The News reader from Sicilian.Net

When Brazilian defender Roberto Carlos struck a powerful free-kick from about 30 meters out in a 1997 international match against France, he could not have known that scientists would still be discussing his feat more than a dozen years later. Indeed, he could not even have known that the ball would improbably find the back of the net . But find the net it did, swinging well wide of a wall of French defenders, hooking viciously to the left, and glancing off the inside of the goalpost. The French goalkeeper could only turn and watch in apparent disbelief as the ball came to rest in his goal. [More]

It likely comes as no surprise that many common household chemicals and medical products as well as industrial and agricultural chemicals, may irritate human skin temporarily or, worse, cause permanent, corrosive burns. In order to prevent undue harm regulators in the U.S. and beyond require safety testing of many substances to identify their potential hazards and to ensure that the appropriate warning label appears on a product. Traditionally, such skin tests have been done on live animals--although in recent decades efforts to develop humane approaches , along with ones that are more relevant to people have resulted in new models based on laboratory-grown human skin.

The most recent chapter of this ongoing effort was written on July 22 when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)--an international group that, among other things, provides guidelines to its 32-member countries on methods to assess chemical safety--officially approved three commercially available in vitro models of human skin for use in chemical testing. Specifically, the new guideline ( OECD Test No. 439 ) stipulates that the models can serve as an alternative to animals in tests for skin irritation, one of several human health endpoints for which chemicals are tested. Similar 3-D models were approved for corrosion tests in 2004, leaving many hopeful that soon it may be possible to the assess the full spectrum of a chemical's effects on human skin--from irritation to corrosion--without using live animals.

We all know that elephants aren’t really scared of mice. But a new study shows that they’re really not crazy about something even smaller: ants. In fact, elephants dislike ants so much that they avoid acacia trees that harbor the tiny, six-legged nectar-suckers. [More]

Scientists have long sought to understand the biological basis of thought. In the second century A.D., physician and philosopher Claudius Galen held that the brain was a gland that secreted fluids to the body via the nerves--a view that went unchallenged for centuries. In the late 1800s clinical researchers tied specific brain areas to dedicated functions by correlating anatomical abnormalities in the brain after death with behavioral or cognitive impairments. French surgeon Pierre Paul Broca, for example, found that a region on the brain’s left side controls speech. In the first half of the 20th century, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield mapped the brain’s functions by electrically stimulating different places in conscious patients during neurosurgery, triggering vivid memories, localized body sensations, or movement of an arm or toe.

In recent years new noninvasive ways of viewing the human brain in action have helped neuroscientists trace the anatomy of thought and behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, for instance, researchers can see which areas of the brain “light up” when people perform simple movements such as lifting a finger or more complex mental leaps such as recognizing someone or making a moral judgment. These images reveal not only how the brain is divided functionally but also how the different areas work together while people go about their daily activities. Some investigators are using the technology in an attempt to detect lies and even to predict what kinds of items people will buy; others are seeking to understand the brain alterations that occur in disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, autism and dementia.

The adage “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” does not quite capture the following pair of situations. It’s more like “damned if you could (but you can’t), damned if you couldn’t (but you kind of did).”

First, the “damned if you could (but you can’t)”. On April 4 at 3:40 p.m.,  a magnitude 7.2 earthquake rocked Baja, Mexico, and was felt well north. The event elicited the following post on Twitter 16 minutes later from New Age lifemeister Dee­pak Chopra: “Had a powerful meditation just now--caused an earthquake in Southern California.” (Lawrence Krauss, too, lays into Deepak on page 36 for his lack of understanding of quantum physics. There’s plenty to bust Chopra about.)

Using a revolutionary new microscope, scientists can now peer into embryos and watch, in one of the world's smallest 3-D movies, as brains, eyes and other organs form. A team at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, watched zebra fish and fruit fly embryos develop under the scope for as long as 58 hours, charting the location of every cell as it danced around the embryo. This experiment would have been impossible a mere two years ago before a recent spate of innovations advanced microscopy years into the future.

When it comes to watching the inner workings of cells , fluorescence microscopy is second to none. In this technique, scientists attach fluorescent tags to cellular proteins and, by shining a laser on the cells, cause them to light up.

If attendees at the Minnesota State Fair aren't too busy reveling in the performances of Kiss or "Weird Al" Yankovic, or enjoying a celebrity cow-milking contest, they might just try spitting for science.

This week, researchers from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis are collecting DNA from young fair-goers and their parents as part of an effort to uncover genetic influences on normal child health and development.

Logan Spector, a pediatrics researcher who is leading the project, dubbed the Gopher Kids Study, feels the fair provides an innovative opportunity to attract participants. [More]

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue declared a state of emergency on Wednesday due to the approach of Hurricane Earl.

The emergency measures would waive restrictions on highway transport, thus allowing more speedy delivery of essential fuel and gasoline supplies where needed during the time Earl threatened the state, the governor's office said.

By Amanda Mascarelli

Oil has been here. [More]

* Calmer seas will allow equipment switch to proceed

* Drilling to resume on relief well after switch

The science blogosphere is shrinking and growing at the same time. Today, the Public Library of Science (PLoS) starts a new network called PLoS Blogs . A nonprofit publisher of open-access journals focused on biological sciences, PLoS will fold its three existing blogs under its new network, managed by Brian Mossop (the author of a recent Mind Matters column on fatherhood here).   [More]

There’s been an unexpected development in our understanding of drug resistance in bacteria. The accepted scenario was a simple case of evolutionary selection. In a bacterial population exposed to a killer drug, a few lucky individuals might have a genetic mutation that kept them alive. They survived to reproduce, while the rest of the population perished. In short order, the entire colony consisted only of the offspring of the drug-resistant founders. [More]

With rhinoceros poaching in Africa approaching an all-time high , one nature preserve owner has had enough. Ed Hern, owner of the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve near Johannesburg, South Africa, is experimenting with injecting cyanide into his rhinos' horns. He believes the poison will not harm the rhinos, because there are no blood vessels in the horn to carry the poison the rest of the rhino's body. But if anyone kills the animals and sells the horns for use in traditional Asian medicine, the end-consumer could pay the ultimate price. [More]

With this final column I will transition Sustainable Developments from Scientific American to the home page of the Earth Institute ( www.earth.columbia.edu ). Although I will continue to contribute occasional essays to the magazine, I will use this last regular column to say thank you and take stock of the deepening crisis of sustainable development.

During the four years of this column, the world’s inability to face up to the reality of the growing environmental crisis has become even more palpable. Every major goal that international bodies have established for global environmental policy as of 2010 has been postponed, ignored or defeated. Sadly, this year will quite possibly become the warmest on record, yet another testimony to human-induced environmental catastrophes running out of control.