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Brain circuits tied to expectations
BETHESDA, Md., May 30 (UPI) -- A few dozen newly identified brain cells may be the fundamental circuitry underlying feelings of anticipation and urgency, report scientists in Japan and the United States who have been researching monkeys. In the future, a better understanding of this little hard-wired nugget of personality could help lead to new therapies for disorders such as obsessions, compulsions and addictions. "We think we're looking at this aspect of personality that's built into all of us, this moment-by-moment, hour-by-hour, day-by-day judgment you always make about whether what you're doing now is worth doing," researcher Barry Richmond, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., told United Press International.

posted by West 4:49 PM

 

Memory gene won't let you forget
United Press International -- An international team of neuroscientists has identified a gene that lets people get in touch with their long-term memories. The discovery opens the door to eventually developing drugs for conditions ranging from the chronic forgetfulness of Alzheimer's patients to the occasional "senior moments" of middle-agers, the investigators speculate. Those who cannot remember have not "lost" their memories; they are simply unable to retrieve them, the researchers attest. With most of the previous focus on the brain's mechanism for locking away past experiences, the new findings provide a rare glimpse into the neural processes that regulate their release. "This is a very elegant use of the latest technology and makes a very significant contribution," Roger Nicoll, professor of pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco, told United Press International in a telephone interview. "Much of the work done in this field has been related to how you lay down memories, but very little's been known about how you might pull them out. Everyone's been focused on the first part because that's hard enough, so the retrieval aspect has been largely neglected."

posted by West 4:41 PM

 

Laser pulses can control photosynthesis
MUNICH, Germany, May 29 (UPI) -- An international research team has discovered laser pulses can actually control photosynthesis, the sunlight-harvesting biological reaction that is key to the Earth's biology. The scientists said their technique, which depends on complex mathematical formulas called evolving algorithms, in the future may help advance everything from solar cell technology to molecular computing. "We took a long shot and it worked -- we managed to use lasers to control how energy flowed in this very complex, biological, light-harvesting mechanism. It helps us bridge the gap between physics and biology," researcher Jennifer Herek, a biophysicist at Vrije University in Amsterdam, told United Press International.

posted by West 12:35 PM

 

Heart attack genes discovered
MELBOURNE, Australia, May 28 (UPI) -- Several genes appear to be linked to heart attacks and scientists are now trying to identify the individual genes and how they operate, Australian researchers report. Writing in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, the team said the genes are probably involved in causing the buildup of cholesterol-containing plaque in arteries and the formation of blood clots that block coronary arteries. "At present, we can explain only about one half of heart attacks as being due to high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, smoking and the like," Stephen Harrap, principal investigator and head of the department of physiology at the University of Melbourne, told United Press International.

posted by West 8:32 AM

 

Cloning May Bring Extinct Tasmanian Tiger to Life
SYDNEY, Australia, May 28, 2002 (ENS) - The last Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936, but biologists at the Australian Museum are working to bring the species back by cloning. The Evolutionary Biology Unit at the Australian Museum in Sydney announced today that a scientific team has replicated individual Tasmanian tiger genes using a process known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

posted by West 8:09 AM

 

Exact uncertainty brought to quantum world

(New Scientist, 27 April 2002)
Exact uncertainty sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that is what governs the quantum world, according to a theoretical physicist who has created an improved version of the famous Heisenberg uncertainty principle. . . . To quantify this quantum uncertainty, Hall borrowed a mathematical tool developed in 1925 by British statistician Ronald Fisher. . . . The result is an expression that looks like Heisenberg's original relation, but gives the exact uncertainty in the measurements of position and momentum. Hall says it is an equation rather than an inequality, which is "a far stronger relation".

posted by Lorenzo 8:33 PM

 

Broccoli destroys cancer-causing bacterium
BALTIMORE, May 27 (UPI) -- A potent compound found in broccoli destroys the bacterium that causes ulcers and stomach cancers, new research released Monday reports. The compound, called sulforaphane, killed Helicobacter pylori, a tough, antibiotic-resistant bacterium that is responsible for thousands of cases of ulcers and stomach cancer worldwide. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore and at the French National Scientific Research Center in Paris, conducted laboratory tests on mice that showed sulforaphane killed two types of resistant strains of H. pylori both inside and outside the cell. This is a key finding, researchers said, because destroying disease-causing organisms at the intracellular level can be difficult.

posted by West 5:12 PM

 

US and Evil Axis--Allies for Abstinence
(Doug Ireland, The Nation)
In its intransigent opposition to any acknowledgment of condom use as a way to fight AIDS and adolescent pregnancy, the United States was also joined by such beacons of enlightenment as Sudan (which Bush is preparing to invest with Special Forces troops in the hunt for Al Qaeda supporters), Libya, Syria and the Vatican. Arrayed against the US-led obstructionist effort was an overwhelming majority of the 180 delegations and sixty world leaders participating in the conference, including not only nearly all the Western democracies but the largely Catholic countries of Central and South America. . . . By using its superpower status to effectively veto the language in the final declaration of the children's summit it found offensive, the Bush Administration has weakened the global effort to fight AIDS, particularly in those developing countries whose governments have only just begun to come to grips with combating the epidemic through scientifically proven means like the condom, according to NGO representatives at the summit. . . . Bush's bizarre anticondom coalition with "axis of evil" countries reveals a glaring contradiction in his foreign policy. And, by joining with countries he has flayed as "rogue states" to dilute the UN's battle against the decimation of the world's young by AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, the Administration has made a mockery out of Bush's campaign rhetoric that "no child shall be left behind."

posted by Lorenzo 2:52 PM

 

Scientists Try to Pin Down Elusive Neutrinos
nationalgeographic.com -- Deep in a 19th-century iron mine in a Minnesota state park, in a football-field-size cavern, physicists are building a 6,000-ton steel trap for neutrinos, sub-atomic particles so elusive scientists don't even know if they have any mass. Neutrinos rarely interact with other matter but are essential in the running of the universe. The sun, for instance, couldn't shine without them.

posted by West 9:22 AM

 

Bacteria can 'farm' plants
MONTREAL, May 26 (UPI) -- A group of bacteria uses chemical signals to increase the growth of plants, in effect "farming" the plants for their own advantage, McGill University researchers have discovered. "We grow plants for our own benefit as farmers and that's what the bacteria are doing," plant science professor Donald Smith told United Press International. "They're making more habitat and a larger food source for themselves by stimulating the plant growth." The findings may have implications for human agriculture, Smith said, because the chemical signals used by the bacteria also cause increased growth in a wide range of crop plants, from corn to canola and from cotton to cucumbers.

posted by West 9:06 AM

 

University Sought to Clone Human Embryos
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The University of California-San Francisco confirmed on Friday that it had hosted a large-scale drive to clone human embryos for therapeutic purposes, the first major public institution to acknowledge pursuing the controversial research.

posted by West 8:54 AM

 

Ice oceans found on Mars
bbc.co.uk -- Water-ice has been found in vast quantities just below the surface across great swathes of the planet Mars. The finding by the American space agency Nasa is undoubtedly one of the most important made about the Red Planet. It solves one of its deepest mysteries, points the way for manned exploration and reignites the question of whether life may exist on Mars.

posted by West 8:48 AM

 

Study: 1 in 3 Planets May Have Life
Discovery Channel News -- What are the odds that simple life will develop on a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere? Judging by how quickly the simplest life forms took hold on Earth, about one in three, say researchers with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who are the first to pin a hard number of the chance for basic life on alien Earths. Their work will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Astrobiology. With the earliest remnants of life dating back 3.8 billion years on the 4.5-billion-year-old Earth, scientists looking for life on other worlds have long assumed self-replicating entities would have as good a chance of forming on other planets as they did on Earth, provided the conditions were right. Physicist Charles Lineweaver and colleagues set out to quantify that assumption. To do that, they crunched an unimaginably huge amount of numbers: the recent discoveries of planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system; the prevalence of vast dusty pockets of space where new planets are forming; and data about how quickly planets form and become stable enough to support life.

posted by West 10:36 AM

 

Italian doctor: three cloned births due
SABAUDIA, Italy, May 24 (UPI) -- Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who sparked furor last year with his plan to clone humans, says he has done so -- and the first three cloned births are scheduled for December and January. "I confirm that three women today are pregnant, two in Russia and the third in another country," Antinori told France's Le Monde newspaper in an interview published Friday. In his remarks, at the margins of a conference this week in Sabaudia, Italy, Antinori said the three clonings had been performed using an in-vitro technique he had outlined last summer. The embryos were then implanted in the uterus of each of the three women, he said. Moreover, Antinori said he wanted to launch other cloning operations in the future.

posted by West 10:23 AM

 

Mystery shrouds undersea structures
msnbc.com -- Megalithic structures were discovered two years ago off Cuba’s Guanahabibes Peninsula. Paulina Zelitsky shies from using the term “Atlantis,” but comparisons are inevitable to the legendary sunken civilization that Plato described in his “Dialogues” around 360 B.C. There have been untold, unsuccessful attempts over the ages to find that lost kingdom. One common theory is that Atlantis was located on the Aegean island of Thera, which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption nearly 3,600 years ago. Perhaps, Zelitsky mused, the megaliths off Cuba are remains of a trading post, or a city built by colonizers from Mesoamerica. Those civilizations were far more advanced than the hunters and gatherers the Spaniards found upon arriving here five centuries ago.

posted by West 9:03 AM

 

Astrobiologists look for cosmic scum
msnbc.com -- The odds for extraterrestrial life on Earthlike planets will be put at 1-in-3 in a soon-to-be published report in the journal Astrobiology, but the smartest earthlings have no clue what that life might look like or where to find it. In fact, at a meeting earlier this month of about 100 chemists, biologists, astronomers and other highly evolved thinkers interested in finding extraterrestrial life — the scientists were said by one attendee to be the cream of the crop in their respective fields — none could even say how the simplest life begins.

posted by West 8:54 AM

 

Should the moon be developed?
msnbc.com -- A dispute over prohibiting development on the moon is causing rising tides of controversy on earth. The Moon Society, a nonprofit organization of astronomers, computer programmers and other scientists, advocate 'large-scale industrialization and private enterprise' on the moon. In the vanguard of one side is Rick Steiner, a fisheries professor at the University of Alaska and environmental activist, who proposes that the United Nations designate the moon one of its World Heritage Sites, reserved for peaceful and scientific purposes.

posted by West 8:50 AM

 

New findings support inflationary universe
ARLINGTON, Va., May 23 (UPI) -- New findings lend even more evidence that the universe as we know it began not only with a Big Bang, but also a superbrief but superpowerful outward push by a mysterious phenomenon called inflation, scientists reported Friday. Data collected by the Cosmic Background Imager observatory of tiny variations in the universe's background radiation represent the finest detail yet seen of what CBI astronomers call "the seeds of the first galaxies." The data seem to confirm what cosmological theories have been predicting for years -- exquisitely small inconsistencies in the expanding fireball of the early universe resulted in all the stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters and superclusters that exist today. "It is the earliest visible signal we can see from the Big Bang," said Anthony Readhead, professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and head of the CBI project. CBI is a collaboration among several universities and agencies in the United States, Canada and Chile. It is funded jointly by Caltech and the National Science Foundation.

posted by West 6:42 PM

 

New amino acid discovered
COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 23 (UPI) -- Scientists have uncovered a new amino acid -- the building blocks of proteins -- which could cause biologists to rethink the entire genome and lead to additional new discoveries, they reported in research released Thursday from the journal Science. Joseph Krzycki, principal author of one of the papers included in the journal and a microbiologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, put the discovery on par with "chemists finding a new element or physicists finding a new particle."

posted by West 6:40 PM

 

CNN.com - Dwarf galaxy swarms boost dark matter theory - May 22, 2002
(Richard Stenger, CNN, May 22, 2002)
Scientists have discovered evidence that hordes of dark, miniature galaxies surround ordinary galaxies, lending credence to the theory that the universe is comprised mostly of cold, dark matter. . . . An increasingly popular cosmological model holds that the universe contains large amounts of hidden dark matter because normal matter could not account for the mass needed to hold galaxies together. . . . The theory lost momentum when a search for dark dwarf galaxies around galaxies like our own Milky Way proved fruitless, but the latest find could give it a boost.

posted by Lorenzo 3:58 PM

 

DNA study reveals racial differences
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 23 (UPI) -- A mosaic pattern of DNA variations consistent across all races promises to help medical scientists unravel the origins of diseases as well as chart the evolution of human populations, an international research team reported Thursday. The double-stranded DNA that makes up the human genetic code consists of roughly 3 billion pairs of biochemicals called nucleotides. Since DNA is made of four kinds of nucleotides, there are a daunting number of possible DNA combinations. This multitude of variations is what make everyone unique. It also results in a vulnerability to certain diseases and may explain why people sometimes respond to therapies differently.

posted by West 11:09 AM

 

Our Conscious Mind Could Be An Electromagnetic Field
Professor Johnjoe McFadden from the School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Surrey in the UK believes our conscious mind could be an electromagnetic field. . . . “The theory solves many previously intractable problems of consciousness and could have profound implications for our concepts of mind, free will, spirituality, the design of artificial intelligence, and even life and death,” he said. . . . What Professor McFadden realized was that every time a nerve fires, the electrical activity sends a signal to the brain's electromagnetic (em) field. But unlike solitary nerve signals, information that reaches the brain's em field is automatically bound together with all the other signals in the brain. The brain's em field does the binding that is characteristic of consciousness. What Professor McFadden and, independently, the New Zealand-based neurobiologist Sue Pockett, have proposed is that the brain's em field is consciousness. . . . The brain's electromagnetic field is not just an information sink; it can influence our actions, pushing some neurons towards firing and others away from firing. This influence, Professor McFadden proposes, is the physical manifestation of our conscious will. . . . “The conscious electromagnetic information field is, at present, still a theory. But if true, there are many fascinating implications for the concept of free will, the nature of creativity or spirituality, consciousness in animals and even the significance of life and death.

posted by Lorenzo 10:01 AM

 

Snapshot of Early Universe Shows Galaxies' 'Seeds'
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- New images of the early universe -- a time before there were galaxies, stars or planets -- show the cosmic ripples that eventually became every bit of matter and energy, scientists reported on Thursday. The pictures, made by a scientific instrument called the Cosmic Background Imager on a remote plateau in Chile, are the most detailed images of the oldest light ever emitted, the researchers said in a statement.

posted by West 9:35 AM

 

Old age continues to push boundaries
UPI -- Old age and what it means to be old have undergone a sweeping makeover in the United States, thanks to advances in medical treatments and technology that can convert what once were deadly conditions into chronic illnesses. As the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, as of 2000, life expectancy for the U.S. population hit an all-time high of an average 76.9 years. A baby born in 2002 is expected to live well past age 80, particularly females, who have had consistently higher life expectancies than males. Some experts even predict that by the end of the 21st century, America will see more people living past 100 -- perhaps well past 100 -- although others contend that we are quickly approaching our limit.

posted by West 9:05 AM

 

Dalai Lama said that "intelligence itself is the ultimate source of power". Technology not a panacea, says spiritual leader
vnunet.com -- Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has warned that technology can add to the modern confusion that clouds the universal search for happiness. Speaking to 18,000 people at Melbourne's Rod Laver arena, the Dalai Lama did admit that information has an important role in improving human relations. "Science, technology and other material facilities in the developed world lead people to believe that their problems will all disappear," he explained. "We have seen that this is not the case." But the Dalai Lama said that "intelligence itself is the ultimate source of power".

posted by West 8:57 AM

 

Laws of physics 'may change'
(David Whitehouse, BBC News, May 17, 2002)
new evidence that appears to show the very laws of physics have changed since the cosmos was young. . . . The so-called fine structure constant may have been smaller at earlier times in the history of the Universe. . . . "This has major implications for our understanding of physics," . . . "If this is correct, it will radically change our view of the Universe. We have to be cautious but it could be revolutionary. . . . Since the 1930s, physicists have discussed whether the constants of the Universe that appear in the equations for the fundamental laws of physics - such as the speed of light in vacuum and the electron charge - are indeed constant.

posted by Emmett 5:05 PM

 

Study finds teen vegetarians healthier than meat-eaters - May 13, 2002
(Reuters, May 13, 2002)
"It seems that rather than viewing adolescent vegetarianism as a difficult phase or fad, the dietary pattern could be viewed as a healthy alternative to the traditional American meat-based diet," . . . Overall, adolescent vegetarians were significantly more likely to meet the dietary recommendations of Healthy People 2010," Perry's group wrote. . . . "Vegetarian adolescents were more than twice as likely to eat less than 30 percent of their calories from fat and nearly three times more likely to eat less than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat," . . . "Vegetarian adolescents, similar to their adult counterparts, have dietary patterns that, if maintained, could significantly lower their risk of the leading causes of death as adults," the researchers said.

posted by Emmett 4:51 PM

 

World's Oldest Map?
This seems to be impossible. Scientists of Bashkir State University have found indisputable proofs of an ancient highly developed civilization’s existence. . . . “It should be noticed, - the professor said, - that the relief has not been manually made by an ancient stonecutter. It is simply impossible. It is obvious that the stone was machined.” X-ray photographs confirmed that the slab was of artificial origin and has been made with some precision tools. . . . “The map was probably created at the time when the Earth’s magnetic pole situated in the today’s area of Franz Josef Land, while this was exactly 120 million years ago, - professor Chuvyrov says. . . . The technology of compiling such maps demands super-power computers and aerospace survey from the Shuttle.” So, who then did created this map?

posted by Emmett 4:47 PM

 

At MIT, they can put words in our mouths
(Gareth Cook, Boston Globe, May 15, 2002)
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created the first realistic videos of people saying things they never said - a scientific leap that raises unsettling questions about falsifying the moving image. . . . scientists warn the technology will also provide a powerful new tool for fraud and propaganda - and will eventually cast doubt on everything from video surveillance to presidential addresses. . . . ''There is a certain point at which you raise the level of distrust to where it is hard to communicate through the medium,'' . . . ''We will probably have to revert to a method common in the Middle Ages, which is eyewitness testimony,''

posted by Emmett 4:31 PM

 

Nanotech's development called inevitable
(UPI) -- Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter at the atomic or molecular scale, will have widespread applications throughout society within a generation, speakers said Monday at a conference. Scientists are at the point in the knowledge curve where nanotech development will advance exponentially, said Ray Kurzweil, inventor of optical character recognition software and other digital technology. "Nanotechnology really isn't a strongly defined field, any more than the Internet or telecommunications, but all three of those revolutions are underlying technologies which will affect almost everything," Kurzweil told NanoBusiness Spring 2002 attendees. "We're looking at pervasive nanotechnology in the 2020s."

posted by West 11:34 AM

 

Single Gene May Deter Cloning
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer -- Scientists say they've identified a single misbehaving gene that could explain most failures to clone mammals. The work supports the popular theory that failures happen when genes aren't reprogrammed to produce a new individual.

posted by West 11:32 AM

 

Blair condemns protesters who thwart science
timeonline.co.uk -- Tony Blair has promised to break down the "anti- science fashion" in Britain, declaring that the Government will never give way to misguided protesters who stand in the way of medical and economic advance. The Prime Minister said in an interview with The Times that there should be a more mature attitude to science in Britain. "It is time to speak up for science," he said in advance of a substantial speech on the subject on Thursday.

posted by West 11:13 AM

 

Bulge may point to volcano's awakening
MENLO PARK, Calif., May 17 (UPI) -- Geologists are convinced bulging ground at the foot of a snoozing volcano in the Cascade Range of central Oregon signals molten rock oozing toward the surface, but are at a loss to explain the absence of other key indicators that the explosive giant may be stirring from its 1,500-year nap.

posted by West 7:36 PM

 

Mega-dense nuggets blast Earth
(UPI) -- New evidence suggests microscopic hyper-massive bits of "strange matter" from outer space may slam into the Earth roughly once a year in miniature re-creations of asteroid impacts, scientists report. The nano-missiles, no bigger than a blood cell, yet weighing more than a ton, are so rare the chance of their hitting anybody is infinitesimal, and are so tiny "they wouldn't make holes big enough to bleed," researcher Eugene Herrin, a seismologist at Southern Methodist University, told United Press International.

posted by West 12:56 PM

 

State of the planet: Interview with Sir David Attenborough
BBC - After nearly 50 years of groundbreaking natural history broadcasting, David Attenborough takes stock of the state of the planet and assesses why the Earth needs our help.

posted by West 12:38 PM

 

Future of Human Reproduction
BBC - News articles about cloning and designer children lead us to wonder how couples of the future will make babies. Will they rely on sex as our parents and grandparents did, or will some suite of science-fiction technologies supplant what we think of as “natural” human reproduction, largely moving it out of the bedroom and into the laboratory? Public interest in this possibility is entirely justified. Couples will be able to make ever more meaningful choices about the genetic constitutions of the children they bear. Over the next few generations the way we conceive our children may shift dramatically enough to bring into question even what it means to be human.

posted by West 12:34 PM

 

Scientists boost search for life-friendly planets
(AP) --Astronomers are trying to find places in the solar system and beyond where conditions are right for life. Thus far, more than 80 planets have been discovered orbiting distant stars, but all are forbidding and unlike Earth. What the experts want to find are planets where the temperature is right and the orbit is not too far or too close to the central star. There needs to be liquid water and oxygen. It also has to be in a reasonably quiet neighborhood without frequent asteroids or comets collisions. A place, in other words, kind of like Earth.

posted by West 12:26 PM

 

Taking dim view of stars to find more Earths
(CNN) --The U.S. space agency has selected two promising designs for an advanced space telescope that could detect Earth-sized planets and life around other stars.

posted by West 12:23 PM

 

Questioning the Big Bang
msnbc.com - How did the universe begin, and how will it end? Among cosmologists, the mainstream belief is that the universe began with a bang billions of years ago, and will fizzle out billions of years from now. But two theorists have just fired their latest volley at that belief, saying there could be a timeless cycle of expansion and contraction. It’s an idea as old as Hinduism, updated for the 21st century.

posted by West 10:14 AM

 

'Six degrees' could make Internet smarter
NEW YORK, May 16 (UPI) - The same "six degrees of separation" principle used to connect ordinary people to celebrities could also make the Internet smarter, scientists said. A new mathematical model could help improve how one finds everything from movies and images to cheaper airfares online. The concept may also help everyone from law offices and low-income families to financial juggernauts pin down crucial information. The key to understanding this phenomenon is the notion that people have multiple identities.

posted by West 10:01 AM

 

British Patient Infected with New 'Superbug'
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's public health experts called Friday for the careful use of antibiotics after the country reported its first case of a new type of "superbug" resistance. The Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) said a hospital patient infected in England with the MRSA bacteria, which resists traditional antibiotics, had failed also to respond a drug called vancomycin. "This is particularly concerning because vancomycin is one of the drugs that is often used to treat this organism," the PHLS said in a statement.

posted by West 9:52 AM

 

Embryonic Mice Stem Cells Changed Into Lung Cells
LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have coaxed embryonic stem cells in mice to transform into a type of lung cell in an achievement they hope will lead to the creation of artificially grown cells and tissue for humans. Stem cells are master cells that have the capability of developing into any type of human tissue, offering the potential of regenerating tissue and organs to treat a range of diseases.

posted by West 9:43 AM

 

2002 Will Be The Year Of The Clones
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saying the genie already was out of the bottle on cloning, a fertility expert predicted on Wednesday that he would clone a human baby later this year, and urged the U.S. Congress to keep all cloning legal so it can be regulated. "A pregnancy can take place this year," Panayiotis Zavos, a fertility expert who runs a clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, told a House of Representatives subcommittee. "2002 will be the year of the clones."

posted by West 8:18 PM

 

Teen Vegetarians Healthier Than Meat-Eaters -Study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Grandma may be upset that her teen-age son will not eat her chicken casserole, but U.S. researchers say vegetarian teen-agers have a healthier diet than their meat-eating counterparts. What many parents may fear is youthful rebellion or even an unhealthy way of keeping off weight is actually a good way to get the recommended vitamins and minerals -- and avoid fatty junk food in the process, a team at the University of Minnesota found.

posted by West 8:14 PM

 

Asteroid Impact May Have Helped Dinos
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dinosaurs are thought to have been wiped out by the impact of an asteroid, but a new study suggests that a similar collision millions of years earlier may have ushered in the dinosaur age. In a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, researchers say that fossil footprints, the presence of a rare mineral and evidence of a sudden growth of ferns some 200 million years ago suggest that a massive rock from outer space hit the Earth and helped kill off the large reptiles that ruled the world at the time. Once the reptiles were gone, says Paul E. Olsen of Columbia University, the first author of the study, dinosaurs were able to dominate the Earth for more than 135 million years, growing ever larger until they, too, were wiped out by the impact of an asteroid.

posted by West 7:58 PM

 

Energy Agency Honors Alternative Fuels Projects
OKLAHOMA CITY (ENS) - A school district, a transit agency and the city of Tacoma, Washington are among those being honored this year for their work to promote alternative fuels. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced its Clean Cities program National Partner Awards Tuesday at the 8th National Clean Cities Conference being held in Oklahoma City. The National Partner Awards honor companies, municipal agencies and individuals who have made long term contributions to advancing the use of alternative fuels in cars and trucks.

posted by West 7:48 PM

 

Promise and peril in a marriage of brains and silicon (5/13/02)
usnews.com - Except for those odd little backpacks, the rats seem no creepier than usual. They climb trees, run through pipes, and scamper across tables. But they aren't following the usual rodent urges. These rats are moving under remote control, reacting to commands radioed to three thin electrodes in their brains. The signals tell them which way to turn–and encourage them by delivering electrical jolts to their pleasure centers.

posted by West 6:36 PM

 

Melting glaciers in Himalayas threaten catastrophic floods
independent.co.uk - The giant glaciers of the Himalayas are melting so quickly that within five years dozens of glacial lakes could burst their banks and kill tens of thousands in their path, a report today from the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) warns. Researchers who have been monitoring the glaciers for 15 years are deeply alarmed by the speed with which many lakes are filling as glaciers shrink under the impact of global warming.

posted by West 6:22 PM

 

Species under threat as their habitats are cut in half
independent.co.uk - Life on Earth is facing an extinction crisis that could be far worse than previously thought, according to two leading ecologists who have studied the rate at which animal populations are being lost. The scientists have found that the geographical ranges of 173 species of mammals have declined, collectively, by more than 50 per cent over several decades, indicating a severe constriction of the animals' breeding territories. Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University in California and Gerardo Ceballos of Mexico University believe that the loss of viable breeding populations is a critical factor that has often been overlooked.

posted by West 6:11 PM

 

Bionic Retina Gives Six Patients Partial Sight
Yahoo! News - Thanks to an artificial silicon retina, six patients, many of whom were virtually blind, are rediscovering simple gifts of the sighted.

posted by West 5:19 PM

 

Expert Warns World Warming Faster Than Expected
LONDON (Reuters) - Planet earth is warming up faster than previously expected, the head of a leading climate research institute said on Monday. Dying forests, expanding deserts and rising sea levels would wreak havoc to human and animal lives sooner than anticipated as global warming was accelerating, said Geoff Jenkins, head of the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research.

posted by West 11:53 AM

 

Beginning of the Science and Health News Blogs

posted by Lorenzo 11:37 AM