Teens and alcohol study: After a few drinks, parenting style kicks in

The teens least prone to heavy drinking had parents who scored high on both accountability and warmth. So-called "indulgent" parents, those low on accountability and high on warmth, nearly tripled the risk of their teen participating in heavy drinking. "Strict" parents -- high on accountability and low on warmth -- more than doubled their teen's risk of heavy drinking.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Consumer-grade camera detects cancer cells in real time

Using an off-the-shelf digital camera, biomedical engineers have created an inexpensive device that is powerful enough to let doctors easily distinguish cancerous cells from healthy cells simply by viewing the LCD monitor on the back of the camera.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

New 'fix' for cosmic clocks could help uncover ripples in space-time

An international team of scientists have developed a promising new technique which could turn pulsars -- superb natural cosmic clocks -- into even more accurate time-keepers. This important advance could improve the search for gravitational waves and help studies into the origins of the universe.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome have higher BPA blood levels, study finds

Women with the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common hormone imbalance in women of reproductive age, may be more vulnerable to exposure to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), found in many plastic household items, according to a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Freshwater fish eyes: Great home for parasites

The limited immune response in the eyes of freshwater fishes has created a great home for parasites, according to new research. The study provides a lens into the evolutionary world of the larval flukes that parasitize Canadian fish.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Compound found in red wine neutralizes toxicity of proteins related to Alzheimer's

An organic compound found in red wine -- resveratrol -- has the ability to neutralize the toxic effects of proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease. The findings are a step toward understanding the large-scale death of brain cells seen in certain neurodegenerative diseases.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am

Researchers develop living, breathing human lung-on-a-chip

Researchers have combined microfabrication techniques from the computer industry with modern tissue engineering techniques, human cells and a plain old vacuum pump to create a living, breathing human lung-on-a-chip. The device mimics the most active part of the lung, the boundary between the air sac and the bloodstream.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Sight restored to mice afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa

Swiss researchers have just restored sight to mice afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa. The results have been confirmed ex-vivo, on human tissue cultures. Thanks to a complementary clinical approach, the team has now determined the types of patient who could benefit from this therapy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Progesterone is effective for hot flash treatment and provides an alternative to estrogen, study finds

Postmenopausal women who experience bothersome hot flashes or night sweats may have an alternative treatment to estrogen. According to a new study, oral micronized progesterone relieves those symptoms.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Earth-like planets may be ready for their close-up

Many scientists speculate that our galaxy could be full of places like Pandora from the movie "Avatar" -- Earth-like worlds in solar systems besides our own.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

DNA study sheds light on how ancient fins turned into limbs

A study has shed light on a key genetic step in the evolution of animals' limbs from the fins of fish, scientists say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 4:17 am

Builders urged to support swifts

House builders and homeowners need to provide more nest sites for swifts to reverse the bird's falling numbers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 4:16 am

Sense of Touch Shapes Snap Judgements

Sitting in a hard chair can literally turn someone into a hardass. Holding a heavy clipboard leads to weighty decisions. Rubbing rough surfaces makes us prickly. So found researchers studying the interaction between physical touch and social cognition.

The experiments included would-be car buyers who, when seated in a cushy chair, were less likely to drive a stiff bargain. The findings don’t just suggest tricks for salesman, but may illuminate how our brains develop.

“The way people understand the world is through physical experiences. The first sense they develop is touch,” said study co-author Josh Ackerman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology psychologist. As they grow up, those physical experiences shape how people conceptualize abstract, social experience, he said. “Later on, you can do what we did — trigger different physical experiences, and produce changes in people’s thoughts.”

Published June 24 in Science, the study is the latest addition to a booming field of embodied cognition, which over the last decade has scientifically eroded the notion that mind and body are distinctly separate.

Other studies have shown that kids are better at math when using their hands while thinking. Actors recall lines more easily while moving. People tend towards generosity after holding a warm cup of coffee, and are more callous after holding a cold drink.

The drink temperature study was co-authored by Yale University psychologist John Bargh, also a co-author of the latest paper. His group is especially interested in touch, which is one of the first senses to develop.

Other research shows that the brain doesn’t always have different structures for different functions, but often uses the same systems in a variety of ways. And given the importance of touch, it’s easy for developing brains to use tactile associations — heaviness requires effort, roughness leads to friction, hard objects are inflexible — in understanding social situations.

“Those connections that people have, between physical experience and mental understanding, don’t ever disappear,” said Ackerman.

To test the connection, the researchers conducted a variety of experiments simulating real-world social interactions. In one, test participants played the part of employers interviewing job applicants. When holding a heavy clipboard, they were more likely to consider candidates to be serious, and thought of their own judgements as especially important.

In another test, passerby asked to complete surveys on government funding of social programs were more likely to support increases while holding heavy clipboards. The problems seemed more significant.

After hearing stories about an ambiguous social interaction, test participants tended to consider it uncoordinated and harsh if they’d just handled a rough-surfaced jigsaw puzzle. After assembling a smooth puzzle, those ambiguous stories didn’t seem so awkward.

Test subjects who touched a block of wood subsequently judged job applicants to be more strict in character than when they’d touched a blanked. And in the car negotiations, people sitting in stiff chairs rather than soft held out for an extra $350 price cut.

“The tactile sensation is extremely important early in devleopment. The idea that other associations would be built on that makes intuitive sense,” said Franklin & Marshall College psychologist Michael Anderson, who was not involved in the study. “Brain regions that may initially have been dedicated to one particular task, turn out ot contribute to multiple tasks.”

It’s not only people curious about brain development who will be interested in the findings. Manipulations “used in the studies might have important implications for a host of social situations such as job interviews, buyer/seller interactions, and the collection of signatures for petitions,” said Gettysburg University psychologist Brian Meier.

For those fearing exploitation by marketers, Ackerman noted that tactile suggestion’s effects diminish when people pay attention. “It’s when you’re distracted, thinking in a shallow fashion, that you get hit by these cues,” he said.

The researchers want to further study how tactile-social interactions form during infancy and adolescence, and whether certain types of people are susceptible than others. They’re are curious whether tactility affects hormone balances and, in the short term, personality type.

Ackerman said the connection isn’t one-way. “Once you have the connections, the process works both ways,” he said. “There is some evidence that you can change people’s sensations by changing their thoughts.”

Image: Taber Andrew Bain/Flickr.

See Also:

• Your Computer Really Is a Part of You
• Researchers Want to Add Touch, Taste and Smell to Virtual Reality
• Seeing Red: Tweak Your Brain With Colors

Citation: “Incidental Haptic Sensations Influence Social Judgments and Decisions.” By J.M. Ackerman, C.C. Nocera, J.A. Bargh. Science, Volume 328 No. 5987, June 22, 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 | 25 Jun 2010 | 4:00 am

Amputee cat given 'bionic feet'

A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been fitted with prosthetic feet in a pioneering operation.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:47 am

More dirty evidence of Gulf oil spill wash ashore (AP)

AP - More dirty evidence of the massive oil spill washed ashore along the Gulf Coast for residents who don't need anymore reminders of their frustration over failed efforts to stop the crude gushing from a blown-out undersea well.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:31 am

BP shares down sharply in London (AP)

AP - BP shares fell sharply in London Friday following the company's announcement that the cost of responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak has risen to $2.35 billion.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:22 am

What do climate scientists think - and why does it matter?

Attempts to portray the scientific community as fractured and in disagreement have prompted efforts to quantify the credibility of climate scientists, says Gavin Schmidt

Leo Hickman: Why don't we trust climate scientists?

There is a lot of discussion this week about a new paper in PNAS (Andregg et al, 2010) that tries to assess the credibility of scientists who have made public declarations about policy directions. This comes from a long tradition of papers (and drafts) where people have tried to assess the state of the 'scientific consensus' (Oreskes, Brown et al, Bray and von Storch, Doran and Zimmerman etc.).

What has bedevilled all these attempts is that since it is very difficult to get scientists to respond to direct questions (response rates for surveys are pitiful), proxy data of some sort or another are often used that may or may not be useful for the specifics of the 'consensus' being tested (which itself is often not clearly defined). Is the test based on agreeing with every word in the IPCC report? Or just the basic science elements? Does it mean adhering to a specific policy option? Or merely stating that 'something' should be done about emissions? Related issues arise from mis-specified or ambiguous survey questions, and from the obvious fact that opinions about climate in general are quite varied and sometimes can't easily be placed in neatly labelled boxes.

Given these methodological issues (and there are others), why do people bother?

The answer lies squarely in the nature of the public 'debate' on climate. For decades, one of the main tools in the arsenal of those seeking to prevent actions to reduce emissions has been to declare the that the science is too uncertain to justify anything. To that end, folks like Fred Singer, Art Robinson, the Cato Institute and the 'Friends' of Science have periodically organised letters and petitions to indicate (or imply) that 'very important scientists' disagree with Kyoto, or the Earth Summit or Copenhagen or the IPCC etc. These are clearly attempts at 'arguments from authority', and like most such attempts, are fallacious and, indeed, misleading.

They are misleading because as anyone with any familiarity with the field knows, the basic consensus is almost universally accepted. That is, the planet is warming, that human activities are contributing to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (chiefly, but not exclusively CO₂), that these changes are playing a big role in the current warming, and thus, further increases in the levels of GHGs in the atmosphere are very likely to cause further warming which could have serious impacts. You can go to any standard meeting or workshop, browse the abstracts, look at any assessment, ask any of the National Academies etc. and receive the same answer. There are certainly disputes about more detailed or specific issues (as there is in any scientific field), and lots of research continues to improve our quantitative understanding of the system, but the basic issues (as outlined above) are very widely (though not universally) accepted.

It is in response to these attempts to portray the scientific community as fractured and in disagreement, that many people have tried to find quantitative ways to assess the degree of consensus among scientists on the science and, as with this new paper, the degree of credibility and expertise among the signers of various letters advocating policies.

It is completely legitimate to examine the credentials of people making public statements (on any side of any issue) – especially if they make a claim to scientific expertise. It does make a difference if medical advice is being given by a quack or the Surgeon General. The database that Jim Prall has assembled allows anyone to look this expertise up – and since any new source of information is useful, we think this can be generally supported. Prall's database has a number of issues of course, most of them minor but some which might be considered more problematic: it relies on citation statistics, which have well-known problems (though mostly across fields rather than within them), it uses Google Scholar rather than the standard (ISI) citation index, and there are almost certainly some confusions between people with similar names. Different methodologies could be tried – ranking via h-index perhaps – but the as long as small differences are not blown out of proportion, the rankings he comes up with appear reasonable.

So it is now possible to estimate an expertise level associated with any of the various lists and letters that are out there. Note that it is worth distinguishing between letters that have been voluntarily signed and lists that have been gathered with nothing but political point scoring in mind (the Inhofe/Morano list was egregious in its cherry picking of quotes in order to build up its numbers and can't be relied on as an accurate reflection of peoples opinions in any way, and similarly contributing to RealClimate is not a statement about policy preferences!). Additionally, it isn't always clear that every signatory of each letter really believes every point in the statement. For instance, does Lindzen really believe that attribution is impossible unless current changes exceed all known natural variations (implying that nothing could be said unless we got colder than Snowball Earth or warmer than the Cretaceous or sea level rose more than 120 meters….)? We doubt it. But as tests of political preferences, these letters are probably valid indicators.

So, do the climate scientists who have publicly declared that they are 'convinced of the evidence' that emission policies are required have more credentials and expertise than the signers of statements declaring the opposite? Yes. That doesn't demonstrate who's policy prescription is correct of course, and it remains a viable (if somewhat uncommon) position to acknowledge that despite most climate scientists agreeing that there is a problem, one still might not want to do anything about emissions. Does making a list of signers of public statements, or authors of the IPCC reports, constitute a 'delegitimization' of their views? Not in the slightest. If someone's views are widely discounted, it is most likely because of what they have said, not who they sign letters with.

However, any attempt to use political opinions (as opposed to scientific merit) to affect funding, influence academic hiring, launch investigations, or personally harass scientists has no place in a free society – from whichever direction that comes. In this context, we note that once the categorization goes beyond a self-declared policy position, one is on very thin ice because the danger of 'guilt by association'. For instance, one of us (Eric) feels more strongly that some of Prall's classifications in his dataset cross a line (for more on Eric's view, see his comments at Dotearth).

But will this paper add much to the 'there [is/is not] a consensus' argument? Doubtful. People are just too fond of it.

But there really is.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am

Swollen river threatens major city in central China (AFP)

AFP - Chinese rescue teams scrambled to shore up flood defences Friday as a swollen river threatened a major city, after heavy rains across the nation's south and centre left more than 200 people dead.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:50 am

Hotspots leave magnetic scars on Mars

Puzzling 'stripes' generate another controversial origin theory.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/sf1w5QuWPfw" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:50 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Severe weather was forecast to continue pushing through the East Coast on Friday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:42 am

No Gulf seafood, no po-boys; owner shuts La. cafe (AP)

AP - Vicki Guillot has served her last seafood po-boy.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:12 am

When it comes to conservation, common names count | George C McGavin

Latin classification can be cold and clinical - it's much easier to care about a species that has a romantic and memorable name

We survive in the complex world around us by being able to put things into groups or categories based on our experience. Novel things are compared to our internal database and a decision is then made on what it is likely to be. Early humans would have had a simple system of classification, probably related to what species were likely to be deadly, dangerous or delicious.

It has been suggested that taxonomy is an even older science than mathematics – after all, you need to know what you are counting before you can count it. And indeed the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis 2:19, suggests the same:

And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called them, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.

So Adam's first job was that of taxonomist. But he did not get very far before Eve appeared and he became distracted - we are still very far from completing the task.

Classification is the cornerstone of science – without it progress would be impossible. But common names are not much use for scientific study. Take the common foxglove for instance. Across the UK it is has a myriad of names: bee hives, bunny rabbits, bunch of grapes, clothes pegs, cowflop, dog's lugs, ducks' mouth, deadmens' thimbles, floptop, finger root, granny's gloves, hedge poppy, lion's mouth, pop ladders, harebell, hill poppy, finger hut, flowster docken, scotch mercury and long purples.

Without an agreed system of naming species, confusion reigns. Stability is needed and it came, not that long ago, in the form of the Swedish polymath - Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), now known as the father of modern taxonomy.

Linnaeus named around 10,000 species in his lifetime and described their characteristics in Latin - then the universal language of learning. For example, one plant he described as Physalis annua ramosissima, ramis angulosis glabris, foliis dentato-serratis. For Linnaeus this summed up all the features of that particular species but even for him it was too long-winded and he abbreviated it to Physalis angulata in his notebooks. The two-name (binomial) system was born.

Today science has named around 1.5m species and everything has two scientific names – the first, the generic name is like a surname, the second, the species name. So the bacterium, Escherichia coli, is a species named coli, placed in a genus of other closely related species, called Escherichia. Naming new species takes time and you need to publish a detailed scientific description of them in a recognised journal.

When suspected new species are found they need to be formally compared to every other known species in that group - either by referring to existing published descriptions or by examining the original specimens, which could be held in any number of places around the world.

Before anything can be accepted as a new species, a scientific description has to be published in a peer-reviewed and recognised scientific journal and a specimen has to be deposited with a museum or institute. Scientific names still have to be latinised and follow certain conventions. Oddly there is no centralised database, which holds all this information - I wish there was as it would make life a whole lot easier.

The trouble is that for most people, remembering Latin names can be difficult even when the names refer to some obvious feature such as red legs (rufipes) or hairiness (hirsutus). For most people, common names are much more memorable and accessible. Most British species do not have a common name but how beautiful and romantic those that exist can be, such as sallow kitten, dark arches, merveille du jour and mother Shipton - all moths whose common names are generally agreed upon through long usage.

While scientific study needs the rigour and stability of Latin names, they can sound rather cold and clinical. It's much easier to care about a moth called the Kentish glory than Endromis versicolora. And who wouldn't want a brindled beauty rather than Lycia hirtaria in their garden? Even the bed bug sounds just a little cosier than Cimex lectularius.

• Dr George C McGavin is an honorary research associate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am

The stalked jellyfish: Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis

What common name would you give the Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis, the stalked jellyfish? Enter our competition by posting your ideas in the comments below, explaining why you've chosen your name. Read our guidance before posting

Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis is the smallest member of a family of species known as stalked jellyfish. Even at its largest, it does not quite reach 1cm in height.

Description

Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis resembles an upside-down jellyfish, with its translucent bell underneath and tentacles on the top. There are eight webbed arms within the maroon bell, with up to 35 rounded tentacles at the end of each.

The stinging organs of this stalked jellyfish are very distinctive as white spots on the surface of the bell forming the shape of a Maltese cross.

Habitat

Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis lives on rocky shores that are exposed to moderately strong waves and currents. It can be found close to the low tide mark or in shallow water. Unlike other stalked jellyfish, it is rarely attached to seagrass but is often found on small, red seaweeds, such as Irish moss.

Ecology

Stalked jellyfish are closely related to anemones, free-floating jellyfish, and corals, all of which have stinging tentacles to paralyse or kill their prey and to protect themselves from predators.

Status

Estimated reduction of population size of 90% from 1970s to 2005. This species was found in often high numbers in south-west England - for example an estimated 2000 where found in one shore search at Wembury in 1969 - but is now rarely seen.

Distribution

The distribution of Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis appears to be limited to the south-west of England, from Swanage to north Devon, and the Atlantic coasts of Ireland.

• Name the other species by clicking on the links on the right-hand side or the previous and next buttons at the top of the page

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am

Nomada armata, the bee that lays in other bees' nests

What common name would you give the Nomada armata, the bee that lays in other bees' nests? Enter our competition by posting your ideas in the comments below, explaining why you've chosen your name. Read our guidance before posting

Nomada armata is a type of cuckoo bee, so-called because it lays its eggs in the nests of other bees.

Description

A large bee which is brownish-red in colour.

Habitat

Nomada armata is most often found on flowers of small scabious, from which it obtains nectar. Another type of bee, Andrena hattorfiana, is also found on the same flower, where it forages for pollen to provide for its nest. Nomada armata uses the nests of this host species to lay it eggs. Both species are found among areas of extensive chalk grasslands as well as marginal grassland areas along the edges of arable fields.

Ecology

The host bee nests singly within grassland, sometimes in areas of exposed soil. Both Nomada armata and its host fly between June and early August.

Status

The bee is found throughout Europe but is uncommon as a whole.

Distibution

There are confirmed records of Nomada armata from much of southern England and a single record from southern Wales. However, the majority of these records are from the 19th and early 20th centuries. There are six localities where this species has been found since 1990, all within the Salisbury plain area of Wiltshire.

• Name the other species by clicking on the links on the right-hand side or the previous and next buttons at the top of the page

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am

Your chance to name a species

Plants and animals are dying out across the UK without ever being known to more than a few scientists - now you can bring them to life with imaginative new names

• Comment: Why common names count
• Read the terms and conditions of the competition

Of the 55,000 species thought to exist in Britain, the vast majority are only known to a few expert taxonomists, and most have only Latin names to describe them. Yet as George Monbiot noted earlier this year, the common names for many of our native species cast a spotlight on animals and plants that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

That's why, to mark the International Year for Biodiversity, the Guardian, Natural England and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History have teamed up to ask the public to name some of the less well-known and lesser-loved animals and plants that inhabit our shores.

Our list of 10 species includes beetles, bees, flies, jellyfish, algae, shrimp and lichen. They may not all be photogenic, but all these species are recognised as endangered or threatened and each plays an amazing role in our ecosystem.

Our expert panel will judge the entries. The winning names will be published in the Guardian and go on display at an exhibition at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Simply click on the links below to post your ideas for names in the comments:

• The edible, medicinal lichen: Usnea florida

• The extremely rare leaf beetle: Cryptocephalus punctiger

• A four-spotted ground beetle: Philorhizus quadrisignatus

• The beautiful, coral-like jellyfish: Haliclystus auricula

• A fan-shaped lichen: Peltigera venosa

• A threatened shrimp: Arrhis phyllonyx

• The nippy, jet-skiing beetle: Stenus longitarsis

• The clicking, larvae-eating beetle: Megapenthes lugens

• The bee that lays in other bees' nests: Nomada armata

• The stalked jellyfish: Lucernariopsis cruxmelitensis

A few tips on naming:

• Try to incorporate some combination of appearance, natural history or location. For example, the species' colour or feeding habits

• Humour, word play and cultural references are good when relevant, and names do not need to be direct Latin translations

• Names should ideally consist of two names, not including the taxonomic group name, for example beetle, lichen, shrimp (so three words in total). A good case needs to be made for longer ones

• Use Arkive, the Encyclopedia of Life and search engines to check your name's not already been taken

The judging process:

The judges will award a winner and two runners-up for each species, based on the guidelines above. Winners will be contacted by Natural England, their names will be published in the Guardian and they will receive a signed certificate featuring an illustration of the species with its new name.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am

BP reattaches cap, but oil closes Florida beaches (AFP)

AFP - BP resumed full siphoning operations from the ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well , but Florida was forced to close down popular tourist beaches at the height of the summer season as more crude washed ashore.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 1:27 am

Dead baby link to Roman 'brothel'

Archaeologists believe 97 infants buried at a Roman villa in Buckinghamshire may represent the murder of unwanted babies born at a brothel.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 1:05 am

Lake Michigan shipwreck found after 112 years (AP)

AP - A great wooden steamship that sank more than a century ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm has been found off the Milwaukee-area shoreline, and divers say the intact vessel appears to have been perfectly preserved by the cold fresh waters.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 9:34 pm

Big Lunar Eclipse

This Saturday morning, June 26th, there's going to be a lunar eclipse—and for many residents of the USA, it's going to be a big one.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 24 Jun 2010 | 7:11 pm

New problem delays Ariane rocket launch (Reuters)

Reuters - A technical problem Thursday delayed for the second day running the scheduled launch of an Ariane rocket carrying two satellites, the Arianespace company said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:51 pm

New problem delays Ariane rocket launch

CAYENNE, French Guiana (Reuters) - A technical problem Thursday delayed for the second day running the scheduled launch of an Ariane rocket carrying two satellites, the Arianespace company said.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:51 pm

Report: Toxins found in whales bode ill for humans (AP)

AP - Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:35 pm

Utah zoo hopes new gorilla is happy to hang out (AP)

AP - Utah's Hogle Zoo has a new big man on campus.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:26 pm

Study finds welfare cuts can cost lives

LONDON (Reuters) - Radical cuts in social welfare spending by governments intent on reducing budget deficits can cost lives as well as cause economic pain, according to a study published on Friday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:03 pm

Oil-spill health risks under scrutiny

Scientists call for more research to monitor effects of oil exposure.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 24 Jun 2010 | 4:16 pm

Making lungs in the lab

Implanted tissue and microchip mimic both perform functions of lung.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 24 Jun 2010 | 4:02 pm

New Form of Gene Regulation Hints at Hidden Dimension of DNA

An entire class of seemingly useless genetic components may actually regulate gene activity, suggests a study that — though preliminary — has potentially transformative implications for biology.

The findings involve apparently redundant copies of genes, called “pseudogenes,” and RNA molecules that would normally carry out genetic instructions, but appear to be disabled.

When it comes to altering the activity of PTEN, a cancer tumor-regulating gene, these components are neither redundant nor broken. Instead they help turn PTEN on and off.

The same might happen for thousands of other genes. If so, the findings have revealed an entire new class of operators in the programming language of life.

“This is a completely new way by which genes can be regulated. It’s something that up to this point has been undiscovered,” said Leonardo Salmena, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and co-author of the study, published June 23 in Nature.

The implicit question is whether the process is unique to PTEN and its decoys, or applies to the human genome’s other 19,000 pseudogenes. If so, the junk may actually be vitally important to development and disease.

“There’s a huge domain of non-coding RNAs. Until now, we couldn’t make sense of them,” said study co-author Pier Paolo Pandolfi, also a Harvard Medical School geneticist. “Now we have a way to understand them. We’re not in the dark.”

Scientists have been aware of RNA since the 1960s, when they learned that genes code for what’s now known as messenger RNA, which carry instructions to protein-manufacturing cellular factories. But the straightforward messenger model proved simplistic.

Other types of RNA, called microRNA and small interfering RNA, can bind to messenger RNA. This prevents gene instructions from reaching their destinations, and allows for fine-tuned gene control. Gene activity can be quickly shut off, and just as quickly allowed to proceed.

So-called RNA interference is now considered essential for coordinating the ultra-fast, ultra-complicated mixing-and-matching of proteins that takes place in every single cell, all the time. In 2006, the discoverers of RNA interference received a Nobel Prize. Researchers anticipated an RNA revolution.

In the latest study, the researchers flipped the standard script of RNA interference. Inspired by MIT geneticist Phil Sharp’s discovery that synthetic messenger RNA could be used to trap microRNA — interfering with the interferer, so to speak — they wondered if cells might not already do that.

Indeed, each human genome has many pseudogenes, or near-perfect copies of functional genes. These pseudogenes produce RNA that doesn’t seem to do anything, but simply floats in cellular space. Scientists have long assumed pseudogenes and their RNA to be so much cruft, the biological equivalent of leftover code that’s yet to be excised from a program. But the researchers in this study, whose specialty is a tumor-suppressing gene called PTEN, noticed that RNA produced by PTEN’s pseudogenes was shaped exactly like the real thing.

They hypothesized that PTEN’s pseudogene RNA should work like a decoy, pulling in microRNA and small interfering RNA, allowing PTEN’s messenger RNA to proceed unobstructed. Experiments showed that their guess was right.

To test their proposition, the researchers first amplified the expression of PTEN pseudogenes in laboratory cell cultures. As predicted, this increased PTEN protein production: The decoys did their job. When the researchers decreased PTEN pseudogene expression, PTEN protein levels fell. In mice, decreased PTEN expression often leads to cancer.

The researchers then studied expression levels of PTEN and its pseudogenes in samples of cancerous tissue, and found the patterns duplicated. It wasn’t only PTEN that helped suppress tumors, but supposed junk. In their absence, would-be interfering RNA was unleashed.

The researchers dubbed the decoys “competitive endogenous RNA,” or ceRNA. They speculate that regular messenger RNA could also function as ceRNA, as could non-coding RNA that’s not produced by pseudogenes but hasn’t yet been functionally identified.

According to Pandolfi, if the findings truly represent a widespread new class of RNA, they will double the known number of functional genetic elements.

“This brings into play thousands of RNAs that we previously had no idea what they did,” said Salmena. “We think we’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg with this phenomena.”

In two accompanying Nature commentaries, Thomas Jefferson University geneticist Isidore Rigoutsos and University of California, San Diego geneticist Frank Furnari lauded the work’s immediate implications for cancer.

Furnari noted that altered PTEN gene expression patterns are seen in Cowden’s disease and Bannayan-Zonana syndrome, raising the possibility that ceRNA is involved in those rare diseases. Rigoutsos agreed that the findings “could have broader implications beyond PTEN regulation.”

“They made a very exciting observation. It raises the question of whether there’s another level of regulation of gene expression,” said Dinah Singer, a geneticist at the National Cancer Institute, which helped fund the research. “Having made this observation, you can now look anywhere for it.”

Singer declined to speculate on whether the newly described mechanism might eventually account for the so-called missing heritability, a term used by scientists to describe genetic risk factors that clearly exist but can’t be linked to standard gene mutations.

“To what extent this is going to be a general mechanism, the onus is now on the scientific community to begin looking in other systems,” said Singer. “I presume they will.”

Image: Intensity of PTEN gene expression in normal and cancerous prostate tissue./Nature.

See Also:

• Beyond the Genome
• Rare Gene Glitch a Clue to Genomics Mystery
• The Human Genome in 3 Dimensions
• Complex Life Traced to Ancient Gene Parasites
• Twin Study Deepens Multiple Sclerosis Mystery
• 10 Years on, ‘The Genome Revolution Is Only Just Beginning

Citations: “A coding-independent function of gene and pseudogene mRNAs regulates tumour biology.” By Laura Poliseno, Leonardo Salmena, Jiangwen Zhang, Brett Carver, William J. Haveman & Pier Paolo Pandolfi. Nature, Vol. 465 No. 7301, June 23, 2010.

“Decoy for microRNAs.” By Frank Furnari and Isidore Rigoutsos. Nature, Vol. 465 No. 7301, June 23, 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 | 24 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm

Baby Red Panda Born at National Zoo

A baby red panda was born at the National Zoo in Washington, DC on June 16. The newborn is the first red panda to be born at the zoo in 15 years.

The proud parents, two-year-old Shama and three-year-old Tate, first met in February 2009, and got busy immediately. But because red pandas mate only once a year, and “because the two were inexperienced,” it took them a few tries to get Shama pregnant, the National Zoo said in a press release.

“This birth indicates that the animals are comfortable and well adjusted in their home here,” said Tony Barthel, curator of the Zoo’s Asia Trail. “We are excited about the opportunity we’ll have to watch and learn from the interactions between the red pandas as Shama raises the cub.”

Despite their name, red pandas (Ailurus fulgens, also called “lesser panda,” “bear cat” and “firefox”) are more closely related to raccoons than to giant pandas. They live in cool bamboo forests in the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in China, in the Himalayas and in Burma. Fewer than 2,500 red pandas remain in the wild, making this birth a victory for conservationists worldwide as well as for its first-timer parents.

The red pandas’ enclosure at the zoo is closed to the public to let Shama and her baby bond, but these early pictures are high-pitched-squeal-inducingly cute.

Images: Smithsonian

See Also:

• Firefox Has a Sweet Tooth
• Friday Animal Post: 3 Baby Raccoons Eating Cherries
• Human Laughter Echoes Chimp Chuckles
• Top 10 Incredible Animal Videos: Readers' Choice

Follow us on Twitter @astrolisa and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 24 Jun 2010 | 3:21 pm

Rees makes a religion out of science

The BBC's reverence for genes, space and bugs gives its Reith lecturer a claim to public money based on faith, not reason

A "mammoth of research" is about to rise behind London's St Pancras station, a biomedical centre costing £600m and housing about 1,250 "cutting-edge" scientists. Ask not its value. Science jeers at the idea. The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation has already been dubbed a "cathedral of science", justified by faith, not reason.

In which context I turn to the Reith lectures. Each year the dear BBC gestures towards high seriousness by getting a celebrity intellectual to muse in public for four hours. Ennui is relieved with a chatty preamble from the redoubtable Sue Lawley, followed by safe, hand-picked questions and no nasty supplementaries. The whole thing has the air of a Soviet academy.

No one does it better than the astronomer and president of the Royal Society, Martin Rees, who concluded the 2010 series this week. Needless to say, he spoke to the BBC's current craze – anything to do with science. The airwaves are crammed with science quizzes, science chatshows, science magazines and science feedback. News must have science stories, the Today programme science items, all reverential. No scepticism is admitted to this new orthodoxy – or rather this revival of CP Snow's "two cultures" orthodoxy of the late 1950s.

Rees is shameless. After a brisk, familiar canter through the wonder of science – internet, genomes, bugs, space travel – his last lecture brought him to the matter in hand. Science, he said, should "engage broadly with society and public affairs". In other words, it should get more money. There is nowhere better to plead for this than on the BBC.

We are now shaping up for what, under the Osborne cuts, will be the greatest defensive operation in the history of Britain's professions. Rees will not allow scientists to miss out. He is rightly worried over public anxiety at the more disreputable antics of his colleagues. It was too bad that the Icelandic ash clouds turned out to be not as bad as "the science" had claimed. It was too bad if science banned beef on the bone; too bad if science wasted £2bn on Tamiflu; too bad if science wrecked the case for nuclear power by its hypersafe radiation limits, or failed properly to defend GM foods.

These, by implication, were the fault of politicians for taking science too literally. To Rees, "the advance of science spares us from irrational dread", and if science replaced irrational dread with an exaggerated fear of risk, that also is just too bad. Since science supplies its own "organised scepticism", its claims on the public purse should be asserted as infallible. Cathedrals are no place for question marks.

The Times ran a supplement before the election suggesting a "pro-science" MP was more important than any party, like "pro-life" candidates in America. To criticise science teaching is little short of blasphemy. Above all, science should be seen as above money. To Rees, a science grant is like an arts grant, a virtue beyond measure. In his lecture he insulted the financial sector as "not the real world", as "faffing around with derivatives" and as undeserving of any graduate's respect. (Yet within minutes Rees was moaning that in Britain there was not enough "venture capital for startups".)

The giveaway was a questioner who doubted the value of the Large Hadron Collider, on a par with aircraft carriers and Olympic games for useless extravagance. Rees stuck to the party line that forbids him to say that £7bn and "thousands of scientists" buried under a Swiss mountain might have been better employed on energy research. Politicians must show a sense of "priorities and perspectives", he said, but scientists do not do priorities. They just want money.

Rees is part of the lobby that led to the fiasco of the late 1980s, when colossal resources were devoted by the former Tory education secretary Lord Baker and others to maths and science education. They said it should form two thirds of the so-called core curriculum. Grants for science teaching soared. History and geography were demoted. University courses were expanded and colleges received twice as much grant for a science place as for an arts one.

By 1993, when the policy had been in place for a whole secondary school cohort, it had utterly failed. Demand for science GCSE and A-level had fallen by 10%. University science labs lay empty as entry requirements fell to E-grades. Yet a plummeting market for science graduates left government targets unchanged. A body called Save British Science castigated the "shocking underpayment" of scientists, even as it demanded that schools turn out ever more of them. It was a classic policy failure that passes unaudited, by government, by politics or by academia.

The science lobby reacted by turning itself into a religion. If economics could not justify its priority, then faith should do so. Men such as Rees and his colleague, Lord May, became archbishops preaching the word, that: "Britain needs more scientists." Their canticle was: "More money for research." Other vocational subjects such as law, accountancy and finance were deplored, even as the jobs market screamed for them. Unfashionable science-based occupations such as nursing and pharmacology had to burgle poor countries for staff.

Rees is two-faced about this talent theft. Facing the accusation that science steals bright graduates from poorer countries, he suggests that they should "fulfil their potential without emigrating", perhaps by Britain securing them "less dispiriting conditions" back home. He wants a collider in every kraal.

Yet he promotes just such theft. He wants more money or Britain's "success in attracting mobile talent will be at risk". Unless we continue to attract and nurture foreigners, we will "not retain international competitiveness". Less cash would jeopardise the nation's status in "the international premier league". It would damage Britain's "standing", its "leverage", indeed, the very "sustainability of its society".

This is big science, like big defence, dressing in the clothes of the League of Empire Loyalists. When a lobby is in full cry, no quarter is given to reason. If science is so international, why see it in such chauvinist terms? Why not let less-privileged countries share in the global talent? Besides, science is all on the internet.

A virtue of back-to-basics in public finance is that it might strip the cliches about "vital for the nation's interest" from the log-rolling. Every lobby is going into action to defend its subsidies. Scargill's miners were nothing to what we shall see from the scientists, doctors, lawyers, farmers, sportsmen and, above all, generals. They will turn on government as never before, claiming exemption from cuts in the cause of national pride and prosperity.

When pain is expected of every corner of the public sector, no claim to public money should escape scrutiny. Those intending to live off the earnings of others should always have to explain why.

I share Rees's glory in the wonder of science. I wish the wonder could be taught in schools, which still prefer to be kindergartens for lab technicians. But science research is one lobby among many. The BBC should not lavish it with favours against less-fashionable claimants for its platforms. One thing is for sure, Rees's subsidies must come from taxes on the professions he most despises – banking and finance. I bet no one devotes a research grant or a Reith lecture to them.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 24 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm

"Jumping genes" make each person unique: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stretches of DNA known as "jumping" genes are far more common than anyone thought, and almost everyone has a unique pattern of them, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 2:27 pm

Dark Side of Medical Research: Widespread Bias and Omissions

Biased medical drug research studies arise from financial conflicts of interests with pharmaceutical or medical device companies.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 2:16 pm

Why Are Asian Carp So Fearsome?

An underdeveloped stomach and prolific reproduction contribute to this species success.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 2:09 pm

Red Panda Cub Born at the National Zoo

Smithsonian National Zoological Park is celebrating this week's birth of a red panda cub, the first born at the zoo in 15 years.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 1:37 pm

U.S. scientists create artificial lungs, of sorts

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two U.S. teams have taken major strides in developing lab-engineered lung tissue that could be used for future transplants or testing the effects of new drugs.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:45 pm

Rare Coral Sanctuary Discovered in Virgin Islands

Coral cache could hold key to helping corals survive.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:42 pm

90% of Americans Get Too Much Sodium

Many don't even know they're eating so much salt.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:17 pm

Lung-On-A-Chip Could Put an End to Animal Drug Testing

A new microchip that imitates the inner workings of a lung could lead to new drug-testing methods that don’t involve animals.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:14 pm

Breakthrough: Lab Lungs Live and Breathe

Lungs engineered in the lab operated like living, breathing lungs once transplanted into rat recipients.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:06 pm

African livestock genes 'ignored'

The genetic diversity of Africa's indigenous livestock needs to be tapped before it is lost forever, warn researchers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:03 pm

Rat Lungs Renovated in Lab

The new technique that uses stem cells to build better lungs could eventually help save lives.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:01 pm

Lung-on-a-chip could be used to predict the effects of toxins or drugs

The lung-on-a-chip device mimics a human lung and allows living tissue to be studied without opening up people or animals

Scientists have grown lungs in the laboratory, a major first step towards growing tissue that could one day be used to replace diseased or damaged human lungs.

In one study, scientists at Harvard Medical School and the Children's Hospital in Boston created a device that mimics a human lung, by incorporating lung and blood vessel cells into a microchip (see video, above). Meanwhile, at Yale University, scientists have grown lung tissue that carries out some of the basic functions of the organ, including exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Both studies are published today in the journal Science.

The work at Harvard will be used mainly for studying the workings of living lung tissue without having to open up people or animals. It could also be used to test the effects of environmental toxins or new drugs.

The lung-on-a-chip could predict how human lungs absorb airborne nanoparticles and mimic the inflammatory response triggered by pathogens, said Donald Ingber, the vascular biologist who led the work at Harvard University's Wyss Institute. "Organs-on-chips could replace many animal studies in the future," he added. "We really can't understand how biology works unless we put it in the physical context of real living cells, tissues and organs."

The device was able to replicate many of the natural responses of lung tissue, such as detecting pathogens and speeding up blood flow so that immune cells can deal with the invaders.

The Harvard team is working on building other organ models, including ones made from gut, bone marrow or cancer cells.

The Yale scientists, led by Laura Niklason, started with lungs from adult rats and removed the cells, leaving behind only the network that supports the branching airways and blood system. This support network was later used as a scaffold to grow cells for a new lung, which was implanted into rats for up to two hours at a time.

"We succeeded in engineering an implantable lung in our rat model that could efficiently exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, and could oxygenate haemoglobin in the blood," said Niklason. "This is an early step in the regeneration of entire lungs for larger animals and, eventually, for humans."

To make the technology work for humans will take several more years of work using stem cells to grow the complex structures required for a fully-funtioning organ, said Niklason.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Just a Touch Can Influence Thoughts and Decisions

Touching a soft or hard object can influence how a person thinks or even makes decisions, researchers say. The same goes for the sensations of feeling smooth or rough objects, and holding heavy or light objects.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Touch Affects How People Feel

It turns out there is a deeper truth behind metaphors like "heavy situation," "rough day" and "hard-hearted."
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Asteroid capsule opening begins

Japanese scientists start to open the Hayabusa capsule which it is hoped contains samples of asteroid Itokawa.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Jun 2010 | 11:03 am

E-Waste Could Help Prevent Bacterial Infections

LCD screens contain an ingredient that's harmless to humans and deadly to bacteria.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 10:57 am

View Candid Camera Footage of Animals

Watch videos showing animals caught off-guard in their most intimate, private moments.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 10:47 am

Spaceman

Plans take shape to return samples from Mars
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Jun 2010 | 10:43 am

Fish Out of Water: Genes Hold Evolutionary Clue

Two genes may be responsible for turning fish into limbed land-lovers.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 10:25 am

Biologists Race To Count Bird Populations Before The Oil Spill Advances

Biologists on Point Au Fer Island, Louisiana conducted a census of migratory birds. If the oil spill washes over the island, the census will be a starting point from which to track the toll on wildlife.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 10:05 am

Nobel prizewinner warns against attempts to patent genes

John Sulston, who led the UK branch of the Human Genome Project, says patents on human genes would restrict access to treatments and inhibit research

Human genetic information must be kept in the public domain to allow researchers to analyse it and to give members of the public fair access to medical treatments, the Nobel prizewinning scientist who led the British contribution to the Human Genome Project said today.

Speaking at a briefing at the Science Museum in London to mark the 10th anniversary of the first draft of the human genome, biologist John Sulston said scientists and lawmakers must resist attempts by corporations and individuals to patent human genes.

In the US, for example, it costs a woman between $3,000 and $4,000 to be tested for familial breast cancer because a corporation owns the patent for the two genes involved. "The fact of the matter is that many human genes have patent rights on them and this is going to get in the way of treatment unless you have a lot of money," said Sulston. "And it's going to get in the way of research."

Sulston said he was particularly concerned about the intentions of scientists such as Craig Venter, who made headlines earlier this month when he unveiled work described in the media as "the world's first artificial life form".

Sulston said Venter's work was "clever and pretty" but was not artificial life. "What that advance is being used for is an attempt to monopolise, through the patenting system, essentially all the tools for genomic manipulation," he said. "Let's be clear that the tools for manipulating genomes should be in the public domain. This is not just a philosophical point of view, it's actually the case that monopolistic control of this kind would be bad for science, bad for consumers and bad for business, because it removes the element of competition."

Before the human genome project completed its first draft in 2000, Sulston had fought to keep the genome data freely accesible to researchers around the world. At the same time, Craig Venter was racing to sequence the human genome through his company, Celera, with the intention of charging reseachers for access to the information. In 2000, the two sides brokered a deal through the mediation of the UK and US governments and the human genome was put in the public domain.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the first draft of the human genome, Mike Stratton, director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, unveiled a £10.5m plan to sequence the genomes of 10,000 people in the UK.

"Over the past decade, we have found hundreds of common variants that each make a small difference to many diseases, but we still have to explain much of the genetic basis of most diseases," he said. "One promising source of additional genetic contribution is in rarer variants which each confer greater risks of disease. It took 13 years to sequence the first genome. Now we sequence several human genomes every few days."

He said the UK 10,000 Genomes Project would search for these rarer variants and take advantage of the new technology to discover the contribution they make to health and disease.

Around 4,000 genomes will be sequenced from healthy people who are already part of large-scale project to monitor a range of biological and health factors such as height and weight. Their genetic data will be compared with genome sequences from 6,000 people who have specific disorders including severe obesity, autism, schizophrenia or congenital heart disease.

The 10,000 Genomes Project has become possible thanks to the rapid pace of improvement in gene sequencing technology. "We can now study the genome sequences of 10,000 people in three years," said Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust. "Just a decade ago it took much more time and money to decode just a single sequence. The involvement of clinicians, researchers and, most importantly, the thousands of people who have donated DNA samples, will help us to correlate genetic variation with individual variation in health and disease, and help to deliver on the long-term promise of the human genome project."

The Science Museum was marking the 10th anniversary of the first draft with the launch of its new Who am I? gallery.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 24 Jun 2010 | 9:53 am

Kinect vs. Nintendo Wii vs. PlayStation

TechNewsDaily breaks down the positives and negatives motion-sensitive gaming systems.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 9:46 am

iPhone 4's First Users Report Reception, Color Problems

New iPhone owners are reporting diminished or lost reception when they touch the stainless steel band around the iPhone 4's middle.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 9:30 am

U.S. Last in Health Care Among 7 Industrialized Countries

The United States ranks last on several measures of health care. Guess which nation came in first.
Source: Livescience.com | 24 Jun 2010 | 9:26 am

Women's Bodies Selective With Sperm

Sperm contains "signaling molecules" that activate immunity changes in a woman so her body accepts it.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 8:40 am

Ten years on, genomic revolution only just starting

LONDON (Reuters) - The 10-year-old Human Genome Project has only just begun to bring to fruition its promise to transform medicine, its founders said on Thursday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 24 Jun 2010 | 7:27 am

Children at Greatest Risk From Oil Spill

Children live and breathe closer to the ground where toxics from the Gulf oil spill are more concentrated.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 24 Jun 2010 | 6:51 am

Russian oil threat to gray whales

Oil exploration plans in eastern Russia are a serious threat to gray whales in the area, say scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Jun 2010 | 6:09 am

Sunday Times admits 'Amazongate' story was rubbish. But who's to blame?

Newspaper has apologised over the IPCC's Amazon claim, but questions remain over how falsehoods made it into print

• Roy Greenslade: Sunday Times apologises for climate story
• Forests expert officially complains about 'distorted' article

It's a distressing sight but we'll have to get used to it: most of the world's prominent climate change deniers skewered on their own sword.

The weapon which has turned so cruelly against them is the revelation, paraded in triumph by the egregious fabulist Richard North in January, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had "grossly exaggerated the effects of global warming on the Amazon rainforest". The panel's fourth assessment report had claimed that "up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation". Reduced rainfall could rapidly destroy the forests, which would be replaced with savannahs.

This claim, North asserted, "seems to be a complete fabrication". It was sourced to a report for the environmental group WWF, written by a journalist and a forest policy analyst. But even that report, North insisted, did not contain the information the IPCC used. He maintained that:

"The assertions attributed to them, that 'up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation' is nowhere to be found in their report."

With startling originality, he dubbed the controversy "Amazongate", a term which soon travelled round the world.

Other deniers, being the herd animals we know and love, leapt on his claims and bore them off, cackling with delight, without apparently pausing for a moment to check them.

In the Telegraph, James Delingpole, who seldom misses an opportunity to make an idiot of himself, announced that these revelations meant:

"AGW [anthropogenic global warming] theory is toast. So's Dr Rajendra Pachauri. So's the Stern review. So's the credibility of the IPCC."

In reality, as we will see, it's Delingpole's beliefs on climate change that the story has reduced to toast.

Like the hundreds of others who fell head first into this trap, he should have been more cautious. Richard North is our old friend Christopher Booker's long-term collaborator, and between them they are responsible for more misinformation than any other living journalists. You could write a book about the stories they have concocted, almost all of which fall apart on the briefest examination.

This one was no exception. I decided to check North's claim that the WWF report (pdf) said nothing about 40% of the Amazon's forests reacting badly to a reduction in rainfall. I used a cunning and recondite technique known only to experienced sleuths: typing "40%" in the search bar at the top of the page.

This stroke of genius took all of 10 seconds to reveal the following passage:

"Up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall."

Who says investigative journalism is dead?

None of North's suckers had bothered to carry out this complex procedure. They hadn't bothered because they didn't want to spoil a good story.

North was right to point out that the IPCC should not have relied on a report by WWF for its predictions about the Amazon. Or he would have been right if it had. But it hadn't. The projection was drawn from a series of scientific papers by specialists in this field, published in peer-reviewed journals, some of which are referenced in the first section of the IPCC's 2007 report (pdf).

The IPCC had made a mistake in referencing the claim in the second section of its 2007 report. It had no reason to use WWF as its source when the material originated in peer-reviewed scientific papers. But an organisation which made no referencing errors in a report of several thousand pages would be an organisation run not by humans but gods. It was a silly but manifestly trivial mistake.

With the inevitability – talking of gods - of a Greek tragedy, hubris was followed by nemesis. The story was picked up by Jonathan Leake, the environment editor at the Sunday Times. He wrote what appears initially to have been a sensible article about the controversy. He quoted at length the expert in tropical forests and climate change Dr Simon Lewis. Dr Lewis criticised the IPCC's sloppy referencing but pointed out that the 40% claim was well supported by the science.

As Lewis explained in his subsequent appeal to the Press Complaints Commission:

"The entire article was read to me, and quotes by me agreed, including a statement that the science in the IPCC report was and is correct. The article was reasonable, and quotes were not out of context."

But between Leake's checking of the copy with Lewis and its publication, something happened. An article which explained the context, applied proper scientific caution and gave both sides of the story was transformed into an inaccurate hatchet job. The article was headlined UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim [now behind a paywall on the Times' site]. It claimed that the 40% claim:

"was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise".

It created the impression that Dr Lewis endorsed this view. As he points out:

"following this telephone call the article was entirely and completely re-written with an entirely new focus, new quotes from me included and new (incorrect) assertions of my views."

The new version bore strong similarities to Richard North's concoction. At the bottom of the Sunday Times piece were the words

"Research by Richard North."

Needless to say, the Sunday Times article reignited the false controversy North had sparked, and was reproduced on denialist blogs all over the world.

When the article was published, Lewis posted a comment on the thread, pointing out that it had misrepresented his views and that the rainforest claim was not bogus. His comment was deleted. He wrote a letter for publication in the paper. It was ignored.

But the Sunday Times was messing with the wrong man. Lewis wrote what should become the template for a submission to the Press Complaints Commission. He laid out the case clearly and simply, compared the paper's behaviour to the commission's code and provided reams of evidence, including his email correspondence with Jonathan Leake and the newspaper. The University of East Anglia, which has written the textbook on how not to handle a crisis, has a lot to learn from him.

The commission is notoriously reluctant to rule against a newspaper, but Lewis's submission was incontestable. To avoid an adverse ruling, the Sunday Times had no option but to publish a total retraction of its story, on page 2 of last Sunday's edition. In doing so it was obliged to admit that the paper's account – and by inference North's almost identical treatment – was rubbish from top to toe. The deniers' greatest triumph has turned into a total rout.

But the interesting question is how the Sunday Times messed up so badly. I spent much of yesterday trying to get some sense out of the paper, without success. But after 25 years in journalism it looks pretty obvious to me that Jonathan Leake has been wrongly blamed for this, then hung out to dry. My guess is that someone else at the paper, acting on instructions from an editor, got hold of Leake's copy after he had submitted it, and rewrote it, drawing on North's post, to produce a different – and more newsworthy – story. If this is correct, it suggests that Leake is carrying the can for an editor's decision. The Sunday Times has made no public attempt to protect him: it looks to me like corporate cowardice.

To test this hypothesis, I rang the paper's managing editor, Richard Caseby, and asked him what happened between Jonathan Leake reading his copy to Simon Lewis and the article going to press.

"We're not going to make any comment on this story."

I said: "It seems to me that you've left Jonathan Leake to take the rap for this, when someone else at the Sunday Times was at fault."

"I've got no comment to make to you on anything."

This was delivered in a surprisingly aggressive tone, which suggested to me that I might have touched a nerve.

The ironies of this episode are manifold, but the most obvious is this: that North's story – and the Sunday Times's rewritten account – purported to expose inaccuracy, misrepresentation and falsehood on the part of the IPCC. Now that the IPCC has been vindicated, its accusers, North first among them, are exposed for peddling inaccuracy, misrepresentation and falsehood. Ashes to ashes, toast to toast.

www.monbiot.com

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:43 am

Baby spider gang makes web throb

After devouring their own mother, baby spiders climb aboard her web, and make it throb in a series of pulsating vibrations.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:29 am

Scientists perceived as 'dangerous'

According to a Eurobarometer survey, a majority of people don't trust scientists. The only way to reverse this trend is for academics to step up their efforts to communicate with the public, writes Eoin Lettice

Despite World Cup and Wimbledon fever, a survey published this week suggests that more Europeans are interested in scientific discoveries and technological developments than are interested in sport. According to the latest Eurobarometer survey for the European Commission, 80% are interested in science and technology whereas 65% are interested in sport.

However, the same survey found that 57% think scientists should be doing more to communicate their work to the general public and 66% believe governments should do more to interest young people in scientific issues.

Europeans overwhelmingly recognise the benefits of science, but many also express fears about risks from new technologies and the power that knowledge gives to scientists.

An alarming 58% of respondents across the European Union agreed that:

"We can no longer trust scientists to tell the truth about controversial scientific and technological issues because they depend more and more on money from industry."

The figure falls to 49% for UK respondents. Given the tough news delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the budget on Wednesday and likely cuts in R&D funding to be announced in the autumn spending review, industry might well be expected to step into the breach and provide more cash.

This raises the question: will the British and wider European public be happy about more money from big business paying for scientific research? This survey suggests the answer is no, but at the same time the public is hardly likely to demand higher taxes to pay for purely government-sponsored science.

Worrying too is the finding that 53% of European respondents (46% of UK respondents) agree with the statement that, because of their knowledge, scientists "have a power that makes them dangerous". Not potentially dangerous, notice, but dangerous. When you take into account the 23% who didn't know or who neither agreed or disagreed, the survey suggests that just 24% of EU citizens believe that scientists are not dangerous.

Some consolation can be taken from the fact that in the equivalent Eurobarometer survey in 2005, 59% of EU respondents (58% in the UK) thought scientists were dangerous.

According to the latest survey, a majority believe that scientists do not put enough effort into informing the public about new developments in science and technology (57% of EU respondents and 56% of UK respondents).

The majority of EU citizens (63% of respondents) feel that scientists working in university or government laboratories are best qualified to explain scientific and technological developments. Just 32% believe that scientists working in industry are best placed and a mere 16% of respondents (14% in the UK) that newspaper journalists are best equipped to discuss such developments.

Compared with 2005, there has been a noticeable shift towards trusting scientists in academia or the public services to explain science and technology (up 19 percentage points in the UK) and away from newspaper journalists (down 9 percentage points in the UK).

Commenting on the findings, EU research, innovation and science commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said:

"The success of the Europe 2020 strategy depends on cutting-edge science to keep Europe competitive. In turn, that means ordinary Europeans need to back science and keep the pressure up on government and on industry to invest in it. These results show a very high awareness of the importance of science. But they also show that both politicians – like me – and scientists themselves need to explain better what we are doing and why."

Overall, the survey shows that European citizens are optimistic about the benefits of science and technology for the economy. Some 75% of respondents agree or tend to agree that thanks to science and technology there will be more opportunities for future generations.

However, there has been a shift towards greater scepticism about science's impact on people's lives compared with the 2005 survey. For example, when presented with the statement "Science and technology make our lives healthier, easier and more comfortable", 78% of EU respondents agreed in 2005, whereas 66% agreed in 2010.

On the evidence of this survey, this scepticism can only be reduced if more scientists, in particular those in academia, make a greater effort to communicate their work to the general public.

As Peter Fiske wrote in Nature earlier this year:

"Scientists must communicate about their work – to other scientists, sponsors of their research and the general public ... searching for opportunities to give talks and lectures – and seeking audiences that are outside one's immediate sphere of scientific influence.

"Many scientists are incredulous at how little the general public knows about science and technology, but scientists do little to address the gap in understanding. Most think that their successes in the lab are manifestly evident, making education about the value of their work unnecessary. Few ever communicate with their elected officials. With the public footing most of the bill, this misguided belief seems naive and undermines those who campaign for more funding.

"Excellent work is a prerequisite for career progress, but is not sufficient by itself. Broadcasting one's accomplishments and exercising the 'active voice' in all aspects of one's work is the best way to earn notice, gain recognition and make the public at large aware of the value of the scientific enterprise."

Eoin Lettice is a lecturer in the School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences at University College Cork, Ireland. He also writes the Communicate Science blog where the original version of this article appears

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 24 Jun 2010 | 5:17 am

Stormy weather: distant planet buffeted by fierce winds

Astronomers measure high-speed winds in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet which orbits a distant star.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 24 Jun 2010 | 3:38 am