Weekly Science Headlines

[fomenter]

Hydropsychid caddisflies interesting but a bit over my head i was on the verge of moving up from lures to fly fishing when i moved to the city so never got into studying aquatic bugs/fish feeding..  the size, color, type, movement, placement, of lures to attract trout in varying water temps, conditions i have a good experiential  knowledge of..

on solutions-  my only idea is for scientists to do more studying/research (which they do any way)

[Kai]

Hydropsychid caddisflies interesting but a bit over my head i was on the verge of moving up from lures to fly fishing when i moved to the city so never got into studying aquatic bugs/fish feeding..  the size, color, type, movement, placement, of lures to attract trout in varying water temps, conditions i have a good experiential  knowledge of..

on solutions-  my only idea is for scientists to do more studying/research (which they do any way)

The only reason it sounds like its over your head is because I'm using terms that you aren't familiar with. Most biology, while not for idiots, can be understood by nonbiologists if terms are explained and processes are described in detail. People know what a flower looks like. So you open a flower up and show them the different parts inside and what functions they have, and you use metaphor and visuals. Most people think biology goes over their heads because we use a scientific language, its faster, but in the vernacular most of it makes sense.

[Vene]

missing the point ...
the warming is not being debated scientist are good at taking measurements
the cause is being debated
the effects are being debated
the rate of warming is being debated
the political solutions to the conclusions being jumped to are being debated
the effects of political influence on scientists opinions on the above debates are being debated

Ah, I understand what you're saying now.  Sorry.  I tend to get a little overzealous when I think I'm dealing with pseudoscience (and denying AGW is pseudoscience).  I guess that's what I get for engaging people like creationists and people who deny the globe is warming at all.

[fomenter]

Hydropsychid caddisflies interesting but a bit over my head i was on the verge of moving up from lures to fly fishing when i moved to the city so never got into studying aquatic bugs/fish feeding..  the size, color, type, movement, placement, of lures to attract trout in varying water temps, conditions i have a good experiential  knowledge of..

on solutions-  my only idea is for scientists to do more studying/research (which they do any way)

The only reason it sounds like its over your head is because I'm using terms that you aren't familiar with. Most biology, while not for idiots, can be understood by nonbiologists if terms are explained and processes are described in detail. People know what a flower looks like. So you open a flower up and show them the different parts inside and what functions they have, and you use metaphor and visuals. Most people think biology goes over their heads because we use a scientific language, its faster, but in the vernacular most of it makes sense.

Natural biology was my favorite class in high school, we spent a day at a swamp/pond collecting specimens and the rest of the year identifying every thing we found. My lab partner and I ended up with more specimens than any one else, we even swam in the pond dragging our nets and were the only ones to catch a fish (northern pike)most of the class were "eww swamp water we don't want to get our feet wet"... your guess is correct the science language is the part i am missing or have forgotten

[fomenter]

missing the point ...
the warming is not being debated scientist are good at taking measurements
the cause is being debated
the effects are being debated
the rate of warming is being debated
the political solutions to the conclusions being jumped to are being debated
the effects of political influence on scientists opinions on the above debates are being debated

Ah, I understand what you're saying now.  Sorry.  I tend to get a little overzealous when I think I'm dealing with pseudoscience (and denying AGW is pseudoscience).  I guess that's what I get for engaging people like creationists and people who deny the globe is warming at all.

no  worries i get overzealous my self when i think i am talking to the "theory is fact the sky is falling crowd "...

[Kai]

Today's Headlines - October 1, 2008

Machu Picchu's Far-Flung Residents
from Science News

High in Peru's Andes, the skeletons of people buried at the famous Inca site of Machu Picchu tell a tale of displacement and devoted service. A new chemical analysis of these bones supports the previously postulated idea that Inca kings used members of a special class of royal retainers from disparate parts of the empire to maintain and operate the site, which served as a royal estate.

Dramatic differences in the remains' ratios of certain chemical isotopes that collect in bone indicate that Machu Picchu's permanent residents spent their early lives in varied regions east or southeast of the site, say anthropologist Bethany Turner of Georgia State University in Atlanta and her colleagues.
Some Machu Picchu inhabitants had emigrated from spots along the central South American coast, while others hailed from valleys high in the Andes.

Inca royalty, who regularly visited the site, were not buried at Machu Picchu. They were buried at nearby Cuzco, the capital of the empire.

http://snipurl.com/3yygn


New California Academy of Sciences a Natural Wonder
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

World-class, unparalleled, greatest, biggest, most diverse, greenest and eco-grooviest. Able to leap tall buildings in a single rave, the new state-of-the-art and state-of-the-planet incarnation of the California Academy of Sciences is generating kilowatts of excitement and kudos.

Last weekend marked the long-awaited grand reopening of the academy, which is unusual in that it houses an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum and educational programs under one roof. In commemoration of the very big deal that all of this is, several hundred butterflies were released at its Saturday debut in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, starting two days of hoopla that included music, Chinese acrobats and a Native American blessing.

But the star attraction is the building itself, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano ... and poised to be one of the world's greenest buildings.

http://snipurl.com/3xob6


New Birdlike Dinosaur Found in Argentina
from National Geographic News

A new predatory dinosaur with a birdlike breathing system found in Argentina may help scientists better understand the evolution of birds' lung systems. The elephant-size dinosaur Aerosteon riocoloradensis lived 85 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.

The fossil provides the first evidence of dinosaur air sacs, which pump air into the lungs and are used by modern-day birds, said Paul Sereno, the project's lead researcher and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. 

Scientists have known dinosaurs used the pumplike apparatus to breathe, but the new find cements the connection between dinosaur and avian evolution, said Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago.

http://snipurl.com/3yxtm


The 'Secret Jews' of San Luis Valley
from Smithsonian Magazine

One September day in 2001, Teresa Castellano, Lisa Mullineaux, Jeffrey Shaw and Lisen Axell were having lunch in Denver. Genetic counselors from nearby hospitals and specialists in inherited cancers, the four would get together periodically to talk shop. That day they surprised one another: they'd each documented a case or two of Hispanic women with aggressive breast cancer linked to a particular genetic mutation. The women had roots in southern Colorado, near the New Mexico border.

... Curiously, the genetic mutation that caused the virulent breast cancer had previously been found primarily in Jewish people whose ancestral home was Central or Eastern Europe. Yet all of these new patients were Hispanic Catholics.

... As a result, families in this remote high-desert community have had to come to grips with a kind of knowledge that more and more of us are likely to face. For the story of this wayward gene is the story of modern genetics, a science that increasingly has the power both to predict the future and to illuminate the past in unsettling ways.

http://snipurl.com/3yy8p


Liquid Lenses Promise Picture-Perfect Phone Cam Photos
from Scientific American

TROY, N.Y.—Despite their ubiquity, cell phones are not known for their ability to take picture-perfect photos. But budding "liquid lens" technology promises to change that by providing phone photogs with the autofocus capabilities lacking in today's cellular optics.

The latest advance in this area comes from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, here, where researchers have developed a liquid lens by placing a few drops of water into a cylindrical hole drilled in a Teflon surface and using a small speaker (that plays a high-frequency sound) to provide the resonance needed to move the water back and forth, changing the focus of the lens.

Light passing through the droplets transforms them into a mini camera lens, which is capped on both sides with plastic or glass. The experiment, led by Amir Hirsa ..., used the liquid lens to capture 250 images per second.

http://snipurl.com/3yymg


Searching for Clarity: A Primer on Medical Studies
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Everyone, it seemed, from the general public to many scientists, was enthralled by the idea that beta carotene would protect against cancer. In the early 1990s, the evidence seemed compelling that this chemical, an antioxidant found in fruit and vegetables and converted by the body to vitamin A, was a key to good health.

There were laboratory studies showing how beta carotene would work. There were animal studies confirming that it was protective against cancer. There were observational studies showing that the more fruit and vegetables people ate, the lower their cancer risk. So convinced were some scientists that they themselves were taking beta carotene supplements.

Then came three large, rigorous clinical trials that randomly assigned people to take beta carotene pills or a placebo. And the beta carotene hypothesis crumbled.

http://snipurl.com/3yysj


Carbon Sale Raises $40 Million
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

NEW YORK, Sept. 29—The country's first cap-and-trade auction for greenhouse gas reduction raised nearly $40 million for Northeastern states to spend on renewable energy technologies and energy-efficiency programs, officials of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which ran the auction, said Monday.

In the absence of a federal government program to cap the amount of carbon dioxide that power plants pump out of their smokestacks, 10 Northeastern states established the initiative to set their own limits and force all fossil fuel plants to buy allowances to cover excess emissions.

The initiative is being closely watched nationally as a model for efforts to reduce emissions and stem global warming. In the sealed online auction Thursday, energy, financial and environmental organizations paid $3.07 per ton of excess emissions, and all 12.5 million carbon allowances were sold, the initiative reported. Most of the bidders were power generators.

http://snipurl.com/3yyz0


What Can You Do with a 12-Million-Digit Prime Number?
from the Christian Science Monitor

The scientific world is abuzz this week with news that researchers at UCLA have discovered a prime number with more than 10 million digits. The find qualifies them for a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and undeniable geek cred, but a decidedly unscientific survey of comments from around the web concludes that the overall response to the announcement is: So what?

... The hunt for large primes requires massive computing power—the production of which is prohibitively expensive for a single organization. Distributive computing—the same kind UCLA used to find their megaprime—makes a supercomputer out of many smaller individual machines, using the web to stitch all that power together.

The EFF Cooperative Computing Awards provide an incentive for everyday Internet users to contribute to solving great scientific problems. The method is the message.

http://snipurl.com/3yzdv


Report: Everglades in Decline as Restoration Lags
from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—A multibillion-dollar effort to restore Florida's Everglades has made little progress amid funding shortfalls, bureaucratic red tape and disagreements, according to a congressionally mandated report that warns the vast wetland is in peril.

The National Research Council, in findings Monday, warned that degradation of the Everglades could become irreversible if action isn't taken quickly.

"The Everglades ecosystem is continuing to decline. It's our estimate that we're losing the battle to save this thing," said William Graf, the report's committee chairman and head of the department of geography at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

http://snipurl.com/3yzq6


Experts Say Herd Mentality Rules in Financial Crisis
from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Herd mentality rules during a financial crisis because people are wired to follow the crowd when times are uncertain, experts say.

Brain and behavior studies clearly show that when information is scarce and threats seem imminent, people often stop listening to their own logic and look to see what others are doing.

"People are afraid, and the reason they are afraid is there is tremendous uncertainty right now in the markets," Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University in Atlanta who studies the biology of economic behavior, said in a telephone interview. Berns puts people in magnetic resonance imaging or MRI scanners while he tests their responses to various scenarios, and studies patterns of their brain activation.

http://snipurl.com/3yzyg

[Iason Ouabache]

HIV Decades Older Than Thought

"The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests.

Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908.

Previously, scientists had estimated the origin at around 1930. AIDS wasn't recognized formally until 1981 when it got the attention of public health officials in the United States.

Scientists say HIV descended from a chimpanzee virus that jumped to humans in Africa, probably when people butchered chimps. Many individuals were probably infected that way, but so few other people caught the virus that it failed to get a lasting foothold, researchers say.

But the growth of African cities may have changed that by putting lots of people close together and promoting prostitution, Worobey suggested. "Cities are kind of ideal for a virus like HIV," providing more chances for infected people to pass the virus to others, he said.

Perhaps a person infected with the AIDS virus in a rural area went to what is now Kinshasa, Congo, "and now you've got the spark arriving in the tinderbox," Worobey said.

Key to the new work was the discovery of an HIV sample that had been taken from a woman in Kinshasa in 1960. It was only the second such sample to be found from before 1976; the other was from 1959, also from Kinshasa.

Researchers took advantage of the fact that HIV mutates rapidly. So two strains from a common ancestor quickly become less and less alike in their genetic material over time. That allows scientists to "run the clock backward" by calculating how long it would take for various strains to become as different as they are observed to be. That would indicate when they both sprang from their most recent common ancestor.

The new work used genetic data from the two old HIV samples plus more than 100 modern samples to create a family tree going back to these samples' last common ancestor. Researchers got various answers under various approaches for when that ancestor virus appeared, but the 1884-to-1924 bracket is probably the most reliable, Worobey said."

http://www.livescience.com/health/081001-ap-hiv-origin.html

[singer]

Well, that pretty much puts the "secret side effect of the Salk Vaccine" theory to rest.

[Iason Ouabache]

Well, that pretty much puts the "secret side effect of the Salk Vaccine" theory to rest.

Nope.  This story is part of the conspiracy too!!! 

[singer]

Well, that pretty much puts the "secret side effect of the Salk Vaccine" theory to rest.

Nope.  This story is part of the conspiracy too!!! 

Of course... what WAS I thinking?   

[Kai]

Today's Headlines - October 2, 2008

Water's Role in Martian Chemistry Becoming Clearer
from Science News

Perched on a vast plain above the arctic circle of the Red Planet, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has found new evidence that liquid water was once present in the north polar region and interacted with minerals there. Phoenix scientists reported the findings September 29 during a NASA press briefing.

Two Phoenix experiments identified calcium carbonates and clays in soil samples scooped up by the craft's robotic arm. On Earth, both minerals are associated with the presence of liquid water.

Carbonates such as limestones form on Earth when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves in liquid water, making carbonic acid. The acid eats away at rocks, which eventually become carbonate deposits such as the White Cliffs of Dover.

http://snipurl.com/3zsdm


Space Smash-Up Turned Planets to Dust
from National Geographic News

A dust cloud surrounding a nearby star 300 light-years from Earth may be all that remains from the collision of two rocky planets, researchers say.

The planets may have been similar to Earth in size, age, and distance from their sun. The bodies circled a binary star, or a pair of stars locked in tight rotation, known as BD +20 307. Until now, no other binary stars close to our solar system have shown evidence of having planets.

Using optical and x-ray telescopes to estimate the volume and temperature of BD +20 307's dust cloud, researchers concluded that it must have been produced by the violent collision of two planet-size bodies. Such planets would have been prime locations for the possible evolution of extraterrestrial life, experts say.

http://snipurl.com/3zsgs


New Genetic Test for Flu Virus Means Results in 4 Hours
from the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Registration Required)

ATLANTA (Associated Press)—The government approved a new genetic test for the flu virus Tuesday that will allow labs across the country to identify flu strains within four hours instead of four days.

The timesaving test could be crucial if a deadly new strain emerges, federal health officials said. The new test also could help doctors make better treatment decisions during a conventional flu season.

The new test was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Applied Biosystems Inc. of Foster City, Calif. The Food and Drug Administration approved the test kit Tuesday, and state health labs are expected to start using it this fall.

http://snipurl.com/401du


The First Sound Bites
from Science News

William Jennings Bryan was rarely at a loss for words. His impassioned oratory spellbound congressmen during his two terms in the U.S. House and thrilled thousands of voters during the presidential campaigns of 1896 and 1900. But during his third run for the White House, 100 years ago, Bryan had trouble speaking in the intimacy of his own home.

"Mr. Bryan seemed a little nervous when he first started, much more so, he said, than he ever felt in facing an audience of ten thousand people," Harold Voorhis recalled. Voorhis, an agent for the National Phonograph Company, was partly responsible for the candidate's discomfort: He had brought a phonograph into the library of Bryan's house in Lincoln, Neb., to record some of his speeches, old and current.

... Whether for profit or prestige, the 1908 campaign was the first in which presidential candidates recorded their own voices for the mass market. ... The sound-bite era was born.

http://snipurl.com/3zuwp


Applying Science to Alternative Medicine
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

More than 80 million adults in the United States are estimated to use some form of alternative medicine, from herbs and megavitamins to yoga and acupuncture. But while sweeping claims are made for these treatments, the scientific evidence for them often lags far behind: studies and clinical trials, when they exist at all, can be shoddy in design and too small to yield reliable insights.

Now the federal government is working hard to raise the standards of evidence, seeking to distinguish between what is effective, useless and harmful or even dangerous.

"The research has been making steady progress," said Dr. Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health. "It's reasonably new that rigorous methods are being used to study these health practices."

http://snipurl.com/40063


EPA Sets Nuke Waste Dump Radiation Standard
from the San Francisco Chronicle

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—No one knows what the Earth will be like in a million years. But a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada must be designed to ensure that people living near it a million years from now are exposed to no more than 100 millirems of radiation annually.

And over the next 10,000 years, radiation exposure to the waste dump's neighbors may be no more than 15 millirems a year, or about the amount of exposure in an X-ray. People receive about 350 millirems a year of radiation on average from all background sources.

After three years of deliberations, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Tuesday its radiation health standard for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a system of underground caverns 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas where the government hopes to keep highly radioactive commercial and military nuclear waste.

http://snipurl.com/400dn


NASA's Half Century of Space Exploration
from the Orlando Sentinel

The Sentinel celebrates NASA's 50th birthday with a series of articles and out-of-this-world photo galleries.

What lies ahead? With half a century of amazing accomplishments behind it, NASA is entering a second space age beset by uncertainty and searching for a renewal of "the right stuff."

Browse every launch of the space shuttle, from Columbia's first mission in 1981 to the most recent flight. And while you're at it, test your knowledge of space trivia. For example, what weird object saved the Apollo 13 crew from certain death?

http://snipurl.com/400ld


Study: AIDS Virus in Human Circulation for 100 Years
from USA Today

NEW YORK (Associated Press)—The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests. Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908.

Previously, scientists had estimated the origin at around 1930. AIDS wasn't recognized formally until 1981 when it got the attention of public health officials in the United States.

The new result is "not a monumental shift, but it means the virus was circulating under our radar even longer than we knew," says Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, an author of the new work. The results appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

http://snipurl.com/400xe


Driving to Vote Could Be Hazardous
from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

CHICAGO (Associated Press)—Could voting for president be hazardous to your health? An analysis of Election Day traffic deaths dating back to Jimmy Carter's 1976 win suggests yes, but the authors say that's no reason not to go to the polls.

The study found that on average, 24 more people died in car crashes during voting hours on presidential election days than on other October and November Tuesdays. That amounts to an 18 percent increased risk of death. And compared with non-election days, an additional 800 people suffered disabling injuries.

The results were pretty consistent on all eight presidential Election Days that were analyzed, up to George W. Bush's victory over John Kerry in 2004. "This is one of the most off-the-wall things I've ever read, but the science is good," said Roy Lucke, senior scientist at Northwestern University's Center for Public Safety. He was not involved in the study, which appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

http://snipurl.com/40158


Using Math to Explain How Life on Earth Began
from Scientific American

Back in March the press went crazy for Martin A. Nowak's study on the value of punishment. A Harvard University mathematician and biologist, Nowak had signed up some 100 students to play a computer game in which they used dimes to punish and reward one another. The popular belief was that costly punishment would promote cooperation between two equals, but Nowak and his colleagues proved the theory wrong.

Instead they found that punishment often triggers a spiral of retaliation, making it detrimental and destructive rather than beneficial. Far from gaining, people who punish tend to escalate conflict, worsen their fortunes and eventually lose out. "Nice guys finish first," headlines cheered.

It wasn't the first time Nowak's computer simulations and mathematics forced a rethinking of a complex phenomenon. In 2002 he worked out equations that can predict the way cancer evolves and spreads, such as when mutations emerge in a metastasis and chromosomes become unstable.

http://snipurl.com/401q3

[Cain]

Set topic sticky, by the way.  I think it deserves it.

[Iason Ouabache]

Applying Science to Alternative Medicine
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

More than 80 million adults in the United States are estimated to use some form of alternative medicine, from herbs and megavitamins to yoga and acupuncture. But while sweeping claims are made for these treatments, the scientific evidence for them often lags far behind: studies and clinical trials, when they exist at all, can be shoddy in design and too small to yield reliable insights.

Now the federal government is working hard to raise the standards of evidence, seeking to distinguish between what is effective, useless and harmful or even dangerous.

It's about fucking time!!!  The FDA has been way too leinent on quackery for the last 7 years.

"The research has been making steady progress," said Dr. Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health. "It's reasonably new that rigorous methods are being used to study these health practices."

http://snipurl.com/40063

LOL!  The CAM people actually do real research now?  I'd love to see that.

[Kai]

Applying Science to Alternative Medicine
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

More than 80 million adults in the United States are estimated to use some form of alternative medicine, from herbs and megavitamins to yoga and acupuncture. But while sweeping claims are made for these treatments, the scientific evidence for them often lags far behind: studies and clinical trials, when they exist at all, can be shoddy in design and too small to yield reliable insights.

Now the federal government is working hard to raise the standards of evidence, seeking to distinguish between what is effective, useless and harmful or even dangerous.

It's about fucking time!!!  The FDA has been way too leinent on quackery for the last 7 years.

"The research has been making steady progress," said Dr. Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health. "It's reasonably new that rigorous methods are being used to study these health practices."

http://snipurl.com/40063

LOL!  The CAM people actually do real research now?  I'd love to see that.

I think if they studied hard they'd find that most of "alternative medicine" is psychosomatic, if it works at all.

[Jasper]

I'd go to bat for certain herbal remedies, out of firsthand experience, but most of it (Bach flower remedy theory) are completely nuts.