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Hot road to new drugs: Efficient identification of drug candidatesThe quest for new drugs is generally a lengthy and costly undertaking. Researchers in Germany have now come up with a simpler and more efficient way of going about it. Not only pharmaceutical research but also medical diagnostics and the environment stand to benefit from the new work.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Water practically flies off 'near perfect' hydrophobic surface that refuses to get wetEngineering researchers have crafted a flat surface that refuses to get wet. Water droplets skitter across it like ball bearings tossed on ice.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm New generation of rapid-acting antidepressants?Conventional antidepressant treatments generally require three to four weeks to become effective, thus the discovery of treatments with a more rapid onset is a major goal of biological psychiatry. The first drug found to produce rapid improvement in mood was the NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist, ketamine. Researchers report that another medication, scopolamine, also appears to produce replicable rapid improvement in mood.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Graphene hybrid: One-atom-thick sheet offers new microelectronic possibilitiesResearchers have found a way to stitch graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) into a two-dimensional quilt that offers new paths of exploration for materials scientists.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Genetically engineered tobacco plant cleans up environmental toxinTobacco might become as well known for keeping us healthy as it is for causing illness thanks to researchers from the UK. In a new study, scientists explain how they developed a genetically modified strain of tobacco that helps temper the damaging effects of toxic pond scum, scientifically known as microcystin-LR which makes water unsafe for drinking, swimming or fishing.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Low levels of vitamin D linked to muscle fat, decreased strength in young peopleA ground-breaking study found an astonishing 59 percent of study subjects had too little vitamin D in their blood. Nearly a quarter of the group had serious deficiencies of this important vitamin. Since vitamin D insufficiency is linked to increased body fat, decreased muscle strength and a range of disorders, this is a serious health issue.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Deficits in brain's 'executive' skills common with TIA, minor strokeCognitive impairment is common in transient ischemic attack and minor ischemic stroke patients. Cognitive impairment in these patients can be detected with tests that evaluate the brain's "executive functions" -- but not with another commonly used screening designed to test for Alzheimer's dementia.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages daily linked to diabetesMore Americans now drink sugar-sweetened sodas, sport drinks and fruit drinks daily, and this increase in consumption has led to more diabetes and heart disease over the past decade, researchers report.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am From carnivorous plants to the medicine cabinet? Anti-fungal agents in pitcher plants investigatedUnusual components from carnivorous plants' pitchers were found effective as anti-fungal drugs against human fungal infections, which are widespread in hospitals.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am Hormone study gives scientists a sense of how animals bondScientists have pinpointed how a key hormone helps animals to recognize others by their smell. Researchers have shown that the hormone vasopressin helps the brain differentiate between familiar and new scents.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am Australian police search anti-whaling ships for Japan (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 11:47 pm Years of Exposure to Traffic Pollution Raises Blood Pressure (HealthDay)HealthDay - THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term exposure to the air pollution particles caused by traffic has been linked to an increase in blood pressure, U.S. researchers say.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 9:49 pm Disposal of spilled coal ash a long, winding trip (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 7:33 pm Apple co-founder Wozniak shirks off Prius glitch (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:58 pm Runaway Toyotas: What's the Real Risk? (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Toyota, the world's top-selling automaker, recently announced a recall of up to ten million of its vehicles over reports of sudden uncontrollable acceleration. But it's not clear exactly what the problem is.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:55 pm Japan, New Mexico collaborate on smart grid tech (AP)AP - Two national laboratories, the state of New Mexico and a Japanese agency are developing smart grid technology to give homeowners and businesses more access to renewable energy sources by controlling the supply and demand of electric power.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:48 pm This column will change your life: With friends like these… | Oliver BurkemanAre our friends really little more than marketing tools with which we should improve our own lives? "Real power comes from being indispensable," declares Keith Ferrazzi, who has carved out a high-profile niche for himself as the maestro of networking – the art of coming to see your social circle not just as people you drink with, or play Scrabble with, or have ill-informed arguments about Iraq with, but as a "resource". (His bestseller was called Never Eat Alone, which strikes me as a nightmarish prospect, but I accept the possibility that I'm a misanthrope.) His weapon of choice is "social arbitrage": spotting opportunities to introduce, say, your web designer friend Derek to your venture capitalist friend Eustacia, in ways advantageous to both, leaving you basking in the equally advantageous afterglow of being a connector. A similar outlook motivates the marketing guru Seth Godin, whose latest book, Linchpin, urges us to expend "emotional labour" for others, to "give gifts" of time and energy, in order to become the essential worker no organisation would ever dream of firing. As strategies go, these aren't terrible (or new; most are just footnotes to Machiavelli, who said it all in the 1530s). Even so, they seem symptomatic of a phenomenon you might call instrumentalisation: taking aspects of social existence we'd previously thought of as ends in themselves (making friends, giving gifts) and turning them into means, co-opting them for other agendas. Forging relationships for the purposes of profit: we used to call this marketing. But a favourite slogan of Godin's admirers is "We are all marketers now" and the alarming truth is that they might be right. The changing world of work is one culprit: as secure jobs become scarcer, as contract work expands, and the line between work and leisure blurs, it's hard not to see the whole of life as a potential business opportunity. To some degree, we all become the neighbour who wants you to invest in his llama farm or similar sketchy initiative; life becomes one giant Tupperware party. Nowhere is this clearer than in the worlds of Twitter and Facebook. Both are crawling with irritating professional marketers, true, but more disorienting is how they turn everyone into marketers of themselves, collectors of friends and followers, purveyors of interesting titbits. It's not technology's fault: life has always been a popularity contest. Maybe from an evolutionary standpoint, all social interaction is marketing. But online spaces make the fact excruciatingly obvious, with constant feedback on how you're doing. But the most disorienting example of ends-into-means is surely what has happened to the concept of "authenticity", which increasingly seems to be a style, consciously adopted for marketing reasons, and thus not authentic at all. This isn't just a business phenomenon. The blog beyondgrowth.net recently highlighted the "pickup artist" Tyler Durden, who offers expensive training weekends at which men learn how to seem authentic, thereby (or so the pitch goes) attracting throngs of eager women. That's right: affected authenticity as a means to an end, taught by a man using a pseudonym borrowed from a character in Fight Club who isn't even a real person in that movie, but the figment of another character's imagination. What happened to this dating coach's real identity? It's gone missing. Real authenticity – you know, the authentic kind – has left the building. oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:12 pm The man who'll welcome the aliensJon Ronson meets Paul Davies, the scientist with an awesome responsibility If we are ever contacted by aliens, the man I'm having lunch with will be one of the first humans to know. His name is Paul Davies and he's chair of the Seti (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Post-Detection Task Group. They're a group of the world's most eminent scientists and will be, come the big day, the planet's alien welcome committee. His is an awesome responsibility, and one he doesn't take lightly. "Imagine a civilisation that's way in advance of us wants to communicate with us, and assist us in our development," Paul says. He pushes his mackerel across his plate. "The information we provide to them must reflect our highest aspirations and ideals, and not just be some crazy person's bizarre politics or religion." This is why, Paul says, he very much hopes that our opening communication with the aliens will be drafted by him. "All the attempts to send messages up so far have been very crass," he says. "If you're going to leave it up to the mob to decide what's important, it'll be this really cool video game. Or some sporting event. Or some rock group." "Do you have any idea of what you might say to the aliens?" I ask. There is a short silence. "I do," he says. "Will you reveal it to me?" I ask. Paul thinks for a second. And then he clears his throat. Who is Paul Davies? How have events transpired to put him on the front line of extraterrestrial relations? And what will his message to the aliens be? The story begins 50 years ago, in April 1960, when a young astronomer named Frank Drake decided to cut a swathe through the forest of unscientific UFO believers, the abductees, the searchers for mutilated cattle, and so on, and treat the subject with some rigour. He formulated an equation, the Drake Equation, which attempted to determine mathematically how many intelligent civilisations exist in our galaxy. His conclusion: 10,000. Amazed at his findings, and at the thought that some of these extraterrestrials must surely be bombarding our hitherto deaf ears with incredible radio messages, he borrowed the 26m dish at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia, pointed it at a distant star called Tau Ceti, turned it on and – nothing. Just a disappointing static hiss. "No signals have been detected," he noted. Despite this setback, Seti was born. Drake managed to score some US government funding and created an institute in California. Like-minded scientists joined him. For much of the 60s, as Paul Davies writes in his new book, The Eerie Silence, a "major preoccupation among Seti researchers was to decide which particular frequency ET might choose, given that there are billions of possibilities. The hope was that the aliens would customise their signals for Earth-like planets." But the aliens didn't customise their signals for us. After a decade or so, a schism formed within Seti. Some contended that surely the aliens – being far advanced – would use lasers to communicate, not radio. And so Optical Seti was born. Optical Seti didn't detect any signals either. The day before my lunch with Paul, Frank Drake was in London to update the Royal Society on the latest. The good news is that with the help of wealthy private benefactors such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Seti is now better equipped than ever. Allen has provided them with an array of new dishes called, in fact, the Allen Telescope Array. They're situated in a field 290 miles north of San Francisco. The bad news is that no signals have been detected. "Fifty years of nothing," I say to Paul now. "Do Seti people just go into work every morning, spend all day hearing nothing and then go home again?" "Your question is very similar to, 'How does a computer scientist spend their days?' " Paul replies. "Sending emails and raising finance and teaching students and thinking about strategy." "Doesn't it get depressing?" "The Seti people are very calm, very determined. There is a hypothesis to test and Seti are testing it." He pauses. "If the eerie silence goes on for 500 years and not 50 years, it might become hard to recruit the young scientists." Seti scientists also fill the void by putting protocols in place for what to do on the day a bleep is definitively heard. It is extremely likely they will be the ones to hear it: they're the ones with the dishes. Should the protocols be followed, they'll know not to call the media or some government figure. They'll call the chair of the Post-Detection Task Group. Which is Paul. Paul is a British-born theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University. He lives his life at an incredibly high level of amazingness. He lectures at the Vatican, the Smithsonian, Davos and the UN. He has an asteroid named after him – the Pauldavies Asteroid. He's a passionate scientific communicator and a grumpy man of enormous intellect. A telephone near us keeps letting off a loud and unexpected ring, and whenever it does, Paul looks extremely cross and says, "This is terribly annoying." I can't help thinking that if the aliens do make contact, his automatic response will be to screw up his face in irritation and yell: "WHAT?" I've been following Paul for a few days now. I watched him speak twice yesterday at the Royal Society (it has been hosting a Seti conference). The queue to get into his evening talk snaked around the block. He encouraged the audience, which filled the main hall and an overflow room, not to be depressed. It's quite possible the aliens do know we're here, but because they're 1,000 light years away and are consequently seeing us as we were 1,000 years ago – all pathetically rudimentary and agricultural – they're going to hold off beaming a signal to us until they know we've developed radio technology. During the question and answer session, a man with dark glasses stood up and animatedly announced: "To see the future, one must look at the fringe, at the freaks, the visionaries, the artists. Why does Seti ignore what's right in front of us? The 6,000 abductions! The 10,000 cattle mutilations…!" One or two people nodded in agreement. Paul tried to look kindly, but his annoyance was obvious. "To expect alien technology to be just a few decades ahead of ours," he replied, "is too incredible to be taken seriously." His inference was, you can tell the abductees are lying or delusional because their descriptions of the aliens and their craft are always so unimaginative. As he writes in The Eerie Silence, the giveaway is the banality of the aliens' putative agenda, which seems to consist of grubbing around in fields or meadows, chasing cows or cars like bored teenagers, and abducting humans for Nazi-style experiments. "At least flaky UFO nuts believe they've met aliens," I say to Paul now. "They believe they've been abducted and probed. You lot have rationalised yourselves into a 50-year void of nothingness." I pause and add: "I realise what I just said is quite stupid, but will you respond to it anyway?" "For me, science is already fantastical enough," he says. "Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance." Paul says he doesn't trust people. But he does have great faith in aliens. His face lights up when he imagines them. My guess is that, since he's spent so much of his life meeting people who aren't as clever as him, the aliens are – intellect-wise – his last-chance saloon. The Post-Detection Task Group has been in existence since 1996. It is comprised of 30 Seti-friendly scientists, writers and engineers. Paul was invited to become chair in 2008 but has so far convened only one meeting. He hopes to hold a second later this year in Prague, so they can update their declaration of principles. "So what's the first thing that'll happen when a bleep is detected?" I ask. "We'll have it independently verified. That's really important." "And once it's verified?" "My strenuous advice," Paul says, "will be that the coordinates of the transmitting entity should be kept confidential until the world community has had a chance to evaluate what it's dealing with. We don't want anybody just turning a radio telescope on the sky and sending their own messages to the source." "So you'll tell the world that extraterrestrials are beaming signals to us, but you'll refuse to say from where?" "Exactly," Paul says. "They'll kill you. They'll grab you and torture the information out of you." "But what's the alternative? Imagine we go to the United Nations: 'There's an alien community over there and everyone has to think about what our response might be, so we're turning it over to you, the United Nations, who are so adept at finding harmonious solutions to the world's problems.' Well, of course it would be a complete shambles. And which are the agencies that can truly represent humanity? You wouldn't go to the Catholic church, would you? Or the US Army." This is why, he says, the most prudent course of action will be to create some sort of science parliament – a bit like the one set up to oversee the scientific exploration of Antarctica – and present to them the draft of a message that will be written by him later this year in Prague. I am, I'm proud to say, the person who gave him the idea to draft the message this far in advance. "If you don't trust anyone else to come up with a decent message, you should do it yourself!" I say. "You don't want to be caught on the hop. Do it in Prague and just put it in a drawer somewhere until the time comes." "That's a very good idea!" he replies. "I'm thinking on my feet here, but it's an excellent idea." "I'm full of ideas like that. I'd be happy to join the Post-Detection Task Group." Paul looks panicked. "There's no money." "Oh, right," I say. "Right. Yes." It is an awkward moment. "So what will the message say?" I ask, changing the subject. "We're talking about two civilisations communicating their finest achievements and their deepest beliefs and attitudes. I feel we should send something about our level of scientific attainment and understanding of how the world works. Some fundamental physics. Maybe some biology. But primarily physics and astronomy." "And some classical music?" I suggest. "Well, we could, but it's not going to mean anything to them," Paul says. "Yes, yes, of course." I pause. "Why won't it mean anything to them?" "There's nothing certain in this game," Paul says, "but our appreciation of art and music is very much tied to our cognitive architecture. There's no particular reason why some other intelligent species will share these aesthetic values. The general theory of relativity is impressive and will surely be understood by them. But if we send a Picasso or a Mona Lisa? They wouldn't care." He pauses. "I mean the phonograph disc that went off on Voyager had speeches by Kurt Waldheim and Jimmy Carter. That's a world away from what we should be doing." "Yeah, and Beagle 2 had Blur songs!" "Quite," Paul says. I actually like Blur and found the idea of their music being beamed to Mars quite exciting, but I'm belittling it because I feel a strong desire to make Paul think I'm wise. "Of course, the world will eventually discover the coordinates and start sending up their own stuff," I say. "Yes. So one of the first things we might want to say is that there's no unitary government on this planet, no unitary political philosophy or ideology. We're a great place for freedom, if not anarchy, and so we're putting together the best possible coherent package for your consideration, but expect it to be followed up with all sorts of bizarre and incoherent babble that you must treat with some discretion." He pauses. "Although how we'll express all this when we only have mathematics in common will be something of a challenge." We get the bill. Paul wants to end on an optimistic note and so he mentions the one time in Seti history when something broke the silence. "We call it the Wow signal," he says. "It was a radio telescope in Ohio, back in the days when they didn't have the electronic gadgetry to go 'ping' if there was something weird. So they looked at a computer print-out some weeks afterwards, and it showed a signal that went on for 72 seconds. Nobody was listening at the time. The researcher wrote 'Wow' in the margin. And many times radio telescopes have been turned on that star, but nothing odd has ever happened again." "Should we feel excited by the Wow signal?" "I've often wondered," Paul says. He puts on his coat. "What we're doing is a fantastic and challenging task. It compels us to think about all the things we should be thinking about. What is life? What is intelligence?" He pauses. "And if nothing else, it is a great deal of fun." • The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone In The Universe? by Paul Davies is published by Allen Lane, £20. To order a copy for £18, including UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 68467. For information on Paul Davies' UK lecture tour, 12-22 March, go to penguin.co.uk/eeriesilence. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:11 pm What I'm really thinking: The IT support worker'I'm busy dreaming about being a web designer or a rock star' It's a cliché, but "Have you turned it on and off again?" is the first thing that comes to my mind every single time someone calls. That's all it takes 90% of the time. The other 10%, the computer isn't plugged in. It's not that people are stupid; they're too busy panicking about the work they've lost. We call them "picnic" calls: problem in chair, not in computer. To begin with, people usually treat me like some kind of spanner monkey – I'm just someone who's going around fixing things. But once their computer has broken down a few times, they soon realise that, actually, I'm God. I've got all the power. They're just the users. I work for a charity, so most people are understanding. But we've had users coming in from banking or commercial environments, and they've got a completely different attitude. They get irate if things don't go their way. They're usually causing their own problems. Some users play the dumb, helpless act, but it tends to get tedious very quickly. They think they're flirting to get their computer fixed quicker, but really I'm thinking, "Why don't you use your energy to think about what the problem is, and fix it yourself?" I think there are a lot of frustrated IT workers out there. Most of us would rather be doing anything else. I'm busy dreaming about being a web designer or a rock star – all those calls are just interrupting my train of thought. • Tell us what you're really thinking at mind@guardian.co.uk guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:10 pm How Big Waves Go Rogue
An extra-tall wave struck a cruise ship off the Mediterranean coast of Spain this week, claiming two lives and injuring one person on board. Though the wave may not qualify as a “rogue wave,” it could have been created by the same forces. To officially be rogue, the wave’s height must be more than double the “significant wave height” of the area, which is calculated by averaging the height of the tallest third of all the nearby waves. The wave measured 26 feet tall and shattered plate-glass windows at the bow of the vessel. Still, it wasn’t very tall compared to some of the waves oceanographer Libe Washburn of UC Santa Barbara has seen. “I was surprised it was really that damaged by a 26-foot-high wave,” Washburn said. “Twenty-six feet isn’t that big.” Until recently, scientists were skeptical that rogue waves even exist, because evidence of them was mostly anecdotal. More often called “freak waves,” these monsters of the sea were confirmed only six years ago by satellite images and extensive studies carried out by MaxWave, a research group funded by the European Commission. Waves over 100 feet tall have been spotted by oceanographers, scientists and vessel passengers. The highest wave ever recorded was 112 feet tall, spotted in the Pacific by a U.S. Navy tanker in the 1920s. Now, whenever large ships get lost at sea and never return, many are quick to speculate they were victims of rogue waves. Rogue waves occur in the open ocean in a number of ways. One common cause is when two smaller waves coalesce to produce a very large wave for a short time.
Another way rogue waves propagate is when an ocean wave encounters a very strong current that’s running counter to the direction of the wave, according to Washburn. The Agulhas Current, which flows down the eastern coast of South Africa, is notorious for producing rogue waves. “It’s very dangerous at the Agulhas,” Washburn said. “Even if you’re on a big ship, that doesn’t mean you’re any safer.” Storm-related wind is a factor as well. Strong winds transfer energy into the waves, creating interactions between them. Large waves take energy from smaller ones, creating a bigger and bigger wave, said oceanographer Peter Challenor of the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom, in an interview with Agence France-Presse. Photo: NOAA Image: NASA
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 Mar 2010 | 4:45 pm How to Shop for a New 3-D HDTVThe first 3-D high-definition TV was made available to the public this week.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 4:25 pm Exotic Antimatter Created on Earth (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Scientists have created a never-before seen type of exotic matter that is thought to have been present at the earliest stages of the universe, right after the Big Bang.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 4:02 pm Planet PowerSustainable energy technologies: How they work and where they come from.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:34 pm Animation of Giant Iceberg Collision as Seen From Space
The collision in early February of the 60-mile-long B-9B iceberg with the protruding tongue of the Mertz Glacier in East Antarctica is captured here in a series of satellite radar images. The crash created a second massive iceberg nearly 50 miles long and 25 miles wide, named C-28. The name means that it’s the 28th glacier since 1976 that has broken off from the quadrant of Antarctica that faces Australia. The two icebergs have since drifted into a polynya, which is an area of open water that’s surrounded by sea ice but stays unfrozen for much or all of the year. The bergs are obstructing the ocean circulation created by the polynya, and could deprive local marine life of oxygen if they don’t move. The images were taken by the synthetic-aperture-radar instrument aboard the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite. Images: ESA See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:27 pm Refrigerated Frogs May MatePlease don't try this at home...Scientists at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research have just informed me that they've placed 24 mountain yellow-legged frogs into special refrigerators that will hopefully cause the endangered frogs to mate. (Image: Chris ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:17 pm Regional Rainfall in a Warming WorldSlowly but surely, a picture of climate change at the regional scale -- where it really matters -- is beginning to take shape. Apart from the obvious warming at the high polar latitudes, which already is affecting Arctic sea ice, ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:15 pm Energy groups relieved sage grouse won't be listed (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:08 pm Angkor: How can a UNESCO site keep tourist temple raiders in check?It only takes a quick Google image search to understand why Angkor, the Khmer empire's ancient seat, makes plenty of "must-see" travel lists. Its ruined temple complexes pop out through the forests, and its sprawling reservoirs offer a testament to ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 2:49 pm Probe may have found cosmic dustScientists may have identified the first specks of interstellar dust in material collected by the Nasa Stardust spacecraft.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2010 | 2:28 pm Smoking prevents Alzheimer's? It depends who you askPapers by people with links to the tobacco industry play down the risks of Alzheimer's associated with smoking If the media were actuarial about drawing our attention to the causes of avoidable death, newspapers would be filled with diarrhoea, Aids and cigarettes every day. In reality we know this is an absurd idea. For those interested in the scale of our fascination with rarity, one piece of research looked at a period in 2002 and found that 8,571 people had to die from smoking to generate one story on the subject from the BBC, while there were three stories for every death from vCJD. So you've probably heard that smoking may prevent Alzheimer's. It comes up in the papers, sometimes to say it is true, sometimes to say it has been refuted. Maybe you think it's a mixed bag, that "experts are divided". Perhaps you smoke, and joke about how it will stop you losing your marbles. This month, Janine Cataldo and colleagues publish a systematic review on the subject, but with a very interesting twist. First they found all the papers ever published on smoking and Alzheimer's, using an explicit search strategy which they describe properly in the paper – because they are scientists, not homeopaths – to make sure that they found all of the evidence, rather than just the studies they already knew about, or the ones which flattered their preconceptions. They found 43 in total, and overall, smoking significantly increases your risk of Alzheimer's. But they went further. Eleven of the studies were written by people with affiliations to the tobacco industry. This wasn't always declared, so to double check, the researchers searched on the University of California's Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, a vast collection of scanned material which has been gathered over decades of legal action. If you ever want to spend a chilling afternoon in the head of an industry whose product has been proven to kill a third of its customers, this is the place for you. "The importance of younger adults" uses financial modelling to explain the importance of recruiting teenage smokers to replace the dying older ones before it's too late, and explains that "repeated government studies have shown less than one third of smokers start after age 18 [and] only 5% of smokers start after age 24." "Youth cigarette – new concepts" from Marketing Innovations Inc takes these ideas further, into cola and apple flavour cigarettes, because "apples connote goodness and freshness". How much did it matter if the researchers worked for the tobacco companies? A lot: the risks of Alzheimer's associated with smoking reported by these papers were on average about a third lower than those conducted by others, and they produced many papers showing cigarettes were protective. If you exclude these 11 papers, and look only at the remainder, your chances of getting Alzheimer's are vastly higher: comparing a smoker against a non-smoker, the odds are higher by 1.72 to 1. So does that mean we can ignore all research that comes from people who disgust us? In Nazi Germany two researchers, Schairer and Schöniger, worked on biological theories of degenerate behaviour under Professor Karl Astel, who helped organise the operation that murdered 200,000 mentally and physically disabled people. In 1943 the researchers published a well-conducted study demonstrating a relationship between smoking and lung cancer. Their paper wasn't mentioned in the classic Doll and Bradford Hill paper of 1950, it was referred to only four times in the 60s, once in the 70s, and then not again until 1988, despite providing a valuable early warning on a killer that would cause 100 million early deaths in the 20th century. It's not obvious what you do with evidence from untrustworthy sources, but it's always worth appraising its untrustworthiness with the best tools available. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 2:00 pm US stops short of protection for western sage grouse (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:58 pm When Glaciers Melt, What's in the Water?Environmental engineer Michael Nassry studies glacial streams from melting glaciers in Alaska.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:47 pm Amazing Images of Earth From SpaceClose-ups of planet Earth from space reveal a world that is violent, beautiful and awe-inspiring.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:36 pm Chatting With StrangersI'm not a big fan of anonymity on the Web. I recognize its importance, particularly for people who live in countries with governments that monitor Internet activity. But with anonymity comes a certain lack of accountability that I find distasteful. ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:28 pm 'Hella' Proposed as Official Big NumberA physics student is petitioning the International System of Units to declare "hella" the official designation of 10 to the 27th power, or a trillion trillions.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:24 pm Freak Waves A Hazard on the High SeasThese monster waves are so big that they're able to drown even the largest ships.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:15 pm Earth’s Magnetic Field Is 3.5 Billion Years Old
Evidence for the existence of Earth’s magnetic field has been pushed back about 250 million years, new research suggests. The field may therefore be old enough to have shielded some of the planet’s earliest life from the sun’s most harmful cosmic radiation. Earth’s magnetic field was born by 3.45 billion years ago, a team including researchers from the University of Rochester in New York and the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa report in the March 5 issue of Science. That date falls during life’s earliest stages of development, between the period when the Earth was pummeled by interplanetary debris and when the atmosphere filled with oxygen. Several earlier studies had suggested that a magnetic field is a necessary shield against deadly solar radiation that can strip away a planet’s atmosphere, evaporate water and snuff out life on its surface. “I think it’s a magnificent piece of work, a real landmark,” says geophysicist David Dunlop of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the research. “It pushes the boundary back about as far back as you could reasonably expect to measure on Earth.”
The researchers measured the magnetic strength of certain rocks found in the Kaapvaal craton of South Africa, a geologic region known to date back more than 3 billion years. Just finding old rocks wasn’t enough, though. “It’s a Goldilocks theory of finding rocks,” says John Tarduno of the University of Rochester, a coauthor of the new study. Iron minerals record the strength and direction of the magnetic field that was present during their formation. But when rocks are heated in subsequent geological processes, they can lose or overwrite that record. “We had to find a rock that had just enough iron to record a magnetic signature, but not so much that it would be affected by later chemical changes,” Tarduno says. The Greenstone Belt in South Africa had rocks that were just right: crystals of quartz less than two millimeters long with nanometer-sized bits of iron-containing magnetite embedded in them. “Quartz is the perfect capsule,” Tarduno says. “It’s not affected by later events, but it has these [iron] inclusions in it.” Tarduno and his colleagues had studied similar rocks in 2007 and found that a magnetic field half as strong as today’s was present 3.2 billion years ago. Using a specially designed magnetometer and improved lab techniques, the team detected a magnetic signal in 3.45-billion-year-old rocks that was between 50 and 70 percent the strength of the present-day field, Tarduno says. “When we think about the origin of life, there are two threads to follow,” Tarduno says. “One obviously is water. But you also have to have a magnetic field, because that protects the atmosphere from erosion and the complete removal of water.” Mars may be dry today because it lost its magnetic field early on, he adds. To determine if the early magnetic field was enough to hold back the rain of radiation, the team needed to know what the sun was doing. Tarduno and Eric Mamajek, an astronomer at the University of Rochester, used observations of young sunlike stars to infer how strong a solar wind the Earth was up against.
The amount of radiation regularly reaching Earth from the sun 3.45 billion years ago would be comparable to what rains down on the planet during the most powerful solar storms today, Tarduno says. The aurora borealis, caused by solar wind particles accelerating along Earth’s magnetic field, would have been visible as far south as present-day New York City. The study “can be used to guide our searches for other life-bearing planets” as well, says astronomer Moira Jardine of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Astronomers might want to focus more on older, less active stars or search for planets with their own magnetic fields, she says. Despite the fact that no extrasolar planets with magnetic fields have ever been detected, Jardine and Tarduno remain optimistic. “It’s just another parameter we need to think about,” Tarduno says. Images: 1) J. Tarduno, R. Cottrell. 2) NASA. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 Mar 2010 | 12:29 pm Ice Once Covered the EquatorIce covered equator during ice age millions of years ago, might have affected survival of life.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 12:22 pm Bing Aims to Reinvent SearchBing has become the fastest growing search engine on the Internet.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 12:17 pm Irregular heartbeat may cause cot deathFrench scientists claim some babies could have fault in regulation of heartbeat that makes it slow down and stop French scientists are claiming to have identified an anomaly in the hearts of victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) that could pinpoint newborn babies at risk with a simple blood test. The research team at the University of Strasbourg believes so-called cot death babies have a fault in the regulation of the heartbeat causing it to slow down to the point where it stops altogether. This fault is caused by the heart absorbing too much of a chemical produced by the cardiac nerve, which controls the heart rate, it says. It believes the anomaly can be identified by an enzyme in white blood cells. Professor Pascal Bousquet, of the Faculty of Medicine at Strasbourg University Hospital, said researchers had been working on another possible cause of SIDS when they made the "very new and exciting" breakthrough. The Strasbourg team worked on heart or blood samples from 18 cot death victims and 19 children who had died violent or sudden deaths that were not related to any heart condition or cardiac abnormalities. The infants were between one and nine months old. Heart tissue samples were taken from nine of the SIDS victims and eight from the control group. The hearts of all but one of the nine SIDS victims showed high levels of acetylcholine, a substance produced by the cardiac nerve that controls the heart rate, and an increased number of acetylcholine receptors in the heart. This has led the researchers to believe that in the case of SIDS victims the cardiac nerve may go into overdrive and slow the heart down too much. Evidence to back this up was found in an enzyme in the white blood cells in six out of 10 of the blood samples taken from the remaining SIDS victims and control group. Bousquet said: "We were working on another hypothesis when we came across this. The difference between the samples taken from SIDS infants and the control group were remarkable. It is unusual in scientific research to come across such a big difference." The team has carried out tests to find signs of the anomaly in blood samples from animals, and is hoping to identify it in human beings. This could mean new born babies with the anomaly could be identified through a routine blood test. "We have found the marker in white blood cells and if it exists in humans we will be able to identify children at risk of SIDS," he said. "The idea is to then try out drugs that already exist to control the heart rate and see which of them work to block the receptors in the heart. Unfortunately, we have no sponsorship for that stage of our research." The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths, which funds research and gives advice in the UK, called the work an excellent piece of research. "SIDS is generally understood to result from a vulnerable infant at a particular developmental stage being exposed to specific environmental stressors. This research may help to explain why some infants are particularly vulnerable," it said. "As the authors point out, further research is needed to see if their results can be replicated elsewhere, to further understand the normal development of neurotransmitter receptors in the heart, and how an over expression of these receptors might act to increase vulnerability." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 12:12 pm Clever Octopus Makes Like a FlounderTo mimic a flounder, and avoid predators, the Atlantic longarm octopus swims forward with its arms trailing behind like flounder fins. It swims along the contours of the sea floor, even torquing its body so both eyes move to the left.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 11:28 am NASA Uses Fish to Fight Space Sickness (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Astronauts love doing zero-G stunts on the International Space Station, but only after the urge to vomit from space sickness has faded. Now fish, snails and other animals could help understand whether living in space can create long-term or even permanent damage in the inner ear.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 11:15 am Underwater waves: Green dye sheds light on a deep sea mysteryGreen dye reveals some physical mysteries of the deep oceanSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2010 | 11:06 am Why do nice girls fall for bad boys?Carole Jahme shines the cold light of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems. This week: bad boys Irresistible rascalsFrom a nice girl, aged 37 Carole replies: These types of males tend to favour short-term relationships (including one night stands) over long-term relationships. They also attempt to compete with other males by poaching mates for brief affairs. Research has shown that a touch of evil can bring fitness benefits: these males tend to have more female partners and thus more reproductive opportunities than other males. The fictional character of James Bond is frequently cited as possessing dark triad traits. Although the dark triad personality type appears to be universal in human society, having been identified in 57 countries, it does exact real costs – otherwise bad boys would be more common. Those exhibiting dark triad behaviour need to prey on the cooperative and unsuspecting. If bad boys stay in one place and among the same group of humans for too long their psychopathy will be exposed. It has been predicted that this evolutionary strategy can only succeed if bad boys manage to achieve anonymity or lead an itinerant lifestyle. Evolutionary-anthropological research on hunter gatherers, such as the !Kung San of the Kalahari, has shown that successful, risk-taking hunters – who "bring home the bacon" for the group – get the most mating opportunities. As a single trait, successful risk-taking is universally appreciated as a sign of good genes. The combination of brave, risk-taking behaviour is frequently attractive to females in the short-term. But in the long term, although females remain attracted to bravery and risk-taking they also look for the crucial additional trait of altruism. Thus, if given a choice, a female will apparently favour a brave altruist over an opportunistic risk-taker. Ironically, "nice girls" may be the only females who tolerate the dark triad male personality, forgiving these naughty boys and inadvertently giving them yet another chance to misbehave. Are you prepared to be a single mother? A bad boy son who survives all the risk-taking behaviour to reach reproductive age may make you a granny many times over, but are you really looking for quantity over quality? You need to ask yourself this: "Do I want to be another notch on this man's bedpost, or would it be wiser to hold out for a brave altruist?" Paulhus, DL, Williams, K (2002) The dark triad of personality: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality; 36: 556-568. Terms and conditions We regret that Carole cannot answer all the mails we receive. We cannot provide urgent advice and suggest that if you need such advice you seek it immediately without waiting for a response from Carole. With regards to legal, medical or financial issues, we recommend seeking the advice of a listed professional. We will not be held liable for any loss, damage or injury you incur as a result of using this site or as a result of any advice given. We will not enter into personal correspondence via email. Carole is UK-based and as such any advice she gives is intended for a UK audience only. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 10:57 am Volcano Sparks New Type of LightningAsh and steam aren't the only byproducts of a volcanic eruption.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 10:55 am Bison to roam American plains againRecovery 'roadmap' would see large herds roaming free over thousands of hectares but hinges on an overhaul of government regulations and a rethink of public attitudes to the animal Bison, the iconic animal of the American west, could once more roam wild across the great plains under a recovery roadmap prepared by international scientists. A report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (pdf), prepared by dozens of scientists and bison experts from Mexico, America, and Canada, says there is a chance of a second recovery, nearly a century after the animals were rescued from the brink of extinction. But success depends on allowing large herds to roam free over thousands or perhaps millions of hectares, an overhaul of government regulations, and a rethink of public attitudes to the animal. Currently, there is only one population of plains bison, in Yellowstone national park. "The next 10-20 years present opportunities for conserving American bison as a wild species and restoring it as an important ecological presence in many North American ecosystems," the study says. It says the animals are critical to the restoration of the prairie grasslands. But Americans, especially ranchers in the west who view the animals as competition for grazing lands or a potential source of disease in their cattle, need to accept its presence on the plains. "The greatest challenge is to overcome the common perception that the bison, which has had a profound influence on the human history of North America, socially, culturally and ecologically, no longer belongs on the landscape," the study says. Tens of millions of bison once grazed the rolling hills and prairies of North America, from Alaska to northern Mexico. But by the beginning of the 20th century, the great herds had almost completely wiped out by hunters trying to satisfy the European fur trade. Early efforts managed to save the bison from the brink of extinction, and about 31,000 now roam free. But conservationists say more needs to be done to protect the genetic diversity of such herds to assure their long-term survival. Aside from harsh winters, bison in the wild face a range of diseases from anthrax to BSE, or mad cow disease. The study says the new conservation strategy should aim to recreate the traditional range of the bison. "While substantial progress in saving bison from extinction was made in the 20th century, much work remains to restore conservation herds throughout their vast geographical range," said Cormack Gates, a University of Calgary conservationist who co-edited the study. Several states continue to view bison as livestock rather than wild animals and about 400,000 bison are being raised in commercial herds. Some 55,000 of those belong to Ted Turner, the media magnate and CNN founder, who has ranches in seven states. "The key is recognition that the bison is a wildlife species and to be conserved as wildlife, it needs land and supportive government policies," Gates said. But persuading the public the bison should be free and not food may not be easy. In 2002, Turner's ranches were so successful in raising bison that he opened up a chain of bison burger restaurants that now stretches from Montana to Florida. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 10:41 am Galileo backed Copernicus despite dataStars viewed through early telescopes suggested that Earth stood still.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/Nl5X-H4pIJ0" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 Mar 2010 | 10:22 am Egyptian Queen Offered Bread, Jug of Beer at FuneralClick on image to zoom in. Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) One loaf of bread and one jug of beer: that's what Egypt's Queen Behenu was offered during her funeral, according to a translation of hieroglyphics engraved on white stone ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 10:02 am Climate sceptics guilty of double standards in condemnation over data | Bob WardGlobal warming thinktank has made exactly the kind minor factual error that would have been seized on by sceptics Some climate change sceptics have been guilty of applying double standards in their condemnation of alleged misdeeds by researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. On 25 February, I wrote to Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation which is chaired by Lord Lawson, to warn him that a graph of "21st century global mean temperature" displayed prominently on his group's website contains an error. Instead of showing that 2009 was the warmest year since 2005, the foundation's graph portrays it as slightly cooler than 2006 and 2007. While it is a relatively small error, it is the kind of discrepancy that many sceptics would be seizing upon if it had been found on the website of the Climatic Research Unit. Yet Peiser still has not responded to me and the foundation's graph still remains inaccurate. And it is not the first such error. When the foundation first launched its website in late November 2009, I wrote to Peiser to point out that his graph mistakenly showed 2003 instead of 2005 as the warmest year of the new century. He replied, acknowledging the error and stating that the graph was intended to represent the HADCRUT3 data series that is compiled by the Met Office's Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The foundation corrected the error a few weeks later. When pressed, Peiser told journalists that "a graphic designer" was to blame for the problem and insisted that the graph was just "a logo". Now that the foundation's "logo" has been updated to include a data point for 2009, it has introduced a new misrepresentation of the data compiled by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia. I have also asked Peiser if Professor Ian Plimer, who is a member of the foundation's "academic advisory council", was involved in the preparation of the dodgy graph. Plimer's recent book, which is promoted heavily as a "reference work" by sceptics, contains a figure which also misrepresents the HADCRUT3 data series. Yet the inaccurate portrayal of global temperature since 2001 is not the most misleading feature of the foundation's graph. It is the fact that it excludes the entire temperature record from the 20th century, and thus the marked increase that has taken place such that nine of the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred in the last decade. What makes this attempt to "hide the rise" all the more ironic is the fact that the foundation has been so keen to highlight one of the emails, sent in November 1999 by Professor Phil Jones, which includes the phrase "hide the decline". As is now well known, this phrase was referring to the practice of adding the instrumental temperatures since the 1960s to a proxy record compiled from tree rings that erroneously indicated a cooling over the last four decades of the 20th century. In his written submission to the current inquiry into the emails by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the foundation's chairman, Lord Lawson, described the practice as demonstrating "a lack of integrity". Lord Lawson repeated this accusation on 1 March when he and Peiser represented the only pressure group invited by the committee to give oral evidence. We are still waiting to see how Lord Lawson explains his foundation's misleading and inaccurate portrayal of the temperature record compiled by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia. Bob Ward is policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 9:29 am Runaway Toyotas: What's the Real Risk?There are hundreds of things that are far more likely to injure or kill the average Toyota owner than an accident caused by sudden acceleration.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 9:04 am Sage Grouse Passed Over For Fed ProtectionThe Interior Department decides against granting the bird endangered or threatened status.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 8:01 am Cell Phones Reveal Predictability in Human MovementsAlthough people may not think their actions are foreseeable, a new study shows that we may be more predictable than we think.Source: Livescience.com | 5 Mar 2010 | 7:12 am Energetic debateLong-term doubts linger about fusion energy's futureSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2010 | 7:02 am Modular Nuclear Plant: Make Mine a Double-Wide...Last month, President Obama said he would guarantee federal loans for two new nuclear power plants in Georgia. For nuclear energy advocates, those were welcome words. But it takes billions of dollars to get big nuke plants built. "The challenge ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:53 am The data behind climate change fightbackScientists are fighting back over climate change. Get the data behind the latest battle - and see how we visualised it Climate change scientists have started a fightback against sceptics who argue that the observed changes in the Earth's climate can largely be explained by natural variability. This comes after the email hacking furore. A major Met Office review of more than 100 scientific studies tracking the observed changes in the Earth's climate system finds that it is an "increasingly remote possibility" that human activity is not the main cause of climate change. We visualised this information for the Guardian today - click on the image above to see how we did it. Our graphic uses data, thanks to the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, tracking the extent of Arctic sea ice - a key indicator of global warming - alongside the map of observed temperature changes from a major IPCC report on rising global temperatures. The data for the line graph is below, showing measurements on a number of different models, and predictions for the future. Three of the measurements are 'models' - which show what scienetists think has happened. The fourth, the Hadley centre's HadISST, shows actual measurements. Can you do anything with it? Download the data
World government data• Search the world's government data with our gateway Can you do something with this data?Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk • Get the A-Z of data guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:50 am Racing Green on Bamboo BikesIt sounds like the opposite of high-tech engineering, but bamboo bikes are built for high-speed racing.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:26 am In pictures: The week in wildlifeGlowing squid, booming bitterns and white tigers are among the pick of this week's best flora and fauna images from around the world Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:19 am Met Office ends season forecastsThe Met Office stops publishing seasonal forecasts after it came in for criticism for failing to predict extreme weather.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2010 | 4:04 am In PicturesSperm whales caught in the act of surface feedingSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:37 am First Microbes Colonized Land by Using Fat For Protection
The earliest microbes that survived on land may have synthesized fat molecules to prevent their death from dehydration. The molecules, called wax esters, could have helped the microbes colonize land by protecting them against the harsh environments that probably characterized the lifeless continents, scientists hypothesizes in the March issue of Geology . “Production of [wax esters] may represent an adaptation to cross a critical evolutionary threshold, i.e. surviving dehydration and/or dessication cycles,” wrote David Finkelstein, a biogeochemist at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and his co-authors. “This adaptation could have facilitated bacterial migration into the earliest lakes, and aided survival in terrestrial environments.” Little is known about early terrestrial microbial life, which probably colonized land sometime before 500 million years ago. Unlike animals, they don’t leave behind much that scientists can find. But these organisms prepared the way for more complex life by seeding the land with organic compounds that became soil.
Finkelstein’s team has been investigating the behavior of modern communities of microbes called “microbial mats” in seasonal lakes near Warner Valley, Oregon. They found that dessicated mats have nearly double the amount of wax esters as their hydrated brethren, implying that the microbes start producing the molecules when times get tough. When a microbe makes a wax ester from the molecules available to it, it also generates a water molecule. So, making esters could be a way of helping cells survive in environments with varying levels of moisture. “It’s a really cool idea if it actually turns out in a concrete way that this is a way of waterproofing yourself and forestalling the loss of cellular water,” Finkelstein told Wired.com. “The first microbial mass that colonized land sure would have needed some kind of adaptation like this to make it successful.” Beyond the ability to survive drying out, microbes would have also needed a way to spread across the land. Finkelstein believes that the dessicated mats could have been transported long distances by wind. The idea came to his team when they were at one of the lakes in Oregon. “You could see mats blown out of the water and up the hills,” Finkelstein said. “Once the mat makes it to the top of the hill, you could blow into the next lake basin. If you could survive the drying, you could rehydrate yourself and live on.” The next step in their research will be to look for telltale microbial wax esters deeper in the geological record. In doing so, they’ll be looking back through time, and it’s possible they’ll find them or other molecules that suggest they once existed. If they do, it will go a long way towards indicating that these fatty molecules were key to the evolution of terrestrial life as we know it. Citation: “Microbial biosynthesis of wax esters during desiccation: Adaptation for colonization of the earliest terrestrial environments?” in Geology, March 2010 by David Finkelstein, Simon Brassell, and Lisa Pratt. Image: Microbial mats in Yellowstone. flickr/paleoligo
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:30 am
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“You get waves that add up — smaller waves that constructively interfere and for a short time produce a very large wave,” Washburn said. “When they add up, they can make an extra high crest and an extra deep trough.”
The young sun probably rotated more quickly than it does today, Tarduno says. This quick rotation powered a strong magnetic field, which heated the sun’s atmosphere and carried away mass and angular momentum in a strong solar wind of charged particles. The team calculated that the point where the Earth’s magnetic field cancels out the solar wind would be only about five Earth radii above the planet’s center, less than half of the 10.7 radii it is today.
