completed his collection with help from the Idaho National Laboratory library and began to digitize the drawings. The first eight out of more than 100 have now been permanently archived online by the University of New Mexico libraries.

“This is not a CAD/CAM-type thing,” Knief said. “This really is art.”

Like the maps that accompanied many issues of National Geographic, the charts were inserts that could be pulled out and tacked up like a poster. They also served as teaching aids for Knief during his tenure at the University of New Mexico, and served to illustrate his books.

“He saved most of them, and it turns out that hardly anyone else saved them, including the publisher,” said Donna Cromer, a librarian at the University of New Mexico, who has worked with Knief on the project.

Drawn from reactors built in different nations, the cutaways direct attention to the variety that exists in reactor design. Knief chose these eight as a cross-section of the industry.

“Each of them is representative somewhat of the state-of-the-art version of a particular reactor type,” Knief said.

Douglas Point, pictured above, is a boiling-water reactor. In this type of plant, the coolant water flows directly through the fuel, boils and becomes steam, which drives a turbine.

“It’s a direct cycle,” Knief said, “similar to a standard coal plant.”

Boiling-water reactors are a common form of American reactor.

Story via Bibliodyssey

Image: Nuclear Engineering International/University of New Mexico

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 22 Dec 2009 | 12:07 pm

This is no smoking gun, nor Iranian bomb | Norman Dombey

Nothing in the published 'intelligence documents' shows Iran is close to having nuclear weapons

Seven years ago Condoleezza Rice said "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon, but "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud". Now the focus is on Iran, not Iraq. Iran's nuclear projects are in the news again. According to the Times last week, alleged "confidential intelligence documents" show Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb. The notes, the newspaper claims, describe "a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion". President Ahmadinejad yesterday denounced the documents as more American forgeries. But even if we take them as genuine, is this a real "smoking gun" – and what do the documents show anyway?

In my opinion they should be read recognising the long Iranian interest in the physics of nuclear fusion. Jim Callaghan, then British foreign secretary, visited Iran in March 1976. The shah told him that he was particularly interested in the UK's fusion programme and "if any opportunity arose whereby Iran could come in on the programme, they would be happy to do so". That interest has continued for more than 30 years. In 1993 Iran agreed with China to co-operate in the study of fusion and there is an continuing programme of work in Tehran.

Nuclear fusion is the mechanism whereby the sun shines and sustains life on earth. Nuclear reactors and atomic bombs rely on fission; hydrogen bombs rely on fusion. There are as yet no fusion reactors that produce energy because, even after 50 years of trying, more energy is needed to produce fusion than is obtained from the output. Nevertheless, industrialised countries persist in research in this field. At present the joint EU-US-Japan-China-India-Korea-Russia Iter project is building a fusion reactor prototype at Cadarache in France. Research in this area is allowed by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The "intelligence documents" published by the Times describe a four-year project, so if the Iranians were to build a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon it is not being treated as a matter of urgency. By contrast, the Manhattan Project scientists arrived at Los Alamos in early 1943, and the Trinity test occurred in July 1945.

Then the documents state that "policy is to develop co-operation with research and university centres in order to carry out the projects outside of the centre" and that samples are to be produced "by mutual co-operation … [then presented] to other research centres for marketing purposes". It is unlikely that nuclear weapon projects would be distributed among several universities, or weapon parts marketed to research centres.

The documents call for two physicists with PhDs and two with masters degrees to carry out the work. That doesn't sound like a top priority national programme. That sounds more like a university research project.

Then there is uranium deuteride, or UD3. According to the Times: "Critically, while other neutron sources have possible civilian uses, UD3 has only one application – to be the metaphorical match that lights a nuclear bomb." That is a surprising statement. In fact the document's only mention of UD3 states that it would prefer not to use it but to replace uranium with titanium. That gives a clue about what the Iranians are doing.

Titanium deuteride is used to store deuterium gas so that the gas can be generated when it is heated. It seems to me, therefore, that the function of UD3 is to generate deuterium gas so that it can be used in a plasma focus neutron generator. The neutron generator could then produce isotopes for use by other laboratories, hence the reference to market samples. UD3 is not known to be used as a neutron initiator in nuclear weapons: it was not used as an initiator in American, British or Soviet weapons when those weapons were developed.

So why the emphasis on UD3 as a initiator for a weapon? First, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced Pakistani scientist who stole centrifuge designs from the Dutch uranium enrichment plant at Almelo and began Pakistan's weapon project, claimed that UD3 was used as an initiator by Pakistan. Second, Chinese physicists reported they had imploded UD3 using chemical explosives and thus obtained a beam of neutrons. So the argument is that China now uses UD3 as an initiator, passed the design to Pakistan, which in turn passed it to Iran.

This is possible, but not demonstrated by the documents. A neutron initiator for a weapon needs precise timing: this is difficult using implosion by chemical explosives. Khan is a highly unreliable source. The document does not discuss obtaining neutrons by implosion: it discusses using pulsed neutrons presumably obtained using oscillating magnetic fields.

Perhaps I am wrong. Both fusion and fission physics involve processes which can be used either in military or civil applications. But I have read nothing in the documents published by the Times to be able to conclude that they are describing an initiator for a nuclear weapon.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 12:00 pm

Ford to Enable Wi-Fi in Autos

A new feature by Ford will allow owners to turn their cars into mobile Wi-Fi hotspots.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 11:41 am

New Airport Screeners Could Save Time, Energy

Holiday travelers: Sick of waiting in long airport security lines? T-rays are here to help.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 11:30 am

Mars Rover Makes Discovery While Spinning Its Wheels (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Even though NASA's Mars rover Spirit has been trapped in the sand for months, the robot has still managed to report new facts about the red planet — all by just spinning its wheels.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 11:16 am

Rich world should pay for climate 'mess': OPEC chief (AFP)

AFP - The powerful OPEC cartel's top official on Tuesday called for the developed world to fund the fight against climate change, saying the developing world was not responsible for the current "mess".

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Dec 2009 | 10:45 am

Can We Find A Living Planet by 2020?

There was a lot of excitement last week about the discovery of a “waterworld” planet called GJ 1214b, as reported on Discovery News by my colleague Ian O’Neill. This world belongs to an emerging class of planets dubbed “super-Earths.” It ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 10:25 am

Music Linked to Marijuana Use

A new study finds that teens who listen to music that mentions marijuana are significantly more likely to use the drug.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 10:25 am

Glitter Voltaics Bring Sparkle to Solar

Perfect timing, Sandia National Laboratories. The government-owned lab's new microphotovoltaic cells are highly functional, and festive. The Sandia research team, led by investigator Greg Nielson, created tiny glitter-sized PV cells from crystalline silicon using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) techniques. The cells ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 10:24 am

Anti-Hunger Smells Could Battle Obesity

Molecules that make up a food's aroma can also activate areas of the brain that trigger the feeling of fullness.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 9:26 am

Mysteries of Greenland's ice

Ice scientists are changing their thinking about the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the two-mile deep block of ice that holds enough water to fill the Gulf of Mexico and put coastal regions awash in rising seas. Watching surface ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 9:26 am

San Diego Zoo Animals Celebrate the Winter Holidays

Playing in the snow, opening presents, and eating tasty treats are activities enjoyed by non-human members of the animal kingdom too, based on photos recently sent to me by the San Diego Zoo. Meerkats literally jumped for joy when presented ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 9:18 am

Smallest Snowman Ever

Just in time for the holiday blizzards, a little piece of nano-engineering to amuse snowbound citizens. David Cox, a scientist in the Quantum Detection group at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom has built the world's smallest snowman. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 8:58 am

5 Big Fat Holiday Health Lies

Health misconceptions are pervasive during the holidays.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 8:47 am

Body Part Theft: Truth vs. Myth

Reports of organ thievery may be based more on rumor than fact.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 8:11 am

Sex intervention combats malaria

Scientists say it may be possible to combat malaria by interfering with the sex lives of mosquitoes that spread the disease.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Dec 2009 | 8:05 am

Bacteria Power Tiny Machines

While floating in a liquid, common bacteria can turn a variety of tiny gears. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory say their finding could open up the possibility of microscopic swimmers -- whether natural such as bacteria or artificial such as ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 7:41 am

'Invisible Bracelet' Could Save Lives

A new kind of medical alert technology could send out emergency information during a health crisis.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Dec 2009 | 7:39 am

Scientists Harness Bacteria to Turn Microscopic Gears

Scientists have harnessed the power of bacteria to turn gears and power simple machines.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 7:27 am

Santa Claus: The Real Man Behind the Myth

Find out how the jolly figure is rooted in both folklore and fact.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Dec 2009 | 6:36 am

Green Christmas

A special seasonal message from Father Christmas
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:58 am

Toxic evolution: How barnacles repel predators

One species of barnacle has extraordinarily high levels of bromine in its body, becoming toxic in a bid to repel predators.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:34 am

Stem cell treatment restores sight to partially blind man

Stem cells grown on a special membrane were used to treat the patient and seven others with sight loss

A man who was partially blinded when ammonia was squirted in his eye during an attack 15 years ago has regained his sight after receiving a pioneering stem cell treatment.

Russell Turnbull, 38, suffered massive damage to his right eye when he was caught in a scuffle after a night out in Newcastle in 1994. On the bus home, Turnbull had tried to intervene in a fight between two men but was injured when one of them began squirting passengers with ammonia.

The chemical severely scarred Turnbull's cornea, the clear membrane that covers the front of the eye, and destroyed stem cells that usually help keep the cornea healthy.

"I was in unbearable pain. It burned my eye shut," Turnbull told the Guardian. "I was in hospital for two weeks and eventually I was able to open the eye again. It was like looking through scratched perspex."

Turnbull was left with "limbal stem cell deficiency" (LSCD), a condition that seriously impairs sight, and was in pain every time he blinked or saw bright lights.

In an experimental treatment devised by doctors at the North East England Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle, stem cells were taken from Turnbull's healthy eye and grown on a layer of amniotic tissue, which is routinely used as a burn dressing. The NHS banks amniotic sacs donated by women who have had a Caesarean section.

When the cells had covered the membrane, a piece the size of a postage stamp was transplanted onto Turnbull's damaged eye. Two months later the membrane had broken down, leaving his damaged eye with a fresh supply of healthy stem cells, which repaired the cornea.

Eye tests six months after surgery showed that Turnbull's vision was nearly as good as it had been before the attack.

"I had a lot of anger inside me for a long time after the attack. I lost my job because of it and I had always been a keen jet skier, which I wasn't able to do. It ruined my life and I went through a really difficult time. But then this treatment came along," said Turnbull.

"The pain and discomfort were better almost immediately and I started to get my sight back a month or so later. I used to be able to see only the largest letter at the top of the eye chart, but now I can pick out letters on the bottom row," he added.

Doctors led by Majlinda Lako and Francisco Figueiredo treated seven other patients, all of whom had LSCD in one eye. Some of the patients fully regained their eyesight, while others had more serious damage and experienced only limited improvement in their vision.

The study is published in the US journal Stem Cells.

Sajjad Ahmad, a member of the team, said 25 more patients will be treated before the results are submitted to Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which could approve the procedure for use in the NHS next year.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:33 am

Are biofuels the answer to our prayers?

A consultation by the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics wants to hear public opinion on the new generation of biofuels

Just in case you thought it was safe to stop thinking about biofuels, here comes another study – this time into the ethics. Can a new generation of biofuels ensure we don't increase greenhouse gas emissions and take food from the poor to fuel our cars?

The UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB) launched a consultation today calling for anyone and everyone's views on biofuels – everything from ethanol to futuristic synthetic hydrocarbons from algae.

The story for biofuels is well-told among environmentalists. Hailed as a sustainable way to produce liquid fuels for transport, their promise quickly began to fade

as the inadvertent side effects of growing the crops began to spoil the claims made by manufacturers.

First generation biofuels are made from food crops including sugar cane, soy or wheat. In some cases, however, the net greenhouse gas emissions from these (once transportation and processing were taken into account) were no significantly improvement on burning the fossil fuels they replaced, such as diesel.

In addition, using food crops meant that farmers found a more lucrative market for their crops. Tortilla wars and rising food prices in general started to raise alarm bells.

In the UK, the Gallagher review (pdf) suggested a slowdown of the UK's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation. The obligation forced fuel suppliers to mix 2.5% biofuels into the road transport fuel they sold in 2008-09. It proposes that this target increases by 1.25% per year to 5% in 2010-11. Beyond the UK, at a European level, a critical report (pdf) by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, called Biofuels in the European Context: Facts and Uncertainties, has caused havoc with EU targets.

There's also further research suggesting that fertiliser used to grow biofuels can also be a significant source of greenhouse gases.

However, despite all these problems with the first generation biofuels, the NCB reckons second-generation fuels are much more interesting. "Research into new types of biofuels is looking more promising," said Joyce Tait, chair of the NCB's working party on biofuels. "Rather than using food crops to produce biofuels, in the future we may be able to use algae, trees, the inedible 'woody' parts of plants, and agricultural waste.

"In addition, scientists are working to increase the yield of biofuel crops and improve the production process, in order to maximise the energy output of land and reduce net greenhouse gas emissions."

Before these new technologies are brought to life, however, Tait says society must think soon about how it can avoid the problems of first generation biofuels: "We also want to find out how consumers feel about moving towards a greater use of biofuels. People's attitudes will have a major impact on whether biofuels can successfully become part of the energy mix."

The council will look at the displacement of local communities from land given over to biofuel production and stories of poor conditions for workers, and environmental pollution. "We want to ensure that the ethical dimension is taken into account. We want to see that the production of new types of biofuels, especially in developing counties, has a positive effect on local communities and supports economic development by creating jobs and new sources of income," said Tait.

The NCB wants to hear [Word doc] from anyone with a personal or professional interest in biofuels, both from developing and developed countries – the deadline for responses is March 15 next year. The final report, meanwhile, with recommendations for policy makers, will be published some time before the end of 2010.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:25 am

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says US fabricated nuclear documents

Iranian president dismisses western deadline to accept deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today dismissed a year-end deadline set by the US for Iran to accept a UN-brokered deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

As Iran faces a renewed US drive for further sanctions, Ahmadinejad made light of the threat. "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you," he told supporters in the southern city of Shiraz. He said the west could give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care".

In an interview aired on US television yesterday, Ahmadinejad dismissed documents apparently describing Iranian efforts to make a nuclear trigger as "fabricated and distributed by the US".

The president brushed away a report in last week's Times newspaper that cited confidential Iranian technical documents detailing a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the part of a nuclear warhead that triggers detonation.

"No, I don't want to see them at all. I don't," he said. "They are all fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government," Ahmadinejad told ABC News.

David Axelrod, a top White House adviser, said the charge that the US had forged the documents was "nonsense".

Last week, the Iranian foreign ministry called the report "baseless ... not worthy of attention, intended to put political and psychological pressure on Iran".

Iran insists that its uranium enrichment programme is to generate electricity so that it can export more gas and oil, but the west suspects that Iran wants to make bombs from enriched uranium, and cites its record of nuclear secrecy. Such suspicions were fulled in September, when Iran admitted that it had been secretly building a second uranium-enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. The revelation reinforced US determination to push for more sanctions against the Iranian government at a time when it is facing undiminished domestic opposition.

The US, which is pushing for a world free of nuclear weapons, has given Iran until the end of the year to respond to a United Nations plan under which Iran would ship most of its low-enriched uranium out of the country, leaving it temporarily without enough uranium stockpiles to enrich for a nuclear bomb.

In his interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, Ahmadinejad, who was combative and playful, declined to give a yes-or-no answer on whether he could assure the west that Iran would never make a nuclear bomb.

Instead, he shook his head and said: "We have got a saying in Iran which says 'How many times shall I repeat the same thing?' You should say something only once. We have said once that we don't want nuclear bomb. We don't accept it."

Ahmadinejad sniped at western threats to impose further sanctions: "They tell us 'let's negotiate'. Then from the other hand, they are saying 'sanctions are coming'. They show the stick.

"Respectable lady, this approach has failed ... raising the stick of sanctions and then saying let's negotiate. It has failed. It's over. It's not repeatable."

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said yesterday that the UN security council had no choice but to impose new sanctions on Iran because of its refusal to co-operate on the nuclear issue. Kouchner said he believed all of the council members would support new sanctions targeting members of Ahmadinejad's government and its supporters. The council is expected to take up the matter next month.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Dec 2009 | 5:06 am

Green signal?

Copenhagen gave few incentives for clean economy
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Dec 2009 | 2:58 am