SCIENCE

A science news preview of 2011

2010-12-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

The year 2010 saw many amazing advances in research, from a synthetic life form to the first dust returned to Earth from an asteroid.

Here, BBC News looks ahead to some of the areas of science and space exploration where headlines might be made in 2011.

ANOTHER EARTH

In 2010, astronomers reported more than 100 new candidate exoplanets - planets beyond our Solar System - bringing the total to more than 500. Most of these are so-called hot Jupiters - huge gas giants orbiting close to their parent stars - which are easiest to detect using existing techniques.

A truly Earth-like planet could be just around the corner

But researchers have been steadily closing in on exoplanets that are more Earth-like in size and temperature.
The smallest known exoplanet is Corot-7b, which has a diameter less than twice that of Earth. But its surface temperature is estimated to be around 1,000C, making it far too hot to host any life forms. But in September 2010, a US team announced that it had discovered the planet Gliese 581g orbiting a star some 20 light-years away.
Gliese 581g has a mass about three to four times that of Earth, but it orbits in the so-called "Goldilocks zone" - a region around its host star where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold. Such conditions could allow for the presence on the planet's surface of liquid water - a key ingredient for life.
But researchers are on the look-out for distant worlds that are even more like our own. This search is being carried out both from telescopes on the ground and from space. Next year should see a release of data collected by the US Kepler space telescope, launched into orbit in March 2009. Most of the exoplanet candidates reported by Kepler so far are Neptune-sized or larger. But the US space agency (Nasa) hopes that the telescope's extraordinarily sensitive detectors will lead it to worlds ever more like our own.

RISE OF THE PRIVATEERS

In 2011, the US space agency is likely to launch its final space shuttle flight. But as one era in space ends, another is dawning, as privately built space vehicles make their first flights. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is due to launch into space for the first time in 2011. Backed by Sir Richard Branson, the new ship is capable of carrying eight people - two crew and six passengers - and will eventually take people prepared to pay $200,000 (£126,000) on short hops above the atmosphere.

Orbital Sciences is developing a spacecraft to ferry cargo to the space station

Several companies are involved in providing for the commercial re-supply of the International Space Station (ISS). Earlier this year, one of these firms, SpaceX launched its Dragon capsule - designed to carry cargo and astronauts - into space atop its own Falcon 9 rocket. In 2011, the Taurus II rocket built by Virginia-based Orbital Sciences should make its first flight. The two-stage launcher will eventually loft a capsule named Cygnus, which is designed to carry cargo to the space station. But further along on the horizon, Orbital is working on a crewed spaceplane about one quarter the size of the space shuttle.
Another firm vying for a slice of the re-supply market is Sierra Nevada. The firm is developing a space vehicle called Dream Chaser, which could carry six to eight people to and from low-Earth orbit. Sir Richard Branson has given his support to the project, a move which could see Virgin buy seats on the Dream Chaser or allow its WhiteKnightTwo vehicle to be used as a carrier aircraft for Sierra Nevada's space vehicle during its atmospheric flight tests. More details of the effort should emerge in 2011.

RACE FOR THE HIGGS

As 2010 drew to a close, Cern (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which operates the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), announced that it might delay a shut-down of the LHC currently planned for the end of 2011.

The LHC is becoming sensitive enough to probe new domains in particle physics

Delaying the shut-down by one year, until the end of 2012, would give the vast particle smasher extra time to look for signs of the Higgs boson, the particle which is responsible for the property of mass.
It may be just as well, because the LHC is not the only smasher looking for hints of the Higgs. The Tevatron accelerator, based underground at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, could also have its run extended to look for the elusive boson particle. The Higgs is a crucial missing piece in the Standard Model, the most widely accepted framework for particle physics.
During 2011, the LHC will become sensitive enough to probe hitherto unexplored domains in particle physics. Scientists will be looking for evidence of "supersymmetry" - a theory in which existing elementary particles are paired with a massive "shadow" partner - and extra dimensions. But if these searches draw a blank, it could be just as informative.
Over the course of the coming year, Cern physicists will certainly be working to explain interesting effects seen at the LHC in 2010. These puzzling effects emerged during the statistical study of particle movements in billions of collisions from the collider's CMS experiment. According to CMS spokesman Guido Tonelli, "it's like the particles talk to each other and they decide which way to go".

QUANTUM COMPUTING

If they could be made to work on a large scale, quantum computers would be able to solve problems much faster than any machines based around traditional electronics. The idea behind quantum computation is to hijack some of the "spookiness" in the area of physics known as quantum mechanics.
Researchers aim to exploit the way sub-atomic particles can become delicately but inextricably linked in "entangled states" to do computing of unimaginable complexity. Part of that effort comes by bumping up, one by one, the number of quantum bits or "qubits" - units of quantum information - that can be brought under control.
This year saw three qubits entangled in a situation not unlike that found in traditional electronics. Researchers were also able to entangle ten photons - the fundamental packets of light. Both results are regarded as an experimental tours de force.
The demonstrations of logic gates using entangled states and of a way to store quantum bits (analogous to computer memory) were also promising advances towards the goal of a functioning quantum computer.
More than that, quantum computation could simply be easier than originally thought. We now know that "quantum objects" might not need to be single atoms or photons. Instead, even objects big enough to be seen with the naked eye can take on slippery quantum properties. In 2010, we also saw that quantum computers might even work with lots of errors - that is, the constraints on how many delicate quantum states must be maintained for the computer to function might not be as tight as once thought. We can expect more promising advances to emerge in 2011.

DESTINATION MARS

Nasa's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity are about to enter their seventh year on Mars. And it shouldn't be too long before they are joined by another roaming robot nicknamed Curiosity. The US space agency's Mars Science Laboratory mission is scheduled to launch in late 2011, to land the Curiosity rover on Mars's surface in the summer of 2012.

Click to play

Nasa says it is on track to launch the Mars rover in 2011

MSL is designed to determine whether Mars was, or still is, capable of hosting life. The 750kg rover will carry state-of-the-art instruments - a scientific payload to help study the Red Planet's geology, atmosphere and environmental conditions, as well as potential biosignatures.
The mission will also employ cutting edge technology, including a "sky crane" system. MSL is too heavy for the airbags employed to cushion landings on previous Mars missions. Instead, the rocket-powered sky crane will gently lower the rover to the surface using a tether.
We will have to wait until 2012 to see Curiosity touch down on the surface of Mars, but many are hopeful the mission will make an important contribution to answering a question that scientists - along with a certain mercurial rock solo artist from Brixton - have pondered for decades: Is there life on Mars?

New Year Honours: Astronaut Piers Sellers becomes OBE

2010-12-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

Piers Sellers has logged 35 days in space on three Nasa shuttle missions

British-born astronaut Piers Sellers has been appointed an OBE in the New Year Honours List for his services to science.

Dr Sellers, who was born in Crowborough, East Sussex, has flown on three space shuttle missions - most recently in May this year.
Like other astronaut candidates born outside the US, he had to become an American citizen to be considered.
The science journalist and broadcaster Vivienne Parry is also awarded an OBE.
Dr Sellers is one of only five UK-born people to have flown into orbit so far - out of some 500 in total across the world.
"It is a tremendous honour, and I'm really glad that the whole business of spaceflight has been recognised in the UK," he told BBC News.
He first joined Nasa in the 1980s, working at the Nasa Goddard Space Center in Maryland. It was there that he succeeded in getting on to the Nasa astronaut programme.
Dr Sellers first flew into space aboard the shuttle Atlantis in 2002, during which he carried out three spacewalks to help continue the assembly of the International Space Station.

“Start Quote

I'm really glad that the whole business of spaceflight has been recognised in the UK”

End Quote Piers Sellers Nasa astronaut

His next flight was aboard Discovery in 2006, a crucial mission designed to test improved safety measures following the 2003 Columbia disaster, in which seven astronauts died.

In May this year, Dr Sellers boarded Atlantis for a second time to deliver a Russian-built module to the space station.
With the shuttle programme coming to an end, Dr Sellers - who holds a degree in ecology and a PhD in climate simulation - is set to return to Nasa Goddard to resume his science pursuits.
In 1994, Ms Parry became a presenter for the BBC's Tomorrow's World programme. But she is also well known as a broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and as a columnist and writer for the Guardian and Times newspapers.
She is also active in the charity sector, having worked with the Princess of Wales for several years at Birthright - now called Wellbeing of Women - which works in partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Secret lives of baby American beavers filmed

2010-12-30T09:28:00.000-08:00

Baby beavers' secret lives filmed

The secrets lives of beavers have been revealed by a new study.

Using discrete video cameras, scientists have been able to study the long-term natural behaviour of beavers "at home" in their lodges.
The tiny, waterproof cameras, inserted into beaver dens, show that beavers lead very different private lives when at home than when outside.
At home, the animals are surprisingly co-operative and scientists have even recorded baby beavers growing up.

Kits exhibited multiple sleep wake cycles lasting only a few hours, much like a human infant waking up every few hours during the night

Professor Cy Mott

"Much of what we know about beavers and their use of dens is limited to questions like 'what times of day do they go in and out of the den'", says Cy Mott, a biologist at Kentucky Wesleyan College, in Owensboro, US.
"Simply because, until recently, we haven't had the technology to follow their behaviour within the den without potentially disturbing natural behaviour."
So Professor Mott and colleagues, Craig Bloomquist and Clayton Nielsen of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, US, decided to study American beavers (Castor canadensis) denning on the Mississippi flood plain in south-western Illinois.
Beavers in this region declined drastically in the 19th and 20th Centuries, but have since recovered due to a ban on hunting them for their pelts.
The researchers used special "probe" cameras that do not disturb the beavers to record the animals' behaviour in 23 colonies over the course of more than a year.

The scientists wanted to know what the rodents got up to behind closed lodges

Beavers make sophisticated homes, either in dens burrowed into river banks, or more complex lodges.
Lodges are essentially dens built from wooden branches that are surrounded by water, the level of which beavers help maintain by also building wooden dams.
Video taken of beavers within 17 lodges and six bank dens revealed some surprising behaviours.
Living in their elaborate shelters, beavers were thought to be cut off from the outside environment.
But the video study shows that they exhibit regular patterns of behaviour, leaving to feed at roughly the same time every day, for example.
"This suggests that they may not be as cut off from the external environment as we think they are," says Professor Mott.

BEAVER BEHAVIOUR FACTS

American beavers are the third largest rodent in the world, after the capybara of South America and the Eurasian beaver

An 850m-long beaver dam was discovered in Canada this year

Watch video clips of American beavers

Male and female beavers appear to take equal responsibility for raising their babies, known as kits, perhaps because the young are so "high maintenance".
In the privacy of their own home, beavers also spend 95% of their time feeding, sleeping, and grooming.
"It supports the assumption that the relative security of the den is a place where they can exhibit behaviours that would be potentially dangerous outside of dens," says Professor Mott.
Baby sleep
Another surprise relates to the private lives of baby beavers, and their sleeping patterns.
Baby beavers, and adults, follow a similar sleep schedule to humans, the researchers report in the journal Mammalian Biology.
Adults beavers tended to sleep at a similar time, though not all the adults fall asleep at once, perhaps to ensure the babies are looked after.
"Kits, on the other hand, exhibited multiple sleep wake cycles throughout the day and night, with each interval lasting only a few hours, much like a human infant waking up every few hours during the night," says Prof Mott.
Finally, "given that beavers are in incredibly close confines within dens, we fully expected to document aggressive behaviours," he explains.
Most social animals that live in close-knit groups tend to use aggression to establish a "pecking order" between individuals.
But "one of the most interesting things we didn't find was aggression within beaver colonies," Prof Mott told the BBC.

SOURCES

Visit Mammalian Biology to learn more about the private lives of beavers

The researchers know of only two previous studies that attempt to explain what happens within a den, despite the fact that beavers spent considerable portions of their lives in these structures.
In one study, scientists cut away one side of a lodge to view the beavers directly via a glass panel, which likely disturbed the animals' natural behaviour.
The other study consisted of a researcher "listening in" while outside the lodge, in an attempt to describe what was happening inside.
"To our knowledge, our study is the first to use long-term video data to follow behaviour for months at a time, over successive years, and even during the period from birth of beaver kits until they disperse to find territories of their own," says Professor Mott.

Earth project aims to 'simulate everything'

2010-12-29T19:11:00.000-08:00

The Living Earth Simulator will collect data from billions of sources

It could be one of the most ambitious computer projects ever conceived.

An international group of scientists are aiming to create a simulator that can replicate everything happening on Earth - from global weather patterns and the spread of diseases to international financial transactions or congestion on Milton Keynes' roads.
Nicknamed the Living Earth Simulator (LES), the project aims to advance the scientific understanding of what is taking place on the planet, encapsulating the human actions that shape societies and the environmental forces that define the physical world.
"Many problems we have today - including social and economic instabilities, wars, disease spreading - are related to human behaviour, but there is apparently a serious lack of understanding regarding how society and the economy work," says Dr Helbing, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, who chairs the FuturICT project which aims to create the simulator.
Knowledge collider Thanks to projects such as the Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator built by Cern, scientists know more about the early universe than they do about our own planet, claims Dr Helbing.
What is needed is a knowledge accelerator, to collide different branches of knowledge, he says.
"Revealing the hidden laws and processes underlying societies constitutes the most pressing scientific grand challenge of our century."
The result would be the LES. It would be able to predict the spread of infectious diseases, such as Swine Flu, identify methods for tackling climate change or even spot the inklings of an impending financial crisis, he says.

Is it possible to build a social science equivalent to the Large Hadron Collider?

But how would such colossal system work?
For a start it would need to be populated by data - lots of it - covering the entire gamut of activity on the planet, says Dr Helbing.
It would also be powered by an assembly of yet-to-be-built supercomputers capable of carrying out number-crunching on a mammoth scale.
Although the hardware has not yet been built, much of the data is already being generated, he says.
For example, the Planetary Skin project, led by US space agency Nasa, will see the creation of a vast sensor network collecting climate data from air, land, sea and space.
In addition, Dr Helbing and his team have already identified more than 70 online data sources they believe can be used including Wikipedia, Google Maps and the UK government's data repository Data.gov.uk.
Drowning in data Integrating such real-time data feeds with millions of other sources of data - from financial markets and medical records to social media - would ultimately power the simulator, says Dr Helbing.
The next step is create a framework to turn that morass of data in to models that accurately replicate what is taken place on Earth today.

“Start Quote

We don't take any action on the information we have”

End Quote Pete Warden OpenHeatMaps

That will only be possible by bringing together social scientists and computer scientists and engineers to establish the rules that will define how the LES operates.

Such work cannot be left to traditional social science researchers, where typically years of work produces limited volumes of data, argues Dr Helbing.
Nor is it something that could have been achieved before - the technology needed to run the LES will only become available in the coming decade, he adds.
Human behaviour For example, while the LES will need to be able to assimilate vast oceans of data it will simultaneously have to understand what that data means.
That becomes possible as so-called semantic web technologies mature, says Dr Helbing.
Today, a database chock-full of air pollution data would look much the same to a computer as a database of global banking transactions - essentially just a lot of numbers.
But semantic web technology will encode a description of data alongside the data itself, enabling computers to understand the data in context.
What's more, our approach to aggregating data stresses the need to strip out any of that information that relates directly to an individual, says Dr Helbing.

The Living Earth Simulator aims to predict how diseases spread

That will enable the LES to incorporate vast amounts of data relating to human activity, without compromising people's privacy, he argues.
Once an approach to carrying out large-scale social and economic data is agreed upon, it will be necessary to build supercomputer centres needed to crunch that data and produce the simulation of the Earth, says Dr Helbing.
Generating the computational power to deal with the amount of data needed to populate the LES represents a significant challenge, but it's far from being a showstopper.
If you look at the data-processing capacity of Google, it's clear that the LES won't be held back by processing capacity, says Pete Warden, founder of the OpenHeatMap project and a specialist on data analysis.
While Google is somewhat secretive about the amount of data it can process, in May 2010 it was believed to use in the region of 39,000 servers to process an exabyte of data per month - that's enough data to fill 2 billion CDs every month.
Reality mining If you accept that only a fraction of the "several hundred exabytes of data being produced worldwide every year… would be useful for a world simulation, the bottleneck won't be the processing capacity," says Mr Warden.
"Getting access to the data will be much more of a challenge, as will figuring out something useful to do with it," he adds.
Simply having lots of data isn't enough to build a credible simulation of the planet, argues Warden. "Economics and sociology have consistently failed to produce theories with strong predictive powers over the last century, despite lots of data gathering. I'm sceptical that larger data sets will mark a big change," he says.
"It's not that we don't know enough about a lot of the problems the world faces, from climate change to extreme poverty, it's that we don't take any action on the information we do have," he argues.
Regardless of the challenges the project faces, the greater danger is not attempting to use the computer tools we have now - and will have in future - to improve our understanding of global socio-economic trends, says Dr Helbing.
"Over the past years, it has for example become obvious that we need better indicators than the gross national product to judge societal development and well-being," he argues.
At it's heart, the LES is about working towards better methods to measure the state of society, he says, which would account for health, education and environmental issues. "And last but not least, happiness."

Ariane 5 makes final 2010 flight

2010-12-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

The sixth Ariane 5 rocket of 2010 powers away from its South American launch pad

Europe's heavy-lift rocket, the Ariane 5, has completed its sixth and final mission of 2010, putting two satellites high above the Earth.

The launcher powered skyward from its Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 1827 local time (2127 GMT).
Ariane's biggest "passenger" was Hispasat-1E, a 5.3-tonne platform that will deliver a range of video and data services to Europe and the Americas.
The 2.7t Koreasat-6 will handle TV and telecoms services for South Korea.
"It's the 41st consecutive success of Ariane 5 and in 2010 we will have launched a total of 12 large telecommunications satellites out of a world total of 20," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, the chairman and CEO of the rocket's operator, Arianespace. "This gives us a market share of 60%."
The vehicle's first outing of 2011 is likely to be a re-supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Ariane will be used to put Europe's 20-tonne space freighter, ATV-Johannes Kepler, in a low-Earth orbit. The flight is scheduled for 15 February.
After separating from the Ariane, the freighter will use its own thrusters to get to the orbiting outpost.
It will be carrying more than six tonnes of fuel, air, food and equipment for the station's astronauts.

Six foods that are making Americans fat

2010-12-29T07:57:00.000-08:00

Two out of three people in America today are either overweight or obese. That means every time you sit down in an airplane or a packed movie theater, more likely than not you’re going to wind up as the lean center of a fat sandwich. But as you look right and left and see nothing but heft, you can’t help but think, What happened?

How did we all get so darn fat?

Well, the simple answer is that we eat more calories. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that American men eat 7 percent more calories than they did in 1971; American women eat a whopping 18 percent more—an additional 335 calories a day! But the harder question is this: Why do we eat so many more calories? Are we suddenly more gluttonous? Do we have some kind of collective death wish? Is the entire country hellbent on qualifying for the next season ofBiggest Loser?

No. There’s an even crazier reason: It’s the food!

We’ve added extra calories to traditional foods, often in cheap, mass-produced vehicles like high fructose corn syrup. These new freak foods are designed not by chefs, but by lab technicians packing every morsel with maximum calories at minimum cost—with little or no regard to dietary impact. Indeed, Eat This, Not That! 2011 has uncovered the truth about some of your favorite fast food and grocery store items and how they're causing you to pack on unnecessary pounds. It’s enough to kill your appetite, which—in these cases, anyway—would be a good thing.

Bonus Tip: Don't miss our year-end walk down The Restaurant Hall of Shame: The 20 Worst Foods of 2010!

THE FAST-FOOD HAMBURGER
The great American staple. Don’t worry, burgers really do come from cows—but have you ever wondered how those giant chains process and distribute so much meat so cheaply? And . . . are you sure you want to know?

The Truth: Most fast-food hamburger patties begin their voyage to your buns in the hands of a company called Beef Products. The company specializes in taking slaughterhouse trimmings—heads and hooves and the like—that are traditionally used only in pet food and cooking oil, and turning them into patties. The challenge is getting this byproduct meat clean enough for human consumption, as both E. coli and salmonella like to concentrate themselves in the fatty deposits.

The company has developed a process for killing beef-based pathogens by forcing the ground meat through pipes and exposing it to ammonia gas—the same chemical you might use to clean your bathroom. Not only has the USDA approved the process, but it's also allowed those who sell the beef to keep it hidden from their customers. At Beef Products’ behest, ammonia gas has been deemed a “processing agent” that need not be identified on nutrition labels. Never mind that if ammonia gets on your skin, it can cause severe burning, and if it gets in your eyes, it can blind you. Add to the gross-out factor the fact that after moving through this lengthy industrial process, a single beef patty can consist of cobbled-together pieces from different cows from all over the world—a practice that only increases the odds of contamination.

Eat This Instead: Losing weight starts in your own kitchen, by using the same ingredients real chefs have relied on since the dawn of the spatula. (Here are the15 best dishes for quick and easy weight loss.) If you’re set on the challenge of eating fresh, single-source hamburger, pick out a nice hunk of sirloin from the meat case and have your butcher grind it up fresh. Hold the ammonia.

BETTY CROCKER'S BAC-O BITS
We’ve all been there before: A big bowl of lettuce or a steamy baked potato is set before us and the sudden desire for a bit of smoky, porky goodness pervades. We try to resist, but we grab for the bottle anyway: Mmmmm . . . bacon.

The Truth: Not quite. If it’s Bac-Os you grab for, just know that there’s not the slightest whiff of anything pork-like to be found in the bottle. So what are those little chips you’ve been shaking over your salads? Well, mostly soybeans. The bulk of each Bac-O is formed by tiny clumps of soy flour bound with trans-fatty, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and laced with artificial coloring, salt, and sugar. The result is a product that’s actually less healthy for your heart than the real thing!

Eat This Instead: Hormel makes a product called Real Bacon Bits, and as the name implies, it’s made with real bacon. And gram-for-gram, the real bacon actually has fewer calories than Betty Crocker’s Bac-Os. If Hormel can make a nutritionally superior product using real bacon, then why would you ever choose the artificial one that’s loaded with partially hydrogenated soybean oil?

PREMADE GUACAMOLE
When you buy bean dip, you expect it to be made from beans. And when you buy guacamole, it seems reasonable to expect it to be made from avocados. But is it?

The Truth: Most guacamoles with the word “dip” attached to the label suffer from a lack of real avocado. Take Dean’s Guacamole, for example. This guacamole dip is composed of less than 2 percent avocado; the rest of the green goo is a cluster of fillers and chemicals, including modified food starch, soybean oils, locust bean gum, and food coloring. Dean’s is not alone in this offense. In fact, this avocado caper was brought to light when a California woman filed a lawsuit against Kraft after she noticed “it just didn’t taste avocadoey.”

Eat This Instead: Avocados are loaded with fiber and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. Trading the good stuff in for a bunch of fillers is cheating both your belly and your tastebuds. Either look for the real stuff (Wholly Guacamole makes a great guac), or mash up a bowl yourself. Scoop out the flesh of two avocados, combine with two cloves of minced garlic, a bit of minced onion, the juice of one lemon, chopped cilantro, one medium chopped tomato, and a pinch of salt.

Bonus Tip: Unlike packaged-food manufacturers, fast-food and sit-down restaurants don't typically rely on chemicals to enhance flavor. Instead, they pack in sugar and sodium, calorie counts be damned. Beware of The 10 Worst Fast Food Meals in America!

FRUIT ON THE BOTTOM YOGURT
It seems like the ideal breakfast or snack for a man or woman on the go—a perfect combination of yogurt and antioxidant-packed fruits, pulled together in one convenient little cup. But are these low-calorie dairy aisle staples really so good for you?

The Truth: While the yogurt itself offers stomach-soothing live cultures and a decent serving of protein, the sugar content of these seemingly healthy products is sky-high. The fruit itself is swimming in thick syrup—so much of it, in fact, that high-fructose corn syrup (and other such sweeteners) often shows up on the ingredients list well before the fruit itself. And these low-quality refined carbohydrates are the last thing you want for breakfast—Australian researchers found that people whose diets were high in carbohydrates had lower metabolisms than those who ate proportionally more protein. Not to mention, spikes in your blood sugar can wreck your short-term memory, according to a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Not what you need just before your urgent 9 a.m. meeting with the boss!

Eat This Instead: Plain Greek-style yogurt, mixed with real blueberries. We like Oikos and Fage brands—they’re jacked with about 15 to 22 grams of belly-filling protein, so they’ll help you feel satisfied for longer. And blueberries are another great morning add—scientists in New Zealand found that when they fed blueberries to mice, the rodents ate 9 percent less at their next meal.

Bonus Tip: Daily e-mails (or tweets) that contain weight-loss advice remind you of your goals and help you drop pounds, according to Canadian researchers. We're partial to our own Eat This, Not That! newsletter, and to the instant weight-loss secrets you'll get when you follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/davezinczenko).

TURKEY BACON
Pork bacon’s got a bad rap for wreaking havoc on your cholesterol. But is turkey bacon really any better?

The Truth: Stick with the pig. As far as calories go, the difference between “healthy” turkey bacon and “fatty” pig is negligible—and depending on the slice, turkey might sometimes tip the scales a touch more. Additionally, while turkey is indeed a leaner meat, turkey bacon isn’t made from 100 percent bird: One look at the ingredients list will show a long line of suspicious additives and extras that can’t possibly add anything of nutritional value. And finally, the sodium content of the turkey bacon is actually higher than what you’ll find in the kind that oinks—so if you’re worried about your blood pressure, opting for the original version is usually the smarter move.

Eat This Instead: Regular bacon. We like Hormel Black Label and Oscar Mayer Center Cut bacon for some low-cal, low-additive options.

REDUCED-FAT PEANUT BUTTER
Nothing makes a PB&J feel less indulgent like a scoop of low-fat Jif. It’s low fat, so it must be better for you . . . right?

The Truth: A tub of reduced-fat peanut butter indeed comes with a fraction less fat than the full-fat variety—they’re not lying about that. But what the food companies don’t tell you is that peanut oil—the fat in peanut butter—is a heart-healthy monounsaturated fat that can actually help fight weight gain, heart disease and diabetes! Instead, they’ve tried to cash in on the “low-fat” craze by replacing that healthy fat with maltodextrin, a carbohydrate used as a filler in many processed foods. This means you’re trading the healthy fat from peanuts for empty carbs, double the sugar, and a savings of a meager 10 calories.

Eat This Instead: The real stuff: no oils, fillers, or added sugars. Just peanuts and salt. Smucker’s Natural fits the bill, as do many other peanut butters out there. We especially like Peanut Butter & Co. Original Smooth Operator and Original Crunch Time.

Neanderthals cooked and ate vegetables

2010-12-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

Hunter, gatherer, vegetarian masterchef?

Neanderthals cooked and ate plants and vegetables, a new study of Neanderthal remains reveals.

Researchers in the US have found grains of cooked plant material in their teeth.
The study is the first to confirm that the Neanderthal diet was not confined to meat and was more sophisticated than previously thought.
The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The popular image of Neanderthals as great meat eaters is one that has up until now been backed by some circumstantial evidence. Chemical analysis of their bones suggested they ate little or no vegetables.
This perceived reliance on meat had been put forward by some as one of the reasons these humans become extinct as large animals such as mammoths declined due to an Ice Age.
But a new analysis of Neanderthal remains from across the world has found direct evidence that contradicts the chemical studies. Researchers found fossilised grains of vegetable material in their teeth and some of it was cooked.
Although pollen grains have been found before on Neanderthal sites and some in hearths, it is only now there is clear evidence that plant food was actually eaten by these people.

“Start Quote

We have found pollen grains in Neanderthal sites before but you never know whether they were eating the plant or sleeping on them or what”

End Quote Professor Alison Brooks George Washington University

Professor Alison Brooks, from George Washington University, told BBC News: "We have found pollen grains in Neanderthal sites before but you never know whether they were eating the plant or sleeping on them or what.

"But here we have a case where a little bit of the plant is in the mouth so we know that the Neanderthals were consuming the food."
More like us
One question raised by the study is why the chemical studies on Neanderthal bones have been wide of the mark. According to Professor Brooks, the tests were measuring proteins levels, which the researchers assumed came from meat.
"We've tended to assume that if you have a very high value for protein in the diet that must come from meat. But... it's possible that some of the protein in their diet was coming from plants," she said.
This study is the latest to suggest that, far from being brutish savages, Neanderthals were more like us than we previously thought.

Ka-Sat net-dedicated spacecraft lifts off

2010-12-27T05:35:00.000-08:00

The Proton climbs into the pre-dawn sky

The second European satellite dedicated to delivering broadband internet connections has launched successfully.

The six-tonne Ka-Sat lifted off atop a Proton rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 0351 local time on Monday (2151 GMT on Sunday).
The flight lasted nine hours and 12 minutes.
The Eutelsat-operated spacecraft will concentrate its services on the estimated tens of millions of European homes in so-called "not-spots".
These are places where consumers cannot get a decent terrestrial connection.
The spacecraft follows the Hylas-1 platform into orbit. This satellite, operated by Avanti Communications of London, was launched just last month.
Ka-Sat, however, is considerably bigger, and has a notional capacity to serve up to two million households compared with Hylas's 300,000.
Nevertheless, such is the scale of the under-served market in Europe that both platforms should be very profitable ventures, the two companies believe.
"As many as 30 million households in Europe are not served at all or get high mediocrity of service," said Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen.
"These could be people in the countryside or in the mountains, sometimes not very far from large cities. Ka-Sat is an answer to that problem," he told BBC News.
Paris-based Eutelsat is one of the world's big three Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) companies, and transmits thousands of TV channels across its fleet of spacecraft.
It already provides some internet capability on its existing platforms, but Ka-Sat is its first broadband-dedicated endeavour.
High throughput Ka-Sat will be positioned about 36,000km above the equator at nine degrees east.

Ka-Sat was prepared in the UK

Its communications payload, structure and propulsion system were prepared by EADS Astrium at its UK facilities in Stevenage and Portsmouth.
Final testing of the spacecraft took place at Astrium's factory in Toulouse, France, before shipment to Baikonur.
Ka-Sat has a total throughput of some 70Gbps.
This will be channelled via 82 spot beams on to different market areas stretching from North Africa to southern Scandinavia. A very small segment of the Middle East will also be reached.
Eutelsat has signed about 70 deals with distributors across the satellite's "footprint", and more would be signed over the next year, said Mr de Rosen.
"It takes normally a few weeks for a satellite to become operational after launch," he explained.
"In this case, it is more likely to be a few months. Expect Ka-Sat to be operational in the second half of the second quarter of 2011."
Previous failure Ka-Sat's Proton rocket was under the spotlight for this flight.
The Russian vehicle had failed on its previous outing, dumping three Glonass satellite-navigation spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean.
An inquiry found the Proton's new Block DM-03 upper-stage had been over-fuelled, making it too heavy to achieve its required performance.
International Launch Services (ILS), which runs the commercial operations of the Proton vehicle, used a different upper-stage for the Ka-Sat mission.
This Breeze M stage has a good recent record.
It was the eighth and last ILS-organised Proton mission of 2010.

Call of Duty: Black Ops reaches $1billion sales mark

2010-12-26T06:39:00.000-08:00

Newsbeat technology report

Call of Duty: Black Ops has broken the $1 billion (£647 million) sales barrier, figures show.

Sales results released by publisher Activision Blizzard suggest it took just six weeks to do it.
In doing so it joins an elite group of entertainment releases to reach the billion dollar mark.
Others include Michael Jackson's Thriller album and James Cameron's 1997 hit film Titantic.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said: "Only Call of Duty and Avatar have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly".
Fans of 2010's biggest video game have reported connectivity problems in recent weeks though.
Players of the PS3 and PC versions complained about being booted from games, freezing and connection error messages.
Developer Treyarch released two patches to fix the problem.
'Unprecedented' Activision's Eric Hirshberg said: "Even more remarkable than the number of units sold is the number of hours people are playing the game together online."
Call of Duty: Black Ops was released in the UK on 9 November According to Activision, more than 600 million hours have been logged playing the game since its worldwide launch.
Microsoft says the average fan using it on Xbox Live logs on more than once every day and plays it for one hour at a time.
Black Ops is the 7th in the hugely popular Call of Duty series, the third developed by Treyarch, and takes gamers on a series of Cold War adventures.
There are high expectations within the video games industry that it will surpass the success of its 2009 predecessor.
COD: Modern Warfare 2 sold more than 20 million units around the world meaning it too joined the exclusive one billion dollar club.

Baldness drug Propecia 'risking men's sexual health'

2010-12-26T06:36:00.000-08:00

Newsbeat reporter James says "all hell broke loose" after he stopped taking Propecia

Young men could be risking their sexual health by taking a commonly used anti-baldness drug, claim some doctors.

They say finasteride, sold in the UK as Propecia, can cause serious side effects and isn't adequately labelled.
A quarter of men in their 20s show signs of male pattern baldness, with six and a half million males in the UK affected.
Propecia manufacturer Merck says it continually monitors the drug's safety and has updated the label.
James, 26, from Edinburgh suffered side effects after using the drug.
"I noticed hair loss, hair coming out in the shower and on the pillow, and I freaked out basically.
"I went onto the internet and researched it. I found out there was a drug called Propecia, and soon enough I started buying that and it worked a treat."
The prescription pill is extremely effective at stopping hair loss and in clinical trials nine out of 10 men didn't lose any more hair over a five year period.
Drugs' company Merck, which manufactures Propecia, claims on its website that less than 2% of men could suffer sexual side effects.
'Completely impotent' It mentions things like difficulty achieving an erection, but says the problems will go away for men who stop taking the drug.
For James, that was when the problems started. He'd stopped taking the drug after noticing he had less interest in sex - but he says things soon got worse.
"After about three weeks all hell broke loose. I more or less became completely impotent."

After about three weeks all hell broke loose... It did work well for my hair, but the cost is ridiculous - losing my sex-life

James, 26

He went to see a specialist a few months later.
"He put me on testosterone therapy, which is a lifelong commitment", says James.
"Unfortunately that didn't work either. I went back to him six months later and he offered me the chance of a penile implant."
There are doctors in Ireland and the US who claim cases like James's aren't unusual and that the drug's labelling is inadequate.
Merck say they continually monitor its safety and have recently changed the labelling after reports of sexual side effects continuing after people had stopped taking the drug.
They also claim those cases are extremely rare and could be caused by something other than Propecia itself.
But James is convinced it was his decision to take the drug that caused his problem.
"Every day I wish could turn back the clock.
"It did work well for my hair, but the cost is ridiculous - losing my sex-life.
"It's happening to lots and lots of men- and it's about time people woke up to it."

Ka-Sat net-dedicated spacecraft ready for launch

2010-12-26T06:02:00.000-08:00

Ka-Sat was prepared in the UK

Europe is about to get a second satellite dedicated to delivering broadband internet connections.

The six-tonne Ka-Sat will be launched atop a Proton rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan in a flight expected to last nine hours and 12 minutes.
The Eutelsat-operated spacecraft will concentrate its services on customers in the so-called "not-spots" of Europe.
It is estimated that tens of millions of households in these areas cannot get a decent terrestrial connection.
Ka-Sat will provide homes with speeds generally up to 10Mbps.
Lift-off from Baikonur is timed for 0351 local time on Monday (2151 GMT on Sunday).
The spacecraft follows the Hylas-1 platform into orbit. This satellite, operated by Avanti Communications of London, was launched just last month.
Ka-Sat, however, is considerably bigger, and has a notional capacity to serve up to two million households compared with Hylas's 300,000.
Nevertheless, such is the scale of the under-served market in Europe that both platforms should be very profitable ventures, the two companies believe.
"As many as 30 million households in Europe are not served at all or get high mediocrity of service," said Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen.
"These could be people in the countryside or in the mountains, sometimes not very far from large cities. Ka-Sat is an answer to that problem," he told BBC News.
Paris-based Eutelsat is one of the world's big three Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) companies, and transmits thousands of TV channels across its fleet of spacecraft.
It already provides some internet capability on its existing platforms, but Ka-Sat is its first broadband-dedicated endeavour.
High throughput Ka-Sat will be positioned about 36,000km above the equator at nine degrees east.
Its communications payload, structure and propulsion system were prepared by EADS Astrium at its UK facilities in Stevenage and Portsmouth.
Final testing of the spacecraft took place at Astrium's factory in Toulouse, France, before shipment to Baikonur.
Ka-Sat has a total throughput of some 70Gbps.
This will be channelled via 82 spot beams on to different market areas stretching from North Africa to southern Scandinavia. A very small segment of the Middle East will also be reached.
Eutelsat has signed about 70 deals with distributors across the satellite's "footprint", and more would be signed over the next year, said Mr de Rosen.
"It takes normally a few weeks for a satellite to become operational after launch," he explained.
"In this case, it is more likely to be a few months. Expect Ka-Sat to be operational in the second half of the second quarter of 2011."
Previous failure Ka-Sat's Proton rocket will be under the spotlight for this launch.
The Russian vehicle failed on its last outing four weeks ago, dumping three Glonass satellite-navigation spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean.
An inquiry found the Proton's new Block DM-03 upper-stage had been over-fuelled, making it too heavy to achieve its required performance.
International Launch Services (ILS), which runs the commercial operations of the Proton vehicle, will be using a different upper-stage for the Ka-Sat mission.
This Breeze M stage has a good recent record.
It will be the eighth and last ILS-organised Proton mission of 2010.

Test for early Alzheimer's 'seems possible'

2010-12-25T08:18:00.000-08:00

Cognitive skills decline with dementia

UK experts say they may have found a way to check for Alzheimer's years before symptoms appear.

A lumbar puncture test combined with a brain scan can identify patients with early tell-tale signs of dementia, they believe.
Ultimately, doctors could use this to select patients to try out drugs that may slow or halt the disease.
Currently there is no single test or cure for dementia, a condition that affects over 800,000 people in the UK.
Experts are working hard to find treatments that prevent the disease or at least slow its progression.
Unmet need

“Start Quote

We are hamstrung by our inability to accurately detect Alzheimer's, but these findings could prove to be pivotal”

End Quote Rebecca Wood Alzheimer's Research Trust

Although there are many candidate drugs and vaccines in the pipeline, it is hard for doctors to test how well these work because dementia is usually diagnosed only once the disease is more advanced.

Dr Jonathan Schott and colleagues at the Institute of Neurology, University College of London, believe they can now detect the most common form of dementia - Alzheimer's disease - at its earliest stage, many years before symptoms appear.
Their approach checks for two things - shrinkage of the brain and lower than normal levels of a protein, called amyloid, in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that bathes the brain and spinal cord.
Experts already know that in Alzheimer's there is loss of brain volume and an unusual build up of amyloid in the brain, meaning less amyloid in the CSF.
Dr Schott's team reasoned that looking for these changes might offer a way of detecting the condition long before than is currently possible.
To confirm this, they recruited 105 healthy volunteers to undergo a series of checks.

The volunteers had lumbar puncture tests to check their CSF for levels of amyloid and MRI brain scans to calculate brain shrinkage.
The results, published in Annals of Neurology, revealed that the brains of those normal individuals with low CSF levels of amyloid (38% of the group), shrank twice as quickly as the other group.
They were also five times more likely to possess the APOE4 risk gene and had higher levels of another culprit Alzheimer's protein, tau.

“Start Quote

Detecting dementia early is really important. It can open doors to new treatment targets...”

End Quote Dr Anne Corbett of the Alzheimer's Society

Although it is too soon to know if any of the volunteers will go on to develop Alzheimer's, the researchers believe their suspicions will be confirmed in the future.

Crucially, it would allow doctors to test which drugs might be beneficial in delaying or preventing dementia.
Preventive opportunity And for those who might be put off such screening by the need for a lumbar puncture, which involves drawing off fluid from around the spinal cord with a needle, experts are looking at whether a different type of brain scan might instead be used to detect amyloid.
Rebecca Wood of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, the charity that sponsored the work, said: "We are hamstrung by our inability to accurately detect Alzheimer's, but these findings could prove to be pivotal.

Scans can reveal tell-tale brain shrinkage

"We know that treatments for many diseases can be more successful if given early and this is likely to be true for Alzheimer's."
Dr Anne Corbett of the Alzheimer's Society said: "Detecting dementia early is really important. It can open doors to new treatment targets and could one day go hand in hand with an Alzheimer's vaccine that scientists are edging slowly towards.
"Testing spinal fluid is a good way of detecting Alzheimer's early but it is desperately under used in the UK.
"If we change our attitudes and invest more in research we could give hope to the million people who will develop dementia in the next 10 years. We particularly want to see this research repeated over a longer period of time to confirm the findings."
Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, affecting around 465,000 people in the UK.

Sunderland experts study 18th Century Arctic voyages

2010-12-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

The logs chart Arctic expeditions from the 18th Century

Ships' logs from vessels which travelled in the Arctic Circle in the 18th Century are to be studied to see if they shed light on climate change.

A team from Sunderland University will study records kept by explorers, whalers and merchants during trips which took place up to 260 years ago.
They want to see if the logs provide clues about the ice levels in the area at that time.
They will be analysing log books written between 1750 and 1850.
They include whaling records kept by a fleet owned by the Newcastle-based Palmer family and Royal Navy logs and data from the Hudson Bay Company.
Ships' logs were used to record the weather while at sea.
Ice advance The three-year project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is being led by Dr Dennis Wheeler in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute.
The study will involve 300 logs which have been collated by the UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks (Corral).
Dr Wheeler said: "We will be looking at climate change, especially the retreat and advance of ice between 1750 and 1850.
"The Arctic environmentally is a hugely important area, but we need to know how it's behaved in the past in order that we can assess how it's going to behave in the future.
"You can't look forward without looking back.
"This is no longer just a scientific issue - climate change is of global, political concern."

Microsoft warns on IE browser bug

2010-12-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's workaround for the IE bug will not protect all users of its web browser.

Microsoft has issued a warning about a serious vulnerability in all versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser.

If exploited by a booby-trapped webpage the bug would allow attackers to take control of an unprotected computer.
Code to exploit the bug has already been published though Microsoft said it had no evidence it was currently being used by hi-tech criminals.
A workaround for the bug has been produced while Microsoft works on a permanent fix.
Code injection The bug revolves around the way that IE manages a computer's memory when processing Cascading Style Sheets - a widely used technology that defines the look and feel of pages on a website.
Hi-tech criminals have long known that they can exploit IE's memory management to inject their own malicious code into the stream of instructions a computer processes as a browser is being used. In this way the criminals can get their own code running and hijack a PC.
Microsoft has produced updates that improves memory management but security researchers discovered that these protection systems are not used when some older parts of Windows are called upon.
In a statement Microsoft said it was "investigating" the bug and working on a permanent fix. In the meantime it recommended those concerned use a protection system known as the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit.
Installing and applying the toolkit may require Windows XP users to update the version of the operating system they are using. But even if they do that some of the protection it bestows on Windows 7 and Vista users will not be available.
"We're currently unaware of any attacks trying to use the claimed vulnerability or of customer impact," said Dave Forstrom, the director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, in a statement.
"As vulnerabilities go, this kind is the most serious as it allows remote execution of code," said Rik Ferguson, senior security analyst at Trend Micro, "This means the attacker can run programs, such as malware, directly on the victim's computer."
He added: "It is highly reminiscent of a vulnerability at the same time two years ago which prompted several national governments to warn against using IE and to switch to an alternative browser."

2010-12-25T06:54:00.000-08:00

Alternative remedies 'dangerous' for kids says report

Alternative remedies can have side effects, particularly for vulnerable groups like children

Alternative remedies can be dangerous for children and even prove fatal if taken instead of conventional drugs, according to a new study.

The report warns of possible adverse reactions in youngsters who are given alternative remedies.
Researchers say parents sometimes think remedies are "more natural" with fewer side effects than conventional drugs.
But in nearly two thirds of the cases the side effects were rated as severe, life threatening or fatal.
The study, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, looked at 39 separate incidents reported to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2001 and 2003.
The children ranged from babies to 16 year olds.
Child deaths In 30 cases, the issues were "probably or definitely" related to complementary medicine, and in 17 the patient was regarded as being harmed by a failure to use conventional medicine.
The report says that all four deaths resulted from a failure to use conventional medicine.
One death involved an eight-month-old baby admitted to hospital "with malnutrition and septic shock following naturopathic treatment with a rice milk diet from the age of three months for 'congestion'".

“Start Quote

Inert remedies like homeopathy, even though they in themselves are harmless, can be life threatening when they replace effective treatments”

End Quote Edzard Ernst Professor of Complementary Medicine, University of Exeter

"Another death involved a 10-month-old infant who presented with septic shock following treatment with homeopathic medicines and dietary restriction for chronic eczema," the authors say.

One child had multiple seizures after complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) were used instead of anti-seizure drugs due to concerns about potential side effects.
The fourth death was of a child who needed blood-clotting drugs but was given complementary medicine instead.
The study found that parents used alternative therapies to treat anything from constipation to clotting disorders, and diabetes to cerebral palsy.
High and unacceptable rate The authors, from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, said: "Many of the adverse events associated with failure to use conventional medicine resulted from the family's belief in complementary and alternative medicine and determination to use it despite medical advice."
Dr William Van't Hoff, a consultant paediatrician and a spokesman for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says this is an important, well constructed study that demonstrates "a high and unacceptable rate of adverse events" associated with the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
"It's important to note that the four deaths related to the failure of the family to use conventional medicine. Probably the most important risk is that families abandon or delay the use of conventional medicine and rely on CAMs.
"The second concern is that CAMs can interact with other medicines or have toxic effects. There's a presumption that these are natural remedies and families don't appreciate this and may even attribute the toxic effect to the conventional therapy."
'Nonsense' Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at Exeter University, says it is well known that alternative therapies can have side effects, especially in vulnerable groups like children.
"All of these treatments can have side effects but there's also a risk of alternative therapies replacing effective treatments.
"So inert remedies like homeopathy, even though they in themselves are harmless, can be life threatening when they replace effective treatments.
"Children don't make decisions themselves about their treatment; very often it is their parents, and parents can be misguided by the 50 million alternative medicine websites. The children are victims of lots of nonsense and false claims."

Global flu warning after UK hit

2010-12-25T06:50:00.000-08:00

Experts are urging people to have the vaccine in the UK to protect them against flu viruses

Northern hemisphere countries are being told by health experts to brace themselves for flu outbreaks.

There has been a well-publicised surge of cases in the UK during December with swine flu appearing to be the dominant of the three strains circulating.
But the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control warned much of the rest of Europe was also beginning to see increases too.
Meanwhile, parts of the US and Canada have reported higher levels.
Many of those being infected are younger age groups. This is because elderly people have some immunity to swine flu, most probably because of exposure to a similar strain many years ago.
In the UK, the number of people who have died with all types of flu this winter hit 27 this week after another 10 deaths.
The volume of patients going to their doctor with flu-like illnesses also rose, more than doubling to 87.1 per 100,000 in the past week.
Children Cases have been highest in children aged between five and 14, followed by children under four and then those aged between 15 and 44.
But the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said a very large outbreak was "not likely".
The situation has led to a rise in patients in intensive care beds and also in those using the NHS's phone hotline, NHS Direct.
Health experts said most people with flu would be able to "self-care" by taking plenty of rest, drinking fluids and taking pain relief.
However, those with severe symptoms are being advised to consult their doctor.
Professor John Watson, an expert in respiratory disease at the HPA, said: "The level of flu activity we are currently seeing is at levels often seen during the winter flu seasons.
"Recent research conducted by the HPA has suggested that a very substantial wave of activity associated with the pandemic strain is not likely."
In the UK at-risk groups are being urged to come forward for vaccinations. The numbers getting immunised are still too low, doctors have said.
The rates being seen elsewhere in Europe are not as high as in the UK, but the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said there was evidence that the winter flu epidemics were "starting".
Russia and the Ukraine are thought to be the worst hit outside the UK.

'Eternal' solar plane's records are confirmed

2010-12-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

The 50kg Zephyr is launched by hand

The UK-built solar-powered Zephyr aeroplane has been confirmed as a record-breaker following its non-stop two-week flight earlier this year.

The world governing body for air sports records, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), gave Zephyr three records including longest time aloft.
Built by defence technology company Qinetiq, the craft completed its two-week flight in the US in July.
The company sees applications in surveillance and communications.
The July feat led to Zephyr being dubbed the "eternal plane".
"This aircraft can help track pirates off the Horn of Africa, alert the authorities about where and how fast forest fires are spreading, and ensure that soldiers' communications remain unaffected when fighting in mountainous or hilly terrain," said Qinetiq's chief designer Chris Kelleher.
The FAI noted that Zephyr smashed the previous record for the absolute duration of an unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) flight - set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk in 2001 - by a factor of 11.
The organisation set the official duration at 336 hours, 22 minutes and eight seconds.
Zephyr's flight also set a new mark for flight duration for a UAV of its class - unmanned craft weighing 50-500kg - and, for that class, the altitude record of 21,562m (70,741ft).

Click to play

Wing-to-tail guide to a prototype of the 'eternal' plane

Launched by hand, the aircraft flies during daytime on electricity generated by photovoltaic arrays - solar panels - on its wings.
Made of amorphous silicon, the arrays are about as thick as a sheet of paper. They also charge lithium-sulphur batteries that power the craft by night.
During the flight in July, engineers found that Zephyr lost some altitude during the night as power to the engines reduced - but the batteries stored enough to keep the craft aloft.
Key to its success is the ultra-light design, based on carbon fibre, which means that with a wingspan of 22.5m (74ft) it weighs little more than 50kg (110 lb).
Solar-powered high-altitude long-endurance (Hale) UAVs are expected to have a wide range of applications.
The military will want to use them as reconnaissance and communications platforms. Civilian and scientific programmes will equip them with small payloads for Earth observation duties.
Their unique selling point is their persistence over a location. Low-Earth orbiting satellites come and go in a swift pass overhead, and the bigger drones now operated by the military still need to return to base at regular intervals for refuelling.

New solar fuel machine 'mimics plant life'

2010-12-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

In the prototype, sunlight heats a ceria cylinder which breaks down water or carbon dioxide

A prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun's energy into fuel.

The machine uses the Sun's rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported.
Conventional photovoltaic panels must use the electricity they generate in situ, and cannot deliver power at night.
Details are published in the journal Science.
The prototype, which was devised by researchers in the US and Switzerland, uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder lined with cerium oxide, also known as ceria.
Ceria has a natural propensity to exhale oxygen as it heats up and inhale it as it cools down.
If as in the prototype, carbon dioxide and/or water are pumped into the vessel, the ceria will rapidly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, creating hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide.
Hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, for example, while a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to create "syngas" for fuel.
It is this harnessing of ceria's properties in the solar reactor which represents the major breakthrough, say the inventors of the device. They also say the metal is readily available, being the most abundant of the "rare-earth" metals.
Methane can be produced using the same machine, they say.
Refinements needed The prototype is grossly inefficient, the fuel created harnessing only between 0.7% and 0.8% of the solar energy taken into the vessel.
Most of the energy is lost through heat loss through the reactor's wall or through the re-radiation of sunlight back through the device's aperture.
But the researchers are confident that efficiency rates of up to 19% can be achieved through better insulation and smaller apertures. Such efficiency rates, they say, could make for a viable commercial device.
"The chemistry of the material is really well suited to this process," says Professor Sossina Haile of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). "This is the first demonstration of doing the full shebang, running it under (light) photons in a reactor."
She says the reactor could be used to create transportation fuels or be adopted in large-scale energy plants, where solar-sourced power could be available throughout the day and night.
However, she admits the fate of this and other devices in development is tied to whether states adopt a low-carbon policy.
"It's very much tied to policy. If we had a carbon policy, something like this would move forward a lot more quickly," she told the BBC.
It has been suggested that the device mimics plants, which also use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create energy as part of the process of photosynthesis. But Professor Haile thinks the analogy is over-simplistic.
"Yes, the reactor takes in sunlight, we take in carbon dioxide and water and we produce a chemical compound, so in the most generic sense there are these similarities, but I think that's pretty much where the analogy ends."

The PS10 solar tower plant near Seville, Spain. Mirrors concentrate the sun's power on to a central tower, driving a steam turbine

Daniel Davies, chief technology officer at the British photovoltaic company Solar Century, said the research was "very exciting".
"I guess the question is where you locate it - would you put your solar collector on a roof or would it be better off as a big industrial concern in the Sahara and then shipping the liquid fuel?" he said.
Solar technology is moving forward apace but the overriding challenges remain ones of efficiency, economy and storage.
New-generation "solar tower" plants have been built in Spain and the United States which use an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto tower-mounted receivers which drive steam turbines.
A new Spanish project will use molten salts to store heat from the Sun for up to 15 hours, so that the plant could potentially operate through the night.

Bat cull 'will not stop white-nose syndrome spreading'

2010-12-24T12:22:00.000-08:00

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

A study has warned that if WNS continues unabated, there is a danger that species will be wiped out in less than two decades

Culling will not halt the spread of a disease that has killed a million bats in the US since 2006, a study says.

Researchers reached their conclusion by modelling how white-nose syndrome (WNS) is passed from bat to bat.
Writing in Conservation Biology, they add that a cull would not work because the source of the fungal pathogen is believed to occur in the environment.
Earlier studies have warned that WNS could wipe out bat populations in the north-east of the US within 20 years.
Carrying out a cull of bats in areas where the disease is known to be present is one of the options available in an attempt to contain the spread of the killer fungus.

White-nose syndrome

WNS is associated with a fungus known as Geomyces destructans
Once present in a colony, WNS can wipe out the entire population
It was first reported in a cave in New York in February 2006
The most common visible symptom of an infected bat is a white fungus on the animal's nose, but it can also appear on its wings, ears or tail
Other symptoms include weight loss and abnormal behaviour, such as flying in daylight or sub-zero temperatures
Species known to be vulnerable to WNS include: tri-coloured, little brown, big brown, northern long-eared, small-footed and Indiana bats
There is no known risk to human health

(Source: US Fish & Wildlife Service)

"We developed a model taking into account the complexity of the bat life history, looking at the roosts and the areas where there are large contacts between the bats," said co-author Thomas Hallam from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee.

"Given the dispersal aspect of the problem and the complexity of hibernating bat ecology, it was a case that these things together certainly meant that culling would not work in the case of bats."
WNS, described by some as the worst wildlife health crisis in the US in living memory, is named after a white fungus that appears on the muzzle and/or wings of infected animals.
However, bats with WNS do not always have the characteristic visual symptoms, but may display abnormal behaviour around their hibernacula (caves and mines where bats hibernate during winter months).
These behaviours include flying outside during the day (when their insect prey is not available) in sub-zero temperatures, or clustering near the entrance to the hibernaculum.
Professor Hallam explained that there was a high degree of bat-to-bat interaction, which has been identified as the main way the disease is transmitted, during the course of a year.
In autumn, the mating season brings together large numbers of males and females.
This occurs shortly before colonies enter hibernacula, some of which are large enough to house in the region of half-a-million bats.
In the spring, females head to a maternity roost to have their young. Again, this brings bats into contact with members of different colonies.
Since WNS was first recorded in February 2006 in a commercial cave in New York, it has spread to at least 14 states. Cases have also been recorded in a number of Canadian provinces.
Researchers say the fungus associated with the disease, Geomyces destructans, thrives in the dark, damp conditions - such as caves and mines.

SCIENCE

A science news preview of 2011

ANOTHER EARTH

RISE OF THE PRIVATEERS

RACE FOR THE HIGGS

QUANTUM COMPUTING

DESTINATION MARS

New Year Honours: Astronaut Piers Sellers becomes OBE

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Secret lives of baby American beavers filmed

Earth project aims to 'simulate everything'

The Living Earth Simulator will collect data from billions of sources

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Ariane 5 makes final 2010 flight

Six foods that are making Americans fat

Neanderthals cooked and ate vegetables

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Ka-Sat net-dedicated spacecraft lifts off

Call of Duty: Black Ops reaches $1billion sales mark

Baldness drug Propecia 'risking men's sexual health'

Ka-Sat net-dedicated spacecraft ready for launch

Test for early Alzheimer's 'seems possible'

Cognitive skills decline with dementia

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Sunderland experts study 18th Century Arctic voyages

The logs chart Arctic expeditions from the 18th Century

Microsoft warns on IE browser bug

Microsoft's workaround for the IE bug will not protect all users of its web browser.

Alternative remedies 'dangerous' for kids says report

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Global flu warning after UK hit

Experts are urging people to have the vaccine in the UK to protect them against flu viruses

'Eternal' solar plane's records are confirmed

The 50kg Zephyr is launched by hand

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New solar fuel machine 'mimics plant life'

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Bat cull 'will not stop white-nose syndrome spreading'

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News

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