PhysOrg Newsletter Sunday, Oct 31

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Here is your customized PHYSorg.com Newsletter for October 31, 2010:

Spotlight Stories Headlines

- Mars volcanic deposit tells of warm and wet environment
- Chemists concoct new agents to easily study critical cell proteins
- Shuttle leak repairs good, launch on for Wednesday
- Researchers could use plant's light switch to control cells
- Apple sues Motorola over smart phone patent
- Immune system's bare essentials used to speedily detect drug targets
- How do we kill rogue cells? Assassin's tricks revealed
- Phosphorus identified as the missing link in evolution of animals
- Researchers engineer miniature human livers in the lab
- Repairs delay Discovery's final launch another day
- Neural circuit ensures zebrafish will not bite off more than it can chew
- Facebook tightens grip on user ID data
- LCD TV companies see falling prices as demand down
- Researchers 'watch' formation of cells' protein factories for first time
- Spice in curry could prevent liver damage

Space & Earth news

UN nature meeting agrees on land, ocean protection
(AP) -- Representatives to a U.N. conference on biodiversity agreed early Saturday to expand protected areas on land and at sea in the hopes of slowing the rate of extinction of the world's animals and plants and preventing further damage to its ecosystems.

Speed installation of system to monitor vital signs of global ocean, scientists urge
The ocean surface is 30 percent more acidic today than it was in 1800, much of that increase occurring in the last 50 years - a rising trend that could both harm coral reefs and profoundly impact tiny shelled plankton at the base of the ocean food web, scientists warn.

Cargo vessel links up with ISS after auto-docking problem
Cargo vessel Progress M-08M docked at the International Space Station on Saturday through a manual operation following a problem with the auto-docking system, the Russian control centre said.

New dioxin rules might force more cleanups
(AP) -- The government has spent many millions of dollars in recent decades cleaning up sites contaminated with dioxin and, in extreme cases, relocating residents of entire neighborhoods tainted by the toxin.

Repairs delay Discovery's final launch another day
(AP) -- Last-minute leak repairs have again pushed back space shuttle Discovery's final launch, this time until Wednesday.

Phosphorus identified as the missing link in evolution of animals
(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Alberta geomicrobiologist and his PhD student are part of a research team that has identified phosphorus as the mystery ingredient that pushed oxygen levels in the oceans high enough to establish the first animals on Earth.

Shuttle leak repairs good, launch on for Wednesday
(AP) -- After a two-day delay, NASA's countdown clocks began ticking Sunday toward the final launch of space shuttle Discovery.

Mars volcanic deposit tells of warm and wet environment
(PhysOrg.com) -- Roughly 3.5 billion years ago, the first epoch on Mars ended. The climate on the red planet then shifted dramatically from a relatively warm, wet period to one that was arid and cold. Yet there was at least one outpost that scientists think bucked the trend.

Technology news

Hurley stepping down as YouTube chief executive
YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley is stepping down as head of the online video-sharing superstar bought by Google for 1.65 billion dollars in 2006.

China assures Clinton on rare earth exports
(AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday sought and received assurances from China's foreign minister about the country's export of exotic metals key to the global high-tech industry, a U.S. official said.

India: Land of many cell phones, fewer toilets
(AP) -- The Mumbai slum of Rafiq Nagar has no clean water for its shacks made of ripped tarp and bamboo. No garbage pickup along the rocky, pocked earth that serves as a road. No power except from haphazard cables strung overhead illegally.

Supreme Court to hear violent video game case
(AP) -- Before picking up any Wii games or downloading apps on her iPhone for her two daughters, Lillian Quintero does her homework. She'll first read reviews online and in magazines, then try them out for herself. If she thinks the games are engaging and educational enough, 4-year-old Isabella and 2-year-old Sophia are free to play.

Turkey lifts YouTube ban after more than 2 years
(AP) -- Turkey said Saturday that it was lifting a ban on YouTube more than two years after it blocked access to the site because of videos deemed insulting to the country's founder.

APEC eyes high-speed broadband networks by 2020
Asian and Pacific countries agreed on Sunday to help establish next-generation high-speed broadband networks in their region by 2020, overcoming the "digital divide" between rich and poor nations.

Republicans top Democrats with Facebook fans
Republicans will have to wait until Tuesday to find out if they make the big gains many expect in the US Congress but they have already beaten the Democrats in another arena -- Facebook.

Nokia Siemens Networks achieves world record copper DSL speeds
Nokia Siemens Networks has successfully tested a technology that could drastically increase the data carrying capacity of standard copper wires. The company achieved data transmission speeds of 825 megabits per second (Mbps) over 400 meters of bonded copper lines and 750 Mbps over 500 meters.

LCD TV companies see falling prices as demand down
Companies that make huge flat-screen televisions and their LCD panel components are alerting investors that demand is dropping in the U.S. and other developed markets.

Facebook tightens grip on user ID data
Facebook took more steps to stop third-party applications from sharing identifying information about users with advertising and Internet tracking companies.

Apple sues Motorola over smart phone patent
Apple is suing Motorola for infringing on patents related to its smart phones.

Medicine & Health news

Breast density, no lobular involution increase breast cancer risk
Women with dense breasts and no lobular involution were at a higher risk for developing breast cancer than those with non-dense breasts and complete involution, according to a study published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Eliminating malaria impossible without vaccine
(AP) -- Eliminating malaria, the mosquito-borne scourge that kills more than 860,000 people a year, would be a dream come true for millions - but medical experts say right now that goal remains completely unrealistic.

FDA rejects new obesity drug Qnexa
The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a marketing request by Vivus for its new obesity treatment called Qnexa, because it considers it a health risk, the California-based biotech firm said in a statement.

FDA approves Novartis brain tumour drug
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis said Saturday that the US drug Food and Drug Administration had approved a drug for treating certain benign brain tumours which previously required surgery.

Donor race may impact recurrent hepatitis C in liver transplant patients
The race of liver donors may affect recurrent hepatitis C in patients after liver transplant, according to a study by Henry Ford Hospital.

Emotion processing in the brain is influenced by the color of ambient light
Researchers at the Cyclotron Research Centre (University of Liege), Geneva Center for Neuroscience and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (University of Geneva), and Surrey Sleep Research Centre (University of Surrey) investigated the immediate effect of light, and of its color composition, on emotion brain processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results of their study show that the colour of light influences the way the brain processes emotional stimuli.

Contraception could be free under health care law
Fifty years after the pill, another birth control revolution may be on the horizon: free contraception for women in the U.S., thanks to the new health care law.

Spice in curry could prevent liver damage
Curcumin, a chemical that gives curry its zing, holds promise in preventing or treating liver damage from an advanced form of a condition known as fatty liver disease, new Saint Louis University research suggests.

Neural circuit ensures zebrafish will not bite off more than it can chew
(PhysOrg.com) -- Whether it is alerting us to danger or allowing us to spot prey, vision helps keep humans and other animals alive. But how exactly does this special sense work, and why is it easier for us to spot movement of small objects in our field of vision than to notice other things?

Researchers engineer miniature human livers in the lab
Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have reached an early, but important, milestone in the quest to grow replacement livers in the lab. They are the first to use human liver cells to successfully engineer miniature livers that function – at least in a laboratory setting – like human livers. The next step is to see if the livers will continue to function after transplantation in an animal model.

How do we kill rogue cells? Assassin's tricks revealed
A team of Melbourne and London researchers have shown how a protein called perforin punches holes in, and kills, rogue cells in our bodies. Their discovery of the mechanism of this assassin is published today in the science journal Nature.

Immune system's bare essentials used to speedily detect drug targets
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have taken a less-is-more approach to designing effective drug treatments that are precisely tailored to disease-causing pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, and cancer cells, any of which can trigger the body's immune system defenses.

Biology news

New center looks at how human systems function or fail
A new center called the National Resource for Network Biology (NRNB), based at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, will help clinicians analyze an ever-growing wealth of complex biological data and apply that knowledge to real problems and diseases.

Researchers 'watch' formation of cells' protein factories for first time
A team from The Scripps Research Institute has revealed the first-ever pictures of the formation of cells' "protein factories." In addition to being a major technical feat on its own, the work could open new pathways for development of antibiotics and treatments for diseases tied to errors in ribosome formation. In addition, the techniques developed in the study can now be applied to other complex challenges in the understanding of cellular processes.

Researchers could use plant's light switch to control cells
Chandra Tucker shines a blue light on yeast and mammalian cells in her Duke University lab and the edges of them start to glow. The effect is the result of a light-activated switch from a plant that has been inserted into the cell.

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