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Ozone and traffic pollution increase asthma-related hospitalizations in childrenBoth ozone and primary pollutants from traffic substantially increase asthma-related emergency department visits in children, especially during the warm season, according to researchers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm New technique reinforces immune cells that seek and destroy cancerIn what could be a shot in the arm for adoptive immunotherapy, new research shows promise in enhancing and controlling the growth of T cells in living mice and in human cell cultures, potentially overcoming one of the therapy's drawbacks.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm New monitor lizard discovered in IndonesiaA newly discovered species of monitor lizard, a close relative of the Komodo dragon, has been discovered on Moluccan islands of east Indonesia.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm Erectile dysfunction and increased dangers of cardiovascular diseaseNew research shows that men with erectile dysfunction and low testosterone have a higher than normal risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Further work from the same research group shows that obesity is also associated with an impairment of blood flow to the penis, which in turn is also associated with cardiovascular disease in men with erectile dysfunction.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm Small mobile devices can serve as own computer mice with optical sensing methodThe same inexpensive, but high-quality optical sensors employed in the common computer mouse can enable small mobile phones and digital music players to be used as their own pointing and gestural input devices, say researchers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm Fuel cells get up to speed with a new kind of platinumA new form of platinum that could be used to make cheaper, more efficient fuel cells has been created. The process could help enable broader use of the devices, which produce emissions-free energy using hydrogen.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm Personality may influence brain shrinkage in agingA team of psychologists has found an intriguing possibility that personality and brain aging during the golden years may be linked. Researchers found lower volumes of gray matter in the frontal and medial temporal brain regions of volunteers who ranked high in neuroticism traits, compared with higher volumes of gray matter in those who ranked high in conscientious traits.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm Four unhealthy behaviors combine to increase death riskFour unhealthy behaviors -- smoking, lack of physical activity, poor diet and alcohol consumption -- appear to be associated with a substantially increased risk of death when combined, according to a new report.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm Visualizing brain invasion by a fungusInfection with the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans can cause meningitis (inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain) and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain itself), conditions that are often lethal. To elicit these effects, the fungus must somehow leave the blood stream and enter the brain, but little is known about how it does this. A team of researchers has now used a form of microscopy known as intravital microscopy, which enables researchers to observe events in real-time in live animals, to visualize in mice the process of brain invasion by Cryptococcus neoformans.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm Shoe power generator, embedded in the sole of a shoe, harvest energyNew technology harvests power from a small generator embedded in the sole of a shoe. It is based on new voltage regulation circuits that efficiently convert a piezoelectric charge into usable voltage for charging batteries or for directly powering electronics.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm In pictures: Catching out cuckoosNewly released pictures help reveal how birds spot cuckoo eggs in their nests and avoid being cheated.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:05 am Surprising scienceWhy many of the biggest discoveries were accidentalSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:55 am Australia delays carbon trading scheme (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:45 am Ready to rumble - alarm call helps elephants flee beesElephants produce a rumbling alarm call to warn of the threat of approaching bees, scientists find.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:42 am The nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:11 am Australia shelves climate schemeAustralia says a key emissions trading scheme will not start until 2013 at the earliest, after it was repeatedly blocked in the Senate.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:05 am BP profits soar, investors eye oil spill (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 2:08 am On Little Cat's Feet: VISTA Captures the Cat's Paw NebulaThe Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) has done it again, this time imaging the Cat's Paw Nebula with stunning clarity.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:51 am LUCIFER to Reveal Fiery StarbirthThe Large Binocular Telescope is a seriously big piece of kit being readied for use in Arizona and an instrument called LUCIFER will use it to probe deep into the cauldron of stellar nurseries.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:30 am A morality check for British politiciansWhy can't politicians agree? Simple: Conservatives are from Mars and lefties are from Venus Stuck in front of the dialectical wrecking ball that is Jon Stewart, American politicians are usually reduced to rubble. But there is one who got away. In 2005, The Daily Show's host went head to head with then-senator Rick Santorum on the issue of gay marriages. Neither Stewart's reason nor his sarcasm could budge the ultra-conservative guest from the position that homosexual acts were wrong, disgusting and un-Biblical; and the liberal New Yorker eventually gave up, saying: "You end up getting to . . . this crazy stopping point where we can't get any further. I don't think you're a bad dude, I don't think I'm a bad dude, but I literally can't convince you." That "crazy stopping point" – beyond which, no matter how hard they try, left and right can only agree to disagree – has come up a few times in this election. Think of Chris Grayling's suggestion that B&B owners should be allowed to turn away gay couples – a remark that aroused outrage from liberals in politics and in the media, but which failed to topple the Tory from the frontbench. Or consider David Cameron's proposal for a tax break for married couples, loved by the Daily Mail but derided by Lib Dem Nick Clegg as "patronising drivel that belongs in the Edwardian age". As politicians, Clegg and Cameron are more alike than they are different: close in age and background, both pragmatic rather than ideological and in agreement on many big issues. Yet on an apparently small one (a tax credit worth £3 a week) they were miles apart. How come? And how could the Tory leader – for all his youth, his Converses and his Radiohead albums – come across as so illiberal? The answer may be simple: when it comes to morality, Conservatives are from Mars and lefties are from Venus. They struggle to agree – on the importance of marriage, say, or the wrongness of homosexuality – because they do not share the same basic sense of right and wrong. That at least is the argument made by a group of moral psychologists based at the University of Virginia in the US. For years, Jon Haidt and his colleagues have been carrying out thousands of surveys on the connection between politics and morality. Go to YourMorals.org, and try one: first you have to define yourself on a scale between left and right when it comes to foreign policy, economics and social issues, then you have to agree or disagree with statements such as, "If a person really needed to visit a friend in the hospital, so borrowed a stranger's bicycle for an hour, and the owner never found out, I would say this was OK." The tests show that what Americans call liberals, and what we term lefties, approach moral issues with two big questions. First, does this activity harm anyone? And is it unfair to anyone? Conservatives also worry a bit about fairness and harm, according to the Virginia researchers, but they are much more concerned with three other criteria: loyalty to a group (patriotism is traditionally a Conservative virtue), respect for social order and purity. The further out you place yourself on right or left, the less likely you are to share any moral sentiments with someone on the opposite wing – which may explain the gulf between Jon Stewart and his guest senator. Whether in India or eastern Europe, Haidt and his colleagues have found that difference in morality between right and left is robustly international. In Britain, both political wings are more liberal than our American counterparts – but the same divide shows up. Seen in the light of the Virginia research, what's striking is how closely the parties' election campaigns conform to type. Labour's great slogan is A Future Fair for All – fairness being a classic leftwing moral virtue. Clegg launched his manifesto with a vow to "challenge vested interests" – the sort of anti-authoritarianism that would repel conservatives. As for Cameron, his often airy-fairy talk about the Big Society would make for a brilliant game of moral psychology bingo: lines such as "ask what you can do for your country – and yes, for your family and for your community too" put a big fat tick in those loyalty and social order boxes. Similarly, when Tory thinker Philip Blond accuses Labour of "radical Maoism; they want to destroy all hierarchies", it sounds barking to most liberals, but doubtless tickles Conservative erogenous zones. None of this is to say that our political choices are driven by moral emotions. Trade unions would count as a leftwing form of community that show up how Haidt's taxonomy can't account for everything. But this research is part of a growing crossover between politics and psychology, with academics such as Drew Westen and George Lakoff paying more attention to voters' gut instincts than their sense of self-interest. These behavioural studies are already having a big impact on economics; it's about time they made a dent on political thinking. If nothing else, the work of Haidt and his colleagues might encourage British politicians to be more open about the moral choices that go into their policies. Brown bangs on about his "moral compass" but he hardly ever talks explicitly about how that affects his decisions. That would make for a dull election if it weren't for Alistair Stewart, Adam Boulton and Cleggmania. • More Guardian election comment from Cif at the polls guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am Redefining Tornado Alleys"Tornado Alley" is really four alleys -- sections of the southeastern US where tornadoes tend have a high probability of forming.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 10:11 pm Germanium 'Tissue Paper' Could Stop Bullets, Harness Solar EnergyWho wouldn't want a shirt that could stop a bullet and power your iPod? A new fabric can do just that.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 10:00 pm Experts try to break dengue scourge with gene studyHONG KONG (Reuters) - Former policewoman Jaycee Choy had to be pushed around in a wheelchair and couldn't eat for a week when she fell ill with dengue fever in 2005, the year when Singapore was hit by its worst dengue epidemic.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 9:53 pm Smoking May Be in Your Genes (HealthDay)HealthDay - SUNDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- For some people, quitting smoking could be especially difficult because their dependence may be explained in part by genetics, three new studies suggest.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 9:48 pm McAfee Offers to Pay for PC Repairs After Bad UpdateAntivirus software maker McAfee says it will reimburse reasonable expenses associated with a bad update last Wednesday that crashed computers worldwide.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 7:03 pm McAfee Offers to Pay for PC Repairs After Bad Update (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Antivirus software maker McAfee says it will reimburse "reasonable expenses" associated with a bad update last Wednesday that crashed computers worldwide.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 6:10 pm Mississippi counts cost of storms that killed 10 (Reuters)Reuters - Tornadoes that killed 10 people in Mississippi destroyed at least 700 homes and did tens of millions of dollars in damage, state authorities said on Monday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 5:06 pm Mice may make morphineMammals could have opiate factories.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/04BJVYXoboA" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 26 Apr 2010 | 5:00 pm Rig evacuated as precaution in Gulf of Mexico (Reuters)Reuters - An offshore drilling rig owned by Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc that had been working near a rig that caught fire and sank in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico last week has been evacuated as a precaution, a government official said on Monday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 4:33 pm What Climate Change Means for Wine Industry
John Williams has been making wine in California’s Napa Valley for nearly 30 years, and he farms so ecologically that his peers call him Mr. Green. But if you ask him how climate change will affect Napa’s world famous wines, he gets irritated, almost insulted. “You know, I’ve been getting that question a lot recently, and I feel we need to keep this issue in perspective,” he told me. “When I hear about global warming in the news, I hear that it’s going to melt the Arctic, inundate coastal cities, displace millions and millions of people, spread tropical diseases and bring lots of other horrible effects. Then I get calls from wine writers and all they want to know is, ‘How is the character of cabernet sauvignon going to change under global warming?’ I worry about global warming, but I worry about it at the humanity scale, not the vineyard scale.”
Yet despite his environmental fervor, Williams dismisses questions about preparing Frog’s Leap for the impacts of climate change. “We have no idea what effects global warming will have on the conditions that affect Napa Valley wines, so to prepare for those changes seems to me to be whistling past the cemetery,” he says, a note of irritation in his voice. “All I know is, there are things I can do to stop, or at least slow down, global warming, and those are things I should do.”
Williams has a point about keeping things in perspective. At a time when climate change is already making it harder for people in Bangladesh to find enough drinking water, it seems callous to fret about what might happen to premium wines. But there is much more to the question of wine and climate change than the character of pinot noir. Because wine grapes are extraordinarily sensitive to temperature, the industry amounts to an early-warning system for problems that all food crops — and all industries — will confront as global warming intensifies. In vino veritas, the Romans said: In wine there is truth. The truth now is that Earth’s climate is changing much faster than the wine business, and virtually every other business on earth, is preparing for. All crops need favorable climates, but few are as vulnerable to temperature and other extremes as wine grapes. “There is a 15-fold difference in the price of cabernet sauvignon grapes that are grown in Napa Valley and cabernet sauvignon grapes grown in Fresno” in California’s hot Central Valley, says Kim Cahill, a consultant to the Napa Valley Vintners’ Association. “Cab grapes grown in Napa sold [in 2006] for $4,100 a ton. In Fresno the price was $260 a ton. The difference in average temperature between Napa and Fresno was 5 degrees Fahrenheit.” Numbers like that help explain why climate change is poised to clobber the global wine industry, a multibillion-dollar business whose decline would also damage the much larger industries of food, restaurants, and tourism. Every business on earth will feel the effects of global warming, but only the ski industry — which appears doomed in its current form — is more visibly targeted by the hot, erratic weather that lies in store over the next 50 years. In France, the rise in temperatures may render the Champagne region too hot to produce fine champagne. The same is true for the legendary reds of Châteauneuf du Pape, where the stony white soil’s ability to retain heat, once considered a virtue, may now become a curse. The world’s other major wine-producing regions — California, Italy, Spain, Australia — are also at risk. If current trends continue, the “premium-wine-grape production area [in the United States] … could decline by up to 81 percent by the late 21st century,” a team of scientists wrote in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. The culprit was not so much the rise in average temperatures but an increased frequency of extremely hot days, defined as above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). If no adaptation measures were taken, these increased heat spikes would “eliminate wine-grape production in many areas of the United States,” the scientists wrote. In theory, winemakers can defuse the threat by simply shifting production to more congenial locations. Indeed, champagne grapes have already been planted in England and some respectable vintages harvested. But there are limits to this strategy. After all, temperature is not the sole determinant of a wine’s taste. What the French call terroir — a term that refers to the soil of a given region but also includes the cultural knowledge of the people who grow and process grapes — is crucial. “Wine is tied to place more than any other form of agriculture, in the sense that the names of the place are on the bottle,” says David Graves, co-founder of the Saintsbury wine company in the Napa Valley. “If traditional sugar-beet growing regions in eastern Colorado had to move north, nobody would care. But if wine grapes can’t grow in the Napa Valley anymore — which is an extreme statement, but let’s say so for the sake of argument — suddenly you have a global-warming poster child right up there with the polar bears.” A handful of climate-savvy winemakers such as Graves are trying to rouse their colleagues to action before it is too late, but to little avail. Indeed, some winemakers are actually rejoicing in the higher temperatures of recent years. “Some of the most expensive wines in Spain come from the Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa regions,” Pancho Campo, founder and president of the Wine Academy of Spain, says. “They are gettin almost perfect ripeness every year now for Tempranillo. This makes the winemakers say, ‘Who cares about climate change? We are getting perfect vintages.’ The same thing has happened in Bordeaux. It is very difficult to tell someone, ‘This is only going to be the case for another few years.’” The irony is, the wine business is better situated than most to adapt to global warming. Many of the people in the industry followed in their parents’ footsteps and hope to pass the business on to their kids and grandkids someday. This should lead them to think further ahead than the average corporation, with its obsessive focus on this quarter’s financial results. But I found little evidence this is happening. The exception: Alois Lageder, a man whose family has made wine in Alto Adige, the northernmost province in Italy, since 1855. The setting, at the foot of the Alps, is majestic. Looming over the vines are massive outcroppings of black and gray granite interspersed with flower-strewn meadows and wooded hills that inevitably call to mind The Sound of Music. Locals admire Lageder for having led Alto Adige’s evolution from producing jug wine to boasting some of the best whites in Italy. Lageder, in October 2005, hosted the world’s first conference on the future of wine under climate change. “We must recognize that climate change is not a problem of the future,” Lageder told his colleagues. “It is here today and we must adapt now.” As it happens, Alto Adige is the location of one of the most dramatic expressions of modern global warming: The discovery of the so-called Iceman — the frozen remains of a herder who lived in the region 5,300 years ago. The corpse was found in 1991 in a mountain gully, almost perfectly preserved — even the skin was intact — because it had lain beneath mounds of snow and ice since shortly after his death (a murder, forensic investigators later concluded from studying the trajectory of an arrowhead lodged in his left shoulder). He would not have been found were it not for global warming, says Hans Glauber, the director of the Alto Adige Ecological Institute: “Temperatures have been rising in the Alps about twice as fast as in the rest of the world,” he notes. Lageder heard about global warming in the early 1990s and felt compelled to take action. It wasn’t easy — “I had incredible fights with my architect about wanting good insulation,” he says — but by 1996 he had installed the first completely privately financed solar energy system in Italy. He added a geothermal energy system as well. Care was taken to integrate these cutting-edge technologies into the existing site. During a tour, I emerged from a dark fermentation cellar with its own wind turbine into the bright sunlight of a gorgeous courtyard dating from the 15th century. Going green did make the renovation cost 30 percent more, Lageder says, “but that just means there is a slightly longer amortization period. In fact, we made up the cost difference through increased revenue, because when people heard about what we were doing, they came to see it and they ended up buying our wines.” The record summer heat that struck Italy and the rest of Europe in 2003, killing tens of thousands, made Lageder even more alarmed. “When I was a kid, the harvest was always after November 1, which was a cardinal date,” he told me. “Nowadays, we start between the 5th and 10th of September and finish in October.” Excess heat raises the sugar level of grapes to potentially ruinous levels. Too much sugar can result in wine that is unbalanced and too alcoholic — wine known as “cooked” or “jammy.” Higher temperatures may also increase the risk of pests and parasites, because fewer will die off during the winter. White wines, whose skins are less tolerant of heat, face particular difficulties as global warming intensifies. “In 2003, we ended up with wines that had between 14 and 16 percent alcohol,” Lageder recalled, “whereas normally they are between 12 and 14 percent. The character of our wine was changing.” A 2 percent increase in alcohol may sound like a tiny difference, but the effect on a wine’s character and potency is considerable. “In California, your style of wine is bigger, with alcohol levels of 14 and 15, even 16 percent,” Lageder continued. “I like some of those wines a lot. But the alcohol level is so high that you have one glass and then” — he slashed his hand across his throat — “you’re done. Any more and you will be drunk. In Europe, we prefer to drink wine throughout the evening, so we favor wines with less alcohol. Very hot weather makes that harder to achieve.” There are tricks grape growers and winemakers can use to lower alcohol levels. The leaves surrounding the grapes can be allowed to grow bushier, providing more shade. Vines can be replaced with different clones or rootstocks. Growing grapes at higher altitudes, where the air is cooler, is another option. So is changing the type of grapes being grown. But laws and cultural traditions currently stand in the way of such adaptations. So-called AOC laws (Appellation d’Origine Côntrollée) govern wine-grape production throughout France, and in parts of Italy and Spain as well. As temperatures rise further, these AOC laws and kindred regulations are certain to face increased challenge. “I was just in Burgundy,” Pancho Campo told me in March 2008, “and producers there are very concerned, because they know that chardonnay and pinot noir are cool-weather wines, and climate change is bringing totally the contrary. Some of the producers were even considering starting to study Syrah and other varieties. At the moment, they are not allowed to plant other grapes, but these are questions people are asking.” The greatest resistance, however, may come from the industry itself. “Some of my colleagues may admire my views on this subject, but few have done much,” says Lageder. “People are trying to push the problem away, saying, ‘Let’s do our job today and wait and see in the future if climate change becomes a real problem.’ But by then it will be too late to save ourselves.” If the wine industry does not adapt to climate change, life will go on — with less conviviality and pleasure, perhaps, but it will go on. Fine wine will still be produced, most likely by early adapters such as Lageder, but there will be less of it. By the law of supply and demand, that suggests the best wines of tomorrow will cost even more than the ridiculous amounts they fetch today. White wine may well disappear from some regions. Climate-sensitive reds such as pinot noir are also in trouble. It’s not too late for winemakers to save themselves through adaptation. But it’s disconcerting to see so much dawdling in an industry with so much incentive to act. If winemakers aren’t motivated to adapt to climate change, what businesses will be? The answer seems to be very few. Even in the Britain, where the government is vigorously championing adaptation, the private sector lags in understanding the adaptation imperative, much less implementing it. “I bet if I rang up a hundred small businesses in the U.K. and mentioned adaptation, 90 of them wouldn’t know what I was talking about,” says Gareth Williams, who works with the organization Business in the Community, helping firms in northeast England prepare for the storms and other extreme weather events that scientists project for the region. “When I started this job, I gave a presentation to heads of businesses,” said Williams, who spent most of his career in the private sector. “I presented the case for adaptation, and in the question-and-answer period, one executive said, ‘We’re doing quite a lot on adaptation already.’ I said, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ He said, ‘We’re recycling, and we’re looking at improving our energy efficiency.’ I thought to myself, ‘Oh, my, he really didn’t get it at all. This is going to be a struggle.’” “Most of us are not very good at recognizing our risks until we are hit by them,” explains Chris West, the director of the British government’s Climate Impact Program. “People who run companies are no different.” Before joining UKCIP in 1999, West had spent most of his career working to protect endangered species. Now, the species he is trying to save is his own, and the insights of a zoologist turn out to be quite useful. Adapting to changing circumstances is, after all, the essence of evolution — and of success in the modern economic marketplace. West is fond of quoting Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives … nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” This piece was adapted from Mark Hertsgaard’s forthcoming book Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth for the Climate Desk collaboration. Mark Hertsgaard has written about climate change for 20 years for publications including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time and The Nation. His book on adaptation, titled Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt later this year. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Apr 2010 | 4:28 pm 1889 Pandemic Didn’t Need Planes to Circle Globe in 4 MonthsThe 1889 Russian flu pandemic circled the globe in just four months, captivating the world, despite the lack of airplanes or hyperventilating cable news stations. If that was possible, closing down air traffic in the event of a new pandemic might not do much, argue the authors led by Alain-Jacques Valleron, an epidemiologist at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale in Paris. “The rapid progression of the 1889 pandemic demonstrates that slower surface travel, even with much smaller traveler flows, sufficed to spread the pandemic across all of Europe and the United States in ~4 months,” the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 26. “This observation supports mathematical model results, which anticipated that restricting air transportation would have little, if any, effect. One possible hypothesis is that the important predictor of the speed of the pandemic is not the absolute numbers of passengers traveling between cities but the connectedness of the network of cities.” The data on the disease were assembled for the first time from local records in 172 European and American cities. The Russian flu is particularly interesting because it was the first major epidemic to strike Europe after the laying down of dense railroad connections. In 1889, there were already more than 125,000 miles of rail lines connecting European cities. (That’s more mileage than exists today, the authors note).
The outbreak began in the spring of 1889. It peaked first in St. Petersburg, Russia, in December of that year. By then, it had spread all across Europe and North America and was front-page news in many places across the country. In papers like The Evening Bulletin in Maysville, Kentucky, the flu hit the front page in the days after Christmas. The paper printed dispatches from cities across the world. “It is safe to say that over one-tenth of the population is affected by it,” a Boston reporter wrote. Meanwhile, doctors in Pittsburgh “expected[ed] ‘la grippe’ to reach here in all its violence before another month has passed.” While popular culture was receiving its information through the papers and informal information networks, the new study shows that more detailed records exist that make detailed, quantitative epidemiology for 19th-century disease outbreaks possible. Local authorities in Germany were already conducting massive surveys of 16,000 physicians, of whom 21 percent actually responded. Tracking the medical response to the outbreak is much harder. At the time, many different ideas for what caused the disease were floated, according to historian F.B. Smith. “In keeping with traditional speculations about epidemics, some doctors invoked earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as material energizers, concentrators, and disseminators, but in mechanistic terms, not as mere erratic signs of Providential displeasure,” Smith wrote in a 1995 essay on the Russian flu. “Earthquakes had been reported in almost every month of 1889, in such disparate locations as the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth, Manchester, Sicily, Greece, Japan, Samoa, Alabama, and elsewhere round the world.” One editorial in The Lancet argued that disease could travel around the world as easily as the dust from Krakatoa, which had exploded in 1883 and delivered brilliant sunsets in Europe. “Why should not this troublesome complaint have been produced by injurious emanations from the earth? Mild at first . . . [influenza] gets worse as it goes on, apparently gathering up other morbific elements on its way,” he wrote. “There is no more difficulty in admitting an atmospheric pollution traveling across the Atlantic to New York than that the red sunsets . . . round the world were lately caused by the dust of a Java volcano.” Other theories held that electrical and magnetic phenomenon were “likely agents,” Smith wrote, largely because some earlier epidemics had coincided with spectacular northern lights displays. It was hypothesized that electrical currents in the air could produce ozone, which intensified the illness. In the end, what doctors did may not have mattered much. The French researchers found that the mortality of the 1889 pandemic was about the same as the flu outbreaks of 1947, 1957, 1968, and 1977-1978, and (so far) 2009-2010. Transportation, information and medical networks may have changed, but the virulence of the flu — with the huge exception of the 1918 pandemic — appears to have stayed roughly the same. See Also: WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Tumblr, and forthcoming book on the history of green technology; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Apr 2010 | 4:25 pm Proposal sets whaling limitsConservative hunting quotas require more scientific data.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 26 Apr 2010 | 4:12 pm NASA Delays Final Space Shuttle Mission to November (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - NASA has delayed the last flight of the space shuttle Endeavour from July to November at the earliest to allow time to modify its cargo - a $1.5 billion science experiment - for a longer stay on the International Space Station.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 4:00 pm Subs sent to stem US oil rig leakRobotic submersibles are being used to try to stop a serious oil leak nearly a mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Apr 2010 | 3:48 pm Oil Slick from Rig Collapse Seen from SpaceThe oil slick resulting from an oil rig collapse can be seen from space in NASA satellite photo.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 3:40 pm Is the Earth's core solid?Even if you breezed through a few geology classes in your day, it's easy to think of the Earth's interior like a Cadbury Egg: solid on the outside and molten in the center. Yet we've known for more than 60 ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 3:20 pm Why Does South Korea Think That North Korea Sank Their Ship?South Korean government officials believe a North Korean torpedo most likely blew up one of their warships.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 3:02 pm Depressed People Eat More ChocolatePeople who score high on a screening test for depression consume more chocolate than those who aren't considered depressed.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 3:02 pm Mice Make Their Own Morphine
Illicit drug use and poppy seed bagels may not be the only sources of opioids that turn up in people’s urine.
Scientists have known for decades that people excrete some morphine in their urine, but most people assumed that the pain-killing drug came from the diet or drug use. A new study shows that mice, and probably humans and other mammals, can make morphine from scratch. “This paper now really shows that the whole pathway [to synthesize morphine] operates in the mouse,” says Heinz Floss, an emeritus biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the work. The study, published online the week of April 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also shows that the body rapidly uses up morphine’s building blocks by breaking them down or converting them to other chemicals, which helps explain why it has been difficult to determine whether people make the compound, says Floss.
No one yet knows why the body makes morphine, but researchers suspect it could be a natural painkiller or perhaps is used to help nerve cells communicate with each other. Where the morphine is made also remains a mystery. To learn whether mammals can synthesize morphine, researchers led by Meinhart Zenk, a biochemist at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, injected a mouse over the course of four days with a chemical called tetrahydropapaveroline, or THP. The compound is found naturally in human brain cells and is one of the chemicals that is altered to build morphine in plants. Using a supersensitive mass spectrometry instrument that precisely elucidates a molecule’s chemical composition, the researchers found that the mouse metabolized most of the THP into several different chemicals including salutaridine. In morphine-producing poppy plants salutaridine is then converted to thebaine, which undergoes further reactions to become morphine. The researchers show that mice can also do that chemical conversion, as well as others needed to generate morphine. The earliest stages of the morphine production pathway differ slightly between plants and animals, the team found. Those differences show that “morphine has obviously been discovered twice in evolution,” Zenk says. Floss thinks more data is needed to determine whether plants and animals independently evolved the intricate, multistep biochemical pathways used to make morphine, or if the synthesis pathway was already present in ancient ancestors of both plants and animals and has been modified since the two kingdoms split. Now that scientists know mammals can make morphine, the challenge will be to figure out what purpose the compound serves, Zenk says. He and his colleagues want to pinpoint where in the body morphine is made and learn whether it plays a role in regulating pain. Image: Rick Eh?/flickr See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Apr 2010 | 2:57 pm Do Aliens Exist? If So, Will They Kill Us?In a new Discovery Channel documentary "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking", the world-famous physicist goes on the record about his concern for attracting the wrong kind of attention in our cosmic neighborhood.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 2:50 pm Site chosen for super-telescopeEurope intends to build the world's biggest optical telescope on a mountain in Chile's Atacama Desert.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Apr 2010 | 2:47 pm Exercise Is Good For the BrainRegular exercise is good for the brain as well as the body, new research on monkeys suggests.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 2:20 pm Boost for Better Place's Electric CarsElectric car company, Better Place, announced today that it is launching an electric car trial in Japan, starting with city taxis. Three cars began a 90-day trial in Tokyo that could eventually lead to the city's entire fleet going electric. ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 2:16 pm Laughter Affects Body Like ExerciseIs laughter the new exercise? Quite possibly.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 2:01 pm NASA's final shuttle flight slips to NovemberCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's last space shuttle mission will be delayed until November so scientists can adapt a $2 billion particle detector for an extended life aboard the International Space Station, officials said Monday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 1:54 pm World's largest telescope to be built in ChileSANTIAGO (Reuters) - The world's largest telescope will be built in Chile's northern desert at a cost over $1 billion, the European Southern Observatory said on Monday, and will set its sights on discovering other worlds like our own.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 1:53 pm Ancient Tools Revealed by Melting Arctic IceAs ice patches in the Arctic melt, they are revealing once-hidden ancient tools and other artifacts.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 1:43 pm Missing data spark fears over land clean-upProposed home for world's largest fish market is contaminated land.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 26 Apr 2010 | 1:40 pm New cotton pest reaches Florida for first timeNEW YORK (Reuters) - The cotton seed bug, a pest that has not been found in the United States, has been found for the first time in Florida, agriculture officials said.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 1:28 pm Cosmic Dark Matter Clumps Into Cigar Shapes (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Elusive dark matter around clusters of galaxies often clumps into cigar shapes, new observations show.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 1:15 pm Ukraine leader says Kiev needs more Chernobyl fundsKIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine needs more international cash to keep safe the concrete case over the Chernobyl nuclear plant's fourth reactor which exploded 24 years ago, President Viktor Yanukovich said Monday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 12:58 pm Dead elephant was poisoned, says Kiev zooKIEV (Reuters) - The only elephant in Kiev's zoo, 39-year-old Boy, died Monday in his enclosure, apparently after being poisoned, the zoo's director said.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 12:55 pm Genes affect smoking behavior, lung cancer risk (Reuters)Reuters - Addicted to smoking and unable to quit? Your genes may be partly to blame, according to a trio of studies published Sunday in Nature Genetics that link several gene variants to a range of smoking habits, as well as increased risk for lung cancer.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 12:52 pm Smelly, Rare 'Corpse Flower' Set to BloomRare 'Corpse Flower' that smells of rotting meat set to bloom at university greenhouse, likely within a week.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 12:23 pm Chimps 'feel death like humans'Chimpanzees deal with death in much the same way as humans, according to two studies.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Apr 2010 | 12:19 pm Video: Chimpanzees Mourn Their Dead
In one report, two mothers in a chimpanzee colony in Guinea carried the dead bodies of their infants for weeks. In the other, chimps at a safari park in Britain cared for an elderly female in her final days. “We propose that chimpanzees’ response to death has been underestimated,” wrote researchers led by University of Stirling psychologist James Anderson in a paper published April 26 in Current Biology. A 50-year-old chimp named Pansy, kept at the Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park in Stirlingshire, Scotland, grew lethargic in November 2008. Shortly afterward, the park’s chimpanzees were moved indoors for winter, but Pansy continued to grow weaker, and stopped leaving her nest. Pansy’s companions were her daughter, a 20-year-old female named Rosie; Blossom, another 50-year-old female; and Blossom’s 20-year-old son, Chippy. The other chimpanzees began to nest near Pansy, instead of sleeping on their normal platforms. They were quiet and attentive, grooming and caressing her often.
Pansy died December 7, as shown in the video above. Rosie stayed with her mother’s body through the first night. Anderson compared this to a “nighttime vigil.” Blossom “groomed Chippy for an extraordinary amount of time,” in what Anderson called “consolation [and] support.” For weeks afterwards, the survivors were lethargic and quiet, and ate little — a sign of grief and mourning. Their behaviors were “strikingly reminiscent of human responses to peaceful death,” wrote Anderson’s team. Two infant chimpanzees — a 14-month-old named Jimato and the 30-month-old Veve — died from respiratory illness during the dry season of 2003. Jimato’s mother, Jire, carried his body for the next 68 days, grooming it and shooing away flies. Veve’s mother, Vuavua, carried his body for almost three weeks. Matsuzawa saw similar behavior following the 1992 death of another chimpanzee infant in Bossou. Jane Goodall, a pioneer in the study of chimpanzee behavior, also saw mothers carrying their dead infants in the late 1960s in Gombe, Nigeria. The behavior suggests a “poignant testament to the close mother-infant bond which extends across different primate taxa,” wrote the researchers. However, they refrained from interpreting the displays as conclusive evidence of grief. “An obvious and fascinating question concerns the extent to which Jire and Vuavua ‘understood’ that their offspring were dead,” they wrote. Such reticence is normal among primatologists, who are trained to guard against ascribing human emotions to other species. “We really can’t get inside their heads. We try very diligently to report only the behavior that we see,” said Deborah Fouts, director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. Fouts and her husband Roger have trained several chimpanzees to use sign language. The best known of these was Washoe, who died in 2007. “I can tell you that when Washoe died, Tatu” — his companion of two decades — ”made the sign for ‘cry,’” said Fouts. Videos: 1) Rosie, Blossom and Chippy gather around Pansy as she dies peacefully in Stirlingshire, Scotland./John Anderson. Citations: “Chimpanzee mothers at Bossou, Guinea, carry the mummified remains of their dead infants.” By Dora Biro, Tatyana Humle, Kathelijne Koops, Claudia Sousa, Misato Hayashi, and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. Current Biology, Vol. 20 No. 8, April 27, 2010. “Pan thanatology.” By James R. Anderson, Alasdair Gillies and Louise C. Lock. Current Biology, Vol. 20 No. 8, April 27, 2010. Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecological tipping points. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 26 Apr 2010 | 11:55 am Human Picture Project Puts Families in FocusFavorite photographs preserve memories of relatives, friends, pets, events and more that might otherwise be lost to time. Those of us who still have such images often take their value for granted, but it's important to remember that not everyone ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 11:47 am Chimps' emotional response to death caught on filmA video of the reaction of chimps to the death of an elderly group mate challenges procedures for dealing with terminally ill animals in captivity In the final hour, they huddled around, studied her face and shook her gently as if to revive her. And when the others had drifted away, one stayed behind to hold her hand. As death scenes go, it has all the poignancy of human loss, but this was no everyday tragedy. The last breath was drawn before scientists' cameras and represents one of the most extraordinary displays of chimpanzee behaviour ever recorded. Video footage of the death of Pansy, who at fifty-something was the oldest chimpanzee in the UK, was released by scientists today. The film captures for the first time the complex reactions of our nearest evolutionary cousins to the death of a group member. Studying the apes' behaviour could tell us as much about ourselves as the attachments and responses to death that chimpanzees exhibit within their groups and families, scientists believe. It could also challenge procedures for dealing with terminally ill animals in captivity. "Some of these behaviours have never been seen before in chimpanzees. It leads us to ask questions about the evolutionary origins of our own response to death and dying in a member of our own group or family," said Jim Anderson, an expert in the social behaviour of non-human primates at Stirling University in Scotland, who recorded the footage. "Many of our greatest philosophical questions concern death and dying and how we perceive it and deal with it." Pansy, a female who died of old age at Blair Drummond Safari Park at the end of 2008, was one of four chimpanzees being filmed by Anderson's group. When she became ill, vets paid regular visits to give treatment, while her companions – her daughter, a male and another female – looked on from a distance. When Pansy lay down in a nest that one of the other apes had made, the rest gathered around her and began grooming and caressing her. Shortly before she died, all three crouched down and inspected her face very closely. They then began to shake her gently. "It is difficult to avoid thinking that they were checking for signs of life," said Anderson. "After a time, it seemed that the chimpanzees arrived at a collective decision that she had gone. Two left immediately, but one, the other adult female, stayed and held her hand," said Anderson. "That evening, her daughter came back and stayed with her mother all night long. She was trying to sleep, but was clearly very disturbed. All three of them were." Chimpanzees are rare, even among nonhuman primates, in displaying self-awarness and empathy to other individuals. An animal may only respond to death in an apparently emotional way once these abilities have evolved, Anderson said. The chimps' behaviour contrasts starkly with accounts of chimps being killed during encounters with other animals in the wild. Typically, groups react to violent deaths by going into a mass frenzy. Anderson, whose research is published in the journal Current Biology, described the behaviour of chimps at Blair Drummond after a death as "serene". The footage has led him to call into question the wisdom of removing terminally ill animals from their enclosures shortly before they die. "At least in some cases, it might be better for all concerned to allow the animal to die in the comfort of familiar surroundings," he said. Other extraordinary footage of chimps dealing with death is reported in a second paper in the same journal (see below – some readers may find the video upsetting). Dora Biro, a researcher at Oxford University, witnessed the deaths of five chimpanzees, including two infants, in a community living in the forests of Bossou in Guinea. The mothers of the two infants, which were killed by a respiratory disease, carried their dead offspring for weeks and months. During that time the two infant corpses became mummified, but the mothers continued to groom the bodies and carried them to their day and night nests as though there were alive. Over time, the mothers began to allow others in the group to handle the corpses and went longer periods without them. "Chimpanzees are humans' closest evolutionary relatives, and they have already been shown to resemble us in many of their cognitive functions. They empathise with others, have a sense of fairness, and can cooperate to achieve goals," said Biro. "How they perceive death is a fascinating question and little data exist so far concerning chimpanzees' responses to the passing of familiar or related individuals either in captivity or in the wild." She added: "Our observations confirm the existence of an extremely powerful bond between mothers and their offspring which can persist, remarkably, even after the death of the infant, and they further call for efforts to elucidate the extent to which chimpanzees understand and are affected by the death of a close relative or group-mate. "This would both have implications for our understanding of the evolutionary origins of human perceptions of death and provide insights into the way chimpanzees interpret the world around them." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Apr 2010 | 11:36 am Chernobyl Still Poses 'Urgent' Threat on AnniversaryEven though it happened more than 20 years ago, the world's worst nuclear disaster is still a serious hazard.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 11:29 am See Virtual Statues in Amsterdam with a Cell PhoneDarth Vader, Superman, Spiderman and others invaded Dam Square in Amsterdam – virtually, that is.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 11:25 am Chimps Understand and Mourn Death, Research SuggestsChimpanzees may gather in hushed quiet to watch a fellow ape in her dying moments, and chimp mothers in the wild may carry their infants' mummified remains for weeks.Source: Livescience.com | 26 Apr 2010 | 11:07 am Unseen galaxy - latest images from the Planck space telescopeEurope's Planck telescope traces the dust and gas that fills the great space between the stars in its latest release of pictures.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Apr 2010 | 10:47 am Earth WatchGulf oil spill raises issues for mankind and natureSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Apr 2010 | 10:37 am Ancient Building Came With DIY InstructionsItalian archeologists have unearthed the remains of a 6th century BC Greek temple-like building that came with detailed assembly instructions just like an “IKEA do-it-yourself furniture pack." The elaborate structure was discovered at Torre Satriano, near the southern city of ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Apr 2010 | 10:36 am Scientists uncover deep ocean current near AntarcticaSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered a fast-moving deep ocean current with the volume of 40 Amazon Rivers near Antarctica that will help researchers monitor the impacts of climate change on the world's oceans.Source: Reuters: Science News | 26 Apr 2010 | 10:32 am Laughter may boost appetiteThe discovery that laughing may have the same effect on appetite as exercise could lead to 'laughter treatment' for patients who have lost their interest in food A hearty laugh can unleash some of the same changes in the body's chemistry as a quick bout of physical exercise, scientists claim. People who watched funny movies or comedy acts experienced the same hormonal changes that follow exercise and that are thought to boost appetite, they say. The finding could lead to the development of better ways to encourage healthy eating among patients who have gone off their food because of depression or other medical conditions. The study builds on previous work in which the same scientists claimed prolonged laughter can lower blood pressure and boost immune activity. "It may indeed be true that laughter is a good medicine," said Lee Berk, a preventative care specialist who led the latest research at Loma Linda University in California. In the study, 14 volunteers were assigned at random to watch either a stressful or a humorous 20-minute video. The stressful video was the brutal opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan, which depicts a group of US soldiers landing on Omaha beach during the second world war. Participants assigned to watch a humorous video could choose among a variety of comedy movies and stand-up acts. A week after watching their first video volunteers were shown the opposite genre video so their reaction to both could be compared. Berk's team measured levels of two hormones in the volunteers' blood called leptin and ghrelin, both of which are linked to appetite. While stressful movies had no clear effect on the hormones, mirthful videos caused leptin levels to fall and concentrations of ghrelin to rise. A similar effect is seen after physical exercise and is believed to stimulate appetite. The study does not prove that laughing improves appetite or fitness, but Berk said "it may provide ... further potential options for patients who cannot use physical activity to normalise or enhance their appetite." The research was announced at the annual Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, California, today. The work could improve treatments for people in chronic pain and elderly patients, who can lose their appetites and develop wasting diseases, the researchers said. "We are finally starting to realise that our everyday behaviours and emotions are modulating our bodies in many ways," said Berk. Robert Provine, a psychologist at the University of Maryland and author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, said it is difficult to untangle whether the physiological effects are caused by the act of laughing or something else. "An essential consideration about laughter is that it is a vocalisation that evolved to change the behaviour of other people, like talking. We do not have discussions about the health benefit of talking. Laughter did not evolve to make us healthy, although it may do so in indirect ways," he told the Guardian. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Apr 2010 | 9:26 am How good is Lib Dem science policy?We challenged the main political parties to answer questions about their science policies, posed by prominent scientists including Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh and Brian Cox. In the first of the series, Martin Robbins analyses the Liberal Democrats' responses and their manifesto commitments Welcome to the first of a series of posts analysing the science policies of the major parties – and a few of the more colourful minor ones – ahead of the general election next week. As well as poring over the parties' manifestos, we have compiled a series of questions with the help of Brian Cox, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre, Petra Boynton and David Nutt to explore the politicians' attitudes to science. We start with the Liberal Democrats (because they were first off the starting blocks with their answers). You can find the party's complete, unedited responses here. Even before the Liberal Democrats burst onto the election scene with the first televised leaders' debate, the party had gained a lot of credibility within the scientific community thanks to the efforts of Evan Harris, an MP who has made it his mission in recent years to campaign alongside scientists on a range of issues from libel reform to quack medicine. Harris answered our questions in person. The party came out well in our European Elections feature last year. How do they measure up in the run-up to the general election? Three policies in the Liberal Democrats' manifesto are particularly welcome: a commitment to closing the gender gap in science; a pledge to open up public access to research results; and a promise to ensure the independence of science advisers in the wake of the David Nutt affair, a debacle that has turned many in the scientific community away from Labour. However, their policies on energy and climate change are unconvincing. Professor Brian Cox: Science fundingDo you plan to maintain Britain's science budget below the European average?
From a reading of their answers here and their manifesto commitments, the Liberal Democrats seem genuinely keen to ensure that the research budget is preserved and independent, aiming to reduce Whitehall interference and moving sharply away from the business-oriented approach that has prevailed in the Labour years, with its emphasis on commercial benefits. They won't commit to anything beyond preserving the budget for the next year, however, preferring to see how the economy performs in that time. This is frustrating but fair enough. Alternative medicineIf the balance of evidence suggests that a treatment does not perform any better than placebo, should it be supported by the NHS? Evan Harris achieved heroic status among sceptics for his performance during the Science and Technology Select Committee's homeopathy evidence check last year, and the Lib Dems take a suitably scientific and rational line on alternative medicine. They would actively seek a full review of complementary and alternative therapies and, "[if] NICE's advice was that the treatment did not perform better than placebo, then of course it should not be supported by the NHS." That's the quack vote lost, then. Dr Simon Singh: Libel reformWhat will your party do to reduce the chilling effect of our libel laws on science? Currently there is no statutory public interest defence, so scientists risk running the gauntlet of London's High Court if they publish material they believe to be in the public interest, but that a major corporation or litigious charlatan believes to be libellous. The Lib Dems make a commitment to libel reform in their manifesto, with pledges to protect statements made in the public interest or in peer-reviewed work, end libel tourism, and reduce costs. They say they would also ban large corporations from suing individuals, in order to prevent "imbalance" in the system. Climate change/EnergyShould nuclear power be part of our country's strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? How soon can we bring new plants online?
While this is all very good in theory, I'm sceptical about their ability to achieve this in practice, especially given that their "fully-costed manifesto" sets aside just a little over a billion for this in 2010-11, with more than half of that to be spent on replacing buses and insulating public buildings, and only around £400m invested in upscaling renewable energy supplies. Is this a realistic plan? Professor David Nutt: Drugs policyTo what extent should drug policy be based on scientific evidence? What evidence, if any, would you require to declassify a drug? The Lib Dems have been praised for their progressive attitude to drug policy, and what's remarkable – but shouldn't be – is that they are committed to putting evidence first, rather than basing regulation on the views of Daily Mail columnists. Under the Liberal Democrats, drug classification would be based on independent scientific advice for the first time, with a focus on implementing policies that can be demonstrated to reduce harm. Dr Petra Boynton: Public health campaignsHow will your party ensure public health/education campaigns are underpinned by evidence, and how will you evaluate their success?
The idea of using properly controlled trials to test government policy is an excellent one, and shows a real commitment to basing policy on evidence over ideology. Ben Goldacre: Pharmaceutical regulationDo you believe pharmaceutical companies should be forced to publish all the research data they have on the potential benefits and harms of drugs they manufacture?
In their manifesto, however, the Lib Dems fall a little short of a commitment to making this happen, which is a shame as it would have complemented their pledges on open research. Pandemic readinessDo you believe the swine flu pandemic posed a significant risk to Britain? What action would your government take if a similar situation emerged in the future? The Lib Dems say they will draw on the best available advice from independent scientists and international bodies. Refreshingly, they say that "we reject the idea that if a worst case scenario does not come to pass then the advice or policy was wrong," which will probably cost them Simon Jenkins' vote. Best parliamentary candidate Evan Harris, Oxford West and Abingdon, a strong campaigner on scientific issues. Worst parliamentary candidate David Ord, North Tyneside, who in a response to the website Skeptical Voter suggested that Darwinian evolution wasn't supported by evidence, and compared homeopathy to diluted aspirin. ConclusionWhile I'm not convinced by their policies on energy, the Liberal Democrats have set a very high standard, with their engagement with the scientific community, and their commitment to evidence-based policy informed by advice from independent experts. Science funding would be reasonably safe, and public health policy would be firmly based on evidence, both of which would make a refreshing change. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Apr 2010 | 6:32 am Amtrak trials first cow-powered trainBiodiesel made from beef byproducts fuels rail operator's first green train, cutting carbon emissions and improving air quality. From BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network US rail operator Amtrak may have given the term "cattle car" a whole new meaning with the first test of a biodiesel train that runs on beef byproducts. Operating on a $274,000 (£178,000) grant from the Federal Railroad Administration, the state-owned rail company has begun operating its daily Heartland Flyer train, travelling between Oklahoma City and Forth Worth, using B20 biodiesel fuel. The fuel, which mixes 80 per cent diesel with 20 per cent biofuel, cuts both hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions by 10 per cent, according to the company, which said that the fuel also reduces particulates by 15 per cent and sulphates by 20 per cent compared to standard diesel fuels. The biodiesel, which was refined from beef byproducts provided by a Texas supplier, will run as a 12-month experiment, during which Amtrak will collect data on emissions, and on the impact of the fuel on mechanical parts. Although technically the fuel mix can run in unmodified trains, the locomotive was fitted with new engine assemblies so that detailed measurements could be taken to establish the effect of the fuel on the engine. The impact of biofuel blends on engines can vary dramatically, with some biofuels leading to increased wear and tear, while others tend to burn cleaner and lead to improved engine performance and durability. Amtrak is now promoting the biodiesel train to passengers with a 50 per cent discount on a companion fare until 28 May. The biodiesel trial is the latest in a series of environmental initiatives from Amtrak designed to highlight the operator's position as a green alternative to domestic US flights. The company has switched from low-sulphur fuel to ultra-low sulphur fuel across the railroad to tackle air pollution, and has installed recycling receptacles in its trains and stations. It has also stepped up efforts to reduc e idling times for its diesel trains, and has introduced regenerative braking systems similar to those in hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius for its electric trains. In addition, the company is a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and has a public commitment to reduce emissions by seven per cent in 2011 and 2012. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Apr 2010 | 5:38 am Giant gravel batteries could make renewable energy more reliableWind and solar power are often criticised for being too intermittent, but Cambridge researchers could change that Newly designed giant gravel batteries could be the solution to the on-off nature of wind turbines and solar panels. By storing energy when the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining, it is hoped the new technology will boost to renewable energy and blunt a persistent criticism of the technology - that the power from it is intermittent. Electricity cannot be stored easily, but a new technique may hold the answer, so that energy from renewables doesn't switch off when nature stops playing ball. A team of engineers from Cambridge think they have a potential solution: a giant battery that can store energy using gravel. "If you bolt this to a wind farm, you could store the intermittent and relatively erratic energy and give it back in a reliable and controlled manner," says Jonathan Howe, founder of Isentropic and previously an engineer at the Civil Aviation Authority. The Labour government committed to cutting the country's carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, both relative to 1990 levels. To achieve this, ministers outlined plans to build thousands of wind turbines by 2020. The only economically viable way of storing large amounts of energy is through pumped hydro – where excess electricity is used to pump water up a hill. The water is held back by a dam until the energy is needed, when it is released down the hill, turning turbines and generating electricity on the way. Isentopic claims its gravel-based battery would be able to store equivalent amounts of energy but use less space and be cheaper to set up. Its system consists of two silos filled with a pulverised rock such as gravel. Electricity would be used to heat and pressurise argon gas that is then fed into one of the silos. By the time the gas leaves the chamber, it has cooled to ambient temperature but the gravel itself is heated to 500C. After leaving the silo, the argon is then fed into the second silo, where it expands back to normal atmospheric pressure. This process acts like a giant refrigerator, causing the gas (and rock) temperature inside the second chamber to drop to -160C. The electrical energy generated originally by the wind turbines originally is stored as a temperature difference between the two rock-filled silos. To release the energy, the cycle is reversed, and as the energy passes from hot to cold it powers a generator that makes electricity. Isentropic claims a round-trip energy efficiency of up to 80% and, because gravel is cheap, the cost of a system per kilowatt-hour of storage would be between $10 and $55. Howe says that the energy in the hot silo (which is insulated) can easily be stored for extended periods of time - by his calculations, a silo that stood 50m tall and was 50m in diameter would lose only half of its energy through its walls if left alone for three years. To demonstrate how much less infrastructure his system requires, Howe uses the example of the Bath County Pumped Storage hydro-electric dam in Virginia, US. This is the biggest energy-storage system in the world, with two reservoirs covering 820 surface acres can store up to 30 GWh storage capacity. An Isentropic gravel battery of the same capacity would occupy 1/300th of the area, according to Howe. John Loughhead, executive director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said that the novelty of the Isentropic system lay in using cheap materials as the heat store, thus making a normally expensive and mechanically complex process very simple. But he said demonstrators would need to be built to prove the idea actually functions. "The question is, does it work? From an engineering standpoint, the temperature differences they mention, +550C to -150C are initially credibility-stretching for a single-pass cycle, and the potential for gravel particles to pass through the engine and damage or clog the inevitable cooling and lubricating systems seems high." Howe is in the process of designing a small pilot plant that could store 16MWh at full capacity - enough for the electrical needs of thousands of homes. That energy could be stored in two silos of gravel that are 7 metres tall and 7 metres in diameter. There is no reason why multiple units could not be connected together to store much more power, Howe says several gigawatt hours. Howe says he is in talks with what he refers to as "a large utility company" to sponsor the construction of a full-storage demonstrator system, something around the 100 kilowatt scale. Isentropic was selected recently by the government-sponsored Technology Strategy Board for a trade mission to meet Silicon Valley investors, one of around 20 of the Britain's most promising clean technology startup companies. David Bott, director of innovation programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, one of the sponsors of the 2010 Clean and Cool trade mission said: "Isentropic have done something very exciting, by revisiting scientific theory and coming up with a new technology that answers the need to match the generation of electricity with its use. For instance, the system could enable the more efficient use of wind power, by storing the energy generated by a turbine until it is needed. We need ways to store the energy we generate when we have a surplus, so that it can be used when we need extra and this innovative new system could provide the answer." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Apr 2010 | 5:33 am Smokers 'at mercy of their genes'Scientists identify three genetic mutations that increase the number of cigarettes people smoke a day.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 26 Apr 2010 | 5:22 am
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