Science & Technology archives: January-February 2004

• 27 February 2004
  "After the worldwide alarm triggered by 2003's SARS outbreak, it might seem reckless to set about creating a potentially far more devastating virus in the lab. But that is what is being attempted by some researchers, who argue that the dangers of doing nothing are even greater. We already know that the H5N1 bird flu virus ravaging poultry farms in Asia can be lethal on the rare occasions when it infects people. Now a team is tinkering with its genes to see if it can turn into a strain capable of spreading from human to human. If they manage this, they will have created a virus that could kill tens of millions if it got out of the lab." Learn more about how scientists are experimenting with deadly strains of the flu virus--and why some question the wisdom of this behavior at New Scientist.



• 26 February 2004
  "Scientists say they've discovered how some monkeys resist infection with the AIDS virus, a finding that might lead to a treatment that blocks HIV in people. Researchers found that once HIV enters monkey cells, it encounters a protein that stifles its attempts to replicate. That stops the virus from spreading in the animal. 'This is really important because it will help build a basis for hammering the virus before it gets started,' said Paul Luciw, a University of California at Davis microbiologist who specializes in AIDS research." Researchers hope that this exciting new finding might eventually help them develop an AIDS vaccine. Read more at Yahoo News (link no longer active).



• 25 February 2004
  "THE world leader in the race to harness the power of the seas unveiled its first completed prototype wave energy machine yesterday, in a move which could have huge environmental and economic benefits. Ocean Power Delivery (OPD), based in Edinburgh’s Leith district, revealed to industry representatives and politicians the 400ft-long 700-tonne Pelamis Wave Energy Convertor which will be capable of delivering power enough for 500 homes...Named after the Greek word for sea snake, the Pelamis will be the first deep-water, grid-connected trial of a full-size wave-power generator to take place anywhere in the world." Read more about this exciting development in energy production in today's Scotsman.



• 24 February 2004
  "If it's not alive, but not dead, what is it? That's the riddle posed by the new field of 'partial life' technologies, to be explored today in a symposium sponsored by San Francisco's Exploratorium. An international panel of researchers, artists and entrepreneurs will present provocative -- and perhaps useful -- new projects that blur the boundaries between the natural and the artificial....Emerging technologies like those to be discussed at today's symposium -- titled 'Animate/(in) Animate: Engineering at the Threshold of Life' -- add lifelike elements to a variety of fields such as electronics, computer design and fuel cells." Learn more about these cutting edge research projects at Silicon Valley.com.



• 23 February 2004
  "The global sowing of genetically modified, or GM, crops will continue rising in the next few years, gaining more of a foothold in the world's food supply, but millions still need convincing that the food is safe to eat. For once, green groups can agree with the biotech industry on one thing: with Brazil and China now part of the growing family of major GM producers, the area of land devoted to gene-spliced crops across the world must inevitably rise...But there are doubts about how far the expansion can go, with questions lingering on China's commitment to GM crops and whether famine-hit Third World nations really want GM food aid." While the use of genetically modified crops is rising around the globe, some still question whether these products can help reduce hunger--or if they are even safe. Read more at Wired News.



• 20 February 2004
  "Could Asia's bird flu wing its way to Europe? Millions of ducks, stints and storks will soon fly to north from their winter homes in Asia, fueling fears they might carry the deadly H5N1 virus that has killed 22 people and ravaged poultry flocks across the region. The World Health Organization, which calls the Asian outbreaks 'historically unprecedented,' says wild birds could easily spread the disease. It points to studies of past outbreaks that show infection can be introduced into domestic flocks by wild aquatic birds, including migratory birds capable of flying long distances." Learn why many are worried that bird flu could spread to Europe as birds begin their spring migration at Reuters (link no longer active).



• 19 February 2004
  "Something incredible is happening in a lab at Duke University's Center for Neuroengineering -- though, at first, it's hard to see just what it is. A robot arm swings from side to side, eerily lifelike, as if it were trying to snatch invisible flies out of the air...To see where those commands [for the robot] are coming from, you have to follow a tangled trail of cables out of the lab and down the hall to another, smaller room. Inside this room sits a motionless macaque monkey." This research project at Duke suggests that in the future we will be able to move artificial limbs and control robots using only our thoughts. Read more about this fascinating project in this month's Popular Science.



• 18 February 2004
  "It used to be considered dogma that a nerve, once injured, could never be repaired. Now, researchers have learned that some nerves, even nerves in parts of the brain, can regenerate or be replaced. By studying the chemical signals that encourage or impede the repair of nerves, researchers at the University of Washington, the Salk Institute, and other institutions may contribute to eventual treatments for injured spines and diseased retinas, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Much of this research focuses on stem cells, one of several types of general cells that can give rise to specialized cells, like neurons. It was once thought that human stem cells were only found in embryos, and in bone marrow, where they produce blood cells. But stem cells are also being found in adults, including the brain and the eye." Learn more about this recent finding in the University of Washington Press Release.



• 17 February 2004
  "A new form of mad cow disease has been found in Italy, according to a study released yesterday, and scientists believe that it may be the cause of some cases of human brain-wasting disease. While the strain has been found in only two Italian cows, both apparently healthy, scientists in Europe and the United States said it should provide new impetus in Washington for the Department of Agriculture to adopt the more sensitive rapid tests used in Europe because it may not show up in those used in the United States...Two American experts not involved in the study said the findings were sobering. Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University, called the report 'very convincing.' Dr. Paul Brown, a prion expert at the National Institutes of Health, said it 'opens the possibility of a second strain of the agent in circulation - and that's probably not good news.'" Read more about this disturbing finding in today's New York Times.



• 16 February 2004
  "Belgian scientists narrowed the search for a gene linked to ageing on Friday and said it is probably located on the X chromosome. Researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium pinpointed the location by studying the length of telomeres, tiny bits of DNA at the ends of chromosomes, linked to ageing. Similar to the plastic caps on shoe laces, they wear down as cells divide, which is a natural process of ageing. Shorter telomeres are thought to be associated with age-related illnesses and earlier death." This new finding indicates that longevity might be a genetic trait that we inherit from our mothers. Read more at the Daily Times.



• 13 February 2004
  "The secret to finding lasting love might remain a mystery to most, but two US researchers claim to have come up with a mathematical model that can predict whether a relationship will fail. The researchers also say their system provides a simplified way of counseling couples and can help them to overcome relationship problems...John Gottman, a clinical psychologist, and mathematicians James Murray and Kristin Swanson, all at the University of Washington, based their model on interviews with hundreds of newlywed couples carried out over the last 15 years. The team says they can predict if a marriage was going to break up within four years with 94 per cent accuracy." Learn more at the New Scientist. Happy Valentine's Day!



• 12 February 2004
  "South Korean researchers reported Thursday they have created human embryos through cloning and extracted embryonic stem cells, the universal cells that scientists expect will result in breakthroughs in medical research... The technique, scientists said, was not designed to make babies but to further understanding of the causes and treatment of a multitude of diseases. Advances in stem-cell technology have been hailed as holding potential cures for many crippling illnesses, such as diabetes, spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease." This new technique for harvesting stem cells could help scientists in a variety of ways, potentially allowing scientists to cure diseases and even grow organs. Yet, this Korean study is also sparking intense debate about medical ethics. Read more at CNN.com.



• 11 February 2004
  "Stem cells taken from cloned mice were able to regenerate mouse hearts damaged by heart attacks by forming tiny blood vessels and heart muscle cells, corporate researchers said on Monday. The cloned cells repaired the damage more efficiently and more quickly than so-called adult stem cells taken from bone marrow, the team at Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts reported. 'We restored myocardial (heart muscle) function and replaced 40 percent of the scar tissue,' Dr. Robert Lanza, chief medical officer for ACT, said in a telephone interview. 'This is the first paper to show that cloned stem cells can repair damaged tissue in vivo (in a living animal).'" Learn more about this new study that indicates that cloned stem cells can regenerate tissue even more quickly than "adult" stem cells at Reuters (link no longer active).



• 10 February 2004
  "Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it. The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade." Learn why some at the Pentagon are beginning to study the possible threat of global warming and its effects at Fortune Magazine.



• 9 February 2004
  "If all you knew about David Goodstein was the title of his book, you might imagine him to be one of those insufferably enthusiastic prophets of doom, the flannel-shirted, off-the-grid types who take too much pleasure in letting us know that the environment is crumbling all around us. But Goodstein, a physicist, vice provost of the California Institute of Technology and an advocate of nuclear power, is no muddled idealist. And his argument is based on the immutable laws of physics. The age of oil is ending, he says. The supply will soon begin to decline, precipitating a global crisis. Even if we substitute coal and natural gas for some of the oil, we will start to run out of fossil fuels by the end of the century." Read more about Goodstein's disturbing findings in New York Times.



• 6 February 2004
  "Researchers said on Thursday they had taken another step toward understanding how plants split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms -- which may provide a cheap way to produce clean-burning hydrogen fuel. Producing hydrogen from water is the stuff of science fiction -- and some comments by President Bush. But the team at Imperial College London and Japan Science and Technology Corp. in Yokohama said they had taken the best pictures yet of the plant structures that do it every day." Learn how the study of plants might eventually help researchers come closer to utilizing hydrogen as a fuel source in Yahoo News (link no longer active).



• 5 February 2004
  "Fish oils known to help prevent heart attacks can now be made by land animals for themselves, thanks to work by genetic engineers. The researchers inserted a gene from a nematode worm into mice which enables the mammals to make the omega-3 fatty acids. If the same feat can be achieved in farm animals, meat, milk and eggs could all be directly enriched with the oils. This would not only benefit people, but could keep livestock healthier too. 'It's a double bonus,' says Jing Kang, whose team produced the altered mice at the Harvard Medical School in the US." This latest breakthrough in genetic engineering could potentially make the consumption of beef and eggs good for your heart. Learn more at the New Scientist.



• 4 February 2004
  "Before he slipped into unconsciousness, six-year-old Kaptan Boonmanuj told his mother, 'Mum, my chest feels like it's going to explode.' On Jan. 26, after two weeks in a coma, Kaptan died in Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital, becoming Thailand's first victim of avian flu....There are still many mysteries about the eruption of bird flu that has swept across Asia in recent weeks—where and when the epidemic originated, how it spread so swiftly to so many countries. But one fact is undisputed: this is not a fight that Asia can afford to lose." Learn more about bird flu and why some are worried that it could quickly turn into a sweeping pandemic in an in-depth report by Simon Elegant in this week's Time Magazine.



• 3 February 2004
  "If you thought your spam problems couldn't get any worse, check your mobile phone. Cellphones are becoming the latest target of electronic junk mail, with a growing number of marketers using text messages to target subscribers in Asia. Mobile phone spam has yet to approach anything like the volume of the e-mail variety, but the problem is growing in a region where the average user sends as many as 10 SMS (short message service) messages a day...Mobile phone companies were reluctant to talk about the trend, but evidence of the problem abounded on the Web site of NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile phone company." Learn how spammers in Asia are beginning to target cell phone users at Reuters (link no longer active).



• 2 February 2004
  "The World Health Organization says experts looking at human cases of bird flu cannot rule out the possibility that it may have spread among members of a family in Vietnam...Two sisters died a week ago; they fell ill after their brother died of an unidentified disease. His wife also contracted the bird flu, but has recovered...Scientists have long warned the H5N1 virus poses a potential threat to global health if it becomes able to spread as quickly among people as it does among chickens." Learn why scientists are concerned that a Vietnamese case indicates that bird flu is possibly being transmitted through human-to-human contact at the Voice of America.



• 30 January 2004
  "National Institutes of Health director Elias A. Zerhouni laid out a series of far-reaching initiatives known as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. Developed with input from more than 300 nationally recognized leaders from academia, industry, government and the public, the Roadmap's goal is to speed the movement of research discoveries from the bench to the bedside. One of its top five priorities? Nanomedicine. And nowhere is the use of nanotech in medical advances more critical than at the National Cancer Institute (NCI)..." Learn how scientists are hoping to use cutting edge technology to fight cancer in Forbes.com.



• 29 January 2004
  "Scientists said on Wednesday they had created a new form of matter and predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless other applications. The new matter form is called a fermionic condensate and it is the sixth known form of matter -- after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995." Learn how this new form of matter might help scientists with activities ranging from the transmission of electricity to the invention of magnetically levitating trains in Reuters (link no longer active).



• 28 January 2004
  "Canada's largest hog producer and processor on Tuesday launched a system that can trace back a pork loin on a Japanese meat counter to the farm where the hog was born, and said the system could one day be extended to trace beef and other meat. The company, Toronto-based Maple Leaf Foods, said its high-speed DNA database of sows on Canadian farms would help it sell pork to Japanese buyers concerned about food safety by tracing cuts of meat back to producers within hours." Learn how this new use of DNA tracking might help companies, farmers, and consumers avoid meat that has been contaminated or infected with Mad Cow disease or bird flu in Yahoo News (link no longer active).



• 27 January 2004
  "Tucked among broad-leafed banana groves and emerald rice paddies in west-central Thailand, the bird sanctuary here is one of the few jungled oases where migratory ducks, storks and other wildfowl can spend their winters in safety. They come from as far as India and Siberia. As the sun began to set Monday evening, dozens of yard-high white storks with lack-bordered wings roosted in the palm trees at one edge of the park. But the sanctuary is a quieter place these days. Many of the birds have been dying of what Thai scientists suspect is bird flu, as the disease races across Asia." Learn why many scientists worry that the infection of migratory birds could signal that bird flu will eventually become a true pandemic in the New York Times.



• 23 January 2004
  "Though it accounts for just a tiny percentage of overall chip sales, a thumbnail-size glass plate on which intricate patterns are printed is a tool with the power to transform drug research and improve the health of millions of people. It's called a biochip, and the patterns hold tens of thousands of 'probes' -- segments of DNA that represent genes." Learn more about how these new biochips are being used to study the genetic aspects of disease in Business Week.



• 21 January 2004
  "Techniques for confining genetically engineered salmon, corn and other organisms are still in their infancy...To date, most attempts to control potentially hazardous, gene-altered species that are grown outdoors have involved establishing physical barriers, like rows of trees, or altering planting times to make sure crops cannot cross-breed with related plants nearby. But those techniques have proven susceptible to human error, and researchers have long recognized that physical methods are likely to become even less useful as gene-altered insects and other animals begin to emerge from the nation's laboratories." Read about this potential difficulty with GM crops and wildlife at The Washington Post.



• 20 January 2004
  "When World Health Organization (WHO) parasitologist Carlo Urbani was treating the first cases of an unknown respiratory disease in the Hanoi-French Hospital in late February and March of 2003, he believed he might be facing the front end of an avian-flu epidemic...Virologists in Hong Kong soon determined that the agent was a novel coronavirus [SARS], not a mutant flu. But Urbani, who would die of SARS on March 29, went to his grave suspecting the world was on the verge of another influenza pandemic. Nearly a year later, his worst fear may be coming true." Learn why some fear that Asia's latest mutated strain of bird flu could ignite a health crisis worse than SARS, Ebola, and perhaps even AIDS in this week's Time Magazine.



• 19 January 2004
  "Fowl breeder Chen Huaping thinks SARS, as flu-like infections go, is mere chickenfeed. He witnessed the wrath of bird flu -- potentially more infectious -- last October, when a freshly bought yellow duckling dropped dead in his backyard 20 miles outside the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. Within a week, the bug had wiped out 300 of his 500 baby ducks." Learn why many scientists and health officials are worried that Southern Asia is vulnerable to the emergence of a flu pandemic that could overshadow SARS at Yahoo News (link no longer active).



• 16 January 2004
  "Peter Ludlow said he was only trying to expose the truth that Alphaville's authorities were all too happy to ignore. In his online newspaper, The Alphaville Herald, he reported on thieves and their scams. He documented what he said was a teenage prostitution ring. He criticized the city's leaders for not intervening to make it a better place. In response to his investigative reporting, Mr. Ludlow says, he was banished from Alphaville...Alphaville is not a real town but a virtual city in an Internet game called The Sims Online, where thousands of paying subscribers log on each day to assume fictional identities and mingle in cyberspace." Read about the ways in which real-life issues like civil liberties are being addressed by the online gaming community in the New York Times.



• 15 January 2004
  "Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have identified a gene that appears to have played a role in the expansion of the human brain's cerebral cortex — a hallmark of the evolution of humans from other primates. By comparing the gene's sequence in a range of primates, including humans, as well as non-primate mammals, the scientists found evidence that the pressure of natural selection accelerated changes in the gene, particularly in the primate lineage leading to humans." Learn more about this recent discovery at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.



• 13 January 2004
  "An unconventional version of soccer is being played by US scientists in a bid to develop to help better co-operation between robots and humans. Researchers constructed the soccer playing robots by modifying Segway personal transporters. The two-wheeled transporters are controlled by two on-board laptops and can play soccer by pushing a ball along the ground. Running into the ball at speed enables them to pass to one another and even shoot for goal." Learn about how this exercise might help human researchers work more closely with robots for tasks like space exploration and search and rescue missions in the New Scientist.



• 12 January 2004
  "The Mars rover Spirit has not even left its landing platform yet, but mission managers say some of its major scientific goals are already well on the way to being realised. Most importantly, Spirit has detected tantalising signs of minerals that could provide the long-sought evidence of Mars's watery past." Learn more about the latest news regarding the Mars rover and the search for evidence of water on Mars in today's New Scientist.



• 9 January 2004
  "British scientists called on Thursday for more research into the safety of nanoparticles, materials so small that their dimensions can be measured in atoms, following evidence they can lodge in the brain...Prophets of doom have painted a nightmare scenario of self-replicating robots turning the Earth into a 'gray goo.' But Ken Donaldson, Professor of Respiratory Toxicology at the University of Edinburgh, said the real risk lay in breathing in designer materials so small that they can slip through membranes inside the body." Learn more about why some scientists are pushing for more research into the safety of nanotechnology at Yahoo News.



• 8 January 2004
  "It's a $1bn gamble for business and there's a price on your head too...While 2003 was the year that saw the emergence of RFID, with household names such as WalMart jumping on the bandwagon, several retailers got cold feet and ditched the technology. Not so this year, say analysts – big business is crying out for the technology and, more importantly, the tide of public opinion is set to turn – as companies lure consumers with cold, hard cash." Read more about the dilemma that many companies face as they debate the use of radio frequency identification tags at Silicon.com.



• 7 January 2004
  "One tenth of the stars in our galaxy might provide the right conditions to support complex life, according to a new analysis by Australian researchers. And most of these stars are on average one billion years older than the Sun, allowing much more time, in theory, for any life to evolve." Read more about this startling new finding at the New Scientist.



• 6 January 2004
  "America Online plans to announce today that it will soon begin providing automated anti-spyware software to its subscribers, joining EarthLink as the only major Internet services to offer enhanced security against programs that secretly track the Internet habits of millions of computer users. Hiding within computers, spyware gleans information that can be sold to third parties for moneymaking purposes. The data range from targeted advertising, which is legal, to identity theft, which is not." Read more about how one of the largest internet service providers is combating spyware in today's Washington Post.



• 5 January 2004
  "In the movie Paycheck, opening Christmas Day, a crack reverse engineer helps companies steal and improve upon the technology of their rivals, then has his memory of the time he spent working for them erased. The story...is set in the near future, but such selective memory erasure is still highly speculative at best." The popular view of science can be well-served or poorly served by Hollywood. What about one of the latest films, Paycheck? Neurobiologist James McGaugh talks to Scientific American.



• 2 January 2004
  "The most popular stories published by New Scientist.com during 2003 cover a diverse range of scientific subjects, from fundamental physics to falling satellites, and brain prosthesis to masturbation." The New Scientist magazine in Britain is similar to Scientific American in the US, a well-respected journal. In reading their "top ten" list for 2003, with links to further detail as here at Future Brief, you can catch up on some of the break-throughs you may have missed last year. Read the list by clicking here.



• 1 January 2004
  "If there's a bright side to the U.S. mad cow scare, it's that it could speed the nation's move to a centralized system that electronically tracks animals as they move from fields to feed lots to food stores." In our commentary section, Jeff Harrow discusses the use of RFID tags to track us. This article at Wired News reminds us that this tracking technology is already in play.




Back to Science Archives