White House releases expected guidelines for scientific integrity (sciencemag.org)

This is a very long wait for a four-page memo. Seventeen end months of meeting the deadline in order of March 2009 President Barack Obama, the Office of science White House and Technology Policy (OSTP) published today high level advice on how to develop policies on scientific integrity, Federal agencies. The guide, which includes a ban on interference, is being received warmly but somewhat cautiously by advocacy groups.

Followed Obama order concerns about the politicization of science to the Bush Administration and the recognition that the Federal Government had no uniform rules and practices. The memo outlines four areas that should cover the policies of the Agency: the foundations of the scientific integrity of the Government, communication to the public on science, the use of advisory committees and professional scientists.

The guide includes the following points:

"Politicians should not remove or alter the scientific or technological findings." Data used for political decisions must "undergo peer independent qualified experts, there where possible and appropriate." Agencies should set clear standards for dealing with conflicts of interests and adopt protections of denunciation. Agencies should develop and promote access to scientific information by making them available online. Should principles for science communication to the public, such as explaining the uncertainties and describing the probabilities of case scenarios better and more. Federal scientists can speak to the media and the public in their research "coordination." appropriate with their immediate supervisor and the Office of public affairs Agencies should facilitate professional development of scientists, such as encouraging the publication of the results and presentations at meetings.

Francesca Grifo EU scientists interested in Cambridge, Massachusetts, welcomed the note in a statement: "It's a crude but promising plan of honesty and accountability in the use of science in government decisions." Al Teich, Director of science policy at the AAAS (which publishes science Insider) in Washington, D.C., tweeted his reaction on the note of the White House: "they have spoken presentation." We hope that they walk the walk.

Blog post on the memo, Scientific Advisor John Holdren, directed OSTP, stressed that it was the minimum standards to improve ongoing efforts to ensure scientific integrity for organizations.

Holdren said ScienceInsider earlier this week, the part of the reason for the delay in the issuance of the memo was difficult to obtain the agreement of all the stakeholders and develop guidelines that would be applicable to all.

Federal agencies are supposed to report to the Holdren within 120 days of their orientation implementation progress. If they do, they beat their performance pattern by more than a year.

Astronauts landed successfully at the space station (Reuters)

The spacecraft Russian Soyuz TMA-20, carrying the crew of the international space station (ISS) astronaut of NASA Catherine Coleman, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli, explosions from its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome on December 16, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Sergei Remezov

MOSCOW | 17 December 2010 4: 35 pm EST

Moscow (Reuters) - while docked with the international space station Friday shuttle carrying astronauts from the United States, Italy Russia successfully, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

Soyuz TMA-20 arrived two days after blasting from the Baikonur cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe. Thursday, space Russian control lost contact with the spacecraft for several hours.

"The approach and berthing of the vessel with the station was carried out under the supervision of the Centre space command," said the statement on the site Web de Roscosmos www.roscosmos.ru.

Docking offer astronaut of the NASA Catherine Coleman, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and Paolo Nespoli Space Agency International, European, of the Italy to the space station a $ 100 billion project organized by 16 countries.

He has been building 220 miles above the Earth since 1998.

The Russian news agency Interfax was late Thursday space command center that Putin had lost contact with the spacecraft, but started that information of the boat was flowing back hours later.

The Soyuz flight is one of the last before the United States withdrew its reusable space shuttles leaving astronauts entirely dependent on Russian crafts for missions to the ISS.

(Statement by Thomas Grove, editing by Tim Pearce)

Study: Living near a highway can contribute to the risk of autism (time)

There are several reasons why live close to a road is not desirable - turn the noise, the quality of air, the infinite flow of tourists lost in your driveway. But a new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives offers another: children who live near roads at birth had twice the risk of autism as those who live far medium.

Researchers interviewed and examined 304 children with autism and as a control, 259 typically developing children in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento metropolitan areas. Researchers found that children whose families lived in 1,000 feet of a motorway at birth - about 10% of children in the study - were twice as likely to have autism as those more living far from the motorway. (Over Time.com: Study: some autistic brain really is hard wired differently)

Link held after controlling other variables such as age of the mother, parenting and smoking. Interestingly, however, the same effect does not apply to children living near other streets heavily trafficked. Researchers theorized that the type and the considerable quantity of chemicals distributed on roads are different from those on the city, even the busiest roads.

"This study does not mean exposure to air pollution and traffic causes autism," lead author Heather Volk, researcher at the Saban Research Institute, children's Hospital Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times. "But it might be one of the factors that contribute to its growth." (Over Time.com: photos: a journey into the world of autism)

As noted by LAWeekly, however, another recent study, looking at clusters of autism in the Los Angeles region found that disorder rates were higher in the districts of the upper middle class where residents had higher than average levels of education or were located near major autism treatment centres (proximity of the road was not part of the equation). Probably high rates of autism were due at least in part to better monitoring - something that tends to miss in low-income communities. (Over Time.com: children 1-5 with an autistic brother show Subtle symptoms too)

There is no cure for autism, and researchers are still investigating its cause - a combination of genes and the environment. In recent years, scientists have made progress in the identification of certain changes that characterize the autistic brain, which may help to lead to earlier diagnosis. Early diagnosis can lead to turn, possibly earlier intervention and researchers believe that early treatment may mitigate autistic symptoms or perhaps in some cases prevent disorder completely.

Two weeks ago a team of neurologists of Harvard and the University of Utah has been reported to an MRI of the brain to identify autism with 92% accuracy with men and boys. And earlier this year, a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, revealed that 20% develop normally and siblings of children with autism had language delays and problems of subtle speech - similar but milder than those common in autism - added evidence to the argument that genes play a role.

Related links:

New version of an old drug may treat autism (and too)

Using videos for babies autism diagnosis

Researchers work to improve cancer vaccines

Coast Guard: small seafloor oil spill Gulf (Seattle Post Intelligencer)

Last update 17 December 2010 4 pm PTBy CAIN BURDEAU
PRESS PARTNER

NEW ORLEANS - Federal scientists said Friday extensive sampling seabed Gulf oil too small to collect quantities and concentrations lower than harmful levels found Mexico except in the vicinity of many BP.

Coast Guard report independent scientific contrast say oil spillage of BP extensively damaged the seabed and killed Coral Sea and many benthic animals as tubeworms fans.

"We do not find any recoverable quantity of oil" bottom marine, said Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft. "We are dealing with barely detectable amounts of oil in the parts per billion in many places".

He said that minute quantities of oil well fall limits of pollution, except for the region within a radius of 1 1/2 miles from the BP, wells where the oil is linked with pumped for drilling mud into the well of BP to cap it.

BP, located approximately 50 miles from the coast of Louisiana was plugged in September, but not before more than 170 million litres of oil leak in the Gulf.

Again, said government scientists report Friday is a guide to the coast guard and the cleaning teams not assess the spill to ecosystem damage.

Coast Guard report is a summary of 17 000 samples of water and sediment taken from May to October. Report says no broad potential cleanup was justified and efforts should concentrate on residues of tar and oil buried in the sand along the shore.

Publication of the report coincides with Zukunft transfer of supervision of Captain Lincoln Stroh cleaning. Coast Guard also said he would travel in response to long term, supervised by the regional coast guard units.

Oil in sediment samples could not be dating to BP well except for those taken close to the well, said the report. In many places, traces of oil may have come from other sources, such as oil natural seeps and even other leaks.

Since August 3, the report said less than 1% of the water and sediment samples exceeded the levels that the Environmental Protection Agency considers harmful to aquatic life.

But Charlie Henry, Coordinator of scientific support for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, even very low levels of oil could "latent, in the long term chronic effects" have on marine species.

Scientists have been cautious and even skeptics on the last report.

Ian r. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, said a scuba diving recently found what appears to be lots of oil and animals died on the ocean floor at a very close location where the Government has declared that it barely find oils.

"Went to the same place and saw many oil", says MacDonald. "In our samples we found dead abundant animals." He noted that various - qualified researchers - people may get different answers. »

MacDonald believes that an area of 80 square miles of floor Ocean autour well been damaged by oil.

Ernst Peebles, an oceanographer at the University of South Florida said researchers found abnormalities on the floor of the Gulf. "History (of what is happening) on the bottom is just beginning," he said.

The report was welcomed by BP as evidence the Gulf has done a solid return.

"The scientific evidence in this report are consistent with our findings that beaches are safe, water is safe and the seafood is safe," said Mike Utsler, Commander of the BP cleaning.

Birdbooker report 149 (guardian)

Books on the ceiling
Books to the sky
My pile of books is one mile high.
How I likes them! How I need them!
I'll long beard at the time that I have read the.

~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of children's books popular many.

Compiled by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, Birdbooker report is a weekly report of the long list of the wide variety of nature, natural history, ecology, animal behaviour, science and history books recently released or re-released in America of the North and the United Kingdom. The books listed here were received by Ian for the previous week, courtesy of these various publishing houses.

The title features:

New and recent titles:

You can read Birdbooker early reports archive on my old site of ScienceBlogs and Ian now has its own website, the ratio of Birdbooker, where you can read the synopsis on science recently published in nature and animal books.

Reassuring hands: urgent flight crew A USD (International Herald Tribune)

Face of the woman could not be considered. The crew did not know his name, nor that of her husband, who was sitting in the vicinity. The soldiers knew it: she work nearly nine hours, and the intensity with which it specialist clutch Charles j. Williams, a medic with flight, suggested to worry and pain.

"It is clamping on my hand as she is about to pull," specialist, said into the microphone headset. "

"Oh, she is in pain," replied Sergeant Patrick e. Schultz, top flight nurse. It looked a screen showing his vital signs. "How much longer?

The cockpit, Capt Amy l. Bauer, a pilot in the army, replied: "Seven minutes."

For a crew of American Black Hawk and Afghan woman in fatal work hand, roaring fast flight this month was a tour of separate worlds and the promise and challenges when these worlds meet.

Poverty and lack of medical services in Kandahar province are almost total agricultural area and the road along the Arghandab River. A woman in the arid suburbs to a dangerous delivery local midwives could not resolve usually had a few choice beyond a bumpy ride on a rocky track and hope to reach the city of Kandahar before it and her dead baby.

Since last summer, there is another possibility. Helicopter medevac crews and American were placed in the small outposts along the River, deployed soldiers from NATO and Afghanistan against the Taliban.

Helicopters have been assigned to Kandahar Airfield to reduce time of flight for wounded soldiers meet modern trauma. But a patient is a patient. Afghans with ordinary but often severe conditions - victims of heart attacks, accidents or diseases advanced - often ask for help, too.

Each case raises a question. Should the crew evacuation scoop and civilian ferry and risk of not having a helicopter for a soldier hit by a bullet or blown by a bomb?

Hazardous work

December 11, the allocation of the mission have a tent at Forward Operating Base Wilson, where a detachment of the 101st combat aviation brigade expected its next call. It was just after 1 h 25. Any American or Afghan unit nearby had sustained a victim. The flight to pick up women has been approved.

The pilot and crew crossed the landing area covered with gravel to two helicopters - airplane evacuation without heavy weapons and a boat with two Gunners escort door machine guns.

This morning Sergeant Schultz, 31, told the crew that he had a strange dream. In this case, they had delivered a baby in the air. Now, Sgt. Schultz appeared on the landing area sprint. It was in the shower tent. Cream shave scratching his face.

"Schultz." Specialist Williams, 21, screamed. "You." This dream! »

Sergeant intervened inside the rotor began to turn and noise has increased. Soon the aircraft was thrown in the distance.

The patient was approximately 30 kilometres in the desert South Khakrez, of special forces compound Afghan. The word special forces were relayed by command in Kandahar: the woman had been working since before dawn, and it would be accompanied by the theft of her husband.

Sgt. Schultz published instructions, wondering how to find a balance between the medical and cultural requirements.

A review by two young Western men, he said, would be impossible, especially since nobody the aircraft can speak Pashto, the dominant language of southern Afghanistan, and he did not expect the patient to speak English. He worried that treat women would offend her husband and cause the shame of the family. The wife or husband could even resist.

Taimoor Shah has contributed reports Kandahar Afghanistan.

The apprentice finale and strictly Come Dancing restore saves BBC1 audiences (guardian)

Apprentice Finalists Chris Bates and Stella. Photo: Ian West PA

S4C is one of the largest display weekends for 20 years as snowy families gathered around their televisions for the finale of Strictly Come Dancing last night and preparing themselves to settle down once more confrontation this evening on learning.

Ratings for the final payments illustrates two - predicts 12 million for strictly and nine million for learning — can make a high water of this breed of popular entertainment, especially when added to the 17 million that listens during the week preceding ITV x factor final.

Last Sunday, saw the largest number of watching television since the beginning of the common files. At one time, between 8: 45 p.m. and 9 p.m., averaging 31.9 million have been solved factor X or semi strictly Come Dancing. But what causes hordes of viewers for programs of same, despite the many alternative channels? While it is clear, evidence of demand for integrated drama of chart shows the success or failure of academic favorite candidates put of theories more sophisticated choices make viewers.

Supporters of the English Chris Bates and Stella Apprentice Finalists did not know it, but their choice of programme is as important to the way they feel their subject as the clothing they wear or the music they listen to.

Fairs as strictly, who won last night by former EastEnders star Kara Tointon in final pitted him against a psychologist Pamela Stephenson Connolly and Countryfile presenter and hot favorite Matt Baker, perform a key role in society, says media psychologist Mr. Young of the University of Essex.

Funded Freesat, Young, research shows that the television is simply entertainment. Instead, it is regarded to create links, and how we look at defines our personality type.

"The study was based on a questionnaire sent to more than 2,000 adults, of whom some have been parents and some weren't, said Young." I started with the idea quite established that watching television is just a part of the experience. From a perspective of consumer psychology, it provides people with a shared conversation and exposes the nature of the domestic ecology in each House.

He found evidence that many people - "Sofa Snobs" - will defend all their choices as superior visualization regardless of if they observe a spectacle of intellectual BBC4 or an episode of Coronation Street. A second group, "TVangelists" is more likely to be found look strictly or final apprentices. Enthusiastic at the point of obsession, they text or tweet while they watch and are considered a group of marketing important because they are "early adopters" who use television broadcasts, new technology and new embrace.

"Categories I'm identification are not"tribes"in the way that generally means researchers of consumption," said Young. "They resemble more social identities." It's a little like deciding what you wear. The rules are very similar to those which apply to personal wardrobe. »

Perhaps more compulsive viewers group defined by the young people are "Frank Followers" fervent fans of a particular broadcast, whatever Simpson, Mad Men, or the cube that will tell you that it is the only thing see. They are seeking to escape, but are willing to stand as a form of discrimination.

The dullest type may be "irritant" current It is people who are not bored as they look, but feel threatened by the pressure to concentrate. According to Young, they may not break the unspoken rules that accompany look at them different types of program. Therefore, it is acceptable to a sound during a football match, a drama as the Downton Abbey will require more attention: "this kind of person is a huge need to compete even with a voiceover documentary authoritative."

Likely to devour costume dramas such as the Abbey of Downton, old programs such as antiques or Channel 4 countdown tour viewers represent a fifth category called "nostalgic 20th". the people of all ages who value shows that celebrate the past.

The final 'tribe' Viewer is only a many could aspire to join - or secretly assume that they have. This is "Definition discoverers" that promote educational programs on the arts, or travel. According to the research of Young they frequently look at their favorite shows only, since their choices are not shared by the rest of the family. They could generally as Countryfile, team time or first Bulletin Attenborough of David.

"We all need to justify our decisions of visualization, although sometimes we look at inertia," said Young. "For, ultimately, more reliable that someone will display a program remains indicator does watching than before." Young said that the TV can also be useful for Christmas social lubricant, the atmosphere is impeded. "Sometimes people have the game with denied noise just silences are not so oppressive and people do not have to follow visual contact," he said.

He challenged the cliched assumption that authoritarian male character will hold on to the remote control: "statistically, it turns that MOM has often remote." Television display is a perfect tool underutilized for social analysis, Young argues that people actually do with their time is a clearer indicator relationship to their home as they say happens really.

Green: False to a tree for Christmas Real (NYT)

In these eco-conscious times, many people want to reduce their environmental footprint while still enjoying the trappings of the holiday season. In some cases, the easy solution to earth - pass the tofurky - is a fairly obvious choice.

Agency France-Press - Getty images 74-foot (real) Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York.

But in other cases, the answer is not so obvious. When it comes to Christmas trees, for example, which is better for the planet: the artificial kind of long-lasting or freshly cut, pine fragrance and SAP variety?

As report Saturday Times, at least an important study concluded that the real tree is probably the best choice. But as I found in my statement, many consumers continue to believe that a false FIR is less harmful to the environment than the reality.

This is because an artificial tree can be used over and over again, unlike a real tree, which was launched at the end of the season. Yet, it turns, which is not enough to tip the balance in favour of the false fir. Resources used to make artificial trees - plastic and metal - have extraction costs, and most of the trees are manufactured in China, which means that they must be shipped thousands of miles to reach American shores.

Real trees are also biodegradable and can be composted or transformed into mulch; false trees are almost all the néoconservatrices ending in an outlet someday.

Artificial Christmas trees continue to sell truck, of course, according to industry estimates, the United States sales hit 13 million this year.

More false trees have a shelf life of approximately six to ten years, surveys found that point, they are beginning to look a little ragged and consumers tightening their. At this stage, they are off at discharge.

What is with recycling? Asked this question of Jami Warner, Executive Director of the American Association of Christmas tree that represents the manufacturers of artificial trees.

"All materials in artificial Christmas trees are recyclable and trees are now recycled," Ms. Warner wrote in an e-mail.

Technically, this may be true. But all municipal recycling programs I've questioned said that they do not recycle trees, artificial - and for good reason: artificial trees are largely polyvinylchloride, or PVC, which is often prohibitive recycle. I mentioned this fact to Ms. Warner, who said that the onus resting with cities, not its industry.

"At the end of the account tree are likely to find themselves in landfills, until the cities offer recycling programs," Ms. Warner writes.

Space spy laser picks (BBC)

18 December 2010 update at 03: 33 GMT by Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco big peak sports spectacular ridges red US science put to techniques to monitor the peaks space.

A team from the University of Idaho uses a laser satellite to try to predict how much of a State forest birds may be living.

The instrument may not see the individual peaks or trees, but it can determine the key characteristics of a wooded area, as is how dense.

Initial work has shown maps constructed from these data can locate areas favored by the North American Pileated Woodpecker.

Scientists who seek to know where these birds are because they are considered as good indicators of the global diversity of birds in a forest.

"They create homes for many other species in the context of the forest", explained Dr. Kerri Vierling fish at and Wildlife Department.

They are cavities and these holes are then used by other species for nesting and resting.

"Peaks are very sensitive to the characteristics of the forest, and they are therefore very selective about where they decide to live".

Search Idaho presented here in San Francisco at the fall meeting American Geophysical Union (AGU), most large annual gathering the planet of Earth and planetary scientists.

The team evaluated approximately 20,000 hectares of forest in the Northern State of Moscow mountain. They used data acquired by laser altimeters embedded aircraft and spacecraft of the Nasa Icesat prior to his recent retirement (it was de-orbited in August).

Icesat will be replaced later this decade

Originally conceived as a means of measuring the height of the surface of the ice in the polar regions, the instrument of the Icesat has also proved extremely effective in gathering information on plant cover in other parts of the globe.

Because of the way the light beam sent by laser rebounds disables leaf canopy trees and the ground, it is possible to make general statements on the important characteristics of the forest.

Team member Patrick Adam told BBC News: "we are trying to measure the diameter of the trees and their density." We do not do so directly from these instruments, but to get to the diameter, we can measure the height of the trees because large trees are larger than the short trees; and we arrive at the density of the forest by examining the relative quantity of light returned by foliage in which is returned to the soil.

"Therefore, looking at areas with the highest trees, we know that they are also the largest trees in diameter and has a better chance that there are peaks it." We will which emit only get out us and we are actually land peak in these areas and to verify that it.

Dr. Lee Vierling, University Department of forest ecology and biogeosciences added: "it is a species which has need for high-density forests." This is the Pileated Woodpecker.

Pileated Woodpecker prefer a dense stand they eat ants

"It's a beautiful bird with a red crest on its head height." It is a species foraging food Carpenter Ant so dense forest, best for this particular bird. »

Since the survey of forest structure tend to be fairly intensive efforts involving workers send many people in an area on foot to make the assessment. And although these evaluations produce very detailed results, they are necessarily limited in their spatial information.

Combining remotely sensed data in the effort of soil should be more relevant over large areas of forest habitat surveys.

"If we are able to predict where peaks are just based on satellite data, and then we can also assume, based on some other characteristics of vegetation, we could also have a greater diversity of forest songbirds or even mammals and reptiles. "This is useful in planning of land use and planning, biodiversity," said Mr. Adam.

"It's much easier to use satellite data." It is important to always do some checks on the ground at some points simply select to ensure that we will not completely off the coast of the tangent of reality. But generally, Yes, we can cover large areas with airborne lidar, and we really hope that we can use the space lidar for car which has global coverage so that we could use a much larger scale.

The Icesat instrument is no longer in the space, but it will be replaced later this decade. In addition, the American space agency thinks flying another instrument of laser on his travels, ecosystem structure and Dynamics of Ice (DESDynI) mission.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@BBC.co.UK

Some social bookmarking to Delicious (LiveScience.com) (Yahoo!) alternatives

When new spread Thursday (16 December) that Yahoo could close its popular social bookmarking service Delicious, the Internet went to arms.

Delicious, launched in 2003 as "del.icio.us" and was acquired by Yahoo in 2005, allows users to tag, register and manage their bookmarks online and share and discover booksmarks with other users. The new left its members to find an alternative service.

But then in a plot twist, Delicious said today via a blog is, in fact, not closed and it is actually for sale.

"No, we do not close Delicious," says the message. "While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit with Yahoo!, we believe there is an ideal home outside of the company, for Delicious, where it can be financed at the level where it can be competitive."

Even if the site is reassuring its users that it is not going anywhere, here are a few other social bookmarking platforms to consider where you're always worried about his fate.

How to export

To explore what other platforms are here to meet needs, here how to export bookmarks to Delicious on a computer bookmarks.

There is an easy move Delicious bookmarks on the other hand, if you want to transfer to another service bookmark at the end of line or to use directly on your browser.

First, please connect to your Delicious account and access the "Settings" button on the top right-hand side of the screen. "Marque-pages" tab, then choose "Export/Backup Marque-pages.

The screen then you prompt to save a copy of your bookmarks with your tags or notes (or both). After you click Export, Delicious transforming to a html file and then save it to your computer.

Forum

Favorite is one of the most similar there to Delicious bookmarking services allowing users to import bookmarks from other platforms, search tags and even Archives Twitter tweets. It also has a tag read functionality and private it later. However, fees for service signup Favorites and the price rises as members more reach: it was only $7.50 yesterday and is now up to $8.28. For an annual fee of $25, Favorites gives users the ability to archive full Web pages same decedent links are searchable.

Many consider his site, www.pinboard.in, receive the majority of the members of the Delicious. In fact, the site already has a note on the homepage as its heavy currently test traffic, some basic (import, archive) services running slowly.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is indeed different Delicious, but many suspect users Delicious can find a home comfortable Newfoundland here. Founded in 2001, StumbleUpon learns what you like, see you only what is interesting for you on the web. 12.8 Million users are already discover photos, videos and web pages recommended by friends and people who share their interests. Sites recommended with rating inches upwards or low are automatically shared with like-minded people.

Xmarks

Xmarks perfectly integrates into your web browser - Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari (Mac OS) - and keep your bookmarks supported safely up and synchronized. Xmarks highlighted sites in your search results based on how others have bookmarked and rated them. For $12 per year, members can automatically follow and any changes to your bookmarks backup and display the restoration or export past bookmark collections. Members can also synchronize the tabs in their browser open all your computers and mobile devices and access to fast support by e-mail.

Diigo

Diigo goes beyond the scope of bookmarking and provides functionality of browser extensions to you to save notes for offline reading. Diigo provides a browser add-on that can really enhance the productivity of research. Instead of just being bookmarked you can portions of multi-color highlight web pages that are of particular interest. Members can also attach routable to specific parts of Web pages. Paragraphs highlighted, self-adhesive and url of origin can all be saved on Diigo servers to create a personal website digest. It can also be easily searched, accessed, sorted and shared from a PC or even iPhone.

Google Bookmarks

This site free storage available for Google account members also give members an easy way to bookmark sites, take notes and add labels. This is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection. Like Delicious, Google Bookmarks uses lists to share bookmarks with friends or with the public. It also lets you organize things into categories, and it is easy to add things to him even if you do not know the URL.

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often appear around scientific discoveries and provide short explanations, provocations with some humor and style. Discover our videos science, Almanach & quizzes and top tens. Join our community discussion hot-button issues, such as stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, Subscribe to RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at LiveScience Bank.

Brian Cox: why it made headlines in 2010 (guardian)

Brian Cox, physicist and particle science TV presenter. Photo: Linda Nylind

Brian Cox began this year feeling exhausted after finishing wonders filming of the solar system for the BBC, a process which had led a tour of our own planet Alaska in Ethiopia. In addition, he was a newborn son, George. Not that anyone was favourable. "You can convince anyone what a series like that is hard," he said. "But 2009 was spent absolutely hard, he really sweep me."

42 Years old physicist feels slightly updated now.

The TV series of five parties exceeded expectations, attracting more than 6 million against a forecast of the summits of 3 million viewers. It has proved the 42 - year physicist in a surname: he was "quite well commended" papped while shopping with his wife and Cheltenham Science Festival. We were just in Waitrose and one guy with a long lens jumped on us. This is not because we were at the Ivy or somewhere like that.

"Everything", he adds, "" is unusual for a scientist.""

The irony is that Cox - whose work now takes place partly in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN - used to be a pop star, of sorts: a member of D: Ream, band whose "Things Can only Get Better" was the soundtrack victory of labour in 1997. He played the last concert was working bash on the South shore on their night of triumph. "But, he says," I was just the reader keyboard; ". I am now much more widely recognized. »

For some, the success of the wonders of the solar system could be until Cox "shining skin, hair cleverly floppy and very good teeth," as the Daily Mail swooned. But Professor prefers a simple explanation: "it is absolutely clear to me that people interested in science, but which had not tried for a long period is an old series like that, with a presenter offering views on the value of exploration, as well as facts.

Cox grew up as a "very, very nerdy" during what he describes as a "golden age" of science on television. He cited the influence of the presenters such as Carl Sagan and Jacob Bronowski and which shone on wonders was his enthusiasm, the memorable scenes such as the Valley of death, when he reiterated a 19th-century experience to calculate the amount of solar energy falls on Earth, concluding of sweat that off the coast of his eyebrows and say: "" and why I like physical." Series has even inspired a YouTube mash-up with whole cut sequences depict Cox as a blissed stoner to say things like "I en am come to one of natural wonders Earth... do something I've always wanted to do: I'm about to get some fans high.Kudos was incredibly forthcoming when Cox tweeted a link to the video itself;" even thanked were as his blunt ("I am from Oldham, I think a version of talking to the right of the science") attacks on creationist views such as Sarah Palin. More seriously, he campaigned vigorously against science in the review of government expenditures budget cuts. "You know that David Cameron is a great idea?" telling me. "I think making Britain best place in the world for science would be a good idea to big." The success of our economy depends to a large extent on the health of our universities and our science-based industries. »

Ultimately, he was professed himself satisfied with the result - the freezing of the. 4 £ 6bn annually spend on science - while still questioning the threat posed by the Government of the other higher education reforms. And he wished to stress two victories for the British scientist this year: the Nobel Prize in physics who visited Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov GRAPHENE their research at the University of Manchester where Cox is Professor; and the advances obtained by the British partially funding LHC. Shooting for a new series of the BBC due in the spring and now called the wonders of the universe ("is the original, but I suppose that it is now a brand") was taken around the world once more in months. When we talk about, it is just of New Mexico. he professes himself particularly happy with a sequence in which he unpicks the concept of entropy, which is something, says, even the students are struggling with.Somehow, he still managed to publish a scientific paper this year - a look at "a new way of measuring the strength of the Gluon Higgs coupling".

Next year will involve an interruption of the TV work for at least six months. "My wife and my son is with pleasure that I am," he said, adding, bubbling once more with enthusiasm for the brand "and the large Hadron Collider is so fascinating!"

Thrill of the hunt are declining throughout America (Los Angeles Times)

Jared Hansen, 17 years old, of Tomahawk, Wis., is passionate about - but less young Hunter took place sport these days. (Paul Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / 18 December 2010)Reports of Madison. Wisconsin-.

Offices of the classroom and Office cabins are empty. Blaze orange hunters are distinguished as raindrops shiny paint against Brown fields. Pub parking lots are crowded draped deer carcass pick-ups.

It's gun deer season in Wisconsin, a tradition rooted in the identity of this rugged State beer, Brats and cheese. But as the years slide, fewer people seem to care.

Fighter popularity has declined in much of the country as extended housing replace forests, aging hunters hang their rifles and children plop down in front of Facebook that venture outside instead.

Attenuation of could have serious consequences, say fans of hunting. Hunters less mean less revenue for a multi-billion dollar industry and Government's conservation efforts. He also pointed out what could be the beginning of the end of an American tradition.

Would "paradoxical as it may seem, if hunting were to disappear, a large amount of funding that will restore all sorts of wildlife habitat, game and nongame species both, disappear,", said Steve Sanetti, President of the national shooting sports Foundation.

Hunting generates billions of retail sales and pumps to hundreds of millions of dollars in Government conservation efforts each year in federal taxes and the sale of firearms and ammunition firearms license sales.

But hunters less return to sport every year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers 33 States have seen the decline in sales of permits in the past two decades. The sharpest decline was in Massachusetts, which saw 50% attenuation in hunting licence period sales.

Millions of Americans still hunting, course and some States have seen increases in sales of licence during the past 20 years. But the overall decline concerned advocates outdoors.

Suburban sprawl has consumed lands hunting first, forcing many hunters choose between driving for hours to get through the woods or stay at home.

Gerald Feaser, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission stated urban footprint that its State has nearly doubled since the early 1980s.

"All converted farms in housing or shopping centres," he said. "Once this land is lost, you cannot return it."

More children are growing up in front of the screens of computer rather that allowed to trundle along in the Woods.

"Fifty years ago, many children would hunting and fishing and be on the outside," said Mark Damian Duda, Executive Director of adapted management, natural resources, Virginia research group. "Now it is easy to sit in your playroom and playing video games."

Craig Hilliard, 65 runs pheasant Inn, a station of Briggsville, Wisconsin, which double deer enrollment station. He said that he knows about two dozen hunters who have retired from this sport.

"It there are not enough young people taking the sport to replace retiring", he said.

Elevators have bad state of conservation organizations strongly dependent sale licence financing.

In Massachusetts, lost income affected habitat restoration the State and its ability to repair vehicles efforts. State wildlife officials have pooled resources with other conservation groups and more aggressively pursue federal grants said biologist Marion Larson, Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game.

"It has us to be more creative with money, that we were forced," said Larson. "Who will continue in the future and not only here in Massachusetts."

In the meantime, Michigan, saw a 31% drop in overall sales license for the past 20 years, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Losses of revenue which mean wildlife officials were not able to fill vacancies 35 and have adopted a less detailed approach for the management of the deer population.

Spintronics: A new way for digital data bank (NPR)

Enlarge HYNIX/AFP/Getty Images

Like semiconductor computer chips rely on electricity - positive or negative - charges for storing data. Using magnets high power laboratory, researchers have developed a new way to store the data in the spin of the nucleus of an atom.

HYNIX/AFP/Getty Images Semiconductor chips computer like rely on electricity - positive or negative - charges for storing data. Using magnets high power laboratory, researchers have developed a new way to store the data in the spin of the nucleus of an atom.

Scientists at the University of Utah have taken an important step towards the day when the digital information can be stored in spin of the nucleus of an atom, rather than as an electric charge in a semiconductor.

Scientists Setup requires powerful magnets and can only be ordered at least 454 degrees Fahrenheit, so don't expect see spin memory on the shelf in a store on the computer at any time soon.

Christoph Boehme, associate professor at the University of Utah, says the thing more important than him and his team have done is show that it is possible to store information in the spin and quite easily read.

This is how they are y: firstly, they used a strong magnetic field to ensure that all of their atoms were pointing in the same direction. Then they measured which way the nucleus of an atom was spinning. Physicists speak of rotation clockwise or counterclockwise - hourly dispatching spins either up or down.

"This up and down can now represent information," explains Boehme. "A up means one and a lower mean zero."

Storage and handling of these zeros - bits in the computer language - is at the heart of the functioning of computers. Today, these zeros and those stored in electrically - charged positively or negatively. In the future, things could be different.

"Instead of electronics, people want to use the spins and build spintronics, and if you do, you should be able to store information, explains Boehme.".

"Many worlds".

They reported in the journal Science, they were able to store information in spins for nearly two minutes. But this was not the key realization.

"The main objective of this study was to show that you could read it with an electronic device," he explains. In other words, they could use electronic classical to read stored memory. Spintronics has certain advantages in the mail. In theory, spin memory should be faster and less power to run the electronic memory of take that.

Now, Boehme works in collaboration with classic bits of information. But because it works with the atoms, the Setup program can take you in the world of quantum information. Quantum physics is all about the functioning of atoms.

"Quantum information, I can have a little bit is zero and the other at the same time," explains John Morton, a physicist at the University of Oxford in England. This idea of being in two places at the same time is difficult to explain. Morton, a way of thinking is to imagine that there are several universe there.

"Whenever that quantum mechanics allows something to exist in two States at the same time, the universe split," says Morton, and you have a universe where it is one thing and a universe where it is in the other State. "You can along these lines think all computers parallel quantum computer in different worlds."

And as you can get these worlds to talk with another, then you have a very, very powerful computer.

The magic of quantum computing

Now, does feel bad if you don't quite get why computer quantum is such a desirable to have thing.

"It is not easy to explain,", says Stephen Lyon, Professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University. He and his colleagues are still trying to encourage students to enter the field of quantum computing.

"The approach we took to say, if you think that a number from one to four, with a quantum computer could know the number each time only a single estimate." Which do not just tell you how it works, but what say you there is something there type different from what most people are used, says Lyon. "" This is kind of magic ".

Of course, it is not really magic - is physical. Physical bizarre, but the physics.

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Spinning atoms can store information better and use less energy than electronic memory.

Obama ordered rules to protect the work of scientists from political interference.

But companies that fall under the new rules say that they could harm the State economy of the.

My life on March: Beagle 2 newspapers by Colin Pillinger - review | Tim Radford (guardian)

Beagle 2 as it should have looked on the surface of March. Colin Pillinger and his team have waited in vain for his signal. Photo: PA

Beagle 2 history is so extraordinary that a bad book on adventure would be useful to review, and this is not a bad book. Review the initial conditions. In the 1960s, the British were as excited as anyone by the Apollo program and slow exploration of distant planets. But in 1971 a British satellite ascended on a rocket British (black arrow) and it is the end of the adventure. Scientists from the University of Colombia-British clung to space research deals with the military or the Nasa contracts or by joining the European Space Agency, teams and even these connections expected precarious during the years of Thatcherism, when Ministers science budgets slashed, closed laboratories and picked fighting with Europe.

And then, apparently from nowhere, Professor Colin Pillinger, Open University, a member the bizarre brigade, shamelessly promote a British Lander grafted on a European orbiter, parachute into March spring open, burrow into the Martian rock, sniff out evidence of past life and his discoveries in Great Britain relay.

Beagle 2 (echo Darwin's grand voyage was deliberate) should be small enough to stowaway to Mars Express. Camera, microscope, arm robot, drilling, communication and power supply were within the space occupied by a couple of dustbin lids struck together and still leave a box value shoe room for gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.

Necessary initial million would be generated from private sources (at this stage, the British Government always behaved as if there could be nothing of value for Great Britain in space) and the reluctant European hierarchy should be persuaded fly little impertinent passenger. Pillinger made happen through a mixture of tenacity, personality, industry performance and scientific imagination flair. It involves the fuzzy band (which includes the call sign) and Damian Hirst (spots on the map of the camera instrument calibration) artist and manipulate the media with great verve. He also co-opted industry reinvigorated scientific colleagues convinced politicians that they must change their mind and that he met phenomenal tight timelines. And all Beagle 2 has worked until this silence poignant 2003 Christmas day when the small dog on March does not signal the arrival of the bark.

It's a long story, but you could probably say the idea of Beagle 2 was born of a confrontation, six years earlier to a meeting of the ESA in Paris when someone "impenetrable clique" became the Pillinger (had more or less of the meeting) and said "who will construct a lander?" Steps to you. Who will pay? Not the Brits. "That challenge was probably everything had to be: on the way back Colin and his wife Judith had decided at the mission and begun work hard to make happen.

This follow-up were endless meetings and clashes with dubious academics, reluctant bureaucrats, dismissive of officials, Ministers, skepticism of dubious industrialists and unnecessary Europeans, who had to be satisfied. Of course, there are also some nostalgic allies and even enthusiastic, and that sometimes are the same people. Character key in the space community has categorically, there was no money for a mission in March before adding: "I cannot say allows you to move forward, but then I can't tell you not to do."

People who did not know should be persuaded care, people who had to make believe, and people who want to contribute preserved in the inclination of the project. European bureaucracy should be pushed into the space on board Mars Express, and then scientific Beagle and engineers had to find ways to meet more ruthless mass and space constraints and work then how landing mission safely, while on the other hand the desperate times.

At the end is disappointment. More than half of all March missions lost on launch or orbiting platform reaches or March. Had Beagle 2 has survived on landing, Pillinger was a national hero. He found chemical evidence of Martian life (and Beagle 2 remains potentially the best blow so far) he became an international superstar.

Anyway, it remains a hero. He had a go. He started March on the map for millions. Yes, is a costly loss, but not expensive measured in premiums of bankers, not to mention the bankers blunders. And now he has written a book which tells the whole story, "the really bad guys" and vouchers which helped to all. This is a book to be buying? Oh yes, if you are buff space, a member of the scientific community space British, a supporter of Beagle 2, or if you were there at the time.

This is a good book? It is well written and frolicking. "Space agencies as paper missions: that they hang work instruments, there is no parasites of the computer, they are good markets, politicians do scrap program, etc. etc....". "the sentence is vintage Pillinger: crisp, sardonic and brilliantly clear." What lets it down are the and ceteras. And this is what may discourage some readers. My life on March family memoir, biography, a window of class war, a chronicle of space science and account describes a great campaign and sometimes the strands of narrative scrimmage against each other. Chapters that said-what-de-who provide startling insight into exhausting to obtain a mission beyond the atmosphere realities, but they could be too taxing for the reader.

Neither the author can withstand distracting detail. "On page 40 his colleague James" had a "Viva Zapata" bushy and much smoked. Yes? And? On page 42, our hero visits James Lovelock on Salisbury Plain and learns that "to fly an instrument on a mission to March you may need to be intelligent and simple" but waives the momentum and direction of such a sentence with a detour on the difficulty of obtaining home again in a fog. I am all the detail (what young Pillinger preferred "no surprise" television series Maverick to Wagon Train is a nice augury of the scientist to come), but sometimes digressions threaten to seize history.

The last chapter ("God protect me from my friends") describes in detail the infighting, complaining and bitterness that followed the loss of Beagle 2. It is aggressive and rhythmic supporter, but inform the testimony.

This is a book that says it all. Literature, its weakness is that he said everything. But, of course, the historians of British Colombia's space effort to anyone interested in the madness of bureaucracy, for connoisseurs of art of doing things to happen and people excited about Beagle 2, dynamic that is exactly what it will be so valuable.

Study on the arsenic-based life started in the blogosphere (Washington Post)

Two weeks after the release of a major study on the possibility of life based on arsenic at Mono Lake, California a torrent of criticism in the blogosphere has transformed a widely scientific triumph in a scientific soccer - ball with consequences very discussed for how research is evaluated and presented in the future.

After remained largely silent criticism - entered respected scientists as well as posters misinformed - researchers, their funders of NASA and the prestigious magazine published article responded Thursday with promises to better explain the work and meet formal review.

But in the rapidly changing Internet world, it is also clear that those involved would really know how to respond without compromising their scientific methods and their values.

Speaking at a round table conference in San Francisco science, specially convened to discuss the research of arsenic and online response, study co-author Ronald Oremland of the United States Geological Survey defended his silence as forming an integral part of the process of scientific research has tried-and-true.

"I am trained to go to the laboratory and my experiences, send to newspapers if they deserve and hope that they have passed the peer review", he said. Responding to criticism, he said, when submitting data and scientific arguments.

He said that when people launch attacks online on the work done by him and biochemist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, he doesn't really know who is behind them. "I want to participate in what may end up in a situation of Jerry Springer, with chairs, people start" he said.

However, not only was Oremland panel Thursday by blogs, but team research also released a series of answers to frequently asked questions about their work and has promised to respond by the month next to more than 20 letters and e-mails sent to the magazine science challenged in their work. The team announced that he would samples available microbes to other scientists in their research.

Spokesperson for science Ginger Pinholster said the journal hopes to publish letters and responses in March. She said that while other science documents led the challenges and critical, speed and intensity of the response of the blogosphere to arsenic is unusual, if not unique.

Discussion paper active online started even before it was released. Based on an announcement from NASA on the release of a forthcoming study with implications for Astrobiology and "extraterrestrial life", some bloggers have been predicting the news of life on the moon Titan or elsewhere in the solar system.

Rather, the involved finding microbes of Mono Lake in California, which were grown replaced so most of the phosphorus in the body, long as it is essential for life) with generally toxic arsenic. Using some of the most sophisticated tools available, the team determined then arsenic had replaced the phosphorus in the DNA and other bacteria - creating a form of long-lived key molecules impossible.

The NASA Press Conference who presented the study included a sceptic, respected chemist Steven Benner, but that has not prevented the bloggers by accusing the NASA meet history and unconditionally erroneous presentation of research. The first major blog address labour was posted by Rosie Redfield, Professor of Zoology at the University of British Columbia Colombia.

"Basically, there is no convincing evidence that arsenic has been incorporated into DNA (or any other biological molecule)," she wrote. She accused Wolfe-Simon careless testing and laboratory work team not if their results were correct.

Opioid use associated with an increased risk of adverse effects in the elderly (science daily)

PharmaLive.com (16 December 2010) - opioids appear to be associated with more adverse seniors suffering from arthritis that another commonly used analgesics, including coxibs and anti-inflammatory nonsteroidal, according to a report by December 13 27 issue of the archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives Journals. In a second report assessing use only to opiates, different types of drugs in the class were associated with different security events in older patients with non-malignant pain.

"At United States, one in five adults received an order for analgesic in 2006, cash for purchases of 230 million; prescription" However, the comparative safety of these drugs is not clear "the authors write as background information in one of the articles." ' While heart safety of non-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (nsNSAIDs) and selective inhibitors of cyclooxygenase-2 (coxibs) has been challenged, it is little comparable information on the third major analgesic group opioid. ".

In the first report, Daniel Solomon, M.D., M.P.H. Brigham colleagues and hospital for women, Boston, examined the comparative safety of nsNSAIDs coxibs and opioid 12,840 Medicare beneficiaries who received at least one of these pain relievers between 1999 and 2005. Using data from a database using significant health care (applications), the authors evaluated the occurrence of cardiovascular events, heart attack, stroke stroke and cardiac insufficiency among others), gastrointestinal events (GI tract bleeding and intestinal obstruction), renal acute injuries, toxic effects on the liver, as well as the falls and fractures.

Opioid users have experienced higher rates for most types of serious adverse events than patients taking nsNSAIDs and coxibs / nsNSAID known users lower risk. For example, fractures occurred between 101 by 1,000 users per year, compared to 19 per 1,000 per year among users of coxib opioids.

Coxibs and opioids appear to be associated with the heart risks than nsNSAIDs, but the use of opioids and coxibs has been associated with a higher risk of hospitalization or death than using nsNSAIDs. Conversely, the risk of bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract was reduced in those taking of coxibs (12 per 1,000 per year, compared with 21 per 1,000 per year between those taking a nsNSAIDs).

"Painkillers are used daily by millions of people." However, the current data do not patients or doctors to determine what type of agent is more secure. We compared nsNSAIDs, coxibs and opioids in a wide range of specific security and several events of composite security events "write the authors." "Although the nsNSAIDs pose some risks, these analyses support the safety of these agents compared with other analgesics." Recent concerns about using opioids in pain syndromes non-malignant appear to be justified on the basis of these data. »

In a second article, Dr. Solomon and his colleagues Brigham and women's Hospital not only studied Medicare beneficiaries receiving opioids non-malignant pain between 1996 and 2005. They compared the rates of adverse events after 30-180 days 6,275 patients each take one of the five types of opiates: codeine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, propoxyphene and tramadol.

The risk of GI adverse effects remained similar for all studied drugs and thirty days after the beginning of the opioid therapy the risk of cardiovascular events was also similar among all the types. However, after 180 days, the risk of cardiovascular events increased between those taking codeine. Hydrocodone as point of reference, fracture risk a 79 per cent lower among those taking tramadol and 46 percent lower among those taking propoxyphene. Compared to those taking hydrocodone, death from any cause was 2.4 times as likely among those taking of oxycodone and twice as likely among those taking codeine.

"The findings of this study do not accept with a commonly held belief that all opioids are associated with similar risks," write the authors. "The risks explained not by the prescribed dose and vary across a range of sensitivity analyses. Risks are significant and translated number needed to treat that would be considered clinically significant. Our conclusions regarding cardiovascular risk are surprising and require validation in other data sets. »

Proving that a relationship of cause and effect between the types of opioid and unwanted requires an experimental rather than the design of the observational study, they note, but these results should encourage careful and thorough. »

In addition, research letter published in the same issue, found double the risk of cardiovascular events in patients followed for a median (middle) 189 days after taking rofecoxib analgesic drug during offshore drug followed by a clinical trial. Joseph s. Ross, M.D., M.H.S., school of medicine, Yale University, and colleagues analyzed data from clinical trial which become available through litigation. Twenty - two cardiovascular events and 23 deaths occurred in patients taking rofecoxib in trial, compared to six cardiovascular events and nine deaths among the participants who took a placebo.

Studies were funded by grants and contracts from the Agency for healthcare quality and research, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the evidence to inform decisions regarding effectiveness (decision) development program.

Warning: this article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those PharmaLive.com or its staff.

Source of the story:

The story above is reproduced (with drafting adaptations by staff at PharmaLive.com) materials provided by JAMA and archives of newspapers.

Reference of the review:

Continuing after the abandonment of rofecoxib cardiovascular risk by Joseph s. Ross et al. Arch Intern Med., 2010; 170 (22): 2035-2036 DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2010.461

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited for this.

Long wait may be over for science (NPR) guidelines

Enlarge the Union of Concerned Scientists

Sticker distributed by the Union of scientists interested in San Francisco this week.

Union of Concerned Scientists sticker distributed by the Union of scientists interested in San Francisco this week.

Guidelines expected value by President Obama last year to prevent the Government looks to be modified or deleted for political purposes for the integrity of government scientists can be protected could be released as early as Friday.

The guidelines are almost 11 2 years behind. Meanwhile, administration has attracted criticism for its own scientific misfires.

Obama had been in Office less than two months, when he ordered his scientific advisors to develop guidelines. He said researchers Government gathered at the White House that he wanted to protect their work from political interference.

"It is let scientists, such as those who are here today, to do their work free of manipulation and coercion and listen to what they say even when it is convenient, especially when it is inconvenient," he said.

Disappointed by scientists

The guidelines were expected to be finished in four months. Instead of this, there are 21. As in other domains where the administration had difficulties to honour its promises noble beginning, ardent supporters were disappointed. Some government scientists have complained that they still be muzzled by mid-level managers.

"In recent weeks and months, there have been complaints and allegations that some practices same people complained of the Bush administration has not changed in federal agencies, said Roger Pielke Jr., Professor at the University of Colorado who writes about the intersection of science and public policy." "" So I think that every day they are not out there, people are looking for them and wish to see that things are different.

Republic of Georgia Paul Broun, the ranking Republican on scientific Oversight Subcommittee said he was eager to see the recommendations, but "I am not maintain my breath."

Budget of oil spills

Broun complained delay administration for the issuance of guidelines and some scientific statements coming from the White House itself.

"I'm a doctor." "As a scientist, I am afraid that we have scientific integrity that us censor scientists, we have good peer," said Broun.

He complained that during the discharge of oil from the Gulf of the Mexico, administration blocked with a ball low estimate of the quantity of oil was leaks from the wells, while rejecting more accurate forecasts of independent scientists, including those originally contacted by NPR. Later, the White House officials offered an overly optimistic estimate of the amount of oil had disappeared.

The boss frustrates Jeff Ruch, who runs a group called the public service for environmental responsibility.

"If they are examples of Obama administration practicing science-based decision-making, they have a long, long way to go," said Ruch.

His group has continued to find out why it took so long to the guidelines of integrity to be made public.

"Apparently, they had rules that have been shared with the Office of management and budget and other project," Ruch said. "And we are at a loss why a policy of transparency must be developed in secret."

A scientist at San Francisco meeting, this week, where science White House Counsel John Holdren was speaking, the Union of Concerned Scientists distributed saying, stickers "Hey, Mr. President, we are ready to scientific integrity."

Complex subject

Holdren repeated his promise that the guidelines would be ready by the end of the year, adding that the process was more difficult than expected.

Pielke, Professor at the University of Colorado, suspects it is probably true.

He said: "I guess at one of the reasons why extinguish these guidelines took long probably has less to do with what it's infamous passes, but the complexity even question and the realization that you can not simply mandate how science should be governed by a political or a set of policies,".

However, Pielke said, it is important that the White House finally offer guidelines promised to protect the public trust in scientists have to say.

"If you do not protect this process, you can easily get to a situation where you Republican science and democratic science," he said. "And when you do this, you throw what is most valuable and what is most important about science, which has nothing to do with impartiality, but this ability empirical claims."

Pielke added that taking into account the wide range of organisations covered by the guidelines, many details will likely to be filled later. He said that it expects that when the guidelines are finally released, it will ask to many people, "we waited a year and a half it."

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Republicans might have been a secret promise each other on matters of procedure.

This is a rare moment in the House, says Andrea Seabrook in the NPR.

The State Department must work to move the power of the army of diplomats and foreign aid.

Planet hunters: another project citizen-science (guardian)

My dedicated readers – all three of you! -know that one of the (many) themes that I like writing are all these "citizen science" fun projects that develop, launched and published. Citizen - projects and science are scientific studies that rely on people of all ages and all walks of life to help scientists seek to identify a particular phenomenon. Two of the citizen-science projects that I attended include Christmas Bird censuses (Ron) and observation of the coast and seabirds on team (COASST).

In addition to participate in citizen-science projects, I do what I can to promote citizen-science to the public. Several projects of citizen science that I published stories on include the number of future World Parrot and Foldit, protein folding game - both which I participated in (or plan).

There is a citizen science project new and fun that anyone in the world with computer and internet access can participate: Planet Hunter. This science project is a "game" online has a serious purpose: to identify stars have planets orbiting around them. These stars are identified by finding those whose light becomes dimmer for a short period of time and lightens and then again. This degradation occurs when a planet moves between the star and the observer, in this case, Kepler spacecraft NASA.

NASA Kepler spacecraft measure light emission over 150,000 individual stars in the constellation Swan and saves the brightness of the stars to find planets transit every thirty minutes. These data are transmitted to earth-bound scientists who download it on their computers.

Computers the Kepler team are sifting through data, but the planet hunters project was launched, because scientists know that the human brain is far superior to computers when it comes to detection and identification of trends in large amounts of data.

It is possible that no new planets will not be found or that computers have learned their task that they are fast and better than human beings humans. It is also possible that the "hive mind" hundreds (or thousands?) people everywhere worldwide surf computers Kepler team. But the Kepler team and the planet hunters know that is true, unless the collective "hive mind" tests of their computers. More exciting that simply settle a bet, it is possible that you can be the one to make a scientific discovery really interesting, as well as Caroline Moore, the girl of fourteen New York who discovered a very rare supernova 2008.

Welcome to planet hunters of the Zooniverse.

NASA fuels space shuttle Discovery test for cracks (PA) (Yahoo!)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - shuttle to powered NASA discovery platform launch Friday, not for flight, but rather to understand the mysterious cracking tests which will last month.

Discovery is rooted at least at the beginning of the month of February of potentially dangerous cracks appear in the tank of fuel to an actual launch attempt. Cracks have been fixed, but the engineers do not always understand why they occurred.

If a test countdown has started shortly after the Sunrise, team launch pumped more than 500,000 litres of liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel tank externally the discovery. The tank was rigged with close to 100 gauges of strain and temperature sensors to provide clues on cracking and thousands of feet of wire for recording devices.

That discovery flying, it will be his last trip into orbit and the final two or three shuttle missions remaining. He is responsible for supplies to the international space station as well as experimental humanoid robot.

"We do sums not committing theft anytime soon." "We have achieved to wait until we know that a good answer to fly," said Mike Moses, a manager of launch, as the 15 floors discovery tank filled. "We want to make sure that we know the potential that we have before us."

Back on November 5, NASA interrupted the countdown for the discovery of Leaker of hydrogen gas. A non-related problem - cracking - later was discovered in fuel tank foam insulation in ribbed central holding instruments. When the foam has been deleted, cracks were found in two of more than a hundred of aluminium ribs or brackets that make up this region. Damaged both coasts-21 foot long each - were next to each other.

Both flight and cracks were fixed and NASA to flight in December as possible. But engineers were blocked in which caused the cracks. They think now there were a build-up of stress in brackets to the Assembly, which caused cracks when super cold fuel has been loaded into the reservoir, said Moses.

"We are 100 times smarter we were a week ago and we are 1000 times smarter that we where the failure happened first," said Moses. "We will not likely to come here with a smoking gun." But we are going to come here with a family of chess.

There is concern that cracks in the brackets may cause pieces of pop foam and in the worst case, snapping the discovery take-off. A large plate damaged foam Columbia launch in 2003 and has led to its destruction during re-entry.

Also the rope cables with sensors on the suspicious part of the tank and gauges, also painted technicians from small black dots - 10 000 to 12 000 of them - on the white foam exposed above the repaired area. Moses called finger painting and it is the case. technicians worked in temperatures, their fingers gloved in paint dipping and then pressing on their gently on the foam. Twice more points were painted on another section at the rear of the tank.

Points were part of a test of optics. A pair of cameras aimed at them for stereoscopic views. The intention was to record the movements of the tank in this area and provide additional clues on cracking.

In total, NASA plans gather 6 terabytes of data to test on Friday. The information will be analyzed in the next week.

Discovery, meanwhile, will be returned to the Assembly building vehicle week next to engineers of x-ray hooks at the rear of the fuel tank. These areas are inaccessible to the launch pad.

The objective is to launch as early as February 3 discovery or at least by the end of the month, said Moses.

NASA's shuttle program is set to retire after 30 years of flight next year. Space shuttle Endeavour is due to fly in April, and Atlantis may follow in the summer if financing is to come.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Virgin Galactic joined messed up flying astronaut of NASA (Reuters)

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Thursday 16 December 2010 7 pm EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of the U.S. Group of Richard Branson Virgin, was joined by two separate teams for 200 million NASA program $ stimulate the development of the private sector space taxi, the company said Thursday.

Teams, led by Orbital Sciences Corporation and of Sierra Nevada Corp., both offer passenger flights on reusable winged vessels as expendable rockets launch and land on runways such as the space shuttle NASA.

These drawings "could revolutionize orbital spaceflight in much the same way that SpaceShipTwo has revolutionized suborbital flights into space," Virgin said in a statement, referring to the first of a fleet of suborbital commercial spacecraft developed by Scaled Composites.

Built scale prototype SpaceShipOne, who won a prize of $ 10 million in 2004 to make the first private sector financed by human astronauts.

Virgin sells tickets to mount the SpaceShipTwo six passengers, two pilots, named Enterprise, $ 200,000 and plans to begin flight services about a year.

Society has collected more than 54 million in deposits of 400 clients, Virgin Galactic said.

Orbital at least four companies competing for the next round of funding from NASA and the Sierra Nevada commercial personal development program.

Program would provide a U.S. alternative flight of astronauts aboard the international space station in addition to the Russian Soyuz capsules after the space shuttle is retired in 2011.

Other bidders include technologies for space exploration or SpaceX and Boeing. Private SpaceX December 8 steals successfully the dragon capsule which supports NASA pursuant to a separate development effort cargo version.

Orbital has a similar agreement with NASA for a capsule of Cygnus carrying cargoes, supposed to debut next year.

SpaceX is considering upgrading Dragon for passengers with the addition of a system to escape launch and other improvements. Orbital provides a completely different spacecraft, are not yet named, and the Launcher.

NASA provides select two or more projects for funding in March. Agency, which takes its retired his three space shuttles next year due to higher operating costs and ongoing security concerns, has begun efforts to develop commercial crew with 50 million went to five companies, including the Sierra Nevada and Boeing stimulus funds.

The deadline for the submission of the proposals was Monday. NASA not proposals said how much he had received.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Xavier Briand)

Bone corroded Reveal Cannibal caatinga (LiveScience.com) (Yahoo!)

Prehistoric human researchers may have undermined other bone, now suggest.

Scientists have long seen evidence of prehistoric cannibalism, such as trademark Boucher on bones. To find out if yes or no cavemen chewed on human bones, the researchers first get a look at this bite marks might look like.

Scientists had volunteers chew bone - those not human, but boiled pork raw ribs and sheep as well as sheep and BBQ pork ribs legs. The bone-gnawers included European and Koi people of Namibia.

Researchers saw patterns in bone spike - including the folded edges, gratin and perforations surface and grooves. They detected brands like bite on bones of 12,000 years of prehistoric man cave Gough in England and the remains of extinct human species Homo antecessor site of Gran Dolina in Spain 800,000 years.

"It helps to give a better idea of what had happened to as the first humans were recolonize Britain after the last glaciation," said paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner at the Smithsonian Institution, who have not participated in this study. "They could have been under the major constraint on nutritional cannibalism and resources may be an adaptation to it."

Not all these bite marks are unique individuals. Yet, scientists explained that seen in combination, they can provide evidence of erode human.

"It would be really interesting to see if the toothmarks on assemblages prehistoric really early fossil were made by humans, as opposed to carnivorous mammals", Pobiner said LiveScience. "Previous species of homo have chewing muscles much more robust than ours, with a greater capacity to damage in os than we."

Researchers in detail their conclusions in the issue of January, 2011 for the journal of human evolution.

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often appear around scientific discoveries and provide short explanations, provocations with some humor and style. Discover our videos science, Almanach & quizzes and top tens. Join our community discussion hot-button issues, such as stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, Subscribe to RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at LiveScience Bank.

Best books of 2010: choice of Steven Rose (newscientist.com)

Steven Rose, neuroscientist and author

Finger Michelangelo Raymond Tallis (Atlantic) explores what it means to humans through a strange meditation on often overlooked and unique capability human - pointing to indicate the direction and emphasize the argument. There is a serious point (Yes, pun intended) behind Tallis reflections.

Service Canberra farewell Fenner (ABC.net.au)

Updated 17 December 2010 10: 50: 00 science famous Frank Fenner will be honoured at a memorial service state Canberra this afternoon.

Professor Fenner, died aged 95 last month.

The service will be held at the Australian National University (ANU) Llewellyn Hall at 4: 00 pm.

Professor Fenner contributed large worldwide scientific, but is best known for his work on the eradication of smallpox and rabbit plague Australia myxomatosis control.

After serving as an officer in the Australian medical corps during the war, he came to work in Canberra in 1949.

He was appointed Professor of Microbiology at the new John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) at the ANU and continued at the head of the school from 1967 to 1973.

The Federal Government today announced an award to commemorate the achievements of Professor Fenner.

The national award for health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is attributed to early career scholars whose research reflects the work of Professor Fenner in international health.

"It will be open to researchers at the beginning of career, which is entirely appropriate that Professor Fenner was a great mentor to as many people across the country," says NHMRC President Professor Michael Good.

"Right now we are trying to do our utmost to encourage more people to enter science and remain in the science and medical research as a career." I therefore believe that it is entirely appropriate. »

Although Professor said he hoped the Fellowship recipients to continue the work of Professor Fenner.

"I hope they achieve what they want in terms of their own personal aspirations to improve the health of the country thanks to medical research." "I'm sure that's what Dr. Fenner wished too," he said.

The mental health and aging Mark Butler explains award and memorial service today recognize the contribution of an Australian icon.

"It is important that we also reflect on the extent to which health and medical research have many benefits beyond improvements in the health care system", he said.

"Work of Professor Fenner with the World Health led to the eradication of smallpox, which remains the only disease have been annihilated."

"Economic and social benefits it brought huge."

Tags: died, people, science and technology, Australia, Act, canberra-2600 first posted December 17, 2010 23

California air regulators approve plan deals with carbon (Los Angeles Times)

California Thursday regulators voted for big industry greenhouse gas emissions cap status and to establish first large carbon nation commerce program.

The move marks another connection point of a State which has led in the environmental policy, national climate legislation to regulate greenhouse gases and combat climate change has been stalled in Congress.

"This is a historical company," said Mary Nichols, President of the California Air Resources Board, as the Panel voted 9 to 1 to approve the estimated 3,000 pages of regulations and documents in support, manufactured on three years of intense negotiations with the companies and public interest groups.

In view of fragile economy State, Nichols said, "said more people that we should do as little as possible as slowly as possible." Instead of this, she said: "we are being prudent and careful, but on a very bold effort."

Serv. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a champion of an approach on market regulation of the climate shows midway through a public hearing at 10 a.m. at the Commission headquarters to applaud the agency efforts on developing rules for carbon emissions trading. "We led the nation to develop green policies," he said. "And we have seen our green economy to grow accordingly.

2006 Global Warming Solutions Act California requires the State to reduce gas emissions greenhouse at the level of 1990 by 2020 - amounting to a reduction of 15% below today's levels.

CAP and complex trading system is a central element of the multiple facets of the State plan. Already approved to hike the energy efficiency of cars, reducing the energy intensity of gasoline and the source of one-third of electricity from renewable energy sources state rules.

More than 180 industry leaders, environmentalists and concerned citizens testified on trade regulations, which limit emissions from 600 large industrial facilities in the State. Representatives of cement, electric and the areas of agri-food apart from aspects of the rules, such as the protective forest environment, health and poverty lawyers defenders.

In most contentious debate day, more than one note environmentalists and residents of the communities of the Sierra Nevada in protest against provisions that would allow industrial facilities reduce their obligation to reduce pollution in their own facilities enabling them to purchase offsets from forestry companies commit to adapt their practices to conserve more carbon in forests.

Several members of the Board of Directors has sought to exclude a portion of the regulation allowing white cut and replanted plots. They have voted, 7-3.

Rules of the forest divide the environmental community, with groups such as the conservation of nature and environmental defense - two strong supporters of carbon exchange - siding Sierra Pacific larger Timber Corporation of the State in support of the rule as written. Local communities of the Sierra Nevada, supported by the Sierra Club activists pleaded with the Board to exclude any negotiation which could encourage cutting blank and the replacement of natural forest to plantations of single species.

"We want in California to be the leader in climate, not a laughing stock," said Addie Jacobson, Member of the Board of the Alliance of the Sierra Nevada, who said she took the floor to the 85 organisations.

Member of the Board of the only air had voted against the overall cap-and-trade program: John Telles, a doctor who represents the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. Such said that measure does not protect residents in low-income energy prices. It also suggested that a carbon stock would be open to "manipulation", as was the case with disastrous deregulation of electricity markets California in the 1990s.

Of the regime, the State would cap emissions of each industrial plant in 2012, gradually reducing the ceiling over the next eight years. Companies would be granted allowances for each tonne of carbon dioxide they could emit.

Many interveners at the public hearing have criticised the decision of the jury to ignore the recommendation of its own economic Advisory Committee to these allocations at the beginning of the program, rather than to provide industry and phase in the auctions auction.

"The auction provides a signal sharper price," said UC Berkeley economist Michael Hanneman, adding that give allowances free of charge "risk granting windfall profits" in the industry.

Margot.Roosevelt@LAtimes.com

Telephone mobile masts linked to mysterious birth rate spikes (guardian)

Radiation electromagnetic mobile phone masts seems to increase human fertility even though the mechanism remains uncertain. Photography: Malcolm Fife/Alamy

Mobile phone towers are more likely to procreate people? It might be possible that radiation from mobile phone facilitates somehow fertilization, or perhaps there is just something romantic about mobile phone transmitter mast projection of the landscape?

These questions are our natural learning that the variation in the number of Poles from mobile phone across the country corresponds exactly to the variation in the number of births response. For each additional mast of mobile phone in a region is 17.6 babies more above average national.

It was discovered by taking the data accessible to the public on the number of mobile phone masts in each county across the United Kingdom and matching it then against data of births for the counties of same. When a regression line is calculated that there a "correlation coefficient" (a measure of good game is) to 98.1 100. "Statistically significant" a pattern in a data set must be liable to occur in less than 5% (known as a "p-value") random data and correlation of Poles-births has a probability of 0.00003% of occurring by chance.

The correspondence between the mobile phone towers and birth rates is a very strong correlation and it is very significant. He did y no doubting that most mobile phone masts mean that there will be also birth more mathematical discovery. It is also strict access statistics.

Mobile phone masts, however, have absolutely no impact on the number of births. There is no causal link between the poles and the birth in spite of the strong correlation. Both the number of mobile phone transmitters and the number of births are linked to a third independent factor: the size of the local population. As the population of an area can be traced back, do as the number of mobile phone users and the people number giving birth.

The problem is that our first instinct is to assume that a correlation means that a factor causes the other. While this does not cause a problem using pattern-spots as a tool for advanced survival, it causes serious problems in the assessment of possible alerts for health based on a recently discovered correlation. For the majority of cases, the correlation does not indicate the presence of causality.

To investigate a possible causal link requires carefully mathematical Untangling the correlations of false positives. This is what makes a team of researchers at Imperial College London when they were looking for a link between cancer among children and exposure to radiation from mobile phone transmitters. They got data location for 1.397 children who had undergone a form of childhood cancer. For each of these children, they found and then four random children who were born at the same time, but never had cancer. These two groups of cases were compared in terms of the number and strength of the mobile transmitters when their mothers during pregnancy and early childhood experiences.

This particular study in childhood - cancers with robust study investigating possible links between mobile phones and health - not found no causal link.

But the media lit a correlation in fear of health based on the causal conclusion? To find out, I've published my mobile masts and the results of births as a press release. We'll see if someone jumps to the conclusion that mobile phone radiation can really give design a helping hand.

Listen to Matt discuss its conclusion on more or less, BBC Radio4 at 13 h 30 today, Friday 17 December. Or visit the website of the Guardian Monday, December 20 to see that Matt reports back.

Data sources

Data from "Sitefinder" OFCOM

Data in England and Wales Live birth country

Scotland live birth data

Ireland North Live birth data

Display records concerns About Another BP Rig (NYT)

Officials raised specific concerns Congress concerning the safety of a second oil BP in the Gulf of the Mexico and the failure of regulators to spend millions of dollars approved for oil spill research, among other issues, according to e-mails between representatives of the Congress and the regulatory function of the minerals management platform as the Agency then called.

When CIDA officials told members of Congress in 2009 would not specifically respond to concerns about the possibility of a "catastrophic" on a second BP platform off the coast of New Orleans, called Atlantis, accident, some staff members were angry at what they saw as the obstruction.

"If I have this straight," aid to Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, wrote in an e-mail message to an official agency of minerals, "I tell my boss M.M.S. has nothing to say about this company Atlantis" beyond general observations which it has already taken?

Mail electronic and other recent correspondence between federal regulatory agencies and representatives of the Congress have been among the more than 5 400 pages of documents that the Ministry of the Interior for the New York Times under the freedom of information act.

Blast drilling deep horizon 20 April led to a careful examination of the relationship between the Federal regulatory agencies and the oil industry - a relationship critics say since always too comfortable. But much less attention has been paid for relationships with members of Congress, who also play an essential role in supervising regulators and to shape regulatory policies and priorities.

Offer documents one window regulators drilling and officers of Congress has been various tours, civil and commercial, distant and contentious relationship or, as is often the case in Washington, D.c., servile and caring when members were research to help a constituent business gain.

For example, when a businessman in Alaska was upset because her company aviation as an aerial survey contract closure, Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican urged regulatory authorities to reconsider the contract, emails show.

(The Ministry of the Interior stood by his decision, he told Mr. Stevens a 2008 letter company - whose owners had donated to Republican causes - had no safety and training equipment to do the job.)

Members and their assistants also went to regulators to get a jump on next drilling decisions which could have political implications, records show.

But at other times, federal regulatory agencies were struggling to get someone's attention on Capitol Hill, records show.

For example, minerals agency officials went to dozens of members of Congress on the relevant committees in the fall of 2009 to try to establish sessions meet and greet the newly appointed Director of the Agency, s. Elizabeth Birnbaum.

The majority of the members is passed to the invitation. "Unfortunately, Senator Bunning is able to meet Liz Birnbaum," a help Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, said. "Thank you for good offer."

But six months later, that BP disaster triggered one of the worst environmental disaster in American history, agency of Mrs. Birnbaum was apparently the world arose in Congress--with regulatory shortcomings suddenly under brutal control of politicians and the public.

Under fire, Mrs. Birnbaum quickly left his job, his agency was reorganized and renamed to try to avoid a repeat of the BP disaster and federal regulators there are hundreds of oil per day of Capitol Hill - accompanied by frequent notes sympathy - as oil spread applications.

"Hook," read an e-mail a staff member Congress an official agency of the minerals weeks after the spill.

But other officials of the Congress were less sympathetic, as they demanded that the Agency, now called the Office of the ocean, regulation and Enforcement Act, energy management turn its records regarding the approval of the project BP and other regulatory measures.

Records indicate that even after the spill, minerals agency officials have resisted turning on some recordings on the grounds that they detained "proprietary" information that belonged to BP.

But some information the Agency stood ready to provide is illuminating. In a letter of April 2009 regulators sent to BP approving exploration in the region where the later explosion took place, they urge BP "exercise caution during the drilling of gas hints at shallow depth and water flow as possible.

Various facets of the catastrophe of BP, including the exact cause of the explosion and anti-Eruption of the deep horizon shutter failure are still under investigation by a presidential commission and other investigative agencies. But the preliminary findings released last month found that the oil industry and the Government were captured prepared by the spill, delaying the response.