Baked rhubarb could help fight cancer

Eating rhubarb baked in a crumble is not only tasty it may also be the best way to take advantage of its health benefits, and could lead to the development of new cancer treatments.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Chemists create synthetic 'gene-like' crystals for carbon dioxide capture

Chemists report creating a synthetic "gene," which could capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, rising sea levels and increased acidity of oceans.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Two years old -- a childhood obesity tipping point?

While many adults consider a chubby baby healthy, too many plump infants grow up to be obese teens, saddling them with type 2 diabetes, elevated cholesterol and high blood pressure, according to a new article.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Going for Gold: a physiologist’s view of champion cross-country skiers

Cross-country skiing is one of the most demanding of all Olympic sports, with skiers propelling themselves at speeds that exceed 20-25 km per hour over distances as long as 50 km. Yet the difference between winners and losers in these grueling races can be decided by just the tip of a ski, as a glance at any recent world-class competition will show. So just what gives top racers the advantage?
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Dietary formula that maintains youthful function into old age

Researchers develop dietary formula that maintains youthful function into old age.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Seeing the quantum in chemistry: Scientists control chemical reactions of ultracold molecules

Physicists have for the first time observed chemical reactions near absolute zero, demonstrating that chemistry is possible at ultralow temperatures and that reaction rates can be controlled using quantum mechanics, the peculiar rules of submicroscopic physics.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Mescal worm test shows DNA leaks into preservative liquids

Just because you don't swallow the worm at the bottom of a bottle of mescal doesn't mean you have avoided the essential worminess of the potent Mexican liquor, according to scientists. They have discovered that the liquid itself contains the DNA of the agave butterfly caterpillar -- the famously tasty mescal "worm."
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

New screening system for hepatitis C

A newly designed system of identifying molecules for treating hepatitis C should enable scientists to discover novel and effective therapies for the dangerous and difficult-to-cure disease of the liver, say chemical engineers who helped develop the screening system. The system enables researchers to study the effects of molecules that obstruct all aspects of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) life cycle.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Models of sea level change during ice-age cycles challenged

Theories about the rates of ice accumulation and melting during the Quaternary Period -- the time interval ranging from 2.6 million years ago to the present -- may need to be revised, due to new research findings.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Migraine may double risk of heart attack

Migraine sufferers are twice as likely to have heart attacks as people without migraine, according to a new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Astronomers back Chile to host huge telescope (AFP)

AFP - For astronomers, it appears that not only does size really matter but so does an eye-opening location.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 3:03 am

Putting climate science in the spotlight is not such a bad thing

The recent scandals demonstrate a wide misunderstanding of climate science, and of science more generally

So climate change is in the news. But now the media is discussing stolen emails, hacking, the shifting Chinese weather stations, how to extract and draw graphs of temperatures from tree ring studies, and how, how on earth, you get hundreds of authors to agree on almost 3,000 pages of reports.

Climate science in the spotlight may not be a bad thing. Though as a climate scientist, the lights seem pretty bright and rather dazzling. I'm relieved they've not yet been on me. So what on earth possessed me to write this piece?

I get worried when I hear news presenters asking other news presenters whether these controversies should affect political efforts to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions. Such a question demonstrates a misunderstanding of climate science, and of science more generally.

Perhaps people's perception of science originates from what they were taught at school. This "school science" is the source of solid facts and reliable understanding. Some of that science may be wrong, in the sense that it doesn't give the whole picture. Newton's laws of motion and gravity fit into that category; Einstein explained situations in which they fail. Yet even in such cases there is another sense in which they are right, or at least sufficiently accurate, because they help us understand and predict the particular thing we are studying. They are known to be "fit for purpose".

Such school science is very different to "research science". The former is about communicating what we already understand, the latter about developing and expanding our understanding. In research science new results and interpretations are continually developed. Disagreements and debate are common. Indeed they should be encouraged. And over time there is a shift of science from one to the other.

Climate change science is only unusual in this context because it has such huge significance for the world's societies. The public, the media, the politicians are all looking for answers from the science. Yet the understanding that drives the need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions has changed little over the past twenty years or so. I would argue that it has already moved from research science to school science.

It is rarely discussed by research scientists because it is so well understood. The chain of connections is a little too long to cover properly here. But fundamentally the properties of greenhouse gases means that increasing them traps more energy in the lower atmosphere. Putting more energy in warms things up. Even small changes in temperature have the potential to change the climate significantly; the last ice age may have been only five or six degrees colder than now when averaged across the globe. And of course global averages can hide large regional variations. Consequently we know we face increasing risks of everything from coastal inundation to changing water availability, changing ecosystems and knock–on effects to geopolitical stresses and security.

Maybe this sounds woolly. It is. There are still substantial uncertainties, even unknowns, regarding what will happen at any particular place and how it will affect the societies in which we live. These topics are still very much the domain of research. And believe me, the arguments among researchers about how to provide reliable predictions at local scales are lively and heated.

But such uncertainties are irrelevant to whether we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically as soon as possible. There is no uncertainty that the consequences of climate change will be severe for global society, and therefore for us as members of that global society. The consequences for any individual may come through the direct effect of changes in local climate or it may come through changes to the working of, and stability of, global economic systems. Whatever the case, climate change represents a future of much increased risk. We would do well to act now to minimise those risks.

• David Stainforth is a senior research fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Feb 2010 | 2:52 am

Falklands oil prospects raise Argentina-Britain tensions (AFP)

AFP - British oil drilling operations around the Falkland Islands are whipping up new tensions with Argentina almost 30 years after the two countries went to war over the South Atlantic archipelago.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 2:43 am

Space Station Gets New Room, Windows in Spacewalk (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - The International Space Station got a bit bigger Thursday night thanks to two spacewalking astronauts who helped attach NASA's last major room for the orbiting lab and what promises to be the ultimate window on the world.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 2:30 am

Greenpeace calls for fair trial in Japan whale case (AFP)

AFP - Greenpeace on Friday urged Japan to give a fair trial to two of its activists who sought to expose embezzlement in the state-funded whaling industry but were instead arrested for theft and trespass.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 2:14 am

Space station gets room, huge window to see Earth (AP)

AP - Astronauts put the last big addition on the International Space Station early Friday, attaching a new room with an enormous bay window that promises to provide unprecedented panoramic views of Earth.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 2:04 am

Body clock

Why does time fly when you are having fun?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Feb 2010 | 2:00 am

Bolivia to launch satellite

Impoverished South American country creates space agency to build and launch satellite with Chinese help

An unlikely newcomer is about to make the final frontier a little more crowded: Bolivia is to launch a satellite into space.

The impoverished South American country, famed more for llamas and Andean peaks than technology, has created a space agency to build and launch a satellite with Chinese help.

Named after Túpac Katari, an Aymara Indian leader who fought Spanish colonialists, the satellite is intended to improve communication in rural areas and boost indigenous pride.

President Evo Morales signed the decree creating the Bolivian Space Agency at a cabinet meeting this week, the public works minister, Walter Delgadillo, told a media conference.

"It will be in charge of carrying out the project to build and send into orbit the Túpac Katari satellite, but will also promote other satellite programmes for the benefit of the country."

It will also keep alive the name of a rebel who led an uprising against Spanish overlords before being captured, tortured and torn into four pieces in 1781.

Construction of the third-generation DFH-4 satellite is due to start next month and it is hoped to have it in orbit by 2013. The agency, which will initially operate out of the capital La Paz, will have a modest starting budget of $1m (£600,000), loose change by Nasa's standards.

Bolivia hopes China, which has invested economic and political capital to expand its influence in South America, will cover most of the estimated $300m costs. It will seek donations and loans from other countries. Last year the UN offered Bolivia technical help on orbital positions and frequency bands.

Morales, the country's first indigenous president, is due to sign a contract with Beijing during a visit to China next month. The former llama herder and coca grower has championed indigenous rights, nationalised key industries and in addition to China has forged ties with Venezuela and Iran. Mandarin language schools are booming in La Paz.

The space programme follows Venezuela's $400m deal with China to launch a satellite last year. Named after the liberation hero Simón Bolívar, it helps to transmit a state-backed TV network, among other tasks.

"This will put an end to media terrorism and help us spread our own truth, to wage the battle of ideas with efficiency and transparency," President Hugo Chávez, who often clashes with private media, said after the launch.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Feb 2010 | 1:05 am

Japan angry at anti-whaling activists (AFP)

AFP - Japan expressed strong anger Friday at militant anti-whaling activists who have harassed its harpoon ships in Antarctic waters, after three of the whalers reported minor injuries this week.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 12:56 am

Astronauts install space station's last hub

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The shuttle Endeavour crew bolted the last connecting module onto the International Space Station on Friday, completing more than a decade of major construction on the outpost.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 12:29 am

NASA launches observatory to study sun (AP)

AP - The most advanced solar observatory ever built rocketed into space Thursday on a five-year quest to shed light on Earth's star.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 12:10 am

Clock ticks for South China tigers in symbolic year (Reuters)

Reuters - In the rugged hills of southern China, conservationists are battling to save the critically endangered South China tiger, an initiative given extra impetus as Chinese celebrate the Year of the Tiger.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Feb 2010 | 12:08 am

New study links drilling to Indonesia mud volcano

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A team of scientists said in a report on Friday that they had found the strongest evidence yet linking a devastating mud volcano in Indonesia to drilling at a gas exploration well by local energy firm PT Lapindo Brantas.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Feb 2010 | 11:33 pm

C.S.I. In Space

C.S.I.: Miami went where no episode has gone before this past week: into space! Specifically, the world of commercial space tourism. Maybe you caught the preview during Sunday's Super Bowl Game. If not, here's the gist: A dead man falls ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 10:57 pm

Primal Aggressiveness May Explain Our Stride

We may be lousy runners compared to other animals, but we sure can hold our own in a fight.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 10:15 pm

Do speedy elephants walk or run?

Scientists use a hi-tech running track to answer the weighty question of whether fast-moving elephants walk or run.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Feb 2010 | 10:06 pm

Links to Spirituality Found in the Brain (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality. The findings hint at the roots of spiritual and religious attitudes, the researchers say.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Feb 2010 | 8:10 pm

US climate skeptics seize on blizzard (AFP)

AFP - US opponents of climate change action are seizing on a record snowfall in Washington in hopes of killing legislation to curb carbon emissions, which already faced uncertain political prospects.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Feb 2010 | 8:06 pm

Links to Spirituality Found in the Brain

Scientists have identified areas of the brain that, when damaged, lead to greater spirituality.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 8:04 pm

Rain Defeats Tech at the Winter Olympics

The future of the Winter Olympics is uncertain and I fear that no amount of green tech will be able to save the snow. Vancouver's efforts to make the current games sustainable have been laudable, but global warming is turning ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 6:52 pm

Mud Volcano Was Man-Made, New Evidence Confirms

A new analysis shows that a deadly mud volcano in Indonesia may not have been a natural disaster after all. The research lends weight to the controversial theory that the volcano was caused by humans. 

Villagers near Sidoarjo noticed a mud volcano beginning to erupt at 5 a.m. local time May 29, 2006. It was about 500 feet from a local gas-exploration well. Every day since then, the Lusi mud volcano has pumped out 100,000 tons of mud, or enough to fill 60 Olympic-size swimming pools. It has now covered an area of almost 3 square miles to a depth of 65 feet. Thirty thousand people have been displaced, and scientific evidence is mounting that the company drilling the well caused the volcano.

“The disaster was caused by pulling the drill string and drill bit out of the hole while the hole was unstable,” said Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute and co-author of a new paper in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, in a press release. “This triggered a very large ‘kick’ in the well, where there is a large influx of water and gas from surrounding rock formations that could not be controlled.”

Mud volcanoes can form in two different ways. New fractures in rock that caps mud deposits can open, allowing the mud to rise to the surface if it’s under pressure. Or, an earthquake can liquefy mud that then travels through pre-existing cracks to the surface.

Davies argues that the “kick” fractured the rock in the area, opening up new pathways for pressurized mud to come flowing up to the surface. Davies’ team’s research uncovered new evidence from a drilling log that the drilling company, Lapindo Brantas, pumped drilling mud down their well to try to stop the mud volcano.

“This was partially successful, and the eruption of the mud volcano slowed down,” Davies said. “The fact that the eruption slowed provides the first conclusive evidence that the bore hole was connected to the volcano at the time of eruption.”

The new paper came in response to a paper published by the company’s lead driller in the same journal. Lapindo Brantas has long maintained that drilling did not cause the eruption. Instead, the company claims an earthquake that occurred two days before and about 175 miles away did the damage. Obviously, there are financial ramifications if the drilling company is found liable for the disaster.

The problem with the earthquake hypothesis is the stress changes caused by the quake would have been relatively small, too small to cause the volcano, said Davies’ co-author, University of California at Berkeley geologist Michael Manga.

“There is 1,000 times not enough energy to cause the eruption,” Manga said.

He was drawn into the controversy when the drilling company cited one of his papers on how earthquakes can cause mud volcanoes and have on 32 occasions. But Manga noted that based on all the historical examples that scientists have, what the company claimed happened was impossible.

“So I wrote a one-page paper [in 2007] saying it could not possibly have caused the mud volcano,” he said.

Other scientists came to similar conclusions, although some doubts remained.

An even stronger piece of evidence that the earthquake could not have created the mud volcano, Manga said, is that in the years before the quake, there were “bigger and closer earthquakes that did not cause an eruption.”

In fact, the stress changes associated with the tides are larger than the stresses caused by the earthquake that happened to strike two days before the mud volcano eruption began.

Still, the editor of the journal in which both the company’s paper and the Manga-Davies rebuttal was published said that it was possible that the same data could be subject to multiple interpretations.

“In geology, sometimes it’s not about being right or wrong, it’s about being reasonable or unreasonable,” said editor Octavian Catuneanu, geologist at the University of Alberta. “The funny thing is that sometimes datasets can be interpreted by different people in different ways, and this leads to arguments and controversies.”

Still, there is a large financial incentive for Lapindo Barantas’ scientists to find that their company was not responsible. “The drilling company cannot say anything different, right?” Manga said.

But Catuneanu said that no matter who the scientists were working for, they still had to meet the scientific standards of the journal.

“I guess there would be some bias there, but as a journal editor, what I need to make sure is that the authors of an article stick to the science,” he said. “If they want to have something publishable, they have to bring data and discuss it in a scientific manner.”

Lapindo Barantas could not be reached for comment.

Images: 1. AP Photo/Trisnadi
2. NASA

See Also:

• Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake
• Scientists Drill a Mile Into Active Deep Sea Fault Zone
• Video: Installing the World’s Deepest Drilling Oil Rig
• Happy 150th, Oil! So Long, and Thanks for Modern Civilization
• Carbon Burial Research Grows as Huge Experiment Begins

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Tumblr, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Feb 2010 | 5:44 pm

'Crabzilla' claws its way into the Birmingham Sea Life Centre

A Japanese spider crab, thought to be the biggest ever to go on show in the UK, arrives at Birmingham Sea Life Centre.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Feb 2010 | 5:26 pm

Sea-level records challenged

High point 80,000 years ago may hint at flaws in ice-age theory.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/rMqlda4Wew0" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 11 Feb 2010 | 5:00 pm

Acid soil threatens Chinese farms

Overuse of fertilizers is imperilling food supply.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 11 Feb 2010 | 5:00 pm

Mexican Meteorite: Was it Russian Space Junk?

UPDATE (4:00 am ET, Feb. 12): It would appear the initial reports of a "30 meter wide" crater may have been incorrect. No photographic evidence of the location of this mystery crater has emerged and AFP journalists are reporting that ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 4:40 pm

Sweet Science: The Health Benefits of Chocolate

Eating chocolate has been linked to many health benefits, including better heart health, and now, reduced risk of stroke. But that's no excuse to gorge on it, experts say.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 2:09 pm

Scientists find clue to anxiety drug addiction

LONDON (Reuters) - Valium-like drugs use the same potentially addictive "reward pathways" in the brain as heroin and cannabis, scientists said on Wednesday, findings which may help in the search for non-addictive alternative anxiety drugs.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Feb 2010 | 2:06 pm

Antibiotics Breed Superbugs Faster Than Expected

A newly discovered mechanism of antibiotic resistance helps explain how bacteria have so quickly undermined medicine’s front-line defenses, turning miracle drugs into duds in just a few decades.

Scientists have long known that exposing bacteria to the right antibiotics will kill most of them, but leave a few mutants that happen to resist the drug better than the rest. These mutants go on to multiply, and eventually the whole strain evolves resistance.

Now a new study paints a more complicated picture of antibiotic resistance. Bacteria don’t just develop resistance to one drug at a time, but to many — and at accelerated rates. That’s because antibiotics boost bacterial production of free-radical oxygen molecules that damage bacterial DNA. Repairs to the DNA cause widespread mutations, giving bacteria more chances to randomly acquire drug-resistant traits.

“You have a wide range of mutations being introduced across the genome. Some afford resistance to that antibiotic. Some afford resistance to other antibiotics,” said James Collins, a Boston University biomedical engineer who described the mechanism in a paper published Feb. 11 in Molecular Cell. “It would happen anyways, but this process is accelerating it.”

Drug resistance is a serious public health concern. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70 percent of 1.7 million infections acquired in hospitals every year are resistant to at least one drug. Those infections annually kill 99,000 Americans — more than double the number that die in car crashes.

Drugs that once destroyed almost any bacteria now kill only a few, or don’t work at all. In the case of some drugs, like Cipro, the decline is dramatic: Where in 1999 it worked against 95 percent of E. coli, it treated only 60 percent by 2006. Against lung infection-causing Acinobacter, its effectiveness fell by 70 percent in just four years.

Though drug resistance is ultimately inevitable, conventional wisdom holds that antibiotics consumed at suboptimum doses hasten the process. Bugs that would have succumbed to a larger dose live to multiply, pushing the strain as a whole closer to resistance. That happens when a prescription goes unfinished, or when antibiotics used on farms enter food and water at low levels.

The conventional wisdom isn’t wrong, but the new findings suggest that drugs push bacteria towards resistance even more rapidly, and in more ways, than was thought.

“It’s a really important paper. It underscores that we don’t fully know how antibiotic resistance is engendered,” said Harvard University molecular biologist Deborah Hung. “If you treat with low concentrations of antibiotic, the bugs respond by increasing their mutation rates.”

In earlier research, Collins’ team showed that antibiotics don’t only kill bacteria as expected – by corroding cell walls, messing with DNA and blocking proteins — but by triggering the release of free-radical oxygen molecules. Thanks to an extra electron, the free radicals bind easily and corrosively with other molecules, and prove as lethal as the drugs themselves.

For the latest study, the researchers tested whether free radicals might also affect drug resistance by using sublethal doses of five common antibiotics on Staphylococcus aureus, the annual cause of 500,000 infections in the United States, and two strains of E. coli, including one taken from a patient.

The free radicals caused DNA damage that didn’t kill all the bacteria. The bacteria’s self-repair processes then introduced mutations to genes that provided resistance to many drugs, not just those being administered.

Drugs might be found that could alter bacterial DNA repair systems, but that prospect is extremely speculative, said Collins.

Hung said more research is needed to show how different bacteria respond. Mutation rates might vary between strains. It’s also possible that free-radical damage also accelerates horizontal gene transfer, in which bacteria swap genes without reproducing. If so, resistance could develop faster and spread more rapidly.

“The clinical significance is not clear yet, but it certainly should make us pause and think about the way we use antibiotics,” said Hung.

In recent years, public health experts have recommended that doctors use antibiotics only when necessary, and that patients complete every prescription. They’ve also called for dramatic cuts in the agricultural use of antibiotics.

Of the 35 million pounds of antibiotics consumed annually in the United States, 80 percent goes to farm animals. Much of it is used to treat diseases spread by industrial husbandry practices, or simply to accelerate growth. As a result, farms have become giant petri dishes for superbugs, especially multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which kills 20,000 Americans every year – more than AIDS.

Alarming cases of farm-based MRSA and other diseases led to a proposed Congressional law restricting the use of agricultural antibiotics. That bill, supported by the American Medical Association and American Public Health Association, is opposed by farm lobbyists and remains stuck in committee.

“We need to look carefully at situations where antibiotics are used in agriculture and water supplies,” said Collins. “The benefits may not outweigh the potential harm we’re doing by creating stronger, more problematic microbes.”

Image: Samantha Celera/Flickr

See Also:

• Obama, Farm Industry Clash Over Antibiotics
• Tamiflu in Rivers Could Breed Drug-Resistant Flu Strains
• Swine Flu Ancestor Born on U.S. Factory Farms

Citation: “Sublethal Antibiotic Treatment Leads to Multidrug Resistance via Radical-Induced Mutagenesis.” By Michael A. Kohanski, Mark A. DePristo, and James J. Collins. Molecular Cell, Vol. 37 No. 3, February 11, 2009.

“The Fast Track to Multidrug Resistance.” By Benjamin B. Kaufmann and Deborah T. Hung. Molecular Cell, Vol. 37 No. 3, February 11, 2009.

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 | 11 Feb 2010 | 2:03 pm

Dire Straits Dinosaur and Devil Frog Unveiled

Reconstructions of four of the most unusual animals to have ever existed were publicly unveiled this week at Stony Brook University, according to a press release issued by the university. The animals include a carnivorous dinosaur named after Dire Straits ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 1:54 pm

Study hints at dark matter action

Researchers in the US say they have detected two signals which may indicate the presence of particles of dark matter.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Feb 2010 | 1:50 pm

NASA launches satellite to watch for solar storms

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA launched a science satellite on Thursday to keep a close watch on the sun and help improve forecasts of the solar storms that can disrupt navigational signals, satellites and power grids.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 11 Feb 2010 | 1:32 pm

Good News Study: 3 out of 4 Teen Girls Happy with Their Bodies

According to a national survey released today by the Girl Scouts on the eve of New York City’s legendary Fashion Week, most girls are happy with their bodies and reject thin fashion models as unrealistic. According to a Girl Scouts ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 1:16 pm

Why Advertised Broadband Speeds Lag Behind Reality

Slower-than-advertised connection speeds have left broadband consumers frustrated.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 12:48 pm

Climate e-mails inquiry under way

An expert panel officially begins its inquiry into the "Climategate" affair, but immediately sees one member resign.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Feb 2010 | 12:41 pm

New 3-D Map of Interstellar Gas Around the Sun

Space is a pretty empty place. But it’s not completely empty, as a new map of the interstellar space in the 1,000 light-years around the sun shows.

Using the light from 1,857 stars, a team of French and American astronomers were able to measure the density of the gas surrounding our sun by examining fine differences in the starlight. They confirmed the presence of the Local Cavity, represented by the white area above, which scientists think was swept of gas by an old supernova explosion.

“Nobody knows for sure, but the consensus of opinion is that there was a giant supernova that went off about 5 or 10 million years ago, and the big explosion cleared everything out of the way and left a big hole in the interstellar medium,” said astronomer Barry Welsh of the University of California at Berkeley.

The Local Cavity has a radius of about 260 light-years. The area is so empty that if you were to fly along scooping up the hydrogen atoms in the interstellar medium between our solar system and the edge of the cavity, you’d only have collected enough to fill half a coffee cup with them, Welsh said.

The Local Cavity is surrounded by a wall of relatively denser gas. But the wall isn’t impenetrable. It’s riddled with “interstellar tunnels” that lead from one pocket of less dense gas to another.

The work builds on a 2003 map and was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. It incorporates more than twice the data of the previous map. By mapping this gas, Welsh said we were filling in major blanks in our knowledge about the galaxy.

He said that our previous maps of our local area just had the stars, but not the gas, which was like “a map of the USA that just has the cities.”

Citation: “New 3D gas density maps of NaI and CaII interstellar absorption within 300 pc,” by B. Y. Welsh, R. Lallement, J.-L. Vergely, and S. Raimond. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2010, vol. 510, A54 (February 9, 2010).

See Also:

• Scientists Create First Map of an Extrasolar Planet
• Dark Energy Hunters Catch a Wave
• Edge of Solar System Is Not What We Expected
• Solar Eclipse Images Show Dazzling Corona Detail

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Tumblr, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 11 Feb 2010 | 12:11 pm

Chubby Babies Often Become Obese Teens

As early as three months, an infant could be on his way to obesity, which means a suite of health problems.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 11:57 am

Florida's Wildlife Freezing to Death

Manatees, sea turtles and fish in the Sunshine State are dying in record numbers because of the unusually long cold snap.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 11:45 am

Rolls-Royce chief: industry needs more UK science and engineering graduates

Sir John Rose says that many overseas students return home, leaving a skills gap in UK manufacturing

Not enough British students are studying engineering and science in the UK, hampering efforts to revive industry, according to Rolls-Royce chief executive, Sir John Rose.

He said many students acquiring the skills and training relevant to manufacturing are foreign who mostly return home at the end of their degrees to begin their careers: "Very large numbers of graduates which are going through British universities are non-UK nationals. The supply of UK graduates is not as big as we would like. If we are going to grow the manufacturing base we need to grow the [skills] pool."

Rolls-Royce hired 700 graduates and apprentices last year, the vast majority in the UK, and the most in its history. Rose said the company, which employs 23,000 people in the UK, was able to recruit the graduate talent it needed, but smaller companies may lose out from the dearth of British talent.

"You have to do high valued added [manufacturing] activity if you're going to pay as much as we do. It means you have to have high levels of education. You need reasonably smart people to do it."

He also welcomed the government's policy of "industrial activism", an attempt to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing and reduce its reliance on the City.

"Both political parties are talking about industrial strategy," he said. "There has been a change of language and a change in some policy. There is a recognition now that the government has a role. For decades one thought the government does not have a role and the markets are the best way to make decisions. But if the markets are distorted because every other government has a view, then you probably need your own view."

Rolls-Royce, which makes engines and power equipment for airlines, military aircraft, boats and the energy industry, was announcing a higher than expected 4% rise in pre-tax profits for last year, sending shares up 6.5%. The company recorded lower profits for its civil aerospace division as airlines cancelled orders in the wake of the economic slowdown. Rose said it was not clear when orders would pick up and analysts said that the company would continue to be impacted this year. He said earnings this year would be flat, but claimed that the company would double revenues over the next decade.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Feb 2010 | 11:39 am

Momentum Shifts to Skeptics on Global Warming Debate

Momentum has shifted in the debate over global warming as skeptics gain the upper hand.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 11:26 am

Somali Pirates Letting Illegal Fishing Run Wild?

A new article just out in New Scientist suggests that the lawless seas off the coast of Somalia may be in serious environmental danger, as pirates allow fishermen to resort to destructive, unregulated fishing practices. Typically, fishing vessels in the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 10:33 am

Solar probe lifts off in Florida

The US space agency (Nasa) launches its Solar Dynamics Observatory from Florida on a mission to study the Sun.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Feb 2010 | 10:28 am

Facebook Data Reveal Secrets of American Culture

Ex-Apple engineer mines public Facebook data for patterns of ‘Net-connected Americans.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 10:14 am

Stuttering Linked to Genetic Mutation

Stuttering is almost certainly the result of a biological problem, not an emotional one.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 9:45 am

Inquiry into alleged abuse of peer review

Panel will examine behaviour over preparation of 'hockey stick' graph and alleged abuse of peer review, says inquiry head

The inquiry set up by the University of East Anglia into thousands of emails from its climate scientists published online will ignore the question of whether or not global warming is caused by human activity, the chair of the inquiry team said today.

Sir Muir Russell said it was not the review panel's job to "audit the Climate Research Unit's [CRU] scientific conclusions". Instead the inquiry, which will report in the spring, would limit itself to questions about how the scientists behaved, and whether they properly followed procedures.

Russell said the inquiry would focus on specific issues raised by the emails, such as the way a distinctive "hockey stick" graph of historical temperatures was prepared, and suggestions that CRU scientists had abused the peer review system to keep sceptical papers from academic journals. It would also look at the high profile statement that climate scientists used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures inferred from tree ring data.

The inquiry was set up and paid for by the university in the wake of allegations that the emails, released in November, showed scientists had manipulated data, censored critics and failed to comply with requests to share their data with critics.

Russell said they had set up a website and invited submissions and comments. "We don't intend [the site] to become what you might call a noticeboard on issues that go far beyond what we are about," he said, adding that comments would be vetted to keep them on the specific topics raised. He insisted the review was independent of the university, which would have no input into its conclusions.

Russell defended the time taken to begin the inquiry. He said it was needed to select the team as well as carry out preliminary work, such as talking to the police and several of the scientists involved.

Other members of the six-man panel include Geoffrey Boulton of the University of Edinburgh, Phil Campbell, editor of the journal Nature, and David Eyton, group head of research and technology at BP.

Russell said it would be important for the panel to judge the actions of the scientists, on issues such as data handling and storage, by the standards expected at the time, not the present day.

The review is one of a handful into the affair, dubbed "climategate" by some commentators, which has focused attention on climate science and provoked calls for resignations.

Separately, the university today announced it has asked the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, to help reappraise the scientific conclusions of the unit.

Trevor Davies, pro-vice chancellor of the university, said: "The process and findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself."

There is also a parliamentary inquiry into the emails and their implications, as well as investigations by the police and the information commissioner. Separately, the Guardian is conducting a unique experiment, publishing online the full manuscript of a major investigation into the email controversy and allowing users to annotate the manuscript to help create the definitive account of the story.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Feb 2010 | 9:41 am

Robot bomb defusers and kneepad goo

Innovative technology at the Centre for Defence Enterprise

A robotic hand that could defuse bombs remotely, a camera with the ability to detect minute changes in the landscape and a mysterious orange goo that absorbs the impact of bomb blasts are among new battlefield technologies unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.

The innovations, designed to make life safer for frontline troops, are being funded by grants from the MoD's Centre for Defence Enterprise, which encourages private companies to bring their products straight to the government for development.

The man behind the artificial hand is Richard Walker, managing director of the Shadow Robot Company. He said he hoped the hand wouldmake life safer for bomb disposal experts. "It could be attached to a robot and used in difficult, dirty and dangerous places where you don't want to go but have to," he said, extending the fingers of the robotic hand by flexing his own inside a glove that transmitted the movement to the machine. "The idea is that you can operate the hand in shirtsleeves without having to wear heavy bomb disposal body armour."

Waterfall Solutions, a Guildford-based company with a line in "situational awareness" technology, has received a £70,000 CDE grant to develop its vehicle-mounted camera systems.

"They can see through smoke, fog or the dust of a landing helicopter," said the firm's managing director, Moira Smith.

The cameras can record and analyse terrain to determine whether the features of the landscape have been altered by the planting of roadside bombs. Any differences, right down to "pixel level changes", are highlighted on a screen inside the armoured vehicles so that crews are alerted to potential threats.

"We're focusing on ground-based changes [for the improvised explosive devices]," said Smith. "But they could also be used higher up to spot snipers in the windows of buildings."

At the CDE's base in Oxfordshire there were camouflage flak jackets woven from conductive textiles designed to free soldiers from lugging about "Christmas trees" of bulky wiring and heavy batteries. Nozzles to improve jet engine fuel efficiency and sketchy details of a drone that might one day be able to stay airborne for three months at a time and travel a thousand miles with a 20kg (44lb) payload were displayed.

The oddest invention was a see-through plastic box holding orange goo. The substance, more formally known as d3O technology ("a soft and flexible material made from intelligent molecules that lock together on shock to absorb and spread force"), had been used by Olympic skiers before it attracted the MoD's attention.

The company, also called d3O, is developing the material as a lightweight, shock-absorbing lining for helmets and for use in soldiers' kneepads. "We're used to people calling it goo," said Philippe Vandervorst from d3O's research and development department . "But we never do. We call it by its scientific name, which I can't tell you because there's a lot of chemical ingredients involved."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Feb 2010 | 9:02 am

Vaccine-Autism Link Had Long, Inaccurate History

The Lancet finally has retracted the flawed 1998 study that invented the vaccine-autism link, and the lead author has been disgraced, but the damage is done.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 8:55 am

Battle Lines Drawn to Repel Asian Carp Invasion

Federal officials are proposing a $78.5 million plan to keep this invasive species out of the Great Lakes.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Feb 2010 | 8:29 am

Hubble space telescope snaps Saturn's twin auroras during rare equinox

Hubble took advantage of the unusual edge-on view of Saturn's rings to simultaneously image the light shows at both poles

The Hubble space telescope has captured the dazzling glow of Saturn's twin auroras as they light up both poles of the planet simultaneously.

Video of the cosmic light show was recorded during the Saturnal equinox last year when Hubble had a unique edge-on view of the planet's rings, allowing it to take snapshots with both north and south poles in view.

The rare footage reveals slight differences between the auroras, with the glowing lights in the north being smaller but more intense than those in the south. The effect is caused by Saturn's magnetic field being unequally distributed across the planet and stronger in the north.

Auroras on Saturn, as on Earth, are caused by charged particles from the sun becoming trapped in the magnetic field of the planet. The particles concentrate at the poles where the magnetic field is strongest. The familiar glow of an aurora is created when these energetic particles slam into atoms in the upper layer of the atmosphere.

An equinox occurs at each of the two points in a planet's journey around the sun when light from the star falls perpendicularly to the planet's equator, resulting in days and nights of roughly equal length. Saturn's far-flung orbit means it only experiences an equinox twice every 30 years.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Feb 2010 | 8:03 am

Cloud Computing Poised to Transform Gaming

Advances in cloud computing technology could enable gamers to run complex 3D graphics on low-end PCs, TVs and even smartphones.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 7:36 am

How Gay Uncles Pass Down Genes

Homosexual men may be predisposed to nurture their nieces and nephews as a way of helping to ensure their own genes get passed down to the next generation.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 7:21 am

Scientists Freeze Water with Heat

Freezing point of water changes with an electric charge.
Source: Livescience.com | 11 Feb 2010 | 6:30 am

We're not on a pedestal: peer review keeps our feet on the ground

We deal in theories and uncertainty - not egocentric preaching, say Stephen Curry and Bill Hanage

Simon Jenkins is dismayed by reports of the lax behaviour of some scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the allegations of some stem cell researchers that their work is being held up by rivals during peer review (Scientists, you are fallible. Get off the pedestal and join the common herd, 5 February).

Conflating these stories with his ill-founded distrust of epidemiology, Jenkins paints a grim picture of science and scientists as corrupting and corruptible: "They cheat. They make mistakes. They suppress truth and suggest falsity, especially when a cheque or a plane ticket is on offer." According to him, the profession is a dangerous "clerisy" that "wants the pubic to regard its role in society and the economy as axiomatic - with no obligation to prove it."

If Jenkins aimed his rhetorical flourishes to get a rise out of scientists then, judging by the comments posted on the online version of his article, he succeeded admirably. The howls of protest are not so much from righteous anger, however, as from our frustration with his misrepresentation of the scientific process. Jenkins is an intelligent writer with an avowed love of popular science: why then does he have so little appreciation of how science really works? His closing statement betrays the scale of his misunderstanding: "Only when science comes off its pedestal and joins the common herd will it see the virtue of self criticism."

If Jenkins had talked to some real scientists, he would have discovered that very few are sitting on pedestals - the vast majority live and breathe in a daily scrum with our intensely sceptical colleagues, whom we must convince of the logic and quality of our experiments. The fear of being found wanting by your peers is a powerful incentive for exactly the self-criticism Jenkins claims is lacking. We have no experience of the "two decades of uncritical flattery" that he alleges have blunted scientific rigour. The peer-review process, unique to science, may be an imperfect mechanism for weeding out error, but it is a powerful one: this is clearly seen in the fact that most mistakes are unearthed not by journalists or sceptical bloggers, but by other scientists.

Popular science can sometimes give the mistaken impression that science is a linear progression from ignorance to glossy fact. But no human endeavour ever works so smoothly or can claim to be perfect.

Science offers us the best hope of informing society's difficult choices in an uncertain world, so it is important that knowledge is communicated accurately to the public. Scientists are not in the business of handing down incontrovertible truths. We deal in observations and theories, couched in uncertainty, to produce our best models of how the world works; it is a messy and difficult business.

Scientists could do better at communication, but we also need to enlist the help of talented writers who will take the trouble to engage with the reality of science. Mr Jenkins, we need to talk.

• Stephen Curry is professor of structural biology, and Bill Hanage is reader in infectious diseases, both at Imperial College London

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 11 Feb 2010 | 3:17 am

Scientists call for code review

Leading scientists tell the government its attempts to safeguard the independence of scientific advice might do more harm than good.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Feb 2010 | 2:37 am