Science Headlines for June 18, 2010

Quiz: name that synonym! | Mind your language

Jamie Fahey: Now you know your popular orange vegetables from your war-torn republics, can you work out what these phrases refer to?

Jamie Fahey

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jun 2011 | 5:55 am

New evidence that smokeless tobacco damages DNA and key enzymes

Far from having adverse effects limited to the mouth, smokeless tobacco affects the normal function of a key family of enzymes found in almost every organ in the body, according to a new study. The enzymes play important roles in production of hormones; production of cholesterol and vitamin D; and help the body breakdown prescription drugs and potentially toxic substances. Smokeless tobacco also damages genetic material in the liver, kidney and lungs.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Gut-residing bacteria trigger arthritis in genetically susceptible individuals

Using a mouse model, researchers demonstrated a link between normally occurring bacteria in the gut and arthritis. The bacteria spur immune cells to release arthritis-causing "autoantibodies" into the blood.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Shining light around corners: Scientists explore new method for curving 'Airy' light beams

Researchers have demonstrated new ways to generate and control special beams of light called "Airy beams" in their laboratory, which may lead to the development of new technologies for drug manufacturers, the communications industry, the military and the police.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Fuzzy logic predicts cell aging

The process of aging disturbs a broad range of cellular mechanisms in a complex fashion and is not well understood. Computer models using fuzzy logic might help to unravel these complexities and predict how aging progresses in cells and organisms, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Experimental Marburg vaccine prevents disease two days after infection

An experimental vaccine developed to prevent outbreaks of Marburg hemorrhagic fever continues to show promise in monkeys as an emergency treatment for accidental exposures to the virus that causes the disease. There is no licensed treatment for Marburg infection, which has a high fatality rate.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Illegal bushmeat trade rife in Europe, research finds

More than five tonnes of illegal bushmeat is being smuggled in personal luggage each week through one of Europe's busiest airports, reveals new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

New process is promising for hydrogen fuel cell cars

A new process for storing and generating hydrogen to run fuel cells in cars has been invented by chemical engineers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Probiotic therapy cuts risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia in half for some in ICU, study finds

Daily use of probiotics reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in critically ill patients by almost half, according to new research.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Why do certain diseases go into remission during pregnancy?

During pregnancy, many women experience remission of autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and uveitis. Now, scientists have identified a biological mechanism responsible for changes in the immune system that helps to explain the phenomenon.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Astronomers witness a star being born

Astronomers have glimpsed what could be the youngest known star at the very moment it is being born. Not yet fully developed into a true star, the object is in the earliest stages of star formation and has just begun pulling in matter from a surrounding envelope of gas and dust.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Gulf oil leak video could haunt Obama (AP)

AP - Will the Gulf oil leak cam engulf President Barack Obama?

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:07 am

Why Are Bed Bugs Such a Problem? (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Bedbugs are stubborn little beasts. They are a growing problem in cities across the United States, and experts are unsure of the safest way to go about exterminating these pesky insects.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:06 am

Nepal bans logging for two months (AFP)

AFP - Nepal has banned people from cutting down trees for two months after reports of massive deforestation in its lawless southern plains, a government spokesman said Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:05 am

Denmark leaves stranded whale to die naturally (AP)

AP - A government agency says a fin whale that has been stranded in a shallow fjord in western Denmark will be left to die without any human intervention.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:57 am

Congress turns scorn on BP chief

In scathing questioning, US congressmen tell BP chief Tony Hayward his firm ignored oil well dangers in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:43 am

Carbon nails down Egypt's history

Experts use scientific dating techniques to verify the chronology of ancient Egypt's kingdoms.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:13 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Severe weather was forecast to sweep through the Midwest on Friday, as a low pressure system moved through Canada.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:51 am

BP boss blasted over Gulf of Mexico oil spill (AFP)

AFP - BP's damaged public image was left in tatters Friday after furious US lawmakers pilloried the energy giant's boss, accusing him of stonewalling on the causes of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:47 am

A Prenatal Treatment Raises Questions of Medical Ethics (Time.com)

Time.com - Bioethicists question medical practices surrounding a widely prescribed prenatal treatment to fix sex-organ deformities in babies with a congenital disorder
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:45 am

Africa push for 'great tree wall'

African leaders meet to push forward the idea of planting a tree belt - the Great Green Wall - across Africa from west to east.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:18 am

Roadside bombs: weapons of the weak | James Denselow

IEDs, which accounted for three-quarters of British deaths in Afghanistan last year, may make the war impossible to win

Immortalised in popular culture by the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the ideal metaphor for the American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite all its firepower and money, the US has been unable to defuse these weapons of the weak.

What Viet Cong punji sticks were to napalm in Vietnam, IEDs are to unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Iraq. They remain the biggest killer of western troops. Of British casualties in 2009, 75% were a result of IED explosions.

The 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards recently returned to the UK after six months in Helmand where they had been engaged in more than 1,300 gunfights and had come across more than 500 IEDs – 62 of which had gone off. The US military recorded 8,159 IED incidents in Afghanistan in 2009, compared with 3,867 in 2008 and 2,677 the year before. Denis MacShane argued recently that troops being sent to Afghanistan were "IED fodder".

In May, the British Army's top bomb disposal officer, Colonel Bob Seddon, resigned over fears that bomb disposal training could be compromised. Yet on his visit to Afghanistan this month, prime minister David Cameron announced £67m to counter IEDs and said that the number of teams dealing with the devices would be doubled.

The Americans have already spent over $17bn countering them. However, finding technical solutions to the IED threat, from hunting drones that can detect the heat signature of recently relaid asphalt to high-tech jamming devices, are a fool's errand, as the insurgents quickly adapt their low-tech devices. Remember, an IED is – as Global Security explains – "almost anything with any type of material and initiator".

I have spoken with several high-level military commanders in Iraq who described how the internet was used to connect bomb designers across the world with the practitioners in country. They were amazed by how quickly the insurgents adapted to countermeasures brought into the field.

All manner of tactics have been deployed by the bombers, from pressure plates, phone and infrared detonations, bombs attached to animals, vehicles and people. They have succeeded in creating an "explosive landscape" where every person or object is a potential threat.

In this context it might seem that the vast efforts put into countering IEDs are largely gesture politics designed to show that the governments are doing something. General Michael Oates, director of the military's Joint IED Defeat Organisation, drove a stake through those who believe otherwise when he said: "I don't think you can defeat the IED as a weapon system. It is too easy to use."

What is more, how can the western allies hope to win a war of hearts and minds when soldiers are increasingly physically dislocated from the population?

This is the paradox at the heart of attempts to counter IEDs. General McChrystal speaks of the idea that "when you go to protect people, the people have to want you to protect them". Yet an obvious by-product of countering explosive threats has been a huge increase in the protection given to the soldiers. Mastiffs and Mine Resistant Ambush-Proof vehicles (MRAPs) are essentially an attempt to create mobile Green Zones. These 14-tonne vehicles costing $500,000 each lumber through Afghanistan, a country with a GDP per capita of $800 – a continuing reminder of the distance between "them" and "us". Reports suggest that by 2015, one-third of US Army fighting vehicles may be unmanned. It would appear that strategic planners in Washington are aiming to win future wars among the people without even using people.

The IED is both a major tactical and symbolic weapon in modern warfare. The key question is not whether the threat can be removed or sufficiently negated, but whether steps taken in countering IEDs weaken the strategic aim of winning a counterinsurgency and being able to withdraw from the country.

The unpopularity of the war (which will surely increase once the 300th British life is lost) makes it extremely difficult for the counterinsurgency enthusiasts to keep their soldiers in harm's way in order to sustain the surge into Taliban-controlled areas. Until this paradox is addressed, western policy will continue its deadly drift in Afghanistan.

James Denselow

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am

Wind in the willows 'ratty' making a comeback in the UK

Water voles populations are gradually recovering in many parts of the UK, according to the Environment Agency.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:41 am

Deep space asteroid pod comes home to Japan lab (AFP)

AFP - A Japanese space capsule thought to contain asteroid dust ended a multi-billion-kilometre (mile) journey into deep space and back when it arrived Friday at a research centre outside Tokyo.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:55 am

Halfway to Pluto, New Horizons … n 'Exotic Territory'

Halfway to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons probe has woken up in 'exotic territory.' Mission controllers are taking the opportunity to give the spacecraft a thorough system's check in preparation for its Pluto flyby in 2015.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:33 am

BP survives Washington week as investors weigh finances (Reuters)

Reuters - BP Plc bosses weathered a week of anger in Washington but the energy giant's financial outlook faces renewed scrutiny from investors trying to gauge remaining costs and risks from the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:21 pm

US decision on ethanol blend put off until fall (AP)

AP - The Environmental Protection Agency says it will wait until this fall to decide whether U.S. car engines can handle higher concentrations of ethanol in gasoline.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:35 pm

Layers of Atmosphere Seen From Space

Ever wonder where the troposphere and stratosphere is? Take a look at this stunning photo from the space station to see atmospheric layering in all its beauty.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:08 pm

Telescope set to begin hunt for 'killer space rocks'

A new telescope facility in Hawaii designed to search for asteroids and comets which could threaten Earth has been made operational.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:52 pm

Why Are Bed Bugs Such a Problem?

Bedbugs are stubborn little beasts. They are a growing problem in cities across the United States, and experts are unsure of the safest way to go about exterminating these pesky insects.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:14 pm

Illegal bushmeat 'rife in Europe'

Some 270 tonnes of illegal bushmeat could be going through one of Europe's busiest airports each year, a study shows.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:32 pm

Goodbye, Wired Science

Hey, Wired Science readers. I’ve got some news: this will be my final post for you. Today is my last day at the Wired mothership, and I just wanted to thank you for reading.

I’ve been writing for this blog since September 2007, and it’s been a wonderful ride. The site’s community has grown by an order of magnitude, and we got ourselves an amazing editor in Betsy Mason. We’ve seen some crazy things together, from that gold tapestry made from the silk of one million orb spiders from Madagascar to the discovery of methane lakes on Titan. Oh, and there were Kepler and Venter, Earth from Space and Space from Earth.

But my two favorite things that ever happened here came from you — and both of them bolstered my faith in the internet as a place where random awesomeness could still defeat the forces of SEO (and all that those letters symbolize).

The first was the appearance of a series of comments by four readers who went by the names @sammie, @sinclair, @eric y, and @jay whitlow. Over a couple of months, they had dialogues with each other in the comments of the site that were almost like a stage play and almost like spam. Sometimes, they tried to make a point about the story, but most of the time the characters appeared to be living their own lives inside the internet. They ended up reading like Beckett. I mean, take a look at this snippet of dialogue from a post on Mars Phoenix finding ice:

Sinclair (arrogantly) : The ice “sublimed” or it “sublimated”?
Sammie: I think it…
(Sinclair interrups Sammie)
Sinclair: I think you are out of your league, Sammie
Sammie (retaliating against Sinclair) : Either way it is reading Voltair instead of burping the worm
(Sammie smiles at Jay Whitlow. The corners of the noted anthropologist’s mouth press into his cheeks and his mouth flattens)
Sammie: I am happy to do the powerpoint if it means I can pull the rug out from under her and take over the training. It is good to have friends in high places.
Eric Y.: As smart as she is she doesn’t get enough pull around there.

It went on and on, and then it stopped. I always wanted to write a story about them, but I never could carve out the time. Regardless, I loved them then and I love them now.

The second Wired Science event may have been less profound, but the speed of your mememaking was still as mindblowing as a space photo. You created an alien race known as the Maltians out of a simple misspelling, and that act turned into the funniest comment thread this side of Gawker Media.

So, thank you. And I hope that you don’t give Betsy, Brandon, and Lisa too much of a hard time after I’m gone. I’m (thankfully) staying in journalism, and you can read my stuff over at The Atlantic come July.

Image: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Tumblr, and forthcoming book on the history of green technology; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:53 pm

Egyptian kingdoms dated

Radioactive isotopes nail the timeline of Egyptian dynasties.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/4kTyE7dNbYI" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:49 pm

Father's Day Turns 100: How Did It Begin?

Father's Day is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and it all began when a young woman wanted to honor her dad.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:45 pm

Shark Science on the 35th Anniversary of Jaws

Great white sharks are mysterious and dangerous. And cool.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:14 pm

How our ageing population will drive up public spending: the data

Britain's public spending could reach record levels
• Get the data

Public spending as a percentage of GDP will rise to more than 63% of national income by 2030 says a think-tank today to meet the rising costs of ageing, an unexpected fertility boom, climate change and the cost of replacing decrepit infrastructure.

The 2020 Public Services Trust calls for a "system redesign" of government to head of a permanent fiscal crisis. In the worst case scenario, if growth remains sluggish - averaging just 1.75% - then public spending would reach £880m - eating up almost two thirds of GDP within two decades. By contrast the Treasury model says this would not rise above today's level of public spending which is already at a 29 year high at 45% of GDP.

The report, entitled The Longer Term View, says that Britain may have to do "less with less" and that the current model is unsustainable. "Tax receipts have stayed fairly constant - at about 35% of GDP - since the 1970s. We have relied until now on borrowing to fill the gap between public spending and revenues. But as net public debt reaches 80% GDP, we can no longer afford to borrow our way out of the deficit," says the report.

The paper also challenges the Treasury model which assumes that spending on defence, public order, housing stays constant - and even falls - in the decades to come.

That 'worst-case' scenario is played out in this data from the Trust, showing how its estimates reach 63% (see the above graphic at full screen with more options). Download the data below - and let us know what you can do with it.

Download the data

• DATA: download the full list as a spreadsheet

Can you do something with this data?

Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk

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Randeep Ramesh

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:12 pm

Getting the drop on gravity

Delicate super-cold experiment falls for science.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm

Jaws of Death? 10 Reasons Great Whites Are Great

Here are 10 reasons great white sharks are the deadliest of all sharks — built for destruction.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:24 pm

Stem cell therapy 'damage' seen

Scientists warn about a new complication of stem cell therapy seen in a patient being treated for kidney disease.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:22 pm

Giving Electronics a Second Life

Eric Williams takes on the challenge of global e-waste.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:19 pm

Esa chief Dordain stays in post

The European Space Agency Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain will continue in his post for a third term.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:05 pm

Ancient Egypt's Pharaohs Dated Using Plants

Archaeologists finally have a clear timeline for the ruling dynasties of ancient Egypt thanks to carbon dating.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:45 pm

Judicious razzle-dazzle can bring dry bones to life | Lucy Worsley

Many in my profession may sneer, but viewing history like Hollywood helps conjure up vivid explanations of the past

This morning I was sitting in the curators' apartment at Hampton Court Palace, reading a report that contained the not-so-gripping words "the stone artefact assemblage contains two whetstones, two slate pencil tips, several fragments of roof slates and some river pebbles".

It was pretty heavy going, and an hour spent drowning among these details would be enough to convince most people that archaeology is not an exciting career choice. But I'm intrigued and impressed by the way in which the best in our business are reinventing the turgid, dreary and often lonely business of sifting through the mountains of evidence about the past as gripping entertainment.

On Wednesday we learned from a team of Italian archaeologists who had analysed his bones that Caravaggio – sensational, unstable, the most rock'n'roll of 17th-century artists – may have suffered from lead poisoning from his own paints. I immediately went to look again at the two works of his we have at Hampton Court: The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew and Boy Peeling Fruit. Was he literally dying to create them?

Even then, painters were well aware of the risks they ran. The 17th century's most famous vegetarian, Thomas Tryon, was a health nut and author of more diet books than Gillian McKeith. You can understand his proselytising when you learn he'd given up his own apprenticeship as a painter because he could no longer bear the noxious chemicals.

The Caravaggio story read like a treatment for Discovery Channel – and so did this week's other archaeological news, that a German team have identified the bones of Eadgyth ("Edith"), King Alfred's granddaughter, in Magdeburg Cathedral. Thrillingly, her teeth have revealed that she came from chalky Wessex, and her bones show she may have suffered from an eating disorder.

Of course television and film loves this sort of "intriguing new theory". Last year I spent a morning with a film crew on an industrial estate, crushing the carcass of a pig with a half-tonne weight: the aim was to recreate the effect upon his body of Henry VIII's jousting accident of 24 January 1536, during which his horse rolled on top of him. We wanted to test the theory that his injuries that day included damage to his brain. Perhaps this altered his personality, from kind and promising young prince to cruel and paranoid tyrant.

This kind of bold, speculative and hard-to-refute theory is a TV staple, and it draws sneers from many in my profession. But I do think the detractors would do well to pay a little more attention to the presentation of their own work.

Robert McKee is a man who could help them. He claims to be the top Hollywood "script doctor", who searches through the dross of poorly conceived film scripts, mines out the gold and creates blockbusters.

He says any writer can churn out dialogue and description but only a very few can truly tell stories. Likewise, numerous archaeologists and curators can amass detail and write careful, nuanced reports, but only a few can conjure up a vivid new explanation of the past, and – crucially – do it so convincingly that their colleagues don't shoot them down in flames.

There's a very fine line between the showman and the charlatan, and McKee only just walks it himself. I recently told a roomful of TV executives that the curators at Historic Royal Palaces had been on McKee's storytelling course in order to learn how to make our Henry VIII exhibition more gripping. They all groaned in unison. McKee has packaged and marketed his product so successfully that everyone in the media is sick of hearing about it.

But to us it was new, and it really has provided a good way of thinking about history. It's helped us to pick out some facts instead of others, and to aim to build a narrative towards a moment of exciting, illuminating, memorable insight.

So Henry VIII executed people because of a head injury? And Caravaggio wasn't the victim of his numerous low-life companions but was killed by something he held in his hand every day? Both are the essential twists to be found in any good tale, as McKee would tell us.

Hats off to the Italian team who worked patiently for a year before producing their discoveries; for their archaeology, but most of all for their showmanship. I'll be returning to my own archaeological report with renewed enthusiasm. That list of stones may yet reveal something that can entertain and enlighten the world.

Lucy Worsley

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm

Jaws 35th Anniversary: How One Shark Changed Summer Movies

In the summer of 1975, the movie “Jaws” made people across America stop thinking it was safe to go into the water.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:02 pm

Tricky Sea Ice Predictions Call for Scientists to Open Their Data

With sea ice levels in the Arctic at record lows this month, a new report comparing scientists’ predictions calls for caution in over-interpreting a few weeks worth of data from the North Pole.

The Sea Ice Outlook, which will be released this week, brings together more than a dozen teams’ best guesses at how much sea ice will disappear by the end of the warm season in September. This year began with a surprise. More sea ice appeared than anticipated, nearing its mean level from 1979-2007. But then ice levels plummeted through May and into June. Scientists have never seen the Arctic with less ice at this time of year in the three decades they’ve been able to measure it, and they expect below average ice for the rest of the year.

But looking ahead, the ultimate amount of sea ice melt is hard to determine. Some trends, like the long-term warming of the Arctic and overall decreases in the thickness of sea ice, argue for very low levels of sea ice. But there are countervailing factors, too: The same weather pattern that led to higher-than-normal temperatures in the Arctic this year is also changing the circulation of sea ice, which could keep it in colder water and slow the melting.

“For this date, it’s the lowest we’ve seen in the record, but will that pattern hold up? We don’t know. The sea ice system surprises us,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The loss of summer sea ice over decades is one of the firmest predictions of climate models: Given the current patterns of fossil fuel use and the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, sea-ice-free summers in the arctic are a virtual certainty by the end of century, and possibly much sooner. As the globe heats up, the poles are disproportionately affected. Warmer temperatures melt ice, revealing the dark sea water that had previously been covered. That changes the albedo, or reflectivity, of the area, allowing it to absorb more heat. That, along with many other feedback loops makes predicting change in the Arctic immensely difficult.

In 2007, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic declined rapidly. The drop from the previous year was so precipitous that it garnered worldwide attention and media coverage. In the last couple of years, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic, measured by the amount of square miles it covers, has recovered. This series of events, which underscored the year-to-year variability of the measurement, has made researchers cautious about describing events in the Arctic.

“In hindsight, probably too much was read into 2007, and I would take some blame for that,” Serreze said. “There were so many of us that were astounded by what happened, and maybe we read too much into it.”

Some good may have come out of the astonishing ice loss that year, though. It was in the wake of that shocking summer that the Arctic science community came together to try a new approach to climate science. All the big groups working on modeling the sea ice system would reveal their methods, and make predictions, allowing scientists to learn from each and see what worked.

“When this started in 2007, it was pretty scary for a lot of the scientists, putting these numbers out there,” said Helen Wiggins, program coordinator of the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. “It’s a different way to do science. It’s more a community synthesizing exercise.”

With climate modelers increasingly under attack over the past year, the partnership to create the Sea Ice Outlook, which is organized through Study of Environmental Arctic Change, could be a model for other groups of scientists. Data-heavy, model-dependent fields exposing the mechanisms of the science to scrutiny may be squirm-inducing, but it has already yielded good results. “There has been cross-pollination with datasets and different types of data,” Wiggins said.

“It’s been a very valuable exercise because you put your cards on the table and see who is going to get it right,” Serreze agreed.

All but one of the predictions from the Sea Ice Outlook expect the minimum coverage of sea ice to fall between 4.2 and 5.7 million square kilometers (1.6 and 2.2 million square miles). One group predicts just a million square kilometers, which would easily break the 2007 record minimum of 4.3 million square kilometers. In 2009, the sea ice minimum was 5.3 million kilometers.

Images: 1) Two icebreakers side-by-side./USGS. 2) National Snow and Ice Data Center.

See Also:

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Tumblr, and forthcoming book on the history of green technology; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:43 pm

Antarctic Sea Ice Paradoxically Growing

While Arctic sea ice shrinks, ice around South Pole grows.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:39 pm

Oxygen Cutoff Prior to Freezing Enhances Survival

When animals are severely deprived of oxygen prior to exposure to near-freezing temperatures, they can enter a state of suspended animation.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:33 pm

Ancient ice ages 'linked' to CO2

A "global pattern" of change in the Earth's climate that began 2.7m years ago could be explained by CO2, say scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:02 pm

Life of an Anglo-Saxon princess

The unearthing of Eadgyth, the Anglo-Saxon princess, was an emotional moment for historian Michael Wood. She was the Diana of the dark ages – charismatic, with the common touch

For anyone interested in the kings and queens of England it was a touching moment last year to see the heavy tomb cover lifted in Magdeburg Cathedral. The inscription said the occupant was Eadgyth, queen of the Germans, the Anglo-Saxon granddaughter of Alfred the Great, sister of Athelstan the first king of a united England. But was it really her? Now the results of the scientific examination are through: isotopes from her tooth enamel confirm that this early medieval woman, a regular horse rider who died in her mid-30s, had indeed spent her first years in southern England. It is her, after all.

As a long-time Athelstan watcher (I'm writing a book on him), I confess I almost felt my eyes prickle when I saw the startling image of the open lead coffin: an ivory silk shroud covering (or at least so I imagined with narrowed eyes) an almost discernible human shape. Under the crumpled folds was a small slim frame slightly bent at the knees, like a child asleep. Buried first in July 946, she had been reburied in this tomb in 1510. As blue bloods go, she was second to none: her grandfather, her father Edward and her brother were three of the greatest rulers in British history (well, why not the greatest?). I must say I was glad not to see the forensic close-ups of her bones and skull: the respect afforded by the antique silk shroud had the strange effect of giving her back something of her life.

She was aged, perhaps, 35 or 36, the same as a famous modern English princess, and, needless to say, Diana comparisons have been made in the last few months. In German sources, our only real clues to her life, it seems she was just as charismatic. She was in her late teens in autumn 929, when an embassy came to England from Germany seeking a bride for Otto, son of Henry I, the founder of the medieval German empire, the First Reich. Unlike the Third Reich, English relations with the First were close and often warm: Germany had been Christianised by English missionaries such as Boniface and they still liked to say they were "of one blood", their languages still close enough to understand each other.

Her brother Athelstan received the German ambassador at Canterbury and, "extremely enthusiastic" about the proposed union, according to one German account, "took Eadgyth aside and spoke in a loving voice to her, pouring into her heart an affectionate portrait of the young Otto", then a 17-year-old toughie bred to war and already experienced in the Saxons' savage campaign against Slavs and the Hungarians. In the event, Athelstan sent her to Germany with her younger sister Eadgifu, "so that Otto could choose which he liked best". They were unsentimental about their daughters in the middle ages, marrying them off for diplomatic advantage, as dynastic bargaining counters, or just to get rid of a possible source of rival children of the royal blood. But then, as the match made by Lady Di was to show, royals were not so sentimental even in the late 20th century.

The English chronicles tell us nothing about Eadgyth's later life in Germany. But German sources suggest she was quite a hit: brave, capable and strong-minded. The famous nun and poet Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, who was perhaps too young to have known Eadgyth personally (she was 15 when the queen died), says she was highly esteemed for her personal qualities. Hrotsvit makes much of her calm demeanour and especially her "remarkable sincerity": she simply "glowed" with charm. Eadgyth also had the common touch. "In fact," says Hrotsvit, "she was so very highly regarded in her own country that public opinion unanimously rated her the best woman who existed at that time in England."

Of course these are all stock attributes for admirable women in a patriarchal society, and perhaps that is just what the Germans were told, the hard sell by the English royal family also apparent in the story that Eadgyth was "descended from sainted ancestors", namely the line of the Northumbrian martyr Oswald, killed nearly 300 years before. But, in fact, Eadgyth had no need of a fake family tree: her family were the oldest royals in Europe whose pedigree, they claimed, went back to a 5th-century adventurer called Cerdic (as, too, incidentally, does that of our present queen).

So Eadgyth sailed to Germany with her sister. And though Athelstan had offered Otto a choice, it was, we are told, "love at first sight". The couple married at Quedlinburg in Saxony, and soon celebrated the births of a son and daughter. The German public was as fascinated by the young prince as we would be today: though in a world threatened by Vikings, Magyars and Saracens, much more was at stake in the birth of an heir.

In 936 Henry died, and Otto was crowned, with Eadgyth at his side as queen of the Germans. Together they survived a civil war and, for 10 years, ran the kingdom in partnership, with Eadgyth administering her part of the royal household as strong women did. When she died in 946 "the whole of the German nation mourned her with an intense grief . . . a foreign race that she had come to cherish with kindness. Their dearly beloved mistress was thus entrusted to the earth . . . to lie in the tomb until she could rise again."

And now, though surely not in the way a devout 10th-century woman would have wished, she has. So to Eadgyth, one of the many forgotten women of early English history, welcome back to the light.

Michael Wood is a historian and broadcaster.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm

How the study of teeth is revealing our history

The scientific study of teeth and bones is transforming our knowlegde of our historic past

So British scientists have proved some bones found in Magdeburg Cathedral to be the remains of our Anglo-Saxon Princess Eadgyth. At least, science helped. Eadgyth was known to have been buried in Germany: in 2008 archaeologists there opened her tomb, and found a lead box containing bones from a woman of the right age, with an inscription saying they were her remains.

In a more innocent age, this might have been enough to settle the case. But today we like science, the full CSI drama. Yet before we get too cynical about Eadgyth (the science showed that the woman in Magdeburg probably grew up in southern England), we should recognise that the technique used is transforming the way we think about our ancient and early historic past. Something big is going on.

Most of Eadgyth's skull was missing, but her upper jaw had survived. This enabled scientists to examine strontium and oxygen isotopes in her teeth. These are fixed in enamel as it grows, so the isotope signature reflects the source of these elements (ingested through food and drink): and as different teeth grow at different ages, you can map changes through adolescence. The significance of this is that the isotopes vary according to temperature, altitude, distance from the sea and local geology. Match teeth with landscape, and you chart early residence and movements.

Fifty years ago, archaeologists ascribed every change in our ancient past to immigration: farming, metals, a new style of cook pot were seen as the marks of waves of invaders. The subsequent backlash in our thinking saw invasions vanish, and our ancestors branded triumphant, if insular, inventors. Tooth analysis has blown apart this simple polarity. The turning point came in 2003, when Carolyn Chenery and Jane Evans at the NERC Isotope Geoscience Laboratory near Nottingham analysed the remains of a man buried near Stonehenge in 2300BC. His grave contained an exceptional collection of artefacts: and his teeth showed he was born in central Europe.

There has since been a succession of revelations. Recent examples include a Goth from the Black Sea area who died in Roman Bristol, an African on Hadrian's Wall and a Viking woman in Yorkshire. More than 50 brutally murdered young men buried in a pit outside Weymouth also turned out to be Vikings. The science works with animals, too: cattle at a big settlement near Stonehenge had been driven there over huge distances.

This is adding up to a new view of how people in the past moved around. The analysis of teeth supports neither extreme of migration or isolation, but rather a pattern where small groups or individuals travelled frequently across cultural and geographical divides. This is about residence and mobility, not ethnicity. Nonetheless, it seems that, in modern terms, Europe was always a multicultural place.

Mike Pitts is editor of British Archaeology

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:59 pm

How to Dispose of a Dead Whale (Dynamite Optional)

A dead whale on the beach raises two questions: What do we do with it? And how long until it explodes?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:57 pm

Odd Figure-8 Bridge to Merge Left vs. Right Side Traffic

A Dutch architectural firm has proposed a bridge shaped like a figure '8' to switch the sides of the road driven on by cars traveling between Hong Kong and mainland China.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:56 pm

Scientists Drop Theory of Everything Down Elevator Shaft

Researchers aim to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:48 pm

Don’t Want to Exercise? Blame Your Genes

People who stand the most risk of contracting a health condition due to risky habits are also the most likely to favor genetic over behavioral health information, finds a new study.
Source: Livescience.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:35 pm

Video: Testing Quantum Gravity With Bosons in an Elevator Shaft

Dropping ultra-cold quantum gas down an elevator shaft could help prove Einstein wrong. Scientists have shown that it’s possible to keep sufficiently close tabs on quantum mechanical objects in free fall to tell whether two such objects experience gravity the same way.

In 1907, Einstein suggested that if you were in a windowless elevator that was plunging towards Earth in free fall, you would feel the same weightlessness as if you were floating in outer space.

This notion, known as the equivalence principle, laid the foundation for general relativity. It explains why a pebble and a piano fall at the same speed if dropped from the same roof, despite their different masses. It’s also a necessary first step toward describing the effects of gravity as curvature in spacetime.

“It’s a very important cornerstone,” said physicist Ernst Rasel of the Leibniz University of Hannover in Germany. But, he added, the equivalence principle “is just a postulate — it’s not coming out of a law.”

So of course, physicists have spent the past century trying to break it. Earlier tests used man-made, macroscopic objects like rotating pendulums to make sure two elements of different masses fall toward Earth at the same speed. Physicists also have bounced laser light off mirrors left on the moon in the 1960s to make sure the Earth and the moon feel the same acceleration from the sun’s gravity. So far, to the limits of the experiments’ accuracy, Einstein’s idea has held up.

To get more precise measurements, physicists are turning to smaller and smaller test masses, all the way down to the atomic scale where conventional laws of motion give way to quantum mechanics. In the June 18 Science, Rasel and his colleagues describe a technically tricky but conceptually simple test of how quantum objects experience gravity in a free-fall: Drop one down an elevator shaft.

Though the elevator trial hasn’t directly tested general relativity yet, it proves that tests with two different kinds of atoms can be done with unprecedented sensitivity.

Rasel’s team used a quantum object called a Bose-Einstein condensate, a gas so cold its atoms all act as one particle. The team used lasers to cool rubidium atoms to a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. Because rubidium is a type of particle called a boson, several of its atoms can pack together in the same quantum state and act as one particle, or one matter wave.

Normally, preparing a Bose-Einstein condensate takes a room full of carefully aligned lasers, vacuum chambers and delicate electronics. But Rasel and colleagues crammed all the necessary equipment into a capsule 24 inches wide and 85 inches tall.

The team then dropped the capsule down the 480-foot-tall drop tower at the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity in Bremen, Germany, which was designed for similar experiments in low gravity.

“It’s just so impressive as an experiment,” comments Paulo Nussenzveig of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. “It’s inspiring. If these people did it, then it can be done.”

The researchers managed to watch the Bose-Einstein condensate carefully enough that at the end of the fall, they were confident that nothing but gravity acted on the quantum gas. Then, just to be sure, they repeated the drop 180 times.

“We’ve demonstrated that you can do this reliably,” Rasel said. This reliability will be important for doing similar experiments in space, which Rasel said is the ultimate goal.

“One of the things that is important for all these relativity tests, you will measure very small effects, so you need to accumulate data over a long period of time,” Nussenzveig noted. “That means running the experiment again and again and again and again.” In space, physicists will be able to watch a quantum gas fall continuously for years, as opposed to the four seconds it spends in the drop tower.

Next, Rasel and his colleagues plan to drop quantum gases of two different elements, rubidium and potassium, to see if they behave the same way. If their matter waves are out of phase, it’s a sign that something’s wrong with the equivalence principle.

Watching Bose-Einstein condensates in free fall could also help sketch a map of the intersection between quantum mechanics and general relativity. These twin pillars of modern physics don’t play well together — scientists have yet to come up with a description of the universe that describes both at the same time.

“Performing this experiment with an intrinsically quantum mechanical object inside it can in principle lead to new insight, bringing together these two very important developments from 20th century physics,” Nussenzveig said. “This is opening up a new testing ground.”

Image and Video: ZARM – University of Bremen

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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:04 pm

Swine Flu Jumps Back to Pigs and Keeps Evolving

A new strain of swine flu shows that the pandemic version has jumped from humans back to pigs, where it’s evolving in new and unpredictable ways.

The new strain, identified in a Hong Kong slaughterhouse, isn’t especially virulent. But the findings emphasize the need for continued vigilance. Swine flu isn’t going away.

“Hoping for the best while preparing for the worst seems a sensible strategy,” said University of Hong Kong virologist Malik Peiris. The strain is described June 18 in Science.

Peiris and study co-author Yi Guan are best known for identifying the SARS virus and helping to contain its 2003 outbreak. They were also among the researchers who identified swine flu’s origins after its outbreak last year.

Technically known as H1N1/2009, swine flu’s popular name hinted at its ancestry: a fusion of two swine strains, one from Asia and another that had erupted in the 1990s on U.S. factory farms.

Swine flu spread rapidly around the world, infecting tens of millions of people, and exposing profound flaws in the ability of governments and companies to handle pandemic flu. Fortunately, the strain was far less virulent than originally feared, killing about 19,000 people.

But virologists warned that H1N1/2009 was now a major new player in the global flu scene, and would continue to evolve — not just in humans, but once again in pigs, who proved susceptible to the pandemic strain. That’s exactly what the latest findings show.

“Everyone talks about viruses that go from animals to people, but it’s a two-way street. We reintroduce them to animals, where they reassort and become pathogenic,” said Columbia University epidemiologist Ian Lipkin, a member of the World Health Organization’s virus surveillance network. Lipkin was not involved in the study.

Peiris and Guan found the new strain in January in a Hong Kong slaughterhouse, where they regularly sample pigs arriving from farms in southeast China. It contains a gene from the pandemic swine flu, plus genes from the two strains that originally mixed to create the pandemic flu.

Having sequenced the new strain’s genes, the researchers recreated it in a laboratory and exposed it to pigs. The strain proved contagious but only mildly virulent.

In their surveillance efforts, the researchers have not found evidence of swine flu recombining with H5N1 avian influenza, an eventuality that Guan once said would prompt him to “retire immediately and lock myself” in a high-security lab. That’s reassuring, but Peiris warned against complacency.

“If this pandemic virus was marginally more virulent than it turned out to be, the discussion right now would have been [about] why the pandemic preparations failed to protect the population, rather than why global health authorities over-reacted,” said Peiris.

“Flu is unpredictable. People have been saying that we should expect a new pandemic every 30 years, and we had one last year, so we can rest. That’s not true,” said Lipkin. “This virus evolves rapidly. We have to stay vigilant.”

Image: H1N1/2009/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Citation: “Reassortment of Pandemic H1N1/2009 Influenza A Virus in Swine,” by D. Vijaykrishna, L.L.M. Poon, H.C. Zhu, S.K. Ma, O.T.W. Li, C.L. Cheung, G.J.D. Smith, J.S. M. Peiris, Y. Guan. Science, Vol. 328 No. 5984, June 18, 2010.

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

New Soccer Stat Method Determines Best Players

Soccer has been difficult to break into statistics, but researchers devise a way to objectively determine the best players.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:47 am

Oil Spill on Track to Reach Atlantic No Later Than October

BOULDER, Colorado — Oil gushing from the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico will reach the Atlantic Ocean within six months, says oceanographer Synte Peacock. Exactly when is all down to an eddy that broke off of the infamous Loop Current southwest of Florida on June 12.

Peacock, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, usually studies how the ocean’s water absorbs atmospheric gases. But after the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded April 20, she realized her computer models could be used to follow where the oil gushing from the seafloor might end up.

Her simulations, announced in a press release June 3, made headlines worldwide. No surprise: The simulations suggested that, once the oil became caught up in the Loop Current, it would be funneled into the Atlantic within weeks.

Talking with reporters at NCAR on June 14, Peacock explained how some news outlets misrepresented her work by glossing over a few major caveats. Most important, the work simulated the movement of dye (not viscous oil) injected in the upper layers of the ocean (not the deep seafloor) for a total of two months (not the ongoing no-end-in-sight disaster).

The simulations underscore how complicated it can be to track the movement of subsurface oil. “We saw large differences in details in how oil dispersed, depending on local eddies and currents in the gulf,” she says. Still, “no matter what you do it’s very, very hard in our model to find a scenario where dye is kept within the gulf for a period of longer than six months.”

The Loop Current circulates clockwise off the southwestern coast of Florida. About once or twice a year, it pinches off an eddy that either wanders around the gulf before dying out, or eventually reattaches with the main Loop Current.

The unusual thing about the Loop Current this year, Peacock says, is that it was located much more to the south and east than usual when it pinched off its new eddy. Eddies have popped off in this location twice before in recent years, she says. One of those times the eddy wandered to the west, toward Texas, before dissipating. The other time it reattached with the Loop.

Where the new eddy goes will strongly influence exactly where the oil ends up, she says. When it does reach the Atlantic, she notes, the oil will not necessarily wash ashore on beaches in a goopy mess. The oil might stay far out to sea, or be extremely diluted by the time it gets to the Atlantic.

Her team is now working on simulations of what will happen if the oil keeps gushing for months to come.

Image: National Center for Atmospheric Research

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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:26 am

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