Runaway anti-matter production makes for a spectacular stellar explosion

Astronomers have discovered a distant star that exploded when its center became so hot that matter and anti-matter particle pairs were created.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Breast cancer screening should begin at age 40, new recommendations suggest

The new recommendations from the Society of Breast Imaging and the American College of Radiology on breast cancer screening state that breast cancer screening should begin at age 40 and earlier in high-risk patients. The recommendations also suggest appropriate utilization of medical imaging modalities such as mammography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound for breast cancer screening.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Scientists target East Coast U.S. rocks for carbon dioxide storage

Scientists say buried volcanic rocks along the heavily populated coasts of New York, New Jersey and New England, as well as further south, might be ideal reservoirs to lock away carbon dioxide emitted by power plants and other industrial sources. A new study outlines formations on land as well as offshore where the best potential sites may lie. Power plants might pipe emissions under the seabed. The idea is controversial because of fears that CO2 might leak.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Eavesdropping on bacterial conversations may improve chronic wound healing

Listening in on bacterial conversations could be the solution for improving chronic wound care, say researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Adding technology to geometry class improves opportunities to learn

A new study suggests the students who used dynamic geometry software were more successful in discovering new mathematical ideas than when they used static, paper-based diagrams.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Reducing some water flow rates may bring environmental gains

Although conservationists have often concentrated on increasing water flow through ecosystems to bring about more natural conditions in altered landscapes, increasing flows can have unfavorable consequences in some situations, notably those where invasive species or pollution are problematic.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

New key factor identified in the development of Alzheimer's disease

A small protein found in the gene- ß -amyloid precursor protein, APP, has been identified as a novel factor for the development of Alzheimer's disease related endosome abnormalities, which have also been tied previously to the loss of brain cells in Alzheimer's disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 6:00 am

Radiofrequency ablation safe and effective for reducing pain from bone metastases, study suggests

Image-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA), a minimally invasive cancer treatment which can be performed in the outpatient setting, significantly reduced the level of pain experienced by cancer patients with bone (osseous) metastases, limiting the need for strong narcotic pain management, and supporting improved patient frame of mind, according to new results.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 6:00 am

Can kitchen spoons be dangerous spoons? Too little or too much medicine, depending on spoon size

A new study illustrates the dangers of using kitchen spoons to measure liquid medicine.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 6:00 am

Smoking cessation may actually increase risk of developing type 2 diabetes

Cigarette smoking is a well-known risk factor for type 2 diabetes, but new research suggests that quitting the habit may actually raise diabetes risk in the short term.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 6:00 am

The real G-spot myth | Yvonne Roberts

Scientific debates over whether the G-spot exists ignore the complex reality of women's sex lives

Lay down your sat-navs, the journey is over: the destination a mirage. Or is it? According to new research carried out by scientists at King's College, London, the mysterious G-spot, the sexual pleasure zone said to be possessed by some women but denied to others, like Atlantis, is a myth. It doesn't exist.

Or does it? Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology, who co-authored the research, is quoted in the Sunday Times as saying, "Women may argue that having a G-spot is due to diet or exercise but in fact it is virtually impossible to find real traits. This is by far the biggest study ever carried out and it shows fairly conclusively that the idea of the G-spot is subjective."

"Fact", you say, Professor Spector? Whether or not the G-spot exists – an issue that's been controversial for decades (it might or might not mirror the prostate gland) – a debate will be triggered next week when the study is published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. What constitutes a "fact" in the scientific analysis of female sexual arousal is far from clear. But that hasn't stopped a steady stream of male "specialists" from asserting unequivocally that when it comes to female plumbing, and the best ways of tapping it to activate desire, they really know what they're talking about. And I don't just mean Freud.

For instance, Dr William Acton, a gynaecologist writing in the 1850s, asserted on the basis of his intimate knowledge of his female patients, "The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind."

And here is the nub of why research largely based on what women say about their sexual lives is so highly subjective that it's pretty doubtful it can be called science. It's conceivable, for example, that in Acton's time sex did leave many women cold. However, this might have been for a whole range of reasons that were not so much biological as social. Indifference – or tolerance for the sake of her man – was deemed the best position for a nicely brought up young lady. It's also conceivable that some women did linger long and pleasurably on the lust frontier but they were unlikely to disclose this to the good doctor for fear of being considered a slut, a nymphomaniac, unhinged or all three. "Science" has a long history of discovering only part of the female story.

This latest research is part of a 15-year study of twins, headed by Spector, to examine a range of issues including arthritis, the process of ageing and personality traits. In the G-spot research, 1,804 British women aged 23-83 answered questionnaires. All were pairs of identical or non-identical twins. Identical twins share genes, while non-identical pairs share 50% of theirs. According to the scientists, if one identical twin reported having a G-spot it was more likely that the other would too – but this pattern did not emerge.

The 56% of women overall who claimed to have a G-spot tended to be younger and more sexually active. Now, just as the women in Dr Acton's era, some of those in the cohorts of identical twins apparently without a G-spot, could have a range of reasons for asserting this view (including that the G-spot is still undiscovered) – none of them scientific. It's also pertinent to ask why the 56% who believe they do have a G-spot are apparently considered to be fantasising.

In the beginning, it was anatomical evidence that first flagged up the female pleasure zone rather than question and answer sessions. Regnier de Graaf identified female ejaculation in the 17th century, as well as an erotic area running the length of the urethra – the de-G spot? This was rediscovered in the 1950s by Ernst Grafenberg (who gave us the G in G-spot) and more recently Beverly Whipple has published a number of studies allegedly proving that the G-spot does exist. "The biggest problem with their findings is that twins don't generally have the same sexual partner," Whipple says of the King's College research.

I haven't a clue whether the G-spot exists, nor do I much care. But what does matter is the importance of not removing the specific context of a woman (or a man's) life when conducting these kinds of studies: we are obviously more than the answers we give. Partners; age; poverty; upbringing; disposition; inhibition; anxiety about others might think and a whole lot more all play a part in what we say, or don't say, about the routes to sexual satisfaction and our personal geography of arousal.

Andrea Burri, who also led the research, says that she is anxious to remove feelings of "inadequacy or underachievement" that might affect women who fear they lacked a G-spot. Ironically, it's precisely this mechanistic view of sex that probably adds to anxiety. Apart from the "discovery" of the clitoris, the only part of the male or female anatomy dedicated purely to pleasure, does it really matter which bits do what? And when the focus is entirely on the anatomical, what is sometimes pushed to one side is the impact of the still powerful cocktail of conditioning, expectations and plain old-fashioned exhaustion.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Jan 2010 | 3:30 am

UK launches boiler scrap scheme

A government scheme that gives households in England £400 off the cost of a new boiler has been launched.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Jan 2010 | 3:23 am

Crisis of belief

Where climate change is seen as God's will
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Jan 2010 | 3:15 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - The Pacific Northwest was expected to see rain and snow on Tuesday, while mild weather was anticipated in the rest of the U.S.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 2:54 am

Why are so many terrorists engineers?

Why is it that so many Islamic terrorists have studied engineering?

Whatever else Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is – privileged young Nigerian, pious introvert and all the other details in those journey-to-jihad profiles – he is also a graduate in mechanical engineering from University College London. That slots the Detroit plane bomber into a gruesome tradition: Islamist terrorists who trained as engineers.

There are plenty more. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mohamed Atta, 9/11 mastermind and ringleader respectively: both engineers. Imam Samudra, plotter of the Bali nightclub bombings: an engineer. Kafeel Ahmed, who tried to bomb Glasgow Airport in 2007: an MPhil in aeronautical engineering from Belfast.

That link is more than coincidental. Analysing data on 284 jihadis from across the Muslim world, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog found that 69% had been to university – which, if borne out generally, suggests al-Qaida is better educated than the British workforce. And 44% went into engineering, with Islamic studies a distant second at 19%. Put another way, engineers in Muslim countries were between three and four times more likely to become violent extremists than other graduates.

Why? It's not just a case of being handy with explosives – sadly, terrorist bombs are relatively easy to make. And it isn't simply because engineering is a very popular degree in developing countries – nearly 60% of graduate Islamic radicals in the west are also engineers. The link has something to do with economics. A good student in Cairo, say, might expect to go on to a well-paid job – yet graduate employment across the Middle East is hard to find. Frustrated ambition is often a catalyst for radicalisation – just ask Jean-Paul Marat. But that wouldn't explain why leftwing extremists tend to be trained lawyers instead.

Gambetta and Hertog point to a huge US survey in which nearly half of engineering students described themselves as both rightwing and religious – a higher proportion than any other faculty. Being a God-fearing conservative means something different in Kansas than Karachi, of course, but even so, it's a striking finding. And in a week when politicians are raising the old spectre of ethnic profiling, a little questioning must be a good thing.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Jan 2010 | 2:00 am

South chilled by Arctic winds, record snow in East (AP)

AP - Bitter cold and snow sweeping into the eastern U.S were leaving part of New England under record snowfall and hitting Southerners with subfreezing temperatures that farmers fear could destroy crops.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 1:28 am

Australia suffers hottest decade as globe warms (AFP)

AFP - Australia has sweltered through its hottest decade on record, officials said Tuesday, linking a rise in heatwaves, drought, dust storms and extreme wildfires with global warming.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Jan 2010 | 12:22 am

NZ, Australia to research whales

New Zealand and Australia are to research whales using non-lethal methods, to counter Japan's hunting programme.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:39 pm

China river oil spill pollution 'serious': govt (AFP)

AFP - Two tributaries of China's Yellow River have been "seriously polluted" by an oil spill, further contaminating badly tainted drinking water resources, the government said Tuesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:30 pm

Honoring Science and the Arts

There's a lot of breaking space-related news coming out of the American Astronomical Society meeting this week in Washington, DC, but one that caught my attention -- for personal as well as professional reasons -- was a special public lecture ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:56 pm

Big U.S. fund group divests over Sudan (Reuters)

Reuters - TIAA-CREF has become the first large U.S. fund complex to sell stakes in a group of Asian energy companies over human rights concerns in Sudan.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:36 pm

Pandas headed to Shanghai for 2010 Expo (AP)

AP - Ten giant panda cubs, all born after the deadly earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province in 2008, were on their way Tuesday to Shanghai to go on display during this year's World Expo, a zoo official said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:30 pm

Intermediate Black Hole Implicated in Star's Death

Astronomers presenting at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington D.C. on Jan. 4, have reported the detection of the emission generated by a black hole as it devoured a white dwarf star in the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:23 pm

Genes May Put Black Americans at Risk for Diabetes (HealthDay)

HealthDay - MONDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Inherited genetic variations could explain why blacks develop type 2 diabetes at a higher rate than whites, new research suggests.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:49 pm

Blazing Stellar Companion Defies Explanation

As the 1970s Jerry Reed pop song went: "When you're hot, you’re hot!" But a planet? Not! That’s the story from this week's American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington D.C. where astronomers reported that NASA's Kepler planet-hunting observatory has found ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:31 pm

Planet-hunting telescope unearths hot mysteries (AP)

AP - NASA's new planet-hunting telescope has found two mystery objects that are too hot to be planets and too small to be stars.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 7:18 pm

Humpback whales feeding in Alaska

British photographer and kayaker Duncan Murrell paddles close to humpback whales to shoot them feeding off the coast of Alaska

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 5:25 pm

Delicate science

What are chemists, physicists and engineers working on in the quietest building in the world?

Two thick steel doors shut softly behind me. I'm not locked into this boxy, cell-like "quiet lab" deep in the bowels of Bristol University's new Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information, but it feels like I might as well be. A journalist could disappear here: no sound penetrates, and no one would hear my screams …

A constant stream of traffic drives past the centre, but the springs and dampers upon which this new building has been constructed ensure that very little noise, and virtually no vibration whatsoever, impinges on the finely tuned experiments on nanoparticles taking place in a series of quiet labs all along the basement corridor.

This small lab, however, is the stillest of them all: having been given the tour of the basement, I'm now standing in the quietest room in the quietest building in the world, and I can almost hear my heart beat.

Losing all auditory references does funny things to your balance, and I lurch slightly as the double doors open to let me out. It's a relief to hear the faint underlying buzz that indicates life as we know it.

I've come to meet Dr Neil Fox who's going to tell me how sunlight shining on diamonds can generate electricity. It's theoretically possible, but doing it cheaply and consistently is the tricky bit. The heat contained in the sun's rays, clearly, comes for free, but the problem with solar power to date, explains Fox, has been the cost and logistics involved in generating usable electricity on a large scale.

Storing the sun's power tends to be done by using its rays to heat oil or a special salt mixture to a high temperature. This provides a store of heat that is used to drive steam turbine generators just like any conventional power station. Although the principle is sound, the construction and operating costs of utility-scale plants are not cheap, making this kind of electrical power more expensive than nuclear, coal or gas.

Nanodiamonds, Fox explains, are one of the few materials that can absorb heat, and, while barely red-hot, emit thermionic electrons. By arranging for this thermionic current to be harvested, electrical power can be generated directly. Job done, it might seem. Well, not quite.

"They're not very efficient," he explains, kindly sketching a vastly simplified picture to illustrate for me the problems currently taxing his team. "Normally, when electrons move to the surface of a diamond particle, it's as if they arrive at a brick wall. But if we fix certain impurities in the diamond surface it's no longer a brick wall to all of them, more like a cliff they can fall off. Then, because they're heated, it's more like they're kicked off. That's great, and you've got electricity, but we want more of them to do that."

Various elements of what is clearly a difficult and multifaceted experiment are being worked on at any one time. Chemists, physicists and engineers in the departments nearby are currently trying to concoct a nanodiamond material that's stable enough to act predictably.

The potential for generating clean power cheaply and easily would be an amazing breakthrough, and it's the central reason why Fox and his research assistant ,Dr Kane O'Donnell, spend much of their lives closeted in a quiet lab in the basement getting up close and personal with a shiny silver scanning probe microscope that cost their sponsor, E.ON, around half a million euros.

The lab looks rather like an old-fashioned diver's helmet. Curious, I peer through a little window into its innards. I don't know what I'm expecting – given that a nanoparticle of diamond is unimaginably tiny, I'm hardly likely to see anything sparkly, much less an emitted electron dancing around. Images from the microscope are sent to O'Donnell's computer: auditory and vibrational quiet is essential, he explains, to the accuracy of their results.

"There's a similar microscope at UCL, but their lab is next to a tube line, so things can sometimes go wrong," he says with a small grin. "What we're doing is probing at the atomic scale. It's like trying to position a needle above a particle at a distance of about an atom."

The most infinitesimal shake can make the tiny diamond particles under scrutiny appear to jump the nano-equivalent of a continent's width to the left or right, up or down. To prevent this, the section of the room where the microscope sits is a solid block of concrete several metres thick, which can be suspended on jets of air to isolate it from any noise or vibration. There are no phones in these labs, special non-buzzing lighting has been installed, and the only copper wiring permitted is that required to power the computers.

"We need to be confident that if we take a measure, it's accurate," says O'Donnell. "If it's a controversial point, our careers are on the line. And misleading results hold up the research."

Without this facility, adds Fox, it wouldn't have been worth spending half a million euros on such a super-specified instrument. But the laboratory environment here allows his team to achieve a precision available nowhere else.

It's rare, explains O'Donnell, for researchers in the physical sciences to be doing fundamental science and applied science in the same project, but the results of combining their brainpower could potentially make solar energy viable on a major scale. If nanodiamonds can be manipulated to make the cost per kilowatt cheaper, conventional energy companies would be far more willing to invest in solar power.

"E.ON may well be interested because of energy-scavenging technology," says Fox. This is waste heat created by an industrial plant, which could be used just like the infrared heat from sunlight to make nanodiamonds emit electrons.

"An energy company might never have a solar plant, but they would dearly love to have 5% extra capacity that they could set alongside their conventional generation model."

But couldn't you just build a massive diamond electricity-generating solar array that works solely off the sun's clean energy? "Yes, you could, but the benefit of bolting it on to other forms of solar thermal energy generation is that you can use surplus or waste heat to increase the overall efficiency of the plant, making it commercially more competitive," says Fox. "And if any piece of equipment is going to answer the questions to make that a possibility, it's this microscope, in this building."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

Planet-hunter spots five worlds

Nasa's planet-hunting Kepler telescope spots its first five worlds beyond our Solar System, scientists report.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 3:32 pm

New Exoplanet Hunter Makes First 5 Discoveries

The Kepler Space Telescope, a designated planet-hunting satellite, has found its first five planets, among them an odd, massive world only as dense as Styrofoam.

The number of planets now known outside the solar system has risen to more than 400, but none is yet Earth-like enough to harbor life. Right now, Kepler can only detect large planets orbiting close to their stars, which means that these first planets are too hot to hold liquid water, a requirement for life as we know it.

But over the next year, the mission’s scientists will be homing in on ever more life-friendly places.

“We expected Jupiter-size planets in short orbits to be the first planets Kepler could detect,” said Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA in a release. “It’s only a matter of time before more Kepler observations lead to smaller planets with longer period orbits, coming closer and closer to the discovery of the first Earth analog.”

Kepler is pointed at a single field of stars in the constellation Cygnus. By watching the same stars over time, the mission can detect the periodic dimming of those stars, a possible indication that a planet has passed in front of the star. Finding an Earth-like planet will probably take quite awhile, though, because if it has an Earth-like orbit, it will take around a year to cross in front of its star just one time.

The current set of Kepler planets are not much like ours at all. The smallest is 0.4 times the size of Jupiter, while the largest is 1.5 times the largest planet in our solar system. They are all very hot, too, running between 2,200 and 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit. They have been given the catchy names Kepler 4b, Kepler 5b, Kepler 6b, and Kepler 7b. (Kepler 1b-3b were assigned to previously known exoplanets in the telescope’s field of view.)

Still, the planet detections show that Kepler is in great working order as it monitors its sample of the sky. The precision of the instrument has astounded scientists since its first light.

“This exquisite data is just the tip of the iceberg,” MIT astronomer Sara Seager said back then. “We’re going to see a new world of exoplanet exploration where discoveries will come much more rapidly than they’ve come in the last 10 years.”

The mission, championed for more than a decade by Bill Borucki, a NASA extrasolar planet specialist, looks like it will be capable of completing all of its scientific goals. That means it’s just a matter of time before we find an Earth twin or two out there in the light-years beyond.

Image: NASA exoplanet rendering.

See Also:

• Most Earth-Like Extrasolar Planet Found Right Next Door
• Kepler Shows Exoplanet Is Unlike Anything in Our Solar System
• Extreme Exoplanet’s Wild Ride
• Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet
• Astronomers Find Hidden Exoplanet in Hubble’s Dustbin
• Stellar Lithium Points Way for Exoplanet Hunters
• Aack, No Brakes! Giant New Exoplanet Goes the Wrong Way

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 | 4 Jan 2010 | 2:23 pm

Half of Depressed Americans Get No Treatment (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - About half of Americans with major depression do not receive treatment for the condition, and in many cases the therapies are not consistent with the standard of care, according to a new study.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 2:16 pm

Half of Depressed Americans Get No Treatment

About half of Americans with major depression go untreated, and only 21 percent receive treatment consistent with accepted guidelines, a new study says.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jan 2010 | 2:04 pm

Cell Phones Zoom In On Air Pollution

A project out of the University of California, San Diego, aims to combine artificial intelligence, sensor technology, cell phones, and innocuous crowd-sourcing to monitor air quality on a hyperlocal level. The nascent system is called CitiSense and is being developed ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 1:38 pm

Explosive Nearby Star Could Threaten Earth (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - WASHINGTON — A massive, eruptive white dwarf star in the Milky Way — long overdue for its next periodic eruption — is closer to our solar system than previously thought and could threaten the Earth if it fully explodes millions of years from now.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 1:16 pm

Computer method 'spots art fakes'

A simple method of dicing up and analysing images of artworks reveals an accurate way to spot fakes, researchers say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 1:11 pm

New Mammogram Guidelines Issued … Again

Doctors recommend breast cancer screening to begin at age 40, not 50 as was recommended a little over a month ago.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jan 2010 | 12:58 pm

Six Revelations About Women and Sex

News that the G-spot may be a figment of women's imaginations is one of several surprising studies.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jan 2010 | 12:01 pm

Winter System Freezes the North, Chills the South

2010 has kicked off with record snowfall in the Northeast and freezing temperatures as far south as Florida.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:45 am

New images show evidence of lakes on Mars

Nasa pictures suggest there were 12 mile-wide lakes of melted ice on the Martian equator 3bn years ago

Lakes of liquid water existed on Mars at a time when the planet was previously thought to be a frozen desert, new satellite images have shown.

A team of British-led scientists now believes 12 mile-wide lakes of melted ice were dotted around parts of the Martian equator 3bn years ago.

No one had expected to find evidence of a warm, wet climate capable of sustaining surface water on Mars during this period of the planet's history, known as the Hesperian epoch.

Lakes, seas and rivers may have existed on the planet at an earlier time between 3.8 billion and four billion years ago, experts believe.

But before the Hesperian Epoch the planet was assumed to have lost most of its atmosphere and turned cold and dry.

The new high-definition images come from the American space agency Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The dry lakes will be good places to go to look for signs of now-extinct microbial life, say scientists.

Dr Nicholas Warner, from Imperial College London, whose team analysed the images, said: "Most of the research on Mars has focused on its early history and the recent past. Scientists had largely overlooked the Hesperian Epoch as it was thought that Mars was then a frozen wasteland. Excitingly, our study now shows that this middle period in Mars' history was much more dynamic than we previously thought."

The British researchers, including scientists from University College London, examined several flat-floored depressions located above Ares Vallis, a giant gorge that runs for 1,242 miles across the Martian equator.

Their origin has been a puzzle, but experts had thought they were caused by the ground sinking when ice locked in the soil evaporated and vanished without first turning liquid.

The new study revealed for the first time that small sinuous channels connected the depressions. Their appearance suggests they were created by lakes on higher ground bursting their banks and water draining into lower-lying lakes.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:44 am

Secret Service Admits Third Uninvited Person Attended Indian State Dinner

For weeks we've been hearing about how Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed the Obama administration's first State Dinner. Now the Secret Service admits that a third, as of yet unnamed, person who was not on the White House guest list ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:43 am

Ancient Egyptian necropolis yields its biggest tomb

Archaeologists in Egypt say they have found the largest known tomb in the ancient necropolis of Sakkara, to the south of Cairo.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:38 am

Climate deal 'satisfies' Saudis

The world's largest oil producer says it is satisfied by the outcome of UN climate talks, but warns of tensions ahead.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:30 am

We freeze while others warm

Although it may be hard to believe, many parts of the northern hemisphere are considerably warmer than usual at the moment. Alaska and much of northern Canada is unseasonably warm for instance, with temperatures 5C to 10C warmer than expected. That still leaves the air a biting –30C (–22F) or so though. Hardly a barbecue winter.

North Africa and the Mediterranean basin are warmer than average also, by up to 10C. Elsewhere, such as across northern Europe, temperatures are coming in 5C or so colder than average. It may be called a freak cold snap, but it's actually a fairly routine distribution of winter weather, the Met Office insists.

The reason? Something called the warm-ocean cold-land phenomenon. Cold places are kept cold because there is little wind. Warm places are kept warm because of local winds coming off the warmer sea.

Like most weather systems, the cause can be traced to blocks of high air pressure, which tend to dictate wind direction.

"High pressure blocks act like heavy rocks in a stream, in the way that water has to flow around them," a Met Office spokesman explained.

Such a stubborn block across eastern Europe and Siberia has halted the prevailing westerly wind across Britain, which usually brings soggy warm air from the Atlantic. Instead, what wind there is comes down from the frozen north. With it come the freezing conditions that have seen temperatures in parts of Scotland plunge. Temperatures across many regions have failed to climb above zero during the day, while the mercury at the Met Office's Eskdalemuir observatory in Dumfries and Galloway hit –14C on Sunday, the coldest since December 1995.

The offending high pressure block seems in no hurry to move on. "There is no wind round there for thousands of miles," the spokesman said, which means the Arctic conditions over the UK look set to continue well into next week. When the weather does break, it could bring renewed chaos.

"It all depends how quickly the warmer and wetter air comes back from the west. If it charges in and meets the cold surface air then we could have 3ft of snow or we could be skating across freezing rain."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 11:20 am

"Angel" the Golden Retriever Tussels with Cougar, Saves Boy's Life

Eleven year-old Austin Foreman has already had a very lucky 2010. He was in his back yard on Saturday evening gathering firewood when his golden retriever, Angel, came in between him and a charging cougar. As the dog and big ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:35 am

G-Spot May Not Exist

Researchers at least found that the idea of a G-spot seems to be subjective.
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:27 am

One in 10 births around world premature: WHO

GENEVA (Reuters) - One in 10 of the some 130 million births around the world each year is premature, the vast majority in poorer countries where chances of survival are low, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:21 am

Flight School Trains Pilots Who'll Never Fly

Basically, it's like "Top Gun" except the pilots never leave the ground.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:10 am

Treat Dolphins Like Persons, Scientists Say

Dolphins are turning out to be smarter than once thought and should be considered as "non-human persons."
Source: Livescience.com | 4 Jan 2010 | 10:05 am

Kenya holds 'rhino poaching gang'

Kenyan authorities arrest a gang suspected of killing a white rhino and cutting off its horns for sale on the black market.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:49 am

Tiny Dinosaur Creates Paleontology Puzzle

If a dinosaur is small, how can you tell whether it died young or was just tiny? This question has puzzled dinosaur experts studying the 3.3-foot-long dino Lesothosaurus diagnosticus, but the mystery may have just been solved. ("A" shows the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:45 am

Largest Saqqara Tomb Discovered

An Egyptian team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has unearthed the largest tomb yet discovered in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, also known as the "City of the Dead." Filled with skeletons, coffins ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:44 am

Climate change scepticism will increase hardship for world's poor: IPCC chief

Rajendra Pachauri predicts lobbying will intensify to impede progress to agreement on binding treaty in Mexico City

Climate change scepticism is likely to surge in 2010 and could exacerbate "hardship" for the planet's poorest people, one of the world's leading authorities on climate change has told the Guardian.

Writing on environmentguardian.co.uk today, Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also dismisses suggestions that he is personally profiting from policies to tackle global warming.

Climate sceptics gained media attention in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit after alleging that hacked emails between senior climate scientists showed that an important temperature record was flawed — a charge rejected by governments and scientific bodies. In Australia, sceptics within the party led to the ousting of the leader of the opposition over new climate laws.

Pachauri predicted this year would see further scepticism. "Powerful vested interests are perhaps likely to get overactive in the coming months, and would perhaps do everything in their power to impede progress towards a binding agreement that is hoped for by the end of 2010 in Mexico City," he said. "Those opposed to action on climate change are working overtime to see that they can stall action for as long as possible."

After a weak deal in Copenhagen, Pachauri warned that allowing scepticism to delay international action on global warming would endanger the lives of the world's poorest people. "In the end, knowledge and science will undoubtedly triumph, but delay in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases would only lead to worse impacts of climate change and growing hardship for the most vulnerable regions in the world, which are also unfortunately some of the poorest communities on Earth."

Pachauri, a vegetarian, has previously described western lifestyles as unsustainable and advocated a diet including one meat-free day a week. He singled out lobbyists in the US for attempting to delay America's climate legislation, which is crucial for a global deal but is currently stalled in the Senate. Last year the Centre for Public Integrity found that 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence US policies on climate change, while America's oil, gas and coal industry increased its lobbying budget by 50%.

Pachauri said action from President Obama would be needed on top of Senate legislation. "The passage of legislation in that country [the US] will have to be supplemented with several initiatives to be put in place by the executive branch of the government," Pachauri said.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said Pachauri was right on the level of sceptical activity. "We are already witnessing extraordinary efforts by powerful lobbies, in the US and Australia in particular, which are opposed to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. There is a strong alliance of ideologically driven right-wingers, who reject environmental legislation on principle, and lobbyists for some hydrocarbon companies, who place the short-term commercial interests of their clients ahead of the wider public interest. Both have the common goal of delaying restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, and both use the tactics pioneered by the tobacco industry, hiding their true motivations behind inaccurate and misleading claims about uncertainties in the science."

But Tony Kreindler of the Environmental Defence Fund, which has been following US climate legislation, said the number of climate sceptic lobbyists was now being matched by companies supporting legislation to cap carbon emissions. However, he added: "Opponents of action and the old sceptics will of course ramp up their lobbying this year as well, as they do anytime the Congress is on the verge of making law. We already have a bill through the House of Representatives and a bipartisan effort underway in the Senate. The President made his commitment clear in Copenhagen to legislation because it's in our national interest. This year is not a dress rehearsal, and everyone on both sides gets that."

On the stolen emails, Pachauri said the contents did not impact on climate science, adding that "the allegations made on the basis of the stolen emails have proved incorrect."

The University of East Anglia is currently undertaking an independent review of the hacking incident, led by senior civil servant Sir Muir Russell. The review is expected to be published in the spring, but a university spokesman said today that Sir Russell will "determine his final timescale after completing his initial scoping exercise". He added that the university had also responded to a letter from the science and technology committee of MPs asking for an explanation of the incident. The IPCC is conducting its own review into the stolen emails.

Pachauri also rebutted claims in The Sunday Telegraph that, through advisory roles for Deutsche Bank, Toyota, Yale University, the Asian Development Bank and others, he was reaping personal financial gain from climate change policies that could be influenced by the reports of the IPCC he chairs. The article claimed Pachauri had been silent on the "highly lucrative commercial jobs", the rewards from which "must run into millions".

In response, he said: "The same group of climate deniers who have been active across the Atlantic have now joined hands to attack me personally. As for pecuniary benefits from advice that I may be rendering to profit-making organisations, these payments are all made directly to my institute, without a single penny being received by me."

The Nobel Peace-prize winning Pachauri called for greater activism and more campaigning to press governments into taking strong action on carbon emissions this year. "Society and grassroots action would have to come into their own, not only to ensure that human society takes responsibility for action at the most basic level, but also to create upward pressure on governments to act decisively. If such grassroots efforts do not spread and intensify, nation states may not be able to resolve the differences that exist between them."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:42 am

Climate change has no time for delay or denial | Rajendra Pachauri

Powerful vested interests and climate sceptics will work overtime to block legislation and discredit the science ahead of the next global climate summit in Mexico

It is often said by perceptive observers that a disconnect is in evidence in many countries between a public that want stringent action to tackle climate change and what governments are actually doing.

The United States, for example - which for many years has had no forward-looking policies in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) - is still encumbered with a large number of senators unwilling to act on account of partisanship or scepticism about the science of climate change.

It is a well-known fact that powerful vested interests and those opposed to action on climate change are working overtime to see that they can stall action for as long as possible.

The Centre for Public Integrity in the US has found that some 770 companies and interest groups have hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence America's federal policies on climate change in the past year, just as the stakes became higher with the prospect of far-reaching climate legislation in the US. That translates into more than four lobbyists for each member of Congress in Washington DC.

The climate sceptics have also been active in other ways. Take the hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia and the use of private communications between the scientists involved to discredit the science contained in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which I chair. These scientists are highly reputed professionals, whose contributions over the years to scientific knowledge are unquestionable.

But, more importantly, even the allegations made on the basis of the stolen emails have proved incorrect. The papers which were criticised in the emails were actually discussed in detail in chapter six of the Working Group I report of the AR4. Furthermore, articles from the journal Climate Research, which was also decried in the emails, have been cited 47 times in the Working Group I report. It is also a well-established fact that the IPCC relies on datasets - not from any single source - but from a number of institutions in different parts of the world. Significantly, the datasets from East Anglia were totally consistent with those from other institutions, on the basis of which far-reaching and meaningful conclusions were reached in the AR4.

The same group of climate deniers who have been active across the Atlantic have now joined hands to attack me personally, alleging business interests on my part which are supposedly benefiting me as well as the Indian Tata group of companies. My institute, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has no links with the Tata group, other than having been established through seed funding from that group as a non-profit registered society in 1974, much like several other non-profit institutions of excellence set up by the Tatas for the larger public good. As for pecuniary benefits from advice that I may be rendering to profit making organisations, these payments are all made directly to my institute, without a single penny being received by me.

I am providing this background only to highlight the fact that powerful vested interests are perhaps likely to get overactive in the coming months, and would perhaps do everything in their power to impede progress towards a binding agreement that is hoped for by the end of 2010 in the next major climate negotiations in Mexico City. In the end, knowledge and science will undoubtedly triumph, but delay in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases would only lead to worse impacts of climate change and growing hardship for the most vulnerable regions in the world, which are also unfortunately some of the poorest communities on earth.

A multilateral agreement to tackle climate change is absolutely essential, but given the slow pace of progress and the power that vested interests exercise over legislative and policy initiatives in democratic societies, something more may be essential. Firstly, given the critical role of the United States in forging an effective agreement to meet the challenge, the passage of legislation in that country will have to be supplemented with several initiatives to be put in place by the executive branch of the government.

But importantly, it seems to me that civil society and grassroots action would have to come into their own, not only to ensure that human society takes responsibility for action at the most basic level, but also to create upward pressure on governments to act decisively. If such grassroots efforts do not spread and intensify, nation states may not be able to resolve the differences that exist between them.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the spread of knowledge and awareness would be a critical driver of the transformation that is required to move human society towards a pattern of sustainable development. This would also be the most effective means of thwarting the efforts of skeptics and vested interests, who will do everything possible to maintain the status quo. As the science in the IPCC Fourth Assessment report clearly demonstrates, there is no leeway for delay or denial any longer.

• Rajendra Pachauri chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is director-general of The Energy & Resources Institute

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 9:24 am

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New images of Mars suggest the Red Planet had lakes on its surface as recently as three billion years ago.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Jan 2010 | 8:09 am

Relic of Antarctica's first plane found on ice-edge

CAPE DENISON, Antarctica (Reuters) - An Antarctic expedition has found what it believes to be remains of the first aeroplane brought to the frozen continent, on an icy shore near where it was abandoned almost a century ago.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Jan 2010 | 7:18 am

Google celebrates Newton's birthday

Today, Google has a surprising animated logo to celebrate the birthday of one of the world's greatest scientists, Sir Isaac Newton, who was born on Christmas day in 1642

Sir Isaac Newton's birthday* is being celebrated today by a "Google doodle" that shows an apple falling from a tree: an event that inspired him to formulate his theory of gravity, and established him as one of the world's greatest scientists.

Google frequently commemorates events by changing the logo on its search page. Newton's doodle is unusual in being the first to include an action – a falling apple – and in having a photographic quality.

Newton's idea was that the force of gravity didn't stop at pulling apples to the ground, but extended into space; wouldn't it go as far as the moon? Newton was then able to show by calculation what he already believed: that the moon's orbit could be explained by the gravitational pull of the Earth.

The theory of gravity and three laws of motion, described in Principia Mathematica in 1687, went against traditional ideas that must have seemed "obvious" to many non-scientists. First, it was evident that the moon kept circling the Earth without any "motive power" beyond gravity to keep it going. This broke with Aristotelian physics, which assumed that some sort of force was necessary to keep things in motion.

Newton's theory of gravity also explained the moon's influence on the tides, "for there will be a stronger attraction upon that part of the water that is nearest to the body, and a weaker upon that part which is more remote," he wrote.

Second, gravity was an invisible force that extended over vast distances: its influence could be shown even on the planets in the solar system. To some, this seemed like a supernatural or even an occult idea.

Newton's theory of gravity and three laws of motion enabled people to make mathematical models and therefore to predict or confirm physical observations, but how gravity works and what it actually "means", if anything, are different issues. "It is enough," wrote Newton, "that gravity really exists and acts according to the laws that we have set forth and is sufficient to explain all the motions of the heavenly bodies and of our sea."

But the implications of this simple statement are profound. Newton is saying that the universe operates in a rational and predictable way, and its workings can be described mathematically without any reference to mythology, theology or religion. Many people still find this idea challenging more than 300 years later.

* Newton was born on Christmas day, 25 December 1642 under the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, and still in use in Britain. We changed to using the Gregorian calendar in 1752, which was after Newton's death in 1727. Google is celebrating the Gregorian date today, but it's not one that Newton would have recognised.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Jan 2010 | 7:00 am

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Wired Science’s Most Popular Space Stories of 2009

We love space, and so do you. This is a fact, well established by our Christmas-morning-level anticipation every time Hubble or Cassini or Spitzer release a new image, and your happy, clicky, tweety responses to virtually anything we post that has to do with space.

So we were surprised to find that there was just one space story among our most popular stories for 2009. Our “Earth from space” galleries and posts did well, but we don’t think those qualify as space stories. The sole celestial finalist was just a simple reminder that the annual Perseids meteor shower was peaking, with some viewing tips.

The Perseids are great and all, but we couldn’t let space be this underrepresented in our 2009 roundups, so here are the rest of our most popular spacey offerings of the year.

10. Saturn’s Mysterious Hexagon

Space + mystery = awesome. And we think this is the coolest mystery in the solar system. (Take that, Jupiter. You and your red spot.)

Why? Why would the jet stream around Saturn’s north pole turn sharp corners in the shape of a hexagon? Why?

Scientists have been unable to answer this since the strange, persistent weather pattern was first discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s. Now, thanks to our favorite spacecraft, Cassini, we have the best view yet of this crazy planetary puzzle. The Cassini imaging team also assembled a series of images into a movie so you can see the motion.

Image: NASA/JPL/CICLOPS

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Jan 2010 | 3:30 am