[Jawlist] Weekly Science Report 9-25-09

Sat Sep 26 19:16:49 PDT 2009

Good Evening Everyone,

Below is this week's edition.  Enjoy!

Steve Detwiler

Weekly Science Report 
September 25, 2009 

“Reach for the stars.  Although you will never touch them, if you reach hard enough, you will find that you get a little star dust on you in the process.” 
Norman Borlaug 

News Articles 

Paleontology, Evolution and Prehistoric Studies 

What Do Dinosaurs And The Maya Have In Common?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911210024.htm

Researchers Probe Links Between Modern Humans and Neanderthals
http://www.physorg.com/news172567188.html

Why are we the naked ape?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327261.000-why-are-we-the-naked-ape.html 

Echidna's Ancestor Swam With Platypuses
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/22/echidna-platypus.html

Former Golf Course Yields Insights Into Human Evolution
http://www.livescience.com/researchinaction/ria-090917.html

Mass extinction event spared Europe — mostly
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32993397/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Evolution can’t be reversed, research suggests
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32991467/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Genomic research shows Indians descended from two groups
http://www.physorg.com/news172931737.html

Dinosaurs had 'earliest feathers' 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8273938.stm

Super volcano made people grit their teeth
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33025003/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Cold, scared dinosaurs dug burrows
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33022320/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Ancient and General History 

Last letter of Mary Queen of Scots appears briefly
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090916/lf_nm_life/us_britain_scots_mary

D-Day memorial in dire need
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-09-15-ddaymemorial_N.htm

Dionysus myth a clue to ancient neonatal care?
http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/2009/09-09-20_2.apeen.html#03

Scholars look at factors surrounding Hermann’s victory
http://www.nujournal.com/page/content.detail/id/509454.html

Thai king, world's longest-reigning monarch, in hospital
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/21/thailand.king/index.html 

Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-09-21-clinton-tapes_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip 

The Oldest Lunar Calendar on Earth
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/oldest-lunar-calendar/15204

Sept. 23, 1869: Here Comes Typhoid Mary
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/09/dayintech_0923typhoidmary/ 

Kalaupapa’s Father Damien To Be Canonized
http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/headline.cfm?type=Announcements&id=8192

Cronkite records destroyed by FBI
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/cronkite.htm

'The Wilderness Warrior' by Douglas Brinkley
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-douglas-brinkley27-2009sep27,0,4151962.story

Jewish Priesthood Has Multiple Lineages, New Genetic Research Indicates
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090924093355.htm

National Archives gets historic Alexander Hamilton 'liquor' letter 
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/25/alexander.hamilton.letter/index.html

Head of the Former Ottoman Dynasty Dies
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1926141,00.html

Slogan hailing Stalin returns to metro station, draws scorn
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/24/russia.stalin.controversy/index.html

How Gorbachev Slowed the Arms Race
Tale More Complex Than Reagan's Will 
By David E. Hoffman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 21, 2009 

Adapted from "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy," published this week by Doubleday. 

In his second inaugural speech, delivered in January 1985, President Ronald Reagan offered a high-flying description of his Strategic Defense Initiative, calling it a global shield to "render nuclear weapons obsolete" by destroying the warheads before they could reach their targets. 
Later, the assertion was often made that Reagan's vision had bankrupted the Soviet Union -- "the final straw for the Evil Empire," as former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher once put it. 
Documents from inside the Kremlin during the late 1980s -- as well as diaries, memoirs, records of Politburo discussions and interviews with key participants -- tell a more complex story about one of the Cold War's most important turning points. The evidence shows that Reagan's dream of a global shield was not the driving force that reversed the arms race. Rather, the agent of change was Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He decided not to compete with Reagan on missile defense, and at the same time he was waging a fierce internal struggle against his own military-industrial complex to turn back the Cold War arms buildup. 

Gorbachev had concluded that the sprawling Soviet defense establishment -- the army, navy, air force, strategic rocket forces, air defense forces, and all the institutes, design bureaus and factories that supported them -- was a monumental burden on the country. "Defense spending was bleeding the other branches of the economy dry," he recalled. The extent of the bleeding was concealed by such deep secrecy that even Gorbachev said he had trouble obtaining accurate information. 

President Obama's decision last week to scale back plans for a European long-range missile defense system rekindled arguments about missile defense systems and their feasibility that date to the Reagan-Gorbachev era and even earlier. Reagan envisioned a space-based global umbrella, and the European shield was ground-based and regional, but the two ideas shared a common difficulty: precision. Was it possible to destroy one fleet of missiles with another, to "hit a bullet with a bullet"? 

Fresh details about Gorbachev's campaign against Reagan's version of missile defense have emerged from internal memos and private notes kept by Vitaly Katayev, who served for more than 17 years in the Defense Department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, working under the Politburo member responsible for the Soviet defense industry. 
Katayev's notes disclose that in the early summer of 1985, just months after Gorbachev took power as Communist Party general secretary, the directors, designers and constructors of satellites, space boosters and lasers produced a colossal new plan to build a Soviet missile defense system. The idea was to match Reagan's ambitions, to build their own "Star Wars," as Reagan's dream had been dubbed. If Gorbachev went along, this would prolong the arms race and extend it into outer space. 

Katayev calculated that the plans involved 137 projects in design and testing, 34 projects in scientific research, 115 in fundamental science. Cost estimates ran into the tens of billions of rubles, enough to keep the design bureaus working full tilt. The programs, with obscure code names such as Fundament-4, Onega E, Spiral and Skif, went on for pages and pages in Katayev's notebooks. Building a Soviet version of Reagan's shield would mean lucrative new subsidies for these projects. 

In the summer and early autumn of 1985, Yevgeny Velikhov, an avuncular and open-minded physicist, urged Gorbachev not to do it. Velikhov had concluded, based on earlier research, that Reagan's idea could not work. He proposed that Gorbachev abandon the conventional Cold War approach of matching what Reagan was doing, and argued instead for an "asymmetrical" response, one that would answer Reagan but not be the same. 

One asymmetrical option: Send thousands of warheads and missiles to overwhelm the U.S. shield. To destroy such a threat, a defense system would have to target and hit speeding points almost perfectly and simultaneously. Inevitably, some Soviet missiles would get through. 
Gorbachev alluded to this particular asymmetrical response at the Geneva summit in November 1985. He told Reagan that if the United States pursued the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Soviet response "would not be a mirror," but "a simpler, more effective system." 
"We will build up to smash your shield," Gorbachev said. 

Katayev's files contain documents on hypothetical modifications to the SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile so it could carry 38 warheads, rather than 10. The Soviet Union was good at building missiles, and it would be easier and cheaper to double or triple the warheads than to create a new defense system. 

Still, this was not the solution Gorbachev had in mind. He wanted to eliminate weapons, not propagate them. Questioned about the idea during a 2006 interview, Gorbachev was still uneasy about discussing it. "We did have a project," he said. "But it [was] closed down. . . . It's a horrible project, it's a horrible response." 

He added, "What is one missile, SS-18? It's a hundred Chernobyls. In one missile." 
* * * 

There was another asymmetrical response that Gorbachev favored more. Words were his stock in trade, and infinitely cheaper than a vast new arms buildup. The evidence shows that he set out to talk Reagan out of this giant defense program that the United States did not yet possess -- and that the Soviet Union would have great trouble matching -- and exchange it all for something that both leaders wanted: deep reductions in existing nuclear arms. 

There was also an important domestic component to Gorbachev's negotiating strategy. If he could persuade Reagan not to build Star Wars, he would find it easier to resist the generals and the missile designers at home. This is the route Gorbachev took at the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986, and after. 

Without a doubt, Reagan's dream puzzled the Soviets. As Katayev recalled it, Soviet experts often wondered what they were missing. "What is it being done for?" the specialists asked themselves, according to Katayev. "In the name of what are the Americans, famous for their pragmatism, opening their wallet for the most grandiose project in the history of the United States when the technical and economic risks of a crash exceed all thinkable limits?" 

Reagan's zeal for his dream led the Soviet specialists "from the very beginning to think about the possibility of political bluff and hoax," Katayev said. They pondered whether it was a "Hollywood village of veneer and cardboard." 
* * * 

Meanwhile, Gorbachev let some of the plans of the military designers collapse of their own weight. 

One was the space laser known as the Skif-DM, the most tangible result of the designers' drive to build a Soviet Star Wars. 

At 9:30 p.m. on May 15, 1987, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the giant Soviet space booster Energia roared into the sky, carrying a mysterious black container labeled Polyus with the Skif-DM inside. In fact, there was no laser; the Skif-DM was a model, a placeholder for a future weapon. The Soviet designers had not mastered the technology. 

The Energia booster performed flawlessly. Four hundred sixty seconds after launch, the Polyus separated from the Energia. Then something went wrong. The Polyus was supposed to turn 180 degrees and fire engines to push itself into higher orbit. Instead, it kept turning all the way to 360 degrees. It shot itself back down toward Earth and flew straight into the Pacific Ocean. 
All work on Skif came to a halt. Gorbachev did not try to revive it. 

One of Gorbachev's greatest accomplishments was in the things he did not do. He had been urged to build a Soviet Star Wars by the military-industrial complex. He did not. He could have tried to build a massive retaliatory force. He did not. 

In the end, the Soviet system bankrupted itself -- without either superpower making nuclear weapons obsolete. 

Archaeology 

Lady Dai tomb among richest finds in China history
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/ap_en_ot/us_art_noble_tombs

Historic Roman salt store found on mudflats
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local_news/basildon/4625663.Historic_Roman_salt_store_found_on_mudflats/

Gimme shelter
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2009/09/20/Sci_Rock_Shelter.ART_ART_09-20-09_G3_RJF37TH.html?sid=101

Ship graveyard gives up secrets
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/8265345.stm

The Loveland Stone Age Fair
http://www.denverpost.com/coloradosunday/ci_13377502

Ninth century settlements found in northwest Qatar
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&month=September2009&file=Local_News2009091432516.xml

'Whicker Man' tomb to yield Bronze Age secrets, say scientists
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/39Whicker-Man39-tomb-to-yield.5661633.jp

Mysterious ruins may help explain Mayan collapse
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-09-19-mayan-collapse_N.htm

Dolmen with petroglyphs found near Villupuram
http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/20/stories/2009092052290900.htm

Archaeologists Find Burial Cellar In Ancient Syrian City Containing Spectacular Artifacts
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090921173412.htm

1,800 Year-Old Marble Figurine Found in Israel
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/22783/

Kirkleatham Museum to display jewels from Cleveland grave of Anglo-Saxon princess
http://www.culture24.org.uk/spliced/artefacts+%2526+other+objects/art71841

Archaeologists find suspected Trojan war-era couple
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE58L2A820090922

MSU Archaeology Team’s latest find: 16,000-year-old sand dune
http://news.msu.edu/story/6856/

China finds new section to its Great Wall: report
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090922/wl_asia_afp/chinaculturearchaeologywall

Tunnel links continents, uncovers ancient history
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/21/turkey.bosphorus.tunnel.marmaray/

Buried treasure found in Córdoba
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_23165.shtml

3300 year old archaeological site discovered in Embilipitiya
http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=62234

Exhibit showcases paintings of ancient Rome
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32970432/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Mayans 'played' pyramids to make music for rain god
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327266.200-mayans-played-pyramids-to-make-music-for-rain-god.html

Ancient Greece Springs to Life
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Ancient-Greece-Springs-to-Life.html

World Heritage sites about to go digital
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32893570/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Humphrey Case obituary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/sep/17/humphrey-case-obituary

Brutal Destruction Of Iraq's Archaeological Sites Continues 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/brutal-destruction-of-ira_b_290667.html

Archeologists dive for clues to early prehistoric settlement
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09266/1000076-115.stm

Visualizing the Aztecs
http://www.physorg.com/news172911763.html

5,000-year-old Venus figure found in Çanakkale
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-187938-101-5000-year-old-venus-figure-found-in-canakkale.html

Fibers Help Date Rise of Culture
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=529173

Rare coins find excites experts 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/8274509.stm

Archeologists find 'Joseph-era' coins in Egypt
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1253820674074&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

French find prehistoric animal worship site
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090924/sc_afp/archaeologyfranceuae_20090924173651

Egyptology 

Exact Date Pinned to Great Pyramid's Construction?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090921-great-pyramid-giza-date-built.html

General Science 

Laser sight: NYU’s real-life tricorder
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/09/17/laser-sight-nyus-real-life-tricorder/

Could a paper transistor offer an alternative to silicon?
http://www.physorg.com/news172837799.html

Diamonds 'may be the ultimate MRI probe'
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/science/Diamonds-may-be-the-ultimate-MRI-probe/articleshow/5046101.cms

Chips out, Silicon Valley puts money on bricks
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/science/Chips-out-Silicon-Valley-puts-money-on-bricks/articleshow/5044350.cms

Paper battery may power electronics in clothing and packaging material
http://www.physorg.com/news172932619.html

U.S. Army Plans to Send Giant Spy Blimp to Afghanistan
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-09/us-army-plans-send-giant-spy-blimp-afghanistan

Physics, Earth and Space Sciences 

Astronomers: Rocky Earth-like planet found outside our solar system
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-09-16-rocky-planet_N.htm

Doomed Space Missions: A Rich History of Planned Destruction
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/doomedspacemissionsarichhistoryofplanneddestruction

Rocket launch prompts calls of strange lights in sky
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/20/strange.lights/index.html

Exotic life beyond Earth? Looking for life as we don't know it
http://www.physorg.com/news172493700.html

Satellite to begin gravity quest 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8268942.stm

End of an era: New ruling decides the boundaries of Earth's history
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/w-eoa092209.php

New photos reveal Milky Way’s chaotic center
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32975427/ns/technology_and_science-space/ 

Radar Map of Buried Mars Layers Matches Climate Cycles
http://www.physorg.com/news172858451.html

High-School Student Discovers Strange Astronomical Object
http://www.physorg.com/news172860368.html

Computer code gives astrophysicists first full simulation of star's final hours
http://www.physorg.com/news172856010.html

The Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life Gets Weird
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/weirdlife/

Could a Gravity Trick Speed Us to Mars?
http://www.wired.com/science/space/magazine/17-10/st_twoburn

Magnetized Gas Points to New Physics
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/918/1

Augmented Reality Headsets to Help ISS Astronauts
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-09/esa-wants-augmented-reality-simplify-space-travel

Radical New Theory: Black Holes Attack and Devour Stars from the Inside
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090921-st-black-hole-devour.html

India’s lunar mission finds evidence of water on the Moon
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6846639.ece

Basalt rock wall found in ocean near Taiwan
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2009/01/05/basalt_rock_wall_found_in_ocean_near_taiwan/?page=full

Bid to protect England's top soil 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8272022.stm

Seismic bangs 'block' whale calls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8269126.stm

How to Make a Planet: Spitzer Spots Clump of Swirling Planetary Material
http://www.physorg.com/news172943482.html

Physicists make discovery in quantum mechanics
http://www.physorg.com/news172936800.html

Scientists outline planetary boundaries: A safe operating space for humanity
http://www.physorg.com/news172931678.html

How far could you travel in a spaceship?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327274.200-how-far-could-you-travel-in-a-spaceship.html

Mars probe watches water-ice fade 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8273855.stm

BACK TO THE LUNAR FUTURE?
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/09/25/2080696.aspx

Very High Energy Gamma Rays
http://www.physorg.com/news173104115.html

Prototype developed to detect dark matter
http://www.physorg.com/news173099370.html

Mercury ready for a rare close-up 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-09-25-mercury-flyby_N.htm

How astronauts could 'harvest' water on the moon
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17861-how-astronauts-could-harvest-water-on-the-moon.html

Sept. 25, 2002: Mysterious Meteorite Dazzles Siberia
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/09/0925vitim-meteorite

Mathematicians' Alternate Model of the Universe Explains Away the Need For Dark Energy
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-09/mathematicians-seek-explain-away-dark-energy-universe

New Device Tested for Extracting Oxygen from the Moon
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090924-moon-oxygen.html

Environment, Climate Change and Alternative Energy Sources 

Fuel-economy rules set 35.5 mpg standard for 2016 models
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-09-15-new-fuel-economy_N.htm

China hydropower to near double by 2020: state media
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090920/wl_asia_afp/chinaenvironmentwaterenergy_20090920043313

Sailing the Northwest Passage: mission accomplished
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/09/20/northwestpassage.arctic/index.html

New Solar Home is More Boston than Jetsons
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/21/tech/cnettechnews/main5327676.shtml?tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesAreaMain;cbsnewsLeadStoriesHeadlines

Rediscovering Natural Gas By Hitting Rock Bottom
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113043935

The Guide to Home Geothermal Energy
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/how_your_house_works/4331401.html

The Deadly Silence of the Electric Car
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/23/politics/washingtonpost/main5331942.shtml?tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesAreaMain;cbsnewsLeadStoriesSecondary

Going Green: What Cities Can Teach The Country
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113113957

River turbines could electrify New York City
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32988854/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

General Electric Gives Gearless Wind Turbines a Big Boost
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/wind-power-giant-gives-gearless-turbines-boost

9 Eco Rules Humans Shouldn’t Break If We Want to Survive
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/09/24/9-eco-rules-humans-shouldnt-break-if-we-want-to-survive/

Swiss to inaugurate high-tech, green mountain hut
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090925/sc_afp/switzerlandarchitectureenvironmentmountain

Peruvian Glacial Retreats Linked To European Events Of Little Ice Age
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090924141740.htm

MAD Architects Use Solar Eco-Skin on Taiwanese Convention Center
http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-09/mad-architects-use-solar-eco-skin-taiwanese-convention-center

Catholic U. Lands Major Grant for Nuclear Waste Conversion 
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 19, 2009 

The Catholic University of America announced Friday that it had been awarded one of the largest research contracts in its history to work on converting liquid nuclear waste to glass, a process that renders it comparatively stable and safe. 

The university's Vitreous State Laboratory has landed the first of several contracts totaling $36 million to work on one of the nation's two largest sites of high-level nuclear waste, along the Savannah River in South Carolina. The lab is already working there and at the larger Hanford site, along the Columbia River in Washington state. The contract runs for six years. 

Catholic University is a leader in the field of vitrification, a process that converts decades-old nuclear waste into glass. Millions of gallons of waste, left over from the manufacture of atomic bombs, are stored in steel tanks. The tanks occasionally spring leaks, imperiling the surrounding environment. Once transformed into glass, the waste remains radioactive but cannot seep out. 

Researchers are racing against time. It will take decades to convert the waste from liquid in underground tanks to stable glass. The oldest of the tanks date to the Manhattan Project. They were never intended as long-term solutions, said Ian Pegg, director of the laboratory. Some tanks at Hanford are known to have sprung leaks. 

"They set aside all of this waste to be dealt with another day," Pegg said. "That day has come." 

The contracts support work toward speeding up the vitrification process and increasing the amount of waste that can be safely packed in glass, Pegg said. 

At the present rate of work, waste treatment at Hanford won't be complete until 2047. Work at Savannah, where 36 million gallons of waste are stored in 49 tanks, will continue until about 2030. The waste comes from bombs produced there from the early 1950s until 1991. 

"Every year of operations is hundreds of millions of dollars" in tax funds, Pegg said. 
The vitrification lab opened in 1968 and sits on the Catholic campus off North Capitol Street in Northeast Washington. It has a staff of 80. The grants reaffirm its currency as "an invaluable resource for our nation," said the Very Rev. David M. O'Connell, university president. 

Biological, Genetics and Medical Sciences 

Scientists find that individuals in vegetative states can learn
http://www.physorg.com/news172671780.html

Medical societies push standards for robotic surgery
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090917/sc_nm/us_surgery_robotics

New blood tests promise simple cancer detection
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090920/sc_nm/us_cancer_blood_tests

Genetic seamstress uses molecular fingers to tweak DNA
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327266.400-genetic-seamstress-uses-molecular-fingers-to-tweak-dna.html

Rx for the Brain-Injured Patient: A Shot of Tequila?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/09/22/rx-for-the-brain-injured-patient-a-shot-of-tequila/

Coyote + Wolf = Big, Carnivorous Coywolf
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/22/coyote-wolf.html

Expert calls for new cancer research priorities
http://www.physorg.com/news172819312.html#firstCmt

Naked mole rats may help cure cancer
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327267.300-naked-mole-rats-may-help-cure-cancer.html

Stimulating sight: New retinal implant developed
http://www.physorg.com/news172920565.html

Nanodiamonds Advance Anticancer Gene Therapy
http://www.physorg.com/news173102090.html

Fringe's Human Mutant Not Possible, Says Expert
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4331852.html

Brain scans reveal what you've seen
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/25/brain.scans.wired/index.html

Fanged frog, 162 other new species found in Mekong
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2009-09-25-new-species_N.htm

Other 

Better world: Be nice to people
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327261.400-better-world-be-nice-to-people.html

'Genius' Mathematician Seeks New Problems
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113088249

Microsoft researcher converts his brain into 'e-memory'
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/25/total.recall.microsoft.bell/index.html

Additional Informational 

Fantastic Photos of our Solar System 
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/photos/?c=y&articleID=59247082&page=1 

Top 10 U.N. General Assembly Moments 
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1843506_1843505,00.html 

The population delusion 
http://www.newscientist.com/special/population 

Photo: The Sun Gets Its Spots (Back) 
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/sunspots/ 

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