Effects of lifestyle and exposures are mirrored in blood gene expression

A study by Norwegian and French researchers hopes to provide new understanding of how blood cells adjust gene expression in response to various clinical, biochemical and pathological conditions. The Norwegian Woman and Cancer postgenome study highlights numerous blood gene sets affected by one's physical condition, lifestyle factors and exposure variables.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Human cells exhibit foraging behavior like amoebae and bacteria

When cells move about in the body, they follow a complex pattern similar to that which amoebae and bacteria use when searching for food, researchers have found.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Brain tumor's 'grow-or-go' switch discovered

High energy levels cause glioblastoma cells to proliferate; low levels cause them to grow less and to migrate. This study discovered that a molecule called miR-451 coordinates this grow-or-go behavior, which is closely linked to the cells' ability to invade and spread. Thus, the molecule might be a biomarker for predicting survival in patients with glioblastoma multiforme and may serve as a target to develop drugs to fight these tumors.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Mars Dunes: On the Move?

New studies of ripples and dunes shaped by the winds on Mars testify to variability on that planet, identifying at least one place where ripples are actively migrating and another where the ripples have been stationary for 100,000 years or more.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Prehistoric response to global warming informs human planning today

Since 2004, University at Buffalo anthropologist Ezra Zubrow has worked intensively with teams of scientists in the Arctic regions of St. James Bay, Quebec, northern Finland and Kamchatka to understand how humans living 4,000 to 6,000 years ago reacted to climate changes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

New insight into brain's decision-making process

The hippocampus, a part of the brain essential for memory, has long been known to "replay" recently experienced events. Previously, replay was believed to be a simple process of reviewing recent experiences in order to help consolidate them into long-term memory. However, new research shows the phenomenon of memory replay is much more complex, cognitive process that may help an animal maintain its internal representation of the world, or its cognitive map.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Small dogs originated in the Middle East, genetic study finds

A genetic study has found that small domestic dogs probably originated in the Middle East more than 12,000 years ago. Researchers have traced the evolutionary history of the IGF1 gene, finding that the version of the gene that is a major determinant of small size probably originated as a result of the domestication of the Middle Eastern gray wolf.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Best treatment for childhood epilepsy suggested by new research

One of the oldest available anti-seizure medications, ethosuximide, is the most effective treatment for childhood absence epilepsy, according to initial outcomes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Exploiting the architecture of cancers may lead to their destruction

To grow larger, solid tumors require a network of blood vessels to nourish them. Chemotherapy exploits these vessels to deliver toxic drugs, but is inefficient if the drugs cannot pass quickly enough from the bloodstream into the tumor. A new study describes a way of transiently making the tumor blood vessels leakier, allowing more efficient drug uptake. This work may ultimately enhance delivery of chemotherapies into tumor tissue.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Plants discover the benefits of good neighbors in strategy against herbivores

Scandinavian scientists have discovered that a species of tree defends itself from herbivore attack by using chemicals emitted by neighboring plants. The study reveals how species of Birch tree absorb chemical compounds from neighboring Marsh tea plants, Rhondodendron tomentosum, in a unique "defense by neighbor strategy."
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - The East was expected to remain quite active on Saturday as a complex of low pressure systems rotated through the area.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 3:14 am

CITES meet on threatened species to kick off (AFP)

AFP - The only UN body with the power to ban trade in endangered animals and plants starts a triennial meeting in Doha on Saturday with bluefin tuna, African elephants and polar bears on the docket.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 1:25 am

Runaway Prius case presents nagging questions (AP)

AP - Investigators are confronted with a series of nagging questions as they try to unravel the case of a California real estate agent who said his Toyota Prius turned into a runaway death trap after the gas pedal became stuck.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 1:09 am

Al-Qaida suspect from NJ worked at 6 nuke plants (AP)

AP - An American seized in Yemen in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida members had been a laborer at six U.S. nuclear power plants, and authorities are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information or materials that would be useful to terrorists.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 Mar 2010 | 1:09 am

I don't want kids – I just want to have fun

Carole Jahme shines the cold light of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems. This week: promiscuity and nostalgia

Casanova complex

From a male, aged 42
Dear Carole, I wonder what, evolutionarily speaking, is going on with men such as myself who have a long history of promiscuity but are reluctant to reproduce. I am 42 and I still don't want children. The idea of marriage or a long-term partner with children repulses me still, though sex is still very much on my agenda. I usually seek women who have already had children so that I don't feel pressure to reproduce. I accept the central premise of all your posts, but what's going on with me?

Carole replies:
If a male willingly reproduces he usually does so intending to do his best to support his child and the mother of his child. From your description it appears you do not want to invest your resources in others, including another who carries your genes. Modern contraception allows you to exercise your ancient sex drive while saving you from responsibility for progeny.

In general, males find short-term mating strategies more acceptable than do females. You are not alone: there are plenty of men on the lookout for short-term mating opportunities. But I doubt the thought of long-term commitment and parenthood fills them all with repulsion.

Your repulsion at the thought of parenthood and all that goes with it may help you to remain as an overgrown adolescent. Without the pressures of responsibility you have not had demands put upon you that would have activated certain behavioural strategies. Thus, you have not adapted and cognitively matured in accordance with the demands of responsible breeding.

Narcissism in males can accompany an attractive boyishness, which on first impressions can appeal to females. But selfish, egocentric and immature behaviour in males will eventually contribute to the breakdown of a relationship.

Perhaps I should give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it is possible, after all that promiscuous sex, that you still haven't found a female good enough for you and that when you finally do the narcissism and feelings of repulsion will evaporate.

If you are happy and not making those single mums miserable with your cold repulsion of them as potential long-term mates, there's no reason for you to change your ways. But promises are made in bed and the fact that you have written to me suggests you are reflecting on your behaviour.

A word of warning: you may end up as the oldest swinger in town, which could be a lonely role, and by then your choice of mates will be vastly reduced.

Apostolou, M (2009) Parent–offspring conflict over mating: The case of short-term mating strategies. Personality and Individual Differences; 47(8): 895-899.
Holtzman, NS and Strube, MJ (2009) Narcissism and attractiveness. Journal of Research in Personality; 44(1): 133-136.

Nostalgia trip

From a female, no age given
Dear Carole, While listening to Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits recently I was struck by the relevance of the lyrics of The Chain to my current relationship. I have just become re-engaged with an ex-flame and am totally smitten by the thought of it all. Yet we ended our relationship a few months back after agreeing that neither of us was over our exes. We then both dabbled with our old flames before the two of us were drawn back together under unusual circumstances. I hate to be the one to over-analyse a good thing but my friends think I'm crazy.

Carole replies:
I believe the lyrics go something like this:

And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain

Mistrust is embedded in these lyrics. The singer is realising that if love and commitment are not forthcoming now they never will be, and that second chances shouldn't be given because promises have been broken.

You say that you are smitten by the "thought of it all" but your friends (who surely know you and care for you) consider you to be crazy. You and your partner both seem to be chained to the past and you are lovingly lost in your musings.

Nostalgia and remembrance for the good times motivates us all, but your relationship ended for a reason, and you are now wasting time by looking back through rose-tinted glasses. Nostalgia can raise our sense of wellbeing and general optimism. We can generate feelings of being securely attached via sentimental memories. Secure attachment is essential in primates. Without it our mental health suffers and our status and immunity decline dramatically. Nostalgia can serve to keep us well and happy, but eventually reality comes a-calling.

Is it possible that if you put aside your nostalgia for a moment you will come to see the truth of why these lyrics are talking to you?

Routledge, C, et al (2008) A blast from the past: The terror management function of nostalgia. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; 44(1): 132-140.
Belsky, J, (1997) Attachment, mating and parenting: an evolutionary interpretation. Human Nature; 8(4): 361-381.
Goursaud, A. S. and Bachevalier, J. (2007) Animal models for autism. Behavioural Brain Research; 176(1): 75-93.

You can email your questions to Carole by clicking here. Please put "Ask Carole" in the subject line.

Terms and conditions
Please say whether you wish to be named in connection with your enquiry and if so by what name. We reserve the right to edit questions. If you mail us a question, you agree that your email may be published on the site.

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.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 Mar 2010 | 1:00 am

Star Predicted to Blast Through the Solar System

In 1.5 million years time a star called Gliese 710 has a high chance of colliding with the Oort Cloud, potentially causing mayhem on Earth.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Mar 2010 | 12:40 am

Ivory and tuna top wildlife talks

UN wildlife negotiations begin on banning the trade in bluefin tuna and permitting sales of ivory at a two-week summit in Doha.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Mar 2010 | 9:17 pm

Apollo men decry Obama Moon plans

Nasa Moon astronauts tell the BBC President Barack Obama's decision to cancel the US lunar programme is "catastrophic".
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Mar 2010 | 8:34 pm

Will 4G Mobile Service Be Superfast? (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Video on demand on your cell phone. High-fidelity voice quality on a cell phone. Wireless Internet speeds for your laptop from the back of a taxi that's as good as what you get at the office. These are just three of the advantages offered by the latest acronym to hit the cell phone world: 4G.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 7:03 pm

Camera Shy Pregnant Male Seahorse Photographed Giving Birth

The Pacific Seahorse would seem to be a movie natural. This fish is dramatic yellow in color, with sparkling eyes and a hairdo-looking tuft on its head that would be at home on a Dr. Seuss character. But few have ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 6:08 pm

Killer combo: Salt, fat and sugar

Our favourite foods are making us fat, yet we can't resist, because eating them is changing our minds as well as bodies

For years I wondered why I was fat. I lost weight, gained it back, and lost it again – over and over and over. I owned suits in every size. As a former commissioner of the FDA (the US Food and Drug Administration), surely I should have the answer to my problems. Yet food held remarkable sway over my behaviour.

The latest science seemed to suggest being overweight was my destiny. I was fat because my body's "thermostat" was set high. If I lost weight, my body would try to get it back, slowing down my metabolism till I returned to my predetermined set point.

But this theory didn't explain why so many people, in the US and UK in particular, were getting significantly fatter. For thousands of years, human body weight had stayed remarkably stable. Millions of calories passed through our bodies, yet with rare exceptions our weight neither rose nor fell. A perfect biological system seemed to be at work. Then, in the 80s, something changed.

Three decades ago, fewer than one Briton in 10 was obese. One in four is today. It is projected that by 2050, Britain could be a "mainly obese society". Similar, and even more pronounced, changes were taking place in the US, where researchers found that not only were Americans entering their adult years at a significantly higher weight but, while on average everyone was getting heavier, the heaviest people were gaining disproportionately more weight than others. The spread between those at the upper end of the weight curve and those at the lower end was widening. Overweight people were becoming more overweight.

What had happened to add so many millions of pounds to so many millions of people? Certainly food had become more readily available, with larger portion sizes, more chain restaurants and a culture that promotes out-of-home eating. But having food available doesn't mean we have to eat it. What has been driving us to overeat?

It is certainly not a want born of fear of food shortages. Nor is it a want rooted in hunger or the love of exceptional food. We know, too, that overeating is not the sole province of those who are overweight. Even people who remain slim often feel embattled by their drive for food. It takes serious restraint to resist an almost overpowering urge to eat. Yet many, including doctors and healthcare professionals, still think that weight gainers merely lack willpower, or perhaps self-esteem. Few have recognised the distinctive pattern of overeating that has become widespread in the population. No one has seen loss of control as its most defining characteristic.

"Higher sugar, fat and salt make you want to eat more." I had read this in scientific literature, and heard it in conversations with neuroscientists and psychologists. But here was a leading food designer, a Henry Ford of mass-produced food, revealing how his industry operates. To protect his business, he did not want to be identified, but he was remarkably candid, explaining how the food industry creates dishes to hit what he called the "three points of the compass".

Sugar, fat and salt make a food compelling. They stimulate neurons, cells that trigger the brain's reward system and release dopamine, a chemical that motivates our behaviour and makes us want to eat more. Many of us have what's called a "bliss point", at which we get the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat or salt. Combined in the right way, they make a product indulgent, high in "hedonic value".

During the past two decades, there has been an explosion in our ability to access and afford what scientists call highly "palatable" foods. By palatability, they don't just mean it tastes good: they are referring primarily to its capacity to stimulate the appetite. Restaurants sit at the epicentre of this explosion, along with an ever-expanding range of dishes that hit these three compass points. Sugar, fat and salt are either loaded into a core ingredient (such as meat, vegetables, potato or bread), layered on top of it, or both. Deep-fried tortilla chips are an example of loading – the fat is contained in the chip itself. When it is smothered in cheese, sour cream and sauce, that's layering.

It is not just that fast food chains serve food with more fat, sugar and salt, or that intensive processing virtually eliminates our need to chew before swallowing, or that snacks are now available at any time. It is the combination of all that, and more.

Take Kentucky Fried Chicken. My source called it "a premier example" of putting more fat on our plate. KFC's approach to battering its food results in "an optimised fat pick-up system". With its flour, salt, MSG, maltodextrin, sugar, corn syrup and spice, the fried coating imparts flavour that touches on all three points of the compass while giving the consumer the perception of a bargain – a big plate of food at a good price.

Initially, KFC meals were built around a whole chicken, with a pick-up surface that contained "an enormous amount of breading, crispiness and brownness on the surface. That makes the chicken look like more and gives it this wonderful oily flavour." Over time, the company began to realise there was less meat in a chicken nugget compared with a whole chicken, and a greater percentage of fried batter. But the real breakthrough was popcorn chicken. "The smaller the piece of meat, the greater the percentage of fat pick-up," said the food designer. "Now, we have lots of pieces of a cheaper part of the chicken." The product has been "optimised on every dimension", with the fat, sugar and salt combining with the perception of good value virtually to guarantee consumer appeal.

He walked me through some offerings at other popular food chains. Burger King's Whopper touched on the three points of the compass – then was altered for further effect. In its first, stripped-down form, the burger was explosively rich in fat, sugar and salt. Then the chain began adding more beef, extra cheese or a layer of bacon. McDonald's broke new ground in another way – by making food available on a whim. "The great growth has been the snacking occasion. You get hungry, you want something, your mind pushes off the reality of what you ought to eat, and you end up picking up a hamburger and a giant soda or french fries."

Next they introduced a high-fat, high-salt morning meal. "They took what they learned from the core lunch and dinner menu, and applied it to breakfast. The sausage McMuffin and the egg McMuffin are stand-ins for the hamburger. In effect, you are eating a morning hamburger."

This kind of food disappears down our throats so quickly after the first bite that it readily overrides the body's signals that should tell us, "I'm full." The food designer offered coleslaw as an example. When its ingredients are chopped roughly, it requires time and energy to chew. But when cabbage and carrots are softened in a high-fat dressing, coleslaw ceases to be "something with a lot of innate ability to satisfy".

This isn't to say that the food industry wants us to stop chewing altogether. It knows we want to eat a doughnut, not drink it. "The key is to create foods with just enough chew – but not too much. When you're eating these things, you've had 500, 600, 800, 900 calories before you know it." Foods that slip down don't leave us with a sense of being well fed. In making food disappear so swiftly, fat and sugar only leave us wanting more.

According to food consultant Gail Vance Civille, of management consultants Sensory Spectrum, fat is crucial to this process of lubrication, ensuring that a product melts in the mouth. In the past, she says, Americans typically chewed food up to 25 times before it was swallowed; now the average American chews 10 times. "If I have fat in there, I just chew it up and whoosh! Away it goes," she says. "You have a 'quick getaway', a quick melt."

The Snickers bar, Civille says, is "extraordinarily well engineered". Unlike many products whose nuts become annoyingly lodged between your teeth, the genius of Snickers is that as we chew, the sugar dissolves, the fat melts and the caramel picks up the peanut pieces, so the entire candy is carried out of the mouth at the same time. "You're not getting a build-up of stuff in your mouth."

Kettle chips are another success story. Made of sugar-rich russet potatoes, they have a slightly bitter background note and brown irregularly, which gives them a complex flavour. High levels of fat generate easy mouth-melt, and surface variations add a level of interest beyond that found in mass-produced chips. Heightened complexity is the key to modern food design.

Not so many decades ago, a single flavour of ice-cream was a special treat. Our options ran to vanilla, chocolate and strawberry – and when we could buy all three in a single carton, we saw that as a great innovation. Now ice-cream has countless flavours and varieties; it comes mixed with M&M's or topped with caramel sauce.

When layers of complexity are built into food, the effect becomes more powerful. Sweetness alone does not account for the full impact of a fizzy drink – its temperature and tingle, resulting from the stimulation of the trigeminal nerve by carbonation and acid, are essential contributors as well.

"The complexity of the stimulus increases its association to a reward," says Gaetano Di Chiara, an expert in neuroscience and pharmacology at the University of Cagliari in Italy. Elements of that complexity include tastes that are familiar and well liked, especially if not always readily available, and the learning associated with having had a pleasurable experience with the same food in the past.

Take a bowl of M&M's. If I've eaten them in the past, I'm stimulated by the sight of them, because I know they'll be rewarding. I eat one, and experience that reward. The visual cue gains power and stimulates the urge we call "wanting". The more potent and complex foods become, the greater the rewards they may offer. The excitement in the brain increases our desire for further stimulation.

In theory there's a limit to how much stimulation rewarding foods can generate. We are supposed to habituate – to neuroadapt. When Di Chiara gave animals a cheesy snack called Fonzies, the levels of dopamine in their brains increased. Over time, habituation set in, dopamine levels fell and the food lost its capacity to activate their behaviour.

But if the stimulus is powerful enough, novel enough or administered intermittently enough, the brain may not curb its dopamine response. Desire remains high. We see this with cocaine use, which does not result in habituation. Hyperpalatable foods alter the landscape of the brain in much the same way.

I asked Di Chiara to study what happens after an animal is repeatedly exposed to a high-sugar, high-fat chocolate drink. When he'd completed his experiment, he sent me an email with "Important results!!!!" in the subject line. He had shown that dopamine response did not diminish over time with the chocolate drink. There was no habituation.

Novelty also impedes habituation, and intermittency is another driver. Give an animal enough sugar-laden food, withdraw it for the right amount of time, then provide it again in sufficient quantities, and dopamine levels may not diminish.

There's still a lot we don't know about the relationship between the dopamine-driven motivational system and our behaviour in the presence of rewarding foods. But we do know that foods high in sugar, fat and salt are altering the biological circuitry of our brains. We have scientific techniques that demonstrate how these foods – and the cues associated with them – change the connections between the neural circuits and their response patterns.

Rewarding foods are rewiring our brains. As they do, we become more sensitive to the cues that lead us to anticipate the reward. In that circularity lies a trap: we can no longer control our responses to highly palatable foods because our brains have been changed by the foods we eat.

I wanted to know how much the industry understood about how the food we eat affects us; about what I have termed "conditioned hypereating" – "conditioned" because it becomes an automatic response to widely available food, "hyper" because the eating is excessive and hard to control. I turned to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics.

"Does the industry know that what it feeds us gets us to eat more?" I asked.

"The industry has jacked up what works for it," Stiglitz said. "The learning is evolutionary." Practical experience has been its guide – it does not need lab rats when it can try out its ideas on humans. Its decision-makers do not have to analyse human brain circuitry to discover what sells.

A venture capitalist who knows the business intimately cited Starbucks as a company that has recognised and responded brilliantly to a cultural need. The caffeine and sugar in the coffee, with their energising effects, are certainly part of the equation, but the chain also offers something much more primal. "It's about warm milk and a bottle," he says. "One of my colleagues said, 'If I could put a nipple on it, I'd be a multimillionaire'."

But it was thinking creatively about how to attract more consumers that led Starbucks to the Frappuccino, the venture capitalist told me. Although its stores were crowded early in the day, by afternoon "they were so empty you could roll a bowling ball through them". The creation of a rich, sweet and comforting milkshake-like concoction utterly transformed the business. A Starbucks Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino comes with whipped cream and 18 teaspoons of sugar: all in all, this "drink" contains more calories than a personal-size pepperoni pizza, and more sweetness than six scoops of ice-cream. By encouraging us to consider any occasion for food an opportunity for pleasure and reward, the industry invites us to indulge a lot more often.

Starbucks learned a basic lesson: make enticing food easily and constantly available, keep it novel, and people will keep coming back for more. With food available in almost any setting, "the number of cues, the number of opportunities" to eat have increased, while the barriers to consumption have fallen, says David Mela, senior scientist of weight management at the Unilever Health Institute. "The environmental stimulus has changed."

Of course, when food is offered to us, we're not obliged to eat it. When it's on the menu, we don't have to order it. But this takes more than willpower. As an individual, you can practise eating the food you want in a controlled way. As a society, we can identify the forces that drive overeating and find ways to diminish their power. That's what happened with the tobacco industry: attitudes to smoking shifted. Similar changes could be brought about in our attitudes to food – by making it mandatory for restaurants to list calorie counts on their menus; by clear labelling on food products; by monitoring food marketing. But until then few of us are immune to the ubiquitous presence of food, the incessant marketing and the cultural assumption that it's acceptable to eat anywhere, at any time.

Call it the "taco chip challenge" – the challenge of controlled eating in the face of constant food availability. "Forty years ago, you might face the social equivalent of that taco chip challenge once a month. Now you face it every single day," Mela said. "Every single day and every single place you go, those foods are there, those foods are cheap, those foods are readily available for you to engage in. There is constant, constant opportunity."

How to take back control

Plan when and what you will eat There should be no room for deviation; the idea is to inhibit mindless eating and eliminate your mental tug-of-war. Once you've set new patterns, you can become more flexible.

Practise portion control Eat half your usual meal; see how you feel one and two hours later. A just-right meal will keep away hunger for four hours.

List the foods and situations you can't control Cut out those foods; limit exposure to those situations. If offered something you overeat, push it away.

Talk down your urges Learn responses to involuntary thoughts: eating that will only satisfy me temporarily; eating this will make me feel trapped; I'll be happier and weigh less if I don't eat this.

Rehearse making the right choices Before entering a restaurant, imagine chosing a dinner that's part of your eating plan. Think of this as a game against a powerful opponent. You won't win every encounter, but with practice you can get a lot better.

• This is an edited extract from The End Of Overeating: Taking Control Of Our Insatiable Appetite, by David A Kessler, published by Penguin on 1 April at £9.99. To order a copy with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:36 pm

This column will change your life: A frightening prospect | Oliver Burkeman

Why is it that we enjoy being scared half to death by films and books?

One wild and windswept recent afternoon – I know it should have been late at night, but it wasn't – I finally got around to watching Paranormal Activity, the ultra-low-budget horror film that became an underground success thanks to the curious pleasure so many people take in being scared half to death. (Don't watch it twice, or you may get scared fully to death.) Even at 3.30pm, when watched alone at home, it's an extremely creepy movie, documenting the haunting of a couple whose apartment becomes the target of a vengeful force intent on driving them to the edge of sanity with some old-school ghostly techniques: doors that suddenly slam, TVs that switch themselves on, scrapings and groanings with no discernible source. At one particularly tense point, the fridge in my kitchen started to buzz; I wheeled around, saw my own reflection in some mirrored cupboard doors and nearly yelled out loud – which isn't, I should clarify, how I normally respond when looking in the mirror. In short, I enjoyed myself immensely.

But why? This mysterious truth – that so many of us seem to find fear entertaining so long as it's fictional – has bothered philosophers and psychologists for long enough that it has a name: the "horror paradox". (The more general mystery of "pleasurable negative emotions" goes back to Aristotle.) Encountering a chainsaw-wielding maniac in fiction is obviously less traumatising than meeting one at the bus stop. But why should it be actively fun? One theory is that we simply feel a rush of relief when the horror ends; another is that the emotion in question isn't really fear, just excitement; a third is that we secretly love violent mayhem, but feel able to admit it only when it's make-believe. There's an evolutionary speculation, too: that we've developed to find blood and gore hypnotising – the rubbernecking effect – so as to ensure that we carefully study potential threats to survival. But there's little research to bolster these, and none quite captures the thrilling blend of fear plus pleasure that a good scary film evokes.

One more persuasive, if partial, explanation is what the scholars Dan Ariely and Michael Norton call "conceptual consumption" – the idea that in a society where our most basic needs are easily provided for, we channel our urge to consume into the nonphysical realm: we gorge on celebrity blogs, or seek out vicarious extreme and unfamiliar experiences, through movies and books, to add to our "experiential CVs", and take pleasure in the process. But to explain the fun of fear specifically, I wonder – without much evidence, but when it comes to the horror paradox, no one has much evidence – whether we can learn something from victims of real horror. Survivors of accidents, armed robberies and the like report feeling focus and clarity in the moment itself: discursive thought, with all its associated stresses, falls away. This is the kind of "flow state" we'd look back on, in any other circumstance, as happy absorption. Of course, once thought kicks in again, there's nothing happy about their predicament. But perhaps when you're on the edge of a cinema seat, waiting to find out what's lurking behind the bedroom door, you're in a similar state of absolute, almost Zen-like focus? You are reaping the benefits of being in what seems a life-or-death situation – with the immeasurable bonus of realising, a split-second later, with delighted relief, that it isn't.

oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:36 pm

What I'm really thinking: The lifeguard

'People regress to childhood in a pool – they come up and tell me that a person in their lane is splashing'

When you're walking round a pool for eight hours a day, you think about everything. You worry that the floor is giving you athlete's foot, or you calculate the number of tiles poolside, to pass the time. While doing this thinking, you have to keep counting heads, to make sure everyone's still above water – sometimes I remember how many people are in each lane as a telephone number.

People regress to childhood in a pool – they come up and tell me that a person in their lane is splashing or going too fast, like telling the teacher. I try not to get too involved.

I hate using my whistle. If you don't whistle loud enough, it's embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as when I dropped my whistle in the pool (you have to hold it in your hands, as it's deemed too dangerous to have around your neck). I also hate it when customers walk through the changing rooms in muddy shoes. Obviously, having to rescue someone is a bad part of the job, too.

But the thing I dread is swimming galas: the kids get so nervous, they have been known to throw up. I just pray they'll get to the side in time. I also dread having to tell people that their white swimwear has gone see-through, that they can't wear thong bikini bottoms or that they aren't a good enough swimmer to be in the deep end.

The music's pretty annoying, too – there are only so many times you can listen to the latest Alexandra Burke song. Sometimes I dream about my ideal job: being a pool DJ.

• Tell us what you're really thinking at mind@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:35 pm

Clock ticking for an Istanbul earthquake

A wake-up call for seismic-hazard preparedness in Turkey.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/FHMNJFoSTj0" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:23 pm

'I gave my sister a kidney. I don't know if I'll ever do a better thing'

This week saw the first three-way kidney transplant, in which living donors gave to a stranger in return for an organ for a loved one. Peter Martin, who donated a kidney to his sister, describes how it feels

Four years ago I gave my sister Paula a kidney. It was just before Christmas and I'm sure we exchanged books, or knitwear or something too, but the details of the gifts we wrapped remain sketchy. The kidney (her kidney, now) is doing fine work filtering impurities from her blood. I don't think she works it as hard as I did, so things have worked out well for both of them.

When she was 21, Paula had an allergic reaction to penicillin that caused her immune system to attack her skin and kidneys. It began with pinprick sensations around her lower legs, and within two days both her ankles and knees had seized up. These unpleasant symptoms were followed by much more serious kidney problems. When she told me that she might need a kidney one day and that I was a potential candidate, I said OK and forgot about it. It was another 10 years before her deteriorating kidneys narrowed her options to either dialysis or a pre-emptive transplant.

I was happy to attend the first, crucial blood test, though I was less than keen on a major operation and the possibility of three months' unpaid convalescence. I wanted to help, but I also wanted my life to continue undisturbed. There was a part of me that hoped I would be ruled out of the donor process, and thought that mum or dad would be better candidates. My reluctance made me ashamed.

The outcome I feared most was the blood tests ruling out my parents, leaving me the only suitable candidate. You're constantly told no one will think any less of you if you say you don't want to donate, but who could refuse when to do so would announce one's unsurpassed selfishness to the world? (I later met a woman who donated a kidney to one of her sisters; a third sister had not only refused to be tested but had encouraged the donor not to be tested either.)

It turned out my parents and I were all good matches. I started to take time to talk to friends about my feelings, doing my best not to sound selfish, even though that's how I felt. I asked one, "What if I say no?" He didn't hesitate, "You won't say no. You'll do it, and it won't be a big deal." He was mostly right.

Over the next month or two, to their bitter disappointment, my parents were both ruled out on medical grounds. My reaction surprised me: I was happy. Now the only candidate, my ambivalence vanished. I felt relieved that neither of my parents would have to undergo a big operation – I'd been so busy agonising about my own tangled feelings that I hadn't thought about them.

Further tests had made it clear that I was a very good match and in great shape to face an operation. One ultrasound operator even told me my candidate kidney was "beautiful". (I bet she says that to all the donors.)

As it faded, I began to understand the roots of my initial reluctance. I was afraid of being forced to decide whether to donate because I was afraid that I might not want to, but wouldn't have the guts to say no. Now my head cleared: I did want to donate. It was a unique opportunity to do something good, and I wanted to spare my sister the risks and rituals of dialysis, and the long wait for a cadaver's kidney.

The operation itself wasn't a big deal. Because I opted for surgery they had to tell me every risk involved: risk of death? One in 5,000 (is that high or low?). Risk of chronic pain for the rest of my life? Depends on whether the surgery is open or keyhole – keyhole lessens the risk (I can't remember the exact figures, but I do remember thinking it might be better to be the one in 5,000). My upper lip wasn't stiff exactly – I had a minor freak-out when the op was delayed for a few days at the last minute – but when Paula and I were finally admitted, we managed to have a laugh. I even got to take my soon-to-be-ex-kidney to Pizza Express for a valedictory beer the evening before the op (my sister is teetotal, so for the donor kidney it was goodbye to me and goodbye to my pre-op stimulant of choice).

There were no nerves the next morning, just a series of procedures. At the last moment, before she was wheeled away, Paula said, "It's hard to say … but thank you," and gave me a hug. I managed to fire back a bright "You're welcome!", which somehow didn't spoil the moment for the orderly who was discreetly wiping his eyes. Paula's surgery was open, mine keyhole. Once she was ready for the transplant they brought me down and placed me in the theatre next door. I was anaesthetised, then the team disconnected my left kidney via two small holes in my abdomen and removed it through a larger hole in my stomach. They then popped next door and gave it to Paula, leaving her two "birth" kidneys in place.

Two days after the transplant my sister felt better than she had in two years. She stayed awake until midnight for the first time in as long as she could remember and even had rosy cheeks. She was taken off her high blood pressure tablets and managed three journeys to the double doors of the ward and back. She was home in a week.

I was home in three days, falling asleep with the unfinished crossword in my lap. Aside from some severe referred pain (irritation in the diaphragm causing terrible shoulder pain for reasons I still fail to understand) my recovery was quick. I could have returned to work in six weeks, but my employer, anticipating a longer convalescence, had hired someone on a three-month contract so told me to enjoy the break. I took a trip to the Lakes and fondly recall running up a hill in a state of giddy excitement.

On the night before our operations, a donor on the ward spent much of the night moaning in pain after his surgery. The next evening he was up and about, telling us he felt "euphoric". He'd donated a kidney to his nine-year-old daughter, who had been on dialysis for a year. He told us he'd woken knowing he'd done a good thing. His joy was deepened when staff told him his daughter was doing well. He stumbled off grinning, his dressing gown flapping open to reveal his shaved stomach and the freshly bandaged scars he bore with obvious pride.

My friend was right – I did it. But he got one thing wrong: it was a big deal. I don't know if I'll ever do a better thing. It was a privilege to be able to help my sister live a longer, happier life. She is doing well. I am very lucky.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:05 pm

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis by Jeremy Rifkin | Book review

Will global empathy save us from the catch-22 of climate change? John Gray is sceptical

Whoever hacked into the emails at the University of East Anglia fired the opening salvo in a new kind of dirty war. The Copenhagen conference met on the basis that dealing with global warming was in everyone's interest. The idea that nearly 200 countries could reach meaningful decisions was always unreal, but the meeting's collapse reflected a more fundamental reality.

Environmentalists have always assumed that the threat of disaster will bring about an era of global cooperation. In reality, climate change is triggering another round of geopolitical conflict. Limiting the use of fossil fuels may be essential if disaster is to be avoided, but countries that in different ways rely heavily on these fuels for their prosperity – such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, China and the US – were never going to accept the strict carbon curbs that the EU and others demanded. How much the leaked emails contributed to the breakdown of the summit is unclear, but the effect has been to let those countries, along with the rest of the world, off the hook. The undermining effect on climate science looks like being long-lasting and profound.

"Climategate" was an exercise in postmodern cyber-warfare – a move in a larger conflict that environmentalists show little sign of understanding. In The Empathic Civilization, Jeremy Rifkin suggests that the whole of history is a struggle between the polar forces of empathy and entropy. "There is, I believe, a grand paradox to human history. At the heart of the human saga is a catch-22 – a contradiction of extraordinary significance – that has accompanied our species, if not from the very beginning, then at least from the time our ancestors began their slow metamorphosis from archaic to civilised beings thousands of years before Christ."

The catch-22 is that, as civilisation has extended the reach of empathy beyond the family and the tribe until it covers all of humankind, the expanding infrastructure of industry and transport has needed ever larger inputs of energy, increasing entropy and wrecking the planet.

Moving from hunting and gathering to farming, and then to industrial production, enabled humans to interact with one another as never before, but this increasing interconnection involved depleting the planet, a process that is reaching a climax just as civilisation is becoming planet-wide for the first time. "Our rush to universal empathic connectivity," Rifkin writes, "is running up against a rapidly accelerating entropic juggernaut in the form of climate change and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

How can this deadly collision be averted? The answer appears to be straightforward: by developing "biosphere consciousness". "Only by concerted action that establishes a collective sense of affiliation with the entire biosphere will we have a chance to ensure our future." In other words, a transformation of consciousness can save humanity from self-destruction.

It is hardly a new story. How often have we heard environmentalists exclaim that the alternatives facing the world are radical transformation or total catastrophe? The trouble is that their analysis of the environmental crisis is extremely shallow. Climate change is not mainly the work of sinister corporate interests and weak-kneed or corrupt politicians. It is a direct result of the energy-intensive civilisation in which the affluent part of humankind lives, and which the rest very much wants to join. While humans are more interdependent than ever before, they are at the same time destabilising the planet. Reining in corporate interests and chivvying politicians to be greener do nothing to resolve this fundamental contradiction.

Where Rifkin departs from the standard green line is in grasping that all of humanity is caught in a trap, but he seems convinced that, provided human empathy continues to expand, the trap can be sprung without too much difficulty. Rifkin's difficulties start with the claim – in itself quite plausible – that the environmental crisis is a catch-22. Joseph Heller's darkly brilliant satire derives its power from the insight that there are dilemmas from which there is no escape: if you are sane enough to ask to be declared unfit to fly on dangerous missions, then you are fit to fly.

The essence of any catch-22 is that there is no way out, but Rifkin shrinks from this cruel logic, with the result that his argument verges on incoherence. How could human empathy possibly defeat the force of entropy, an irreversible physical process? Does Rifkin believe an increase in altruism can lead to the repeal of the second law of thermodynamics?

His practical proposals for dealing with the climate crisis are disappointingly conventional – massive investment in renewable energy and the like – and, in line with standard green thinking, he never explains how a human population of 7 billion, rising to 9 or 10 billion over the next 50 years, can be supported by a mixture of solar panels and hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Stewart Brand's recent Whole Earth Discipline, which argues that coping with environmental breakdown will necessitate making the most of demonised technologies such as nuclear energy and GM food, is more realistic as well as more visionary.

Most of The Empathic Civilization is not in fact concerned with the practical task of coping with the mess humans have made of the planet. Instead it is devoted to defending Rifkin's view that humans are essentially empathic animals, whose benign qualities have not been fully manifested throughout most of their history. "Wanton widespread violence has not been the norm in human history," Rifkin writes, looking back wistfully on the "tranquil agricultural life that existed for thousands of years" before the "mega-machine" of property and government disrupted humankind's natural innocence. One need not be a hardened cynic to find this Rousseauesque tale implausible. Humans may be more moved by empathy than is sometimes allowed, but empathy for the feelings of others is not only expressed in compassion. It is equally the basis of cruelty, a trait that is also distinctively human.

For all its inordinate length, The Empathic Civilization fails to substantiate its central thesis. The innate sociability of human beings is a fact, but it does not follow that they are likely to cooperate in dealing with environmental crisis. The impact of climate change is rather to intensify human conflict. As global warming accelerates, natural resources such as arable land and water become scarcer, and competition to control them will be acute and pervasive. At the same time, those whose power and wealth come from fossil fuels will do anything they can to promote "climate scepticism".

This is where the leaked emails come in. With global warming fuelling a resurgence of geopolitical tensions, climate science has become a weapon in a war of disinformation. Whatever lapses in intellectual probity they might reveal, the messages are being used to obscure a mass of evidence showing that anthropogenic climate change is real, and may be occurring more rapidly than previously believed. It is still possible to frame an intelligent response to the threat, but first we need to recognise that the climate has become a battleground. Empathy won't save us.

John Gray's Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings is published by Penguin.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:05 pm

Comet Makes Death Plunge Toward Sun (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A newfound comet is heading for a brush with the sun, one which it will likely not survive.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 4:33 pm

Presenting...The Virginia Creeper Clearwing

Naturalist Mark Fraser is back with a look this time at the Virginia creeper clearwing moth. According to Mark, the insect "has evolved to be a mimic of a wasp and looks similar to a paper wasp. They even move ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 4:23 pm

Should we be trying to save the dodo?

A quantitative way to decide whether to keep on conserving a species.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 12 Mar 2010 | 4:22 pm

Bugs on trains

The figures for bugs in train compartments sound a little bit on the high side. Where did they come from?

The figures were all very specific and very frightening. "Two thousand bugs taking a ride in every train compartment," said the Daily Mail. "Cockroaches cluster on trains," groaned the Telegraph. "Commuters share trains with 1,000 cockroaches, 200 bedbugs and 200 fleas," said the Evening Standard.

These figures all sound a little bit on the high side. Where did they come from? "Staff at Rentokil sprayed insecticide throughout the carriages of a train and a bus and then counted the bodies of insects," said the Standard. It quoted a Rentokil spokesman: "The bus we studied was within the M25."

But Transport for London says it has had no contact with Rentokil, and that no such study has been done on its vehicles. I asked Rentokil for more details.

After a bit of prodding, its PR company, Brands2Life, explained: no buses or trains were studied.

How did people get the wrong end of the stick? I have no way of knowing, as Brands2Life and Rentokil both declined to show me what they had sent to journalists but, in any case, contrary to what was said earlier, these numbers did not come from measurements and counts – they are based on a "theoretical model".

Models are handy. They're a simulation of reality, based on a series of assumptions. Rentokil's model for the number of bugs on trains and buses made some interesting assumptions, and you will have your own view on whether they make for a reasonable approximation of the real world.

It assumed, for example, that the railway carriage or bus was left in isolation. It assumed this carriage was helpfully furnished with a plentiful food supply. It assumed that the ratio of male to female bugs was perfectly optimal for breeding.

It assumed (surprisingly for anyone involved in modelling populations – surprisingly for anyone, really) that the population of bugs would be left entirely unchecked, with no external factors to control the mortality rate.

It assumed that the siding or garage was controlled at a constant temperature all day and night, with no extremes. It assumed there were no trampling commuters, no cruel vacuum cleaners, no anything. In fact, it assumed there was no cleaning, ever, and no passengers, ever. This was its model of insect populations on commuter vehicles.

You will have your own view on whether you could trust an organisation that makes assumptions like these in estimating the average population of bugs. But it's somehow unseemly that Rentokil, a company with £2.36bn in revenue and a 54% increase in profits in 2009 to £166m, and poised to pay £90m in bonuses to its top three executives, feels the need to make everyone afraid of public transport on a PR whim. There is also the ugly thought that Rentokil will do more business if it can make everyone scared of bugs on the bus.

And on 2 March, the day before the cockroach press release, Rentokil announced the single biggest ever contract in the history of its business: £200m over five years with London Underground.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 4:06 pm

AP Interview: Kerry: Energy bill more about jobs (AP)

AP - Sen. John Kerry, hoping to win over wavering senators, said he is pushing environmental reforms to create jobs and spark energy independence, with climate benefits along "for the ride."

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 3:48 pm

Research Reveals Early Signs of Autism in Some Kids

BALTIMORE — Some infants headed for a diagnosis of autism, or autism spectrum disorder as it’s officially known, can be reliably identified at 14 months old based on the presence of five key behavior problems, according to an ongoing long-term study described March 11 at the International Conference on Infant Studies.

These social, communication and motor difficulties broadly align with psychiatric criteria for diagnosing autism spectrum disorder in children at around age 3, said psychologist Rebecca Landa of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. In her investigation, the presence of all five behaviors at 14 months predicted an eventual diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in 15 of 16 children.

“That’s much better than clinical judgment at predicting autism,” Landa noted.

Her five predictors of autism spectrum disorders among 14-month-olds at high risk for developing this condition include a lack of response to others’ attempts to engage them in play, infrequent attempts to initiate joint activities, few types of consonants produced when trying to communicate vocally, problems in responding to vocal requests and a keen interest in repetitive acts, such as staring at a toy while twirling it.

Accurate identification of infants likely to develop autism spectrum disorder by age 3 is particularly important because studies at Landa’s facility and several others indicate that intensive interventions with youngsters who display early warning signs and their parents often yield marked behavioral improvements. Interventions focus on teaching kids basic interaction and communication skills.

Landa’s study consists of 250 children who were first assessed at either age 6 months or 14 months. Comprehensive measures of social, communication and motor abilities were obtained at each child’s home and repeated at 18, 24, 30 and 36 months of age. The sample included 110 children considered to be at high risk for developing autism because they had older siblings already diagnosed with the same condition.

Preliminary evidence suggests that high-risk 14-month-olds who later develop autism display signs of delayed motor development as early as 6 to 7 months of age, Landa noted. In particular, these youngsters had difficulty keeping their heads stable when slowly raised from a prone position.

A fundamental derailment of postural development may accompany social difficulties typical of children with autism spectrum disorders, remarked psychologist Jana Iverson of the University of Pittsburgh. “The motor system is another place to probe for common underlying features of autism spectrum disorder,” Iverson said.

Psychologist Sally Rogers of the University of California, Davis, cautioned that much remains unknown about the early identification and treatment of autism. Infant siblings of older children with autism represent a special group that’s especially likely to show early signs of the same disorder, she suggested.

“I’m not sure the majority of children with autism spectrum disorder have predictive symptoms by 12 or 14 months,” Rogers said. In her own long-term studies, some children without autistic siblings show a gradual slowing of social and language development over several years that leads to autism, while others show no autism symptoms at all until being diagnosed with the disorder at age 4 or 5.

Image: flickr/Sarahnaut

See Also:

• An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
• The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Mar 2010 | 3:41 pm

Big Earthquakes Cause Premature Births

A new study of a 2005 earthquake in Chile supports the surprising hypothesis that pregnant women who experience earthquakes during the first trimester of their pregnancies have increased risk of premature birth and slightly smaller babies.

While the drops in birth weight and gestation time are relatively small, they are big enough to suggest that earthquakes experienced more than six months before birth can negatively impact a pregnancy.

“It’s statistically significant, way above the margin of error,” said Florencia Torche, the NYU sociologist who crunched the number, which has been submitted to a demographic journal. “It’s not due to chance.”

Torche’s new study has not yet been through peer review, but it is consistent with an emerging line of research on the impacts of earthquakes on mothers and their unborn. Maternal stress has long been linked to premature birth and low birth weights, but it was a landmark 2001 study of the 1994 Northridge earthquake (.pdf) that pointed out that major seismic activity made a measurable impact on the expectant mothers who felt it.

But counter-intuitively, it wasn’t the mothers closest to labor who were affected the most, but the women who’d just gotten pregnant. The women who were in their first three months of pregnancy had their babies more than a week earlier than similar women who did not experience the quake.

While the researchers in 2001 (led by University of California, Irvine pregnancy researcher Laura Glynn) admitted that the “precise mechanism through which stress affects length of gestation is not known,” they hypothesized that perhaps the earthquake activated some kind of “placental clock.” Perhaps a burst of corticotropin-releasing hormone, a known stress response, serves as a signal to the pregnant woman’s body that she should have the baby sooner than normal.

Premature birth, and the low birth weight that’s associated with it, has been linked to long-term negative consequences.

“Low birth weight is associated with a bunch of poor outcomes throughout your life cycle,” Torche said.

Even without a clear-cut mechanism, it may be possible to mitigate some of the negative outcomes of the earthquake stress.

“We can certainly work to try and compensate and provide services for these moms that are affected,” Torche said. “For instance, mental health services might be really relevant. Something we don’t usually consider. You can think of programs that would do with early childhood development. If these kids are at higher risk, and you provide support stimulation, that can thoroughly compensate for this very early disadvantage.”

The monster magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile on Feb. 27 may also focus renewed effort on figuring out whether the size of the quake is proportional to the prematurity of the birth. To do that, researchers will need more studies on more earthquakes, Torche said.

Image: flickr/UNphoto

Citations: 1) “The Effect of Maternal Stress on Birth Outcomes: Exploiting a Natural Experiment” by Florencia Torche. In review. Available via the author.

2) “When stress happens matters:Effects of earthquake timing on stress responsivity in pregnancy” by Laura M. Glynn, Pathik D. Wadhwa, Christine Dunkel-Schetter, Aleksandra Chicz-DeMet,and Curt A. Sandman. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2001;184:637-42.

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Mar 2010 | 3:09 pm

"Ice Arches" Act as Gatekeepers to Melting Arctic Ice

It's easy to imagine the Arctic ice cap as it looks on a globe -- pinned firmly to one spot. However, that's not the case. Sea ice is free to roam when it breaks up, bobbing out of the Arctic ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 1:53 pm

Calcium may help you live longer: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Getting a bit more calcium in your diet could help you live longer, new research suggests.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 1:26 pm

Naked Mole Rats' Secrets Revealed

Biologists Thomas Park studies naked mole rats and has found these strange animals can live long periods without oxygen and are immune to certain types of pain
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 1:23 pm

Peru funds tsunami-warning system on Pacific coast (AP)

AP - Peru is creating a tsunami-warning system to help protect 1.6 million residents who live along the South American country's Pacific coast.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 1:19 pm

Quest Aims to Create Bigger Atoms and New Kinds of Matter

Scientists are on quest to create ever larger atoms, using extremely high energies to fuse together many protons and neutrons into behemoth nuclei.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 1:10 pm

1,000-Year-Old Massacre Uncovered in England

Scientific tests have shown that 51 decapitated bodies found in southern England were executed Viking raiders.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 12:31 pm

Clothing Plays Music When Touched

This is a fun little Friday post. Something lite. Two students from the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås has developed a textile that works like a musical instruments. Sort of. Jeannine Han and Dan Riley integrated sensors that emit ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 12:17 pm

Women Taking Birth Control Pill May Live Longer

The pill reduced women's risk of dying from bowel cancer and other diseases.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 12:10 pm

Video: Cold, Little Comet Is No Match for Big, Hot Sun

A small, newly discovered comet will not get a chance to enjoy its fame for long.

As you can see in this image sequence obtained by NASA’s Solar and Heliosopheric Observatory, the comet is on a collision course with the sun. Things will not end well for the comet, which will burn.

The comet is believed to be a Kreutz Sungrazer, a class of objects that are fragments of a supercomet that broke up long ago. Many of them are discovered by amateur astronomer internet users (like you) staring at NASA data.

The solar images also show a coronal mass ejection at the upper left of the frame. These expulsions of energetic particles from the sun cause solar storms here on Earth and tend to create beautiful auroral displays in the Earth’s polar regions. The other bright object in the video is the planet Mercury.

Via Spaceweather.com

See Also:

• Comet’s 10 Million-Mile Tail Lights Up in Infrared
• Rare Comet Close-Up Coming to a Sky Near You

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Mar 2010 | 12:04 pm

Will 4G Mobile Service Be Superfast?

While carriers are touting the next-generation 4G technology, it is not even fully defined.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 11:42 am

MPs condemn homeopathy report

An early day motion claims shortcomings in the committee's recent homeopathy "evidence check"

Last month, the Commons science and technology committee published a detailed report into the evidence for the efficacy, or otherwise, of homeopathic remedies. You can read it here.

After taking oral testimonies from scientists, doctors and homeopathy advocates, the committee recommended the government halt NHS funding for this kind of alternative medicine and said the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency should ban false statements of medical efficacy on the labels of homeopathy products.

In forming their conclusions, the committee heard evidence from, among others, David Harper, the chief scientist at the Department of Health; Kent Woods, the chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency; Robert Wilson, chairman of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers; Peter Fisher, director of research at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital; and Robert Mathie, research development adviser at the British Homeopathic Association.

The evidence sessions were by turns interesting, depressing and downright hilarious. The standards director at the high street chemist, Boots, admitted he had no evidence to suggest that homeopathy worked beyond the placebo effect. In other words, the products they sell, which contain no active ingredients, are no more effective than sugar pills.

And then there was Peter Fisher talking about how shaking homeopathic products (which are diluted to within an inch of their lives) is crucial for the substance to have a memory and so work. The comment prompted Evan Harris, the Lib Dem science spokesman to say: "I'd have thought shaking it would make it more likely to forget." To which Fisher replied: "You have to vigorously shake it. You can't stir it."

But I digress. Two weeks ago, Tory MP David Tredinnick, set down an early day motion expressing concern about the science committee's report. He's not happy that evidence was taken from a limited number of people and wanted to hear more views from people who are fans of homeopathy.

The early day motion itself is by the by. There is a long and colourful history of nonsense EDMs that come and go with no one noticing. But what is staggering about this one – as pointed out on David Colquhoun's blog – is that 58 MPs have signed it. As Colquhoun, a professor of pharmacology at University College London, says, that's 9% of all MPs.

We don't have the most scientifically literate bunch of MPs in the House today and what a desperately depressing thing that is. For a full list of EDM signatories, see Prof Colquhoun's article.

Here is some sensible background on homeopathy.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 11:39 am

'Doomsday' Seed Vault Hits Half-Million Mark

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault now houses the world's most diverse collection of seeds.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 11:35 am

Solar Slumber May Have Been Caused by Magnetic Flows

Newly reported observations of gas flows on the solar surface may explain why the sun recently had such an extended case of the doldrums.

From 2008 through the first half of 2009, the sun had a puzzling dearth of sunspots, flares and other storms, extending the usual lull at the end of the 11-year solar activity cycle for an extra 15 months. Findings from the study, which relied on the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, may also suggest a better way to forecast the intensity and duration of future solar cycles.

Better predictions could be critical because some solar outbursts can blast Earth with massive, magnetized clouds of charged particles capable of knocking out electrical power grids and harming communications satellites.

In the March 12 Science, David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Lisa Rightmire of the University of Memphis in Tennessee analyzed 13 years of SOHO measurements that tracked the movement of ionized gas from the solar equator to the poles. The researchers found that the relatively slow gas movement, known as the meridional flow, sped up a few years before the last solar minimum began in 2008. What’s more, the flow was substantially faster than the speed at the previous solar minimum, a more typical and less extended downturn in solar activity some 11 years earlier.

Hathaway and Rightmire suggest that the faster meridional flow produced weaker magnetic fields at the sun’s poles, which extended the solar minimum.

Magnetic fields carried by the meridional flow typically oppose much stronger flows of magnetized material on the surface, Hathaway says. The faster the meridional flow is, the greater the opposition is to those other flows. As a result, the sun’s polar magnetic field can’t become as strong, the researchers propose.

“It is possible that the delayed start of the present cycle, 2009 to 2010, was caused by the relatively weak polar field in 2007 to 2009,” comments Neil Sheeley of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

The strength of the magnetic polar fields plays a critical role in determining the onset of the next solar cycle, Hathaway notes. These fields dive beneath the solar surface, building up the deep sunspot-generating magnetic fields that signal the beginning of the next solar cycle. Weaker polar fields take more time to reach the strength required to produce sunspots, prolonging the lull in activity from the previous cycle. In addition, weaker-than-usual polar fields are likely to produce less activity during the subsequent solar cycle, Hathaway and Rightmire predict.

“The fact that the meridional flow plays a key role in setting up the sun’s polar fields for the next cycle suggests that future observations will help us predict [the duration and intensity of] future cycles,” Hathaway says.

One caveat is that physicists have only an incomplete understanding of the solar cycle and the transport of magnetic material below the solar surface, Sheeley says.

“This is certainly an interesting result and may help discriminate between different classes of models of solar magnetism,” notes Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Other models, says Hathaway, which also embrace the importance of the meridional flow but rely on the complicated magnetic dynamics that happen below the surface, come to just the opposite conclusion: A fast meridional flow leads to strong polar field and a shorter solar minimum. Those models may now need to be revised, he says.

Image: NASA/ESA

See Also:

• 2009’s Sleepy Sun Finally Woke Up in December
• Audio: DIY Recordings of Awakening Sun
• 3-D Solar Tsunami Video Shows the Extreme Waves Are Real
• Photo: The Sun Gets Its Spots (Back)
• Psychedelic Sunspot Video Useful for Science, Too
• Photo: Docked Space Shuttle and Station Cross the Sun
• NASA Brings the Dark Side of the Sun to Your iPhone

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 12 Mar 2010 | 11:24 am

Coffee car

The waste fuel for your motor that won't cost a lot
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Mar 2010 | 11:20 am

Ulcer Answers

Stomach ulcers affect nearly four million American's every year. What causes them, and how are they treated? Researchers are uncovering of how H. pylori bacteria, the culprit in most stomach ulcers, is able to survive in the acidic human stomach.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 11:14 am

Mass Graves of Nazi Victims Found in Austria

Nearly 65 years after the conclusion of World War 2, victims of Nazi atrocities are still being discovered.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 10:45 am

'Killer Electrons' Get Super-Charged Above Earth (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - When a shock wave from a solar storm hits the Earth's protective magnetic bubble, it creates highly energetic particles dubbed "killer electrons" that can be dangerous to satellites.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 10:17 am

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 10:14 am

'Astonishing' growth in Chinese oil demand: IEA (AFP)

AFP - China is experiencing "astonishing" growth in oil demand this year to match its economic rise while consumption in developed economies is falling, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 12 Mar 2010 | 9:55 am

4 Out of 5 Like Toilet That Separates No. 1 from No. 2

People like an environmentally friendly NoMix toilet that separates feces and urine.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 9:33 am

The Old Norse Predicament

The European settlement of Greenland may sound like a minor folly by some ancient Vikings irrelevant to modern times. But a generation of anthropologists and climate scientists has put a different face on what really happened there 1,000 years ago ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 Mar 2010 | 9:27 am

Why Does Daylight Saving Time Begin at 2 a.m.?

We turn our clocks forward an hour on Sunday for daylight saving time. Find out why the hand changes at 2 a.m. local time.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 8:36 am

What happened next? Zebra puts head in hippo's mouth

A zebra at Zurich Zoo appeared doomed when visitors saw its head in the mouth of a hippo, but it was only cleaning its teeth.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Mar 2010 | 8:28 am

Oil Production to Peak in 2014, Scientists Predict

A new Kuwaiti study suggests that world oil production will peak in 2014.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 8:24 am

Bouncing Back: Why Some People Get Over Spats Quickly

Activity in a certain brain region can predict how well people recover after fights with their partners.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 7:42 am

Breakups Cloud Sense of Self, Study Finds

After breaking up with a romantic partner, people don't know who they are anymore, and new research explains why.
Source: Livescience.com | 12 Mar 2010 | 7:16 am

Simon Singh: This is goodbye

Being sued for libel is not only ruinously expensive, writes Simon Singh, it takes over your whole life. Which is why this will be his last column

Almost a year after writing my first column for this site, I would like to welcome you to my final article.

At first I was able to deliver my monthly column on time, but my submissions have become increasingly delayed, and this is my first since November. The problem is that I have spent the past two years being sued for libel, which has taken up huge amounts of time. And now all my remaining spare time is being devoted to campaigning for libel reform.

The crippling and prohibitive financial cost of defending a libel case is often highlighted, but the equally terrible cost in terms of time and stress is rarely mentioned.

I recently discussed this with Dr Peter Wilmshurst, the eminent cardiologist who is being sued for libel for commenting on the efficacy of a new heart device. Peter was put under immense stress when he received legal papers on Friday 21 December 2007 at 5.09pm, which was nine minutes after most solicitors closed for their Christmas holiday. It was not until the new year that Peter was able to get any legal advice, so it was an anxious Christmas.

Perhaps it was just as well that Peter was not aware of the full implications of what lay ahead of him, namely at least two years of anxiety, misery and the threat of bankruptcy. Almost all his spare time has been spent on the libel case. When finalising his defence, he took two weeks of annual leave to work on the documents. Moreover, dealing with ongoing legal issues has prevented him from carrying out his usual medical research, and a number of publications have been put on hold.

After chatting to Peter, I decided to count up how much time I had spent defending the article published in the Guardian in April 2008 that led to the British Chiropractic Association suing me for libel. I reckon I have spent 44 solid weeks on the libel action spread across two years.

I am in the very fortunate position of having no employees, being a freelancer, having financial resources and having a very supportive wife. In any other circumstance, I cannot imagine fighting a libel action because of the enormous sacrifices involved.

I should have started writing a new book a year ago, but as yet I cannot even develop proposals and talk to publishers because I have no idea how the next year or so will develop.

The case could easily continue for another two years. If I win then I will not recover all of my legal costs, but (worse still) I will never recover the time I have dedicated to poring over legal documents.

Before saying goodbye, I will urge you once more to sign up to the campaign for libel reform. If you remain unconvinced about the need for libel reform, try visiting the National Enquirer website. If you live in the UK then you will find a blank page except for the words "Page unavailable/under construction".

The reason is that the National Enquirer is so scared of English libel law that it no longer sells magazines in the UK or makes it web content available here.

You might feel that the unavailability of the National Enquirer is not enough to justify changing English law. However, more serious than the National Enquirer's position is the fear that other American publications will follow suit and that some key American magazines, newspapers and websites will be available everywhere in the world except in Britain.

You might feel that I am being alarmist, but major US newspapers, such as the Boston Globe and The New York Times, sent a memo last year to the House of Commons select committee on media, libel and privacy. They warned that they are considering stopping the sale of their publications in Britain due to the threat of libel. The benefits of selling newspapers here in terms of profit are outweighed by the potential losses in libel cases.

If publishers stopped selling hard copies in Britain, they would almost certainly also block their online content, because otherwise the threat of libel would remain.

Thereafter, it would be sensible for everything from academic journals to blogs to follow suit. Very quickly Britain could become an isolated society. In terms of free speech and access to information, our nation would become the European equivalent of China.

That's just one of the reasons you need to sign the petition for libel reform.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:28 am

US to lobby for endangered species listing for polar bear

Melting sea ice in the Arctic will kill thousands of bears in coming years, the US says, and continued commercial trade must not be allowed to make the situation worse

It is a familiar story in the climate change debate. The US government is at odds with the rest of the world and, despite criticism, wants other countries to change their minds and fall in line behind Uncle Sam.

This time, the tale comes with an unexpected twist. This weekend, the US will warn that the threat from climate change to the survival of the polar bear is so great that the world must grant it the highest possible protection.

At the meeting of the international body that regulates trade in animals, the US will push for a total ban on the sale and movement of polar bear products that are used for furs, rugs and taxidermy. Melting sea ice in the Arctic will kill thousands of bears in coming years, the US says, and continued commercial trade must not be allowed to make the situation worse. Other countries, including US neighbours and keen polar bear traders, Canada, disagree.

The US has put its proposal to the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (Cites), which meets every two-three years and tomorrow begins its 12-day meeting in Doha, Qatar. Governments from 175 countries will discuss dozens of such proposals, which could help determine the fate of, among others, elephants, tigers, rhinos and the world's dwindling stocks of bluefin tuna.

"2010 is a key year for biological diversity," said Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme, which runs Cites. "It is the year when the world was supposed to have reversed the rate of loss of our biodiversity. This has not happened. The international community must re-engage and renew its efforts to meet this goal. Cites is an important part of this response."

The US wants polar bears promoted to Cites appendix I, which brings an automatic ban on trade. In its proposal it says: "Sea ice changes will likely negatively impact polar bears by increasing energetic demands of seeking prey. As changes in habitat become more severe and seasonal rates of change more rapid, catastrophic mortality events that have yet to be realised on a large scale are expected to occur."

It adds: "A precautionary approach, which includes polar bears in Cites appendix I, is necessary to ensure that primarily commercial trade does not compound the threats posed to the species by loss of habitat."

Biologists reckon there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic, spread across 19 geographical sub-populations. Last year the polar bear specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature said that numbers in eight of these groups were declining, three are stable and one, a group of under 300 animals around Canada's M'Clintock Channel, is increasing. The state of the other seven groups is unclear.

The US plan is backed by Egypt and Rwanda, but other nations, including Europe, are expected to vote against. Canada, which exports skins and products from about 300 polar bears legally shot each year, says the trade is insignificant compared to the threat of global warming.

There are also doubts about whether the polar bear meets the required criteria for appendix I listing. In its official response to the US proposal, the Cites secretariat recommend it is rejected. "The global population of polar bears does not appear to be small. The area of distribution of this species extends over several million square kilometres and is clearly not restricted at present," it says. "There is insufficient evidence that the species has undergone a marked decline in population size in the wild large enough."

The Cites meeting will also trigger a new round in a long-running debate about the sale of ivory harvested from African elephants. Trade in ivory was banned in 1989, though Cites has permitted one-off sales of government stocks from countries including Botswana, South Africa and Japan. The $20m raised from the sales were channelled towards elephant conservation, but critics say they encourage poaching and illegal trade.

Tanzania and Zambia will this year push to be allowed a similar sale of ivory stocks, though other African nations such as Ghana, Kenya and Mali have signalled they will vote against the plan. All proposals need a two-thirds majority to pass.

Other Cites proposals include moves to control unregulated trade in corals and sharks, including the porbeagle, spiny dogfish and three species of hammerhead, as well as the proposed ban on bluefin tuna trade.

"The marine theme of this year's Cites conference is particularly striking," said Willem Wijnstekers, Cites secretary-general. "Cites is increasingly seen as a valuable tool to achieve the target of restoring depleted fish stocks by 2015 to levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield."

Not all the proposals reflect shrinking biodiversity. Mexico and Egypt want to relax Cites controls on local species of crocodile they argue have recovered sufficiently in the wild.

Monaco has proposed adding the bluefin tuna to Cites appendix 1, which brings an automatic ban in trade.

The giant fish can grow to 3m and weigh more than half a tonne. Much sought after as a delicacy and for sushi, a single fish reportedly sold earlier this year for $120,000.

Populations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean have crashed in recent decades and there is no sign that efforts to introduce more sustainable fishing practices have slowed the decline. Scientists say stocks are about 15% of what they were before industrial fishing began.

The proposed change is backed by the US and Europe, which wants a 12-month delay on any trade ban. Japan has indicated it may opt out from Cites controls if it is passed. It wants bluefin conservation to be managed by regional fishery bodies and blames the fish decline on European countries for setting unrealistic quotas and ignoring illegal fishing.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 12 Mar 2010 | 5:15 am

Powering up

Japan's home fuel-cell tech to take on Europe
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Mar 2010 | 4:46 am

Desperate Efforts to Save Endangered Bats May Fail

A fierce attempt to keep endangered Virginia big-eared bats alive in captivity has shown just how difficult that noble task may be.

The effort was prompted by the discovery of white nose syndrome, an extremely virulent disease that has killed more than a million bats since 2007, in one of the handful of caves where Virginia big-eared bats live. Of 40 bats moved to the Smithsonian National Zoo last November, only 11 have survived.

“We were not under the illusion that it was going to be easy. It’s certainly not a surprise to us that the bats died. But the number of bats that died is greater than we had hoped,” said Jeremy Coleman, white nose syndrome coordinator at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The captive colony project was controversial from the start. With only 15,000 Virginia big-eared bats in existence — up from 3,500 in 1979, but far below historic levels — risking even a few is no small matter. The project also cost $300,000, a big chunk of the $1.9 million allotted by Congress for research on white nose syndrome, or WNS.

In the three years since its original detection in an upstate New York cave, WNS has spread south as far as Tennessee, exterminating bat colony after colony with almost total efficiency. The disease appears to be caused by a fungal infection that rouses bats from hibernation, leaving them weak and unable to find food.

There is no known cure, and scientists say that many cave-dwelling bat species — including the little brown bat, the most common bat in North America — could be extinct in a decade. They call the bat die-off “the most precipitous decline of North American wildlife in recorded history” (.pdf).

Early in 2009, WNS was found in a West Virginia cave where Virginia big-eared bats lived. Though infected bats belonged to other species, the discovery was frightening. The Fish and Wildlife Service decided to found a captive colony.

“There were many scientists who didn’t think it would work at all, and are philosophically opposed to captive bat populations anyway. The other school of thought is that desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Peter Youngbaer, WNS liaison for the National Speleological Society. “If this species was going to get WNS, and if you didn’t start an intervention now, you’d never have a chance.”

Unlike fruit-eating bats, insect-eating bats like the Virginia big-eared are notoriously difficult to raise in captivity. Accustomed to catching insects on the wing, many of the bats refused to eat worms from pans. Stressed from relocation and habituated to cave-specific temperatures and humidity, others developed runaway bacterial infections. Despite constant attention from researchers, 29 of the bats died.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is now preparing a report on lessons from the experience, though these may be uncertain. “I think they have more unanswered questions than lessons now,” said Youngbaer.

And trouble for the remaining wild bats keeps coming. In February, the first cases of WNS were found in West Virginia’s Hellhole Cave, home to populations of Indiana bats, little brown bats and almost half of all Virginia big-eared bats.

There are no plans to add more bats to the colony, but Coleman said captive breeding remains an option for other species threatened by WNS. In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether the 11 captive bats will survive and even breed.

“There are so few members of that species left. With the captive colony, the thought was, let’s see see if we can get this to work. And then we’ll have done what we can to save them,” said Youngbaer. “At least we won’t have regrets for not having tried.”

Image: Healthy Virginia big-eared bat. /USFWS

See Also:

• Video: Moth Blocks Bat Attack by Jamming Sonar
• Video: How Bats Land Upside Down
• Infrared Video: 500000 Bats Emerge From Cave

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 | 12 Mar 2010 | 4:30 am

Climate linked to smaller birds

Songbirds on the US east coast are becoming smaller, a trend thought to be driven by climate changes.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 12 Mar 2010 | 3:05 am