Some like it hot: How to heat a 'nano bathtub'

Researchers have demonstrated the use of infrared laser light to quickly and precisely heat the water in "nano bathtubs" -- tiny sample containers -- for microscopy studies of the biochemistry of single molecules and nanoparticles.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm

Decontaminating dangerous drywall

A nanomaterial originally developed to fight toxic waste is now helping reduce debilitating fumes in homes with corrosive drywall.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm

Male modesty not appreciated by female or male interviewers, study suggests

A researcher who explored the consequences for men (and women) when they acted modestly in job interviews found that "modest" males were less liked, a sign of social backlash. Modesty was viewed as a sign of weakness, a low-status character trait for males that could adversely affect their employability or earnings potential. Modesty in women, however, was not viewed negatively nor was it linked to status.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm

Oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy may protect women against brain aneurysms, study finds

Results from a new study suggest that oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy may yield additional benefit of protecting against the formation and rupture of brain aneurysms in women.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm

Blowing in the wind: Cassini helps with dune whodunit on Saturn's moon Titan

The answer to the mystery of dune patterns on Saturn's moon Titan did turn out to be blowing in the wind. It just wasn't from the direction many scientists expected.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm

New cellular 'armor' developed to prevent infection by AIDS virus

Researchers have developed a novel method of attack against the AIDS virus that involves creating a prevention system, i.e. an "armor" in the cells that are likely to be infected and thus impede the virus from accessing them and starting to act on their immunological system.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 pm

Diet and alcohol alter epigenetics of breast cancer, study suggests

Researchers have shown that the epigenetic profiles of breast tumors are related to patient diet and alcohol use as well as tumor size.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am

From the heart: How cells divide to form different but related muscle groups

Using the model organism Ciona intestinalis, commonly known as the sea squirt, researchers have uncovered the origins of the second heart field in vertebrates.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am

Research of cell movements in developing frogs reveals new twists in human genetic disease

Mutations in a gene known as "Fritz" may be responsible for causing human genetic disorders such as Bardet-Biedl syndrome, developmental biologists, human geneticists and cell biologists have found.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am

Breaking the language barrier: Language translation devices for US troops tested

In recent tests evoking visions of the universal translator on "Star Trek," researchers evaluated three two-way, real-time, voice-translation devices designed to improve communications between the US military and non-English speakers in foreign countries.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am

Debris in relief well sets back work on gusher (AP)

AP - Tropical Storm Bonnie left crews working to plug the Gulf oil gusher a little memento that is expected to push their work back about a day.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:57 am

New BP boss faces up to massive Gulf oil clean-up (AFP)

AFP - Incoming BP boss Bob Dudley has vowed that the firm would stand by Gulf residents for years to come, as it prepared to scale back oil spill clean-up efforts and move to a new phase.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:12 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - Severe storms were expected to continue sweeping through the Central U.S. on Saturday following a low pressure system moving eastward.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 2:43 am

New study aims to locate underwater oil from Gulf spill (AFP)

AFP - With oil from the BP spill fast disappearing from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a marine conservation group is embarking on a two-month expedition to evaluate the impact of oil remaining below the surface.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 1:46 am

House approves oil spill bill; stalled in Senate (AP)

AP - The House has approved a bill to boost safety standards for offshore drilling and remove a liability cap for oil spills, but a partisan fight in the Senate will likely delay action on a response to the Gulf oil spill until Congress returns from its summer recess.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 1:42 am

Cleanup of Mich. river oil spill will take months (AP)

AP - Officials investigating the cause of a huge oil spill along a major river in southern Michigan say it will take months to clean up the mess, and damage to wetlands and wildlife may last considerably longer.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Jul 2010 | 1:01 am

A 'shoot-out' between methods won't help us teach more children to read

Schools need large, robust randomised trials to help them decide which teaching methods to use

It's the near misses that make you want to shoot your own face off. This week the Centre for Policy Studies has published a pamphlet on education that has been covered by the Mirror, the Mail, the BBC, the Telegraph, the Express, the Guardian, and more. Boris Johnson endorses it.

So Why Can't They Read? examines why one-third of children have reading difficulties at the age of 11, and concludes it is because of a lack of discipline, and the absence of a teaching system called "synthetic phonics". The report contains lots of anecdotes but barely mentions the evidence.

In 2006 the government published a systematic review and meta-analysis of all the trials ever to look at phonics, which you can read in full online.

There were 14 trials in total looking at reading accuracy as their outcome, and collectively they found some evidence that phonics are a little better.

Then there were four trials looking at comprehension, which found only weak evidence of benefit, and three trials on spelling, which collectively found no benefit for phonics.

All these trials were tiny, and when I say tiny, I mean they had between 12 and 121 children, mostly at the lower end of that range. Only one trial was from the UK.

Many teachers feel the evidence is not compelling, and don't like phonics. To be fair, there is not enough evidence to say phonics works. The pamphlet recognises this. So how do we move forward? Should we run a large, well-conducted randomised trial?

No. The Centre for Policy Studies has it all worked out, and so does Boris. Their solution is taken seriously by every newspaper in the country.

"It is time to end this culture war," says Boris in the Telegraph; "to try to settle once and for all … whether synthetic phonics is the complete answer or not …

"It is surely time for the government to organise a competition, a shoot-out between the two methods, to see which is the most effective for children of all abilities."

Both expand on this idea. Read for yourself. They don't mean a trial. They really do want a competition.

By now you do not need me to tell you how dumb this suggestion is, but in case anyone in power is reading: there is no room for debate here, a "competition" between schools who have chosen one or other method is definitely and unambiguously flawed by design.

We run randomised trials, where the schools are randomly assigned to one method of teaching or another, for one very simple reason: to make sure that the two groups of schools – the ones doing the phonics, and the ones using the other methods – are as similar as possible for all other factors.

If we don't randomise, "using phonics" might not be the only difference between the two groups of schools. Maybe the schools using the strict phonics systems tend also to be run – and attended – by hardworking disciplined nerds like me. If this is the case, those schools might do better on literacy tests because of the nerdiness, rather than because of the phonics.

Why have large, robust, randomised trials not already been done? Because people like Boris don't demand them; because teachers often believe – as doctors once did – that their expertise and intuition make such tests irrelevant and undesirable; and because many academics in the field of education inexplicably resist them.

This is a relatively new tragedy. In education, as in medicine, there is potential to do enormous good, but also incalculable enduring harm through failure: and, recognising that, some of the earliest examples of randomised trials are from education.

In 1928 HH Remmers took the worst 200 students of one freshman year and randomised them to receive either remedial teaching or teaching as usual, and measured the difference in outcomes at the end of the course. In 1931 JE Walters did a randomised trial to see if counselling improves student performance. In 1933 Remmers was at it again, running a randomised trial to see if having exams at the end of the first term improved a pupil's outcome in final exams.

Education researchers helped to pioneer randomised trials, a lifetime ago, but then abandoned them.

We expend a vast amount of money and effort on assessing children, without much evidence that this does them any good at all; but we make no attempt to cheaply and systematically assess the teaching profession's various education methods, despite knowing that this would bring incalculable benefits for every generation to follow.

Instead, we have Boris and some thinktank wittering on about a "competition", and everyone takes them seriously.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:59 am

Everglades on Unesco danger list

A UN panel adds the Florida Everglades and Madagascar's tropical rainforest to a list of world heritage sites at risk.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:00 pm

The Most Dangerous Things in a National Park (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - A fatal bear attack in a Montana campground near Yellowstone National Park prompted a flurry of concerned phone calls to the park this week, but bear attacks are far from the most common danger to park visitors.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Jul 2010 | 8:15 pm

Expo shows illegal pet trade rampant in Indonesia (AP)

AP - The most threatened tortoise in the world is being sold openly at a plant and animal exposition in the heart of Indonesia's capital, highlighting concerns about the rampant — and growing — illegal pet trade.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Jul 2010 | 6:05 pm

Unthinkable? Life on Mars | Editorial

Astronomers once thought Mars was covered in a network of canals carrying water from the ice caps

There are no little green men on the red planet, but there might just be something alive. Astronomers once thought Mars was covered in a network of canals carrying water from the ice caps. Nineteenth-century researchers imagined seas full of marine life, and even forests: a new new world, and not a friendly one. Martians invaded Earth in HG Wells's novel The War of the Worlds. "So vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer … expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level," he wrote. There was a good reason for that lack of imagination, as everyone discovered when telescopes got better and spacecraft began to arrive on a planet that turned out to be very bleak and very dry. But that did not stop people dreaming. Yesterday it was reported that researchers, while not finding life, have found somewhere they think it might be able to exist, in the form of very primitive microbes. Nili Fossae, a fracture on the planet's surface partly filled in with rubble, is said by a group of private researchers in California to resemble Australia's Pilbara region, whose ancient rocks show apparent traces of microbial activity. Sceptics may think the comparison tenuous. They may also note that yesterday's news reports either framed the possibility as a question – could there be life? – or put it in inverted commas. There is no proof. There is quite likely no life either. Or just possibly, as HG Wells warned, it is out there – and watching us.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:34 pm

This column will change your life: Forgiveness

If hanging on to old resentments is bad for your health, what's the solution?

Nothing in the lexicon of popular psychology triggers my inbuilt wince response quite so powerfully as the word "forgiveness". Apart from sheer cheesiness – it's hardly unique in that respect, sadly – there are several problems with the way self-help pontificators are always advising us to forgive. First, it seems like a concept best reserved for those who've undergone real trauma; I bridle, for example, at the "forgiveness guru" Colin Tipping's insistence that we all need to forgive our parents, apparently even if they were good parents – as if not resenting them sufficiently were some kind of failing. Second, declaring yourself to have forgiven someone can sometimes be the height of pomposity, even hostility. (Darkly funny Onion headline: Pope Forgives Molested Children.) Third, surely some things ought not to be forgiven? I suppose you could say the Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal "harboured a grudge" against fascists, and should have practised "letting go" instead. But I'm not sure I want to follow that line of reasoning where it leads.

Yet I guess I'll have to ask forgiveness for my cynicism, because the results are in: solid research now demonstrates that those who hang on to resentments are more likely to suffer high blood pressure, clinical depression and other health problems than those capable of forgiveness. (As always, this is correlation, not proof of causation.) Brief "forgiveness interventions" – in which people are guided to call up old resentments, then consider new ways of thinking about their enemies – seem to have lasting positive effects on happiness, even when the grudges are mundane. More mundanely still, a recent study found forgiving yourself for procrastination reduces it in the future. But don't think about that too hard, or you may trigger an infinite mental loop: if you know you can always forgive yourself later, won't that encourage more procrastinating now? Or, as the comic Emo Phillips puts it: "When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me."

The psychotherapist Jeanne Safer is surely right to warn of the perils of "fake forgiveness", promulgated, in her view, by a "forgiveness lobby" led by self-styled experts and doctrinally motivated faith groups. It's easy to see how people feeling pressured to forgive could spiral into self-blame rather than true forgiveness. For forgiveness to be a real choice, not forgiving needs to be an option, too.

Yet forgiveness may be one case where the issue is simpler than it looks – and where it's the specific word, with its centuries of religious connotations, that's getting in the way. Strip away the moralising, and all the most reputable psychologists seem to mean by "forgiveness" is to stop demanding that the past should be different from how it was. "Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past," runs one well-phrased motto, usually attributed to the actor/writer Lily Tomlin. That's not just eminently reasonable; it's the only rational way to live. It implies no moral stance, one way or the other, towards the future: it doesn't mean staying in an abusive relationship, or not prosecuting a murderer. It just means abandoning a particularly perverse form of misplaced optimism: the notion that things that have already happened might one day change for the better. They won't. The laws of physics don't work that way.

oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk

twitter.com/oliverburkeman

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:02 pm

Area of Mars Identified as Good Place to Look for Evidence of Past Life (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com - A spot on Mars called Nili Fossae that is rich in clay mineral-rich rocks could be a prime spot to search for the fossilized remains of Martian life that may have existed 4 billion years ago, a new study suggests.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Jul 2010 | 4:30 pm

Spirit May Never Phone Home Again

NASA is hoping for a 'miracle from Mars' as mission controllers wait to hear from Spirit. The rover is trying to survive its toughest winter yet, and may never phone home again.
Source: Science@NASA Headline News | 30 Jul 2010 | 4:29 pm

The Most Dangerous Things in a National Park

A bear attack in a Montana campground near Yellowstone National Park earlier this week left one man dead. But other causes of death are much more common in national parks.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 4:19 pm

Body Rhythms and Breast Cancer

A Virginia Tech Biologist is using funding from the NSF to investigate a possible connection between body rhythms and breast cancer. Her lab is full of frogs because she uses their eggs to study whether circadian rhythms impact cell division.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 4:03 pm

U.S. nuclear front-runners begin to slow spending

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two companies leading the U.S. nuclear power revival may curb spending on the next generation of reactors due to delays in federal loan support, officials said.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:36 pm

A solar salamander

Photosynthetic algae have been found inside the cells of a vertebrate for the first time.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/vZ6-I-0t5WQ" height="1" width="1"/>
Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:31 pm

Monkeys Chase Flying Squirrel

Japanese macaques went bananas when they spotted a flying squirrel, suggesting they either mistook the squirrel for a predator or were trying to impress females in the troop.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 2:58 pm

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 2:15 pm

South bakes, humidity feels like 100-plus degrees (AP)

AP - Heat advisories were posted from the Carolinas to the Great Plains as the South continued to roast Friday under temperatures and humidity that made beaches feel more like bakeries.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 30 Jul 2010 | 2:09 pm

Physicists Dream Up the Antilaser

Fifty years after physicists invented the laser, ushering in everything from supermarket scanners to music CDs, scientists have conceived its opposite — the “antilaser.”

Unlike its more popular cousin, the antilaser is unlikely to take over the world. Still, it could be useful one day, for instance in new types of optical switches for computers.

No one has yet reported building an antilaser, but a theoretical description of one appears in a paper published July 26 in Physical Review Letters.

“It’s kind of surprising that we’ve been using lasers for 50 years or so, and only now somebody noticed something pretty fundamental,” says Marin Soljačić, a physicist at MIT who was not involved in the work.

Instead of amplifying light into coherent pulses, as a laser does, an antilaser absorbs light beams zapped into it. It can be “tuned” to work at specific wavelengths of light, allowing researchers to turn a dial and cause the device to start and then stop absorbing light.

“By just tinkering with the phases of the beams, magically it turns ‘black’ in this narrow wavelength range,” says team member A. Douglas Stone, a physicist at Yale University. “It’s an amazing trick.”

Stone and his colleagues thought up the antilaser while wondering what might happen if they replaced the material inside a laser that reflects photons — the “gain medium” — with a material that absorbs light. In the right configuration, the absorbing material sucks up most of the photons sent into it, while the remaining light waves cancel out by interfering with one another.

Stefano Longhi, a physicist at the Polytechnic Institute of Milan in Italy, calls the concept “very clever and simple.”

The Yale team refers to the device as a “coherent perfect absorber.” Another name is a “time-reversed laser,” since it is like running a laser in reverse using an absorbing medium rather than an amplifying one, says Yale postdoctoral fellow Yidong Chong.

Even though the antilaser absorbs perfectly, it does so only at specific wavelengths of light, making it unsuitable for applications like solar panels that take in a broad range of wavelengths. (Other, specially engineered materials called metamaterials can perform those kinds of absorptions.) But because the antilaser can switch from absorbing to nonabsorbing just by changing the wavelength of the incoming light, it could prove useful in optical switches — for instance in futuristic computer boards that will use light instead of electrons.

Other Yale researchers, led by experimentalist Hui Cao, are now trying to build an antilaser. Stone says progress so far looks “very promising.”

One day the antilaser could even meet up directly with its relative, the laser. In a paper submitted for publication, Longhi argues it might be possible to make a device that combines an ordinary laser with one of these new absorbers — in essence, a laser and antilaser in one.

Image: Stefan/Flickr

See Also:

• World’s Most Intense X-Ray Laser Takes First Shots
• Laser Guidance Adds Power to Wind Turbines
• ‘Horrendously Intense’ Laser Shrinks the Proton
• Extreme Ultraviolet Laser Challenges Einstein
• Making Rain Clouds With Lasers
• World’s Largest Laser Ready to Fire Up

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 30 Jul 2010 | 1:53 pm

Manhattan Heat Waves Sign of City Scorchers to Come

Why city dwellers won't cool off when the sun goes down.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 1:31 pm

Cheaper, Better Satellites Made From Cellphones and Toys

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Instead of investing in their own computer research and development, engineers at the NASA Ames Research Center are looking to cellphones and off-the-shelf toys to power the future of low-cost satellite technology.

The smartphone in your pocket has about 120 times more computing power than the average satellite, which has the equivalent of a 1984-era computer inside.

“You can go to Walmart and buy toys that work better than satellites did 20 years ago,” said NASA physicist Chris Boshuizen. “And your cellphone is really a $500 robot in your pocket that can’t get around. A lot of the real innovation now happens in entertainment and cellphone technology, and NASA should be going forward with their stuff.”

The biggest challenge of sending cellphones and toys into space is whether the parts can get up there without shaking apart and work in a vacuum at extreme high and low temperatures.

To do some preliminary testing, two Nexus One cellphones caught rides on two rockets on July 24 that launched 30,000 feet into the atmosphere at a maximum speed of mach 2.4 (about 1,800 miles per hour). One of the rockets crashed into the ground after its parachute failed, but the other made it back with the cellphone unscathed.

Both cellphones were able to record the acceleration of the rocket using their built-in accelerometers, and the undamaged phone captured 2.5 hours of video of the event through a hole in the side of the rocket.

“Everything that didn’t break is a piece of data,” said volunteer engineer Ben Howard. “We know that the batteries didn’t break and that the computer worked the whole time.”

If the cellphones ultimately get used to power satellites, they will probably be sent up without a screen and with a different battery to make them lighter. The screen and battery make up 90 percent of the Nexus One’s weight.

Next, the team will build a stabilizing mechanism for the satellite using the cellphone, $100 toy gyroscopes and parts of the Mindstorms Lego, so the satellite can orient itself in space. By installing three spinning gyroscopes and getting them to spin at different velocities, a satellite can move in any direction. The same technique is currently used on many satellites, but requires multimillion dollar technology.

The project will likely use CubeSat’s as a standardized carrying case for their cellphone-powered satellites, because the boxes have already been tested and are known to hold up in the journey. Often companies who are sending up satellites on rockets have extra space on their rockets, which is how most amateur satellites will likely get into space, and the people paying like to be sure that nothing will break and damage the rocket on the way up.

The whole goal of the project is to make satellites cheap and affordable, so that anyone with bit of time and a couple of thousand dollars can send their own satellite into space.

Upgrading the computing power of satellites using cellphones would mean increased satellite capabilities, possibly including artificial intelligence.

“We’re not sure yet exactly what people will want to do with their satellites, and that’s the point,” said NASA education specialist Matt Reyes. “What can you imagine doing with your phone in space?”

Images: 1) Toy satellite parts, and the two cellphones that were retrieved from the rocket launch/ Stefan Armijo/Wired.com. 2) motorbikematt/Flickr. 3) motorbikematt/Flickr. 4) Stefan Armijo/Wired.com.

See Also:

• Tiny, DIY Satellites Get NASA Boost
• Apollo-Era Crawler Carries Test Rocket to Launch Pad
• Satellite Photos of Haiti Before and After the Earthquake
• Google Releases New High-Res Satellite Images of Haiti
• Tracked From Space: Gulf Oil Slick Approaches Land

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 30 Jul 2010 | 1:20 pm

Mars Rover Spirit May Never Wake from Deep Sleep

One of NASA’s six-year-old Mars rovers missed its winter wake-up call, prompting concerns that it may never recover from the frigid cold.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:26 pm

BP boss scaling back oil effort

The incoming BP chief executive has said it is time to scale back some parts of the oil spill clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:07 pm

Further Chile quakes 'possible'

Land in the north of Chile is "ready" for another major earthquake, say researchers, adding that authorities did not act on previous warnings.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:39 am

iPad owners? Selfish, elitist, gluttonous, lustful and horrible, finds Facebook 'poll'

MyType application tried to assess personality traits of iPad users and would-be buyers. It doesn't make for pretty e-reading

What do Stephen Fry, David Hockney, Duncan Bannatyne and Justin Bieber, not to mention a growing minority of readers of this newspaper, have in common? As iPad owners they're all part of a "selfish elite", finds one US company.

MyType, a Facebook application which enables users to answer quizzes to determine their personality type, surveyed 20,000 people to try to determine what kind of people owned an iPad.

The answer, it turns out, is pretty straightforward. Horrible people.

"iPad owners are an elite bunch," said MyType on its website. "They're wealthy, highly educated and sophisticated. They value power and achievement much more than others. They're also selfish, scoring low on measures of kindness and altruism."

The firm surveyed the attitudes of more than 20,000 Facebook users towards the iPad, while also "determining" personalities and values. Of those who replied, 3% planned to buy, or had bought, an iPad. MyType then studied the personality traits of this group.

MyType claimed that people within the "selfish elites" group – wealthy, highly educated, sophisticated but lacking in kindness and altruism – were six times more likely to be an iPad owner than the average person. It added: "Those who identified lust as their biggest sin are 70% more likely [to own an iPad], while self-professed gluttons are 88% more likely."

But John Grohol, founder of the Psych Central psychology website, responded in a blog saying the surveyors did not "know the first thing about reporting statistics, or basic methodology in its own research". He added: "They tried to summarise a bunch of disparate traits into catchy marketing phrases to make news headlines – phrases that were neither particularly accurate nor particularly scientifically valid."

MyType said its data was "collected with reasonable rigour" but not without spin. "Any interpretation … is clearly subjective. MyType made an honest effort to tease out the main themes of the data – but feel free to come to your own conclusions."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:29 am

Carole Jahme goes ape at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Agony aunt and 'humanzee' Carole Jahme prepares to take audiences on an evolutionary journey in her new show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

I have devised a comic science show to mark the International Year of Biodiversity 2010, Carole Jahme Is Bio-diverse!, which premieres at this year's Edinburgh Festival.

I'm taking on the role of a monkey-human hybrid in a bid to help audiences get in touch with their inner apes and understand what makes us who we are.

We proudly declared ourselves Homo sapiens, meaning "wise man", and defined mankind with the phrase, "Man the tool-maker". Then it was discovered that chimps also make and use tools to hunt for food.

Unabashed, we instead crowed about what we presumed was our lineage's uniquely masterful ability to harness and control fire. But research on the newly discovered primate species Homo floresiensis – commonly known as "the Hobbit" – has shown that this ape-man creature, who is anatomically closer to chimps than to us, adeptly used fire to cook food.

When science forces us to compare ourselves to other primates, we prefer to separate ourselves from our cousins with an emphasis on mankind's evolved articulation. "Man the talker", we shout now.

But recent genetic research on the FOXP2 gene – a dominant gene for language found on chromosome seven – has revealed that Neanderthals shared this gene with us.

Traditionally we have portrayed the Neanderthal as an inferior prototype of ourselves; the Caliban of pre-history. Yet here is genetic evidence showing that Neanderthals were as linguistically sophisticated as we are.

Genetics has also revealed that we bred with them and those of us of European descent carry at least 4% Neanderthal genes. Not only were Neanderthals gossiping to us over the cave wall 24,000 years ago, but they were silver-tongued enough to guarantee that a little of them lived on in us.

Analysis of chimp and human DNA has revealed how we separated from ancestral apes approximately 10m years ago. But the parallel evolving species of early ape-men and archaic apes continued to breed with each other for at least another 4m years.

Not only are we modern Westerners the product of hybridised Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, we are also the progeny of ancestral humans and ancestral chimps. One could even go so far as to suggest that we are in fact a type of evolved "humanzee".

A recent survey has highlighted that, of the 634 species of primate, 300 are endangered and 114 are imminently threatened with extinction. Since 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, I'm using the medium of theatre to highlight the point.

I present Carole Jahme Is Bio-diverse! as a humanzee, describing the problems of growing up as a hybrid with a chimp for a dad and a Homo sapiens for a mum. I'll be taking audiences on a comedic yet authentic simian journey to help them get in touch with the ape inside themselves, while reflecting upon what it might be like to belong to the only primate species left.

Bio-genetic engineering is bravely taking us into a new world where approximated reconstructions of creatures that have gone before will be brought back to life. A chicken with teeth in place of a beak has already been bred this way to illustrate how ancestral birds had teeth before evolving beaks.

Now that both the chimp and human genome have been mapped, advanced embryological technology will soon see the laboratory giving birth to a creature similar to the Hobbit. After 12,000 years this ape-man species might very well walk again. But when humanzee-like primates are breathing once more, what will we do with them? Put them in zoos?

Richard Dawkins has speculated that the creation of a humanzee or the discovery of a primate cryptid "would change everything." According to Dawkins, if a yeti or one of the other anecdotal bipedal ape-men is ever scientifically validated, our self-image would implode.

Homo sapiens are good at manipulating their environment and typically we do not leave space for others. Today's global deforestation and loss of biodiversity is stark evidence of this. It is imperative to save what we have rather than relying on future bio-engineering to create laboratory freaks of nature – however fascinating they may be.

Discovery of our evolved natures can only be achieved by placing our lineage within the greater, comparative context of the order of primates. But with the loss of our closest surviving species, some of them barely hanging on with their opposable thumbs, knowledge of our rightful place will be lost for good and King Kong will become mightier in our minds as we attempt to fill our concrete emptiness.

Support the International Year of Biodiversity, fight to preserve what's left and, most importantly, come to the Edinburgh Fringe to see my show.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:28 am

Interactive Game Keeps Jogging Buddies In Touch

Scientists have come up with a way to turn jogging into a game involving multiple participants.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:15 am

3-D Brain Model Could Revolutionize Neurology

The Whole Brain Catalog project compiles data from across the research spectrum
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:08 am

The beauty of classics

Greek lessons will be introduced in the classrooms of inner-city schools to help primary children from deprived backgrounds improve their English. Is this a good idea?

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:59 am

'Blood Cell Phones' Fuel War, Crime and Human Rights Abuses

Ewaste is a major global problem. But so too is the global trade in the materials that go into our electronics in the first place. Here's a bit more about so-called "conflict minerals."
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:20 am

Scientists Investigate Possible 'Fear Drug'

A brain chemical involved in both learning to be afraid and curbing existing fear might one day serve as a drug to help prevent anxiety and the after-effects of trauma.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:16 am

Fishless Lake in Adirondacks Shows Signs of Recovery

Acid rain killed the fish, but ecosystems could thrive again.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:08 am

Fishing Industry Fears Oil's Lingering Effects

Fishermen have been an integral part of cleanup operations, but they could end up losing their jobs for a second time.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:45 am

Monkeys Go Bananas Over Flying Squirrels

The monkeys either mistook the squirrels as a predatory bird or they wanted to flaunt their prowess.
Source: Livescience.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:44 am

'Sniff code' device controls wheelchair

Scientists develop a device that allows people with severe disabilities to control a wheelchair and communicate by sniffing.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:33 am

Hi-tech Indian water plant opens

A desalination plant which begins operating in Madras on Saturday will provide some of the cheapest drinking water in India, backers say.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:26 am

Mammals decline in Chernobyl zone

The largest wildlife census of its kind conducted in Chernobyl reveals evidence of mammals declining in the exclusion zone.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am

Daydreams of Foreign Travel Prove Most Transporting

A daydream about a foreign vacation or a long-ago memory prove most likely to help you forget the present..
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 7:57 am

Returning Cheetahs to India

India recently committed to reintroducing cheetahs to three grassland regions around the country. The speedy cats have been considered extinct in India since 1967.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 7:24 am

Are Electric Cars Better for the Environment?

It all comes down to carbon emissions, and even though electric vehicles spew zero emissions, they aren't necessarily carbon neutral.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 6:55 am

Study changes picture of U.S. quake hazards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The risk of earthquakes in the U.S. Midwest may be more widespread than geologists have believed, but a "big one" may be less likely at Missouri's New Madrid fault, researchers said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 30 Jul 2010 | 6:01 am

Grim task of China oil clean-up

China is struggling with an arduous clean up after the country's worst oil spill, with grim conditions for those involved.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:49 am

Revenge of the TV Monitor Zombies

Two well-meaning nonprofits working to prevent e-waste vehemently disagree on what should happen to zombie-like TV monitors that are dangerous when they're dead. If only they could both be right.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:43 am

Yorkshire Museum gets a makeover

York's Yorkshire Museum has reopened after a major refurbishment – much of the work done through DIY projects. Maev Kennedy takes a look at some of its historical treasures

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:01 am

Dance of the Planets Gets Intimate

This cosmic ballet is reshaping what astronomers thought was possible in solar systems beyond our own.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:00 am

Rare zedonk born at US wildlife park

A wildlife reserve in the US has a new star attraction after a donkey there gave birth to a foal with stripy legs.
Source: BBC News - Science & Environment | 30 Jul 2010 | 4:51 am