A terror bird skull dwarfs those of a golden eagle and a former newspaper reader. (Ohio University)

Extinct monsters are always good press. Dub one “terror bird,” and just about any finding is likely to garner headlines. In this case, the ancient predator–Andalgalornis– is a bird that stood five feet tall and weighed 90 pounds. CT scans of the skull show it to have been most strongly buttressed against forces that move up and down and front to back. It was weakest at dealing with side-to-side forces. It’s bite strength was relatively weak. Together the findings suggest that it did not bite or shake its prey to death, jerking side to side as some predators do. Rather, the researchers say, it choppped them with its massive skull and beak.

Selected takes:

Thomas H. Maugh II in the Los Angeles Times.

Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience.com  as syndicated to the Christian Science Monitor compares the bird’s fighting style to that of Muhammad Ali.

Jess McNally in Wired News quotes one scientist calling the predator “one huge, bad-ass bird.” His comprehensive package includes a video, a cartoon and some CT scans showing stress effects on the skull.

Catherine Harmon in Scientific American online.

AP‘s Randolph E. Schmid also went with the Ali analogy.

-Boyce Rensberger

MicroRNA binds to messenger RNA, blocking protein synthesis. Click on graphic to enlarge. (Boston Globe)

In the last five years a major new molecular player has been found to be deeply involved in turning cells cancerous–tiny snippets of RNA measuring around 22 bases in length. They’re called microRNAs. Tina Hesman Saey has an excellent account in Science News (Aug. 28 issue but online now) of what is known of their role. Her piece is comprehensive, scientifically astute and replete with bright examples of good science writing. For instance:  “MicroRNAs work in middle management in most plant and animal cells, scientists now know. The molecules help regulate the protein-manufacturing process by essentially issuing permits decreeing when and where proteins may be built.”

So these bits of nucleic acid may be good or they may turn to the dark side. Saey works that metaphor a bit hard, what with comparisons to Darth Vader, but there is so much good science in the piece that if Star Wars can bring in some extra readers, so much the better.

-Boyce Rensberger

Alzheimer's disease suspects (Credit: University of Illinois, Chicago)

When neurologists discovered that the brains of autopsied Alzheimer’s disease victims had loads of amyloid plaques, they wondered whether the accumulated gunk was a cause of the disease or an effect.  Same goes for another Alzheimer’s-associated protein called tau, which forms so-called neurofibrillary tangles. One puzzle: some people die with loads of amyloid or tau and never showed symptoms of the disease.

Nonetheless, drug companies have often adopted the guess that the proteins are causes. They have been rushing to develop chemicals that block their formation.

Gina Kolata, in a cogent news analysis in the New York Times, discusses the failure of the latest such attempt–a drug that Eli Lilly had brought all the way to Phase 3 trials before finding that, far from helping, their drug made the disease worse. Kolata writes that more than 100 other amyloid-blocking drugs are in the pipeline. She quotes one drug researcher admitting “our current views may be too simplistic.”

-Boyce Rensberger

Polio cases over the past year

After looking at a story on Scientific American’s site, I spent a few minutes checking on the WHO’s campaign to eradicate polio and the regularly updated world map of cases: here. I find this 22-year-old campaign compelling and dramatic, full of difficult science, human failings and yet still real hope. As of this week, the total number of cases reported in the world is 612. It was estimated that in 1980 there were 400,000 cases. There are now only four countries left that still have endemic polio: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. But dramatic declines have occurred in these countries. In 2009 in India, there were 741 cases, but this year there have been only 29 so far. In Nigeria, there were 388 cases last year, and this year only 6 so far.

The difficulty of scrubbing the polio viruses out of the population was shown this year in the surprise outburst of polio cases in Tajikistan. That country had no reported cases for 19 years. But this year there have been 452 so far. As the number of cases worldwide drops, that makes events like those in Tajikistan stand out: This one outbreak has produced 74 percent of all cases reported in the world.

It is extraordinary that such a successful campaign has been carried out in such difficult places and under such difficult circumstances; it’s a great continuing public health tale. The Wall Street Journal‘s Robert Guth recently had a story on successes, and continued fear of failure. Among the current most serious problems: the next three years of campaigning so far have a 50 percent shortfall in funds.

Phil Hilts

Brains differ in size from time to time

There is a story making the rounds on the east side of the Atlantic today that is pretty silly. It will be interesting to see if others fall for it on this side of the Atlantic. The Telegraph and the Daily Mail have two of the stories. The stories said that the contraceptive pill makes women who take it “brainier.” The study the stories were based on, published in Brain Research, was done by Austrian researcher Belinda Pletzer and colleagues at Paris-Lodron University, Salzburg.

The study was very small, 14 men, 14 women on the pill and 14 women not taking it. The study says it shows a couple of things—one, that women’s brain volume changes during the menstrual cycle, being a couple percent larger just before ovulation. It also showed that women taking female hormones that mimic the cycle (the pill) also increase brain size. The increases in volume came in some parts of the brain and not others, the study said. It also appears that overall brain size didn’t change.

We know already the hormones cause changes in the brain, including the size. It appears from reading the study that the key point here is that when researchers look at parts of the brain and compare sizes, they now should take into account possible normal swelling during the menstrual cycle, and similar swelling when women are on the pill. The newspapers, apparently abetted by comments from the researcher, made the leap to behavior and talked about “areas essential to memory and social skills.” The paper has no data on the meaning of brain volume changes, and no data on behavioral change due to puffing. Also doesn’t say much about what it means that men’s brains are bigger than women’s. And of course, since the study was puny to begin with, it cannot even conclude for sure that women in general have the changes studied.

Good for cocktail parties; not good for news.

Phil Hilts

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) Are the extreme temperatures and forest fires in Russia a direct consequence of the Climate Change? And this summer floods in China and Pakistan? And the droughts in Africa or Australia? And the cold spell in Bolivia and Argentina? Up to now, most scientists have been reluctant to associate specific meteorological events directly with global warming. They say they are surely related, but what is really important is the gradual increase in global temperature, tendencies, and the rise –on average- of extreme phenomena. They prefer to skip talking about incidental events, which might be influenced by many other factors apart from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. But now, a reporter in Spain says that IPCC has for the first time been categorical at establishing a relationship between climate change and the floods, droughts, cold spell and high temperatures occurred this summer. Also, according to a scientist consulted by the reporter, the World Meteorological Organization is considering to be more forceful in their messages to the public. These direct relations -from official sources- between incidental events and anthropogenic global warming might be a subtle shift in the climate change coverage, and an opportunity to explore the science behind these assumptions.

Uno de los aspectos más delicados a la hora de cubrir el cambio climático es cómo encajar el él –o evitar hacerlo- los eventos meteorológicos puntuales que puedan ocurrir. Si en una región determinada se produce una sequía totalmente inesperada ¿es fruto directo del calentamiento global, o una situación anecdótica influida por otras causas? Si un verano concreto es exageradamente cálido ¿es debido al CO2 que hemos estado emitiendo descontroladamente durante décadas? ¿por qué entonces puede venir seguido de un invierno plácido, o con temperaturas ligeramente inferiores a lo esperado? La manera en que los científicos nos sugieren tratar el cambio climático es como una tendencia gradual a la subida de temperaturas, a la observación de fenómenos progresivos como el deshielo de glaciares, migración de especies, o aumento del nivel del mar, y a la intensificación -de media- de ciertos eventos meteorológicos que dependan de esta subida de temperatura global. Pero no solemos relacionar de manera directa y exclusiva con el cambio climático un huracán específico mucho más intenso, o una semana de temperaturas altísimas. Podrían estar influidos por otros factores, y lo importante es la tendencia, ya que de eventos puntuales podríamos encontrar de diferentes signos y los científicos no se atreven todavía a asegurarnos que su causa única (ni siquiera principal) sea el calentamiento global provocado por la quema de combustibles fósiles. Tiempo al tiempo…

En ABC (España) hoy encontramos un artículo que sí relaciona directamente fenómenos extremos que están sucediendo este preciso verano con el cambio climático. Araceli Acosta en “Un caos climático sin precedentes” sugiere que los incendios y temperaturas record sufridas en Rusia, las inundaciones de China y Pakistan, las sequías del África subsahariana y Australia, las olas de frío de Argentina y Bolivia, y el desprendimiento de un colosal iceberg en Groenlandia, responden perfectamente a las previsiones del calentamiento global.

Seguramente no te parecerá una afirmación nueva. No lo es desde el punto de vista que ya la hemos escuchado en medios o a través de científicos individuales. Pero hay un matiz muy importante. En esta ocasión, como especifica Araceli, es el IPCC en su conjunto quien relaciona por primera vez de manera tan tajante los eventos extremos sufridos este verano con el calentamiento global. Pediríamos más detalle a la nota en este punto, pues sí es relativamente nuevo, ya que hasta ahora la comunidad científica solía incidir en la “tendencia” y se mostraba reticente a valorar fenómenos puntuales. Desde el punto de vista informativo, esto podría significar un sutil punto de inflexión. Entre otras cosas, nos ofrece una nueva dimensión a explorar desde el punto de vista del periodismo científico: ¿son –por ejemplo- los incendios de Rusia fruto directo del cambio climático? Un investigador consultado por Araceli asegura que “son difícilmente explicables por las oscilaciones naturales que suele sufrir esa región hasta la fecha. Igual no se repite, pero tiene la pinta de que efectivamente sea la tendencia en el futuro”.

Otro punto interesante del artículo lo añade el portavoz de la Agencia Estatal de Meteorología cuando dice: “La Organización Meteorológica Mundial se ha planteado dar una respuesta más contundente”. Se refiere a que “nadie duda ni se puede discutir que la curva de aumento de la temperatura media del planeta está subiendo”, pero además hay “una preocupación creciente porque da la impresión de que el número de fenómenos adversos va incrementándose”. El reto será ir demostrando el vínculo entre unas lluvias torrenciales determinadas, y el cambio climático. Delicado. Veremos si en los próximos meses, efectivamente el mensaje desde los organismos oficiales se hace más contundente, y llega una nueva oleada de relaciones cambio climático – fenómenos atmosféricos. Estaremos atentos.

- Pere Estupinyà

Image from Matthew Nisbet's new blog

ScienceBlogs has been reduced by yet another blogger, Matthew Nisbet, who has been the author of the Framing Science blog for the past several years. His new blog is called Age of Engagement and is housed on the Big Think site. That site has been called various things, among them “You Tube for smart people,” and contains interviews with more than 1500 experts on all manner of things. No cats with cheezburgers here.

Nisbet says he has been rethinking the focus of his blogging. While continuing to write about the public understanding of science, he now expects to write more broadly about issues “at the intersections among communication, culture and public affairs.” He says the rigid separation of audience and publishers has collapsed, and this raises some fundamental questions about consumers in our society, “Are they empowered by these changes or are they distracted and more easily controlled?  Do we live in an age of engagement or do we live in an age of distraction?”

Nisbet doesn’t say whether the flap over a food blog by Pepsi was one of the reasons for moving from ScienceBlogs; Wikipedia reports that about a quarter of the bloggers at ScienceBlogs have departed after that brouhaha. But in any case, the Big Think is an interesting site, an agglomeration of thoughts from interesting people.

Phil Hilts

Isle Royale Moose by George Desort

The first appearance of the arthritic moose that I saw was on July 6, when the news wire physorg did a story, crediting the Michigan Technological University. The Michigan release was dated July 7, when a number of outlets picked up the story, including redorbit. The story tailed off,  but it popped up in the Times with a piece by Pam Belluck yesterday. The new piece has compelling color about life on the island and the long-running experiment on Lake Superior, and it has spawned a second life for the moose story, with a spate of additional coverage including one at tonic.com.

It’s a good tale, and sounds like it will produce a whole new round of research on whether early nutrition in humans is one cause of arthritis later in life. It appears that’s the way it is for the moose, as about half of the bones studied have arthritis. The researchers have correlated the time of food scarcity with the infancy of the arthritic moose, despite later abundance of food when the arthritis actually shows up.

–Phil Hilts

blind justice (Google Images)

Veteran Earle Holland at Ohio State University has come to the defense of Harvard on his blog, after Harvard has suffered a pummeling in the news for not commenting much and not producing any documents about the three-year investigation of researcher Marc Hauser. (The Boston Globe broke the story, and followed up with “Harvard keeps mum as scientists call for transparency in probe.”)

Holland says that Harvard is being careful because the university is trying to comply with federal law that mandates confidentiality during a scientific misconduct case.

I’m of two minds on this one. I think Holland is right about what the law says and that the researchers deserve protection. On the other hand, universities have been able to say more in the past, with the cooperation of the Office of Research Integrity. It’s a question of how much and when. Seems odd that it’s been three years. Is there actually a report somewhere? Under what circumstances would it be released, or if it finds little, a statement of exoneration? We’ll be interested to see what happens as this one plays out.

Phil Hilts

Ghostly images of undersea cable from infowarrior via Atlantic mag

I couldn’t pass up this image of undersea cable connections when I saw it in Atlantic magazine online. It’s interactive so you can highlight different cables, and there’s maps for different parts of the world. The original is called Greg’s Cable Map (not yet sure who Greg is) and can be found at Richard Forno’s site infowarrior, as a thread.

The site says, “Greg’s Cable Map is an attempt to consolidate all the available information about the undersea communications infrastructure. The initial data was harvested from Wikipedia, and further information was gathered by simply googling and transcribing as much data as possible into a useful format, namely a rich geocoded format. I hope you find the resource useful and any constructive criticism is welcome.The data is available in ArcGIS .shp file format on request, so long as it’s not going to be used for profit.” The map with the listings of the cable connections that pop up when you highlight a cable line can be found here.

Phil Hilts

Wired today, after some anticipation, declared that the web is dead. We’re now onto the internet. The difference, it seems is that the web was about browsing on the open digital range, while the internet is a bundle of closed little systems like aps that are proprietary and possibly money-making.

Chris Andersen and Michael Wolff write that the internet is “the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend.” The graphic at the right shows the trend (Cisco estimates from CAIDA publications by Andrew Odlyzko). In companion columns, Tim O’Reilly, Chris Andersen and others debate the meaning of the changes, with Andersen saying don’t give up so easily! Those little aps are little monopolies that are invisible to the Google crawler and carry pricetags and terms of service.

At TechCrunch, the commentary notes “The Web, HTML traffic visible though a browser, is only about a quarter (23%) of the overall traffic, down from about half a decade ago. It’s been pushed down by peer-to-peer (23%), video (51%), and other types of apps which use the Internet for transport but are not browser-based.”

In theory what that may mean is that news outfits will be able, over time, to offer stories on aps and charge for them. But so far the prices are pretty cheap and the same information is still available in browser land, where it can be grabbed for free and sent to friends. Looks like we’re still in need of a transition.

Phil Hilts

Working out the language to deal with a problem in journalism is fun to watch. In the past few weeks there has been a flurry of stories that have struggled to sort out cause and effect in weather and climate. The Tracker already noted Curtis Brainard’s review saying most reporters did pretty well in avoiding making the causal connection between the recent extreme events in Russia, China, Pakistan, Iowa etc. But the ink keeps flowing.

There was a piece in the Telegraph, “Pakistan Floods: Climate change experts say global warming could be the cause.” The body of the story says, “Experts from the United Nations (UN) and universities around the world said the recent ‘extreme weather events’ prove global warming is already happening.” They didn’t say that, actually, the reporter did. The experts in the story actually were pretty clear that no weather event can be said to be caused by climate change, but rather that events like those we have witnessed are consistent with predicted changes. And right there to contradict the story, in the same paper, is Tom Chivers‘s blog. Sticking to the eastern side of the Atlantic, at the Guardian the causation issue was taken up by scientist Stefan Rahmstorf.

There was a nice formulation of the discussion in the Associated Press story by Charles Hanley and a couple of helpers; it’s also got a good list of the catastrophes of the summer.  Climate changes the odds of extreme events, and we should pay attention for that reason. What this story has that make it specially useful is that, in addition to saying the connection is not causal, but the events fit the predicted changes so far, the story gives detail on the patterns as well as the extreme events themselves, e.g., the increase in rains in northwest China since 1961, and the Iowa flood that came in the wettest period in 127 years of reckoning.

—Phil Hilts