New drug for kidney transplant recipients effective in humans

Initial results of a study conducted at 100 centers worldwide indicate that belatacept, a first-in-class co-stimulation blocker can prevent the immune system rejecting new organs. The results also suggest that it may provide similar patient and graft survival to cyclosporine but with fewer side effects and superior kidney function after 12 months.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm

Why today's galaxies don't make as many stars as they used to

Scientists have found that fewer stars are born in present-day galaxies because interstellar raw materials have become sparse over time.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm

Rose-colored glasses have many shades: Shopping decisions and emotions

A proud consumer won't necessarily make the same purchase as a contented one, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm

Putative skull of St. Bridget probably not authentic

The putative skull of St. Bridget of Sweden that has been kept in a shrine in Vadstena Abbey is probably not authentic. A new study reveals that the two skulls, believed to be from St. Bridget and her daughter Catherine, are not from maternally related individuals. Furthermore, dating shows that the skulls are not from the time period when Bridget and Catherine lived.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm

Mathematical model predicts slight sports injuries

Spanish researchers have developed a new mathematical model that predicts sport injuries. Their work shows that sport injuries that affect the lower limbs in high-impact sport, such as football, athletics or basketball, can be predicted through the use of equations of logistic regression.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm

'Secret weapon' of retroviruses that cause cancer

Oncogenic retroviruses are a particular family of viruses that can cause some types of cancer. Scientists have now identified a "virulence factor" that inhibits the host immune response and allows the virus to spread throughout the body. This factor is a sequence of amino acids that is located in the envelope protein of the virus.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm

Small liquid sensor may detect cancer instantly, could lead to home detection kit

What if it were possible to go to the store and buy a kit to quickly and accurately diagnose cancer, similar to a pregnancy test? A researcher is developing a tiny sensor, known as an acoustic resonant sensor, that is smaller than a human hair and could test bodily fluids for a variety of diseases, including breast and prostate cancers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Chickens 'one-up' humans in ability to see color

Researchers have peered deep into the eye of the chicken and found a masterpiece of biological design. Scientists mapped five types of light receptors in the chicken's eye. They discovered the receptors were laid out in interwoven mosaics that maximized the chicken's ability to see many colors in any given part of the retina, the light-sensing structure at the back of the eye.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Immune system turns on the body in narcolepsy

It is thought that the sleep disorder narcolepsy is an autoimmune disorder -- that is, it is caused by the individual's immune system attacking certain cells in the body -- but this had not been proven definitively. But now, researchers have now identified autoantibodies (immune molecules that target a natural protein in the body rather than a protein from an infectious agent) in narcolepsy patients.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Phobos flyby season starts again

Today Mars Express began a series of flybys of Phobos, the largest moon of Mars. The campaign will reach its crescendo on March 3, when the spacecraft will set a new record for the closest pass to Phobos, skimming the surface at just 50 km. The data collected could help untangle the origin of this mysterious moon.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

NASA releases first images from WISE spacecraft (AP)

AP - A glowing comet. A star-forming cloud. A new view of the Andromeda galaxy. A dense galaxy cluster.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:45 pm

Flooded Mangroves, Disappearing Tigers

There's no question the polar bear has pretty much lapped the field in the "big, furry mammals at risk from climate change" stakes. But according to a new paper in the journal Climatic Change, there is another, unexpected example of ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:37 pm

Shuttle astronauts make last walk

Astronauts complete their third and final spacewalk of the current shuttle mission to the International Space Station.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:36 pm

Obama says his commitment to NASA is "unwavering"

HOUSTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday said his commitment to NASA was "unwavering" after his administration's 2011 budget slashed funding to return U.S. astronauts to the moon.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:28 pm

Dozens of primate species on the brink: study (AFP)

AFP - Seldom seen species of lemur, monkey and gorilla are among 25 primates facing near-certain extinction unless urgent measures are taken to protect them, according to a report released Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:17 pm

Happiness reduces risk of heart disease, research finds

Boosting good feelings could help prevent condition

Leading a happy life means you are less likely to develop heart disease, according to research published today.

The team behind the study – who believe it is the first to show an independent relationship between positive emotions and heart disease – said it could have major implications for improving people's health, suggesting it might be possible to help prevent the condition by boosting people's good feelings.

The researchers followed 1,739 healthy adults over 10 years, assessing their risk of heart disease and measuring symptoms of depression, hostility and anxiety, as well the degree of expression of positive emotions, known as "positive affect". Positive affect is defined as the experience of pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment.

The team, from the Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, found that over the decade, increased positive affect led to a lowering of risk of heart disease by around a fifth at each point on a five-point scale measuring levels of happiness, ­ranging from "none" to "extreme". So those who had no positive affect were at a 22% higher risk of heart disease than those with a small positive affect, who were themselves at a 22% higher risk than those with moderate positive affect. The findings took account of age, sex and heart-associated risk factors.

The study's lead researcher, Karina Davidson, said: "We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and patients could do to improve health."

The study, published in the European Heart Journal, said that positive affect is largely independent of negative affect, so someone who is generally happy and contented can also occasionally be anxious, angry or depressed.

"We also found that if someone who was usually positive had some depressive symptoms at the time of the survey, this did not affect their overall lower risk of heart disease," Davidson said. "As far as we know, this is the first prospective study to examine the relationship between clinically assessed positive affect and heart disease."

There are several possible explanations, according to lead researcher Karina Davidson. Happier people may have longer periods of rest or relaxation, which puts less pressure on their bodies' automatic reflex activities. They may also recover more quickly from stressful events and spend less time reliving them, which seems to cause physiological damage itself.

Davidson said people should try to inject some fun into their daily routines, rather than only allowing themselves to enjoy life in short bursts."Some people wait for their two weeks of vacation to have fun, and that would be analogous to binge drinking," she said. "If you enjoy reading novels, but never get around to it, commit to getting 15 minutes or so of reading in.

"If walking or listening to music improves your mood, get those activities in your schedule. Essentially, spending some few minutes each day truly relaxed and enjoying yourself is certainly good for your mental health, and may improve your physical health as well."

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said the study showed an unprecedentedly clear link between happiness and a lower risk of developing heart disease.

"The BHF is funding science to unravel the biology that underlies this link," Ellen Mason, the foundation's senior cardiac nurse, said. But she added that the study did not prove cause and effect or say for sure whether changing mood could reduce the risk.

"This research suggested that those who naturally had a 'glass half- full' mood seemed to be most protected from disease," she said. "But we're not all like that, and we know that improving your mood isn't always easy – so we don't know if it's possible to change our natural levels of positivity."

Mason recommended that people took time to indulge in healthy activities that could lift their mood, but said keeping established risk factors under control remained crucial.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:05 pm

Obama calls space station from White House (AP)

AP - Outer space? President Barack Obama is on the phone for you.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:39 pm

Industry loses lawsuit over Alaska forest logging (AP)

AP - A federal judge threw out an industry lawsuit Wednesday that could have led to more logging and road building in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest federal forest.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:36 pm

Archbishop Tutu's DNA helps show African diversity (AP)

AP - Scientists who decoded the DNA of some southern Africans have found striking new evidence of the genetic diversity on that continent, and uncovered a surprise about the ancestry of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:31 pm

Viewing Vesta: Use Binoculars to Spot an Asteroid (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Have you ever seen an asteroid? If not, this week is an excellent time to do so: Vesta, the brightest asteroid, will be well placed for observation with binoculars in the constellation Leo.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:30 pm

UCLA brings together animal-research factions

Dialogue is key to dealing with extremism, say panellists on both sides of debate.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/YQdYRkDKuks" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:20 pm

Setting the climate record straight

A co-chair of the IPCC's beleaguered second working group discusses recent criticisms.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:16 pm

Africa yields two full human genomes

Sequences show rich diversity among the population.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

How accurate are cancer cell lines?

Some argue that tumour cells obtained directly from patients are the best way to study cancer genomics.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

World view: Calling science to account

Scientists and the media are trapped in a cosy relationship that benefits neither. They should challenge each other more, says Colin Macilwain.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

Carbon sequestration: Buried trouble

Protesters saying "no to CO" are just one roadblock facing carbon sequestration — a strategy that could help prevent dangerous climate change. Richard Van Noorden investigates.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

Evolution: Revenge of the hopeful monster

Experiments have revealed how single mutations can have huge effects that drive evolution. But small steps pave the way, finds Tanguy Chouard.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

General relativity tested on a tabletop

Atomic-clock experiment pins down accuracy of fundamental gravity measurement.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

Astronomy: The decadal dinner club

As hundreds of US astronomers draft their latest decadal wish list of new projects, took a short-cut by convening a small survey around a dinner table. Eric Hand listens in.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 pm

Pharaoh puzzle

What really killed Tutankhamun?
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Feb 2010 | 3:55 pm

Fun with Feynman Diagrams

The fun-loving folks blogging on behalf of the Large Hadron Collider offered a real treat to particle physics fans this week, especially those who know their history: an entire post devoted to playing with so-called "Feynman diagrams." These childlike scribbles ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 3:07 pm

Stem cell experiment reverses aging in rare disease

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a surprise result that can help in the understanding of both aging and cancer, researchers working with an engineered type of stem cell said they reversed the aging process in a rare genetic disease.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 2:47 pm

The Ethics of Planetary Exploration and Colonization

Humans are no strangers to ravaging the land, but the stars have proven a good deal more elusive. So far, our ethical concerns have remained limited to the contamination of extraterrestrial environments, but what will the future bring? Vatican astronomer ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 2:38 pm

How to Do the Ultimate Aging Study

Longevity is one of the hottest areas of science, but there’s a curious hole in the research: Scientifically speaking, nobody knows how to measure aging, much less predict reliably how people will respond to time’s ravages.

After all, aging isn’t just chronological. Some people are spry and nimble in their elder years. Others are afflicted by the diseases of aging — heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia and stroke — by middle age.

Many researchers think those diseases are manifestations of a common underlying cause, known conversationally as aging but as yet undefined by science. They call for studies that would gather exhaustive clinical and genetic data from thousands of people over many years, hopefully identifying the biological mechanisms of growing both older and unhealthier.

“Unlike models of drug development for the diseases of aging, which have consensus endpoints to evaluate, we have not reached a consensus in aging,” said gerontologist Don Ingram of the Pennington Biomedical Reseach Center. “We don’t know how to predict how someone will function later in life, and we need to.”

That such a basic gap exists seems counterintuitive. After all, longevity-enhancing research has never been so prominent. Following leads revealed by animals on calorically restricted diets — they tend to live longer, apparently because dietary stress triggers cell-protecting routines that prevent aging diseases — scientists have found genes and pathways that can be targeted by drugs.

Resveratrol, a natural compound that affects mitochondrial function and DNA repair, and its pharmaceutical derivatives have been used to prevent diabetes in obese mice. Now they’re being tested in humans. Manipulations of the growth-regulating IGF-1 pathway have extended lifespans in lab animals. Rapamycin, used to suppress autoimmune responses in people receiving organ transplants, has extended the lives of elderly mice. It’s now being tested in mice against specific diseases.

All these findings hint at a universal aging process, and the concept has finally gone mainstream. Longevity research earned a December U.S. News and World Report cover story, and a Time cover package this month. But these experimental results are preliminary, and only tweak pieces of a larger puzzle. Gerontologists say that to develop drugs that slow the aging process, they need to know far more about aging’s biology.

“We need to have a set of thousands of people, representing all groups, that are closely followed on health measures. They’d be tested three or four times a year, for five or 10 years. Then you’d have a good sense of the trajectory of aging,” said David Harrison, a Jackson Laboratory gerontologist who co-authored the landmark paper on rapamycin’s life-extending potential.

According to Harrison, people enrolled in the proposed study could, after several years, opt to take rapamycin. That would let researchers see whether it works in people as it does in mice. If so, they’d also have a detailed account of resulting gene and protein changes, and insight into whether rapamycin works better in some people than others.

Rapamycin does have toxic side effects. Though treatment could be stopped immediately, safety couldn’t be guaranteed. But as Harrison noted, “There are hundreds of clinics for rich people to take anti-aging treatments that are at best placebos, and they pay ungodly amounts of money. Wouldn’t some people, at least, like to participate in a science-based study where they have their trajectory of aging measured and monitored?”

For now, such a study wouldn’t be run by the Jackson Laboratory or a governmental funding agency, like the National Institutes of Health. It would likely take place under the auspices of a private foundation, with study participants footing much of the bill.

But take rapamycin out of the equation, and a long-term study of aging biomarkers would be suitable for institutional funding. Of course, it would still be expensive. But even a long-term study of aging in rodents would be useful, and it would also be more affordable, said Felipe Sierra, director of the National Institute on Aging’s Division of Aging Biology.

“If we had a set of biomarkers that at 12 months of age predicted which mice would die younger or older, then we could shorten mouse studies to 12 months,” said Sierra.

To get funding, such a study would have to overcome the mixed legacy of a decade-long project launched by the NIA in the late 1980s. Researchers looked for biological markers in rodents, but had neither the technology nor the understanding necessary to find them.

“We spent a lot of money and got nothing. Now it’s taboo in our field,” said Sierra. “But we weren’t ready. Each one of us was looking for a single biomarker of aging. It turns out that there’s no such thing. But with the advent of modern metabolomics and proteomics, it might be possible to do this.”

Sierra noted that — at a moment of cheap gene sequencing and high-powered genome association studies, when desktop computers crunch terabytes of gene and protein data — the most reliable indicator of aging is still whether people look old. It’s hardly scientific.

“The technology has advanced to the point where we should be able to try,” said Sierra.

Image:Lynn Lin/Flickr

See Also:

• Caloric Restriction Comes in a Pill
• USC Gerontologists Set Longevity Record
• New Longevity Drugs Poised to Tackle Diseases of Aging
• Cancer Drug Delays Aging in Mice

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 | 17 Feb 2010 | 2:27 pm

Genome study shows what cancers have in common

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Genetic abnormalities -- missing DNA or duplicate DNA -- that fuel the growth of one type of cancer may actually be at work in several others, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 2:08 pm

Stem cell experiment reverses aging in rare disease (Reuters)

Reuters - In a surprise result that can help in the understanding of both aging and cancer, researchers working with an engineered type of stem cell said they reversed the aging process in a rare genetic disease.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 1:30 pm

Pudgy Birds May Migrate Faster (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A little extra weight may be a good thing if you're a small migrating bird. Fatter birds of certain species migrate faster than thinner ones, because the chubby birds need less time to stop and replenish their fat reserves, a new study suggests.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 1:25 pm

Pudgy Birds May Migrate Faster

Fat birds migration faster than thin ones because they spend less time re-fueling their fat reserves, a new study suggests.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 1:08 pm

The Foggiest Idea

When Mark Twain said that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, he was talking about the fog and the strong afternoon winds that are set in motion by rising pressure differences between California's hot, ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 1:03 pm

Decoded DNA Reveals African Diversity

Some Africans within walking distance of one another show more genetic diversity than a European and an Asian living a continent apart.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 1:01 pm

Miracle Coma Patient’s Inspiring Story Proved Fictional

Late last year, a man named Rom Houben recovered from a coma. This was not a particularly noteworthy event, except that Houben had been in what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state” since 1983. Yet in 2006, a brain scan ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 12:25 pm

Information Anarchy: Don’t Believe What You Read

Can we believe what we uncover from the internet?
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 12:25 pm

Comet’s 10 Million-Mile Tail Lights Up in Infrared

NASA’s new infrared telescope has released its first images.

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer has returned more than 250,000 raw images. To celebrate its performance thus far, NASA selected four of them for processing and publication.

Above, you can see the comet, Siding Spring, which was discovered in 2007 by Australian observers. Its 10 million-mile-long tail is made of glowing dust pushed away from its nucleus by the solar wind.

WISE launched on Dec. 14, 2009 and took in its first starlight at the end of the month. The telescope is intended to survey the entire sky looking for cosmic oddities. The mission will also provide better data on the average size of asteroids in the solar system, which will refine scientists’ estimates of how often a dangerous near-Earth object hits the Earth.

WISE is one of three space-based telescopes that observe in the infrared. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory also look at the longer wavelength side of the electromagnetic spectrum. Because the longer light waves travel more effectively through fine particles, the infrared is best for observing dusty regions.

In the image below, we see the Andromeda galaxy’s dusty spiral arms. WISE has four detectors in the infrared spectrum, which measure light with wavelengths of 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 microns. By using only the detectors that can measure the longest wavelengths, scientists can generate images like the one below, which shows just the dusty arms of the galaxy, which are heated by young stars.

Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

See Also:

• New NASA Sky Mapper to Hunt Stars, Galaxies, Near-Earth Asteroids
• Spitzer Spots Swirling Stars at the Center of the Galaxy
• Violent Star-Forming Nebula Caught by Spitzer Telescope
• Strange Eye-Shaped Galaxy Has Black-Hole Iris
• Infrared Telescope Warms Up to Star-Forming Cloud

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Feb 2010 | 12:17 pm

Trees as a Source of Greenhouse Gases

We generally think of trees as one of our biggest natural allies in the fight against global warming. And they are -- they suck up billions of tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide every year. But in an interesting ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 12:17 pm

Westminster dog show 2010 results: Scottish Terrier 'Sadie' (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Christian Science Monitor - Here are your Westminster dog show 2010 results: Sadie the Scottish Terrier won best in show. She was heavily favored, but the pressure didn’t get to her. She won anyway.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 12:08 pm

Archbishop in genome health study

Scientists analyse the genomes of five southern Africans, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:43 am

Egypt's King Tut born of incestuous marriage: tests

CAIRO (Reuters) - Ancient Egypt's teenage king Tutankhamun was born of an incestuous marriage, scientists said on Wednesday, helping to explain why he limped on a club foot and suffered other deformities and genetic defects.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:38 am

Fasting Might Make Chemotherapy More Effective

A short period of fasting prior to chemotherapy may protect healthy cells but leave cancer cells vulnerable to drugs, according to a new study. 

The results are very preliminary, based on animal research and a case study of just 10 people. But if they hold up, doctors could have a new tool for reducing chemotherapy’s side effects and safely administering larger doses.

“Side effects aren’t just, ‘Will I lose my hair or not?’” said Valter Longo, a University of Southern California gerontologist. “It’s, ‘Will I be able to receive a high dose or not?’”

For the last decade, Longo has studied the effects of caloric restriction on cell function. In lab animals, diets with 25 percent fewer calories than normal are linked to extended, healthy lifespans. The mechanisms are poorly understood, but it seems that dietary stress activates cell-protecting mechanisms.

Longo’s specialty is insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1, a protein that regulates cell growth. Its production is limited during fasting. In yeast and roundworms, inhibiting IGF-1 has produced record lifespans. According to Longo, people who read about his work elected on their own to try fasting before chemotherapy. “We told them not to, their oncologists told them not to, but the patients went ahead and did it,” he said.

Their accounts were gathered in a case report published in December in the journal Aging. Of 10 patients, six reported fewer side effects when they received chemotherapy while fasting, rather than while consuming food normally. Four received chemotherapy only while fasting, and reported fewer side effects than is typical. The effects of treatment did not appear to be altered at all.

In a paper published Monday in Cancer Research, Longo’s team followed the human findings with a study of mice with cancer. Fasting reduced their IGF-1 levels. When given chemotherapy, none of the normal-diet control group survived, while 60 percent of fasting mice lived.

The findings are subject to many caveats. A mouse study is only a mouse study, few people were involved in the human study, and negative results may not have been reported. Still, the results have sparked further interest. In addition to his own ongoing clinical study at USC, Longo said the Mayo Clinic and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles are also planning tests.

Longo also started a company, L-Nutra, to develop a line of chemotherapy-tailored meals.

“I’d never tell patients to keep this in mind, but I’d tell the oncologists,” said Longo. “If someone is out of options and suffering terribly, you have to keep in mind things that could make a difference, though there isn’t a clinical trial with 2,000 people finished.”

Image: Nic McPhee/Flickr

See Also:

• To Survive Cancer, Live With It
• Cancer Drug Delays Aging in Mice
• Top 5 Viable New Cancer Treatments

Citations: “Fasting and cancer treatment in humans: A case series report.” By Fernando M. Safdie, Tanya Dorff, David Quinn, Luigi Fontana, Min Wei, Changhan Lee, Pinchas Cohen, and Valter D. Longo. Aging, Vol. 1 No. 12, December 31, 2009.

“Reduced Levels of IGF-I Mediate Differential Protection of Normal and Cancer Cells in Response to Fasting and Improve Chemotherapeutic Index.” By Changhan Lee, Fernando M. Safdie, Lizzia Raffaghello, Min Wei, Federica Madia, Edoardo Parrella, David Hwang, Pinchas Cohen, Giovanna Bianchi, and Valter D. Longo. Cancer Research, Vol. 70 No. 4, February 15, 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 | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:32 am

Some 'Dinosaurs' Evolved from Birds?

Some animals identified as being dinosaurs may have evolved from birds, according to a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Creationists are already all over this one. Keep in mind that animals can evolve ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:31 am

African gene trawl may provide secrets to long life

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A genetic peek deep into the heart of Africa confirms that Africans have more genetic diversity than Europeans or Asians and provides insights into how to live a long life despite disease and famine.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:18 am

Where Physics Meets Art

From some perspectives, art and physics seem to be two completely unrelated ways of seeing the world. Yet the two disciplines sometimes intersect in fascinating ways.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:11 am

John Henderson obituary

Psychiatrist, reformer and adviser to Greece on mental health

John Henderson, who has died aged 80, was an influential figure in psychiatry, mental health and human rights around the world. Long after official retirement, he continued his work with startling energy through a vast array of voluntary and non-governmental organisations right across Europe – especially Mental Health Europe, which he helped to found in the late 1990s.

In particular, he supported colleagues and activists working for the reform of the Greek mental health system. The appalling institutions for mentally ill people and those with learning disabilities on the Greek island of Leros, in the south-east Aegean, became more widely known from the early 1980s. When full, the institutions had housed around 3,000 people. During John's tenure at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Europe, and as part of its accession to the European Union, Greece made a request for special assistance to reform and modernise its mental health system away from institutional care.

Controversially, a special programme was agreed in 1984. However, by 1987 nothing had happened to change conditions in Leros, very little money had been spent and there were moves in the European parliament to end the programme. Then an Observer journalist, John Merritt, and an independent film- maker, Jane Gabriel, decided simultaneously to draw the world's attention to Leros with dramatic press coverage swiftly followed by two powerful documentaries broadcast on Channel 4.

Such was the public outrage that a compromise was agreed by the European commission for the assistance programme to be renewed and extended for five years from 1990. John was asked, as part of this deal, to lead an independent team of experts working for the European commission to monitor and evaluate the progress of the reforms. For five years the European Commission Independent Team of Experts (ECITE) spent six to eight weeks a year in Greece reviewing progress in Leros and – just as importantly – reviewing the changes to the mental health system that would make the institutions on Leros and elsewhere in Greece redundant. It was a challenging assignment.

The outside experts were not always welcome or popular, and it required all of John's diplomatic skills and firmness to win the trust and co-operation of politicians, bureaucrats, officials, the medical profession, the staff and the patients of the institutions. The work that led to the eventual closure of the worst parts of the institutions in Leros and at other sites involved many people from Greece and elsewhere who came to change the terrible conditions. The contribution of ECITE under John's leadership was to keep the show on the road when it seemed that the political and administrative blockages would bring the reforms grinding to a halt.

The work of ECITE ended in 1995, with the worst abuses, at least, on the way to being dealt with. However, John and other team members were regularly invited back by the Greek government and by the organisations running the new services to monitor progress – especially when momentum was in danger of being lost. As recently as last June, John spoke at a memorable meeting in Brussels in front of EC commissioners, MEPs and officials as, once again, the reform programme was brought back from the brink of collapse.

Gabriel summed up John's contribution in Greece and more generally: "I remember some remarkable times with him and how he managed to maintain a cheerful equilibrium when all around was either as grim as it gets – or worse.

"He was a man who inspired a quiet optimism, and more than once kept me going in the Leros days, by insisting that improvement would come, and in that case, of course, he was right."

Born in the town of Galashiels, Borders, John attended Central secondary school in Aberdeen and Melville College, Edinburgh. He studied medicine at Aberdeen University, graduating in 1954, and undertook national service with the Royal Army Medical Corps, in Kenya (1955-57). He then trained as a psychiatrist at Kingseat and Cornhill hospitals in Aberdeen.

After becoming a consultant in 1963, John took up the post of physician superintendent, first at Bilbohall hospital, in Elgin, and then at Bangour, in West Lothian. In 1976, after two years at the Scottish Office, he took up his first international posting as a regional adviser in mental health for WHO in south-east Asia, and then moved to the European regional office in 1980.

The thread that ran through John's life's work was his belief that psychiatry should be about helping people with mental heath problems to have the possibility of a better life. That meant caring about the whole person and the circumstances in which they lived. He was one of the early pioneers of social psychiatry, a firm believer in the abilities and capacities of people living with and recovering from mental illness, and always a fierce critic of the discrimination and human rights abuses that were – and unfortunately still are – rife across many parts of Europe and the rest of the world.

John was kind, supportive and encouraging to those who were trying to do the right thing in challenging circumstances. It was this combination of stern authority, compassion and an in-depth knowledge of psychiatry and mental health as practised throughout the world that made him such a potent force for change.

He is survived by Toshie, his wife of 52 years, four sons – two of whom work in mental health – and 10 grandchildren.

Two weeks before his death John finally agreed to the wishes of his sons and colleagues to establish a foundation in his name to help continue the mental health work he so passionately believed in across Europe.

• John Henderson, psychiatrist and reformer, born 29 November 1929; died 4 January 2010

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:09 am

Desmond Tutu's genome mapped in gene diversity study

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has had his genome sequenced in research to reveal the true breadth of human genetic diversity

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has become the latest prominent figure to have his full genome deciphered, scientists revealed today.

The South African clergyman and human rights campaigner agreed to the procedure as part of a study into the breadth of human genetic diversity and the role an individual's genetic makeup plays in their health.

The Anglican archbishop's genetic sequence and those of four southern African bushmen have been added to a freely available public database where medical researchers can study them.

The African continent is widely regarded as the cradle of humanity, where human genetic diversity is at its greatest, but scientists have overwhelmingly focused their genetic research on western and Asian cultures.

As a result, research into drugs and diseases almost completely ignores the genetic variation of the African population, meaning drugs are often less effective there than elsewhere in the world and gene variants that make people more susceptible to certain diseases are missed.

The latest research is intended to give pharmaceutical companies the information needed to identify genes that increase the risk of disease and to develop more effective drugs, such as antiviral treatments for HIV in Africa.

An international team of researchers, led by Stephan Schuster at Penn State University, sequenced the genomes of four tribal leaders who are all in their 80s and come from communities in Namibia that still practise a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The genome of the archbishop, who is 79, was particularly important for the study because he is a Bantu descended from the Tswana and Nguni people, who account for around 80% of southern Africans.

Each of the men provided a near lifelong medical history, which will help link particular genes to their health. The archbishop, for example, has survived polio, prostate cancer and tuberculosis, all of which are influenced by genes.

"We wanted to understand the genetic diversity of all mankind," Dr Schuster said. "Since Africa is the cradle of humanity, this is where diversity is at its greatest."

The study, published in the journal Nature (vol 463, p 943), reveals stark differences between the genetic make-up of southern Africans and the genomes of Europeans, Asians and west Africans.

"On average there are more genetic differences between any two bushmen in our study than between a European and an Asian," said Webb Miller, a professor of biology at Penn State and co-author of the study. "To know how genes affect health, we need to see the full range of human genetic variation, and southern Africa is the place to look," he added.

The researchers identified 1.3 million genetic variants among the southern Africans that have never been seen before. Medical companies have started analysing the genetic information with a view to developing tests for diseases and personalising drug treatments for patients by tailoring them to their genome.

Schuster's team found genes in the bushmen that made them unusually susceptible to malaria and the ill effects of a high-fat diet: genetic variants that are not seen among more agricultural populations.

The genetics pioneer Craig Venter, and James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, have both had their genomes sequenced and made available to scientists using the public GenBank database.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 11:02 am

Tigers Face 'Dire' Threats in Year of the Tiger

According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, we are now in "The Year of the Tiger." After 1.5 million years of existence, however, tigers could become extinct during our lifetime, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has just released a ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 10:20 am

Astronauts open shutters on space station viewport

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station on Tuesday to put the finishing touches to an observation deck that gives residents a panoramic view of the Earth below.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:56 am

Brain boxes

Are elephants much smarter than we thought?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 9:48 am

New Kid-Friendly Robot Is Programmable

A new remote-controlled robot available this fall will likely be the first of many programmable toys aimed at children.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 8:45 am

Bill Gates Invests Millions in Nuclear Power

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and, more recently, a philanthropist tackling AIDS and malaria is now turning his attention to clean energy. Last Friday, he spoke at the TED Talks in Long Beach, CA and told the audience, "If ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Feb 2010 | 8:32 am

Tests show King Tut died from malaria, study says

CHICAGO (Reuters) - King Tutankhamen, the teen-aged pharaoh whose Egyptian tomb yielded dazzling treasures, limped around on tender bones and a club foot and probably died from malaria, researchers said on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 8:22 am

Surrogate saviour

'Cross-fostering' aims to save marsupial species
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 8:19 am

Why People Fake Illness

People who fake being sick do it for different reasons.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 7:33 am

Slow to act

UK bomb-detector exports to Thailand questioned
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 7:30 am

Migrating Monarch Butterflies Have Longer Wings

Study of monarch butterfly wings shows migratory populations have longer wings.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 7:13 am

Tut's ills won't kill fascination, historians say (AP)

AP - It turns out Egypt's beloved boy-king wasn't so golden after all — or much of a wild and crazy guy, for that matter.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:48 am

Chickens See Color Better Than Humans

Chickens may have superior color vision compared to humans, a new study says.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:44 am

Brain Activity Measured While Flies Fly

Electrodes hooked up to tiny fruit-fly brains showed a boost in activity when in flight.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:16 am

There's no quick fix for depression

The NHS favours pills and short-termist CBT. Life-changing therapy takes time, but could save our economy millions

When it comes to depression, the British stiff upper lip is alive and well. A recent survey by the charity Turning Point reveals that three quarters of British people experience depression at some point, making it one of the UK's most common health concerns. Despite its prevalence, a third of sufferers do not seek help due to embarrassment, worries about confidentiality and a feeling that they could cope by themselves.

Turning Point's findings are depressingly familiar to me. As well as being a journalist, I work part-time as a parents' helpline adviser at the mental health charity YoungMinds, where depression is the most common theme of the calls – even if the "D" word is never mentioned. Some of these calls are carbon copies of each other – the names, locations and social classes change, but the story remains the same: a young person has dropped out of education or employment, they've stopped seeing their friends; they can't even get out of bed or hold down an undemanding part-time job. Why, ask many parents, won't they just pull themselves together?

I'm originally from Brazil, where chatting openly about your emotions, problems and, indeed, your psychotherapist (among the middle classes, at least) is de rigueur. But I was brought up in Britain, where depression is rarely out of the news, yet is often treated with a mixture of suspicion, contempt and shame. It's not just young Neets (not in employment, education or training) who are falling prey to it – although one could be rather superficial and say that, what with today's job market, they have the most to be miserable about.

Depression is, of course, much more than just status anxiety. From Alexander McQueen's death to Dolly Parton's recent revelation that she had been suicidal in the 1980s, every week another gifted and admired public figure is revealed to have suffered from crippling misery. Artists, writers and performers, however, have a get-out clause: they are allowed to express their dark sides, so we don't have to.

Around 31m prescriptions for antidepressants are doled out every year to the British public. After all, pills – like cognitive behavioural therapy – are cheap, and fit neatly into the idea that a depression is a "chemical imbalance" that can be easily cured. The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr John Steiner tells me that the chemical imbalance idea can be "damaging, but it's partly true. Some people are just more prone to depression than others. But then there's also an interaction of that person's genetic make-up with their relationships". According to Steiner, CBT "can often work in the short term, but it doesn't affect the underlying problem. It's a symptom-treatment, like antidepressants".

Longer-term psychotherapy aims to uncover those underlying problems. But as anyone with depression will know, getting referred on the NHS to anything other than CBT is almost impossible. On the YoungMinds helpline, I've even heard of young people being offered electroconvulsive therapy before talking therapy – one would think that it would be the last, not the first or second, resort.

Imagine if you had cancer and you couldn't get referred to a life-saving treatment. Like cancer, depression kills people and destroys lives – not just of sufferers, but of their families too. Just as there are different types of cancer, there are different types of depression. I suffered a relatively mild version a couple of years ago and I was at pains to disguise it: after all, I had a fantastic job at a newspaper, a wonderful boyfriend and loving, supportive family and friends – what did I have to be miserable about?

A friend of mine has suffered from a more aggressive form of the illness. "It feels walking through treacle," she said. "Everyday tasks seem exhausting and impossible, people terrifying and hostile, and life an endless desert of weariness and despair." Unlike me, she's been through the mill of NHS mental health services, has gulped down the antidepressants and tried CBT, to little or no avail.

"It too often seems like an admittance of weakness, in a way that having a broken arm or gastric flu just doesn't," she admits. "I've felt very, very patronised by GPs. Being asked questions like, 'Do you feel worthless?' or 'Do you feel suicidal?' in a form-filling monotone is somewhat dispiriting. It's hard to be strong and assertive when you're suffering. And often that's what you need, when services are very hard to access."

In short, people who cannot afford private treatment are being locked out by a system that favours cheap, temporary fixes over long-term results. Yes, access to proper treatment for depression – the kind that can actually change one's life – would be a drain to the economy, but so are all the depressed, under-supported people who make up the majority of incapacity benefit claimants.

Economically, it could make perfect sense, if a more productive, happier Britain was within our grasp.

• This article was commissioned after being suggested by a commenter in a You tell us thread

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 5:00 am

Ancient giant cattle genome first

Scientists are publishing details of their research of the DNA of large wild cattle that died out almost 400 years ago.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:50 am

No 'extensive hunt' of rare whale

One of the rarest whales in the world was not a victim of extensive whaling as previously supposed, a study says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:12 am

Cold weather hits wildlife across the UK

The coldest January in years is wreaking havoc among deer, but the National Trust says this year's spring promises to be the most spectacular in years

The "big chill" has delayed the arrival of spring flowers by up to one month and threatened thousands of deer with starvation as snow and ice bury the plants on which they survive.

With the Met Office warning of the possibility of icy weather again today, more evidence emerged, if we needed it, of just how the coldest January in years has hit wildlife and gardens at opposite ends of Britain.

Large numbers of red and roe deer are thought to have succumbed to lack of food in Scotland, with several estates having stopped deer shoots, although the annual cull of red deer hinds does not stop until next Monday. The Deer commission for Scotland has advised managers that they should continue with the roe deer cull, which does not end until next month.

One estate official told the BBC: "As the snow melts and people return to the hills, they will find dead deer. There's no doubt about that." Colin McLean, wildlife manager at the Glen Tanar estate on Deeside, added: "The sheer depth of snow has prevented deer getting at their food in certain places, and the frost has frozen the snow and they can't dig through it. It's nature at work."

But the commission said animals should still be shot on welfare grounds. "Natural mortality is an ongoing event, but this year it's going to be much greater than normal because of the weather we have had," said Robbie Kernahan, its director of deer management. "We'd encourage deer managers to get out and make sure they are removing the animals at greatest risk, which are likely to suffer through March and April."

Although this winter has been exceptional, UK spring has been arriving earlier than ever due to climate change. A major study released earlier this month compiled 25,000 records of springtime trends for 726 species of plants, animals, plankton, insects, amphibians, birds and fish across land, sea and freshwater habitats. It analysed them for changes in the timing of lifecycle events, such as egg laying, first flights and flowering, a science known as phenology. The results showed that more than 80% of trends between 1976 and 2005 indicated earlier seasonal events.

There were warnings of more snow, frost and ice today and tomorrow in areas as far apart as northern Scotland, the south-west, central and western England, eastern Wales, and Northern Ireland. But the good news is that spring, when it arrives, should be spectacular, according to the National Trust.

It predicted a riot of colour from the "perfect weather barometers" of its garden plants. The trust has widened its regular flower count from properties in Devon and Cornwall, where UK spring blooms traditionally appear first, to other sites. In the south-west, last year's wet summer and warm autumn put magnolias heavily in bud. So while they may flower late this year, the display will be "fabulous". At Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, the famous snowdrops collections are expected to be in full bloom next week, two to three weeks later than over the past decade.

Ian Wright, the trust's garden adviser in Devon and Cornwall, said that "once it warms up, everything will be blooming at once, rather than over a longer period of time, so we can expect a spectacular spring."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:01 am

Teach the bigger story of science

Children have so much curiosity about the natural world, but the current school curriculum drains away their enthusiasm

A gulf seems to exist between our natural curiosity about the world around us and the popularity of science at university level in Britain. Scientists have such heated arguments because we are so passionate about our fields. Yet many school students seem to dislike the subject. Why are so many young people apparently bored by science?

Small children frequently develop near obsessions with aspects of science, be they dinosaurs, insects or aeroplanes. So where does this fascination go? No one would deny the need for standards and benchmarks in education, but the process that began with the national curriculum is eroding the preparedness of students to cope with university science education.

The "Google generation" is taught in bite-sized chunks throughout their school lives. When they go to university, this teaching method lets them down. This is not the fault of students or teachers, but the nationally imposed criteria that all schools must fulfil. The way that school science curricula are designed primarily to meet testing benchmarks saps them of flexibility and the time for practical experimentation – the bedrock of any enriching science teaching.

The majority of lecturers in higher education would agree that the unprecedented rise in A-level grades is not the result of an unexplained increase in teenage intelligence: rather the nature of the questions has changed, and expectations seem to have been lowered. That means that universities are increasingly spending time addressing the science basics that 10 years ago were taken as read. This not only wastes time but prevents students from developing the deep analytical skills that employers now bemoan the lack of.

It is important to note that the students themselves are blameless: they can only take the tests they are given. Bored students switch off and find themselves unable to appreciate the material presented to them or to understand the research of academics. This places pressure on universities – should they adapt (in other words, dumb down) or maintain standards and risk losing students to softer subjects?

But it would be a mistake to substitute style for substance when it comes to science teaching. The Conservatives' policy that only those with the best degrees should be allowed on to PGCE courses, while appearing superficially intellectually satisfying, does not offer a solution. The best teachers are not necessarily those who have amassed the most knowledge or excel in examinations – enthusiasm, creativity and charisma are just as important and cannot be measured in degree classifications. It isn't teachers that are the problem; it is what they are required to teach.

Take my own specialism, evolution, a fascinating subject that arouses strong opinions – including outright hostility – yet its teaching in schools can lack relevancy and engaging examples. That old stalwart the peppered moth, though a fascinating creature, does lack something in the excitement stakes. Far better to use examples that are both relevant and inspiring, such as MRSA's evolutionary tricks to resist treatment or the role that meat eating played in human brain expansion and intelligence.

Rigid adherence to the same old examples makes for boring lessons and unmotivated students (not to mention teachers). Perhaps if bite-sized subject syllabi were to be replaced with broader subject descriptions that rely on linking well-developed core principles, we could develop a much wider range of illustrations and examples to really motivate students. The downside would be more work for exam boards, and of course teachers (but also the opportunity for greater creativity and flexibility): surely a price that would willingly be paid for the resurrection of science education in the UK?

Of course scientists can always improve the way we present our work to the public, but well-taught, well-designed science curricula that have the freedom to be difficult and exciting will go a long way to harnessing and developing the fascination that children have with science. That can only benefit the next generation of potential scientists and society at large.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am

King Tutankhamun 'died from a broken leg and malaria'

DNA testing and CT scans on 16 mummies reveal that the Egyptian king's parents were probably brother and sister

Egypt's most famous pharaoh, King Tutankhamun, was a frail boy who suffered from a cleft palate and club foot, according to a study published today that shows he died of complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria and his parents were most likely brother and sister.

Two years of DNA testing and CT scans on Tutankhamun's 3,300-year-old mummy and 15 others are helping end many of the myths surrounding the boy king. While a comparatively minor ruler, he has captivated the public since the 1922 discovery of his tomb, which was filled with a stunning array of jewels and artefacts, including a golden funeral mask.

The study, which will be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, provides the firmest family tree yet for Tutankhamun. The tests pointed to Pharaoh Akhenaten, who tried to revolutionise ancient Egyptian religion to worship one god, as Tutankhamun's father. His mother was one of Akhenaten's sisters, it said.

Tutankhamun, who became pharaoh at age 10 in 1333BC , ruled for just nine years at a pivotal time in Egypt's history. Speculation has long swirled over his death at 19. A hole in his skull fuelled speculation he was murdered, until a 2005 CT scan ruled that out, finding the hole was likely from the mummification process. The scan also uncovered the broken leg.

The newest tests paint a picture of a pharaoh whose immune system was likely weakened by congenital diseases. His death came from complications from the broken leg – along with a new discovery: severe malaria.

The team said it found DNA of the malaria parasite in several of the mummies, some of the oldest ever isolated.

"A sudden leg fracture possibly introduced by a fall might have resulted in a life threatening condition when a malaria infection occurred," the JAMA article said.

"Tutankhamun had multiple disorders … He might be envisioned as a young but frail king who needed canes to walk," it said.

The revelations are in stark contrast to the popular image of a graceful boy-king as portrayed by the dazzling funerary artefacts in his tomb that later introduced much of the world to the glory of ancient Egypt.

They also highlighted the role genetics play in some diseases. The members of the 18th dynasty were closely inbred and the DNA studies found several genetic disorders in the mummies tested such as scoliosis – curvature of the spine – and club feet.

Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan, said some of King Tutankhamun's ailments including his bone disease likely were the result of his parents' incestuous marriage. Children born to parents who are so closely related to each other would be prone to genetic problems, he said.

Like his father, Tutankhamun had a cleft palate. Like his grandfather, he had a club foot and suffered from Kohler's disease which inhibits the supply of blood to the bones of the foot.

In Tutankhamun's case it was slowly destroying the bones in his left foot – an often painful condition, the study said. It noted that 130 walking sticks and canes were discovered in Tutankhamun's tomb, some of them appearing to have been used.

Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, who co-authored the study, noted that more than 80 years after Tutankhamun's discovery, technology was revealing secrets about the pharaoh.

The study is part of a wider programme to test the DNA of hundreds of mummies to determine their identities and their family relations. To conduct the tests, Egypt built two DNA labs to follow international protocols for genetic testing.

Hawass, who had long opposed DNA testing on Egypt's mummies because it would have been performed outside the country, acknowledged his original scepticism. "I never thought that we would really reach a great important discovery," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The new study answered long-standing questions about Tutankhamun's family, tracing his grandfather to Pharaoh Amenhotep III. While some archaeologists have speculated that Tutankhamun's father was a little-known figure, Smenkhkare, it now appears that it was Akhenaten, who attempted to change millennia of religious tradition by forcing the country to worship the sun god Aten, instead of a multiplicity of deities.

DNA tests pinpointed the mummy of Tutankhamun's mother – and confirmed she was a sister of his father – but the mummy has not yet been firmly identified. Brother-sister marriages were common among Egypt's pharaohs.

"There is a lot fuzziness about the succession and that's why knowing Tutankhamun was the son or direct blood descendant would make a difference," said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo and an expert on mummies.

The tests also disproved speculation that Tutankhamun and members of his family suffered from rare disorders that gave them feminine attributes and misshapen bones, including Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that can result in elongated limbs.

The theories arose from the artistic style and statues of the period, which showed the royal men with prominent breasts, elongated heads and flared hips.

"It is unlikely that either Tutankhamun or Akhenaten actually displayed a significantly bizarre or feminine physique," the article said.

Hawass' first high profile discovery involving DNA tests, the identification of the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, came under criticism because it did not follow accepted scientific protocols and was not published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The tests were also not confirmed by a second, independent DNA lab.

This time the work by the Supreme Council of Antiquities DNA lab was replicated by a second DNA lab set up at Cairo University and the results were then published in the American medical journal.

Angelique Corthals, an assistant professor of forensic science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York helped set up the first Egyptian lab and said the work is being conducted according to international standards.

Hawass predicted that many more discoveries were in the works for King Tutankhamun and the mummy project.

"It will never be revealed completely, still we need more research," he said. "We finished the first great part of the mystery and the second one is coming soon in one year."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Feb 2010 | 1:57 am

Ravens 'not behind' wader decline

A large crow considered one of Britain's smartest birds is ruled out as the reason behind declines in wading birds.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Feb 2010 | 12:57 am

Scientists track lives of 19,000 children

The Millennium Cohort Study examines aspects of children's lives such as poverty, parenting, education and health

Researchers from the Millennium Cohort Study are following nearly 19,000 children born at the start of the 21st century, building a picture of their birth and early childhood to try to gauge the long-term impact of these formative years.

The study, which will keep tracking the children until they reach the age of 11, presents an intimate portrait of family and community life in Britain, examining poverty, parenting, education, health, religion and ethnicity.

Led by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the Institute of Education, it is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and government departments. Today's results come from between 2006 and 2007, when the children were aged five.

Learning

The survey found that children whose parents read to them every day at the age of three were more likely to flourish in their first year in primary school, getting more than two months ahead not just in language and literacy but also in maths.

Their scores in the Foundation Stage Profile – the assessment at the end of the reception year in England – were even boosted in the areas of social, emotional, physical and creative development.

But children who watched television for three or more hours a day at the same age saw no significant decline in their scores. And teaching them to count or recite the alphabet at three did not make them do any better two years later.

Children who were read to on a daily basis were 2.4 months ahead of those whose parents never read to them in maths, and 2.8 months ahead in communication, language and literacy. The advantage was similar to the gain from attending nursery, said report author Kirstine Hansen. She called on the government to do more to encourage parents to read with their sons and daughters.

"It's going to be easier and cheaper to do than try and upgrade parents' education," she said. "It's going to be very hard to do anything about the fact that lots of people live in poverty or leave school without good results but there's something we can do. It's not going to fully compensate for other things but it's going to help."

Girls were consistently outperforming boys at the age of five, when they were nine months ahead in creative development – activities like drama, singing and dancing, and 4.2 months ahead in literacy. Older children in the year group tended to outscore younger classmates, and as other studies have shown, children with heavier birth weights had higher scores.

Children from lower-income families with parents who were less highly educated were less advanced in their development at age five. Living in social housing put them 3.2 months behind in maths and 3.5 months behind in literacy.

Those whose mothers had fewer qualifications than five A to Cs at GCSE trailed far behind those born to mothers with degrees: they lagged by 6.5 months in maths and 6.6 months in literacy.

The Foundation Stage Profile is not normally used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but teachers in those countries produced similar one-off assessments for the MCS children so the study could cover the whole of the UK.

Hansen said although people tended to assume watching TV would have a negative effect on children, the researchers did not know what they were watching and some of it could be beneficial.

Weight

At the age of five, one in five of the MCS children were overweight, including 5% classified as obese. Girls were more likely to weigh too much: 23% of those in the group, compared with 19% of the boys.

Not breastfeeding and introducing children to solid foods before the age of four months also led to them being heavier. Of those who were breastfed for at least four months, 18% were overweight, compared with 23% of those who were bottlefed only. Some 24% of children introduced to solid foods at a very young age were overweight, while the figure for those who were not was only 20%.

Other factors associated with being overweight included living in a lower income family, having a less educated mother and lacking a father at home. Black children were far more likely to be overweight than those from other ethnic groups, according to the analysis of more than 12,000 five-year-olds. More than a third (36%) of black Caribbean and black African children were too heavy for their height, compared with 17% of Pakistani children and 21% of white children.

There were also national and regional variations. One in four MCS children in Northern Ireland was overweight, compared with 21% in England and Scotland.

Choice of school

The "fatalistic" attitudes of some parents means fewer than generally thought are seeing their children get into their true first choice of primary school, the researchers found. Although 94% of all families who applied for a state primary school place in England successfully got the school they chose on paper, in reality only 88% sent their child to the school they most wanted. Some may not be putting the school they really want for their child on the application form.

The findings also show that in England, mothers with a degree were less likely to get their first choice of school (88%) than those with fewer than five GCSEs at grade C or above (94%). This could reflect the fact that university-educated parents were more likely to choose a higher-performing school, the researchers said.

Expert view Babies need to play

Sue Palmer

The links between learning and children's physical development are well established. If you cannot hold a pen when at school, you are going to be made out to be a failure, not just by your teacher but by yourself. That is going to have long-term implications for your progress. This has long been known, although I've not seen a statistical association like this [the Millennium Cohort Study] shown from nine months before.

We should be getting on with informing all parents about, for example, how children need to be helped to develop in their physical capabilities, because this has implications for their learning, but that information does not seem to be getting out there.

This non-attention to the physiological basis for learning happens where children are growing up in poverty but . Italso in middle-class homes, where some parents think it is enough to sit their children in front of an educational DVD. Babies need to explore their new environment and move about.

I don't think more intervention and screening is the solution.We need to empower parents with more information about what they can do to help their babies, rather than professionalising the whole basis of childhood, which is what you do when you intervene early. We need to do a lot more in terms of providing guidance to parents before they have children, about children's need to play and to interact with other people in those first years.

We should have a public information campaign, starting in antenatal clinics. In Toxic Childhood, I proposed introducing a course in child development into the secondary schools, so that everyone gets a good baseline understanding of this subject from a young age. We should follow that with advice at antenatal classes, when a child is about to start nursery, and when they are about to start school.

The gap between rich and poor seems to be growing, and we already have plenty of screening and intervention work with the under-fives. It does not appear to be working.

Sue Palmer is a child development expert and author of Toxic Childhood

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Feb 2010 | 11:00 pm

Japan to question whale activist

A New Zealand activist who boarded a Japanese whaling ship in protest is to be taken to Japan for questioning.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Feb 2010 | 9:57 pm

Driving Distracts Cellphone Users

Cellphone conversations don’t just interfere with driving. Driving dents the capacity to describe and remember cellphone messages, at least for some of the youngest and oldest drivers, a new study finds.

Routine driving impedes a person’s ability to relay information from a cellphone call accurately to a conversation partner and to remember key elements of that information, say psychologist Gary Dell of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his colleagues. Although many drivers regard talking while cruising a straightaway as no harder than walking while chewing gum, “that intuition is incorrect,” Dell says.

Both older and younger drivers seated next to a passenger and operating a vehicle in a simulator had more difficulty correctly retelling brief stories, versus retelling stories while sitting in an unmoving “car,” the researchers report in the February Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Participants, especially those over age 60, remembered less about stories after simulated driving than after sitting in the unmoving car. That might reflect a greater emphasis on defensive driving among older drivers.

Driving skills, such as rapid reactions to approaching vehicles in intersections, also took a hit while retelling the stories, the investigators say. Earlier studies have reported that driving worsens while talking on cellphones or sending text messages.

These new findings challenge the belief that work productivity benefits by conducting important conversations, such as business negotiations, while commuting.

“Safety concerns aside, if the quality of a conversation matters to your business, then it is best to reserve your conversation for times when you are not operating a motor vehicle,” remarks psychologist David Strayer of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Strayer studies the impact of cellphone use on driving skills.

Dell’s team studied 96 pairs of adults, each consisting of a driver and a partner. Half the volunteers ranged in age from 18 to 21; the rest were in their 60s and 70s. Drivers sat in a car facing a projection screen that allowed them to navigate through a virtual city. They were told to drive down a city street and through several busy intersections while obeying a speed limit of 30 miles per hour, staying in the center of the lane and stopping at stop signs.

After an initial trip without talking, drivers on subsequent trips listened to and then retold a series of 10- to 20-second stories heard over a hands-free headphone. Partners did the same during other trips.

In another condition, drivers and passengers listened to and retold stories in an unmoving car. Drivers but not passengers in a “moving” simulator retold a smaller number of central story elements, such as the nature of a robbery. They described nearly 70 percent of story elements correctly in an unmoving car, as did passengers. That figure fell to 60 percent while driving on straightaways and to 50 percent while going through intersections. Passengers’ accuracy at retelling stories remained the same regardless of condition.

Story retelling in the new study roughly corresponds to a driver or passenger listening to a half-minute podcast or cellphone message and then relaying that information along, Dell says. Actual driving presents dangers that divert attention from what’s said more than virtual driving does, he adds.

Image: Indiana_Stan/Flickr

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Feb 2010 | 5:28 pm

Gene tests fail to predict women's heart risks

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Gene tests that combined over 100 genetic mutations proved ineffective at predicting a woman's risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Feb 2010 | 4:48 pm

New Lasers Fight Crime, Martians

A new technique that uses a laser to vaporize materials like rocks and steel to analyze their chemical composition is finding new applications from Mars to forensics.

Thanks to its relatively small size and low cost, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is emerging from the laboratory and turning into a precise tool for figuring out what something is made of. What had been a technique largely for scientists now can be transformed into a tough, small system that can be operated by a technician instead of a PhD.

“The same things that make it amenable to go to Mars also make it amenable to go out in the field,” said Jose Almirall, a chemist at Florida International University who has a grant from the Department of Justice to explore how crime labs can use the technology.

NASA will be deploying a LIBS system called the “ChemCam” on its new Mars rover, now named Curiosity and scheduled to launch next year.

LIBS works by blasting a material with a high-energy laser pulses. The Mars Curiosity rover will send an average of three pulses a second, each one 5 nanoseconds long. The power during that pulse is in the range of 10 megawatts.

That’s not enough to shoot a hole in your hand, but it’ll leave a mark.

“I’ve shot myself and you might see a little spot where you shot yourself, if it’s just one laser shot,” said Roger Wiens, a space scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who developed the ChemCam for the Mars Curiosity mission.

In some cases, the ChemCam will be focused on rocks for more than 15 seconds. If you were to do that to your arm, “You’d be in pain,” Wiens said.

There are no plans to use the laser for anything but science, but there’s something science-fictionally satisfying about the next Mars rover coming equipped with a laser “gun.”

The laser shots vaporize a crater less than a millimeter across, turning its molecules into a 14,000-degree plasma. The atoms are shorn of their electrons, but as the plasma ball cools down, they return to a more normal state. The electrons drop into their orbits around the nucleus and as they do so, the little plasma ball emits light.

“You can see it with your eyes and it makes a little zapping sound when you do it,” said Wiens.

The specific color of the light tells scientists exactly what element they are looking at if they pass it through a spectrometer, which can precisely measure the wavelength of light.

Lasers have been used to create small clouds of atoms for spectral analysis in the past, but those systems require a separate torch that heats the atoms into a plasma. With LIBS, the same laser blast does both jobs. It’s this simplicity that could aid the technology’s spread. A 2004 Cambridge University Press book on LIBS declared the technique “perhaps the most versatile method yet developed for elemental analysis.”

On Earth, there are plenty of times when one might want to know the very precise composition of a substance. In late 2009, for the first time, a LIBS analysis was used in a court. It helped identify a would-be bank robber by the glass on his clothing in Maryland. After being locked in a vestibule by secret alarms, he shot his way out and sped away. After being apprehended, some pieces of glass were found on his clothes. When Almirall’s team compared the precise composition of that glass with the stuff from the bank, they came back with a probable match.

Glass made in different places and at different times is quite distinctive at the molecular level, Almirall said. In modern manufacturing processes, sodium carbonate and calcium oxide are usually added to the base silica. But tiny amounts of other elements such as strontium can act as a particular type of glass’ signature. The older a glass-manufacturing plant is, for example, the more zirconium leaches into the glass melt.

“The glass manufacturers don’t care if they have 10 or 20 or 30 parts per million of strontium,” said Almirall. “We’ll look at seven, eight, nine different elements in the raw material to detect differences.”

The level of precision that LIBS can offer may eventually help manufacturers do quality control on their products. Almirall is even thinking about how to use a briefcase LIBS system to test products for U.S. Customs to ensure their safety and provenance.

“If you were receiving some toys and want to immediately know if you have lead in these toys, LIBS could do that very quickly,” Almirall said. “Green light, no lead. Red light, there is lead.”

Several companies are trying to commercialize LIBS systems including Applied Spectra of Fremont, California, and Stellar Net of Tampa, Florida. Stellar Net’s PortaLibs is shown above. Clearly, the technology has gone a long way toward fulfilling the promise Wiens first saw in it 13 years ago.

“I was looking for other technologies to put into space and a colleague here [at Los Alamos Lab] took me to his laboratory and showed me a little laser the size of a cigar and a rock across the room and a little transistor battery,” Wiens recalled. “He had the laser hooked up to the 9-volt battery, charged up some capacitors for a few seconds, and then zap, across the room, there was a spark.”

See Also:

• DIY Laser Market Exploding, Cosmetic Surgeons Not Happy
• Lasers Can Chill Stuff Super Fast
• Fastest Camera Ever Built Uses Lasers
• How to Keep Planes From Colliding With Lasers
• Laser-Controlled Humans Closer to Reality

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Feb 2010 | 4:26 pm