Post to start new page

And on a new page, the creator of the Web calls for free low-band broadband access around the world:

Tim Berners-Lee calls for free data for all humanity

By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News

The inventor of the Web has called for everyone to have access to his creation for free.

Tim Berners-Lee said that he would like to see everybody given a low-bandwidth connection "by default".

He said the web could be instrumental in givng people access to critical services such as healthcare.

Currently, he said, just one-fifth of the world's population has access to the web.

"What about the other 80%?" he asked the audience at the Nokia World conference in London.

"I would like to see people enrolled in a cheap data plan by default. I would like them to get it for free."

Sir Tim said the rise in mobile networks around the world meant there was now an opportunity to connect everyone.

"What about these people who have a signal but are not part of the web, who are not part of the information society?" he said.

"I initially assumed you should get them water first, you should get them healthcare and then it is the luxury of getting the web," he said.

"But it is not actually like that. The web can be pretty instrumental in getting them access to healthcare."

He said that the resulting healthcare would be different to that experienced in western countries but would offer a step change in many regions of the world that had none.

"There is no Aids vaccine, so what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"Getting that message across in their own tongue on the web is something that isn't happening now."

He said access to the web could allow people to "create their own communities and share their own information" about health, agriculture and business.

"Not being a part of the information society is a really important thing."

He said that he even a low-bandwidth connection offered for free via a mobile phone could make a difference.

At the moment, he said, connections were too expensive and were often taxed by governments.

He suggested that network providers could offer the free connections on the basis that people would become more affluent in the future and would then be wiling to pay for more expensive, higher-bandwidth mobile services.

"They will move up when they can," he said.

He admitted that when he first created the web it would have been "hubris" to suggest that everyone had access to it. But, he said, there were now compelling arguments its benefits.

"I would like everyone to think about it," he said.

His comments about the value of universal access to communications and the web echo those of the head of the International Telecommunications Union, the UN body that oversees telecoms.

Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary general of the body, recently told BBC News that access to information should be a "universal human right".

A story from the BBC about a very naughty neighbour. "Please can we have our star back.": "NO!"

Cannibal star gobbles neighbour

A star that may have gobbled up its neighbour - a star or a giant planet - has been found with the help of Nasa's Chandra X-ray observatory.

The find may shed light on the interaction between planets and stars.

Astronomers write in the Astrophysical Journal Letters that BP Piscium, in the constellation of Pisces, is not a very young star as it appears to be.

But it may be a billion-year-old red giant that "ate" its young companion whose remnants are still visible today.

BP Psc is a more evolved version of our Sun, located about 1,000 light years away.

 

Scientists first started studying it some 15 years ago and were puzzled by its unusual look.

Old or young?

With a dusty orbiting disk that usually forms planets around young stars, it did not look like a typical red giant.

But most young stars form in clusters, and BP Psc was isolated, noted the team, led by Joel Kastner of the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York.

"As hard as people have looked, they have not been able to find a young star near BP Psc," said Professor Kastner.

"That was one of several things that made Ben [Zuckerman] and me suspect that it wasn't actually young."

At the same time, the star does not fit the image of a typical "elderly" star, either.

Besides the orbiting disc, there are jets that blast out from BP Psc in opposite directions, mimicking the way young stars get rid of debris from the disc when it falls onto the star's surface.

And to make it even more confusing, just as in the case of older stars, there is very little lithium in BP Psc's atmosphere, and the surface gravity is rather weak.

X-ray evidence

The recent data from the Chandra X-ray observatory also showed that the star was not young.

"The last piece of evidence, which, to me, is the nail in the coffin that BP Psc is old rather than young, is that its rate of X-ray production is very similar to old, yet rapidly spinning, giant stars that have surface temperatures similar to BP Psc," Kastner says.

The astronomer noted that if the star were a young one, it would have been a much stronger X-ray source.

"We stared at BP Psc for one day with Chandra and only detected about 18 X-rays. We could almost name them," he said.

Having considered all the evidence, the team decided that they were witnessing a rare case of "stellar cannibalism".

The scientists believe that sometime after BP Psc started expanding into its "red giant" phase, the late stage of stellar evolution, it "consumed" its unlucky neighbour.

"It appears that BP Psc represents a star-eat-star Universe, or maybe a star-eat-planet one," said Professor Kastner.

"Either way, it just shows it's not always friendly out there."

 

He explained that the giant star's companion has most probably "fallen" inside it and got "digested".

"We've never actually caught one in the act. I think BP Psc is an example of such an interaction.

"Our working speculation is that we are observing the star right at the point at which it has swallowed its companion and hence formed a disc. Some of the material that used to be its companion has fallen on to the star and some has been shot out at high speeds, and that's what we're seeing."

Another scientist working on the study noted that the "cannibal" also showed magnetic activity that might have been generated by a dynamo caused by the star's rapid rotation, caused in turn by the engulfment process.

"It seems that BP Psc has been energised by its meal," said Rodolfo Montez Jr, also from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

New planets

Astronomers believe that what happened to BP Pcs's unfortunate neighbour may at some point happen to our Earth as well.

"BP Psc shows us that stars like our Sun may live quietly for billions of years, but when they go, they just might take a star or planet or two with them," said another co-author, David Rodriguez from University of California, Los Angeles.

Astronomers are now studying the star's dusty orbiting disc in search of new planets that may be forming there.

"In order to understand the extrasolar planets that are now being discovered by the dozen, we need to figure out how planets might be forming and therefore where we should go look for them," said Professor Kastner.

"I think this object is especially interesting because it gives us a good shot at finding young planets around an old star."

Some local news (for me) from my local paper. It won't cause me a problem, but anyone who throwa any envelopes into their bin will be able to be identified, even though this article denies it.

300 homes in Gloucestershire are going to have their rubbish analysed

A BBC story about a very little cow:

Tiny cow from Cheshire among new Guinness World Records

A cow whose tiny stature saved her from the abattoir has entered the record books as the world's smallest.

Swallow, a Dexter cow from Cheshire, stands 33.5in (0.8m) tall from hind to foot - shorter than most sheep.

The 11-year-old, who is currently pregnant, has produced nine calves and is described by owner Caroline Ryder as the "nanny of the herd".

Swallow secured a slot with the tallest dog, longest snake and oldest gorilla in the 2011 Guinness World Records.

The tiny cow was born in Newbury, Berkshire in 1999 and bought by the Ryder family at a rare breed auction in 2006.

'Genetic anomaly'

Brought up in Rishworth, West Yorkshire, her small size means she is used for breeding, explained Mrs Ryder, who recently moved to Crossley Hall Farm, near Congleton.

 

"She was quite small when she was born and she has grown proportionately," she told the BBC.

"She is really sweet - an asset to the herd. For a small cow with short legs she can't half move fast."

The family approached Guinness after noticing a posting on a Dexter cattle forum from someone looking for the smallest cow.

After putting her name forward last year, Guinness confirmed the record a few months ago.

Mrs Ryder's husband, Martyn, said: "I think she is just a genetic anomaly."

Craig Glenday, Guinness World Records editor-in-chief, said the tiny cow was one of his personal favourites among the 3,000 new records.

"It's been a fantastic year for record breaking," he said.

"The animal records are always among the most popular we have in the book."

The updated edition of the book, published on Thursday, also records a host of new British record breakers.

Stephen Parkes, 44, from Nottingham, gains an entry for owning the largest collection of Smurf memorabilia - a total of 1,061 items.

West Midlands resident Stephen Buttler broke the record for the most push-ups with claps in one minute. He completed 73 - or 1.2 push-ups each second.

And the record for the Largest Commercially Available English Breakfast went to Mario's Cafe Bar in Bolton, Greater Manchester.

For £10.95 customers can tuck into six rashers of bacon, six sausages, four eggs, six slices of bread, five black puddings, mushrooms, a can of beans and tomatoes.

But if they manage the meal in under 20 minutes - it is free.

And a BBC story of a scientific look at the cost of falling in love:

Falling in love costs you friends

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Falling in love comes at the cost of losing two close friends, a study says.

We probably all know that a passionate new relationship can leave you little time for others, but now science has put some numbers on the observation.

Oxford University researchers asked people about their inner core of friendships and how this number changed when romance entered the equation.

They found the core, which numbers about five people, dropped by two as a new lover came to dominate daily life.

"People who are in romantic relationships - instead of having the typical five [individuals] on average, they only have four in that circle," explained Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford.

"And bearing in mind that one those is the new person that's come into your life, it means you've had to give up two others."

The research, which has only recently been submitted for publication, was presented to the British Science Festival at Aston University.

Professor Dunbar's group studies social networks and how we manage their size and composition.

He has previously shown that the maximum number of friends it is realistically possible to engage is about 150. On the social networking site Facebook, for example, people will typically have 120-130 friends.

This number can be divided into progressively smaller groups, with an inner clique numbering between four and six.

These are people who we see at least once a week; people we go to at moments of crisis. The next layer out are the people we see about once a month - the "sympathy group". They are all the people who, if they died tomorrow, we would miss and be upset about.

In the latest study, the team questioned 540 participants, aged 18 and over, about their relationships and the strain those relationships came under when a new romantic engagement was started.

The results confirmed the widely held view that love can lead to a smaller support network, with typically one family member and one friend being pushed out to accommodate the new lover.

"The intimacy of a relationship - your emotional engagement with it - correlates very tightly with the frequency of your interactions with those individuals," observed Professor Dunbar.

"If you don't see people, the emotional engagement starts to drop off, and quickly.

"What I suspect happens is that your attention is so wholly focussed on your romantic partner that you just don't get to see the other folks you have a lot to do with, and therefore some of those relationships just start to deteriorate and drop down into the layer below."

Someone I know rang me to tell me of this story from the BBC. If I hear what the result was, I'll post that. The race is from Beverley and Wrangle. The lead pigeon is called Rory.

Carrier pigeon versus broadband in data speed race

Broadband is the most modern of communication means, while carrier pigeons date back to Roman times.

But on 16 September the two will be pitted against each other - and the pigeon is expected to win.

Ten pigeons will be released from a Yorkshire farm at the same time a five-minute video upload is begun.

Campaigners say the stunt is being carried out to illustrate that broadband in some parts of the UK is still "not fit for purpose".

It is not the first time that such a race has taken place. Last year a similar experiment in Durban, South Africa saw Winston the pigeon take two hours to finish a 96km journey. In the same time just 4% of a 4GB file had downloaded.

The pigeons are expected to complete a 120km journey to Skegness in around two hours, but Tref Davies, who is organising the stunt to give publicity to the campaign for better rural broadband, said the broadband connection will take significantly longer to tranfer the 300MB file.

"The farm we are using has a connection of around 100 to 200 Kbps (kilobits per second)," said Mr Davies.

"The kids need to do school work and the farmer has to submit online forms but the connection is not fit for purpose."

Mr Davies who is co-founder of business ISP Timico and serves on the board of ISPA (Internet Service Providers' Association) believes the issue is one that industry and government needs to address.

"This is the UK. It should be well-connected but around a third of homes still can't get broadband," he said.

Speed test

Even among those who can get broadband, rural areas are fighting to get reasonable speeds.

Research commissioned by the BBC last year found that around three million homes in the UK had internet connections of below 2Mbps (megabits per second).

The government has committed to delivering a minimum of 2Mbps to every home by 2015.

However, a recent report by communications watchdog Ofcom found that while these "headline speeds" were on the rise, they are not the relevant measure for broadband customers.

According to the report, "although headline speeds increased by nearly 50% between April 2009 and May 2010, actual speeds delivered increased by just 27%, and averaged just 46% of headline speeds".

Lloyd Felton, founder of the Rural Broadband Partnership, said the effort to draw attention to rural broadband deprivation and low speeds was laudable.

"It's true that there are particular areas of the coutnry that suffer much more than others," Mr Felton told BBC News.

"You've got massive deprivation - this long-quoted 'digital divide'. As we all get more dependent on the internet, that divide gets wider.

"In the end it's who takes ownership and responsibility for coordinating how a parish is going to handle it - what we say is that 'comunities need to help themselves to broadband'."

And the result of the race from the BBC:

Pigeon beats broadband in Lincolnshire

A pigeon has transported a computer memory card between two counties quicker than a rural computer could upload a five minute video to the web.

In a race designed to highlight rural broadband problems campaigners began to upload the video as the bird left East Yorkshire for Lincolnshire.

Rory the pigeon took about 80 minutes to get from Beverley to Wrangle, leaving the computer still running.

Organisers said slow internet connections were affecting rural areas.

The computer used for the experiment was at the farm of Michelle Brumfield, who said internet speeds had a big impact on rural life.

"The issue is so widespread some areas are being called 'notspots' - as in the opposite of hotspots."

They're coming to get us. More from the BBC:

Urgent call on EU to stop billion-euro 'alien invasion'

By Pamela Rutherford Reporter, BBC News

Leading experts on invasive species are demanding Europe-wide legislation be put in place by next year to tackle the threat to native wildlife.

The researchers want urgent action from the EU to protect Europe's indigenous species from these "alien invaders".

Invasive, non-native animals, plants and microorganisms cause at least 12 billion euros of damage in Europe each year.

The scientists are meeting at the Neobiota conference in Copenhagen.

They are demanding Europe-wide legislation to be in place by next year to ensure the threat doesn't worsen.

Invasive species are defined as those that are introduced accidentally or deliberately into a place where they are not normally found.

A European inventory in 2008 found more than 10,000 alien species in Europe, with 1,300 having some kind of impact. This impact was exerted either on the environment, economy or, on human health.

And numbers are on the rise. Research published this year in the journal Science found alien species in Europe have increased by 76% in the last 30 years alone.

Piero Genovesi is chair of the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG), a global network of experts on invasive species. He told BBC News that the figure of 12 billion Euros represents a significant underestimate of the impact of alien species.

Huge cost

"For many species we have no idea what damage they cause or their economic impact. This is just a fraction of the actual cost," he told BBC News.

And he added that this estimate does not include any assesment of the economic value of lost biodiversity caused by non-native species.

Scientists gathered at the conference are calling for urgent action by the European Union to implement laws similar to those that already exist in countries like New Zealand and Australia.

"We're asking the EU to rapidly develop and approve a policy on invasive species, fulfilling the formal commitment agreed by the council of European ministers in June 2009," Mr Genovesi told BBC News.

"This is urgent, we would like this to be in place by next year."

Some species introductions have been intentional. The Ruddy duck was introduced to Europe as an ornamental species. It is one of the worst culprits because of its aggressive courting behaviour and willingness to interbreed with endangered, native duck species.

Mr Genovesi, who is also a senior scientist with the ISPRA (The Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) in Italy hopes new legislation will also help prevent non deliberate introductions of species.

"Legislation on aquaculture, for example, would reduce the risks of accidental escapes from fish farms into the environment, he told BBC News.

Human health

As well as the impact on biodiversity and agriculture some species are also a problem for human health.

The Asian Tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) originally native to areas of South East Asia has, in the last couple of decades, invaded many countries throughout the world because of increasing international travel and transport of goods.

A. albopictus is one of the 100 worst offenders in Europe according to DAISIE (Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe) an inventory of invasive species in Europe.

It is the vector for Chikungunya fever which, in humans, causes a severe illness which affects the joints and can last for years.

Avian invaders

New research in the journal Biological Conservation has shown that many bird species have an impact on agriculture and human health as far reaching, if not worse, than many mammals.

Wolfgang Nentwig, from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Switzerland has just published one of the first detailed studies of the impact of alien birds in Europe.

The Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) was the worst culprit, having the biggest impact on both the environment and economy.

Studies like his and new legislation will, scientists, hope lead to better targeting, eradication and control of non-native, damaging species in Europe.

Something to think about from the BBC:

It's good to think - but not too much, scientists say

By Katie Alcock Science reporter, BBC News

People who think more about whether they are right have more cells in an area of the brain known as the frontal lobes.

UK scientists, writing in Science, looked at how brain size varied depending on how much people thought about decisions.

But a nationwide survey recently found that some people think too much about life.

These people have poorer memories, and they may also be depressed.

Stephen Fleming, a member of the University College London (UCL) team that carried out the research, said: "Imagine you're on a game show such as 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' and you're uncertain of your answer. You can use that knowledge to ask the audience, ask for help."

The London group asked 32 volunteers to make difficult decisions. They had to look at two very similar black and grey pictures and say which one had a lighter spot.

They then had to say just how sure they were of their answer, on a scale of one to six. Although it was hard to tell the difference, the pictures were adjusted to make sure that no-one found the task harder than anyone else.

People who were more sure of their answer had more brain cells in the front-most part of the brain - known as the anterior prefrontal cortex.

This part of the brain has been linked to many brain and mental disorders, including autism. Previous studies have looked at how this area functions while people make real time decisions, but not at differences between individuals.

Illness link

The study is the first to show that there are physical differences between people with regards to how big this area is. These size differences relate to how much they think about their own decisions.

The researchers hope that learning more about these types of differences between people may help those with mental illness.

Co-author Dr Rimona Weil, from UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: "I think it has very important implications for patients with mental ill health who perhaps don't have as much insight into their own disease."

She added that they hope they may be able to improve patients' ability to recognise that they have an illness and to remember to take their medication.

However, thinking a lot about your own thoughts may not be all good.

Cognitive psychologist Dr Tracy Alloway from the University of Stirling, who was not involved in the latest study, said that some people have a tendency to brood too much and this leads to a risk of depression.

More than 1,000 people took part in a nationwide study linking one type of memory - called "working memory" - to mental health.

Working memory involves the ability to remember pieces of information for a short time, but also while you are remembering them, to do something with them.

For example, you might have to keep hold of information about where you saw shapes and colours - and also answer questions on what they looked like. Dr Alloway commented: "I like to describe it as your brain's Post-It note."

Those with poorer working memory, the 10-15% of people who could only remember about two things, were more likely to mull over things and brood too much.

Both groups presented their findings at the British Science Festival, held this year at the University of Aston in Birmingham.

A slighty different article now. This is taken from the recent Discworld Convention in Birmingham and is their blog on the awards ceremony. The reason why I have posted this is that one of my friends won the Best in Show award:

by Jessica Yates

Pat was our compère for the second time, and as we learned, had also done the commentary for the North American Discworld Convention.

After a pep talk punctuated by quacking (a traditional heckle begun in 2008) the show began! To the music of Carl Orff’s O Fortuna the professional judging panel paraded: Terry! Brian! Jacqueline! Bernard!
Then came the maskeraders to strut their stuff. All were distinctive, covered a range of Discworld characters and were enthusiastically applauded. In my humble opinion Glenda Sugarbean advising on make-up for trolls delivered an excellent patter, and another lady presenting the Goddes of Lightning to the music of Night on a Bare mountain had a fabulous costume and speech. The “Going Mental” undercover assassins had a fine concept and so did the unseen university cheerleader.

Part-way through, the performance of “Death of Sheep” added baa-ing to the heckling, but Pat kept his cool! During the interval Pat interviewed the seven candidates for Low King – another unique piece of role-play.


The results:

Special award for Best Surprise: PoohCarrot – as Lu-Tze

Junior award: Bridget Hurtebise – as Concussia, goddess of not paying attention in P.E.

Rookie category award: “No you can’t” - Gill Bowler and Ann Thorold as priest and acolyte of Nuggan

Novice category award: “A girl in wolf’s clothing” – Liz McMichael

Journeyman category award: Brian Date – as Lord Vetinari

Master category award: Richard Artley – as Sir Joshua Lavish

Best in Show award went to Jan Uzzell who performed the Departure Aria “Questa Maladetta” from Maskerade, and Min Lacey as Welter Plinge who held up the captions “This damn door sticks” etc. Jan wore a gigantic looped skirt, sang beautifully and agreed to encore it after her award.

We must also thank Pam Hicks, Maskerade organiser.

Another story from the BBC:

Spread of early flowering plants 'aided by fire'

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

A study has highlighted the importance of wildfires in allowing flowering plants to spread during the Cretaceous period (145-65 million years ago).

Researchers suggested that conditions at the time, like higher temperatures and atmospheric oxygen levels, established "angiosperm fire cycles".

The "small, weedy" plants were able to regenerate after a fire, giving them an advantage over conifers, they said.

The findings have been published on the New Phytologist journal's website.

"The Cretaceous is the period when flowering plants (known as angiosperms) first evolved," explained co-author Andrew Scott from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London.

"It was also a time when there was a large number of fires, partly because there were probably higher atmospheric oxygen levels than there are today."

Research suggested that oxygen made up about 25% or higher during this period, compared with 21% today.

"Angiosperms, particularly weedy angiosperms, can do particularly well in these sorts of circumstances; they can regenerate very fast and take advantage of such a regime," Professor Scott told BBC News.

 

"They can also quickly provide fuel ready to be burnt; this means that they have quite a good competitive advantage over other plants."

He said that many of the early angiosperms were small, herbaceous or shrubby "weedy plants", so when wildfires - especially surface fires - frequently swept through an area, it created a positive feedback cycle.

"It prevented other plants getting into an area - most of the trees at this time were conifers. If you have relatively regular fires then the trees can never grown above the height of the flames.

This meant that gymnosperm plants, such as conifer trees, which had previously dominated the landscape, were unable to regenerate as quickly as the angiosperms and lost the opportunity to shape the surrounding habitat.

"It was rather like the savannahs of today - if you did not have fires in Africa, then you would not have savannahs."

'Novel fire regime'

Explaining the link between the spread of angiosperm plants and fire patterns at the time, Professor Scott said the level of oxygen in the atmosphere played a key role in allowing a "novel fire regime" to become established.

"In the geological past, there have been fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen, in particular if you get below 15%, then you cease to get the spread of fire," he said.

"If you get to 25% and above, you can burn wetter and wetter plants. The impact of this is that as you increase atmospheric oxygen, then you can increase the places where fires can start and how often they occur.

"So you have the coincidence of the evolution of flowering plants, which have an advantage over a number of other plant systems, linked together with a period of increase fire that clears out all competitors.

"This would have allowed angiosperms to really diversify, quicker than they would have done otherwise."

Evidence of the relatively rapid emergence and spread of the flowering plants was found in charcoal deposits that dated back to the Cretaceous period.

"The first charcoalified flower was discovered in the early 1980s," the Royal Holloway professor explained.

"One thing that people often don't realise is that charcoal beautifully preserves the anatomy of plants, so you can not only get charred wood, but charred leaves and flowers too.

"Over the past 30 years, there have been large numbers of deposits found containing charcoalified flowers, so much of our understanding of the early flowering plants comes from these flowers.

"As people found more and more charcoal deposits, they began to realise that fire could have been significant."

He said one of the aims of the paper, which he co-authored with Professor Will Bond of the University of Cape Town, was to point out "that fire had not really been considered as an element in the success of flowering plants during this period".

Professor Scott continued: "We now know that fire had a much more important impact in the Earth system than previously thought - not just in the Earth's atmosphere system, but as we are now suggesting, it also affected biological evolution and diversification."

An autumnal story from the BBC:

High hopes for a colourful autumn

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

Experts are hopeful that trees at the National Arboretum will provide a colourful display this autumn.

The team at Westonbirt has compared 2010 weather and planting conditions with records kept by W J Mitchell, the arboretum's first curator.

They say this year's weather closely matched that of 1929, which Mr Mitchell described as "a year of extremes", but produced autumn colour into November.

Westonbirt's collection of maples is well known for its autumnal show.

Records charting autumn colour trends at the arboretum span a period of more than 80 years ago.

'Bold statement'

W J Mitchell became curator in 1927, and used his logs to often consider the conditions through the year that would result in leaves bursting into a blaze of colour during the autumn months.

Entries for 1936 described the summer as wet and sunless, prompting Mr Mitchell to fear a poor display in that year's latter months, yet he was proved wrong.

"There has never been a better all round colour than this autumn; this is making a very bold statement," he wrote.

"After this summer and autumn I shall modify my opinion."

Spokeswoman Katrina Podlewska said: "At Westonbirt, we always are hopeful of good autumn colour.

"But if we look at the past, and 1929, we did have a cold winter and a late spring - similar to this year. So if we continue to have relatively normal conditions - without masses of heavy rainfall or a very early frost - then we will get a good autumn colour."

Ms Podlewska said that there were already a few signs of autumn's imminent arrival, with some Japanese maples' leaves changing colour.

As well as the maples, she also that there were a number of other species in the arboretum that were known for their autumn colour, such as the Persian ironwood.

"It has a range of colours, including deep plum and deep red," she told BBC News. "On the leaves of the ironwood itself, there are sometimes various different colours."

"So it is not just the maples, although they are the stars of the show."

Simon Toomer, director of the arboretum, which is managed by the Forestry Commission, says Westonbirt staff enjoy the challenge of predicting when autumn will fall and what type of colour the leaves will be.

"Trying to guess the timing and colouring of trees in autumn is something that we... indulge in every year," he said.

"It's good fun, but if I've learnt anything over the years it's that nature is a mysterious thing and even with increased scientific and plant knowledge, we often get it wrong."

The records also showed that Westonbirt experienced a long, cold spell over the winter of 1928-29 but many trees survived.

The Japanese maples were among those to cope with the harsh conditions, and in the autumn of 1929, Mr Mitchell noted their "exceptionally beautiful" salmon pink leaves.

According to the recently transcribed logs, the winter of 1929 was followed by a later spring than usual, as was 2010, yet Mr Mitchell described the season as "one of the most floriferous for trees and shrubs for some years."

He also noted that the cherry tree blossoms were "particularly successful"; which the current staff said was also the case for the trees during this spring, raising hopes of a colourful autumn display.

To accompany the above:



Music is "La Petite Fille de la Mer" by Vangelis

An article from the BBC about pi. But as this has been done in binary, the answer could only be 0 or 1, so the fact that it is 0 is a 1 in 2 chance, so I can't really see why they bothered. And no-one is ever going to be check it, well not in one person's lifetime.

Pi record smashed as team finds two-quadrillionth digit

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A researcher has calculated the 2,000,000,000,000,000th digit of the mathematical constant pi - and a few digits either side of it.

Nicholas Sze, of tech firm Yahoo, said that when pi is expressed in binary, the two quadrillionth digit is 0.

Mr Sze used Yahoo's Hadoop cloud computing technology to more than double the previous record.

It took 23 days on 1,000 of Yahoo's computers - on a standard PC, the calculation would have taken 500 years.

The heart of the calculation made use of an approach called MapReduce originally developed by Google that divides up big problems into smaller sub-problems, combining the answers to solve otherwise intractable mathematical challenges.

At Yahoo, a cluster of 1,000 computers implemented this algorithm to solve an equation that plucks out specific digits of pi.

Pi slicing

The pursuit of longer versions of pi is a long-standing pastime among mathematicians.

But this approach is very different from the full calculation of all of the digits of pi - the record for which was set in January at 2.7 trillion digits.

Instead, each of the Hadoop computers was working on a formula that turns a complicated equation for pi into a small set of mathematical steps, returning just one, specific piece of pi.

"Interestingly, by some algebraic manipulations, (our) formula can compute pi with some bits skipped; in other words, it allows computing specific bits of pi," Mr Sze explained to BBC News.

Fabrice Bellard, who undertook the full calculation announced in January, told BBC News that the single-digit and full pi calculation are vastly different in the degree to which they can be "parallelised" - that is, cut up into manageable pieces among different computers.

He said the current, single-digit record is "more a demonstration of the Hadoop parallelisation framework... it can demonstrate the power of new algorithms which could be useful in other fields".

The record-breaking MapReduce approach, he said, is useful in physics, cryptography and data mining.

Mr Sze added that the calculation was also a good test for the Hadoop hardware and approach.

"This kind of calculation is useful in benchmarking and testing," he said.

"We have used it to compare the [processor] performance among our clusters."

A tale of a new shrew from the BBC:

Camera spots 'new species' of elephant shrew

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News

A mystery animal with a long snout has been spotted in Africa, which scientists say could be a completely new species of giant elephant shrew.

Camera traps set up along the coast of north-eastern Kenya captured pictures of the elusive mammal.

Scientists say the find underlines the conservation significance of isolated African forests, threatened by rapid coastal development.

The animal was first seen by a fellow of the Zoological Society of London.

She was unable to identify the creature, which prompted the ZSL and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to set camera traps in the area.

'Captivating animals'

Scientists say that there is still much to learn about the sengi, an elusive creature only found in Africa.

 

It uses its long, flexible snout to scoop up insects. The animal first appeared in Africa more than 100 million years ago and, despite its common name. is not related to shrews.

But despite being small and furry, it does share a common ancestor with elephants, as well as with sea cows.

Until this latest discovery, there were only 17 known species of sengi, split into two groups: the giant sengi and the smaller, soft-furred sengi.

"With their ancient and often misunderstood ancestry, their monogamous mating strategies, and their charismatic flexible snouts, they are captivating animals," said Galen Rathbun from the California Academy of Sciences.

"It is always exciting to describe a new species - a necessary precursor for ensuring that the animals are protected," she added.

The next step for conservationists is now to confirm that the mammal is indeed a new species of sengi.

This can be done by means of genetic analysis once DNA samples of the tiny creature have been collected.

ZSL senior field conservation biologist Rajan Amin said that besides being an exciting discovery, the finding also highlighted the conservation importance of the "unique coastal forests" of north-eastern Kenya.

His colleague, Sam Andanje from KWS, agreed, adding that previously, the biodiversity of the area was poorly understood because of limited access as a result of security problems and poor infrastructure.

Now the region is also under threat from on-going coastal developments, he added, and the remote forests need more protection than ever.

And to accompany the above:

A real Shangri La for tigers. From the BBC:

A "lost" population of tigers has been filmed living in the Himalayas.



The discovery has stunned experts, as the tigers are living at a higher altitude than any others known and appear to be successfully breeding.
Their presence in the Bhutan highlands has been confirmed by footage taken by a BBC natural history camera crew.
Creating a nature reserve around the tigers could connect up fragmented populations across Asia, preventing the extinction of the world's biggest cat.
Tigers are known to live in the Himalayan foothills of Bhutan, though little is known about them, or how many there are.

The fact they can live here is just so important, for tigers in the wild, for their future BBC wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan

However, leading tiger expert Dr Alan Rabinowitz, formerly of the World Conservation Society and now President of          Panthera, a conservation organisation dedicated to safeguarding big cat species,          suspected that tigers may also be living at higher altitude, following anecdotal reports by villagers suggesting that some were roaming as high as 4000m (13,000ft).
So, together with a BBC film crew, he decided to investigate by journeying to Bhutan to seek proof that such mountain tigers did indeed exist.
Dr Rabinowitz enlisted the help of BBC wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan, who has filmed wild cats worldwide for more than 10 years.
Under Dr Rabinowitz's direction, Mr Buchanan trekked up into the mountains, where he then set a series of camera traps, that would automatically film any creature moving in front.
This is the only place on earth known to have tigers, leopard and snow leopards all sharing the same valley.
It is remarkable to have these three big cats sharing their range.
Most extraordinarily, the cameras took footage of two wild tigers, one male and one female, a discovery that moved Mr Buchanan to tears.

TIGER DISCOVERIES                               Tigers may be more ancient and distinct than we thought, having evolved with snow leopards 3.2 million years ago                    The world's largest cat, the Amur tiger, is down to an effective wild population of fewer than 35 individuals                    Once found across much of Asia, tigers have disappeared from over 90% of their historic range over the past century

The images are the first known footage of tigers in the remote mountains of Bhutan and the first hard evidence that tigers are capable of living at that altitude.



This find was made in close collaboration with Bhutan Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, with help and guidance from forest guard Phup Tshering.



"The fact they can live here is just so important, for tigers in the wild, for their future," said Mr Buchanan, on seeing the footage for the first time.
The large male tiger, sighted at an altitude of 4,100m is recorded scent-marking, confirming that the tiger pair are living within their own territory, and not just passing through.
The female tiger, sighted at the same altitude, can also be seen to be lactating, strongly suggesting the tigers are breeding at that altitude.
Further footage shows tigers living lower at an altitude of 3000m.
The discovery, which is broadcast this week as part of the BBC One programme Lost Land of the Tiger was made by the same BBC team that discovered a new species of giant rat living on the slopes of a remote volcano deep inside the jungle of Papua New Guinea.

Dr Rabinowitz and the BBC team are not revealing the exact location of the tigers, in order to prevent them being found by poachers.
Tigers used to roam across Asia, now only pockets remain. There are estimated to be as few as 3,000 left in the wild, due to poaching and habitat loss.
The discovery of tigers living at altitude in Bhutan could be crucial to one scheme proposed to help save the species from extinction.
Known as a "tiger corridor", the idea is to connect up many of these surviving isolated and fragmented groups.
That would allow individual tigers to move between populations, allowing them to breed more widely, bolstering the genetic diversity of those surviving.
It would also offer some tigers sanctuary from human towns and villages and the increasing pressures they bring.

          The Tiger Corridor Initiative,          promoted by the conservation organisation Panthera, hopes one such major corridor could extend along the foothills of the Himalayas from Nepal into Bhutan and northern India, then through to Myanmar, stretching across 2000km with an area of 120,000 sq km. The ambition would then be to connect it to another corridor spanning Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, terminating in Malaysia.

"The significance of finding tigers living so high in Bhutan is that it means that huge areas of Himalayas, that people didn't think were natural places for tigers to live, can now be included in the tiger corridor," says Jonny Keeling, a BBC producer who helped track and film the big cats.
"Bhutan could act as tiger nursery from which tigers could breed safely and spread out to re-populate forests of some of the surrounding countries."



Lost Land of the Tiger will be broadcast on BBC One at 21.00BST on Tuesday 21st, Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd September.

A scary story from the BBC about seagulls:

Seagulls 'may be spreading superbugs'

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News

Scientists fear migratory birds may be spreading hard-to-treat infections after discovering seagulls can carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Portuguese researchers analysed 57 samples of droppings from the yellow-legged Caspian Gull Larus Cachinnans.

They found that one in 10 harboured bacteria resistant to a common antibiotic called vancomycin.

They told Proteome Science journal the birds probably pick up the infection from eating scraps in human garbage.

The white and grey gulls can often be seen flocking on rubbish tips, and are common in many southern parts of the UK.

The researchers have found similar antibiotic-resistant bacteria in other scavenger animals like wild foxes and wolves.

Fowl finding

For their study, the scientists collected and analysed bird dropping samples from an island off the Portuguese coast.

Lead scientist Gilberto Igrejas, of the University of Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro, explained: "We used a novel technique called proteomics to detect the maximum number of bacterial proteins which are thought to be connected in some, as yet unknown, way to antibiotic resistance."

His team identified several strains of enterococcus bacteria in the samples - some of which were resistant to vancomycin.

Given that these are wild birds and not pets, they will not have encountered these antibiotics directly.

Instead, their exposure has come inadvertently from humans.

And the scientists believe wild migratory birds may be spreading antibiotic resistance from place to place, and to other animals and humans through their droppings.

Dr Igrejas said: "Migrating birds that fly and travel long distances can act as transporters, or as reservoirs, of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and may consequently have a significant epidemiological role in the dissemination of resistance."

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are generally harmless to healthy people but can cause serious infections in the weak and vulnerable. There are usually other antibiotics that can be used to treat the infection.

The concern is that they could pass on their resistance to bacteria that can evade other antibiotics, ultimately leading to infections that would be incredibly difficult to treat.

The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it would study the findings "with interest".

And a BBC story about how plants can deal with radioactivity:

Chernobyl plant life endures radioactivity

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News

Scientists have uncovered mechanisms that allow plants to thrive in highly radioactive environments like Chernobyl.

They analysed seeds from soybean and flax grown near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor which was hit by a series of explosions in 1986.

The study appears in the Environmental Science and Technology journal.

One of the researchers speculates that such mechanisms could trace back millions of years, when early life forms were exposed to higher levels of natural radiation.

'Worst' accident

If a disaster strikes, plants cannot move to better conditions - they either adapt, or die.

When, on 26 April, 1986, a series of explosions ripped through one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the accident was said to be the worst nuclear disaster in human history.

Scores of people died, hundreds became ill with acute radiation sickness.

The entire population of the industrial city of Pripyat that housed the power plant's workforce was evacuated.

Many believed that the area would remain lifeless for generations.

Almost a quarter of a century later, Pripyat remains a ghost town. But despite deserted streets, the soil is not bare - trees and plants have sprung back to life.

Plants 'thriving'

The way Pripyat's ecosystem seemed to shrug off the contamination caught the attention of the scientific world and in 2005, the UN even published a report about the phenomenon.

Then, in 2007, a group of researchers wearing masks, goggles and gloves decided to investigate just how the plants were able to survive.

They went into the restricted area and planted soybean and flax seeds on a highly contaminated field just a few kilometres from the site of the accident, in the environs of Pripyat.

Then they sowed the same kind of seeds on a control field in the decontaminated region near the city of Chernobyl.

One of the researchers, Martin Hajduch from the Slovak Academy of Sciences, told BBC News that even though previous studies had analysed how genes mutated because of radioactivity, his team wanted to do something different.

They wanted to investigate the molecular mechanisms allowing plants to adapt to such a contaminated environment.

To do that, they waited for the plants to grow and produce new seeds and then examined their proteins.

"We decided to apply a... methodology called 'proteomics' that is capable of identifying hundreds of proteins," said Dr Hajduch.

He explained that proteomics was a study of proteins - vital parts of all living organisms. The word "proteome" is actually a blend of "protein" and "genome" and describes the entire complement of proteins produced by an organism's genes.

"Proteins are fingerprints of metabolic activities. And as we're comparing the proteins from seeds harvested from these two fields, we're seeing the same ones in both kinds of seeds."

Historic reasons

He said that even though both soybean and flax adapted equally well to the contaminated environment, they did it in slightly different ways.

"In soybean, we detected the mobilisation of seed storage proteins and processes similar to what we see when plants adapt [to high levels of] heavy metals," he explained.

"In flax it was different. We saw more proteins involved in cell signaling, for instance."

The scientist noted that there were probably historic reasons why it was a lot easier for plants to get used to living in increased levels of radiation.

"It is just unbelievable how quickly this ecosystem has been able to adapt," he said.

"[There must be] some kind of mechanism that plants already have inside them. Radioactivity has always been present here on Earth, from the very early stages of our planet's formation.

"There was a lot more radioactivity on the surface back then than there is now, so probably when life was evolving, these plants came across radioactivity and they probably developed some mechanism that is now in them."

A BBC story about Phobosphobia:

Massive blast 'created Mars moon'

Scientists say they have uncovered firm evidence that Mars's biggest moon, Phobos, is made from rocks blasted off the Martian surface in a catastrophic event.

The origin of Mars's satellites Phobos and Deimos is a long-standing puzzle.

It has been suggested that both moons could be asteroids that formed in the main asteroid belt and were then "captured" by Mars's gravity.

The latest evidence has been presented at a major conference in Rome.

The new work supports other scenarios. Material blasted off Mars's surface by a colliding space rock could have clumped together to form the Phobos moon.

Alternatively, Phobos could have been formed from the remnants of an earlier moon destroyed by Mars's gravitational forces. However, this moon might itself have originated from material thrown into orbit from the Martian surface.

Previous observations of Phobos at visible and near-infrared wavelengths have been interpreted to suggest the possible presence of carbonaceous chondrites, found in meteorites that have crashed to Earth.

This carbon-rich, rocky material, left over from the formation of the Solar System, is thought to originate in asteroids from the so-called "main belt" between Mars and Jupiter.

But, now, data from the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft appear to make the asteroid capture scenario look less likely.

'Poor agreement'

Recent observations as thermal infrared wavelengths using the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) instrument on Mars Express show a poor match between the rocks on Phobos and any class of chondritic meteorite known from Earth.

These would seem to support the "re-accretion" models for the formation of Phobos, in which rocks from the surface of the Red Planet are blasted into Martian orbit to later clump and form Phobos.

"We detected for the first time a type of mineral called phyllosilicates on the surface of Phobos, particularly in the areas northeast of Stickney, its largest impact crater," said co-author Dr Marco Giuranna, from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome.

These phyllosilicate rocks are thought to form in the presence of water, and have been found previously on Mars.

"This is very intriguing as it implies the interaction of silicate materials with liquid water on the parent body prior to incorporation into Phobos," said Dr Giuranna.

"Alternatively, phyllosilicates may have formed in situ, but this would mean that Phobos required sufficient internal heating to enable liquid water to remain stable."

Rocky blocks

Other observations from Phobos appear to match the types of minerals identified on the surface of Mars. Thus, the make-up of Phobos appears more closely related to Mars than to asteroids from the main belt, say the researchers.

In addition, said Pascal Rosenblatt of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, "the asteroid capture scenarios also have difficulties in explaining the current near-circular and near-equatorial orbit of both Martian moons (Phobos and Deimos)".

The researchers also used Mars Express to obtain the most precise measurement yet of Phobos' density.

"This number is significantly lower than the density of meteoritic material associated with asteroids. It implies a sponge-like structure with voids making up 25%-45% in Phobos's interior," said Dr Rosenblatt.

A highly porous asteroid would have probably not survived if captured by Mars. Alternatively, such a highly porous structure on Phobos could have resulted from the re-accretion of rocky blocks in Mars' orbit.

Russia's robotic mission to Phobos, named Phobos-Grunt (grunt means ground , or earth, in Russian) to be launched in 2011, will investigate the moon's composition in more detail.

The study has been submitted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Planetary and Space Science. It was presented at the 2010 European Planetary Science Congress in Rome.

A not so funky gibbon story from the BBC:

Gibbons have become the "forgotten apes" and many species will soon go extinct unless urgent action is taken.

So say primate experts who have made a call to action to save the crested gibbons of southeast Asia, which are the most vulnerable group of all apes.

For example, just 20 Hainan gibbons survive on one island in China, making it the world's rarest ape species.

Experts highlighted the status of the apes at the XXII Congress of the International Primatological Society.

"The crested gibbons are the most threatened group of primates and all species require urgent attention to save them from extinction", says Dr Thomas Geissmann, a world-renowned gibbon expert based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and advisor on the apes to conservation organisation Fauna and Flora International (FFI).

No less important

There are two main groups of apes.

Great apes include gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos.

Although also threatened, these species tend to receive more attention and conservation funding.

Gibbons make up the other group of apes, sometimes being described as "lesser" apes, though experts increasingly prefer to use the less pejorative "smaller" apes.

Gibbons pair-bond as humans do, but unlike great apes.

Of the different types of gibbon, there are seven species of crested gibbon.

All are highly threatened and some are among the world's most endangered mammals.

They are found east of the Mekong River in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and China.

Several species have declined drastically over the past decade due to hunting and habitat loss caused mainly by rapid economic development.

Just two small groups of Hainan gibbons remain, living as two family groups on Hainan Island, China.

The Hainan gibbon's closest relative is the cao vit gibbon, which survives in a patch of forest on the border between Vietnam and China, and numbers not much more than 100 individuals.

Conservation work will be key to their survival, say the primate experts, meeting at the XXII Congress of the International Primatological Society held in Kyoto, Japan.

"Current efforts by FFI appear to be turning round the fortune of the cao vit gibbon at the eleventh hour," said Paul Insua-Cao, FFI China-Indochina Primate Programme Manager.

But gibbon conservation attracts much less funding than that of the great apes such as gorillas and orangutans, a situation that must be urgently remedied if this group of apes is to be saved, say the experts.

A BBC article for my frog mad brother:

'Lost' frogs found after decades

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

A mission aimed at rediscovering amphibian species thought to be extinct has yielded its first results.

Conservationists have turned up live specimens of two West African frogs and a cave-dwelling salamander from Mexico.

The salamander was last seen in 1941, and was rediscovered by abseiling into caves deep in the forest.

The expeditions are partially designed to bring attention to the plight of amphibians around the world, with a third of species at risk of extinction.

"It's pretty extraordinary to think about just how long it has been since these animals were last seen," observed project co-ordinator Robin Moore of Conservation International (CI).

"The last time that the Mexican salamander was seen, Glenn Miller was one of the world's biggest stars.

"The Omaniundu reed frog disappeared the year that Sony sold its first ever Walkman."

The expeditions, formally launched last month, collectively aim to find out whether 100 species thought extinct are in fact still alive.

The West African species - the Omaniundu reed frog (Hyperolius sankuruensis) from Democratic Republic of Congo, last seen in 1979, and the Mount Nimba reed frog (Hyperolius nimbae) from Ivory Coast, unknown since 1967 - are particularly intriguing, as both countries are subject to fairly intensive habitat loss.

As the human footprint expands, many amphibians are being pushed back into marginal areas, such as the Mexican cave system where the cave splayfoot salamander (Chiropterotriton mosaueri) turned up.

There had been no sightings of this salamander since its initial discovery in 1941.

It was thought to need humid caves, and conservationists feared it had been wiped out as the forests dried out after extensive logging.

"These are fantastic finds and could have important implications for people as well as for amphibians," said Dr Moore.

"We don't know whether study of these animals could provide new medicinal compounds - as other amphibians have - and at least one of these animals lives in an area that is important to protect as it provides drinking water to urban areas.

"But these rediscovered animals are the lucky ones - many other species we have been looking for have probably gone for good."

The re-discovery mission is scheduled to produce its final tally before October's summit of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held in Nagoya, Japan.

There, governments will discuss the human factors that are pushing many plant and animal species towards extinction, with amphibians in the vanguard.

This is a link to a BBC article about how the Red Sea may have parted drowning the Egyptians chasing Moses etc in the Bible Story.

I haven't posted the article as it includes a video clip showing a computer simulation of the parting, and it is impossible to show BBC videos on this forum. Just showing the article without the video would be pointless.

From the BBC. Kosmoceratops would look at home in one of Ray Harryhausen's films I reckon:

Fossils of new species of horned dinos found in Utah

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News

Scientists have unearthed two new species of giant plant-eating horned dinosaurs in southern Utah, US.

The creatures lived on the "lost continent" of Laramidia in the Late Cretaceous period, some 68 to 99 million years ago.

Laramidia was formed when a shallow sea flooded part of what is now North America and separated the eastern from the western parts.

The findings were published in the journal PLoS ONE.

The newly found dinos lived in the subtropical swampy environment about 100km from the seaway that split the ancient continent in two.

They were close relatives of the dinosaur Triceratops, and belonged to the family known as ceratopsians. "Ceratops" means "horned face" in Greek.

'Giant rhino'

Although both species had a number of horns on their heads, the bigger one, dubbed Utahceratops gettyi, had a particularly large horn over the nose.

 

Mark Lowen, one of the authors of the study, said that the dinosaur resembled "a giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head".

The second animal was named Kosmoceratops richardsoni and with a total of 15 horns on its head, it is the most ornate-headed dinosaur discovered to date.

Not only did it have a horn over its nose and a horn atop each eye, but also one at the tip of each cheek bone, and ten across the rear margin of the bony frill.

"Kosmoceratops is one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles," said Scott Sampson from the Utah Museum of Natural History, the study's lead author.

The scientist explained that despite a possibly horrendous appearance, it is doubtful that these dinosaurs used their horns in self-defence.

"Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators," said Dr Sampson.

"It's far more likely that they were used to intimidate or do battle with rivals of the same sex, as well as to attract individuals of the opposite sex."

'Lost' land

The dinosaurs were found in the desert landscape of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), in south-central Utah - a vast tract of land Dr Sampson called "one of the country's last great, largely unexplored dinosaur boneyards".

When the Western Interior Seaway, a warm, shallow sea that existed in the Late Cretaceous, flooded what is now North America, the ancient continent got divided into Appalachia and Laramidia.

About the size of Australia, Laramidia was a rather small landmass, made up of what is now the US states of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Alaska, western Texas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The dinosaurs that lived in Laramidia are among the best known to researchers because of the abundant fossil discoveries that have been made originating from this landmass.

Exciting finds

Over the past few months, palaeontologists have discovered a number of different species of horned dinosaurs.

"The new Utah creatures are the icing on the cake, showing anatomy even more bizarre than typically expected for a group of animals known for its weird skulls," said Andrew Farke of the Raymond Alf museum in Claremont, California, another of the paper's authors.

Dr Sampson agreed, adding that now was "an exciting time to be a palaeontologist."

"With many new dinosaurs still discovered each year, we can be quite certain that plenty of surprises still await us [in southern Utah]."

Another one from the BBC:

Cerebral malaria may have passed from gorillas to us

By Katie Alcock Science reporter, BBC News

Humans may have originally caught malaria from gorillas, scientists say.

Until now, it was thought that the human malaria parasite split off from a chimpanzee parasite when humans and chimpanzees last had a common ancestor.

But researchers from the US, three African countries, and Europe have examined malaria parasites in great ape faeces.

They found the DNA from western gorilla parasites was the most similar to human parasites.

Cerebral malaria

Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, and is carried by mosquitoes.

The most common species found in Africa, Plasmodium falciparum, causes dangerous cerebral malaria. Over 800,000 people die from malaria each year in the continent.

Until now, scientists had assumed that when the evolutionary tree of humans split off from that of chimpanzees - around five to seven million years ago - so had Plasmodium falciparum.

This would have meant that humans and malaria co-evolved to live together. But new evidence suggests human malaria is much newer.

Dr Beatrice Hahn of the University of Birmingham, Alabama, in the US, is part of a team that had been studying HIV and related infections in humans and great apes.

DNA analysis

To study the DNA of infections in wild apes, you cannot use blood samples. So the team collected 2,700 samples of faecal material from two species of gorilla - western and eastern - and from common chimpanzees and bonobos, also known as pygmy chimpanzees.

They tried sequencing Plasmodium DNA from the faeces with techniques that use a large sample, and drew a genetic family tree to see which parasites were related. Dr Hahn said "When we did conventional sequencing, the tree didn't make any sense, because each sample contained a mixture of parasites."

They diluted the DNA so that they had just one parasite's genome represented in a single sample, and then amplified the DNA from there. This means they were able to separate the DNA from different species of the parasite much more effectively.

They then found the tree made much more sense. But they also found some surprising results.

The human Plasmodium was not very closely related to chimpanzee Plasmodium, as had been thought - but it was very closely related to one out of three species of gorilla Plasmodium from western gorillas in Central and West Africa.

There was more genetic variety in the gorilla parasites than in human parasites, and Dr Hahn said this means the gorilla is likely to be the "reservoir" - the origin of the human parasite.

"Other studies have just looked at chimps, so didn't find the gorilla parasite," said Dr Hahn. She added that some studies have looked at animals in captivity - so it is possible any parasites have "jumped" from their human keepers.

Cross-infection

The researchers, who report their findings in Nature, are now going to investigate further to see exactly how different the gorilla and human parasites are. Dr Hahn says that it is possible they are even the same species, and that cross-infection between humans and gorillas may be going on now.

Members of the team Dr Martine Peeters and Dr Eric Delaporte of the University of Montpelier in France are working with hunters and loggers in Cameroon, who spend a lot of time in the forests.

They will investigate whether these workers carry malaria parasites from the gorillas, which would suggest that new infections from other species can still happen.

They also do not yet know how badly apes are affected by malaria. Dr Hahn said that the team would now like to find out whether apes are able to catch the malaria parasite, without getting ill or dying in the way that humans do.

A BBC story about an unexplained warming of the oceans in the 1970s:

Oceans divide over 1970s warming

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

The surfaces of the oceans went through a short period of rapid temperature change 40 years ago, scientists have found - but the cause is unknown.

Top layers of Northern Hemisphere water cooled by about 0.3C; the south saw roughly the same degree of warming.

Writing in the journal Nature, the team suggests that air pollution cannot be responsible for the changes, as has been suggested for mid-century cooling.

They do not suggest a cause. It is not clear what could link all the oceans.

However, events called Great Salinity Anomalies have been recorded in the last few decades in the North Atlantic Ocean - including one around 1970.

The 1970s global temperature record shows a period where the Earth's surface cooled in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere saw warming.

It has been suggested that this difference could be accounted for by greater production of aerosols - tiny dust and soot particles - in the north, where the vast majority of the world's industry is found.

Aerosols cool the planet's surface by reflecting solar radiation back into space.

But the suddenness of the changes seen in the new research, led by Dave Thompson from Colorado State Univereity in Fort Collins, US, suggests that the explanation could lie elsewhere, as aerosols would be expected to take effect more gradually.

"The results suggest that something other than aerosols was the primary driver in the differences in temperatures between the two hemispheres in the mid-20th Century," Professor Thompson told BBC News.

"We can't rule them out - they could be of absolutely fundamental importance - the point is the abruptness in the observed difference time series is hard to reconcile with what you'd expect aerosol loadings to do."

Unclear waters

The causes of the Great Salinity Anomalies (GSAs) are not clear; and they may not all have the same cause, or progress in the same pattern.

In the 1970s event, fresh water appears to have entered the North Atlantic and lowered the salinity of water in the region.

In large enough quantities, this freshening can slow the Atlantic portion of the global pattern of currents known as the thermohaline circulation - in popular parlance, "turning off the Gulf Stream", as in the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

The temperature shifts found by Professor Thompson's team may have been fairly fast, taking place over just five years, but they were glacial compared to the speed of Hollywood imagination, which had New York ice-bound within a day.

If the 1970s GSA were the root cause of these rapid changes, there has to be another step in the chain that explains how the effects penetrated to other oceans, because the Northern Pacfiic also cooled.

In addition, later GSAs do not appear to have co-incided with global changes in ocean heat distribution.

Nevertheless, some observers, such as Mark Maslin, director of the Environment Institute at University College London, UK, are convinced.

"This early 1970s cooling, instead of being due to increased sulphate aerosols or decadal cycles in ocean circulation, was probably caused by the rapid freshening of the North Atlantic during the GSA," he said.

"This paper is important in that it shows how sensitive the climate of the Northern Hemisphere is to the salinity balance in the North Atlantic Ocean, providing a stark warning of what may happen in the future with larger releases of freshwater into the North Atlantic."

Old records

The records on which this paper rests come from readings taken on board ships as they traversed the oceans.

As such, the raw data has been around and available for years. So in one sense, it is surprising that the findings have not been brought to light before.

"It's certainly not the first time that people have noticed decadal variability in the sea surface temperatures, but I think the abruptness of the changes has been under-appreciated," said Dave Thompson.

"That's because there's often smoothing done on the data; you may draw out the signal of decadal variability that way, but by smoothing you lose information about more rapid, short-term changes."

Michael Schlesinger from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the scientists who first identified a major ocean temperature cycle on decadal scales - the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation - but he remains uncovinced about the value of the new research.

"I can't get excited about this - it seems like something of a tempest in a teacup," he told BBC News.

"You have a slight cooling in one hemisphere and a slight warming in the other, and you subtract one from the other and find something - but are we going to do this for every bump and jump on the datasets?

"I'm not sure it tells us a lot."

A finding of a lost artwork (from the BBC):

Bruegel painting revealed by restorers in Spain

A previously unknown painting by 16th Century master Pieter Bruegel the Elder has been revealed by picture restorers, the Prado museum in Madrid says.

The painting, The Wine of St Martin's Day, shows about 100 people celebrating the first wine of the season.

Before this find, there were just 40 signed Bruegels in existence.

The museum is now negotiating to buy the painting from its owners at a price of up to 7m euros ($9.4m; £5.9m), said the El Pais newspaper.

However, the painting could fetch up to 25m euros if sold on the private market, the newspaper estimated.

Signature revealed

"The discovery of a Bruegel is an exceptional event and not something that is likely to be repeated," said the Spanish culture minister, Angeles Gonzalez Sinde.

She refused to say how much Spain might be willing to pay for the painting, but indicated she was confident of securing it for the nation.

Bruegel the Elder painted the work between 1565 and 1568. It shows peasant women and children, beggars, thieves and drunks all struggling to get some of the wine from the first barrel of the season.

Painted in tempera on linen, it is one of his biggest known works, measuring 148cm x 270.5cm (4ft 10in x 8ft 10in).

The owners of the painting did not know it could be a Bruegel until they began to try to sell it last year.

The Prado was asked to study the deteriorated work and earlier this month an X-ray revealed fragments of Bruegel the Elder's signature at the bottom of the painting.

The Prado has just one other painting by Bruegel the Elder, entitled The Triumph of Death.

A better image of the above painiting:

More fossils from the BBC:

Rare fossilised flower found, related to sunflowers

A fossilised flower found in Patagonia by an Argentinean team is shedding light on the origins of sunflowers.

The large flower is highly unusual because most plant fossils are just pollen grains.

The fossil is from the Asteraceae family, the relatives of daisies, sunflowers, and dandelions.

Until now, scientists have relied on genetic evidence to work out where this plant family originated.

Finding this very well-preserved flower confirms that the family came from the ancient southern landmass, Gondwana, about 50 million years ago.

The researchers, headed by Dr Viviana Barreda from the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, published their results in Science magazine.

The region that is modern-day Patagonia was at that time sub-tropical, with temperatures around 19C (66F).

Dr Tod Steussy, of the University of Vienna, commented on the finding: "Members of the family are found in every continent except Antarctica," he said, adding that they are now normally found in temperate areas.

This plant family includes not just flowers but lettuces, chicory, and artichokes.

Meet the Flintstones, another fossil story from the BBC:

Neanderthals were able to 'develop their own tools'

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News

Neanderthals were keen on innovation and technology and developed tools all on their own, scientists say.

A new study challenges the view that our close relatives could advance only through contact with Homo sapiens.

The team says climate change was partly responsible for forcing Neanderthals to innovate in order to survive.

The research is set to appear in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory in December.

"Basically, I am rehabilitating Neanderthals," said Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado in Denver, who led the seven-year study.

"They were far more resourceful than we have given them credit for."

Vanished culture

Neanderthals were first discovered in Germany's Neander Valley in 1856.

It is believed that they lived in Europe and parts of Asia. Close examination of the found fossils shows that they shared 99.5-99.9% of modern humans' DNA, which makes them our closest relatives.

They had short, muscular bodies, large brains, prominent facial features and barrel chests.

 

Neanderthals split from our evolutionary line some 500,000 years ago, and disappeared off the face of the Earth about 30,000 years ago.

Since the first discovery, anthropologists have been trying to crack the mystery of the vanished culture, also debating whether or not Neanderthals were evolving on their own or through contact with Homo sapiens.

During the research, Dr Riel-Salvatore and his colleagues examined Neanderthal sites across Italy.

About 42,000 years ago, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were already living in the northern and central parts of the area.

At that time, an entirely new group appeared in the south.

The researchers believe that the southerners were also Neanderthals, of a culture named Uluzzian.

Dr Riel-Salvatore's team was astonished to find quite a few innovations throughout the area, even though the Uluzzians were isolated from Homo sapiens.

They discovered projectile points, ochre, bone tools, ornaments and possible evidence of fishing and small game hunting.

"My conclusion is that if the Uluzzian is a Neanderthal culture, it suggests that contacts with modern humans are not necessary to explain the origin of this new behaviour.

"This stands in contrast to the ideas of the past 50 years that Neanderthals had to be acculturated to [modern] humans to come up with this technology.

"When we show Neanderthals could innovate on their own, it casts them in a new light.

"It 'humanises' them, if you will."

Brothers?

The researchers believe that one reason that forced Neanderthals to innovate was a shift in climate.

When the area where they were living started to become increasingly open and arid, they had no choice but to adapt - or die out.

"The fact that Neanderthals could adapt to new conditions and innovate shows they are culturally similar to us," said Dr Riel-Salvatore.

He added that they were also similar biologically, and should be considered a subspecies of human rather than a different species.

"My research suggests that they were a different kind of human, but humans nonetheless.

"We are more brothers than distant cousins."

Climate changes and the effect on birds. From the BBC:

Climate risks greater for long distance migratory birds

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

Birds embarking on long distance migrations are more vulnerable to shifts in the climate than ones making shorter journeys, a study suggests.

Scientists say the increasingly early arrival of spring at breeding sites in Europe makes it harder for the birds to attract a mate or find food.

The researchers warn that the "increasing ecological mismatch" can lead to a decline in bird populations.

The findings appear in the journal Proceedings B of the Royal Society.

"The study was based on a very large dataset of 117 migratory bird species that migrate from Africa or southern Europe to northern Europe, covering about 50 years," explained co-author Nicola Saino, from the University of Milan.

 

The international team of researchers, from Italy, Germany, Finland and Russia, wanted to see if the spring arrival time of the birds at their breeding sites had changed over the past half century.

To achieve this, they used the birds' average arrival days at a number of bird observatories in northern Europe.

The team then compared this information with the corresponding year's "degree days", which refers to the total of average daily temperatures above a threshold that will trigger natural cycles, such as plants coming into leaf or flower.

"We know that temperatures affect the progress of spring - the higher the temperatures in the first months of the year, the earlier spring arrives," Professor Saino told BBC News.

'Missed opportunities'

Earlier this year, researchers from the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology published a study that suggested that spring was arriving in the UK 11 days earlier than 30 years ago.

Professor Saino and the team found that spring was beginning earlier, which had a consequence for the migratory birds.

"The birds that have not kept track with the changes have declined more in northern Europe."

These were primarily species making long distance migrations from sub-Saharan areas, a diverse set including ducks, swallows and warblers.

"The most likely problem is that there is optimum time in spring for the birds to breed; and by arriving late, the birds are probably missing the best period in which to breed," he said.

"Peaks in food abundance, such as insects, are very narrow in northern latitudes; so if you arrive too late and miss the peak, then you miss the best opportunity to raise your offspring.

He added that this "ecological mismatch" was likely to be the main reason for the decline in the birds' populations.

The data show that the birds are reaching the breeding sites earlier, but not early enough to keep aligned with the advance of spring.

The long-term consequence could be that populations continue to decline, but Professor Saino cautioned that it was a complex issue.

"It also depends a lot on what is happening in the winter," he suggested.

"One of the reasons why they might not be able to keep track of the changes is that they are unable to shift their winter sites northwards.

"Or they may have to shift their wintering sites southwards, which will make their journey longer."

A big cat story from the BBC:

The low roar of a lion, or the miaow of a wildcat, has more to do with where a cat lives than its size.

Scientists analysed the calls of 27 cat species, investigating how they vary in habitats from open sandy deserts to thickly planted jungles.

Cats living in open areas have deeper calls than those in dense habitats, the researchers found.

Previous research suggested a cat's size determined the pitch of its calls, made to find mates or defend territory.

Forest dwelling wildcats call at a higher pitch

Dr Gustav Peters and Dr Marcell Peters at the Alexander Koenig Zoological Research Museum in Bonn, Germany analysed the average frequencies of long-distance calls made by 27 different species of cat.

These included the great or "roaring" cats, such as lions, tigers and jaguars, which are able to roar due to the specialised structure of their throats.

They then looked for any relationships between the cats' calls and their size, and the habitats in which they live.

Cat species that live in more open types of habitat, such as lions, servals and cheetahs, have deeper calls.

Cats living in dense habitats, such as wildcats, clouded leopards and the little known marbled cat, communicate at a higher pitch, the researchers found.

CAT ACTION See an epic cheetah hunt filmed in HD The first footage of the Sundaland clouded leopard, a recently described new species of big cat, was only published this year Watch roaring cats in action

The findings are published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

The results are unexpected.

"Most studies of sound transmission of animal acoustic signals found that lower frequencies prevail in dense habitats," says Dr Peters.

For example, previous research has found that high pitch calls are disrupted by dense vegetation.

Low pitch calls meanwhile are disrupted by air turbulence in open spaces.

But that does not explain why lions roar so deeply, for instance.

Another suggestion is that big cats simply produce sounds at a lower frequency.

That would explain a lion's roar compared to a smaller cat's miaow, but when the researchers took into account the genetic heritage of each species studied, they found body weight has no effect on the dominant frequencies of its call.

SOURCES Visit the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society to learn more about different cat calls

Members of the cat family Felidae occur naturally on all continents except Australia and Antarctica, and with the exception of lions, they live solitary lives.

Due to this isolation, both males and females use long-distance calls to communicate, to attract mates and deter competition.

Knock Knock
Cuckoo
Cook who who
No, I've just told you - Cuckoo, and I'm just about to hatch in your nest.

More from the BBC:

Extra incubation time lets cuckoo chicks pop out early

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News

A cuckoo has a remarkable ability to hold its egg inside it for an extra 24 hours before releasing it into a host bird's nest, researchers have found.

They say this "internal incubation" lets a cuckoo hatch before its nest mates, chuck them out and have the food foster parents bring all to itself.

 

The find may help understand how cuckoos evolved as brood parasites - birds that lay eggs in other nests.

The team published the study in the Royal Society Proceedings B journal.

Many species of cuckoos are brood parasites, relying on other species to bring up their young.

If foster parents do not toss "the intruder" out before it hatches, their own offspring will often end up on the ground, evicted by the squatter.

To be able to survive in the host family, "you have to hatch before the other chicks hatch, that's crucial as that gives you a head start", Tim Birkhead of the University of Sheffield, who led the study, told BBC News.

More developed

Ornithologists have long known about this, as well as about the curious fact that cuckoo embryos in recently laid eggs appear more developed than those in eggs of other species.

Professor Birkhead said there were numerous reports in the literature that dated back to the 18th and 19th centuries about egg collectors, who were stunned to see a lot more advanced embryos while they were blowing cuckoo eggs.

Scientists have tried to resolve the mystery for decades - the idea of internal incubation was first suggested back in 1802.

But it seemed so out of the ordinary that the scientific community ended up ignoring it - until now.

"For a lot of people that seemed extremely unlikely because they didn't think that cuckoos or any other birds could hold on to their eggs once they were ready to be laid," said Professor Birkhead.

"But our results show that that's clearly what happens."

Artificial incubation

To test their idea, the British scientists decided to mimick the natural incubation process.

They took recently laid eggs of a European cuckoo and incubated them for 24 hours at 40 degrees - the bird's body temperature.

They then examined the embryos under a microscope.

"Sure enough, the embryos seemed to be much more advanced than those in the eggs of any other species that we looked at," said Professor Birkhead.

To check whether this was a strategy for giving the chick a head start, the team took eggs of another species - a zebra finch.

The results confirmed the scientists were on the right track.

"When we incubated those zebra finch eggs for an extra 24 hours, mimicking the situation with cuckoo, their embryos were at exactly the same stage as the cuckoo embryo is when it's laid," said the ornithologist.

He explained that though a cuckoo's egg would spend only an extra 24 hours in the female's body, hatching advantage would actually be about 31 hours, as inside the mother the embryo developed much more rapidly than in the nest.

"If they didn't have this internal incubation and the cuckoo chick either hatched after or at the same time as the host chick, it would be much less successful at evicting them from the nest and therefore much less likely to monopolise all the food," added the scientist.

'Pre-disposed'

Professor Birkhead's colleague Nicola Hemmings, also of the University of Sheffield, called the discovery "amazing".

"It certainly changes our perception in terms of how the cuckoos have evolved, to be dumping their eggs in other nests, and it gives us some idea about why they've evolved this parasitic strategy," she told BBC News.

"We know think that the fact that they were laying eggs where embryos were in this more advanced stage of development sort of pre-disposed them for becoming these parasitic birds."

And to accompany the above, a very short clip:

<small>View Larger Map
 
Eerie sat picture of the "Funfair" at Pripyat</small>

A medical story from the BBC:

City life 'boosts bug resistance'

People from traditionally urban areas could be genetically better suited to fighting infection, say researchers.

The University of London team looked at how many people carried a specific gene variant known to give them resistance to TB and leprosy.

It was more common in those from areas with a longer history of urbanisation, where the diseases were more likely to have been rife at one point.

 

They described the discovery as an example of "evolution in action".

The phenomenon, reported in the journal Evolution, is suggested as an example of so-called "selective pressure" in relation to disease resistance.

It happens because, when a population is exposed to a killer illness, the people who are best placed to pass on their genes to the next generation are those whose genetic make-up helps them fight the infection.

In towns and cities, where people intermingle far more closely, the likelihood of being exposed to infectious disease is theoretically higher.

So, over the centuries, the greater the level of historical exposure, the more likely it is that these resistance genes will be spread widely among the population.

Disease resistance

The scientists, from University College London and Royal Holloway, part of the University of London, tested this by analysing DNA samples drawn from 17 different human populations living across Europe, Asia and Africa.

The results were cross checked against historical and archaeological data about the date of the first city or urban settlement in each region.

The protective gene variant was found in nearly everyone from the Middle East to India and in parts of Europe where cities have been established for thousands of years, but were less frequent in regions with a shorter history of urbanisation, such as Africa.

Dr Ian Barnes, one of the authors of the research, said: "This seems to be an elegant example of evolution in action.

"It flags up the importance of a very recent aspect of our evolution as a species, the development of cities as a selective force.

"It could also help explain some of the differences we observe in disease resistance around the world."

There are other examples of selective pressure in disease resistance - it has been suggested that one is the prevalence of the gene defect responsible for the lung disease cystic fibrosis.

Normally, the lethal nature of the condition across history would suggest that people carrying the gene defect were at a distinct evolutionary disadvantage, and their numbers would be fewer.

However, scientists believe that the gene gives carriers an advantage when faced with the cholera toxin - which, in early cities, could have significantly outweighed the disadvantage of some children developing cystic fibrosis.

Overcrowding

Professor Brian Spratt, chair of molecular microbiology at the Imperial College London School of Public Health, said: "Individuals who are more resistant to a pathogen that causes a disease with substantial mortality, such as malaria or TB, will survive better and will contribute more offspring to the next generation. As many of their children will have inherited increased resistance to the pathogen, they also will survive better.

"Thus frequencies of these genetic sequences that provide increased protection to a disease will be far more common in areas where the disease has been killing people for centuries or even millennia than those where the disease has never been endemic.

The same effect should occur for some diseases with populations who have lived for centuries within dense cities because diseases such as cholera and TB will have always been a problem in cities due to overcrowding and poor sanitation, compared to people living nomadic lives."

And another medical story from the BBC. "No, Mr Bond. I expect you to live!":

Painless laser device could spot early signs of disease

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News

Portable devices with painless laser beams could soon replace X-rays as a non-invasive way to diagnose disease.

Researchers say that the technique could become widely available in about five years.

The method, called Raman spectroscopy, could help spot the early signs of breast cancer, tooth decay and osteoporosis.

Scientists believe that the technology would make the diagnosis of illnesses faster, cheaper and more accurate.

Raman spectroscopy is the measurement of the intensity and wavelength of scattered light from molecules.

It is already being used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. For instance, Raman lasers are used to measure flame characteristics. By studying how fuels burn, pollution from the products of combustion can be minimised.

Michael Morris, a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan, US, has been using Raman for the past few years to study human bones.

So far, he has been working on cadavers, but he says that Raman could prove effective in living patients.

 

"You can replace a lot of procedures, a lot of diagnostics that are out there right now. The big advantage is that it's non-invasive, pretty fast - much faster than classical procedures - and more accurate," he told BBC News.

When a person is sick, or about to become sick, the chemical mix in the tissue is quite different from that in healthy tissue, scientists say. So the Raman spectrum changes depending on the tissue it analyses, Professor Morris explained.

"Raman gives you a molecular fingerprint, a composition of whatever it is you're measuring," he said.

"In diseased states, the chemical composition is either slightly abnormal or very markedly abnormal, depending upon the diseases."

Non-invasive

The diagnoses could be carried out in a matter of minutes and without need for an X-ray.

"A patient simply puts his or her wrist on a table and then we have the optical fibres delivering laser light... connected to a holder, a sort of a bracelet made out of silicon, that is strapped to the patient's wrist," explained Professor Morris.

"We turn on the laser and after we've collected enough signal in a few minutes, we turn it off. In principle, it will take a couple of seconds to interpret the results."

Besides bone diseases, the tool could prove effective in detecting early tooth decay, say researchers.

And drawing blood might become unnecessary in some cases. For instance, to determine the levels of cholesterol, one would simply have to point the laser "where you would be looking to draw a blood sample at the crook of the arm, where the blood vessels are very close to the skin," said Morris.

New applications

Another application could be using Raman as a non-invasive alternative to a typical mammography - a process that uses low-dose X-rays to screen patients for signs of breast cancer.

The laser would "look" into the tissue and generate different spectra - a distribution of colours reflecting differences in the properties of the tissue. This could reveal benign or malignant tumours, depending on characteristic changes in the protein structure and in the relative amounts of protein, lipids and nucleic acids in the tissue.

British researchers at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot and at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital have been using Raman to analyse calcifications in breast tissue that might be early signs of cancer.

"We could target those calcifications and make a decision about whether they're benign or malignant," Nicholas Stone, head of the biophotonics research unit at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital told the magazine Chemical and Engineering News.

"If they're malignant, or look like they are, you would come back for a biopsy. If they're benign, which is 80 to 90% of the cases, you would not come back for a biopsy."

"In the UK alone, that would save about 80,000 patients from having secondary procedures."

A news story from the BBC, just begging to be made into a film:

California ownership battle over giant Bahia emerald

By David Willis BBC News, Washington

A California judge is being asked to determine the ownership of a giant emerald, thought to be one of the largest of its kind.

The Bahia emerald - named after the region of Brazil in which it was discovered - weighs 380kg (840lb).

It is said to be worth more than $370m (£235m) - and at least six people are claiming they are the rightful owners.

A judge will hear from all the parties claiming ownership of the gem before deciding the case in October.

One of those at the centre of this dispute is Anthony Thomas, a construction executive from California, who says he paid two Brazilian gem dealers $60,000 for the emerald shortly after it was unearthed nine years ago - a fraction of its current value.

Mr Thomas says he arranged to have the stone shipped to his home in San Jose, but that it never showed up.

He believes he was tricked into believing it had been stolen so it could be resold for more money.

Mr Thomas is just one of those claiming ownership of the giant emerald.

One problem he faces is that - as he awaited its delivery - a fire broke out in his house, destroying his receipt.

The emerald did eventually make it to America, although whose possession it has been in since then is a matter of some doubt.

One thing that is known is that it spent some time in a bank vault in New Orleans which was flooded during Hurricane Katrina, leaving the valuable gemstone underwater for several months.

It was subsequently taken to Las Vegas for inspection by a potential buyer, where it was seized by the Los Angeles sheriff's department.