Contents
Vol 331, Issue 6014
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Podcasts
- Science Podcast
The show includes genetically modifying chickens to curb the spread of influenza, reducing testing anxiety through writing, the science of loneliness, and more.
Products & Materials
- New Products
A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.
News of the Week
- New High-Tech Screen Takes Carrier Testing to the Next Level
Bioinformaticists describe in a paper published online this week by Science Translational Medicine a new technology that looks for mutations in the genes behind 448 childhood recessive diseases.
- Fermilab to End Its Quest for Higgs Particle This Year
Officials at the U.S. Department of Energy, which funds Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, informed lab officials this week that DOE cannot come up with the extra $35 million per year to keep the Tevatron atom smasher going beyond September.
- Transgenic Chickens Could Thwart Bird Flu, Curb Pandemic Risk
U.K. scientists report in this week's issue of Science (p. 223) that they have created transgenic chickens that can't pass on avian influenza, a disease that decimates poultry flocks and that flu scientists fear could spawn an influenza pandemic among humans.
- Japan Boosts Competitive Grants at Expense of Big Science
Under what Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls "a budget for the reinvigoration of Japan," the country's main research grants program is slated for a whopping 32% increase to $3.2 billion in the coming year.
- From the Science Policy Blog
ScienceInsider reported recently that the British Medical Journal has accused gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield of committing scientific fraud in the publication of a 1998 paper in The Lancet linking vaccines to autism, among other stories.
- Pint-Sized Predator Rattles The Dinosaur Family Tree
On page 206 of this week's issue of Science, a team working in Argentina reports the discovery of a very early dinosaur—possibly a distant ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex—that lived about 230 million years ago, during what paleontologists call the dawn of the dinosaurs.
- Google Books, Wikipedia, and the Future of Culturomics
As a follow-up to the quantitative analysis of data obtained from Google Books published online in Science on 16 December 2010 and in this week's issue on page 176, one of the study's authors has been using Wikipedia to analyze the fame of scientists whose names appear in books over the centuries.
- Greenhouse–Power Plant Hybrid Set To Make Jordan's Desert Bloom
A novel combination of technologies that has the potential to turn large areas of desert green, producing commercial quantities of food and energy crops, fresh water, and electricity, looks set to have its first large-scale demonstration in Jordan.
- From Science's Online Daily News Site
ScienceNOW reported recently on the discovery of the first Earth-sized extrasolar planet, a promising new drug to treat mental retardation, scientists' first glimpse of the lunar core, and bumblebee declines, among other stories.
Random Samples
News Focus
- Why Loneliness Is Hazardous to Your Health
New research suggests that chronic loneliness can cause changes in the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems.
- Did the First Cities Grow From Marshes?
The world's earliest large settlements may owe their existence as much to the swamps of southern Iraq as to irrigation and agriculture.
- Tectonic Blow Ended Mountain Building, Fired Up Volcanoes
Fifty-five million years ago, Siletzia arrived on North American shores with nary a bump. But the 500-kilometer-wide chunk of drifting oceanic plate had far-reaching geologic effects across the continent's western third, according to a presentation at the meeting.
- What Heated Up the Eocene?
Fifty-five million years ago, carbon dioxide gushed into the atmosphere over as little as a millennium, acidifying the ocean and scorching the world of the Eocene epoch with a 5˚C greenhouse warming. In one presentation, earth systems modelers suggested an ocean source for all that carbon dioxide.
- Worry But Don't Panic Over Glacial Losses
Glaciers are suddenly galloping to the sea in Greenland and the "weak underbelly" of Antarctic ice is beginning to give way, but a couple of glaciologists at the meeting say that at least in the short term, the situation, while bad, is not always quite as bad as it looks.
- Snapshots From the Meeting
Snapshots from the meeting include new evidence showing that the Sierra Nevada mountains of east-central California are rising at the rate of about 1 millimeter per year and geophysical quirks that worsened the air-traffic disruption caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
The Gonzo Scientist
- The Science Hall of Fame
The Gonzo Scientist uses "culturomics"—a new field of study, launched in a recent Science paper, that quantitatively explores massive data sets of digitized culture—to create a Science Hall of Fame.
Letters
Books et al.
- Weathering Defeats
Fleming discusses scientific, technological, cultural, and political aspects of attempts to manipulate weather and climate over the past century.
- Computing the Climate and More
Edwards explores the use of computer simulations and models in climate research, and Winsberg offers a philosophical perspective on the roles of computer simulation in contemporary science.
- Books Received
A listing of books received at Science during the week ended 07 January 2011.
Education Forum
- Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities
Universities must better recognize, reward, and support the efforts of researchers who are also excellent and dedicated teachers.
Perspectives
- When Continents Formed
Island arc rocks provide a better constraint on when the continental crust was generated.
- A New Twist for Electron Beams
Passing an electron beam through carefully prepared holograms creates electron vortex beams that improve resolution and allow samples to be manipulated.
- Northern Meltwater Pulses, CO2, and Changes in Atlantic Convection
Detailed evidence of how the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation behaved after the last ice age.
- Lessons from Earth's Past
What can be learned from Earth's past to guide our understanding of life in a warming world?
- John Bennett Fenn (1917–2010)
The hallmark of a southern gentleman's serpentine path to the Nobel Prize was his admiration for truth and the stimulation of a curious, prepared, and creative mind.
Review
Brevia
- Complex Diel Cycles of Gene Expression in Coral-Algal Symbiosis
Rhythmically expressed genes in reef-building corals may be required to deal with oxidative stress and the coral-algal symbiosis.
Research Article
- Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books
Linguistic and cultural changes are revealed through the analyses of words appearing in books.
Reports
- A Biological Solution to a Fundamental Distributed Computing Problem
Modeling of development in the fruit fly yields an algorithm useful in designing wireless communication networks.
- Observation of Half-Height Magnetization Steps in Sr2RuO4
The magnetic response of an exotic superconductor suggests that vortices with half a quantum of flux are present.
- Light-Induced Superconductivity in a Stripe-Ordered Cuprate
Laser pulses are used to enable coherent transport between the copper oxide planes of a cuprate superconductor.
- Electron Vortex Beams with High Quanta of Orbital Angular Momentum
Diffraction holograms are used to create electron vortex beams that should enable higher-resolution imaging.
- Solvent-Free Oxidation of Primary Carbon-Hydrogen Bonds in Toluene Using Au-Pd Alloy Nanoparticles
A gold- and palladium-based catalyst can be used to oxidize toluene and form a commercially useful ester.
- Supracolloidal Reaction Kinetics of Janus Spheres
Colloidal particles that are charged on one side and hydrophobic on the other can form chiral helices in salt solutions.
- The Deglacial Evolution of North Atlantic Deep Convection
Radiocarbon data reveal changes in the timing and strength of deep ocean convection during the last glacial termination.
- A Basal Dinosaur from the Dawn of the Dinosaur Era in Southwestern Pangaea
Two hundred thirty million years ago, in what is now Argentina, dinosaurs could be found as the dominant carnivores or as small herbivores.
- Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom
A brief classroom intervention helps remove anxiety from the testing situation.
- Genomic Signatures Predict Migration and Spawning Failure in Wild Canadian Salmon
High mortality of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River is associated with signals of metabolic and immune stress.
- The Structure of Human 5-Lipoxygenase
Substitution of a destabilizing sequence has allowed crystallization of a key enzyme of the inflammatory response.
- Light-Driven Changes in Energy Metabolism Directly Entrain the Cyanobacterial Circadian Oscillator
Cyanobacterial circadian clock components are directly coupled to the metabolic status of the cell through interactions with adenine nucleotides.
- Suppression of Avian Influenza Transmission in Genetically Modified Chickens
Transgenic birds expressing a short hairpin RNA that blocks viral polymerase hinder influenza transmission.
- Human Tears Contain a Chemosignal
Merely sniffing women's negative emotional tears reduces sexual arousal in men.
