Triple Helix: Designing A New Molecule of Life

Peptide nucleic acid (gold) readily enters DNA's major groove to form triple-stranded and other structures with DNA, allowing it to modify the activity of genes in new ways. Jean-Francois Podevin

From Scientific American:

Peptide nucleic acid, a synthetic hybrid of protein and DNA, could form the basis of a new class of drugs—and of artificial life unlike anything found in nature

* A synthetic molecule called peptide nucleic acid (PNA) combines the information-storage properties of DNA with the chemical stability of a proteinlike backbone.
* Drugs based on PNA would achieve therapeutic effects by binding to specific base sequences of DNA or RNA, repressing or promoting the corresponding gene.
* Some researchers working to construct artificial life-forms out of mixtures of chemicals are also considering PNA as a useful ingredient for their designs.
* PNA-like molecules may have served as primordial genetic material at the origin of life.

For all the magnificent diversity of life on this planet, ranging from tiny bacteria to majestic blue whales, from sunshine-harv­­est­­ing plants to mineral-digesting endoliths miles underground, only one kind of “life as we know it” exists. All these organisms are based on nucleic acids—DNA and RNA—and proteins, working together more or less as described by the so-called central dogma of molecular biology: DNA stores information that is transcribed into RNA, which then serves as a template for producing a protein. The proteins, in turn, serve as important structural elements in tissues and, as enzymes, are the cell’s workhorses.

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Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner

From Wired News:

Your corn is sweeter, your potatoes are starchier and your turkey is much, much bigger than the foods that sat on your grandparents' Thanksgiving dinner table.

Most everything on your plate has undergone tremendous genetic change under the intense selective pressures of industrial farming. Pilgrims and American Indians ate foods called corn and turkey, but the actual organisms they consumed didn't look or taste much at all like our modern variants do.

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A Great Endeavour: Stunning Images As Astronauts Complete DIY Repairs On Space Station 225 Miles Above Earth

All in a days work: Shane Kimbrough seen on during his space walk as he carries out construction and maintenance on the International Space Station

From The Daily Mail:

Captured against the stunning backdrop of infinite space, an astronaut floats precariously 225 miles above the Earth as he tinkers with a greasy gummed-up joint.

On the 10th anniversary of the International Space Station, the mission specialist's every weightless movement is caught on camera as he carries out all-important repair works during one of four spacewalks.

NASA has been closely following the crew with a video camera ever since the Endeavour space shuttle lit up the night sky over Florida with a mighty roar.

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Planets, Crescent Moon To "Frown" On Skywatchers Dec. 1

Venus and Jupiter appear close together in the sky over Pasadena, California, on February 12, 2008. The two bright planets will slowly converge in the evening skies for a dazzling summit on November 30. On the following night, the pair will be joined by a thin crescent moon. Photograph by Anthony J. Cook

From National Geographic:

Skywatchers across the world are in for a celestial treat as two of the brightest naked-eye planets, Venus and Jupiter, slowly converge in the evening skies for a celestial summit on November 30.

The real showpiece, however, will be on the following night, when a thin crescent moon joins the planetary pair—creating a brief "unhappy face" in the sky.

The planets will appear closest together—an event known as a planetary conjunction—on November 30 around 4 p.m. Pacific time, and the moon will cozy up to the pair on the evening of December 1.

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Hubble Captures Outstanding Views Of Mammoth Stars

From E! Science News:

The image shows a pair of colossal stars, WR 25 and Tr16-244, located within the open cluster Trumpler 16. This cluster is embedded within the Carina Nebula, an immense cauldron of gas and dust that lies approximately 7500 light-years from Earth. The Carina Nebula contains several ultra-hot stars, including these two star systems and the famous blue star Eta Carinae, which has the highest luminosity yet confirmed. As well as producing incredible amounts of heat, these stars are also very bright, emitting most of their radiation in the ultraviolet and appearing blue in colour. They are so powerful that they burn through their hydrogen fuel source faster than other types of stars, leading to a "live fast, die young" lifestyle. WR 25 is the brightest, situated near the centre of the image. The neighbouring Tr16-244 is the third brightest, just to the upper left of WR 25. The second brightest, to the left of WR 25, is a low mass star located much closer to the Earth than the Carina Nebula. Stars like WR 25 and Tr16-244 are relatively rare compared to other, cooler types. They interest astronomers because they are associated with star-forming nebulae, and influence the structure and evolution of galaxies.

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Strangulation Of Spiral Galaxies: ‘Missing Link’ Discovered

These images of three galaxies from the Galaxy Zoo (top) and STAGES surveys (bottom) show examples of how the newly discovered population of red spiral galaxies on the outskirts of crowded regions in the Universe may be a missing link in our understanding of galaxy evolution. At left, both surveys find examples of normal spiral galaxies displaying all the hallmarks of youth: blue in colour, they are disk-like in structure. The obvious spiral arms host knotty structures where large numbers of hot young stars are being born. On the right are examples of typical rounded balls of stars known as elliptical galaxies. The reddish colour indicates that their stars are mostly old. With no gas left to use as fuel to form any more, they are old, dead and red In the centre are examples of the new "red spiral" galaxy found in large numbers by both the STAGES and Galaxy Zoo collaborations. While still disk-like and recognizably spiral in shape, their spiral arms are smoother. Furthermore, their colour is as red as the ellipticals. Astronomers from both teams believe these red spirals are objects in transition, where star formation has been shut off by interactions with the environment. (Credit: STAGES image credit: Marco Barden, Christian Wolf, Meghan Gray, the STAGES survey; STAGES image from Hubble Space Telescope, colour from COMBO-17 survey; Galaxy Zoo image credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — Astronomers in two UK-led international collaborations have separately uncovered a type of galaxy that represents a missing link in our understanding of galaxy evolution.

Galaxy Zoo, which uses volunteers from the general public to classify galaxies, and the Space Telescope A901/902 Galaxy Evolution Survey (STAGES) projects have used their vast datasets to disentangle the roles of "nature" and "nurture" in changing galaxies from one variety to another.

Both studies have identified a population of unusual red spiral galaxies that are setting out on the road to retirement after a lifetime of forming stars. Crucially, nature and nurture appear to play a role in this transformation: both the mass of a galaxy as well as its local environment are important in determining when and how quickly its star formation is shut down. The scientists’ work appears together in a forthcoming edition of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Origin of Sex Pinned Down

From Live Science:

We all came from hermaphrodites, organisms with both male and female reproductive organs. And though the origin traces back more than 100 million years, biologists have scratched their heads over how and why the separate male and female sexes evolved.

Now, research on wild strawberry plants is providing evidence for such a transition and the emergence of sex, at least in plants. And the results, which are detailed in the December issue of the journal Heredity, likely apply to animals like us, the researchers say.

The study showed that two genes located at different spots on a chromosome can cast strawberry offspring as a single sex, a hermaphrodite or a neuter (neither male nor female, and essentially sterile). The researchers suspect the two genes could be responsible for one of the earliest stages of the transition from asexual to sexual beings.

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Experts Question Use Of Space Station

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

A new toilet.

A second refrigerator.

A new water recycling system.

Philadelphia-born astronaut Christopher Ferguson and his colleagues delivered those items to the International Space Station yesterday in what NASA has called an extreme makeover.

"It's the most jam-packed logistics module we have ever carried up there. We're taking a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house and turning it into a five-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a gym," Ferguson said in a pre-flight interview posted on NASA's Web site.

The improvements were supposed to have been finished years ago. With the project far behind schedule, scientists and engineers on the ground worry that the United States will never get its money's worth from what is now the biggest engineering project in history.

Just one shuttle flight costs about $500 million, several experts have estimated.

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Today's Unsettling Comparison To 'The Great Dying'

From ABC News:

250 Million Years Ago, Rising Greenhouse Gas Levels Set Off Catastrophic Changes

In 1980, scientists Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, proposed a new explanation for the dinosaurs' disappearance 65 million years ago: a meteor strike. Initially, the idea was met with resistance. But the evidence was convincing: a sediment layer high in iridium, an element common in asteroids, was found the world over, along with a 110-mile-wide impact crater in the Yucatán of the same age. What started as a fringe idea has gone mainstream.

Now scientists are rethinking another of earth's great die-offs. The end-Permian extinction 251 million years ago was the worst of earth's five mass extinctions. Ninety percent of all marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial life disappeared. It took five million years, perhaps more, for the biosphere to recover.

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IBM To Build “Thinking” Computers Modeled On The Brain

From Discover:

IBM has won a $4.9 million government grant from DARPA to begin the first phase of research on “cognitive computing”– essentially building computers that work like living brains. The new brain-like computers will aim to process vast amounts of data to solve problems without relying on specific programmed algorithms. Mark Dean, Vice President of IBM said, “The challenge is that computers today are very good at computing, but what we really need is a more efficient way of sifting through information” [International Herald Tribune].

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You Too Can Be A Genius (If You Can Spare 10,000 Hours)

Studies show that top musicians like Nigel Kennedy have all put in at least 10,000 hours of graft to be a leader in their field

From The Daily Mail:

They say that genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.

Now scientists claim they know just how much sweat and toil this actually is.

It takes someone 10,000 hours of practice to reach the top in their chosen discipline, they say.

Studies suggest that top sportsmen, musicians and chess players have all put in this amount of graft.

Talent and luck are important, but it is practice that makes the difference between being good and being brilliant, say the researchers.

A study at Berlin's Academy of Music looked at violin students who started playing at around the age of five, practising for two or three hours a week. As they grew older the amount of practice increased.

By the age of 20, the elite performers had each totalled 10,000 hours of practice, while the merely good students had accrued 8,000.

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Ocean Growing More Acidic Faster Than Once Thought

From E! Science News:

University of Chicago scientists have documented that the ocean is growing more acidic faster than previously thought. In addition, they have found that the increasing acidity correlates with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a paper published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 24. "Of the variables the study examined that are linked to changes in ocean acidity, only atmospheric carbon dioxide exhibited a corresponding steady change," said J. Timothy Wootton, the lead author of the study and Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.

The increasingly acidic water harms certain sea animals and could reduce the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide, the authors said. Scientists have long predicted that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide would make the ocean more acidic. Nevertheless, empirical evidence of growing acidity has been limited.

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How Global Warming May Affect U.S. Beaches, Coastline

The Louisiana coastline could feel the impacts of hurricanes, even those that don't make landfall. (Credit: Image courtesy of Global Warming Art)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — In “Dover Beach,” the 19th Century poet Matthew Arnold describes waves that “begin, and cease, and then again begin…and bring
the eternal note of sadness in.”

But in the warming world of the 21st Century, waves could be riding oceans that will rise anywhere from 0.5 meters (19 inches) to 1.4 meters (55 inches), and researchers believe there’s a good chance they will stir stronger feelings than melancholia.

Several scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are finding that sea level rise will have different consequences in different places but that they will be profound on virtually all coastlines. Land in some areas of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States will simply be underwater.

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Flies Made to Live Longer

From Live Science:

Tweaking certain genes causes female flies to make more offspring and live longer. The implications for humans are not yet clear.

Scientists have long thought that "the more you reproduce, the shorter you're going to live," said John Tower, associate professor of biological sciences at University of Southern California. True, sometimes, Tower said today.

Tower and graduate student Yishi Li found genes that could make older flies lay more eggs. When older female flies were altered to over-express the genes, they produced more offspring and lived 5 to 30 percent longer.

Tower speculates the genes are boosting activity of stem cells in the flies' reproductive system. Otherwise, stem cell activity declines with age, and reproduction in older flies could not happen without a return of stem cells to peak form.

"This would appear to be stimulating the stem cells to divide more in the old fly and therefore produce more offspring," Tower said.

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Astronaut Invents Zero-G Coffee Cup

Endeavour shuttle astronaut Don Pettit sips coffee from a zero-g cup of his own invention during the STS-126 mission to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV

From Live Science:

NASA astronaut Don Pettit loves his coffee. So it comes as no surprise that he found a way to drink coffee from a cup, instead of the traditional straw, on his day off Sunday aboard the International Space Station.

Drinking any liquid in the weightless environment of space could be a messy affair. With hot coffee, it could be a potentially scalding affair. So astronauts use silver pouches and plastic straws to sip anything from water to orange juice to Pettit's beloved space java.

"We can suck our coffee from a bag, but to drink it from a cup is hard to do because you can't get the cup up to get the liquid out, and it's also easy to slosh," Pettit told Mission Control while sending a video of his new invention to Earth.

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Scientists Discover 21st Century Black Plague That Spreads From Rats To Humans

Black Death: A brown rat, common in the UK, has been found carrying a new strain of bacteria called Bartonella rochalimae, which is deadly to humans

From The Daily Mail:

A new plague which jumps from rats to humans has been discovered by scientists.

Fears are growing that increasing numbers of brown rats - the most common kind in Europe - are carrying a strain of bacteria that can cause serious illness in humans from heart disease to infection of the spleen and nervous system.

The new strain of bacteria called Bartonella rochalimae is spread between rats by fleas, Taiwanese researchers have said.

It was first discovered in an American woman with an enlarged spleen who had recently travelled to Peru.

'This event raised concern that it could be a newly emerged zoonotic pathogen,' said Professor Chao-Chin Chang from the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan.

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New Longevity Drugs Poised to Tackle Diseases of Aging

From Wired News:

Cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease: All have stubbornly resisted billions of dollars of research conducted by the world's finest minds. But they all may finally be defied by a single new class of drugs, a virtual cure for the diseases of aging.

In labs across the country, researchers are developing several new drugs that target the cellular engines called mitochondria. The first, resveratrol, is already in clinical trials for diabetes. It could be on the market in four years and used off-label as an all-purpose longevity enhancer. Other drugs promise to be more potent and refined. They might even be cheap.

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An £800 Gadget That Makes Water Straight Out Of Thin Air 'Could Help Millions'

From The Daily Mail:

A gadget which makes water out of thin air could become the greatest household invention since the microwave.

Using the same technology as a de-humidifier, the Water Mill is able to create a ready supply of drinking water by capturing it from an unlimited source - the air.

The company behind the machine says not only does it offer an alternative to bottled water in developed countries, but it is a solution for the millions who face a daily water shortage.

The machine works by drawing in moist air through a filter and over a cooling element which condenses it into water droplets. It can produce up to 12 litres a day.

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The Physics Of Golf Balls

From E! Science News:

At the 61st Meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics this week, a team of researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Maryland is reporting research that may soon give avid golfers another way to improve their game. Employing the same sort of scientific approach commonly used to improve the design of automobiles, aircraft, ships, trains, and other moving objects, the team has used a supercomputer to model how air flows around a ball in flight and to study how this flow is influenced by the ball's dimples. Their goal is to make a better golf ball by optimizing the size and pattern of these dimples and lowering the drag golf balls encounter as they fly through the air.

"For a golf ball, drag reduction means that the ball flies farther," says ASU's Clinton Smith, a Ph.D. student who is presenting a talk on the research on Sunday, November 23, 2008 in San Antonio. Smith and his advisor Kyle Squires conducted in collaboration with Nikolaos Beratlis and Elias Balaras at the University of Maryland and Masaya Tsunoda of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.

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Could Marijuana Substance Help Prevent Or Delay Memory Impairment In The Aging Brain?

Recent research on rats indicates that at least three receptors in the brain are activated by the synthetic drug, which is similar to marijuana. These receptors are proteins within the brain's endocannabinoid system. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2008) — Ohio State University scientists are finding that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells.

Their research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Though the exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, chronic inflammation in the brain is believed to contribute to memory impairment.

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How Warfare Shaped Human Evolution

Iran - Iraq War

From The New Scientist:

IT'S a question at the heart of what it is to be human: why do we go to war? The cost to human society is enormous, yet for all our intellectual development, we continue to wage war well into the 21st century.

Now a new theory is emerging that challenges the prevailing view that warfare is a product of human culture and thus a relatively recent phenomenon. For the first time, anthropologists, archaeologists, primatologists, psychologists and political scientists are approaching a consensus. Not only is war as ancient as humankind, they say, but it has played an integral role in our evolution.

The theory helps explain the evolution of familiar aspects of warlike behaviour such as gang warfare. And even suggests the cooperative skills we've had to develop to be effective warriors have turned into the modern ability to work towards a common goal.

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Stem Cells Are More Flexible Than Previously Thought, Research Suggests

Human embryonic stem cell growing on a layer of supporting cells (fibroblasts). Micrograph by Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy. (Photo From UCSC)

From The Telegraph:

Thousands of patients could benefit from a new discovery that could widen the use of stem cells in groundbreaking medical treatments.

Research by British scientists has shown the body is more flexible in its production of stem cells than previously thought.

The discovery widens the possibilities for the use of such cells in surgical procedures for treating damaged tissue and organs.

Last week surgeons in Spain created the world's first tissue-engineered whole organ transplant using a windpipe made with the patient's own stem cells. The patient, 30-year-old mother-of-two Claudia Castillo, needed the transplant to save a lung after contracting tuberculosis. Scientists from Bristol had helped to grow the cells.

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"Screaming Mummy" Is Murderous Son of Ramses III?

An Egyptian mummy preserved with a pained facial expression (above) could be Prince Pentewere, suspected of plotting the murder of his father, Pharaoh Ramses III, according to a new analysis.Recent examinations of the mummy, found in 1886 and now located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, have helped archaeologists piece together a story of attempted murder, suicide, and conspiracy. Photograph by Alex Turner/Atlantic Productions

From National Geographic:

An Egyptian mummy who died wearing a pained facial expression could be Prince Pentewere, suspected of plotting the murder of his father, Pharaoh Ramses III, according to a new analysis.

Recent examinations of the mummy, found in 1886 and now located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, have helped archaeologists piece together a story of attempted murder, suicide, and conspiracy.

"Two forces were acting upon this mummy: one to get rid of him and the other to try to preserve him," said Bob Brier, an archaeologist at the University of Long Island in New York who examined the body this year.

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Forgotten But Not Gone: How The Brain Re-learns

Store room for future learning: nerve cells retain many of their newly created connections and if necessary, inactivate only transmission of the information. This makes relearning easier. (Credit: Image: Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology / Hofer)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 22, 2008) — Thanks to our ability to learn and to remember, we can perform tasks that other living things can not even dream of. However, we are only just beginning to get the gist of what really goes on in the brain when it learns or forgets something. What we do know is that changes in the contacts between nerve cells play an important role. But can these structural changes account for that well-known phenomenon that it is much easier to re-learn something that was forgotten than to learn something completely new?

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The Reality of Mysterious Medical Maladies

From Live Science:

A recent governmental panel composed of scientists and veterans concluded that Gulf War Syndrome is real, the symptoms likely caused by neurotoxins that veterans were exposed to during the war.

About 60,000 of the nearly 700,000 Gulf War veterans began reporting health problems in the months and years following their military service. Complaints include insomnia, irritability, hair loss, chronic fatigue, muscle spasms, skin rashes, memory loss, diarrhea, headaches, and unexplained aches and pains. Some veterans believe that the disease is also responsible for birth defects and cancer.

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Material Slicker Than Teflon Discovered By Accident

A piece of steel (left) coated with a thin layer of the super-slippery material just 2 to 3 micrometers thick - such coatings provide a kind of eternal lubrication to reduce friction and save energy
(Image: US DoE Ames Lab)

From The New Scietist:

A superhard substance that is more slippery than Teflon could protect mechanical parts from wear and tear, and boost energy efficiency by reducing friction.

The "ceramic alloy" is created by combining a metal alloy of boron, aluminium and magnesium (AlMgB14) with titanium boride (TiB2). It is the hardest material after diamond and cubic boron nitride.

BAM, as the material is called, was discovered at the US Department of Energy Ames Laboratory in Iowa in 199, during attempts to develop a substance to generate electricity when heated.

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My Comment: The article does not examine the military applications, but its applications from enhancing protective vests to protecting machinery and vehicles from explosives is obvious. this .... if it works out .... has applications that will significantly protect the soldier when in the battlefield.

Extraordinary Speaker Addresses High School Students

When you want to complain, watch this video

The Physics Of Teardrops

Teardrop physics involve viscosity, surface tension and gravity. Now researchers have learned that tear fluid can move across the center of the eye, which was not thought possible. Credit: Dreamstime

From Live Science:

A lot can change in the blink of an eye. In fact, the entire surface layer of your eye changes every time you blink.

In about a quarter of a second, fluid pours into the eye, it is swept over the surface to leave a new, thin coating, and the excess is drained. Though the system may sound simple, the physics gets quite complicated. Scientists now are using mathematical computer models to try to understand how the fluid travels through the eye and leaves as teardrops.

"The reason why we're interested in studying this is because it's a highly dynamical system," said Kara Maki, a mathematics grad student at the University of Delaware. "If we can try to understand and gain insight into tear film dynamics, we can aim at trying to find better treatments for dry eye."

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Mysterious Fireball Lights Up Western Canadian Sky

CTV Edmonton security cameras caught the meteor approach and then create a massive flash in the skyline on Thursday evening, Nov. 20, 2008.

From CTV News:

A mysterious fireball has lit up the sky in western Canada and may have been a meteorite which slammed into central Alberta, according to local reports.

While it's still unknown what caused the bright light, residents from northern Saskatchewan to southern Alberta have reported seeing it, the RCMP said.

MyNews user Dan Charrois, who lives about 50 kilometres north of Edmonton, said security cameras set up at his home managed to capture some grainy footage showing a big flare in the night sky.

"It happened so fast I don't think anyone would have had the reaction time to get it," he told CTV.ca, adding that his computer software business has written programs which track meteors.

Though Charrois didn't see the fireball himself, he decided to check the security tapes after his friends and neighbours called him to find out where the light may have came from.

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New Strain Of Deadly Ebola Virus Discovered

A Medecins Sans Frontieres team takes a blood sample from a man suspected of carrying the Ebola virus in Bundibugyo following an Ebola outbreak in Uganda in 2007. Scientists said Friday an outbreak of Ebola that killed 37 people in Uganda last year was sparked by a hitherto unknown species of one of the world's most notorious viruses. (AFP/Medecins Sans Frontieres /File/Claude Mahoudeau)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

PARIS (AFP) – Scientists said Friday an outbreak of Ebola that killed 37 people in Uganda last year was sparked by a hitherto unknown species of one of the world's most notorious viruses.

The strain -- provisionally named Bundibugyo ebolavirus after the district where the outbreak occurred -- joins four other known species of the pathogen, they said.

More than one in three of patients infected with Bundibugyo died, according to their study, appearing in the US journal PLoS Pathogens, published online by the open-access Public Library of Science (PLoS).

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Regenerating A Mammoth For $10 Million

An intact skeleton of a woolly mammoth that is on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. S. C. Schuster

From The New York Times:

Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.

The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA.

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How To Save And Purify The World's Water Supply: Experts Weigh In

From Popular Mechanics:

Clean water is one thing that most Americans take for granted. But with aging infrastructure, climate change and an accelerating world population, keeping clean water running from our taps is a growing challenge, both physically and politically. While pumping and purification systems try to keep up, neighboring farms, cities, states and even countries are on the verge of even more contentious battles over water rights. Four water experts came to the Hearst Tower in New York City yesterday, for a panel moderated by PM science editor Jennifer Bogo, to discuss how the country can deal with the water crisis, why global warming will exacerbate the problem and what will happen if we do nothing.

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Scientists Take A Step Closer To An Elixir Of Youth

From the Anti-Aging Blog

From The Telegraph:

A naturally occuring substance that can create "immortal cells" could be the key to finding a real elixir of youth, scientists claim.

Researchers believe boosting the amount of a naturally forming enzyme in the body could prevent cells dying and so lead to extended, healthier, lifespans..

The protein telomerase helps maintain the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes which act like the ends of shoelaces and stop them unravelling.

As we age, and our cells divide, these caps become frayed and shorter and eventually are so damaged that the cell dies. Scientists believe boosting our natural levels of telomerase could rejuvenate them.

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Evidence Of Vast Frozen Water Reserves On Mars: Scientists

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image released in 2005 shows Mars. NASA scientists have discovered enormous underground reservoirs of frozen water on Mars, away from its polar caps, in the latest sign that life might be sustainable on the Red planet.
(Photo from Breitbart)

From Breitbart/AFP:

NASA scientists have discovered enormous underground reservoirs of frozen water on Mars, away from its polar caps, in the latest sign that life might be sustainable on the Red planet.

Ground-penetrating radar used by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals numerous huge glaciers up to one half-mile thick buried beneath layers of rock and debris. Researchers said one glacier is three time the size of Los Angeles in area.

"All together, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that's not in the polar caps," said John Holt, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin and lead author of a report about the discovery, which appears in the November 21 issue of the journal Science.

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Power Of The Future: A Timeline To Energy Independence

From Live Science:

President-elect Barack Obama has plans to invest $150 billion in clean energy technology over the next 10 years. With similar initiatives in other countries, when might we expect exciting alternative technology to deliver true energy independence?

The predictions are all over the map.

In July of this year, Al Gore made probably the most ambitious forecast: we can get all our electricity from solar, wind and other clean carbon-free sources in just 10 short years.

"This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative," he said.

Many others think it will take longer.

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Life’s Amazing Photo Archive On View At Google

The “Migrant Mother,” Florence Thompson. (Credit: Dorothea Lange/LIFE)

From Gadgetwise/New York Times:

For those looking to feed their idle photo printers, one of the most magnificent photo archives of the past century is now available on Google.

It’s the Life magazine collection, some 10 million images all together, from Marilyn Monroe and JFK to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Following the deal between Google and the keepers of the Life archive, a vast chunk is now up on line at Google Image Search.

“Only a small percentage of these images have ever been published” said a statement from Google. “The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings and prints.” A spokeswoman for Time Inc. said that the archives in their entirety would be available in the first quarter of next year.

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Supercomputers Break Petaflop Barrier, Transforming Science

From Science News:

A new crop of supercomputers is breaking down the petaflop speed barrier, pushing high-performance computing into a new realm that could change science more profoundly than at any time since Galileo, leading researchers say.

When the Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was announced at the international supercomputing conference in Austin, Texas, on Monday, IBM had barely managed to cling to the top spot, fending off a challenge from Cray. But both competitors broke petaflop speeds, performing 1.105 and 1.059 quadrillion floating-point calculations per second, the first two computers to do so.

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Clump Of Dark Matter May Loom Near Solar System

This handout picture shows scientists launching a balloon from Williams Field in Antarctica in December 2005 that is carrying a scientific instrument that detected possible evidence of so-called dark matter in space. It spotted an unexpected amount of very high energy cosmic ray electrons coming from an unknown source within about 3,000 light years of the solar system -- relatively close in astronomical terms. One explanation is that the electrons may have been spawned as dark matter particles collided with one another, triggering their mutual annihilation. Scientists think perhaps 25 percent of the universe is made up of dark matter, which is invisible and poorly understood. (T. Gregory Guzik/Handout/Reuters)

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A balloon-borne instrument soaring high over Antarctica has found evidence of a possible large clump of mysterious so-called dark matter relatively close to our solar system, scientists said on Wednesday.

It detected an unexpected amount of very high energy cosmic ray electrons coming from an unknown source within about 3,000 light years of the solar system. A light-year is 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.

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'Oh Great': Astronaut Loses Tool Bag During Spacewalk

In this image from NASA TV, a tool kit bag, center, as seen through the helmet camera of astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, floats away from the International Space Station after she lost hold of it during a procedure during a 6 1/2-hour scheduled space walk outside the space station, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008. (AP Photo/NASA TV)

From FOX News:

HOUSTON — A spacewalking astronaut accidentally let go of her tool bag Tuesday after a grease gun inside it exploded, and helplessly watched as the tote and everything inside floated away.

It was one of the largest items ever to be lost by a spacewalker, and occurred during an unprecedented attempt to clean and lube a gummed-up joint on a solar panel.

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was just starting to work on the joint when the mishap occurred.

She said her grease gun exploded, getting the dark gray stuff all over a camera and her gloves. While wiping off herself, the white, backpack-size bag slipped out of her grip, and she lost all her other tools.

"Oh, great," she mumbled.

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More News On Space Shuttle Endeavor

Endeavour astronaut loses tools in space -- AFP
Lost tool bag forces changes to planned spacewalks -- AP
Astronaut loses tools during spacewalk -- The Guardian
When It's Lost in Space, It's Really Lost -- ABC News
Endeavor astronaut loses tools in space -- Space Daily
Lost tool bag forces changes to planned spacewalks -- My Way News

Indian Space Agency Isro To Roll Out A Rival To Google Earth

Bhuvan will use a network of satellites to create a high-resolution, bird's-eye view of India ? and later, possibly, the rest of the world
(NASA/GSFC/NOAA/USGS Reuters)

From Times Online:

Emboldened by its first mission to the Moon, India is to take on a target closer to Earth: Google.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which is based in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of the sub-continent, will roll-out a rival to Google Earth, the hugely popular online satellite imagery service, by the end of the month.

The project, dubbed Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), will allow users to zoom into areas as small as 10 metres wide, compared to the 200 metre wide zoom limit on Google Earth.

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Hi-Tech Weaponry Battles Piracy On The High Seas

This Saudi Arabian oil tanker, the Sirius Star, was captured by pirates on 16 November 2008, off the coast of Somalia (Image: Caters News / Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

SVEN ERIK PEDERSEN accelerated his 9900-tonne ship to full speed and swung the helm hard over - not the usual way to treat a luxury cruise liner, but then the captain was in an unusual situation. His vessel, the Seabourn Spirit, had just been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. One of his crew had been wounded by shrapnel, 151 passengers were in danger, and heavily armed pirates in two fast motor boats were attempting to board his ship...

If you imagined that maritime piracy died out with Captain Kidd and the other seafaring scoundrels of the 18th century, the recent attack on the Seabourn Spirit should put you straight. And forget silly notions of wooden legs, treasure maps and grog. Modern-day pirates come equipped with supercharged speedboats, large-calibre weaponry and all the radio intercept technology they need to identify and locate valuable ocean-going booty.

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British Doctors Help Perform World's First Transplant Of A Whole Organ Grown In Lab

Claudia Castillo underwent an operation to replace her windpipe with a bioengineered replacement after tuberculosis had left her with a collapsed lung (Photo from The Independent)

From The Telegraph:

British doctors have helped to perform the world's first transplant of a whole organ grown from stem cells, signalling a significant medical breakthrough.

Surgeons replaced the damaged windpipe of Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old mother of two, with one created from stem cells grown in a laboratory at Bristol University.

Because the new windpipe was made from cells taken from Ms Castillo's own body, using a process called "tissue engineering", she has not needed powerful drugs to prevent her body rejecting the organ.

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Update #1: The medical miracle -- The Independent

Update #2: Claudia Castillo gets windpipe tailor-made from her own stem cells -- Times Online

Seven (More) Gadgets Killed by the Cellphone

Image from Wired News

From Wired:

Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days. The little pocket wonders now do so much they are really handheld computers. With extras. The process of mashing one or more gadgets together in the same box used to be called convergence, but that approach quietly died as the mobile phone ate up any and every rival device.

So successful has this been that whole product categories have had the life choked out of their twitching bodies by the phone. The following list is an obituary to five of them, plus a look at the cellphone's next victim.

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Update: Seven (More) Gadgets Killed by the Cellphone

New Evidence Surfaces Of David's Kingdom

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Khirbet Qeiyafa, Israel -- For 3,000 years, the 12-foot high walls of an ancient city have been clearly visible on a hill towering above the Valley of Elah where the Bible says David slew Goliath.

But no one has ever linked the ruins to the city mentioned in the First Book of Samuel's famous account of the legendary duel and the victory of the Israelites - until now. On Tuesday, Hebrew University archaeology Professor Yosef Garfinkel will present compelling evidence to scholars at Harvard University that he has found the 10th century biblical city of Sha'arayim, Hebrew for "Two Gates." Garfinkel, who made his startling discovery at the beginning of this month, will also discuss his findings at the American Schools of Oriental Research conference hosted by Boston University on Thursday.

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Scientists Find Facial Scars Increase Attractiveness

From E! Science News:

Men with facial scars are more attractive to women seeking short-term relationships, scientists at the University of Liverpool have found. It was previously assumed that in Western cultures scarring was an unattractive facial feature and in non-Western cultures they were perceived as a sign of maturity and strength. Scientists at Liverpool and Stirling University, however, have found that Western women find scarring on men attractive and may associate it with health and bravery.

Researchers investigated how scarring might impact on mate choice for men and women seeking both long-term and short-term relationships. They found that women preferred men with facial scars for short-term relationships and equally preferred scarred and un-scarred faces for long-term relationships. Men, however, regarded women with and without facial scars as equally attractive for both types of relationship.

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Prehistoric Family Values

Together in death. Genetic analysis suggests that a mother, a father, and their two boys were buried in the same grave. Credit: Photo courtesy of the National Academy of Sciences

From Science Magazine:

When Barack Obama moves into the White House in January, he'll bring his wife and children with him. The nuclear family is not only as American as apple pie but also the cultural norm in most societies across the world. New genetic and chemical analyses of 4600-year-old burials in Germany suggests that family togetherness has deep roots, going back at least as far the beginnings of agriculture in Europe.

Before humans settled down and began to farm, they lived as nomadic hunters and gatherers. Many anthropologists have assumed, based on observations of sometimes polygamous modern-day hunter-gatherers, that the basic social unit of early humans was the band or tribe rather than the family. Figuring out when the nuclear family became central to human social organization has been difficult. Archaeologists have dug up thousands of skeletons at early farming sites across the Near East and Europe, and many of them are buried together in ways that might suggest family ties.

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Future Of The U.S. Space Program In Obama's Hands

UP IN THE AIR? Ares rockets, components of the Constellation program, are shown in this artist's conception. Given budgetary and manpower constraints, the future of Constellation, currently scheduled to begin service in 2015, may depend on the future of the space shuttle, which could be retired in 2010. NASA/MSFC

From Scientific American:

A decision must be made by the next chief executive soon on the space shuttle's fate, for starters

As the moments tick away before tonight's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station (ISS), another countdown is underway: Only a handful of launches remain before the shuttle program's scheduled retirement in 2010. When President-elect Barack Obama takes office two months from now, he and his aides will need to decide quickly whether or not to hold to that date, a determination that will have major implications for the future of U.S. space exploration.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress's investigative arm, has identified the shuttle's future as one of the most urgent issues facing the incoming Obama administration. "NASA has already begun the process of shutting down production and transitioning people, equipment and resources to new endeavors," GAO director of acquisition and sourcing management Cristina Chaplain says. She adds that the longer the decision is delayed, the more difficult it will be to keep operating the shuttle safely and cost-effectively. "Moreover, putting off a decision may hamper the transition itself and keep NASA from pursuing new space transportation development," Chaplain wrote in an e-mail.

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Cheating The Angels

Whiskey barrels in the Jack Daniels destillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.
(Photo from Wikimedia)

From Popsci:

A new plan is raising eyebrows in the conservative whisky industry

At the New York WhiskyFest this week, nobody wanted to talk much about technological innovations in the industry. Most of the whisky professionals I asked assured me that there was no such thing as innovation at their tradition-steeped distillery -- they were doing everything the same way it had been done for generations, thank you very much. Some distillers seemed put out that their companies had recently embraced such cutting-edge twentieth-century technology as labelling barrels with bar codes. The marketing side of the business is innovating to beat the band -- look for a new Irish whiskey called Feckin and a new rye called (rī)1 coming soon to bars near you -- but the production side remains defiantly old-fangled.

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It's Unpacking Day For Astronauts At Space Station

The International Space Station's robot arm and an external antenna are seen in the foreground as the Space Shuttle Endeavour closes in on the orbital outpost for docking in this image from NASA TV November 16, 2008. (NASA TV/Reuters)

From International Herald Tribune:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Astronauts hitched a giant shipping crate full of home improvement "goodies" to the international space station on Monday, a critical step for boosting the population in orbit.

It was the first major job for the crews of the linked space station and space shuttle Endeavour, and highlighted their first full day together.

"We're here to work," the space station's skipper, Mike Fincke, called down. "This is the can-do crew."

More than 14,000 pounds (6,350 kilograms)of gear was stuffed into the 21-foot (6 1/2 meter) container that flew up on Endeavour and was hoisted onto the space station. It held an extra toilet, refrigerator and kitchenette, exercise machine and sleeping compartments, and a new recycling system for converting urine into drinking water.

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Gulf War Research Panel Finds 1 In 4 Veterans Suffers From Illness Caused By Toxic Exposure

From E! Science News:

At least one in four of the 697,000 U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness, a condition caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides and a drug administered to protect troops against nerve gas, and no effective treatments have yet been found, a federal panel of scientific experts and veterans concludes in a landmark report released Monday. The Congressionally-mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses presented the report today to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake at VA headquarters in Washington.

Scientific staff support to the Committee is provided by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). The full report is posted at: http://sph.bu.edu/insider/racreport

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The Energy Debates: Wind Farms

Analysts estimate it would take at least 260,000 turbines, each 300 feet tall, to meet the United States' electricity needs. These turbines are in King City, Mo.
Credit: MU Cooperative Media Group, Steve Morse photo

From Live Science:

Editor's Note: "The Energy Debates" is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas. We invite you to join the debate by commenting directly on each article.

The Facts

Wind farms harness the wind's energy to generate electricity. Wind energy actually comes mainly from the sun. When solar energy heats up the atmosphere, hot air rises while cooler air swirls down to replace it. This movement results in wind.

Wind turbines possess massive rotors typically 160 to 300 feet (48 to 91 meters) in diameter. A wind turbine inland can generate 1.5 to 2.5 megawatts, while one located offshore amid mighty coastal winds could reach 5 megawatts, although constructing turbines in the water and keeping them up in the face of ocean waves and corrosive seawater presents challenges. Altogether, banks of turbines on a wind farm can produce anywhere from 100 to 800 megawatts.

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How Eating Red Meat Can Spur Cancer Progression: New Mechanism Identified

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2008) — Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, led by Ajit Varki, M.D., have shown a new mechanism for how human consumption of red meat and milk products could contribute to the increased risk of cancerous tumors.

Their findings, which suggest that inflammation resulting from a molecule introduced through consumption of these foods could promote tumor growth, are published online this week in advance of print publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Once Greeted Warmly, Google Wears Out Welcome

Google's Street View mapping service is available in France, Italy and Spain, but privacy laws threaten its expansion elsewhere in Europe. Image From International Herald Tribune

From International Herald Tribune:

BERLIN: When Google began hiring in Zurich for its new engineering center in 2004, local officials welcomed the U.S. company with open arms. Google's arrival is still bearing fruit for Zurich: 450 employees, about 300 of them engineers, work in Google's seven-story complex in a converted brewery on the outskirts of the placid mountain metropolis.

But almost five years into its expansion into Europe - where it has a headquarters in Dublin, large facilities in Zurich and London and smaller centers in Denmark, Russia and Poland, among other countries - Google is beginning to bump up against a web of privacy laws that threaten its growth and the positive image it has cultivated as a company dedicated to doing good - its unofficial motto.

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