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Friday, December 13, 2013

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Video Game Therapy Proving Powerful for Stroke Patients (Op-Ed)

Lynne Gauthier is a neuroscientist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and she contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. There's a new video game out this year that can make a big difference in the lives of stroke patients. It's a therapeutic at-home gaming program, targeted for the 80 percent of stroke survivors who experience motor weakness. Constraint-induced movement therapy (CI therapy) is an intense treatment recommended for stroke survivors.

Where Are the Autopilot Lanes for Driverless Cars? (Op-Ed)

They contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights as part of their new LiveScience series highlighting issues and developments in emerging technologies. What do Amazon's delivery drones, policy meetings on automotive information technology, Google's ongoing acquisition of robotics technologies and the decline of Detroit have to do with one another? After decades of optimistic (and ultimately failing) predictions, the everyday process of moving people and stuff around is about to be transformed by advances in mobile robotics and artificial intelligence. The big question now is no longer "will self-guided, or driverless vehicles become a reality?" Instead, the question is "when will driverless vehicles become reality, and what industries will lead the way?" The industry best poised to disrupt transportation is going to be the software industry, not the automotive industry.

Have People Really Killed Pests Too Rarely? (Op-Ed)

Marc Bekoff, emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is one of the world's pioneering cognitive ethologists, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Recently, my email inbox overflowed with messages about an anthropocentrically driven essay by David Von Drehle in the current issue of Time magazine titled "America's Pest Problem: It's Time to Cull the Herd." While I strongly disagree with the tone and take of this essay, because it appears in a widely read publication — much more widely read than any professional journal of which I'm aware — it is highly likely that this piece will be considerably more influential than evidenced-based essays for people who both agree and disagree with Von Drehle's conclusions. However, Von Drehle raises some very important issues and "hot" topics about which open discussion is essential.

Why Scientists are Concerned About Tree-Burning Power Plants (Op-Ed)

Sasha Lyutse is a policy analyst for the NRDC. Lyutse contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, 41 leading scientists sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calling on the agency to protect U.S. forests from the growing sucking sound created by biomass power plants. As power plants look for alternatives to fossil fuels, some are turning to burning wood or other plant materials — known as biomass — to generate electricity.

Why Flu Shots Are Up 3% from Last Year

As flu activity starts to rise in parts of the country, about 40 percent of Americans have already received a flu shot this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's about 3 percentage points higher than the percentage of people vaccinated by the same time last year, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "While many people are making a habit of getting a flu vaccine, far too many people remain unvaccinated," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said at a news conference today. Unlike last year, when flu season hit very early, this year's flu season hasn't taken off widely yet, "so it's not too late to get vaccinated," Schuchat said.

Element Essential for Life Found in Supernova Remains

Phosphorous — one of the essential elements for life — has been discovered in the cosmic leftovers from a star explosion for the first time, scientists say. The second discovery by a second team of scientists found traces of argon gas in a distant nebula. "These five elements are essential to life and can only be created in massive stars," said Dae-Sik Moon, a University of Toronto astronomer, in a statement. The research, led by Seoul National University astronomy Bon-Chul Koo, is detailed in the Dec. 12 edition of the journal Science along with the separate argon gas study.

Fear Makes Scary Scents Stronger

The finding was surprising, said study researcher John McGann, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The sensory neurons are at the very beginning of the circuit that enables the perception of smell, far outside of conscious control, and yet they "learn" to tune into scary smells. "The effects of learning can happen not just on behavior, but on sensory processing," McGann told LiveScience.

Scientists find water plumes shooting off Jupiter moon

By Irene Klotz SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show jets of water vapor blasting off the southern pole of Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter that is believed to hold an underground ocean, scientists said on Thursday. If confirmed, the discovery could affect scientists' assessments of whether the moon has the right conditions for life, planetary scientist Kurt Retherford, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope found 125-mile-high (200-km-high) plumes of water vapor shooting off from Europa's south polar region in December 2012. The jets were not seen during Hubble observations of the same region in October 1999 and November 2012.

How Viruses Take the Short Trip from London to NYC

"With this new theory, we can reconstruct outbreak origins with higher confidence, compute epidemic-spreading speed and forecast when an epidemic wave front is to arrive at any location worldwide," said study researcher Dirk Brockmann, a theoretical physicist who conducted the research at the Northwestern University. Infectious diseases have long been spread across borders by travelers.

Space station cooling system shuts down, but no emergency, says NASA

By Irene Klotz SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - NASA is assessing a problem with one of two cooling systems aboard the International Space Station, a potentially serious but not life-threatening situation, officials said on Wednesday. The system automatically shut itself down after detecting abnormal temperatures, said NASA spokesman Josh Byerly at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Repairs may require a spacewalk, Byerly said.

CERN votes to admit Israel as newest full member

GENEVA (AP) — The governing council of the world's top particle physics lab has unanimously voted to accept Israel as a full member.

China's Thick Smog Spied From Space (Photo)

China's latest spell of severe pollution can be seen from space. NASA's Terra satellite captured this image of the thick smog lingering over China, from Beijing to Shanghai, on Dec. 7. At the time, the Air Quality Index had climbed to 487 in Beijing and 404 in Shanghai. In Shanghai, the haze grounded airplanes, sidelined construction projects, kept government vehicles off the road and forced schools to close, the Associated Press reported.

Europe Launches Wake-Up Call Contest for Comet-bound Spacecraft

In the chilly reaches of deep space, the unmanned Rosetta probe will soon awaken from a years-long hibernation for a 2014 comet rendezvous, and the European scientists want you to help wake the slumbering spacecraft. The European Space Agency is asking comet fans around the world to create a special video message to rouse the Rosetta spacecraft under the new 'Wake Up Rosetta' campaign.

Scientists find water plumes shooting off Jupiter moon

Heavy Fog Enshrouds London (Photo)

An impenetrable fog rolled into London Wednesday morning (Dec. 11), which caused some travel woes, and also produced rare views of the city's skyline from above, with only the tallest buildings poking above the mist. While many planes at London's major airports were grounded, a team of officers with the city's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) flew above the fog in a helicopter. One of the members of this Air Support Unit snapped this amazing photo with an iPhone and posted it to Twitter. Radiation fogs often dissipate in the morning, when the sun comes out again and warms the ground, according to the Met Office, the United Kingdom's national weather service.

Grizzlies Should Stay on Endangered Species List, Scientists Say

Yellowstone National Park grizzly bears could be removed from the Endangered Species list after a new federal report revealed that the bears are not threatened by the loss of one of their main foods, whitebark pine nuts. "It does not take into account the situation, the realities of the conditions on the ground in whitebark pine forests," said Jesse Logan, the retired head of the U.S. Forest Service's bark beetle research unit. The bears were temporarily removed from the Endangered Species list in 2007, after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) declared that the animals' numbers had recovered sufficiently not to need federal protection. The judge cited concerns that the USFWS had failed to consider the decline in whitebark pine in its decision.

Amazon founder Bezos' space company loses challenge over NASA launch pad

A commercial space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has lost a challenge over NASA's plans to lease out one of the space shuttle's dormant launch pads in Florida, officials said on Thursday. The company, Blue Origin, had filed a protest with the U.S. General Accountability Office, which arbitrates federal contract disputes. The GAO said in a decision it denied the company's protest. Blue Origin is vying against another company owned by Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and chief executive of electric car company Tesla Motors, to lease Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

Why James Bond Wanted Martinis 'Shaken, Not Stirred'

James Bond's famous catchphrase "shaken, not stirred" may have stemmed from his inability to stir his drinks due to an alcohol-induced tremor affecting his hands, researchers reveal in a new, tongue-in-cheek medical report. For their report, the researchers read all 14 books of the fictional British Secret Service agent, noting every alcoholic drink, and used standard alcohol unit levels to calculate Bond's alcohol consumption — all in an effort to determine whether 007 was a martini connoisseur or a chronic alcoholic.

Not So Funny: The Strange Risks of Laughter

Laughing appears to bring health benefits, but not always — for some, a fit of giggles can have serious consequences, according to a new study that reviewed the effects of laughter. The researchers reviewed studies on laughter published between 1946 and 2013. For example, laughing has been shown to improve blood-vessel function and reduce stiffness of the arteries, which is a risk factor for heart problems such as heart attacks. One study found that people who laugh easily have a reduced risk of coronary heart disease.

Amazon founder Bezos' space company loses challenge over NASA launch pad

Newly Detected Greenhouse Gas Is 7,000 Times More Potent Than CO2

A greenhouse gas that is thought to have a potent impact on global warming was detected in trace amounts in the atmosphere for the first time, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Toronto discovered very small amounts of an industrial chemical, known as perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), in the atmosphere. While only traces of PFTBA were measured, the chemical has a much higher potential to affect climate change on a molecule-by-molecule basis than carbon dioxide (CO2), the most significant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and a major contributor to global warming, said study co-author Angela Hong, of the University of Toronto's department of chemistry. "We look at potency on a per-molecule basis, and what makes this molecule interesting is that, on a per-molecule basis, it's very high, relative to other compounds in the atmosphere," Hong told LiveScience.

Smart Shoes Could Help Runners Hit Their Stride

A combination of sensor technology, wireless communications and smartphone apps is transforming the humble running shoe into a sophisticated monitoring device. One such running shoe effort is the RUNSAFER project, which is ongoing at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, in partnership with other universities and a shoe manufacturer. "It will tell you if the gait is correct," said Andreas Heinig, a scientist at Fraunhofer who manages the wireless microsystems group. There are still experiments to be done to improve the technology before it becomes available to consumers.

Life from Earth Could Have Hitched Ride to Moons of Jupiter, Saturn

Life on Earth or Mars could have been brought to the moons of Jupiter or Saturn on rocks blasted off those planets, researchers say. They also estimated roughly 800 million such rocks were ejected off Mars during the same period.

Mock Mission to Mars: A Space Reporter's Guide

I've wanted to take part in the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) since it came into existence more than a decade ago. MDRS sits in a remote area, a few miles from the town of Hanksville, Utah and about four hours south of Salt Lake City. The Mars Society bills MDRS as a way to simulate Mars and space exploration.

Alligators and Crocodiles Use Tools to Hunt, in a First

New research shows that alligators and crocodiles can use small sticks to attract birds looking for nesting materials. The behavior has so far been observed among American alligators in Louisiana, as well as mugger crocodiles (also known as marsh crocodiles) in India. Alligators only engaged in this trickery during the nesting season and in areas where birds nested, said Vladimir Dinets, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. "What's really remarkable — they are not only using lures, but they are timing it to just when the birds they want to capture are nesting and looking for sticks to use," said Gordon Burghardt, an ethologist (animal behaviorist) and comparative psychologist specializing in reptiles at UT-Knoxville.

Deadly Fungus, Not Climate Change, Killing Frogs in Andes

Warming of the climate isn't directly causing the decline in frog populations in the Andes mountains. Instead, the frogs are falling victim to a killer fungus that is decimating amphibian species worldwide: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or chytrid fungus. But the warming trend has extended the range where chytrid fungus can thrive, leading to widespread infections of the disease known as chytridiomycosis. Chytrid fungus outbreaks make bubonic plague look like a slight cough," study researcher Vance Vredenburg, associate professor of biology at San Francisco State University, said in a statement.

Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight: How to Watch Live

One of the best meteor showers of the year is set to put on a performance tonight (Dec. 13), but if you can't catch the cosmic display in person, you can watch it live online. The Geminid meteor shower — named for the constellation Gemini — is peaking late tonight into Saturday morning, potentially treating stargazers in light-free areas to about 90 to 120 meteors per hour. Observers can expect to get the best views of the shower, weather permitting, at around 4 a.m. local time in the wee hours of Saturday morning after the waxing moon sets, according to Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "This year, there will be a magic hour starting at about 4 a.m. up until dawn that there will be no moon and you'll be able to see the Geminids in their full glory," Cooke told reporters on Dec. 11.

Alien Super-Earth Planets Plentiful in Exoplanet Search

Our solar system hosts a cornucopia of worlds, from the hellfire of Venus to the frozen plains of Mars to the mighty winds of Uranus. Outside our solar system, however, it's a different story.

Prince Harry & Military Vets Reach South Pole in Charity Expedition

Prince Harry and a group of military veterans have reached the South Pole, after a grueling 200-mile-long (335 kilometers) trek across Antarctica for charity. Prince Harry and his team successfully reached the South Pole earlier today (Dec. 13), at 7:48 a.m. EST (12:48 p.m. GMT), race organizers confirmed. "[I]'m so privileged to be here with all these guys and girls, and well done to Ed and Dags and everyone who's organized this, what an amazing accomplishment," Prince Harry said in a statement. The two-week South Pole challenge was designed to raise money for injured servicemen and women, by demonstrating their extraordinary courage and determination, Walking with the Wounded officials have said.

Bahrain Urged to Crack Down on Black Magic

An official in Bahrain has demanded that his government take steps to warn its citizens about the dangers of witchcraft and crack down on its practice. Bahrain is hardly alone in its embrace of, or perhaps belief in, witches and black magic, as places such as Saudi Arabia, Africa and Papua New Guinea have long tossed accusations of dark arts' practices at purported sorcerers. The newest claim came from parliament member Mohammed Buqais, who blasted his government for its failure to raise awareness about the threat of black magic to Bahraini citizens, and especially its children. "I studied in school for 12 years and worked as a teacher for 15 years, but never came across any subject that addresses sorcery or witchcraft," said Buqais, as quoted by The Gulf Daily News.

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Thursday, December 12, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Monitor Lizards' Breathing May Have Evolved Before Dinosaurs

Monitor lizards breathe by taking in air that flows through their lungs in a one-way loop — a pattern of breathing that may have originated 270 million years ago in the ancestral group that gave rise to dinosaurs, and eventually alligators and birds, a new study finds. Researchers at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, and Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass., studied unidirectional breathing in monitor lizards, which can be found throughout Africa, China, India and other parts of Southeast Asia. The researchers examined lungs from living and deceased monitor lizards, and found that when these large, often-colorful, carnivorous reptiles breathe, the airflow through their lungs is mostly one-way, unlike in humans and other mammals, which have a "tidal," or two-way, breathing pattern. Human lungs consist of a network of tubes that branch out into progressively smaller airways.

Exoplanet Habitable Zone Around Sunlike Stars Bigger Than Thought

Earth's place in the solar system is just right. It's not too hot, like Venus, and it's not too cold, like Mars, and this "Goldilocks zone" of habitability around other stars like the sun just might be bigger than thought, scientists say.

The Science of Shopping: Buy Gifts One at a Time

"Having multiple recipients in mind not only means that more gifts are needed, but it may change what shoppers focus on when making gift selections," wrote Mary Steffel of the University of Cincinnati and Robyn A. LeBoeuf of the University of Florida in the new paper published online Nov. 21 in the Journal of Consumer Research. The students were asked to pick gift cards as presents for university and out-of-town friends.

A New Diet Quickly Alters Gut Bacteria

The types of bacteria in your gut today may be different tomorrow, depending on what kinds of food you eat, a new study suggests. In the study, participants who switched from their normal diet to eating only animal products, including meat, cheese and eggs, saw their gut bacteria change rapidly — within one day. Gut bacteria also tended to express (or "turn on") different genes during the animal-based diet, ones that would allow them to break down protein. In contrast, the gut bacteria of another group of participants who ate a plant-based diet expressed genes that would allow them to ferment carbohydrates.

Shhh! Top-Secret Reconnaissance Drone Could Make Air Force Debut in 2015

A secret, new surveillance drone has been developed by defense giant Northrop Grumman. The drone, which is designed to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions, could enter operational service in the U.S. Air Force by 2015, according to news reports. Northrop, headquartered in Falls Church, Va., and the Air Force have been reticent to talk about the project, but the existence of the RQ-180 was first revealed in a report last week by Aviation Week. "The Air Force does not discuss this program," Air Force spokesperson Jennifer Cassidy told Aviation Week.

Dazzling Arizona Fireball Sparks Weekend Meteor Shower Interest

The Geminid meteor shower — one of the most spectacular meteor displays of the year — may hit its peak this weekend, but some stargazers in Arizona got a sneak preview of the celestial light show Tuesday night (Dec. 10). A meteor exploded over Arizona, rattling windows and producing at least one loud boom, according to press reports, but the meteor explosion itself was not part of the Geminid meteor shower, a meteor expert says. "It [the meteor explosion] was picked up by two of our meteor cameras in New Mexico as well as cameras in Arizona and the preliminary trajectory shows that it was definitely not a Geminid," NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke told reporters today. The Geminid meteor shower — so named for it radiant point in the constellation Gemini — is set to peak in the overnight hours from Dec. 13 to 14.

Northern Lights Dance Over Maine Farmhouse in Stunning Photo

Pink and green lights shimmer over a farmhouse in central Maine in this beautiful photo sent in to SPACE.com by a veteran night sky photographer this month.

Space Station Suffers Cooling System Shutdown, Some Systems Offline

HOUSTON — The International Space Station suffered a problem with half of its vital cooling system Wednesday (Dec. 11), resulting in a partial power down of some non-critical systems, NASA officials say. According to a NASA statement, "at no time was the crew or the station itself in any danger." The six astronauts and cosmonauts on the orbiting laboratory went to sleep as regularly scheduled with no concern for their safety, the statement said. On Wednesday, one of two pumps used to circulate ammonia coolant on the outside of the space station shut itself down after lower than normal temperatures were detected. By midday, ground controllers suspected that a flow control valve inside the pump might not be functioning correctly.

Wild Animal Selfies: Creatures Get Hip with Word of the Year

As humans clamber to grab smartphones, pose at arm's length, and snap well-framed pictures of themselves throughout their daily lives, the animal world goes about snapping selfies a little less earnestly, relying on humans to spread the images across the Internet. The wildlife pictures may not officially fit Oxford Dictionaries' definition of their recently announced 2013 Word of the Year as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or a webcam and uploaded to a social media website," since animals don't use smartphones or social media. Earlier this month, an Australian sea eagle flew off with a video camera that wildlife rangers had set up in Western Australia to study crocodiles. The bird flapped with the camera for 70 miles (110 kilometers) before landing, pecking and staring into the lens for a selfie, according to the Sydney Associated Press.

New Cockroach Species Replacing Oriental Roach in Southwest US

From the garages of Southern California to the apartments of Philadelphia, oriental cockroaches have reared their heads wherever there is moisture and rubbish or leftover food. But at least in the southwestern United States, and perhaps soon in a town near you, a new species of the cockroach is replacing them: Turkestan cockroaches. Compared with the more familiar German, American and oriental cockroaches, the Turkestan roach is a relative newcomer to the scene, arriving to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s from somewhere in central Asia, perhaps Afghanistan, said Michael Rust, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside. The other roach species have been around for more than a century, and American cockroaches have been in the country for more than 400 years, Rust said.

How Nuclear Power Can Stop Global Warming

Gamer's Thrombosis: How Playing Too Long Could Be Deadly

A young man in New Zealand developed life-threatening blood clots in his leg after four days of playing PlayStation games, according to a report of his case. Perhaps playing video games, which involves sitting still for long periods of time, should be added to the list of ways people may increase their risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), the doctors who treated the man said. DVT is a dangerous and sometimes deadly condition, because blood clots that sometimes develop within leg veins can break off, travel through the bloodstream and block an artery bringing blood to a lung, a condition called pulmonary embolism. At the time of the case, the 31-year-old painter was on vacation, spending eight hours each day sitting on his bed with his legs outstretched playing PlayStation games, according to the case report.

Liberals & Conservatives Literally Moving Farther Apart

The resulting political sorting could make it easier for Democrats and Republicans to demonize one another. But the new study is the first to examine the sort on an individual level, said study researcher Matthew Motyl, a doctoral candidate in social psychology at the University of Virginia. "There's this political problem that people are segregating into red and blue communities, but we don't know why this happens," Motyl told LiveScience.

Parasitic Worms, Hot Baths Tested as Autism Treatments

Although the remedies may sound unconventional, doctors are currently testing whether infecting people with worms or giving them hot baths could reduce some symptoms of autism. In small, early clinical trials, the unusual treatments — which involve using parasitic worm eggs to trigger anti-inflammatory signals in the gut, or raising the body temperature to mimic the effects of an infection — lessened the repetitive behaviors and other symptoms of the disorders; "All three studies are interesting and merit further investigation," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, who was not involved in the studies. Inflammation and autism

Woman's Sleepwalking Leads to Dangerous Overdose

A 55-year-old woman in England experienced severe vision loss after she overdosed on prescription medication while she was sleepwalking, according to a new report of the case. Quinine sulfate is an anti-malaria medication that is sometimes prescribed for leg cramps, but can cause serve side effects, including vision problems. She felt she had taken some pills while sleepwalking, and the woman's daughter found an empty box of the tablets on the kitchen counter, according to the report. In fact, in 1994, the Food and Drug Administration warned against using the drug to prevent leg cramps, because for this condition, the risks of the drug outweigh the benefits, according to the agency.

Ozone Hole Won't Heal Until 2070, NASA Finds

SAN FRANCISCO — The banning of ozone-depleting chemicals hasn't yet caused detectable improvements in the Antarctic ozone hole, new research suggests. "Ozone is produced in the tropics, but it's transported by the winds from the tropics to the polar region," said Anne Douglass, a scientist with the Aura project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. That transport "varies a little bit from year to year." The findings suggest that measuring the total size of the ozone hole says little about ozone depletion, and that it's misleading to use the hole's extent alone to measure environmental progress. Ozone is a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms, and the ozone layer, which stretches from heights of 12 to 19 miles (20 to 30 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, protects life on Earth by shielding it from ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Jupiter Moon Europa May Have Water Geysers Taller Than Everest

Jupiter's icy moon Europa may erupt with fleeting plumes of water more than 20 times the height of Mt. Everest, scientists say. They were spotted by comparing recent and older images of Europa taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. "A subsurface ocean at Europa potentially provides all conditions for microbial life — at least life we know," study lead author Lorenz Roth, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, told SPACE.com. To learn more about the Jovian moon, scientists analyzed ultraviolet images of Europa taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in November and December of 2012 as well as older images taken by Hubble in 1999.

It's a Duck, It's a Rooster, It's a … Dinosaur?

A new fossil discovery reveals the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus regalis sported a fleshy comb on its head, similar to the ones on modern-day roosters. "We're never short of being surprised by what these animals looked like," said study researcher Phil Bell, a paleontologist at the University of New England in Australia. In the past century, paleontologists have discovered several hadrosaur fossils with skin impressions pressed into the rock around the bones. But skin impressions rarely preserve well around the skull, Bell said.

Chinese Rocket Failure Destroys Earth-Observation Satellite

China's state-run Xinhua news agency released a three-paragraph story on the rocket malfunction. "The data obtained show that the subsystems of CBERS 3 functioned normally during the [launch]," INPE said. The compact car-sized CBERS 3 satellite was supposed to enter a 483-mile-high polar orbit with an inclination of 98.5 degrees. Brazilian news reports said the satellite cost $250 million, with Brazil and China equally sharing the investment.

How Nelson Mandela Navigated the Politics of Science (Op-Ed)

Michael Halpern is program manager at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. This Op-Ed was adapted from a post to the UCS blog The Equation.Halpern contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. As we celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, it is worth reflecting at this time on Mandela's ability to transcend politics when speaking about contentious scientific issues. Nowhere was this more apparent than with the difficult politics surrounding HIV and AIDS at the turn of the millennium.

NASA: Space Station Cooling Malfunction May Delay Private Cargo Ship Launch

The failure of a vital cooling pump on the International Space Station could delay plans to launch a privately built cargo ship on its first official delivery mission to the orbiting lab next week, NASA officials said today (Dec. 12). The space station malfunction occurred Wednesday (Dec. 11) when a pump valve failed, shutting down half of the orbiting laboratory's cooling system one week before the planned launch of a commercial Cygnus spacecraft by the company Orbital Sciences. That mission, called Orbital 1, is slated to lift off Dec. 18 from Wallops Island, Va., to deliver fresh supplies to the space station. Kenny Todd, head of NASA's space station mission management team, said officials are waiting for more information on the cooling system problem before making a decision on whether to proceed with the launch or delay the flight to allow repairs.

Reason: Why You Can't Control Holiday Eating (Op-Ed)

Jessie de Witt Huberts is a postdoctoral student at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. If you still feel tempted — yes, most of those well laid-plans are very likely to go out of the window when confronted with mom's cookies — then stop and count to 10, assuming that in these 10 seconds you will think of those skinny jeans waiting to be worn. But in those 10 seconds, you may not actually be thinking about fitting into those skinny jeans again or showing off your six-pack next summer.

No Dream is Too Big for China's Mother River (Op-Ed)

Michael Reuter is director of the Great Rivers Partnership for The Nature Conservancy. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The wild, brown, churning Yangtze river I knew in 2005 is gone. At Yibin, where she forms at the confluence of the Jinsha and Min rivers, the Yangtze moves an average annual flow 10 times that of the Colorado River.

In a Warming Arctic, Oil Drilling Brings Disaster (Op-Ed)

Frances Beinecke is the president of NRDC — an environmental advocacy organization with 1.4 million supporters nationwide — served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and holds a leadership role in several environmental organizations. Beinecke contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. But these fiascoes haven't stopped Shell.

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