Science & TechnologyS


Laptop

MPs Row Over Modern Warfare Game

Daniel Emery
BBC News
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:28 UTC
Video gamers are being asked to join a Facebook group set up to help defend games from critics.

Set up by MP Tom Watson, the group aims to coordinate responses to articles in the media which, gamers claim, do not give a fair view of their hobby.

Mr Watson set up the group in reaction to comments from fellow Labour MP Keith Vaz who strongly criticised Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The game goes on sale on 10 November and is expected to break sales records.

Quoted in the Daily Mail, Mr Vaz said he was "absolutely shocked" by the violence portrayed in the game. Modern Warfare 2 is rated 18 in the UK.
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Grey Alien

The search for aliens should start on Earth not outer space, says scientist


The London Telegaph
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:16 UTC
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© GETTY[Sott.net: this image accompanied the Telegraph's original article]
The search for alien life forms should be conducted here on Earth rather than in outer space, scientists have claimed.

Professor Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona University will tell a meeting at the Royal Society that the best way of proving that extra-terrestrial life exists elsewhere in the universe is to use evidence from earth.

The meeting at the Royal Society, which will include representatives from Nasa, the European Space Agency and the UN Office for Outer space Affairs marks the 5th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme. Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society will also lead one of the sessions.
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Meteor

First never-before-seen near-Earth asteroid spotted by WISE


Space Daily / NASA JPL
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:56 UTC
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© NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAThe red dot at the center of this image is the first near-Earth asteroid discovered by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has spotted its first never-before-seen near-Earth asteroid, the first of hundreds it is expected to find during its mission to map the whole sky in infrared light.

The near-Earth object, designated 2010 AB78, was discovered by WISE Jan. 12. After the mission's sophisticated software picked out the moving object against a background of stationary stars, researchers followed up and confirmed the discovery with the University of Hawaii's 2.2-meter (88-inch) visible-light telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea.

The asteroid is currently about 158 million kilometers (98 million miles) from Earth. It is estimated to be roughly 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter and circles the sun in an elliptical orbit tilted to the plane of our solar system. The object comes as close to the sun as Earth, but because of its tilted orbit, it is not thought to pass near our planet. This asteroid does not pose any foreseeable impact threat to Earth, but scientists will continue to monitor it.
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Info

Viruses use 'hive intelligence' to focus their attack

Jessica Hamzelou
New Scientist
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:56 UTC
A tactic familiar from insect behaviour seems to give viruses the edge in the eternal battle between them and their host - and the remarkable proof can be seen in a video.

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Meteor

Comet storm split destiny of Jupiter's twin moons

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:44 UTC
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© NASA/JPLComet strikes may have warmed Ganymede enough for its ice and rock to fully separate
Heavy pummelling by icy comets could explain why Jupiter's two biggest moons - apparently close kin - look so different inside.

At first glance, Ganymede and Callisto are virtually twins. The colossal moons are similar in size and mass, and are a roughly 50:50 mixture of ice and rock.

However, visits by the Galileo spacecraft beginning in 1996 tell a different story. Ganymede's interior boasts a solid rock core surrounded by a thick layer of ice, while ice and rock are still mingled in parts of Callisto. That suggests Callisto was never warm enough for its ice to melt and allow all of its rock to fall to the centre and form a core.
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Sherlock

2,000-Year-Old Temple Dedicated to Cat God Discovered in Egypt


The London News
Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00 UTC
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 2,000-year-old temple in Alexandria dedicated to a cat goddess.

According to a report by BBC News, the temple is the first trace of the royal quarters of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be revealed in Alexandria.

The temple, discovered in the Kom el-Dekkah neighbourhood of the city, is believed to belong to Queen Berenike II, wife of Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the third century BC, according to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The temple is the first part of the royal palace to be unearthed, and it is 60m (200ft) high and 15m (50ft) wide.

Archaeologists found statues of Bastet, worshipped by the Greek-speaking Egyptians as the moon goddess.
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Pharoah

Did Ancient Egyptian Makeup Have Protective Powers?


HealthDay News
Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:41 UTC
The stunning eye makeup worn thousands of years ago by Queen Nefertiti and other Egyptian royals may not have been used to enhance beauty alone: New research suggests that the ancient cosmetics may have helped prevent or treat eye disease.

Some ancient Egyptians thought their lead-based black eye makeup could protect against illness. Until now, scientists haven't believed this because lead-based substances -- such as paint -- can make people sick.

In the study, published in the current issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry, researchers analyzed substances from ancient Egyptian makeup containers that are preserved at the Louvre museum in Paris. They found that the substances raise the production of nitric oxide in skin cells, which can help boost the immune system and prevent or treat eye infections.
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Magnify

Scientists say scanner can detect PTSD in veterans

Katie Drummond
CNN
Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:04 UTC
Post-traumatic stress is estimated to afflict more than 300,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, but until now, it's been labeled a "soft disorder" -- one without an objective biological path to diagnosis.

That may have changed this week, after researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis VA Medical Center announced they'd found a distinct pattern of brain activity among PTSD sufferers.

The team used magnetoencephalography (MEG), a brain imaging method that measures how the brain processes information.
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Magnify

Mind Reading, Brain Fingerprinting and the Law


ScienceDaily
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00 UTC
What if a jury could decide a man's guilt through mind reading? What if reading a defendant's memory could betray their guilt? And what constitutes 'intent' to commit murder? These are just some of the issues debated and reviewed in the inaugural issue of WIREs Cognitive Science, the latest interdisciplinary project from Wiley-Blackwell, which for registered institutions will be free for the first two years.

In the article "Neurolaw," in the inaugural issue of WIREs Cognitive Science, co-authors Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Annabelle Belcher assess the potential for the latest cognitive science research to revolutionize the legal system.

Neurolaw, also known as legal neuroscience, builds upon the research of cognitive, psychological, and social neuroscience by considering the implications for these disciplines within a legal framework. Each of these disciplinary collaborations has been ground-breaking in increasing our knowledge of the way the human brain operates, and now neurolaw continues this trend.
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Magnify

Neurons Developed from Stem Cells Successfully Wired With Other Brain Regions in Animals


ScienceDaily
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Weimann et al./The Journal of Neuroscience 2010This is a single stem cell-derived neuron that has migrated away from the transplantation site in the cortex and grown into a mature neuron. The blue stain shows the nuclei of the endogenous neural cells in this part of the brain.
Transplanted neurons grown from embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into the brains of young animals, according to new research in the Jan. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Healthy brains have stable and precise connections between cells that are necessary for normal behavior. This new finding is the first to show that stem cells can be directed not only to become specific brain cells, but to link correctly.

In this study, a team of neuroscientists led by James Weimann, PhD, of Stanford Medical School focused on cells that transmit information from the brain's cortex, some of which are responsible for muscle control. It is these neurons that are lost or damaged in spinal cord injuries and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). "These stem cell-derived neurons can grow nerve fibers between the brain's cerebral cortex and the spinal cord, so this study confirms the use of stem cells for therapeutic goals," Weimann said.
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