Today on New Scientist: 28 January 2013

Retreating rebels burn Timbuktu's science manuscripts

As the French and Malian armies recapture Timbuktu, Islamist rebels have set fire to texts that document when science began in Africa

Quantum theory of smell causes a new stink

An experiment showing humans might rely on quantum mechanics to distinguish between odours has reopened a smelly debate

Davos: Persuading big business to act on climate change

A new report argues that private-sector investment could limit rise in temperature – as long as governments can encourage businesses to step up

Gas flares from Bakken fracking are visible from space

A shining cluster of light in this satellite image of the US from space isn't a city - it's the glow from hundreds of flares from rigs in North Dakota

First video reveals working tractor beam in action

Watch a light beam pull tiny objects using a new technique that attracts certain arrangements of particles

Human brain model and graphene win science's X Factor

Quests to build a supercomputer simulation of the human brain and unlock graphene's potential have each won a potential €1 billion in research funding

Interactive nails give you a screen at your fingertips

Forget colourful nail varnish, one day your fingernails could be used to display touchscreen content from your smartphone instead

Stellar performances finally gain the limelight

In Heart of Darkness, Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Simon Mitton add new stars to the constellation of astronomy to tell the subject's full history

Is Obama about to blow his climate credentials?

The US president could be poised to approve the doubling of imports of tar sands oil, one of the filthiest fuels on Earth, says Fred Pearce

DNA privacy: don't flatter yourself

The secrets contained in our individual genomes are less valuable than we like to believe

Weird high-energy flare made by spitting black hole

One of the most detailed looks yet at a gamma-ray burst from an active galaxy hints that a knot of high-speed plasma was the likely trigger

Get cirrus in the fight against climate change

Feathery cirrus clouds trap a lot of heat and help warm the planet. Getting rid of them could counteract human-caused climate change – in theory

Your molar roots are leftovers from Homo erectus

Our teeth erupt later than they did in our early ancestors, but not so the roots of our molars: they develop as they did in Homo erectus

Bandwidth-sharing app brings connectivity to all

AirMobs lets you use your neighbour's mobile internet connection - or share your own - regardless of carrier or location

Lingering kiss: DNA persists in the mouth after smooch

A kiss is not just a kiss - it's bacteria, mucus and DNA. And with the discovery that the DNA persists in the mouth for at least an hour, it could be used to identify sex offenders

The digital map is not the territory

The latest maps offer a rich and vivid way of navigating the world, but we must not expect a perfect representation of reality

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Iran sends monkey into space

TEHRAN: Iran on Monday successfully sent a monkey into orbit, paving the way for a manned space flight, Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi told state television.

Arabic-language channel Al-Alam and other Iranian news agencies said the monkey returned alive after travelling in a capsule to an altitude of 120 kilometres (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight.

"This success is the first step towards man conquering the space and it paves the way for other moves," General Vahidi said, but added that the process of putting a human into space would be a lengthy one.

"Today's successful launch follows previous successes we had in launching (space) probes with other living creatures (on board)," he added.

"The monkey which was sent in this launch landed safely and alive and this is a big step for our experts and scientists."

Iranian state television showed still pictures of the capsule and of a monkey being fitted with a vest and then placed in a device similar to a child's car-seat.

A previous attempt in 2011 by the Islamic republic to put a monkey into space failed. No official explanation was ever given.

A defence ministry statement quoted by Iranian media said earlier Iran had "successfully launched a capsule, codenamed Pishgam (Pioneer), containing a monkey and recovered the shipment on the ground intact".

Iran announced in mid-January its intention to launch a monkey into orbit as part of "preparations for sending a man into space," which is scheduled for 2020.

Iran's space programme deeply unsettles Western nations, which fear it could be used to develop ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads they suspect are being developed in secret.

The same technology used in space launch rockets can also be used in ballistic missiles.

The Security Council has imposed on Iran an almost total embargo on nuclear and space technologies since 2007.

Tehran has repeatedly denied that its nuclear and scientific programmes mask military ambitions.

Iran's previous satellite launches were met by condemnation from the West who accused Tehran of "provocation."

The Islamic republic has previously sent a rat, turtles and worms into space. It has also successfully launched three satellites -- Omid in February 2009, Rassad in June 2011 and Navid in February 2012.

In mid-May last year, Tehran announced plans to launch an experimental observation satellite Fajr (Dawn) within a week but it did not happen and Iran gave no explanation for the delay.

The Fajr satellite was presented by Iranian officials as "an observation and measurement" satellite weighing 50 kilos (110 pounds), built by Sa-Iran, a company affiliated to the defence ministry.

- AFP/ir

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Apple's Tim Cook seeks the 'mother of all opportunities'

CEO Tim Cook (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

In a meeting with employees at Apple's headquarters, CEO Tim Cook reportedly addressed the steep drop in the company's stock price that came after Apple posted $54.5 billion in sales last quarter and $13.1 billion in profit -- both records. As reported by 9to5 Mac, Cook took a shot at the highly lucrative oil industry in his cheerleading efforts. "The only companies that report better quarters pump oil," Cook reportedly said. "I do not know about you all, but I do not want to work for those companies."

Predictably, creating and manufacturing the most beloved technology gadgets is viewed as more personally and professionally fulfilling by Silicon Valley than drilling, refining and distributing the fuels that power the planet. An
iPad is cool and innovative, whereas a gallon of gasoline is a polluting liquid gold one cannot live without.

Apple and ExxonMobile factory workers earning their livings (Credit: Foxconn/ExxonMobile)

Apple and oil giants like ExxonMobile are in a rarified club, generating enormous amounts of revenue and profit. After Apple's recent stock price drop, ExxonMobile replaced Apple as the most valued company, with a market capitalization of about $417 billion compared to Apple's $412 billion.

But as Cook likes to say, following in the footsteps of Steve Jobs, Apple has higher aspirations than just turning silicon, or oil, into profits.

"The most important thing to Apple is to make the best products in the world that enrich customers' lives. That's our high order bit," Cook said during the Jan. 23 Apple Q1 earnings call. "That means that we aren't interested in revenue for revenue's sake. We can put the Apple brand on a lot of things and sell a lot more stuff, but that's not what we're here for. We want to make only the best products."

The question now is whether that make-the-best-products mission will translate into a strong stock performance any time soon. Of course, making Wall Street happy is not only about making the best products. It's also a game of setting expectations and then exceeding them, something Apple had down to science for many years.

That pattern could get a shot in the arm with some new products and updates, says Nomura Security's Stuart Jeffrey. But that's unlikely to happen right away.

"To re-accelerate growth, Apple likely needs to launch new products, yet few seem likely before June," Jeffrey said in a note to investors last week. "iOS 7 could have the greatest impact, yet recent management changes suggest a major advance is unlikely in the near-term. A China Mobile deal could also boost the stock, yet the timing of this remains uncertain...this leaves only a $300 iPhone or a premium iPhone as likely catalysts."

For the near-term Cook appears to be betting that the iPad, which was introduced three years ago, will fuel Apple's growth engine. In last week's earnings call, he described the iPad as the "mother of all opportunities" in reference to taking advantage of the shrinking PC market.

"On iPad in particular, we have the mother of all opportunities here, because the Windows market is much, much larger than the
Mac market is," Cook said. "And I think it is clear that it's already cannibalizing some, and I think there's a tremendous amount of more opportunity there and as you know I've said for two or three years now that I believe the
tablet market will be larger than the PC market at some point and I still believe that. And you can see by the growth in tablets and the pressure on PCs that those lines are beginning to converge."

Cook noted that last quarter Apple fell short on fulfilling demand for the iPad mini, but he expects to fix that problem this quarter. Apple sold 22.86 million iPads last quarter, up from 15.4 million in the same quarter of 2011. The company did not break out the number of iPad minis sold, but it's clear that the smaller iPad is helping to drag Apple's overall iPad margins downward.

Expectations are that Apple will refresh the iPad family in the second half of the year, and sell more than 100 million iPads for the calendar year, driven in part by cannibalizing sales of Macs and Windows PCs. Since the iPad began shipping in April 2010, Apple has sold more than 121 million units.

But Apple is facing increased competition and margin pressure as the smartphone and tablet categories mature. In Singapore and Hong Kong, for example, iPad and iPhone market share have been falling over the last year as Android-based devices pick up momentum, according to StatCounter.

If Apple is to maintain its momentum, Cook and team need to replicate the unique successes of the iPhone and iPad, getting a head start on competitors by spawning new markets. Some speculate that an Apple TV solution will be the next "mother of all opportunities." Perhaps Apple's version of Google Glass, or other kinds of wearable devices will keep Apple at the head of consumer adoption of emerging technologies. Cook invokes the cone of silence on Apple's future breakthroughs.

Regarding Apple TV, Cook said last week, "I have said in the past this is an area of intense interest for us, and it remains that. And I tend to believe that there's a lot we can contribute in this space, and so we continue to pull the string and see where it leads us. But I don't want to be more specific."

Cook can continue to pull the string, but it's uncertain whether he can produce the next big thing, another "mother of all opportunities," needed to maintain Apple's cool factor and superior margins. Ultimately, Cook's success as CEO will be judged on how well he does inventing the future rather than exploiting the past.

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Doomed Dolphin Speaks to New York's Vibrant Wildlife

By the time New Yorkers spied a dolphin swimming through the superfund sludge of the Gowanus Canal last Friday, it was too late. The marine mammal didn't even survive long enough for a rescue plan to come together. First sighted on Friday afternoon, the dolphin perished at 6:00 p.m.

The reason the marine mammal died, and why the dolphin swam up the polluted waterway in the first place, is as yet unknown. But the sad story of the wayward creature highlights the strange nature of New York City, the global epitome of urbanity. Hidden within Gotham are native carnivores, marine mammals, and even species that have scarcely been seen before.

Marine mammals are arguably the most high-profile of New York City's wild residents and visitors. The Gowanus Canal dolphin was only the latest to venture within city limits. Just a month ago, a 60-foot-long finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) became stranded in the Rockaway Inlet of Queens. The emaciated animal died the day after it was discovered.

There seems to be no singular reason explaining why marine mammals such as the Gowanus dolphin and Queens' finback whale wander up the city's rivers or strand on beaches. Each case is unique. But not all the city's marine mammal visitors suffer terrible fates.

In 2006, a hefty manatee (Trichechus spp.) took a long jaunt from its Florida home up the East Coast, including a detour down New York's Hudson River. The sirenian survived the trip, continuing on to Cape Cod before reportedly turning back south to a destination unknown. Hopefully the manatee didn't encounter any great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) on the return journey, a marine predator we know patrols the waters off New York.

Of course, New York City's whales, seals, and occasional manatee can only skirt the city along its shores and canals. You likely won't see a seal caterpillaring its way along Broadway.

Yet the city's interior also hosts a strange accumulation of wildlife, including native animals that are carving out spaces for themselves in the concrete corridors and exotic species that we have introduced to city life.

Coyotes (Canis latrans) may be the cleverest of New York City's hidden wildlife. Thanks to camera traps, and the occasional police chase through Lower Manhattan, researchers are keeping track of the wily canids and studying how they are so successfully taking up residence in many of the nation's cities. "Most small, urban parks will likely hold a pair and their offspring at most—coyotes are very territorial," said Cornell University ecologist Paul Curtis.

The secretive carnivorans bring a welcome element to urban neighborhoods—an appetite for rodents—and are experts at cracking open new niches alongside people.

Black bears (Ursus americanus) may be next. The bears have proliferated in northern New Jersey in recent years, and in 2010, a black bear came within three miles of the George Washington Bridge, a major thoroughfare between New Jersey and Manhattan. The bear obviously would have eschewed rush hour traffic and the tolls, but the local population is so bountiful that it's not unreasonable to think some enterprising bear might eventually wander into the big city.

Strangely, you may actually be more likely to run into a crocodylian predator in New York City than a black bear. New Yorkers have a nagging habit of importing—and losing-alligator—like caimans and other reptiles within the city.

In 2010, an 18-inch long caiman took refuge under a parked Datsun in Astoria, Queens. No one knows how the reptile wound up on the street, but given the trend of owners buying cute crocodylians and later dumping them, someone may have abandoned the poor little caiman.

This would hardly be the first time. In 2006, another little caiman was found in the leaf litter behind Brooklyn's Spring Creek Towers, while "Damon the Caiman" swam around a Central Park lake in the summer of 2001. These caimans are only some of the most famous—according to a New York Times report, the Brooklyn-based Animal Care and Control deals with about ten caimans each year.

Many other unusual and exotic animals have romped through New York. Under some of their most notable animal celebrities, the city's Parks and Recreation department lists guinea pigs, boa snakes, and even a tiger that escaped from a circus in 2004 and ran down Jackie Robinson Parkway before his owners were able to get him back.

The Big Apple even contains species that have never been documented before. No, not the ballyhooed "Montauk Monster"—actually a rotted raccoon—but a distinct species of leopard frog. Described early this year, the cryptic amphibian was given away by its unique mating call.

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3 Arrested in Deadly Nightclub Fire, Fourth Sought

Brazilian authorities have arrested three people in connection to the fire that killed more than 230 people and injured hundreds at a nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil, this weekend.

The owner of the popular Kiss nightclub, a member of the band Gurizada Fandangueira and the club's security chief have been arrested and are being questioned by police, the BBC reported today.

A fourth person, who the BBC reports is a co-owner of the club, is still being sought by police.

None of the names of those arrested and being sought have been released.

Coffins lined a gymnasium in Santa Maria today as family members tried to identify their loved ones after a fast-moving fire tore through a crowded nightclub Sunday morning.

A community gym near the Kiss nightclub has been converted to a temporary morgue were family members were led in one by one Sunday night and early this morning to identify the dead. Outside the gym police held up personal objects, including a black purse and blue high-heeled shoe, as people seeking information on loved ones crowded around, hoping not to recognize anything they were being shown.

"Doctors from other parts of Brazil were flown in to assist the medical side of this," BBC reporter Julia Carneiro told ABC News this morning. "One hundred people are injured and in hospital. Some have been flown to other cities that have better hospital capacity."

PHOTOS: Santa Maria, Brazil Nightclub Fire

Flames and smoke outraced a terrified crowd at the Kiss nightclub, located in the southern city of Santa Maria, shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Panicked partygoers tried to outrun flames and black, thick smoke, but the club appeared to have only one open exit, police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello told The Associated Press.

Brazil Nightclub Fire: Nearly 200 People Killed Watch Video

Police confirmed that the toll had risen to 231 with the death of a hospitalized victim.

Hours after the fire, cellphones on the victims were ringing inside the still-smoldering nightclub as family members tried to contact their loved ones, Brazilian radio reporter Sara Bodowsky told "World News" anchor David Muir.

"It's really like a war zone in here. We have [over 230] bodies laid down, side by side, so the families go inside one by one. They look at the bodies," Bodowsky said.

The first funerals for the victims were scheduled to begin later today for those families who have identified their loved ones.

"It was terrible inside. It was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," police inspector Sandro Meinerz said Sunday. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."

Investigators believe the blaze began when a band's small pyrotechnics show ignited foam sound insulating material on the ceiling, releasing a putrid haze that caused scores of people to choke to death.

Survivors and police inspector Marcelo Arigony said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club in the mass confusion and chaos moments after the fire began.

But Arigony said the guards didn't appear to block fleeing patrons for long.

"It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told the AP.

Police Maj. Bastianello told the AP by telephone the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.

A security guard told the newspaper Diaro de Santa Maria that the club was filled to capacity, with 1,000 to 2,000 people inside.

Meanwhile, people outside tried to break through walls to get in to save those trapped inside.

Michele Pereira told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit some sort of flare.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that his band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning."

"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it," he said. "When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working."

He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was attending a summit with European Union leaders and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Chile, cut her trip short and returned home to Brazil Sunday.

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DNA privacy: don't flatter yourself

The secrets contained in our individual genomes are less valuable than we like to believe

IMAGINE donating your DNA to a project aimed at discovering links between genes and diseases. You consent to your genome sequence being released anonymously into the public domain, though you are warned there is a remote possibility that it might one day be possible to link it back to you.

A few years later, that remote possibility comes to pass. How should you feel? This is no longer a hypothetical scenario. About 50 people who participated in a project called 1000 Genomes have been traced (see "Matching names to genes: the end of genetic privacy?").

The researchers' intentions were honourable. They have not revealed these identities, and the original data has been adjusted to make a repeat using the same technique impossible. All they wanted to do was expose privacy issues.

Consider them exposed. It is clear that genomics has entered a new phase, similar to that which social media went through a few years ago, when concerns were raised about people giving away too much personal information.

What happens when the same applies to our DNA? Having your genome open to public scrutiny obviously raises privacy issues. Employers and insurers may be interested. Embarrassing family secrets may be exposed.

But overall, personal genetic information is probably no more revealing than other sorts. In fact there are reasons to believe that it is less so: would an insurance company really go to the trouble of decoding a genome to discover a slightly elevated risk of cancer or Alzheimer's disease?

The available evidence suggests not. In 2006, Harvard University set out to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and make them publicly available, along with personal information such as names and medical records. One of the goals was to see what happens when such data is open to all. The answer seems to be "not a lot". So far this Personal Genome Project has published 148 people's full genomes. Not one volunteer has reported a privacy issue.

This is not a reason for complacency, but it suggests that our genomic secrets are less interesting to other people than we might like to believe.

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Football: I must improve, says modest Messi

BUENOS AIRES: Barcelona and Argentina star Lionel Messi says he must improve on all fronts even as debate rages as to whether he is the best player ever.

"In everything we do in life we try to improve on all fronts and in football I am no exception," Messi told Clarin daily in an interview published Sunday.

Messi, 25, claims to be mulling how to do even better despite having already won a welter of honours, including a record four straight Ballons d'Or.

Playing for Barcelona keeps his feet on the ground, Messi says, not least because clubmates Xavi and Andres Iniesta were also candidates for his footballer of the year status, conferred on him once again earlier this month.

Messi says remaining humble is part of the Barcelona philosophy.

"It's a dressing room where we are all very similar in outlook. The way we are and our education both within and outside the club gave us that (outlook)," said Messi.

Messi, who saw off Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Iniesta for the Ballon d'Or for 2012, won the accolade in part for breaking Gerd Mueller's 40-year record for the most goals in a calendar year - the Barcelona man finished the year with an astonishing 91 goals in all competitions.

Even so, with Barca he was unable to land either La Liga or the Champions League in a somewhat disappointing campaign, while some observers insist he cannot yet be classed as the greatest player ever, moving ahead of Pele and Diego Maradona, unless and until he lifts the World Cup.

Messi also told Clarin that he would not change his view that the club must come before the individual.

"My goal is not to break records - every season I want to win everything possible with my team - be it Barcelona or the national side," he insisted.

- AFP/de

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Is your hotel trying to choke you with an iPhone app?

Is that cool?

(Credit:
Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Some like it cold.

It's not everyone's idea of comfort, but sitting in a cool hotel room -- especially when it's hot outside -- can offer a certain pleasure. At least for me.

It's a pleasure that a certain group of people want to deny me. They're called hotel owners.

Hotel owners, it seems, are rather fonder of making a cool profit.

It's bad enough when the room has no windows you can open. However, an ever-increasing trend is for hotels to restrict how cold you can make your room temperature.

You click furiously on the thermostat's "down" arrow and it makes like a prison guard.

Recently, I stayed in a hotel where it was verboten to have less than 67 degrees in your room.

To me, 67 degrees is balmy and barmy. So I called the front desk and wondered whether an engineer might help me in my unreasonable quest to choose the temperature in my room.

When he arrived he took one look and said: "Yes, 67 degrees. That's the hotel policy."

"But my policy is a little different," I explained. "I have blood that boils easily."

"Hotel policy," he repeated.

I gave him a look that explained my blood was already far beyond 67 degrees.

An hour later, his boss arrived. I pointed to the thermostat. He nodded caringly and said: "Hotel policy."

"Sir," I began. "If I owned a restaurant and you ordered fish and chips and I brought them to you cold, would you get annoyed? Would you send them back?"

Look, it was the first thing that came into my head. It was hot in that room. I wasn't thinking so clearly.

"Well, yes," he replied. "But this is hotel policy for all floors. It's 67 degrees."

"My policy is cold fish and chips," I repeated.

He looked at me as if I had drifted in from the Planet PoohBah.

I asked him whether there was anything he could do, you know, just for me. Because I am clearly mad. In the insane sense.

Could he not perform some feat of engineering because I am a little unusual, a little excessively human?

He pulled out his iPhone. I assumed he was going to call some men in dark suits who would attempt to bring my head down to my knees and my blood down to 32 degrees.

Instead, he said: "Look, it's all on this iPhone app. You see, here I can control the temperature in the whole hotel."

"So is it a floor-by-floor thing?" I wondered.

"Oh, no. I can change the temperature in every room," he explained, unwisely but helpfully.

"This is nothing more than a money-saving thing, isn't it?" I whispered.

He nodded.

More Technically Incorrect

Perhaps fed up of my insistently polite European accent, he looked up and sighed: "How cold do you want it?"

"60 degrees," I said. "I want the option to make the temperature in here to go down to 60 degrees."

With one touch of his iPhone, it was done. Suddenly, the down arrow on my thermostat was free to slide toward perfect coolness and he slid away, perhaps regretting he'd shown me the truth.

I can understand that some people carelessly leave the aircon or the heating on all day, when they're not in their hotel rooms. I can understand that hotels are businesses. But the essence of staying in a hotel is comfort.

Temperature shouldn't be any different from the need for hypoallergenic pillows, clean sheets, respect for the "Do Not Disturb" sign and a massive array of exciting movies for all ages on the TV.

So if you happen to be one of those people who simply prefer a little global cooling in your hotel room, it may well be that you need to invite the Head of Maintenance up to your room for a quick chat.

You know, about cold fish and chips.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Brazil Nightclub Fire: 232 Dead, Hundreds Injured

Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air while stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the blaze.

Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and walls to free those trapped inside.

Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."

Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that officials counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in Santa Maria, a major university city with about 250,000 residents at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.

An earlier count put the number of dead at 245. Another 117 people were being treated at hospitals, he said.

Brazil President Dilma Roussef arrived to visit the injured after cutting short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.

"It is a tragedy for all of us," Roussef said.

Most of the dead apparently suffocated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.

Beltrame said he was told the club had been filled far beyond its capacity during a party for students at the university's agronomy department.

Survivors, police and firefighters gave the same account of a band member setting the ceiling's soundproofing ablaze, he said.

"Large amounts of toxic smoke quickly filled the room, and I would say that at least 90 percent of the victims died of asphyxiation," Beltrame told The Associated Press by telephone.

"The toxic smoke made people lose their sense of direction so they were unable to find their way to the exit. At least 50 bodies were found inside a bathroom. Apparently they confused the bathroom door with the exit door."

In the hospital, the doctor "saw desperate friends and relatives walking and running down the corridors looking for information," he said, calling it "one of the saddest scenes I have ever witnessed."

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