SCIENCE IN THE NEWS
from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society


Today's Headlines - February 4, 2008

Study Finds Happiness Lowest at Midlife

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

The road to happiness is U-shaped. New research this week has found that
happiness over the course of a lifetime follows a universal curve in
which
the greatest bliss occurs at the beginning and end of life, while misery
dominates middle age.

The pattern was consistent around the globe, according to the report,
which
examined social survey data on 2 million people in 80 countries,
including
the United States.

The study, conducted by economists Andrew Oswald of the University of
Warwick in England and David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in New
Hampshire, set out to look at the relationship between age and
happiness.

To read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-
happiness2feb02,1,6158313.story

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2oypl2


A 'Bold' Step to Capture an Elusive Gas Falters

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Capturing heat-trapping emissions from coal-fired power plants is on
nearly
every climate expert's menu for a planet whose inhabitants all want a
plugged-in lifestyle.

So there was much enthusiasm five years ago when the Bush administration
said it would pursue "one of the boldest steps our nation has taken
toward
a pollution-free energy future" by building a commercial-scale coal-fire
plant that would emit no carbon dioxide - the greenhouse gas that makes
those plants major contributors to global warming.

That bold step forward stumbled last week. With the budget of the
so-called
FutureGen project having nearly doubled, to $1.8 billion, and the
government responsible for more than 70 percent of the eventual bill,
the
administration completely revamped the project.

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/weekinreview/03revk.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/37696c


Fossil Crocodile From Brazil May Be "Missing Link"

from National Geographic News

(Associated Press) - The fossil of a land-bound reptile that could be a
link between prehistoric and modern-day crocodiles was put on public
display for the first time [Thursday].

Paleontologist Felipe Mesquita de Vasconcellos presented the 80-million-
year-old predator, dubbed Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi, during a news
conference at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

The remains were found in 2004 near the small Brazilian city of Monte
Alto,
about 215 miles northwest of Sao Paulo. The 5.5-foot-long
Montealtosuchus
was a long-limbed and extremely agile animal that roamed arid terrain in
what is now the Brazilian countryside, de Vasconcellos said.

To read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080201-AP-
brazil-croc.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2efv76


Acceptance Slow for Bush's Space Plan

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Four years after President Bush called for Americans to return to the
moon
and then voyage on to Mars, NASA is spending hundreds of millions of
dollars to design, build and test the spacecraft that would make it
possible.

But the effort has yet to capture the public's imagination as the Apollo
project did in the 1960s, something tacitly acknowledged recently when
NASA
hired a New York advertising firm to help "brand" the program, now
dubbed
Constellation.

Moreover, some top space exploration advocates, policy experts and
scientists, including some who initially supported the program, are
questioning whether it can ever achieve its goals at a price taxpayers
will
accept.

To read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020103258.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2h2zw4


Boats to Try to Prevent Hooking Seabirds

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Associated Press) - Albatross looking for a free meal
on
the high seas often pay the price of being killed or injured going after
baited hooks.

Now, fishing fleets around the world have agreed to use measures to
prevent
hooking albatross and other seabirds whose numbers are declining.

The measures -- using streamer lines to drive birds away from boats'
sterns
as miles of baited hooks are being set as well as dying bait blue to
conceal it in dark water -- will go into effect this year in the
Atlantic
and Pacific oceans.

To read more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-hooked-
albatross,1,6099999.story

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yqd3q6


Study Suggests No Dearth of Earths

from Science News

Supposedly, there's no place like home. But a new study suggests that
earthlike planets orbit or are forming around many, if not most, nearby
sunlike stars, providing places where life might have gained a foothold.

That conclusion comes from an infrared survey of some 300 stars similar
in
mass to the sun and ranging in age from a youthful 3 million years to a
middle-aged 3 billion.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, Mike Meyer of the University of
Arizona in Tucson and his colleagues surveyed those stars and their
surroundings at an infrared wavelength of 24 micrometers. In many cases
more radiation was emitted than the stars themselves could have
produced,
indicating the presence of dust  ... a sign of possible terrestrial
planet
formation ...

To read more: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080202/fob2.asp

Or: http://tinyurl.com/3atb4z


Amazon Research Raises Tough Questions

from the San Francisco Examiner

MANAUS, Brazil (Associated Press) - Julio Tota stood atop a 195-foot
steel
tower in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, watching "rivers of air"
flowing over an unbroken green canopy that stretched as far as the eye
could see.

These billows of fog showed researcher Tota how greenhouse gases emitted
by
decaying organic material on the forest floor don't rise straight into
the
atmosphere, as scientists had supposed. Instead, they hover and drift -
confounding scientific efforts to unlock the secrets of the world's
largest
remaining tropical wilderness.

"What we've learned is the Amazon rain forest is much more fragile and
much
more complex than we had first imagined," Tota said. "My research is
pretty
specific. It's aimed at showing why all our measurements are probably
off."

To read more: http://www.examiner.com/a-
1198224~Amazon_Research_Raises_Tough_Questions.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yweqoa


Securing the Cities No Easy Task

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

NEW YORK -- A New York City Police Department helicopter with an ultra-
sensitive radiation detector affixed to its tail whipped through a
wintry
sky over Lower Manhattan last month, hunting block by block through the
concrete canyons of Wall Street for a black SUV containing the
components
of a homemade radiological "dirty bomb."

The 30-minute training exercise failed to detect a deliberately planted
chunk of radioactive cesium-137, a material that -- if dispersed by an
explosive -- could paralyze the nation's financial nerve center.

With time running short, police operators blamed technical glitches, and
the pilot turned back to a West Side landing pad. The test sweep ...
underscores the government's determination to prove this year that it
can
detect and disrupt nuclear threats to major cities.

To read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020202220.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/258z37


Potentially Harmful Chemical in Baby Products

from ABC News

Some environmental medicine experts worry that parents using any one of
dozens of baby products could be exposing their children to chemicals
that
could hurt their reproductive ability later on in life.

In a new study, University of Washington researchers found evidence of
chemicals called phthalates in the urine of 163 infants exposed to a
baby
product such as shampoo, lotion or powder. The study was released Monday
in
the journal Pediatrics.

However, there still exists little evidence that phthalates -- manmade
chemicals that are found in many products from tubing to cosmetics --
cause
any harm to humans. Still, the researchers noted that the fact that
evidence of the substances were found in the urine of more than 80
percent
of the babies in the study suggests more should be done to identify
products that contain these chemicals.

To read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/story?
id=4230408&page=1

Or: http://tinyurl.com/384ohj


NASA to Broadcast The Beatles into Deep Space

from the Christian Science Monitor

In astronomical terms, it won't be long: In the year 2439, residents of
the
Polaris star system, if there are any, will be treated to a transmission
of
The Beatles 1968 song, "Across the Universe," courtesy of NASA.

At 7 p.m. EST on Feb. 4, NASA, with a little help from its friends at
Spain's space agency, will beam an mp3 of the four-minute song from a
giant
space antenna near Madrid. From there, the transmission will begin its
long
and winding road to Polaris.

Monday marks the 40th anniversary of the recording of the song. It's
NASA's
birthday too; the transmission will commemorate the 50th anniversary of
the
agency's founding, as well as the 50th anniversary of Explorer 1, the
first
US satellite, and the founding 45 years ago of the Deep Space Network, a
network of antennas around the world that transmits and receives signals
from distant stars.

To read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0204/p25s03-stss.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yqbpcx