Showering could be bad for your health

How would you like a face-full of harmful bacteria to start the day?

Scientists have found a third of showerheads contain high levels of a potentially lethal bug called mycobacterium avium. This microscopic nasty is easily inhaled in water droplets and can cause lung disease in people with weakened immune systems.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A Secret of Human Brain Evolution Discovered

Scientists have discovered that a protein called AP2gamma plays a key role in neural development within the human cerebral cortex—the area of the brain responsible for higher brain function, memory and sensory experience. The discovery could lead to neural regeneration therapies for patients with diseases involving the cortex, like Alzheimer’s, autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy. It is also a clue as to how the brain may have evolved into higher sophistication in mammals from previous structures related to vision.

Image: killermonkeys - Flickr
Source: Nature Neruoscience

PM apologises to computer genius

The Prime Minister has given a public apology for the "appalling" way computing genius Alan Turing was treated for being gay.

Turing, who worked as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during WW2, went on to develop the first modern computers, including Pilot ACE which we have here at the Museum.

In 1952 Turning was prosecuted for admitting a sexual relationship with a man and committed suicide two years later.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Physicists Propose a 'Schrödinger's Virus’ Experiment

Physicists are going to see if a virus can be made to exist in two different physical states at once by subjecting it to the strange rules of the tiny subatomic realm. They propose an experiment similar to the famous ‘Schrödinger's cat’ thought puzzle, which illustrates how in the microscopic world of atoms and quarks, particles behave in a totally different way from objects in our everyday experience. In the case of the cat, when subject to these subatomic rules it could exist in two different states simultaneously (alive and dead). If these physicists are successful, they will be able to do the same thing for a living virus in the real world— a first in quantum physics.

Image: Frederic Poirot via Flickr; Dale Chihuly exhibit, De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Foreign Language Classes in Nursery?

Preliminary results from an EU-funded study on foreign language learning are showing that kids as young as three perform admirably on tests in their second language. This is certainly good news, though there were sizable differences in individual performance, as well as performance levels of the different preschool classes studied. Future studies will attend to discovering the most effective teaching practices and understanding what makes individual children do well or poorly.

Image: lisibo - Flickr

Poor Funding May Ground NASA

‘The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory,’ according to a report by a panel of experts convened by President Barack Obama. The committee was brought together to assess the financial feasibility of plans for manned missions to the Moon and Mars, the fate of the International Space Station and hundreds of other NASA projects. The news was bleak. One projection showed that with the current budget astronauts will not even be able to leave low Earth orbit until 2028. Now Obama is left with the unenviable task of either finding billions of dollars more in funding, or making devastating cuts to the future of space travel.

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Possible Complications from Swine Flu Vaccine

The latest issue of The Lancet Neurology warns that doctors will need to be vigilant in monitoring possible neurological complications from both swine flu and swine flu vaccines. The cautionary is based on new case reports from the Centers for Disease Control showing a connection between swine flu and encephalopathy in children, as well as complications reported following panic-driven vaccination campaigns for a similar strain of flu in the 1970’s. Considering that this flu strain has been relatively mild in the majority of patients, the report warns that we should carefully weigh the benefits of large-scale vaccination against risks of potential complications.

Image courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control

New Research Funds will Curb the Need for Testing in Lab Animals

The European Commission has announced that it will match the €25 million already given by the European cosmetic industry to fund the development of new non-animal-based methods for safety testing cosmetics and household chemicals. The Commission hopes that substantial funding for research into cheaper, smarter alternatives to animal testing will increase public safety and simultaneously attend to ethical concerns over product testing in animals.

Image: *yasuhiro – Flickr

Massively Recycled Racer is Giving Formula Three Cars a Run for Their Money

With a steering wheel of carrot fibres, a chassis snatched back from the landfill, and running on a soup of chocolate and wine-making waste, the greenest Formula Three car ever to hit the road is scheduled to race competitively at Brands Hatch circuit in Kent this weekend. Despite the strange list of ingredients, this car is a piece of serious race-engineering, reaching speeds of 170 mph, it can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.5 seconds—better than many of its competitors. The car's inventors at the University of Warwick intend to show the racing world just what is possible from a sustainable vehicle.

Photo courtesy of University of Warwick Communications Office

Scientific Link Made between the Timing of Meals and Weight Gain

A Northwestern University study indicates that weight gain is not just about what you eat, but the time when you eat it. Mice given a high-fat diet during the hours when they would normally be sleeping gained more than twice the weight as mice which were fed an identical diet during wakeful hours. While medical research indicates that obesity has a complicated set of causal factors, only one of which may be the timing of meals within our sleep cycle, these scientists are hopeful that their results will lead to smarter treatment for the condition.

Image: Chris Devers – Flickr

A Virus Could Be Responsible for Some Prostate Cancers

A virus known to cause cancer in animals has been discovered in cancerous human prostate cells. An American team of researchers which examined hundreds of normal and cancerous prostates found that 27% of the cancerous tissues contained a gammaretrovirus called XMRV, compared to only 6% of healthy samples. Most importantly, the team believes XMRV to be directly related to tumor-growth because viral proteins were found almost exclusively in the cancerous cells of infected prostates.

Image: logan.fulcher - Flickr

Brain in a Dish

A working ‘replica’ of the human brain will be within reach in 10 years time according to neuroscientist Henry Markram of the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland. Makram’s team has already modeled brain microcircuitry that ‘started to display some interesting emergent properties,’ and they are beginning a model of the whole brain that would run on a powerful supercomputer. The team hopes that such a model will help us to understand everything from the subtle mechanisms of brain disease to our perception of reality.

Image: Gaetan Lee -Flickr

Fish full of . . . Cocaine? Our Poisonous Wastewater

There is a lot of hand-wringing this week at the Royal Society over the questionable state of our water. With new research showing everything from pharmaceutical estrogens, to illicit drugs and dangerous disinfectants streaming through treatment facilities and right back into the environment (possibly back into your drinking glass), these top-notch scientists are calling for better research methods and more attention to the problem of water contamination in their latest publication.*

*Royal Society (Great Britain). Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, 367 (1904). (London: Royal Society, October 2009) .

Image: *Leanda - Flicker

Two Genes the Culprits in Alzheimer’s

In the largest ever genetic study of its kind, scientists have confirmed a link between two genes and the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease— an illness which currently robs some 417,000 people in the UK of critical memory and brain functions, and which eventually leads to death. The lead researcher, Professor Julie Williams, believes that the discovery will enable genetic screening to determine risk, as well as new treatments which could ‘reduce the chances of people developing Alzheimer's by almost 20%.’

Image: robhengxr - Flickr

Arctic temperature reaches 2,000-year high

The Arctic is hotter today than it has been for 2,000 years, scientists have found.

By collecting information from lake sediments, tree rings and ice cores, researchers found that Arctic summer temperatures began climbing in 1900 and have peaked in the last ten years.

Rising levels of greenhouse gases are responsible, say the scientists, and the warming looks set to melt ice and raise sea levels around the world.

Image: Darrell Kaufman, Northern Arizona University

The European Family Tree Gets Weirder and Weirder

Surprising new studies of ancient DNA suggest that (1) Europe’s first farmers came from foreign shores, and (2) that we have no idea where the DNA of most modern Europeans comes from. The recovered genes of ancient neolithic farmers were found to be entirely unlike those of the native Ice Age hunter-gatherers which preceded them. When compared with Europeans alive today there was not much overlap with either group. This came as a shock to researchers who previously thought that we may all share a branch of the old family tree. Now scientists are left to explain where the genetic inheritance of modern Europeans comes from if not from either of these two cultures.

Artwork: Line Drawing of a Banyan Tree, courtesy of Pearson Scott Foresman and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Lose Weight, Gain Insight

It’s not often you hear about positive side effects of weight loss surgery. Yet, gastric bypass, which reduces the stomach to walnut-size and bypasses to the first section of the small intestine, has side effects intriguing researchers. Post-surgery, patients don’t feel as hungry and diabetes symptoms quickly improve. Understanding why could lead to new, nonsurgical treatments of obesity and diabetes.

Image: The Garlands - Flickr

Self-Cleaning Plastics: Tough on Grease, Light on the Environment?

American scientists have engineered a plastic coating which repels oil so well that it could turn water into the only detergent we need. This could save a lot of scrubbing and cursing over everything from dishes to garage floors, but more importantly it could reduce the need for detergents which currently turn our waste water into a toxic cocktail for marine ecosystems.

The house of the future should be like one giant non-stick frying pan, according to head researcher Dr. Jeffrey Youngblood, with everything from wall-paint to floors, mirrors, counters, and everything in your cabinets sealed in a layer of this stuff. Aside from reducing the soap and detergent content of waste water, it could also prolong the life of items that would normally be discarded when soiled. The key to this technology is the clever placement of a layer of water-attracting polyethylene glycol under a layer of a Teflon-like material which repels oil.

Yet, with projections that this coating will be commercially available in just a few years, the promise of a grease-free future must be balanced with the knowledge that this plastic will also end up in the waste stream. Given recent studies on both the biological threats of plastic degrading in our ocean, as well as the startling discovery that most of us have Teflon-related chemicals in our bloodstreams, this should give you pause.

Image: gromgull - flickr

Living Cities

A relatively old way of modelling urban consumption and waste has gained new vigor at the 238th meeting of the American Chemical Society. The “urban metabolism” model, which likens big cities to living organisms in the ways they devour resources and excrete a variety of wastes, has shed light onto problems of regional and global pollution.

The report details how aerial waste streams of the world’s “megacites” effect populations, agriculture and ecosystems downwind—just think of these cities as the kid that pees in the swimming pool, ruining it for everyone nearby. Ultimately the effect of all this foul wind is global as the tonnage of greenhouse gasses ‘excreted’ from such cities wind up in the atmosphere. The report's author suggests that understanding and reducing urban metabolism could be a critical step in keeping our air palatable, our crops viable and our planet from cooking us.

The number of megacities, (metropolitan areas with populations of 10 million or more) went from only three in 1975 to about 20 in 2009, and more people and economic activity in urban centers means more emissions sullying a wider swath of the landscape. A few simple changes like removing lead from gasoline in some African nations and increasing rail-based mass transit could have a huge payoff, but it would have to be a financial priority, and that is a difficult thing to ask from struggling economies.

Photo: ninahale - flickr

Follow up: Awash in Plastic

Last week we blogged about a UNEP report with some scary statistics about the colossal amount of plastic rotting in our oceans, as well as the lack of studies on its biological impact. Well, a report given recently at a meeting of the American Chemical Society is cautioning us that these soggy plastics are already releasing carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) as well as compounds that meddle with reproductive hormones as they decay in our oceans.

This report directly contradicts previous assumptions that plastic remains fairly stable in the ocean, suggesting instead that many common plastics like polystyrene begin to decompose within just one year, leaving a variety of nefarious new styrenes to worm their way into the food chain. The worst of these have been shown to effect animal reproduction and cause cancer. Lead researcher Dr. Katsuhiko Saido has commented that this is “giving rise to yet another source of global contamination that will continue into the future.” This is especially worrying because the amount of plastic in our oceans is only growing.

Feel compelled to get involved? The Marine Conservation Society’s Annual Beachwatch event is the 19th and 20th of September—visit their site to find out how you can volunteer to help monitor marine litter and clean beaches in the UK.

Image: René Ehrhardt - Flickr

Getting More Nutrients for Your Money - Junk Food Tax

Despite your feelings about brussels sprouts, would you eat them if they were cheaper than crisps? To fight obesity, a report from the U.S.’s Institute of Medicine and National Research Council recommends taxing junk food, while giving tax breaks to grocery stores in disadvantaged communities, requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus, and opening school playgrounds and athletic fields to communities.

It has been argued that a tax on junk food would have a negative impact on poorer communities. However, this report outlines strategies for promoting healthy eating options and education, plus ways to increase exercise no matter what your socio-economic status is.

According to the Department of Health, approximately 1 in 4 adults in England are obese and the cost of overweight and obese individuals to the NHS is estimated to be £4.2 billion. Preventing obesity is cheaper than treating obesity.

Do you think a government imposed tax on junk food is a viable way to prevent obesity? Or, does it take away your rights as a consumer?

Image: Eschipul - Flickr

Eyes to the Skies

Space is a hazardous place and the little ball of rock we call home faces a constant threat - asteroid strike. Luckily, a team of British scientists have designed a special space craft capable of shifting the path of an asteroid to prevent a devastating collision.

Their invention, called a "gravity tractor", would be sent about 20 years in advance to meet any rock detected to be on a collision course with Earth and fly alongside it, just 160ft from its surface. Since all objects with mass exert a gravitational effect, the 10 ton craft would draw the rock towards it and over several years change the course of the asteroid so it whizzes harmlessly by.

Floating around in the asteroid 'shooting gallery' of space makes it just a matter of time until the design may be called to action and built to tackle asteroids up to 430 yards across - big enough to release 100,000 times more energy than the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945. NASA are so edgy about the whole thing they have an expensive programme intent on keeping track of every object that might come close. Here's an interesting situation though - What if we were only able to shift the asteroid so it hits one place rather than another?
Settle that people of Earth!?

Image: matt.ohara -Flickr