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HE’S more influential than ABBA,
more famous than Bjorn Borg.
On 23 May, Sweden will celebrate
the 300th birthday of its most
illustrious son: Carolus Linnaeus.
The naturalist practically
created modern taxonomy –
including the Latin genus/species
system used to label all living
organisms – and to
commemorate him, Sweden
is throwing a party. His old
university, Uppsala, is awarding
honorary Linnaeus doctorates to
notable scientists such as
primatologist Jane Goodall and
DNA co-discoverer James Watson.
London’s Chelsea Flower Show
next week will feature a Linnaeus
tribute garden, including his
signature flower, Linnaea borealis.
All the while, however,
taxonomy is seeing profound
changes. Online databases based
on DNA “barcodes” are poised to
revolutionise classification.
Robert Hanner of the Canadian
Barcode of Life Network based at
the University of Guelph, Ontario,
says museums should make more
use of their resources. “Natural
history museums need to
preserve not just a bug on a pin or
a skeleton, they also need to be
banking DNA in parallel to
voucher specimens,” he says.
IT MAKES for uncomfortable
reading, but a review of
900 studies involving humans
and rodents has produced a
comprehensive list of chemicals
in our food, air and water that
may cause breast cancer.
At least 29 of them are
produced in the US in large
amounts, and while many of
these chemicals have been
examined in the past, we still
know relatively little about their
effects, says Ruthann Rudell
of the Silent Spring Institute
in Newton, Massachusetts,
who led the research. Of the
216 chemicals identified, 73 have
been documented in consumer
products or as contaminants
in food, and a further 10 were
registered with the US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) as
food additives. Thirty five are
air pollutants.
Some of the most common
compounds cited include:
acrylamide, formed when starchy
foods, such as french fries, are
heated to high-temperatures;
perfluorooctanoic acid, used in
non-stick and stain-resistant
coatings on rugs, furniture,
“Linnaeus practically invented modern taxonomy, including the genus/species system”
“The screening of potential carcinogens needs to be made less expensive”
IT IS the oldest fossil yet found,
by quite some margin: a star born
just after the dawn of time.
Anna Frebel of the University
of Texas at Austin and colleagues
used a technique similar to
radioactive carbon dating in
archaeology to calculate the age
of the star HE 1523-0901, on the
outskirts of the Milky Way. “This
is tricky because it’s rare to find
stars with enough radioactive
material,” says Frebel.
Using the Very Large Telescope
in Chile, the team measured
the amount of six radioactive
elements in the star. Then, using
estimates of the amounts of these
elements the star should have had
at birth, they calculated that the
star was born 13.2 billion years ago.
The universe is thought
to be 13.7 billion years old, so the
star formed soon after the big
bang (The Astrophysical Journal, vol 660, p L117).
STUD
IO EY
E/CO
RBIS
clothes and cookware; and
malachite green, a textile dye
also used as a cheap antifungal
agent in fish hatcheries.
The authors say that the
screening of potential carcinogens
needs to be made less expensive
and time-consuming. “If methods
were more efficient, a higher
proportion of chemicals in use
could be evaluated,” they write in
Cancer (vol 109, p 2397).
DAVI
D M
CNEW
/GET
TY IM
AGES
–Carcinogens with your French fries?–
–West Niled–
60 SECONDS
Irish badger brouhaha
Culling badgers to stop cattle getting
tuberculosis doesn’t work, according
to a report by the UK’s Badger Trust and
Badgerwatch Ireland. Farmers have
argued that cows catch TB from
badgers , but the report says cattle TB is
rife in the Republic of Ireland despite
“virtual extermination” of badgers in
some areas. The UK’s National Farmers’
Union disputes the claims.
Stumbling on lunar soil
None of the four teams that took part
in NASA’s Regolith Excavation Challenge
on 12 May won the $125,000 prize on
offer. To win, they had to scoop up
150 kilograms of mock lunar soil and
dump it into a bin, using no more than
30 watts of power.
Atlantis ready for launch
The shuttle Atlantis, with its fuel tank
newly repaired, is ready to return to
the launch pad for an 8 June launch,
NASA said on 11 May. The tank was
damaged by a hail storm in February,
and technicians had to patch about
4200 spots with fresh foam.
Refugees rising
As many as a billion people could
be homeless by 2050 through the
combined effects of war and climate
change, warns the UK charity Christian
Aid in a report released on Monday
based on the latest UN population and
climate change figures. The impact of
climate change is the great, frightening
unknown, it says, noting that at
present 155 million people are living
uprooted by conflict, natural disasters
and construction projects.
Allergies overestimated
Many children who are told they
are allergic to peanuts may not be.
Researchers at Sydney Children’s
Hospital in Australia studied 84 children
who recorded a positive result to the
standard skin-prick peanut test and
found that only 67 per cent proved to
be allergic when given peanuts to eat
under hospital supervision (Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, vol 18, p 231).
www.newscientist.com 19 May 2007 | NewScientist | 5
A classy occasion
Killer compounds
Oldest star by far
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