Arsenic exposure activates an oncogenic signaling pathway; leads to increased cancer risk

Researchers have found a new oncogenic signaling pathway by which the environmental toxin arsenic may lead to adverse health effects, including bladder cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

New dinosaur discovered head first, for a change

Paleontologists have discovered a new dinosaur species that they've named Abydosaurus. The discovery includes the rare recovery of four sauropod skulls.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Belief in a caring god improves response to medical treatment for depression, study finds

In patients diagnosed with clinical depression, belief in a concerned god can improve response to medical treatment, according to a new paper.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Stitching together 'lab-on-a-chip' devices with cotton thread and sewing needles

Scientists are reporting the first use of ordinary cotton thread and sewing needles to literally stitch together a microfluidic analytical device -- microscopic technology that can transport fluids for medical tests and other purposes in a lab-on-a-chip. The chips shrink room-sized diagnostic testing equipment down to the size of a postage stamp, and promise revolutionary applications in medicine, environmental sensing, and other areas.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Quantum leap for phonon lasers

Physicists have taken major step forward in the development of practical phonon lasers, which emit sound in much the same way that optical lasers emit light. The development should lead to new, high-resolution imaging devices and medical applications. Just as optical lasers have been incorporated into countless, ubiquitous devices, a phonon laser is likely to be critical to a host of as yet unimaginable applications.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Damaged protein identified as early diagnostic biomarker for Alzheimer's disease in healthy adults

Researchers have found that elevated cerebrospinal fluid levels of phosphorylated tau231, a damaged tau protein found in patients with Alzheimer's disease, may be an early diagnostic biomarker for Alzheimer's disease in healthy adults.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

Virus hybridization could create pandemic bird flu

Genetic interactions between avian H5N1 influenza and human seasonal influenza viruses have the potential to create hybrid strains combining the virulence of bird flu with the pandemic ability of H1N1, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Changes during menopause increases risk of heart disease and stroke

Around the time of menopause, studies have shown the threat for heart disease intensifies drastically and detecting cardiovascular disease in women is very difficult.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Crickets 'forewarn' unborn babies about spiders

Just because cricket moms abandon their eggs before they hatch doesn't mean they don't pass wisdom along to their babies. New research shows that crickets can warn their unborn babies about potential predator threats.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Cassini finds plethora of plumes, hotspots on Saturn's moon Enceladus

Newly released images from last November's swoop over Saturn's icy moon Enceladus by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a forest of new jets spraying from prominent fractures crossing the south polar region and yield the most detailed temperature map to date of one fracture.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Giant predatory shark unearthed

The fossilised remains of a gigantic 10m-long predatory clam-busting shark have been unearthed in Kansas.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Feb 2010 | 2:58 am

Bristol or Borneo?

The biofuel debate rages in southern England
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Feb 2010 | 2:29 am

Biofuel power plant decision due

An application to build a controversial biofuel power station is being considered by local politicians in Bristol.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Feb 2010 | 2:25 am

GM and precision farming encouraged by Environment Agency

Lord Smith tells National Farmers' Union that climate change 'could provide opportunities for novel crops and systems'

The government's drive to push controversial genetically modified crops up the national agenda will receive a further boost today, when former cabinet minister Chris Smith will tell farmers that the technology has a key role in helping the UK beating climate change.

Lord Smith, former culture secretary under Tony Blair and now chair of the Environment Agency, will say that both GM crops and new technologies to support "precision farming" - including nanotechnology - could help tackle growing climate pressures such as water shortages.

Addressing delegates at the National Farmers' Union's (NFU) annual conference in Birmingham, Lord Smith will tell farmers that climate change "will create new demands on land and environmental resources" and "could provide opportunities for novel crops and systems".

Intense lobbying by food companies, the growing significance of climate change, recent international food crises and shortages and a major independent Royal Society report have all helped to give the government the authority to put GM back on the national agenda. The controversial technology was the focus of intense campaigns including destruction of GM crop trials by environmentalists in the 1990s, and last month came under renewed attack from academics and organic food campaigners at the Oxford Real Farming Conference.

Lord Smith will say: "We can already see wildlife following climate change – the mayfly is now found some 40 miles further north than before and warmer winters and wetter summers are thought to be a major factor in the rapid decline of pollinating insects with UK bee populations, in particular, falling by 10-15% over the last two years.

"The reliance on seasonal weather patterns means that farming will follow climate change too. My own personal view is that we probably need to be readier to explore GM options, coupled of course with proper environmental safeguards, in adapting to the changes that the climate will bring."

The GM industry now involves 14 million farmers in 25 countries who are growing 134m hectares of GM crops around the world. This is a 7% increase compared with last year.

Lord Smith will recommend more use of new technology: "New tools and technologies are becoming available, nanotechnology for example, as well as the use of satellites, IT and other tools to support precision farming. We need to understand the environmental implications of novel approaches in order to embrace them and be clear how they will help us achieve long-term goals.

"We need to ensure that science is at the forefront of development and innovation and that effective knowledge transfer means farmers can adapt and innovate. Innovation has already seen British agriculture adapt to the economic challenges it has faced over the last 15 years or so and I know it will do so into the future."

Organic farmers have been more resistant to the use of GM than "conventional" farmers represented in the membership of the NFU, although the latter broadly agrees that any such developments must be subject to proper scientific evaluation.

Yesterday Paul Kelly, founder of Kelly's Turkeys, told the conference: "GM has had a terrible press and consumers are very confused. But it is only a matter of time before we are feeding our turkeys GM feed."

As well as exploring the potential of new crops and technologies, Lord Smith will underline the need for agriculture to become more water efficient as climate change ushers in longer, hotter, drier summers.

On the opening day of the conference yesterday, the Conservatives set out plans to prevent development on top quality farmland, reform the body which delivers EU subsidies to farmers and set up a review of red tape as part of efforts to back British farming.

The Liberal Democrats also set out proposals to improve delivery of subsidies by the Rural Payments Agency, which in 2006 left farmers without EU grants after problems with its computer system.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 11:00 pm

Whaling plan would OK hunts but seek fewer kills (AFP)

AFP - The global body that regulates whaling has proposed giving the green light to Japan to keep hunting the sea mammals in return for reducing the number of animals killed.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 9:14 pm

New species of dinosaur found in eastern Utah rock (AP)

AP - Fossils of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains, scientists said Tuesday. The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod — long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 7:24 pm

Kerry insists US to move on climate (AFP)

AFP - Senator John Kerry vowed the United States would overcome the odds and approve action on climate change, as the United Nations set talks for April to help break a diplomatic logjam.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 7:16 pm

New Images of Enceladus Show More Plumes and Heat

The Cassini spacecraft’s November flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus has revealed new features including at least 20 more icy plumes spewing from the moon’s southern pole.

New infrared data gives scientists the highest resolution temperature map of one particular warm fissure called a “tiger stripe.” The moon’s four tiger stripes are fractures that spew a mix of ice particles, water vapor and organic compounds into space. They are a key clue for scientists trying to figure out if small moon harbors a liquid water ocean under its frosty surface. Now, scientists know that their temperatures can exceed 180 Kelvin (minus 135 degrees Fahrenheit).

“The fractures are chilly by Earth standards, but they’re a cozy oasis compared to the numbing 50 Kelvin (-370 Fahrenheit) of their surroundings,” said John Spencer, a composite infrared spectrometer team member based at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

“The huge amount of heat pouring out of the tiger stripe fractures may be enough to melt the ice underground,” Spencer said. ”Results like this make Enceladus one of the most exciting places we’ve found in the solar system.”

Enceladus is obviously too distant for the sun heat the moon to temperatures that could keep water in its freely flowing phase. Instead, the planet’s warmth appears to result from “tidal heating.” Saturn’s gravitational force deforms the satellite as it rotates. The back-and-forth pull heats up the satellite like a human repeatedly bending a spoon.

The new detailed temperature map of the tiger stripe, “Baghdad Sulcus,” shows that the temperature varies along the length of the fracture. The warm spots are confined to an area just half a mile across. For those hoping to find simple extraterrestrial life within our solar system, those might be the most interesting canyons outside planet Earth.

More images of this remarkable celestial object below.

The area that was examined in detail in the image above is highlighted here.

Enceladus is just 310 miles in diameter, but may have the most easily accessible liquid ocean beyond Earth.

This close-up 3-D view of the Baghdad Sulcus shows 10 miles of the fracture in dramatic relief.

Images: 1) NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. 2) NASA/JPL/GSFC/SWRI/SSI. 3-5) NASA/JPL/SSI

See Also:

• Saturn’s Most Habitable Moon Offers Ice, Water, Killer Views
• Top 5 Bets for Extraterrestrial Life in the Solar System
• Hunt for Life on Saturnian Moon Heats Up

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Feb 2010 | 6:06 pm

Ancient Human Ancestors Faced Fearsome Horned Crocodile (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A newfound horned crocodile may have been the largest predator encountered by our ancestors in Africa, researchers now suggest.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 6:05 pm

Ancient Human Ancestors Faced Fearsome Horned Crocodile

Bite marks on hominid bones suggest a crocodile with triangular horns was a fearsome predator.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Feb 2010 | 6:00 pm

Chevron to build solar plant at NM tailings site (AP)

AP - A subsidiary of oil giant Chevron Corp. plans to build what New Mexico officials say will be the largest solar power plant in the nation that uses lenses to focus sunlight onto solar cells.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 5:47 pm

Saturn Moon Riddled with Gushing Geysers, New Images Reveal (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Like sprinklers hidden beneath the surface, a series of geysers — more than previously thought — are gushing water ice from fissures near the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, new images reveal.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 5:46 pm

Small dog Middle East gene link

Small dogs may all originate from the Middle East according to research from the University of California.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 5:10 pm

Science being put at risk for a pittance

For a decade after 1997, the UK established itself as one of the best places in which to do the very best science (Budget cuts will lead to British brain drain, 23 February). The government expected us to do the best science, we did it, and the best in the world were attracted to up sticks and join us. I came back to the UK in 1999 and obtained funding for major new initiatives, which attracted the best to come from the rest of Europe and beyond. Furthermore, we managed to develop new initiatives with hi-tech industry on the back of this investment, without compromising the funding for the scientific seed corn.

But since 2008, when difficulties in funding cutting-edge physics first began to bite, I have watched things unravel. New projects are cancelled. Those whom we attracted from France, Germany, Asia, the US and the rest of Europe either leave out of choice for better climes or because of lack of new opportunity, taking with them years of experience and often, also, many of the PhD students and post-docs. When I contemplate how this reversal of national fortune can be arrested, I come to one conclusion. For the sake of what amounts to a pittance in comparison with my, and my fellow taxpayers', stakeholding in the cause of the recent recession – the financial services industry – we are throwing away much of the return on recent investment in science and we are destroying too much of the scientific excellence on which depends our future wellbeing in the form of the knowledge-based economy. Why don't those who manage the nation's finances also recognise this and act accordingly?

Professor John Dainton

Sir James Chadwick professor of physics, University of Liverpool

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 5:05 pm

Small Dogs Originated in the Middle East

These mini mutts were the descendants of gray wolves, which also happen to be smaller than many other wolves.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 5:01 pm

Wake Up and Smell the Science, Hollywood!

The cast of The Core, looking baffled by bad science. Neutrinos? You're going to kill the Earth using... neutrinos?! That was the thought echoing through my brain during the November 2009 screening of Roland Emmerich's disaster orgy, 2012. However, I ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 4:37 pm

Sperm Whales Found to be Pack Hunters

Submitted by guest blogger Cynthia Mills, reporting from Portland, Oregon. Moby Dick was a sperm whale with an attitude, and there is now new evidence that real sperm whales may just be smart enough to act like Moby did. New ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 4:29 pm

Sperm Whales Use Teamwork to Hunt Prey

PORTLAND — Sperm whales sometimes collaborate when they forage the depths, new tracking data suggests, with some individuals herding prey into dense schools while others lunge into the fray and feed.

Scientists have long known that sperm whales, like many other toothed whales, form long-lasting social groups that typically consist of females and their young. While some researchers have suggested that the females in such groups collaboratively raise their young, the new data is the first to hint that the whales may engage in tag-team hunting. Bruce Mate, director of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute in Newport reported Feb. 22 at the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences meeting.

In 2007 and 2008, Mate and his colleagues tagged sperm whales in the Gulf of California with a new type of data-gathering sensor. These hockey-puck-sized instruments included a Global Positioning System receiver, which gathered data when the creatures were at the ocean’s surface, and other sensors that recorded water depth. In essence, Mate said, the instruments are flight data recorders for whales.

After taking data once every two seconds for as long as 28 days ,the instruments broke free and floated to the ocean surface, where they could be recovered by the researchers.

One of the whale groups the team studied consisted of between 10 and 15 individuals, three of which were tagged with recorders. Data showed that during some deep dives, whales zigzagged back and forth or suddenly surged forward, probably when they foraged on the Humboldt squid prevalent in the area. Sometimes the three tagged whales, presumably accompanied by others in the group, dove to great depths at the same time.

“We expected their dives to be similar, but often one of the three whales went deeper than the other two,” Mate said. This behavior is similar to that of sea lions and dolphins, which sometimes collaboratively prey upon fish by herding them into tight groups known as “bait balls.”

Mate and his colleagues speculate that the whale that dove deepest during each coordinated excursion helped prevent squid from escaping downward.

Sperm whales engaging in such behavior apparently share deep-diving patrol duty, Mate said, probably because the forays — which sometimes extend to depths of 1,500 meters — are physiologically stressful.

The new findings suggest but don’t prove collaborative foraging among sperm whales, comments Kelly Benoit-Bird, a biological oceanographer at Oregon State’s main campus in Corvallis. For one thing, she notes, the team’s data reveal the behavior of the whales but not their prey, and it’s not clear that squid respond to groups of predators by forming concentrated “bait balls” the same way that fish sometimes do.

Mate and his colleagues are now working to address that issue. Developing a technique to observe squid at depth is a somewhat difficult task, he notes, because — unlike fish — squid don’t have air-filled bladders that show up well on sonar images.

Meanwhile, the new data recorders deployed by Mate and his colleagues can also be used for other behavioral research in whales. For instance, Mate suggests, the instruments could reveal how whales respond to various sources of aquatic noise such as sonar or the often intense pressure pulses generated during submarine seismic surveys used in research or oil and gas exploration.

Image: A sperm whale calf, only hours old, swims next to its mother and a pod of sperm whales.
Guam Variety News, Chris Bangs/AP

See Also:

• Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists
• Underwater Glider Hunts, Records Cryptic Whales
• Hidden Whale Culture Could Be Critical to Species Survival
• Transitional Whale Species Hunted at Sea, Gave Birth on Land
• What It Sounds Like to Be a Whale
• Whales Might Be as Much Like People as Apes Are

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Feb 2010 | 4:09 pm

'Tuned' images from water mission

The first fully calibrated images from the European Space Agency's Smos satellite have now been released.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 3:54 pm

Sex Offenders Thrive in Oil and Gas Boom Towns

At the heart of our energy problems today is a raging political debate: should we continue to expand our ability to extract coal, natural gas, and oil from Earth, or should we turn to technologically complex renewable energies? Here's an ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 3:41 pm

The Earth is flat? What planet is Daniel Shenton on?

The Flat Earth Society has become a byword for sticking your head in the sand, whatever the scientific facts. David Adam tries to make sense of its new president, Daniel Shenton

Daniel Shenton should be the most irrational man in the world. As the new president of the Flat Earth Society, you'd ­imagine he would also think that evolution is a scam and ­global warming a myth. He should ­argue that smoking does not cause ­cancer and HIV does not lead to Aids.

Yes, that Flat Earth Society, a group that has become a living metaphor for backward thinking and a refusal to face scientific facts. Yes, it is still going, and no, this isn't an early April fool.

In fact, Shenton turns out to have resolutely mainstream views on most issues. The 33-year-old American, ­originally from Virginia but now living and working in London, is happy with the work of Charles Darwin. He thinks the evidence for man-made global warming is strong, and he dismisses suggestions that his own government was involved with the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

He is mainstream on most issues, but not all. For when Shenton rides his motorbike, he says it is not gravity that pins him to the road, but the rapid upward motion of a disc-shaped planet. Countries, according to him, spread across this flat world as they appear to do on a map, with Antarctica as a ring of mountains strung around the edge. And, yes, you can fall off.

If you thought that flat Earthism was gone, think again. The scientific evidence is stacked against Shenton, ­obviously, just as it is against those who think global warming is a hoax and that the dead stalk the Earth as ghosts – but that doesn't appear to trouble him in the least.

"There is no unified flat Earth model," Shenton suggests, "but the most commonly accepted one is that it's more or less a disc, with a ring of something to hold in the water. The height and substance of that, no one is absolutely sure, but most people think it's mountains with snow and ice."

The Earth is flat, he argues, because it appears flat. The sun and moon are spherical, but much smaller than mainstream science says, and they rotate around a plane of the Earth, because they appear to do so.

Inevitably, Shenton's ­argument forces him down all kinds of logical blind alleys – the non-existence of gravity, and his argument that most space exploration, and so the moon landings, are faked. But, while many flat Earthers have problems with the idea of orbiting satellites, ­Shenton navigates the ­London streets using GPS. He was also happy to fly from the US to Britain, but says an aircraft that flew over the Antarctic ­barrier would drop from the sky, and from the planet.

The Flat Earth Society was originally formed as the Universal Zetetic Society in 1884, after the Greek word zeteo, "to seek". Zeteticism, Shenton says, ­emphasises experience and reason over the ­"trusting acceptance of dogma" – or, it seems, overwhelming evidence. Only a personal trip into space to see the world as it is for himself would ­persuade him. "But even then, in seeing it, I would have to be convinced there weren't any tricks involved."

The International Flat Earth Society was formally founded in 1956. Shenton resurrected the society and claimed its presidency last year, ­following years of inaction after the death of former ­president Charles Johnson in 2001, who had some 3,000 registered followers. He has so far recruited 60 members through the society's website, which boasts about 9,000 visitors to its discussion forums.

"I can't say what everybody's motive is for joining, but there are quite a few who I know are as serious as I am," he says. "Lots of people log on once to hurl abuse but they tend to get bored and go away. We're not ­fanatical about it and we're not going to engage in pointless, ­angry discussions."

The website features scanned issues of the society's newsletter, the notorious Flat Earth News, from its 1970s and 80s heyday. Sample headlines include: Sun Is a Light 32 Miles Across, Australia Not Down Under, and World Is Flat and That's That.

"I thought it was a shame that all these documents would go unseen ­forever," Shenton says. But what about the evidence? In an age where ­astronauts send photographs of a spherical planet from an orbiting space station, how can the concept of a flat Earth persist?

"Look at what special effects are capable of: you can produce any photograph, any video. I don't think there is solid proof. I'm not intentionally being stubborn about it, but I feel our senses tell us these things, and it would take an extraordinarily level of evidence to counteract those. How many people have actually investigated it? Have you?"

Last year, Shenton did just that, travelling to a six-mile stretch of straight water along the Old Bedford River in Norfolk, the scene of many infamous flat Earth experiments. "There should have been curvature, but I didn't see what mainstream science says should have been there," he says.

Shenton's critics, it should be pointed out, can fall back on spherical trigonometry and astronomical ­observations that date right back to Aristotle in 330BC. In fact, the idea of a flat Earth was widespread only until about the fourth century BC, when the Ancient Greeks first proposed it was a sphere. By the Middle Ages, most ­people in Europe were convinced, ­contrary to popular stories. "A lot of the stuff about Columbus isn't true; there weren't mutinies about whether they would fall off the Earth," Shenton says.

The modern Flat Earth movement dates back to Victorian England, and biblical literalist Samuel Rowbotham and his followers, who promoted their cause by engaging top scientists of the day in public debate.

Shenton himself used to accept that the Earth was round, but began ­asking questions after hearing musician Thomas Dolby's 1984 album The Flat Earth. (When Shenton reconvened the society last year, Dolby accepted membership number 00001.) "It was the late 1990s and I started doing research into what the Flat Earth Society was. I had heard of it and, when I did some more research, I eventually ended up believing its ideas were true."

It may sound like Shenton is playing games, that the reborn society is a clever metaphor or marketing tool for another cause – but he insists he is serious.

"I haven't taken this position just to be difficult. To look around, the world does appear to be flat, so I think it is ­incumbent on others to prove ­decisively that it isn't. And I don't think that burden of proof has been met yet."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 3:39 pm

Reserves 'win–win' for fish and fishermen

Marine protection areas could offer fisheries a boost.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/hcQy5HAinyM" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 23 Feb 2010 | 3:29 pm

For NASA no easy answer for next space destination (AP)

AP - Where to next?

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 3:19 pm

Apple to Sell 10 Billionth Song Wednesday

Apple is on track to hit the 10 billion song downloads mark tomorrow.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:53 pm

Pebble-bed nuclear reactor gets pulled

South Africa cuts funding for energy technology project.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:51 pm

Did design flaws doom the LHC?

Catastrophic failure that caused accelerator shutdown was not a freak accident, says project physicist.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:40 pm

Virulent Bird-Human Flu Hybrid Made in Lab

Engineered hybrids of bird and human flu strains have proven virulent in mice, raising the disturbing possibility that a natural recombination could be deadly to humans.

For years, researchers have worried that H5N1 avian influenza would mix with human flu viruses, evolving into a form that keeps its current lethality but is far more contagious. That hasn’t happened — but the latest findings, published Feb. 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show how easily it might.

“Fortunately, the H5N1 viruses still lack the ability to transmit efficiently among humans.” However, this obstacle may be overcome by mixing with flu strains common in people, wrote researchers led by University of Wisconsin virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka. “The next pandemic then will be inevitable.”

Current strains of H5N1 have infected 478 people since 2003, and killed 286 of them. It’s difficult to transmit in humans, requiring close contact with an infected person or animal. In birds, however, H5N1 is far more contagious, and his killed tens of millions of fowl. Cases have been concentrated in Africa and Eurasia, but as the swine flu pandemic demonstrated, any flu contagious to humans will likely go global, fast.

Influenza viruses swap genes easily, with co-infections turning animals into mobile petri dishes. In 2008, hoping to learn more about how H5N1 might evolve, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention combined it with a common human flu strain. The hybrids proved less virulent than the original bird flu strain. Researchers wondered whether more contagious bird flu would necessarily always be less deadly in humans.

The PNAS findings suggest this may not be so. The researchers engineered all 254 possible variants of hybridization between a deadly bird flu strain found in Borneo, and a human flu virus from Tokyo. They identified three strains that, at least in mice, were both contagious and deadly.

A flu virus that kills mice won’t necessarily kill humans, but the results are suggestive. All three killer hybrid strains possessed a protein taken from the human strain. Called PB2, the protein appeared to help the virus survive in the mice’s upper respiratory tract. As of now, bird flu stays in the lower respiratory tract, where it’s less likely to be casually transmitted.

The findings come as the World Health Organization meets to decide whether the swine flu pandemic has abated. Though the pandemic has not proved as lethal as originally feared, it exposed how unprepared the world is for new influenza strains.

In May, Hong Kong University virologist Yi Guan, best known for finding the animal origin of SARS, was asked by Science Insider about the possibility of H5N1 and swine flu mixing.

“If that happens, I will retire immediately and lock myself” in a sealed laboratory, said Guan.

Photo: A person feeds northern pintail ducks and whooper swans in Northern Honshu, Japan; in spring 2008, highly pathogenic H5N1 was found there in both bird species./USGS

See Also:

• Flu Pandemics May Lurk in Frozen Lakes
• Swine Flu: Just the Latest Chapter in a 91-Year Pandemic Era
• Tamiflu in Rivers Could Breed Drug-Resistant Flu Strains
• Swine Flu Ancestor Born on U.S. Factory Farms
• Google Could Have Caught Swine Flu Early

Citation: “Reassortment between avian H5N1 and human H3N2 influenza viruses creates hybrid viruses with substantial virulence.” By Chengjun Li, Masato Hatta, Chairul A. Nidom, Yukiko Muramoto, Shinji Watanabe, Gabriele Neumann, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 8, February 23, 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 | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:38 pm

Gulp! Long-Necked Dinosaurs Didn't Bother Chewing

Four dinosaur skulls suggest sauropods didn't chew their food because they had small heads.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Feb 2010 | 2:00 pm

Fake Elvis Passport Passes Through Airport Security

Last Friday I posted a blog about the Web site, PleaseRobMe.com, which gives away information about social networkers who are everywhere but home in order to shine a light on the dangers of location-aware social networking. Today, I see this ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 1:05 pm

Still births four times as likely with IVF

A study shows fewer deaths with other fertility plans, but experts say dangers for pregnancies are still very low

Women who have fertility treatment are four times more likely to have a stillborn baby than those who conceive naturally, says a study published today.

It has been known for some time that there was an increased risk that a baby conceived through IVF (in-vitro fertilisation, in which sperm and eggs are mixed in a test tube) or ICSI (in which the sperm is injected into the egg) would be stillborn. But previous studies have not been able to show the scale of baby deaths.

Researchers say women contemplating fertility treatment should not be unduly anxious. Kirsten Wisborg, who led the study, said: "The risk of stillbirth is still very low after IVF/ICSI. We do not know whether increased risk is due to the fertility treatment or to factors pertaining to couples who undergo IVF/ICSI."

The fourfold difference was between women who had either IVF or ICSI and women who conceived either naturally or through other methods such as taking hormones to stimulate their egg production or artificial insemination.

The study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, involved more than 20,000 singleton pregnancies in Aarhus, Denmark. Dr Wisborg and colleagues analysed data that has been kept on pregnant women between 1989 and 2006, who form the Aarhus Birth Cohort. They had a wealth of data on the pregnancies and outcomes, including how long it took the women to become pregnant, smoking and drinking habits, age and education.

Out of 20,166 first-time singleton pregnancies, 82% were conceived spontaneously within 12 months and 10% after more than a year of trying. Of the rest, 4% were conceived after IVF or ICSI and 4% after other forms of fertility treatment. There were 86 stillbirths, giving an overall risk of 4.3 per thousand pregnancies.

But the risk of stillbirths in women who had undergone IVF or ICSI was significantly higher, at 16.2 per thousand.

The stillbirth rate among women who had undergone other fertility treatment, such as hormone stimulation, was lowest, at 2.3 per thousand. Of those who became pregnant spontaneously within 12 months of trying it was 3.7 per thousand and among those who took more than a year to get pregnant it was 5.4 per thousand.

"There has been speculation that the increased risk of adverse outcomes, in assisted reproduction might be related to infertility. However, we found the risk was similar between sub-fertile couples, women who had conceived after non-IVF fertility treatment and fertile couples.

"This may indicate that the increased risk of stillbirth is not explained by infertility and may be due to other factors, such as the technology involved in IVF/ICSI or some physiological difference in couples that require IVF/ICSI."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 1:01 pm

Package Delivery Gains Citizen Shippers

When physicist Richard Obousy isn't thinking about warp drive and theoretical space travel, he's concentrating on getting a reliable ride for your stuff here on Earth. His green shipping site, CitizenShipper, started as an idea he had while commuting between ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:45 pm

DOE Ponies Up $10 Billion in Financing for Solar, Nuclear Plants

The Department of Energy has provided almost $10 billion in loan guarantees for two nuclear and three solar power plants in just the past week.

The moves mark a new DOE strategy to finance the large-scale deployment of low-carbon technologies in the United States.

The Oakland-based company BrightSource will conditionally receive $1.4 billion in loans for a solar complex in the Mojave Desert, while a consortium led by the Southern Company will get a whopping $8.33 billion to build two new nuclear reactors in the city of Burke, Georgia.

The dual moves would have been almost unthinkable for all the administrations since Reagan took office in 1981. Traditionally, promoting nuclear power has been seen as a right-wing issue, while the left has preferred solar.

“What I hope this announcement underscores is both our commitment to meeting the energy challenge – and our willingness to look at this challenge not as a partisan issue, but as a matter far more important than politics,” Barack Obama said in a release Feb. 16 announcing the nuclear power plant funding.

Loan guarantees are one of a series of indirect financial incentives that could accelerate the introduction of new energy technology. The 2005 Energy Act gave the DOE authorization to make such moves. By making the loan guarantees, the government ensures the projects will get money through the Federal Financing Bank at a below-market rate.

Some policy wonks argue that providing loans to private companies to build innovative new plants is essential for commercializing technologies that are trying to make the jump from small demonstration plant to full-scale facility.

It’s a risky step, so such subsidies may be necessary to deploy new types of plants. Most of our electrical infrastructure depends on technologies developed before 1970. Seventy percent of electricity in the United States is generated by burning fossil fuels to create heat which can be converted into electricity. The fundamentals haven’t changed for a century.

The Obama Administration has made it clear that technologies with substantially lower carbon-intensity are a major priority. Both nuclear and renewable technologies fit the bill, although both types of power have their detractors. BrightSource has encountered opposition from environmentalists concerned with the impact the solar plant may have on the desert tortoise. Organized opposition to nuclear power generally focuses on the plants’ radioactive waste issues or fears of catastrophic plant failure or terrorist attack.

Energy Secretary Steve Chu recognized that the Democratic administration’s support for the new nuclear plants was particularly controversial and responded on his Facebook page with his rationale for supporting a form of energy that has not been popular on the American political left.

“The sun isn’t always shining, and the wind isn’t always blowing. Without technological breakthroughs in efficient, large-scale energy storage, it will be difficult to rely on intermittent renewables for much more than 20 to 30 percent of our electricity,” Chu wrote in a post entitled Why We Need More Nuclear Power.

“To overcome this problem, we are pursuing breakthrough approaches to grid-scale energy storage as well as stimulating the widespread adoption of known technologies such as pumped hydro energy storage,” he wrote. “But nuclear power can provide large amounts of carbon-free power that is always available.”

The two new nuclear plants would be the first reactors built in the United States in almost 30 years. In the intervening decades, the performance record of nuclear power plants has improved a lot. In the late ’70s, the average plant was out of operation four out of every 10 days. Now, the plants are online 90 percent of the time.

Nuclear advocates celebrated the new guarantees as a sign the long-awaited “nuclear renaissance” might begin under Obama. His new budget proposes more than $54 billion in funding for nuclear loan guarantees.

Wall Street banks have been loathe to invest in nuclear power plants since the industry’s grisly collapse in the ’70s and ’80s when about 100 projects were abandoned during construction. Plant designers say they’ve eliminated many of the problems that plagued the first nuclear era, but the perceived high risk involved in plant construction makes borrowing the money to build new reactors expensive or impossible. Government financing doesn’t eliminate the risk of construction issues; it shifts the burden onto taxpayers if anything goes wrong.

A 2006 paper in Environmental Science and Technology authored by Dan Kammen, an energy specialist at UC Berkeley, and two colleagues, looked at the costs of almost all the reactors built in the United States. Many plants were actually completed within a reasonable time frame, but there was a troubling clump of very overbudget projects. Kammen argued that new plants may be subject to cost “surprises.”

But until new plants get built, optimistic or pessimistic speculations about their costs and build times will remain just that.

The DOE’s other big loan guarantee, for the solar company BrightSource, had long been expected by the outfit’s management. With the guarantees in hand, the company wants to begin construction on the first of three plants near Ivanpah, California later this year, with commercial operation beginning in 2012. First, they have to finish the extensive environmental permitting process and secure hundreds of millions of dollars in private financing. If all goes as planned, the project’s lead contractor, Bechtel will complete all three plants by the end of 2013. They’ll have a peak capacity of about 400 megawatts.

BrightSource is using a “power tower” design for its new plants. A field of mirrors surround a tower with a water-filled boiler sitting on top of it. The mirrors focus the sun’s rays onto the boiler, which heats up the water and transforms it into steam. That steam can be used to impart mechanical energy to a generator and create electricity. The company’s demonstration tower has been producing steam in Israel’s Negev Desert has been operating for the past year.

Taken together, the DOE announcements signal a return of solar and nuclear energy to the prominence they once enjoyed in the 1970s. Back then, Alvin Weinberg, who headed Oak Ridge National Laboratory, wrote a paper about the nation’s post-fossil energy future asking the question, “Can the sun replace uranium?”

From the recent funding announcements, the DOE still doesn’t know the answer to that question, but the push to find out is finally taking shape.

Photo: theta444/Flickr

See Also:

• Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts
• Reactor Drawings Make Nuclear History Beautiful
• The Lasting Fallout of a Nuclear Meltdown’s Data Gaps

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:41 pm

NASA Prepares Shuttle Discovery for April Launch (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - NASA's space shuttle Discovery moved a step closer to a planned April 5 launch Monday, a day after its sister ship Endeavour returned to Earth from its own space mission.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:32 pm

Grizzly Bears Enter Polar Bear Territory

Grizzly bears have entered polar bear territory, setting the stage for deadly bear versus bear encounters to come, suggests a study recently published in the journal Canadian Field Naturalist. Should the bears meet, the grizzlies could do some serious damage. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 12:05 pm

Vultures Dine at Turkish Carrion Restaurant

Ask someone what his or her favorite animal is and most probably won't answer "vulture." That doesn't mean the threatened scavenging birds don't have their defenders, though. According to NatGeo News Watch and Çağan Şekercioğlu, senior research biologist at Stanford ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 11:36 am

Math Shows Some Crime Hot Spots Can Be Cooled, Others Only Relocated

SAN DIEGO — Not all crime hot spots are created equal, a new mathematical model suggests. For some areas repeatedly hit hard with crime, police intervention can shut down lawlessness and keep it down. But for others, police involvement just shifts the trouble around.

“If you see a hot area of crime, you want to know: If you send the police in, will that displace the crime or get rid of the crime altogether?” said Andrea Bertozzi, a mathematician at UCLA who presented the new model Feb. 20 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “We were able to predict the ability to suppress or otherwise displace hot spots.” The results will also appear Feb. 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study “makes a major contribution to the theory of hot spots of crime,” comments John Eck, a criminologist at the University of Cincinnati.

Working with anthropologists, criminologists and the Los Angeles Police Department, Bertozzi built a mathematical representation of how areas with frequent, repeated crimes form within a city and change over time.

The team modeled a city as a two-dimensional grid populated with burglars and houses to rob. The researchers used previous studies to add a mathematical description of how attractive a region is to a burglar. Data has shown, for example, that the house next door to a house with a broken window is more likely to be robbed.

Bertozzi and colleagues ran simulations that led to the formation of crime hot spots and then simulated police intervention. Two sharply distinct outcomes emerged. Certain kinds of hot spots just moved around in response to police efforts to quash them. “It’s impossible,” Bertozzi said. “You hit one and it pops up somewhere else.”

But for others, suppressing the hot spot once erased it forever.

The difference comes from how the hot spot forms in the first place. The model shows that a high-risk zone forms around every break-in. If the boundaries of risk zones overlap, then a persistent hot spot forms. “The diffusion of risk basically binds together local crimes, which then will seed more crimes,” Bertozzi said.

But suppressible hot spots can form from one large crime spike, in which a single event draws in more criminals. A good example of this might be the formation of a drug market, said UCLA anthropologist Jeffrey Brantingham, a co-author of the paper.

“You wouldn’t suspect this was the case from just mapping the hot spots,” Brantingham said. “Empirically they look very much the same.” The math was able to show that there may be two different types of hot spots when the data alone could not, he said.

“This is something that would be important for us in real life,” Bertozzi said, “to be able to go and tell the police, in this situation you’re going to be able to get rid of the crimes, and in this other situation you’re only going to displace them.”

Though the researchers compared the model’s predictions of where and when burglaries would happen with real data from a region of the San Fernando Valley, Eck says he would want to test the model’s police intervention predictions. Still, he says, it makes “a really elegant start.”

Image: invisible city photography/Flickr

See Also:

• Data-Mining Medical Records Could Predict Domestic Violence
• Athletes Beware, Scientists Hot on Gene Doping Trail
• New Lasers Fight Crime, Martians

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Feb 2010 | 11:13 am

Red Sea corals mapped in unprecedented detail

Maps reveal effects of past climates.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 23 Feb 2010 | 11:04 am

Thousands Mourn Dead Whale in Vietnam

An enormous whale known as "Your Excellency" received last rites and was buried today at the mouth of the Cai Cung River at southern Bac Lieu province in Vietnam, according to an Associated Press report. On Sunday, the 15-ton, 52-foot-long ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 10:40 am

Out of sight...

Lessons learned from extinctions are quickly forgotten
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 10:14 am

Futuristic Kitchen Needs No Pots and Pans

A compact, shape-shifting, all-in-one cooking station aims to do away with pots and pans forever.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Feb 2010 | 10:02 am

An Olympic-style challenge: U.K. vs. U.S. for ocean champion

Submitted by guest blogger Debbie Salamone of the Pew Campaign to End Overfishing in the Southeast. Olympic athletes are earning their medals. But there’s a different sort of race to greatness under way. It’s the United Kingdom vs. the United ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Feb 2010 | 9:53 am

5 Easy PC Maintenance Tips

There are simple and free procedures to try when your pc seems sluggish.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Feb 2010 | 8:43 am

U.N. says emissions vows not enough to avoid rise of 2 degrees C

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Emission cuts pledges made by 60 countries will not be enough to keep the average global temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius or less, modeling released on Tuesday by the United Nations says.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 8:30 am

Angry Husbands Linked to Depression in Wives

An angry husband could contribute to his wife's depression.
Source: Livescience.com | 23 Feb 2010 | 8:22 am

Sharp decline in British public's belief in climate threat, poll reveals

Climate change survey raises fears it will be harder to persuade the public to support costly policies to curb emissions

Public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined sharply after months of questions over the science and growing disillusionment with government action, a leading British poll has found.

The proportion of adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori.

Overall around nine out of 10 people questioned still appear to accept some degree of global warming. But the steep drop in those without doubts will raise fears that it will be harder to persuade the public to support actions to curb the problem, particularly higher prices for energy and other goods.

The true level of doubt is also probably underestimated because the poll only questioned 16 to 64-year-olds. People over 65 are more likely to be sceptical, the researchers said.

Another finding by the poll that hints at a growing lack of public confidence is a significant drop in those who said climate change was caused by human activities. One year ago this number was one in three, but this year just one in five people believes global warming to be man-made, according to Edward Langley, Ipsos Mori's head of environment research.

"It's going to be a hard sell to make people make changes to their behaviours unless there's something else in it for them - [like] energy efficiency measures saving money on fuel bills," said Langley. "It's a hard sell to tell people not to fly off for weekends away if you're not wholly convinced by the links. Even people who are [convinced] still do it."

John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace, said concern about fluctuations in public opinion have also prompted many environment groups to re-think their approach to campaigning - which has often focused on threats of climate disaster and making people feel guilty for their part in it.

"All of us have [talked about these changes]," said Sauven. "A lot of [recent] headlines have been grossly distorted, but that doesn't get away from the fact it's quite a complex issue, so we have got to talk about what is engaging and positive in terms of the response [which] can have many benefits to our society, for example energy security."

The latest poll, taken at the end of January, follows two months of allegations that climate scientists might have manipulated and withheld data, and the contradiction of facts in the influential 2007 report on the science and impacts of climate change by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

However evidence that these events are behind the increased public uncertainty is mixed. Russ Lidstone, chief executive of the advertising agency Euro RSCG, which commissioned the Ipsos Mori survey, said their research among consumers found "great cynicism now as a result of questions in popular culture and regarding credibility of IPCC data". However a recent poll for the BBC suggested that these events have had less influence on British public opinion than the cold winter.

Adding to the confusion, Lidstone said that the agency's focus groups also showed the public was becoming "desensitised" to unseasonal weather and dramatic events like flooding.

Another likely factor was government action - or inaction - including the perceived failure of the climate talks in Copenhagen at the end of last year.Langley said: "That's something we do hear when we're doing dialogue work with the public: if this is a serious issue, then why aren't politicians taking it more seriously? But obviously that can be a way for them [voters] to detract responsibilty from themselves."

Just over 1,000 people in Great Britain were questioned on their views on climate change as part of Ipsos Mori's regular online omnibus poll on a range of issues. The results are weighted to reflect social groups and the split between men and women.

Thirty one percent of those polled said climate change was "definitely" happening, while 29% said it "it's looking like it could be a reality", and another 31% said the problem was exaggerated, a category which rose by 50% compared to a year ago. Only 6% said climate change was not happening at all, and 3% said they did not know.

Providing succor to those who believe that public opinion on the issue is largely fixed and that fears of a decline in public confidence are exaggerated, nearly half of the poll group said they "strongly agree" or "tend to agree" that climate change is a threat to all life on earth.

The response to the question on the causes of climate change could also reflect a more sophisticated understanding of climate science among the public than is sometimes assumed. Nearly one in five said climate change was "man-made", half that number said it was the result of "natural causes", and two-thirds said it was caused by a mixture of the two - putting the majority in line with scientists' conviction that the current global warming is predominantly man-made, but also influenced by natural factors such as the Sun's activity.

Climate change also dropped significantly down the list of voters' biggest concerns, ranking in the top three for only 17% of voters, nearly half the number in December 2007 soon after the IPCC's major assessment and another influential report on the the economics of climate change by Lord Stern for the UK government.

This lower priority could reflect the long-term nature of the impacts of climate change in the UK. In addition, people's priorities had changed significantly as a result of the economic downturn, focusing instead on unemployment and household budgets, said Lidstone.

However Lidstone warned businesses not to react too quickly to changing public opinion and roll back moves towards cutting energy use and other sustainability policies.

"It is easy for some companies to believe sustainability will not be key to consumer decisions, but ultimately consumers will continue to want to know a brand or business track record on all elements of corporate responsibility," he said.

The BBC poll by Populus, published earlier this month, found that 25% of people thought climate change was not happening, compared with 15% in November last year.

Last month, the climate secretary, Ed Miliband, urged the public not to turn against the "overwhelming" evidence that the global temperature is rising faster than before and that human actions, particularly burning fossil fuels, are largely to blame.

"We know there's a physical effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to higher temperatures, that's a question of physics; we know CO2 concentrations are at their highest for 6,000 years; we know there are observed increases in temperatures; and we know there are observed effects that point to the existence of human-made climate change," Miliband told the Observer. "That's what the vast majority of scientists tell us."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 8:22 am

Reefs form on 'ancient template'

Coral reefs in the Red Sea form on an ancient seabed template, which creates their complex shape, say scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 8:18 am

Stroke patients regain the power of speech by singing

People deprived of speech following a stroke were taught to sing words instead of speaking them in a technique known as 'melodic intonation therapy'

Scientists have taught stroke patients to talk again by getting them to sing words instead of speaking them.

The technique, known as "melodic intonation therapy", led to patients recovering their speech after other attempts at rehabilitation had failed.

Doctors are now testing the therapy in 30 stroke patients to assess how many people who lose their speech after a stroke would benefit.

Gottfried Schlaug, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, found that patients who suffered a stroke on the left side of their brain were unable to speak, but could often be taught to sing words instead.

One patient was unable to speak voluntarily but after therapy could sing the phrase "I am thirsty." Another patient could only manage the letters N and O before receiving the treatment, but after undergoing training sessions was able to sing the words "happy birthday to you".

"This patient has meaningless utterances when we ask him to say the words but as soon as we asked him to sing, he was able to speak the words," Schlaug told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego.

In Britain, 150,000 people suffer a stroke each year, with around 67,000 being fatal. A fifth of those who survive experience some impairment to their speech.

The treatment appears to capitalise on the "plasticity" of the brain's neural connections, by training different parts of the brain to take over functions that are usually performed in another region.

Brain scans of patients whose stroke affected the left side of their brain showed functional and structural changes on the right side after they had received the therapy.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 7:14 am

Hole hell

Could a machine spell the end of potholed roads?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 6:34 am

Silly science

Three movies that would make Einstein blush
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 6:00 am

Simon Singh in court to appeal against ruling over Guardian article

Science writer tries to overturn decision that he libelled British Chiropractic Association, in important case for free speech

The science writer Simon Singh is in court today to appeal against a preliminary libel ruling over a Guardian article in which he criticised the British Chiropractic Association (BCA).

His case goes before the three-man panel including the court of appeal's two most senior judges.

Singh, whose latest book is Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial and who has presented science programmes for the BBC and Channel 4, was sued by the BCA over a Guardian article in April 2008.

In the piece, he criticised the BCA for claiming that its members could use spinal manipulation to treat children with colic, ear infections, asthma, sleeping and feeding conditions, and prolonged crying.

Singh described the treatments as "bogus" and based on insufficient evidence, and criticised the BCA for "happily promoting" them.

In May last year, the high court judge Mr Justice Eady ruled against Singh, deciding that the worlding implied that he had accused the BCA of being deliberately dishonest. Singh has denied that he intended any such meaning.

Eady rejected Singh's use of the defence of fair comment, ruling that the writer had made claims of fact rather than merely voiced opinions.

Today's appeal is being heard at the court of appeal in London by the head of the judiciary in England and Wales, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge; the master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger; and Lord Justice Sedley.

Singh's case is seen as a crucial test of freedom of speech for science journalism and is being eagerly watched by campaigners for the reform of England's controversial libel laws.

"I am determined to defend my article as I maintain that it is fair and touches on an issue of serious public interest, namely the health of children," said Singh.

"My greatest desire is that journalists in future should not have to endure such an arduous and expensive libel process.

"Cases like mine mean that people are afraid to speak out about whether treatments are worthwhile and effective."

Singh's solicitor, Robert Dougans, an associate at Bryan Cave, said: "It took such hard work to get this case to the court of appeal that we are very glad that the court has been so interested in what we had to say.

"We don't dare be optimistic, but if we are successful then this decision will carry a lot of weight in helping writers and scientists inform the public on issues they need to know about."

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 5:33 am

Sperm whales 'corral deep squid'

A tagging study suggests sperm whales may collaborate to hunt squid at depths in excess of one kilometre beneath the waves.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Feb 2010 | 4:07 am

Post your spring photographs on our Flickr group

Celebrate the arrival of spring by posting your seasonal flora and fauna images on our Flickr group

Despite a fairly late arrival this year because of cold weather (in recent years the season has been starting 11 days earlier than usual), the signs of spring are once again upon us.

To celebrate, we're collecting photos of the season by asking you to add your photos to our Flickr group. We're interested in both flora and fauna and all locations are of interest, but the group is only for photos of this year's spring.

We'll feature some of our favourites on guardian.co.uk and maybe in the newspaper version of the Guardian as well. By posting your pictures in this group you agree to let this happen (though copyright remains with you at all times).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Feb 2010 | 4:04 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Wet weather was expected to diminish over the Eastern U.S. on Tuesday as a low pressure system pushed offshore.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Feb 2010 | 3:26 am

World's 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

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