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12,746 articles from Guardian Unlimited Science
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THURSDAY 20. NOVEMBER, 2008
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11:33
Adam Rutherford: Bringing back the woolly mammoth must remain the stuff of dreams for now
Adam Rutherford: 1) Buy extinct mammal hair from eBay; 2) Produce DNA sequence; 3) Artificially inseminate elephant; 4) Cook till term -
09:00New excerpts from Darwin's letters and diaries, along with contemporary cartoons and photographs, show how his revolutionary On the Origin of Species was received
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03:17
Scientists have unravelled the genetic makeup of the woolly mammoth by analysing hairs plucked from carcasses recovered from the Siberian permafrost.
The feat was hailed as a milestone in genetic science yesterday and represents the first time an extinct animal has had its genome sequenced.
The first draft of the genetic code shows mammoths split into two groups about 2m years ago. One group became extinct about 45,000 years ago, while the other is thought to have lived on to as recently as 10,000 years ago.
"It has now become feasible to sequence a complete extinct animal, which is quite amazing," said Stephan Schuster, who led the research at Penn State University.
The achievement is an indication of the rapid progress in genetics. In 2003, the 13-year effort to read the human genome was completed at a cost of $2.6bn. The mammoth genome was read at one laboratory in less than a year and cost just over $1m.
Schuster's team gathered hair samples from 18 woolly mammoths and pieced together 3.3bn pairs of letters that make up about 70% of the animal's genetic code, the journal Nature reported.
By comparing the mammoth's DNA with that of the African elephant, the scientists identified sections of genetic code that may explain how the beasts adapted to harsh Arctic conditions. All elephants originated in Africa, but split into different species around 6.5m years ago. One group migrated to tropical Asia, while the mammoth headed for temperate Europe and eventually the Arctic.
Schuster said genetic diversity was very low in the two groups of mammoths. That may explain why the animals suddenly became extinct after enduring successive ice ages. The changing climate could have depleted their populations, leaving them vulnerable to disease and hunting when humans arrived in their regions about 23,000 years ago.
Analysis of the mammoth genome reveals it differs from the African elephant by only 0.6%. That is about half the difference between humans and chimpanzees, which split from a common ancestor at around the same time. The greater genetic gulf between humans and chimps suggests primates have evolved faster, probably because apes have historically been preyed on more than mammoths.
"It's an absolute first to have a genome sequence of an extinct animal, that's really a milestone," said Michael Hofreiter at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Ultimately, scientists want to compare the genomes of mammoths that lived at different times to see how the species evolved. "Within the next decade, that is what people will go for. It's what evolutionary biologists dream of: seeing evolution in action," said Hofreiter.
The publication of the mammoth's genome is unlikely to lead to the resurrection of the beasts through cloning. While most of the genetic code is known, scientists do not have the technological knowhow to make chromosomes.
Next year, scientists are expected to reveal the full genetic code of our most recent ancestor, neanderthal man.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds -
01:21
An iron age gold collar worth more than £350,000 that was found by an amateur metal detectorist in a muddy field in Nottinghamshire was described yesterday as the best find of its kind in half a century.
"I was only in the field because a customer kept me late," Maurice Richardson, a tree surgeon from Newark, said yesterday. "Normally I'd never want to go into this field because a plane crashed there in the last war, and the whole place is littered with bits of metal."
The first beep from his detector was indeed a chunk of wartime scrap metal, but as he bent down to discard it, his machine gave a louder signal. Expecting to find a bigger chunk of fuselage, he instead discovered the 2,200-year-old collar.
The piece, a near twin of one already in the British Museum, was the most spectacular of 1,257 finds reported over the last three years. Treasure reports have increased every year since the Portable Antiquities scheme was set up to record finds by the public in England and Wales.
"It's a fabulous thing, the best Iron Age find in 50 years," said JD Hill, head of the British Museum's iron age department. "When I first saw a picture of it I thought somebody was pulling my leg because it is so like the Sedgeford torc in our collection that it must have been made by the same hand.
"What is fascinating about it is that it turned up where no torc should be - to put it mildly, the Newark region is not known for major high-status iron age finds. This wasn't in a grave, wasn't on a hilltop - it opens up a whole new chapter of the history of this area."
Richardson has been metal detecting, not entirely to the delight of his wife, since he first spent £70 on a detector instead of buying a carpet for their new house just after they were married 40 years ago.
He should now have enough money for new wall-to-wall after sharing the reward with the landowner.
Unusually, the torc has been acquired by his local museum in Newark, after heroic fundraising efforts. Most such finds go to national museums. Sarah Dawes, head of leisure and culture at Newark and Sherwood district council, said: "I took one look and rang my chief executive to say, sit tight, don't leave the office, we've got something to tell you."
For archaeologists, professional and amateur, the greater treasure announced yesterday was the reprieve of the Portable Antiquities scheme itself. Last year there was an outcry in the profession when the scheme almost became collateral damage in swingeing cuts imposed by the government.
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01:19Editorial: There is still a long way to go but the journey of success has begun
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01:16
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01:07Space-walk to repair joint on solar panel wing takes seven hours after toolbag slips out of a greasy glove
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WEDNESDAY 19. NOVEMBER, 2008
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23:21Emotional, mental or physical tension can cause neurons to warp, according to research
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19:19
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11:00
Sarah Boseley on the stem cell transplant of an organ
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01:18
Thousands of 12- and 13-year-old girls will be lining up outside their school medical offices this term, some of them shivering, stomachs lurching, waiting for a jab in the arm that it is hoped will prevent them suffering cervical cancer - a particularly unpleasant form of the disease which kills more than 900 women a year in the UK.
There is every sign that takeup of the vaccine will not be universal. In a pilot study, 20% of parents did not give permission for their daughter to have the jab - whether from apathy or anxiety. Girls are being told that if they feel strongly, they can go to their GP and get vaccinated anyway, but that will surely be rare. And takeup will certainly slump for the boosters, months later.
In spite of a health service information campaign and assiduous marketing by the two firms who vied for the NHS contract - the British company GlaxoSmithKline (the winner) and Merck - many people seem to know little about the vaccine, and the usual worries have already surfaced. Is it safe? Does it have side-effects? The legacy of MMR will run for many years.
In the US, websites have started up and the anti-vaccine rumour machine has been grinding away for a while now. Some of the doubts are reasonable - we cannot know what the long-term effect of the jab will be, because it has been tested for less than seven years so far, though the chief worry is that the protection will wear off. Others, such as alarming side-effects, are not well substantiated.
But while Britain and the US are dithering and doubting, there is an urgent need for the vaccine. The real damage done by this horrible disease is in the developing world. There are about 500,000 cases worldwide every year, and more than half the women die. About 80% of the deaths are in poor countries.
These countries don't have screening programmes. They don't have the surgery and radiotherapy to treat cervical cancer, either. The women who die are often mothers and breadwinners, leaving struggling families. A simple vaccine - two or three injections for every girl - could transform their prospects.
But Merck charges $360 for the three-dose vaccine course, presumably needing to recoup the $100m it is said to have spent on marketing in the US on top of development costs. GlaxoSmithKline will have struck a deal at a lower price in Britain to win the NHS contract, but this is still out of reach for countries in Africa and Asia. Merck is not insensitive to this potentially damaging issue and has committed itself to giving away enough vaccine to immunise a million women in the developing world. But the anticipated demand, should an affordable vaccine become available, is for the immunisation of 58 million girls in 60 countries by 2020.
Enormous hopes were building right up until the end of last month. Gavi, the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation - set up with the help of Bill and Melinda Gates - was expected to support global rollout of the cervical cancer vaccine. It didn't happen. In the face of global financial meltdown, there were nerves about the chances of raising enough money for a programme that will have to begin in schools - it can't just be added to the infant immunisation schedule.
Gavi will return to the issue. It has negotiated a cost in principle from the drug companies of less than $10 a head, of which governments would pay just 30 cents. A big new funding campaign among donor countries would still be needed, even at this price. But when we are spending so much vaccinating girls whose risk of cancer is really pretty low, surely offering the same chance to girls whose lives could genuinely be saved is a no-brainer?
sarah.boseley@guardian.co.ukguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds -
01:15Ian McEwan: The only one who can unite humanity for this life-or-death struggle against climate change is Barack Obama
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01:14Letters: How disappointing it was to read your article on the NHS medical research plan, which appeared to reject proposed changes to the present situation
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01:14
They give Action Man a certain ruggedness and bestow instant testosterone on movie heroes, but according to psychologists, facial scars can also make men more attractive to the opposite sex.
Men with mild facial scars were typically ranked as more appealing by women who were looking for a brief relationship, though they were not considered better as marriage material, a study found.
In the same experiments, women with facial scars were judged to be as attractive as those without, the researchers said.
Psychologists at the universities of Liverpool and Stirling asked 115 women and 64 men to rate the attractiveness of eight opposite sex strangers. Half were asked to look at original face shots, while the other half viewed images that had been digitally manipulated to add scars to their cheeks, jawbones or foreheads.
While facial scars made no difference to the perceived attractiveness of women, scarred men ranked 5.7 percentage points higher in the appeal ratings than those with undamaged skin.
"A large scar is unlikely to make you more attractive, but there are some scars that women do seem to find appealing. There's the whole James Bond thing, where a person is attractive but probably not the best marriage material," said Robert Burriss, a psychologist at the University of Liverpool who led the study.
The study appears in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
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01:14
The shuttle Endeavour docked with the ISS (International Space Station) on Sunday and they should still be together when the complex returns to visibility in our evening sky on Saturday - watch for times in our satellite predictions on that day. Billed as a "home improvement" mission, the flight is to install a new galley, two more sleep stations and a new toilet, plus a recycling system to convert urine into pure drinking water. The extra facilities should allow the ISS's permanent crew to grow from three to six next year. The undocking of Endeavour from the ISS is due at 15:40 GMT on the 27th and the two should soar separately across our sky on that evening and the next before Endeavour lands on the 29th. A Russian Progress supply craft is due to be launched on the 26th and may also be sighted as it travels along a similar path, though it is less conspicuous.
India's Chandrayaan 1 mission, now safely in lunar orbit, released an impact probe last Friday that returned images of the surface as it made a suicidal dive towards the crater Shackleton near the Moon's south pole. The experiment tested technology needed for Chandrayaan 2 which is planned to deliver a lunar lander and a rover in 2011.
Nasa's Phoenix mission is now at an end with the craft succumbing to the deep freeze of a Martian polar winter. There were worries too last week for the Spirit rover when its power levels dropped dangerously low following a dust storm that coated its solar arrays.
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TUESDAY 18. NOVEMBER, 2008
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18:14
They give Action Man a certain ruggedness and bestow instant testosterone on movie heroes, and according to British psychologists, facial scars can also make men more attractive to the opposite sex.
Men with mild facial scars were typically ranked as more appealing by women who were looking for a brief relationship, though they were not considered better as marriage material, a study found.
In the same experiments, women with facial scars were judged to be as attractive as those without, the researchers said.
The sexual allure of the facial scar has long puzzled psychologists. Many believe they are seen by women as a sign of masculinity and an exciting, risk-taking personality, though in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, an old lord, Lafeu, takes a different slant, commenting: "A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery of honour."
Psychologists at the universities of Liverpool and Stirling decided to investigate the effects of facial scars by asking 115 women and 64 men to rate the attractiveness of eight strangers of the opposite sex. Half were asked to look at original face shots, while the other half viewed images that had been digitally manipulated to add scars to their cheeks, jawbones or foreheads.
While the scars made no difference to the perceived attractiveness of women, scarred men ranked 5.7 percentage points higher in the appeal ratings than those with undamaged skin.
"A large scar is unlikely to make you more attractive, but there are some scars that women do seem to find appealing. There's the whole James Bond thing, where a person is attractive but probably not the best marriage material," said Robert Burriss, a psychologist at Liverpool who led the study.
For each picture, volunteers were asked to guess whether the scar was from a fight, an accident or illness. The men's scars were often blamed on a violent encounter, while those on women were often attributed to accidents.
"When scarring is seen as the result of a violent encounter, it signifies strength or bravery in a guy, or it could be due to an accident, and so evidence of a risk-taking personality. Either way, it's another way of assessing a man's masculinity," Burriss said. Men without scars could be seen as more caring and cautious, and so more suitable for a long term relationship, he added.
The study appears in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
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16:37
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01:05Government's regulatory agency urges customers not to use synthetic hormone Melanotan
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01:05
DNA extracted from bones and teeth in a 4,600-year-old stone age burial has provided the earliest evidence for the nuclear family as a social structure. The find consists of two parents and two sons who were buried together after being killed in a violent conflict over some of the most fertile farming land in Europe.
The archaeologists who examined the bones said the burial provides evidence of a shift in social organisation from communal living to societies with large social differences between people.
"It provides evidence that will allow us to understand the rise of societies that are more modern," said Dr Alistair Pike, an archaeologist at Bristol University who was a member of the team.
The site was discovered four years ago during quarrying at Eulau in Saxony-Anhalt, about 120 miles south-west of Berlin. Along with some individual burials there are four group burials in which more than one individual was interred at the same time.
The group burials, which appear to have happened together, tell a story of violent deaths. One skeleton has an arrow tip lodged in one of its vertebrae. Several of the skeletons have fractures that have not healed, showing that they must have happened shortly before death. Pike said they were probably trying to hold on to land in the face of raids.
"This particular area is considered to be one of the most fertile areas of Europe. So if people are looking for areas to settle they will be looking for these kind of soils, which might have contributed to some of the interpersonal violence," he added.
The people were members of the Corded Ware culture, named after their practice of decorating pots using twisted cord. By analysing bone samples, the scientists have shown that the arrangement of the bodies reflected family groups. Children who were related to the adults in the same grave were buried facing them; unrelated children were buried behind the adults.
"Whoever buried them knew ... it was very important that you signify genetic relationships in the way that you lay the [bodies] out," said Pike. The finds are documented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Burial as a nuclear family is different from the custom earlier in the neolithic era. Typically, archaeologists find mass graves of hundreds of individuals with little to distinguish them.
The team also examined evidence of where the people had grown up by analysing the combination of different forms of strontium in their teeth. The ratio of strontium isotopes depends on a person's diet during childhood and reflects the dominant rock types in the area. While the men and children had a strontium profile that indicates they were raised nearby, the women came from outside the area.
Pike said this was evidence of a patrilocal society, where families "married out" their daughters, either to avoid inbreeding or build allegiances with neighbours.
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MONDAY 17. NOVEMBER, 2008
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14:30The science minister, Lord Drayson, claims to have a 'sixth sense'. Is there such thing?
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12:09Giving professional medical researchers better access to patient records could help develop more effective treatments, says Simon Wessely
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12:05
The rousing, patriotic sweep of Elgar's Nimrod, the mournful tones of Nessun Dorma and the urgent eight-note allegro con brio opening to Beethoven's fifth – they have all been helping animal behaviour experts to make life more comfortable for the elephants at Belfast zoo.
The researchers have discovered that playing classical music to the animals reduces abnormal behaviours such as swaying, pacing and trunk tossing, although they said elephants don't seem to have a favourite composer.
"We tend to see in some situations that elephants don't cope well with captivity just because they have this inherent instinct to roam vast distances," said Dr Deborah Wells at Queen's University in Belfast. "The rationale underlying this study is really to try and improve their welfare and in particular to try to improve these stereotypic patterns of behaviour that elephants are prone to."
Her team recorded the behaviour of four female Asian elephants every minute for four hours a day over three five-day periods. "Every single behaviour the elephants could perform, we recorded," said Wells.
During the first five days the animals were not exposed to any music. In the second five days the researchers placed a speaker in their enclosure playing a CD of classical music by the likes of Mozart, Elgar, Handel and Beethoven. During the final five days the speaker was switched off.
The team report in the journal Animal Welfare that the frequency of abnormal behaviours dropped dramatically while the music was playing whereas normal behaviours, such as feeding, remained unchanged.
"Elephants are incredibly sensitive beasts," said David Field, zoological director of London and Whipsnade zoos."Their appreciation of noise communication is far beyond our hearing range. They communicate in deep infrasonic vibrations ... so it wouldn't surprise me at all if [classical music] has this calming effect."
He said keepers at London and Whipsnade zoos often put a radio on in the enclosures of animals that have to be kept on their own – for example sick animals or new arrivals at the zoo. Whipsnade's elephants in particular seem to appreciate background music. "We always do tend to have music on but we certainly wouldn't stick to classical music and I think our elephants are a bit partial to Terry Wogan and Chiltern FM," he said.
Wells has already investigated the effect that music has on dogs and gorillas. "Classical had the most beneficial effect. Heavy metal had quite an adverse effect on the dogs," she said.
She said dog shelters have begun playing classical music to calm their animals as result of that study.
She stressed that as yet the team can't be sure why elephants react well to classical music or whether other genres would work as well. "We really don't know what their perception of the music was," she said. It may simply be that it masked unpleasant background noises – for example from the zoo's visitors.
Field believes that as intelligent animals elephants may turn out to be quite discerning. "I think they would have very eclectic tastes actually," he said.
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01:07One of world's seven ancient wonders to be reconstructed, but not copied, thanks to new funding
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01:06Mark Miodownik: Strands of Darwin's beard are a fitting display, our hair's story is entwined with that of evolution
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01:06
This week's guest is astronomer and prolific author John Gribbin. We discuss dark matter and why the moon is so important. Plus, why the Earth, the universe and everything is rather pretty average really.
We chew over Charles Darwin's beard and why the Natural History Museum is missing a trick when it comes to merchandising.
Nanotechnology and Google Flu Trends get a mention too.
James Randerson reports back from The American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco. We speak to the man whose work has resulted in the birth of the first baby following an ovary transplant.
We meet a carrot mob in London's Covent Garden. They are trying to make businesses more energy efficient by using consumer power. A 'carrot' rather than a 'stick' approach.
And we have a, surprisingly emotional, tribute for Nasa's late great Martian probe, the Phoenix lander.
Another full studio with science correspondents Ian Sample and James Randerson, as well as Nell Boase from our arts desk.
Feel free to post your comments about the show on the blog below.
You can also join our facebook group, where you can scrawl your thoughts on our wall.
Thanks this week go to Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, for spending far too much of his time turning tweets into computer speech!
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