A bad day on Venus gets even worse

Contrary to its alluring name, Venus is the planet from hell, with an atmosphere so hot, toxic and heavy that any visitor would risk being simultaneously melted, suffocated and crushed.

But not just that: the second planet from the Sun turns on its axis so slowly that, for any survivor, a Venusian day would seem interminable, for it is the equivalent of 243 days on Earth.

To make things worse, a day on Venus is getting even longer, French astronomers have discovered.

A team from the Paris Observatory analysed data from a spectrometer aboard a European orbiter, the Venus Express.

Called VIRTIS, the gadget measures infrared and visible light and is used to scan the planet's surface beneath the thick, roiling atmosphere.

The astronomers were stunned when they checked landmarks against the last mapping of Venus, carried out between 1990 and 1994 by the US probe Magellan.

At a given point in the Venusian day, landmarks were a full 20 kilometers (12 miles) behind where they should have been.

The team, publishing in the journal Icarus, say they have been over the observations again and again.

"After eliminating possible sources of error, we believe that the duration of the Venusian day must have changed over the 16 years," they said in a press release.

Their calculation is that an extra six and a half terrestial minutes have been added to the Venusian day during this time.

"On the astronomical scale, this is a major change," said VIRTIS investigator Pierre Drossart.

Pierre Drossart is depicted here in an ESA Video on the Venus Express, along with his ESA collegues, explaining the thinking behind the Venus Express mission.

The astronomers' hypothesis is that friction by Venus' atmosphere is braking the movement of the terrain below.

That sounds bizarre until one realises that the atmosphere is 100 kms (60 miles) thick, with extremely dense clouds of 96 percent carbon dioxide, driven by superwinds reaching some 350 kilometres (210 miles) per hour.

Atmospheric pressure at the surface is 92 times that of Earth -- the equivalent of being more than 900 metres (3,000 feet) below the ocean.

"A braking effect from the atmosphere also occurs erratically on Earth, but the discrepancy is only a matter of a few tenths of a second and it is imperceptible," Drossart told AFP.

So will Venus eventually stop spinning -- or even go into reverse rotation?

"It's difficult to say, given that we only have two points of measurement," said Drossart.

"But theoretical models suggest that this is probably just a cyclical phenomenon. If the atmosphere speeds up, the planet slows. Then the energy goes into reverse, in a pendulum effect."

EU Legislation: Millions of animals spared from chemical safety tests

Tens of millions of animals will be saved from use in chemical safety tests over the next eight years after Europe’s chemical regulator gave the go-ahead to a new streamlined study to assess the safety of substances.

European Union (EU) legislation requires companies to test the safety of the chemicals they produce in two generations of animals to assess the effects on their reproductive systems.

Toxicologists were concerned that the testing requirement would mean up to 54 million animals would be used in chemical safety studies to meet the requirements of REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) legislation introduced in 2007 (see Chemical-safety costs uncertain).

A proposed new test would allow just one generation of animals to be used, with additional tests on a second generation required only if the first round raised concerns.

The regulator, the European Chemical Agency (ECHA), based in Helsinki, had threatened to reject the test saying that there is not yet enough evidence to rely on one-generation testing (see Streamlined chemical tests rebuffed).

But on 15 February, ECHA announced it has now changed its mind in favour of Extended One-Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study (EOGRTS).

The agency says that the streamlined test will “under certain conditions” provide sufficient safety information to replace the two-generation reproductive toxicity study. It says it has already received around 230 proposals from companies to carry out the new test.

The move comes after Nature revealed that chemical companies were not providing the safety data on reproductive and developmental toxicity REACH requires of them. Nature also found that very few companies were proposing to carry out alternative non-animal tests, causing further concern that REACH would boost the number of animals used in toxicity testing.

Toxicologists say that allowing the streamlined test, which is quicker and cheaper to conduct, will encourage more companies to test their products.

Toxic leak: space station repair fails

A toxic ammonia leak and a jammed fitting have foiled plans to fix a cooling pump on the International Space Station, forcing astronauts to delay the repairs until Wednesday at the earliest, reports NASA.

On Saturday, Expedition 24 Flight Engineers Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson suffered setbacks that stretched their space walk to 8 hours 3 minutes - the longest in space station history and the sixth longest ever undertaken, according to NASA.

The astronauts began their excursion outside the International Space Station at 0719 EDT (1119 GMT) as the outpost flew 220 miles (354 km) above Earth.

They planned to remove a broken ammonia coolant pump and install a replacement, which involved disconnecting four ammonia hoses and five electrical cables from the pump on the station's truss.

Problems arose about 4 hours into the spacewalk when one of the hoses wouldn't come loose. Colonel Wheelock managed initially to open the "quick-disconnect" fitting mechanism on the hose by hitting it with a hammer, but then reported a clearly visible ammonia leak.

"I see little sparklets of ammonia coming from the line," he said. The astronauts compared the crystals of frozen ammonia coolant to tiny snowflakes.

Colonel Wheelock re-tightened the fitting before returning to the airlock, where he had to delay entering the station so any toxic ammonia on his suit had time to evaporate.

Michael T. Suffredini, manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said he was disappointed by the setbacks.

He said that these ammonia quick-disconnect fittings are complicated. "It's very high-pressure ammonia, you have to try to be able to disconnect and reconnect on a regular basis."

The space station is now running on a single cooling system. "The challenge is to get through this problem before the next problem hits the other system," Suffredini stated.

Chinese dairy closed again over tainted milk: state media

Chinese dairy closed again over tainted milk: state media

A Chinese dairy shut down during the 2008 tainted milk scandal has been closed again after tests found some of its products contained the same toxic chemical, state media reported Friday.

Shanghai Panda Dairy was shuttered and three executives arrested Thursday after an investigation found eight batches of its powdered milk and condensed milk had "illegally high" levels of melamine, the Shanghai Daily said.

Panda Dairy was put on a "black list" during the 2008 scandal after its products were found to have the second-highest levels of melamine in the nation, the report said. The now bankrupt Sanlu Group had the highest.

Authorities allowed Panda Dairy to resume production after it promised to "lift its game".

But the latest investigation revealed the dairy had reused contaminated condensed milk that was recalled from the market and also used "suspect raw material" for its milk powder, the report said.

Melamine, an industrial chemical, is added to milk products to give the appearance of a higher protein content.

In 2008, at least six infants died and nearly 300,000 were made sick by milk powder contaminated by melamine.