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 o