Science News
Poppy yields the final secret to making morphine
Determining the last unknown step in the opiate chemical pathway came down to a single gene
by Bethany Brookshire
The final puzzle piece in the chemical pathway that makes morphine has been identified, scientists report June 25 in Science. The work fills in the center piece in the path — the protein converting the compound (S)-reticuline to (R)-reticuline.
By analyzing poppy DNA and confirming its function in yeast, the researchers showed that a single gene produces an enzyme made of two parts, each of which controls a step of the conversion of reticuline.
This protein links the previously known beginning and end steps in the morphine-making pathway. Both the beginning and end steps have already been engineered in separate yeast strains. Putting the three parts of the pathway together will eventually result in yeast that produce morphine.
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Lovebirds Can Rotate Their Heads at Lightning Fast Speeds
by Sci-News.com
High-speed flight recordings of lovebirds making quick in flight turns reveal how these birds improve sight and shorten blur by rotating their head at speeds of up to 2,700 degrees per second, as fast as insects, enabled by fast neck muscles.
Lovebirds are any of the nine species of the parrot genus Agapornis (family Psittaculidae).
One species, the grey-headed lovebird (Agapornis canus), is native to Madagascar, and eight species are native to the African continent.
These birds were called lovebirds because of their monogamous pair bonding.
They are small, compact parrots around 5 – 6 inches (12.5 – 15 cm) in length 40 – 60 grams in weight.
According to a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE, during flight, turning lovebirds rotate their head at up to 2,700 degrees per second, faster than any other vertebrate recorded to date.
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Technology News
What Is the Big Secret Surrounding Stingray Surveillance?
State and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. are setting up fake cell towers to gather mobile data, but few will admit it
By Larry Greenemeier
Given the amount of mobile phone traffic that cell phone towers transmit, it is no wonder law enforcement agencies target these devices as a rich source of data to aid their investigations. Standard procedure involves getting a court order to obtain phone records from a wireless carrier. When authorities cannot or do not want to go that route, they can set up a simulated cell phone tower—often called a stingray—that surreptitiously gathers information from the suspects in question as well as any other mobile device in the area.
These simulated cell sites—which collect international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), location and other data from mobile phones connecting to them—have become a source of controversy for a number of reasons. National and local law enforcement agencies closely guard details about the technology’s use, with much of what is known about stingrays revealed through court documents and other paperwork made public via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
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How to Stream Every Jon Stewart Daily Show Episode
K.M. McFarland
Jon Stewart’s illustrious tenure hosting The Daily Show comes to an end on August 6. As the day creeps ever nearer, he’s been getting the supercut treatment in various ways: all the times he didn’t see his guest’s movie, his vocal eccentricities, even all the times he did the show when he was sick. And all his frequently recurring guests are coming back for one final goodbye. (We’re still holding out hope that the finale features Springsteen and Colbert.) There’s even a time-lapse video going around that shows just how much Stewart changed during his run.
But lest you think Comedy Central would let the bedrock of its political satire go without a celebratory Viking funeral, that’s about to change. Starting tomorrow at noon EST, Comedy Central is streaming every single Stewart-hosted episode in order. Beginning with that inauspicious January 11, 1999 debut, “Your Month Of Zen” is a binge-watching marathon to rival all others, including that crazy 12-day Simpsons marathon last summer on FXX. There will be an episode of The Daily Show streaming at Comedy Central’s website all the way through to the Stewart’s final bow, so get ready to check in whenever you’d like this summer as he comes into his own as a firebrand social commentator, the correspondents shuffle through multiple all-star lineups, and the guest spot goes from an afterthought to one of the most sought-after appearances in late-night television.
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Environmental News
UK GM wheat 'does not repel pests'
By Claire Marshall
A strain of genetically modified wheat developed in the UK has failed to repel pests as intended in field trials.
Scientists had wanted to engineer a variety with an odour that deterred aphids, nicknamed "whiffy wheat".
While it worked in the lab, out in the field, the wheat was still attacked by the pests.
But negative results are part-and-parcel of the scientific process; researchers behind the project will now work to improve the strain.
The wheat trial was the subject of protests by anti-GM campaigners in 2012. And opposition groups said the outcome was further evidence of the "folly" of investing in GM technology.
The research project itself cost £732,000; another £444,000 was spent on fencing to protect the trial site from intruders and to stop wild animals getting in.
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3 Ways the World's Power Mix Is about to Change
Solar and wind rush in to replace fossil fuels
By Brian Kahn and Climate Central
Big changes are afoot for the energy sector in the next 25 years. Coal and gas are headed out and solar and wind are rushing to take their place on a multi-trillion dollar investment bonanza, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance that scopes out the power generating landscape through 2040.
The main reason for the big shift in power generation isn’t likely to be because of a grand climate agreement, national polices or carbon pricing scheme, though. Instead, it comes down to cold, hard cash with renewables offering more power-generating bang for the buck than fossil fuels. Here are the three big numbers.
1. The world will invest $12.2 trillion in new power generation
Since 2004, renewable energy investments have risen from $43 billion to $270 billion annually. In 2014, most of that money went to China, a pattern that’s expected to continue through 2040.
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Medical News
New cancer drugs wake up sleeping killer T cells
The frontline immune system fighters, often evaded by tumors, might now resume the attack
By Nathan Seppa
Cancer relies on a bag of tricks that can render it virtually invisible to the body’s disease-fighting apparatus. Tumors even co-opt “checkpoint” proteins found on the immune system’s T cells. These proteins normally prevent the immune system from running amok. When activated, these checkpoints can turn a T cell from a bristling warrior ready for a fight into a dozing sentinel — and cancer takes full advantage.
Now, though, new drugs that disable these checkpoint proteins are showing a keen ability to awaken T cells and, in so doing, pull away cancer’s veil. In the last year, studies testing a handful of these drugs have demonstrated eye-opening results against melanoma — the deadly kind of skin cancer — and tangible gains against other malignancies.
The results have sent a jolt through a research community that had grown doubtful about harnessing the immune system to fight cancer. “The sun is finally rising,” says Michael Postow, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “I think this is going to be a big deal for a long time.”
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How vitamin B12 makes pimples pop up
Supplement alters metabolism of skin bacteria, causing inflammation, acne
By Tina Hesman Saey
Vitamin B12 causes a normal skin bacteria to produce pimple-promoting chemicals.
Both people with clear skin and those with acne have Propionibacterium acnes living on their skin. But bacteria from acne sufferers have a different metabolism than microbes from the pimple-free, researchers report June 24 in Science Translational Medicine. Microbes from the acne-ridden have 109 genes that are more active than normal and 27 that are less active. Taking vitamin B12 can cause similar changes in these bacteria, the researchers found.
Vitamin B12, which is important for making red blood cells and for brain function, has long been known to cause acne in some people, but researchers didn’t understand why. Dezhi Kang of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and colleagues gave vitamin B12 supplements to 10 people with clear skin. One developed acne a week later.
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Space News
Astronomers Uncover Evidence of Messier 87’s Cannibalistic Past
by Sci-News.com
A giant elliptical galaxy called Messier 87 merged with a medium-sized spiral galaxy in the last billion years, according to a comprehensive study of 300 planetary nebulae in the Messier 87 halo observed by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).
“This result shows directly that large, luminous structures in the Universe are still growing in a substantial way – galaxies are not finished yet. A large sector of Messier 87’s outer halo now appears twice as bright as it would if the collision had not taken place,” said Alessia Longobardi of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, lead author of the paper in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (arXiv.org preprint).
Messier 87, also known as M87, Virgo A or NGC 4486, is located at the center of a galaxy cluster in the constellation of Virgo, about 50 million light-years away.
The galaxy has a total mass more than a million million times that of the Sun and hosts one of the most massive black holes discovered so far, with a mass 6 billion times that of the Sun. Every few minutes this black hole swallows an amount of matter similar to that of the whole Earth, converting part of it into radiation and a larger part into powerful jets of ultra-fast particles.
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ESA’s Rosetta Orbiter to Land on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
by Sci-News.com
Rosetta’s nominal mission was originally funded until the end of this year, but at a meeting yesterday, the European Space Agency has given formal approval to continue the mission for an additional 9 months, until the end of September 2016. The spacecraft will most likely be landed on the surface of its target comet.
“This is fantastic news for science. We will be able to monitor the decline in the comet’s activity as we move away from the Sun again, and we will have the opportunity to fly closer to the comet to continue collecting more unique data,” said Dr Matt Taylor, a scientist for ESA’s Rosetta project.
“By comparing detailed before and after data, we will have a much better understanding of how comets evolve during their lifetimes.”
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will make its closest approach to the Sun on 13 August, 2015 and the spacecraft has been watching its activity increase over the last year.
Continuing its study of the comet in the year following perihelion will give ESA scientists a fuller picture of how a comet’s activity waxes and wanes along its orbit.
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Odd News
Why Supreme Court Interns Still Sprint to Deliver News
Julia Greenberg
At a time when pretty much anyone, anywhere, can instantly share a photo, live-stream a video, or tweet, it’s sort of weird to see sneaker-clad interns clutching paper and dashing in front of marble columns so fellow Americans can, finally, hear the news.
Which is exactly what happened this morning—and on countless other mornings following major Supreme Court decisions.
In the 21st century, it turns out, landmark rulings from the highest court in the land—on issues that affect millions of Americans in crucial aspects of their lives like marriage, health insurance, and housing discrimination—still come first on paper.
Yes, this anachronism gives us the chance to cheer the Running of the Interns. (Thanks guys!) But this is 2015. Proceedings of the legislative and executive branches of government, from the federal level to city councils, are viewable on C-SPAN or streamed live online. Major announcements from federal agencies tend to come in the form of publicly released press statements available to all. So what gives?
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