NASA's WISE eye spies near-Earth asteroid

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has spotted its first never-before-seen near-Earth asteroid, the first of hundreds it is expected to find during its mission to map the whole sky in infrared light. There is no danger of the newly discovered asteroid hitting Earth.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

Low-carb diet effective at lowering blood pressure

In a head-to-head comparison, two popular weight loss methods proved equally effective at helping participants lose significant amounts of weight. But, in a surprising twist, a low-carbohydrate diet proved better at lowering blood pressure than the weight-loss drug orlistat, according to researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

Maximum height of extreme waves up dramatically in Pacific Northwest

A major increase in maximum ocean wave heights off the Pacific Northwest in recent decades has forced scientists to re-evaluate how high a "100-year event" might be, and the new findings raise special concerns for flooding, coastal erosion and structural damage.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

How 'random' lasers work: Natural cavities act like mirrors in light-emitting plastics

When scientists discovered a new kind of laser that was generated by an electrically conducting plastic or polymer, no one could explain how it worked and some doubted it was real. Now, a decade later, researchers have found these "random lasers" occur because of natural, mirror-like cavities in the polymers, and they say such lasers may prove useful for diagnosing cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

Believing stereotype undermines girls' math performance: Elementary school women teachers transfer their fear of doing math to girls, study finds

Female elementary school teachers who are anxious about math pass on to female students the stereotype that boys, not girls, are good at math. Girls who endorse this belief then do worse at math, research shows. The research found that boys' math performance was not related to their teacher's math anxiety while girls' math achievement was affected.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

Two-pronged immune response offers hope for effective Salmonella vaccine

New research renewed hope that an effective vaccine could be developed against non-typhoidal strains of Salmonella. The work suggests that the body's immune system could be primed to tackle even the most resilient of strains.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

Vaccine approach extends life of metastatic prostate cancer patients

In a newly published clinical trial, patients with metastatic prostate cancer who received a vaccine of harmless poxviruses engineered to spur an immune system attack on prostate tumor cells lived substantially longer than patients who received a placebo vaccine, researchers report.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

New sensor could help treat, combat diabetes, other diseases

A tiny new sensor could provide fresh, inexpensive diagnosis and treatment methods for people suffering from a variety of diseases.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

'Microraptors' shed light on ancient origin of bird flight

Researchers in the United States and China say that they have settled the long-standing question of how bird flight began.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

125 million pregnancies globally at risk from malaria every year

A new study estimates that more than 125 million pregnancies around the world are at risk from malaria every year. Until now, estimates have only been available for endemic areas in Africa.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am

ET or BBC3? Pick one … | Media Monkey

Along with more channels, better reception and the joys of the electronic programme guide, digital television may have one unexpected consequence – blowing a bloody great big hole in the chances we will ever make contact with aliens. Dr Frank Drake, who as the founder of SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – is interested in this sort of thing, said the digital age was effectively gagging the planet by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space. How? Because digital TV transmissions are rather weaker than their analogue counterparts, and satellites tend to point towards the earth rather than old-school transmitters which beam their signals all over the place. And what hope an alien from a distant solar system picking up anything on cable TV? It's underground for goodness' sake! Unless, of course, it turns out the aliens are here already and living in the earth's core. Anyway, over to Dr Drake, who was speaking at a meeting at the Royal Society in London called The Detection of Extra-terrestrial Life and the Consequences for Science and Society. Snappy, huh? "Now the actual amount of radiation escaping into space is about two watts, not much more than you get from a cell phone," said Dr Drake. "If this continues into the future very soon our world will become undetectable. Using ourselves as an example, it means the difficulty of finding other civilisations will be much greater. We're going to have to search many more stars and many more frequencies." Alternatively, retune your set-top box to Syfy.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jan 2010 | 3:16 am

Mekong tiger population at 'crisis point': WWF (AFP)

AFP - Governments must act decisively to prevent the extinction of tigers in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region, where numbers have plunged more than 70 percent in 12 years, the WWF said Tuesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 1:42 am

The first X-Ray

The image that changed the way we look at bodies
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 1:12 am

Planet Definition Doesn’t Apply Beyond the Solar System

Imagine living on a South Pacific island and naming all aquatic life in your lagoon “fish.” But your definition was so specific it didn’t apply to whatever creatures lived in the rest of the ocean. This is what the International ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 1:03 am

Russia loses science powerhouse standing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political turmoil, a brain drain of scientists and waning interest have transformed Russia from a nation that launched the first satellite into an increasingly minor player in the world of science, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:06 am

Russia loses science powerhouse standing (Reuters)

Reuters - Political turmoil, a brain drain of scientists and waning interest have transformed Russia from a nation that launched the first satellite into an increasingly minor player in the world of science, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:06 am

New Darwin Film Creates Controversy

The new film Creation depicts Charles Darwin (portrayed by Paul Bettany) as a semi-reclusive, frail scientist who spent much of his time watching animals and scribbling his observations in notebooks. He was also of course the man whose work serves ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 10:18 pm

Discovery Links Genes to Pancreatic Cancer (HealthDay)

HealthDay - MONDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified four regions of the human genome that predict a heightened risk of pancreatic cancer as a result of what they describe as the biggest-ever sweep of the genome for genes related to the disease.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 9:48 pm

Genes, Diet Offer New Clues to Parkinson's Disease (HealthDay)

HealthDay - MONDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) Researchers say they've spotted a new genetic risk factor for Parkinson's disease, as well as a link between the illness and two other factors, metabolism and vitamin B6.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 9:48 pm

Strange Places on Mars: What Do You Want to See Next?

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured more than 13,000 images of the red planet’s surface. And now, the space agency wants your input on what images to acquire next.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is currently the most powerful camera on any NASA spacecraft. The images it has collected are truly amazing. They highlight how similar the Martian landscape is to Earth in some ways, as well as how otherworldly other parts of Mars can seem.

We’ve collected just a few of the oddest and most beautiful shots. If they inspire you to want to pick the next strange location for HiRISE to focus on, NASA has created a website where you can scan the planet’s surface and make suggestions.

The image above shows a dune field on the floor of a crater made by an asteroid impact.

Click on any image in this gallery for a higher-resolution version.

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

Stem-cell line given the nod

NIH moves to approve cells in limbo after rule change.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 25 Jan 2010 | 5:46 pm

Girls may learn math anxiety from female teachers (AP)

AP - Little girls may learn to fear math from the women who are their earliest teachers. Despite gains in recent years, women still trail men in some areas of math achievement, and the question of why has provoked controversy. Now, a study of first- and second-graders suggests what may be part of the answer: Female elementary school teachers who are concerned about their own math skills could be passing that along to the little girls they teach.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 5:44 pm

Female Educators Teach Math Anxiety to Girls

Young girls may be developing a fear of math based on the way their teachers handle the subject.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 5:15 pm

Blame BBC for poor weather forecast

Michael Fish fails to recognise why the BBC and the Met Office share the blame for poor public confidence in forecasts, particularly those on television (Fair weather friends, 19 January).

In the early 1970s it fell to me to represent the BBC in the first contract negotiation with the Met Office that involved money. The sum was modest but the pass was sold. Until then, both bodies stood toe-to-toe in a ring defined by concepts of public service. Each argued its corner as to how best to inform, educate and entertain in a relationship based on mutual interest. The likes of George Cowling, Bert Foord and Jack Scott exemplified the on-screen integrity needed by the Met Office to help justify huge expenditure on some of the largest computers in the world; the corporation recognised how a two-minute forecast, written and presented by the weatherman, could assure a bigger audience for BBC1's 9 O'clock News.

And now? The BBC makes its demands and the Met Office rakes in the revenue but, because the customer knows best, it no longer uses the forecaster's own expertise to explain weather on its own terms. Instead, it espouses the standards of the marketplace, with computer graphics dictating the pace of a subjective presentation; a triumph of style over substance.

If the Met Office were to recognise that real revenue would accrue if its name was a byword for sheer forecasting competence, it might once again insist on more say in how forecasts are presented. In turn, the BBC might recognise the benefit of packaging that expertise in a way that is not as subservient to the visual presentation. If less money changes hands that would make it all the harder for the competition to shout about how much better it could do the job, when it would be no more than a middleman dependent on forecasts from the Met Office and shrugged shoulders from the BBC.

Hugh Sheppard

Odiham, Hampshire

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

The best aliens are in our imagination

So all aliens are likely to be humanoid, says an academic? What a pity for all those fantastic creatures of film and literature

Here we are swimming three-dimensionally through the blue dream of Avatar when some spoil-sport astro-biologist called Simon ­Conway Morris snatches off our glasses to tell us that, when the third encounter happens, aliens will be "very like us". Who needs body snatching? Carbon-based ­bipeds must, according to the laws of evolution, be roughly the same throughout the universe's 250bn galaxies. Boringly humanoid.

If Dr Conway Morris is right, it will be a sad day for sci-fi, fantasy and horror. Ever since the Grendel family rose out of the ­primeval marsh to take on ­Beowulf in the first work of English literature, we have pictured aliens as the ­ineffable "other". Fictional aliens come in all colours, shapes and ­dispositions. These are my top 10:

1. Nicest alien Skye, that barbie doll from over the Milky Way in The Day The Earth Stopped (2008), who has come in the vain attempt to make humans more humane.

2. Sneakiest alien Jack Finney's body snatchers – so like the guy next door that, just like communists, you can never tell the snatched from the un-snatched.

3. Toothiest alien The "bitcho­saurus" that Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) takes on and vanquishes at the end of Aliens (1986).

4. Clumsiest alien The well-meaning Tralfamadorians in ­Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five who, fooling around with a new explosive, ­vaporise the ­universe. It happens.

5. Funniest alien Mork (in those far-off days when Robin Williams was still funny), the ­tomatoes in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978), or the Martians who take on Tom Jones in full Vegas gear in Mars Attacks!.

6. Brainiest alien The ­Martians in HG Wells's War of the Worlds, who have evolved into all brain and no body. Luckily, they forgot to pack antibiotics in their great clanking death chariots. (In the 2005 Tom Cruise film, advances in astronomy made ­Martians nonsense. We never learn where the things come from.)

7. Most Christlike ­alien Valentine, in Robert Heinlein's 1960s hippy-commune classic Stranger In A Strange Land, who comes to Earth to bring peace. He was ­Charlie Manson's ­favourite alien.

8. Most enigmatic alien Those strange travelling salesmen of the universe in 2001: A Space Odyssey who leave incomprehensible bleeping monolithic turds behind them. Is there some reason?

9. Most invincible alien Ask any scientist under 30 what their ­favourite sci-fi novel is and chances are they'll tell you Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Ender is the wunderkind who, if the human race is lucky, can defeat the insectoid ­"buggers" [sic] who are about to invade Earth.

10. Most inept alien The "blob" – a giant amoeba which, in the 1953 movie, terrorises the small community of Downington PA. Steve McQueen had no difficulty out-acting a giant lump of jello.

One award you'll never come up with in the sci-fi/fantasy genre is "most boring alien". But that, apparently, is what future history has in store for us. Thank you, Dr Conway Morris.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

Brain food: Why David Cameron demoted the Conservative columnists

The modern Tory party ignores the advice of rightwing writers

"He's a PR guy," sniffed Rupert ­Murdoch after David Cameron became Conservative leader in 2005. "He ­behaves as if he doesn't believe in anything other than . . . the right public image." And from huskies to Converse trainers, the charge has stuck. There is, however, one section of the press that hasn't had the Cameron lovebombing – and they're the people who ought to be closest to him.

You know their bylines: Simon Heffer, Peter Oborne and those other columnists and leader-writers for the Telegraph and the Mail, who huff and puff and try to blow the Tory high command down this path or that. The Conservative commentariat, we might call them, and under Cameron they have suffered a sharp demotion.

For most of the Blair era, the Conservative commentariat had "as much, if not more, say on Tory strategy than party activists, MPs and the shadow cabinet put together", according to political scientist Tim Bale. In his new book, The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron, Bale describes how William Hague adopted what shadow-cabinet colleagues dubbed "the politics of the 19th tee" – fit only for retrograde golf clubs and the Mail.

The Tories' pollsters knew this would end in disaster – how many voters want Melanie Phillips running the country? – but were ignored. As one wrote after the wipeout in 2001: "It is somewhat disheartening to have ­expended so much energy on research, only to find that the conclusions have had so little bearing on the strategic thinking." You can practically hear the gnashing of teeth.

Then came Dave. Relations between Cameron and the Conservative commentariat started off cool. By talking about the environment, not immigration, for example, he received a fat raspberry from true-blue columnists – but that helped him reach floating voters.

Actually, Cameron's reign hasn't been that different from previous Tory leaders. Bale's characters naturally rise and fall over his 20-year history, but the ensemble remains much the same. On most policies, from the economy to the family, Cameron is right out of Central Office central casting. The game­plan is largely the same – but the cheerleaders no longer dictate the strategy.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm

Video: Model Dinosaur Tests Four-Winged Flight

A hand-built model of an early flying dinosaur may explain exactly how the four wings of Microraptor gui helped it glide down from trees.

Basing their work on a cast of a very well-preserved fossil, University of Kansas scientists created a model airplane-like mock dinosaur made out of plywood, balsa, and carbon fiber. Then, they attached one of three sets of test wings of different configurations to the body with rubber bands. The wings even featured real bird feathers whittled into probable shapes.

“We went back and forth. We thought, maybe we’ll do 3-D graphics and it’ll look really cool. But it’s more accurate to do the modeling directly from the specimen,” said Dave Burnham, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas and co-author of a new paper on the work in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

Microraptor gui was a small dinosaur species that lived about 120 million years ago. About two dozen specimens have been recovered from near Liaoning, China. The Kansas team was lent one well-preserved fossil, from which they began their reconstruction efforts.

With the model in hand, they were able to test how the animals might have glided, by attaching them to a catapult that imparted a consistent amount of thrust to send them flying through the air. By measuring the distances that the different wing configurations allowed the model dinosaurs to fly, they were able to determine which wing type would have been most efficient.

The biomechanical reconstruction of flying creatures not seen today is a difficult business. Burnham and his collaborator, University of Kansas paleontologist David Alexander, argue that the birds probably glided with their legs splayed out — not unlike a flying squirrel.

Others argue for a different wing configuration in which both sets of wings are parallel to each other, what they call a “biplane” configuration. Sankar Chatterjee, a paleontologist at Texas Tech, and R. Jack Templin, an independent scholar, say that instead of splaying out like a squirrel, the animal would have tucked its legs under itself.

“It seems likely that Microraptor invented the biplane 125 million years before the Wright 1903 Flyer,” they argued in a 2007 PNAS paper.

The new tests may not have unequivocally settled the disagreement, but Burnham said the wing configuration suggested by the other group was not properly balanced and required too much weight in the head of the animal.

“The real animal would have had to have had a solid lead skull,” Burnham said.

Video: David Burnham. You can watch the team’s progression from simpler foam models that were hand-launched to more complex model-airplane–like varieties.

See Also:

• Fancy Feathers Predated Flight in Dinosaur-Bird Hybrid
• Reptiles Needed More Than Feathers to Fly
• Paleontologists Find Dinosaur Protofeather
• Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap

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 | 25 Jan 2010 | 4:49 pm

Harrabin's Notes

New claims rock leading authority on climate science
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 4:48 pm

Hawaii gov keys on energy, tax credits in speech (AP)

AP - Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle pushed for the island state to increase its use of renewable energy and provide tax credits to stimulate it during a downtrodden economy.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 4:46 pm

Climate Flimflam Flaming Out (Investor's Business Daily)

Investor's Business Daily - Environment: The United Nations makes a claim that can't be supported by science, and U.S. researchers ignore temperature data from frigid regions. The crack-up of the global warming fraud is picking up speed.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 4:41 pm

Interior to look at drilling in Atlantic Ocean (AP)

AP - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he is nearly ready to begin an environmental analysis that could lead to drilling in areas up to 200 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 4:11 pm

Solar Eclipse Images Show Dazzling Corona Detail

The annular solar eclipse that was visible earlier this month in parts of Africa, the Indian Ocean and Asia yielded some beautiful photographs of the moon obscuring the light from the sun.

But none of them provided the kind of exquisite detail that a team of astronomers watching from the Marshall Islands captured during last summer’s total solar eclipse. By combining 31 images of the eclipse shot with a Canon EOS 5D, the composite shows the incredible structure of the sun’s corona stretching out from occluded central disc. The moon’s surface details are also clearly visible.

The next total solar eclipse will occur on July 11 and will be visible only from the South Pacific. So, read our how-to guide on solar eclipse tourism and start saving those frequent flyer miles.

Via @DrStuClark

Images: Copyright 2009 Miloslav Druckmüller, Peter Aniol, Vojtech Rušin, Ľubomír Klocok, Karel Martišek, Martin Dietzel. Higher-resolution versions are available here.

See Also:

• Tonight’s Lunar Eclipse: Last Chance Until 2010
• Eclipse Shadow on Earth Seen From Space
• Eclipse of the Century Live Online Tonight
• The Eclipse, as Seen by the People (With Flickr Accounts)
• Total Eclipse of the Moon: Your Photos
• Lunar Eclipse Prompts Climate Change Debate
• Perfect Viewing for Wednesday’s Total Lunar Eclipse

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Jan 2010 | 3:46 pm

Biodiversity talks get under way

Delegates begin to hammer out a new strategy for the Convention on Biological Diversity.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/2tM81lKR5Xg" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 25 Jan 2010 | 3:26 pm

Find of huge Mayan head suggests significant city

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have discovered a huge Mayan sculptured head in Guatemala that suggests a little-known site in the jungle-covered Peten region may once have been a significant city.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 3:16 pm

Flight tests show ancient birds could glide (AP)

AP - One of the earliest feathered dinosaurs seems to have been a successful glider.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 2:56 pm

NASA's New Asteroid-Mapper Finds First Target

NASA's new infrared telescope, called WISE, has spotted its first near-Earth asteroid, a .6-mile (1 kilometer) rock recently designated 2010 AB78. The asteroid, located about 98 million miles (158 million kilometers) from Earth, was tracked for about 1.5 days before ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 2:48 pm

No $1 Billion Boost for NASA Budget, Sources Say (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - WASHINGTON — NASA will not be getting the $1 billion budget boost civil space advocates had hoped to see when President Barack Obama sends his 2011 spending proposal to Congress Feb. 1, requiring the U.S. space agency to make even tougher than expected choices about the future of its manned space program, according to sources with close ties to the administration.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 2:46 pm

A Year of Global Shipping Routes Mapped by GPS

Scientists have come up with the first comprehensive map of global shipping routes based on actual itineraries. The team pieced together a year’s worth of travel itineraries from 16,693 cargo ships using data from LLoyd’s Register Fairplay and the Automatic Identification System, which tracks vessels using a VHF receiver and GPS.

A few hot spots logged the majority of journeys. The busiest port was the Panama Canal, followed by the Suez Canal and Shanghai.

“There is a strong similarity of statistical properties between shipping and aviation networks,” lead author Bernd Blasius, a mathematical modeler at Carl von Ossietzky University, wrote in an e-mail. “But different ship types (e.g., container ships vs. bulk carriers or oil tankers) are characterized by different movement patterns.”

The study will be published in a forthcoming Journal of the Royal Society: Interface.

Factoring in both the volume of ships and the number of other ports each is connected to, these are the top ports in the world:

1 Panama Canal
2 Suez Canal
3 Shanghai
4 Singapore
5 Antwerp
6 Piraeus
7 Terneuzen
8 Plaquemines
9 Houston
10 Ijmuiden
11 Santos
12 Tianjin
13 New York and New Jersey
14 Europoort
15 Hamburg
16 Le Havre
17 St Petersburg
18 Bremerhaven
19 Las Palmas
20 Barcelona

Image: Bernd Blasius

Citation: “The complex network of global cargo ship movements” Pablo Kaluza, Andrea Kölzsch, Michael T. Gastner and Bernd Blasius, J. Royal Society: Interface

See Also:

• Slime Mold Grows Network Just Like Tokyo Rail System
• Air Traffic Delays Cost U.S. More Than Hurricanes
• Global Energy Network Depends on a Few Vulnerable Nodes

Follow us on Twitter @tiaghose and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Jan 2010 | 2:04 pm

Feathered Dinosaurs Leapt from Trees, Not the Ground

Bird-like dinosaurs likely evolved wings to glide down from the trees, rather than fly up from the ground, a new study found.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jan 2010 | 1:10 pm

Scientists find quicker way to study cancer drivers

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have found a new and faster way of studying a crucial class of cancer cells, called cancer stem cells, which they say should speed up work on developing drugs against them.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 1:07 pm

Sobs and Growls Come Across In Any Language

Sobs, screams and other nonverbal sounds we use to communicate negative emotions are more recognizable across cultures than sounds used to signal positive feelings, like cheers and signs of relief, according to a new study.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jan 2010 | 1:07 pm

Michelle Obama Viewed as "Traditional," on Par with Laura Bush

Michelle Obama is an "amazingly traditional" first lady, according to Wake Forest University Professor of Political Science Kathy Smith, who has studied first ladies over the years. "Michelle Obama offers continuity to the past with her traditional interpretation of the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:58 pm

I will not go, says climate chief

UN climate science body's chief Rajendra Pachauri says he will not resign after an error on glacier melt appeared in a key report.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:53 pm

Police Bust Massive Antiquities Smuggling Ring

Tens of millions of dollars worth of stolen, ancient artifacts were seized by authorities in Cyprus.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:35 pm

Project seeks genetic basis of childhood cancer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers announced a new project on Monday to sequence all the genes in childhood tumors to try to discover previously unknown causes of cancer.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:13 pm

Virgin Shark Birth Pups Living Long, Healthy Lives

Over the past three years I've told you about virgin female sharks that have been giving birth to seemingly healthy pups. This was documented in 2007 and then again in 2008. (A bonnethead shark, born in a virgin birth, is ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:11 pm

'Space-Divers' Plan to Break Sound Barrier With Their Bodies

The world record for the highest skydive is held by Joe Kittinger, an Air Force Captain who in 1960 jumped out of a balloon from an altitude of 102,800 feet; about 20 miles up, or three times as high as ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:06 pm

Got Dust? Acoustic Levitation Might Clear It

Scientists at the University of Vermont think they have a solution to the Mars dust problem: acoustic levitation, a method that could -- quite literally -- lift dust off any desired surface.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 12:06 pm

Pluto's Little Sister Found?

When it comes to objects in the Kuiper Belt, the vast, icy ring that encircles our solar system, size matters.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jan 2010 | 11:49 am

Spaceman

Why hasn't ET made that phone call yet?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 11:46 am

Obituary: Mary English

Medical mycologist and writer of an award-winning book on MRSA

Mary English, who has died aged 90, was one of the leading medical mycologists of her time. Her pioneering work in establishing one of the first and most important medical mycology laboratories in Britain and her own studies of fungal infections earned her a ­considerable reputation. After her retirement in 1980 she embarked on a second career as a writer of scientific and social history, with notable biographies of the eminent ­Victorian naturalists Dr Edwin Lankester and Mordecai Cubitt Cooke, a founder of the British Mycological Society, who was also one of her forebears.

Her final book, written with ­Professor Graham Ayliffe, was Hospital Infection: From Miasmas to MRSA (2003), a wide-ranging survey of the long ­history of hospital-acquired infections and the battle against them. It proved timely when the spread of "superbugs" was posing problems on a worldwide scale. Its contribution to this important subject was recognised in 2004 by the Society of Authors and Royal Society of Medicine award for the best new medical history book.

English is best remembered in medical mycology for her groundbreaking research into the epidemiology of Tinea pedis, or athlete's foot. In a specialised field, she was one of the few workers who occupied a unique interface between botanical and agricultural ­science on the one hand, and medicine and infectious diseases on the other. In her work on human ringworms originating in animals, she showed that ­Trichophyton erinacei, newly described in New Zealand (where she spent many a night chasing hedgehogs by torchlight), was common among British hedgehogs, from which it could spread to dogs and their owners. She also established that another fungus, Microsporum persicolor, hitherto known only from human scalp infections, was native to the short-tailed field vole and wood mouse.

It was her appointment as head of a new unit specialising in fungal ­diseases in humans at the United Bristol ­hospitals in 1954 that gave Mary the rare opportunity to enter medical mycology. The small spore that she sowed in that year grew, in her own words, to become "a very large mushroom", for Bristol is now the home of the Health Protection Agency's Mycology Reference Laboratory. It was an achievement in which force of character was to play a part alongside scientific excellence.

As a highly ­specialised scientist attempting to set up a new facility in the hierarchical ­hospital environment, Mary faced ­opposition and misunderstanding. Determined that medical mycologists should be accorded the same status as specialist experts in fungi in non-medical fields, she doggedly persisted in using the dining and common rooms set aside for the (all male) medical consultants. When eventually persuaded to obtain a DSc in 1970, she did so, she declared, to ensure that her medical colleagues would have to "stop treating me like a laboratory technician". She was soon invited to join the hospital medical committee of the United Bristol hospitals and granted the title of consultant mycologist, a singular honour for a clinical scientist at that time.

Mary was born in Malaya (now Malaysia), where her father was a pioneer rubber planter. At the age of seven, she sailed to England, where she and her younger sister Susan were sent to a "home school" in the New Forest. After completing her schooling at St Stephen's college, Folkestone, she spent a year at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London before gaining a place to read botany at King's College, London in 1937. Since "women didn't do science in those days", she was always grateful to her parents for making this possible.

After graduating with honours in 1941, she was directed to work as an agricultural chemist for the War Agricultural Advisory Centre in Bristol, while also studying in her spare time for an MSc in mycology from the University of London. By the time she obtained this in 1943 she knew that she wanted to make a career in mycology, and ­managed to get a job as a plant pathologist at East Malling research station in Kent. In 1946 she joined a firm making science films in London, before becoming a ­fellow in mycology at the University of Birmingham.

"My career was shaped by the war," Mary observed towards the end of her life. "The war meant it became acceptable for women to take scientific jobs." It also played an important part in shaping her socialist beliefs. During wartime evacuation to Bristol, where she carried out fire-watching duties with her fellow King's students, she witnessed scenes of social deprivation that made a profound impression. She welcomed the election of the Attlee government in 1945, and was an impassioned supporter of the National Health Service. Many a resident of her beloved city of Bristol will have become familiar with the "Save our NHS" poster that adorned the front window of her flat throughout the Thatcher and Blair years.

Mary was a lifelong member of the British Society for Medical Mycology and the British Mycological Society, whose autumn "Fungus Forays" she attended faithfully – not, she claimed, in order to collect mushrooms and toadstools, but rather to collect mycologists. A kind and valued mentor to generations of colleagues, Mary shared her passions and principles with a wide circle of friends. My parents, friends of hers from student days, were not alone in asking her to be godmother to one of their children. A caring and attentive family member, she is survived by her brother Marcus, three nephews, four great-nephews and a great-niece whose antics delighted her later years, and a recently born fifth great-nephew.

• Mary Phyllis English, medical mycologist, born 10 April 1919; died 11 October 2009

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jan 2010 | 11:38 am

Ambidextrous Children May Have More Problems in School

Children who use both hands equally well have more academic problems than their right-handed peers.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jan 2010 | 11:03 am

Glaciers melting at historic rates

Latest figures show the world's glaciers are continuing to melt so fast that many will disappear by the middle of this century

Glaciers across the globe are continuing to melt so fast that many will disappear by the middle of this century, the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) said today.

The announcement of the latest annual results from monitoring in nine mountain ranges on four continents comes as doubts have been cast on how much climate scientists have exaggerated the problem of glacier melt, which is seen as a leading indicator of how much the planet is heating up.

Last week the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) apologised for "a paragraph" in its four-volume 2007 report which warned there was a "very high" risk that the Himalayan glaciers, on which at least half a billion of the world's poorest people depend for water, would disappear by 2035.

However the director of the WGMS, Professor Wilfried Haeberli, said the latest global results indicated most glaciers were continuing to melt at historically high rates.

"The melting goes on," said Haeberli. "It's less extreme than in years [immediately before] but what's really important is the trend of 10 years or so, and that shows an unbroken acceleration in melting."

Haeberli also repeated his warning that many glaciers are set to disappear in the next few decades, due to an expected continuation in the rise of global average temperatures. The most vulnerable glaciers were those in lower mountain ranges like the Alps and the Pyrenees in Europe, in Africa, parts of the Andes in South and Central America, and the Rockies in North America, said Haeberli.

"We are on the path of the highest scenario [of global warming] in reality, but if you take a medium scenario in the Alps about 70% will be gone by the middle of the century, and mountain ranges like the Pyrenees may be completely ice-free."

Glaciers at much higher altitudes - particularly in the Himalayas and Alaska, where it was colder and global warming could increase snowfall - could grow in the short term and were likely to last "centuries", said Haeberli. "But even for the large glaciers, for a realistic [mid-range warming] scenario, it's centuries, not millennia, and not many centuries," he added.

The WGMS records data for nearly 100 of the world's approximately 160,000 glaciers, including 30 "reference" glaciers, with data going back to at least 1980. Scientists also use methods from geology to photos and travel journals and other data to estimate glacier sizes further back in history.

The latest preliminary figures for 2007-08 show the average reduction in thickness across all the 96 glaciers was nearly half a metre, and since 1980 they have collectively lost an average of 13m thickness. During that year 30 of the 96 glaciers gained in mass.

Two years ago the WGMS preliminary figures revealed the biggest melt-rate in one year on record. The figure was later revised so it was slightly less "catastrophic" than the other extreme year in 2002-03, said Haeberli.

The IPCC uses WGMS data throughout its report, but the offending statement regarding 2035 was blamed on a quote from a scientist given to a journalist, and never presented in a peer-reviewed journal.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jan 2010 | 10:26 am

Religious images?

Do climate campaigns rely on religious language?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 9:14 am

Breeding Has Made Dogs' Heads Incredibly Diverse

A new study reveals that the variety of skull shapes among domestic dogs has become just as diverse as the variety between other mammal species.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jan 2010 | 8:04 am

Economic growth 'cannot continue'

Continuing global economic growth "is not possible" if nations are to tackle climate change, a report warns.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 7:00 am

China has 'open mind' on climate

China's lead climate change negotiator says he has an "open attitude" on whether global warming is man-made or natural.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 6:12 am

Remember me?

The condition that means you can never forget a face
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 4:29 am

Zoo TV: Movie made by chimps to be broadcast on television

The world's first film shot entirely by chimpanzees is to be broadcast by the BBC as part of a natural history documentary.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jan 2010 | 2:55 am