60 SECONDS

Acid surprise

Ocean acidity is rising at least 10 times

faster than climate models predict,

according to eight years of daily

measurements off the Washington

state coast. It’s bad news for coral and

shellfish, which struggle to form shells

in acidic waters (Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences, DOI:

10.1073/pnas.0810079105).

Solar-powered slug

A sea slug has got into alternative

energy by stealing light-harvesting

components from plant cells and a key

gene that allows photosynthesis. This

enables the animal to survive without

normal food by gaining its energy from

the sun. The slug is arguably the first

known functioning plant-animal

hybrid (Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/

pnas.0804968105).

Mars cache scrapped

NASA says that Mars Science Laboratory,

its next rover, will not help return

rocks and soil to Earth. The hope was

that the rover could stow samples until

a later mission brought them back for

closer scrutiny, but NASA is scrapping

the equipment that had been planned

for the job because its design is not up

to scratch.

Ebola evolves

A new species of Ebola virus has turned

up in Uganda. The DNA sequence of the

species Bundibugyo differs from other

Ebola viruses by about 32 per cent of

its nucleotide letters, a feature that

may complicate efforts to develop a

universal vaccine (PLoS Pathogens, DOI:

10.1371/journal.ppat.1000212).

Bad hairspray

Can hairspray lead to birth defects?

Paul Elliott of Imperial College London

and colleagues surveyed women often

exposed to hairspray when pregnant

and found their sons were more than

twice as likely to be born with a

genital birth defect called hypospadia

(Environmental Health Perspectives,

DOI: 10.1289/ehp.11933).

warm the globe this century.The car and truck emissions

caused the most warming: the first 20 years of warming caused by these emissions in 2000 is seven times as great as that generated by all the planes that criss-crossed the globe that year (Proceedings of

the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0804844105).

“The study is very useful, valid, and necessary,” says Alice Bows of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK. However, she underlines that the transportation mix is changing. For example, aviation is on the rise and is almost certainly contributing more to warming than it did in 2000.

A DROP of mum’s blood could soon reveal whether an unborn baby has a genetic disorder such as beta-thalassaemia or cystic fibrosis. Existing invasive tests carry a risk of miscarriage.

Babies only develop such diseases if they inherit two copies of the recessive gene responsible – one from each parent – and the new test promises to identify affected fetuses.

Dennis Lo of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and colleagues used a technique called digital PCR to count copies of the gene associated with beta-thalassaemia in blood samples from pregnant women, which contained fetal as well as maternal DNA. By noting ratios of recessive genes relative to normal copies of the gene, the researchers were able to work out if the fetus would develop the disease (Proceedings

of the National Academy of

Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810373105). They aim to do larger trials and test pregnant women known to be carrying the gene for cystic fibrosis.

Together with the non-invasive tests being developed for Down’s syndrome, the new test should reduce or even eliminate the need for amniocentesis and other invasive tests which carry a risk of miscarriage.

AS IF Zimbabwe didn’t have enough problems, the country is now facing an unprecedented outbreak of cholera as a result of its deteriorating infrastructure.

As New Scientist went to press, there had been nearly 9000 suspected cases and 366 deaths . The worst affected area is the capital Harare, where the local Ministry of Health has described the outbreak as “the biggest ever”.

Cholera is endemic in some of the rural areas of Zimbabwe and the last major outbreak was in 1992, when there were 3000 cases. Until recently, it was relatively rare in urban areas.

Now, run-down infrastructure, burst sewage pipes, water cuts and a lack of trained sanitation workers are forcing people to dig makeshift wells and defecate in public, increasing exposure to the water-borne disease. The onset of

the rainy season may flush more sewage into wells , exacerbating the problem.

Aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières warns that up to 1.4 million people are at risk if the outbreak continues to spread.

“Run-down infrastructure and burst sewage pipes are forcing people to defecate in public”

Can NASA afford a shiny new generation

of robotic space missions?

The agency is developing the

brawny Ares V rocket to take astronauts

back to the moon. But it is also hopes

the rocket will double up as a heavy

lifter for robotic science missions which

the current shuttles are too puny to lift

off the ground. In the works, though

yet to be approved, are a visible-light

space telescope with an 8-metre mirror

that would dwarf Hubble’s, and an

interstellar probe that could explore

space beyond the boundaries of our

solar system.

But the huge price tags attached to

these proposals could make it very

difficult to scrape together the

necessary cash, says a report by a US

National Research Council panel . Many

of the missions will cost a minimum of

$5 billion each in today’s dollars.

“They are flagship class missions,

and if you look at what the NASA budget

is now for science missions, it doesn’t

seem like a lot of them would fit in that

budget,” says panel co-chair and former

shuttle astronaut Kathryn Thornton,

who is now at the University of Virginia.

Equally worried is former NASA

science chief Alan Stern, who argued

in The New York Times this week that

projects overrunning their budgets by

billions of dollars, like the James Webb

Space Telescope (pictured) and the

Mars Science Laboratory, are sharply

limiting the number and capability

of missions NASA can undertake, and

that they will continue to do so if not

brought under control.

GET A GRIP ON THE CASH, NASA

JWST

/NAS

A

–Eat your heart out, Hubble–

Baby gene test

Cholera strikes

www.newscientist.com 29 November 2008 | NewScientist | 7