Has Universal Ageing Mechanism Been Found?

The ageing-related protein Sir1 was first found in yeast, and has now been found to serve a similar role in mice. This fluorescent micrograph shows yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), with some proteins tagged with Green Fluorescent Protein (Image: Spitfire ch, Philippsen Lab, Biozentrum Basel)

Form The New Scientist:

An overworked protein that causes yeast to age when it neglects one of its functions may trigger ageing in mice too. If the same effect is found in people, it may suggest new ways to halt or reverse age-related disease.

As we get older, genes can start to be expressed in the wrong body tissues - a process that is thought to contribute to diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer's. But while sunlight or chemicals are known to cause limited DNA damage, how more widespread changes in gene expression come about has been unclear.

To investigate, David Sinclair and colleagues at Harvard Medical School turned to yeast cells. These produce a dual-function protein called Sir2 that, while being involved in DNA repair, also helps keep certain genes switched off.

As yeast cells age, the protein can't do both jobs and neglects its role as a gene suppressor.

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Atlantic Hurricane Season Blows Away Records

This September 2008 NASA GOES satellite image shows Hurricane Ike seen at 1225 GMT. The Atlantic hurricane season in 2008 is coming to a close after producing 16 storms, including eight hurricanes, and inflicting record damage in the United States, a report by university researchers said on Wednesday. (AFP/HO NASA/File/Ho)

From Yahoo News/AP:

WASHINGTON – The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Sunday, seemed to strike the United States and Cuba as if on redial, setting at least five weather records for persistence and repeatedly striking the same areas.

"It was pretty relentless in a large number of big strikes," said Georgia Tech atmospheric sciences professor Judith Curry. "We just didn't have the huge monster where a lot of people lost their lives, but we had a lot of damage, a lot of damage."

Data on death and damage are still being calculated, but the insurance industry recorded at least $10.6 billion in losses this hurricane season. That includes $8.1 billion in insured damage from Hurricane Ike, which ranked as the seventh most expensive catastrophe in the United States history, according to Mike Barry of the Insurance Information Institute in New York.

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Some Cancers Disappear Untreated, Study Finds

From The International Herald Tribune:

Cancer researchers have known for years that it was possible in rare cases for some cancers to go away on their own. There were occasional instances of melanomas and kidney cancers that just vanished. And neuroblastoma, a very rare childhood tumor, can go away without treatment.

But these were mostly seen as oddities - an unusual pediatric cancer that might not bear on common cancers of adults, a smattering of case reports of spontaneous cures. And because almost every cancer that is detected is treated, it seemed impossible even to ask what would happen if cancers were left alone.

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Europe's 10bn-Euro Space Vision

Ministers took the view that hi-tech investments would help the economy

From The BBC:

Member states of the European space agency (Esa) have agreed a 10bn-euro budget at their meeting in The Hague.

The figure, which covers the next three to five years, represents a substantial increase in funding.

Ministers said the investment in space would help European industry pull through the current economic downturn.

The new money will help build new Earth observation satellites, maintain Esa's participation in the space station, and fund probes to the planets.

"The decisions of this ministerial conference are very important just in the middle of an economic crisis," said Peter Hintze, the minister who led the German delegation.

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No Electricity? Island Now Energy Independent

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway (Photo from Simply Moving)

From MSNBC:

Three-acre property boasts wind turbine, solar panels and Segways

MYSTIC, Conn. - Energy independence is still only a hypothetical goal for the U.S., but the owner of a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut says he has already achieved that feat and is offering his work as a model.

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and numerous medical devices, jokingly refers to his North Dumpling Island as an independent nation and himself as Lord Dumpling. Kamen claims to have his own currency and offers visas to visitors to the tiny island a few miles from Mystic, where he is the only resident.

But Kamen, who bought the three-acre island in the 1980s as a retreat, is serious about energy independence and the lessons it offers at a time of volatile gas prices and fears about global warming.

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5 Surprising Turkey Facts

Eastern wild turkeys. Credit: Maslowski/National Wild Turkey Federation

From Live Science:

Some 271 million turkeys will be raised in the United States this year, according to the National Turkey Federation, and a good number of them will be consumed on Thanksgiving, after which many Americans will loll about, overstuffed, sleepy and in many cases intoxicated.

This is not what the Pilgrims had in mind.

The first Thanksgiving was a moment for the Pilgrims to thank God for allowing them to kill enough game and grow sufficient crops to get through the winter, says Anne Blue Wills, assistant professor of religion at Davidson College. Those Pilgrims would have spent much of their day in church contemplating the mercies of God's covenantal love, Wills argues.

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Popular Science Looks At The Science Of Shooting Stars

From Popular Science:



In the first video we see footage of a fireball generated by a large meteor recently sighted careening over the skies of western Canada. Impressively bright! Since we get only a brief glimpse of the action we've also included another amazing video, below, of a meteor streaking over Guadalajara. It's a common misconception that the heat generated from meteors impacting the atmosphere is due to friction. In fact it's due to a thermodynamic process known as adiabatic compression. Let's see how this works.

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Plumes Spewing From Saturn Moon May Contain Water

(Photo from NASA)

From AP News:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.

Their research, appearing in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, adds to the growing push to explore further the moon Enceladus, as one of the solar system's most compelling places for potential life.

Using images from NASA's Cassini probe, astronomers had already figured that the mysterious plumes shooting from Enceladus' icy terrain contain water vapor. New calculations suggesting the gas and dustspew at speeds faster-than-sound make the case for liquid, said study lead author Candice Hansen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California. Her team calculated the plumes travel more than 1,360 mph.

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Global Warming Predictions Are Overestimated, Suggests Study On Black Carbon

Savanna fires occur almost every year in northern Australia, leaving behind black carbon that remains in soil for thousands of years. (Credit: Grant Stone, QCCCE)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — A detailed analysis of black carbon -- the residue of burned organic matter -- in computer climate models suggests that those models may be overestimating global warming predictions.

A new Cornell study, published online in Nature Geosciences, quantified the amount of black carbon in Australian soils and found that there was far more than expected, said Johannes Lehmann, the paper's lead author and a Cornell professor of biogeochemistry. The survey was the largest of black carbon ever published.

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Nanotech Clothing Fabric 'Never Gets Wet'

The new fabric strongly repels water thanks to nanoscale filaments with a spiky structure (Image: University of Zurich/Wiley Vch)

From New Scientist:

If you were to soak even your best raincoat underwater for two months it would be wet through at the end of the experience. But a new waterproof material developed by Swiss chemists would be as dry as the day it went in.

Lead researcher Stefan Seeger at the University of Zurich says the fabric, made from polyester fibres coated with millions of tiny silicone filaments, is the most water-repellent clothing-appropriate material ever created.

Drops of water stay as spherical balls on top of the fabric (see image, right) and a sheet of the material need only be tilted by 2 degrees from horizontal for them to roll off like marbles. A jet of water bounces off the fabric without leaving a trace (see second image).

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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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