Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and jlms qkw, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
Between now and the end of the primary/caucus season, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in each of the states having elections and caucuses during the week (or in the upcoming weeks if there is no primary or caucus that week). Tonight's edition features the science, space, environment, and energy stories from universities in the Super Tuesday states of Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia and the caucus states of Washington and Wyoming. Next week's edition will also feature stories from the states participating in Super Tuesday along with stories from Alabama, Hawaii, Kansas, and Mississippi.
This week's featured stories come from Reuters and the University of Virginia, respectively.
Rescue, cleanups continue in tornado zone, 39 dead
By Susan Guyett and John D. Stoll
HENRYVILLE, Ind./CRITTENDEN, Kentucky | Sat Mar 3, 2012 10:56pm EST
(Reuters) - Rescue teams and residents combed through storm-wracked towns to assess damage on Saturday from a chain of tornadoes that cut a 1,000-mile swath of destruction from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, as the death toll rose to at least 39 people.
The fast-moving twisters spawned by massive thunderstorms splintered blocks of homes, damaged schools and a prison, and tossed around vehicles like toys, killing 20 people in Kentucky, 14 in neighboring Indiana, three in Ohio and one in Alabama, officials said. Georgia also reported a storm-related death.
"We're not unfamiliar with Mother Nature's wrath out here in Indiana," Governor Mitch Daniels told CNN during a visit to the stricken southeast corner of the state.
"But this is about as serious as we've seen in the years since I've been in this job," he said, standing against the backdrop of the hard-hit town of Henryville, which declared a night-time curfew to prevent looting.
Friday's storms came on top of severe weather earlier in the week in the Midwest and brought the overall death toll from the unseasonably early storms this week to at least 52 people.
State Supreme Court Throws Out Attorney General's CIDs
March 2, 2012 — The Supreme Court of Virginia today affirmed a circuit court's decision quashing two civil investigative demands – or CIDs – by the Virginia Attorney General that sought extensive information relating to climate research conducted by Michael Mann, an assistant professor of environmental sciences in the University of Virginia's College of Arts & Sciences from 1999 to 2005.
Writing for the court, Justice Leroy F. Millette Jr. stated that the University is first and foremost a state agency and therefore not subject to CID provisions in the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, under which the attorney general had sought information and documents.
The attorney general had argued that the University is a corporation, and therefore falls within the definition of "person" outlined in the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, or FATA. The Supreme Court, however, agreed with the University's position that the CID provisions of the act don't apply because the University is a state agency.
"This is an important decision that will be welcomed here and in the broader higher education community," U.Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan said.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
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Slideshows/Videos
Washington State University: Is cattle germ tied to human illness?
By Linda Weiford, WSU News
PULLMAN, Wash. - Doctors who treat patients with Crohn’s disease have long regarded the illness as a biological version of friendly fire, where people’s own immune systems mistakenly attack the digestive tract. But Washington State University researcher William Davis said its cause may originate outside the human body - from a germ that sickens cattle.
Working with scientists internationally, Davis is developing a vaccine that could head off the problem.
Why a rod-shaped bacterium that infects cattle is turning up in the intestines of humans warrants far more investigation than it is getting, said Davis, a professor in WSU’s Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology. A new vaccine could save cattle, the livelihood of dairy farmers and ranchers, and lend a measure of protection to humans against the potentially harmful germ, he said.
Fox 25 Boston: iPhone App To Help Treat Drug Abuse
Updated: Wednesday, 29 Feb 2012, 11:03 AM EST
Published : Wednesday, 29 Feb 2012, 10:00 AM EST
There are apps for just about everything these days.
Doctors at the UMass Medical School have come up with an app to help treat drug abuse.
The app is called Iheal and it's a fascinating development.
To explain the app Dr. Edward Boyer, professor of Emergency Medicine and one of the lead authors in the study, joined us this morning.
WBIR (NBC TV 10): In-depth: Electric cars
A study from UT has found emmissions in electric cars could actually be worse than emission from their gas-powered counterparts.
This was based on a study in China. It's not an argument against electric cars; it's an argument against coal-fired electrical plants.
Astronomy/Space
Scientific American: Hell off Earth: Blustery Exoplanet Charted in 2-D for First Time
Astronomers have made a crude two-dimensional thermal map of an extrasolar world they cannot yet see, confirming that violent winds rapidly whip around the planet
By John Matson
February 27, 2012
A mere 60 light-years away, orbiting an orangish star called HD 189733, is a world an Earthling would not want to visit. The planet is a gas giant, like Jupiter or Saturn, but unlike those familiar worlds this one hugs tightly to its host star, orbiting at about one thirtieth the distance at which Earth circles the sun. The exoplanet, labeled HD 189733 b by astronomical convention, stays mighty toasty under its astronomical broiler, with temperatures upward of 900 degrees Celsius.
Thanks to a new study, any hypothetical unfortunates forced to visit HD 189733 b will know which part of the planet is the most infernal. A trio of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle (U.W.), Columbia University and Northwestern University has produced a thermal map of the planet's atmosphere in both latitude and longitude. Their research appears in the March 10 The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The map is somewhat crude, but that is no surprise given that HD 189733 b cannot even be seen in the conventional sense. As is the case for most of the 750-plus exoplanets that astronomers have identified to date, its presence and properties are inferred from indirect observations—for instance, by monitoring how much starlight the planet blocks when passing in front of its parent star.
Austin Peay State University: Provost Lecture Series: Earth's atmosphere a major nuisance in astronomy
3/2/2012
The Earth's atmosphere, though necessary to support life, is a major nuisance to accurate astronomical work. Instrumentation has improved over the past few decades to a point that the time-tested techniques to account for the effects of the atmosphere on astronomical data are no longer sufficient.
“With major new astronomical surveys beginning, advances in the techniques to account for the atmosphere are needed,” said Dr. J. Allyn Smith, associate professor of physics and astronomy.
Evolution/Paleontology
Planet Earth Online via physorg.com: Hot-spring fossils preserve complete Jurassic ecosystem
By Tom Marshall
March 2, 2012
Discovered in Patagonia in southern Argentina, the San Agustin geothermal deposits include animals, plants, fungi and bacteria, preserved in three dimensions and with their internal structure largely intact.
The fossils date from around 150 million years ago, and formed around an area where water heated deep underground rose to the surface. This is the first time a hot-spring habitat from the Mesozoic era (from about 250 to 65 million years ago) has ever been discovered. And what has been catalogued so far is probably only the beginning, as the researchers are still working through their finds.
Hot springs are rare habitats at any particular moment, but they are treasure troves for palaeontologists, because the dissolved silica in their waters quickly penetrates and preserves the bodies of living things that die there. This means they are preserved in three dimensions rather than crushed into a two-dimensional film in the rock like organisms that are fossilised in other ways, such as by being buried in a mudslide.
North Carolina State University via physorg.com: Scientists get first full look at prehistoric New Zealand penguin
February 27, 2012
After 35 years, a giant fossil penguin has finally been completely reconstructed, giving researchers new insights into prehistoric penguin diversity.
The bones were collected in 1977 by Dr. Ewan Fordyce, a paleontologist from the University of Otago, New Zealand. In 2009 and 2011, Dr. Dan Ksepka, North Carolina State University research assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences colleague Dr. Paul Brinkman traveled to New Zealand to aid in the reconstruction of the giant penguin fossil.
Researchers dubbed the penguin Kairuku, a Maori word that loosely translates to "diver who returns with food." Ksepka was interested in the fossil because its body shape is different from any previously known penguin, living or extinct. He was also interested in the diversity of penguin species that lived in what is now New Zealand during the Oligocene period, approximately 25 million years ago.
University of Florida via physorg.com: UF scientists name new ancient camels from Panama Canal excavation
February 29, 2012
The discovery of two new extinct camel species by University of Florida scientists sheds new light on the history of the tropics, a region containing more than half the world's biodiversity and some of its most important ecosystems.
Appearing online this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the study is the first published description of a fossil mammal discovered as part of an international project in Panama. Funded with a grant from the National Science Foundation, UF paleontologists and geologists are working with the Panama Canal Authority and scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to make the most of a five-year window of excavations during Panama Canal expansions that began in 2009.
The discovery by Florida Museum of Natural History researchers extends the distribution of mammals to their southernmost point in the ancient tropics of Central America. The tropics contain some of the world's most important ecosystems, including rain forests that regulate climate systems and serve as a vital source of food and medicine, yet little is known of their history because lush vegetation prevents paleontological excavations.
National Evolutionary Synthesis Center via physorg.com: Ice Age coyotes were supersized, fossil study reveals
February 27, 2012
Coyotes today are pint-sized compared to their Ice Age counterparts, finds a new fossil study. Between 11,500 and 10,000 years ago — a mere blink of an eye in geologic terms — coyotes shrunk to their present size. The sudden shrinkage was most likely a response to dwindling food supply and changing interactions with competitors, rather than warming climate, researchers say.
In a paper appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers studied museum collections of coyote skeletons dating from 38,000 years ago to the present day. It turns out that between 11,500 and 10,000 years ago, at the end of a period called the Pleistocene, coyotes in North America suddenly got smaller.
"Pleistocene coyotes probably weighed between 15-25 kilograms, and overlapped in size with wolves. But today the upper limit of a coyote is only around 10-18 kilograms," said co-author Julie Meachen of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Biodiversity
University of Virginia: No More Edible Fish by 2050?
February 27, 2012 — Students, small-business owners and professors convened Wednesday in a Campbell Hall lecture room at the University of Virginia to watch bluefin tuna get hauled into boats on a movie screen as they sampled local trout and sustainable barramundi hors d'oeuvres. This community wanted to talk about the problems facing the world fishing industry – and what they can do about them.
The U.Va. Food Collaborative, a group of people in the U.Va. community who work to promote research, teaching and community engagement about issues surrounding food, agriculture and sustainability, sponsored the screening of "The End of the Line," a film about the decline of world fisheries. It was followed by a discussion with Steven Macko, an environmental sciences professor in the College of Arts & Sciences, and U.Va. graduate students Jack Cochran and Doug Dickerson, who started the Charlottesville Community Supported Fishery.
The film showed that modern fishing practices have outpaced the rate at which fish replicate, forcing many species like the bluefin tuna onto the endangered species list and causing the global fish catch to sharply decline.
Virginia Tech: Nowhere to hide: New study finds future of Sumatran tigers threatened by human disturbances
BLACKSBURG, Va., March 1, 2012 – Three of the world’s subspecies of tigers are now extinct. A new study found that the Sumatran tiger subspecies is nearing extinction as a result of human activities, particularly the conversion of natural forests into forestry and agricultural plantations, leading to habitat loss.
The study, conducted by Virginia Tech and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is the first of its kind to systematically investigate the use of different land cover types — not just forests but also plantation areas — for tiger habitat.
Published in the Public Library of Science’s online journal PLoS ONE on Jan. 23, the study was led by Sunarto, who earned his doctorate in wildlife sciences from Virginia Tech in 2011. The study was a collaboration between the university and WWF, and received support from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry.
Biotechnology/Health
Washington State University: Probing plant secrets in order to feed a changing world
By Brian Clark, College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences
March 1, 2012
PULLMAN, Wash. - With an impish grin, Mike Kahn recently led a group of visitors into an old greenhouse on the Washington State University campus in Pullman. Kahn is a scientist in WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry, home to a group of researchers probing the secrets of plant life to help ensure the world's burgeoning population has enough to eat.
"Welcome to the future," his expression seemed to say. Inside, the group of reporters and videographers was treated to a remarkable site: a boxy contraption moving over rows of small green plants, stopping at intervals and emitting flashes of colored light.
The contraption contains two cameras and literally looks at plants in a new way.
Washington State University: Variety of toxicants can harm subsequent generations
By Eric Sorensen, WSU science writer
February 29, 2012
PULLMAN, Wash. - A Washington State University researcher has demonstrated that a variety of environmental toxicants can have negative effects on not just an exposed animal but the next three generations of its offspring.
The animal’s DNA sequence remains unchanged, but the compounds change the way genes turn on and off - the epigenetic effect studied at length by WSU molecular biologist Michael Skinner and expanded on in the current issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
While Skinner’s earlier research has shown similar effects from a pesticide and fungicide, this is the first to show a greater variety of toxicants - including jet fuel, dioxin, plastics and the pesticides DEET and permethrin - promoting epigenetic disease across generations.
"We didn't expect them all to have transgenerational effects, but all of them did," Skinner told the technology website Gizmodo. "I thought hydrocarbon would be negative but it was positive too.”
University of Georgia: UGA study reveals basic molecular ‘wiring’ of stem cells
Finding promises to streamline creation of therapeutic cells
March 1, 2012
Athens, Ga. - Despite the promise associated with the therapeutic use of human stem cells, a complete understanding of the mechanisms that control the fundamental question of whether a stem cell becomes a specific cell type within the body or remains a stem cell has-until now-eluded scientists.
A University of Georgia study published in the March 2 edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell, however, creates the first ever blueprint of how stem cells are wired to respond to the external signaling molecules to which they are constantly exposed. The finding, which reconciles years of conflicting results from labs across the world, gives scientists the ability to precisely control the development, or differentiation, of stem cells into specific cell types.
"We can use the information from this study as an instruction book to control the behavior of stem cells," said lead author Stephen Dalton, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar of Molecular Biology and professor of cellular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "We'll be able to allow them to differentiate into therapeutic cell types much more efficiently and in a far more controlled manner."
University of Georgia: UGA researcher working to speed blood testing
February 27, 2012
Athens, Ga. - The wait for some blood test results may be reduced from weeks to hours, thanks to research being conducted at the University of Georgia. Leidong Mao, an assistant professor with the UGA Faculty of Engineering, is refining a device to manipulate blood cells and other particles that shows promise in detecting and treating blood diseases. He has recently received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to further his work.
For years, scientists have tried to increase the speed and accuracy of detecting abnormal cells and related matter in blood samples. These tests often take days or weeks, and mistaken analyses-"false positives" and "false negatives"-occur because diseased cells and particles are often present in low quantities and minute sizes.
"Cytology screening currently requires an expensive infrastructure and highly-trained cytotechnologists," said Leidong. "Often they have to look for one abnormal cancer cell among millions-even billions-of normal cells. The process is very tedious, time-consuming and prone to error."
University of Georgia: Deaths triple among football players, morning temperatures thought to play a role
February 27, 2012
Athens, Ga. - Heat-related deaths among football players across the country tripled to nearly three per year between 1994 and 2009 after averaging about one per year the previous 15 years, according to an analysis of weather conditions and high school and college sports data conducted by University of Georgia researchers.
The scientists built a detailed database that included the temperature, humidity and time of day, as well as the height, weight and position for 58 football players who died during practice sessions from overheating, or hyperthermia. The study, published recently in the International Journal of Biometeorology, found that for the eastern U.S., where most deaths occurred, morning heat index values were consistently higher in the latter half of the 30-year study period. Overall, Georgia led the nation in deaths with six fatalities.
"In general, on days the deaths occurred, the temperature was hotter and the air more humid than normal local conditions," said climatologist Andrew Grundstein, senior author of the study and associate professor of geography in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
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Grundstein cautioned against assigning complete blame for the deaths on warmer temperatures and increasing humidity. He found that football players have also grown larger since 1980. Linemen, who tend to have a higher body mass index than other players, seem especially susceptible to hyperthermia. In Grundstein's sample, 86 percent of those who died were linemen. The increase in deaths also could be explained by an overall increase in weight and BMI in the past 15 years.
University of Massachusetts: Teaching the tricks of the tobacco trade
Psychiatrists in training learn about dangerous new tobacco products
By Sandra Gray
UMass Medical School Communications
Feb. 28, 2012
More than a thousand Americans quit smoking each day—by dying, often of tobacco-induced illnesses such as lung cancer, heart disease and stroke. Despite decades during which knowledge of the dangers of tobacco use has increased, and the number of Americans who smoke has decreased, attendant health problems of tobacco use continue at epidemic proportions domestically and pandemic proportions worldwide.
One major reason that tobacco use continues worldwide is that the tobacco industry, which has a vested interest in hooking new users of nicotine, maintains a steady pipeline of new products that appear to be designed to attract the youngest new tobacco users, as well as individuals living with a psychiatric disorder, who the industry hopes will spend a lifetime consuming tobacco. The industry also offers alternatives to smokers so that they can consume nicotine wherever they go, even in locations where smoking is prohibited.
University of Tennessee: UT Researchers Invent Device to Rapidly Detect Infectious Disease
Posted on March 1, 2012 9:44 am
KNOXVILLE—Infectious diseases can spread very rapidly, so quickly identifying them can be crucial to stopping an epidemic. However, current testing for such diseases can take hours and days. But not for much longer.
Jayne Wu, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Shigetoshi Eda, associate professor of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the UT Institute of Agriculture Center for Wildlife Health, have developed a portable device that can be used onsite to detect infectious diseases, pathogens, as well as physiological conditions in people and animals.
“Time is of the essence in treating infectious diseases,” said Wu. “This device has the potential to save a lot of lives by saving time in detection. It also saves a lot of money as it is cheaper to detect diseases than the system that is currently being used since we do not have to send them to a lab and have the sample be scrutinized by technicians.”
University of Tennessee: UT Researchers Help Alumnus with Mobility Issues Due to Cerebral Palsy
Posted on February 27, 2012 10:55 am
KNOXVILLE–Rupy Sawhney, Weston Fulton Professor and head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is used to presenting his students with tough questions. A year ago, he presented them with this challenge: find a way to help Edi Deaver, a UT alumnus with cerebral palsy, be more mobile.
“He wasn’t able to get from his wheelchair to his bed and often had to sleep with his shoes on,” said Sawhney. “I said to my graduate students ‘How can we help him?’ And they got together and came up with a plan.”
A team of five graduate students, led by Lavanya Marella, researched how Deaver’s body moved and then customized an over-the-bed lift system to accommodate his movements. Sawhney used research funds to purchase the system that was adapted for Deaver’s needs.
“We have a mission in our department, which is to be relevant to our community,” said Sawhney. “We take state-of-the-art research and bring it to the community to help the community. That is our purpose.”
University of Vermont: Johnson and Colleagues Find Rate of Injuries Higher in Snowboarders than Skiers
By Jennifer Nachbur
02-21-2012
A recent study of skiing and snowboarding injuries over 18 seasons at a Vermont resort found that injury rates were higher in snowboarders than skiers. The research, reported online in the American Journal of Sports Medicine and coauthored by Robert Johnson, M.D., University of Vermont professor emeritus of orthopaedics and rehabilitation, sought to examine not only the injury patterns and type of injuries sustained while snowboarding, but differences in injuries between snowboarders and downhill skiers in regards to age, experience and sex as well.
According to Snowsports Industries America, in 2010, about 8.2 million people went snowboarding and 11.5 million went skiing in the United States.
University of Virginia: NIH Awards $3.3 Million Grant to Research Barrier-Breaking Brain Cancer Treatment
February 28, 2012 — The most common primary brain cancer is glioblastoma, a highly aggressive and deadly form of tumor that kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Like other brain cancers, it is extremely difficult to treat because glioblastomas are usually deeply embedded within healthy brain tissue and therefore nearly impossible to safely access. Chemotherapy drugs cannot reach these tumors because a membrane between the bloodstream and brain tissue, called the blood-brain barrier, blocks them.
The blood-brain barrier is a way for the brain to protect itself from potentially dangerous chemicals or contaminants that may travel through the bloodstream. Unfortunately, the barrier also locks out cancer-killing drugs.
But new research at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University is beginning to demonstrate that a battery of innovative techniques may be able to break though the blood-brain barrier and someday allow the effective treatment of glioblastoma.
Climate/Environment
Seattle Times: Ocean researchers dive deeper into Puget Sound's acidification
The past few years have seen astounding discoveries from sophisticated research on acidification in Puget Sound and the oceans.
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
February 27, 2012
FRIDAY HARBOR, San Juan Island — To understand the bizarre ways changes in ocean chemistry may affect Northwest sea life, there may be no simpler creature to start with than mussels.
When scientists in a Friday Harbor laboratory exposed mussels to slightly acidic marine water, they found the tiny fibers the shellfish use to cling to rocks stayed as strong as ever.
But when the water warmed, those fibers, called byssal threads, became less adhesive — and that could prove deadly.
Georgia Tech: Arctic Sea Ice Decline May be Driving Snowy Winters Seen in Recent Years
Posted February 27, 2012 Atlanta, GA
A new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The study’s findings could be used to improve seasonal forecasting of snow and temperature anomalies across northern continents.
Since the level of Arctic sea ice set a new record low in 2007, significantly above-normal winter snow cover has been seen in large parts of the northern United States, northwestern and central Europe, and northern and central China. During the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, the Northern Hemisphere measured its second and third largest snow cover levels on record.
“Our study demonstrates that the decrease in Arctic sea ice area is linked to changes in the winter Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation,” said Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. “The circulation changes result in more frequent episodes of atmospheric blocking patterns, which lead to increased cold surges and snow over large parts of the northern continents.”
Geology
University of North Dakota: Geology Team Completes Antarctic Expedition
February 28, 2012
After two months in a remote valley of the world's coldest and driest continent, geomorphologist Jaakko Putkonen and his student team are back in Grand Forks. They successfully finished their second trip to Antarctica as part of a research project to discover how the wind shapes the barren landscape there.
It's a big challenge just getting to the destination—a desolate dirt-covered valley in Antarctica's Ong Valley and Moraine Canyon.
"I counted 17 individual connecting flights to get to our research site from Grand Forks and back," said Putkonen, an experienced cold-climate researcher from Finland and assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering. Putkonen and his team set up data gathering equipment at their research site during their first expedition to Antarctica in late 2010; they traveled there again earlier this year to download data from their probes and gather up all the equipment they'd installed the previous year.
Psychology/Behavior
Gawker: The Tech Industry’s Asperger Problem: Affliction Or Insult?
Somewhere north of 15,000 American children are conservatively believed to be afflicted with Asperger Syndrome, a disorder characterized by obsessive and rigid behavior, poor communication skills, clumsiness, and a lack of empathy and reciprocity. Cases of Asperger's and a related disorder, autism, exploded in Silicon Valley over the past 20 years, according to state-funded outreach workers — an assertion that will come as no shock to users familiar with pedantic, apathetic, tight-lipped and self-serving tech companies. How, exactly, does Asperger's work, and has it had a material impact on how the technology sector relates to its customers? Below, find a quick guide to those questions, and a look at why one of the Valley's most famously infuriating pedants, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is rumored to have it.
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Back in 2001, Valley seat Santa Clara County had a worrisomely higher incidence of Asperger's and autism, the local authority on such cases told Wired at the time. "This is a burst that has staggered us in our steps," the director of the regional center for people with developmental disabilities was quoted as saying. A Cupertino public school teacher was also quoted calling the trend toward more and more cases "an iceberg approaching."
The disorders seemed to cluster in other tech hubs, too. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft was the first major U.S. corporation to offer insurance that covered autism-and-Asperger's-related behavioral training. In Rochester, New York, the local school district advised the mother of a child with Asperger Syndrome to move to the northwestern part of the city, because there were a large number of affected kids there. The northwest quadrant is "where the IBMers congregate," the mom told Wired.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Worcester Telegram: At UMass Medical, brain ‘pacemaker’ targets depression
By Karen Nugent TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
March 1, 2012
It sounds like deep space, but actually it’s a deep section of the human brain thought to be responsible for bad moods. If that mood never goes away, even with treatment, it’s called chronic or clinical depression.
Research using modern imaging studies a few years ago found that the area functions differently — it becomes overactive — in people who are chronically depressed and have tried everything from medication to electroshock therapy.
There may be new hope through a pacemaker-like device similar to those used to treat Parkinson’s disease.
A clinical trial on deep brain stimulation, in which an electrode is implanted into the brain and connected to a pacemaker in the shoulder is about to start at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, one of just 20 sites in North America, and the only New England site.
Ohio State University: WINNING MAKES PEOPLE MORE AGGRESSIVE TOWARD THE DEFEATED
February 29, 2012
COLUMBUS, Ohio – In this world, there are winners and losers – and, for your own safety, it is best to fear the winners.
A new study found that winners – those who outperformed others on a competitive task – acted more aggressively against the people they beat than the losers did against the victors.
“It seems that people have a tendency to stomp down on those they have defeated, to really rub it in,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.
“Losers, on the other hand, don’t really act any more aggressively than normal against those who defeated them.”
Bushman said this is the first study to examine whether winners or losers were more likely to act aggressively.
Archeology/Anthropology
Physorg.com: Evidence suggests Neanderthals took to boats before modern humans
by Bob Yirka
March 1, 2012
(PhysOrg.com) -- Neanderthals, considered either a sub-species of modern humans or a separate species altogether, lived from approximately 300,000 years ago to somewhere near 24,000 years ago, when they inexplicably disappeared, leaving behind traces of their DNA in some Middle Eastern people and artifacts strewn all across the southern part of Europe and extending into western Asia. Some of those artifacts, stone tools that are uniquely associated with them, have been found on islands in the Mediterranean Sea, suggesting, according to a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, by George Ferentinos and colleagues, that Neanderthals had figured out how to travel by boat. And if they did, it appears they did so before modern humans.
Physorg.com: European style stone tools suggest Stone Age people actually discovered America
by Bob Yirka
February 29, 2012
(PhysOrg.com) -- Archeologists and historians have long known that it wasn’t really Christopher Columbus who discovered America. Native Americans had been living all over North, Central and South America long before he arrived. And Native Americans came from Asia across the frozen-over Bering Sea in the west. But now, it appears Europeans might have been first to arrive on the scene after all. Stone tools found recently in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia in the eastern United States, all appear to bear a striking resemblance to tools used by Stone Age peoples in early Europe, and have been dated to a time between 19,000 and 26,000 years ago, a period during which Stone Age people were making such tools, and long before the early Asians arrived.
Strictly speaking, the immigrants from Asia would have been Stone Age people as well.
LiveScience via Discovery News: Iceman May Hold Earliest Evidence of Lyme Disease
The 5,300-year-old ice mummy from the Alps appears to have had the oldest known case of Lyme disease.
Content provided by Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Tue Feb 28, 2012 01:14 PM ET
The 5,300-year-old ice mummy dubbed Ötzi, discovered in the Eastern Alps about 20 years ago, appears to have had the oldest known case of Lyme disease, new genetic analysis has revealed.
As part of work on the Iceman's genome — his complete genetic blueprint — scientists found genetic material from the bacterium responsible for the disease, which is spread by ticks and causes a rash and flu-like symptoms and can lead to joint, heart and nervous system problems.
The new analysis also indicates the Iceman was lactose intolerant, predisposed to cardiovascular disease, and most likely had brown eyes and blood type O.
To sequence the Iceman's genome, researchers took a sample from his hip bone. In it, they looked for not only human DNA — the chemical code that makes up genes — but also for that of other organisms. While they found evidence of other microbes, the Lyme disease bacterium, called Borrelia burgdorferi, was the only one known to cause disease, said Albert Zink, a study researcher and head of the European Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) in Italy.
LiveScience via Discovery News: Found: Ancient Warrior's Helmet, Owner Unknown
A 2,600-year-old bronze helmet is found in the waters of Haifa Bay, in Israel.
Content provided by Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:03 AM ET
A Greek bronze helmet, covered with gold leaf and decorated with snakes, lions and a peacock's tail (or palmette), has been discovered in the waters of Haifa Bay in Israel. But how this helmet ended up at the bottom of the bay is a mystery.
The helmet dates back around 2,600 years and likely belonged to a wealthy Greek mercenary who took part in a series of wars, immortalized in the Bible, which ravaged the region at that time. Archaeologists believe that he likely fought for an Egyptian pharaoh named Necho II.
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The helmet was discovered accidentally in 2007 during commercial dredging operations in the harbor. After it was discovered, conservators with the Israel Antiquities Authority went to work cleaning it and archaeologists began to analyze it.
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News: Greek antiquities 'reburied for lack of funds'
AFP – Fri, Mar 2, 2012
Lack of funding in crisis-hit Greece has stymied archaeological research and leads experts to rebury valuable discoveries to better protect them, a Greek daily reported on Friday.
"Mother Earth is the best protector of our antiquities," Michalis Tiverios, a professor of archaeology at Thessaloniki's Aristotelio University, told Ta Nea daily on the sidelines of an annual archaeological congress in the city.
Tiverios recently persuaded the culture ministry to rebury a previously-unknown Early Christian basilica, found two years ago during work on Thessaloniki's new underground railway.
Discovery News: The Medici Venus Once Had Red Lips
Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi
Fri Mar 2, 2012 05:07 PM ET
Red lipstick once shimmered on the lips of the Medici Venus, according to chemical analysis on the 2,000-year-old marble statue representing the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite.
The investigation, carried out at the University of Modena and Reggio and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where the statue has been on display since 1677, indicates that the life-sized naked and sensual Venus originally had red lips and hair laminated with gold.
These features were meant to represent the Venus "in a very realistic way," Fabrizio Paolucci, head of the Uffizi's classical antiquities department, said.
To strenghten the effect, the naked statue also wore precious earrings, as newly discovered earlobe holes suggest.
North Carolina State University via physorg.com: Foot bones allow researchers to determine sex of skeletal remains
February 29, 2012
Law enforcement officials who are tasked with identifying a body based on partial skeletal remains have a new tool at their disposal. A new paper from North Carolina State University researchers details how to determine the biological sex of skeletal remains based solely on measurements of the seven tarsal bones in the feet.
"Tarsals are fairly dense bones, and can be more durable than other bones – such as the pelvis – that are used to determine biological sex," says Dr. Troy Case, an associate professor of anthropology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "Also, the tarsal bones are often enclosed in shoes, which further protects them from damage. That's particularly useful in a forensic context." The tarsals are the seven bones that make up the ankle, heel and rear part of the arch in a human foot.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
Georgia Tech: Scientists Score Another Victory Over Uncertainty in Quantum Physics Measurements
"Squeezed" Measurements Demonstrated in Bose-Einstein Condensate
Posted February 26, 2012 Atlanta, GA
Most people attempt to reduce the little uncertainties of life by carrying umbrellas on cloudy days, purchasing automobile insurance or hiring inspectors to evaluate homes they might consider purchasing. For scientists, reducing uncertainty is a no less important goal, though in the weird realm of quantum physics, the term has a more specific meaning.
For scientists working in quantum physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that measurements of properties such as the momentum of an object and its exact position cannot be simultaneously specified with arbitrary accuracy. As a result, there must be some uncertainty in either the exact position of the object, or its exact momentum. The amount of uncertainty can be determined, and is often represented graphically by a circle showing the area within which the measurement actually lies.
Over the past few decades, scientists have learned to cheat a bit on the Uncertainty Principle through a process called “squeezing,” which has the effect of changing how the uncertainty is shown graphically. Changing the circle to an ellipse and ultimately to almost a line allows one component of the complementary measurements – the momentum or the position, in the case of an object – to be specified more precisely than would otherwise be possible. The actual area of uncertainty remains unchanged, but is represented by a different shape that serves to improve accuracy in measuring one property.
University of Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Graduate Student Wins National Physics Award
March 1, 2012
Norman, Okla.—A University of Oklahoma graduate student is the first recipient of a national award from the American Physical Society for outstanding dissertation in theoretical particle physics. Andre Lessa attended OU on the Brazil CAPES Fulbright Fellowship from 2008 to 2011.
...
Most in the physics community believe “dark matter” or the dominant form of matter that fills the universe is comprised of weakly interacting massive particles or WIMP particles. Searches for WIMPS include the IceCube neutrino telescope located at the South Pole, space spaced antimatter and gamma-ray detections, noble liquid detectors located a mile or more deep underground, and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Lessa’s thesis explores dark matter as a mixture of two different particles: the axion, which is predicted by an elegant solution (Peccei-Quinn or PQ symmetry) to a vexing problem in nuclear physics known as the strong CP problem and the lightest particle of supersymmetry (LSP) theories. The dark matter that arises out of just PQ symmetry or just supersymmetry (SUSY) seems beset by problems.
By including both PQ and SUSY in his thesis, a much more intricate picture of dark matter emerges.
Chemistry
University of Tennessee: Chemistry student earns grant to present at national conference
By Iris Mahan, University Relations Intern
Posted on February 24th, 2012
Chemistry major and Grote Scholar Ashley Cardenal has received a travel grant to a national conference so that she can present her research, which could lead to a more effective way to treat cancer.
Cardenal, a Grote Scholar, is the recipient of an American Chemical Society travel grant. She will present “Photoinduced-DNA Cleavage Activity of Rhodium Complexes” at the Society’s 243rd national conference, to be held March 25th-29th in San Diego.
Cardenal’s work will be one of more than 8,000 papers introduced to the conference’s 15,000 participants.
Energy
University of Washington: UW students to design alternative-fuels vehicle for EcoCAR 2 competition
By Hannah Hickey
March 1, 2012
The UW campus is seeing more alternative fuel vehicles like the Toyota Prius, the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. In the lower level of the mechanical engineering building annex, UW students are working on a car that aims to leave them in the dust, from an environmental standpoint.
A team of more than 40 students is competing in the EcoCAR 2 competition, an international contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors Co.
Over the next 2 1/2 years the students will take a 2013 Chevy Malibu, strip out the motor and drive train, and turn it into a low-emissions vehicle with a 50-mile electric range. Once the battery runs out it turns into a hybrid with 50 mpg fuel efficiency.
The UW is one of 15 teams selected from hundreds of hopefuls to participate in the three-year contest. After passing a series of milestones, the completed vehicles will be put through their paces at the GM proving grounds in Arizona and Michigan. Teams will be judged on their ability to design a fuel-efficient, low-emissions vehicle that still meets consumer demands for a driver-friendly car.
University of Wyoming: UW’s Secondary Biogenic CBNG Conference to Focus on ‘Methane Farming’ Technology
February 27, 2012 — For years, extraction of coal bed methane (CBM) was a one-and-done proposition: Extract the natural gas from the coal and move on to the next bed. Now, technologies are being developed that may allow for the continued production of CBM through the stimulation of microorganisms living in the coal bed.
The biogenic process, referred to as "methane farming," will be one of the subjects discussed during the Secondary Biogenic Coal Bed Natural Gas International Conference, which will be hosted by the University of Wyoming June 20-21, at the UW Conference Center and Hilton Garden Inn in Laramie.
...
"With this approach, you need to look at the coal seam as a biological reactor. Microorganisms living within the coal seam have been producing natural gas for thousands of years. All we have to do is engineer the system to produce more gas, faster," says Michael Urynowicz, UW Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering associate professor, and director of UW's Center for Biogenic Natural Gas Research. "Basically, if you can find ways to make the microorganisms happy, they will create more natural gas."
North Dakota State University: NDSU students to compete in Clean Snowmobile Challenge
Published: 27 February 2012 11:28 AM
A team of NDSU students is set to compete in the upcoming 13th annual Society of Automotive Engineers’ Clean Snowmobile Challenge. The collegiate design competition is scheduled for March 5-10 at Michigan Technology University in Houghton, Mich.
The NDSU squad is one of 12 teams entered in the internal combustion category, where engineering students take a stock snowmobile and re-engineer it. The goal is to reduce emissions and noise and increase fuel efficiency while preserving power.
“Our sled is meant to be a proof of concept for diesel-powered recreational vehicles,” said Chad Thomas, a member of NDSU’s snowmobile team. “The efficiency and noise components of the challenge are where we expect to have the biggest advantage over the competition.”
University of Vermont: Kunstler Headlines 'Vermont's Energy Future' Lecture Series
By University Communications
February 23, 2012
James Howard Kunstler has no love for flashy, contemporary architecture. "These redundant monumental gestures are the last gasps of the cheap energy fiesta," he writes on his "Eyesore of the Month" page of his website, which regularly skewers images of skyscrapers, poor urban planning and futuristic buildings. "The closer we get to the end, the more soulless they get."
Kunstler is author of The Geography of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere, and The Long Emergency, among other books, which critique and offer solutions to America's "tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside," symbols of disregard, he says, for an impending energy crisis.
In the keynote address of a spring semester lecture series on "Vermont's Energy Future," co-sponsored by the Center for Research on Vermont and the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Kunstler will speak on "The End of Cheap Energy," Wednesday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Davis Center's Silver Maple Ballroom.
In this lecture, Kunstler will lay out a vision of a world dependent on cheap energy and approaching a devastating turning point that will return the nation to a place where community matters, where neighbors gather and people build places they value.
Kunstler is a crank, but he's the most annoying kind of crank, one actually knows what he's talking about and therefore has to be paid attention to. Otherwise, you would never figure out which things are saying are useful and which are just cranky B.S.
Science, Space, Environment, Health, and Energy Policy
University of Washington: Are budget cuts to health departments putting our health at risk?
By Ashley Wiggin
February 29, 2012
Providing care for mothers and babies, preventing the spread of communicable diseases and responding to emergencies are among the services provided by local health departments, which have faced devastating cuts in the past several years.
A 2011 National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) survey of local health departments nationwide found that more than half of all departments cut services in the first part of 2011, with maternal child health services the “hardest hit.” According to a 2011 National Association of County and City Health Officials report, since 2008, local health departments nationally have lost 34,400 out of a total 155,000 jobs due to layoffs and attrition This loss of capacity is expected to threaten the health of the communities these agencies serve.
To better understand what this means for the public, Betty Bekemeier, assistant professor of of psychosocial and community health in the UW School of Nursing, has been funded to look at the effects of these cuts on county health departments.
University of North Dakota: UND study shows smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks
February 28, 2012
BISMARCK, N.D. —A recent study by the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences reveals that the incidence of heart attacks in Grand Forks dropped by 24.1 percent within four months of the city's comprehensive smoke-free law taking effect in August 2010.
The study, funded by the Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy (the Center), looked at an eight month window to evaluate the impact of how smoke-free ordinances make a difference in heart attack rates. The study measured four months before the smoke-free law went into effect and four months following the smoke-free law and reports a 69.4 percent reduction in heart attack admissions as a percentage of total hospital admissions in Grand Forks. This is particularly significant because overall hospital admissions increased during the same time frame.
"This study demonstrates the immediate health benefits of eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke," said Dr. Eric Johnson, an associate professor with the Department of Family and Community Medicine and co-author of the study. He added, "It's interesting that we saw this large of a drop when Grand Forks already had a partial smoke-free law in place before the implementation of the full smoke-free workplace law.”
To read the study itself, click
here for the PDF.
Ohio State University: NEWS ARTICLES LINKING ALCOHOL TO CRIMES OR ACCIDENTS INCREASE SUPPORT FOR LIQUOR LAW ENFORCEMENT
February 22, 2012
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Reading a newspaper article about the role alcohol played in an injury accident or violent crime makes people more supportive of enforcing alcohol laws, a new study suggests.
Researchers had participants read actual news reports, randomly selected from newspapers across the United States, about violent crimes and various accidental injuries – half of which were edited to mention the role of alcohol and half of which were edited not to make such mention.
Those who read the articles mentioning alcohol’s role later showed more support for enforcing laws regarding serving intoxicated people, sales to underage youth and open containers, compared to those who had read the other articles.
The results are important because prior work from this research group has indicated that fewer than one-fourth of newspaper reports and one-tenth of TV news reports on alcohol-related crimes and non-car-related fatal injuries actually mention that alcohol was involved.
Science Education
University of Georgia: UGA College of Environment and Design participates in community assessments in India
February 29, 2012
Athens, Ga. - University of Georgia students and faculty from the College of Environment and Design recently joined Oxford Brookes University of England in a unique design process in rural India. The trip was coordinated by Oxford's Center for Development and Emergency Practice.
UGA participants on the trip included CED M.L.A. graduate students Stephanie Wolfgang, Stuart Jones, Rachel Johnson, Carrie Landers and Ashley Stinson, and faculty members Katherine Melcher and Pratt Cassity.
Using a set of tools referred to as Participatory Rapid Appraisal, the group conducted assessments of the area from the vantage point of community members. In less than two weeks, the team helped local residents and other participants understand the details of human environmental needs in the community and create a report that will help guide design decisions as the area experiences change.
Austin Peay State University: Provost Lecture Series: Chemistry professor's analysis of iPad use in class
2/28/2012
Interactive technology in the classroom has been shown to enhance student learning. The Apple iPad is one of the most exciting innovations of modern technology and has tremendous potential as a teaching tool.
The question for Dr. Robert Shelton, assistant professor of chemistry at Austin Peay State University, is whether interacting with an iPad in a general chemistry classroom environment actually promotes student learning.
“Using available iPad applications, we designed and implemented structured activities in a first semester general chemistry class for science majors,” Shelton said. “These activities introduced, reinforced or practiced standard topics such as nomenclature and stoichiometry. Several forms of student assessment were implemented to gauge perspective and evaluate outcomes.”
Virginia Tech: Virginia Tech event to focus on female scientists' challenges and successes
BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 29, 2012 – Virginia Tech will host A Showcase of Female Scientists to explore the unique struggles of female scientists to balance work and family issues, and what women in science can do to help advance their careers and maintain a healthy personal life. The event will take place on the Blacksburg campus March 12 and 13.
“The idea for this showcase came from a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant that supports female graduate students in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation,” said Carolyn Copenheaver, associate professor of forest ecology in the College of Natural Resources and Environment. “As this group of students moves through our program, I thought it was important to provide them and other female students at Virginia Tech role models of successful women scientists.”
Although the event targets women in science, the sessions are open to all students, faculty, staff, and community members. Events include a scientific seminar on fire and climate; a panel discussion on how women scientists balance their personal and professional lives; a keynote address by Laura Furgione, deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on the nation’s response to extreme climatic events; and several professional development workshops for graduate students.
Science Writing and Reporting
University of Washington: New book details archaeological excavations on San Juan Island
By Peter Kelley
February 27, 2012
It’s a powerful feeling, says anthropology graduate student Amanda Taylor, to stand where people stood thousands of years back and gaze out at the same water — the same sunsets — that they saw so long ago.
“Maybe you reach down and see an artifact, and they last dropped that artifact a thousand years ago,” she said. “No one has looked at it or touched it, or even thought about it. And when you pick it up and look at it, it’s like you have this instant connection to the person who left it there.”
Taylor is co-editor, with Burke Museum Director Julie Stein, of a new book from University of Washington Press titled “Is it a House?” The book details archaeological excavations at English Camp, on San Juan Island facing the Gulf of Georgia, conducted by Stein and her students over many years.
NPR: Why We Fight: The Psychology Of Political Differences
by Glenn C. Altschuler
The Righteous Mind
Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
by Jonathan Haidt
March 1, 2012
Americans, it seems, have never been more polarized about religion and politics. With minds made up and combat-ready, we have a hard time bridging the chasms that divide us.
In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, explains why. A moral perspective, he argues, is a feature of our evolutionary design. Morality has made it possible for human beings — unlike any other creatures — to forge large, cohesive, cooperative groups. Morality also blinds as it binds, producing conflicts between groups, tribes and countries.
Drawing on fascinating studies in cognitive, behavioral and evolutionary psychology, The Righteous Mind is splendidly written, sophisticated and stimulating. It may well change how you think and talk about politics, religion and human nature.
Science is Cool
North Dakota State University: Social psychologist brings research findings to the public by blogging for Psychology Today
Published February 21, 2012
The title of Clay Routledge’s blog seems to cover most of life’s psychological bases. And thousands of people can’t wait to see what he says next.
“Death Love Sex Magic” is the social psychologist’s view of the many and varied issues that impact the human experience. Routledge is an NDSU assistant professor of psychology who regularly posts to his blog on the Psychology Today website.
“I picked the words death, love, sex and magic because they represent concepts that are important in human social life,” Routledge explained. “I think people will find the blog interesting because it’s about things most people can identify with and care about – relationships, beliefs, attitudes, politics and religion. They’re things people can intrinsically appreciate.”
Life's Little Mysteries: People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say
by Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer
Date: 28 February 2012 Time: 12:35 PM ET
The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies.
The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people's ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.
As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. On top of that, "very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is," Dunning told Life's Little Mysteries.
