The AP and Reuters both have stories out, without byline, saying that University of New South Wales paleontologists have found the fossils of some creatures, dead for 10 to 20+ million years now, that would send any pre-teen monster...
The AP and Reuters both have stories out, without byline, saying that University of New South Wales paleontologists have found the fossils of some creatures, dead for 10 to 20+ million years now, that would send any pre-teen monster fan (and adults who used to fall into that category) into shivers of delight. AP says they found one bone set that translates to a ten-foot-tall, 881-pound bird now dubbed the "demon duck of doom."
881 pounds? That's completely ridiculous. Look, Associated Press editors, that comes out to almost exactly 400 kilograms and that sends The Tracker into a frenzy. Why in the world would any sane person translate 400 kg, which looks suspiciously like a round-number guess made in metrically-persuaded Australia, into exactly 881 pounds? "Nearly 900 pounds" okay, but 881?! Sheesh. Also included are galloping, saber-toothed carnivorous kangaroos. The story apparently arises...
Here's a nice bit of enterprise reporting. At least, The Tracker smells no press release involvement in the report on otoliths by the Dispatch's Poh Si Teng. And how often does...
Here's a nice bit of enterprise reporting. At least, The Tracker smells no press release involvement in the report on otoliths by the Dispatch's Poh Si Teng. And how often does one see a pic of a dissected fish in the paper? He (or she?) goes out on Lake Erie with Bowling Green State University researchers and into their labs while they catch perch and walleye and then extract their ear stones, or otoliths. Lake chemistry often varies consistently from place to place. Thus the trace minerals in these slow-growing concretions reveal, in tree-ring-like arrays, where they were at various times in their lives. From this may come more info on their migrations, spawning locations, and other habits that could lead to better management of the lakes' fisheries. Teng says the results are like a fish-focussed MapQuest of the lake.
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In another ten years or so, American pig breeders will probably use cloned boars up to half the time, reports the Monitor's Gregory M. Lamb. He has a roundup on the history of animal cloning since Dolly the Sheep ten years ago and a look at its prospects. His sources forecast no duplicated people,...
In another ten years or so, American pig breeders will probably use cloned boars up to half the time, reports the Monitor's Gregory M. Lamb. He has a roundup on the history of animal cloning since Dolly the Sheep ten years ago and a look at its prospects. His sources forecast no duplicated people, but do see not only more cloned hogs but other livestock. Clones, he notes, are expensive so will probably seldom be created for slaughter. But rather than exhaust some champion bull by harvesting its semen for wide distribution, it appears, cloning the big guy so it can share the load with a few doppelgangers might make sense. So far, it says here, 15 mammals have been cloned. He also quotes an authority who says the process still needs work as most clones are genetically defective in some way.
The Tracker started following this horse's course back when it had heroic surgery and should stick with it, so here's more and it's not such good news. Vets...
The Tracker started following this horse's course back when it had heroic surgery and should stick with it, so here's more and it's not such good news. Vets tell the Baltimore Sun's Paul McMullen that the Kentucky Derby champ has "catastrophic" laminitis in his left hind foot, away from the side that shattered in the Preakness. McMullen reports a decision to put the horse down could come within a day. The USA Today's blog-type update page says that's just wild speculation. AP has the horse fighting for his life.
Stories:
Baltimore Sun Paul McMullen; AP...
The emerald ash borer has been taking out ash trees across much of the upper midwest and southern Ontario. The Beacon Journal's Bob Downing reports that a coalition of scientists...
The emerald ash borer has been taking out ash trees across much of the upper midwest and southern Ontario. The Beacon Journal's Bob Downing reports that a coalition of scientists and resource managers says present policies in Ohio to contain the beetle, including quarantine and removal of all ash trees within a half mile of an infestation, won't work and only hurt forests. Some 280,000 trees have been cut down in the state, he reports. Downing also writes that he obtained a copy of the group's position paper and had to work from that as he could not reach anybody with the group to explain it further.
See also earlier posts: 6/26...
The Journal of the American Medical Association is struggling to persuade its authors to disclose all financial ties to companies or other interests with a stake in their research results. This week it issued a correction on a February article reporting results from a depression study, telling readers that most of...
The Journal of the American Medical Association is struggling to persuade its authors to disclose all financial ties to companies or other interests with a stake in their research results. This week it issued a correction on a February article reporting results from a depression study, telling readers that most of the 13 authors failed to disclose they were paid consultants to drugmakers. The Wall Street Journal helped stir the pot with a story on the conflicts on Tuesday and a followup Wednesday by David Armstrong. The HealthDay trade newswire's Amanda Gardner has a notably broad rundown on the issue.
Stories:
AP Lindsey Tanner; Chicago Tribune ...
Yesterday The Tracker noted the AP's Alicia Chang report that Robert Bigelow, Las Vegas hotel magnate, was about to test a one-third-scale, inflatable module in orbit. Well, poof, it's up there...
Yesterday The Tracker noted the AP's Alicia Chang report that Robert Bigelow, Las Vegas hotel magnate, was about to test a one-third-scale, inflatable module in orbit. Well, poof, it's up there and, she writes in a new report, it seems to have worked. Thus arrives a rarity: Good news when a spacecraft blows up. The pic is an artist's conception, natch (and is it happenstance that for an airbag story it shows a big windy duststorm coursing off the Sahara into the sea?). Chang's story gets immense pickup around the world, but was apparently filed before much information was out. Space.com's Leonard David has more detail. MSNBC's Alan Boyle covers it with a good sumary of the event plus needed skepticism. Some of his sources wish Bigelow well but say that his company has yet to demonstrate the capacity to realize his ambition for a...
A while ago news broke of pelicans, many of them juveniles, washing up on California beaches too weak to fly, some dead, most of them apparently famished. The Star's Zeke Barlow has a look at the...
A while ago news broke of pelicans, many of them juveniles, washing up on California beaches too weak to fly, some dead, most of them apparently famished. The Star's Zeke Barlow has a look at the problem, has plenty of sources with various hypotheses including competition for food in a growing pelican population and unrecognized contagions. But basically, he reports, nobody seems to have figured it all out. At least 200 malnourished birds have been found this year, some of them at less than half normal weight, he reports.
See Also previous posts 4/14 ...
Case Western Reserve and Drexel university researchers are building nerve detours, or bridges, around gaps in the spinal cords of rats, restoring some of their motor function. The paper is in the current Journal of Neuroscience. It follows closely on a somewhat similar report, in Annals of Neurology, that described...
Case Western Reserve and Drexel university researchers are building nerve detours, or bridges, around gaps in the spinal cords of rats, restoring some of their motor function. The paper is in the current Journal of Neuroscience. It follows closely on a somewhat similar report, in Annals of Neurology, that described the re-extension of nerve fibers from damaged spines to muscles. The new work appears different, as it focusses simply on getting impulses from one side of the injury, within the spine, to the other. John Mangels of the Plain Dealer gives it a solid writeup. He reports that animals that had been dragging their front paws became able to plant them firmly and to bend their limbs to their faces. Mangels does not merely report the end result. He walks readers through the series of puzzles and hurdles the researchers met as they coaxed new axons to detour around injuries by threading through transplanted nerve sheaths. He resolutely uses such neuro-...
The Tribune's Ian Hoffman reports a combined effort by the USDA and the Department of Energy to sift the genes of switchgrass and other prairie flora. The goal, at a Bay Area lab called...
The Tribune's Ian Hoffman reports a combined effort by the USDA and the Department of Energy to sift the genes of switchgrass and other prairie flora. The goal, at a Bay Area lab called the Joint Genome Institute, is a way to modify them into more easily-fermented feedstock for ethanol manufacture. Hoffman's report appears to be informed by the PNAS study this week skewering the potential for corn sugar to dent fuel supplies. Cellulose from switchgrass and the like is far more attractive than corn sugar, he writes, but first scientists have to find a way to disentangle the cellulose from lignin in the plants' cell walls. It's not a long story but it packs in a great deal of molecular and genetic detail -- eg, switchgrass has about 12,000 genes, about six of which are devoted to cell walls -- along with strategies being followed by the research...
A new dimension in fertility treatment seems to beckon down the road upon news from Newcastle University in Britain that international scientists there--most of them German with an Iranian-born leader and...
A new dimension in fertility treatment seems to beckon down the road upon news from Newcastle University in Britain that international scientists there--most of them German with an Iranian-born leader and working on German grant money--teased mouse embryonic stem cells into differentiating to closely resemble mature sperm cells. Implantation of the cells into eggs produced embryos that, upon further transplantation into female mice, produced a test tube litter of seven babies, albeit developmentally imperfect ones.
The report, in the journal Developmental Cell on Monday, generated heavy news chiefly via the AP's Malcolm Ritter and Reuters's Patricia Reaney. Pickup in the US appears lower than elsewhere. Ritter notes that the animals were "unusually small or large and died within five months of birth, apparently because they lacked...
A study of 17,000 smokers confirms women are about twice as likely to get lung cancer from tobacco use as are men -- but women also tend to have a better chance of beating the disease. It backs up, with the biggest data set so far, similar conclusions from earlier studies. A Cornell Medical Center researcher led...
A study of 17,000 smokers confirms women are about twice as likely to get lung cancer from tobacco use as are men -- but women also tend to have a better chance of beating the disease. It backs up, with the biggest data set so far, similar conclusions from earlier studies. A Cornell Medical Center researcher led the study, which is in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Stories:
Newsday Sophia Chang; Reuters; Scripps Howard Lee Bowman;
Grist for the Mill: Cornell...
The space shuttle's science quotient is so low, and the volume of news reports so high, that The Tracker has bowed out from trying to follow it. But the AP's Alicia Chang's...
The space shuttle's science quotient is so low, and the volume of news reports so high, that The Tracker has bowed out from trying to follow it. But the AP's Alicia Chang's update on Las Vegas hotel magnate Robert Bigelow's ambitions to make space a paying proposition via tourism to orbiting resorts is worth a look. Chang reports that Bigelow, whose space hopes have gotten a lot of ink in recent years, is about to attempt a test flight of a one-third-scale, inflatable module to low earth orbit via Russian rocket. If it works it will expand to 28 feet long and eight feet wide and may stay in orbit five years.
Bigelow founded the Budget Suites of America chain. Chang's report takes the Bigelow plan at face value; the story would benefit from a nod to the many skeptics who think that even gazillionaires can't afford the development...
Among the cleverer gadgets aboard the International Space Station are two bowling ball-sized spheres that fly themselves around. Each is a little like the floating droid on which Luke Skywalker practiced light saber moves in an early Star Wars...
Among the cleverer gadgets aboard the International Space Station are two bowling ball-sized spheres that fly themselves around. Each is a little like the floating droid on which Luke Skywalker practiced light saber moves in an early Star Wars film. The Christian Science Monitor's Peter N. Spotts reports that, in fact, that scene was an inspiration to the student engineering team at MIT that designed the first prototypes some years back. One of the nine-pound, 12-thruster orbs arrived on the space station in April via Russian Soyuz, a second got there on the shuttle Discovery on its current flight, and a third is due aboard another Discovery flight in December, it says here. Spotts does not say whether the test on them, acronymically called SPHERES after a painfully contorted formal name, exercises the flying balls inside the station, outside, or both, but an MIT press release says they are...
While many scientists (and enviro activists) have been warning about global warming's threats for decades, not many politicians and other public servants did much about it until lately. Rare indeed were those...
While many scientists (and enviro activists) have been warning about global warming's threats for decades, not many politicians and other public servants did much about it until lately. Rare indeed were those who did so as early as King County Executive Ron Sims in Seattle, who called for a preparation plan way back in 1988. He caught flack for that, reports the Times's Keith Ervin, but now Sims has the last laugh. He's still catching some brickbats and teasing, much of it from the area's Republican operatives. But, it says here, Sims's vision has helped make Seattle a catalyst for regional efforts to take a nip out of climate change.
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