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Getting a step ahead of pathogensA recent article examines the possibility of using epistasis to predict the outcome of the evolutionary processes, especially when the evolving units are pathogens such as viruses.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Scientists tap into Antarctic octopus venomResearchers have collected venom from octopuses in Antarctica for the first time, significantly advancing our understanding of the properties of venom as a potential resource for drug development. They also revealed the existence of four new species of octopus.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Relationships improve your odds of survival by 50 percent, research findsIn a new study, researchers report that social connections -- friends, family, neighbors or colleagues -- improve our odds of survival by 50 percent.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Engineers prove space pioneer's 25-year-old theoryWhen American space pioneer, Dr. Robert L. Forward, proposed in 1984 a way of greatly improving satellite telecommunications using a new family of orbits, some claimed it was impossible. But now engineers in Scotland have proved that Forward was right.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Waste fat from frying fuels hydrogen economyDon't pour that dirty fat from the fryer down the sink -- it could be used to make the fuel of the future.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am Alcohol reduces the severity of rheumatoid arthritis, study findsDrinking alcohol may reduce the severity of rheumatoid arthritis, according to new research. It is the first time that this effect has been shown in humans. The study also finds that alcohol consumption reduces the risk of developing the disease, confirming the results of previous studies.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am New drug delivery technique: Nanoblasts from laser-activated nanoparticles move molecules, proteins and DNA into cellsUsing chemical "nanoblasts" that punch tiny holes in the protective membranes of cells, researchers have demonstrated a new technique for getting therapeutic small molecules, proteins and DNA directly into living cells.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am Latest 'green' packing material? Mushrooms; Packing foam engineered from mushrooms and agricultural wasteA new packing material that grows itself is now appearing in shipped products across the country. The composite of inedible agricultural waste and mushroom roots is called Mycobond, and its manufacture requires just one eighth the energy and one tenth the carbon dioxide of traditional foam packing material.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am Genetic risk score associated with breast cancer risk; predictive of type of diseaseWomen with higher risk scores that consisted of having certain genetic variants most strongly linked to breast cancer had an associated higher risk of breast cancer, with these scores also highly predictive of estrogen receptor-positive disease, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am Many knee and hip replacement patients experience weight decrease after surgeryPatients often exhibit a significant decrease in weight and body mass index (BMI) after undergoing knee or hip replacement surgery (arthroplasty).Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am Pollution threat to deepest lakeThe world's deepest and oldest lake, Lake Baikal, is at risk of being removed from the UNESCO World Heritage list.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 28 Jul 2010 | 3:02 am 'Choice' fetish spawns mind-meltingly stupid homeopathy policyThe UK government's rejection of a damning Commons report on homeopathy leaves Martin Robbins baffled and depressed The government has released its eagerly anticipated response to the Science and Technology Committee's Evidence Check on Homeopathy and, incredibly, it's even worse than I thought it would be. The verdict is "business as usual", with the main recommendations of the committee ignored in a fog of confusion and double-think. You get a sense of this confusion very early on, with lines like: "given the geographical, socioeconomic and cultural diversity in England, [policy on homeopathy] involves a whole range of considerations including, but not limited to, efficacy." I actually have no idea what this means – do medicines work differently in Norfolk from the way they work in Hampshire? The report doesn't elaborate. As expected, the word "choice" features heavily in the government's response: There naturally will be an assumption that if the NHS is offering homeopathic treatments then they will be efficacious, whereas the overriding reason for NHS provision is that homeopathy is available to provide patient choice ... if regulation was applied to homeopathic medicines as understood in the context of conventional pharmaceutical medicines, these products would have to be withdrawn from the market as medicines. This would constrain consumer choice and, more importantly, risk the introduction of unregulated, poor quality and potentially unsafe products on the market to satisfy consumer demand." So we can't regulate these products as medicines because they'd end up being banned, but we'll let them be called medicines anyway? It gives me a headache just trying to think down to the level of the person who wrote this stuff. The report accepts that there's no evidence that homeopathy works, but apparently this shouldn't be a barrier to it being distributed via the NHS because not handing out medicines that don't work might infringe the freedom of patients to choose things that don't work. What makes this even more absurd is that they concede that: In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available. He [the government's chief scientific adviser] will therefore engage further with the Department of Health to ensure communication to the public is addressed." So the government is planning to launch a public information campaign against homeopathic treatments at the same time as it continues to fund those treatments through the NHS. In this glorious mess of a policy the government has come up with something so brain-meltingly stupid that even the satirical brain of Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, In the Loop) would struggle to match it. What I find so frustrating is this dedication to a form of "consumer choice" that is absolutely anything but. If I walk into a pharmacist looking for a packet of condoms, and I'm given the choice between a packet of Durex and a sock, it isn't a choice, it's just a pointless piece of confusion that's going to lead to lots of people having really uncomfortable sex, and a localised population explosion. Another feature worth picking up on is the way in which responsibility for these decisions has been passed down the line, allowing alternative medicine to fall conveniently into various regulatory gaps. The government doesn't believe that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has time to waste on a review of homeopathy, while the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has made its guidelines flexible enough to allow many homeopathic products a free pass, for reasons that are still unfathomable to me. In this regulatory vacuum the government's response repeatedly delegates responsibility for making decisions on the use of homeopathy to primary care trusts, yet these are set to be abolished in the next few years, which will dump responsibility onto individual GPs. The General Medical Council's guidance to GPs on the issue of alternative medicine is woolly at best (and the the council has ignored my requests to clarify it). The GMC states that "we are not in a position to advise doctors about the suitability or otherwise of particular treatments as our remit does not extend to collecting, analysing or disseminating clinical information" and basically leaves it to GPs' own judgement about whether or not a treatment is in the best interests of a patient. Given that some GPs are practising homeopaths, this is a not a thrilling prospect. Before the election I put questions on science policy to all the main parties on behalf of the Guardian. The Conservatives told me that it would be "wholly irresponsible to spend public money on treatments that have no evidence to support their claims". The Liberal Democrats stated that they would actively seek a full review of complementary and alternative therapies and that, "[if] Nice's advice was that the treatment did not perform better than placebo, then of course it should not be supported by the NHS." Both parties made a commitment to evidence-based medicine on the NHS. Both parties have performed screeching U-turns on the subject at the first hurdle, ignoring pledges made in writing only three months ago. What should they do now? As a near namesake of mine once said, I'd make a suggestion, but they wouldn't listen. No one ever does. It's all very depressing. 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 | 28 Jul 2010 | 1:28 am Poisonous fish warning for swimmersBathers along Britain's coastline are being warned to be on the look-out for the country's most poisonous fish.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 28 Jul 2010 | 1:27 am 'Demonised' BP boss ignites fresh US anger (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 1:23 am Project helps Alaskans spice up soil (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 28 Jul 2010 | 1:17 am 'Size matters' for canny midgesAberdeen University zoologist Dr Jenny Mordue describes the behaviour of Scotland's famous insects.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 28 Jul 2010 | 12:42 am The 'Haystack' Gets Smaller in Hunt for Higgs ParticleHunting for the Higgs boson isn't like trying to find one needle in a haystack (as the proverbial saying goes), it's like trying to find one needle in a Chicago-sized city filled with haystacks.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 11:46 pm For Space Shuttle Workers, The End Is HereNASA's future may be up in the air, as Congress debates a myriad of options for the U.S. human space program, but 1,394 shuttle workers are getting a concrete reminder this week of what's in store -- no job.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 11:01 pm Does music make you run faster?Music has helped elite tri-athletes in Australia increase their endurance by 15%, researchers say.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 10:56 pm Two Is the Magic Quantum Number
Extending an experiment at the foundation of quantum physics confirms that two is company and three is a crowd. In a new twist on the famous double-slit experiment, researchers have verified a basic tenet of quantum mechanics by showing that adding a third slit doesn’t create additional interference between packets of light.
In the 1920s, German physicist Max Born proposed that particle pairs — and not triplets, quadruplets or more — can interfere, causing their wavelike forms to boost and diminish one another. Born’s math puts the interference contribution of the third slit (and any additional slits) at exactly zero. Although the reason why quantum interference stops at two isn’t clear, Born’s postulate has been widely accepted and used by physicists, yet until now it hadn’t been explicitly tested in experiments. “It’s important that you test all the postulates of quantum mechanics,” says Urbasi Sinha of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Canada, coauthor of the new study July 23 in Science. “What is the point of just advancing a theory in its theoretical form if you don’t have experiments backing things up?”
In the new study, Sinha and colleagues made three parallel slits in a stainless steel plate, each 30 micrometers wide and 300 micrometers tall. Light was sent through the slits, and detectors on the other side tallied up the photons that passed through each. A blocking mask allowed the researchers to open and close the three slits independently. If existing quantum mechanics equations (and Born’s postulate) are right and three-party interference doesn’t happen, then the interference pattern when all three slits were open could be explained entirely by the combined patterns of single and double slits being open. So Sinha and her colleagues shot photons at the triple slits with all eight combinations of slits open and closed. Subtracting the interference pattern caused by all seven of the other possibilities from the pattern formed with three open slits resulted in a number very close to zero. That result, published in Science July 23, leave very little room for Born’s postulate to be incorrect. “Just because you’ve added a third slit doesn’t mean that you have any further interference coming in,” Sinha says. “You can explain it all in terms of single and double slit contributions.” Detecting third-party interference would have had tremendous consequences, says theoretical physicist Fay Dowker of Imperial College London in England. “If a non-zero result were ever to be obtained, it would mean that quantum mechanics is wrong, in the same way that the double-slit experiment proves that classical physics is wrong.” Most physicists expect that as more triple-slit experiments are conducted with other particles such as electrons and buckyballs, the case for Born’s postulate will get stronger, Dowker says. But she adds that there is a small chance that the value might get stuck at a small number hovering just above zero. “That’s the exciting thing.” Some physicists have wanted to tweak Born’s rule to better mesh quantum mechanics with gravity. But doing so in a way that still agrees with experiments has been a challenge. The new study shows that to solve some of the outstanding mysteries, theorists will probably have to modify another piece of the puzzle. But having a value from an actual experiment in a lab provides a “good lead toward what is possible and what is not in these unification attempts,” Sinha says. Image: Science/AAAS See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Jul 2010 | 9:48 pm Man detained in China over zoo panda death (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 9:21 pm BP gets "wake-up call" and $32 billion in spill charges (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 9:06 pm Friends offer 'a survival boost'Having good friends and neighbours appears to boost survival chances by 50%, say researchers.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 6:48 pm More Than 1,300 Space Shuttle Workers Get Layoff Notices (SPACE.com)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 6:15 pm Violent Spacequakes Shake Earth's Magnetic Field (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - Like an earthquake in space, so-called spacequakes are temblors in Earth's magnetic field caused by plasma flying off the sun that could help generate the colorful auroras that dance high in Earth's atmosphere, a new study suggests.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 6:15 pm Bladeless Fans Propel Balloon BalletEngineers at appliance maker Dyson demonstrate the aerodynamic principles of inducement and entrainment in this homage to "The Red Balloon" ("Le Ballon rouge"), the 1956 classic French film by Abert Lamorisse.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 5:12 pm Genes Influence Your Response to Others' Drinking Habits (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Your genes may determine how likely you are to imitate the drinking habits of others, new research suggests.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 5:06 pm Dogs Automatically Imitate PeopleSome dogs may look like their owners, but all dogs imitate their human companions.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 5:00 pm Genes Influence Your Response to Others' Drinking HabitsYour genes may determine how likely you are to imitate the drinking habits of others, new research suggests.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:46 pm Protein mapping gains a human focusNext phase of the US Protein Structure Initiative enlists biologists to help crack tough human receptors.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/ZYjyg-SFASg" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:42 pm A closer look at cosmic impactsMoon-crater survey could improve Solar System surface-dating methods.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:42 pm US seeks solar flair for fuelsEnergy department launches initiative to commercialize artificial photosynthesis.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:41 pm Therapeutic HIV vaccines show promiseClinical trials hint that treatment strategy is not a dead end.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:32 pm Gulf flow has stopped, but where's the oil? (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:29 pm With a little help from your friends you can live longerStudy finds being sociable is good for your health, while loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day A life of booze, fags and slothfulness may be enough to earn your doctor's disapproval, but there is one last hope: a repeat prescription of mates and good conversation. A circle of close friends and strong family ties can boost a person's health more than exercise, losing weight or quitting cigarettes and alcohol, psychologists say. Sociable people seem to reap extra rewards from their relationships by feeling less stressed, taking better care of themselves and having less risky lifestyles than those who are more isolated, they claim. A review of studies into the impact of relationships on health found that people had a 50% better survival rate if they belonged to a wider social group, be it friends, neighbours, relatives or a mix of these. The striking impact of social connections on wellbeing has led researchers to call on GPs and health officials to take loneliness as seriously as other health risks, such as alcoholism and smoking. "We take relationships for granted as humans," said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Utah. "That constant interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our physical health." Holt-Lunstad's team reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social interactions and health of 308,849 people over an average of 7.5 years. From these they worked out how death rates varied depending on how sociable a person was. Being lonely and isolated was as bad for a person's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. It was as harmful as not exercising and twice as bad for the health as being obese. The study is reported in the journal Plos Medicine. Holt-Lunstad said friends and family can improve health in numerous ways, from help in tough times to finding meaning in life. "When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility to other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks." Holt-Lunstad said there was no clear figure on how many relationships are enough to boost a person's health, but people fared better when they rarely felt lonely and were close to a group of friends, had good family contact and had someone they could rely on and confide in. Writing in the journal, the authors point out that doctors, health educators and the media take the dangers of smoking, diet and exercise seriously, and urge them to add social relationships to the list. A report by the Mental Health Foundation in May blamed technology and the pressures of modern life for widespread feelings of loneliness in all age groups across Britain. The survey of more than 2,200 adults found one in 10 people often felt lonely and one in three would like to move closer to their family. Andrew McCulloch, of the Mental Health Foundation, said the latest study builds on work that links isolation to poor mental and physical health. "Trends such as increasing numbers of people living alone and the advent of new technologies, are changing the way in which we interact and are leading both the young and old to experience loneliness. It is important that individuals and policy-makers take notice of emerging evidence and of the potential health problems associated with loneliness." 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:22 pm Way Found to Gauge Pig's HappinessNow scientists could determine if a pig is happy in its living quarters.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 4:16 pm Muddying the waters on Gulf oxygen dataIndependent researchers claim oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico is real, but a US government report advises caution.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:58 pm Dozens missing in China landslideDozens more people are reported dead or missing as the worst torrential rain in decades continues to wreak havoc in China.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:52 pm Scientist says hundreds may die as smog blankets MoscowNOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (Reuters) - A prominent scientist said hundreds of people could die as smog from peat fires blanketed a sweltering Moscow for a second day on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:37 pm WikiLeaks Tech Challenges 'Top Secret' SecurityOne push of a button and WikiLeaks put some 91,000 documents at the public's disposal.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:33 pm Newest Printers Show Skills In Making 3-D ObjectsTwo printers highlight how dramatically 3-D printing have improved.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:27 pm Oz marsupials 'began in Americas'The characteristic koalas, kangaroos and wombats of Australia share a common American ancestor, according to genetic research.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:24 pm 'Flying Car' Concept Gets a Design TweakThe Transition is a plane that can fold up its wings to achieve street-safe (and legal) dimensions.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:21 pm Infrared Camera Sees Anthrax-Stricken BisonThe technology allows wildlife managers to find dead bison hidden under thick brush and dispose of the carcass before it can pose a threat to other animals.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:02 pm Want to Live Longer? Get Some FriendsMaking friends might prolong lifeSource: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:01 pm Marsupials Not From Down Under After AllAll living marsupials - such as wallabies, kangaroos and opossums - have one ancient origin in South America, a new genetic study found.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:01 pm Hideously diverse Britain: a fight in several languagesTranslating information helps people integrate, so cutting back will have repercussions So, I ask my new friend Andy: are you part of the problem or the solution? He is taken aback, as well he might be. What's he been doing? Translating stuff into foreign languages. You should be ashamed of yourself, I say. He refuses to take the bait. And yet we live in strange times, so it is true to say what Andy does is frowned upon. Why do we need documents on how to claim benefits in Urdu, goes the complaint from the ideologues and the penny pinchers on the right. Who needs another housing discrimination leaflet in Polish? Or health leaflets in Punjabi? Doesn't this stuff cost a fortune? Doesn't it discourage integration? Why don't the blighters learn English? Andy says translated information doesn't deter people from integrating. It helps them integrate. No point telling someone to learn English if there isn't a leaflet they can understand pointing them in the right direction. Yes, translations cost money, but so does not having them. "An eviction costs about £35,000. Isn't it better that people know how to avoid it? How much is wasted on NHS treatments for people who might have presented earlier if they had been aware of symptoms? Isn't it better to help people settle, to work, to pay tax?" Makes sense. But hardly anyone wants to listen. The very idea of translating material, particularly that produced by the public sector, has been under attack for some time. An attack spearheaded by Hazel Blears, says Andy – for, as communities secretary, she bought the argument that mass translations were part and parcel of a discredited multiculturalism. Next stop, greater integration. It hasn't worked out that way, but that's not to say she failed to make an impact. Try sitting in Andy's shoes, with a community translation service in east London called MultiKulti. Celebrated and funded and heavily utilised one minute. Unloved by those who make policy and scratching around for funds the next. Hard to stop the rot, not least because curbing translations, without thought for the repercussions, carries a deep political symbolism. Easy to do it. Raises a cheer. Doesn't mean it's right. 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 2:59 pm New apple is red to the coreA new apple which is red to the core is being sold by a Devon company.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 2:19 pm Some space shuttle workers get layoff noticeCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's prime space shuttle contractor, United Space Alliance, sent layoff notices this week to more than 15 percent of its 8,100-member shuttle work force, officials said on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 2:02 pm A history of folly, from the Trojan horse to Afghanistan | Simon JenkinsBy recording failure in meticulous detail, the leaked war logs bear devastating witness to our incompetence Is it the death of war? In Vietnam the horror of fighting was brought to TV screens in real time. Such was the reaction that American citizens withdrew their consent. In the 1980s computers were said to have restored the aloofness of battle by enabling armies to fight and defeat an enemy by remote control. They could locate the foe, direct fire and drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy. That thesis is now threadbare. There is no such thing as a secure computer, let alone an accurate one. Every jot of information is leaky, permeable, corruptible, accessible, free-to-air. Computerisation and miniaturisation have stripped command of all secrecy and rendered every success or failure vulnerable to WikiLeak. As a result, like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, computers can change sides and become the enemy. Far from defeating the enemy, technology is portrayed as shielding soldiers from the immediate result of their actions, hence distorting tactics and corrupting strategy. By recording failure in meticulous detail, the logs mock the moral basis for so-called wars among the peoples. Like Vietnam's TV images, they leave the Iraq and Afghan conflicts as bloodthirsty killing fields, devoid of rational justification. The war logs are not so much sensational as relentless. Most of the material was known. It is the detail that bears devastating witness. Afghanistan 2001 now enters firmly into the pantheon of folly, from the wooden horse to Napoleon in Moscow to Vietnam. Indeed it bears the added crassness of coming two decades after the Russians committed the exact same folly in the same place. In 1971 the Pentagon papers revealed the deception of the Johnson and Nixon governments during the Vietnam war. The papers were credited with collapsing US morale as the war drew to a close. The Afghanistan logs convey a different message. They show George Bush, Tony Blair and their generals to be so dazzled by their massive military (and intellectual) firepower that they thought they were invincible against a tinpot Taliban. Anyone who visited Kabul in the past eight years knew that a western war of occupation would end in tears. The Taliban were a concept, not an army. Al-Qaida was an unwelcome guest, but only the Taliban were likely to expel it. Mujahideen would ooze from the rocks if provoked and never stop fighting until the infidel was expelled. Pakistan, long holder of the key to the Afghan door, had a powerful interest in backing the Taliban, an interest promoted and financed by the CIA in the 1980s. All this was known – and is now confirmed. What could not have been predicted is that Nato, the Pentagon and Britain's defence ministry could so ignore past history and current intelligence as to invade with main force, seek to pacify the Pashtun and then "build a nation" in a medieval land along western democratic lines – all with such incompetence. We could not have predicted, back in 2001-2, that this adventure would become the apotheosis of liberal interventionism, a good war, a righteous war, a New Labour war. The logs reveal the resulting hubris in ghoulish detail: the failure of "hearts and minds", the waste of aid, the flip-flop on opium production, the odious belief that money trumps zeal and love of country. The logs are shot through with the arrogance of the hi-tech warrior and the glee taken in murdering leaders from the air. If enough Taliban are killed, says the machine, the enemy must surely run out of men. What is most startling is the continuance of a strategy – the bombing of civilian targets in the hope of killing Taliban – that everyone seems to accept is counterproductive. Bombing and strafing crowds, like assassinating leaders and blowing up civic buildings, hopelessly disrupts communities and benefits mafias. Each dead Pashtun is not a talisman of success, as Nato press releases claim, nor is each civilian killed merely "regrettable". It recruits 10 more to the enemy. Every Taliban elder murdered breeds another, younger one, frantic for vengeance. Yet no US or British general has succeeded in getting the bombings to cease. The computers are literally on autopilot. Hence last week's rocket attack on 45 civilians in Helmand, a massacre that would be a war crime if committed by infantry rather than airmen. The consequence of such slaughter is catastrophic in a civilian battlefield. The kit may work on Salisbury Plain but in Helmand, the piled corpses merely form a second front for the enemy. With each atrocity another thousand Afghans must cry, better alive under the Taliban than dead under Nato. Yet in the Guardian yesterday, a former British officer, Richard Kemp, protested that the Taliban "deliberately and routinely uses women and children as human shields, and attempts to lure our forces to kill innocent people". He seems completely ignorant of counter-insurgency tactics. There is no justice in Britain's continued presence in Helmand, merely ceaseless bloodletting and a desperate hope to extricate the army with minimal loss of face. Soldiers, and the politicians who rely on their advice, have become ever slower learners, like generals on the Somme. They disregard Afghan history and the "lantern on the stern", blundering blind into the darkness ahead. Nato is already talking down the Afghan war as "not being about winning". Since the logs reveal the hopelessness of relying on Afghans to fight Taliban, the war can hardly be about anything else. Since Lady Manningham-Buller's evidence to Chilcot last week, nobody can claim it is about making Britain safe from terrorism. Nor is it anything to do with oil, or drugs, or Iran, or Pakistan, because in each case the war is making matters worse. I cannot avoid the conclusion that, just as the Pashtun are said to be "hardwired to fight", so now are certain western regimes. War is about sating the military-security-industrial complex, a lobby so potent that, long after the cold war ended, it can induce democratic leaders to expend quantities of blood and money on such specious pretexts as suppressing dictators in one country and terror in another. Like puppets dancing to manufactured fears and dreams of glory, these leaders have lost their grip on Plato's "sacred golden cord of reason". Until that grip is restored, the folly revealed by the war logs will continue. 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 1:30 pm You Are Sexually Attracted to Your Parents, and Yourself
It’s not an excuse, but there may be a biological reason that jail-bound Aimee Sword was sexually attracted to the teenage son she gave up for adoption. In a series of experiments where subjects viewed photographs of their opposite-sex parent or a photo morphed with their own face, researchers found that people are turned on by photographs of people who resemble their close genetic counterparts. “People appear to be drawn to others who resemble their kin or themselves,” said psychologist R. Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois, lead author of the study published July 20 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. “It is possible, therefore, as Freud suggested, that incest taboos exist to counter this primitive tendency.” The debate about whether aversions against incest stem from a cultural adaptation to suppress biological urge or a psychological adaptation that evolved by natural selection dates back to the early 1900s. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud proposed the former explanation, and sociologist Edward Westermarck proposed the latter, arguing that there is a critical period while people are growing up during which if they are raised with someone they won’t find them attractive. In recent years, Fraley says, contemporary scholars have concluded that Westermarck was right, and Freud was wrong. But based on his study, Fraley argues that the debate may have been settled prematurely. “There is evidence on both sides now,” said psychologist David Schmitt from Bradley University. “There is some reason to think that there is something to Westermarck, that there is a critical period, but it may also be that we find and trust and align ourselves with people who have more common alleles.”
In the first experiment, people were shown a series of faces of strangers and asked to rank their sexual attractiveness. Before each of the faces were shown, half the subjects were subliminally exposed to photographs of their opposite-sex parent, by flashing the images so quickly that they couldn’t be processed consciously. The other half of the participants was shown photos of unrelated parents. People who were primed with images of their own mom or dad were more likely to find the faces in the subsequent photo attractive than did people primed with a random image. In the second experiment, participants were asked to rank the sexual attractiveness of another set of faces, but this time the faces were morphed to be composites of two different faces. Unaware that their own faces were part of the morph, half of the subjects were shown faces that were up to 45 percent their own, like an artificial sibling. The other half were shown morphs of faces that were not their own. The people who saw faces morphed with their own found the images more sexually appealing. In the third experiment, people were shown morphs that didn’t involve their own faces, but half were led to believe the morphs did contain their own faces. In this case, the people who wrongly believed the morphs contained their own face ranked those pictures as less attractive. All three experiments support the Freudian idea that we have subconscious mechanisms that make us attracted to features that remind us of our own, and that cultural taboos against incest exist to override that primitive drive. However, one possible explanation for the results of the study is simply that people’s brains tend to process familiar images more easily. Fraley says a subsequent study where the faces to be ranked range in familiarity and the point in life where they were known (early childhood, elementary school) is needed to tell if this is the case. Image: Flickr/notsogoodphotography Citation: R. Chris Fraley and Michael J. Marks. “Westermarck, Freud, and the Incest Taboo: Does Familial Resemblance Activate Sexual Attraction?” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, July 20.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Jul 2010 | 1:04 pm How Preschool Changes the BrainWe live in a world of scarce governmental resources, and they seem to be getter scarcer. This means it’s more important than ever to pick our public investments wisely. A new paper by Flavio Cunha, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, and James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate at the University of Chicago, documents the wisdom of one particular kind of investment: Preschool. While the economists cite a wide variety of research, their most impressive evidence consists of a few different studies that looked at the long-term effects of early childhood education. Let’s begin with the Perry Preschool Experiment, which consisted of 123 low income African-American children from Yspilanti, Michigan. (All the children had IQ scores between 75 and 85.) When the children were three years old, they were randomly assigned to either a treatment group, and given a high-quality preschool education, or to a control group, which received no preschool education at all. The subjects were then tracked over the ensuing decades, with the most recent analysis comparing the groups at the age of 40. The differences, even decades after the intervention, were stark: Adults assigned to the preschool program were 20 percent more likely to have graduated from high school and 19 percent less likely to have been arrested more than five times. They got much better grades, were more likely to remain married and were less dependent on welfare programs. How does preschool work its magic? Interestingly, the Perry Preschool didn’t lead to a lasting boost in IQ scores. While kids exposed to preschool got an initial bump in general intelligence, this dissipated by second grade. Instead, preschool seemed to improve performance on a variety of “non-cognitive” abilities, such as self-control, persistence and grit. While society has long obsessed over raw smarts – just look at our fixation on IQ scores – Heckman and Cunha argue that these non-cognitive traits are often more important. They note, for instance, that dependability is the trait most valued by employers, while “perseverance, dependability and consistency are the most important predictors of grades in school.” Of course, these valuable skills have little or anything to do with general intelligence. And that’s probably a good thing, since our non-cognitive traits are much more malleable, at least when interventions occur at an early age, than IQ. Preschool might not make us smarter – our intelligence is strongly shaped by our genes – but it can make us a better person, and that’s even more important. Just look at the data on the GED program, which administers a battery of cognitive tests to high school dropouts to assess whether or not their level of academic attainment is equivalent to high school graduates. Heckman has found that, once “measured ability” is controlled for, GED recipients tend to earn the same or less than dropouts without the degree. The reason is simple: While young people with GEDs have significantly higher cognitive skills than dropouts, they often exhibit the same problems (or worse) with self-control and self-discipline. These non-cognitive deficits are what hold them back. While the Perry Preschool experiment is the best controlled longitudinal study in support of early education, there appears to be nothing special or unique about the Michigan preschool. Cunha and Heckman cite other studies, such as the Abecedarian Project and the Chicago Child-Parent Center Program, which show similar gains from early education. (The main difference is that the Abecedarian program did manage to boost IQ scores over the long term, but only among girls, and only for those who began the program at a very young age.) Furthermore, the gains from preschool appear to be so significant and consistent that, according to Cunha and Heckman, investing in early childhood education is just about the most cost-effective way to spend public money. The economists calculate that, for every dollar invested in preschool for at-risk children, society at large reaps somewhere between eight and nine dollars in return. That’s how I want my tax-dollars spent.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Jul 2010 | 1:04 pm Tropical Cyclone Birth Predicted with Supercomputer (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - It's the heart of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, the ripest time for tropical cyclones to develop over these waters. But predicting whether or not a storm system will grow into a hurricane is difficult.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:50 pm Tropical Cyclone Birth Predicted with SupercomputerComputer models could lead to earlier storm warnings.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:46 pm Spacequakes Rumble Near EarthResearchers using NASA's THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it "the spacequake."Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:41 pm Very Early Warning: 1-in-1,000 Chance of Asteroid Impact in 2182This isn't an urgent call to arms, but it's a future date to consider. In 172 years time there's the possibility that we might be hit by an asteroid with potential to cause some significant global turmoil.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:33 pm Hospital denies suspected killer got new liver (Reuters)Reuters - The widely reported liver transplant at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital to alleged killer Johnny Concepcion never took place, a spokesperson told Reuters Health on Tuesday. On Monday, the New York Post said Concepcion, 43, who allegedly stabbed his wife to death earlier this month, had gotten a liver transplant at the hospital after eating rat poison in a suicide attempt. The story quickly took off, making headlines such as msnbc.com's "Many outraged as accused murderer gets liver transplant" and CBS News' "Suspected Killer Gets Organ Transplant, Jumped to Top of Waiting List." Liver failure from poison can sometimes kill people much more quickly than a chronic condition such as cirrhosis. That's why a victim of poisoning may move ahead of other patients who've spent more time on the liver transplant waiting list. But Bryan Dotson, a spokesperson for the New York Presbyterian Hospital, said the New York Post report was wrong. "This person did not receive a liver transplant at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital," he told Reuters Health. He declined to make further comments, as hospitals often do in an attempt to protect patient confidentiality. It is unclear whether Concepcion had been taken to another hospital to receive a new liver. Detective Marc Nell, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department, confirmed that Concepcion had been arrested on July 7 in the Bronx in connection with the murder of Jordania Sarita two days earlier. He told Reuters Health the police are still working on the case. He said Concepcion had been transported to the hospital by ambulance, but did not know when this had happened. The alleged incident prompted Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and an msnbc.com contributor, to call for legislative action. Caplan said a hospital wasn't the place to make ethical judgments about patients, deciding who deserves care and who doesn't. "At the end of the day if you are furious that Johnny Concepcion is still alive to face trial you should blame politicians, not doctors," he writes. The NY Post appeared to have taken down its story, "Suicidal 'killer' gets liver transplant," on Tuesday morning.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:28 pm Why Do Hurricanes Form?Researcher this summer hope to answer one of the oldest mysteries in weather science: why do hurricanes form?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:16 pm Food for Mars: A Daunting ChallengeAstronaut foods may appear indestructible, but many crew favorites don't retain their nutrition or palatability for even a year.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:15 pm Tiger escapes from trip to the vetJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A 17-month-old tiger escaped from the back of a pick-up truck while it was being driven to a veterinary clinic in South Africa, triggering a helicopter search by police and wildlife experts.Source: Reuters: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:14 pm New Oil Leak Reported in the Gulf of MexicoA barge crashed into an oil well, sending crude spewing some 20 feet into the air.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm Space Food Turns Gross Within a Year
CHICAGO — Most people find the palatability of in-flight entrees an oxymoron. But even frequent fliers seldom encounter more than a few such meals per week. Astronauts, in contrast, may have to survive months in orbit dining on a really limited menu of processed foods and reconstituted beverages served from oh-so-glamorous plastic pouches. Luckily, even the International Space Station can restock its pantry several times a year because these foods are relatively perishable. Which explains the problem NASA faces in planning for really long missions — like a trip to Mars.
She should know. Perchonok manages not only NASA’s advanced food technology program, but also the development and preparation of foods for Shuttle astronauts. At the Institute of Food Technology annual meeting, on July 20, she described NASA’s limited larder. Foods destined for Space Shuttle missions must have a shelf life of a year, and 18 months if they’ll be deployed on the International Space Station. Of the roughly 65 foods currently available for stocking spacecraft and deemed really palatable by NASA taste panels, 10 will lose their appeal within a year — turning off-color, mushy or tasteless, she reported. By the end of five years, Perchonok says, “we’re down to seven items.”  Servings of apples from a pouch packaged recently and sterilized with pressure-assisted technology (left) and from one 2 years ago (right) show the older serving doesn't pass muster. Moreover, she adds, “studies have shown that if the acceptability or the sensory properties degrade, so does the [food's] nutrition.” Indeed, after one year, space food exhibits notable losses of vitamin A, folic acid (an important B vitamin) and thiamine (another B vitamin that plays a role in the body’s use of carbs and certain building blocks of proteins). And nutrient losses don’t end there, Perchonok says. “Basically, after one year, we are out of vitamin C.” Sure, NASA could supply astronauts with multivitamin pills. But that’s no panacea, Perchonok observes, since preliminary studies by NASA have shown that the potency of vitamins diminishes faster in pills than it does in foods. Clearly, she says, these food-nutrient losses are “pretty serious.” So if NASA wants to be able to stock a spacecraft for Mars travel, “we’ve got a problem.” Using current propulsion systems, the space agency has to plan on it taking between six and eight months to travel each way to Mars, Perchonok explains. Since Mars and Earth come close to each other only once every other year, crews “will have to stay on the surface for 18 months” before returning home, she adds. Because glitches may arise or crews may be asked to help stock a Martian pantry for followup visitors from Earth, NASA’s goal is the development of foods that will remain both safe and appetizing for at least five years. Canned goods have a good shelf life, but can’t be heated in microwaves — and are considerably heavier than the pouches that astronaut food is dispensed in today. And weight is a big issue. It constitutes about 15 percent of the payload of food, which is expected to weigh 10.6 U.S. tons for a crew of six heading out to Mars. To keep the weight down, foods are eaten in their packaging. And today’s foil-lined pouches tend to work well when conventionally heat sterilized — but can delaminate when their contents are subjected to “pressure assisted” thermal sterilization, a new technique being developed by C. Patrick Dunne of the Army’s Natick, Massachusetts, Soldier R&D Center and his colleagues. Dunne’s consumers are military troops sent into the field with rations packaged as meals ready to eat, or MREs. (Dunne’s innovative pressure-assisted sterilization helped him win selection as an IFT research fellow, last year.) MREs must have a shelf life of three years at 79 degrees Fahrenheit, Dunne reported at the IFT meeting, last week. And though the experimental pressure-assisted sterilization system he reported on is slow (able to sterilize just 10 MREs per half hour), he expects the technology eventually can be scaled up to a continuous processing of 50 pouches per minute. The new technology’s real benefit is taste, he noted. A salmon fillet in Alfredo sauce processed with the new pressure-assisted technology not only tastes yummy, he says, but also “looks like a salmon that was poached — not like cat food.” Taste is a particularly pivotal issue for astronaut food: Crews need to eat every bite of what they open up. Crumbs from cookies or crackers can make a mess and eventually get into someone’s eyes, Perchonok says. Wet foods that aren’t completely gobbled up will eventually go bad and stink up a spacecraft. Which can become especially nasty since astronauts don’t take out the trash every day but bring it back home with them or hold it for months until they can pack it into a craft that is destined to travel toward Earth’s surface (but actually incinerate in the atmosphere). Bottom line, Perchonok says: NASA needs new ideas for lightweight, very air-tight flexible food packaging that can seal in freshness and sterility for at least three years. Luckily, there should be ample time to find such alternatives since travel to Mars is still many years away, Perchonok says: “Probably 2035 at the earliest.” Images: 1) No, this is not where astronauts buy food. This is a funny photo we found on Flickr. Flickr/gordbot. 2) NASA/Perchonok. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 27 Jul 2010 | 11:37 am String theorist Witten gives prize lectureThe king of string theory visited London earlier this month to accept the Newton medal at the Institute of Physics. His full lecture is now online "We know a lot of things, but what we don't know is a lot more." So said Edward Witten, one of the world's most prominent theoretical physicists, when I interviewed him recently during his visit to London to receive the Isaac Newton medal at the Institute of Physics. The medal is awarded each year to international scientists for outstanding contributions to physics. Last year, it was picked up by MIT's Alan Guth, who gave a brilliant lecture on the inflationary universe. The full video of Witten's lecture has just been posted. Witten is a great speaker and manages to make clear that no matter how much he understands, we have so much more to learn about the nature of matter and the universe, the subjects that dominate his work. He describes the history of string theory and the bizarre world it paints. That world might well be ours, but it might too be any of the countless others that could be going about their business, beyond our perception in the multiverse. If there's a multiverse, why are we living in this particular region? Witten has the answer. Witten is something of a phenomenon. He started out, academically, studying history at Brandeis University, then dabbled with economics and politics before returning to university, this time in Princeton, where he studied applied mathematics under David Gross, a Nobel laureate. He is now at the Institute for Advanced Study, also in Princeton, and the former workplace of Albert Einstein. String theory comes in for its fair share of criticism, but Witten is clear as to why he devotes his time and considerable efforts to it. "I think it's the most interesting avenue we have for trying to go beyond the laws of nature as we currently understand them," he says. My interview with Witten is here. 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 11:37 am Sir Frederick WarnerEngineer and leading authority on nuclear and chemical safety The chemical engineer Sir Frederick Warner, who has died aged 100, was internationally renowned for his pioneering work in building chemical plants and improving the health and safety conditions for workers in the chemical industry. His expertise in environmental impact, particularly of radiation, saw him lead the first international team into Chernobyl to assess the damage caused by the catastrophic reactor meltdown in 1986. Disturbed by the fact that 31 young Soviet soldiers and firefighters had died after exposure to high doses of radiation during the containment operation, he later assembled a group of 100 retired engineers and scientists – Volunteers for Ionising Radiation – who would be available to help during any future such emergencies. After receiving advice from radiobiologists, he reasoned that people who were over 65 would tolerate exposure better than those who were younger and would have fewer concerns over possible genetic effects. Warner - Ned to his friends - was born in St Pancras, north London, the son of Frederick, a policeman, and his wife, Annie. He was educated at Wanstead national school and Bancrofts school and graduated in chemistry from University College London in 1931. With no hope of finding a job in the middle of the Depression, he returned to UCL for a postgraduate diploma in chemical engineering. A committed communist, anti-war campaigner and passionate rugby player who became president of the University of London Union in 1933, he was so busy with his numerous interests that he had to take his diploma twice before he passed. He worked as a chemical engineer for various companies before founding the consulting engineers partnership Cremer and Warner in 1956 with his friend Herbert Cremer. The firm worked around the world, in the Soviet Union, India, Iran, Jordan and Africa, solving problems with large-scale chemical plants, air and water pollution and coal and oil gasification. Warner found the Soviets particularly advanced in gasifying coal underground and adapted their ideas for use in North Sea oil exploration. He was particularly pleased with the work the company undertook on the mathematical modelling of flows on the river Thames and its findings on dissolved oxygen levels and sewage station outfalls. This research subsequently led to a significant clean-up of the river, which in turn enabled fish stocks to recover and saw migratory salmon and sea-trout return – having been absent since Victorian times. He retired from the company in 1980. His international work included the introduction of Camping Gaz to the UK in the 1950s – it was being made in France but could not be sold in Britain because of complex government departmental regulations. Because he spoke French, Warner was asked to translate the company's documentation and advise it on meeting the regulations. This was straightforward for the large cylinders, but the manufacturing process description for the small ones stumped him with a phrase about a "souage" – a word even the French embassy could not help him translate. "One night I woke up and thought – could it mean swage?" he explained. An English dictionary held the answer – the name of that tool comes from the Norman French, souage. "The cylinders were welded on the swage – a bit of lateral thinking can help." Warner's first job in a chemical works in Stratford, east London, in 1934, fuelled his lifelong interest in health, safety and risk assessment. The factory started making fire suppressants as part of the rearmament effort, which involved the use of methyl bromide, which boils at 4C (39F). With only primitive refrigeration equipment available, the workers were wreathed in the vapour and, in Warner's words, "chaps were behaving very oddly – I'd tell them to do one thing and they'd head off in the other direction to do the other". He took them to see Dr Donald Hunter at the London hospital, where they were diagnosed with methylation, including Warner himself, whose hands were trembling because of the effect on his nerves. When the Flixborough chemical plant, in Lincolnshire, exploded in 1974, Warner was appointed as the court expert. He was told to take over the site, send away the factory inspectors and police, and seal it off: "I brought in a young graduate called Rod Sylvester-Evans and put him on site in a hut, and told him, 'You live there, you sleep there and you don't let anybody in'." More information was later needed from the control room, which had been at the epicentre of the explosion, in which 28 people had died. Warner got a team of miners to tunnel into the wreck of the control room and shore it up so that Sylvester-Evans could go in and hunt for any remaining instruments that might show what had caused the explosion. Warner was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (1973-76) and the Advisory Committee on Pollution of the Sea. He was also an assessor on the 1977 Windscale inquiry, examining the desirability of building a plant for the processing of nuclear fuel from the UK and abroad, at the site now known as Sellafield, in Cumbria. As treasurer of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (Scope), he spearheaded a series of definitive reports. The Environmental Consequences of a Nuclear War examined the predicted "nuclear winter" effects of a nuclear holocaust; Pathways of Artificial Radionucleotides collated data on the fallout from Chernobyl; and Radiation from Nuclear Test Explosions analysed radioactivity after every nuclear weapons test. His work with Scope earned him the 1991 Gerard Piel award of the International Council of Scientific Unions. He was knighted in 1968, elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1976, and was awarded both its Leverhulme medal in 1978 and Buchanan medal in 1982. A truly multi-skilled engineer, deeply involved in initiatives to unite the engineering profession both in the UK and across Europe, he was a founder fellow in 1976 of the Fellowship, now the Royal Academy, of Engineering, president of the European Foundation of Engineering Institutes (1968-71), and was involved with professional organisations for chemical, mechanical and civil engineering. Warner was president of the British Standards Institute (1980-82), and reformed its finances by ensuring it earned at least half its income from independent sources rather than relying entirely on government funding. He was a visiting professor at University College London (1970-86), at Imperial College London (1970-78) and from 1983 onwards at Essex University. "I'm glad to say all my doctorates are honorary," he said in an interview, "it's the best way to get them I think – the easiest way!" Warner is survived by his wife, Barbara, whom he married in 1958, and by two sons and two daughters by his first wife, Margaret, who died in 2006. • Frederick "Ned" Edward Warner, chemical engineer, born 31 March 1910; died 3 July 2010 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 11:33 am Dogs Sneak Food When We're Not LookingDogs quietly sneak food when we're not looking, waiting for the perfect opportunity to bite, steal and nosh.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 Jul 2010 | 11:28 am Number of animal experiments performed in UK labs fallsHome Office statistics suggest there were 37,000 fewer animal experiments in 2009 compared with 2008. For the first time, more genetically modified animals were used than non-modified The number of scientific experiments carried out on animals in the UK dropped by 37,000 last year to just over 3.6m, according to data released today by the Home Office. The drop came despite an increase in the use of genetically modified mice, a crucial tool in medical research and genetics. While the number of experiments on new world primates, such as marmosets, increased by around 250, those carried out on old world primates, such as macaques, fell by 590. "The main drop [in the overall figure] was the number of fish used and we think that was probably because the numbers reported for 2008 seemed abnormally high – that was probably a blip and normal research has now been resumed," said Jon Richmond, head of the animal procedures section at the Home Office. He added that, for the first time, the number of genetically modified animals used in research exceeded the number of non-modified animals. The number of procedures is not equivalent to the number of animals used by British scientists: a single animal might undergo several procedures, and the act of breeding a genetically modified mouse counts as a procedure in itself. The total number of procedures, excluding GM breeding, fell by 180,000 in 2009 to 2.1m. Consistent with previous years, 97% of the scientific procedures last year involved rats, birds, mice and fish. The number of cats, dogs, horses and primates combined accounted for less than 1% of the total, said Richmond. The number of animals used in toxicological testing has also been dropping. Richmond said there were a number of reasons for this, one being that there are now alternative tests that are accepted for regulation purposes. "Different international regulators are now prepared to accept the same test data, so there's less re-testing using different animal models for different regulators," he said. "Of that regulatory testing, 78% is for human healthcare products." So far, the Home Office's numbers do not suggest a rise in animal use as a result of the European Union's Reach legislation, which requires the registration and testing of tens of thousands of commonly used chemicals to determine any dangers, ensure their safe use, and encourage companies to switch to safer alternatives. However, the long-term trend in animal use for research is upwards. Barney Reed, senior scientist at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), said: "The public is repeatedly told that animals are only used where 'absolutely necessary' and that the UK has the 'tightest regulations in the world'. It is difficult to reconcile these statements with today's news that more scientific procedures are being carried out on animals in the UK now than at almost any time since the current laws on animal experiments came into force more than 20 years ago." Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone said the government was committed to the highest standards of animal protection. "We are also committed to ending the testing of household products on animals and to working to reduce the use of animals in scientific research, and work is currently under way to see how this can be achieved whilst maintaining the UK's position as a leader in scientific advancement," she said. "The UK already has one of the most rigorous systems in the world to ensure that animal research and testing is strictly regulated. We ensure procedures are only carried out where completely necessary, and that suffering is kept to an absolute minimum." Judy Macarthur Clark, chief inspector of the Home Office's Animal Procedures Committee, pointed to the development of a technique for automatically monitoring pain in mice. "We can use computerised systems to monitor mouse behaviour and expression and it has been demonstrated that the system is as good as experienced human observers." But Reed said the coalition government had reneged on its pledge to reduce the number of animals used in research, failing to announce any new strategy to achieve this. "Over the coming weeks and months people will be watching to see whether there is any genuine commitment to reducing numbers and suffering," he said. 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 10:44 am Scientific procedures carried out on live animals in 2009New figures from the Home Office show the number of procedures carried out on live animals in Britain last year. Find out which animals, and which procedures, here The Home Office published figures today showing the number of scientific procedures carried out on live animals in Great Britain last year. According to the report, 3.6m procedures were carried out in 2009. While the number of other procedures fell by 8%, breeding of genetically modified animals rose by 10% on 2008. We've taken the key tables from the report and compiled them into one dataset. Download the spreadsheet to find out which animals are most commonly used in testing, how many procedures are carried out under anaesthetic and the purpose of tests carried out. Download the data
World government data• Search the world's government with our gateway Can you do something with this data?Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk • Get the A-Z of data Data summary
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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 10:29 am U.S. a Leader in Tension Between Adults and Their ParentsU.S. parents are more likely to experience conflict with their adult children than parents in European countries.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 10:11 am Researchers use more GM animalsThe number of UK scientific experiments involving genetically modified animals overtakes those involving "normal animals" for the first time.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 9:23 am Prehistoric Toothless Fish May Get ProtectionThe endangered pallid sturgeon often gets mistaken for its non-endangered relative.Source: Livescience.com | 27 Jul 2010 | 9:14 am BP puts oil spill cost at $32.2bnBP says it is setting aside $32.2bn (£20.8bn) to cover the oil spill clean-up costs, as it posts record losses of $17bn.Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 27 Jul 2010 | 9:07 am Jellyfish Eyes Solve Optical Origin Mystery
Eyes are one of evolution’s marvels, described by Darwin as “an organ of extreme perfection.” But whether the animal kingdom’s kaleidoscope of eyes evolved from a common structure, or separately in dozens of forms, is a nagging evolutionary question. Now a study of optical genes in jellyfish, which are descended from creatures that swam Earth’s ancient seas, long before vertebrates and invertebrates took their separate paths, suggests a common optical origin. “Eyes have evolved in parallel many times, but they all go back to one prototype,” said University of Basel cell biologist Walter Gehring. In a study published July 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Gehring describe genes isolated from Cladonema radiatum, a jellyfish with highly elaborate eyes. The genes belong to a family called Pax. In earlier research, Gehring found that a gene called Pax-6 is a “master regulator” of optical development, controlling eye formation in creatures as simple as fruit flies and as complex as mice and men. That suggested a common origin — but Pax-6 couldn’t be found in jellyfish, leaving open the possibility that eyes evolved independently in higher animals.
“We’re convinced that the eye evolved in one phylum,” said Gehring. “All the higher animals have Pax-6. The jellyfish have Pax-a or Pax-b.” The next question is where Pax genes and their resulting structures came from. According to Gehring, they could have arrived in jellyfish through symbiosis with dinoflagellates — a family of single-celled marine plankton, some with human-like eye structures inside their single cell. Jellyfish absorbed dinoflagellates, speculates Gehring, after dinoflagellates absorbed Pax genes from red algae, which had absorbed light-sensitive cyanobacteria. Gehring describes this as his “wild Russian doll hypothesis.” His team is now searching jellyfish genomes for dinoflagellate genes. “Evolution is very conservative. It uses the things that function well,” said Gehring. Images: 1) Eyes formed in fruit flies after the insertion of Pax genes from jellyfish./PNAS. 2) A Cladonema jellyfish; arrow points to an eye structure./PNAS. See Also:
Citation: “Flexibly deployed Pax genes in eye development at the early evolution of animals demonstrated by studies on a hydrozoan jellyfish.” By Hiroshi Suga, Patrick Tschopp, Daria F. Graziussi, Michael Stierwald, Volker Schmid, Walter J. Gehring. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 29, July 27, 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 | 27 Jul 2010 | 7:30 am Russia to use space tech to develop energy sectorMOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will employ technologies, initially meant for outer space research programs, to develop its vast energy sector, Energy Ministry said on Tuesday in yet another sign of the Kremlin's modernization drive.Source: Reuters: Science News | 27 Jul 2010 | 3:33 am
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In the jellyfish study, Gehring’s team found several other Pax genes. When they transplanted the genes into fruit flies, the flies formed extra eyes. It’s not Pax-6 that appears universal, but rather the whole Pax family.