Of Schemes and Memes Blog

Best of nature.com blogs, SciLogs.com and Scitable: 8 – 14 June

All you can tweet (the blog version)

For the sake of posterity, Stuart Cantrill recaps Nature Chemistry’s April 2013 editorial about how they use Twitter:All you can tweet (the blog version) - The Sceptical Chymist

You can follow Nature Chemistry on Twitter here.

US regulator plans to declare research chimps endangered

Meredith Wadman reports in the News blog, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is planning to categorize all US chimpanzees as an endangered species, a change which, if enacted, may spell the end of invasive chimpanzee research:

FLICKR: VALENTINA STORTI

This soon-to-be-published proposed FWS rule, which will be open for 60 days of public comment before being finalized, would bring captive chimps — whether in zoos, private homes or research labs — under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, as wild chimps already are.

If the FWS decides to list the captive animals as endangered, then using them for invasive research would require a special permit. To win one, researchers would have to show that any proposed study would promote the conservation of the species.

Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist, called the move “an important step toward saving our closest living relatives from extinction”.

How could this change impact chimpanzee research? Find out more in Meredith’s post. 

When Glaciers Get Dirty

SciLogs blogger Paige Brown, is looking at glaciers in her latest blog post:

EIS field assistant, Adam LeWinter on NE rim of Birthday Canyon, atop feature called “Moab”. Greenland Ice Sheet, July 2009. Black deposit in bottom of channel is cryoconite. Birthday Canyon is approximately 150 feet deep. Photograph by James Balog, Chasing Ice photographer, https://www.chasingice.com.

Along with warming of our planet’s climate attributed to both natural forces and man-made greenhouse gas emissions, a black substance called cryoconite is causing glaciers all over the world to melt more quickly today than in the past. Cryoconite is powdery windblown dust made of a combination of small rock particles, soot and bacteria. The dark dust, which is spread over glaciers in Greenland and other icy areas of the world by wind and rain, is composed of mineral dust from warmer regions of the world, rock particles from volcanic eruptions, and soot from fires, the emissions of our cars and coal-fired power plants. While many of the materials in cryoconite are natural materials, human activities based on coal use have increased the amount of black soot in cryoconite since the substance was first discovered in 1870. The increasing amount of black soot in cryoconite has caused glaciers to darken in a phenomenon scientists call “biological darkening,” as the gritty substance builds up on snow, glaciers and icecaps.

Learn more about the impact of global warming and biological darkening of glaciers due to cryoconite build-up, in Paige’s post. 

Canadian accelerator produces a city’s-worth of medical isotopes overnight

Nicola Jones reports in the News Blog, the looming problem of a global medical isotope shortage is one step closer to a solution:

ACSI

A Canadian team has developed an upgrade that allows hospital cyclotrons to make a much-needed diagnostic tracer, and has proven it can pump out enough overnight to fulfil a city’s needs the next day.

Most of today’s medical-imaging procedures, such as those used to trace cancer or monitor heart function, employ a radioactive element called technetium-99m (99mTc). But this isotope is hard to produce and has a half-life of just 6 hours, making it impossible to store long-term. Global supplies come mostly from two nuclear reactor facilities: one in Canada, and one in the Netherlands. 

More on the medical isotope problem can be found in Nicola’s post.

Post-revolution higher education in Egypt

In the House of Wisdom Blog, Mohammed Yahia looks at the state of higher education in Egypt – post-revolution:

University World News has published a feature on the changes that the higher education system has gone through since the uprising. Seven new public universities have been founded, mostly as spin-offs from already existing universities, writes Nadia El-Awady. The bulk of those are outside the population centres of Cairo and Alexandria, serving communities that did not have easy access to higher education in the past. This comes as part of the government’s attempt to increase the number of people enrolled in universities which, according to the feature, stands at only 25%-28% of all high school graduates, and decrease congestion in the bigger universities.

How does the future look for education in Egypt? Find out in  Mohammed’s post.

UK libel reform fight ‘isn’t over yet’

British scientists should not celebrate victory in their libel reform fight just yet, explains Daniel Cressey in the News Blog: 

new law on defamation has been passed by the UK parliament, adding protections for peer-reviewed research and provisions to discourage corporations silencing critics with costly libel claims. But there are still concerns, speakers said in their talks at a Libel Reform Campaign meeting in London yesterday. Researchers have been at the forefront of the campaign, after a number of high profile actions against scientists and science writers. (Nature has supported the Libel Reform Campaign: see ‘The right to speak out‘.)

Further information on this law can be found in Daniel’s post.

Water, water, everywhere

Scitable bloggers Jon Tennant and Jane Robb, are looking at the importance of water in their latest post:

Left image: A representation of the volume of water on Earth compared to the volume of the Earth.

Until now, it has been well documented that water billions of years old can remain within inclusions inside crystals of minerals, meaning that the water has not made contact with the atmosphere since its imprisonment within the mineral. The exciting part about this new water discovery is that the fluid has not been encased within a crystal, but has been found flowing between mineral surfaces and micro-fractures within the rocks but still has remained out of contact with the atmosphere for 1.5 billion years!

So what does this tell us? The team who made the discovery, published in Nature, have noted that this could provide us with clues on the question of whether there was life on Mars…but first, let’s explore the subject of water on Mars.

Learn more in their joint blog post. 

US Supreme Court rules patents on ‘natural’ human genes invalid

This week, the US Supreme Court unanimously struck down patents on isolated, natural human genes.  Heidi Ledford elaborates in the News Blog: 

SCOTUS/FRANZ JANTZEN

Patents on synthesized DNA, however, are still valid, the justices said. Included in that category are commercially important patents on cDNA – segments of DNA synthesized using an RNA template.

The case pitted the American Civil Liberties Union (along with a host of patients, advocates, researchers, and professional societies) against Myriad Genetics, a genetic testing company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that held patents on two genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer. During its four-year run, the lawsuit has drawn attention to the debate over gene patenting, but many have argued that the outcome of the case would have little practical bearing on biotechnology or genetic testing because the patents in question are relatively rare. Myriad’s test, for example, is protected by other patents that are not limited to isolated DNA sequence.

How will this news impact biotech patent owners? Find out more in  Heidi’s report. 

Russian meteor blast was the largest ever recorded by CTBTO

Finally, Quirin Schiermeier reveals in the News Blog, the meteor blast on 15 February over the Urals Mountains,was the largest explosion ever recorded by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

You can watch the video above to find out more, or continue to Quirin’s post.

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