How music 'moves' us: Listeners' brains second-guess the composer

Have you ever accidentally pulled your headphone socket out while listening to music? What happens when the music stops? Psychologists believe that our brains continuously predict what is going to happen next in a piece of music. So, when the music stops, your brain may still have expectations about what should happen next. A new paper predicts that these expectations should be different for people with different musical experience and sheds light on the brain mechanisms involved.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

Early immune response needed for hit-and-hide cancer viruses

Human retroviral infections might be more manageable if the immune system could respond strongly to the virus early, say cancer researchers in a new study. The research examined the retrovirus HTLV-1, which causes adult T-cell leukemia. It indicates that if the immune system could kill virus-infected cells within days of infection, it may inhibit the virus's ability to establish reservoirs of infected cells and make the infection more treatable later.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

Sequencing wasp genome sheds new light on sexual parasite

Sequencing the complete genomes of three species of wasp provides new insights into the methods that the bacterial parasite Wolbachia uses to manipulate the sex lives of its hosts.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

Pink tomato gene

What makes a particular variety of tomato pink? The gene responsible may help researchers develop new exotic tomatoes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

Excess DNA damage found in cells of patients with Friedreich's ataxia

Elevated levels of DNA damage have been found in the mitochondria and nuclei of patients with the inherited, progressive nervous system disease called Friedreich's ataxia. The findings shed light on the molecular abnormalities that lead to the disease, as well as point the way to new therapeutic approaches and the development of biomarker blood tests to track its progression.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

Objects we want are seen as closer

If we really want something, that desire may influence how we view our surroundings.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A storm was expected to bring moderate to heavy rain and strong winds to parts of the Southeast on Saturday, and to get more powerful as the day progressed.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Jan 2010 | 2:48 am

Sushi-loving Japan fears push for tuna export ban (AP)

AP - Seafood-loving Japan — having faced years of international pressure to stop whaling — finds itself with a potentially bigger fight over a highly prized type of tuna that conservation groups say is being fished to extinction.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:21 pm

New satellite maps of Haiti coming in

As rescue workers scramble to provide assistance to hundreds of thousands of people following Haiti's earthquake, Earth observation satellite data continues to provide updated views of the situation on the ground.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

Studies demonstrate link among Alzheimer's disease, Down syndrome and atherosclerosis

Neuroscientists have demonstrated an association among Alzheimer's disease, Down syndrome and atherosclerosis. Their research implicates damage inflicted by the amyloid protein as a shared disease mechanism.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

Did aliens help to line up Woolworths stores?

Researcher Tom Brooks reckons primitive man was a navigational genius. It's true, but only if you ignore the evidence to the contrary

Every now and then you have to salute a genius. Both the Daily Mail and the Metro report research analysing the positions of Britain's ancient sites, and the results are startling: primitive man had his own form of satnav.

Researcher Tom Brooks analysed 1,500 prehistoric monuments, and found them all to be on a grid of isosceles triangles, each pointing to the next site, allowing our ancestors to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy. The papers even carried an example of his map work, which I have reproduced here.

That this pattern could occur simply because one site was on the way to the next was not considered.

Brooks has proved, he explains, that there were keen mathematicians here 5,000 years ago, millennia before the Greeks invented geometry: "Such is the mathematical precision, it is inconceivable that this work could have been carried out by the primitive indigenous culture we have always associated with such structures … all this suggests a culture existing in these islands in the past quite outside our expectation and experience today." He does not rule out extra­terrestrial help.

In the Metro Tom Brooks is a researcher. To the Daily Mail he is a researcher, a historian, and a writer. I hope it's not rude or unfair for me to add "retired marketing executive of Honiton, Devon".

Matt Parker, his nemesis, is based in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London. He has applied the same techniques used by Brooks to another mysterious and lost civilisation.

"We know so little about the ancient Woolworths stores," he explains, "but we do still know their locations. I thought that if we analysed the sites we could learn more about what life was like in 2008 and how these people went about buying cheap kitchen accessories and discount CDs."

The results revealed an exact and precise geometric placement of the Woolworths locations.

"Three stores around Birmingham formed an exact equilateral triangle (Wolverhampton, Lichfield and Birmingham stores) and if the base of the triangle is extended, it forms a 173.8 mile line linking the Conwy and Luton stores. Despite the 173.8 mile distance involved, the Conwy Woolworths store is only 40 feet off the exact line and the Luton site is within 30 feet. All four stores align with an accuracy of 0.05%."

Parker used an ancient technique: he found his patterns in 800 ex-Woolworths locations by "skipping over the vast majority, and only choosing the few that happen to line up".

With 1,500 locations, Brooks had almost twice as much data to work with, and on this issue Parker is clear: "It is extremely important to look at how much data people are using to support an argument. For example, the case for global warming covers vast amounts of comprehensive evidence, but it is still possible for people to search through the data and find a few isolated examples that appear to show otherwise."

Please send your bad science to bad.science@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

Trial of new osteoporosis drug beginning

Endocrinologists are launching a human trial of a new drug that their research indicates holds great promise for building bones weakened by osteoporosis. An experimental drug called parathyroid hormone-related protein is an anabolic agent that appears to be unique in its ability to stimulate bone formation without simultaneously increasing bone breakdown.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

Polar bear droppings advance superbug debate

Scientists investigating the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs have gone the extra mile for their research -- all the way to the Arctic. Researchers found little sign of the microbes in the droppings of polar bears that have had limited or no contact with humans, suggesting that the spread of antibiotic resistance genes seen in other animals may be the result of human influence.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

Haiti quake could not have been predicted: experts

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti could not have been predicted, experts said on Friday, but seismologists have made progress in identifying areas likely to be hit by major quakes in the next few decades.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:20 pm

This column will change your life: To be or not to be…

It's 45 years since David Bourland suggested doing away with the verb "to be". A silly suggestion, one might think, but look a little closer and it makes a weird kind of sense

Forty-five years ago, the author David Bourland published an essay proposing a radical overhaul of English based on eliminating all forms of the verb "to be". In a world where we all spoke E-Prime, as Bourland called this new language, you couldn't say "Sandra Bullock's latest film is shockingly mediocre"; you'd have to say it "seems mediocre to me". Shakespeare productions would need retooling ("To live or not to live, I ask this question"), as would the Bible ("The Lord functions as my shepherd"). The world, in short, would feel very different – though in E-Prime you couldn't actually say it "was" very different. Unsurprisingly, it proved even less popular than Esperanto, and in fairness Bourland never meant it as a serious replace­ment for English. But in this anniversary year, his eccentric vision deserves celebrating. Because in theory at least, E-Prime aimed at nothing less than using language to make our insane lives a little more sane.

Bourland studied under Alfred Korzybski, a Polish aristocrat émigré who founded the philosophy of General Semantics, made famous by his slogan, "The map is not the territory." To think about and function in the world, Korzybski said, we rely on systems of abstract concepts, most obviously language. But those concepts don't reflect the world in a straightforward way; instead, they contain hidden traps that distort reality, causing confusion and angst. And the verb "to be", he argued, contains the most traps of all.

Take the phrase, "My brother is lazy." It seems clear, but Korzybski and Bourland would say it deceives: it implies certainty and objectivity, when in reality it expresses an opinion. Even, "The sky is blue" papers over the details: I really mean, "The sky appears blue to me." "Our judgments can only be proba­bi­listic," wrote Allen Walker Read, a Korzybski follower. "Therefore we would do well to avoid finalistic, absolutistic terms. Can we ever find 'perfection' or 'certainty' or 'truth'? No! Then let us stop using such words in our formulations." E-Prime provided an easy way to do this: simply stop using "to be".

All this might seem maniacally pointless pedantry. But as cognitive therapists note, thoughts trigger emotions, and "finalistic, absolutistic" thoughts trigger stressful emotions. "I am a failure" feels permanent, all-encompassing, hopeless. Restating it in E-Prime – "I feel like a failure" or "I have failed at this task" – makes it limited, temporary, addressable.

"I have found repeatedly," wrote the novelist Robert Anton Wilson, an E-Prime advocate, "that when baffled by a problem in science, in philosophy, or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime." Political debates might benefit, too, since E-Prime renders unyielding dogmatism – "All immigrants are scroungers!", "Taxation is theft!" etcetera – essentially impossible. As George Santayana put it, "The little word 'is' has its tragedies."

E-Prime never really caught on; General Semantics fell out of fashion. (It can't have helped that Korzybski's fans included that high-priest of poppycock, L Ron Hubbard.) Even so, trying to express one's thoughts without using "to be" can have a curiously salutary, bracing effect. In this column, with the obvious exception of the quoted examples, I have attempted to do this.

oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:10 pm

MLK's FBI Files May Soon See Daylight

On Monday, Jan. 18, 2010, the United States will commemorate the achievements of civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr. While today we look at King with great respect and admiration, any student of history will know that this wasn't ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:55 pm

Despite iPods and Walkmen, Rates of Hearing Loss Dropping

Despite all the Walkmen, boomboxes, 8-tracks, iPods and Bluetooth headsets that have delivered raucous noise to the ears of Baby Boomers, hearing loss appears to be declining among adults.

This counterintuitive finding from the first study of long-term changes in hearing loss is that for every five years a man or woman was born later in the 20th century, their chance of having hearing impairment dropped 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

A key suggestion of the report is that other, positive changes in the last 50 years — reduced noise levels at work and better overall health — are more important than the rise of headphones and other entertainingly noisy new products.

“Because many people think that the world is getting noisier and noisier, they think that the prevalence of hearing impairment might increase,” said Weihai Zhan, a population health scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “But the prevalence of hearing impairment is decreasing across the generation.”

The new work draws on a long-term study of health outcomes for the people of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, a small town in between Milwaukee and Madison. More than 2,000 people underwent three health screenings at five-year intervals.

The study also underscores that hearing loss clearly is not wholly determined by genetic factors or simple aging, but rather stems from several “environmental, lifestyle or other modifiable factors,” the authors wrote in their new paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology January issue.

Image: ElDave/Flickr

See Also:

• 23andMe to California: We’re Not Ceasing or Desisting
• Support the Troops, Not Public Health
• Meeting Reveals California’s Hardline Stance on DNA Testing
• iPhone App Finds Disease Outbreaks Near You
• Researchers Track Disease With Google News, Google.org Money

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 | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:42 pm

Recession Special: NASA cuts space shuttle price (AP)

AP - Here's a recession bargain: the space shuttle. NASA has slashed the price of these 1970s era spaceships from $42 million to $28.8 million apiece.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:16 pm

Friday News Feedbag Info for January 15th, 2010

If this is your first exposure to the Friday News Feedbag...we're glad to have you in the club. Welcome to Feedbag Nation, which stems from our weekly science news podcast that you can subscribe to here on iTunes and chat ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:15 pm

NASA Cuts Price for Retired Space Shuttles (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - NASA on Friday slashed its multi-million dollar price tag for museums looking to acquire one of its three space shuttle orbiters after they are retired later this year. The due date for the reduced payment, which dropped by almost one-third, was also advanced to be six months earlier than previously announced.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:00 pm

Mound of Ash Reveals Shrine to Zeus

An altar dedicated to the king of the gods was used for ritual ceremonies by the ancient Greeks.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:35 pm

Solar Decathlon

This past October, the Mall in Washington D.C. looked like something futuristic. Twenty solar-powered homes were part of the annual Solar Decathlon, a collegiate competition for engineering and architecture.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:29 pm

Smog leaves Utah coughing, sneezing and wheezing (AP)

AP - A thick layer of smog stubbornly lingering over parts of Utah has fouled the state's air so badly this week that health officials warned people not to exercise outside and some schools kept children inside for recess and sports.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:59 pm

'Astonishing' Ancient Amazon Civilization Discovery Detailed

Recently, new satellite imagery detected a hidden kingdom in the Amazon that had eluded explorers for nearly 500 years. An aerial picture of traces of earthworks built by a lost Amazonian civilisation. Denise Schaan Some called it El Dorado, others, ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:50 pm

Egalitarian Science: The Open Dinosaur Project

If you're interested in trying your hand at scientific publication, you might want to check out the Open Dinosaur Project. The venture harnesses the research powers of a crowd in order to compile a database of dinosaur limb bone measurements. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:48 pm

Scientists Suit Up For Spaceflight Training (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A group of 13 scientists hoping to perform experiments on suborbital spaceships took a dizzying spin in a centrifuge this week in the first-ever commercial training session targeted at civilian researchers.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:46 pm

Weekends Are Good For You, Study Finds (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Just about everybody - even workaholics - should look forward to the weekend, when most people get a mood boost, a new study suggests.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:45 pm

NASA Listens for Sign Mars Phoenix Survived Winter

NASA will attempt to reestablish contact with the Mars Phoenix Lander on Monday.

The Mars Odyssey orbiter will pass over the lander’s position (highlighted in the image above) 10 times a day for three straight days, listening for any sign that the craft survived the Martian winter’s freezing temperatures.

Phoenix’s electronics weren’t designed to live through the period, so NASA officials aren’t hopeful that they’ll hear anything.

“We do not expect Phoenix to have survived, and therefore do not expect to hear from it. However, if Phoenix is transmitting, Odyssey will hear it,” said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a press release. “We will perform a sufficient number of Odyssey contact attempts that if we don’t detect a transmission from Phoenix, we can have a high degree of confidence that the lander is not active.”

In the unlikely case the Phoenix rises from the ashes frost, it is programmed to use the electricity generated by its solar panels to attempt communication with Odyssey or the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It would cycle through its communication tools, trying out its two radios and two antennas.

Mars Phoenix (aka @MarsPhoenix) was a wildly popular robotic lander that operated on the surface of the Red Planet for five months until November 2008 when its solar panels stopped receiving enough energy to keep it working. Since then, it’s been through the Martian winter and part of the spring. The amount of solar energy hitting its high-latitude location is now roughly the same as it was when it shut down.

If Odyssey doesn’t hear anything next week, further attempts to establish contact with Phoenix will come in February or March, when Odyssey will actively try to transmit radio signals to the lander instead of just listening.

We imagine the message will be something like, “Hey, little buddy, you there?”

In the meantime, we can only assume that Mars Phoenix is gone, but not forgotten. As the first NASA mission to make meaningful use of Twitter to engage the public, the craft earned a special, sub-140 character epitaph in our Twitter Epitaph Contest: Veni, vidi, fodi. (I came, I saw, I dug)

See Also:

• Mars Phoenix Tweets: “We Have ICE!”
• Mars Phoenix “Shovel” Hits Hard White Layer Just Below Surface …
• R.I.P. @MarsPhoenix: The Twitter Epitaph Contest
• The Dirt on Mars Phoenix Lander Contamination
• Mars Phoenix Lander Runs Out of Juice
• Mars Phoenix Rasp Shreds Tough Martian Ice
• Interactive Timeline: Mars Phoenix Heads Into Extra Innings …

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 | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:10 pm

Work, Play, Sleep: Weekend Science

Friday is (finally) here, and while the weekend may be mostly about fun and games for many, there is real science behind it, too. First, the obvious: People feel better when the weekend arrives. If you're anything like me, your ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:04 pm

EPA proposes water pollution legal limits in Fla. (AP)

AP - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed the first numeric limits in the nation for farm and urban runoff polluting Florida's waterways, limits supporters say could set precedent and lead to similar federal standards in other states.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:57 pm

Meteorologists as Climate Change Deniers?

A recent piece in the Columbia Journalism Review (http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/hot_air.php) examined the rise in global warming denial among the ranks of TV meteorologists. It's not just that the climate change deniers (as clunky a label as you'll find) claim that the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:52 pm

Weekends Are Good For You, Study Finds

People often reported better moods, greater vitality, and fewer aches and pains on the weekend.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:43 pm

Earthquake Threat Lurks For United States, Too

Major earthquake in the United States could devastate cities in California, the Pacific Northwest, and the East Coast.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:38 pm

Angry Flies May Help Explain Human Aggression

Scientists turn to flies to study the roots of aggression
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:28 pm

Sea Ice Cracks Up

A chunk of ice broke away from Antarctica and shattered into many pieces this week.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:59 am

UK ministers 'can sack advisers'

Shadow science minister tells scientists that ministers should be able to dismiss their advisers "on any terms"
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:48 am

Chinese EV Promises Crazy Mileage

With the Detroit Auto Show in full swing, this week a Chinese company touted a new all-electric vehicle that gets 205 miles on a single charge and is set to hit the U.S. market later this year. The Shenzhen-based company ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:48 am

New code as salmon season starts

Anglers on the River Tay are being asked to free every salmon they catch in an effort to conserve stocks.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:39 am

Scientists turn stem cells into pork (AP)

AP - Call it pork in a petri dish — a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:13 am

Angry Flies Lunge For Each Other

Aggressive lunge behavior between a pair of male fruit flies seen in slow motion.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:50 am

Fate of Haiti's Zoo and Animals Remains Uncertain

The fate of Haiti's zoo, endangered species and other animals in the Caribbean country remains uncertain at present, with U.S. animal and veterinary organizations attempting to gather information while also standing by to allow rescuers to focus on human victims ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:37 am

Tylenol Recall Expands Due to Moldy Odor

If the bottle of Tylenol in your medicine cabinet smells funny, just throw it out.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:56 am

New drugs panel will be 'independent of political influence'

Our new advisory committee is not a rival to the government's, but I believe that scientific advice must be independent of politics

After the politics of recent months, it was great to go to the Science Media Centre today to announce the launch of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD).

I set up the committee because I feel passionately that drugs policy needs to be based on the best available scientific evidence. Crucially, the production and dissemination of this scientific evidence needs to be entirely independent of political influence.

Our committee has funding for an initial two- to three-year period. We have the support of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, which will be helping us run the committee. Most important of all, the committee will have some of the top scientific experts in the country. Over time, the committee will become the key independent scientific body on drugs issues.

One of our first priorities will be to review the effects of "legal highs" such as mephedrone, sometimes referred to as "miaow". Currently, it's perfectly legal to buy and use these drugs in a completely unregulated manner. Yet there are real scientific concerns about the harm they might cause.

We will publish guidance on these drugs to inform public discussion, media coverage and policy formation. We will also publish guidance on the effects of ketamine. This powerful drug is currently a Class C drug. It can have all sorts of unpleasant and long-term side effects on users.

Until recently, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) was actively reviewing both legal highs and ketamine. This work came to a halt following my dismissal as chair and the subsequent resignation of several other scientists. The new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs will seek to support the work of the ACMD and policy formation by ensuring that the best scientific evidence on the effects of drugs is made available. There has been some speculation that we are setting up a rival body. This is simply not the case.

The new committee will also provide accessible information on drugs to the wider public and engage in an ongoing dialogue. We will be developing a dynamic web presence and making sure that all our work is freely available. We will also be using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter: indeed, you can follow me now on Twitter at @ProfDavidNutt.

All too often, crucial information on the effects of drugs is buried away in arcane scientific journals and the debates of expert groups. We want to make sure that this information is much more accessible.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:39 am

Thousands view solar eclipse in Africa and Asia (AP)

AP - Thousands of people in Africa and Asia viewed an eclipse Friday as the moon crossed the sun's path blocking everything but a narrow, blazing rim of light.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 8:53 am

In pictures

Photos of solar eclipse seen across Africa and Asia
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 8:09 am

Self-Control Is Contagious, Study Finds

When you watch someone with self-control restrain from eating that extra cookie, you might do the same.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 8:01 am

How satellites help analyse Haiti quake

Latest analysis by the UN of the Haiti earthquake shows how satellites can produce detailed data in natural disaster
• Datablog: Aid pledged by each country

Pretty much as soon as the earthquake struck Haiti satellite experts were starting to analyse images to see what they show about the state of the country and the effects on its infrastructure.

It matters because without this kind of detailed intel, aid agencies struggling to get supplies to the needy can't plan out how to do it. The image above is from Sertit.

The specialists in this are Unosat - the UN team receiving support from the US government to analyse satellite imagery to be provided to the Haitian government, UN sister agencies and NGOs. Geoeye has been busy - as this piece in Wired shows.

This is what they came up with. It uses the satellite imagery to produce detailed data on which roads and bridges have disappeared under the rubble - a brilliantly forensic examination, which also has an up to date KML file with it.

Can you do something with our data?

Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk

• Get the A-Z of data
• More at the Datastore directory
• Follow us on Twitter

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:49 am

UK's biggest swan count underway

This weekend sees the start of the UK's biggest ever swan survey, part of an international effort to monitor the health of swan populations.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:40 am

Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests

The Bible may have been written earlier than thought, newfound ancient Hebrew writing suggests.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:32 am

Electric car road test planned for Quebec

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Quebec's power utility is teaming up with Mitsubishi Motors to road test the performance of up to 50 all-electric vehicles against the rigors of the Canadian climate and measure their infrastructure needs.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:18 am

How defence scientists hope to save the UK's juniper bushes

Defence scientists at Porton Down in Wiltshire aim to save juniper bushes from extinction.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:39 am

South Africa's Cradle of Humankind

David Smith takes a trip to the Sterkfontein Caves just outside Johannesburg in search of the Garden of Eden

Rian Malan, the South African journalist and author, once made a spiky defence of Johannesburg in a British newspaper.

"Foreigners think we are nuts, coming back to a doomed city on a damned continent, but there is something you do not understand: it is boring where you are," he wrote a decade ago. "You will probably live longer than us and acquire more possessions, but there is no ferment in your societies, no excitement, no edge. Your newspapers are bland and your politics are inconsequential, so many storms in teacups."

Malan, author of one of South Africa's seminal texts, My Traitor's Heart, was asked how he spent an ideal day in his home city. In the afternoon, he said, he often took visitors to the Sterkfontein Caves, a world heritage site about an hour out of town.

He explained: "If there is a possibility that Johannesburg was once the Garden of Eden, then our ancestors would have lived there 150,000 to 200,000 years ago."

The city of Johannesburg has many qualities but prelapsarian innocence isn't one of them. In search of paradise, I set out to the Sterkfontein Caves, set in an area named, with arresting lack of understatement, the Cradle of Humankind.

Just 40km from the city of townships, skyscrapers and casinos, an expanse of highveld grassland and mixed woodland conceals secrets of our beginnings. The Cradle, spanning 47,000 hectares in the Witwatersrand Basin, is one of the world's most important prehistoric treasures, not for its pleasant but unremarkable surface, but for the 12 major fossil sites below.

The dolomitic hills are 2.6bn years old – more than half the age of the Earth itself. The bedrock was once an ancient sea floor and contains the fossils of blue-green algae, some of the earliest life on the planet. Later, dinosaurs ruled the roost here, then, 3m years ago, our ancestors arrived.

Sterkfontein is the world's longest-running archaeological excavation, with digging continuous since 1966. It has produced more than a third of the world's early hominid fossils, crucial links in the evolutionary chain to modern humans. Its riches are rivalled only by finds in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Visits to the caves begin with a modern glass centre containing geology lessons, eerie mannequins of man-apes and quotations from Richard Dawkins.

A tour guide led us out and down a damp stairway into caverns, following in the footsteps of miners, as so often in Gauteng province. The arrival of prospectors looking for lime in 1896 was both a curse and a blessing. Many fossils were probably blown up or hacked to destruction and lost, our guide explained. But if it wasn't for the mining, she said, we might not have found the caves at all.

One of the star finds at Sterkfontein was "Mrs Ples". The 2.5m-year-old perfectly preserved skull has been identified as an intermediate species between ape and human. Along with the "Taung child", discovered 23 years earlier, it helped to confirm Charles Darwin's conclusion that our roots are in Africa.

Mrs Ples was found in 1947 by Robert Broom, born into poverty in Scotland, who controversially didn't spare the dynamite to get at his fossils.

In 1997 there came another sensational discovery, the world's most complete pre-human fossil. It was dubbed "Little Foot" because its body parts were smaller than other adult finds and hailed as "the fossil that could rewrite human history".

Wandering through the cool, dark caves, I looked up at a gate behind which the excavation of Little Foot continued. Around me were the jagged walls and roof, soaring majestically above our heads like nature's cathedral. The rocks had been worn into random shapes by the millennia. One, said the guide, shining a torch, looked like the trunk and ears of an elephant.

In a crevice, crystals glittered in the torchlight. A thrown stone splashed in an underground lake and sent out ripples. Stalactites and stalagmites grown up and down over aeons touched and merged into one. Fragments of limestone drooped from the darker rock like flecks of shaving foam or weeping willows.

"God is great," said one member of the tour group.

The closest I felt to Indiana Jones was pushing myself through tiny gaps and narrow passages, either by samba dancing or curling up to the size of Little Foot itself. I emerged back on the surface and followed a path that allows you to see the ongoing excavations from above.

The museum shop has an excellent book, Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind. It contains a foreword by Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, who never missed a chance to hymn the African renaissance and attack the crimes of colonialism.

Mbeki argues that, "having given birth to humanity, we must reverse the many years of dehumanisation that have characterised our recent past". He goes on to list reasons for Africans to be proud:

• Africa is the oldest and most enduring of all the continents.

• The earliest living organism discovered thus far, 3.6bn years old, comes from Barberton in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

• The earliest dinosaur egg was found in South Africa.

• The Karoo in South Africa has an unparalleled sequence of fossil deposits.

• South Africa and other African countries have yielded fossils that prove humans originated in Africa, and that it was here that they first walked on two feet and developed the ability to adapt continuously to changing environs.

• It was on the African continent that our early human ancestors developed larger brains relative to other primates.

• Modern technology originated in east Africa, where the first stone tools were manufactured and used.

• Our early human ancestors first controlled and made fire in South Africa.

Looking around the group, at faces from Asia, Europe and the Americas, our tour guide said simply: "Welcome home, everyone."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:53 am

Longest solar eclipse of the century

15 January 2010: This solar eclipse is the longest annular solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century, lasting 11 minutes. In an annular eclipse, the sun and moon are directly in line, but since the moon is smaller, it leaves the blazing outer rim of the sun visible

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:40 am

Herschel restored to full health

Europe's Herschel Space Telescope is fully operational again after engineers bring its damaged instrument back online.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:36 am

RSPB takes rare insects under its wing

Wild bird conservation charity announces scheme to breed and reintroduce four species of endangered invertebrates into UK habitats

Wild bird conservation charity the RSPB is turning its attention to insects with schemes to breed and reintroduce endangered hoverflies, moths, bees and crickets to UK habitats.

The RSPB is hoping to have the same conservation success with these species that it has had with birds such as white-tailed eagles, red kites and corncrakes.

Field crickets - which were reduced to a single colony of 100 in Sussex more than two decades ago - will be reintroduced to recreated heathland on reserves in Surrey and West Sussex.

In the summer, the RSPB and other conservation groups will attempt to reintroduce the extinct short-haired bumblebee to its reserve in Dungeness, Kent.

The bumblebee is currently found in New Zealand, after being taken there by British settlers a century ago, and will be brought back in a bid to re-establish the species the UK - where it was last seen in 1988.

In Scotland, the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage are paving the way for the reintroduction of the threatened pine hoverfly to the wildlife charity's reserve in Abernethy in 2011.

Butterfly Conservation is also working with the RSPB in Scotland to establish a captive breeding programme for dark bordered beauty moths, a species that currently has just three UK colonies, which will be released at a Scottish RSPB reserve if the breeding scheme is a success.

RSPB biodiversity projects officer, Jane Sears, said: "We have a lot of experience of reintroducing threatened birds to the UK, but this is very different.

"Releasing invertebrates brings all kinds of new challenges as they can be very sensitive to even the slightest changes in habitat.

"We will need to keep a close eye on how they are faring and make sure we continue to provide the right conditions for them."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:59 am

Scientists push "Doomsday Clock" back a minute

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists pushed back the hands on the symbolic Doomsday Clock by one minute citing hopeful developments in nuclear weapons and climate change.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:45 am

In pictures

Scientists follow narwhals; strange, unicorn-like whales
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:15 am

Radical sea defence rethink urged

"Radical thinking" needed to protect the UK's coastal communities from flooding in the future, a report warns.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:48 am