the-BA : Science News Digest - 29 September 2006

Science stories in the news this week: new figures report dramatic increases in cases of breast cancer and diabetes, a genetic 'search engine' will let doctors match drugs to diseases, and a new stem cell breakthrough uses dead embryos. Plus, athletically gifted women could be identified by their fingers, Richard Branson unveils the new Virgin Galactic flagship and why promiscuous queens make healthier hives.

Dominating the front page of the Independent on Friday is the story that breast cancer cases have hit a new record, according to official figures, and the increase shows no sign of slowing. A total of 36,939 women were diagnosed in England in 2004, an 81 per cent increase in the incidence of the cancer since 1971, after statistical adjustment for the ageing of the population. Over the year, 41,000 cases were diagnosed in the UK. Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in the UK, even though it principally affects only one gender (there are a few hundred cases each year in men). One woman in nine now develops breast cancer but lifestyle factors, including diet, obesity and family size could account for only half of the increase, and exposure to pesticides and other carcinogens in the environment must be investigated, said the charity Breast Cancer UK.

The Telegraph reports that there were 100,000 new cases of diabetes in England in the past year as the epidemic of obesity continued. Figures released on Thursday show that the number of cases, mostly of Type 2 diabetes, went up from 1,766,000 to more than 1,890,00. This represents a rise in prevalence of diabetes from 3.3 per cent of the population to 3.6 per cent. Another 750,000 people are estimated to be diabetic but are not diagnosed. The figures come from doctors' performance data for 2005-06. "The problem is getting worse all the time," said Douglas Smallwood, the chief executive of Diabetes UK.

New York's health authorities want to force the city's 24,000 eateries to drastically slash the levels of trans fat used in kitchens, due to concerns over heart disease, reports New Scientist. The city’s health department proposed a new health code on Wednesday that, if implemented, would give restaurants six months to switch to oils, margarines and shortening that have less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. In effect, restaurants would then have until 1 July 2008 to ensure that everything on their menu has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, per serving.

The Guardian reports that scientists working at a British laboratory have achieved one of the most controversial breakthroughs ever made in the field of stem cell science by taking cells from dead embryos and turning them into living tissue. The breakthrough has been hailed by many scientists and ethical experts because it could circumvent opposition to stem cell experiments. The work of Professor Miodrag Stojkovic, the researcher who carried out the experiments at the Centre for Stem Cell Biology at Newcastle University last year, suggests that it may be possible to avoid using live embryos as a source of stem cells; instead, scientists could use those that have died naturally during IVF. It would also mean that many more embryos were available for research and the eventual treatment of diseases, speeding up advancements in the cutting-edge science.

A powerful tool for finding the right drug to treat a particular disease has been invented by scientists who believe it could revolutionise the way new medicines are developed, reports the Independent. The researchers have likened the approach to an internet search engine which is able to sift through masses of data to find the best match between the attributes of a drug and the symptoms of a disease. The approach has been called a "connectivity map" because it directs scientists towards the connections that can link drugs to various diseases, said Todd Golub, director of the cancer programme at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

Multinational drug companies have been lobbying ministers in an attempt to subvert the independent appraisal process and get their expensive new medicines approved for large-scale use in the NHS, reveals the Guardian. Over the eight months from October to May this year, senior executives from 10 drug companies met ministers to press for favourable decisions on their products. The executives were highly critical of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), an independent expert body set up to decide which drugs are cost-effective for use in the NHS.

The Times reports that girls with the potential to become the next Paula Radcliffe or Kelly Holmes could be identified at a young age by examining the length of their fingers, according to researchers. The most athletically gifted women are more likely to have ring fingers longer than their index fingers, according to a study that could add a new element to talent spotting in sport. On a typical female hand, the index finger is longer than the ring finger or about the same size, whereas men usually have a longer ring finger. This is widely thought to reflect differences in the body’s exposure and response to the male hormone testosterone.

As BBC News reports that the first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, has landed on the Kazakh steppe after a journey back from the International Space Station, Sir Richard Branson has unveiled a mock-up of the rocket-powered vehicle that will carry more paying clients into space through his Virgin Galactic business. The Virgin spaceships are designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of about 140km on a sub-orbital space flight and are based on SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately built vehicle to reach space in 2004. Tickets for a Virgin Galactic space flight are expected to cost £100,000 but the firm’s president, Will Whitehorn, said it was in negotiations over a reality TV show that would allow contestants to compete to win a place on a flight.

BBC News reports that the famous smile on Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa could be because she is pregnant or had just had a baby, research suggests. Canadian scientists used laser and infrared scans to produce a 3D image of the painting. This allowed details beneath layers of paint to be seen - including a gauzy dress then associated with pregnant or new mothers. The scans, using a resolution 10 times finer than a human hair, showed the 500-year-old picture was in good condition, but did reveal some warping to the wooden back of the painting.

The Guardian reports that French surgeons have performed the first operation on a person in weightless conditions. In the 10-minute procedure on Wednesday, four doctors cut out a cyst from a patient's arm aboard a free-falling aircraft. The experiments will help to develop surgical procedures for astronauts aboard the International Space Station, and, further in the future, for longer missions to the moon and Mars.

BBC News reports that the world is the warmest it has been in the last 12,000 years as a result of rapid warming over the past 30 years, according to a study by scientists at NASA, Columbia University and the University of California Santa Barbara. NASA climatologists said the Earth had warmed by about 0.2C (0.4F) in each of the last three decades. Pollution from human activity was pushing the world towards dangerous levels of climate change, they warned and as a result, plant and animal species were struggling to migrate fast enough to cooler regions. "The evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made pollution," warned James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York.

Science Now has announced the completion of a Web-based brain atlas which will help biologists trying to understand which genes are active in specific neural regions. Experts say the map will accelerate the search for drugs to treat psychiatric illnesses and help address fundamental questions about the development and function of different brain structures. Funded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen, the brain atlas project took 3 years and $40 million to complete and analyzed over 250,000 slices of mouse brain to determine which of the 21,000 or so known mouse genes are turned on in the brain, as well as where and to what extent.

Following the discovery, highlighted earlier this month in Science News Digest, of Neanderthal remains inside a cave in Gibraltar, the Independent reports that French and Belgian archaeologists have found proof that mankind's closest relatives were living in near-tropical conditions, hunting rhinoceros and elephant, close to what is now France's Channel coast 125,000 years ago. No traces of Neanderthal activity have previously been found in north-west Europe during this period - a 15,000-year interval between two ice ages.

The Telegraph reports that Britain may have become an island after a Biblical-style flood split it from Europe in less than 24 hours, according to new geological research. The flood would have taken place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, sweeping away hills between Britain and what is now France. The theory could rewrite British prehistory, as current text-books teach that Britain - once a peninsula of continental Europe - split from the great land mass after a long process of erosion and rises in sea levels.

Rising demand for sushi is helping to drive tuna stocks to the edge of collapse and could lead to the seasonal closure of fishing grounds, reports the Independent. Urgent intervention and stringent new controls are being called for by ministers from the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to preserve stocks of the fish which is being exploited to meet the consumer boom in healthy eating. The Government will press its demands at a meeting in November of Iccat, the intergovernmental commission on tuna preservation.

And in other news from the animal kingdom this week...

The Times reports that the lion’s mane, that magnificent ruff associated with vigour and virility, is a turn-off for lionesses, according to a study published in the Journal of Zoology. Zoologists have discovered that the more impressive the mane, the more likely lionesses are to turn away in favour of a balder mate. Far from being a guarantee of feline virility and strength, an impressive mane indicates to the females that the lion is past his prime. In human terms, a full mane is the equivalent of the way men’s noses and ears get hairier with age, with a predictable reduction in sexual magnetism. The findings overturn the assumption that the males’ manes were at their proudest when the lions were at their fittest, and suggests that Disney might want to think about remaking The Lion King.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh have found a "supergene" that paints the stripes, spots and rays on a surprisingly diverse range of butterflies, reports the Telegraph. The genetic study of a range of South American butterflies, published on Monday in the journal PLoS Biology, has found that the same molecular pattern-forming machinery is at work in three different species of Heliconius butterflies: Heliconius melpomene and Heliconius erato, which look the same, and Heliconius numata, which looks different. Butterfly wings provide an opportunity for scientists to understand how nature creates patterns and reveal how new species evolve, such as the non-poisonous butterflies that mimic the wings of poisonous types that birds avoid.

The Telegraph also reports that after years of suspicion, debate and rumour, scientists have at last solved the mystery of how tarantulas manage to climb without coming unstuck. Not only have they discovered a new way that some arachnids use to cling on to surfaces — using sticky silk secreted from their feet — they may have rewritten the history of spider silk, one of nature's super-materials. Most species of spider have claws or millions of specially shaped, microscopic hairs on their legs that, thanks to weak molecular forces, can help them climb all but the smoothest surface, such as a bath, or a steel clad building. Now a team reveals in the journal Nature why tarantulas are good climbers: they are silky-footed.

And finally…

New Scientist reports that the queens of bees, ants and wasps that indulge in the most promiscuous and lengthy sex marathons produce the healthiest colonies, according to a new study. Honeybee queens that mated with multiple drones were shown to foster bee hives with wider genetic variation, meaning they were much better able to fend off a debilitating disease, researchers found. Though honeybees naturally take 10 to 20 mates – beekeepers could help ensure hives are steeled against the ravages of disease by ensuring queens are as promiscuous as possible, perhaps through artificial insemination, says apiculturalist (bee expert) David Tarpy at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, US.

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