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

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

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

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

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

Food Processing & Additives – Ace in the Hole or Ambush?

Yesterday’s post regarding visitor’s ideas about nutrition revealed that many people are curious about what exactly is in our food. What are all those chemical names on the ingredients list, what is ‘food processing’ and is it good for you? It’s your body; it makes sense to know what’s being put in it.

According to the British Nutrition Foundation, food processing “includes any action that changes or converts raw plant or animal materials into safe, edible, and more palatable foodstuffs.” Food processing even includes peeling apples. That doesn’t sound bad. What’s the fuss about? Where the concern lies is when food processing includes the addition of additives.

Advantages of additives are said to be improving the look, colour, and texture of food; extending shelf life; and helping prevent food poisoning. Disadvantages include destroying vitamins and some may be harmful to humans. For example, certain additives injected into fresh-meat are a health risk for people with kidney disease and some are linked to hyperactivity in children.

Want more information? Try Food Standard Association, World Health Organization or Truth About Food Additives?

Image: Telstar Logistic - Flickr

Nutrition: What’s On Our Visitors Minds?

At the Science Museum we are interested in your ideas and opinions, so today 16 Antenna Gallery visitors were asked about their thoughts on nutrition. Here is a summary of their views and concerns:

1. What exactly is in our food? What are all those big chemical formulas on the ingredients list, what happens in ‘food processing’ and is it good for me?
2. We’ve all read the news reports, one week food ‘x’ is good for you and next week it’s bad for you. Who and what should we believe?
3. How do factors like genetics, metabolism, environmental conditions, age and geographical location affect what I should eat?

From this survey, a theme emerges; we are disconnected from our food supply, most of us don’t know what is in our food or where it’s been. And, it worries us, rightly so.

Let’s hear more from you, tell us:
What issues about nutrition are important to you?
What aspect of nutrition would you like to know more about?
What worries/excites you about nutrition?

Image: PR® - Flickr

Winter Weight Loss Program: Sunlight

Okay, sunlight isn’t the next miracle weight loss solution, but it is associated with the activity of Brown fat, which is the fat that burns more calories than any other tissue and is more active in the winter.

You have two types of fat in your body Brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue. BAT can produce 300 times more heat per unit than all other tissue. This means more energy expenditure, which means more calories burned. However, we naturally have less BAT as adults, and on top of that, research has shown that BAT activity is reduced with obesity.

New research led by Professor Michael Symonds at The University of Nottingham has shown for the first time that one of the main mechanisms that control BAT activity is sunlight. So…this winter turn off the central heating, head outdoors and get some sun. That is if it’s not cloudy, which it often is in the winter...

On the bright side (no pun intended), when it is cold outside, we'll be exercising to keep warm. It's a win, win situation.

Image: Odalaigh – Flickr

I carried a watermelon

Baby may have carried a watermelon to fuel her crush on Johnny in Dirty Dancing, but now it seems watermelons will be able to fuel our cars.

The sweet juice of watermelons has been found to readily ferment to produce ethanol.

Each year around 20% of the watermelon crop goes to waste due to surface blemishes or being misshapen. Instead of just ploughing these left overs back into the field the researches from the Agricultural Research Service in Oklahoma, USA, say that they could be used to produce 220 litres of ethanol per hectare of farm.

But wait - There's more. Just when you thought that producing vast amounts of bio fuel from a waste product was great, it turns out that watermelons are also a source of the 'nutraeuticals' Lycopene and L-citrulline. (Nutraeuticals are compounds found in foods that are thought to have medical benefits). In fact the research team suggest that there is enough demand for these chemicals that extracting them is economically worthwhile. Then after you have extracted the chemicals you can still use the juice to make ethanol.

Watermelons may not have made super-food status but perhaps we could start a new list of Superior-foods, where their benefits are more than just nutritional.

Are there any other foods that should be given Superior-Food status?

Image courtesy of Jamelah

Water Born of Bacteria

''How can we be short of it? It doesn't go anywhere. The only time it does is when people take some into space and don't bring it back!?'' Despite Jason Manford's (Channel 4's excellent '8 Out of 10 Cats') comic incredulity towards the idea of a world short of water even western countries have to consider options to avoid a future in which the tap drips dry as improving lifestyles and changes to the global climate put the squeeze on water supplies.

While it's true we aren't short of water per se, it takes a huge amount of electricity to convert sea water into the fresh unsalted variety we like to drink, bathe in or sprinkle on the garden.

An ingenious proof-of-principle system has been developed using bacteria to remove 90 per cent of the salt from a seawater-like solution.

The researchers swapped the external source of electricity with a microbial fuel cell, essentially a 'bacteria battery'. When the bacteria breakdown nutrients they generate protons and electrons. The researchers then used these positive and negative charges to drive desalination by electrodialysis.

This is the first time the possibility for a new method for water desalination and power production that uses only a source of biodegradable organic matter and bacteria.

In this instance the researchers fed the bacteria expensive laboratory-grade acetate but work is in progress on cells nourished by waste water. This would bring our little man-made water cycle full circle and is almost too good to be true. Which is why it will be fraught with technical obstacles, stultifying politics and folly or asLars Angenent, a microbial fuel cell researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, puts it: "It is possible, but is it economical? I'm sceptical, but after a couple of beers I'm much more positive." Like all good science then.


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The Metabolic Detective

I have yet to hear this on a CSI-type show, “Take him into custody, we’ve got a metabolic profile match.” However, the latest research in metabolism is showing that your metabolic profile is as unique as your fingerprint. Could this mean personalized medical care or individual diet and nutrition advice is on the horizon?

You see, metabolism is a set of chemical processes that organisms perform to maintain, well, life. These chemical processes help your body use medication, repair damage from disease or injury, turn food into energy and grow.

It is an organism’s metabolism that determines what substances it will find nutritious. And, it is our metabolic rate, or speed of metabolism, that influences how much food we require.

One article on this subject, explains the implications of this discovery as “[doctors] could pick drugs and treatments that are best for each individual, rather than today's one-size-fits all medicine.” Similarly, if we understand our personal metabolic profile, it seems that we could make informed decisions about our own personal nutritional needs. Apparently, you can do this…for a fee. For example, this is being done for weight loss and sports training programs.

Does this news help explain why the latest ‘miracle diet’ really is a miracle, as in, “it’s a miracle if it actually works?”

Image: Paurian – Flickr

Going Around About Caffeine

A recent study reports that caffeine causes headaches…I mean cures headaches. No wait, it does both. This study is giving me a headache.

Norwegian scientists published a report in the Journal of Headache and Pain concluding that people who consume high amounts of caffeine each day are more likely to suffer occasional headaches than those with low caffeine intake.

Now before all those tea and coffee junkies get upset, listen to this, those that consume low amounts of caffeine are more likely to suffer from chronic headaches (defined as headaches for 14 or more days each month).

Once again, a study about what we put in our bodies leaves me feeling slightly confused (see posts on junk food and organic food). I’m going to quote the comment from Kelly C. Porter on the Junk Food Wars post because she sums up my feelings nicely in that the final decision on what we should put in our bodies comes down to our “own biology, activity-level and health-risks, and those are best assessed by a physician.“ I do believe that it is important to eat a balanced and nutritious diet, but I’m starting to think that the details of exactly what that looks like are very personal.

In the In The Future exhibit at the Science Museum there is a game about a futuristic toilet that could analyse your…well you know what it analyses…and then tells you what you need to eat to be healthy. I want one.

Image: Joe Penniston - Flickr

Junk Food Wars

Popcorn and cereal are finally getting a little respect. Researchers have found that these delicious snacks, commonly deemed as junk food, are high in disease busting antioxidants.

Specifically, it is popcorn and other whole grain cereals that contain “surprisingly large” amounts of polyphenol antioxidant which is linked to lower risk of heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

Looking to boost your polyphenol antioxidant intake? Here are some other tasty options:
1. Drink more red wine and coffee.
2. Consume lots of chocolate.
3. Go ahead and get the large tub of popcorn at the cinema.
4. There are old-fashioned options, like eating more fruits and vegetables.

This research begs the question, is popcorn and cereal “junk food” or not? Do we need to consult Jamie Oliver for help here? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to pop a few kernels in my day, but should I overlook the high sugar, salt and fat content in many of these snacks? For a while now, fibre has been touted as the “healthy” aspect of certain cereal and snack brands. Do I smell a new marketing campaign? Oh no, that is just my buttery, salty, healthy snack coming out of the microwave?!

So let us know: what do you consider junk food?

Image: Darren Hester - Flickr

Straw with that?

Pigs learnt the hard way not to build houses out of straw but who knows what Mr Wolf would make of a chair made from drinking straws. Glaswegian designer Scott Jarvie seems to think it's a good idea and after being inspired by the tube like structure of the inside of trees decided to build the 'Clutch Chair' from 10,000 standard drinking straws.

Trees use a series of long capillary tubes called Xylem to shift water large distances with little more than the sucking action created by the evaporation of water from its leaves and the strong 'hydrogen' bonds between water molecules which creates a moving column within the tree. This structure also provides lateral strength as the tree grows upwards and the chair will be suprisingly resistant to compression and light weight due to the thin tubes supporting each other.

Apparently the designer feels it 'passes comment on our disposable culture'. Quite how I'm not really sure - it is ultimately just a disposable item made from small disposable items. Comfy? maybe not, but it is pretty eye catching.

The Bionic Tongue

Here's some science to chew on. Scientists in Illinois have developed a small, inexpensive, chip sensor or “electronic tongue” that accurately identifies one of the five primary human tastes, sweetness.

This business-card sized new sensor can identify with 100% accuracy a range of natural and artificial sweet substances, including 14 common sweeteners. The “lab-on-a-chip” works by converting the chemical properties of things that smell or taste into a coloured visual key (Image 2).

You may inquire, “What is it good for?”

Well, for those refined connoisseurs’ of fine fizzy pop, juices and other sweet beverages, such as, beer, quality and standard of taste is imperative. Ensuring a consistent and predictable flavour is the most likely use for this “sweet-tooth” sensor, at this time. Though the story doesn’t end there, doctors and scientist foresee using modified versions of the sensor for a variety chemical-sensing purposes including, monitoring blood glucose levels in diabetics or identifying toxic substances in the environment.

Do you think you’ve got a bionic tongue?

Might I suggest an experiment? Perhaps a blind taste test? I don’t recommend the common taste test of mapping out the four areas on your tongue that are associated with sweet, sour, salty and bitter, as a 2006 article in Nature reports this notion of tongue mapping to be bogus. Instead, test the palettes of friends and families on say, the subtle flavours of chocolate.

Here’s what you do:
1. Gather an assortment of chocolates or varying flavours and brands.
2. Find a blindfold.
3. Find a partner or two or three or ten and blindfold one person.
4. Place a small piece of chocolate on their tongue and see if they can identify the ingredients. You may want to check the labels to verify.

Okay, it’s not rocket science, but it can be fun. If you are not into chocolate try something else. Let us know how it goes and share other ideas in a comment. If you have video documentation of your experiment, post that too.

Image 1: Slightlynorth – Flickr
Image 2: Kenneth Suslick, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Nod to the pod

The idea of a personal transport pod has been banded about for the best part of half a century and is a staple in science fiction's visions of the future - from Logan's Run to Minority Report no far-fetched city scape would be complete without a network of shiny, zippy, self driving pods. A bit like 'proper' space ships and holographic displays it is an idea we know so well from fiction that we can be forgiven for being a little miffed that they are yet to be in common use.

The idea has had a bit of a chequered past with opinion ranging from it being the ultimate solution to our transport woes to it being an unfeasible idea and a potential waste of public money.

However, due to recent advancements in technology and computing the concept is set to step into the light and last week we hosted a very popular Antenna Live event featuring two ‘pod-cars’ from the new fleet of electric driverless vehicles going into Heathrow.


The £25 million project is the work of Bristol based 'Advanced Transport Systems' (ATS) and is the first example of a personal rapid transit (PRT) being implemented as a public transport solution in the world and will provide transport from the airport car park over to Terminal 5 with more destination options to come later.

Engineers, designers and content rich video displays engaged around 9000 visitors over the three days and most seemed enthused by the benefits the system may offer though many remained cautious of having a computer control their journey instead of a driver. In a similar way I imagine wealthy Victorians, faced with the unkown, sheepishly stepped into the 'horseless carriage' or how I still feel about my microwave (I have my eye on you). Strange new technologies need to keep the people onside if they are to have a chance of taking off - just ask the cube shaped tomato.

Windy happenings...

We were blessed with 3 days of fine weather as we hosted Greenbird - the record breaking wind powered machine - in a little used space outside behind the museum. Visitors were welcomed into the Antenna gallery by Simon Notley whose involvemnt as part funder made him an excellent guide to a video of the project’s history and designer and pilot Richard Jenkin’s record breaking run on a dried up lake bed in the US. Appetites whetted, visitors then headed out to see the vehicle and chat to Richard as well as George Seyfang whose work at British Aerospace in the area of aerodynamics made the project a perfect hobby horse for his retirement.

The project website has this great little slide show to explain how the vehicle got to a whopping 126 mph off a 35mph wind with what looks like such a small 'sail' to anyone involved in traditional sailing.

To Be Organic, Or Not Be?

The debate about organically versus conventionally produced food feels a bit like watching a tennis match. Here is the latest volley from a team of researchers, led by Alan Dangour, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Side 1: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (2009): “there are no important differences in the nutrition content, or any additional health benefits of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food.”

Side 2: The Organic Center (2008) “New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods”

What is a poor, confused, conscientious consumer to do? I all ready struggle with tough questions at the supermarket like: What should I have for dinner? Or, is it really a good idea to shop for food when I’m so hungry?

There are other reasons besides nutrition and health benefits that a consumer may choose organic foodstuffs. In fact, the 2009 review admits to not addressing some of these concerns such as, the environmental impacts of organic and conventional agricultural practices. Nor does the study address “contaminant content,” meaning the residues of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides potentially found in organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. For instance, a recent study has shown a link between pesticides and increasing mortality rates of Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's diseases.

So, the question still remains organic or conventionally produced food? We’ll also have to wait for further research to find out if it’s a good idea to shop when you’re hungry.

Image: Marcin Floryan

Space spectacular

Today's the last day of our space-themed Antenna Live event, featuring a new skin-tight spacesuit and some awesome 3D projections from the European Space Agency. It's running until 4pm so if you want to discuss spacesuit design with the experts and hear about the extreme effects of space on the human body, head down to the Antenna gallery.

As well as some fascinating objects we're got speakers on space medicine and an unusual British project called MoonLITE, which aims to fire missiles at the moon.

The 3D images of astronauts working on the International Space Station are really quite incredible, especially when projected onto a 3-metre screen. It's almost like you're up there floating around with the astronauts. It's probably best not to think too much about the space toilet and vacuum-packed food we also have on display though...

Image: Donna Coveney/MIT (see this new spacesuit, designed by Dava Newman of MIT, at our event)

I swear that hurts

A new study from Keele University has shown that swearing can increase your pain tolerance.

The team originally thought that swearing while experiencing pain would exaggerate pain, making you less able to cope. However contrary to the hypothesis, individuals who repeated a swear word while their hand was submerged in ice water were able to keep their hand in longer than those who chanted a non-swear word.

While it isn't clear how or why there is a link between swearing and increased pain tolerance, the scientists believe that the pain-lessening effect occurs because swearing triggers our natural ‘fight-or-flight’ response.

They suggest that the accelerated heart rates of the volunteers repeating the swear word may indicate an increase in aggression, in a classic fight-or-flight response of ‘downplaying feebleness in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo.’

The fact that swearing triggers a physical response in people and not just an emotional response may explain why the ancient practice of cursing developed in the first place. It may also explain why swearing is almost universal in all human languages and still exists today.

Image credit: Jonnyalive - Flickr

Brain scanner takes to the skies

Swiss scientists have created a tiny scanner that can measure the electrical impulses in birds' brains as they fly. Wired up to the brain, Neurologger2 also records the bird's flightpath. By recording information on what a bird is flying past and what's going on its brain, the device is helping scientists understand the different visual landmarks that birds use to find their way around.

Image: Alexei Vyssotski

The UK's Taste for Science

Devonshire teas, Cheddar cheese and other West Country foods have been named the favourite regional foods of the UK. This is just one tasty fact found out by research mapping out taste preferences of the UK's major regions.

Professor Andy Taylor, an expert in flavour technology at The University of Nottingham and Greg Tucker a leading food psychologist proved that each region in the UK has its own unique ‘Taste Dialect’ of flavours and textures which have been forged by culture, geography and the environment.

Some other key findings include:

1) Scots are the slowest eaters but love mouth-melting creamy foods.

2) People from the North East seek tastes that offer immediate satisfaction, borne from a history of hungry heavy industry workers demanding foods that offer immediate sustenance.

4) The Midlands, known to be the Balti centre of the UK, were predisposed to enjoy Asian food long before it arrived in the UK. The region's taste dialect is for soft, suckable foods that impact the front of the tongue, and which can be eaten with their hands like naan.

5)The South: A melting pot of people and cultures from all round the UK and abroad, have a melting pot of preferences and have the least defined taste dialect of all the regions.

6) A quarter of Brits said that London was where they'd had their worst taste experience.

What amazing, yet utterly useless things to know! Part of me is incredulous as to how this research was approved let alone funded. The other part of me can't help being intrigued by it. I don’t know whether this research will improve our lives; but I do know that I will be bringing out one of these little morsels of information when I am next out to dinner, improving the occasion for everyone present. Perhaps there is a pool of funding for dinner table facts?

Redesigning life

I went to a conference last week at the plush London headquarters of The Royal Academy of Engineering. Scientists, sociologists, journalists, artists and ethicists gathered to debate a hot new area of science called synthetic biology.

This 21st century science is both hugely ambitious and very controversial. It involves 'redesigning' the DNA or other fundamental parts of an organism (typically a microbe) to make it produce something useful - like a new medicine or biofuel. Such worthy outcomes might sound attractive. But, given that it involves tinkering with biological systems and possibly creating entirely new forms of life, it's hardly surprising that the RAE and others are concerned about what the public might think...

So to test the waters of public opinion, the RAE carried out a 1000-person telephone survey and an in-depth discussion with 16 people. The results were reported at the conference and, perhaps unexpectedly, they seem to show that the British public are cautiously optimistic about synthetic biology.

63% of participants agreed with the statement 'creating new man-made microorganisms that will produce medicines or biofuels should be supported'. People were also not bothered about the idea of scientists creating entirely artificial new microbes, but they were strongly against the use of animals and plants. Releasing any synthetic microbes into the environment was a no-no too.

So what do you think about synthetic biology and the results of the survey? At the museum we're featuring synthetic biology in our centenary exhibition as an example of future science (see here for details). I'd be really fascinated to hear what people feel about this.

Happy Birthday Science Museum

A new exhibition opened at the museum this week to celebrate a centenary of science in South Kensington. That's right, it's the museum's 100th birthday and to mark this momentous occasion we've picked out ten of the most important objects from our collection. Can you guess what they might be? To find out about all ten objects and vote for your favourite visit the museum. Or, if you'd rather stay at home, take a peek at our new Centenary website.

At the opening Peter Mandelson (above left, answering questions in front of the Apollo 10 space capsule) wished the museum happy birthday and voted for his favourite object: Stephenson's Rocket.

I've been working on this exhibition for the last few months so it was really great to see it open. We'll be using the blog over the coming months to explore all aspects of the centenary, so keep your eyes peeled for new Centenary-themed posts.

Image: Mia Ridge

3D chic on the way

I love 3D films, but there is no way I will be seen wearing those awful, geeky looking glasses just to see a movie in more than two dimensions.

Luckily for me and all those other fashion victims missing out, the EU has funded two projects aimed at developing 3D viewing without the need for those wacky glasses.

The new technology presents the 3D image in a very similar way to light coming from a normal object. This removes the need for the special specs and also puts a lot less strain on the brain than current 3D projections.

Commercial applications are already being investigated with military training an obvious start followed by gaming.

3D TV is a way off yet, but according to Zsuzsa Dobranyi, Sales Director at Holografika "it’s only a matter of time!" - Yippy

Lose Cancer - Lose Fingerprints

A poor chap was held by immigration officials at the US border for four hours because he didn't have any fingerprints.

The man was a cancer patient who was taking the common anti-cancer drug Capecitabine. The drug is known to have a side-effect where your hands and feet swell, peel and blister and can lead to the loss of fingerprints.

After being detained in airport customs, officials let him enter American because they decided he wasn't a security threat. But they suggested next time he carry a note from his doctor explaining the situation.

What seems ludicrous to me is that this can't be the only thing that causes people to lose their fingerprints. Surely it happens quite regularly. A really quick Google search revealed that bricklayers, secretaries, and anyone who works with lime can all lose their fingerprints over time and often don't have enough pattern left to capture a print. As we all get older our fingerprints tend to fade as well and it is common for the elderly not to have any left. I don’t have a fingerprint on my middle finger after the pad was sliced off in a freak unicycling accident. Luckily for me I have nine others that still can be read. But what happens to all these other people when they go to the US?

Is there a better security system out there that could be used given how common it is not to have fingerprints?

When three genes are better than two

For years, scientists have been wondering why people with Down's Syndrome are less likely to get cancer than the rest of us. Now researchers writing in the journal Nature say they've found the answer.

People with Down's have three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the usual two. This extra chromosome causes the disorder but, the scientists discovered, it also contains a gene that stops the growth of tumours.

The scientists identified the gene in question, known as Dscr1, by studying mice that have extra copies of many of the genes on chromosome 21. Humans normally only have two copies of Dscr1, but it turns out that an extra copy suppresses cancer by stopping tumours from growing blood vessels.

The discovery could lead to potential new treatments, say cancer experts.

Futuresonic Future Everything 3

Got a bug to bare with a friend too far away to fight with? Well don’t worry, Distance LAB have been working on ways to overcome the communication barriers of distance, whether it’s for work, lovers or enemies. Distance LAB displayed a few of these solutions at the Futuresonic conference in Manchester last week.

Distance LAB see the mobile phone as the fast food of communication. It’s a fast efficient tool, however it is also a one size fits all solution, and we all know that talking to our partner can be very different from talking to our boss or someone we are angry with. So Distance LAB have looked at these differences and tried to create various communication tools that can be considered slow food, unique, bespoke, and personal.

The image above shows technology that has been developed to allow people to 'shadow box, no matter how far away they are.

Futuresonic Future Everything 2

Along with current and future uses of digital and social media, Futuresonic displayed numerous artworks at the CUBE gallery, all about this year’s theme of Environment 2.0. The artworks varied wildly, from a public reading of the intergovernmental panel for climate change 2007 report (which I took part in, reading for 20min), to plates patterned with the smog of a city. One of the more interesting artworks was a working design for a living carbon dioxide fuse. A power point was linked to a number of plants, and a fuse, that only allowed you to use as much electricity as the plants were off setting. For a basic table lamp and four average sized plants, this equalled to about a minute of light every half hour. If you wanted to use more power you would have to link up more plants. This was a great illustration of just how much CO2 is produced when using electricity compared to how much can be sequestered by individual plants.

Futuresonic Future Everything 1

Each year in Manchester, the futuresonic conference brings together experts from the fields of digital media and focuses on the cutting edge and future of the technology. This year’s conference looked at social media and the idea of trust as well as the additional theme of the Environment.

Can digital and social media save us from Climate Change? Some believe that it can, as it creates a world where we can communicate around to globe more easily than ever before. Some feel that we will have to resort to geo-engineering. But one thing was agreed upon. More and more the geophysical community is being replaced by the virtual online community. The old feelings of belonging and community that we once felt in our streets and neighbourhoods, can now be found in cyberspace with people we have more in common with than just a postcode. Perhaps this sense of community can be tapped into to help the physical environment, or perhaps we all need to turn our computers off and go outside to appreciate what we may soon lose.

The image above is an art work by the Comob project, who were tracking people using an iphone application on a paper map as they walked around Manchester city locating areas of 'pollution'.

Antioxidant pills block benefits of exercise

If you want to feel the full health benefits of that jog around the park, it's probably best to steer clear of antioxidant vitamin supplements, scientists have found.

Excerise is good for us in all sorts of ways, but one important bonus is that it stops our bodies from becoming resistant to insulin - a condition that can lead to diabetes. However, scientists have discovered that if people regularly pop antioxidant pills, like vitamins A and C, they don't get this benefit.

So what's going on? Antioxidants are famous (especially in skin-care adverts) for mopping up free radicals - nasty molecules that damage cells and add to the ageing process. As a result, they're usually considered to be bad news. But the results of this study show that free radicals have a nice side too, because destroying them makes exercise far less fruitful.

I think I'll be sticking to oranges...

Image: Djenan Kozic

New plastic turns red under pressure

Scientists have created a new type of plastic that turns red when it's stretched or bent. Their work's still at an experimental stage, but it could lead to plastics that change colour when they're about to break.

Integrated into bridges, aeroplane wings, or climbing ropes, it's not difficult to see how plastic with a built-in warning system would save many lives.

What other uses are there for this fantastic plastic?

Image: D. Stevenson, A. Jerez, A. Hamilton and D. Davis

A Disappearing Act

At some undetermined time in the last few months the 18,000 year-old Chacaltaya glacier in the Andes, Bolivia, completely melted away and no longer exists.

It seems to me that this is just the beginning and that we will increasingly hear of ancient glaciers, making their final retreat up the mountain.

This is the sad result of climate change. Environmental features that have played pivotal and meaningful roles in people lives for hundreds if not thousands of years are disappearing because of our careless use of fossil fuels.

A local, who used to play on the glacier as a child, summed it up:

"It's a tragedy," "It's as if someone had died."


Chacaltaya glacier

An object from the past pays a fleeting visit

Last Thursday the ESO's (European Organisation for Astronomical Research) Very Large Telescope identified a faint gamma-ray burst as the signature of a star exploding 13 billion years ago, making it the earliest and most distant object known in the Universe.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are powerful flashes of energetic gamma-rays lasting from less than a second to several minutes. They release huge amounts of energy in this short time making them the most powerful events in the Universe. They are thought to be mostly associated with the explosion of stars that collapse into black holes.

Because light moves at a finite speed, looking farther into the Universe means looking back in time. The explosion occurred just 600 million years after the big bang. It is believed that the very first stars only formed when the Universe was between 200 and 400 million years old.

Studying more GRB's like this one will help scientists learn more about what the early universe was like and how it came about it the first place.

No moon base for NASA

It's looking unlikely that NASA will be building a base on the moon any time soon, following these comments reported by New Scientist.

It's not all bad news for wannabe atronauts, though. NASA have hinted that they will instead concentrate on sending people to Mars, or to an asteroid as it flies past the Earth. I've been doing some research on this for a new exhibition and I'm rather keen on the asteroid option. Where would you like to see astronauts heading off to in years to come?

Image: NASA

Houses for a hostile climate

New Scientist have an article at the moment about future houses which will be able to withstand the changing climate of the future. Most houses are very beautiful and some are already built, being lived in, and surviving numerous hurricanes. The house in this picture survived hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Katrina in 2005 while those around it were destroyed.

Check it out

Hemp houses - Zero Carbon Houses

Hemp, a plant from the cannabis family, could be used to build carbon-neutral homes of the future to help combat climate change and boost the rural economy, say researchers at the University of Bath.

The combination of hemp fibres bound together by a lime based adhesive creates a lightweight building material that could be used for the walls of houses.

The hemp plant stores carbon during its growth and this, combined with the low carbon footprint of lime and its very efficient insulating properties, gives the material a ‘better than zero carbon’ footprint.

The researchers at Bath will be looking into the properties of the hemp-lime material such as its strength, durability and energy efficiency to see if it could replace traditional building materials.

Using renewable crops to make building materials makes a lot of sense - it only takes an area the size of a rugby pitch four months to grow enough hemp to build a typical three bedroom house.

Check out the BBC for more information.

Image from the National Non-Food Crops Centre

Asteroid found, followed and foraged for the first time.

For the first time, an asteroid has been identified in space, watched as it entered Earth's atmosphere, and pieces found and recovered.

It is hoped that knowing which area of space the asteroid came from, and then being able to study the material will lead to increased knowledge of where these asteroids originate from and how they are formed.

47 pieces (a total of nearly five kilos) of the 2008 TC3 asteroid was recovered after it had exploded high in the atmosphere. Usually when asteroids explode so high, it is blasted to smithereens and sizable pieces are very rare.

For the full story and more images of the difficult recovery see website: http://asima.seti.org/

image credit: P. Jenniskens, SETI Institute.

Have you heard the one about...qualitative recontextualization?

It's no joke, but evolutionary theorist Alastair Clarke has taken a very serious look at Humour and has today published details of eight patterns he claims to be the basis of all the humour that has ever been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or personal taste.

Clarke's theory doesn't just classify every possible type of humour, but he has also suggested the evolutionary role humour has played in the development of the intellectual and perceptual capacities of humans.

The eight patterns of humour Clarke has identified are: positive repetition, division, completion, translation, applicative and qualitative recontextualization, opposition and scale.

I'm not sure which pattern category knock knock jokes fit into, but I would suggest "mum jokes" are the pattern of scale.

See here for the full story, or here if you fancy buying Clarke's book.

Comment to tell us your best joke. Extra points if it is science themed or you know which pattern of humour it belongs to!

NASA gets that sinking feeling

A NASA satellite designed to measure CO2 levels in such detail that it could locate carbon sinks and sources has failed to reach orbit after it was launched this morning.

The latest news suggests that the moulded structure that encapsulates the satellite while it's travelling through the atmosphere (called a fairing) didn't fall off like it should have. The extra weight of the fairing still on the rocket meant that it didn't have enough power to get into orbit and instead it crashed into the ocean off Antarctica.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) had been eight years in the planning and was considered a vital step in learning more about the carbon cycle and how it may be affected by climate change.

It's not yet known whether a new OCO will be built but I'm sure NASA would ensure the new OCO will find the sinks rather than doing the sinking itself!

Image: NASA TV

Messing about with robots

I've spent most of my waking hours this week managing an event in the Antenna gallery called 'Robot Playground'. To get a flavour of our very own robot extravaganza, check out at these different accounts from the Telegraph, Times, Sun (including a photo of yours truly) and New Scientist. We also covered the event on our website.

The star of the show was undeniably 'BERTI', a slightly scary robot that can mimic human gestures (see the video below). But what really caught people's attention was the fact that BERTI can play (and usually win) games of 'rock-paper-scissors' against his human master, Paul Bremner of Bristol Robotics Lab.

Craig Fletcher and Graham Whiteley, the two guys who built BERTI were also on hand to chat about the technology used (it's damn complicated) and the next robot they're planning. Craig and Graham told me that BERTI Mark 2 is going to have a face-shaped screen that can have images projected onto it, which sounds eerily like the scramble suits from Philip K. Dick's 'A Scanner Darkly'.

Alongside BERTI we featured a 'robot nursey', populated by baby bots whose personalities are shaped by interacting with people. There's loads of information on this project in the New Scientist video and on the researchers website.

Image: Gaetan Lee/Science Museum

Found - A sink in Africa

A new study published in Nature today has found a large carbon sink in the tropical forests of Africa.

Each year humans emit around 9 billion tonnes of carbon, but only 4 billion tonnes remain in the atmosphere. Like a giant game of hide and seek, scientists have been looking for 20 years, trying to find where that missing 5 billion tonnes of carbon goes.

It is well known that approximately half of that missing carbon goes into the oceans, and half somewhere on land.

This new research by Dr Simon Lewis, of Leeds University, has shown that around 5% of our total emissions are being absorbed by African forests. When this new data is combined with other data from Amazonian and Asian forests, scientists think they have now found at least half the total land sink.

Dr Simon Lewis is online to answer some of our questions about the research.

When satellites collide

It's like something from a Bond film: on Tuesday, 400 miles above Siberia, a defunct Russian satellite and a US-owned communications satellite collided at 420 mph, smashing each other into more that 500 fragments. Apparently it's the first time two satellites in orbit have collided, but I doubt if it'll be the last. There's a lot of junk up there!

Image: ESA

Happy Darwin day

To celebrate the bicentenary of the great man's birth, two British psychologists have created this odd little optical illusion. Monkey-beards, whatever next!?

How to see the illusion: Set your computer monitor to maximum brightness and then stare at the centre of the picture for about 30 seconds without moving your eyes. Next, look to a white wall and blink a few times. The monkeys should suddenly transform into a perfect picture of Darwin!

The world's fastest electric motorbike

Here's something for the environmentally-conscious speedfreak. Mission One is a rather beautiful 150-mph electric motorbike. Unveiled in California last week, the prototype bike runs on lithium-ion batteries, just like mobile phones, and has zero exhaust pipe emissions.

Image: Mission Motors

Meet SandBot

Walking on sand isn't easy, but this little robot has got it sussed. 'SandBot' uses 6 hook-like limbs to motor its way through grainy terrain. Click here for the full story.

Bushfires and climate change

“Australia is experiencing its worst drought for over a hundred years and this, combined with record-breaking temperatures in the last few weeks, makes it hardly surprising that this season's wildfires are worse than anything that has gone before. With climate change models predicting an even drier and hotter Australia in coming decades, the scene could well be set for even worse to come.”

That's the opinion of Professor Bill McGuire, Director of the Hazard Research Centre at University College London. What do people think - is Australia facing an increasingly fiery future?

Image: NASA

Big boa suggests a warmer world

Reptiles grow according to the temperature they live in. The biggest reptiles on Earth are found in the tropics and they gradually get smaller the closer to the Poles they live.

A study published in Nature Magazine today has found a fossil of a snake that would have been at least 13meters long and weighed over a ton! This is larger than any other snake living now or at any time in the past. The gigantic size of the snake suggests that the climate of the South American Rainforest it lived in was about 5 degrees warmer than today’s temperatures.

This gives us a little insight into what the world could again look like if we continue to warm our world with greenhouse gases. What else could we be in for?

This site has more great photos of the fossils. http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/science/2009/02/scientists-discover-worlds-lar.html

Image: Kenneth Krysko

Atronomers spy a distant earth-like planet

We know of more than 300 planets outside our solar system, but the most recently discovered of these 'exoplanets' is making headlines across the world. So what's getting atronomers so excited? Well, the catchily named COROT-Exo-7b is the most Earth-like exoplanet to be spotted yet. Unlike all the others, which are large and gassy, COROT-Exo-7b is small and rocky, just like Earth.

Astronomers detected COROT-Exo-7b as it passed in front of its star (just like the picture above of Mercury orbiting in front of the Sun).

So could COROT-Exo-7b harbour alien life? With a larva-covered surface of between 1,000 and 1,500 degrees Celcius, we can probably rule that out.

Image: Hinode JAXA/NASA/PPARC

Traffic tips from ants

Leafcutter ants have to contend with many things on their daily commute – lugging enormous bits of plant is a fairly gruelling example – but traffic jams aren’t one of them. When two opposite streams of the insects meet in a narrow space, they instinctively (and selflessly) change their behaviour to avoid a gridlock.

The scientists studying leafcutters say that if we were prepared to give control of our cars to a central network based on the ants' behaviour, congestion and road accidents would become a thing of the past. It sounds like a great idea to me, but then I'm not a driver...

Acid oceans a sad story for clownfish

As the seas soak up the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere, they're becoming more and more acidic. We've know this for a while now, but the consequences for the creatures that live beneath the waves are only now becoming clear.

A study just out has found that baby clownfish can't sniff out suitable habitats or identify their parents in acidic waters. This could be devastating for a whole range of fish species, say the researchers.

In a similar study published in November, scientists found that Humboldt squid are much lazier in acidic oceans and so far more likely to be munched by a sperm whale.

I wonder whether fish and squid will evolve to cope with acid seawater. There certainly seems to be strong selection pressure in favour of any that can function at low pH.

Image: Sprain