Planets boil at the edge of the galaxy, body fat linked to cancer and a chatty chimp dies

from the Guardian (UK): Three giant planets that sizzle as they circle their suns have been discovered in a faraway corner of the galaxy by a team of British astronomers. The alien worlds are believed to be among the hottest planets ever spotted, with surface temperatures rising to more than 2500C as they pass their parent stars. The discoveries by scientists at Queen's University Belfast and St Andrew's University in Scotland add to two previous planets spotted by the Super Wide Angle Search for Planets (SuperWasp) project team. More than 200 planets have now been discovered beyond our solar system. The planets - each the size of Jupiter, our sun's largest satellite - were found using cameras based in the Canary Islands and South Africa that picked up the faint shadows they cast as they move in front of their suns.

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required): WASHINGTON -- Excess body fat increases an individual's risk for six types of cancer, according to a report to be released [yesterday] by two leading cancer research groups. The American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund offer 10 recommendations for cancer prevention, including limiting consumption of red meat and alcohol, avoiding processed meats and -- most importantly -- shedding those extra pounds. The report ... calls on people to "be as lean as possible within the normal range of body weight" as determined by the World Health Organization or national governments, and avoid weight gain and increases in waist circumference during adulthood.

Washoe, a Chimp of Many Words, Dies at 42

from the New York Times (Registration Required): She spent her early years playing in the backyard of a small house in Reno, Nev., learning American Sign Language from the scientists who adopted her, and by age 5 she had mastered enough signs to capture the world's attention and set off a debate over nonhuman primates' ability to learn human language that continues to this day. But on Tuesday night, Washoe, a chimpanzee born in West Africa, died after a short illness, said Mary Lee Jensvold, assistant director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, where Washoe had lived and learned for more than two decades. The chimp died in bed at age 42, surrounded by staff members and other primates who had been close to her, Dr. Jensvold said. Scientists had tried without success to teach nonhuman primates to imitate vocal sounds when R. Allen Gardner and Beatrix T. Gardner, cognitive researchers, adopted the 10-month-old chimp from military scientists in 1966. The Gardners ... taught Washoe American Sign Language, encouraging her gestures until she made signs that were reliably understandable.

Open Access to Research Funded by U.S. Is at Issue

from the Washington Post (Registration Required): A long-simmering debate over whether the results of government-funded research should be made freely available to the public could take a big step toward resolution as members of a House and Senate conference committee meet today to finalize the 2008 Department of Health and Human Services appropriations bill. At issue is whether scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health should be required to publish the results of their research solely in journals that promise to make the articles available free within a year after publication. The idea is that consumers should not have to buy expensive scientific journal subscriptions -- or be subject to pricey per-page charges for nonsubscribers -- to see the results of research they have already paid for with their taxes.

Scientists Decode Most of Cat's DNA

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required): NEW YORK - An Abyssinian cat from Missouri, named Cinnamon, has just made scientific history. Researchers have largely decoded her DNA, a step that may aid the search for treatments for both feline and human diseases. The report adds cats to the roughly two dozen mammals whose DNA has been unraveled, a list that includes dogs, chimps, rats, mice, cows and of course, people. Why add cats? They get more than 200 diseases that resemble human illnesses, and knowing the details of their genetic makeup should help in the search for vaccines and treatments, researchers say. ... The new work is reported in the November issue of the journal Genome Research by a team including [Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute] and colleague Joan Pontius.

Awesome Beasts Roved Ancient Site in Spain

from BBC News Online: Giant hyenas, sabretoothed cats, giraffes and zebras lived side by side in Europe 1.8 million years ago. The creatures' remains were among a vast fossil hoard unearthed at an ancient hyena den in the Granada region of south-east Spain. The area appears to have been a crossroads where European animals mixed with species from Africa and Asia. About 4,000 fossils have been found at the unique site. They also include gazelles, wolves, wild boar and lynx. The dig's co-director, Dr Alfonso Arribas, said the specimens were the remains of carcasses scavenged by giant hyenas (Pachycrocuta brevirostris). After stripping them of flesh, the hyenas discarded the bones. The scavenged remains were then rapidly buried, explaining their remarkable preservation.

Using Satellites to Pinpoint and Predict Pollution

from Scientific American: As NASA gets to work on the Constellation Program - the space agency's next not-so-small-step for mankind that hopes to put U.S. astronauts back on the moon by 2020 - the European Space Agency (ESA) has set its sights on learning more about our own planet. Toward that end the agency this month, at its Tropospheric Emission Monitoring Internet Service (TEMIS) conference in Italy, touted its ability to provide free atmospheric and environmental data to help nations assess air pollution problems. ESA's TEMIS delivers data in what the agency calls "near-real time" and also provides long-term forecasts based on tropospheric trace gas concentrations, aerosols and ultraviolet (UV) radiation. TEMIS gathers information from its own satellites and also has agreements with NASA and the Darmstadt, Germany-based European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) to make their data available on its Web site.

MRI Scans Reveal Brain Abnormalities Not Uncommon

from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: ATLANTA - One in 60 older people may be walking around with benign brain tumors and not know it. Even more may have bulging blood vessels in the head that could burst. These results come from a surprising Dutch study that finds brain abnormalities are not that uncommon. It's not clear how alarming this is. Most of the abnormalities hadn't caused any symptoms, though some were potentially life-threatening. But the findings may have implications for patients in the future: As more of these abnormalities are spotted with more sophisticated equipment during routine medical tests, some doctors may urge surgery or other treatment as a precaution. Or some patients may push doctors to fix the potential problem.

New Mammal Fossil Sheds Light on Teeth Evolution

from National Geographic News: A newly discovered species of fossilized mammal from the Jurassic era shows that the basic tooth template shared by all mammals today evolved independently at least twice in the past. The find also adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that early mammals were much more diverse than previously thought. Fossilized skeletal remains of the new species, Pseudotribos robustus, were found recently in 165-million-year-old lakebeds in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. From the creature's build and makeup, paleontologists believe that the 4.7-inch-long (12-centimeter-long) creature was a very strong digger that ate insects and plants. But the biggest news is its choppers.

Colours Light Up Brain Structure

from Nature News: It's not often that research results look this good. An elegant new way to visualize individual brain cells not only provides a major boost to scientists trying to understand how the brain works, but has also won one of its developers a major prize in science photography. The method - described by neuroscientists at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in today's Nature - allows researchers to see more clearly how individual neurons connect with each other by colouring each one from a palette of about 90 shades. In this way they will be able to build up a detailed diagram of the brain's wiring, which will help to study how it computes. More than a century ago, neuroscientists developed the first method of staining individual neurons - with silver chromate. Work with this technique was the basis of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906. But this could only stain neurons with one colour.