the-BA : Science News Digest

African Penguins line up (Image copyright: istockphoto.com)

In the science news this week: scientists match the cunning of the cold sore virus, endangered animals may be wiped out quicker than feared, and the biometric system that can pick up a penguin…

Scientists believe they may have unlocked the secret of how to banish cold sores. The unsightly, painful blemishes caused by herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) afflict millions of people. While the virus can be treated effectively by a drug when it is active and reproducing, it is able to go into hiding and escape eradication. The virus then lays dormant in the trigeminal facial nerve until something triggers a new attack – which usually occurs when the sufferer is run down.

Now, reports the Telegraph, researchers have discovered that a molecule called latency associated transcript RNA (LAT RNA) keeps the virus dormant by sending out molecular signals that block the production of proteins that cause the virus to multiply. After excessive sunlight, fever or other stresses, the virus makes more instructions to replicate than LAT RNA can block. It then starts to reproduce and travel down the trigeminal nerve to the site of the initial infection at the mouth.

The team from Duke University Medical Centre are now investigating the possibility that by blocking the action of LAT RNA you could force the virus to remain in an active state, vunerable to acyclovir – a drug that effectively kills replicating HSV1.

Professor Bryan Cullen of Duke, one of the team reporting the study in the journal Nature, said: ‘In principle, you could activate and then kill all of the virus in a patient. This would completely cure a person, and you would never get another cold sore.’ However, he stressed that it would be quite a while before anything reaches the clinic as they are only just beginning to do animal experiments.

The findings also provide a framework for studying other latent viruses such as the chicken pox virus that can cause shingles, and the genitally transmitted herpes simplex 2 virus.
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While it is commonly said, ‘you are what you eat’, new research suggests it may also be true that ‘you are what your mother ate’. Animal studies have revealed that even if they ate healthily themselves, the offspring of rats fed fatty, processed food during pregnancy and breastfeeding had high levels of fat in their bloodstream and around major organs even after adolescence, as well as an increased risk of diabetes.

Professor Neil Strickland, one of the researchers whose work featured in the Journal of Physiology, believes the results could also apply to people: ‘Humans share a number of fundamental biological systems with rats, so there is good reason to assume the effects we see in rats may be repeated in humans.’
(Read more at BBC News)
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A bleak reassessment of the threats to global biodiversity, published in Nature, has led scientists to warn that endangered species could become extinct 100 times faster than previously feared.

Researchers analysed mathematical models used to predict extinction risks and found that certain critical factors had been overlooked. For example, they failed to include the proportion of males compared to females in a population, and the differences in reproductive success between individuals in a group. These missing factors were found to be capable of causing large swings in population size – sometimes growth, but also increasing the risk of a population crash, reported the Guardian.

Brett Melbourne, an ecologist at the University of Colorado who conducted the study alongside Alan Hastings at the University of California, said: ‘Some species could have months instead of years left, while other species that haven’t even been identified as under threat yet should be listed as endangered.’
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Meanwhile, a chameleon has been awarded the dubious distinction of being the shortest-lived four-legged animal in the world, announced the Times.

The Madagascan lizard, Furcifer labordi, spends more time developing in an egg as an embryo than it does in the open air after hatching. After only four to five months, the entire adult population of chameleons die of old age within days of each other – never living to see their offspring born.

Zoologists who reported their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said that the lifecycle, while common among insects and plants, was unprecedented in four-limbed vertebrates and that the reptile was the first that could truly be described as an annual.
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Following a three-month consultation, the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s executive council announced their funding review outcome, agreeing the budget to 2011.

The prospect of funding cuts has caused uproar among the UK astronomy and physics community since the start of the year and independent reviews into the state of UK physics funding and into the role of the STFC itself are expected to be concluded in the Autumn.

Areas that were deemed low priority and will lose funding in order to save £81 million (against a £1.975 billion budget) include the Integral space telescope and the Veritas observatory, which are both concerned with the investigation of gamma-ray light; and Bison, an observatory network for solar-terrestrial physics research. Other projects were identified as high priority for the UK. These included space telescopes that use infrared to image the Universe, and work on detecting gravitational waves.

Although the STFC acknowledged that certain decisions had been painful, their Chief Executive, Professor Keith Mason, stressed that there hadn’t been a squeeze on projects, and that the volume of projects going forward had remained the same. ‘What we are doing is losing old stuff at lower priority to do new stuff, and it is vital that we do new stuff to stay out in front,’ he said.
(Read more at BBC News)
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Other news in brief:

As we draw closer to the moment at which the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Geneva, is switched on, the Guardian has gathered together a range of news and comment articles on the largest scientific experiment of our time that has taken 20 years of preparation. Read more…
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The Independent and BBC News reflect on the events of 30 June 1908, when a fireball with the power of 185 Hiroshima bombs exploded over Siberia. The impact at Tunguska is the biggest from space in modern times, and thought to be caused by either an asteroid or comet about 120 feet across.

Scientists lobbying for more research to investigate the orbits of near-Earth objects say it serves as a stark reminder that objects from space can hit the Earth on a latitude that could kill millions of people, and that this has happened within living memory. Had it occurred over London, everything within the M25 would have been wiped out, says Dr Mark Bailey, Director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland.
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The French want the European Space Agency to become more like NASA, with a new politically-led direction, according to a senior French space policy official.
(BBC News)
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The Messenger space probe has provided new evidence that Mercury is shrinking. Cooling and solidification of the planet’s molten core means it may have lost around three miles from its 3,000 mile diameter during the course of its history, according to Nasa scientists.

The January flyby of the planet’s surface has also revealed that Mercury’s magnetic field is similar to Earth’s (produced by stirring of the molten core) rather than the Moon’s (caused by large deposits of iron acting like a giant bar magnet).
(The Telegraph)
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Stradivarius violins are said to produce unique sounds of unparalleled quality. Now, the mystery of why this is may have been solved. A study used a medical scanner to probe the wood density of five antique instruments and seven modern ones. It revealed that the two wooden panels used to make the body of the instrument have a more uniform density in the older violins. Use of the scanner enabled the density of the wood to be measured in a non-invasive way, rather than the usual water-submersion method that would be too damaging to apply to the valuable antiques.
(The Independent)
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And finally…

Physicists get up to all sorts of things – Professor Peter Barham at the University of Bristol has developed a Penguin Recognition System that aims to make it easier to keep track of thousands of near-identical African penguins. The technology could also be used to track other species such as cheetahs and sharks.

The system works by detecting unique markings on the penguins’ chests and using recognition software to analyse the patterns of these spots to determine whether it is a bird it has seen before or a new one.

At the moment, ecologists have to capture and tag individual penguins, and then have to capture the animals again at a later date if they want to read the tag number to identify them. This is time intensive and error prone, says Professor Barham. ‘These bands have also been suggested to be damaging to some species and there is clear evidence that they are, possibly due to the wear of the feathers that they cause,’ he added. ‘We really wanted to find a way to automatically monitor these birds without harming them.’

The new method will enable ecologists to track the animals more accurately, leading to a better understanding of the animals – potentially even helping researchers to solve the mystery of how long penguins live.
(BBC News)

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