Extremely preterm babies face long-term lung deficits

More than half of children who were born very early -- at 25 weeks or less (normal gestation is around 40 weeks) -- have abnormal lung function and are twice as likely as their full-term peers to have a diagnosis of asthma, according to UK researchers, who followed a national cohort of extremely preterm infants to age 11.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Elephants have word for 'bee-ware'

For the first time elephants have been found to produce an alarm call associated with the threat of bees, and have been shown to retreat when a recording of the call is played even when there are no bees around.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Project fruit fly: What accounts for insect taste?

Scientists have identified a protein in sensory cells on the "tongues" of fruit flies that allows them to detect a noxious chemical and, ultimately, influences their decision about what to eat and what to avoid.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Scientists study 'glaciovolcanoes,' mountains of fire and ice, in Iceland, British Columbia, US

Glaciovolcanoes, they're called, these rumbling mountains where the orange-red fire of magma meets the frozen blue of glaciers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Is there a micro-supercapacitor in your future?

Researchers have developed a unique new technique for integrating high performance micro-sized supercapacitors into a variety of portable electronic devices through common microfabrication techniques. Featuring high power densities and rapid-fire cycle times, these new supercapacitors have the potential to substantially boost the performance and longevity of portable electric energy storage devices.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Obese children metabolize drugs differently than healthy weight children

Researchers have provided the first evidence-based data on changes in drug metabolism in obese children as compared to healthy weight children.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:00 pm

Lower levels of 'rotten egg' gas (hydrogen sulfide) in blood linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes and poorer circulation

Researchers have for the first time identified a link between blood levels of the gas hydrogen sulfide (a gas more commonly associated with the smell of rotten eggs), obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Peppers may increase energy expenditure in people trying to lose weight

In a study designed to test the weight-loss potential of dihydrocapsiate (DCT), the non-spicy cousin of hot peppers, researchers found energy expenditure was significantly increased in those consuming the highest amounts of DCT.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Brain tumor growth linked to lowered expression of hundreds of immune function genes

A new study links progression of a lethal type of brain tumor with reduced expression of more than 600 immune system genes, suggesting how complex the immune response is to the cancer and the resulting difficulty in targeting specific immune system proteins for treatment. 
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Rare 95 million-year-old flying reptile Aetodactylus halli is new pterosaur genus, species

A 95 million-year-old fossilized jaw discovered in Texas has been identified as a new genus and species of flying reptile, Aetodactylus halli. The rare pterosaur -- literally winged lizard -- is also one of the youngest members of the pterosaur family Ornithocheiridae in the world. It's only the second ornithocheirid ever documented in North America.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 9:00 am

Birds 'fly a flag' to woo a mate

High-speed video reveals how male common snipes - a species of wading bird - generate their distinctive drumming mating calls.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Apr 2010 | 3:52 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Wet and snowy conditions were forecast to persist over the Western half of the country Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 3:48 am

Fears grow over oil spill off Gulf coast (AFP)

AFP - US officials may attempt a controlled burn of a spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday to protect coastlines, as the coast guard warned the deadly disaster could become one of the worst spills in US history.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 2:57 am

Shell profits soar by 49% (AFP)

AFP - Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday its first quarter earnings rose sharply on the back of higher energy prices and an increase in output.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 2:55 am

EU president wants closer Japan ties, freer trade (AFP)

AFP - European Union president Herman Van Rompuy on Wednesday called for closer ties with Japan in fields from climate change to aid for Afghanistan but said differences remain over trade.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 1:54 am

TV review: The Story of Science

What's out there in space? And can a beer-drinking moose help us find out, asks Sam Wollaston

Earlier this year, the Daily Mail published the BBC's leaked Knowledge Commissioning Graded Talent List, the corporation's sinister league table that ranked its own presenters into four categories. There were some surprises. Alan Yentob was top of the top tier, the Chelsea of factual TV presenting. Seven-nil to Alan. Griff Rhys Jones was up there too, plus posh pig farmer Jimmy Doherty and wholesome outdoor type Kate Humble. Golden Kate and her fleece. There were further travesties. Charley Boorman, a man with no expertise or talent, made it into the second group, while national institutions Michael Palin and Delia Smith only made the bottom tier – called Occasional Sparkle, But Limited Appeal.

The third division was called On The Way Up, Worth Investment. And that's where The Story of Science (BBC2) presenter Michael Mosley found himself. According to the Mail, Mosley was also described as "crucial". Well, let's see about that. It's a good story, the one of science, with some big questions to answer. Such as, what is the world made of and how did we get here? But in this first episode Mosley is asking: what is out there? Meaning out there in the cosmos.

He does it well, plaiting together the science with the history. It's a human story too, and there's room for the odd amusing anecdote to keep those of us who get a bit fuddled by the physics entertained. I enjoyed Tycho Brahe, the eccentric 16th-century Danish astronomer who lost his nose in a duel, kept a dwarf under the table, and owned a pet moose that one day drank too much beer, fell down the stairs, and died, sadly.

Newton hadn't been born yet, so no one really understood why the moose fell down the stairs, rather than up them. And that the force that did for the moose was the same one that kept the planets and stars in the right place, relative to each other. First Kepler had to come up with his ellipses, Galileo had to invent his telescope, and they had to figure out that everything went round the sun, not the Earth. Which made the Catholics cross.

The human element to the story survives to the present; Mosley meets some interesting and eccentric characters in his search for answers. I like Michael Wright, a man with a straw hat and pince-nez who has spent 20 years recreating an ancient Greek instrument that describes their model of the universe, with the Earth at the centre. So a wrong model of the universe then. Wright could have gone back a bit further, and made himself a flat Earth. That would have been easier and saved him a lot of time; he's not just interested in what's right and wrong, though, but in the history of the acquisition of knowledge. That's what the series is all about too.

"Crucial" may be pushing it at this early stage, but I'm finding it hard not to agree that Mosley should be in the BBC's On The Way Up, Worth Investment league. He seems to know what he's talking about, is engaging and enthusiastic (maybe not to the degree of Brian Cox, the Wonders of the Solar System guy who used to be a pop star, but Cox's relentless enthusiasm can get a little tiring). Mosley too has that talent for doing science in a way that can appeal to both the scientifically minded and the less so. God, they're really pushing science right now at the BBC; if it's not the new rock'n'roll, then at least it's the new cooking. If I have one criticism of Michael, it's that he only owns one shirt. The pink one. Look, in California, Florence, Venice, Delphi. Wait, I tell a lie, because now he's got a mauve one on, in Prague, where Tycho's unfortunate moose succumbed to gravity. Maybe the pink one's being washed. I hope so, for everyone's sake. Yes, look, now he's got it back on again. It is nice and he looks good in it, but he might look good in something else too.

Try another colour Michael, for variety. Not black, obviously, with your name, but there's a whole spectrum out there. It's all to do with wavelength; I saw a fascinating documentary about it, presented by Richard Hammond (a category A man, ridiculously). Now, you invest in a couple more shirts, expand the wardrobe as well as our minds, then maybe we'll think about giving you "crucial" too.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Apr 2010 | 1:00 am

Hunt on for serial sex killing elephant in India (AFP)

AFP - Wildlife experts in southern India are hunting a rogue bull elephant who is thought to have gored 12 female tuskers to death because they spurned his sexual advances.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Apr 2010 | 12:07 am

Life thrives in ocean canyon

Benthic biomass booming in the depths.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/HSFFwgOd8DY" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Apr 2010 | 9:01 pm

Growing concerns over US oil leak

Leaks from an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could cause one of the worst spills in US history, says the US Coast Guard.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 8:47 pm

APNewsBreak: Idaho scientists find fabled worm (AP)

AP - Two living specimens of the fabled giant Palouse earthworm have been captured for the first time in two decades in what represents a significant discovery of a creature that has achieved a mythic status in the area.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 7:16 pm

New British moth is world first

A moth new to science and found nowhere else in the world has been formally recognised as living in the UK.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 7:03 pm

Shedding New Light on a Pulsar Mystery

The fledgling Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is teaming up with other radio telescopes to probe the beams of intense radiation emitted by pulsars, potentially answering the mystery as to how they are generated.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 5:39 pm

What Country Has the Most Immigrants?

Ten countries absorb the majority of the world's immigration.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 5:32 pm

Five-minute bowel cancer test could save thousands of lives

Screening and treatment with Flexi-Scope cut deaths by 43%, according to trial published in Lancet

A single five-minute test could save thousands of lives from bowel cancer every year, scientists say today, hailing the procedure as the most exciting cancer development in many years.

Researchers report in the Lancet today that, in a trial, screening cut deaths by 43% and the number of bowel cancers by a third. There are 16,000 deaths a year from bowel cancer, the second biggest cancer killer in the UK after lung cancer.

A national screening programme to detect cancers in the over-65s has recently been implemented, but scientists today say their test in a younger age group would prevent cancers developing. Introducing the new screening technology across the UK would save at least 3,000 lives a year, they say.

Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said the results were very exciting. "CRUK doesn't often use the word breakthrough, but this is one of those rare occasions," he said. "It is extremely rare to see the results of a clinical trial which are quite as compelling as this one."

Researchers followed more than 170,000 people for an average of 11 years, more than 40,000 of whom had the test. The procedure involves both screening and treatment in one quick session. Using a device called a Flexi-Scope, a doctor or trained nurse examines the inside of the lower bowel on a screen. Cancer in the rectum and the lower (sigmoid) bowel occurs when polyps on the bowel wall turn cancerous. During the screening, the operator can use the Flexi-Scope to remove the growths quickly and painlessly, preventing cancer from developing.

The test is best done around the age of 55, said Prof Wendy Atkin of the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London. Her 1994 hypothesis led to this trial and several others elsewhere in the world, most of which have yet to report. At that age, any polyps in place usually have yet to become cancerous. Where cancers are detected or where there are a large number of polyps or they are particularly large, patients can be referred for a colonoscopy, and given treatment if they need it.

"The Flexi-Scope examination is a one-off," she said. "It takes five minutes but it lasts a lifetime. We have only followed people up for 11 years, but there is no sign yet of the test effect wearing off."

This is the first robust evidence that removing polyps prevents bowel cancer and that the Flexi-Scope examination can prevent nearly half the bowel cancer deaths of those who undergo it.

Generally, it is assumed that most people are repulsed by the idea of a bowel examination and will not come forward if it is offered but the investigators found that was not so.

"Most people thought the whole examination procedure was absolutely fantastic," said Prof Jane Wardle, director of Cancer Research UK's health behaviour centre at University College London. "They were fascinated by what they could see on the screen. People were expecting something rather grim, but it was rather like the inside of the mouth 'pink and shiny'. The long-term follow-up showed that people were reassured about their future health. We measured wellbeing before and after. Screening seemed to make people happier."

Kumar called on the next government to introduce the tests nationally as a matter of urgency. "Thousands of lives could be saved every year and tens of thousands of families spared the anxiety and suffering of a cancer diagnosis and patients spared the hardship of having to undergo treatment for cancer. Overall, the NHS will save money." One third of cancers are in the upper part of the bowel, which is not reached by the Flexi-Scope, so the faecal occult blood screening programme, for the over-60s, would need to continue, although scientists say it is possible some bowel cancers migrate from the lower to the upper bowel and could be preventable.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 5:05 pm

Acupuncture does not relieve childbirth pain, finds study

Research suggests results from complementary therapy during labour may be placebo effect

Pregnant women hoping to give birth without drugs have been known to adopt any number of natural remedies, from water baths to self-hypnosis and extreme screaming, to minimise the agony of labour.

But a study published today finds there is no evidence that acupuncture, another popular complementary therapy, reduces the pain of childbirth.

Experts say growing numbers of pregnant women are turning to the practice, which involves needles being inserted into the skin to relieve pain. But research suggests it does not work during labour.

The finding, which has already prompted a vigorous debate about the value of acupuncture, came from British and Korean researchers who examined previous studies of its use in labour.

"The results show that there is little convincing evidence that women who had acupuncture experienced less labour pain than those who received no pain relief, a conventional analgesia, a placebo or sham acupuncture," researchers told BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The journal is owned by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which represents most of the UK's doctors specialising in childbirth and maternity care.

Prof Edzard Ernst, of the Peninsula medical school at Exeter and Plymouth Universities and co-author of the report, said: "The effects of acupuncture perceived by women are largely due to placebo. Acupuncture has many qualities that maximise placebo effects: it involves touch and is invasive and, psychologically, is attached to the mysticism of the east."

Prof Philip Steer, BJOG's editor-in-chief, said labour pain can be so intense that a women would do anything to minimise it.

"Acupuncture is a drug-free approach and that may explain why some women prefer its use during labour. This review shows that in a very small number of cases acupuncture may be of help, usually for short periods of time after treatment, and this may be down to psychological rather than a physiological effect. Generally the consensus is that the evidence does not support its use."

The only benefits were 11% less pain in the first 30 minutes after receiving acupuncture and a need for less pharmacological pain relief, the authors say.

The researchers found that acupuncture did not seem to be any more effective than sham acupuncture, conventional drug-induced pain relief or no pain relief. When women reported the amount of pain they were feeling while using acupuncture, it was similar to the pain levels recounted by women using these other methods.

But critics said the research ignored the real benefits that women in labour felt they had received.

"As a practising acupuncturist and midwife I've seen very good results in the past when using acupuncture for pain relief during labour," said Sarah Budd, a midwife and acupuncturist at the Derriford hospital in Plymouth.

"Our experience is that women are looking for alternatives to drugs and intervention such as epidurals, and certainly the women I have treated report a very high satisfaction rate from acupuncture treatment during labour with very little use of other pain relief methods."

Siobhain Freegard, co-founder of the Netmums website, said it was more important that some women who used acupuncture found it useful than that it was scientifically proven to work.

"If acupuncture helps a women endure the pain of childbirth and feel more relaxed and more in control of what's happening to her, then it's worthwhile, even if those benefits are mainly psychological," she said. "Pain is largely in the mind; it's not something you can see and touch. Childbirth is a combination of the psychological, emotional and physical. If acupuncture works on any of those levels, it's worthwhile."

Freegard added that women who used acupuncture with their first birth often use it their second time.

Mike O'Farrell, chief executive of the British Acupuncture Council, said: "We're surprised by these findings as previous trials, along with the evidence that our members see in their practices every day, suggest that acupuncture can be effective in providing pain relief in many different circumstances."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 5:05 pm

Daffodils versus wildflowers

These gaudy garden flowers make our rural landscape look unnaturally suburban

'Rural bling, lamented the man on the radio a few days ago, of the noisy golden trumpets that are now lining roads and gardens across the country." So began your leader column (In praise of … daffodils, 13 April). But you rather missed the point of my little campaign against the widespread planting of garden daffodils in the countryside.

First, by saying, "left to themselves, these native [daffodils] want the damp, misty woodland of the Welsh borders, not the rubbish-strewn roadsides of England's highways", you imply that the wild daffodil's range is much more restricted than it actually is. Wild daffodils still occur across most of England and Wales, from Cornwall to Essex and Cumbria, in isolated pockets, nature reserves and roadside verges.

The poetry of Wordsworth and Shakespeare was inspired by the wild daffodil. This plant is part of our natural heritage to be treasured, having arrived in these islands after the last ice age over 10,000 years ago (despite your description of it as "an immigrant from Spain").

The editorial then adds: "It takes all the vigorous vulgarity of February Gold or Cheerfulness to be seen over the strips of tyre and the fast-food debris that would overwhelm the more fastidious natives." Unfortunately, it's not litter that is overwhelming our native flora, but a range of factors. And it's not just road verges, but meadows, copses and even ancient woodlands that are now under attack from the big yellow monsters.

It's a fashion that's been developing since the 1960s, where well-intentioned people think they will "brighten up" the countryside with a splash of early colour. The trouble is that our native wildflowers are under threat, with many species in decline and disappearing. According to the charity Plantlife's website, "the worst-hit counties have lost one native flower every year, on average, throughout the 20th century. In the past 150 years, 21 native flowering plants have completely disappeared from our islands."

The problem of planting garden daffodils everywhere is twofold. On the one hand they take up space, growing so closely together once established that they exclude all other plants. On the other they give that unnatural suburban feel to our rural landscape, with their gaudy colours outshining our native primroses and cowslips. It's like painting lipstick on the Mona Lisa.

So what can we do? The best ecological solution would be to remove planted daffodils from all the natural habitats in which they've been put, and then to encourage all those gardening clubs, landscape planners and others to not plant them everywhere any more. If you must plant something, why not put back wild daffodils, or cowslips or primroses, as the Highways Agency has done successfully along many new road schemes? Or simply let nature take its course and see spontaneous colonisation in action.

Your editorial asks: "What's so wrong with larger, louder varieties of the native daffodil?" The answer to this question is: nothing, as long as they are in the right place. But for garden daffodils, that right place is not the countryside.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 5:05 pm

Oil spill endangers fragile marshland

Clean-up efforts begin after oil explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:46 pm

Boldly Going Once, Going Twice: 'Star Trek' Collectibles Up for Auction (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - An auction of items from the home of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of "Star Trek," will be held to benefit charity this summer. Vintage Trek scripts and William Shatner's motorcycle are just a few of the items up for grabs.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:30 pm

Blackberry Software Takes Cues from iPhone, Android

How does Blackberry's new OS compare to the iPhone OS 4?
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:21 pm

US Supreme Court eyes bar on Monsanto GM alfalfa (AFP)

AFP - Supreme Court justices sounded skeptical Tuesday of a federal court decision blocking US biotech giant Monsanto's sale of genetically modified alfalfa because some farmers fear their crops will be contaminated.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:15 pm

Malcolm X's Assassin Freed from Prison

Thomas Hagan served 44 years for gunning down the civil rights leader.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:00 pm

Gulf of Mexico spill may hit coast this weekend (Reuters)

Reuters - A giant oil slick from a deadly offshore drilling rig explosion could hit the fragile U.S. Gulf Coast shoreline this weekend as the White House and Congress launched separate probes into the worst offshore incident in nearly a decade.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:57 pm

Blackberry Software Takes Cues from iPhone, Android (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - With the official announcement today of Blackberry 6, the next operating system (OS) for BlackBerry smartphones, the inevitable question arises: How does it compare to the iPhone OS 4 Apple recently announced? Surprisingly well, it turns out.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:45 pm

Sugar in Diet Hurts Cholesterol Levels, Too

Added sugar is now seen to significantly adversely affect cholesterol and blood lipid levels.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:28 pm

SDO Observes Massive Eruption, Scorching Rain

NASA's new "Hubble for the Sun" has just observed one of the most dramatic eruptions in years. Movies ten times better than HDTV show billions of tons of magnetized plasma blasted into space while debris from the explosion rains back onto the sun's surface.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm

The 3 Most Common Types of PC Virus Infections

Trojans, botnets and scareware sound frightening... and for good reason.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 2:51 pm

Russia to boost university science

But can it break the dominance of the Russian Academy of Sciences without breaking the research base?
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Apr 2010 | 2:39 pm

Questions fly over ash-cloud models

Uncertainty remains on dangers of volcanic plume to jet aircraft.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Apr 2010 | 1:39 pm

Clinical drug tests adapted for speed

Flexible approach allows cancer researchers to change course mid-trial according to patient response.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Apr 2010 | 1:23 pm

Lost and Found: Soviet Lunar Rover

Another Soviet-era lunar rover has been found on the moon. This time, using Earth-based lasers to bounce off Lunokhod 1's retroreflectors, researchers managed to shine some light on the robot's final resting place.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 1:09 pm

Schoolgirl survives box jellyfish stings

Rachael Shardlow, aged 10, survived stings from the world's most poisonous jellyish despite horrific injuries when swimming in Queensland waters

Doctors in Australia have described their amazement at the recovery of a girl who was left unconscious after swimming into the tentacles of a box jellyfish.

Rachael Shardlow, 10, suffered horrific injuries to her legs and body when she came into contact with the jellyfish while swimming in an estuary in Queensland, Australia, in December.

The girl, who was pulled from the river with the stinging tentacles still clinging to her limbs, lost her vision and then stopped breathing and fell unconscious in the arms of her brother.

Jamie Seymour, who has studied jellyfish for 20 years at Queensland's James Cook University told reporters the extent of the sting was "horrific".

"When I first saw the pictures of the injuries I just went, 'you know to be honest, this kid should not be alive'. Usually when you see people who have been stung by box jellyfish with that number of the tentacle contacts on their body, it's in a morgue."

Box jellyfish are the most dangerous and venomous jellyfish in the world. Adults can grow to 30cm wide with up to 60 tentacles that stretch up to 2 metres long. They are transparent in the water, making them exceptionally difficult to see. At least 63 people are known to have died from being stung by box jellyfish.

Each box jellyfish tentacle contains millions of stinging cells called nematocysts, which release venom on contact. Trying to remove the tentacles can cause more venom to be discharged. Death can occur within five minutes of being stung. "These animals kill humans faster than any other venomous animal we know," Dr Seymour said.

Geoff Shardlow, the girl's father, said his daughter still has scars and some memory loss. "The greatest fear was actual brain damage [but] her cognitive skills and memory tests were all fine," he said. Doctors continue to monitor the girl's recovery.

Scientists do not fully understand why box jellyfish are so lethal. The venom usually causes death by causing respiratory or heart failure, though it also contains chemicals that destroy skin cells, causing large and deep patches of scar tissue.

The Australian Venom Research Unit at Melbourne University recommends strict supervision of children who are swimming in areas known to be at risk of box jellyfish, as small children are more vulnerable to the jellyfish stings.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:53 pm

High Metabolism Fueled Evolution of Bat Flight

From wings to low-density bones to echolocation, the evolution of flight in bats required many radical changes. But the most important change may have been metabolic.

A genetic comparison of dozens of mammal species shows that bats possess highly modified versions of genes responsible for turning food into energy. Improved energy efficiency would have encouraged their ancestors to move from treetop gliding, like modern flying squirrels, to actively flapping their arms.

“Gliding doesn’t require huge amounts of energy, but when you start flapping your arms, you start needing more,” said David Irwin, a University of Toronto evolutionary biologist. “Changes in energy synthesis need to get well underway before you get sustained flight.”

The bat evolution study, published April 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, grew from lead author Ya-Ping Zhang’s interest in avian energy metabolism. In an earlier comparison of flightless and flying birds, the Chinese Academy of Sciences zoologist found that flightless birds had fewer genetic changes in their mitochondria — the cellular structures that turn oxygen and nutrients into chemical energy. Zhang wondered if mitochondria and flight were tightly linked in mammals, too.

The researchers analyzed mitochondrial genes from four species of bats and 60 other mammal species. By comparing the differences against known evolutionary histories, they extrapolated what mitochondria in a last common ancestor might have looked like.

When they compared modern bat mitochondria to the ancestral animal, they found profound changes in a subset of genes that code for enzymes that break down nutrients — the fuel cells of the fuel cells, so to speak. In bats, up to 23 percent of these genes show signs of adaptations. Just 2 percent of other genes have changed.

Because bats were fully formed by the time they appear in the fossil record, scientists don’t know which adaptations came first. But Irwin thinks the mitochondrial changes must have come early, and are most important. To support their airborne lifestyle, bats require three to five times more energy than other mammals their size.

Irwin next hopes to study the physical structure of enzymes produced by bat mitochondria, with the aim of discovering exactly what makes them so efficient. The insights might eventually be applied to metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes. “Maybe this will give us a better understanding of how to make our own energy system more efficient,” Irwin said.

Image: Jessica Nelson/National Science Foundation.

Citation: “Adaptive evolution of energy metabolism genes and the origin of flight in bats .” By Yong-Yi Shen, Lu Liang, Zhou-Hai Zhu, Wei-Ping Zhou, David M. Irwin and Ya-Ping Zhang. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107. No. 17, 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:

• Bats Use Sun to Calibrate Geomagnetic Compass
• Video: Moth Blocks Bat Attack by Jamming Sonar
• Video: How Bats Land Upside Down
• Bats Get Pitchy to Make 3-D Echolocation Map
• Desperate Efforts to Save Endangered Bats May Fail

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:49 pm

Monitor Lizard Discovered with Flame-Colored Head

Scientists discover a new species of monitor lizard on Indonesian island.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:34 pm

EPA Scientist Says East Coast Beaches Threatened by Sea Level, But Nobody’s Listening

For most of the 20th century, Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, was known for its boardwalk, amusement park and wide, sandy beaches, popular with daytrippers from Washington, D.C. “The bathing beach has a frontage of three miles,” boasted a tourist brochure from about 1900, “and is equal, if not superior, to any beach on the Atlantic Coast.”

Today, on a cloudless spring afternoon, the resort town’s sweeping view of Chesapeake Bay is no less stunning. But there’s no longer any beach in Chesapeake Beach. Where there once was sand, water now laps against a seven-foot-high wall of boulders protecting a strip of pricey homes marked with “No Trespassing” signs.

Surveying the armored shoreline, Jim Titus explains how the natural sinking of the shoreline and slow but steady sea-level rise, mostly due to climate change, have driven the bay’s water more than a foot higher over the past century. Reinforcing the eroding shore with a sea wall held the water back, but it also choked off the natural supply of sand that had replenished the beach. What sand remained gradually sank beneath the rising water.

Titus, the Environmental Protection Agency’s resident expert on sea-level rise, first happened upon Maryland’s disappearing beaches 15 years ago while looking for a place to windsurf. “Having the name beach,” he discovered, “is not a very good predictor of having a beach.” Since then, he’s kept an eye out for other beach towns that have lost their namesakes—Maryland’s Masons Beach and Tolchester Beach, North Carolina’s Pamlico Beach, and many more. (See a map of Maryland’s phantom beach towns here.)

A 54-year old with a thick shock of hair and sturdy build, Titus could pass for a vacationer in his Panama hat, khakis and polo shirt. But as he picks his way over the rocky shore, he’s anything but relaxed.

For nearly 30 years, Titus has been sounding the alarm about our rising oceans. Global warming is melting polar ice, adding to the volume of the oceans, as well as warming up seawater, causing it to expand. Most climatologists expect oceans around the world to rise between 1.5 and 5 feet this century.

Some of the hardest-hit areas could be in our own backyard: Erosion and a shift in ocean currents could cause water to rise 4 feet or more along much of the East Coast. Titus, who contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Nobel Prize-winning 2007 report, has done more than anyone to determine how those rising seas will affect us and what can be done about them.

Like his occasional collaborator, NASA climatologist James Hansen, Titus has decided to speak out. He’s crisscrossed the country to meet with state and local officials in coastal areas, urging them to start planning now for the slow-motion flood. Yet his warnings have mostly fallen on deaf ears. “We were often told by midlevel officials that their bosses did not want to plan for anything past the next election,” he says.

Neither, it seems, does the federal government. Over the past decade, Titus and a team of contractors combined reams of data to construct a remarkably detailed model of how sea-level rise will impact the eastern seaboard.

It was the largest such study ever undertaken, and its findings were alarming: Over the next 90 years, 1,000 square miles of inhabited land on the east coast could be flooded, and most of the wetlands between Massachusetts and Florida could be lost.

The favorably peer-reviewed study was scheduled for publication in early 2008 as part of a Bush Administration report on sea-level rise, but it never saw the light of day — an omission criticized by the EPA’s own scientific advisory committee. Titus has urged the more science-friendly Obama administration to publish his work, but so far, it hasn’t — and won’t say why.

So Titus recently launched a personal website, risingsea.net, to publish his work. “I decided to do my best to prevent the taxpayer investment from being wasted,” he says. The site includes “When the North Pole Melts,” a prescient holiday ditty recorded by his musical alter ego, Captain Sea Level, in the late ’80s.

Titus gazes at Chesapeake Beach’s jagged shoreline, where two children scramble over the barrier of large gray boulders known as a revetment. “The children of 21st-century Chesapeake Beach, what do they do?” he asks. “They play on revetments.” A generation ago, these kids might have been skipping through the waves. A generation from now, many of the rocks they’re playing on will almost certainly be underwater.

Living near the ocean has always come with the risk of getting wet. Yet coastal dwellers whose homes got swamped by the occasional storm surge could rely on the water to eventually recede. That certainty is gone.

Titus has calculated that a 3-foot rise in sea level will push back East Coast shorelines an average of 300 to 600 feet in the next 90 years, threatening to submerge densely developed areas inhabited by some 3 million people, including large parts of New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. As Margaret Davidson, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Services Center in Charleston, South Carolina, puts it, “Today’s flood is tomorrow’s high tide.”

The rising waters can be kept at bay by constructing dikes and bulkheads, pumping sand to fill out receding beaches, and elevating existing buildings and roads on embankments or pylons. But such efforts may prove prohibitively expensive: Titus says that in the lower 48 states alone, they could cost as much as $1 trillion over the next century. He estimates that in the process, 60 to 90 percent of the east coast’s wetlands could be destroyed as bulkheads and other defensive measures restrict the movement of estuaries and marshes, drowning them when the ocean rises.

So are developers getting ready for the water? The National Association of Home Builders, the housing industry’s largest trade group, has no policy on adapting coastal projects to account for rising sea levels.

“While sea-level rise may be a real issue in some areas,” Susan Asmus, NAHB’s senior vice president of regulatory and environmental affairs, told me in an e-mail, “it is but one of many considerations that are likely already taken into account during the planning process.”

Mother Jones contacted the nation’s 10 largest homebuilders, including D.R. Horton, Pulte Homes, and Lennar. None would say how they are responding to sea-level rise.

Nor is there any evidence that the issue has much traction with homeowners — and why should it? Property insurance is readily available in most coastal areas, if not through private insurers, then through state governments and FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.

Though the NFIP requires policyholders to live above the 100-year high-water mark, it doesn’t account for how that line may creep inland in the future. Besides, most people would plan to resell their beach houses long before they expect them to be swallowed by encroaching waves.

What about government? Most coastal states have done little or nothing to regulate shoreline development, often from fear of litigation. In 1988, South Carolina’s Beachfront Management Act required new beach homes to be set back far enough from the water to be protected from at least 40 years of erosion.

A property owner named David Lucas sued, and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled that the construction ban had deprived him of any “economically viable use” of his coastal properties, a “taking” that required the state to compensate him. “After Lucas, fewer people spoke seriously about stopping development,” Titus says.

A few state and local governments have taken more constructive action. Several states limit development near tidal waters (Maine and Rhode Island have done this specifically in response to sea-level rise). Chatham, Massachusetts, cites sea-level rise as one reason why it prohibits new homes, even elevated ones, below 100-year flood lines. (State courts have upheld those limits in Chatham and Maine because they still allow property to be used for recreation, farming, and other profitable activities.)

In California, where erosion and winter storms routinely knock multimillion-dollar homes off seaside cliffs, the state’s Coastal Commission has long required anyone who builds on coastal bluffs to submit a geotechnical report proving that their home won’t fall into the ocean.

Three years ago, it began requiring the reports to account for sea-level rise. And in a groundbreaking 2008 executive order, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger directed state agencies to plan for sea-level rise in their construction projects.

A handful of developers have also started to seriously grapple with sea-level rise. A residential high-rise project on Treasure Island, a former naval base in San Francisco Bay, is being built far from the shoreline and is reserving funds for a protective berm if the water rises even higher than the 3 feet that’s anticipated.

And in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the insurance industry drew up standards to fortify houses for stronger hurricanes and higher waves. So far, though, only 200 houses nationwide have been built to comply with the standards.

Most coastal dwellers are focused on riding out the next surge, not the next century. You can’t really blame them — nobody really wants to hear that their days on the beach are numbered.

Case in point: Beyoncé’s dad. Matthew Knowles has been locked in a bitter struggle to save his beach house in Galveston, Texas, which now sits on top of the high-tide line thanks to Hurricane Ike.

In most states, Knowles would be allowed to shore up his home, but not in Texas, which is known for one of the most progressive laws in the country on beach access. The state’s Open Beaches Act provides that beach is a public resource that must be protected from “erosion or reduction caused by development.”

Last year, after Knowles started reinforcing his property with tons of cement, the Texas General Land Office informed him that paving over the beach is illegal. Even so, he continued and then surrounded his home with sod, planters, and sandbags. In March, the agency notified Knowles that it was preparing to fine him up to $2,000 a day for violating the Texas Open Beaches Act by interfering with “the right of the public to use the beach.” Knowles did not respond to a request for comment.

Historically, the 51-year-old law has been used to prevent property owners from walling off the beach in front of their homes. But officials say the law clearly applies even when the beach comes to the houses, rather than vice versa. “Even if you make $80 million a year, we don’t care,” says Jim Suydam, a spokesman for the Texas General Land Office. “The beach is the public’s.”

Incorporated into the state constitution last year and vigorously supported by the state’s conservative, gun-packing land commissioner, the Open Beaches Act is remarkably popular, in part because it can guarantee beach access for ATVs.

Titus views the Texas Open Beaches Act as one of the more promising tools for preparing for higher water. It has unintended environmental benefits, ensuring that beaches can migrate inland instead of being walled off and at the same time, it sidesteps any debate over climate change.

“Developers who deny that the sea will rise would view the policy as costing them nothing,” because it wouldn’t prevent them from building near the shore, he notes. Only the diehard beach dwellers would stand to get soaked.

Kate Sheppard contributed to this report.

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

Image: Elevations of land close to sea level in upper Chesapeake Bay. Elevations are above spring water, which is the average high tide during the new and full moons, and approximately the inland boundary of tidal wetlands.
J.G. Titus and J. Wang/EPA (2008)

See Also:

• What Climate Change Means for Wine Industry
• Treating Climate Change as a Curable Disease
• Betting on Climate Change: Corporations Stand to Make or Lose Billions
• Attractive Nuisance: Should Judges Help Tackle Climate Change?
• The Coming Tide of Global Climate Lawsuits
• Fair and … Carbon Neutral?

Josh Harkinson is a staff reporter at Mother Jones, and Kate Sheppard covers energy and environmental politics in Mother Jones’ Washington bureau.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:26 pm

Roman sculptures withdrawn from auction amid fears they are stolen

Bonhams auction house acts after claims that second century AD artefacts were taken during illegal excavations

Four Roman sculptures are to be withdrawn from auction tomorrow amid claims that they were stolen from archaeological sites overseas.

Photographs seized by police suggested that the sculptures – funerary busts and a marble statue of a youth from the second century AD – were illicitly excavated, archaeologists told the Guardian.

A spokesman for Bonhams auctioneers said: "Whenever a serious question is raised about an item's provenance we withdraw it from sale pending an internal investigation. We take rigorous care to ensure that we only sell items that have a clear provenance."

Dr David Gill, reader in Mediterranean archaeology at Swansea University, said that the four antiquities bore soil traces that indicated they were excavated during illegal digs. Images in the Bonhams auction catalogue show the same sculptures cleaned and restored.

Archaeologists remain concerned about illegal trading of antiquities and some believe insufficient checks are carried out into their provenance.

Lord Renfrew, the eminent Cambridge archaeologist, warned that "such sales are maintaining London's reputation as a clearing house for looted antiquities".

Gill said the withdrawal was the latest in a series of such incidents in London.

Christos Tsirogiannis, a researcher at Cambridge University and formerly an archaeologist with the Greek ministry of culture, uncovered the evidence suggesting that the sculptures had been illegally excavated. They had been moderately valued, at about £40,000, but he is concerned about the impact of illicit excavations.

He said: "The destruction leaves objects out of context. Even if [an object] is a masterpiece, our duty is to give people history." It is a view shared by most archaeologists.

Since 2003, it has been a criminal offence to deal in "tainted cultural objects", punishable by up to seven years in prison. Renfrew called for auction houses to identify the vendors of antiquities. "That would be a step towards clarifying the problem," he said.

The style of the Roman busts suggests they are of eastern Mediterranean origin and were possibly dug up in Syria or northern Greece. The marble statue probably originates from Italy, archaeologists said.

The Bonhams spokesman said that the firm sends its catalogues for scrutiny to the Art Loss Register – a computerised database – to ensure that only items with clear provenance are sold. "If they raise issues, we also withdraw items," he said.However, Dr Gill said that the Art Loss Register only dealt with stolen items, and not antiquities that may have come from illegal excavations.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 12:08 pm

Strange Attractors: How are Asteroids Like Geckos?

What do asteroids and geckos have in common? More than you'd think! The same force that allows geckos to climb walls also helps asteroid rubble piles stick together.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 11:51 am

Shoe Power That Can Walk the Walk

Shoes are already magical--they can light up, sprout wheels, and tone your thighs. Now an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Louisiana Tech University is taking them to the next step with a viable design for shoes that can power ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 11:31 am

Experts try to break dengue scourge with gene study

HONG 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 | 27 Apr 2010 | 11:28 am

How Deadly Is the Box Jellyfish?

The box jellyfish is pretty...pretty poisonous.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 11:25 am

How to Eat Less: Don't Put Food on the Table

People who serve themselves at the kitchen counter instead of at the table eat less, a new study finds.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 11:01 am

Japan to Launch 'Space Yacht'

The kite-shaped sails on this unusual spacecraft are propelled by sunlight.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 10:25 am

Magnetic Refuge Found on Moon

A mini magnetic field has been detected on the surface of the moon, making it a rare lunar refuge from the harsh solar wind.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 10:20 am

Bad Habits Can Age You by 12 Years

Smoking, excessive drinking and other bad habits can dramatically shorten your lifespan.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 10:10 am

Men Show Off to Impress Women Even in Virtual Setting

Even in virtual settings, men take risks to score women.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 9:23 am

Bad Economy Delays 'Adulthood'

Young Americans are more like the adults of the early 1900s. They are living at home longer, are more financially insecure and take home lower wages.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 9:11 am

New High-Tech, Flexible Pacemaker Tested on Pigs

Tiny, flexible sheets of electronic circuits could revolutionize medical devices from pacemakers to brain implants.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Apr 2010 | 9:03 am

Chimpanzee Mothers Carry Their Mummified Dead Infants

Chimpanzee mothers continue to carry and care for their infants, even after the infants have died and their bodies have mummified. Learn more by reading an interview with Oxford University zoologist Dora Biro, and examining photographs that show the behavior. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 8:49 am

Revisiting the Arizona border

A new measure signed into law last Friday by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer would make it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. The bill would allow local police to question people about their immigration status ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Apr 2010 | 8:14 am

Kyrgyz ex-leader's zoo discovered

A pair of snow leopards and two bear cubs are among the exotic animals found in the private zoo of ousted Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 7:43 am

Ukip answers 10 questions about its science policy

Prominent figures in UK science, including Brian Cox, Simon Singh and David Nutt, asked the main political parties 10 challenging questions about their science policies. These are the answers in full from Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the climate change spokesperson for Ukip (UK Independence Party)

Read Martin Robbins' analysis of Ukip's science policy here

Brian Cox: Science funding

Do you plan to maintain Britain's science budget below the European average?

"European averages" are not a sound basis for public investment decision-making. To restore a fair balance in science funding, all funding connected with "global warming" research will cease until a Royal Commission has heard the evidence on both sides of the case, with all the rigour of a court of law, and has substantively reported. In the meantime, the large sums now squandered on addressing anthropogenic "global warming" will be redeployed partly to increase funding for science in general, which has suffered at the hands of rapacious climate extremists, and partly to diminish the dangerously unsustainable national debt.

Alternative medicine

If the balance of evidence suggests that a treatment does not perform any better than placebo, should it be supported by the NHS?

"The balance of evidence" is not a sound basis for scientific decision-making. The correct approach is to conduct randomised, double-blind clinical trials of the "alternative" medication against a placebo, in accordance with a protocol agreed between the promoters of the "alternative" medication and the relevant Royal College.

No "alternative" medication that fails to outperform a mere placebo to a sufficient statistical confidence interval should be made available within the NHS.

Once an "alternative" medication has been demonstrated to be sufficiently efficacious in comparison to a placebo, it should be made available on the NHS provided that it either achieves the same result for less cost than existing "conventional" treatments or achieves a better result for the same cost.

Simon Singh: Libel

What 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.

There is no need to change the libel laws. Truth is an absolute defence against a claim for libel. If a scientist accuses someone of being a charlatan and cannot prove that his victim is a charlatan, he should be bound by just the same libel law as anyone else.

Later amended by Ukip press office to:

Truth must be an absolute defence against a claim for libel. If a scientist accuses someone of being a charlatan and cannot prove that his victim is a charlatan, he should be bound by just the same libel law as anyone else. However, libel law is due for some reform as the costs of defending a case have become prohibitive and the jurisdiction stretch has become invidious.

Climate change/Energy

Should nuclear power be part of our country's strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? How soon can we bring new plants online?

Ukip's climate and energy policy is as follows:

Ukip would appoint a Royal Commission on "global warming" science and economics, under a High Court judge, with advocates on either side of the case, to examine and cross-examine the science and economics of "global warming" with all the evidential rigour of a court of law.

The remit of the Royal Commission would be to decide:

· Whether and to what degree the IPCC has exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2 or other greenhouse gases;

· Whether and under what conditions, if any, the IPCC's imagined consequences of the present rate of atmospheric CO2 enrichment will be beneficial or harmful;

· Whether and under what conditions, if any, mitigation of "global warming" by reducing carbon emissions will be cheaper and more cost-effective than adaptation as, and if, necessary;

· Whether and under what conditions any emissions-trading scheme can make any appreciable difference to the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and whether and to what degree, if any, any such difference would affect global surface temperature.

Pending the report of the Royal Commission, Ukip would immediately:

· Repeal the Climate Change Act, and close the Climate Change Department;

· Halt all UK contributions to the IPCC and to the UN Framework Convention;

· Halt all UK contributions to any EU climate-change policy, including carbon trading;

· Freeze all grant aid for scientific research into "global warming".

In any event, Ukip would immediately:

· Commission enough fossil-fuelled and nuclear power stations to meet demand;

· Cease to subsidise wind farms, on environmental and economic grounds;

· Cease to subsidise any environmental or "global-warming" pressure groups;

· Forbid public authorities to make any "global-warming"-related expenditure;

· Relate Met Office funding to the accuracy of its forecasts;

· Ban "global warming" propaganda, such as Gore's movie, in schools;

· Divert a proportion of the billions now wasted on the non-problem of "global warming" towards solving the world's real environmental problems.

Ukip has been calling for a rational, balanced approach to the climate debate since 2008, when extensive manipulation of scientific data first became clear. There must be an immediate halt to needless expenditure on the basis of a now-disproven hypothesis. Given our unprecedented national debt crisis, not a penny must be wasted, not a single job lost to satisfy vociferous but misguided campaigners, often led by ill-informed media celebrities, profiteering big businesses, insurance interests and banks. The correct policy approach to the non-problem of "global warming" is to have the courage to do nothing.

David Nutt: Drug policy

To what extent should drug policy be based on scientific evidence? What evidence, if any, would you require to declassify a drug?

The general principle is that no drug that is marketed for recreational rather than medicinal use should be available without restriction. The question of what constitutes medicinal use is a medico-scientific question, and also a question of fact. If, for instance, a drug is sold by a dealer at a rave, even if the drug were originally formulated for a genuine and necessary medicinal purpose, in that context it is being marketed for a recreational and not for a medicinal purpose, and such marketing should be restricted. The severity of the restriction should depend on the potential harm caused to the user by the drug used recreationally. The degree of harm done in this context is also a medico-scientific question as well as a question of fact. Scientific evidence, as well as factual evidence in relation to the particulars of each case, is of course necessary in formulating a responsible policy on the availability of recreational drugs.

Animal testing

Is animal testing necessary? Are the ethical concerns outweighed by the benefits? How would you like to see regulations on animal testing change under your government, if at all?

Restrictions on the use of both animals and humans in testing of new medications are already tight. In general, testing on living creatures is only justifiable where the expected benefit of the new medication compellingly outweighs any harm that may be expected to come to the creatures on whom it is tested. That is a question which medical ethics committees are best placed to answer. Testing of non-medicinal products on either humans or animals is less easy to justify.

Petra Boynton: Public health

How will your party ensure public health/education campaigns are underpinned by evidence, and how will you evaluate their success? PR companies are increasingly influential in directing both the content and delivery of public campaigns, frequently at the expense of expertise from scientists, healthcare providers and academics.

Consider the prolonged campaigns to tell the public that salt is bad for them. There is little sound scientific evidence for any such campaign, since any excess salt is merely excreted harmlessly via the kidneys. The minuscule segment of the population to whom salt may be dangerous can be informed of the dangers individually by their health practitioners.

Public health campaigns should, therefore, be informed in future not by pressure groups such as those within the medico-scientific community who have whipped up unjustifiable fears, but by a mature evaluation of the scientific evidence, hearing both sides, followed by a straightforward presentation of the facts to the public. In this process, PR corporations have little value to offer.

The success of public health campaigns can be – and should be – measured by standard, well-established statistical methods.

Genetic engineering/Stem cell research

Should Britain be at the forefront of research in these areas? What benefits do you believe such research will bring for society?

Wherever stem cells can be obtained by means other than the killing of very small children, it is ethical only to obtain the stem cells by means that do not involve the loss of little lives. On this basis, there is no reason why Britain should not play a leading part in stem cell research.

Ben Goldacre: Pharmaceutical regulation

Do 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?

All scientists, whether in pharmaceutical, climatic or other research, should be required to archive all of the material on which they base their results, and to disclose all material known to them but not already in the public domain that may have a bearing on their results. Most respectable learned journals now require such archiving. Governments should be no less demanding.

Pandemic readiness

Do 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?

No, the swine flu epidemic did not pose a significant risk, any more than bird flu did. Only a handful of the billions of clades of each virus have the potential to cause widespread death in humans: the probability of a pandemic was negligible. Accordingly, though it is sensible to maintain a playbook for the swift containment of any truly fatal pandemic that may arise (such as HIV, where the standard public health protocol for prevention of widespread transmission was not followed when it should have been, and tens of millions have needlessly died), it is also necessary to preserve a due sense of proportion, and not to panic at the emergence of infectious diseases such as vCJD, bird flu or swine flu, none of which could have caused widespread mortality. Indeed, swine flu appears to kill a smaller proportion of those infected than most pre-existing influenzas.

This article was amended on 27 April 2010 at the request of Ukip to include an expanded response to the alternative medicine question.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Apr 2010 | 7:18 am

Climate concerns

South Asian leaders under pressure over climate change
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 6:07 am

Reviving Rio

Can the world come together to save the planet?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 5:19 am

New 'heart' for particle detector

An anti-matter detector to be installed on the space station is to have a key component changed to extend its lifetime.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:27 am

In pictures

How birds spot cuckoo finch eggs in their nests
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 4:05 am

Surprising science

Why many of the biggest discoveries were accidental
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 27 Apr 2010 | 3:55 am

Ready to rumble - alarm call helps elephants flee bees

Elephants 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