Snails on methamphetamine: Memories formed by snails under influence of meth are harder to forget

Crystal meth (methamphetamine) is a highly addictive drug, which improves memory, but once hooked, addicts find the habit hard to break. One researcher wondered whether she could learn more about the effects of meth by studying the effect it has pond snail's memories. She found that memories formed by snails under the influence of meth are harder to forget and could help us understand human addiction.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

First horned dinosaur from Mexico: Plant-eater had largest horns of any dinosaur

A new species of horned dinosaur unearthed in Mexico has larger horns that any other species -- up to 4 feet long -- and has given scientists fresh insights into the ancient history of western North America, according to paleontologists.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Experimental treatment protects monkeys from lethal Ebola virus post-exposure

Scientists using tiny particles of genetic material to interfere in the replication process of the deadly Ebola virus have successfully prevented monkeys exposed to that virus from dying of hemorrhagic fever. The proof-of-concept study suggests that such protection also should be possible in humans.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Researcher decodes Rembrandt's 'magic'

A researcher using computer-rendering programs has uncovered what makes Rembrandt's masterful portraits so appealing. Rembrandt may have pioneered a technique that guides the viewer's gaze around a portrait, creating a special narrative and "calmer" viewing experience.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Novel protein essential for successful pregnancy

Researchers have helped clarify the function of a unique protein called preimplantation factor, which is produced by healthy embryos to direct embryo attachment and help the mother adapt to pregnancy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Improved carbon sponges to strip carbon dioxide from power plant exhausts

A new class of materials with a record-shattering internal surface area may have the right stuff to efficiently strip carbon dioxide from a power plant's exhaust.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:00 pm

Cold sore virus may contribute to cognitive and brain abnormalities in schizophrenia

Exposure to the common virus that causes cold sores may be partially responsible for shrinking regions of the brain and the loss of concentration skills, memory, coordinated movement and dexterity widely seen in patients with schizophrenia, according to research led by Johns Hopkins scientists.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Clue to origin of Milky Way gas clouds discovered

A study of hydrogen gas clouds in two different regions of the Milky Way shows that they are much more abundant above areas of intense star formation, indicating they are blown away from the Galaxy's plane by stellar winds and supernova explosions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Cut the salt and ditch the drugs: Controlling blood pressure in dialysis patients

For kidney patients trying to control their blood pressure, reducing fluid build-up in the blood is more effective than using antihypertensive medications, according to a new analysis. The research suggests that lowering salt intake may help reduce build-up.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Deep subduction of the Indian continental crust beneath Asia

Geological investigations in the Himalayas have revealed evidence that when India and Asia collided some 90 million years ago, the continental crust of the Indian tectonic plate was forced down under the Asian plate, sinking down into the Earth's mantle to a depth of at least 200 km.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 29 May 2010 | 9:00 am

Americans wait to learn if top kill will stop oil (AP)

AP - Two days after BP began a risky effort to stop a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, company officials said the operation was going as planned but offered few details, leaving the nation in suspense about whether its worst oil spill would end any time soon.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 May 2010 | 4:17 am

SOFIA Sees Jupiter's Ancient Heat

The aircraft-based telescope has opened its infrared eyes for the first time, peering into the guts of a galaxy and peeking through Jupiter's clouds.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 29 May 2010 | 3:38 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Wet and snowy conditions were expected to persist in the Northern Rockies on Saturday, while the Southeast could see another day of scattered showers and thunderstorms.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 May 2010 | 3:05 am

Obama steps up fight against oil spill (AFP)

AFP - Engineers tried Saturday to plug an oil gush spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico after US President Barack Obama visited the disaster area and vowed never to abandon those imperiled by it.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 29 May 2010 | 1:17 am

Obama bolsters oil teams on coast

President Barack Obama pledges to triple the manpower in coastal areas hit by the Gulf oil spill as he tours affected areas.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 29 May 2010 | 12:13 am

Beware the bee people from the planet Mars

The writings of this debunker of pseudoscience show us how little has changed in the last 60 years

This week a man called Martin Gardner died, aged 95. His popular maths column in Scientific American (and 50 books on maths) spanned the decades. In 1952 he published a book about pseudoscience, quacks, and credulous journalists. How much do you think has changed over 60 years?

Immanuel Velikowsky had just published his bestselling book about a comet which flew out of Jupiter, zipped past the Earth twice, and then caused the planet to stop spinning so that the Red Sea parted at precisely the moment when Moses held out his hand. Cars and planes, it explained, are propelled by fuel refined from "remnants of the intruding star that poured fire and sticky vapour" on the earth. Several years later the comet returned: a precipitate of carbohydrates which had formed in its tail fell to earth in the form of manna, which kept the Israelites fed for 40 years.

The science editor of the New York Herald Tribune called this book "a magnificent piece of scholarly research". But while the correspondents of Readers Digest and Harper's Magazine heaped praise upon Velikowsky, the publishers received a flood of letters from scientists. Their academic textbooks were boycotted, the editor who commissioned the book was sacked, and Velikowsky moved to Doubleday, who had no textbook imprint to worry about (and were delighted to have a bestseller).

This was an era when serious people took bullshit more seriously than they do today. While homeopathy is now taught in universities eager to serve popular demand, the most notable predecessor to Gardner's Fads And Fallacies was Higher Foolishness, written in 1927 by the first president of Stanford University. The American Medical Association campaigned hard against press publicity for quacks, and bullshit seemed more pressing. There were signs of a relapse into religious fundamentalism, driven in part by bizarre beliefs such as Velikowsky's, and the indulgence of pseudoscience was playing its part, live and in colour, in some very bad situations.

The bizarre racial theories of the Nazi anthropologists were fresh in the memory, and in Russia things were little better. During the 1930s communism had turned its back on evolution and Mendelian inheritance, preferring the theories of Trofim Lysenko on the inheritance of acquired characteristics, which sat better with their notions of heritable self-improvement.

Sadly Lysenkoism ran contrary to the experimental evidence, and could only be maintained by sending Russia's geneticists to die in Siberian labour camps, so that by 1949 Russian children were being taught that revolution had shattered the hereditary structure of the Soviet people, with each generation growing up finer than the last as a result.

But alongside concrete outcomes like the death camp, Gardner never loses sight of the parallel tragedy. Harpers was then pushing Gerald Heard's book Is Another World Watching? – that tiny flying saucers have visited Earth, piloted by two-inch super-intelligent bee people from Mars.

At a time when the shelves were filled with magazines called things like Life, True, and Doubt, a widespread passion for knowledge was being regularly derailed into nonsense.

So he has the same fun we have with the homeopaths (bemoaning that Marlene Dietrich is a fan), the vitamin pill peddlers, the anti-vaccination campaigners and the chiropractors, and above all captures their character, which endures: the self-imposed isolation from the corrective of academic criticism, the persecution complex, the grandiosity, the denouncement of critics as being in the pay of darker forces, and their enjoyment of jargon, like "electroencephaloneuromentimpograph", a machine devised by the son of the founder of chiropractic.

I have the first edition (they're cheap), but subsequent copies are much more desirable, because they have a supplementary introduction where Gardner takes delight in his hate mail, and especially the mutual indignation that each target expresses at being unfairly associated with the others, whom they regard as the true charlatans.

In 60 years nothing has changed. The best we can hope for is the simple, enduring pleasure of baiting morons.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 29 May 2010 | 12:00 am

Gulf oil spill hits Day 40 with no end in sight (Reuters)

Reuters - The worst oil spill in U.S. history hits its 40th day on Saturday with Gulf residents clinging to one tenuous hope: that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will plug the gushing well.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 11:23 pm

Gulf oil spill hits Day 40 with no end in sight (Reuters)

Reuters - The worst oil spill in U.S. history hits its 40th day on Saturday with Gulf residents clinging to one tenuous hope: that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will plug the gushing well.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 11:06 pm

NASA Revives Voyager 2 Probe at Solar System's Edge (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - NASA engineers have fully revived the far-flung Voyager 2 probe on the edge of the solar system after fixing a computer glitch that scrambled its messages home for nearly three weeks.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 9:30 pm

Alaska sues feds over predator control (AP)

AP - The state of Alaska sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Friday, seeking a court order allowing it to go ahead with a controversial predator control program.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 9:01 pm

Charges considered in deaths of 83 wild horses (AP)

AP - A Nevada district attorney is considering whether to file criminal charges against federal land managers who are accused by animal rights activists of mistreating wild horses in a roundup.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 7:21 pm

Loneliness study: Help! I need somebody

As a report warns that loneliness is rife and advises us to 'invest in' friends and family, a psychoanalyst argues that the experts have got it wrong. Below, one woman describes her agonising years of solitude

Everyone knows that a crowd can be the loneliest place. We're next to other people but feel absent and disconnected. We can talk, smile and respond, yet we are somewhere else. Loneliness can be acute, overwhelming and devastating, and we can experience it when we're with others or by ourselves.

A report from the Mental Health Foundation, published this week, argues that our modern market-driven society has led to an increase of human solitude. As isolated agents competing for goods and services in the marketplace, we have forgotten the value of relationships. Policy-makers must recognise this vital aspect of our lives and divert resources to combat the erosion of social networks. Better relationships mean better lives.

Who could deny that relationships matter, protecting us from the dog-eat-dog world of our working lives? Love and friendship act as buffers to the horror of human competition. Doctors, philosophers and sociologists have been pointing to the clash between capitalism and the human spirit for more than 150 years. They have made the same points about the spread of loneliness and the dehumanising effects of the market. They have shown how social and emotional isolation break down both body and soul. So what has changed today?

Something crucial. Loneliness, the report tells us, is bad for us because it makes it harder to control our "habits and behaviours". Genes may be responsible, and loneliness, we are told, may be hereditary. Teenagers are lonely because of incomplete brain development, which makes them unable to read social cues correctly.

Studies of cancer patients, cited in the report, show that sufferers without close friends were much more likely to die than those with lots of friends. Clearly, the report tells us, relationships are "worth investing in". Relationships and love are good for us. Why? Because they strengthen our immune systems and improve our cardiovascular function. Face-to-face conversations are good too. Why? Because of the "chemical processes" stimulated in the process, such as oxytocin production.

People with plenty of pals can "reap health benefits", the report tells us. So get on the internet or down to the pub and see how many days you can add to your life! Or not. The internet, we learn, both isolates us and connects us. It makes us spend less time with our family, and so makes us lonelier. But it also links us to new communities. No one can deny that people meet through the net, just as some use their screen to avoid face-to-face encounters.

What is so different in this discourse from that of the older studies is very simple. The classic studies of society and loneliness set up an opposition between the marketplace and the human spirit, and argued that consumer society posed a threat to our deeper selves and the ties that bind us to each other. Now the spirit, and the bonds between individuals, have themselves become commodities. We are instructed to "invest in relationships" as we would in the stockmarket. We must acquire them as we would material objects. And we have to do this since relationships "keep us healthy for longer".

Relationships, in this report, have become like any other product on the marketplace. Business values no longer clash with human relationships, but have absorbed them. Relationships have become things: things that make you live longer, that offer health benefits.

But why should we aim to live longer? The early 20th-century studies of loneliness and health by pioneers including Helen Flanders Dunbar spoke of meaningful lives, not just longer lives. Yet today the aim of life is just … to live longer. We should munch broccoli to avoid cancer, swill pomegranate juice to avoid heart disease, go to the gym to improve health. We are advised to use all our time to get more time.

For some philosophers, loneliness was the experience of being mortal, which meant it had to be embraced and confronted rather than avoided. Which is not to say that meaningful relationships with others are not essential.

But the new ideology of health imposes life on us whether we like it or not. The imperative is to live longer, to be healthier, so that death almost becomes a mistake to be avoided. The report, which blames contemporary loneliness on rampant individualism, is thus an example of exactly what it purports to criticise: we must be social so that we can avoid loneliness. Why? So that we can live longer and have more of the commodity that is life.

Furthermore, this latest report suggests overcoming loneliness can be a simple matter of choice – as something an individual can do with sheer volition. Make some friends, get out more! In fact, our families and personal relationships are far more complex than such consumerist language allows. In her book Choice, Renata Salecl, a law professor at the London School of Economics, argues that when emotions, love and attachments to others become perceived as a matter of choice, people increasingly feel inadequate and guilty when things don't work out as they had hoped. Salecl points out that the type of advice people get on how to form loving relationships often prevents them from opening up to each other.

Human life is increasingly seen as a set of skills to be learned, so that we could form new relationships if only we were prepared to make the effort. Yet we can't just form bonds because we're told it's healthy to do so. The realities of human relationships are simply more complicated than the ideology of choice can allow. Going through the motions of communicating isn't the same thing as relating. The more time we spend on the mobile or computer doesn't mean that we are genuinely in touch with other people, and how they feel.

We see this emphasis on superficial signs in today's schools and nurseries. Children are photographed, sometimes on a daily basis, to provide parents with evidence that they are happy. But a cheery smile doesn't necessarily denote a happy person, as Mind's recent campaign on mental health at work, with its numerous examples of miserable workers "putting on a brave face", amply demonstrated. Turning loneliness into a new pathology doesn't help. As Del Loewenthal, professor of psychotherapy at Roehampton University, points out: "It's a mistake to turn loneliness into an illness. What matters are people's individual meanings." Rather than commodifying loneliness, and creating measuring scales, it is dialogue and the sense of connectedness that matter.

However well-intentioned it may be, the pseudoscientific discourse adopted by the Mental Health Foundation, which diagnoses loneliness, actually helps to create it. In this mindset, if you tick more than five out of 10 boxes, you're lonely. But it is only through dialogue, through genuine human engagement, that one can really understand what a lonely person's condition really is. Is it because they miss someone they have lost or some other factor?

In the film Castaway, Tom Hanks plays a Fedex worker stranded on a desert island with a package. Completely alone, he draws a face on a basketball. After he is rescued he sets out to deliver the package, and we realise that even though he talked to the basketball, the package has been his real support. It gave him an identity, a social role, and he is only truly lonely once it is gone.

Researchers have shown that some people cope well with being alone when they know that they have a role in life. When asked what mattered most to them, elderly people said it was less the presence of their family that mattered, more the fact they knew that their lives had value. Losing one's symbolic place in a family or other community can have devastating effects. It can turn a bearable isolation into a nightmare of loneliness.

Having someone to talk to can help. Yet people realise quickly if they are talking to a person or a basketball. A well-meaning interlocutor is not always enough to make a real dialogue, and it is telling that isolated people in one London project made it clear that they didn't want to receive help for free. Instead, they introduced a system of tokens, so they were "buying" the time of their helpers.

Many of the charities cited in the report do excellent work here, supporting elderly and isolated people. Human networks are, of course, invaluable and must be encouraged. The danger is that those battling social isolation buy into the same discourse that contributed to it. Helping others does not have to be justified with pseudoscience and the aim of life does not have to be simply to stay alive. Relationships are not like plasters to apply to a wound and they do not have to be turned into commodities. Hope lies precisely in seeing the difference between things and people.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 May 2010 | 6:08 pm

Air Force Troops Laugh as Comrades Get Zapped by Taser (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - The Air Force recently released a video of airmen shocking each other with Tasers during a training exercise. Air Force leaders want the airmen to feel the effects of the nonlethal weapon firsthand so they can better judge its appropriate use, said a man identified as Staff Sgt. Brandon Phelps in the video.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 6:05 pm

Financial meltdown imperils reactor

Faced with a huge budget shortfall, Europe rethinks future of ITER fusion project.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/gE3TbSh9m4w" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 28 May 2010 | 5:36 pm

Letters: Free schools and private profit

Simon Jenkins is right to be critical of the way in which the education proposals in the Queen's speech will further undermine local government (Comment, 26 May). However, that is the least of the problems inherent in the expansion of academies and the proposed introduction of Swedish-style "free" schools. What we will see, if the Treasury does not sabotage these expensive proposals, is more and more outsourcing of public education to private, profit-driven companies.

If this could be shown to be an effective means of raising overall standards, it might be a price worth paying, but all the evidence is to the contrary.

Competition between schools to attract pupils, assumed since 1988 to be the driver of higher standards, merely diverts resources from one school to another, creating a hierarchy in the system that inhibits overall progress by demoralising those at the bottom. The proposal to allow schools rated as "outstanding" by Ofsted to become academies will only intensify this process. These schools, predominantly middle class in intake, will be allowed to spend the 7-10% of funding currently retained by the local authority for support services that are most likely to be needed by poorer children. Thus, to those that already have, more shall be given, and they will become more desirable and more able to select their intake, but the overall result will be that the UK will continue to perform poorly in OECD league tables.

Michael Pyke

Campaign for State Education

• Simon Jenkins writes that David Cameron and Nick Clegg want to devolve greater powers to local councils and yet education secretary Michael Gove will be writing to 1,500 outstanding primary schools suggesting they adopt trust status. Where are the defenders of the local authority education departments, which produced those outstanding schools? As chairman of governors for a primary school, which Ofsted rated as outstanding, I must express my gratitude to the officers of Nottinghamshire county council, who provide excellent and outstanding support to my school with cost-effective assistance in IT, finance, human resources, legal advice, training, structural design and governor services. I hesitate to think how much this would cost if purchased from private sector organisations whose motive is profit.

Charles Tyrie

Nottingham

• Schools' new freedom from local authorities could well open the door wider to inappropriate sponsors – not least the global food giants. As pressure mounts to stop junk food advertising to children, companies such as Nestlé are coming into schools through the back door of nutrition and health education. Commercial sponsorship of "education" is not philanthropy – it assists the corporate agenda on many levels. Not only does it blur the boundaries between advertising, marketing and education; it helps the most dangerous corporations build public trust and re-establish themselves as forces for good. Before long the curriculum is distorted in favour of business interests – and our children start believing that companies can be trusted to regulate themselves.

Nestlé chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has warned that tying corporations up in a regulatory straitjacket is unnecessary because Nestlé, one of the most boycotted companies on the planet, has already adopted sound principles and core values! At the spring Tory conference in February I asked Michael Gove how he was going to stop such companies harming child health through involvement in education. He answered: "I have no idea"!

Patti Rundall

Policy director, Baby Milk Action

• Strange that a government that purports to want to give power to the people should, with its education plans, seek to undermine democratic local control. Not strange, though, that a Conservative-led administration should pick up the attack on local government begun by Margaret Thatcher. A cynic might suggest that this is more about limiting the power of Labour-controlled councils (presumably representing the will of their local communities) than about giving power to anyone else.

Susan Lakeman

Canterbury

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 May 2010 | 5:07 pm

Stripes may not be bees' defence

UK researchers have found that birds avoid bumblebees even when the insects do not have the classic black-and-yellow stripes.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 May 2010 | 5:05 pm

Newly uncovered dinosaur had longest horns of all (AFP)

AFP - A group of US paleontologists said Friday it has unearthed a new species of dinosaurs standing some six feet tall and weighing up to 4.5 tonnes, with the longest horns of all.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 4:46 pm

Obama Arrives in Gulf; Oil Leak Ongoing

BP is still working to try its "top kill" method of sealing the undersea well, but oil continues to leak into the Gulf.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 3:38 pm

Tortured Veggies Better For You?

Stressed carrots can give you a big boost of healthy compounds, according to one Texas A&M researcher. He's looking into the vegetable's response to stress in the hopes of producing more antioxidants than normal.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 2:54 pm

What Deep-Voiced Men Think of You

Men with a deep voices are seen as more dominant by other men. They also rate rivals in a surprising way.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 2:43 pm

Video Games Help Blind Children Exercise

VI Fit helps children who are blind become more physically active and healthy through video games.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 2:32 pm

Gulf oil spill is 'public health risk'

• Pollution could do lasting damage to locals' health
• BP's 'top kill' attempt to stop flow enters third day

Prolonged exposure to crude oil and chemical dispersants is a public health danger, environmental scientists warned yesterday as BP spent a third day trying to initiate a "top kill" operation to cap the ruptured well on the sea bed.

The oil firm moved to a second stage of the procedure by injecting material such as golf balls, shredded tyres and rope into the well. But John Pack, a spokesman for BP, said it would not be clear until tomorrow if it would work. "We have never said there is a deadline or a schedule," he said. "We need to take this pretty slowly, but everything is going according to plan."

BP's beleaguered chief executive, Tony Hayward, yesterday drastically scaled upwards his assessment of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "This is clearly an environmental catastrophe. There is no two ways about it," he told CNN. "It's clear that we are dealing with a very significant environmental crisis and catastrophe." In an interview with the Guardian two weeks ago, he had described the oil spill as "tiny" relative to the size of the gulf.

"The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume," he said then.

However he was optimistic that the "top kill" stood a good chance of success, which he put at 60-70%. "We have wrestled it to the ground, but we haven't put a bullet in its head yet," Hayward said.

With no immediate end in sight, there were growing concerns over the effects on public health of a prolonged exposure to the oil as well as to the more than 3,640,000 litres (800,000 gallons) of chemical dispersants sprayed on the slick.

Environmentalists and fishing groups in Louisiana say prolonged exposure to the oil, in the form of tiny airborne particles as well as dispersants, could be wreaking devastating damage on public health.

They also accuse BP of threatening to sack workers who try to turn up for clean-up duty wearing protective respirators, and the Obama administration of refusing to release results of air and water quality tests that would show the impact of crude oil and dispersants on the environment.

Wilma Subra, a chemist who has served as a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency, said there was growing anecdotal evidence that locals were falling ill after exposure to tiny airborne particles of crude. Air quality data released earlier by the EPA suggested the presence of chemicals that – while still within legal limits – could be dangerous. But Subra complained that the EPA was not releasing all data it had gathered from BP.

"Every time the wind blows from the south-east to the shore, people are being made sick," she said. "It causes severe headaches, nausea, respiratory problems, burning eyes and sore throats." Long-term health effects include neurological disorders and cancer.

Subra said there was even greater concern for those recruited to lay booms and skim crude off the water, since they were in closer proximity to the oil and the chemical dispersants.

Clint Guidry, of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, has accused BP of threatening to sack workers who turn up wearing respirators. The oil firm said it was not aware of any workers being turned away, but noted that it was the responsibility of the Obama administration to decide whether such protective gear was warranted.

Hugh Kaufman, chief investigator for the EPA's ombudsman, said he encountered similar worker safety policies after 9/11. "If people are wearing respirators, it scares people because they realise how toxic it is," he said "The administration is down-playing the problem because it saves them money down the line. It was the same at Ground Zero."

EPA tests indicate that the combined effect of dispersants and crude oil are even more toxic than individually. "There are dispersants being applied by aeroplane and by boat, and these people on the water are being sprayed over and over again," Subra said.

Five offshore rigs have been shut down since the spill after workers fell ill. Seven workers on a boat trying to scrub the oil from Breton Sound were taken to hospital on Wednesday, complaining of burning eyes, headaches, nausea, dizziness and chest pains. Five were treated and released.

Administration officials suggested in a conference call with reporters that the workers could be suffering from sunstroke in the hot Louisiana temperatures.

They also said the workers recruited for the clean-up – fishermen and shrimpers put out of work because of the spill – had received training and wore protective gear. However, the protective clothing does not include respirators, which environmental activists say violates safety regulations for workers exposed to dangerous chemicals.

None of the workers pictured raking up oil from the beaches of Grand Isle Louisiana in photographs released by the Deepwater command centre today was wearing a mask or respirator.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 May 2010 | 2:29 pm

Non-controversial Stem Cells Can Repair Heart Damage

A new and non-controversial source of stem cells can form heart muscle cells and help repair heart damage.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 2:28 pm

Tracking Ticks via Satellite

Ticks cause Lyme disease and many other ailments, but finding the little bloodsuckers by hand can be both disgusting and dangerous. Now there's a better way--via satellite.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 28 May 2010 | 2:08 pm

Poll: 51 Percent of Americans Oppose Offshore Oil Drilling

A new survey said that the Deepwater Horizon oil leak has already begun shifting public opinion about offshore oil drilling.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 2:07 pm

The Tragic Race to Be First to the South Pole

NEW YORK CITY — In 1910, two men set out to be the first to reach the South Pole in a race that would be both heroic and tragic. The men had different reasons for their journeys, took different routes and made different decisions that would ultimately seal their respective fates, and those of their teams.

The American Museum of Natural History delves into this storied event to bring visitors as close as possible to this historic event and the people involved in their new exhibit, “Race to the End of the Earth,” starting May 29. Artifacts, photographs, replicas and models give life to the two rivals and their treacherous 1,800-mile marches to the center of Antarctica.

Robert Falcon Scott set off from Wales on July 15, 1910 on what was originally intended to be a primarily scientific expedition, but which quickly morphed into a quest to make history on behalf of the British Empire.

Meanwhile, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, whose plan to reach the North Pole first had been thwarted by both Frederik Cook and Robert Peary, had secretly turned his sights on the South Pole. He left Oslo in June 3, 1910 with the intent of beating Scott to his goal.

In October, while docked in Melbourne, Australia, Scott received a telegram from Amundsen informing him simply that he was “preceding to Antarctic.” The race was on.

Scott’s party carried on its plans to do scientific research on Antarctica, completing several geological expeditions and one arduous winter trek to collect Emperor Penguin eggs. On Oct. 24, 1911, the team began heading to the pole. In early January, Scott and four others left the rest of the group to make the final push. But when they reached the pole on Jan. 17, their celebration was ruined by the black flags Amundsen and his team had placed there about five weeks earlier.

The worst was yet to come for Scott, however. None of the the team of five that reached the pole would survive the return trip, succumbing to exceedingly harsh conditions they encountered on the way. But though he lost the race and his life, he won the hearts of his countrymen and inspired many throughout the world. Amundsen’s accomplishment was tarnished by the perception that he had ruthlessly taken from Scott what was rightfully his and for which the English expedition paid the ultimate price.

Biologist Ross MacPhee, who curated the museum’s exhibit, wrote in his beautifully written and illustrated accompanying book Race to the End, “Amundsen may have won the race, but the ensuing war of perception concerning who was the greater explorer continues to this day — was it Amundsen, the machinelike competitor who had but one goal in mind, or Scott, for whom scientific exploration was just as important as standing, for one brief moment, at 90 degrees S?”

Wired.com visited the “Race to the End of the Earth” exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History earlier this month as it was nearing completion. This gallery contains photos from this visit, images from earlier stages of the exhibit construction and historical photos of expeditions.

Scott’s Sledge

Sledges (above) were crucial — they carried the men’s food, fuel, clothing and sleeping bags. Unlike Amundsen, who used dogs exclusively, Scott’s exploration and scientific teams usually man-hauled their heavily laden sledges, often over great distances. –AMNH

Image: AMNH/C. Chesek.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 28 May 2010 | 2:05 pm

Lessons from the mephedrone ban

Mephedrone was banned on the basis of limited evidence and media hysteria. We need a new approach to drug classification

On 17 March I was giving a lecture in Barcelona when I received a call from CNN. They wanted my reactions to the international press conference that the Lincolnshire police were holding on the deaths of two young men that they claimed had taken mephedrone (the new synthetic drug also known as "meow meow" or "M-cat"). At that point I realised that all sense had left the ongoing debate on the question of the harms and control of this drug.

Why were the police holding a press conference when they had no idea if the men had taken any drugs? Why implicate mephedrone when the only established facts were that deaths occurred in the context of a heavy alcohol binge that went on into the early hours of the morning? As a stimulant, mephedrone is likely to reduce not increase the risk of alcohol-related respiratory depression (suppression of breathing). There was little evidence at the time of serious harms from mephedrone use, despite it having become almost as widely used as MDMA (ecstasy). Moreover, the earlier epidemic overdose use in Israel had not revealed significant harms and few if any mortalities.

The "media madness" that followed the Scunthorpe event probably tipped the balance in the decision to ban mephedrone which was enacted by a depleted ACMD in an intemperate and rushed manner, and which lead to the resignation of several more members and a coruscating editorial in the Lancet.

It has been revealed today that my suspicions were correct – there was no evidence that either of the two had taken mephedrone. It appears they took some other sedative drug – probably methadone – which is highly dangerous in combination with high levels of alcohol.

It is probably too late now to reverse the government decision to make mephedrone Class B but we do need to learn the lessons from the debacle of its being banned on limited evidence and media hysteria. The first lesson is that the police and other public bodies should not make pronouncements and certainly not hold press conferences on mere conjecture or hearsay; the public interest is not served by inciting media attention in this way. In addition the media should apply some traditional journalistic principles such as evidence collecting and testing and allow the scientific process to take place before claiming harms of drugs, especially new legal highs.

There are lessons for government and their advisers too. They should have the courage to resist media hysteria and let the truth drive decision-making. Moreover there should be proper research investment in the science of new drugs. Quite frankly, it is an insult to the country that the ACMD report on mephedrone didn't have some basic pharmacological facts about the drug, even though it had been under review since last summer and the data could have been obtained within a few days or weeks at little expense.

What we now require is a guaranteed minimum set of core pharmacological and behavioural data to be acquired for any new drug that is being considered for classification and control in the UK, before a decision to ban it is made. The new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) is currently developing a set of guidelines for this that we hope the government will endorse.

The whole mephedrone debacle illustrates what has been known for many years – there is a real need for a new approach to the drug laws. The 1971 MD Act is 40 years old, and in its current classification system is fatally flawed and not fit for purpose. In this new world where drugs may be invented one day and sold over the internet the next, there needs to be a fundamental revision or better still a completely new approach to drug classification.

Finally there is a personal lesson from the Scunthorpe deaths to young people who drink and take drugs. Alcohol itself is very toxic (killing by acute poisoning, hundreds of young people each year through respiratory failure) and these actions are magnified when in combination with other drugs that suppress breathing such as opiates (heroin, morphine, methadone) and GHB/GBL. If in doubt, don't drink and drug.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 May 2010 | 2:04 pm

Iceland's volcanic ash is electric

The infamous volcano in Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull, might be more harmful to airplanes than initially thought. Scientists discovered the ash plume is buzzing with electric energy.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 1:57 pm

The Worst Petroleum Disasters Ever

The 5 most dramatic and destructive oil well disasters in history.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 1:48 pm

Editor's Picks: Invisible Sharks, Dinos with Big Horns, and More

If you only have time to read five stories this week, let them be these five: 5. Mesoamericans Invented Rubber Not only did Mesoamericans use natural latex to create rubber, they figured out how to manufacture different kinds of rubber ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 1:35 pm

Mining the Air for Carbon Dioxide

When I tell molecular biophysicist Deane Little that I'm extremely skeptical about carbon capture and sequestration, he looks up from the solar-powered chemical reactor he's just set up in the window and responds, "We are, too." For Little and his ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 1:31 pm

Creeping Crawling Caterpillar...Robots?

It's likely one day there will be robots crawling around that look a lot like caterpillars! Barry Trimmer is researching the neuromechanics of caterpillars, which involves observing how caterpillars crawl on very high tech force beam systems.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 1:19 pm

Comet strike could explain Neptune's air

Carbon monoxide in planet's atmosphere points to icy impact.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 28 May 2010 | 11:45 am

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 11:22 am

Coalition wants UK space lift-off

Science minister David Willetts tells BBC News that space is an important growth sector for UK PLC.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 May 2010 | 10:43 am

Big Baby Stars Found in Milky Way Pockets

These massive stars will eventually die as supernovae, ejecting material, impacting our galaxy's evolution.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 10:36 am

Creepy Crawlies Aren't So Numerous

Scientists once thought as many as 30 million insects crawled the Earth. But new estimates say the number may only be 10 percent of that.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 10:13 am

Why Is the Length of the Indy 500 Set at 500?

The length of the iconic Indy 500 auto race was not chosen arbitrarily, but instead rather meticulously.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 10:04 am

Dinosaur Had Horns the Size of Baseball Bats

A horned dinosaur, sporting the longest horns of its group, lived in what is now Mexico some 72 million years ago.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 10:02 am

New Dinosaur Had Record-Sized Horns

The 72-million-year-old herbivore found in Mexico used its 4-foot-long horns mainly to attract mates.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 10:00 am

Why Is the Flag At Half-Staff Until Noon on Memorial Day?

On Memorial Day, when the U.S. honors its war dead, a whole new set of rules govern raising and lowering of the American flag.
Source: Livescience.com | 28 May 2010 | 9:49 am

Chief scientist hits out at climate sceptics

Professor John Beddington dismisses 'unreasonable' comments from groups including Nigel Lawson's thinktank, as Royal Society responds to critics with new climate science guide

• UK Royal Society revives confusion as US concludes climate change certainty

The government's chief scientific adviser has hit out at climate sceptics who attack global warming science on spurious grounds.

The statements from Professor John Beddington appeared to be a veiled attack on the former Tory chancellor and arch climate sceptic Nigel Lawson.

Beddington said that he had met Lord Lawson to brief him about the science of global warming.

His comments came as the Royal Society announced that it would publish a new guide to climate science for the public following criticism of existing statements on the topic, reportedly from 43 of the society's 1,489 fellows.

"It has been suggested that the society holds the view that anyone challenging the consensus on climate change is malicious – this is ridiculous," said Professor Martin Rees, the society's president.

"Science is organised scepticism and the consensus must shift in light of the evidence.

"In the current environment we believe this new guide will be very timely. Lots of people are asking questions, indeed even within the fellowship of the society there are differing views."

In his first interview since the election, Beddington agreed that true scientific scepticism was healthy and must be encouraged but he criticised individuals and organisations that cherrypicked data for political ends.

"There is no doubt that there are organisations and individuals who will choose to characterise the science as being nonsensical on the basis of what are not reasonable criticisms," he said.

He highlighted the spurious argument that because the UK winter had been so cold, climate change science must be wrong.

Beddington said there was a difference between weather and climate. "The fact that we have had a very cold winter in Britain does not mean that the climate is not getting warmer," he said, adding that rejecting global warming on those grounds was wrong. "This is just not science. This is commentary," he said.

Lawson's thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has deployed similar arguments to downplay the significance of climate change.

Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who is the foundation's director, said in December last year: "We look out of the window and it's very cold, it doesn't seem to be warming."

Lawson has said that "global warming ... is not at the present time happening". Peiser has previously said the GWPF does not challenge climate science but concentrates on examining policy implications.

Beddington, who gave a public lecture on climate change at the University of York yesterday, was also highly critical of the mistakes made by the UN's climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he called "fundamentally stupid statements".

Referring to the incorrect claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, he said: "Nobody in their right mind would see that as even a scientific statement. There's no uncertainty, there's no caveats." But he added that overall the IPCC report had a "remarkably small number of problems".

Beddington said that he had yet to have a formal meeting with David Cameron or Nick Clegg, but he said the coalition government faced a slew of scientific and engineering issues.

"Just about anywhere I look around the portfolio of government problems in any department, there are big issues of science and engineering including social science," he said.

He highlighted climate change, obesity, the volcanic ash cloud and vigilance to pandemic influenza as pressing problems for government to address.

He said he would advise Cameron to shield funding for scientific research from future spending cuts as far as possible.

"If you then think about how the UK as an economy is going to compete in the future, the underpinning of science and engineering having the best quality students, the best quality scientists and engineers is absolutely imperative."

When asked about the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, Beddington said there would be lessons for the UK.

"I think we need to understand it," he said. "I think deep offshore [drilling] presents formidable engineering problems as you can see from the attempt to actually deal with it.

"I think that one will have to be asking questions about the appropriate levels of regulation that are operating in licensing deep offshore drilling in the North Sea."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 May 2010 | 9:16 am

Silencing approach saves monkeys from Ebola: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gene silencing approach can save monkeys from high doses of the most lethal strain of Ebola virus in what researchers call the most viable route yet to treating the deadly and frightening infection.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 28 May 2010 | 8:30 am

San Andreas-Like Fault Found in Eastern U.S.

The fault stretches from N.Y. to Alabama and could cause an earthquake with the right mix of ingredients.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 28 May 2010 | 7:58 am

Religion is off-limits for science

Scientists like Richard Dawkins say the universe has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, but these things are not the business of science, says geneticist Francisco J. Ayala. They are the exclusive preserve of religion

Are religion and science incompatible?

Some scientists assert that valid knowledge can only come from science. They hold that religious beliefs are the remains of pre-scientific explanations of the world and amount to nothing more than superstition.

On the other side, some people of faith believe that science conveys a materialistic view of the world that denies the existence of any reality outside the material world. Science, they think, is incompatible with their religious faith.

I contend that both – scientists denying religion and believers rejecting science – are wrong. Science and religious beliefs need not be in contradiction. If they are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters.

The scope of science is the world of nature: the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by our senses. Science advances explanations about the natural world, explanations that are accepted or rejected by observation and experiment.

Outside the world of nature, however, science has no authority, no statements to make, no business whatsoever taking one position or another. Science has nothing decisive to say about values, whether economic, aesthetic or moral; nothing to say about the meaning of life or its purpose.

Science has nothing to say, either, about religious beliefs, except when these beliefs transcend the proper scope of religion and make assertions about the natural world that contradict scientific knowledge. Such statements cannot be true.

People of faith need not be troubled that science is materialistic. The materialism of science asserts its limits, not its universality. The methods and scope of science remain within the world of matter. It cannot make assertions beyond that world.

Science transcends cultural, political and religious beliefs because it has nothing to say about these subjects. That science is not constrained by cultural or religious differences is one of its great virtues. It does not transcend these differences by denying them or taking one position rather than another. It transcends cultural, political and religious convictions because these matters are none of its business.

Some scientists deny that there can be valid knowledge about values or about the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life. The biologist Richard Dawkins explicitly denies design, purpose and values.

In River out of Eden, he writes:

"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

William Provine, a historian of science, asserts that there are no absolute principles of any sort. He believes modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society.

There is a monumental contradiction in these assertions. If its commitment to naturalism does not allow science to derive values, meaning or purposes from scientific knowledge, it surely does not allow it, either, to deny their existence.

In its publication Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, the US National Academy of Sciences emphatically asserts that religion and science answer different questions about the world:

"Whether there is a purpose to the universe or a purpose for human existence are not questions for science."

The academy adds:

"Consequently, many people including many scientists, hold strong religious beliefs and simultaneously accept the occurrence of evolution."

Science as a mode of inquiry into the nature of the universe has been immensely successful and of great technological and economic consequence. The US Office of Management and Budget has estimated that 50% of all economic growth in the US since the second world war can be directly attributed to scientific knowledge and technical advances.

The technology derived from scientific knowledge pervades our lives: the high-rise buildings of our cities, throughways and long-span bridges, rockets that take men and women into outer space, telephones that provide instant communication across continents, computers that perform complex calculations in millionths of a second, vaccines and drugs that keep pathogens at bay, gene therapies that replace DNA in defective cells.

These remarkable achievements bear witness to the validity of the scientific knowledge from which they originated.

People of faith should stand in awe of the wondrous achievements of science. But they should not be troubled that science may deny their religious beliefs.

Nor should people of faith transgress the proper boundaries of religion by making assertions about the natural world that are contrary to scientific knowledge. Religion concerns the meaning and purpose of the world and human life, the proper relation of people to their Creator and to each other, the moral values that inspire and govern their lives.

Science, on the other hand, concerns the processes that account for the natural world: how the planets move, the composition of matter and the atmosphere, the origin and function of organisms.

Religion has nothing definitive to say about these natural processes: nothing about the causes of tsunamis or earthquakes or why volcanic eruptions occur, or why there are droughts that ruin farmers' crops. The explanation of these processes belongs to science. It is a categorical mistake to seek their explanation in religious beliefs or sacred texts.

Science provides an account of how galaxies, stars and planets came about after the big bang. It has discovered how the HIV epidemic originated and how Aids spreads. A person of faith may interpret these events in religious terms, but they are explained by science.

There are people of faith who see the theory of evolution and scientific cosmology as contrary to the creation narrative in Genesis. But Genesis is a book of religious revelations and of religious teachings, not a treatise on astronomy or biology.

According to Augustine, the great theologian of the early Christian church, it is a blunder to mistake the Bible for an elementary textbook of astronomy, geology, or other natural sciences. As he writes in his commentary on Genesis:

"If it happens that the authority of sacred Scripture is set in opposition to clear and certain reasoning, this must mean that the person who interprets Scripture does not understand it correctly."

He adds:

"It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics [the Earth, the heavens, the motion and orbit of the stars, the kinds of animals and shrubs]."

Successful as it is, however, a scientific view of the world is hopelessly incomplete. Matters of value and meaning are outside the scope of science.

Even when we have a satisfying scientific understanding of a natural object or process, we are still missing matters that may well be thought by many to be of equal or greater import. Scientific knowledge may enrich aesthetic and moral perceptions and illuminate the significance of life and the world, but these matters are outside the realm of science.

Francisco J. Ayala is a molecular biologist and evolutionary geneticist at the University of California, Irvine, and winner of this year's Templeton Prize

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 May 2010 | 7:35 am

Spaceman

UK space doesn't have to return to 'Year Zero'
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 May 2010 | 6:08 am

'Excellent water' at more beaches

More bathing beaches have excellent water quality than last year, but pollution has worsened since 2006, says Good Beach Guide.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 May 2010 | 3:54 am