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Weary crew fights to save stranded Mass. dolphins (AP)

February 17, 2012

WELLFLEET, Mass. – There’s no good spot on Cape Cod for dolphins to beach themselves, but on this cold, gray day a group of 11 has chosen one of the worst.

The remote inlet down Wellfleet’s Herring River is a place where the tides recede fast and far, and that’s left the animals mired in a grayish-brown mud one local calls “Wellfleet mayonnaise.”

Walking is the only way to reach the animals, but it’s not easy. Rescuers crunch through cord grass and seashells before hitting a grabby muck that releases a footstep with a sucking pop. One volunteer hits a thigh-deep hole and tumbles forward. Mud covers his face like messy war paint.

It’s a scene that’s played itself out all winter long, and scientists have no idea why. A year ago, the 11 dolphins that stranded themselves Tuesday would have been a remarkable number. Now they’re just added to an ever-growing tally.

In

15-minute-old newborn gets pacemaker for heart (AP)

February 16, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO – The name Jaya in Hindi means victorious. And little Jaya Maharaj was just that, when she became one of the smallest recipients of a pacemaker when she was just 15 minutes old.

A team of doctors at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital determined the girl born nine weeks premature had only hours to live if they did not perform the surgery.

Jaya, who was diagnosed in the womb with a severe heart ailment, entered the world with a heart rate of 45 beats per minute. A health newborn heartbeat is 120 to 150 beats per minute.

“The only way to save this baby was to deliver the baby right away and then the pacemaker,” said Dr. Katsuhide Maeda, the surgeon whose steady hand stitched the pacemaker’s electrical leads to Jaya’s walnut-sized heart. Stanford announced details of the operation this week.

During a routine prenatal visit, doctors told Leanne Maharaj, 26,

Nearly 1 in 20 US adults over 50 have fake knees (AP)

February 15, 2012

CHICAGO – Nearly 1 in 20 Americans older than 50 have artificial knees, or more than 4 million people, according to the first national estimate showing how common these replacement joints have become in an aging population.

Doctors know the number of knee replacement operations has surged in the past decade, especially in baby boomers. But until now, there was no good fix on the total number of people living with them.

The estimate is important because it shows that a big segment of the population might need future knee-related care, said Dr. Daniel Berry, president of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and chairman of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He was not involved in the research.

People with knee replacements sometimes develop knee infections or scar tissue that require additional treatment. But also, even artificial knees wear out, so as the operations are increasingly done on younger

Airlines urge U.N. deal to avert carbon trade war (Reuters)

February 12, 2012

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Global airlines called on Sunday for a U.N.-brokered deal to prevent a row over aviation emissions between China and the European Union spilling into a damaging trade war.

The call by the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) comes amid signs that the EU may be willing to soften a unilateral stance that also risks souring efforts to resolve Europe’s sovereign debt crisis with Chinese support.

In an interview, IATA Director General Tony Tyler said airlines had become wedged between conflicting domestic laws after China ordered its airlines not to join the EU’s compulsory market-based system for regulating airline emissions.

“The Chinese move to prevent its airlines from taking part in the Emissions Trading Scheme is a very bold move and it pushes the Chinese carriers very much into the front line of this particular dispute,” Tyler told Reuters.

“This is an intolerable situation which clearly has to be

Life in Antarctic lake? It’s everywhere else (AP)

February 11, 2012

WASHINGTON – If scientists find microbes in a frigid lake two miles beneath the thick ice of Antarctica, it will illustrate once again that somehow life finds a way to survive in the strangest and harshest places.

And it will offer hope that life exists beyond Earth.

Russian researchers reported Wednesday that they had reached Lake Vostok, a pristine body of water untouched by light or wind for about 20 million years. They want to know what type of microbial life — bacteria too small to see — might exist there.

Finding microbes may not sound like much. But they were the first form of Earth life eons before plants and animals existed.

If scientists find these tiny germs in Lake Vostok, it bolsters already strong hope that elsewhere in our solar system, life also might exist where once it didn’t seem possible.

There are plenty of examples of life forms existing in the most

La Nina going away, but too late for Texas drought (AP)

February 9, 2012

WASHINGTON – Federal weather forecasters say the La Nina weather phenomenon that contributed to the southwestern U.S. drought is winding down.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center says La Nina is showing signs that it will be over by summer. Center deputy director Mike Halpert said that’s too late for Texas because the rainy season will be over by that time. The effects of La Nina, a cooling of the central Pacific, are generally weaker in summer.

But it is good news for the Atlantic hurricane belt. More tropical storms form there during La Ninas.

Halpert said La Nina generally causes more weather damage to the U.S. than its flip side, the better known El Nino.

Forecasters don’t know what conditions will follow this La Nina.

In scientific coup, Russians reach Antarctic lake (AP)

February 8, 2012

MOSCOW – After more than two decades of drilling in Antarctica, Russian scientists have reached a gigantic freshwater lake hidden under miles of ice for some 20 million years — a pristine body of water that may hold life from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets.

Finally touching the surface of Lake Vostok, the largest of nearly 400 subglacial lakes in Antarctica, is a major discovery avidly anticipated by scientists around the world.

Valery Lukin, the head of Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) who oversaw the mission and announced its success, likened the endeavor to the epic race to the moon won by American scientists over the Soviets in 1969.

“I think it’s fair to compare this project to flying to the moon,” he said Wednesday.

The Russian team hit the lake Sunday at the depth of 12,366 feet (3,769 meters) about 800 miles (1,300

New Obama plan to help math, science teacher prep (AP)

February 7, 2012

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama called on Tuesday for millions of dollars in new funding to improve math and science education, an effort he said would be crucial to the nation’s long-term success.

Obama said his upcoming budget proposal, set to be released next week, would include a request for $80 million from Congress for a new Education Department competition to support math and science teacher preparation programs. Obama made a similar request to Congress last year but the measure didn’t pass.

Separately, he announced $22 million in investments from the private sector to support math and science efforts. Among the organizations committing fresh funding are Google and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Obama said a renewed focus on math and science education should be an American imperative.

“The belief that we belong on the cutting edge of innovation, that’s an idea as old as America itself,” Obama said. “We’re a nation of

Sandia Labs engineers create ‘self-guided’ bullet (AP)

February 6, 2012

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A bullet that directs itself like a tiny guided missile and can hit a target more than a mile away has the potential to change the battlefield for soldiers without costing too much, engineers at Sandia National Laboratories said Wednesday.

The bullet can twist and turn to guide itself toward a laser-directed point, all while making up to 30 corrections per second. It’s packed with electronics that control electromagnetic actuators that steer the bullet’s tiny fins.

Sandia technical staff member Red Jones said the .50-caliber bullets are being designed to work with military machine guns, so soldiers could hit their mark faster and with precision.

“Everybody thought it was too difficult to make things small enough. We knew we could deal with that. The other thing was it was going to be too complicated and expensive,” he said. “We came up with an innovative way around that to make it

Sandia Labs engineers create ‘self-guided’ bullet (AP)

February 5, 2012

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Figuring out how to pack a processor and other electronics into a machine gun bullet has been a challenge for engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, so weapons experts say the miniature guidance system the lab has developed is a breakthrough.

Three years in the making, the bullet prototype represents another step toward a next-generation battlefield that scientists and experts expect to be saturated with technology and information.

“In the laboratory, I’m able to make machines so incredibly small it kind of boggles my mind,” said Red Jones, one of the Sandia researchers who helped develop the laser-guided .50-caliber bullet. “Where we’re headed, we’re going to be limited only by our imagination.”

Developing more precise weaponry has been a mission for government and industry scientists for decades. Most recently, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense has awarded tens of millions of dollars in contracts to companies to develop