Nlp: all new tumor-forming protein

Proteins that when expressed out of context cause a cell to become cancerous are known as oncogenic proteins. Researchers have now identified in mice a new oncogenic protein that is also expressed at elevated levels in human breast cancers and lung carcinomas.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Researchers synchronize blinking 'genetic clocks' -- genetically engineered bacteria that keep track of time

Researchers who last year genetically engineered bacteria to keep track of time by turning on and off fluorescent proteins within their cells have taken another step toward the construction of a programmable genetic sensor. The scientists recently synchronized these bacterial "genetic clocks" to blink in unison and engineered the bacterial genes to alter their blinking rates when environmental conditions change.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Watching crystals grow provides clues to making smoother, defect-free thin films

To make thin films for semiconductors in electronic devices, layers of atoms must be grown in neat, crystalline sheets. But while some materials grow smooth crystals, others tend to develop bumps and defects -- a serious problem for thin-film manufacturing. Physicists shed new light on how atoms arrange themselves into thin films.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Brain abnormalities in Parkinson's patients develop before symptoms occur

Scientists who have identified brain networks damaged in Parkinson's disease have new evidence that these systems become abnormal a few years before symptoms appear. And what's more, parts of the network appear to respond in a last ditch attempt to rescue the brain.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Learning the art of creating computer games can boot student skills

Computer games have a broad appeal that transcends gender, culture, age and socioeconomic status. Now, computer scientists think that creating computer games, rather than just playing them could boost students' critical and creative thinking skills as well as broaden their participation in computing.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Mind Reading, Brain Fingerprinting and the Law

What if a jury could decide a man's guilt through mind reading? What if reading a defendant's memory could betray their guilt? And what constitutes 'intent' to commit murder?
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Stunning new image of Cat's Paw Nebula

Astronomers have just released a stunning new image of the vast cloud known as the Cat's Paw Nebula or NGC 6334. This complex region of gas and dust, where numerous massive stars are born, lies near the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, and is heavily obscured by intervening dust clouds.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Vitamin D supplementation can reduce falls in nursing care facilities

Giving people living in nursing facilities vitamin D can reduce the rate of falls, according to a new review. This finding comes from a study of many different interventions used in different situations. In hospitals, multifactorial interventions and supervised exercise programs also showed benefit.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Fertility drugs contribute heavily to multiple births

Drugs that stimulate a woman's ovaries to speed the maturity and multiply the production of eggs accounts for four times more live births than assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization. These drugs are responsible for 20 percent of multiple births. Multiple birth is a risk factor for preterm birth and infants born too soon face lifelong health problems such as breathing problems, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, vision and hearing loss, and even death.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Scientists capture Haiti disaster with high-tech imaging system

Scientists are surveying the damage in Haiti with high-tech sensors integrated into a small aircraft. They are using the data to produce information maps for relief and recovery agencies.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

Emerging nations meet in India over climate change (AFP)

AFP - Environment ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India and China met in New Delhi on Sunday to agree a common position for future talks after the Copenhagen climate change summit, officials said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:30 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A storm was expected to bring wet weather to much of the eastern third of the country on Sunday, including thunderstorms to parts of the Southeast and heavy snow to areas of the upper Midwest.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 3:24 am

Bin Laden claims Christmas bombing: Al-Jazeera (AFP)

AFP - Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner and said strikes on US targets will continue, in an audio statement broadcast Sunday on Al-Jazeera satellite television.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 2:28 am

Coast Guard: Oil spill in Texas waterway contained (AP)

AP - The Coast Guard said a crude oil spill in a southeast Texas port had been contained to a two-mile area and was not believed to have hurt any local wildlife.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 1:50 am

15 whales die beached in NZ, 33 coaxed to sea (AP)

AP - Rescuers in New Zealand managed to coax 33 beached whales back out into deep waters Sunday, but another 15 of the pod died, a conservation official said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Save the tiger: Pressure mounts for tougher action (AP)

AP - After trudging through the wilds of western Thailand for several hours, the forest rangers thought they were finally onto something: the distant sound of crunching leaves.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jan 2010 | 11:39 pm

Is Genetically Modified Corn Toxic?

In the United States, we grow and eat corn whose genes have been tweaked to make the plants more resistant to pests and pesticides. Most European countries don't, largely because the citizenry fears it isn't safe. But try as scientists ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Jan 2010 | 5:13 pm

Glaciergate was a blunder, but it's the sceptics who dissemble

Inaccurate claims predicting Himalayan meltdown have handed gainsayers a big victory. But nothing material has changed

It was a strange moment that linked the fates of some of the world's poorest farmers to the interests of an increasingly powerful set of western lobby groups. Last week, UN climate researchers admitted they had grossly overestimated the chances that the Himalayas' glaciers would soon disappear as a result of global warming.

For millions of Indian and Chinese families who till land washed by rivers that pour from the Himalayas, this was good news. The prospects of major droughts, loss of farmland and food shortages could be postponed (though not indefinitely, please note.)

And then there were the sceptics, that regiment of angry lobbyists who say our planet cannot possibly be affected by mankind's profligate burning of fossil fuel. For years, they have waited for an admission of an error by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body that has promoted the idea of manmade global warming.

Last week, they got it. On Wednesday, the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, apologised for including, in the organisation's fourth assessment report of 2007, the claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. In fact, it will take at least 300 years for global warming to take its toll.

Given that the IPCC's 2007 report had won the panel a Nobel peace prize that year (shared with Al Gore), the error looks egregious, particularly to those who reject the idea that the billions of tonnes of carbon we pump into the atmosphere could possibly have an impact on our climate. Now, every word and line of IPCC's work is being scrutinised by these sceptics in their search for further climate calumnies. If they are lucky, they may even stumble on one or two.

The prospect, not surprisingly, causes many climate change scientists to squirm. Indeed, such is their discomfort that many now argue it is time for a total reorganisation of the IPCC, an organisation that is now more than two decades old and whose operations are beginning to creak suspiciously.

Certainly, Glaciergate, as the incident has inevitably been dubbed, is an embarrassment for climate science and can be traced to a study by the environmental lobby group WWF which, in turn, was based on a single remark about the perilous state of Himalayan glaciers that had been made by Indian scientist Syed Hasnain.

How the claim ended up in a report whose authors are supposed to scrutinise "every statement in every sentence" is a mystery. Worse was the IPCC's reaction to the geologists who first questioned the panel's glacier claim last year. IPCC chairman Pachauri dismissed this work as "voodoo science" and argued it was not peer-reviewed. In fact, it was his own panel's report that had not been properly peer-reviewed. "At that point, the glacier claim ceased to be an appalling cock-up and looked more like a systematic failure on the IPCC's part," says Fred Pearce, the New Scientist journalist who first reported the glacier story. A seasoned climate change writer, he adds: "Deniers will now be on a hunt to find more errors like these and if they get them, Pachauri will be in real trouble."

As a result, many researchers now believe it is time for a change at the IPCC, a point backed by Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia. "The panel was set up in 1988, in a previous century," he argues. "There was no internet then, yet emails have transformed climate science. They get hacked and uploaded on to servers for all the world to read. People can follow the trail of an idea or argument in a way that was impossible 10 years ago. Climate science – like science in general – is being democratised and the IPCC needs to reflect that."

Instead of producing huge, voluminous reports every six or seven years, in which the results of tens of thousands of climate studies are each distilled into a few paragraphs, a much lighter touch needs to be taken, argue critics like Hulme. The panel needs to produce briefer reports on particular climate topics every year and be able to respond quickly to new studies and critiques.

Similarly, the intergovernmental nature of the panel needs re-examining. National academic bodies, like Britain's Royal Society, should take over controlling roles at the IPCC instead of governments, it is argued. In this way, a future IPCC would be better able to keep itself free from political pressure.

Not every scientist agrees. We should not be blinded by a single error, on one page of one volume of a mammoth three-volume report, they argue. And don't forget that this mistake was highlighted not by deniers but by scientists themselves. Glaciergate actually shows we can police ourselves, say researchers. And while the glacier claims exaggerate the impact of climate change, other parts of the 2007 IPCC report clearly underplay the risks. "We should also remember the overwhelming evidence still shows global warming is real and manmade," adds Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change. "Arctic ice sheets are shrinking and droughts are spreading while nine of the last 10 years have been the hottest on record. Only rising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can explain that."

In any case, there is more to this issue than making sure the IPCC is fit for purpose in the 21st century. We should also be concerned about the sharing of the burden of proof when debating global warming. At present, scientists are being asked, often in the most offensive terms by hostile, ideologically motivated groups, some funded by rich industrial lobbyists, to justify every conclusion they make about our overheating world.

And why not? you might ask. Our lives will change dramatically if we quit our dependence on fossil fuel. We will have to fly less, guzzle less petrol in our cars, live in better designed homes and ensure that we stop wasting heat, water and electricity. Hence the pressure on scientists to justify their work.

But this process has to proceed in both directions. Deniers say there is no connection between rising carbon levels and global warming. But how confident are they? If they persuade us to do nothing but are wrong, then the consequences will be terrible. Temperatures could rise by up to 5C. Earth will become hotter than it has been at any time over the past 30 million years. Coastal cities will drown, deserts will spread, crops will wither and billions will be left homeless.

Deniers insist this scenario is unrealistic. But how unrealistic? Can they demonstrate – with the same confidence and transparency employed by scientists working for the IPCC – that the danger of doing nothing is negligible and that greenhouse gases pose no risk to the planet? Could their arguments withstand the same rigorous examination that took place during Glaciergate? The answer to these questions is a straightforward "no". At no time have deniers ever put together a case – that inaction poses no threat to civilisation – that could withstand proper scientific peer review.

This is crucial, adds Ward. "Unless climate sceptics can demonstrate there is a negligible danger, then most sensible people will insist we should take careful, cost-effective measures now to avoid the possibility of disaster in future." That point was valid before Glaciergate – and remains true in its aftermath.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Jan 2010 | 5:08 pm

Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society

Robin McKie is disappointed by a collection of essays published to mark 350 years of the Royal Society

On a damp weeknight in late November in 1660, a dozen men gathered in rooms at Gresham College in London to listen to a lecture, on astronomy, by a 28-year-old whizz kid called Christopher Wren. The talk clearly went well, for the group decided to formalise future meetings and to continue to pursue common interests – in experiments, in natural philosophy and in the gathering of "useful knowledge". Thus the Royal Society – "the most venerable learned society in the world and its finest club," according to Bryson – was born, mainly out of the desire of a few affluent dilettantes to hobnob with one another.

The idea of the society met with the approval of Charles II, who granted it a royal charter, though the society might still have ended in obscurity had not its first members insisted on some strikingly rigorous and far-sighted rules. They made English, not Latin, their primary language; they insisted on carrying out careful, systemised experiments; and – most important of all – they checked out one another's work, thus inventing peer review, the keystone of modern scientific endeavour.

The long-term impact of these guidelines, which brought clarity and transparency to science, has been extraordinary. Over its 350-year history, a total of 8,200 individuals have been members of the society; they include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, James Watt, Alexander Fleming and John Locke. If you want proof that Britain's got talent, the Royal Society is truly the place to look. At present, it has 1,400 fellows, selected from the best scientists and engineers in the UK and Commonwealth. Of these, 69 are Nobel prize winners. When the society utters, we should listen.

Yet this was not always the case. For much of its history, the Royal Society was concerned less with the impact of science than it was with the minutiae of academic procedure. Indeed, only in the past few decades has it demonstrated real political clout, particularly with the election of Bob May as president in 2000. An Australian-born mathematician, his robust pronouncements on GM crops, climate change and natural selection helped bring rationality to debates that could otherwise have become lost scientific causes. Today, the Royal Society is as influential an organisation as it has ever been. Hence the anniversary celebrations planned for 2010, Bryson's book being a foretaste.

Made up of 21 essays, plus a Bryson introduction, the book contains a glittering array of scientific writing talent. These include an analysis by Margaret Atwood of the myth of the mad scientist; geologist Richard Fortey on the virtues of good specimen collecting; Richard Dawkins outlining Darwin's precise contribution to the development of the theory of natural selection; and Steve Jones expounding on the mysteries of biodiversity.

So why does Seeing Further turn out to be a bit of a disappointment? It has certainly been put together with care. It should be a page-turner. Yet it is hobbled by major flaws. For a start, there is no discernible pace or structure to the assembling of its essays. The book is also low, to the point of non-appearance, in human interest and is just a little bit too smug for its own good.

Then there is the creeping feeling of worthiness that slowly envelops the reader, as you encounter, again and again, noble minds revealing the wonders of nature. It is like reading a piece of upmarket vanity publishing. I wanted to like it more but couldn't. It is not that Seeing Further is bad. It is just that it is not good enough. The Royal Society, in keeping with its remarkable origins, needs something more special than this.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Jan 2010 | 5:06 pm

1001 Inventions

Science Museum, London SW7 This small but important show educates and amuses in equal measure

They gave us our number system; built the first university; left us with the names for many of the stars we see at night; formalised the use of zero in mathematics; and provided us with a huge array of words, from giraffe to crimson and from traffic to cheque. For a millennium they chronicled the work of the ancient Greeks, Indians and Chinese while developing their own expertise in surgery, water and wind power, optics, agriculture and other subjects. While Europe shivered in the dark ages, the Arab world kept scholarship alive. Hence the importance of 1001 Inventions, the Science Museum's homage to Muslim science – which turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable.

For a start, there are the goodies that curators have been able to move from the vaults to help illustrate the exhibition: a beautifully ornate astrolabe, used to measure the position of stars and planets; an 11th-century alembic used to distil chemicals; and a plate with rows of numbers all adding up to the value of 194. All fascinating stuff.

However, there is a more spectacular side to the exhibition, which is aimed, unashamedly, at family audiences. For example, there is a marvellous reconstruction of the great clock designed by al-Jazari. Powered by water, the 16ft high machine marks each half hour with rattling drums and moving serpents.

Even more spectacular is the exhibition's astronomy display. In a darkened room, stars shine on a huge screen. Simply by moving a hand, a visitor can then select one of several constellations and move each across the screen until it fits over the correct part of the sky. It sounds easier than it is, but is utterly absorbing fun.

In all, this is a quite wonderful little exhibition, filled with surprises. It is easy on the eye but is still dense with information (there are over 100 pages of information deftly secreted around the displays).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

British Museum in battle with Iran over ancient charter

Tehran alleges time-wasting as curator trawls through thousands of cuneiform clay fragments for Cyrus the Great's legacy

The discovery of fragments of ancient cuneiform tablets – hidden in a British Museum storeroom since 1881 – has sparked a diplomatic row between the UK and Iran. In dispute is a proposed loan of the Cyrus cylinder, one of the most important objects in the museum's collection, and regarded by some historians as the world's first human rights charter.

The Iranian government has threatened to "sever all cultural relations" with Britain unless the artefact is sent to Tehran immediately. Museum director Neil MacGregor has been accused by an Iranian vice-president of "wasting time" and "making excuses" not to make the loan of the 2,500-year-old clay object, as was agreed last year.

The museum says that two newly discovered clay fragments hold the key to an important new understanding of the cylinder and need to be studied in London for at least six months.

The pieces of clay, inscribed in the world's oldest written language, look like "nothing more than dog biscuits", says MacGregor. Since being discovered at the end of last year, they have revealed verbatim copies of the proclamation made by Persian king Cyrus the Great, as recorded on the cylinder. The artefact itself was broken when it was excavated from the remains of Babylon in 1879. Curators say the new fragments are the missing pieces of an ancient jigsaw puzzle.

Irving Finkel, curator in the museum's ancient near east department, said he "nearly had a coronary" when he realised what he had in his hands. "We always thought the Cyrus cylinder was unique," he said. "No one had even imagined that copies of the text might have been made, let alone that bits of it have been here all along."

Finkel must now trawl through 130,000 objects, housed in hundreds of floor-to ceiling shelving units. His task is to locate other fragments inscribed with Cyrus's words. The aim is to complete the missing sections of one of history's most important political documents.

The Iranians have been planning to host a major exhibition of the Cyrus cylinder ever since MacGregor signed a loan agreement in Tehran in January 2009. I was in Iran with the museum director, reporting for BBC Radio 4 on his mission of cultural diplomacy.

Six months before pro-democracy protests were met with violence in the wake of the presidential election, tea and sweet pastries were offered to the British guests at the Iranian cultural heritage ministry. MacGregor was there to meet Hamid Baqaei, a vice-president and close ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Their friendly discussion was a significant diplomatic breakthrough at a time when tensions between Britain and Iran had been strained to breaking point after the expulsion of British Council representatives from Tehran. The recent launch of the BBC Persian television service had also been interpreted as a provocation by London.

With even the British ambassador in Tehran struggling to maintain a dialogue, MacGregor was the sole conduit of bilateral exchange in January 2009. The sight of a miniature union flag standing alongside the Iranian flag on the table between the British Museum boss and his Iranian counterparts boded well for an amicable meeting. In previous weeks, the only British flags seen in public in Tehran were those being burned on the streets outside the embassy.

MacGregor's objective was to secure the loan of treasures from Iranian palaces, mosques and museums for the museum's exhibition on the life and times of 16th-century ruler Shah Abbas. Discussions over the loan of treasures relating to one great Persian leader prompted the suggestion that another – Cyrus – could play a part in a reciprocal deal.

MacGregor may have been put on the spot by Baqaei, but he agreed to a three-month loan by the end of 2009. A year later, Baqaei's tone towards MacGregor is not so friendly. Quoted by the Fars news agency in Iran, he accused the museum of "acting politically". Further "British procrastination" would result in a "serious response" from Iran.

The Cyrus cylinder remains a compelling political tract more than two and half millennia after its creation. Accepting her Nobel peace prize in 2003, the Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi cited Cyrus as a leader who "guaranteed freedoms for all". She hailed his charter as "one of the most important documents that should be studied in the history of human rights".

In 2006, the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw contrasted the freeing of Jewish slaves by Cyrus with Ahmadinejad's "sickening calls for Israel to be wiped from the face of the map".

David Miliband, the current foreign secretary, has yet to reflect on the contemporary resonance of Cyrus in a country in which human rights have been violently curtailed of late. But a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "It is a shame that the British Museum has felt compelled to make this decision." She added that "we share the British Museum's concern that this would not be a good time for the cylinder to come to Iran" owing to the "unsettled" situation in the country.

Last week MacGregor presided over a launch, at the British Museum, of the History of the World in 100 Objects, his collaborative project with the BBC. The director is presenting a 100-part series on Radio 4, in which the story of mankind is told through individual artefacts. The Cyrus cylinder was considered for inclusion, but did not make the final hundred.

Some guests at the launch, when told how the discovery of the new fragments had delayed the loan of the Cyrus cylinder, were suspicious. "Fancy that, what a stroke of luck," said one. "That gets Neil out of a jam for now."

The director himself says he is determined that the cylinder will eventually be lent to Tehran, along with the newly discovered fragments, to tell a better story about Cyrus. He says he can understand the frustration and anger in Tehran, but it will be worth their wait.

They may well be getting more than they bargained for. To the Ahmadinejad regime, the cylinder is an iconic object, one that fuels collective pride in national heritage. But to those who are fighting for freedom of expression in Iran in the face of violence, the return of Cyrus could offer a potent new rallying point.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

Body of Arizona boy found by hikers (AP)

AP - Arizona authorities have found the body of a 6-year-old boy who was swept away by floodwaters.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jan 2010 | 4:20 pm

Lemonade from the Lithium Lemon

Checking in on John Peterson, the excellent, well-versed skeptic of the electric vehicle, finds him increasingly strident in his criticism of plug-ins generally and lithium ion (Li-ion) particularly. He surfaces a fatal flaw in resting the entire EV enterprise on ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Jan 2010 | 3:36 pm

Oil Spill in Texas Waterway Contained

In the waterway near Port Arthur, up to 450,000 gallons of crude oil spills after collision between an 800-foot tanker and towing vessel.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Jan 2010 | 3:33 pm

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jan 2010 | 3:32 pm

Cars without Drivers

Meet Boss - the car that can drive itself! It has 18 sensors, including a three dimensional laser and onboard computers that connect to GPS and mapping software. When it comes to knowing the rules of the road, Boss rarely makes a mistake.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jan 2010 | 3:30 pm

Early humans wiped out Australia's giants

Climate not to blame for the extinction of Australia's big animals.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/ctlTj8GJgZk" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 23 Jan 2010 | 1:17 pm

Losing Andrew Lange

Cosmology suffered a great loss yesterday with the passing of Andrew Lange, co-leader of the BOOMERang experiment, which provided the first experimental evidence that our universe is flat, and offered strong support to the supernova evidence for dark energy. Lang ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Jan 2010 | 12:32 pm

Past Decade the Warmest Since 1880

The decade 2000 through 2009 was the warmest since reliable modern records have been kept.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jan 2010 | 8:50 am

Canned Beer Turns 75 (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Be sure to crack open a cold one on Jan. 24, the day canned beer celebrates its 75th birthday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jan 2010 | 8:01 am

Canned Beer Turns 75

The first canned beer was sold Jan. 24, 1935. Beer in cans now outsell bottled beer.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Jan 2010 | 7:54 am

UN panel chief won't quit for Himalayan melt error (AP)

AP - The head of a panel of United Nations climate scientists said Saturday he would not resign despite a recent admission that a panel report warning Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035 was hundreds of years off.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Jan 2010 | 7:10 am