Science & TechnologyS


Beaker

Survivor in the Human Genome

Edward R. Winstead
Genomenewsnetwork.com
Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:36 UTC
Somehow, the notion that humans don't have any pheromone receptor genes came to be conventional wisdom in the scientific community. And that notion may turn out to be true. But this week a team of researchers announces that the human genome contains at least one gene that closely resembles a family of mouse pheromone receptors - genes that are primarily involved in detecting odorless chemicals such as pheromones. These chemicals are the signals of a 'second' olfactory system in many species: the release of pheromones by one individual, for example, can trigger sexual behavior in another individual. The proposed human pheromone receptor is expressed in the main system of smell in humans, according to the researchers.
"We took a molecular approach and asked whether any aspects of a pheromonal system are preserved in the human genome," says Peter Mombaerts, of The Rockefeller University in New York. Two years ago, his laboratory identified eight human DNA sequences that share distinct structural elements with mouse pheromone receptors. Seven of the sequences proved not to be functional genes. One sequence, however, encodes a receptor protein found in epithelial tissue in the nasal cavity. The findings appear in the September issue of Nature Genetics.
For decades, studies have found physiological evidence of pheromonal effects in humans, most notably the synchronization of menstrual cycles of some women who live together.
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Binoculars

Remains found on Didcot housing estate

Andrew Ffrench
Oxfordmail.co.uk
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:00 UTC
Image
© UnknownThe horse skeleton found by the archaeologists.
Remains dating back thousands of years have been uncovered on the site of Didcot's Great Western Park housing development.

Archaeologists have uncovered a host of fascinating artefacts during a dig on the site as work begins on the 3,300-home development.

Builders Taylor Wimpey said "significant historical findings" have been made at the site, west of the town, over the past month by staff from Oxford Archaeology.

The oldest artefacts are a Neolithic flint arrowhead, used by early hunters, and a bowl thought to be for ceremonial purposes.

Ten roundhouses have been discovered, thought to be part of a late Bronze Age and Iron Age hillcrest settlement at the site,.
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Bizarro Earth

Adders, toads and lizards are disappearing from UK


BBC
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:03 UTC
Rept Amph Dissap
© Chris DreshWill basking adders become a think of the past?
The native adder is effectively disappearing from our landscape, a study has revealed.

The first nationwide survey of UK amphibian and reptiles has found that Britain's most widespread snake, the adder, is in decline.

Slow worms, common lizards and grass snakes are also becoming less widespread, as are the common toad, common frog and the great crested newt.

The only species found to be increasing its range is the palmate newt.

These startling trends come from a report produced by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust, which has been gathering data on 12 species since 2007.

The trust's National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme (NARRS) has presented its interim findings, which cover the first half of the six-year survey period from 2007 to 2012.

The full survey aims to establish baselines for widespread species - figures against which future status changes can be assessed.
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Heart

Chickens are capable of feeling empathy, scientists believe


The Telegraph
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:16 UTC
Chickens Empathy
© Richard WattUnder commercial conditions, chickens regularly encounter other birds showing signs of pain and distress
The discovery has important implications for the welfare of farm and laboratory animals, say researchers.

Empathy, long thought to be a defining human trait, causes one individual to be affected by the emotional state of another.

Feelings are ''mirrored'' in the observer, leading to a shared experience of being happy, sad or distressed.

The research demonstrated that hens possess a fundamental capacity to empathise, at least with their own chicks.

Scientists chose hens and chicks for the study because it is thought empathy probably evolved to aid parental care.

A number of controlled procedures were carried out which involved ruffling the feathers of chicks and mother hens with an air puff.

When chicks were exposed to puffs of air, they showed signs of distress that were mirrored by their mothers. The hens' heart rate increased, their eye temperature lowered - a recognised stress sign - and they became increasingly alert. Levels of preening were reduced, and the hens made more clucking noises directed at their chicks.
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Question

US: Underground Explosions Could Help Coachella Valley Cities Prepare for 'Big One'

Colin Atagi
The Desert Sun
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:00 UTC
Coachella Valley
© Matthew Trump / WikipediaCoachella Valley
Thousands of seismographs and 120 explosives will be used this week to simulate earthquakes and study their impact on the Coachella Valley.

The United States Geological Survey is burying 3,000 seismographs near the San Andreas fault in the Coachella and Imperial valleys for its Salton Seismic Imaging Project.

They're being distributed among seven stretches of land and will measure seismic waves from small explosions simulating 1.5- to 2-magnitude earthquakes.

"We're trying to see below the ground surface and look for the possibility of hidden faults and categorize the nature of sediments," USGS spokeswoman Leslie Gordon said Tuesday. "You set off one explosion and record it along a line of many, many sensors."

The project also will help determine the underground shape of the San Andreas fault and the difference in shaking on both ends, USGS Geophysicist Gary Fuis said.
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Info

Huge Impact Crater Found in Remote Congo

Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:29 UTC
Luizi crater
© Ludovic Ferriere and SRTM/NASAA computer model of the Luizi crater based on satellite data.

A circular depression deep in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been confirmed as the first known impact crater in central Africa, a new study says. The find brings the number of known meteor craters on Earth to 182.

The so-called Luizi structure was first described in a German geological report from 1919. But without further fieldwork, it was impossible to say for sure that the 10.5-mile-wide (17-kilometer-wide) feature had been made by a meteor impact.

On other planets, such as Mercury and Mars, it's easier to identify impact craters based only on their shapes, since these worlds no longer have geologic forces making major changes to their surfaces.

But on Earth, many older craters have likely been erased by tectonic activity or erosion, while others are so covered with dense vegetation or sediments, like Luizi, that they're almost impossible to spot without satellites.

What's more, the crater-like structures we do see may have been made by volcanoes, collapsed underground chambers, and other forces that have nothing to do with impacts, said study leader Ludovic Ferrière, curator of the rock collection at the Natural History Museum of Vienna in Austria.

"On Earth, to confirm it's an impact, you have to go in the field because you need evidence of high pressures and temperatures," Ferrière said
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Beaker

US: Scientists Grow Viable Urethras From Boys' Cells

Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:34 UTC
Researchers have used patients' own cells to grow urinary tubes in the lab and have successfully used them to replace damaged tissue in five young boys, showing the potential power of cell-based therapies.

Urine flow tests and tube diameter measurements show the tissue-engineered urethras are still working after six years, said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina.

The study, published on Monday in the journal Lancet, represents a first in the growing field of regenerative medicine, which doctors hope will eventually lead to ways to repair injuries and eventually replace whole organs.

"Totally grown in the laboratory, these urethras -- living tubes which convey urine from the bladder -- highlight the power of cell-based therapies," Chris Mason, a regenerative medicine expert at University College London who was not involved in the research, said in an e-mailed statement.

"When an organ or tissue is irreparably damaged or traumatically destroyed, no amount of drugs or mechanical devices will restore the patient back to normal," but he said cell-based therapies offer a potential cure.

Defective urethras can result from injury, disease or birth defects. While short defects in the tube can be repaired, larger defects are treated with a tissue graft, usually taken from skin or the lining of the cheek.

But these grafts fail in half of the cases, often leading to infection, pain, bleeding and trouble urinating.
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Info

Scientists Dubious Over Claim of Alien Life Evidence in Meteorite

Clara Moskowitz
Space.com
Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:06 UTC
Alien Life
© Hoover/Journal of CosmologyFilaments in the Orgueil meteorite, seen under a scanning electron microscope, could be evidence of extraterrestrial bacteria, claims NASA scientist Richard Hoover.

The recent announcement by a NASA scientist of evidence for alien life in meteorites from outer space has created a firestorm of controversy that researchers say is unlikely to die down anytime soon.

The claim, announced Friday (March 4), called "startling, paradigm busting research," by the Journal of Cosmology, which published the findings, has been derided by critics, one of which referred to it "garbage."

The finding

Astrobiologist Richard Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., used scanning electron microscopes to analyze slices of carbonaceous meteorites that fell to Earth from space.

Based on the appearance of "filaments" and other features that resemble microbes, Hoover argues that the meteorites contain fossilized life in the form of cyanobacteria - single-celled organisms also known as blue-green algae. He supports this claim by presenting evidence of chemical compounds present in the meteorites that are consistent with a biological origin.
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Grey Alien

NASA Scientist Finds 'Alien Life' Fossils

Jay Directo
Agence France-Presse
Sun, 06 Mar 2011 10:36 UTC
Image
© Agence France-PresseActivists dressed up as aliens from environmental watchdog Greenpeace demonstrate in Manila in 2009. A NASA scientist's claim that he found tiny fossils of alien life in the remnants of a meteorite has stirred both excitement and skepticism, and is being closely reviewed by 100 experts
A NASA scientist's claim that he found tiny fossils of alien life in the remnants of a meteorite has stirred both excitement and skepticism, and is being closely reviewed by 100 experts.

Richard Hoover's paper, along with pictures of the microscopic earthworm-like creatures, were published late Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology, which is available free online.

Hoover sliced open fragments of several types of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, which can contain relatively high levels of water and organic materials, and looked inside with a powerful microscope.

He found bacteria-like creatures that he calls "indigenous fossils," which he believes originated beyond Earth and were not introduced here after the meteorites landed.

"He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies," said the study.
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Bizarro Earth

No such thing as a dormant volcano: Magma chambers awake sooner than thought


Science Daily
Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:45 UTC
Crater of Mount Pinatubo
© iStockphoto/Arnel ManalangCrater of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. Is there no such thing as a dormant volcano?
Until now it was thought that once a volcano's magma chamber had cooled down it remained dormant for centuries before it could be remobilized by fresh magma. A theoretical model developed by Alain Burgisser of the Orléans Institute of Earth Sciences (Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans -- CNRS/Universités d'Orléans et de Tours) together with a US researcher , was tested on two major eruptions and completely overturned this hypothesis: the reawakening of a chamber could take place in just a few months. This research should lead to a reassessment of the dangerousness of some dormant volcanoes.

It is published in the journal Nature dated 3 March 2011.

A magma chamber is a large reservoir of molten rock (magma) located several kilometers beneath a volcano, which it feeds with magma. But what happens to the magma chamber when the volcano is not erupting? According to volcanologists, it cools down to an extremely viscous mush until fresh magma from deep inside Earth 'reawakens' it, in other words fluidizes it by heating it through thermal contact. The large size of magma chambers (ranging from a few tenths to a few hundred cubic kilometers) explains why, according to this theory, it takes several hundred or even thousand years for the heat to spread to the whole reservoir, awakening the volcano from its dormant state.
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