The BA Science News Digest - 23 February 2007
In the news this week: self-driving cars, robotic twitchers and spear-wielding chimps. Plus, the largest ever calamari...
Self-driving cars could be on the roads by 2030, according to a team of scientists from Stanford University who this week unveiled a prototype robot car able to navigate in moving traffic and built-up environments. The Daily Telegraph reported that they plan to compete for one million pounds later this year, in a US military-sponsored competition in which their vehicle will encounter other vehicles and have to obey traffic laws.
‘Today we can drive about 100 miles before human assistance is necessary,’ said Professor Sebastian Thrun, one of the car's designers. ‘By 2010 I expect this to go up to 1,000 miles, and by 2020 a million miles. By 2030 we should be able to deploy this technology on the open highway, and reliability will exceed that of humans by orders of magnitude.’
Meanwhile, the world’s first robotic birdwatcher has been employed to determine whether the ivory-billed woodpecker – thought to have become extinct 60 years ago – has in fact survived. According to the Daily Telegraph, it is part of the wider project by Collaborative Observatories for Natural Environments to develop automated methods for observing nature. The robot has been set up in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas and uses two high-resolution cameras that take 22 frames per second. Software analyses the images and retains only those featuring birds in flight.
In operation for three months so far, the woodpecker has so far remained elusive. But project leader, Ken Goldberg, a professor of engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'We're willing to run this camera for years, and we're prepared to accept it if we never see the bird.' The first footage to be made public was posted on the internet by researchers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in San Francisco.
New research suggests that it was climate change that finally wiped out Neanderthals from their last refuge in the Gibraltar area. Sediment cores drilled from the seabed show that average sea-surface temperature plunged to 8 degrees Celcius. That compares to modern averages of 14-20 degrees Celcius. The cores also show less river water was flowing into the sea. The freeze – the most severe seen in the region for 250,000 years – seems to have killed off the animals that the last surviving Neanderthals hunted and caused a drought which reduced supplies of fresh water, reported the Independent.
Scientists have seen chimpanzees hunting other animals using wooden spears, reported BBC News – the first time such a thing has been observed. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, took place in Senegal. The spears were frequently fashioned from branches torn from living trees. Some chimps even sharpened the end with their teeth. Interestingly, it was the females and adolescents who most often exhibited the hunting behaviour, rather than the adult males. Their actions ranged from jabbing the tool into cavities in tree branches or trunks where smaller primates might be hiding – after which the chimps often smelt or licked the end – to using it like a spear. On one occasion one of the researchers witnessed a chimpanzee extracting a bushbaby with a spear.
A group of international scientists at the AAAS meeting called for governments to stop paying subsidies to national deep sea fishing fleets. Without the subsidies, the deep-sea fisheries would operate at a loss. Instead, say the scientists, they are a threat to vunerable deep-sea ecosystems and to the survival of some of the world’s longest living creatures.
‘Industrial fisheries are now going thousands of miles, thousands of feet deep and catching things that live hundreds of years in the process - in the least protected place on earth.’ said Elliott Norse, of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Bellevue, Washington, in the Guardian.
In other news, the Times announced that the world’s largest commercial wave farm is to be built in Scotland, off the coast of Orkney. It will generate enough electricity to power about 2,000 homes.
Virtual reality simulations are being tested as a means to help soldiers relive and confront psychological trauma sustained during war in a safe and supportive environment. Post-traumatic stress disorder can take anything from weeks to years to develop. The new treatment has so far been used to treat a handful of patients with promising result, reported the Guardian.
Scientists have successfully encoded a message in the genetic code of a hardy strain of bacteria, the Guardian reported. They chose Einstein’s most famous equation and prolific year for the proof of concept experiment. The characters “E=MC^2 1905!” were first converted into binary and then coded into artificial strands of DNA. This was then successfully read at a later date by analysis of the genetic sequence. The researchers say DNA has the potential to store huge amounts of data and would be resistant to damage that could wipe modern hard drives.
Another Einstein-related story in the Guardian revealed new research that suggests a higher number of glial cells in his brain could help explain his extraordinary intelligence.
A rodent gene that influences snacking during the hours normally reserved for sleeping could help scientists better understand obesity and its link with inflammation, reported the Daily Telegraph. Researchers were studying mice lacking the EP3 receptor, a molecular switch that responds to the hormone prostaglandin E2 and plays a role in inflammation, fever, fertility and blood pressure. They discovered that the mice were gaining up to 30 percent more weight than mice that had the EP3 protein. By monitoring the animals continuously, the scientists discovered that the mice lacking the EP3 protein were more active during daylight hours. Nocturnal animals, mice would normally sleep during daylight hours, instead those lacking the EP3 protein were more active and were eating during this time.
Neuroscientist Professor Tamas Bartfai, one of the lead researchers, noted that the mice ‘may provide a very important animal model for determining the importance of inflammation in obesity and in the conversion of obesity to type 2 diabetes.’
Preliminary findings from the Autism Genome Project have added to the body of evidence that genetic variation plays a role in the development of autism, reported BBC News. The pooling of resources and expertise enabled the largest study of families with multiple cases of autism ever attempted. More than 120 scientists from 19 countries were involved in the study of 1,200 families. Analysis of genetic similarities between the families has implicated a specific gene (neurexin 1) and a region of chromosome 11. The next stage of the research will look further at these areas of DNA.
Drinking mint tea might provide a natural solution to help hairy women lose their excess growth, according to a new study. Abnormally high levels of androgen hormones, such as testosterone, in some women cause them to become hirsute. Current therapies involve medicines or oral contraceptions to suppress androgen production. The new research was conducted following reports that spearmint plant extracts caused reduced libido in men. Upon drinking spearmint tea twice daily, free testosterone was reduced significantly in the 21 hirsute women taking part in the study, reported the Daily Telegraph.
And finally...
A squid that would produce calamari rings the size of tyres has been caught by New Zealand fisherman in deep Antarctic waters. According to local news, the squid was about 10m long and was the first adult colossal squid ever to be landed intact. Very few of the species, first identified in 1925, have been found. It reportedly took two hours to haul the latest specimen, which weighed an estimated 450kg, aboard. BBC News reported that it has been taken to New Zealand for scientific examination.
Self-driving cars could be on the roads by 2030, according to a team of scientists from Stanford University who this week unveiled a prototype robot car able to navigate in moving traffic and built-up environments. The Daily Telegraph reported that they plan to compete for one million pounds later this year, in a US military-sponsored competition in which their vehicle will encounter other vehicles and have to obey traffic laws.
‘Today we can drive about 100 miles before human assistance is necessary,’ said Professor Sebastian Thrun, one of the car's designers. ‘By 2010 I expect this to go up to 1,000 miles, and by 2020 a million miles. By 2030 we should be able to deploy this technology on the open highway, and reliability will exceed that of humans by orders of magnitude.’
Meanwhile, the world’s first robotic birdwatcher has been employed to determine whether the ivory-billed woodpecker – thought to have become extinct 60 years ago – has in fact survived. According to the Daily Telegraph, it is part of the wider project by Collaborative Observatories for Natural Environments to develop automated methods for observing nature. The robot has been set up in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas and uses two high-resolution cameras that take 22 frames per second. Software analyses the images and retains only those featuring birds in flight.
In operation for three months so far, the woodpecker has so far remained elusive. But project leader, Ken Goldberg, a professor of engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'We're willing to run this camera for years, and we're prepared to accept it if we never see the bird.' The first footage to be made public was posted on the internet by researchers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in San Francisco.
New research suggests that it was climate change that finally wiped out Neanderthals from their last refuge in the Gibraltar area. Sediment cores drilled from the seabed show that average sea-surface temperature plunged to 8 degrees Celcius. That compares to modern averages of 14-20 degrees Celcius. The cores also show less river water was flowing into the sea. The freeze – the most severe seen in the region for 250,000 years – seems to have killed off the animals that the last surviving Neanderthals hunted and caused a drought which reduced supplies of fresh water, reported the Independent.
Scientists have seen chimpanzees hunting other animals using wooden spears, reported BBC News – the first time such a thing has been observed. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, took place in Senegal. The spears were frequently fashioned from branches torn from living trees. Some chimps even sharpened the end with their teeth. Interestingly, it was the females and adolescents who most often exhibited the hunting behaviour, rather than the adult males. Their actions ranged from jabbing the tool into cavities in tree branches or trunks where smaller primates might be hiding – after which the chimps often smelt or licked the end – to using it like a spear. On one occasion one of the researchers witnessed a chimpanzee extracting a bushbaby with a spear.
A group of international scientists at the AAAS meeting called for governments to stop paying subsidies to national deep sea fishing fleets. Without the subsidies, the deep-sea fisheries would operate at a loss. Instead, say the scientists, they are a threat to vunerable deep-sea ecosystems and to the survival of some of the world’s longest living creatures.
‘Industrial fisheries are now going thousands of miles, thousands of feet deep and catching things that live hundreds of years in the process - in the least protected place on earth.’ said Elliott Norse, of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Bellevue, Washington, in the Guardian.
In other news, the Times announced that the world’s largest commercial wave farm is to be built in Scotland, off the coast of Orkney. It will generate enough electricity to power about 2,000 homes.
Virtual reality simulations are being tested as a means to help soldiers relive and confront psychological trauma sustained during war in a safe and supportive environment. Post-traumatic stress disorder can take anything from weeks to years to develop. The new treatment has so far been used to treat a handful of patients with promising result, reported the Guardian.
Scientists have successfully encoded a message in the genetic code of a hardy strain of bacteria, the Guardian reported. They chose Einstein’s most famous equation and prolific year for the proof of concept experiment. The characters “E=MC^2 1905!” were first converted into binary and then coded into artificial strands of DNA. This was then successfully read at a later date by analysis of the genetic sequence. The researchers say DNA has the potential to store huge amounts of data and would be resistant to damage that could wipe modern hard drives.
Another Einstein-related story in the Guardian revealed new research that suggests a higher number of glial cells in his brain could help explain his extraordinary intelligence.
A rodent gene that influences snacking during the hours normally reserved for sleeping could help scientists better understand obesity and its link with inflammation, reported the Daily Telegraph. Researchers were studying mice lacking the EP3 receptor, a molecular switch that responds to the hormone prostaglandin E2 and plays a role in inflammation, fever, fertility and blood pressure. They discovered that the mice were gaining up to 30 percent more weight than mice that had the EP3 protein. By monitoring the animals continuously, the scientists discovered that the mice lacking the EP3 protein were more active during daylight hours. Nocturnal animals, mice would normally sleep during daylight hours, instead those lacking the EP3 protein were more active and were eating during this time.
Neuroscientist Professor Tamas Bartfai, one of the lead researchers, noted that the mice ‘may provide a very important animal model for determining the importance of inflammation in obesity and in the conversion of obesity to type 2 diabetes.’
Preliminary findings from the Autism Genome Project have added to the body of evidence that genetic variation plays a role in the development of autism, reported BBC News. The pooling of resources and expertise enabled the largest study of families with multiple cases of autism ever attempted. More than 120 scientists from 19 countries were involved in the study of 1,200 families. Analysis of genetic similarities between the families has implicated a specific gene (neurexin 1) and a region of chromosome 11. The next stage of the research will look further at these areas of DNA.
Drinking mint tea might provide a natural solution to help hairy women lose their excess growth, according to a new study. Abnormally high levels of androgen hormones, such as testosterone, in some women cause them to become hirsute. Current therapies involve medicines or oral contraceptions to suppress androgen production. The new research was conducted following reports that spearmint plant extracts caused reduced libido in men. Upon drinking spearmint tea twice daily, free testosterone was reduced significantly in the 21 hirsute women taking part in the study, reported the Daily Telegraph.
And finally...
A squid that would produce calamari rings the size of tyres has been caught by New Zealand fisherman in deep Antarctic waters. According to local news, the squid was about 10m long and was the first adult colossal squid ever to be landed intact. Very few of the species, first identified in 1925, have been found. It reportedly took two hours to haul the latest specimen, which weighed an estimated 450kg, aboard. BBC News reported that it has been taken to New Zealand for scientific examination.
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