Near-Perfect Symmetry Revealed in Red Cosmic Square

If symmetry is a sign of splendor, then the newly discovered Red Square nebula is one of the most beautiful objects in the universe. Seen in the infrared, the nebula resembles a giant, glowing red box in the sky, with a bright white inner core. A dying star called MWC 922 is located at the system’s center and spewing its innards from opposite poles into space. (A nebula is an interstellar cloud of gas, dust and plasma where stars can both emerge and die.) “This spectacular event is the death of a star,” said study team member James Lloyd of Cornell University. After MWC 922 ejects most of its material into space, it will contract into a dense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf, shrouded by clouds of its own remains. The Red Square nebula discovery is detailed in the April 13 issue of the journal Science.

Patenting Life

by Michael Crichton You, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately, its only too real. Gene patents are now used to halt research, prevent medical testing and keep vital information from you and your doctor. Gene patents slow the pace of medical advance on deadly diseases. And they raise costs exorbitantly: a test for breast cancer that could be done for $1,000 now costs $3,000. Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does. Couldnt somebody make a cheaper test? Sure, but the patent holder blocks any competitors test. He owns the gene. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you cant even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without permission. The gene may exist in your body, but its now private property. This bizarre situation has come to pass because of a mistake by an underfinanced and understaffed government agency. The United States Patent Office misinterpreted previous Supreme Court rulings and some years ago began to the surprise of everyone, including scientists decoding the genome to issue patents on genes. Humans share mostly the same genes. The same genes are found in other animals as well. Our genetic makeup represents the common heritage of all life on earth. You cant patent snow, eagles or gravity, and you shouldnt be able to patent genes, either. Yet by now one-fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned. The results have been disastrous. Ordinarily, we imagine patents promote innovation, but thats because most patents are granted for human inventions. Genes arent human inventions, they are features of the natural world. As a result these patents can be used to block innovation, and hurt patient care. For example, Canavan disease is an inherited disorder that affects children starting at 3 months; they cannot crawl or walk, they suffer seizures and eventually become paralyzed and die by adolescence. Formerly there was no test to tell parents if they were at risk. Families enduring the heartbreak of caring for these children engaged a researcher to identify the gene and produce a test. Canavan families around the world donated tissue and money to help this cause. When the gene was identified in 1993, the families got the commitment of a New York hospital to offer a free test to anyone who wanted it. But the researchers employer, Miami Childrens Hospital Research Institute, patented the gene and refused to allow any health care provider to offer the test without paying a royalty. The parents did not believe genes should be patented and so did not put their names on the patent. Consequently, they had no control over the outcome."

Evolution-centered science OK'd in Kan. - Science - MSNBC.com

TOPEKA, Kan. - The Kansas state Board of Education on Tuesday repealed science guidelines questioning evolution that had made the state an object of ridicule.The new guidelines reflect mainstream scientific views of evolution and represent a political defeat for advocates of %u201Cintelligent design,%u201D who had helped write the standards that are being jettisoned.The intelligent design concept holds that life is so complex that it must have been created by a higher authority."

Stem-cell storage firm takes Branson into biotech sector

Sir Richard Branson will launch his most controversial business to date as he moves into stem-cell storage and the biotech sector, The Times has learnt. The Virgin-branded company will be launched next Thursday and is expected to offer parents the chance to put the umbilical blood of their newborn children into cold storage. Scientists believe that future advances in medical technology will use stem cells to cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. The move into stem-cell storage is part of a strategy that Sir Richard is developing to invest in technologies of the future. He has already launched Virgin Galactic, which will take tourists into space, and is investing all the profits of Virgin Atlantic, his airline, in the development of environmentally friendly biofuels.

Windows virus worms onto some Apple iPods

CNET News.com: "update Apple Computer warned on Tuesday that some of its latest iPods have shipped with a Windows virus. The company said that a small number of video iPods made after Sept. 12 included the RavMonE virus. It said it has seen fewer than 25 reports of the problem, which it said does not affect other models of the media player, nor does it affect Macs. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company apologized on its Web site for the problem, but also used the opportunity to jab at Microsoft, its operating system rival. 'As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it,' Apple said on its site. Apple Vice President Greg Joswiak told CNET News.com that the virus was discovered last week and said the company has been working around the clock since then to discover the root cause of the problem. Joswiak said it was traced to a particular Windows machine in the manufacturing lines of a contract manufacturer that builds the iPods for Apple. The company declined to name the maker. 'It's more important to say we now have processes in place to make sure this won't happen again,' Joswiak said. 'Very few units actually went through that particular station, fortunately.' The company said that computers using a current antivirus software and with default settings should detect and remove RavMonE, as it is an identified virus. It is urging iPod users without such protection to install antivirus software."

Talking Points - On the Recentness of What We Know by Verlyn Klinkenborg

New York Times: "The other night I took the dogs for a walk in the pasture. It was a cloudless evening with low humidity, a rare event in this damp, northeastern summer. I always look up at the stars when I’m outside in the dark, but all too often, even here in the country, they’re obscured by haze. Not that night. They shone with a brightness, a clarity I’d almost forgotten. Cassiopeia, Corona Borealis, Lyra, the red light of Arcturus in the west, the diffuse band of the Milky Way arching overhead—their presence was overwhelming. And yet, somehow, when the stars look close to earth it’s easier to imagine how far away they really are. It was a warm July night, but I could almost feel the chill of space. I’ve been watching the stars for nearly half a century now. Not much has changed up there. The sky is a memory in itself. I stared at the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter through a small telescope of my own when I was a boy in Iowa. I spent part of a summer watching meteors while I was helping my family build a house in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and part of a winter star-gazing from the top of a mesa on the Hopi Reservation, where somehow the smell of cedar mingled with the light of the moon. The only thing that has changed in all that time—apart from a few new satellites crossing the sky—is the state of my knowledge."

Cold, Hard Facts - New York Times

Chicago IN the debate on global warming, the data on the climate of Antarctica has been distorted, at different times, by both sides. As a polar researcher caught in the middle, I%u2019d like to set the record straight.In January 2002, a research paper about Antarctic temperatures, of which I was the lead author, appeared in the journal Nature. At the time, the Antarctic Peninsula was warming, and many people assumed that meant the climate on the entire continent was heating up, as the Arctic was. But the Antarctic Peninsula represents only about 15 percent of the continent%u2019s land mass, so it could not tell the whole story of Antarctic climate. Our paper made the continental picture more clear.My research colleagues and I found that from 1996 to 2000, one small, ice-free area of the Antarctic mainland had actually cooled. Our report also analyzed temperatures for the mainland in such a way as to remove the influence of the peninsula warming and found that, from 1966 to 2000, more of the continent had cooled than had warmed. Our summary statement pointed out how the cooling trend posed challenges to models of Antarctic climate and ecosystem change.Newspaper and television reports focused on this part of the paper. And many news and opinion writers linked our study with another bit of polar research published that month, in Science, showing that part of Antarcticas ice sheet had been thickening and erroneously concluded that the earth was not warming at all. Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming, said a headline on an editorial in The San Diego Union-Tribune. One conservative commentator wrote, Its ironic that two studies suggesting that a new Ice Age may be under way may end the global warming debate. In a rebuttal in The Providence Journal, in Rhode Island, the lead author of the Science paper and I explained that our studies offered no evidence that the earth was cooling. But the misinterpretation had already become legend, and in the four and half years since, it has only grown. Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either. Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth? Also missing from the skeptics’ arguments is the debate over our conclusions. Another group of researchers who took a different approach found no clear cooling trend in Antarctica. We still stand by our results for the period we analyzed, but unbiased reporting would acknowledge differences of scientific opinion. The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend. In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well. Peter Doran is an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Cause and defect

SignOnSanDiego.com: "Notice something wrong? Are our clocks ticking backward? The known laws of physics say there's no reason why the past, present and future must occur in that order. Backward works, too. By Scott LaFee UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER June 22, 2006 Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era? The answer would seem to be yes, if only because time always moves forward, drawing not just “we few” but everyone and everything “onward to new era.” But what if time is like the palindrome above? What if the so-called arrow of time flies both ways, forward and back? What then? What now? What next? People have debated the nature of time since, well, people invented it. Time is, in many ways, a fabrication of our minds, a superficial construct that helps us explain the universe, plot our course through existence and show up when we're supposed to. “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once,” Albert Einstein once said. And so it goes, one thing happens, then another – a phenomenon called cause-and-effect. “It's a notion so deeply ingrained that it's hard to think about things any other way,” said Daniel Sheehan, a professor of physics at the University of San Diego. But Sheehan does, as do other physicists who are meeting this week at USD to discuss and debate the concept of “reverse causation,” a fantastical notion that suggests effects can precede causes, and the future can influence the past, assuming the past and future actually “exist” in the first place.."

No sex please, robot, just clean the floor - Sunday Times - Times Online

THE race is on to keep humans one step ahead of robots: an international team of scientists and academics is to publish a "Ccode of ethics" for machines as they become more and more sophisticated. Although the nightmare vision of a Terminator world controlled by machines may seem fanciful, scientists believe the boundaries for human-robot interaction must be set now - before super-intelligent robots develop beyond our control. "There are two levels of priority,"D said Gianmarco Verruggio, a roboticist at the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation in Genoa, northern Italy, and chief architect of the guide, to be published next month. "We have to manage the ethics of the scientists making the robots and the artificial ethics inside the robots." Verruggio and his colleagues have identified key areas that include: ensuring human control of robots; preventing illegal use; protecting data acquired by robots; and establishing clear identification and traceability of the machines."

Translated version of http://www.esupply.co.jp/syohin.asp?sku=EEM-GTMS-300BK

With thumb button operation! Even in narrow space OK! It locks in the index finger, operates the button with the thumb, it is the mouse of mini- size. As for tread, barely vertical 2.3cm× side 2.7cm and microminiature. In [purezen], in travel, the screen of the personal computer must be operated in the narrow space, when, it is optimum, it is the economical space mouse. After use, collecting the cable, it can fold to the compact, even in the travelling bag is not bulky.

Scientists ponder invisibility cloak

WASHINGTON - Imagine an invisibility cloak that works just like the one Harry Potter inherited from his father. Researchers in England and the United States think they know how to do that. They are laying out the blueprint and calling for help in developing the exotic materials needed to build a cloak. The keys are special manmade materials, unlike any in nature or the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. These materials are intended to steer light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation around an object, rendering it as invisible as something tucked into a hole in space.

Why is Rupert Murdoch Sitting Next to the President???

Australian Prime Minister John Howard (L) toasts U.S. President George W. Bush (R) before an official dinner at the White House in Washington May 16, 2006. Also pictured at the table with Bush are media baron Rupert Murdoch (2nd L) and the wife of the prime minister, Janette Howard (2nd R). REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Pyow pyow pyow . . . hack hack hack hack! Let's get out of here (in monkey talk) - World - Times Online

It seems that human beings are not the only ones who are able to string sentences together MONKEYS are able to string together a simple “sentence”, according to research that offers the first evidence that animals might be capable of a key feature of language. British scientists have discovered that the putty-nosed monkey in Nigeria pictured above sometimes communicates by combining sounds into a sequence that has a different meaning from any of its component calls, an ability that was thought to be uniquely human. Although many animals communicate with one another using calls that have a particular meaning — usually a warning signifying the presence of a certain predator — none has been known to combine these alarm calls into sequences similar to those of human language.

Funding And Bureaucracy, Not Access To Journals, Are Chief Obstacles To Scientific Productivity

ScienceDaily: Funding And Bureaucracy, Not Access To Journals, Are Chief Obstacles To Scientific Productivity The single most important issue obstructing the productivity of biomedical scientists today is the culture of research funding. This finding challenges the belief of some that the lack of "open access" to journal content is a major barrier to scientific productivity.A survey of 883 biomedical scientists -- in Europe and North America - commissioned by the Publishing Research Consortium found that aside from lack of resources, a 'stop-go' funding culture prohibits scientists from initiating new ideas, choosing research projects that contrast with funders' priorities, and recruiting and retaining qualified staff.

Black hole mergers modelled in 3D

BBC NEWS: " Simulations on a supercomputer have allowed Nasa scientists to understand finally the pattern of gravitational waves produced by merging black holes. The work should help the worldwide effort that is currently underway to make the first detection of these 'ripples' in the fabric of space-time. Ultra-sensitive equipment set up in the US and Europe is expected to achieve the breakthrough observation very soon. The new research will make it easier to recognise the correct signals. 'With these calculations, we are now able to know what will be the distinctive gravitational wave signature that comes out from just outside merging black holes,' commented Professor Peter Saulson, who is part of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (Ligo) Scientific Collaboration."

Black hole mergers modelled in 3D

BBC NEWS: " Simulations on a supercomputer have allowed Nasa scientists to understand finally the pattern of gravitational waves produced by merging black holes. The work should help the worldwide effort that is currently underway to make the first detection of these 'ripples' in the fabric of space-time. Ultra-sensitive equipment set up in the US and Europe is expected to achieve the breakthrough observation very soon. The new research will make it easier to recognise the correct signals. 'With these calculations, we are now able to know what will be the distinctive gravitational wave signature that comes out from just outside merging black holes,' commented Professor Peter Saulson, who is part of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (Ligo) Scientific Collaboration."

Telescope bid to spot alien beams

BBC NEWS : "A new optical telescope designed solely to detect light signals from alien civilisations has opened for work at an observatory in Harvard, US. It will conduct a year-round survey, scanning all of the Milky Way galaxy visible in the Northern Hemisphere. Seti is an exploratory science to scour the cosmos for signatures of technology built by alien beings. Some experts believe alien societies are at least as likely to use light for communicating as radio transmissions. The new telescope, which has a 1.8m (72-inch) primary mirror, is the first dedicated optical Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) telescope in the world. It has been installed at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Oak Ridge Observatory. 'The opening of this telescope represents one of those rare moments in a field of scientific endeavour when a great leap forward is enabled,' said Bruce Betts, director of projects at the Planetary Society, which funded the telescope. 'Sending laser signals across the cosmos would be a very logical way for ET to reach out; but until now, we have been ill-equipped to receive any such signal.'"

Mistakes 'aid OCD understanding'

BBC NEWS': "Everyone is familiar with the sinking feeling you get after deleting a computer file by mistake or leaving the house without your keys. But such events also cause their own unique reactions in the brain. US scientists writing in the Journal of Neuroscience found one area becomes more active after 'costly' mistakes. They say it may help explain obsessive compulsive disorder, where minor events appear to be enough to triger an over-reaction in the same area. In the study, the brains of 12 healthy adults were examined using a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner while they were undertook 360 computer tests, such as spotting the odd one out or picking pairs of letters. Succeeding at some carried a small financial reward, while failing at others incurred penalties. Others carried no reward or penalty. People were told they had a $10 (�5.70) 'credit' to begin, and that they would receive real cash depending on their balance at the end. The response to a mistake that cost them money was seen to be greater than the response to other mistakes and involved a part of the brain called the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC)."