Why mercury is more dangerous in oceans

Even though freshwater concentrations of mercury are far greater than those found in seawater, it's the saltwater fish like tuna, mackerel and shark that end up posing a more serious health threat to humans who eat them.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Do spending cuts cost lives?

Radical cuts to social welfare spending to reduce budget deficits could cause not just economic pain but cost lives, warn experts in a new study.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Physicists explain why superconductors fail to produce super currents

When high-temperature superconductors were first announced in the late 1980s, it was thought that they would lead to ultra-efficient magnetic trains and other paradigm-shifting technologies. That didn't happen. Now, physicists are helping explain why.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Most efficient quantum memory for light developed

An Australian-led team has developed the most efficient quantum memory for light in the world, taking us closer to a future of super-fast computers and communication secured by the laws of physics.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Accurate way to predict the age when women will hit the menopause developed

Researchers have developed a way of accurately predicting when women will hit the menopause using a simple blood test. The average difference between the predicted age and the actual age that the women in their study reached the menopause was only a third of a year, and the maximum margin of error was between three and four years.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Technique enables precise control of protein activity in living cells

Researchers have developed a new technique called engineered allosteric regulation, which provides a new tool for scientists who study the interactions of proteins within living cells.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am

Has hay had its day?

Conservationists warn that traditional hay meadows are at risk of disappearing from the face of Britain's countryside.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Jun 2010 | 4:07 am

Oil spill hits Mississippi shore (Reuters)

Reuters - Thick oil from BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico spill washed ashore in Mississippi for the first time as tropical storm Alex moved into the Gulf, posing a threat to the cleanup operation.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 3:02 am

Oil-hit Gulf on edge as Atlantic storm surges (AFP)

AFP - The first major storm of the Atlantic season surged toward the Gulf of Mexico on a path likely to avoid the BP oil spill but leaving coastal residents jittery about its destructive potential.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 3:02 am

Gestational diabetes linked to serotonin and dietary protein

The cause of diabetes during pregnancy is directly controlled by serotonin, a chemical produced by the body and normally known as a neurotransmitter, and is influenced by the amount of protein in the mother's diet early in pregnancy, according to new findings.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am

Scientists grow new lungs using 'skeletons' of old ones

Tissue engineers' progress toward growing new lungs for transplantation or research has long been frustrated by the problem of coaxing stem cells to develop into the varied cell types that populate different locations in the lung. Now, researchers have found a possible solution by seeding mouse embryonic stem cells into "acellular" rat lungs -- organs whose original cells have been destroyed, leaving behind empty, lung-shaped scaffolds of structural proteins.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am

Sea ice in the Arctic not recovering: Another critical minimum forecast

A critical minimum for Arctic sea ice can again be expected for late summer 2010, according to new projections by researchers in Germany.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am

Same types of cell respond differently to stimulus, study shows

Using new technology that allows scientists to monitor how individual cells react in the complex system of cell signaling, researchers have uncovered a much larger spectrum of differences between each cell than ever seen before.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am

Japan starts talks with India on nuclear power (AFP)

AFP - Japan began the first round of talks with India in Tokyo Monday on exporting nuclear power generation technology made by technology giants such as Toshiba and Hitachi, the foreign ministry said.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 2:52 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A long cold front moving through the eastern third of the country would be the main weather producer in the country Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 2:43 am

BP oil spill costs hit £1.7 bln (AFP)

AFP - BP raised the cost so far of its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to 1.7 billion pounds (2.65 billion dollars) on Monday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 2:23 am

Wine under threat

Rescuing famous Riesling valley from giant motorway
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Jun 2010 | 1:49 am

Tropical Storm Alex gaining strength over Gulf (AP)

AP - Tropical Storm Alex was gaining strength as it swirled across the Gulf of Mexico Monday on a path toward Mexico's northeastern coast — well clear of a massive oil spill.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jun 2010 | 1:40 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 | 28 Jun 2010 | 1:36 am

LHC smashes beam collision record

The Large Hadron Collider doubles its rate of particle collisions, paving the way for a new phase of operation.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 28 Jun 2010 | 1:22 am

In pictures: Endangered UK species wallchart

Images from a wallchart published in the Guardian marking the launch of our Name a species competition

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 28 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am

Borneo's crocodiles 'no longer endangered' (AFP)

AFP - Wildlife officials in Malaysian Borneo are pushing to have its saltwater crocodiles removed from a list of endangered animals, saying the reptile's numbers have strongly recovered in recent years.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jun 2010 | 9:57 pm

More Genes Implicated in Type 2 Diabetes (HealthDay)

HealthDay - SUNDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have located 12 new genes that seem to be linked with a predisposition for type 2 diabetes, bringing the total number of genetic locations implicated in the condition to 38.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jun 2010 | 9:49 pm

Nuclear Bombs Could Save Earth from Asteroids (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - If a massive asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and threatening to sterilize the entire planet, blasting it to pieces with nuclear bombs might seem fit for a Hollywood movie. But, it could, in fact, be a viable solution to the potentially apocalyptic event, according to scientists who have studied asteroids and possible solutions to prevent Earth impacts.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jun 2010 | 7:45 pm

End of the world news

The BBC's science and environment correspondent David Shukman joins us in the studio to discuss the BP oil spill and the pitfalls of reporting on climate change.

In David's new book, Reporting Live From the End of the World, he describes his adventures as a roving environment correspondent.

A gaggle of geeks recently invaded the Guardian's London headquarters for a hack day. Their leader, Jeremy Keith, reveals the results of two days of brainstorming.

As part of its Who Am I? exhibition, London's Science Museum has held an event to mark the tenth anniversary of the first draft sequence of the human genome. We spoke to Mike Stratton, director of the Wellcome Trust's Sanger Institute, and nobel prizewinning biologist John Sulston, who tells us human gene patents restrict access to treatments and inhibit research.

We dissect the BMJ's cancer study on mobile phone masts using our story tracker.

The Guardian's Nell Boase and Observer's science editor Robin McKie are in the studio.

Listen to the annual Sense about Science lecture on conflicts of interest in drug trials.

Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.

Email scienceweeklypodcast@gmail.com.

Join our Facebook group.

Listen back through our archive.

Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Jun 2010 | 5:01 pm

Blood test to predict menopause

Study finds way to 'time' women's biological clock, the predictions, from age 20, are accurate to four months

Women who want a career and a family can hardly fail to be aware these days of the biological clock ticking. What they don't know is whether their own clock is fast or slow — and how long they can safely leave it if they want a child.

But now scientists hold out hope of a simple blood test they say can predict the date of a woman's menopause, to within four months. If their work can be confirmed by larger studies, women will be able to have a much clearer idea of how long they are likely to remain fertile.

The test measures the concentrations of a hormone that is produced by cells in the ovaries. Iranian scientists who present their work to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome tomorrow, say that the hormone level can help to predict when a woman as young as 20 will reach the menopause.

During the study, 63 women reached menopause, and on average they found the test had been accurate to within four months. The biggest margin of error was three to four years.

On average women reach the menopause around the age of 52. A test would enable them to plan their families, taking into account that their natural fertility would be in steep decline around 10 years before menopause. Those who want to delay having children could be reassured.

But the test would be most useful for the small proportion of women who go through an early menopause — around 1% under the age of 40 and 5% to 10% under the age of 45. While many may expect it, because often it has happened to their mother or aunt before them, some are taken by surprise.

"The results from our study could enable us to make a more realistic assessment of women's reproductive status many years before they reach menopause," said Dr Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani, who is president of the reproductive endocrinology department of the Endocrine Research Centre and a faculty member and associate professor of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran.

Tehrani's team accept that their study was small and will need to be replicated on a larger scale before any test could be widely introduced.

The blood test detects levels of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), which controls the development of follicles in the ovaries, from which oocytes (eggs) develop.

The researchers took blood samples from 266 women, aged 20 to 49. They measured the women's concentrations of AMH and collected two further blood samples at three-yearly intervals.

They also collected information on the women's socioeconomic background and reproductive history, and examined them every three years. Based on the AMH concentrations, they estimated when menopause was likely to occur for women at different ages and different stages of their reproductive lives.

Higher levels of the hormone predicted later menopause than low levels.

"If a 20-year-old woman has a concentration of serum AMH of 2.8 ng/ml [nanograms per millilitre], we estimate that she will become menopausal between 35 and 38 years old," said Tehrani.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prediction of age at menopause that has resulted from a population-based cohort study. We believe that our estimates of ages at menopause based on AMH levels are of sufficient validity to guide medical practitioners in their day-to-day practice, so that they can help women with their family planning.

"Our findings indicate that AMH is capable of specifying a woman's reproductive status more realistically than chronological age per se."

He added: "Larger studies, starting with women in their 20s and following them for several years are needed to validate the accuracy of serum AMH concentration for the prediction of menopause in young women."

Nick Macklon, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Southampton University, said other work on measuring AMH suggested it may offer the best prospect for devising a test to measure how long a woman will remain fertile.

"It can give us a reasonable idea of when the menopause may happen, but more importantly when women's fertility may fall and they can't have a spontaneous conception," he said.

"What is lacking are the prospective long-term studies which correlate the predicted time on menopause with the actual time of menopause."

Stuart Lavery, director of in-vitro fertilisation at Hammersmith hospital, London, and a spokesman for the British Fertility Society, said: "One issue of concern is if people become too reassured about this. They might think that if their AMH at age 25 is 'X' they don't need to be too concerned. But there can be other factors.

"It's going to be important how this test is perceived, so people don't think all they have to do is pop in and get insurance against their biological clock ticking."

Dr Dagan Wells, of Oxford University, said: "Remember fertility can be dramatically reduced in the years leading up to the menopause, for five years or more.

"Where this test might be particularly useful, even if it's not super-accurate, could be where women are unaware they might experience a very premature menopause. It could give them a heads-up."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Jun 2010 | 3:36 pm

Test for menopause: Not just a women's issue | Zoe Williams

It's a shame that we can't greet this test as we would any other useful medical advance – such as a predictor of high cholesterol

It's a shame that we can't greet this test as we would any other useful medical advance – such as a predictor of high cholesterol: a useful warning for people at the margin, old news for everybody else, who probably know from their family history roughly where on the curve they fall.

The fertility conversation has less and less to do with the practicalities of people who want babies. Some – who see women's advances in the workplace and the world generally, as too extensive, too arrogant, too unseemly – seize gleefully on the female biological clock. It is an endorsement from the authority of brute fact that women can't have it all, however stridently they might want it. A feminist of any mettle, whether she has or wants children, or not, reacts against this mind-your-eggs argument, perceiving in it the subtext: know your place.

The real story of unintended infertility is, of course, different. Only 7% of babies are born to single mothers every year anyway, so most babies are a joint decision between a man and a woman. It is unfortunate that when the "baby gap" was measured – comparing the children women had by 45, with the number they had said they wanted in their twenties (90,000 "missing" babies) – men were not polled. I suspect their figure would have been about the same.

Men might have a longer fertility window, but it is still not infinite, and it is not unusual for a man to be tied to a woman's biological clock anyway, by having married her. Infertility is no more a women's issue than getting a mortgage. Even assuming it is the woman delaying pregnancy – and that's a huge "if", the trope of a career girl, putting it off while she buys more shoes, is a fiction.

So, without agenda, we can applaud this as we would any advance in the sum of human knowledge; encourage the worried to take it up; support anyone who would prefer not to know. I doubt it will revolutionise the story of unintended infertility, because the factors influencing the decision are so much more complicated than simple ignorance.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Jun 2010 | 3:16 pm

Pollution Continues to Blight National Parks (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - Pesticides and other pollution from agricultural and industrial sources are a continuing concern in national parks of the West, two new studies confirm.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jun 2010 | 3:15 pm

Pollution Continues to Blight National Parks

Pesticides and combustion products found in remote areas.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jun 2010 | 3:07 pm

Scientists say blood test will predict menopause

Test which could influence a woman's decision on when to try for a baby measures concentrations of hormone produced by cells in ovaries

Doctors in Iran have developed what they believe is an accurate and simple blood test to establish when a woman will hit the menopause, it was reported today.

Dr Fahimeh Ramezani Tehrani will tell the 26th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome tomorrow that the test – which could influence a woman's decision on when to try for a baby – measures the concentrations of a hormone produced by cells in women's ovaries.

In the small study carried out by Tehrani's team, doctors were able to predict the likely date of the menopause to within an average of four months. The maximum margin of error was three to four years.

On average, women hit the menopause at around the age of 52, according to the study.

However, it happens to some women much earlier, sometimes while they are in their 30s. A test could help women who may want a family but unwittingly leave it too late to conceive naturally.

The blood test detects levels of anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH), which controls the development of follicles in the ovaries from which oocytes (eggs) develop.

The researchers took blood samples from 266 women aged 20 to 49, who were taking part in the much larger Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study. They measured the women's concentrations of AMH and then returned to them to collect two further blood samples at three-yearly intervals.

The researchers also collected information on the women's socio-economic backgrounds and reproductive history and gave them physical examinations every three years.

Based on the AMH concentrations, they estimated when the menopause was likely to occur for women at different ages and different stages of their reproductive lives.

During the course of the study, 63 women reached menopause, and the researchers found their estimates were correct to within an average of four months.

Higher levels of the hormone predicted later menopause than lower levels.

"The results from our study could enable us to make a more realistic assessment of women's reproductive status many years before they reach menopause," Tehrani said.

"For example, if a 20-year-old woman has a concentration of serum AMH of 2.8 nanograms per millilitre, we estimate that she will become menopausal between 35 and 38 years old.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prediction of age at menopause that has resulted from a population-based cohort study.

"We believe that our estimates of ages at menopause based on AMH levels are of sufficient validity to guide medical practitioners in their day to day practice so that they can help women with their family planning."

The study now needed to be replicated on a larger scale, she said, adding: "Our findings indicate that AMH is capable of specifying a woman's reproductive status more realistically than chronological age per se.

"Considering that this is a small study that has looked at women over a period of time, larger studies starting with women in their twenties and following them for several years are needed to validate the accuracy of serum AMH concentration for the prediction of menopause in young women."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Jun 2010 | 7:42 am

Why We Dream: Real Reasons Revealed

Dreams may have evolved to help us solve problems in our sleep, according to a Harvard psychologist.
Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jun 2010 | 7:21 am

Human Bite Stronger Than Thought

The design of the human jaw actually makes it 40 percent to 50 percent more efficient than for all great apes.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jun 2010 | 6:10 am

Sense About Science Lecture 2010: Standing up for science

Dr Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ, delivers the annual Sense About Science lecture on the theme 'It's time to stand up for science once more'

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 27 Jun 2010 | 3:45 am