Novel radiotracer shines new light on the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients

A trial of a novel radioactive compound readily and safely distinguished the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients from healthy volunteers on brain scans and opens the doors to making such imaging available beyond facilities that can manufacture their own radioactive compounds.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm

New clues suggest wet era on early Mars was global

Minerals in northern Mars craters seen by two orbiters suggest that a phase in Mars' early history with conditions favorable to life occurred globally, not just in the south.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm

Pleasing to the eye: Even brooding female birds are sensitive to visual stimulation

In a breeding experiment with Houbara bustards -- a North African bird species with a very distinctive courtship behavior -- scientists have concluded that visual stimulation from attractive males of the same species positively affects brooding females, improving offspring growth.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm

Chemists find an easier way to synthesize new drug candidates; New method could have a big impact on pharmaceutical business

Chemists have designed a new way to attach a trifluoromethyl group to certain compounds, which they believe could allow pharmaceutical companies to create and test new drugs much faster and potentially reduce the cost of drug discovery. The new synthesis could have an immediate impact.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm

Climate change complicates plant diseases of the future

Human-driven changes in the earth's atmospheric composition are likely to alter plant diseases of the future. Researchers are studying the impact of elevated carbon dioxide, elevated ozone and higher atmospheric temperatures on plant diseases that could challenge crops in these changing conditions.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm

Mechanism that may trigger degenerative disease identified

A mechanism that regulates stem-cell differentiation in mice testes suggests a similar process that may trigger degenerative disease in humans, according to a reproductive physiologist.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm

Detecting eye injury

Scientists have developed a noninvasive imaging technique to detect early stages of eye disease.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Gene therapy a step closer to mass production

Researchers in Latvia and Finland have synthesized and studied a range of organic compounds able to carry genetic material into individual cells where it can remedy the diseases caused by defective genes. Still under development, these compounds are much more readily produced than the viral carriers now in use and avoid their side-effects. Most importantly, they are much more effective than other organic carrier substances developed so far.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Scientists create 3-D models of whole mouse organs

Engineers have for the first time created 3-D models of whole intact mouse organs, a feat they accomplished using fluorescence microscopy.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Ingredient in red wine may prevent some blinding diseases

Resveratrol -- found in red wine, grapes, blueberries, peanuts and other plants -- stops out-of-control blood vessel growth in the eye, according to vision researchers. The discovery has implications for preserving vision in blinding eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in Americans over 50.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Scattered showers and thunderstorms were expected to persist over the Midwest and Northern Plains on Saturday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 4:12 am

Storm theatens Gulf of Mexico oil spill clean-up (AFP)

AFP - A potentially dangerous tropical storm named Alex that experts say could complicate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill clean-up has formed in the Caribbean Sea, the US government said on Saturday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 3:16 am

Cleanup czar to tour Gulf region next week (AP)

AP - President Barack Obama's point man for the clean up and recovery of the area affected by the Gulf oil spill will tour the region next week.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 2:20 am

For climate relief, US will turn to gas

New study finds untapped shale reservers set to displace coal if carbon pricing enforced<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/DDtit5UuRp0" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 26 Jun 2010 | 1:47 am

Hong Kong air pollution blamed on political system (AP)

AP - Democracy activists are not the only ones unhappy with a slow pace of electoral reform in Hong Kong.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 1:33 am

Cracking the human code

Ten years ago, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair announced the first draft of the DNA blueprint for Homo sapiens

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jun 2010 | 1:30 am

Conservatives put Dumb and Dumber on the Health Select Committee

Despite an election pledge to take an evidence-based approach to health, the Conservatives have appointed MPs Nadine Dorries and David Tredinnick to the Health Select Committee

Of all the MPs who could have been appointed to the Health Select Committee on Thursday, Conservatives Nadine Dorries and David Tredinnick are perhaps the most controversial choices. One attracted ridicule for claiming that an unborn foetus could punch its way out of the womb, while the other is a supporter of astrology who once asserted that blood doesn't clot under a full moon. The inclusion of either on any select committee is worrying, but for both to have been elected to the health committee is an extremely disturbing development.

Mid-Bedfordshire MP Nadine Dorries has been involved in select committees before. As a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, she achieved an attendance rate of just 2%. Having dipped her toe in the water, she then took up a place on the Science and Technology Select Committee, but clearly at this point she had overstretched herself, because she failed to attend a single meeting. Critics will be hoping that she maintains the same record at health – certainly I'd happily bet dinner on Nadine's attendance failing to reach double figures in her new role.

Dorries' primary interest in the health arena is abortion, a debate in which she has previous form. Back in 2007 Ben Goldacre wrote about dubious evidence presented to the Science and Technology Select Committee that supported Dorries' anti-abortion views. Goldacre's article prompted Dorries to issue a bizarre call for an enquiry into how select committee evidence – which is supposed to be in the public domain – got into the public domain.

Over the years, Dorries has issued a number of ill-founded claims about abortion. They include the fairytale "hand of hope" story that she helped to propagate across the web; the incorrect assertion that the NHS didn't carry out abortions after 16 weeks; the claim that charity Marie Stopes International supported her policy views; an attempt to dismiss scientific studies that disagreed with her view as "an "insult to the intelligence of the public"; and some rather dubious interpretations of opinion polls that led a frustrated Dawn Primarolo to exclaim that "The Honorable Lady has asserted many things to be facts that are not."

Faced with Dorries' cavalier approach to science-based policy, it's hard for the rational voter to imagine a worse candidate for a position on the Health Select Committee, but the Conservative Party has managed it, with a second seat on the committee handed to the extraordinary character of David Tredinnick, MP for the constituency of Bosworth, and possibly Narnia.

Tredinnick's passion for "healthcare research" landed him in trouble during the expenses scandal last year, in which he was caught claiming £700 for "computer software and consultancy to investigate whether astrology can be linked to alternative medicine."

Protesting his innocence, he explained: "There are aspects of this such as plant cycles, the tides, that are linked to the moon. That's a fact of life, and there is a school of thought that says the moon affects other things as well. It's easy to make fun of me over this but the fact is there is a link."

Indeed, Tredinnick's views go further. In a Commons debate on Complementary and Alternative Medicine last year he made the extraordinary claim that "... at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective." One wonders if Tredinnick wraps himself in wool and plaster at every full moon, lest a stray paper cut cause his blood to drain completely from his body.

Tredinnick is also a passionate advocate of homeopathy, and has filed a string of Early Day Motions in an effort to raise support for magical homeopathic remedies in parliament. EDMs are listed with their signatories on the internet, providing a handy guide to the identity of the more credulous and ill-informed MPs.

The latest of these EDMs came in a flurry of activity this week. First, the British Medical Association was called to account for daring to express the opinion – backed of course by last year's Science and Technology Select Committee Report – that homeopathy should not be funded by the taxpayer.

Another three consisted of the MP and some of his more gullible colleagues welcoming three recent studies into the efficacy of homeopathy. These have already been drily amended by Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert, who tells me: "I tabled the amendments having analysed the methodology in the articles referred to; it turns out that none of them lead to his conclusions! In one case, one of the authors said 'I was not convinced it was a sound study' and asked to be removed as an author."

One of the studies has raised eyebrows as the research was apparently conducted at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, a prestigious Texan cancer research group. The centre's credibility will not be helped by its association with this work, although it appears that the lead author has since left the centre (my thanks to @medtek for that hot tip).

The study has been debunked by bloggers and scientists like Dr Rachel Dunlop and the blogger Orac, not least because the paper contains no statistical analysis of the significance of the results. In fact one of the authors left an extraordinary comment on Dunlop's blog, claiming that some results were removed from the paper, that she had asked not to be named as a co-author, and that there were clear alternative explanations for the results.

In spite of all this, the paper has been seized on by the homeopathy community, happy to ignore the flaws and the overwhelming weight of evidence against this 18th century relic. No evidence is too tenuous for homeopaths.

Naturally, there has been alarmed reaction to these appointments to the Health Select Committee, but I suspect there's little really to worry about. Dorries may not even turn up, and Tredinnick is a figure unlikely to be taken seriously by policymakers. Still, questions should be asked about why a party that rejected alternative medicine before the election, and promised an evidence-based approach to public health has managed to place two such clearly unqualified people on this important Commons committee.

Martin Robbins writes for The Lay Scientist

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 26 Jun 2010 | 1:30 am

Little spent on oil spill cleanup technology (AP)

AP - While oil companies have spent billions of dollars to drill deeper and farther out to sea, relatively little money and research have gone into finding new, improved ways to respond to oil spills in deepsea conditions like those in the Gulf of Mexico.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 26 Jun 2010 | 1:27 am

Obama, Cameron expected to talk BP spill (Reuters)

Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron were expected to discuss London-based BP Plc and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Saturday as stormy weather raised fears that clean-up operations could be disrupted.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 11:24 pm

Lunar eclipse 'magnified' in US

A partial lunar eclipse taking place in a few hours will appear magnified in the US by an effect known as the "moon illusion".
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:22 pm

Japan 'regrets' whaling deadlock

This week's stalemate at the International Whaling Commission is "unfortunate", says a Japanese minister.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:50 pm

British PM warns against 'destruction' of BP (AFP)

AFP - British Prime Minister David Cameron warned against "the destruction" of BP as its shares plummeted close to a 14-year low amid the battle against the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 8:56 pm

Space shuttle missions likely to be postponed: NASA (AFP)

AFP - The two final US space shuttle missions before the shuttle program is phased out will likely be postponed, a NASA spokesperson told AFP.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 8:03 pm

Bionic British cat gets faux paws (AP)

AP - Oscar the cat may have lost one of his nine lives, but his new prosthetic paws make him one of the world's few bionic cats.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 7:25 pm

Weird Antimatter Particles Discovered Deep Underground (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Exotic antimatter particles have been detected deep within the Earth's interior, scientists report.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 25 Jun 2010 | 6:15 pm

3D mission returns first pictures

Germany's TanDEM-X satellite, sent into orbit to make the most precise 3D map of the Earth's surface, acquires its first images.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 5:39 pm

Smaller Planets Rule the Galaxy

Kepler is finding that smaller planets are more numerous than big planets, this bodes well for finding habitats for extraterrestrial life as we know it.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 5:10 pm

Trailblazing in cognitive therapy

Thirty years ago, a young pyschiatrist published a book called Feeling Good. What happened next?

Old psychotherapy joke: midway through a session, the patient cries out, "I'm feeling terrible!" "You're feeling terrible," echoes the therapist, nodding. "I'm going to kill myself!" adds the patient. "You're going to kill yourself," notes the therapist. "Yes! I'm going to do it now!" "You're going to do it now." The patient leaps from the window. The therapist looks down at the street. "Splat," he observes, thoughtfully.

This joke (not hilarious, I know) was meant to satirise Carl Rogers' "non-directive" therapy. But it evokes a broader cliché about the field – of enigmatic exchanges, chin-stroking, long silences – which was surely how most people viewed the subject 30 years ago, in 1980, when a young psychiatrist published Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. David Burns didn't invent cognitive therapy, but his book was the first to alert a mass audience to its message: that digging your way from depression to happiness might be a matter of short-term problem-solving, not years on the couch or popping pills. And that you might, partially, be able to do it yourself.

Cognitive therapy's main insight – that how we think about our situation determines how we feel, so by addressing distorted thinking, we can feel better – is now such a self-help mainstay, badly distorted by glib gurus, that it's hard to see as an insight at all. At the time, though, psychotherapy was fixated on unpacking childhood experiences and subconscious drives; thought was seen as a symptom, not a cause. Feeling Good jolts readers to shift their perspective – to observe the often irrational "automatic thoughts" that trigger sadness or anxiety, thereby disidentifying with them.

Burns spent his early career prescribing antidepressants, "but my patients weren't getting better", he told me recently. "I went to the early seminars on cognitive therapy to satisfy myself that it was another approach that wouldn't work. But I passed the techniques to my patients, and people who'd seemed hopeless and stuck for years began to recover." Finding a publisher wasn't easy, and the one he found wouldn't promote it. Eight years after publication, he landed on Phil Donahue's talkshow. "Within 10 minutes, it sold more than in the previous eight years put together." It has been selling, in the millions, since. A startling number of people credit it with changing, even saving, their lives; one set of studies suggests that "prescribing" it may be as effective in treating depression as drugs or psychotherapy.

Maybe each new philosophy of happiness corrects its predecessor's excesses until it, too, needs correcting, and by now the critique of cognitive therapy is well-established. As Darian Leader puts it, it's too often "market-driven", cheaply obliterating the symptoms of suffering without examining its cause – handy for the cash-strapped NHS, where it reigns supreme, or for a society in need of upbeat worker bees, but not so great for patients. Burns agrees (me, too), but Feeling Good, unlike many of its ripoffs, never pretends change is easy, or childhood experience irrelevant. Its point is more modest: that there is a voice in your head that affects how you're feeling, and if you learn to listen, and to realise the voice isn't you, you'll have more power to cultivate a happier inner life. Which is self-help at its best, surely: no gurus, no grand promises – just a different perspective, and a few useful tools.

oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 5:02 pm

See a 'Huge' Lunar Eclipse Saturday Morning

A gorgeous lunar eclipse will be visible for most of the continental United States, western Canada, Mexico, and most of Central and South America this Saturday morning.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 4:27 pm

Should We Worry About the Polio Outbreak in Tajikistan?

Should We Worry About the Polio Outbreak in Tajikistan?
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:57 pm

Earthquakes Rock in Synchrony, Study Suggests

Faults can fall in synch, causing earthquakes to trigger other temblors.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:46 pm

Lice and Human Migration

Over the years, lice have evolved in parallel with their human hosts. Studying the differences between lice from different geographic regions can actually provide insights into how and when human populations migrated into those areas.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:26 pm

Is Lake Michigan Being Invaded?

An invasive Asian carp was found 6 miles away from Lake Michigan. Conservationists are worried the fish are close to entering and taking over the lake.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 3:22 pm

Tropical Depression Alex Imminent, Could Threaten Gulf Oil Spill

Forecasters now project an 80 percent chance that a storm system off Honduras will coalesce into the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:39 pm

7 iPhone Apps That Help Save the Planet

From eating green to saving stranded wildlife, here are seven apps to help you save the world.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:26 pm

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 1:30 pm

Instant Soccer Fan? Why?

It seemed like the instant Landon Donovan scored the last-minute, game-winning goal in the United States vs. Algeria World Cup match this week, rabid soccer fans started coming out of the woodwork, including friends I didn’t even know liked sports. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 1:07 pm

Sperm Whale Voices Are Personal

A new technique for deciphering the calls of sperm whales allows the magnificent, mysterious creatures to be studied in unprecedented detail.

Researchers identified subtle variations caused by differences in the shape of individual whales’ heads. It’s the first time that sperm whale vocalizations have been linked to specific individuals.

“This is the just the first step in answering a lot of questions about their vocal and social complexity,” said Shane Gero, a Dalhousie University biologist. “It’s the first time that we’re getting to the level of knowing these animals as individuals, as families — as personalities, really. It’s a whole new step.”

Vocalizations are used by every cetacean species, but only a few, such as bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales, have been studied in detail. Even those fields of research are still young, however, and it’s not always possible to extrapolate findings between species that are different both physically and socially.

Sperm whales have been particularly difficult to study, as their family groups tend to be large, with a proclivity for long-distance roaming. Only snatches of communication are usually heard. It’s been enough for researchers to learn that each sperm whale family has a distinctive repertoire of sounds, but the sounds have been so mixed together that they can’t be consistently attributed to a individuals — a first step in understanding what the whales might be saying.

The latest study, currently in press at the journal Marine Mammal Science, focuses on a seven-member sperm whale family who live in waters around the Caribbean island nation of Dominique. Caribbean sperm whales have unusually small home ranges. This allowed the researchers to spend more time with them than is usually possible. Because the group was small, there were more opportunities to identify and record individual whales when they were alone.

The researchers could then analyze whales’ vocalizations, which take the form of high-frequency clicks made by pushing air through structures in their skulls.

“The whales communicate by patterns of clicks. The clicks reverberate in the head. If you listen to it carefully, there are these pulses. The time between pulses reflects the time it takes for sounds to reverberate, to go from one end of the head and back. Because the heads are all different length, they have different reverberation times,” study co-author Hal Whitehead, also a Dalhousie University biologist. Until now, “just figuring out who makes which sound underwater was tough,” he said.

Analysis of the whales’ vocalizations are still in their early stages, but the results are already intriguing. While the whales tended to possess the same basic repertoire of “codas” — the technical name for each distinctive series of clicks — one female had a completely different set. She happened to be a mother. The distinctive sounds could be what she used to communicate with her calf.

Apart from the mom, the researchers found that half of each individuals’ vocalizations followed one of two patterns.

One pattern is formed by two consecutive, slowly-paced clicks, followed by three faster clicks. It has been found only in the Caribbean. While the pattern varies slightly between groups, this study suggests that it’s consistent within the group. According to Gero, it could function as a family identifier, letting other whales know who is around. “It says, I belong to this family, I belong to this vocal clan,” he said.

The other common pattern is composed of five regularly-spaced clicks, and has been heard in sperm whales all over the world. Preliminary research suggests that the pattern may vary slightly between each individual, said Gero. If so, the pattern could function as an individual identifier — or, from another perspective, a name.

The question of whether it’s appropriate to think of sperm whales as having names is a controversial one. Some scientists think that many cetaceans should be considered persons, at least on par with non-human great apes. There’s considerable evidence to support the notion: cetacean brains are extraordinarily sophisticated, especially in areas associated with cognition and communication, and many social behaviors can be explained only as culture rather than instinct. In captivity, dolphins pass tests of self-recognition and self-awareness that were once considered markers of personhood.

Questions of consciousness and personhood are difficult to answer in another species in scientifically quantifiable ways, said Gero. But techniques like those used in this study should help.

“I use the word ‘personality’ very carefully. It’s hard to quantify. But they undoubtedly have them,” said Gero. “It may take years and years to understand them, to translate their behaviors and nuances, to understand things like fear or happiness. But it’s time that the assumption was made that these animals are individuals, and have a concept of self.”

Images: Above, sperm whale mother and her calf; below, a juvenile whale the researchers nicknamed “Can Opener.”/Shane Gero.

See Also:

• Whales Might Be as Much Like People as Apes Are
• Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists
• Hidden Whale Culture Could Be Critical to Species Survival
• DNA Testing Finds Endangered Whale Meat in Restaurants
• Your Chilean Sea Bass Dinner Deprives Killer Whales

Citation: “Individual vocal production in a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) social unit.” By Tyler M. Schulz, Hal Whitehead, Shane Gero & Luke Rendell. Marine Mammal Science, in press.

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 | 1:02 pm

Students Record Spellbinding Video … ating Spacecraft

On June 13th, while flying on an airplane at 41,000 feet, high school students from Massachusetts witnessed and recorded the dramatic breakup of Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft over Australia. Their newly-processed video is a must-see.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:59 pm

Editor's Picks: Doctor Who, Dinosaur Graveyards and More

Above, you'll see some of the top images of the week. Click on each one to explore the story behind it. In case you were too busy watching the World Cup this week, here are the must-read Discovery News stories ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:33 pm

Giant, Tilted Exoplanets Like It Hot

Giant planets with wonky orbits mostly circle blistering-hot stars, two new studies find. This pattern could explain why some “hot Jupiters” — planets from a third to 12 times the mass of Jupiter that sit scorchingly close to their stars — orbit the way their star spins, while others tilt so far that they orbit backward.

“It’s a possible resolution of what would otherwise be a weird fluke,” said astronomer Joshua Winn of MIT, a co-author of one of the new studies.

Originally, astronomers thought planets formed from a swirling disk of gas and dust that revolved around a central star like a record. When the disk’s material cooled and congealed, the resulting planets all marched in line with the star’s equator. Hot Jupiters were supposed to have formed around where Jupiter sits in our solar system, then spiraled calmly inward by exchanging gravitational energy with the disk, a process called migration. The first batch of extrasolar planets discovered fit this picture, reassuring astronomers that their model was right.

But in 2008, astronomers started finding giant planets whose orbits lay at jaunty angles with respect to their stars. A recent study declared that so many hot Jupiters have cock-eyed orbits — about half of the 28 whose angles have been directly measured — that scientists should throw out the disk-migration theory altogether. Instead, most hot Jupiters probably got where they are through a violent encounter with a sibling planet.

Whether a single process could have formed both regular and wrong-way hot Jupiters — and why the first batch of planets looks so different from the second — remained a puzzle. In a paper posted on arXiv.org and submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers propose an answer to both questions: Wonky hot Jupiters orbit hot stars.

Winn and his colleagues took 19 of the planets whose angles have been measured, and plotted their angles against the temperature of their star. Only two of 11 planets orbiting cool stars were misaligned, while six out of eight planets orbiting stars with temperatures hotter than 6,250 Kelvin (10,790 degrees Fahrenheit) had tilted orbits.

The team pointed out that the first hot Jupiters were found by observing how the star moved in response to the planet’s gravitational tug. This method, called Doppler spectroscopy, has an easier time finding planets around relatively cool stars.

The second group was found in transit surveys, where the planet announces its presence by passing in front of the star and blocking some of the star’s light. This method works better with hotter, brighter stars, because the contrast is greater.

“That’s why the first bunch of stars we looked at showed well-aligned orbits, and the second batch showed misaligned orbits: because the second batch were mainly hot stars,” Winn said.

A second paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal came to the same conclusion by a different route. Kevin Schlaufman, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, noted that current techniques measure only the angle between the star and the planet’s orbit, but the angle between the star and the Earth is also needed to draw a complete picture in three-dimensional space.

One way to estimate this angle is to check how fast the star seems to spin. Astronomers can tell how fast a star should spin based on its age and its mass. If the star apparently spins too slowly, that’s a clue that it’s not facing the Earth edge-on. Planets that cross in front of their stars must have edge-on orbits from the Earth’s point of view, or we wouldn’t see them. So if a star spins too slowly but has a transiting planet, that means the planet is at a wonky angle.

Schlaufman did a statistical study of 75 exoplanet systems, and found that 10 of them should have tilted orbits. Several of the planets his computations picked out were already known to have funny orbits. And all of them circled large, hot stars.

“I find that encouraging, and a signal that we’re onto something good,” Winn said. “We have these two pretty much totally independent ways of checking, and they give the same result.”

Winn suggested that the transition temperature could explain why only hot stars have tilted planets. Stars that burn cool have thick outer layers called convective zones that respond strongly to the gravitational pull of the planet. The friction from the planet and the star yanking each other around robs energy from the planet’s orbit. The orbit slowly becomes circular and settles into alignment with the star’s equator, a position that takes less energy to maintain.

Stars hotter than 6,250 Kelvin have thin or even nonexistent convective zones, Winn said, so their hot Jupiters stay wherever their violent histories parked them.

“It struck us as interesting that this transition from well-aligned planets to misaligned planets happens to be at about the same temperature as convective zones,” Winn said.

The theory still has some kinks to work out, like keeping the planet from getting swallowed up by the star. Astronomer Andrew Collier-Cameron of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, who was not involved in the new study, calls for more observations.

“It’s early days yet, and we’re still working with a grand total of only about 28 planets,” Cameron said. “Until we go do the legwork and measure more of them, there’s still plenty of wriggle room for theorists.”

Cameron also noted that, though “rampaging hot Jupiters” could knock any other planets out of their systems, most of the galaxy’s Earth-like planets are probably safe. Hot Jupiters are “rare beasts,” he said. “By and large, although they may mess up their own systems, they don’t really harm the chances of us finding terrestrial type planets.”

Image: ESO/L. Calçada

See Also:

• Aack, No Brakes! Giant New Exoplanet Goes the Wrong Way
• Rampaging Hot Jupiters May Keep Earthlike Planets Out of Their Systems
• Extreme Exoplanet’s Wild Ride
• New Exoplanet Hunter Makes First 5 Discoveries
• Exoplanet Hunter’s First Data Withholds the Good Stuff

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

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:30 pm

Reasons to Wait Out Early Smartphone Glitches

iPhone purchasers has complained of reception problems, yellow discolorations on the screen and swapped volume buttons.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:12 pm

DNA Nanodevices: No Assembly Required

Double and single strands of DNA are used like tent poles and spring open in response to a chemical or mechanical signal to open up a three-dimensional structure.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:11 pm

Apple Responds to iPhone 4 Reception Glitch

In response to widespread reports of iPhone reception problems, Apple has told its customers simply to not hold the phone in this manner.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:04 pm

Ageing Britannia

Patrick Blower: Livedraw: While politicians are talking about raising the retiring age, let's spare a thought for the elderly

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm

Amelia Earhart May Have Survived Months as Castaway

The famous pilot and her navigator may have eaten turtles, fish and birds to survive on a remote island after making an emergency landing.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 11:53 am

Row erupts over whale film 'scam'

Norwegian officials accuse campaigners of misleading the public over the "cruelty" of whaling.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 11:34 am

What Really Killed King Tut? New Evidence Sparks Debate

A mystery that has baffled experts for centuries, the cause of King Tut's death is still a source of debate. Was it the result of foul play, disease or genetics?
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:59 am

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 | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:55 am

Reason Antarctic Glacier Is Melting Faster Is Found

Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier melting from flood of warm water.
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:53 am

New ocean developing in Africa

Africa is witnessing the birth of a new ocean which will eventually split the continent in two, say scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:17 am

'No foetal pain before 24 weeks'

There is no evidence of foetal pain before 24 weeks, and no reason to challenge the abortion limit, doctors say.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:12 am

Whaling: So Now What?

Negotiations between whaling and non-whaling countries have ended in a stalemate. Now what happens?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 10:01 am

Health select committee lunacy | Adam Rutherford

Giving influence on medical policy to David Tredinnick – a man who believes moon phases affect surgery – is a bad move

Depending on the phase of the moon, "surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street".

These are the words of David Tredinnick. Being of a somewhat sceptical disposition, I had a sneaking suspicion that this statement, vomited forth in the House of Commons on 14 October 2009, might not be entirely correct. I'm fairly sure that I have shaved on a full moon, cut myself, and not bled to death due to lunar-influenced failure of coagulation.

I called up my friend Kevin Fong, a consultant anaesthetist and sometime contributor to these pages. He said this: "There are plenty of reasons why surgeons won't operate but alas the presence of a full moon in the sky isn't currently among them. Personally I think this is foolhardy approach to modern medicine: I tend to avoid complex medical procedures on Friday 13, if I've walked under a ladder recently or if my horoscope is any way unfavourable."

Sarcasm to one side, I rang the Metropolitan police to ask if the number of coppers on the beat at night was influenced by the moon. After he'd finished laughing, the press officer politely said that this statement was also incorrect.

How odd that Tredinnick appears to be so misinformed. I don't buy into that lazy maxim that all MPs lie frequently. Some demonstrably do, but surely there must be some honest ones? It seems though that Tredinnick is misinformed about a great many things. You might have heard him earlier this week on the Today programme on Radio 4 getting a deserved roasting Simon Singh. Tredinnick is pushing an early day motion about the efficacy of homeopathy based on a new, but utterly flawed scientific paper.

So, Tredinnick is on the nuttier side of woomongery. You may also recall that his unique contribution to the expenses brouhaha was that we, the people, stumped up over £500 for astrology software for him. He then voted to exempt MPs from the Freedom of Information Act. In the 1990s he was suspended in the cash-for-questions debacle.

Dodgy expenses, bribery, astrology, homeopathy, lunacy (or whatever moon-based fluff is called), Tredinnick's got the full deck. Others more patient than I can and have and will continue to sigh and explain why it's all bollocks. Here's the punchline: Tredinnick has been voted on to the parliamentary health select committee. He now has de facto direct influence over policy decisions concerning medicine and the health of our nation.

It may shock you to learn that Nadine Dorries is also on the committee. Dorries is no friend of rational thought, and has tirelessly campaigned to radically reduce the lower limit for abortion. Her honesty is perpetually in question, her expenses still under investigation in the new parliament. But at least (and it's pretty hard for me to defend this vile person) she was once a nurse.

If your MP has put their signature to Tredinnick's EDM, I urge, nay, beg you to write to them and quiz their folly. You can also ask your MP to support the amendments to the EDM that Cambridge MP Julian Huppert has tabled (entries 284-287). That addresses the immediate issue. How to handle the ongoing issue of having this bizarre, deeply wrongheaded man in a position of influence over matters that demand evidence-based decision making? This is democracy, and it's up to us. We are legion and we are watching you, David Tredinnick. We are watching you very closely.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:59 am

Mars surface was shaped by water

The whole of Mars' surface was shaped by liquid water around four billion years ago, say scientists.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:49 am

Reusable Shopping Bags: Green But Unclean

Those "green" reusable shopping bags may be contaminated.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:33 am

'Extinct' island fern rediscovered

Scientists from Kew Gardens have rediscovered a plant that has been presumed extinct for almost 60 years.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:03 am

Romantic Music Ups Odds for Getting a Woman's Phone Number

Women are more likely to give their phone numbers to men if there is a romantic song playing in the background
Source: Livescience.com | 25 Jun 2010 | 9:01 am

Dead baby link to Roman 'brothel'

Infants buried at a Roman villa may represent the murder of unwanted babies born at a brothel, say researchers.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 25 Jun 2010 | 7:11 am

Richard Dawkins and the atheist school | Nick Spencer

Dawkins has said he'd like to set up an atheist school. But would it really be able to teach religion as anthropology, without bias?

So, Richard Dawkins has promised – no, that's too strong – intimated that he might set up an atheist school, as he would presumably have the right to under new government "free school" plans. During a chat on mumsnet he responded to a few suggestions that he start "an atheist free school" by saying he liked the idea very much.

This might seem odd coming from someone who has said (indeed said in the same discussion) that "faith schools … are divisive… [and] encourage children to segregate into tribes". How exactly is a faith school divisive in a way that an atheist school wouldn't be?

Muddled as this may seem, there is a kind of logic to it. Dawkins went on to explain that though he liked the idea of an atheist free school he would "prefer to call it a free-thinking free school". "Free-thinking" has been the adjective of choice for the irreligious in Britain since the late 17th century. It was coined to describe the uninhibited mental activity that was supposedly permitted only beyond the borders of established religion. Once upon a time a credible label, postmodernism came along in the 20th century and pointed out that there is no thinking that is truly free, unencumbered by tradition or authority, convention or culture.

Dawkins, however, is scornful of postmodernism. "I would never want to indoctrinate children in atheism", he told Mumsnet. "Instead, children should be taught to ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded. If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists."

The problem here is not so much arrogance as a failure of the imagination, a failure to recognise that you can be sceptical, critical, open-minded, etc and still come to the conclusion that God exists or that, for example, Christianity is true. As Peter Hitchens observes in the introduction to his recent book The Rage Against God, "the difficulties of the anti-theists begin when they try to engage with anyone who does not agree with them, when their reaction is often a frustrated rage that the rest of us are so stupid".

So, how would this free-thinking school be different? It would, Dawkins explained, "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without bias". In case you were wondering, "without bias" means "as a branch of anthropology". What about religious texts? How exactly do you teach them "without bias"? Quite simply, you teach that they are untrue. "The Bible should be taught, but emphatically not as reality", Dawkins explained. "It is fiction, myth, poetry, anything but reality."

This is a legitimate opinion – although one from which millions would dissent – but to imagine it is neutral, objective or self-evidently correct is absurd. To arrive at (and teach) such ideas is to take a whole series of contestable positions on a range of theological, philosophical and scientific questions.

To claim that an atheist school would "teach comparative religion, and teach it properly without any bias towards particular religions" is so naive as to beggar belief. Does it mean you should dedicate equal time to Zoroastrianism as to Christianity, take the claims of Judaism as seriously as those of Jedis?

The "without bias" ambitions are faintly redolent of the first amendment to the US Constitution that promises to make "no law respecting an establishment of religion" in its quest for a level playing field. Schools are not like constitutions, however, and cannot simply withdraw from religious judgment, least if all if they hope to teach the subject. And in any case, even the US solution is itself plagued with problems. Philosopher Roger Trigg, in his book Religion and Public Life, cites the example of US courts that felt they could not legitimately adjudicate over the genuineness of the Church of the New Song, a religion founded in the 1970s by an inmate of an American federal jail, which apparently required prisoners to be served Harvey's Bristol Cream and steak every Friday at 5pm. Teaching, like living, is always biased. Neutrality is not an option.

None of this invalidates Dawkins's desire to set up an atheist school. Indeed, such a thing might be welcome if only as a way of dragging atheist presuppositions from the skirts of secular neutrality and exposing them to a little more public scrutiny. The only test it would need to pass would be to show that it was capable of dealing with other views and positions with respect and grace. And of this, I have my doubts.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 25 Jun 2010 | 6:29 am

Sense of Touch Shapes Snap Judgments

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 development. 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 more susceptible than others. They’re also 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

Hotspots leave magnetic scars on Mars

Puzzling 'stripes' generate another controversial origin theory.
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 25 Jun 2010 | 2:50 am