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Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Scientists poring over data collected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have discovered a world outside its field of view, demonstrating a new technique for finding planets beyond the Solar System, scientists reported on Thursday.

From its vantage point in space, Kepler stares at about 150,000 sun-like stars located a few hundred light years to a few thousand light years from Earth. One light year is about 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

The goal is to find Earth-like worlds at the right distance from their parent stars for liquid water to exist. Water is believed to be necessary for life.

So far, scientists using Kepler and other telescopes have found 763 exoplanets, which orbit suns other than Earth’s own, and identified more than 2,300 possible exoplanets, primarily through two techniques.

The transit method, such as what the Kepler team uses, looks for slight and regularly occurring dips in the amount of light coming from a star, which could indicate a planet is passing by, relative to the telescope’s point of view.

Another method analyzes starlight for tiny wobbles, a possible telltale sign of a planet’s gravitational tug on its host star.

In a report published in the journal Science, David Nesvorny, with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and colleagues describe a third technique that takes a Kepler observation into a new and literally unseen domain.

PLANET REGULARLY LATE

They reported on a sun-like star modestly named “Kepler Object of Interest 872, which is thought to have at least one planet in tow passing before Kepler’s eye.

Using raw data released by NASA for the general scientific community, Nesvorny and his team noted the planet was regularly late.

“”It was showing enormous time variations in transits, exceeding two hours,” Nesvorny told Reuters. “”At that point we were sure there is something important in the system that is causing these perturbations.”

They ran computer models until they found a match, a second planet about the size of Saturn circling the star every 57 days. The planet, designated KOI-872c, does not pass in front of the star, relative to Kepler’s view.

“”Initially we thought it could be a big moon but we have these computer models which can consider a moon or a planet. We run it over and over with different (sized) moons, different planets and see which of these models fit the data best. None of the moons fits to the data, except very large moons which would not be stable, so the system wouldn’t make physical sense,” Nesvorny said.

The method, known as transit timing variations, or TTVs, had not been used before to find planets, notes astrophysicist Norman Murray, with the University of Toronto.

““The use of TTVs to find unseen planets, although predicted some seven years ago, has not yielded secure detections before this work,” Murray wrote in a related paper posted Thursday in the online journal Science Express.

Nesvorny also described a third planet, about twice the diameter of Earth, that passes in front of the star every 6.77 days.

Nesvorny said the system “is “reminiscent of the orderly arrangement of orbits in our solar system.”

But none of the planets believed to be circling the star are in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Xavier Briand)

Put the champagne away! It seems that the number of people in the world without drinking water may be as much as five times higher than the UN has stated.

The WHO's co-ordinator of water and sanitation, Robert Bos, told me that the problem began with the definition of the goal agreed by politicians on the MDGs to "halve the proportion of people by 2015 without sustainable access to safe drinking water".

"The trouble is," he said, "that the politicians didn't consult the people who would have to measure it.

"We have no idea what sustainable means – and we have no data on clean drinking water.

"What we do have is household survey data on access to improved drinking water – that means piped supplies or a protected well.

"We can make an assumption that it's more safe than drinking from an unprotected pond shared with animals but we can't say for sure whether that water is safe or not."

So the terminology Mr Ban should have used for the celebratory water announcement was that people had "improved" water, not "safe" water.

Mr Bos went on: "The secretary-general got very excited when he heard that the target for improved water supplies had been met early – you can understand why.

"We presented the data in the correct way but somehow it got muddled up in the communication within the UN system.

"If people really think the 800 million figure refers to people lacking safe drinking water that's definitely an under-estimate. We don't know the real number but it's probably something between one and four billion."

The problem is many of the water sources that count as "improved" are still not safe. For instance, piping water to a village tap counts as "improving" the supply – even if the tap brings bacteria-laden water untreated straight from a river.

To find out the true number of people without safe drinking water the UN would have to do costly research, which, Mr Bos says, donors avoid because they prefer to pay for improvements to water supplies themselves.

The UN did some of its own survey work. It showed that in Jordan almost all improved supplies were actually safe to drink – but that in Nicaragua 70% of improved supplies could still make people sick.

Extrapolating from patchy national data, the World Bank estimates that, globally, the number of people drinking bad water is upwards of three billion.

Gerard Payen, a member of United Nation Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB), says this is the figure that should be on people's lips, not 800 million.

"I was very pleased that the UN has brought down the number of people with 'unimproved' water to 800 million," he told me.

"This is a considerable achievement. But it's a pity that so many people think that's the real total of people drinking unsafe water, when the true figure is 3-4 times higher."

Mr Payen represents private water companies so some people within the UN say he has a predictable angle on this debate.

But Julia Bucknall, head of the World Bank's Water Unit, confirmed: "The number of people who lack access to safe water you can drink from the tap is probably around three billion, we can't be sure – certainly it's way more than 800 million.

"To be in the 21st Century while we are in this situation is a scandal."

So, the good news on access to clean water isn't as good as it appears.

Meanwhile Mr Bos and his colleagues have been trying to get one step ahead of the politicians for the next set of development goals from 2015.

WHO has started to measure its own statistics in its own way – and it's hoping to guide politicians towards measuring things that can actually be measured to avoid this sort of confusion in the future.

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed a sonic device will be deployed in London during the Olympics.

The piercing beam of sound emitted by the device is highly directional. Some versions of the LRAD are capable of producing deafening sound levels of 150 decibels at one metre.

But the device, which was used this week during Exercise Olympic Guardian, can also be used to broadcast verbal warnings, such as ordering crowds to disperse.

LRAD Corporation has previously sold the device to the US Army, which deployed them in Iraq for crowd control.

They have also been bought by the US Navy and Air Force as well as a number of police forces worldwide.

It has been successfully used aboard ships to repel Somali pirates.

The panel-shaped LRAD is mounted onto steerable gimbals and said to be far more efficient than a normal loudspeaker.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "As part of the military contribution to the police led security effort to ensure a safe and secure games, a broad range of assets and equipment is being used by our armed forces".

"This includes the LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) which will be deployed during the Olympic Games primarily to be used in the loud hailer mode as part of the measures to achieve a maritime stop on the Thames."

The LRAD spokesman said: "LRAD systems are far superior to bullhorns, which have limited range and poor sound quality.

"LRAD systems enable homeland security and law enforcement personnel to communicate safely and clearly to individuals on land or water and assist in keeping high profile events safe for all participants."

Tracking devices fitted to five cuckoos have revealed the remarkable annual journey of a bird that heralds the arrival of the UK's spring.

Phil Atkinson, head of international research at the BTO spotted the cuckoo in the Norfolk Broads on Tuesday.

"So we think the crunch time is just before they cross the Sahara."

Although the team were sad to lose the birds, Dr Atkinson said that understanding the most challenging parts of a cuckoo's journey – and where they were most likely to die – provided them with "an incredible amount of new and important information".

"These birds move into west Africa, they fatten up as much as they can – enough to fuel their Saharan crossing.

"And if they're not able to do that, I think that's going to be a real pinch point in terms of mortality.

"That's where we need to focus our research effort and conservation action."

The team now plan to continue the project by fitting a group of female cuckoos with the same tracking devices.

"Males and females may well do different things in terms of migration," said Dr Atkinson.

"Males may well be more time-stressed to get back in spring to get a good territory and find females and females might have to stay later to get the last few eggs out.

"As we have seen in the five cuckoos, timing is really important and this may be crucial in determining whether a bird undertakes a migration successfully or not."

Grahame Madge from the RSPB said it was a relief to know that at least some birds were coming back to Britain to carry on future generations.

"The cuckoo is an urgent priority for research," he told BBC Nature.

"This fantastic project is boosting the understanding of this bird so that, hopefully, we can give this bird a future."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health regulators said consumer products that use nanotechnology may have unknown effects on the human body, and advised food and cosmetic companies to further study the safety of these tiny particles.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued two draft guidelines on Friday calling for more studies, putting, for now, much of the onus for safety on companies.

The FDA also rejected a consumer group’s petition from 2006 that urged a separate category of regulation for nanotechnology due to its “unique human health and environmental risks.”

Nanotechnology involves designing and manufacturing materials on the scale of one-billionth of a meter – so small it cannot be seen with a regular light microscope.

It is used in hundreds of products in areas ranging from stain-resistant clothing and cosmetics to food additives, but the health effects of nanoparticles are still poorly understood.

Nanoparticles may be able to penetrate the skin, or move between organs, with unknown health effects.

“Understanding nanotechnology remains a top FDA priority,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in a statement. “FDA is strengthening the scientific tools and methods for evaluating food products, cosmetics, drugs and medical devices.”

The FDA advised companies that use nanotech in food additives or food packaging to consult with the agency and show that the changes are safe before selling their products.

“The consequences (to consumers and to the food industry) of broadly distributing a food substance that is later recognized to present a safety concern have the potential to be significant,” the draft guide says.

Makers of most U.S. food additives and ingredients can tell the FDA that their ingredients are “generally recognized as safe” in order to legally sell them.

The FDA said nanotechnology does not automatically fall into this category, meaning companies would have to prove additional safety data before approval.

Erik Olson, director of food programs at Pew Health Group, a consumer advocacy group, said companies can often simply inform the FDA that certain food additives are safe. But the new guidelines for the first time show the FDA thinks nanomaterials deserve greater scrutiny.

“The FDA is essentially saying (to companies), we don’t think you can just make your own decision a nanomaterial is safe without telling us,” Olson said. “That’s a fairly new development.”

The International Center for Technology Assessment, which filed the 2006 petition, sued the FDA late last year for being slow to reply.

Jaydee Hanson, policy director at the center, said legal action may have prompted FDA to issue guidance for nanotech in food and cosmetics after a delay of six years.

“It’s good that they’re making recommendations in this area, but they haven’t gone far enough,” he said.

The European Union requires companies to prove a nanotech product is safe before it can be sold to consumers, Hanson said, while the FDA has only issued voluntary guidelines for companies.

For cosmetics, the FDA said companies should also do additional testing of products that, for example, use nanotechnology to create smoother-feeling moisturizers or lipstick.

The FDA does not require cosmetic companies to submit safety data before selling their products, and the guidance is unlikely to have a big impact on large cosmetic firms like Avon Products Inc, which already comply with European rules.

Avon said it adds nanomaterials like titanium dioxide or zinc oxide to cosmetic products to boost protection against the sun’s ultraviolet rays and let sunscreens rub in without leaving white marks. It said the products were proven safe in the EU.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov in Washington, additional reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

A proposal to study Jupiter's icy moons is now the front runner to be chosen as a billion-euro space mission.

However, formal selection of the concept will have to wait until a key European space committee meets to discuss the various contenders in May.

The Juice mission would launch in 2022 and would help assess whether Jupiter's moons could support life.

It has been up against two other concepts in the European Space Agency's (Esa) Cosmic Vision competition.

The Juice (JUpiter ICy moon Explorer) proposal envisages an instrument-packed, near five-tonne satellite at launch that would be sent out to the Solar System's biggest planet, to make a careful investigation of three of its Galilean moons.

The spacecraft would use the gravity of the gas giant to initiate a series of close flybys around Callisto, Europa, and then finally to put itself in a settled orbit around Ganymede.

Emphasis would be put on "habitability" – in trying to understand whether there is any possibility that these moons could host microbial life.

The other mission concepts that have been up against Juice are Athena, which would be the biggest X-ray telescope ever built; and NGO, which would place a trio of high-precision satellites in space to detect gravitational waves.

Esa's Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) met earlier this month to consider the different ideas.

Its thoughts were then passed to the agency's executive, which has now tabled a formal proposal to member states, nominating Juice as the preferred mission to be implemented.

The 19 member-state delegations will have the final say during a gathering of the agency's Science Programme Committee (SPC) in Paris on 2 May. Selection requires a simple majority vote.

It is possible the SPC could decide to go against the executive, but there is wide expectation that it will accept the recommendation.

Juice will cost Esa on the order of 830m euros (£695m; $1.1bn). By the time national agencies – the different countries in Europe – have contributed instruments, the total mission cost will exceed one billion euros.

The satellite would launch in June 2022 on an Ariane rocket from French Guiana, taking almost eight years to reach the Jovian system (2030).

The initial mission duration, before any extension, would be three years.

All the moons first identified by Galileo are interesting, but it is the icy worlds that hold a particular fascination for scientists.

Previous research has suggested that Callisto, Europa and Ganymede have large bodies of liquid water beneath their ice crusts. If that is the case – and Juice would return the clearest evidence yet – then the moons would represent possible locations for simple life to reside.

The mission itself could not detect any life but it would provide better insights on the type of conditions that any lifeforms present might face.

The habitability question is just one aspect of Juice. Another absorbing line of inquiry is what these moons could tell us about planets beyond our Solar System. The large numbers of so-called exo-planets now being detected could look very similar to the Galilean moons.

Juice's selection – if that is indeed what happens on 2 May – will be a bitter blow to the science teams that have worked on Athena and NGO (New Gravitational wave Observatory). But their opportunity may come at a later date.

Esa is likely to make another call for proposals for a "Large Class" mission either next year or the year after; and given the years of concept preparation that have already gone into Athena and NGO, they would be well placed to win selection in that future competition.

All three Cosmic Vision concepts have been deemed during the review process to be excellent science.

One of the reasons Juice has now moved ahead of its competitors in that process, however, is probably in part the perception that it is more likely to stay on schedule (for a 2022 launch) and on cost.

The technical challenges, for example, of developing a deep Solar-System probe are better understood than building an enormous X-ray telescope or the type of space laser systems that would be needed to implement NGO.

An interesting issue following a selection of Juice would be what level of participation might be offered to the Americans.

Juice was originally conceived as one half of a double mission with Nasa in which the US would concentrate on Europa while the Esa satellite majored on Ganymede.

Nasa then walked away from that idea and told its scientists it did not have the money to even consider a Europa orbiter until the 2020s at the earliest.

This forced the Juice team to modify its proposal to pick up some of the lost American science, including instituting two flybys of Europa in its mission timeline (in 2031).

The American scientific community will be desperate to get involved in some form. Such matters would be discussed after selection, but before the formal "adoption" of the mission and the release of industrial contracts to start building the satellite. This could be at least a year away.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter

UK drivers are increasingly choosing fuel efficient cars with historically low carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to motor industry body SMMT.

New cars are 18% cleaner than the UK average, according to the report.

They are also more frugal, delivering an average 54 miles per gallon of fuel, it said.

The changing consumer behaviour is closely linked to rising fuel prices, as well as to tax and insurance costs, which are higher for thirsty and powerful cars that generally emit more CO2 than smaller models.

So far, alternatively fuelled cars, such as petrol-electric hybrids or all-electric vehicles, have contributed relatively little to the overall reduction in CO2 emissions.

In 2011, just 1.3% of the market was made up by such cars.

The emission reductions have thus resulted mainly from improvements to the efficiency of petrol and diesel engines.

But to achieve further improvements, the SMMT has long been lobbying for the government to adjust taxes to encourage investment in new technologies and to offer consumers incentives to encourage them to buy more fuel efficient, less polluting cars.

"Future environmental and economic success will be determined by sustained investment in new technology, research and development, infrastructure and consumer incentives," said SMMT's chief executive, Paul Everitt.

George Osborne has been accused of an "unjustified attack" on EU rules to protect wildlife after a Defra review found they were mostly "working well".

The subsequent review, however, found that government body Natural England had objected to fewer than 0.5% of the 26,500 consultations on development it received each year on the grounds of habitat protection.

"Most of these objections are successfully dealt with at the planning stage," the report said.

The review did conclude that some cases encountered delays, and suggested ways of improving the way the habitat directives were implemented to ensure they were not a factor.

It said there was scope to simplify the guidance, legislation and authorisation process for developments, and to improve the way statutory bodies worked with developers.

And it found there were particular challenges for offshore wind farms. It highlighted the approach to wind farms in Germany, where it said early designation of protected marine sites had helped provide certainty to the renewables industry about where they were able to build.

Following the review, Defra said it would create a new cross-government unit to help large, important infrastructure projects get off the ground without unnecessary delays and costs.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said: "The action we are taking will make it clearer for developers to understand how to comply with the directive and will ensure that our wildlife still receives the high level of protection it deserves.

"This in turn allows genuine green growth, boosting our economy whilst looking after the environment."

Carol Day, solicitor at WWF UK, said the organisation was pleased Ms Spelman had "stood her ground and strongly defended the principles and purpose of these directives".

"In his Autumn Statement George Osborne issued an unjustified attack on the European laws protecting our most precious species and habitats," she said.

"Not only were his claims that environmental regulations are a burden on business unhelpful, they were completely wrong."

Martin Harper, conservation director at the RSPB, said "no evidence" was found to back up Mr Osborne's suggestion.

"The government's own review has shown that these comments were misleading rhetoric, with no factual basis," he added.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nathan Acosta is feeling a little overwhelmed.

The 24-year-old from Raleigh, North Carolina, who works for a financial services firm, is trying his best to keep up with all the passwords and security questions he has to juggle, just to log onto his personal accounts. But sometimes it feels like a losing battle.

It’s a battle millions of consumers can identify with. For a while it was just your mother’s maiden name, then your first pet, the street you grew up on or the make and model of your first car. As passwords and security questions multiply, so does the potential for things to go wrong, possibly locking you out of your own life.

Unless you’re a savant with total recall, you need a system to manage that morphing body of login credentials necessary to navigate your virtual life.

“They ask me about my favorite book, and I can’t remember how I answered that five years ago,” says Acosta. “If I answer anything wrong, then it’s red flags and tons of red tape,” he says. “I was born in Winston-Salem, but many programs don’t allow hyphens, so then I have to make up a fake city and remember that too.”

His answer? An elaborate Excel spreadsheet that’s password-protected.

Others go more old-school, like executive coach Darla Arni in Slater, Missouri. “I have an entire notebook that I keep all my passwords in, but its pages are filling up” and becoming increasingly disorganized, says the 55-year-old.

“It’s so bad that if anything ever happens to me, my instructions are: Find the password notebook – or you will never be able to access anything of importance ever again.”

If you’re at your wit’s end with the demands for encyclopedic recall, don’t despair: Some smartphone apps, like RoboForm, Keeper Password, and PasswordWallet, can help consumers manage password overload.

UMPTEEN PASSWORDS

You may as well get used to the Kafka-esque scenario of constantly having to prove you are who you say you are. According to one Microsoft research paper, the average computer user has 25 online accounts and 6.5 passwords – and that was tabulated back in 2007.

“You might have different logins and passwords for Google, Facebook, Amazon, Flickr, your bank, your favorite retailers, and on and on,” says Chenxi Wang, a vice president and security analyst for technology consultants Forrester Research. “If you’re trying to remember all the different passwords and security questions and combinations, it can be a challenge – and I haven’t yet seen a concerted effort to help consumers manage that challenge.”

To be sure, going through several layers of authentication is a good thing for consumers, helping reduce the risk of increasingly sophisticated hackers gaining access to their accounts and emptying them out.

“Today, you have to have multiple levels of security, like those ‘challenge questions’ you have to answer whenever you’re using a new device,” says Keith Gordon, a security, identity and fraud executive with Bank of America. “It’s what helps us identify fraudsters in Eastern Europe who have stolen your online credentials.”

But Gordon sympathizes with consumers who feel like they’re taking the SATs at every turn. In fact, he says the industry is moving towards challenge questions that focus more on recent behavior, rather than memory-challenging questions relating to childhood.

“In future it will be more like, ‘You had a transaction this weekend at which one of these retailers?’” Gordon says. “Or ‘You owned a home a couple of years ago in Indianapolis; which one of these addresses is yours?’ Those are things that are a little more relevant and real-time, than the name of the dog you had when you were 10.”

Forrester’s Wang predicts the tide will turn towards fewer passwords. Online retailers will likely gravitate to logins for the sites that “know you best” – like Facebook or Google – thereby cutting down on the reams of information you have to dredge up, she says.

Nathan Acosta hopes things go the way of biometrics: Just apply your thumbprint to your smartphone screen, instead of having to recall the name of your old college mascot.

Until that happens, be prepared to be quizzed ad nauseam about your birthplace, your favorite actor and where you went on your first date with your spouse.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Beth Pinsker Gladstone)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – Astronaut John Glenn, marking the 50th anniversary on Monday of his historic flight as the first American to orbit the Earth, remembered it as the best day of his life.

Glenn, 90, told an audience in Columbus, Ohio that the flight was the result of “more than two years of training and working with a marvelous team.”

“That is why the craft was called Friendship 7, because of the team,” he said.

Glenn’s groundbreaking flight on February 20, 1962 put the United States into a heated space race with the Soviet Union, which had launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit 10 months earlier.

“It was the best day of my life,” said Glenn, who went on to serve as Democratic senator from Ohio from 1975 to 1999.

“It seems more like two weeks than 50 years,” he said of the flight, noting that since then it has been “a rare day” when someone has not asked him a question about space or his flight.

The anniversary has been marked by a series of celebratory events, and Glenn has taken an opportunity to speak out against funding cuts to the nation’s space program.

The United States last year retired its shuttles used to get astronauts to and from the jointly owned International Space Station, which flies about 240 miles above the planet.

“For the world’s best space nation, it was very unseemly and I don’t like it,” he said. “We have lost the chance to do research.”

Glenn returned to space in 1998, at age 77, on board the space shuttle Discovery as a research subject for experiments on aging sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

(Editing By Ellen Wulfhorst)