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 Reuters.
NASA's Juno probe sets sail for Jupiter
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida
Fri Aug 5, 2011 4:55pm EDT
An unmanned rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Friday, sending a robotic scout on its way to Jupiter to gather details about how the solar system formed.
The Atlas 5 rocket carrying NASA's Juno spacecraft lifted off at 12:25 p.m. (1625 GMT), the first step in a five-year, 445-million mile (716-million km) odyssey to the largest planet in the solar system.
Launch was delayed almost an hour while United Launch Alliance fixed a technical problem with ground support equipment. The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture builds and flies Atlas and Delta rockets for NASA, as well as the military and commercial customers.
"Next stop is Jupiter," an elated Scott Bolton, head of the Juno science team, told reporters after launch. "I couldn't be happier. This is sort of like a dream come true."
This was one of three astronomy and space stories that could have occupied the top spot. The other two lead the Astronomy and Space section. Yes, the space news was that strong this week.
More after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Watch this space!
The Daily Bucket - Lizards Anyone?
by enhydra lutris
This week in science
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
NASA Television: The successful liftoff of the Juno spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center begins a five-year cruise to the planet Jupiter to investigate the planet's structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
It will also provide detailed images of Jupiter's surface and capture the first high-resolution views of its poles. Also, possible Martian water flows; Vesta's new look; oxygen in space; and, Columbia debris. Plus, HQ crew visit; Russians spacewalk; SOFIA ambassadors; new Apollo 15 book; and dunk tank for food.
Russia Today: The soil of Russian far-eastern Amur region, rich in precious metals, has yielded up treasure of another kind. Dinosaur bones found here have attracted paleontologists eager make advances in their branch of science.
Astronomy/Space
Reuters: NASA finds new evidence of liquid water on Mars
By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES
Thu Aug 4, 2011 7:39pm EDT
NASA scientists have discovered new evidence that briny water flows on Mars during its warmest months, raising chances that life could exist on the Red Planet, the space agency said on Thursday.
NASA first found signs of water on Mars more than a decade ago, but earlier indications were that any existing water would be frozen and concentrated at the poles.
Recently analyzed images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite show dark, finger-like features that extend down some slopes and crater walls on the planet during its late spring through summer, fading in the Martian winter.
"This is the best evidence we have to date of a liquid water occurring today on Mars," said Philip Christensen, a geophysicist at Arizona State University, Tempe, in a NASA panel announcing the findings in Washington.
Alternate top story #1.
Reuters: Earth's moon shaped by impact with another: study
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES
Thu Aug 4, 2011 9:03am EDT
A primordial collision of two moons that once orbited Earth explains why the present-day moon is a bit lopsided and its far side much rockier than the lunar surface facing our planet, scientists said Wednesday.
Research published in the journal Nature suggests the early moon was shadowed by a smaller companion satellite, about one-thirtieth of its own mass, as the two bodies circled the infant Earth in tandem more than 4 billion years ago.
But as the moons evolved further from the Earth, coming under greater influence of the Sun's gravitational force, the stability of their co-orbit was upset, putting them on a collision course, said Erik Asphaug, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
After about 100 million years of cohabitation, the smaller moon finally crashed into the larger moon in an impact that unfolded over several hours and resulted in a merger of the two celestial bodies, Asphaug said.
Alternate top story #2.
Reuters: NASA probe gives close-up look at asteroid Vesta
* Asteroid dates back to early days of solar system
* Body is second largest in the main asteroid belt
* Dwarf planet Ceres also on itinerary of robotic probe
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
Mon Aug 1, 2011 4:36pm EDT
The first close-up pictures of the asteroid Vesta, a protoplanet that dates back to the early days of the solar system, revealed a surprisingly diverse terrain and several unexplained geologic features, NASA scientists said on Monday.
The images were taken by the U.S. space agency's Dawn robotic probe, which is two weeks into a planned year-long survey of the second largest object in the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.
"These photos already have been a great revelation to the team about what the surface (of Vesta) is like. We did not imagine the detail that we're seeing," Dawn lead scientist Chris Russell, with the University of California at Los Angeles, told reporters.
Reuters: Power companies prepare as solar storms set to hit Earth
by Scott DiSavino
NEW YORK | Sat Aug 6, 2011 1:04pm EDT
Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days.
"The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level," said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Reuters: NASA confirms space shuttle debris found in Texas
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida
Thu Aug 4, 2011 4:49pm EDT
NASA confirmed on Thursday that a large piece of debris from space shuttle Columbia, which was destroyed in 2003, has been found in a drought-stricken Texas lake.
The component of the ill-fated spaceship is one of its 18 gas tanks, the U.S. space agency said.
...
The Nacogdoches Police Department in Texas called NASA late last week to ask for help identifying a 4-foot-diameter (1.2 meter) spherical metal tank found in a newly exposed bed of Lake Nacogdoches.
The lake's water level has dropped by about 11 feet due to a record drought.
Evolution/Paleontology
Reuters: 20-million year-old ape skull found in Uganda
By Elias Biryabarema
KAMPALA
Thu Aug 4, 2011 8:11am EDT
Ugandan and French scientists have discovered a fossil of a skull of a tree-climbing ape from about 20 million years ago in Uganda's Karamoja region, the team said Tuesday.
The scientists discovered the remains on July 18 while looking for fossils in the remnants of an extinct volcano in Karamoja, a semi-arid region in Uganda's northeastern corner.
"This is the first time that the complete skull of an ape of this age has been found. It is a highly important fossil," Martin Pickford, a paleontologist from the College de France in Paris, told a news conference.
Biodiversity
Reuters: Cameroon, Chad sign pact to fight elephant poaching
by Tansa Musa and Tim Cocks
YAOUNDE | Wed Aug 3, 2011 1:00pm EDT
Cameroon and Chad have signed an accord to ramp up efforts to fight poachers who kill hundreds of elephants a year in a protected park on their common border, ministers from both nations said.
Both central African countries suffer from rampant poaching of elephants and other species for ivory headed mainly to Asian markets and for the bush meat trade. Observers say the rising wealth of east Asian countries has caused a spike in the price and demand for ivory in recent years.
The protected area is more than 300,000 hectares, including Cameroon's Bouba Ndjidda park and Chad's Sena Oura park, Cameroon Forestry and Wildlife Minister Elvis Ngolle Ngolle said late Tuesday, as he signed the deal with Chad's Environment Minister Hassan Terap.
Reuters: Injured sea turtle returned in sea off U.S. coast
By Manuel Rueda
JUNO BEACH, Fla
Thu Aug 4, 2011 5:36pm EDT
A plucky sea turtle has been released back into the wild off Florida's coast after months of intensive medical care to reverse damage caused by the propellers of a wayward motorboat.
The release of Andre, a green turtle named after U.S. wrestling star Andre the Giant, marked a rare success story for the state's endangered sea turtles.
Hundreds of dead, sick or injured turtles are found on Florida's beaches every year because of run-ins with speedboats, entanglement in fishing lines and sudden changes in water temperature.
Marked with a distinctive bar code before his release, his supporters see him as a poster-child for the reptiles fighting to survive challenges, including climate change, in tropical and subtropical waters everywhere.
Biotechnology/Health
Reuters: Experts grow mouse sperm to help with human infertility
By Tan Ee Lyn
Researchers in Japan used embryonic stem cells to grow healthy mouse sperm on laboratory dishes, a development which could help treat human infertility, they said Friday.
The finding, published in the journal Cell, marks a step forward for using stem cells for regenerative medicine.
...
Scientists at Kyoto University removed stem cells from mouse embryos and managed to coax them into a type of precursor cell known to grow into either mouse eggs or sperm.
They then transplanted these cells into the testes of infertile male mice -- which apparently went on to produce healthy sperm.
Reuters: Experts study what parasites eat to find ways to kill them
By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG
Fri Aug 5, 2011 3:57am EDT
Researchers in Australia are working on a technique that will allow them to starve to death parasites which are proving harder to destroy using existing drugs.
The parasite they used in the study was the leishmania, which is transmitted by the bite of the phlebotomine sandfly. After a period of incubation, the parasite causes huge skin sores, fever, anemia and damages the spleen and liver.
It affects 12 million people worldwide and has become more resistant to current drugs.
Reuters: New approach a step forward for hepatitis C vaccine
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON
Wed Aug 3, 2011 5:27pm EDT
French scientists have developed a novel hepatitis C vaccine that may offer the first effective way to prevent an infection that can cause chronic liver disease and cancer.
There is currently no available vaccine for hepatitis C, though some companies are developing so-called "therapeutic vaccines," which are designed to help patients who are already infected.
The latest experimental shot has been tested successfully on mice and monkeys, but not humans, and has been shown to activate a broad response from immune system proteins called neutralizing antibodies.
Reuters: HIV epidemics emerge in Middle East, North Africa: study
By Kat
Wed Aug 3, 2011 12:50pm EDT
Epidemics of HIV are emerging among gay and bisexual men in the Middle East and North Africa and high levels of risky sexual behavior threaten to spread the AIDS virus further in the region, researchers said on Tuesday.
In the first study of its kind in a region where homosexuality and bisexuality are taboo, researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar found evidence for concentrated HIV epidemics - where infection rates are above 5 percent in a certain population group - in several countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan and Tunisia.
In one setting in Pakistan, HIV rates reached up to 28 percent, they said in a study in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine journal.
Reuters: HIV infections in U.S. stable but disparities exist
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO
Wed Aug 3, 2011 5:23pm EDT
The number of Americans newly infected with HIV remained stable between 2006 and 2009, but infections rose nearly 50 percent among young black gay and bisexual men, U.S. experts said on Wednesday.
New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal progress since the peak of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. But the sharp increases in infection rates among young black men who have sex with men show there is much more work to do, they said.
"We're very concerned about these increases among young gay men," Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, said in a telephone interview.
"We can't allow the health to a new generation to be lost to what is essentially a completely preventable disease."
Reuters: Scientists find new superbug strain of salmonella
LONDON | Wed Aug 3, 2011 5:25pm EDT
Scientists have identified an emerging "superbug" strain of salmonella that is highly resistant to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, or Cipro, often used for severe salmonella infections, and say they fear it may spread around the world.
The strain, known as S. Kentucky, has spread internationally with almost 500 cases found in France, Denmark, England and Wales in the period between 2002 and 2008, according a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
French researchers who led the study also looked at data from North America and said reports of infection in Canada and contamination of imported foods in the United States suggest the strain has also reached there.
The study was published Wednesday as U.S. health officials reported a multi-state outbreak of another strain of antibiotic-resistant salmonella - called S. Heidelberg - which has so far made 77 people sick and killed one.
Climate/Environment
Reuters: Russia says high ice melt opens Arctic trade routes
by Alissa de Carbonnel
MOSCOW
Wed Aug 3, 2011 5:41pm EDT
Arctic ice cover receded to near record lows this summer, opening elusive northern trade routes from Asia to the West, Russia's climate research agency said on Wednesday.
After the third hottest year on record since 1936 in the Arctic last year, ice cover has melted as much as 56 percent more than average across northern shipping routes, making navigation in the perilous waters "very easy," it said.
"Since the beginning of August icebreaker-free sailing is open on almost all the routes," the climate monitoring agency said on its website www.meteoinfo.ru.
Discovery News: Texas Town to Recycle Urine
The drought-stricken town is taking a page from NASA, which developed a urine recycling program for astronauts.
By Irene Klotz
Fri Aug 5, 2011 07:52 AM ET
The drought in Texas has gotten so severe municipal water managers have turned to a once untenable idea: recycling sewage water.
"When you talk about toilet-to-(water) tank it makes a lot of people nervous and grossed out," says Terri Telchik, who works in the city manager's office in Big Spring, Texas.
Water for the town's 27,000 residents comes through the Colorado River Municipal Water District, which has broken ground on a plant to capture treated wastewater for recycling.
"We're taking treated effluent (wastewater), normally discharged into a creek, and blending it with (traditionally supplied potable) water," district manager John Grant told Discovery News.
Reuters: Crops with deeper roots capture more carbon, fight drought: study
By David Fogarty
SINGAPORE
Fri Aug 5, 2011 11:21am EDT
Creating crops with deeper roots could soak up much more carbon dioxide from the air, help mankind fight global warming and lead to more drought-tolerant varieties, a British scientist says in a study.
Douglas Kell of the University of Manchester says crops can play a crucial role in tackling climate change by absorbing more of mankind's rising greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Doubling root depth to two meters would also make crops more drought resistant, improve soil structure and moisture, store more nutrients and reduce erosion, Kell says in the study published online in the Annals of Botany journal.
Reuters: City cycle schemes save lives
By Kate Kelland
LONDON
Fri Aug 5, 2011 2:48am EDT
Public bicycle sharing schemes such as Barcelona's "Bicing" programme or London's "Boris Bikes" save lives and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study on Friday.
Bike schemes are becoming increasingly popular in cities around the world, with more than 360 already running, but their main aim is usually to ease congestion rather than boost health.
Researchers at the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona found in a study, however, that around 9,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution are averted and some 12 lives saved each year by Barcelona's scheme, which was introduced in March 2007.
Geology
Science News: Small volcanoes add up to cooler climate
Airborne particles help explain why temperatures rose less last decade
By Alexandra Witze
August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 5)
Along with sulfur emitted by coal-burning power plants, volcanic particles spewed high in the atmosphere reduced the amount of global warming otherwise expected during the 2000s, a new study finds.
Relatively small volcanic eruptions last decade sent sulfur high enough in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and help stall a rising global temperature trend. The work, reported online July 21 in Science, suggests it doesn’t take a colossal eruption for volcanoes to have a discernible influence on climate.
“If you don’t include these stratospheric aerosols in the models, you’re going to overestimate how much the temperature should have increased over the past decade,” says team member John Daniel, an atmospheric physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo.
Science News: Rare earth elements plentiful in ocean sediments
Economically vital metals could be mined from deep sea, Japanese geologists propose
By Devin Powell
August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 14)
Mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean contains surprising concentrations of rare earth elements, 17 chemicals with exotic names like neodymium and europium that are critical to technologies ranging from cell phones and televisions to fluorescent light bulbs and wind turbines.
Hot plumes from hydrothermal vents pulled these materials out of seawater and deposited them on the seafloor, bit by bit, over tens of millions of years. One square patch of metal-rich mud 2.3 kilometers wide might contain enough rare earths to meet most of the global demand for a year, Japanese geologists report July 3 in Nature Geoscience.
“I believe that rare earth resources undersea are much more promising than on-land resources,” says Yasuhiro Kato, a geologist at the University of Tokyo who led the study.
Psychology/Behavior
Discovery News: Minority Rules: Scientists Find the Tipping Point
If just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will be adopted by the majority, a new study says.
By Emily Sohn
Thu Aug 4, 2011 06:00 AM ET
To change the beliefs of an entire community, only 10 percent of the population needs to become convinced of a new or different opinion, suggests a new study done at the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At that tipping point, the idea can spread through social networks and alter behaviors on a large scale.
The research is still in its early stages, and it's uncertain if the results will apply to all kinds of beliefs, particularly in tense political situations.
But the findings do provide insight into how opinions spread through communities. The model may also help experts more effectively quell misconceptions and influence the choices people make about public health behaviors and related issues.
Reuters: Alaska study finds female moose manipulate males to fight
By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Wed Aug 3, 2011 7:49pm EDT
Moose-mating season, just around the corner in Alaska, means crisp fall days, ripe berries on the bushes and, according to a new study, animal behavior that might seem more at home in a rowdy singles bar.
Female moose, or cows, are able to manipulate amorous males into fighting each other, allowing the more desirable bulls to emerge as mates, according to the study, which is based on observations made in Alaska's Denali National Park.
The cows' efforts are subtle, so they have long been overshadowed by the belligerent, antler-clashing behavior of bull moose in rutting season, said the study, which published by the academic journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
Archeology/Anthropology
Discovery News: King Tut's Treasures Return Home
Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Fri Aug 5, 2011 01:14 PM ET
A trove of small figurines and jewelry that was illegally taken from King Tutankhamun's treasure- packed tomb has been returned to Egypt after more than 50 years, local authorities announced this week.
Consisting of 19 small-scale objects, the trove entered the Egyptian collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York from the 1920s to 1940s.
After an in-depth investigation into the history of the relics, the Met's experts concluded that "without doubt" the objects "originated in Tutankhamun's tomb."
Discovery News: Tomb of Jesus' Apostle Found In Turkey?
Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Mon Aug 1, 2011 06:01 PM ET
The tomb of Saint Philip, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, might have been unearthed in southwestern Turkey, according to Italian archaeologists who have been excavating the area for decades.
Francesco D'Andria, director of the Institute of Archaeological Heritage, Monuments and Sites at Italy's National Research Council in Lecce, found the burial after intensive geophysical research at the World Heritage Site of Hierapolis, now called Pamukkale.
“It was believed that the tomb of St. Philip was on Martyrs’ Hill, but we found no traces of him in that area," D’Andria said. "The tomb emerged as we excavated a fifth century church 40 meters away from the church dedicated to the saint on Martyrs’ Hill.”
According to D'Andria, the grave was moved from its previous location in the St. Philip Church to the new church in the Bizantine era.
Fox News via Discovery News: Captain Morgan's Pirate Ship Found
The cargo has yet to be opened, but funder Captain Morgan USA hopes it's rum.
Sat Aug 6, 2011 09:56 AM ET
The lost wreckage of a ship belonging to 17th century pirate Captain Henry Morgan has been discovered in Panama, said a team of U.S. archaeologists -- and the maker of Captain Morgan rum.
Near the Lajas Reef, where Morgan lost five ships in 1671 including his flagship "Satisfaction," the team uncovered a portion of the starboard side of a wooden ship's hull and a series of unopened cargo boxes and chests encrusted in coral.
The cargo has yet to be opened, but Captain Morgan USA -- which sells the spiced rum named for the eponymous pirate -- is clearly hoping there's liquor in there.
annetteboardman is taking a well-deserved day off.
Physics
Science News: Quantum theory gets physical
New work finds physical basis for quantum mechanics
By Devin Powell
August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 12)
Physicists in Canada and Italy have derived quantum mechanics from physical principles related to the storage, manipulation and retrieval of information.
The new work is a step in a long, ongoing effort to find fundamental physical motivation for the math of quantum physics, which describes processes in the atomic and subatomic realms with unerring accuracy but defies commonsense understanding.
“We’d like to have a set of axioms that give us a little better physical understanding of quantum mechanics,” says Michael Westmoreland, a mathematician at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.
Chemistry
Science News: Carbon flatland
Graphene’s two dimensions offer new physics, novel electronics
By Alexandra Witze
August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 26)
Some physicists spend their days exploring the three dimensions of space, the four dimensions of spacetime or even the 11 dimensions of something called M-theory. Other researchers are content with just two.
But fewer dimensions doesn’t mean less science. For seven years, researchers have been enjoying a two-dimensional playground of new physics provided by a superflat material called graphene.
Energy
Reuters: Japan PM Naoto Kan brings his nuclear-free vision to Hiroshima
By Kim Kyung Hoon
HIROSHIMA, Japan
Sat Aug 6, 2011 8:48am EDT
Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday took his campaign against nuclear energy in Japan to Hiroshima which 66 years ago became the world's first victim of an atomic bomb.
It marks a change of tack in a country which has until now carefully avoided linking its fast growing, and now discredited, nuclear power industry to its trauma as the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs.
Kan, speaking at an anniversary ceremony for victims of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, repeated that the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at Fukushima after a March earthquake convinced him Japan should end its dependence on nuclear power.
Reuters: Analysis: Cash-rich shale drillers boost output, cap prices
By Jeanine Prezioso
NEW YORK
Wed Aug 3, 2011 4:14pm EDT
Until recently, the nascent U.S. shale gas industry faced a major constraint on its growth, one that was bigger than environmental risk, more vexing than technology, and more challenging than the scrum for new acreage: capital.
After some $40 billion of foreign investment in the sector in the last two years, including BHP Billiton's record $15.1 billion plunge last month, that limitation is no longer a factor, analysts say. And as a result, production may grow even faster than previously expected, putting an ever firmer cap on prices.
Capital-rich companies from ExxonMobil to Royal Dutch Shell have picked up the pace partnering with or acquiring smaller shale producers or parcels of land to gain access to reserves and technology to release them.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Reuters: Post-shuttle, U.S. space explorers need not be human
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON
Thu Aug 4, 2011 9:31am EDT
Now that the shuttle fleet is permanently grounded, the U.S. space spotlight could shift toward the path-breaking astronomical science that NASA does without human beings on board.
Human spaceflight has historically grabbed most of the public's attention and NASA's budget, but robotic probes and observatories have brought the biggest leaps toward understanding the cosmos, from roaming around Mars to looking billions of years back in time to see how galaxies are born.
There was a symbolic torch-passing moment this week, when shuttle astronauts visited the White House to collect kudos from President Barack Obama for the 30-year shuttle program that ended on July 21.
At the same time, NASA announced a probe of the asteroid Vesta, a look into the dark heart of a galaxy and the upcoming launch of a spacecraft headed for Jupiter.
Reuters: Boeing picks Atlas 5 rocket for space taxis
* Boeing plans three test flights in 2015
* Project dependent on additional NASA funding
* Boeing among 4 firms developing space crew transport
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
Thu Aug 4, 2011 5:38pm EDT
Boeing Co (BA.N) announced plans to launch its seven-seat spaceship on a test run to the International Space Station in 2015 using Atlas 5 rockets built by its United Launch Alliance venture.
The project, however, is dependent on additional government funding, Boeing Vice President John Elbon told reporters during a conference call,
He declined to say how much added money would be needed.
Reuters: New drug regulator asks Congress for more power
By Anna Yukhananov
WASHINGTON
Mon Aug 1, 2011 11:56am EDT
Drug companies should take more responsibility for the safety of ingredients sourced overseas, and Congress should make them if they do not, according to the new U.S. drug regulator for import safety.
The Food and Drug Administration should also have the power to stop medicines at the border if their manufacturers refused FDA inspections, and the power to order mandatory recalls of unsafe products, said Deborah Autor, the agency's newly appointed deputy commissioner.
"People are shocked when they learn that we do not have mandatory recalls (of drugs)," Autor told Reuters in her first interview since she was named head of global compliance earlier this month.
Reuters: Eating healthy food costs more money in U.S.
By Anna Yukhananov
WASHINGTON
Thu Aug 4, 2011 11:54am EDT
Eating healthier food can add almost 10 percent to the average American's food bill -- and that is just to boost a single nutrient like potassium.
Researchers from the University of Washington looked at the economic impact of following new U.S. dietary guidelines, which recommend eating more potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium, and avoiding saturated fat and added sugar.
The diet recommendations try to fight rising rates of obesity in the United States, but the study findings underline some of the obstacles to adopting new habits.
In an article in Health Affairs published on Thursday, the researchers reported that eating more potassium, the most expensive of the four nutrients, can add $380 to the average person's yearly food costs.
Americans spend about $4,000 on food each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Science Writing and Reporting
Science News: BOOK REVIEW: Eruptions That Shook the World
By Clive Oppenheimer
Review by Alexandra Witze
August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 30)
Megadisasters sell, and megavolcanoes sell more than most: Turn on any documentary channel to see mountains belching ash clouds across townspeople paralyzed by fear.
Oppenheimer, a volcanologist, has served as consultant on some of these films. But he tops them all with a new book, heavy on scientific detail and light on dramatic froth, chronicling eruptions that really did change the world.
Science News: BOOK REVIEW: Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants
By Richard Mabey
Review by Sid Perkins
August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 30)
Weeds, according to one definition, are simply plants that are growing in the wrong place. Some have invaded gardens from the surrounding countryside, and others escaped cultivation to infest the landscape. But in almost every case, weeds — whether you think of them as adaptable opportunists or as botanical thugs — thrive in human company.
Science is Cool
Reuters: Bears saved from forced vodka drinking
by Olzhas Auyezov
KIEV | Wed Aug 3, 2011 10:47am EDT
Ukraine's Environment Minister Mykola Zlochevsky vowed on Wednesday to free all bears kept in restaurants for entertainment purposes and often forced to drink alcohol, Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday.
...
"On television, they keep showing bears suffering in restaurants and roadside hotels," Interfax quoted him as saying. "How long can we tolerate animal torture in restaurants where drunken guests make bears drink vodka for laughs?"