Headlines of the day
Remote Antarctic base staff evacuated after 'drunken' Christmas brawl...(drudge)
Didn't they see "The Thing?"
7-Eleven clerk ignores store policy, shoots robber several times (the obscure store)
Promote him. Shows initiative
No, really. They get good at what they do by practicing. What, no steroids.
Songbirds Offer Clues To Highly Practiced Motor Skills In Humans
ScienceDaily (Dec. 27, 2007) — The melodious sound of a songbird may appear effortless, but his elocutions are actually the result of rigorous training undergone in youth and maintained throughout adulthood. His tune has virtually “crystallized” by maturity. The same control is seen in the motor performance of top athletes and musicians. Yet, subtle variations in highly practiced skills persist in both songbirds and humans. Now, scientists think they know why.
Their finding, reported in the journal Nature, suggests that natural variation is a built-in mechanism designed to allow the nervous system to explore various subtle options aimed at maintaining and optimizing motor skills in the face of such variables as aging and injury.
While the study was conducted in the adult male Bengalese Finch, a perky fellow who uses his song to woo females, the finding has implications, the scientists say, for understanding the way in which adult humans perform and retain well-learned motor skills. More broadly, the study provides insights that could inform strategies for rehabilitating patients following strokes and other damage to the nervous system.
“Many neuroscientists have thought that the nervous system simply didn’t have the ability to control movement at a highly precise level,” says lead author Evren Tumer, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of senior author Michael Brainard, PhD, UCSF assistant professor of physiology. “After all, we’re not machines. But our study suggests that subtle variation can serve a purpose and contribute to the maintenance of motor skills.”
“If a golfer had a perfect swing, and all the conditions within him and the external environment were static, this wouldn’t be necessary,” he says. “But there are always changes – muscles get tired or are fresher, neurons die or change with age. There is always a bit of change somewhere in the system.” “To keep tuned up,” says Brainard, “the nervous system constantly needs to experiment, to continually correct for deviations.”
The tune of songbirds is a complex skill, produced in highly stereotyped fashion from one rendition to the next. Juveniles learn their song over a period of months, first memorizing their father’s tune and then, weeks later, embarking on a period of vocal exploration, in which they initiate their fledgling renditions while comparing them to the memory of their father’s tune, laid down in their neural circuitry. This process, using auditory feedback, involves a continuous fine-tuning of the bird’s melody, culminating in a stable, nearly “crystallized,” song.
Adult songbirds, meanwhile, rely on auditory feedback to maintain their song, and previous studies by Brainard have shown that if the birds are deaf, or receive garbled auditory feedback via a computer-based intervention, the fidelity of their song gradually deteriorates.
Scientists have not known, however, whether modulation in adult birdsong can be driven, in a predictable way, through auditory feedback. In the current study, the team examined this possibility.
They used a computerized system to monitor small natural variations in the pitch of targeted elements of the birds’ song, and then delivered disruptive auditory feedback to a subset of the vocalizations, or “syllables.” The disruption was in the form of a short burst of white noise - a static “chh!-chh-chh!” sound. Higher pitched renditions received a short burst of white noise, while lower pitched versions were left undisturbed.
The response was nearly immediate. Birds receiving the white noise feedback rapidly shifted the pitch of their vocalizations to avoid the sound. The changes were restricted precisely to the targeted syllable. “It was quite dramatic,” says Tumer. “We were able to make the bird sing a particular syllable with a higher pitch.”
“This data provides the first evidence that you can take this really stereotyped behavior that people have assumed was crystallized and change it in a predetermined way.”
Notably, when the white noise bursts were stopped, the pitch reverted to its original range, indicating that the nervous system retained a representation of the initial song and that there was “some drive to return to it.”
The scientists also examined whether more dramatic remodeling of the birds’ song was possible. They explored this possibility by creating conditions in which escape from white noise required the birds to make progressively larger shifts in pitch. Under these conditions, the scientists were able to incrementally drive large changes to the point that syllables were produced in a range that did not overlap with the baseline range.
“This showed you can drive really big changes in this normally stereotyped behavior but you have to do it incrementally,” says Tumer. “This could have implications for rehabilitation strategies in humans.”
In support of the current findings, previous work by Brainard’s team and others has revealed that when male songbirds sing alone there is greater variability in their song than when they sing to females.
The theory, says Brainard, is that the birds can afford to experiment, and thus practice their tunes, when the pressure is off. This process, he suggests, is not occurring at a conscious level. Rather, it is likely driven by neurochemicals released under varying circumstances that are then acting on a region of the nervous system known as the basal ganglia, which is critical to song learning and maintenance.
Are you sure it wouldn’t just look like a big blue Chipwich?
To Curious Aliens, Earth Would Stand Out As Living Planet
ScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2007) — With powerful instruments scouring the heavens, astronomers have found more than 240 planets in the past two decades, none likely to support Earth-like life.
But what if aliens were hunting life outside their own planet? Armed with telescopes only a bit bigger and more powerful than our own, could they peer through the vastness of space and lock in onto Earth as a likely home to life?
That’s the question at the heart of paper co-authored by a University of Florida astronomer that appeared recently in the online edition of Astrophysical Journal. The answer, the authors say, is a qualified “yes.” With a space telescope larger than the Hubble Space Telescope pointed directly at our sun, they say, “hypothetical observers” could measure Earth’s 24-hour rotation period, leading to observations of oceans and the chance of life.
“They would only be able to see Earth as a single pixel, rather than resolving it to take a picture,” said Eric Ford, a UF assistant professor of astronomy and one of five authors of the paper. “But that could be enough for them to identify our planet as one that likely contains clouds and oceans of liquid water.”
This research may sound whimsical, but it has a serious goal: to provide a road map for Earth-bound astronomers trying to study Earth-like planets — a task expected to become possible in coming decades as more powerful telescopes come on line, said Enric Palle, the lead author of the paper and an astronomer with the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias.
For humans or curious aliens, observing planets is challenging for a number of reasons – habitable planets all the more so. The planet can’t be too close or too far away from its star, or its surface would scald or freeze. And, it must have a protective atmosphere like Earth’s.
Most planets found so far are much larger than Earth, which means they are likely hot gas planets similar to Jupiter, a profoundly uninhabitable place with no solid surface and atmosphere composed largely of hydrogen and helium.
But astronomers are beginning to plan how future space telescopes could directly detect planets much closer to Earth’s size and proximity to the sun. One challenge: To figure out how to use a planet’s light to recognize if its surface and atmosphere are Earth-like.
For Ford and his colleagues, the answer lies in probing how the Earth would appear to outside or alien observers.
Astronomers have long recognized that even a large telescope would need to observe Earth for several weeks to collect enough light to identify chemicals in the planet’s atmosphere. During these observations, the brightness of the Earth would change, primarily because of clouds rotating into and out of view. If astronomers could measure Earth’s rotation period, then they would know when a given part of the planet was in view. The hitch was that astronomers were unsure whether Earth’s seemingly chaotically changing cloud patterns would make it impossible for alien observers to determine this rotation rate.
We will be back in the new year. Until then, it's up to you to make science more better for everyone else. Peace out.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/27/07
Headline of the day
Man, 28, dies after marathon lap dance session at strip club
Nine times out of ten, when you see the word marathon in a headline it’s bad news.
More tips from the Brooklyn Better Science Club: Keeping the over-educated employed
When in doubt, release a policy paper full of vague responses to a complex social issue. Extra credit if the suggestions imply government intervention. Working groups and public forums designed to create more dialogue are always winners. They probably won’t change things, but they might get your name about and make you more employable.
Psychologists Explore Public Policy And Effects Of Media Violence On Children
ScienceDaily (Dec. 27, 2007) — Although hundreds of studies link media violence to aggression in children and adolescents, most public policy attempts to reduce children's media violence exposure in the U.S. have failed. Efforts to restrict children's access to violent video games have been struck down by the courts as infringing on children's First Amendment rights.
Three Iowa State University psychologists have authored a new study that reviews the literature on children's exposure to media violence and assesses the lack of effective public policy response to curb the risks. They also recommend more effective public policy strategies in the future.
ISU Assistant Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile, Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson, and psychology graduate student Muniba Saleem collaborated on the paper published in the Journal of Social Issues and Policy Review.
"There are far more public policy options available than have yet been explored," said Gentile. "Public policy isn't just about legislation. We typically only think about writing laws, but many other opportunities exist for effective policy. A large part of the motivation for this article is to try to make it clear that more can be done than has previously been tried, particularly in these political times when many presidential candidates are talking about possible public policy options."
Identifying reasons for past failures
The ISU researchers identified four reasons why past public policy efforts to curb children's exposure to media violence have failed:
* An apparent gap between what scientific findings suggest and what the U.S. courts and society understand, partially due to different conceptions of causality used by scientists and the legal system.
* Confusion about scientific findings in court, party due to opposing "expert" testimony -- such as video game industry "experts" who would not be considered by the scientific community as real experts on media violence.
* Different standards of causality applied by courts than by most medical and behavioral scientists, and these standards change depending on the type of legal issue. In particular, U.S. courts are appropriately conservative about regulating freedom of speech because it is at the core of democracy.
* Lack of precedent. Legislation to restrict access is unlikely to survive First Amendment challenges, because courts rely on precedent. They are unlikely to rule differently until enough time has passed for new research to be conducted and new evidence presented.
There are also reasons why the public hasn't called for more preventative measures.
"One reason is what's called 'the third-person effect' -- that it's a lot easier to notice these types of effects on other people rather than in ourselves and those closest to us. So most parents don't think media violence affects their kids," Gentile said. "That's partly because media violence effects accumulate slowly and people aren't good at detecting small changes -- even though those changes could be big by the end.
"Another reason is that the news media primarily focus on violent media effects in terms of atrocities like Columbine," Anderson said. "This confusion about equating media violence with extreme atrocities allows people to think that there are no effects on them because we all know that we've watched lots of media violence and never gone on a shooting rampage, but that's not where we should look for the effects. The effects are more subtle. In order to do something seriously violent, one must have multiple risk factors for aggression -- media violence is only one risk factor, and it's not the largest one. It's also not the smallest."
According to Gentile, much public policy action has been taken on media violence in reaction to such major tragedies. "That's a knee-jerk reaction in terms of public policy," he said. "And that's probably not how we should make public policy because it only focuses on part of the puzzle."
Suggesting the alternatives
The authors suggest several public policy alternatives. The first is to provide a public forum for research to be discussed and potential solutions debated to provide legislators an avenue for translating scientific research into publicly accessible language. It may also prompt legislators to regulate better the information provided to parents through media ratings.
They report several serious problems with the U.S. ratings systems as they currently exist, with multiple studies suggesting that the ratings are neither reliable nor valid.
"Perhaps the single most effective policy that could be created to help parents manage children's media would be to mandate the creation of one universal rating system that could be used for all media, including TV, movies, video games, and recorded music," they wrote.
The ISU researchers recommend that helpful policy initiatives could be instituted at the school, district, state, or federal levels for implementing a set of media literacy standards for children.
They demonstrate how public policy regarding children's media could be successfully implemented below the federal level, and by non-governmental entities. For example, they suggest that the national or state chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics could create policies that require pediatricians to be trained about the research about positive and negative media effects, and to provide parents with that information during well-child visits.
Their paper also reports how a growing number of foreign countries are implementing policies in a manner known as "co-regulation" -- incorporating both public (government) regulation and self-regulation in a combined, cooperative manner.
“An apparent gap between what scientific findings suggest and what the U.S. courts and society understand, partially due to different conceptions of causality used by scientists and the legal system.” We knew it, more fuzzy definitions of causality.
Why would you want to turn off the media set when you could have a policy response to call your own?
More headlines of the day
Tiny Monkey Dies After Being Smuggled Into NYC Under Owner's Hat (Fox News.com)
Priests brawl at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus
You say animal, I say it's the dude who lost
Where And Why Humans Made Skates Out Of Animal Bones
ScienceDaily (Dec. 26, 2007) — Archaeological evidence shows that bone skates (skates made of animal bones) are the oldest human powered means of transport, dating back to 3000 BC. Why people started skating on ice and where is not as clear, since ancient remains were found in several locations spread across Central and
In a recent paper, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London, Dr Formenti and Professor Minetti show substantial evidence supporting the hypothesis that the birth of ice skating took place in Southern Finland, where the number of lakes within 100 square kilometres is the highest in the world.
"In Central and Northern Europe, five thousand years ago people struggled to survive the severe winter conditions and it seems unlikely that ice skating developed as a hobby" says Dr Formenti. "As happened later for skis and bicycles, I am convinced that we first made ice skates in order to limit the energy required for our daily journeys".
Formenti and Minetti did their experiments on an ice rink by the Alps, where they measured the energy consumption of people skating on bones. Through mathematical models and computer simulations of 240 ten-kilometre journeys, their research study shows that in winter the use of bone skates would have limited the energy requirements of Finnish people by 10%. On the other hand, the advantage given by the use of skates in other North European countries would be only about 1%.
Subsequent studies performed by Formenti and Minetti have shown how fast and how far people could skate in past epochs, from 3000BC to date.
It’s probably the place where they make Red Bull. Or a meth lab. Either way, there will soon be a policy study that says these things should be regulated. We’re sure Star Fleet command would be glad to enforce any intergalactic regulations.
Mysterious Cosmic Powerhouses Explored
ScienceDaily (Dec. 25, 2007) — By working in synergy with a ground-based telescope array, the joint Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/NASA Suzaku X-ray observatory is shedding new light on some of the most energetic objects in our galaxy, but objects that remain shrouded in mystery.
These cosmic powerhouses pour out vast amounts of energy, and they accelerate particles to almost the speed of light. But very little is known about these sources because they were discovered only recently. "Understanding these objects is one of the most intriguing problems in astrophysics," says Takayasu Anada of the Institute for Space and Astronautical Science in Kanagawa, Japan. Anada is lead author of a paper presented last week at a Suzaku science conference in San Diego, Calif.
These mysterious objects have been discovered in just the last few years by an array of four European-built telescopes named the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), located in the African nation of Namibia. H.E.S.S. indirectly detects very-high-energy gamma rays from outer space. These gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light ever detected from beyond Earth, so H.E.S.S. and other similar arrays have opened up a new branch of astronomy.
The gamma rays themselves are absorbed by gases high up in Earth’s atmosphere. But as the gamma rays interact with air molecules, they produce subatomic particles that radiate a blue-colored light known as Cherenkov radiation. H.E.S.S. detects this blue light, whose intensity and direction reveals the energy and position of the gamma-ray source.
The H.E.S.S. observations were groundbreaking, but the array’s images aren’t sharp enough to reveal the exact location where particles are being accelerated or how the particles are being accelerated. To solve this problem, several teams aimed Suzaku in the direction of some of these H.E.S.S. sources. Any object capable of emitting high-energy gamma rays will also produce X-rays, and Suzaku is particularly sensitive to high-energy (hard) X-rays.
When Anada and his colleagues pointed Suzaku at a source known as HESS J1837-069 (the numerals express the object’s sky coordinates), the X-ray spectrum closely resembled X-ray spectra of pulsar wind nebulae — gaseous clouds that are sculpted by winds blown off by collapsed stars known as pulsars. Pulsar wind nebulae emit hard X-rays, and their X-ray output remains relatively constant over long timescales. "The origin of the gamma-ray emission from HESS J1837-069 remains unclear, but we suspect that this source is a pulsar wind nebula from the Suzaku observation," says Anada.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory have revealed that other H.E.S.S. sources are also pulsar wind nebulae. These combined gamma-ray and X-ray observations are revealing that pulsar wind nebulae are more common and more energetic than astronomers had expected.
Another group, led by Hironori Matsumoto of the University of Kyoto in Japan, targeted Suzaku on HESS J1614-518. This source belongs to a class of objects known as "dark particle accelerators" because their ultrahigh energies suggest they are accelerating particles to near-light speed, turning them into cosmic rays. But what are these objects, and what kinds of particles are being accelerated?
Although the nature of these objects remains a mystery, Suzaku’s observations do reveal the identity of the particles. When electrons are accelerated to high speeds, they spiral around magnetic field lines that permeate space, generating copious X-rays. But since protons are 2,000 times more massive than electrons, they emit few X-rays. Matsumoto and his colleagues reported at the conference that HESS J1614-518 is a very weak X-ray emitter. "This result strongly suggests that high-energy protons are being produced in this object," says Matsumoto.
Suzaku also observed two other H.E.S.S. dark particle accelerators, but found no obvious X-ray counterparts at the H.E.S.S. positions. These sources must also be weak X-ray emitters, indicating they are accelerating mostly protons. As Matsumoto says, "Using the high sensitivity of the Suzaku satellite, we can find strong candidates for the origin of cosmic rays."
Launched in 2005, Suzaku is the fifth in a series of Japanese satellites devoted to studying celestial X-ray sources. Managed by JAXA, this mission is a collaborative effort between Japanese universities and institutions and NASA Goddard.
Man, 28, dies after marathon lap dance session at strip club
Nine times out of ten, when you see the word marathon in a headline it’s bad news.
More tips from the Brooklyn Better Science Club: Keeping the over-educated employed
When in doubt, release a policy paper full of vague responses to a complex social issue. Extra credit if the suggestions imply government intervention. Working groups and public forums designed to create more dialogue are always winners. They probably won’t change things, but they might get your name about and make you more employable.
Psychologists Explore Public Policy And Effects Of Media Violence On Children
ScienceDaily (Dec. 27, 2007) — Although hundreds of studies link media violence to aggression in children and adolescents, most public policy attempts to reduce children's media violence exposure in the U.S. have failed. Efforts to restrict children's access to violent video games have been struck down by the courts as infringing on children's First Amendment rights.
Three Iowa State University psychologists have authored a new study that reviews the literature on children's exposure to media violence and assesses the lack of effective public policy response to curb the risks. They also recommend more effective public policy strategies in the future.
ISU Assistant Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile, Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson, and psychology graduate student Muniba Saleem collaborated on the paper published in the Journal of Social Issues and Policy Review.
"There are far more public policy options available than have yet been explored," said Gentile. "Public policy isn't just about legislation. We typically only think about writing laws, but many other opportunities exist for effective policy. A large part of the motivation for this article is to try to make it clear that more can be done than has previously been tried, particularly in these political times when many presidential candidates are talking about possible public policy options."
Identifying reasons for past failures
The ISU researchers identified four reasons why past public policy efforts to curb children's exposure to media violence have failed:
* An apparent gap between what scientific findings suggest and what the U.S. courts and society understand, partially due to different conceptions of causality used by scientists and the legal system.
* Confusion about scientific findings in court, party due to opposing "expert" testimony -- such as video game industry "experts" who would not be considered by the scientific community as real experts on media violence.
* Different standards of causality applied by courts than by most medical and behavioral scientists, and these standards change depending on the type of legal issue. In particular, U.S. courts are appropriately conservative about regulating freedom of speech because it is at the core of democracy.
* Lack of precedent. Legislation to restrict access is unlikely to survive First Amendment challenges, because courts rely on precedent. They are unlikely to rule differently until enough time has passed for new research to be conducted and new evidence presented.
There are also reasons why the public hasn't called for more preventative measures.
"One reason is what's called 'the third-person effect' -- that it's a lot easier to notice these types of effects on other people rather than in ourselves and those closest to us. So most parents don't think media violence affects their kids," Gentile said. "That's partly because media violence effects accumulate slowly and people aren't good at detecting small changes -- even though those changes could be big by the end.
"Another reason is that the news media primarily focus on violent media effects in terms of atrocities like Columbine," Anderson said. "This confusion about equating media violence with extreme atrocities allows people to think that there are no effects on them because we all know that we've watched lots of media violence and never gone on a shooting rampage, but that's not where we should look for the effects. The effects are more subtle. In order to do something seriously violent, one must have multiple risk factors for aggression -- media violence is only one risk factor, and it's not the largest one. It's also not the smallest."
According to Gentile, much public policy action has been taken on media violence in reaction to such major tragedies. "That's a knee-jerk reaction in terms of public policy," he said. "And that's probably not how we should make public policy because it only focuses on part of the puzzle."
Suggesting the alternatives
The authors suggest several public policy alternatives. The first is to provide a public forum for research to be discussed and potential solutions debated to provide legislators an avenue for translating scientific research into publicly accessible language. It may also prompt legislators to regulate better the information provided to parents through media ratings.
They report several serious problems with the U.S. ratings systems as they currently exist, with multiple studies suggesting that the ratings are neither reliable nor valid.
"Perhaps the single most effective policy that could be created to help parents manage children's media would be to mandate the creation of one universal rating system that could be used for all media, including TV, movies, video games, and recorded music," they wrote.
The ISU researchers recommend that helpful policy initiatives could be instituted at the school, district, state, or federal levels for implementing a set of media literacy standards for children.
They demonstrate how public policy regarding children's media could be successfully implemented below the federal level, and by non-governmental entities. For example, they suggest that the national or state chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics could create policies that require pediatricians to be trained about the research about positive and negative media effects, and to provide parents with that information during well-child visits.
Their paper also reports how a growing number of foreign countries are implementing policies in a manner known as "co-regulation" -- incorporating both public (government) regulation and self-regulation in a combined, cooperative manner.
“An apparent gap between what scientific findings suggest and what the U.S. courts and society understand, partially due to different conceptions of causality used by scientists and the legal system.” We knew it, more fuzzy definitions of causality.
Why would you want to turn off the media set when you could have a policy response to call your own?
More headlines of the day
Tiny Monkey Dies After Being Smuggled Into NYC Under Owner's Hat (Fox News.com)
Priests brawl at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus
You say animal, I say it's the dude who lost
Where And Why Humans Made Skates Out Of Animal Bones
ScienceDaily (Dec. 26, 2007) — Archaeological evidence shows that bone skates (skates made of animal bones) are the oldest human powered means of transport, dating back to 3000 BC. Why people started skating on ice and where is not as clear, since ancient remains were found in several locations spread across Central and
In a recent paper, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London, Dr Formenti and Professor Minetti show substantial evidence supporting the hypothesis that the birth of ice skating took place in Southern Finland, where the number of lakes within 100 square kilometres is the highest in the world.
"In Central and Northern Europe, five thousand years ago people struggled to survive the severe winter conditions and it seems unlikely that ice skating developed as a hobby" says Dr Formenti. "As happened later for skis and bicycles, I am convinced that we first made ice skates in order to limit the energy required for our daily journeys".
Formenti and Minetti did their experiments on an ice rink by the Alps, where they measured the energy consumption of people skating on bones. Through mathematical models and computer simulations of 240 ten-kilometre journeys, their research study shows that in winter the use of bone skates would have limited the energy requirements of Finnish people by 10%. On the other hand, the advantage given by the use of skates in other North European countries would be only about 1%.
Subsequent studies performed by Formenti and Minetti have shown how fast and how far people could skate in past epochs, from 3000BC to date.
It’s probably the place where they make Red Bull. Or a meth lab. Either way, there will soon be a policy study that says these things should be regulated. We’re sure Star Fleet command would be glad to enforce any intergalactic regulations.
Mysterious Cosmic Powerhouses Explored
ScienceDaily (Dec. 25, 2007) — By working in synergy with a ground-based telescope array, the joint Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/NASA Suzaku X-ray observatory is shedding new light on some of the most energetic objects in our galaxy, but objects that remain shrouded in mystery.
These cosmic powerhouses pour out vast amounts of energy, and they accelerate particles to almost the speed of light. But very little is known about these sources because they were discovered only recently. "Understanding these objects is one of the most intriguing problems in astrophysics," says Takayasu Anada of the Institute for Space and Astronautical Science in Kanagawa, Japan. Anada is lead author of a paper presented last week at a Suzaku science conference in San Diego, Calif.
These mysterious objects have been discovered in just the last few years by an array of four European-built telescopes named the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), located in the African nation of Namibia. H.E.S.S. indirectly detects very-high-energy gamma rays from outer space. These gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light ever detected from beyond Earth, so H.E.S.S. and other similar arrays have opened up a new branch of astronomy.
The gamma rays themselves are absorbed by gases high up in Earth’s atmosphere. But as the gamma rays interact with air molecules, they produce subatomic particles that radiate a blue-colored light known as Cherenkov radiation. H.E.S.S. detects this blue light, whose intensity and direction reveals the energy and position of the gamma-ray source.
The H.E.S.S. observations were groundbreaking, but the array’s images aren’t sharp enough to reveal the exact location where particles are being accelerated or how the particles are being accelerated. To solve this problem, several teams aimed Suzaku in the direction of some of these H.E.S.S. sources. Any object capable of emitting high-energy gamma rays will also produce X-rays, and Suzaku is particularly sensitive to high-energy (hard) X-rays.
When Anada and his colleagues pointed Suzaku at a source known as HESS J1837-069 (the numerals express the object’s sky coordinates), the X-ray spectrum closely resembled X-ray spectra of pulsar wind nebulae — gaseous clouds that are sculpted by winds blown off by collapsed stars known as pulsars. Pulsar wind nebulae emit hard X-rays, and their X-ray output remains relatively constant over long timescales. "The origin of the gamma-ray emission from HESS J1837-069 remains unclear, but we suspect that this source is a pulsar wind nebula from the Suzaku observation," says Anada.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory have revealed that other H.E.S.S. sources are also pulsar wind nebulae. These combined gamma-ray and X-ray observations are revealing that pulsar wind nebulae are more common and more energetic than astronomers had expected.
Another group, led by Hironori Matsumoto of the University of Kyoto in Japan, targeted Suzaku on HESS J1614-518. This source belongs to a class of objects known as "dark particle accelerators" because their ultrahigh energies suggest they are accelerating particles to near-light speed, turning them into cosmic rays. But what are these objects, and what kinds of particles are being accelerated?
Although the nature of these objects remains a mystery, Suzaku’s observations do reveal the identity of the particles. When electrons are accelerated to high speeds, they spiral around magnetic field lines that permeate space, generating copious X-rays. But since protons are 2,000 times more massive than electrons, they emit few X-rays. Matsumoto and his colleagues reported at the conference that HESS J1614-518 is a very weak X-ray emitter. "This result strongly suggests that high-energy protons are being produced in this object," says Matsumoto.
Suzaku also observed two other H.E.S.S. dark particle accelerators, but found no obvious X-ray counterparts at the H.E.S.S. positions. These sources must also be weak X-ray emitters, indicating they are accelerating mostly protons. As Matsumoto says, "Using the high sensitivity of the Suzaku satellite, we can find strong candidates for the origin of cosmic rays."
Launched in 2005, Suzaku is the fifth in a series of Japanese satellites devoted to studying celestial X-ray sources. Managed by JAXA, this mission is a collaborative effort between Japanese universities and institutions and NASA Goddard.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/21/07
So, two psychologists try to walk into a bar, but end up dying of thirst when they get in to an argument over what constitutes causality
Humour 'comes from testosterone' (BBC)
Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims.
Men make more gags than women and their jokes tend to be more aggressive, Professor Sam Shuster, of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, says.
The unicycling doctor observed how the genders reacted to his "amusing" hobby.
Women tended to make encouraging, praising comments, while men jeered. The most aggressive were young men, he told the British Medical Journal.
Previous findings have suggested women and men differ in how they use and appreciate humour.
Women tend to tell fewer jokes than men and male comedians outnumber female ones.
Aggressively funny
Research suggests men are more likely to use humour aggressively by making others the butt of the joke.
And aggression - generally considered to be a more masculine trait - has been linked by some to testosterone exposure in the womb.
Professor Shuster believes humour develops from aggression caused by male hormones.
He documented the reaction of over 400 individuals to his unicycling antics through the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The difference between the men and women was absolutely remarkable and consistent
Professor Shuster
Almost half of people responded verbally - more being men. Very few of the women made comic or snide remarks, while 75% of the men attempted comedy - mostly shouting out "Lost your wheel?", for example.
Mocking and sneering
Often the men's comments were mocking and intended as a put-down. Young men in cars were particularly aggressive - they lowered their windows and shouted abusively.
This type of behaviour decreased among older men however, who tended to offer more admiring comments, much like the women.
"The idea that unicycling is intrinsically funny does not explain the findings," said Professor Shuster.
The simplest explanation, he says, is the effect of male hormones such as testosterone.
"The difference between the men and women was absolutely remarkable and consistent," said Professor Shuster.
"At 11-13 years, the boys began to get really aggressive. Into puberty, the aggression became more marked, then it changed into a form of joke. The men were snide."
The initial aggressive intent seems to become channelled into a more subtle and sophisticated joke, so the aggression is hidden by wit, explained Professor Shuster.
Dr Nick Neave is a psychologist at the University of Northumbria who has been studying the physical, behavioural, and psychological effects of testosterone.
He suggested men might respond aggressively because they see the other unicycling man as a threat, attracting female attention away from themselves.
"This would be particularly challenging for young males entering the breeding market and thus it does not surprise me that their responses were the more threatening."
“The simplest explanation, he says, is the effect of male hormones such as testosterone.” Hmmm. Glad he stuck to the simplest explanation and didn’t actually get involved on any of that icky research stuff. All that testing and measurement is such a drag.
Headline of the day
Roofing magnate dies in fall from roof (CNN)
Maybe he was fixing a hole where the rain gets in…
Is there anything else we should know?
Astronomers: Asteroid could hit Mars in January
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Mars could be in for an asteroid hit.
If the asteroid strikes Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity is exploring.
A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the red planet on January 30, scientists said Thursday.
"These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.
Scientists tracking the asteroid, currently halfway between Earth and Mars, initially put the odds of impact at 1 in 350 but increased the chances this week. Scientists expect the odds to diminish again early next month after getting new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.
"We know that it's going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there's a possibility of an impact," he said.
If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.
In 1994, fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fireballs in space. Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.
"Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited," Chesley said.
We think they meant on the head of pin, “Pinhead” being a song by the Ramones. Either way, that’s pretty small.
Nano Bible: Entire Old Testament Written On A Pinhead
ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — In a nanotechnology breakthrough, scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have printed the entire Old Testament onto a silicone chip smaller than a pinhead (less than 1/1000th of an inch).
The idea to write the Old Testament on such a tiny surface was conceived by Technion Professor Uri Sivan of the Faculty of Physics, who is also head of the university's Russell Berrrie Nanotechnology Institute.
The text was written using a focused ion beam (FIB) generator that shot tiny particles called Gallium ions onto a gold surface covering a base layer of silicone. In a process that can be likened to digging a hole in the earth using a water jet, the ion beam etched the surface of the gold layer, making the underlying silicone layer visible.
The actual "writing" of the full text took just 90 minutes. The computer program that guided the FIB, however, took more than three months.
"The nano-bible project demonstrates the miniaturization at our disposal," said Sivan. "This research could lead to the creation of more advanced miniature structures -- and imaging -- on a nanometric scale, advances in storing information in very small spaces, and the use of DNA molecules to store information."
The project was managed by graduate student Ohad Zohar and Dr. Alex Lahav, former head of the FIB laboratory in the Technion's Wolfson Microelectronics Research and Teaching Center.
According to the researchers, the nano-bible will now be photographed and expand 10,000 times - and still be small enough to fit into a 75-square foot frame to be hung in the Technion Faculty of Physics. The photograph's size will make it possible to read the entire Old Testament with the naked eye. The height of each letter will be three millimeters. The original nano-bible will be displayed next to the photograph.
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for anybody to read this thing without a magnifying glass.” Matthew 19:24.
This just in, sitting is not the same as running and pretending to do something is not the same as doing it. Wow, more ground breaking stuff from the U.K.
Active Computer Games No Substitute For Playing Real Sports
ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — New generation active computer games stimulate greater energy expenditure than sedentary games, but are no substitute for playing real sports, according to a study in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal.
Young people are currently recommended to take an hour of moderate to vigorous physical exercise each day, which should use at least three times as much energy as is used at rest. But many adolescents have mostly sedentary lifestyles.
Time spent in front of television and computer screens has been linked to physical inactivity and obesity.
The new generation of wireless based computer games is meant to stimulate greater interaction and movement during play, so researchers at Liverpool John Moore's University compared the energy expenditure of adolescents when playing sedentary and new generation active computer games.
Six boys and five girls aged 13-15 years were included in the study. All were a healthy weight, competent at sport and regularly played sedentary computer games.
Before the study, each participant practiced playing both the active and inactive games.
On the day of the study, participants played four computer games for 15 minutes each while wearing a monitoring device to record energy expenditure.
The participants first played on the inactive Project Gotham Racing 3 game (XBOX 360). After a five minute rest, they then played competitive bowling, tennis and boxing matches (Nintendo Wii Sports) for 15 minutes each with a five minute rest between sports. Total playing time for each child was 60 minutes.
Energy expenditure was increased by 60 kcal per hour during active compared with sedentary gaming.
However, energy expenditure during active gaming was much lower than authentic bowling, tennis and boxing, and was not intense enough to contribute towards the recommended amount of daily physical activity for children.
When translated to a typical week of computer play for these participants, active rather than passive gaming would increase total energy expenditure by less than 2%.
Enjoy the holiday weekend. The Brooklyn Better Science Club will return on 12/27/07. Until then, it's up to you to make science more better for everyone else. Peace out yo, as the kids say.
Humour 'comes from testosterone' (BBC)
Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims.
Men make more gags than women and their jokes tend to be more aggressive, Professor Sam Shuster, of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, says.
The unicycling doctor observed how the genders reacted to his "amusing" hobby.
Women tended to make encouraging, praising comments, while men jeered. The most aggressive were young men, he told the British Medical Journal.
Previous findings have suggested women and men differ in how they use and appreciate humour.
Women tend to tell fewer jokes than men and male comedians outnumber female ones.
Aggressively funny
Research suggests men are more likely to use humour aggressively by making others the butt of the joke.
And aggression - generally considered to be a more masculine trait - has been linked by some to testosterone exposure in the womb.
Professor Shuster believes humour develops from aggression caused by male hormones.
He documented the reaction of over 400 individuals to his unicycling antics through the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The difference between the men and women was absolutely remarkable and consistent
Professor Shuster
Almost half of people responded verbally - more being men. Very few of the women made comic or snide remarks, while 75% of the men attempted comedy - mostly shouting out "Lost your wheel?", for example.
Mocking and sneering
Often the men's comments were mocking and intended as a put-down. Young men in cars were particularly aggressive - they lowered their windows and shouted abusively.
This type of behaviour decreased among older men however, who tended to offer more admiring comments, much like the women.
"The idea that unicycling is intrinsically funny does not explain the findings," said Professor Shuster.
The simplest explanation, he says, is the effect of male hormones such as testosterone.
"The difference between the men and women was absolutely remarkable and consistent," said Professor Shuster.
"At 11-13 years, the boys began to get really aggressive. Into puberty, the aggression became more marked, then it changed into a form of joke. The men were snide."
The initial aggressive intent seems to become channelled into a more subtle and sophisticated joke, so the aggression is hidden by wit, explained Professor Shuster.
Dr Nick Neave is a psychologist at the University of Northumbria who has been studying the physical, behavioural, and psychological effects of testosterone.
He suggested men might respond aggressively because they see the other unicycling man as a threat, attracting female attention away from themselves.
"This would be particularly challenging for young males entering the breeding market and thus it does not surprise me that their responses were the more threatening."
“The simplest explanation, he says, is the effect of male hormones such as testosterone.” Hmmm. Glad he stuck to the simplest explanation and didn’t actually get involved on any of that icky research stuff. All that testing and measurement is such a drag.
Headline of the day
Roofing magnate dies in fall from roof (CNN)
Maybe he was fixing a hole where the rain gets in…
Is there anything else we should know?
Astronomers: Asteroid could hit Mars in January
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Mars could be in for an asteroid hit.
If the asteroid strikes Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity is exploring.
A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the red planet on January 30, scientists said Thursday.
"These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.
Scientists tracking the asteroid, currently halfway between Earth and Mars, initially put the odds of impact at 1 in 350 but increased the chances this week. Scientists expect the odds to diminish again early next month after getting new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.
"We know that it's going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there's a possibility of an impact," he said.
If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.
In 1994, fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fireballs in space. Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.
"Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited," Chesley said.
We think they meant on the head of pin, “Pinhead” being a song by the Ramones. Either way, that’s pretty small.
Nano Bible: Entire Old Testament Written On A Pinhead
ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — In a nanotechnology breakthrough, scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have printed the entire Old Testament onto a silicone chip smaller than a pinhead (less than 1/1000th of an inch).
The idea to write the Old Testament on such a tiny surface was conceived by Technion Professor Uri Sivan of the Faculty of Physics, who is also head of the university's Russell Berrrie Nanotechnology Institute.
The text was written using a focused ion beam (FIB) generator that shot tiny particles called Gallium ions onto a gold surface covering a base layer of silicone. In a process that can be likened to digging a hole in the earth using a water jet, the ion beam etched the surface of the gold layer, making the underlying silicone layer visible.
The actual "writing" of the full text took just 90 minutes. The computer program that guided the FIB, however, took more than three months.
"The nano-bible project demonstrates the miniaturization at our disposal," said Sivan. "This research could lead to the creation of more advanced miniature structures -- and imaging -- on a nanometric scale, advances in storing information in very small spaces, and the use of DNA molecules to store information."
The project was managed by graduate student Ohad Zohar and Dr. Alex Lahav, former head of the FIB laboratory in the Technion's Wolfson Microelectronics Research and Teaching Center.
According to the researchers, the nano-bible will now be photographed and expand 10,000 times - and still be small enough to fit into a 75-square foot frame to be hung in the Technion Faculty of Physics. The photograph's size will make it possible to read the entire Old Testament with the naked eye. The height of each letter will be three millimeters. The original nano-bible will be displayed next to the photograph.
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for anybody to read this thing without a magnifying glass.” Matthew 19:24.
This just in, sitting is not the same as running and pretending to do something is not the same as doing it. Wow, more ground breaking stuff from the U.K.
Active Computer Games No Substitute For Playing Real Sports
ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — New generation active computer games stimulate greater energy expenditure than sedentary games, but are no substitute for playing real sports, according to a study in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal.
Young people are currently recommended to take an hour of moderate to vigorous physical exercise each day, which should use at least three times as much energy as is used at rest. But many adolescents have mostly sedentary lifestyles.
Time spent in front of television and computer screens has been linked to physical inactivity and obesity.
The new generation of wireless based computer games is meant to stimulate greater interaction and movement during play, so researchers at Liverpool John Moore's University compared the energy expenditure of adolescents when playing sedentary and new generation active computer games.
Six boys and five girls aged 13-15 years were included in the study. All were a healthy weight, competent at sport and regularly played sedentary computer games.
Before the study, each participant practiced playing both the active and inactive games.
On the day of the study, participants played four computer games for 15 minutes each while wearing a monitoring device to record energy expenditure.
The participants first played on the inactive Project Gotham Racing 3 game (XBOX 360). After a five minute rest, they then played competitive bowling, tennis and boxing matches (Nintendo Wii Sports) for 15 minutes each with a five minute rest between sports. Total playing time for each child was 60 minutes.
Energy expenditure was increased by 60 kcal per hour during active compared with sedentary gaming.
However, energy expenditure during active gaming was much lower than authentic bowling, tennis and boxing, and was not intense enough to contribute towards the recommended amount of daily physical activity for children.
When translated to a typical week of computer play for these participants, active rather than passive gaming would increase total energy expenditure by less than 2%.
Enjoy the holiday weekend. The Brooklyn Better Science Club will return on 12/27/07. Until then, it's up to you to make science more better for everyone else. Peace out yo, as the kids say.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/20/07
They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake. They even read your thought balloons, so be good for goodness sake…
Satellite-Surveillance Plan
Aims to Mollify Critics
By SIOBHAN GORMAN/WSJ
December 20, 2007; Page A4
WASHINGTON -- After delaying a domestic satellite-surveillance program for more than two months, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expects to finalize a new charter for it this week, a move that attempts to quell civil-liberties concerns and get the program back on track.
Mr. Chertoff also plans soon to unveil a cyber-security strategy, part of an estimated $15 billion, multiyear program designed to protect the nation's Internet infrastructure. The program has been shrouded in secrecy for months and has also prompted privacy concerns on Capitol Hill because it involves government protection of domestic computer networks.
Both areas put Homeland Security in the middle of a public debate over domestic spy powers, kicked off by the revelation two years ago that the National Security Agency had been eavesdropping on some conversations in the U.S. without a warrant. In the fall, the department put the satellite program on hold after an outcry on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have also asked Mr. Chertoff to delay the introduction of the cyber-security initiative. "One lesson I've learned is it's not enough to say we know what we're doing is going to be OK," Mr. Chertoff said in an interview. "We've got to really make it clear to the public that we're doing this, but we're not doing that."
The satellite program, which would be run by a new department branch called the National Applications Office, would expand the domestic use of satellite imagery by federal and local authorities.
Congress lashed out at the department when The Wall Street Journal reported plans for the program in August. Mr. Chertoff suspended the program until legislators received more information. The satellite-spy technology was originally developed to monitor activities and people outside the U.S.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi said his committee received its last update on the spy-satellite program three months ago. "We still haven't seen the legal framework we requested or the standard operation procedures on how the NAO will actually be run," he said. In a spending bill Congress passed yesterday, lawmakers prohibited the department from spending money on the program until Mr. Chertoff certifies the program is legal and the Government Accountability Office reviews the certification.
In creating the charter, Mr. Chertoff said there had been "back and forth" over keeping the language clear and simple. "If it is jargon-laden, then people look at it and say, 'What's the hidden agenda here?'"
The charter will clarify that the satellite program will follow all current U.S. legal restrictions on technical surveillance. Where a warrant is required for collection, one will be obtained before that activity is approved. Under the charter, the program won't use technology to intercept verbal communications.
The hell with fewer cars, public transportation or better roads, what the people really need is a model
Traffic Jam Mystery Solved By Mathematicians
ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2007) — Mathematicians from the University of Exeter have solved the mystery of traffic jams by developing a model to show how major delays occur on our roads, with no apparent cause. Many traffic jams leave drivers baffled as they finally reach the end of a tail-back to find no visible cause for their delay. Now, a team of mathematicians from the Universities of Exeter, Bristol and Budapest, have found the answer and published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The team developed a mathematical model to show the impact of unexpected events such as a lorry (tractor trailer) pulling out of its lane on a dual carriageway (divided highway with median between traffic going in opposite directions). Their model revealed that slowing down below a critical speed when reacting to such an event, a driver would force the car behind to slow down further and the next car back to reduce its speed further still. The result of this is that several miles back, cars would finally grind to a halt, with drivers oblivious to the reason for their delay.
The model predicts that this is a very typical scenario on a busy highway (above 15 vehicles per km). The jam moves backwards through the traffic creating a so-called 'backward travelling wave', which drivers may encounter many miles upstream, several minutes after it was triggered.
Dr Gábor Orosz of the University of Exeter said: "As many of us prepare to travel long distances to see family and friends over Christmas, we're likely to experience the frustration of getting stuck in a traffic jam that seems to have no cause. Our model shows that overreaction of a single driver can have enormous impact on the rest of the traffic, leading to massive delays."
Drivers and policy-makers have not previously known why jams like this occur, though many have put it down to the sheer volume of traffic. While this clearly plays a part in this new theory, the main issue is around the smoothness of traffic flow. According to the model, heavy traffic will not automatically lead to congestion but can be smooth-flowing. This model takes into account the time-delay in drivers' reactions, which lead to drivers braking more heavily than would have been necessary had they identified and reacted to a problem ahead a second earlier.
Dr Orosz continued: "When you tap your brake, the traffic may come to a full stand-still several miles behind you. It really matters how hard you brake - a slight braking from a driver who has identified a problem early will allow the traffic flow to remain smooth. Heavier braking, usually caused by a driver reacting late to a problem, can affect traffic flow for many miles."
The research team now plans to develop a model for cars equipped with new electronic devices, which could cut down on over-braking as a result of slow reactions.
And what mathematicians need is a reason to move out of mom’s house.
Please, just put down the gun and read this
Bad PMS May Mean A Depressed Nervous System
ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2007) — For some women premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a minor monthly annoyance, but for others, more severe symptoms seriously disrupt their lives. However despite the number of women affected, science has yet to offer a full explanation or universal treatment. Now intriguing new findings published in the online open access journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine suggest not only that PMS is tied to decreased nerve activity each month, but also that those with extreme symptoms may have a permanently depressed nervous system.
A team of Japanese researchers led by Tamaki Matsumoto from the International Buddhist University in Osaka investigated whether the activity of the autonomic nervous system, which plays a vital role in equilibrium within the human body, changed during the menstrual cycle. The team measured heart rate variability and hormone levels and used questionnaires to evaluate physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms accompanying 62 women's menstrual cycles.
For the parameters Matsumoto's team was testing, the control group with little or no menstrual symptoms did not vary during the month. However women suffering from PMS saw results reflecting autonomic and parasympathetic nerve activity decrease significantly in the late luteal phase, which precedes menstruation. Those with the most marked symptoms (known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder) had lower rates of nerve activity than the other groups during the entire menstrual cycle.
"Our findings indicate that the occurrence of premenstrual symptomatology could be attributable to an altered functioning of the autonomic nervous system in the symptomatic late luteal phase," says Matsumoto. For women with PMDD, findings indicate that sympathovagal activity was altered even in the follicular phase. Matsumoto asks: "Does this imply that women with lower autonomic function regardless of the menstrual cycle are vulnerable to more severe premenstrual disorders? At the moment, the underlying biomechanisms of PMS remain enigmatic."
PMS comprises myriad non-specific physical, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive symptoms that occur in the days prior to menstruation and is nearly omnipresent in women of reproductive age from all cultures and socio-economic levels. The most prevalent symptoms include: irritability, mood lability, depression, anxiety, impulsivity, feelings of "loss of control," fatigue, decreased concentration, abdominal bloating, fluid retention, breast swelling, and general aches.
Satellite-Surveillance Plan
Aims to Mollify Critics
By SIOBHAN GORMAN/WSJ
December 20, 2007; Page A4
WASHINGTON -- After delaying a domestic satellite-surveillance program for more than two months, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expects to finalize a new charter for it this week, a move that attempts to quell civil-liberties concerns and get the program back on track.
Mr. Chertoff also plans soon to unveil a cyber-security strategy, part of an estimated $15 billion, multiyear program designed to protect the nation's Internet infrastructure. The program has been shrouded in secrecy for months and has also prompted privacy concerns on Capitol Hill because it involves government protection of domestic computer networks.
Both areas put Homeland Security in the middle of a public debate over domestic spy powers, kicked off by the revelation two years ago that the National Security Agency had been eavesdropping on some conversations in the U.S. without a warrant. In the fall, the department put the satellite program on hold after an outcry on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have also asked Mr. Chertoff to delay the introduction of the cyber-security initiative. "One lesson I've learned is it's not enough to say we know what we're doing is going to be OK," Mr. Chertoff said in an interview. "We've got to really make it clear to the public that we're doing this, but we're not doing that."
The satellite program, which would be run by a new department branch called the National Applications Office, would expand the domestic use of satellite imagery by federal and local authorities.
Congress lashed out at the department when The Wall Street Journal reported plans for the program in August. Mr. Chertoff suspended the program until legislators received more information. The satellite-spy technology was originally developed to monitor activities and people outside the U.S.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi said his committee received its last update on the spy-satellite program three months ago. "We still haven't seen the legal framework we requested or the standard operation procedures on how the NAO will actually be run," he said. In a spending bill Congress passed yesterday, lawmakers prohibited the department from spending money on the program until Mr. Chertoff certifies the program is legal and the Government Accountability Office reviews the certification.
In creating the charter, Mr. Chertoff said there had been "back and forth" over keeping the language clear and simple. "If it is jargon-laden, then people look at it and say, 'What's the hidden agenda here?'"
The charter will clarify that the satellite program will follow all current U.S. legal restrictions on technical surveillance. Where a warrant is required for collection, one will be obtained before that activity is approved. Under the charter, the program won't use technology to intercept verbal communications.
The hell with fewer cars, public transportation or better roads, what the people really need is a model
Traffic Jam Mystery Solved By Mathematicians
ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2007) — Mathematicians from the University of Exeter have solved the mystery of traffic jams by developing a model to show how major delays occur on our roads, with no apparent cause. Many traffic jams leave drivers baffled as they finally reach the end of a tail-back to find no visible cause for their delay. Now, a team of mathematicians from the Universities of Exeter, Bristol and Budapest, have found the answer and published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The team developed a mathematical model to show the impact of unexpected events such as a lorry (tractor trailer) pulling out of its lane on a dual carriageway (divided highway with median between traffic going in opposite directions). Their model revealed that slowing down below a critical speed when reacting to such an event, a driver would force the car behind to slow down further and the next car back to reduce its speed further still. The result of this is that several miles back, cars would finally grind to a halt, with drivers oblivious to the reason for their delay.
The model predicts that this is a very typical scenario on a busy highway (above 15 vehicles per km). The jam moves backwards through the traffic creating a so-called 'backward travelling wave', which drivers may encounter many miles upstream, several minutes after it was triggered.
Dr Gábor Orosz of the University of Exeter said: "As many of us prepare to travel long distances to see family and friends over Christmas, we're likely to experience the frustration of getting stuck in a traffic jam that seems to have no cause. Our model shows that overreaction of a single driver can have enormous impact on the rest of the traffic, leading to massive delays."
Drivers and policy-makers have not previously known why jams like this occur, though many have put it down to the sheer volume of traffic. While this clearly plays a part in this new theory, the main issue is around the smoothness of traffic flow. According to the model, heavy traffic will not automatically lead to congestion but can be smooth-flowing. This model takes into account the time-delay in drivers' reactions, which lead to drivers braking more heavily than would have been necessary had they identified and reacted to a problem ahead a second earlier.
Dr Orosz continued: "When you tap your brake, the traffic may come to a full stand-still several miles behind you. It really matters how hard you brake - a slight braking from a driver who has identified a problem early will allow the traffic flow to remain smooth. Heavier braking, usually caused by a driver reacting late to a problem, can affect traffic flow for many miles."
The research team now plans to develop a model for cars equipped with new electronic devices, which could cut down on over-braking as a result of slow reactions.
And what mathematicians need is a reason to move out of mom’s house.
Please, just put down the gun and read this
Bad PMS May Mean A Depressed Nervous System
ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2007) — For some women premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a minor monthly annoyance, but for others, more severe symptoms seriously disrupt their lives. However despite the number of women affected, science has yet to offer a full explanation or universal treatment. Now intriguing new findings published in the online open access journal BioPsychoSocial Medicine suggest not only that PMS is tied to decreased nerve activity each month, but also that those with extreme symptoms may have a permanently depressed nervous system.
A team of Japanese researchers led by Tamaki Matsumoto from the International Buddhist University in Osaka investigated whether the activity of the autonomic nervous system, which plays a vital role in equilibrium within the human body, changed during the menstrual cycle. The team measured heart rate variability and hormone levels and used questionnaires to evaluate physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms accompanying 62 women's menstrual cycles.
For the parameters Matsumoto's team was testing, the control group with little or no menstrual symptoms did not vary during the month. However women suffering from PMS saw results reflecting autonomic and parasympathetic nerve activity decrease significantly in the late luteal phase, which precedes menstruation. Those with the most marked symptoms (known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder) had lower rates of nerve activity than the other groups during the entire menstrual cycle.
"Our findings indicate that the occurrence of premenstrual symptomatology could be attributable to an altered functioning of the autonomic nervous system in the symptomatic late luteal phase," says Matsumoto. For women with PMDD, findings indicate that sympathovagal activity was altered even in the follicular phase. Matsumoto asks: "Does this imply that women with lower autonomic function regardless of the menstrual cycle are vulnerable to more severe premenstrual disorders? At the moment, the underlying biomechanisms of PMS remain enigmatic."
PMS comprises myriad non-specific physical, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive symptoms that occur in the days prior to menstruation and is nearly omnipresent in women of reproductive age from all cultures and socio-economic levels. The most prevalent symptoms include: irritability, mood lability, depression, anxiety, impulsivity, feelings of "loss of control," fatigue, decreased concentration, abdominal bloating, fluid retention, breast swelling, and general aches.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/19/07
Dude, where’s my research?
Researchers Find Factors That Encourage Cannabis Use Among University Students
ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2007) — New information published in the Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research explores University students’ motivations for using or not using cannabis and found various factors that might encourage use.
Researchers at Griffith University in Australia administered a survey to students aged 17 to 29 asking about their beliefs about the advantages and disadvantages of using cannabis, their perceptions of what others think they should do in relation to cannabis use, and reasons that might cause them to use or not use. Two weeks later, they completed a follow-up survey asking about their actual behavior over the previous two weeks.
Compared to non-users, users believed more strongly that cannabis would help them fit in with their friends, feel relaxed, forget their worries, and enjoy themselves. They also believed that their friends would approve of their use.
Additionally, users believed that certain factors including force of habit, wanting to relax, feeling stressed, and being around other people using cannabis would encourage them to use, while non-users rated work and study as strong reasons for not using cannabis.
“Findings from this study provide a better understanding of the different motivations of users and non-users of cannabis,” the authors note. “They also open up opportunities for targeting these differences when further developing initiatives in prevention and intervention in order to enhance the educational experience of young adults.”
This study is published in the Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research.
Adapted from materials provided by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
“users believed more strongly that cannabis would help them fit in with their friends, feel relaxed, forget their worries, and enjoy themselves. They also believed that their friends would approve of their use.” That’s odd. Somehow the phrase “liked the feeling of being stoned” didn’t make it to the list. We guess if you didn’t count it, it never really happened.
Headline of the day
Doc admits taking cell-phone photo of patient's genitals (The obscure store/the Arizona republic)
Turn your head and…yikes.
Yeah, but what about the French maid’s uniform?
Study reveals why monkeys shout during sex
Females may yell loudly to help their male partners climax
By Charles Q. Choi/MSNBC.com
Female monkeys may shout during sex to help their male partners climax, research now reveals.
Without these yells, male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) almost never ejaculated, scientists found.
Female monkeys often utter loud, distinctive calls before, during or after sex. Their exact function, if any, has remained heavily debated.
Counting pelvic thrusts
To investigate the purpose behind these calls, scientists at the German Primate Center in Göttingen focused on Barbary macaques for two years in a nature reserve in Gibraltar.
The researchers found that females yelled during 86 percent of all sexual encounters. When females shouted, males ejaculated 59 percent of the time. However, when females did not holler, males ejaculated less than 2 percent of the time.
To see if yelling resulted from how vigorous the sex was, the scientists counted the number of pelvic thrusts males gave and timed when they happened. They found when shouting occurred, thrusting increased. In other words, hollering led to more vigorous sex.
Counting monkey pelvic thrusts is admittedly "quite weird, but it's science," researcher Dana Pfefferle, a behavioral scientist and primatologist at the German Primate Center, told LiveScience. "You get used to it."
Quite promiscuous
Male and female Barbary macaques are promiscuous, often having sex with many partners. This means sperm levels can get quite drained. The females shout when they are most fertile, so males can make the most use of their sperm.
Pfefferle noted her research suggests these calls might also make females more attractive to other males. She added these shouts might play different roles in other species.
Pfefferle and her colleagues detailed their findings online Dec. 18 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
A quick tip for the monkeys: always make sure you shout the right name.
You can take the family out of the double wide.....
Lynne Spear's Parenting Book Put On Indefinite Hold
By Gil Kaufman (MTV.Com)
Ok, ok, ok, but who do you like in the third at Aquaduct?
Racehorse winning secret revealed/the BBC
Breeders are prepared to spend vast sums on trusted stallions
The offspring of expensive stallions owe their success more to how they are reared, trained and ridden than good genes, a study has found.
Only 10% of a horse's lifetime winnings can be attributed to their bloodline, research in Biology Letters shows.
Edinburgh scientists compared the stud fees, winnings and earnings of more than 4,000 racehorses since 1922.
They found that the vast sums breeders are prepared to pay for top stallions do not guarantee the best genes.
The research was carried out by evolutionary biologists Alastair Wilson and Andrew Rambaut at the University of Edinburgh.
There are good genes out there to be bought but they don't necessarily come with the highest price tag
Dr Alastair Wilson
They found that while there was genetic variance in the quality of stallions at stud, this was not reflected in the size of the horse's stud fee.
"There are good genes out there to be bought but they don't necessarily come with the highest price tag," Dr Alastair Wilson told the BBC News website.
"It seems much more likely that people who can afford to pay high stud fees can also afford to manage and train their horses well."
The offspring of expensive stallions did tend to win more over their lifetime, he said, but genes played only a small role.
By far the biggest factor was the horse's environment - the way they were trained, the choice of races entered and which jockeys were employed, Dr Wilson added.
The findings may have parallels in the natural world, he added, in how signals of male genetic quality - such as the size and shape of a peacock's tail - are used by females to select a mate.
In this context, where the breeder was selecting the horse, fees paid for a stallion were not an honest signal of genetic quality, the researchers said.
Full details of the research are published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Researchers Find Factors That Encourage Cannabis Use Among University Students
ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2007) — New information published in the Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research explores University students’ motivations for using or not using cannabis and found various factors that might encourage use.
Researchers at Griffith University in Australia administered a survey to students aged 17 to 29 asking about their beliefs about the advantages and disadvantages of using cannabis, their perceptions of what others think they should do in relation to cannabis use, and reasons that might cause them to use or not use. Two weeks later, they completed a follow-up survey asking about their actual behavior over the previous two weeks.
Compared to non-users, users believed more strongly that cannabis would help them fit in with their friends, feel relaxed, forget their worries, and enjoy themselves. They also believed that their friends would approve of their use.
Additionally, users believed that certain factors including force of habit, wanting to relax, feeling stressed, and being around other people using cannabis would encourage them to use, while non-users rated work and study as strong reasons for not using cannabis.
“Findings from this study provide a better understanding of the different motivations of users and non-users of cannabis,” the authors note. “They also open up opportunities for targeting these differences when further developing initiatives in prevention and intervention in order to enhance the educational experience of young adults.”
This study is published in the Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research.
Adapted from materials provided by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
“users believed more strongly that cannabis would help them fit in with their friends, feel relaxed, forget their worries, and enjoy themselves. They also believed that their friends would approve of their use.” That’s odd. Somehow the phrase “liked the feeling of being stoned” didn’t make it to the list. We guess if you didn’t count it, it never really happened.
Headline of the day
Doc admits taking cell-phone photo of patient's genitals (The obscure store/the Arizona republic)
Turn your head and…yikes.
Yeah, but what about the French maid’s uniform?
Study reveals why monkeys shout during sex
Females may yell loudly to help their male partners climax
By Charles Q. Choi/MSNBC.com
Female monkeys may shout during sex to help their male partners climax, research now reveals.
Without these yells, male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) almost never ejaculated, scientists found.
Female monkeys often utter loud, distinctive calls before, during or after sex. Their exact function, if any, has remained heavily debated.
Counting pelvic thrusts
To investigate the purpose behind these calls, scientists at the German Primate Center in Göttingen focused on Barbary macaques for two years in a nature reserve in Gibraltar.
The researchers found that females yelled during 86 percent of all sexual encounters. When females shouted, males ejaculated 59 percent of the time. However, when females did not holler, males ejaculated less than 2 percent of the time.
To see if yelling resulted from how vigorous the sex was, the scientists counted the number of pelvic thrusts males gave and timed when they happened. They found when shouting occurred, thrusting increased. In other words, hollering led to more vigorous sex.
Counting monkey pelvic thrusts is admittedly "quite weird, but it's science," researcher Dana Pfefferle, a behavioral scientist and primatologist at the German Primate Center, told LiveScience. "You get used to it."
Quite promiscuous
Male and female Barbary macaques are promiscuous, often having sex with many partners. This means sperm levels can get quite drained. The females shout when they are most fertile, so males can make the most use of their sperm.
Pfefferle noted her research suggests these calls might also make females more attractive to other males. She added these shouts might play different roles in other species.
Pfefferle and her colleagues detailed their findings online Dec. 18 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
A quick tip for the monkeys: always make sure you shout the right name.
You can take the family out of the double wide.....
Lynne Spear's Parenting Book Put On Indefinite Hold
By Gil Kaufman (MTV.Com)
On the heels of the announcement that Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, is pregnant with her first child comes word that the parenting book due for release in the spring from the girls' mom, Lynne Spears, has been delayed. People magazine reports that the book, which was to be released under the title "Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World," is on indefinite hold by publisher Thomas Nelson, which puts out inspirational literature and Bibles.
"The book is delayed indefinitely. It's delayed, not canceled," a spokesperson told the magazine. The spokesperson, who was not named, said the book, which Publishers Weekly had described as "Lynne Spears' personal story of raising high-profile children while coming from a low-profile Louisiana community," was actually put on hold last week. The spokesperson declined to say whether the focus of the book will change in light of Jamie Lynn's pregnancy announcement, or if the decision was a result of the news about the latest scandal to rock the family.
In October, Spears and Thomas Nelson announced the deal for the book, which was slated to come out on Mother's Day. At the time, a publishing rep who was not named told Us Weekly that it would be a parenting book "that's going to have faith elements to it." A manuscript was expected by this month.
Hope mom didn't blow through that advance already.Ok, ok, ok, but who do you like in the third at Aquaduct?
Racehorse winning secret revealed/the BBC
Breeders are prepared to spend vast sums on trusted stallions
The offspring of expensive stallions owe their success more to how they are reared, trained and ridden than good genes, a study has found.
Only 10% of a horse's lifetime winnings can be attributed to their bloodline, research in Biology Letters shows.
Edinburgh scientists compared the stud fees, winnings and earnings of more than 4,000 racehorses since 1922.
They found that the vast sums breeders are prepared to pay for top stallions do not guarantee the best genes.
The research was carried out by evolutionary biologists Alastair Wilson and Andrew Rambaut at the University of Edinburgh.
There are good genes out there to be bought but they don't necessarily come with the highest price tag
Dr Alastair Wilson
They found that while there was genetic variance in the quality of stallions at stud, this was not reflected in the size of the horse's stud fee.
"There are good genes out there to be bought but they don't necessarily come with the highest price tag," Dr Alastair Wilson told the BBC News website.
"It seems much more likely that people who can afford to pay high stud fees can also afford to manage and train their horses well."
The offspring of expensive stallions did tend to win more over their lifetime, he said, but genes played only a small role.
By far the biggest factor was the horse's environment - the way they were trained, the choice of races entered and which jockeys were employed, Dr Wilson added.
The findings may have parallels in the natural world, he added, in how signals of male genetic quality - such as the size and shape of a peacock's tail - are used by females to select a mate.
In this context, where the breeder was selecting the horse, fees paid for a stallion were not an honest signal of genetic quality, the researchers said.
Full details of the research are published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/18/07
God may not play dice with the universe, but we hear the Deity has mad skills when it comes to Missile Command
Jet From Supermassive Black Hole Seen Blasting Neighboring Galaxy
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; Page A03
A jet of highly charged radiation from a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting another galaxy nearby -- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before.
Using images from the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other sources, scientists said the extremely intense jet from the larger galaxy can be seen shooting across 20,000 light-years of space and plowing into the outer gas and dust of the smaller one.
The smaller galaxy is being transformed by the radiation and the jet is being bent before shooting millions of light-years farther in a new direction.
"What we've identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire," said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet's radiation transformed the planets' atmosphere.
Black holes are generally thought of as mysterious cosmic phenomena that swallow matter, but the supermassive ones that occur at the center of many -- possibly all -- galaxies also set loose tremendous bursts of energy as matter swirls around the disk of material that circles the black hole but does not make it in.
That energy, often in the form of highly charged gamma rays and X-rays, shoots out in powerful jets that can be millions of light-years long and 1,000 light-years wide.
Scientists are just beginning to understand these jets, which not only transform matter in their path but also help produce "stellar nurseries," where new stars are formed.
Evans's collaborator, Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in England, said the collision they have identified began no more than 1 million years ago and could continue for 10 million to 100 million more years. Hardcastle called the collision a great opportunity to learn more about the jets.
"We see jets all over the universe, but we're still struggling to understand some of their basic properties," he said. "This system . . . gives us a chance to learn how they're affected when they slam into something -- like a galaxy -- and what they do after that."
The two galaxies are more than 1.4 billion light-years away from the Milky Way galaxy (a light-year equals about 6 trillion miles). But they are close to each other in cosmic terms -- about as far as the distance from Earth to the center of the Milky Way. That the two appear to be moving toward a merger may have played a role in creating such a powerful jet from the larger galaxy's central black hole.
The researchers said that the collision would have no effect on Earth, but the process is one that could play out in our galaxy a billion years into the future.
The galaxy Andromeda is the closest to the Milky Way, and the two are gradually coming closer to each other. In time, astronomers say, the two will merge, and the process may cause the dormant central black holes in either the Milky Way or Andromeda to become active and begin sending out similarly powerful jets.
If a jet were to hit Earth, Evans said, it would destroy the ozone layer and collapse the magnetosphere that blankets the planet and protects it from harmful solar particles. Without the ozone layer and magnetosphere, he said, much of life on Earth would end.
"This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling," Evans said.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the discovery illustrates how researchers can now observe astronomical phenomena using many different tools and understand how they behave at many different points along the electromagnetic spectrum. Only when scientists measure a galaxy at all different wavelengths, he said, "can you really understand what's going on."
In making their discovery, the researchers used data from three orbiting instruments -- the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope -- as well as ground-based observatories including the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico and Britain's Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network. The Astrophysical Journal will publish the results next year.
They left out the part about the black hole being a nasty drunk.
Headline of the morning
Police say woman groped Santa
(NewTimes.com)
Maybe she was just looking for her present?
Other headlines of the day
Santa's chopper shot up over Rio slum (MSNBC)
Proof that a red nose can make a great target.
Suicide attempt at cemetery fails, BMW is ruined (the obscure store)
Double word score
This just in from our department of the obvious department:
Research proves that mean people honk the bobo when it comes to donating.
Scrooge Or Samaritan: Personality Type Is Key To Donations
ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2007) — A research collaboration involving Mark Van Vugt, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent, has revealed that peoples’ personality types predicts their donations to charities and noble causes.
In a sample of almost 1000 participants the researchers found that people with a pro-social personality gave more money to charities and other noble causes. For instance, with donations to ‘third world organisations’, 52% of people with a pro-social personality gave money, compared to 42% of people with an individualistic personality and only 21% of people with a competitive personality.
Overall pro-socials donate more to all kinds of charitable and noble organisations – including health, environmental, charity, education/research and arts/culture organisations – than individualists and competitors (the only exception being donations to local community and church groups).
The team’s findings raise the possibility that donations may be enhanced not only by appeals emphasising empathy (eg concerns for other’s well-being) but also by appeals emphasising fairness (eg everyone deserves an equal chance in life).
Professor Van Vugt, an expert on altruism and co-author of a recently published text Applying Social Psychology: From Problems to Solutions [London: Sage, 2007], said: ‘We hope that fundraising organisations, such as those dedicated to helping the poor and the ill, particularly during humanitarian crises or at critical times of the year, such as winter and Christmas, will benefit from this research. Not everyone is a Scrooge and there are many Samaritans around. The trick is to get people with individualistic and competitive personalities to donate more to noble causes, perhaps by offering them small gifts.’
Journal reference: From games to giving: social vale orientation predicts donations to noble causes (Paul Van Lange; VU University, Amsterdam; Rene Bekkers; University of Utrecht; Theo Schuyt; VU University, Amsterdam; Mark Van Vugt; University of Kent) is published in Basic and applied social psychology.
Social psychology, or why some people are more like this than that sometimes under certain conditions.
Jet From Supermassive Black Hole Seen Blasting Neighboring Galaxy
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; Page A03
A jet of highly charged radiation from a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting another galaxy nearby -- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before.
Using images from the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other sources, scientists said the extremely intense jet from the larger galaxy can be seen shooting across 20,000 light-years of space and plowing into the outer gas and dust of the smaller one.
The smaller galaxy is being transformed by the radiation and the jet is being bent before shooting millions of light-years farther in a new direction.
"What we've identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire," said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet's radiation transformed the planets' atmosphere.
Black holes are generally thought of as mysterious cosmic phenomena that swallow matter, but the supermassive ones that occur at the center of many -- possibly all -- galaxies also set loose tremendous bursts of energy as matter swirls around the disk of material that circles the black hole but does not make it in.
That energy, often in the form of highly charged gamma rays and X-rays, shoots out in powerful jets that can be millions of light-years long and 1,000 light-years wide.
Scientists are just beginning to understand these jets, which not only transform matter in their path but also help produce "stellar nurseries," where new stars are formed.
Evans's collaborator, Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in England, said the collision they have identified began no more than 1 million years ago and could continue for 10 million to 100 million more years. Hardcastle called the collision a great opportunity to learn more about the jets.
"We see jets all over the universe, but we're still struggling to understand some of their basic properties," he said. "This system . . . gives us a chance to learn how they're affected when they slam into something -- like a galaxy -- and what they do after that."
The two galaxies are more than 1.4 billion light-years away from the Milky Way galaxy (a light-year equals about 6 trillion miles). But they are close to each other in cosmic terms -- about as far as the distance from Earth to the center of the Milky Way. That the two appear to be moving toward a merger may have played a role in creating such a powerful jet from the larger galaxy's central black hole.
The researchers said that the collision would have no effect on Earth, but the process is one that could play out in our galaxy a billion years into the future.
The galaxy Andromeda is the closest to the Milky Way, and the two are gradually coming closer to each other. In time, astronomers say, the two will merge, and the process may cause the dormant central black holes in either the Milky Way or Andromeda to become active and begin sending out similarly powerful jets.
If a jet were to hit Earth, Evans said, it would destroy the ozone layer and collapse the magnetosphere that blankets the planet and protects it from harmful solar particles. Without the ozone layer and magnetosphere, he said, much of life on Earth would end.
"This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling," Evans said.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the discovery illustrates how researchers can now observe astronomical phenomena using many different tools and understand how they behave at many different points along the electromagnetic spectrum. Only when scientists measure a galaxy at all different wavelengths, he said, "can you really understand what's going on."
In making their discovery, the researchers used data from three orbiting instruments -- the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope -- as well as ground-based observatories including the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico and Britain's Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network. The Astrophysical Journal will publish the results next year.
They left out the part about the black hole being a nasty drunk.
Headline of the morning
Police say woman groped Santa
(NewTimes.com)
Maybe she was just looking for her present?
Other headlines of the day
Santa's chopper shot up over Rio slum (MSNBC)
Proof that a red nose can make a great target.
Suicide attempt at cemetery fails, BMW is ruined (the obscure store)
Double word score
This just in from our department of the obvious department:
Research proves that mean people honk the bobo when it comes to donating.
Scrooge Or Samaritan: Personality Type Is Key To Donations
ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2007) — A research collaboration involving Mark Van Vugt, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent, has revealed that peoples’ personality types predicts their donations to charities and noble causes.
In a sample of almost 1000 participants the researchers found that people with a pro-social personality gave more money to charities and other noble causes. For instance, with donations to ‘third world organisations’, 52% of people with a pro-social personality gave money, compared to 42% of people with an individualistic personality and only 21% of people with a competitive personality.
Overall pro-socials donate more to all kinds of charitable and noble organisations – including health, environmental, charity, education/research and arts/culture organisations – than individualists and competitors (the only exception being donations to local community and church groups).
The team’s findings raise the possibility that donations may be enhanced not only by appeals emphasising empathy (eg concerns for other’s well-being) but also by appeals emphasising fairness (eg everyone deserves an equal chance in life).
Professor Van Vugt, an expert on altruism and co-author of a recently published text Applying Social Psychology: From Problems to Solutions [London: Sage, 2007], said: ‘We hope that fundraising organisations, such as those dedicated to helping the poor and the ill, particularly during humanitarian crises or at critical times of the year, such as winter and Christmas, will benefit from this research. Not everyone is a Scrooge and there are many Samaritans around. The trick is to get people with individualistic and competitive personalities to donate more to noble causes, perhaps by offering them small gifts.’
Journal reference: From games to giving: social vale orientation predicts donations to noble causes (Paul Van Lange; VU University, Amsterdam; Rene Bekkers; University of Utrecht; Theo Schuyt; VU University, Amsterdam; Mark Van Vugt; University of Kent) is published in Basic and applied social psychology.
Social psychology, or why some people are more like this than that sometimes under certain conditions.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/17/07
Orale ese, this looks like the work of Dr. Don Diego de la Vega
Z-shaped incisions enhance some surgeries
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists have developed a technique using a flexible video endoscope that might replace certain types of conventional surgery.
laparoscopic surgeries, including kidney removal and four other ...
Penn State researchers said the technique, successfully demonstrated in pigs, must still be subjected to human trials. The approach involves inserting flexible video endoscope through the mouth and into the stomach. At that point surgeons currently make a small straight incision in the stomach to gain access to the abdominal cavity and the organs requiring attention.
"Theoretically, by eliminating body wall wounds … and allowing some procedures to be done without general anesthesia, this method could leave a truly minimal surgical footprint and may even allow certain procedures to be done outside a traditional operating room," said Dr. Matthew Moyer of Penn State's Hershey Medical Center.
Instead of cutting straight through the stomach wall, the researchers guide the endoscope under the stomach wall's mucous membrane before exiting near the targeted organ. The endoscope essentially charts a Z-shaped path.
Moyer said the technique, results in significantly less bleeding and the Z-shaped tract effectively seals itself due to pressure created on the abdominal wall by normal breathing.
The research appeared in a recent issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.
Imagine, a surgeon “so cunning and free, who makes the sign of the Z.”
Well, here’s his big club and here’s his bigger club
Ancient hunter reveals bag of tricks
According to ABC.net, archaeologists have found a bag of tools left near the wall of a residence more than 14,000 years ago by a prehistoric hunter-gatherer.
The tool set, one of the most complete and well preserved of its kind, provides an intriguing glimpse of the daily life of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer.
Dr Phillip Edwards, a senior lecturer in the archaeology program at Melbourne's La Trobe University, says the contents show the bag's owner was well equipped for obtaining meat and edible plants in the wild.
The Australian researcher says the bag includes a sickle for harvesting wild wheat or barley, a cluster of flint spearheads and a flint core for making more spearheads.
There were also some smooth stones, which he says may be slingshots, and a large stone that might have been used for striking flint pieces off the flint core.
A cluster of gazelle toe bones, used to make beads, was also in the bag, along with part of a second bone tool.
Edwards outlines the finds, attributed to the Natufian culture from a site called Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan, in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity.
He believes the tools were enclosed in a hide or wickerwork bag with a strap that would have been worn over the shoulder.
Such bags rarely had compartments, so the owner probably protected valuable items by wrapping them in rolls of bark or leather before placing them at the bottom of the bag.
The sickle, constructed out of two carefully grooved horn pieces, was fitted with colour-matched tan and grey bladelets.
Marvel
It would have been a marvel of form and function for its day and is the only tool of its kind ever linked to the Natufian people.
The rest of the items were designed to immobilise and then kill game such as aurochs, the ancestor of modern cattle, red deer, hares, storks, partridges, owls, tortoises and the major source of meat, gazelles.
"A lone hunter or a group of hunters might wait for gazelles to cross their path while waiting behind a low hide made of twigs and brush," Edwards says.
"They might have worked on making bone beads to wile away the time.
"Then a hunter could get off a shot while the animals were off their guard. A first shot might wound, but not kill, and then a hunter or a group of them will track the wounded animal."
But he says it is not known whether Natufian hunters "had the bow and arrow, or just spears".
The mountain gazelles targeted by the Middle Eastern hunters probably weighed 18-25 kilograms, so a strong adult "could carry an entire carcass over his shoulders without much trouble".
But the bag's owner was not necessarily a man; women are thought to have been in charge of plant gathering.
The tools, therefore, either belonged to a woman hunter-gatherer, or work activities were more gender-blind than thought during prehistoric times, Edwards suggests.
Archaeologist Dr Francois Valla, director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem, says similar ancient clusters of tools have been excavated, but this latest one is "the most spectacular of them all".
"The clustering of these items is due to a decision made by some Natufian individual," Valla says.
"As such, it is a rare testimony of the behaviour of a person 14,000 years ago."
Headline of the day
French president visits Disney with ex-model (CNN)
An inspirational leader, mes amis.
The DNA might be synthetic, but you can bet the money will be real
Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 17, 2007; A01
It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.
Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.
Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.
In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.
The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial -- and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.
"This raises a range of big questions about what nature is and what it could be," said Paul Rabinow, an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies science's effects on society. "Evolutionary processes are no longer seen as sacred or inviolable. People in labs are figuring them out so they can improve upon them for different purposes."
That unprecedented degree of control over creation raises more than philosophical questions, however. What kinds of organisms will scientists, terrorists and other creative individuals make? How will these self-replicating entities be contained? And who might end up owning the patent rights to the basic tools for synthesizing life?
Some experts are worried that a few maverick companies are already gaining monopoly control over the core "operating system" for artificial life and are poised to become the Microsofts of synthetic biology. That could stifle competition, they say, and place enormous power in a few people's hands.
"We're heading into an era where people will be writing DNA programs like the early days of computer programming, but who will own these programs?" asked Drew Endy, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the core of synthetic biology's new ascendance are high-speed DNA synthesizers that can produce very long strands of genetic material from basic chemical building blocks: sugars, nitrogen-based compounds and phosphates.
Today a scientist can write a long genetic program on a computer just as a maestro might compose a musical score, then use a synthesizer to convert that digital code into actual DNA. Experiments with "natural" DNA indicate that when a faux chromosome gets plopped into a cell, it will be able to direct the destruction of the cell's old DNA and become its new "brain" -- telling the cell to start making a valuable chemical, for example, or a medicine or a toxin, or a bio-based gasoline substitute.
Unlike conventional biotechnology, in which scientists induce modest genetic changes in cells to make them serve industrial purposes, synthetic biology involves the large-scale rewriting of genetic codes to create metabolic machines with singular purposes.
"I see a cell as a chassis and power supply for the artificial systems we are putting together," said Tom Knight of MIT, who likes to compare the state of cell biology today to that of mechanical engineering in 1864. That is when the United States began to adopt standardized thread sizes for nuts and bolts, an advance that allowed the construction of complex devices from simple, interchangeable parts.
If biology is to morph into an engineering discipline, it is going to need similarly standardized parts, Knight said. So he and colleagues have started a collection of hundreds of interchangeable genetic components they call BioBricks, which students and others are already popping into cells like Lego pieces.
So far, synthetic biology is still semi-synthetic, involving single-cell organisms such as bacteria and yeast that have a blend of natural and synthetic DNA. The cells can reproduce, a defining trait of life. But in many cases that urge has been genetically suppressed, along with other "distracting" biological functions, to maximize productivity.
"Most cells go about life like we do, with the intention to make more of themselves after eating," said John Pierce, a vice president at DuPont in Wilmington, Del., a leader in the field. "But what we want them to do is make stuff we want."
J. Craig Venter, chief executive of Synthetic Genomics in Rockville, knows what he wants his cells to make: ethanol, hydrogen and other exotic fuels for vehicles, to fill a market that has been estimated to be worth $1 trillion.
In a big step toward that goal, Venter has now built the first fully artificial chromosome, a strand of DNA many times longer than anything made by others and laden with all the genetic components a microbe needs to get by.
Details of the process are under wraps until the work is published, probably early next year. But Venter has already shown that he can insert a "natural" chromosome into a cell and bring it to life. If a synthetic chromosome works the same way, as expected, the first living cells with fully artificial genomes could be growing in dishes by the end of 2008.
The plan is to mass-produce a plain genetic platform able to direct the basic functions of life, then attach custom-designed DNA modules that can compel cells to make synthetic fuels or other products.
It will be a challenge to cultivate fuel-spewing microbes, Venter acknowledged. Among other problems, he said, is that unless the fuel is constantly removed, "the bugs will basically pickle themselves."
But the hurdles are not insurmountable. LS9 Inc., a company in San Carlos, Calif., is already using E. coli bacteria that have been reprogrammed with synthetic DNA to produce a fuel alternative from a diet of corn syrup and sugar cane. So efficient are the bugs' synthetic metabolisms that LS9 predicts it will be able to sell the fuel for just $1.25 a gallon.
At a DuPont plant in Tennessee, other semi-synthetic bacteria are living on cornstarch and making the chemical 1,3 propanediol, or PDO. Millions of pounds of the stuff are being spun and woven into high-tech fabrics (DuPont's chief executive wears a pinstripe suit made of it), putting the bug-begotten chemical on track to become the first $1 billion biotech product that is not a pharmaceutical.
Engineers at DuPont studied blueprints of E. coli's metabolism and used synthetic DNA to help the bacteria make PDO far more efficiently than could have been done with ordinary genetic engineering.
"If you want to sell it at a dollar a gallon . . . you need every bit of efficiency you can muster," said DuPont's Pierce. "So we're running these bugs to their limits."
Yet another application is in medicine, where synthetic DNA is allowing bacteria and yeast to produce the malaria drug artemisinin far more efficiently than it is made in plants, its natural source.
Bugs such as these will seem quaint, scientists say, once fully synthetic organisms are brought on line to work 24/7 on a range of tasks, from industrial production to chemical cleanups. But the prospect of a flourishing synbio economy has many wondering who will own the valuable rights to that life.
In the past year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been flooded with aggressive synthetic-biology claims. Some of Venter's applications, in particular, "are breathtaking in their scope," said Knight. And with Venter's company openly hoping to develop "an operating system for biologically-based software," some fear it is seeking synthetic hegemony.
"We've asked our patent lawyers to be reasonable and not to be overreaching," Venter said. But competitors such as DuPont, he said, "have just blanketed the field with patent applications."
Safety concerns also loom large. Already a few scientists have made viruses from scratch. The pending ability to make bacteria -- which, unlike viruses, can live and reproduce in the environment outside of a living body -- raises new concerns about contamination, contagion and the potential for mischief.
"Ultimately synthetic biology means cheaper and widely accessible tools to build bioweapons, virulent pathogens and artificial organisms that could pose grave threats to people and the planet," concluded a recent report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, one of dozens of advocacy groups that want a ban on releasing synthetic organisms pending wider societal debate and regulation.
"The danger is not just bio-terror but bio-error," the report says.
Many scientists say the threat has been overblown. Venter notes that his synthetic genomes are spiked with special genes that make the microbes dependent on a rare nutrient not available in nature. And Pierce, of DuPont, says the company's bugs are too spoiled to survive outdoors.
"They are designed to grow in a cosseted environment with very high food levels," Pierce said. "You throw this guy out on the ground, he just can't compete. He's toast."
"We've heard that before," said Jim Thomas, ETC Group's program manager, noting that genes engineered into crops have often found their way into other plants despite assurances to the contrary. "The fact is, you can build viruses, and soon bacteria, from downloaded instructions on the Internet," Thomas said. "Where's the governance and oversight?"
In fact, government controls on trade in dangerous microbes do not apply to the bits of DNA that can be used to create them. And while some industry groups have talked about policing the field themselves, the technology is quickly becoming so simple, experts say, that it will not be long before "bio hackers" working in garages will be downloading genetic programs and making them into novel life forms.
"The cat is out of the bag," said Jay Keasling, chief of synthetic biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Andrew Light, an environmental ethicist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said synthetic biology poses a conundrum because of its double-edged ability to both wreak biological havoc and perhaps wean civilization from dirty 20th-century technologies and petroleum-based fuels.
"For the environmental community, I think this is going to be a really hard choice," Light said.
Depending on how people adjust to the idea of man-made life -- and on how useful the first products prove to be -- the field could go either way, Light said.
"It could be that synthetic biology is going to be like cellphones: so overwhelming and ubiquitous that no one notices it anymore. Or it could be like abortion -- the kind of deep disagreement that will not go away."
The question, if the abortion model holds, is which side of the synthetic biology debate will get to call itself "pro-life."
“The plan is to mass-produce a plain genetic platform able to direct the basic functions of life, then attach custom-designed DNA modules that can compel cells to make synthetic fuels or other products.” Yeah, and a chance to make Bhopal look like a day at the beach.
Public relations pros rejoice: Spin inherent in the universe
Milky Way double haloes spin both ways
Thursday, 13 December 2007 Anna Salleh
ABC
For decades scientists have wondered how the Milky Way formed. Now the discovery that our galaxy has a double halo sheds new light on the debate
The halo of stars surrounding the Milky Way is made up of two different parts that spin in opposite directions, according to an international team of astronomers.
The findings could help settle a long-standing debate about how our galaxy and its halo formed.
The research could also help astronomers pin down much sought-after astronomical evidence of conditions just after the Big Bang.
PhD student Daniela Carollo, based at Australia's Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, and colleagues, report their findings today in the journal Nature.
The Milky Way halo is a sphere of ancient stars, invisible to the naked eye, that surrounds the familiar flattened spiral disc of the galaxy.
"We believe there are two main parts to the halo. It's not one simple halo," says Carollo's co-author and PhD supervisor Professor John Norris.
For decades astronomers have debated how the Milky Way formed after the Big Bang 10 billion years ago.
Some argue the halo was left behind as the centre of a cloud of gas collapsed to form the flat spiral disc that is so characteristic of our galaxy.
Others say the halo was formed from smaller galaxies outside the collapsing gas cloud that were pulled in by gravity.
The problem, says Norris, is that these theories were derived from a relatively small sample of stars.
Carollo, Norris and colleagues instead studied over 25,000 stars from a recent large survey of the Milky Way called SEGUE.
This allowed them to analyse how stars move in the Milky Way halo, and their chemical composition.
Inner and outer haloes
The researchers found inner and outer haloes, which rotate in opposite directions.
They found the inner halo is a flattened sphere rotating in the same direction as our sun but more slowly.
The Milky Way's spiral disc takes 200 million years to rotate, at around 800,000 kilometres per hour, while the inner halo rotates at around 80,000 kilometres per hour.
The inner halo also contains 40 times fewer heavy elements than the sun because it is much older and heavy metals like iron took billions of years to accumulate in the universe.
These facts are consistent with the halo forming as a result of a collapsing cloud of gas, says Norris.
The outer halo is a sphere that rotates at around 160,000 kilometres per hour in the opposite direction to the sun.
It has even fewer heavy metals than the inner halo and is similar to the composition of the smaller galaxies that surround the Milky Way.
Norris says these facts are consistent with the other theory that suggests the halo was creating from smaller galaxies that were attracted by the forming Milky Way.
Both theories true
Such evidence suggests the two competing theories about how the Milky Way was formed may not be competing after all.
"Each of them is probably true," says Norris.
He says while only time will tell whether this is the case, the "hard fact" is that there are two components of the halo.
"Even if what I've told you about how it might have come about is all nonsense, it's an important fact that people have to explain [in future theories of how the Milky Way formed]."
Norris says the discovery could help astronomers find stars that are low in heavy elements.
These chemically primitive stars give insight into the conditions present just after the Big Bang, he says. They are fossils of the early universe but are extremely rare.
Finding them remains a classic "needle in a haystack problem", says Norris. But discovering a chemically distinct outer halo, "gives us a much better way to search the haystack."
Other headline of the day
Pastor takes leave of absence over his online porn addiction
(Tampabay.com)
Oh my god…….
Z-shaped incisions enhance some surgeries
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists have developed a technique using a flexible video endoscope that might replace certain types of conventional surgery.
laparoscopic surgeries, including kidney removal and four other ...
Penn State researchers said the technique, successfully demonstrated in pigs, must still be subjected to human trials. The approach involves inserting flexible video endoscope through the mouth and into the stomach. At that point surgeons currently make a small straight incision in the stomach to gain access to the abdominal cavity and the organs requiring attention.
"Theoretically, by eliminating body wall wounds … and allowing some procedures to be done without general anesthesia, this method could leave a truly minimal surgical footprint and may even allow certain procedures to be done outside a traditional operating room," said Dr. Matthew Moyer of Penn State's Hershey Medical Center.
Instead of cutting straight through the stomach wall, the researchers guide the endoscope under the stomach wall's mucous membrane before exiting near the targeted organ. The endoscope essentially charts a Z-shaped path.
Moyer said the technique, results in significantly less bleeding and the Z-shaped tract effectively seals itself due to pressure created on the abdominal wall by normal breathing.
The research appeared in a recent issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.
Imagine, a surgeon “so cunning and free, who makes the sign of the Z.”
Well, here’s his big club and here’s his bigger club
Ancient hunter reveals bag of tricks
According to ABC.net, archaeologists have found a bag of tools left near the wall of a residence more than 14,000 years ago by a prehistoric hunter-gatherer.
The tool set, one of the most complete and well preserved of its kind, provides an intriguing glimpse of the daily life of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer.
Dr Phillip Edwards, a senior lecturer in the archaeology program at Melbourne's La Trobe University, says the contents show the bag's owner was well equipped for obtaining meat and edible plants in the wild.
The Australian researcher says the bag includes a sickle for harvesting wild wheat or barley, a cluster of flint spearheads and a flint core for making more spearheads.
There were also some smooth stones, which he says may be slingshots, and a large stone that might have been used for striking flint pieces off the flint core.
A cluster of gazelle toe bones, used to make beads, was also in the bag, along with part of a second bone tool.
Edwards outlines the finds, attributed to the Natufian culture from a site called Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan, in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity.
He believes the tools were enclosed in a hide or wickerwork bag with a strap that would have been worn over the shoulder.
Such bags rarely had compartments, so the owner probably protected valuable items by wrapping them in rolls of bark or leather before placing them at the bottom of the bag.
The sickle, constructed out of two carefully grooved horn pieces, was fitted with colour-matched tan and grey bladelets.
Marvel
It would have been a marvel of form and function for its day and is the only tool of its kind ever linked to the Natufian people.
The rest of the items were designed to immobilise and then kill game such as aurochs, the ancestor of modern cattle, red deer, hares, storks, partridges, owls, tortoises and the major source of meat, gazelles.
"A lone hunter or a group of hunters might wait for gazelles to cross their path while waiting behind a low hide made of twigs and brush," Edwards says.
"They might have worked on making bone beads to wile away the time.
"Then a hunter could get off a shot while the animals were off their guard. A first shot might wound, but not kill, and then a hunter or a group of them will track the wounded animal."
But he says it is not known whether Natufian hunters "had the bow and arrow, or just spears".
The mountain gazelles targeted by the Middle Eastern hunters probably weighed 18-25 kilograms, so a strong adult "could carry an entire carcass over his shoulders without much trouble".
But the bag's owner was not necessarily a man; women are thought to have been in charge of plant gathering.
The tools, therefore, either belonged to a woman hunter-gatherer, or work activities were more gender-blind than thought during prehistoric times, Edwards suggests.
Archaeologist Dr Francois Valla, director of the French Research Center in Jerusalem, says similar ancient clusters of tools have been excavated, but this latest one is "the most spectacular of them all".
"The clustering of these items is due to a decision made by some Natufian individual," Valla says.
"As such, it is a rare testimony of the behaviour of a person 14,000 years ago."
Headline of the day
French president visits Disney with ex-model (CNN)
An inspirational leader, mes amis.
The DNA might be synthetic, but you can bet the money will be real
Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 17, 2007; A01
It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.
Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.
Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.
In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.
The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial -- and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.
"This raises a range of big questions about what nature is and what it could be," said Paul Rabinow, an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies science's effects on society. "Evolutionary processes are no longer seen as sacred or inviolable. People in labs are figuring them out so they can improve upon them for different purposes."
That unprecedented degree of control over creation raises more than philosophical questions, however. What kinds of organisms will scientists, terrorists and other creative individuals make? How will these self-replicating entities be contained? And who might end up owning the patent rights to the basic tools for synthesizing life?
Some experts are worried that a few maverick companies are already gaining monopoly control over the core "operating system" for artificial life and are poised to become the Microsofts of synthetic biology. That could stifle competition, they say, and place enormous power in a few people's hands.
"We're heading into an era where people will be writing DNA programs like the early days of computer programming, but who will own these programs?" asked Drew Endy, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the core of synthetic biology's new ascendance are high-speed DNA synthesizers that can produce very long strands of genetic material from basic chemical building blocks: sugars, nitrogen-based compounds and phosphates.
Today a scientist can write a long genetic program on a computer just as a maestro might compose a musical score, then use a synthesizer to convert that digital code into actual DNA. Experiments with "natural" DNA indicate that when a faux chromosome gets plopped into a cell, it will be able to direct the destruction of the cell's old DNA and become its new "brain" -- telling the cell to start making a valuable chemical, for example, or a medicine or a toxin, or a bio-based gasoline substitute.
Unlike conventional biotechnology, in which scientists induce modest genetic changes in cells to make them serve industrial purposes, synthetic biology involves the large-scale rewriting of genetic codes to create metabolic machines with singular purposes.
"I see a cell as a chassis and power supply for the artificial systems we are putting together," said Tom Knight of MIT, who likes to compare the state of cell biology today to that of mechanical engineering in 1864. That is when the United States began to adopt standardized thread sizes for nuts and bolts, an advance that allowed the construction of complex devices from simple, interchangeable parts.
If biology is to morph into an engineering discipline, it is going to need similarly standardized parts, Knight said. So he and colleagues have started a collection of hundreds of interchangeable genetic components they call BioBricks, which students and others are already popping into cells like Lego pieces.
So far, synthetic biology is still semi-synthetic, involving single-cell organisms such as bacteria and yeast that have a blend of natural and synthetic DNA. The cells can reproduce, a defining trait of life. But in many cases that urge has been genetically suppressed, along with other "distracting" biological functions, to maximize productivity.
"Most cells go about life like we do, with the intention to make more of themselves after eating," said John Pierce, a vice president at DuPont in Wilmington, Del., a leader in the field. "But what we want them to do is make stuff we want."
J. Craig Venter, chief executive of Synthetic Genomics in Rockville, knows what he wants his cells to make: ethanol, hydrogen and other exotic fuels for vehicles, to fill a market that has been estimated to be worth $1 trillion.
In a big step toward that goal, Venter has now built the first fully artificial chromosome, a strand of DNA many times longer than anything made by others and laden with all the genetic components a microbe needs to get by.
Details of the process are under wraps until the work is published, probably early next year. But Venter has already shown that he can insert a "natural" chromosome into a cell and bring it to life. If a synthetic chromosome works the same way, as expected, the first living cells with fully artificial genomes could be growing in dishes by the end of 2008.
The plan is to mass-produce a plain genetic platform able to direct the basic functions of life, then attach custom-designed DNA modules that can compel cells to make synthetic fuels or other products.
It will be a challenge to cultivate fuel-spewing microbes, Venter acknowledged. Among other problems, he said, is that unless the fuel is constantly removed, "the bugs will basically pickle themselves."
But the hurdles are not insurmountable. LS9 Inc., a company in San Carlos, Calif., is already using E. coli bacteria that have been reprogrammed with synthetic DNA to produce a fuel alternative from a diet of corn syrup and sugar cane. So efficient are the bugs' synthetic metabolisms that LS9 predicts it will be able to sell the fuel for just $1.25 a gallon.
At a DuPont plant in Tennessee, other semi-synthetic bacteria are living on cornstarch and making the chemical 1,3 propanediol, or PDO. Millions of pounds of the stuff are being spun and woven into high-tech fabrics (DuPont's chief executive wears a pinstripe suit made of it), putting the bug-begotten chemical on track to become the first $1 billion biotech product that is not a pharmaceutical.
Engineers at DuPont studied blueprints of E. coli's metabolism and used synthetic DNA to help the bacteria make PDO far more efficiently than could have been done with ordinary genetic engineering.
"If you want to sell it at a dollar a gallon . . . you need every bit of efficiency you can muster," said DuPont's Pierce. "So we're running these bugs to their limits."
Yet another application is in medicine, where synthetic DNA is allowing bacteria and yeast to produce the malaria drug artemisinin far more efficiently than it is made in plants, its natural source.
Bugs such as these will seem quaint, scientists say, once fully synthetic organisms are brought on line to work 24/7 on a range of tasks, from industrial production to chemical cleanups. But the prospect of a flourishing synbio economy has many wondering who will own the valuable rights to that life.
In the past year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been flooded with aggressive synthetic-biology claims. Some of Venter's applications, in particular, "are breathtaking in their scope," said Knight. And with Venter's company openly hoping to develop "an operating system for biologically-based software," some fear it is seeking synthetic hegemony.
"We've asked our patent lawyers to be reasonable and not to be overreaching," Venter said. But competitors such as DuPont, he said, "have just blanketed the field with patent applications."
Safety concerns also loom large. Already a few scientists have made viruses from scratch. The pending ability to make bacteria -- which, unlike viruses, can live and reproduce in the environment outside of a living body -- raises new concerns about contamination, contagion and the potential for mischief.
"Ultimately synthetic biology means cheaper and widely accessible tools to build bioweapons, virulent pathogens and artificial organisms that could pose grave threats to people and the planet," concluded a recent report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, one of dozens of advocacy groups that want a ban on releasing synthetic organisms pending wider societal debate and regulation.
"The danger is not just bio-terror but bio-error," the report says.
Many scientists say the threat has been overblown. Venter notes that his synthetic genomes are spiked with special genes that make the microbes dependent on a rare nutrient not available in nature. And Pierce, of DuPont, says the company's bugs are too spoiled to survive outdoors.
"They are designed to grow in a cosseted environment with very high food levels," Pierce said. "You throw this guy out on the ground, he just can't compete. He's toast."
"We've heard that before," said Jim Thomas, ETC Group's program manager, noting that genes engineered into crops have often found their way into other plants despite assurances to the contrary. "The fact is, you can build viruses, and soon bacteria, from downloaded instructions on the Internet," Thomas said. "Where's the governance and oversight?"
In fact, government controls on trade in dangerous microbes do not apply to the bits of DNA that can be used to create them. And while some industry groups have talked about policing the field themselves, the technology is quickly becoming so simple, experts say, that it will not be long before "bio hackers" working in garages will be downloading genetic programs and making them into novel life forms.
"The cat is out of the bag," said Jay Keasling, chief of synthetic biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Andrew Light, an environmental ethicist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said synthetic biology poses a conundrum because of its double-edged ability to both wreak biological havoc and perhaps wean civilization from dirty 20th-century technologies and petroleum-based fuels.
"For the environmental community, I think this is going to be a really hard choice," Light said.
Depending on how people adjust to the idea of man-made life -- and on how useful the first products prove to be -- the field could go either way, Light said.
"It could be that synthetic biology is going to be like cellphones: so overwhelming and ubiquitous that no one notices it anymore. Or it could be like abortion -- the kind of deep disagreement that will not go away."
The question, if the abortion model holds, is which side of the synthetic biology debate will get to call itself "pro-life."
“The plan is to mass-produce a plain genetic platform able to direct the basic functions of life, then attach custom-designed DNA modules that can compel cells to make synthetic fuels or other products.” Yeah, and a chance to make Bhopal look like a day at the beach.
Public relations pros rejoice: Spin inherent in the universe
Milky Way double haloes spin both ways
Thursday, 13 December 2007 Anna Salleh
ABC
For decades scientists have wondered how the Milky Way formed. Now the discovery that our galaxy has a double halo sheds new light on the debate
The halo of stars surrounding the Milky Way is made up of two different parts that spin in opposite directions, according to an international team of astronomers.
The findings could help settle a long-standing debate about how our galaxy and its halo formed.
The research could also help astronomers pin down much sought-after astronomical evidence of conditions just after the Big Bang.
PhD student Daniela Carollo, based at Australia's Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, and colleagues, report their findings today in the journal Nature.
The Milky Way halo is a sphere of ancient stars, invisible to the naked eye, that surrounds the familiar flattened spiral disc of the galaxy.
"We believe there are two main parts to the halo. It's not one simple halo," says Carollo's co-author and PhD supervisor Professor John Norris.
For decades astronomers have debated how the Milky Way formed after the Big Bang 10 billion years ago.
Some argue the halo was left behind as the centre of a cloud of gas collapsed to form the flat spiral disc that is so characteristic of our galaxy.
Others say the halo was formed from smaller galaxies outside the collapsing gas cloud that were pulled in by gravity.
The problem, says Norris, is that these theories were derived from a relatively small sample of stars.
Carollo, Norris and colleagues instead studied over 25,000 stars from a recent large survey of the Milky Way called SEGUE.
This allowed them to analyse how stars move in the Milky Way halo, and their chemical composition.
Inner and outer haloes
The researchers found inner and outer haloes, which rotate in opposite directions.
They found the inner halo is a flattened sphere rotating in the same direction as our sun but more slowly.
The Milky Way's spiral disc takes 200 million years to rotate, at around 800,000 kilometres per hour, while the inner halo rotates at around 80,000 kilometres per hour.
The inner halo also contains 40 times fewer heavy elements than the sun because it is much older and heavy metals like iron took billions of years to accumulate in the universe.
These facts are consistent with the halo forming as a result of a collapsing cloud of gas, says Norris.
The outer halo is a sphere that rotates at around 160,000 kilometres per hour in the opposite direction to the sun.
It has even fewer heavy metals than the inner halo and is similar to the composition of the smaller galaxies that surround the Milky Way.
Norris says these facts are consistent with the other theory that suggests the halo was creating from smaller galaxies that were attracted by the forming Milky Way.
Both theories true
Such evidence suggests the two competing theories about how the Milky Way was formed may not be competing after all.
"Each of them is probably true," says Norris.
He says while only time will tell whether this is the case, the "hard fact" is that there are two components of the halo.
"Even if what I've told you about how it might have come about is all nonsense, it's an important fact that people have to explain [in future theories of how the Milky Way formed]."
Norris says the discovery could help astronomers find stars that are low in heavy elements.
These chemically primitive stars give insight into the conditions present just after the Big Bang, he says. They are fossils of the early universe but are extremely rare.
Finding them remains a classic "needle in a haystack problem", says Norris. But discovering a chemically distinct outer halo, "gives us a much better way to search the haystack."
Other headline of the day
Pastor takes leave of absence over his online porn addiction
(Tampabay.com)
Oh my god…….
Friday, December 14, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/14/07
Our response to the Mitchell Report can be summed up in two words: player's coffee.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 12/13/07
It’s so much easier to find them when they glow in the dark. Right now they’re probably over by the glow in the dark kim chee
South Koreans clone cats that glow in the dark: officials
Dec 12 04:00 PM US/Eastern
Japanese Scientists Create Mice With No Fear Of Cats
South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday.
In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.
A team of scientists led by Kong Il-keun, a cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, produced three cats possessing altered fluorescence protein (RFP) genes, the Ministry of Science and Technology said.
"It marked the first time in the world that cats with RFP genes have been cloned," the ministry said in a statement.
"The ability to produce cloned cats with the manipulated genes is significant as it could be used for developing treatments for genetic diseases and for reproducing model (cloned) animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," it added.
The cats were born in January and February. One was stillborn while two others grew to become adult Turkish Angoras, weighing 3.0 kilogrammes (6.6 pounds) and 3.5 kilogrammes.
"This technology can be applied to clone animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," the leading scientist, Kong, told AFP.
"It will also help develop stemcell treatments," he said, noting that cats have some 250 kinds of genetic diseases that affect humans, too.
The technology can also help clone endangered animals like tigers, leopards and wildcats, Kong said.
South Korea's bio-engineering industry suffered a setback after a much-touted achievement by cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk turned out to have been faked.
The government banned Hwang from research using human eggs after his claims that he created the first human stem cells through cloning were ruled last year to be bogus.
Hwang is standing trial on charges of fraud and embezzlement.
Mice with no fear of cats? This is how the unraveling begins.
What? Do you mean as a career path?
Study: Young adults now find porn more acceptable
Availability online may be a factor
By Kathleen Fackelmann
USA TODAY
College students, including young women, are far more accepting of pornography than their parents, a shift that might be related to easy access to porn on the Internet, a study reports today.
Most young women in the study said they personally did not use porn, but nearly half said viewing X-rated material was an acceptable way to express sexuality. Only 37% of the fathers and 20% of the mothers surveyed agreed.
The attitude of the young women and men in the study might be influenced by pornographic images that have proliferated on the Internet in the past 10 years, says Jeffrey Arnett, the editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research, which will publish the study in January.
In the 1980s, young adults had to go to a store and ask for the porn magazines, which often were kept behind the counter.
But Arnett says kids today are the first generation in which X-rated images can be pulled up with wireless technology from a hand-held device.
"We're in an age of pocket porn," says study author Jason Carroll.
Carroll, a social sciences researcher at Brigham Young University, and his colleagues studied 813 college students from six schools across the USA. The students went online and answered questions about their views on pornography.
The researchers found that young men were much more likely to use pornography: 86% reported that they viewed such material in the past year. The study also found that one in five young men said they viewed pornographic material every day or nearly every day.
But only 31% of young women reported any viewing of pornography. Only 3.2% said they saw such material weekly or daily.
The gender differences in use and acceptance raise a lot of questions, Arnett says. For example, will the college students change their attitudes toward porn as they get older and form stable relationships? Young women who say they are tolerant of viewing Internet porn might not be so accepting of a spouse who's visiting an X-rated site every day, he says.
The study also linked regular porn use with risky behaviors, Carroll says. Regular porn users were more likely to go on drinking binges and more likely to have sex with multiple partners.
Additional studies must be done to determine whether frequent porn use leads to greater acceptance of such behavior, which can put students at risk for a host of health problems, such as alcoholism and sexually transmitted diseases, he says.
Children and teenagers are regularly bombarded with X-rated and suggestive images that imply that casual hook-ups are the norm, says Sabrina Weill, editor in chief of MomLogic, a website that helps mothers deal with a variety of parenting problems.
"It's really important for mothers to have a frank conversation with their kids," she says, because children who can talk openly to their parents are more likely to go on to make wise decisions in college.
We can’t tell if she really believes that or is just paid to believe that.
Regular porn users were more likely to go on drinking binges and more likely to have sex with multiple partners. And your point is?
I’m going to keep doing this until it’s not my fault anymore
Women Persist In Plastic Surgery Treatments That Are Not Working, Research Says
ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — Women are more likely to persist with using creams, supplements and plastic surgery to look younger if they feel these are not yet working, new research says.
A study of 297 women aged from 27 to 65 years found that they were more motivated to persist with special diets, vitamins, creams, Botox or plastic surgery if they believed these had so far failed to make them look significantly younger.
The researchers, Professor Brett Martin and Dr Rana Sobh, found that women who used these means to look younger were trying to avoid a 'feared self' -- an image of themselves they had of appearing wrinkled and old.
They have found that when women want to avoid this feared self, they kept trying if they perceive themselves to be failing, but as soon as they began to succeed their anxiety lessened and they stopped trying.
Professor Martin, of the University of Bath, UK, and Dr Sobh, of Qatar University, found that of those women who felt that the treatments they were taking were not working, 73 per cent wanted to continue using them. Among those women who felt the treatments were working, only 45 per cent wanted to continue.
"This study is more evidence for the belief that when someone is thinking negatively about themselves, and they try and fail to improve their situation, they will be motivated to try again," said Dr Sobh, of Qatar University's College of Business.
"How women imagine themselves in the future has a strong effect on how motivated they are to keep using a product or service such as creams or other treatments for ageing.
"When people dwell on a negative future, they are motivated by fear, yet as they move away from this feared state -- say a wrinkled skin -- they become less motivated to carry on using a product or service."
Professor Martin, who has carried out a study on men and women using gyms, said: "This doesn't just apply to women -- men have a similar psychology about using a gym to get fit and look good."
Professor Martin said that as people became happier with their bodies, so they entered a more positive frame of mind. In this state, they became more strongly motivated by success and not by failure, as before, something the researchers believe marketers should bear in mind when selling their products.
Of the 297 women in the study, in the previous year:
* 37 % had used a special diet
* 61 % had used vitamins
* 48 % had taken a sauna
* 96 % had used moisturising cream
* 75 % had used anti-ageing skin care products such as lotions or gels
* 70 % had used a mini-facial such as an exfoliant or peeling cream
* 48 % had used in-salon treatments such as facials or light therapy
* 3 % had used treatments by doctors such as lasers, Botox, chemical peeling
* 0.25 % (1 person) had had a face-lift.
That mixer must be in here somewhere
Man Drinks Liter of Vodka at Airport Line
BERLIN (AP) - A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.
The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt.
New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked as cargo.
Instead, he chugged the bottle down—and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.
A doctor called to the scene determined he had possibly life- threatening alcohol poisoning, and he was sent to a Nuremberg clinic for treatment.
The man, whose name was not released, is expected to be able to complete his journey home in a few days.
Trust us, everything we told you is wrong
What if bad fat isn’t so bad?
No one's ever proved that saturated fat clogs arteries, causes heart disease
Suppose you were forced to live on a diet of red meat and whole milk. A diet that, all told, was at least 60 percent fat — about half of it saturated. If your first thoughts are of statins and stents, you may want to consider the curious case of the Masai, a nomadic tribe in Kenya and Tanzania.
In the 1960s, a Vanderbilt University scientist named George Mann, M.D., found that Masai men consumed this very diet (supplemented with blood from the cattle they herded). Yet these nomads, who were also very lean, had some of the lowest levels of cholesterol ever measured and were virtually free of heart disease.
Scientists, confused by the finding, argued that the tribe must have certain genetic protections against developing high cholesterol. But when British researchers monitored a group of Masai men who moved to Nairobi and began consuming a more modern diet, they discovered that the men's cholesterol subsequently skyrocketed.
Similar observations were made of the Samburu — another Kenyan tribe — as well as the Fulani of Nigeria. While the findings from these cultures seem to contradict the fact that eating saturated fat leads to heart disease, it may surprise you to know that this "fact" isn't a fact at all. It is, more accurately, a hypothesis from the 1950s that's never been proved.
The first scientific indictment of saturated fat came in 1953. That's the year a physiologist named Ancel Keys, Ph.D., published a highly influential paper titled "Atherosclerosis, a Problem in Newer Public Health." Keys wrote that while the total death rate in the United States was declining, the number of deaths due to heart disease was steadily climbing. And to explain why, he presented a comparison of fat intake and heart disease mortality in six countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Italy, and Japan.
The Americans ate the most fat and had the greatest number of deaths from heart disease; the Japanese ate the least fat and had the fewest deaths from heart disease. The other countries fell neatly in between. The higher the fat intake, according to national diet surveys, the higher the rate of heart disease. And vice versa. Keys called this correlation a "remarkable relationship" and began to publicly hypothesize that consumption of fat causes heart disease. This became known as the diet-heart hypothesis.
At the time, plenty of scientists were skeptical of Keys's assertions. One such critic was Jacob Yerushalmy, Ph.D., founder of the biostatistics graduate program at the University of California at Berkeley. In a 1957 paper, Yerushalmy pointed out that while data from the six countries Keys examined seemed to support the diet-heart hypothesis, statistics were actually available for 22 countries. And when all 22 were analyzed, the apparent link between fat consumption and heart disease disappeared. For example, the death rate from heart disease in Finland was 24 times that of Mexico, even though fat-consumption rates in the two nations were similar.
The other salient criticism of Keys's study was that he had observed only a correlation between two phenomena, not a clear causative link. So this left open the possibility that something else — unmeasured or unimagined — was leading to heart disease. After all, Americans did eat more fat than the Japanese, but perhaps they also consumed more sugar and white bread, and watched more television.
Despite the apparent flaws in Keys's argument, the diet-heart hypothesis was compelling, and it was soon heavily promoted by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the media. It offered the worried public a highly educated guess as to why the country was in the midst of a heart-disease epidemic. "People should know the facts," Keys said in a 1961 interview with Time magazine, for which he appeared on the cover. "Then if they want to eat themselves to death, let them."
The seven-countries study, published in 1970, is considered Ancel Keys's landmark achievement. It seemed to lend further credence to the diet-heart hypothesis. In this study, Keys reported that in the seven countries he selected — the United States, Japan, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Finland, and the Netherlands — animal-fat intake was a strong predictor of heart attacks over a 5-year period. Just as important, he noted an association between total cholesterol and heart-disease mortality. This prompted him to conclude that the saturated fats in animal foods — and not other types of fat — raise cholesterol and ultimately lead to heart disease.
Naturally, proponents of the diet-heart hypothesis hailed the study as proof that eating saturated fat leads to heart attacks. But the data was far from rock solid. That's because in three countries (Finland, Greece, and Yugoslavia), the correlation wasn't seen.
And you wonder why nobody knows nothin’ and nobody learns nothin’?
Conn. Teacher Calls Police Over Impromptu Karaoke
Teacher Barricades Herself Inside Classroom After Hearing 'Welcome To The Jungle'
ROXBURY, Conn. (AP) —
A school custodian's impromptu after-hours karaoke performance prompted a police response when a teacher thought she was being threatened over the loudspeaker.
State police say a teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N' Roses song over the public address system for a threat.
She was working after hours and thought no one else was in the building. Then she heard someone say over the loudspeaker that she was going to die.
Six troopers and three police dogs showed up and found three teenagers, one of them a custodian at the school, who had been playing with the public address system.
Police say one of them sang "Welcome to the Jungle" into the microphone. The song contains the lyrics "You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die."
The teenagers were cuffed on the ground for about 15 minutes while police investigated. They were released after being questioned and state police Sgt. Brian Ness said they did not realize the teacher was in the school and will not face charges.
"These things happen," Van Ness said. "Luckily it was humorous. You kind of have a gut feeling. As soon as we got there, we spoke to the three kids. They understood."
Ah yes, the kind of person who introduces herself as an “educator.”
Please note: the earlier report that the dolphins who washed ashore were the punter and the place kicker are simply not true
Rescue Effort Under Way After 5th Dolphin Death
Red Tide May Be Cause
Rescuers rushed to the Mosquito Lagoon where authorities said two dolphins were trapped. Experts said they're investigating whether the dolphins are being affected by a worsening red tide bloom.
Earlier in the day, owners of a New Smyrna Beach condominium spotted the carcass of a dolphin and contacted authorities for help. A baby dolphin was later found nearby with its umbilical cord still attached. Experts said the adult may have expelled the baby at death. They join four others that died just one day earlier along the beach. It's unclear whether the baby will be counted as the six death because it hadn't yet been born.
Several other dead fish were also found along the shoreline with other smaller creatures. A county marine stranding unit was called to the beach to collect the remains.
The dolphins that died Wednesday were found by a ranger at the northern end of Canaveral National Seashore. They were removed by the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, based in Orlando.
Biologist Megan Stolen said the institute will test the dolphins to confirm whether toxins from red tide killed them.
Stolen said red tide is common on the Gulf Coast, where large blooms have killed hundreds of dolphins. The algae blooms usually do not make it to the East Coast.
Experts said a small population of red tide got caught up in the Gulf Stream last month and spun around the Keys and up the Atlantic coast.
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