All posts by LL

Haiti earthquake may have primed nearby faults for failure

Geophysicists studying the 12 January earthquake in Haiti met yesterday with United Nations representatives and Haitian president René Garcia Préval to discuss what the latest measurements of the Earth’s shape can tell policymakers about future earthquakes. Several such ongoing geodesy studies suggest that the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, which has killed over 170,000 people so far, caused a 30- to 50-kilometre stretch of the fault southwest of Port-au-Prince to slip — possibly adding tension along an unreleased stretch of the same fault that passes even closer to Haiti’s capital.

Read the rest of the story on Nature News [html] or here [pdf]

Plans for alien contact found wanting

Enormous satellite dishes make up the search party for extraterrestrial life, but in the event of success, should a welcome party follow? Astronomers and biologists involved in the search for life on other planets are worried about a lack of regulatory and ethical policies to guide them.

“No government has plans” for what to do in the event of the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life, says astrophysicist Martin Dominik of the University of St Andrews, UK, who organized a conference at the Royal Society in London that began today

Read the entire news story at Nature News [html] or here [pdf]

Superbug family tree sketched out

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have families, too, according to a study that uses the detailed genetic relationships of bacterial strains to map out how certain infections spread within hospitals and countries. The genomic-sequencing technology that made the study possible could one day enable hospital administrators to track infections back to the individuals and objects that transmit them, say the study authors.

Read the rest of the story on Nature’s news site [html] or here [pdf]

GM crop biosafety lab folds

A fully equipped laboratory for studying pathogen-resistant transgenic plants will close its doors by the year’s end. The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) Biosafety Outstation in Ca’Tron di Roncade, Treviso, Italy, was set up to study potential risks concerning genetically modified crops and plant pathogens of importance to the developing world. The outstation’s facilities, part of the ICGEB, were refurbished with financing from Treviso-based Cassamarca Foundation, supported by banking group Unicredit. But the bank’s financial woes have prevented the foundation from renewing the €4-million ($5.7 million), 5-year contract, says Mark Tepfer, leader of the outstation’s Plant Virology group. Continue reading GM crop biosafety lab folds