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SCIENCE UPDATE
World’s oceans yield thousands of new species
Some 13,000 new marine species have been discovered in the past year, according to information released by an international alliance of scientists.
The Census of Marine Life (COML) has also uncovered previously unknown migration routes used by fish such as tuna and shark.
The $1billion 10-year project, which is building a huge database, involves researchers in more than 70 countries.
The new knowledge will inform future conservation and fisheries policies.
About 230,000 marine species have been documented by scientists, but the eventual count of such species is likely to be several times this number, researchers said.
“Humans have explored less than five per cent of the world’s oceans. Thus opportunities abound to discover species and increase our knowledge,” Grassle said.
According to OBIS, “near-surface” records account for 95 per cent of all existing observations of ocean life, but less than 0.1 per cent are from the bottom half of the water column.
A species collected below 2,000 metres (6,000 feet) is about 50 times more likely to be new to science than one found at 50 metres, the researchers said.
Some 106 new species of marine fish have been added to the OBIS database so far this year, at an average of well over two new species per week, bringing the total of marine fish species to 15,482 at the latest count.
The project's coordinators have amassed 5.2 million new and previously existing records mapping the distribution of 38,000 marine species around the globe.
Recent findings will be discussed at a meeting of participating scientists in Hamburg, Germany on November 29.
Nasa launches observatory
A new space observatory has been launched to hunt down and study the most powerful explosions seen in the universe since the Big Bang itself.
The Swift Satellite will detect and analyse gamma-ray bursts — very intense but fleeting flashes of radiation.
Scientists think they may signal the birth of black holes which are created when giant stars fall in on themselves.
Swift — a combined US, UK and Italian mission — was launched on a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The $250 million observatory carries three instruments which work together.
The Burst Alert Telescope has been built by the US space agency’s (Nasa) Goddard research centre to detect and locate a gamma-ray burst over a wide portion of the sky.
The information it provides will be used to swivel Swift directly at the burst position.
Swift will join four other satellites connected to a largely automated system that relays alerts on gamma-ray bursts in real time to scientists worldwide. This network will distribute Swift alerts via email to scientists and to robotic telescopes.
Swift is a Nasa-led mission. “We expect to detect and analyse over 100 gamma-ray bursts a year,” said Dr Neil Gehrels, Swift’s principal investigator at Goddard.
“Swift will lead to a windfall of discovery on these most powerful explosions in the universe.”
Electronic eye devised
An “electronic eye” that can be fitted to a pair of glasses could help the blind cross roads more safely, scientists have said.
Researchers from the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan developed the system, which uses a camera and computer to detect the location of a pedestrian crossing, its width and the color of any related traffic lights.
“The camera would be mounted at eye level, and be connected to a tiny computer. It will relay information using a voice speech system and give vocal commands and information through a small speaker placed near the ear,” Professor Tadayoshi Shioyama, one of its developers, said in a statement.
The camera devised by Shioyama and Mohammaduddin is described in the journal Measurement Science and Technology, published by Britain’s Institute of Physics.
Aspirin effective for migraine
Effervescent aspirin, which dissolves in water, is as effective as the drugs sumatriptan or ibuprofen for the treatment of migraine attacks, a study in the journal Cephalalgia suggests.
Aspirin “in combination with metoclopramide has been frequently used in clinical trials in the treatment of migraine attacks,” Dr Hans-Christoph Diener, of University of Essen, Germany, and colleagues write. Recently, effervescent aspirin without metoclopramide has been shown to be more effective than inactive placebo pills against migraines.
In the present study, researchers compared effervescent aspirin against sumatriptan, a standard migraine drug most commonly sold as Imitrex in the US, and ibuprofen, the active agent in drugs like Motrin or Advil.
The researchers conclude that effervescent aspirin can achieve comparable results to sumatriptan and ibuprofen in the “acute treatment of migraine attacks and offers high efficacy and good tolerability.”
Childhood obesity harmful
Obese children grow up to have bigger left ventricles in their hearts, putting them at risk for heart disease, researchers have said.
“Simply being obese means your heart has to work harder, even in childhood,” said Shengxu Li, a medical researcher at Tulane University and co-author of the study.
“The added burden of high blood pressure and other related health problems can actually contribute to a change in the structure of the heart,” Li said.
While the heart enlargement “can be stopped and even reversed with appropriate interventions,” Li said, the data show a need to prevent and curb weight problems sooner in children.
Researchers also found a link between larger left ventricles and high blood pressure. — Sci-tech World Report
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