The results suggest that the North Atlantic absorption of CO2 varies substantially

over periods of several years and is sensitive to regional changes in climate.

"These exciting results from our new coordinated network represent the first time
scientists have observed CO2 uptake over any large region of the world -- either
land or ocean -- with such accuracy," said Prof Watson.
"Our new method estimates the flux and how it varies from year to year and
season to season, showing patterns of uptake with a detail never before
realised."
It is hoped that similar networks could be established in other major ocean basins
well-covered by shipping, making it possible to observe carbon uptake over most
of the world's oceans. The networks could be used to give early warning of any
weakening in the uptake of carbon dioxide by the global oceans. This uptake is
very important in slowing the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, and some scientists
have warned that such a weakening of the sink could be beginning to occur as
climate change becomes more pronounced.
|

New research could also lead to the development of an 'early-warning system' to

detect any weakening of the ocean sinks. (Credit: iStockphoto/Benjamin Goode)

How to Divide and Conquer 'Social

Network' of Cells
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — On Noah's Ark animals came in twos: male and
female. In human bodies trillions of cells are coupled, too, and so are the
molecules from which they are composed. Yet these don't come in twos, they are
regrouped into indistinguishable clusters. Because these complex cell networks
are the backbone of life -- and illness -- scientists have long searched for ways to
splice cell clusters down to their original pairs.

According to a new study in the journal Nature Methods, Université de Montréal

scientists Stephen Michnick and Po Hien Ear have managed the feat of dividing
cell networks down to their genesis. The discovery could have applications for
diseases such as cancer, where blood-thirsty cells could be decoupled to curb
their multiplication in the human body.
"We have provided a simple way to decouple one cellular network from another,"
says Dr. Michnick, a Université de Montréal biochemistry professor and Canada
Research Chair in Integrative Genomics. "Once decoupled, we could clearly
distinguish what one network was doing versus another."
As part of their study, the researchers reproduced gene networks using baker's
yeast -- a cellular organism proven to resemble the critical functions of human
cells. "We cut out relationships between cells to see which are crucial and which
are not," explains Dr. Michnick. "We found that de-coupling cells permitted
growth regulation. One way to attack cancer would be to find molecules that
decouple other networks (as we did), slow down its growth and weaken the
illness."
Paper Strips Can Quickly Detect
Toxin in Drinking Water

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — A strip of paper infused with carbon nanotubes
can quickly and inexpensively detect a toxin produced by algae in drinking water.

Engineers at the University of Michigan led the development of the new

biosensor.
The paper strips perform 28 times faster than the complicated method most
commonly used today to detect microcystin-LR, a chemical compound produced
by cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. Cyanobacteria is commonly found on
nutrient-rich waters.
Microcystin-LR (MC-LR), even in very small quantities, is suspected to cause
liver damage and possibly liver cancer. The substance and others like it are
among the leading causes of biological water pollution. It is believed to be a
culprit of mass poisonings going back to early human history, said Nicholas
Kotov, a professor in the departments of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical
Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering who led the project.
Water treatment plants -- even in developed countries -- can't always remove
MC-LR completely, nor can they test for it often enough, Kotov said. The
biosensor he and his colleagues developed provides a quick, cheap, portable
and sensitive test that could allow water treatment plants and individuals to verify
the safety of water on a more regular basis.
"The safety of drinking water is a vital issue in many developing countries and in
many parts of the United States," Kotov said. "We've developed a simple and
inexpensive technology to detect multiple toxins."
The technology could easily be adapted to detect a variety harmful chemicals or
toxins in water or food.
A paper about the technique is published online in Nano Letters. It will soon be
available in the journal's print edition.
The sensor works by measuring the electrical conductivity of the nanotubes in
the paper. Before the nanotubes are impregnated in the paper, they are mixed
with antibodies for MC-LR. When the paper strips come in contact with water
contaminated with MC-LR, those antibodies squeeze in between the nanotubes
to bond with the MC-LR. This spreading apart of the nanotubes changes their
electrical conductivity.
An external monitor measures the electrical conductivity. The whole device is
about the size of a home pregnancy test, Kotov said. Results appear in fewer
than 12 minutes.
To adapt the biosensor for other toxins, Kotov said, scientists could simply
replace the antibodies that bond to the toxin.
This research was done in collaboration with the laboratory of professor Chuanlai
Xu at Wuxi University in China. It is funded by the National Science Foundation,
the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Institutes of Health,
as well as the National Science Foundation of China and the 11th Five Years
Key Programs for Science and Technology Development of China.
The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property, and is
seeking commercialization partners to help bring the technology to market.
Sex Life May Hold Key To Honeybee
Survival
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — The number and diversity of male partners a
queen honeybee has could help to protect her children from disease, say
University of Leeds scientists, who are investigating possible causes of the
widespread increase in bee deaths seen around the world.

The researchers are working on the theory that the reason some colonies are
wiped out while others remain healthy could be down the genetic diversities of
the hives.
Dr Bill Hughes, from the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds,
says: “By making sure queens mate with enough genetically variable males, we
may be able to boost resistance levels and so protect our honeybee populations
from disease attacks like the ones we have seen hitting the US.”
One possibility is that the loss of honeybees means that the number and variety
of potential mates for a queen is becoming too low to maintain genetic diversity
and therefore disease resistant populations.
Says Dr Hughes: “Given the choice, queen honeybees will typically mate with up
to 12 different male partners in a matter of minutes and some with over 20. The
record is the giant Asian honeybee whose queens normally mate with well over
40 males - and in one case was found to have mated with over a hundred.”
The Leeds scientists will be examining the question of genetic resistance by
studying honeybee reactions to a common fungus parasite called Chalkbrood,
under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.
The fungus, already found in the majority of UK hives, infects and ‘eats’ larvae,
giving them a chalky appearance. Individual larvae die but the parasite rarely kills
the whole colony.
In 2008, US average losses of honeybee colonies were 35%, with some
beekeepers losing 90% of their colonies. A contributing factor to these high levels
of honeybee deaths may have been a virus. However the same virus has been
found in other countries yet does not seem to cause the same problems.
Dr Hughes and his team think infections by hidden parasites in genetically
susceptible bees may be combining with other factors to produce a lethal ‘perfect
storm’ which overwhelms their defences.
Honeybee survival is vital to the protection of our food supplies because they
pollinate up to a third of the food we grow in the UK.
The project, which has received just under £500,000 in funding from the Natural
Environment Research Council, is due last for three years. Collaborators include
the UK Government’s National Bee Unit based near York and the University of
Copenhagen.
Galaxy Exposes Its Dusty Inner Workings
in New Spitzer Image

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured
an action-packed picture of the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy
that looks like a wispy cloud when seen from Earth.

From Spitzer's perch up in space, the galaxy's clouds of dust and stars come into
clear view. The telescope's infrared vision reveals choppy piles of recycled
stardust -- dust that is being soaked up by new star systems and blown out by
old ones.
To some people, the new view might resemble a sea creature, or even a
Rorschach inkblot test. But to astronomers, it offers a unique opportunity to study
the whole life cycle of stars close-up.
"It's quite the treasure trove," said Karl Gordon, the principal investigator of the
latest Spitzer observations at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore,
Md. "Because this galaxy is so close and relatively large, we can study all the
various stages and facets of how stars form in one environment."
The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its larger sister galaxy, the Large Magellanic
Cloud, are named after the seafaring explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who
documented them while circling the globe nearly 500 years ago. From Earth's
southern hemisphere, they can appear as wispy clouds. The Small Magellanic
Cloud is the farther of the pair, at 200,000 light-years away.
Recent research has shown that the galaxies may not, as previously suspected,
orbit around the Milky Way. Instead, they are thought to be merely sailing by,
destined to go their own way. Astronomers say the two galaxies, which are both
less evolved than a galaxy like ours, were triggered to create bursts of new stars
by gravitational interactions with the Milky Way and with each other. In fact, the
Large Magellanic Cloud may eventually consume its smaller companion.
Gordon and his team are interested in the Small Magellanic Cloud not only
because it is so close and compact, but also because it is very similar to young
galaxies thought to populate the universe billions of years ago. The Small
Magellanic Cloud has only one-fifth the amount of heavier elements, such as
carbon, contained in the Milky Way, which means that its stars haven't been
around long enough to pump large amounts of these elements back into their
environment. Such elements were necessary for life to form in our solar system.
Studies of the Small Magellanic Cloud therefore offer a glimpse into the different
types of environments in which stars form.
The new Spitzer observations were presented today at the 215th meeting of the
American Astronomical Meeting in Washington. They reveal the galaxy's
youngest stars embedded in thick dust, in addition to the older stars, which spit
the dust out. Taken together with visible-light observations, these Spitzer data
help provide a census of the whole stellar population.
"With Spitzer, we are pinpointing how to best calculate the numbers of new stars
that are forming right now," said Gordon. "Observations in the infrared give us a
view into the birthplace of stars, unveiling the dust-enshrouded locations where
stars have just formed."
Infrared light is color-coded in the new picture, so that blue shows older stars,
green shows organic dust and red highlights dust-enshrouded star formation.
Light encoded in blue has a wavelength of 3.6 microns; green is 8.0 microns; and
red is 24 microns. This image was taken before Spitzer ran out of its liquid
coolant in May 2009 and began its "warm" mission.
Other collaborators include: M. Meixner, M, Sewilo and B. Shiao of the Space
Telescope Science Institute; M. Meade, B. Babler, S. Bracker of the University of
Wisconsin at Madison; C. Engelbracht, M. Block, K. Misselt of the University of
Arizona, Tucson; R. Indebetouw of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville; and
J. Hora and T. Robitaille of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
Cambridge, Mass.
The image includes Spitzer observations taken previously by a team led by
Alberto Bolatto of the University of Maryland, College Park.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space
Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

The infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope, reveals the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI)

Growing Nanowires: European Research

Paves Way for Faster, Smaller
Microchips
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — European researchers have developed state-of-
the-art nanowire 'growing' technology, opening the way for faster, smaller
microchips and creating a promising new avenue of research and industrial
development in Europe.

Nanowires are a promising new technology that could meet rapidly rising
performance requirements for integrated circuit design over the next ten years.
They are tiny wires just tens of nanometres in diameter and micrometers in
length.
They could mean smaller, faster and lower power electronics, and lead to entirely
novel architectures such as 3D microchips -- a vertical stack of circuitry that can
massively increase the size of circuits for the same footprint.
Nanowires are so narrow they are often called 'one-dimensional' structures
because the width of the wire constrains the sideways movement of electrons as
they pass through the wire. Also, the cylindrical geometry allows the most
efficient electrostatic gating technology.
Unsurprisingly at this scale, nanowires demonstrate many characteristics that
offer the potential for novel circuits and architectures, and physicists are very
excited. The Japanese pioneered the field with the USA taking up the work, and
with a few European teams entering soon after.
Raising nanowires ... and patents
But the Europeans are on their way. Recent work at the NODE project
(http://www.node-project.com/) led to world-class technology and 40 patents.
"Silicon technology becomes very challenging when you get down to 10-15nm,"
explains Lars Samuelson, director of the Nanometer Structure Consortium at
Lund University and coordinator of the NODE project.
"One of the problems of the [current] top-down approach is that it introduces
harsh environments and you end up with devices that may be dominated by
defects."
NODE's nanowires are 'grown' from the bottom up, like crystals, into vertical
structures. "We call it 'guided self-assembly', and it is a 'bottom-up' process that
can result in fewer defects," Samuelson says.
Vertical nanowires can consist of different materials, by simply altering the
depositing material, so the wire takes on layers with different characteristics.
"There are many potential opportunities for developing new technologies," he
says. "This vertical arrangement may be the route to 3D circuit design as well as
to realise monolithic on-chip optoelectronics."
NODE focused on combining silicon with indium arsenide (Si:InAs) and silicon
with silicon germanium (Si:SiGe), two very promising materials. "Indium arsenide
is inherently very fast and, as such, it was of particular interest to our work,"
remarks Samuelson.
Breakthroughs
The project looked at every link in the nanowire production chain, from growth,
processing on an industrial scale, to characterisation and integration. "And one of
the big challenges of the project was the integration of our work with current
silicon processing technology, so there was a big effort on processing,"
Samuelson stresses.
For this, characterisation studies were important to examine the different
materials used and the effects induced by the nanowire structure. NODE also
examined the characteristics of potential devices, such as field effect transistors
(FET). Finally, the team looked at integrating these devices into circuits.
It is a huge body of work and led to some real breakthroughs. "One of the
breakthroughs was the... perfect deposition of high-K dielectrics coating the
nanowires and serving as a dielectric in the wrap-gate transistors," reveals
Samuelson. "We developed a very good technique for this."
High-K dielectrics overcome some of the limits of silicon dioxide at very small
scales and are a promising strategy for further miniaturisation of integrated
circuits.
"As part of this research, we have also encountered problems and possible
roadblocks [to further] development, such as quite severe problems in growing Si
nanowires using gold catalysts," adds Samuelson.
State of the art
"This technology is not ready for industrial applications, and whether it will be
three, six or nine years before it appears industrially, I cannot say," Samuelson
warns. "But we established the state of the art, we have the best results."
The project has announced Europe's entry into an exciting new field of
nanotechnology and developed a core expertise on the continent. Over 100
scientific papers will emerge from the work when it finally winds down.
The development of European expertise could not come at a better time.
Industrial players like IBM, Samsung and some of the leading Singapore labs
began developing planar, or horizontal, nanowire technology shortly after NODE
began their efforts. The technology is coming of age.
The NODE project received funding from the ICT strand of the EU's Sixth
Framework Programme for research.
Bering Strait Influenced Ice Age Climate
Patterns Worldwide

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — In a vivid example of how a small geographic

feature can have far-reaching impacts on climate, new research shows that water
levels in the Bering Strait helped drive global climate patterns during ice age
episodes dating back more than 100,000 years.

The international study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR), found that the repeated opening and closing of the narrow
strait due to fluctuating sea levels affected currents that transported heat and
salinity in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. As a result, summer temperatures in
parts of North America and Greenland oscillated between warmer and colder
phases, causing ice sheets to alternate between expansion and retreat and
affecting sea levels worldwide.
While the findings do not directly bear on current global warming, they highlight
the complexity of Earth's climate system and the fact that seemingly insignificant
changes can lead to dramatic tipping points for climate patterns, especially in and
around the Arctic.
"The global climate is sensitive to impacts that may seem minor," says NCAR
scientist Aixue Hu, the lead author. "Even small processes, if they are in the right
location, can amplify changes in climate around the world."
The study is being published this week in Nature Geoscience. Funded by the
Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, it
used the latest generation of supercomputers to study past climate at a level of
detail that would have been impossible just a few years ago.
New clues to an ice age mystery
Hu and his colleagues set out to solve a key mystery of the last glacial period:
Why, starting about 116,000 years ago, did northern ice sheets repeatedly
advance and retreat for about the next 70,000 years? The enormous ice sheets
held so much water that sea levels rose and dropped by as much as about 100
feet (30 meters) during these intervals.
In other cases, scientists have associated such major oscillations in climate with
fluctuations in Earth's orbit around the Sun. But in the time period that the
research team looked at, the orbital pattern did not correspond with the geologic
movement of the ice sheets and associated sea level changes.
The study team considered an alternative possibility: that changes in the Bering
Strait, the main gateway in the Northern Hemisphere between the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, might have affected ocean currents across much of the globe.
Although small-the strait is currently about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide between
Russia and the westernmost islands of Alaska-it allows water to circulate from
the relatively fresh north Pacific to the saltier north Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean.
This flow is instrumental to regulating the strength of a current known as the
meridional overturning circulation, a key driver of heat from the tropics to the
poles.
Supercomputers reveal a pattern of warming and cooling
Using the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, a powerful computer
tool for studying worldwide climate, the researchers compared the responses of
ice age climate to conditions in the Bering Strait. They ran the model on new
supercomputers at NCAR and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, enabling them to focus on smaller-scale geographic features that,
until recently, could not be captured in long-term simulations of global climate.
The simulations accounted for the changes in sea level, revealing a recurring
pattern-each time playing out over several thousand years-in which the
reopening and closing of the strait had a far-reaching impact on ocean currents
and ice sheets.
• As the climate cooled because of changes in Earth's orbit, northern ice
sheets expanded. This caused sea levels to drop worldwide, forming a
land bridge from Asia to North America and nearly closing the Bering
Strait.
• With the flow of relatively fresh water from the Pacific to the Atlantic
choked off, the Atlantic grew more saline. The saltier and heavier water
led to an intensification of the Atlantic's meridional overturning circulation,
a current of rising and sinking water that, like a conveyor belt, pumps
warmer water northward from the tropics.
• This circulation warmed Greenland and parts of North America by about 3
degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius)-enough to reverse the advance
of ice sheets in those regions and reduce their height by almost 400 feet
(112 meters) every thousand years. Although the Pacific cooled by an
equivalent amount, it did not have vast ice sheets that could be affected
by the change in climate.
• Over thousands of years, the Greenland and North American ice sheets
melted enough to raise sea levels and reopen the Bering Strait.
• The new inflow of fresher water from the Pacific weakened the meridional
overturning circulation, allowing North America and Greenland to cool over
time. The ice sheets resumed their advance, sea levels dropped, the
Bering Strait again mostly closed, and the entire cycle was repeated.
The combination of the ocean circulation and the size of the ice sheets-which
exerted a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back into space-affected climate
throughout the world. The computer simulations showed that North America and
Eurasia warmed significantly during the times when the Bering Strait was open,
with the tropical and subtropical Indian and Pacific Oceans, as well as Antarctica,
warming slightly.
Learning from the past
The pattern was finally broken about 34,000 years ago, the point in Earth's
95,000-year orbital cycle at which the planet was so far from the Sun at certain
times of year that the ice sheets continued to grow even when the Bering Strait
closed. When the orbital cycle brought Earth closer to the Sun in the northern
winter, the ice sheets retreated sufficiently about 10,000 years ago to reopen the
strait. This helped lead to a relatively stable climate, nurturing the rise of
civilization.
"This kind of study is critical for teasing out the nuances of our climate system,"
says NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, a co-author of the paper. "If we can improve
our understanding of the forces that affected climate in the past, we can better
anticipate how our climate may change in the future."
In addition to NCAR, the study team included researchers from the National
Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, University of Colorado in
Boulder, Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, Australian National
University, and Harvard University.

Closed Bering Strait and global climate. Scientists are unraveling a chain of
events that led to large-scale warmings and coolings across the Northern
Hemisphere during past ice ages. As ice sheets expanded, water levels dropped
in the narrow Bering Strait (left) and cut off the flow of relatively fresh water from
the northern Pacific through the Arctic into the saltier Atlantic. This altered ocean
currents, increasing the flow of Atlantic water northward from the tropics and
producing warming in the north Atlantic (right, shown in dark red) that melted ice
sheets and affected climate patterns and sea levels across much of the world.
(Credit: Courtesy Nature, modified by UCAR)

Brain Activity Levels Affect Self-

Perception: 'Rose-Colored Glasses'
Correlate With Less Frontal Lobe Use

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — The less you use your brain's frontal lobes, the
more you see yourself through rose-colored glasses, a University of Texas at
Austin researcher says.

Those findings are being published in the February edition of the journal
NeuroImage.
"In healthy people, the more you activate a portion of your frontal lobes, the more
accurate your view of yourself is," says Jennifer Beer, an assistant professor of
psychology, who conducted the research with graduate student Brent L. Hughes.
"And the more you view yourself as desirable or better than your peers, the less
you use those lobes."
The natural human tendency to see oneself in a positive light can be helpful and
motivating in some situations but detrimental in others, Beer says.
Her research, conducted at the university's Imaging Research Center, gives new
insight into the relationship among brain functions and human emotion and
perceptions.
It may help scientists better understand brain functions in seniors or people who
suffer from depression or other mental illnesses. It could also have implications
for recovering methamphetamine addicts whose frontal lobes are often damaged
by drug use and who can overestimate their ability to stay clean.
As part of the study, 20 subjects answered questions about how they compared
to their peers on such positive traits as tact, modesty, likability and maturity and
such negative traits as materialism, messiness, unreliability and narrow-
mindedness. As the subjects answered those questions, a magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) machine scanned their brains.
The subjects who viewed themselves in a very positive light across those
disparate areas used their orbitofrontal cortex less than the other subjects. This
region of the frontal lobe is generally associated with reasoning, planning,
decision-making and problem-solving.
Some subjects who had accurate views of themselves showed four times more
frontal lobe activation than the most extreme "rose-colored glasses" wearer in the
study.
Among a separate set of subjects who were asked the same questions, those
who were required to answer quickly saw themselves in a far more positive light
than those who had unlimited time to answer. Those findings suggest that
processing information in a more deliberate manner may be the way in which
frontal lobe activation permits people to come to more realistic conclusions.
"Subjects made unrealistically positive judgments about themselves more
quickly, suggesting these judgments require fewer mental resources," Beer says.
"Perhaps, like the visual system, the social judgment system is designed to give
us a quick 'good enough' perception for the sake of efficiency."

The less you use your brain's frontal lobes, the more you see yourself through
rose-colored glasses. The natural human tendency to see oneself in a positive
light can be helpful and motivating in some situations but detrimental in others.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Trista Weibell)