As increasingly early puberty ups breast cancer risk, researchers search environment for clues

From rss.sciam.com:

NEW YORK—Women who reach puberty early have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who reach it late. So as the age of puberty's onset among U.S. girls continues to drop, researchers are trying to figure out why—and how this growing risk factor might be ...

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'Pulp Fiction' writer tweeting from jail?

From www.cnn.com:

(CNN) -- An inmate wrestles with his fear, boredom and remorse.

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But they may be based on fact, not fiction. These 140-character snippets have been popping up for more than a month on what friends acknowledge as the Twitter account of Avary, who is serving a year in a California jail for vehicular manslaughter.

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Avary, 44, whose Oscar came in 1995 for co-writing "Pulp Fiction" with Quentin Tarantino, appears to have begun the posts September 26, around the time he began serving his sentence at Ventura County Jail northwest of Los Angeles.

Avary's Twitter feed had been dormant since July 23, when he wrapped up a series of tweets describing what appeared to be scenes from a prospective screenplay.

After a two-month hiatus, the September 26 post contained only two words: "FADE IN," the traditional beginning of a professional screenplay.

"Nightly, every few hours like clockwork, a guard's flashlight beam strikes #34's face, perhaps to ensure lack of proper rest and exhaustion," reads a post from November 20. Many tweets describe Avary as "#34," an apparent reference to his inmate number.

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Kiwi Rocket Scares Sheep, Reaches Space

From www.wired.com:

“It’s not trivial sending something into space,” Mark Rocket, Rocket Lab director and former Internet entrepreneur, told local media. “This is a huge technological leap for New ...

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Something in the Water Is Feminizing Male Fish. Are We Next?

From www.popsci.com:

It's one thing to worry about pollutants in our freshwater supply. It's another to find out that all across the country, male fish swimming in some of that water are becoming "intersex," their male sex organs producing immature female eggs. Although the condition occurs naturally in some species, it shouldn't happen to black bass. But a new study shows that it is, and in numbers far greater than ever suspected. The phenomenon raises serious concerns about the pollution levels in our rivers and could threaten several species.

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Single-celled life does a lot with very little

From www.nature.com:

The blueprint of a small organism's cellular machinery has been unveiled, offering the most comprehensive view yet of the molecular essentials of life. But the research also shows just how far biologists have to go before they understand the complete biochemical basis of even the simplest of creatures.

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The researchers found that with its relatively short genome — it has just 689 protein-coding genes, compared with 20,000 or so in humans — M. pneumoniae presses some of its molecular machinery into multiple jobs. And the transcriptional activity of the organism seems to replicate that of larger, more sophisticated organisms.

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'Temple of the mind' unlocked

From www.nature.com:

The full structure of a fiendishly complicated and important brain protein has been determined by researchers, potentially enabling the development of new treatments for a wealth of neurological disorders.

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The resulting picture "tells us things about the organization of the receptor that were just completely unanticipated" says Gouaux, a protein crystallographer at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The work appears online today in Nature1.

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Ancient wildfire prevention technique reaps carbon credits

From www.scienceagogo.com:

An Australian project that dramatically reduces the extent and severity of natural blazes by using traditional indigenous fire management techniques is being hailed as a model with enormous potential in the fights against climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Using satellites, indigenous fire management involves controlled early dry season fires to create fire breaks and patchy mosaic patterns of burnt and unburnt country. Pioneered centuries ago, this practice minimizes the extent of late dry season wildfires, and importantly, maximizes biodiversity protection.

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Virtual Museum of the European Roots launched on the Internet

From news.discovery.com:

Accessible through their web site ( ...

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Solar Tsunamis Are Real, NASA Says

From feeds.space.com:

Incredibly powerful waves of plasma rippling across the surface of the sun and dubbed "solar tsunamis" were first observed years ago, but were thought to be an optical illusion. Scientists have now confirmed, though, that they are really real.

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Skeptical observers suggested it might be a shadow of some kind – a trick of the eye. But new observations from NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are telling researchers that this controversial phenomenon isn't an illusion.

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Their breath on your skin helps you hear

From www.newscientist.com:

DEPENDING on whose it is, breath on your neck may or may not feel good. Either way, now it seems that it can help you understand what someone is saying. The discovery could lead to hearing aids that emit puffs of air.

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They had 66 volunteers listen to a male voice saying all four syllables against background noise that made it hard to distinguish them. At the same time as some of the syllables, they delivered a puff of air to the hand or neck.

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Rethinking Light and Sound

From SEEDMAGAZINE.COM:

“Son et lumiѐre”—sound and light—may stir thoughts of a clamorous and brilliant display on a holiday evening, animating Versailles, the pyramids of Giza, or Delhi’s Red Fort with guns, gongs, and fireworks. But I would like to draw attention to other more serious dimensions of sound and light. A quarter century ago, in 1983, I was the scribe for a report of the US National Academy of Sciences titled “Toward an International Geosphere-Biosphere Program: A Study of Global ...

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Shopping Guide: Tech execs share their wish lists

From rssfeeds.usatoday.com:

-- Gina Bianchini, CEO, social-networking service Ning: "Sonos ZonePlayer S5 and Sonos Zonebridge, instead of rewiring the house to get music everywhere. A Verizon Droid to complement my iPod Touch and BlackBerry. And Amazon Kindle 2 International Edition. Have Kindle, will travel."

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Up next on the shopping guide: software for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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9-Year-Old Girl Finds Bone at Maryland Dinosaur Park

From news.discovery.com:

"Dinosaur Park" in Prince Georges County, Maryland, has only been open for two weekends, but it's already led to a probable noteworthy find. 

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The paleontologist in this case wasn't a professor with multiple degrees, but rather a 9-year-old girl who happened upon a small bone that experts believe belonged to a Cretaceous era raptor. The bone measures just about 1/2 inch long. Experts at the park think it was likely a vertebra from a raptor's tail. The bone is now on its way to the Smithsonian, where it will undergo further examination. 

If the bone is verified, it probably dates to 110 million years ago, when this part of Maryland enjoyed a tropical or sub-tropical climate. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles and fish all flourished under the balmy conditions.

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Space shuttle lands safely in Florida

From www.cnn.com:

(CNN) -- The space shuttle Atlantis glided to a picture-perfect landing Friday morning under bright, sunny skies at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Stott had spent 87 days on the international space station, according to NASA.

About an hour after the shuttle landed, the crew transport vehicle moved alongside the orbiter access hatch on Atlantis' port side, NASA said on its Web site. With the crew hatch opened, the astronauts left the orbiter to enter the vehicle.

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