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STEM NEWS FEEDS
We've brought together some of the best Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics news feeds from around the web. You can now keep up to date by visiting just one site!
If you know of a great news feed we can add please contact us.
BBC - Science / Nature
IBM to build brain-like computers
A collaboration in the US is aiming to create artificial brain circuits that mimic the structure and workings of neurons.
Nothing lost in space - this time
Astronauts have completed further repairs at the International Space Station without mishap.
Hairspray linked to birth defect
Boys born to women exposed to hairspray in the workplace may have a higher risk of being born with a genital defect.
'Superglue' brain op for toddler
The parents of a 17-month-old girl have told how surgeons used glue to seal tiny brain blood vessels that were threatening her life.
Polish tests 'confirm Copernicus'
Polish researchers say they have solved an ancient mystery and identified the remains of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
BBC - Technology
IBM to build brain-like computers
A collaboration in the US is aiming to create artificial brain circuits that mimic the structure and workings of neurons.
Divided nation
Stopping the UK's digital divide becoming a chasm
First test for interplanetary net
Nasa has successfully tested a communications system designed to work in deep space modelled on the internet
Online time 'is good for teens'
Teenagers' use of digital media shows that time online teaches children important skills, a new study shows.
Dell sees quarterly profits slip
US computer maker Dell sees its quarterly profits fall as customers around the world buy fewer computers.
Guardian Unlimited Science
UK university launches astronaut course
Britain may be scorned by other nations for steadfastly refusing to send humans into space, but from next week it will have its own university course on how to be an astronaut.
Staff at the University of Leicester have called in former Nasa astronaut Jeff Hoffman – a veteran of five space shuttle missions – to teach the course, which will offer instruction on how to survive in space, coping with the psychological demands of long-term space travel and how to conduct a spacewalk without dropping your toolbag.
Hoffman, who took part in crucial spacewalks to fix cameras aboard the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, will join Leicester as a visiting professor but will maintain his position in the astronautics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The UK government is reviewing its long-held opposition to human spaceflight and is due to announce its conclusions by the end of the year. The announcement is expected weeks before the European Space Agency reveals at least four new recruits to its astronaut corps.
A British astronaut has never trained through Esa because the UK's funding of space only runs to robotic missions and ground-based astronomy.
"There's a strong student interest in this despite the fact that the British government has not supported human participation in spaceflight," Hoffman told the Guardian. "If Britain continues with that policy, these students will still be able to work in other capacities at the European Space Agency."
Hoffman will draw particular attention to the future exploration of the solar system, which is likely to see humans working alongside robotic rovers, which could be sent out from a manned moonbase to conduct experiments at remote sites.
The Leicester course begins as the UK prepares for a high-level meeting of European science ministers at which human space exploration will be discussed.
Martin Barstow, head of physics and astronomy at Leicester, said: "I'm fed up with the way the UK keeps dodging the issue of being involved in human spaceflight. Our students don't need to be loaded with that baggage. They still have aspirations to be astronauts and they still want to get involved in the space industry, so why should the UK government's attitude be a handicap?
"Only a very few people are ever going to become astronauts, even if the UK was fully signed up to human space flight. Most people won't get to do it, but they will become highly qualified physicists and engineers and will get involved in the space industry in different roles. What we want them to come out with is a real grasp of practicalities of living and working in space and what we need to do in the future."
Why bees are the most invaluable species
Bees were last night declared the most invaluable species on the planet at the annual Earthwatch debate. The audience heard from five eminent scientists who battled it out for fungi, bats, plankton, primates and bees.
While of course all species are invaluable for our ecosystem, the debate is designed to raise awareness about conservation by asking the audience to vote for just one of the species to receive a fictitious cheque for one trillion pounds to be spent on their conservation.
It comes us no surprise that the audience voted to save the bees. Who would want a world without honey, flowers, and third of everything we eat including chocolate and coffee? Not me.
Some 250,000 species of flowering plants depend on bees for pollination. Many of these are crucial to world agriculture. Bees increase the yields of around 90 crops, such as apples, blueberries and cucumbers by up to 30%, so many fruits and vegetables would become scarce and prohibitively expensive.
In addition, many of our medicines, both conventional and alternative remedies, come from flowering plants. And cotton is another essential product pollinated by the bee, so we could say goodbye to cheap T-shirts and jeans.
But it's not just the human race that would suffer. Spare a thought for the poor birds and small mammals that feed off the berries and seeds that rely on bee pollination. They would die of hunger and in turn their predators – the omnivores or carnivores that continue the food chain would also starve. We could survive on wind-pollinated grains and fish, but there would be wars for control of dwindling food supplies. South America's ancient Mayan civilisation is thought to have died of starvation.
Although other insects and animals do pollinate – such as bats, butterflies and even wasps – none is designed like the bee as a pollinator machine.
There are 20,000 bee species around the world including solitary bees, bumblebees and honeybees. Many are monoletic – pollinate one plant – others like bumblebees and honeybees are polylectic. While bumblebees live in colonies of a few hundred, the sheer number of honeybees in a hive – up to 50,000 in the summer - and their ability to be managed, manipulated and transported by man makes them the most valuable pollinator.
Unfortunately all bees are already under serious Industrialised farming with its monocultures and pesticides has destroyed biodiversity and robbed the majority of bees of their habitat and food. While across the globe, the western honeybee – bred for its gentle nature and prolific honey making and pollination – is plagued by parasites and viruses, and also jeopardised by modern agricultural practices. More than a third of honeybees were wiped out in the US this year by Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease which is thought to be a combination of these assailants.
As Dr George McGavin, who was batting for the bees said: "Bee populations are in freefall. A world without bees would be totally catastrophic."
The Earthwatch audience should be applauded for heading his call and voting to save them, and itself as well.
• Alison Benjamin is co-author of A World without Bees
16th-century skeleton identified as astronomer Copernicus
The long-lost skeleton of Nicolaus Copernicus – the 16th-century astronomer who transformed our understanding of the solar system – has been found, Polish researchers have confirmed.
Forensic detective work has successfully matched DNA samples recovered from remains in a cathedral grave with hairs retrieved from a book the scholar priest is known to have owned.
The identification is the culmination of four years of investigation and centuries of speculation about the final resting place of the man who challenged the Bible and medieval teachings of the church.
Copernicus's planetary observations were the first to place the sun, not the Earth, at the centre of what is now known as the solar system. His heliocentric, cosmological revolution was condemned by Martin Luther.
Born in 1473 at Torun on the Vistula, Copernicus studied abroad and was made a canon at Frombork Cathedral, in Poland. He died in 1543. His grave was unmarked.
The hunt for his remains began in 2004. A Polish archaeologist, Jerzy Gassowski, started digging at the request of the regional Catholic bishop, Jacek Jezierski.
The following year bones and a skull were located under floor tiles near one of the side altars in the 14th-century Roman Catholic cathedral in Frombork. The lower jaw was missing.
"In the two years of work, under extremely difficult conditions – amid thousands of visitors, with earth shifting under the heavy pounding of the organ music – we managed to locate the grave, which was badly damaged," Gassowski said.
This week the archaeologist revealed he is now confident, thanks to forensic facial reconstruction of the skull, that it bears a striking resemblance to existing portraits of the astronomer.
The reconstruction shows a broken nose and other features that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus, and the skull bears a cut mark above the left eye that corresponds with a scar shown in the painting.
The skull, furthermore, belonged to a man aged around 70 – Copernicus's age when he died.
"In our opinion, our work led us to the discovery of Copernicus's remains but a grain of doubt remained," Gassowski said.
Swedish genetics experts were called in to analyse DNA from a vertebrae, a tooth and femur bone. The material was matched and compared to that taken from two hairs retrieved from a book that the 16th-century Polish astronomer once owned. The tome is kept in the library of Sweden's Uppsala University.
"We collected four hairs and two of them are from the same individual as the bones," Marie Allen, a geneticist, said.
Copernicus, who studied eclipses, came up with his idea that the sun was at the centre of the universe between 1508 and 1514, and during those years wrote a manuscript commonly known as Commentariolus (Little Commentary). His theory prepared the way for such scientists as Galileo, Descartes and Newton.
Carrie Quinlan: Heavenly work for scientists
Carrie Quinlan: A survey says young Britons aren't interested in science jobs. Come off it! Science is thrilling
Letter: New danger of TB
Letter: While we are delighted at the recent stem cell research breakthrough of UK scientists, Claudia Castillo was the victim of a neglected disease
Popular Science (from popsci.com)
New Scientist - Latest Headlines
Bush to go out with a green bang?
Planet imaged closer to star than ever before?
Invention: Personal life mapper
