Fossilization occurs when minerals from a dead animal’s rocky tomb displace and replace its original organic molecules – preserving its form but not its biochemistry. Hopes had been high that discovery three years ago of preserved masses of what looked like soft tissue of a Tyrannosaurus rex comprised some of the original stuff. Not so, a new report suggests. Rather, in PloS One this week, researchers from the University of Washington say that microbes sometimes do what inorganic minerals do – infiltrate dead things and preserve the form of soft tissue – or at least leave residue that look an awful lot like T. rex meat, blood vessels, and such might look.

Darn. Another blow to dreams of reversing exinctions that novelist and fabulist Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park spawned. Next thing you know, the notion that global warming is a lefty plot by Earth First and its conniving ilk will turn out to result from a biofilm in Crichton’s lofty cranium and not from sensible human thought.

Stories:

New Scientist Jeff Hecht includes in his report that at least one scientist – she reported the T. rex tissue’s possible provenance as the real thing – is not buying it ; Scientific American Adam Hadhazy reports that bacterial sludge “faked out researchers” looking at the T. rex fossil – and, like Hecht, reports that the original study’s main author wants to know if this is a biofilm, why do its proteins cluster with those of chickens – and all birds, really – the only living remnants of the dino clade? ; Reuters ; USA Today Dan Vergano has it nicely exept for one thing – or perhaps an editor made his text suggest a kinship between mammoths and birds? Vergano nonetheless also gets a sturdy ripost from the dino and mammoth protein team ; Nat’l Geographic News John Roach ditto seems to have received the same e-mail as the other reporters did from the original report’s author ;

Grist for the Mill: Univ of Washington Press Release ;

-CP

The Tracker looked at today’s news flow and realizes that Nature magazine has hit a particularly big jackpot. The meatiest is covered in the next post down, on schizophrenia genes. But three others are getting pickup, some of it big. To try something new in the basketry department – somewhat akin to the habit of tracking each Tuesday’s NYT ScienceTimes as a unit – here are three other embargo-fed media pack-attacks arising from Nature.

1)  ANCIENT GREEK GEAR TRAINS – That wondrous Ankythera Mechanism first reported in 2006 in Nature  is yielding yet more insight into the skill of ancient Greek technologists (see Earlier Post even though, like its topic’s cogs, not all the 2006 post’s links still engage). It is already clear that the mechanism’s wheels and linkages calculated celestial events. Now further study of its corroded remains associates their output also to the Greek social-sports calendar including (wotta coincidence this comes out now) the Olympic Games. This bronze and iron instrument is mesmerizing. It triggers the sort of idolization of outmoded technologies that one sees in the weird “steam punk”  aesthetic movement, or in people who build trebuchets, or in those who drive Morgan sports cars and defend their sliding pillar front suspensions.

Stories:

AP Derek Gatopoulos ; Times of Malta interesting for off-topic reasons. The mechanism news is at the bottom of a remarkable, entertaining, trimmed-to-the-max roundup of int’l events ; NYTimes John Noble Wilford is excited – there is a solid association with Archimedes himself ; Los Angeles Times Thomas H. Maugh II ; Wired News Brandon Keim, accompanied by a well-selected set of images ; USA Today Dan Vergano ;more …
Grist: Antykithera Research Project ;

2) TITAN POLAR LAKE ASLOSH IN ETHANE – New infrared data from the Cassini team reveal that Ontario Lacus (yes, Lake Ontario) near the south pole of the moon Titan is definitely filled with liquid, most likely ethane but including methane, nitrogen, and various light hydrocarbons.

Stories:

AP ; Christian Science Monitor Peter N. Spotts ; Bloomberg Ed Johnson ; AFP ; Scientific American Adam Hadhazy ; Ottawa Citizen Tom Spears writes from near the shore of Earth Lake O. He  explains what the space version’s deep blackness means for its smoothness ; Register (UK) Lester Haines ; Telegraph (UK) Roger Highfield ; Science News Ron Cowen says the Titan version would be “an oil baron’s dream” ; Wired News Alexis Madrigal ; Tucson Citizen Alan Fisher says this is the first lake in the solar system other than on Earth. Hmm – can’t think of any other. Good angle, that is ; Arizona Republic Anne Ryman reports the lake, to the human eye, would look pinkish. ‘Dont know how that squares with other reports it is deeply dark ;

 Grist: University of Arizona Press Release ;

3) HOW POISONOUS SNAKES GOT THEIR FANGS -This did not get so much pickup as the rest but has particular charm. It brings up a topic most people would never even wonder on. So the surprise has a purity to it. A Dutch researcher and colleagues report that, despite the varying locations of fangs in poisonous snakes, they all seem to have a single common ancestor to which they owe the equipment. Some hard looks at snake ontogeny revealed a certain, telling recapitulation of phylogeny.

Stories:  Nat’l Geographic News James Owen ; Science News Amy Maxmen ; Adelaide Now Clare Peddie celebrates her local snakes’ role (see pic note below, too) ; The Age (Australia) Chee Chee Leung ;

Grist: American Technion Soc’y Press Release via Newswise.

Pic: via Nature-the paper’s lead author in Australia with an Inland Taipan, the most venomous snake in the whole world. I, unlike Wallace (as in Gromit), would have preferred armored pants.

-CP

In Nature today two reports are causing wide excitement among schizophrenia researchers – and among those hoping to see dramatic practical payoff to the remarkable advances in recent years by genomic sciences generally and via genome wide association studies in particular. The largely independent international studies – one of them from the deCode Genetics outfit in iceland that has done so much work there linking DNA patterns to health – conclude that people with any of three specific chromosome deletions have a dramatically higher risk of schizophrenia. A third, reinforcing study from yet another group led by Cardiff Univ. researchers reports its findings in Nature Genetics. Each study has a staggeringly long list of authors. It’s hard to tell exactly who did what or who was in charge, but easy to say that this is Big Science. Nature Publishing Group, with an embargoed teleconference early in the week, promoted the news widely to reporters. Reporters with registered access to its news site can still log on for a recording of that conference.
 

 AP‘s Malcolm Ritter calls the deletions “missing chunks of DNA” that, while able to explain only a tiny fraction of all cases, could also point researchers to broader reasons for the ailment. That makes sense. If one has a high chance of the disorder without one or more of these sets of genes, then one has a narrower field to inspect for the specific genes at work, and then to learn what they do. At NYTimes, Nicholas Wade reports the genetic variants “point toward a different understanding of the disease” and ties the work to earlier hints in the same direction ;

 Other stories:

Boston Globe Carey Goldberg quotes one study leader to say the discoveries represent the first “rock-solid foundation” for learning schizophrenia’s cause ; Independent (UK) Steve Connor notes – usefully to would-be parents – that the discoveries are not suitable bases for reliable prenatal tests for schizophrenia; Voice of America Jessica Berman includes one study leader who says the new findings overlap with discovery of genetic patterns behind other mental disorders including autism and mental retardation ; HealthDay Amanda Gardner writes it fine but…another thought arises. This instance is at the Wash. Post site, which seems not to have written this story. And Rick Weiss took a buyout. Coincidence? Maybe, but it would not be the first, downsized yet still major paper to farm most of its medical science reporting out to HealthDay, WebMD, general wires, and other such services ; AFP ; Reuters Michael Kahn with a source saying this is “the beginning of a new era in the field…” ; Telegraph (UK) Roger Highfield declares in his well-perspectived report that if any of three separate deletions increase risk, this puts meat on the expectation that schizophrenia is a catch-all term for several subdiseases ; BBC reports that this is progress, but also that it doesn’t make schizophrenia look any simpler  ;

Grist for the Mill:

NIH-NIMH Press Release via ScienceDaily; deCODE Genetics Press Release ; Mass. Gen’l Hosp. Press Release ;

Pic: source ;

-CP

If you, as was The Tracker, have not managed to encounter and enjoy this somewhat new commercial from Discovery Channel join the crowd and watch. It’s a tiny moment’s escape into wonder and giddiness, and a tiny moment away from a nagging, at times knee-buckling fear that the planet that bore us is screwed and we done it. It’s catchy and rather treacly – like the Disneyland “It’s a Small World” ride with the tune that won’t get out of your mind. But cool too.

-CP

Athletes sweat, they acclimate, they stress ligaments, muscles, and all kinds of cardio things. Physiologists watch them closely, publish results, and probably develop a pretty good scientifically peer-reviewed canon of opinion. Great fodder for science writers. At National Geographic News this week Richard A. Lovett (aka Rick) wrote in commendable detail on what US Olympians, especially the aerobic high-intensity non-swimmers such as track athletes, are doing to get ready for Beijing’s heat and humidity. Lovett’s byline has been a mainstay on Nat’l Geo’s science wire, but he says he’s been mostly sportswriting lately. So this one’s a hybrid of both his genres.

As for enuring oneself to Beijing’s air pollution, one learns from this that there is nowhere in the US that matches the Chinese miasma and, anyway, training in pollution is an unlikely solution. Sucking in all those toxins, including carbon monoxide and ozone might make one  sick, not fit.

-CP

That’s a rap lyric, and the rap by science writer and CERN employee Kate McAlpine (writer of the ATLAS e-news) is – to the extent The Tracker’s hip-hop expertise (well, I DID love Hopalong Cassidy!) permits – clever and not only that, informative. All this gleaned today from the NYTimes‘s Denis Overbye who reports that the big matter whammer bammer is close enough to operation “to plan the opening parties.” Most of the story is about the run-up to operation. One wonders however – without this lovely rap and the video of LHC workers jumping around Brownian-style pretty much to the beat, would Denis have written it?

-CP

The modest quake that shook Los Angeles yesterday is widely reported – with news accounts focussing quite naturally on damage and casualties. In this case they were low, and none to speak of. A quick scan, with expectations low for finding anything chewy, reveals at least one commendably terse and informative account of the quake’s geological setting, chances for after-shocks (or for painful discover this was a foreshock), and its context with other quakes in other regions. It’s in the LA Times, by Thomas H. Maugh II.

This ran a week ago, but The Tracker just got around to the Bend Bulletin section of the trapline. There reporter Kate Ramsayer has a lively, detailed account of how state wildlife biologists have watched for wolves in Oregon for years, what piece of data told them they’d found some in the state’s northeast, and the clear evidence that the animals are having pups. She notes that conservationists welcome the predators back, but ranchers fear what the wild carnivores will do to their livestock. Another constituency unhappy with wolves in some Rocky Mtn. states are hunters. They like herds of elk, deer, and other such prey big and unwary. Wolves make them skittish and scarcer.

-CP

The Tracker didn’t quite get around to a recent burst of news on tree shrews that drink fermented nectar, ought to be bombed, but aren’t. They seem immune to mere inebriation. Well, not to worry. At Discover Andrew Moseman tracked down a large haul of media accounts, gave them grades for cleverness in wordsmithing for fun, links to them each, and deserves a salute. Salut!

-CP

Researchers have been closely watching the large Ward Hunt ice shelf off the northside of Ellesmere Island for months, ever since a big crack in it showed up in the spring. The shelf is the Arctic’s largest remaining. In the last few days a piece of it broke off, bringing a spate of news stories. The piece covers several square miles (accounts differ) while the overall shelf is around 150 square miles in size. Overall, the Arctic’s ice shelves – which are extensions of landbound glaciers and not to be confused with the packice that forms directly from sea water – have shrunk dramatically in the last century.

So, one could argue that this small new loss may represent continuation of a long term and serious trend, but in itself seems not much more than a trifle. Nonetheless the Globe and Mail‘s Jessica Leeder writes it under a dramatic p.1 hed: “Huge chunk snaps off storied Arctic ice shelf,” and calls it the largest on record since 2005 (a meaninglessly brief record. The piece that unmoored in 2005 was far larger). It seems natural to cover this story but not to imply, as the blaring headline does, that this loss signals that something new or dramatically different is underway. This could be like riding down a bumpy rollercoaster and screaming “oh my god we hit another bump!” Yes, but it’s the plunge that counts.

Of course, maybe tomorrow the rest of the thing splinters into bergie bits. Then the Globe And M will look prescient.
 Other stories:

AP ; Toronto Star Moira Walsh runs “tipping point” in her lede. The story overall is laudably detailed  ; CBC News ; Canadian Press handles the story a bitmore calmly, saying the shelf could well shrink further this year. But it also the latest chunk to set sail is “vast.” It’s half-vast, at most. One needs to keep vast on tap for descriptions should the whole thing shove off.

-CP

Yesterday, in racing through the NYTimes’s Tuesday bolus of news, The Tracker admired John Schwartz‘s first-hand and advance-look reporting on the ducted-fan personal flying machine, the Martin “jet pack. ” A Kiwi inventor yesterday presented it in public at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association show-and-tell “AirVenture” in Oshkosh Wis. However, as noted yesterday, Schwartz said nothing about one very similar-looking invention that has not quite taken off. Today’s AP wire carries, from biz writer Dinesh Ramde, a bookend for Schwartz’s story. It’s a much more conventional, less enterprising, and, largely because of that, less gripping story than that in the Times. But it’s competent and, more important, provides a list that puts this gadget in the company of some recent others.

The airshow brought a flock of outlets to the story. Other accounts include:

BBC ; Chicago Tribune Jon Hilkevitch ; MSNBC Alan Boyle also puts this new, nearly  250-pound strap-on flying machine in contemporary context ; Aviation News Glenn Pew has an account on YouTube video ; more…

Big media are unlikely to spend much more time on this yarn. It may be time for specialty outlets to dig a little deeper. The videos suggest that control of the machine is an uncertain thing. And it appears to have done, so far, no more than what another outfit mentioned in yesterday’s post, Trek Aerospace with its Springtail and earlier prototypes, has already done (and which seems to be hibernating after spending some DARPA money) ; The rough layout of the Trek machine, and of that from Miller, are much alike. So, somebody ought to find the original principal on the Trek project and ask: does this new guy know something you don’t? It might be an interesting reply. Disclosure: I have some personal experience with the early stages of the Trek saga, and have wondered about it for years.

-CP

The Int’l Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, organized by the Alzheimer’s Association, is running this week in Chicago. Its website says it expected 5000 researchers from 60 countries, and no reason to think they didn’t show up. A press room worker reports that several networks are there, as are wires, specialty outlets, and a few reporters from the dailies. Its press conferences are getting a dozen or so reporters in the room. Others seems to be picking news up from releases, papers, and other indirect contacts.

The Tracker learned of and got to thinking about the meeting on finding two consecutive stories on the disease from the AP‘s skilled medical writer Marilyn Marchione. Yesterday’s hed on the wire was “Study: ‘Pre-dementia’ is rising, especially in men,” followed today by “Experimental Alzheimer’s drug shows early promise.”  They are both good stories – the second is a bit punchier. It reports hopes for an experimental drug for busting “tau” (fibrillary?) tangles. It has a memorable trade name: Rember. Stories such as this confirm the payoff to a custom of mainstream media reporting that is fading: trekking en masse to crowded press rooms at a selected, regular list of professional conferences. With travel money down, reporters’ ranks getting thinner, and more press rooms hooking their speakers with reporters via teleconference rather than in person, this is no surprise. But if the reporter can get there, he or she winds up with an instant, if somewhat disorganized, series on a topic. Plus, big meetings have big trade shows (and scads of reps of special interests – in this case, drug companies). They – as with lobbyists and cocktail parties for politicians – can be useful if one remembers to be on guard, take no gifts, embrace no flatteries.

No single blockbuster story seems to have yet come from the meeting. It has a substantial news flow impossible, from California, to “track” with much insight. Here, with no particular theme, is a selection of other dispatches:

Los Angeles Times – Shari Roan: Update from the Alzheimer’s international conference ; A roundup.

ABC – Ashley Hall: New drug boosts brain function in Alzheimer’s patients ; this is the Australian ABC. The drug is Australian too.

ABC – Dr. Marie Savard – “Cutting-Edge Alzheimer’s Treatment” ; Now for the US ABC; it is enthusiastic. Topic is a treatment, also for fibrillary tangles, that AP’s Marchione also covered in part in her first story above.

Bloomberg Television – Trista Kelley, Tom Randall:  Wyeth, Elan Tumble on Brain Risk in Alzheimer’s Drug ; The biz network looks first at stocks, natch.

Wall St. Journal – Shirley S. Wang : Elan-Wyeth Alzheimer’s Drug Data Unclear ;

BBC : “Blood pressure drug dementia hope” ;

Reuters – Julie Steenhuysen : Fitness protects brains in Alzheimer’s patients ;

Time Magazine – Alice Park:  Diabetes Drugs May Help Alzheimer’s ;

Pic: source (from “Portraits From the Mind…” paintings by William Utermohlen on display in Chicago during the meeting) ;