Weekly Science Headlines

[Kai]

May 17, 2010
Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

"There's a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water," said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. "There's a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column."

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

http://ow.ly/1M2nz


Study: A Link Between Pesticides and ADHD

from Time

Studies linking environmental substances to disease are coming fast and furious. Chemicals in plastics and common household goods have been associated with serious developmental problems, while a long inventory of other hazards are contributing to rising rates of modern ills: heart disease, obesity, diabetes, autism.

Add attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to the list. A new study in the journal Pediatrics associates exposure to pesticides to cases of ADHD in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 4.5 million children ages 5 to 17 have ever been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and rates of diagnosis have risen 3% a year between 1997 and 2006....

Led by Maryse Bouchard in Montreal, researchers based at the University of Montreal and Harvard University examined the potential relationship between ADHD and exposure to certain toxic pesticides called organophosphates. The team analyzed the levels of pesticide residues in the urine of more than 1,100 children aged 8 to 15 years old, and found that those with the highest levels of dialkyl phosphates, which are the breakdown products of organophosphate pesticides, also had the highest incidence of ADHD....

http://ow.ly/1LZxF


Genetically Modified Cotton Stops One Bug But Fosters Others

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

The widespread planting of a genetically engineered crop designed to withstand a menacing pest has had the unanticipated consequence of transforming benign bugs into agricultural predators, according to a new study.

In findings that drive home the difficulty of trying to stay one step ahead of nature, scientists explain how farmers of bioengineered cotton in northern China were able to drastically reduce their insecticide use for more than a decade, only to find themselves spraying a crop that wasn't supposed to need such measures.

The genetically engineered plants were designed to withstand attacks from the cotton bollworm by growing their own pesticide--a deadly toxin that was originally discovered in a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. Splicing the Bt genes into the cotton plants' DNA has kept the bollworm at bay.

http://ow.ly/1LZAh


When Origami Meets Rocket Science

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Robert J. Lang had a good career as a laser physicist. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researching semiconductor lasers used in fiber-optic communications, before switching to a private technology firm in Silicon Valley, where he held positions such as chief scientist and vice president of research and development.

Then in 2001, he gave it all up. To fold paper.

Lang, 49, is an origami master. Paper cranes? Pshaw. Try a rattlesnake with 1,500 scales, a life-size replica of comedian Drew Carey or an American flag that was photographed for the New York Times magazine. Lang is pushing the limits of what one can make by folding paper, but he's also a leader in an emerging field of study called computational origami, which he boils down to this question: "How do you use rules and math to create an object of art?"

http://ow.ly/1LZCL


Earliest Birds Didn't Make a Flap

from Science News

The wings were willing, but the feathers were weak. Delicate, thin-shafted plumage would have made flapping difficult if not impossible for two prehistoric birds, a new analysis of fossil feathers suggests.

Their feathers probably would have buckled or snapped during strong flapping or sharp maneuvers, so the primitive birds may have been limited to gliding, says Robert Nudds, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Manchester in England. He and paleontologist Gareth Dyke of University College Dublin report an engineering analysis of feathers from the ancient birds Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis in the May 14 Science.

Nudds and Dyke used a simple formula often applied to bridges and beams to estimate the load-carrying capacities of the birds' feathers, based on fossil remains. The team also looked at the feathers of four modern birds with a variety of feather and flight types--a pigeon, a gull, an albatross and a vulture.

http://ow.ly/1LZE4


The Other Inconvenient Truth

from Seed

It's taken a long time, but the issue of global climate change is finally getting the attention it deserves. While enormous technical, policy, and economic issues remain to be solved, there is now widespread acceptance of the need to confront the twin challenges of energy security and climate change....

Unfortunately, this positive shift in the national zeitgeist has had an unintended downside. In the rush to portray the perils of climate change, many other serious issues have been largely ignored. Climate change has become the poster child of environmental crises, complete with its own celebrities and campaigners. But is it so serious that we can afford to overlook the rise of infectious disease, the collapse of fisheries, the ongoing loss of forests and biodiversity, and the depletion of global water supplies?

Although I'm a climate scientist by training, I worry about this collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems. Learning from the research my colleagues and I have done over the past decade, I fear we are neglecting another, equally inconvenient truth: that we now face a global crisis in land use and agriculture that could undermine the health, security, and sustainability of our civilization.

http://ow.ly/1LZHM


Infectious Personalities

from the Economist

Chances are your friends are more popular than you are. It is a basic feature of social networks that has been known about for some time. Consider both an avid cocktail party hostess with hundreds of acquaintances and a grumpy misanthrope, who may have one or two friends.

Statistically speaking, the average person is much more likely to know the hostess simply because she has so many more friends. This, in essence, is what is called the "friendship paradox": the friends of any random individual are likely to be more central to the social web than the individual himself.

Now researchers think this seemingly depressing fact can be made to work as an early warning system to detect outbreaks of contagious diseases. By studying the friends of a randomly selected group of individuals, epidemiologists can isolate those people who are more connected to one another and are therefore more likely to catch diseases like the flu early. This could allow health authorities to spot outbreaks weeks in advance of current surveillance methods.

http://ow.ly/1LZKw


Ball Lightning May Be All In Your Head

from National Geographic News

Mysterious floating blobs of light known as ball lightning might simply be hallucinations caused by overstimulated brains, a new study suggests.

For hundreds of years eyewitnesses have reported brief encounters with the golf ball- to tennis ball-size orbs of electricity. But scientists have been unable to agree on how and why ball lightning forms, since the phenomenon is rare and very short-lived.

Ball lightning is often reported during thunderstorms, and it's known that multiple consecutive lightning strikes can create strong magnetic fields. So Joseph Peer and Alexander Kendl at the University of Innsbruck in Austria wondered whether ball lightning is really a hallucination induced by magnetic stimulation of the brain's visual cortex or the eye's retina.

http://ow.ly/1LZMT


Brazil Fire Burns Huge Collection of Dead Snakes

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

SAO PAULO (Associated Press) -- A fire in Brazil destroyed what may be the world's largest scientific collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions that served as the main source for research on many species, scientists said Sunday.

Members of the Instituto Butantan said the nearly 100-year-old collection lost in Saturday's fire included almost 80,000 snakes and several thousand specimens of spiders and scorpions. The specimens were used to study evolution and provided information on how to avert extinctions, said institute director Otavio Mercadante.

"The entire collection was lost, the biggest collection of snakes in the world," curator Francisco Franco told Globo TV and other local media. "It's a loss to humanity."

http://ow.ly/1LZQ3


Study: Cell Phone-Brain Cancer Link Inconclusive

from the (Raleigh, NC) News and Observer

GENEVA (Associated Press) -- Cell phone users worried about getting brain cancer aren't off the hook yet.

A major international study into the link between cell phone use and two types of brain cancer has proved inconclusive, according to a report due to be published in a medical journal Tuesday.

A 10-year survey of almost 13,000 participants found most cell phone use didn't increase the risk of developing meningioma--a common and frequently benign tumor--or glioma--a rarer but deadlier form of cancer.

http://ow.ly/1LZRC

[Kai]

May 13, 2010
Before Spill, a Spate of Failures

from the (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a "blowout preventer." Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things.

New disclosures Wednesday revealed a complex cascade of deep-sea equipment failures and procedural problems in the oil rig explosion and massive spill that is still fouling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening industries and wildlife near the coast and on shore.

A host of worrisome events and findings that were at play on the night of the well explosion and pipe rupture is described in internal corporate documents, marked confidential but provided to a House committee by BP and by the manufacturer of the safety device. Lawmakers released them at a House hearing.

http://ow.ly/1KzKR

Walgreens Shelves Plans to Sell Genetic Test

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

Walgreens late Wednesday reversed a decision to carry genetic test kits in its stores after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began an investigation of the supplier and product.

Deerfield-based Walgreen Co. had planned to begin stocking thousands of stores nationwide with the Pathway Genomic home test kit on Friday. Walgreens' decision was announced after the FDA released an enforcement letter sent to San Diego-based Pathway Genomics, giving it 15 days to respond to the agency's request for information regarding its controversial genetic home test kit.

"In light of the FDA contacting Pathway Genomics about its genetic test kit and anticipated ongoing discussions between the two parties, we've elected not to move forward with offering the Pathway product to our customers until we have further clarity on this matter," said Jim Cohn, a Walgreens spokesman.

http://ow.ly/1KzPf

Future Oil-Spill Fighters: Sponges, Superbugs, and Herders

from National Geographic News

In the past 20 years we've traded pagers for smart phones and library cards for Kindles. But the joint federal-industry task force charged with responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is still using cleanup methods that haven't changed much since the days of the Exxon Valdez. Nearly four million gallons of oil have already spewed into the Gulf since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank last month.

Amid efforts to cap the seafloor leak, cleanup workers have been using boat-based skimmers to pick up the oil, booms to gather the slick for burning, and chemical dispersants to break the crude into smaller droplets--all parts of the oil-fighting toolkit for decades.

But options for cleaning up oily disasters may soon be more cutting-edge. New sponges, microbes, and chemicals are in development that could change the ways we respond to oil spills.

http://ow.ly/1KzQd

169 Best Illusions--A Sampling

from Scientific American

This special issue, 169 Best Illusions, contains a smorgasbord of static images that appear to be moving, "impossible" sculptures, freaky faces, ghostly afterimages and even some edible illusions.

Illusions make great eye candy, but they also serve a serious purpose. When we look at an illusion, we "see" something that does not match the physical reality of the world around us. Scientists take advantage of this discrepancy between perception and reality to gain insights into how our eyes and brains gather and interpret (or misinterpret) visual information.

Scientific American offers a sneak peek at 10 different types of illusions and what they reveal. In Naples, Fla., on May 10, the 2010 Best Illusion of the Year Contest Gala was held. The top 10 illusionists presented their creations and the attendees of the event voted to pick the top three winners.

http://ow.ly/1KzV1

New Bone Marrow Transplant Method May Expand Treatment

from USA Today

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- Bone marrow transplants are undergoing a quiet revolution: No longer just for cancer, research is underway to ease the risks so they can target more people with diseases from sickle cell to deadly metabolic disorders.

The old way: High doses of radiation and chemotherapy wipe out a patient's own bone marrow before someone else's is infused to replace it, hopefully before infection strikes.

The new way: Rather than destroying the patient's bone marrow, just tamp it down enough to make space for the donated marrow to squeeze in alongside and a sort of twin immune system takes root. It's what doctors taking a page from mythology call "mixed-cell chimerism"--patient and donor blood and immune cells living together to improve health.

http://ow.ly/1KzVC

Decline Is Seen in NASA's Research Side

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON -- The decline of basic research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration jeopardizes the agency's ability to study and explore the cosmos, a review panel of scientists and engineers said Tuesday.

The findings could bolster the arguments of the Obama administration that NASA's current effort to send astronauts back to the Moon is too expensive and is siphoning too much money from other programs. The president's $19 billion budget for NASA in the 2011 fiscal year would cancel the Moon program, known as Constellation, and replace it with the development of technologies intended to achieve a cheaper, more sustainable approach for sending people into space.

Tuesday's report from the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that research laboratories at the 10 NASA centers for studying materials, aeronautics and other basic science were merely "marginally adequate."

http://ow.ly/1KzY6

Girl Frozen in Time May Hold Key to Ageing

from the Times (London)

Scientists are hoping to gain new insights into the mysteries of ageing by sequencing the genome of a 17-year-old girl who has the body and behaviour of a tiny toddler. Brooke Greenberg is old enough to drive a car and next year will be old enough to vote--but at 16lb in weight and just 30in tall, she is still the size of a one-year-old.

Until recently she had been regarded as a medical oddity but a preliminary study of her DNA has suggested her failure to grow could be linked to defects in the genes that make the rest of humanity grow old. If confirmed, the research could give scientists a fresh understanding of ageing and even suggest new therapies for diseases linked to old age.

"We think that Brooke's condition presents us with a unique opportunity to understand the process of ageing," said Richard Walker, a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, who is leading the research team. "We think that she has a mutation in the genes that control her ageing and development so that she appears to have been frozen in time. If we can compare her genome to the normal version then we might be able to find those genes and see exactly what they do and how to control them."

http://ow.ly/1KA0m

Hot Science From a Volcanic Crisis

from Nature News

Thirty years ago this week, Mount St. Helens in Washington state was swollen to bursting point. The northern flank of the mountain was bulging outward at a rate of more than one metre per day as magma built up inside. By 18 May 1980, the volcano could withstand the pressure no longer. The side of St Helens collapsed in an immense landslide, unleashing the largest explosive eruption in US recorded history.

An avalanche of rock raced 22 kilometres downhill while a plume of debris shot 25 kilometres skyward, punching into the stratosphere. The eruption killed 57 people near the volcano and blanketed 10 states with a layer of ash.

Amid all the destruction, however, the blast stimulated unheralded interest in eruptions and sparked many careers in volcanology. Not since the annihilation of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius in Italy had a volcanic event garnered so much attention from scientists and public officials. After St. Helens blew, the US government boosted funding for research in this area by more than a factor of 10 ....

http://ow.ly/1KA2Y

Biosecurity Laws Hobble Research

from the Scientist (Registration Required)

Ever since the U.S. government has taken steps to protect and encourage research involving pathogens that could be used as biological weapons, that research has become much less efficient, according to a new analysis.

Though funding for research on so-called "select agents," or pathogens that can be used as weapons, has shot through the roof, and the number of papers using those organisms has risen in recent years, the work has become up to five times less efficient--meaning, the same amount of funding produces fewer papers than it did before.

"The price of the research was multiplied by maybe a factor of 5 for anthrax and maybe a factor of 2 for Ebola," said Carnegie Mellon University associate professor Elizabeth Casman, who led an analysis of the select agent literature that is published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Casman told The Scientist that her group found, for example, that prior to 2002, an average of 17 papers on anthrax were published for every $1 million of funding, whereas after 2002, that average dropped to 3.

http://ow.ly/1KA6v

Are Your Food Allergies for Real?

from ABC News

Food allergies are serious business--just ask 18-year-old Dane of Charlotte, North Carolina. With milk, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, chicken, potatoes, and garlic--and many other foods--on his "do not eat" list, he suffers from true, life-threatening food allergies.

To avoid a trip to the emergency room, everything Dane eats must be made from scratch: "I don't eat in restaurants or from vending machines," he says, "[and] I try not to be around a lot of food, which makes it a little isolating because so much of our culture and socialization revolves around food."

But there are many allergy sufferers who practice the same devout food avoidance Dane does--and don't actually have to, according to a paper published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

http://ow.ly/1KAaN

[Kai]

 May 14, 2010
Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom.

But scientists and environmental groups are raising sharp questions about that estimate, declaring that the leak must be far larger. They also criticize BP for refusing to use well-known scientific techniques that would give a more precise figure.

The criticism escalated on Thursday, a day after the release of a video that showed a huge black plume of oil gushing from the broken well at a seemingly high rate. BP has repeatedly claimed that measuring the plume would be impossible.

http://ow.ly/1L3Ez

A Fuel-Saving Car Engine in the Blink of an IRIS

from National Geographic News

In the past year, the U.S. auto industry has reeled under market pressure, faced bankruptcy, accepted billions of dollars in government bailout money, and agreed to mandates for cleaner and more efficient vehicles. But for two brothers from Colorado with an automotive start-up company, things couldn't be better.

Levi Tillemann-Dick, 28, and his brother Corban, 24, are carrying on a dream they hatched with their late father, Denver inventor and businessman Timber Dick, to bring to market a radical new engine design that is much more efficient than a traditional internal combustion engine.

The four-stroke engine used in gasoline-powered cars today was a breakthrough when pioneers like Nikolaus Otto and Gottlieb Daimler developed the design in the 1870s and 1880s. But its operation is so inefficient that only 20 to 30 percent of fuel in the tank is converted to energy that actually makes the car move. The rest is lost, mostly as heat.

http://ow.ly/1L3Ge

Cancer's Sweet Tooth Becomes a Target

from New Scientist

A drug that blocks the way cancer cells generate energy could lead to a new class of cancer treatments. The first human trial of the drug, published this week, is reported to have extended the lives of four people with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

The result is preliminary, but it suggests that, as an approach, tackling "cancer metabolism" is sound. "We are still a long way from a treatment, but this opens the window on drugs that target cancer metabolism," says Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who led the trial.

Elsewhere, researchers have started experimenting with a host of other molecules that might target cancer metabolism. "It's about identifying which target is best," says Lewis Cantley of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, whose company Agios Pharmaceuticals is screening for such targets.

http://ow.ly/1L3LY

All Present-Day Life Arose From a Single Origin

from Science News

One isn't such a lonely number. All life on Earth shares a single common ancestor, a new statistical analysis confirms. The idea that life-forms share a common ancestor is "a central pillar of evolutionary theory," says Douglas Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. "But recently there has been some mumbling, especially from microbiologists, that it may not be so cut-and-dried."

Because microorganisms of different species often swap genes, some scientists have proposed that multiple primordial life forms could have tossed their genetic material into life's mix, creating a web, rather than a tree of life.

To determine which hypothesis is more likely correct, Theobald put various evolutionary ancestry models through rigorous statistical tests. The results, published in the May 13 Nature, come down overwhelmingly on the side of a single ancestor.

http://ow.ly/1L3MP

A Crack in the Mirror Neuron Hypothesis of Autism

from ScienceNOW Daily News

Brain cells thought to underlie our ability to understand one another work just fine in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to the authors of a controversial new study. Other researchers had proposed that these cells, called mirror neurons, malfunction in people with ASD, disrupting their ability to understand what someone else is experiencing. If the results hold up, researchers will need another way to explain the social deficits that characterize the disorder.

First identified in monkeys, mirror neurons fire when an animal performs particular movements but also when it sees another monkey or a person perform the same movement. Such neurons allow monkeys--and presumably humans--to learn actions by imitating others, and, some researchers believe, to understand other people and empathize with them.

... Several groups had found evidence supporting the mirror neuron hypothesis ... But neuroscientists Ilan Dinstein and David Heeger of New York University and their colleagues considered the previous results in humans inconsistent and inconclusive and designed what they considered "a more in-depth test," Dinstein says.

http://ow.ly/1L46a

Universities: Life After Death

from Nature News

Last month, Joseph Ng, a biologist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), sat down with very mixed feelings to write a job advertisement for a new chair of the biology department. The provisional draft said that the department was seeking "an energetic and visionary leader" who could preside over the hiring of several junior faculty members. What the ad didn't talk about, and couldn't possibly describe, were the events that left so many holes to fill.

On a Friday afternoon in early February, Amy Bishop, an assistant professor in the department, pulled out a black 9-millimetre pistol during a biology faculty meeting. "She just went down the line", wearing a look that was "cold, very cold", says Ng. At point-blank range, Bishop shot five of her colleagues in the head, killing three of them and critically wounding two others.

Ng, seated at the opposite end of the table, thought she would murder them all. In the space of seconds, Bishop cut the 14-strong faculty by more than a third. Ever since, the survivors have been struggling with the enormous task of repairing the shattered department even as they try to heal their own emotional wounds.

http://ow.ly/1L4ar

Fungus Hits Afghan Opium Poppies

from BBC News Online

A serious disease is affecting opium poppies in Afghanistan, Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said. Mr Costa told the BBC that this year's opium production could be reduced by a quarter, compared with last year.

He said the disease--a fungus--is thought to have infected about half of the country's poppy crop. Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium. Mr Costa said opium prices had gone up by around 50% in the region.

That could have an impact on revenues for insurgent groups like the Taliban which have large stockpiles of opium, he told the BBC's Bethany Bell. The fungus attacks the root of the plant, climbs up the stem and makes the opium capsule wither away. It was affecting poppies in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, the heartland of opium cultivation and the insurgency in Afghanistan, he said.

http://ow.ly/1L4gH

Another Plastics Ingredient Raises Safety Concerns

from Science News

A largely ignored contaminant doesn't just resemble bisphenol A, the chemical found to leach out of hard plastic water bottles. It's BPA's fluorinated twin--on steroids.

New laboratory studies in Japan indicate that the twin, called bisphenol AF, or BPAF, may be even more potent than BPA in altering the effects of steroid hormones such as estrogens in the body.

The unusual way that BPAF blocks some estrogen actions and fosters others "could make this a vicious compound, a very toxic compound," says Jan-Åke Gustafsson, a molecular endocrinologist at the University of Houston. The chemical is an ingredient of many plastics, electronic devices, optical fibers and more.

http://ow.ly/1L4jI

Absent a Moon or Mars, Recreating Space 65 Feet Under the Sea

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Astronauts will not be sent by the United States to the Moon or Mars for at least a decade, but they can still get an idea of what it would be like by living 65 feet underwater.

On Monday, a crew of six, including two veteran astronauts, descended to Aquarius, an undersea laboratory next to a coral reef about three miles off Key Largo, Fla. This is the 14th mission in a nine-year-old program known as NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations--Neemo for short.

During their two weeks in the laboratory, the aquanauts will go on simulated spacewalks, operate a crane and perform other tasks of the sort astronauts would face in setting up a habitat on another planet. "The primary objectives are based on engineering and testing and operations design for planetary exploration," said William Todd, the project manager for the Neemo 14 mission.

http://ow.ly/1L4o9

Lizard Extinctions Blamed on Global Warming

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

When it comes to the hazards of global warming, it may turn out that lizards in burrows are the canaries in the coal mine.

In a study to be published Friday in the journal Science, an international team of biologists reports that in more than one-tenth of the places in Mexico where lizards flourished in 1975 the reptiles now cannot be found. The researchers predict that by 2080 about 40 percent of local lizard populations worldwide will have died off, and 20 percent of lizard species will be extinct.

The reason for the huge die-off appears to be rising temperatures. But it isn't heat that is killing the lizards directly. Instead, global warming appears to be lengthening the period of the day when lizards must seek shelter or run the risk of heat stroke. In the breeding season, that sheltering period is now so long that females of many species are unable to eat enough food to produce eggs and offspring.

http://ow.ly/1L4sg

[Kai]

Science News, The Return of.

May 27, 2010

'Top Kill' Effort Stops Flow of Oil into Gulf of Mexico

http://ow.ly/1QDTs - Fucking FINALLY. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, you'd think they could actually solve a problem this important a little faster. Here we're always talking about how much power and wealth big oil has.

In E. coli Fight, Some Strains Are Largely Ignored

http://ow.ly/1QBw4 - This wouldn't be an issue if people just washed their vegetables before eating. It's a simple task, especially with central plumbing. Just run under the tap and rub a little on all surfaces.

Glaxo Tries a Linux Approach

http://ow.ly/1QBzo - Very cool, something I thought would never happen.

Report Finds Control of High Blood Pressure Improving

http://ow.ly/1QBC6 - And by under control, they mean GRABBIN PILLS.

Infections Link to Bees Decline

http://ow.ly/1QBDH - It's a multifactor thing, really. Pesticides, pathogens, parasites. But NOT cell phone towers. Personally, I think we should be using native polinators in North America anyway. There are plenty of great bumblebee species.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Lands for the Last Time

http://ow.ly/1QBEY - And when all this so called human "exploration" is over, maybe we can get back to using robots to do REAL science.

Did Horned Dinosaurs Island-Hop to Europe?

http://ow.ly/1QBNc - I used to talk about the Tethys Ocean here years ago. This article is a homage of sorts.

Virulent Wheat Fungus Invades South Africa

http://ow.ly/1QBO0 - As if Africa didn't have it bad enough.

Artificial Butterfly Mixes High, Low Tech

http://ow.ly/1QBQp - This includes a really cool high speed recording of the flight period.

Link Between Tanning Beds, Melanoma Grows Stronger

http://ow.ly/1QBZC - I swear, are people really that stupid that it takes loads of research to show the cancer risks of tanning beds? You're hitting your skin with concentrated UV, and UV is a mutagen. DO THE FUCKING MATH.

[Telarus]

Excellent links Kai, thanks.

MesoAmerican Beer Recreated!

http://www.ediblegeography.com/archaeo-alcohology/

[Kai]

April 16, 2010

Follow @AmSciMag on Twitter and win a free subscription to American Scientist!

On to Mars: Obama Declares, 'I Expect to See It'

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Associated Press) -- President Barack Obama boldly predicted Thursday his new plans for space exploration would lead American astronauts on historic, almost fantastic journeys to an asteroid and then to Mars--and in his lifetime--relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built.

"I expect to be around to see it," he said of pioneering U.S. trips starting with a landing on an asteroid--a colossal feat in itself--before the long-dreamed-of expedition to Mars. He spoke near the historic Kennedy Space Center launch pads that sent the first men to the moon, a blunt rejoinder to critics, including several former astronauts, who contend his planned changes will instead deal a staggering blow to the nation's manned space program.

"We want to leap into the future," not continue on the same path as before, Obama said as he sought to reassure NASA workers that America's space adventures would soar on despite the impending termination of space shuttle flights.

http://snipr.com/vj2a8

Save Your Computer From an Early Retirement

from the Christian Science Monitor

Computers don't age well. Once-speedy machines can easily slump into slothfulness after just a few years. As unwanted files pile up, wait times drag on. But with a little maintenance, you can save your PC from an early retirement.

Quick note: While most of the Monitor's computer suggestions cover both Macs and PCs, Apple fans will need to sit out this article. Also, if you're looking for tips on how to keep a new computer chugging along for many years to come, check out our companion piece.

Tuning up a computer means tackling both digital and physical clutter. PCs suck up gobs of dust and pet fur. This soot can coat chips and clog fans, trapping hot air that could cook a machine. Even if your computer's fan isn't thrumming like a leaf blower, it's a good idea to sweep out the dust bunnies once a year.

http://snipr.com/vj2d1

Costs May Delay Heart Patients From Seeking Treatment

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Patients without health insurance, and those who are insured but fear the cost of medical care, are more likely to delay seeking life-saving treatment when having a heart attack.

For the millions of American adults who don't have health insurance, and those who have it but worry that illness might ruin them financially, the signs of an impending heart attack do not set in motion the kind of rapid, lifesaving response that medical professionals urge, according to a study conducted at 24 urban hospitals across the nation.

Instead, when uninsured or financially insecure adults feel stabbing chest pain, burning in the shoulders and jaw, or extreme pressure across the midsection, they are more likely than the reliably insured to consider the economic consequences of a false alarm and put off getting help. That delay, established in a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., may be a costly decision for the nation as well as for those who put off seeking care. Long-standing research shows that the longer a heart attack victim delays treatment, the greater the risk of dying.

http://snipr.com/vj2e6

'Raw Milk' Advocates, Health Officials Step Up Dispute

from USA Today

Maybe you can't cry over spilled milk, but that doesn't mean you can't have big fights if it's unpasteurized. To a small but dedicated community, it's "raw milk," a life-giving, vitamin and enzyme-rich miracle cure for asthma, gastrointestinal disorders and multiple other illnesses. The viewpoint, championed in the past decade by the Weston A. Price Foundation, which follows the nutritional teachings of a mid-century Ohio dentist, has gained a life of its own on the Internet.

To public health officials and state departments of agriculture, unpasteurized milk can be a dangerous, germ-ridden drink that is especially hazardous to children and their immature immune systems. An outbreak of Campylobacter tied to unpasteurized milk in Middlebury, Ind. sickened at least 20 people in March in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, according to the state departments of health.

The latest round in this dispute at the intersection of food, alternative health and anti-government activism took place this week, first with a national conference of pro-raw-milk advocates in Wisconsin on Saturday followed by today's launch of a well-financed website warning of raw milk's risks.

http://snipr.com/vj2g2

Body Heat: Sweden's New Green Energy Source

from Time

It's 7:30 a.m. on a wintry morning in downtown Stockholm and a sea of Swedes are flooding Central Station to catch a train to work. The station is toasty thanks to the busy shops and restaurants and the body heat being generated by the 250,000 commuters who crowd Scandinavia's busiest travel hub each day. This heat used to be lost by the end of the morning rush hour.

Now, however, engineers have figured out a way to harness it and transfer it to a newly refurbished office building down the block. Unbeknownst to them, these sweaty Swedes have become a green energy source: "They're cheap and renewable," says Karl Sundholm, a project manager at Jernhusen, a Stockholm real estate company, and one of the creators of the system.

Using excess body heat to warm a building is not a new concept--the Mall of America in Minneapolis recycles the heat generated from shoppers' bodies to help regulate the temperature of the massive complex during Minnesota's dreadful winters. But Stockholm has taken the idea a step further by successfully transferring excess body heat from one building to another.

http://snipr.com/vj2hl

Plastic Soup in Atlantic

from the Seattle Times

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Associated Press)--Researchers are warning of a new blight at sea: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over a remote expanse of the Atlantic.

The floating garbage--spun together by a vortex of currents--was documented by two groups of scientists that trawled the sea between Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands. The studies describe a soup of microparticles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places worldwide.

"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a voyage in February. The debris is harmful to fish, sea mammals--and potentially humans--even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.

http://snipr.com/vj2im

Finding Truly Random Numbers

from NPR

Randomness is hard to come by. At least things that are absolutely, positively, 100 percent random. Take the example of a roulette wheel: It may seem that the number the ball falls on is a random event, but Antonio Acin of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona says it's not.

"If you are able to compute the initial position and the speed of the ball, and you have a perfect model for the roulette, then you can predict where the ball is going to finish--with certainty," Acin says. In fact, he says everything that appears random in our world may just appear random because of lack of knowledge.

So to find true randomness, Acin and his colleagues turned to the world of atoms and electrons, and to the laws of quantum mechanics. "To be more precise, we are taking advantage of the nonlocal correlations of entangled quantum particles," he says.

http://snipr.com/vj2ji

U.S. Leads New Bid to Phase Out Whale Hunting

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON -- The United States is leading an effort by a handful of antiwhaling nations to broker an agreement that would limit and ultimately end whale hunting by Japan, Norway and Iceland, according to people involved with the negotiations.

The compromise deal, which has generated intense controversy within the 88-nation International Whaling Commission and among antiwhaling activists, would allow the three whaling countries to continue hunting whales for the next 10 years, although in reduced numbers.

In exchange, the whaling nations--which have long exploited loopholes in an international treaty that aims to preserve the marine mammals--would agree to stricter monitoring of their operations, including the placing of tracking devices and international monitors on all whaling ships and participation in a whale DNA registry to track global trade in whale products.

http://snipr.com/vj2kb

'Very Eerie': This Winter Had Virtually No Flu

from the Philadelphia Inquirer

Is it possible for a pandemic to save lives? The short answer is that it just did. Since swine flu first burst onto the scene one year ago this month, fewer Americans appear to have died of influenza-related causes than in any recent flu season.

The pandemic flu kept at bay seasonal strains that normally kill thousands of elderly people. And it did so, somehow, while not sticking around itself. The result: a winter flu season with virtually no seasonal flu, no pandemic flu, no flu of any kind, at least not yet. "It is very eerie," said Gregory Storch, director of the infectious diseases division at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

But before you get all giddy with pandemic appreciation, consider the following: No one knows why swine flu didn't return this winter. (Handwashing and vaccination probably helped but don't fully explain what happened.) Flus of pandemics past have always come back; it was just a question of when and how severe. And it could well be that as more months pass without any strains of flu, fewer people are developing immunity against them--and could get sicker next season.

http://snipr.com/vj2l5

Low Solar Activity Link to Cold UK Winters

from BBC News Online

The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers. They identified a link between fewer sunspots and atmospheric conditions that "block" warm, westerly winds reaching Europe during winter months.

But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend. The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

"By recent standards, we have just had what could be called a very cold winter and I wanted to see if this was just another coincidence or statistically robust," said lead author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading, UK.

http://snipr.com/vj2m1

[Kai]

April 19, 2010

Follow @AmSciMag on Twitter and win a free subscription to American Scientist!


Inside The Plume, a Volcano Tells Its Secrets

from National Public Radio

To understand a volcanic eruption, you can study images from satellites, radar measurements from aircraft, or seismic data from sensors in the ground. But if you really want to know what's up with a volcano, you need to sample the material it's spewing out.

Volcanologists Evgenia Ilyinskaya and Asgerdur Sigurdardottir were determined to do just that. After stopping for some last-minute supplies in Hvolsvollur, Iceland, the pair set out in a gray Isuzu Trooper headed for the giant clouds coming from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

The afternoon was unusually clear, making the view of Eyjafjallajokull stunning as the car drew closer. Most of the sky was brilliant blue, with just a few wispy white clouds. But dead ahead, a dark curtain hung before the car.

http://snipr.com/vm6k5


Revealing the True Solar Corona

from American Scientist

It is somewhat ironic that a total solar eclipse--the Moon blocking out the entire body of the Sun--actually reveals great detail of the Sun's structure. When the blinding brilliance of the Sun is obscured, this allows its more tenuous surrounding features--its corona--to come into view. Investigating the corona may seem straightforward, but it requires an understanding beyond seeing, imaging and modeling.

Eclipse studies of the white-light corona can be grouped roughly into three periods. In the first, during the latter half of the 19th century, naked-eye observations were only occasionally supplemented by photography. The former were carefully reported in written accounts and recorded in drawings and engravings that depended on the skills of astronomers, artists and engravers, as well as those who made and reproduced the pictures.

...Even in those early days there was already some discrepancy between images and observer accounts. A July 29, 1878, eclipse was reported by Arthur C. Ranyard, a British lawyer and mathematician who also studied astronomy. Ranyard took a photograph of the event, while Charles Denison, a doctor in Denver, made a drawing that was turned into a woodcut. Ranyard noted the differences between his photograph and the drawing he received from Denison afterwards.

http://snipr.com/vm6li


Counting Sea Life, Sometimes Little Things Are Big

from the Boston Globe

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- If the Census Bureau thinks it has its hands full counting Americans, imagine what scientists are up against in trying to tally every living thing in the ocean, including microbes so small they seem invisible.And just try to get them to mail back a form.

The worldwide Census of Marine Life has four field projects focusing on hard-to-see sea life such as tiny microbes, zooplankton, larvae and burrowers in the seabed.

Tiny as individuals, these life forms are massive as groups and provide food that helps underpin better-known living things.

http://snipr.com/vm6mv


Controversial DNA Swap Could Prevent Inherited Disease

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

(Reuters) -- British scientists say they have mastered a controversial technique using cloning technology to prevent some incurable inherited diseases by swapping DNA between two fertilized human eggs.

Lead researcher Doug Turnbull of Newcastle University said this week that he hoped the first babies free from so-called mitochondrial diseases would be born within three years.

The technique replaces mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down the maternal line. One in 6,500 children is born with serious diseases caused by malfunctioning mitochondrial DNA.

http://snipr.com/vm6nv


Ultrathin Silk-Based Electronics Make Better Brain Implants

from Wired

Silk has made its way from the soft curves of the body to the spongy folds of the brain. Engineers have now designed silk-based electronics that stick to the surface of the brain, similar to the way a silk dress clings to the hips.

The stretchable, ultrathin design would make for better brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which record brain activity in paralyzed patients and translate thoughts into movements of computer cursors or robotic arms. Because it's so thin and flexible, a silk-based device could reach regions of the brain that were previously inaccessible.

"This development heralds a new class of implantable devices, not just for the brain, but for many other tissues," said neurologist Brian Litt of the University of Pennsylvania who co-authored the study published April 18 in Nature Materials.

http://snipr.com/vm6pn


The Anatomy of Desire

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

The two mannequins stood side by side in the back of the white van. Johan Karremans, a psychologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands, along with his student and collaborator, Sander Arons, clothed the plastic women identically in tight black tops and dark skirts. Arons then drove the van around the country to the homes of blind men.

The cargo van is one of two mobile labs belonging to the university's psychology department. Sometimes, outside an elementary school, children climb into the back of a van to have their brain waves tested on an encephalogram machine. But this experiment, the results of which will soon be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, dealt with desire--in this case the desire of heterosexual men--and was an attempt to gauge the force of culture, to weigh the learned and the innate, in determining sexual attraction.

The headless mannequins, which Karremans bought, he told me recently, "on the Dutch version of Craigslist," have adjustable waists and hips, and the researchers set each body differently, so that one had a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 and the other of 0.84. Based on a range of studies of male preferences done by other scientists, Karremans chose the lower ratio as an ideal, a slim yet curvy paragon, at least among Western populations. The higher ratio, by contrast, doesn't represent obesity, just a fullness that falls close to the average woman's shape.

http://snipr.com/vm6s7


Corps of Engineers Said to Err on Flooding Risk

from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An attempt by the Army Corps of Engineers to correct old data on water flows in the Mississippi may have led to underestimates of the current risk of flooding along the river, scientists argue in a new study.

The study argues that a change in the way water flows were measured, dating from the 1930s, mistakenly led the corps to make downward adjustments in data from the 1800s and early 1900s.

That in turn is leading to underestimates of the risk of flooding today on the Mississippi between the Ohio and Missouri Rivers, and to inadequate preparations by government agencies, said Nicholas Pinter, a geology professor at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and the author of the new report.

http://snipr.com/vm6sh


Cobra Hood Mechanism Revealed by Electrode Study

from BBC News Online

Scientists have uncovered the mechanism behind the menacing "hood flare" which cobras use as a defensive display. By measuring the electrical activity from the snakes' muscles, they found the precise group of muscles used by cobras to raise their hoods.

The researchers say that the cobra's hood evolved as its ribs were "co-opted" to be used in this visual display. They report their findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Kenneth Kardong, professor of zoology from Washington State University in the US, was one of the authors of the study. He explained that the cobra's hood was "an intriguing problem in evolutionary biology."

http://snipr.com/vm6sy


Party Drug Could Ease Trauma Long Term

from Nature News

Ecstasy, a drug that is illegal in most countries, is showing increasing potential as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to clinical-trial results presented at a conference in San Jose, California, today [April 16]. The effect seems to continue for years after the initial treatment.

People can develop PTSD after traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse, or witnessing extreme acts of violence. Patients are plagued by flashbacks and nightmares, and often become emotionally numb and easily frightened. Treatment includes cognitive behavioural therapy and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as paroxetine (Paxil) and sertraline (Zoloft), but many people with PTSD do not respond to these treatments.

Ecstasy, otherwise known as MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), causes the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin in the brain, and so could help to decrease the patient's fear and defensiveness during treatment. The drug was used during therapy in the 1970s but with the rise of rave culture in the 1980s, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the World Health Organization listed MDMA as a Schedule I drug--a classification reserved for drugs with no medical use and high potential for abuse--making it nearly impossible to use in clinical trials.

http://snipr.com/vm6u4


Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

HORSHOLM, Denmark -- The lawyers and engineers who dwell in an elegant enclave here are at peace with the hulking neighbor just over the back fence: a vast energy plant that burns thousands of tons of household garbage and industrial waste, round the clock.

Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.

In that time, such plants have become both the mainstay of garbage disposal and a crucial fuel source across Denmark, from wealthy exurbs like Horsholm to Copenhagen's downtown area. Their use has not only reduced the country's energy costs and reliance on oil and gas, but also benefited the environment, diminishing the use of landfills and cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

http://snipr.com/vm6uk

[Kai]

April 20, 2010

Follow @AmSciMag on Twitter and win a free subscription to American Scientist!


Iceland Volcano Has "Quieted Down"

from National Geographic News

Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano is changing the pace of its eruption, volcanologists reported Monday, raising hopes that the volcanic ash plume that has paralyzed air travel in Europe will soon scatter.

"The activity has quieted down, and the plumes are lower at the moment, rising only 500 to 1,000 meters [1,650 to 3,300 feet] above the vent," said Icelandic volcanologist Thorvaldur Thordarson. The volcanic ash plume once soared as high as 36,000 feet (11,000 meters).

"I think at the moment, because the plume is lower, it might help with the ash problem. It won't get into the jet stream and won't travel as far, and at lower altitudes it could be washed out by precipitation," added Thordarson, of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. "But it's difficult to say whether it will clear completely or not. It could pick up again."

http://snipr.com/vmzy0


Tamoxifen, Raloxifene Cut Breast Cancer Risk in Half

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Two drugs taken by women at high risk for breast cancer--tamoxifen and raloxifene--both reduce the risk of the disease by about 50% in high-risk post-menopausal women while they are taking the medications, researchers said Monday.

The benefits of raloxifene fall off more quickly once women stop taking them, however, and the increased benefits of tamoxifen come at a price: a higher risk of uterine cancer, blood clots and cataracts--although the absolute risks of all three remain low.

"These are relatively inexpensive drugs that reduce breast cancer by about 50% with side effects that are modest," said Dr. Gabriel N. Hortobagyi of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, one of the researchers. "We need to reassess why we are not using these drugs more broadly," he said at a news conference at a meeting of the American Assn. of Cancer Research, where the results were presented.

http://snipr.com/vmzzr


Iceland Among World's Most Volcanically Active Places

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

The volcano erupting from beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier and causing airport closures across northern Europe is a typical example of the kind of shield volcanoes that formed the island and still erupt on a regular basis.

The Icelandic eruptions are much less forceful than the ones that occur regularly in Alaska and elsewhere around the Pacific Ring of Fire, but they have been active for eons and are enormous when their full size is taken into account--from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the volcano.

"Because of where it sits, Iceland is one of the most volcanically active places in the world," said Chris Waythomas, scientist in charge of the Alaska Volcano Observatory, an arm of the U.S. Geological Survey, in conjunction with the state and the University of Alaska. "It was bad luck that the wind took the ash where it did, but this kind of thing happens all the time."

http://snipr.com/vn00g


A Saturn Spectacular, With Gravity's Help

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

When it comes to voyages of discovery, NASA's venerable Cassini mission is about as good as it gets.

In six years of cruising around the planet Saturn and its neighborhood, the Cassini spacecraft has discovered two new Saturn rings, a bunch of new moons and a whole new class of moonlets. It encountered liquid lakes on the moon Titan, water ice and a particle plume on the moon Enceladus, ridges and ripples on the rings, and cyclones at Saturn's poles. Cassini also released a European space probe that landed on Titan. And Cassini has sent back enough data to produce more than 1,400 scientific papers--at last count.

But besides the science, Cassini is state of the art in the arcane discipline of orbital mechanics--how to get from one place to another in space to fulfill a mission's science requirements without running out of fuel. The plans are for Cassini to keep working for seven more years, but it currently has only 22 percent of the maneuvering propellant it had when it started.

http://snipr.com/vn01s


Five Biggest Volcano Eruptions in Recent History

from the Christian Science Monitor

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland is having a major impact on travel and commerce in Europe and worldwide. But as a volcanic event, it barely rates mentioning.

By the measure of the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI)--a sort-of Richter scale for eruptions--the current outburst is probably a 2 or a 3, experts say. In other words, eruptions like Eyjafjallajökull happen virtually every year somewhere in the world.

The biggest eruption of the past millennium, by contrast, was a 7. Given that each number on the scale represents an eruption 10 times more powerful than the previous, that means Eyjafjallajökull is 10,000 times less powerful than one in Indonesia's Sunda Islands in 1815.

http://snipr.com/vn02z


Obama's Asteroid Goal: Riskier Than Moon

from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Associated Press) -- Landing a man on the moon was a towering achievement. Now the president has given NASA an even harder job, one with a certain Hollywood quality: sending astronauts to an asteroid, a giant speeding rock, just 15 years from now.

Space experts say such a voyage could take several months longer than a journey to the moon and entail far greater dangers. "It is really the hardest thing we can do," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

Going to an asteroid could provide vital training for an eventual mission to Mars. It might help unlock the secrets of how our solar system formed. And it could give mankind the know-how to do something that has been accomplished only in the movies by a few square-jawed, squinty-eyed heroes: saving the Earth from a collision with a killer asteroid.

http://snipr.com/vn03r


Scientists Measure Atomic Nudge

from Nature News

By pushing a cluster of just 60 ions with a tiny electric field, researchers have measured the most minuscule force ever.

The result, measuring mere yoctonewtons, beats previous record lows by several orders of magnitude. The group behind the measurements, based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, hopes that the technique can eventually lead to new tools for measuring the minuscule features of materials' surfaces.

Tiny force measurements are crucial for imaging atomic surfaces and detecting nuclear spins, but they are difficult to make because of the tiny dimensions involved.

http://snipr.com/vn04r


Severe Weather Has Favorite Spots

from Science News

WASHINGTON -- Lightning and tornadoes can strike fear into the hearts of Americans, but they don't strike everywhere equally. New analyses presented April 15 at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers find that some parts of the country are more disaster-prone than they're commonly given credit for, while others get off easier than previously thought.

Big cloud-to-ground strikes might be expected to be most common in urban areas, for example, where large buildings could draw lightning, said Heather Sheffield of the University of Maryland in College Park. Huge skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building in New York City act as "big lightning rods," she says.

To test that idea, Sheffield analyzed summer strike patterns from 2004 to 2008 for Maryland--a diverse state in terms of terrain. Sheffield mapped lightning flash data from the National Lightning and Detection Network over forests, cities, woody wetlands and crop regions.

http://snipr.com/vn05j


Researchers Solve the Mystery of the Zodiacal Light

from ScienceNOW Daily News

Zodiacal light--the faint white glow that stretches across the darkest skies, tracing the same path the sun takes--has mystified scientists for centuries. They've known that it is sunlight reflected from a disk of dust spanning the inner solar system from Mercury to Jupiter. They just didn't know where the dust came from--until now.

Every day, Earth sweeps up about 140 tons of cosmic dust. The particles are mostly 100 micrometers to 200 micrometers in size and made of silicate minerals. Most burn up in the atmosphere, although some survive and end up in micrometeorite collections. To figure out how this dust behaves in the inner solar system, planetary dynamicist David Nesvorný of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and five colleagues set up a computer model.

In addition to being subject to the tug of planetary gravity, microscopic particles orbiting the sun are pushed outward by the pressure of sunlight, dragged inward by their own radiative emissions, and worn down by collisions with other particles. Nesvorný and his colleagues followed particles released in their model from various types of comets or from asteroids and compared the particles' fates with observations of the zodiacal dust cloud.

http://snipr.com/vn06a


Magnesium Power: White-Hot Energy

from the Economist

Storing energy is one of the biggest obstacles to the widespread adoption of alternative sources of power. Batteries can be bulky and slow to charge. Hydrogen, which can be made electrolytically from water and used to power fuel cells, is difficult to handle.

But there may be an alternative: magnesium. As school chemistry lessons show, metallic magnesium is highly reactive and stores a lot of energy. Even a small amount of magnesium ribbon burns in a flame with a satisfying white heat. Researchers are now devising ways to extract energy from magnesium in a more controlled fashion.

Engineers at MagPower in White Rock, British Columbia, for example, have developed a metal-air cell that uses water and ambient air to react with a magnesium fuel supply, in the form of a metal anode, to generate electricity. Doron Aurbach at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, has created a magnesium-based version of the lithium-ion rechargeable cell, a type of battery known for its long life and stability.

http://snipr.com/vn07r

[Kai]

When was the last time I actually gave you'all the headlines the /day of/?

June 3, 2010
Effort to Halt Oil Spill Ends With Saw Stuck in Pipe

from the New Orleans Times-Picayune

BP's plan to contain the oil and natural gas escaping from a blown out well in the Gulf of Mexico hit a snag and was suspended just after midnight, Wednesday morning, when the saw being used in the operation became stuck in a pipe.

The company was forced to stop cutting through a broken riser pipe one mile below the water's surface at 12:05 a.m. after the diamond wire saw conducting the operation became stuck almost halfway through the pipe, BP spokesman Graham MacEwen said.

... The saw blade was freed Wednesday about 12:30 p.m., MacEwen said, but work did not resume. The diamond wire saw and the shears were being brought to the surface Wednesday night where the former would be assessed.

http://ow.ly/1TuOM


Researchers Provide Business to Gulf Charter Captains

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

REDFISH BAY, LA. -- In a strangely silent corner of this usually thriving bay, charter captain Kevin Beach of Metairie says he should be seeing "shrimp, trout jumping, sea gulls ... and knuckleheads like myself high-fiving over a catch."

Instead, he is seeing serious-minded researchers. Lots and lots of them, quietly collecting scientific samples. ... Beach typically makes 80 percent of his yearly income from the tourists who come to fish the gulf waters in May, June and July.

At least for now, though, there's an odd silver lining to the dark cloud of oil that threatens the livelihoods of Beach and other charter captains who are within reach of the heaviest slick: the flood of scientists, graduate students and environmental researchers who have descended on the coastal marinas and beaches to get an up-close look at the spill and take the measure of this unprecedented event.

http://ow.ly/1TuQM


New Prostate Cancer Tests Might Bring More Certainty

from U.S. News and World Report

(HealthDay News) -- Two new tests promise to cut down on the number of biopsies now taken from men suspected of having prostate cancer, researchers report.

The tests -- still in the early stages of development -- might also offer better clues about which cancers require immediate treatment and which can be left for so-called "watchful waiting," researchers reported Tuesday at the American Urological Association's annual meeting, in San Francisco.

Both tests check for increased levels of genetic material -- one for the DNA of which genes are made, the other for the RNA that carries the messages from those genes. And both tests appear to add certainty to the suspicion of prostate cancer provided by the most widely used test for prostate cancer, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood screen.

http://ow.ly/1TuSJ


Mining for Cold, Hard Facts

from the Wall Street Journal

WEST ANTARCTICA — At a camp here on Earth's remotest continent, American researchers have constructed a towering drill that, like a biopsy needle, periodically plunges thousands of feet into the ice to extract an exotic marrow of frozen gases and isotopes.

Their work could settle a central question in the dispute over climate change, by documenting how greenhouse gases influenced temperatures in the past. Only then can researchers accurately analyze climate changes that may be under way today.

Until now, that information was hidden in Antarctica's ancient ice. Scientists agree that global temperatures are rising, and so are levels of carbon dioxide. But the immediate impact of human activity on natural climate cycles—from ice-sheet dynamics to wind and ocean currents—remains unclear. The Antarctica research could, for the first time, teach scientists how global warming developed when humankind had no hand in it.

http://ow.ly/1TuVF


Whaling: Politics, Science and Ethics

from PRI's The World Science

The International Whaling Commission is considering legalizing commercial whaling by some countries, but at a very limited scale.

Marine biologist Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University says the current proposal would fail to protect endangered whale species.

Palumbi uses genetics to study whale populations, and he is our guest in the Science Forum this week. He discusses whether all whaling should be banned, what role lay citizens can play in conserving whales, and how modern genetic methods can be used to crack down on whale smuggling.

http://ow.ly/1Tva8


Brain's Bubble Wrap May Be Lots More

from the Boston Globe (Registration Required)

They have long been dismissed as the brain's Bubble Wrap, packing material to protect precious cells that do the real work of the mind. But glial cells — the name literally means "glue" — are now being radically recast as neuroscientists explore the role they play in disease and challenge longstanding notions about how the brain works.

More than a century ago, scientists proposed the "neuron doctrine,'' a theory that individual brain cells called neurons are the main players in the nervous system. It became an underpinning of modern neuroscience and led to major advances in understanding the brain, but it has become increasingly apparent that the other 85 percent of brain cells, glia, do more than just housekeeping.

"In a play in a theater, it's not just the actors on the stage, but the whole ensemble that is critical for that production to be perfect,'' said Philip Haydon, chairman of the neuroscience department at Tufts University School of Medicine.

http://ow.ly/1Tvc0


Artifacts Hint at Earliest Neanderthals in Britain

from BBC News Online

Archaeologists have found what they say is the earliest evidence of Neanderthals living in Britain. Two pieces of flint unearthed at motorway works in Dartford, Kent, have now been dated to 110,000 years ago.

The finds push back the presence of Neanderthals in Britain by 40,000 years or more, said Dr Francis Wenban-Smith, from Southampton University. A majority of researchers believe Britain was uninhabited by humans at the time the flint tools were made.

An absence of archaeological evidence suggests people abandoned this land between 200,000 years ago (or 160,000 years ago, depending on who you ask) and 65,000 years ago. But one researcher, unconnected with the study, said he was not convinced by the evidence presented so far.

http://ow.ly/1Tvdk


Virus Ravages Cassava Plants in Africa

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

MUKONO, Uganda — Lynet Nalugo dug a cassava tuber out of her field and sliced it open. Inside its tan skin, the white flesh was riddled with necrotic brown lumps, as obviously diseased as any tuberculosis lung or cancerous breast. "Even the pigs refuse this," she said.

The plant was what she called a "2961," meaning it was Variant No. 2961, the only local strain bred to resist cassava mosaic virus, a disease that caused a major African famine in the 1920s. But this was not mosaic disease, which only stunts the plants. Her field had been attacked by a new and more damaging virus named brown streak, for the marks it leaves on stems.

That newcomer, brown streak, is now ravaging cassava crops in a great swath around Lake Victoria, threatening millions of East Africans who grow the tuber as their staple food. Although it has been seen on coastal farms for 70 years, a mutant version emerged in Africa's interior in 2004 ...

http://ow.ly/1TvfO


Alzheimer's Stalks a Colombian Family

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

YARUMAL, Colombia — Tucked away on a steep street in this rough-hewn mountain town, an old woman found herself diapering her middle-age children.

At frighteningly young ages, in their 40s, four of Laura Cuartas's children began forgetting and falling apart, assaulted by what people here have long called La Bobera, the foolishness. It is a condition attributed, in hushed rumors, to everything from touching a mysterious tree to the revenge of a wronged priest. It is Alzheimer's disease, and at 82, Mrs. Cuartas, her gray raisin of a face grave, takes care of three of her afflicted children.

... For generations, the illness has tormented these and thousands of others among a sprawling group of relatives: the world's largest family to experience Alzheimer's disease. Now, the Colombian clan is center stage in a potentially groundbreaking assault on Alzheimer's, a plan to see if giving treatment before dementia starts can lead to preventing Alzheimer's altogether.

http://ow.ly/1Tvhr


Sinkhole in Guatemala: Giant Could Get Even Bigger

from National Geographic News

A huge sinkhole in Guatemala City, Guatemala, crashed into being on Sunday, reportedly swallowing a three-story building—and echoing a similar, 2007 sinkhole in Guatemala. The sinkhole has likely been weeks or even years in the making—floodwaters from tropical storm Agatha caused the sinkhole to finally collapse, scientists say.

The sinkhole appears to be about 60 feet (18 meters) wide and about 30 stories deep, said James Currens, a hydrogeologist at the University of Kentucky. Sinkholes are natural depressions that can form when water-saturated soil and other particles become too heavy and cause the roofs of existing voids in the soil to collapse.

Another way sinkholes can form is if water enlarges a natural fracture in a limestone bedrock layer. As the crack gets bigger, the topsoil gently slumps, eventually leaving behind a sinkhole.

http://ow.ly/1TviG

[Kai]

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/639859.html Well waddya know, faggots make great parents! Who woulda thunk?

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-ancient-bees-20100608,0,4547302.story Land of milk and honey really was, you know, a land of milk and honey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/health/08canc.html New early breast cancer treatments.

http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2010/06/07/start_up_aims_to_sequence_human_genomes_for_30_in_just_a_few_hours/ Pivoting between this is great and this is eugenics.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-04-cigarettes-cancer_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip Yet another reason to stop smoking.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2010/0607/Technology-that-translates-and-unites On Internet translators and translation.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100607-science-animals-crocodiles-hunter-surfing/ Body surfing Crocs? Crikey!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/07/york-gladiator-graveyard Link says it all.

And now for TODAY'S News.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/bp_cut_corners_in_days_before.html BP fuckups pile higher and deeper.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/health/research/13genome.html The problem with this is that diseases are usually epigenetic, a combination of genotype and environment, so the gene alone doesn't tell the whole story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10307048.stm Asteroid sample.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/13/AR2010061304822.html On invasive plants, urban forestry and ecological restoration.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1995914,00.html#ixzz0qksETupJ "The stars shared spit." A hypothesis without evidence, mostly, lots of heuristic philosophizing.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100610-giant-sea-reptiles-warm-blooded-science/ First of all, they aren't reptiles, not unless that term is suddenly being used in a phylogenetically applicable way and not just for non feathered scaled extant vertebrates, and second, the term is homeothermic. There isn't this on/off switch for physiological temperature regulation as some people imagine. All organisms have to manage temperature some way, either by behavior or by physiology.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/magazine/13dogfighting-t.html One of the most obvious signs of psycho-sociopathy, I've thought.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/esa-overhaul/#ixzz0qktvxDEp Yes, and I think they should consider the newly discovered but already extinct Gulf Coast Walrus first.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127795046 Location of expressionist painter's balcony in London via geometrics and solar data.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/60138/title/Portrait_of_a_youthful_planet Beta Pictoris I a young and massive Jupiter.

[Kai]

Today's Science Headlines. Brought to you by,

HUMANITY: For all your fucking-it-up needs.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-inspection-20100615,0,7349376.story From the gulf coast tar ball scene, regulators discover that the people in charge of BP rig inspection are....The Marshal Islands? O.o

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/science/space/15kepler.html On planet ownership...I mean, on planet DATA ownership. You can't /own/ a planet, right...right?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/12/BAVN1DRUGU.DTL&type=science Northern shift effect observed in trees. Goodbye, Taiga!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100614-moon-water-hundred-lunar-proceedings-science/ More water on the moon than previously thought, giving yet another argument to the "Nothing is wrong, there's TONES of water available on Ganymede" crowd.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.900-want-to-find-your-mind-learn-to-direct-your-dreams.html On lucid dreaming and metathought...I mean, secondary consciousness. Really, secondary consciousness? Do we have to make up MORE phrases for terms that are already covered?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/14/scientists-develop-tech-to-track-carbon-dioxide/ On CO₂ tracker technology using perflourocarbon tracers.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/a_major_hurricane_in_gulf_coul.html OH GREAT. If the Deepwater event wasn't enough.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/14/AR2010061405388.html Minority students, fighting the good fight against illness, since the white affluent folks won't go to where the smudgy people are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/science/earth/13shatt.html The Garden of Eden is withering, since God can't be bothered to push back the sea. COME ON, IT WAS EASY ENOUGH WITH MOSES!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-06-15-dietaryguidelines16_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip People starving in india, gulf of mexico dying from oil, saltwater killing the garden of eden. MEANWHILE, Americans dying of EATING TOO MUCH.

Jesus Christ.

[NotPublished]

oh I didn't know the hayabusa pod was recaptured I forgot all about it!

Thanks for the links Kai, I love reading them

[Kai]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/29wells.html - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/27/AR2010062703622.html Two on deepwater horizon this morning. Hurricane Alex is coming up fast.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10430234.stm Large Hardon Collider smashes dicks together at high speeds...what?

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-statins-20100629,0,7388273.story On statins, cholesterol and prostate cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27Tuna-t.html This is why I don't eat bluefin tuna anymore. Or yellow fin. Or any tuna except skipjack, really (thats the type most often canned). And I really hope you'all wouldn't either.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-28-americans-overtreated_N.htm No, only the people with money. The poor folks aren't treated at all. Best health care in the world my ass.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100623/full/465994a.html On Africa and science.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15389845?nclick_check=1 On infants and vaccinations.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/60568/title/Neutrino_experiments_sow_seeds_of_possible_revolution_  On neutrinos and antineutrinos.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/27/legacy-salk-quest-science/ On the Salk Institute.

[Kai]

Also, the official word on hurricanes and Deepwater Horizon from NOAA:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/PDFs/hurricanes_oil_factsheet.pdf

[Kai]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29ethyl.html?_r=1 This is just the beginning of using viruses for manufacturing.

http://www.latimes.com/news/health/la-sci-diabetes-avandia-20100629,0,6097242.story On Avandia and heart risk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062804973.html On antibiotic resistance and livestock.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/middleeast/26looting.html On the looting of the Garden of Eden.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8767763.stm On earth's geoid. Maybe someone can explain this to me.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/weekly/20100628_Fruit_fly_genes_yielding_clues_to_Lou_Gehrig_s_disease.html?viewAll=y On Drosophilidae and degenerative diseases.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0628/Mars-or-bust!-White-House-announces-new-space-policy On the future of the US space program.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/59872/title/Not_just_a_high On endocannaboids.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=you-have-superpowers On positive illusions. This may bother some people around here.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100623/full/4651002a.html On scientific academies.