The Great Beyond

Chemist Albert Hofmann has died at the age of 102.

In 1938 Hofmann isolated lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, while working for the Sandoz chemical company. As he notes in his book LSD: My Problem Child, not a lot happened immediately:

The research report also noted, in passing, that the experimental animals became restless during the narcosis. The new substance, however, aroused no special interest in our pharmacologists and physicians; testing was therefore discontinued.

However five years later he found himself in a dreamlike state. After concluding this was related to the lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate he had just started working with again, possibly through accidental absorption through his fingernails, he notes:

There seemed to be only one way of getting to the bottom of this. I decided on a self-experiment.

Continue reading "RIP Albert Hofmann" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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If we needed proof the green was 'the new black' it was surely supplied by the recent stampede by companies to brand their various products as environmentally friendly.

But do they actually live up to true environmental ideals or are they just ‘greenwashing’? Today the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, the body cursed with the task of enforcing truth in advertising, put out its latest annual report, detailing “record numbers of complaints about environmental claims”.

In total the ASA received 556 complaints about 408 ads last year, compared to 117 complaints about 83 ads the year before (press release, report pdf). Complaints against 24 ads were upheld.

“Claims that products and services were carbon ‘neutral’ or ‘zero’ or ‘negative’ were particularly open to challenge, as were statements about CO2 emissions or absolute claims such as ‘100% recycled’ or ‘wholly sustainable’,” says the report.

My favourite reason for upholding a complaint relates to an ad from Shell which showing chimneys emitting flowers. This was misleading, the ASA says, “because it implied that Shell used at least the majority of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion when compared to the global activities of Shell”.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The Asian vulture could be flapping its last, according to Indian naturalists.

Widespread use of the drug diclofenac is generally believed to be behind a massive drop in their numbers. And despite the anti-inflammatory being outlawed in livestock, widespread use continues to fell the birds, in whom it triggers kidney failure.

A new paper in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society reports that “the oriental white-backed vulture is now in dire straits with only one thousandth of the 1992 population remaining” (pdf – note this has the wrong date on it, press release).

Long-billed and slender-billed vultures are also in trouble. The survey detailed in this paper concludes that all three species could be down to just a few hundred birds across the whole of India. They could be “functionally extinct in less than a decade”, according to Vibhu Prakash, of the Bombay Natural History Society, and his colleagues.

As a number of newspapers note, following the press release, the vultures are disappearing faster than dodos did.

Continue reading "Asian vulture numbers dwindle" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Jeff Tollefson

Update: Gray calls the uproar a ‘non-story’

It appears that the latest flap regarding hurricane expert and noted global warming sceptic Bill Gray was a bit overblown. Several hours after we posted the original Houston Chronicle story on this blog, Gray returned a phone call from Nature and quickly sought to set the record straight about his alleged troubles at Colorado State University.

“This is a funny thing,” he began. “We had something come up last year, and it was all smoothed over. It’s a non-story.”

At issue were Gray’s well-regarded hurricane forecasts and his unequivocal opposition to the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are driving global warming. The Chronicle reported that CSU is, or at least was, threatening to cut off its media support for his hurricane forecasts due to his unpopular stand on global warming. The key piece of evidence was a year-old internal memo from Gray suggesting as much.

Gray, who has retired and now comes to work as a professor emeritus, was not quoted directly in the story, and he said he was as surprised as anybody when it came out.

Continue reading "UPDATE - Storm over global-warming sceptic hurricane man" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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We’re one step closer to making synthetic spider silk, thanks to work by researchers in Germany.

Sebastian Rammensee and colleagues have constructed a microfluidic device which combines two spider silk proteins into fibers.

“The major breakthrough is that this is the first time one has produced fully synthetic silk threads and understood why,” says Andreas Bausch, co-author on a new paper describing the device in PNAS (quoted in the Daily Telegraph).

The Independent gets excited about all the things we could make with super-synthetic-silk: “from bullet-proof vests and lightweight material for parachutes, to extremely strong ropes and fishing nets that will decompose quickly if lost at sea” or even “biodegradable sutures for sealing up internal wounds”.

The research team believe three stages are needed for fibers to form. The proteins must condense into spherical particles; pH must drop; and then particles must be forced to slide past each other in a thin chamber.
Both New Scientist and Scientific American go into the technical details.

Image: Corbis

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A coalition of 12 environmental groups is taking the US government to court in an attempt to overturn the gray wolf’s loss of protected status.

After its ‘endangered’ status was removed, management of the wolf reverted to state control. Now environmentalists are claiming some states are too carefree with culling.

“Actions by the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and by individuals, since wolves were delisted demonstrate the need to resume federal safeguards for wolves until state plans are in place that ensure a sustainable wolf population in the region,” says a statement from the groups.

“For example, on the very day delisting took effect — March 28, 2008 — Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed into law a new Idaho law allowing Idaho citizens to kill wolves without a permit whenever wolves are annoying, disturbing, or “worrying” livestock or domestic animals.”

Continue reading "US states sued over wolf status" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, CSU feels all the media curfuffle around the annual predictions is taking too much staff time. Gray thinks otherwise.

“This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department’s capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign [sic] in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms,” said Gray in a memo written when he was informed of the decision last year (read the memo).

Wikipedia has a whole section on his climate change position, which he’s also outlined in a BBC opinion piece. And as the Chronicle’s science blog notes, CSU’s excuse is slightly strange:

I contacted a handful of public relations professionals who found that excuse to be, at best, questionable. University media offices exist to get press for their schools. Gray delivered that in spades with his hurricane forecasts.

CSU denies that Gray’s views on global warming have anything to do with it. Most of the forecasting work is currently done by Gray’s former student Phil Klotzbach and CSU says it will continue to support the forecasts as long as is involved.

Continue reading "Storm over global-warming sceptic hurricane man" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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While we await a US decision on the status of the polar bear, a Canadian expert group has decided it is in trouble, but not quite enough trouble for it to be considered endangered just yet.

In America they have been dragging out making a similar decision for months, and there’s still no answer (see Nature).

Meanwhile, north of the border, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada says the bear is merely of ‘special concern’, just one step up from ‘fine and dandy’ although the government group does admit to some worries. “Although the current and projected decline is insufficient to justify a status of Threatened, considerable concern exists over the future of polar bears in Canada,” says the latest assessment.

“Based on the best available information at hand, there was insufficient reason to think that the polar bear was at imminent risk of extinction,” says panel chairman Jeff Hutchings (BBC, Reuters). “That’s not to say that it's not in trouble. A special concern species is a species at risk in Canada and requires legislative action.”

However Canada’s Environment Minister John Baird still has to decide what to do with the listing of the bear as of concern. Reuters says he pledged to take action while “standing in front of a stuffed polar bear at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa”. I can’t work out if that’s appropriate or deeply inappropriate.

But while the polar bears are getting most of the coverage there are some more tragic tales unfolding in Canada...

Continue reading "Polar bear not ‘endangered’, just ‘concerning’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Prospect magazine has launched the second of its 100 greatest intellectual polls. Once again there are a number of high profile scientists in the list, on which you can vote for your favourites.

Last time round Richard Dawkins came in third (just behind Noam Chomsky and Umberto Eco).

Dawkins is in the list again this year, along with Jared Diamond, Drew Gilpin Faust, Neil Gershenfeld, Bjørn Lomborg, James Lovelock, Sunita Narain, and Lee Smolin. And in the ‘too cool to use their full names’ sub-category, we have V.S. Ramachandran, J. Craig Venter, and E.O. Wilson.

Al Gore didn’t make it last time but he’s on the list now. We’re expecting a strong showing from him this year.

Conspicuous by their absence: Stephen Hawking, Rajendra Pachauri, Jonathan Haidt.

Image: Alamy

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A humongous – though technically only colossal -- squid is about to be dissected live over the internet.

This rare example of a colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) was frozen when it was pulled out of the sea early in 2007. Now researchers at Te Papa museum in New Zealand are defrosting it in preparation for its autopsy.

“They’re incredibly rare - this is probably one of maybe six specimens ever brought up,” says Carol Diebel, director of natural environment at the museum (BBC).

Continue reading "Live super-size squid autopsy" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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What’s been on The Great Beyond this week and a few extras...

Continue reading "Weekly round up" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Here’s a shocking finding: messing around with our atmosphere could be a bad idea.

Some scientists have suggested that we could throw sulphate particles into the atmosphere, which could block sunlight and offset global warming. Now research by Simone Tilmes, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, suggests this would mess up the ozone layer.

“Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects,” she says (press release). “While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geoengineering solutions.”

In a new paper published by Science, Tilmes and colleages write:

An injection of sulfur large enough to compensate surface warming due to the doubling of CO2 would cause a drastic increase in the extent of Arctic ozone depletion during the next century for cold winters and would cause a considerable delay, between 30 and 70 years, in the expected recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

Continue reading "Sulphate science won’t stop global warming" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A new report says the US Environmental Protection Agency is ‘under siege’, with more than half of scientists surveyed claiming there is political interference in the agency’s work.

The Union of Concerned Scientists interviewed current and former EPA staff and surveyed hundreds more. It says:

The results of these investigations show an agency under siege from political pressures. On numerous issues—ranging from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate change—political appointees have edited scientific documents, manipulated scientific assessments, and generally sought to undermine the science behind dozens of EPA regulations.

AP notes an EPA spokesman “attributed some of the discontent to the “passion” scientists have toward their work”. Jonathan Shradar “said the findings will not change anything” (Washington Post).

As one of my colleagues noted, the shocking thing about this is how unsurprising it is. We seem to have become inured to the fact that politicians interfere with scientific practice when they don’t hear what they want to hear.

Continue reading "Scientists ‘under siege’ from political interference" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Analysis of a protein from Tyrannosaurus Rex confirms that our modern chickens really are descendants the closest living relatives of the fearsome beast. The finding has divided opinion over whether it means we should have more respect for the humble chicken, or whether we should instead look down on T. Rex for its pathetic, distant offspring relation.*

Researchers from the United States this week report the first use of analysis of a protein, in this case extracted from a femur found in 2003, to place a non-avian dino in the ‘tree of life’. The team also did the same thing for the mastodon, unsurprisingly finding it grouped with modern elephants (new paper in Science).

“We determined that T. rex, in fact, grouped with birds – ostrich and chicken – better than any other organism that we studied,” says John Asara, of the Harvard Medical School (press release). “We also showed that it groups better with birds than modern reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards.”

Continue reading "Protein shows chicken’s dino heritage" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 0.6% last year according to NOAA. Perhaps more worryingly methane levels also rose, for the first time since 1998.

Last year, according to new figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saw the joint third highest rise in global carbon dioxide concentrations since measurements began in 1998. NOAA says 2.4 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to every million molecules in the air, totalling around 19 billion tonnes and taking concentrations to 385 parts per million (press release).

“It’s gloomy,” says NOAA’s Pieter Tans (Retuers). “With carbon dioxide emissions, we’re on the wrong track, it’s obvious. And I’m also fully convinced that we’re in actually quite a dangerous situation for climate.”

However 2.4 ppm isn’t that unusual and the agency says annual increases of 2 ppm or more have been common since 2000 (click carbon dioxide graph right for longer term trend graph). The methane figures are potentially more troubling.

Continue reading "‘Gloomy’ emissions data shows methane rising" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Under the slightly risqué headline ‘Galaxies gone wild!’ the Hubble Space Telescope team has released a series of images of hot galaxy merging action.

In total 59 candid snaps of colliding galaxies have been released, most of which are products of the GOALS project, combining data from the Spitzer, Hubble, Chandra and GALEX instruments.

More of our favourites from the 59 below the fold. Click on images for description.

Continue reading "Today’s space pics: ‘Galaxies gone wild’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Astronomers say they have peered for the first time into the massive jet of particles fired out of a ‘blazar’ – the most energetic type of black-hole at the centre of a galaxy.

Blazars have opposite plasma jets firing out from a black hole at near-light speed. According to theoretical predictions these jets are powered by magnetic fields twisted by rotation of the hole’s ‘accretion disk’, the collection of material pulled inward towards the hole.

In this week’s Nature Alan Marscher and colleagues report observations that appear to support these predictions (covered by the BBC, Scientific American, Reuters).

“We have gotten the clearest look yet at the innermost portion of the jet, where the particles actually are accelerated, and everything we see supports the idea that twisted, coiled magnetic fields are propelling the material outward,” says Marscher, a researcher at Boston University (press release). “This is a major advance in our understanding of a remarkable process that occurs throughout the Universe.”

The full story of this paper can be heard on this week’s Nature podcast, which also features part of Marscher’s song about blazars, one of a whole host of science songs he’s written.

Be warned though, Marscher says ‘Superluminal Lover’ is “a hot love song ... with a Latin beat, that links activity in blazars with human passion ... beware: it is beyond X-rated, it's GAMMA-RATED!”

Image: artist’s conception of region near supermassive black hole / Marscher et al., Wolfgang Steffen, Cosmovision, NRAO/AUI/NSF

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Over in Texas they’ve just told the religious Institute of Creation Research they can’t offer a masters of science degree in science education. Meanwhile, in the UK, we’re busily dishing out degrees in a whole host of strange and rather unscientific subjects.

The Texas case has been building for a while. Apparently the state’s commissioner of higher education thought the ICR failed to show their degree met “acceptable standards of science and science education”. Even better, or worse depending on your outlook, it was “inconsistent with ... rules which require the accurate labelling or designation of programs”.

Which is a nice way of saying it wasn’t science.

“Religious belief is not science,” says Commissioner Raymund Paredes (press release). “Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing.”

The Dallas Morning News reports that what it calls the “Bible-based group” warned the education board it could face legal action for suppressing free speech. “We will pursue due process,” says Henry Morris III, chief executive officer of the ICR. “We will no doubt see you in the future.”

AP quotes him saying “It really wasn't a surprise given the current climate of opposition that exists.”

In the UK, however, it seems we’re a soft touch for dubious degrees.

Continue reading "When is a science degree not a science degree?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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We’ve covered the UK ‘physics funding crisis’ before, which might lead to a number of facilities including the Jodrell Bank telescope closing.

Now someone has written a song about it. ‘The Jodrell Bank Song’ by The Astronomers, produced by local radio station Silk FM, was released on Monday.

“When the Science and Technology Facilities Council announced plans to cut back the funding for Jodrell Bank the world was outraged,” says the group’s website, which also contains interviews regarding the Jodrell Bank site. “The future of the famous Lovell telescope and the e-Merlin project is now in doubt. Without funding, the site cannot continue to operate.”

Hat tip: The Guardian

Previously on Songs about Science
Songs about science
Songs of science part II
Songs about science part III: geology
Songs about science part IV: GeekPop08
Songs about science part V: singing scientists

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Our brains show distinctive patterns in the moments before we make mistakes, according to new research. This could one day lead to monitoring of those doing critical jobs, to prevent mistakes before they even happen.

Using MRI scans, Tom Eichele and colleagues found certain brain regions activated 30 seconds before errors were made by study subjects performing a simple repetitive task (research paper in PNAS). A number of news outlets note that previous studies have shown similar activity, but only seconds before errors.

Fellow author Stefan Debener, of the University of Southampton, likens this to the person switching to autopilot.

“The brain begins to economise, by investing less effort to complete the same task,” he says (BBC). “We see a reduction in activity in the prefrontal cortex. At the same time, we see an increase in activity in an area which is more active in states of rest, known as the Default Mode Network (DMN).”

Continue reading "Seeing mistakes before they happen" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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In the UK, a misconduct hearing is continuing for doctor Andrew Wakefield, who many hold responsible for the panic over the MMR vaccine and spurious links to autism. The hearing started last year and will continue until August.

Our government recently released a rather dull report on immunisation, which did however hold the interesting news that parents were slowly being convinced by the safety of MMR.

David Salisbury, the UK’s Director of Immunisation, noted: “it is imperative that we continue to do all we can to encourage take up of vaccines - particularly MMR. ... The evidence on MMR is clear. Population studies and studies in individual children show no link between the vaccine and autism.”

Sadly the message is not getting through in the United States. On Monday Barack Obama gave up his status as the last remaining heavyweight US presidential candidate who hadn’t spouted dangerous nonsense on the topic.

Continue reading "Dear presidential candidates: you’re wrong" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Nasa has admitted that the wildly off-target landing of the Russian Soyuz space craft last week is “clearly a concern”.

That statement came as the Russian Interfax agency reported that the Soyuz entered the atmosphere the wrong way round; with its hatch rather than its heat shield taking the strain of re-entry.

“The fact that the entire crew ended up whole and undamaged is a great success. Everything could have turned out much worse. You could say the situation was on a razor’s edge,” an unnamed Russian official told the agency (Interfax is subscription only but you can read a follow up story from AP).

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief, is the man who made the “clearly a concern” remark. Space.com notes other concerning points he mentioned at a recent press briefing:

- “unusual buffeting, jarring and shaking” before the descent. This might suggest the Soyuz’s propulsion module did not detached as planned.
- radio contact with mission control was lost during reentry.
- there were signs of smoke inside the Soyuz during reentry

Could they have predicted that this would happen? Here’s a quote from an article by Australian newspaper The Age:

“There is very little probability of another ballistic landing," said General Vladimir Popov, who heads the team responsible for Russia’s space search and rescue operations. "But we must be prepared for any variant, and we are.”

Image: artist’s impression of correct Soyuz descent (from Nasa’s Soyuz landing timeline).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted on behalf of Jeff Tollefson:

Paleoclimate researchers are mounting a new modelling exercise to assess their skills at reconstructing not the actual climate during the last millennium, but a pseudo climate generated by current global models.

The goal of the “Paleoclimate Reconstruction Challenge”
is to get around an inherent problem: Climate reconstructions are difficult to validate because by definition nobody knows exactly what the actual climate looked like. Instrumental data only goes back about 150 years, and proxy data used to calculate temperatures is sparse beyond about 400 years.

In this case, the teams will be able to compare their reconstructions to an actual climate simulation, which will remain secret until the end. They will then be able to assess in detail where things went wrong.

Caspar Ammann, a paleoclimatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has secured about $450,000 over three years from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the project. He says the exercise will be open to the entire paleoclimate community, including sceptics who have long questioned previous reconstructions.

Continue reading "Return of the hockey stick" »

Posted by Alex Witze
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Posted on behalf of Rachel Courtland:

Art professor Steven Kurtz was cleared of criminal charges Monday by the U.S District Court in Buffalo, NY. The decision comes four years after Kurtz discovered his wife had died of a heart attack, and police responding to the call discovered lab equipment and bacterial cultures in their home.

Kurtz, an art professor at the University at Buffalo, was using the cultures for art projects like these, which involve using biological materials to create politically-charged art, on topics like government policies on GM crops.

Initially investigated on charges of bioterrorism, Kurtz was indicted by the Department of Justice in 2004 for mail and wire fraud. The charges were hailed in some circles as an attack on civil liberties.

The Buffalo News broke the story yesterday , and other coverage has added few details. But the Chronicle of Higher Education notes the saga may not yet be over, as the justice department can appeal the ruling.

Those who want to relive some of the drama may want to rent last year’s documentary, Strange Culture, which features a cameo by Tilda Swinton as Kurtz’s wife.

Image: the international sign for biohazardous materials; via Wikimedia

Posted by Alex Witze
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A new front has opened up in sport’s war on drugs. Contestants in Spanish bullfights are to be subjected to dope testing if they ‘behave strangely’ during bouts.

We’re not talking about the matadors here.

According to Spanish paper El Mundo, dope testing of bulls has taken place occasionally before, but new procedures at the San Isidro festival will see more testing, with the actual work carried out by an official lab for the first time. Scientists will be looking for either steroids or tranquilisers.

“The first give the bull more resistance, and may mask a limp or a small injury so the animal passes preliminary inspection,” Mirat Fernando, a vet with the Regional Public Health Laboratory told the paper. “... And tranquilizers are used to change the behaviour of the bull.”

Making bulls more docile is not something that goes down well with fans. The Daily Telegraph notes that some are already saying recent bulls have been rather too meek.

An investigation into doping began in 2002 after some bulls “appeared to behave strangely”, but it was inconclusive (The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph).

The San Isidro event in Madrid is regarded as one of the most prestigious in the bullfighting calendar. Fines of up to 60,000 euros may be imposed on those who drug their bulls.

Image: detail from photo of a bullfight in Granada / via Wikimedia

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Steven Hawking has called for a new focus on space exploration to ensure a future for humanity.

At a speech marking 50 years of Nasa he compared the current situation to Europe before America was discovered (press notice). “Spreading out into space will have an even greater effect. It will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all,” AFP quotes him saying.

“If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will probably have to go where nobody has gone before,” he added, according to ABC.

Continue reading "Get us off this planet, says Hawking" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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