In the news this week: Boeing proudly reveals its latest jumbo, common genetic link to bowel cancer found, planet-hunters get excited and why cows are the latest adversary of the climate campaigners…

The US aviation company, Boeing, has unveiled their first new plane since 1995 amid ambitious environmental claims and promises of a more comfortable flying experience. A crowd of 15,000 gathered at the company’s plant in Everett, Washington state on Sunday to see the new plane presented to the world’s media.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a midsize, long haul jet made of 50% carbon composite materials and 15% titanium rather than the traditional aluminium. This means it is more durable and weighs less than an aluminium plane of the same size so should therefore be more fuel efficient. Lighter engines mean that it should emit 20 per cent less CO2 than its predecessor, the 767.

Boeing says that its new jet will offer passengers a respite from the physical malaise usually associated with long haul flying by keeping the air in the cabin more oxygen rich and less dry than usual. The air pressure will be set to 6000 metres above sea level, 2000 meters lower than the industry standard. The use of composite materials means that the air in the cabin can be more comfortably humid as carbon is less susceptible to corrosion than aluminium. The windows and lighting have been designed to allow simulation of night and day in an attempt to reduce jet lag. 

There is a concern that any environmental benefits the new plane might bring could be outweighed by an increase in the number of people flying as the fuel efficiency translates into cheap tickets. Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust described the 787 to BBC News as a ‘“major step forward” but not the sole solution to aviation emissions’. 

Nonetheless, Boeing has received 677 orders for the new jet from 47 customers, worth about $100 billion. The first test flights are scheduled for the end of the summer.

Scientists have discovered a new genetic variant that increases the risk of developing bowel cancer by 20 per cent. The gene is carried by about half the population of the UK. During any individual’s lifetime the probability of developing the disease is 1 in 20 but this rises to 1 in 16 if the person has inherited the gene.

Bowel cancer is the third most prevalent type of cancer in the UK with 35,000 people diagnosed each year and 16,100 of those dying from it. A third of those cancers are thought to have a genetic connection with the rest being down to poor diet and lifestyle factors. Genetic variants have been identified before but these have been much rarer with less than 5% of people being carriers.

Scientists trawled through 30,000 people’s genomes, looking for genes that were faulty more often in sufferers than in the general population. The results were published in the online journal, Nature Genetics, on Sunday.

Professor Ian Tomplinson from Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute said: ‘This is an important step but we still have a long way to go before we have a complete picture of all the genes that are involved in inherited bowel cancer’.

Eventually, it is hoped that this discovery will yield a diagnostic test that will identify an individual’s likelihood of developing the cancer and enable the development of treatments able to prevent those genetically predisposed from succumbing to the disease, the Daily Telegraph reported.

On Wednesday, scientists from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire published their response to the few remaining sceptics that seek to deny that human activity is responsible for climate change. The main counter argument was publicly put forward in the controversial Channel 4 documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ in March.

The alternative idea is based on the Solar or Cosmic Ray Hypothesis. Cosmic rays are high energy particles produced by the Sun. These travel through space to Earth, where they cause cloud formation by providing a surface for water vapour to condense on. Clouds reflect some of the Sun’s energy back into space, helping to keep the planet cool. The Sun’s magnetic field shields the Earth from these particles but is itself subject to fluctuation. During times of a strong field, there are fewer clouds and so it follows that the Earth’s temperature should rise, providing humanity a convenient get out of jail free card.

This idea has been disproved by new work that compared graphs of average global surface temperature, that show an average increase of 0.2 degrees Celsius per year, with those of solar output and cosmic ray activity for the last 30 to 40 years, reports BBC News. During most of the twentieth century the solar output increased but from 1985 onwards this was reversed as the Sun’s magnetic field started to decrease in strength. If the hypothesis was correct then temperatures should mirror this trend but instead, over the last twenty years we have seen the fastest increase of global temperatures this century.

Mike Lockwood from the Rutherford team told the Guardian: ‘The temperature record is simply not consistent with any of the solar forcings that people are talking about’.

A link between the number of moles on your body and whether or not you’re likely to reach a ripe old age was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. Scientists at the Twin Research Unit at King’s College, London studied 1800 pairs of twins and found that those with a high number of moles also had longer telomeres, the standard biological marker for aging.

Telomeres are bundles of DNA that protect our chromosomes. They shorten with age leaving our chromosomes vulnerable to disintegration. Moles tend to appear in childhood and disappear in middle age. The average number of moles found on white skin is 30 but can be as many as 400.

The scientists split the twins into two groups, those with more than 100 moles and those with less than 25. The ‘moley’ group was found to have a biological age of six to seven years younger than those with fewer moles. Although people with lots of moles are at an increased risk of skin cancer, this seems to be counteracting by ‘susceptibility to fewer age-related diseases such as heart disease and osteoporosis. Further studies are needed to confirm this’, said Veronique Bataille, leader of the study. Read more about this story in the Independent.

The search for extra-terrestrial life is looking a whole lot more credible this week after the discovery of water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our own solar system, reported the Times. The orbiting Nasa Spitzer Space Telescope has detected water vapour on the planet known as HD 189733b, part of the Vespecula the Fox constellation, 64 light years away from our Sun. It is unlikely that astronomers will find life on this particular “hot Jupiter” as any water will be vaporized by the boiling 2000 degrees Celsius temperatures and gaseous conditions render it a pretty hostile environment.

However, as Dr Giovana Tinetti from the UCL and European Space Agency team explained: ‘the discovery shows that water might be more common out there than previously thought, and our method can be used to study more life friendly environments’. She added that the prospect of finding an Earth-like planet is ‘the holy grail for today’s planet hunters’.

The Telegraph reported on Monday that the US National Research Council is recommending that the hunt for extra-terrestrials should be extended to include so called “weird” life. Micheal Meyer from Nasa said, ‘life is possible in different forms from those on Earth’ so scientists should be open minded and be on the look out for structures lacking DNA or those whose genetic makeup is based on arsenic instead of the usual phosphorus. In such exotic cases, ammonia or methane might act as the elixir of life instead of the elusive water.

In related news, amateur astronomers are being given the chance to do their bit to contribute to a stellar census. Visitors to the website Galaxy Zoo are being asked to spend a few minutes sorting the galaxies according to their shape. 

Other news in brief…

The food additive, E128, has been identified as a potential carcinogen by the European Food Safety Authority who say there is no safe daily limit. It is used as a dye to keep meat products, such as burgers and sausages, looking fresh. The Food Standards Agency is meeting with the UK’s meat producers before deciding what action to take.
(The Times)

Colourful birds seem to be more at risk from nuclear fallout than their duller counterparts, say ecologists studying the fauna around the Chernobyl plant, site of the 1986 disaster. The species most susceptible to the radiation seemed to be the ones that got the vibrant plumage from antioxidants, the Guardian reported.

The psychology of disgust could be used by supermarkets to maximize profits, the Independent reported. Scientists have found that placing innocuous items next to ones with a so called high yuck factor, such as mayonnaise and nappies, irrationally ‘contaminates’ them in the minds of consumers, making them less sellable.

Roboticists in Germany have built a bipedal ‘Runbot’ capable of teaching itself to walk up a hill, with an impressive top speed of three strides per second. The circuitry is based on a 1930 physiologist’s theory that walking is generally a subconscious process until an obstacle or change of terrain is encountered, reports BBC News. Runbot relies on reflex sensors and an accelerometer most of the time but switches to more complex circuitry when brain power is required.                     

In related news, the Telegraph reported that hospital “telerounds” made by robots seem to help speed up patient recovery time. A study at a hospital in Baltimore where surgeons could check up on patients and consult nurses via a video link up housed in a 6 ft tall, dynamic robot found that, on average, patients checked out a day earlier.

The fastest known rate of evolution has been observed in the blue moon butterfly in Samoa. Drastic action was needed after a parasite began killing off the males, skewing the sex ratio 99:1. The species responded with the proliferation of a gene that meant infected females would produce males until the ratio was stable again.
(The Independent)

And finally…

Flatulent cows and sheep are the latest targets in the fight against climate change as scientists propose a change of diet to reduce their methane gas emissions. Globally, a quarter of all ‘man-made’ methane gas is produced by grazing cows and sheep, and contrary to popular belief, it is the belching rather than that from the rear end that is the biggest problem.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming 20 times more than carbon dioxide does. An individual cow can produce between 100 and 200 litres of methane a day, reported the Times.

Researchers at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth have found that feeding animals on a diet of high sugar rye grass or legumes, such as white clover, can reduce the amount of methane they emit. It is thought that the more easily digestible the feed is, the less methane the bacteria in the livestock’s gut produce.