A small bioremediation company in San Antonio is offering the use of its oil-eating microbes to help reduce the impact of the Horizon Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The government is also looking for credible suggestions to sop up oil on facebook.

The CBC’s science correspondent Bob McDonald puts the world’s first synthetic cell into perspective.

A cancer patient is helping doctors at the Mayo Clinic unlock a few genetic secrets. Rose Ellen Heley allowed oncologists to decode her DNA and map her genome.

Mayo Clinic researchers have learned something about her bone marrow cancer in the process that could help others suffering from cancer.

Dr. Keith Stewart says we are entering into the era of individualized medicine and using genetics will help treat all sorts of diseases including cancer.

For years, people thought the Egyptian king was murdered but new DNA evidence is pointing to a different killer. the 3,300-year-old pharaoh King Tutankhamun likely died from complications of a broken leg that was exacerbated by malaria, according to a two-year study of his mummy and family members.

They found that the young king had a club foot and cleft palate and probably walked with a cane.

It’s a rare occasion when a scientist can test a theory outside the confines of a laboratory. So when Paul Zak got a call from New Scientist reporter Linda Geddes to take her blood at her wedding, he just couldn’t say no.

Dr. Zak is an ocytoxin researcher who studies social indicators of the love hormone.

Geddes and her groom-to-be offered their wedding (and a few guests) as guinea pigs in this science experiment. The goal? See if oxytocin is released by friends and family witnessing this momentous event or if the hormone release is limited to bride and groom being bonded.

Geddes writes about the experiment in a New Scientist editorial.

Photo by John Hurst, courtesy of New Scientist.

Agricultural scientists in India say they have developed a variety of rice that requires no cooking and can be eaten simply after being soaked in water.

The federal agencies submitted their budget requests to Congress this week, marking a big moment for all things science. According to preliminary reports about $148 billion of the Presidents full $3.8 trillion budget is heading for scientific research programs.

Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

Millions of tilapia, an invasive fish species, have been wiped out. It has put a temporary dent in commercial fishing, but now biologists say other fish will have a chance to flourish. The tilapia has made its home in Florida lakes for decades since being first brought in to control out of control vegetation.

But the recent cold blast in the Sunshine state wiped out most of the tilapia in Polk County when water temperatures in Lake Hancock dipped below 50 degrees, leaving behind a stinky reminder of the harsh winter.

The top predators in every animal niche are disappearing. Development and other forces are pushing these animals toward the brink of extinction.

New research shows that conservation efforts and a plan to return apex predators to the wild may be more cost-effective than trying to control the predators in waiting — called mesopredators.

Much of the country and for that matter the Northern Hemisphere has been locked in an icy weather pattern that sent records tumbling and even forced Florida produce growers to seal oranges and strawberries in ice to protect them from frigid temperatures.

Some scientists are saying this is yet another sign of the extreme temperature fluctuations that climate change is bringing. Others are quick to dismiss this cold stretch as evidence of anything but a cold winter.

But there is a climate force at work. Called the Arctic Oscillation, scientists noticed that the air pressure that usually remains high at the top of the world weakened and became very low in December. That allowed the coldest Arctic air to flow south and cover large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere.

One thing is for sure. Science doesn’t do certainty. No matter how close a researcher gets to complete certainty there is always room to know more. Therefore uncertainty is a scientific fact. And we need to get comfortable with it.

From taxonomic tussles over classifying the giant panda to more controversial science like climate change and genetics, uncertainty is a driving force pushing science forward and opening up the opportunity for insight and breakthrough discoveries.

The International Cancer Genome Project is the largest genetic undertaking since the Human Genome Project. It is trying to sequence the DNA of 50 types of cancer over the next few years.

Researchers decoded the genome for lung and skin cancer in mid December. CBC reports.

Fun fact: Scientists discovered one mutation per every 15 cigarettes smoked in lung cancer patients.

The endangered turtle is now settling into her new home at the Hidden Harbor Marine Environmental Project’s “Turtle Hospital”.

At first vets thought she was injured after being hit by a boat and suffering some nerve damage. A new evaluation questions that theory but a full evaluation won’t be complete for a few weeks.

At the hospital Anita swims in a 650 gallon saltwater tank for an hour each day to build up strength and to learn to swim correctly. a hyper-inflated lung prevents her from diving so specialists hand feed her.

She is one of about 5,000 female hawksbill turtles left in the wild. If she can be rehabilitated turtle specialist Tara Vickery says, “She can be 5,001.”

See the turtles swimming live on the “Turtle Hospital” Web cam.

Photos courtesy of Alina Szmant.

Anita the Hawksbill Turtle

Matschie's Tree Kangaroo courtesy of Woodland Park Zoo

Climate negotiations over how to limit carbon dioxide emissions are heating up in Copenhagen. But one other important area negotiators are addressing — how to sequester existing CO2.

Climate sinks — like oceans, forests and permafrost — are natural solutions. But tropical rain forests are falling faster than they can be preserved.

One cute and cuddly (looking) tree kangaroo may become the unwitting ambassador for forest conservation.

Biologist Lisa Dabeck, from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, is the director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Project, which has been able to set aside almost 200,000 acres of pristine forest, where the matschie’s tree kangaroo lives.

Here is the National Geographic tree kangaroo critter cam.

Here is the Lincoln Zoo tree kangaroo critter cam. (Sad news. One of the twin joeys died in September after falling from a branch in the exhibit.)

Nightline followed Dr. Dabeck to New Guinea in search of tree kangaroos. Here’s a link to Dan Harris’ report, which includes a roo named Dan.

Christian pastor Ray Comfort decided to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by writing his own introduction and handing out free copies of the book to college students across the country.

Comfort is responsible for handing out over 100,000 copies of the abridged Darwin book. His version includes 54 pages that attempt to debunk the theory of evolution that Darwin lays out in the book.

Did this anti-science stunt work or backfire?

The Comfort campaign targeted the top 100 college campuses, where students were were just happy to get a free copy of the book.

National Center for Science Education video:

NCSE public service announcement.

A little green frog is causing big problems across Hawaii, where the coqui has become the latest invasive species to get a strong foothold.

But Hawaii may be the only place experiencing a surging frog population. Around the world, frogs are dying in droves from a fungus called a chytrid.

What can we learn from the little coqui?

Visualization of a river bed created using VisTrails, a system developed by University of Utah computer scientists Photo by: Juliana Freire and Claudio Silva, University of Utah

A two-year experiment to build a framework to analyze the massive amount of data scientists are collecting will push research to better understand our planet, our bodies and the limits of the Internet.

The National Science Foundation initiative called Cluster Exploratory or the CLuE program is a partnership between I.B.M. and Google to put scientists to work solving the problem of how to deal with so much information.

The answer? Cloud computing. Using virtual locations online to cope with the large data stream will allow science to answer some big and complex questions.

Top 8 in the Science Cloud:

Sloan Digital Sky Survey–obtained deep, multi-color images covering more than a quarter of the sky and created 3-dimensional maps containing more than 930,000 galaxies and more than 120,000 quasars.

Visible Human–is an anatomical data set licensed from the National Library of Medicine, Visible Human Project.

IRIS Seismology Database–allows you to monitor global earthquakes in near real-time, visit seismic stations around the world, and search the web for earthquake or region-related information.

Protein Data Bank–contains information about experimentally-determined structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies.

Linguistic Data Consortium–supports language-related education, research and technology development by creating and sharing linguistic resources.

TerraFly–View images and data anywhere in the United States and in much of the World.

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope–A large aperture, wide field survey telescope and 3200 Megapixel camera to image faint astronomical objects across the sky.

Open Topography–provides integrated access to high-resolution topographic data and web-based processing tools as well as enables its user community to share knowledge, resources and build science collaborations.

Every year (since 1901) the Nobel Foundation has been honoring the final wish of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

This year the three science prizes went to nine scientists who overcame a big biology problem, harnessed light and unraveled the mechanism at the heart of a cell.

Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology:
Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak

Nobel Prize for Physics:
Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith

Nobel Prize for Chemistry:
Thomas Seitz, Ada Yonath and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

When the ants go marching two by two, pay attention to what they are doing. Scientists are. And they are discovering clever ways to improve cyber security just by mimicking the behavior of ants.

The foraging insects use something called swarm intelligence to efficiently locate and gather food. Computer scientists are applying this behavior to computer networks to find viruses, worms and other electronic threats.

Story written and produced by Michelle Ma

A Yeast Cell with Synthetic Genes, courtesy of Dr. Pamela Silver, Harvard Medical School

Life is often stranger than fiction. But the direction that biology is heading, synthetic life could be stranger than science fiction.

The emerging field of synthetic biology is moving closer and closer to creating new forms of life in the lab.

Amy Wright Collects Samples While Diving, courtesy of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University

Cures to the most mundane and deadly illnesses have been found deep in the jungles, high in the mountains and hidden in the rainforests. But until recently not many scientists were looking to the ocean as another source of medicine.

But sponges, coral, snails and other marine creatures have a lot to offer the medical community. The small molecules that make them so adaptive to their harsh environments could give medical science an edge in fighting cancer, chronic pain and auto-immune diseases.

Story written and produced by Michelle Ma

Apoptosis in Action

Apoptosis is essentially cell suicide. It is the natural process by which damaged or unfit cells get expelled, making rooms for robust healthy cells.

This field of biological study has been around for a long time. But scientists are just starting to unravel the highly complex processes involved in cell death.

And, the answers they are uncovering may lead to new medical, based on harnessing the power of cell life and death.

Massachusetts officials are using high-tech tags to track the movements of two great white sharks near Cape Cod — the first time the fearsome fish have ever been tagged in the Atlantic Ocean.

Bringing the scary shark movie Jaws to mind, great white sharks are common in cold Atlantic waters and biologists believe that rising seal populations in the area is one reason the big fish are coming closer to shore.

All east facing beaches are closed through the holiday weekend.

Hwang Woo Suk's Fake Cloned Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Scientific papers are the hallmark of any scientist’s career and achievements. And having a published paper retracted spells trouble.

Do rising retraction rates hurt the public trust in science? Or does closer scrutiny signal improved safeguards against fraudulent science?

A new study shows that 106 papers were retracted between January and July this year, setting a 20-year record for most retractions in one year. And the year has months to go.

Deep sea coral reefs found just several decades ago off the United States’ southeastern coast hold promise for the discoveries of new species and cures for cancer and other diseases. But the reefs may face danger from energy exploration–whether it’s wind, wave or oil.

Just over a year old, the Apple iTunes App Store is churning out–or rather independent developers are–applications to calculate tips, find restaurants and even play countless games. But there is little for the science-interested smart phone users.

Oh sure, among the tens of thousands of applications currently available there are a handful of sci apps but relatively few. The subject doesn’t even merit its own category.

But several lists have been generated, touting the few useful science applications currently available.

And, we’ve tried to separate the intelligent from the app crap.

Listen here.

A few Select SciApps:
Atoms in a Box
Molecules
EleMints
Starmap
Formul8
Genetic Decoder
Get All the Science
The Extraordinaires

The Extraordinaires–on-demand volunteering for citizen scientists

Story written and produced by Michelle Ma

What if those pearly brights could be used for more than eating or charming? Scientists say below the tough white shell of some wisdom and baby teeth is a bounty of adult stem cells.

Every year the brightest science minds head south in July–somewhat like the swallows to Capistrano. This is more like the string theorists to the world Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

There, they meet in an unconference, trade brilliant notions and form collaborations to address real-world problems. Sponsored by Nature and O’Reilly Media, SciFoo ‘09 included a raft of science celebrities, scientists and interested looky-loos.

SciFoo attendee Dr. Shirley Wu was on the scene and gave REALscience a bird’s eye view. Dr. Kirsten “Kiki” Sanford (The Bird’s Brain blog) also gives a little report from SciBarCamp, another science unconference nearby and just before SciFoo. The host of This Week in Science (and good friend of REALscience) talked about “spinning science.”

Most of what happens at SciFoo stays at SciFoo. But a few things trickle out, once the excitement settles. Here’s the REALscience report from last year for reference.

Watch the video Science Foo Camp 2009: by Nature Video

Watch science comedian Brian Malow on Late Night with Craig Ferguson.

Photo of SciFoo courtesy of Duncan Hull

For the full SciFoo ‘09 report listen here.

There appears to be a huge disconnect between the public and scientists, as evidenced through a Pew Research Center report that came out last week.

Science writer Chris Mooney, the author of Republican War on Science and Stormworld has a new book, titled, Unscientific America, showing just how un-science-focused most Americans are.

While the Pew report and Mooney both paint a gloomy picture of science in the U.S. there is still hope for a science rich future.

Are you science literate? Take this quiz and find out. (it’s only 12 questions.)

Listen here.

Scientists are starting to see jellyfish as a symptom of a sick ocean. More and larger jellyfish blooms are crippling fisheries that are already struggling. They are closing beaches and stinging bathers. But they are also moving toward the poles as the world’s oceans warm.

New research shows the threat to fishing, the monoculture of jellyfish and how the gelatinous critters can be used to gauge overall ocean health.

The crew of Ocean Watch, a 64-foot sailboat on a trip around the Americas is conducting a 13-month jellyfish survey to help fill in some of the scientific gaps in our jellyfish knowledge. They will collect samples–trying not to get stung in the process–and take pictures and video of the colonies they encounter as they hug the coasts of North and South America.

Listen here.
Photo: Jellyfish mosaic, courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/learnscope

Flexible moths give better lift. New research shows that insect wings are not rigid when they flap.

Being able to better understand how nature outfits insects for flight will lend insight to the next generations of robots and help engineer the future of aeronatics.

University of Washington doctoral student Andrew Mountcastle used a technique to study how liquids travel to study how air flows over the wings of moths. He is the lead author of a paper in the journal Experiments in Fluids, co-authored with UW biology professor Thomas Daniel.

University of Michigan professor Wei Shyy and other university engineers have been studying bird and insect flight in order to build a better plane.

See the UM video about natural flyers.

British naturalist Dr. James Lovelock has some strong words for the world. The futurist warns that the Earth is a living organism that is undergoing massive changes.

He believes the Earth is sick and in order to heal itself it may need to get rid of a few billion people. But Dr. Lovelock delivers his dire message with a charming accent and the wisdom befitting his advanced years.

Some will be terrified by what he and other scientists are observing as the Earth gets remarkably warmer but Dr. Lovelock sees hope and opportunity to adapt.

Photo: Dr. James Lovelock, Town Hall Seattle, by Michael Bradbury

Summer is no time for idle minds. About 70 Georgia girls are getting a crash course in crime scene investigation, astronomy, dinosaurs and chemistry, neuroscience, computer science and mathematics.

The goal of the Women in the Sciences summer camp is to interest young women in pursuing careers in science.

Other summer science camps for girls.

Sally Ride Summer Camp

Summer Days Math and Science Camp

Girls and Science Summer Camp (GAS)

Girl Start