Making Science More Better For You on 11/20/07

Maybe we should get the Morlocks to guard it
Doomsday vault begins deep freeze

Engineers have begun the two-month process of cooling down a "doomsday vault", which will house seeds from all known varieties of key food crops.

The temperature inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will drop to -18C (0F) in order to preserve the seeds.

Built deep inside a mountain, it aims to safeguard the world's crops from future disasters, such as nuclear wars, asteroids or dangerous climate change.

The first seeds are scheduled to arrive at the Arctic site in mid-February.

The Norwegian government is paying the $9m (£4.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house 4.5 million seed samples.

See inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

The collection and maintenance of the seeds is being co-ordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity".

"The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries," said Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive director.

"At these temperatures, seeds for important crops like wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 1,000 years."

Future proof

The seed vault will be built 120m (390ft) inside a mountain on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard.

The site, roughly 1,000km (600 miles) north of mainland Norway was chosen as the location for the vault because it was very remote and it also offered the level of stability required for the long-term project.

The vast collection is intended to act as insurance against disasters so food production can be restarted anywhere on the planet following a regional or global catastrophe.

"It is very satisfying to see the vault evolve from a bold concept to an impressive facility that has everything we need to protect crop biodiversity," said Terje Riis-Johansen, the Norwegian Agriculture and Food Minister.

Engineers are using the surrounding rock and permafrost as a "cold store", an energy efficient approach that has become popular in Norway.

"We believe the design of the vault will ensure that the seeds will stay well preserved even if forces such as global warming raise temperatures outside the facility," explained project manager Magnus Tveiten.
Oh good, more heirloom tomatoes.

Headline of the day
Paramedic shoots armed robbery suspect, then treats him (Detroit News)
Would that constitute drumming up business?


Science—Texas style
College kids drink more on football days than on New Year's Eve
According to the Dallas Morning News, a new study out of University of Texas-Austin found that college students drink more alcohol on football game days than other days like New Year's Eve or Halloween.

Researchers followed UT students during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 football seasons. Talk about great timing — you might recall UT winning that little Rose Bowl game. Among the discoveries:

The researchers found students were especially likely to drink more during high-profile games against conference or national rivals. However, the increased drinking rates only occurred when students were on campus.

For instance, drinking levels were high for the 2005 regular-season Ohio State game, but were relatively low for games against rival Texas A&M (played during Thanksgiving break) and both Rose Bowl games, including the national championship (played during the semester break).

Ah yes, the sociable sciences. Boy, this really moves that old wheel of knowledge forward.


Scientist discover one size doesn’t fit all
Women's Medical Needs Are Vastly Different Than Men's

ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Women's bodies and medical needs are vastly different than men's way beyond their reproductive systems. Women wake sooner from anesthesia, have less familiar symptoms of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to suffer from depression and sleep problems-- just to name a few of the differences.

Yet, there's a cavernous void in research based on sex and gender. Historically, most studies have been done on men and the findings applied to women.

Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has launched the Institute for Women's Health Research to spur much needed research on health issues that affect women throughout their lifespan. Some topics on the ambitious research agenda: cancer, autoimmune disease, anesthesia, cardiovascular disease, depression, sleeping disorders, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and menopause.

"We should look at every research study with a sex and gender lens and see what applies to women as opposed to men," said Teresa Woodruff, executive director of the new Institute for Women's Health Research and the Thomas J. Watkins Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School. "What are the differences between women and men that need further exploration? What does gender mean in development of disease throughout the lifespan? What is the influence of hormones? We have many questions, but we don't have concrete answers."



But we’re scientists , why would we lie?
Cancer studies 'wasted millions'

Some scientists say millions of research funds have been wasted
Millions of pounds of charity donations and taxpayers' money have been wasted on worthless cancer studies, the BBC has learned.

File On 4 has discovered thousands of studies have been invalidated.

It found some scientists have failed to carry out simple and inexpensive checks to ensure they are working with the right forms of human tumour cells.

Cancer Research UK said it used robust procedures to check the cell-lines used in research.

One of the latest examples of scientific research to be affected by this problem is a study of oesophageal cancer.

Researcher Dr Chris Tselepis worked with an international team which has found that TE7, an experimental culture of cancer cells used in labs for the past 20 years, was the wrong cancer.

Whole programmes of research had to be redone using verified human brain tumour cells
Prof Geoff Pilkington, University of Portsmouth

"Fortunately, for us our research was based on a number of cell types, so the impact of a mistaken identity for this line has actually been fairly minimal to us," said Dr Tselepis who is studying the cancer at the Cancer Research UK laboratories in Birmingham University.

"But I'm sure there's many other laboratories UK and worldwide-based that essentially base lots of their conclusions on one cell line and in that case, this mistaken identity has a massive impact on conclusions that people draw from such studies," he added.

Few scientists publicly admit such problems but Prof Geoff Pilkington, of the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC that he had to discard research into brain tumours after it emerged his team were studying human cells contaminated by the cells of rats and mice.

"Whole programmes of research had to be redone using verified human brain tumour cells," he said.

"It's hugely expensive and it's incredibly frustrating," Prof Pilkington added.

Erroneous data

The problem is compounded by the fact that studies based on erroneous research data will be printed in reputable scientific journals and become part of the accepted literature, thus misleading future researchers.

Earlier this year 19 eminent cancer specialists from the UK and USA wrote to the US health secretary urging tough action to end this waste of time, effort and money.

The US authorities replied that there appeared to be "abundant evidence" that many studies and publications had been compromised.

But the letter's originator, Prof Roland Nardone of the Catholic University of America, told the BBC that some scientists seemed unwilling to act.

Authenticated cell-lines

He said the best way to get scientists to comply would be to withhold research grants and publication in scientific journals unless their research used authenticated cell-lines.

This verification can be achieved using a technique of DNA profiling which compares the cell-line with a list of known contaminants and can cost as little as £180 per sample.

But the Medical Research Council, the major source of public funds for such research in the UK which provides £70m of grants annually for cancer studies, is reluctant to enforce authentication.

Dr Rob Buckle of the MRC told the BBC: "As soon as you start talking about regulation we have to ensure that it is proportionate and does not inhibit research."

Dr Buckle said the MRC was not aware of any particular study in the UK which had been compromised by problems with cell samples.

However, one of the UK's leading cancer medicine experts has said it is time for the scientific community to put its house in order.
Breast cancer cells
Cancer Research UK says it carries out stringent checks on cell-lines

"No grant or no publication," said Prof Karol Sikora, of Imperial College, London.

"If one of the leading journals, which all of us want to publish in, said: 'You have used cell-line - just give us the certificate of authenticity,' Now we can tell all that and it doesn't necessarily cost a lot of money."

Cancer Research UK, which spends £315m a year on research, would not be interviewed for the programme.

Instead it issued a statement from Dr Lilian Clark, its executive director of Science Operations & Funding, which said: "It is of paramount importance for us to ensure that all our researchers deliver world class science - they have the latest systems and robust procedures in place to guarantee this."

Dr Clark said the charity carried out stringent checks on cell-lines, including a DNA authenticating service.

Other headline of the day

'I'm Sorry I Snapped': Dog Groomer Jailed for Killing Poodle (WBAL-TV)


How about an Olympic standing team?

Sitting May Increase Risk Of Disease

ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Most people spend most of their day sitting with relatively idle muscles. Health professionals advise that at least 30 minutes of activity at least 5 days a week will counteract health concerns, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity that may result from inactivity. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia say a new model regarding physical activity recommendations is emerging.

New research shows that what people do in the other 15 and a half hours of their waking day is just as important, or more so, than the time they spend actively exercising.

"Many activities like talking on the phone or watching a child's ballgame can be done just as enjoyably upright, and you burn double the number of calories while you're doing it," said Marc Hamilton, an associate professor of biomedical sciences whose work was recently published in Diabetes. "We're pretty stationary when we're talking on the phone or sitting in a chair at a ballgame, but if you stand, you're probably going to pace or move around."

In a series of studies that will be presented at the Second International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health in Amsterdam, Hamilton, Theodore Zderic, a post-doctoral researcher, and their research team studied the impact of inactivity among rats, pigs and humans. In humans, they studied the effects of sitting in office chairs, using computers, reading, talking on the phone and watching TV.

They found evidence that sitting had negative effects on fat and cholesterol metabolism. The researchers also found that physical inactivity throughout the day stimulated disease-promoting processes, and that exercising, even for an hour a day, was not sufficient to reverse the effect.

There is a misconception that actively exercising is the only way to make a healthy difference in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. However, Hamilton's studies found that standing and other non-exercise activities burn many calories in most adults even if they do not exercise at all.

"The enzymes in blood vessels of muscles responsible for 'fat burning' are shut off within hours of not standing," Hamilton said. "Standing and moving lightly will re-engage the enzymes, but since people are awake 16 hours a day, it stands to reason that when people sit much of that time they are losing the opportunity for optimal metabolism throughout