New way to control disease-spreading mosquitoes: Make them hold their urine

Researchers have found a protein that may lead to a new way to control mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, yellow fever and other diseases when they feed on humans: Prevent them from urinating as they feed on blood.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

Research: How you think about your age may affect how you age

The saying "You're only as old as you feel" really seems to resonate with older adults, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

First of missing primitive stars found

Astronomers have discovered a relic from the early universe -- a star that may have been among the second generation of stars to form after the Big Bang. Located in the dwarf galaxy Sculptor some 290,000 light-years away, the star has a remarkably similar chemical make-up to the Milky Way's oldest stars. Its presence supports the theory that our galaxy underwent a "cannibal" phase, growing to its current size by swallowing dwarf galaxies and other galactic building blocks.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

Weakness discovered in common digital security system

The most common digital security technique used to protect both media copyright and Internet communications has a major weakness, computer scientists have discovered.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

Second dose of gene therapy for inherited blindness proves safe in animal studies

A research team that conducted the gene therapy trial for an inherited blindness reports that a study in animals has shown that a second injection of genes into the opposite, previously untreated eye is safe and effective, with no signs of interference from unwanted immune reactions following the earlier injection. These new findings suggest that patients who benefit from gene therapy in one eye may experience similar benefits from treatment in the other eye.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

Early test for a killer of the sickest

An early test for fungal infections that measures how a patient's genes are responding could save the lives of some very sick patients. Researchers have devised an early gene-expression test for the fungal pathogen Candida that worked in mice.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

Understanding chaotic motion of a solid body in a fluid

Scientists shed new light on the chaotic motion of a solid body moving through a fluid. They claim to have discovered two basic mechanisms that lead to chaotic motion of the body as it interacts with its vortex wake. The work may lead to better understanding and control of real body-vortex interactions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Hormone replacement therapy linked to increased lung cancer risk

Peri- and postmenopausal women aged 50 to 76 who take estrogen plus progestin may have an increased risk of lung cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Oldest known dinosaur relative discovered

Paleontologists have discovered a dinosaur-like animal living 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinosaurs. The researchers suggest that dinosaurs and other close relatives might have also lived much earlier than previously thought.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Hepatitis B and C remain public health issue -- up to 5.3 million Americans infected

A recent report confirmed that 3.5 to 5.3 million people (1-2 percent of the US population) have chronic hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus infections. Despite efforts by federal, state and local government agencies to control and prevent these diseases, they remain a serious public health concern.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Toyota Prius tops Japan sales despite recall woes (AP)

AP - Toyota's Prius remains the top-selling car in Japan despite the automaker's global recall woes that included braking problems with the hit hybrid.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 3:06 am

Solar energy with jewel-like curtains on windows (AP)

AP - Cityscapes of glass-clad buildings gleaming in the sun make Anna Dyson think about wasted energy.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 1:35 am

Senator Proposes Bill to Extend Space Shuttle Program (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) introduced legislation Wednesday that would keep NASA flying the space shuttle program two years beyond its planned 2010 retirement.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:15 am

Spacecraft Makes Closest Ever Pass by Mars' Moon Phobos (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A European probe made its closest-ever swing by Mars' moon Phobos Wednesday on a quest to learn more about the inner structure of the mysterious Martian satellite.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:15 am

Inside Kamchatka's volcanoes

A day in the life of Carsten Peter, a National Geographic photographer who specialises in snapping the volcanoes of Kamchatka

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 am

Volunteer army catches interstellar dust grains

Stardust mission finds particles that represent the building blocks of the solar system.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/cxObl8BgIp8" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 9:16 pm

Pigeons Beat Humans at Solving 'Monty Hall' Problem

Pigeons are surprisingly good at solving problem.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 9:04 pm

Fake Weed, Real Drug: K2 Causing Hallucinations in Teens (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Teens are getting high on an emerging drug called "fake weed," a concoction also known as K2 and "spice" that is also causing hallucinations, vomiting, agitation and other dangerous effects.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 8:40 pm

Plea for whaling compromise as rivals meet (AFP)

AFP - A former prime minister of New Zealand pleaded with supporters and opponents of whaling to "swallow a dead rat" and accept a controversial compromise when negotiators wrap up talks Thursday in Florida.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:01 pm

Scientists wowed by Mars orbiter performance (AP)

AP - Scientists are impressed with the flood of data beamed back by NASA's most advanced Mars orbiter.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 5:24 pm

Glacier melting a key clue to tracking climate change

SINGAPORE/ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 5:12 pm

Dinosaur's oldest relative found

Scientists have discovered a dinosaur-like creature 10 million years older than the earliest known dinosaurs.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 5:07 pm

In praise of … the sculptures of Ife

The sense that these are mystical objects is made stronger by the mystery around their origin and purpose

It is the moment treasure hunters dream of: the point at which a trowel, carefully sifting the earth, elicits a clink from below. But this isn't how those who discovered the Wunmonije heads came across Africa's greatest cache of medieval bronzes, in Ife, Nigeria, in 1938. Builders laying the foundations of a house made holes in the sides and backs of the sculptures with pickaxes before they realised what they had found – and these life-like figures, on show at the British Museum until June, still bear the scars. The heads are probably portraits of the rulers of Ife, dating from the 12th to 14th centuries, a little before European art was making its transition from the staid Byzantine mode to Renaissance naturalism. But the description of these works as the "Donatellos of medieval Africa", as one British paper had it at the time, does them a disservice. Confining them to some byway of art history seems wrong when they beam the expressions of their subjects so directly into the present day. Facing one it is easy imagine meeting the real-life gaze of an ooni, or king. The sense that these are mystical objects is made stronger by the mystery around their origin and purpose. Do those stripes that cover some of the faces represent scars, or beaded veils? And why does one of the heads contain a small amount of gold, traceable only through modern testing, but – no doubt – of great symbolic importance? There isn't much hope of an answer; but we can always stare deep into their eyes and try to guess.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 5:05 pm

Stressed out

India's overworked elephants turn violent
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 5:01 pm

Gut bacteria gene complement dwarfs human genome

Sequencing project finds that Europeans share a surprising number of bacteria.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:55 pm

Fearing tsunamis in Chile, hundreds hide in hills (Reuters)

Reuters - Entire families are camping out on high ground in cars and makeshift tents too afraid to return to their coastline villages destroyed by giant waves after a huge earthquake struck central Chile.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:43 pm

How the cell's powerhouses turn deadly

Mitochondria can trigger a lethal immune response after injuries.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:01 pm

News briefing: 4 March 2010

The week in science
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:00 pm

Non-proliferation: Borderline detection

Georgia's borders are guarded by some of the best radiation detectors available — so why are nuclear smugglers still slipping through? Sharon Weinberger reports.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:00 pm

World view: Curing climate backlash

Effective action on climate requires better politics, not better science, explains Daniel Sarewitz.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:00 pm

University rankings smarten up

Systems for ranking the world's higher-education and research institutions are about to become more sophisticated, says Declan Butler.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:00 pm

Chinese bioscience: The sequence factory

The bold ambitions of one institute could make China the world leader in genome sequencing. David Cyranoski asks if its science will survive the industrial ramp-up.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:00 pm

Bully for ESO 306-17

Judging from the latest Hubble image released today, some galaxies are a lot like schoolyard bullies. I mean, there are more than a hundred billion galaxies in our observable universe, and most of them are fairly "social": they clump together ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:59 pm

Research Calls Forensic DNA Technique Into Question

A DNA-matching technique often used in forensics has been called to the stand.

Fine-grained analysis of DNA found in cell structures called mitochondria suggests that it can vary widely between tissues, making samples tricky to compare.

“I wouldn’t say that it throws other results out the window, but it does throw a curve ball,” said Nickolas Papadopoulos, a Johns Hopkins University geneticist and co-author of the study, published March 4 in Nature.

Mitochondria are found by the hundreds in every human cell. They convert glucose to energy, and possess their own tiny genomes, separate and distinct from the organismal genome found in each cell nucleus.

In the mid-1990s, law enforcement added mitochondrial DNA comparison to its forensic genetic toolkit. Because there are so many mitochondria in each cell, readable copies of their genomes can often be found even when the nuclear genome has been damaged. This is especially useful for old, highly degraded biological samples.

Mitochondrial DNA-matching is based on the assumption that it doesn’t vary much in an individual: Aside from a few inevitable mutations, mitochondrial DNA are generally supposed to be the same in, say, heart cells and hair cells. But when Papadopoulos’ team applied the latest in gene-sequencing technology to mitochondrial genomes from nine tissue types in two people, that’s not what they found.

Instead, each person seemed to have a mixture of mitochondrial genotypes. One DNA variant, for example, was found in about 7 percent of a person’s skeletal-muscle mitochondria, but 90 percent of their kidney mitochondria. That spread was typical.

“It’s more than was thought, and was present in almost every tissue we looked at,” said Papadopoulos. Further research into these variations is needed, but forensic specialists should be careful to compare the same types of tissue, he said.

John Planz, associate director of the DNA Identity Laboratory at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, cautioned that further studies are needed. High levels of genetic variation between mitochondria that were found in previous studies turned out to be the result of errors in measurement and analysis, he said.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis is also used in other types of research. Evolutionary family trees are deduced from comparisons of mutations between fossil samples. The same techniques are used to trace the historical flows of human populations.

Those studies involve group patterns and relatively large-scale changes over long periods of time. So they may not be as challenged by the Nature findings as forensic applications are, which try to find perfect matches, said Papadopoulos.

“This requires more study, but it could put a damper on how things have been interpreted to this point,” he said.

Image: Mitochondria in the brain tissue of a rat./Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

See Also:

• Forensic DNA Isn’t Foolproof
• A Jury of Bugs: The Flaws of Forensic Entomology
• Courtroom First: Brain Scan Used in Murder Sentencing
• India’s Judges Overrule Scientists on ‘Guilty Brain’ Tech

Citation: “Heteroplasmic mitochondrial DNA mutations in normal and tumour cells.” By Yiping He, Jian Wu, Devin C. Dressman, Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, Sanford D. Markowitz, Victor E. Velculescu, Luis A. Diaz Jr, Kenneth W. Kinzler, Bert Vogelstein and Nickolas Papadopoulos. Nature, Vol. 463, No. 7285, March 4, 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 | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:31 pm

How Black Holes Overcome Centrifugal Force to Suck in Gas

Astronomers have finally gotten a firmer grip on how supermassive black holes in the centers of most galaxies gobble up gas from their surroundings. In a new study, two astronomers neatly explain how stars drag swirling gases toward a galaxy’s center, bringing them close enough that the black holes can suck them in like water down a bathtub drain.

Although supermassive black holes wield an enormous tug on their immediate surroundings, astronomers have been uncertain how these astrophysical beasts manage to pull in the large amounts of gas they absorb from their host galaxies. A key problem is that gas swirling rapidly around a black hole has enormous angular momentum, which creates a centrifugal force that can slow or halt the material from edging toward the abyss.

Generally, black holes easily swallow up gas that approaches to less than a third of a light-year from the galactic center, because the black hole’s own magnetic field acts like a brake, slowing down the rotational motion of the gas and causing it to fall in. At much larger distances – about 30 to 300 light-years from the center – disturbances from collisions with other galaxies and the gravitational interactions of matter within the galaxy can drive gas toward the central black hole. But that still leaves a critical gap at intermediate distances between about one light-year and 30 light-years from the center, where nothing seems to reduce the rotational motion and centrifugal force of gas enough that the black hole can pull it in.

That’s where new simulations by Philip Hopkins and Eliot Quataert, both of the University of California, Berkeley, come into play. Their computer models show that at intermediate distances from a supermassive black hole, gas and stars form separate, lopsided disks that are off-center with respect to the black hole. The two disks are tilted with respect to one another, the astronomers say in a paper posted online Feb. 5 at arXiv.org, allowing the stars to exert a drag on the gas that slows its swirling motion and brings it closer to the black hole.

The new work is purely theoretical. However, the researchers note that observers have found evidence that the centers of several galaxies known to house supermassive black holes, notably the Milky Way’s sister galaxy Andromeda, sport lopsided disks of elderly stars. The off-center features in Andromeda have puzzled researchers for more than a decade.

Hopkins and Quataert now suggest that these old, off-center disks are the fossils of the stellar disks generated by their models. In their youth, such disks helped drive gas into black holes, they say.

The new study “is interesting in that it may explain such oddball [stellar disks] by a common mechanism which has larger implications, such as fueling supermassive black holes,” says Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson. “The fun part of their work,” he adds, is that it unifies “the very large-scale black hole energetics and fueling with the small scale.”

Off-center stellar disks are difficult to observe because they lie relatively close to the brilliant fireworks generated by supermassive black holes. But searching for such disks could become a new strategy for hunting supermassive black holes in galaxies not known to house them, Hopkins says.

Images: 1) NASA. 2) A. Field, NASA, ESA.
Video: P. Hopkins

See Also:

• Elusive Supermassive-Black-Hole Mergers Finally Found
• Supermassive Black Holes Collide to Become Even More Super and Massive
• Supermassive Black Holes Bringing Universe Closer to Death
• Naked Black Hole Builds Future Galactic Dream Home
• Spectacular New Image of Black Hole Jets
• Yo Galaxy’s Mama Is a Black Hole
• Strange Eye-Shaped Galaxy Has Black-Hole Iris

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:04 pm

New gene test may help you pick your diet: report (Reuters)

Reuters - Can't lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

New gene test may help you pick your diet: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Can't lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Fake Weed, Real Drug: K2 Causing Hallucinations in Teens

Fake marijuana, called K2 or spice, is increasingly popular, but the side effects are worse than with pot.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 2:46 pm

Tough lessons from Dutch Q fever outbreak

Mass cull of goats questioned as researchers race to find strain behind human cases.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 2:31 pm

Genes may help identify deadly yeast infections (Reuters)

Reuters - A test that looks for specific patterns of genes that are switched on may lead to a better way of diagnosing dangerous yeast infections in the blood, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 2:27 pm

Many Dwarfs Died In the Making of This Galaxy

Did the Milky Way cannibalize ancient dwarf galaxies that strayed too close? By studying one primordial star in an existing dwarf galaxy, this appears to be the case.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:59 pm

Hangover-Free Booze Coming to a Glass Near You?

Could drinking oxygenated alcohol prevent a hangover? Find out here.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:56 pm

Common weedkiller turns male frogs into females

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Atrazine, one of the most commonly used and controversial weedkillers, can turn male frogs into females, researchers reported on Monday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:36 pm

How Roger Ebert's Syn Voice Works

Voice synthesis has really come a long way. For the longest time, Stephen Hawking's robotic voice has been the standard. But this week, movie critic Roger Ebert, who lost his jaw and voice to cancer, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:23 pm

Army Turns to Smartphone ‘Apps’ to Win Wars

The U.S. Army announced today a competition to create useful smartphone and Web applications aimed at making the military more efficient, enhancing warfighting effectiveness, and perhaps save soldiers' lives.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:08 pm

We need Edzard Ernst's voice to fight quackery

Professor Edzard Ernst, the UK's only professor of complementary medicine, is in danger of losing his job

Homeopaths and their friends at Buckingham Palace must be rubbing their hands. The scourge of complementary medicine, Professor Edzard Ernst, may be facing the closure of his unit at the Peninsula medical school in Exeter. While there is plenty of money in alternative therapies, the funding to allow Ernst to test them scientifically is running out.

Ernst smells a royal rat, of course. An unusually outspoken scientist, he has never made a secret of his issues with Prince Charles's Foundation for Integrated Health, which last week he labelled a "lobby group for unproven treatments". He believes he has become "persona non grata" with Exeter since Sir Michael Peat, the Prince's private secretary, wrote to complain that he had publicly criticised a report he had been shown in confidence. The university cleared him, but Ernst suspects they would still like to see him go. The university argues that it is just hard to raise money for such studies.

Can we afford to lose him? Anybody with a belief in evidence-based medicine would have to say no. He is the only professor of complementary medicine in the UK and his unit not only carries out studies, but assesses those done by other researchers. St John's wort for depression got his seal of approval, and he found some benefits from acupuncture, even though he damned homeopathy and said chiropractic treatment had the potential to cause harm.

Ernst is a man who is unafraid to tell it like it is. His verdict on Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture: "Prince Charles contributes to the ill-health of the nation by pretending we can all overindulge, then take his tincture and be fine again . . . he thus promotes a 'quick fix' and outright quackery."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:00 pm

Pass notes No 2,739: Hella-

You've got giga- and mega-, but do we need hella- for those 27-zero numbers?

Age: Nought but a twinkle in its daddy's eye.

Appearance: Noughty but nice.

One more pun and we'll put you on headline-writing duty. It's some sort of number, then? Not half! It's 10²⁷. To put it another way, 1,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000. A thousand million million million million! A billion billion billion!

At last we can put a figure on the budget deficit. Indeed. But if we can forget Britain's descent into bankruptcy for a moment, hella- is the term that scientists want to go alongside prefixes such as kilo-, mega- and giga-.

Says who? Austin Sendek, a University of California physics sophomore.

What's a sophomore again? It's what Americans call a second-year student.

They love their jargon, don't they? Carry on. Almost 30,000 people have signed Sendek's Facebook petition calling for hella- to take its place within the International System of Units.

Are we supposed to know what that is too? Think of the metric system with bells on. It's run by the International Committee for Weights and Measures, and recognised in most of the world, with the notable exception of the US. Sendek has been lobbying the Consultative Committee for Units, which advises the ICWM.

I wish someone had told me about careers in international bureaucracy. We need this blimmin' great number why precisely? The largest official prefix right now is yotta-, meaning 10²⁴. However, Sendek says, "10²⁷ is significant in many crucial calculations, including the wattage of the sun, distances between galaxies, or the number of atoms in a large sample."

But why the h-word? It's apparently Californian slang for "lots of", as in: "There are hella stars out tonight."

We call that "shedla" where I come from. Other "critically important" prefixes most of us couldn't care less about? Tera-: a thousand billion; peta-: a million billion; exa-, a billion billion; or zetta-, a thousand billion billion.

Do say: "It's the scientific breakthrough the world's been waiting for!"

Don't say: "At last, we can count how much tax Lord Ashcroft owes us . . ."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:00 pm

Unmanned planes take wing for science

Drones will measure ozone and aerosols in the atmosphere.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:00 pm

Dinosaurs Arose at Least 10 Million Years Earlier Than Thought

Scientists have discovered 243-million-year-old fossils of dinosaurs’ closest relatives, pushing back the origin of dinosaurs by at least 10 million years.

The dinosaur-like creature, Asilisaurus kongwe, was about the size of a Labrador retriever and had teeth and jawbones ideally shaped for eating plants, indicating it ate a mostly vegetarian diet.

“This shows that the lineage leading to dinosaurs goes a lot further back in time than we thought. The second thing is that it shows that there’s this real ecological diversity,” said paleontologist Randy Irmis, co-author of the study appearing Mar. 3 in Nature. “No one thought that the closest relatives to dinosaurs were these four-legged, herbivorous animals. We thought they were small carnivores.”

The earliest known dinosaur fossils are around 230 million years old. The new findings indicate that the dinosaurs and the silesaurs, the group that encompasses genus Asilisaurus, diverged more than 243 million years ago. That means dinosaurs must have originated sometime before then.

The team found more than a dozen partial skeletons of Asilisaurus in bare patches in the Tanzanian grasslands. During the Triassic period, the area was warm and lush, with a mixture of woodlands and lower plants like ferns.

“Back then it was a very large river system, maybe something like the Mississippi today,” said lead author and University of Texas at Austin paleontologist Sterling Nesbitt. During that time, Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia and India were all one giant continent called Gondwana.

Though silesaurs are very closely related to dinosaurs, they lack the open hip-sockets that are universal in dinosaurs. The Asilisaurus was a small, four-legged creatures with a long tail. Their beak-like jaws and leaf-shaped teeth helped the animals eat the soft, fibrous leaves of the primordial palms, ferns and conifers that were prevalent during the Triassic period. That suggests that, while the animal may not have been exclusively vegetarian, a good portion of its diet came from plants, he said.

“In a carnivorous animal, the teeth are pointed, or they are serrated, like a knife to cut meat. In order for this to be efficient, the serration has to be perpendicular to the edge of the tooth so that it functions like a knife,” said paleontologist Gilles Cuny of the the Natural History Museum of Denmark, who was not involved in the study. “In these leaf-shaped teeth, you have some very vague serrations, but they are oriented towards the top of the teeth.”

The findings overturn the previously held idea that the closest relatives to dinosaurs were two-legged, cat-sized predators, Irmis said.

The team also found that similar teeth and jaws evolved separately in the line of dinosaurs that includes apatosaurus, as well as in another line that included triceratops and stegosaurus. All these changes occurred within 10 million years of each other.

“We were really surprised,” Irmis said. “These are three different groups that are really closely related to each other, so you’d expect that maybe their common ancestor had this tooth form. And no, it evolved independently in these three groups.”

That suggests that each of these lineages evolved separately to take advantage of a large, untapped food source, he said.

Images: 1) Left: A team member excavates a fossil in Tanzania. Right: Silesaur bone/L. Tsuji, Tibia, R. Smith
2) Skeletal reconstruction, with missing bones in gray./S. Nesbitt

Citation: “Ecologically distinct dinosaurian sister group shows early diversification of Ornithodira,” Sterling J. Nesbitt, Christian A. Sidor, Randall B. Irmis, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, Roger M. H. Smith and Linda A. Tsuji. Nature Vol. 464 (4) Mar. 2010.

See Also:

• Dinosaur Fossil Reveals True Feather Colors
• Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap
• Paleontologists Find Dinosaur Protofeather
• CT Scans Show Dinosaur Tail Was a Bone Crusher

Follow us on Twitter @tiaghose and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 3 Mar 2010 | 11:15 am

Gut microbes hold 'second genome'

There are more genes in the microbial flora in our gut than in the rest of our bodies, scientists report.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 11:06 am

Jennifer Gunning obituary

Leading figure in the practice and regulation of in-vitro fertilisation

Jennifer Gunning, who has died of cancer aged 65, was a leading figure in the development of medical ethics in Britain. In particular, she developed the working model followed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority (HFEA).

By the mid-1980s, private clinics were offering in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) without guidelines or checks on their activities. The Medical Research Council decided to set up the Voluntary Licensing Authority (VLA) for in-vitro fertilisation and embryology to investigate the feasibility of regulation. Guidelines for its work were agreed, and the work started. Soon afterwards, Gunning, then a scientific administrative officer at the council, was appointed as its secretary.

At the VLA, her major achievement was to show that once the support of professionals working in the fields had been won, it was practical to regulate clinics offering IVF. Her energy, track record in medical research, charm and humour, and her brisk administrative skills and ability to network all helped to engage those professionals in the regulation and inspection of clinics.

Dame Mary Donaldson, who chaired the VLA, wrote later: "Dr Gunning joined us at a time when we were developing our work. Her efforts in amassing the incredible amount of paperwork, organising meetings and keeping members fully briefed on new developments has never been fully recognised."

Gunning was instrumental in drawing the attention of professionals and the media to topics that were to be debated well into the future – questions about pre-implantation diagnosis of medical conditions, payment for egg donation and the anonymity of donors.

She went on to produce the Department of Health's 1990 report on the practice and regulation of IVF worldwide. This provided a factual basis for the often heated debate that accompanied the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and the establishment of the HFEA, which closely followed the lines that the VLA had established. It drew IVF professionals not only into the inspection of clinics, but also into discussions of the ethical implications of rapidly developing IVF techniques.

Gunning was a late starter at science. She was born in Wales into a military family. She went to Westonbirt school, Tetbury, in Gloucestershire, and then went on to take a bilingual secretarial course. She married Peter Gunning, a quantity surveyor, in 1965. They had two children and settled into a manor house in Dorset.

In 1971, when the Open University started, she was quick to seize the chance it offered, signed on to the science course and achieved a first-class degree in 1978. She went on to take a doctorate in crystallography at Birkbeck College, London, studying the structure of nerve growth. Her work led to several published articles, and she had wanted to continue in postdoctoral research. But her further progress was blocked. Under the rules then in place, she was too old for a grant system that took no account of motherhood.

So her career was to be mainly in the administration of science and research. She worked for various research councils, maintaining a specialism in the ethical and social implications of biological research. When she retired in 1995, she was much in demand by government departments, the European Commission and others as a consultant in bioethics.

She continued to publish on a wide range of topics, including pre-implantation diagnosis, umbilical cord cell banking, and the international regulation of assisted reproduction. As a senior research fellow at the Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society, based at Cardiff University, she set up an online cross-disciplinary network and information centre for anyone interested in bioethical questions.

Gunning was an outstanding administrator. She was impatient of the games played in departmental rivalries. If she thought internal bureaucratic discussions needed to be informed by outside opinions, she was prepared to disregard the official confidential classification of documents and send them to appropriate professionals. At a time when, in matters of medical ethics, the Department of Health was amazingly secretive and defensive, she performed a notable service in broadening public discussion.

She had wide cultural interests and apparently unlimited energy. At home in Dorset and then Bath, she took an active part in local affairs. She served as chairman of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and also chaired the Friends of the Bath International Music Festival. She was a magistrate, chairing the Bath and Wansdyke bench, and a member of the local probation board.

She is survived by Peter and their sons, Alexander and Barnaby.

• Jennifer Gunning, medical researcher and administrator, born 3 August 1944; died 14 January 2010

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 11:06 am

Dog-Sized Creature Was Almost a Dinosaur

Fossils from a newly discovered dinosaur relative suggests dinosaurs were around as early as 240 million years ago.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 11:01 am

Ancient Egyptian Queen's Burial Chamber Discovered

French archaeologists working at Saqqara have unearthed the burial chamber of a 4,000-year-old queen, Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), announced today. Badly destroyed, the 33-by 16-foot burial chamber belonged to Queen Behenu, wife ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 10:32 am

Russia halts space tours as U.S. retires Shuttle

STAR CITY, Russia (Reuters) - Russia announced a halt to space tourism on Wednesday, saying it would struggle to ferry professional crews to the International Space Station after the U.S. mothballs its shuttle fleet this year.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 10:18 am

Buzz Aldrin's Path to Mars

Sending astronauts to Mars within a decade is do-able, says Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, pointing to a plan for a deep-space exploration vehicle and a heavy-lift rocket based on space shuttle systems. “I believe we can be well on our ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 10:16 am

Post-Disaster Looting: Loose Morals or Survival Instincts?

Reports of looting after the Chile earthquake might make it seem as though people are more selfish after a natural disaster. But experts say this is not this case.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 10:09 am

Clues to Antarctica space blast

A large space rock may have exploded over Antarctica thousands of years ago, according to new research.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 9:55 am

The Man Behind the Technology of "CSI"

Technology often seen on "CSI" also looks for melamine in food, explosives at the airport.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 9:46 am

Spell-covered burial chamber found in Egypt's Saqqara

CAIRO (Reuters) - Archaeologists have unearthed the intact sarcophagus of Egypt's Queen Behenu inside her 4,000-year-old burial chamber near her pyramid in Saqqara, chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass announced Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 9:28 am

Slippery slope

Why the UK's eel population faces an uncertain future
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 9:16 am

China to Launch Space Station Module in 2011

The Tiangong-1, or "Heavenly Palace," will lay the foundation of China's maiden space station.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 8:59 am

New Sensor to Boost Quality of Cell-Phone Cameras

California-based OmniVision Technologies aims to bring high-end camera features to mainstream cell phones with new image sensor.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 8:58 am

Chatroulette Deemed Unsafe For Kids

Experts still worry that the video chat site Chatroulette can harm kids despite new safety features.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 8:03 am

Anti-Drinking Ads Induce More Drinking in Some People

Anti-drinking ads can trigger a defensive mindset and in turn lead to more drinking of alcohol.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:21 am

Virgin Galactic sees space test flights in 2011

DUBAI (Reuters) - Virgin Galactic is aiming to launch test flights into space in 2011, but does not need additional financing after selling a stake to Abu Dhabi's Abaar last year, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:07 am

The Real Reason We Dress Pets Like People

Humans anthropomorphize objects to feel more in control of and connected to their surroundings.
Source: Livescience.com | 3 Mar 2010 | 6:22 am

GM potato to be grown in Europe

Critics say the decision to approve the cultivation of a genetically modified potato and the use of three types of GM maize 'puts profit before people'

The EU has approved the cultivation of a genetically modified potato and the use of three types of altered maize, saying they don't pose a health risk.

The go-ahead for the Amflora potato – developed by BASF SE, based in Ludwigshafen, Germany – was the first green light in 12 years to grow a genetically modified food in the EU.

Critics accused the European commission of pandering to corporate interests at the expense of public health.

The EU executive also approved the marketing of three genetically modified maize products from Monsanto, based in St Louis, Missouri, for food and feed purposes – though not their cultivation.

The EU's public health commissioner, John Dalli, said the EU executive is only guided by science in approving genetically modified organisms, which is an issue of fierce debate in Europe.

"Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies," he said at a news conference. There were no scientific reasons to delay the approvals, he said.

The first approval request for the Amflora dates back to 2003. Dalli said the potato will produce starch for paper production to help save "raw materials, energy, water and oil-based chemicals".

Though widely used in the US, genetically modified foods face opposition in Europe, where critics see them as a health and environmental risk. Opposition is strong in the UK, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Greece and France.

Some EU countries ban them, fearing their seeds will accidentally spread and alter the natural surroundings; others do not.

Martin Haeusling, a Green EU Parliament member, said Dalli showed "flagrant support for industry interests", claiming 70% of EU consumers oppose genetically manipulated food. "There are serious concerns about an Amflora gene that is resistant to antibiotics," he said.

Heike Moldenhauer, a spokesperson for the Friends of the Earth Europe environmental group, said the EU decision "puts profit before people ... There are clear health concerns surrounding this GM potato."

The Italian government also objected. "We are against the decision ... that grants the permission to cultivate a genetically modified potato," said Italy's agriculture minister, Luca Zaia.

The German government said the Amflora potato will be grown in eastern Germany but not on an industrial scale.

Amflora and the three genetically modified maize varieties had already been approved by the European Food Safety Authority.

Dalli approved the three maize varieties after EU governments failed to come to an agreement on the issue, effectively leaving the decision to the EU executive.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 6:04 am

Most detailed satellite images to date reveal Earth's true colours

Nasa releases the most detailed satellite images to date of the Earth. The so-called Blue Marble pictures have been pieced together following months of observations.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:55 am

Israel's historic roots are real | Jeremy Sharon

Palestinian protests against the restoration of Jewish heritage sites are part of a campaign of delegitimisation against Israel

Speeches and comments made by Binyamin Netanyahu of late have been rather heavy on their biblical and historical references. In his speech at Bar-Ilan University last June, he declared: "The connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,500 years ... This is the land of our forefathers." And in an interview with talkshow host Charlie Rose in September, he mentioned a signet ring found by the western wall in Jerusalem, dating back 2,700 years and bearing the name "Netanyahu Ben-Yoash" inscribed on it in ancient Hebrew.

The context of these comments and the motivation for Netanyahu's recent announcement of a plan for the refurbishment of national heritage sites are one and the same: Israelis view those elements that seek to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the land as part of larger strategy aimed at delegitimising the state of Israel. Senior politicians and Israeli thinktanks have identified this phenomenon as a serious threat to the country, and the heritage restoration project is an example of the Israeli reaction to this challenge.

Unfortunately, the inclusion in the restoration plan of two of the most sacred Jewish sites, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb, has sparked riots in the West Bank and Jerusalem over the past few days and led supposedly moderate Palestinian leaders to burst forth with disturbingly inflammatory rhetoric. Mahmoud Abbas even raised the spectre of "religious war" in light of the inclusion of these two sites. The international community weighed in too, with the US State Department and the UN secretary general, both reprimanding Israel for the decision.

Why has the seemingly innocuous announcement to upgrade these sites prompted such a caustic response? Muslims have full access to the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Islamic waqf's role in administering it remains unchanged. Rachel's Tomb is currently only accessible via Israel, but this has been the case since the late 1990s, owing to the high number of Palestinian attacks against the site in recent years.

Regrettably, it seems that this latest uproar, just like the unrest last autumn regarding the Temple Mount, is yet another example of the general Palestinian unwillingness to accept and acknowledge the deep-seated historical roots of the Jewish people in the region.

This is evidenced by numerous statements made by Palestinian political and religious leaders in recent days, such as that of Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and highest Islamic authority in the Holy Land. He said that Israel has "devoted all of its efforts to steal Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, Hebron, and Palestinian cities to change their Arab and Islamic character to prove the country is Jewish". The theme of Israel "stealing" Islamic sites for its own cultural and political purposes was also explicitly mentioned by Abbas, as well as by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (who called for a new intifada as well).

The implication is that the Cave of the Patriarchs has nothing to do with the Jewish people and the Israeli government is fabricating history for political ends. But the shrine is mentioned in the Bible and has been a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for more than 3,000 years. It is Judaism's second holiest site and is central to Jewish national identity as the burial place of the people's three forefathers.

The riots and denunciations spawned by the heritage sites plan, as well as those over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and numerous others, illustrate the ongoing battle being waged by the Palestinian political and religious leadership to disconnect national Jewish symbols from the state of Israel. And this tactic is just part of a wider strategy to delegitimise the very notion of a nation state for the Jewish people, a campaign that is being orchestrated both by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as well as by their sympathisers in the west.

Campaigns for a one-state solution, like that announced by senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat last week, as well as skewed investigations into the conduct of the IDF, arms embargoes and all manner of boycotts are viewed in Israel as a sincere drive to undermine the country's legitimacy and, by extension, the necessity for its existence.

This delegitimisation campaign gained significant momentum following the second Lebanon war in 2006, ironically during the tenure of the most conciliatory Israeli government ever. However, despite the dismantlement of settlements and withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Kadima party's disengagement plan for the West Bank on the back of which it won the 2006 Israeli elections, and Ehud Olmert's unprecedented peace proposal to Abbas in December 2008, the delegitimisation campaign has continued and even intensified.

It appears to Israelis that they can do no right. It is little wonder, therefore, that in 2009 the electorate chucked out the dovish Kadima-led government, which had improved Israel's international and political standing not a jot, and voted in a government that promised to galvanise national strength and purpose against those forces, military and political, arrayed against it.

The refurbishment of two shrines central to Jewish history in no way threatens Palestinian political ambitions. What it does do is present an obstacle to those who wish to erase Jewish history in the region, and that is the central Palestinian animus in this particular furore. The Israeli siege mentality, engendered by the unrelenting pressure of the political campaigns against the country, is only reinforced when Israel is condemned for identifying with symbols of historic Jewish significance. If Palestinian leaders, enabled by the international community, continue to cast aspersions on Israel's historic roots, and ultimate legitimacy, the mood in the region will only get worse.

• Comments on this article will remain open for 24 hours from the time of publication but may be closed overnight

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:29 am

Next Mars Probe Gets Carbon-Sniffing Tool

A new tool for the next Mars rover will allow it to definitively detect organic matter, avoiding controversy that has plagued results from the Viking lander.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 4:21 am

Trash voyage

Setting sail on a boat made from plastic bottles
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:57 am

Rumbles in the jungle

Listening in on Africa's rarely seen forest elephants.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:47 am

Money matters

The man in charge of a vast virtual economy in space
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:44 am

A welcome bunch of amateurs

Where would we be without the unpaid hobbyists who make progress in the arts and science just for the love of it?

We're all the children of amateurs: amateur parents. There's no government department that will certify you as a parent (thankfully), nor a university department where you get your PhD in being a daddy, nor a professional body ready to strike you off for not following mothering standards. But any parent who's held a newborn child in their arms has unconsciously taken the amateur's oath: "I may not be a professional, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to act like one."

It's a pity that too often we associate amateur with amateurish, and dismiss amateurs as second-rate pretenders to a professional throne. What we should remember is that the word amateur has its roots in the French word for love: amour. And amateurs do for love what professionals do for money.

Of course, many professionals love what they do (and are lucky enough to get paid for it), and many amateurs deserve to have the term amateurish applied to their efforts. Having worked in amateur theatre, I know too well how misplaced enthusiasm can override sense resulting in a four-hour panto. But amateurs helped build the world we live in. At the beginnings of the scientific age, scientists themselves were amateurs. They toiled away examining nature to understand why things are the way they are. They invented physics, chemistry and biology.

Although modern science may appear to be the preserve of a well-financed laboratory run by a Nobel-quality mind, the amateur scientist is not on the endangered species list. For example, amateurs play a crucial role in fields where large numbers of observations are needed. There are too many stars, comets and asteroids for only professional astronomers to keep an eye on, so we shouldn't be surprised that Pluto was spotted by an amateur, Clyde Tombaugh, in 1930. And the whole field of radio astronomy got a kick start when, in 1937, amateur Grote Reber built a 9 metre dish in his back garden and plotted the first radio map of the sky.

Keeping track of bird movements and numbers is greatly aided by flocks of amateur ornithologists who report their observations to bodies such as the British Trust for Ornithology, and amateur palaeontologists get in on the act when they uncover new fossils. In 1990, a sociologist uncovered unseen fossilised reptile tracks in New Mexico, much to the surprise of professional scientists.

Even weather forecasting relies partly on amateurs who take thousands of measurements of temperatures and rainfall and report them to the US National Weather Service. Also in the US, the Society for Amateur Scientists helps promote the relationship between professionals and amateurs, showing the hobbyist how to communicate with professionals and how to get their work published and recognised. Its founder, Shawn Carlson, won a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" in 1999 honouring his creation.

Amateurs are also doing well outside the sciences. In popular music, many bands get their start in a garage playing instruments with no formal training. Only very few musicians have spent years in a music academy, yet love for their music has brought us the Beatles, the Stones and every single rapper. Likewise – they help build the world we live in, most authors are amateurs, partly because the money to be made from writing is so poor, and partly because it's hard to get a job as an author. You have to be one to become one. I once asked the writer Alain de Botton about the role of amateurs. He responded nervously that he wouldn't want to be operated on by an amateur brain surgeon, or flown by an amateur pilot. So I steered him back to the safer ground of amateur philosophy.

In any pub in Britain you'll find plenty of Friday-night philosophers waxing lyrical. But even in the world of serious philosophy, amateurs outrank the professionals. Many of the great philosophers were amateurs, from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to Sartre. De Botton puts this down to university philosophy departments being so poor. But perhaps there's another reason: if there's one subject we all study and can be passionate about, it's the human experience.

So watch out when you're down the pub: you might be sitting beside the next Nietzsche. Or at least a bloke who counts butterflies for the sheer love of it.

• This article was commissioned after Cif was contacted by a commenter in a You Tell Us thread

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 3 Mar 2010 | 3:30 am

Dry Air Causes Winter Flu Outbreaks

Why do flu viruses hit hardest in winter? It turns out low humidity plays a big role.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 3 Mar 2010 | 1:44 am