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Fish oil may reduce the risk of psychotic disorders in high-risk individualsIndividuals at extremely high risk of developing psychosis appear less likely to develop psychotic disorders following a 12-week course of fish oil capsules containing long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, according to a report.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am New adhesive device could let humans walk on wallsCould humans one day walk on walls, like Spider-Man? A palm-sized invention that uses water surface tension as an adhesive bond just might make it possible.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am Onset of sexual activity in tweens delayed by theory-based abstinence-only programA new study weighs in on the controversy over sex education, finding that an abstinence-only intervention for pre-teens was more successful in delaying the onset of sexual activity than a health-promotion control intervention. After two years, one-third of the abstinence-only group reported having sex, compared to one-half of the control group.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am Stem cells rescue nerve cells by direct contactScientists in Sweden have shown how transplanted stem cells can connect with and rescue threatened neurons and brain tissue. The results point the way to new possible treatments for brain damage and neurodegenerative diseases.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am Managed wolf populations could restore ecosystemsWildlife researchers argue that advances in animal control techniques mean it should be feasible and acceptable to introduce small, managed populations of wolves into a variety of parks and other sites for the purpose of ecosystem restoration. This practice could also increase the public's appreciation of wolves and boost ecotourism.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am Memory failing? You may be at higher risk for strokePeople who experience memory loss or a decline in their thinking abilities may be at higher risk of stroke, regardless of whether they have been diagnosed with dementia, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am Cigarette smoking a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, study showsAn analysis of published studies on the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and smoking indicates that smoking cigarettes is a significant risk factor for the disease. After controlling for study design, quality of the journals, time of publication, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, the research team also found an association between tobacco industry affiliation and the conclusions of individual studies.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am Ginkgo herbal medicines may increase seizures in people with epilepsyRestrictions should be placed on the use of Ginkgo biloba -- a top-selling herbal remedy -- because of growing scientific evidence that Ginkgo may increase the risk of seizures in people with epilepsy and could reduce the effectiveness of anti-seizure drugs, a new report concludes.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am 'Broad spectrum' antiviral fights multitude of virusesResearchers are developing and testing a broad-spectrum antiviral compound capable of stopping a wide range of highly dangerous viruses, including Ebola, HIV, hepatitis C virus, West Nile virus, Rift Valley fever virus and yellow fever virus, among others.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am Dogs may provide an excellent model for understanding human complex diseasesResearchers in Sweden and Finland have found several genes that lead to increased risk for a systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)-like autoimmune disorder in dogs. This is the first time scientists have found genes behind such a complex disease. The study indicates that the homogeneity of strong genetic risk factors within dog breeds make dogs an excellent model in which to identify pathways involved in human complex diseases. The results of the study also open the door for further studies of specific T-cell activation pathways in human populations.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am Project set to map marks on genomeConsortium sets sights on the differences that make us different.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/g3JX4L-qVW4" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 2 Feb 2010 | 5:39 am Oil giant BP swings into profit (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 2:19 am Brows up, breasts down: the UK in plastic surgery statisticsMore men than ever before are having plastic surgery - and it's often to reduce moobs. Find out who has what done in the UK Plastic surgeons are reporting a record number of "man boob" reduction operations as the rise in demand outstrips that for all other procedures - including women's breast enlargement. Figures published by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPs) showed operations to correct gynecomastia in men grew by 80%, while overall male cosmetic surgery grew by 21%. The association's audit reveals 581 male breast reduction operations were performed by members in 2009, up from 323 in 2008. Five years ago, just 22 gynecomastia operations were performed on men. The association represents one in three plastic surgeons, so the UK total is likely to be more than 1,000 operations. We're certainly not at US levels though. Overall, 36,482 procedures were done by association members for men and women in 2009, compared with 34,187 in 2008, a rise of 6.7%. Women accounted for 32,859, a rise of 5%. The audit reported 8,537 female breast augmentation operations. Here's the data BAAPs. Can you do anything with it? Download the data
World government data• Search the world's government with our gateway Can you do something with this data?Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk • Get the A-Z of data Data summary
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 | 2 Feb 2010 | 2:00 am Obama cuts moon travel, links NASA to private firms (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Feb 2010 | 1:30 am James Randerson on new questions on climate change revealed in emailsJames Randerson on new questions on climate change revealed in emails Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 2 Feb 2010 | 1:14 am Journal stem cell work 'blocked'Stem cell experts say they believe a small group of scientists is vetoing high quality science from being published in journals.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 11:01 pm Breakfast briefing: Obama kills moonshot 2.0, browser wars and Azure• It's more than five years since George Bush announced his plan to go back to the Moon by 2020 - but now Barack Obama has killed the plan, saying Nasa money should be spent on other projects instead. Personally? I'm disappointed: Obama's plans, for now at least, don't really seem to include human space exploration of any sort, meaning an end to Constellation, the successor to the Space Shuttle programme. It may be pragmatic dream killed off. • The browser wars continue apace, according to new figures from NetMarketShare. Internet Explorer has dropped to 62% of the market, with Firefox down to 24% and Google's Chrome up to just over 5%. Internet Explorer 8 is now apparently the most popular version of IE, outstripping IE6 (finally). • And after plenty of talk and testing, Microsoft has finally opened its Azure cloud computing platform. ZDNet has some more. Used it? 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 11:00 pm Lost in SpacetimeFans of ABC's Lost are eagerly waiting tonight's premiere of the final season -- and those fans include a good number of physicists, such as Sean at Cosmic Variance. Last week he wrote an entire blog post about the physics ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 10:14 pm Aircraft Gets Personal With NASA's PuffinMeet the Puffin, a new concept vehicle that could revolutionize the way we travel.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pm Health Tip: Have Clean Air at Home (HealthDay)HealthDay - (HealthDay News) -- Polluted air inside the home can aggravate asthma and allergy symptoms.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 9:48 pm Stem Cell, Bone Marrow Transplants Both Benefit Leukemia Patients (HealthDay)HealthDay - MONDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term survival rates are similar for leukemia patients who've had either peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) or bone marrow transplants, a new European study says.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 9:48 pm Mutating Genes May Lead to Premature Births (HealthDay)HealthDay - MONDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers are reporting that a gene mutation in a pregnant mouse leads to changes inside the uterus that cause premature birth and, in some cases, death of the fetus.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 9:48 pm No-kill researchers sail to study Antarctic whales (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 8:17 pm Obama budget would cut NASA moon planCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is no longer shooting for the moon, with a budget plan that aborts a symbolic but expensive lunar program and spends $6 billion over five years to turn over space transportation to commercial companies.Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 8:05 pm UN says nations' greenhouse gas pledges too little (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 7:08 pm Hear With Your TeethConventional hearing aids use air conduction to turn up the volume on the sound traveling to the ear. But a new device from Sonitus Medical, turns up the volume using bone conduction. The SoundBite has two parts: a removable part ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:40 pm Beetle-based bondingDevice inspired by nature clings to surfaces using 'liquid bridges'.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:34 pm Transgenic Tomatoes Last LongerResearchers extended the shelf life of tomatoes by 30 days by suppressing enzymes that promote ripening.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:18 pm Turkeys Domesticated Two Millennia AgoNative Americans domesticated turkeys more than 2,000 years ago, but not for food.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 6:15 pm Huge Brazil dam moves step closerBrazil grants an environmental licence for a controversial hydro-electric dam - the world's third largest - in the Amazon.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:42 pm Why single women eat saladAn academic study dishes up food for thought I never knew a rocket leaf could speak. Then Meredith Young came along and now I do – although what it has to say is rather sad. Rocket leaves; thinly sliced portobello mushrooms; artfully wilted spinach: these aren't the usual subjects of psychologist Young. But, with a team of researchers, she spent days in unobtrusive observation of almost 470 undergraduates eating at the canteens of McMaster University in Ontario. They found that when women sat with men they ate rabbit food or other meals "of significantly lower caloric value" than in all-women groups. The more men dining with a woman, the less she ate. Why? Young women use their food to send a signal to men, suggests the study. Just like clothing accessories, they pick meals to enhance their desirability to the opposite sex. "The salad leaves are meant to say, 'I'm pretty; I'm attractive; I take care of myself'," says Young. And the pressure increases with the number of potential partners around. As for the men, they didn't watch what they scoffed at all. In arriving at their hypothesis, the researchers made some reasonable assumptions: that the undergraduates (largely between 17 and 22 years old) hadn't yet settled down, were in the market for relationships and that the majority were heterosexual. The argument fits with other evidence that our tablemates affect what we eat (close friends tend to push the boat out; strangers are far more uptight), and that others judge us by our food. When it comes to social perceptions, you really are what you eat. This may explain why few boast of having a Pot Noodle; conversely, salad-eaters come a few forkfuls closer to those connotations of health and attractiveness (although I suspect Beyoncé doesn't live on celeriac alone, and that doesn't bother her legions of admirers). And as Young and her researchers note, their female undergraduates appear to "believe that men find women who eat less more attractive". In other words, a young woman may be top of the class in chemical engineering, but those Naked Ape-isms still suck her in. As for the diet industry, it's just gained another tagline: rocket leaves – because he's worth it, apparently. 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:05 pm Engineering the Computer of the Future, One Atom at a Time (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Using computers based on the mind-boggling physics of the quantum world, researchers now hope to simulate reality on the molecular scale better than ever before.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 4:20 pm Terry Pratchett | A tribunal of mercyAs I face Alzheimer's, I want to die at a time of my choosing. We need a better way of assisting loved ones who wish the same As a pallid and nervous young journalist, I got to know about suicide. It was part of my regular tasks to sit in at the coroner's court, where I learned the manifold ways the disturbed human brain can devise to die. Coroners never used the word "insanity". They preferred the more compassionate verdict that the subject had "taken his life while the balance of his mind was disturbed". There was ambivalence to the phrase, a suggestion of the winds of fate and overwhelming circumstance. In fact, by now, I have reached the conclusion that a person may make a decision to die because the balance of their mind is level, realistic, pragmatic, stoic and sharp. And that is why I dislike the term "assisted suicide" applied to the carefully thought-out and weighed-up process of having one's life ended by gentle medical means. The people who thus far have made the harrowing trip to Dignitas in Switzerland to die seemed to me to be very firm and methodical of purpose, with a clear prima-face case for wanting their death to be on their own terms. In short, their mind may well be in better balance than the world around them. I got involved in the debate surrounding "assisted death" by accident, after taking a long and informed look at my future as someone with Alzheimer's. As a result of my "coming out" about the disease, I now have contacts in medical research industries all over the world, and I have no reason to believe that a "cure" is imminent. And so I have vowed that rather than let Alzheimer's take me, I would take it. I would live my life as ever to the full and die, before the disease mounted its last attack, in my own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the Brompton Cocktail some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death. This seems to me quite a reasonable and sensible decision for someone with a serious, incurable and debilitating disease to elect for a medically assisted death by appointment. The Care not Killing Alliance assures us that no one need consider a voluntary death of any sort since care is always available. This is questionable. Medicine is keeping more and more people alive, all requiring more and more care. Alzheimer's and other dementias place a huge care burden on the country. A burden that falls initially on the next of kin who may even be elderly and, indeed, be in need of some sort of care themselves. A major objection frequently flourished by opponents of "assisted dying" is that elderly people might be illegally persuaded into "asking" for assisted death. Could be, but the Journal of Medical Ethics reported in 2007 that there was no evidence of the abuse of vulnerable patients in Oregon where assisted dying is currently legal. I don't see why things should be any different here. Last year, the government finally published guidelines on dealing with assisted death. They did not appear to satisfy anybody. It seems that those wishing to assist a friend or relative to die would have to meet a large number of criteria in order to escape the chance of prosecution for murder. As laid out, the best anyone can do is keep within the rules and hope for the best. That's why I and others have suggested some kind of strictly non-aggressive tribunal that would establish the facts of the case well before the assisted death takes place. The members of the tribunal would be acting for the good of society, as well as that of applicants, to ensure they are of sound and informed mind, firm in their purpose, suffering from a life-threatening and incurable disease and not under the influence of a third party. I would suggest there should be a lawyer, one with expertise in dynastic family affairs who has become good at recognising whether there is outside pressure. And a medical practitioner experienced in dealing with the complexities of serious long-term illnesses. I would also suggest that all those on the tribunal are over 45, by which time they may have acquired the gift of wisdom, because wisdom and compassion should in this tribunal stand side-by-side with the law. The tribunal would also have to be a check on those seeking death for reasons that reasonable people may consider trivial or transient distress. If we are to live in a world where a socially acceptable "early death" can be allowed, it must be allowed as a result of careful consideration. I would like to die peacefully before the disease takes me over. I hope that will not be for some time, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice. • This is an edited excerpt from Terry Pratchett's Richard Dimbleby lecture for 2010, delivered on Monday 1 February 2010. Read an extended version of the lecture in G2 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 4:20 pm Engineering the Computer of the Future, One Atom at a TimeComputers based on the mind-boggling physics of the quantum world.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 4:19 pm Nearby Star System Could Support Earth-Like Planet (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Turbulent binary star systems, such as our closest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, could host Earth-sized planets, new computer modeling indicates.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 4:16 pm Hackers Crack Cell Phone EncryptionHackers have cracked the security codes for two of the world's most popular cell phone transmission standards.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 4:15 pm NASA: Good night moon, hello new rocket technology (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:50 pm Vaccine-Autism Doctor Guilty of ‘Dishonesty and Misleading Conduct’Andrew Wakefield, the doctor whose research sparked international concern over whether or not childhood vaccines cause autism, was found guilty by a British panel of acting unethically in his research on autism. Wakefield was the lead author a small-scale 1998 ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:16 pm SpacemanSo what is the new Nasa vision for exploration?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:13 pm 55 countries pledge carbon curbsGovernments around the world reaffirm plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as required by last month's climate accord.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:12 pm Bigger changes are on the way for the US militaryThe US military's Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) is the usual weighty document loaded with equally weighty phrases. US forces are to be "rebalanced" to address the new threats the US faces in "counterinsurgency, stability and counter-terrorism" operations. And there must be "reform" in the way the US defence establishment goes about all its business so that a complex "risk management framework" can be "operationalised". Beyond the defence-management-speak there are some important ideas in this document, but most of them do not go much further than that. US defence planners can see the direction in which they need to go but they cannot commit to going there too fast. For one thing, military reform was pushed hard by Donald Rumsfeld when he was in charge of defence, and the forces pushed back pretty hard themselves, with some poor results in Iraq after the initial success in breaking down the door. Reform in US defence always comes up against powerful interests, not just in the very separate armed forces themselves - the army, navy air force, and the US marines - but also in the defence contractors who have long-term investments to defend. The defence establishment also knows that there are some swingeing expenditure cuts on the way - not in 2010-11, which is largely committed already, but certainly after that. There is no point in offering too much change before the shape of the future budget is clearer. Indeed, there is a natural desire to build in as much continuity to the programme as possible. So the document is much heavier on words than on deeds. Nevertheless, this is the five-year programme until 2015 that sees the US playing a "global role" in "a complex environment". Everyone knows that bigger changes than this will be on the way and that some sacred cows will have to be slaughtered before the US has fully accommodated itself to the challenges around it. President Barack Obama has recognised this. The US openly speaks now of working more closely with allies and partners around the world. The QDR speaks of adjusting military capability so as to be able to do more with its allies. When it speaks about this it doesn't seem to have countries like Britain in mind so much as Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates or Indonesia. Much more attention will apparently be given to military assistance, joint exercises and training missions. We will see. Certainly there are themes here that have been echoed in the UK for quite some time - more joined-up government in the approach to security, better intelligence fusion, a root and branch reform of defence equipment procurement, to name but three. Whether the US will be more successful in these ambitions than we have proved to be will rather depend upon how seriously they take their QDR. Like the Romans before them, the US has a great tendency to address the world the way they would like it to be; to fail significantly, and then to learn fast and get it right while the rest of us are still feeling smug. Obama would like them to do this again. We will see how far their five-year strategy will go down the road to real transformation. • Prof Michael Clarke is director of the Royal United Services Institute 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm Pentagon sets budget for wars of the futureThe Pentagon is discarding its core strategy of being prepared to fight two large-scale wars simultaneously in favour of coping with smaller conflicts, launching pre-emptive assaults to contain terrorists and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and combating attacks in cyberspace. The defence secretary, Robert Gates, presented what he called a "wartime" Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) of military thinking and requirements today, which said that while the US must continue to maintain a robust force capable of protecting the country from "capable nation-state aggressors", the focus of future American attention will be on the kinds of conflicts the US has been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq while holding off "the transnational terrorist threats, including al-Qaida". The review, required by Congress as an insight in to each administration's military thinking in years to come, puts a heavy emphasis on buying more attack drones, helicopters and "weapons that are usable, affordable, and truly needed" while dropping expensive advanced weapons systems that are of limited use in conflicts such as Afghanistan. It also proposes the largest increase in special operations forces since the Vietnam war and said "the department's force planning assumes an ability to undertake a broader and deeper range of prevent and deter missions". But the strategy, parts of which have already been put in place, has met with resistance from arms manufacturers who fear the loss of multibillion-dollar weapons contracts and so could face difficulties with their allies in Congress. Some critics also say the strategy is little more than a PR exercise aimed at justifying another increase in defence spending to a record $708bn (£443bn) in Barack Obama's budget announced today - although that is likely to rise to closer to $900bn with additional spending - as well as the cancellation or delay of major military equipment including navy cruisers, transport aircraft and a satellite system. Gates described the document as "truly a wartime" defence review. "For the first time, it places the current conflicts at the top of our budgeting, policy, and programme priorities," he said. "It breaks from the past, however, in its insistence that the US armed forces must be capable of conducting a wide range of operations, from homeland defence and defence support to civil authorities, to deterrence and preparedness missions, to the conflicts we are in and the wars we may someday face," he added. The report said the US faces "a broad range of security challenges" from established military threats to "non-state groups developing more cunning and destructive means" to attack the US and its allies. "The instability or collapse of a weapons of mass destruction-armed state is among our most troubling concerns," the report said. The review calls for the establishment of a "joint task force elimination headquarters to plan, train and execute WMD-elimination operations". The report also warns of a growing threat of cyber attacks on space-based surveillance and communications systems that could leave the US military blind. "On any given day, there are as many as 7 million DoD (Department of Defence) computers and telecommunications tools in use in 88 countries using thousands of warfighting and support applications. The number of potential vulnerabilities, therefore, is staggering. Moreover, the speed of cyber attacks and the anonymity of cyberspace greatly favour the offence. This advantage is growing as hacker tools become cheaper and easier to employ by adversaries whose skills are growing in sophistication," the review said. Although the report does not identify any particular threat, analysts say the Pentagon has one eye on China. However, the Pentagon said that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq would continue to have the most significant influence on strategy for years to come. But critics, such as Winslow Wheeler, who worked on national security issues on the staff of several senators and now leads a military reform project at the Centre for Defence Information, said that the review does not confront some of the military's most basic problems. "It's a profoundly disappointing document in terms of addressing the serious and fundamental problems our defences face. We are currently at a post world war two high in terms of spending, adjusted for inflation, and our forces have never been smaller or older," he said. "None of these trends are being reversed. Manpower costs are growing much faster than the rest of the defence budget which sets up a competition between hardware and people. All these forces of decay and ever growing costs are continuing." Wheeler also challenged Gates's claim to be implementing a new strategy, saying that President Bush's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, backed away from the large-scale wars strategy. "Last year, secretary Gates complained about next war-itis, focusing on high-end conventional systems when we're getting our asses whipped in low-end irregular warfare. "There is of course more of that in this QDR. More for helicopters, more for drones, that kind of thing. But overall this is merely an endorsement of existing policy," he said. 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:41 pm 'Nasa cuts will cost us our scientists'After yesterday's retreat, the US and Europe will fall behind in the space race. The next man on the moon will be Chinese Few people who remember the 1960s can fail to have been inspired by the drama and excitement of the space missions, which pitted the United States against the Soviet Union in a race to land a man on the moon. Today there is still a massively competitive space race; but yesterday the Barack Obama administration cancelled its Constellation programme, which had aimed to put astronauts back on the moon. With the US effectively out of the race to the moon, the field is now clear for India, China and Japan. The 1960s space race was about military prowess. This time it's about economic and technical leadership, but in terms of our future prosperity it is just as significant. The US says it no longer wants to spend big money on rockets and will let private industry build them. Nasa also plans to develop ways of refuelling spacecraft in space to cut the costs of taking them there. This might be the best way eventually to get humans to Mars. There will be robotic missions to explore where humans want to go. I hope this means that at last we will get a sample of Mars and the missions won't be an expensive waste of money. The main costs of the space programme are salaries – in relative terms the components cost very little. But you can't sack everyone in Nasa, because you know that at some future point you'll need their expertise and experience. I fear that in practice Nasa's leaders will be tempted to have their scientists undertake more background studies. But we've done all the studies we need to obtain samples from Mars and know exactly what to do with them. Why do we need such samples? For a start, it is not possible to have a manned mission to Mars until we can definitively answer the question of whether there is any life there. Without this information, we risk astronauts bringing back microbes to Earth which could wipe out life on our planet. I hope cancelling the moon mission will in fact accelerate humans going to Mars, not mean that something even more inspirational will slip back. Under George W Bush, the US had planned a manned lunar mission by 2015; this was then pushed back to 2018; now it's gone altogether. And Europe isn't any faster when it comes to going to Mars: the European Space Agency wanted to build ExoMars – a robotic mission to Mars – by 2009. But it's already 2010: they've been going for seven years and seem to have little to show for it. They've gone for a high-cost failsafe mission which is long in the planning; but I believe they should be doing smaller, faster, cheaper projects – those which require a limited number of people but can be quickly completed, and through which they can learn a lot, even if the mission "fails" – although I believe there's no such thing as failure if you learn something. I headed the Beagle2 Mars mission in 2003, and in my view it's impossible to ensure a mission has a 99.9% chance of success. It's far better to spend the money on, say, three missions that have 95% chance. Europe could have done Beagle again by 2007, but instead we are still waiting. By contrast, in India and China things are happening quickly – these countries are not afraid of making mistakes and learning from them. They've both had recent lunar missions; they're now planning to land on the surface with a robot; and after that will come a manned mission. I believe that the next man or woman on the moon will be Chinese. And the importance of this goes way beyond space travel, once a nation shows it has the ambition, the ingenuity and the economic strength to mount such a mission. Just as the launch of Sputnik in 1957 showed that the Soviets were a technological power to be reckoned with, so it will be with India or China. These countries recognise that dynamic economies need to create something for the nation to export – be it providing the innovation for electronic goods, or whatever. Lunar missions – and, beyond that, Mars missions – are hugely effective in bringing young people into science and technology. In the west, we have now had two generations who have missed out on such inspiration. Indeed, we risk our top scientists migrating to Asia. If you went into a British classroom and asked how many children wanted to be a scientist, on average 2% would put their hands up. In India, about 30% would say yes. That's the difference between the west and the emerging economies; and that's why, ultimately, if we don't address this situation, it could be us staffing their call centres. 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:30 pm Cyber Criminals Target Social NetworksWhen it comes to virtual communities, the biggest orchards often have the most bad apples.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:29 pm Mental Decline Predicts Stroke RiskPeople whose minds are slipping are at greater risk of stroke, a new study finds.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:09 pm Obama cancels Moon return projectPresident Obama is set to abandon Nasa's 'Moon rockets' and turn astronaut launches over to the private sector.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:05 pm Abstinence Programs for Children Work, Study Finds"Abstinence-only" sex education programs can work in certain groups of children, a new study says.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:05 pm Aldrin: 'Mars is the Next Frontier for Humankind'Buzz Aldrin fields questions at a Hollywood premier in 2008. Today he has issued a public statement on the realities of spaceflight (Ian O'Neill) This certainly isn't a surprise, considering Buzz Aldrin has been advocating manned missions to destinations other ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:04 pm Scientist in leaked climate emails fiasco 'hid' data flawsExclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced. Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue. Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up". The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science. The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades. Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair. It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist. The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act. The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full. The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007. Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural. The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities. The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter. The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?" Jones said he was not able to comment on the story. Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more. "Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them." In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said. Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008. Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise. "Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same." The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange. • For regular email updates on climate change and the environment sign up for the Guardian and Observer's Green light newsletter 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:00 pm Strange case of moving weather posts and a scientist under siegeIn the first part of a major investigation of the so-called 'climategate' emails, one of Britain's top science writers reveals how researchers tried to hide flaws in a key study It is difficult to imagine a more bizarre academic dispute. Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China? But the argument over the weather stations, and how it affects an important set of data on global warming, has led to accusations of scientific fraud and may yet result in a significant revision of a scientific paper that is still cited by the UN's top climate science body. It also further calls into question the integrity of the scientist at the centre of the scandal over hacked climate emails, the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Dr Phil Jones. The emails suggest that he helped to cover up flaws in temperature data from China that underpinned his research on the strength of recent global warming. The Guardian has learned that crucial data obtained by American scientists from Chinese collaborators cannot be verified because documents containing them no longer exist. And what data is available suggests that the findings are fundamentally flawed. Jones and his Chinese-American colleague Wei-Chyung Wang, of the University at Albany in New York, are being accused of scientific fraud by an independent British researcher over the contents of a research paper back in 1990. That paper, which was published in the prestigious journal Nature, claimed to answer an important question in climate change science: how much of the warming seen in recent decades is due to the local effects of spreading cities, rather than global warming? It is well-known that the concrete, bricks and asphalt of urban areas absorb more heat than the countryside. They result in cities being warmer than the countryside, especially at night. So the question is whether rising mercury is simply a result of thermometers once in the countryside gradually finding themselves in expanding urban areas. The pair, with four fellow researchers, concluded that the urban influence was negligible. Some of their most compelling evidence came from a study of temperature data from eastern China, a region urbanising fast even then. The paper became a key reference source for the conclusions of succeeding reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – including a chapter in the 2007 one co-authored by Jones. It said that globally "the urbanisation influence … is, at most, an order of magnitude less than the warming seen on a century timescale". In other words, it is tiny. But many climate sceptics did not believe the claim. They were convinced that the urban effect was much bigger, even though it might not change the overall story of global warming too much. After all, two-thirds of the planet is covered by ocean, and the oceans are warming, too. But when Jones turned down requests from them to reveal details about the location of the 84 Chinese weather stations used in the study, arguing that it would be "unduly burdensome", they concluded that he was covering up the error. And when, in 2007, Jones finally released what location data he had, British amateur climate analyst and former City banker Doug Keenan accused Jones and Wang of fraud. He pointed out that the data showed that 49 of the Chinese meteorological stations had no histories of their location or other details. These mysterious stations included 40 of the 42 rural stations. Of the rest, 18 had certainly been moved during the story period, perhaps invalidating their data. Keenan told the Guardian: "The worst case was a station that moved five times over a distance of 41 kilometres"; hence, for those stations, the claim made in the paper that "there were 'few if any changes' to locations is a fabrication". He demanded that Jones retract his claims about the Chinese data. The emails, which first emerged online in November last year following a hack of the university's computer systems that is being investigated by police, reveal that Jones was hurt, angry and uncertain about the allegations. "It is all malicious … I seem to be a marked man now," he wrote in April 2007. Another email from him said: "My problem is I don't know the best course of action … I know I'm on the right side and honest, but I seem to be telling myself this more often recently!" An American colleague, and frequent contributor to the leaked emails, Dr Mike Mann at Pennsylvania State University, advised him: "This crowd of charlatans … look for one little thing they can say is wrong, and thus generalise that the science is entirely compromised. The last thing you want to do is help them by feeding the fire. Best thing is to ignore them completely." Another colleague, Kevin Trenberth at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, urged a fightback. "The response should try to somehow label these guys and [sic] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database." In August 2007, Keenan submitted a formal complaint about Wang to Wang's employers. The university launched an inquiry. Reporting in May 2008, it found "no evidence of the alleged fabrication of results" and exonerated him. But it did not publish its detailed findings, and refused to give a copy to Keenan. By then, Keenan had published his charges in Energy & Environment, a peer-reviewed journal edited by a Hull University geographer, Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen. The paper was largely ignored at the time, but Guardian investigations of the hacked emails now reveal that there was concern among Jones's colleagues about Wang's missing data – and the apparent efforts by Jones and Wang over several years to cover this up. Those concerns were most cogently expressed to Jones by his ex-boss, and former head of the CRU, Dr Tom Wigley. In August 2007, Wigley warned Jones by email: "It seems to me that Keenan has a valid point. The statements in the papers that he quotes seem to be incorrect statements, and that someone (W-C W at the very least) must have known at the time that they were incorrect." Wigley was concerned partly because he had been director of the CRU when the original paper was published in 1990. As he told Jones later, in 2009: "The buck should eventually stop with me." Wigley put to Jones the allegations made by the sceptics. "Wang had been claiming the existence of such exonerating documents for nearly a year, but he has not been able to produce them. Additionally, there was a report published in 1991 (with a second version in 1997) explicitly stating that no such documents exist." This is believed to be a report from the US department of energy, which obtained the original Chinese temperature data. Wang's defence to the university inquiry says that he had got the Chinese temperature data from a Chinese colleague, although she is not an author on the 1990 Nature paper. Wang's defence explains that the colleague had lost her notes on many station locations during a series of office moves. Nonetheless, "based on her recollections", she could provide information on 41 of the 49 stations. In all, that meant that no fewer than 51 of the 84 stations had been moved during the 30-year study period, 25 had not moved, and eight she could not recollect. Wang, however, maintained to the university that the 1990 paper's claim that "few, if any" stations had moved was true. The inquiry apparently agreed. Wigley, in his May 2009 email to Jones, said of Wang: "I have always thought W-C W was a rather sloppy scientist. I would …not be surprised if he screwed up here … Were you taking W-C W on trust? Why, why, why did you and W-C W not simply say this right at the start? Perhaps it's not too late." There is no evidence of any doubts being raised over Wang's previous work. Jones told the Guardian he was not able to comment on the allegations. Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more. Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them." The story has a startling postscript. In 2008, Jones prepared a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research re-examining temperatures in eastern China. It found that, far from being negligible, the urban heat phenomenon was responsible for 40% of the warming seen in eastern China between 1951 and 2004. This does not flatly contradict Jones's 1990 paper. The timeframe for the new analysis is different. But it raises serious new questions about one of the most widely referenced papers on global warming, and about the IPCC's reliance on its conclusions. It is important to keep this in perspective, however. This dramatic revision of the estimated impact of urbanisation on temperatures in China does not change the global picture of temperature trends. There is plenty of evidence of global warming, not least from oceans far from urban influences. A review of recent studies published online in December by David Parker of the Met Office concludes that, even allowing for Jones's new data, "global near-surface temperature trends have not been greatly affected by urban warming trends." Keenan accepts that his allegations do not on their own change the global picture. But he told the Guardian: "My interest in all this arises from concern about research integrity, rather than about global warming per se. Jones knew there were serious problems with the Chinese research, yet continued to rely upon the research in his work, including allowing it to be cited in the IPCC report." The emailsFrom sceptic Doug Keenan to Dr Wei-Chyung Wang and Prof Phil Jones – 20 April 2007 "I ask you to retract your GRL paper, in full, and to retract the claims made in Nature about the Chinese data. If you do not do so, I intend to publicly submit an allegation of research misconduct to your university at Albany." From Jones to Dr Kevin Trenberth "I seem to be the marked man now !" From Prof Michael Mann to Jones "This is all too predictable. This crowd of charlatans is always looking for one thing they can harp on, where people w/ little knowledge of the facts might be able to be convinced that there is a controversy. They can't take on the whole of the science, so they look for one little thing they can say is wrong, and thus generalise that the science is entirely compromised." From Trenberth to Jones and Mann – 21 April 2007 "I am sure you know that this is not about the science. It is an attack to "undermine the science in some way. In that regard I don't think you can ignore it all … the response should try to somehow label these guys lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database." From Prof Tom Wigley to Jones – 4 May 2009 "I have always thought W-C W [Wang] was a rather sloppy scientist. I therefore would not be surprised if he screwed up here … Why, why, why did you and W-C W not simply say this right at the start? Perhaps it's not too late? I realise that Keenan is just a troublemaker and out to waste time, so I apologize for continuing to waste your time on this, Phil. However, I *am* concerned because all this happened under my watch as director of CRU and, although this is unlikely, the buck eventually should stop with me." 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:00 pm Charting the Winners and Losers in Obama’s Science Budget
President Obama’s administration revealed its new budget Monday, and it increases funding for nearly all areas of science. The largest raise went to the National Institutes of Health, which added $1 billion dollars to an already hefty budget. With the boost, the NIH would receive $32.1 billion in total funding. Only the Centers for Disease Control would receive less money than last year, although the cut is small. NASA, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Science Foundation, as well as smaller research efforts at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and Department of Agriculture, would also get bumps. Of course, Obama’s current budget is just a proposal. It still has to make it through Congress and some of his moves — like scrapping the Constellation program mission to the moon — could face heavy opposition. If approved, the increases would come in addition to the funding for science handed out by the stimulus package, which the Obama administration has often referred to as the “largest single boost in scientific research in history.” 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:32 pm Native American Plant Domestication Paved Way for TurkeysToday at Discovery News you can find out how Native Americans domesticated turkeys, not just once, but twice, well over 1,500 years before Christopher Columbus and other Europeans set foot on American soil. Native Americans were hardly starved for food. ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:03 pm Native Americans First Tamed Turkeys 2,000 Years AgoThe turkeys we eat today ultimately descended from breeds raised by the Aztecs.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:01 pm Breakthrough in AIDS ResearchResearchers have made a breakthrough in HIV research that had eluded scientists for over 20 years.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:00 pm The Lost Turkeys of the New World
Modern dinner-table turkeys are descended from birds domesticated 3,000 years ago by the Aztecs. But they weren’t the only turkey tamers: Indigenous inhabitants of what became the southwestern United States had their own prize breeds, now lost to posterity. Until now, it was assumed that all domesticated turkeys could be traced to the Aztec-bred lineage. However, a genetic analysis of bones and droppings at 38 archaeological sites in the southwestern U.S. shows that the birds there belonged to a distinctly different subspecies.
In the 15th century, Spanish Conquistadors took Aztec turkeys back to Europe. The birds proved popular, and were bred with local subspecies before being reintroduced to North America by colonial settlers in the 17th century. The settlers’ birds were carried westward as part of the same historical wave that obliterated native southwestern culture. The colonial turkeys ultimately became, in highly modified form, the industrial gargantuans of Thanksgiving fame. As for native southwestern turkeys, a handful of genes from a few escapees linger in existing wild birds, but the originals are gone. “We have no genetic evidence that these breeds survived into the present day,” said study co-author Dongya Yang, a Simon Fraser University archaeologist. But historically-inclined foodies may have better luck finding pure-blooded descendants of the Aztec birds. “It is quite likely that the indigenous Mesoamerican turkey breeds still survive in rural Mexico,” said Yang. Images: 1. Detail from Mimbres pottery bowl, circa AD 1000-1200, from Eric Kaldahl/Amerind Foundation 2. A network representation of the genetic relationships between North American wild and domestic turkeys/PNAS. Southwestern turkeys are the gray circles; modern commercial turkeys occupy the tiny, mostly-white mHap1 circle on the left. See Also:
Citation: “Ancient mitochondrial DNAanalysis reveals complexity of indigenous North American turkey domestication.” By Camilla F. Speller, Brian M. Kemp, Scott D. Wyatt, Cara Monroe, William D. Lipe, Ursula M. Arndt, and Dongya Y. Yanga. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 5, February 2, 2010. Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecological tipping points.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:00 pm Adults Need Less Sleep as They AgeOlder adults not only need less sleep, but they're also more likely to feel well rested.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:35 pm Obama Gives NASA More Money, Cuts Manned Trip to Moon
The Obama administration has officially decided to end the Constellation mission back to the moon, although the replacement plan faces a tough route through Congress. The new plan, which had been rumored for months, was announced today with the release of the Obama administration’s NASA budget request, which despite the axing of the moon plan delivers a $6 billion funding increase over the next five years. “NASA’s Constellation program — based largely on existing technologies — was begun to realize a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies,” the budget summary concluded. “Using a broad range of criteria, an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives.” As anticipated, the independent Augustine Panel’s work was used as the basis for the new NASA direction. Though the blue-ribbon panel did not officially take a position on which future plan made the most sense for NASA, statements made by members and the tone of their report made it clear that a continuation of the Constellation mission was not the group’s favored choice. Constellation had been heavily criticized since it was unveiled in 2005 by President George W. Bush. Even before the plan was announced, some scientists pointed out that manned exploration has drawbacks, such as high costs, extreme safety requirements, and humans’ biological sensitivity to radiation. Scientists such as Ronald Arkin of the Mobile Robot Laboratory asked whether robots could do exploration better. The high-profile success of the Mars Rovers, Cassini, and Mars Phoenix mission suggested that robotic exploration was viable, at the very least.
Even among those who supported blasting humans out of the atmosphere, the details of the Constellation program were subject to attack. Many criticized the Bush administration for not providing enough money to back its grand Vision for Space Exploration. In commenting on the Augustine report, David Mindell, a science and technology historian at MIT, called it, approvingly, “an utter rejection of the Bush plan because it’s unfundable, unbuildable and dangerous. ” NASA administrator Charles Bolden made measured statements, ultimately noting that regardless of Constellation’s merits, it was not going to put humans back on the moon as envisioned. “We were not on a sustainable path back to the moon’s surface,” Bolden said. The Obama administration’s budget also knocked the Constellation program for siphoning money “away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.” While Bolden painted a sweeping portrait of positive change, several key congressional representatives are spoiling for a fight over the loss of programs in their districts. Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, whose district includes the Marshall Space Flight Center, lashed out against the administration plan. “The President’s proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of U.S. human space flight. The cancellation of the Constellation program and the end of human space flight does represent change — but it is certainly not the change I believe in,” Shelby wrote in a statement. “Congress cannot and will not sit back and watch the reckless abandonment of sound principles, a proven track record, a steady path to success, and the destruction of our human space flight program.” Shelby harped on the need for safety in manned missions and held that commercial companies could not provide the low levels of risk that NASA could. Bolden, though, in his statements to the press, provided a personal guarantee that he’d protect astronaut lives. “I flew on the space shuttle four times,” he said. “I lost friends in two space shuttle tragedies, so I give you my word that these vehicles will be safe.” Predictably, commercial spaceflight companies were ecstatic at the news. “Working with NASA, the industry can develop the capabilities to safely launch U.S. astronauts just as commercial spaceflight providers are already trusted by the U.S. government right now to launch multi-billion dollar military satellites, upon which the security of our nation and lives of our troops overseas depend,” wrote Bretton Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, in a prepared statement. “Investing $6 billion will fund a full program of multiple winners for commercial crew, so that robust competition in the marketplace can reduce costs and generate innovation.” 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 | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:02 pm Harrabin's NotesWhy uncertainty needs to be part of the climate debateSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:02 pm Is Human Spaceflight Running Out of Time?Not under construction: The Ares I will likely be sidelined (NASA) Now the rocket booster smoke is clearing, it's becoming clear that NASA's direction for manned space exploration has been re-routed. The much feared "5-year gap" between the Shuttle getting ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Feb 2010 | 10:54 am Notebooks, Netbooks, Smartbooks: Which One Is Best For You?How to choose between a notebook, netbook and smartbook.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 10:05 am Can I Donate Blood to Myself?Autologous donation is most often employed in surgery on bones, blood vessels, the urinary tract, and the heart, when the likelihood of transfusion is high.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 9:40 am Plans for green energy cashbackPlans to reward eco-friendly householders for the green energy that their solar panels produce receive a muted welcome.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 8:50 am What in the World?The World Islands in Dubai are seen in a astronaut photo.Source: Livescience.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 7:08 am Earth WatchClimate deadline passes - but does it really matter?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:37 am Bonobo 'cannibalises' own infantA wild bonobo is seen cannibalising her own recently deceased infant, a behaviour never before recorded among these "peaceful" apes.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:05 am
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