Science & TechnologyS


Sherlock

First 'placebo gene' discovered

Andy Coghlan
New Scientist
Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:19 UTC
Image
© Ray Roberts/Rex Features
For the first time, a gene is being linked to increased susceptibility to the placebo effect, the mysterious capacity some people have to benefit from sham treatments.

The gene might not play a role in our response to treatment for all conditions, and the experiment involved only a small number of people. Nonetheless, the discovery is a milestone in the quest to understand this phenomenon, which often blurs the results of clinical trials "To our knowledge, it's the first time anyone has linked a gene to the placebo effect," says Tomas Furmark of Uppsala University in Sweden.

He and his colleagues recruited 25 people with an exaggerated fear of public humiliation, otherwise known as social anxiety disorder. Participants had to give a speech at the start and end of an eight-week treatment - which unbeknownst to them and their doctors, was actually a placebo.
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Info

Search for 'God particle' hit by huge repair bill

New Scientist Staff and Reuters
New Scientist
Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:11 UTC
first protons to be accelerated inside the Large Hadron Collider
© CERNIn September this image was recorded when some of the first protons to be accelerated inside the Large Hadron Collider smashed into an absorbing device called a collimator at near light speed, producing a shower of particle debris. After a fault just nine days later, the accelerator faces a $29 million repair bill and will be working again in late summer 2009 at the earliest.
Repairing the giant particle collider built to simulate the big bang could cost up to 35 million Swiss francs (£20 million or $29 million), says the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The announcement comes in the same week an internal report revealed that the planned spring start-up won't now happen until late July 2009 at the earliest.

Repairs will cost 15 million Swiss francs, and spare parts another 10-20 million Swiss francs, says CERN spokesman James Gillies.
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Magnify

Lost city of 'cloud people' found in Peru

Jeremy McDermott
Telegraph
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:14 UTC
chachapoyasPeru
Buildings carved into the Pachallama peak mountainside in Peru by the Chachapoya
Archaeologists have discovered a lost city carved into the Andes Mountains by the mysterious Chachapoya tribe. The settlement covers some 12 acres and is perched on a mountainside in the remote Jamalca district of Utcubamba province in the northern jungles of Peru's Amazon.
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Telescope

Return of the Leonid meteors


NASA
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:24 UTC
Leonid outburst
© Chris Peterson, Cloudbait ObservatoryA composite, all-sky image of the 2008 Leonid outburst over Colorado.
Astronomers from Caltech and NASA say a strong shower of Leonid meteors is coming in 2009. Their prediction follows an outburst on Nov. 17, 2008, that broke several years of "Leonid quiet" and heralds even more intense activity next November.

"On Nov. 17, 2009, we expect the Leonids to produce upwards of 500 meteors per hour," says Bill Cooke of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "That's a very strong display."

Forecasters define a meteor storm as 1000 or more meteors per hour. That would make the 2009 Leonids "a half-storm," says Jeremie Vaubaillon of Caltech, who successfully predicted a related outburst just a few weeks ago.
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Info

Spanish Inquisition left genetic legacy in Iberia

Ewen Callaway
New Scientist
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:28 UTC
It's not often that cultural and religious persecution makes countries more diverse, but the Spanish Inquisition might have done just that.

One in five Spaniards and Portuguese has a Jewish ancestor, while a tenth of Iberians boast North African ancestors, finds new research.

This melting pot probably occurred after centuries of coexistence and tolerance among Muslims, Jews and Christians ended in 1492, when Catholic monarchs converted or expelled the Islamic population, called Moriscos. Sephardic Jews, whose Iberian roots extend to the first century AD, received much the same treatment.

"They were given a choice: convert, go, or die," says Mark Jobling, a geneticist at the University of Leicester, UK. Some of those that became Christian would have ended up contributing genes to the Iberian pool.
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Telescope

'Rhythms' in Martian rocks mark out past climate swings

Stephen Battersby
New Scientist
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:39 UTC
Terra region of Mars
© NASA/JPL/U of ArizonaStep-like layers in a crater in the Arabia Terra region of Mars hint at past climate swings.
Giant stairsteps on Mars are evidence of ancient climate cycles, suggest images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Discovered in four locations around a region just north of the equator called Arabia Terra, these sedimentary deposits have a regular, rhythmic pattern. Each step is a few metres tall, and the steps are bundled into groups of 10 .

Reading the pattern is only possible because of the stereo 3D view given by MRO's HiRISE camera, says lead author Kevin Lewis of Caltech.
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Telescope

Space group wants focus on large asteroids


United Press International
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:41 UTC
A U.S.-led group, the Association of Space Explorers, says the international community must develop a coordinated response to the threat of asteroids.
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Sun

Study illuminates star explosion from 16th century


Associated Press
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:07 UTC
New York - More than 400 years after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe challenged established wisdom about the heavens by analyzing a strange new light in the sky, scientists say they've finally nailed down just what he saw.

It's no big surprise. Scientists have known the light came from a supernova, a huge star explosion. But what kind of supernova?

A new study confirms that, as expected, it was the common kind that involves the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf star with a nearby companion.
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Magnet

High-Temp Superconducting Nanowire System is First of its Kind

Laura Mgrdichian
PhysOrg
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:57 UTC
Scientists from the California Institute of Technology have, for the first time, created an array of nanowires that are superconducting at relatively high temperatures. This work, published recently in Nano Letters, could lead to the incorporation of superconducting nanowires into emerging nanotechnologies.
Researchers around the world have been working to create superconducting nanowires, but few studies have investigated the feasibility of nanowires made of high-critical-temperature (high-Tc) superconducting materials and, prior to this work, no such nanowires had been produced.
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Saturn

Brown Dwarfs Do Form Like Stars


Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:51 UTC
Astronomers have uncovered strong evidence that brown dwarfs form like stars. Using the Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA), they detected molecules of carbon monoxide shooting outward from the object known as ISO-Oph 102. Such molecular outflows typically are seen coming from young stars or protostars. However, this object has an estimated mass of 60 Jupiters, meaning it is too small to be a star. Astronomers have classified it as a brown dwarf.
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