Buzzing science news

Rather than encouraging indulgence, appetising images of junk food may actually encourage dieters to eat more healthily


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An 'adopt-a-star' programme aims to raise money for an international research consortium to analyse data from NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission


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A wedding celebration in Kuwait becomes a "horrific scene" after a blaze lasting just three minutes kills dozens of women and children. The cause of the fire remains unclear, but authorities say faulty electrical wiring may have been a factor.
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More than one third of photos in women's magazines depicted babies in unsafe sleep positions, according to a new study in Pediatrics. Additionally, the study found that two-thirds of sleep environments depicted in these magazines were also unsafe.
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After getting off to a slow start, the Atlantic hurricane season got busy Sunday as a tropical depression formed off the northern Gulf Coast of Florida, threatening to bring heavy rain and possible flooding to the area.
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(AP) -- The tribes of the lower Klamath River have since ancient times decorated themselves with condor feathers when they performed the dances designed to heal a world gone wrong.
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(AP) -- Hundreds of schools are heeding the government's call to set up flu-shot clinics this fall, preparing for what could be the most widespread school vaccinations since the days of polio.
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A study published in this week's online issue of Nature Biotechnology, demonstrates a unique and highly sensitive method for detecting methylation-associated cancers.
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Attention all smokeless tobacco users! It's time to banish the comforting notion that snuff and chewing tobacco are safe because they don't burn and produce inhalable smoke like cigarettes. A study that looked beyond the well-researched tobacco hazards, nitrosamines and nicotine, has discovered a single pinch â€"â€" the amount in a portion â€"â€" of smokeless tobacco exposes the user to the same amount of another group of dangerous chemicals as the smoke of five cigarettes.

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In a debate in which he often sounds professor-like, President Barack Obama spoke with a rare bit of emotion that seemed to counter that of vocal health care opponents as he referenced the beloved grandmother who helped raise him and who he called "Toot." She died of cancer at age 86 on Nov. 2, two days before he won election to become the nation's first African-American president.
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The US agency behind Voice of America said Friday it is working on ways to slip news past tough Internet blockades in countries such as China and Iran.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Aug. 14, 2009 (Reuters) -- The U.S. plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 will not happen without a big boost in NASA's budget, leaving only the International Space Station as a viable target for the country's human space program, according to a presidential review panel. ... > read full story
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Jichi Medical University has succeeded in restoring the motor function of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease by injecting their brains with a virus with a built-in gene that has an enzyme to produce dopamine, it has been learned.
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Positive expectations can often lead patients to better recovery in a number of health conditions. Very little is known about expectations to recover from injury, such as whiplash. That was, until now.
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Solar physicists at NASA have confirmed that small, sudden bursts of heat and energy, called nanoflares, cause temperatures in the thin, translucent gas of the sun's atmosphere to reach millions of degrees.

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Satellite images of artificial lighting could help provide more accurate measurements of economic growth for developing countries


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The Baltic Sea winter climate has changed more in the last 500 years than previously thought. Research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that our part of the world has experienced periods of both milder and colder winters, and the transitions between these climate types seem to have been abrupt.
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Reality consists of what you pay attention to, and new research is unraveling how the brain chooses some things over others.Penguin Press, 2009, 256 p., $25.95.
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A University of Arizona anthropologist has discovered that humans living at a Paleolithic cave site in central Israel between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago were as successful at big-game hunting ...
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A 17-year-old girl who ran away from her Ohio home to Florida says she fears her parents will harm her for converting from Islam to Christianity, but her parents dismiss her claim and say she was brainwashed.
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Q: I have a problem with our Dell laptop computer's wireless connection using Internet Explorer. At various times, the speed drops down to sloth and then stops altogether. At the same time, other computers, a desktop connected directly to the router and another laptop which is connected through the wireless connection both function. When the Dell is taken to another wireless site location, it works.
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A group of researchers whose planned leg ulceration study was hamstrung by a physician recruitment rate of 2% have published the reasons why so many doctors turned them down. The qualitative information, featured in the open access journal BMC Medical Research Methodology, should be of use to those designing trials of their own.
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People were using fire to make sharp blades out of poor stone 164,000 years ago – much earlier than we thought
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A new look at a large database of prostate cancer patients shows that obesity plays no favorites when it comes to increasing the risk of recurrence after surgery: Being way overweight is equally bad for blacks and whites, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
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With HIV patients living longer thanks to advances in treatment, the primary care needs of those living with HIV have never been more important. Updated, evidence-based guidelines from the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) are designed to help providers manage the care of those living with this complex chronic infection.
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Honeybees in colonies affected by colony collapse disorder (CCD) have higher levels of pathogens and are co-infected with a greater number of pathogens than their non-CCD counterparts, but no individual pathogen can be singled out as the cause of CCD, according to a study by an international team of researchers.

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AFP - NASA said Thursday that engineers are testing the foam insulation bonding on the space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tanks before it heads to the International Space Station on August 25.

The team, in collaboration with University Hospital Aintree, the University of Warwick and researchers in Sweden, found that people classified as obese and those with pre-diabetes have raised levels of a protein called SPARC, that can cause tissue scarring. The research revealed that an increase in insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar levels, and leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite, can trigger an increase in SPARC, which can prevent the proper storage of fat in fat tissue cells.
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The project, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), found that many young volunteers travelled long distances from cities to short-term projects in rural areas and felt they were being punished for being disruptive or naughty at school. They saw the conservation work as having no relevance to their future employment, or educating them on green issues.
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AP - A series of satellite images taken over Sri Lanka's former war zone showed the existence of large grave sites and evidence of possible mortar positions near areas that had been packed with trapped civilians, a human rights group said Thursday.

Just a few years ago, Advanced Micro Devices executive Linda Starr racked up a million air miles a year in business travel. Now she logs a mere 100,000 miles per year, thanks to sophisticated video conferencing technology.
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(AP) -- Sprint Nextel Corp. has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the fees it has charged customers who end their wireless contracts early are illegal.
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Gamma-ray telescopes are helping unravel the secrets of the universe. See the most important ones in this gallery


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Until now, creating the microchips that power all of our electronic gadgets has been a laborious, complex and time-consuming process costing billions of dollars. But if a Milpitas, Calif.-based startup succeeds, making them could be as easy as printing a piece of paper.
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A team of researchers from Boston University, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently made a discovery that changes a long held paradigm about how bacteria move through soft gels. They showed that the bacterium that causes human stomach ulcers uses a clever biochemical strategy to alter the physical properties of its environment, allowing it to move and survive and further colonize its host.
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If a lush, protected forest with a winding stream is considered luxury accommodation for a migratory bird, a Purdue University study shows that those birds would be just as happy with the equivalent of a cheap roadside motel.

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AP - NASA is charged with spotting most of the asteroids that pose a threat to Earth but doesn't have the money to complete the job, a federal report says.

Economic woes coupled with a liberal black president have energized militia groups across the country, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center in a new report. "All it's lacking is a spark," says one U.S. official, referring to the anti-government movement.
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An unmanned German mission to the moon is plausible by the middle of the next decade, the official in charge of space flight said on Wednesday, despite the financial crisis battering the country.
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LONDON, Aug. 12, 2009 (Reuters) -- The unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islandsis under threat from disease-carrying mosquitoes arriving on board growing numbers of aircraft and tourist boats, researchers said on Wednesday. ... > read full story
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AP - The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to put on a dazzling sky show.

Scientists at the University of Mainz have discovered a close correlation between over-indebtedness and obesity. According to the report published in the journal BMC Public Health, over-indebted Germans are more likely to be overweight or obese than the population in general.
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During about the last 20 years, the risk of delivery-related death at birth or shortly thereafter for term infants has decreased nearly 40 percent in Scotland, with the largest contributing factor being a decrease in the number of deaths caused by a lack of oxygen for the baby during the childbirth process, according to a study in the August 12 issue of JAMA.
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Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new calibration technique that will improve the reliability and stability of one of NIST's most versatile technologies, the microhotplate. The novel NIST device is being developed as the foundation for miniature yet highly accurate gas sensors that can detect chemical and biological agents, industrial leaks and even signs of extraterrestrial life from aboard a planetary probe.

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Canadian scientists uncover alarming invasion of round goby into Great Lakes tributaries: impact on endangered fishes likely to be serious

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Modern lighting is bright and harsh compared with the lamps of antiquity, but computer reconstructions are letting us see archaeological sites as their creators did


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Divers on the Hudson River are hoping to recover the last body following a midair collision on Saturday. Nine people died when a small plane and a tourist helicopter collided, sending both aircraft into the waters. Here, divers maneuver near where the plane's wreckage is thought to be on Monday.
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The discovery of an unknown hitherto chemical compound in the atmosphere may help to explain how and when clouds are formed. The discovery of the so called dihydroxyepoxides (an aerosol-precursor), is reported in this week's issue of Science by a team comprising of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Copenhagen.
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Stable isotope data published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Erik Trinkaus, professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and Michael Richards of the University of British Columbia and the Max Planck Institute, suggests that at least some of the European early modern humans consistently consumed fish, supplementing their diet of terrestrial animals.
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A squadron of spindly robots dropped into Mount St Helens is the first network of volcano sensors that can route data to each other and to space, making them robust and efficient


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Relatives of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of President Kennedy, were summoned to a Massachusetts hospital Monday, a source close to the family told CNN.
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Chances are, we all know someone like Marya Hornbacher. We just don't realize that we do because, like Hornbacher, these someones are charming, smart, well-spoken and prosperous -- not at all like people who are (cough) bipolar.
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Muscular dystrophy, a group of inherited diseases characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, can be caused by mutations in any one of a number of genes. Another gene can now be added to this list, as Yukiko Hayashi and colleagues, at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan, have now identified mutations in a gene not previously linked to muscular dystrophy as causative of a form of the disease in five nonconsanguineous Japanese patients.
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Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, collaborating with pediatric cardiologists and surgeons at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, have developed a tool for virtual surgery that allows heart surgeons to view the predicted effects of different surgical approaches. By manipulating three-dimensional cardiac magnetic resonance images of a patient's specific anatomy, physicians can compare how alternative approaches affect blood flow and expected outcomes, and can select the best approach for each patient before entering the operating room.
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A genetically modified maize plant is genetically engineered to produce a chemical rallying cry that summons help against a damaging pests


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Treacherous Hudson River waters forced divers to suspend their search Monday for two remaining bodies and the wreckage of a small plane that collided over the weekend with a sightseeing helicopter, killing nine people.
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A bright moon may obscure the faintest meteors, but the annual Perseid shower should still put on a show


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(PhysOrg.com) -- Modelling the fabrication processes for integrated circuits can slash production development time and costs by up to 40%. But as transistors, already at nano-scales, become ever smaller, researchers are modelling new worlds. Over the past seven years, the microprocessors in everyday electronic equipment have delivered astonishing advances in speed while reducing power consumption per transistor.
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Social-networking website LiveJournal said Monday it continues to be pounded by a cyber attack that last week derailed its blog service along with Twitter and Facebook.
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Carbon nanotubes - tiny, rolled-up tubes of graphite - promise to add speed to electronic circuits and strength to materials like carbon composites, used in airplanes and racecars. A major problem, however, is that the metals used to grow nanotubes react unfavorably with materials found in circuits and composites. But now, researchers at MIT have for the first time shown that nanotubes can grow without a metal catalyst. The researchers demonstrate that zirconium oxide, the same compound found in cubic zirconia `fake diamonds,` can also grow nanotubes, but without the unwanted side effects of metal.
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Computer scientists demonstrated that criminals could hack an electronic voting machine and steal votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed. The team of scientists from University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University employed “return-oriented programming” to force a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine to turn against itself and steal votes.

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Like clockwork, brain regions in many songbird species expand and shrink seasonally in response to hormones. Now, for the first time, University of Washington neurobiologists have interrupted this natural "annual remodeling" of the brain and have shown that there is a direct link between the death of old neurons and their replacement by newly born ones in a living vertebrate.

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(AP) -- General Motors and eBay Inc. are expected to announce Monday that hundreds of the auto maker's California dealers will let consumers haggle over the prices of new cars and trucks through ...
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Recreational anglers and commercial fishermen understand you need good fishery management to make sure there will be healthy populations of fish for generations to come. And making good management decisions rests in large part on understanding the mortality of fish species - how many fish die each year as a result of natural causes and recreational and commercial fishing. Now researchers at North Carolina State University have utilized a new research method that can give fishery managers a better idea of how fish are dying, so they can make informed decisions on how to ensure a healthy fish population.
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The French advertising group Publicis said Sunday it would buy the digital advertising agency Razorfish from Microsoft for 530 million dollars (380 million euros).
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Typhoon Morakot slammed into China's east coast Sunday just hours after nearly 1 million people evacuated the area. It earlier lashed Taiwan with torrential rains that caused the island's worst flooding in 50 years and left dozens missing and feared dead.
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AP - Authorities have closed the offices of the Lebanese-based LBC satellite TV station in Jiddah after it broadcast an interview with a Saudi man speaking frankly about sex and showed off erotic toys, a Saudi official said Sunday.
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The Stowers Institute's Conaway Lab has uncovered a previously unknown function of a gene product called Amplified in Liver Cancer 1 (Alc1), which may play a role in the onset of cancer. The work was published yesterday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Early Edition.
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In the colorful, centuries-long history of house hunting, when have so many buyers come to the table knowing so much about prices, neighborhoods and school test scores?
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A small plane has collided with a tour helicopter over the Hudson River and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it's believed that all nine people are dead. Bloomberg says the crash victims include five Italian tourists and a pilot on the helicopter and three people on the plane, including a child. Bloomberg says officials believe the accident was "not survivable."
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The mechanisms that underlie a rare disorder might help to explain why some people die in police custody


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NASA satellite imagery has helped forecasters see that Hurricane Felicia is running into cooler waters and increasing wind shear, two things have taken her strength "down a peg or two." Felicia will continue to weaken further over the weekend as she heads to Hawaii where landfall isn't expected until late Monday or early Tuesday.

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HealthDay - FRIDAY, Aug. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Only two of 21 approved human embryonic stem cell lines are routinely used by researchers in the United States, says a new study.
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NOAA will participate in a private research expedition to study marine life living on and around the wreck of the USS Monitor. The August 2-8 expedition is the first in the history of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary devoted specifically to understanding how the wreck contributes to the health of underwater creatures and plants living in sanctuary waters.
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NASA should revive its Institute for Advanced Concepts, an idea mill that closed in 2007, says a panel – but it says the new incarnation should have its feet a little closer to the ground


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A clinical study carried out at Hospital de la Timone in Marseille, France, has demonstrated that a standardized management protocol for patients with infective endocarditis can dramatically reduce mortality rates.
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Sweden is to close its investigation into allegations of corruption at the heart of several of the prestigious Nobel prize science committees, a prosecutor announced Friday.
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SPACE.com - NASA has made a series of critical strides in developing new nuclear reactors the size of a trash can that could power a human outpost on the moon or Mars.

Although we've always been able to see and hear in "High Definition," we think of that phrase as belonging to the 21st century. High Definition or HD devices such as television sets, Blu-Ray DVD players, digital still and video cameras are all considered to be today's top-of-the-line consumer electronic devices. Even audio equipment and broadcast radio now have the same HD bragging rights. If you want the best technology has to offer in video and audio, it's got to be in HD. But there's a price to be paid for HD and while one of them is most certainly at the cash register, another is to be found within the additional bandwidth one needs to accommodate all the additional digital information that HD demands.
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The husband of a suburban New York mother who caused a car crash that killed her and seven others said Thursday she didn't have a drinking problem and suggested diabetes and other health problems were to blame.
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New research reveals that a simple laboratory assay detects a genetic variation in host response to bacterial infection that is associated with an increased susceptibility for inflammatory disease. The study, published by Cell Press online on August 6th in the American Journal of Human Genetics, also provides fascinating insight into the link between evolution and the ability to ward off pathogens.
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Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years â€" they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth's rotation and axis.

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In a deadly game of heads or tails venomous sea snakes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans deceive their predators into believing they have two heads, claims research published today in Marine ...
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CAPE TOWN, Aug. 6, 2009 (Reuters) -- South Africa aims to become a regional center for space technology, investing in satellite and telescope projects to support its ailing economy, the science and technology minister said on Thursday. ... > read full story
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With the information explosion, it's remarkable that so little is known about the interactions that proteins have with each other and the protective membrane that surrounds a cell. These interactive, so-called membrane proteins regulate nutrients and water fluxes, sense environmental threats, and are the communications interface with neighboring cells and within the cell.
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In Aesop's fable 'The crow and the pitcher' a thirsty crow uses stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher to quench its thirst. A new study published online today (06 August) in the journal Current Biology demonstrates that rooks, birds belonging to the corvid (or crow) family, are able to solve complex problems using tools and can easily master the same technique demonstrated in Aesop's fable.
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Fibrin, the chief ingredient of blood clots, is a remarkably versatile polymer. On one hand, it forms a network of fibers -- a blood clot -- that stems the loss of blood at an injury site while remaining pliable and flexible. On the other hand, fibrin provides a scaffold for thrombi, clots that block blood vessels and cause tissue damage, leading to myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases. How does fibrin manage to be so strong and yet so extensible under the stresses of healing and blood flow?

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AP - From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop's fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened.

President Obama’s blue-ribbon panel considered new targets for the nation’s human spaceflight program, from returning to the moon to a wider exploration of deep space.


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LiveScience.com - One species of venomous sea snake shows the advantages of being two-faced. This slithering reptile twists its tail so its hind end appears to predators as a second head.
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Sacrificing a small amount of performance in favor of convenience and travel ease, netbooks are all the rage. It's easy to see why. While they won't let you play next year's hottest PC titles, they can handle a round or two of "Plants vs. Zombies," are great for watching videos on the plane, and are so light you won't notice them in your travel bag. These books all feature a 10-inch screens, 160GB hard drives, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, and come packed with Windows XP Home Edition. It's the little details that set these flyweights apart.
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(AP) -- Thirty years after revolutionizing portable music with the Walkman for playing cassette tapes, Sony is trying to master the digital media player with the X Series Walkman.
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Hearing aids and cochlear implants act as tiny amplifiers so the deaf and hard-of-hearing can make sense of voices and music. Unfortunately, these devices also amplify background sound, so they're less effective in a noisy environment like a busy workplace or café.

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(AP) -- The Pentagon is reviewing the use of Facebook and other social networking sites on its computers with an eye toward setting rules on how to protect against possible security risks.
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Some of our strangest foibles still defy explanation, but it is becoming clear that behaviours and attributes that sometimes seem frivolous often go to the heart of what it means to be human


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