The Alliance For Human Research Protection, a non-profit advocacy group for responsible and ethical medical research practices, has called for the suspension of JAMA editor-in-chief Catherine DeAngelis and exec deputy editor Phil Fontanarosa, and for an an investigation into allegations that they threatened a researcher who criticized a study published in the journal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

I'm putting the finishing touches to a GUI when the red light starts flashing. The voice comes over the PA from ops, "Warning, Jupiter hoving to view". We quickly drop our work and run across the metal crosswalk that separates us from the STEREO operations bunker. Inside, against the din of the klaxon, we see the massive bulk of Jupiter crowding the leftmost of the main displays. STEREO B was in danger!

And here is the result from our STEREO website. Okay, I made up the bit about the red light and the klaxons. And after this brief science break, I'll even bring in some irony.

While physical exercise has been shown to trigger migraine headaches among sufferers, a new study describes an exercise program that is well tolerated by patients. The findings show that the program decreased the frequency of headaches and improved quality of life. The study is published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain.

The study used a sample of migraine sufferers who were examined before, during and after an aerobic exercise intervention. The program was based on indoor cycling (for continuous aerobic exercise) and was designed to improve maximal oxygen uptake without worsening the patients' migraines.

    One of the earliest scientific speculations about the origin of life was Alexander Oparin’s proposal in 1924 that life began as jelly-like blobs he called coacervates. Oparin knew that the unit of life was the cell, but it had not yet been established that cells had membranous boundaries,  so coacervates were thought to be reasonable experimental models of the “protoplasm” that seemed to compose all cells.  Oparin also discussed conditions on the early Earth as part of the story, setting the stage for what would later become astrobiology.

30 Days of Evolution Blogging - The Finish Line

Show Me The Science Month Day 30 Installment 30

First published in Dutch in 1976, Gnomes by Wil Huygens and Rien Poortlivet remains the definitive tome on these reticent woodland denizens.  A classic of fiction science, this lavishly detailed field notebook of the physiology, habits, and habitat of gnomes as observed over 20 years of firsthand observation.  The physician-illustrator team wastes no time in addressing questions of physiological scale:

Chemists reported development of what they termed the first economical, eco-friendly process to convert algae oil into biodiesel fuel — a discovery they predict could one day lead to U.S. independence from petroleum as a fuel.

One of the problems with current methods for producing biodiesel from algae oil is the processing cost, and the New York researchers say their innovative process is at least 40 percent cheaper than that of others now being used. Supply will not be a problem: There is a limitless amount of algae growing in oceans, lakes, and rivers, throughout the world.

Another benefit from the "continuously flowing fixed-bed" method to create algae biodiesel, they add, is that there is no wastewater produced to cause pollution. 

Re-engineering a protein that helps prevent tumours spreading and growing has created a potentially powerful therapy for people with many different types of cancer. In a study published in the first issue of EMBO Molecular Medicine, Canadian researchers modified the tumour inhibiting protein, von Hippel-Lindau (VHL), and demonstrated that it could suppress tumour growth in mice.

New data from Ugandan scientists and investigators at Johns Hopkins University find that adult male circumcision decreased rates of the two most common sexually transmitted infections – herpes and the human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts – according to a report issued in the New England Journal of Medicine March 26, 2009.

In an accompanying editorial, "Prevention of Viral Sexually Transmitted Infections – Foreskin at the Forefront," two local University of Washington researchers say these new findings provide compelling new evidence on circumcision's effect on decreasing currently incurable viral sexually transmitted infections.

Reports by scientists of meteorites striking Earth in the past have resembled police reports of so many muggings — the offenders came out of nowhere and then disappeared into the crowd, making it difficult to get more than very basic facts.

Now an international research team has been able to identify an asteroid in space before it entered Earth's atmosphere, enabling computers to determine its area of origin in the solar system as well as predict the arrival time and location on Earth of its shattered surviving parts.