Drug traces found in water pose problem for wildlife: Pharmaceuticals passing unaltered from humans into nation's waterwaysOver the last two years, scientists working on the Potomac River have netted 111 smallmouth bass with bizarre sexual traits. The fish were males but had eggs growing inside their testes.
Researchers found many of these gender-bending bass downstream from sewage treatment plants in water tinged with a chemical called ethinylestradiol - the active ingredient in birth control pills.
More studies are necessary, biologists say, but evidence is mounting that trace levels ... (more)
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For global cooling, just sprayFirst he tried giant whisks. Now he is proposing a fleet of yachts that sprays water droplets into the clouds as the way to damp down global warming. The droplets, says engineer Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh, UK, will boost the whiteness of low-altitude clouds so that they reflect more sunlight back into space.
In a paper presented at a climate-change conference in Edinburgh last week, Salter says that chimneys mounted on a fleet of 500 £1 million sprayer yac... (more)
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Study turns pot wisdom on headCalgary — Forget the stereotype about dopey potheads. It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.
While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form.
Most "drugs of abuse" such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain ... (more)
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U.S. gives up on upgrading missile defenseWASHINGTON -- Lawmakers say the Bush administration has decided to abandon efforts to improve its current system of ground-based ballistic missile interceptors.
"After many years of investment in this midcourse interceptor, (the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency) has now essentially decided that the first generation (ground-based interceptors) will also be its last generation," said the Senate Committee on Appropriations in a report accompanying its version of the 2006 def... (more)
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Flu drug maker won't share patent: Roche rejects calls to allow production of generic versionsTamiflu, a pricey antiviral pill invented in a Bay Area lab and made in part from a spice used in Chinese cookery, has emerged as the world's first line of defense against bird flu should the deadly strain begin its feared spread among human beings.
As nations begin to stockpile the drug in anticipation of a flu pandemic, calls are mounting for countries to sidestep patents on the drug -- as Brazil first did for AIDS medications -- and make their own generic versions.
... (more)
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The Mysterious Origin and Supply of OilIt runs modern society and fuels serious political tension. But where does oil really come from, and how much is left? The far-out possibilities might surprise you.
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Nature has been transmuting dead life into black gold for millions of years using little more than heat, pressure and time, scientists tell us.
But with gas prices spiking more than $1 per gallon in the United States this year and some experts predicting that the end of oil is near, scientists st... (more)
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Two Chinese astronauts blast off on five-day space missionBEIJING -- In a giant leap for its space program, China launched two astronauts into a five-day space mission today, broadcasting the entire launch live to a national television audience.
The astronauts, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, were launched into space at 9 a.m. today (9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time last night) in a mission that will set the stage for China's fast-rising ambitions on the moon and in outer space.
Moments after the liftoff, state television showed... (more)
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Turkey bird flu 'deadly strain'EU states have been urged to stockpile anti-viral drugs after confirmation that the bird flu virus found in Turkey is the H5N1 strain dangerous to humans.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said the European Union should be ready for a potential flu pandemic.
It came after tests on dead birds from Kiziksa, north-west Turkey, confirmed the H5N1 strain. An outbreak in Romania is assumed to be the same, the EU said.
The H5N1 strain has killed more than 6... (more)
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Dark Matter: Invisible, Mysterious and Perhaps Nonexistent Galaxies don't have enough regular matter to keep them from flying apart, scientists have been telling us for years. So there must be a bunch of unseen "dark matter" lurking in every galaxy.
But dark matter has never been directly detected, and nobody knows what it might be made of. A few scientists remeain skeptical. To a lay person, it might sound downright crazy.
Now a new study sugges... (more)
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EU says internet could fall apartA battle has erupted over who governs the internet, with America demanding to maintain a key role in the network it helped create and other countries demanding more control.
The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the internet will split apart.
At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the internet's address structure, called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between... (more)
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Web enjoys year of biggest growthThe web has grown more in 2005 than it did at the height of the dotcom boom, says a study.
In the year to October the web grew by more than 17 million sites, says monitoring firm Netcraft.
This figure exceeds the growth of 16 million sites seen in 2000 when net fever reached its most intense pitch.
Netcraft said the rise was caused by small businesses going online, firms making the most of web advertising schemes and spammers.
Growing p... (more)
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Continent on avian flu alert after bird deathsEurope was put on a continental alert for avian flu yesterday as Turkey and Romania culled hundreds of birds and quarantined villages after reported outbreaks in both countries.
Health officials across the continent increased surveillance for a strain of the disease that could mutate into one which spreads easily among humans. The so-called Spanish flu outbreakof 1918, which has been linked to the current strain, killed between 20 and 40 million people.
Romania has ... (more)
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GM crop 'ruins fields for 15 years'GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.
The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.
Financed by GM companies and Margaret Beckett's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report effectively torpedoes the Governm... (more)
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Floodwalls' collapse in New Orleans linked to soil failureHurricane Katrina's storm surges were never high enough to go over the walls of two canals whose failure caused massive flooding in western and central New Orleans, investigators have determined.
The finding appears to eliminate an early theory about why walls failed along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals: that the concrete and steel walls were topped by floodwaters, which then scoured out the soil in back of the walls, leading to their collapse.
A team of e... (more)
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Resurrecting a Killer FluOct. 7, 2005 - Scientists have long puzzled over the exceptional lethality of the 1918 flu, which killed between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide. What features of the viral genome enabled it to become both highly transmissible and lethal at the same time? Some of those questions were answered this week, with the publication of twin papers in the journals Nature and Science. In Nature, Jeffery Taubenberger of the Pentagon's Armed Forces Institute of Pathology announced that he had comp... (more)
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Legionnaire's Disease is Behind Deadly Toronto OutbreakTORONTO/AM640 TORONTO - Health officials now say legionnaires' disease is the likely cause of a deadly outbreak at a Toronto seniors' home.
Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia that usually affects elderly people with respiratory problems.
Sixteen people have died, although there are no new deaths and no new cases in the past three days.
Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. David McKeown says autopsies done on three of the residents of the Se... (more)
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Breaking America's grip on the net: After troubled negotiations in Geneva, the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governmentsYou would expect an announcement that would forever change the face of the internet to be a grand affair - a big stage, spotlights, media scrums and a charismatic frontman working the crowd.
But unless you knew where he was sitting, all you got was David Hendon's slightly apprehensive voice through a beige plastic earbox. The words were calm, measured and unexciting, but their implications will be felt for generations to come.
Hendon is the Department for Trade and ... (more)
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Security fears as flu virus that killed 50 million is recreatedScientists have recreated the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk.
Undisclosed quantities of the virus are being held in a high-security government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, after a nine-year effort to rebuild the agent that swept the globe in record time and claimed the lives of an estimated 50 million people.
The genetic sequence is also being made availabl... (more)
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Green light in sky was likely a meteorThe blazing green light that shot across the region's sky early Monday likely was a meteor, Air Force Space Command officials said.
The streak appeared about 5:45 a.m. and lasted for about 10 seconds, said Carnegie Science Center Buhl Planetarium presenter Jean Philpott. KDKA Radio reported that the object was seen from Indiana to Virginia, triggering several early morning phone calls to the station.
The object likely was "a large piece of space rock" called a bolid... (more)
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This Laser Trick's a Quantum LeapPhysicists in Australia have slowed a speeding laser pulse and captured it in a crystal, a feat that could be instrumental in creating quantum computers.
The scientists slowed the laser light pulse from 300,000 kilometers per second to just several hundred meters per second, allowing them to capture the pulse for about a second.
The accomplishment marks a new world record, but the scientists are more thrilled that they were able to store and recall light, an importa... (more)
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Mysterious red lights appear over SouthlandThey're baaack!
Those peculiar pulsing red lights reappeared over Southland skies early Saturday morning, causing many a neck to crane upward and many a police switchboard to light up with calls.
A trio of steady red lights seemed to swim across the western night sky starting about 11 p.m. Friday night and reappearing after midnight. The three dots at times formed a triangular shape, but they then seemed to straighten into a line, much like sightings in the same are... (more)
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Pill-sized camera gets to grips with your gutIT SOUNDS like the stuff of nightmares - a robot that crawls around inside your gut, anchoring itself by biting onto the walls of your intestine.
But the researchers behind a new take on the camera-in-a-pill claim its ability to move and stop on command will give doctors greater control over the images it takes, allowing them to focus on particular areas of concern.
Existing camera capsules designed to take images of the intestine cannot be controlled externally, so... (more)
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Schemes to Control the Weather Clouded by FailureScientists agree they can't totally control the weather. But some experts think they can tame it a bit.
Schemes are wide-ranging, with proposals to throttle everything from fog to global warming. Results have been mixed and the controversy constant.
Nature's most powerful storms, hurricanes, are another matter. Hurricanes rely on warm water for fuel. Experts disavow schemes from ocean plowing (to cool the water and remove the energy source) to dragging icebergs into... (more)
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Four more infected by mysterious respiratory virus in TorontoOTTAWA, Oct. 2(Xinhuanet) -- Four more people were infected by the mysterious respiratory virus that has killed four in Toronto since outbreak, making the number of the patients up to 77, local reports said Sunday.
Despite the encouraging recoveries so far of some patients, there has been a slight increase in the number of the sickened, Dr. David McKeown, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, told Canadian TV (CTV) in Toronto.
The rise of patients is not alar... (more)
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The idiot box: Watching TV may damage children's brain developmentWatching TV may damage children's brain development, leading to increased anti-social behaviour, new research claims.
There is also a correlation between the amount of TV children watch and the degree of educational damage they suffer, according to the report by Aric Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society.
And significant long-term damage occurs even at so-called modest levels of viewing - between one and two hours a day - the report, Remot... (more)
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