Key genetic error found in family of blood cancers

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Scientists have uncovered a critical genetic mutation in some patients with myelodysplastic syndromes ? a group of blood cancers that can progress to a fatal form of leukemia.

The research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also found evidence that patients with the mutation are more likely to develop acute leukemia. While this finding needs to be confirmed in additional patients, the study raises the prospect that a genetic test could one day more accurately diagnose the disorder and predict the course of the disease.

The research is available online in Nature Genetics.

The scientists discovered the mutation in a gene known as U2AF1 when they sequenced the entire genome of a 65-year old man with myelodysplastic syndrome that had progressed to leukemia and compared it with the genome of his tumor cells. They also found the genetic error in other patients with myelodysplastic syndromes, an indication of the mutation's significance.

"The mutation in this gene was not on anyone's radar screen," says senior author and hematologist/oncologist Matthew Walter, MD, assistant professor of medicine. "In many cases, the diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndromes is unclear because there isn't a straightforward diagnostic test. By understanding at the genetic level what is contributing to this disease, we hope to eventually improve the diagnosis and treatment of this disorder."

Myelodysplastic syndromes are a difficult-to-treat family of blood cancers that occur when blood cells in the bone marrow don't mature properly. About 28,000 Americans are diagnosed with the disorder each year, most of them over age 60. Drugs are available to treat the disease, but none can cure it.

In about 30 percent of cases, the disorder progresses to a form of acute myeloid leukemia that usually is fatal because chemotherapy drugs are not effective in these patients. Doctors currently assess the likelihood that a patient with myelodysplastic syndrome will develop leukemia by looking at the chromosomes in the tumor cells to determine the extent to which they have broken apart and rearranged themselves, an indicator of the severity of the disease.

"There are chromosomal patterns that indicate high risk and low risk, but the current methods to determine prognosis aren't perfect," says first author Timothy Graubert, MD, associate professor of medicine, who specializes in treating patients with myelodysplastic syndromes.

After identifying the U2AF1 mutation in three patients through whole-genome sequencing, the researchers scoured the gene for the mutation in another 150 patients with myelodysplastic syndromes. They identified the mutation in 13, or nearly 9 percent. The mutations were acquired during development of myelodysplastic syndromes because they were not present in normal cells obtained from each patient.

Patients were almost three times as likely to develop leukemia if they had a mutation in the U2AF1 gene. The disorder progressed to leukemia in 15.2 percent of patients with the mutation, compared with 5.8 percent of those without the genetic error.

The most common mutation results in a single letter change in the DNA at a precise location in the U2AF1 gene. Patients with the genetic error were most likely to have the amino acids phenylalanine or tyrosine substituted for a serine. The researchers say that the mutation by itself does not cause myelodysplastic syndromes but appears to be an early event in the course of the disease.

Normally, the U2AF1 gene makes a protein involved in splicing RNA, a sister molecule of DNA that carries the instructions for building proteins. Splicing brings together different sections of RNA necessary to make a protein and discards those sections that are not needed. The mutated version of the gene still produces a protein, but its splicing activity is altered, which may be important for the development of some cancers.

The new research, funded in part by a federal stimulus grant, adds to a flurry of new findings about the genetic basis of myelodysplastic syndromes. Recent studies in Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine, along with the current study, have identified mutations in a total of eight genes involved in RNA splicing in patients with the disorder.

"Together, these findings are a real game-changer," Graubert says. "A mutation in any one of these eight genes occurs in up to 50 percent of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes. Because these changes are so common, we think there are likely to be implications for improving the diagnosis of the disorder and finding new therapeutic options."

Whole-genome sequencing for cancer was pioneered by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine and the university's Genome Institute, including Richard Wilson, PhD; Elaine Mardis, PhD; Timothy Ley, MD; and Li Ding, PhD, all of whom are co-authors of the study. The new research builds on their work to find novel mutations in cancer by looking across a patient's entire genome.

###

Washington University School of Medicine: http://www.medicine.wustl.edu

Thanks to Washington University School of Medicine for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116060/Key_genetic_error_found_in_family_of_blood_cancers

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Senate leaders reach last-minute accord

Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaks with reporters following hold closed-door negotiations on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures Friday night, Dec. 16, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaks with reporters following hold closed-door negotiations on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures Friday night, Dec. 16, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada , second left, leaves closed-door negotiations on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., far right, speaks with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Friday night, Dec. 16, 2011, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., left, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., center, and Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, right, and other Senate Republicans leave closed-door negotiations on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures Friday night, Dec. 16, 2011, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., center, leaves closed-door negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, left, on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures Friday night, Dec. 16, 2011, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, speaks to reporters as Republican Senators emerge from a closed-door negotiation on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senate leaders agreed on compromise legislation Friday night to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months while requiring President Barack Obama to accept Republican demands for a swift decision on the fate of an oil pipeline that promises thousands of jobs.

A vote is expected Saturday on the measure, the last in a highly contentious year of divided government.

House passage is also required before the measure can reach Obama's desk.

In a statement, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer indicated Obama would sign the measure, saying it had met his test of "preventing a tax increase on 160 million hardworking Americans" and avoiding damage to the economy recovery.

The statement made no mention of the pipeline. One senior administration official said the president would almost certainly refuse to grant a permit. The official was not authorized to speak publicly.

Racing to adjourn for the year, lawmakers moved quickly to clear separate spending legislation avoiding a partial government shutdown threatened for midnight.

The developments came a few hours after the White House publicly backed away from Obama's threat to veto any bill that linked the payroll tax cut extension with a Republican demand for a speedy decision on the 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline proposed from Canada to Texas.

Obama recently announced he was postponing a decision until after the 2012 elections on the much-studied proposal. Environmentalists oppose the project, but several unions support it, and the legislation puts the president in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between customary political allies.

Republican senators leaving a closed-door meeting put the price tag of the two-month package at between $30 billion and $40 billion said the cost would be covered by raising fees on new mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The legislation would also provide a 60-day reprieve from a scheduled 27 percent cut in the fees paid to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

Several officials said it would require a decision within 60 days on the pipeline, with the president required to authorize construction unless he determined that would not be in the national interest.

Senators in both parties hastened to claim credit for the deal.

Sen. Richard Lugar issued a statement that said the compromise included legislation he authored "that forces President Obama to make a decision" on the pipeline. The Indiana Republican faces a strong primary challenge next year from a tea party-backed rival.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he had "brokered a final deal by bringing lawmakers from both parties together to support jobs."

Not all Democrats were as upbeat. "Look, this was tough. Harry (Reid) had to negotiate with Boehner and with McConnell," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the two Republican leaders in Congress.

Officials said that in private talks, the two sides had hoped to reach agreement on the full one-year extension of payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits that Obama had made the centerpiece of the jobs program he submitted to Congress last fall.

Those efforts failed when the two sides could not agree on enough offsetting cuts to make sure the deficit wouldn't rise.

Reid, in a statement, blamed Republicans, saying they had wanted to "cut Medicare benefits for seniors" and Democrats refused. GOP officials disputed him.

"We'll be back discussing the same issues in a couple of months, but from our point of view, we think the keystone pipeline is a very important job-creating measure in the private sector that doesn't cost the government a penny," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

There was no immediate reaction from House Speaker John Boehner. Neither he nor his aides participated in the negotiations, although McConnell said he was optimistic about the measure's chances for final approval.

Hours earlier, McConnell challenged Obama to give ground.

"Let's not just pass a bill that helps people on the benefits side, let's also include something that actually helps the private sector create the jobs Americans need for the long term," he said.

In a political jab, he added, "Here's an opportunity for the president to say he's not going to let a few radical environmentalists stand in the way of a project that would create thousands of jobs and make America more secure at the same time."

Obama said on Dec. 7 that "any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut I will reject. So everybody should be on notice."

More recently, a veto threat issued Tuesday against the House-passed version of the bill cited the introduction of "ideological issues into what should be a simple debate about cutting taxes for the middle class." Senior administration officials later told reporters that was a reference to the pipeline.

The State Department, in an analysis released this summer, said the project would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction, while developer TransCanada put the total at 20,000 in direct employment.

The 1,700-mile pipeline would carry oil from western Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The spending bill would lock in cuts that conservative Republicans won from the White House and Democrats earlier in the year.

Republicans also won their fight to block new federal regulations for light bulb energy efficiency, coal dust in mines and clean water permits for construction of timber roads.

The White House turned back GOP attempts to block limits on greenhouse gases, mountaintop removal mining and hazardous emissions from utility plants, industrial boilers and cement kilns.

After a last-minute veto threat, Republicans abandoned attempts to block an administration policy to ease restrictions on visits to Cuba and on the money sent to relatives on the communist island nation from family members living in the United States.

Additionally, the legislation bars military and economic aid to Pakistan until the administration certifies that Islamabad is cooperating on counterterrorism, including taking steps to prevent such militant groups as the Haqqani network from operating in the country.

The provision stems from concerns that the Pakistani government harbors terrorists and from assertions that some government officials knew that Osama bin Laden had established residence deep inside the country. Bin Laden was killed in May by U.S. commandos who raided his fortified compound in Abbottabad.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-16-Congress%20Rdp/id-71b3f63d86104023a7a8634c9cc7907d

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Ariz. prosecutor wants immigration checks restored (AP)

PHOENIX ? The federal government's decision to stop an Arizona sheriff from checking inmates' immigration status will allow criminals to be released into the community, Maricopa County's top prosecutor said Friday as he asked the president to order Homeland Security officials to restore access to federal systems revoked a day earlier.

The Obama administration action came after the Department of Justice determined that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office participated in a "systematic disregard" for the Constitutional rights of Latinos while targeting illegal immigrants.

The fallout from the report was swift. Homeland Security officials announced the department is severing ties with Arpaio, stripping his jail officers of their federal power to check whether inmates in county jails are in the county illegally. Department officials also are restricting Arpaio's office from using a program that uses fingerprints collected in local jails to identify illegal immigrants.

"They don't need to do this. This effort at leverage is placing Arizona citizens at risk," Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said. "Preventing us from being able to get the necessary information to provide a court with the non-bondable status for serious offenses jeopardizes the community's safety, and limiting our ability to get information in order to comply with international treaty obligations for consular access calls into question future prosecutions."

The Justice Department comments' Thursday that Arpaio's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a disregard for the Constitution brought the most bruising criticism yet to the lawman's boundary-pushing foray into Arizona's immigration enforcement over the last six years.

Montgomery on Friday questioned the timing of the Justice Department's findings, because a civil rights case that raises similar issues is currently before a federal judge in Phoenix.

But he acknowledged the findings raised significant issues, although he "is not going to accept the findings at face value.

"Nor am I going to reject them," he said.

Montgomery said the federal government's actions will prevent his office from enforcing an Arizona law denying bail to illegal immigrants charged with serious felonies.

Arpaio, defiant and caught by surprise by the report's release on Thursday, called the allegations a politically motivated attack by President Barack Obama's administration that will make Arizona unsafe by keeping illegal immigrants on the street.

The Obama administration "might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-New Mexico border saying welcome illegals to your United States, my home is your home," he said.

The government found that Arpaio's office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights. "We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.

The report will be used by the Justice Department to seek major changes at Arpaio's office, such as new policies against discrimination and improvements of staff and officers. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement to make the changes. If not, the federal government will sue him, possibly putting in jeopardy millions of dollars in federal funding for Maricopa County.

Arpaio has long denied the racial profiling allegations, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants. He also said the decision by Homeland Security to sever ties will result in illegal immigrants being released from jail and large numbers.

Montgomery said he will ask the Justice Department to provide him with more specific information so he can do his own review of cases now in his office.

___

Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_sheriff_civil_rights

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Downsizing, TV style: Goodbye to Spelling Manor (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Granted, it's a problem that maybe 1 percent of Americans could ever face: a 30-day deadline to move out of a 56,500-square-foot home after two decades of filling it with "stuff," as owner Candy Spelling puts it.

The widow of TV producer Aaron Spelling ("Dynasty," "Charlie's Angels" and scads more shows) takes on the task with such can-do spirit that it's easy to admire her, if not quite sympathize with her.

The process, involving 30 moving vans and meticulous planning by the uber-organized Spelling, is detailed in HGTV's two-part "Selling Spelling Manor," which debuts 9 p.m. EST Thursday. The second episode airs 4 p.m. EST Jan. 2.

"I took my attachment and separated myself from it," Spelling said. "I couldn't get emotional about everything I was packing."

Spelling, whose husband died in 2006, sold the French-style house on 4.7 acres in the city's exclusive Holmby Hills section for $85 million in July. The buyer was British heiress Petra Ecclestone, 22, daughter of sports entrepreneur Bernie Ecclestone.

The one-month escrow was part of the deal and not a TV stunt, said Spelling and the special's executive producer, Stuart Krasner.

As Spelling, her staff and movers scurry to pack up Spelling Manor (as the family dubbed the estate), viewers get a peek at some of its five kitchens, 27 bathrooms and bowling alley, arcade, and silver storage and gift-wrap "specialty areas."

"She's Martha Stewart up there," Krasner said of the space in which Spelling would wrap close to 1,000 presents a year. "It's her way of saying I didn't assign this to somebody. The generosity was important to me to show."

Besides the furniture and artwork occupying Southern California's largest house, Spelling had to evaluate her varied collections for donation, sale or storage.

"Only when I started moving did I start to think I have tendencies to be a hoarder," Spelling said, good-naturedly, then added: "I'm an archivist. That makes it sound a little better, doesn't it?"

Among her acquisitions: thousands of stuffed Beanie Babies, the result of urging her household to stuff themselves with McDonald's Happy Meals; hundreds of rare Madame Alexander dolls from the 1930s to the 1970s; 5,000 bound scripts from her husband's TV series.

The Beanie Babies were set for sale on eBay, with proceeds going to the nonprofit organization LA's Best, which benefits afterschool programs; Spelling is a board member.

Aaron Spelling's scripts are being donated to Boston University, while the rare dolls are to be sold at auction. A climate-controlled warehouse is getting the bulk of the house's contents for Candy Spelling and children Tori (of "Beverly Hills 90210" and reality series fame) and Randy to gradually sort through.

Spelling's new home is a custom-built condo, reportedly purchased for $47 million, on the top two floors of a Los Angeles-area high rise. It's about the size of the 17,000-square-foot attic she left behind.

That means serious downsizing. But she's getting a rose garden, albeit a fraction of the ones at Spelling Manor, and a pool with an expansive city view.

It's part of a new, relatively simpler lifestyle, said Spelling, who is still attending black-tie events but has traded "ball gowns and huge jewelry" for simpler evening dresses.

"I'm guess I'm more mature and not so insecure. Aaron put a big importance on a lot of that and was really very thrilled to give it all to me. But I'm glad to not have to be bothered with it," said Spelling, 66, who wryly called herself a "trophy wife" in the past.

She hopes the recently married Ecclestone will create her own happy family history at the manor. For Candy Spelling and her offspring, the memories and even the Halloween memorabilia remain to be divided.

"Both Tori and Randy mentioned the witch with the cauldron. I hope there's not a little fight over that," Spelling said.

___

Online:

http://www.hgtv.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_en_tv/us_tv_spelling_manor

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Just Show Me: How to check for system updates on Windows 7 (Yahoo! News)

Welcome to?Just Show Me on?Tecca TV, where we show you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the?gadgets in your life. In today's episode we'll show you how to update your?Windows 7 system.

By checking for system updates, you'll be able to rest well knowing that your computer is running the latest software and that major security holes have been fixed. Checking for updates yourself is easy, and we'll walk you through it in our video.

If you want to learn more about keeping your computer secure, take a look at our?guide to online security.

For more episodes of Just Show Me,?subscribe to Tecca TV's YouTube channel and?check out all our Just Show Me episodes. If you have any topics you'd like to see us cover, just drop us a line in the comments.

This article originally appeared on Tecca

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100 years on, Antarctic science going strong

This week, dozens of brave revelers ? the prime minister of Norway among them ? are converging on the South Pole to celebrate the historic trek of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, the first human to set foot there on Dec. 14, 1911.

Yet in an ironic twist, some might argue that it is the runner-up in the grueling contest whose legacy has proved more lasting.

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who reached the pole a month after Amundsen, died on his return march, unable to escape the tightening noose of the Antarctic winter. And although his oft-maligned tactics proved, in part, to be his undoing, Scott's insistence on bringing scientists on his expedition ? at great cost to himself ? helped spark a tradition of scientific inquiry in Antarctica that endures to this day, according to Ross MacPhee, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and author of the book, "Race to The End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole" (Sterling Innovation, 2010).

"Every scientist working in Antarctica today owes Scott something," MacPhee told OurAmazingPlanet in September. [ Images: Scott's Lost Photos ]

Science is now one of the primary drivers of human activity on the continent.

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Each year, when the perpetual daylight of austral summer begins, droves of scientists descend on Antarctica to study its biology, drill deep into its ice, and send airplanes soaring overhead to image what lies underneath its glaciers.

Nearly 30 countries operate more than 80 research stations around the continent, according to 2009 numbers from the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs.

A flurry of work is now under way on and around the continent.

Charismatic fauna
Some scientists come to study the unique crowds of marine life that gather near the nutrient-rich waters off the Antarctic coast in the comparatively balmy summer. Penguins may be the most beloved of the local animal pantheon, but studying these birds is nothing like a Disney movie.

"Penguins are not cuddly at all. They're really very strong and very feisty, and they don't like to be picked up, which we try not to do," said David Ainley, a marine ecologist who has been studying Ad?lie penguins in Antarctica since the late 1960s.

For decades, Ainley, now with the California-based ecological consulting firm H.T. Harvey & Associates, has researched why penguin populations are changing; some colonies have grown, others have shrunk. He said he's interested in answering a very basic question about life on our planet ? how do animals cope with their environment? ? and that penguins are the ideal research subject.

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"They're fairly large so you can put instruments on them and record their behavior," Ainley told OurAmazingPlanet just hours before he boarded a plane headed south.

In addition, he said, they're pretty easy to find. "Penguins are very visible," Ainley said. "In the Antarctic they don't have any place to hide. They don't live in burrows, and it's daylight all the time."

Biological time trip
While Ainley and his team spend their days on the rocky slopes of Antarctic islands, other scientists spend the austral summer on ships. David Barnes, with the British Antarctic Survey, spoke with OurAmazingPlanet from the RRS James Ross, a research vessel parked near the Antarctic Peninsula, the long finger of land that points toward South America.

Barnes said that his research focuses on trying to unlock the secrets of Antarctica's icy past, specifically how the reach of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet has changed from age to age. Scientists know it has been larger than it is now, and some suspect it has been smaller than it is now, but anything more exact is difficult to pin down.

"The problem is that every time there's an ice age it's wiped out everything ? so we don't really know where the last ice sheet got to," Barnes said. But there is another way to peek into the Antarctic's past: "Where we can't get good signals from glaciology or geology, biology has a cunning way of stepping in," he said.

Barnes looks at the genetic makeup of sea creatures around western Antarctica to determine how long populations have been isolated from one another by the ice.

"Genetics preserve a connection between species and populations, so by looking around Antarctica at various depths we can get an idea of whether that area used to be underneath an ice sheet," Barnes said.

That information can, in turn, help scientists figure out how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet behaved in climates past, and how it might behave in our warming world.

Ice life
Still other scientists will spend the austral summer living on the ice itself. Robert Bindschadler, a glaciologist and scientist emeritus with NASA, along with a small team of researchers, will spend six weeks sleeping in small tents on a floating plain of ice ? the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf ? the outlet of one of the largest and fastest moving glaciers in Antarctica.

Ice shelves, which ring the continent, appear to be a key player in the increasing and alarming rate at which glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are melting and raising sea levels in recent years, Bindschadler said. But getting direct observations of how this is happening is a challenge. Satellite imaging and data provide some details, but the continent is remote, and its long, brutal winter permits scientists to work there for only about three months a year, [ Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice ]

Observations indicate that comparatively warm ocean water is lapping away at the ice shelves, which, as they weaken, allow glaciers to slide into the sea at a faster and faster clip ? yet the direct mechanisms remain hidden from view.

"Satellites have taken us really far, but they can't give us the answers to what's going on underneath," Bindschadler said. To that end, his team will spend its days drilling several ?holes through nearly a third of a mile (500 meters) of ice to drop sensors into the sea below to measure variations in temperature and currents.

Some scientists conduct their research from the air, working aboard planes equipped with imaging technology that can peer beneath the ice. ? NASA's IceBridge project focuses on the western half of the continent, while other international collaborations focus on the far larger yet more stable eastern half.

Ice work if you can get it
Other research must be done on the ground. Scientists are drilling deep into the ice to collect signatures of past climate trapped inside, or looking for microbes that dwell in it. The race to drill down to the more than 200 freshwater lakes that pepper the continent is another tantalizing quest..

Some researchers work in Antarctica because the frigid continent, free of a native human population or meddling flora and fauna, provides a kind of natural laboratory.

"In most ecosystems you have plants all over the place, and they do a lot of things to complicate the system," said Byron Adams, a professor at Brigham Young University who studies the nematodes and other tiny creatures that are found in the few patches of ice-free soil in the Antarctic.

Still other researchers take advantage of the high altitude and clear air to peer through telescopes into distant space and the early universe.

At about 1.5 times the size of the United States, Antarctica has plenty of scientific real estate to go around.

At the heart of much of the research is the question of how the continent's ice is responding to climate change. Antarctica is home to some of the most dramatic effects of climate change seen anywhere on Earth, from melting glaciers to increasing winds to warming temperatures. The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed several times faster than the global average rate.

"We're asking really fundamental questions about how ecosystems respond to a changing climate, and ultimately the goal is to be able to make predictions about this," Adams told OurAmazingPlanet.

Despite the challenges ? bone-chilling winds, constant sunlight, extreme isolation and ever-changing weather ? many scientists said working in Antarctica is worth the hardship and the long hours spent packing as much work into an expedition as possible. Although it's not for everyone, they cautioned, the work can be deeply satisfying, breeding a sense of camaraderie that can last a lifetime.

"When you're out in the deep field, and you're only living with what you brought, and the plane turns and leaves, that's the Antarctica I prefer," Bindschadler said. "You really are in a different world."

Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain. Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.

? 2011 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45673001/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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