Printer Emissions Can Risk Health

Workers face a potential health threat from office laser printers that emit large amounts of tiny particles into the air, an Australian research team has found.

Potential effects range from respiratory irritation to effects on the cardiovascular system and cancer, Professor Lidia Morawska from the Queensland University of Technology says.

More...

Best Way To Test Products For People?

This appeared in Saturday's Hartford Courant:

The issue of whether laboratory animals should be used in medical research surfaced in recent months when an animal activist led a small protest of Hartford Hospital's practice of stabbing live, anesthetized pigs and repairing the damage during a hospital training course. Previously, the same animal activist, Justin Goodman, launched a campaign to stop brain research on monkeys at the UConn Health Center. William Loftus, an instructor in neuroscience, was one of the researchers at the UConn Health Center lab that experimented on the monkeys.

More...

Aahh, the Science of Yawning

It can signal tiredness, boredom or even rudeness, and everyone does it. But, now, a new science may explain why people yawn, and even crack one of the world's most mysterious phenomena — the contagious yawn.

Some people think yawning stems from a need to stretch or change. Until recently, scientists thought people yawned to replenish oxygen supplies to their blood.

More...

LA Times - Saturday, Sunday, and a Little Bit of Monday

New aerogel is sponge for some toxins

Scientists have developed a lightweight, foamy material that can suck up toxic heavy metals like a sponge, according to a study published Friday.

The porous material, known as an aerogel, is made of sulfur or selenium instead of the traditional oxides.

More...

Hearing loss may foretell SIDS risk

Hearing tests routinely administered to most newborns may soon be used to identify children who are at risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, according to Seattle researchers.

Records of hearing tests administered to 62 infants in Delaware show that those who later died of SIDS had a unique pattern of partial hearing loss, according to a report this week in the journal Early Human Development.

More...

Hollywood turns to birth control to clean up its (pigeons') act

Eager to reduce the neighborhood pigeon population and the mess that comes with it, Hollywood residents appear ready to try a new birth control method on their wild birds.

Beginning within the next couple of months, a substance called OvoControl P will be placed in kibble in new rooftop feeders, say residents and state and local officials. The substance, which interferes with egg development, generally is viewed as a humane way to lower the birthrate of the birds, which many residents consider a nuisance.

More...

Monday

Kinda missed the boat Friday.

Today's Washington Post:

Future of Stem Cell Tests May Hang on Defining Embryo Harm

With the active encouragement of the Bush administration, U.S. scientists in the past year have developed several methods for creating embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos.

But some who now wish to test their alternatively derived cells have found themselves stymied by an unexpected barrier: President Bush's stem cell policy.

More...

Once Ominous, West Nile Wanes As Area Threat

Five years ago, West Nile virus seemed like a major public health threat to the Washington region, with nearly 100 human cases and 11 deaths. But the disease has receded rapidly here since then, even as it remains a problem elsewhere in the United States.

West Nile activity in the Washington region has been minimal this year, with just one human case reported in Virginia this summer. Last week, Arlington County officials reported their first West Nile-positive mosquitoes of the year. The District and Maryland have had no West Nile activity in 2007, even in mosquitoes.

More...

And the Science Notebook.

Mo. stem cell movement suffers setbacks

Eight months ago, Missouri seemed well on its way to becoming a national leader in stem cell research.

Voters amended the state's constitution to protect stem cell research - even the controversial form using cells from human embryos. Actor Michael J. Fox appeared in TV ads, visibly shaking from Parkinson's disease as he sought votes for stem cell supporter Claire McCaskill in her bid for the U.S. Senate.

More...

Missed this on Monday...

Thursday AP

Math courses may help with science

Students who had more math courses in high school did better in all types of science once they got to college, researchers say.

On the other hand, while high school courses in biology, chemistry or physics improved college performance in each of the individual sciences, taking a high school course in one science didn't result in better college performance in the others.

More...

Microbe converts light to energy

The wonderland known as Yellowstone National Park has yielded a new marvel - an unusual bacterium that converts light to energy.

The discovery was made in a hot spring at the park where colorful mats of microbes drift in the warmth.

More...

Smog and Mirrors: China's Plan for a Green Olympics

Double-digit economic growth is something you can actually see in the capital city of the People's Capitalist Republic of China. Every 24 hours, another thousand new Buicks, cute little homegrown Cherys, and buff black Audis swarm onto the 10-lane parking lots that ring the city. Every other belching truck hauls steel or concrete, every other city block boasts another 50-story investment scheme. Imperial avenues, bizarchitecture skyscrapers, distant mountains — all dematerialize in the stinking haze.

More...

Voracious 7-foot-long jumbo squid invade California waters, preying on local fish

MONTEREY -- Jumbo squid that can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh more than 110 pounds are invading central California waters and preying on local anchovy, hake and other commercial fish populations, according to a new study.

More...

Daniel Koshland Jr., 87; UC Berkeley molecular biologist

Daniel E. Koshland Jr., the UC Berkeley molecular biologist who revised scientists' notions of how enzymes work, remodeled the Berkeley biology department into one of the nation's best and, as editor, refashioned Science into the leading scientific journal in the world, died Monday at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif., after a massive stroke. He was 87.

More...

Note: Koshland's wife, Marian, is the namesake of the National Academies' Koshland Science Museum in Washington, DC.

China claims a first with cloned rabbit

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - China has produced the world's first cloned rabbit using a biological process that takes cells from a fetus, state media said on Tuesday.

More...

Nerve gas antidote made by goats

Scientists have genetically modified goats to make a drug in their milk that protects against deadly nerve agents such as sarin and VX.

More...

First post

What's this? A spinoff of the immensely successful Suburban Original? Not really. More like a place to find science news (and occasionally views) that crosses over into the mainstream.

What was that? The sound of a continent hitting Ctrl+D?