Russia is resigned to losing Mars moon probe

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russian officials on Tuesday acknowledged that the chances of fixing a space probe bound for a moon of Mars that got stuck in Earth's orbit are close to zero, Russian news agencies reported.

The unmanned $170 million Phobos-Ground was launched two weeks ago and reached preliminary Earth orbit, but its engines never fired to send it off to the Red Planet. Russian engineers have been trying to retrieve data from the probe as it passes over their territory but haven't established contact.

"We have to be realistic. Since we haven't been able to get in touch with it for such a long time, chances to accomplish the mission are very slim," Roscosmos deputy chief Vitaly Davydov said in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency.

Davydov said that Russian engineers can keep trying until the end of the month to fix the probe's engines to steer it to its path to Phobos, one of Mars' two moons.

Russian scientists could fix the problem if the probe failed because of a software flaw, but some experts think that the failure was rooted in hardware that's difficult to fix.

The failure of the probe could see Russia change its priorities in space research. The Russian space agency will more likely focus on Moon research instead of studying Mars, Davydov said.

The failed spacecraft is 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons), and most of that weight, about 11 metric tons (12 tons), is highly toxic fuel.

Davydov said Tuesday that Phobos-Ground could crash to Earth some time between late December and late February. The site of the crash cannot be established more than a day in advance, he said.

Davydov insisted that "if you calculate the probability of it hitting somebody on the head, it is close to zero."

A satellite tracking website showed the Mars probe passing over North America on Tuesday morning Moscow time.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-22-EU-Russia-Mars-Moon-Mission/id-eeffa0e0bd484dde9a74430911fcd43e

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On the Trail of the Orchid Child

Image: BARBARA KOSOFF

Scientific papers tend to be loaded with statistics and jargon, so it is always a delightful surprise to stumble on a nugget of poetry in an otherwise technical report. So it was with a 2005 paper in the journal Development and Psychopathology, drily entitled ?Biological Sensitivity to Context,? which looked at kids? susceptibility to their family environment. The authors of the research paper, human development specialists Bruce J. Ellis of the University of Arizona and W. Thomas Boyce of the University of California, Berkeley, borrowed a Swedish idiom to name a startling new concept in genetics and child development: orkidebarn.

Orkidebarn means ?orchid child,? and it stands in contrast to maskrosbarn, or ?dandelion child.? As Ellis and Boyce explained in their paper, dandelion children seem to have the capacity to survive?even thrive?in whatever circumstances they encounter. They are psychologically resilient. Orchid children, in contrast, are highly sensitive to their environment, especially to the quality of parenting they receive. If neglected, orchid children promptly wither?but if they are nurtured, they not only survive but flourish. In the authors? poetic language, an orchid child becomes ?a flower of unusual delicacy and beauty.?

Sensitive Souls
Inside the small world of scientists who study genetics and child development, the notion of the orchid child was stunning. The idea of resilient children was hardly new, nor was the related idea that some kids are especially vulnerable to the stresses of their world. What was novel was the idea that some of the vulnerable, highly reactive children?the orchid children?had the capacity for both withering and thriving. They appeared to be extremely sensitive to home and family life, for better or worse. Is it possible, scientists wondered, that genes underlie this double-edged childhood sensitivity?

Ellis and Boyce?s paper launched a search both for those genes and for the risk pathways that might lead to bad outcomes such as delinquency, substance abuse and mental illness. Most of the work initially focused on the genes that behavioral geneticists call the ?usual suspects??and it paid off. Studies soon showed that genes linked to particular enzymes or brain chemical receptors, if combined with family stress or maltreatment, can lead to a slew of behavioral problems or mood disorders. These links have now been verified again and again, and scientists are searching for additional genes that might play a role in this exquisite childhood sensitivity.

But where to look? If one is looking for genes that might be linked to unhappy lives, the genetics of heavy drinking is a place to start. That was the reasoning of behavioral geneticist Danielle M. Dick of Virginia Commonwealth University, who, with 13 other scientists from around the world, has been exploring a gene called CHRM2. CHRM2 has already been implicated in alcohol dependence, which is in the same group of disruptive behaviors as childhood conduct disorders and antisocial behavior. What?s more, the gene codes for a chemical receptor involved in many brain functions, such as learning and memory, so the gene might also be involved in behavioral disorders. Dick and her colleagues recently decided to test the idea.

The team of researchers took DNA samples from a group of more than 400 boys and girls who have been part of a larger child development study since before kindergarten and analyzed variations in their CHRM2 gene. These kids did not have behavioral problems at the start; they were a representative sample from communities in three U.S. cities. The youngsters have been studied every year since kindergarten, and they were around age 17 at the time of this new study. The scientists collected information on the teenagers? misbehavior?delinquency, aggression, drug abuse, and so on?from both the mothers and the kids themselves. They also asked the teens how much their parents knew about their lives?such as their whereabouts, who they hung out with, what they did with their time, and how they spent their money. They wanted to get a general idea of how closely these kids were monitored by their parents in their daily comings and goings as a way of measuring parental nurturing, indifference or neglect.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=77e428fdd4c3a362e5804ea97c9c9be8

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wicztv: Good afternoon Fox 40 viewers! Who went to the Boscov's Holiday Parade today?! If you took any pictures, send in... http://t.co/WQF304Yt

Good afternoon Fox 40 viewers! Who went to the Boscov's Holiday Parade today?! If you took any pictures, send in... Il y a environ 1 heure via Facebook

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What Is It?

Advances | More Science See Inside

Attack of the jellyfish

By David Biello ?| November 20, 2011

Image: Courtesy of Acu Na Fotograf?a and Gij?n Aquarium

As predators, jellyfish appear to be slow and passive. Unable to swim to and chase their prey, most drift along, creating tiny eddies to guide food toward their tendrils. Yet in waters from the Sea of Japan to the Black Sea, jellyfish, like those pictured here, are thriving as many of their competitors are eliminated by overfishing and other human impacts. How have these drifters reversed millions of years of fish dominance, seemingly overnight? Writing in the journal Science, biologist Jos? Luis Acu?a of the University of Oviedo in Spain and his colleagues suggest that jellyfish are just as effective at catching prey and turning it into energy as fishes. In fact, they have set the stage for a takeover?dubbed the ?gelatinous ocean? by some scientists. ?We need research to be sure of what new ecological scenarios are arising,? Acu?a says. ?It is time to take [jellyfish] seriously.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=255c828138f194d207148cb1073af1ed

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Hugh Grant: Non-Murdoch tabloid hacked me in 2007 (AP)

LONDON ? Actor Hugh Grant said Monday that he believes his phone was hacked by Britain's Mail on Sunday tabloid ? the first time he has implicated a newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch in the wrongdoing.

Grant, star of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and other movies, told an inquiry into media ethics that a 2007 story about his romantic life could only have been obtained through eavesdropping on his voice mails.

He said he could not think of any other way the newspaper could have obtained the story alleging that his romance with Jemima Khan was on the rocks because of his conversations with a "plummy voiced" woman the paper identified as a film studio executive.

Grant said there was no such woman, but he did receive voice messages from the assistant of a producer friend.

"She would leave charming, joking messages ... and she had a voice that can only be described as plummy," he said.

Grant sued the newspaper for libel and won.

Challenged as to whether he was speculating about the source of the story, Grant acknowledged that he didn't have any hard proof.

"Speculation? O.K. But ... I'd love to hear what the Daily Mail or the Sunday Mail's explanation of what that source was if it wasn't phone hacking."

Prime Minister David Cameron set up the inquiry into media ethics in the wake of a still-evolving scandal over phone hacking in Britain. Murdoch shut down the discredited News of the World tabloid in July after evidence emerged that it had routinely eavesdropped on the voice mails of public figures, celebrities and even crime victims in its search for scoops.

Grant is one of a string of high-profile witnesses, including actress Sienna Miller and author J.K. Rowling, who will testify about how they were followed, photographed, entrapped and harassed by tabloid journalists.

The first witnesses Monday were the parents of murdered teenager Milly Dowler, whose mobile phone voice mails were hacked after she disappeared in 2002.

Her mother told the inquiry that she believed her missing 13-year-old was still alive once she reached the girl's previously full voice mailbox.

Sally Dowler said when she could finally leave a message on her daughter Milly's voice mail weeks after the girl disappeared, she shouted: "She's picked up the voice mails! ... She's alive!"

In fact, messages on Milly's phone had been deleted by someone working for the News of the World tabloid while the Dowlers and the police were still searching for the girl, who was later found dead.

The Dowlers said they had been utterly shocked when police told them, much later, that Milly's phone had been hacked.

Sally Dowler said she "didn't sleep for about three nights."

"When we were given that information, it was terribly difficult to process it," she said.

Her husband Bob said he recognized immediately that the information was "dynamite." News that tabloid journalists had targeted not just celebrities but a murdered girl shocked many Britons and triggered a police investigation and media recriminations that are still unfolding.

The Dowlers took the stand together and spoke in quiet, composed voices during their 30 minutes of nationally televised testimony.

They described their shock and anger when a private walk to retrace their missing daughter's last steps was secretly photographed by the tabloid.

Sally Dowler said she and her husband Bob had no idea they were being observed as they walked near their home in May 2002, but days later saw the pictures in the News of the World.

"It just felt like such an intrusion into a really, really private grief moment," she said. The couple said they later realized that their own phone, as well as their daughter's, had been hacked.

More than a dozen News of the World journalists and editors have been arrested and several senior Murdoch executives have resigned over the still-evolving scandal. Two top London police officers also lost their jobs, along with Cameron's media adviser.

The inquiry, led by Judge Brian Leveson, could recommend major changes to the way the media in Britain are regulated.

The second witness Monday was journalist and novelist Joan Smith, whose phone was hacked while she was in a relationship with a politician, Denis MacShane. Smith said she was shocked when police said her name and details had been found in the notebooks of private eye Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the News of the World and was jailed in 2007 for phone hacking.

"I don't think I'm somebody whose private life would be of much interest to the reading public," she said.

"This could happen to almost anybody. That's the astonishing thing. You don't have to be an incredibly famous actress or actor ... you just have to tangentially come into the orbit of somebody who is well known."

Graham Shear, a sports and media lawyer who has represented many celebrities, told the inquiry about the host of tabloid techniques he has encountered, from checkbook journalism to "kiss and tell girls" who target athletes.

Shear is suing the News of the World's parent company, alleging that his own voice mail messages, as well as those of his clients, were hacked.

He said tabloid journalism was "a business model that's become dependent and infatuated with sensationalist and titillating stories."

In that environment, he said, "the News of the World was at the front as the most effective story-gatherer."

Grant, a fierce critic of press intrusion, smiled for photographers as he arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice, where the hearings are being held.

Later this week the inquiry will hear from "Harry Potter" author Rowling, comedian Steve Coogan, actress Miller and former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley ? whose taste for sadomasochism was revealed in a widely publicized News of the World sting.

It's a courtroom lineup that Britain's celebrity-obsessed tabloids would love, if only they weren't the ones in the dock.

__

Associated Press writer Raphael G. Satter contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111121/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_phone_hacking

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Corals can sense what's coming

Friday, November 18, 2011

Australian scientists have thrown new light on the mechanism behind the mass death of corals worldwide as the Earth's climate warms.

Coral bleaching, one of the most devastating events affecting coral reefs around the planet, is triggered by rising water temperatures. It occurs when the corals and their symbiotic algae become heat-stressed, and the algae which feed the corals either die or are expelled by the coral.

There have been seven major bleaching events globally in the past 30 years, the most recent being in 2010 across the Indian Ocean and Coral Triangle. Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered eight events since 1980, the worst being in 2002 when 55% of the total reef area was affected. The frequency of these events appears to be increasing.

Now a team of scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University has shown that a complex cascade of molecular signals leading up to the self-inflicted death of corals and their symbiotic algae is triggered as sea water begins to warm.

Working with Acropora corals from the reef at Heron Island, the researchers found the cascade begins at ocean temperatures as much as 3 degrees lower than those normally associated with coral bleaching.

And the process culminates in 'apoptosis' or programmed cell-death ? a situation in which living organisms (including corals and humans) deliberately destroy their weakened or infected body cells, effectively a form of 'cell suicide' or amputation designed to protect the organism as a whole.

"Our results suggest that the control of apoptosis is highly complex in the coral-algae symbiosis and that apoptotic cell death cascades potentially play key roles in tipping the cellular life or death balance during environmental stress prior to the onset of coral bleaching," explains lead author Dr Tracy Ainsworth.

"It is also clear that this chain reaction responds significantly to subtle, daily changes in the environment and to sea temperatures which were generally thought till now to have little impact on the function of coral and its symbiotic algae."

Paradoxically, the team's research identified molecular signals both promoting and discouraging programmed cell-death in the corals.

This has led them to a theory that corals respond to the stresses caused by warming sea water by killing off some of the cells, while strengthening others in order to stage a possible recovery after the hot water has moved off the reef and conditions have returned to normal.

"This would explain why some corals are able to recover quite quickly from a bleaching event, if it has not gone too far.

"It is far too early to speculate, but understanding the recovery process for any living organism is always a big help, as human medicine has constantly demonstrated, Dr Ainsworth says.

"The next step in our research will be to see how we can use this new insight into the processes of coral bleaching to understand their recovery mechanisms. We also need to know more about how this process works at lower temperatures, or under varying temperatures.

"That in turn will lead us to explore ways that coral reef managers and users can perhaps minimise other stresses on the reef in order to give it the best possible chance of recovery from bleaching."

However the team cautions that "further study of the tissue function and cellular differentiation and recovery processes in coral is needed before this complicated cell death system can be fully understood".

###

ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies: http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

Thanks to ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115340/Corals_can_sense_what_s_coming_

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Video: Can Gingrich be taken seriously?

Wired to cheat? (We're looking at you, Ashton)

Demi and Ashton - you don?t really need their last names, do you? - have called it quits, following rumors of his infidelity. While most of us want our mates to be true to only us, are we really built for monogamy? Sexual health expert Brian Alexander weighs in.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45361419#45361419

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