Science thread

[sewa]

<S&#079;NG>Ireckon we need a thread for us geeks and nerds. If you see a decent article post it here.</S&#079;NG>


Giant fly-swat shaped “synthetic trees” line the road into the office, where blooms of algae grow in tubes up the walls and the roof reflects heat back into the sky — all reducing the effects of global warming.


All this could be a familiar sight within the next two decades, under proposals devised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers to alter the world’s climate with new technology.


A day after John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister and Environment Secretary, warned that negotiations for a global deal to cut carbon emissions were in danger of collapsing, the institution is recommending a series of technical fixes to “buy time” to avert dangerous levels of climate change.


It says that the most promising solution is offered by artificial trees, devices that collect CO2 through their “leaves” and convert it to a form that can easily be collected and stored.Tim Fox, head of environment and climate change at the institution, said that the devices were thousands of times more effective at removing carbon from the atmosphere than real trees. &lt; =text/ src="/tol/js/picture-gallery.js"&gt; &lt; =text/&gt; function slideshowPopUp(url) { pictureGalleryPopupPic(url); return false; }
<DIV ="float-left related-attachements-c&#111;ntainer">
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In the first report on such geo-engineering by practising engineers, the institution calculates that 100,000 artificial trees — which could fit into 600ha (1,500 acres) — would be enough to capture all emissions from Britain’s homes, transport and light industry. It says that five million would do the same for the whole world.


Dr Fox said that prototypes had been shown to work using a technology, developed by Klaus Lackner of Columbia University in New York, that isolated CO2 using low levels of energy. “The technology is no more complex than what is used in cars or air-conditioning units,” he said.


Professor Lackner estimates that in pro

[sewa]

White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums.


It was only when early humans gave up hunter-gathering and switched to farming about 5,500 years ago that white skin began to be favoured, say the researchers.


This is because farmed food was deficient in vitamin D, a vital nutrient. Humans can make this in their skin when exposed to sunlight, but dark skin is much less efficient at it.


In places such as northern Europe, where sunlight levels are low, the ability to make vitamin D more efficiently could have been crucial to survival.


Johan Moan, of the Institute of Physics at the University of Oslo, said in a research paper: “In England, from 5,500-5,200 years ago the food changed rapidly away from fish as an important food source. This led to a rapid development of ... light skin.”


Moan, who worked with Richard Setlow, a biophysicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state, said vitamin D deficiency could be lethal. Research links it with heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and reduced immunity.


Their research says: “Cold climates and high latitudes would speed up the need for skin lightening. Agricultural food was an insufficient source of vitamin D, and solar radiation was too low to produce enough vitamin D in dark skin.”


Such findings need to be treated with caution. The history of the colonisation of Europe is highly complex because its climate has been dominated by a series of ice ages, punctuated by warm periods.


This means early humans ventured to Europe not just once but many times over the past 700,000 years, returning each time the ice melted only to be driven back again when it returned.


Furthermore, the ice ages coincided with, and may even have driven, the evolution of modern humans, with several species such as Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons appearing at various times.


The idea that human evolution has often turned on chance mutations is well established. Some researchers have linked the entire evolution of language with mutations in a gene known as FoxP2 occcuring about 50,000 years ago.

[sewa]

Apocalypse not yet. A few years ago the idea of nanotechnology inspired a wave of hysteria about marauding “nanobots” self-replicating like tiny rabbits and turning the planet into porridge. Now it turns out that nanotechnology can be really rather handy in improving everyday life rather than putting an end to it.


Nanotechnology is closer to microbiology than to physics. Physics is concerned overwhelmingly with the realm of the very large (eg, on the scale of the Universe) and the very small (God particles and the like). Physicists of a technological bent dream of sucking the energy out of whole planets or stars and — at the other end of the scale — building quantum computers out of pure light. But we are a long way from getting any of these bright ideas up and running. Meanwhile, the nanometre — a billionth of a metre — is poised between cosmic and quantum and is more accessible than either. Thousands of nanoparticles can fit, rather like angels, on the head of a pin. But nano-engineers are working on mimicking the natural realm at a strictly terrestrial level and are already getting their products out on the high street.


In the not-quite-there-yet category comes an ingenious system of instant colour printing from South Korea. Poets have long been impressed by the iridescent colours of, for example, kingfishers, peacocks and dragonflies. “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”: so Gerard Manley Hopkins once neatly put it. Scientists have pinned the shimmering effect down to the interaction of photons with melanin rods. Now a team at Seoul University has succeeded in replicating these “structural colours” with their “M-ink”, involving magnetic nanoparticles 100 to 200 nanometres across. When a magnetic field is applied to the ink, the nanoparticles snap into different structures and produce different colours as they interact with light, depending on the strength of the field — so making Kall Kwik a lot kwiker and, possibly, cheaper.


Nanotechnology has already slipped almost unnoticed into the pharmacy and the factory. Some sunblocks now contain particles — extremely small but with a large total surface area — capable of efficiently deflecting the most destructive rays. Those annoying scratches on your car will soon be a thing of the past when self-repairing paint, modelled on a material found in crab shells, is sprayed as standard. You can kiss goodbye to smelly socks too, thanks to stink-proof nanofibres. Personally I need to buy a stain-resistant suit that is capable of repelling spaghetti sauce. Contrary to our initial fears, it seems as if nanotechnology is capable of eradicating the threat of “grey goo” — or any other colour of goo.


In the realm of medicine, we don’t yet have troops of nanodocs swarming through our veins, scouring out cancers and sewing up torn tissue. But we are getting close. For example, Rice University, in Houston, Texas, is working on “nano-shells”, micro-orbs of glass and gold that attach themselves to tumours and act like a lens for a near infra-red light torch to burn them out.


My sons tell me that there is an 007 computer game, Everything or Nothing, in which the villains use nanotechnology to take over the world (if they get their way). But it looks as if we may have to change our fond paranoid ideas and start to see nano-engineers as the heroes, going about the planet doing good things.


There is still an anxiety factor attached to nanotechnology though, something we may have to call nanophobia. We fear very small things we cannot see floating about and getting into us and multiplying. But, of course, they already do that, organically, even without rubbing nanocosmetics on to our skin.


Specialists in nanotextiles are working on fibres that would filter out all the bad stuff. Perhaps the M&amp;S suit of the future will be “smart” in more ways than one, and will not only not need dry cleaning but will also stop you catching swine flu.


Andy Martin is the au

[tickettout]

Science is great, but no good to pay mortgages.


peanuts --- monkeys


chemicals ---- donkeys

[sewa]

Pays my mortgage and then some

[sparks]

DINOSAURS SOUNDED LIKE SCOUSERS, SAY EXPERTS


THE steaming Jurassic jungles were alive with the sound of dinosaurs
that sounded like aggrieved Scousers, paleontologists have claimed.

<s&#111;ng><div ="mosimage" style="float: right; width: 270px;" align="center"><div ="mosimage_capti&#111;n" style="text-align: center;" align="center">The fossilised skull of the Arkidosaurus </div></div></s&#111;ng>Professor
Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, has examined the throats
of major breeds of dinosaur and insists they would have produced a
noise similar to a rusty wheel spinning in a tuba full of phlegm.


His theory, confirmed by Wikipedia, suggests the extinction of the
dinosaurs may have been caused by mass suicide after the giant
creatures could no longer bear to listen to themselves.

He
added: "Dinosaurs existed for 160 million years. So anyone who's used
the Euston to Liverpool train - a journey time of just three hours -
can fully appreciate the true horror."

Archaeological digs in
Arizona have uncovered the partial remains of a Velociraptor signing a
book of condolence and what was previously thought to be fossilised
scales surrounding bones is probably change stolen from a child
dinosaur's piggy-bank.

Professor Brubaker explained: "The
primordial plains would have sounded like the outside of Yates' Wine
Lodge after last orders.

"Imagine watching Jurassic Park while dragging your nails down a blackboard and having your DVD player nicked at the same time. Something like that."


Despite Hollywood frequently being criticised for scientific
inaccuracy, Brubaker feels the Spielberg blockbuster echoes his theory
exactly.

"Some of the dinosaurs were portrayed as slow-moving,
dimwitted and prone to s**tting where they stood. But most were sneaky,
vicious b*****ds that would wreck your house and bite your face off if
they weren't behind bars.

"So, in other words, Bootle on a Saturday night."

[sewa]

[img]smileys/lol.gif[/img]

[tickettout]

Pays my mortgage and then some

without any left over for brassers I bet,


(I once ran Pfizer in Loughbeg[img]smileys/smile.gif[/img]0

[Roll Away]

DINOSAURS SOUNDED LIKE SCOUSERS, SAY EXPERTS


THE steaming Jurassic jungles were alive with the sound of dinosaurs that sounded like aggrieved Scousers, paleontologists have claimed.

<S&#111;NG>
<DIV style="FLOAT: right; WIDTH: 270px" align=center ="mosimage">
<DIV style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center ="mosimage_capti&#111;n">The fossilised skull of the Arkidosaurus </DIV></DIV>
<DIV></S&#111;NG>Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, has examined the throats of major breeds of dinosaur and insists they would have produced a noise similar to a rusty wheel spinning in a tuba full of phlegm.

His theory, confirmed by Wikipedia, suggests the extinction of the dinosaurs may have been caused by mass suicide after the giant creatures could no longer bear to listen to themselves.

He added: "Dinosaurs existed for 160 million years. So anyone who's used the Euston to Liverpool train - a journey time of just three hours - can fully appreciate the true horror."

Archaeological digs in Arizona have uncovered the partial remains of a Velociraptor signing a book of condolence and what was previously thought to be fossilised scales surrounding bones is probably change stolen from a child dinosaur's piggy-bank.

Professor Brubaker explained: "The primordial plains would have sounded like the outside of Yates' Wine Lodge after last orders.

"Imagine watching Jurassic Park while dragging your nails down a blackboard and having your DVD player nicked at the same time. Something like that."

Despite Hollywood frequently being criticised for scientific inaccuracy, Brubaker feels the Spielberg blockbuster echoes his theory exactly.

"Some of the dinosaurs were portrayed as slow-moving, dimwitted and prone to s**tting where they stood. But most were sneaky, vicious b*****ds that would wreck your house and bite your face off if they weren't behind bars.

"So, in other words, Bootle on a Saturday night."

</DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>Sounds like a segment from "The Colbert Report"</DIV>

[sparks]

Sewa this should have you in stitches:


A DAFFODIL who accused a Bumblebee of groping it in a public park was asking for it, the bee claimed last night.



<s&#111;ng></s&#111;ng><div style="float: right; width: 270px;" align="center"><div style="text-align: center;" align="center">Skank</div></div>According
to the bee it was flying on its normal route collecting pollen when it
suddenly caught sight of bright yellow shape waving at it in the breeze.

As
it flew over to take a closer look, the bee said the daffodil started
to sway sexily from side to side before it opened up its petals and
flashed its stamen.

The bee said: "I was just flying around
minding my own business. Yes, I was looking for a bit of pollen if
there was any on offer, but you tell me, what bee isn’t?

"I
didn’t make the first move, it wasn’t me standing there with me bits
flapping around in the air for everyone to see, filthy tart.

"If
they aren’t up for a bit of action they shouldn’t flaunt themselves
like that. I’m a normal red-blooded male. I was aroused. She led me on.
I couldn’t stop myself."



Nikki Quinn, chair of the flower rights
group Reclaim the Park, said bees had to recognise that when a daffodil
said no, it meant no.

She said: "Every flower has to right to
flap where it pleases, when it pleases, with as many stamens showing as
it wants, without being pestered and molested by these pervert bees.

"We
just do not accept that a bee is incapable of a little self-control,
whatever the temptation, and if it is, then it can always go and visit
those dirty begonias by the boating pool."




I found this bit really funny:

As
it flew over to take a closer look, the bee said the daffodil started
to sway sexily from side to side before it opened up its petals and
flashed its stamen.

[99_oK?]

Sewa, nice title, but hey....!


You know our beloved government is vocal in its' support of 'Science' but in reality they haven't a clue (if they have they're negligent). And worse - it's a hindrance to being employed. The only person in our househiold who has a permanent, pensionable position has a (pass..) arts degree fron UCD. No problem with that, but what about a 2:1 from UCC (Science), 2:1 from UL (Science), Cum Laudae from NUIG (Science)...? Well of those last 3 the best paid works in a bar in central Cork........! One doesn't and the other has a month-on-month contract for a little over the min. wage. Not exactly the best recommendation to do a pure Maths or Theoretical Physics course/degree.


Reckon you just got lucky S..!


BTW, I have a major problem with some of those wo are 'making decisions' in this area in this country. Ignorance isn't bliss....... But Power is...

[99_oK?]

Sparks, That's a lovely parable....[img]smileys/wink.gif[/img]


Just wish I could flap my petals (or wings..) like that Daff.....[img]smileys/shock.gif[/img]

[sewa]

I agree 99. Its badly organised and support after your degree is non existent. That said it is possible to make a good career in it if you know how. Drop me a Pm and I will see ifI can help in any way. The most important thing is to get some experience even if you are making sweet FA in wages.

[Piquet]

Sewa How about starting an Engineering Thread?

[99_oK?]

I agree 99. Its badly organised and support after your degree is non existent. That said it is possible to make a good career in it if you know how. Drop me a Pm and I will see ifI can help in any way. The most important thing is to get some experience even if you are making sweet FA in wages.

Sewa, I'm up to my eyeballs in stuff right now, but I do appreciate the offer. I'm fed up dealing with (government employees) who don't know the difference between a lauded Masters and a PLC for those who don't want to take their PJs off before sunset.


Might be in touch in a few days - I've a 7oc start 2moro.....!

[sewa]

http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/


Some cracking images / videos of space.

[sewa]

http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter...eleases/2009/2 5/


After you get past the BS there is some savage images on this

[sewa]

Hubble wallpapers. How class is that!


http://www.hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/

along the same lines ...

http://www.astronomy.ie/perpespective.html

[mr chips]

This article seems appropriate for this thread. Seems to indicate a real step forward ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...alzheimers-dis ease-genes-research
<br style="font-weight: bold;">Alzheimer's research links three genes to disease</span></font>

Findings hailed as 'huge step' towards earlier testing and better treatment for Alzheimer's</span>
Scientists have discovered a trio of genetic mutations that account for nearly 100,000 cases of Alzheimer's disease in Britain today.

Three genes that protect the brain from damage and ensure neurons work properly were found to be impaired in many patients with the disease, in the largest genetic study of the condition yet.

The work has been hailed as a "huge step" towards earlier testing and better treatment for Alzheimer's and is the first in 15 years to find new genes associated with the disease.

Previously, scientists knew of only one gene, called APOE4, which increases the risk of developing the most common form of the disease.

"If we were able to remove the detrimental effects of these genes, we could reduce the proportion of people suffering Alzheimer's disease by approximately 20%," said Julie Williams, an Alzheimer's researcher at Cardiff University. "In the UK alone this would prevent just under 100,000 people developing the disease."

About 417,000 people have Alzheimer's disease in Britain, the vast majority of whom have the late-onset form that develops after the age of 65. A very rare form of Alzheimer's disease that runs in families can affect much younger people.

Scientists believe that genes account for 80% of our chance of developing late-onset Alzheimer's, the rest coming from lifestyle and environmental factors.

The newly discovered genes have challenged scientists' thinking on how Alzheimer's disease develops in older people. Patients often suffer inflammation of the brain, an effect that was thought to be a symptom of the disease. But the latest findings suggest that unchecked inflammation may actually play a role in causing the condition.

Scientists believe they will find more genes linked to Alzheimer's that in future could help in assessing a person's risk of developing the disorder.

"This study is a huge step towards achieving an earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer's and improving the lives of the many people affected by the disease," said Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, which partly funded the work.

Williams's team conducted a "genome wide association study", in which the genetic codes of nearly 4,000 Alzheimer's patients were compared with the genomes of almost 8,000 healthy individuals.

The researchers found variants of three genes that were risk factors for developing Alzheimer's. One of the genes was APOE4, but the other two had not previously been linked to the disease.

One gene, called clusterin, helps to protect the brain from exessive inflammation caused by infections and other illnesses. The gene is also involved in removing clumps of rogue protein known as amyloid plaques, which are commonly seen in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Defects in the gene hamper its ability to do these jobs and increase the risk of Alzheimer's.

The second new gene, called Picalm, is crucial for maintaining the health of connections between brain cells. Mutations in the Picalm gene are thought to disrupt the ability of brain neurons to talk to each other and form memories.

A related study of more than 7,000 Alzheimer's patients and healthy volunteers, led by Philippe Amouyel at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Lille, also identified a variant of the clusterin gene as a risk factor for the disease.

When the two groups combined their data, they discovered a third new gene

[sewa]

along the same lines ...

http://www.astronomy.ie/perpespective.html

Cheers BB. Thats class

[LuckyDucker]

Friday, October 2, 2009 Irish Times

Fossil analysis forces radical rethink on human evolution</font>

DICK AHLSTROM Science Editor




(pic from timesonline.co.uk)


LONG-HELD assumptions about the evolution of humans have been challenged following a detailed analysis of a fossil skeleton dating back 4.4 million years.

The ape-like creatures from which we evolved most likely did not learn to walk on two legs by hiking across the open African savannah. Nor can we make assumptions about what our “missing link” ancestor looked like by studying modern apes, the new research suggests.

An astounding amount of new data and theories have flowed from an extensive study of the partial skeleton of a human-like or hominid creature called Ardipithecus ramidus. The first detailed analysis of what the fossils revealed is published this morning in the journal Science.

Nicknamed “Ardi” for short, the skeleton and assorted bits from another 35 individuals were found during the mid-1990s. All came from the Afar Rift of northeast Ethiopia.

Ardi stood about 1.2 metres high and weighed a chunky 50kg. She predates the celebrity hominid “Lucy”, who dates to only 3.2 million years.

Apish Lucy was assumed to be an intermediate link between modern humans and ancient apes, but Ardi has so many “modern” characteristics that scientists have had to rethink their views on the progress of hominid evolution.

Ardi is an older fossil with plenty of “primitive” ape-like characteristics, but also a number of uniquely hominid features shared only with others like ourselves.

It walked upright and without the side-to-side gait seen in modern apes. And even though its arms were long it wasn't a “knuckle-walker”.

It didn't hang or swing in the trees like today’s apes, and while its feet did retain an opposable big toe, the foot itself was stiffer and better suited for walking. “It is so rife with anatomical surprises that no one could have imagined it without direct fossil evidence,” the authors write.

Particularly noteworthy were Ardi's canine teeth, not big and sharp like an ape but short and stubby like our own canines. The authors believe this shows A. ramidus males did not battle for access to fertile females but formed male-female pair bonds.

Ardi lived in a cool, humid woodland rather than the hot savannah, an analysis of plant fossils showed. And this afforded plenty of fruit, nuts, insects and small mammals and birds for Ardi and her kind to gather, either in the trees or on the ground.

Scientists are now re-examining human origins in light of Ardi. The long-standing view was that we could look to chimps and gorillas to understand what our last common ancestor with apes must have looked like.

Ardi “nullifies these presumptions” because it shows the anatomy of living apes is not primitive but the result of extensive evolutionary adaptation since the hominid and ape lines finally split about six million years ago.

[RED 49]

<DIV =storyer ns="">
<H1>New system to transform online world</H1>


Friday, 30 October 2009 11:07 </DIV>
<DIV =story ns=""><?:namespace prefix = rte ns = "urn:rte-search" /><rte:>


A global regulatory body has approved a new multilingual address system, which it said would open up the internet to millions more people worldwide.


The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced an end to the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses.


In future, it will be possible to write an entire website address in any of the world's language scripts.
<DIV id=story_island>
<DIV =storyIslandTitle>Advertisement</DIV></DIV>


With the introduction of 'internationalised' domain names, scripts such as Chinese, Korean or Arabic will eventually be usable in the last part of an address name - the part after the dot, as in .com and .org.


At present, technological restrictions mean all domain names end in letters from the Latin alphabet.


'This is only the first step but it is an incredibly big one and a historic move toward the internationalisation of the internet,' said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's president and CEO, in a statement following a six-day conference in Seoul.


'We just made the internet much more accessible to millions of people in regions such as Asia, the Middle East and Russia.'


At first, IDNs will only be allowed on a limited basis involving country codes such as .kr for Korea. Eventually, their use will be hugely expanded to all types of internet address names.


ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said the introduction of IDNs follows years of work and study.


'To see this finally start to unfold is to see the beginning of a historic change in the Internet and who uses it.'


Mr Beckstrom said the change signifies that the internet belongs to everyone, no matter what language they speak.


'The internet is about bringing the world together and this will facilitate that effort.'


Mr Thrush has described the new measure as the biggest technical change to the Internet for 40 years.


It was approved a day after the 40th anniversary of the internet's birth in a computer experiment by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.


ICANN says more than half the world's 1.6bn internet users use languages with scripts that are not Latin-based.


The first applications for IDNs will be accepted by 16 November and the first is expected to be operative by mid-2010.


ICANN, a non-profit body formed in 1998 by the US government, was last month given more autonomy after Washington relaxed its control over how the internet is run.</rte:></DIV>

[sewa]

http://www.popsci.com.au/node/36702


Some superb science photos here

[RED 49]

http://www.popsci.com.au/node/36702</font>


Some superb science photos here

was wondering what avatar was!,great pics.

[mrstambourineman]

A recent post from the Conspiracy Forum on boards.ie

<br style="color: rgb(0, 51, 204);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 51, 204);"><br style="color: rgb(0, 51, 204);"><div style="color: rgb(0, 51, 204);" id="post_message_63363468">

"i was making a point i thought.

my point was wether obama says theres aliens and a moon base or not
totally depends on his plans for his masters world domination.

wether people believe it at this stage im not sure is that big an issue.



TV has enough special effects to fake oh for example a moon base or
moon landing so the only question is,does he need to announce this for
some political reason and how would this help him at this stage of his
plans.



i think its way too early for them to be annoucing an outside threat
when they have only just tied up europe america and britain and have
not taken all the middle east yet.or russia and china.



im not talking politics here btw im talking conspiracy.this is all unfounded as far as sceptics can be concerned so dont panic.



i am predicting obama will go after iran next.and i think he doesnt
need aliens to help him do that part.so im sceptical about the original
posts idea that he will annnounce such a thing.

but yes i was serious with my previous post. im not sure why everyone asks.

im sorry but i dont watch the tv for a few years now and left the
political forums after i saw how the lisbon treaty was regarded.

i do think its both funny and sad about that nobel prize.



ps someone please explain why i might have been joking or why my post was ridiculous. i actually dont understand "
</div>













<div style="color: rgb(51, 0, 153);" ="smallfont">
<hr style=": rgb(209, 209, 225); color: rgb(0, 51, 204);" size="1">


Last edited by Torakx; Today at </span>14:58</span>.


<br style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now. There's science for you.</span><br style="color: rgb(0, 51, 204); font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif;"></span></span><br style="color: rgb(0, 51, 204);">


</div>

[The Doc]

Step slowly away from the woo....


Some sites I check out regularly;


Waste some time and help out astronomical research - http://www.galaxyzoo.org/


Astronomy picture of the day - http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html


Humourfrom ascience geek - http://xkcd.com/


Astrophysics blog - http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/


Pharyngula (the Granddaddy of sceptic blogs) - http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/


Human Evolution - handy for referencing the various lines with a good diagramtic representation and some basic facts - http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/species.htm


Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column - http://www.badscience.net/

[mr chips]

Fascinating if true ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...dark-matter-de tected
Has dark matter finally been detected?</font>

Hunt may well be over for a mysterious and invisible substance that accounts for three-quarters of the matter in the universe</span>

For 80 years, it has eluded the finest minds in science. But tonight it appeared that the hunt may be over for dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance that accounts for three-quarters of the matter in the universe.

In a series of coordinated announcements at several US laboratories, researchers said they believed they had captured dark matter in a defunct iron ore mine half a mile underground. The claim, if confirmed next year, will rank as one the most spectacular discoveries in physics in the past century.

Tantalising glimpses of dark matter particles were picked up by highly sensitive detectors at the bottom of the Soudan mine in Minnesota, the scientists said.

Dan Bauer, head of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS), said the group had spotted two particles with all the expected characteristics of dark matter. There is a one in four chance that the result is due to some other effect in the underground detectors, Bauer told a seminar at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago.

Rumours that Bauer's group was on the verge of making an announcement surfaced on physicists' blogs a few weeks ago. Though tentative, tonight's results triggered an immediate wave of excitement in the science community.

"If they have a real signal, it's a seriously big deal. The scale on which people are looking for dark matter is vast," said Gerry Gilmore at Cambridge University's institute of astronomy. "Dark matter is what created the structure of the universe and is essentially what holds it together. When ordinary matter falls into lumps of dark matter it turns into galaxies, stars, planets and people. Without it, we wouldn't be here," Gilmore said.

Scientists have debated the existence of dark matter since 1933, when the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky argued that a distant cluster of galaxies would fall apart were it not for the gravitational pull of some vast but invisible cosmic substance. It was named dark matter because it does not reflect or absorb light, making it impossible to observe with telescopes.

Last year, the Hubble telescope photographed indirect evidence in the form of a ghostly halo around a distant galaxy, caused by clumps of dark matter bending light from stars as it passed by. A year before that, scientists led by the British astronomer Richard Massey, at the California Institute of Technology, published the first 3D map of dark matter, which revealed how it clung around galaxies and held clusters of them together.

Dark matter is likely to be made up of a variety of invisible particles that not only explain the missing mass of the universe, but shed light on some of the most profound mysteries in science.

Some dark matter particles could explain why ordinary matter is not radioactive, while others may help scientists understand why time – so far as we know – always runs forward.

"The real impact of this is psychological, in that it shows we're getting close to being able to do a whole new kind of physics," Gilmore said. "We know there are properties of the universe that should correspond to new families of particles. One of the great mysteries is why time only goes in one direction, and one candidate to explain that is a dark matter particle."

Many scientists believe dark matter particles will turn out to be proof of a theory called supersymmetry, which predicts that every kind of particle in the universe is paired with a heavier twin. Finding evidence for supersymmetry is one of the major goals of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, in Switzerland.

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Science news highlights of 2009</span>

It was the year we learned of a spectacular smash-up in space, and scientists working on the world's biggest physics experiment delighted at collisions of an entirely different sort.

There were shockwaves, too, in Copenhagen, as the summit failed to reach a consensus on tackling climate change, instead merely noting a deal struck by major powers including the US and China.

The BBC's science reporter Paul Rincon looks back at the twists and turns of a year in science and the environment.

JANUARY
Trends across Antarctica have been hard to discern

Scientists report that they have detected large quantities of methane on Mars. The gas should last for only a short time in the atmosphere until it is destroyed by sunlight, so it must be being replenished. Geochemical processes or microbial life could be sources.

Rising greenhouse gases in our own atmosphere seem to be causing Antarctica to warm in step with the rest of the world. Trends across the bulk of the continent have been hard to discern, mainly because data from land stations is scarce.

This month also sees Iceland's outgoing administration issue whaling quotas that are substantially enlarged from those in previous years. The incoming interim government allows hunting to go ahead in 2009 but leaves in doubt whether the practice will continue.

FEBRUARY

Two satellites - one American, the other Russian - annihilate each other when they collide in low-Earth orbit. Some commentators put the odds of such an event occurring at billions to one. Other long-time observers argue that it highlights a growing problem of overcrowding in space.
There are many thousands of manmade objects in orbit

These aren't the only satellites to end up in pieces. Nasa's first dedicated mission to measure carbon dioxide from space crashes into the ocean near Antarctica following a rocket malfunction.

Meanwhile, Nasa and the European Space Agency decide to forge ahead with an ambitious plan to send probes to the Jupiter system and its icy moon Europa. But the missions will cost several billion dollars/euros to build and execute and might never fly if other endeavours become higher research priorities.

MARCH

Alluvial fans on Mars appear to have been carved out by running water

The biggest ever investigation into a climate change fix known as "ocean fertilisation" reports modest results. The technique involves tipping iron filings into the ocean to stimulate the growth of algae, which absorb the greenhouse gas CO2 from the air.

There are no oceans on Mars today, but the Red Planet did have running water on its surface just over a million years ago, according to a team from Brown University in Rhode Island.

In separate research, the University of Michigan's Dr Nilton Renno says droplets of liquid water can be seen in photos of a landing leg strut from Nasa's Phoenix lander, which touched down on Mars in 2008. Dr Renno makes the claim at a meeting in Houston, Texas, where scientists present early results from the mission.

APRIL

Tuned to see the high-energy gamma-rays emitted from extreme cosmic events, Nasa's Swift telescope picks up the most distant single object ever detected - the cataclysmic explosion of a giant star some 13 billion light-years away.
President Obama said it was time for the US to take a lead on innovation

By comparison, the star Gliese 581 is a mere hop and a skip away. It is around this sun that astronomers find the "lightest" planet ever detected outside our Solar System. This "exoplanet" is about twice as massive as the Earth, but too hot to support life.

This month US President Barack Obama sets a goal of devoting 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) to US research and development. During a speech in Washington DC, he says the US should lead on innovation, adding that, over the years, "scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicised"

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8497148.stm



Vegetative state patients can respond to questions
By Fergus Walsh
Medical correspondent, BBC News

Dr Adrian Owen, co-author of the research: "This changes things"

Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts.

The research, carried out at in the UK and in Belgium, involved a new brain scanning method.

Awareness was detected in three other patients previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative state.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that scans can detect signs of awareness in patients thought to be closed off from the world.

Patients in a vegetative state are awake, not in a coma, but have no awareness because of severe brain damage.

Scanning technique

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which shows brain activity in real time.

They asked patients and healthy volunteers to imagine playing tennis while they were being scanned.

In each of the volunteers this stimulated activity in the pre-motor cortex, part of the brain which deals with movement.

This also happened in four out of 23 of the patients presumed to be in a vegetative state.

The BBC's Fergus Walsh tests the new brain scanning technique

I volunteered to test out the scanning technique.

I gave the scientists two women's names, one of which was my mother's.

I imagined playing tennis when they said the right name, and within a minute they had worked out her name.

They were also able to guess correctly whether I had children.

Questions

This is a continuation of research published three years ago, when the team used the same technique to establish initial contact with a patient diagnosed as vegetative.

But this time they went further.

With one patient - a Belgian man injured in a traffic accident seven years ago - they asked a series of questions.

He was able to communicate "yes" and "no" using just his thoughts.

The team told him to use "motor" imagery like a tennis match to indicate "yes" and "spatial" imagery like thinking about roaming the streets for a "no".

The patient responded accurately to five out of six autobiographical questions posed by the scientists.

For example, he confirmed that his father's name was Alexander.

The study involved scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in Cambridge and a Belgian team at the University of Liege.

Dr Adrian Owen from the MRC in Cambridge co-authored the report:

"We were astonished when we saw the results of the patient's scan and that he was able to correctly answer the questions that were asked by simply changing his thoughts."

Dr Owen says this opens the way to involving such patients in their future treatment decisions: "You could ask if patients were in pain and if so prescribe painkillers and you could go on to ask them about their emotional state."

It does raise many ethical issues - for example - it is lawful to allow patients in a permanent vegetative state to die by withdrawing all treatment, but if a patient showed they could respond it would not be, even if they made it clear that was what they wanted.

The Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London is a leading assessment and treatment centre for adults with brain injuries.

Helen Gill, a consultant in low awareness state, welcomed the new research but cautioned that it was still early days for the research: "It's very useful if you have a scan which can show some activity but you need a detailed sensory assessment as well.

"A lot of patients are slipping through the net and this adds another layer to ensure patients are assessed correctly."

She said the hospital did a study of 60 patients admitted with a diagnosis of v