the-BA : Science News Digest

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In the news this week: the foot and mouth outbreak, the gas giant that could float on water and the demise of the Yangtze river dolphin. Plus, what the next generation of astronauts will be wearing...

Foot and mouth made an unwelcome return to the headlines this week when several outbreaks were reported in farms across Surrey. The news is a huge blow to the farming industry who can remember all too well the consequences of the last outbreak in 2001 which saw 2000 farms infected, pyres of burning carcasses littering the countryside and the loss of faith in British beef worldwide costing to the tune of £8bn.

Symptoms were first identified at Woolford farm near Guildford last Thursday and since then, two other farms in the vicinity have confirmed outbreaks. The government acted swiftly, calling in Cobra, the emergency planning committee, ordering the immediate culling of infected herds and a nationwide ban on the movement of livestock. The infected carcasses were transported to an incinerator rather than repeat the upsetting pyres of last time. A 3km radius ‘protection zone’ and a 10km ‘surveillance zone’ were imposed by Defra around the farms, reported the Daily Telegraph.

The strain of the virus has been identified as BFS67, a type not usually found in animals today but one isolated from the 1967 outbreak and since used in the manufacture of vaccines. The source of the virus is most probably the Merial Animal Health site at the Pirbright Laboratories 4 miles away from the infected area, the only location in the UK with a license to work with the virus. The pharmaceutical company, Merial Animal Health, had been developing a vaccine using this strain a few months ago for exportation but deny any breach of biosecurity.

To make a vaccine, scientists cultivate enough of the virus in the laboratory to provoke an immune reaction in animals. They then kill the virus without drastically altering its molecular structure so that it will still elicit an immune response but without doing any damage. It is this stage of the process that is most likely to have caused the outbreak. Professor John Oxford, a virologist from Barts and the Royal London hospitals explained in the Guardian: ‘It has proven quite difficult to kill the virus 100% ... It is a very hardy virus. [In this case] it could have produced a bit of infection in their [Merial's] own animals, which then spread to the farm.’

If the lab is confirmed as the source, it gives hope that these three cases might be the extent of the outbreak as any strain intended for development of a vaccine would be less virulent than a wild kind.

This week also saw the first extinction of a large vertebrate at the hands of humans for fifty years. Scientists are calling the extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin a ‘shocking tragedy’ and conclude that it was not a result of sustained persecution but of accidental, careless behaviour. It is thought that unregulated fishing is mainly to blame for the species’ demise.

Researchers carried out an extensive visual and acoustic study of the dolphin’s natural habitat, the freshwater rivers of China, but could not find any signs of life. The dolphin was the last remaining member of the branch of mammals that split from porpoises, whales and other dolphins about 20 million years ago, reported BBC News.

In more positive news, European-wide conservation initiatives have helped re-establish populations of rare birds in Britain, says the largest ever survey of international conservation policy. Data from over 10,000 scientists and amateur birdwatchers was collected over 21 years and has shown that at least twenty bird species, including the kingfisher and the cormorant, are on the increase in the UK. Conservation measures included outlawing egg poaching, trapping and hunting of certain species and the imposing of special protection areas, making governments directly responsible for the protection of the habitat. Read more in the Guardian.

It may be twice the size of Jupiter but it could still float on water, is the description of the latest discovery from the Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey. The planet hunters think they have found a huge gas giant with a surprisingly low mass, meaning that its density is comparable to that of cork. The planet, known as TrS-4, orbits its parent star which is part of the Hercules constellation 1,435 light years from Earth. The astronomers were able to deduce the presence of the planet by observing the reduction in brightness of its star as the planet passed in front of it. The planet is relatively close to its star, rendering its surface an uncomfortable 1,327 degrees Celsius and meaning that one year, the time taken for one complete orbit, lasts only 3.55 Earth days.

Its sheer size is a bit of a conundrum for astronomers as it doesn’t fit into their standard model for typical gas giants. Francis O’Donovan, a graduate student in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, explained in the Daily Telegraph: ‘We continue to be surprised by how relatively large these giant planets can be. But if we can explain the sizes of these bloated planets in their harsh environments, it may help us better understand our own solar system’s planets and their formation.’

What with the smoking ban, the traffic light system coding food according to its health content, and proposed legislation to reduce alcohol consumption reaching every class, some might call Britain a nanny state. But what good does all this lecturing do if the advice falls on deaf ears? A report published by Cancer Research UK this week shows that many cancers that could be avoided with sensible lifestyle choices are on the increase, reported the Times.
One in four of all deaths can be attributed to some form of cancer, with skin cancer rates increasing by 40 per cent over the last decade as we increasingly become a nation of sun-worshippers. Sara Hiom of Cancer Research UK said: ‘We’re very concerned that cases of malignant melanoma are spiralling. Exposure to UV radiation in sunlight is the main cause of skin cancer. Most cases of this disease could be prevented if people protected themselves in the sun and took care not to burn.’

Also on the rise are womb, kidney and mouth cancers. Mouth cancer is a direct result of smoking or chewing tobacco and drinking alcohol. The actual cause of womb cancer is still unknown but overweight people are twice as likely to suffer. The risk of kidney cancer also increases if you are obese and smoke cigarettes. The prevalence of these cancers could be cut simply by living more healthily. Dr Hiom also advised people ‘to get to know their bodies and see their doctor if they notice anything unusual and attend screening when invited,’ as with early diagnosis the chance of being cured is much more likely.

Whilst one third of all cancers can be linked to smoking, lung cancer rates are declining, especially in men. Cervical cancer rates are also down as a result of the screening programme.

No, this isn’t a Harry Potter story, its theoretical physics, which has had a good week with advances in both the fields of levitation and time travel. Physicists at the University of St Andrew’s have discovered a way to reverse the Casimir force, causing levitation at the nano-level and enabling the production of more efficient nano-machines.

The Casimir force or ‘sticky quantum force’ is a quantum effect first postulated in 1948 and demonstrated in 1997. It describes the attraction between two very small objects; it is the reason geckos can scale walls with their ‘sticky’ feet. However, it is actually a rather troublesome effect when working at the nanoscale as it is the dominant force between two neutral conductors. It causes the components to stick together, increasing the friction between the moving parts and wasting energy. Researchers have found they can reverse this force using a lens that bends light in the opposite way to normal so that the objects repel each other. This means that the components of the nano-machines appear to levitate and will be useful in the production of things like car air-bags.

Professor Leonhardt told the Times: ‘The Casimir force is the ultimate cause of friction in the nano-world...Micro or nano-machines could run with little or no friction if one can manipulate the force.’ Unfortunately for all the budding wizards out there, the force drops off rapidly with distance so does not work on large objects, like humans.

Also this week, Professor Amos Ori of the Technion –Israel Institute of Technology has outlined a theoretical framework for a time machine, published in the prestigious journal the Physical Review. Amid a quagmire of general relativity and the warping of spacetime, is the idea that any material could be made into a time machine as long as it sufficiently long to bend spacetime into a loop. One of the arguments against time travel was that it would require ‘exotic’, negative-density matter to produce temporal loops. Prof. Ori has shown that this is not the case, reported the Daily Telegraph.

The discovery of two hominid fossils in Kenya is forcing a rethink of our evolutionary ancestry, reported BBC News. Before the find, the accepted chronology was that the hominid, known as homo habilis, evolved into homo eretus which then became modern man. The discovery of a 1.44 million-year-old broken jaw bone thought to belong to habilis and an intact erectus skull in the Turkana basin region throws this into question.

The fossils seem to indicate that, rather than one becoming the other, they might have been ‘sister species’, coexisting for about 500,000 years. The fact that they lived alongside each other for that length of time means that they must have carved out ‘distant ecological niches’ to be sufficiently different so as not to compete for resources. Scientists hypothesize that they shared a common ancestor but split off from each other about 2 to 3 million years ago, with habilis more the scavenger and erectus the hunter.

The original theory has not been completely abandoned. Some think that habilis could have evolved into erectus in an isolated part of Africa, away from the Turkana basin and then after an extended period of time, erectus migrated into the region still occupied by its more primitive forebears. If the time period before their intermingling was long enough, erectus would have developed its own characteristics different enough to prevent competition. Fred Spoor of UCL and one of the authors described the alternative theory as ‘a much more complex proposition. The easiest way to interpret these fossils is that there was an ancestral species that gave rise to both of them somewhere between two and three million years ago.’

Graceful, fluid and natural are not words usually associated with robots but now a team from the University of Tokyo is challenging that with their life size ‘dancebot’. The 1.5m tall, 58kg robot known as HRP-2 or Promet, is capable of imitating human dance moves surprisingly well and could be used to preserve traditional dances for future generations as the performers die out.

The scientists used video capture techniques to record human dancers performing the Japanese folk dance, Aizu Bandaisan, they then converted the moves into robotic limb movements and fed the instructions into Promet. The robot is adept at keeping up with the latest upper body dance moves but struggles with anything more complex than raising its foot with its bottom half. It has a tendency to destabilise and fall over, preventing it from copying some of the more ‘leggy’ dances found over here such as Irish or Morris dancing.

The technology holds promise for the further automation of factory production lines but those worried about robots taking over science fiction style shouldn’t be too concerned yet. Prof Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield explains in the Guardian: ‘It is not a thinking intelligent robot. What you have got is a set of processes that translate human movement into joint movements for a robot. That is it’.

Other news in brief,

If you want to ensure your family name continues, have children young, make a lot of money and go to university, says new research. A US survey has found that women in ‘good condition’ bear more sons than daughters. Scientists speculate that women live longer and are just better at surviving than men, ensuring the continuation of the genetic line in more hostile environments. The study of 50 million people carried out by the University of Columbia used the ‘largest and most detailed data set yet employed.’ Read more in the Daily Telegraph.

Doctors from the University of Amsterdam recommend giving high risk children as young as eight the anti-cholesterol drugs, statins, to reduce their chance of a heart attack. Children with the genetic condition, familial hypercholesterolemia, have raised levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol in their blood from birth, and one in twenty develops heart disease by the age of 30. No serious side effects were found and larger trials have been scheduled, reported the Independent.

And finally…

The latest in space fashion – the bulky, Michelin Man-esque look is so last century, the svelte BioSuit is where it’s at. Scientists at MIT, funded by Nasa, are designing the next generation of space wear, reported the Times. The design criteria includes improved agility for space walks and fast repair of equipment, the ability for the wearer to run and jump, and a material able to withstand debris showers and temperatures ranging from 135 to –82 degrees Celsius.

The existing suit weighs in at 300lbs and is made up of 14 layers. Professor Dava Newman of MIT described it as: ‘a gas-pressurised shell... a balloon with multiple layers. It’s very difficult to work.’ The new design is made up of a rigid inner skeleton with a nylon, spandex and ‘shape memory polymer’ hybrid material stretched over the top. The traditional oxygen-filled helmet will still be used, leaving the wearer looking rather more like an old fashioned scuba diver or high altitude fighter pilot than your typical astronaut.

It is hoped the suits will be ready for use when the US returns to the moon in 2018.