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Protein that predicts prognosis of leukemia patients may also be a therapeutic targetResearchers at Whitehead Institute and Children's Hospital Boston have identified a protein, called Musashi 2, that is predictive of prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia and chronic myeloid leukemia patients. Diagnosed in an estimated 48,000 new patients annually, leukemia is blood cancer characterized by an overgrowth of certain blood cells. Musashi 2 and the cellular functions it affects could potentially represent therapeutic targets in certain types of leukemia.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Saturn propellers reflect solar system originsScientists using NASA's Cassini spacecraft at Saturn have stalked a new class of moons in the rings of Saturn that create distinctive propeller-shaped gaps in ring material. It marks the first time scientists have been able to track the orbits of individual objects in a debris disk. The research gives scientists an opportunity to time-travel back into the history of our solar system to reveal clues about disks around other stars in our universe that are too far away to observe directly.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Moms' favoritism tied to depression in adulthoodWhether mom's golden child or her black sheep, siblings who sense that their mother consistently favors or rejects one child over others are more likely to show depressive symptoms as middle-aged adults, finds a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Better barriers can help levees withstand wave erosionA new barrier design could protect reservoir levees from the erosive forces of wind-driven waves, according new research. These findings could help lower the maintenance costs for constructed ponds in the lower Mississippi Delta where levee repairs can average $3 per foot -- and sometimes are needed just five years after a reservoir is built.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Novel ion trap with optical fiber could link atoms and light in quantum networksPhysicists have demonstrated an ion trap with a built-in optical fiber that collects light emitted by single ions, allowing quantum information stored in the ions to be measured. The advance could simplify quantum computer design and serve as a step toward swapping information between matter and light in future quantum networks.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Antibody may help treat and prevent influenza outbreaksResearchers have discovered a monoclonal antibody that is effective against "avian" H5N1, seasonal H1N1 and the 2009 "swine" H1N1 influenza. Scientists have shown that this antibody potently prevents and treats the swine H1N1 influenza in mouse models of the disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Severe angina poses three times the coronary artery disease risk for women than menWomen who have the most serious form of angina are three times as likely to develop severe coronary artery disease (CAD) as men with the same condition, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am New spin on drug delivery: Chemical engineers discover an enhanced delivery method of DNA payloads into cellsChemical engineers have discovered how to "greatly enhance" the delivery of DNA payloads into cells. Lu's ultimate goal is to apply this technique to create genetically modified cells for cancer immunotherapy, stem cell therapy and tissue regeneration.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trustWhat can a wide-eyed, talking robot teach us about trust? A lot, according to psychology professors who are conducting innovative research to determine how humans decide to trust strangers -- and if those decisions are accurate.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Honey bee venom may help design new treatments to alleviate muscular dystrophy, depression and dementiaScientists researching a toxin extracted from the venom of the honey bee have used this to inform the design of new treatments to alleviate the symptoms of conditions such as muscular dystrophy, depression and dementia.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Feds say new cap could contain Gulf leak by Monday (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 2:59 am The nation's weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 2:55 am Debate grows over impact of dispersed oilResearchers fear chemical is finding its way to shore and up the food chain<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/eitm3xdUKjg" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 10 Jul 2010 | 2:46 am BP to place new containment cap on oil spill (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 1:08 am Fish oil salemen find EU in the way | Ben GoldacreIt's tough wading through health claims for food supplements, but Brussels has rejected 80% of 900 examined so far This week the food and nutrition pills industries are complaining. They like to make health claims about their products, which often turn out to be unsupported by the evidence. Regulating that mess would be tedious, the kind of project enjoyed by the EU. Enter Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation in 2006. Since then member states have submitted thousands of health claims for manufacturers about cranberries, fish oil and every magical ingredient you can think of. This week it turned out that 900 have been examined so far, of which 80% have been rejected. "The regulation is killing this industry and the job losses are already being felt," Ioannis Misopoulos, the head of the International Probiotics Association, told the BBC. Even "established claims like cranberry for urinary tract health" are being rejected, say pill company PowerHealth, adding: "There will be no information on packs for the consumer to assess what the product is supposed to do." SlimFast, that great British institution, may have to change its name, according to the same report. All complain that the bar for evidence is being set too high. I decided to read some adjudications. These are available in full on the EU website. I can only apologise, but the first thing I typed in was fish oil. Picture this as a long-running pseudoscience soap opera – and they are the bestselling food supplement in the UK, in a global $55bn (£37bn) market. Pharmaceuticals company Vifor Pharma wants to claim that Eye Q fish oil capsules improve working memory in children, and so sent in references to six studies (the deliberations are in full online). First, the fact that the company sent in six studies is interesting because Equazen, which manufactures Eye Q and is now owned by Vifor, told me in 2006 it had 20 positive studies showing that Eye Q improves school performance and behaviour in children, although it refused to let me see them, so there was no way to find out what they did, what they measured, who participated, or indeed anything at all about these studies. If ever there was a time to roll out those well-conducted trials, in which thousands of children volunteered their bodies for experiment, surely it was now, for the EU? Apparently not. Two of the six studies were conducted in children with developmental co-ordination disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Whatever the value of these labels and the extent to which they are overused as diagnostic categories, these are not mainstream children and the results may not generalise, so it seems reasonable to take those with a pinch of salt. Next, three of the six studies did not look at working memory. I hope it's not unfair to suggest they can be disregarded. Last, there is a positive result for one sub-type of working memory, verbal working memory, tested with digit span (how many numbers you can remember), from an unpublished trial of Eye Q. I don't know how many trials Equazen have today but, from a company with 20 hidden trials in which to hunt for an isolated positive result in one subscale from one variable, this does not feel like compelling evidence. I don't think this is a regulator being unfair. What is unfair is taking these claims at face value. Companies want to make these claims to sell their products and will find a way – through journalists if need be, rather than labels. People want to buy these products: many of us enjoy pretending to ourselves that pills have proven medical effects, even though we kind of know the claims aren't for real. PowerHealth says that if you stop it making claims, people will buy from companies abroad that can. They're right. In the field of addiction we use harm reduction strategies, like shooting galleries and prescribed opiates for heroin addicts, where the harmful effects of widespread vices that will never go away are at least contained. You'll never stop companies making these claims. You'll never stop people enjoying their claims. This game is at least 200 years old. The best solution I can see is an EU-mandated bullshit box, where people can say what they want about their product, consumers can join in, but the game is clearly labelled. 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 | 10 Jul 2010 | 1:00 am Japan deports convicted NZ anti-whaling activist (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 8:11 pm BP set to install bigger cap on leaking Gulf well (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 5:50 pm This column will change your life: How real are your memories?When it comes to recalling experiences, intensity matters more than duration Without question the most memorable holiday I've ever been on – and I mean that in a bad way – involved a four-berth motorboat, the Dutch canal system, and my family (I must have been 14). Regrettably, what it didn't involve was anybody with anywhere near enough expertise at piloting motorboats on Dutch canals, which is why two moments in particular are lodged in my memory. One concerns a shockingly narrow escape from the path of a massive industrial barge; the other resulted in significant damage to a blameless Dutchman's dinghy. I also recall a seafood dinner on the final night, after we got back to the boatyard, that was sublime – and not solely, I think, because we were safe at last, having successfully evaded both death and the Netherlands police. I'd dined out on this story for years before I learned that it's a textbook example of the "peak-end effect", a now well-established psychological phenomenon whereby we remember and judge our experiences, whether good or bad, not in their entirety but according to how they felt at their emotional peak, and at the end. No doubt our Dutch holiday included moments of enjoyment, boredom, hassle and low-key relaxation, but all I remember are the worst bits and the last bit. In one excruciating-to-think-about study by Daniel Kahneman, the economist who coined the term, and others, a group of colonoscopy patients had their endoscopes left in place for several minutes at the end, causing continued pain, but less than during the procedure itself. As a result, they suffered for longer – but actually rated the overall experience as less painful than those who had the device immediately removed, apparently because the last part was less bad. The broader principle at work here seems to be that, when it comes to recalling experiences, intensity matters more than duration. As a society we fixate on duration and generally assume that the way to have more positive experiences is to have longer ones: we chastise ourselves for not spending more time with children or friends; we convince ourselves that a "proper" holiday requires at least a week off. But as the American psychologist Thomas Gilovich told the Boston Globe recently, "If you have to sacrifice how long your vacation is versus how intense it is, you want shorter and more intense." And don't worry about spending more time with your kids; worry about spending more memorable time with them. The implications of this are reassuring: in a world where time seems forever in short supply, the message is that you don't need as much of it as you thought. But it requires a fundamental shift in how we think about positive experience, towards recognising that much, perhaps most, of the value of a holiday, or time spent with favourite people, isn't in the experience itself but in its recollection – and therefore that planning such events should focus as much on how they'll be remembered as how they'll be enjoyed in real time. Meanwhile, I like to imagine that something fantastically wonderful happened to that Dutchman the same afternoon we broke his dinghy, so that these days he can barely recall the incompetent British tourists who crashed into his beloved boat, then sped shamefully away, zigzagging, because they still hadn't figured out how to steer. 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 | 9 Jul 2010 | 5:02 pm European Spacecraft Has Weekend Date With Asteroid (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - A comet-chasing European space probe has a blind date with an asteroid on Saturday, and will snap the first ever close-up photos of the space rock in a landmark flyby.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 4:15 pm DNA patent ruling hinders MonsantoLawyers debate a European court decision on patents involving genetic material.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 9 Jul 2010 | 4:15 pm NAACP: Minorities assigned tougher oil spill jobs (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 4:11 pm Good Vibrations are Good for your BrainElisa Konofagou, a bioengineer at Columbia University, believes ultra sound technology could become be a vital component in treating and perhaps curing degenerative brain diseases such as Cancer, Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 4:10 pm Mysteries of Brown Fat Revealed (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Brown fat - the calorie-burning, "good fat" that is plentiful in babies - has been shown to also be present in adults, and scientists are now working on harnessing its mysterious powers to help people lose weight.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 3:35 pm Mysteries of Brown Fat RevealedScientists are working on harnessing brown fat's mysterious calorie-burning power in order to help people lose weight.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 3:23 pm Parental care linked to homosexualityBirds that devote less time to their offspring engage in more same-sex behaviour.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 9 Jul 2010 | 3:19 pm Rosetta probe to pass by asteroidThe Asteroid Lutetia will become the largest space rock to be visited by a probe when the European Rosetta mission flies past it.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 2:24 pm 5 Celestial Lights to Brighten July's Nights (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Five of the sky's brightest and most dazzling lights will make appearances in the western sky on several nights this month in a promising celestial show for skywatchers with clear skies.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 2:15 pm Light Pollution: A Growing Problem for WildlifeArtificial lights may stave off our fear of the dark, but they also spell trouble for animals that rely on darkness to find food or migrate.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 2:08 pm New Cap Could Seal Well as Relief Drilling ContinuesIf the containment cap fails, engineers are hopeful relief wells will do the trick. Find out how the two wells work here.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 1:50 pm New Buoys Lets Submarines Join Military Data NetworkNew communications buoys allow submarines to send and receive text messages while submerged and moving.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 1:25 pm New Group of Moons Found Orbiting SaturnCurious how planets can form from disks of gas and dust? Well, the rings of Saturn are serving scientists as a living laboratory to better understand the process.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 1:14 pm Brawny Neanderthals, Walking Fish and More: Editor's PicksAbove, you'll see some of the top images of the week. Click on each one to explore the story behind it. If you were too busy powering your air conditioner this week to turn on your computer, here's a list ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 12:36 pm UK mulls science cash prizes for innovationLONDON (Reuters) - British scientists could be invited to compete for cash prizes to discover new technologies as a cost-effective way to support research in an era of lower public spending, Science Minister David Willetts said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 12:27 pm Dark Matter May Be Building Up Inside the Sun
The sun could be a net for dark matter, a new study suggests. If dark matter happens to take a certain specific form, it could build up in our nearest star and alter how heat moves inside it in a way that would be observable from Earth. Dark matter is the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but doesn’t interact with electromagnetic forces. Although the universe contains five times as much dark matter as normal matter, dark matter is completely invisible both to human eyes and every kind of telescope ever devised. Physicists only know it’s there because of its gravitational effect on normal matter. Dark matter keeps galaxies spinning quickly without flying apart and is responsible for much of the large-scale structure in the universe. Current dark matter detectors are looking for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, that connect only with the weak nuclear force and gravity. Based on the most widely accepted theories, most experiments are tuned to look for a particle that is about 100 times more massive than a proton. The chief suspect is also its own antiparticle: Whenever a WIMP meets another WIMP, they annihilate each other. “This is something that has always worried me,” said astroparticle physicist Subir Sarkar of the University of Oxford. If equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the big bang, the particles should have completely wiped each other out by now. “Obviously that did not happen, we are here to prove it,” he said. “So something created an asymmetry of matter over antimatter,” letting a little bit of matter survive after all the antimatter was gone.
Whatever made regular matter beat out regular antimatter could have worked on dark matter as well, Sarkar suggests. If dark matter evolved similarly to regular matter, it would have to be much lighter than current experiments expect, only about 5 times the mass of a proton. That’s a suggestive number, Sarkar says. “If it were five times heavier, it would get five times the abundance. That’s what dark matter is,” he said. “That’s the simplest explanation for dark matter in my view.” The trouble is, these light particles are much more difficult to detect with current experiments. In a paper in the July 2 Physical Review Letters, Sarkar and Oxford colleague Mads Frandsen suggest another way to find light dark matter: Look to the sun. Because lightweight dark matter particles wouldn’t vaporize each other when they meet, the sun should collect the particles the way snowballs collect more snow. “The sun has been whizzing around the galaxy for 5 billion years, sweeping up all the dark matter as it goes,” Sarkar said. The buildup of dark matter could solve a pressing problem in solar physics, called the solar composition problem. Sensitive observations of waves on the sun’s surface have revealed that the sun has a much easier time transporting heat from its interior to its surface than standard models predict it should. Dark matter particles that interact only with each other could make up the difference. Photons and particles of regular matter bounce off each other on their way from the sun’s interior to its surface, so light and heat can take billions of years to escape. But because dark matter particles ignore all the regular matter inside the sun, they have less stuff in their way and can transport heat more efficiently. “When we do the calculation, to our amazement, it turns out this is true,” Sarkar said. “They can transport enough heat to solve the solar composition problem.” Next, Sarkar and Frandsen calculated how being full of dark matter would affect the number of neutrinos the sun gives off. They found that the neutrino flux would change by a few percent. That’s not much, Sarkar said, but it’s just enough to be detected by two different neutrino experiments — one in Italy called Borexino and one in Canada called SNO+ — that are soon to get under way. “It’s a speculative idea, but it’s testable,” Sarkar said. “And the tools to test it are coming on line pretty fast. We don’t have to wait 20 years.” The idea of lightweight dark matter influencing the sun is “not too much of a stretch, in my opinion,” said physicist Dan Hooper of Fermilab in Illinois. “I look at their numbers, and they’re very plausible to me.” Some puzzling results from dark matter detectors hint that these lightweight particles could have already been detected. Earlier this year, a germanium hockey puck in a mine in Minnesota called the Coherent Germanium Neutrino Technology (CoGeNT) detected a signal from a particle about 7 times the mass of the proton, though they’re not sure yet whether it’s dark matter. Another detector in Italy called DAMA has reported similar results. “There’s an increasingly compelling body of evidence accumulating” that dark matter is just a few times as massive as a proton, Hooper said. “The jury is still out, but if this is really what’s going on, we should be able to know it with some confidence in the next year or so.” Update: Regular matter makes up 5 percent of the energy density of the universe, and dark matter makes up 25 percent (five times more than regular matter). The remaining 70 percent is dark energy. Image: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory See Also:
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Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:48 am If it's June it must be warm, wet and windy (AP)AP - Warm, wet and windy! That was June, depending on where you lived in the United States.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:27 am As NASA's Plutonium Supply Dwindles, ESA Eyes Nuclear Energy ProgramNASA is running low on plutonium, an issue that is causing growing concern for future outer solar system missions. Will Europe step in to alleviate concern for the supply of this valuable energy resource?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:18 am South Pacific EclipseOn Sunday, July 11th, a total eclipse of rare beauty will sweep across the South Pacific.Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:12 am What Caused a Mammoth Holocaust?One of the last remaining wooly mammoth populations may have experienced a sudden die-off.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:12 am Science minister unleashes dinosaurs and a giant spongeAt a speech at the Royal Institution today, science minister David Willetts revealed how the government plans to win over children and save British science Space and dinosaurs. That's what the new coalition government's science policymakers will be focusing on to get kids into science. We've all been there. You're at the Natural History Museum trying to impress your girlfriend with your in-depth scientific knowledge. You confidently announce that the skeleton in front of you is "A Velociraptor, honey, like the ones off Jurassic Park". It only takes a second to be upstaged by a five-year-old. "I think you'll find it's Deinonychus, actually," announces the nearby child. "And they got it wrong in the films anyway, most of the dinosaurs were from the Cretaceous period not the Jurassic." The kid gives you a withering look and walks off with your date. The coalition government's minister for universities and science David Willetts says he understands those kids. Delivering his first major speech on science policy at the Royal Institution today, he said: "The two best ways of getting young people into science are space and dinosaurs. So that's what I intend to focus on." At a press briefing before the speech, Willets said: "One of the contributions that we can make in my department to science and schools is the sheer excitement to kids getting interested in science." He said public engagement events like the Atlantis space shuttle astronauts' current UK tour were a great way to get young people hooked. The question remains whether young people will get excited about science after a speech that favoured "hard-headed economic arguments" over blue-sky research. "It seems to me that sometimes ... an appeal to a sort of chauvinist sense of Britain being first is not necessarily the argument that is most persuasive to ... work out whether public money should be spent," said Willetts. "What I personally find more persuasive is the argument – it's got a kind of clunky word, someone in this room will be able to think of a much better name for it – what is called 'absorptive capacity'." Willetts said that Britain should have the capacity to absorb and learn from excellent science going on elsewhere in the world, even if "world-breaking science" wasn't generated here. Britain currently carries out about 5% of the world's research, and scores well on measures of quality. "If you're doing your own cutting-edge research," said Willetts, "it does actually increase your capacity as well to benefit from cutting-edge research going on elsewhere." So we need a better term for "absorptive capacity". Might I suggest The Science Sponge. It's cheap, it's effective and it certainly ain't clunky. Here's how the Sponge works. The cutting edge research gets done by other nations, then Britain sponges off all their hard work to soak up the benefits. The Sponge also cleans up all those nasty research laboratories that cost so much money, leaving the economy squeaky clean. Genius. Willetts said he didn't think the cuts in the school building programme would greatly affect the concentration of the next generation of scientists as they sit in their lessons. "You can have inspiring science lessons in school buildings, even if they've been around for quite a while." Public engagement with science events were "as important for getting young people studying science as the exact age of the building in which the science lessons take place," he added. Willetts viewed the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review as an opportunity for a strategic approach to science spending. "Rather than just kind of equal misery everywhere ... it may be better to get out of some activities altogether," he said. "But it's early days and those are decisions still to be taken." He did have good news for budding mathematicians, however. "Virtually anything with maths in it is an incredibly good lifetime investment," he said. So it remains to be seen which sciences the Sponge will clean up first. 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 | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:08 am Earliest evidence of pet tortoiseThe earliest archaeological evidence of a tortoise kept as a family pet in Britain is unearthed by researchers.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:57 am Turbulence Discovery Could Lead to Better Planes
With just a single measurement, a new model may deftly describe turbulent fluid flows near an airplane wing, ship hull or cloud, researchers report in the July 9 Science. If the long-sought model proves successful, it may lead to more efficient airplanes, better ways to curb pollution dispersal and more accurate weather forecasts.
Turbulence is a problem that extends far beyond a bumpy plane ride. Fluid flowing past a body — whether it’s air blowing by a fuselage or water streaming across Michael Phelps’s swimming suit — contorts and twists as it bounces off an edge and interferes with incoming flows, creating highly chaotic patterns. Airliners squander up to half of their fuel just overcoming the turbulence within a foot or so of the aircraft, and turbulent patterns in the bottom 100 meters of the atmosphere confound weather and climate predictions. Physicists and engineers have had a good grip on the basic behaviors of fluids since the mid-1800s, but have been baffled by the complexity of the tumultuous flows near a boundary. “We don’t really have a handle on the physics,” says study co-author Ivan Marusic of the University of Melbourne in Australia. “So even though the problem is over a hundred years old, we still really haven’t had a major breakthrough.”
In their new study Marusic and his colleagues measured forces in a giant wind tunnel, both near and away from a wall. Data collected by probes suggested a tight link between the small-scale turbulence near a wall and large, smoother patterns of air flow farther from the wall. In particular, newly identified flow patterns called superstructures turn out to have a big effect on the turbulence near the wall. These smooth, predictable flow patterns away from the wall change the turbulence right next to the wall in predictable ways, a link that allowed Marusic and colleagues to write a mathematical formula relating the two. “The fact is that we were sort of amazed because it’s such a simple formulation,” Marusic says. “Now with this model, all we need to do is measure the outer flow and we can predict what’s happening near the wall.” If it pans out, the formula may be incorporated into models of climate, weather and pollution dispersal. And now that they have a better understanding of the near-wall turbulence, Marusic and his colleagues are trying to reduce it by manipulating the smooth flow of fluids away from a wall. One of the strengths of the new model is that it allows the complex flow near boundaries to be reduced to a bare-bones motion that can be easily understood, says engineer Ronald Adrian of Arizona State University in Tempe, who authored an accompanying article in the same issue of Science. “This model is a breakthrough step, but we’re not ready to say that it’s going to solve all our problems,” he says. “I don’t know if we have enough evidence yet to call it universal, but the hope is that it will be universal.” Image: zoagli/Flickr
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:51 am Willetts: 'Science for growth'The UK's science minister David Willetts says that there is a rational economic case for Britain to have a strong research base.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:46 am New Heart Rate Formula Sets Lower Max for WomenResearchersSource: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:38 am New Gene Sequencing Tool Moves DNA With Electric FieldResearchers are developing a new method to sequence the human genome. The sequencer uses an electric field to drive a strand of DNA through a small hole, or "nanopore," in a membrane.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:06 am 1 in 4 Don't Cover Coughs and SneezesOnly 1 in 4 people cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze, a new study suggestsSource: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:03 am 'Psychic' Octopus Predicts Spain to WinThe eight-legged oracle has become a World Cup sensation after correctly predicting all six of Germany's games.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 10:00 am Oil Gusher Threatens Newly-Discovered Fish SpeciesNewfound species of pancake batfish lives in range of spill.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 9:59 am This isn't the first time Seed has flouted editorial independenceJournalist Gaia Vince recalls how Seed magazine, owner of ScienceBlogs, spiked one of her articles because it was critical of a potential advertiser While the science community reacted with indignation and shock this week over ScienceBlogs' decision to publish a blog on nutrition written by food giant PepsiCo, I was unsurprised. I've been here before with Seed magazine, owners of the ScienceBlogs network. Yesterday, no doubt in response to the loss of some of its star bloggers, the offending blog, Food Frontiers, was removed. Adam Bly, founder and chief executive of Seed Media Group, apologised to his community for "what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way." Seed would have received welcome advertising funds by blurring its content in this way, but would this have been enough to compensate for the blow to its reputation? As far as I am concerned, the company no longer had a reputation to uphold. Until last year, I wrote a regular column for Seed. In fact, I will always be grateful to them for backing my plans to travel through developing countries looking at the influence of science on development, the effects of climate change and related issues that other media often shy away from. However, things went pear-shaped pretty early in our relationship. Seed had published six of my columns before I realised things weren't as they should be. I had sent them my next couple of columns: a news story from the Maldives announcing a new ban on whale shark hunting, and a column written in February 2009, from Bhopal, India, 25 years after the chemical explosion there. I heard nothing for a few weeks, by which time the whale shark piece was "old news" in journalism terms. Then, after sending Seed requests for payment, I received an email from my editor asking for more columns and explaining that they wouldn't be publishing the Bhopal piece because it was critical of Dow Chemical, which now owns the company that caused the gas leak in 1984, and that Seed was seeking an advertising contract with Dow. The email said:
Crystal clear. It seems I had to run my articles past the ads department. In more than a decade working in the industry, I had never come across such a blatant disregard for editorial independence. My motivation for telling this tale is that some people think that the ScienceBlogs fiasco has been a lot of fuss about nothing – that Seed is just trying to make a buck and went about it in a rather naive way, and the scientists who left the site are blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Freelancing, as I have discovered (and after years of being an editor), is a vulnerable occupation and it can be almost impossible to earn enough to get by. Those who left the security of ScienceBlogs may not have jeopardised their entire earnings, but it was a brave decision and they were right to take it. Journalism is a small, inter-dependent industry. Science journalism, like every specialism, operates in a particularly small world and I know that by telling this story, my colleagues may close ranks behind Seed. But in return for all the times we journalists ask others to blow the whistle and expose corruption, I know I must be willing to do the same. I sent the Bhopal piece to the BBC, who know the difference between editorial and advertising content. I have not been able to replace my regular column with Seed. Gaia Vince is a freelance journalist, reporting on the human impacts of climate change 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 | 9 Jul 2010 | 9:21 am Antiquities Dealer Tied to Stolen Shakespeare TextA British man has been found guilty of handling stolen goods following the theft of a Shakespeare manuscript.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 9:15 am Home Births Increase Risk for BabiesBabies born at home have greater risk of dying than those born in hospitals.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 8:52 am New Gene Sequencing Method Could Reduce Cost, Increase SpeedPhysicists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are working to develop a new method to sequence the human genome that will make the dream of the $1000 genome a reality.Source: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 8:11 am Russian sub 'could stop oil leak'Russian Mir submersibles would be able to cap the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the captain of one of the vessels has said.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 7:36 am Eclipse Draws Tourists to Easter IslandAstronomers deemed the mysterious island the best place to witness Sunday's alignment of the sun, Earth and moon.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 Jul 2010 | 7:29 am Scientists Hunt for Signs of Earliest Life on EarthScientists search for ancient life forms across the globeSource: Livescience.com | 9 Jul 2010 | 7:24 am Watch armour made from 'bullet-proof custard' in actionA liquid armour has proven successful in stopping bullets fired from a gas gun, according to scientists.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 6:22 am Marine scientists emerge from the deep with 10 newly discovered speciesA six-week voyage into the deep seas of the Atlantic Ocean has yielded 10 possible new species which have revolutionised thinking about deep-sea life Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 9 Jul 2010 | 5:48 am 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 | 9 Jul 2010 | 5:27 am Are chatting chimpanzees 'socially aware'?Chimps are aware of the social impact of their communications, primatologists discover.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 5:09 am Earth WatchSome food for thought on 'Fish Debt Day'Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 5:09 am Bloodhound diaryIt's a tale of two halves for team building a 1,000mph carSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 4:05 am Tree flowers after 90-year waitAn ancient Chinese proverb tells us that with patience a mulberry leaf eventually becomes a silk gown.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 9 Jul 2010 | 3:47 am
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