The Science News Digest - 27 March 2009
In the science news this week: astronomers track an asteroid’s collision with Earth, concerns that animal welfare regulations will simply hinder medical progress, and thoughts of bigger salaries give us a buzz (even if our purchasing power stays the same)...
For the first time, astronomers have been able to observe an asteroid in space and track it as it collided with the Earth’s atmosphere, exploded, and scattered meteorites across an 18-mile stretch of desert in northern Sudan.
The 83-tonne, four-metre-long object was spotted 19 hours before it reached Earth on October 7th last year, giving scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study the asteroid’s trajectory and fiery end, reported the Times. They were able to locate 47 meteorite fragments for analysis, reporting their findings in the journal Nature.
According to one of the paper’s authors, Dr Peter Jenniskens from the SETI Institute in California, ‘This asteroid was made of a particularly fragile material that caused it to explode at a high 37km (23 mile) altitude, before it was significantly slowed down.’
He told BBC News: ‘This was a meteorite that was not in our collection, a completely new material.’ The Times added that the asteroid was a rare type: only 1.3 per cent are F-class and these meteorites were the first of their kind to be found.
Professor Alan Fitzimmons of Queen’s University Belfast, one of the co-authors, told the Independent: ‘This is the first-ever predicted impact of an asteroid with the Earth and the very first time an asteroid of any size has been studied before impact.
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Good news finally for the British team who are measuring sea-ice thickness in the Arctic: they believe the weather is finally turning in their favour.
Their trek to the North Pole nearly had to be abandoned prematurely last week when re-supply flights were grounded and the team had only 12,000 calories of rations left.
Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels had been battling drifting ice and –40 degree Celsius conditions since starting their journey on the ice three weeks before. But now they say they are covering more than 10km (six miles) a day, reports BBC News.
The trio are dragging a novel mobile radar behind a sledge to record ice thickness. This data will be used to calibrate satellite observations and to constrain computer models forecasting climate change responses.
--------------------
According to a Professor who has been investigating the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks, there is a need to address whether legislation is needed to protect the millions of crustaceans used in the food industry, after his work suggested that they may be able to experience pain.
Hermit crabs don’t have shells of their own, but choose others to live in. In their study, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel attached wires to some shells to deliver small shocks to the abdomen of some of the crabs.
Shocks of a certain threshold resulted in crabs moving out of particular shells – indicating that they found it unpleasant. The crabs are more likely to come out of shells they least prefer. As part of the experiment, weaker shocks were delivered that didn’t cause the crabs to abandon their shell. When a new shell was presented later on, the crabs that had previously been shocked were more likely to change to the new shell than those that hadn’t.
Professor Elwood said: ‘We know from previous research that [crustaceans] can detect harmful stimuli and withdraw from the source of the stimuli but that could be a simple reflex without the inner ‘feeling’ of unpleasantness that we associate with pain. This research demonstrates that it is not a simple reflex but that crabs trade-off their need for a quality shell with the need to avoid the harmful stimulus. The results are consistent with the idea of pain being experienced by these animals.’
(Read more at BBC News)
--------------------
A coalition of British research organisations is warning that vital studies into brain and cell function with implications for many conditions – including Parkinson’s disease, strokes, malaria and HIV/Aids – would be blocked by new animal experiment regulations proposed by the EU. Among other things, they prohibit the use of nonhuman primates in experiments unless they directly examine ‘life-threatening or debilitating’ conditions.
A ‘declaration of concern’ about revision of Directive 86/609 has been issued by nine British groups including the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Association of Medical Research Charities. A number of European institutions are also protesting about its contents. A European Parliament committee is due to vote on amendments next Tuesday.
Sophie Petit-Zeman of the Association of Medical Research Charities said: ‘As it stands, the directive looks set to make some good contributions to animal welfare, but it includes some proposals that defy belief. Animal welfare is an absolutely crucial flipside to the patient benefit argument, but what we’re worried about is that we’re going to end up with EU-led legislation which essentially piles a whole load of bureaucracy on the shoulders of busy scientists and ends up not doing anything at all for animal welfare, and delays potentially life-saving research.’
However, Emily McIvor, Policy Director of the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, which funds studies on alternatives to animal research, said: ‘The revision of [the directive] is a great opportunity to make a better deal for animals in laboritories.’ She said the arguments the animal research industry is using are ‘often little short of scaremongering, exaggerating the validity of animal tests and seeking to convince MEPs that new welfare measures are prohibitively costly’.
(Read more in the Times and Guardian)
--------------------
The New Scientist reported that researchers have developed a molecular ‘lock’ that only becomes active when exposed to two different colours of light in the right order. If the technique can be modified to work at light wavelengths able to penetrate tissue it could be used to ensure drugs are only delivered to the part of the body that needs them, rather than potentially causing damage elsewhere.
The new light-activated ‘combination lock’ differs from existing molecular locks that use chemicals as the trigger. Pulses of light are faster than slow-diffusing chemicals, and also mean the lock can be opened and closed repeatedly as another wavelength can be used to reset it.
The lock consists of two light-sensitive portions (photochromes) that act as switches, and a reporter unit that fluoresces if the phytochromes have been triggered in the right order.
The light produced by the reporter could be used to activate any molecule designed to be sensitive to it. As well as potential applications in drug release, the lock could be used to control any number of chemical processes from a distance according to the biochemists who developed it – for example, laser beams could be used to activate far-off explosives.
--------------------
The exams regulator Ofqual has said that science was ‘clearly a cause for concern’, after evaluations involving not only the new general science GCSEs but also the separate physics GCSE. It is now going to check biology and chemistry. The regulator looked at exams set by the three main England-based awarding bodies.
’Our monitoring shows that the revisions to the GCSE science criteria in 2005 have led to a fall in the quality of science assessment,’ said Ofqual Chair, Kathleen Tattersall. Ofqual’s objections included the fact that exam boards designed the GCSEs so differently that there was no guarantee the grades were equivalent across the boards; ‘lack of challenge’ in some of the papers and the fact that the most able students weren’t stretched; and too many multiple-choice questions.
In comparison, Ofqual found standards in mathematics and English literature GCSEs had generally been maintained.
The regulator has ordered a revision of the general science and physics GCSE exams for this year, and has told the exams agency, the Qualification and Curriculum Authority, to review the criteria with a view to bringing in new syllabuses by 2011. Read more at BBC News and in the Guardian.
Responding to the Ofqual reports, Schools Minister Jim Knight said he was obviously concerned about the issues highlighted and welcomed the immediate actions being taken by Ofqual. He said it showed the importance of having an independent regulator to guarantee high standards in the exam system.
He added: ‘In addition to the measures Ofqual are taking I also want to make sure we are doing all we can to stretch the best pupils who will be our scientists, engineers and innovators of the future.’ You can read more in the DCSF press release about the measures he outlined aimed at attracting more pupils into studying all three sciences, supporting teachers to deliver these specialist subjects and providing extra science prizes for the brightest pupils.
He also announced that the government is to increase its grant to the British Science Association to encourage young people aged between 11 and 19 to conduct their own mini research projects on science, engineering and technology as part of the CREST Award scheme.
--------------------
And finally...
The thought of larger salaries gives us an actual physical buzz – stimulating the reward centres in our brain. This is perhaps not so surprising, but what is intriguing is that scientists have found that this holds true even if prices increase, such as in times of high inflation, and our actual spending power doesn’t increase or even drops.
The research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences asked 18 volunteers to earn ‘salaries’ by performing a variety of mental tasks on a computer. The salaries were at two levels – one 50 per cent higher than the other. The volunteers could then spend their money on items listed in a catalogue – prices in the catalogue of the higher earners were also 50 per cent higher. These differences meant that all volunteers actually had the same purchasing power, irrespective of salary earned. However, brain scans showed that those who had the idea they were earning more had more activity in the parts of the brain involved in pleasure.
The new study by Professor Armin Falk of the University of Bonn provides scientific support for what is known in economics as the ‘money illusion’ – where people get fixated on the nominal value of money, rather than its actual purchasing power.
(Read more in the Independent)
For the first time, astronomers have been able to observe an asteroid in space and track it as it collided with the Earth’s atmosphere, exploded, and scattered meteorites across an 18-mile stretch of desert in northern Sudan.
The 83-tonne, four-metre-long object was spotted 19 hours before it reached Earth on October 7th last year, giving scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study the asteroid’s trajectory and fiery end, reported the Times. They were able to locate 47 meteorite fragments for analysis, reporting their findings in the journal Nature.
According to one of the paper’s authors, Dr Peter Jenniskens from the SETI Institute in California, ‘This asteroid was made of a particularly fragile material that caused it to explode at a high 37km (23 mile) altitude, before it was significantly slowed down.’
He told BBC News: ‘This was a meteorite that was not in our collection, a completely new material.’ The Times added that the asteroid was a rare type: only 1.3 per cent are F-class and these meteorites were the first of their kind to be found.
Professor Alan Fitzimmons of Queen’s University Belfast, one of the co-authors, told the Independent: ‘This is the first-ever predicted impact of an asteroid with the Earth and the very first time an asteroid of any size has been studied before impact.
--------------------
Good news finally for the British team who are measuring sea-ice thickness in the Arctic: they believe the weather is finally turning in their favour.
Their trek to the North Pole nearly had to be abandoned prematurely last week when re-supply flights were grounded and the team had only 12,000 calories of rations left.
Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels had been battling drifting ice and –40 degree Celsius conditions since starting their journey on the ice three weeks before. But now they say they are covering more than 10km (six miles) a day, reports BBC News.
The trio are dragging a novel mobile radar behind a sledge to record ice thickness. This data will be used to calibrate satellite observations and to constrain computer models forecasting climate change responses.
--------------------
According to a Professor who has been investigating the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks, there is a need to address whether legislation is needed to protect the millions of crustaceans used in the food industry, after his work suggested that they may be able to experience pain.
Hermit crabs don’t have shells of their own, but choose others to live in. In their study, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel attached wires to some shells to deliver small shocks to the abdomen of some of the crabs.
Shocks of a certain threshold resulted in crabs moving out of particular shells – indicating that they found it unpleasant. The crabs are more likely to come out of shells they least prefer. As part of the experiment, weaker shocks were delivered that didn’t cause the crabs to abandon their shell. When a new shell was presented later on, the crabs that had previously been shocked were more likely to change to the new shell than those that hadn’t.
Professor Elwood said: ‘We know from previous research that [crustaceans] can detect harmful stimuli and withdraw from the source of the stimuli but that could be a simple reflex without the inner ‘feeling’ of unpleasantness that we associate with pain. This research demonstrates that it is not a simple reflex but that crabs trade-off their need for a quality shell with the need to avoid the harmful stimulus. The results are consistent with the idea of pain being experienced by these animals.’
(Read more at BBC News)
--------------------
A coalition of British research organisations is warning that vital studies into brain and cell function with implications for many conditions – including Parkinson’s disease, strokes, malaria and HIV/Aids – would be blocked by new animal experiment regulations proposed by the EU. Among other things, they prohibit the use of nonhuman primates in experiments unless they directly examine ‘life-threatening or debilitating’ conditions.
A ‘declaration of concern’ about revision of Directive 86/609 has been issued by nine British groups including the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Association of Medical Research Charities. A number of European institutions are also protesting about its contents. A European Parliament committee is due to vote on amendments next Tuesday.
Sophie Petit-Zeman of the Association of Medical Research Charities said: ‘As it stands, the directive looks set to make some good contributions to animal welfare, but it includes some proposals that defy belief. Animal welfare is an absolutely crucial flipside to the patient benefit argument, but what we’re worried about is that we’re going to end up with EU-led legislation which essentially piles a whole load of bureaucracy on the shoulders of busy scientists and ends up not doing anything at all for animal welfare, and delays potentially life-saving research.’
However, Emily McIvor, Policy Director of the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, which funds studies on alternatives to animal research, said: ‘The revision of [the directive] is a great opportunity to make a better deal for animals in laboritories.’ She said the arguments the animal research industry is using are ‘often little short of scaremongering, exaggerating the validity of animal tests and seeking to convince MEPs that new welfare measures are prohibitively costly’.
(Read more in the Times and Guardian)
--------------------
The New Scientist reported that researchers have developed a molecular ‘lock’ that only becomes active when exposed to two different colours of light in the right order. If the technique can be modified to work at light wavelengths able to penetrate tissue it could be used to ensure drugs are only delivered to the part of the body that needs them, rather than potentially causing damage elsewhere.
The new light-activated ‘combination lock’ differs from existing molecular locks that use chemicals as the trigger. Pulses of light are faster than slow-diffusing chemicals, and also mean the lock can be opened and closed repeatedly as another wavelength can be used to reset it.
The lock consists of two light-sensitive portions (photochromes) that act as switches, and a reporter unit that fluoresces if the phytochromes have been triggered in the right order.
The light produced by the reporter could be used to activate any molecule designed to be sensitive to it. As well as potential applications in drug release, the lock could be used to control any number of chemical processes from a distance according to the biochemists who developed it – for example, laser beams could be used to activate far-off explosives.
--------------------
The exams regulator Ofqual has said that science was ‘clearly a cause for concern’, after evaluations involving not only the new general science GCSEs but also the separate physics GCSE. It is now going to check biology and chemistry. The regulator looked at exams set by the three main England-based awarding bodies.
’Our monitoring shows that the revisions to the GCSE science criteria in 2005 have led to a fall in the quality of science assessment,’ said Ofqual Chair, Kathleen Tattersall. Ofqual’s objections included the fact that exam boards designed the GCSEs so differently that there was no guarantee the grades were equivalent across the boards; ‘lack of challenge’ in some of the papers and the fact that the most able students weren’t stretched; and too many multiple-choice questions.
In comparison, Ofqual found standards in mathematics and English literature GCSEs had generally been maintained.
The regulator has ordered a revision of the general science and physics GCSE exams for this year, and has told the exams agency, the Qualification and Curriculum Authority, to review the criteria with a view to bringing in new syllabuses by 2011. Read more at BBC News and in the Guardian.
Responding to the Ofqual reports, Schools Minister Jim Knight said he was obviously concerned about the issues highlighted and welcomed the immediate actions being taken by Ofqual. He said it showed the importance of having an independent regulator to guarantee high standards in the exam system.
He added: ‘In addition to the measures Ofqual are taking I also want to make sure we are doing all we can to stretch the best pupils who will be our scientists, engineers and innovators of the future.’ You can read more in the DCSF press release about the measures he outlined aimed at attracting more pupils into studying all three sciences, supporting teachers to deliver these specialist subjects and providing extra science prizes for the brightest pupils.
He also announced that the government is to increase its grant to the British Science Association to encourage young people aged between 11 and 19 to conduct their own mini research projects on science, engineering and technology as part of the CREST Award scheme.
--------------------
And finally...
The thought of larger salaries gives us an actual physical buzz – stimulating the reward centres in our brain. This is perhaps not so surprising, but what is intriguing is that scientists have found that this holds true even if prices increase, such as in times of high inflation, and our actual spending power doesn’t increase or even drops.
The research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences asked 18 volunteers to earn ‘salaries’ by performing a variety of mental tasks on a computer. The salaries were at two levels – one 50 per cent higher than the other. The volunteers could then spend their money on items listed in a catalogue – prices in the catalogue of the higher earners were also 50 per cent higher. These differences meant that all volunteers actually had the same purchasing power, irrespective of salary earned. However, brain scans showed that those who had the idea they were earning more had more activity in the parts of the brain involved in pleasure.
The new study by Professor Armin Falk of the University of Bonn provides scientific support for what is known in economics as the ‘money illusion’ – where people get fixated on the nominal value of money, rather than its actual purchasing power.
(Read more in the Independent)
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