Rock legends REM announce split

Members of legendary US rock band REM have announced they are splitting up after 31 years.

“We have decided to call it a day as a band,” the band said. “To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.”

The group found fame with a string of albums, notably 90s hits Out of Time and Automatic for the People.

The band’s website was briefly unavailable on Wednesday afternoon after the announcement was made.

Three of REM’s albums in the 1990s went quadruple platinum in the US, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

via BBC News – Rock legends REM announce split.

UARS satellite: New images of tumbling US spacecraft

An amateur astronomer has recorded images of the out-of-control US satellite as it tumbles back to Earth.

Theirry Legault, from Paris, captured the video as the satellite passed over northern France on 15 September.

The six-tonne, 20-year-old spacecraft has fallen out of orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on Earth on or around 24 September.

The US space agency says the risk to life from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is 1 in 3,200.

Mr Legault, an engineer, used a specially designed camera to record the tumbling satellite through his 14-inch telescope, posting the footage on his Astrophotography website.

UARS could land anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south of the equator – most of the populated world.

Nasa says that most of the satellite will break or burn up before reaching Earth.

But scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the atmosphere. This debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide.

Robust, spherical satellite components such as fuel tanks are often most likely to survive the fiery plunge to Earth, say space experts. …

via BBC News – UARS satellite: New images of tumbling US spacecraft.

Video here.

US justice department paid $16 for muffins

Muffins costing $16 (£10) and biscuits at $10 were among the “extravagant and wasteful” conference spending by the US justice department, a report has found.

Critics voiced outrage at the spending shown in the internal audit, including $8 coffees and $32-per-person snacks.

The justice department said it accepted the findings, adding that it had taken steps since 2009 “to ensure that these problems do not occur again”.

The US owes more than $14tn and has an annual budget deficit topping $1.4tn.

The report found that the justice department had spent $4,200 on 250 muffins at an August 2009 legal conference at a hotel near the White House.

A justice department spokeswoman told reporters that took place at a time when there were no strict limits on food and beverage spending.

The department spent $121m on more than 1,800 conferences in 2008 and 2009 – exceeding its own spending limits, according to the audit.

It spent $600,000 just on planning for five conferences.  …

via BBC News – US justice department paid $16 for muffins.

 

Robotic fish test the waters for safety risks

Scientists at Michigan State University are designing and studying robotic fish to be made to swim in schools in order to monitor environmental signs such as accumulations of algae and oil spills. Through the use of sensors and wireless capabilities, the fish can travel in water to collect information. But why go to all that trouble to simulate real fish if other underwater devices can be deployed for the same purpose?

Researchers working with fish robotics say that fish are worthy of simulation as they behave in ways that underwater devices cannot match. Fish are remarkably energy efficient. They have superior agility and speed when changing direction and maneuvering.

What’s more, robotic fish can be told their destination and they can guide themselves from that point on, unlike remotely operated devices that need continuous commands: Speed up, go right, go left.

The robotic fish under development at MSU were demonstrated at a recent three-day BEACON event. BEACON is a National Science Foundation-funded center for the study of evolution, headquartered at Michigan State University with partner institutions at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington, North Carolina A&T State University, and the University of Idaho. Viewers watched as a robotic fish swam in an aquarium at MSU. …

via Robotic fish test the waters for safety risks.

Realtime Face Substitution: Imperfect But Nonetheless Incredible (VIDEO)

We’ve all seen people’s head’s stitched on other people’s bodies in the movies (remember the Winklevoss twins?), but seeing it in realtime is a whole different beast.

In fact, it’s a bit monstrous.

From Chairman Mao to Michael Jackson, Arturo Castro, the designer behind the clip, used face-tracking software to have a computer digitally imprint the faces of others onto his own. Castro used the Facetracker API to build the tracking program that essentially stretches images of other people’s faces to fit his own.

While some of the examples look spot on, in others face-shape seems to make all the difference, creating distorted examples of some notable figures.

It’s not quite a real-life “Face Off,” but its definitely a fun everyday use.

via Realtime Face Substitution: Imperfect But Nonetheless Incredible (VIDEO).

Video here.

Italian scientists on trial for failing to predict earthquake

Seven scientists and other experts are standing trial on manslaughter charges for allegedly failing to sufficiently warn residents before a devastating earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy in 2009.

The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the world, who insist it is impossible to predict earthquakes and say no major tremor has ever been foretold.

Last year about 5,200 international researchers signed a petition supporting their Italian colleagues, and the Seismological Society of America wrote to Italy’s president expressing concern about what it called an unprecedented legal attack on science.

The seven defendants are accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether smaller tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the six months before the quake, on 6 April 2009, should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.

Specifically, prosecutors focused on a memo issued after a meeting on 31 March 2009 of the great risks commission, which was called because of mounting concerns about the months of seismic activity in the region.

According to the commission’s memo – issued one week before the big quake – the experts concluded that it was “improbable” that there would be a major quake, though it added that one couldn’t be excluded.

The 6.3-magnitude earthquake killed 308 people in and around the medieval town, which was largely reduced to rubble. Thousands of survivors lived in tent camps or temporary housing for months. …

via Italian scientists on trial for failing to predict earthquake | Science | The Guardian.

If they caused the earthquake, then there should be charges…

Virgin Galactic’s spaceship factory completed

SPACE tourism is closer to reality after the completion of an $US8 million ($7.8 million) Mojave Desert production plant where the world’s first fleet of passenger-ready spaceships will be built.

Hundreds of public officials and reporters were invited to tour the giant hangar where the White Knight and SpaceShipTwo craft will be built.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

Up to 200 people will work at the assembly plant and it will be used primarily for the final assembly, integration and testing before the aircraft are delivered to customers.

The Spaceship Co facility is a joint venture of Mojave-based Scaled Composites and British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

“Today marks another important step along the road to opening space for everyone,” Mr Branson said.

“From this hangar, the talented team at The Spaceship Co will be at the forefront of making space access safe, reliable and affordable.”

Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides told the Los Angeles Times that completion of the production facility moves Galactic closer to sending paying passengers into space.

via Virgin Galactic’s spaceship factory completed | Herald Sun.

Plant RNAs Found in Mammals

MicroRNAs from common plant crops such as rice and cabbage can be found in the blood and tissues of humans and other plant-eating mammals, according to a study published today in Cell Research. One microRNA in particular, MIR168a, which is highly enriched in rice, was found to inhibit a protein that helps removes low-density lipoprotein (LDL) from the blood, suggesting that microRNAs can influence gene expression across kingdoms.

“This is a very exciting piece of work that suggests that the food we eat may directly regulate gene expression in our bodies,” said Clay Marsh, Director of the Center for Personalized Health Care at the Ohio State University College of Medicine who researches microRNA expression in human blood but who was not involved in the study.

MicroRNAs are, as the name implies, very short RNA sequences (approximately 22 nucleotides in length) discovered in the early 1990s. They are known to modulate gene expression by binding to mRNA, often resulting in inhibition. With the recent discovery that microRNAs circulate the blood by hitching a ride in small membrane-encased particles known as microvesicles (see our July 2011 feature on microvesicles, “Exosome Explosion”), there has been a surge of interest in microRNAs as a novel class of biomarkers for a variety of diseases.

Chen-Yu Zhang, a molecular biologist at Nanjing University in China, was studying the role of circulating microRNAs in health and disease when he discovered that microRNAs are present in other bodily fluids such as milk. This gave him the “crazy idea” that exogenous microRNAs, such as those ingested through the consumption of milk, could also be found circulating in the serum of mammals, he recalled.

To test his hypothesis, Zhang and his team of researchers sequenced the blood microRNAs of 31 healthy Chinese subjects and searched for the presence of plant microRNAs. Because plant microRNAs are structurally different from those of mammals, they react differently to oxidizing agents, and the researchers were able to differentiate the two by treating them with sodium periodate, which oxidizes mammal but not plant microRNAs.

To their surprise, they found about 40 types of plant microRNAs circulating in the subjects’ blood—some of which were found in concentrations that were comparable to major endogenous human microRNAs.

The plant microRNAs with the highest concentrations were MIR156a and MIR168a, both of which are known to be enriched in rice and cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli. Furthermore, the researchers detected the two microRNAs in the blood, lungs, small intestine, and livers of mice, in variable concentrations that significantly increased after the mice were fed raw rice (although cooked rice was also shown to contain intact MIR168a).

Next, the researchers scoured sequence databases for putative target genes of MIR156a and MIR168a and found that MIR168a shared sequence complementarity with approximately 50 mammalian genes. The most highly conserved of these sequences across the animal kingdom was the exon 4 of the low-density lipoprotein receptor adapter protein 1 gene (LDLRAP1).

LDLRAP1 is highly expressed in the liver, where it interacts with the low-density lipoprotein receptor to help remove low-density lipoprotein (LDL), aka “bad” cholesterol, from the blood. …

via Plant RNAs Found in Mammals | The Scientist.

Study: Meditation Wards Of The Effects of Aging

After several years of number-crunching, data from the so-called Shamatha project is finally starting to be published. So far the research has shown some not hugely surprising psychological and cognitive changes – improvements in perception and wellbeing, for example. But one result in particular has potentially stunning implications: that by protecting caps called telomeres on the ends of our chromosomes, meditation might help to delay the process of ageing.

—-

The Shamatha project used a mix of mindfulness and compassion meditation. The researchers concluded that the meditation affected telomerase by changing the participants’ psychological state, which they assessed using questionnaires. Three factors in particular predicted higher telomerase activity at the end of the retreat: increased sense of control (over circumstances or daily life); increased sense of purpose in life; and lower neuroticism (being tense, moody and anxious). The more these improved, the greater the effect on the meditators’ telomerase.

There’s been several studies over the years have reported on the the anti-aging effects. From Natural News:

Dr. Robert Keith Wallace was one of the first scientists to study the effects of meditation on aging and he published his findings in the International Journal of Neuroscience (16: 53 58, 1982). His research was based on the practice of Transcendental Meditation.

Dr. Wallace found that subjects with an average chronological age of 50 years, who had been practicing Transcendental Meditation for over 5 years, had a biological age 12 years younger than their chronological age. That means a 55-year-old meditator had the physiology of a 43-year-old.

Several of the subjects in the study were found to have a biological age 27 years younger than their chronological age. This study has since been replicated several times. Other studies have also shown the beneficial effects of Transcendental Meditation on the aging process. …

via Study: Meditation Wards Of The Effects of Aging | The Shaman’s Well.

A plant that sows its own seeds discovered

Scientists have discovered a tiny plant which they say bows down and sows its own seeds.

The dainty, inch-high plant with pink-and-white flowers was found growing in the backyard of a local plant collector in rural northeastern Bahia, Brazil, one of the world’s most biologically diverse areas.

The strange behaviour of the plant caught the attention of a handyman working for the plant collector, Alex Popovkin, who believed it was a new species.

A team of scientists from Rutgers University, the State University at Feira de Santana in Bahia, and Western Carolina University then collaborated to confirm that the plant was indeed a new species, a website reported.

“It is very easy to think we have found and described most plant species of the world already, but this discovery shows that there are so [many] left out there without name and recognition,” Lena Struwe, a Rutgers University specialist in plants of the Loganiaceae family, said.

The researchers found only a few minuscule plants in Popovkin’s field during the first year. The plants died in the dry season, only to reappear in the same spots at the beginning of the rain season.

This was due to the plant’s unique propagation trait, a characteristic known as geocarpy, the scientists said.

When the plant’s fruits form, the plant slowly bends its small, fruiting branches down, depositing the seed capsules carefully onto the ground — and sometimes burying them in the soft cover of moss.

Geocarpy, which is also found with peanut plants, ensures that the seeds will grow into new plants near the mother plant during the following season, the researchers reported in the taxonomic journal PhytoKeys. …

via A plant that sows its own seeds discovered | Discovery Online.