Eyes flashing, robot conducts wedding in Tokyo (AP)

AP - Almost everyone stood when the bride walked down the aisle in her white gown, but not the wedding conductor, because she was bolted to her chair.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 May 2010 | 2:36 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 | 16 May 2010 | 2:33 am

Under pressure, BP tries again to contain oil spill (Reuters)

Reuters - Energy giant BP made a new attempt to siphon gushing oil from an offshore well as political pressure and public outrage increased over the company's slow progress at stopping environmental disaster.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 May 2010 | 2:13 am

Space shuttle closing in for space station docking (AP)

AP - Space shuttle Atlantis is catching up to the International Space Station.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 May 2010 | 2:03 am

BP confident it can contain gushing oil with pipe (AP)

AP - BP hit a snag Saturday in its effort to reduce the amount of oil blasting from the remains of a broken rig into the Gulf of Mexico, while some scientists made the worrisome announcement that they had found huge plumes of oil lurking under the surface of the water.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 May 2010 | 1:53 am

Atlantis approaches International Space Station (AFP)

AFP - The US shuttle Atlantis neared the International Space Station Sunday as its crew prepared to deliver tons of crucial new equipment to the nearly-completed orbital laboratory.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 May 2010 | 1:12 am

US asks BP to clarify cleanup costs in Gulf spill (AFP)

AFP - US officials have told BP to clarify what costs it will pay for cleanup of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, with crews employing new tactics Sunday to stem the leak as globs of oil wash ashore in three states.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 16 May 2010 | 1:09 am

Asian ivory trade poses danger to African elephant (AP)

AP - Carefully, the Chinese ivory dealer pulled out an elephant tusk cloaked in bubble wrap and hidden in a bag of flour. Its price: $17,000.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 May 2010 | 10:00 pm

Molly Stevens: Getting the body to grow its own spare parts

Nanoscientist Molly Stevens is working on techniques to enable a damaged heart to repair itself or bone tissue to regenerate

The human body has tremendous capacity to repair itself after disease or injury. Skin will grow over wounds, while cells in our blood supply are constantly being manufactured in our bone marrow. But there is a limit to the body's ability to replace lost tissue. Cartilage cells are notoriously poor at regrowing after injury, for example. As a result, accidents and illnesses – including cancers – often leave individuals with disfiguring wounds or life-threatening damage to tissue. The aim of Molly Stevens, a nanoscience researcher at Imperial College, London, and founder of the biotech firm Reprogen, is a simple but ambitious one. Working with a team of chemists, cell biologists, surgeons, material scientists and engineers, she is developing techniques that will help the body repair itself when it suffers damage. This is the science of regenerative medicine.

What is the potential for boosting the body's ability to regrow damaged tissue?

It depends on the type of tissue. Some will regenerate of its own account more easily than others. Bone is not too bad, for example, while cartilage is very poor. Bone has a good blood supply while cartilage has virtually none, and that makes a key difference in supplying nutrients that boost growth. A patient's condition is also important. For instance, it is more of a problem in older individuals or in those who have diseases that are particularly well advanced.

In any case, even in tissue that regenerates well, like bone, there can be problems – if a severe accident has removed a large chunk of a person's jaw or pelvis, or if they have osteoporosis that is very advanced. The bone tissue will simply not regenerate in these cases and that is when doctors want to help it.

So how do you help bone to regrow?

One approach that we have had considerable success with involves taking quite straightforward materials including simple polymers and using them to boost bone growth in a person. We made them into gels that we could inject into bones.

The key to this technique lies with the fact that our bones are covered in a layer of stem cells. We inject our material under that layer and that wakes up those stem cells. They start to multiply and produce lots of new bone. Then you can take that bone and move it somewhere else in a person's body, a place where they have suffered a severe loss of bone – where they suffered an injury suffered after a car accident, for example. In such a case, we would be using a person's body as a biological reactor. And when you think about it, that makes sense. The best place to grow tissue for yourself is in your own body, after all.

How productive is the technique?

So far, we have been able to generate huge amounts of bone in our experiments using these techniques. In addition, the bone that was made this way was well organised. It had blood vessels and a proper architecture. That allows it to be really strong. We have only done this in animals, in rabbits, but we are now preparing to carry out the same procedures in humans. The aim would be to use bone generated within a person to help with spinal fusion, for example, or for someone who has had part of their jaw removed after an operation to remove a cancer.

We also have developed other materials that work in a slightly different way. Instead of stimulating one part of the skeleton to make bone that would replace a missing section somewhere else in the body, we would use this directly at the affected site. Bone would grow at the affected site. There would be no transplant involved. Essentially, it would help a person grow a new jawbone if theirs had been removed after a cancer operation.

Both these techniques involve the regeneration of bone, but we are also working heart muscle and cartilage cells. We are at a much earlier stage with this work. We envisage making gels that you could inject into the miocardium which is damaged after a person has had a heart attack. This could help the heart to repair itself.

What sections of the population are likely to benefit most from advances in regenerative medicine?

One obvious group of individuals who are likely to benefit most from the development of regenerative medicine is the elderly. More and more people are living to their 80s and beyond as we tackle diseases like cancer and heart illness with increasing success. Organ failure will become an increasing problem among these people. Regenerative medicine will help them regrow lost tissue and help them tackle problems like osteoporosis.

However, my real motivation in getting involved in regenerative medicine has been children. I was completing my PhD in biophysics when I attended a lecture in which a photograph was shown of a little boy with terminal liver failure. He was about two years old and that picture made me switch fields – to regenerative medicine.

We have been working with children's charities since then because of the potential of our techniques to fix failing organs in very young people. That is the big driver. A child with a heart valve problem is going to face multiple surgical operations throughout its life. Or if a child is born with half its face missing, its future is likely to be really distressing. These are heart-rending problems. Regenerative medicine could make an enormous difference to them.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 May 2010 | 5:05 pm

For a moment, I was in the presence of Newton's genius

The father of gravity's greatness is to be found in the personally amended copy of his magnum opus, Principia Mathematica

There are some experiences for which no amount of advance preparation is adequate. A few weeks ago, in company with Professor Daniel Cohen, a historian of mathematics who is a leading scholar in the digital humanities, I was ushered into a small room in Cambridge University library. We were there because Dan had arrived to give the annual Arcadia Lecture, part of a project on which I am the academic adviser, and we had a couple of hours to kill before he was due to speak. Earlier, I had been asked by the library staff if there was anything particular he might like to see. "Oh, just show him a couple of treasures," I had said, casually.

So, here we were in this small room. On the table, lying open on a cushion, was Isaac Newton's copy of the first edition of his Principia Mathematica or, to give it its full title, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the book in which he sets out his laws of motion (the basis of classical mechanics), as well as the law of universal gravitation, his derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion and much else besides. It was the keystone of the scientific revolution and was written at Trinity College, just down the road.

On closer inspection, it became clear that the book had been in the wars. It had at some stage, for example, been rescued from a fire. Some of the pages were singed round the edges, but the miracle of its survival paled into insignificance as one turned the pages, because Newton had clearly been dissatisfied with the first edition of his magnum opus. On page after page he had written corrections and added entire paragraphs in his immaculate, tiny handwriting.

What we were looking at was not the creation of this amazing work but, in a way, its recreation.

For me, Newton – irascible, paranoid, awkward, reclusive, unpleasant cuss that he was – is one of the greatest human beings who ever lived. John Maynard Keynes (who performed miracles in rescuing Newton's scattered papers and bringing them back to Cambridge) captured his genius perfectly. "His peculiar gift," he wrote in Essays in Biography, "was the power of holding continuously in his mind a purely mental problem until he had seen straight through it. I fancy his pre-eminence is due to his muscles of intuition being the strongest and most enduring with which a man has ever been gifted.

"Anyone who has ever attempted pure scientific or philosophical thought knows how one can hold a problem momentarily in one's mind and apply all one's powers of concentration to piercing through it, and how it will dissolve and escape and you find that what you are surveying is a blank. I believe that Newton could hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks until it surrendered to him its secret. Then, being a supreme mathematical technician, he could dress it up, how you will, for purposes of exposition, but it was his intuition which was pre-eminently extraordinary – 'So happy in his conjectures,' said De Morgan, 'as to seem to know more than he could possibly have any means of proving.' The proofs, for what they are worth, were, as I have said, dressed up afterwards – they were not the instrument of discovery."

I've owned a beautifully produced facsimile of the Principia for decades, so it wasn't the novelty of seeing it that took my breath away. It was the work's amazing presence. The centuries seemed to dissolve as we bent over the pages to read Newton's neatly composed amendments, just as he must have crouched when he was writing them. For a few magical, eerie moments, it seemed as though he was there in the room with us.

Afterwards, I was reminded of Walter Benjamin's celebrated – if exasperating – essay on The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction in which he tried to figure out what happens to authenticity in an age of perfect copying. "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art," he wrote, "is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." This "aura" that emanates from original works – which is, Benjamin argued, stripped away by reproduction – is hard to pin down (and Benjamin doesn't really nail it, in my opinion) but, believe me, you know it when you feel it. And not even Google can digitise it.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 15 May 2010 | 5:05 pm

Camera Glitch Should Not Impact Shuttle Mission, NASA Says (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A camera glitch that occurred while astronauts were inspecting the space shuttle Atlantis' heat shield Saturday shouldn't cause any overall negative impact to the mission, a NASA official said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 May 2010 | 5:00 pm

Germany lashes out at Google for privacy breach (AP)

AP - Germany's consumer protection minister strongly criticized Google for a widespread privacy breach and insisted Saturday the U.S. Internet giant must cooperate better with data protection authorities.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:08 pm

Faster Salmonella detection now possible with new technique

A professor of food science and human nutrition wants to replace the current system of Salmonella detection with a new approach that can provide DNA sequencing-like results in hours rather than days.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

3D skin cancer diagnosis

Scientists have developed a 3D test for malignant melanoma that can identify problems not easily spotted in a standard two-dimensional view of the pattern on the skin.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Muscle mass in elderly boosted by combining resistance exercise and blood flow restriction

Researchers have determined that moderately and temporarily restricting the flow of blood through muscles -- a practice adopted by bodybuilders who noticed that it made light weights feel heavier -- can be combined with low-level resistance exercise training to produce muscle-mass increases in older men.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

New energy-efficient insulation for electrical wires

Engineers in the UK are working to develop prototype insulation systems that could lead to new high-efficiency electrical generators.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Tibetans developed genes to help them adapt to life at high elevations

Researchers have long wondered why the people of the Tibetan Highlands can live at elevations that cause some humans to become life-threateningly ill -- and a new study answers that mystery, in part, by showing that through thousands of years of natural selection, those hardy inhabitants of south-central Asia evolved 10 unique oxygen-processing genes that help them live in higher climes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Virtual humans appear to influence ethical decisions in gender-specific ways

Virtual humans are increasingly taking on roles that were once reserved for real humans. A study found that the decisions of men were strongly affected by presentational aspects of the simulated woman, while women's decisions were not.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

US demands BP spill clarification

The US demands immediate clarification from BP over its commitment to pay costs for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 15 May 2010 | 2:48 pm

Being Bad at Relationships Is Good for Survival (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Feeling happy and secure in our relationships is a goal many people strive for, but in times of need the emotionally insecure partners may be doing us a favor by being more alert to possible danger.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 15 May 2010 | 2:25 pm

Spitting cobras track first, predict later

Spitting cobras spray venom in the eyes of their victims with remarkable accuracy, but how do they achieve this accuracy when they cannot steer the jet of venom? Researchers have found that cobras initially track their prey's movements, but at the moment when they spit, they predict where the victim's eyes will be 200 meters in the future and aim there.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Research may help patients with intestinal failure, other malabsorptive disorders

New treatments for intestinal failure and other intestinal absorption disorders are a step closer to the patients who need them after a discovery showing that butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid, helps intestine grow and become more functional.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Revealing the metabolic activity of microbial communities: New method for tracing carbon flux

Microbial communities are performing important functions all around us -- from the earth in our flowerpots to the human gut. Now researchers have developed a method for studying the metabolic functions of microbial communities in detail. It is now possible for the first time, thanks to a new algorithm, to use the incorporation of stable carbon isotopes into proteins to investigate natural remineralization processes in much greater detail, to identify relevant key species and to study the way they interact in complex decomposition processes.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Clue to switch of bladder cancer from locally contained to invasive

Bladder cancer often becomes aggressive and spreads in patients despite treatment, but now researchers have identified a protein they believe is involved in pushing tumors to become invasive -- and deadly.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 15 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Mechanism Found That Makes Order From Chaotic Newborn Brain

Mechanism in the memory center of newborn adjusts the maturation of the brain.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 May 2010 | 8:19 am

Holy Bat Trick! Biosonar Could Give Robots Night Vision

Researchers are replicating bats' echolocation for robots to use in sensing the shape of their surroundings
Source: Livescience.com | 15 May 2010 | 7:21 am

Being Bad at Relationships Is Good for Survival

Though we might want a secure mate, evolution may have favored insecure individuals that are good for human survival.
Source: Livescience.com | 15 May 2010 | 6:40 am