Short-Haired Bumblebee To Be Repopulated In UK

A queen short-haired bumblebee, one of a species which died out in the UK, but survived in New Zealand after being shipped there more than 100 years ago, is to be reintroduced in the UK. Photograph: Bumblebee Conservation Trust/Dave Goulson

From The Guardian:

Descendants of the lost UK bumblebee will be brought from New Zealand to Dungeness in what could be a landmark repopulation programme.

British conservationists have drawn up plans to repopulate the countryside with a species of bumblebee that was declared extinct here nearly a decade ago.

The short-haired bumblebee officially died out in the UK in 2000, but descendents of the doomed community live on in small pockets of New Zealand, where they were taken to pollinate red clover in the late 19th century.

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Lost In Space: Astronomy Photographers Capture Cosmic Masterpieces For Competition

The horsehead nebula in Orion by Martin Pugh from the UK

From The Daily Mail:

The dramatic rearing horsehead nebula and mysterious glowing Bow of Orion are just two of the unforgettable images that have been entered into the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2009 competition.

More than 500 entries from around the world - from dedicated amateurs as well as true beginners - have been sent in, including some taken with mobile phones.

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Nano Printing Goes Large

Photo: Nano press: This 10-by-30-centimeter plastic sheet (top) has been patterned with a series of nanoscale polymer lines using roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography (bottom). The film is iridescent because of the way its nanoscale features scatter light. Credit: ACS Nano

From Technology Review:

A rolling nanoimprint lithography stamp could be used to print components for displays and solar cells.

A printing technique that could stamp out features just tens of nanometers across at industrial scale is finally moving out of the lab. The new roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography system could be used to cheaply and efficiently churn out nano-patterned optical films to improve the performance of displays and solar cells.

Nanoimprint lithography uses mechanical force to press out a nanoscale pattern and can make much smaller features than optical lithography, which is reaching its physical limits. The technique was developed as a tool for miniaturizing integrated circuits, and a handful of companies, including Molecular Imprints of Austin, TX, are still developing it for this application.

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ISS's New Reactor Uses Sound Waves To Form Materials Attainable Only In Space

Space-DRUMS: The Space-DRUMS chamber makes use of 20 sound beams to produce materials free of container contamination. Semiconductors are especially an area of interest for the souped-up pressure cooker. NASA

From Popular Science:

This dodecahedron-shaped device currently on board the International Space Station may resemble a landmine, but in fact it serves quite an opposite purpose: within, scientist Jacques Guigne hopes to use sound waves to cleanly manipulate a brew of ingredients into custom materials that can only be made in the unique conditions of space.

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Economists Measure GDP Growth From Outer Space

Increased nighttime lighting indicates economic growth in Poland and Eastern Europe between 1992 (left, above) and 2002. Poland is in the top left quarter of each image. (Credit: NOAA and USAF Weather Agency)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 6, 2009) — Outer space offers a new perspective for measuring economic growth, according to new research by three Brown University economists. In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, J. Vernon Henderson, Adam Storeygard, and David N. Weil suggest a new framework for estimating a country or region’s gross domestic product (GDP) by using satellite images of the area’s nighttime lights.

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Powerful Ideas: Cars Could Run on Watermelons

From Live Science:

Watermelon juice could become the newest renewable energy source for vehicles, scientists now suggest.

Each year, about 1 out of 5 watermelons are left behind in fields because they are misshapen or because of cosmetic blemishes. In the 2007 growing season, this amounted to roughly 360,000 metric tons of lost melons in the United States alone.

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Is The Near-Earth Space Frontier Closed?

The development of the ICBM, and the satellite systems linked to these missiles, created a synergistic relationship that effectively settled the near-Earth space frontier. (credit: US Air Force)

From Space Review:

How the ICBM opened, developed, and closed its own frontier.

If you challenged people in the civilian space community to identify a set of space systems that repaid their initial investment in proportion to their cost, most would be hard pressed to identify more than one or two nonmilitary systems. That set of applications would unlikely be a compelling enough reason to pour the resources that would be needed to open the space frontier from scratch.

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Plasmobot: The Slime Mould Robot

Single-celled slime moulds could be programmed as robots (Image: Visuals Unlimited / Corbis)

From New Scientist:

THOUGH not famed for their intellect, single-celled organisms have already demonstrated a surprising degree of intelligence. Now a team at the University of the West of England (UWE) has secured £228,000 in funding to turn these organisms into engineering robots.

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Finding A Scapegoat When Epidemics Strike

DEMONIZED Above, a detail from the Friese Chronicles showing the 1349 massacre of Erfurt Jews in Germany, who were blamed for the Black Death. Yeshiva University Museum

From The New York Times:

Whose fault was the Black Death?

In medieval Europe, Jews were blamed so often, and so viciously, that it is surprising it was not called the Jewish Death. During the pandemic’s peak in Europe, from 1348 to 1351, more than 200 Jewish communities were wiped out, their inhabitants accused of spreading contagion or poisoning wells.

The swine flu outbreak of 2009 has been nowhere near as virulent, and neither has the reaction. But, as in pandemics throughout history, someone got the blame — at first Mexico, with attacks on Mexicans in other countries and calls from American politicians to close the border.

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The Teen Brain: The More Mature,The More Reckless

Michael Blann / Getty

From Time Magazine:

Teenagers are a famously reckless species. They floor the gas and experiment with drugs and play with guns; according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures, more than 16,000 young people die each year from unintentional injuries. The most common-sense explanation for teens' carelessness is that their brains just aren't developed enough to know better. But new research suggests that in the case of some teens, the culprit is just the opposite: the brain matures not too slowly but, perhaps, too quickly.

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Tigers Are 'Brainier' Than Lions

Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph:

As the King of the Jungle, the lion may have the brawn, but it is the tiger that has the brains, claim scientists.

Researchers have discovered that the tiger has a far bigger brain than its big cat rival, even though it is often seen as lower down the food chain.

A team of zoologists at Oxford University compared the brain cavity in the skulls of both animals and found tigers are 16 per cent bigger than lions, leopards and jaguars.

In evolutionary terms, brain size has usually been linked to intelligence.

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Giant Statues Give Up Hat Mystery

The ancient statues have giant red hats

From BBC:

Archaeologists have solved an ancient mystery surrounding the famous Easter Island statues.

At 2,500 miles off the coast of Chile, the island is the world's most remote place inhabited by people.

Up to one thousand years ago, the islanders started putting giant red hats on the statues.

The research team, from the University of Manchester and University College London, think the hats were rolled down from an ancient volcano.

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Lost World Of Fanged Frogs And Giant Rats Discovered In Papua New Guinea

The Bosavi Woolly Rat had no fear of humans when it was discovered.
Photograph: Jonny Keeling/BBC

From The Guardian:

A lost world populated by fanged frogs, grunting fish and tiny bear-like creatures has been discovered in a remote volcanic crater on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea.

A team of scientists from Britain, America, Hawaii and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.

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After Years Of Search, Breakthrough Discoveries Of Alzheimer's Genes

Karen Kasmauski / Science Faction / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Fifteen years since the last discovery of its kind, scientists have finally identified a new set of genes that may contribute to Alzheimer's disease.

The three new genes, known as clusterin, complement receptor 1 (CR1) and PICALM, were uncovered by two separate research groups, one in Wales and one in France, who linked the genes to the most common form of the memory disorder, late-onset Alzheimer's — the type that affects patients in their 60s or later and accounts for about 90% of all Alzheimer's cases. The only other gene connected with the condition, apolipoprotein E (ApoE), was identified in 1993; since, researchers have tirelessly hunted for other key genes, knowing that 60% to 80% of the progressive, incurable disease is genetically based.

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Researchers Identify Critical Gene For Brain Development, Mental Retardation

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 6, 2009) — In laying down the neural circuitry of the developing brain, billions of neurons must first migrate to their correct destinations and then form complex synaptic connections with their new neighbors.

When the process goes awry, neurodevelopmental disorders such as mental retardation, dyslexia or autism may result. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have now discovered that establishing the neural wiring necessary to function normally depends on the ability of neurons to make finger-like projections of their membrane called filopodia.

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5 Future Robotic Expeditions and What They Could Reveal

Image: ESA/AOES Medialab

From Scientific American:

Some are already on their way and some are still in the works, but here is what we may see from unmanned exploration of space in the coming years.

Fifty years ago this month, the Soviet Union scored a coup in the space race with a probe called Luna 2. The spacecraft, which resembled a squat, souped-up version of its cousin Sputnik, was launched on September 12, 1959, and two days later reached the lunar surface. By impacting the moon, Luna 2 became the first man-made object to land on a celestial body other than Earth.

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Lasers Turn Light Into Sound

From Live Science:

A new laser technology has made it possible to turn light into sound.

Developed by scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory, the technology has the potential to expand and improve both Naval and commercial underwater acoustic applications, including undersea communications, navigation and acoustic imaging.

This process is made possible by the compression of laser pulses. Various colors of a laser travel at different speeds in water. These colors can be arranged so that the laser pulse compresses in time as it moves through water, which concentrates the light.

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Glitch Sends NASA's Mars Orbiter Into Safe Mode

This image is an artist's concept of a view looking down
on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA.gov

From FOX News:

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be kept in its safe mode — suspending its science observations of the red planet for several weeks — while engineers try to investigate what is plaguing the spacecraft.

The 4-year-old orbiter has mysteriously rebooted its main computer three times this year, most recently on Aug. 26. It also inexplicably switched to a backup computer last month in a different malfunction.

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Ares May Look Dead But Keeps Kicking

From Orlando Sentinel:

Critics of NASA's Ares 1 rocket have all but declared the program dead. But Ares 1 contractors are fighting back with a campaign to convince the White House that their plan to replace the space shuttle should continue.

A blue-ribbon panel headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine will present President Barack Obama with options for the future of NASA's human space exploration plans as early as Tuesday. The Ares I rocket will be on the list — but not as a top choice.

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Cape Cod Bans Swimming After Scientists Spot, Tag Great White Sharks

Great white shark swimming in the waters near Cape Cod Mass. in Oct. 2004. Massachusetts officials are using high-tech tags to track the movements of two great white sharks near Cape Cod _ the first time the fearsome fish have ever been tagged in the Atlantic Ocean. The sharks were spotted Saturday Sept. 5, 2009 by scientists investigating sightings off Monomoy Island in Chatham. Sharks are common in Cape waters during summer, though great white sharks are relatively rare around New England. Collapse (Massachusets State Division of Marine Fisheries/AP Photo)

From ABC News:

Four Great White Sharks Spotted Off Massachusetts Coast.

The weather might feel right for a taking a dip, but for those on the coast of Chatham, Mass., now's not a good time for one last summer swim.

Recent sightings of four great white sharks have prompted a swimming ban for the rest of the Labor Day weekend at some of the area's oceanside beaches, including North Beach, Lighthouse Beach, South Beach and Hardings Beach and Nauset Beach.

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