| Jon Butterworth: Moving home Life and Physics has a new home and hopefully some new readers. What might you expect to see here?Without wishing to sound like a breathless press release, I am pretty excited to have a space to write on the Guardian website.I have been blogging since the beginning of the year. I was very involved in the science and the media coverage surrounding the start-ups (both of them...) of the Large Hadron Collider. I am a Professor of Physics at UCL where I teach, and carry out my research on the ATLAS experiment. I write here on my own behalf though.The "Life" bit doesn't mean I am a biophysicist, sorry if that disappoints. It's life in the "Life, the Universe and Everything" sense. The main idea of the blog was to provide some follow-up information for those people whose imagination and/or interest was caught by the LHC. Part of the same idea was the Colliding Particles films by Mike Paterson, and in fact my first blog post was written to explain some of the physics behind these films.So the LHC reports will continue. However, I also stray into other physics, science policy and other areas. The subtitle of the blog on wordpress is "Making it up as I go along" and that still applies. I hope you'll want to come along too.If you want to know a bit more, after a recent discussion on science blogging I wrote a post which says some more about why I write. There'll be guest bloggers too sometimes.Jon Butterworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
As Europe Kicks Coal, Hungarian Town Suffers The European Commission is fighting a complicated battle against an influential but polluting industry. feeds.nytimes.com |
New Earth-like planet discovered Gliese 581g is in the 'Goldilocks zone' of its solar system, where liquid water could exist, and is a strong contender to be a habitable worldAstronomers have discovered a potentially habitable planet of similar size to Earth in orbit around a nearby star.A team of planet hunters spotted the alien world circling a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, 20 light years away.The planet is in the "Goldilocks zone" of space around a star where surface temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form."Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet," said Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."If confirmed, the planet would be the most Earth-like that has ever been discovered in another solar system and the first strong contender for a habitable one.More than 400 exoplanets have been discovered by astronomers, but most are gas giants, like Jupiter, that would be inhospitable to life as we know it.Astronomers used the Keck telescope in Hawaii to study the movement of Gliese 581 in exquisite detail and from their observations inferred the presence of a number of orbiting planets. The team report two new planets in the Astrophysical Journal, bringing the total number known to be circling the star to six.One of the planets, named Gliese 581g, has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and takes 37 days to orbit the star. Astronomers believe it is a rocky planet with enough gravity to retain an atmosphere.Unlike the previously discovered planets, Gliese 581g lies squarely in the region of space were life can thrive. "We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone — one too hot and one too cold — and now we have one in the middle that's just right," Vogt said.One side of the planet is always facing the star, much as one side of the moon constantly faces Earth. This means that the far side of the planet is constantly in darkness. The most habitable region of the planet would be the line between the light and dark regions."Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," Vogt said.The average temperature on the planet is estimated to be between -31 to -12C, but the ground temperature would vary from blazing hot on the bright side and freezing on the dark side."The number of systems with potentially habitable planets is probably on the order of 10 or 20 percent, and when you multiply that by the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, that's a large number. There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy," said Vogt.Alien lifeSpaceAstronomyIan Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
China highlights climate change efforts By TINI TRAN 2010-10-09T03:15:29ZTIANJIN, China (AP) -- As the world's biggest greenhouse gas producer, China was widely seen as an obstacle in the Copenhagen climate summit last year. But while negotiations inched forward, Beijing poured $34.6 billion into clean energy in 2009, nearly double the U.S. investment.... hosted.ap.org |
Blood group can affect fertility, study reveals A woman's blood type could affect her fertility and influence her chances of getting pregnant, scientists have foundA woman's blood group could influence her chances of getting pregnant, scientists have found.Those with blood type O may struggle to conceive due to a lower egg count and poorer egg quality, while those with blood group A seem to be more fertile.More than 560 women with an average age of 35 undergoing fertility treatment took part in the research, led by experts from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and Yale University.Blood samples were taken to measure levels of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), a known marker of fertility.FSH levels greater than 10 suggest a woman will have more difficulty conceiving than those whose levels are under 10.A high FSH level indicates a diminished ovarian reserve, which refers to both egg quality and the number of eggs left available for fertilisation.Ovarian reserve tends to decline significantly as a woman reaches her middle and late 30s and faster in the early 40s.The study found that women who were blood type O were twice as likely to have an FSH level greater than 10 as those in any other blood group. The findings held true even when a woman's age was taken into account and the fact the women came from two different clinics.Meanwhile, those with blood group A were "significantly less likely" to have an FSH level greater than 10 than those who were blood group O.Some 44% of the UK population are blood group O and 42% are type A.People with blood group A carry the A antigen, which is a protein on the surface of the cell, but this is absent in people with O type.Dr Edward Nejat, from the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Albert Einstein College, is presenting his findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) conference in Denver.He said: "In both groups of women that were seeking fertility treatment, those with blood type O were twice as likely to have an FSH level over 10 than those with blood types other than O."We found that women with A and AB – women with the A blood group gene – were protected from this effect of diminished ovarian reserve."From the population we studied, and the fact it was two different centres and there was a good mix of patients ethnically and racially, we can say that blood type O was associated with an FSH level greater than 10 in women seeking infertility evaluation and/or treatment."Patients with blood type O seeking infertility evaluation at these centres have a higher likelihood to be diagnosed with elevated FSH and hence manifest diminished ovarian reserve."Nejat said FSH levels were just one marker of fertility and more studies were needed."A woman's age remains the most important factor in determining her success of conceiving."The baseline FSH gives us an idea of the quality and quantity of a woman's eggs."Tony Rutherford, chair of the British Fertility Society, said: "This is the first time that I'm aware of that researchers have shown a link between blood group and potential for fertility."However, he said there were other hormones that predicted diminished ovarian reserve which were also important to assess."This is interesting and it shows a potential link but we really need to look at it with these other, more up to date tests of ovarian reserve."Rutherford said a bigger study would need to be carried out in the general population to see if blood group caused potential problems for all women trying to conceive."We need to look at a prospective group of women to see if blood group affects your chance of getting pregnant," he said. "This needs further exploration."Fertility problemsHealthMedical researchPregnancyParents and parentingHealth & wellbeingFamilyWomenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |