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


Today's Headlines - February 5, 2008

Physicists Hope U.S. Budget Will Mean an End to Research Cuts

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Under President Bush's proposed federal budget announced on Monday,
research in the physical sciences would receive a hefty boost.

That is welcome news to physicists in a broad swath of fields, from
those
who study the tiniest of fundamental particles to those trying to
understand basic science that could lead to future energy sources.

It is especially welcome after two years of tight financial
constrictions
resulting from money wrangling between Congress and the White House that
have turned off some experiments, delayed others and left some
scientists
unemployed.

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/science/05spac.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2h49rg


Iran Launches Rocket for Homegrown Satellite

from New Scientist

Iran launched a rocket on Monday designed to carry its first
locally-made
research satellite in 2009, showing the country's advances in ballistics
at
a time when Western powers are already jittery about its nuclear plans.

The US, the Islamic Republic's arch foe, called the rocket
test "unfortunate" and said it would only further isolate Tehran from
the
international community.

... The technology used to put satellites into space could also be used
for
launching weapons, but analysts voiced different opinions about the
significance of Iran's latest announcement.

To read more:
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13272-iran-launches-
rocket-for-homegrown-satellite.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yovkkb


A Tonic for Quinine Chemistry

from Nature News

In 1918, German chemists Paul Rabe and Karl Kindler published a method
for
the final steps in making the potent antimalarial drug quinine. Little
did
Rabe know that 90 years later his lab books would be reopened and his
procedure recreated, to help end a 60-year dispute about the synthesis
of
what was once the most potent antimalarial drug available.

Quinine is extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree, and despite
over a
century of trying, no synthetic recipe has been found that is cheaper
and
easier than the natural extraction.

The first production of the compound came in 1944, during an intense
effort
to make a synthetic version of the antimalarial during the Second World
War, when the trade of natural products was blocked.

To read more:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080204/full/news.2008.554.html

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


Getting Old, Faster and Faster

from Science News

It's not so obvious how old a 60-year-old is. Ask most 60-year-olds
these
days and they'll say they still feel pretty young, since they're healthy
and expect many active years to come. In 1900, though, a 60-year-old
was,
well, old.

This simple fact has big ramifications for demographers. Demographers
have
long known that on average people are getting older all around the
world,
and they have worked to assess the likely social impacts of that aging.
For
example, relatively few young people are around to support old people's
pensions.

But increased longevity counteracts those impacts by making people of
any
age in effect younger than they used to be, for example increasing the
number of years they are capable of working. So it has been hard to
assess
how big the impact of an aging population is likely to be.

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

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


Unquiet Ice Speaks Volumes on Global Warming

from Scientific American

As our P-3 flying research laboratory skimmed above the icy surface of
the
Weddell Sea, I was glued to the floor.

... In the mid-1980s all our flights were survey flights: we had 12
hours
in the air once we left our base in southern Chile, so we had plenty of
time to chat with the pilots about making a forced landing on the ice
shelves. It was no idle chatter. More than once we had lost one of our
four
engines, and in 1987 a giant crack became persistently visible along the
edge of the Larsen B ice shelf, off the Antarctic Peninsula - making it
abundantly clear that an emergency landing would be no gentle touchdown.

The crack also made us wonder: Could the ocean underlying these massive
pieces of ice be warming enough to make them break up, even though they
had
been stable for more than 10,000 years?

To read more: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-unquiet-ice

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


Inhaling Pig Brains May Be Cause of New Illness

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Fittingly, the first person to detect a faint signal in all the noise
was
the interpreter. The 33-year-old woman who worked for eight years
working
with Spanish-speaking patients at a medical clinic in southern Minnesota
noticed something familiar as she translated the story of a young
meatpacker last September.

Earlier last summer, she had heard a version of it from two other
workers
at the same slaughterhouse, and had told it to their doctors, who were
different from her current patient's. When the consultation was over,
she
pointed this out.

The interpreter's insight set in motion a story, still unfolding, that
may
be making envious the ghost of Berton Roueche, the legendary chronicler
of
medical mysteries at the New Yorker magazine. A new disease has surfaced
in
12 people among the 1,300 employees at the factory run by Quality Pork
Processors about 100 miles south of Minneapolis.

To read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020302580.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/34789c


Building at World Trade Center Is a Showcase of Terrorproof Technologies

from the Christian Science Monitor

New York - When a documentary crew wanted to film the emergency
glow-strips
that line the expansive stairwells in 7 World Trade Center, Dara
McQuillan
called down to the security desk and asked them to flick off the lights.
Moments after the stairwell went dark, however, a backup power system
switched on and ruined the shot.

Mr. McQuillan ... called again, but when the security desk shut down the
backup system, this time a battery-powered generator flooded the stairs
with light. The crew never got its dramatic glow-in-the-dark shot.

It has been hailed as the safest building in the world, its 52-stories
of
glass elegance belying a concrete core built to be a bunker in the sky.
It
is the first skyscraper to be completed at the World Trade Center site,
and ... its innovative architecture and endlessly redundant security
features ... offer a template for high-rise buildings in a post-9/11
world.

To read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0204/p20s01-ussc.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2ok5f9


U.S. Close to Decision on Polar Bears

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

The Bush administration is nearing a decision that would officially
acknowledge the environmental damage of global warming, and name its
first
potential victim: the polar bear.

The Interior Department may act as soon as this week on its year-old
proposal to make the polar bear the first species to be listed as
threatened with extinction because of melting ice due to a warming
planet.

Both sides agree that conservationists finally have the poster species
they
have sought to use the Endangered Species Act as a lever to force
federal
limits on the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, and possibly to
battle smokestack industry projects far from the Arctic.

To read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-me-
polar3feb03,0,7419700.story

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yrpsag


An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

PHILADELPHIA - Before Zeus hurled his first thunderbolt from Olympus,
the
pre-Greek people occupying the land presumably paid homage and offered
sacrifices to their own gods and goddesses, whose nature and identities
are
unknown to scholars today.

But archaeologists say they have now found the ashes, bones and other
evidence of animal sacrifices to some pre-Zeus deity on the summit of
Mount
Lykaion, in the region of Greece known as Arcadia. The remains were
uncovered last summer at an altar later devoted to Zeus.

Fragments of a coarse, undecorated pottery in the debris indicated that
the
sacrifices might have been made as early as 3000 B.C., the
archaeologists
concluded. That was about 900 years before Greek-speaking people
arrived,
probably from the north in the Balkans, and brought their religion with
them.

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/science/05zeus.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2szq2v


Scientists Isolate Areas Most at Risk of Climate Change

from the Guardian (UK)

Scientists have long agreed that climate change could have a profound
impact on the planet; from melting ice sheets and withering rainforests,
to
flash floods and droughts.

Now a team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable
regions on the planet, and warned they are in danger of sudden and
catastrophic collapse before the end of the century.

In a comprehensive study published today [in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences], the scientists identify the nine areas
that
are in gravest danger of passing critical thresholds or "tipping
points,"
beyond which they will not recover.

To read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/05/climatechange

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2j8gp5