New concerns about radiation and breast cancer raised in study

A new study on human breast cells shows that even when radiation exposure does no direct genetic damage, it can alter the environment surrounding the cells so that future cells are more likely to become cancerous. This is further evidence for the treatment of cancer as a "systems biology" disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 12:00 pm

Chemists create DNA assembly line

Chemists have created a DNA assembly line that has the potential to create novel materials efficiently on the nanoscale.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 12:00 pm

Persistence of melanoma explained through 'dynamic stemness'

Scientists offer a new explanation for the tenacity of melanoma cells, one of the reasons why melanoma remains the deadliest form of skin cancer. The concept of the "dynamic stemness" of melanoma can explain why melanoma cells behave like both conventional tumor cells and cancer stem cells. Their findings reveal the unique biology of melanoma, and suggest that melanoma requires a new therapeutic approach.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 12:00 pm

Recycling 'tiny trash' -- cigarette butts

A new study suggests expanding community recycling programs beyond newspapers, beverage containers, and other traditional trash to include an unlikely new potential treasure: Cigarette butts. Terming this tiny trash "one of the most ubiquitous forms of garbage in the world," the study describes discovery of a way to reuse the remains of cigarettes to prevent steel corrosion that costs oil producers millions of dollars annually.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 12:00 pm

Building organs block by block: Tissue engineers create a new way to assemble artificial tissues, using 'biological Legos'

Tissue engineering has long held promise for building new organs to replace damaged livers, blood vessels and other body parts. However, one major obstacle is getting cells grown in a lab dish to form 3-D shapes instead of flat layers. Researchers have now come up with a new way to overcome that challenge, by encapsulating living cells in cubes and arranging them into 3-D structures, just as a child would construct buildings out of blocks.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 12:00 pm

The joke is on us: A new interpretation of bared teeth in archaeological artifacts

Bared teeth are a prominent and eye-catching feature on many historical and archaeological artifacts, and are commonly interpreted as representing death, aggression and the shamanic trance. But a new study argues that the bared-teeth motif often expresses something a bit less sinister: the smile.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 12:00 pm

Tiny sensors tucked into cell phones could map airborne toxins in real time

A tiny silicon chip that works a bit like a nose may one day detect dangerous airborne chemicals and alert emergency responders through the cell phone network. If embedded in many cell phones, its developers say, the new type of sensor could map the location and extent of hazards like gas leaks or the deliberate release of a toxin.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 9:00 am

How dangerous food-borne pathogen evades body's defenses

Scientists have pushed into place another piece of the puzzle of how Listeria monocytogenes, a dangerous food-borne pathogen, slips through the intestine's defenses and causes disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Potential new strategy for raising 'good' cholesterol levels: MicroRNA and host gene play key role

Researchers have identified tiny segments of RNA that may play an important role in the body's regulation of cholesterol and lipids. Their study found that the miR-33 familyof microRNAs suppress a protein known to be important for generation of HDL -- the "good cholesterol" that transports lipids to the liver for disposal -- and for the removal of cholesterol from peripheral tissues, including cells that form atherosclerotic plaques.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Aiming to cure deafness, scientists first to create functional inner-ear cells

After ten years of effort, researchers say they have found a way to coax embryonic stem cells as well as reprogrammed adult cells to develop into sensory cells that normally reside in the mammalian inner ear. Those mechanosensitive sensory hair cells are the linchpin of hearing and balance.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 14 May 2010 | 9:00 am

IPCC report 'errors' review opens

A UN-commissioned review into "errors" made by the climate change panel opens in Amsterdam.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 4:08 am

UN science chief defends work, welcomes review (AP)

AP - The head of the U.N. scientific body on climate change is defending the work of the thousands of scientists who contribute to its reports even as he welcomes a review of procedures that produced errors that undermined the panel's public credibility.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 4:08 am

Gove sets out 'new education era'

Michael Gove has set out the priorities for education, saying they mark a new era.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 4:07 am

Swan seen eating large eel

A swan nesting on the Neath canal in Wales is seen tackling and then eating a large eel.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 3:41 am

Warming will 'kill off 20% of lizards'

Reptiles that 'tolerate heat and should be well buffered against warming are the victims' as world enters 'era of climate change extinctions'

One–fifth of lizard species globally are set to go extinct by 2080 due to global warming, according to a study using data from more than 1,200 populations worldwide.

The research found that more than a 10th of Mexico's Sceloporus lizard populations have been driven to extinction in the last 35 years, with the figure projected to increase to almost 40% by 2080. The scientists projected their findings globally using data from other lizard populations around the world.

The findings come in the wake of immense criticism over the failure of world leaders to live up to a commitment to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010. Professor Barry Sinervo at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the study, said he believes "we have now entered the era of climate change extinctions".

Although we may not be accustomed to considering lizards as important players within our ecosystems in the UK, he warns that the reptiles occupy diverse ecological roles in ecosystems across the globe and their reduced numbers will have important implications for ecosystems and maintaining species diversity. "Their loss could cause a collapse at higher levels of the food webs," he said.

"Many people appreciate that climate warming may lead to extinction in the future," said Prof Raymond Huey an evolutionary physiologist at the University of Washington, who was not directly involved in the study. "But this paper shows that climate-induced extinction has already arrived and that more is coming. What is especially concerning is that lizards – a group of animals that tolerate heat and should be well buffered against warming – are the victims."

Scientists made the initial discovery by distributing an electronic device across 200 sites in Mexico where the lizards were both thriving and had already gone extinct. They found that rapid warming was causing the animals to spend more time in cooler retreats, preventing them from finding food and reproducing at a level able to maintain a stable population size. The reptiles do no produce their own heat internally and so are dependent on the sun.

When the researchers plotted the thermal biological data from the Sceloporus lizards, and more than 1,200 other populations found worldwide, against projected temperature rises they discovered that global warming will drive 39% of all global lizard populations and one fifth of all lizard species to extinction by 2080.

A drastic cut in CO2 production which limited temperature rise might enable losses to be limited to 6% of species, the study predicts. However, given the time lag required for current levels of CO2 to decline in the atmosphere and the projected rise in temperatures that we have already observed, Sinervo believes it is unlikely that more extinctions could be avoided.

Huey said the paper was a call to arms for scientists and policymakers. "This is a mission critical paper that sends urgent messages to two groups. First, it should prompt government officials to draft regulatory changes that may slow the growth of greenhouse gasses. Second, it sends a strong message to biologists - we need to get busy and start studying extinctions [their extent and causes] rather than just predicting future extinctions."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 14 May 2010 | 3:41 am

Swiss retreat helps Transocean save millions (AP)

AP - In the foothills of the Swiss Alps four new steel-gray towers rise from what used to be a grassy field. One of them is home to Transocean Ltd., the world's biggest offshore drilling contractor and owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst oil spills in history.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 3:40 am

BP hopes tube will siphon oil to tanker (AP)

AP - Undersea robots were trying to thread a small tube into the jagged pipe that is pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico in BP's latest attempt to cut down on the spill from a blown-out well that has pumped out more than 4 million gallons of crude.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 3:30 am

NASA fuels space shuttle Atlantis for final voyage (AP)

AP - NASA is fueling space shuttle Atlantis for its final journey.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 3:26 am

Climate link to lizard extinction

Climate change could wipe out 20% of the world's lizard species by 2080, according to a global-scale study.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 3:22 am

Folk medicine threat to wild dogs

Half of all wild dog species such as jackals, foxes and wolves are harvested for traditional folk medicines, scientists warn.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 2:59 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Severe weather continued developing along a cold front over the Eastern U.S. on Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 2:45 am

Conservationists ask the public to help save moths and bats

Moths and bats are "in crisis", say conservationists, who are asking the public to take part in a national survey.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 2:38 am

Atlantis ready for final voyage

The US space shuttle Atlantis is about to undertake what is expected to be its final mission before retirement.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 14 May 2010 | 2:36 am

Pressure mounts on BP as Obama eyes 'next steps' (Reuters)

Reuters - Political pressure mounted on Friday for BP to show progress plugging a massive oil leak while residents of coastal Florida, Mississippi and Alabama learned the growing pool of oil from the leak would not strike their beaches before late on Saturday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 2:33 am

Last Atlantis mission set for launch (AFP)

AFP - Final preparations were under way Friday to launch the space shuttle Atlantis on the last mission of its 25-year career, taking astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 2:24 am

Pressure mounts on BP as Obama eyes "next steps" (Reuters)

Reuters - Political pressure mounted on Friday for BP to show progress plugging a massive oil leak while residents of coastal Florida, Mississippi and Alabama learned the growing pool of oil from the leak would not strike their beaches before late on Saturday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 14 May 2010 | 2:02 am

Dx1W: The Rest Saving the West

Because I cover tech for a radio program that does international news for an American audience, I end up doing a lot of stories on well meaning folks from the developed world (or the First World, as it was once ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 14 May 2010 | 1:36 am

Wake-Up Call: 'Zombiesat' Could Interrupt 'Lost' Season Finale

After a bizarre chain of events, the zombie satellite currently drifting through geostationary orbit could interrupt US cable TV programming, possibly even one of the most anticipated finales of the year.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 11:14 pm

China scientists say cigarette butts protect steel (AP)

AP - Chinese scientists say they have found a way for the countless cigarette butts that are tossed every day on streets, beaches and other public places to be reused — in protecting steel pipes from rusting.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 10:35 pm

Small Changes in Two Genes May Trigger Breast Cancer (HealthDay)

HealthDay - THURSDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) -- Slight changes in the expression of two common genes trigger cellular changes that can lead to breast cancer, a new study finds.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 9:49 pm

Stem cells regrow crucial hearing cells in mice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stem cells can be coaxed into becoming the hair cells deep inside the ears that are destroyed in hearing loss, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 7:45 pm

Dolphin, turtle deaths eyed for links to oil spill

PORT FOURCHON, Louisiana (Reuters) - Scientists are examining the deaths of at least six dolphins and over 100 sea turtles along the U.S. Gulf Coast in recent weeks to see if they are victims of the giant oil spill in the region, wildlife officials said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 7:21 pm

Oil Leak a Chronicle of Tech Failures

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill continues to be absurdly bad. Even in the time it's taking me to write this post, thousands of gallons of oil have bled into the Gulf. The enormous leak is so challenging that even underwater ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 4:30 pm

Grown Men Swap Bodies With Virtual Girl

The virtual environment created the illusion of being in someone else's skin.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 4:30 pm

Cheese Boosts Immune System in Elderly

Cheese can help preserve and enhance the immune system of the elderly by acting as a carrier for probiotic bacteria.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 4:19 pm

Lizards succumb to global warming

Climate change is already sending reptile populations extinct worldwide.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/XuFK_QsxuYM" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 13 May 2010 | 4:00 pm

GM crop use makes minor pests major problem

Pesticide use rising as Chinese farmers fight insects thriving on transgenic crop.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 13 May 2010 | 4:00 pm

Early Feathers Too Weak for Flight

Poor flight ability suggests that early birds lived in trees and would launch themselves off branches in order to glide.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 3:59 pm

Pest munches up China fields after GM crop sprays halt

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A once minor pest has ravaged fruit orchards and cotton fields in China after farmers stopped spraying insecticide in crops of a genetically-modified type of cotton resistant to bollworms, experts said.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 3:34 pm

Genes explain why Tibetans thrive in high places

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers have identified two genes that appear to explain why Tibetans are able to live comfortably in rarefied air at very high altitudes.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 3:19 pm

Willetts becomes science minister

The UK's new minister responsible for research will have a very challenging brief, say science advocates.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 May 2010 | 2:36 pm

Video: Strapping In With the Crew of the Shuttle for Launch Training

The STS-132 crew will buckle into the space shuttle Atlantis tomorrow before launching into orbit for a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. It is the last scheduled flight of Atlantis, and the last scheduled flight for each of the six astronauts aboard.

Earlier this month, I was at the Johnson Space Center after STS-132 commander Ken Ham invited me to join the crew on a launch-simulation training session. After spending some time in the fixed-base simulator practicing landings, Commander Ham thought it would be interesting for me to get a taste of the launch simulations in the full-motion simulator.

The motion-based simulator (MB) is similar to the full-motion simulators used to train airline pilots. There is a complete reproduction of the entire space shuttle cockpit, and screens out the windows replicate the scenery during flight. Unlike the full-motion simulators used by the airlines, the MB that trains the astronauts can tilt all the way back to simulate the launch position of the orbiter with everybody on board lying on their backs.

Inside the cockpit are Commander Ken Ham in left seat and Pilot Tony Antonelli in the right seat. Directly behind the right seat, sits Mission Specialist Garrett Reisman and, in the middle behind a center console, sits Mission Specialist Michael Good. During launch, mission specialists Piers Sellers and Steve Bowen will be in the mid-deck and did not take part in the cockpit training sessions. Though there are only four seats in the cockpit of the orbiter, there is a fifth seat in the simulator located directly behind Commander Ham’s seat for observers.

After everybody is strapped in, and all loose objects are secured, the entire cockpit is tilted on to its back and the crew sits waiting for the training to begin.

There was no iconic countdown in the simulation. After confirmation over the headset with the launch crew at mission control that everything was secure and ready to go, we could hear the rumbling sound of rockets and the entire MB started to shake. The shaking is an attempt to recreate as much of the real launch conditions as possible. The full load of the sustained g forces can’t be replicated, but lying on your back with everything moving around provides some of the feeling of launch.

Inside the simulator, you can feel when the solid rocket boosters detach. The shaking stops once the main engine is cut off, about eight minutes and 30 seconds into the flight. By the time the shaking stops, the simulator is returned to a level position so the crew is no longer lying on their backs.

Over the course of several hours, the crew rehearsed several launch emergency scenarios, some of them stacked one after the other during a single session. After each session, the crew debrief with the trainers who are monitoring the training in a room nearby. Once the debrief was done, the MB was returned to the vertical position, a few small, loose items fall to the back of the cockpit and several minutes later, everything starts shaking and a new session begins.

From my vantage point in the extra fifth seat behind Commander Ham, watching the crew train is complete information overload. The crew remains calm through each emergency and works together like a well-oiled machine. And crew resource management takes on a whole new meaning with a four-person crew and several more on the ground at mission control. But the constant stream of information coming in from the ground crew over the headsets, the information presented inside the cockpit and the book-like checklists that are constantly referred to is incredible.

The mood during each session is all business. Each crew member is working very hard to find a solution to the wide range of emergencies that’s being thrown at him. But during the short breaks between sessions, it sounds more like your average office chit-chat. The crew talks about Little League games and past work experience, though since that includes previous missions to space and flying fighter jets, it’s not exactly mundane. There are plenty of jokes and laughter.

The various simulators used by the space shuttle crews are - practically speaking - the main way for astronauts to gain experience. Commander Ham and other members of the STS-132 crew have been been astronauts for more than a decade, but except for Piers Sellers, this will only be their second mission to space.

Unlike an airline or military pilot who can spend a decade gaining experience during actual flight training and missions, the relative lack of actual time in the orbiter means there is very little opportunity to gain ‘on the job’ experience for the astronauts. After spending only half a day in the MB watching the crew deal with everything from fires to aborted trips to orbit due to engine failures, it is apparent there is plenty of experience to be gained while only shaking 20 feet above the ground.

The crew will buckle into the real orbiter tomorrow morning. After thousands of training sessions in a variety of simulators, they are scheduled to lift off at 2:20pm EDT for a twelve day mission to the ISS. There are only three scheduled space shuttle missions remaining remaining.

Photos/Video: Jason Paur/AOPA

See Also:

• Russian Cosmonaut’s Blog Much Funnier Than NASA
• Wired 13.04: Psst - Wanna Buy a Slightly Used Soviet Space Suit?
• Going to Space? First Stop: Eight Months of Grueling Training in
• What’s It Like to Fly the Space Shuttle? We Find Out
• Flight Simulator
• Wired 13.08: The Big Gulp

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 May 2010 | 2:05 pm

The trouble with ME

We mark ME awareness week with a report on the latest research into chronic fatigue syndrome – and the controversy that surrounds the subject

• Living with chronic fatigue syndrome

Kay Gilderdale helped her 31-year-old daughter to kill herself over the course of one long December night, crushing up sleeping pills and antidepressants when the morphine overdose she gave her to inject did not immediately work. It's almost incredible to think that a mother and daughter could be driven to such hellish extremes by a disease that is not fatal. Lynn Gilderdale had ME.

But Lynn's extraordinary and distressing story takes few people acquainted with ME (myalgic encephalopathy), also known as CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), by surprise. If nothing else, it illustrates the despair that ME/CFS engenders. An estimated 250,000 people have the condition in this country, of whom 25,000 are children (Lynn became ill at 14). Most struggle to get a diagnosis, many are unhappy with the limited treatments available and all want to know what has caused them to be afflicted with this most miserable of illnesses, which saps their energy, wrecks their lives and leaves some like Lynn bedridden and tube-fed.

Last autumn, it suddenly looked as though they were going to get an answer. A paper was published in the highly regarded journal Science by the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) in Reno, Nevada, a research establishment set up by Annette Whittemore, the wife of a millionaire who had made money in property. Their daughter, Andrea, developed ME/CFS when she was 11. Whittemore, searching for help for her daughter, met Daniel Peterson, a general practitioner who brought to light one of the earliest ME clusters more than 30 years ago, in Incline Village on the north shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, where he practised medicine. The two of them launched the WPI as a research centre dedicated to finding answers, and treatments for ME/CFS.

Peterson is one of many who believe the disease probably has a viral trigger. There is evidence that it can follow a viral infection, such as glandular fever. He put Andrea Whittemore on an experimental antiviral drug, which her mother has said has led to improvement.

Some cancers – cervical cancer is the best example – can also be triggered by a virus. In Incline Village, Peterson reported he had found a surprising number of rare cancers called mantle cell lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, among his ME/CFS patients. That attracted the attention of a cancer researcher, Dr Judy Mikovits. She joined WPI and went to work to look for a viral trigger for the cancer cluster.

Mikovits was soon reporting that she had found high levels of viruses in the ME/CFS patients by comparison. And then, in the Science paper in October, came the revelation that rocked the ME/CFS community as well as scientists around the world. Mikovits, with Vincent Lombardi and other colleagues from the WPI, reported that they had found a recently discovered retrovirus called XMRV in the blood cells of 68 out of 101 ME/CFS patients they had tested.

The implications were huge. If the virus were proven to be the cause of ME/CFS, then treatment could not be far away. It would also, in the eyes of many of the angriest campaigners, put paid to arguments that ME/CFS is predominanantly a psychosocial disorder – a theory they abhor and which has led to extraordinary invective, denunciations and bitterness, especially on the internet.

Annette Whittemore was certainly convinced her institute had found the biological key to the disease that cut down her "beautiful daughter who has been ill for 20 years in spite of our best efforts". Speaking to the CFS advisory committee of the US government's Department for Health and Human Sciences in late October, she said: "It ends the debate. CFS is not and never was a psychological disorder. Those who are ill have always known this. The physicians who take care of them have always known this and finally those who have attempted to keep patients from receiving medical care for this disease know this."

She and Mikovits were delighted that suddenly scientists from all over the world were homing in on their research. Certainly they had aroused great excitement and curiosity. But there was also a major public health issue here. HIV is a retrovirus. A retrovirus can be passed from one person to another in blood and semen. If XMRV, first associated with prostate cancer, is truly linked to ME/CFS, then we need to know about it fast, to prevent it spreading.

Retrovirologists were instantly on the case, attempting to replicate the WPI's findings. Three teams, two in the UK and one in the Netherlands, have already reported their results. All of them have drawn a blank.

Many people within the ME/CFS community refuse to believe it. They say the scientists have not properly replicated the WPI work. It's the line the WPI takes too, adamant that it has made a breakthrough. Richard Simpson of Invest in ME, which runs a major annual conference at which Whittemore will be a speaker this year, says the negative studies were too rushed.

He points out that Science took six months to review the WPI paper before publishing and that the research had support from the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic, one of America's top hospitals.

"These other studies are not replications. They haven't used the same methodological approach. In any area of medicine you have to go back to the original tests and do it in the same way."

Simpson says he does not assume XMRV is the cause of the illness, but he and many others are deeply suspicious of what they believe are the attempts of scientists to dismiss once more the claims of ME/CFS to be considered a biomedical condition. They point out that it was classified as a neurological disease rather than a psychological illness by the World Health Organisation in 1969.

Listen to some – or read the internet – and you would think there is a massive organised conspiracy going on, led by the psychiatric community, but in conjunction with insurance companies and even government, to prove ME has no physical cause. (There are genuinely distressing stories about the failure of the Department for Work and Pensions to recognise that people with ME/CFS can be incapable of work, depriving them of sickness benefit.)

Nice, the National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence, has come under fire too for recognising only psychosocial treatments, in the shape of cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise programmes. They were taken to judicial review in 2009 by a group of people who claimed the experts who drew up their guidance were biased or had conflicts of interest. But Mr Justice Simon dismissed the case and took the unusual step of making a direct attack on those who brought it. "Unfounded as they were, the allegations were damaging to those against whom they were made and were such as may cause health professionals to hesitate before they involve themselves in this area of medicine," he said in an afterword to his judgment.

Most of the internet vitriol is directed at psychiatrist Professor Simon Wessely from King's College London, who believes there may be viral triggers for the disease but who pioneered the psychosocial therapies, ran the studies on which Nice's guidance is based and started the first NHS treatment unit. One of the reasons why the first UK study to fail to find XMRV in patients was denounced by ME/CFS activists is that it was co-authored by Wessely.

The other UK study is authored by a collection of top scientists who have either never been involved with the ME/CFS community before or who have in the past enjoyed its approval. Among them is Jonathan Kerr from St George's, University of London, who has been looking for genetic clues to the disease and is actually collaborating on a different project with the WPI.

Their study was published in a deliberately low-key way in Retrovirology. The researchers studied 170 blood samples from two separate groups of patients. Kate Bishop, a leading retrovirologist from the National Institute for Medical Research, said they tried hard to find XMRV but failed.

"I feel very sorry in a way," she says. "We were hoping it was true. One of the things patients don't seem to realise is that it is not in our interests to find a negative result either, but I do understand their frustration."

She thinks there are few differences between the US and European patients, except possibly that the WPI cases all came from geographical clusters.

What the European labs do not want to do is to take samples from the WPI to test. One possibility they cannot discount is that the WPI samples are contaminated with the virus, although the institute insists this is not so. Nonetheless, the European labs would not want to risk contamination.

On the day of the publication of the Science paper, the WPI declared it had now found XMRV in 95% of blood samples from ME/CFS patients it had tested – an extraordinarily high result. "This finding clearly points to the retrovirus as a significant contributing factor in this illness," said Mikovits in a statement on 8 October. But now the first euphoric blaze of publicity is over, the WPI appears to have put up the barricades. Its press officer said Mikovits was not giving interviews and asked for a list of questions. The questions went unanswered.

Meanwhile, the WPI has licensed the test it used to detect XMRV to a lab in Reno called Viral Immune Pathology Diagnostics (VIP Dx), charging $450 a time. Dr Vincent Lombardi, first author of the Science paper, was made director of operations for the licensing and development of the test. WPI points out that profits it makes are ploughed back into research, critics question the promotion of a test when scientists have not conclusively been able to show XMRV is a cause of ME/CFS and there is no treatment even if it is.

But patients are queuing up. Forty or 50 have been tested from the UK so far, and a substantial number have received a positive result. On an internet chat site, the comments are positive. "It must be a relief to finally know what has caused all this misery and stolen precious years," says one contributor.

Many doctors and scientists who work in the ME/CFS area are not willing to talk about it. However, one clinician who treats patients – and who was part of the Nice guideline group – put his head above the parapet after Kay Gilderdale was acquitted at Lewes crown court of attempted murder. Alastair Santhouse, consultant in psychological medicine at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, was deeply concerned by much of the press coverage, which depicted ME/CFS as a terminal illness and wrote to say so in the British Medical Journal.

"It was being talked about in terms of the euthanasia/assisted suicide debate," he said. "It is an awful illness – chronic, unpleasant and very isolating – but it is not a terminal illness. There are treatments available and they are not perfect but we as a profession should not be giving up on people.

"The patients I see in the clinic, generally speaking, are extremely relieved and pleased to find someone who is taking an interest in their case. They tend not to have any particular ideological position on the illness, but they just want to get better."

Santhouse is offering cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy, in line with the Nice guidance. "They don't work for everyone. Doctors have enough humility to realise they are not the complete answer." He doesn't pretend to know the cause but, he says, citing the historic treatments of foxglove for dropsy and quinine for malaria, "you don't always need to know the cause of something to be able to treat it".

Interestingly, in this deeply traumatised and divided field, there is some consensus. Everybody agrees ME/CFS is a terrible illness that seriously damages the lives of entire families. Nobody claims to know the definitive cause. Everybody agrees more research is needed – although conspiracy theorists say biomedical research proposals are blocked by the Medical Research Council, while others say those put forward are just not of sufficiently high quality. And the patient groups agree that the inflammatory invective on the internet gets nobody anywhere. "From our point of view it is not productive," says Simpson of Invest in ME. "You get extreme elements. But this is an illness. We just want to cure it."

Charles Shepherd, medical adviser to the ME Association, says the real vitriol comes from a small number of people, but "it stifles debate in that people are not happy to express views if they think they are going to get shouted down or get abusive emails. It does scare decent people off from getting involved."

Plenty of people have had – or are still having – very bad experiences with the medical profession, he says. Many GPs have no idea what to do. There are harrowing stories from people who are refused the employment and support allowance that has replaced incapacity benefit. Such things have radicalised people.

Sir Peter Spencer, former second Sea Lord and chief of defence procurement who has been chief executive of Action for ME for the last three years, agrees there is "far too much mud-slinging", but adds that "the significant majority feel so washed-out that they don't have the energy for invective . . . the thing that has struck me most is how I admire their resilience under really difficult circumstances."

Spencer, who still has all the drive of a senior naval officer, talks of the need for more specialist centres, especially for children, one of the issues taken up by the all-party parliamentary group on ME, which published its report into services in March. ME/CFS is the biggest single cause of long-term absenteeism among schoolchildren. Faster diagnosis and help for them is badly needed.

Whatever the final conclusion about XMRV, everybody hopes that the episode will generate more scientific research. But Simpson talks for the frustrated majority when he describes the case of one child on tube-feeding, whose consultant said she must have CBT and should be back in school within a week, and asks: "Why isn't science playing a part in trying to resolve this?"

He himself has two daughters with ME/CFS. It is not hard to imagine how tough that must be. "At the end of the day, it is about people's health," he says. "My daughters are ill because of this. I can't see anyone in this country who is tackling the problem."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2010 | 2:00 pm

Students Give Kindle E-Reader an F

More university survey results show that Amazon's Kindle e-reader may not be ready for the classroom, but that students like it for personal reading.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 1:57 pm

Bring a Friend: Best iPad Multiplayer Games

Here now are our seven favorite multiplayer iPad games, in no particular order.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 1:55 pm

Lizards face extinction from global warming: study

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Lizards are in danger of dying out on a large scale as rising global temperatures force them to spend more time staying cool in the shade and less time tending to basic needs like eating and mating.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 1:46 pm

Congress Hears Testimony about Fur-Trimmed Fashion

The Humane Society of the United States testified before Congress today in support of legislation that would help to prevent deception in the fur-trimmed fashion industry.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 1:35 pm

Stem Cell Solution for Hearing Loss Makes Progress

If a few too many AC/DC concerts have you now turning up the volume on hearing aids instead of headphones, a new stem cell study in mice is reason for hope.

A team led by Stefan Heller of Stanford University set out to elucidate basic principles of how the inner ear detects sound. But they also created batches of cells that can potentially replace damaged ones in the ear. Their findings are published in the May 14 issue of Cell.

“We basically looked at how nature makes the inner ear, and what is known about the developmental processes involved, and then we just mimicked them in a test tube,” Heller said.

The inner ear contains tiny hair cells that deform when sound waves hit them. Little is known about how these cells transform acoustic waves into neural signals that we interpret as sound, Heller said.

Hearing has remained mysterious compared to other sensory modalities, such as vision, because the inner ear is less accessible and there are relatively few hair cells. Like certain eye cells, hair cells generally don’t regenerate once they die. Therapies using stem cells, or cells derived from embryos that can turn into myriad cell types, can potentially restore normal hearing.

Heller’s team treated cells taken from mouse embryos with various signaling molecules that coaxed them into becoming cells that looked and functioned like normal hair cells. The team used a scanning electron microscope, which forms high-resolution images by bombarding items with electrons. The images revealed that cells of varying height linked together and formed bundles. When the bundles were mechanically stimulated with a slender piece of glass, the cells generated electrical currents that resemble those produced by young hair cells.

For patients who lose hair cells because of common causes, such as noise damage, toxic compounds or aging, there’s a good possibility that regenerating these cells would be an alternative to using cochlear implants, said Albert Edge, a scientist at Harvard University who investigates ways to replace damaged cells in the inner ear. “If it really works well, it could be a cure rather than a treatment,” he said.

The method of creating hair cells in a dish will also allow scientists to discover molecules that enable hearing. And it will offer a way to screen for drugs that spur the growth of new hair cells.

But there’s still a long way to go. “Just because you have these cells in a dish, it doesn’t mean that squirting them into the ear is going to make them work,” Edge said.

To restore hearing, researchers still have to figure out how to produce millions of hair cells, prevent stem cells from forming tumors, and translate the work to human cells. “I’m very cautious about saying this will lead to a cure for deafness that is around the corner,” Heller said. A cure is at least a decade away, he said.

Until then, the best compromise might be to sit in the back row.

Image: flickr/matthijs

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 13 May 2010 | 1:34 pm

114 Terracotta Warriors Rise In New Excavation

Over one hundred brightly colored terracotta warriors have emerged from the Chinese site of the Terracotta Army in Xi'an.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 1:34 pm

Raw Slugs: Don't Eat Them!

Just because your buddy dares you to eat something, doesn't mean you should. ESPECIALLY SLUGS. I look back to my early 20s and my own history of Proving-I-Will-Eat-That-For-A-Dollar and feel like there may have been some close calls. There was ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 1:20 pm

First birds were poor flyers

LONDON (Reuters) - The earliest birds did not have strong enough feathers to take to the air by flapping their wings and were gliders at best, researchers said Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 12:51 pm

Going greener?

Coalition sets out plans on runways and nuclear
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 May 2010 | 12:21 pm

World's Lizards Under Threat from Climate Change

Global climate change could cause major lizard extinctions worldwide.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 12:17 pm

Scientists capture more "spooky" light particles

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists working with a feature of light described by Albert Einstein as "spooky" have managed to link, or entangle, up to five particles in an advance that may lead to better measuring instruments and faster computers.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 13 May 2010 | 12:02 pm

Feathers of earliest birds 'would not have supported flight'

Early feathers evolved for insulation and display were barely strong enough for gliding, says report in journal Science

The first birds to make a mark in the evolutionary record might have sported an impressive plumage, but they would never have got off the ground, scientists say.

An examination of fossilised feathers belonging to the ancient birds Confuciusornis and Archaeopteryx shows their wings were too weak to support the birds in flight.

At the very best, the creatures might have used their wings to glide between trees or from vantage points to lower ground, researchers report today in the journal Science.

Robert Nudds and Gareth Dyke, at the universities of Manchester and Dublin respectively, took measurements of the feather structure of Confuciusornis, which lived in the early Cretaceous 120m years ago, and Archaeopteryx, considered to be the first bird species to emerge on Earth in the Late Jurassic, around 145m years ago.

The scientists found that the central shafts of the birds' feathers, which give wings their strength, were thinner than those of modern birds.

When the researchers calculated the forces acting on the birds' wings in flight, they realised that even if the shafts had been solid, they would barely be strong enough to allow the birds to glide. The finding suggests that powered flight arose later in birds' evolutionary history.

Archaeopteryx is believed to be a transitional form between reptiles and birds. Unlike modern birds, it had a full set of teeth, a long bony tail and three claws on each wing, which it probably used to grasp prey and cling to trees. It was the size of a small chicken.

Paleontologists have long debated whether Archaeopteryx used its wings for flight, insulation or display. The latest study suggests that feathers evolved as a means of keeping warm, before being co-opted for flight.

Confuciusornis was a crow-sized bird that had a small triangular snout and, unlike Archaeopteryx, lacked any teeth. Fossilised remnants of the birds are among the most common found in the Liaoning deposits in China, suggesting they may have lived in large colonies on the shores of the ancient lake.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2010 | 12:02 pm

A Rare Meeting of Planets and Spaceships

Something special is happening this weekend. Venus and the Moon are gathering for a sunset conjunction on Saturday and Sunday, May 15 and 16. On the same nights, the ISS is going to be flying over many US towns and cities. And if Atlantis launches on schedule--wow! People could witness a very rare meeting of the shuttle, station, Venus and the Moon. Details and observing tips may be found in today's story from Science@NASA.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 13 May 2010 | 11:59 am

Are Bats Blind?

The oldest known bat fossil yields important clues to bats' unique senses.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 11:31 am

Peanut Allergy Cases Triple in 10 Years

Cases of children with peanut allergy more than tripled between 1997 and 2008. Nut allergies in general rose.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 11:29 am

Cigarette butts 'block corrosion'

Scientists in China say they have found a novel use for discarded cigarette butts
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 13 May 2010 | 11:27 am

Lizards May Face Mass Extinction

Lizard species worldwide may already have declined past the point of no return. The reason? Rising temperatures. By 2080, researchers estimate, as much as 40 percent of lizard species worldwide could be extinct. The problem is that temperatures in many ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 11:06 am

Forensic science for human rights

Science is helping to bring a former Argentine dictator to justice with expertise that will haunt perpetrators of state violence

There's an office in this grandiose and sprawling city of Buenos Aires that holds a somewhat macabre collection: over 700 human skeletons. They are presumed to be but a small fraction of the unidentified remains of the over 30,000 supposed "subversives" who the rightwing military government of the late 70s and early 80s tried to make disappear from the face of the earth.

"In our profession, we always arrive late in a way. We use whatever documentation was left by the military to find the bodies." Luis Fondebrider tells me, co-founder of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF). "The most complicated part is getting DNA information from bones, but the latest advances in genetic testing has helped. Some of our more recent identifications are of skeletons we've had for 15 years."

For years the nonprofit team of bone hunters and forensic investigators, with offices in Buenos Aires, the western Argentine city of Córdoba, and New York, have been working with human rights activists and judicial authorities in Argentina and around the world on a project that should give war criminals everywhere pause – they help undisappear the disappeared. The team has identified victims of state terrorism in Argentina and elsewhere, providing key evidence that has led to convictions of a number of assassins who might have gotten away with it, if not for advances in modern forensic science.

Earlier this week their work was once again vindicated when a very big fish was caught and charged with almost 50 cases of kidnapping, torture and murder. Thanks to the tireless work of human rights groups in Argentina over the years, justice had already caught up with former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who ruled from 1976 to 1981. He is due to stand trial in September for his role in a particularly twisted racket during the dictatorship – the kidnapping of babies of assassinated political opponents, which were then "gifted" to families sympathetic to the regime. The new murder charges, filed by federal judge Daniel Rafecas, are drawn directly from positive identifications that EAAF investigators made in the last two years, from skeletons exhumed from unmarked graves in 10 cemeteries in or around Buenos Aires.

"For us it means – I can't say happiness – but satisfaction," Fondebrider told me the day after the new charges were announced against Videla. The ex-dictator will now appear in court at the end of the month, for the first time in 25 years. (Videla was sentenced to life in prison in 1985, but was pardoned along with other military leaders in 1990). "In our part of the world perpetrators of state terrorism often aren't charged, or often there's not enough information to bring them to justice. So it's one of the few times that our work helps to break through that impunity."

There's an undeniable poetic justice at play. For years it was up to family members and human rights groups such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and HIJOS to keep the memories alive of those who disappeared, against an official culture of impunity that pushed people to "stop dredging up the past". But the brutal charnel house that was Argentina in the late 70s and early 80s also led to the development of an organisation with a particularly sophisticated expertise in digging through mass graves – and using continued advances in forensics to reclaim the identities of those who were so meticulously extinguished during those years of blood and fire.

Some victims will likely never be found – one common form of disappearing kidnapped victims at the time was by drugging them and throwing them live in to the ocean. Luckily for forensic investigators, though, some of the perpetrators in the armed forces maintained at least some semblance of propriety.

"Many of the military men were Catholics," Mercedes Doretti tells me, an EAAF co-founder who works out of the New York office. "They believed that even subversives should receive a Christian sepulture."

The team's expertise is now increasingly in demand around the world as its members consult with human rights activists, prosecutors, and family members in countries where human rights crimes, disappearances and other forms of state terrorism are also finally being investigated (South Africa, Colombia, El Salvador, East Timor).

Doretti is working with investigators from the US and Mexico to study the cases of unidentified murder victims along the vast border. Excavations continue apace in the Argentine provinces of Córdoba, Tucuman and Mendoza. And the organisation continues to grow a massive genetic database containing DNA information of family members of the disappeared to help identify future remains, or to confirm the identities of kidnapped and misappropriated children. And at least one dictator will have to stand trial and account for the lives extinguished under his rule.

Political violence is nothing new, of course, and sadly we'll still likely be in need of the EAAF's specialised expertise well in to the future. But it's heartening to know that at least the science continues to catch up with the human heart's demands for justice.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2010 | 11:00 am

OUCH! Virtual Girl Slaps Real Guys

Guys reacted strongly to a virtual slap after taking on the perspective of a virtual teenage girl
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 10:32 am

Video: Catlin Arctic survey - 'an unbelievably hard journey'

Explorers with the Catlin Arctic survey battled strong headwinds, freezing waters and dangerously thin ice on their expedition to measure sea ice at the north pole

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2010 | 9:29 am

Spiders Devour Ants Front-End First

A spider that only eats ants is choosy about what body parts of its prey it devours based on their nutritional value, a new study suggests.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 8:50 am

Ancient Fish Story Revealed by Fossilized Tracks

Wavy lines and squiggles etched in ancient limestone found to be prehistoric fish trails.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 8:31 am

Some Cod Populations at Historic Lows

Formerly abundant cod fish stocks in Canada have dwindled to nearly unrecoverable levels.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 8:27 am

First Hole in North Pole Ice Drilled by Explorers

Arctic expedition gets first sample of North Pole ocean water to study ocean acidification.
Source: Livescience.com | 13 May 2010 | 8:20 am

First samples of sea water from north pole

Catlin Arctic survey drills 'hole in the pole' to collect water samples that will be used to measure ocean acidification

• Ocean acidification 'poses disaster' for marine life
• Interactive: The effects of ocean acidification around the world

Arctic explorers have taken the first-ever samples of ocean water at the north pole after a gruelling two-and–a-half month expedition across the polar ice.

Headed by former bank manager Ann Daniels, the Catlin Arctic survey team achieved what last year's expedition - led by polar explorer Pen Hadow - failed to do: reach the north pole and take water samples to measure the impact of a changing climate.

Pen Hadow, the survey's director and last year's expedition leader, said: "It's not possible to imagine what this team has had to do to pull off this extreme survey. I consider them to be the world's toughest to have done this."

The survey hopes to measure how fast the Arctic Ocean is acidifying due to rising CO2 levels and what effect it has on the region's animals and plants. Setting out in early March, the three-strong explorer team trekked over 483 miles across sea ice off the coast of Greenland to the geographic north pole.

Daniels said: "It has been an unbelievably hard journey. Conditions have been unusually tough and at times very frustrating with a frequent southerly drift pushing us backwards every time we camped for the night. On top of that we've had to battle into headwinds and swim across large areas of dangerously thin ice and open water."

The team also struggled with ice cracks forming under their tent and thin ice and fierce north winds.

Last year's Catlin Arctic survey, which found evidence that Arctic ice was thinner than expected, was beset by technical difficulties, and the team had to be airlifted off the ice before reaching the pole.

On their journey to the north pole, the Catlin team drilled, collected samples from water as deep as 5,000m, and measured ice thickness.

As the adventurers forged north, a separate team of scientists undertook measurements and samples at an ice base north of Canada in -45C temperatures. Between the two groups, the survey has collected over 2,200 pieces of data from plankton collections, ice core samples and around 350 water samples. The samples will now be sent to British Columbia in Canada for analysis.

Globally, oceans have seen a 30% increase in acidity on pre-industrial levels, the fastest rate of change in 55m years. Scientists say that carbon emissions from human activity is to blame. The Arctic Ocean appears to be acidifying faster than warmer regions because cold water absorbs more CO2.

"As it's been collected for the first time, this data will be viewed as baseline information for further studies, providing insight into the impact of carbon dioxide absorption [in the Arctic]," said Dr Tim Cullingford, science manager for the Catlin Arctic survey.

The survey hopes to present the findings of the expedition before the end of this year.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2010 | 6:00 am

Cancer scare headlines are not new

Scientists and journalists have been publishing overblown reports for a century – no wonder people still don't trust them

"It would be difficult to think of any article of diet which has not, at one time or another, been blamed as a cancer-producing substance. The list includes tea, coffee, cocoa, white bread – and also brown bread – cheese, butter, eggs, meat, fish, and poultry."

This is a quote from the Times newspaper, and many people will empathise with its sense of exasperation at the steadily increasing and sometimes contradictory list of things we are told apparently either causes or prevents cancer.

After all, how many of us have not at some point picked up a newspaper with a cancer-related headline and muttered something about scientists always changing their minds?

But what people might find surprising is that this quote appeared in the Times way back in 1927.

We tend to think of the idea that your diet affects your risk of cancer as being a relatively new thing, and it is true this area of science has only really come into its own in the last 30-odd years. But this quote suggests that while the evidence has been strong enough to form the basis of solid lifestyle advice only relatively recently, the feeling of being bombarded with health messages has a longer history.

Again, most people would not be surprised to see the Daily Mail run a story headlined "The truth about cancer", citing the reason for many cases as apparently a lack of potassium in the body. But what people might not expect is that this story was published in 1916.

The Guardian, meanwhile, was reporting in 1927 that "there does not appear to be any hereditary disposition to cancer", and that "cancer, as far as we know, is not caused by any special food or foods, nor by the absence of special foods". Research has since shown this is incorrect. When you realise that newspapers have been publishing these sorts of stories about cancer for at least a century, it is understandable that people are cynical about what scientists tell them.

At World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), we commissioned a YouGov survey that showed 52% of people think scientists are "always changing their minds" about cancer. This is despite the fact that advice on preventing cancer and staying healthy – eating a diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables, being physically active and maintaining a healthy weight – has stayed largely the same for decades.

The YouGov survey makes grim reading for the science community, and raises serious questions about its ability to communicate its findings to the public. However, the media does not fare much better, with 46% of people saying they do not trust news coverage about cancer risk.

Think about that for a moment – roughly half of people do not trust the scientists who do the research nor the journalists who write about it. That's quite a vote of no confidence. You can argue about why this is – and, in fact, within the scientific community there is quite a lot of navel-gazing about why people do not trust scientists.

But the bottom line is that, from the 1916 story about potassium and cancer to its modern incarnations of the "Facebook causes cancer" variety, the scientific community and the media have worked together in a way that has consistently over-egged the significance of single studies, and have favoured the quirky over the reliable.

People are not stupid. They know scientific breakthroughs do not happen every other day, and that this means the results of studies are being overblown. But the problem is they do not know which ones. Because of this, large numbers have given up listening altogether. In essence, the media and the scientific community have become one big case of the boy who cried wolf.

The frustrating thing is that this situation comes after years of top-quality research by some of the world's leading scientists, so that we can now know much about reducing our risks of cancer.

In 2007 WCRF published the most comprehensive report on the subject. It analysed more than 7,000 separate studies and found there is now convincing evidence that, for instance, excess body fat, drinking too much alcohol and eating red and processed meats all increase cancer risk. In fact, scientists estimate that about a third of the most common cancers in the UK could be prevented through a healthy diet, regular physical activity and weight maintenance.

I do not think the levels of cynicism are so bad that they cannot be turned around. But if we are not still to be reading about spurious cancer "truths" in another 100 years, we need fundamental changes to the way scientists and journalists work together.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 13 May 2010 | 3:30 am