Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from io9.com.
The Chemicals of Love – Five Ways Science Helps You Get Turned On
By Ed Grabianowski
Humans have been trying to find a chemical shortcut to love (or just lust) for thousands of years. But has anyone proven that aphrodisiacs work? Yes! Today, we give you five scientifically-verified substances that get you ready for love.
There are two types of aphrodisiacs: traditional foods or chemicals that have a reputation for enhancing or causing sexual desire; and foods or drugs that affect physical arousal, making us better able to act on our desires. Regardless of the chemical results, users may experience a placebo effect with any of these substances.
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
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Slideshows/Videos
CNET: Watch a laser gun kill mosquitoes
by Chris Matyszczyk
You can actually find useful things on eBay.
This has undoubtedly been proven by an extremely clever person, Nathan Myhrvold. At the TED 2010 conference, Myhrvold revealed that his invention company, Intellectual Ventures, had developed a mean, heartless, and very sophisticated laser gun, one that might remind you of your favorite science fiction movie. (Which, in my case, is "Galaxy Quest.")
This laser gun has, unlike so many other guns, a rather positive purpose. It kills mosquitoes. It zaps them like the deadly little flying worms that they are.
MSN Lifestyle: 12 of the Most Bizarre Sea Creatures
Check out these 12 indescribably strange creatures recently dragged up from the Southern Ocean by research scientists.
Mongabay.com: Video: Sunda clouded leopard caught on film for the first time
By Jeremy Hance
Carnivore researchers have captured the first footage of the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) in Malaysia. The island's largest predator was only proclaimed a unique species in 2006 when genetic evidence and analysis of its markings proved it was distinct enough from its mainland relative—the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)—to be considered a new species. The recent classification has prompted renewed interest in this elusive and threatened cat.
The film, the first showing a Sunda clouded leopard (also known as the Bornean clouded leopard), was captured in the Dermakot Forest Reserve in the Malaysian part of Borneo. Researchers studying the cat, along with four other carnivores in the area (including four other cat species) encountered an individual Sunda clouded leopard while driving one night—a truly rare occurrence.
Mongabay.com: First footage captured of giant sea serpent of the deep: the oarfish
By Jeremy Hance
Scientists have captured what they believe to be the first footage ever of the oarfish, the species likely responsible for legends told of sea serpents.
Deep in the gulf of Mexico, researchers photographed a swimming oarfish (Regalecus glesne) for several minutes. They captured the footage using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) provided by oil companies, who are drilling in the gulf.
Astronomy/Space
Scientific American: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory launches successfully
By John Matson
A NASA satellite that promises to deliver an unprecedented volume of data about the workings of the sun launched successfully atop an Atlas 5 rocket Thursday. The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:23 A.M. (Eastern Standard Time) after a one-day delay due to high winds at the launch site. The satellite separated from the upper rocket stage and deployed its solar arrays about two hours later.
Reuters via News Daily: Astronauts install space station's last hub
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Feb. 12, 2010 (Reuters) — The shuttle Endeavour crew bolted the last connecting module onto the International Space Station on Friday, completing more than a decade of major construction on the outpost.
During the first of three spacewalks planned during Endeavour's 13-day mission, astronauts Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick prepared the 18-tonne module to be transferred from the shuttle's cargo bay to the station.
Crewmates Kay Hire and Terry Virts then used the station's robot arm to install the module onto the station's Unity node, the last major assembly task for the U.S. portion of the $100 billion orbital outpost.
Reuters via News Daily: First Russian launch from French Guiana delayed-agency
by Conor Sweeney
MOSCOW, Feb. 12, 2010 (Reuters) — The first launch of a Russian space rocket from a site outside Moscow's control has been delayed while engineers test a service tower, Interfax news agency reported on Friday.
A modified Soyuz cargo ship had been due to take off before the end of this year from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana. Its location close to the equator means less fuel is needed to reach a geostationary orbit than launches from Russia's Baikonur site in Kazakhstan.
The new vehicle will be able to carry payloads of up to 3 tonnes into orbit, nearly double the weight that can be launched from Baikonur.
Evolution/Paleontology
Montreal Gazette: Yukon fossils reveal earliest traces of animal life
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service
Add a remote Yukon mountain to the exclusive list of places around the world where scientists have discovered the earliest traces of animal life.
Microscopic fossils at Mount Slipper, a 1,500-metre peak north of Dawson City near the Yukon-Alaska border, have been dated to nearly 800 million years ago by a team of U.S. geologists, who describe the site as an important new record of "eukaryotic evolution" — the branch of life that eventually gave rise to humans and all other animals.
The new research, published in the latest edition of the journal Geology, involved a re-examination of previous studies of the Mount Slipper fossils and a fresh analysis that pushes back the age of the specimens by about 200 million years.
Physorg.com: Giant fossil Prototaxites: Unraveling a 400-million-year-old mystery
February 10, 2010 Contradictions and puzzles surround the giant fossil Prototaxites. The fossils resemble tree trunks, and yet they are from a time before trees existed. The stable carbon isotope values are similar to those of fungi, but the fossils do not display structures usually found in fungi. Plant-like polymers have been found in the fossils, but nutritional evidence supports heterotrophy, which is not commonly found in plants. These are a few of the confounding factors surrounding the identification of Prototaxites fossils.
Since the first fossil of Prototaxites was described in 1859, researchers have hypothesized that these organisms were giant algae, fungi, or lichens. A recent study by Dr. Linda Graham and her colleagues published evidence in the February issue of the American Journal of Botany that they believe resolves this long-standing mystery.
NPR: What Rotting Fish Reveal About The Fossil Record
Anyone with a functioning nose probably wants to stay away from rotting fish, but a team of British researchers braved the stench — and turned something gross into scientific gold.
According to a study just published in the journal Nature, fish — and other living creatures — don't decompose in a random order. It's the newly evolved parts that go first.
That could have a major impact on the way we read the fossil record. Dr. Rob Sansom is a researcher at the University of Leicester and the leader of the study. He tells NPR's Guy Raz that decomposition plays an important part in the formation of fossils.
Wired: Stunningly Preserved 165-Million-Year-Old Spider Fossil Found
By Tia Ghose
Scientists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved spider fossil in China dating back to the middle Jurassic era, 165 million years ago. The fossilized spiders, Eoplectreurys gertschi, are older than the only two other specimens known by around 120 million years.
The level of detail preserved in the fossils is amazing, said paleontologist Paul Selden of the University of Kansas and lead author of the study appearing Feb. 6 in Naturwissenschaften. "You go in with a microscope, and bingo! It’s fantastic."
The fossils were found at a site called Daohugou in Northern China that is filled with fossilized salamanders, small primitive mammals, insects and water crustaceans. During the Jurassic era, the fossil bed was part of a lake in a volcanic region, Selden said.
Science Daily: Bird-from-Dinosaur Theory of Evolution Challenged: Was It the Other Way Around?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — A new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides yet more evidence that birds did not descend from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs, experts say, and continues to challenge decades of accepted theories about the evolution of flight.
A new analysis was done of an unusual fossil specimen discovered in 2003 called "microraptor," in which three-dimensional models were used to study its possible flight potential, and it concluded this small, feathered species must have been a "glider" that came down from trees. The research is well done and consistent with a string of studies in recent years that pose increasing challenge to the birds-from-dinosaurs theory, said John Ruben, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University who authored a commentary in PNAS on the new research.
The weight of the evidence is now suggesting that not only did birds not descend from dinosaurs, Ruben said, but that some species now believed to be dinosaurs may have descended from birds.
Biodiversity
Mongabay.com: Brazil's Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica)
By Jeremy Hance
No large tropical forest ecosystem has suffered so much loss as the Mata Atlântica, also known as the Atlantic Forest. Encompassing a variety of tropical forest habitats—from dry forests to moist forests to coastal mangroves—the Mata Atlântica once stretched up-and-down Brazil's coastline, and covered parts of Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. Today, it survives largely in small degraded patches and protected areas.
Historically, the Mata Atlântica made up over a 1.2 million square kilometers (about a quarter of the size of the Amazon), but after centuries of deforestation for timber, sugar cane, coffee, cattle ranching, and urban sprawl the Mata Atlântica has declined by well over 90 percent: today less than 100,000 square kilometers of the forest remains.
Although nearly adjacent to the Amazon rainforest, the Mata Atlântica has always been isolated from its larger and more famous neighbor. It is, in fact, more ancient than the Amazon. Being cut off from other tropical forests has allowed the Mata Atlântica to evolve unique ecosystems, which harbor a large number of species found no-where else on Earth.
Mongabay.com: How to end Madagascar's logging crisis
Commentary by Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
In the aftermath of a military coup last March, Madagascar's rainforests have been pillaged for precious hardwoods, including rosewood and ebony. Tens of thousands of hectares have been affected, including some of the island's most biologically diverse national parks: Marojejy, Masoala, and Makira. Illegal logging has also spurred the rise of a commercial bushmeat trade. Hunters are now slaughtering rare and gentle lemurs for restaurants.
Furthermore, armed gangs marauding through national parks have hurt tourism, a critical source of direct and indirect income for many Malagasy, as the people of Madagascar are known. Rosewood traders have intimidated, and in some cases even beaten, those who have attempted to stop the plunder. Conservation NGOs operating in affected areas have been rendered impotent because the ruling "transition authority" — made up of the coup leaders — is now taking an active role in the logging, possibly as a means to finance upcoming elections they hope will legitimize their power grab. To this end, Andry Rajoelina, the head of the transition authority, recently authorized the export of rosewood logs, a traffic previously banned. This triggered a frenzy of logging that has gone underreported due to the regime's crackdown on the press. The perceived illegitimacy of the Rajoelina regime had led foreign donors to suspend most aid to the country, undercutting environmental protection programs and law enforcement. The situation is dire.
Mongabay.com: Forgotten Species: the fiery Luristan Newt
By Jeremy Hance
No one knows how the term salamander transferred from a mythical fire-dwelling monster to the small amphibious animals it applies to today, but I have a theory. Perhaps the sight of salamanders like Luristan newt—charcoal-black and flame-orange—caused people in the seventeenth century to lend the name of myth to the taxa.
Native to a tiny river region in the Zagros mountians of Iran, the Luristan newt Neurergus kaiseri stuns everyone who works with it.
"It's one of the most beautiful amphibians in the world, and a spectacular animal to see in person," says Nate Nelson, curator of amphibians, reptiles, and fish at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Witchita, Kansas. The zoo is involved in a breeding program for Luristan newts with hopes to one day release individuals back into the wild.
Mongabay.com: New spiny pocket mouse discovered in the mountainous rainforests of Venezuela
By Jeremy Hance
Researchers have discovered a new species of spiny mouse that lives on four mountainous forests in the Cordillera de la Costa mountain range, which runs along Venezuela's northern coast.
Discovered by Dr. Robert P. Anderson, Associate Professor of Biology at The City College of New York, and Ph.D. student Eliécer E. Gutiérrez, the new spiny mouse has been named Heteromys catopterius, which means the 'height that commands the view'. The mouse has come to be known as the Overlook Spiny Pocket Mouse.
Mongabay.com: Expedition to save world's rarest cetacean threatened by lack of funding
By Jeremy Hance
Little known beyond the waters of the Gulf of California, the world's smallest cetacean (a group including whales, dolphins, and porpoises) is hanging on by a thread. The vaquita—which in Spanish means 'little cow'—has recently gained the dubious distinction of not only being the world's smallest cetacean, but the also the world's rarest. In 2006 it was announced that the Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, was likely extinct, and conservationists fear the Critically Endangered 'little cow' is next. An expedition for this year is set to identify vaquita individuals, but even this is threatened by lack of funding.
Tobias Nowlan, a member of the proposed expedition, told mongabay.com that the situation was dire with only 100 individual vaquitas left in the world. The vaquita lives in what Nowlan calls "the most restricted range of any marine mammal", inhabiting about 2,500 square kilometers of the Gulf of California.
As far as researchers know the vaquita is threatened by one thing and one thing only: gillnets used to catch the local fish totoaba (which is also considered Critically Endangered).
Biotechnology/Health
Science Daily: Scientists Synthesize Unique Family of Anti-Cancer Compounds
ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2010) — Yale University scientists have streamlined the process for synthesizing a family of compounds with the potential to kill cancer and other diseased cells, and have found that they represent a unique category of anti-cancer agents. Their discovery appears in this week's online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The team studied a family of compounds known as the kinamycins, which are naturally produced by bacteria during metabolism and are known for their potent toxicity. For years scientists have guessed that a core structure common to the different compounds within the group was responsible for this toxicity. Until now, chemists could not study the core structure because there was no simple way to create it in the laboratory.
Now the Yale team has developed a new method to recreate this structure that allows them to synthesize the kinamycins with much greater efficiency than previously possible. While scientists have produced kinamycins in the laboratory in the past, the Yale team was able to halve the number of steps required to go from simple, easily obtainable precursors to the complete molecule -- from 24 down to 12.
Climate/Environment
University of Michigan: 'Fingerprinting' method reveals fate of mercury in Arctic snow
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A study by University of Michigan researchers offers new insight into what happens to mercury deposited onto Arctic snow from the atmosphere.
The work also provides a new approach to tracking mercury's movement through Arctic ecosystems.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but some 2000 tons of it enter the global environment each year from human-generated sources such as coal-burning power plants, incinerators and chlorine-producing plants.
Mongabay.com: China is polluted: first national survey paints disturbing picture
Jeremy Hance
The first ever national survey of pollution in China shows a nation that has paid for its economic growth in environmental pollution.
Measuring nearly six million sources of pollution in China, experts say that in 2007 alone the nation dumped 30.3 million metric tons of pollutants into its water. Doubling official government figures, these measurements included for the first time chemical wastes from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, which many environmentalists say farmers in China systematically overuse.
In fact, one of the surprises was the amount of pollution stemming from agriculture, including accounting for 243 million tons of livestock feces and 163 million tons of livestock urine. According to the report 43 percent of the nation's chemical oxygen demand (COD)—a standard way to measure water pollution—comes from agricultural practices.
Mongabay.com: Chinese farming practices are acidifying soils
Jeremy Hance
A new study in Science shows that farming practices in China are acidifying the nation's soils and threatening long term productivity at a time when food concerns worldwide have never been higher. The culprit is the increasing use of nitrogen fertilizer.
"Chinese agriculture has intensified greatly since the early 1980s on a limited land area with large inputs of chemical fertilizers and other resources," the authors note, pointing out that nitrogen fertilizer consumption in China reached 32.6 million tons in 2007, an increase of 191 percent over 1981 levels.
"The rates of [nitrogen] applied in some regions are extraordinarily high as compared with those of North America and Europe. These have degraded soils and environmental quality in the North China Plain and in the Taihu Lake region in south China," the authors explain.
Mongabay.com: Desertification threatens 38 percent of the world
Jeremy Hance
Over one third of the world's land surface (38 percent) is threatened with desertification, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. The study found that eight of fifteen eco-regions are threatened by desertification, including coastal areas, the prairies, the Mediterranean region, the savannah, the temperate steppes, the temperate deserts, tropical and subtropical steppes, and the tropical and subtropical deserts.
"The greatest risk of desertification (7.6 out of 10 on a scale produced using various desertification indicators) is in the subtropical desert regions – North Africa, the countries of the Middle East, Australia, South West China and the western edge of South America", said Montserrat Núñez, lead author and a researcher at the Institute of Agro Food Research and Technology (IRTA). Many of these regions have already experienced pockets of desertification.
Mongabay.com: Commodity trade and urbanization, rather than rural poverty, drive deforestation
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
Forest conservation via REDD may be ineffective without addressing commodity consumption and trade, argues a new paper that looks at the implications of changing drivers of deforestation on new policy measures to protect forests.
Deforestation is increasingly correlated to urban population growth and trade rather than rural poverty, suggesting that measures proposed to reduce deforestation will be ineffective if they fail to address demand for commodities produced on forest lands, argues a new paper published in Nature GeoScience.
Using newly available, spatially explicit analysis of tropical forest loss, Ruth S. DeFries, Thomas Rudel, Maria Uriarte and Matthew Hansen determined that from 2000-2005, rural population growth was not associated with forest loss, "indicating the importance of urban-based and international demands for agricultural products as drivers of deforestation." The results are a departure from research for earlier periods that has shown rural population growth to be the primary driver of deforestation.
Geology
Science Daily: Carbonate Veins Reveal Chemistry of Ancient Seawater
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2010) — The chemical composition of our oceans is not constant but has varied significantly over geological time. In a study published in Science, researchers describe a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry using calcium carbonate veins that precipitate from seawater-derived fluids in rocks beneath the seafloor.
The research was led by scientists from the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS).
"Records of ancient seawater chemistry allow us to unravel past changes in climate, plate tectonics and evolution of life in the oceans. These processes affect ocean chemistry and have shaped our planet over millions of years," said Dr Rosalind Coggon, formerly of NOCS now at Imperial College London.
Science Daily: Models of Sea Level Change During Ice-Age Cycles Challenged
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Theories about the rates of ice accumulation and melting during the Quaternary Period -- the time interval ranging from 2.6 million years ago to the present -- may need to be revised, thanks to research findings published by a University of Iowa researcher and his colleagues in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science.
Jeffrey Dorale, assistant professor of geoscience in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, writes that global sea level and Earth's climate are closely linked. Data he and colleagues collected on speleothem encrustations (see photo right), a type of mineral deposit, in coastal caves on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca indicate that sea level was about one meter above present-day levels around 81,000 years ago. The finding challenges other data that indicate sea level was as low as 30 meters -- the ice equivalent of four Greenland ice sheets -- below present-day levels.
He said the sea level high stand of 81,000 years ago was preceded by rapid ice melting, on the order of 20 meters of sea level change per thousand years and the sea level drop following the high water mark, accompanied by ice formation, was equally rapid.
Science Daily: Link Between Exploration Well and Lusi Mud Volcano, Strongest Evidence to Date Shows
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2010) — New data provides the strongest evidence to date that the world's biggest mud volcano, which killed 13 people in 2006 and displaced thirty thousand people in East Java, Indonesia, was not caused by an earthquake, according to an international scientific team that includes researchers from Durham University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Drilling firm Lapindo Brantas has denied that a nearby gas exploration well was the trigger for the volcano, instead blaming an earthquake that occurred 280 kilometers (174 miles) away. They backed up their claims in an article accepted for publication in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, by lead author Nurrochmat Sawolo, senior drilling adviser for Lapindo Brantas, and colleagues.
In response, a group of scientists from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Indonesia led by Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute, have written a discussion paper in which they refute the main arguments made by Nurrochmat Sawolo and document new data that provides the strongest evidence to date of a link between the well and the volcano. That paper has been accepted for publication in the same journal.
Science Daily: Future Earthquake Risk in Haiti: Startling Images of Ground Motion Help Scientists Understand Risk of Aftershocks
ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — Scientists at the University of Miami have analyzed images based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations taken before and just after Haiti's earthquake, on January 12. The images reveal surprising new details.
The images were obtained using data from Japan's ALOS satellite and made available to the scientific community through the efforts of the European Space Agency (ESA) and GEO, the Group of Earth Observation, an umbrella consortium of countries that promotes the exchange of satellite data to efficiently observe our planet.
According to the new data, the earthquake rupture did not reach the surface -- unusual for an earthquake this size. More importantly, the images confirm that only the western half of the fault segment that last ruptured in 1751 actually ruptured in the current earthquake.
Psychology/Behavior
NPR: Big Changes In Store For Psychology's 'Bible'
Mental health providers and insurers all rely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders— the DSM — to classify and diagnose mental disorders. Dr. David Kupfer, chair of the DSM task force, and NPR's Alix Spiegel and Jon Hamilton discuss what the updated DSM means for people diagnosed with mental illnesses.
The definition, diagnosis and recommended treatment for some medical disorders are in the process of revision. After 16 years, the American Psychiatric Association wants to update the bible of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders universally known as the DSM.
The new draft of DSM-V includes important changes to bipolar disorder, binged eating, autism and substance abuse, changes that affect not only mental health professionals and their patients but the insurance companies that also use the DSM as a guide.
Over the years, the DSM has generated controversy and criticism for what it defines as a medical disorder and what it doesn't. For example, homosexuality used to be listed as a disorder.
And the draft has been put out for comment from health care professionals and from the public.
io9.com: The Future of Nymphomania
By Annalee Newitz
"Nymphomania" has fallen out of favor as a legit diagnosis among psychologists. But the hunger for sex is about to be classified as a new mental disorder: "hypersexuality." If you think about sex a lot, you might be sick.
Every few years, a team of mental health experts in the United States revise the encyclopedia of known psychological disorders, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). They propose revisions based on new data or cultural shifts (such as the shift that removed "homosexuality" from the DSM). Nymphomania was removed from the DSM many years ago, after new sexual research in the 1960s and 70s revealed that "normal" sexual desire might include regular masturbation and frequent sexy thoughts.
Now, however, the Task Force of the DSM wants to bring nymphomania back, under the less offensive name "hypersexual disorder."
Eureka Alert: Hand has role in how we see objects in space, say Hebrew University researchers
We know exactly where an object is when we say it is "within the reach of our hand." But if we don't have a hand, can we still see the object just where it is?
Apparently not, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Hospital-Mount Scopus. The space within reach of our hands -- where actions such as grasping and touching occur -- is known as the "action space." Research has shown that visual information in this area is organized in hand-centered coordinates -- in other words, the representation of objects in the human brain depends on their spatial position with respect to the hand.
According to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, amputation of the hand results in distorted visuospatial perception of the action space. The article was written by neuroscientists Dr. Tamar R. Makin, Meytal Wilf and Dr. Ehud Zohary of the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem along with Dr. Isabella Schwartz of Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem.
Reuters via News Daily: Scientists find clue to anxiety drug addiction
By Kate KellandPosted 2010/02/11 at 4:06 pm EST
LONDON, Feb. 11, 2010 (Reuters) — Valium-like drugs use the same potentially addictive "reward pathways" in the brain as heroin and cannabis, scientists said on Wednesday, findings which may help in the search for non-addictive alternative anxiety drugs.
Researchers from Switzerland and the United States found that so-called benzodiazepine drugs, such as Ativan, Xanax and Valium, exert a calming effect by boosting action of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the same way as addictive drugs like opioids and cannabinoids.
This in turn activates the gratification hormone, dopamine, in the brain, the scientists said, showing that the same brain "reward pathways" are used by both types of drugs.
io9.com: Bees Can Remember What Human Faces Look Like
By Alex Eichler
If you ever get into a tense confrontation with a bee, and then you have to back down for whatever reason, don't try to salvage it by saying "Remember the face." Because it turns out bees can do that.
It's long been known that bees are capable of recognizing and retaining complex visual patterns. That's one way they're able to tell different kinds of flowers apart. But a joint project between researchers at the Université de Toulouse and Melbourne's Monash University has found that bees can be trained to distinguish flowers from human faces, and to recognize the basic configuration of human facial features in different contexts.
Archeology/Anthropology
Reuters via Yahoo! News: Ancient Greenland gene map has a surprise
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Maggie Fox, Health And Science Editor – Wed Feb 10, 4:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have sequenced the DNA from four frozen hairs of a Greenlander who died 4,000 years ago in a study they say takes genetic technology into several new realms.
Surprisingly, the long-dead man appears to have originated in Siberia and is unrelated to modern Greenlanders, Morten Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues found.
"This provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of that giving rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit," the researchers wrote in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Not only can the findings help transform the study of archeology, but they can help answer questions about the origins of modern populations and disease, they said.
Physics
Scientific American: Ultracold Reactions Probe the Frontiers of Quantum Chemistry
By John Matson
A new study shows that molecules cooled to have near-negligible collisional motion can still react chemically with one another. At just a few hundred nanokelvins above absolute zero, the researchers could even change the speed of the chemical reaction by tweaking the molecules' quantum states, paving the way for highly controlled chemistry using the tools of physics. (A nanokelvin is one billionth of a kelvin.)
The study appears in the February 12 issue of Science, authored by scientists from two institutes affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): JILA, run jointly by NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder; and the Joint Quantum Institute, a partnership between NIST and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Chemistry
Mother Nature Network: Carbon emissions change the atomic structure of food
By Bryan Nelson
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil are doing more than just changing our climate — they are changing the atomic structure of our food. Nature has reported that human-induced carbon emissions are leading to changes in the natural occurrence of carbon isotopes in the environment, and the changes could make it more difficult to keep processed food manufacturers from increasing levels of artificial sweeteners.
The study, performed by geochemist William Peck of Colgate University, began as a lab demonstration to teach students how isotope analysis works. Peck and his students collected maple syrup samples from different parts of the northeastern United States to see if the carbon isotopes in the syrup varied by geography.
...
At first, Peck and his class didn't discover anything out of the ordinary from the maple syrup samples they collected. But they got a surprise when they compared the samples against isotope values of maple syrup in papers from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The relative amount of carbon-13 in maple syrup seems to have gone down since the 1970s, which means it's possible baseline isotope ratios are shifting over time because of environmental changes.
Energy
Mother Nature Network: Up and atom: The comeback of nuclear power
By Russell McLendon
The United States is on the brink of a nuclear revival, fueled by fear of climate change, demand for electricity and distrust of renewable power. Combined with a festering recession, these modern woes are suddenly drowning out many of the older worries — such as meltdowns and radioactive waste — that plagued nuclear power's past.
After a nearly 30-year lull in building new nuclear reactors, due largely to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, U.S. energy companies have applied to build more than two dozen in the last three years, and some advocates are calling for much more. President Obama touted the benefits of nuclear power during last month's State of the Union address, and in his 2011 federal budget, he proposed tripling government loan guarantees for new nuclear projects, raising the total to more than $54 billion.
This nuclear boom has been coming for several years, but as the urgency of climate change grows and Congress struggles to cut CO2 emissions, nuclear power has never been hotter. A record-high 59 percent of Americans now support it, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, and a survey by consulting giant Accenture found more than two-thirds of people worldwide want their countries to invest in it more heavily.
Mongabay.com: Amazon rainforest will bear cost of biofuel policies in Brazil
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com
Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil's Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research suggests that intensification of cattle ranching, combined with efforts to promote high-yielding oil crops like oil palm could lessen forecast greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use in the region.
Conducting a spatially-explicit analysis of potential land-use change from biofuel feedstock expansion in Brazil, David M. Lapola of the University of Kassel (Germany) and colleagues find that while relatively little forest land will be directly converted for biofuel production, large swathes of rainforest and cerrado will be indirectly impacted through displacement of cattle ranching, presently the dominant form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon.
"To fill the biofuel production targets for 2020, sugarcane would require an additional 57,200 [square kilometers] and soybean an additional 108,100 sq km. Roughly 88% of this expansion (145,700 sq km) would take place in areas previously used as rangeland," the authors write. "In our simulations, direct deforestation is only caused by soybean biodiesel and amounts to only 1,800 sq km of forest and 2,000 sq km of woody savanna."
Michigan State University: MAES retools, renames facility to fuel Michigan’s bioeconomy efforts
EAST LANSING, Mich. — To better assist the state’s biomass producers and the emerging bioenergy industry, the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station is retooling and renaming one of its Upper Peninsula facilities.
One of 15 MAES specialized research facilities around Michigan, the Upper Peninsula Tree Improvement Center, or UPTIC, near Escanaba has been renamed the Michigan State University Forest Biomass Innovation Center to emphasize the evolving focus of MAES research activities there.
"The old name speaks to a traditional scope of activities – fiber farming research, silviculture, forest genetics and forested wetland research – that were appropriate when UPTIC was established in 1986," said MAES Director Steve Pueppke, who also is director of the MSU Office of Biobased Technologies. "These activities have not ceased, but with the advent of the bioeconomy and MSU’s strategic focus on it, refining our programs in Escanaba and renaming the facility make good sense, both geographically and economically."
University of Michigan: Millimeter-scale, energy-harvesting sensor system developed
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A 9-cubic millimeter solar-powered sensor system developed at the University of Michigan is the smallest that can harvest energy from its surroundings to operate nearly perpetually.
The U-M system’s processor, solar cells, and battery are all contained in its tiny frame, which measures 2.5 by 3.5 by 1 millimeters. It is 1,000 times smaller than comparable commercial counterparts.
The system could enable new biomedical implants as well as home-, building- and bridge-monitoring devices. It could vastly improve the efficiency and cost of current environmental sensor networks designed to detect movement or track air and water quality.
Reuters via Mother Nature Network: Price is ultimate driver of greener energy use
By Kylie MacLellan, Reuters
LONDON — Pricing systems that encourage households to use energy more efficiently are the best way to help consumers to protect the environment, a senior General Electric Co executive said on Tuesday.
Bob Gilligan, GE's vice president of transmission and distribution, said the development of appliances that adjust their own energy use in response to signals from utility companies would be a key step in achieving this.
"As consumers ... we speak from our heart, we express concern about the environment but we respond from our wallet," he told a conference on the future of cities at Chatham House, the London think-tank.
Reuters via Mother Nature Network: Philips says 'let there be LED'
By Aaron Gray-Block and Harro ten Wolde, Reuters
AMSTERDAM — More than a century into its existence, Philips is once again betting heavily on semiconductors. This time the consumer electronics firm is looking to harness their potential as a source of light.
The producer of one in four of the world's lights, which sold its semiconductor business in 2006 after it was undercut by Asian rivals, has invested more than 4 billion euros ($5.47 billion) to ride the clean-tech wave and defend its world-leading position.
But this time, Philips is better prepared for competition.
Mother Nature Network: Hybrid Ferrari: Not before 2015
By Melissa Hincha-Ownby
Hybrid Ferrari. The phrase almost sounds like an oxymoron. However, a hybridized Ferrari 599 concept will be on the floor of the 80th International Geneva Motor Show, which runs from March 4-14, 2010. Although the concept will appear at the auto show, Ferrari’s Amedeo Felisa is saying that a production model is at least five years out.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Mongabay.com: Canada creates massive new park in the boreal
Jeremy Hance
Last Friday, the government of Canada and the governments of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador signed a memorandum of understanding to create a the new Mealy Mountains National Park. Larger than Yellowstone National Park, the new Canadian park will span 11,000 square kilometers making it the largest protected area in Eastern Canada.
The park is home to woodland caribou, moose, black bear, osprey, bald eagles, brook trout, and a rare population of Harlequin ducks.
"As we enter into the International Year of Biodiversity, it is fitting that we are working to establish a national park to protect this spectacular boreal landscape for all time for all Canadians," said Canada’s Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, in announcing the creation of the park.
Mongabay.com: Companies disclose deforestation risk in their supply chains
mongabay.com
An initiative that aims to root out deforestation by increasing the transparency of global supply chains released the results of its first survey on Wednesday, finding that most companies were not previously looking at the issue. Of 217 companies contacted by the Forest Footprint Disclosure project, only 35 responded with full data disclosure, including British Airways, BMW, Travis Perkins, L’Oréal, Weyerhaeuser, Kingfisher, Adidas, Nike, Mondi Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, and Unilever.
"Revealingly, some companies who are communicating 'environmentally friendly' policy and messages in their consumer marketing mix, did not disclose their impact on forests," Tracey Campbell, Director of FFD, said in a statement. "Whilst we understand that creating a robust and sustainable supply chain with full traceability is a challenge for businesses, those that have disclosed show that their forward-thinking management is managing a supply chain risk to their business over the long term and managing the issue of climate change intelligently."
Lack of data was cited as a reason some companies did not respond. Campbell said that a number of non-responding companies in 2009 said they intend to participate in the 2010 survey.
Science Education
Michigan State University: MSU Museum hosts annual Darwin Discovery Day
EAST LANSING, Mich. — At this year’s Michigan State University Museum’s annual celebration of the life of naturalist Charles Darwin, bird will definitely be the word.
Darwin Discovery Day, which is from 1 to 5 p.m. Feb. 14, will coincide with a new museum exhibit that examines the role birds played in Darwin’s theories on evolution.
University of Michigan: Teens experience engineering at U-M Detroit Center
DETROIT, Mich.—More than 100 high school students from across the city are building robots in the University of Michigan Detroit Center.
At the Michigan Engineering Zone, or the MEZ, the students find space, a metal shop and engineering mentors to help them as they compete in the FIRST Robotics 2010 national competition.
An example of U-M's increased community involvement; the MEZ is sponsored by the U-M College of Engineering in collaboration with Detroit Public Schools.
Science Writing and Reporting
io9: Infamous Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson Publishes His First Novel
By Annalee Newitz
Harvard naturalist E.O. Wilson is often called the father of sociobiology, the study of how biology helps determine social organization. Once a controversial figure, today he's widely-respected as a thinker and environmentalist. And now he's written a science fiction novel.
That is to say, he's written a fiction novel that is entirely about science. The novel is called Anthill, and combines some elements of the scientist's life (his Southern boyhood, for example) with his passion for the study of ant societies. His monumental, early 1970s work Sociobiology was largely influenced by his study of ants, and the ways that they are programmed by their biology to form certain kinds of social structures. When Wilson first began writing about sociobiology, he enraged his fellow biologists - especially his colleague Stephen Jay Gould, who was Wilson's most eloquent critic. *
Now Wilson's goal seems to be to use fiction to inspire people to protect the environment. In one interview, he calls the book his version of To Kill A Mockingbird, because the plight of the environment is as important today as civil rights were at the time of Harper Lee's publication of her novel.
Science is Cool
Hug Machine on LiveJournal: THE BEST NEUROSCIENCE STUDY GUIDE EVER (BECAUSE IT HAS CATS)
A LOLCat Guide to neuroscience.