Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from New Scientist.
Rude awakening for NASA's human space-flight dream
by Rachel Courtland
IN A presentation that was likened to pulling back the curtain to reveal the Wizard of Oz, former astronaut Sally Ride stood before a crowd several blocks from the White House last week and unveiled the consequences of years of NASA scrimping.
Ride and a committee of nine other space-industry professionals were tasked by President Barack Obama in May to review NASA's plans for human space flight. The meeting, the final public gathering before the formal report is due at the end of August, painted a bleak picture of an agency mired in financial woes.
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
DarkSyde: This Week in Science
NellaSelim: This Week In Space: The Universe Waves Dark Energy Goodbye
Username4242: Bonus Dinosaur of the Week--Dinosaurian Death in Decidedly Drenched Dirt.
Slideshows/Videos
The Guardian (UK): The week in wildlife
From panda births to newly discovered species of invertebrate
New Scientist Video on YouTube: US healthcare reform
New Scientist Video on YouTube: Vanishing head illusion
Richard Wiseman takes us through an illusion that seems to make his head disappear.
New Scientist Video on YouTube: Gravity-defying art
Artist Simon Faithfull's obsession with gravity culminates with the launch of an office chair tied to a balloon.
New Scientist Video on YouTube: How does your galaxy grow?
Astronomy/Space
New Scientist: Milky Way may have a huge hidden neighbour
by Ken Croswell
A LARGE satellite galaxy may be lurking, hidden from view, next door to our own.
Sukanya Chakrabarti and Leo Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley, suspected that the gravity of a nearby galaxy was causing perturbations that have been observed in gas on the fringes of the Milky Way. "We did a large range of simulations where we varied the mass of the perturber and the distance of closest approach," says Chakrabarti. In the best-fitting simulation, the unseen galaxy has about 1 per cent of the Milky Way's mass, or 10 billion times the mass of the sun.
That's a lot. It means the object has roughly the same mass as the Milky Way's brightest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
The Guardian (UK): Hunting ET: Astrobiology and the quest for extraterrestrial life
Is there anybody out there? That's the big question scientists are asking in the emerging field of astrobiology. Its practitioners bring together expertise from a variety of disciplines in their quest to determine whether there is life beyond our green and pleasant home planet.
"The question of whether we are alone in the universe or not is something that every single one of us has wondered about at one point," says Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiology researcher at University College London and author of Life In The Universe: A Beginner's Guide. "Whatever the answer, I think it would profoundly change our understanding of where we came from and our place in the cosmos."
At first glance the prospects of finding life elsewhere in our own solar system don't look good, since every planetary body other than our own is either scorching hot or ferociously cold. Then again, we know that on Earth life can flourish in the unlikeliest locations, from polar ice caps to hydrothermal vents reaching 113C.
New Scientist: Did asteroids flock together to build planets?
by David Shiga
PERHAPS we should thank rapid-assembly asteroids for spawning the planets. New simulations suggest that dense swarms of boulders collapsed under their own gravity to make the building blocks of our solar system.
The planets are thought to have formed from a disc of dust and gas around the infant sun. The initial process is well known: dust grains clumped together, forming objects in the millimetre-to-metre range. However, it is not known how the growth process continued. The gas in the disc should have put a drag on the new boulders, causing them to spiral into the sun before they could grow further.
Evidence is now mounting that the next step was a sudden leap forward, skipping intermediate sizes to make asteroids hundreds of kilometres across - massive enough to resist gas drag.
The Guardian (UK): South Korea aborts rocket launch minutes before lift-off
Justin McCurry
South Korea's entry into the Asian space race was delayed again today after the launch of its first rocket was aborted minutes before lift-off.
The country's science ministry has yet to give a reason for the delay, and a new attempt is not expected for several days.
The planned launch was certain to raise tensions with North Korea, which drew widespread condemnation after test-launching a ballistic missile in early April. Pyongyang insisted the rocket was carrying a communications satellite but the US, Japan and South Korea claimed the launch was a disguised attempt to test ballistic missile technology banned under UN sanctions.
The Guardian (UK): Britain's ice man ready for a second space shot with rebuilt CryoSat probe
Robin McKie
It was rated one of the most damaging setbacks to hit the study of global warming: on 8 October, 2005, a £100m probe designed to measure ice thickness at the poles plunged into the Arctic ocean minutes after launch on an old Soviet SS-19 missile from Plesetsk, northern Russia.
The blow seemed irreparable but, as a result of a remarkable technological comeback, the satellite's UK creator, Duncan Wingham, will soon watch as a rebuilt version of his CryoSat probe, funded by the European Space Agency (Esa), makes its attempt to reach orbit.
"It is one thing to get the chance to build a satellite, but to get a second chance when things have gone wrong is remarkable," said Wingham, professor of Climate Physics at University College London.
Evolution/Paleontology
BBC: Ink found in Jurassic-era squid
Palaeontologists have drawn with ink extracted from a preserved fossilised squid uncovered during a dig in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac.
A picture of the creature and its Latin name was drawn using its ink.
BBC: Runway found for flying reptiles
By Sudeep Chand
An ancient runway for flying reptiles called pterosaurs has been found in France, say researchers writing in a Royal Society journal.
Led by Jean-Michel Mazin, the international team found a 150 million year-old landing strip in Crayssac in South West France.
The "trackway" shows how the reptile landed feet first, then stuttered before walking on all fours.
Biodiversity
The Guardian (UK): I name this rat-eating plant 'Sir David Attenborough'
Patrick Barkham
Sir David Attenborough is increasingly the go-to man for scientists overcome by the creative challenge of naming a new discovery. The naturalist has given his name to a prehistoric lizard, a parasitic wasp, an echidna (or spiny anteater), a fossilised fish and, now, a rat-eating plant.
It seems a dubious honour when your name is attached to a giant pitcher plant capable of trapping rodents in enormous folds. Sir David, however, is delighted that the carnivorous species was given the scientific title Nepenthes attenboroughii by a team of botanists led by Stewart McPherson, who discovered it during a plant-hunting expedition to Mount Victoria in the Philippines.
"I like these oddball plants and this is a very dramatic one. It can hold up to two litres of water in its jugs," says Sir David. "It is a very nice, complimentary thing for this young, intrepid explorer to do and I am very touched that Stewart McPherson should have done it in my name."
Horsefeathers already linked to the Times of London article here, but I thought this plant was worth mentioning again.
The Guardian (UK): Scientists in South Africa discover 18 new spider, snail and worm species
David Smith in Johannesburg
Scientists surveying a nature reserve in South Africa have discovered 18 previously unrecorded species of invertebrates, including spiders, snails, millipedes, earthworms and centipedes.
The trove of creatures was uncovered in eight days by researchers and volunteers working for the environmental charity Earthwatch at the Mkhambathi nature reserve on the spectacular Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape.
However, scientists warned that planned developments in the area could threaten the ecosystem and deny them the chance to identify further species.
BBC: Glowing 'bomber worms' discovered
By Victoria Gill
A group of glowing worms has been found dwelling in the deep ocean, some of which release body parts as tiny "bombs" to ward off predators.
Researchers describe the bizarre "Swima worms" in Science journal.
The creatures, which the scientists say could be widespread in the deep sea, indicate the extent of biodiversity yet to be discovered in the oceans.
The Guardian (UK): Butterfly lovers hail Duke of Burgundy's second coming
Patrick Barkham
One of the most endangered butterflies in Britain has reappeared for a second generation this summer for only the third time in more than a century.
The short-lived Duke of Burgundy usually appears only in spring but a second brood is now flying at Rodborough Common, Gloucestershire, the furthest north a second generation has ever been recorded.
The appearance is a rare conservation success for the delicate butterfly which has endured a catastrophic decline in recent decades.
According to Matthew Oates, conservation adviser for the National Trust, which owns and manages Rodborough Common especially for the butterfly, a second brood of Duke of Burgundies may become more common in the future with global warming.
BBC: Bizarre newt uses ribs as weapons
Matt Walker
One amphibian has evolved a bizarre and gruesome defence mechanism to protect itself against predators.
When attacked, the Spanish ribbed newt pushes out its ribs until they pierce through its body, exposing a row of bones that act like poisonous barbs.
The newt has to force its bones through its skin every time it is attacked, say scientists who have described the form and function of the barbs in detail.
Yet this bizarre behaviour appears not to cause the newt any ill effects.
Biotechnology/Health
BBC: A step closer to 'synthetic life'
By Victoria Gill
In what has been described as a step towards the creation of a synthetic cell, scientists have created a new "engineered" strain of bacteria.
A team successfully transferred the genome of one type of bacteria into a yeast cell, modified it, and then transplanted into another bacterium.
This paves the way to the creation of a synthetic organism - inserting a human-made genome into a bacterial cell.
BBC: Snorkel rice could feed millions
By Sudeep Chand
A new rice plant has been developed which grows "snorkels" when exposed to floods.
A paper in the journal Nature, describes how the plant elongates rapidly in response to being submerged.
One of the scientists, Motoyaki Ashikari from Nagoya University in Japan, said "the impact is huge".
The Guardian (UK): Children risk cancer by eating salami and ham, warns charity
Denis Campbell
Parents should not put ham or salami in their children's packed lunches because processed meat increases the risk of developing cancer, experts in the disease are warning.
The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) wants families to instead use poultry, fish, low-fat cheese, hummus or small amounts of lean meat as sandwich fillings when making up school lunchboxes.
Children should avoid eating processed meat altogether because unhealthy habits acquired while young can have serious consequences later, said the WCRF.
The Guardian (UK): Stop prescribing killer diabetes drug, scientists warn
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Scientists say doctors should stop prescribing a commonly used diabetes drug, after studies show that it is linked to higher rates of heart failure and death than a similar alternative.
David Juurlink, a Toronto-based pharmacologist and lead author of a paper published online today by the British Medical Journal, says that doctors should no longer prescribe rosiglitazone, which is sold under the brand name Avandia.
His study looked at nearly 40,000 patients aged 66 or older who had been given either rosiglitazone or a similar drug, pioglitazone, by their doctors between April 2002 and March 2008 for type 2 (obesity-related) diabetes. They found that those on pioglitazone had a significantly lower risk of heart failure or death than those on rosiglitazone.
The Guardian (UK): What determines Caster Semenya's sex?
Sarah Boseley, health editor
The International Association of Athletics Federations is going to muster a host of experts to decide whether Caster Semenya is a man or a woman. According to Professor Wiebke Arlt, professor of medicine at Birmingham University, the question of which is the most appropriate sex when a child is born is a relatively straightforward one.
Aside from very rare exceptions, all of us have 46 chromosomes, plus the pair which, in most cases, decides our sex. Either we have what they call 46,XX and are female or 46,XY and are male. But sometimes there is a mismatch between the body's male and female hormones and those key chromosomes. Sometimes that can be corrected so that the chromosomes decide the sex, but sometimes it cannot and the hormones have to prevail.
The Guardian (UK): DNA crime fighting under threat after researchers falsify evidence
DNA has quickly become the bedrock of modern law enforcement - as anyone who's watched CSI will know. It's enough to make up the minds of the courts, and to convince the British government to put millions of people into its database.
Suddenly things look a lot shakier, however, after scientists discovered ways to fabricate saliva and blood samples - and even DNA evidence itself, given the right information.
Climate/Environment
The Guardian (UK): Early farming methods caused climate change, say researchers
Farmers who used "slash and burn" methods of clearing forests to grow crops thousands of years ago could have increased carbon dioxide levels enough to change the climate, researchers claimed today.
The US scientists believe that small populations released carbon emissions as they cleared large tracts of land to produce relatively meagre amounts of food.
They were much less efficient than farmers using today's agricultural practices because there were no constraints on land.
Geology
New Scientist: Why the highest mountains are near the equator
IS IT just a coincidence that all the world's tallest mountain ranges lie at low latitudes? Apparently not, as it seems warmer climates enhance mountain growth.
Psychology/Behavior
Physorg.com: Study Demonstrates How We Support Our False Beliefs
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Although this belief influenced the 2004 election, they claim it did not result from pro-Bush propaganda, but from an urgent need by many Americans to seek justification for a war already in progress.
The findings may illuminate reasons why some people form false beliefs about the pros and cons of health-care reform or regarding President Obama's citizenship, for example.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
The Guardian (UK): Female sticklebacks see right through the sexual display of flashy males
The criteria that females use to choose partners can be baffling to us males. In the animal world, a male's attractiveness often seems to be down to one completely arbitrary characteristic, like tail length. Female birds of paradise, for example, are suckers for a long tail, so much so that the males have evolved tails so long they can be a nuisance.
The reason females select for such costly ornaments has been the subject of debate among evolutionary biologists for some time. In 1975, Israeli scholar Amotz Zahavi suggested that long tails and enormous antlers are attractive precisely because they are such a burden to the male. Their costliness means that they are reliable indicators of a male's quality, since only the fittest males can afford to produce them.
Male sticklebacks that develop a bright red throat might not seem to be going to much trouble compared with deer that grow huge antlers, but Zahavi's "handicap principle" could be at work here too. The red colouration that these fish use to attract females relies on pigments called carotenoids, that are hard to come by in the diet. Carotenoids mop up free radicals and are essential for an effective immune system.
Hat/Tip to Inspired by Nature for this article.
DNA India: Females prefer shorter sex, while males longer
Washington: A new study has shown that female fruit flies prefer keeping sex short and sweet because they get a reproductive boost from shorter intercourse.
Since males like sex to last longer, a fight ensues.
"After about a minute and a half (of mating), the female begins kicking and struggling," National Geographic News quoted Kirsten Klappert, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, as having written in the study report.
New Scientist: Why geeks get the girls
by Ewen Callaway
Is smart sexy? Our knee-jerk reaction – reinforced by cultural stereotypes of Star Trek-convention attending geeks and a seeming obsession with ditzy, pretty starlets – would argue otherwise. Nerds are, well, nerds.
But consider Peter Orszag. As director of the US Office of Management and Budget, he is the nation's most powerful pencil-pusher. Yet Orszag was recently named one of the hunks of Washington DC . "He's made nerdy sexy," Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said of the 40-year-old, glasses-wearing son of a maths professor.
They may be onto something.
Physorg.com: Cognitive rehab helps people with acquired brain injury
Cognitive rehabilitation after a serious brain injury or stroke can help the mind in much the same way that physical therapy helps the body, according to a new meta-analysis. Because the data suggest that treatment may work best when tailored to age, injury, symptoms, and time since injury, the findings may help establish evidence-based treatment guidelines. A full report is in the January issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
Archeology/Anthropology
The Australian: Hobbits walked out of Africa
Leigh Dayton, Science writer | August 19, 2009
THE identity of the tiny human-like creature discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004 has become clearer -- and more astonishing -- thanks to a new analysis by Australian and Indonesian scientists.
According to a team led by Australian National University doctoral student Debbie Argue, not only is Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the hobbit, not a deformed modern human, as a handful of critics claim, but the small-brained, long-armed biped was the first human-like creature to walk out of Africa.
And it did so nearly two million years ago, roughly 100,000 years before a species most scientists believed was the first migrant. That was a somewhat more modern hominin -- a member of a group including humans and their ancestors -- that was discovered in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, variously identified as H.georgicus, H. ergaster or H. erectus.
People's Daily (China): More light shed on China's ancient past
The cradle of Chinese civilization was long considered to be the region around the middle Yellow River. But recent archaeological discoveries from far-flung corners of China are forcing scientists to reconsider the origins of ancient Chinese civilization.
Some are now even questioning the existence of a legendary Chinese dynasty, the Xia (about 2100 BC - 1600 BC), according to a collection of news reports in today's issue of the journal Science.
...
Though boasting 5,000 years of civilization, the widely acknowledged beginning of the civilization with historical records could be dated to the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC - 1100 BC), thanks to the discovery of oracle bones.
Agence France-Presse via The Australian: Pharaohs' tombs 'could disappear'
THE ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned.
Zahi Hawass said humidity and fungus are eating into the walls of the royal tombs in the huge necropolis on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor, which is swamped daily by several thousand tourists.
Poor ventilation and the breath of the hordes of visitors are causing damage to the carvings and painted decorations inside the tombs, he told journalists on a tour of the royal necropolis yesterday.
Leinster Leader (Ireland): 3,000-year-old butter found in Kildare bog
By Conor McHugh
AN OAK barrel, full of butter, estimated to be roughly 3,000 years old has been found in Gilltown bog, between Timahoe and Staplestown.
The amazing discovery of the barrel, which is being described by archaeology experts in the National Museum as a "really fine example" was found by two Bord na Mona workers.
Der Spiegel (Germany): German Archaeologists Labor to Solve Mystery of the Nok
By Matthias Schulz
Some 2,500 years ago, a mysterious culture emerged in Nigeria. The Nok people left behind bizarre terracotta statues -- and little else. German archaeologists are now looking for more clues to explain this obscure culture.
Half a ton of pottery shards is piled on the tables in Peter Breunig's workroom on the sixth floor of the University of Frankfurt am Main. There are broken pots, other storage vessels, a clay lizard and fragments of clay faces with immense nostrils.
The chipped head of a statue depicts an African man with a moustache, a fixed glare and hair piled high up on his head. He looks gloomy, almost sinister. Just a few days ago, the ceramics traveled 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) by sea from Nigeria, where they were unearthed.
DNA India: Caves tell a tale of an ancient trade route
Neeta Kolhatkar / DNA
Mumbai: Few would know that the Elephanta, Kanheri, Mahakali, Jogeshwari and Mandapeshwar caves are all connected by a trade route that existed in and around Mumbai nearly 2,000 years ago.
"These caves were used by traders and Buddhist monks who traversed down these stretches while on their way to Konkan or Sopara. In fact the Dahisar river running adjacent to the Mandapeshwar caves was earlier used for navigation. They would go from here towards Gorai and onward to their further journey," says Anita Rane-Kothare, professor, ancient Indian culture, St Xavier's College.
Each cave has a distinct feature which sets it apart from others. One important factor being -- the Kanheri and Mahakali caves are Buddhist caves while the Mandapeshwar is a Shaiva cave.
Archaeology (Archaelogical Institute of America): The Man Under the Jaguar Mountain
By Zach Zorich
The Maya kings of Copán were not interested in moving mountains. They preferred to build their own, like the pyramid now known as Temple 16. Rising 100 feet above the city's Great Plaza, it is the highest point among a group of holy buildings that archaeologists have dubbed "the Acropolis." Inside an excavation tunnel deep beneath the pyramid's surface, the face of the sun-king scowls at me from the wall of his temple. The city's ancient rulers built their temples--one on top of the next--to suit the needs of the moment. The moment I am visiting occurred shortly after A.D. 540 when the first of four temples was built around a small plaza at the top of the Acropolis.
The sun-king's face adorns the first floor of Rosalila, a temple that was once painted a brilliant, bloody shade of red. His image wears a headdress of red, yellow, and green plumage--the feathers of a quetzal and a macaw--and curving lines in his eyes associate him with depictions of the sun god. The Maya words for each of these sculptural elements spells his name, K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', which translates as "Sun-Eyed Resplendent Quetzal Macaw," the first king of Copán. Forty-three feet below the floor of the temple, the sun-king's tomb was found inside one of the first buildings to be constructed on the Acropolis. Beginning around A.D. 426, the time that K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' came to power, Temple 16 underwent seven major phases of construction, as well as dozens of smaller renovations and additions. The last phase took place in A.D. 775 shortly before the city, which encompassed 520 acres and held a population of about 28,000 people at its peak, was largely abandoned.
New Hampshire Union Leader: Dig opens window on 1694 raid by Native Americans
By DAN TUOHY
Like gardeners painstakingly at work, the diggers hunch and scrape away layers of soil. Scoop dirt. Screen. Examine. Repeat.
Centimeters at a time, they are bringing the colonial past to life on Durham Point, the site of the famous 1694 Oyster River massacre.
The Chronicle-Herald (Canada): 'Pot hunters' hit Acadian village
By MARY ELLEN MacINTYRE Truro Bureau
FORT LAWRENCE — Charles Burke winced Thursday when he referred to the so-called pot hunters he found on the site of a former Acadian village here.
"These guys said they were just gathering artifacts as a hobby," said the Parks Canada archeologist, with a disgusted grimace.
"Three hundred and seventy holes on this site is hardly a hobby."
The Stage (UK): Archaeologists unearth remains of Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre
Part of Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre, dating back to 1662, together with related artefacts, have been uncovered by archaeologists in the Irish city’s Temple Bar area.
The excavations are part of an €8m project to reinstate the theatre on its original site, which has been occupied over the years by a church and, most recently, by a Viking adventure centre. The Department of Arts has provided almost €4m for the restoration and the Gaiety School of Acting, which is promoting the project, hopes to raise the rest through private donations.
The Associated Press via The Eagle (TX): Archaeologists seek remains of key plantation
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Associated Press
HEMPSTEAD -- Archaeologists are combing through a site about 50 miles northwest of Houston that nearly two centuries ago became Texas' largest plantation and then a staging area for Gen. Sam Houston's troops before the decisive Battle of San Jacinto.
The project that started this summer seeks to detail and preserve remains of Bernardo, a plantation established along the Brazos River in 1822 by Jared Ellison Groce II, one of the "Old Three Hundred" settlers of Stephen F. Austin's colony who received land grants from Spain.
"If you read any of the early documents about the fight for Texas independence, this plantation site figured prominently in that," said Jim Bruseth, director of the Texas Historical Commission's archaeology division. "Anybody of any importance came through here."
The Guardian (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Sam Jones in Fromelles
A white-overalled figure crouched over a shallow pit at the edge of Pheasant Wood and gently brushed dried mud from a pair of skeletons that had lain in an awkward embrace beneath the soil of northern France for 93 years. The couple, like 220 other bodies recovered from these burial pits near the Belgian border, are British and Australian soldiers who died on the western front in a little-remembered battle.
Their broken grey bones, chipped or split in places by machine-gun bullets and shrapnel, tell the story of the Battle of Fromelles. Although it is, in Britain at least, a muddy and distant footnote to the agonies played out 50 miles south at the Somme, it was the worst 24 hours in Australia's military history. In one night, 5,533 men from the Australian 5th Division were killed, wounded or reported missing – a figure equivalent to the country's combined casualties in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam wars. The British sustained 1,547 casualties.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
The Guardian (UK): Scottish laser pioneers lead way in preserving world heritage treasures
Paul Gallagher
British scientists are to begin work on a revolutionary project to record three-dimensional models of world heritage sites so that they can be re-created if they fall victim to climate change, natural disaster, war or terrorism.
The team of six – from Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art – will team up next month with an American company, CyArk, to shoot laser beams at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, creating a 3D model accurate to within 3mm, digitally preserving the carved faces of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln should archaeologists need to repair them.
Funding for the project was rushed through because of concerns over the deterioration of the granite rockface.
Physics
New Scientist: Gravitational wave detectors home in on their quarry
by Ivan Semeniuk
FOR the first time, detectors on Earth have put a meaningful limit on the strength of gravitational waves – the ripples in space-time – created during the first instants of the universe's existence.
According to Einstein's general relativity, gravitational waves should have been emitted during inflation, when the universe expanded exponentially moments after the big bang. "[Gravitational waves] can tell us how the laws of physics operated at that time," says Vuk Mandic of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. "This is very valuable because we cannot reproduce these high-energy conditions in the lab."
The latest measurement, made jointly by the US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and VIRGO, its European counterpart, was sensitive to gravitational waves at frequencies around 100 hertz. But they found nothing. The null result, however, puts an upper limit on the energy density of gravitational waves in the infant universe, the most convincing yet. The results improve upon the limits set by the theory of big bang nucleosynthesis, based on the observed abundances of light elements such as hydrogen and helium (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08278).
Chemistry
BBC: Plastics break down fast in ocean
Plastics decompose with surprising speed in the oceans, releasing contaminants into the water, according to new research.
The huge amount of plastic waste in our seas has previously been regarded as a long-lasting pollutant that does not break down easily.
Researchers who presented their work at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) suggest otherwise.
The Guardian (UK): Scientists pioneer method for DNA microchips
Bobbie Johnson, San Francisco
Researchers have found a way to create a new generation of tiny microchips that use DNA - rather than traditional silicon - to achieve potentially revolutionary advances in computing.
A team based at IBM's Alamaden research facility in San Jose, California, has found a method for building chips that they believe could eventually replace the current standards for creating electrical circuits using silicon wafers.
The technique, which was developed in conjunction with the California Institute of Technology, creates tiny microchips using strands of DNA and carbon nanotubes – microscopic cylinders constructed from carbon molecules.
Energy
New Scientist: How to turn seawater into jet fuel
by Kurt Kleiner
Faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater.
Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel. But they will have to find a clean energy source to power the reactions if the end product is to be carbon neutral.
The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen – obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity – to make a hydrocarbon fuel.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
The Guardian (UK): We believed Obama was going to tackle climate change. It isn't that easy
Eric Roston
Al Gore made a surprise appearance on the sketch comedy programme Saturday Night Live in May 2006, to offer an alternative-universe United States, one in which he'd become president after the 2000 election fiasco. Global warming was so soundly defeated that glaciers stood poised to attack Michigan and Maine. All Americans enjoyed free health care. The rest of the world held the US in such high esteem that Americans were afraid to travel to Europe for fear of being hugged too much.
By January of this year, many believed that this liberal fantasy had become liberal promise. A slight and handsome man, with ears sensitive to 300 million disparate voices, had appeared. President-elect Barack Obama reminded Americans in his weekly address of the impossible hand history had dealt him, the two wars, the economic crisis, the health care crisis, the climate crisis.
Remarkably, things that Obama said in those pre-inaugural weekly addresses would have been –no, were! – sketch comedy just two years before. An alternative universe had set upon us, vividly evidenced by the 200,000 Germans prepared to embrace a US presidential candidate in Berlin last summer. Climate change and health care might not have been licked just yet, but they'd better watch out.
The Guardian (UK): How much does association with Taleb damage Cameron?
Have you been following the mini-row over David Cameron's appearance this week with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the prodigiously clever author of The Black Swan – his theory of the importance of rare, "low-probability, high-impact events" such as 9/11 or the Lehman Brothers crash?
As well as taking place rather early in the morning for the hacks, and being little publicised too, the session with Cameron didn't fit easily into the template of mainstream media "news", though it has featured in the blogosphere. But Nicholas Watt managed to get an account into today's Guardian under the headline "Cameron's guru says rich should not pay more tax to help the poor".
Though an accurate representation of what this ex-Wall Street derivatives trader turned academic – he is a professor of risk engineering, no less – seems to have said, it is certain to annoy him. Yesterday Taleb complained vocally about British press distortion of his comments – "incompetent journalism in its most insidious form" – though Jim Pickard of the FT robustly defends his own reporting on his blog.
I wasn't present. But Pickard and others who were – including Watt – insist he did say "I like crashes" in the economic sense and did tentatively question the notion that climate change is caused by man-made activity.
The Guardian (UK): US Air Force prepares drones to end era of fighter pilots
Edward Helmore in New York
As part of an expanding programme of battlefield automation, the US Air Force has said it is now training more drone operators than fighter and bomber pilots and signalled the end of the era of the fighter pilot is in sight.
In a controversial shift in military thinking – one encouraged by the now-confirmed death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a drone-strike on 5 August – the US air force is looking to hugely expand its fleet of unmanned aircraft by 2047.
Just three years ago, the service was able to fly just 12 drones at a time; now it can fly more than 50. At a trade conference outside Washington last week, military contractors presented a future vision in which pilotless drones serve as fighters, bombers and transports, even automatic mini-drones programmed to attack in swarms.
The Guardian (UK): If an autonomous machine kills someone, who is responsible?
But automation can create hazards as well as removing them. How reliable does a robot have to be before we trust it to do a human's job? What happens when something goes wrong? Can a machine be held responsible for its actions?
"It's a very difficult area for the law because the idea that a machine might be responsible for something is not an easy concept at all," says Chris Elliott, a systems engineer, barrister and visiting professor at Imperial College London.
"If you take an autonomous system and one day it does something wrong and it kills somebody, who is responsible? Is it the guy who designed it? What's actually out in the field isn't what he designed because it has learned throughout its life. Is it the person who trained it?
The Guardian (UK): Food supplies at risk from price speculation, warns expert
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
The world food market is still "seriously exposed" to speculators artificially driving up prices and worsening the risks of malnutrition, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers.
Linking the recent food and financial crises, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), warned that the world was at risk of a new panic over grain unless commodity markets were more tightly regulated and production expanded.
"The banking sector is in the process of being re-regulated worldwide, but the food market remains seriously exposed to short-term flows of indexed funds into commodity exchanges. That vulnerability needs to be addressed," he said in an interview with the Guardian.
Von Braun was one of the first to predict the sharp rise in food prices that peaked last year, when 13 nations halted cross-border trade amid fears of shortages.
Science Writing and Reporting
The Guardian (UK): This column will change your life: Conspicuous consumption
Oliver Burkeman
The economist Thorstein Veblen coined the term "conspicuous consumption" to describe the sort of expenditures certain wealthy people make primarily to demonstrate that they can. The one that springs to mind is the Vertu, that entirely preposterous diamond-encrusted mobile phone they used to advertise in the FT's How To Spend It supplement. (Sadly, I left my Vertu in the back of a taxi, along with the keys to my speedboat.) But while Veblen focused on the rich, the phenomenon is wider-reaching: the designer label-wearing kid on a deprived council estate is doing something similar. It's a fair bet, though, that you don't think of yourself as a conspicuous consumer. You buy things because they're useful or enjoyable, not to prove some point about status. Right?
Wrong, says the evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller in his recent book Spent: Sex, Evolution And The Secrets Of Consumerism.
The Guardian (UK): An outbreak of confusion
David Shariatmadari
Meowing nuns, a miraculous hen, phantom Zeppelins and a violent band of Russian nudists: not a collection that seem to have much in common. But the question of what might link them is something that Hilary Evans and Robert Bartholomew have attempted to answer in their new book Outbreak ("An encyclopaedia of extraordinary social behaviour").
This is not, as the authors probably intended, a really serious analysis: it's more a hotch-potch of fascinating, morbid, bizarre anecdotes, a jumping of point for explorations into weirder reaches of the human psyche, and the more obscure alleyways of history. Take, for example, the "miracle hen of Leeds". In 1806 the inhabitants of this northern city experienced an apocalyptic panic.
The episode began when a hen from a nearby village began laying eggs inscribed with the words 'Christ is coming' ... Large numbers flocked to the site to examine the eggs and see the 'miracle' firsthand ... Excitement quickly turned to disappointment when a man 'caught the poor hen in the act of laying one of her miraculous eggs' and soon determined 'that the egg had been inscribed with some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into the bird's body'.
Science is Cool
The Guardian (UK): How to outrun Usain Bolt: Superhuman technologies for sprinters
What are sprinters to do when faced with an opponent like Usain Bolt? Sport statisticians say the extraordinary Jamaican's latest 100m world record came 20 years ahead of schedule. In the same race, America's Tyson Gay ran the third fastest time in history – but even this awesome feat left him trailing Bolt by over a metre.
Could technology give sprinters an edge over the flighty Jamaican?
Science has vastly improved the performance of athletes through better track design, footwear and training techniques. These advances have gone largely unnoticed even as record sprint times continue to fall. But there's still plenty of scope for using technology to boost performance – something that rival athletes might have to embrace if they're to challenge the lightning Bolt.
The Guardian (UK): The wrong stuff: Nasa's out-of-this-world movie choices shock the film community
"Houston, we have a problem. Wedding Crashers is skipping again, and it's the bit with Will Ferrell ..." Not, perhaps, the kind of malfunction to get the pulse racing and the boffins leaping into action. But space exploration can't all be shock and awe, especially for the astronauts stuck on the International Space Station for months at a time. They need their downtime, too, and, according to official documents released by Nasa, a liberally stocked DVD library is among the recreational options at their disposal. Wedding Crashers is among the 150-odd titles they can choose from, as, somewhat incredibly, are Apollo 13 and Armageddon – films about a calamitous systems failure on board a manned rocket and an off-world suicide mission. Hardly obvious candidates for a relaxing double bill at the end of a long day's floating around, but who are we to judge?
The full list, issued by the Lyndon B Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, details "books, movies, television shows, and music maintained on the International Space Station (ISS) for recreational/off-duty consumption" and was acquired last year by the website governmentattic.org, using the US's freedom of information act. (The letter accompanying the list is signed by one Stella Luna, suggesting that Nasa is somewhat cagey about its employees' real names but not without a sense of humour.)