Immune cells use 'bungee of death' to kill dangerous cells, new research shows

Immune cells ensnare dangerous cells that are on the run with a bungee-like nanotube, according to new research. The study shows that natural killer cells use this bungee to destroy cells that could otherwise escape them.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Exploring Echinacea's enigmatic origins

Agricultural cientists are helping to sort through the jumbled genetics of Echinacea, the coneflower known for its blossoms -- and its potential for treating infections, inflammation, and other human ailments.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Mother birds know best -- even before birth

Mother birds communicate with their developing chicks before they even hatch by leaving them messages in the egg, new research has found.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Plants can grow quickly or ward off hungry insects, but not both

There's a war occurring each day in our backyards -- plant versus plant-eating insect versus insect-eating insect. Research suggests the outcome -- of interest to farmers -- is a stalemate.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Pursuit of status and affection drives bullies' behavior

A longitudinal study of almost 500 Dutch elementary-school children ages 9 to 12 finds that bullies generally choose to gain status by dominating their victims and that, at the same time, bullies try to reduce the chances that they'll end up on the outs with other classmates by choosing as victims children who are weak and not well-liked by others. The research team also found that gender plays a strong role in who victimizes whom.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

MRI finds tumors in second breast of women diagnosed with cancer in one breast, study suggests

Postmenopausal women, including those over 70 years old, who have been newly diagnosed with cancer in one breast have higher cancer detection rates when the other breast is scanned for tumors with MRI, compared to premenopausal women, say researchers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm

Hidden habits and movements of insect pests revealed by DNA barcoding

Researchers have found a faster way to study the spread and diet of insect pests. Using a technique called DNA barcoding, which involves the identification of species from a short DNA sequence, they studied populations of numerous moth and butterfly species across Papua New Guinea. DNA barcodes showed that migratory patterns and caterpillar diets are very dynamic.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

New alterations found in young adults with type 2 diabetes

Diet and aerobic exercise are highly effective for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, but not for obese subjects that have developed the disease when very young. A new study demonstrates that obese subjects between 18 and 25 years of age carry mitochondrial proteins and genes that work abnormally and that these anomalies contribute to generating insulin resistance and a reduced response to physical exercise.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Prolonged climatic stress main reason for mass extinction 65 million years ago, paleontologist says

Long-term climate fluctuations were probably the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago, according to new research from a German paleontologist. The results challenge the almost 30-year-old theory that a meteorite impact at the Mexican Yucatan peninsula was the single cause for one of the five largest mass extinctions in Earth history.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

Of mice and memory: 'Working memory' of mice can be improved

Mice trained to improve their working memory become more intelligent, suggesting that similar improvements in working memory might help human beings enhance their brain power, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 9:00 am

NASA green lights April 5 launch of Discovery (AFP)

AFP - The US space agency NASA gave its thumbs up for the April 5 launch of the shuttle Discovery, which will take a seven-member crew, including a Japanese astronaut, to the International Space Station (ISS).

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A developing low-pressure system was expected to be the day's main weather producer. The system was to begin the day in the Southern Plains before progressing eastward through the Mississippi Valley.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Mar 2010 | 2:51 am

Okay, Maybe Beef Doesn't Cause More Warming than Oil... (Time.com)

Time.com - Climate change advocates are on the defensive after a beef-industry consultant points out a flawed comparison
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:25 pm

From Beijing to Paris, world to go dark for Earth Hour (AFP)

AFP - Global landmarks from Sydney's Opera House to the Forbidden City, to the glittering Las Vegas Strip, will be plunged into darkness Saturday as activists bid to reinvigorate the climate change fight.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:22 pm

Toyota Recall Might Be Caused by Cosmic Rays (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - It may not lessen Toyota's woes to hear that the problems the company has been having with faulty gas pedals could be blamed on cosmic rays from space. Sound unbelievable? The concept is actually a lot more plausible than you might think.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:10 pm

What I'm really thinking: The couples counsellor

'When I hear the husband has "accidentally" sent his wife an amorous text meant for his lover, I secretly think, what a plonker'

I see a lot of common themes – mishearing each other, lack of sex, loneliness, loss of a loved one, arguments about children or money – but the biggest one is infidelity. Whoever has had the affair usually thinks I am going to tell them off, and the "deceived" person often finds it hard to accept that infidelity is a symptom rather than a cause.

Sometimes the discovery occurs because the husband has "accidentally" sent his wife an amorous text meant for his lover. When I hear this, I secretly think, "What a plonker." Of course, Freud's theory would be that it was unconsciously intentional and a sign that the man could no longer keep the deceit to himself. But I haven't yet come across a "text mistake" made by a woman.

It's a huge privilege to sit with clients while they work out some really thorny issues. If they are successful, they attribute much of that to me, but it's usually down to them. They do the work.

Clients believe counsellors are completely unshockable. They are wrong. Sometimes I hear things that stay with me for days, or things I have to look up on the internet because I've never heard of them.

I love working with couples; it's like surfing a wave and not knowing quite where or when I will land, but it is usually somewhere interesting and often teaches me something else about myself. I worry sometimes whether I am a bit of a voyeur – Freud probably has a theory about that, too.

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

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:35 pm

Comet crash creates potential for life

Shock waves could force amino-acid forming chemistry.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/UUroRK5kr6w" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:23 pm

Country diary

West Sussex

Twenty miles east of the Roman floors at Fishbourne, a mosaic of comparable beauty is draped over a bed of dead bracken. Yesterday, we admired the geometric patterns and contrasting colours created by second-century craftsmen. They are matched here by shiny segments making up strings of bold black diamonds, set against a background that is grey with the faintest hint of green.

The paper-chain motifs run in parallel along the length of a rope-thick body laid out in the shape of an ampersand. The adder raises its head and shoots out a liquorice thread tongue to taste the air. This morning, on the short stretch of sun-kissed bank above Pulborough Brooks known as "adder alley", the snakes are solar charging. The animal before us has only just emerged, but a short while ago, another extruded from a mousehole under a rose bush, basking for a while in the open, its marble eye glinting, before effecting a sluggish, sinuous slither into the long grass in search of breakfast.

It is time to leave our bracken-bedded serpent to energise in peace. In the blackthorn bushes on the other side of broad turf path, a tennis ball appears to have lodged at waist height. Standing an arm's length away, I see that the "ball" is actually a round nest with grey-green lichen cladding. As yet, it has no cap, as if it were a boiled egg newly cracked open. Shrill peeps announce the arrival of a pair of long-tailed tits. They zip through the thorny lattice and one perches in attendance, while its mate plops into the nestcup. The tit's head dabs around the rim of the unfinished structure, but I cannot see whether it is adding lichens and moss, or binding the whole with spiders' webs regurgitated from its throat. The bird flits out of its nearly completed nest and its mate drops in to take up construction duties.

I have stood in rapt attention long enough for a crowd of curious passers-by to gather round. Every one of us is entranced by these tiny birds, piecing together their tiny miracle.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:11 pm

The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe? by Paul Davies | Book review

Tim Radford ponders the fruitless search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Here is the problem: everywhere we look on Earth, there is life. Microbes multiply in the highest clouds; bacteria cling to Saharan desert dust as it blows across the Atlantic; millions of viral particles dance in a droplet of seawater. Microbes thrive in ice, super-heated water, acid, alkaline solutions, salt lakes and even nuclear reactor waste pools. Deep in the ocean basalt, there is a vast subculture of tiny creatures that exploit a hydrogen economy: they turn water and carbon dioxide into methane and live off the difference, hydrogen.

These invisible organisms are life's substrate, the origin of everything. From such small beginnings grew crane flies and critics; aspidistras and astrophysicists. On the evidence from planet Earth, life is an urgent, unstoppable force: it will go anywhere there is liquid water and a source of energy.

Here is the other half of the same problem: everywhere beyond Earth, there is silence. If life spontaneously evolved and intelligence imperfectly flowered on one planet, what about all those other rocky planets? Terrestrial civilisation has been beaming microwave messages into space for 50 years, in the form of Coronation Street and I Love Lucy, Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica. And since April 1960 the astronomer Frank Drake and his colleagues in Seti, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, have been listening for signals from those other, so-far invisible planets that surely must be orbiting those stars that are strewn across 100,000 light years of space.

And what have they heard? The random fizz and splutter of the accidental noise from pulsars and quasars, from hot gas and cold dust and exploding stars: otherwise, nothing. The sound of extraterrestrial life is the sound of silence.

Paul Davies is a cosmologist who turned to the problem of life in the cosmos at least 15 years ago: this is, on my count, his fourth book on the theme. He is chairman of the Seti post-detection task group, a little committee of rationalists prepared to confront one of the most intoxicating and terrifying challenges of all time: if we do hear from ET, Davies and colleagues will be the first to know. This improbable burden could explain why The Eerie Silence may not be his most thrilling book, but is certainly one of his most thoughtful: there is hardly an aspect of the great Seti puzzle that he does not address, in clear, almost laconic vernacular.

Is there silence because extraterrestrials simply do not exist? Are the conditions for the emergence of life so far-fetched, so ludicrously improbable that it happened only once, on one planet orbiting one star in just one galaxy during the whole 13.7-billion-year lifetime of the universe? Or is the universe humming with life, but humming so quietly that we cannot hear it?

If the first proposition is true, then humanity has a lonely responsibility, first not to destroy itself in an ecological or thermonuclear catastrophe, then to outlive its parent sun, and colonise the galaxy. If the second proposition is true, where is everybody?

The first and possibly terminal problem is distance. If the nearest technologically advanced, curious neighbour is 1,000 light years away, we may never meet, because the laws of physics make communication difficult and head-on encounter vanishingly improbable. If, on the other hand, a superior, knowing intelligence is quietly monitoring planet Earth with instruments 1,000 light years away, then it cannot know that we have discovered physics, invented the telescope and tuned into radio astronomy. That information will take another 1,000 years to arrive, while on the planet that ET observes, Byzantine emperors still hold Constantinople.

And who says radio is for ever? It was invented a century ago, but increasingly, data is transmitted by cable: one day, perhaps, fibre optics will carry everything, and the planet will again fall into radio silence. Who says aliens will use terrestrial 20th-century technology? Perhaps life is frequent, but intelligence is highly improbable. Or perhaps all competitive, technological civilisations discover thermonuclear weapons, and destroy themselves. Maybe the rest of the galaxy is keeping a vow of silence, leaving us either to obliterate ourselves or grow up enough to join the federation.

Why should we think of ET as even remotely humanoid? Could some imperial galactic civilisation have already colonised the galaxy, stripped it of resources, left some mystifying structures, and moved on? Has ET been this way by proxy, using probes and detectors that we cannot recognise, because our imaginations are limited by our technology and our experience? Voyager and Pioneer probes are heading out of the solar system carrying 1970s hardware – computers with tapes, long playing records – now almost laughably out-of-date. What kind of technology would be in the hands of a civilisation with a million-year head start on ours? As Davies keeps pointing out, we do not know, and we cannot even begin to guess, the technology, the motives or the philosophy of an extraterrestrial intelligence. We have to be ready for anything, or perhaps nothing.

The problem for both Earthly and unearthly civilisations, as James Kasting's book How to Find a Habitable Planet (Princeton, £20.95) reminds us, is time. Hydrogen-fusing stars with a lifetime of five to 10 billion years must accrete, ignite, burn and then explode just to forge and distribute carbon and oxygen and the other 89 elements needed to fashion an appropriately sized rocky planet with a watery surface, ideally in a "Goldilocks zone" a safe distance from a second-generation parent star, ideally with a large moon to stabilise its axial spin, with a geomagnetic field to deflect deadly solar missiles and enough interior tectonic activity to keep renewing itself.

Here on Earth, life began within the first billion years, but complex life required another 3.8 billion years to make a primate. In 5 billion years, the sun will flare up and incinerate planet Earth, but life's tenure will have ended long before that, perhaps 500 million years from now, as carbon dioxide levels fall to near zero, plants perish and the seas begin to boil away. To survive, tomorrow's Earthlings must find somewhere else to live. ET, presumably, faces the same pressure.

Kasting's book – serious planetary science with graphs, equations and chemical symbols – is a readable guide to the many things we have just begun to understand about a solar system. Davies's book is an authoritatively written, immensely clear, lay person's guide to the many things we don't know about the rest of the universe. The two complement each other, and end on a similarly speculative note.

"My own guess is that, just as we learned that the Sun is an ordinary star, we will find that Earth is an ordinary planet and that life itself is a commonplace phenomenon that exists on most, or all, such planets," says Kasting. "But that is just a guess." The scientist in him, says Davies, suspects that humans may be the only intelligent beings in the universe. The philosopher in him hates the idea. "Frankly, it makes me uneasy. I wonder what all that stuff out there is for, when only lowly Homo sapiens gets to see it."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:05 pm

From one pig: 185 products

Bacon, sausages, wine, matches, ammunition and heart valves… in fact, 185 products in total. Christien Meindertsma photographs the byproducts of Pig 05049, while Bill Buford reflects on the many uses of this single animal

Early one morning last winter, I joined a farmer preparing his annual pig. This was in France, in snowy hills about an hour south of Lyon, where I've been living. The European Union has many rules governing how an animal passes from eating in a field to being eaten at a table, but it turns the proverbial blind eye to a farmer quietly sorting out one of his own. My farmer, a high-order traditionalist, was assisted by two friends. For traditionalists, you do your pig outdoors and in winter. No other time is possible. Their practice originates in an era before refrigeration. It has no part with any tool that comes with a plug attached. To do a pig in traditional style, you need a rope, a knife, a pail, an axe and two fires: a large one, a bonfire, to burn off the animal's hair, and a small one, a campfire, to warm a cast-iron pot of water. The pot is for boudin noir, the sausage made from fresh pig's blood.

The pig was a sow. You never eat the male; the meat has been spoiled by testosterone. It was large, more than 500lb, with blond and white markings, like a dog's. Farmers prefer big pigs. The meat industry prefers small ones. Big pigs cost more. Small pigs eat much less than big pigs, but somehow manage to grow faster. An animal's feed is an overhead expense that an industrial meat producer can control. Pig 05049, for instance, probably weighed 200lb and was confined, to keep it from burning up unnecessarily hunger-provoking calories. Then again, Pig 05049 was put to many uses; mine was dinner.

The rope is for the hind legs. Once tied, the pig is rolled on to its side. The forelegs are left free. One is pinned underneath the body, the other is used like a lever to pump blood from the heart after it has been punctured by the knife. The blood collects in a bucket, which I stirred to keep from coagulating. I was given a ladle and invited to try it. I was surprised by the taste, which was vital and energising and happy. By then, I'd already got what I'd come for, a realisation, an epiphany of sorts. It occurred moments before, when we were tying together the hind legs. The effort took four men. The pig knew what was taking place. She was strong. She fought. There was no piggy squeal. There was a wide-open cry. She cried loudly and didn't stop until a few seconds, and not more than a few seconds, after her heart was pierced. The cry reached far into the upper regions of sound; a high-pitched, baying wail that my brain was unable to edit out or regard as normal. Then, just as I tightened the rope around the animal's leg, she looked at me, dead on, and locked me with her eyes. Why me? Among the faces of these hardened traditionalists, did mine convey unease? The lock was like a clamp. I wanted to turn away. I didn't.

I continue to reflect on that eye contact. It was a contract. There is nothing casual about killing an animal, ever, even for a hardened traditionalist. If you kill an animal, you want to leave nothing behind. It's an obligation.

That day, we used up just about everything. The intestines, filled with blood, cooked slowly in the cast-iron pot like custard. The bladder was a wet sack. Death provokes a lot of peeing. I squeezed it out, poked around with my finger until I found the hole, brought it to my lips, less salty than I expected, and, with considerable difficulty, blew it up like a balloon. I did the same with the lungs, and nailed them to a wooden post to dry out in the open air, bobbing in the breeze. Toenails were an irritant. After the bonfire, they were blackened and had a shard-like brittleness. You can't eat them, the farmer said grimly.

But, in fact, we wasted many parts of our pig. Pig 05049 is a moral rebuke. The hairs of ours, for instance, were burned, scorched and scrubbed away. You will not find them in a paintbrush. The bones: they were tossed. The tendons – the protein that connects muscles to bones, like a semi-solid, inedible sock – were trimmed away and dropped into the trash. Gone. But tendons fall apart when cooked in a barely simmering broth, yielding a beautiful jelly, and are a pig's secret asset, coveted by cooks and beauticians alike. It is called collagen, from the Greek word for glue. It is as old as history.

It is possible to see Pig 05049 as an example of science's sinister ways, or as a carnivore's consumerist conspiracy. Who, after all, can claim to be a vegan now? But people have rarely killed animals because they were hungry.

Until the modern era, people ate loads of meat, all the time. In Germany, in the 1400s, average consumption was 3lb a day. In Tuscany, in the 1600s, it may have been even higher: nearly 5lb. I like meat, but I can't imagine eating four or five pounds of it, ever. Meat was so cheap then, it became the diet. Meat was so plentiful that it was often a problem, great open yards of bloody tissue, warming in the sun, feeding bacteria.

Florence illustrates the knot. For 700 years, it has been the city you go to for a pair of shoes, a well-made leather jacket and a good steak. The steak, the bistecca Fiorentina, comes from a chianina, the white cows that worked the farms and vineyards of Chianti, the rugged region directly to the south. For most of human civilisation, especially during times of high combat, cows mattered more for their skins than for the rib-eye underneath. Saddles, harness straps, boots, belts, helmets, shields and most of the paraphernalia of war were made of cow leather. The wars between Florence and Siena secured a place for beef on the Tuscan plate. Likewise, the whale. It is easier to object to a Norwegian killing a whale today than it would have been a century ago. That whale would have lighted street lamps, infused perfumes, lubricated machines, washed furs, adhered objects together as a glue, given structure to the world's first cosmetics and moisturised women's faces. Of these, only the street lamp is redundant, replaced by electricity. In everything else, the whale has been replaced by Pig 05049.

For my traditionalist farmers, it would have been impractical to save the hair of their pig. For that, you need 1,000 pigs, not one. But the traditionalist pig had something that Pig 05049 probably lacked. When I returned two months later to sample saucisson and poitrine that had been ageing since we made them, I recognised a smell and flavour, and for a moment, alarmingly, they invoked a memory of a high-pitched cry. They were uniquely of the animal we had killed.

• Pig 05049, by Christien Meindertsma, is published by Flocks at £95; christienmeindertsma.com

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:05 pm

New Spacecraft Discovers Dozens of Asteroids ... Every Day (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Editor's note: Due to an error by NASA in a press release, the original version of this story stated that the WISE mission discovered hundreds of asteroids per day. That figure has been amended in this story to reflect the correct tally.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm

China Gives Birth to Giant New Forests

The country added an area of forest bigger than twice the size of Connecticut in the last decade. But a global assessment of Earth's forests wasn't all good news.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:19 pm

Fab Labs

Imagine if you had the tools to build almost anything you wanted. One MIT physicist has figured out how to fit four tools into one small space, so people can do just that. He calls it a Fab Lab and he has created 35 of them.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 4:13 pm

New RFID Tag Could Mean the End of Bar Codes

Lines at the grocery store might become as obsolete as milkmen, if a new tag that seeks to replace bar codes becomes commonplace.

Researchers from Sunchon National University in Suncheon, South Korea, and Rice University in Houston have built a radio frequency identification tag that can be printed directly onto cereal boxes and potato chip bags. The tag uses ink laced with carbon nanotubes to print electronics on paper or plastic that could instantly transmit information about a cart full of groceries.

“You could run your cart by a detector and it tells you instantly what’s in the cart,” says James M. Tour of Rice University, whose research group invented the ink. “No more lines, you just walk out with your stuff.”

RFID tags are already used widely in passports, library books and gadgets that let cars fly through tollbooths without cash. But those tags are made from silicon, which is more expensive than paper and has to be stuck onto the product as a second step.

“It’s potentially much cheaper, printing it as part of the package,” Tour says.

The new tag, reported in the March issue of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, costs about three cents to print, compared to about 50 cents for each silicon-based tag. The team hopes to eventually bring that cost below one cent per tag to make the devices commercially competitive. It can store one bit of information — essentially a 1 or a 0 — in an area about the size of a business card.

That’s not much compared to computer chips, but Tour says this tag is just a “proof of concept.” Study coauthor Gyoujin Cho of Sunchon National University, along with a team from the Printed Electronics Research Center of the Paru Corporation in Suncheon, Korea, are working to pack more transistors into a smaller area to ultimately squeeze 96 bits onto a 3-square-centimeter tag. That would be enough to give a unique identification code to each item in a supermarket, along with information like how long the item has been on the shelf, Tour says.

The tags were made possible by the creation of semiconducting ink, which contains carbon nanotubes that will hold an electrical charge. A transistor needs to be completely semiconducting to hold information, Tour says. If there are any bits of conducting metal — which moves electric charges around easily — mixed in, the information-holding charge will leak out quickly.

The mixture of nanotubes created in Tour’s lab includes both semiconducting nanotubes and conducting nanotubes. Separating out the conducting nanotubes is “a horrid experience,” Tour says. “They’re very painful to separate.” So instead, the team devised a way to coat the conducting nanotubes in a polymer to protect the electric charge and allow the ink to be purely semiconducting.

Once they had the ink, Cho and his colleagues built roll printers to transfer ink to the final material. The tags are printed in three layers, and one of the remaining hurdles to making the tags store more memory in less space is to improve the alignment of those layers, Cho says.

“The work is impressive,” comments Thomas N. Jackson of Penn State University in University Park, who is also developing flexible electronics. He thinks it will be difficult to compete with silicon, which is well established in the realm of consumer products packaging. But similar technology could be used to do things silicon can’t do, he says, such as make smart bandages that can sense infections or freshness-sensing food packaging.

And for those who would rather not have their food broadcast radio waves after getting it home, fear not. Tour says the signals can be blocked by wrapping groceries in aluminum foil.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 4:11 pm

NASA sets next shuttle launch for April 5

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA on Friday cleared space shuttle Discovery for launch on April 5 on one of its final cargo runs to the International Space Station before the fleet is retired later this year.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 3:46 pm

Tiny cube to tackle space debris

UK-based researchers plan to unfurl a small sail in space which they say could help drag defunct satellites out of orbit.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2010 | 3:35 pm

NIH drugmakers upgrade their digs

Glossy facility provides greater scope for US health agency.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 26 Mar 2010 | 3:17 pm

Arrest in Girl’s Murder Highlights Sex Offender Myth

It was a horrible crime against a young child that made headlines around the world: A seven-year-old girl named Somer Thompson vanished while walking home from school one day in October 2009. Her parents suspected the worst—partly because of high-profile ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:33 pm

Japan win on bluefin tuna showed deft hand at CITES endangered species meeting (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Christian Science Monitor - Using backroom horse-trading skills honed by years of negotiations and maneuvering at the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the battle-hardened officials of Japan's Fisheries Agency were able to push through their agenda at the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Doha – leaving their less experienced European and American counterparts in their wake.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:33 pm

What’s It Like to Fly the Space Shuttle? We Find Out

As a person who really enjoys flying airplanes, I never thought I would ever say this, but flying a simulator can be as much fun as flying the real thing. Of course it helps when the simulator is a replica of the space shuttle cockpit at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

On a recent assignment for AOPA Pilot magazine, I arrived early for an interview with Ken Ham, commander on the shuttle flight scheduled to lift off on May 14. While I waited, an engineer fired up the simulator where we were going to conduct the interview and let me make some practice approaches.

Known as the Shuttle Engineering Simulator, or SES, it’s not the full motion simulator used for full flight profile training, but rather a fixed-base simulator used by astronauts and engineers for both training and testing changes that will be made on the shuttle. The SES is very similar to the e-cab used by Boeing and other aircraft makers to test systems before putting them on the real thing.

Whether it was a change to a guidance computer, or an upgrade to the software controlling the nine glass panel displays, many of the improvements made to the shuttle over the years were tested right here. Shuttle commanders and pilots (commander is in left seat, pilot in the right) also use the SES for training, especially early on in their preparation.

The wood on the floor in front of left seat has been worn smooth by thousands of heels sliding back and forth controlling the rudder pedals over the years. With the news that the shuttle will likely continue flying into 2011, instead of being retired later this year as previously scheduled, the SES may yet see a few more heels.

Sadly, even with the extension, this was as close as I would probably get to my astronaut dreams. Still I was eager to try flying the heaviest and most expensive glider ever built.

Computers control much of the flight until the last 4-5 minutes before landing. So I was given the chance to fly several approaches into the Kennedy Space Center, landing on runway 15. My flights began with the shuttle heading east towards the Atlantic passing over KSC at 50,000 feet and 240 knots (equivalent air speed or KEAS).

It turns out the shuttle is a terrible glider. I don’t have a lot of glider experience, but I know that pitching nose down at 20 degrees and a descent rate of more than 10,000 feet per minute isn’t considered good. An airliner typically follows a 3-degree glide path when approaching the runway. According to Commander Ham, this is probably the biggest challenge facing the average pilot.

“The sight picture is a lot different,” he said, “but it’s a pretty easy task for an experienced pilot to make a safe landing with just a little bit of information,” Commander Ham said, adding that a perfect landing is very difficult.

Of course, like many things, it might be easy when everything is going right. It’s the emergencies and unexpected scenarios that require the bulk of the training.

“Then things get a bit more difficult. It starts to challenge your flying skills a bit more,” Commander Ham noted, saying it is similar to flying other aircraft where you train for emergencies. “It’s just another flying job.”

I paused and debated to myself whether or not to challenge that last point. Never mind.

Back in the sim, I passed through 40,000 feet and got ready to start my turn around the heading alignment cone or HAC, which is a guidance system that allows pilots to follow a circular descent path to the runway. As I continued the turn, I could see the Florida coast out the left window, and out of habit, I started looking for the runway.

My airspeed was around 290 knots as I turned to line up with runway 15 and pass through 12,000 feet. The shuttle is remarkably stable to fly as I suppose would be the case with any brick featuring stubby wings. Moving the stick is a bit unusual because it requires only small wrist movements.

Perhaps most interesting is that it pivots in the middle of the palm for pitch (controlling nose up or nose down). Commander Ham explained later that this is to prevent inadvertent movement during launch. “It’s a beautiful design, you can fly uphill at 3g’s with your hand on the stick and nothing happens,” he said.

So far the approach hadn’t been too difficult. In front of me there was a heads-up display (HUD) with airspeed, altitude and other key flight parameters. Most importantly there was a flight-path marker and guidance diamond. These navigation aids make it rather easy for a pilot to find the way to the runway and line up, assuming that everything is working. You just keep the flight-path marker on the guidance diamond and the runway should eventually appear in front of you.

On final approach, a pair of triangles rose from the bottom of the HUD when it was time to begin the flare, which slows the rate of descent. In a typical small airplane, a pilot might begin the flare at 10 to 30 feet above the runway traveling around 60 knots. In the shuttle, you start the flare at 2,000 feet and 300 knots. That part would take some getting used to.

“This is the critical part,” Commander Ham explained. “At 2,000 feet, if you don’t start pulling up, you’re going to die.”

So I followed the guidance on the HUD and touched down the main gear with a squeak at 200 knots with the nose still pointing rather high in the air. After what seeemed like a very long time, the nose gear eventually came down with a thud and I rolled safely to a stop.

A space shuttle commander has countless landings in simulators at the Johnson Space Center, and at least a thousand simulated landings in NASA’s Shuttle Training Aircraft. I realize I’m a long way from having the skills necessary to fly the orbiter. But if I were ever stowed away in the cargo bay and the announcement came over the speakers, “Is there a pilot on board?” I would at least have a chance of getting the world’s heaviest glider on the ground safely.

Images: Jason Paur/Wired.com

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:27 pm

Lab-Quality Booze Detector Fits in a Suitcase

Ever found yourself staring down a punch bowl at a frat party and wondering just how spiked it might be?

What you needed was the AlcoQuick 4000, a briefcase-sized infrared spectrometer that can accurately determine the alcohol content of a wide variety of beverages in just 60 seconds, according to a new study in the open source journal Chemistry Central.

For every day use, you can use an alcoholmeter, first developed by Gay-Lussac in the 1820s. It’s essentially a tube that you can insert into a liquid-containing beaker that uses the difference in density between water and alcohol to determine how much alcohol is in the beverage.

But some people, notably scientists and tax collectors, need more precise readings of alcohol content. They use complex techniques that require the liquid in question to be distilled. That limits the diffusion of the techniques and can prove downright impractical in some settings.

The German researchers who conducted the study say that the AlcoQuick could be especially useful in analyzing “unrecorded alcohol,” which you might know as “moonshine.” They estimate that one-quarter of the world’s alcohol consumption comes in this form, largely in developing countries without strong regulatory regimes.

“In this context, expensive laboratory measurements such as distillation and pycnometry are not practical, but portable, battery-powered infrared sensors offer a feasible alternative in areas of lower socioeconomic status,” they conclude.

So, watch out Bangladesh, your days of moonshining could be coming to a technology-induced end soon.

Citation: “Rapid and mobile determination of alcoholic strength in wine, beer and spirits using a flow-through infrared sensor” by Dirk W Lachenmeier, Rolf Godelmann, Markus Steiner, Bob Ansay, Jurgen Weigel, and Gunther Krieg. doi:10.1186/1752-153X-4-5

Image: hoggarazzi/Flickr

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:46 pm

Heathrow opponents win challenge

Campaigners win a High Court battle for further consultation into plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:37 pm

Work Addiction Measured With New Scale

Work addiction involves working excessive hours and feeling guilty when not at work.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:14 pm

Rodents Becoming Smarter Thanks to Us

Pet rodents display more intelligence than their wild relatives, probably as a result of living with us.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:50 am

Ron Howard Was Wrong: Apollo 13 Would Have Burned, Not Frozen

The Apollo 13 module, had it not been for NASA’s heroic efforts to get it back on course, would have missed Earth and tumbled into the depths of cold, lonely space.

At least that’s been the story repeated in popular, academic, and cinematic accounts of the ill-fated mission, like Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.

Now, space writer Andrew Chaikin and a team of modelers at Analytical Graphics have stumbled upon a surprise: The official story isn’t true. Instead of drifting into a nearly eternal orbit around Earth, the ship would have swung out past the moon, been pushed by its gravitational field, and been sent hurtling back toward Earth on a collision path, as described in the video above.

In any case, the crew would not have survived. They’d have frozen first, then burned up on re-entry.

Luckily, James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were able to use the lunar module as a lifeboat and make it safely home with the help of Ed Harris, er, Eugene F. Kranz, the flight director for the mission.

And while we’re debunking Apollo 13 myths, the astronauts never actually said, “Houston, we have a problem.” They said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

And if you ever correct someone on the presence of that helping verb at a party, you join an elite club of pedants who love space and grammar too much. Contact us immediately with a YouTube video of the incident and we’ll send you a pin, because it’s our club.

Via CollectSPACE

Image: The damage caused by the oxygen explosion that nearly cost the Apollo 13 astronauts their lives/NASA.

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:33 am

UK firm plans sails to clean up space

Orbiting debris could be destroyed in space age bonfire if new experiment succeeds

British scientists have unveiled plans to clean up the junkyard of space by attaching giant sails to orbiting rubbish to drag it down into Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up.

Fifty years of space exploration have left more than 5,500 tonnes of spent rockets, defunct satellites and abandoned equipment hurtling around the planet and cluttering up the nearest reaches of space.

The build-up of debris, which is growing at 5% a year, is a major threat to working satellites and crewed spacecraft, such as the space shuttle and the International Space Station, which have to alter their orbits occasionally to avoid a direct hit.

Researchers at Surrey University and the space company, Astrium, developed 25-square-metre sails that pack into a "nanosatellite" no bigger than a shoebox, which can be attached to larger satellites and rockets before they are launched.

The scientists plan a trial run, called CubeSail, next year, and hope to sell the sails to satellite and rocket operators if the technology works.

"We need to start equipping our satellites today so we can start to solve the problem," said Vaios Lappas, project leader at Surrey Space Centre. "It would be good for us not to mess up space the way we've messed up our planet."

Lappas said that within a decade, the sails could be pulling space junk into the Earth's atmosphere, where friction from air will cause it to burn up. To do this, the nanosatellite containing the sail would need to home in on a specific piece of space junk and stick to it before deploying its sail.

Next year's test will look at two different methods. For debris in low Earth orbit, the sail will be angled so that residual air particles in the upper atmosphere slow it down, causing it to lose altitude. For higher debris, the sail will be pointed towards the sun, and pushed along by solar radiation.

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs recommends that space companies find ways to bring their spent rockets and satellites down within 25 years of completing their missions. If that recommendation becomes law, technologies like the CubeSail could become standard fittings, just as airbags are in cars.

The US space agency estimates there are 200,000 bits of orbiting debris that measure between 1cm and 10cm and 10s of millions more that are smaller than that. The junk is a threat because it travels at speeds of up to 40,000kph.

Last year, and American communications satellite was damaged when it collided with a defunct Russian military probe, creating a cloud of debris that posed a danger to other nearby satellites. The collision, 800 kilometres above Siberia, was the first between two satellites and scattered debris into orbits from 500 kilometres to 1,300 kilometres above Earth.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:04 am

Climate scientists face 'new form of persecution'

IPCC chair accuses politicians and sceptics of portraying scientists as 'criminals' through attacks on their credibility

Rajendra Pachauri: Don't hound the scientists

The head of the UN's climate change panel has accused politicians and prominent climate sceptics of "a new form of persecution" against scientists who work on global warming.

In a strongly worded article published on the Guardian website, Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hit out at those in "positions of power and responsibility" who try to portray "dedicated scientists as climate criminals".

Pachauri also accused critics who have used an error in the 2007 IPCC report to question the scientific basis of climate change of "an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain [sleight of hand]". Scientific knowledge of climate change, he says, is "something we distort and trivialise at our peril".

Pachauri's comments come after repeated attacks on the credibility of the IPCC following the high-profile discovery of a mistake about melting Himalayan glaciers in its report. The mistake has prompted calls for Pachauri to resign and forced the IPCC to convene an international panel of experts to review the way it operates.

In the Guardian article, Pachauri writes: "Thousands of scientists from across the world have worked diligently and in an objective and transparent manner to provide scientific evidence for action to meet the growing challenge of climate change. To obscure this reality through misplaced emphasis on an error in a nearly 3,000-page rigorous document would be unfortunate."

He adds: "Even more unfortunate is the effort of some in positions of power and responsibility to indict dedicated scientists as 'climate criminals'. I sincerely hope the world is not witnessing a new form of persecution of those who defy conventional ignorance and pay a terrible price for their scientifically valid beliefs."

This appears to be a reference to James Inhofe, a US senator and long-standing climate sceptic, who last month called for a criminal investigation of climate scientists. Inhofe published a minority report from the Senate committee on environment and public works that claimed climate scientists involved with a controversy over emails from the University of East Anglia released online "violated fundamental ethical principles governing taxpayer-funded research and, in some cases, may have violated federal laws".

The report named 17 US and British climate experts as "key players" in the affair and highlighted their roles in preparing IPCC reports. The list included Phil Jones and Keith Briffa of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, and Peter Stott, a leading expert at the Met Office.

Michael Mann, a US scientist at Penn State University, who is on the list, said: "I think the following quote characterises the situation best: 'Continuous research by our best scientists … may be made impossible by the creation of an atmosphere in which no man feels safe against the public airing of unfounded rumours, gossip, and vilification.' The quote wasn't made during the last few months. It was made by US president Harry S Truman in 1948, in response to politically motivated attacks against scientists associated with the dark era of McCarthyism."

Mann added: "I fear that is precisely the sort of atmosphere that is being created, and sure, it impacts research. The more time scientists have to spend fending off these sorts of attacks and dealing with this sort of nonsense, the less time is available to them to actually do science, and to push the forefront of our knowledge forward. Perhaps that is the intent?"

Pachauri says it was "to be expected" that the critical choices that climate change asks of human society "would pose challenges for some stakeholders and sectors of the economy".

He added: "But to ignore the IPCC's scientific findings would lead to impacts that impose larger costs than those required today to stabilise the Earth's climate."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:00 am

Exorbitant Fees Offered to Human Egg Donors, Study Finds

Fertility companies are paying egg donors high fees that often exceed guidelines, especially for donors from top colleges and with certain appearances and ethnicities, a new study finds.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:58 am

Toyota Recall Might Be Caused by Cosmic Rays

Federal regulators are examining the possibility that cosmic ray radiation from space could be at least partially to blame for Toyota’s recent mechanical defects.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:29 am

Mystery Behind Weak Earthquake Faults Solved

Geoscientists Chris Marone and Cristiano Collettini travelled to the Isle of Elba to sample a tectonic fault that breaks most of the rules of fault mechanics. Their work reveals why these faults slip.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:24 am

Spelbots

RoboCup is the Olympics of college-level robotics and artificial intelligence contests. The team from Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women in Atlanta, has positioned themselves as the team to beat.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:09 am

Splitting Cyclone Spotted on Neptune

If the violent conditions observed so far are any indication, this weekend's weather forecast for Neptune can't be good.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 9:50 am

Saturday: Lights Off Worldwide for Earth Hour

For fourth year, group urges world to turn off lights for Earth Hour to support action on climate change.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 9:06 am

Americans Sneeze More As Allergies Mysteriously Increase

Allergies of all kinds are on the rise in developed countries, but no one knows why
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:52 am

Fast Food Makes Us Impatient, Study Suggests

Fast food places a value on instant gratification could lead to a culture of impatience.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:45 am

Behind the iPad: 4 Decades of Clever Technology

A number of critical events stretching back nearly 30 years that helped pave a path for the iPad.
Source: Livescience.com | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:42 am

World War II Plane Found Near Oregon Coast

Loggers came across the wreckage of a Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, but it's not clear how it got there.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:10 am

Bionic Arm Moved by Thought

Electrodes and a computer translates biological nerve signals into computerized signals that control electric motors in a bionic arm and hand.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:35 am

T.Rex stalked Australia, albeit a mini-me version

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia scientists have found evidence that Tyrannosaur dinosaurs stalked southern hemisphere continents, with the discovery of a hip bone fossil of a small T.Rex in the south of the country.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:33 am

T.Rex stalked Australia, albeit a mini-me version (Reuters)

Reuters - Australia scientists have found evidence that Tyrannosaur dinosaurs stalked southern hemisphere continents, with the discovery of a hip bone fossil of a small T.Rex in the south of the country.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:33 am

Murky waters for marine life

The CITES meeting muddies the waters for life in the oceans
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:31 am

Confused cuttlefish spotted laying eggs on seahorse

In a curious case of mistaken identity, a cuttlefish is seen laying its eggs on a passing seahorse.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:23 am

Why Do People Swear?

When the Vice President dropped the f-bomb this week, he sparked a flurry of controversy, but researchers point out cussing has been around for centuries.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:13 am

Stealing Electricity from Algae

Why bother producing power when we can simply take it?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:00 am

Pregnancy 'safe for cancer survivors'

Trials contradict orthodoxy that pregnancy increases the risk of relapse in women treated for breast cancer

Women who survive breast cancer do not appear to face greater risks of the disease recurring if they become pregnant, according to a study which contradicts previous orthodoxy.

Doctors have long been concerned that pregnancy might spark hormonal changes in breast cancer survivors that could spur the disease's return, and many breast cancer patients are counselled against getting pregnant after they recover.

In research presented at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona, experts said pregnancy in women who have been treated for breast cancer is safe and does not seem to be linked with the disease's recurrence.

Among the wider population, those who have early and multiple pregnancies have a lower risk of getting breast cancer than women who do not.

Dr Hatem Azim of the Institut Jules Bordet in Belgium and colleagues analysed results from 14 trials that followed more than 1,400 pregnant women with a history of breast cancer, and compared them with more than 18,000 women treated for breast cancer who were not pregnant.

"I hope this changes what doctors tell their patients," Dr Azim said. "There's no reason to tell women who survive breast cancer not to get pregnant."

The researchers said that the women who got pregnant had a 42% lower risk of dying compared with breast cancer survivors who did not get pregnant. He said part of that benefit might be due to the fact that women who were naturally healthier were those that later had children.

"For many years, pregnancy was considered a risk for women who had had breast cancer," said Maria Leadbeater, of Breast Cancer Care. "But this study seems to show the risk is not an issue once you've been treated," she said.

Leadbeater said the advice for patients might depend on the type of breast cancer they have had and how they responded to treatment. Women who need hormone therapy for breast cancer typically need to be on it for five years, during which time doctors recommend against getting pregnant.

Leadbeater and others said women should try to wait until two years after their diagnosis to try for a baby, since that is thought to be the riskiest time for a relapse.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Mar 2010 | 3:35 am

Skin becomes gadget control pad

Tapping your forearm or hand with a finger could be the way you interact with the next generation of gadgets.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Mar 2010 | 3:23 am

Bumblebees Have Supersonic Color Vision

Bees' color vision clocks in as the fastest in the animal world.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:45 am