ABC – A state of emergency has been declared in Christchurch, New Zealand, after a large 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the country’s second largest city this morning. The quake was felt throughout much of the South Island and southern parts of the North Island, and has caused widespread damage, including the collapse of some buildings. It has also knocked out power and disrupted water and sewerage services. Read Article
MSNBC-Some evacuated with water, power, bridges, roads out across city of 350,000. About 1,000 residents of a suburb were told to evacuate their homes Saturday after a major earthquake caused extensive damage in Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city, authorities said. Two men were seriously injured and scores of other people suffered less serious injuries in the aftermath of the quake, which registered 7.0 on the Richter scale at 4:35 a.m -Read Article
Live Science-Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems -Read Article
The Telegraph-The argument over whether the universe has a creator, and who that might be, is among the oldest in human history. But amid the raging arguments between believers and sceptics, one possibility has been almost ignored – the idea that the universe around us was created by people very much like ourselves, using devices not too dissimilar to those available to scientists today -Read Article
The Scientist – Man-made cilia have shown that the real structures create complex flows of fluid that may contribute to normal development and tissue differentiation in early embryos, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, reporting their findings in PNAS. Superfine added that his group has so far created the model — made from magnetic nanoparticles mixed with a substance similar to window caulking — that best mimics the size and spacing of real cilia in developing embryos. Read article and view video
Reuters – Thousands of Indonesians were evacuated from the slopes of a volcano on Sunday after it erupted for the first time in more than 400 years, spewing out lava and sending smoke and dust 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) into the air -Read Article
ScienceDaily — Naringenin, an antioxidant derived from the bitter flavor of grapefruits and other citrus fruits, may cause the liver to break down fat while increasing insulin sensitivity, a process that naturally occurs during long periods of fasting. Read article
ANI -Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, much bigger in potential than the one that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs. Several US media outlets have reported that NASA was warning the massive flare this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet’s power grid -Read Article
On Saturday 28 August, the editor of www.OpenYourEyesNews.com, James Fairbairn, made a guest appearance on ABC720 Radio in Perth, Western Australia to discuss with host, James Lush, some of the key news events of recent days.
Check out our latest interview on our new Podcast channel and please subscribe to keep up to date with future episodes of OpenYourEyesNews
WebMD — There is now biologic evidence to back up the belief that vitamin D may protect against autoimmune diseases and certain cancers. A new genetic analysis lends support to the idea that the vitamin interacts with genes specific for colorectal cancer, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, and other diseases, says Oxford University genetic researcher Sreeram Ramagopalan. The study is published in Genome Research. Read article
Related article: Study explores link between sunlight, multiple sclerosis
UN Dispatch – The sluggish international response to the Pakistan floods emergency is actually not all that sluggish, at least compared to these humanitarian crises. Introducing the five most under-funded and ignored humanitarian crises:
Cosmiclog MSNBC-NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting probe has spotted a system where two giant planets are locked in constantly changing orbits — with a super-Earth potentially pinned down in the crossfire. Astronomers like to think of planets as a kind of celestial clockwork, keeping regular time. For example, the time it takes for the planets in our own solar system to complete their orbits can be calculated to within fractions of a second, and unless something huge happens, they’ll stick to that timetable for billions of years -Read Article
New Scientist-A strange spot emerged on Venus last week, and astronomers are not sure what caused it. They hope future observations will reveal whether volcanic activity, turbulence in the planet’s atmosphere, or charged particles from the sun are to blame. Amateur astronomer Frank Melillo of Holtsville, New York, first spotted the new feature, which is brighter than its surroundings at ultraviolet wavelengths, on the planet’s southern hemisphere on 19 July -Read Article
Discovery News-When probing the deepest reaches of the Cosmos or magnifying our understanding of the quantum world, a whole host of mysteries present themselves. This is to be expected when pushing our knowledge of the Universe to the limit. But what if a well-known — and apparently constant — characteristic of matter starts behaving mysteriously? This is exactly what has been noticed in recent years; the decay rates of radioactive elements are changing -Read Article
Reuters – A rare and dangerous reaction to a range of common medicines including antibiotics and anticonvulsants may be caused by a severe immune response to reactivated herpes virus, scientists said on Wednesday. Researchers said their findings suggest that if doctors were to test for the herpes virus in patients suffering the drug reaction, they might be able to find ways to treat it and possibly stop it becoming more severe, or even fatal. Read article
New Scientist – Three separate groups have isolated the BRCA2 protein that is involved in inherited cases of breast and ovarian cancer. The researchers hope that better understanding of the protein and how it works will aid the development of new cancer therapies. The BRCA2 protein is known to protect cells from damage that can occur during cell division. Mutations in the BRCA2 gene result in DNA damage that can turn a cell cancerous. Read article
Related article: ‘Major breakthrough’ in fight against breast cancer
A vast solar system of seven planets orbiting a sun-like star has been discovered 127 light years from Earth. The planetary system is believed to be the largest ever detected beyond the sun. Astronomers have confirmed the presence of five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more. The distance of the planets from their parent star follow a regular pattern, similar to that seen in our own solar system -Read Article
Daily Telegraph – The hormone, relaxin, loosens tendons and widens blood vessels in pregnant women as well as boosting their heart function to help their bodies cope with the extra weight and blood required for the baby. But now it has been found that giving it to patients with heart failure may help relieve symptoms such as breathlessness. Read article
The Telegraph-The hunt for extraterrestrial life should take into account the possibility that aliens could be operating through sentient robots, a senior astronomer has said. Seth Shostak, of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) Institute in California, said humans had a greater chance of picking up signals from alien-operated robots than from the biological lifeforms that had created them -Read Article
BBC – Pakistan’s prime minister says the government is “seriously concerned” about the potential spread of epidemic diseases in the flood-hit country. Yousuf Raza Gilani was speaking during high-level talks aimed at preventing a mass health crisis. Doctors in many areas are reportedly struggling to cope with the spread of diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera.
>Read article
Related articles;
>Pakistan floods: ‘Cultural shock’ for women in camps
Reuters – A new study finds that women who develop a severe form of pregnancy-related high blood pressure tend to have lower blood levels of vitamin D than healthy pregnant women — raising the possibility that the vitamin plays a role in the complication. The condition is known as early-onset severe preeclampsia, and while it arises in about 2 to 3 percent of pregnancies, it contributes to about 15 percent of preterm births in the U.S. each year. Pre-eclampsia is a syndrome marked by a sudden increase in blood pressure and a buildup of protein in the urine due to stress on the kidneys. Read article
Washington Post – A team of scientists released long-awaited evidence Monday that a virus may be playing a role in chronic fatigue syndrome. The researchers, from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and Harvard Medical School, analyzed blood samples that were collected 15 years ago from 37 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Most of the subjects — 32, or 86.5 percent — tested positive for a virus known as a murine leukemia virus-related virus, the researchers found. In contrast, tests on 44 healthy blood donors detected evidence of the virus in only three of the subjects, or 6.8 percent. Read article
BBC – Three weeks after Pakistan’s worst natural disaster began, many people are living in camps all around the country. Shmyalla Jawad, who is the gender advisor for the Plan International organisation in Pakistan, visited some of these camps in the Layyah district in Southern Punjab. She found out that apart from the dire conditions in the camp, women and girls are also facing a cultural challenge. Read article
BBC – A senior astronomer has said that the hunt for alien life should take into account alien “sentient machines”. Seti, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has until now sought radio signals from worlds like Earth. But Seti astronomer Seth Shostak argues that the time between aliens developing radio technology and artificial intelligence (AI) would be short. Read article
BBC – A small English fishing village has produced an out-of-this-world discovery. Bacteria taken from cliffs at Beer on the South Coast have shown themselves to be hardy space travellers. The bugs were put on the exterior of the space station to see how they would cope in the hostile conditions that exist above the Earth’s atmosphere. And when scientists inspected the microbes a year and a half later, they found many were still alive. Read article
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