Internal and environmental factors trigger unique brain activity in teens

While the otherworldly behavior of teenagers is well documented, researchers have taken a significant step toward finally unraveling the actual brain activity that can drive adolescents to engage in impulsive, self-indulgent, or self-destructive behavior.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

Brain system behind general intelligence discovered

Neuroscientists have mapped the brain structures that affect general intelligence. The study adds new insight to a highly controversial question: what is intelligence, and how can we measure it?
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

Further doubt cast on virus link to chronic fatigue syndrome

Researchers investigating UK samples have found no association between the controversial xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus and chronic fatigue syndrome. Their study calls into question a potential link described late last year by an American research team.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

Dry winters linked to seasonal outbreaks of influenza

The seasonal increase of influenza has long baffled scientists, but a new study has found that seasonal changes of absolute humidity are the apparent underlying cause of these wintertime peaks. The study also found that the onset of outbreaks might be encouraged by anomalously dry weather conditions, at least in temperate regions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

Hazardous e-waste surging in developing countries

Unless action is stepped up to properly collect and recycle materials, many developing countries face the specter of fast-rising hazardous e-waste mountains this coming decade with serious consequences for the environment and public health, according to experts.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

Biogas climate benefit greater than previously thought?

Biogas from refuse produces 95 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline, according to a new research report. With a few simple improvements to the biogas plants, the figure can rise to 120 per cent -- i.e. biogas becomes more than climate neutral. This can be compared with the standard figures used today, which indicate that biogas produces 80 per cent lower emissions than gasoline.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pm

Missing 'ice arches' contributed to 2007 Arctic ice loss

In 2007, the Arctic lost a massive amount of thick, multiyear sea ice, contributing to that year's record-low extent of Arctic sea ice. A new NASA-led study has found that the record loss that year was due in part to the absence of "ice arches," naturally-forming, curved ice structures that span the openings between two land points. These arches block sea ice from being pushed by winds or currents through narrow passages and out of the Arctic basin.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Mouse with human liver: New model for treatment of liver disease

How do you study -- and try to cure in the laboratory -- an infection that only humans can get? A team of researchers does it by generating a mouse with an almost completely human liver. This "humanized" mouse is susceptible to human liver infections and responds to human drug treatments, providing a new way to test novel therapies for debilitating human liver diseases and other diseases with liver involvement such as malaria.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Canecutter's disease on the rise among travelers

Scientists have discovered the disease, known medically as leptospirosis, was traditionally a concern for males working in the agricultural and livestock industries, as it is contracted from contact with the urine of host animals.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Typhoid fever bacteria collect on gallstones to perpetuate disease

A new study suggests that the bacteria that cause typhoid fever collect in tiny but persistent communities on gallstones, making the infection particularly hard to fight in so-called "carriers" -- people who have the disease but show no symptoms. Humans who harbor these bacterial communities in their gallbladders, even without symptoms, are able to infect others with active typhoid fever, especially in developing areas of the world with poor sanitation.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

World's coral reefs could disintegrate by 2100

Researchers at Carnegie Institution say corals are being overwhelmed by rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

The world's coral reefs will begin to disintegrate before the end of the century as rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere make the oceans more acidic, scientists warn.

The research points to a looming transition in the health of coral ecosystems during which the ability of reefs to grow is overwhelmed by the rate at which they are dissolving.

More than 9,000 coral reefs around the world are predicted to disintegrate when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach 560 parts per million.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today stands at around 388ppm, but is expected to reach 560ppm by the end of this century.

Coral reefs are at the heart of some of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems in the world. They are home to more than 4,000 species of fish and provide spawning, refuge and feeding areas for marine life such as crabs, starfish and sea turtles.

"These ecosystems which harbour the highest diversity of marine life in the oceans may be severely reduced within less than 100 years," said Dr Jacob Silverman of the Carnegie Institution in Stanford University, California.

Coral reefs grow their structural skeletons by depositing aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate, from calcium ions in sea water. As oceans absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, they become so acidic the calcium carbonate dissolves.

Silverman's team studied a coral reef in the northern Red Sea and calculated its response to increasingly acidic waters. The research showed that the ability of the coral to build new structures depended strongly on water acidity and to a lesser extent temperature.

From these data the researchers created a global map of more than 9,000 coral reefs, which showed that all are threatened with disintegration when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reach 560ppm. Silverman was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego.

In a separate study, Simon Donner, an environmental scientist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, warned that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already at a high enough level to cause devastating coral bleaching.

Corals have a symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae that live on them. The algae give coral reefs their vibrant colours, but are also an important food source for the habitat's marine life. When sea temperatures rise, the corals expel the algae and turn white. Once this happens the coral is deprived of energy and dies.

"Even if we froze emissions today, the planet still has some warming left in it. That's enough to make bleaching dangerously frequent in reefs worldwide," said Donner.

Bleaching had become increasingly widespread in recent years, Donner said. In 2006, severe bleaching struck the southern part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world. Last year scientists reported that a "lucky combination" of circumstances had allowed the coral to recover from the disaster.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:38 am

dot.Maggie

A box that supplies energy? Anywhere? With no emissions?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:18 am

Can We Lower Earth’s Thermostat?

For years science fiction writers and astronomers have speculated about the feasibility of terraforming other planets. One dream is to make Mars habiatable for humans by warming the planet and therefore building up a wetter and thicker atmosphere. The irony ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:09 am

Brain food: when does a fine become a fee?

Academic thinking suggests that fines register moral disapproval whereas fees are simply prices

Unfair it may be, but I associate the staff at my library with a four-letter word beginning with F. That's right: fine – the penalty for overdue books that usually costs mere pennies, but can earn you a smidgen of righteous opprobrium.

Yet when I returned a few (only slightly late) books the other day, the librarian didn't ask for a fine but a fee. A small change ("from the management", apparently), but more significant than it first appears. In his Reith lectures last year, the political philosopher Michael Sandel nicely summed up the difference: "Fines ­register moral disapproval, whereas fees are simply prices that ­imply no moral judgment." Littering and other anti-social behaviour incur fines, while fees are for gym memberships and tourist visas.

The difference is between a ­social norm and a market norm. What happens when you switch from one to another? That's the question the ­academics Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini tried to answer a few years ago. They began by studying childcare centres.

In the Israeli city of Haifa, private childcare centres usually don't charge parents who are late picking up their kids. But Gneezy and Rustichini ­persuaded some to do just that for a few weeks, and observed the results. You might think that ­payment would force straggling dads to mend their ways. Quite the opposite: the number of tardy parents sharply increased. Even when the childcare centres ­withdrew the charge, parents ­continued to turn up late.

Why? The academics came up with two competing ­hypotheses: one was that the charge (the paper terms it a fine, but neither the childcare centres nor the offenders seemed to treat the sum as anything other than a fee) wasn't enough – at 10 shekels a late pick-up, it was ­remarkably good value. The other thought they had was that parental guilt about forcing little Binyamin's teacher to hang around after class was a greater deterrent than money. It's likely that the real answer lies somewhere ­between those two hypotheses.

The librarian had a similar-sounding suggestion for the shift from fine to fee. "People just don't like taking ­responsibility," he said, and handed over the change.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:00 am

Sarah Boseley on a Commons committee's condemnation of homeopathy

Sarah Boseley on the Commons' science and technology committee's verdict that there is no evidence homeopathy has anything other than a placebo effect

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 1:55 am

Climate wars damage the scientists but we all stand to lose in the battle | David Adam

It is open season on climate scientists, but such hand-wringing has allowed the creeping rehabilitation of climate scepticism

So the case is closed. The release of private emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that show malpractice and conspiracy have had their effect. Public acceptance of the reality of global warming has dipped, politicians are retreating and changes to how science is done and scientists behave are required.

I do not accept this. I believe this seductively simple narrative is based on ignorance, scientific illiteracy and hypocrisy. Worse, it is dangerous and will erode the very public confidence it seeks to restore.

This is perhaps not a common view right now. In newsrooms up and down the country, scandal and hand-wringing are afoot and it is open season on climate science and climate scientists.

Inquiries are under way and if scientists are found guilty of misconduct they should be sacked. If scientific results change as a result, then the corresponding academic papers should be corrected or withdrawn. But if this sorry affair is remembered in a year or so for anything other than yet another attempt to smear the people involved, only then will I accept its significance.

Take the influence on public opinion. A recent BBC poll revealed the number of Britons who believe in climate change has dropped from 44% to 31% since November. A Guardian editorial blamed this on events at East Anglia, a link that was reinforced in a news story. But the poll results do not show this. In fact, they show the opposite. Yes, the decline in overall acceptance is clear, but the pollsters also asked whether respondents had seen media reports of flaws and weaknesses in climate science. Some 57% said yes, and these people were questioned further: have these reports made you more or less convinced of the risks of climate change. Almost three-quarters, 73%, said it made no difference. And while 11% said, yes, the controversies had made them less concerned about the risks, 16% said the reports of flaws and weaknesses had made them even more concerned.

The evidence shows that the battle for hearts and minds in the fight against climate change has been strengthened, not weakened, by the East Anglia affair. It is a bizarre finding and I make no attempt to explain it, only to point out the dangers of rushing to see desired results in a series of data, or a simple narrative in a complicated picture. There is a process that society has developed to avoid such confirmation bias. It is called science.

The headline reduction in acceptance of global warming, incidentally, seems more likely down to the record-breaking cold winter, which 83% of people said they were aware of. The other 17% are clearly made of strong stuff.

When news of the East Anglia emails broke in November, it was a phrase that climate scientists had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" that got most people excited. Media reports, including in this newspaper, reported that climate sceptics believed they had found a smoking gun that proved scientists who worked on global warming were up to no good, and by extension that the problem was exaggerated or a falsehood. This was the "WMD-in-45 minutes" claim that drove the email story around the world and earned it the drearily predictable "climategate" tag. It was also total nonsense. The decline was not in recorded global temperatures, as was sometimes said, but in temperatures inferred from a series of tree rings over the last few decades. The trick is to ignore the obviously faulty information. This statistical technique has its critics, and it raises questions about why the decline occurs and whether earlier data can be relied on, but these questions have been openly addressed by scientists for years. The issue appears in text books and even has its own, rather more pedestrian, name — the divergence problem.

The misrepresentation and lies spread over the divergence problem (and see how the controversy drains from the issue when we call it that) is now widely understood, but the stink it created lingers. Even its collapse was problematic, for it created a vacuum into which a string of other accusations rushed.

To their credit, many discussions of these other issues now try to make clear they do nothing to question the basic science of global warming. But, to many people who do not follow this closely, how can accusations of poor behaviour by climate scientists do anything but?

Chief among these is a claim that a 1990 paper on land surface temperature rise is flawed. Worse, the scientist involved, Phil Jones, the head of the university's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) concealed these flaws. The climate science community has responded to the allegations with a barely concerned shrug of the shoulders. Are they complacent? Closing ranks?

At the heart of the issue are the locations of weather stations in developing China, which provided data for the study. Jones and his colleague Wei-Chyung Wang cannot produce records to verify some locations, and this rightly raises questions. Jones admits it is not best practice. Wang has already been investigated and cleared of misconduct by his university.

Why is this important? Because critics say if the stations have been moved then this invalidates statements in the 1990 paper, and raises questions about subsequent studies that base their conclusions on its findings.

What have they done about it? Nature, the journal that published the 1990 paper, says it has looked into the issue and is happy with the explanation offered by the scientists, but will look again and correct if necessary, it just needs someone to send them specific evidence of a problem. Almost three years after Jones published all the location data he had for the stations on the internet, Nature has yet to receive any such complaint.

Peer review is also under the spotlight. The process by which scientists judge each others work as fit for publication has always been where objective science dashes on the rocks of subjective human opinion, but the emails are alleged to show much worse — censorship, exclusion of critics and deliberate attempts to steer the process to keep away unfavourable results.

Take the last first. Keith Briffa, deputy head of the CRU, is accused of initiating an attempt to have a paper rejected because of an email to a scientist who was reviewing the paper that said: "Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting [an unnamed paper] – to support Dave Stahle's and really as soon as you can. Please." Briffa says there was no such attempt, and that he was reminding an overdue referee that he needed the report urgently, which the referee had already indicated would be negative.

In another example, Jones supposedly unfairly rejected a paper that questioned his own results, despite the censored paper offering no supporting method, data or analysis. The peer review system is far from perfect, but it has always been pretty good at keeping out papers that offer no method, data or analysis to support their conclusions.

To view peer review, and the behaviour of working scientists, only through the prism of these private emails, and then diagnose fault and demand change is naive and misguided. It brings to mind the people of the planet Krikkit in Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide series, who, on penetrating a dust cloud shielding their world and witnessing the extent of the universe for the first time, immediately declare war on it, muttering that "it will have to go".

For if peer review is flawed, and it is, then scientists know there is enough slack in the system that such flaws rarely matter. Good papers may bounce from journal to journal, but generally find a home. Bad papers, even those published in good journals, wither on the vine. Fraudulent, or just plain wrong, papers get caught, often when competitors cannot reproduce the reported results.

And if there is bias in peer review, which there is, then it affects all sides. Last year, the high-profile journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) published a paper co-authored by Richard Lindzen, a climate expert at MIT and possibly the world's last climate sceptic with serious credentials in the field. The study claimed to show climate models underestimate the amount of heat that escapes from the Earth but, after publication, was taken to pieces by other climate scientists. Some have criticised GRL for even publishing the paper, and claim it got an easy ride because its publisher, the American Geophysical Union, allows authors to suggest a list of friendly reviewers. The AGU, rightly, has not revealed the referees or their comments — and the wheels of science grind on.

It is true the East Anglia emails suggest that Jones and other scientists did not enter the brave new world of open data and Freedom of Information requests with gusto. In fact, they fought it tooth and nail. Any failure to comply with the regulations should be punished, but equally we should not forget the context in which many of these emails were sent. This is a saga that goes back years, to a time before the current widespread political and media concern about climate change. Back to when Al Gore was not a Nobel prize winning campaigner, but a politician blamed for wrecking the Kyoto protocol, and to a time when well-funded climate sceptics faked scientific papers, hijacked debate and routinely spread disinformation about scientists and their work, in far greater numbers than we see now. Climate scientists, left to fight this pretty much alone, were seriously angry with those who they saw as engaged in a systematic effort to undermine their profession.

Yes, some emails are intemperate and unprofessional even. But what exactly are we accusing those involved of? An instruction to delete emails, which were not deleted. A boast, which was not followed through, to keep shoddy papers from the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A desire to hide behind, apparently legitimate in many cases, technical excuses not to hand over their data to people who they perceived as opponents who refused to play by the rules.

Just as every journalist was squirming in their seat and grateful it was Andrew Gilligan's and not their notebook under such scrutiny in the Hutton review of the David Kelly affair, so biologists, physicists, civil servants, doctors, in fact those in every profession should consider how their reputation would survive if years of private correspondence were filleted for dirt and handed over to critics. This is the broad illumination with which we must judge the behaviour of those involved in the East Anglia affair, not the narrow spotlight of spite and double standards.

It is clear that "climategate" has been a public relations disaster for science and scientists. That is unfair in my view, but things could get worse, and this is where the flawed simple narrative takes a dangerous turn.

A common response to scrutiny of the emails has been to praise the fairness of the scrutineers, an eagerness to see the scientists, so long the good guys, get a kicking in the name of open debate. But it has also encouraged a creeping rehabilitation of climate scepticism. False balance has been restored to the force.

The genuine issues raised by the emails, such as Freedom of Information requests and data sharing, should be debated in public. But such debates are unlikely to stay on these legitimate grounds. There is a reason why the fight between East Anglia and critics over data access rumbled in the specialist press for years without troubling the bulletins or newstands. It's pretty dull. The reasons why the data were not shared? Now there is a story, as long as it involves conspiracy and dodgy dealings, and that it raises doubts about the science of global warming. What do you mean it doesn't? Didn't you hear, they used a trick to hide the decline.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am

China to release pollution-fighting fish in lake (AFP)

AFP - Authorities in eastern China have said they will release 20 million algae-eating fish into one of the nation's most scenic lakes that has been ravaged by pollution.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 11:45 pm

Coal-state Democrats oppose global-warming rules (AP)

AP - Eight Democratic senators from industrial states want Congress — not the Environmental Protection Agency — to regulate pollution blamed for global warming, saying the issue has big implications for thousands of U.S. jobs and businesses.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 9:53 pm

Genetic Mutation Linked to Prostate Cancer in Blacks (HealthDay)

HealthDay - MONDAY, Feb. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified a mutation in a small number of black American men with a family history of prostate cancer.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 9:49 pm

Hacked Smartphones Could Be Used to Spy On You (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - As smartphones become more powerful, they become susceptible to even more sophisticated attacks from hackers. Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey recently used a special kind of malicious software, or "malware," called a rootkit to demonstrate just how vulnerable smartphones are.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 8:40 pm

Wisdom of the fool's choice

Automated recommender systems need to put some jokers in the pack, if we're not going to end up with narrow-minded tastes, says Philip Ball.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/-0ywM0bJHf4" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 22 Feb 2010 | 8:00 pm

Cosmic-ray theory unravels

Astrophysicists ponder whether ultrahigh-energy particles really do come from the centre of galaxies.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 22 Feb 2010 | 7:10 pm

Guns Now Allowed in National Parks. Why exactly?

This is just weird -- a law has just come into effect this morning that allows guns in national parks and wildlife refuges throughout the United States. The New York Times reported on this story when the original item -- ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 6:35 pm

'Lame' mosquitoes to stop dengue

Scientists are breeding a new strain of flightless mosquito in an effort to curb the spread of dengue fever.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 6:15 pm

Archaeologist sees proof for Bible in ancient wall (AP)

AP - An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 6:07 pm

Body of man missing in Alaska avalanche found (AP)

AP - Searchers have recovered the body of a ConocoPhillips Alaska employee missing and presumed dead since a Feb. 13 avalanche on the Kenai Peninsula that killed the head of the company.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 6:06 pm

Does Global Warming Cause Hurricanes?

This simple question is probably one of the hardest to answer in all of climate science. Despite over 100 years of hurricane records, and fifty years of satellite-based data, researchers are just starting to get a picture of how the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 6:04 pm

Bloom Box generates buzz, skepticism with 60 Minutes spot (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Christian Science Monitor - K.R. Sridhar, founder of the Silicon Valley clean tech start-up Bloom Energy, says he’d like to see his company’s Bloom Box fuel cell technology lighting up most American households within the next 10 years.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 4:20 pm

Flightless mosquitoes may curb dengue: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Genetically altered mosquitoes that cannot fly may help slow the spread of dengue fever and could be a harmless alternative to chemical insecticides, U.S. and British scientists said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 3:30 pm

Hourglass Figures Affect Men's Brains Like a Drug

Watching a woman with an hourglass figure trigger activity in parts of the male brain associated with drug and alcohol rewards.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 3:30 pm

Mouse Gets Human Liver

Scientists have created a mouse with an almost completely human liver
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 3:04 pm

N. Koreans Let American Scientist Hold Lump of Plutonium

Warmth came from the radioactive rays emitted by plutonium.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 2:47 pm

Hacked Smartphones Could Be Used to Spy On You

As smartphones become more powerful, they become susceptible to even more sophisticated attacks from hackers.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 2:40 pm

Without a wing, no prayer for female mosquitoes (AP)

AP - First it was just swatting. Then poison. Then sterilizing males. Now it's grounding females. Is there anything people won't try in the war against mosquitoes?
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 2:24 pm

Mobile Power Comes of Age

Scientists are developing next-generation technologies to make the power packs smaller, longer-lasting and more compatible with today's mobile lifestyle.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 2:06 pm

Exercise Reduces Anxiety of Chronic Disease

Exercise may reduce anxiety symptoms in those with chronic diseases, new research suggests.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 2:04 pm

Why Ladies-Only Species Don’t Need Men

How all-female species avoid the shrinkage of their gene pool is among the animal kingdom’s great mysteries. Now biologists think they’ve discovered the trick.

According to a study published Sunday in Nature, egg-producing cells in a ladies-only species of whiptail lizard contain double the standard genetic complement. They pick the healthiest set of chromosomes, preventing the loss of vital variation.

In asexually reproducing species, “there’s an absence of sperm, and genetic information is never provided by another source. Anything that’s lost is lost for good,” said Peter Baumann, a University of Kansas cell biologist. “If there’s a way to prevent the loss, then how is that accomplished? That’s what our paper explains.”

In all animal cells, genes are contained in DNA packages called chromosomes. Cells have two copies of each chromosome, and thus of each gene: in sexually reproducing species, one copy comes from mom, and the other from dad.

During reproduction, germ cells duplicate their chromosome set, then go through two rounds of cell division. The result is a sperm or egg cell with one copy of each chromosome. Some genetic variation is lost in the process, but it doesn’t matter, since sperm and egg soon fuse. Losses are offset by the mixing of their union.

In asexual reproducers — the whiptail species studied by Baumann, formally known as Aspidoscelis tellesata, plus about 70 other fish, reptile and bird species — both chromosome copies come from mom. Lost genetic variation is unrecoverable, and ought to accumulate over many generations, eventually producing an animal unable to survive.

But as Baumann’s group shows, A. tesselata germ cells start with four sets of chromosome copies, not two. When the cells finish dividing, the resulting eggs contain a standard set — one that’s assembled, they found, from two loss-free copies.

“This is an elegant mechanism,” said Baumann. And though they don’t yet know how A. tesselata’s germ cells evolved this trick, “you can imagine that it happens by a relatively simple change.” That could explain why asexual reproduction has emerged in so many species.

As for whether asexual reproduction in vertebrates is an evolutionary aberration or viable strategy remains debated. Even if these species maintain their gene pool, they still lack the genetic mixing that gives sexual reproducers a steady flow of new adaptations.

According to Baumann, A. tesselata is lucky: it appears to be descended from a union of two related species, giving it a hybrid vigor. As for populations lacking built-in durability, he said that asexual reproduction may be a useful short-term strategy. It could maintain lineages through periods of isolation, with species reverting to sexual reproduction when suitable partners were available.

However, Baumann cautioned against assuming that all asexually reproducing species used the mechanisms seen in A. tesselata.

“I think it’s going to be widespread, but nature often surprises us. We think we know how something works, then find out that nature came up with many ways of doing it,” he said.

Images: 1. Whiptail lizards/Peter Baumann 2. A comparison of chromosomes in the gametes of a related, sexually-producing lizard species (above) and the whiptail (below).

See Also:

• Hammerhead Sharks Reproduce Asexually
• A Cloning Breakthrough — In Plants
• Lizards Use Third Eye to Steer by the Sun
• Extreme Heat Triggers Lizard Sex Change
• Severed Gecko Tails Have a Mind of Their Own

Citation: “Sister chromosome pairing maintains heterozygosity in parthenogenetic lizards.” By Aracely A. Lutes, William B. Neaves, Diana P. Baumann, Winfried Wiegraebe & Peter Baumann. Nature, Advance Online Publication, February 21, 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 | 22 Feb 2010 | 1:42 pm

NASA Releases Lunar Rover iPhone Game

NASA has released its first iPhone game, as the agency continues its relentless conquest of new media

Starting Monday, you can virtually drive a fictional Lunar Electric Rover on a future lunar outpost. The game is free and available through the iTunes store.

Noted for its use of Twitter and educational iPhone apps, NASA has been at the forefront of government engagement with new media of all types. This one grew out of the agency’s video podcast show, NASA Edge.

“We wanted to make this a cool game instead of an app where you just retrieve information,” said Chris Giersch, the host of NASA EDGE.

The game is very simple. As the game review site Krapps notes, the gameplay is a bit “Pacmanish.” Beyond driving around the rover, you can also see images from the proposed lunar outpost and learn more about what life on the Moon might be like.

For the first iteration, NASA decided not to go too extravagant. “We thought about going high-tech and going really jazzy, but for this first version, let’s just keep it basic,” Giersch said.

The Lunar Electric Rover in the game is based on a prototype tested at the Black Point Lava Flow in Arizona. It would have been part of a planned lunar outpost under the old NASA Constellation solar system exploration plan.

The game was developed by Analytical Mechanics Association at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Image: NASA.

See Also:

• Slick NASA iPhone App Puts Space in Your Pocket
• NASA Brings the Dark Side of the Sun to Your iPhone

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 22 Feb 2010 | 1:27 pm

NIH may allow stem-cell lines from younger embryos

Lines derived from pre-blastocyst stage embryos could be eligible for agency funding.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 22 Feb 2010 | 12:01 pm

King Tut’s Many Curses

New research shows that Egyptian pharaoh King Tutankhamun had a rough life: he suffered from malaria and deformed feet, two of his children were stillborn, and he died at the age of 19. Scientific analysis suggests that despite his status ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 11:52 am

MPs deliver damning verdict: Homeopathy is useless

Homeopaths are evoking grand conspiracies to explain the Science and Technology Committee's brutal report, but in reality they were undone by their own bizarre pronouncements

Today the Science and Technology Select Committee delivered its verdict on homeopathy and it was devastating. The committee has called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and official licensing of homeopathy.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who witnessed the almost farcical nature of the proceedings, with the elite of homeopathy mocked by their own testimony. Peter Fisher, director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, spewed forth the sort of dialogue that wouldn't look out of place in a Terry Pratchett novel. As the report drily observes:

"Dr Fisher stated that the process of 'shaking is important' but was unable to say how much shaking was required. He said 'that has not been fully investigated' but did tell us that 'You have to shake it vigorously [...] if you just stir it gently, it does not work'.

Quite. It's hard to say which is more ridiculous: the sight of a grown man speaking this nonsense, or the fact that after 200 years homeopaths apparenly haven't bothered to "fully investigate" how much shaking is required for their remedies to work. And yet, bizarrely, these people expect to be taken seriously.

In this they have failed spectacularly. The select committee report has brutally inflicted the 21st, 20th and 19th centuries on this 18th century magic ritual, and under inspection it has fallen apart.

As I reported previously in the Guardian, much of the evidence presented by homeopaths simply does not stand up to scrutiny, and the committee agrees, concurring with the government, the scientific community and independent experts in concluding that: "the systematic reviews and meta-analyses conclusively demonstrate that homeopathic products perform no better than placebos."

Even the claims that more research is needed have been rebutted. Plenty of evidence has accumulated regarding the effectiveness of homeopathy, and a verdict has been reached. It is useless. As the report states: "It is ... unethical to enter patients into trials to answer questions that have been settled already."

Even more damning is the MPs' assessment of the competence of homeopaths in handling evidence. In a strongly worded statement clearly directed at the British Homeopathic Association (BHA), the report expresses disappointment at the behaviour of homeopaths submitting evidence to the evidence check:

"We regret that advocates of homeopathy, including in their submissions to our inquiry, choose to rely on, and promulgate, selective approaches to the treatment of the evidence base as this risks confusing or misleading the public, the media and policy-makers."

The BHA's behaviour throughout the evidence check has been an embarrassment to homeopathy. After my allegation that the BHA had misrepresented evidence to MPs, the author of the association's submission to the committee, homeopath Robert Mathie, in particular should have made a public apology for allowing his standard of scholarship to slip.

But the BHA instead chose to attack me in a press statement that contained still further misrepresentations of the evidence.

Mathie and the BHA should take the report's criticisms on the chin, accept that they are in error, and reflect on how they present evidence to the public in the future.

Sadly, the criticism is likely to fall on deaf ears. Rather than take the opportunity to reassess their approach, homeopaths are filling blogs and tweets with dark imaginings of vast, Big Pharma-controlled conspiracies against their noble art, painting a vivid picture of the fantasy world that they appear to inhabit.

Of course, as Peter Fisher's comments reveal, a grand conspiracy is not neccesary to discredit homeopathy. The most effective way to do that is simply to let a homeopath speak.

But it's not just homeopaths we should be criticising. The government, and in particular the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which licenses drugs and oversees labelling), also come in for some strong criticism from the committee. Both stand accused of hypocrisy for paying lip-service to the importance of evidence-based medicine while allowing special exemptions for dubious practices.

In the words of the committee, the government's position on homeopathy is "confused". It accepts that homeopathy is effectively a placebo, but allows it to be practised within the NHS without considering the ethics of prescribing placebos to patients.

Members of the committee were shocked to find that the rigorous rules the MHRA normally applies for licensing medicines were simply abandoned in the case of homeopathy. That the MHRA allows health claims to be made for medicines that cannot be shown to work suggests a failure to live up to its own standards.

Even more damning is the committee's verdict on the labels that the MHRA deems acceptable for use on homeopathic Arnica, labels that were tested by the MHRA itself. The report states: "We conclude that the user-testing of the Arnica Montana 30C label was poorly designed with parts of the test actively misleading participants."

Clearly, MHRA chief executive Kent Woods has serious questions to answer regarding how his agency came to allow a homeopathic treatment through the net.

The report also represents a victory for the blogosphere. Sceptical bloggers such as Andy Lewis and 'Gimpy' have been pursuing homeopaths and leading homeopathic organisations for years, whether exposing the funding of hideously unethical Aids trials in Africa, or doggedly harrying the MHRA over its failure to appropriately regulate labelling.

Today, these bloggers are relieved that MPs are finally paying attention. Lewis expressed happiness that the behaviour of those selling homeopathic remedies had come under parliamentary scrutinity, while Gimpy observed that, "this issue is no longer just a concern within the blogosphere but is now a matter for parliament."

For homeopaths, the message is clear. Their attempts to defend their position in the face of questioning from MPs have ended in humiliation and embarrassment. It is clear that they have no credible evidence to support their remedies.

Time, perhaps, to pick a new profession.

Martin Robbins writes for The Lay Scientist

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Feb 2010 | 11:41 am

Space Station 98% Complete with 4 Shuttle Flights Remaining (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - With the successful landing of the space shuttle Endeavour Sunday night, the International Space Station is on the verge of completion after $100 billion and 11 years of construction. NASA plans just four more missions to wrap up its few remaining station deliveries.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 11:16 am

Earth Watch

No sanctuary for whalers and whale-huggers
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:51 am

Doctors Urge Choking Warning Labels for Food

Although federal law requires choking warning labels on certain toys, no mandate exists for food.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:47 am

Endeavour ends space shuttle fleet's 130th mission

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Space shuttle Endeavour and its six crew members wrapped up a 14-day construction mission to the International Space Station on Sunday with a precision touchdown in Florida.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:33 am

Friday News Feedbag Info for February 19th, 2010

If this is your first exposure to the Friday News Feedbag...we're glad to have you in the club. Welcome to Feedbag Nation, which stems from our weekly science news podcast that you can subscribe to here on iTunes and chat ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:31 am

Poverty During Early Childhood May Last a Lifetime

Children raised in poverty in their first five years are more likely to feel its effects well into adulthood.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:29 am

Jerusalem City Wall Possibly Built by Solomon Discovered

An ancient street was uncovered in Jerusalem earlier this month, revealing what commercial life was like in the Old City 1,500 years ago, and now archaeologists have hit a wall. In a very good way. A section of Jerusalem's city ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:20 am

NZ wants diplomacy to end whaling dispute (AFP)

AFP - New Zealand wants diplomacy rather than an international court to find a way to end Japan's whaling in Antarctic waters, Prime Minister John Key said on Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:20 am

U.S. to Return 3,000-Year-Old Pharaonic Sarcophagus to Egypt

U.S. authorities will return a beautifully painted 3,000-year-old coffin to Egypt, Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni said on Monday. Decorated with colorful religious scenes, the ornamented coffin contains the remains of a man called Imesy. Zahi Hawass, the secretary general ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:18 am

Egypt to get back ancient coffin smuggled in 1884

CAIRO (Reuters) - A 3,000-year-old painted coffin smuggled out of Egypt more than a century ago will be returned after U.S. customs inspectors intercepted it in transit, Egypt's culture ministry said on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 22 Feb 2010 | 9:57 am

Ancient Wall Possibly Built by King Solomon

A section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem from the tenth century BC, possible built by King Solomon, has been revealed in archaeological excavations.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 8:54 am

Falcon Rocket Rises

As shuttle Endeavour coasted through Central Florida’s balmy skies last night, what may become the astronauts’ next ride to space was poised on a launch pad a few miles away. Over the weekend, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, hoisted its ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 22 Feb 2010 | 8:11 am

Take-away alcohol's violence link

US scientists show what they say is a direct link between the number of shops selling alcohol in an area and the violence occurring there.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 8:09 am

US scientist warns of brain drain from UK

Cuts in budgets will force talented scientists to find jobs in countries that invest in science during the global recession, says the president of US National Academy of Sciences

Britain faces a severe brain drain as young scientists leave for positions in countries where research is better funded, one of the most senior scientists in the US warns.

Swingeing cuts in university and research budgets will force the most talented British scientists to find jobs in the US, Singapore and other countries that are continuing to invest in science throughout the global recession, said Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego yesterday.

In December the UK government announced cuts worth £600m in university and research budgets, but whichever party wins the general election in May, deeper cuts are expected to follow.

News of the cuts announced last year was met with dismay from scientists, particularly in the face of repeated reassurances from Gordon Brown that the science budget was "ring-fenced" and of critical importance to the UK as it emerges from the global downturn.

"You might not see anything immediately, but you will begin to see a movement of scientists over time. They will go to where the opportunities are, to the US and to places like Singapore that have invested heavily in science, and are hiring from all over the world," said Cicerone.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, revealed in his pre-Budget report in December that there will be a substantial reduction in the higher education, science and research budgets between 2011 and 2013.

The Conservative science spokesman, Adam Afriyie, has said major science budget cuts are "inevitable" regardless of which party wins the forthcoming election.

The cuts have raised concerns among the Russel Group of large research-intensive universities that they will no longer be able to compete with other top-ranking universities around the world. They also come as leading academic centres in the US are being supported by stimulus funds, some of which are being used specifically to attract foreign students and qualified scientists.

Professor Cicerone's comments were backed by Peter Agre, winner of the 2003 Nobel prize for chemistry and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The politicians that are going to be cutting funding and discouraging young scientists can thank themselves for damaging a generation of science, not just science next year. And that isn't a political statement, that's the reality," Professor Agre said.

"When we have booms in scientific funding, young people devote their careers to this, and then we have busts and they can't afford to pay the rent and they are forced to quit. And when they quit, they're extinct – they quit forever," he added.

"The nations that fund science are investing in the future, but those that cut funding are hoping for the best."

Professor Agre said Singapore, which has no natural resources , is thriving as a science-based economy and is likely to pull further ahead in economic hard times.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Feb 2010 | 6:56 am

Does Coffee Kill the Benefits of Vitamins?

Beverages containing caffeine can inhibit the absorption of vitamins and minerals and increase their excretion from the body.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 5:59 am

Butterflies Evolved UV-vision to Help Find Mates

Butterfly Colors and Vision Are Related.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 5:56 am

5 Things That Will Make You Happier

Five things that research has shown can improve your happiness.
Source: Livescience.com | 22 Feb 2010 | 5:54 am

IVF may raise risk of diseases in later life, claims fertility expert

Fertility specialist calls for monitoring of adults born through IVF for the early onset of certain diseases

People conceived through IVF treatment should be monitored for the early onset of high blood pressure, diabetes and certain cancers before the age of 50, according to a fertility specialist.

While IVF is generally considered to produce healthy babies, doctors have identified subtle genetic changes that may raise the risk of particular medical conditions in later life.

Since the birth of the first test tube baby, Louise Brown, on 25 July 1978, more than three million babies have been born through fertility treatment around the world. The vast majority are still under the age of 30.

The extent to which IVF babies develop more hypertension, diabetes and cancer will begin to emerge over the next two decades as they enter middle age, doctors said.

"By and large these children are just fine, it's not like they have extra arms or extra heads, but they have a small risk of undesirable outcomes. What's going to happen to them down the line? Bear in mind none is older than 31 years old," said Carmen Sapienza, professor of pathology at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

"They have a much higher frequency of being low birthweight and this results in a higher tendency to be obese, a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension when you reach 50 years old," Sapienza told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego yesterday.

In 2006, the Department of Health warned that Britain was facing a new wave of cancer on the back of increasing obesity in the population. Obesity plays a role in 4% of cancers, including breast and womb cancer, and has also been linked to the disease in the bowel and kidney. In most cases, hormones released from fat are to blame.

"It makes sense for IVF children to watch out for hypertension, obesity and related diabetes and cancers as they reach their fifties," Sapienza said. "It will be interesting to monitor these children."

Unlike naturally conceived babies, those who are created through IVF spend their first three days after conception in a Petri dish and are exposed to more oxygen than is available in the womb. The altered oxygen levels and the culture media used to keep embryos alive are thought to alter how genes are expressed in IVF embryos.

Sapienza's team analysed levels of gene expression in 75 children born through IVF and compared this with 100 naturally born babies. They found differences in 6-10% of the genes studied.

Some of the genes that differed are known to play a role in normal development and growth, while others are linked to metabolism and the formation of fat in the body.

The findings come as the inventor of one of the most common fertility treatments in use in Britain warned that the technique, in which sperm are injected directly into eggs, is being overused, exposing patients to needless risk and expense.

Dr Andre van Steirteghem at the Brussels University Centre for Reproductive Medicine co-invented intracytoplasmic sperm injection or ICSI in the 1990s, a procedure that accounted for 48% of all IVF treatment in the UK in 2007. The procedure tends to be used more in private clinics than in the NHS. The Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre in London, which has Britain's highest success rates, uses ICSI in 78% of treatment cycles.

ICSI costs up to £2,000 more than standard IVF and carries a slightly higher risk of producing babies with birth defects. It was developed specifically to treat male infertility, but many clinics now use it for all patients, because it is more likely to lead to viable embryos.

"Several clinics use ICSI for everybody. I don't think it's necessary when you have a method like conventional IVF which is certainly less invasive," said Dr van Steirteghem. "ICSI has been overused. The important thing is we have to see what will come out in the future, so long-term follow-up is important."

In the UK, the use of ICSI as a proportion of all fertility treatment rose from 15% in 1995 to 43% in 2005. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority recommends that ICSI be used only when problems have been identified with a man's sperm, or when previous IVF treatment has failed.

Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said: "There is a real danger that ICSI is being overused in some parts of the world and I suspect this is out of fear of patients experiencing 'failed fertilisation' using conventional IVF. The problem with overusing ICSI is that there is a very small but statistically significant increased risk that some of the babies born from the technique appear to have health problems."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 22 Feb 2010 | 5:49 am

Palm oil politics

Are Indonesia's orangutans dying for a biscuit?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 3:32 am

Orangutan survival and the shopping trolley

Panorama investigates how demand for the palm oil that lands in our shopping trolleys is killing Indonesia's orangutans.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 3:18 am

Frog reveals secret of monogamy

The discovery of the first truly monogamous amphibian reveals what drives animals to stay faithful.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 2:57 am

The 'secret language' of elephant growls

Researchers at San Diego Zoo have been studying what has been described as the secret language of elephants.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 22 Feb 2010 | 1:39 am