the-BA : Science News Digest

by Berwyn Jones

In the science news this week: NASA confirms there is water on Mars, a hidden Van Gogh portrait is revealed, and scientists turn water into rocket fuel. Plus, bumblebees help fight crime...

A new drug for Alzheimer’s has been shown to be twice as effective as current drugs for slowing the progress of the disease. The drug, called Rember, slowed mental decline by 81 per cent.

Rember works by targeting a protein called Tau, which helps brain cells retain their structure and communicate. In people with dementia, Tau proteins become tangled and this tangling kills brain cells. Rember dissolves the tau fibres and reduces the build-up of tangles.

The study, carried out by a team of scientists from Aberdeen University, involved 321 people with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s. After 50 weeks, the mental decline in patients that had taken the drug was 81 per cent less than in patients that had taken the placebo. After 19 months, patients on Rember had still not experienced a significant decline in their mental function whereas those on the placebo had.

Although the study has caused widespread excitement, scientists concede that more research is needed. The team is hoping to complete a much larger trial next year and, if successful, the drug could be available by 2012.

(Read more at the Guardian)
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NASA has confirmed that there is water on Mars, reports the Guardian. The space agency’s Phoenix lander found ice in a soil sample taken from a five-centimetre deep trench.

Although many scientists have believed in the presence of ice for a while, this is the first direct evidence of water on the Red Planet. Scientists now hope to analyse the sample to see whether Mars is, or ever was, capable of supporting life.

It is third time lucky for the Phoenix lander after its first two attempts to transfer soil to its on-board laboratory failed. On both occasions the soil became stuck in the scoop. On their third attempt, scientists decided to expose the sample to the air for two days in order to let some water vaporise. This made the sample easier to handle and it was successfully loaded.

NASA has now extended the 90-day mission by five weeks. ‘Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars’, said Michael Meyer, chief scientist on the programme.
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The Independent reports that scientists have devised a cheap and simple way of turning water into rocket fuel by the use of solar panels.

The process involves using electricity from solar panels to split water into oxygen and hydrogen – the components of rocket fuel. Scientists can then use these to produce hydrogen fuel cells.

This means that scientists can covert solar energy into a chemical fuel which can be stored and transported. It could be used to power buildings at night and could even be carried around to power electric vehicles running on hydrogen fuel cells. This would revolutionise the use of solar energy and could position it as a viable green alternative to fossil fuels such as oil and gas.

Although the process of using solar panels to split water has been around for a while, the new development is the use of a catalyst that speeds up the conversion of water into high-energy fuel. The water is split by electrodes submerged into it, and scientists found that using electrodes made from a cobalt-phosphate mixture sped up the conversion of water into oxygen and hydrogen.
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Scientists have produced ‘marathon mice’ that, after taking a certain drug, can run non-stop for over two hours, covering almost a mile.

Researchers found that the drug triggered an endurance gene and allowed the mice to run for up to 44 per cent longer than usual. Scientists bred similar ‘marathon mice’ a few years ago by genetic engineering, but this is the first time that a drug has been used to the same effect.

Dr Ronald Evans, who carried out the study, believes the drug works by tricking muscles into 'believing' that they are being exercised daily. ‘It's basically the couch potato experiment, and it proves you can have a pharmacologic equivalent to exercise,’ he said.

Instead of building muscles, likes steroids do, the drug works by ‘reprogramming’ slow twitch fibres in the muscles, enabling them to work for longer without getting tired.

The team from Salk Institute in California hope that one day the research could help people with muscle wasting conditions such as muscular dystrophy. They are also aware of its possible misuse in sport and have already developed a method of detecting the presence of the drug in blood and urine.

(Read more at the Telegraph)
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Scientists using high-intensity x-rays have revealed a previously unseen portrait by Vincent Van Gogh, which he had painted over.

The portrait of a peasant was hidden behind the artist’s ‘Patch of Grass’ painting. Scientists from Delft University and the University of Antwerp used a particle accelerator to scan the painting and reveal the face.

The new technique, where the canvas was bombarded with x-rays, caused atoms in the picture’s layers of paint to emit ‘fluorescent’ x-rays of their own. Analysis of the emitted x-rays enabled scientists to discover the original chemicals the painting was made from. They were then able to use this information to generate a colour map of the hidden painting.

(Read more at BBC News)
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An ancient Greek ‘computer’ which was used to calculate the movements of the sun, moon and planets may be linked to the great Archimedes, scientists have revealed.

Researchers used three-dimensional x-ray imaging to decipher a number of previously unseen inscriptions on the machine. These contained the names of months used in a particular calendar of north western Greece and Sicily, which was used by Archimedes.

The machine, the earliest known mechanism to use geared wheels, has been dated to around 150BC and Archimedes is believed to have died in 212BC. Hence, although scientists do not believe the machine is his work, they believe that he may have inspired it. ‘We know Archimedes did mechanical astronomy here 100 years earlier and this could be from his home city, it could have been inspired by his work, or it could have been a local tradition that he started,’ said Alexander Jones, one of the researchers who examined fragments of the machine.

Studies of the machine, which was found over a hundred years ago in a shipwreck off the tiny Greek island of Antikythera, also found a sporting calendar that displayed the cycle of the Olympics.

(Read more at the Guardian)
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Scientists have turned the skin cells of two sisters suffering from motor neurone disease into the same kind of cells that the disease is destroying, reports the Independent.

This raises the possibility of replacing the cells being destroyed by the disease with the transformed cells, to offset the degenerative condition. Researchers transformed the skin cells by reprogramming them back to their original embryonic state before growing them into specialised motor neurons.

Although a cure for motor neurone disease is still a distant dream, scientists believe that this is a substantial step in the fight against it. ‘No one has ever managed to isolate these neurons from a patient and grow them in a dish’, said Professor Kevin Eggan, who led the study. ‘Now we can make limitless supplies of the cells that die in this awful disease. This will allow us to study these neurons in a lab dish and figure out what's happening.’
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And finally…

BBC News reports on how the way bumblebees search for food could help police track down serial killers.

A team of scientists from the University of London have discovered that the way bumblebees avoid foraging for food near their hive is similar to the way murderers avoid killing near their homes. The bees create a ‘buffer zone’ around their hive where they will not forage for food, and this helps prevent predators and parasites from discovering their nest. A similar ‘buffer zone’ is often used by murderers.

‘Most murders happen close to the killer's home, but not in the area directly surrounding a criminal's house, where crimes are less likely to be committed because of the fear of getting caught by someone they know,’ Dr Nigel Raine, a scientist on the team, explains.

The team tracked the bumblebees’ movements by tagging them with tiny coloured numbers. They hope that future experiments could be used to improve crime solving techniques. Instead of using the location of flowers to predict the bees’ behaviour, they hope that the location of robberies, stolen cars and even dead bodies could predict the behaviour of a murderer.

The BBC article was written by Jennifer Carpenter, one of this year’s BA Media Fellows. The Fellowships provide work placements for scientists with a national press, broadcast or internet journalist. During placements of between 3 and 8 weeks Fellows learn to work within the conditions and constraints of the media to produce accurate and well informed pieces about developments in science.

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