BP works to replace cap over gushing well (AFP)

AFP - Using underwater robots, BP engineers worked on Sunday to replace a cap over a gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a new attempt to contain the worst environmental disaster in US history.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Jul 2010 | 2:17 am

Indian govt sorry for dumping Bhopal waste in 2008 (AFP)

AFP - The Indian government has apologised for secretly dumping toxic waste from the 1984 Bhopal gas leak, the world's worst industrial disaster, in an incinerator two years ago.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Jul 2010 | 1:35 am

BP's new oil leak plan under way

Underwater robots successfully remove a leaking cap as BP tries again to halt the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 11 Jul 2010 | 1:29 am

Oil unleashed temporarily in attempt to contain it (AP)

AP - Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil are being allowed to spew into the fouled waters of the Gulf of Mexico while BP engineers prepare to install a new containment system they hope will catch it all in the coming days.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Jul 2010 | 1:15 am

Remote Easter Island set for total solar eclipse (AFP)

AFP - Tourists and scientists poured onto remote and mysterious Easter Island Sunday to watch a rare solar eclipse, a mixed blessing for the tiny Pacific community.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 11 Jul 2010 | 1:04 am

Rosetta probe passes space rock

Europe's Rosetta space probe flies past the Asteroid Lutetia, returning a stream of scientific data for analysis.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Jul 2010 | 8:40 pm

BP starts work to install new cap on gushing well (Reuters)

Reuters - BP Plc removed a containment cap from its stricken Gulf of Mexico oil well on Saturday in the first step toward installing a bigger cap to contain all the crude gushing into the sea and fouling the coast.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 6:50 pm

Scientists roll out mats to kill Lake Tahoe clams (AP)

AP - Scuba-diving scientists are unrolling long rubber mats across the bottom of Lake Tahoe coves in an attempt to quell a clam invasion that could cloud the world-reknown cobalt waters.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 5:46 pm

Meet the mummies

A new exhibition in the US puts on display an incredible array of mummies – and only a few from Egypt

A 4,500-year-old Peruvian child, an 18th-century Hungarian family and a German nobleman dead since 1648 and still in his top boots: it's a motley cast that figures in the largest travelling collection of mummies ever assembled.

Mummies of the World, an exhibition that opened at the California Science Centre in Los Angeles, boasts 45 mummies and 95 artefacts from Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe and ancient Egypt, some dating as far back as 6,500 years.

The show started life after 20 human mummies thought to have been lost during the second world war were found at the Reiss-Engelhorn museums in Mannheim, Germany, in 2004. "The find was a big surprise," according to Dr Wilfried Rosendahl, the mummies' curator. "During construction work in one of our main buildings,, we discovered some mummies in a hidden corner. They were in an old box which was mislabelled 'ceramics'. It was full of bodies and mummified heads."

Rosendahl launched the German Mummy Project, an international and interdisciplinary research effort, to find out where they came from. "We thought we had one from Egypt, but we compared its DNA with a modern database and found it was actually from northeast Asia."

Researchers used radiocarbon dating and CT scanners to find out each mummy's geological age, and age at death. "We can get information about nutrition by looking at wearing of the teeth," Rosendahl says. You can tell if a mummy was vegetarian by analysing collagen isotopes in its hair. One child mummy's hair showed traces of nicotine.

Detailed analysis of textiles and bracelets worn by the mummies showed many were South American. One exciting discovery was of a mummy child. Under a special UV light, it could be seen that the whole body was covered in a natural resin. Previously, this embalming technique was only known in ancient Egyptian mummies. "We will show the world that mummies are not just from Egypt," Rosendahl adds triumphantly.

The exhibition will be touring the US for the next three years. To see more images, go to guardian.co.uk/science

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 10 Jul 2010 | 5:05 pm

Smelling potential lovers

Tamara Brown helps dating agencies to match couples using an improbable method of establishing compatibility

Tamara Brown, 33, is a behavioural geneticist and entrepreneur. Her company, GenePartner, offers a service for dating agencies assessing biological compatibility on the basis of DNA. For $99, clients submit a saliva test and their DNA is analysed and matched against five potential partners based on genetic coding for immunity, an indicator of sexual attraction. Further matches cost $1 each. The system was inspired by a 1995 study by Professor Claus Wedekind at the University of Bern, in which women smelled T-shirts worn by different men and rated them for attractiveness. Wedekind found the women were most attracted to men whose DNA coding for HLA molecules, a key player in immunity, was most different from their own. GenePartner, which Brown runs from Zurich with a partner, Joelle Apter, has been operating for two years and the company has conducted 1,500 tests.

So smelling T-shirts is a good indicator of compatibility?

It boils down to biological match – the evolutionary drive to produce children who have the best chance of survival. People choose a partner whose immune system complements their own. This has been well-proven in animals and Professor Wedekind wanted to prove the link in humans.

Can you explain the science behind that?

HLA, the human leukocyte antigen, is one of the main factors in the immune system. It is rare among genes in that it is polymorphic, which means there are many possible sequences, more than 1,000. HLAs operate like a lock-and-key system. Each HLA molecule is the lock and the key is a pathogen. The more HLAs you have, the more different pathogens it can bind and instructs the immune system accordingly. So choosing a partner with different HLAs produces a child with a much broader immunity.

How have you built on Professor Wedekind's research?

In his experiment, the women never met the men, merely expressed levels of attraction. We took it a step further by analysing established couples to see whether the theory holds – whether successful couples have a significantly higher difference in HLA profiles. And we found that they do.

How nuanced can you be? Will certain HLA combinations lead to a different type of attraction or feeling for each other?

The basic rule is that if someone has very different HLAs, you will be more attracted to them. We found that you may be attracted to someone with similar HLAs but the nature of the attraction will be different. It is basically about whether you feel cosy with the other person or want to date them. Biologically, your family is your support and someone with similar HLAs is closer to your family.

Whereas with someone with different HLAs, you want to sleep with them...

Exactly. We are looking at the sexual part here.

But wouldn't people with passionate but difficult relationships behind them perhaps want a bit less chemistry? A more sensible match?

There is a sexual and a social part to a good match – your personalities must be compatible too. However, the sexual part is really important, probably more important than people think because it keeps the relationship younger and more passionate. When you are in love in the beginning, you are a little bit blind and don't see your partner's faults. You don't care if he doesn't put the lavatory seat down. If the chemistry is right, you will stay in this mode for longer. That is what chemistry and passion do for you. Without them, you see things more and get annoyed.

Does this system ever make mistakes?

The contraceptive pill can skew things. What tends to happen when the woman is on the pill is that she chooses a partner more similar in HLA profile than you would expect. Then there can be problems later on when the woman comes off the oral contraceptive and the sexual attraction drops.

What would a report from you show in terms of predicting compatibility?

We give an overall result for biological compatibility, on a sliding scale from very bad to fantastic. We give a measure for levels of attraction. A measure of the type of interest – whether this would be a passionate attraction or a more cosy one. We measure the symmetry of attraction – whether you will be equally attracted to each other or one of you will be more attracted to the other. The majority of successful couples have good symmetry. Finally, we give the probability of a successful pregnancy.

You can predict fertility from a couple's HLA profiles?

There is published research to show that couples who are not biologically compatible are more likely to have a miscarriage in early pregnancy.

Did you use your system to meet your husband?

I met him online in 2001, when we didn't have the system, but we are a good match. I thought the internet was a great way to find a partner, but friends kept complaining about meeting men and not clicking. That gave me the idea for GenePartner: you can work out so much online, but not chemistry. My husband and I did the test later on and had 80% compatibility.

What a relief?!

I knew it would be OK. We have lots of established couples coming to us to do the test, but I think they know the answers already.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 10 Jul 2010 | 5:05 pm

How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom

From art to angel cakes, our fun today is directly related to ancient primal needs. It just takes a little imagination…

Evolutionary scientists remind us so often that our brains were made for the demands of the stone age that it's easy to forget how smart we are. It's true that human males are still hardwired to drag as many women into our cave as possible, but at least we have worked out what might happen if some of them aren't our wives.

The fully realised imagination is a wonderful thing, not only alerting us to life's multiple possible outcomes but allowing us to see into the past, read each other's minds, daydream and – pertinently, for the purpose of this enlightening and entertaining book – have more fun than we were designed for.

How, it asks, did our species get beyond the basic comforts of food, sex and animal skins? How did we end up with a taste for Tabasco sauce? Or watching golf? Paul Bloom, a psychology professor at Yale, believes our huge range of modern enjoyments are "the byproducts of mental systems that have evolved for other purposes". Where once the imagination was occupied keeping Cro-Magnon man ahead of the game, now it is the game, channelling our every sophisticated pleasure, from Shakespeare to Grand Theft Auto to relaxing in a Radox bath.

We've never had so diverting a time with our art, music, books, fashion and pornography. Though none of it seems obviously useful in a Darwinian sense, Bloom suggests that our new pleasures are linked to a fixed set of old ones based on primal needs. But while it's not hard to see that Belgian chocolates are also a vital source of sugar and fats, or that tenpin bowling is simply war by other means, Bloom argues that these preferences are the result of what he calls "essentialism" – an awareness of what lies beneath the basic properties of things. It may be too late to improve our genetic stock by having Elvis Presley's babies, but we can get close to the great man's "essence" by buying the trunks he wore in Fun in Acapulco on eBay. Similarly, we treasure ostensibly unremarkable objects – trinkets, photographs, ticket stubs, old cuff links – because they contain the "essence" of our own histories.

Bloom applies his essentialist theory across a spectrum of categories you feel he could have kept adding to for ever: symphonies, panoramic views, bottled water, pets, our gnawing need for spiritual or scientific truths, the question of what would happen if you inadvertently had sex with your spouse's identical twin. And how do you feel about cannibalism? Beyond the question of morals and legality (and the slightly offputting revelation that human flesh tastes like Spam), are we to conclude – as Bloom's line of reasoning seems to invite – that eating a fellow human being for the pleasure of his "essence" is fundamentally no weirder than wanting to marry a footballer? Taste, he argues – wherever you find it on the vast spectrum of our psychological urges and wants – is not rational but personal. You like ice cream, I like sautéed dog.

We may always be saved by disgust – essentially Bloom's pleasure principle in reverse, which kicks in, for example, when people are asked if they'd like to try on one of Hitler's old sweaters. One way or the other, imagination can get the better of you.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 10 Jul 2010 | 5:05 pm

Splendeuptychia ackeryi

After a 90-year wait, this butterfly gets to show off its fine moustache

Among the 3 million butterfly specimens in the Natural History Museum, London, a new species sat unrecognised for 90 years until curator Blanca Huertas matched it with specimens she had collected in Colombia.

Among the distinctive features of the new species, Splendeuptychia ackeryi, is a "moustache" of long hairs on the mouthparts. South America is home to about 40% of the world's 20,000 butterfly species.

Quentin Wheeler is director of the International Institute for Species Exploration, Arizona State University

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 10 Jul 2010 | 5:03 pm

In pictures: Mummies of the World

A previously unseen collection of 150 mummified humans, animals and burial artefacts

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 10 Jul 2010 | 5:01 pm

Rosetta’s Closest Asteroid Flyby Photos

The Rosetta spacecraft took its first close-up images of the asteroid Lutetia today, revealing it to be a heavily cratered, elongated rock.

Rosetta got within 2,000 miles of the asteroid, which is about 80 miles long and 4.5 billion years old. The closest images got down to less than 200 feet in resolution.

The spacecraft was traveling at around 9 miles per second, and the whole flyby took less than a minute. The European Space Agency mission is now focused on its primary target, comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta should arrive at the comet in 2014 and hang out with it for a few months and send a lander to the comet nucleus.

Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 10 Jul 2010 | 4:27 pm

European Space Agency looking closely at asteroid (AP)

AP - The European Space Agency has taken the closest look yet at asteroid Lutetia in an extraordinary quest some 280 million miles in outer space between Mars and Jupiter.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 4:06 pm

Protein that predicts prognosis of leukemia patients may also be a therapeutic target

Researchers 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

Moms' favoritism tied to depression in adulthood

Whether 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

Antibody may help treat and prevent influenza outbreaks

Researchers 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

Saturn propellers reflect solar system origins

Scientists 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

Novel ion trap with optical fiber could link atoms and light in quantum networks

Physicists 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

Better barriers can help levees withstand wave erosion

A 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

Earth From Space: Greenland Glacier Shrinks Overnight

A 2.7-square-mile chunk of Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one-eighth the size of New York’s Manhattan Island, broke off into the ocean between July 6 and 7.

The sudden mile-long retreat of the glacier, caught in the image above by DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 2 satellite, moved the point where the ice meets the ocean further back than it has ever been seen. This kind of calving event isn’t that unusual, but seeing it hours after it happened in this much detail is rare. And the event is somewhat unexpected this year.

“While there have been ice breakouts of this magnitude from Jakobshavn and other glaciers in the past, this event is unusual because it occurs on the heels of a warm winter that saw no sea ice form in the surrounding bay,” said cryospheric program scientist Thomas Wagner in a press release July 9.

“While the exact relationship between these events is being determined, it lends credence to the theory that warming of the oceans is responsible for the ice loss observed throughout Greenland and Antarctica,” Wagner said.

The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier has retreated more than 27 miles since 1850, and six of those miles were lost since 2000. Scientists estimate that up to 10 percent of Greenland’s ice that is currently being lost is coming from this glacier, making it the largest single cause of rising sea level in the northern hemisphere.

Image: Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier on July 6 (left) and July 7 (right) DigitalGlobe.

See Also:

• Stunning Views of Glaciers Seen From Space
• Cryosphere: Earth’s Icy Extremes Seen From Space
• Astronauts Spot Mysterious Ice Circles in World’s Deepest Lake
• Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space
• Erupting Volcanoes on Earth as Seen From Space
• Icelandic Volcano’s Ash Plume as Seen From Space

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 10 Jul 2010 | 2:12 pm

Mysterious Asteroid Unmasked By Space Probe Flyby (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A European spacecraft zoomed by past a mysterious asteroid Saturday to take the first-ever close look at the space rock while flying more than 282 million miles from Earth.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 1:45 pm

Green Tech Lights the Way In Haiti

Cash-strapped, earthquake-ravaged Haiti is an ideal place to put renewable energy to the test. One American social entrepreneur is making it happen.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jul 2010 | 1:40 pm

Russian Subs: The Answer to BP’s prayers?

Russian scientists believe their deep-diving Mir submarines could cap the leaking BP oil rig.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jul 2010 | 11:30 am

Sea Otters, the Cutest Way to Fight Global Warming

Apart from being totally adorable, sea otters may account for $700 million worth of carbon sequestration.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jul 2010 | 11:15 am

Choir to sing the 'code of life'

Scientists and composers produce a new choral work in which singers sing parts of their own genetic code.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Jul 2010 | 9:39 am

Head of aboriginal warrior finally laid to rest

The head of an aboriginal hero killed by settlers in Australia in 1833 is finally buried after being returned from England.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Jul 2010 | 9:12 am

New spin on drug delivery: Chemical engineers discover an enhanced delivery method of DNA payloads into cells

Chemical 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

Honey bee venom may help design new treatments to alleviate muscular dystrophy, depression and dementia

Scientists 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

Severe angina poses three times the coronary artery disease risk for women than men

Women 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

Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trust

What 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

New Gene Sequencing Method Could Reduce Cost, Increase Speed (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 7:25 am

Study: Cell Phone Towers Don’t Raise Cancer Risk

A new study finds no link between childhood cancer and exposure to cell phone towers.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jul 2010 | 7:00 am

6.2-magnitude quake shakes Pacific near Guam: USGS (AFP)

AFP - A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake shook the Pacific near the US territory of Guam Saturday at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was immediately issued.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 10 Jul 2010 | 6:45 am

Badger divide

Feelings run high as community awaits cull verdict
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 10 Jul 2010 | 4:22 am

Debate grows over impact of dispersed oil

Researchers 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