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 Discovery News.
Man's Voice Reveals His Fighting Ability
By Jennifer Viegas
A quick phone call to dad, or any other man, is far more revealing than previously thought, since new research has just determined that a human male's voice reveals his upper body strength, fighting ability, overall health, age, and emotional state.
Just hearing the sound of a man's voice, no matter what he is saying, communicates all of this information and more, according to the study, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
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Slideshows/Videos
Discovery News: FIFA World Cup 2010: A Satellite Tour of the 32 Competing Nations
by Ian O'Neill
With the FIFA World Cup 2010 in full swing, take an orbital tour of all 32 nations participating in the world's biggest soccer competition.
Let's take a look at each of the team's countries from a unique perspective: orbit.
Discovery News: Space: Space Probe Explodes On Earth Re-Entry
The Japanese Hayabusa probe exploded on its re-entry to Earth, but a capsule possibly containing samples of asteroid dust survived. Discovery News' Ian O'Neill explains.
Discovery News: http://news.discovery.com/...
University of Washington researchers have developed a mind-controlled robot that operates on human brainwaves. Discovery News' Kasey-Dee Gardner finds out the human benefits of such a robot.
Discovery News: Archaeology: Decapitated Gladiators Found in England?
The lives of Roman gladiators and the wide reach of the bloody games throughout the empire is coming more into focus thanks to the discovery of a possible gladiator graveyard in Britain. Jorge Ribas talks to the excavation's field officer.
Discovery News: Animals: Sea Otter Poop May Help Save Species
The fur trade wiped out the sea otter populations worldwide. Now scientists have figured out an innovative way to get insights into sea otter reproduction- using their poop as pregnancy test. Kasey-Dee Gardner explains.
Mother Nature News: 10 animals with the longest life spans
There are tortoises alive today that were 25 to 50 years old when Charles Darwin was born. There are whales swimming the oceans with 200-year-old ivory spear points embedded in their flesh. There are cold-water sponges that were filter-feeding during the days of the Roman Empire. In fact, there are a number of creatures with life spans that make the oldest living human seem like a spring chicken in comparison. Here's our list of the 10 animals with the longest life spans — and there's even an immortal animal.
PNNLgov — June 02, 2010 — Bruce Bernacki, an optical scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, along with Mark Phillips are researching the detection of explosives on surfaces using a tunable quantum cascade laser illuminator and a thermal imaging camera.
Astronomy/Space
Science Daily: Astronomers' Doubts About the Dark Side: Errors in Big Bang Data Larger Than Thought?
New research by astronomers in the Physics Department at Durham University suggests that the conventional wisdom about the content of the Universe may be wrong.
Graduate student Utane Sawangwit and Professor Tom Shanks looked at observations from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite to study the remnant heat from the Big Bang. The two scientists find evidence that the errors in its data may be much larger than previously thought, which in turn makes the standard model of the Universe open to question. The team publish their results in a letter to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Discovery News: Hubble: Jupiter 'Flash' Caused by Meteor, Not Fireball : Big Pic
by Ian O'Neill
June 16, 2010 -- With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to take a closer look at the location of the June 3 "flash" spotted by Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley. The flash was thought to have been caused by a sizable comet or asteroid slamming into the gas giant's atmosphere, generating a huge fireball.
Although the assumption was that something hit Jupiter, astronomers couldn't see any sign of impact after the fact. Using the sheer power of Hubble, which zoomed in on the location of the flash three days later, astronomers hoped to shed some light on the phenomenon. So, what did Hubble see?
Well, nothing. But that's not the end of the story.
The Guardian: Vast ocean once covered Mars, say scientists
James Meikle
Scientists have revived arguments over whether there was once an ocean on the surface of Mars by claiming that their analysis of existing data supports the hypothesis that water covered much of the red planet's northern hemisphere 3.5bn years ago.
They believe their study of apparent marine deltas and valley networks in the journal Nature Geoscience bolsters the possibility that up to a third of Mars was under about 30 million cubic miles of water.
Discovery News: SpaceX Nails Huge Commercial Launch Contract
by Irene Klotz
Fresh off the successful debut flight of a rocket considered the leading contender for launching astronauts and tourists into orbit, Space Exploration Technologies nailed a contract worth nearly $500 million to launch a network of communication satellites for Iridium.
Company founder and chief executive Elon Musk billed it as the biggest contract for commercial launch services ever awarded.
Evolution/Paleontology
Livescience: New Theory for Life's First Energy Source
By Zo? Macintosh, LiveScience Staff Writer
An obscure compound known as pyrophosphite could have been a source of energy that allowed the first life on Earth to form, scientists now say.
From the tiniest bacteria to the complex human body, all living beings require an energy-transporting molecule called ATP to survive. Often likened to a "rechargeable battery," ATP stores chemical energy in a form that can be used by organic matter.
"You need enzymes to make ATP, and you need ATP to make enzymes," said researcher Terence Kee of the University of Leeds in England. "The question is: Where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules, such as pyrophosphate, which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes."
Biodiversity
Discovery News: Fate of Gulf's Deep-Water Corals Unknown
By Emily Sohn
Unlike the well-publicized turmoil of pelicans, turtles, fish and other obvious animal victims of the Gulf oil spill, the fate of corals more than 1,000 feet below the surface remains unknown.
While scientists haven't been able to visit the Gulf's deep-water coral since oil started gushing under water in April, research elsewhere is revealing new details about how the corals respond to environmental stresses. One of the latest studies out of Australia found that, much like people, some corals have stronger immune systems that help them resist stress and fight diseases.
Along with other ongoing research in the Gulf, the findings should help scientists predict what's going to happen to the corals that now lie beneath massive plumes of oil. For now, the experts are left to worry.
Discovery News: Deforestation Triggers Malaria Outbreaks in Brazil
by Zahra Hirji
It's no secret that the Amazon rain forest is in trouble. Deforestation at the hands of logging and agriculture has beat back this crucial natural resource, which sucks greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, steadies global climate patterns, and is home to an incredible diversity of animals and plants.
And just in case you were not convinced that cutting down the Amazon is a bad thing, scientists just came up with one more reason: deforestation spreads malaria.
Biotechnology/Health
Science Daily: Circadian Clock in Pancreas Directly Linked to Diabetes
The pancreas has its own molecular clock. Now, for the first time, a Northwestern University study has shown this ancient circadian clock regulates the production of insulin. If the clock is faulty, the result is diabetes.
The researchers show that insulin-secreting islet cells in the pancreas, called beta-cells, have their own dedicated clock. The clock governs the rhythmic behavior of proteins and genes involved in insulin secretion, with oscillations over a 24-hour cycle.
The findings, which will be published June 18 by the journal Nature, shine a light on a system that hasn't been recognized as having a strong effect on the process of glucose homeostasis.
Stanford University School of Medicine: Study identifies proteins that extend life span in worms
BY KRISTA CONGER
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a new group of proteins involved in determining the life span of laboratory roundworms. Blocking the expression of one member of the group can extend the worm’s life span by up to 30 percent. Because the proteins work in the worms’ reproductive systems, the research represents yet another intriguing link between longevity and fertility.
In particular, the researchers showed that the proteins are involved in epigenetics — a phenomenon in which chemical modifications to DNA and the proteins around it affect how it is packaged and expressed in a cell. Although an organism can’t change the DNA sequence of the genes it has inherited, epigenetic changes allow it to silence or tweak their expression in response to environmental or other external cues.
"We’ve shown here that an epigenetic change can affect the life span of an organism," said Anne Brunet, PhD, assistant professor of genetics, "but only within the context of an intact reproductive system." Brunet is the senior author of the study, published online June 16 in Nature.
BBC: Scientists take first steps in growing working livers
US scientists have created working liver grafts in the lab, and say the research could one day allow the growth of livers for transplant.
There is a shortage of liver donors, but so far it has been difficult to grow replacement organs.
In the work, published in Nature Medicine, a team from Massachusetts General Hospital, created successful grafts using rat cells.
Climate/Environment
Discovery News: Stopping Desertification in Africa With a 'Great Green Wall'
by Zahra Hirji
The Sahara Desert is slowly extending its reach across northern Africa. To counter increasing desertification, a group of African nations wants to plant a continuous line of trees across the continent.
The "Great Green Wall" involves constructing a tree belt 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide and 7,775 kilometers (4,831 miles) long across the southern edge of the Sahara, from Senegal in the west to Djibouti, Ethiopia and the Indian Ocean in the east.
Scientists hope the tree belt will counter soil erosion, slow wind speeds, and stop the encroaching desert. It is important that the countries plant drought-resistant native trees that will not further disrupt indigenous environments.
Mother Jones: Can Whale Poop Stop Climate Change?
By Josh Harkinson
Logic dictates that whales, being the largest mammals in the world, probably take the largest poops in the world. A sperm whale consumes about five times more food each day than does an elephant, which poops out some 150 pounds of dung daily. On land, animal turds can create environmental problems that go far beyond their stench: Methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide from livestock leavings contribute to 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. So besides humans, are whales the planet's biggest per-capita carbon culprits?
Far from it.
A new study by Australian biologists calculates that whale poop actually fights climate change. (No small discovery, given that Popular Science once ranked smelly "whale feces research" as one of the ten worst jobs in science). Soupy red doo-doo from the 12,000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean helps suck up 200,000 tons of carbon from the atmospshere each year—the equivalent of taking 40,000 cars off the road. Which probably makes whales the most eco-friendly mammals on the planet.
Geology
Discovery News: Giant Dams Mess With Global Sea Level Rise
Giant Dams Mess With Global Sea Level Rise
After building one of the world's largest dams, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, China is getting ready to outdo itself by building a massive structure on the Brahmaputra River that would be the largest hydroelectric project in the world.
If built, it will alter global sea level. But it won't be alone.
Most of the world's biggest dams have been built since 1950, flooding river valleys with giant man-made lakes. The cumulative effect of all this water storage has been to skim about 1.18 inches off the top of Earth's oceans.
Psychology/Behavior
The Economist: A game of cat and mouse
If an alien bug invaded the brains of half the population, hijacked their neurochemistry, altered the way they acted and drove some of them crazy, then you might expect a few excitable headlines to appear in the press. Yet something disturbingly like this may actually be happening without the world noticing.
Toxoplasma gondii is not an alien; it is a relative of that down-to-earth pathogen Plasmodium, the beast that causes malaria. It is common: in some parts of the world as much as 60% of the population is infected with it. And it can harm fetuses and people with AIDS, because in each case their immune systems cannot cope with it. For other people, though, the symptoms are usually no worse than a mild dose of flu. Not much for them to worry about, then. Except that there is a growing body of evidence that some of those people have their behaviour permanently changed.
Archeology/Anthropology
Discovery News: Ancient Humans May Have Dined on Hyenas
By Larry O'Hanlon
It's already been shown that hyenas ate humans, but did early humans likewise dine on hyenas? They might have, say Spanish researchers who found evidence of human "processing" of hyena bones in an ancient hyena den.
"Although the interaction between hyenas and hominids is a constant throughout human evolution, consumption of these animals by our ancestors has never before been documented," said researcher Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo of the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. His paper announcing the discovery appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Taphonomy.
Agence France Presse via Discovery News: Ancient Egypt's Pharaohs Dated Using Plants
Scientists have established for the first time clear dates for the ruling dynasties of ancient Egypt after carbon dating plant remains, according to research published Thursday.
The results will force historians to revise their records for the two millennia when ancient Egypt dominated the Mediterranean world and hopefully end debate once and for all between rival Egyptologists.
Led by Professor Christopher Ramsey of Britain's Oxford University, an international team tested seeds, baskets, textiles, plant stems and fruit obtained from museums in the United States and Europe for the landmark study.
Discovery News: Archaeologists Hot on Trail of Aztec Royalty
by Zahra Hirji
Aztec archaeologists can almost taste the jack pot. None of the empire's royal burial sites have ever been found, but researchers participating in the Templo Mayor excavation project in downtown Mexico City think an emperor’s tomb is just around the corner.
In 2006, researchers discovered a 4-meter (13-foot) long carving of Tlaltecuhtli, the Aztec earth goddess. Since then, further digging has revealed bizarre offerings that archaeologists believe indicate the presence of a near by royal burial.
Physics
Science Daily: Physicists Help Biologists to Understand Protein Folding
Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have created a microscopic device to assist biologists in making very fast molecular measurements that aid the understanding of protein folding. This development may help elucidate biological processes associated with diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Since proteins in the body perform different functions according to their shape, the folding process is considered a key area of study.
Using a microfabricated fluid mixing device built at UCSB's nanofabrication facility, UCSB physicists and their collaborators from the University of Zurich have made the first sub-second, single-molecule measurements of an essential biological molecule known as a chaperonin. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chemistry
Science Daily: New Process Is Promising for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars
A new process for storing and generating hydrogen to run fuel cells in cars has been invented by chemical engineers at Purdue University.
The process, given the name hydrothermolysis, uses a powdered chemical called ammonia borane, which has one of the highest hydrogen contents of all solid materials, said Arvind Varma, R. Games Slayter Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and head of the School of Chemical Engineering.
"This is the first process to provide exceptionally high hydrogen yield values at near the fuel-cell operating temperatures without using a catalyst, making it promising for hydrogen-powered vehicles," he said. "We have a proof of concept."
Energy
Discovery News: Why Lithium Can't Save Afghanistan
by Michael Reilly
Following the news Monday that geologists have found a mother lode of minerals in Afghanistan -- reports argued deposits of iron, copper, gold and other goodies could collectively be worth close to $1 trillion -- it's worth asking a few extra questions.
In particular, there's been an unusually strong focus on the lithium portion of the find. A key ingredient in high-tech batteries for laptops, smart phones, electric cars and the like, its been heralded as the future cornerstone of the world's energy infrastructure.
But is lithium really going to save Afghanistan, as many media outlets seem to think? Nope, not even close.
The Economist: Power from thin air
ANYONE whose mobile phone has ever run out of juice—which means, these days, more than half the world’s population—will like the idea of getting electrical power out of the air. The notion is far from new. A little over a century ago, the inventor Nikola Tesla drew up ambitious plans to transmit electrical power without wires. He carried out a series of experiments in which electric lights were illuminated via electrostatic induction, by connecting them to metal sheets suspended in a strong electric field produced by a distant transmitter. In 1898 he proposed a "world system" of giant towers that would form both a global wireless communications network and a means of delivering electricity over large areas without wires.
The construction of the first such tower, the Wardenclyffe Tower, on Long Island, began in 1901. Tesla’s backers included the financier J.P. Morgan, who invested $150,000. But before the tower was completed, Morgan and the other backers pulled out. They worried that the delivery of electricity through the air could not be metered, and there would be nothing to stop people from helping themselves.
But has Tesla had the last laugh after all?
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Kentucky Post: Internet 'kill switch' proposed for president
Canvas Staff Reports
WASHINGTON - A new bill introduced in the Senate would give the president the equivalent of an Internet "kill switch" if passed. The concept has some communications companies hoping that legislators would rather kill the bill.
The bill is known as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. See the proposed legislation [PDF format] .
CNET, a publication that covers computers and the Internet, reported that the bill would give the president emergency powers to seize control of or shut down portions of the Internet.
Discovery News: More Oil Spill Data Than You Can Handle
by David Teeghman
By now, we've all seen the horrific pictures and videos of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and its repercussions, but few of us know the myriad numbers behind the spill.
As part of the White House's Open Government Initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy has opened an online portal for the public to learn heart-wrenching details about the oil spill, technical descriptions of the oil well, factors that lead to its malfunction and how some of the solutions were/are supposed to work. The site offers plenty of data for everyone to peruse, including schematics, pressure tests, diagnostic results and other data about the ill-fated blowout preventer.
On the website, Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the department wants to be more transparent than a solar-cell filled window. As he says, "Transparency is not only in the public interest, it is part of the scientific process. We want to make sure that independent scientists, engineers and other experts have every opportunity to review this information and make their own conclusions."
Popular Science: Stem-Cell Tourism: Adventures at the Fringes of Experimental Medicine
Droves of patients are heading overseas for stem-cell therapies unavailable in the U.S. Is it a dangerous scam -- or is America just behind the curve?
By Elizabeth Svoboda
Every year, hundreds of desperately ill Americans like Velline are making similar decisions, sidestepping government regulations and heading overseas to access a smorgasbord of stem-cell therapies unavailable in the U.S. Many of these treatments—offered by companies like Regenocyte, Germany’s XCell-Center and China’s Beike Biotechnology—involve autologous adult stem cells, meaning stem cells harvested from your own blood or bone marrow. These are thought to be safer than stem cells drawn from other donors or harvested from embryos, because they incur fewer risks of rejection or tumor formation. Just how safe, though, no one knows precisely, which is why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration insists on stringent regulations.
Science Education
Discovery News: Seventh Graders Discover Martian Cave
by Ian O'Neill
Commanding the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, a group of 16 seventh-grade students from California looked for lava tubes on the surface of Mars. They found what they were looking for, but they also discovered a small black feature straddling one of the tubes.
The feature near the Pavonis Mons volcano was a hole, punched in the top of a hollow tube. It's a cave on Mars, otherwise known as a "skylight."
The students, from Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California, were participating in the Mars Student Imaging Program (MSIP), a part of Arizona State University's Mars Education Program. This program engages youngsters in real Mars research by getting them to ask questions about the Red Planet's geology. They then find the answers by getting NASA to send observation commands to Odyssey.
Science Writing and Reporting
Science News: Book Review: Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service
By Mark Pendergrast
Review by Rachel Zelkowitz
In 1951, a group of American men suited up to go to war. This wasn’t unusual at the time — the Korean War was on — but this brigade was armed with field notebooks and test tubes, and was trained to take aim at threats to public health. Inside the Outbreaks tells the story of this little-known corps, the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Science is Cool
Discovery News: Anti-Vuvuzela Software Appears
by James Williams
There are essentially two methods being pitched for vuvuzela removal:
•The first method involves removing or lowering the actual frequency of the instrument using everything from your TV's built-in equalizer to running your sound through an audio filter. The audio filter technique is used by audio and video editors to remove hums and buzzes from soundtracks. It works by identifying an exact frequency and removing it. Most vuvuzelas apparently buzz away in the key of B Flat. Bach composed his Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. in the key of B flat and it sounded nice. When soccer fans make B flats it sounds like angry bees.
•The second method apparently involves noise cancellation. Found at antivuvuzelafilter.com, the idea is that you download an mp3 that directly counters the frequencies produced by the sound of the vuvuzela. You play it alongside the TV and the vuvuzela sound disappears.
Don't try the second method. It made things worse.
Discovery News: New Yeasts Could Yield Tastier Light Beers
by David Teeghman
It seems like a sad fact of life that anything with fewer calories and grams of fat just doesn't taste as good. And nowhere is that more apparent than in light beer.
Luckily for beer drinkers everywhere, the European Union has invested 3.4 million Euros in a yeast research program meant to develop new products for the food industry. According to a report from Gizmag, this could lead to better tasting light beer.