Monday and science talk comes once again. Today is the time to take a well deserved hiatus from all the politics of the day and enjoy some of the fine science news of the past week. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world. Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world. Today's tidbits include lead contamination of game meat, red squirrels may take in orphaned relatives, unique eclipsing binary star system discovered, XMM-Newton opens new view of the universe, Arctic ice lowest in recent geologic history, first paper dipstick test for blood type, and . Pull up that comfy chair for one more session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.
Featured Stories
Hunters have long known about possible lead exposure in game meat, but the risk is found to be more than once thought. Lead pellets fragment leading to exposures far above what is acceptable for children and older people.
Lead is a heavy metal that is very toxic, which explains why its use is being restricted more and more. For the same reason, lead pellets and bullets have started to be substituted by others made from different materials.
For small game hunting steel ammunition already exists, especially recommended for use in humid areas (where there is little risk of ricochet), and in cases when shooting into the air is required, like in driven partridge shoots. When you have to aim at the ground to shoot rabbits and hares, for example, the alternative is pellets made from tungsten or bismuth in different compounds and alloys with metals or plastics.
Squirrels are most often thought of as pesky creatures foraging for food. But a softer side may be seen at least in red squirrels as they care for orphaned relative pups.
kaw_keven, Flickr, Creative Commons
...squirrels will only adopt an orphaned pup when the costs of adoption are low and when the orphans carry a large percentage of the same genes such as siblings, nieces or nephews rather than more distant relatives.
An eclipsing pair of white dwarf stars were first reported in recent days.
One of the stars in the newly discovered binary is a relatively rare helium-core white dwarf with a mass only 10 to 20 percent of that of the sun. The existence of these special stars has been known for more than 20 years. Theoretical work predicted that these stars burn hotter and are larger than ordinary white dwarfs. Until now, their size had never been measured. The observations of the star NLTT 11748 by this research group have yielded the first direct radius measurement of an unusual white dwarf that confirms this theory.
The other star in the binary is also a white dwarf, albeit a more ordinary one, composed of mostly carbon and oxygen with about 70 percent of the mass of the sun. This star is more massive and also much smaller than the other white dwarf. The light it gives off is 30 times fainter than that of its partner star in the binary.
A novel observing mode on XMM-Newton (launched in 1999 and going strong today) opens a new avenue of detection in the universe.
Surveying the sky, XMM-Newton has discovered two massive galaxy clusters, confirming a previous detection obtained through observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, the 'shadow' they cast on the Cosmic Microwave Background. The discovery, made possible thanks to a novel mosaic observing mode recently introduced on ESA's X-ray observatory, opens a new window to study the Universe's largest bound structures in a multi-wavelength approach.
News of shrinking Arctic ice pack continues to arrive.
Nasa Goddard, Flickr, Creative Commons
For decades, scientists have strived to collect sediment cores from the difficult-to-access Arctic Ocean floor, to discover what the Arctic was like in the past. Their most recent goal: to bring a long-term perspective to the ice loss we see today.
Now, in an upcoming issue of Quarternary Science Reviews, a team led by Ohio State University has re-examined the data from past and ongoing studies -- nearly 300 in all -- and combined them to form a big-picture view of the pole's climate history stretching back millions of years.
The news is bad as the volume of ice (let alone the area) is shrinking very fast these days.
In preparation for many surgical procedures humans have their blood tested for typing in case of need for life-saving transfusion.
Jon McGovern, Flickr, Creative Commons
Current methods for determining blood type require the use of sophisticated instruments that are not available in many poor parts of the world. An inexpensive portable test could solve that problem.
The scientists describe development of prototype paper test strips impregnated with antibodies to the antigens on red blood cells that determine blood type. In lab tests using blood samples from human volunteers, the scientists showed that a drop of blood placed on the strip caused a color change that indicated blood type. The results were as accurate as conventional blood typing.
And the cost to manufacture was pennies per test.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
A quick fix for queues
Electric fields make ceramic production quicker, easier, and better
Phytoplankton bloom in the North Atlantic
Proposal to transform the moon into a giant solar power plant
New Gecko species identified in West African rain forests
Crocodiles ride ocean currents to travel the high seas
Introducing the good food guide for cockroaches
Ancient aquifer feeds oasis near Death Valley
Fires in Amazon compromise emission reduction efforts
Oil spill could widen, worsen "dead" zone
For even more science news:
General Science Collectors:
Alpha-Galileo
BBC News Science and Environment
Eureka Science News
LiveScience
New Scientist
PhysOrg.com
SciDev.net
Science/AAAS
Science Alert
Science Centric
Science Daily
Scientific American
Space Daily
Blogs:
A Few Things Ill Considered Techie and Science News
Cantauri Dreams space exploration
Coctail Party Physics Physics with a twist.
Deep Sea News marine biology
Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
ScienceBlogs
Space Review
Techonology Review
Tetrapod Zoologyvertebrate paleontology
Science Insider
Scientific Blogging.
Wired News
Science RSS Feed: Medworm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe--a combination of hard science and debunking crap
Daily Kos regular series:
Daily Kos University, a regular series by plf515
This Week in Science by DarkSyde
This Week in Space by nellaselim
Overnight News Digest:Science Saturday by Neon Vincent. This week OND by palantir.
Weekend Science by AKMask
All diaries with the DK GreenRoots Tag.
All diaries with the eKos Tag
NASA picture of the day. For more see the NASA image gallery.
N49, aftermath of supernova explosion, NASA, Public Domain