Author: David Bradley

Tenth Planet

Rather a coincidence that Hubble images of the so-called tenth planet “2003 UB313” claiming that it’s probably not Pluto’s big brother at all but more like a slightly bigger twin, should be released the day before new results from German astronomers appear that show UB313 to be some 700 km wider!

Of course, the reporter covering the HST results will have known in advance (embargoed press release and all that) about the German results, but obviously wanted to scoop the story with another related item.

My sources tell me, however, that there are no authorized results from the HST measurement, as these will take another month to complete.

Watch out for my full report on the published, peer-reviewed work on UB313 in PSIgate Spotlight coming soon…

Cannabinoids and Osteoporosis

A new approach to the debilitating bone loss disease, osteoporosis, could be on the horizon thanks to research by Andreas Zimmer and Meliha Karsak from the Bonn-based Life & Brain Center in Germany and collaborators in Israel, the UK, and the USA.

The researchers have discovered a regulatory mechanism involved in bone loss linked to a chemical receptor in our bodies with a previously unknown function, which could lead to a new treatment.

Read the complete story in the latest issue of Reactive Reports, chemistry webzine.

Kama Sutra Worm Comes of Age Friday

If you’ve recently been a bit naughty and opened a file with any of the following subject lines:
*Hot Movie*
Arab s*x DSC-00465.jpg
F*ckin Kama Sutra pics
Fw: S*X.mpg
Fwd: Crazy illegal S*x!
give me a kiss
Miss Lebanon 2006
Part 1 of 6 Video clipe
School girl fantasies gone bad
The Best Videoclip Ever

You may have infected your PC with a virus that will wipe data on the 3rd of the month. Today is a good time to ensure your AV software is up to speed and to get any confessions out of colleagues on your network. According to Sophos, the virus will destroy files with the following extensions

DOC, XLS, MDB, MDE, PPT, PPS, ZIP, RAR, PDF, PSD and DMP

and replace their contents with:

DATA Error [47 0F 94 93 F4 K5]

Not worth it for a little online titillation was it?

I Lurv Your Photo

You may not have been fooled by claims of love from anonymous email correspondents nor messages purportedly from Paypal urging you to check your security settings and sending you via their servers in Russia to verify your password, but would you be sucked in by this missive, which could appeal to anyone’s vanity, especially if they post a lot of photos on the web:

“Hello,

Your photograph has reached editing stage as part of an article we are
publishing for our February edition of the Guardians business section.
Can you check over the format and get back to us with your approval or
any changes?
If the picture is not to your liking then please send a preferred one.
We’ve attached the photo with the article here.

Kind regards,

William Morrison
Editor
www.Guardian.com”

This message (there are variations on the theme) came with a zip file attachment containing a rather malicious piece of software that goes by the name of Troj/Stinx-N. According to Sophos this worm “Turns off anti-virus applications, Allows others to access the computer, Downloads code from the internet, Reduces system security, Installs itself in the Registry”

The smoking gun, of cours, is that line “If the picture is not to your liking then please send a preferred one.” Anyone in the trade would know immediately that this was not a message from any real editor. Editors very, very, very, very, very, very, rarely give photographers (or writers, come to that) the option of submitting a “preferred” piece after editorial attention has already been given to the original submission. It just doesn’t happen.

You have been warned!

The bottom line is: DON’T OPEN EMAIL ATTACHMENTS
(unless you’re absolutely certain they’re genuine and can verify their veracity)

Check out the sciencebase site for more on spyware, trojans and worms

Protein Crystals Trapped

The bane of protein crystallographers is the common problem of proteins that simply will not crystallize. This is especially poignant when it comes to some of the more biomedically interesting of their number, such as the numerous membrane proteins, many of which do not succumb to even the most sophisticated crystallization techniques. Now, researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, both in the UK, have developed a new technique for crystallizing proteins, which could open up a whole range of materials to this powerful analytical technique.

Read my complete report in the Reactive Reports chemistry webzine

TiVo, PVR, and DVR

If you haven’t a clue as to what those acronyms mean, then check out our TiVo, PVR, DVR, personal video recorders, digital video recorders newsfeed, courtesy of PVRBlog. If you’re a fan of TV, then one of these machines could revolutionise your viewing habits, turning “13 channels of sh*t on the TV to choose from”* into a personalised menu of decent shows and movies!

*Roger Waters, The Wall, 1979

Fishy Smaller Fish

We reported on claims to have found the world’s smallest fish that appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. The aquatic critter measured just 7.9 mm apparently and was found in a peat swamp in Southeast Asia. However, it seems the authors of the paper failed to note that a much, much smaller sexually mature angler fish was reported in the autumn of 2005 at just 6.2 mm to 7.4 mm in length.

So, what’s a few millimetres between friends? The female of the species in question, Photocorynus spiniceps presumably sees the significance, she comes in at a wopping 46 mm (some 7 seven times longer than her mate).

The smaller fish was reported in the journal Ichthyological Research and according to the study, the male is essentially a sexual parasite. He fuses for life to the back of his mate by biting on and turns the female into a hermaphrodite, providing her body with everything she needs to reproduce, she provides the food and navigational skills.

Again, size is everything for this arduous task, male spiniceps have testes so unfeasibly large that they almost fill his entire body cavity, even to the point of crowding out his other internal organs. Still, what fish is going to care about his internal organs when he’s perpetually mating and getting fed in the process?

Discovery of New Elements

A combination of physics and chemistry helped researchers identify the two “new” chemical elements – 113 and 115. The elemental discoveries took place at the Russian nuclear research centre (JNIR) in Dubna in 2003, but ongoing experiments are underway to provide additional evidence.

Heavy elements decay by emitting alpha particles (helium nucleus). American, Russian and Swiss scientists used this decay to prove the existence of elements 115 and its alpha decay product 113. In order to synthesize atoms of element 115 a rotating target disc of americium was bombarded with a calcium beam. Fusion between Americium and calcium produced a detectable quantity of 115 atoms.

However the formation of the atoms was not enough to prove the element’s existence as its atoms only exist for a tenth of a second and are difficult to detect. The radiochemical experiments proved much more successful yielding a provable five times as many atoms.

As expected, element 115 emits an alpha particle to decay to element 113. Four subsequent emissions produce dubnium, element 105. A copper plate was held behind the rotating americium disc to collect all element 115 atoms emitted from the target. The researchers then used liquid chromatography techniques to observe fifteen atoms of dubnium.

The decay pattern of these atoms supported the physics experiments, thus proving the earlier discovery of element 115 and its offspring element 113. All elements below atomic number 113 are already known.

Quite astonishingly a press release today from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland seemed to imply that these elemental discoveries were recent and that somehow they were down to the PSI. This is, not the case. Dozens of researchers were involved in the discovery, which was reported on Sciencebase and elsewhere in September 2003.

Take a look here for a timeline of elemental discoveries

Fitting Genes to Obesity Problem

Ana Antón Solanas, a research assistant in the Dietetics and Diet Therapy Unit of the University of Navarra, hopes to tailor diet and exercise regimes to women with specific types of obesity. She has received a fellowship from The Danone Institute to investigate the effects of a hypocaloric diet and physical training in the metabolic and hormonal response in a group of obese women.

The women in the study have a genetic difference (a Gln27Glu polymorphism in the beta2adrenergic receptor) that endows them with a greater body mass index despite exercising on a regular basis. Solanas research does not provide an excuse for obesity. “Our goal consists precisely in understanding the reason that women with this trait are more resistant to weight loss,” she says.

The ultimate aim of the research is to understand the characteristics of obesity that vary depending on such genetic polymorphisms and to develop individualized treatments for each obesity type.

“In the future we will be able to create diets and exercise regimens which are genetically adjusted to the individual person,” she adds.

Chemistry World Calendar

If you’re a Chemistry World reader you may have their freebie wallplanner tacked to the pinboard in your lab. But, watch out when you’re booking meetings towards the end of June this year. In their efforts to get as many conference ads into the chart, publisher the Royal Society of Chemistry skips a beat, with Friday June 30 leaping to Wednesday July 1.

Of course, if you’re using the freebie wallplanner from almost any other learned society, you’d know that July 1 is on a Saturday this year.