Eideard

Scientists…suggest that the ribbon of enhanced emissions of energetic neutral atoms, discovered last year by the NASA Small Explorer satellite IBEX, could be explained by a geometric effect coming up because of the approach of the Sun to the boundary between the Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot gas called the Local Bubble. If this hypothesis is correct, IBEX is catching matter from a hot neighboring interstellar cloud, which the Sun might enter in a hundred years.

First full-sky maps of the emissions of energetic neutral atoms (ENA), obtained last year by IBEX, showed a surprising arc-like feature called the Ribbon. This astonishing discovery was later announced by NASA as one of the most important findings in space exploration made in 2009….In a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a Polish-US team of scientists…offers a different explanation. “We observe the Ribbon,” says Professor Stan Grzedzielski “because the Sun is approaching a boundary between our Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot and turbulent gas…”

The team of Polish and US scientists suggests that the Ribbon ENA are born by electrical charge exchange between the atoms which “evaporate” from the Local Interstellar Cloud into the nearby Local Bubble of a very hot and fully ionized gas. The Local Bubble is probably a remnant of a series of supernova explosions that occurred a few million years ago and thus is not only very hot (at least million degree Kelvin), but also turbulent. The protons in the Local Bubble nearby to the boundary with the Local Cloud snatch electrons from the neutral atoms and run away in all directions, some of them reaching IBEX…

The model developed by the Polish-US team suggests that the boundary between the Local Cloud and the Local Bubble might be not within a few light years from the Sun, as it was believed earlier, but within just a thousand of astronomical units, a thousand-fold closer. This might mean that the Solar System could enter the million-degree Local Bubble cloud as early as the next century.

“Nothing unusual, the Sun frequently traverses various clouds of interstellar gas during its galactic journey,” comments Grzedzielski. Such clouds are of very low density, much lower than the best vacuum obtained in Earth labs. Once in, the heliosphere will reform and may shrink a little, the level of cosmic radiation entering the magnetosphere may rise a bit, but nothing more. “Perhaps future generations will have to learn how to better harden their space hardware against stronger radiation,” suggests Grzedzielski.

Phew! Had me worried for a minute.

Although it might be fun to forward this to some of the Armageddon types. Revelations and all that.

And then there’s Phallus Drewsii

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification – announce the top 10 new species described in 2009.

On the list are a minnow with fangs, golden orb spider and carnivorous sponge. The top 10 new species also include a deep-sea worm that when threatened releases green luminescent “bombs,” a sea slug that eats insects, a flat-faced frogfish with an unusual psychedelic pattern, and a two-inch mushroom that was the subject of a “Bluff the Listener” segment on the National Public Radio quiz show “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.” Rounding out the top 10 list are a banded knifefish, a charismatic plant that produces insect-trapping pitchers the size of an American football, and an edible yam that uncharacteristically sports multiple lobes instead of just one.

The top 10 new species come from around the world, including Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States and Uruguay. The announcement of the top 10 new species list coincides with International Day of Biodiversity being marked May 22 by the United Nations.

Here’s a gallery of these glorious critters. Don’t let them overwhelm your curiosity.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

President Barack Obama is sending a proposal to Congress that would make it quicker and easier to trim wasteful costs from U.S. congressional spending bills.

The “Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010” would enable the president to submit a package of cuts, or “rescissions,” to Congress after lawmakers pass the various appropriations bills that fund federal programs every year…

His proposal, which requires congressional approval, would give Obama and his successors a stronger hand in cutting items they do not support from spending bills.

The White House said the proposal differs from a line-item veto in which a president unilaterally cuts specific provisions from a spending bill. The Supreme Court has rejected a presidential line-item veto as unconstitutional.

Under Obama’s proposal, Congress would have to look at the president’s slate of suggested cuts as a package and, without making any amendments, give them an up-or-down vote within a specific period of time.

This would speed up the process used by presidents to reduce special provisions, commonly called “earmarks” or “pork,” that lawmakers add to spending bills, making them more expensive…

But with congressional elections in November and voters increasingly nervous over record spending deficits, the proposal is likely to find allies on Capitol Hill.

Overdue.

Frankly, I’d favor a line-item veto, as well. I think it could be written into law well enough to satisfy our 19th Century Supreme Court.

Do you make your pets dress like you?

This week is National Vegetarian Week in the UK, the annual celebration of all things vegetarian. Taking the veggie option has never been easier for people, but what about vegetarian pets?

Jonathan Safran Foer’s recent polemic Eating Animals makes much of the contrast between our love for our pets and our complacency at the horrors of the factory farm and the abattoir. That contradiction is no more keenly felt than by the vegetarian dog or cat owner, supporting the meat industry they abhor every time they stock up on pet food.

Of course, I should say the vegetarian owner of a cat or dog. Even my preternaturally clever Border collie, Charlie – a dog perfectly capable of expressing disdain – doesn’t have the intelligence to base his culinary choices on a critique of the industrialised system of meat production. So is it ethical to impose a vegetarian diet on your pet? And for a start, is it healthy?

The health issue is simpler for dogs than cats, as dogs in the wild are omnivores whereas cats are obligate ‘true’ carnivores, getting all of their nutrition from meat…

No doubt this talk of a vegetarian dog will have many people apoplectic with righteous indignation that it’s “not natural”. They’d do well to consider whether there was anything “natural” about conventional pet food.

We’re not vegetarians nor do we endorse or comply with philosophical calls for that particular lifestyle. So, our dogs needn’t worry about either their dog food or the people food they frequently sample being altered from the course of evolution to date. That being the operative portion of my own attitude towards diet.

I consider nutrition to be best when [a] it reflects what we ate as we evolved as a species – and [b] whatever modern science informs us is useful and healthy. We advanced as a species as omnivores, eating just about anything we could catch, find, kill or uncover beneath a rock – as long as it didn’t kill us and provided sufficient energy to make it through a cold night in a cave.

Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of apartheid South Africa

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.

The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of “ambiguity” in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa’s post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky’s request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week’s nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel’s attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a “responsible” power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted…

RTFA. Once again, the truth will out.

Israel’s willingness to support one of the most violent, racist governments since Hitler’s Germany is something that most scholars of international policy already know about. It’s only our government that lies about the fact – and the gullible who believe the lies.

After a tough two days following his sweeping Republican Senate primary victory in Kentucky, Rand Paul canceled on Meet the Press.

“He committed on Wednesday and is now wanting to cancel,” the show’s Executive Producer Betsy Fischer tells First Read. “We are hoping he will reconsider and keep his commitment.”

His campaign told the show he’s “exhausted.” Paul agreed to do the show on Wednesday before backing out late Friday afternoon.

Fischer said Paul is only the third major guest in 62 years to have canceled on the show. The other two were Louis Farrakhan (1996) and Saudi Prince Bandar (2003).

Solid company.

A federal court ruling in New York that genes may not be patented, if ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, could irreparably harm the behemoth biotechnology industry that relies on patents to protect the results of its costly research.

The decision in Association for Molecular Pathology vs. United States Patent and Trademark Office comes in the wake of 40,000 patents already issued on 20 percent of all human genes.

The case didn’t go to trial: A summary judgment for the plaintiffs was granted on the gene patents at issue.

The knee-jerk reaction might be to say it’s good the case was decided before the villain who wants to own the very material that determines what we are could have its day in court. It seems almost intuitive that our genes should not be owned by anyone other than ourselves.

It’s not that simple.

The plaintiffs, the Association for Molecular Pathology, a not-for-profit genomics research advancement society, several medical colleges, doctors and patients sued Myriad Genetics, a biopharmaceutical company in a multibillion-dollar industry and associated with the University of Utah Research Park in Salt Lake City and the directors of the University of Utah Research Foundation…

Research scientists and physicians say they are frustrated because they can’t do further research on the genes or on other genes where the BRCA-related DNA may be intertwined: Myriad slaps them with cease-and-desist orders.

Further, some of their patients (of whom the women named as plaintiffs are examples) whose insurance doesn’t cover the test, can’t have the test done because of its cost: $3,200. Many doctors say they can have a simple blood test done for $300…

The trial court found for the plaintiffs primarily on the basis the isolated DNA is not “markedly different” from a product of nature.

The district court declined to speak on the constitutional issues, following the established rule that courts should not reach unnecessary constitutional decisions, leaving the constitutional issue open to future litigation.

This surely does look like it will go to the Supreme Court.

So, we will probably get a half-way decision from the Supreme Court – before the issue is dumped into the laps of those stellar guardians of the science and commerce – Congress.

When the forces of evolution took over an experimental strain of bacteria, it derailed an experiment Duke and NC State researchers thought they were conducting, but led to something much more profound instead.

The researchers used a colony of mice raised in a large plastic bubble, called an isolator, that was completely sterile, lacking even a single bacterium. They introduced a single type of bacteria into the mouse colony, but it mutated quickly into different types, making new bacteria that were hardier inside of the mice than the original bacterium was.

In some regards, “this is one of the best demonstrations of evolution ever carried out in a laboratory,” said William Parker, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Duke Department of Surgery. “This is the first time the evolution of bacteria has been monitored for a period of years in an incredibly complex environment.”

Parker said the work illustrates the power of evolution in creating diversity and in filling ecological niches. “This study also strengthens the idea that we could harness evolution in the laboratory to develop microbes for use in biotechnology and in medicine,” Parker said.

The results…indicate that “experimental evolution,” or evolution controlled in a laboratory setting, could be used to develop new strains of bacteria for use as probiotic substances, which are living organisms used for intestinal and digestive therapies…

Over the three-year study period, the bacterial population remained diverse and appeared to adapt significantly well to the environment in the digestive tracts of the mice. “The bacteria colonized better in the mice by the end of the experiment than at the beginning,” Parker said, with more than a three-fold increase in the density of bacteria within the gut by the end of the experiment.

Wow. Most researchers are flexible enough to perceive unexpected results for what they are, where they may lead.

Still – it’s rewarding to see how this group let their experiment carry through on its own – adding to evolutionary knowledge at the same time.

Daylife/ AP Photo used by permission

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Sunday apologised for breaking his election pledge to move an unpopular U.S. military base off Okinawa, also receiving a public dressing-down from local officials.

Mr. Hatoyama’s initial plan had caused friction with close ally Washington and his perceived dithering on the issue since — followed by his U-turn — has badly hurt his approval ratings.

During his visit to the southern island on Sunday, Mr. Hatoyama faced angry protests by residents who had hoped to see the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station moved entirely off Okinawa, instead of relocated to a less built-up part.

Okinawa, which hosts more than half the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan, has long sought to remove the bases, which are locally unpopular mainly because of noise, pollution and the risk of accidents and crimes.

“I apologise to people in Okinawa as I could not keep to my word that I’ll relocate the base off the prefecture,” said Mr. Hatoyama in a meeting with Okinawa governor Hirokazu Nakaima, shown on television…

Hundreds of people protested outside the prefecture building, holding banners saying “We are angry” and some chanting “Hatoyama go home!…”

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had urged Mr. Hatoyama to stay with the original pact, arguing a strong U.S military presence is crucial for the defence of Japan and stability in the wider Asia-Pacific region.

I have to wonder what the quid pro quo was for this one? Taking back Okinawa was a central issue in getting Hatoyama elected and resentment will not be limited solely to folks on Okinawa. He sold out the Japanese nation on this one.

Using the same old Cold War excuses doesn’t cut it outside of Congress and teabaggers.

UPDATE: Hirokazu re-elected on pledge to veto US base plans.

Since the 2007 state law took effect, admissions for ailments related to secondhand smoke have declined by as much as 33 percent.

Two University of Arizona researchers have studied the relationship between Arizona’s 2007 law that bans smoking in public places and hospitalization rates for a range of ailments related to secondhand smoke exposure.

Their results: Admissions for acute myocardial infarction or AMI, stroke, asthma and angina decreased following the implementation of the ban…

To control for other reasons why hospital admissions change over time, they compared admissions for those primary diagnoses before and after May 1, 2007 – the start date of the smoking ban – to admissions for four diagnoses not associated with secondhand smoke: appendicitis, kidney stones, acute cholecystitis and ulcers.

They also compared admissions in Arizona counties with preexisting county or municipal smoking bans – which would be expected to show little effect from the statewide ban – to counties with no previous bans.

Their results showed statistically significant reductions in hospital admissions of 13 percent for AMI, 33 percent for unstable angina, 14 percent for acute stroke and 22 percent for asthma in counties with no previous bans over what was seen in counties with previous bans.

Dimwits from the Church of Self-Righteous Skeptics will ignore the study, the science, the rights of others and continue their battle to smoke anywhere they damned well please.