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14,747 articles from Sci-Tech Today
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FRIDAY 25. JANUARY, 2008
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15:19
Researchers Create Largest DNA Structure -- But is it Life?
A team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute said it has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the base-pair genome of a bacterium.This work, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the second of three key steps toward the team's goal of creating a fully synthetic organism. The team's next task is to attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome. But some scientists are arguing about the possibility of creating life in the lab.
"This is not an example of creating life. It's a new form of genetic engineering. There's a lot of hype about this, and that's not surprising. But we need to be really careful how we word this and how we look at this," said Dr. Georgia Purdom, a biologist and molecular genetics expert at the Creation Museum. "Even Craig Venter himself has said he is not creating life; he is modifying life to come up with new life forms using premade components."
'A Technological Marvel' The Ventner team accomplished its feat by chemically making DNA fragments in the lab and developing new methods for the assembly and reproduction of the DNA segments. After several years of work on chemical assembly, the team discovered it could use homologous recombination (a process that cells use to repair damage to their chromosomes) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to rapidly build the entire bacterial chromosome from large subassemblies.
"This extraordinary accomplishment is a technological marvel that was only made possible because of the unique and accomplished JCVI team," said J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., president and founder of the institute. "Ham Smith, Clyde Hutchison, Dan Gibson, Gwyn Benders and the others on this team dedicated the last several years to designing and perfecting new methods and techniques that we...
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14:45One day and two rounds into the long-awaited spectrum auction by the Federal Communications Commission, the highest bids total $2.78 billion, according to news reports. The auctioned frequencies could result in a new era for broadband wireless, unlocked handsets, and nationwide emergency communications.
Five blocks of frequencies in the 700-MHz band went on auction Thursday, with 214 approved bidders ranging from telecommunications companies like Verizon Wireless and AT&T to newcomers like Google and Chevron USA to small, local companies. Observers have speculated that the auction could bring in $10 billion to $30 billion, but the top bidders are not yet known because the bids are secret until the end of the auction.
The C and D Blocks Two blocks in particular have attracted a lot of attention in recent months, the C and D blocks.
After months of lobbying for open-access rules by an alliance led by Google, the FCC had announced that the C block winner must allow the use of any compatible device or non-malicious software, assuming the minimum price was met.
Although other open-access requests were not adopted, including a requirement that the winner make the bandwidth available on a wholesale basis to third-party resellers, the initially reluctant AT&T and Verizon Wireless now have declared their support for open networks.
After the first day of bidding, the C block's high bid was $1.24 billion. The open-devices provision requires that a minimum price of $4.7 billion be met.
The D block would require that the winner allow public-safety agencies to use it in case of emergencies. The leading contender for that spectrum chunk had been Frontline Wireless, a startup which included former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, but that company recently announced it was ceasing operations because it was unable to complete its financing. The D block received a high bid of $472 million...
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THURSDAY 24. JANUARY, 2008
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20:31Palm readers may not be the only ones who can tell a lot about people by examining their hands.
Recently, scientists in North America and Europe have looked to the relative lengths of index and ring fingers for clues about a variety of characteristics, including musical ability, athletic prowess and, in a study just released, osteoarthritis risk.
The researchers believe that the difference between the two fingers' lengths signifies the level of testosterone exposure in the womb. The longer the ring finger compared to the index finger, the thinking goes, the higher the exposure.
Scientists express the fingers' relative lengths as a ratio, computed by dividing index finger length by ring finger length. Men tend to have longer ring fingers than index fingers, or ratios less than 1, and women tend to have index and ring fingers of equal length, or ratios of 1.
Don't worry if your finger ratio looks to be more like that of the opposite sex, says Marc Breedlove, professor of neuroscience at Michigan State University. There's less of a sex difference in finger ratios than there is in height, he says.
"I wish it was a better marker ... of prenatal testosterone," he says. "It's not a very good correlation. It's easy to find women who have more masculine ratios than some men."
Still, Breedlove says, short of a time machine, he doesn't know of a better tool with which to assess prenatal testosterone exposure.
Just Made the Connection Giacomo Casanova, the famous womanizer who died in 1798, observed in his memoirs that the ring finger is longer than the index finger.
But it wasn't until 1998 that British psychologist John Manning first linked the index-ring finger ratio to prenatal hormone levels.
"It's been known for about a hundred years that there's this tiny sex difference in the ratio, but it's so small that one...
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20:10One of the most fascinating stories in the technology sector has been the challenge posed by open-source giant Linux to Microsoft's dominance of the market for operating system software. One of the key players in the rise of Linux is Bob Young, co-founder of Red Hat Software, the largest distributor of the Linux operating system. Young's creative resolution of a crucial strategic dilemma was the event that put Red Hat -- and Linux -- on the path to profit and power in the marketplace.
In the 1980s, a movement had taken shape to develop software based on UNIX, an operating system invented in the 1970s at AT&T Bell Labs, and made available at no cost to anyone who requested a copy. In 1991, programmer Linus Torvalds posted a message on a UNIX users' bulletin board to announce he'd developed an operating system from the UNIX code. Before long, suggested improvements to Torvalds' program, dubbed Linux, were pouring in.
New enterprises like Yggdrasil, Slackware and Red Hat Linux sprang up to try to bring some order to the chaos by selling their own versions of Linux to interested buyers. Young ran an outfit called ACC Corp. that distributed free software. In 1995, Young combined his company with Red Hat, becoming CEO of what was now called Red Hat Software, and shifting the company's focus from distribution of several flavors of Linux to direct sales of Red Hat's Linux product.
From his experience as a distributor, Young knew that the still-tiny market for Linux software was growing rapidly. But the business was going to hit a ceiling unless it could find a new business model.
Young could see that the two dominant models then in existence were profoundly flawed. On one hand, there was the classical proprietary-software model employed by big players such Microsoft and Oracle....
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19:21Shares of THQ Inc. dived to a new year low Thursday after the video-game publisher cut its quarterly profit forecast, while rival Take-Two Interactive Software soared after it announced a release date for the eagerly awaited update of its "Grand Theft Auto" franchise.
Take-Two said Thursday that "Grand Theft Auto IV" will ship on April 29. The release was originally scheduled for last October, but the company last summer postponed the launch, saying it needed more time to develop the game. The company said at the time it would launch the game during its fiscal second quarter, which ends in April.
Take-Two plans to release the game for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Cowen and Co. analyst Doug Creutz said the announcement "removes an overhang from the stock."
Take-Two shares spiked $1.42, or 9.8 percent, to $15.88 in midday trading Thursday, after trading in a 52-week range of $11.82 to $24.80.
In stark contrast, THQ shares plummeted $8.14, or 32.4 percent, to $16.96 after the company sharply lowered its fiscal third-quarter profit outlook, citing product development charges and underperforming titles, including "Stuntman: Ignition" and "Conan." The stock traded as low as $16.36 earlier in the session.
THQ late Wednesday estimated adjusted profit of about 23 cents per share for the December quarter, far below an earlier forecast of 67 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, had expected income of 66 cents per share.
At least two analysts downgraded the stock. Kaufman Brothers analyst Todd Mitchell reduced his rating to "Hold" from "Buy."
Mitchell noted the poor performance of several THQ titles "refutes THQ's strategy of shifting toward internally generated (intellectual property)."
"The issue is uncompelling IP and poor game quality, and it leaves THQ with large holes in its lineup for fiscal 2009 and too much exposure to its Pixar and (World...
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18:46Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic unveiled the designs of SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo on Wednesday, bringing wealthy mankind one step closer to getting into space.
The spaceships are based on the X Prize-winning technology of SpaceShipOne, which successfully flew into space for the third time in October 2004 and won the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The construction of the WhiteKnightTwo mothership, or carrier aircraft, is very close to completion and the craft is expected to begin flight testing this summer.
"The designs of both the mothership and the new spaceship are absolutely beautiful and surpass any expectations for the future of commercial spaceflight that we had when first registering the name Virgin Galactic in 1999," Branson said.
A Private Spaceship WhiteKnightTwo is the world's largest, all-carbon-composite aircraft. It has a high-altitude lift capacity capable of launching SpaceShipTwo and its eight astronauts into suborbital spaceflight. The White Knight Two mothership is powered by four Pratt & Whitney PW308A engines, which are among the most powerful and efficient engines available.
The mothership has been designed to lift other payloads and launch them into space. While the two vehicles comprising the space launch system have been under construction, Virgin Galactic's cadre of future astronauts has grown to well in excess of 200 individuals, with around 85,000 registrations of interest to fly.
"Virgin Galactic produced a demanding output specification for the world's first private human and payload space launch system," said Burt Rutan, CEO of Scaled Composites, an aerospace composites development company Branson has partnered with on the project. "This required us to produce a safe but flexible design capable of multiple applications in new market sectors. I am confident that these vehicles, now in an advanced stage of construction, will achieve just that."
Getting Ready for Liftoff Astronaut orientation for spaceflight is progressing well, according to Virgin, and...
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16:28Last.fm is now first. The CBS-owned Web site announced Wednesday that it is the first music site to allow free access to the largest catalog of music from the big four music labels and independent artists.
Visitors will be able to listen to a song for free up to three times via streaming media that will include advertising. After three listens, the user can buy the song from Last.fm's music-store affiliates, which include Apple's iTunes, Amazon and 7 Digital. Last.fm, which was acquired by CBS last May, said it has 20 million unique monthly users in 240 countries.
'Best Jukebox in the World' "We're giving the listener free access to what is basically the best jukebox in the world," said Martin Stiksel, a co-founder of Last.fm. The free service was to start today in the U.S., United Kingdom and Germany, with launches in other countries in coming months. Last.fm, said co-founder Felix Miller, is "building a platform to help redesign the music economy."
That platform includes music from major labels Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI, as well as more than 150,000 independent labels and artists.
Last.fm is also launching what it described as an "unprecedented 'Artist Royalty' arrangement" where artists who have not signed with a label can upload their music and be paid when their tracks are played. Miller said musicians can "earn revenue according to how people listen, rather than how they buy."
This model for the music industry could build on the legacy of radio supported by ads, said Andrew Frank, a researcher with Gartner. "But the real question," he added, "is how much this free, on-demand model will cannibalize sales."
Not By Ads Alone As the music industry struggles to find strategies to battle falling sales, Frank said "there's no question the entire music industry can't be supported on ads alone."...
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15:43Wednesday marked the beginning of the end of an eBay era. The online auctioneer announced that Meg Whitman will step down as president and CEO on March 31. She will remain on the company's board of directors and John Donahoe will become president and CEO.
Whitman joined eBay in March 1998. At the time, eBay was a U.S.-only, auction-based trading site with 500,000 registered users, 30 employees, and $4.7 million in revenue. Today, the company has hundreds of millions of users worldwide, more than 15,000 employees, and nearly $7.7 billion in revenue.
Whitman led eBay to become one of the fastest-growing companies in history. Over the last 10 years, she has built a portfolio of brands and a thriving business that enables millions of people to trade, pay and communicate online.
"Meg's passion for all things eBay changed the world," said Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay and chairman of the board. "With humor, smarts and unflappable determination, Meg took a small, barely known online auction site and helped it become an integral part of our lives. We're all enormously grateful that Meg dedicated herself to stewarding eBay through its 10 most formative years."
A Well-Groomed Successor eBay's board of directors voted unanimously to make Donahoe president and CEO. Donahoe came to eBay in February 2005 from Bain & Company, where he had served as worldwide managing director since 1999.
For nearly three years, Donahoe has been president of eBay Marketplaces, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the company's global revenues. In this role, Donahoe has been responsible for the growth of eBay and its other e-commerce businesses around the world, and during the time he has managed this business unit, both revenues and profits doubled.
"During the last three years, John and I have worked very closely together to arrive at this day,...
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14:49Several Web 2.0 tools unveiled by IBM have advanced the growing options for business-based social networking and data mashups.
On Wednesday at the Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla., the company showed its Lotus Mashups application and updated versions of Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr 8.1.
A Trend Toward Mashups First previewed last fall, Lotus Mashups allows nontechnical users to "mashup," or combine, various data in ad hoc ways. Using a browser, out-of-the-box widgets, a catalog for finding and sharing widgets and mashups, and a builder for accessing enterprise systems, Lotus Mashups enables what the company described as visualizations that can blend enterprise and Web-based data "to solve real business problems."
"We're seeing a real trend happening," said Oliver Young, an analyst with industry research firm Forrester. He noted that Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other companies have also been releasing mashup tools for consumers and businesses, and now "a lot of companies are seeing value in mashups."
The value, Young said, is in enabling knowledge workers to create their own dashboards, where "they can see lots of different data sources in one view." Lotus Mashups is interesting, he said, in that it enables the user to connect the portlets (views), so that data changes in one portlet affect the data in another.
For many people, mashups mean data overlays on maps, such as all the pizza shops in your city overlaid on a Google map. Young noted that this is only one type of mashup, and that the term means taking multiple data sources and combining them so they can be viewed at the same time.
Eventually, he predicted, we're going to see mashup tools widely adopted, because "the business value is tremendous," but he expects that won't happen for at least a year.
Social Networking for Business Young pointed out that social-networking tools for business, such as Lotus Connections,...
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14:15LOS ANGELES -- In what is being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.
The treatment involved weakening the patient's immune system, then giving the recipient bone marrow from the person who donated the organ. In one experiment, four of five kidney recipients were off immune-suppressing medicines up to five years later.
"There's reason to hope these patients will be off drugs for the rest of their lives," said Dr. David Sachs of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who led the research published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Since the world's first transplant more than 50 years ago, scientists have searched for ways to trick the body to accept a foreign organ as its own. Immune-suppressing drugs that prevent organ rejection came into wide use in the 1980s. But they raise the risk of cancer, kidney failure and many other problems. And they have unpleasant side effects such as excessive hair growth, bloating and tremors.
Eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs is "a huge advance," said Dr. Suzanne Ildstad, a University of Louisville immunology specialist who had no role in the work.
"It still needs some fine-tuning so that everyone who gets treated gets the same consistent outcome ... It's not the holy grail of tolerance yet," she cautioned.
The results do not mean that it is safe for current transplant patients to go off their medicines. Doing so could lead to organ rejection and even death, doctors warn. And Sachs said the treatment will not solve the country's organ shortage.
In the 1990s, Sachs showed the treatment could work in a kidney recipient who was a good genetic match. The woman, who had an organ and marrow transplant in 1998,...
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14:13CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA said Wednesday that a survey of astronauts and flight surgeons found no evidence of launch-day drinking by crew members, despite a report last year of two cases of drunkenness.
The anonymous survey uncovered a single case of "perceived impairment" by someone just a day or more from blasting into space, and it turned out to be a reaction between prescription medicine and alcohol.
NASA officials, citing medical privacy, refused to say when or where the episode occurred, only that it happened on one of the final days leading up to launch but not on launch day. The crew member ultimately was cleared for flight and rocketed into space.
The officials said they did not know whether the specified case was one of the two alleged cases of astronaut drunkenness cited in a report by outside medical experts last summer.
NASA has yet to receive any proof or information about astronauts drinking heavily in the 12 hours before liftoff, said Ellen Ochoa, deputy director of Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"We really never understood from the beginning exactly what might have led to the comment in the health care report," Ochoa, a former shuttle astronaut, said at a news conference. "We've tried to run it to ground. We haven't uncovered anything. I don't know of any issues associated with alcohol before flight."
None of those surveyed last fall -- 87 of 98 astronauts and all 31 flight surgeons -- reported seeing a crew member drinking alcohol on launch day.
No policy changes are planned for either drinking or handling medication; the 12-hour ban on drinking remains in effect. A new astronaut code of conduct, though, is almost complete.
The allegations of drunken astronauts arose last July, just months following the arrest of one-time shuttle flier Lisa Nowak. She chased her astronaut-boyfriend's new girlfriend from Houston to Florida last February, and ended up in jail. She's yet to stand trial.
Because of the Nowak scandal, NASA established a panel of aerospace medicine...
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14:12Recent laboratory tests performed for The New York Times found so much mercury in tuna sushi that a regular diet of even two or three pieces a week at some restaurants could be a health hazard for the average adult, based on guidelines set out by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Eight of the 44 pieces of sushi The Times purchased from local restaurants and stores in October had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market.
Although all the samples were gathered in New York City, experts believe similar results would be observed elsewhere. "Mercury levels in bluefin are likely to be very high, regardless of location," said Tim Fitzgerald, a marine scientist for Environmental Defense, an advocacy group that works to protect the environment and improve human health. Most of the stores and restaurants in the survey said the tuna The Times had sampled was bluefin.
In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration joined with the Environmental Protection Agency to warn children and women who may become pregnant to limit their consumption of certain varieties of canned tuna because the mercury it contained might damage developing nervous systems. Fresh tuna was not included in the advisory. The tuna sushi in The Times sample contained far more mercury than is typically found in canned tuna.
Over the past several years, studies have suggested that mercury may also cause health problems for adults, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and neurological symptoms.
Dr. P. Michael Bolger, a toxicologist who is head of the chemical hazard assessment team at the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency was reviewing its seafood mercury warnings. Because it has been four years since the advisory was issued, he said, "we have had a study under way to take a fresh look at it."
Tuna samples from the restaurants Nobu Next Door, Sushi Seki, Sushi of Gari and Blue Ribbon and the...
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14:07HOUSTON -- AT&T announced Wednesday that it will boost Internet speeds for customers of its phone, television and Internet service, and will start offering free access to the company's 10,000 wireless hot spots to nearly all of its broadband customers.
Starting next month, for $55 a month as part of a bundle that includes its U-verse TV service, customers will have a 10 megabit-per-second download option. The speed increase better positions AT&T in its ongoing battle with cable companies, which have made similar announcements recently, independent telecommunications industry analyst Jeff Kagan said.
"The speeds customers are using online are getting faster and faster," Kagan said.
As of October, U-verse was available to about 400,000 homes in the Houston area. AT&T has added more to its footprint but declined to give updated numbers. Earlier this year, the company began marketing standalone DSL Internet access, but the new 10 Mbps service is not offered without the U-Verse package.
As traditional phone companies have started offering television service, and cable companies have added phone service, the two sides are racing to sign up customers for so-called "triple play" bundles of phone, TV and Internet.
Comcast, which has about 750,000 customers as the cable provider for most of the Houston area, and AT&T offer various service tiers with different pricing. The cable company's closest comparison to AT&T's new offer is 8 Mbps for $60 a month. With Comcast's PowerBoost feature, which increases speeds when the network isn't busy, speeds can reach 16 Mbps.
"We welcome competition, but the fact is we deliver more speed to more customers at a better value than any other company in the U.S.," Comcast spokesman Michael Bybee said.
Comcast also is on the verge of rolling out new wideband service over the next two years with speeds of 100 Mbps, he said.
"The high-speed connections are not...
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14:01The bidding for a valuable new chunk of wireless airwaves the federal government is selling was expected to raise $15 billion -- or more money than any wireless auction in U.S. history. But with stock markets crumbling, expectations for the auction that begins today-- called Auction 73 -- are sliding fast, along with the shares of likely bidders.
Since the beginning of the year, AT&T's market value has tumbled by $29.5 billion, while Verizon's shares are collectively worth $16.5 billion less. The market's plunge last Friday may have marked the biggest single-day loss in telecom market value ever, says Blair Levin, an industry analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus. Even Internet search giant Google, which has been looking to purchase the spectrum licenses to build a new wireless network that would compete with the established players, has lost 20 percent of its value since New Year's.
A Lack of Bidders? Combined with the credit crunch, these rapidly shrinking stock values are severely crimping the sector's financing options for big spectrum purchases in the Federal Communications Commission's auction. Many potential bidders may now be unwilling, or unable, to bid as much as they'd intended previously. "We've had, since the beginning of the year, equity values in the U.S. diminished by a trillion dollars," says Harold Furchtgott-Roth, a former FCC commissioner who is the founder of consultancy Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. "Some bidders will simply decide they can't afford to participate at this point."
Thanks to the market carnage, the auction may now raise only between $10 billion and $12.5 billion, figures Carlyn Taylor, who heads the communications and media practice of the consultancy FTI. Many bidders might have been hoping to raise money for the auction by issuing stock or by securing loans in a more welcoming credit market. "The majority of bidders would be in this category,"...
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WEDNESDAY 23. JANUARY, 2008
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20:10Pratt & Whitney Canada today joined Virgin Galactic in New York City to unveil detailed scale models of the world's first commercial passenger suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, together with the launch aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo. Pratt & Whitney Canada's PW308 turbofan is the engine selected to power WK2 (WhiteKnightTwo). P&WC (Pratt & Whitney Canada) is a United Technologies company.
The PW308 engine was chosen for WK2 by The Spaceship Company -- a jointly owned Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites company. Virgin Galactic is the launch customer for the SS2 (SpaceShipTwo) system, having ordered five SS2 spacecraft with options for a further seven-plus WK2 carrier aircraft.
"We are delighted to welcome Pratt & Whitney Canada on board the WhiteKnightTwo program," said Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group of Companies and co-founder of The Spaceship Company. "With P&WC's excellent reputation and our mutual desire for innovation, it became clear that its PW308 engine is the best and most reliable solution available today to help make our aerospace adventure a true success."
"We are excited to be part of this visionary commercial spaceship program that will open up new opportunities for people to fly into space," said Alain M. Bellemare, president, P&WC and executive vice president, Pratt & Whitney Group Strategy & Development. "Our global leadership is built on innovation and we look forward to helping shape the future of suborbital spaceflight with The Spaceship Company."
Equipped with its PW308 engines, the WK2 launch aircraft being developed by Scaled Composites will take off like an airplane with the manned SS2 attached underneath. It will launch SS2 into suborbital space from about 50,000 feet. The first flight of WK2 is planned this year.
"The fully certified PW308 meets all thrust and schedule requirements of WhiteKnightTwo," added Bellemare. "This is yet another demonstration of Pratt & Whitney Canada's technology leadership."
Rated at...
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19:57Despite the hammering Apple's stock took because iPod sales did not meet analysts' expectations, its new iPod Touch may have a bright future.
iPod sales for Apple's year-end quarter totaled 22.1 million, below Wall Street's estimate of 24.7 million. Unit sales increased just 5 percent, which is practically flat compared to historical growth in iPod sales.
However, iPod revenue rose 17 percent to $4 billion, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said during the company's quarterly conference call Tuesday. The difference was largely due to higher prices for the iPod Touch, "the most expensive iPod we've introduced in some time," Oppenheimer noted.
If the iPod Touch is skewing revenue numbers that much, Apple must be racking up some substantial sales for the top-of-the-line model. Despite the name, it's clear the Touch is not an iPod in the traditional sense.
'Wi-Fi Mobile Platform' With Wi-Fi capability, a touch screen and the ability to browse the Web and run applications -- but no requirement that customers be locked into an exclusive carrier contract -- the iPod Touch is a multimedia-rich PDA (personal digital assistant).
"We view the iPod market as bigger than the market for simple music players," Oppenheimer said. "We believe one of the iPod's future directions is to become the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform."
"The iPod Touch is really just an iPhone without the AT&T requirements," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research. "That's a weakness as well as a strength, because there's no widely available Wi-Fi network you can just tap into."
Connectivity is the Problem As long as the iPod Touch is limited to Wi-Fi, it will have limited appeal, Sterling said. He added that while Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T may preclude offering a data plan from, for instance, Sprint, such a deal could make the iPod Touch a "ubiquitous mobile device."
"Touch is the iPhone...
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17:36TOKYO -- Researchers have stumbled on a way to stop cows from emitting methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- when they belch, a finding that could help the fight against global warming.
Methane generated when livestock belch is said to account for about 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But supplementing the animals' diet with cysteine, a type of amino acid, and nitrate can reduce the methane produced by the animals, according to the researchers.
Methane is generated in the stomachs of ruminants, such as cows and sheep, as bacteria breaks down plant fibers. The gas is emitted into the atmosphere when the animals belch as they chew cud.
The research team at Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine in Hokkaido, headed by professor Junichi Takahashi, initially noticed that dairy cattle that consume a large amount of nitrate from grass growing in soil doused with high levels of chemical fertilizer release only traces of methane when they belch.
The researchers stumbled on the relationship between nitrate and methane generation when they studied a mass poisoning outbreak among a herd of cows.
The team found that feeding the animals cysteine in addition to nitrate not only significantly cut the methane they generate, but also helped prevent them from being poisoned.
The study also showed the nitrate does not affect milk quality. The amount of cysteine a cow needs each day costs about 100 yen (about 95 cents U.S.), according to the researchers.
The university team has obtained a patent for the technique in Japan, the United States, Australia and two other countries.
Methane is about 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere.
European and Oceanian countries, where dairy farming is prosperous, are also researching how to reduce methane generation by livestock. The New Zealand government even...
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17:35Hundreds of experts from around the world are warning that the failure to address persistent environmental problems is putting all of humanity at risk, according to an October report from the United Nations Environment Program.
The "Global Environment Outlook 4," commonly known as GEO-4, is the latest in UNEP's series on the global environment and notes that while much progress has been accomplished, issues such as climate change and extinction of animal species threaten human well-being. In fact, if leaders and communities don't address such problems, they could help reverse much of the environmental progress made so far. The report, which is based on views from almost 400 scientists, also noted that the human population is living "far beyond" its means and that the "amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available."
"To present to the world at this point a report that essentially says that our response has been woefully inadequate is a very sobering realization," said Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director, in a news release.
Of utmost importance is addressing climate change, which report authors labeled a "global priority." Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels -the major greenhouse gas contributing to climate change -- has increased by about a third since 1987, sending the earth's climate into a "state unparalleled in recent prehistory," the report stated. Among its many effects on human health, warming temperatures stemming from climate change are expected to worsen diseases such as malaria and diarrhea and reduce many communities' ability to produce enough food, especially in developing nations.
Another focus of the report is the depletion of water and the decline of water quality. Already, according to UNEP, 70 percent of available water is used for irrigation, yet global goals for defeating hunger call for doubling food production by 2050, which could mean the "escalating burden of water demand will become intolerable in water-scarce countries." Threats to the planet's biodiversity -- which provides many communities with food and medicines -- should also signal alarm,...
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17:34CHICAGO -- A new study gives the strongest evidence yet that obesity surgery can cure diabetes. Patients who had surgery to reduce the size of their stomachs were five times more likely to see their diabetes disappear over the next two years than were patients who had standard diabetes care, according to Australian researchers.
Most of the surgery patients were able to stop taking diabetes drugs and achieve normal blood tests.
"It's the best therapy for diabetes that we have today, and it's very low risk," said the study's lead author, Dr. John Dixon of Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Australia.
The patients had stomach band surgery, a procedure more common in Australia than in the United States, where gastric bypass surgery, or stomach stapling, predominates.
Gastric bypass is even more effective against diabetes, achieving remission in a matter of days or a month, said Dr. David Cummings, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal but was not involved in the study.
"We have traditionally considered diabetes to be a chronic, progressive disease," said Cummings of the University of Washington in Seattle. "But these operations really do represent a realistic hope for curing most patients."
Diabetes experts who read the study said surgery should be considered for some obese patients, but more research is needed to see how long results last and which patients benefit most. Surgery risks should be weighed against diabetes drug side effects and the long-term risks of diabetes itself, they said.
Experts generally agree that weight-loss surgery would never be appropriate for diabetics who are not obese, and current federal guidelines restrict the surgery to obese people.
The diabetes benefits of weight-loss surgery were known, but the Australian study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association is the first of its kind to compare diabetes in patients randomly assigned to surgery...
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17:32CONCORD, N.C. -- A technological toy that will be harder to find than a Nintendo Wii may draw NASCAR teams to play in a new house in the neighborhood this spring.
At its heart, Windshear simply is a wind tunnel, which measures a car's aerodynamics. Nearly every racing team either owns one or can access a facility that simulates wind drag on race cars at some level. However, none feature a treadmill-like rolling road like Windshear, where cars will cut through winds of up to 180 mph generated by giant 5,100-horsepower fans.
There are only two other facilities like it in the world. Their exact locations are like classified information. Haas CNC Racing, which will house Windshear in Concord, N.C., plans to be a lot more forthcoming by sharing this latest advance with peers -- only after it gets first crack at it.
"It's a tool we feel we're ahead of our competitors on because we've committed to it sooner," Haas CNC owner/general manager Joe Custer said. "But until we use it, we can't utilize that benefit. I can't wait until we turn the darned thing on."
Haas CNC will begin the season locked into the first five races thanks to Johnny Sauter and Jeff Green, who finished 30th and 32nd respectively in 2007. (The top 35 in Sprint Cup points are guaranteed starts.)
They were replaced by Jeremy Mayfield (No.70 Chevrolet) and Scott Riggs (No.66), who will try to boost the team's fortunes closer to the middle of the pack.
Windshear, like Haas CNC, is a subsidiary of California-based Haas Automation, which lends technological support to NASCAR heavyweight Hendrick Motorsports, among other teams. Windshear developed a system to provide better data for stock car and open-wheel teams with MTS Technology and Jacob's Engineering.
Compared with current fixed-floor technology that uses scale models or rolling drums under...
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17:29This interview series about the future of the car is produced in collaboration with Auto Futuretech -- Summit 2008, a gathering of leading auto industry executives to discuss critical environmental and energy issues. Auto FutureTech will take place in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, from Mar. 12-14, 2008.
At some point in 2007, an unsuspecting car buyer purchased the one-millionth gas-electric hybrid car in the U.S.. As remarkable as that number seems, many auto industry analysts see hybrids as only the first step in the mass transformation of our gas-powered cars into a worldwide fleet of electric-powered vehicles. Ulrik Grape, chief executive of Indianapolis-based EnerDel -- one of a handful of battery companies helping to bring about this change -- sees the lithium ion battery as the key to this change. Grape spoke with Bradley Berman, editor of HybridCars.com, about advanced auto batteries, Japanese competition, and the future of cars:
What are we going to be driving in 2013 that's different from today's cars?
The hybrid market is going to be taking off in significant volumes at that time. It's difficult to predict market share, but it's increasing every year. I think we'll see plug-in hybrids, especially here in the U.S. And I think we'll see electric vehicles coming back strongly as well. We're going to see a multitude of these applications.
And what about 25 years from now?
I don't know if we'll see 100%, but I'm sure we're going to see that a very strong percentage of cars are going to be electrified. There are so many advantages to an electric drive. Obviously we are dealing with fuel economy, CO2 emissions, and global warming -- but it's also performance that makes electrifying the vehicle very attractive. It offers very smooth acceleration and braking. A lot of these changes are going to be based on performance...
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17:12In 2005, the Motion Picture Association of America commissioned a study on illegal downloading of movies on college campuses. The results of that study, conducted by the international firm LEK Consulting, were shocking. Forty-four percent of college students engaged in illegal downloading, the study found.
The study made waves in Congress, increased pressure on college campuses to crack down on downloading and even resulted in the introduction of a bill that would require schools to offer music-subscription services as an alternative to illegal downloading.
But it turns out there was a problem. The MPAA admitted Tuesday that the study was so deeply flawed that it overstated the downloading problem by 300 percent. Actual illegal downloading on campus is 15 percent, the group told The Associated Press.
Investigation Promised "We take this error very seriously and have taken strong and immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report," the MPAA said in a statement. "The latest data confirms that college campuses are still faced with a significant problem. Although college students make up 3 percent of the population, they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of stolen movie products in this country."
University IT officials and technology bloggers expressed outrage at the news and said students have been unfairly blamed.
Mark Luker, vice president of Educause, said the true amount of illegal downloading over college networks is closer to three percent, the part of the general population that students represent. "The 44 percent figure was used to show that if college campuses could somehow solve this problem on this campus, then it would make a tremendous difference in the business of the motion-picture industry," Luker told the AP. The reality, as shown by the new figures, is that "any solution on campus will have...
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TUESDAY 22. JANUARY, 2008
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20:51A city agency voted Tuesday to revive a plan to force chains to post calorie counts for their foods right on the menu, hoping the fat-filled truth will shock New Yorkers into eating healthier.
The regulation adopted by the city Board of Health takes effect March 31.
The city's original effort was struck down by a judge last September. That rule was reworked to make it comply with the court ruling.
The new regulation applies to any chain that operates at least 15 separate outlets, including those that don't currently provide any information on calories. Major fast-food chains make up about 10 percent of the city's restaurants.
Several chains, such as McDonald's and Burger King, have the information available, but don't list it on the menu boards that customers read before ordering.
City officials hope the rule would curb obesity by making people aware of the thousands of calories that can be packed into some of the meals. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said Monday he hoped the chains would also respond by offering healthier options.
"I don't think we're going to see the 2,700-calorie appetizers that we see now," Frieden said.
New York City -- which banned trans-fat-laden cooking oils from all restaurants last year -- is believed to be the first U.S. city to enact a regulation requiring calories on menus. Since then, California lawmakers and King County in Washington, which includes Seattle, have considered similar bills.
The Board of Health original rule only applied to establishments that had already volunteered to post nutritional information about their products.
The judge who struck that regulation down in September indicated the rule would be acceptable if it were expanded to include the restaurants that had volunteered the calorie data as well as those that had not. Those chains would include International House of Pancakes and Hale & Hearty Soups, city...
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20:48Invoking executive privilege, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday refused to provide lawmakers with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations.
The EPA informed Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications that would not be shared now with Congress.
"EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting," EPA's associate administrator Christopher P. Bliley wrote.
More than a week after a deadline set by Boxer, the agency gave her environmental committee a box of documents with numerous pages left almost entirely blank and others with key information redacted, Boxer said.
The documents provided Friday by the EPA omitted key details, including a presentation that Senate aides said predicted EPA would lose a lawsuit if it went to court for denying California's waiver.
The refusal to provide a full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into why the agency denied California permission to impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sports utility vehicles.
Sixteen states were ready to adopt the California rules or were considering doing so had the EPA approved the state's request for a waiver under the state Clean Air Act.
In denying California's waiver last month, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that the federal government is implementing its own national fuel efficiency standard.
Johnson's decision spurred several congressional investigations and a legal appeal earlier this month by California and 15 other states.
Boxer and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., for weeks have asked the agency for more information about why it denied California's plan.
She called the agency's failure to comply...
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20:37Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from the world's most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills.
The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain dangerous for thousands of years, is in "interim storage." Like nearly all the world's nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and governments in the six decades since the atomic era began.
Industry officials hope renewed worldwide interest in nuclear energy will break a long, awkward silence surrounding nuclear waste. They want to revive momentum for scientific and political breakthroughs on waste that stalled after the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, which raised worldwide fears about radioactivity's risks to human and planetary health.
So far, though, recent talk of a nuclear renaissance has focused on the "front end," or reactor construction. Engineers are designing the next generation of reactors to be safer than today's -- and they're being billed as a solution to global warming. Nuclear reactors do not emit carbon dioxide, blamed for heating the planet.
Few people have been talking about the "back end," industry- speak for the hundreds of thousands of tons of waste that nuclear plants produce each year, and the lucrative, secretive business of storing it away.
Waste "is the main problem with this so-called nuclear rebirth," said Mycle Schneider, an independent expert who co-authored a recent study for the European Parliament casting doubt on a global nuclear resurgence. He says government efforts to revive nuclear energy will stall without a "miracle" solution to waste disposal.
Workers at this waste treatment and storage site on France's Cherbourg peninsula, run by industry giant Areva, don't see a problem.
Though much of the technology here dates from the 1970s and 1980s, they point to a strong safety record and the 26,000 environmental tests conducted every year as evidence that the public has nothing...
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