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No substantial quality difference between organically and conventionally produced eggs, study findsThere's no substantial quality difference between organically and conventionally produced eggs. That's one of a number of findings in a new agricultural study examining various aspects of egg quality.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Genetically reprogrammed HSV given systemically shrinks distant sarcomasScientists have used a genetically reprogrammed herpes virus and an anti-vascular drug to shrink spreading distant sarcomas designed to model metastatic disease in mice -- still an elusive goal when treating humans with cancer, according to new research. The study results are even more significant because the oncolytic herpes virus was given to the mice systemically to attack tumors via the blood stream instead of being injected directly into tumorsSource: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Delayed school start time associated with improvements in adolescent behaviorsA short delay in school start time appears to be associated with significant improvements in adolescent alertness, mood and health, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Pinpoint precision: Delivering a biochemical payload to one cellResearchers use precise electrical "tweezers" to place nanowires on predetermined spots on single cells. The technique eventually could produce new ways to deliver medication.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Amid the murk of 'gut flora,' vitamin D receptor emerges as a key playerWithin the human digestive tract is a teeming mass of hundreds of types of bacteria, a potpourri of microbes numbering in the trillions that help us digest food and keep bad bacteria in check. Scientists have found that the vitamin D receptor is a key player amid the gut bacteria -- what scientists refer to as the "gut flora."Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Black hole blows big bubbleCombining observations made with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope, astronomers have uncovered the most powerful pair of jets ever seen from a stellar black hole. This object, also known as a microquasar, blows a huge bubble of hot gas, 1000 light-years across, twice as large and tens of times more powerful than other known microquasars.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Biologists identify a new clue into cellular agingThe ability to combat some age-related diseases may rest with scientists unlocking clues about the molecular and cellular processes governing aging. The underlying theory is that if the healthy portion of an individual's life span can be extended, it may delay the onset of certain age-related diseases. In the search to understand these molecular processes, researchers have uncovered an important new DAF-16 isoform that helps to regulate longevity.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Cholesterol's other way outMany of us are simply overloaded with cholesterol, and now a report brings what might be good news: There is more than one way to get rid of that cholesterol, which can otherwise lead to atherosclerosis and heart disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Fouls go left: Soccer referees may be biased based on play's direction of motionSoccer referees may have an unconscious bias towards calling fouls based on a play's direction of motion, according to a new study. Researchers found that soccer experts made more foul calls when action moved right-to-left, or leftward, compared to left-to-right or rightward action, suggesting that two referees watching the same play from different vantage points may be inclined to make a different call.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Dig discovers ancient Britons were earliest North EuropeansArcheologists have unearthed the earliest evidence of human occupation in Britain. Their findings demonstrate that ancient humans occupied Britain over 800,000 years ago, marking the first known settlement in northern Europe -- far earlier than previously thought.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Solar plane's night test successAn experimental plane powered by solar cells successfully completes a 26-hour flight and lands safely in Switzerland.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Jul 2010 | 4:13 am Beach cleaners only skimming oil off surface sand (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 4:06 am Camel spiders are sticky killersCamel spiders have evolved a unique way to stick to and capture their insect prey, high speed video reveals.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Jul 2010 | 3:27 am BP says does not expect to halt oil spill until August (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 3:15 am Anti-whaling group says activist ban 'a strategy' (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 2:57 am Weather hampers oil effort as BP letter surfaces (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 2:55 am The nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 2:54 am A menagerie of large preyThe first human hunters to arrive in Britain would have been spoilt for choice, a study in Nature suggests A beautiful Norfolk estuary with ample hunting, but watch out for those sabre-toothed cats. Norfolk just ain't what it used to be. Some 850,000 years ago, coniferous forests covered East Anglia, and on the floodplains of the Thames estuary roamed herds of giant elk, horses and mammoths. Early human hunters of the species Homo antecessor would have been spoilt for choice, according to a study published in Nature yesterday. "Happisburgh is really an exceptional site," said Simon Parfitt of University College London, who led the research. "Here we have a tremendous range of fossils of plants and animals ... There's no other place where you would have this range of fossils from land and sea." Pine cones and pollen from spruce trees showed that the estuary was dominated by a coniferous forest at the time. Six seasons of archaeological digs at the site have sifted through hundreds of cubic metres of river gravels and estuarine silts. "The majority of what we found is wood," said Parfitt, "thousands of flakes of wood." Among all those wood flakes was a rich assemblage of herbivore remains. Key finds included teeth from the southern mammoth, Mammuthus meridionalis, toe bones from the extinct horse Equus suessenbornensis, and the bones of red deer, Cervus elaphus, which indicated nearby grasslands. "Southern mammoths were hairless and would have looked a lot like elephants today," said Parfitt. He said they were adapted to warm climates and arrived in Britain by crossing the land bridge which then linked it to the rest of Europe. "They've been found as far south as Italy," he added. The Happisburgh mammoth's teeth suggest it was a browser, feeding on leaves from trees and shrubs. As the climate cooled, mammoth teeth changed as they adapted to more abrasive food types like grass. The woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius of the Ice Age films evolved later, as glaciation advanced across Europe. Scientists were able to reconstruct the past climate of Happisburgh using the fossil remains of temperature-sensitive plants and animals. The presence of fossil beetles suggested that summers at the site were probably warmer than today, and winters were at least 3C cooler. Humans would have had more to worry about than the cold, however. "Sabre-toothed cats were probably the dominant carnivore and were almost certainly a threat to these humans," said Parfitt. The team also unearthed coprolites (fossilised droppings) of an extinct hyena the size of a lion. "It would have been a very formidable animal." "We've got a base here where [the early humans] were coming to process their food," said Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London. "As a human palaeontologist my dream is we will one day recover human fossil material from Happisburgh ... I think if we keep looking there's every chance." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Jul 2010 | 2:33 am Europe studies new rocket optionsThe European Space Agency (Esa) has asked a consortium to investigate what sort of rocket should succeed the Ariane 5.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 8 Jul 2010 | 1:40 am Solar plane lands after completing 24-hour flight (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jul 2010 | 1:14 am How has 'Climategate' affected the battle against climate change? | David AdamThe Muir Russell report has cleared the scientists of any dishonesty over data, but how did the scandal affect Copenhagen? The East Anglia emails were released just weeks before world leaders gathered in Copenhagen in December to continue talks on a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Many saw this as a deliberate attempt to undermine the summit, which produced a disappointing outcome. Today, the third and final review of the emails affair cleared the scientists involved of any dishonesty over data. But while the Muir Russell report may have exonerated the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists and the science, did the fuss over the emails contribute to the failure at Copenhagen to agree a meaningful deal? Was there a swing in public opinion that saw politicians retreat from the previously bullish positions on climate? Ben Stewart, head of media at Greenpeace, says the emails controversy had a significant impact. "It's pretty hard to say what the impact has been but it would be hopelessly naive to say it has not had an effect. To peak and decline our emissions was always going to need us to push a large rock up a steep hill, but the rock got heavier and the hill got steeper because of the reporting of the emails." Stewart says it is the media, not the CRU scientists, who are to blame for any extra confusion among the public. "The public haven't read a thousand emails from scientists they have never heard of. The emails didn't change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate." Michael Jacobs, former special adviser on climate to Gordon Brown, and a figure central to the way the climate debate has unfolded in the UK, says: "I don't think it [the release of the emails] had an impact on Copenhagen. It affected the mood but not the outcome. The emails gave a huge boost to the sceptics but we didn't see a weakening of commitments on climate at a state level anywhere. Any government that wanted to stall action could have played up the importance of the emails and called for more enquiries, but that didn't happen, so I think they had less of an impact than some people were claiming." Saudi Arabia, long-standing opponents of a global agreements to curb emissions, tried to use the emails controversy to bolster their position in Copenhagen. China cited them once, but made little headway. Jacobs, now a research fellow at the London School of Economics, adds: "Since Copenhagen it's very difficult to tell. There's no question that climate agnosticism has increased, but I think that has more to do with a backlash to all the hype around Copenhagen. We were worried about the impact [of the emails] on public opinion but government action on climate change is not driven by public attitudes, but that it is the right thing to do. Public consent is important but not essential so long as there is not downright opposition. Governments introduce plenty of things that are less popular than action on climate." Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: "It hasn't in any direct way affected the political process. Governments have scientific advisers who know this is just a storm in a teacup." There could be an indirect effect, he said, from a confused public who feel there is less need to pressure politicians to cut emissions. "But I haven't seen any evidence there has been any big change in public opinion." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 8 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am BP aims to fix leaking oil well by July 27: report (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:29 pm Glucosamine Worthless For Back PainA new study finds that glucosamine supplements are ineffective in helping back pain.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 10:06 pm Tropical depression forms in Mexico's Gulf (Reuters)Reuters - A tropical depression formed in the Gulf of Mexico late on Wednesday and was set to slam into the Gulf Coast near the Texas-Mexico border on Thursday, a region still recovering from Hurricane Alex, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a report.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:39 pm Japanese spacecraft may have dust from asteroid (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:01 pm Are the Oceans Rising?The oceans are indeed swelling, and faster than in the recent past. But the whole picture of sea level rise is highly variable.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:47 pm Tags reveal puffin food 'hotspot'GPS devices show puffins head for foraging "hotspots" 20 miles away, much closer than previously thought.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:31 pm Climategate scientists cleared of manipulating data on global warmingMuir Russell report says scientists did not fudge data, but they should have been more open about their work The climate scientists at the centre of a media storm over leaked emails were yesterday cleared of accusations that they fudged their results and silenced critics, but a review found they had failed to be open enough about their work. Sir Muir Russell, the senior civil servant who led a six-month inquiry into the affair, said the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) were not in doubt. His investigation concluded they did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism and that key data was freely available and could be used by any "competent" researcher. But the panel said the scientists' responses to "reasonable requests for information" had been "unhelpful and defensive". The inquiry found "emails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them" and that there had been "a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness". Scientists also failed to appreciate the risk their lack of transparency posed to the university and "indeed to the credibility of UK climate science". The controversy began when 13 years of emails from CRU scientists were released online last year. Climate change sceptics claimed they showed scientists manipulating and suppressing data to back up a theory of manmade climate change. Critics also alleged the scientists abused their positions to cover up flaws and distort the peer review process that determines which studies are published in journals, and so enter the scientific record. Some alleged the emails cast doubt on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Announcing the findings, Russell said: "Ultimately this has to be about what they did, not what they said. The honesty and rigour of CRU as scientists are not in doubt ... We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments." The review is the third and final inquiry into the email affair, and effectively clears Professor Phil Jones, head of the CRU, and his colleagues of the most serious charges. Questions remain over the way they responded to requests for information from people outside the conventional scientific arena, some of whom were critics of Jones. "We do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA," said the report, commissioned by UEA at a cost of £200,000. It also criticised the CRU scientists for failing to include proper labels on a 1999 graph prepared for the World Meteorological Organisation, which was the subject of an infamous email about Jones using a "trick" to "hide the decline". The panel said the result was misleading, though they accepted this was not deliberate as the necessary caveats had been included in the report text. Acknowledging that the digital age brought a greater demand for openness and access to data, it concluded "like it or not, this indicates a transformation in the way science has to be conducted in this century." Edward Acton, vice-chancellor of UEA, said the university accepted the report's conclusion that it should have been more open. "The need to develop a culture of greater openness and transparency in CRU is something we faced up to internally some months ago and we are already working to put right." He hoped the review would "finally lay to rest conspiracy theories, untruths and misunderstandings" that had been circulating, and that the "wilder assertions" about the climate science community would now stop. Jones issued a statement which said: "I am, of course, extremely relieved that this review has now been completed. We have maintained all along that our science is honest and sound and this has been vindicated now by three different independent external bodies. There are lessons to be learned and I need time to reflect on them." Jones is to be director of research at CRU. Acton said this was "not a demotion but a shift in emphasis of role". Ed Miliband, the former climate change secretary, said: "Muir Russell has given the world a clear message: we should not believe those who tell us that one string of emails undermines years of climate science. We should also learn lessons because maximum openness and transparency is the best weapon against those who want us to stick our heads in the sand as if climate change isn't happening. Now the world needs to step up the momentum again and get the deal that eluded us at Copenhagen." Writing on Comment is Free, Dr Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, who testified to the inquiry, said: "The Russell review has rejected all claims of serious scientific misconduct. But he does identify failures, evasions, misleading actions, unjustifiable delays, and pervasive unhelpfulness – all of which amounts to severely sub-optimal academic practice. Climate science will never be the same again." Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: "It is clear that greater transparency is required in climate research because of the intense public interest in it, and its profound implications for society. However, it is also now very apparent that many so-called sceptics owe a huge apology to the public for having presented the email messages as evidence that climate change is a hoax carried out by a conspiracy of dishonest scientists." Acton said: "CRU will be more closely integrated in the bigger school of environmental sciences and a key difference is to place some of the administrative burden that Phil had before this incident on the head of the school." Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor to the department of environment, food and rural affairs, said that while it was clear scientists needed to be more transparent, he hoped the report would "draw a line under this episode so that the scientific community can begin to regain the trust of the public and continue to do its vital work on climate change, which remains one of the biggest challenges we face as a planet." Myles Allen, head of the climate dynamics group at the University of Oxford, said: "What everyone has lost sight of is the spectacular failure of mainstream journalism to keep the whole affair in perspective. Again and again, stories are sexed up with arch hints that these "revelations" might somehow impact on the evidence for human impact on climate. Yet the only error in actual data used for climate change detection to have emerged from this whole affair amounted to a few hundredths of a degree in the estimated global temperature of a couple of years in the 1870s." • Additional reporting by Christine Ottery guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:13 pm Who to Believe on Climate Change?Vindicated researchers, the hottest decade -- and perhaps the hottest year -- on record. Still believe the climate change "skeptics"?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:06 pm Heatwaves: They Don't Call it Global for NothingThe heatwave being felt across the eastern US is part of a pattern of unusually high summer temperatures extending from Asia to Europe.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:42 pm UK climate data were not tampered withScience sound despite researchers' lack of openness, inquiry finds.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/WKWwlryw_BE" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 5:22 pm Early humans ventured farther north than thought (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 5:04 pm Bioethics gets an airingAmy Gutmann, chair of the US presidential bioethics commission, discusses the challenges of bringing synthetic biology to the public arena.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 4:50 pm Climate unit 'did not hide data'Climate scientists emerge from third inquiry with their reputations for honesty intact but with a lack of openness criticised.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:53 pm In search of dark nightsAstronomers and conservationists team up against bright lights.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:47 pm Early Britons could cope with coldA harsh climate did not stop humans moving to northern Europe nearly a million years ago.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:43 pm Tests Predicts Whether Relationships Will LastWord association test indicates happiness in a romantic relationship.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:23 pm Magnetic Nanoparticles Can Remotely Control Worms
Using magnetic nanoparticles, scientists have found a way to remotely control neurons and affect animal behavior. The nanoparticles, which are targeted to attach to cell membranes, heat up when exposed to a magnetic field. Researchers have demonstrated that the heat can open calcium ion channels in cells, activate neurons and even cause C. elegans worms to recoil, according to a paper released in Nature Nanotechnology June 27. “This research will help us unravel the signaling networks that control animal behavior,” physicist Arnd Pralle of the University of Buffalo, co-author of the study, said in a press release July 6.
The work could also have applications in cancer treatments and diabetes therapies. If the nanoparticles can be targeted to specific proteins or cells, it may be possible to kill cancer cells by overheating the cell wall, or to stimulate the pancreatic cells to release insulin. The method only affects cell walls, so patients wouldn’t actually feel the heat. “It would take forever to heat up [a] whole cell since it is cooled so well by all the water around it,” Pralle said. One of the major questions for using the technique in human applications is where the heat-sensitive ion channels are in the body. In the C. elegans worms, the researchers were able to target known ion channels that opened up at 93 degrees Fahrenheit, which caused the recoil response. In humans, similar ion channels in fingers open up at 122 degrees Fahrenheit, which is what causes our fingers to jump back when we touch something too hot, but little is known about other places where this happens in the body. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:19 pm Humans' early arrival in BritainResearchers have discovered stone tools in Norfolk that suggest that humans arrived in Britain nearly a million years ago.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:14 pm The proton shrinks in sizeTiny change in radius has huge implications.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:01 pm An archaeologist digs through her lifeAt 94, Halet Çambel is seen as a 'scientific hero' in Turkey.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Palaeoanthropology: Disputed groundFinds in Turkey could answer key questions about ancient human origins, but palaeoanthropologists there must first bury their disputes. Rex Dalton reports from the field.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Evolution: Dreampond revisitedA once-threatened population of African fish is now providing a view of evolution in action. Laura Spinney asks what Lake Victoria cichlids have revealed about speciation.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Stone Age Europeans Get Older and Colder
Stone tools and animal remains found on England’s coast suggest that humans arrived in northern Europe at least 150,000 years earlier than was previously thought. Maybe the toolmakers stayed. Maybe they were part of successive migrations that went north during Ice Age thaws, then retreated south when the cold came back. Either way, “this has significant implications for our understanding of early human behavior, adaptation and survival, as well as the tempo and mode of colonization after their first dispersal out of Africa,” wrote a team of researchers from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project in the July 7 Nature. The researchers describe their excavation of a site in Happisburgh, a coastal town that sits on what was once an estuary of the River Thames. Dozens of stone tools were found in sediments deposited when the polarity of Earth’s magnetic field pointed south rather than north, a phase ending 780,000 years ago. No human bones were found, but animal fossils include the tooth of a mammoth species that disappeared 800,000 years ago, and bones of red deer that went extinct a million years ago. Pollen grains and plant fossils suggest a landscape in transition from temperate to Ice Age, which happened 950,000 years ago and again 840,000 years ago. Until recently, it was thought that early humans stayed south after leaving Africa. The only human remains dating from around that time in Europe were found in Spain. But tentative evidence of sparse settlement in England, as well as in Germany and France, has raised the possibility of earlier northward expansion.
The latest findings reinforce that possiblity, move the dates back, and underscore just how resilient and resourceful early humans were. “What I find amazing is that these early humans were pretty tough. They survived winters that were probably 5 degrees Fahrenheit colder than present,” said Australian National University anthropologist Andrew Roberts, who wrote a commentary accompanying the findings. “I’d want a heated house — not a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This tells us that these early humans were better adapted to cold than we thought.” It’s not known from the tools and fossils whether the cold-hardy settlers had clothing, shelters or even fire. It’s also not clear whether the remains represent a population that had migrated during a warmer time, or braved the cold in moving north. Given those caveats, “I think the paper gives a sound provisional idea to test. The idea of investigating the limits of early human adaptability is now a vital dimension of paleoanthropological research,” said Rick Potts, curator of anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “Knowing where we came from and how we fit in to the wider picture is fundamental to our existence,” said Roberts. “If it was me, I would have stayed in the Mediterranean.”
Images: 1) Artist’s rendition of Happisburgh, about 900,000 years ago./John Sibbick, AHOB. 2) Stone hammer flakes, along with a fossilized pine cone (i) and mammoth tooth (j). See Also:
Citation: “Early Pleistocene human occupation at the edge of the boreal zone in northwest Europe.” By Simon A. Parfitt, Nick M. Ashton, Simon G. Lewis, Richard L. Abel, G. Russell Coope, Mike H. Field, Rowena Gale, Peter G. Hoare, Nigel R. Larkin, Mark D. Lewis, Vassil Karloukovski, Barbara A. Maher, Sylvia M. Peglar, Richard C. Preece, John E. Whittaker & Chris B. Stringer. Nature, Vol. 466, No. 7303, July 8, 2010. “Early human northerners.” By Andrew P. Roberts and Rainer Grün. Nature, Vol. 466, No. 7303, July 8, 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 | 7 Jul 2010 | 2:50 pm Deadly Robots Need a Sensitive SideSkin that feels would make robots more effective … in many ways.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 2:25 pm Extinct 'Welded Beast' Found in Tennessee Swimming PoolFossils for a large probable Gomphotherium, aka "Welded Beast," were recently dug up at the site of a Tennessee swimming pool.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 2:00 pm Early Humans Settled in Britain 800,000 Years AgoThe discovery shows for the first time that our hardy forebears, armed with a few stone tools or weapons, could survive in a challenging, frigid environment.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 1:25 pm Early humans settled in England 800,000 years ago: studyLONDON (Reuters) - Flint tools found in an English village show ancient humans settled northern Europe 800,000 years ago, far earlier than previously thought, which could prompt scientists to reassess the capabilities of early humans.Source: Reuters: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 1:15 pm Jane Goodall: Urgent Action Needed to Save ChimpsFamed primatologist warns of deforestation, disease and hunting.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 12:12 pm News briefing: 2–8 July 2010The week in science.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Origami Robot Makes Shapes on DemandMaterial inspired by the ancient art of origami folds on its own.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:36 am Fish Talk to One AnotherFish use noises including grunts, chirps and pops to get their point across.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:30 am Say What?! Whales Shout over Noise PollutionLouder calls could take a toll on endangered species.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:13 am Earliest Northern European Settlement Discovered in BritainA prehistoric settlement found in Britain has archaeologists scrambling to figure out how early humans survived the harsh northern climate.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:05 am Leafy Green Coherence: Quantum Physics Fuels Photosynthesis
Not so long ago, quantum physics at room temperature was found mostly in classroom discussions or over science-geek cocktails. But the mind-bending mechanics seems to be present in many everyday phenomena — including photosynthesis, the driving force behind life’s harvest of solar energy. A process called coherence allows photon energy to find the shortest path through a leaf’s surface by taking all possible paths simultaneously, then “picking” the best one. The resulting energy transfer is almost perfectly efficient. “Coherence is well-known in energy transfer in nonbiological systems,” said Elad Harel, a University of Chicago physicist. “The question was whether biological systems take advantage of this as well.”
To measure coherence, the researchers charged antennae with brief laser pulses, then measured fluctuations in another laser beam that shone through the FMO complex. Fluctuations corresponded to energy passing from the antennae through the complex’s molecules.
The findings dovetail with research by University of Toronto biophysicist Greg Scholes, who found coherence in the photosynthesis of a common marine algae. Scholes showed indisputably that coherence — previously observed only in ultracold temperatures in nonbiological systems — could happen in biology, at room temperature. Because the FMO complex is used as a model system for plant photosynthesis, Engels’ findings suggest that coherence is everywhere in the leafy green world. Researchers hope these findings will guide the design of solar panels that are as efficient as nature’s, said Harel. In the meantime, scientists will continue looking for more evidence of quantum biology, which has been also been posited in the structure of DNA and operations of the mind. “I’d be surprised” if quantum effects are not ubiquitous in biology, said Harel. “To have a tool at your disposal, and not use it, is not a law of biology.” Images: 1) Flickr/Linda Kenney. 2) The FMO complex/Wikimedia Commons. 3) Coherence dephasing from extremely low to above-freezing temperatures./PNAS. See Also:
Citation: “Long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes at physiological temperature.” By Gitt Panitchayangkoon, Dugan Hayes, Kelly A. Fransted, Justin R. Caram, Elad Harel, Jianzhong Wen, Robert E. Blankenship, Gregory S. Engel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 28, July 6, 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 | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:04 am First humans arrived in Britain 250,000 years earlyArchaeologists digging on a Norfolk beach found stone tools that show the first humans were living in Britain much earlier than previously thought A spectacular haul of ancient flint tools has been recovered from a beach in Norfolk, pushing back the date of the first known human occupation of Britain by up to 250,000 years. While digging along the north-east coast of East Anglia near the village of Happisburgh, archaeologists discovered 78 pieces of razor-sharp flint shaped into primitive cutting and piercing tools. The stone tools were unearthed from sediments that are thought to have been laid down either 840,000 or 950,000 years ago, making them the oldest human artefacts ever found in Britain. The flints were probably left by hunter-gatherers of the human species Homo antecessor who eked out a living on the flood plains and marshes that bordered an ancient course of the river Thames that has long since dried up. The flints were then washed downriver and came to rest at the Happisburgh site. The early Britons would have lived alongside sabre-toothed cats and hyenas, primitive horses, red deer and southern mammoths in a climate similar to that of southern Britain today, though winters were typically a few degrees colder. "These tools from Happisburgh are absolutely mint-fresh. They are exceptionally sharp, which suggests they have not moved far from where they were dropped," said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. The population of Britain at the time most likely numbered in the hundreds or a few thousand at most. "These people probably used the rivers as routes into the landscape. A lot of Britain might have been heavily forested at the time, which would have posed a major problem for humans without strong axes to chop trees down," Stringer added. "They lived out in the open, but we don't know if they had basic clothing, were building primitive shelters, or even had the use of fire." The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, overturns the long-held belief that early humans steered clear of chilly Britain – and the rest of northern Europe – in favour of the more hospitable climate of the Mediterranean. The only human species known to be living in Europe at the time is Homo antecessor, or "pioneer man", whose remains were discovered in the Atapuerca hills of Spain in 2008 and have been dated to between 1.1m and 1.2m years old. The early settlers would have walked into Britain across an ancient land bridge that once divided the North Sea from the Atlantic and connected the country to what is now mainland Europe. The first humans probably arrived during a warm interglacial period, but may have retreated as temperatures plummeted in subsequent ice ages. Until now, the earliest evidence of humans in Britain came from Pakefield, near Lowestoft in Suffolk, where a set of stone tools dated to 700,000 years ago were uncovered in 2005. More sophisticated stone, antler and bone tools were found in the 1990s in Boxgrove, Sussex, which are believed to be half a million years old. "The flint tools from Happisburgh are relatively crude compared with those from Boxgrove, but they are still effective," said Stringer. Early stone tools were fashioned by using a pebble to knock large flakes off a chunk of flint. Later humans used wood and antler hammers to remove much smaller flakes and so make more refined cutting and sawing edges. The great migration from Africa saw early humans reach Europe around 1.8m years ago. Within 500,000 years, humans had become established in the Mediterranean region. Remains have been found at several archaeological sites in Spain, southern France and Italy. In an accompanying article in Nature, Andrew Roberts and Rainer Grün at the Australian National University in Canberra, write: "Until the Happisburgh site was found and described, it was thought that these early humans were reluctant to live in the less hospitable climate of northern Europe, which frequently fell into the grip of severe ice ages." Researchers led by the Natural History Museum and British Museum in London began excavating sites near Happisburgh in 2001 as part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project and soon discovered tools from the stone age beneath ice-age deposits. So far, though, they have found no remains of the ancient people who made them. "This would be the 'holy grail' of our work," said Stringer. "The humans who made the Happisburgh tools may well have been related to the people of similar antiquity from Atapuerca in Spain, assigned to the species Homo antecessor, or 'pioneer man'." The latest haul of stone tools was buried in sediments that record a period of history when the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field was reversed. At the time, a compass needle would have pointed south instead of north. The last time this happened was 780,000 years ago, so the tools are at least that old. Analysis of ancient vegetation and pollen in the sediments has revealed that the climate was warm but cooling towards an ice age, which points to two possible times in history, around 840,000 years ago, or 950,000 years ago. Both dates are consistent with the fossilised remains of animals recovered from the same site. "Britain was getting cooler and going into an ice age, but these early humans were hanging in there. They may have been the remnants of an ancient population that either died out or migrated back across the land bridge to a warmer climate," said Stringer. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:04 am Proton is Smaller Than Thought, New Measurement FindsThe proton, one of the most well-known and basic building blocks of matter, turns out to be holding on to a few secrets.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:01 am ‘Horrendously Intense’ Laser Shrinks the Proton
New laser-assisted measurements find that the fundamental building block of matter, the proton, is about 4 percent smaller than previously thought. The new size could poke holes in one of the pillars of the standard model of particle physics. “It’s a big deal,” commented physicist Jeff Flowers of the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K., who was not involved in the new work. “It’s given us a glimpse of a chance that there’s a real theoretical leap forward to be made.” The potentially threatened theory, called quantum electrodynamics or QED, describes how charged particles interact with light. Since the late 1940s, the theory has been wildly successful at predicting where electrons in atoms will spend most of their time. The calculations are especially accurate for the simplest atom, hydrogen, which consists of just one proton and one electron. But the distance between the electron and the proton depends slightly on the proton’s size, similar to how a planet’s distance from its star depends on the star’s mass. In the last decade, the accuracy of hydrogen studies and the precision of theoretical predictions have gotten so good that physicists can no longer ignore the proton’s girth. “If you want to compare theory and experiments, you need to know the charge radius of the proton,” said physicist Randolf Pohl of the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Germany, a coauthor of the new study. The results appear in the July 8 issue of Nature.
To get the most accurate measurement yet, Pohl and a huge international group of collaborators built an exotic form of hydrogen and blasted it with intense laser light to see how the electrons reacted. Before Pohl’s study, the most accurate value for the proton’s radius — about 0.8768 femtometers, or less than a quadrillionth of a meter — came from studies of ordinary hydrogen. According to quantum mechanics, an electron can orbit only at certain specific distances, called energy levels, from its proton. The electron can jump up to a higher energy level if a particle of light hits it, or drop down to a lower one if it lets some light go. Physicists measure the energy of the absorbed or released light to determine how far one energy level is from another, and use calculations based on quantum electrodynamics to transform that energy difference into a number for the size of the proton. Instead of electrons, Pohl’s group used muons, negatively charged particles about 200 times heavier than electrons. Because of their extra bulk, muons orbit closer to the proton, and their energy levels are more sensitive to the proton’s size. The team created hundreds of muons per second and rammed them into a diffuse hydrogen gas using the world’s strongest muon source, a powerful particle accelerator at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The muons smacked electrons out of the hydrogen, and got caught in orbit around the leftover proton. Only 1 percent of the “muonic hydrogen” created this way was useful, Pohl said. These atoms live for just two microseconds. Because there are so few and their lives are so short, the team had to use a “horrendously intense laser” to probe their energy levels, Flowers said. As soon as the atoms formed, the laser zapped them with a precise amount of energy that the physicists could change over the course of the experiment. If the muons took in the right energy, they jumped up to a higher energy level, and almost immediately emitted an X-ray as they decayed back down. The physicists looked for an excess of X-rays after the laser flashed to figure out which energy made the muons change levels. Then they used equations similar to those used in earlier hydrogen experiments to calculate the proton radius. The measurement was 10 times more accurate than had ever been achieved before. “With muonic hydrogen, the size of the uncertainty is drastically smaller,” said Flowers. “This new method is a much better method. The trouble is, they don’t give you the same answer.” The new value for the proton’s radius is 0.84184 femtometers, way too far from the previous value to be a fluke. There are three possible explanations for the difference. First, one of the experiments could have goofed. Pohl is confident that his group’s experiment is sound. “Our experiment is elegant and simple,” he said. “Accuracy is easy to achieve. That’s why we firmly believe that our measurement is not wrong.” Alternatively, the theoretical equation used to derive the radius from the data may have had an error. This is what Pohl suspects. “As experimentalists, we think something is wrong with theory. But the theorists claim firmly that it’s not their fault,” he said laughingly. “Time will tell us what is the real reason.” The most exciting possibility is that the experiment picked up on some previously unknown physical effects or undiscovered particles, like what high-energy physics experiments like the Large Hadron Collider are searching for. “If this holds up, in the sense that further experiments find the same thing, then it’s a hint that there’s some extra terms in the interaction of the atom and its environment,” Flowers said. “They may be new particles,” he added, though he cautioned that it’s too early to do more than speculate. “At the moment, it’s anybody’s guess.” Image: CREMA collaboration/PSI See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 7 Jul 2010 | 11:00 am Despite the Risks, Urban Cycling a Healthier OptionDon't worry about car exhaust. The benefits of urban cycling outweigh the risks.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 10:47 am Is Television Harmful for Children?Too much television at a young age can slow language development and promote obesity.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jul 2010 | 10:46 am EU research funds to be diverted to fusion reactorAiling ITER may get bailout from framework programme.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jul 2010 | 10:45 am Predicting the Next Deadly Manhole Explosion
Every so often in New York City, a disk of cast iron weighing up to 300 pounds will burst out of the street and fly as high as several stories before clattering back to the blacktop. Flames, smoke or both may issue from the breach, as if somebody had pulled hell’s own pop-top.
Ever since Thomas Edison fired up the city’s commercial electric grid in 1882, New Yorkers have had to contend with the random hazards of smoking, flaming and exploding manholes. Many of the blasts result from decrepit wiring, which can lead to sparks. Throw in a bit of gas and a confined space and, like a combustion engine, the blast can move metal. Until recently, there was no way of knowing where or when the next outburst would occur; repairs commenced only after a manhole had growled. But in 2004 Con Edison began a proactive inspection program, with the goal of finding the places in New York’s snaking network of electrical cable where trouble is most likely to strike. The company also called upon a team of Columbia University researchers for help in predicting which of New York City’s manholes might be the next to blow. Led by Cynthia Rudin, now at MIT, the scientists developed an algorithm that directs a computer to identify subterranean trouble spots. Now a report in the July issue of Machine Learning suggests the researchers are winning the battle of machine versus manhole. “To us it was like solving an ancient puzzle, but one that we weren’t sure we were going to crack, and one that nobody had solved before,” Rudin says.
Rudin and her team tackled Manhattan first. Beneath the borough’s streets and avenues lies 21,000 miles of cable, enough to girdle more than three-quarters of the Earth. The researchers set out to rank the manholes of Manhattan by vulnerability to serious events, such as fires and explosions. They had piles of historical data: Con Edison has records on its miles of cable dating back to the 1880s. The team also had 10 years worth of “trouble tickets” — more than 61,000 reports typed by dispatchers as they directed crews in the field. Some tickets recorded relevant past events such as fires, explosions, smoking manholes or flickering lights. There was also a huge amount of irrelevant information, says Rudin: “Parking information for the Con Ed vehicle, or the fact that there is a customer that has a language problem, or other things like that.” Order had to be created from confusion, she says. Knowing the past doesn’t necessarily mean you can predict the future, and Rudin wasn’t sure it could be done. Serious manhole events are rare — only a few hundred occur each year even though there are 51,000-odd manhole and service boxes in Manhattan. “Finding a pattern when something is very rare is very hard,” says computer scientist Gary Weiss of Fordham University in the New York City. “If you only have a few examples, there are so many patterns that can fit those few examples … you can’t really tell the difference between a pattern that is meaningful and one that is coincidental.” The algorithm’s job was to “learn” from the past records and find meaningful patterns. Then it could predict the likelihood that a particular manhole with particular characteristics would have a future flare-up. The researchers realized they had to take the long view. “We were not getting anywhere by trying to predict events in the short term,” says Rudin. They developed what they call a hot-spot theory. The team discovered that manholes with larger cables — and so a larger amount of insulation subject to decay and thus to sparking — turned out to be more vulnerable to serious events. Con Edison blind-tested the team’s model by withholding information on a recent set of fires and explosions. The top 2 percent of manholes ranked as vulnerable by the algorithm included 11 percent of the manholes that had recently had a fire or explosion, Rudin notes. Tweaking and adding more data has improved the model further, says Rudin, and Con Edison is now using it to help prioritize inspection and repairs on the grid. The team has just completed rankings for manholes in Brooklyn and the Bronx. And Rudin has plans to return to Manhattan’s grid, armed with the most recent inspection and repair data. “I never really felt like a New Yorker, even though I lived there for several years,” says Rudin. “But contributing to the basic infrastructure of the city really helped somehow.” Image: New York firefighters and ConEdison workers flood an open manhole with water See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 7 Jul 2010 | 10:42 am ScienceBlogs, we have a problem• Should ScienceBlogs.com have agreed to host a controversial blog on nutrition, written by PepsiCo? No, say the site's readers, as some of its star bloggers stop their blogs in protest Much consternation over at the home of science blogging, ScienceBlogs. The forum for the brilliant Orac, Pharyngula, Molecule of the Day, and countless other insightful, funny and informative blogs has decided upon a bizarre new strategy in sourcing new posts. As of yesterday, the platform will host a new blog written by food giant PepsiCo, all about the company's specialist subject of refreshing sugary drinks and their benefits for dental and dietary health. Sorry, no, PepsiCo's scientific staff will be writing about nutrition on the new Food Frontiers blog. I'll give you a moment to get back on your chair. ScienceBlogs editor, Evan Lerner, writes:
Underneath the introductory post, a growing list of comments is already slamming the decision to let PepsiCo onto a blogging platform that has rightly built a reputation for allowing scientists to say exactly what they want. And, boy, are they saying it. Craig Holman comments:
ZenMonkey says:
The other bloggers on ScienceBlogs.com have also been fiercely critical. At Myrmecos, author Alex Wild is taking a break from writing on ScienceBlogs and going back to his old Wordpress site. Much of the reaction is focused, unsurprisingly, around the potential for conflicts of interest. PZ Myers wastes no time being diplomatic.
PalMD at The White Coat Underground writes that one of the wonderful things about blogs is their independence and writing for ScienceBlogs has significant advantages such as technical support, increased reach, and collegiality. He calls the new PepsiCo blog a "spectacularly foolish decision" and continues:
Neurotopia has left ScienceBlogs completely, along with David Dobbs at Neuron Culture and Blake Stacey at Sunclipse, who writes:
Janet D. Stemwedel of Adventures in Ethics and Science writes:
Jason Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal wants to keep an open mind for now and points out that this is not the first time a corporation has paid for blog space on Scienceblogs. Further responses to ScienceBlogs' decision come from desks of Laelaps, Good Math, Bad Math and GrrlScientist. At the end of his introductory post for the PepsiCo's Food Frontiers blog, Evan Lerner concludes:
Well, they're certainly at the centre of something. 6:45pm UPDATE: Letter from Seed editor Adam Bly, sent today, to ScienceBlogs.com contributors, justifying the reasons for hosting the PepsiCo blog. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jul 2010 | 10:01 am Cruel Summer: The Science of Heat WavesA silent killer, heat waves claim about 175 lives a year.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 8:57 am God on the Go: How iPhones Are Changing ReligionThe proliferation of mobile devices like the iPhone has allowed worshippers to experience religion in new ways.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jul 2010 | 8:20 am Solar lamp wins awardThe developers of a solar lamp that aims to replace kerosene-burning lights in developing countries wins a prestigious environmental award.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:52 am Open SecretsClimate e-mails review condemns lack of opennessSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:17 am UK inquiry finds emails do not undermine climate scienceLONDON (Reuters) - Emails stolen from one of the world's leading climate change research centers contained no evidence to undermine the case for manmade global warming, a report found on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 7:12 am Flood alertAsian nations co- operate to improve flood warningsSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:37 am Solar 24-hour test flight startsAn aircraft that draws its power from the Sun starts a round-the-clock test flight to assess whether it can fly in darkness.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:09 am 'Climategate' review clears scientists of dishonesty over data'Rigour and honesty' of scientists not in doubt but Sir Muir Russell says UEA's Climatic Research Unit was not sufficiently open The climate scientists at the centre of a media storm were today cleared of accusations that they fudged their results and silenced critics to bolster the case for man-made global warming. Sir Muir Russell, the senior civil servant who led a six-month inquiry into the affair, said the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists at the world-leading Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are not in doubt. They did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism as alleged, the panel found, while key data needed to reproduce their findings was freely available to any "competent" researcher. The panel did criticise the scientists for not being open enough about their work, and said they were "unhelpful and defensive" when responding to legitimate requests made under freedom of information (FOI) laws. The row was sparked when 13 years of emails from CRU scientists were hacked and released online last year. Climate change sceptics claimed they showed scientists manipulating and suppressing data to back up a theory of man-made climate change. Critics also alleged that the scientists abused their positions to cover up flaws and distort the peer review process that determines which studies are published in journals, and so enter the scientific record. Some alleged that the emails cast doubt on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Announcing the findings, Russell said: "Ultimately this has to be about what they did, not what they said." He added: "The honesty and rigour of CRU as scientists are not in doubt ... We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments." The review is the third and final inquiry into the email affair, dubbed "climategate", and effectively clears Professor Phil Jones, head of the CRU, and his colleagues of the most serious charges. Questions remain over the way in which they responded to requests for information from people outside the conventional scientific arena, some of whom were long-standing critics of Jones. "We do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA," the report, commissioned by UEA, said. It also criticised the CRU scientists for failing to include proper labels on a 1999 graph prepared for the World Meteorological Organisation, which was the subject of an infamous email about Jones using a "trick" to "hide the decline". The panel said the result was misleading, though they accepted this was not deliberate as the necessary caveats had been included in the report text. Separately, it was announced today that Phil Jones has accepted the new post of director of research at CRU. The vice chancellor of UEA, Professor Edward Acton, said this was "not a demotion but a shift in emphasis of role" for Phil Jones. "CRU will be more closely integrated in the bigger school of environmental sciences and a key difference is to place some of the administrative burden that Phil had before this incident on the head of the school," said Prof Acton. Jones will be more free to direct and conduct his own research. Future FOI requests for the CRU will be directed though the head of the school, Professor Jacquie Burgess, and the ultimate responsibility for such requests will lie with the vice-chancellor, as highlighted in the Russell report. • Additional reporting by Christine Ottery guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:02 am
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In a paper published July 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, physicists led by the University of Chicago’s Greg Engels describe coherence in the FMO protein complex. A wildly complicated tangle of molecules, the FMO complex directs energy from photon-sensitive “antenna” proteins on a photosynthetic bacterium’s surface to internal, charge-converting proteins.
Distant molecules quivered in tandem — a phenomenon possible only through coherence, in which energy exists in multiple, linked states simultaneously. Once energy has explored the possible routes through the FMO complex and found the most efficient one, it collapses back into a single state.
