Evolution Coup: Study Reveals How Plants Protect Their Genes

Researchers have discovered a new pathway that plants use to protect their genes against dangerous alterations that could also allow some useful mutations to occur. (Credit: iStockphoto/Duncan Walker)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — Unlike animals and humans, plants can't run and hide when exposed to stressful environmental conditions. So how do plants survive? A new Université de Montréal study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found a key mechanism that enables plants to keep dangerous gene alterations in check to ensure their continued existence.

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Predicting Extraterrestrial Weather

Two Hubble Space Telescope storm watch images from late June and early September offer dramatically contrasting views of the martian surface. At left, the onset of smaller "seed" storms can be seen near the Hellas basin (lower right edge of Mars) and the northern polar cap. A similar surface view at right, taken over two months later, shows the fully developed extent of the obscuring global dust storm. Credit: J. Bell (Cornell), M. Wolff (Space Science Inst.), Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA), NASA

From Live Science:

Maybe even more than average citizens, the world's space agencies rely on daily and seasonal reports to better understand weather on Earth and other planets. Space-mission success ties directly to effective anticipation and navigation of inclement surface and atmospheric conditions.

Mission-design engineers at NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and similar organizations need to know what environmental issues a Mars Lander or Rover might face to ensure that heat shields, parachutes and other on-board mechanisms survive the trip through the atmosphere to the surface.

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The Coming Battle Over Fresh Water

Hustle and Flow -- Audubon Magazine

As water becomes increasingly scarce, we may have to charge for every drop.

In a now-famous interview with The New York Times in 1995, Ismail Serageldin, the World Bank’s vice president for environmentally sustainable development, said, “Many of the wars in this century were about oil, but wars of the next century will be over water.” While the situation is currently considerably less dire in the United States than in many other places around the world, an escalating fight over water in the coming years is in the making. We are “entering an era of water reallocation, when water for new uses will come from existing users who have incentives to use less,” says Robert Glennon, the Morris K. Udall professor of law and public policy at the University of Arizona, in his new book Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It. Those reallocations can take place through contentious politicking and in the courts, or, Glennon argues, more peaceably, through market forces.

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Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug Dies At 95

From CNN:

(CNN) -- Nobel laureate Norman E. Borlaug, an agricultural scientist who helped develop disease-resistant wheat used to fight famine in poor countries, died Saturday. He was 95.

Borlaug died from cancer complications in Dallas, Texas, a spokeswoman for Texas A&M University said.

A 1970 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Borlaug was a distinguished professor of international agriculture at the university.

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More News On The Passing Of Norman Borlaug

'Green Revolution' pioneer Borlaug dies: report -- AFP
Nobel-winning agricultural scientist Borlaug dies -- Reuters
Agriculture pioneer Borlaug dies -- BBC
Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Passes Away -- Ag Wired
Norman Borlaug -- The Examiner
Norman Borlaug, RIP -- Power Line
Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Saved More Human Lives Than Any Other Has Died -- Reason
A look at honors bestowed on Norman Borlaug -- AP

Why The DOJ Wants More On Yahoo Search Deal

From CNET:

The long road toward Microsoft and Yahoo's search deal could be set to get a little longer, or fall off a cliff.

Both companies have long expected the U.S. Department of Justice to scrutinize the deal to install Microsoft as the exclusive search provider for Yahoo's Web pages, which would also see Yahoo end its time as a search company. Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed Friday that the Justice Department has asked the two companies for more information about their deal, which is a step beyond taking a mere interest in the proceedings.

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NASA Names Target For Water Hunt At Moon's South Pole

Scientists have suggested that water ice millions of years old might be found in the shadowed craters of the moon's north and south poles, where the sun never shines. (AP)

From L.A. Times:

The LCROSS satellite and rocket are to plunge into the surface Oct. 9, stirring up a dust cloud that may contain ice. The find would have major scientific implications and aid future space plans.

NASA scientists announced Friday that they had picked a 60-mile-wide crater near the moon's south pole as the place where they will send a rocket to punch a hole in the lunar surface next month in search of water.

Instruments aboard other satellites and on Earth have detected a significant amount of hydrogen, a telltale marker for water, on the northwest rim of the crater known as Cabeus A.

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On the Scene: NASA's Huge Rocket Test

Ares First Stage Rocket Test: NASA, Walt Lindblom

From Space.com:

PROMONTORY, UTAH – After two previous cancellations of debut engine tests of NASA's new Ares I rocket, there was a bit of trepidation among the spectators near the ATK Space Systems test facility in Promontory Point, Utah.

On Thursday afternoon, ATK successfully test fired the Ares I rocket's first stage, a giant solid-fueled booster, that will be used to launch astronauts on NASA's Orion spacecraft no earlier than 2015. We were on location to witness the high tech fireworks show [SEE VIDEO], $75 million in the making. And while the price tag might be a bit daunting, the spectacle of the test-firing and the magnitude of the Ares project were truly breathtaking

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Aage Bohr

At the nobel Prize ceremony Photo: Bettmann Archive/Corbis

From The Telegraph:

Aage Bohr, who died on September 8 aged 87, was a pioneering nuclear physicist and Nobel Prize winner; in his youth he escaped from Nazi-occupied Denmark with his father, Niels Bohr, a central figure in the Manhattan Project, to whom Aage was a valuable assistant.

The Bohr family fled from Denmark to neutral Sweden in 1943 after Hitler had ordered the deportation of Danish Jews. From Sweden the Bohrs headed for London where Niels became involved in what Aage was later to call, somewhat euphemistically, "the atomic energy project".

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Nanotubes Could Enable Self-Repairing Electronic Circuits

Nanotube Self-Healing Power: Capsules holding carbon nanotubes can put the zazz back in broken circuits J. Mat. Chem./RSC Publishing

From Popular Science:

Researchers develop nanotubes that can help circuits repair critical breaks.

Many people know the familiar wince when a cell phone or laptop hits the floor. But electronic devices of the future may self-repair tiny cracks or breaks in their circuitry with the help of nanotubes.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created capsules that hold conductive nanotubes and can sit on circuit boards. Mechanical stress that causes a crack in the circuit would also split open some capsules and release the nanotubes to help bridge the gap.

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Potato Blight Has The Genome Of Death

From New Scientist:

THE blight that triggered the great famine in Ireland in 1845 is still the biggest disease threat to spuds worldwide - and it's no wonder.

Researchers have sequenced the genome of the mould that causes blight and found it keeps a huge arsenal of potato-destroying genes, ready to evolve around whatever defences taters can muster. On the plus side, the sequence also suggests ways to fight back.

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Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Efficient Solar Cells

In a carbon nanotube-based photodiode, electrons (blue) and holes (red) - the positively charged areas where electrons used to be before becoming excited - release their excess energy to efficiently create more electron-hole pairs when light is shined on the device. (Credit: Nathan Gabor)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than now used in calculators and on rooftops.

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Life in the Dark: How Organisms Survived Asteroid Impacts

One of the phototrophs used in the experiment was Chlorella vulgaris.
Credit: Charles University in Prague.

From Live Science:

A dinosaur-killing asteroid may have wiped out much of life on Earth 65 million years ago, but now scientists have discovered how smaller organisms might have survived in the darkness following such a catastrophic impact.

Survival may have depended upon jack-of-all-trades organisms called mixotrophs that can consume organic matter in the absence of sunlight. That would have proved crucial during the long months of dust and debris blotting out the sun, when plenty of dead or dying organic matter filled the Earth's oceans and lakes.

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Killer Whales Strain to "Talk" Over Ship Noise?

A baby killer whale surfaces near adults in Puget Sound. The calf was born in March 2009 to a pod that lives near the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State.
The San Juan killer whales "talk" more during foraging than traveling, researchers said in September 2009. But since the whales also have to raise their voices to be heard above boat noise, scientists worry that the animals may be using up too much energy during hunts, even as their preferred prey, chinook salmon, are on the decline. Photograph courtesy Center for Whale Research via AP

From National Geographic:

Killer whales raise their voices to be heard over boat noise, and the effort may be wearing the whales out as they try to find food amid dwindling numbers of salmon, new research says.

The killer whales of Puget Sound make more calls and clicks while foraging than while traveling, suggesting that such mealtime conservations are key to coordinating hunts, the work reveals.

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Junk Cost Estimates Supplied to Augustine Committee Threaten to Sink NASA's Human Spaceflight Program

From The Mars Society:

The Mars Society has examined copies of the cost projections being used by the Augustine Committee in currently considering the future of NASA's human spaceflight program. These estimates, generated by the Aerospace Corporation, a US Air Force funded policy oracle, have no scientific basis and have clearly been composed to make the case that human space exploration is unaffordable.

A copy of the Aerospace Corporation's bizarre cost estimates being used by the Augustine Committee is available here.

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Earlier Model of Human Brain's Energy Usage Underestimated Its Efficiency

A MODEL OF EFFICIENCY?: That mammals' brains appear to conserve energy on the front end of synapse communication leads researchers to believe the advance helped allow bigger brains to develop. ISTOCKPHOTO/KTSIMAGE

From Scientific American:

A long-held model of the brain's efficiency crumbles as researchers find that one function of mammals' brains consumes a lot less energy than previously assumed. Now, basic measurements of neural activity--from brain energy budgets to fMRI results--may have to be reassessed.

The human brain is an incredible energy drain. Taking up only about 2 percent of the body's mass, the organ uses more than a fifth of bodily energy. Ever more accurate calculations of its energy budget at the level of the neuron (nerve cell) are important to researchers ranging from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysts to evolutionary biologists.

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Wide Angle: Swine Flu Outbreak

The last flu pandemic -- the Hong Kong flu of 1968 -- killed about 1 million people. The Hong Kong government has ordered all kindergartens and primary schools closed after a dozen students tested positive for the swine flu. Credit: AP

From Discovery News:

The H1N1 swine flu is a vicious flu strain that's on the rise across the globe. Discovery News tracks its progress from a minor outbreak in Mexico to a full-blown, world-wide pandemic in this Wide Angle.

As the World Health Organization officially declares the H1N1 swine flu has reached Level 6 -- pandemic status -- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking cases of swine flu in the United States. The CDC is preparing local and state clinics to treat the virus, and some cities have issued face masks and personal contact guidelines to combat the spread of germs. Discovery News looks at how the swine flu outbreak became the next pandemic, how microbes behave and more.

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DNA Fingerprinting 25 Years Old

From BBC:

The scientist behind DNA fingerprinting has called for a change to the law governing DNA databases on the 25th anniversary of his discovery.

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys uncovered the process by chance in his laboratory at Leicester University.

The technique has since been used to solve crimes and identity cases.

But it has also led to controversy over profiles kept on the national DNA database. "Innocent people do not belong on that database," he said.

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E-book Readers Still Owned By Small Niche

From CNET:

The tech industry buzzes a lot about e-book readers. But how widely are they actually used?

Among 1,529 consumers who responded to a July 2009 questionnaire from research firm In-Stat, only 5.8 percent currently own an e-book reader. And only 11 percent of those questioned said they planned to buy one in the next 12 months, according to the In-Stat report released this week.

Those low results may be even more significant given that In-Stat's survey audience consisted of high-end consumers who typically adopt new technology earlier than the general public.

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NASA & Its Discontents: Frustrated Engineers Battle With NASA Over The Future Of Spaceflight

From Popular Mechanics:

A group of renegade space vehicle designers, including NASA engineers bucking their bosses, are publicly crying out against the current Shuttle retirement plan. Their proposed plan, called Jupiter Direct, is an affront to NASA's current plans for the Ares I rocket, which they say is more costly and time-consuming than it needs to be. This is their story.

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Take An Orbital Vacation On A Surplus Soviet Military Spacecraft

Almaz Spacecraft: Turning guns into space tourism, courtesy of a retrofitted Soviet-era military spacecraft. Excalibur Almaz

From Popular Science:

Space tourists with deep pockets and dreams of recapturing Cold War nostalgia need look no further than Excalibur Almaz. The new company is asking $35 million for a weeklong stay aboard a Soviet-era military spacecraft.

Excalibur's purchase of the Russian military-surplus "Almaz" reentry capsules turned heads in August. But the latest announcement firmly sets Excalibur up as a competitor with Space Adventures, the only private outfit that currently offers rides into orbit aboard the three-man Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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