British astronaut to be announced – BBC

The first official British astronaut is expected to be announced by the European Space Agency (Esa), MoD sources have told BBC News.

Esa is expected to name a 37-year-old Apache pilot from the Army Air Corps as one of six new recruits.

The candidates will be presented to the public at a special ceremony in Paris.

The appointment is somewhat surprising because Britain does not contribute to Esa’s human spaceflight programme.

Its preference has always been to fund the robotic exploration of space.

Those British-born people who have gone into orbit have done so privately or they have taken out US citizenship to fly with Nasa.

The first Briton in space was Sheffield-born chemist Helen Sharman. She had to secure private funding to fly to the Mir space station on a Russian Soyuz craft in 1991.

Three British-born astronauts have flown into space under an American flag: Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick.

Esa says its new astronauts were selected solely on their ability to do the job.

The new recruits were selected from more than 8,000 applications and have been described as young and extremely capable individuals.

Manned spaceship

The astronauts will train to work on the space station and, depending on future developments, may even get to go to the Moon.

It is possible they could also pilot the first manned European spaceship.

Esa is just about to initiate a study that will look at the feasibility of turning its robotic ATV space freighter into a crew transportation vehicle.

“We’re looking for… additional European astronauts,” Simonetta Di Pippo, Esa’s director of human spaceflight, told BBC News at the weekend. She declined to discuss nationalities or names.

“These are young candidates. I must say I found a very high level of expertise and capability. We started with 8,400… so you can imagine how tough it was. I’m really proud of what I saw in the last few weeks.”

This recruitment campaign is Esa’s first astronaut selection since 1992. It currently has eight men in its astronaut corps – from Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

The Belgian Frank de Winne is about to assume command of the International Space Station – the first non-US, non-Russian to do so.

There will be an expectation also in Germany, France, and Italy that one of their nationals makes it through to the final selection. These are the Esa member-states that have committed most money to the space station programme, the agency having spent of the order of five billion euros on the project so far.

The UK on the other hand has chosen to ignore Esa’s “optional” human spaceflight programme. One of the major consequences of this position is that it has also locked UK companies out of the lucrative contracts to build space station equipment.

Business opportunities

British firms will be looking to see whether there are now business possibilities for them on the back of a UK astronaut.

What is clear is that the flight prospects for all European astronauts are going to be limited in the coming years.

Because Esa does not currently have its own crew ship, it must rely on seats being made available in Russian and American vehicles. But with the US shuttle about to be retired and a replacement craft not due to come into service until perhaps 2015, the opportunities to go into orbit will be greatly reduced.

Europe is considering building its own crew transporter. Member states have approved a study that would assess how the robotic Automated Transfer Vehicle could be upgraded, first to bring cargo safely back to Earth and then, perhaps, humans.

But it would be the end of the next decade before such a vehicle became operational – if it were ever built.

However, if the project were approved, it is conceivable that Wednesday’s new recruits would be among the first to fly in the ship.

Certainly, Di Pippo believes Europe should press ahead with the venture.

“My slogan is that in a global endeavour ‘we need autonomy for co-operation’,” she told BBC News.

“So by increasing the autonomy of Europe, we will increase the robustness of the partnership.”

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Space is just a little bit closer – BBC

The upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere are much lower than expected, a US Air Force satellite has found.

Currently, the ionosphere – a layer of charged particles that envelopes the planet – is at an altitude of about 420km, some 200km lower than expected.

The behaviour of the ionosphere is important because disturbances in its structure can upset satellite communications and radar.

The C/NOFS satellite’s data will be used to try to forecast such problems.

“C/NOFS is focussing on one small aspect of ’space weather’ which is the impact of the upper atmosphere – a region called the ionosphere – on radiowaves that try to get from satellites down to the ground,” said Don Hunton, the technical manager on the satellite programme at the US Air Force Research Laboratory.

“Sometimes the ionosphere interrupts satellite communications and sometimes it doesn’t, and we’re trying to understand how to forecast, or predict ahead of time, when those problems are going to arise,” he told BBC News.

The ionosphere is a weak plasma – a layer where ultraviolet light from the Sun has so excited the upper atmosphere that its constituent atoms and molecules have been broken apart into free electrons and positive ions.

And just as light waves will be bent as they pass through water, so radiowaves will refract when they move through the charged particles that make up the ionosphere.

The C/NOFS (Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System) was launched back in April and put into an elliptical equatorial orbit at altitudes between 400 and 860km to investigate this enigmatic layer.

Its sensors record the density and temperature of the plasma, as well as the strength and direction of electric and magnetic fields within it.

One of C/NOFS’ first discoveries has been simply to identify where precisely in the sky the ionosphere is right now; and it is a lot lower than expected.

During the night it has been detected at about 420km, rising to 800km during the day. Scientists here at the American Geophysical Union meeting said more typical values would be 640km during night-time and about 960km during the day.

To some extent, this should not be too surprising. The ionosphere reacts to the Sun’s 11-year cycle of activity and our star is currently in a very quiet phase.

“We are in the depths of a very low solar minimum right now and as a result the ionosphere is lower and less dense than, we believe, at any other time in the history of the space age when measurements have been made,” said Dr Hunton.

But despite this quiescence, C/NOFS has still managed to witness a fair amount of activity in the ionosphere. It can see structures, or bubbles, in the layer.

It is these features that will distort, weaken, or even block radiowaves trying to pass through to the ground. C/NOFS’ mission will be to try to understand how these structures start and evolve so that some warning can be given of their impact on satellite transmissions.

Mystery of dolphins’ speed solved – BBC

New research has shown how dolphins achieve their blinding speeds.

Gray’s Paradox – named after British zoologist Sir James Gray – proposed that dolphins simply do not have the strength to swim so fast.

But researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US have now studied the movement of water around dolphins as they swim.

The results show that dolphins can exert as much as 400lb of force with their tails.

Gray had supposed they could produce less than a tenth of this amount, and imagined that something about the dolphins’ skin allowed them to overcome the force of drag in the water and reach high speeds.

“For the first time, I think we can safely say the puzzle is solved,” said Tim Wei, the Rensselaer scientist who led the study.

“The short answer is that dolphins are simply much stronger than Gray or many other people ever imagined.”

To determine this, Professor Wei used a new method of measuring the movement of water that he originally developed to track Olympic swimmers.

Keeping upright for Cilla Black requires a lot more force

The technique employs digital particle image velocimetry, which measures the speed of water movements around a swimming dolphin or human.

Retired US Navy dolphins Primo and Puka were filmed swimming through a tank filled with millions of tiny bubbles.

Software tracked the movement of individual bubbles, determining their speed and direction, and assigning them a colour.

Professor Wei then used force measurement concepts from aerospace research to translate those velocities into a force that the dolphins’ tails were producing – nearly 200lb on average.

When “walking” – keeping upright mostly above water with powerful flips of their tails – the dolphins produced as much as 400lb of force.

Professor Wei will go on to study the motion and force generation of other sea animals.

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Nasa jubilant at urine solution – BBC

Astronauts have fixed a urine-recycling unit on the International Space Station, needed to support a six-person crew at the research outpost next year.

The mission of the US space shuttle Endeavour was extended by one day to fix the machine, which is designed to convert urine into drinking water.

The equipment had failed several times since it was delivered a week ago.

The shuttle is now due to return to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday after 16 days in orbit.

“Not to spoil anything, but I think up here the appropriate words are ‘Yippee!’,” space station Commander Mike Fincke told mission control early on Tuesday morning.

He supervised work on the malfunctioning water regeneration system – which distils, filters, ionises and oxidises wastewater including urine, perspiration and bath water, into drinkable water.

He reported that two rounds of modifications to stabilise the device’s centrifuge appeared to have worked.

“There will be dancing later,” mission controllers replied.

The urine device has already completed a full five-hour run on Monday and was nearing completion of a second full run on Tuesday morning, the Associated Press reported.

Engineers planned to keep the device operating throughout the day in the hope of producing enough processed urine before Endeavour’s departure on Friday.

Nasa needs the new system operating before it can expand the station’s crew from three to six people, which is currently scheduled for May 2009.

Home improvement

The urine-recycling device was ferried into orbit and installed in the space station’s Destiny laboratory after the shuttle arrived on 16 November.

The Endeavour mission is part of a $250m (£165m) “home improvement” effort at the space station.

Urine passes Nasa taste test

As well as the recycling unit, the space station has been fitted with a new freezer, a scientific oven, two sleeping quarters, exercise equipment, an additional toilet and new food preparation facilities.

The fix came a day after astronauts finished a fourth and final spacewalk to repair a mechanism to keep the station’s solar panels pointed towards the sun.

While the crews slept, engineers on the ground watched as the newly-repaired joint automatically pivoted to track the sun for the first time in a year.

Work has been somewhat slower than expected because astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper lost her tool bag during the first spacewalk.

Nasa plans eight more flights to the station, a $100bn (£66bn) project of 16 nations, before the shuttles are retired in 2010.

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10 things fungi have done for us – BBC

Mycologists are a rare breed, and scientists worry the UK will miss out lucrative fungus-based discoveries. Like what?

Mushroom risotto. And umbrellas for fairies. Obviously fry-ups, which go without saying. But apart from these, what have fungi ever given us?

All manner of discoveries, says Dr Peter Roberts, of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and one of eight mycologists left in the UK, such as:

1. Marmite. Ditto Vegemite and Cenovis, the Australian and Swiss versions. Love it or hate it, the dark salty spread so tasty on toast is a yeast extract, and yeast is a type of fungi.

2. Beer and bread too are made with yeast, and both are staples of the British diet. Beer is fermented with the fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer’s yeast), or Saccharomyces carlsbergensis for lager-making, developed by Danish mycologist Emil Hansen. Wine, cider and perry traditionally use naturally-occurring yeasts for fermentation.

3. Quorn – the meat substitute – has perhaps less mainstream appeal but is popular with vegetarians who miss the mouth-feel of flesh. Sausages, mince and mock-chicken fillets are made from this vat-grown filamentous fungus. “A British success story,” says Dr Roberts. Fearing a future shortage of protein-rich foods, scientists in the 1950s and 60s set about finding an alternative. After more than a decade of testing, Quorn products went on sale in 1985.

4. Orchids, like vegetarians, feed on fungi. The lush tropical blooms which bedeck boutique hotels and corporate suites are parasites of fungi, relying entirely on their fungal hosts for seed germination and subsequent growth.

A very sought-after fungi indeed

5. And gourmands, too. Truffles. Mould-ripened cheeses such as camembert, brie and stilton. Mmmm. And soy sauce and miso paste are among the many fermented foodstuffs in Asian cooking.

6. Soil and compost are broken down and enriched thanks to fungi, which account for 90% of nutrient recycling in ecosystems. “They basically turn dead leaves and wood into soil,” says Dr Roberts. Fungi breaks down cellulose, and are the only organisms that can rot lignin, the hard constituent of wood.

7. Statins, the money-spinning anti-cholesterol drugs, were originally derived from fungi, notably Monascus ruber and Penicillium citrinum.

8. Penicillin, the pharmaceutical that has saved countless lives, was originally derived from a fungus, Penicillium chrysogenum. Several other antibiotics are also fungal in origin.

9. LSD, a drug, but not for medicinal purposes, was originally isolated from Claviceps purpurea in the 1940s by Albert Hofmann, a chemist with a particular interest in hallucinogenic fungi. He was also the first to isolate psilocybin from magic mushrooms.

10. And finally, fungi

have given us athlete’s foot, thrush and ringworm – and our houses dry rot. Perhaps less to be thankful for in these cases.

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Wine makers crack open hi-tech tricks – BBC

French scientists have devised a method of analysing valuable old bottles of wine to test if they are fake or genuine.

Using a particle accelerator, more associated with unlocking the secrets of the Universe than those of red wine, physicists at the Centre for Scientific Research in Bordeaux have teamed up with some of the great wine producing chateaux of the region and a wine merchant specialising in rare wines.

“We wanted to find some objective scientific method for analysing the wine and authenticating it in cases where it’s not entirely clear if the bottle is genuine,” says Stephen Williams of The Antique Wine Company, which bank rolled the VinCert project to the tune of £100,000.

The secondary trade in fine wine, with vintages dating back many decades or even centuries, now exceeds £1bn a year.

In the wine is the story of the atomic age Philippe Hubert

Mr Williams got the idea after purchasing a case of old wine from a house in the south of France, including a bottle of 1900 Chateau Margaux, worth in the region of £10,000.

The record auction price for a single bottle of wine is £96,000 ($156,000) for a 1787 Chateau Lafite, which was reputedly once owned by America’s third President and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.

“We wanted to establish a scientific mechanism to verify the wine that we buy in cases where we can’t satisfy ourselves that it’s absolutely genuine,” explains Mr Williams.

He had heard about a technique carried out by scientists at Arcane, the transfer technology arm of the Nuclear Research Centre at Gradignan in Bordeaux, which was using an ion beam from a particle accelerator to test the authenticity of fine art.

“We wondered if this could be developed further, and saw an application for wine,” he said.

Elementary analysis

The analysis works by measuring the X-ray radiation emitted when the glass bottle is placed in the path of an ion particle beam.

“The detector allows us to analyse the chemical composition of the glass,” explains researcher Herve Guegan.

“From that, we can detect the age of the bottle and also where the glass was made.”

Chateaux are keen to ensure that genuine vintages are rewarded

As glass production methods evolved over time, the chemical composition of wine bottles changed.

Trace elements produce a characteristic signature – or fingerprint – for each bottle, as some elements were only used in glass making for a few years before being substituted for something else.

For example, manganese was used to produce the green colour of wine bottles only between about 1920 and 1957, as it came from Moroccan mines at the time when Morocco was under French rule.

Then bottle manufacturers switched to chromium after Morocco gained independence.

So it is possible to compare the chemical fingerprint of a suspect bottle with that of a genuine sample to see if there are any substantial differences that would suggest that the bottle is fake.

The composition also gives clues to the specific production methods and furnaces used in different parts of France.

Bottled wisdom

So far, the project has been able to build up a database of the chemical components of glass bottles from the last 200 years, using around 150 authentic bottles of fine wine donated by the various chateaux.

But it does not take a master forger to work out that you could get around this technique by simply taking authentic empty bottles and filling them with plonk.

So to get around this, a second test on the wine itself was devised by Philippe Hubert at the Centre for Nuclear Studies.

It uses a gamma ray detector to study the levels of radioactive particles in the wine, in this case caesium-137, that have been present in the atmosphere since the era of atomic weapons testing began after World War II.

“The main advantage of this technique is we don’t need to open the bottle to do these kinds of measurements,” Professor Hubert relates.

A bottle of vintage wine undergoes testing by ion beam

“We just have to put the bottle close to or on top of the detector.”

Using bottles donated from the chateaux, Philippe Hubert has built up a record of caesium-137 levels in wine across the second half of the 20th Century.

“In the wine,” he says, “is the story of the atomic age.”

The measurements show that caesium levels rise dramatically from 1951, reaching a peak at around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and then dropping dramatically, reflecting the atmospheric test ban treaty agreed by Presidents Kennedy and Khrushchev in 1963.

The next spike in the data comes in 1986, caused by fall-out from the nuclear accident at Chernobyl.

“If you have an old wine, say from 1860, for example; if you see some caesium in such a bottle, then immediately you can tell that this bottle is a fake one.”

Authentic expertise?

Both the gamma ray and the ion beam analyses should make forging antique wines much harder, particularly as the database expands to cover several hundred wines and include other regions such as Burgundy.

But some critics have pointed to a potential conflict of interest, given the close involvement of the chateaux and the financial backing of a wine dealer with a vested interest in authentication.

“Our objective here,” explains Stephen Williams, “is to develop the technology and then hand it over to an independent company that will offer a service of authentication to other merchants and private individuals around the world.”

Today, the best chateaux in Bordeaux, the so-called Premier Gran Cru Classé, take forgery much more seriously than in the past.

At Chateau Margaux, assistant winery manager Philippe Bascaules casts his eye over their unique and priceless collection of vintage wine, a reference cellar of authentic first growths from 1848 to the present day.

“Thirty years ago, I think we didn’t care about the authenticity of the bottle,” he says.

“It was unthinkable that someone could make a copy because the cost of the bottle was not so high. Now, when one bottle is more than 1,000 euros then people want to make one bottle of Chateau Margaux.”

Margaux, like many prestige winemakers around the world, are taking fraud much more seriously now.

“We want it to be more difficult to copy a bottle of Chateau Margaux than other wines,” says Mr Bascaules.

“So first of all the bottle has the logo of Margaux, but now we also put the vintage of the wine into the glass bottle. Since 2005, we also put a tag inside the bottle cap, and with a special reader we can recognise our cap.”

Other technologies developed in the last few years include watermarks and holograms on labels and the use of special inks.

Hardy’s, the Australian wine producer, has been encoding the caps of its niche wines with samples of DNA from 100-year old vines.

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Faith leaders urge climate curbs – BBC

Leaders from the world’s religious traditions have signed a manifesto urging tough action on climate change.

Around 1,000 delegates are meeting at the Interfaith Climate Summit in Uppsala, Sweden, at the invitation of the Swedish church.

The manifesto, signed by 30 religious leaders, calls for “rapid and large emission cuts in the rich world”.

It argues in favour of a reduction in carbon emissions of at least 40% by the year 2020.

Leaders are also calling on individual followers of religious traditions to recognise the importance of caring for the environment.

They also place an emphasis on the world’s more prosperous nations shouldering the burden of responsibility over the issue.

Rich countries, the manifesto states, “should pay for international cuts in addition to their own domestic initiatives. These payments should be obligatory.”

The signatories also urge the sharing of technological expertise to mitigate the effects of climate change.

‘Human emergency’

Some have questioned what role religious leaders have in an issue that already preoccupies scientists and politicians.

The Archbishop of Sweden said that the hope offered by religious traditions should be recognised alongside the fear some people justifiably feel about the impact of climate change.

‘Rampant’ society upsets order

“I am convinced that the issue of climate change is not an issue best left only to politics, natural science or the market,” he told delegates.

“Our faith traditions provide a basis for hope and reasons for not giving up… despite our shortcomings.”

Delegates have also conceded that some religious traditions have been slow to recognise the importance of climate change.

One prominent participant is the Anglican Bishop of London. He says that religious communities must learn to speak out on the issue.

“Here is a major human emergency,” he said. “Have the faiths of humankind got anything to say about this challenge?”

“Many of our constituencies regard this still as a peripheral second-order issue – it’s got to be moved up the agenda.”

‘Moral perspective’

What is undeniably unique about this gathering is the breadth of cultures and backgrounds represented.

Delegates were welcomed by HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.

During the opening ceremony in Uppsala’s cathedral, a packed congregation listened to a performance of “Bridge over troubled water”, before singing the Christian hymn, “All things bright and beautiful”.

Afterwards, a Taiwanese Buddhist nun rubbed shoulders with an American Indian; a Palestinian Christian chatted with a Muslim from Wales.

Political leaders were also present, including Vice-President of the European Commission Margot Wallstrom.

She said that it made sense to hear the views of religious leaders, given the influence they can have over their communities.

The inter-faith summit would “bring another perspective to the climate change debate, an ethical and moral perspective, and a debate that many politicians might not be willing to engage in”, she said.

The religious leaders who have travelled to Sweden believe that their ethical contribution to the climate change debate is vital.

The lasting question is whether their contribution will make a real impact – both on their own religious communities and the wider world.

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Clue to break-up of ice shelves – BBC

US researchers have come up with a way to predict the rate at which ice shelves break apart into icebergs.

These sometimes spectacular occurrences, called calving events, are a key step in the process by which climate change drives sea level rise.

Computer models that simulate how ice sheets might behave in a warmer world do not describe the calving process in much detail, Science journal reports.

Until now, the factors controlling this process have not been well understood.

Ice sheets, such as those in Antarctica and Greenland, spread under their own weight and flow off land over the ocean water.

Ice shelves are the thick, floating lips of ice sheets or glaciers that extend out past the coastline.

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Timelapse footage of an iceberg breaking away from a glacier in July 2008. The event took approximately 15 minutes (Video: Fahnestock/UNH)

The Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica floats for as much as 800km (500 miles) over the ocean before the edges begin to break and create icebergs. But other ice shelves may only edge over the water for a few kilometres.

A team led by Richard Alley at Pennsylvania State University, US, analysed factors such as thickness, calving rate and strain rate for 20 different ice shelves.

“The problem of when things break is a really hard problem because there is so much variability,” said Professor Alley.

“Anyone who has dropped a coffee cup knows this. Sometimes the coffee cup breaks and sometimes it bounces.”

The team’s results show that the calving rate of an ice shelf is primarily determined by the rate at which the ice shelf is spreading away from the continent.

The researchers were also able to show that narrower shelves should calve more slowly than wider ones.

Ice cracking off into the ocean from Antarctica and Greenland could be the main contributor to global sea level rise in the future.

If all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica melted, seas would rise by more than 60m (200ft).

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2007 assessment forecast that seas could rise by 18 to 59 cm (7-23ins) this century. However, in giving those figures, it conceded that ice behaviour was poorly understood.

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Protection boost for rare gorilla – BBC

The government of Cameroon has created a new national park aimed at protecting the critically endangered Cross River gorilla, the world’s rarest.

Takamanda National Park, on the border with Nigeria, is home to an estimated 115 Cross River gorillas.

The total population of the subspecies is thought to be less than 300.

The news comes as governments of 10 gorilla range states gather in Rome for the first meeting of a new partnership aimed at protecting the primates.

The Gorilla Agreement was finalised in June, and brings together all the countries where the various species and subspecies are found.

Getting the agreement signed was a great conservation achievement David Greer, WWF

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) helped establish the Takamanda park, and believes it will help curb the hunting and forest destruction that have brought Cross River numbers to such a minuscule level.

“The government of Cameroon is to be commended for taking this step in saving the Cross River gorilla for future generations,” said Steven Sanderson, president and CEO of WCS.

“By forming this national park, Cameroon sends a powerful message about the importance of conservation.”

Gorillas should be able to move freely between the Takamanda reserve and Nigeria’s Cross River National Park just across the border, helping to repair the fragmentation of habitat which can isolate tiny wildlife populations.

Communal benefits

Two years ago, with most gorilla populations falling, environment groups and concerned governments initiated a process designed to bring all the countries where the animals live into a new conservation deal.

The Gorilla Agreement, formulated under the UN Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), is the result.

Among other things, member governments have pledged to ensure suitable habitat is protected, co-operate with each other, restrain the spread of the Ebola virus, raise awareness of gorilla conservation and minimise conflict between the animals and human populations.

Diary: Protecting mountain gorillas

On Saturday, the 10 member countries hold their inaugural meeting in Rome.

“Getting the agreement signed was a great conservation achievement,” said David Greer, co-ordinator of the African Great Apes Programme with conservation group WWF.

“It is now time for action. Together, we will look specifically at what steps each government will take to ensure gorillas have a secure future in the wild – through direct conservation action in a way that also benefits local communities.”

This is a crucial aspect of the agreement. An estimated 15,000 people, for example, make a living from the flora and fauna of the Takamanda forest; without involving them in conservation initiatives, it is unlikely that the downward slide of Cross River gorillas could be stopped.

Other threats such as conflict would ideally be addressed under the agreement. Unrest in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has brought armed conflict to Virunga National Park, rendering conservation impossible and raising the chances of primates being shot for food.

A coalition of groups, including the UN Environment Programme and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, has declared 2009 the Year of the Gorilla in an attempt to raise awareness about the animals still further.

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