SciTech

Gene inheritance locates disease causes

SnehaSubra — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:53:19 +0530

Children inherit about 30 mutated genes from each parent, fewer than had been thought, but enough in at least one case to pass on inherited illnesses, according to a first detailed look at the blueprint for human life in a family.

And a separate study of an individual genome located the cause of another inherited disease.

The blueprint for life, called DNA, contains about 22,000 genes, and researchers calculated the number of changes by analyzing the genes of a mother, father, and their son and daughter.

The result, reported in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science, found that the children had about 30 mutations from each parent for a total of 60 changes passed along to the offspring.

Scientists previously had thought a child had about 75 mutated genes from the parents.

Age matters

The rate of mutations probably will vary somewhat, depending on the age of the parents, said co-author Lynn B. Jorde, chairman of the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Most mutations are thought to be unimportant, but the rate at which things change is considered critical, helping explain the gradual development of changes.

Genomic studies can help researchers find ways to identify individual genes or mutations that can lead to inherited disease.

Jorde and the senior author, David J. Galas, of the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle studied a family in which the parents had no genetic abnormalities, but each carried recessive genes that resulted in their son and daughter being born with two extremely rare conditions — Miller's syndrome and primary ciliary dyskinesia.

Miller's syndrome, which causes facial and limb malformations, has been diagnosed in only two families in the world. PCD is a condition in which the tiny hair-like structures that are supposed to move mucus out of airways in the lungs do not function. The chances of having PCD are estimated at one in 10,000.

Jorde said the odds of someone having both PCD and Miller's syndrome are less than one in 10 billion.

"We were very pleased and a little surprised at how much additional information can come from examining the full genomes of the same family," Galas said in a statement.

Constructing inheritance

"Comparing the sequences of unrelated individuals is useful, but for a family the results are more accurate. We can now see all the genetic variations, including rare ones, and can construct the inheritance of every piece of the chromosomes, which is critical to understanding the traits important to health and disease," he said.

The family was not named in the report.

Meanwhile, a separate report in the New England Journal of Medicine disclosed that Dr. James Lupski of Baylor College of Medicine had sequenced his own complete genome and identified the gene involved in his form of Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, which affects the function of nerves in the body's limbs, hands and feet.

Lupski, vice chairman of molecular and human genetics, said the work "demonstrates that the technology is robust enough that we can find disease genes by determining the whole genome sequence. We can start to use this technology to interpret the clinical information in the context of the sequence — of the hand of cards you have been dealt."

"Isn't that the goal or dream of personalized genomic medicine?" he said in a statement.

Lupski said he has known for 40 years that he had a disease caused by recessive genes. Now he knows the gene at fault.

And Lupski and colleagues found that having a single copy of the recessive mutation is susceptible to carpal tunnel syndrome, which usually affects people who perform repetitive motions that compress a nerve where it crosses the wrist.

Does brain process lyrics, melody separately?

sitansu — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:31:05 +0530

Does the brain process lyrics and melody separately or as one? Well scientists claim to have finally found an answer to the hotly debated question.

A team at Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany has found that the brain first deals with music and lyrics together and then, after passing through more complex processing, like understanding what lyrics mean, the two are treated separately, the 'New Scientist' reported.

In their research, the scientists worked out a way to determine when active regions were processing just music and when just lyrics, by studying a functional MRI brain scan of someone listening to songs.

The team knew that when neurons process the same stimulus repeatedly, their response to it decreases over time.

They reasoned that if they varied just the tune and kept the lyrics the same, areas showing a decline in activity must be processing lyrics.

And if they varied just the lyrics, areas showing a decline must be processing the tune, while any regions declining when both the tune and lyrics are repeated must be processing both.

The team wrote four different sets of six songs and played these to 12 volunteers while scanning their brains.

In one set, all songs had different melodies and lyrics. In another, the melodies were different but the lyrics were the same, while in the third set, the opposite was true.

The fourth set were identical to each other.

From the fMRI scans the scientists worked out that one particular part of the brain - the superior temporal sulcus - was responding to the songs. In the middle of the STS, the lyrics and tune were being processed as a single signal. But in anterior STS only the lyrics seemed to be processed.

Her team couldn't find an area specific to processing tunes. "This may be because no individual, complex processing occurs for melody, though it might in professional musicians," lead scientist Daniela Sammler said.

She concluded, "The brain first deals with music and lyrics together. Then, after passing through the mid-STS more complex processing kicks in, such as understanding what lyrics mean, and the two are treated separately. The more they are processed, the more they are separated."

The findings have been published in the 'Journal of Neuroscience'.

Internet access is ‘a fundamental right’: Survey

sitansu — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:19:43 +0530

Four in five people across 26 countries of the world, including India, believe that access to the Internet is a fundamental right, according to a recent poll.

The survey of more than 27,000 adults in these countries found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.

“The right to communicate cannot be ignored,” Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of International Telecommunication Union (ITU), was quoted as saying by the BBC News.

“The Internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created. We have entered the knowledge society and everyone must have access to participate,” Toure said.

The survey conducted by GlobeScan for the BBC World Service, found that 87 percent of users felt Internet access should be the “fundamental right of all people” while more than 70 percent of non-users felt that they should have access to the net.

Overall, almost 79 percent of those questioned said they either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the description of the Internet as a fundamental right - whether they had access to it or not.

Countries like Mexico, Brazil and Turkey most strongly supported the idea of net access as a right, the survey found.

More than 90 percent of those surveyed in Turkey - the highest in any European Country - stated that the Internet access is a fundamental right.

In South Korea - the most wired country on earth - 96 percent (highest) of people believed that net access was a fundamental right.

The survey also disclosed that the Internet is rapidly becoming a vital part of lives of many in a diverse range of nations.

In Japan, Mexico and Russia around three-quarters of respondents said they could not cope without it.

Most of those questioned also said that they believed the web had a positive impact, with nearly four in five saying it had brought them greater freedom.

Nations like Finland and Estonia have already ruled that Internet access is a human right for their citizens.

International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access.

However, many web users also expressed concerns. The dangers of fraud, the ease of access to violent and explicit content and worries over privacy were the most concerning aspects for those questioned.

A majority of users in Japan, South Korea and Germany felt that they could not express their opinions safely online, although in Nigeria, India and Ghana there was much more confidence about speaking out.

The survey also noticed divisions on the question of government oversight of some aspects of the net.

Web users in South Korea and Nigeria strongly felt that governments should never be involved in regulation of the Internet. However, a majority of those in China and the many European countries disagreed.

Google opens online store for business applications

sitansu — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:08:42 +0530

Google Inc. will sell the online services of other business software makers in an effort to fill its own product gaps and persuade more companies to rely on applications piped over the Internet.

The online store marks another step in Google’s crusade to convert the world to “cloud computing,” the idea of running applications in web browsers instead of installing them on individual hard drives. The information entered in the programs also is stored in data centres run by third parties such as Google.

More than 50 software makers have agreed to sell their Internet programs through Google, which will keep 20 per cent of the sales. The prices are expected to range from $50 annually to several hundred dollars annually per user.

Intuit Inc., a maker of business accounting software, and Concur Technologies Inc., a maker of expense reimbursement software, are among the best-known vendors peddling their wares in Google’s store.

All the applications sold in Google’s store can be melded with Google’s own cloud computing services, said Vic Gundotra, the company’s vice-president of engineering.

Google views cloud computing as a way to deepen people’s dependence on its services and generate more revenue beyond the Internet search advertising that provides virtually all its income.

Cloud computing also provides Google with a weapon that could weaken one of its biggest rivals, Microsoft Corp.

Although it’s introducing more online alternatives, Microsoft still makes most of its money from individual computer licenses of its Windows operating system and software programs.

The applications store could also could provide fodder for the low-cost computers that will run on a Google operating system named after its Chrome web browser. The first computers using Chrome OS won’t have a hard drive, meaning they will need Internet access and cloud computing services to perform the tasks routinely done on Windows-powered machines.

Google began offering a free online suite of e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet and calendar applications in 2006. It has been selling a more sophisticated package of online services for $50 per user for the past three years.

Cloud computing can be a tough sell to corporate decision makers worried about security risks and business disruptions if a technology glitch or major meltdown blocks access to vital applications and data stored on external servers.

Google has invested billions of dollars during the past five years to keep its systems up and running. Nevertheless, Google’s applications users occasionally have been cut off from their e-mail accounts and other services.

About 25 million people working for more than 2 million businesses, government agencies and schools use Google’s online applications, according to the company.

Methane severely augments global warming

SnehaSubra — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:08:27 +0530

Methane, a potent global warming gas, is bubbling out of the frozen Arctic faster than had been expected.

Methane had become trapped in the permafrost over time and a warming climate is now resulting in its release, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

"The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world's oceans," said Natalia Shakhova, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center and the co-author.

Concerns about global warming have centered on rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but scientists note that methane can be 30 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Historically, methane concentrations in the world's atmosphere have ranged between 0.3 and 0.4 parts per million in cool periods to 0.6 to 0.7 in warm periods. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the scientists said, the highest in 400,000 years.

Read more about methane's effect on the atmosphere

Snakes ate dinosaurs?

SnehaSubra — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:20:55 +0530

The fossilized remains of a 67 million-year-old snake found coiled around a dinosaur egg offer rare insight into the ancient reptile's dining habits and evolution, scientists said on Tuesday.

The findings, which appeared in Tuesday's issue of the PLoS Biology journal, provide the first evidence that the 3.5 metre long snake fed on eggs and hatchlings of saurapod dinosaurs, meaning it was one of the few predators to prey on the long-necked herbivores.

They also suggest that, as early as 100 million years ago, snakes were developing mobile jaws similar to those of today's large-mouthed snakes, including vipers and boas.

"This is an early, well preserved snake, and it is doing something. We are capturing its behavior," said University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, who is credited with recognizing the snake bones amid the crushed dinosaur eggs and bones of hatchlings.

"We have information about what this early snake did for living," he said. "It also helps us understand the early evolution of snakes both anatomically and ecologically."

Dhananjay Mohabey of India's Geological Survey discovered the fossilized remains in 1987, but he was only able to make out the dinosaur eggshells and limb bones. Wilson examined the fossils in 2001 and was "astonished" to find a predator in the midst of the sauropod's nest.

"I saw the characteristic vertebral locking mechanism of snakes alongside dinosaur eggshell and larger bones, and I knew it was an extraordinary specimen," Wilson said.

Freeze frame

Mohabey theorized that the snake — dubbed Sanajeh indicus, which means "ancient gaped one" in Sanskrit — had just arrived at the nest and was in the process of gobbling a hatchling emerging from its egg. But the entire scene was "frozen in time" when it was hit by a storm or some other disaster and buried under layers of sediment.

"We think the hatchlings had just exited its egg, and the activity attracted the snake," Mohabey said, adding that the site in Western state of Gujarat has revealed about 30 sauropod nests and at least two other snake specimens.

Michael Benton of the University of Bristol, also writing in the PLoS Biology, said it can be difficult to determine the behavior of ancient organisms. But he said that it was "most likely, as the authors argue, that this snake was waiting and snatching juveniles as they hatched."

"Of course, we cannot be entirely sure unless further specimens come to light showing the bones of juvenile dinosaurs in the stomach region of the snake," Benton said.

Rare site

Ashok Sahni, a senior scientist at the Indian National Science Academy who was also not involved in the dig, described the find as "truly remarkable" because it is uncommon for fossil bones to be preserved at the site of fossilized eggs.

"The scientific significance of the find is that it actually demonstrates behavior in early evolved snakes and the size of chosen prey," he said in an e-mail.

Tsunami models need testing

SnehaSubra — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:09:28 +0530

In the coming months and years, scientists will pore over reams of data from what turned out to be the minuscule tsunami that reached Hawaii on Saturday.

But already, some scientists are saying there is less need for additional measuring equipment of the kind that was placed in the Pacific Ocean after the devastating tsunami that killed 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean in 2004.

Instead, they say there should be a rigorous examination of long-standing assumptions within computer-generated models that are used to estimate the strength and impact of tsunamis.

"Our main problem right now is that we have unsubstantiated assumptions built into our warning system and we really have to check those," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii and formerly a professor at the University of Hawaii.

Had he been asked a week ago whether a magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile would cause a destructive tsunami in Hawaii, "I would have said, 'Unquestionably. It's going to be a bad scene,'" Fryer added. "Well, it wasn't. And we have to figure out why it wasn't."

The small tsunami generated by Saturday's quake in Chile also may provide an impetus for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to more fully adopt a forecasting system developed by another National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency.

From the data gathered so far, the system designed by the Center for Tsunami Research in Seattle appears to have accurately estimated the severity of the tsunami that reached Hawaii.

"Our forecast played out pretty well," said Vasily Titov, the center's director. Because the system is still in development, its results were initially shared only with Pacific Tsunami Warning Center officials and not the public or news media, he added.

Assumptions

One assumption that Fryer said should be reassessed presumes that the Chilean quake occurred in deeper waters than actually happened. A rupture in deeper seas would have displaced more water and thus resulted in a larger tsunami, Fryer said.

Another assumption says tsunami waves travel at about the same speed, and it does not emphasize the intervals between waves, he said. But wave speed and intervals can affect how tsunamis interact with coastal zones, particularly bays and harbors, Fryer added.

The 1960 Chile quake that spawned huge waves that killed dozens on the Big Island and in Japan featured a longer interval between waves, about 30 minutes, than did the tsunami that lapped at Hawaii's coasts on Saturday, which were about 20 minutes apart. But the current models do not sufficiently take intervals into account, Fryer said.

The models also did not calculate "dispersion," which reduces the strength of tsunami waves as they spread out over the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, Fryer said. However, adding that factor into the models would greatly increase computational costs, he added.

That is not to say that tsunami warnings should not have been issued, he said. Some data such as that from deep sea gauges off the Peruvian coast indicated a destructive tsunami was in the offing, Fryer said.

Since the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the oceanic and atmospheric administration has won funding to place more deep sea gauges in the Pacific, from a half-dozen to 32 now, said Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Favoured stationing

But fewer of them are stationed off South America than in the Alaska region because tsunamis generated off Alaska will reach Hawaii and the West Coast faster, he said.

"This will be a very important benchmark tsunami because it was recorded all over the Pacific," McCreery said, noting that in addition to its deep sea gauges, his agency collects data from well over 100 coastal meters.

Among the models whose performance will be reviewed is the one developed by NOAA's Center for Tsunami Research, which is called MOST, or Method of Splitting Tsunami.

Titov said the model will be compared with data from gauges and other sources to determine its accuracy. The MOST model has performed well in analyzing smaller tsunamis, McCreery said. And Fryer said it is used by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center now, alongside a homegrown model.

But Fryer contended that neither model accurately calculated that the tsunami that arrived in Hawaii Saturday would be minimal.

NASA radar on Chandrayaan-I detects ice on moon

megha — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:51:54 +0530

Scientists have detected more than 40 ice-filled craters in the moon's North Pole using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-I.

NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 2 to 15 km in diameter.

The finding would give future missions a new target to further explore and exploit, a NASA statement said, adding it is estimated that there could be at least 600 million metric tons of water ice in the craters.

"The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments on lunar missions indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon," Paul Spudis, principal investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, said on Monday.

The new discoveries show that the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than previously thought, he said.

Aboard Chandrayaan-I, the Mini-SAR mapped the moon's permanently-shadowed polar craters that are not visible from the earth. The radar uses the polarisation properties of reflected radio waves to characterise surface properties.

According to the findings which are being published in the latest issue of the Geophysical Research Letters journal, results from the mapping showed deposits having radar characteristics similar to ice.

"After analysing the data, our science team determined a strong indication of water ice, a finding which will give future missions a new target to further explore and exploit," Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF Program for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said.

The space agency said these results are consistent with recent findings of other NASA instruments and adds to growing scientific understanding of the multiple forms of water found on the moon.

The agency's Moon Mineralogy Mapper discovered water molecules in the moon's polar regions, while water vapour was detected by NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.

Mini-SAR and Moon Mineralogy Mapper are two of 11 instruments on India's first unmanned mission to the moon -- Chandrayaan-I.

Huge icebergs let loose off Antarctica's coast

megha — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:18:55 +0530

An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg, that struck a glacier off Antarctica and dislodged another massive block of ice, could lower the levels of oxygen in the world's oceans, Australian and French scientists said on Friday.

The two icebergs are now drifting together about 62 to 93 miles (100 to 150 kilometers) off Antarctica following the collision on Feb 12 or 13, said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young.

"It gave it a pretty big nudge," Young said of the 60-mile (97-kilometer) -long iceberg that collided with the giant floating Mertz Glacier and shaved off a new iceberg. "They are now floating right next to each other."

The new iceberg is 48 miles (78 kilometers) long and about 24 miles (39 kilometers) wide and holds roughly the equivalent of a fifth of the world's annual total water usage, Young told The Associated Press.

Experts are concerned about the effect of the massive displacement of ice on the ice-free water next to the glacier, which is important for ocean currents.

This area of water had been kept clear because of the glacier, said Steve Rintoul, a leading climate expert. With part of the glacier gone, the area could fill with sea ice, which would disrupt the ability for the dense and cold water to sink.

This sinking water is what spills into ocean basins and feeds the global ocean currents with oxygen, Rintoul explained.

As there are only a few areas in the world where this occurs, a slowing of the process would mean less oxygen supplied into the deep currents that feed the oceans.

"There may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die," said Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.

The icebergs, weighing 860 billion tons and 700 billion tons respectively, are located in water over the Antarctic Continental Shelf, Young said. "We expect them to head west along the Antarctic coastline."

Young said it was not likely they would reach as far north as Australia, and noted icebergs are very slow movers.

We now have a situation where oxygen levels being fed into the world's ocean currents have changed "and the overturning circulation currents will respond to that change," Rintoul said. Observing what happens "will ... allow us to improve predictions of future climate change," he added.

Does posting location online say 'Please Rob Me'?

megha — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:06:39 +0530

As more people reveal their whereabouts on social networks, a new site has sprung up to remind you that letting everyone know where you are - and, by extension, where you're not - could leave you vulnerable to those with less-than-friendly intentions. The site's name says it all: Please Rob Me.

Launched last week, Please Rob Me is exceptionally straightforward. Pretty much all it does is show posts that appear on Twitter from a location-sharing service, Foursquare. Please Rob Me puts these posts into a long, chronological list it refers to as "Recent Empty Homes."

Please Rob Me assembles its list by taking information that Twitter makes freely available so that many Web sites can show tweets. But the point of Please Rob Me could be made with data that flows on dozens of other sites as well.

People are comfortable sharing all kinds of personal details on social sites such as Facebook. And now people are flocking to location-based Web services, such as Foursquare, Gowalla or Loopt, that let them use their cell phones to alert friends to where they are.

Some people choose to show their whereabouts only to approved buddies. But plenty push these very specific updates through public Twitter profiles that anyone can see.

This phenomenon is what motivated the creators of Please Rob Me, according to one of them, Boy Van Amstel, 25. Van Amstel said in a phone interview from Holland, where the site is based, that technology has become so easy to use that people are sharing too much online without even realizing it. He and his co-founders want people to think twice about it.

To drive the point home, Please Rob Me's Web page shows a scruffy-looking, loot-lugging burglar. Below that, it indicates that the site is "listing all those empty homes out there."

It doesn't really show empty houses, or even people's home addresses. Instead the posts on the list show Twitter users' photos, their Twitter usernames, how long ago they "left home" (which is determined by when they checked in with Foursquare) and where they went, along with a link to their destination on Foursquare's Web site.

Some of the posts on Please Rob Me have come from Christopher Lynn, who often publishes his Foursquare updates on his Twitter feed.

Lynn, director of sales and marketing for the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, was a little unnerved to realize his location was also being shared on Please Rob Me as it automatically captured the data. He said knowing that would make him more cautious about posting on Foursquare when he's far from home. He also plans to keep details about where he lives off the Web.

But Lynn doesn't think Please Rob Me - or the second thoughts it is trying to spark - will hamper the rise of location-based services. "I think the power of wanting to share where you're at and what you're experiencing at the time is going to trump most people's wariness," he said.

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley said he can imagine that sharing where you are could have bad consequences. But he said it hasn't come back to haunt him and isn't something Foursquare has heard complaints about.

Indeed, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that saying you're not home on Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook or a similar site significantly increases your chance of becoming a burglary victim.

After all, there are many ways, including low-tech ones, to determine that someone isn't home. Pack said burglaries are usually crimes of opportunity - that is, they're often not planned in detail.

Regardless, Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on privacy, said the message of Please Rob Me is still important. "There is clearly a privacy issue here - one they are trying to shed light on," he said.

UN to improve climate change science

SnehaSubra — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:21:45 +0530

World weather agencies have agreed to collect more precise temperature data to improve climate change science, officials said on Wednesday, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged environment ministers to reject efforts by skeptics to derail a global climate deal.

Britain's Met Office proposed that climate scientists around the world undertake the "grand challenge" of measuring land surface temperatures as often as several times a day, and allow independent scrutiny of the data — a move that would go some way toward answering demands by skeptics for access to the raw figures used to predict climate change.

"This effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent," the Met Office said. The agency added that "any such analysis does not undermine the existing independent datasets that all reflect a warming trend."

The proposal was approved in principle by some 150 delegates meeting under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization this week in Antalya, Turkey. It comes after e-mails stolen from a British university and several mistakes made in a 2007 report issued by the U.N.-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prompted public debate over the reliability of climate change predictions.

Skeptics: scientists manipulated climate data

Nevertheless, the Met Office said current measurements were "fundamentally ill-conditioned to answer 21st century questions such as how extremes are changing and therefore what adaptation and mitigation decisions should be taken."

Ban Ki-moon impelled environment ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on Wednesday, saying global warming poses "a clear and present danger."

In a message read by a U.N. official, Ban referred to the controversy over the 2007 climate panel report that drew widespread criticism and calls for the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, to resign.

The report's conclusion that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 turned out to be incorrect, an error that bolstered arguments from climate skeptics that fears of global warming are overblown.

Copenhagen failed

The U.N. conference in December did not achieve a binding deal on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. But Ban said it was important that the conference set a target of keeping keep global temperatures from rising, and established a program of climate aid to poorer nations.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said his country will hold an informal meeting of all environmental ministers and officials in Bali on Friday to discuss how to reach a binding treaty in Cancun later this year on greenhouse gas reductions.

A U.N. study issued on Tuesday said countries will have to significantly increase their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change.

Sixty nations — including China, the United States and the 27-member European Union — met a Jan. 31 deadline to submit pledges to the U.N. for reducing greenhouse gases as part of a voluntary plan to roll back emissions. Together the countries produce 78 percent of the world's greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Countries set a target in Copenhagen of keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above the levels that existed before nations began industrializing in the late 18th century.

Scientists believe global emissions must be cut in half by mid-century to avoid the melting of glaciers and ice caps, the flooding of low-lying coastal cities and islands, and worsening droughts in Africa and elsewhere.

High-fat diets raise women's stroke risk: Study

SnehaSubra — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:57:07 +0530

A moment on the lips, forever on the hips? A bad figure is hardly the worst of it. Eating a lot of fat, especially the kind that's in cookies and pastries, can significantly raise the risk of stroke for women over 50, a large new study finds. We already know that diets rich in fat, particularly artery-clogging trans fat, are bad for the heart and the waistline.

The new study is the largest to look at stroke risk in women and across all types of fat. It showed a clear trend: Those who ate the most fat had a 44 percent higher risk of the most common type of stroke compared to those who ate the least.

"It's a tremendous increase that is potentially avoidable," said Dr. Emil Matarese, stroke chief at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Penn. "What's bad for the heart is bad for the brain."

He reviewed but did not help conduct the research, which was presented on Wednesday at an American Stroke Association conference. It involved 87,230 participants in the Women's Health Initiative, a federally funded study best known for revealing health risks from taking hormone pills for menopause symptoms.

Before menopause, women traditionally have had less risk of stroke than similarly aged men, although this is changing as women increasingly battle obesity and other health problems.

Gender advantage disappears post menopause

He and another researcher, Sirin Yaemsiri, wanted to see whether dietary fat affected the odds.

Participants in the study had filled out detailed surveys on their diets when they enrolled, at ages 50 to 79. Researchers put them into four groups based on how much fat they ate, and checked about seven years later to see how many had suffered a stroke caused by clogged blood vessels supplying the brain — the most common kind.

There were 288 strokes in the group of women who consumed the most fat each day (95 grams) versus 249 strokes in the group eating the least fat (25 grams), Yaemsiri told the conference.

After taking into account other factors that affect stroke risk — weight, race, smoking, exercise and use of alcohol, aspirin or hormone pills — researchers concluded that women who ate the most fat had a 44 percent greater risk of stroke.

30 percent greater risk from trans fat

"We need to look at the labels on the foods we buy," because many of these fats are hidden in baked goods and people are not aware of how much they're consuming, Matarese said. "This is a simple way that any woman, especially postmenopausal women, can improve their health. Simply avoiding fried foods is a big one."

On average, American women in their 50s and 60s eat 63 to 68 grams of fat a day, federal health statistics show. A little context: A 2-ounce Snickers bar contains 14 grams of fat; a 2-ounce bag of Crunchy Cheetos has 20 grams, as does a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar.

The American Heart Association recommends limiting fat to less than 25 to 35 percent of total calories, and trans fat to less than 1 percent. The healthiest fats come from nuts, seeds, fish and vegetable oils.

"We don't do a good enough job of emphasizing the importance of a good diet," said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a stroke specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Pediatricians in particular need to address the risk for chubby kids.

"If you don't change their patterns and problems in childhood, you're really looking at a lifetime of obesity," he said.

Go somewhere specific: US Senators to NASA chief

tejas — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:37:49 +0530

Skeptical senators are telling NASA's chief that the space agency lacks a goal and destination.

Earlier this month, the White House killed the previous administration's plan to go back to the moon. The space shuttles will soon be retired.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says his agency has an ultimate goal: Mars. But he says it's more than a decade away and NASA needs to upgrade its technology before astronauts reach the Red Planet.

Bolden says that on the way to Mars, astronauts will probably stop first at the moon, an asteroid and other places but with no particular order.

Three senators and the agency's former chief astronaut said that without a specific goal, NASA is going nowhere, wasting time and money.

UN climate talks to resume in April

SnehaSubra — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:40:01 +0530

The United Nations says formal negotiations on an international treaty to control global warming will resume in Bonn in April, four months after the failed climate change summit in Copenhagen.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Tuesday that the negotiating schedule is being intensified in order to secure a global climate deal at the end of the year. After the Bonn meeting April 9-11, more talks are scheduled there for May 31-June 11.

The next world climate summit is to take place in Cancun, Mexico, from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10.

De Boer, who will resign July 1, said that since Copenhagen 100 countries have submitted individual emission cut targets. He said he saw commitment by governments "to move negotiations forward toward success in Cancun."

No prayer for female mosquitoes

SnehaSubra — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:41:25 +0530

First it was just swatting. Then poison. Then sterilizing males. Now it's grounding females. Is there anything people won't try in the war against mosquitoes?

The latest idea: Genetic engineering that results in wingless female mosquitoes.

It's the females that do the biting, but if they can't fly they can't zoom in on their victims. They would be expected to die quickly on the ground, researchers suggest in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The real goal is to prevent mosquitoes from spreading disease, and the researchers led by Luke Alphey of the University of Oxford in England are studying ways to reduce the spread of dengue fever, which mosquitoes carry.

The researchers, several of whom have commercial interests in the work through Oxitec Ltd., developed a method to genetically alter male mosquitoes, which then could mate with females. Their offspring would have wing changes that prevent the females from flying.

Males could still fly, but they don't bite.

"The technology is completely species specific, as the released males will mate only with females of the same species," Alphey said in a statement. "It's far more targeted and environmentally friendly than approaches dependent upon the use of chemical spray insecticides, which leave toxic residue."

Other efforts to block transmission of diseases such as malaria have involved releasing sterile male mosquitoes, which could breed with females, but no offspring result. Bed nets also are widely used, but the researchers said the dengue-spreading mosquitoes bite in daytime rather than at night.

While this research is aimed at dengue, Alphey and co-author Anthony A. James of the University of California, Irvine, said it could also be adapted to such diseases as malaria and West Nile fever.

The research was funded by the University of California and the National Institutes of Health.

Archaeologist sees proof for Bible in ancient wall

SnehaSubra — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:52:47 +0530

An Israeli archaeologist said on Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.

That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.

While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history — including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar — others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.

Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."

"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.

Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and mentioned in the Book of Kings.

The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of Jerusalem's Old City, next to the holy compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. According to the Old Testament, it was Solomon who built the first Jewish Temple on the site.

That temple was destroyed by Babylonians, rebuilt, renovated by King Herod 2,000 years ago and then destroyed again by Roman legions in 70 A.D. The compound now houses two important Islamic buildings, the golden-capped Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Archaeologists have excavated the fortifications in the past, first in the 1860s and most recently in the 1980s. But Mazar claimed her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the wall's age: a large number of pottery shards, which archaeologists often use to figure out the age of findings.

Aren Maeir, an archaeology professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. There are remains from the 10th century in Jerusalem, he said, but proof of a strong, centralized kingdom at that time remains "tenuous."

While some see the biblical account of the kingdom of David and Solomon as accurate and others reject it entirely, Maeir said the truth was likely somewhere in the middle.

"There's a kernel of historicity in the story of the kingdom of David," he said.

'Most 'test tube' kids are healthy'

SnehaSubra — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:36:34 +0530

More than 30 years after the world greeted its first "test-tube" baby with a mixture of awe, elation and concern, researchers say they are finding only a few medical differences between these children and kids conceived in the traditional way.

More than 3 million children have been born worldwide as a result of what is called assisted reproductive technology, and injecting sperm into the egg outside the human body now accounts for about 4 percent of live births, researchers reported on Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The majority of assisted reproduction children are healthy and normal, according to researchers who have studied them. Some of these children do face an increased risk of birth defects, such as neural tube defects, and of low birth weight, which is associated with obesity, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes later in life, the researchers said.

"Overall, these children do well," said Andre Van Steirteghem of the Brussels Free University Center for Reproductive Medicine in Belgium. "It is a reassuring message, but we must continue to follow up."

Carmen Sapienza, a geneticist at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, noted that few of these test tube children are older than 30, so it's not known if they will be obese or have hypertension or other health problems at the age of 50 or older.

Sapienza said researchers found differences in 5 percent to 10 percent of chromosomes between assisted reproduction children and other kids.

What's not clear is whether these differences result in some way from assisted reproduction techniques or if they stem from other factors, perhaps ones that caused the couple's infertility in the first place.

Only a small fraction of the assisted reproduction children were outside the normal range of gene expression, Sapienza reported. "However, because some of the genes found to be affected are involved in the development of fat tissue and the metabolism of glucose, it will be interesting to monitor these children, long term to determine whether they have higher rates of obesity or diabetes."

"There are genetic causes of infertility that you can bypass now," Van Steirteghem said. "But this may mean that the next generation will be infertile, and that is something that all clinics should mention."

One factor in low birth weight may be that in many cases assisted fertility results in multiple births, which tend to be early and of lower weight.

"We must reduce the epidemic of multiple births," Van Steirteghem said, noting that in Sweden the rate had been cut from around 30 percent in the early 1990s to about 5 percent today.

In the United States, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology reported that the use of single-embryo transfers is increasing, and the frequency of triplet births is down to below 2 percent.

Sapienza noted that women seeking assisted reproduction tend to be older than those who conceive naturally, but said that had been controlled for in the studies comparing the two groups of children.

Dolores J. Lamb of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston urged more testing of males for the reason for infertility.

"There are correctable causes of male infertility and a couple can then have children the natural way," she said. Also, infertility can be the first symptom of diseases such as testicular cancer, Lamb said.

As of 2008, the most recent data available, the United States reported that 361 clinics did 140,795 treatment cycles leading to the birth of 56,790 babies.

Scientists vacuum up the data on dust

SnehaSubra — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:59:25 +0530

While most people give it the brushoff, a panel of scientists gathered on Friday to focus on dust. Dust in the air. Dust in the oceans. Dust in your lungs. Good dust. Bad dust. And not a can of Pledge in sight.

The scene, a conference room at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in usually sunny Southern California, the land where recent wildfires filled the air with smoke and dust.

Some researchers found fault with dust — "geotoxicology" Geoffrey S. Plumlee of the U.S. Geological Survey calls it.

But turns out dust can fertilize land and the ocean, aiding some types of sea life.

While it seems climate changes affect the amount of dust in the air, the effect of dust on climate change is less clear.

And historical studies indicate that ice ages were surprisingly dusty.

On the down side, Plumlee reports that the air you breathe can have a "breathtaking" array of particles in it.

The soil fungus that causes valley fever in the Southwest, for example, is carried in windblown dust. And increases in dust in the air lead to higher rates of hospital admissions for things like asthma, he added.

Other bad effects can range from increased heart attack risk to cancers and scarring of the lungs.

Most public health focus has been on particulates from human sources, such as from combustion of fossil fuels, but there is increasing attention to potential health effects from dust from such sources as volcanic ash or of smoke and ash from wildfires, he said.

Daniel R. Muhs, also from the Geological Survey, disclosed that studies of ocean sediments and Antarctic ice shows that ice ages were even dustier than today.

Glaciers are major producers of dust by grinding over rocks, he explained. Muhs pointed out that water flowing from beneath glaciers is often milky from the dust enclosed, not clear. In addition, he said, glacial periods were drier and thus places like Africa had less vegetation and the wind could stir up more dust.

Speaking of African dust, it may be beneficial by fertilizing regions such as the Amazon basin, said Oliver Chadwick of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Even Hawaii, one of the world's least dusty places, has forests fertilized by blown-in dust, he said.

Dust is largely generated in deserts and their fringe, but also where agriculture opens soil to the wind and good topsoil can blow away, Chadwick said.

That's what happened in the United States Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Joseph M. Prospero of the University of Miami who claimed to have been collecting dust longer than anyone on the panel, reported that the frequency of Africa dust arriving there today is higher than in the past.

Ten to 20 times a year the Environmental Protection Agency standards for dust in the air are exceeded in South Florida and the Caribbean, he said.

Dust can have a variety of impacts including fertilizing the ocean with iron, added Natalie Mahowald of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

"These particles can be carried for thousands of miles in the atmosphere, and during that time can interact with chemistry, clouds and radiation to modify climate," she said in prepared remarks.

Dust can be both good and bad, concluded Muhs, threatening health yet fertilizing the land and ocean. It also affects the Earth's radiation, which is currently undergoing a warming due to human-induced gases being added to the atmosphere.

Over dark surfaces that absorb heat from the sun dust can have a cooling effect by reflecting light, but it can also warm other areas.

In the end, the answer is blowing in the wind, said panel moderator Tim Radford, former science editor of The Guardian newspaper in England, quoting Bob Dylan.

Peanut allergies can be cured within three years

SnehaSubra — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:39:18 +0530

British scientists claim to have developed a new therapy that can permanently cure deadly peanut allergies within three years, in a breakthrough that may help treat millions of people suffering from various kinds of allergies.

The researchers at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, said they have 'effectively cured' 21 children of the dangerous condition through their new treatment -- which uses tiny doses of peanut flour to build up a child's resistance to the food.

They were confident that the same therapy could be used on other allergies -- such as milk and egg. They also said they are starting an one-million-pound clinical trial on
more than 100 children.

One in children in Britain suffers from peanut allergy and the numbers are rising fast. Reactions can range from mild itching and rashes to dangerous swelling of the airways, breathing problems and severe asthma. On average seven children die from it each every year. It is the most common serious allergic reaction, affecting around
450,000 people, the Daily Mail reported.

Dr Andrew Clark, who led the research, said the peanut flour was 'retraining' the children's faulty immune systems.

He said: "The families say that it's changed their lives. That's our real motivation - to try to develop that as a clinical treatment that we could spread to the rest of the
country.

"And it's not going to stop at peanuts. There's no scientific reason why it won't work with other foods."

The pioneering treatment was tested on 23 children between seven and 17. All but two have been 'cured'.

The children were given a daily dose of peanut flour, mixed with yoghurt, to build up their tolerance. At the start of the trial, they were given the equivalent of one 400th of a peanut each day -- far below the level needed to spark an allergic reaction. Every day the dose was increased until they were able to consume the equivalent of five peanuts. Some children were able to safely eat 12 nuts.

Although the children were effectively cured, many suffered mild side effects, including itches and stomach aches. A few also had rashes and wheezing, which were treated with antihistamine drugs.

Speaking about the new trial which will compare the effects of peanut flour to a harmless placebo in 104 allergic children, Dr Clark said: "This is going to be the largest
trial of its kind in the world and it should give us a definitive idea of whether it works and whether it's safe."

The children have already been recruited and treatment starts next month, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science's conference in San Diego, California.

"I think in two or three years time we will be in a position where we have a treatment that works, but we are still working on a long-term cure," added Dr Clark.

He warned parents of nut allergy children not to try retraining their immune systems at home, however. Giving them peanut flour could be dangerous outside a hospital.

Sleepless nights can shrink the brain

SnehaSubra — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:44:51 +0530

In a finding that could lead to new treatment for insomnia, a new study has claimed that sleeplessness may actually shrink a person's brain. The University of Cambridge study -- the first to link insomnia to a reduction in vital grey matter -- showed that those with chronic sleep problems had lower grey matter density in brain areas used to make decisions.

Dr Ellemarije Altena, who led the research, said: "The findings predict that chronic insomnia sufferers may have compromised capacities to assess stimuli."

"This could have consequences for other thought processes, notably decision-making," she said, adding that their finding could pave way for new treatment for those who struggle with sleeplessness as the brain areas are also used to regulate rest.

For their study, the scientists compared the brains of chronic insomnia patients to normal sleepers. They found that those with severe insomniacs exhibited the most extensive density loss, regardless of how long they had suffered from the disorder.

However, the researchers are not yet able to pin down whether sleeplessness precedes grey matter loss or the other way around.

Dr Altena added: "We can't say what comes first, the lower grey matter density or the insomnia."

"We only investigated older people, so follow-up studies at different ages in the future could determine what comes first."

Sleep researchers have known that insomnia disrupts the way the brain works but this study begins to explain why that malfunctioning happens.

Dr Ronald Kramer, a director of the Sleep Disorders Centre at the Colorado Neurology Institute, said: "This study suggests bad sleep is bad for the brain at a basic neurological level, not just a psychiatric nuisance."

Dr Kramer said the research, which is published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, could help in the discovery of a genuine medical treatment for insomnia.

Global warming to bring stronger hurricanes: Study

megha — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:06:44 +0530

Top researchers now agree that the world is likely to get stronger but fewer hurricanes in the future because of global warming, seeming to settle a scientific debate on the subject. But they say there's not enough evidence yet to tell whether that effect has already begun.

Since just before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, dueling scientific papers have clashed about whether global warming is worsening hurricanes and will do so in the future. The new study seems to split the difference.

A special World Meteorological Organization panel of 10 experts in both hurricanes and climate change - including leading scientists from both sides - came up with a consensus, which is published online on Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"We've really come a long way in the last two years about our knowledge of the hurricane and climate issue," said study co-author Chris Landsea, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration top hurricane researcher. The technical term for these storms are tropical cyclones; in the Atlantic they get called hurricanes, elsewhere typhoons.

The study offers projections for tropical cyclones worldwide by the end of this century, and some experts said the bad news outweighs the good. Overall strength of storms as measured in wind speed would rise by 2 to 11 percent, but there would be between 6 and 34 percent fewer storms in number.

Essentially, there would be fewer weak and moderate storms and more of the big damaging ones, which also are projected to be stronger due to warming.

An 11 percent increase in wind speed translates to roughly a 60 percent increase in damage, said study co-author Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT.

The storms also would carry more rain, another indicator of damage, said lead author Tom Knutson, a research meteorologist at NOAA.

Knutson said the new study, which looks at worldwide projections, doesn't make clear whether global warming will lead to more or less hurricane damage on balance.

But he pointed to a study he co-authored last month that looked at just the Atlantic hurricane basin and predicted that global warming would trigger a 28 percent increase in damage near the US despite fewer storms.

That study suggests category 4 and 5 Atlantic hurricanes - those with winds more than 130 mph - would nearly double by the end of the century. On average, a category 4 or stronger hurricane hits the United States about once every seven years, mostly in Florida or Texas.

Recent category 4 or 5 storms include 2004's Charley and 1992's Andrew, but not Katrina which made landfall as a strong category 3.

Outside experts praised the work.

The study does a good job of summarizing the current understanding of storms and warming, said Chunzai Wang, a researcher with NOAA who had no role in the study.

James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the study "should be a stern and stark warning that America needs to be better prepared and protected from the devastation that these kinds of hurricanes produce."

The issue of hurricanes and global warming splashed onto front pages in the summer of 2005 when MIT's Emanuel published a paper in Nature saying hurricane destruction has increased since the mid-1970s because of global warming, adding it would only get worse.

Several weeks later Hurricane Katrina struck, killing 1,500 people and the 2005 hurricane season was the busiest on record with 28 named storms and seven major hurricanes. But then other scientists led by Landsea disputed the conclusions that storms were already increasing in number or intensity.

Now Landsea and Emanuel are co-authors on the same paper with Knutson.

In 2007, the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it was "more likely than not" that man-made greenhouse gases had already altered storm activity, but the authors of the new paper said more recent evidence muddies the issue.

"The evidence is not strong enough that we could make some kind of statement" along those lines, Knutson said. It doesn't mean the IPCC report was wrong; it was just based on science done by 2006 and recent research has changed a bit, said Knutson and the other researchers.

Lately, the IPCC series of reports on warming has been criticized for errors. Emanuel said the international climate panel gave "an accurate summary of science that existed at that point."

In rare night landing, space shuttle back on Earth

megha — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:06:31 +0530

Space shuttle Endeavour and its six astronauts closed out the last major construction mission at the International Space Station, with a smooth landing in darkness that struck many as bittersweet.

Only one flight remains for Endeavour, the baby of the shuttle fleet. Overall, just four missions remain.

"We'll go into it with our heads held high," launch director Mike Leinbach said early Monday, a few hours after Endeavour landed in Florida. "A little bit sad note, but a great ending to a great mission."

During the two-week, 5.7 million-mile journey, commander George Zamka and his crew delivered and installed a new space station room, Tranquility, and a big bay window with commanding views of Earth. Their success resulted in the virtual completion of the space station, described by NASA as 98 percent finished.

For a while on Sunday, it seemed as though Endeavour's homecoming might be delayed. All morning and afternoon, forecasters said rain and clouds probably would scuttle any touchdown attempts. But the rain stayed away, and the sky cleared just in time.

"It's great to be home. It was a great adventure," Zamka said after the shuttle rolled to a stop on the 3-mile-long runway, awash in xenon lights.

Upon touchdown, Mission Control immediately relayed congratulations to Zamka and his crew for connecting Tranquility and opening those new "windows to the world."

Tranquility already is serving as a base for life-support equipment, as well as a gym and restroom. It also holds the seven-windowed dome, quite possibly the most anticipated addition ever made to a spacecraft.

At least one of the space station residents, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, watched Endeavour's atmospheric re-entry from the new observation deck. "The view was definitely out-of-the-world," he wrote in a Twitter update.

The two new compartments were supplied by the European Space Agency at a cost of more than $400 million. It took three spacewalks to hook everything up.

Endeavour was reported to be in good shape, with no noticeable damage aside from a few dings. "My goodness, what a machine," Zamka said. "She was perfect throughout the flight."

The four remaining shuttle flights will stock the space station with more experiments, spare parts and supplies, all critical to the long-term success of the program, said Mike Moses, a NASA manager. Discovery will make the next trip in early April.

As for Endeavour, it's due to fly one last time at the end of July.

NASA intends to wrap up the shuttle program this fall, after which the space station will be supplied by craft from Russia, Europe and Japan. Astronauts will hitch rides exclusively on Russian Soyuz capsules, while cargo will arrive on unmanned carriers.

The Obama Administration is proposing that commercial rocket companies take a crack at the US ferry side of it, once the three remaining shuttles are retired.

As if to signal the end, Endeavour had no returning space station crew on board.

Leinbach noted that "a whole series of lasts" are coming up. On Monday, workers already had begun the final processing for Endeavour's last flight. NASA is being extra careful now when referencing all those "lasts."

When Endeavour blasted off in the wee hours of Feb. 8, it was advertised as the last scheduled nighttime launch for a space shuttle. That was before Discovery's upcoming flight was delayed, from mid-March to April 5.

Now liftoff will be shortly before sunrise - technically in darkness - assuming the schedule sticks. And landing will be in the middle of the night.

For the record, this was the 23rd space shuttle landing in darkness, out of 130 flights. The last time was in 2008, by Endeavour as well. "We're back as we came," Zamka said after he stepped out onto the runway early Monday.

"It's dark outside."

Astronauts unveil phenomenal new window on world

megha — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:43:20 +0530

In a highly anticipated grand finale to their mission, astronauts opened the shutters on the International Space Station's new observation deck on Wednesday and were humbled by "absolutely spectacular" views of Earth from inside the elaborate atrium of windows.

The $27 million lookout opened each of its seven eyes one window at a time as the crews of the station and shuttle Endeavour carried out their third and final spacewalk.

It was the moment everyone had been waiting for: The round central window - the largest ever flown in space - was the first exposed as astronauts inside cranked open the shutter as they sailed 220 miles above the South Pacific.

"As expected, the view through window seven is absolutely spectacular," space station commander Jeffrey Williams said. "When we have the others around it open, it will give us a view of the entire globe. Absolutely incredible."

Mission Control set the night's mood by beaming up a recording of Jimmy Buffett's "Window on the World." "I don't think space station's ever going to be the same after this," Mission Control said in a congratulatory call.

The astronauts closed the round shutter covering the window, which measures 31 inches across, after three minutes to test the mechanisms. They repeated the process until all the windows were checked, opening the last two as the linked shuttle and space station flew above France and Greece.

It was a satisfying conclusion to this construction mission for the 11 astronauts. Though Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken completed a multitude of other chores during Tuesday night's spacewalk, including opening valves on an ammonia coolant line they previously installed on Tranquility, a new room that the astronauts connected to the space station last Friday.

"Great job raising the curtains on the bay window to the world," astronaut Kay Hire called out to the spacewalkers. "I look forward to the view from inside," Patrick said.

Mission Control wanted the shutters opened while the spacewalkers were still floating outside so the two men could intercede if something jammed. Behnken and Patrick stayed a safe 10 feet or more from the windows while the shutters were raised. The last thing NASA wanted was to have one of them inadvertently kick a window or bang it with a tool bag.

The observation deck is part of Tranquility, a more than $380 million addition. Space shuttle Endeavour delivered the European compartments last week.

The Italian-built dome - 5 feet tall and nearly 10 feet in diameter - is designed to offer sweeping 360-degree views of the home planet and outer space, as well as the space station itself.

It's not just for the crew's viewing pleasure; a robotic work station will be installed early Thursday, providing direct views for astronauts when they operate the station's big mechanical arm.

Six trapezoid-shaped windows encircle the dome. In the middle is the circular window.

During normal operations, the space station crew will be able to keep the round window unshuttered most of the time, along with a couple others. But the windows facing along the direction the outpost is orbiting will need to be closed, except during robotic operations, to protect the fused silica glass against micrometeorite strikes. Each window has four panes.

The shutters swung open when the spacewalkers were back inside. The nearly six-hour excursion ended a little early because of the risk of elevated carbon dioxide levels in Behnken's suit; he was fine, but flight controllers did not want to take any chances.

Endeavour and its crew of six will depart the space station on Friday and return to Earth on Sunday.

The next shuttle visit has been delayed. Discovery had been scheduled to blast off in mid-March with spare parts and science experiments, but a string of unusually cold weather stalled preparations. The launch is now targeted for April 5.

Only four more shuttle flights remain.

A new operating system for life 'created'

tejas — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:55:27 +0530

Scientists claim to have created a new operating system for life -- a new way of using the genetic code, allowing proteins to be made with properties that have never been seen in the natural world.

In all existing life forms, the four "letters" of the genetic code, called nucleotides, are read in triplets, so that every three nucleotides encode a single amino acid.

Not any more. Now, a team, led by Jason Chin at the University of Cambridge, has redesigned the cell's machinery so that it reads the genetic code in quadruplets, the New Scientist reported.

In the genetic code that life has used up to now, there are 64 possible triplet combinations of four nucleotide letters; these genetic "words" are called codons. Each codon codes for an amino acid or stops making a protein chain.

But, the British team has created 256 blank four-letter codons that can be assigned to amino acids that don't even exist yet. To achieve this, the scientists had to redesign three pieces of cellular machinery making proteins.

The scientists went on to prove their new genetic code works by assigning two "unnatural" amino acids to their quadruplet codons, and incorporated them into a protein chain.

"It's the beginning of a parallel genetic code," Chin said.

What's more, they've shown that these amino acids can react with each other to form a different kind of chemical bond to those which usually hold proteins together in their three-dimensional shape.

The normal kind of bonds can be broken by changes in heat and acidity, causing proteins to lose their 3D structure. But the newly created bonds created are stronger, allowing the proteins to work in a much wider range of environments.

This could help make drugs that can be taken orally without being destroyed by the acids in the digestive tract, for instance, say the scientists, whose findings have been published in the Nature journal.

A contraceptive jab for men on the anvil?

megha — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:00:27 +0530

Women may soon be liberated from the burden of family planning, thanks to scientists who claim to be working on a contraceptive jab for men.

In fact, 80 couples are taking part in the trial of the drug which the scientists say will be as effective as the Pill which is often linked to breast cancer and fatal blood clots, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

According to them, the contraceptive, given in two injections every two months, tricks the brain into shutting off sperm production in men.

It contains the male sex hormone testosterone and a man-made version of the female sex hormone progesterone and when the brain senses them, it reduces the levels of other hormones which control sperm production and maturation.

The scientists say it is effective in 99 per cent of cases and sperm counts should rapidly return to normal once the injections are stopped.

Prof Richard Anderson of Edinburgh University, who is heading one of two year-long trials, believes the jab will prove popular with both sexes. But because it will not protect against sexually-transmitted infections such as chlamydia, it is most likely to appeal to those in a committed relationship.

He said: "A lot of women may think it's time men took their turn. When we carried out surveys of women, they were enormously enthusiastic. The single most common reason was they wanted to share the responsibility for contraception."

Though no serious side-effects are expected from the jab, some men may experience hot flushes, mood swings or acne, the scientists say.

Dr Allan Pacey, a Sheffield University expert on male fertility, said male contraceptives had proved more difficult to develop than female ones but researchers were now "homing in" on the right combination of drugs.

He said: "Vasectomy is OK but although it is viewed as reversible it isn't really, so it would be useful to have an alternative.

"The big sticking point is acceptability. I think there is a lot of education needed to convince men that this jab doesn't make them less of a man."