TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Stanley]

See this LINK for reports that injections of 'young blood' could halt ageing and Altzheimer's. Why does this look a bit like snake oil therapy to me?

[Tizer]

Quick, lock up your children!

[Stanley]

See this LINK for a report that says that the anti-oxidants in red wine and dark chocolate aren't as effective as was supposed. Oh dear.....!
Another LINK for the latest research into sleep. I agree with everything they say, the best healer there is!

[Stanley]

Fascinating research reveals the influence of solar winds on the incidence of lightning strikes on Earth. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27406358) Did you know that an estimated 24,000 people are killed by lightning strikes around the world each year and about 240,000 are injured?

[Stanley]

See this LINK for a report on what is a quite understandable element of doubt in the accuracy of scientific research raised by the news of the revision of the papers on the side effects of statins. It has been pounced on by the climate change deniers who are suggesting that the same thing may be going on in that field of research. In both cases, it doesn't bring absolute clarity or alter quite legitimate research on one side or the other. However, it muddies the waters and this is a boon for anyone trying to put forward an unsupported but contrary view to well established science. Good research will of course win out in the end but there could be collateral damage if it enables some people to shove their heads even deeper in the sand.

[Tizer]

This highlights the major problem we now have with the mismatch between science and the news media. Both instances are examples of the normal way science progresses, with claims made by one group and then confirmed or refuted by others. When a published paper is retracted it's because the wider scientific community has requested it after much consideration and further analysis of the data. No scientific research is ever complete, instead it gets refined with time and as more powerful techniques become available and our knowledge increases. The trouble is that the news media now want to make stories based on every scientific publication that suits their newspaper publisher's agenda so they present the refining process as an `embarrassing climbdown' or evidence of attempts to mislead. It's now becoming impossible to carry on scientific research without the media breathing down your neck and jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

[Stanley]

I'll bet that Galileo had the same problem....

[Stanley]

See this LINK for a newly discovered peat bog the size of England in the Congo. It escaped notice for so many years because it was covered with vegetation and classified simply as bog. It is now known it contains billions of tons of peat which has been doing a good job for perhaps 10,000 years storing carbon ....

[Tizer]

"..a newly discovered peat bog the size of England in the Congo."
The Chinese will probably buy it and export the peat to China to fuel their industry.

[Tizer]

A very good article on the various aspects, good and bad, of the element nitrogen and its compounds, on the BBC web site:
`Nitrogen: The bringer of life and death'
"Nitrogen is one of the most paradoxical elements in the periodic table. Flames are extinguished and animals die in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen - so it was once known as "azote", Greek for "lifeless". And yet this colourless, odourless gas, making up 78% of the atmosphere, has a highly explosive nature. For mankind nitrogen is the bringer of life - and death - on an epic scale....".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/27731291

[Stanley]

I suppose those same arguments apply to many elements. Think of Oxygen Narcosis or people dying from drinking too much water. Tiny doses of Nitro Glycerine were used to treat heart diseases.... Strychnine as a heart stimulant.

[Tizer]

There's been news of further progress recently in projects to develop a new source of rubber...dandelions! Here's a press report from October 2013 that provides some of the background but similar work is going on in the USA.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 114547.htm

You can make your own rubber as describe here:
http://www.scienceprojectideas.co.uk/ma ... elion.html

[Stanley]

I like the idea of dandelion rubber!
See THIS for latest report on the incidence of Type 2 Diabetes. Worrying stuff actually and in my view almost totally related to the deterioration in the average diet.

[Tizer]

..and a lady on the Today programme was saying we eat too much fat! An outdated attitude, blaming fat doesn't help. It's too easy to promote the idea that fat in the diet makes us fat when the problem is more complex.

[Stanley]

A good example of the way the lobbying power of the food industry has distorted nutritional advice for the last 20+ years. I wonder how many lives it has cost?

[Stanley]

See this LINK for a Guardian report on the discovery by US scientists of immense quantities of water trapped deep in the earth's crust.

[Tizer]

See this LINK for a Guardian report on the discovery by US scientists of immense quantities of water trapped deep in the earth's crust.

All to do with the mineral ringwoodite and you heard it first on OGFB! But not on this latest version of OG, I wrote about it on the earlier one but I can't access it there now. What a pity, there must be lots of interesting stuff on those old pages if they still exist somewhere in cyberspace!

[Stanley]

We will build it all up on here as we go on Tiz.

[Tizer]

BBC News, 19 June 2014
Bacteria 'bricklayer' protein set for attack
Scientists have found a new route to attack antibiotic-resistant bacteria by blocking the mechanism they use to build their exterior coating. The bugs construct this defensive barrier in a complex process that depends on a key dual-protein molecule. Its structure has been mapped using the intense X-rays of the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire. Researchers tell the journal Nature that drugs can now be developed to interfere with this LptDE protein....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27907461

[Stanley]

Sounds like an imaginative approach. Could it stave off the impending failure of conventional antibiotics?

[Tizer]

BBC News
`Swarm mission makes magnetic maps'
Europe's Swarm space mission has begun making maps of Earth's magnetic field. Data just released shows how the field generated in the planet's liquid outer core varies in strength over the course of a few months. Swarm's early assessment appears to support the prevailing view that this magnetic cloak in general is weakening. Many experts believe it heralds a flip in the poles, where north becomes south and vice versa, although it would take thousands of years to complete....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27941557
(I hope it takes thousands of years to begin!)

[Tripps]

I've heard on the media today that billions of years ago a very dense (!) object about the size of a marble went bang, and in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, expanded, faster than the speed of light, to the size of the present universe, and led to the existence all the matter we can see today - galaxies etc. All from one marble! Everyone seems very impressed with this research, and there is talk of a Nobel Prize. All the commentators received the news with awe and respect. I doubt any understood what was being said.

Sorry for being flippant - I can't help it - but I don't believe a word of it.

Looks like I might have been on the right lines. Can't help noticing that the odd 'trillionth' seems to be adift.

Big Bang

[Tizer]

Big Bang...as the report says, "..What ensued was a rare example of the scientific process — sharp elbows, egos and all — that played out the last three months." There's nothing that scientists like better than proving their colleagues to be wrong!
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More confirmation is emerging that the neonicotinoid pesticides are reducing bee populations...
Widespread impacts of neonicotinoids 'impossible to deny' BBC News, 24 June 2014
Neonicotinoid pesticides are causing significant damage to a wide range of beneficial species and are a key factor in the decline of bees, say scientists. Researchers, who have carried out a four-year review of the literature, say the evidence of damage is now "conclusive". The scientists say the threat to nature is the same as that once posed by the notorious chemical DDT....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27980344

[PanBiker]

Hey farmer farmer,
Put away the DDT now,
Give me spots on my apples,
But leave me the birds and the bees, please,
On and on we seem to go,
But we don't know what we've got till it's gone,
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot....

[Stanley]

That's how it seemed to me when it was first mentioned as a cause of sudden colony death... I hope someone takes notice now!
Just been listening to Jim Al-Khalili talking to a nice lady who researches the genetics of plants in the potato/tomato/tobacco family. I was struck by what she said about the influence of humanity on the world's flora and fauna. She said that when homo sapiens emerged out of Africa they spread like an invasive weed destroying everything they came across. I think that about sums it up! ( it fits in nicely with the previous topic actually....)