“I’m really low-tech,” laughs Kathleen Weldon nervously in front of the MIT audience at the EmTech meeting. She’s here to explain how she launched NewEnglandGrown.com, a website connecting customers interested in local, fresh produce with New England farmers. “And the farmers are even more low-tech than me!”

Kathleen used software provided by Platial – described by its founder Di-Ann Eisnor as ‘the people’s atlas’ – to map hundreds of farms. The site allows farmers to update their lists of fresh produce online and reach more customers then they would by sending out print newsletters. Kathleen also provides news, links and recipe ideas, and with the help of another Palatial user she just met – Pauric O’Callaghan – she is adding month-by-month views, so users can understand how farm produce changes with the seasons.

Platial is about 18 months old and piggybacks on Google Maps to provide ordinary users the tools to create whatever map-based content they want. Eisnor says they have some 5 million unique users and the software is now being used on some 60,000 sites and blogs. Most users are into travel stories, local history and community groups.

For instance, Pauric is using Platial to map local craft stores and connect hobbyists listed by Make magazine. Students of Dan Gillmor, a ‘citizen journalist’ advocate at UC Berkeley, are helping to build a site tracking New Orleans redevelopment by mapping houses in the Gentilly region of the city affected by hurricane Katrina.

These content-creation tools are on the rise, and there seems to be as many business models as there are products. Veodia.com is a subscription-based service allowing users to instantly broadcast their video content over the web. During an earlier panel discussion on virtual worlds at the EmTech meeting it was used to broadcast the session to some 150 online viewers in Second Life – who also posted questions for the panel.

Like most social media sites Platial has an advertising supported model, but ScrapBlog, a photo scrapbook site, is still figuring it out. Carlos Garcia, CEO of ScrapBlog, explained to the MIT audience that their site attracts creative people and they don’t want to ‘pollute’ the user experience with advertising. But he says they do have requests from users who want to turn their online content into a physical photobook. Now that would be something – an old media business strategy for a new media company.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 28, 2007
Categories: Emerging technologies | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We rarely learn anything Earth-shaking from space labs, says Philip Ball - which is why inexpensive missions like Foton-M3 are the way to go.

Space experiments have rarely seemed as much fun as they did on the European Space Agency's Foton-M3 mission, which blasted off two weeks ago from Russia for a 12-day spell in low-Earth orbit.

Read the column here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 28, 2007
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Invasive birds are now the main reason that some native forests thrive.

After years of fighting the threats posed by foreign species on the Hawaiian islands, conservationists have discovered that invasive birds may now be the only hope left for the survival of some native plants.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 28, 2007
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Mathematical quirk of light shines a path to quantum cryptography.

When does taking one thing away give you more than what you started with? When quantum mechanics gets involved.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 27, 2007
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Adzes form the first hard evidence of two-way travel between Hawaii and Tahiti.

The discovery of an adze fashioned from Hawaiian basalt on a Tuamotu atoll in French Polynesia provides the first material evidence that ancient voyagers made an 8,000-kilometre round trip from the South Pacific to Hawaii and back again.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 27, 2007
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Study reveals valuable store of ancient DNA in museum samples.

Geneticists have pieced together gene sequences from ten Siberian mammoths, using tiny samples of their hair found preserved in the Russian tundra. The result uses some of the oldest DNA ever pieced together — one of the mammoths had lain in the frozen ground for some 50,000 years.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 27, 2007
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Have you ever used news aggregator sites like Digg, Slashdot or Reddit? This was the question posed to EmTech attendees this morning, during a panel discussion with three founders of popular social media sites -- Kevin Rose of Digg, Tariq Krim of NetVibes, and Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon. Thanks to live audience voting using our interactive name tags, the MIT audience revealed that 61% have yet to try user-driven news services.

Is this supposedly tech-savvy audience behind the times? Or have these sites yet to reach beyond the niche audiences that post and comment on specialized content? Not so, say the panelists, preferring to see their users as early adopters. And the numbers back them up.

Kevin Rose claims that Digg has 20 million unique visitors a month. Compare this to 69 million unique visitors to Facebook during August, and a whopping 210 million visitors to Wikipedia, and its clear that social networking and user generated websites are unstoppable. Back in 2004 explains Rose people didn’t believe they could have control over the content on a news homepage. Now he says Digg has more page hits than the New York Times.

All the sites are evolving beyond ‘just text’ by adding photos, video, audio and flash. They are also getting into ‘microblogging’ services like twitter which allow users to post short status updates (where you are, and what you are doing right now) that are sent to your friends cell phones. Rose has recently helped to launch Pownce, which is a way for friends to share news stories they are reading with each other.

And what about those late adopters at MIT? Kevin Rose explains to me that there is still a lot of work to be done attracting non-techie users. “My mum and dad don’t have a Digg account,” he admits. “There’s a reason for that.”

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 27, 2007
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My second night in Boston I attended the Nature Network Boston pub night. Hosted by Corie Lok at a bar on Mass ave, there was a good turn out from young Cambridge area scientists. The discussions ranged from yeast genetics, to neuropathology, Finnish baseball (yes, really, we didn't believe it either) and beer brewing (coming back full circle to the yeast genetics :). If you're in the Boston area check out the pub night next month.

Back at MIT, the Technology Review team have tracked down other bloggers at the EmTech meeting. Follow the links here for more conference stories.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 27, 2007
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Could nutrients from the deep could help remove carbon dioxide from the air?

Could mighty pumps be installed in the ocean to mix up the waters and cool the planet? At least some scientists and businessmen believe so — but the idea is controversial.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 26, 2007
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Spread of breast cancer to other body parts is linked to microRNA.

The smallest bit of genetic material may cause the deadliest of tumours. Researchers have implicated a tiny RNA molecule in the invasive spread of breast cancer — the factor responsible for most deaths from the disease. In 2007, around 179,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and some 47,000 will probably die.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 26, 2007
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Money raised to salvage Galileo.

The European Commission is launching a bid to save Galileo, the continent's troubled satellite navigation system. It has asked the European Parliament to back its plan to foot the whole bill for the 30-satellite system. The cost would be some 3.4 billion (US$4.8 billion) over the next six years.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 26, 2007
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So what did I learn about women in technology from today’s workshop? I learned that despite many smart and impressive women in technology – including CIOs, CTOs and research managers – there is still a long way to go.

I also learned more about the early history of computer science: yes, women PhDs dropped sharply from around 38% in 1985 to about 28% today. One explanation offered was that once personal computers were available in the home and schools, and the timing for this applies to China as much as to the USA, then boys began playing computer games and women’s interest declined.

But there were some great women computer scientists in those early years. Grace Hopper, a US naval officer and computer programmer, created the first compiler, and developed the philosophy behind COBOL. Next month there is a meeting celebrating Amazing Grace, as she was sometimes known, and women in computing today. Fran Allen, a computer scientist at IBM, was the first woman to be awarded the Turing Award (the Nobel Prize of computing). Other early female computer pioneers are listed here.

Bob Birgeneau, the chancellor of UC Berkeley, also updated workshop attendees with the latest follow-up data to the 2006 National Academies report: Beyond Bias and Barriers.

In fields with few women, Birgeneau reports, such as physics, electrical engineering and computer science, women now apply for faculty positions in similar numbers to women pursuing PhDs. But the pipeline is much leakier in fields with far greater numbers of women PhDs, such as biology and chemistry. Here there is still a two-fold drop between women achieving PhDs and later career paths. How many Grace Hopper's or Fran Allen's are leaking away..?

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 26, 2007
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My personal benchmark for transformative technology is TiVo. Like many women I approach new technology as a tool, with the modest hope that it will enhance my life, but no expectation that it will define or transform me. TiVo was different. When this personal video recorder entered my world it changed the way I viewed TV forever. Now I watch shows on my schedule and skip all the boring commercials. What's more it had a smart and intuitive user interface and a remote control I could care for. Thanks to its friendly curves and intelligent fastfwd and rewind I was hooked.

None of which can be said about the interactive name badge technology - nTAG - being offered to attendees of the EmTech meeting. Sure, it is kinda like wearing the TV remote control around your neck. But who wants to do that? After a 15 minute tutorial I learn it means I can swap contact info with other attendees electronically: once we've lined up the consoles and figured out which buttons to press. And I can review the meeting schedule, receive messages from the organisers, or take part in feedback surveys. Oh and there may be some instant voting later.

Hmm, I'm underwhelmed. It's clumsy to use and ugly to look at. By the end of the first session I've already decided the device is too heavy to hang round my neck. I spy other attendees swapping business cards, the old-fashioned way. An earlier generation nTAG device was twice the size of this one(!) and required a neoprene neck support. Can I have a paper name badge please?

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 26, 2007
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Study links migratory navigation systems in the eyes and the brain.

How do migrating birds perceive which way is north? Research now points to the idea that they actually 'see' the Earth's magnetic field, rather than feeling or sensing it in some other way.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 26, 2007
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Tether offers down-to-Earth approach to payload delivery.

As Nature went to press, scientists were scrambling to locate a small capsule from space now believed to be somewhere in Kazakhstan. The capsule is part of an ambitious experimental space-mail delivery system that aimed to use a 30-kilometre-long satellite tether — the longest yet. In the early hours of 25 September, the ribbon from the satellite orbiting 300 kilometres above Earth was cut and the capsule parachuted to Earth, although off-target.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 25, 2007
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Some 80 heads of state gathered in New York City on Monday to discuss climate change. News@nature.com checks on their progress.

The United Nations billed Monday's meeting as the largest ever gathering of world leaders on the topic of global warming. In that respect, it was indeed symbolic. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon sought to create a sense of mission by saying that the world's response to climate change will "define us, our era and ultimately the global legacy we leave for future generations".

Read the briefing here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 25, 2007
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Who are the stereotypical geeks in movies? The nerd wearing glasses, with bad skin and poor social skills? We all remember the 80s movie Weird Science. Of course they are always male.

The Emerging Technology conference this week at MIT is organized by Technology Review magazine and is a chance to showcase some young hip geeks, the TR35, young innovators, all under 35 years old, who the magazine has honoured for their contributions to business, technology, and the arts. How many of the TR35 are women? It’s a good question, especially as the conference is being trailered this year by a one day workshop on women in technology.

To be opened by Susan Hockfield, president of MIT, the workshop aims to explore solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing women in technology – from questions of leadership style to workplace culture and career changes. It’s a discussion that all of Boston’s universities take seriously, especially since the furore over the 2005 remarks by Lawrence Summers about women and science, which eventually led to the President of Harvard’s resignation.

One question I’ve long wanted an answer to is why certain disciplines – my own chosen field of study, physics, among them – remain so resolutely poor at attracting and retaining women. Rather than fret about innate ability, as Summers famously did, I wonder if it is more to do with the status of a particular field? Physics, as proponents of ‘physics envy’ will attest, was arguably one of the highest status sciences of the early twentieth century.

The American Physical Society has some interesting data on female participation in science PhDs over the latter half of last century. Women taking PhDs in subjects like physics and engineering remain disappointingly few: less than one-fifth of their male colleagues. Far more women were attracted to mathematics and chemistry, around one-half and one-third respectively, with chemistry showing a positive upward trend over the decades. Who would argue that mathematics and chemistry are innately ‘easier’ subjects to study than physics?

The really interesting trends, from the point of view of this meeting, are the numbers of women taking computer science PhDs. When computer science was a young emerging field the numbers of women are surprisingly high, but there is a clear dip as interest in computer science surged in later decades. I would guess that many more men were being attracted to the field. Was this because the status of the field changed? From a low-status occupation to a high-flying finance and techno whizzkid one? This is my suspicion and I’m keen to find out whether the women technology leaders at MIT this week saw their field change in character (and gender) when Silicon Valley and the dotcom boom arrived. And whatever happened to all those early female computer science pioneers?

By the way, the proportion of women among the TR35 winners this year is six out of 35. See the full list here.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 25, 2007
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Review suggests study is needed on influenza jabs and how they are used.

How effective are flu vaccines at preventing death in the elderly? A review suggests that there isn't actually much proof that these jabs prevent influenza-related deaths in older people, stirring up controversy over this issue once more. The debate could influence both how the elderly are treated against flu, and how vaccines are distributed to try to prevent epidemics.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 25, 2007
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Microgravity increases virulence of Salmonella in space.

It sounds like a plot device from a cheap science-fiction novel: bacteria that travel into space come back to Earth deadlier than before.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 24, 2007
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Cold-loving seaweed not limited to chilly waters after all.

Kelp forests, long held to be limited to cold waters, have been discovered in the tropics and may be more widespread than previously thought, new research shows.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 24, 2007
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The body's complicated cell-making process may help to avoid cancer.

It's not easy making a human. Getting from a fertilized egg to a full-grown adult involves a near-miracle of orchestration, with replicating cells acquiring specialized functions in just the right places at the right times. So you'd think that, having done the job once, our bodies would replace cells when required by the simplest means possible.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 24, 2007
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Studies show diesel smog increases chances of deadly blood clots.

Study after study has shown a connection between smoggy days and an increase in deaths. Now two experiments, one on mice and the other in men, clarify why. Diesel fumes, they find, encourage blood clots that can bring on heart attacks and strokes.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 20, 2007
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Study of electron spin states improves understanding of iron deep underground.

The arrangement of electrons in iron-containing minerals deep within Earth influences how those minerals behave, according to new lab results. That could affect our understanding of the composition of rocks deep underground, researchers say.

Read the story here

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on September 20, 2007
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Ape-like wrists suggest that Homo floresiensis was a distinct species.

More evidence has emerged supporting the theory that the 'hobbits', which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores tens of thousands of years ago, were indeed a unique species.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 20, 2007
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African bat bugs have two types of female genitalia.

Scientists trawling through remote caves of eastern Africa have stumbled on a strange example of sexual warfare. In the world of African bat bugs, they have found, males have learned to imitate females to reduce the trauma of sexual encounters. And females are retaliating by imitating the males.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 20, 2007
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Dozens of fossils reveal four primative humans.

A trove of the oldest human skeletal bones outside Africa is reported in Nature this week — a find that will help researchers to improve their understanding of the biology of the 1.8-million-year-old hominins.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 20, 2007
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Ghana centre will train plant breeders on their own turf.

If Africa is to solve the problem of getting crops to survive through future floods and droughts, they’ll need local knowledge developed on home turf, experts say. Now that challenge is set to be tackled, with a US$4.9-million effort to overcome Africa’s brain drain of plant scientists.

Read more here

Posted by on September 19, 2007
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The final morning of the research integrity meeting began with a question that should probably have come earlier in the meeting: what do we know for certain about bad research behaviour? Is misconduct actually on the rise? Sure, there are more scientists than ever, and competition between them is rising, factors that you think would contribute to more misconduct. There are also worrying signs from the young that internet ´research´ at school and university is becoming a substitute for real academic work. But does that mean this is a problem that is only going to get worse? And what can the science community do about it?

Nick Steneck from the US Office of Research Integrity summarized two decades of US research in this area, and highlighted areas that still need more investigation: what is the harm done to science by questionable research practices? Things like refusal to share data, ghost authorship, misleading citation practices and poorly managed
conflicts of interests. We have anecdotes, but what about the evidence?

One policy question on which some new data was presented at the meeting is whether ethics training and education works. Training in responsible conduct of research is one of the most popular solutions proposed for scientific misbehaviour - and though no-one expects an ethics class to stop a dedicated fraudster, the hope is that it somehow raises the general level of ethical awareness.

The sobering news from Melissa Anderson and her colleagues at the University of Minnestoa is that such training does not work as we might hope. You can access her talk here; the results also appear in the September issue of Academic Medicine.

Melissa analysed data from a 2002 survey of US biomedical scientists who were asked about the amount of formal instruction and informal mentoring in ethics they had received - and how that had affected their subsequent behaviour. There were some positive benefits of instruction - in some cases it improved scientists knowledge of good conduct but didn´t seem to change their behaviour. The bad news is that some types of mentoring actually made things worse. In particular, mentoring by an advisor in research ´survival skills´ actually increased misbehaviour in seven areas that Melissa studied - overwhelming any benefits from formal training.

Melissa thinks we need to train the trainers better. Sometimes the job is left to university compliance officers who have no background in science. Or to online instruction tools that replace proper discussion with a box-ticking exercise. As for mentoring, young researchers still need mentoring in personal, financial, and research ethics - and in the art of survival - but she suggests collective mentoring discussions are a better way to reinforce good behaviour over bad. Scientists are often lousy teachers of ethics, Melissa admits, but she thinks they can do better. Let´s hope so, the future generation of researchers is in their hands.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 19, 2007
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There are a bewildering number of acronyms, and their representatives, at the research integrity meeting in Lisbon. Many I had never heard of. So during a more pedestrian session I started playing conference bingo: could I construct the words 'research integrity' from the organisations in attendance?

After all, one goal of the conference is more joined-up thinking and dialogue between attendees. Could they, by getting together (even just fleetingly on my notepad), address the challenges of research integrity more effectively? Let's see how I did.

We have the conference organisers: ORI and ESF. Plus their supporters and partners: EMBO, ICSU (the international council for science), UKRIO (the UK integrity office) and COPE (committee on publication ethics).

Indeed, when it comes to publishing organisations there were more than I could imagine: as well as COPE, there is EASE (european assoc of science editors), CSE (council of science editors), WAME (world assoc of medical editors) and STM (the international assoc of scientific, technical and medical editors). Phew!

At the global level, where some attendees are looking for leadership on questions of harmonization and setting community standards, there is ICSU, but also UNESCO and its commission on the ethics of science and technology (COMEST). At the European level there is ALLEA (all european academies) and EUROHORCS (the research councils).

How am I doing? I still need a G and a Y. Well there is that report from the OECD's Global Science Forum (GSF) perhaps they can provide the 'why' for future activity by all these groups...

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 19, 2007
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So what did the science community learn from the biggest scandal in recent years?

Herbert Gottweis, a political scientist from the University of Vienna, tried to summarize the lessons learned for the attendees in Lisbon. Gottweis arrived in South Korea just 3 weeks before the scandal broke and admits he was as shocked as everyone else by the revelations. He was there to meet the successful star of human embryonic stem cell research for a book he was writing. Instead, he found himself witnessing an unfolding drama.

Gottweis identified five lessons from what he calls Hwang-gate:

1) hyping science can lead to fraudulent behaviour
2) peer review is no substitute for good science governance
3) research integrity is increasingly a matter of the integrity of research networks (including hospitals, ethical review boards, foreign collaborators...)

and on more positive notes:
4) the globalization of science may lead to greater globalization (or harmonization) of research integrity
5) once misconduct is uncovered its important to act quickly and decisively with the right institutions

On this last point Gottweis praised the final report of the committee of the Seoul National University that investigated Hwang. What did the Koreans think of Gottweis' talk? I asked one representative from SNU for her perspective, and she generally welcomed the analysis. It would have been good to hear more from the Korean delegation - there were six of them in Lisbon - but none of them were invited to give presentations. More's the pity.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 18, 2007
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Open waters in northern ocean highlight massive melting.

Even for a society jaded by the continual breaking of climate records, the retreat of Arctic ice this year is stunning.

read the story here

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on September 18, 2007
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Case was complicated by immunosuppressant drug regime

A patient with arthritis who died in July during a gene-therapy trial may have succumbed to an infection she had before the viral vector was administered, experts said on Monday at a meeting of an advisory panel in Bethesda, Maryland, investigating the incident.

Read the story here

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on September 18, 2007
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There are some clear divisions emerging in the discussions this week. One question that gets people fired up is the issue of whether science should be a profession - similar to medicine or law - with a professional code of conduct, an accreditation body and most importantly the ability to kick misbehaving scientists out of the club.

Proponents of this view include Ray Spier from the University of Surrey and the editor of Science and Engineering Ethics. As he argued following a discussion about national and international codes of behaviour for scientists: a code of conduct without an institutional ``anchor`` would not be worth the paper its written on.

Others worry that a formal professional body does little to address the underlying cultural issues faced by science, where too little is done by too few to challenge misbehaviour. Brian Martinson of HealthPartners Research Foundation in Minneapolis is one who believes that integrity has to come from within the community rather than being
imposed externally.

The code of conduct recently proposed by the UK science advisor David King was held up at the meeting by Lida Anestidou from the US National Academies as a particularly bad example - its 7-point commandments form a do-and-dont checklist rather than formulating a guiding ethical princple or concept that would foster responsible behaviour.

Another conflict has emerged on the question of how serious plagiarism is, especially when related to the other two misconduct biggies: falsification and fabrication. These three travel together by the jaunty name of FFP. Although plagiarism seems to be one of the most prevalent misbehaviours some view self-plagiarism in particular as a ´´victimless´´ crime. What they argue is that plagiarism is a crime against other scientists whereas F&F harm science itself.

But others worry that tolerance of plagiarism - and a vice chancellor warns that it starts earlier and earlier with students in his university - encourages other questionable behaviour and slowly erodes the good practice of science. However, scientific norms vary widely across disciplines: why are six pages of plagiarism tolerated in some fields, whereas six paragraphs would be viewed as egregious in another? Christine Boesz, the inspector general for the US National Science Foundation and therefore reponsible for misconduct investigations in that agency, would like to know the answer to that one.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 18, 2007
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It’s the end of the first day of the World Conference on Research Integrity in Lisbon and there has already been a lot of talk about responsible research, misconduct, questionable behaviours by scientists and what to do about it all.

Some of the most interesting discussions at a meeting like this happen during Q&A sessions after talks and during gossipy coffee breaks. I've already met one attendee who got into research policy as a consequence of her advisor publishing her PhD work under his name. And the best excuse yet for an author not supplying the original data requested by a journal editor? White ants ate my data.

‘Talk’ is the main goal of the first ever world conference on research integrity: an opportunity to bring together 300-plus scientific managers, policy makers, funders, editors and academics for open and frank discussions of this difficult and sensitive topic. Supported by the US Office of Research Integrity and the European Science Foundation, the hopes are high for a meeting that, some say, could not have happened even 5 years ago. Whether any concrete actions will emerge is yet to be seen.

Indeed, since arriving in Lisbon the most direct action on integrity I’ve witnessed is the ‘zero tolerance’ policy on the city’s electric trams. Boarding a tram yesterday, several tourists made the mistake of forming a second queue, and so cutting in front of an unhappy Portugese matron. This lady began berating the hapless tourists – and you did not need to speak Portugese to understand that there were a few choice words about the Portugese way of doing things and having respect for your elders. The tirade did not end when the lady found a seat, or when the tram began lurching its way up the hill, continuing for another 10 minutes into the journey.

It’s not often you witness such an outspoken public defence of what is seen to be fair and right and I couldn’t help wondering if more researchers were to follow the example of this Portugese grandmother then perhaps the sloppy and fraudulent behaviour we were here to discuss would be less prevalent.

There is at least one concrete proposal making the rounds this week. The OECD’s Global Science Forum (GSF) has issued a draft report on Best Practices for ensuring Scientific Integrity and Preventing Misconduct. The report is a follow-up to a workshop held in Tokyo in February this year, and the report’s authors are hoping for feedback from this meeting before presenting the final draft for review by the Global Science Forum in 2 weeks time. They hope it will become a useful document for nations that are planning to review or modify their misconduct policies. You can read the current draft here.
Feel free to post your thoughts below.

Posted by Sarah Tomlin on September 17, 2007
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Thousand-year record suggests global warming could temper swarms.

Records made for over a thousand years in China show that locust infestations are more likely to occur following periods of cooler weather. This suggests that as climate change drives temperatures up, it may also force locust populations down — as long as temperature continues to affect rainfall in the same way as it has done so far.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 17, 2007
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Scientists seek answers to how the inner ears develop in microgravity.

Twenty-six baby fish are now orbiting Earth aboard an unmanned Russian spacecraft, in a long-delayed experiment that researchers hope will lead to a better understanding of inner-ear balance mechanisms in humans.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 17, 2007
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Gene found that determines if putative human pheromone smells naughty or nice.

The compound androstenone can induce many reactions, depending on who is on the receiving end. For some, it smells sweet, like flowers or vanilla; to others it is foul, like sweat or urine. And then there are those who can't smell it at all.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 16, 2007
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SELENE aims to get best view yet of the Moon.

Japan's much-anticipated lunar mission successfully launched from the Tanegashima Space Center at 10:31 a.m. (Japanese time) this morning.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 14, 2007
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Genetic technique creates viable fish sperm and eggs.

Researchers have succeeded in making salmon couples give birth to trout — using a technique that they argue could help to preserve rare species of fish.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 13, 2007
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Funding woes plague US biomedical researchers. But calls for more funding ignore the structural problems that push universities to produce too many scientists, argues Brian C. Martinson.

Federal funding for biomedical research is a substantial investment in the US science community. Earlier this year, representatives of several major research universities testified before Congress and issued a report arguing that the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, is insufficient to sustain "a strong and vibrant program of basic research"1. They pointed to stifling of innovation and damage to the career prospects of young scientists, ultimately warning that there could be a threat to US pre-eminence in biomedical research if Congress does not increase levels of funding for the NIH. Yet, what is it that poses the most potent threat to the future of biomedical research — a lack of resources, or our failure to manage the level of competition for available resources? The answer to this question is vital if society is to gain maximum benefit from the public money invested in biomedical research....

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 13, 2007
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Non-profits auction species names for conservation.

Over the years, philanthropists have lent their names to art galleries, schools and hospitals. But in a watershed auction, the world's rich will be able to add their names to several new species of fish — all in the name of charity.

Read the story, and see the slideshow, here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 13, 2007
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Deleting a single gene almost doubles lifespan.

Knocking out a single gene nearly doubles the lifespan of mice with the animal model of Lou Gehrig's disease, suggesting that the gene may one day become a target for therapies in humans.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 13, 2007
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Maybe Earth isn't doomed after all...

Planets circling close to their star — such as Earth around the Sun — aren't necessarily doomed to being swallowed up by that star, according to a new observation.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 12, 2007
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Artificial atoms made of annihilating particles can pair up.

Two years after reporting the first tantalizing hints that matter might be able to bind with antimatter, researchers in California have nailed convincing evidence for the pairing.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 12, 2007
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Study suggests demise did not coincide with climate cooling.

Whatever it was that sealed the fate of the Neanderthals, it looks unlikely to have been climate change. That is the verdict of a new study that used climate records from Venezuela to deduce what happened at the Neanderthals' last stand at the southern tip of Europe.

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Posted by on September 12, 2007
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Purdue University makes statement on bubble fusion researcher Taleyarkhan.

A Purdue University panel inquiring into allegations of research misconduct against nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan has concluded that "several matters merit further investigation".

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 11, 2007
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Alex, who could talk and count, dies at 31.

"You be good," said Alex last Thursday night. "I love you. See you tomorrow."

But by the next morning Alex, who was 31, was dead of unknown causes.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 11, 2007
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Male hormone in the womb linked to kids with more autistic-like behaviours.

Researchers who having been tracking a group of children since birth have found that the level of testosterone they were exposed to in the womb is linked to whether they show autistic traits throughout childhood.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 11, 2007
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Genetics can tell us what the oceans looked like in bygone eras.

The Pacific Ocean may have once teemed with three to five times as many grey whales as live there today, according to a genetic study led by researchers at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 10, 2007
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Biodegradable chemical could one day provide nonviral gene therapy.

Scientists have created a biodegradable polymer that can shuttle DNA into cells, raising the possibility that the compound may one day provide a safer way of performing gene therapy.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 10, 2007
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Study helps to answer question of odd primate behaviour.

It may seem strange, but many monkeys wash their hands and feet with urine. Researchers now think they know why.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 10, 2007
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Ability to digest starch could have spurred human evolution.

Spit might have helped human evolution by enabling our ancestors to harvest more energy from starch than their primate cousins.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 10, 2007
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The trend for debunking science's simple narratives can be overdone, says Philip Ball.

There was once a time when the history of science was told as a succession of Eureka moments in which strokes of experimental or theoretical genius led the scales to fall from our eyes, banishing old, false ideas to the dustbin.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 07, 2007
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Claims of the "sharpest" photos of space are a little fuzzy.

Earlier this week, a group of researchers at Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena reportedly released the sharpest images of space ever taken. The team boasted that the images were twice as good as those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Moreover, the Earth-based camera used to take them is 50,000 times cheaper than Hubble.

Read the briefing here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on September 07, 2007
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Artificial heart patches can grip, wriggle and pulse.

Rat heart muscle cells have been grown on the surface of a polymer, and the resulting thin film can twist, grip and pulse like a real piece of muscle.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 06, 2007
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Study combs bees guts to investigate colony collapse disorder.

A metagenomics project — studying the collective genomes from groups of organisms — has found the first firm lead in the hunt for the cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD), the perplexing phenomenon in which worker honeybees simply disappear without a trace.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 06, 2007
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Drugs that target different pathways share a way to kill bacteria.

The discovery of a common mode of killing shared by different types of antibiotic could lead to the creation of superdrugs, researchers suggest.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 06, 2007
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Invasive species could cause Chikungunya to become endemic.

The arrival of a tropical mosquito-borne disease in Italy has experts worried that such illnesses may become endemic in Europe.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 06, 2007
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Drug hastens relief in rats.

A type of drug has been found that starts working much faster against depression than current medications. Behavioural and molecular tests in rats show that the compounds kick into action in days, rather than weeks.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 06, 2007
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Independent panel prioritizes NASA programmes.

An independent panel asked to review a major set of NASA missions has given the thumbs up to a satellite designed to probe dark energy. Less lucky was a major X-ray observatory, which the panel recommends be deferred for now.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 05, 2007
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This week the Nature Podcast peers into craters formed by asteroid collision, analyses tsunami risk in the Bay of Bengal, and finds a moray eel that bites twice.

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Posted by Kerri Smith on September 05, 2007
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Fearsome fish have protruding jaws in their throats to grab prey.

Researchers studying one species of moray eels have uncovered a deadly secret that helps the snake-like fish to swallow their prey. Like the fearsome extraterrestrial from the sci-fi horror classic Alien, these real-life beasts have a second, extendable pair of jaws — encrusted with sharp teeth — that thrusts forward to ensnare hapless fish and shrimp.

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Posted by on September 05, 2007
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Human–animal embryos given green light after public backing.

Britain’s embryology regulators have approved in principle the creation of embryos by injecting human DNA into empty animal egg cells. Researchers are hoping to use the technique to generate human stem cells without relying on a supply of donated human eggs.

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Posted by on September 05, 2007
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Astronomical forensics pins down dinosaur killer.

Most scientists think that the age of the dinosaurs was doomed when a killer asteroid struck Earth 65 million years ago. But new findings suggest that the giant reptiles may have been destined for death some 100 million years earlier, with the fateful collision of two faraway asteroids.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 05, 2007
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60 million people in the Bay of Bengal may be at risk.

The densely-populated Bay of Bengal looks to be at risk from very large tsunami-producing earthquakes, according to a new analysis of modern and historical observations.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 05, 2007
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Relics of St Francis of Assisi unveiled.

Four Franciscan churches in central Italy claim that they each hold a habit of St Francis of Assisi, the friar who founded the Franciscan order in the early 1200s. Carbon dating has now confirmed one of those claims, and helped to shore up a story from the church's history many centuries later.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 05, 2007
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Sequences linked to brain disorder show hallmarks of natural selection.

The genes that underpin schizophrenia may have been favoured by natural selection, according to a survey of human and primate genetic sequences. The discovery suggests that genes linked to the debilitating brain condition conferred some advantage that allowed them to persist in the population — although it is far from clear what this advantage might have been.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 05, 2007
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Catalogue made of bugs that survive preparations for space

The ultra-clean facilities used to assemble NASA's spacecraft are inhabited by some hardy bacteria, which could be hitchhiking their way to space.

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Posted by Katharine Sanderson on September 04, 2007
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Making and breaking proteins helps mice to burn off extra calories.

Eating as much as you like but never getting fat sounds like a dieter's dream. But it's a reality for mice missing a key gene, researchers have found.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 04, 2007
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Revealing that the genetic pioneer has wet earwax, and more...

Controversial genomics pioneer Craig Venter has sequenced his own genome. In a preliminary analysis published this week (S. Levy et al. PLoS Biol. 5, e254; 2007), Venter's team has picked apart the sequences belonging to both chromosomes in each of the 23 chromosome pairs found in his cells, providing the first glimpse of the variation found within a single genome.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 04, 2007
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Nitrogen and sulphur compounds contribute to declining ocean pH.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) isn't the only atmospheric pollutant making the oceans more acidic and threatening the health of coral reefs and plankton. New research suggests that nitrogen and sulphur released into the air by human activities may be driving down the pH more than expected in some coastal waters.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 03, 2007
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Indigenous animals are dying out as commercial breeds sweep the world.

Many of the world's indigenous livestock breeds are in danger of dying out as commercial breeds take over, according to a worldwide inventory of animal diversity. Their extinction would mean the loss of genetic resources that help animals overcome disease and drought, particularly in the developing world, say livestock experts.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 03, 2007
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Sponges filled with iron nanoparticles make lifting dirt easy.

When a priceless work of art becomes dirty, running it through the dishwasher obviously isn't an option. But even the most sensitive of modern cleaning techniques come with problems — which one researcher says he can solve with a gel sponge and a magnet.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 03, 2007
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Indigenous animals are dying out as commercial breeds sweep the world.

Many of the world’s indigenous livestock breeds are in danger of dying out as commercial breeds take over, according to a worldwide inventory of animal diversity. Their extinction would mean the loss of genetic resources that help animals overcome disease and drought, particularly in the developing world, say livestock experts.

Read more here

Posted by on September 03, 2007
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Drug trial hailed as first major breakthrough for 50 years.

Psychiatrists have welcomed the unveiling by a US drug company of the first new class of schizophrenia drugs since the 1950s.

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Posted by on September 02, 2007
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Genetic variant can add nearly a centimetre to your stature.

A genetic survey of more than 34,000 people has revealed the first gene known to have a decisive effect on height in people of average stature. A change to just a single letter of genetic code is linked to a height boost of almost a centimetre in a healthy person, all other things being equal.

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Posted by on September 02, 2007
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