Action urged on nature 'crisis' 3 Missile Man 5 Breakthrough on Causes of Inflammatory Bowel Disease 12 Archaeologist Unearths Earliest Evidence of Modern Humans Using Wild Grains 14 New Study Turns Up the Heat on Soot's Role in Himalayan Warming 16 New Weapon in Battle of the Bulge: Food Releases Anti-Hunger Aromas During Chewing 18 Wind Shear Strength Determines Whether Pollution Swells or Saps Storms 19 Ancient Origins of Modern Opossum Revealed 21 Most People Should Not Automatically Opt for a Swine Flu Shot 23 NASA Tech Zooms in on Water and Land 25 Cells Move in Mysterious Ways, Experiments Reveal 27 Diet High in Methionine Could Increase Risk of Alzheimer's 29 Mastery of Physical Goals Lessens Disease-Related Depression and Fatigue 31 Scientists Film Photons With Electrons 33 New 'Golden Ratios' for Female Facial Beauty 35 Heart Cells on Lab Chip Display 'Nanosense' That Guides Behavior 37 Lung Cancer and Melanoma Laid Bare 39 Organisms Turn Microgears in Suspended Solution by Swimming 43 Irrigation Decreases, Urbanization Increases Monsoon Rains 44 Can China Turn Cotton Green? 46 The Dirt on Climate Change 50 Handwriting Is History 56 Fishing for Answers in Alaska 62 Time, the Infinite Storyteller 75 The Whole Earth Catalog: The Prequel 80 This Is English, Rules Are Optional 82 ‘They Planted Hatred in Our Hearts’ 84 New and Creative Leniency for Overdue Library Books 86 Dissertations on His Dudeness 88 Ginkgo Biloba Does Not Appear to Slow Rate of Cognitive Decline 90 How Fine Particulates Are Formed in the Air 91 Schizophrenia Mouse Model Should Improve Understanding and Treatment of the Disorder 93 Climate Wizard Makes Large Databases of Climate Information Visual, Accessible 95 Seeing Without Looking: Brain Structure Crucial for Moving the Mind's Spotlight 97 Researchers Design a Tool to Induce Controlled Suicide in Human Cells 99 Scientists Isolate New Antifreeze Molecule in Alaska Beetle 101 Deep Sea Anchors for Offshore Installations 103 Why Some Continue to Eat When Full: Researchers Find Clues 105 Adjusting Acidity With Impunity 107 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Ladder-Walking Locusts Use Vision to Climb, Show Big Brains Aren't Always Best 109 Free yourself from oppression by technology 111 Microbes survive 30,000 years inside a salt crystal 113 Sugar-free satisfaction: Finding the brain's sweet spot 114 Ancient clone saw out the last ice age 118 Watery niche may foster life on Mars 120 Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved 121 Dams linked to more extreme weather 126 Single light wave flashes out from fibre laser 127 The sinister powers of crowdsourcing 129 School absence higher among poor 131 Ancient whale sucked mud for food 133 Genes 'drive deadly brain cancer' 135 Disinfectants 'train' superbugs 137 Heart study targets immune cells 139 Alzheimer's may 'ward off cancer' 141 Another 'bad cholesterol' found 143 Scientists 'decode' memory making 145 Old Ideas Spur New Approaches in Cancer Fight 147 Seeking a Cure for Optimism 153 Russia to Plan Deflection of Asteroid From Earth 156 The Joy of Physics Isn’t in the Results, but in the Search Itself 157 In New Way to Edit DNA, Hope for Treating Disease 159 Discovering the Mathematical Laws of Nature 162 Israelis’ Cancer Is Linked to Holocaust 165 Many Hands, One Vision 167 Beauty, Utility, Eccentricity, Adultery 171 Back When ‘Look’ Meant a Magazine 175 The Lessons of Las Vegas Still Hold Surprises 177 The Man Behind Boy, Dog and Their Adventures 180 Children's alcohol risks warning 182 Home drinkers 'over-pour spirits' 184 'Back to nature' cuts flood risks 186 Rise in diabetes limb amputations 188 Music therapy for tinnitus hope 190 Mushroom drug cancer secret probe 192 Hybrid Education 2.0 194 The amazing story of how Esperanto came to be. 197 2 Infoteca’s E-Journal No.98 January 2010 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Action urged on nature 'crisis' By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website The UN has launched the International Year of Biodiversity, warning that the ongoing loss of species around the world is affecting human well-being. Eight years ago, governments pledged to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, but the pledge will not be met. The expansion of human cities, farming and infrastructure is the main reason. Speaking at the launch in Berlin, German premier Angela Merkel urged the establishment of a new panel to collate scientific findings on the issue. Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), urged governments and their leaders to renew their commitment to curbing biodiversity loss even though the 2010 goal will be missed. “ The big opportunity during the International Year of Biodiversity is for governments to do for biodiversity what they failed to do for climate change in Copenhagen ” Simon Stuart Conservation International/IUCN "The urgency of the situation demands that as a global community we not only reverse the rate of loss, but that we stop the loss altogether and begin restoring the ecological infrastructure that has been damaged and degraded over the previous century or so," he said. The UN says that as natural systems such as forests and wetlands disappear, humanity loses the services they currently provide for free. These include purification of air and water, protection from extreme weather events, and the provision of materials for shelter and fire. With species extinctions running at about 1,000 times the "natural" or "background" rate, some biologists contend that we are in the middle of the Earth's sixth great extinction - the previous five stemming from natural events such as asteroid impacts. Cash log The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, alongside the climate change convention. 3 Infoteca’s E-Journal No.98 January 2010 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila But it acquired its key global pledge during the Johannesburg summit of 2002, when governments agreed to achieve a "significant reduction" in the rate of biological diversity loss by 2010. Conservation organisations acknowledge that despite some regional successes, the target is not going to be met; some analyses suggest that nature loss is accelerating rather than decelerating. "We are facing an extinction crisis," said Jane Smart, director of the biodiversity conservation group with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "The loss of this beautiful and complex natural diversity that underpins all life on the planet is a serious threat to humankind now and in the future." Mrs Merkel backed the idea of forming a scientific panel to collate and assess research on biodiversity loss, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assesses evidence on climatic indicators. "The question of preserving biological diversity is on the same scale as climate protection," she said. "It would be sensible to have an interface between the politics and the science to integrate knowledge." A large on-going UN-sponsored study into the economics of biodiversity suggests that deforestation alone costs the global economy $2-5 trillion each year. The UN hopes some kind of legally-binding treaty to curb biodiversity loss can be agreed at the CBD summit, held in Japan in October. One element is due to be a long-awaited protocol under which the genetic resources of financially-poor but biodiversity-rich nations can be exploited in a way that brings benefits to all. However, given the lack of appetite for legally-binding environmental agreements that key countries displayed at last month's climate summit in Copenhagen, it is unclear just what kind of deal might materialise on biodiversity. Political football The UN has been pursuing new ways of raising public awareness on the issue, including a collaboration with the Cameroon football team taking part in the African Nations Cup finals. Many environment organisations will be running special programmes and mounting events during the year. "The big opportunity during the International Year of Biodiversity is for governments to do for biodiversity what they failed to do for climate change in Copenhagen," said Simon Stuart, a senior science advisor to Conservation International and chair of IUCN's Species Survival Commission. "They have the chance to make a major difference; and key to this will be halting species extinctions, the most irreversible aspect of biodiversity loss." WWF is highlighting 10 species it considers especially threatened, ranging from commercially significant ones such as bluefin tuna to the Pacific walrus and the monarch butterfly. In the UK, the national IYB partnership - hosted from the Natural History Museum (NHM) - is asking every citizen to "do one thing for biodiversity" in 2010. [email protected] Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8449506.stm Published: 2010/01/11 14:47:28 GMT 4 Infoteca’s E-Journal No.98 January 2010 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Missile Man • Peter Scoblic • December 5, 2009 | 12:00 am A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon By Neil Sheehan (Random House, 534 pp., $35) In late March 1953, a colonel named Bernard Schriever sat in a briefing room at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, listening as John von Neumann, the brilliant mathematician, and Edward Teller, the physicist, discussed the future of the hydrogen bomb, the far more powerful follow-on to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki eight years earlier. The United States had detonated its first hydrogen device the previous year in the Pacific, vaporizing a tiny atoll with a force of greater than ten megatons, or ten million tons of TNT.