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Last Neanderthals in Europe died out 37,000 years agoThe last Neanderthals in Europe died out at least 37,000 years ago -- and both climate change and interaction with modern humans could be involved in their demise, according to new research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Surprising discovery: X-rays drive formation of new crystals; crystals resemble some biological structuresX-rays can do a lot of useful things, but who knew they could cause crystals to form? Researchers have discovered that X-rays can trigger the formation of a new type of crystal: charged cylindrical filaments ordered like a bundle of pencils experiencing repulsive forces, which is unknown in crystals. The results open the door to using X-rays to control the structure of materials or to develop novel biomedical therapies.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Gimmick-free weight-loss pill in the worksA Canadian research team is developing a pill composed of leptin, the protein that tells our brain to stop eating.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Mixed-handed children more likely to have mental health, language and scholastic problems, study findsChildren who are mixed-handed, or ambidextrous, are more likely to have mental health, language and scholastic problems in childhood than right- or left-handed children, according to a new study. The researchers behind the study suggest that their findings may help teachers and health professionals to identify children who are particularly at risk of developing certain problems.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Arthritis: Environmental exposure to hairspray, lipstick, pollution, can trigger autoimmune diseasesOur immediate environment interacts with our genetic programming and can determine if we will succumb to an autoimmune disease, according to new research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Computer mimics nature by watching TVComputer scientists in the UK have developed a new way of making life-like animations of trees using video footage of the real thing.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Changes in body fluid odors indicate presence of lung cancer tumorsNew animal research demonstrates that body fluid odors can be used to identify animals with lung cancer tumors. The findings set the stage for studies to identify potential diagnostic biomarkers in the urine of human lung cancer patients.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Scientists return to Haiti to assess possibility of another major quakeA team funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) is returning to Haiti this week to investigate the cause of the Jan. 12, magnitude 7 earthquake there.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Small clusters of islet amyloid polypeptides may contribute to diabetesResearchers have discovered that small clusters (oligomers) of islet amyloid polypeptides (IAPPs) may contribute to the onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Venus flytrap for nuclear waste: New material finds 'needle in a haystack,' shows promise for clean-upLike a Venus flytrap, a new material permanently traps only its desired prey, the radioactive ion cesium, and not harmless sodium ions. The material can remove 100 percent of the cesium -- found in nuclear waste but very difficult to clean up -- from a sodium-heavy solution. It is cesium itself that triggers a structural change in the material, causing it to snap shut its pores and trap the cesium ions.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Monarch butterflies beef up for their mass migrationMonarch butterflies become 'supersized' to migrate thousand of kilometres, scientists discover.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Jan 2010 | 3:14 am Himalayan flowsThe water story is more complex than that of the glaciersSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Jan 2010 | 3:12 am Penguins, Peaks and Penny-Farthings: Nat Geo Covers 1959-2000<< previous image | next image >>
National Geographic magazine is known for its high-quality journalism, preservation of historical moments and access to some of the most remote places on Earth. But what it is best known for is its images. In particular, the iconic yellow-bordered cover shots that opened our eyes to new corners of the world. It’s the amazing stuff you’d never see if National Geographic didn’t show it to you. The National Geographic Society celebrates its 122nd anniversary on Jan. 27. The first issue of the magazine was published 10 months later in 1888. Though the early issues had rather drab academic looking covers, by 1959 they were consistently adorned with eye-cathing art and photos. Here we’ve collected some of our favorite covers from 1959 to 2000, including a penguin with a high-tech backpack, a self portrait by Koko the gorilla and a shark attack. Image: National Geographic
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Jan 2010 | 3:01 am Australia to put forward unchanged carbon cuts to UN (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 2:37 am 13 countries meet in bid to save wild tigers (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jan 2010 | 1:54 am Trees thrive on high-carbon dietScientists in Wisconsin are monitoring the effect on trees of increased levels of carbon dioxide and ozone Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am Spirit's New Mission? Survive the WinterNASA is giving up trying to get its stuck Mars rover moving again, though it hopes Spirit will have a new life as a stationary science probe -- if it survives winter. The rover, which landed on Mars six years ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 10:58 pm Apple to Launch Tablet: What Could Go Wrong?On Wednesday, Apple launches their much anticipated iTablet. (Or is it the iSlate? The iPad? Who knows?) While Apple has a reputation for being the kind of company that thinks of everything, we thought we'd take this opportunity to highlight ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:47 pm UK's top scientist urges care in presenting climate change data• Be frank on degree of uncertainty, but as such it is no excuse for inaction
A failure by some scientists to be candid on the uncertainty of predicting the rate of climate change is to blame for fuelling scepticism about such predictions, according the government's chief scientific adviser. John Beddington's comments come in the wake of an admission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a claim in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 was unfounded. The admission has been used as ammunition by climate change sceptics, who say the public is being misled. Beddington said scientists should give a caveat to their predictions where there was uncertainty, and release source data "wherever possible" – but added that uncertainty was no excuse for inaction. "I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper scepticism," he tells the Times newspaper today. "Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed." He said the false claim in the IPCC's report was symptomatic of a wider problem with the way evidence was presented in the field of climate science. "Certain unqualified statements have been unfortunate," he said. "We have a problem in communicating uncertainty. There's definitely an issue there. If there wasn't, there wouldn't be the level of scepticism. All of these predictions have to be caveated by saying, 'There's a level of uncertainty about that'." He explained that large-scale climate modelling using computers meant "quite substantial uncertainties" which needed to be communicated. While it was unchallengeable that burning fossil fuels released CO2 that warms the Earth, "where you can get challenges is on the speed of change". He acknowledged that where source data was released there was a danger it could be manipulated, "but the benefits from being open far outweigh that danger". The head of the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, Professor Phil Jones, stepped down last year while an investigation was conducted into emails leaked from the unit and seized upon by climate change deniers as alleged evidence that scientists had been hiding and manipulating data to support the view that the world is warming up. Shortly after the row, the Met Office released data which showed a rise in the global temperature. Beddington said the fact that scientists were not 100% certain about every aspect of climate science did not make ignoring the phenomenon a risk worth running. The IPCC and its head, Rajendra Pachauri, have also come under fire for another claim in its 2007 report – that the cost of natural disasters had risen gradually since 1970 due to climate change. But the IPCC released a statement yesterday saying that the Sunday Times report which carried the allegation was incorrect, insisting that the IPCC had provided a "balanced treatment of a complicated and important issue". While the IPCC admitted that it was wrong about the Himalayan glaciers, scientists maintain that glaciers are melting at historically high rates. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:41 pm Altruistic Chimpanzees Adopt Orphans (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Chimpanzees can be altruistic just like humans, according to a new study that found 18 cases of orphaned chimps being adopted in the wild.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:16 pm U.S. sends NASA flights to study Haiti quake lineWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. space agency NASA will send surveillance flights over Haiti and the Dominican Republic to look for signs that more earthquakes may hit the area after a giant quake that killed as many as 200,000 people two weeks ago.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:05 pm U.S. sends NASA flights to study Haiti quake line (Reuters)Reuters - The U.S. space agency NASA will send surveillance flights over Haiti and the Dominican Republic to look for signs that more earthquakes may hit the area after a giant quake that killed as many as 200,000 people two weeks ago.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:05 pm Altruistic Chimpanzees Adopt OrphansChimpanzees can be altruistic just like humans, according to a new study that found 18 cases of orphaned chimps being adopted in the wild.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:03 pm Monkeys prefer not to use long 'words', scientists concludeMonkeys keep their chatter short and sweet, scientists reports.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 5:36 pm Greenpeace calls for moratorium on industrial activity in Arctic (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 5:14 pm Our chance to preserve a natural wonderProtecting the Chagos archipelago is a rare opportunity for the UK to create a conservation area as important as the Galapagos islands or Great Barrier Reef In 1995 the British government published a new biodiversity strategy that was, in many ways, a world-leading document. It set out how the UK would implement the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed three years previously at the Rio de Janeiro Earth summit - not just here in the UK, but also in the few remaining dependent territories, such as Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands. One thing I quickly noticed was how the greatest area of British overseas territory was missing – the British Indian Ocean Territory. The vast area covered by this little-known dependency is centred on the Chagos archipelago (pdf) – a group of 55 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about 300 miles south of the Maldives. After a few enquiries I found the likely reason why there were no official commitments to conserve the incredible wildlife habitats there, including some of the world's most outstanding coral reefs. In 1971 the British government signed a treaty with the US allowing the construction of an air base on the largest island, Diego Garcia. This was no ordinary air base. This was one of a handful of highly strategic airfields from which fleets of B52 bombers could deliver nuclear payloads to any location on Earth. The resident population of plantation workers, which at that time numbered around 1,000 people, were moved to Mauritius and the Seychelles. Last November, a consultation (pdf) was launched by the UK government, looking at three options that could lead to the islands and surrounding seas become. One is to designate a full no-take marine reserve for the entire territory out to the 200-nautical mile limit, covering an area of about 210,000 square miles – more than twice the size of Great Britain. Another is the creation of a marine reserve to the same geographical limits, but allowing some fisheries to continue at some times of year and-or in some zones. The third option is to establish no-take reserves to protect only the vulnerable reef systems. If done in the right way, the Chagos protected area could be as important as the reserves which protect the Galapagos islands and Great Barrier Reef. It could maintain the pure and unpolluted waters of the Chagos, providing a safe refuge for its other rich marine life, including turtles and sharks. The Chagos protected area could also help fish stocks recover from the decades of destructive and unsustainable practices that have caused fish populations to collapse. Wild birds would benefit as well. Over 150,000 pairs of 17 species of seabirds breed on the atolls, and protection of the islands would certainly improve their prospects. The creation of the Chagos protected area would also contribute to the international target of halting the decline of biodiversity by 2010, establishing marine protection networks by 2012, and restoring depleted fish stocks to sustainable levels by 2015. However, there are voices against such protected status. These include Marine Resources Assessment Group (MRAG) Ltd, a company with clear vested interests - it holds a government contract to manage fishing in the area - and founded and part owned by the UK government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington. The company claims that this proposed marine protected area won't work to protect fish stocks, when the clear scientific consensus is that it would. Irrespective of arguments about fish, the protection of the natural features of this outstanding area must be achieved with justice for the Chagossian people. The nine conservation groups who have proposed that the British government should act to protect the islands have suggested that any conservation designation should be made "without prejudice" to future decisions about the people returning. This would mean that if that Chagossians do finally come back, that the arrangements being considered now might be reopened. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that any resettled Chagossians would have very little time to live there. In as little as a couple of decades the islands will become vulnerable to rising sea levels. Conservation groups calling for the UK to act in protecting the islands have set up a petition so that everyone can signal their support for a new protected area. I have just signed up, and I urge readers to do the same. • Tony Juniper is an environmental campaigner and the Green party's general election candidate for Cambridge guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm NASA radar to study Haiti earthquake faults (AP)AP - NASA will study Haiti's earthquake faults with a series of overflights by a jet equipped with a special airborne radar system.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 4:58 pm Best Display of Mars From Earth in 6 Years on Wednesday
On Jan. 27, Mars will be closer to Earth than any other time between 2008 and 2014. A mere 60 million miles away, the red planet will be a great target for backyard telescopes, and will appear bright to the naked eye as well. Every 26 months, the two planets’ orbits bring them closer together, sometimes closer than others. In 2003, Mars came within 35 million miles of Earth, a 60,000-year record. Observers with a telescope will be able to see changes over the north pole of Mars as the carbon dioxide ice cap is nearing summer and evaporating into gas that affects the polar clouds. (If any of our reader-astronomers catch a nice image, send it our way!) From the ground, Mars will look like an orange star almost as bright as Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. The view will actually be best on Friday, Jan. 29, when Mars will rise alongside the first full moon of the year, directly opposite the sun. For help locating Mars, view NASA’s full sky maps for Jan. 27, 28 and 29. Image: NASA See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Jan 2010 | 4:14 pm Astronauts Photograph Haiti Quake Aftermath From Space (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station recently photographed Haiti from orbit in the days following the country's devastating earthquake.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm Life, but not as we know itIf aliens do exist in the Goldilocks zones of outer space, I'm not convinced we'll recognise them For 21st-century renaissance science, look no further than the stars. Closer to home, the Royal Society, as part of its 350th anniversary celebrations, this week brought together some dizzying intellects to ponder the emergent field of astrobiology, and ask: "Are we alone in the universe?" Meanwhile, the space telescope Kepler silently orbits above, its continuing mission to seek out Earth-like planets. Kepler's eye focuses on what we fondly refer to as "Goldilocks zones": areas of space close enough to a sun that planets therein are neither too hot nor too cold, but just right. There, we think, we might find Earth-like life. Present at the Royal Society meeting in London was Frank Drake, the godfather of the scientific pursuit of ET; 50 years ago he founded the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (Seti), and designed a formula that predicts the number of civilisations capable of making contact with us. Then not one planet was known outside of our solar system. Today, with only an infinitesimal wedge of the sky incompletely explored, we have found more than 420. Every day evidence mounts that life beyond our planet seems almost inevitable. What would aliens look like? Our psychological set-up is so egocentric that we find it hard to relate to creatures that don't resemble ourselves: the common octopus rarely stands alongside monkeys in animal rights campaigns despite similar sentience. Not only do we look for Earth-like planets, we think of aliens in humanesque form. The "grey" alien of science fiction, with its frail body and enlarged head and eyes, plays to our evolution away from animal ancestry and towards our cerebral tendencies. There's no reason to think that an alien would stand on two feet, have two eyes or breathe air. The subtlest shift in circumstance might render intelligent life entirely different to our anthropocentric obsession. Some evidence suggests that our upright stance is connected with our ability to endurance-run: on the plains, our ancestors couldn't outsprint a fleet-footed meal, so perhaps we stalked our food to death. But imagine if our ancestors were mountain-dwellers: running would have had no currency, and no selective advantage. Change the geography of the cradle of humanity, and humankind becomes something unimaginable. It's impossible to know, but fun to speculate. This game presupposes that Darwinian natural selection is a universal truth. Fine by me: it occurs in all known species, and there have been no credible challenges to the theory of evolution. It's hard to imagine the evolution of life via a different scientific route. Life on Earth is encoded in DNA, the universal language on which natural selection acts. Many scientists believe that the precursors of life began not with DNA, but its cousin, RNA – still a vital tool in all living things. In 1969 a meteorite crashed into the Australian backwater of Murchison. In 2008, Zita Martins at Imperial College showed that it harboured an essential component of RNA that was extraterrestrial in origin. While this does not say that life exists or began in space, it does say that the complex components of life are present in the universe. When we return to Mars in the next few years, it will be these hallmarks we are looking for. Frank Drake is a visionary, a man who quite rationally wants to find our place in the universe. In 50 years of watching the skies, the Seti team has not found extraterrestrial life among the stars. Either intelligent life is extraordinarily rare or its civilisations are short-lived, snuffed out by cataclysms, perhaps of their own making. While we continue to explore our vast universe, we should remind ourselves that even if it is buzzing with life, our own existence is far from guaranteed. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm What Happens When the Economy Eats the Planet?Over the past couple of years, the global economy has been in rough shape, no doubt. But as we start to pull ourselves out of this slump, have have to ask ourselves: is it a good thing to resume growing? ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 2:31 pm NASA ends effort to free rover from Martian sand (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 2:20 pm Google Teams With NOAA to Make Better Ocean Visualizations
Data from the depths could get a lot less murky soon, thanks to a new partnership announced by Google and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA will provide data from its various ocean-science programs and Google will build tools to visualize that information, the two organizations announced Tuesday. The deal extends a collaboration that began when Google built NOAA’s underwater topography into Google Earth. The two entities have continued to work together on other projects, such as incorporating satellite measurements on coral-reef bleaching. The partnership will include porting more ocean depth, climate and other scientific data into Google Earth as well as providing online access to zoning and regulatory information near the coasts. NOAA outreach programs like Science on a Sphere and the Okeanos Explorer ship will also get some kind of Google makeover. While the first Google oceans-data release generated a lot of excitement, its implementation brought a mixed response from specialists. Image: The ocean near Okinawa (upper left)/Google Earth. See Also:
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 | 26 Jan 2010 | 2:09 pm World's Oldest Chimpanzee Twins Gain Facebook FollowingThe world's oldest known chimpanzee twins, Golden and Glitter, are among the most successful non-human primate social networkers, with well over a thousand friends at their Facebook page alone. Born on July 13, 1998, the now eleven-year-old twins have defied ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 1:06 pm NASA Gives Up on Spirit Rescue, Preps Mars Rover to Hibernate
The NASA Spirit rover, which has been wandering Mars for the past six years, appears to be permanently stuck in the strange patch of Martian soil it’s been lodged in for the past several months. With winter approaching, Spirit’s handlers have decided to put the rover into a hibernation mode intended to protect its electronics from temperatures that could drop close to the design limit of negative 67 degrees Fahrenheit. “The Rover will be like a polar bear hibernating and it could be for many months, on the order of 6 months that the Rover will be in this state,” said John Callas, the Rover project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during a media teleconference. “This is not like the Phoenix mission. This rover is electrically active, but it has insufficient power to be awake each day.” Spirit’s electronics were designed to withstand temperatures of negative 40 Fahrenheit while operating and negative 67 when hibernating. NASA scientists predict that the temperature will drop below negative 40, necessitating taking moves to protect the rover. “The estimate is that the rover, even though it is getting cold, will stay within its design limits, but those were tested for a brand new rover fresh out of the box and this one has been on the surface for six years,” Callas said. “These will be temperatures that are colder than anything we’ve seen on the surface of Mars.”
Spirit’s sibling, the Opportunity rover, is located closer to the equator and will continue to operate through the winter months. When the level of solar energy reaches high enough, Spirit will be contacted and wake back up to continue her life not as the rover of yore but as a stationary scientific platform. Steve Squyres, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity, tried to put a happy face on this new phase of the mission. “That imperative to drive is relaxed,” Squyres said. “That enables us to focus on new classes of science that you can only do from a science platform that isn’t moving around a lot.” In particular, he said that the team would focus on tracking Spirit’s radio signal very precisely, which could allow them to determine whether the Martian core is solid or liquid through a telltale wobble in the planet’s rotation. “The way that Mars wobbles depends on its internal structure,” said Squyres. “When you go through the math, if Mars has a solid core of iron, it will wobble in a certain well-defined way. But if that core is liquid, it will wobble in an ever-so-slightly different way. And by tracking the signal, we can distinguish between the two.” The Mars scientists are also excited about the area in which they’ve become stuck. “The area has the highest concentration of sulfates we’ve seen anywhere on the planet,” Callas said. “We were driving around on a crust of this stuff that was strong enough to support the rover and then we broke through it. We’re very fortunate that this new landing site … turned out to be a good one.” The sulfates may have been formed by steam vents in the distant Martian past, Squyres said, and subsequently transported by water processes. Despite the science that can be done at the site, the probable end of Spirit’s career as a mobile unit seemed discouraging to JPL rover driver, Ashley Stroupe. A week and a half ago, the rover team changed their approach to getting the rover unstuck and experienced much greater success. “We had a tremendous amount of hope,” Stroupe said. In the end, though, they ran out of time. Now, their main task is positioning the rover to capture the greatest amount of solar energy possible: The rover is currently tilted south, away from the sun in the northern sky. If they can reduce the tilt, Spirit may be able to periodically communicate with Earth throughout the winter. If they can’t, it will be a long, silent winter for the robot. Image: NASA/JPL. Spirit’s self-portrait. See Also:
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 | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:56 pm Engine Tech Knocks Back the NOxBiodiesel has advantages over diesel, but one drawback is higher nitrogen oxide emissions. Fortunately, researchers at Purdue University created an engine framework that cleans up. Greg Shaver, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and a member of the Purdue Energy Center ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:55 pm Russia loses science powerhouse standingWASHINGTON (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 | 12:19 pm Why Some Airports Give Away Wi-FiA handful of major airports are switching to a free Wi-Fi business model for travelers. How can they afford it?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 12:04 pm Alien Life May Be on Earth: ScientistAre aliens already among us -- or maybe even in us?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 11:59 am Aurora Mystery Solved?The mystery shape in the aurora over Andenes, Norway (photograph by Per-Arne Mikalsen) On Jan. 20, 2010, Per-Arne Mikalsen was photographing a vast aurora erupting over the northern Norwegian town of Andenes. Because solar activity is on the increase, aurora ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 11:58 am Everybody Laughs, SometimesLaughter, apparently, really is a universal language. According to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, emotions that all humans share, such as anger, amusement, grief and others, translate across cultures. From ScienceDaily: Everybody shares ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 11:33 am Nasa accepts defeat over SpiritThe US space agency concedes defeat in its battle to free the Spirit rover from its Martian sand trap.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 10:59 am Killer Tsunami Wrecked Haitian 'Little Paradise'Out west from the destroyed city of Port-au-Prince, the small village of Petis Paradis (which translates to "Little Paradise" in English) is reeling from a tsunami that struck following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake on January 12. Most reports missed this, ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Jan 2010 | 10:26 am No Help Wanted: Shopping Tactics Different For MenMen are less likely than women to want help from other people while shopping, a new study says.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Jan 2010 | 10:17 am Esa tech satellite views eclipseProba-2, one of smallest satellites ever flown by the European Space Agency, pictures January's annular eclipse.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 8:43 am College-Educated Women More Likely to Stay MarriedCollege-educated women are more likely to stay married than less-educated women.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Jan 2010 | 7:36 am Seniors Have Rewarding Sex LivesEven for the elderly, men have more sex than women.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Jan 2010 | 7:36 am Slow Snails Are Quick to Make New SpeciesSnails may split into different species rapidly precisely because they move so slowly.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Jan 2010 | 7:14 am 'Echoes' in bat and dolphin DNAScientists find striking similarities in the DNA that enables some bats and dolphins to use echolocation.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 6:41 am RIP GDPEconomic growth and climate action 'is not possible'Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 5:14 am In picturesSniffer dogs: The conservationist's best friendSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 5:07 am Bear gives birth live on internetThe birth of a wild black bear is broadcast live on the internet.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Jan 2010 | 4:32 am The nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jan 2010 | 4:09 am ET or BBC3? Pick one … | Media MonkeyAlong 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. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jan 2010 | 3:16 am
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