the-BA : Science News Digest

Ni hao, spaceman. Photo courtesy of iStockphoto.com

In the science news this week: religion can alleviate pain, scorpion venom is used to fight cancer, and the first Chinese spacewalk. Plus an eyebrow-raising use for coca-cola honoured in the Ig Nobel prizes...

But first, research in the Canary Islands is investigating a little-known species called the beaked whale. The whales, which can grow to the size of an elephant, were described by Ted Cranford from San Diego State University in California, US, as possibly “the least understood group of large mammals on Earth.”

BBC environment correspondent Richard Black has joined researchers on the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) -funded yacht and is keeping a blog for the BBC website. Black reports how little is understood about the animals – we do not even know how many different species there are.

Most of the existing knowledge about beaked whales has been uncovered through looking at bodies of dead animals that wash up on beaches around the world. Very few have been observed in the wild. The yacht, the Song of the Whale, is equipped with microphones that can receive the animals’ sonic clicks. These are uncommonly high-pitched compared to those of some other whales, and specialised sound equipment is needed to detect it.

The researchers on board aim to discover how the beaked whales’ social structure works, but as Black points out in his article on the BBC website, this is just a drop in the ocean compared to how much there is still to discover.

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China’s growing role in the world has been evident in politics, trade, industry and the environment, but last week their impact on space was clear for all to see. Zhai Zhigang, a 41-year-old fighter pilot, performed China’s first spacewalk, the Observer reported last Sunday.

China’s ambitious space programme includes plans for a space station and lunar landings. While NASA plans to return to the moon in 2020, the Chinese manned spaceflight mission may have a man on the moon within ten years.

China’s instigation of a new space race does not just showcase Chinese innovation and technology but may also give the country an economic boost in the commercial satellite launching business.

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As reported in a recent Science News Digest, observing beautiful art can distract from pain. This week, the Guardian reported that religious belief could have a similar effect.

24 students – 12 Roman Catholic and 12 non-believers – were given short electric shocks after looking either at a figure of the Virgin Mary by Sassoferrato or at a secular painting by Leonardo da Vinci. They were then asked to rate the pain they experienced on a scale of 1 to 100.

Both groups rated their pain similarly after looking at Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine, but the response was significantly different after seeing the Virgin Mary. Those without religious faith rated their pain 12% higher than the Roman Catholic group.

“The Roman Catholics engaged a brain mechanism that is well known from research into the placebo effect, pain-relief and emotional disengagement,” Katja Wiech, from Oxford University, told the Guardian. “It helps people to reinterpret pain, and make it less threatening. These people felt safe by looking at the Virgin Mary, they felt looked after, so the whole context of the test changed for them.”

“There's no suggestion that this effect is specific to religion and we've not found the God blob in the brain. This is about the state of mind you can achieve,” said Wiech.

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A species of scorpion could help to cure some types of malignant brain tumour. The scorpion, which is found in the Middle East, uses a cocktail of toxins to kill its prey. Alongside these toxins, which act on nerve cells to paralyse the victim, the scorpion produces a peptide that is non-toxic to humans but is specifically attracted to cancerous tissue.

While the peptide itself does not affect a tumour, a radioactive molecule can be bound to the peptide so that the peptide takes the radiotherapy to the cancer. Radiation therapy has been used for many years to treat cancer as it prevents the speedy multiplication of cancer cells. However, it is considered something of a blunt tool given the unpleasant side-effects caused by the traditional method of delivery using radiation beams.

As the Telegraph reported this week, 59 people in trials last year had tumours injected directly with the radioactive peptide. Although all of the subjects have since died, those who were treated with the peptide survived on average three months longer than those who were not.

In new trials, begun in recent weeks at the University of Chicago in Illinois, US, scientists hope to discover whether the treatment can be delivered via the bloodstream to seek out tumours around the body.

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And finally it’s that time of year again – the Ig Nobel prizes are upon us. The annual award for research that “makes people laugh, then makes them think” is run by the humorous magazine the Annals of Improbable Research. The prizes reward serious research that has a hint of silliness.

Among this year’s winners are the biologists who discovered that slime moulds could make their way through mazes, the chemists who found that coca-cola is an effective spermicide, and the archaeologists who demonstrated that armadillos could very thoroughly damage an archaeological site.

Find out more about this year’s prizes from the BBC website.