Seeing a bionic eye on medicine's horizon

Scientists have foundational research that may give sight to blind eyes, merging retinal nerves with electrodes to stimulate cell growth. Successful so far in animal models, this research may one day lay the groundwork for retinal implants in people.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Alternative turfgrasses show potential for use on golf course fairways

Burgeoning restrictions on water use, fertilization, and pesticide application are becoming important considerations in golf course design and management. Other factors, including increasing energy costs, human health concerns, and environmental awareness are also prompting turfgrass managers to consider the use of alternative turfgrasses as a lower input, sustainable maintenance practice. Researchers identified four alternative turfgrass species -- two bentgrasses and two fescues -- as promising for use as low-input fairways.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Vitamin K may protect against developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, say Mayo Clinic researchers

In the first study of vitamin K and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma risk, researchers have found that people who have higher intakes of vitamin K from their diet have a lower risk of developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system and is the most common hematologic malignancy in the United States.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Chicken antibodies may help prevent H5N1 pandemic

Scientists have discovered for the first time that antibodies in common eggs laid by hens vaccinated against the H5N1 virus can potentially prevent a possible H5N1 pandemic, raising the possibility that the same principle could be applied to the current H1N1 influenza pandemic.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Being naughty or nice may boost willpower, physical endurance

Moral actions may increase our capacity for willpower and physical endurance. Study participants who did good deeds -- or even just imagined themselves helping others -- were better able to perform a subsequent task of physical endurance.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Laser adds extra dimension to lab-on-chip

A European research project has shown how to build optical sensors directly into the structure of labs-on-chips. The breakthrough paves the way for on-the-spot medical diagnostics.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Carbon nanotubes boost cancer-fighting cells

Engineers have found that the defects in carbon nanotubes cause T cell antigens to cluster in the blood and stimulate the body's natural immune response. Their findings could improve current adoptive immunotherapy, a treatment used to boost the body's ability to fight cancer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Body mass index gain throughout adulthood may increase risk of postmenopausal breast cancer

Reported mid-life increase in body mass index (BMI) may lead to substantially higher risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, according to results of a prospective cohort study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Global temperatures push March 2010 to hottest March on record

The world's combined global land and ocean surface temperature made last month the warmest March on record. Taken separately, average ocean temperatures were the warmest for any March and the global land surface was the fourth warmest for any March on record. Additionally, the planet has seen the fourth warmest January -- March period on record.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Promoting recovery from effects of severe allergic reaction

One of the life-threatening consequences of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction that affects the function of multiple organ systems, is the widening of blood vessels that leads to a dramatic drop in blood pressure. New research in mice, has determined that drugs that trigger the protein S1PR2 might counteract the widening of blood vessels associated with anaphylaxis, thereby promoting recovery.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Evacuated workers sought after oil rig explosion (AP)

AP - Authorities were searching for missing workers early Wednesday who evacuated after an explosion at an oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 4:07 am

Fossil of two-metre prehistoric 'sea scorpion' found in Scotland

A cast is to be made of tracks left by a two-metre long prehistoric "sea scorpion" in north east Fife.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 21 Apr 2010 | 4:06 am

'Toxic stew' of chemicals causing male fish to carry eggs in testes

Intersex fish, found across the US, result from a mix of drugs that mimic natural hormones, say scientists

More than 80% of the male bass fish in Washington's major river are now exhibiting female traits such as egg production because of a "toxic stew" of pollutants, scientists and campaigners reported yesterday.

Intersex fish probably result from drugs, such as the contraceptive pill, and other chemicals being flushed into the water and have been found right across the US.

The Potomac Conservancy, which focuses on Washington DC's river, called for new research to determine what was causing male smallmouth bass to carry immature eggs in their testes. "We have not been able to identify one particular chemical or one particular source," said Vicki Blazer, a fish biologist with the US geological survey. "We are still trying to get a handle on what chemicals are important."

But she said early evidence pointed to a mix of chemicals – commonly used at home as well as those used in large-scale farming operations – causing the deformities. The suspect chemicals mimic natural hormones and disrupt the endocrine system, with young fish being particularly susceptible.

The chemicals could include birth control pills and other drugs, toiletries especially those with fragrances, products such as tissues treated with antibacterial agents, or goods treated with flame retardants that find their way into waste water. However, Blazer also pointed to runoff from fertilisers and pesticides from agricultural areas.

About 5 million people live in the greater Washington area, and 90% of them get their drinking water from the Potomac.

There is evidence that the anomaly is not confined to the Potomac, one of the largest rivers on America's Atlantic coast.

A report last year by the US geological survey found intersex fish in a third of 111 sites tested around the country. Of the 16 fish species studied, the condition was most common in smallmouth and largemouth bass and among males, although researchers also discovered the occasional female fish with male characteristics. The researchers studied sites along some of America's greatest rivers from the Mississippi to the Rio Grande.

"We need to get these toxins out of our river water," said Hedrick Belin, the president of the Potomac Conservancy. The campaign group called for $3m (£1.9m) in research over three years on endocrine disrupters on their effects on fish. It also called on the authorities to involve pharmaceutical companies in the safe disposal of drugs, and to invest in technology that can filter out endocrine disrupting compounds.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 21 Apr 2010 | 4:05 am

Japanese spacecraft to land in Australian outback (AFP)

AFP - An Japanese spacecraft which has journeyed to an asteroid is expected to return to Earth at a remote site in the Australian outback in June, the government said on Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 4:02 am

Light shed on bee-tricking orchid

The secrets of orchids that trick male insects into pollinating them by mimicking females are revealed by scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 21 Apr 2010 | 3:16 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - The West Coast was forecast to see another wet day Wednesday as a strong low pressure system and associated cold front moved over the region.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 2:57 am

Madwomen in the Attic | Radio review

What was really wrong with all those unstable women in classic novels?

Madwomen in the Attic (Radio 4) was a spirited, none too earnest look at unstable female characters in classic novels. "Back-diagnosing psychiatric illness from the pages of novels – where's the rigour?" asked presenter Vivienne Parry, adding: "But it's so much fun, let's do it anyway."

Starting with the most famous of the lot, the imprisoned Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips said he feels everyone has her kind of attic in their own head – "at the top of the building, a sealed-off space you have to make an effort to get to". Dinesh Bhugra, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, gamely had a go at diagnosis. Most probably, Bertha, uprooted from Jamaica, was an early example of psychosis related to migration, he noted. If he were treating her, he'd try anti-psychotic medication, psychotherapy and occupational therapy: "and then she might not play with matchsticks".

Anne Catherick in The Woman in White and Emma in Madame Bovary also got restrospective assessments – "most probably a learning difficulty" and "possibly bipolar" – but the most convincing observation came from literary academic Sandra Gilbert. "Over and over again in these novels, the woman labelled mad is someone who has not accepted her socially established position in a culture that wants to subordinate her," she said.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 21 Apr 2010 | 2:00 am

GM crops can benefit farmers

Despite India's moratorium on GM aubergines, surveys point to most farmers enjoying increased yields and decreased costs

Unlike the argument recently put forward by Daniel Church, three reports published this month have documented the benefits of GM crops around the world. A review of peer-reviewed surveys of farmers worldwide who are using the technology compared to farmers who continue to plant conventional crops, published last week in Nature Biotechnology, found that by and large farmers have benefited. Another report released last week by the National Research Council in the US concluded that many American farmers have achieved more cost-effective weed control and reduced losses from insect pests. And a survey of farmers in Brazil, which is a leader in global adoption of GM crops, shows benefits for soybean, cotton and corn growers. New technologies, such as Bt aubergine, promise additional gains to farmers if allowed for commercial release, despite the debate inspired by a recent moratorium in India.

Last year, 14 million farmers in 25 countries grew GM crops commercially, over 90% of them small farmers in developing countries, according to ISAAA. I've been studying the impacts of GM crops for the past 12 years. Given the growth in adoption rates around the world and the increasing number of studies that have been done to assess the impact of the technology on farmers, I was interested in looking at how the results of all these studies stacked up. In my review of global farmer surveys, results from 12 countries indicate that most surveyed farmers have increased yields, decreased costs and improved economic performance. The benefits were found to be greatest for the mostly small farmers in developing countries. The average yield improvements for developing countries range from 16% for insect-resistant corn to 30% for insect-resistant cotton, with an 85% yield increase observed in a single study on herbicide-tolerant corn. On average, developed-country farmers' reported yield increases range from no change for herbicide-tolerant cotton to a 7% increase for insect-resistant cotton.

It is often claimed that biotech crops are more expensive for farmers. However, the evidence shows that while seed costs (including technology fees) were nearly always higher for farmers who planted GM crops, this was usually offset by decreased costs of pesticides. The combination of increased yields and decreased costs has translated to improved economic performance in nearly three-quarters of the cases studied. And the economic advantage may be even greater, as surveys have also found that farmers value additional cost savings that are not included in a traditional accounting of costs, such as management time savings, human and environmental safety and reduced yield risk.

GM crops were also found to help agriculture play a crucial role in preserving the natural environment by reducing the number of insecticide applications on insect-resistant crops and facilitating reduced tillage on herbicide-tolerant crops.

In addition to economic benefits, the NRC study also documented environmental gains. The NRC study was conducted by an expert committee of 10 academic researchers from across the country which reviewed the available evidence on the impacts of GM crops in the US. Environmental benefits included reduced insecticide use on insect-resistant corn and cotton. The panel concluded that the soil and water quality improvements resulting from reduced tillage could be the greatest environmental benefit of GM crops, but is poorly tracked to date.

The Brazilian study was conducted by Céleres Ambiental, a Brazilian consultancy that has been monitoring the impact of GM crops in Brazil for the local seed industry. The survey covered 360 farmers from 10 states, finding that the aggregate benefits of the technology reached $3.6bn. The largest share of the benefits was due to reduced production costs. Yield gains were observed primarily for cotton and corn.

The benefits of already commercialised GM crop technology have been demonstrated, the result of the spillover of technologies originally targeted at farmers in industrialised countries. Field trials in India with Bt aubergine found a 42% reduction in total insecticide use and 100% increase in yields over similar non-Bt varieties. While farmers may not achieve the results of the trials, the potential benefits remain substantial. As technologies like Bt aubergine reach commercialisation, it will be interesting to observe farmer experiences with GM crop technologies that have been developed specifically for the needs of developing-country farmers.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 21 Apr 2010 | 1:00 am

Japan sushi dealers feel heat from Iceland volcano (AFP)

AFP - The flight chaos brought by Iceland's volcanic eruption has impacted Japan's sushi industry, with seafood traders looking as far as New Zealand to make up a shortfall in imports of Norwegian salmon.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:22 am

Rare Borneo rhino maybe has baby (AP)

AP - Malaysian conservationists caught on film a Sumatran rhinoceros thought to be pregnant, raising hopes that the critically endangered species on Borneo island was breeding in the wild, an official said Wednesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Apr 2010 | 12:19 am

Startup Takes on Aging Fleet Vehicles

I used to dream of a time when turning vehicles into plug-ins would be as easy as going to get a tuneup. While conversion companies and kits have existed for years, the risk and expense hindered large-scale operations. Now an ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 10:01 pm

Brazil seizes one ton of shark fins headed for Japan (AFP)

AFP - Brazilian prosecutors on Tuesday seized a ton of shark fins destined for the Japanese market, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 9:07 pm

Neanderthals may have interbred with humans

Genetic data points to ancient liaisons between species.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/DIxK1E_cwxY" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 20 Apr 2010 | 8:20 pm

Will Global Warming Make Iceland's Volcanoes Angry?

Melting glaciers around the world could trigger a global uptick in eruptions by the end of the century.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 8:17 pm

What's Behind Our Love of Curvaceous Cars

Human instincts draw us to either curvy models or those with sharp angles. And carmakers cater to one or the other, depending on the era, a new study shows.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 6:59 pm

News from the rim: It's not over

Activity in the Icelandic volcano seems to be dwindling – but the eruption isn't over yet

Activity at Eyjafjallajökull continued to calm today,with less ash churned out in the plume. Inspection flights by the Icelandic coastguard saw splutters of lava in the volcano, a sign that the ejections of dust and ash may begin to tail off.

The plume still reached an altitude of three miles some distance from the volcano, and winds continue to push the plume south towards Europe. It may decrease further as water and ice melts away in the next couple of days, but volcanologists in Iceland said they could make no prediction. Northerly winds blowing the ash cloud across Britain are expected to switch to southerlies by the weekend. There is no sign yet that the eruptions will set off the neighbouring and larger Katla volcano.

The clouds belching out of Eyjafjallajökull are now at a lower altitude of 10,000ft, according to the Icelandic meteorological office. Low-frequency tremors recorded near the outer base are believed to be shockwaves caused by lava splattering inside the crater. The World Health Organisation said the ash clouds do not yet pose a significant health risk because they are being wafted away from European population centres and dispersed.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 6:16 pm

What's Behind Our Love of Curvaceous Cars (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A person's preference for BMW, Audi or Alfa Romeo may be more primal than sophisticated, new research suggests.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 6:05 pm

Clever crows can use three tools

New Caledonian crows have been observed using three tools in succession in order to obtain a treat, scientists say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:13 pm

In praise of… the New Caledonian crow

In 2002 a New Caledonian crow seized a piece of wire and swiftly bent it into a hook to yank a tasty titbit from a glass cylinder

Was there ever such an unruffled problem solver as Corvus moneduloides, a crow that lives in the forests of New Caledonia? In 1996 a New Zealand scientist reported that in the wild the resourceful bird made two distinct kinds of tool, one a hooked twig, the other a barbed leaf, to lever tasty grubs from woody concealment. Early humans, he observed at the time, did not start using hooks until after the lower palaeolithic. In 2002 a New Caledonian crow astonished Oxford observers by seizing a piece of wire and swiftly bending it into a hook to yank a tasty titbit from a glass cylinder. It looked like avian cogitation, but humans who use the word "birdbrain" as an insult needed a little more persuasion. A study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society today seems to settle the matter. Experimenters in the western Pacific caught wild crows and tested their ingenuity on their home ground. The captive crows were set a three-stage problem. They had to get a short stick by pulling up a string, use the short stick to get a long stick out of a toolbox, and then use the long stick to fish the sumptuous snack out of a hole. They did it. So a random flight of corvids – at liberty once more – grasped the notion of a "meta-tool", applied an abstract idea and matched complex cognition and behavioural innovation. The American preacher Henry Ward Beecher said that if men "bore black feathers, few would be clever enough to be crows". Certainly, in a parliament of fowls, they would rule any roost.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:05 pm

Experimental X-37B Robot Space Plane to Launch Thursday (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - The United States Air Force plans to launch its first robotic X-37B space plane Thursday on a mission that is a forerunner of things to come. A second mini-space plane is already under contract and is projected to be launched next year.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 4:30 pm

Earth Day turns 40: An animated tribute (Y! Green)

Y! Green -     2010 marks the 40th celebration of Earth Day, a holiday that helped spark America's modern environmental movement when it was founded on April 22, 1970, by then-Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.  Did you know that there are actually two Earth Days? The "first" Earth Day was founded on March 21, 1970, by John McConnell, a newspaper publisher. Even though this is the date that was embraced by the United Nations, Americans celebrate Earth Day on April 22 each year.   It's also interesting to note that the color green, which symbolizes the environmental movement, isn't all that "green," as in "eco-friendly." Synthetic green dyes, paints, and pigments are made with a noxious cocktail of toxins and pollutants, making green an ironic symbol for the environmental movement.  In honor of this year's historic anniversary, Mother Nature Network is taking a quick look back at the last four decades of planetary appreciation. The video below is a fun way to get the whole 40-year history in under 5 minutes. Or read the transcript below to see what happened each year.      1970: 20 million people celebrate the first Earth Day on April 22. A few months later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opens its doors for the first time.   1971: Amtrak is founded, even though gas costs just 33 cents a gallon.   1972: The EPA bans DDT, which was thinning bald eagles' eggshells.   1973: A Mideast oil embargo sparks a U.S. gas crisis.   1974: Congress passes the Safe Drinking Water Act, shamelessly pandering to the water-drinkers lobby.    1975: Congress sets emissions and efficiency rules for cars, leading to the introduction of catalytic converters.   1976: The EPA starts phasing out PCBs, which can cause cancer and other health problems.   1977: The U.S. adds the first plants to its endangered species list — despite their disturbing lack of cuteness.   1978: Congress bans CFCs in aerosol sprays after scientists realize CFCs can deplete the Earth's ozone layer.   1979: A partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant ruins an otherwise good day.   1980: Congress creates the Superfund program to clean up toxic waste sites. Those expecting "super fun" sites are quickly disappointed.   1981: Acid rain intensifies over the Northeastern United States and Canada.    1982: Dioxin contamination forces the U.S. government to buy homes in Times Beach, Missouri — not the last time it would have to buy up toxic assets.   1983: A long failure to clean up the Chesapeake Bay begins.   1984: 8.6 million acres of protected wilderness are established in 21 states. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howls.   1985: Scientists discover a giant hole in Earth's ozone layer. During the next year's NBA All-Star Game, Spud Webb dunks through it.   1986: Congress declares the public has a right to know when toxic chemicals are released into the air, land, or water. The public breathes a sigh of relief — and a little sulfur dioxide.   1987: Medical waste washes ashore in New York and New Jersey, forcing beaches to close. Efforts to rebrand the area don't work out.    1988: Congress bans ocean dumping of sewage sludge and industrial waste, ending a cherished American tradition.   1989: The Exxon Valdez spills 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.   1990: The EPA's Toxic Release Inventory tells the public which pollutants are being released into their communities.    1991: The U.S. government begins using products made from recycled content.    1992: The U.S. Energy Department and the EPA launch the Energy Star program to label energy-efficient products.   1993: A cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee sickens 400,000 people and kills more than 100, raising awareness of microbes in water supplies.   1994: The first genetically modified tomatoes hit the U.S. market.   1995: Wolves are reintroduced into Yellowstone and central Idaho. The initial awkwardness quickly fades.   1996: Public drinking-water suppliers are required to inform customers about chemicals and microbes in their water.    1997: The U.S. joins other countries in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a global climate-change treaty it winds up rejecting.   1998: Earth has its warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880.   1999: The EPA announces new rules to improve air quality in national parks and wilderness areas. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote coughs.   2000: High temperatures and low rainfall spark the worst U.S. wildfire season in 50 years.   2001: The U.S. formally rejects the Kyoto treaty. The treaty suffers brief self-esteem issues before hooking up with Europe on the rebound.   2002: The U.S. suffers its second-worst wildfire season in 50 years.   2003: The EPA retrofits 40,000 school buses nationwide to cut back their tailpipe emissions.   2004: The EPA requires cleaner fuels and engines for farm and construction equipment.   2005: The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season produces a record number of tropical cyclones, including Hurricane Katrina, which devastates the Gulf Coast.   2006: An Inconvenient Truth is released, winning Al Gore an Oscar, a Nobel Prize, and a lifetime of being criticized every time it snows.   2007: The bald eagle is removed from the endangered species list.   2008: The EPA releases a list of "eco-fugitives." Captain Planet comes out of retirement.   2009: The EPA issues a proposed finding that greenhouse gases may endanger public health or welfare. Congress issues a proposed finding that the EPA is a jerk.   2010: People around the world celebrate the 40th Earth Day, once again dedicating a full day to the planet's health. The Earth is touched, even though it creates days in the first place by rotating, which means "Earth Day" is a regift. But it's the thought that counts.  Russell McLendon is an associate editor at the Mother Nature Network, where a version of this post originally appeared.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 4:26 pm

Why Are There 9 Supreme Court Justices?

The ninth justice may be the swing vote in future court cases.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 4:17 pm

Military Strives to Shrink Carbon 'Boot Print'

The U.S. military has a history of giving the world transformational technology -- and they're at it again.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 4:01 pm

Why aviation industry has cloudy knowledge of risks from volcanic ash

Tests for higher-risk flying conditions may have helped in current crisis but manufacturers said no

That a cloud of volcanic ash can bring European flights to a standstill has raised serious questions over the aviation industry's efforts to understand the risks of flying in such conditions.

Rules laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organisation prohibit flights through any amount of volcanic ash, but aircraft and engine manufacturers have never fully investigated the effects of flying in ash clouds. What information they have has been gleaned from inspecting planes after they have flown into ash plumes by accident.

Manufacturers could have run tests in wind tunnels to work out how much volcanic ash an engine can run in without flaming out or being badly damaged, but the industry rejected the option.

Analysts say engine tests would have only a limited value. Volcanic ash is different to almost any other environmental threat an aircraft faces.

The danger is that particles of silica in volcanic ash melt inside the engines and clog up cooling systems. This is likely to shut down all aircraft engines at once, rather than just one or two, which airliners are designed to cope with.

"The manufacturers' view is that you simply do not expose a plane to that level of risk," said Prof Riti Singh, a leading authority on aircraft engines at Cranfield University. Then there is the issue of responsibility.

"There must be some level that can be considered safe, but if you do let planes fly through ash clouds, who takes responsibility the first time all the engines fail on a plane and everybody dies?" said Singh.

Colin Brown, director of engineering at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering in London, said volcanic ash clouds are so rarely a problem that aircraft manufacturers did not consider engine tests worthwhile.

The plume of ash has reached Britain because of a perfect storm of conditions: the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted beneath a glacier, causing hot magma to explode on contact with the ice. This is why the plume rose to a high altitude. The ash was then carried by unseasonal northerly wind currents to Europe. The Met Office expects the winds to become south-westerly at the weekend.

Even if manufacturers decided that aircraft could fly safely in low levels of volcanic ash, it would not be of much help.

The wealth of cutting-edge equipment, from satellites, ground-based lasers and computer models, used by the Met Office and other bodies are not accurate enough to say which regions of airspace will be clear enough to fly in for any useful length of time.

The ash moves around in an unpredictable way, meaning an airliner could easily set off on a clear corridor and then fly into a dense cloud of ash without knowing.

Several airlines have flown test flights since the weekend, but these are meaningless unless the planes are fitted with equipment to analyse volcanic ash along the way, or follow a research aircraft along the same route.

On Sunday, British Airways flew a test flight from Heathrow over the Atlantic and back to Cardiff, but only after a research plane had flown the same path and declared it clear.

"Airlines can say we flew and it was okay, but you have to know what you flew through or it's worthless. The cloud is moving all the time. You can be in almost clear air one moment and then suddenly find you're in a much higher density of particles," said Prof Stephen Mobbs, director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at Leeds University.

"It is almost impossible to define a flight corridor," said Dr Grant Allen at Manchester University. "The models cannot give you enough information on where the cloud is going to be thick and where it will be thin." Weather balloons sent up earlier in the week revealed a 600m thick layer of ash at an altitude of 2.5 miles.

The layer contained highly abrasive particles at concentrations of 300 micrograms per cubic metre.

A typical jet engine would ingest some 60bn of these particles every second. Conventional radar equipment on airliners cannot pick up volcanic ash clouds, but airliners could conceivably be fitted with laser systems to spot dangerous clouds of ash in time for pilots to change course.

A spokesman for Rolls Royce said that the company had joined a multinational effort to "ensure that the level of the impact of volcanic ash on our engines is properly understood", but refused to elaborate on what tests – if any – were being done.

The Met Office has been tracking the ash plume using a geostationary satellite called Meteosat-9 that orbits above the equator.

The satellite uses infra-red light to take snapshots of the plume, but can only discern the cloud's position to within 5-8km.

Another shortcoming of the satellite is that it cannot tell how thick the plume is at different heights.

At 30 Met Office sites around the country, laser equipment used to monitor cloud cover has been adjusted to scan for the ash cloud. These light detection and ranging facilities bounce laser light off the volcanic ash in the atmosphere and produce 3D maps of the clouds that are accurate to within a few metres.

They give a clearer picture of the size and position of the ash cloud, but there are too few to cover all of the airspace over the UK.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 3:52 pm

White House: Climate bill 'doable' this year (AP)

AP - White House energy adviser Carol Browner said Tuesday she thinks Congress still has time to approve a climate and energy bill this year.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 3:47 pm

Probing China's deadly quake

Researchers push for increased public awareness after quake kills thousands.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 20 Apr 2010 | 3:32 pm

Undersea project delivers data flood

Sea-floor observatory in the Pacific Ocean to provide terabytes of data.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 20 Apr 2010 | 3:06 pm

No gain from brain training

Computerized mental workouts don't boost mental skills, study claims.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 20 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

The Coming Tide of Global Climate Lawsuits

The Prunerov power station is the Czech Republic’s biggest polluter: Its Its 900-foot-high smokestack pushes a plume of white smoke high above the flat, featureless fields of northern Bohemia. Prunerov reliably wins a place on lists of Europe’s dirtiest power plants, emitting 11.1 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. So when CEZ Group, the state-controlled utility, proposed an overhaul to extend the facility’s life for another quarter of a century, protests flared — including one from a place about as far from the sooty industrial region as you can get, a place of tropical temperatures and turquoise seas with not a smokestack in sight. This January, the Federated States of Micronesia, some 8,000 miles away in the Pacific Ocean, lodged a legal challenge to the Prunerov plant on the grounds that its chronic pollution threatens the island nation’s existence.

Is that, well — legal, you might ask? In international law, there’s an established principle called transboundary harm, which means that if a Canadian factory belches toxic chemicals into a river, fouling a reservoir in Vermont, sooner or later the people at the Canadian factory will be hearing from some American lawyers. For the first time, Micronesia applied this tenet to climate change — arguing that its survival is jeopardized by any large power plant that doesn’t curb its carbon footprint. “They’re using a very creative approach to the international legal process,” says Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.

A groundbreaking transnational legal action might sound like a tall order for a country of 107,000 people whose most high-profile endeavor to date has been hosting the 16th season of Survivor.

Yet Micronesia has incentives to get innovative. NASA satellite maps show that the nation inhabits the spot where sea levels are rising most rapidly. For the past three years, abnormally high tides have assailed the islands, souring the soil and salting the aquifer, making it impossible to grow taro, one of the country’s few staple foods. Last year, the government declared a national emergency and spent more than 7 percent of its budget of $42 million to ferry bags of rice and drinking water to its low-lying islands. Professor Charles Fletcher, a geologist from the University of Hawaii who has conducted research in Micronesia, said, “This is the first situation I’m aware of where sea-level rise has led to threats to food and water security.”

Micronesia made its move against the Prunerov plant on January 4, when it filed a formal objection under the Czech Republic’s environmental impact assessment law. (Czech law doesn’t limit which nations can participate in this process). In response, the government first postponed its decision on the plant, and then called in an independent Norwegian firm to assess the plant’s carbon output. In March, the government decided to allow the plant to proceed–but the decision was so controversial that the environmental minister quit in protest.

With the world’s top carbon-emitting nations seemingly unable to come up with a binding climate treaty, environmental lawyers and representatives of small island nations are increasingly looking for other forms of leverage. While Micronesia’s effort did not succeed this time around, attorneys hope it will encourage similar experimentation with legal tools that could be used to pressure big emitters to clean up their act. “If we can take our gaze to an international court, that would be an avenue the government may have to explore,” said Andrew Yatilman, Micronesia’s director of environment and emergency management.

One lawyer thinking along similar lines is Matthew Pawa, one of the lead attorneys on a pioneering lawsuit in which the Inupiat community of Kivalina, Alaska, is suing 19 U.S. oil and utility companies, including BP and ExxonMobil. The case is based in part on a simple nuisance claim — the same common-law principle you might deploy to sue your neighbor if he opened an obnoxiously loud nightclub next door. Kivalina claims that the companies’ carbon emissions are helping to melt the sea ice on which the village sits, which will require it to be relocated at a cost of up to $400 million. That case was dismissed by a California court but is now on appeal; Pawa is seeking overseas clients, too.

Environmental lawyers point to several possibilities for international claims. Countries affected by oceanic changes could seek redress using the Convention on the Law of the Sea, although it can’t be used against the United States — which hasn’t ratified the treaty. A nation could go after a polluter in the International Court of Justice on the grounds that its citizens’ human rights would be violated if their country were wiped off the map — but, again, the United States is not a signatory, and the ICJ is somewhat toothless.

A number of lawyers told me that the most promising avenue might be the common-law doctrine used in the Kivalina case. Any nation could sue a U.S. company in U.S. court for a “nuisance” caused by climate change — Tuvalu v. ExxonMobil, if you will. And a couple of island nations that were once American protectorates, like Micronesia and Palau, have legal compacts with the United States that give them more powerful tools: They could potentially sue a company or even a government agency, using domestic statutes such as the Clean Air Act.

Which is not to say that winning will be easy. While the scientific evidence of climate change has hardened to the point of irrefutability, blaming someone for it in a court of law is a knottier business. U.S. judges have swatted down most climate lawsuits either by ruling that global warming is for Congress to address, or by finding that it would be unfair to hold a handful of companies responsible for damage caused by centuries of pollution across the world.

Nevertheless, industries are bracing for a tide of climate lawsuits. The major insurer Swiss Re has warned that “climate-change-related litigation could become a significant issue within the next couple of years.” Pawa compares this nascent field to the epic court battles over tobacco and asbestos. “It’s a process of learning by doing,” said Pawa. “Just by bringing these cases over and over again, the judiciary [and] the public get used to the idea of liability.” According to a forthcoming United Nations study, the world’s 3,000 biggest public companies could be on the hook for $2.2 trillion — more than 30 percent of their profits — if they were made to pay for the fallout of their carbon emissions.

In truth, legal challenges don’t even need to reach that point to serve a purpose. “Lawsuits are part of an overall strategy to make the U.S. move,” one lawyer told me. “They could be a chip in some grand bargain for legislation: We’re going to eliminate liability for climate change, but we’re going to get a really good deal on mitigation.”

Hauling global companies to court would be an audacious gamble for tiny nations that rely heavily on foreign aid. “There are huge political risks,” said Stuart Beck, Palau’s ambassador to the U.N. But with world leaders already downplaying hopes for a binding treaty at the climate talks in Mexico this November, vulnerable countries are contemplating which is the larger hazard: angering their donors, or waiting patiently until the only aid they require is a bulk purchase of plane tickets. As attorney Pawa puts it, “Countries are literally being driven out of existence — they are going to turn to whatever systems they can. Right now they’re looking to require developed nations to reduce emissions. In the future, I think they’ll be looking for compensation.”

This piece was reported by Mother Jones as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Image: Prunerov power station in the Czech Republic./Horst 74/Wikimedia Commons.

See Also:

• Attractive Nuisance: Should Judges Help Tackle Climate Change?
• Betting on Climate Change: Corporations Stand to Make or Lose Billions

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 Apr 2010 | 2:16 pm

Attractive Nuisance: Should Judges Help Tackle Climate Change?

If Congress and the president fail to tackle global warming, can courts step in? Can federal judges allow people struggling with the losses of global warming to sue polluters directly?

The idea may at first seem crazy. In a legal world obsessed with claims of judicial activism, the image of a judge taking on a global problem like climate change seems like the punch line to a bad joke at an Exxon board meeting.

But, it turns out there is a long and proud history of judges addressing pollution in the absence of environmental regulation. For much of the last century — long before Congress acted — federal courts allowed plaintiffs to seek injunctions to stop all kinds of pollution. Successful suits prevented an ore smelter from releasing deadly atmospheric arsenic over the homes and families of Utah, the City of Chicago from draining its sewage into St. Louis drinking supply and New York City from dumping its garbage into the Atlantic, where it washed up on the beaches of the New Jersey Shore. Today, states and environmentalists are turning to these and other historic precedents to make the case that climate change, too, belongs in the courts — when the other branches of government refuse to act.

The current battle began in 2004, the midpoint of the Bush presidency. A coalition of states and private land trusts, led by the State of Connecticut, that were frustrated with Washington’s failure to introduce legislation or regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions sued several of the nation’s largest electric utilities in Connecticut v. American Electric Power. The coalition alleged that the companies’ greenhouse-gas emissions amounted to a “public nuisance” in the form of global warming.

Under the nuisance principle — one of the oldest in English common law — a property owner may ask the court to stop a defendant who is interfering with the owner’s enjoyment of his own property, and, in some circumstances, to pay damages. In the Connecticut case, the plaintiffs thus sought to persuade the court to order the utility companies to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by showing how such gases cause global warming, which in turn was creating increased temperatures, alternating drought and floods, destruction of natural habitats and corresponding decreases in property values and human health and welfare.

Though the cause-and-effect aspect of this argument might seem hard to prove in court, global-warming victims in other corners of the country started filing similar lawsuits. In Comer v. Murphy Oil, residents of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast sued nearby oil refineries for damages they suffered during Hurricane Katrina, alleging that the refineries’ greenhouse-gas emissions contributed to the force of the storm. In 2008, in Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon, residents of a small village on a barrier island off the Alaskan coast, whose homes are being steadily submerged by rising sea levels, filed suit against two dozen energy companies for their contribution to climate change. The villagers, who are native Inupiat, seek more than $400 million in damages to cover the cost of relocating their homes, again using the doctrine of nuisance law.

Each of these cases was dismissed at the trial-court level. The judges said that the suits raised a “political question” not fit for the judicial branch to rule on — a tool that allows judges to punt tricky cases they don’t want to decide. Two of the lower courts also said that the parties lacked legal standing to bring the lawsuits, because they could not show their injuries were sufficiently traceable to the defendants’ conduct. However, the plaintiffs appealed these dismissals to federal courts of appeals, arguing that they do have standing and that the “political question” doctrine does not apply.

Then, to the shock of the legal community and even some environmentalists, two federal appeals courts reversed these rulings. Last September, after more than three years of deliberating, a two-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturned the dismissal of Connecticut v. AEP in a sweeping 139-page opinion. A few days later, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit released a similar opinion reinstating the Katrina victims’ lawsuit.

The five judges responsible for these rulings — three of whom were appointed by Republican presidents — found that the plaintiffs had standing and that the evidence of the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change was sufficient for the cases to go forward. The courts did not punt because of the “political question” doctrine, pointing out that federal courts have successfully handled public nuisance claims involving environmental damage for more than a century.

Here, the 2nd Circuit relied heavily on a little-known, century-old Supreme Court case called Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co. The suit began in the early 1900s, when the State of Georgia sued two copper companies in Tennessee for emitting noxious substances that destroyed plants and crops in Georgia. No less a figure than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes found the copper companies liable for the nuisance of air pollution and ordered the companies to reduce their emissions. When the companies failed to fully comply, the court set emissions limits, with monitoring requirements and costs divided between the defendants. In other words, the court established the same sort of regulatory regime Congress would introduce 50 years later with the 1970 Clean Air Act.

Today, federal courts dealing with global-warming lawsuits are faced with the same dilemma as the Supreme Court was in Tennessee Copper, only on a much larger scale. Air pollution from one state is causing harm to other states (indeed, to the whole world). Despite the encouraging rulings from the courts of appeals, however, today’s global-warming nuisance suits face an uncertain future. Last month, the 5th Circuit announced a rehearing en banc for the Katrina victims’ lawsuit, meaning that all of the court’s judges will sit and rehear the case. The Alaskan villagers, who lost before the district court, now move to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. One or more of these plaintiffs may well wind up before the Supreme Court.

And there, a conservative majority may be more sympathetic to the fossil-fuel industry, which argues that the courts should butt out because Washington is doing plenty about global warming. The industry’s Exhibit A is in fact another court case: The Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that greenhouse gases are air pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, allowing the EPA to regulate the gases directly.

But the 2nd Circuit in September rejected the argument that this displaced the nuisance suits, noting that the EPA had not yet used the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. The court acknowledged that this could change if and when the Obama administration gets moving.

Judge Peter Hall, the author of the 2nd Circuit’s opinion, conceded the same point in a recent speech at Georgetown Law School. The courts would happily get out of the business of hearing nuisance suits about climate change, he said, if the EPA does its job in restricting these emissions — or better yet, if Congress passes a comprehensive climate bill. In the meantime, however, Judge Hall added that judges have the responsibility to take seriously nuisance lawsuits brought by property owners facing strengthening hurricanes and rising sea levels. These lawsuits, he said, probably provide a backstop and “some small impetus” to stonewalling lawmakers. It’s a trade-off: Polluters can either get out of the way of Congress or face the, well, nuisance of lawsuits for decades to come.

This story was produced by Slate for the Climate Desk collaboration.

Image: afsart/Flickr

See Also:

• The Coming Tide of Global Climate Lawsuits
• Betting on Climate Change: Corporations Stand to Make or Lose Billions

Doug Kendall is the president and Hannah McCrea the online communications director of the Constitutional Accountability Center. The authors manage Warming Law, a blog that tracks global-warming-related litigation.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 Apr 2010 | 1:41 pm

'People work all their lives and never get a judgment like that'

Simon Singh's lawyer discusses the libel case that may end up reforming English law.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 20 Apr 2010 | 1:25 pm

Electrifying Images of Volcano Lightning

Up-close photographs captures the scene as Eyjafjallajokull blows its top.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 12:58 pm

Lousy DNA Reveals When People First Wore Clothes

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexisco — For once lice are nice, at least for scientists investigating the origins of garments.

Using DNA to trace the evolutionary split between head and body lice, researchers conclude that body lice first came on the scene approximately 190,000 years ago. And that shift, the scientists propose, followed soon after people first began wearing clothing.

The new estimate, presented April 16 at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists annual meeting, sheds light on a poorly understood cultural development that allowed people to settle in northern, cold regions, said Andrew Kitchen of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Armed with little direct evidence, scientists had previously estimated that clothing originated anywhere from around 1 million to 40,000 years ago.

An earlier analysis of mitochondrial DNA from the two modern types of lice indicated that body lice evolved from head lice only about 70,000 years ago. Because body lice thrive in the folds of clothing, they likely appeared not long after clothes were invented, many scientists believe.

Though well suited to gauging the timing of evolutionary events, mitochondrial DNA is a relatively small part of the genome. Kitchen’s team examined both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA samples from head and body lice, yielding the much older, and presumably more accurate, estimate of when body lice first evolved.

It makes sense that people, or perhaps Neanderthals inhabiting cold parts of Europe, started making clothes around 190,000 years ago, Kitchen explained, since both species had already lost most body hair and knew how to make stone tools for scraping animal hides. Homo sapiens originated approximately 200,000 years ago.

The researchers calculated relatively fast mutation rates for both forms of lice, so the new age estimate for the divergence of body lice from head lice is a conservative one. It’s possible for body lice to have evolved from head lice in only a few generations, according to laboratory studies, Kitchen said. No evidence indicates that head lice can evolve from body lice.

Image: Janice Harney Carr, Center for Disease Control

See Also:

• African Footprint Fossils Are Oldest Evidence of Upright Walk
• Skulls vs. DNA: Zeroing In on American Origins
• Hobbits May Belong on New Branch of Our Family Tree
• Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion
• Why Pygmies Are Small
• DNA Reveals New Hominid Ancestor

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 Apr 2010 | 12:56 pm

Space shuttle safely home after one of last missions

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle Discovery landed safely at its home base in Florida on Tuesday, wrapping up one of NASA's last cargo runs and servicing missions to the International Space Station.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 12:47 pm

Volcanic ash poses little health threat so far: WHO

GENEVA (Reuters) - Ash particles from Iceland's still-erupting volcano remain high in the atmosphere and do not pose a health risk so far to people in Europe, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Apr 2010 | 12:32 pm

Video: Brain training put to the test in large Nature study

Research demolishes the widely held belief that regular use of brain-training games improves general cognitive function

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 12:05 pm

The condition that gave me a Chinese accent

Foreign Accent Syndrome has left a West Country woman with a very strange problem . . .

Sarah Colwill initially found it amusing when a series of migraines caused her native West Country accent to be displaced by a Chinese lilt. But after a month, the joke is wearing thin for the 35-year-old IT project co-ordinator. "I have never been to China," she says. "It is very frustrating and I just want my own voice back."

Colwill is one of around 60 recorded cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS), a rare condition arising from damage to the part of the brain that controls speech and word formation. Usually a side effect of severe brain injury, FAS can also be catalysed by psychiatric illness. Some sufferers regain their original accent, either spontaneously or through intensive speech therapy, but for others, the change is permanent.

Colwill is not the only sufferer to find the syndrome hard to bear. Wendy Hasnip, from Yorkshire, began speaking with a French accent after a stroke in 1999. "While I have nothing against the French, this is not for me," she says. "It does nothing for my street credibility with my three sons."

"It's in our ears," says Professor Sophie Scott, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. "Speech may be altered in terms of timing, intonation, and tongue placement, so that is perceived as sounding foreign."

But the fact the accent isn't real doesn't mitigate sufferers' distress. Colwill complains that friends hang up when she phones, convinced that it is a hoax call. Scott also remembers Kath, from Stafford in the Midlands, who resorted to carrying a note explaining how cerebral vasculitis had left her sounding eastern European. "She just got fed up of people explaining to her how the buses worked," she says. "Voice is a key part of who we are and how we fit in to the world around us. Sometimes FAS can be more difficult than a trauma that robs us of speech entirely."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Modern Psychedelic Scientists Find Data in Countercultural Past

SAN JOSE, California — A sprawling Holiday Inn by the San Jose Airport does not seem like the right place for a conference on the new science of psychedelic drug therapies.

Yet, last week, the stucco-walled hotel played host to a mèlange of playful scientific researchers, serious drug self-experimenters, and roving bands of hippies in handmade-looking clothing. The scene was as strange as you’d expect at a conference called “Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century.”

Scientists and doctors studying the medical uses of psychedelics are trying to figure out what to do with the cultural heritage of their drugs. There is a lot of baggage associated with LSD, for example, that new pharmaceuticals don’t carry: There are no Jay-Z songs about Zoloft. On the other hand, the vast numbers of experiences drug users have had with psychedelics could be a dark dataset that, with the right filters, helps aid the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

For the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which organized the conference, the event was the most visible result of their attempt to meld the world of Jerry Garcia with that of the Surgeon General.

“Things were so polarized in the ’60s. I think over the 40 years, the counterculture and the culture have changed. The culture is more receptive and the counterculture is more patient,” said Rick Doblin, a Harvard public policy Ph.D.-holder and the president of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS. “I think the vast majority of the people at the conference appreciate the scientific model and want to see the research move forward and think it’s a vehicle for change. There are a few that are into crystals and astrology, and then there are the vast majority, who are more scientific thinking.”

Outside the scientific sessions, there was more than a whiff of grooviness around. Outside the main ballroom, beyond a slatted fence, a “smoking area” and traveling tea room sat in a parking lot. Three young hippie women in classic garb wandered barefoot around the psychedelic art exhibits, and two young guys wandered around asking “Anyone know where the greens are?” There was software for tracking astrological phenomenon for sale and various herbal drinks that came in vials. People played the didgeridoo next to hot tubs under the intoxicating San Jose sun. It did not seem as if it would be difficult to conduct an uncontrolled experiment or two with a little help from some friends.

But inside the PowerPoint-illuminated conference rooms, people spent their days listening to scientific sessions. While there were hundreds of sessions, the lead-off hitter was Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist, who delivered an update on his work with MDMA, the main ingredient in the street drug ecstasy, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Mithoefer, supported by a few million dollars from MAPS, has a plan to push his drug-assisted therapy techniques through the lengthy clinical trial process. By about 2012, they hope to enter the last phase of clinical trials on MDMA. If that study works out, they’ll emerge on the other end with the same Food and Drug Administration stamp of approval given to Cialis and antibiotics and protease inhibitors.

The results look good, although they have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Patients who underwent two eight-hour therapy sessions and took MDMA showed much better short- and long-term clinical outcomes than people who just received a placebo and the therapy. At least in the early study, MDMA did much better than Zoloft in treating PTSD, Mithoefer said.

Based on the pioneering work of psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, Mithoefer’s work is the test case for the re-medicalization of psychedelic drugs. Mithoefer remarked that psychedelic research presentations are usually confined to tiny rooms in back hallways of scientific conferences. But there were hundreds watching him talk Friday. “This does mean something,” Mithoefer said. “The tide is turning a little bit.”

In 1970, Richard Nixon passed the Controlled Substances Act, which grouped the psychedelics and marijuana with heroin as drugs that had no medical value and had a high potential for abuse. It had a chilling effect on research in the area, though it didn’t seem to slow down the supply of drugs for amateur experimenters.

With official research lagging, unorthodox information networks grew up to spread the word about psychedelic practices and theory. The vast numbers of psychedelic drug users created enormous amounts of vernacular knowledge about how and why they work on the human mind. And a lot of that knowledge sits on the website, Erowid.org, where tens of thousands of people have posted their experiences with a bewildering array of substances.

Doblin, it turns out, went to college with Fire and Earth Erowid, the couple that runs the website. MAPS has supported Erowid financially and Doblin considers the site a valuable source for which psychedelics are most likely to be approved by the FDA for medical use.

“How do we decide which ones are the best? There are people who have tried all the drugs and they send in their reports to Erowid, etc,” Doblin said. “We have drugs we believe work, we just have to prove that they work.”

It’s exactly that knowledge that Doblin said was going to enable his small nonprofit to push MDMA through the FDA clinical trial process, which pharmaceutical companies say can cost $500 million, by their own accounting, which includes the high cost of the many failures.

“For us the advantage we have is this 5,000-year history with psychedelics and this whole underground work with MDMA. We have identified the successes through these unusual processes because the drugs are being used outside of medical knowledge,” Doblin said. “There has been a filtering of which drugs are the best,”

Fire Erowid agreed. She noted that researchers like Mithoefer are working with at most a couple of dozen people. Erowid has many thousands of reports. “The public knows so much more that’s not in the current scientific literature,” Erowid said.

The Erowid-MAPS connection provides a conduit for the informal knowledge of the psychedelic scene to enter the official record.

“It’s not about leaving the counterculture behind, but weaving it in,” said Brad Burge, a Ph.D. student at the University of California at San Diego who is studying the way MAPS works. Burge argued in an editorial for the group’s magazine that MAPS “exists somewhere between the sterile objectivity of clinical psychopharmacology and the passionate creativity of psychedelic counterculture.”

Both Burge and a fellow Ph.D. student, University of California at Berkeley’s Katie Hendy, are interested in how the use of psychedelics in clinical settings might change medicine itself.

“How is this research changing what pharmaceuticals are?” Hendy asked. To her, the very way the drugs operate could challenge the notion of what medicines are appropriate for treating our brains. Unlike Prozac or other pharmaceuticals that take weeks to work and often have subtle effects, psychedelics like psilocybin produce powerful and acute states of consciousness.

Burge had a similar perspective on the possibilities of psychedelics to change psychotherapies. “What MAPS wants to do is not so much to erase the line between spiritual growth and psychotherapeutic treatment, as to point out that there may not have ever been a difference in the first place,” Burge wrote.

But how to incorporate those elements of the counterculture remains a political, legal, and strategic question. What’s interesting about this conference is that most of the people are not self-styled counterculturists. They are wearing department store pants and dresses and wearing high heels. People take pains to indicate that this is a field that dots its i’s and crosses its t’s. It’s what makes this weird suburban location makes sense: If a Holiday Inn is good enough for podiatrists, it’s good enough for psychedelic researchers.

Mithoefer himself is a good symbol of the conference itself. From the front, his round glasses and stolid demeanor seem to make him the model of prudence and good sense. But when he turns, you notice a sly ponytail flicking around the neck of his sports coat. At the psychedelic science conference, there is a party in the back.

Even if the psychedelic researchers are now trying to go through official routes, many of them have their roots in a decidedly more adventurous camp.

“When I started at New College of Florida in ‘71, there was a nudist colony at the pool. That’s what I walked into as a college freshman,” Doblin said. “I have an appreciation of the responsible, beneficial use outside of medical contexts.”

Even Grof, an impeccably dressed Czech researcher with caterpillar eyebrows, who is considered a godfather of the more scientific side of psychedelic research, has a decidedly existential take on the potential of psychiatrics.

“The human drive for transcendence is even more powerful than the urge to have sex,” Grof said.

For him, the resurgence of psychedelic science is a welcome corrective to what happened during the Timothy Leary-led rise of LSD use. Leary’s and his followers’ attitudes sparked a backlash that robbed psychiatry of some of the best tools that they had for understanding consciousness and helping people.

Now, a couple of generations later as Grof nears 80 years of age, they might finally get a chance to use them again.

Images: Alexis Madrigal/Wired.com.

See Also:

• Chem Lab: Shrooms Make Time Feel Slower
• Psilocybin Doc Seeks Cancer Patients for Clinical Trial

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 Apr 2010 | 11:31 am

Peak clean

Scaling Everest's 'death zone' for debris and bodies
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 11:27 am

Pollen Origami Key to Plant Sex

Though it might be small solace to springtime sneezers, a new study shows grains of pollen to be biomechanical marvels.

Their weblike outer shell folds like origami as grains leave a flower, sealing holes and preventing sperm inside from drying. As pollen arrives at another flower, the shell relaxes and unfolds, allowing fertilization to take place.

The folding process, driven by forces generated by water loss, is called harmomegathy. It’s known to scientists, but the underlying principles are expanded and quantified in a paper published April 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers led by Rockefeller University physicist Eleni Katifori used an electron microscope to photograph different types of pollen, then made computer models that revealed the mathematical patterns guiding their transformations.

Pollen comes in hundreds of sizes and shapes, and the design principles “can serve as a source of tested solutions for the development of smart surfaces that can adapt to their environment,” wrote the researchers.

One possible use for smart surfaces is in drug delivery. Perhaps scientists will someday use pollen design to inspire a better antihistamine pill.

Images: 1) Scanning electron microscope image of Lilium longiflorum pollen folding/PNAS.
2) SEM image and folding pattern of Euphorbia millii pollen/PNAS.

See Also:

• Climate Change Destroying Walden Pond’s Flowers
• Video: Maple Seeds Ride Self-Generated Tornadoes
• Plants Have a Social Life, Too
• Plants Know Their Relatives — And Like Them!

Citation: “Foldable structures and the natural design of pollen grains.” By Eleni Katifori, Silas Alben, Enrique Cerda, David R. Nelson, and Jacques Dumais. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107. No. 16, April 20, 2010.

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 | 20 Apr 2010 | 11:19 am

Ancient Worms Munched on Whale Bones

Holes made by boneworms found in whale fossil bones, suggest worms evolved long ago.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 11:16 am

Brain training 'boost' questioned

Brain training games do not improve overall brain power, a scientific study launched by the BBC suggests.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 11:08 am

Brain training doesn't work

Study published in Nature that harnessed the power of the BBC has shown claims to boost cognitive function are empty promises

Brain-training games are big business. Self-improvement desires render us vulnerable to marketing claims that products will make us thinner, healthier, or in the case of brain-training software, smarter.

Enter science, "the blabber-mouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends", as Ned Flanders once described it. Until now, there had been scant empirical data on whether or not brain training actually improves your cognitive ability.

Alas, research published today in Nature indicates that the possibility of improving your general cognitive abilities by playing brain-training games is an empty promise. More than 11,000 volunteers were split into three groups: one who played brain-training-type exercises; a second practised more general cognitive tests; and a control group who just pootled around the internet answering random questions. They did this for six weeks, bookended by benchmarking tests of memory, reasoning and other standard tests of cognitive function.

All three groups displayed improvement in the tasks they were performing. But all three groups also showed only small and similar increases in the benchmarking tests, possibly simply the effect of repeating the test. Conclusion? Practising brain-training games will improve your performance on brain-training games, but that effect will not transfer to other aspects of brain function. They will not make you brainier, so you may as well just pootle around on the internet. As lead researcher Adrian Owen says: "You're not going to get better at playing the trumpet by practising the violin."

So, once again, science wins out over marketing. But what's equally interesting about this research is how it came to pass. It's not an easy task to get 11,000 volunteers to do what you want for six weeks. Television has that power. The BBC's Lab UK (which sets up public involvement in large experiments) teamed up with their prime-time science show Bang Goes the Theory and academic scientists to design the experiment, recruit the subjects, process the data, and publish the paper. The results show will be broadcast on Wednesday at 9pm in the UK.

BGTT is the de facto equivalent of Tomorrow's World. For us of a certain age, Thursday evenings were dominated by Top of the Pops and Tomorrow's World. So when the BBC announced this new show, a few years after TW had been axed, dorky anticipation was piqued. I suspect TW is not as good as we fondly remember it, certainly in its moribund years. Bang Goes the Theory is much more fun and, crucially, much more sciencey.

It serves its title well, with a whole heap of bang (mostly delivered by eager engineer-in-chief Jem), but also good theory. It's no small task to bring science to the masses, but BGTT educates, inspires and entertains. There has been some snobbish criticism of it, and comparisons with shows like Sky's mindless Brainiac, which had merely a lot of bang. There are five science degrees spread between the four presenters. It might not be to everyone's taste, but if you're reading this, you're probably not 12 years old. Building a water-powered jet pack or vacuum-powered suction climbing apparatus is indeed a stunt, but in order to get an engineering project like that to work, clear scientific thinking and testing are a prerequisite. There is enough scope and wonder in science to accommodate TV programmes ranging from BGTT, through the epic Wonders of the Solar System, to the more esoteric on BBC4.

And besides, they have shown that alongside the hilarious stunts, they also show good, robust and now published scientific research. With this brain-training paper comes vindication that peer-reviewed science can have widespread appeal and public involvement. Science is for the masses and, when it's done right, can involve them, too.

• Declaration of interest: Adam Rutherford is employed by Nature, which published the paper reported on here; he also frequently works for the BBC in science programming

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 11:00 am

George Washington Had Overdue Books

The first president of the United States may not have been able to tell a lie, but he apparently had no problem dodging library fines. More than 220 years ago, George Washington walked out of the New York Society Library ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 10:23 am

Mysterious Volcano Lightning Creates Pretty Pictures

Volcano lightning in the ash plume erupting from the Eyjafjallajokull Iceland volcano is created by a mysterious process.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 9:16 am

Volcanic Ash Cloud Won't Reach U.S.

While a volcano eruption in Iceland has cast a cloud over Europe, North America will remain in the clear.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 9:05 am

Spaceman

Listening for the 'birth cries' of black holes
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 8:51 am

Picture gallery

Environmentalists honoured with prestigious prize
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 8:05 am

How Iceland's volcano sears Kenya's crops | Waithaka Waihenya

Here, European airports' closure is not simply an inconvenience to travellers but an economic catastrophe for horticulturalists

When the Iceland volcano with an unpronounceable name erupted last week, most Kenyans must have reacted in more or less the same way as they did when a massive earthquake hit Haiti in January. They viewed it as another sad phenomenon affecting a faraway land. Other than in pictures, most have never seen a volcano erupt anyway and, therefore, the Icelandic phenomenon was nothing more than a spectral enactment of one of nature's wonders.

But when the airports across the world started shutting down, the reality started hitting home, too. What was happening 5,000 miles away was also being felt in the country in ways that Kenyans had never thought possible. All of a sudden, the truth that no matter how disparately human beings are scattered, they are interlinked in more than just a simple way, was becoming more than a truism.

While other countries were worried that their citizens were stranded in foreign airports, Kenyans were getting worried about something else. And even when newspapers reported that a couple of government ministers were stranded in European airports because of the volcano crisis, the news was still not important.

What was important to Kenyans was the effect this was having on the many farm labourers who depend on horticulture for their livelihood. The labourers and their employers have all been staring disaster in the face. Within three days of airports' closure, Kenya's horticulture industry – which accounts for a huge chunk of the country's foreign exchange – was spiralling down.

Picture this scenario: 1m kg of fresh produce is normally shipped out of Kenya every night. On the main highways linking the capital city, Nairobi to Rift Valley and Central provinces where this produce comes from, large trailers carrying fresh produce head to the airport every afternoon. Eighty-two per cent of this produce goes to Europe. More than a third is exported to Britain. Hundreds of thousands of labourers are employed in this industry.

With most European airports closed, farmers over here have been losing millions of dollars a day. Flower farms that employ thousands of people have started laying off workers as roses, lilies and carnations wilt. Vegetables, such as baby corn, courgettes, broccoli, green beans and carrots have been left to rot. Some are being fed to cows. With no local use, most flowers are now being thrown into the compost pit.

On average, it is estimated that the horticultural industry is losing an average of $3m a day. Horticultural industry is the leading hard currency earner in Kenya, which is East Africa's largest economy. Last year, the sector raked in $924m. Since the flight disruptions started, industry experts estimate that over 3,000 tonnes of flowers have perished. Even when cargo services resume, it is estimated that it will require at least 10 entire Boeing 747s of cargo space to clear the backlog. The short-term losses are going to be huge.

The national carrier, Kenya Airways, is also said to be losing $1m a day. The airline's busiest route is London, where it flies every day.

At the coastal town of Mombasa, hotels have been grappling with stranded visitors. This is a sector that has been recovering slowly after the slump occasioned by the post-election violence in 2008. Even though this is low season, even the small number of tourists who visit the area is now down to a trickle as most come from places where airports have been closed down.

In Kenya, the Icelandic volcano eruption is much more than stranded visitors and ash in the air. It is something of an apocalypse for thousands of Kenyans who depend on these two industries for their livelihood. Though many do not know where Iceland is, they have been forced to reckon with the fact that, no matter how far away a place might be, what happens there could have deleterious effects on their country. The truth of poet John Donne's words that no man is an island and that everyone is a part of the whole has frightfully hit home.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 20 Apr 2010 | 8:00 am

Civilized Caterpillars Talk With Their Butts

Caterpillar communication may have evolved from crawling behaviors.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 7:29 am

Bear necessities

Polar bears go rock climbing in search of food
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 7:28 am

Touchdown for Discovery shuttle

The space shuttle Discovery lands back on Earth after a two-week mission to the International Space Station.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 7:08 am

Shuttle Flies Across U.S. En Route to Florida Landing

UPDATE: This time, the shuttle did land after a U.S. flyover, read "Shuttle Discovery Glides Home" for more details. ORIGINAL POST: Much of America will have a chance to witness space shuttle Discovery's dramatic homecoming this morning. After a trio ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:56 am

Ancient Maya Buried Relatives, Artifacts Under Homes

Illiterate Maya people buried items and even relatives under their homes as a way of recording their histories.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:53 am

New bat species found in Britain

A new type of bat is found in caves in Yorkshire and Sussex.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:52 am

Teens Prefer Texting vs. Calling ... Except to Parents

A new Pew Research center report shows teens are texting more than ever to keep in touch with friends but tend to use traditional phone calling from their mobile devices to communicate with their parents.
Source: Livescience.com | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:05 am

Will Bison Roam Europe's Mountains?

The new Wild West may actually be in Eastern Europe.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 5:00 am

Water: Stirred (with a UV Stick), not Shaken

Back in 2000, the community of Walkerton in Ontario, Canada suffered a horrific contamination of the water supply by E. coli bacteria. At least seven people died, and hundreds became sick. Industrial designer Olivia Blechschmidt took note, and started work ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 4:15 am

Shuttle Discovery Glides Home

Discovery took a rare path over America's heartland as it descended to a smooth landing in Florida.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 20 Apr 2010 | 3:42 am