Posts

A global influenza pandemic is closer than at any time in a generation. Klaus Sthr, head of flu surveillance at the World Health Organization, made that uncharacteristically dramatic declaration back in November, before convening an emergency summit of vaccine manufacturers and national health agency officials. The reason was the escalating avian influenza crisis in 10 Asian countries, which poses a direct threat to human health. Because the avian virus, known as H5N1, is lethal in chickens, identifying local outbreaks was easy....

Scientists are turning to predatory bacteria to defeat drug-resistant infections. Microbiologists led by Daniel Kadouri, now at Rutgers University, lately have focused on two such predators—Micavibrio aeruginosavorus, which latches onto a germ and sucks out its innards, and Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, which burrows into and parasitically reproduces within its prey. Kadouri’s group previously showed that both species could kill dangerous microbes, but the predators had not been conclusively tested on drug-resistant strains....

Clarification appended. The Department of Energy introduced a new award last week for the most energy-efficient televisions in an attempt to make a major cut in energy consumption in living rooms around the world. The Global Efficiency Medal was created by the Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD) Initiative just ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an annual industry event taking place this week in Las Vegas where high-tech companies present their new products and features....

A study of ovarian cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy determined that individuals with a mutant, nonfunctional version of the tumor-suppressing gene p53 had a survival rate more than twice as high as counterparts with a properly functioning gene. This, despite the fact that the gene in question is, under normal circumstances, essential for preventing cancer in the first place. In the body, the protein coded for by p53 is recruited to sites where cell damage occurs....

Jack Bacon from the Mission Analysis & Integration Group in NASA’s ISS Program Integration Office explains the complexities surrounding the ISS and its use. From among many different options mulled over by NASA, the decision was ultimately made to design the International Space Station to provide the most pristine zero-gravity environment possible, in order to facilitate experiments involving everything from physics to the life sciences. This single requirement alone creates enormous architectural challenges, which have compounded the cost and complexity of the project....

In 1991, a team of scientists patented what appeared to be a breakthrough for one of the nation’s most serious energy efficiency problems. Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory had invented a “thin triple-pane” glass window. On paper the better-insulated window had the potential to cut annual energy for heating buildings by 39 percent and reduce air conditioning costs by 28 percent. But the breakthrough was forgotten. “It went nowhere,” explained Robert Hart, a Berkeley lab researcher who now leads the team that invented the window....

By Katherine Rowland of Nature magazineAs plumes of pollution rise over the booming industrial towns of Asia, satellite data could help to alert people in other regions to the approach of drifting smog.A team of researchers from the U.S. has conducted the first high-resolution analysis of ozone–the main constituent of smog–traveling from Asia to the western United States. The group’s findings, published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicate that the contribution of Asian emissions to intercontinental pollution is higher than was previously believed....

By Megan Rowling BONN, Germany, June 8 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Group of Seven leaders agreed on Monday to provide insurance against climate hazards for up to 400 million more vulnerable people and back development of early warning systems, but did not outline a clear path for increasing climate aid up to 2020. Experts at June 1-11 climate talks in Bonn were disappointed that G7 leaders gave only vague assurances they would work to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with extreme weather and rising seas, and to develop their economies cleanly - as promised by rich governments in 2009....

The Pentagon has made clear in recent weeks that cyber warfare is no longer just a futuristic threat—it is now a real one. U.S. government agency and industry computer systems are already embroiled in a number of nasty cyber warfare campaigns against attackers based in China, North Korea, Russia and elsewhere. As a counterpoint, hackers with ties to Russia have been accused of stealing a number of Pres. Barack Obama’s e-mails, although the White House has not formally blamed placed any blame at the Kremlin’s doorstep....

EAST AMWELL, N.J.—Mike Strizki has not paid an electric, oil or gas bill—nor has he spent a nickel to fill up his Mercury Sable—in nearly two years. Instead, the 51-year-old civil engineer makes all the fuel he needs using a system he built in the capacious garage of his home, which employs photovoltaic (PV) panels to turn sunlight into electricity that is harnessed in turn to extract hydrogen from tap water....

If the online universe has had an unofficial slogan to date, it might have been the caption to that famous cartoon by Peter Steiner: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Not only do digital communications allow anonymity, but the underlying TCP/IP protocols that govern the flow of data are supremely egalitarian. Everybody’s packets of information are treated equally by the routers. Thanks to that level playing field, entrepreneurs working out of their garages have been able to compete toe to toe with Fortune 500 companies in new businesses....

SAN FRANCISCO – Though Apple is sure to dominate the news cycle with the rollout of new iPads on Tuesday, Microsoft didn’t want the coinciding launch of its Surface 2 tablet to go uncelebrated. So it went ahead and decided to throw a simultaneous nationwide in-store launch event – as is now the fashion with high profile hardware launches these days. Though unlike its Cupertino competitor, Microsoft’s event didn’t drive droves of people to pull out their wallets when the clock ticked twelve....

LOVE POTIONS The Chemistry between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction Larry Young Brian Alexander Penguin Group USA, 2012 ($26.95) How do I love thee? When neuroscientist Young and journalist Alexander started counting, they found many molecular ways. In The Chemistry between Us, the writers highlight the complex chemical processes that create love in the brain and bolster the argument that love is an addiction. Young has devoted his career to studying the behaviors and neural circuitry of love in the prairie vole, a rodent whose monogamous tendencies resemble our own....

Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), has had enough of shooting in the dark. He thinks that if a clinical trial of a psychiatric therapy fails, scientists should at least learn something about the brain along the way. Now Insel is translating that belief into action: the NIMH, based in Bethesda, Maryland, has decided to stop funding clinical trials that aim merely to ease patients’ symptoms....

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Fukushima task force has confronted the commissioners with a central quandary of their mission: When are nuclear plants safe enough? The six-person Near-Term Task Force that dived into the implications of Japan’s nuclear disaster concluded in its July 12 report that “continued operation and continued licensing activities do not pose an imminent risk to public health and safety.” Then the task force followed with a dozen major recommendations, some of which would order nuclear plant operators to strengthen defenses against extreme flooding or earthquakes when necessary and to harden vents that would carry away explosive hydrogen gas from damaged reactor cores in the two types of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant....

President Obama is seeking psychological advice about climate change. Yesterday, he issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to use behavioral science when developing programs to address rising temperatures and other policies. That’s the stuff of sociologists, psychologists and behavioral economists. The administration suggests that behavioral cues, like comparing your energy use with a neighbor, can be used to increase participation in energy efficiency and other federal goals. The White House created a group last year to experiment with strategies to change behavior....

We blast the upbeat tunes for parties and workouts at the gym, and we save the low-key ballads for romantic or pensive moments. It’s hardly a new idea that music is intertwined with our emotions. But how have our favorites changed over the decades, and what do these changes say about America’s shifting emotional landscape? Music is a form of naturalistic data that, much like popular television, literature, and sales of consumer goods, scientists can sample for insight into our minds and values....

A combination of carbon dioxide emitted by human activities and nutrient runoff is transforming the chemistry of Washington state’s Puget Sound, according to a new study. Without intervention, the one-two punch could threaten the area’s shellfish industry, said lead author Richard Feely, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. Feely and his team sampled waters in Puget Sound in February and August 2008, discovering that the estuary’s waters were surprisingly acidic – and in some areas, likely corrosive to many shelled creatures....

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary by Caspar Henderson University of Chicago Press, 2013 ($29) Inspired by medieval bestiaries, Henderson describes amazing but real creatures, from the axolotl (a salamander with “gills branching like soft coral from its neck”) to the zebra fish (whose genetic manipulability and transparent embryos make it a good model for biology research). Each entry marries history and philosophy with science, and fantastical illustrations, photographs and diagrams enrich the book’s pages....

As workers race to stave off further melting at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan, several robots there are waiting on the sidelines for an opportunity to help. Questions remain, however, regarding how these units might assist in an ongoing emergency at a site contaminated with radiation and deluged with tons of corrosive seawater. Concrete pump trucks sprayed about 130 tons of water into Daiichi’s No. 4 reactor on Wednesday, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) reported (pdf)....