Mars rover keeps on trucking
Opportunity reaches the rim of a giant crater.
Opportunity has just finished an epic voyage to the edge of Victoria crater and is taking a good look over the side.
Read the briefing here.
Nature Newsblog
Nature Newsblog
« August 2006 | Main | October 2006 »
September 29, 2006
Sharks in hot water
Market survey reveals high death toll.
A conservative new estimate indicates that between 26 million and 73 million sharks are killed worldwide each year. That's three to four times higher than the numbers reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Read the story here.
Java mud volcano seems unstoppable
Could Indonesia's mud flow be put to good use?
As steaming mud continues to pour over Sidoarjo, in eastern Java, Indonesia, geologists who have visited the scene say the four-month-old eruption may never be stopped — at least not by human intervention.
Read the story here.
September 28, 2006
Immune response vital in cancer fight
Activity of body's defences predicts outcome better than tumour spread.
How can you tell how bad a cancer is, and how likely the patient is to survive? New evidence suggests that the best way may sometimes be to look at how well the immune system has attacked tumours, rather than focussing on how far the tumours have spread.
Read the story here.
Genetic database to fight disease
Pilot project serves up new uses for old drugs.
A vast database showing how human genes react to drugs and diseases could be used in a scheme to find new therapies. A pilot project has now proved that such a project could work and has already revealed potential drugs to fight cancer and other diseases.
Read the story here.
Giant telescope offered choice of homes
Australia and South Africa vie for deep-seeing telescope.
Two remote tracts of countryside on two different continents were today put forward as contenders to host an enormous radio telescope. When completed, the Square Kilometre Array will consist of thousands of small dishes and antennas, arranged in clusters over an area some 3,000 kilometres across.
Read the story here.
September 27, 2006
Virgin boss aims to save the planet
Airline entrepreneur tackles climate change.
British business mogul Richard Branson made headlines last week by pledging to invest a whopping US$3 billion in programmes and businesses that tackle climate change. Less than a week later, he is back on the trail, announcing plans to cut carbon emissions in British aviation by up to 25%.
Read the story here.
Methane emissions on the rise
Industrial greenhouse-gas increase has been masked by natural declines.
Current projections of methane emissions are likely to be too optimistic, an international team of atmospheric scientists reports today in Nature.
Read the story here.
Tarantulas spin silk from their feet
Heavy spiders use a little extra glue to get around.
Most spiders rely on their tiny claws and hairy feet to scurry up walls and cling to ceilings, but it seems that heavier spiders need an extra bit of sticking power. Researchers have found that tarantulas secrete gluey silk from their feet.
Read the story here.
Radical genetic finding called into question
Alternate method of inheritance may be down to contamination.
One of last year's most stunning biological discoveries is being called into question. Researchers say they are unable to repeat experiments that were thought to reveal a form of inheritance previously believed impossible.
Read the story here.
Nature Podcast 28 Sep
This week's Nature Podcast sees the light of bacterial resurrection, is hooked on tarantulas' silky feet, has news analysis on a climate change storm, some statistical shenanigans, ways to make stem cells, and has more on Bose-Einstein condensation in a solid, gene regulation and evolutionary pathways, and an exclusive interview on science in Iran.
Got something to shout about on this week's show? Speak your mind...
To SUBSCRIBE for FREE to the Nature Podcast, copy and paste this URL into iTunes or your preferred media player or RSS feed reader:
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/rss/nature.xml
September 26, 2006
Allergy-free pets surprisingly simple
Non-allergenic cats on the market are a natural breed.
This week witnessed an event that will have some animal lovers cheering: the arrival on the market of long-promised 'allergy-free' pet cats. But you might be surprised at how low-tech these cute kitties are — especially considering the almost US$4,000 price tag.
Read the story here.
Is US hurricane report being quashed?
NOAA scientists say political appointees blocked climate change message.
A statement on the science behind the politically sensitive issue of hurricane activity and climate change has been blocked by officials at the US Department of Commerce, Nature has learned.
Read the story here.
NASA's 'first date' with China
The space agency's visit to China is overdue — the rest of the world went there long ago.
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship. That, at least, is how the Chinese press seems keen to portray the visit this week by NASA head Mike Griffin, who is touring Beijing and Shanghai at the invitation of President Hu Jintao. China Central Television proudly proclaims "China, US to boost space cooperation", while China Daily reports "China-US space co-op set for lift-off".
Read the column here.
Tone deafness shows up in the brain
Can't sing? It could all be down to a lack of white matter.
If you always thought there was something the matter with your tone-deaf friends, research has now backed you up: they seem to be lacking some brain material.
Read the story here.
September 25, 2006
More plants make more rain
Satellite observations suggest vegetation encourages rainfall in Africa.
More rain makes for more plant growth: that much is obvious. But now a statistical study of satellite images has added weight to the reverse notion: more plants also make for more rain.
Read the story here.
September 22, 2006
Shooting for space on a shoestring
Just how cheap can rockets get?
Imagine you have an important experiment you’re just itching to launch into space, but you’ve only a few hundred in the bank. Who you gonna call? Well you could try a group of undergraduates at the University of Cambridge, UK.
Read more here
Science would prove Libya medics' innocence
Six medical workers risk execution by firing squad in Libya on charges of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV. Lawyers defending them have called for the scientific community’s support. They want international pressure put on Libya to order an independent scientific review of how the children became infected, in a bid to prove the medics' innocence.
Nature has an Editorial and news article on the issue. The blogosphere has since amplified the lawyers’ initial call -- see, for example, here, here and here. Bloggers are also starting to organize a broader information and action campaign around the case. Nature will continue to follow developments, so check back here for updates and reader comments.
Naturally dead embryos yield stem cells
'Stalled' embryos could be new source of cell lines.
Researchers have succeeded in developing a human embryonic stem-cell line from an embryo that had died naturally.
Read more here
September 21, 2006
Socialites need more sleep
Flies with a busy social life take longer naps.
A hectic social life makes a fruitfly take longer naps, according to a new study. This seemingly simple finding could prove important in helping to understand why we sleep, and what effect socializing has on our brain circuitry.
Read the story here.
Mystery surrounds French oyster ban
Shellfish spat highlights problems with generic safety tests.
A ban on the sale of France's famous Arcachon oysters this August provoked angry demonstrations by oyster farmers, who say that there's no way of proving the shellfish were actually toxic. The controversy has thrown a spotlight on the shortcomings of current safety testing.
Read the story here.
September 20, 2006
Super supernova breaks the rules
Bright explosion puts oddball stars in the spotlight.
A particularly brilliant supernova has cast a shadow on a basic assumption about the Universe — one that has helped astronomers get a handle on everything from the distance of stars to the rate at which the universe is expanding.
Read the story here.
Little 'Lucy' fossil found
Toddler hominin has arms for swinging and legs for walking.
The 3.3-million-year-old bones of a female toddler from Ethiopia are telling scientists a story about the route human ancestors took from the trees to the ground.
Read the story here.
Brain electrodes conjure up ghostly visions
Simple stimulation may underpin complex mental illusions.
Simple stimulation of the brain can cause the mind to play complex and creepy tricks on itself, neurologists have discovered. They found that, by inserting electrodes into a specific part of the brain, they could induce a patient to sense that an illusory 'shadow person' was lurking behind her and mimicking her movements.
Read more here
Fake tanner wards off skin cancer
Plant extract triggers pigmentation to protect fair skin.
There is hope for fair-skinned people who long for a tan. Researchers have found a chemical from a tropical mint plant that works both as a sunless tanner and as a solar shield in fair-skinned mice.
Read the story here.
Nature Podcast 21 September
This week’s Nature Podcast features a hominid special on the ‘Baby Lucy’ discovery, investigates the roots of obesity, spotlights the Libyan HIV case, and has more on Greenland's GRACE, the first 'PASER', fair skin signals, and sensing shadows.
Speak your mind! Submit your comments on subjects covered by the Nature Podcast now!
To SUBSCRIBE for FREE to the Nature Podcast copy and paste this URL into iTunes or your preferred media player or RSS reader:
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/rss/nature.xml
September 19, 2006
Mercury survey highlights contamination
Forest birds, not just fish, at risk from mercury accumulation.
Song birds, mammals and amphibians alike are being exposed to toxic amounts of mercury, according to a report released today by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in the United States.
Read the story here.
Ivory Coast clean-up begins
Hundreds of tons of toxic waste have been dumped across Abidjan, a port city in West Africa's Ivory Coast. As authorities investigate who's to blame, news@nature.com finds out what the operation will involve.
Read the story here.
Health agency backs use of DDT against malaria
Much-maligned pesticide returns to the front line.
After decades of being shunned as an environmentally damaging chemical, the pesticide DDT is once again being touted as the most effective way to fight malaria.
Read the story here.
Trouble coming home?
Atlantis has done it's job delivering some solar sails to the ISS, and all has gone reasonably well for this mission (barring a brief glitch in the station's oxygen supplier that created a tiny toxic spill).
The craft was due to land back on Earth tomorrow - but the weather in Florida doesn't look so good, and now there's a 'mystery object' between the shuttle and the ground that has put off a landing attempt for at least a day.
That term and the description (a baffling object of indeterminate size in the same orbit as the shuttle) makes it sound like a UFO... sadly it's probably just a bit of kit that fell out of the cargo bay.
September 18, 2006
Distaste for sprouts in the genes
Raw veg study sheds light on bitter taste sensations.
In the name of science (and for a small fee), 35 brave individuals volunteered to take part in an extensive taste test of raw broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and 25 other bitter vegetables. The results help to explain why some people have a natural aversion to these veggies.
Read the story here.
September 15, 2006
Textbook free for all
A new wiki-project has been started at the University of Georgia, which aims to pool knowledge in free online texts. News@nature.com finds out how it will work.
Find out about the Global Text Project, and how millions of people might actually produce a coherent book, here.
New Orleans cleared of 'toxic soup' scenario
Surveys show no evidence of long-term health risks caused by Katrina.
New Orleans' waters and soils seem to have survived the ravages of Hurricane Katrina without being contaminated by any toxic sludge.
Read the story here.
Bright sparks reveal invisible tree rings
Calcium markers could aid climate studies in the tropics.
As every child knows, you can tell how old a tree is simply by counting its rings, which reflect the changing seasons. Now researchers have worked out a simple way to do the same for trees from the tropics, where there are no summers and winters to mark the passage of time.
Read the story here.
Birds to get the caffeine jitters
Blackbirds aiming to feast on rice crops could perhaps be kept off with a blast of caffeine, according to research presented here.
Redwing blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) are no friends to rice farmers. They soon grow blasé over scarecrows, and swoop in to devour rice seeds. In Asia, farmers typically hire a corps of workers with slingshots to keep them away. In the United States, people are looking for a more practical, chemical solution.
A team at the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) in Fort Collins, Colorado, hit on what they thought was the perfect compound: caffeine. It’s cheap at $3 a kilogram (thanks to all the decaf coffee generating a surplus of the stuff). And the birds don't like it: in trials it reduced the number of seeds lost to hungry pecking by up to 76% (see http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/nwrc/is/05pubs/avery051.pdf).
But they needed a chemist to make the idea fly. Caffeine doesn't enter into solution very well at room temperature, so it was clogging up the spray hoses on the aircraft that were trying to blast it onto test fields.
Jerry Hurley at the NWRC found a solution: he mixed the caffeine with equal parts sodium benzoate, a product sometimes used as a preservative, and solved the problem. He reported the work at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco on Thursday (see http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/232nm/techprogram/P1011525.HTM).
The new mix was tested on blackbird caught in mist nets. After four days of being offered it at 10,000 parts per million in a choice test, they ignored it completely in favour of the plain rice.
And the rice doesn’t seem to suffer: germination tests showed no effect of the mix on the seeds.
But before it can go into regular use, it still must be shown that the caffeine sticks around. And the effect of the caffeine on the birds still has to be tested: no one knows if it gives them the shakes.
But what if birds, like humans, come to like and even depend on the pick-me-up of a morning jolt of caffeine? Hurley laughs. "Birds don't have the same bad habits we do," he replies.
With 90% of the world's rice grown and consumed in Asia, where they seem to already have a viable solution, the caffeine spray is likely to remain a niche product - at least for now.
[posted on behalf of Emma Marris]
The Rainbow Connection
Well, yet another ACS has come and gone. I leave you with a rainbow of chemistry talks.
"The formation of chromium rich particles by the dissolution of red clays in groundwater monitoring wells" Mysterious chromium in Oklahoma wells found out
"Identification and characterization of off-flavor aroma impact compounds in canned orange juice"
Canned orange juice's flavor attributes are " tropical fruit, grapefruit, cooked/caramel and medicine" Yum.
"Research on environmental fate of phenanthrene in Lanzhou Reach of Yellow River" Math says the pollutants will be stable in the river sediment in 70,000 hours.
"The Pennsylvania Green fluorophore: A hybrid of Oregon Green and Tokyo Green for the construction of hydrophobic and pH-insensitive molecular probes" The search for the next fluorescent marker. Amazingly, there doesn't seem to be a band called "Tokyo Green"
"Highly efficient fluorene-based UV-blue light-emitting polymers with controlled effective conjugation length" Ah, making things that glow.
" Purple: The dye of dyes" A history lesson with recent archeological findings thrown in. I wish I had seen it.
General relativity passes cosmic test
Einstein's theory holds in extreme gravitational fields.
Einstein's general theory of relativity has passed its toughest test yet.
Read the story here.
Written in stone
A previously unknown form of writing — and the oldest piece of text ever discovered in the Americas — has been unearthed in southern Mexico. Kerri Smith tries to decipher the questions posed by ancient scribes.
Archaeologists have unearthed a block of stone from the Veracruz region of Mexico that is inscribed with a mysterious and hitherto unknown script.
Read the story here.
First tree joins genome club
Poplar sequence could help to turn trees into better fuels.
The first tree genome has been published. Armed with this information about the black cottonwood poplar (Populus trichocarpa), researchers hope they will be able to make the tree a better source of renewable energy.
Read the story here.
September 14, 2006
Poly want an enzyme?
Polymers and biology, together in perfect harmony. This meeting has intrigued me with a number of sessions about bio-related polymers. Timothy Long's group had two: one about determining which physical properties of polymers make the best vectors for gene therapy, and one about using DNA base pairs to make a polymer with two sets of properties. Heat it to disassociate the base pairs, and you get a flowy substance, cool to clamp them together again, and you've got something strong enough to do something with. Plus, there's bio-inspired dental polymers from Temple University, enzymes in polymers for sensors from Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, and polymers derived from soybean oil, feathers, and rice. Finally, there was a presentation on making better cigarette filters from Salmon sperm, from the Ogata Research Laboratory, Ltd.
The general crush on bio-related polymers seems to stem from their ability to acquire reactive, "smart" properties from their biological components, as well as from the environmental advantages of making stuff from things that aren’t petroleum. Now, can they produce the self-drying jacket from Back to the Future II?
butternut squash soup
J.J. La Clair, the controversial chemist (for background, see http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060731/full/442492c.html) in the mutton chop sideburns, gave a talk today to a packed room. It was hot, stuffy, and young in there, as he talked us, mic-less, through what he called "an approach used in a number of labs that I've developed, optimized and made easier to use." As far as I could tell as a layman, the approach had to do with designing synthesis of natural products with florescent labeling and biological tests in mind. I'll leave an evaluation of the technical content to others more synthesis (or biology)-savvy than I. I'll just mention that his first slide talked about his Xenobe Research Institute (which is pronounced "zen-OH-bee"). His slide said that the company was working on 80 studies with academe, industry and government. He must be a pretty busy man.
He acknowledged the contretemps over his claimed synthesis of hexacyclinol—and even included on his acknowledgement page a shot of the T-shirt being sold which memorializes the controversy, saying that he salutes creativity in all forms. And yes, that was my headline on the shirt, but I didn't write it. Reporters very rarely write our own headlines—but we do get to write our own blog post titles. So I decree that the title of this post shall be: "butternut squash soup", since that is what I am eating right now.
September 13, 2006
Conference bon bons
-Our gung-ho enthusiasm for antidepressants mean that there is a certain amount of Prozac in the water these days. Freshwater mussels are less than pleased, though, since Prozac is making them release their larvae before they are viable. Freshwater mussels are sensitive creatures, and 70 percent of the species native to North America are extinct.
-In an irresistible item, a peculiar bird called the Black-Bone Silky Fowl has been found to be packed with carnosine, which has a rep for anti-aging and other positive health effects. The bird is a staple of Chinese medicine, and has soft white feathers over black flesh and bones.
-Check out the brand new Chemical Structure Lookup Service, hosted at NIH,. http://cactus.nci.nih.gov/cgi-bin/lookup/search
-Fucoxanthin, from brown seaweed, is taken up by the fat. It seems to both reduce adipose tissue and turn the fat a bright orange. Anti-obesity clinical trials are in the works.
-Adrienne Kozlowski, retired chemist, and her husband, have taken up hot air ballooning as a hobby. They say it is a perfect diversion for chemists, because manipulating the balloon is all a matter of mastering the laminar flow of the air.
-Peter Murray Rust, of Cambridge, on the future of Chemical information: "We are going to start mashing, and it is going to amaze the world."
Clicking and beeping
I went to a talk on by UCSB's Robert Vestberg, on "Synthesis of hydrogels with well defined network structure using Click chemistry", because I have been hearing this buzzword floating around – "click chemistry"—and I wanted to figure out what it was.
But first, hydrogels. Hydrogels are polymers all cross-linked together and stuffed with water. They can be useful in medicine, for example, as soft contact lenses. They are biocompatible, key molecules can diffuse through them, and they are tough. Often the crosslinks are induced by a blast of radiation—like UV light, for example.
Vestberg and his colleagues are using "click chemistry" to do their linking. The click concept was described quickly as a reaction catalyzed by copper (I) that seems to be a one-size-fits-all room temp process that organizes your molecules into a regular structure. Functional groups can be knitted right in.
At least that was the impression I got. The meeting room in the Marriot was next to some sort of noisy kitchen or workroom, and it was hard to concentrate. It sounded like they were banging the lumps out of large cookie sheets on the other side of the wall. The "backing up" beep of some kind of vehicle was also intermittently heard.
Anyway, the hydrogels are made in little Teflon molds. You can make them with other fluids besides water, too. "We've done it in crappy Australian wine that I got from my boss," says Vestberg, who is pleased with his gels, which can be stretched to 1500% their original length before they break, much more than UV crosslinked hydrogels.
After the talk, I did some reading on click chemistry, which was invented by Barry Sharpless. It seems like a kind of Lego chemistry to me. You may be interested to know that searching the program of abstracts for this meeting with the term "click" yields 42 hits.
Just a pretty phase?
Solid red oxygen: useless but delightful.
Scientists have revealed the crystal structure of a dark red form of solid oxygen that forms at immense pressures. The results are surprising, elegant — and entirely useless. But the high-pressure techniques used to make the crystal could soon find applications.
Read the story here.
Neanderthal's last stand
Cave in Gibraltar may be most recent home of extinct species.
Gibraltar may have been the last refuge of the Neanderthals, according to the results of a six-year archaeological dig.
Read the story here.
Dropping acid may help headaches
Cluster headache sufferers say LSD can abort attacks.
We need to study the effect of powerful hallucinogens such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and psilocybin, the active ingredient in 'magic' mushrooms, on debilitating cluster headaches, researchers say.
Read the story here.
Nature Podcast 14 September
This week's Nature Podcast visits the European Neanderthals, investigates a role for the sun in global warming, looks for vegetative consciousness, explores quantum cooling and gets an insight into early galactic development.
Join the discussion now!
Listen | About | Transcript
To SUBSCRIBE for FREE to the Nature Podcast copy and paste this URL into iTunes, or your preferred RSS feed reader or media player:
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September 12, 2006
Review uncovers new killer drug
Common painkiller may induce heart attacks.
A huge review of studies on pain relievers has found that a widely-used medicine may confer cardiovascular risks as serious as those found with Vioxx, an arthritis medicine that was withdrawn from the market two years ago.
Read the story here.
China proposes plan to curb emissions
Trading scheme could finally lower sulphur dioxide levels.
China is renewing its promise to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions, with a plan that would see power plants paying for, and trading, the right to emit the pollutant.
Read the story here.
Planes play big role in spreading flu
Cancelling flights might delay future pandemic.
Can air travel help influenza to whip around the world? A study after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 has shown that the answer is yes: a steep drop in air travel delayed the spread of winter flu across the United States.
Read the story here.
No proof that SARS therapies worked
Trials carried out during epidemic give inconclusive results
Four years after the SARS virus prompted international panic, researchers are realizing that very little useful information was collected during the epidemic on how to treat the disease. The finding holds lessons for the treatment of bird flu.
Read the story here.
September 11, 2006
Mongolian Licorice
This meeting has it all. Today I caught a wonderful presentation by Frank Lee of Nanchang University about efforts to introduce “Good Agriculture Practice” or GAP (See the FAO’s page on this approach here), on the growing of herbs for traditional medicines. The idea is to make sure the medicines are what they purport to be, are not chock-full of mercury or other toxins, and are being harvested in a sustainable way.
So, field labs have been set up in Inner Mongolia to work of the harvesting of licorice there—used as a medicine to “invigorate the heart, lungs, spleen and stomach,” among other thing. The most interesting challenge they face is supervising the transition from collecting wild plants to growing them as a crop. They are watching to make sure that the domestication process does not affect expression of the active component. Awesome.
Against “molecular gastronomy”
The hype-heavy world of haute cuisine has recently been rolling its tongue over the phrase “molecular gastronomy”, said to be practiced by such chefs célèbres as Pierre Gagnaire and Ferran Adrià. The trend is for innovative foods, and new ingredients. Shrimp treated with protein-knitting enzymes, so it can be coaxed into noodle shape, glass-like spheres of isomalt, filled with the smoke from roasting mushrooms, flavored foam.
But On Food and Cooking author Harold McGee, in a session this morning, opined that the term should be ditched. He noted that most chefs labeled as molecular gastronomists rejected the label and say that their experiments rarely take place on the molecular level. Apparently, the phrase came from a workshop about the science of cooking, held in Sicilly in the early 1990s—but the workshop was, according to McGee, was all about the chemical underpinnings of traditional cuisine, and has nothing to do with the Julia Child-meets-Dale Chihuly creations of the new cooking.
These chefs aren’t looking into molecules, says McGee, “they are cooking with ingredients. They are artists, not chemists.”
That said, there are some firm links between the new daring cooks and chemistry. Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal questioned the age-old custom of removing the jelly and seeds from tomatoes before cooking with them. To his palate, they were tastier than the flesh. He worked with Don Mottram of the University of Reading to see why, and they found that the jelly has tons more glutamic acid—the source of the famous meaty, nummy umami flavor (See http://www.nature.com/news/2003/030707/full/030707-3.html)--than the flesh.
So, special note to my boyfriend: I now have scientific proof that de-seeding tomatoes is silly.
Concept of 'personal space' survives in virtual reality
Psychologists find real-world social rules mirrored in 'Second Life' interactions.
When the first virtual worlds emerged during the early days of the Internet, fans of these alternative realities enthused about a possible deliverance from social norms. Online, people could change their sex or even species. A new kind of cyber-freedom beckoned.
Read the story here.
Ah, high culture
I bet $100 that this is the first ACS meeting where a session has featured a slide of Jesus Christ with an erection.
Yes, you guessed it, it is the presidential session celebrating Carl Djerassi: chemist, novelist, and playwright. He was a top chemist for many years, specializing in synthesis of marine natural products, and collecting awards like pogs. Then, late in his career, he turned to literature. Lately, plays have been his thing, and at the end of the laudatory session, there was a reading of selections from his play "Phallacy". He played the character Prof. Rex Stolzfuss. But it was in a scene where a young art historian chats with a young chemist about the representations of Christ's genitals in art that the image, an engraving from the 1520s called “Man of Sorrows”, according to the online text of the play, appeared. Alas, no amount of googling can summon up an image, but rest easy, Jesus is clothed…but showing.
I am no theater critic, so I won’t say anything more about the play. I will say, though, as a feminist, it is fun to see the man who first synthesized progesterone—which led to the birth control pill.
Fuelmen
Went to some sessions on hydrogen storage (you know, so that cars can run around emitting just clean, pure water vapor, and so that we can enter the "hydrogen economy") today and was introduced to ammonia borate by Bill Tumas of Los Alamos. I liked him, because he kept telling us "the hard cold facts". I've heard people talk about the "cold hard facts," but somehow, the "hard cold facts" seem even more bitterly inevitable. One of these was that no one has found a solution to storing hydrogen. The other is that his favorite candidate—ammonia borate—is not going to slot neatly into the current infrastructure.
The stuff may be good at holding onto hydrogen until you want to go vroom, and then letting it go, and it has a glimmer of a hope of getting the hydrogen compact enough so that one can drive 300 miles on a full cell—the standard measure of success—but it isn't possible to just shoot more hydrogen into it when it's gone "dry". So in this version of the hydrogen economy, one would buy a fuel cell, drive until it was used up, then return it to the fuel station for a full one. The old one would have to go back to the plant for some more complex chemical treatments. For some reason, everyone seems to think that this makes the technology completely impractical, but I don't see why. Everyone used to return their empty milk bottles when they picked up a full one. Maybe we can even take a page from the golden age of dairy and hire fuelmen, who will take the empty fuel cells from your front porch and leave full ones. They can even wear those swell hats.
Well, I suppose we ought to work out whether ammonia borate will even work before we start designing uniforms. In the meantime, I suggest Tumas get his own show on cable news called "The Hard Cold Facts with Bill Tumas".
September 10, 2006
Big in America
The conference gets underway even before my plane lands. A fellow from a microscopy concern is leaning across the aisle chatting to a chemist about his latest model. In the airport shuttle to downtown, chemists wedge inside the van, their poster tubes making the whole process seems like some complex protein folding problem. And today the streets of downtown San Francisco are alive with chemists--teeming with badged hordes looking for a cup of coffee between sessions.
The ACS meeting is big. It has strong points and weak points, but most of all, it is big. This year sees the innovation of satellite registration desks in hotels throughout downtown, and a mind-boggling number of papers—almost 10,000. And I am going to "cover" the meeting. Ha ha ha.
Catherine Goodman, the assistant editor of Nature Chemical Biology says she ends up more or less walking the poster sessions as her fancy takes her. This is perhaps the perfect way to approach a meeting of this size—both posters and talks. Why see all the talks in your own field, when half of it will be old news? Why not stab a pin into the program or just amble into any old session? I pledge to spin the wheel of fate at least once this time—stay tuned for some chemical Kismet.
September 09, 2006
Liftoff!
So finally the penguin got itself off the ground today.
It was indeed something to see, and I was happy I stuck it out for the final attempt. The engines were so bright that it was a little like looking into the sun, and the sound was deafening. The orbiter rose into the sky, and kept shrinking until it eventually looked like a shooting star heading out over the Atlantic.
The engine cut off, the big orange tank separated, and now Atlantis is safely in orbit. As we speak, the Atlantis is making its way towards the International Space Station, which is somewhere between North America and Europe. It will catch up with the station over the next few days, and rendezvous with it around 11:00 AM GMT on Monday, 11 September.
Later that same day, assuming everything else goes according to schedule, the giant truss the shuttle is carrying will be handed off to the station’s own robotic arm. Over the next few days, the astronauts will carry out a series of space walks to attach the truss and open the solar array.
The shuttle will land back here at the Kennedy Space Center around 20 September.
I, on the other hand, will be landing in Washington later this evening, with a pack full of very dirty clothes. Thanks for reading everyone!
Atlantis Launch: Take Five
The astronauts are strapping in for their fifth attempted launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. For once, things are looking up, the engine cut off sensor problem appears to be well in hand, and the weather, thus far, is cooperating.
My editor yesterday asked why this would be the last attempt for at least a few weeks. The principle problem is the Russians. They’re planning on launching a Soyuz capsule on 18 September, and if the shuttle leaves any later than today, the two would overlap. Docking two spacecraft to the station at once is no mean feat, and everyone would assume avoid that situation.
So why can’t the Russians move their launch date back? Well they have constraints of their own: they’ve got some new contractors recovering the Soyuz, and they want their people to have solid daylight to look for the capsule when it comes down in Kazakhstan. Just as the daylight launch restriction on the shuttle is constraining NASA, the daylight landing restriction restrains the Russians.
Beyond that, there’s always been a bit of a tense relationship between the US and Russian partners. In 2001, Dennis Tito paid $20 million to the Russian Space Agency to fly to the International Space Station, against the express wishes of NASA.
By coincidence, this capsule will also be carrying a space tourist: Anousheh Ansari, who with her husband created the X-prize, will be along for the ride.
September 08, 2006
The Precautionary Principle
It’s a sign of just how cautious NASA has become that they decided to stand down today. The questionable engine cut-off sensor was one of four that are used to shutdown the engine if the hydrogen fuel runs low. The shuttle needs just two of its four sensors working, and the whole cut-off system itself is a backup: the navigational computers typically turn things off automatically at the right altitude and speed. Even if they don’t, Atlantis carries an extra 300 kilos of hydrogen to prevent the engines running dry.
The risk was so minimal that only two members of the roughly twenty-man mission management team voted "no-go." One of them was team chairman LeRoy Cain, so that sealed the deal.
Nevertheless, shuttle programme manager Wayne Hale said, if the shuttle did run out of hydrogen, it would be a “very bad day.” In static tests, shuttle engines running on oxygen without the presence of hydrogen underwent what engine designers euphemistically call “uncontained failure.”
Mission managers say that they will try again tomorrow, and unless they see something really weird in other sensors, they’ll go ahead regardless of the bad engine cut-off sensor’s status. If tomorrow doesn’t happen, they’ll wait until after an 18 September Soyuz mission.
“Tomorrow is a deadline because I have to go find a Laundromat,” says Hale.
Amen to that.
'Mix and match' proteins found
Rearranged peptides may play big role in immunity.
Proteins seem to be more changeable than biologists once thought. Human cells can apparently shuffle the components of these molecules — dicing them up and reordering them to make new structures.
Read the story here.
Going to court over climate change
Should the government regulate greenhouse gas as a pollutant? As the Supreme Court takes on one such case, Amanda Leigh Haag finds out who's suing whom.
What is happening?
The problem of climate change just landed squarely on the desk of the US Supreme Court. Twelve states, led by Massachusetts, plus a handful of cities and non-profit organizations are confronting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its failure to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles.
Read the briefing here.
South Koreans race for space
Fast runners qualify for astronaut selection.
Last Saturday, South Korea hosted a 3.5-kilometre running race with the aim of selecting the fittest participants for its fledgling space programme. But although 10,000 people had been invited to prove their worth by running the course in under 20 minutes, only 3,300 people bothered to show up.
Read the story here.
Shuttle schedule besieged by delays
Sensor glitch keeps Atlantis grounded.
CAPE CANAVERAL - The space shuttle Atlantis failed to take off today from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Mission managers are going to make one last try tomorrow morning, but the timing is getting ever tighter for the launch of the third shuttle mission since Columbia broke up on re-entry in 2003.
Read the story here.
ACS Bay Area
Calling all chemists! Emma Marris traipses across the golden gate bridge to San Francisco, to blog the American Chemical Society's latest gargantuan meeting, September 10th – 14th. With bustling pharma and biotech, UC Berkeley, Stanford and Cal Tech (sort of) all nearby, expect a strong showing from the locals. But as ever, the meeting is a 7-ring circus, and anything could happen, including an earthquake.
Everything below this blog entry is from last time. Read it to remember. Everything above here is hot, sizzling new content: read it and weep.
Pulling the Plug
Mission managers scrubbed at T minus 9:00 minutes to further evaluate bad hydrogen engine cut off sensor. They’re resetting for a launch 24 hours from now. We’ll likely have a press conference later today to update us on the status of the questionable sensor.
T minus 20:00 and holding
The Atlantis is fuelled, the weather is good, the crew is strapped in, but will Atlantis fly? Mission managers are still trying to work out whether they can go with only three of their four engine cut off sensors.
We’re at a built in 10 minute hold and then the count resumes. The team will have to make a choice soon.
Hydrogen Sensor Fails
Complicating the launch plans is the apparent failure of one of four hydrogen engine cut-off sensors on the shuttle’s main fuel tank (that’s the big orange one). Mission managers will now need to decide whether to launch with only three sensors, or scrub for 24 hours.
If history is any indication, we’re headed for scrubsville: In 2005, Discovery scrubbed for 24 hours after a similar failure. It then took off with three sensors the next day.
Faulty Wiring or no, the Shuttle is a “Go”
Mission managers made the case today for launching on Friday, despite the partial failure of a motor used to cool one of the Atlantis’s three fuel cells. The motor is still operational, but any further problem would cause it to shutdown. Astronauts would then have about ten minutes to shut off the entire cell before some presumably very bad would happen.
Shuttle programme manager Wayne Hale made his case that none of that will go down tomorrow. The data indicates some faulty wiring in the motor, but Hale says that it appears isolated, making it highly unlikely anything more will go wrong. “This is not rocket science, this is 19th century technology,” he said. “It’s very robust, it’s very reliable, and in particular, these motors are very reliable.
“What we are looking at here is a random kind of a thing,” he added.
Some other people on the launch team aren't so sure, including the folks who manufactured the fuel cell. But nevertheless, the launch is going forward.
And assuming nothing else happens, I’ll write again early tomorrow.
September 07, 2006
The Penguin Flaps its Wings
We don’t know the details just yet, but they just announced that they would attempt a launch tomorrow at 11:41AM. We’ll hear more in the press briefing in 20 minutes.
Idle Speculation
As the mission management team goes into its afternoon meeting, the press pool is sitting around, speculating on whether they’ll shoot Friday. There are arguments for and against, but one thing seems clear: if they need to replace the fuel cell, they’ll think seriously about launching later in the month—even if that means launching at night.
Wayne Hale says that the lack of daylight won’t dramatically affect safety because they’ve already taken enough data, and if they are forced to launch in late September then it would be too late to use additional imagery to plan modifications to the external fuel tank.
Meanwhile, Florida Today, a local paper, has a blog entry on the Atlantis’s new nickname among the shuttle ground crew. They’re calling it “The Penguin.” Why?
Because it’s black and white and doesn’t fly.
Tumour survey unearths wealth of mutants
Cataloguing cancer genes may pay dividends.
A hunt through thousands of human genes has turned up nearly 200 that are altered in breast and colon cancer. These genes might be useful for diagnosing cancer or as new targets for drugs.
Read the story here.
Predicting monsoons gets easier
Timing of Indian droughts yields to better climate analysis.
It is notoriously difficult to predict failures in the all-important Indian monsoon, on which the country's agriculture depends. Now researchers think they have made this task a little easier.
Read the story here.
Thoughts of woman in 'waking coma' revealed
Brain scans of vegetative patient ignites debate over her awareness.
Neuroscientists have reignited the debate over whether patients in a vegetative state are conscious of their surroundings, by claiming that a woman in such a 'waking coma' can respond to verbal commands. The researchers say that brain scans show that she can selectively think of performing certain actions, such as playing tennis, on request.
Read the story here.
Civilisations born of hard times
Extreme climate change may have spurred people to work together.
Necessity is the mother of invention — and this adage may be true for the birth of entire civilizations. Extreme changes in the Earth's climate that happened around 3,000 years ago, during which the Sahara Desert became completely arid and the El Niño cycle strengthened, could have kick-started civilizations in some places on Earth, says Nick Brooks of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK.
Read the story here.
Back to the Drawing Board
Shuttle programme managers just announced that they are standing down for another 24 hours to review a problem with one of the orbiter’s three fuel cells.
The roughly 100kg fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to create power for the shuttle and water for its crew. They are considered essential for shuttle operations, and Atlantis will not launch without all three in working order.
In fact, shuttle programme managers kept insisting, all three cells do appear to be working at the moment, but a cooling motor on one of cell is only partially operational. As is, it shouldn’t be a problem, but if anything else were to go wrong, it could create significant trouble that might cut short the mission.
Engineers will spend most of tomorrow looking at the history of the fuel cell to try and see if they can find the origin of the fault. That’s not easy, says shuttle programme manager Wayne Hale. The cell was built in 1976 and tested in 1981 by a company that has changed hands at least four times since then. And the circuitry is proprietary, says Hale, “which is to say that the vender sold us this thing but didn’t tell us exactly how it works.”
They’re now trying to resurrect those old proprietary drawings to learn exactly what caused the failure and whether it could worsen.
September 06, 2006
Travelling with the Cameramen
Last night I took a trip out to the pad with the camera corps and learned a little more about how one goes about photographing the shuttle. Since you have to be several kilometres away from the launch pad when it launches, you need one of two things: a very long telephoto lens or a remote control camera.
Most photographers apparently opt for the later. The day before the launch they climb aboard a NASA bus and haul their gear out to the restricted area around the pad. They set up their cameras at what the think will be a good angle, placing them atop tripods and inside little armoured boxes. The cameras have sound triggers that go off when hey hear the deafening roar of the shuttle engines (usually above 100 decibels).
According to a local photographer I befriended, the guys are pretty hard core about getting their shots. They often tromp out into the marshland around the pad to set up their tripods, getting devoured by mosquitoes in the process (the ones around the pad are both numerous and ravenous). They also run the risk of being eaten by alarmed alligators, many of which, according to photographer lore anyway, are deaf as a result of previous shuttle launches.
I also learned that the single most embarrassing thing any photographer can do is ask to have their picture taken in front of whatever it is they’re supposed to be covering. I’m a reporter though, so I was unabashed about taking a quick snapshot of me and the Atlantis.
When science and theology meet
Catholic Church ready to reject intelligent design.
Religion is religion, science is science, and good fences make good neighbours. That seems likely to be the thrust of an expected clarification by the Roman Catholic Church of its position on biological evolution, according to a prominent biologist who spoke at a retreat on the topic held last weekend by Pope Benedict XVI.
Read the story here.
Half our fish are now farmed
Aquaculture boom spells good and bad news.
There's a 43% chance that your fish dinner spent its life on a farm, rather than roaming wild. That's up from just 9% in 1980, according to this year's UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, released 4 September at an aquaculture meeting in New Delhi, India.
Read the story here.
Melting lakes in Siberia emit greenhouse gas
Methane from thawing permafrost could increase global warming.
Lakes in the permafrost zone of northern Siberia are belching out much more of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere than previously thought. In coming decades this could become a more significant factor in global climate change.
Read the story here.
Tuning the body's defence to cancer
Turning off our natural killer could help to reduce chemotherapy side effects.
A fundamental shift in our understanding of the body's natural defence mechanism against cancer has revealed an odd trick: turning this weapon off during chemotherapy might actively help to reduce side effects such as hair loss.
Read the story here.
Nature Podcast 7 Sep
This week's Nature Podcast considers cancer and unintelligent design, discovers Siberian methane emissions, and examines self-heating volcanoes, chiral-selective catalysts, a new take on fluid dynamics and don’t miss the story of Atlantis.
Join the discussion now!
Listen | About | Transcript
To SUBSCRIBE for FREE to the Nature Podcast copy and paste this URL into iTunes, or your preferred RSS feed reader or media player:
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/rss/nature.xml
I'm not ignoring you; I'm thinking
Gazing into the middle distance improves your concentration.
Teachers everywhere can be heard shouting "look at me when I'm talking to you". But research presented today at the British Association's Festival of Science in Norwich, UK, suggests that they should be doing exactly the opposite.
Read the story here.
Glitch Nixes Today's Launch
We've just found out they've scrubbed the launch for 24 hrs due to a short in an electricity-producing fuel cell. If the cell has to be replaced, then Atalntis will have to return to the hanger, and the launch is off until next month.
An 11 AM press conference is being held to discuss the matter further. I'll write more when I know it.
September 05, 2006
The 11th hour (hold)
The Atlantis is now in a built-in “hold” until about 1:30 AM. The service structure has been rolled back and the orbiter is exposed. There’s a media trip to the pad in a few minutes, and I’m going to go check it out.
When I arrived at Orlando Airport this evening, it was raining buckets. So why is everyone optimistic? Because the narrow, 20 minute launch window the shuttle has each day is earlier now than it was in late August. Programme managers are hoping the noonish launch time will mean the shuttle takes off ahead of the afternoon showers.
Escaped Chinese GM rice reaches Europe
Prevalence of genetically modified foods highlights risks of field trials.
It has been just one week since the European Union ordered the United States to certify its rice exports as transgenic-free, in an attempt to stem the influx of herbicide-tolerant rice across the ocean. Now comes a report that genetically modified (GM) rice from China is already on supermarket shelves in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Read the story here.
Middle-sized holes best for storing hydrogen
Painstaking study paves the way for gas-holding materials.
Bigger isn't always better. That's the message from a team of scientists trying to squeeze as much hydrogen as possible into a sponge-like material: bigger pores, they find, don't store the most hydrogen fuel.
Read the story here.
High-protein diet reduces appetite
Eggs, meat and cheese trigger a protein that makes us eat less.
Eating a high-protein diet can boost the release of a hunger-suppressing hormone, according to new study on mice. The research suggests that a diet rich in protein may be a good way to lose weight and keep it off.
Read the story here.
Atlantis Launch: Take Two
Shuttle managers have set tomorrow at 12:39 EDT as the new launch date for STS 115. This time, things are looking a little better: there's only a small chance of thunderstorms and no tropical storms or hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, the Air Force weather folks, who do forecasting for launch days, say that lift off isn’t a sure thing. Strict launch weather conditions mean that puffy cumulous clouds may be enough to force a scrub, and there is a chance of scattered showers at the Shuttle Landing Facility a few kilometres from the launch site. The bottom line is that the shuttle has only a 70% chance of getting off the ground tomorrow.
I’m headed back this afternoon, and I’ll write more when I arrive.
September 04, 2006
Happy hunting predicted for dinosaur seekers
Two-thirds of all species groups are yet to be unearthed.
Thanks to movies such as Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park and visits to natural history museums, 'dinosaur hunter' is one scientific job that schoolchildren aspire to. And according to a study of dinosaur diversity, these budding palaeontologists will have plenty to do: researchers estimate that more than 1,000 new groups of dinosaur species remain to be discovered.
Read the story here.
NASA awards major Moon contract
Lockheed Martin to build next lunar capsule.
NASA officials yesterday awarded a contract worth $3.9 billion to build a new generation of spacecraft. The reusable craft will replace the space shuttle, taking astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), and carry people back to the Moon.
Read the story here.
And find a special about the Moon here.
September 01, 2006
Semen aggravates cervical cancer
Advice for condom use gets an extra boost.
Deciding not to use a condom can have a host of potentially negative side effects: including, scientists now say, aggravating cancer.
Read the story here.
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