Quadriplegics Hand Function Restored With Breakthrough Surgery

For the first time, surgeons in the United States have used a new type of operation called nerve transfer to restore hand function in a quadriplegic patient.  The paralysed patient suffered an injury to the lowest bone in his neck.

Nerve transfers involve taking nerves with less important roles - or branches of a nerve that perform redundant functions to other nerves - and “transferring” them to restore function in a more crucial nerve that has been severely damaged.

Instead of operating on his spine, doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis used the upper arm nerves to rewire a fresh connection to the patient’s brain. Before the operation, the patient had use of his elbow and shoulder :: Read the full article »»»»

Oldest Mayan Calendar Has NO Hint of World End

Researchers say new analysis of the earliest known Mayan calendar, found in an ancient house in Guatemala, offers no hint that the world’s end is imminent. The painted room in the residential complex at the Mayan archaeological site of Xultun is believed to have been where the town scribe kept records, writing computations on the walls in an effort to find “harmony between sky events and sacred rituals,” researchers say in the journal Science.

The hieroglyphs date back to the ninth century AD, making them hundreds of years older than the calendars in the Maya Codices, which were recorded in bark-paper books from 1300 to 1521. Boston University archaeologist William Saturno says the discovery appears to be the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of Venus, and the 780-day cycle of Mars :: Read the full article »»»»

Sauropod Flatulence Caused Mesozoic Climate Change

We’ve all heard the – possibly dubious – theory that bovine flatulence is adding to global warming? If not, the theory goes something like…

The abundance of methane evacuated from bovine rectum is apparently taken so seriously that in 2008 - at the height of greenhouse panic – the head of the international panel advising the world’s governments on how to reduce global emissions says people should stop eating red meat. With cattle population sitting around 1.9 billion, cattle flatus accounts for about 30 per cent of the methane in the atmosphere, according to the US EPA, thats about 80 million metric tonnes a year, eeeew…

According to researchers, this isn’t the first time the planet has faced this particular problem. Researchers say dinosaur flatulence could have put enough methane into the atmosphere to warm the planet during the hot, wet Mesozoic era :: Read the full article »»»»

European Space Agency Fishing on Jupiter’s Moons

The European Space Agency has approved a mission to Jupiter’s moons to discover whether fish live under their icy surfaces. The mission will send a five-tonne satellite to the solar system’s biggest planet to study three of its largest moons – Callisto, Europa and Ganymede.

These are of special interest because beneath their icy surface it is thought they might have vast oceans. Scientists believe this makes them one of the most likely places in the solar system to harbour alien life, possibly even fish.

The spacecraft would use the planet’s gravity to fly around the moons in the hope of discovering whether they host microbial life. The mission is due for launch in 2022 and would arrive in the Jupiter system around 2030.

LINKS:

Wikipedia

European Space Agency

AUSTRALIA: Mesozoic Missing Link Found on Phillip Island

Australian Scientists say the discovery of a new dinosaur species in South Gippsland sheds new light on Australia’s – Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous – prehistoric period. A fossil found at San Remo, at Phillip Island, has been confirmed as belonging to a ceratosaur which has not been previously found in Australia

The fossil – an ankle bone found in 2006 – is the first evidence that this group of dinosaur roamed Australia, scientists preciously believed these carnivorous dinosaurs were limited to Western Gondwana, current day South America, Africa, Madagascar, India and Europe. The fossil find – outlined in the journal Naturwissenschaften this week – shows that Eastern Gondwana was rife with dinosaur diverstiy during a period in our prehistoric history previously thought to be dull :: Read the full article »»»»

Picture of the Week: Supermoon

via Soichi Noguchi

@Astro_Soichi

Wind Farms Linked to Localised Climate Change

Turbulence created by wind farms causes air temperatures to rise directly around the supposed green energy producers, researchers say. Scientists including Associate Professor Liming Zhou from the State University of New York examined conditions around 2,358 turbines at four Texas wind farms.

Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Professor Zhou and colleagues reported a temperature increase of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade at wind farm locations, compared to nearby areas. The wind industry in the United States has experienced a remarkably rapid expansion of capacity in recent years and this fast growth is expected to continue in the future. While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere. These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.

Oddly, researchers also found the effect to be greater at night than during the day. After discounting the impact of surface features such as vegetation, roads, light reflection and surface structures, the researchers concluded that the temperature change was caused by air turbulence generated by the turbines’ giant rotor blades. Professor Zhou said the study could help researchers better understand the impact of wind farms on local environments :: Read the full article »»»»

The Impact of Carnivory on Human Evolution

Adopting an opportunistic diet may have contributed to the evolutionary success of our ancestors by allowing them to have more children.

It seems that our diet as well as our large brain, long life span and high fertility are key elements that made humans an evolutionary success. In a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers have now shown that by becoming omnivores, our ancestors were able to give birth to a greater number of offspring.

The specific impact of carnivory on human evolution, life history and development remains controversial. Researchers say they have shown in quantitative terms that dietary profile is a key factor influencing time to weaning across a wide taxonomic range of mammals, including humans :: Read the full article »»»»

Our Planet’s Water Cycle is Intensifying With Global Warming

A study published in the journal Science has concluded that climate change is altering oceans and rainfall worldwide. A team of three researchers looked at ocean data over the period 1950 to 2000. The research found salinity levels have changed in all the world’s oceans, wetter areas are experiencing more rain and drier areas have become drier.

Susan Wijffels from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – CSIRO - says she expects the trend to continue. ”The answer of how much more is going to be in the future depends on how much more warning there is going to be,” she said. ”So if we stay on a high emissions pathway we might see warming up around three degrees, which will give us maybe a 24 per cent change in our water cycle.”

The authors say this could have implications for global food security. In the paper, Australian scientists from the CSIRO and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear fingerprint of climate change. :: Read the full article »»»»

RUSSIA :: Green Clouds Spark Apocalypse Fears

Russian officials have spent the last 24 hours attempting to reassure Moscow residents that green-tinged clouds over the capital were not an alien invasion, but tree pollen. The clouds crept up on the Russian capital from the south in the morning and reached the centre by the afternoon, causing office workers to gawk at the suspiciously coloured sky.

“Today Muscovites felt like characters in a disaster film about an alien invasion: people living in the south-west of the city saw that the sky had been coloured green,” Russia’s weather service said on its website. The odd natural phenomenon mystically coincided with the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, which caused further speculation about the authorities withholding information :: Read the full article »»»»

CALIFORNIA: US 4th CASE MAD COW DISEASE

The US Department of Agriculture – USDA – has reported the country’s fourth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – BSE – in a Californian dairy cow, but stressed the outbreak was contained and no meat had entered the food chain.

The first reported BSE case in North America was in December 1993 from Alberta, Canada.

Canadian Agricultural Authorities reported another case reported in May 2003. The first known U.S. occurrence of BSE came in December of the same year though it was later confirmed that it was a cow of Canadian origin and imported to the U.S.  Canada announced two additional cases of BSE from Alberta in early 2005.

In June 2005 Dr. John Clifford, chief veterinary officer for the United States Department of Agriculture animal health inspection service, confirmed a fully domestic case of BSE in Texas. Dr. Clifford would not identify the ranch, calling that “privileged information”.  The 2005 US BSE case caused the nation’s beef exports to drop by nearly $3 billion the following year. BSE cannot be transmitted through milk.

This latest case of BSE was found in a dairy cow on April 23, in California during a planned Agriculture Department surveillance program. United States health authorities were quick to point out that the animal was never a threat to the nation’s food supply and claim that this is an atypical case of BSE caused by “just a random mutation that can happen every once in a great while in an animal” :: Read the full article »»»»