Personalized medicine in warfarin therapy

Researchers have developed a rapid, multiplexed genotyping method to identify the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that affect warfarin dose.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Tides, Earth's rotation among sources of giant underwater waves

Scientists are gaining new insight into the mechanisms that generate huge, steep underwater waves that occur between layers of warm and cold water in coastal regions of the world's oceans.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Canine health may parallel community health

The family dog may not only be a friendly companion but also a reflection of community health.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Vitamins stored in bathrooms, kitchens may become less effective

High humidity present in bathrooms and kitchens could be degrading the vitamins and health supplements stored in those rooms, even if the lids are on tight, a new study shows. Crystalline substances are prone to a process called deliquescence, in which humidity causes a water-soluble solid to dissolve. Keeping vitamins and supplements away from warm, humid environments can help ensure their effectiveness.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Climate fluctuations 115,000 years ago: Were short warm periods typical for transitions to glacial epochs?

At the end of the last interglacial epoch, around 115,000 years ago, there were significant climate fluctuations. In Central and Eastern Europe, the slow transition from the Eemian Interglacial to the Weichselian Glacial was marked by a growing instability in vegetation trends with possibly at least two warming events. This is the finding of German and Russian climate researchers who have evaluated geochemical and pollen analyses of lake sediments in Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Russia.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Virus infections may be contributing factor in onset of gluten intolerance

Recent research findings indicate a possible connection between virus infections, the immune system and the onset of gluten intolerance, also known as celiac disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

New strategy develops two prototype drugs against cancer, retinal diseases

A comprehensive drug development strategy that starts with extensive screening of potential targeting peptides to identify prototype small-molecule drugs has produced two that target the EGFR and VEGFR pathways in novel ways.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Studies on nutrients, gene expression could lead to tailored diets for disease prevention

A new research article examines the potential for nutrigenomics, a field that studies the effects of food on gene expression. The researchers discussed the possibility of using food to prevent an individual's genes from expressing disease. They said nutrigenomics could completely change the future of public health and the food and culinary industries.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Icecold calculations: How much cold can we actually tolerate without it affecting our performance?

Researchers in Norway are gathering physiological data on how we react to cold. These data will give scientists the expertise they need to develop what they call "advanced protection" for persons who operate in our most severe climate zones, such as Siberia and the Arctic.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Lava likely made river-like channel on Mars

Flowing lava can carve or build paths very much like the riverbeds and canyons etched by water, and this probably explains at least one of the meandering channels on the surface of Mars.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Is It ATLAS or Is It Art?

CERN has done a heckuva job in raising public awareness of the Large Hadron Collider; I'd argue that it's currently the most recognizable experimental physics facility in the world. Granted, most people know it as "that big machine that could ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Mar 2010 | 11:14 pm

Japan to arrest anti-whaling activist: report (AFP)

AFP - Japan plans to arrest a New Zealand activist being held on a whaling ship which he secretly boarded planning to make a citizen's arrest of its captain, a report said Sunday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 10:46 pm

Come Feel the Noise

The physics blogosphere is buzzing about a new paper by cosmologist Craig Hogan -- the subject of a long feature by Ron Cowen in Science News -- proposing that our universe is a hologram, made up of pixels of spacetime. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Mar 2010 | 8:00 pm

'We don't know what 96% of the universe is made of'

Pop star-turned-physicist Brian Cox speaks about his new TV series on the solar system

It's big space, isn't it?

It's 93 million miles to the Sun: that's a long way. It takes light eight minutes to do that. There are 100bn galaxies in the observable universe. If you take a 5p coin and hold it 75 feet away, the space in the sky it would obscure would hold 10,000 galaxies. It's mindblowing. I don't think anyone has a grasp of that other than to say: it's big.

You recently answered claims that experiments with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva might swallow the planet by saying: "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat." Ever worry that you might have phrased that more delicately?

It's not a comment, it's a statement of fact, isn't it? It's factually accurate! It's been everywhere, that. If you're lucky you get one quote on your gravestone and that'll be mine. It's like with Bruce Forsyth: "Nice to see you, to see you nice." I gave a talk in Florida the other week, and I walked on stage and said that and everyone was like: "Wahey!"

Should scientists be similarly robust when it comes to the arguments raging around climate change?

You mean swear more? I don't know whether it's because I'm from Oldham but I believe in a straight-talking version of science. There's nothing mystical about it. We are too delicate with people who talk crap sometimes. But issues like climate change are difficult for scientists because they're not politicians and there's obviously a toxic confluence of agendas there.

Where does your field of expertise lie?

I work in an area called diffraction. It's interesting for lots of technical reasons.

What first inspired you?

I was born in March 1968 and my father says I watched the moon landings. I always knew I wanted to be an astronomer or someone who explored space or a physicist.

What about your career as a pop star?

I went to see Duran Duran with my sister in Leeds when I was about 15. The Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour. I thought: that looks brilliant, so I learned to play keyboards. I actually met Nick Rhodes recently… he just laughed. But it panned out perfectly.Joined my first band when I was 18, made a couple of albums, toured with Europe, supported Jimmy Page. Left that band and joined D:Ream. '97 was the last thing I did – the election.

You played "Things Can Only Get Better" at the Royal Festival Hall the night Labour won. What was that like?

The song had gone back into the charts so we did Top of the Pops that morning. Then we went to a hotel which Labour had got us, overlooking the Houses of Parliament. Sat there, watched all those classic moments. Portillo getting voted out! Then they rang and said: "We've won", so we went and played. Robin Cook and everyone dancing…

You met Tony Blair at the time. Did he strike you as being all right?

Yeah. He still does. I bumped into him last year in Oxford and we had a brief chat. Blair's government was good for science. Funding is having a blip now. It's odd because it's such a small amount of money [we're talking about].

You're called "the rock star physicist". Do colleagues give you funny looks?

Careers don't tend to be long in rock, and I left to do physics at the right time. My colleagues know I've been in bands, and I don't just make TV programmes – I do try and use that platform to have arguments about science funding and so on, so I don't think there's much resentment. There can be, and it's reasonable, because if you're an academic and have a lot of admin to do… well, I've got out of that a bit. But if I'm off in Hawaii filming for the BBC, it doesn't look great.

In the first episode of your new TV series, we see you flicking through a book you had as a child called The Race Into Space. Does today's world live up to the vision of the future you enjoyed then?

That's a disappointing book when you look at it now! It says we were going to be on Mars by 1983. I met the head of exobiology at one of the big Nasa research institutes who knew the rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun from back in the early 60s. He told me they had a plan to go to Mars with the Saturn V rockets. If the programme hadn't been cancelled in the late 70s, they could have done it.

Historically, we've often thought we're getting close to cracking the secrets of the universe. Are we?

I honestly think the wheels are coming off our picture of the way the universe works at the moment. We don't know what 96% of the universe is made of – that tells us that we don't understand something fundamental. It reminds me of the start of the 20th century when quantum mechanics and relativity were about to appear.

We wouldn't expect a dog to understand the mysteries of the universe, so why should we imagine that we can?

It's an open question, whether it's too complicated. All you can do is point back to history to note that we've been successful on this reductionist journey up to now. But there's no reason…

Have you ever believed in God?

No! I was sent to Sunday school for a few weeks but I didn't like getting up on Sunday mornings. But some of my friends are religious. I don't have a strong view on religion, other than illogical religion. Young earth creationism, for example: bollocks.

You went to Alaska for your new series. What would you have said to Sarah Palin if you'd met her in a bar?

I would have started by asking: "Why do you think the Earth is only 6,000 years old?" I would have tried to convert her…

Interview by Caspar Llewellyn Smith

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 Mar 2010 | 5:08 pm

Vlatko Vedral: "I'd like to explain the origin of God"

Quantum physicist Vlatko Vedral thinks he has found what the universe is made of: information. Interview by Aleks Krotoski

Professor Vlatko Vedral is a quantum physicist at the universities of Oxford and Singapore who grapples with the behaviour of energy and matter at subatomic scales, and this has led him to ask some bigger questions including why are we here? And what does it all mean? The 39-year-old, originally from Belgrade, passionately believes units of information – not particles – are the building blocks of humanity and everything that surrounds us. Information, he maintains, is what came before everything else. It is akin to God.

Vedral has set out his argument in a new book, Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information (OUP), in which he explains faith, love and teleportation.

What information is important at the quantum level, and how does it help us understand the origins of the universe?

At first sight, all types of information look very different from one another. For example, contrast thermodynamics – how chaotic a system is – with the information in your genome. You'd say: what on earth is the relationship between these two types of information? One looks much more orderly, the living system, while the other is disorder. But it's actually one and the same information… you actually need very little to define the concept of information in the first place. When you strip out all the unnecessary baggage, at the core is the concept of probability. You need randomness, some uncertainty that something will happen, to let you describe what you want to describe. Once you have a probability that something might happen, then you can define information. And it's the same information in physics, in thermodynamics, in economics.

Quantum physicists think of the universe as being made up of particles and strings. Are you suggesting that information is superior to these physical properties?

It depends on what you ultimately aim to explain. In science, we start with a certain basic set of laws, like the ones described by particle physics. These laws rely on quantum mechanics and relativity and so on. We start from them and try to describe everything else – subatomic, atomic, larger objects and, ultimately, the universe. But the simple question raised at the end is: where do these laws come from?

In science, we're criticised for being unable to go beyond these laws to explain their origins. It's what philosophers call an infinite regression: you give me an explanation, but I can ask where that comes from. We never seem to be able to end the list of questions. I think information is the only concept capable of almost explaining itself, of closing this circle.

How are you not conflating information with a God or another deity?

The common answer is that there was some kind of original creator of this information. The trouble is that this answer doesn't really solve anything because as a physicist I'd also like to understand this being itself. I'd like to explain the origin of God. And then you encounter the same infinite regression. For a scientist, "Why is there a universe? Well, because something even more complicated created it the way it is" isn't an explanation. We want a better answer than that. You can argue that science will never get there, that it's an open-ended enterprise. Maybe this is faith.

But we also have a set of beliefs in science. We believe in one method of understanding the ultimate, secure truth: the scientific method. We make a conjecture. We try to refute it as far as we can. Those conjectures that survive longest are those that currently define the laws of nature. We're not dogmatic about it at all; if you have compelling evidence that something is wrong, we are very happy to upgrade ourselves to the new theory. Of course you can always challenge me and ask why I believe this is the only way to understand the world. The only answer is that it makes sense to me. I find it better than anything else.

How can you explain the emergence of free will, of faith, of any subjective construct if information defined in your theory is binary, a yes or a no?

The things you describe are far too complicated to easily derive within physics, but I do believe one day that we will be able to explain complicated phenomena such as love, for example. I just don't think anyone yet knows how to approach it. But quantum mechanics does bring all kinds of shades of grey between the binary digits.

The perspective of classical physics governed by Newtonian laws describes the world as deterministic, and that there is no randomness. But the key concept behind information is probability: if you could compute and predict everything, as we could if the world really was classical, there would be no concept of surprise and there'd be no information. Everything would be clear, from the beginning to the end of the universe. Somehow we need a genuine randomness that can't be explained by anything more fundamental. That's the key concept for explaining everything out of nothing.

To reduce humanity to this idea of mathematical quantification implies that we can be recreated by having the right recipe and ingredients.

We can take a particle of light, a photon, and we can recreate this photon in a different lab that's hundreds of kilometres away. We can do the same thing with an atom, and smaller objects.

Human beings are ultimately nothing but a collection of atoms. If we apply this same teleport scheme, resulting in another copy of yourself somewhere else, what does that mean? Would you really be yourself? Or would the teleported self be another person with the same physical features who might not feel the same? As far as we know, this would have to be your self there. But we can only wait until an experiment is done to test this.

Are we at an important point in our human history in terms of how we generate, synthesise and understand information?

A good analogy is if you put yourself in the perspective of the people who, in the early 1920s, had just discovered the laws of quantum physics. They said it's extremely difficult to apply this to even the simplest of atoms. Then along comes someone else who says: "I have a piece of solid – 10 to the power of 24 atoms – and you're telling me you're finding it hard to understand a single atom? How on earth will we understand a whole solid?" In fact, this happened very shortly afterwards. It's called solid-state physics and it's the basis of all modern technology.

Being negative by saying that it looks too complicated has always been refuted by scientists. That's why I believe there is hope for us to understand more and more.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 Mar 2010 | 5:07 pm

Rise in UK carbon emissions disputed

Soil deposits of CO2 'not fuelling global warming yet – but will in future'

A major study for the UK government has cast doubt over claims that rising temperatures are causing soil to pump greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fuelling global warming.

In 2005 it was reported in the science journal Nature that over the past 25 years 100m tonnes of carbon dioxide had been released by the soil of England and Wales. The figure cancelled out all emissions cuts in the UK since 1990.

However, a national survey of the soils of Great Britain, funded by the department for environment food and rural affairs, claims to have found no net loss of carbon over approximately the same period.

Scientists have now proposed that a special study group, with an independent statistical expert, should examine why the reports differ and which result is more likely to be correct.

The latest questions follow weeks of claims that predictions about the impacts of climate change have been overstated or miscalculated, including the melting of Himalayan glaciers, and separate allegations of bias based on leaked emails from scientists at the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia.

The author of the latest report, Professor Bridget Emmett of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), warned that finding there had been no loss of carbon so far should not be taken to mean the absence of a threat. In the long term, scientists predict a "tipping point" when the faster activity of microbes in warmer soils starts to generate more CO2 than can be absorbed by plants.

"That's when you start losing carbon as a whole," said Emmett. "Most of the models say that will be later this century."

The 2005 report in Nature was based on the National Soil Inventory, carried out initially between 1978 and 1983, and again from 1994 to 2003, by the National Soil Resources Institute at Cranfield University. That study said that from 1978 to 2003 there had been an estimated loss of 4m tonnes of carbon a year from the soils of England and Wales, and the researchers estimated that, because of the higher carbon content of Scotland's peaty soils, the annual loss from the UK as a whole was 13m tonnes a year. The fact that the losses occurred across all types of land use suggested a link to climate change, said the team.

At that time, one of the research team, Professor Guy Kirk of Cranfield University, told a conference: "It had been reckoned that the CO2 fertilisation effect was offsetting about 25% of the direct human-induced carbon dioxide emissions. It was reckoned that the soil temperature emission effect would catch up in maybe 10 to 50 years' time. We are showing that it seems to be happening rather faster than that."

The latest report by the CEH, just released as part of the ongoing analysis of the 2007 Countryside Survey of Great Britain, compared studies between 1978 and 2007. It found carbon concentration in the top 15cm of soil increased over the first two decades, and decreased between 1998 and 2007. The only exception was arable land, where there was a net loss of carbon, probably because of disruption by ploughing.

"Overall there was no change in carbon concentration ... and [we] cannot confirm the loss reported by the National Soil Inventory," states the report.

Kirk told the Guardian that the Cranfield team were still "confident in our results [that] there was a net loss of carbon". But he said subsequent studies had suggested that "at best" 10% of the loss of carbon was due to climate change, and the rest was due to changes in land use and management, such as conversion of grassland to crops.

Reasons being examined for the difference in results include where and how samples were chosen and analysed and how the data was compiled.

"The amount of carbon in topsoils across England and Wales is about 2bn tonnes, so detecting a change of even 4m tonnes per year is very challenging," said Emmett. "Small differences in methods between the two surveys can therefore have a large effect."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 Mar 2010 | 5:06 pm

Crackdown on battery eggs sold as free range

Derbyshire investigation by trading standards officers finds that nearly 40% of eggs fail in quality and labelling

Eggs from battery hens advertised as free-range or barn-raised have been found on the shelves of high street stores by consumer watchdogs, a new report has revealed.

Trading standards officers tested 50 eggs from different retailers and found that 19 – almost 40% – of these failed in quality and labelling.

The scale of the fraud, revealed by Derbyshire county council, raises disturbing questions about the UK's egg industry.

During the recent investigation, trading standards officers checked 50 eggs – including nine described as being from caged birds, 39 claiming to be free-range, one barn-raised and one organic. Of those, 19 eggs failed.

Officers also found that 11 of the eggs were wrongly labelled, four did not meet quality standards and two were not the required weight under the Food Safety Act.

Various techniques were used to test the eggs, including shining an ultra-violet light to show up marks on the shells of eggs claiming to be free-range, which proved they were laid in cages. A light was also used to test their quality by checking the size of the air space – older eggs have bigger air spaces.

As a result of the investigation, trading standards officers issued advice to help nine businesses in Derbyshire stick to the law. Other cases have been referred to the Egg Marketing Inspectorate, part of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Derbyshire is home to 857 egg producers. Nationally, the egg industry in the UK is estimated to be worth  £1bn a year.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 Mar 2010 | 5:06 pm

Video: Physicist Vlatko Vedral explains why everything is information

Physicist Vlatko Vedral explains to Aleks Krotoski why he believes the fundamental stuff of the universe is information – and how he hopes that one day everything will be explained in this way

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 Mar 2010 | 5:05 pm

Ideas for modern living: mutuality

Mutuality, rather than independence, is the chief characteristic of human life

You and I have almost certainly never met, but what happens to you matters to me – your health, your happiness and your wealth – and vice versa. Mutuality rather than independence is the chief characteristic of human life, whatever we'd like to believe.

Many prefer to see human life as one long competitive struggle for dominance. Philosopher Edmund Burke, Darwin's champion Herbert Spencer (who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest") and Ayn Rand (high priestess of the American idea of rugged individualism) are among those who characterise human life in terms of the struggle between individuals for the spoils of humanity.

Science is increasingly contradicting this view: rather than being a species of arch individualists, we are the social ape. We live in larger, more complex groups than our closest cousins, collaborating with friends and strangers thanks to our nuanced social brain. Indeed, we use other people's brains to navigate the world: to acquire skills and practices, and to access knowledge systems of long-dead strangers. We call this "culture".

We are so inextricably embedded in this world of others that what the people around us do shapes each of us: recent studies (such as Christakis and Fowler's Connected) show how all kinds of things spread through our social connections. If one of my friends gains weight, drinks or smokes, I'm more likely to do so, too. Ditto less serious things such as the clothes we wear and the music we listen to. And these effects seem to work across two or three steps of acquaintance – so even if you and I never meet, what happens to you can touch my life directly. Like it or not, we're in it together. It's mutual.

Visit the School of Life at theschooloflife.com

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 Mar 2010 | 5:05 pm

Ice Once Covered the Equator (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Sea ice may have covered the Earth's surface all the way to the equator hundreds of millions of years ago, a new study finds, adding more evidence to the theory that a "snowball Earth" once existed.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 4:35 pm

Some Chile quake areas awaiting aid a week later (Reuters)

Reuters - Some Chileans were still waiting for government aid on Saturday, a week after one of the strongest earthquakes on record and a roaring tsunami killed hundreds and ravaged cities and villages along the South American country's south-central coastline.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 2:05 pm

Squeezing Solar Power From Nanowires

Efficient silicon photovoltaics hold so much potential but scaling them up would involve outlandish costs. Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed a new approach that could pare down the price. Usually solar cells are made from ultrapure single ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Mar 2010 | 11:35 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Wet weather was expected over the West Coast on Saturday, while snow and rain were forecast to move into the Plains.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 Mar 2010 | 3:28 am