Cosmic quandary

In trying to measure the assumed effects of the Big Bang theory, science keeps coming up with contradictory numbers.

“This starts to get pretty serious,” Nobel laureate and astrophysicist Adam Riess said at a January meeting of the American Astronomical Society, according to Science News. “In both cases these are very mature measurements. This is not the first time around for either of these projects.” The two projects to which Riess referred use different methods for calculating the speed at which the universe is expanding.

One method estimates the rate of expansion using measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation, or waves of radiation that take up the space between stars and are thought to be leftover energy from the Big Bang. The other method calculates how fast distant supernovas are moving away from each other based on observations from the Hubble telescope. If scientists’ underlying assumptions about the beginnings of the universe are true, then the estimate based on theory and the actual measurement should be the same.

But they’re not.

The cosmic radiation approach gives an expansion rate of 67 kilometers per second (for two astronomical bodies separated by 3.26 million light-years), while Riess’ telescope method puts the rate at 73 kilometers per second. Scientists have known about this discrepancy for a while, and many thought it would iron itself out as measurements became more sophisticated. But Riess just released a new study confirming his rate and raising big questions about the Big Bang theory’s assumptions.

Jake Hebert of the Institute for Creation Research pointed out the lazy convenience with which Big Bang devotees “optimistically propose ad hoc laws of physics to explain the discrepancies—even though there is no observational evidence for these laws.”

Some scientists have attempted to explain the Hubble constant discrepancy by claiming previously undiscovered particles could be affecting the universe. Even Riess appeared to poke some fun at those explanations: “Relativistic particles—theorists have no trouble inventing new ones, ones that don’t violate anything else. Many of them are quite giddy about the prospect of some evidence for that.”

Riess acknowledged in an interview with Astrobites that the Hubble constant divergence “might indicate that something else is going on.”

Hope for peanut allergy patients

A new treatment could save the lives of children with severe peanut allergies. A California-based company on Tuesday announced it had successfully built tolerance in allergic children using daily capsules of peanut powder. Aimmune Therapeutics studied the preventive treatment in nearly 500 kids between the ages of 4 and 17 with allergies so strong they reacted to as little as one-tenth of a peanut.

The treatment consisted of a daily capsule of either peanut powder or a placebo powder sprinkled over food. Researchers gradually increased the amount of peanut in the real powder for six months, maintaining that final level for another six months.

The study found 67 percent of the children treated with the peanut powder could tolerate roughly two whole peanuts without an allergic reaction by the end of the study. Just 4 percent of children given a placebo could tolerate the same amount. Research has shown tolerance to just one peanut protects 95 percent of allergic kids from having a reaction if they are exposed.

But the treatment is not for everyone: About 20 percent of the kids getting the peanut powder dropped out of the study, more than half due to reactions or other problems that kept them from taking the daily dose.

Aimmune plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment later this year. Officials said they expect the treatment to cost $5,000 to $10,000 for the first six months of treatment and $300 to $400 a month after that. —Kiley Crossland

Farmer bears

Scientists in Alaska recently discovered the God-ordained importance of an unremarkable substance: bear poop.

Researchers from Oregon State University studying seed dispersal in the ecosystem of Southeast Alaska found brown and black bears—not birds, as commonly believed—are primarily responsible for distributing small fruit seeds.

“Bears are essentially like farmers,” said Taal Levi, an Oregon State assistant professor. “By planting seeds everywhere, they promote a vegetation community that feeds them.”

Footage from motion-triggered video cameras set up in berry patches in the Tongass National Forest, America’s largest, revealed that while birds picked off a few berries at a time, bears gulped them down by the hundreds.

Levi and his team discovered these bears hang out in berry patches while they wait for spawning salmon to enter streams. After munching, they disperse thousands of fruit seeds throughout the forest.

Adding a layer of intricacy, the researchers found rodents sometimes find and bury the bear scat in caches, even further dispersing, and “planting,” the seeds. —K.C.

Human organ incubators?

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of California have successfully transferred human cells into sheep embryos, the first step toward growing human organs in the animals. The experiment involved putting adult human stem cells into early stage sheep embryos and allowing them to grow for several more weeks. The scientists harvested the embryos, which contained one human cell for every 10,000 sheep cells, before they developed into fully formed baby sheep. The team hopes eventually to duplicate an experiment in which it grew a mouse pancreas in a rat genetically modified to develop without one. Scientists used the resulting pancreas cells to cure the mouse’s diabetes. While the technique could offer hope to thousands of people on organ transplant lists, it raises ethical questions about where such treatment should stop. —Leigh Jones