Drug that extends life span prevents Alzheimer's deficits

A new report provides more evidence that rapamycin, which has been shown to extend life span in mice, also can improve learning and memory in mice engineered to develop Alzheimer's disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Acupuncture may be an effective treatment for post-viral infection loss of smell

Traditional Chinese acupuncture, where very thin needles are used to stimulate specific points in the body to elicit beneficial therapeutic responses, may be an effective treatment option for patients who suffer from persistent post- viral olfactory dysfunction, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Biologists discover an on/off button on plants' alarm system

Scientists have discovered how plants turn their defense mechanisms on and off. The system is apparently controlled by a key protein that the researchers have named "NINJA." The discovery offers possibilities for increasing the yield of therapeutic substances from plants.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Nanoscale 'stealth' probe slides into cell walls seamlessly, say engineers

Engineers have created a nanoscale probe they can implant in a cell wall without damaging the wall. The probe could allow researchers to listen in on electrical signals within the cell. That could lead to a better understanding of how cells communicate or how a cell responds to medication. The probe could also provide a better way of attaching neural prosthetics and with modification, might be an avenue for inserting medication inside a cell.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Slimming soybeans are on the horizon

If you're serious about losing weight, consider soybeans. New research provides insight into the way a certain type of soy protein inhibits fat accumulation and reduces inflammation.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

For dual-income husbands and wives, it's still a man's world

New research demonstrates that hard-working women in dual-earner couples are at a distinct disadvantage to their male peers. These women are expected to do more housework and caregiving, making them much more likely to quit their jobs.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Melamine in milk: Tiny gold particles help researchers find protein impostor

Researchers have developed a fast, economical and easy method to detect melamine in milk, using gold nanoparticles.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Aging gene found to govern lifespan, immunity and resilience

Scientists have discovered that a gene called DAF-16 is strongly involved in determining the rate of aging and average lifespan of the laboratory worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and its close evolutionary cousins. DAF-16 is found in many other animals, including humans. It is possible that this knowledge could open up new avenues for altering aging, immunity and resistance to stresses in humans.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Mapping heart disease: Researchers uncover genes that may dramatically affect heart health

Studying Drosophila (fruit flies), an international team investigated 7,061 genes and built a detailed map that shows how a portion of these genes contribute to heart function and disease. Importantly, the researchers identified many genes that had not previously been associated with heart disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Scientists find bacterium can halt dengue virus transmission

Dengue fever -- caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes -- threatens 2.5 billion people each year and there is no vaccine or treatment. Entomologists have found that a bacterium can stop dengue viruses from replicating in the mosquitoes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Gallery: Landmine clearance in Sri Lanka

Teams of women are searching for and clearing landmines so that families can restart their lives

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 2 Apr 2010 | 4:00 am

U.S.-Russian crew blasts off to space station

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A U.S.-Russian crew blasted off in a Russian Soyuz space ship on Friday for a half-year odyssey aboard the International Space Station.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:56 am

Rocket blasts off with 2 Russians, 1 American (AP)

AP - A Russian rocket carrying three astronauts blasted off in southern Kazakhstan on Friday, kicking off a tightly packed schedule at the International Space Station in the coming days.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:04 am

Teabonics: the language of the Tea Party movement | Richard Adams

Exploring 'Teabonics', the exciting new variations on English spawned by the US Tea Party movement's sign language

Along with the Tea Party has risen not only an incoherent political movement but exciting and refreshing variations on the English language. Now Flickr user Pargon has collected together many fine examples of "Teabonics", the curious pidgin that has emerged on the simple signs and crude posters handcrafted by the modern-day Poujadists:

These are signs seen primarily at Tea Party Protests. They all feature "creative" spelling or grammar. This new dialect of the English language shall be known as "Teabonics."

This being the Guardian, we take a liberal view of the uses and abuses of English, and we'd be fools to pretend otherwise. There but for the grace of god, and so on. Obviously, signs like the one above – "Don't mortage my childs future" – are amusing enough for the mis-spelling. But signs such as these below, with one saying "Honk for English" and another next to it saying "No Amnety" – something to do with immigration – are even more delightful:

There are many, many more examples here. (Assuming these aren't all photoshopped – this being the internet, who knows?)

And now you know why all those jokes about George Bush's mangled syntax didn't resonate with the electorate.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - High pressure was forecast to continue building in the Northeast on Friday bringing continued clear skies and dry conditions to the region.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 2:40 am

Russian, US astronauts blast off to space station (AFP)

AFP - Three astronauts blasted off Friday for the International Space Station (ISS) on a Russian rocket as the clock ticks down to the retirement of the US space shuttle later this year.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 2:24 am

Japan indicts NZ anti-whaling activist (AFP)

AFP - Japan on Friday indicted a New Zealand anti-whaling activist of the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society who boarded a harpoon ship in Antarctic waters in February.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 2 Apr 2010 | 2:14 am

The battle for libel reform has only begun | Simon Singh

Yesterday's ruling on my article is welcome. But the law remains a serious hazard for journalists

In 2008, I published an article in the Guardianquestioning whether chiropractors should be treating various childhood conditions. I was then sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association, which helped ignite the debate over libel reform, and whether the courts are stifling scientific debate.

For the last two years, my legal position seemed pretty grim, largely owing to the state of our libel laws. Yesterday, however, the court of appeal ruled in my favour by agreeing that my article is about recklessness, not dishonesty, and that I could use the more flexible defence of fair comment. Suddenly it seems I can mount a successful defence. Does this mean that libel reform is no longer necessary?

Unfortunately, the English libel system is still notoriously hostile to journalists, and the case for reform remains as strong as ever. Indeed, my case alone demonstrates many of the problems.

First of all, yesterday's decision was only a ruling on potential defences and the meaning of my article, so I have not won yet. Indeed, the case could continue for another two years and run for four years in total. The libel process is painfully slow, and most defendants are not in a position to put their lives on hold for several years. Instead, they back down and apologise for articles that are actually accurate and important.

Second, merely deciding the potential defences and meaning of my article has cost both parties a total of £200,000. Such minor legal technicalities should not be so expensive. Thankfully, it will be the chiropractors who largely meet the bill for this, but they will dispute some of my legal costs, and I could easily be left £20,000 out of pocket. And there is an associated loss of income, because I devoted most of the last two years to the case.

The total cost of a libel trial can easily run to £1m, so a journalist threatened with libel has to be prepared to risk losing everything. It might be a matter of bluff by the claimant, but any journalist who carries on with this poker game has to be either unhinged or have a healthy bank balance. Personally, I am doubly blessed because my bank balance is OK and I am slightly unhinged.

In many other countries, large corporations cannot bully journalists and sue for libel, but they can sue for so-called malicious falsehood, which protects parties from reckless and scurrilous journalism. The benefit of such a system is a fairer balance, with journalists no longer being terrified to challenge multibillion-dollar companies as long as their article is written honestly and responsibly.

There are numerous other problems with English libel law – such as the fact that journalists are guilty until proven innocent, the lack of a robust statutory public interest defence, and London's reputation as a libel tourism destination.

Until these problems are addressed, England will remain a haven for those who wish to crush free speech. The UN human rights committee criticism of England's libel laws, made in 2008, will continue to shame us: "The law of libel has served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work."

Our politicians must act. The Lib Dems already have libel reform in their manifesto. After Jack Straw's encouraging comments last week, it seems that libel reform will be in Labour's. And after comments by Henry Bellingham, of the shadow justice team, it would be shameful if libel reform were not in the Tories'.

Nothing is certain, but you can help by signing the petition at www.libelreform.org. I have spent over a million minutes defending my article about chiropractic; I hope you also believe in free speech and scientific debate – and that you will spare just one minute to sign up to the petition.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 2 Apr 2010 | 1:00 am

What is Good About Good Friday?

Good Friday is a solemn day as far as the Christian faith is concerned.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 11:26 pm

New Crew Launches to Space Station on Russian Rocket (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - Three astronauts soared into space aboard a Russian rocket on a mission to the International Space Station during the early hours of Good Friday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 10:45 pm

What is Good About Good Friday? (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Good Friday is a solemn day as far as the Christian faith is concerned, marking the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who died on a Friday around the year 33 AD, according to historians.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 10:31 pm

Inactivating Gene May Cut Breast Cancer Risk (HealthDay)

HealthDay - THURSDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- A genetic mutation in the gene known as BRCA1 greatly boosts the risk that a woman will develop breast cancer. But now, researchers report that they've been able to lower the risk of cancer in mice with that gene by deactivating another gene.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:49 pm

Spitzer Sheds Light on Colony of Baby Stars

As the Spitzer Space Telescope studies the Orion Nebula, it is uncovering a wealth of information about stellar evolution by watching young stars twinkle.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:16 pm

China's War on Natural Disasters

China is going all out to fight natural disasters and climate change. Can it win?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 6:03 pm

Letters: There's more to life than gross domestic product

The claim by Iain Morgan (Letters, 29 March) that "only by science and technology generating inventions and wealth can we afford the luxury of art" is staggering in its narrow perspective and in its blindness to empirical evidence.

The Large Hadron Collider will contribute nothing to "wealth creation" – though it might help us to understand the nature of the universe. Still, one might wonder which is of greater utility: the possibility that we might learn, at enormous cost to the taxpayer, something about the hypothetical Higgs boson; or encourage, at a fraction of the cost, the enrichment of the actual lives of millions of people through the real experience provided by the arts. Prof Morgan is a specialist in "molecular oncology". Beyond the basics of keeping the labour force alive, there is little wealth creation to be had in expending vast sums of money on finding complex cures for terminal conditions. But then perhaps values other than the balance sheet of nominal "wealth creation" might also count for something in our determination of social and economic priority.

Even then, the idea that science somehow "creates" the wealth on which the arts then parasitically feed is as wrong as the similar if common misperception regarding the relationship between private and public sectors. Much of science is abstract and exploratory – theoretical physics, astronomy, paleontology etc – at massive expense to us all, and rightly so; much of the arts, at very little expense to us all, is enriching, pragmatic and vocational (the creative and cultural industries are a key and growing source of employment, "wealth creation" and exported product). Many areas of our economy productively combine science and art (eg the successful and "wealth-creating" UK computer game industry that Prof Morgan apparently disdains). Prof Morgan professes to be saddened at how little the arts community reciprocates his "love and understanding of the arts"; I am saddened that Prof Morgan, during a time of unprecedented support and priority for the sciences, and a time of ill-conceived threat to the arts, feels the need to perpetuate the very divide he claims to deny.

Dr Giles Hooper

Liverpool

• Art "does not generate any real wealth in any real sense" opines Iain Morgan. Perhaps he might care to explain in what doubly unreal sense it is then that Glastonbury generates an estimated £35m to the local economy (British music can take over the world, says Sharkey, 29 March).

Without the science and engineering required for staging and amplification systems, events like Glastonbury could not take place. But no one buys a ticket to admire the scaffolding and speakers.

To misquote a famous philosopher: "Technology without the arts is empty, the arts without technology are blind."

Ian Ground

Newcastle upon Tyne

• Professor Iain Morgan claims that science generates wealth and that we need to avoid our country lagging behind. I would argue that, as a scientist, Prof Morgan should realise that money, rather like energy and matter, can neither be created nor destroyed; only converted from one form to another or moved from one place to another. and that unlimited economic growth, like perpetual motion, is simply not possible.

Britain is one of the richest countries in the world. If we struggle to avoid our country "lagging behind others", we are, by definition, either keeping another country down (for example, by winning defence contracts through dubious means) and/or destroying yet more of the environment in order to transform it from mineral wealth into cash (eg mining copper to make electrical goods).

It is more than about time we stopped thinking about "UK plc" and started thinking in a truly global fashion. Britain is not the only country in the world and humans are not the only living things in the world; why should we always do so much better than everyone else? I for one would not mind one bit if we lost our top 10 position in the world's rich list if it meant that a third world country got richer as a result, or for that matter if it meant saving a few trees and badgers.

I do not mean to demonise scientists and I appreciate that there is great potential for science to find some interesting ways out of our polluting habits, but more than anything else we need to learn to make do with less, and that should include being willing to sacrifice our position in the global league tables if necessary. Or is selfishness truly a virtue?

Meic Bromwell

Tregaron, Ceredigion

• Tony Hall (Follow the money, G2, 25 March) rejoices that Britain has "the largest and fastest-growing cultural economy in the world relative to GDP" and that "in the last 10 years, the creative industries have grown faster than the rest of the economy". Insofar as these claims are valid, do they not reflect the spectral pseudo-arts of marketing and publicity rather than the authentic qualities of culture and creativity? True artistry is not nationalistic, nor is it necessarily profitable in financial returns either for artists or for the nations in which they work. Think of William Blake or Van Gogh, almost complete unknowns in their lifetimes, and unhonoured in their countries.

The very concepts of art, culture and creativity are debased by Hall's unquestioning reruns of the philistine corruptions of Thatcher-Blairspeak. The top line of Blake's Laocoön of 1820 reads "Where any view of Money exists, Art cannot be carried on, but War only". As world history demonstrates, the pursuit of money and its power corrupts, setting humans at each other's throats, as opposed to the serious pursuits of genuine culture, creativity and art. Set Blake's vision against that of the would-be profiteering peer and ex-"culture" minister Richard Caborn's ambition, confided in 2006 in a memo to Mark Davies, then MD of Betfair, that "Britain should become a world leader in the field of online gambling", to get real as to just how low dumbing down and selling out have sunk, innit.

Michael Horovitz

New Departures/Poetry Olympics, London

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Apr 2010 | 5:05 pm

Obama meets emergency officials in flooded northeast US (AFP)

AFP - President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit Thursday to the water-logged northeastern United States, where he met disaster officials responding to the region's worst floods in decades.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 4:59 pm

UK sets up Chagos marine reserve

The UK government has created the world's largest marine reserve around the Chagos Islands.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Apr 2010 | 4:58 pm

Ford partners with Microsoft to bring energy management to EVs (Y! Green)

Y! Green - Microsoft has a new partner for its Hohm software:  Ford Motor Co.  The two companies are pairing up to outfit Ford's electric vehicles with Hohm's energy management tools.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 4:34 pm

Doubt shed on fast rise of Andes

Oxygen-isotope ratios used to track ancient elevation skewed by rainfall changes.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/L8k7bptU9ys" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 1 Apr 2010 | 4:29 pm

U.S., Canada crack down on vehicle emissions (Reuters)

Reuters - The United States on Thursday finalized its first greenhouse gas emissions rules on automobiles and significantly boosted fuel efficiency standards for the first time since the 1970s, moves Canada jointly imposed on its industry.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:37 pm

Scientists find aging gene is linked to immunity

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists studying the genetics of aging said on Thursday that experiments on laboratory worms showed that a specific gene is strongly linked to lifespan, immunity and disease resistance.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:32 pm

Comet That Killed Mammoths Could Strike Again

If a new theory is right, pieces of a comet that struck Earth 13,000 years ago might be coming around for another pass.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:29 pm

Science writer's victory hailed by UK libel reformers

British Chiropractic Association considering its options after court setback.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:10 pm

Europe's wild wonders

Europe is home to some amazing natural sights, as shown by these images from Wild Wonders of Europe, a two-year-long project involving more than 60 top wildlife photographers

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

Self-Esteem Drops After Retirement

Self-esteem starts declining around the age of retirement, a new study finds.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 2:57 pm

Video: Tortoises Learn From Each Other

Animal hermits can learn from their peers, researchers say, even though they rarely encounter one another in the wild.

Red-footed tortoises in the wild live a typically lonely tortoise life, without even being cared for by their parents. But in the lab, they can pick up hints to solving a problem by watching a more accomplished tortoise, says cognitive biologist Anna Wilkinson of the University of Vienna. “It’s the first demonstration of social learning in reptiles,” she says.

It’s also the first demonstration that nonsocial animals can watch a neighbor and then complete a task that they couldn’t figure out readily on their own, she says. The tortoises’ feats are “challenging the idea that social learning is an adaptation for social living,” Wilkinson and her colleagues say in a paper going online the week of March 30 in Biology Letters.

In mammals, birds and insects, the power to learn from watching a neighbor has shown up in animals that live in groups, like chimps and honeybees. So scientists routinely link social learning to social living, Wilkinson says. However, she proposes that watching a neighbor may be just another way that any good learner, social or not, picks up on clues for success.

“It might be the case that social learning in social and non-social species is different in interesting ways, and that would be great to know,” says animal behaviorist Bennett G. Galef of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, who was not involved in the study.

Video: Anna Wilkinson

See Also:

• Extinct Galapagos Tortoise Could Rise Again
• Tropical Turtle Fossil Discovered in the High Arctic
• Pink Iguana That Darwin Missed Holds Evolutionary Surprise
• Video: Leaping Lizard’s Tail-Free Mid-Air Wipeout

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 1 Apr 2010 | 2:45 pm

Is the iPad Green?

On April 3, the iPad goes on sale in the United States. Unless you've pre-ordered one, you're mostly out luck for owning one in the immediate future. But eventually you'll get one, and then years from now, when it goes ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 2:09 pm

Twisted Physics: 7 Recent Mind-Blowing Findings

Physics has revealed some spooky sides of our world. Here are seven of the most mind-blowing recent discoveries.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 2:08 pm

Hyundai Luxury Car to Include Free iPad

Hyundai announced that its 2011 Equus sedan will come with a free Apple iPad.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 1:23 pm

Couples Prioritize Husbands' Careers Over Wives'

Couples often prioritize the careers of husbands over those of wives, suggesting gender inequality still exists, researchers find.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 1:01 pm

Why We Choose Chocolate Cake Over an Apple

People have a hard time choosing options with long term benefits over those that provide immediate rewards.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 12:03 pm

Think You’re Good at Driving While on Your Cellphone? You May Be Right

Cellphone users frequently drive themselves to distraction while operating cars, and all too often end up in traffic accidents. But a select few multitask behind the wheel with extraordinary skill, a new study finds.

About one in 40 drivers qualifies as a “supertasker,” able to combine driving and cell phone use without impairing performance of either activity, say psychologists Jason Watson and David Strayer, both of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. These unusual exceptions to the general rule that performance declines when a person does two things at once (SN: 3/13/10, p. 16) may offer insights into the workings of attention and mental control, Watson and Strayer propose in an upcoming Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

Laboratory tests of 200 volunteers operating a driving simulator identified five extraordinary individuals. These people were good drivers: They hit the brakes quickly in response to cars that slowed in front of them and maintained a safe distance from other cars. They also excelled at solving simple math problems and remembering words heard over a hands-free cellphone when not driving. Critically, their performance on these tasks stayed just as high while driving and using cellphones at the same time.

“Supertaskers did a phenomenal job of performing several different tasks at once,” Watson says. “We’d all like to think we could do the same, but the odds are overwhelmingly against it.”

Watson and Strayer studied college students, ages 18 to 43. After learning to operate a driving simulator on a virtual highway, participants followed an intermittently braking pace car driving in the right-hand lane. For each volunteer, the researchers measured time needed to depress the brakes when the pace car slowed and distance from the pace car throughout the trip.

In a separate trial, participants listened through hands-free cellphones as an experimenter read two to five words interspersed with simple math problems that had to be immediately labeled as true or false. Volunteers then tried to recall words in the order that they were presented.

As expected, overall group performance declined markedly when driving and the cellphone task were performed at the same time. Volunteers took an average of 20 percent longer to hit the brakes when needed, and increasingly fell behind the pace car. Word recall fell by 11 percent and math accuracy declined 3 percent.

But the handful of supertaskers maintained their braking times, following distances and math accuracy while multitasking. Their word recall rose 3 percent.

Stanford University sociologist Clifford Nass wonders whether supertaskers in the new study prefer doing many things at once in their daily lives. He and his colleagues have found that young adults who often multitask — say by regularly sending text messages while navigating websites and watching television — perform worse when switching back and forth between two mental tasks than peers who rarely multitask. Frequent multitaskers have difficulty ignoring information irrelevant to a task at hand, Nass argues.

That leads Nass to the somewhat surprising conclusion that supertaskers tend not to juggle multiple duties and don’t need to practice multitasking to be good at it.

Researchers need to explore whether supertaskers jointly simply perform well-learned abilities the same way everyone else does but with far more efficiency, or instead deploy mental resources in distinctive ways, says psychologist Randall Engle of Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

Watson and Strayer plan to do that by comparing various measures of brain activity for people who do and don’t rank as supertaskers.

Image: CraigOppy/flickr

See Also:

• Driving Distracts Cellphone Users
• California Hands-Free Cellphone Law Could Save 300 Lives a Year
• Study Proves Talkers Are Lousy Drivers

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 1 Apr 2010 | 11:31 am

End of Gene Patents Will Help Patients, Force Companies to Change

When you went to sleep last Sunday night, 20 percent of your genome belonged to a researcher or company. One day later, following federal district court judge Robert Sweet’s ruling, it belonged to you.

Some activists cheered the landmark decision on general principle, but for others, it was a business and medical matter. They say the end of gene patents could be a boon for patients, who will benefit from gene-testing companies competing for their business.

“They’ll have to deliver products to the marketplace faster, better and cheaper. There’s all sorts of ways to make money,” said Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, which pitted civil rights activists and patient groups against Myriad Genetics, a Utah provider of tests on its patented breast-cancer-risk genes. “I’m a strong conservative. I believe companies are good and competition is good.”

Myriad and its supporters, including the Biotechnology Industry Organization, had argued that gene patents were necessary. They made commercial profits possible, and potential financial rewards drove research.

Ravicher’s foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and their supporters — including the American Medical Association, American Society of Human Genetics and March of Dimes — said this simply wasn’t true.

Beyond the absurdity of gene patents — imagine patenting gold, the human arm, or gravity — they said that patents had hurt patients, stifled business and stunted research. Myriad’s monopoly prevented women from getting second opinions on their breast-cancer gene tests. More broadly, existing gene patents dissuaded researchers from studying sections of the genome that were already claimed, and high licensing fees discouraged would-be entrepreneurs.

In a public statement, Myriad Genetics said it would appeal the decision.

“My hope is that this ruling stands and companies will need to actually innovate and create new advances based on genetic findings, not dependent on sole access to them,” wrote Linda Avey, CEO of personalized genomics company 23andMe, in a comment on the Genetic Future blog. “Rather than relying on obscure patent language and legal strategies, companies will need to develop products that are competitively positioned.”

One area of competition will be in the interpretation of gene mutations. Gene testers don’t just plug a DNA sequence into a computer and wait for the result. They use an arsenal of interpretive techniques, and must update their approaches with new research.

“There are a lot of algorithms that each of us uses. Some are more right than others. There are differences in how you study mutations, weight them, and interpret the data,” said Wendy Chung, a Columbia University breast cancer researcher and plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Chung said that Myriad’s tests are well-regarded, but they’ve lagged in interpreting rare gene variants that each person has, but because they’re so unique, have not been ascribed a clinical significance.

“On the academic side, there are a lot of people trying to computationally guess what the functions of these variants will be. Myriad has been conservative in saying, if we don’t know what it is, then we won’t make guesses,” said Chung.

Gene-testing companies will also compete to do the best job explaining often-ambiguous genetic results to their customers. Business relationships with insurance companies and health care providers will become even more important. And companies will still be able to patent tools used to interpret genes.

“Companies can compete on quality, speed and taking the burden off hospitals,” said Robert Cook-Deegan, a Duke University gene policy expert. The decision “does threaten some business models but it opens the gate for others.”

Image: Dave Fayram/Flickr

See Also:

• Gene Patents Under Legal Attack
• Who Owns the Fountain of Youth?
• Scientists Apply for First Patent on Synthetic Life Form
• FDA, 23andMe Respond to Gene-Drug Test Article

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 | 1 Apr 2010 | 10:55 am

Bolivia, China team up on communications satellite

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales signed an agreement on Thursday that paves the way for the acquisition of a $300 million Chinese telecommunications satellite, the latest sign of deepening ties between the resource rich Andean country and commodity-hungry China.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 10:48 am

Rare cancer cells captured by imaging device: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A microchip that captures and stores images of rare cancer cells circulating in the blood may provide a way to monitor patients after surgery and could eventually guide treatment, U.S. researchers said in a study published on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:40 am

Dinosaur Tots Were Baby-Faced

A dinosaur skull from a juvenile plant-eating dinosaur suggests the animals' skulls changed drastically as they got older.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:15 am

Is Cyber Bullying Illegal?

You may have heard about the sad news of Phoebe Prince's suicide. Prince was the victim of bullying and apparently decided to end her life after a particularly difficult day. Several of her schoolmates now stand charged of various crimes ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:06 am

Trashing evidence-based drugs policy

Alan Johnson got his way on mephedrone, but good drug policy depends on looking beyond the media-driven demand for action

We have learned a number of things during recent days from the manoeuvrings over the classification of mephedrone. The home secretary, Alan Johnson, has proved that he can browbeat the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) into giving him the answer he was looking for. The uncharacteristic outburst by my old friend Les Iversen, the ACMD's interim chair – describing me as out of touch on the BBC and repeatedly claiming that mephedrone was already illegal – shows just how much pressure he has been under in recent days. There is now an even larger question mark over the capacity for the ACMD to operate independently and free from political interference. This cannot be in the public interest.

The events of recent days have also demonstrated why the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD), which I established in January, is so vital. I and its other members will be avowedly free from the kind of political interference that is now dogging the ACMD.

We have also learned that the niceties of legal process and proper procedure on drug classification are as nothing beside the media-driven political demand that something must be done, and done now.

When the home secretary said on the morning of the ACMD meeting that he was going to ban mephedrone as soon as he received their report, it was clear the decision had already been made. This is a travesty of proper, scientific opinion making.

The dubious legality of the ACMD's guidance and the home secretary's decision may yet be subject to a challenge in the courts. The first mephedrone-related prosecution will surely result in the defence arguing that the ban is not lawful. It is quite possible that an incoming government will have to start all over again.

Yet what is at stake now, beyond the details of mephedrone classification, is the very relationship between science and politics; between the cause of evidence-based policymaking and the imperatives of headline driven politics. The home secretary got his way on mephedrone. The ACMD buckled under pressure. Yet with some honourable exceptions, key figures in all the political parties have acquiesced in the trashing of evidence-based drugs policy. This is a dangerous and worrying development.

One properly scientific response to this is to get back to doing research and evidence gathering. The focus of the ISCD is the science, not the politics, of drugs. In the coming months I and my colleagues will be producing reports on mephedrone, ketamine and cognition enhancers, to name but three. These will be placed in the public domain via our website.

We will give the public the kind of high-quality evidence on drug harms our current crop of politicians apparently do not feel they need before making far reaching decisions around drugs classification.

We will also develop new models for understanding the different factors that might go into quantifying drug harms, through processes such as multicriteria decision-making. Drugs policy should seek to reduce the risk of harm to individual users, of course. Should it also seek to address drug wars in Mexico, or drug-related gangsterism in the UK? Multicriteria decision-making is a powerful and proven technique for balancing these often competing, mutually valid, concerns.

Finally, there is the issue that most properly sits in the borderlands where science and politics meet: the question of the proper regulation of drugs. No serious person thinks that it makes sense for potentially harmful drugs such as mephedrone to be only a mouse click away from a teenager. But is criminalisation the answer?

The debate I sought to lead in recent weeks was never about whether drugs should be legalised or criminalised. It was about what the appropriate regulatory framework should be to ensure that harm is minimised. Some potentially harmful drugs – medicines – are legal but strictly regulated. Others, such as alcohol and tobacco, are legal but regulated through licensing and other laws. Others still, so called recreational drugs, are regulated through the criminal process.

The future of the drugs policy debate is about appropriate regulatory regimes. This is a debate to which the ISCD can contribute. But it is properly one that a range of individuals and organisations, across science and politics, need to engage in.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:02 am

What the iPad Really Will (and Won’t) Do

The Apple iPad is capable of doing a lot of things.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 8:58 am

Science writer wins libel appeal

A science writer wins the right to rely on the defence of fair comment in a libel action in a landmark appeal.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Apr 2010 | 8:04 am

Face-Lifts Should Include Bone Implants, Researchers Say

Cosmetic surgeons are now saying that bone implants may be the new face-lift.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 7:34 am

Rural Ants Supersize When They Go Urban

Rural ants can live in supercolonies with more than 6 million worker ants and 50,000 queent ants.
Source: Livescience.com | 1 Apr 2010 | 7:13 am

Unusual Killer Eruptions Offer No Warning

Some volcanoes can blast sideways and kill without the usual seismic warning signals.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 5:41 am

How to Make a Bulletproof T-shirt

This new type of armor could give a whole new meaning to the term "tank top."
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 5:00 am

Mars Rover Not Responding

Despite NASA's several attempts to make a connection to the rover, Spirit remains frozen in silence.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 4:06 am

NZ calls for whaling compromise

Allowing whaling nations to kill a limited number of the animals is the only way to control hunting, New Zealand says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:59 am

Simon Singh wins libel court battle

Science writer accused of libel when he doubted chiropractors' claims of success in treatment of some childhood conditions

The science writer Simon Singh has won his court of appeal battle for the right to rely on the defence of fair comment in a libel action.

Singh was accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) over an opinion piece he wrote in the Guardian in April 2008.

He suggested there was a lack of evidence for the claims some chiropractors make on treating certain childhood conditions including colic and asthma.

The BCA alleged that Singh had in effect accused its leaders of knowingly supporting bogus treatments.

In May last year, high court judge Mr Justice Eady, in a preliminary ruling in the dispute, held that Singh's comments were factual assertions rather than expressions of opinion – which meant he could not use the defence of fair comment.

Today, the lord chief justice, Lord Judge, master of the rolls Lord Neuberger and Lord Justice Sedley allowed Singh's appeal, ruling that the high court judge had "erred in his approach".

Singh described the ruling as "brilliant" but added: "It is extraordinary this action has cost £200,000 to establish the meaning of a few words."

The Singh case has become a cause celebre for science journalism and prompted calls for reforms to the defamation law to keep it out of scientific disputes.

After the ruling, Tracey Brown, spokeswoman for the Coalition for Libel Reform, said: "We are delighted with the judges' ruling but it does not go far enough.

"There is a cardiologist currently being sued by a device manufacturer, we have researchers who have been unable to publish their critique of lie detector technology because of threats of libel action.

"A major science journal is also currently being sued and our academics are being told to pull down blogs.

"We urgently need a public interest defence so that we can all be sure of our rights as publishers, writers, authors and academics."

The Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris said: "This sensible judgment is no substitute for fundamental law reform. It is no kind of justice for a scientist to spend £200,000 and two years of his life just to get halfway through a case. The political parties must now all commit to reform of the law to free scientific speech and responsible journalism from the threat of penury."

Handing down the unanimous judgment of the court, Lord Judge said Singh's defence had set out the undisputed fact that the BCA promoted chiropractic as a treatment for infants and young children suffering from colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying.

Singh also set out, ailment by ailment and study by study, his reasons for considering that none of the available epidemiological evidence reliably supported the BCA claims.

The BCA contested his view – "again ailment by ailment and study by study" – and asserted that there was some dependable evidence for its claims.

Until Mr Justice Eady blocked it in the high court, Singh's primary defence to libel was that his were expressions of opinion and fair comment.

Lord Judge ruled that the high court judge, "notwithstanding his very great experience", had erred by treating an issue of opinion "as an issue of verifiable fact".

Singh's words, "however one represents or paraphrases their meaning, are, in our judgment, expressions of opinion".

He said: "The opinion may be mistaken, but to allow the party which has been denounced on the basis of it to compel its author to prove in court what he has asserted by way of argument is to invite the court to become an Orwellian ministry of truth."

Ruling that Mr Justice Eady had erred in his approach, Lord Judge said the court adopted what Judge Easterbrook, now chief judge of the US seventh circuit court of appeals, had said in a 1994 libel action over a scientific controversy.

Easterbrook had declared that those claiming they had been libelled "cannot, by simply filing suit and crying 'character assassination!', silence those who hold divergent views, no matter how adverse those views may be to plaintiffs' interests.

"Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation. More papers, more discussion, better data, and more satisfactory models – not larger awards of damages – mark the path towards superior understanding of the world around us."

Lord Judge said libel was an area of law sometimes concerned with "conflicting issues of great sensitivity involving both the protection of good reputation and the maintenance of the principles of free expression".

He said it was "somewhat alarming" to read in the standard textbook, The Law of Libel and Slander, that the defence of fair comment was still "dogged by misleading terminology".

Calling for changes, Lord Judge said: "We question why this should be so. The law of defamation surely requires that language should not be used which obscures the true import of a defence to an action for damages."

Other countries, including New Zealand, Australia and the Republic of Ireland, now described the defence of fair comment as "honest opinion".

Lord Judge said describing the defence "for what it is would lend greater emphasis to its importance as an essential ingredient of the right to free expression".

"'Honest opinion' better reflects the realities. This appeal must be allowed."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:59 am

Ordnance Survey offers free data

Mapping agency Ordnance Survey frees up more data for re-use by the public as part of a government initiative.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:52 am

Ice wonder

Will Jupiter's frozen moon Europa give up its secrets?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Apr 2010 | 3:27 am

Why Do People Bully?

In light of the bullying and subsequent suicide of a 15-year-old girl in Massachusetts, experts explain why kids harass each other.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 1 Apr 2010 | 2:56 am

Ethiopia's mysterious monkey with a passion for bamboo

Ethiopia's mysterious Bale monkey eats almost nothing but bamboo leaves, according to the first study of the primate.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 1 Apr 2010 | 2:47 am