New biological explanation for sadness in early postpartum

Greater levels of a brain protein called monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) may explain why postpartum blues and clinical depression are so common after childbirth, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Low-maintenance strawberry may be good crop to grow in space

Astronauts could one day tend their own crops on long space missions, and researchers have found a healthy candidate to help satisfy a sweet tooth -- a strawberry that requires little maintenance and energy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Genetic link between both types of ALS discovered

Researchers have discovered a link between sporadic and familial forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Researchers linked a rare genetic cause to most cases of ALS, clearing the way for therapy based on a known molecular target.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Weird, ultra-small microbes turn up in acidic mine drainage

Researchers have been studying the microbe community that lives in one of the most acidic environments on Earth: the drainage from a former copper mine in Northern California. One group of these microbes, dubbed ARMAN, seems to be smaller, and weirder, than any other known, free-living organism. Occasionally, it gets impaled by it larger neighbors.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Scientists create human embryonic stem cells with enhanced pluripotency

For the first time, researchers have converted established human induced pluripotent stem cells and human embryonic stem (ES) cells to state that corresponds to that of mouse embryonic stem cells. Mouse embryonic stem cell are more immature and are endowed with greater pluripotency than traditional human ES cells and, importantly, are much easier to propagate and to manipulate.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Molecular computations: Single molecule can calculate thousands of times faster than a PC

An experimental demonstration of a quantum calculation has shown that a single molecule can perform operations thousands of times faster than any conventional computer.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Transplant drug two-year study outcomes show superior kidney function

Two-year results from phase III clinical trials show the experimental immunosuppressive drug belatacept can better preserve kidney function in kidney transplant recipients while preventing graft rejection when compared with the standard immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 6:00 am

Researchers design new biomaterial that mimics muscle elasticity

Researchers have cast artificial proteins into a new solid biomaterial that very closely mimics the elasticity of muscle. The approach opens new avenues to creating solid biomaterials from smaller engineered proteins, and has potential applications in material sciences and tissue engineering.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 6:00 am

Brain may use clot-busting drug naturally as protection against stroke

New research on the properties of the clot-busting stroke drug tPA (tissue-type plasminogen activator) suggests that tPA can act as a neuroprotectant and may form the keystone of an adaptive response to a reduction in blood flow. Scientists have shown that certain parts of the brains of mice lacking the gene for tPA are more vulnerable to stroke. In addition, tPA can protect neurons in the same part of the brain from the stress of hypoxia (low oxygen).
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 6:00 am

First detailed underwater survey of huge volcanic flank collapse deposits

Oceanographers are mapping an extremely large landslide deposits offshore from an active volcano on Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 6 May 2010 | 6:00 am

Team to see if oil has reached Gulf islands (AP)

AP - A rapid response team will investigate unconfirmed reports that oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reached the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana's coast.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2010 | 4:12 am

Ash pushes case for new sensors

Iceland's ongoing eruption is likely to press the case for new satellite instruments to monitor volcanic ash thrown into the atmosphere.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 May 2010 | 4:00 am

Tsunami alerts 'confuse public'

Tsunami warnings need to convey information that is more meaningful to the public, a top researcher says.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 May 2010 | 3:42 am

'Profound decline' in fish stocks

Over-fishing means that UK trawlermen have to work 17 times as hard for the same fish catch as 120 years ago, a study shows.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 May 2010 | 3:41 am

Novel material 'mimics muscles'

Scientists create an artificial material that mimics the tough, stretchy properties of muscle.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 May 2010 | 3:17 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - The Northeast and New England were forecast to see scattered showers and thunderstorms Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2010 | 3:12 am

'Booming' bittern finally filmed

First daytime footage of one of the rarest mating rituals of any British animal is captured by a BBC film crew.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 May 2010 | 1:52 am

BP 'dome' carries hopes of averting oil catastrophe (AFP)

AFP - BP dispatched a giant domelike structure to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on a high-stakes mission aiming to limit the damage from what is becoming an environmental catastrophe.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 May 2010 | 1:43 am

The campaign against David Southall

A look at the controversial paediatrician's many battles

In the late 1980s, David Southall was feted by his peers for proving, with the help of hidden video cameras, the almost inconceivable – that mothers could deliberately injure their children. He became the world expert in the diagnosis of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy – now known as fabricated or induced illness (FII) – which is hard to prove, and traumatic to deal with. But in doing so he brought down on himself a two-decade campaign of extraordinary ferocity, organised by strident opponents who depicted him on websites with a noose around his neck and flames licking at his feet. A long and varied series of allegations and accusations have been made against him since then – to the GMC, the police, his hospital trust and anybody else conceivable – by parents facing court action to have their children taken away and their supporters.

The campaign against him and also paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow has been led by a group called Mothers against Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, which denies the existence of the abuse and claim innocent parents have had their children taken from them. Penny Mellor, a mother of eight who is the vociferous leader of the campaign, has been in contact with many of the parents who have lodged complaints against paediatricians – including Mrs M, whose case led to Southall being struck off (he has since been reinstated). She has resorted to breaking the law in support of her beliefs. In 2002 she was sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy to abduct a child who was about to be taken into care, reduced to 18 months on appeal.

Southall's opponents have probed every aspect of his work. In the 1990s, complaints flooded in to the North Staffordshire Hospital Trust, where he moved from London, not just about child protection but about his research. Southall had devised a machine to help tiny premature babies to breathe. The ventilator, known as CNEP (continuous negative extrathoracic pressure), used changes in pressure to make the lungs expand and contract. The baby was put into a box, with only its head protruding. A trial of CNEP in very high-risk babies did not prove it saved lives, however – 28 who used it died and 15 suffered brain damage, compared with 22 and 10 in a control group who were ventilated normally. The difference was not statistically significant, but angry and distressed parents began to complain, chief among them Carl and Debbie Henshall. One of their daughters, Stacey, died in the CNEP machine in February 1992, while another, Sophie, born later that year, was brain-damaged. Debbie Henshall said she was told CNEP was newer and safer – but not that her daughters were taking part in an experiment. She said she had not given consent.

Mounting allegations caused North Staffs to suspend Southall in 1999 while investigations took place into his child protection work and his research. While the trust, nearly two years later, reinstated him saying there was no case to answer, Professor Rod Griffiths, West Midlands director of public health, recommended that covert video surveillance should from now on only be undertaken with police supervision. He also recommended far-reaching measures to improve the governance of clinical research.

The campaign against Southall did not let up. There were allegations to the fraud squad and to the Charity Commission about Child Advocacy International, which he founded to help Bosnian children after the conflict. Confidential case notes were stolen from the charity's offices by an anti-Southall activist who had volunteered to help there. And complaints, including allegations of fraudulently signed consent forms for the CNEP trial, began to pour into the GMC. They have not been upheld.

Many people would keep their heads down in the case of this kind of barrage. Unable to discuss individual cases because of confidentiality rules, Southall largely stopped speaking publicly. But he could not refrain from putting his head above the parapet over the Sally Clark case and his intervention led to the GMC suspending him from child protection work for three years.

All this has had far reaching repercussions for the paediatric profession. "People don't want to do child protection because they know that it might end up in court," says Heather Payne, consultant paediatrician in the community in Caerphilly, Wales, and a member of Professionals Against Child Abuse. She hopes this latest development in the Southall saga means that a corner has been turned and that the vilification of paediatricians will not be quite as easy. "This is a sort of watershed," she says.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 6 May 2010 | 12:00 am

Today's American Moms Older, More Educated (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Just who falls into the category of "American mom" has changed quite a bit over the last 18 years, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center released today.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 10:16 pm

Getting Water Ferns Into Ship Shape

Gas guzzling container ships pose could easily use less fuel if their hulls had less friction. Scientists have long looked to nature for coatings that can help. A group of German researchers has figured out how the simple water fern ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 9:59 pm

NASA Spots Signs of Life... On Earth

For the first time, a NASA satellite has spotted sulfur deposits in the Arctic ice. The sulfur got there via bacterial activity, so does this mean we now have a method to hunt for extraterrestrial microbial life?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 7:16 pm

Linnaeus meets the Internet

Test case for electronic publication of new species names breaks with over 200 years of history.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/Z86YNPqxXiI" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 7:00 pm

White House backs raising oil damages cap (AFP)

AFP - The White House said it backed "significantly" raising the cap on damages faced by energy firms that pollute the environment, as it demands BP pays in full for the Gulf oil spill.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 6:57 pm

Palin rallies supporters of US drilling despite oil spill (AFP)

AFP - Right-wing darling Sarah Palin, who championed off-shore oil drilling in Alaska, bashed "foreign" companies Wednesday as the culprits behind the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 5:39 pm

NASA green lights Atlantis launch for May 14 (AFP)

AFP - NASA gave the green light Wednesday for the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, officially setting the mission clock on its journey to the International Space Station for May 14 at 2:20 pm (1820 GMT).

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 5:37 pm

NASA picks May 14 launch for Atlantis' last flight (AP)

AP - Space shuttle Atlantis is set to blast off on its final flight next week. NASA's top managers agreed Wednesday to set May 14 as the launch date. Liftoff would be at 2:20 p.m.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 5:27 pm

Last Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis Set for May 14 (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - NASA has cleared the space shuttle Atlantis for its last planned launch on May 14, the first of three final spaceflights planned for the U.S. space agency's storied space plane fleet.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 5:00 pm

No link found between sea turtle deaths and oil spill (AFP)

AFP - Dozens of stranded sea turtles have been located on the Gulf Coast, but scientists have found no evidence so far that their deaths are linked to the oil spill, officials said Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 4:31 pm

BP seals off first Gulf oil leak

BP seals the smallest of the three leaks spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, as it prepares to cover the site with an iron box.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2010 | 4:05 pm

Big Bang machine scientists look to exotic findings

GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists working on the Big Bang project probing the secrets of the cosmos said on Wednesday their giant particle collider is on course to make unexpected discoveries about the origins and makeup of the universe.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 3:32 pm

Elephants Fear Bees, Not Mice

When bees approach, elephants flee the scene, occasionally straying onto farmers' fields.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 3:25 pm

Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative

British Petroleum and government disaster-relief agencies are using a toxic chemical to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though a better alternative appears to be available.

As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill spreads, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard have conducted tests with Corexit 9500, a chemical designed to break oil slicks into globules that are more quickly consumed by bacteria or sink into the water column before hitting shore.

The decision has been a controversial one. A few scientists think dispersants are mostly useful as public relations strategy, as they make the oil slick invisible, even though oil particles continue to do damage. Others consider Corexit the lesser of two evils: It’s known to be highly toxic, adding to the harm caused by oil, but at least it will concentrate damage at sea, sparing sensitive and highly productive coastal areas. Better to sacrifice the deep sea than the shorelines.

But even as these arguments continue, with 230,000 gallons of Corexit on tap and more commissioned by BP, a superior alternative could be left on the shelf.

Called Dispersit, it’s manufactured by the U.S. Polychemical Corporation and has been approved for use by the Environmental Protection Agency. Both Corexit and Dispersit were tested by the EPA, and according to those results, Corexit was 54.7 percent effective at breaking down crude oil from the Gulf, and Dispersit was 100 percent effective.

Not only did Corexit do a worse job of dispersing oil, but it was three times as lethal to silverfish – used as a benchmark organism in toxicity testing — and more than twice as lethal to shrimp, another benchmark organism and an important part of Gulf fisheries.

As for why Corexit is being used instead of Dispersit, authorities haven’t yet said. According to the Protect the Ocean blog, U.S. Polychemical executive Bruce Gebhardt said the government had used Corexit before, and was sticking with what it already knows. Corexit makes up most dispersant stockpiles in the United States for this reason, though dispersant manufacture can be easily ramped up.

In a 1999 letter, the U.S. Coast Guard told U.S. Polychemical that “product information from planning mode evaluations remain on file to facilitate rapid review in the context of a spill.” In that same year, the EPA added Dispersit to the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, which determines what will be considered for use in an oil spill.

Relief agencies were not immediately available for comment about Dispersit. In a Tuesday press conference, Charlie Henry, the scientific support coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the potential effects of Corexit’s use in the Gulf are unknown. “Those analyses are going on, but right now there’s no consensus,” he said. “And we’re just really getting started. You can imagine it’s something we’ve never thought about.”

Image: Coast Guard workers spray Corexit on oiled rocks in Berkeley, California, in 2007./United States Coast Guard.

See Also:

• Gulf Coast May Be Permanently Changed by Oil Spill

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecological tipping points.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 May 2010 | 3:18 pm

Brain Scan Evidence Rejected by Brooklyn Court

A judge in Brooklyn ruled to exclude fMRI evidence in an employer-retaliation case, delivering another blow to proponents of lie detection by brain scan.

The scans didn’t even make it to the hearing that normally is used to determine the admissibility of scientific evidence in New York state court.

Defense attorney Jessica Cortes of the firm Davis and Gilbert won her motion to exclude the evidence without getting into the science behind brain scans. Juries are supposed to decide the credibility of the witness, she argued, and fMRI lie detection, even if it could be proven completely accurate, infringes on that right.

“Juries are supposed to determine if a witness is credible and take from that witness what is true,” Cortes told Wired.com. “That’s how our system works.”

The plaintiff’s attorney, David Zevin, confirmed that his side lost the battle. “The issue is dead in this case, at least until a possible appeal,” he wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. Zevin had sought to show that a witness he plans to call was telling the truth about the details of the case.

Much of the debate around fMRI lie detection techniques has centered on whether they will be reliable beyond the lab in real world conditions. But Cortes’ legal victory suggests that if and when the science is settled, the legal questions probably won’t be.

Wired.com has learned that more brain scans conducted by the company Cephos will be put to the legal test in a federal case in the western district of Tennessee. On May 13, that court will hear arguments over fMRI evidence in a Daubert hearing, the procedure used to assess the admissibility of scientific information in Federal court.

In that case, the U.S. attorney charges that Lorne Semrau, a psychiatrist, sought to defraud Medicare and Medicaid in the way he contracted and billed for his services. Semrau argues he had no intent to defraud the government and underwent a brain scan to prove it. His attorney, J. Houston Gordon, filed paperwork indicating that Stephen Laken, president of Cephos, would testify on the fMRI evidence the company obtained.

“Dr. Laken will further testify that Dr. Semrau was presented questions using fMRI technology and was instructed to respond to questions in either/both a truthful or deceitful manner, depending on the question posed,” Gordon wrote. “The fMRI screening demonstrated to a scientific certainty, that Defendant was truthful and possessed no intent to defraud or cheat the government.”

Both these cases demonstrate that the collision between fMRI technology and the legal system is likely to be long and messy. Wired Science will be tracking the Tennessee case as it develops.

Image: stephenhampshire/flickr

See Also:

• Scanning Dead Salmon in fMRI Machine Highlights Risk of Red
• MRI Lie Detection to Get First Day in Court
• Lie-Detection Brain Scan Could Be Used in Court for First Time
• Courtroom First: Brain Scan Used in Murder Sentencing
• Wired 14.01: Don’t Even Think About Lying
• Brain Scans as Mind Readers? Don’t Believe the Hype

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 | 5 May 2010 | 3:08 pm

U.S., other big powers to refrain from atomic tests

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The five official nuclear powers said on Wednesday they will continue to refrain from conducting any atomic tests and called for all nations to ratify a treaty banning all nuclear explosions.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 3:03 pm

Special Report: Inside the battle for Genzyme's future

BOSTON (Reuters) - At a recent dinner to honor the achievements of Henri Termeer, chief executive of biotechnology company Genzyme, Ananth Raman broke down as he recalled the moment he learned his 7-month old daughter had Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder that was damaging her heart. It was 2005 and doctors told him there was no cure. His child, they said, probably had less than five months to live.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 3:02 pm

The code within the code

Computational biologists grapple with RNA's complexity.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 3:01 pm

Well-trained immune cells keep HIV in check

Differences in T-cell development may explain why some infected people do not develop AIDS.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 3:01 pm

Neuroscience: Illuminating the brain

Systems neuroscientists are pushing aside their electrophysiology rigs to make room for the tools of 'optogenetics'. Lizzie Buchen reports from a field in the process of reinvention.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Seismology: The biggest one

Fifty years ago this month, a massive earthquake in Chile broke new ground in seismic science. Roff Smith looks back at the largest quake ever recorded.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Bees Build Gorgeous Underground Flower-Petal Nests

An unusual species of bee makes a "petal sandwich" out of brightly colored flowers and mud to shelter its eggs.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 2:55 pm

News briefing: 6 May 2010

The week in science.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 2:00 pm

The 'Quiet Zone': Avoiding Radio Interference At All Costs (Part 1)

Astronomers are constantly battling the scourge of light pollution, retreating to darker and darker observing sites for more sensitive telescopes. But how to escape the flood of man-made radio interference?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 1:51 pm

Escaped Piranhas, Floating Buildings: the Strangeness of the Tennessee Floods

Flooding is more than just rising, dangerous waters. As this weekend's inundation showed, it unleashes all manner of weird, destructive chaos.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 1:45 pm

Cinco de Mayo: NOT Mexico's Independence Day

With a history steeped in battles and rebuilding, Mexico has earned every right to be proud. Today marks a Mexican holiday that more and more people every year celebrate in the United States, many not knowing why they do it: ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 1:12 pm

Lack of Sleep Linked to Early Death

The less you sleep, the more likely you are to develop diabetes, obesity and hypertension.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 1:10 pm

New cod? Quick-growing tropical cobia could replace dwindling species

Species has high oil content, white flesh, and grows three times as fast salmon, and 'could be next big farmed fish'

A new fast-growing tropical fish that could provide an alternative to popular species for environmentally-conscious fish-lovers is being imported to the UK.

With recent studies revealing that UK's fish stocks have fallen by 94% in the past 100 years, Marine Farms argues that cobia, which has white flesh and a high oil content, could be the next big farmed fish species. The fish grows three times faster than Atlantic salmon and has good taste and consistency according to Bjørn Myrseth, the chief executive of Marine Farms, based in Norway.

"For us it is a very attractive fish because of the rate of growth. It can grow from about 1g to 5kg -6kg in a year, when it takes salmon around 30 to 36 months to reach the same size. It also has good eating qualities with very firm flesh and high oil content. It is easy to prepare and has a nice mild flavour," he said.

In the wild, cobia can grow up to 60kg, but it is very uncommon for the fish to be caught commercially, he said.

Marine Farms expects to produce 1,500 tonnes of the fish this year for export. There are plans to expand the site, which has the capacity to produce up to 6,000 tonnes a year, depending on demand.

"The challenge will be to introduce the fish and convince people to eat it – we have to make it known to people," he said.

The fish could also provide a viable alternative for other fish species that are under strain.

Said Myrseth: "With a high oil content, it is also great raw for sushi or sashimi. It can also be used as a replacement for fish such as tuna, if people are looking for an environmentally sustainable alternative, as the texture and flavour are quite similar."

The fish is currently placed at the more expensive end of the market and costs slightly more than Atlantic salmon, said Myrseth. "But we hope that as demand grows the cost of the fish will go down, and if demand is high enough it could become a relatively inexpensive fish in the future," he said.

Cobia has been commercially produced in Asia, particularly in Taiwan where it is stocked in about 80% of ocean cages, according to the Marine Farms website.

It has operated a cobia farm in Florida since 2002 and has opened operations in Belize and Vietnam.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, which publishes guides for sustainable seafood purchasing, recommends US-farmed cobia as it is farmed inland with closed recirculating systems that help prevent diseases and pollutants.

However, it advises against buying cobia from outside the US as it is often farmed in floating or submerged cages and pens in nearshore and open ocean waters. "This creates a risk of disease transfer, escapes and pollution impacts on surrounding ecosystems and species," according to the Seafood Watch website.

Myrseth said all Marine Farm cobia was sustainably farmed in low-density ocean cages with site rotation to prevent disease and damage to the environment. "This is very important to us, because if the environment is impacted we are the first to feel that," he said. The company's cobia is fed on fish oil, fishmeal and vegetable protein but it aims to feed the fish on vegetable protein in the future, he added.

Dawn Purchase, aquaculture officer at the Marine Conservation Society, said: "With 50% of global seafood now being farmed it is essential that all current and new farmed species coming into the UK market is produced in the most environmentally sustainable way possible, which ensures the health and diversity of the environment on which it depends."

Charles Clover, creator of The End of the Line – an exposé of the fishing industry – declined to comment on cobia specifically but said the farming of carnivorous fish posed significant environmental problems because of the shortage of smaller fish to provide food.

"Without that it is difficult to see how the aquaculture industry is going to continue to grow, unless they find some way of creating synthetic fish food," he said. "And as fish have been eating other fish for millions of years, that is not going to be easy."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 May 2010 | 1:06 pm

Greenhouse-gas numbers up in the air

To control emissions, countries must first account accurately for their carbon. That will take considerable effort, reports Jeff Tollefson.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 5 May 2010 | 1:00 pm

Buyers With a Cause

New research points to women and young people as the groups with buying power when it comes shopping for a cause.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 12:33 pm

Pro-religion scientist wins £1m Templeton prize

Francisco J Ayala, winner of award for 'entrepreneurs of the human spirit', believes science and religion do not contradict

An evolutionary geneticist and former monk who argues there should be no contradiction between science and religion has won the £1m Templeton prize.

Francisco J Ayala, a Spanish-born international authority on molecular evolution and genetics, received the honour – awarded to entrepreneurs of the spirit – at a private reception at Buckingham Palace today. The scientist and erstwhile Dominican priest said he would donate the money to the University of California, where he is professor of biological sciences, to support graduate education.

Former winners of the prize – one of the world's largest annual monetary awards, and created by legendary Wall Street investor Sir John Templeton for those who have made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension – include Mother Teresa, writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and US preacher the Rev Billy Graham.

The geneticist and author of Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion gives a lecture at the Royal Society tomorrow, and was named winner in March but received his award today from the Duke of Edinburgh.

Ayala said: "This is a remarkable prize. I hope the recognition it bestows will help propagate the notion that science and religion are not in opposition and that, in fact, they may often be complementary."

The professor, whose ground-breaking research into single-celled disease-causing organisms may lead to cures for malaria and other illnesses, has equated efforts to block religious intrusions into science with "the survival of rationality".

Despite his views on science and religion, he is a critic of creationism, and served as an expert witness in a pivotal US federal court challenge in 1981 that led to the overturning of a law in Arkansas stating that creationism should be taught alongside evolution.

He said today: "I have been arguing for years, and I continue to argue in all possible ways that are accessible to me, that there need not be contradiction between science and religion.

"Properly they cannot be in contradiction because they deal in different subjects. They are like two windows through which we look at the world; the world is one and the same, but what we see is different," he said.

The investor's son, John M Templeton, president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation, said: "Ayala's clear voice in matters of science and faith echoes the foundation's belief that evolution of the mind and truly open-minded inquiry can lead to real spiritual progress in the world."

Francisco J Ayala biography

Born 1934 in Madrid, Spain.

Ordained as a Dominican priest in 1960 but left the order the same year and moved to US.

Married with two grown-up sons.

Called the Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology, known for his research on population and evolutionary genetics.

His discoveries have opened up research into many diseases, including Chagas disease, which affects up to 18 million people in South America.

Publicly critical of US restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Is critical of creationism and intelligent design theories.

Argues belief in evolution does not rule out belief in God.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 May 2010 | 12:30 pm

Linux vs. Genome in Network Challenge

A comparison of the networks formed by genetic code and the Linux operating system has given insight into the fundamental differences between biological and computational programming.

The shapes are very dissimilar, reflecting the evolutionary parameters of each process. Biology is driven by random mutations and natural selection. Software is an act of intelligent design.

“One of the biggest problems of biological data is that you have no intuitions about it. It’s just a bunch of gobbledygook symbols. One way to get intuition is to map its structure onto something we know about,” said study co-author and Yale University informaticist Marc Gerstein. “Linux is evolving and changing. But unlike evolution in biology, we know exactly what’s going on.”

Several years ago, he refined a technique for turning gene-network “hairballs” — densely tangled depictions of gene interaction — into hierarchical maps. At the top of each map are what Gerstein calls master regulators, which steer the activity of many other genes. At the bottom are workhorses, which pump out protein code. In between are the middle managers, which do a bit of both.

Since then, Gerstein has compared the structure of gene networks between species, and contrasted biological networks with corporate and governmental structures. He hopes the contrasts will illuminate how network structure shapes genomic function.

In the latest study, published April 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he compared the genome of E. coli, a widely studied microbe, to Linux, the popular open source operating system. Though Gerstein hoped for insight into biological networks, the study also suggests strategies for social and technological engineers.

“If we don’t have designers fine-tuning things, and we have to deal with random changes, then what do we need to do in the control structure to make it robust?” said Gerstein.

E. coli’s network proved to have a pyramid-like shape, with a few master regulators, more middle managers, and many workhorses. In stark contrast, the Linux kernel call graph — the network of interactions between different pieces of program code — looks almost like an inverted pyramid. A great many top-level programs call on a few common subroutines.

Gene network structures start to resemble the Linux call graph as species become more complex, according to Sergei Maslov, a Brookhaven National Laboratory systems biologist not involved in the study. However, their pyramids never become as top-heavy as Linux. There seems to be a natural limit to this progression. The new study suggests why.

“If you update a low-level function, then you need to update all the functions that use it. That’s doable if you’re an engineer. You just go through all the code. But it’s impossible in biology,” Maslov said.

Indeed, when Gerstein’s team tracked the evolution of Linux kernel code since its original 1991 version, they found that its basic components had undergone extensive alteration. Biologically analagous are so-called evolutionarily conserved genes, which are used in a great many functions, but these have hardly changed at all. When a mutation is added, evolution can’t quickly update the rest of the genetic code.

Asked if human software engineers have outpaced natural evolution, Gerstein said the opposite was true. The computer model may be so extreme that it can’t be scaled to biological levels of complexity. “You can easily see why software systems might be fragile, and biological systems robust. Biological networks are built to adapt to random changes. They’re lessons on how to construct something that can change and evolve,” said Gerstein.

For now, the researchers have no plans to compare genomes to the most widely-used operating system of all, Windows.

“That’s forbidden,” said study co-author and Stony Brook University biophysicist Koon-Kiu Yan. “Windows is not open source.”

Image: Network structures of E. coli genome and Linux./PNAS.

Citation: “Comparing genomes to computer operating systems in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks.” By Koon-Kiu Yan, Gang Fang, Nitin Bhardwaj, Roger Alexander, Mark Gerstein. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 18, May 4, 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:

• Searching for Network Laws in Slime
• Networked Networks Are Prone to Epic Failure
• Circuit-Tweaking Reverse Engineers a Gene Network
• Global Energy Network Depends on a Few Vulnerable Nodes

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 May 2010 | 12:18 pm

Gulf Coast May Be Permanently Changed by Oil Spill

If a desperate, last-ditch attempt to cap the Deepwater Horizon wellhead succeeds in coming days, environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico will still be severe but probably not long-lasting. But if the cap fails, and months pass before a diversionary well can be drilled, the Gulf may be profoundly and permanently altered.

Thousands of miles of marshlands, sea-grass meadows and coral reefs — and the human industries they support — could be damaged beyond recovery. This is a worst-case scenario, and far from certain. But as long as the oil keeps flowing, the odds of it happening get better.

“What worries me is that this could turn into a chronic problem, not just an episode,” said ecologist James Cowan of Louisiana State University. “This could be the one additional thing that pushes us past a tipping point.”

High concentrations of oil are acutely toxic, but low concentrations have more subtle, widespread effects. As oil percolates through food webs, it retards plant and animal growth, leaving them vulnerable to predation and disease, and less fit to reproduce. With the Deepwater Horizon spill already too large and unpredictable to contain, the question is no longer whether it will cause damage, but what form damage will take.

If the flow is soon staunched, affected populations should rebound from losses in a few years, and even sooner if the oil stays at sea long enough to be churned by waves and consumed by microbes. Ecosystems will stay intact.

But if oil flows continue, plant and animal populations may be pushed to species-level tipping points, their numbers so low that replenishment is impossible. When this happens, food webs change. Some remaining species become more common, and others less. Disruption favors low-level opportunists that rush into newly open niches. Local ecosystems tip. If that keeps happening, an entire region can tip.

This seems to have happened in the northwest Atlantic, where overfishing for cod led to their permanent replacement by crabs and baitfish. In the northwest Mediterranean, a confluence of overfishing, pollution and climate change fueled the reign of algae and jellyfish. There’s no going back from such transformation, at least not at human-relevant timescales. That degree of change is now conceivable across much of the Gulf of Mexico.

“If a perturbation is extensive enough, and lasts long enough, you can shift an ecosystem to an entirely different state,” said John Valentine, senior marine scientist at Alabama’s Dauphin Island Sea Lab. He called ecosystem tipping “the most extreme of possibilities,” but said if the oil flow continues for several months, it could well happen in many areas. “There could be serious consequences for foundation species,” he said.

It’s not just a single food web that is jeopardized in the Gulf, but an interlocking mosaic of webs. One major component is the underwater sea-grass meadowland that forms a miles-deep fringe along the coastline. These meadows are home to many commercial fish and shellfish species, and are nursery grounds for other migratory fish.

The grass itself is a keystone species, critical for the survival of many other species, and ultimately holding the ecosystem together. If oil seeps deep into the seafloor, the roots of the grass could be choked, preventing it from regrowing. The same holds for above-water grasses in coastal salt marshes, which support other fish and shellfish species. When marsh grasses die, pools of water form, submerging marshes so deeply that new plants can’t grow.

Vegetation death doesn’t automatically lead to permanent wetland loss, “but it does have that potential,” said plant ecologist Irv Mendelssohn of North Carolina State University.

However, “I have worked a number of oil spills where the plants died but were able to recruit back to the site after a few years,” Mendelssohn said. His experience underscores the unpredictability of tipping points. A key factor is the presence of other environmental stresses. Tips are rarely caused by a single shock, but require multiple stresses.

Unfortunately, the Gulf is already stressed by fishing and pollution. Mississippi River dams and levees have altered water and sediment flows that historically nourished the delta. In the last 50 years, some 1,500 square miles of wetlands have vanished. Sea-grass losses range from 12 percent to two-thirds. Researchers have reported changes in species compositions, and growing areas of vegetation “patchiness,” a pattern considered symptomatic of stressed systems verging on tips.

“The system is already becoming degraded,” said University of New Orleans ecologist Denise Reed. It’s too soon to know if local systems will tip, but “oil could push a marsh that’s already hanging by its fingernails over the edge,” she said.

Especially vulnerable are sea grasses and marshes in the western Gulf, home to a fishery worth $2.4 billion annually. The western Gulf has few beaches, which would allow oil to be cleaned with relative ease as it washes ashore. It lacks the barrier islands that line northern and eastern shores, calming waters and slowing the oil’s advance. Louisiana’s scalloped coastline could soak oil like a sponge.

“There’s no first line of defense,” said Cowan. And while blocks have been deployed around a few highly productive areas, these cover a tiny fraction of the coast, and could easily be overwhelmed.

Another important type of Gulf ecosystem is found further off the coastline, in coral-rich continental shelves. These are home to complex webs that support many fish species, including most of the red snapper found in U.S. restaurants. These areas will be affected even if oil never reaches land, said Cowan.

Gulf currents loop along coastlines east and west of the spill. Depending on their variability, day-to-day winds, and the spill’s ultimate size, the oil could go in either direction, or both. Another current could bring it around the tip of Florida. In a few weeks, the Atlantic Basin hurricane season will begin, bringing storms that could drive oil deep into the wetlands.

“At this point, it all just depends on which way the wind blows,” said Reed.

Images: 1) Containment boom at Breton National Wildlife Refuge./United States Coast Guard. 2) Oil slick imaged by Aqua satellite May 4./NASA. 3) Oil slick trajectory map from April 30 to May 5./National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 4) Map of average Gulf of Mexico currents./University of Miami.

See Also:

• Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative
• Scientists Seek Warning Signs for Catastrophic Tipping Points
• Mediterranean Is Scary Laboratory of Ocean Futures
• Saving Fish is Possible, Unless They’re Past the Tipping Point
• Tracked From Space: Gulf Oil Slick Approaches Land
• The Exxon Valdez Spill Is All Around Us

Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecological tipping points.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 5 May 2010 | 11:49 am

Earth Watch

Ozone pioneer reflects on society's deeper woes
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2010 | 11:27 am

Star Wars Voices Now on GPS Devices

Coming to a galaxy near you... Star Wars villains and heroes giving you directions to the grocery store. Dutch navigation systems manufacturer TomTom is releasing one downloadable Star Wars voice per month for their GPS devices. Darth Vader is already ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 5 May 2010 | 11:12 am

Curious creature

Meet the animal dubbed a 'sabre-toothed sausage'
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2010 | 10:13 am

If science had a vote, where would it place its cross?

After two weeks spent reading manifestos and reviewing the parties' responses to our questions about science policy, Martin Robbins has reached his verdict

It's easy to get cynical about elections. We used to vote for the people we disliked the least. Then along came the Liberal Democrats and we realised it might be possible to make everybody lose. Added to that, any rational discussion of policy is pushed aside by a media machine more interested in what shoes the leaders' wives are wearing than in serious analysis of the parties' plans.

Science policy has hardly been mentioned in the news. So it's probably just as well that since the start of last week the Guardian has been looking in detail at the science policies of the main parties. What have we learned?

Our survey reveals the root cause of the media's lack of interest in science at this election. One striking feature of the parties' answers to our questions was the extent to which they all agree. A broad consensus exists on climate change, the need to develop renewable sources of energy, support for GM and stem cell research, animal testing, dealing with pandemics, libel reform and science funding.

Equally, all the parties seem to view science as inextricably linked with business, something that many scientists will be – and should be – wary of.

These aren't party political issues, so it's not really surprising that they don't feature much in an election campaign.

Whether this consensus is a good thing or not varies from issue to issue. In the case of libel, the consensus is a demonstration of the astonishing success of the Libel Reform campaign in recent months. On climate change, it indicates that a vigorous attempt by internet cranks to subvert science has met something of a brick wall, unless the next government turns out to be a coalition of Ukip and the BNP.

On the other hand it's hard to be optimistic when it comes to science funding – none of the parties seems particularly committed to it, and if the science budget isn't cut I'll happily dance around Guardian HQ naked. The only question is how much it will be cut by – the suspicion from Adam Afriyie's recent comments is that the Tories might wield the larger axe, but it's just a guess.

When it comes to the differences between the parties, all of them are committed to some extent to basing policy on evidence. The sticking point is where this clashes with moral ideology. Nowhere is this clash of political cultures starker than in the debate over drug policy, with both Labour and the Conservative party happy to abandon the pretence of a rational, evidence-based debate in favour of reactionary policies that pander to public opinion.

This wouldn't be a problem if we were able to have a proper public debate on drugs, but the right-wing press has made any sensible discussion of drug policy impossible. Not only do we have to endure hysterical shrieking over every drug scare that comes along, but academics have been subjected to what amount to vicious campaigns of intimidation. Witness the newspaper attacks last year that were directed not just at Professor David Nutt himself, but also at his family.

It's harder to understand the reasoning behind the Liberal Democrats' opposition to nuclear power, which seems to be based on more than simply the economic costs, or why the Labour party is so in thrall to the alternative medicine community.

And what of the respective potential science ministers? Dr Evan Harris commands the respect of the scientific community for the knowledge and passion he brings to the job. Similarly Lord Drayson managed to retain the respect of scientists even as they became increasingly disgruntled with his party. Like Harris he is heavily engaged with scientists and could regularly be found at meetings and events around London, or responding to Tweets on Twitter. His curious disappearance during this campaign has prompted some speculation about what his future might hold.

The Conservative shadow science minister, Adam Afriyie, on the other hand, is an unknown and rarely seen figure who has yet to demonstrate any real passion for scientific issues – which inevitably harms his party's credibility on science.

So if science could cast a vote, where would it put its cross?

I've concentrated here on the three main parties because as well as having no chance of forming a government, the smaller parties generally lack credibility on science. Plaid Cymru and the SNP are well-meaning, but don't cover the full spectrum of science policy. Ukip's policymakers are disastrously ignorant, while the Greens are gradually maturing but are still in thrall to irrational fears. Both might benefit from wider engagement with real scientists, whereas the BNP and Christian Party are too far gone to be saved.

That leaves the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Labour's record on science policy is unfortunate, with the debacle over funding for the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the sacking of David Nutt being particular lows. On the other hand, the party performs well in areas such as climate and energy.

The Conservatives look better than Labour on paper, but here we come up against the limits of an exercise like this. Can their answers really be trusted given, for example, the apparently lukewarm support within the party for action on climate change? At any rate, should the Tories win the election, the majority of their MPs are likely to be new faces, which makes any predictions uncertain.

Do you choose the devil you know, or take a gamble on the devil you don't? Except that this time there's a third way – the Liberal Democrats. Their science spokesman is an activist in his own right, while Nick Clegg comes across well on science. There are unanswered questions and potential flaws in their energy policy, but overall they provided a much more solid response to our questions than any of the other parties.

Which leads me to emerge from two weeks buried in paperwork and political promises to find myself at this conclusion. If I were to cast my vote based purely on science, it would be for the Liberal Democrats, for Nick Clegg and for Evan Harris.

How much science matters when you cast your vote is up to you, but I'll leave you with one final thought. Science itself may not be the biggest issue at this election, but a commitment to science-based policy is a commitment to evidence. Who would you trust more on the economy: a party prepared to listen to expert evidence and properly test and review its ideas, or a party that abandoned evidence as soon as it clashed with ideology? Tomorrow it's up to you.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 5 May 2010 | 10:12 am

Not over yet

What effects will new volcanic ash plume have?
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2010 | 9:30 am

Li Ka-shing eyes Israel for oil-sands, water tech

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa is keen on investing in Israeli technology companies specializing in oil-sands and water technologies, Israel's Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 8:47 am

Scientist says Bolivar likely died of poison

CARACAS (Reuters) - A U.S. scientist is supporting a theory that has been widely dismissed as a personal obsession of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: that his hero Simon Bolivar might have died from arsenic poisoning.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 8:45 am

Bad night's sleep can hamper body's insulin use

LONDON (Reuters) - Just one sleepless night can hamper the body's ability to use insulin to process sugar in the bloodstream, according to a study which scientists say might help explain why diabetes is on the rise.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 5 May 2010 | 8:44 am

Water mission fights interference

The Smos spacecraft returns valuable data on the way water is cycled around the globe, despite experiencing interference.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 5 May 2010 | 5:27 am