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


Today's Headlines - February 11, 2008

For This Year, Flu Vaccine Experts Guessed Wrong

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON - Seasonal influenza is spreading widely throughout the
United
States, with nearly half the cases caused by strains of the virus that
aren't directly covered by this year's flu vaccine.

Whether the winter will end up being worse than usual remains to be
seen.
Flu mortality in adults has been higher than in the last two years, but
deaths in children -- an important marker of severity -- have been rare.

Nevertheless, this winter is likely to be one of the few times that
public
health experts lose the bet they make each year when they devise the
formula for the flu vaccine -- eight months before the virus starts
circulating in the fall. Experts must decide on the formulation then
because of the time it takes to produce mass quantities of the vaccine.

To read more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wp-02-10-
08-flu,1,2788188.story

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


Court Rejects Emission 'Trades'

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

A federal appeals court [Friday] threw out the Environmental Protection
Agency's approach to limiting mercury emitted from power-plant
smokestacks,
saying the agency ignored laws and twisted logic when it imposed new
standards that were favorable to plant owners.

The ruling ... was another judicial rejection of the Bush
administration's
pollution policies. It comes less than a year after the U.S. Supreme
Court
rebuked the administration and the EPA for refusing to regulate
greenhouse
gases.

This court's critique -- which undid a controversial program to "trade"
emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin -- was especially sharp. It
compared the EPA to the capricious Queen of Hearts in "Alice's
Adventures
in Wonderland," saying the agency had followed its own desires and
ignored
the "plain text" of the law.

To read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/02/08/AR2008020802269.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/yruaup


Robot Glider Harvests Ocean Heat

from BBC News Online

A sea-going robotic glider that harvests heat energy from the ocean has
been tested by US scientists. The yellow, torpedo-shaped machine has
been
combing the depths of seas around the Caribbean since December 2007.

The team which developed the autonomous vehicle say it has
covered "thousands of kilometres" during the tests. The team believe the
glider - which needs no batteries - could undertake oceanographic
surveys
for up to six months at a time.

"We are tapping a virtually unlimited energy source for propulsion,"
said
Dave Fratantoni of the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOi). But
Steve McPhail, an expert in autonomous underwater vehicles at the
National
Oceanography Centre (NOC), Southampton, said the machine would not
totally
do away with batteries.

To read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7234544.stm

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


Peeking Inside Voters' Minds

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Wearing electrode-studded headbands to track their
brain
waves, two subjects watched the campaign commercial on a monitor in
front
of them.

Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, clutching a microphone as
she spoke to an approving crowd, promised that people in need would
never
be "invisible" to her. When the volunteers heard "invisible," the
equipment
registered a jolt of electricity in their frontal lobes.

"It got their attention," said Brad D. Feldman, an analyst for EmSense
Corp., which conducted the test at its headquarters in a converted
warehouse here. Campaigns have always wanted to look inside voters'
heads.
This election season, neuroscience is making that possible.

To read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-
polbrain10feb10,1,3091854.story

Or: http://tinyurl.com/ysk6g4


The First Ache

from the New York Times Magazine

Twenty-five years ago, when Kanwaljeet Anand was a medical resident in a
neonatal intensive care unit, his tiny patients, many of them preterm
infants, were often wheeled out of the ward and into an operating room.
He
soon learned what to expect on their return.

The babies came back in terrible shape: their skin was gray, their
breathing shallow, their pulses weak. Anand spent hours stabilizing
their
vital signs, increasing their oxygen supply and administering insulin to
balance their blood sugar.

... Infants undergoing major surgery were receiving only a paralytic to
keep them still. ... Doctors were convinced that newborns' nervous
systems
were too immature to sense pain, and that the dangers of anesthesia
exceeded any potential benefits.

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10Fetal-t.html

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


Evolution: Human Races or Human Race?

from the Economist

Some light was shone [last] week on the vexed question of the genetics
of
race in humans.

Lluis Quintana-Murci and his colleagues at the Pasteur Institute, in
Paris,
published a study in Nature Genetics that looked at which genes have
undergone recent natural selection at different rates in different parts
of
the world, and might thus contribute to any biological differences
between
races.

Given the fraught nature of the subject, the results are gratifyingly
uncontroversial. Several of the differences Dr Quintana-Murci detected
are
in genes for the superficial racial markers of skin colour and hair
form.
Most of the others whose functions are known are connected either with
diet
or with resistance to disease.

To read more: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?
story_id=10640669

Or: http://tinyurl.com/27b8mp


Ocean "Thermostat" May Be Secret Weapon Against Warming

from National Geographic News

A natural but mysterious "ocean thermostat" may be limiting seawater
warming in at least one Pacific Ocean locale.

The phenomenon may help protect some of the world's largest and most
ecologically diverse coral reefs from the effects of climate change, a
new
study says.

"There appear to be natural negative feedbacks that keep water
temperatures
in check - at least in this part of the planet," said study co-author
Joan
Kleypas from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado. Kleypas and colleagues focused on the Western Pacific Warm
Pool,
a region in the open ocean northeast of Australia.

To read more:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080208-oceans-
warming.html

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


The Grammy in Mathematics

from Science News

Shortly after September 11, 2001, a small, heavy package wrapped in
brown
paper arrived in the mail at the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York
City.
Inside was a mess of wires.

Guthrie's daughter Nora eventually figured out that the suspicious
package
wasn't a bomb, but rather a recording of her father on a device that
predated magnetic tape. After a year of searching, she managed to track
down someone with the equipment to play it.

What she finally heard was a bootleg recording of her father singing a
live
performance in 1949. ... So she was determined to preserve the
recording.
For the first step, she and a team of engineers transferred it into
digital
format. It was a hair-raising experience.

To read more: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080209/mathtrek.asp

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


Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

As a suburban environmentalist, Mike Tidwell, 45, of Takoma Park, Md.,
always felt like a walking contradiction.

Though he had quit his job as a journalist to work for environmental
nonprofit organizations, Mr. Tidwell viewed suburbs ... as places built
"to
defy nature," he said ...

For years, Mr. Tidwell led an environmental campaign, one with few
followers. In 2002, he started a neighborhood cooperative to buy and
distribute organically fertilized corn kernels to burn in pellet stoves
...
[Lately] ... his corn collective has ballooned to more than 70 members,
some coming from more distant Maryland suburbs like Bethesda and Silver
Spring.

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/fashion/10suburbs.html

Or: http://tinyurl.com/ynv398


The Rush to Build the Biggest Eye on the Sky

from the San Francisco Chronicle

(Associated Press) - A telescope space race is taking shape around the
world. Astronomers are drawing up plans for the biggest, most powerful
instruments ever constructed, capable of peering far deeper into the
universe - and further back in time - than ever before.

The building boom, which is expected to play out over the next decade
and
cost billions of dollars, is being driven by technological advances that
afford unprecedented clarity and magnification. Some scientists say it
will
be much like switching from regular TV to high-definition.

In fact, the supersize telescopes will yield even finer pictures than
the
Hubble Space Telescope, which was put in orbit in 1990 and was long
considered superior because its view was freed from the distorting
effects
of Earth's atmosphere. But now, land-based telescopes can correct for
such
distortion.

To read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/c/a/2008/02/10/MNVVURFSO.DTL&type=science

Or: http://tinyurl.com/2gbrt6