Environmental monitoring is often expensive, cumbersome, and time-intensive. Equipment that can run quick and easy tests for pollutants like pesticides in our food are almost nonexistent. However, researchers in Canada are working on a new biomonitoring technique using treated paper on a stick that can quickly identify trace amounts of pesticides in your chicken soup, or your first early morning cup of joe [Technology Review]. Could these dipsticks lead to DIY pollution monitoring

In the study, published in the journal Analytical Chemistry, the researchers describe a new paper-based test strip that changes color shades depending on the amount of pesticide present. In laboratory studies using food and beverage samples intentionally contaminated with common pesticides, the test strips accurately identified minute amounts of pesticides. The test strips, which produced results in less than 5 minutes, could be particularly useful in developing countries or remote areas that may lack access to expensive testing equipment and electricity, they note [R&D Magazine]. If the dipsticks pan out, restaurant customers may one day have more to complain about than a stray hair in their soup.

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Image: ACS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Journal of the American Medical Association, November 4
A new study of hospitalizations in California due to swine flu has highlighted a neglected risk factor: obesity. In the study group of patients whose weight was known, researchers found that 25 percent of the people were morbidly obese, although less than 5 percent of the U.S. population falls into that category. Researchers also found that 58 percent of these hospitalized patients were obese–in the population as a whole, about 34 percent of people are obese. The increased risks come partially from health problems associated with obesity, like heart disease, lung ailments, and diabetes. But physiological factors may also be to blame: The lungs of obese patients are squeezed by the abdomen pressing upward on the diaphragm.

Nature, November 5
A new astronomy study has solved a mystery that began brewing in 1680, when Britain’s first Astronomer Royal spotted a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia. Supernova typically collapse into a super-dense object like a black hole or a neutron star, but for decades astronomers have looked for such an object at the center of the supernova remnant, to no avail. Now, a new examination suggests that there is indeed a baby neutron star there, but it escaped detection because it’s swaddled in an unusual atmosphere of carbon gas. Further studies of the 330-year-old star will give researchers insight into how such stars mature. Another study brings us from the macro to the micro, with an investigation into the evolution of bacteria. Researchers forced bacteria to evolve in constantly changing conditions, so that natural selection couldn’t produce microbes that were ideally suited to a single environment. Instead, researchers proved that the bacteria hedged their bets by evolving into a strain that could form several different shapes from the same genetic material. The will to survive: It’s an amazing thing.

Science, November 6
The biggest study from Science reveals a very promising treatment for the fatal, inherited brain disease that was made famous by the movie Lorenzo’s Oil. Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) is caused by a faulty gene that leads to the destruction of nerve fibers’ insulating sheaths; without that insulation, electrical signals can’t be transmitted. The progressive disease is usually diagnosed in young boys, who typically die before adulthood. In the new experimental treatment, researchers used a deactivated HIV virus to ferry a working gene into the stem cells found in the patients’ bone marrows. Since the virus integrates itself permanently into the DNA of the cells it enters, researchers hope the patients will keep the working genes for the rest of their lives. More than two years after the treatment, the patients show no sign of further deterioration, and are able to live relatively normal lives. While the boys will continue to be monitored for side effects, the study brings fresh hope not just to ALD sufferers, but also to those who believe that gene therapy holds tremendous medical promise, despite earlier setbacks.

Current Biology, November 3
When Charles Darwin and the crew of the HMS Beagle arrived at the remote Falkland Islands, 300 miles from the tip of Argentina, they wondered how the islands came to be populated with the strange Falkland wolves. The small wolves were the only mammals present on the islands, and one theory of their origin posited that they were descended from dogs brought over by Native Americans. Now a new genetic study of four museum specimens (sadly, the wolves have since gone extinct) has proven that theory wrong. The study showed that the wolves shared a common ancestor at least 70,000 years ago, which suggests that the wolves arrived on the islands long before the first humans made it to the new world.

Scientists already knew that a baby in the womb can memorize sounds from the outside world, and is particularly sensitive to the melodies of her mother’s language.  But the new research showed an “extremely early” impact of native language and confirmed that babies’ cries are their first proper attempts to communicate specifically with their mothers [Reuters]. The data support the idea that crying seeds language development for infants, according to the scientists, who published their research in the journal Current Biology.

To hear the different between German and French crying babies for yourself, click here to listen.

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Image: flickr / chalky lives

Happily, the cat is expected to make a full recovery. But both vets and public health officials are rushing to reassure the public that one sick cat probably does not indicate a coming crisis. While it’s possible that more cats will be diagnosed with the swine flu, vets point out that the virus was circulating for more than six months before the first cat case was discovered, indicating that the virus probably doesn’t jump from species to species very easily. Doctors also note that there’s very little chance that a cat will spread the virus to humans: Even when inter-species transmissions do occur, the H1N1 virus seems more likely to move from humans to animals, rather than the other way around [HealthDay News].

There have been no reported cases of dogs catching the virus, but there is one type of pet that is known to be vulnerable. Ferrets are generally susceptible to the seasonal flu, and the AP reported Wednesday that H1N1 infection has been confirmed in two ferrets, one in Nebraska and the other in Oregon. “Not only can they be infected with the flu but they are clearly able to transmit the flu back to people,” Treanor said [HealthDay News]. But the bottom line appears to be: Unless you’re a ferret-owner, you probably have nothing to worry about.

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Image: flickr / theogeo

Adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, is a progressive disease characterized by the gradual destruction of the myelin sheaths that insulate neurons and nerves, allowing electrical signals to be transmitted through them. The disease is caused by a genetic defect, which prevents cells in the bone marrow from producing a crucial protein necessary for the formation of the myelin sheaths. Typically, children with ALD are given bone marrow transplants to provide them with healthy blood-forming stem cells, but in the two cases described in the study, no matching donors could be found.

In the experimental treatment, described in a paper published in Science, researchers took blood stem cells from the patients’ bone marrow and used the new vector system to genetically alter them by inserting a working copy of the … gene. The modified cells were then put back into the patients [Reuters].

The boys are now seven years old, and if the disease had continued on its course they would have been nearly dead by now. Says lead researcher Patrick Aubourg: “They would now be unable to speak, to walk, to communicate, to sit, to eat. They would be in an advanced stage of the disease, in a vegetative state…. Instead they go to school. They live a normal life” [Wired.com]. Aubourg says brain scans of the two boys show the myelin destruction has come to a halt, and cognitive tests have shown no further deterioration over the course of several years.

The tactic will be tested further to see if its beneficial effects extend to other patients, and the treated boys will also be monitored for any late-breaking side effects. So far the researchers have detected no ill effects, but they will be vigilant because gene therapy is still best-known for its high-profile failures. In 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died during tests of a gene therapy for a rare metabolic disorder. In 2003, two French children receiving treatment for severe immune deficiencies developed leukemia. But with the recent success of a gene therapy for blindness, and the refinement of new, apparently more reliable methods, gene therapy may have turned a corner [Wired.com].

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Image: Science / Patrick Aubourg, et al. The top row shows the deterioration over time of an untreated brain with ALD, while the bottom shows the brain of one of the treated boys.

When 3-year-old

To install the bone, doctors first had to remove the tumor by carving out the fat around it, a process one of the doctor’s likened to carving out a peach pit without ever touching the pit. The surgery was a success but Mark, who is now 4 years old, underwent chemotherapy as a precaution. Mark is gradually relearning how to use his arm. He’s moving his wrist and fingers, can pick up small objects, and is receiving physiotherapy to rebuild strength and flexibility in the elbow and shoulder. He won’t ever regain full function in those joints, but he is using the arm more each day, his mother said [Los Angeles Times]. He will have to undergo three or four minor surgeries over the years so doctors can extend the prosthetic bone as he grows–but since the only other option open to Mark was amputating his arm completely, he probably won’t complain.

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Image: iStockphoto

Instead of resembling more mature neutron stars, which are surrounded by hydrogen, this baby star is blanketed in carbon gas – a discovery that could provide important new insights into the evolution of neutron stars [Physics World]. The new study, published in Nature, suggests that the star is still extremely hot in the aftermath of the supernova–about 2 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This overheated condition caused a nuclear fusion reaction on the star’s surface that converts all the hydrogen and helium into carbon gas, researchers say. As time goes on, and as the star cools, the researchers think the surface fusion reaction will stop and the star will develop a more traditional hydrogen atmosphere.

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Image: NASA / CXC / Southampton / W. Ho / M. Weiss

Theorized in the 1960s and then popularized by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1979 novel “The Fountains of Paradise,” space elevators are envisioned as a way to gain access to space without the risk and expense of rockets. Instead, electrically powered vehicles would run up and down a cable anchored to a ground structure and extending thousands of miles up to a mass in geosynchronous orbit — the kind of orbit communications satellites are placed in to stay over a fixed spot on the Earth [AP].

The LaserMotive vehicle that climbed up the cable (held by a hovering helicopter) was powered by a system that resembles an upside-down solar power mechanism. Laser beams on the ground were fired up at the ascending craft and hit its photovoltaic cells–like those used in solar panels–in a process known as “power beaming.” LaserMotive will have a chance to improve its vehicle’s speed at another trial today, and other teams will also be vying for prizes.

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Image: Space Elevator Games. The LaserMotive vehicle gets weighed in.

Great white sharks, much like humans, tend to stick to familiar turf, according to new research. Also like a lot of people, they like to hang out along the coastal waters of California. Sharks tagged with acoustic devices often spent up to 107 days at four key sites along the central and northern California coast where seals and sea lions are abundant: Southeast Farallon Island, Tomales Point, Año Nuevo Island and Point Reyes [LiveScience]. A few of the fearsome predators were tracked as far inland as the Golden Gate Bridge, apparently in search of snacks, say the researchers. The study,

The sharks under study divided most of their time between three locations: Northern California, Hawaii, and an area that the researchers called the white shark café, a spot in the open ocean about halfway between the Baja Peninsula and the Hawaiian Islands. Exactly what goes on at the café is still unknown–although researchers suspect it may be a hot spot for mating. Lead researcher Salvador Jorgensen explains that male white sharks “converge in a very specific area of the cafe,” Jorgensen said, while female sharks move in and out of the area. “It adds a little more evidence to the argument that this could be an important reproductive area” [Washington Post].

The scientists tracked the snaggly toothed predators between 2000 and 2008 from the Bay Area to San Diego, Hawaii and back as the sharks followed a route that was carried out with surprising precision and under a strict time frame [San Francisco Chronicle]. These great whites have been isolated from other great white sharks near Australia and South Africa for so long that they are now genetically distinct. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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Image: flickr / hermanusbackpackers

Dogs are used all the time to fight crime—from sniffing out bombs and drugs to locating dead bodies. However, scent lineups have critics barking. They say the lineups are poorly controlled, and argue that avoiding cross-contamination is basically impossible. The main target of the current lawsuit is Fort Bend County Deputy Keith Pikett—whose home-trained bloodhounds identified the suspects. A 2004 F.B.I. report warned that dog scent work “should not be used as primary evidence,” but only to corroborate other evidence. In several of the cases that were based on Deputy Pikett’s dogs, however, the scent lineups appear to have provided the primary evidence, even when contradictory evidence was readily available [The New York Times]. Deputy Pikett, by his own estimation, has conducted thousands of scent lineups.

The three men who filed the lawsuit against Deputy Pickett were all eventually set free after contradictory evidence proved their innocence. The Innocence Project of Texas, a legal defense organization … released a report last month that excoriated dog scent lineups as a “junk science injustice” [The New York Times]. Dog scent lineups bring to mind another high profile forensic science debate in Texas that many believe led to the execution of an innocent man. Now that the science behind dog scent lineups is coming under the same scrutiny, one can’t help but wonder if scent lineups might have led to a similar outcome.

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Image: flickr / contadini

Kepler, which was launched in March, uses the transit method to detect exoplanets; it’s watching a patch of 100,000 stars in hopes of detecting the brief dimming of a star’s light, which indicates that a planet has passed in front of the star. Kepler focuses light onto 42 light-detecting chips, called CCDs, each of which monitors stars in a different part of the telescope’s field of view. Each CCD is split into two for the purposes of sending data back to Earth, for a total of 84 data channels. Three of these channels are plagued by electronic noise that makes stars in their field of view appear to flicker – “like it’s changing its brightness at a rapid rate”, says Kepler chief scientist William Borucki [New Scientist]. That’s awkward, since the artificial flickers could obscure the real dimming that occurs during a planet’s transit.

The astronomers reportedly detected the problem during testing before Kepler’s launch, but they judged it riskier to dismantle the satellite at the last minute than to correct the glitch after launch. The noise affects only a small portion of the data, Borucki says, but the team has to fix the software — it would be “too cumbersome” to remove the bad data manually — so that it accounts for the noise automatically. He says that the fix should be in place by 2011 [Nature News].

Still, researchers say that the problem isn’t likely to delay the announcement of an Earth-like planet. For an exoplanet to be habitable to life as we know it, the planet would have to orbit its star at a distance that would keep it at a reasonable temperature and allow for liquid water. An Earth-like planet around a sun-like star would have an orbit roughly similar to Earth’s, and would take about a year to complete one circuit around its star. Astronomers feel the need to record three transits to confirm a planet’s existence–and in three years time, the noise-canceling software should be available. The delays would only affect habitable planets around smaller, cooler stars. The habitable zone for these stars is closer in, where planets could complete the necessary three orbits in about one Earth year. Without the glitch, this kind of planet could in principle be confirmed in 2010 [New Scientist].

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Image: Kepler / Ames Research Center

The study, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains that the seismic movements observed in Ethiopia are very similar to the changes wrought by faults and fissures on the seafloor, where the processes that move tectonic plates usually begin.

Seismic data from 2005 shows that the rift opened in a matter of days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today. “We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this” [LiveScience], says study coauthor Cindy Ebinger.

The active volcanic region in Ethiopia’s Afar desert sits at the boundary of the African and Arabian tectonic plates, which have been gradually spreading apart for millions years; the new study shows that large-scale seismic events can speed up that process. The gradual separation has already formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so [LiveScience].

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Image: University of Rochester

The puny little electrodes that the police weapons use just won’t do for the military. That’s why the U.S. Department of Defense has been developing a long-range electric shock device that fires from a 40-millimeter grenade launcher and can subdue an enemy from just under 200 feet away. The new Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) projectile is being developed for the Pentagon by Taser International under a $2.5 million contract and should be ready for prototype testing some time after the new year [Popular Science]. HEMI’s range is three times longer than Taser International’s XREP shotgun-style projectile, which has generated controversy because of concerns that the projectile could be deadly in untrained hands.

Since most law enforcement squads don’t carry around grenade launchers, the HEMI projectile is only likely to see action on the battlefield. However, HEMI has still raised several concerns. For one, the impact force of the projectile remains a worry. “There is a known risk of severe injury from impact projectiles, either from blunt force at short ranges or from hitting a sensitive part of the body,” says security researcher Neil Davison, who has recently written a book on non-lethal weapons [New Scientist]. However, Defense Department engineers say the HEMI’s innovative nose design and reduced mass will deliver minimal force.

Incapacitation times are another concern. Since the projectiles are fired from 200 feet away, the target must remain incapacitated long enough to allow the shooter to reach him. The target’s incapacitation could last up to three minutes—presumably enough time for the user to cover the 200 feet separating him from his target, but also long enough to deliver a fatal dose of electric shock [Popular Science]. The Defense Department said the shock durations have not been determined, but can be tailored to meet a mission’s requirements.

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Image: USMC Image Archive

The images taken and the data recorded during the flyby are the last that will be acquired until Messenger finally slips into orbit around Mercury in 2011. The probe has now completed about three-quarters of its swooping 4.9-billion-mile journey that will eventually bring it into orbit.

Researcher Brett Denevi explains that this enhanced color shot shows a bright area surrounding an irregular depression, with steep sides and an odd shape, “all of which are hallmarks of something like a volcanic vent,” Denevi said [SPACE.com]. The double-ring basin in the center of the photo measures about 180 miles in diameter. It appears to be a relatively young impact crater–researchers believe it formed about 1 billion years ago–and the smooth stuff on the crater floor may be even younger volcanic material.

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Image: NASA

Cancer treatment in the future could have dramatically reduced side effects if new nanotechnology research proves useful. Heat-sensitive nanoparticles might be able to deliver drugs to a targeted location in the body

One research team has developed nanoparticle cages that can be stuffed with tiny amounts of drugs that are only released on demand. These “nanocages” are cubes of gold, with sides about 50-billionths of a meter long and holes at each corner. They are easily made, using silver particles as a mold, and then coated with strands of a smart polymer. The polymer strands are normally extended and bushy and cover the holes in the cube. But when heated the strands collapse, leaving the holes open and allowing the drug inside to escape [The New York Times]. The researchers say they can engineer the nanocages to stick to tumors.

Doctors could release the packaged drugs whenever they want, just by zapping the cages inside the patient’s body with near-infrared light. Near-infrared wavelengths are not greatly absorbed by body tissues, so light from a near-infrared laser could penetrate a couple of inches inside the body, but they are absorbed by gold [The New York Times]. Researchers could design the cages to fall apart at just a few degrees above normal body temperature, so they only spill their contents where the heat is applied; they could also alter the drug’s rate of release by adjusting the laser’s intensity. The technology, described in the journal Nature Materials, could help cut down on the side effects of today’s treatments which are often caused by toxic drugs coursing through the body.

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Image: Younan Xia, Washington University in St. Louis