From the BBC:

Lake Vostok drilling team claims breakthrough

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Russian scientists are reporting success in their quest to drill into Lake Vostok, a huge body of liquid water buried under the Antarctic ice.

It is the first time such a breakthrough has been made into one of the more than 300 sub-glacial lakes known to exist on the White Continent.

Researchers believe Vostok can give them some fresh insights into the frozen history of Antarctica.

They also hope to find microbial lifeforms that are new to science.

"This fills my soul with joy," said Valery Lukin, from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in St Petersburg, which has been overseeing the project,

"This will give us the possibility to biologically evaluate the evolution of living organisms... because those organisms spent a long time without contact with the atmosphere, without sunlight," he was quoted as saying in a translation of national media reports by BBC Monitoring.

The drilling project has taken years to plan and implement. The lake's location in the heart of East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

It is the place where thermometers recorded the lowest ever temperature on the planet - minus 89C on 21 July 1983.

Vostok Station was set up by the Russians in 1956, and their seismic soundings soon suggested there was an area of liquid underneath all the ice. However, it was only in the 1990s that British scientists, with the help of radar, were able to determine the full extent of the sub-glacial feature.

With an area of 15,000 square km and with depths reaching more than 800m, Lake Vostok is similar in size to Lake Baikal in Siberia or Lake Ontario in North America.

More than 300 such bodies of water have now been identified across Antarctica. They are kept liquid by geothermal heat and pressure, and are part of a vast and dynamic hydrological network at play under the ice sheet.

Some of the lakes are connected, and will exchange water. But some may be completely cut off, in which case their water may have been resident in one place for thousands if not millions of years. Russian researchers will try to establish just how isolated Lake Vostok has been. If it has been sealed then micro-organisms new to science are very likely to have evolved in the lake.

Nonetheless, there will be concerns about introducing contamination, and there have been criticisms of the methods used by the Vostok drilling team.

Vladimir Chuprov, from Greenpeace Russia, commented: "There is a set of risks which can damage this relic lake and some of them are connected with polluting the lake with the drilling fluids, as well as other stuff that can get into this unique lake."

The drilling team counters that is has taken the necessary precautions.

The Vostok project is one of a number of similar ventures being undertaken on the White Continent.

The British Antarctic Survey (Bas) is hoping to begin its effort to drill into Lake Ellsworth in West Antarctica later this year. An American crew is targeting Lake Whillans, also in the West.

"It is an important milestone that has been completed and a major achievement for the Russians because they've been working on this for years," Professor Martin Siegert, the principal investigator on the Bas-Ellsworth project, said.

"The Russian team share our mission to understand subglacial lake environments and we look forward to developing collaborations with their scientists and also those from the US and other nations, as we all embark on a quest to comprehend these pristine, extreme environments," he told AP.

The projects are of particular fascination to astrobiologists, who study the origins and likely distribution of life across the Universe.

Conditions in these Antarctic lakes may not be that different from those in the liquid water bodies thought to exist under the surfaces of icy moons in the outer Solar System.

Places like Europa, which orbits Jupiter, and Enceladus, which circles Saturn, may be among the best places beyond Earth to go to look for alien organisms.

From the BBC:

Science behind ponytail revealed

Physicists have come up with an equation that explains and predicts the shape of a ponytail.

The report in Physical Review Letters journal could help scientists better understand natural materials, such as wool and fur.

The new equation takes into account the stiffness of hairs, the effects of gravity and the presence of random curliness or waviness.

The work was carried out by a British team of researchers.

"It's a remarkably simple equation," explained Prof Raymond Goldstein, who is the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems at Cambridge University.

He added that the findings showed how physics could be used to "solve a problem that has puzzled scientists and artists ever since Leonardo da Vinci remarked on the fluid-like streamlines of hair in his notebooks 500 years ago".

Prof Goldstein worked on the equation with Professor Robin Ball from the University of Warwick and Patrick Warren, from Unilever's Research and Development Centre.

The Ponytail Shape Equation represents the first scientific understanding of the distribution of hairs in a ponytail, say the researchers.

It provides new understanding of how a bundle is swelled by the outward pressure which arises from collisions between the component hairs.

Together with a new mathematical quantity known as the Rapunzel Number, the equation can - they say - be used to predict the shape of any ponytail.

It opens the way to a better understanding of materials made up of random fibres, say the researchers.

This will resonate with some in the computer graphics and animation industry, where a realistic representation of hair and fur has proven a tough challenge.

Prof Goldstein is presenting the research at the American Physical Society meeting in Boston on 28 February.

From the BBC:

Tiny songbird northern wheatear traverses the world

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature

Miniature tracking devices have revealed the epic 30,000km (18,640 miles) migration of the diminutive northern wheatear.

The birds, which weigh just 25g (0.8oz), travel from sub-Saharan Africa to their Arctic breeding grounds.

"Scaled for body size," the scientists report, "this is the one of the longest round-trip migratory journeys of any bird in the world.

The team reports its findings in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

"Think of something smaller than a robin, but a little larger than a finch raising young in the Arctic tundra and then a few months later foraging for food in Africa for the winter," said one of the lead researchers, Prof Ryan Norris from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

The species is of particular interest to scientists, because it has one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the world; with breeding grounds in the eastern Canadian Arctic, across Greenland, Eurasia and into Alaska.

Prior to this work though, it was not clear where the birds spent the winter.

Heiko Schmaljohann, from the Institute of Avian Research in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, was a member of the team that carried out this study.

He and his colleagues visited the wheatears' breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada and fitted 46 birds with the satellite tracking devices.

"The [trackers] weigh 1.4g, including a harness that loops around the birds' legs," he told BBC Nature.

These data loggers recorded the bird's position twice a day for 90 days. Four trackers that the team managed to retrieve revealed that individual wheatears spent the winter in northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Alaskan birds travelled almost 15,000km (9,000 miles) each way - crossing Siberia and the Arabian Desert, and travelling, on average, 290km per day.

"This is the longest recorded migration for a songbird as far as we know," said Dr Schmaljohann.

Although the Canadian birds did not travel as far - approximately 3,500km - they had to cross the northern Atlantic Ocean.

"That's a very big barrier for a small songbird," Dr Schmaljohann explained.

Henry McGhie, a zoologist and head of collections at Manchester Museum described the birds' journey as "very impressive".

"We do see Greenland wheatears in the UK on migration, usually on the coast," he said.

"The amazing thing [about this study] is that it gives us a glimpse into the extraordinary lives of these tiny birds.

"When we see them, they're in the middle of a journey they do twice every year. When you think of the challenges they must face, you wonder how on earth they do it."

Dr Schmaljohann added: "[In the past] we totally underestimated the flight capability of birds in terms of migration.

"It seems that bird migration is limited by the size of the Earth. If the planet was larger, they would probably migrate even further."

A brief Youtube clip:

From the BBC:

Social apps 'harvest smartphone contacts'

Twitter has admitted copying entire address books from smartphones and storing the data on its servers, often without customers' knowledge.

Access to the address book is enabled when users click on the "Find Friends" feature on smartphone apps.

Two US congressmen have written to Apple asking why the firm allows the practice on its iPhone, as it contravenes app developer guidelines.

Twitter has said it will update its privacy policy to be more explicit.

The practice came to light when an app developer in Singapore, Arun Thampi, noticed that his contacts had been copied from his iPhone address book without his consent by a social network called Path.

Dave Morin, CEO of Path, apologised and said Path would ask users to opt in to share their contact information.

However, he noted separately that it was an "industry best practice" to upload or import address book information.

iPhone apps by social sites including Facebook, FourSquare, Instagram, Foodspotting and Yelp are also reported to access the address book.

Permission not granted

Critics have noted that these apps are all available for download from Apple's iTunes store, even though the practice of copying address book contacts without prior consent appears to violate its user guidelines.

The Apple guidelines say: "Apps that read or write data outside its designated container area will be rejected."

They add: "Apps cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user's prior permission."

Social networks have said that data taken from smartphones - which includes names, phone numbers and email addresses - is used only to identify friends who used the same service, and notify the user.

But sometimes the data appears to be taken without first informing the user, or indicating how long the information will be saved for.

Twitter said it would update its app in the wake of the disclosure, and clarify its privacy policy for users.

"We want to be clear and transparent in our communications with users. Along those lines, in our next app updates, which are coming soon, we are updating the language associated with Find Friends - to be more explicit," Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner said.

Currently, Twitter tells users that it "may customize your account with information such as a cellphone number for the delivery of SMS messages or your address book so that we can help you find Twitter users you know".

Twitter informs iPhone users that it will "scan your contacts for people you already know on Twitter".

However, the Los Angeles Times reported that the app in fact uploads every address book contact and stores it for 18 months - something not made clear by the app.

From the BBC:

Digital tools 'to save languages'

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, Vancouver

Facebook, YouTube and even texting will be the salvation of many of the world's endangered languages, scientists believe.

Of the 7,000 or so languages spoken on Earth today, about half are expected to be extinct by the century's end.

Globalisation is usually blamed, but some elements of the "modern world", especially digital technology, are pushing back against the tide.

North American tribes use social media to re-engage their young, for example.

Tuvan, an indigenous tongue spoken by nomadic peoples in Siberia and Mongolia, even has an iPhone app to teach the pronunciation of words to new students.

"Small languages are using social media, YouTube, text messaging and various technologies to expand their voice and expand their presence," said K David Harrison, an associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College and a National Geographic Fellow.

"It's what I like to call the flipside of globalisation. We hear a lot about how globalisation exerts negative pressures on small cultures to assimilate. But a positive effect of globalisation is that you can have a language that is spoken by only five or 50 people in one remote location, and now through digital technology that language can achieve a global voice and a global audience."

Harrison, who travels the world to seek out the last speakers of vanishing languages, has been describing his work here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

With National Geographic, he has just helped produce eight talking dictionaries.

These dictionaries contain more than 32,000 word entries in eight endangered languages. All the audio recordings have been made by native speakers, some of whom like Alfred "Bud" Lane are among the last fluent individuals in their native tongues.

Mr Lane speaks a language known as Siletz Dee-ni, which is restricted to a small area on the central Oregon coast.

"Linguists came in and labelled our language moribund, meaning it was heading for the ash heap of history; and our tribal people and our council decided that wasn't going to happen. So we devised a plan to go forward to start teaching our dialect here in the Siletz Valley," he told the meeting.

Mr Lane has sat down and recorded 14,000 words for the online dictionary. "Nothing takes the place of speakers speaking to other speakers, but this bridges a gap that was just sorely needed in our community and our tribe."

Margaret Noori is an expert in Native American studies at the University of Michigan and a speaker of Anishinaabemowin, which is the sovereign language of over 200 indigenous "nations" in Canada and the US. These communities are heavy users of Facebook.

"What we do with technology is try to connect people," Prof Noori said. "All of it is to keep the language."

Dr Harrison says not all languages can survive, and many inevitably will be lost as remaining speakers die off. But he says the new digital tools do offer a way back from the brink for a lot of languages that seemed doomed just a few years ago.

He told BBC News: "Everything that people know about the planet, about plants, animals, about how to live sustainably, the polar ice caps, the different ecosystems that humans have survived in - all this knowledge is encoded in human cultures and languages, whereas only a tiny fraction of it is encoded in the scientific literature.

"If we care about sustainability and survival on the planet, we all benefit from having this knowledge base persevered."

From the BBC:

Sweden snow: Man 'survives two months trapped in car'

A Swedish man has survived being trapped in his snow-covered car for two months without food, police say.

The car was found on Friday at the end of a forest track more than 1 km (0.6 miles) from a main road in northern Sweden.

Police say the temperature in the area had recently dropped to -30C (-22F).

The man, who was too weak to utter more than a few words, said he had been inside since 19 December. He may have survived by drinking melted snow.

Police say they have no reason to doubt his story.

Sleeping bag

The man, who has not been named, is recovering at Umea University Hospital - where staff say he is doing well considering the circumstances.

The 45-year-old was discovered by snowmobilers who initially assumed the car was a wreck until they dug their way to a window and saw movement inside, reported the Vasterbotten Courier newspaper.

The man was huddled in a sleeping bag on the back seat, said policeman Ebbe Nyberg.

"He was in a very poor state. Poor condition. He said he'd been there for a long time and had survived on a little snow.

"He said himself he hadn't eaten anything since December," Mr Nyberg said.

Doctors at the Umea University Hospital said they would normally expect a person to survive without food for around four weeks, said the Vasterbotten Courier.

One doctor told the newspaper that the man might have survived so long by going into a kind of hibernation.

From the BBC:

Click here to see this article with pictures

Ancient plants back to life after 30,000 frozen years

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Scientists in Russia have grown plants from fruit stored away in permafrost by squirrels over 30,000 years ago.

The fruit was found in the banks of the Kolmya River in Siberia, a top site for people looking for mammoth bones.

The Institute of Cell Biophysics team raised plants of Silene stenophylla - of the campion family - from the fruit.

Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they note this is the oldest plant material by far to have been brought to life.

Prior to this, the record lay with date palm seeds stored for 2,000 years at Masada in Israel.

The leader of the research team, Professor David Gilichinsky, died a few days before his paper was published.

In it, he and his colleagues describe finding about 70 squirrel hibernation burrows in the river bank.

"All burrows were found at depths of 20-40m from the present day surface and located in layers containing bones of large mammals such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, deer, and other representatives of fauna from the age of mammoths, as well as plant remains," they write.

"The presence of vertical ice wedges demonstrates that it has been continuously frozen and never thawed.

"Accordingly, the fossil burrows and their content have never been defrosted since burial and simultaneous freezing."

The squirrels appear to have stashed their store in the coldest part of their burrow, which subsequently froze permanently, presumably due to a cooling of the local climate.

Sugar sweet

Back in the lab, near Moscow, the team's attempts to germinate mature seeds failed.

Eventually they found success using elements of the fruit itself, which they refer to as "placental tissue" and propagated in laboratory dishes.

"This is by far the most extraordinary example of extreme longevity for material from higher plants," commented Robin Probert, head of conservation and technology at the UK's Millennium Seed Bank.

"I'm not surprised that it's been possible to find living material as old as this, and this is exactly where we would go looking, in permafrost and these fossilised rodent burrows with their caches of seeds.

"But it is a surprise to me that they're finding viable material from this placental tissue rather than mature seeds."

The Russian team's theory is that the tissue cells are full of sucrose that would have formed food for the growing plants.

Sugars are preservatives; they are even being researched as a way of keeping vaccines fresh in the hot climates of Africa without the need for refrigeration.

So it may be that the sugar-rich cells were able to survive in a potentially viable state for so long.

Silene stenophylla still grows on the Siberian tundra; and when the researchers compared modern-day plants against their resurrected cousins, they found subtle differences in the shape of petals and the sex of flowers, for reasons that are not evident.

The scientists suggest in their PNAS paper that research of this kind can help in studies of evolution, and shed light on environmental conditions in past millennia.

But perhaps the most enticing suggestion is that it might be possible, using the same techniques, to raise plants that are now extinct - provided that Arctic ground squirrels or some other creatures secreted away the fruit and seeds.

"We'd predict that seeds would stay viable for thousands, possibly tens of thousands of years - I don't think anyone would expect hundreds of thousands of years," said Dr Probert.

"[So] there is an opportunity to resurrect flowering plants that have gone extinct in the same way that we talk about bringing mammoths back to life, the Jurassic Park kind of idea."

From the BBC:

MPs warn over electro-magnetic pulse threat

The government must take seriously the threat of a major electro-magnetic pulse event, MPs are warning.

Sudden fluctuations in the magnetic field caused by weather in space or nuclear attack, could wipe out electricity and GPS, used by the military and financial markets.

A Defence Select Committee report said the government appeared "somewhat complacent" about the risks.

It called for a clearer picture of who has responsibility in such an event.

The report insisted such threats should be the included under the National Security Council and civil contingency planners, with standards of protection developed for industries most in danger.

Defence alone could not protect against the threat, it said.

The consequences of electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) events needed to be addressed specifically: generic civil contingency plans to deal with blackouts and electronic shutdown were "not sufficient", it added.

Currently a severe space weather event would most likely be considered an "emergency" under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and require help from the armed forces.

Conservative committee chairman James Arbuthnot said: "The reactive posture described by the government appears somewhat complacent.

This, the report said, meant there was scope for countries to assist one and other, but also that there was no guaranteed safe place from where help could come.

Mr Arbuthnot added: "It is time that the government began to approach this matter with the seriousness it deserves."

The report also warned that the effects of a nuclear weapon exploding hundreds of miles above the Earth's surface - known as a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse device - would be so serious that only the government could mitigate it.

"We are concerned that the government does not regard EMP from a nuclear blast as currently being a high risk and so we urge that more vigorous action should be taken to prepare for such an attack," Mr Arbuthnot said.

"Similarly, an urgent reassessment should be made of the risk from non-nuclear EMP attack on vital national facilities."

The report also urged the Ministry of Defence to plan for the loss or degradation of satellite-based communications systems in case they are damaged by severe space weather.

From the BBC:

4G TV interference: Up to a million homes 'need filters'

Almost a million UK homes will need to have filters installed to prevent TV interference from 4G mobile signals - at a cost of £108m.

A smaller number of homes - about 10,000 - will need to switch to satellite or cable TV services in order to avoid degraded picture quality.

Homes that cannot receive these alternative platforms will receive up to £10,000 each to "find a solution".

Costs will be met by the winner of a spectrum auction later this year.

Consultations are currently being held into how spectrum - which is used by analogue television - will be offered to mobile operators once airwaves are freed up by the switch to digital.

These airwaves are crucial to mobile operators to create next-generation mobile services.

The winning bidder, or bidders, will be required to pay for the costs of making sure viewers of digital terrestrial television (DTT) will not be affected by the changes.

Unwanted noise

In a consultation document released in August last year, media regulator Ofcom estimated that about 760,000 homes could be affected.

However, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) told the BBC that further research had suggested that number was likely to be closer to 900,000.

Homes falling within a certain range of transmitter towers will automatically have a filter issued, while a helpline will be set up to deal with interference cases outside of the predicted areas.

The filter, which is fitted to a digital TV box, blocks out unwanted noise from the 4G signal.

It can be fitted without the help of an engineer - but over-75s and disabled people will be given assistance if needed.

The DCMS said that in a very small number of homes, the filters would not be sufficient. A platform change - to satellite or cable - will be required, the cost of which will also be covered by the mobile operator.

It is estimated that about 10,000 homes may need to take this measure.

It is also predicted that about 500 homes affected by interference will be unable to receive satellite or cable services.

In these cases, expected to be in rural areas, up to £10,000 per household will be provided to fund alternative solutions to receiving television - such as having fibre cabling installed.

The DCMS said it predicted that small groups of affected houses would be able to pool their funding in order to pay for bigger investments like additional relay transmitters.

'Disruptive'

Without the preventative measures, television picture would become unclear and fragmented, warned Saverio Romeo, an industry analyst from Frost & Sullivan.

"The LTE [Long Term Evolution] spectrum, particularly on 800Mhz, overlaps part of the DTT spectrum," he said.

"The closer you are to a base station, the more disruptive the interference."

He said that in addition to the £10,000 fund for the severely disrupted homes, education should be provided in order to help people understand what options were available.

"If you give £10,000 to a lady in Cumbria and say: 'You need to fix it' - I don't think it's enough.

"You need to help people understand new technologies. It's not enough to give subsidies."

A spokesman for the DCMS said added advice would be given to those receiving the financial help.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said adoption of 4G would provide a boost to the UK's digital economy.

"Next-generation mobile services are essential for economic growth. They will bring an estimated benefit of £2-3bn to the UK economy.

"There will be some interference when 4G services are rolled out but we will have the solutions in place to eliminate the disruption to television viewers."

From the BBC:

Faster-than-light neutrinos could be down to bad wiring

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

What might have been the biggest physics story of the past century may instead be down to a faulty connection.

In September 2011, the Opera experiment reported it had seen particles called neutrinos evidently travelling faster than the speed of light.

The team has now found two problems that may have affected their test in opposing ways: one in its timing gear and one in an optical fibre connection.

More tests from May will determine just how they affect measured speeds.

The Opera collaboration (an acronym for Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Racking Apparatus) was initially started to study the tiny particles as they travelled through 730km of rock between a particle accelerator at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Switzerland and the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy.

Its goal was to quantify how often the neutrinos change from one type to another on the journey.

But during the course of the experiments the team found that the neutrinos showed up 60 billionths of a second faster than light would have done over the same distance - a result that runs counter to a century's worth of theoretical and experimental physics.

The team submitted the surprising result to the scientific community in an effort to confirm or refute it, and several other experiments around the world are currently working to replicate the result.

A repeat of the experiment by the Opera team will now address whether the issues they have found affect the ultimate neutrino speed they measure.

The two problems the team has identified would have opposing effects on the apparent speed.

This is used to provide start and stop times for the measurement as well as precise distance information.

That problem would increase the measured time of the neutrinos' flight, in turn reducing the surprising faster-than-light effect.

But the team also said they found a problem in the optical fibre connection between the GPS signal and the experiment's main clock.

In contrast, the team said that effect would increase the neutrinos' apparent speed.

The team had carried out their measurements for more than three years, exhaustively scrutinising their methods and analysis before announcing the results last year - so why had they not found these issues before?

"That's a good question," said University of Oxford particle physicist Alfons Weber, who is also involved in Minos, the US effort to repeat the neutrino speed measurements.

"Even though you try to check everything, it can always happen that you have overlooked some detail in your analysis," he told BBC News.

Given that the opposing effects only seem to muddy the waters further on whether neutrinos can exceed the "universal speed limit", only more experiments will put the matter to rest.

For its part, the Opera team said in a statement: "While continuing our investigations, in order to unambiguously quantify the effect on the observed result, the collaboration is looking forward to performing a new measurement of the neutrino velocity as soon as a new bunched beam will be available in 2012."

Facilities also at Gran Sasso called Borexino and Icarus will also take part, along with Minos, based at Fermilab in the US, and a Japanese facility called T2K.

With so much at stake, Dr Weber said, these international efforts will go ahead no matter what.

"I can say that Minos will quite definitely go ahead," he said "We've already installed most of the equipment we need to make an accurate measurement.

"Even if Opera now publish that 'yes, everything is fine', we still want to make sure that we come up with a consistent, independent measurement, and I assume that the other experiments will go forward with this as well."

From the BBC:

Male Y chromosome extinction theory challenged

By Neil Bowdler Science and health reporter, BBC News

Men may not become extinct after all, according to a new study.

Previous research has suggested the Y sex chromosome, which only men carry, is decaying genetically so fast that it will be extinct in five million years' time.

A gene within the chromosome is the switch which leads to testes development and the secretion of male hormones.

But a new US study in Nature suggests the genetic decay has all but ended.

Professor Jennifer Graves of Australian National University has previously suggested the Y chromosome may become extinct in as little as five million years' time, based on the rate at which genes are disappearing from the chromosome.

Genetics professor Brian Sykes predicted the demise of the Y chromosome, and of men, in as little as 100,000 years in his 2003 book Adam's Curse: A Future without Men.

The predictions were based on comparisons between the human X and Y sex chromosomes. While these chromosomes were once thought to be identical far back in the early history of mammals, the Y chromosome now has about 78 genes, compared with about 800 in the X chromosome.

Jennifer Hughes and colleagues at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have sought to determine whether rumours of the Y chromosome's demise have been exaggerated.

In a previous Nature paper in 2005, they compared the human Y chromosome with that of the chimpanzee, whose lineage diverged from that of humans about six million years ago.

They have now sequenced the Y chromosome of the rhesus monkey, which is separated from humans by 25 million years of evolution.

The conclusion from these comparative studies is that genetic decay has in recent history been minimal, with the human chromosome having lost no further genes in the last six million years, and only one in the last 25 million years.

"The Y is not going anywhere and gene loss has probably come to a halt," Ms Hughes told BBC News. "We can't rule out the possibility it could happen another time, but the genes which are left on the Y are here to stay.

"They apparently serve some critical function which we don't know much about yet, but the genes are being preserved pretty well by natural selection."

X-Y crossing

Most humans cells contain 23 sets of chromosomes, including one pair of sex chromosomes. In women, this sex pair consist of two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y chromosome. It is a gene within the Y chromosome which triggers the development in the embryo of male testes and the secretion of male hormones.

Genetic deterioration of the Y chromosome has occurred because unlike with the two X chromosomes in women, there is very little swapping of genetic material between the Y and X chromosome during reproduction. This means mutations and deletions in the Y chromosome are preserved between (male) generations.

"The X is fine because in females it gets to recombine with the other X but the Y never gets to recombine over almost its entire length, and shutting down that recombination has left the Y vulnerable to all these degenerative forces," said Dr Hughes, "which is why we're left with the Y we have today."

Commenting on the paper, Professor Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading and author of Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind, said that while there might be some squabbling in academic circles over the timings of the events, the paper told us there was a future for males in the very long term.

"It's a very nice piece of work, showing that gene loss in the male-specific region of the Y chromosome proceeds rapidly at first - exponentially in fact - but then reaches a point at which purifying selection brings this process to a halt."

From the BBC:

Edinburgh honour for Higgs boson particle professor

Renowned physicist Peter Higgs has been honoured by the city which he has called home for half a century.

Professor Higgs, 82, emeritus professor of Physics at Edinburgh University, was given the Edinburgh Award 2011 at the City Chambers.

Edinburgh's Lord Provost presented him with an engraved Loving Cup, a traditional two handled drinking vessel which represents friendship.

The Higgs boson particle is named after Prof Higgs.

Prof Higgs is the fifth person to be honoured with the special award which recognises an outstanding contribution to the city.

Adopted home

The scientist, who was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, follows in the footsteps of writers Ian Rankin and JK Rowling, cyclist Sir Chris Hoy and judo expert George Kerr who have previously received the accolade.

Prof Higgs said: "It is a great honour to receive this award from the city that I fell in love with and is now my adopted home."

His work in the 1960s proposed the existence of a particle which came to be known as the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle.

It is an important component of the Standard Model of particle physics that helps explain how objects have mass.

The award comes following the announcement in December 2011 from scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Switzerland that two independent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider had seen "tantalising hints" of the existence of the Higgs boson.

Speaking to BBC Scotland ahead of receiving the award, Prof Higgs was modest about his achievements.

He said: "This is something I've lived with for a really long time. It's now nearly 48 years since I did this work in 1964.

"It was another 12 years before John Ellis at Cern suggested experimentalists started taking an interest, in what I had actually pointed out in an added paragraph to a paper, which, in its first version, had been rejected."

A sculpture of Prof Higgs' handprints was also unveiled in the City Chambers quadrangle. They have been engraved in Caithness stone alongside those of the previous Edinburgh Award recipients.

Edinburgh's Lord Provost George Grubb, said: "I am delighted to present Professor Peter Higgs with the Edinburgh Award on behalf of the people of Edinburgh.

"His proposal of what has now become known as the Higgs boson has not only significantly advanced our knowledge of particle physics, culminating in the Standard Model, but has also given him a huge international reputation.

"Prof Higgs' work with the University of Edinburgh has put this city on an international stage and as such he is undoubtedly a most deserved winner of one of Edinburgh's most prestigious civic awards."

Dr Alan Walker, who worked with Prof Higgs at Edinburgh University, said it was a "very proud day" for both the university and the city.

He said: "We are very proud to have been colleagues of Peter for many years.

"This award is richly deserved, not only for the work that has led to worldwide acclaim, but for his inspiration of students, many of whom have gone on to do great things."

From the BBC:

Click here to see this article with an artist's impresssion of the penguins

Big NZ fossil penguin reconstructed

A large extinct penguin has been reconstructed from fossil remains discovered in New Zealand.

Researchers used bones from two separate examples of the ancient birds, using the skeleton of a modern king penguin as a guide.

They show the 25 million-year-old Kairuku penguin was tall at 1.2m (4ft 2in), with an elongated beak and large flippers.

The team's work appears in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The reconstruction shows that the Kairuku penguin was easily the largest of the five species that were common to New Zealand during the Oligocene time period.

The efforts were partly inspired by the bird's unusual body shape, which is different from any other known penguin, living or extinct.

"Kairuku was an elegant bird by penguin standards, with a slender body and long flippers, but short, thick legs and feet," said co-author Dr Dan Ksepka, from North Carolina State University, US.

"If we had done a reconstruction by extrapolating from the length of its flippers, it would have stood over 6ft tall. In reality, Kairuku was around 4ft 2in tall or so."

Twenty-five million years ago, New Zealand was an attractive location for penguins because it offered both food and safety.

Most of the present day country was underwater at that time, leaving isolated, rocky land masses that protected the penguins from potential predators and provided them with a plentiful food supply."

The name Kairuku comes from a Maori word that loosely translates to "diver who returns with food".

Bigger penguins have been discovered: at least two extinct species discovered in Peru stood about 5ft (1.5m) tall.

From the BBC:

The Raspberry Pi £22 computer goes on general sale

A credit-card sized computer designed to help teach children to code goes on general sale for the first time today.

The Raspberry Pi is a bare-bones, low-cost computer created by volunteers mostly drawn from academia and the UK tech industry.

Sold uncased without keyboard or monitor, the Pi has drawn interest from educators and enthusiasts.

Supporters hope the machines could help reverse a lack of programming skills in the UK.

"It has been six years in the making; the number of things that had to go right for this to happen is enormous. I couldn't be more pleased," said Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

School tools

The device's launch comes as the Department for Education mulls changes to the teaching of computing in schools with the aim of placing greater emphasis on skills like programming.

In a speech outlining those changes Michael Gove mentioned the Pi, suggesting devices like it could play an important role in the kind of computer class the government envisages:

"Initiatives like the Raspberry Pi scheme will give children the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of programming." he said.

"This is a great example of the cutting edge of education technology happening right here in the UK. "

Initially the £22 model of the Pi, which includes wifi, will be offered for sale. A cheaper £16 version will go on sale later in the year.

Supporters hope the thousands-strong community of people that has grown up around the Pi will help develop additional software and suggest uses for the device.

The Pi going on general sale is likely to add to the buzz around the machine, however, there are already a number of similar stripped-down computers on the market.

These include devices such as the Beagleboard and the Omnima MiniEMBWiFi.

Bottle-necks banished

The Raspberry Pi Foundation say they have already produced thousands of the machines using a Chinese manufacturer.

They had originally hoped to produce the devices in the UK - "we want to help bootstrap the UK electronics industry" they wrote in a blog post - but that turned out not to be possible at the right price.

But while production remains overseas, deals with two distributors, Element 14 and RS Components, mean that production volumes will be able to grow much faster than previously thought.

Rather than the foundation having to fund production, distributors have agreed to handle orders and deal with manufacturers paying the foundation a royalty on sales.

Mr Upton says that will help the project grow much more quickly then previously thought:

"We didn't realise how successful this was going to be," he said.

"This means we can scale to volume. Now we can concentrate on teaching people to programme."

From the BBC:

Click here to see this article with pictures - the first one looks extraordinary

Triceratops and Torosaurus dinosaurs 'two species, not one'

By Neil Bowdler Science and health reporter, BBC News

A study has rejected claims that Triceratops and the lesser-known Torosaurus are one and the same type of dinosaur.

Research published in 2010 suggested the two-horned animals represented merely different growth stages, with Torosaurus the adult and Triceratops the youngster.

But researchers at Yale University say the fossils do not support the theory.

Details are published in the journal Plos One.

Nicholas Longrich and Daniel Field, of Yale University, looked at 35 specimens ascribed to both species and concluded they represented two distinct creatures.

"We looked at a bunch of changes in the skulls as the animals age and used a programme to arrange the skulls from youngest to oldest," explained Dr Longrich to BBC News.

"What we found is there are young Torosaurus individuals and very old Triceratops individuals and that's inconsistent with Torosaurus being an adult Triceratops."

Skulls attributed to the Torosaurus boast a longer frill with large holes while Triceratops has a smaller solid frill.

Dr Longrich argues that if these were the same animal, they would also expect to find transitional specimens in which the skull is morphing between the two skull types.

"We reviewed the evidence and there was no evidence for anything between Torosaurus and Triceratops. There are dozens and dozens of skulls and I think if those transitional forms really existed we would have found them."

Where the researchers say they could not find conclusive evidence for two species was the geographical distribution of the fossil evidence.

Fossils attributed to both species are found exclusively in North America, and although there are some sites where only one proposed genus has been found, the evidence could also be consistent with the single-species theory.

Responding to the paper, John Scannella of Montana Sate University, who co-authored the 2010 paper proposing a single species, said he was unconvinced.

"Nothing in the Longrich and Field paper falsifies the synonymy of Triceratops and Torosaurus," he told BBC News.

"Triceratops and Torosaurus overlap geographically and stratigraphically; Torosaurus are more mature than other Triceratops, as has been demonstrated multiple times by examination of the bone microstructure; and there are numerous intermediate specimens which demonstrate the transition from the solid frill of Triceratops to the expanded, fenestrated (holed) condition observed in Torosaurus."

Mr Scannella also pointed to his 2011 paper in which he described what he views as a transitional Triceratops held by the Smithsonian in Washington.

"It has a small hole in its frill where Torosaurus has a larger hole, but Longrich and Field suggest that it is simply pathological. There are many other transitional specimens, several of which have been collected in recent years by the Museum of the Rockies."

Michael Pittman of the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London, said: "In the four-legged herbivorous dinosaurs like Triceratops, the skeleton changes as the animal grows; this happens in most tetrapods including in humans. So it's important that these growth-related changes are taken into account."

"The study shows how the skulls of this group of dinosaurs probably grew, and appears to falsify the hypothesis that Torosaurus is an adult Triceratops.

"The methods used in the study have broader value for helping to reconstruct growth series in other dinosaurs, which could potentially help to test similar hypotheses in other dinosaur groups."

Prof Paul Sereno, a palaeontologist at the University of Chicago, said the single-species theory "never sat well in my mind" and said palaeontology sometimes goes too far in eliminating creatures "that deserve their status as separate species".

"Besides Torosaurus not fitting neatly into a geriatric Triceratops hypothesis, the authors also remind us of other features involving the ornamental frill bones and shape of the fenestrae (frill holes) that differ in Torosaurus when compared to similar frill bones and depressions in Triceratops."

From the BBC:

'Twisted' waves could boost capacity of wi-fi and TV

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A striking demonstration of a means to boost the information-carrying capacity of radio waves has taken place across the lagoon in Venice, Italy.

The technique exploits what is called the "orbital angular momentum" of the waves - imparting them with a "twist".

Varying this twist permits many data streams to fit in the frequency spread currently used for just one.

The approach, described in the New Journal of Physics, could be applied to radio, wi-fi, and television.

The parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that are used for all three are split up in roughly the same way, with a spread of frequencies allotted to each channel. Each one contains a certain, limited amount of information-carrying capacity: its bandwidth.

As telecommunications have proliferated through the years, the spectrum has become incredibly crowded, with little room left for new means of signal transmission, or for existing means to expand their bandwidths.

But Bo Thide of Swedish Institute of Space Physics and a team of colleagues in Italy hope to change that by exploiting an entirely new physical mechanism to fit more capacity onto the same bandwidth.

Galilean connection

The key lies in the distinction between the orbital and spin angular momentum of electromagnetic waves.

A perfect analogy is the Earth-Sun system. The Earth spins on its axis, manifesting spin angular momentum; at the same time orbits the Sun, manifesting orbital angular momentum.

The "particles" of light known as photons can carry both types; the spin angular momentum of photons is better known through the idea of polarisation, which some sunglasses and 3-D glasses exploit.

Just as the "signals" for the left and right eye in 3-D glasses can be encoded on light with two different polarisations, extra signals can be set up with different amounts of orbital angular momentum.

Prof Thide and his colleagues have been thinking about the idea for many years; last year, they published an article in Nature Physics showing that spinning black holes could produce such "twisted" light.

But the implications for exploiting the effect closer to home prompted the team to carry out their experiment in Venice, sending a signal 442m from San Giorgio island to the Palazzo Ducale in St Mark's square.

"It's exactly the same place that Galileo first demonstrated his telescope to the authorities in Venice, 400 years ago," Prof Thide told BBC News.

"They were not convinced at all; they could see the moons of Jupiter but they said, 'They must be inside the telescope, it can't possibly be like that.'

"To some extent we have felt the same (disbelief from the community), so we said, 'Let's do it, let's demonstrate it for the public.'"

Marconi style

In the simplest case, putting a twist on the waves is as simple as putting a twist into the dish that sends the signal. The team split one side of a standard satellite-type dish and separated the two resulting edges.

In this way, different points around the circumference of the beam have a different amount of "head start" relative to other points - if one could freeze and visualise the beam, it would look like a corkscrew.

In a highly publicised event in 2011, the team used a normal antenna and their modified antenna to send waves of 2.4 GHz - a band used by wi-fi - to send two audio signals within the bandwidth normally required by one. They repeated the experiment later with two television signals.

Crowds were treated to projections beamed onto the Palazzo Ducale explaining the experiment, and then a display of the message "signal received" when the experiment worked.

Prof Thide said that the public display - "in the style of (radio inventor) Guglielmo Marconi... involving ordinary people in the experiment", as the authors put it - was just putting into practice what he had believed since first publishing the idea in a 2007 Physical Review Letters article.

"For me it was obvious this would work," he said. "Maxwell's equations that govern electromagnetic fields are... the most well tested laws of physics that we have.

"We did this because other people wanted us to demonstrate it."

Prof Thide and his colleagues are already in discussions with industry to develop a system that can transmit many more than two bands of different orbital angular momentum.

The results could radically change just how much information and speed can be squeezed out of the crowded electromagnetic spectrum, applied to radio and television as well as wi-fi and perhaps even mobile phones.

From the BBC:

Hackers had 'full functional control' of Nasa computers

Hackers gained "full functional control" of key Nasa computers in 2011, the agency's inspector general has told US lawmakers.

Paul K Martin said hackers took over Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) computers and "compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users".

He said the attack, involving Chinese IP addresses, was under investigation.

In a statement, Nasa said it had "made significant progress to protect the agency's IT systems".

Mr Martin's testimony on Nasa's cybersecurity was submitted to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.

State of security

In the document, he outlined how investigators believed the attack had involved "Chinese-based internet protocol [IP] addresses".

He said that the attackers had "full system access" and would have been able to "modify, copy, or delete sensitive files" or "upload hacking tools to steal user credentials and compromise other Nasa systems".

Mr Martin outlined how the agency suffered "5,408 computer security incidents" between 2010 and 2011.

He also noted that "between April 2009 and April 2011, Nasa reported the loss or theft of 48 Agency mobile computing devices".

In one incident an unencrypted notebook computer was lost containing details of the algorithms - the mathematical models - used to control the International Space Station.

Nasa told the BBC that "at no point in time have operations of the International Space Station been in jeopardy due to a data breach".

Mixed motives

Mr Martin said Nasa was a "target-rich environment for cyber attacks".

He said that the motivation of the hackers ranged from "individuals testing their skill to break into Nasa systems, to well-organized criminal enterprises hacking for profit, to intrusions that may have been sponsored by foreign intelligence services".

But while Mr Martin criticised aspects of Nasa's cybersecurity he noted investigations had resulted in "arrests and convictions of foreign nationals in China, Great Britain, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, Romania, Turkey, and Estonia".

Nasa said it was working to implement the security improvements Mr Martin suggested in his testimony.

However the chairman of the congressional subcommittee, Rep Paul Broun, quoted in an online report of proceedings, said: "Despite this progress, the threat to Nasa's information security is persistent, and ever changing. Unless Nasa is able to constantly adapt - their data, systems, and operations will continue to be endangered."

From the BBC:

Click here to see this article with a music clip and photo.

Spider silk spun into violin strings

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A Japanese researcher has used thousands of strands of spider silk to spin a set of violin strings.

The strings are said to have a "soft and profound timbre" relative to traditional gut or steel strings.

That may arise from the way the strings are twisted, resulting in a "packing structure" that leaves practically no space between any of the strands.

The strings will be described in a forthcoming edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Shigeyoshi Osaki of Japan's Nara Medical University has been interested in the mechanical properties of spider silk for a number of years.

In particular, he has studied the "dragline" silk that spiders dangle from, quantifying its strength in a 2007 paper in Polymer Journal.

Dr Osaki has perfected methods of obtaining large quantities of this dragline silk from captive-bred spiders and has now turned his attention to the applications of the remarkable material.

"Bowed string instruments such as the violin have been the subject of many scientific studies," he writes.

"However, not all of the details have been clarified, as most players have been interested in the violin body rather than the properties of the bow or strings."

Dr Osaki used 300 female Nephila maculata spiders - one of the species of "golden orb-weavers" renowned for their complex webs - to provide the dragline silk.

He then set about measuring their tensile strength - a critical factor for violinists wishing to avoid breaking a string in the midst of a concerto.

The spider-silk strings withstood less tension before breaking than a traditional but rarely used gut string, but more than an aluminium-coated, nylon-core string.

A closer study using an electron microscope showed that, while the strings themselves were perfectly round, in cross-section the strands had been compressed into a range of different shapes that all fit snugly together, leaving no space between them.

Dr Osaki suggests that it is this feature of the strings that lends them their strength and, crucially, their unique tone.

"Several professional violinists reported that spider strings... generated a preferable timbre, being able to create a new music," he wrote.

"The violin strings are a novel practical use for spider silk as a kind of high value-added product, and offer a distinctive type of timbre for both violin players and music lovers worldwide."

From the BBC:

Global march of banana fungus revealed

By Anna-Louise Taylor Reporter, Nature News

A banana and plantain fungus which has spread across the world originated in South East Asia, new research has found.

Black leaf streak disease (Mycosphaerella fijiensis) affects leaf photosynthesis, and causes premature ripening.

It also delays harvests and can affect banana quality, size and numbers.

A Molecular Ecology Journal study found "an original and unprecedented global scenario of invasion".

It is the most important and destructive banana disease in the world, says one of the authors, Stephanie Robert.

"It starts with small flecks and spreads to the whole banana leaves - the disease can totally destroy the whole banana plant," she says.

Using genetic markers, the team were able to map the streaks on 735 banana leaves from 37 different countries and identify genetic similarities.

"The historical hypothesis was that it came from South East Asia," Ms Robert says.

While the fungus was first recorded in Fiji in 1963, it was initially thought that the centre of origin could have been Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands.

However, the study found the whole of South East Asia could be the centre of diversity - encompassing at least Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

It says the area is home to a diverse array of wild banana and plantain species and defines "the area of banana and plantain domestication that began several thousand years ago".

But the exact point of origin of the host plant could not be pinpointed without further comparison between wild and domesticated banana plants.

Ms Robert says fungal spores cannot travel more than a few metres and are very sensitive to UV rays, but when travelling on the wind spores can be dispersed up to several hundred kilometres.

So this does not explain how the disease has travelled so far around the world, she says.

"I don't think the disease would have spread so far without human contribution.

"It's very difficult to understand exactly how the disease is dispersed - it's currently proceeding through the Caribbean and has just invaded Martinique," she says.

Originally it was thought that the fungus travelled through Africa after just a few introductions, but the research suggests it was spread through a single source near the South China Sea.

In the Americas, the fungus is thought to have been derived from mingling between genetically different sources in South East Asia and Oceania, through multiple introductions in the same place, or at different times and places.

The pathogen was first identified in Honduras in 1972 but would have been present in the 60s, it is thought.

Ms Robert says she hopes the study will help the banana industry reduce fungicide use and develop better control strategies.

"It's very important for the creation of pathogen-resistant varieties in a sustainable way because the pathogen does adapt," she says.

The study calls for more precise investigation into the disease.

And to go with this a recording of the song fron 1923, one of the oldest recordings of this made:

From the BBC:

Click here to see this article with video clip

Robotic cheetah 'breaks speed record for legged robots'

A headless robot dubbed "Cheetah" has set a new world speed record, according to its owners.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said the four-legged machine achieved 18mph (29km/h) on a laboratory treadmill.

The agency said the previous land speed record by a legged robot was 13.1mph.

Darpa said that the project was part of efforts to develop robots designed to "more effectively assist war fighters across a greater range of missions".

Darpa - which is run by the Pentagon - funded the Massachusetts robotics company Boston Dynamics to build the machine.

"We plan to get off the treadmill and into the field as soon as possible," said the firm's chief robotics scientist, Alfred Rizzi, in a statement.

"We really want to understand what is possible for fast-moving robots."

Animal designs

The robot's movements have been modelled on those of fast-running animals in the wild. The machine is designed to flex and un-flex its back to increase the length of its stride.

The current version is dependent on an off-board hydraulic pump, requiring one of the researchers to hold the tubing out of its way. However, the researchers said a free-running prototype was planned for later this year.

The four-year project, which was commissioned in February 2011, ultimately aims to deliver a robot which can "zigzag to chase and evade", and be able to come to an abrupt halt.

It builds on other models based on animals created by Boston Dynamics including its BigDog rough-terrain robot, designed to recycle energy from one step to the next, and its lizard-like Rise, which can climb walls, trees and fences by using micro-claws on its six feet and a tail for balance.

Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield said the latest achievement was very impressive.

"With faster than human speed, this is a step in the development of a high speed killer that could negotiate a battlefield quickly to hunt and kill," he said.

"The biggest concern about this is that no artificial intelligence system can distinguish between civilians and enemy combatants, and so if this was operating on its own it would fall foul of the laws of war."

From the BBC:

Fears of disruption as big solar storm set to hit Earth

A strong solar storm is expected to hit Earth shortly, and experts warn it could disrupt power grids, satellite navigation and plane routes.

The storm - the largest in five years - will unleash a torrent of charged particles between 06:00 GMT and 10:00 GMT, US weather specialists say.

They say it was triggered by a pair of massive solar flares earlier this week.

It means there is a good chance of seeing the northern lights at lower latitudes, if the skies are clear.

The effects will be most intense in polar regions, and aircraft may be advised to change their routings to avoid these areas.

In the UK, the best chance to see them will be on Thursday night, the British Geological Survey says.

Complex network

"It's hitting us right in the nose," said Joseph Kunches, an expert at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).

He described the storm as the Sun's version of Super Tuesday - in a reference to the US Republican primaries and caucuses in 10 states.

"Space weather has gotten very interesting over the past 24 hours," Mr Kunches added.

The charged particles are expected to hit Earth at 4,000,000 mph (6,400,000 km/h), and Noaa predicts the storm will last until Friday morning.

Images of the Sun's region where the flares happened show a complex network of sunspots indicating a large amount of stored magnetic energy.

Other solar magnetic storms have been observed in recent decades.

One huge solar flare in 1972 cut off long-distance telephone communication in the US state of Illinois.

From the BBC:

Antihydrogen undergoes its first-ever measurement

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The antimatter version of the hydrogen atom - antihydrogen - could soon finally give up its secrets.

Scientists expect that antihydrogen will have exactly the same properties as hydrogen; but after 80 years, the test is only just becoming possible.

A report in Nature has shown the first "spectra" of trapped antihydrogen, showing the energy required to change the spins of its positrons.

Further experiments will show whether it is in fact just like hydrogen.

Every particle has an antiparticle, which is identical in every respect except that it has opposite charge. The negatively charged electron has the positron, and the proton has the antiproton.

Together, an antiproton and a positron form the simplest anti-atom, antihydrogen.

Once the anti-atom is formed, it must be kept apart from normal matter. When a particle and its antiparticle meet, they destroy each other, turning into energy in a process called annihilation.

That gets to the heart of the biggest mystery about antimatter. When the Universe formed, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have formed; but if that were the case, they should have annihilated each other since.

Recent research suggests there is a subtle difference in the way that antimatter works; and the scientists behind the new research believe their work can help probe what it is.

Magnetic moments

The feat of trapping an antihydrogen atom was first accomplished at the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (Alpha) experiment at Cern, the European physics facility on the Franco-Swiss border that is also home to the Large Hadron Collider.

In 2010, the Alpha team reported in Nature that they trapped 38 of the atoms for a fraction of a second; and in 2011 they reported in Nature Physics that they had accomplished the trick for over 1,000 seconds.

Having perfected their methods, the team has now moved on to begin analysing the anti-atoms.

"That's been the goal of our programme from the beginning," explained Jeffrey Hangst, a scientist on Alpha.

"More than 20 years of research led up to this, to see if atoms of antimatter are the same as atoms of matter, and now it's finally possible to do that," he told BBC News.

The trick was to make use of the "magnetic moment" of the anti-atoms - the property that means they can behave somewhat like tiny bar magnets.

By applying pulses of microwave energy, the team were able to make the magnets "flip", in a process not unlike what happens to atoms in the body during an MRI scan.

"When that happens, it goes from being trapped like a marble in a bowl to being repelled, like a marble on top of a hill," Dr Hangst explained.

"It wants to 'roll away', and when it does that, it encounters some matter and annihilates, and we detect the fact that it disappears."

The measurement gives the team a precise measure of how much energy it takes to accomplish that flip, but that is just the first step in what will become a longer programme of probing antihydrogen with laser light.

That will show a fuller picture of the energy levels within antihydrogen.

For now, the Alpha team - whose research was recently featured in the CernPeople project - is satisfied with having made the first measurement on an anti-atom.

"I don't know what the public will make of it, but for us this is the biggest thing we've ever done," Dr Hangst said.

From the BBC:

Venus and Jupiter to pass in the night sky

Despite being vastly far from one another in space, the conjunction will make them appear just a few degrees apart in the sky - about the width of a pair of fingers held at arm's length.

The pair can be seen to the west-southwest, shortly after sunset.

Venus is the brighter of the two, and Jupiter will appear to move in a line past it for the rest of the month.

The Slooh network of telescopes will be broadcasting the conjunction live on the web from 02:30 GMT on Monday morning.

This is an active period for planet-watchers. Last Monday, Mars made its closest approach to Earth in more than two years.

But the spectacle is not over. February saw the Moon join the celestial dance with the planetary pair; it will return in late March, appearing to head up and past the descending Jupiter and then Venus.

The most anticipated planetary event for 2012 will be the transit of Venus in early June, when it will appear from some locations on Earth to pass in front of the Sun.

From the BBC:

Arm's latest processors aim to stretch internet's reach

By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Arm Holdings has unveiled what it describes as the "world's most energy-efficient microprocessor" design.

The Cortex -M0+ architecture is designed to provide chip-makers with the means to build microcontrollers that require "ultra low power" but are capable of 32-bit processing.

Arm says it paves the way for "the internet of things" - the spread of the net to a wider range of devices.

Two firms have already licensed the technology from the British firm.

They are NXP Semiconductors and Freescale.

"It opens up all devices to the potential of being connected all the time," Freescale's Geoff Lees told the BBC.

"It's allowing us to provide connectivity everywhere. So anything from consumer appliances, MP3-music audio docks, kitchen equipment with displays right through to remote sensors in rain monitoring equipment or personal medical devices - an area where ultra-low battery life allied to high performance and safety is becoming more and more important."

Smarter energy appliances

Arm says it went back to the drawing board to create the new processor cores - dubbed Flycatcher - which measure 1mm by 1mm in size.

It says the microcontrollers should draw around a third less energy than their predecessors, which only offered 8 and 16-bit capabilities.

It adds that its design has been created to be a low leakage part - meaning it consumes almost no power when it is in sleep mode. The firm says that means devices can offer wireless connectivity when paired with modern bluetooth or radio equipment, offering years of life from a single battery-pack rather than months.

Arm's director of embedded marketing Gary Atkinson says it could herald a new generation of smart energy systems.

"Every developed nation country has a graph showing electricity demand is going to outstrip supply at some point in the next 20 years unless we do something different," he said.

"What we need to do is something called design response - where all the devices on the network can make a decision as to whether or not to come on in order to smooth out peaks and troughs in electricity demand.

"So you should add connectivity to things like fridges, washing machines, freezers and dishwashers. If the wider electricity network is being very heavily used and if the element in your dishwasher could go off for two or three minutes to alleviate that - well then that would make a big difference."

US Competition

Arm says it expects the microcontrollers will sell for around 13-20 pence per device - and it will charge its clients about a 1-2% royalty fee from that price on top of a licence charge.

Although the sums may appear small, the firm notes that Ericsson recently forecast there would be 50 billion connected devices by 2020 compared to 10-15 billion at present.

Arm says much of that growth will come from types of equipment that are not connected to the net at present - presenting the firm and its customers with a huge growth opportunity.

However the Cambridge-based company does not have the market to itself.

Arizona-headquartered Microchip Technology designs and builds a rival range of 32-bit "Pic" microcontroller, while California-based Atmel offers 32-bit "Avr" products.

From the BBC:

Voters prefer candidates with a deeper voice, says study

By Daniel Boettcher Science correspondent, BBC News

Voters in elections are more likely to pick candidates with a deeper voice, a new study has suggested.

Researchers at two US universities made recordings of both male and female speakers and then altered the pitch of their subjects' voices.

In the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, listeners "voted" more frequently for the "candidate" with the lower voice.

Researchers now want to test their findings in a real political situation.

Previous research has found that the pitch of a human voice can strongly influence how people are perceived.

This study looked at how it may affect the way we choose leaders.

Seventeen women and 10 men were recorded saying the phrase: "I urge you to vote for me this November."

Vocal coach

Each of the recordings was then modified electronically, changing the pitch to create pairs - one higher and one lower than the original. Both were then played to the "voters" taking part in the study.

Researchers found that those listening to the recordings were more likely to vote for the candidate with the deeper voice regardless of whether the speaker was male or female.

One of the authors, Casey Klofstad from the Department of Political Science at the University if Miami said "Candidates already know about this and they have been using vocal coaches to enhance their electability and what we have done is proven the folk wisdom that the structure of the human voice matters and actually shown that scientifically."

A different study published last November also found a preference for lower voices. Rather than playing recordings of hypothetical candidates it used archive material of former US presidents.

Researchers say there is a chance that in the earlier work participants might have recognised the voices or based their choices on political preferences.

They believe this latest work also goes further because for the first time it used both male and female voices.

Rindy Anderson who worked on the research at Duke University in North Carolina said: "It's clear that our voices carry more information than the words we speak. Knowing this can help us understand the factors that influence our social interactions and possibly why there are fewer women elected to high-level political positions."

In another part of the study, researchers found that women with lower voices were perceived to be stronger, more trustworthy and competent.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had vocal coaching to lower the pitch of her voice

Prof Sophie Scott, a specialist in human communications at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, told the BBC that both men and women deliberately choose to speak with particular pitches.

"What we're showing with our voices is what we consider to be an appropriate way of speaking and to show things about ourselves that we want other people to like about us or know about us.

"You can't treat the voice as some passive thing reflecting back very simplistic information about people."

The researchers behind this latest work now want to move beyond hypothetical elections in a laboratory and to test what they have found in real elections.

From the BBC:

Project Barcelona to see BBC open archive for downloads

BBC director general Mark Thompson has announced proposals allowing viewers to permanently download copies of their favourite shows from the archives.

Mr Thompson said the plan - named Project Barcelona - would enable the purchase of programmes to own for a "relatively modest" fee.

He added that the digital archive would stay open for good, and shows would remain available to licence fee payers.

The plans will be put before the BBC Trust later this year.

'Digital shop'

Mr Thompson, who was speaking at the Royal Television Society (RTS) in London, said that the UK's producers would also need to give their support to the project.

He said that the BBC intended to open up a "digital shop" for programme downloads, but that other existing providers would also be able to buy the content.

Mr Thompson added that more and more programmes from the archive would be added to the service.

He described the scheme as the "digital equivalent" of people buying a DVD of their favourite programme for a permanent collection. Many of the programmes would not have previously been available to own.

The BBC's boss also said that the project would provide a source of income to support independent programme production in the UK, and denied it was a "second licence fee by stealth".

Media commentator Steve Hewlett said: "Other broadcasters could be concerned about the service's impact.

"When it launched, iPlayer was extremely disruptive to emerging paid-for content models because it was free at the point of use. People will be asking whether Project Barcelona will have a similar effect on the market."

Mr Hewlett added: "The BBC's archive programmes - like Fawlty Towers and Doctor Who - already represent a significant commercial revenue stream in the form of DVDs and downloads on services like iTunes.

"If it is going to open up the broader archive, then it would naturally expect people to pay for access."

Project Barcelona is viewed as another part of a strategy to give access to the BBC's programmes, which the corporation has been pursuing for the past decade.

It follows on from the iPlayer and YouView - a free-to-air, web-based service joining the BBC with other providers including Channel 4 and ITV.

From the BBC:

Laser 'unprinter' wipes photocopied ink from paper

A process to "unphotocopy" toner ink from paper has been developed by engineers at the University of Cambridge.

The process involves using short laser pulses to erase words and images by heating the printed material to the point that they vaporise.

The researchers say it works with commonly used papers and toner inks and is more eco-friendly than recycling.

However, they add that more research is needed to bring a product to market.

"When you fire the laser, it hits the thin toner layer and heats it up until the point that you vaporise it," the team's lead author, David Leal-Ayala told the BBC.

"Toner is mostly composed of carbon and a plastic polymer. It's the polymer in the toner that is vaporised."

In their study, published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society A journal and reported by New Scientist, the engineers acknowledge that they are not the first to have thought of the idea.

But they say that others who have tried to solve the problem have found that they damaged and/or discoloured the paper in the process, or required specially formulated toner.

Toshiba already markets a laser printer which can erase ink, but notes that the machine is dependent on its own "e-blue" ink to function.

Green pulses

Mr Leal-Ayala and his colleagues tested a range of ultraviolet, infra-red and visible lasers at different speeds.

They eventually found that the best setting was green laser pulses, lasting just four billionths of a second in duration, which removed all but a hint of the print.

A gas extraction system was used to capture nanoparticles and "mostly harmless" gases produced by the process.

Replacing recycling

Having demonstrated the technique in a lab setting, the engineers now plan to develop a prototype device suitable for an office.

They estimate that it could be built for about £19,000 at the present time.

They concede that most businesses would still find recycled paper a more cost-effective solution, but add that the price should fall if it went into production thanks to economies of scale.

"When you recycle paper you use a lot of resources," Mr Leal-Ayala said.

"You use electricity, water and chemicals, and to be honest when you print something the only reason that you don't re-use the paper is because there is print on it.

"The paper is still in good condition and there is no point in going through all the heavy industrial process if the paper is still perfectly fine."

From the BBC:

Hibernating bears' wounds heal without scars

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature

Black bears have a surprising capacity to heal as they hibernate, say researchers in the US.

Medical researchers and zoologists worked together to find that the bears' wounds healed with almost no scarring, and were infection-free.

The scientists hope, eventually, to find out exactly how the bears' bodies heal while their body temperature, heart rate and metabolism are reduced.

This could aid studies of human wound-healing.

The findings, published in the journal Integrative Zoology, are of particular relevance to medical researchers hoping to improve slow-healing and infection-prone wounds in elderly, malnourished or diabetic patients.

This study part of a project by scientsts from the universities of Minnesota, Wyoming and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who have tracked 1,000 black bears, in order to monitor their health and behaviour, for 25 years.

Whilst tracking the bears - using radio collars - the researchers noticed some early evidence of their surprising healing abilities.

They wrote in their paper: "We identified a few animals each year with injuries resulting from gunshots or arrows from hunters; bite marks from other bears or predators...

"These wounds were considered to have been incurred some time before the bears denned, and were often infected or inflamed... in early winter.

"Yet typically, when we revisited bears in their dens a few months later, most wounds had completely resolved whether or not we [cleaned them], sutured the areas or administered antibiotics."

To test the bear's healing abilities experimentally, the team carefully tracked the healing progess of small cuts on the skin of 14 of their radio-collared bears in northern Minnesota.

Between November (when the bears first settled down in their dens) and March (about a month before they emerged) the wounds healed with "minimal evidence of scarring".

Added to this, there were no signs of infection, the layers of damaged skin regrew and many of the bears even grew hair from newly formed follicles on the site of their injuries.

One of the researchers, Prof David Garshelis from the University of Minnesota, told BBC Nature: "It seems so surprising to us that their wounds would heal so well and so completely when they're hibernating and their metabolism is slowed down.

But, he added, the animals had many other "remarkable adaptations to hibernation".

"They sit in the den for six months and don't lose any appreciable muscle or bone mass, so I guess this healing is another adaptation," Prof Garshelis said.

During its winter hibernation, a black bear's core body temperature is reduced by as much as 7C and their heart rate lowers dramatically. In humans, a lowered body temperature, or conditions that hamper circulation can seriously complicate wound-healing.

For this reason, the team hope to find out the mechanism behind the bears' remarkable healing abilities.

He told BBC Nature: "We consider this to have implcations for medical research.

"If we can work out how the bears heal, we hope there'll be potential to translate this research to [studies of] human healing."

This could be especially important for the development of treatments for skin wounds in malnourished, hypothermic, diabetic and elderly patients.

On the news this morning one item was about James Cameron about to venture into the depths of the Mariana Trench which is the deepest place on Earth.

The BBC has a long article about this with photos of his submersible and two videos of his preparations. It's not possible to embed the videos here, so I'll will just put a link to the article for anyone interested.

Link to the article

He is intending to film his experiences in 3D for eventual release in cinemas. This is easily the most dangerous film he has worked on and there is a real risk that he won't survive. I wish him well.

He has had a long term interest in underwater explorations as evidenced by his film The Abyss.

From the BBC:

Free mobile apps 'drain battery faster'

Free mobile apps which use third-party services to display advertising consume considerably more battery life, a new study suggests.

Researchers used a special tool to monitor energy use by several apps on Android and Windows Phone handsets.

Findings suggested that in one case 75% of an app's energy consumption was spent on powering advertisements.

Report author Abhinav Pathak said app makers must take energy optimisation more seriously.

Free applications typically have built-in advertisements so developers can make money without having to charge for the initial app download.

Mr Pathak told the BBC that developers should perhaps think twice when utilising third-party advertising and analytics services in their app.

The research, produced by at team at Purdue University in Indiana, USA, looked at popular apps such as Angry Birds and Facebook.

Due to restrictions built into Apple's mobile operating system, the team was unable to run tests on the iPhone.

In the case of Angry Birds, research suggested that only 20% of the total energy consumption was used to actually play the game itself.

Of the rest, 45% is used finding out your location with which it can serve targeted advertising.

'3G tail'

The tests were carried out by running the app over a 3G connection. The results noted that many apps leave connections open for up to 10 seconds after downloading information.

In Angry Birds, that brief period - described by researchers as a "3G tail" - accounted for over a quarter of the app's total energy consumption.

Chris McClelland, director of Belfast-based app developer Ecliptic Labs, said he was not surprised by the findings.

"Advertising needs to connect to the server and send information about location," he explained to the BBC.

"That just takes up so much battery. It seeps up the energy."

He said such practices were largely unavoidable if users wanted to enjoy free, ad-supported games and applications.

However, he said developers should give more consideration to energy consumption when building in new features.

From the BBC:

Mercury poles give up hints of water ice

By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas

A Nasa spacecraft has found further tantalising evidence for the existence of water ice at Mercury's poles.

Though surface temperatures can soar above 400C, some craters at Mercury's poles are permanently in shadow, turning them into so-called cold traps.

Previous work has revealed patches near Mercury's poles that strongly reflect radar - a characteristic of ice.

Now, the Messenger probe has shown that these "radar-bright" patches line up precisely with the shadowed craters.

Messenger is only the second spacecraft - after Mariner 10 in the 1970s - to have visited the innermost planet. Until Messenger arrived, large swathes of Mercury's surface had never been mapped.

The bright patches were detected by ground-based radio telescopes in the 1990s, but as co-author Dr Nancy Chabot explained, "we've never had the imagery available before to see the surface where these radar-bright features are located."

The researchers superimposed observations of radar bright patches by the Arecibo Observatory on the latest photos of Mercury's poles taken by the MDIS imaging instrument aboard Messenger.

"MDIS images show that all the radar-bright features near Mercury's south pole are located in areas of permanent shadow," said Dr Chabot, from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL).

"Near Mercury's north pole such deposits are also seen only in shadowed regions, results consistent with the water-ice hypothesis."

However, she cautions, this does not constitute proof, and for many craters, icy deposits would need to be covered by a thin layer (10-20cm) of insulating debris in order to remain stable.

Maria Zuber, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who is a co-investigator on the Messenger mission, told BBC News: "The most interesting interpretation of [the radar observations] is that they were due to water ice.

"Sulphur had been proposed, there had also been some suggestion it was roughness - though there was no reason craters at the poles should be rougher than those at low latitudes."

"The new data from Messenger... is strengthening the evidence that there is some sort of volatile there, and water-ice seems quite likely."

She said information from several instruments on Messenger was currently being analysed in order to answer the ice conundrum: "I think this is a question that we can come to a definitive answer on, as opposed to 'we think it may be this'," the MIT researcher explained.

On Wednesday, scientists from the Messenger mission published findings that Mercury had been geologically active for a long period in its history.

Data from the probe shows that impact craters on the planet's surface were distorted by some geological process after they formed.

The findings, reported in Science magazine, challenge long-held views about the closest world to the Sun.

Scientists also presented a new model of Mercury's internal structure, which suggests the planet's huge inner core is encased in a shell of iron sulphide - a situation not seen on any other planet.

Messenger was launched in 2004, and entered orbit around its target in March last year. Nasa recently announced that its mission would be extended until 2013.

From the BBC:

Thousand-year wait for Titan's methane rain

By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas

Places on Saturn's moon Titan see rainfall about once every 1,000 years on average, a new analysis concludes.

Earth and Titan are the only worlds in the Solar System where liquid rains on a solid surface - though on Titan, the rain is methane rather than water.

The calculation is based on findings from the Cassini probe of rainstorms that occurred in 2004 and 2010.

Dr Ralph Lorenz presented details of his work at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas.

Titan is a fascinating, "same but different" analogue of the Earth. Wind and rain sculpt the surface, producing river channels, lakes, dunes and shorelines.

But here, liquid hydrocarbons take the place of water. On Titan, where the surface temperature averages -179C, it rains methane.

"You get centuries between rainshowers; but when they occur, they dump tens of centimetres or even metres of rainfall," Dr Lorenz, from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) in Maryland, told BBC News.

"That's consistent with the deeply incised river channels that we see."

These channels have been observed by both Cassini and the Huygens probe, which plunged through Titan's thick atmosphere in 2005.

Dr Lorenz says the latest results are remarkably close to the theoretical predictions of Titan rainfall he made 12 years ago.

When it rains .....

In 2004 and 2010, at different locations on Titan, the Cassini spacecraft observed a darkening of the moon's surface associated with cloud activity - events that scientists interpret as rain showers.

Dr Elizabeth Turtle, also from JHUAPL, presented an analysis of the Autumn 2010 storms observed at Concordia Regio, near Titan's equator.

"In the wake of this storm, we saw significant changes on the surface... a month later, there was this large darkened swathe that's longer than 2,000km, covering an area of about 500,000 sq km," she explained.

"The simplest interpretation is that this is caused by precipitation wetting the surface - possibly ponding in some areas.

"It's the easiest way to cover [an area this large] in such a short timescale. It's also consistent with the fact that the changes revert over several months afterwards."

Ralph Lorenz's analysis of the rainfall represents a global average; but the seasonal cycle on Titan concentrates rainfall during the polar summer.

Hypothetically, he says, if an observer were to sit somewhere at one of Titan's poles for 96 Earth days (six days on Titan), they would have a 50% chance of being rained on directly, and be able to observe five rainstorms.

This is of particular relevance to the proposed space mission that Dr Lorenz is currently involved with.

The Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would splash down in one of Titan's largest lakes - Ligeia Mare - to spend 96 days analysing its depth and chemistry. It would also gather data on the surrounding environment, including weather patterns.

TiME is one of three finalists competing to be selected as a Nasa Discovery mission - the others are InSight and CHopper. A decision should be made next month.

Meanwhile, Dr Turtle's team has continued to monitor Titan, but has seen very few clouds since the events in 2010. A similar lapse was seen after the storms in 2004, and could be the result of methane in the atmosphere being depleted.

"That may be what happened here; this depleted the atmosphere significantly and it takes a while for it to reset," she said.

"We're anxious to see when we'll see clouds appearing again."

While many aspects of Earth's weather can be seen on Titan, one difference is that the moon is probably too small for the kind of activity that generates cyclones and hurricanes on Earth.

From the BBC:

Hope of a 'pain-free needle' to end injection trauma

By Philippa Roxby Health reporter, BBC News

Who would argue with a pain-free injection?

Nobody loves the thought of a needle piercing their skin, least of all doctors and dentists who have to deal with stressed and anxious patients.

Scientists have been working on this problem for a while, but a young British inventor based in Somerset may have come up with the solution.

Oliver Blackwell's device looks like the typical syringes used in hospitals and doctors' surgeries around the country, with one crucial difference.

On the front is a much smaller needle which injects a tiny amount of local anaesthetic to ease the pain of the larger needle which follows.

It is essentially two injections in one - the first one, virtually pain-free, paving the way for the second one, which is rendered painless.

The first injection is "like a fly landing on your palm", the inventor says.

Blackwell, who is 29 and graduated in industrial design from the University of Plymouth, UK, in 2005, says his pain-free needle could be used in millions of procedures every year and reduce the risk of contamination or confusion because staff will only have to deal with one device.

"At the moment, if they want to use a local anaesthetic they have to use two needles, find keys and go to the medicine cupboard separately and it all takes time and effort," he says.

He involved experts in his design, enrolling the help of two family doctors and a former president of The Royal College of Anaesthetists.

They insisted that it should be easy to use, feel and look familiar and meet the needs of patients and doctors.

Self-vaccination?

Dr Alan McGlennan, lead obstetric anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital in London, said the idea of a pain-free needle had value.

"Nobody likes having injections, but in my line of work it tends to end up with a needle somewhere."

He meets at least one adult every week who is so anxious about needles that their blood pressure rises.

Children aged between three and 12 are also particularly prone to needle phobia, he says.

"But so much of it is perception rather than reality. For many people it's psychological."

Dr McGlennan has sometimes used a local anaesthetic paste on patients' arms which numbs the skin prior to an injection.

This eases the pain, but the needle still has to penetrate the skin.

Perhaps, in the future, there will be a way of avoiding needles altogether.

American scientists have tested a vaccine patch on mice, which cuts out the need for painful needles.

Instead, the patch has hundreds of microscopic needles which dissolve into the skin.

The researchers say that one day it could be used to enable people to vaccinate themselves against flu, for example.

High-speed jet

Several years ago, Japanese scientists claimed they had developed a tiny hypodermic syringe that could be used to give virtually pain-free injections.

This could be very good news for people with conditions like diabetes, who require daily injections of insulin to manage their condition.

A needle-free injecting device is available on prescription in the UK, says charity Diabetes UK.

The insujet insulin administration system is intended for people who are uncomfortable injecting themselves with a needle.

When administered, the insulin passes through a small channel, creating a high speed jet that can penetrate the skin and underlying tissue.

"Combined with a unique automatic injection system, this results in virtually painless insulin administration," the charity's spokesman Richard Evans explains.

Blackwell's device has been through extensive testing but there are still more trials to come before it can be mass-produced.

He has won design awards before and is currently working on a range of different inventions - from agricultural machinery to electrical products and medical devices.

"It is all about gaining an insight. You take simple information on board from the experts and adapt your thinking based on their skills."

Millions of people will be hoping he gets it right.

James Cameron has succeeded in his voyage to the bottom of the sea. More details including interview video clips (not footage shot at the bottom of the sea) can be seen on the BBC website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...environment-17503395

From the BBC:

Gene flaw linked to serious flu risk

Scientists have identified a genetic flaw that may explain why some people get more ill with flu than others.

Writing in Nature, the researchers said the variant of the IFITM3 gene was much more common in people hospitalised for flu than in the general population.

It controls a malformed protein, which makes cells more susceptible to viral infection.

Experts said those with the flaw could be given the flu jab, like other at-risk groups.

Researchers removed the gene from mice. They found that when they developed flu, their symptoms were much worse than those seen in mice with the gene.

Evidence from genetic databases covering thousands of people showed the flawed version of the gene is present in around one in 400 people.

The scientists, who came from the UK and US, then sequenced the IFITM3 genes of 53 patients who were in hospital with flu.

Three were found to have the variant - a rate of one in 20.

The researchers say these findings now need to be replicated in bigger studies. And they add it is probably only part of the genetic jigsaw that determines a person's response to flu.

First clue

Professor Paul Kellam of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who co-led the research, said: "At the moment, if someone is in a more vulnerable group because of co-morbidity [another health problem], they would be offered the flu vaccine.

"This is the idea here."

But he said having this variant would not make any difference to how people were treated.

Prof Kellam added: "Our research is important for people who have this variant as we predict their immune defences could be weakened to some virus infections.

"Ultimately as we learn more about the genetics of susceptibility to viruses, then people can take informed precautions, such as vaccination to prevent infection."

Professor Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London, said: "This new discovery is the first clue from our detailed study of the devastating effects of flu in hospitalised patients.

"It vindicates our conviction that there is something unusual about these patients."

Sir Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "During the recent swine flu pandemic, many people found it remarkable that the same virus could provoke only mild symptoms in most people, while, more rarely, threatening the lives of others.

"This discovery points to a piece of the explanation: genetic variations affect the way in which different people respond to infection.

"This important research adds to a growing scientific understanding that genetic factors affect the course of disease in more than one way. Genetic variations in a virus can increase its virulence, but genetic variations in that virus's host - us - matter greatly as well."

From the BBC:

Avalanche research aids search for tastier ice cream

Avalanche experts are helping to study how ice cream's structure changes when it is stored in a household freezer.

Samples of ice cream have been scanned with an X-ray machine more typically used to study the ice crystals which are key to avalanche formation.

Nestle is hoping to reveal the exact conditions under which ice crystals merge and grow.

When the crystals get big enough they change the texture of ice cream and alter how it feels when it is eaten.

The study of ice crystal formation has been carried out with the help of scientists at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, Switzerland.

The X-ray tomography machine at the institute is one of the few that can take images of tiny structures at sub-zero temperatures.

"Previously, we could not look inside ice cream without destroying the sample in the process," said Nestle food scientist Dr Cedric Dubois.

Via the research, summarised in a paper published in the journal Soft Matter, Nestle hopes to find a way to combat the gradual degradation of taste ice cream often suffers. As with many foods, the structure of ice cream is the key to the way it tastes.

'Chewy feel'

Dr Dubois said the research had revealed that the white frost of ice crystals found on ice cream forms as a result of the temperature changes it undergoes as it is transported, sold and stored.

"Most home freezers are set at -18C, but the temperature doesn't remain constant," said Dr Dubois. "It fluctuates by a couple of degrees in either direction, which causes parts of the ice cream to melt and then freeze again."

Time-lapse images of ice crystals only a few microns across were gathered during the study which cycled samples through a small range of temperature changes.

This showed that as water froze out it formed ice crystals that affected the structure of the ice cream and made it chewy. This could also make the dessert icier, hard to scoop, and less pleasurable to eat.

The study has started to reveal the "life cycle" of the crystals and the conditions which trigger some of them to merge, enlarge and significantly alter the texture of the ice cream.

"We already know the growth of ice crystals in ice cream is triggered by a number of different factors," said Dr Dubois. "If we can identify the main mechanism, we can find better ways to slow it down."

From the BBC:

EU acts to end 'rip off' roaming charges

By July this year mobile firms will be forced to lower the prices of making a call or downloading data abroad.

Under new rules agreed by the European Parliament, consumers will pay no more than 29 cents (24p) per minute to make a call and 70 cents (59p) per megabyte for data downloads across Europe.

Many customers have faced bills for thousands of pounds after falling foul of current high roaming charges.

"Consumers are fed up with being ripped off," said commissioner Neelie Kroes.

The European Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda added: "The new roaming deal gives us a long-term structural solution with lower prices, more choice and a new smart approach for data and internet browsing."

Currently, the limit on what can be charged for making a call is about 30p and sending a text 9p, but there is no cap on what companies can charge per megabyte of data. Under the new rules the cost of sending a text will fall to 7.5p.

Bill shock

By July 2014 customers will also be given the option to shop around for the best deal and sign up for a separate mobile contract using their existing number when going abroad.

They will also have the option to directly select a local mobile network in the country they are visiting.

The new roaming charges will progressively go down and by July 2014 the aim is that roaming consumers will pay no more than 19 cents (15p) to make a call and 20 cents (16p) per megabyte of data. The cost of receiving a call will fall to 5 cents (4p) and sending a text to 6 cents (5p).

For citizens travelling outside the EU, there are plans for better information about roaming charges to avoid "bill shock".

From July this year, people will get a warning text message, email or pop-up window when they are nearing 50 euros (£41) worth of data downloads

The new rules come at a time when users are consuming ever more data on mobiles and tablet devices. As 4G networks offer even faster download speeds, data consumption is expected to rise exponentially.

Some interesting photographs posted on the BBC website of some of Saturn's moons taken from the Cassini spacecraft.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...environment-17550834

An update on a story I posted last year - from the BBC:

Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns

The head of an experiment that appeared to show subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light has resigned from his post.

Prof Antonio Ereditato oversaw results that appeared to challenge Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Reports said some members of his group, called Opera, had wanted him to resign.

Earlier in March, a repeat experiment found that the particles, known as neutrinos, did not exceed light speed.

When the results from the Opera group at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy were first published last year, they shocked the world, threatening to upend a century of physics as well as relativity theory - which holds the speed of light to be the Universe's absolute speed limit.

The experiment involved measuring the time it took for neutrinos to travel the 730km (450 miles) from Cern laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland to the lab in Italy.

Call for caution

Speaking at the time, Professor Ereditato added "words of caution" because of the "potentially great impact on physics" of the result.

"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," he said.

"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't.

"When you don't find anything, then you say 'well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this'."

Despite the call for caution, the results caused controversy within the world of physics.

If the findings had been confirmed, they would have disproved Albert Einstein's 1905 Special Theory of Relativity.

Earlier this month, a test run by a different group at the same Italian laboratory recorded neutrinos travelling at precisely light speed.

Sandro Centro, co-spokesman for the Icarus collaboration, said that he was not surprised by the result.

"In fact I was a little sceptical since the beginning," he told BBC News at the time.

"Now we are 100% sure that the speed of light is the speed of neutrinos."

So far, Professor Ereditato has not commented on his decision to step down from his post.

From the BBC:

10 stories that could be April Fools pranks but aren't

April Fools Day is a time when mischievous fictional news stories suddenly pop up in newspapers and other media. But there are some bizarre ones which, upon investigation, turn out to be true, or seriously intended at least.

Here is a round-up of some of the day's seemingly hoax reports which were actually genuine.

1. The England football team are likely to have their preparations for Euro 2012 severely disrupted by a traditional bugler yards from the team hotel in Krakow. The Hejnal Mariacki bugle call, which lasts 30 seconds and rings out every hour, commemorates the Mongol invasion of 1241.

More details: (Daily Star Sunday)

2. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has given the go-ahead for guns that turn victims into "zombies" by targeting their central nervous system.

More details (Mail on Sunday)

3. A 20-year-old "superhero" who calls himself the Knight Warrior, but was born Roger Hayhurst, is hoping to be the first elected mayor of Salford. He promises to tackle crime.

More details (The Sun on Sunday)

4. Prime Minister David Cameron has contributed a recipe for spicy sausage pasta for the Eton Cookbook, which is to raise money for underprivileged and sick children. Westminster insiders say this is the ninth time he has contributed the same recipe to a charity cookbook.

More details (Sunday Times - subscription only)

5. Children will be made to read fake words like "terg", "fape" and "ulf" in an effort to gauge their reading levels. The bogus words will be mixed with real words in tests to be taken soon.

More details (Mail on Sunday)

6. Scientists at Oxford University are applying for government approval to put the first driverless car on British roads. The modified BAE Wildcat jeep will use cameras and lasers to calculate its location.

More details (Financial Times - subscription only)

7. The mystery of "beer goggles" - the phenomenon by which people find members of the opposite sex more attractive after drinking alcohol - has been solved. Scientists at Roehampton University found the ability to judge whether faces were symmetrical - a key measure of attractiveness - is severely impaired by alcohol.

More details (The Independent)

8. A hiker who was about to be mauled to death by a mountain lion was saved by a bear. Experts are yet to confirm the report from a shaken Bob Biggs.

More details (Daily Star on Sunday)

9. A traditional Palm Sunday donkey parade was cancelled because of health and safety fears. Eastleigh Borough Council in Hampshire received objections from police about traffic management, signage, road safety, risk assessment and insurance.

More details (BBC News)

10. A stuntman is to attempt to fall from 2,400ft on to a pile of cardboard boxes using a "wingsuit". Gary Connery, 42, will hurtle towards the 350ft long and 40ft wide landing strip at 60mph.

More details (Sunday Times - subscription only)