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 BBC.
Rocky exoplanet milestone in hunt for Earth-like worlds
By Jason Palmer
Astronomers have discovered the smallest planet outside our Solar System, and the first that is undoubtedly rocky like Earth.
Measurements of unprecedented precision have shown that the planet, Kepler 10b, has a diameter 1.4 times that of Earth, and a mass 4.6 times higher.
However, because it orbits its host star so closely, the planet could not harbour life.
The discovery has been hailed as "among the most profound in human history".
More on this and other stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
DarkSyde: This week in science
Ojibwa: Ancient America: Adena
Slideshows/Videos
NASA Television on YouTube: NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers Its First Rocky Exoplanet
NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered Kepler-10b, its first confirmed rocky planet and the smallest transiting exoplanet discovered to date. Kepler-10b is only 1.4 times the size of Earth and has an average density of 8.8 grams per cubic centimeter, similar to that of an iron dumbbell. The planet orbits its star in only 0.84 days and is not in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist.
BBC: Astronomy professor suggests zodiac signs are wrong
A Minneapolis astronomy professor has suggested that the zodiac system, based on "2,000-year-old information", is all wrong.
Parke Kunkle said the Earth's wobbly orbit means it is no longer aligned to the stars in the same way as when the signs of the zodiac were first conceived.
Professor Kunkle's explanation has become an internet sensation with people panicking on social network sites about what the changes mean for their star sign.
Shelley Ackerman, spokeswoman for American Federation of Astrologers, has been inundated with emails from concerned clients, but she advises them not to over-react.
This is currently the most watched video on BBC's site. What that means, I'll let you all figure out.
BBC: Supernova found by 10-year-old Canadian girl
A 10-year-old Canadian girl has become the youngest person in the world to find a supernova, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada has confirmed.
Kathryn Gray was studying images taken at an amateur observatory when she spotted the magnitude 17 supernova in the galaxy UGC 3378, in the constellation of Camelopardalis.
Her father, Paul Gray - also a keen amateur astronomer - helped her confirm the find by taking steps to rule out asteroids and checking the list of current known supernovas.
She told CBC's Connect with Mark Kelley how she made the discovery, and that she hoped to find more in the future.
BBC: Australia floods 'like inland tsunami'
Officials in the Australian state of Queensland say at least 72 people are missing after flash floods which have already claimed eight lives.
Queensland Police Commissioner, Bob Atkinson, compared it to "an inland instant tsunami with a massive wall of water".
People waited on roof tops to be rescued, as the flooding intensified in the area of Grantham west of the city of Toowoomba.
The BBC's Nick Bryant reports.
BBC: Why is Australia suffering severe flooding?
About 80 people are believed to be missing after torrential rain brought further havoc to the Australian state of Queensland.
So far 10 people have died in the latest flooding which yesterday raged through the city of Toowoomba.
Rivers in some areas are expected to rise by 16m, and evacuations are underway in Brisbane as the Brisbane River begins to burst its banks in places.
BBC weather forecaster Louise Lear explained what conditions have caused the floods and how long the current weather will last.
Bogleech: The Natural Origins of Pokemon
Pokémon! The franchise that had Nintendo rolling in cash and introduced the world to
several hundred evolving battle-monsters with superpowers. Once dismissed by many as
a passing fad, the enduringly popular franchise was originally cooked up by once
unknown artist Satoshi Tajiri, whose passion for monsters and insect collecting inspired
his "pocket monsters" concept many years before he would get caught up in the gaming
business. None could have predicted its explosive success, and the world as we know it
has never been the same. At least, it's been the same except for several generations
growing up knowing the "Team Rocket" motto, and that's good enough for me.
An interesting thing about the Japanese school system is how much value they put into
biology. Whereas millions of Americans grow up each year shamefully unaware of what
an Opabinia looks like, our eastern friends treat the far reaches of Earth's flora and
fauna as a staple of children's homework. The (obviously intentional) result of this is that
animals most westerners consider "obscure" are given the star treatment for countless
Anime, Manga, and Videogames...
Astronomy/Space
io9: Solving the cosmic mystery of the green blob in space
Back in 2007, Dutch schoolteacher and amateur astronomer Hanny van Arkel spotted a strange object near a distant spiral galaxy...and nobody had any idea what it was. Now, four years later, we're finally learning the truth about this mysterious object
Hanny's Voorwerp - which is simply Dutch for "Hanny's Object" - confounded astronomers when van Arkel first brought it to their attention in 2007. They knew it was a massive green blob in space, but that was pretty much it, as nothing like the object had ever been seen before. Hubble has now been able to discover active star birth in a part of Hanny's Voorwerp that faces the nearby spiral galaxy IC 2497, located about 650 million light-years from Earth.
...
As strange as Hanny's Voorwerp first appeared, it's actually part of something much larger and more bizarre. It looks like a giant green space blob, but it's actually just one part of a massive, 300,000 light-year long ring that stretches around the entirety of galaxy IC 2497, and we were only able to see any part of it because the quasar was pointed in the right direciton. The ring isn't just long, it's also unimaginably thick - astronomers estimate Hanny's Voorwerp covers all the sapce 44,000 to 136,000 light-years from the galaxy's core.
Evolution/Paleontology
LiveScience via Yahoo! News: 34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive!
Andrea Mustain
livescience.com – Thu Jan 13, 11:21 am ET
It's a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-fi movie: Scientists bring back ancient salt crystals, dug up from deep below Death Valley for climate research. The sparkling crystals are carefully packed away until, years later, a young, unknown researcher takes a second look at the 34,000-year-old crystals and discovers, trapped inside, something strange. Something ... alive.
Thankfully this story doesn't end with the destruction of the human race, but with a satisfied scientist finishing his Ph.D.
"It was actually a very big surprise to me," said Brian Schubert, who discovered ancient bacteria living within tiny, fluid-filled chambers inside the salt crystals.
Biodiversity
The Daily Telegraph (UK): 'Extinct' Bornean Bay Cat spotted in Malaysia
The Bornean Bay Cat, one of the world's most elusive wildcats believed extinct after it was last seen in 2003, has been spotted in pictures from camera traps set up on Malaysian Borneo.
By Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok 2:14PM GMT 13 Jan 2011
One of the world's most elusive wildcats - long believed extinct after it was last seen in 2003 - has been spotted in pictures from camera traps set up on Malaysian Borneo.
The Bornean Bay Cat, similar in size to a large domestic cat, has a long tail and either a reddish or grey coat.
Three pictures showing two or three of the Bay Cats were taken in the northern highlands of Sarawak state in Borneo by researchers working for the forestry department.
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: Malaysia plans sanctuary for captive tigers
Fri Jan 14, 10:06 am ET
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia plans to set up a large enclosed natural habitat for captive tigers, a senior wildlife official said Friday, an ambitious proposal that has raised concerns among conservationists.
The authorities say the reserve will provide a good home for tigers rescued from poor living conditions, but campaigners argue the focus should be on protecting the animals in the wild.
"It is still at the preliminary stage. It will be an enclosed area big enough for the big cats to roam," a wildlife and national parks department official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"Tigers in the park will be fed and it will be a tourist attraction."
Biotechnology/Health
LiveScience via MSNBC: 'Sonic hedgehog' gene can decide fish or shark
Limb growth gene controls growth of certain appendages, study finds
By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
updated 1/12/2011 12:46:28 PM ET 2011-01-12T17:46:28 -
You have a lot more in common with elephant fish than you probably think. Granted, you likely don't live hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface, emerging to shallow water once a year to lay your eggs at the bottom of a murky bay. And your skeleton is probably made of bone, not cartilage.
But it turns out that the same gene that controls the development of your fingers, toes, legs and arms also controls the growth of certain appendages in elephant fish and their shark cousins.
A new study finds that the gene, whimsically named "sonic hedgehog," is responsible in part for whether an embryo turns into a shark or its relative, a floppy-nosed elephant fish. (Much like sharks, elephant fish are cartilaginous, meaning they lack hard bones.)
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above link.
io9: Swine flu gives its survivors supercharged immunity
The swine flu pandemic of 2009 was one of the worst flu scares in recent memory, even if its actual effects ended up being relatively moderate. Now something unambiguously good could come of all this: a universal flu vaccine.
As many as sixty million people were infected with the H1N1 virus, although only about 18,000 people are known to have died from the disease. What researchers are now discovering is what swine flu leaves behind: a superpowered immune system with antibodies that can kill off any new flu virus, not just a return of H1N1.
Recent research on nine swine flu survivors revealed that the infection had caused all their immune systems to go into overdrive, creating a huge range of flu antibodies that aren't needed to fight off swine flu but would be very useful if any number of other flu strains tried to invade the subjects' bodies. More common flu strains like the seasonal flu or the very mild flu virus used to create the flu vaccine don't activate this many antibodies, suggesting there's something unusual about H1N1 that triggers this powerful immune response.
CTV (Canada): Sibling spacing may be tied to autism risk: study
Updated: Mon Jan. 10 2011 5:48:09 PM
CTV.ca News Staff
Children who are born only a year or so after an older sibling appear to be more likely to be diagnosed with autism than siblings with a bigger age gap, surprising new research suggests.
The study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics, is preliminary and the authors say more research is needed to confirm the finding. But the study is a large one, based on more than a half-million children, which reduces the likelihood that the findings were based on chance.
The study looked at births from 1992 through 2002 in California. The researchers looked at second-born children born to the same parents whose older siblings didn't have autism.
They found the overall prevalence of autism was less than one per cent in the study. But they found that the sooner the second child was conceived, the greater the likelihood that child would later be diagnosed with autism.
Climate/Environment
Baylor University via Red Orbit: Climate Disasters: New Baylor Study Explores How People Respond
Study looks into the interaction of knowledge, risk perceptions and action as it relates to climate events
Posted on: Wednesday, 12 January 2011, 16:17 CST
New results from a Baylor University study show that different behaviors and strategies lead some families to cope better and emerge stronger after a weather-related event.
Dr. Sara Alexander, an applied social anthropologist at Baylor who conducts much of her research in Central America, studied different households in several coastal communities in Belize. While climate change has been an emerging topic of interest to the world community, little scientific data exists on exactly how people respond to different climate-related "shocks" and events such as more intense hurricanes and prolonged drought.
Using a livelihood security approach, Alexander and her team identified vulnerable households in these communities and examined how they adapted and coped with major climate events and shocks such as droughts, hurricanes and floods. The Baylor researchers also developed tools to measure each household's long-term resilience, an area that has not been extensively researched, and identified specific behaviors and strategies that allowed some families to "weather the storm" better than others.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above link.
Yahoo! Green: Five signs of climate change from record-hot 2010
Dan Shapley Dan Shapley – Fri Jan 14, 11:49 am ET
According to scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 2010 ranks in a statistical tie with 2005 as the warmest year on record for the globe.
Along with its report on the subject, NOAA lists many worldwide weather events that may or may not be connected to that record temperature's effect on climate change – though the record is almost certainly a result of global warming. Every year since the mid-70s has ranked above the 20th century average temperature, and all of the Top 10 warmest years on record, since 1888, have been measured since 1998.
Global warming is fueled by greenhouse gas pollution, primarily from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil. The Daily Green publishes daily going green tips to help you lighten your footprint.
So what climate changes were brewing in the record-hot year that was?
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: 2010 hottest year on Indian records
Fri Jan 14, 12:07 pm ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) – India experienced its hottest year on record in 2010, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday, blaming the rise in temperatures on global warming.
India's mean annual temperature during 2010 was 0.93 degrees Celsius (33.6 Fahrenheit) higher than the long term (1961-1990) average, according to the Annual Climate Summary of India during 2010.
"Indians experienced the worst summer in the last one century, and this was a definite result of global warming," IMD spokesman B.K. Bandyopadhyay told AFP on Friday. The country's weather records began in 1901.
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: Climate cost even greater than feared: economist
Fri Jan 14, 11:28 am ET
MADRID (AFP) – British economist Nicholas Stern said the price of fighting climate change is now higher than he estimated in a 2006 study that earned him a 400,000-euro (530,000) Spanish award on Friday.
Stern won the BBVA Foundation award for measuring the economic cost of climate change, notably in his 2006 Stern Review which found it made more economic sense to combat climate change than to do nothing.
The economist's "advanced economic analysis" quantified the impacts of climate change and provided "a unique and robust basis" for decision-making, said the jury in the Frontiers of Science Award.
It "fundamentally changed the international climate change debate and stimulated action," the jury said in a statement.
N.Y. Times: If Quakes Weren’t Enough, Enter the ‘Superstorm’
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: January 15, 2011
SACRAMENTO — California faces the risk not just of devastating earthquakes but also of a catastrophic storm that could tear at the coasts, inundate the Central Valley and cause four to five times as much economic damage as a large quake, scientists and emergency planners warn.
The potential for such a storm was described at a conference of federal and California officials that ended Friday. Combining advanced flood mapping and atmospheric projections with data on California’s geologic flood history, over 100 scientists calculated the probable consequences of a "superstorm" carrying tropical moisture from the South Pacific and dropping up to 10 feet of rain across the state.
"Floods are as much a part of our lives in California as earthquakes are," said Lucy Jones, the chief scientist for the United States Geological Survey’s multi-hazards initiative, adding, "We are probably not going to be able to handle the biggest ones."
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: Climate flux matched Europe's social rise and fall
Fri Jan 14, 5:29 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Ancient tree rings show links between climate change and major events in human history, like migrations, plagues and the rise and fall of empires, said a study this week in the journal Science.
Moist, balmy temperatures were seen during prosperous Medieval and Roman times, while droughts and cold snaps coincided with mass migrations.
To match the environmental record with the historical one, researchers looked at more than 7,200 tree fossils from the past 2,500 years, said lead author Ulf Buntgen of the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape.
NASA via Red Orbit: Aqua Sees Tropical Storm Vince About To U-turn Away From Australia
Building high pressure is expected to make Tropical Storm Vince do a U-turn in the Southern Indian Ocean and take a westward track away from Western Australia. Two instruments on NASA's Aqua satellite looked at Vince's clouds this morning before Vince's forecast U-turn.
...
A ridge (an elongated area) of high pressure that is building over Western Australia is expected to push Vince to the west and away from Australia this weekend. By Monday, Vince is forecast to move into cooler waters and weaken.
Geology
National Center for Atmospheric Research via phyorg.com: Earth's hot past could be prologue to future climate
(PhysOrg.com) -- The magnitude of climate change during Earth's deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes. The study, by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jeffrey Kiehl, will appear as a "Perspectives" piece in this week's issue of the journal Science.
Building on recent research, the study examines the relationship between global temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tens of millions of years ago. It warns that, if carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current rate through the end of this century, atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas will reach levels that existed about 30 million to 100 million years ago, when global temperatures averaged about 29 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels.
Kiehl said that global temperatures may gradually rise over centuries or millennia in response to the carbon dioxide. The elevated levels of carbon dioxide may remain in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years, according to recent computer model studies of geochemical processes that the study cites.
Psychology/Behavior
Science News: Face memory peaks late, after age 30
Finding challenges view that all mental faculties max out in young adulthood
By Bruce Bower
Youth is wasted on the young, but not so for face memory. In an unexpected discovery, people remember unfamiliar faces best between ages 30 and 34, scientists report in an upcoming issue of Cognition.
Many researchers think word skills, memory and other mental functions crest in the early 20s, as the brain attains full maturity. Consistent with that assumption, memory for names and for upside-down faces — a task that requires recognition of general visual patterns — hits a high point at ages 23 to 24, says a team led by psychology graduate student Laura Germine of Harvard University.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above link.
Archeology/Anthropology
University of Maine via physorg.com: Researcher finds oldest known domesticated dog in Americas
January 11, 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Maine graduate student has discovered evidence of the oldest identifiable domestic dog in the Americas.
Samuel Belknap III, a graduate research assistant working under the direction of Kristin Sobolik in UMaine’s Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, found a 9,400-year-old skull fragment of a domestic dog during analysis of an intact human paleofecal sample.
The fact that the bone was found in human waste provides the earliest proof that humans in the New World used domesticated dogs as food sources.
Science News: Ancient farmers swiftly spread westward
Agricultural villages appeared in Croatia nearly 8,000 years ago
By Bruce Bower
ANCIENT AGGIES Discoveries at two prehistoric farming villages in southern Croatia, including ceramic bowls and a partial female statuette, shown above, reflect a sophisticated culture of plant cultivation and animal herding much like that still practiced in the region today.A. Moore
Croatia does not have a reputation as a hotbed of ancient agriculture. But new excavations, described January 7 in San Antonio at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, unveil a Mediterranean Sea–hugging strip of southern Croatia as a hub for early farmers who spread their sedentary lifestyle from the Middle East into Europe.
Farming villages sprouted swiftly in this coastal region, called Dalmatia, nearly 8,000 years ago, apparently with the arrival of Middle Easterners already adept at growing crops and herding animals, says archaeologist Andrew Moore of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
UCLA via physorg.com: Earliest known winery found in Armenian cave
January 11, 2011
By Meg Sullivan
(PhysOrg.com) -- The earliest known winery has been uncovered in a cave in the mountains of Armenia.
Analysis by a UCLA-led team of scientists has confirmed the discovery of the oldest complete wine production facility ever found, including grape seeds, withered grape vines, remains of pressed grapes, a rudimentary wine press, a clay vat apparently used for fermentation, wine-soaked potsherds, and even a cup and drinking bowl.
The facility, which dates back to roughly 4100 B.C. — 1,000 years before the earliest comparable find — was unearthed by a team of archaeologists from Armenia, the United States and Ireland in the same mysterious Armenian cave complex where an ancient leather shoe was found, a discovery that was announced last summer.
Derby Telegraph via This is Derbyshire (UK): Amazing find of Stone Age village made by historians
By cmallett@derbytelegraph.co.uk
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have made the stunning discovery of a 5,500-year-old Stone Age village, home to Derbyshire's first farmers and potters.
Ben Johnson and his team made the ancient find during a painstaking dig in Peak District fields, near Wirksworth.
He said he was astonished when he discovered the first evidence – a shattered shard of pottery dating back to at least 3,500BC.
Ben said: "I pulled the piece of Stone Age pottery out of the ground and felt a sense of excitement and wonder.
"No-one had held that for more than 5,000 years."
University of Gothenberg (Sweden) via Red Orbit: Effective Use Of Power In The Bronze Age Societies Of Central Europe
Posted on: Tuesday, 11 January 2011, 14:29 CST
During the first part of the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin in Central Europe, a large proportion of the population lived in what are known as tell-building societies. A thesis in archaeology from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) shows that the leaders of these societies had the ability to combine several sources of power in an effective way in order to dominate the rest of the population, which contributed towards creating a notably stable social system.
Tell-building societies are named after a distinct form of settlements with a high density of population and construction, which over the course of time accumulated such thick cultural layers that they took on the shape of low mounds.
On the basis of a discussion and analysis of previously published material from the Carpathian Basin and new findings from the tell settlement Százhalombatta-Földvár in Hungary, the author of the thesis, Claes Uhnér, describes the ways in which leaders could exercise power. Tell-building societies had relatively advanced economies. The subsistence economy, which was based on agricultural production and animal husbandry, produced a good return, and the societies were involved in regional and long-distance exchange of bronzes and other valuable craft products.
N.Y. Times via Deccan Herald (India): Antiquity of cancer
George Johnson
Though thought of as a modern disease, cancer has always been with us. Where scientists disagree is on how much it has been amplified. Archaeologists have made about 200 possible cancer sightings dating to prehistoric times, writes George Johnson
When they excavated a Scythian burial mound in the Russian region of Tuva about 10 years ago, archaeologists struck gold. Crouched on the floor of a dark inner chamber were two skeletons, a man and a woman, surrounded by royal garb from 27 centuries ago: headdresses and capes adorned with gold horses, panthers and other sacred beasts.
But for paleopathologists – scholars of ancient disease – the richest treasure was the abundance of tumours that had riddled almost every bone of the man’s body. The diagnosis: the oldest known case of metastasizing prostate cancer.
New Kerala (India): UN-backed project to conserve Buddha's birthplace underway
New York, Jan 12 : An international team of archaeologists has begun a three-year survey, coordinated by the UNESCO, of the ruins of Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha in Nepal.
The survey on Lumbini, a world-renowned Buddhist pilgrimage destination, has been funded by the Japanese Government and coordinated by the UNESCO office in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
It aims to identify the presence, or absence, of archaeological deposits, invisible below the surface, so that appropriate placing of pilgrim facilities can be made without damaging valuable archaeological resources.
BBC: Boundary wall from 1600s found at Edinburgh castle
Excavations for the new Tattoo stands on Edinburgh Castle esplanade have revealed the remains of a boundary wall dating back to the 17th Century.
CFA Archaeology will now look at the surrounding area to gain a clearer understanding of what it was part of.
A trench dug for one of more than 100 concrete pad foundations for the new stands revealed the remains of a wall around 1m (3.3ft) wide.
The works are part of a Scheduled Monument Consent granted by ministers.
The Age (Australia): Everyone digs in as archaeologists uncover a wealth of history
Ruth Williams
January 9, 2011
WHEN an old sewerage pipe near the centre of Ballarat needed replacing last year, archaeologists were called in for what was expected to be a routine dig of the surrounds.
But what they uncovered surprised and delighted heritage experts - a trove of more than a thousand gold rush artefacts, many once belonging to members of Ballarat's mid-19th century Chinese community. As well as European pottery and bottles, they found medicine vials stamped with Chinese characters, intact fig jars, coins, tokens and imported Chinese porcelain.
''It would be not unexpected to find some sort of deposit, but nothing like the scale of what was found,'' says Jeremy Smith, senior archaeologist at Heritage Victoria.
Brigham Young University via physorg.com: Are some towns more lovable than others?
January 13, 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though magazines often create lists of the 'best places to live,' a new study suggests that no community is more or less likely than another to foster a sense of community attachment.
A sociology grad student and his professor at Brigham Young University will publish these surprising findings in a forthcoming issue of the highly rated American Journal of Sociology.
Prior to this research, many sociologists believed that certain community traits influenced how attached residents felt. That list of suspected factors included cultural heritage, levels of acquaintanceship, the pace of economic development, population density and habits of the predominant ethnic group.
Instead, the BYU researchers found that none of these dimensions of a locale produce a higher sense of attachment – or at least they don’t anymore.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
io9: Drunk scientists pour wine on superconductors and make an incredible discovery
Yoshihiko Takano and other researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan were in the process of creating a certain kind of superconductor by putting a compound in hot water and soaking it for hours. They also soaked the compound in a mixture of water and ethanol. It appears the process was going well, because the scientists decided to have a little party. The party included sake, whisky, various wines, shochu, and beer. At a certain point, the researchers decided to try soaking the compound in the many, many liquors they had on hand and seeing how they compared to the more conventional soaking liquids.
When they tested the resulting materials for superconductivity, they found that the ones soaked in commercial booze came out ahead.
BBC: Antimatter caught streaming from thunderstorms on Earth
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Seattle
A space telescope has accidentally spotted thunderstorms on Earth producing beams of antimatter.
Such storms have long been known to give rise to fleeting sparks of light called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.
But results from the Fermi telescope show they also give out streams of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons.
The surprise result was presented by researchers at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US.
Chemistry
International Year of Chemistry via Red Orbit: US Launches International Year Of Chemistry
The United Nations has designated 2011 the "International Year of Chemistry (IYC)" — a global celebration of chemistry and its contributions to the world around us. This worldwide initiative is being celebrated under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), and features activities conducted by countries, such as the United States, that adhere to these organizations.
News Release Jointly Prepared By:
The United States launch of IYC 2011 is Feb. 1 in Philadelphia, Pa., where prominent leaders from industry and academia will gather to discuss solutions to increasing global demands for energy, safe food and water, and improving human health at a panel discussion, titled "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions."
This event is presented by the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) in collaboration with the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and the United States National Committee for IUPAC at the National Academy of Sciences.
Energy
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: Japanese carmakers in push for hydrogen vehicles
Thu Jan 13, 10:22 pm ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's top three automakers Toyota, Honda and Nissan have united with Japanese energy firms in a push to commercialise greener hydrogen fuel cell cars and build a network of fuelling stations.
Along with 10 Japanese energy groups including natural gas refiners and distributors, the companies are aiming to build 100 filling stations by 2015 in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka, the companies said in a statement Thursday.
The automakers are making a renewed push behind Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCVs), which covert hydrogen into electricity and emit nothing more harmful than water vapour.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Reuters via Yahoo! News: Panel calls for tough regulation after BP spill
By Ayesha Rascoe – Tue Jan 11, 5:42 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A White House panel probing BP's massive oil spill called for an overhaul of a regulatory system that was "entirely unprepared" for disaster and outlined stringent, new oversight, a plan sure to face opposition from Republicans reluctant to expand government involvement.
The White House oil spill commission said in its final major report that the U.S. government needs to expand its drilling regulations, as well as set up an independent drilling safety agency.
"None of the major aspects of offshore drilling safety -- not the regulatory oversight, not the industry safety standards, not the spill response practices -- kept pace with the push into deepwater," said commission co-chair Bill Reilly.
"In effect, our nation was entirely unprepared for an inevitable disaster," he said.
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: Coal industry fumes as US revokes mining permit
Fri Jan 14, 2:32 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The withdrawal of a permit for a controversial "mountaintop removal" coal mining operation has sparked outrage in the US industry, but was hailed as a victory for environmental protection and the health of nearby communities.
The move Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to revoke licenses for a major open-pit mine in West Virginia, at the heart of the Appalachian wilderness region, was a landmark move against Mingo Logan Coal Co, a subsidiary of the leading coal producer Arch Coal.
The mine, said the EPA's assistant administrator for water Peter Silva, "would use destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and clean water on with they depend."
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: 'Nuclear' candy turns out to be toxic
Fri Jan 14, 9:43 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US authorities issued a recall Friday for a brand of Pakistan-made candy called Toxic Waste Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars because it turns out the sweets actually are toxic.
Tests showed that the cherry flavoring in the chew bars contained extremely high levels of lead -- 0.24 parts per million when the US limit is 0.1.
Science is Cool
Science News: Reviving the taste of an Iron Age beer
Barley grains offer savory insights into ancient Celtic malt beverage
By Bruce Bower
Early Celtic rulers of a community in what’s now southwestern Germany liked to party, staging elaborate feasts in a ceremonial center. The business side of their revelries was located in a nearby brewery capable of turning out large quantities of a beer with a dark, smoky, slightly sour taste, new evidence suggests.
Six specially constructed ditches previously excavated at Eberdingen-Hochdorf a 2,550-year-old Celtic settlement, were used to make high-quality barley malt, a key beer ingredient, says archaeobotanist Hans-Peter Stika of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart. Thousands of charred barley grains unearthed in the ditches about a decade ago came from a large malt-making enterprise, Stika reports in a paper published online January 4 in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above link.
Nature: X-rated worm movies reveal sex secrets
Sperm design and mating behaviour co-evolve.
Amy Maxmen
Videos of pairs of Macrostomum flatworms mating have helped to show how sex shapes sperm.
By watching countless hours of hermaphroditic worm sex, Lukas Schärer and his wife Dita Vizoso, evolutionary biologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland and their colleagues, have discovered evidence for a theory that has eluded testing for nearly a century: sex shapes sperm. Their findings, including videos of the mating worms, are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Sperm are the most diverse of animal cells, variously adorned with tails, hairs, hooks, bristles and more. "But we don't know what any of those doodads do," says Scott Pitnick, an evolutionary biologist at Syracuse University in New York. Fertilization is not easy to observe, and predictions about the function of sperm design are even harder to test, so it took a group of transparent and rather kinky flatworms to unravel a piece of the puzzle. The creatures are simultaneous hermaphrodites: each has both male and female genitalia. The worms are about the size of a comma, but readily mate under a microscope.
University of Colorado via physorg.com: Bloggers' word choice bares their personality traits, study finds
Bloggers' word choice bares their personality traits, study finds
January 11, 2011
(PhysOrg.com) -- Words convey meaning, but our choice of specific words also conveys details about our personalities, new research confirms. For example, extraverts are likely to use the word "mouth" frequently, and "open" personalities are likely to use words like "folk," "poetry" and "universe."
In one of the largest studies on the matter to date, Tal Yarkoni, a psychology and neuroscience postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder, explores what our written words reveal about us.
His work also rebuts the widely held belief that people can maintain distinctly different offline and online personalities. Yarkoni's research was published in the Journal of Research in Personality and was funded by the National Institutes of Health.