New form of endoscopic scanning improves detection of precancerous condition, Barrett's esophagus

A new endoscopic scanning technique has proven successful in the early detection of dysplasia in Barrett's esophagus and could help clinicians diagnose esophageal cancer at an earlier stage, when the condition is still treatable.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

Good prospects for extraterrestrial life? Rocky planets 'are commonplace' in our galaxy

Astronomers have discovered compelling evidence that rocky planets are commonplace in our Galaxy. They surveyed white dwarfs, the compact remnants of stars that were once like our Sun, and found that many show signs of contamination by heavier elements and possibly even water, improving the prospects for extraterrestrial life.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

Dance therapy improves seniors' gait, balance, researcher finds

For seniors, dancing isn't just for fun; it also can be therapeutic. Two recent studies found that participation in dance-based therapy can improve balance and gait in older adults. Improved functionality among seniors can decrease their risk of falling and reduce costly injuries.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

Urged on by urchins: How sea lilies got their get-up-and-go

Nature abounds with examples of evolutionary arms races. Certain marine snails, for example, evolved thick shells and spines to avoid be eaten, but crabs and fish foiled the snails by developing shell-crushing claws and jaws. Now, a study finds that sea urchins have been preying on marine animals known as crinoids for more than 200 million years and suggests that such interactions drove one type of crinoid -- the sea lily -- to develop the ability to escape by creeping along the ocean floor.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

Helicopter helps test radar for 2012 Mars landing

This spring, engineers are testing a radar system that will serve during the next landing on Mars.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

Women who eat foods with high glycemic index may be at greater risk for heart disease

Consuming carbohydrates with high glycemic index -- an indicator of how quickly a food affects blood glucose levels -- appears to be associated with the risk of coronary heart disease in women but not men, according to a new report.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

'Smart' insulin molecule: Zinc-stapled insulin reduces insulin-related cancer risk

Researchers have invented a "smart" insulin protein molecule that binds considerably less to cancer receptors and self-assembles under the skin. To provide a slow-release form of insulin, the analog self-assembles under the skin by means of "stapling" itself via bridging zinc ions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Gene may play key role in atherosclerosis and other diseases

A new study suggests that a gene called HuR plays a critical role in inducing and mediating an inflammatory response in cells experiencing mechanical and chemical stresses. The finding may lead to new treatments for diseases associated with inflammation, such as atherosclerosis.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Lunar polar craters may be electrified, NASA calculations show

As the solar wind flows over natural obstructions on the moon, it may charge polar lunar craters to hundreds of volts, according to new calculations by NASA's Lunar Science Institute team.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Structure of inner-ear protein is key to both hearing and inherited deafness

Using a combination of crystallization and physics-based simulations, researchers defined the structure of a protein, cadherin-23, that helps mediate our perception of sound. Their findings show the protein to be a rigid structure whose strength results from calcium ions binding within it. However, mutations that interfere with calcium-ion binding undermine the protein's firm structure and make it less resilient. This provides a possible explanation for certain forms of inherited deafness.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Meteor Fragment From Wisconsin Fireball Discovered by Farmer (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A small chunk of rock believed to be a fragment from a meteor that burst into a stunning fireball over Wisconsin Wednesday night was discovered by a farmer after it fell on the roof of his shed.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 3:30 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A cold front will continue to provide the country's most active weather on Saturday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Apr 2010 | 2:57 am

Team monitors volcanic ash plume

A Gloucestershire-based atmospheric research team monitors the volcanic ash cloud which has halted UK flights for a second day.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Apr 2010 | 2:23 am

Wis. man finds rock believed to be meteor fragment (AP)

AP - Scientists say an apparent fragment from a meteor that lit up Midwestern skies this week has been recovered in southwestern Wisconsin.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 10:37 pm

'Off-the-Charts' Pollen Counts Bring Misery to Millions (HealthDay)

HealthDay - FRIDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) -- A cold winter followed by a sudden and sustained warming trend, not to mention the botanical blossoming that global warming has brought, has boosted pollen counts to near-record highs across the United States this spring, experts say.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 9:50 pm

Volcanic ash cloud delays Cannon's Moscow visit (AFP)

AFP - Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon has delayed a visit to Russia, Croatia and Finland because of the cloud of volcanic ash that has disrupted air travel in Europe, his office said Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 6:40 pm

Packing With Shrooms, Not Styrofoam

Recycled cardboard is a decent replacement for styrofoam packaging, but what about heavy items that need stronger protection? A company called Ecovative Design is banking on mushroom roots. "We should make products that fit into nature's recycling system," Ecovative Design ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 6:03 pm

NASA's New Asteroid Mission Could Save the Planet (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - President Barack Obama set a lofty next goal this week for Americans in space: Visiting an asteroid by 2025. But reaching a space rock in a mere 15 years is a daunting mission, and one that might also carry the ultimate safety of the planet on its shoulders.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 5:45 pm

Mirror Neurons Allow Us to Understand Each Other

Scientists have recorded the "mirror neutron" in effect for the first time, showing how our minds make us mimic others.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 4:54 pm

Amazon dam delay overturned by Brazil judge (AP)

AP - A judge on Friday overturned a decision that could have delayed construction of a huge Amazon dam opposed by environmentalists, Indians and the director of "Avatar."

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 4:36 pm

Party drug could ease trauma long term

Pilot studies demonstrate effectiveness of MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/s6qpzXCS21g" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 16 Apr 2010 | 4:34 pm

11 Wild Volcano Facts

There are an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes worldwide – some of which have been continuously erupting for years. Almost a third of active volcanoes are located by the Pacific Rim's Ring of Fire, a volcano hot spot.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 4:31 pm

Why It’s So Hard to Tell Which Tooth Has the Ache

When it comes to a toothache, the brain doesn’t discriminate. A new imaging study shows that to the brain, a painful upper tooth feels a lot like a painful lower tooth. The results, which will be published in the journal Pain, help explain why patients are notoriously bad at pinpointing a toothache.

For the most part, humans are exquisitely tuned to pain. The brain can immediately distinguish between a splinter in the index finger and a paper cut on the thumb, even though the digits are next-door neighbors. But in the mouth this can be more difficult, depending where and how intense the ache is.

“We don’t know much about tooth pain,” comments dentist and neuroscientist Alexandre DaSilva of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who was not part of the new research. The new study is one of the first to address the puzzle of toothache localization, he says.

In the study, researchers led by Clemens Forster of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany analyzed brain activity in healthy — and brave — volunteers as they experienced tooth pain. The researchers delivered short electrical pulses to either the upper left canine tooth (the pointy one) or the lower left canine tooth in the subjects. These bursts of electrical stimulation produced a painful sensation similar to that felt when biting into an ice cube, Forster says, and were tuned such that the subject always rated the pain to be about 60 percent, with 100 percent being the worst pain imaginable.

To see how the brain responds to pain emanating from different teeth, the researchers used fMRI to monitor changes in activity when the upper tooth or the lower tooth was zapped. “At the beginning, we expected a good difference, but that was not the case,” Forster says.

Many brain regions responded to top and bottom tooth pain — carried by signals from two distinct branches of a fiber called the trigeminal nerve — in the same way. The V2 branch carries pain signals from the upper jaw, and the V3 branch carries pain signals from the lower jaw.

In particular, the researchers found that regions in the cerebral cortex, including the somatosensory cortex, the insular cortex and the cingulate cortex, all behaved similarly for both toothaches. These brain regions are known to play important roles in the pain projection system, yet none showed major differences between the two toothaches. “The activation was more or less the same,” Forster says, although he adds that their experiments might have missed subtle differences that could account for why some tooth pain can be localized.

Because the same regions were active in both toothaches, the brain — and the person — couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from. “Dentists should be aware that patients aren’t always able to locate the pain,” Forster says. “There are physiological and anatomical reasons for that.”

DaSilva agrees that the brain’s inability to tell top-tooth pain from bottom-tooth pain “pairs really well with what we see in the clinic.”

Understanding the pathway from tooth to brain may help researchers devise better treatments for acute tooth pain, such as cavities or infections, and more-chronic conditions, DaSilva says. One such condition is phantom pain that persists in the mouth after a tooth has been removed.

Image: assbach/flickr

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Apr 2010 | 4:27 pm

Obama will focus on energy bill after bank reform (Reuters)

Reuters - President Barack Obama said on Friday his administration would shift its focus to climate and energy legislation after finishing financial regulatory reform, which he said would take a few more weeks.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 4:05 pm

11 Wild Volcano Facts (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - At least 1,500 active volcanoes dot the globe, and some of them have been continuously erupting for years. They form when molten rock called magma up and breaks through a weak area of Earth's surface. The chambers that contain magma can quietly lurk underground for hundreds of years, and then erupt with surprising fury. Here are some amazing facts about volcanoes.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 3:45 pm

Python found in Neb. hotel's potty was lost pet (AP)

AP - The Nebraska Humane Society has tracked down the owner of a python found in a toilet of a La Vista hotel room. They said the owner panicked after losing the pet snake while staying at the Hampton Inn in late March and left without alerting management. The python was found Thursday morning by another guest.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 3:45 pm

Will the Iceland Volcano Change the Climate?

While volcanoes can cause changes to Earth's climate, recent eruption in Iceland too small to have an impact.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 3:32 pm

Obama Lays Out New Vision for Asteroid, Mars Trips

Speaking at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center April 15, President Obama outlined a new plan for the space agency that would forgo sending astronauts back to the moon, but would send humans to an asteroid in 2025 and into orbit around Mars a decade later.

The strategy would rely on private aerospace companies to ferry crew and supplies into space. It would also cancel a program known as Constellation, which is aimed at developing a heavy-lift rocket and vehicles to carry astronauts back to the moon, in favor of pursuing a new rocket that would take humans beyond well beyond that destination.

“I am very happy about the introduction of new innovative commercial approaches in human space flight, because we’ve been trapped into a very bad cul-de-sac for 40 years,” says planetary scientist and former NASA associate administrator for science Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Stern predicts that Congress is likely to approve Obama’s plan.

In Obama’s blueprint, NASA would get an additional $6 billion over the next five years to begin developing new space technologies, refocusing its efforts away from designing space transportation vehicles. The plan would, however, keep plans to develop the Orion crew vehicle, which would be the only U.S. space transport vehicle once the shuttle is retired later this year. And in 2015, the agency would evaluate plans for a rocket that would carry astronauts into deep space.

Early next decade, Obama said, “a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit,” culminating in the first human journey to an asteroid in 2025.

Journeys to Mars orbit in the mid-2030s would be followed by a landing on Mars, “and I expect to be around to see it,” the president told the cheering crowd.

Obama said he recognized that some experts have called it unwise to rely on the private sector for ferrying crews and supplies into space, but “by buying the services of space transportation rather than the vehicles themselves, we can continue to ensure rigorous safety standards are met but will also accelerate the pace for innovations as companies, from young start-ups to established leaders, compete, design, build and launch new ways of carrying people and materials into space.”

Norm Augustine, who chaired a committee that last year criticized the Constellation program and NASA funding, spoke after Obama. The former chairman and chief executive officer of the Lockheed Martin Corp. said the agency “was trapped in low Earth orbit” hauling cargo instead of trying to reach a loftier destination in space. He added that if the agency didn’t rely on U.S. companies to take astronauts into space, it would have no alternative but to rely on Russians.

Obama criticized the Bush administration’s program to send astronauts back to the moon and then eventually on to Mars as a blueprint that lacked both funding and specific goals. “There are also those who have criticized our decision to end parts of Constellation as one that will hinder space exploration beyond low Earth orbit,” Obama said. “But by investing in groundbreaking research and innovative companies, we have the potential to rapidly transform our capabilities.”

Space-policy analyst Howard McCurdy of American University in Washington, D.C., says he doesn’t see much difference in adherence to timetables and goals between Bush’s plan and that of Obama’s. But he says he’s intrigued by Obama’s willingness to “leapfrog” over smaller goals. According to McCurdy’s interpretation, Obama is telling the public “if we go the moon and concentrate on completing project Constellation, it’s going to be a dead end, but if we set our sights a little further out and skip those intermediate steps, we can have real accomplishments.”

It’s a high-risk proposition, says McCurdy, “but as long as NASA has a monopoly on space transportation, it’s going to be like the airline industry in the 1960s — high quality and very expensive.

“The real key in all of this is the ability of the private sector to do what NASA has been unable to do for about the last 30 years, and that is cut the cost to low Earth orbit. As long as NASA was spending $4 billion to $5 billion a year flying the space shuttle, [the agency] was going nowhere,” McCurdy says.

Image: NASA

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Apr 2010 | 2:45 pm

Inspired by Einstein: The Triplets of Leoville

The 2003 film festival favorite movie "The Triplets of Belleville" has more in common with astrophysics you think. The filmmaker was inspired by Einstein.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 2:26 pm

Photos Surface of the Day Einstein Died

Ralph Morse, an ambitious photojournalist for Life magazine, covered a funeral in New Jersey on April 18, 1955. Now, 55 years later, Life.com is finally publishing the pictures he took that day during the funeral and cremation of Albert Einstein.

Einstein died of heart failure at age 76 earlier that morning at Princeton Hospital. The hospital’s pathologist removed his brain for preservation and study, in the hopes that scientists could figure out why he was so smart.

Post-autopsy, the body was moved briefly to a funeral home, then to a crematorium in Trenton, New Jersey, for a short service and cremation. (His ashes were scattered later on the grounds of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.)

Morse followed the mourners as they returned to Einstein’s house at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton. He was the only photographer on the scene during these moving moments.

But when he returned to the Life offices, Morse learned that the magazine wasn’t going to publish the pictures. At the request of Einstein’s son, Hans Albert Einstein, Life respected the family’s privacy while they mourned. Morse and the magazine both forgot about the pictures until recently.

Photo: Einstein’s body is moved from the hospital to a funeral home in Princeton.
Ralph Morse/TIME & LIFE Pictures

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 16 Apr 2010 | 2:16 pm

Iceland Volcano's Fiery Sunsets

A huge plume of ash and steam from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano disrupted air travel and created fantastic sunsets.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 1:32 pm

Icelandic Volcano Creates Beautiful Sunsets

The ash plume spewing from Iceland's volcano is resulting in vivid sunsets for those in Europe.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 1:06 pm

Obama outlines vision for space

US President rallies support at NASA despite unpopular cuts to the Constellation rocket programme.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 16 Apr 2010 | 1:04 pm

Cat Brain Inspires Computers of the Future

Electronic devices that mimic how brain cells in a cat work could allow computers to one day learn and recognize information more like humans do.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 12:47 pm

Quacks fly in all directions

As panic and confusion spread among the practitioners of alternative medicine, Martin Robbins calls for the industry's products and practices to be brought under mainstream medical regulations

A plethora of recent news stories have highlighted a growing problem with the regulation of alternative medicine in Britain. Together they reveal an industry that is increasingly out of control in the absence of any coherent government policy. The consequences are bad for the public, and bad for alternative medicine practitioners themselves.

The British Homeopathic Association was criticised for giving misleading evidence to parliament, homeopathy was savaged by a select committee report and the 10:23 campaign proved beyond doubt that "there's nothing in it" by staging mass overdoses.

Police began an investigation into alleged fraud at a charity founded by Prince Charles, the Foundation for Integrated Health.

And Simon Singh yesterday finally defeated the libel action brought by the British Chiropractic Association.

In many cases, the wounds are self-inflicted. Many questioned the BCA's wisdom in pursuing Singh through the courts, but perhaps a more pertinent question for chiropractors is what on earth a professional body was doing spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of members' fees protecting its own interests?

The consequences haven't stopped there. A quirk of the General Chiropractic Council's rules means that chiropractors who make claims that are incompatible with previous Advertising Standards Authority rulings must be investigated by the regulator. It's a curiously ad hoc approach to regulation, and it has been exploited by sceptics to the extent that one in four chiropractors are now being investigated by the council for allegedly making misleading claims to the public

Similar stories of regulatory strife can be found across the industry, with an alphabet soup of regulators and professional bodies – often in direct competition with each other – attempting to enforce some sort of order. The results range from apathy to the sort of pitched battles raging in homeopathy. Regulators themselves are running amok, with the Society of Homeopaths and Homeopathy Action Trust continuing to fund the homeopathic treatment of Aids in Africa.

Conventional medical regulators aren't free of this confusion either. I recently asked the General Medical Council about homeopathy. They told me that doctors "must provide effective treatments based on the best available evidence" (they declined to comment on the evidence for homeopathy), and yet a complaint by Merseyside Skeptics about a GP advocating homeopathy on the news was met with the reply that they "do not require doctors to use only evidence-based treatments".

Stepping into the middle of all this mess is a new government-backed regulatory organisation, the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC), or "OfQuack" as it was inevitably dubbed by critics, set up by Prince Charles' Foundation for Integrated Health with an additional grant from the Department of Health.

The Department of Health insists that the charity and council are now completely separate organisations. But how a charity that lobbies on behalf of the alternative medicine industry came to be funded by the government to set up a regulator for the very same industry is unclear, because meetings between Prince Charles and the Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, are among the most closely guarded secrets in government. They're probably filed in a basement somewhere between UFO sightings and the real reason for the big cloud of volcanic ash sitting over the country.

The government's response to a Freedom of Information request I submitted read like something out of Yes Minister:

"The Department neither confirms nor denies that it holds information falling within the description specified in your request ... This should not be taken as an indication that the information you requested is or is not held by the Department ... To be clear, the Department is not neither confirming nor denying whether the Secretary of State met with The Prince of Wales ... The Department is neither confirming nor denying whether it holds any information within the specific terms of your request."

The CNHC launched with a target of registering 10,000 practitioners across a variety of disciplines. Almost immediately it became apparent that it would not attract enough members, and more than a year later a little over 2,000 practitioners have signed up, 8,000 short of the number required for the council to be self-financing, as revealed in a recent public meeting.

Part of the reason for this shortfall has been explained as "inaccurate business information" due to a lack of research into the industry – leading to the overestimate of its scale – but a bigger problem is the amount of hostility the council faces from the alternative medicine community. Suggestions from Andy Burnham that herbal medicine practitioners be brought under the CNHC umbrella have not been received well, while homeopathy groups have pretty much rejected the idea outright.

With a new government set to assume power and all parties likely to take a hard look at budgets and quangos, the future of the CNHC is far from certain. And even it it were, the fact remains that the council is a voluntary register, and one that is not required to scrutinise the medical claims made by its members.

It is thus about as powerful as, well, most of the medicine it regulates.

Why is there a need for an alternative medicine regulator in the first place? This question has never been answered satisfactorily. Either a product is a medicine, in which case it should be allowed to make health claims and be regulated as a medicine by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), or it is not, in which case it shouldn't be allowed to make health claims and should be regulated in the same way as, say, a packet of Tic-Tacs.

Allowing this bizarre pseudo-regulation to continue risks legitimising a whole range of bogus medical practices.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Apr 2010 | 11:06 am

Economists Study How to Improve China's Food Safety

Chinese consumer demand study that analyzes consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for select food safety attributes in pork.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 11:00 am

To boldly go to a commercial space age

The space exploration paradigm has moved on since the days of Apollo. To make progress, Nasa must embrace private industry

It's not surprising that people are all bent out of shape over Obama's plans for Nasa and its human space flight programme. Axing Constellation means job losses and the abandonment of long pursued programmes of science and engineering; for some people it is the end of their exploration dreams. But among the disgruntled is Neil Armstrong who for once has decided to break cover and make himself heard. In his view Obama's plans risk ceding the United States's pre-eminence in space exploration to emerging superpowers and display a fatal lack of vision.

But the space exploration paradigm has moved on since the days of Apollo. Nasa's budget, as a fraction of the country's GDP, is an order of magnitude less than it was around the time of those missions. Gone are the days when things could move so quickly or command such resource. From Kennedy's utterance of the words "before this decade is out" to Armstrong's historic small step, took eight years. No Nasa programme of recent times has proved anything like as agile or successful.

Armstrong's message is that if you have a vision you've got to stick with it, believe in it and resource it properly. True; but it's the resource that is the forcing issue here. In embracing the commercial sector Nasa looks to solve the problem of sustainability, hoping that private contractors can drive down the cost of access to space. If it works this will be a game changer, leaving private industry to do the donkey work of hauling people and payload into low Earth orbit while Nasa gets on with the business of developing new, advanced exploration technologies.

If the US wishes to continue its human space exploration endeavours in this century it must find a new, more sustainable strategy and commercial providers hold the key to this. The question is not "if" but "when" they should start to rely upon private industry to do some of the things that their national space agency used to. Getting the timing wrong would decimate Nasa's army of aerospace engineers, leave their astronauts without a ride and irreversibly damage their space exploration capabilities.

The direction in which Obama is taking Nasa is new, bold and necessary in the long run. The plans lack nothing in the way of vision but risk a great deal in their potential pre-maturity. It is this that Armstrong fears and with good reason. But if Obama can negotiate this risk, and find a rational way to smooth the transition from old to new, then what we will witness is not the end of an era but the birth of a new space age.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Apr 2010 | 11:00 am

Lucky 13: Fewer Space Station Crewmembers from Now On

There are 13 crew aboard the space station, but this is the last time so many astronauts will call the orbiting outpost "home".
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 10:17 am

Top 10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders

The history of psychiatry is littered with impassioned fights over controversial diagnoses.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 10:16 am

Iceland Volcano Ash Threatens Animal Health

An Iceland volcano eruption that snarled air traffic and darkened much Northern Europe's skies this week also poses threats to animal health, according to the British Veterinary Association, which has issued guidelines to pet owners. Note the guy standing right ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 9:46 am

Iceland Volcano Plume Captured in Satellite Image

Satellite image shows Iceland volcano plume as it travels eastward.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 9:43 am

Clouded skies

How long will the volcanic ash clog Europe's airspace?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Apr 2010 | 9:32 am

The science of volcanic eruptions

It took a month to fully come to the boil. Scientists explain how Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano finally blew its top

Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano is in the second phase of an eruption that began last month. Like all volcanos, the eruption started when boiling hot subterranean liquid rock, known as magma, found a weak spot in the Earth's crust and burst through. Scientists spent weeks analysing the gases and magma that emerged, which is then renamed as lava.

Mike Burton, senior volcanologist with the Italian National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, said: "Thanks to its location between the glaciers, it produced a largely ash-free eruption, with abundant lava flows. I conducted measurements of the gas emissions from the eruption in collaboration with Icelandic scientists."

That phase of the eruption died down last week, but Eyjafjallajokull was not finished. A second, more powerful, eruption occurred when magma burst through at another point. Unlike the first eruption, this rupture in the Earth's crust was close to the volcano's glacier-covered summit. Fire met ice and fire won. Massive amounts of ice melted and flash floods followed.

Once the eruption melted away its icy lid, some 150 metres (492ft) thick, the volcano began to belch ash into the atmosphere.

"With the ice cover removed, magma is erupting into the atmosphere," Burton said. "The abundant water that surrounds the eruptive site is interacting explosively with the magma to produce the abundant ash."

As magma rises quickly from the Earth's bowels during a violent eruption, it experiences a rapid pressure drop. Gas dissolved in the magma starts to emerge and forms bubbles, just as it does in champagne when a cork is released.

The bubbles, fuelled in this case by millions of gallons of ice-cold water, makes the magma froth violently. And when the boiling fragments of liquid magma hit cold air and water they freeze into individual dust particles, driven upwards towards the high atmosphere by the power and heat of the eruption.

Dr Colin Macpherson, a volcano specialist at Durham University, said: "Eyjafjallajokull is one of many volcanos that pepper the boundary between the tectonic plates that move North America and Europe apart from one another at 2cm per year. Most of these volcanos lie beneath sea level but in Iceland the volcanos have built land."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 16 Apr 2010 | 9:10 am

Olympic alert

Russian scientist sounds alarm over Sochi Olympics
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Apr 2010 | 8:59 am

Toxic dust families agree pay-out

Families with children who suffered birth defects from toxic dust at a former steelworks reach an out-of-court deal.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Apr 2010 | 8:34 am

Cats and Dogs Are Household Hazards

Cats and dogs can be real hazards for owners who trip over their furry pets, finds a new report of pet-related fall injuries.
Source: Livescience.com | 16 Apr 2010 | 7:49 am

Why Volcanic Ash Threatens Air Travel

As of Thursday, most of Europe's major hubs were closed. Here are questions and answers as to why it happened.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 7:39 am

Dolphin Births Up Since Hurricane Katrina

A drop in boat traffic and fishing may have contributed to a boost in dolphin births in the Mississippi Sound.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 7:22 am

Icelandic volcano still spewing huge ash plume

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - An Icelandic volcano is still spewing ash into the air in a massive plume that has disrupted air traffic across Europe and shows little sign of letting up, officials said on Friday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 6:51 am

New Tech Sees Dead People

Hyperspectral imaging is used to detect changes in light from plants and soil caused by a decomposing body.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 6:47 am

Welsh badger cull order 'lawful'

A judge rejects a legal challenge by an animal charity to a decision to cull badgers in part of south west Wales.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Apr 2010 | 6:32 am

Obama pushes NASA revamp, vision of Mars flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought to blunt criticism of his new space policy on Thursday by telling NASA workers his plans would save some jobs and steer a course toward a manned mission to Mars.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 16 Apr 2010 | 6:28 am

Volcanic history

The eruption that changed Iceland forever
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 16 Apr 2010 | 5:18 am

Body Image Concerns Hardwired Into Women's Brains

Even women who are confident about their bodies have an internalized desire to be a certain size and shape.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Apr 2010 | 5:00 am