The Great Beyond

Following last years dramatic ice sheet retreat in the Arctic the world’s media has got very excited about the possibility of an ice free North Pole this year.

“The North Pole may be free of ice for the first time in history,” University of Manitoba research David Barber told Canwest News on June 23rd. “This is a very dramatic change in the High Arctic climate system.”

However this item seems to have been rather unfairly ignored, and it was the Independent’s front page item last week that really got things going. “Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole” screamed the massive headline.

Experts are bit more cautious about this claim...

Continue reading "An ice free North Pole?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The International Whaling Commission’s meeting in Chile wrapped up last week. So what happened to claims made beforehand that this meeting might make actually progress, rather than re-hashing the same old arguments?

You will be shocked to hear that peace did not break out.

Japan has become so annoyed at the resistance to controlled commercial whaling that it might pull out of the IWC altogether. “The world is witnessing the death of an international organisation,” says Japan’s delegate Glenn Inwood, whose suspiciously un-Japanese name comes from the fact he’s a native New Zealander (Daily Telegraph).

This follows a rather-predictable row at the meeting, where Australia’s environment minister Peter ‘Burning Beds’ Garrett said Japan’s current whaling, which it claims is for scientific purposes, is “in reality commercial whaling operations prohibited by the moratorium” (ABC Radio Australia).

Other IWC meeting news

Greenland’s attempt to gain permission for indigenous whaling of humpbacks was rejected (Daily Telegraph, AP).

Australia’s opposition party brands meeting a failure for government and Garrett (ABC, The Age)

National Geographic asks ‘Why Is Japan Whaling's Bogeyman When Norway Hunts Too?’ A Greenpeace spokesperson replies Japan is the “head of the zombie and needs to be cut off”. What the Norwegians feel about being relegated to miscellaneous zombie body parts is not reported.

The BBC still thinks peace will win out.

Image: NOAA

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The US government is to pay $5.8 million to a bio-defence researcher named as a ‘person of interest’ in the 2001 anthrax incidents.

In return Steven Hatfill has agreed to drop his claim that his privacy was violated by government officials (background on Wikipedia).

Steven Hatfill was identified in the press as a suspect in the incidents, and was at one point under 24-hour surveillance. Earlier this year US Judge Reggie Walton said, “There is not a scintilla of evidence that would indicate that Dr Hatfill had anything to do with this.” (LA Times).

Despite agreeing to pay Hatfill millions in an out of court settlement the US Justice Department issued the following statement:

The United States does not admit to any violation of the Privacy Act and continues to deny all liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill’s claims. (AP, and others.)

Continue reading "US pays $5.8 million in anthrax lawsuit" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Chinese authorities have finally admitted that a photo of a super-rare South China Tiger was faked.

Doubts have been aired before about the veracity of the photo, which was unveiled to great fanfare last year.

Now the photographer, farmer Zhou Zhenglong, has been arrested for fraud and his reward of 20,000 Yuan (about $3,000) has been revoked.

According to China Daily Zhou allegedly used a photo of the tiger borrowed from another farmer to create his fakes. To add credence to his clams he also allegedly used a wooden model of a paw to create tiger footprints.

Reuters points out that this is the latest scandal of official endorsements of wildlife photos. “In February, the chief editor of a Chinese newspaper quit after one its photographers faked a prize-winning photo of endangered Tibetan antelopes appearing unfazed by a passing train on the Qinghai-Tibet railway,” it notes. See this Nature Correspondence from the zoologists investigating the impact of the railway on wildlife for more on this.

With the news about the Amazon 'lost tribe' photos that were actually no such thing still fresh, it seems you just can't trust photographers any more.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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What's been on The Great Beyond this week, plus a few extras...

Continue reading "Weekly round up" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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This week there are 56,400 fewer unique species in the sea thanks to humans. Don’t get depressed though; this is a good news story.

The Census of Marine Life has announced that its huge list of marine species is half-way to completion, with over 120,000 species validated. As part of this process the scientists putting together the World Register of Marine Species have identified 56,400 aliases, including 56 for just one species: the Breadcrumb sponge, or Halichondria panacea*,

“Convincing warnings about declining fish and other marine species must rest on a valid census,” says Mark Costello, co-founder of the register (press release pdf). “... It will eliminate the misinterpretation of names, confusion over Latin spellings, redundancies and a host of other problems that sow confusion and slow scientific progress.”

Continue reading "Ocean census reveals the beast with 56 names" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A massive outbreak of algae is threatening to destroy the Chinese Olympics’ sailing event.

The sea off the city of Qingdao has been turned green by the algae and a vast number of fishing boats have been drafted in to deal with the problem. Have a look at AP’s photo gallery for an idea of the scale of the problem, which has led both AFP and Bloomberg to note that this is not quite the ‘green Olympics’ China had in mind.

“It’s a climatic disaster and we can only hope the heavens will be kind to us in August,” Wang Haitao, sailing spokesman for the games told Bloomberg. “We can only haul the blue-green algae manually and we're doing all we can with our arms full and by the boat-load.”

Michael Jones, director of Australia’s sailing team, says the boats should be able to deal with the problem. They have previous experience, he told Radio Australia.

“First year we were there we had a massive problem with jellyfish. I have just never seen so many jellyfish and the size and density of them in my life, and so again they mobilised a fleet of, we are talking 200-300 so of junk type boats, and they just worked day and night trawled the area.”

AFP points out that Qingdao means Green Island.

Image: stock photo / Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The Spanish parliament is to back legal rights for great apes, that’s gorillas, chimpanzees and orangs.

The parliament’s environmental committee has thrown its weight behind the Great Ape Project, which aims to provide apes with a “the right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture”. As the resolution passed by the committee on Wednesday has cross-party support it is expected to become law, says Reuters, and experiments on great apes will be outlawed.

Although there are not thought to be any such experiments taking place there is no law stopping them in Spain. Legislation will also outlaw their use in shows and circuses and the animals may only be kept in conservation centres. However the government has denied this amounts to ‘human rights for apes’ (El Pais).

Continue reading "Spain to give apes rights" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The Exxon Valdez oil spill just got a lot less costly, for Exxon at least. America’s highest court has slashed a fine imposed on the company from $2.5 billion to $507 million (Supreme Court pdf).

The case concerned punitive damages on the company, rather than compensation for real damage. The court found that these punitive damages could not exceed the value that had already been put on compensation, which was $507 million.

The money would have gone to fishermen and native Alaskans, and it had already been reduced from an initial award of $5 billion. While commerce groups and Exxon have welcomed the decision, the ruling has not gone down well in some other quarters.

Liberal group People for the American Way, for example, say: “Exxon was responsible for one of the greatest environmental disasters our country has seen, and the Supreme Court let them off with a slap on the wrist.”

Ross Mullins, fisherman and founder of the Prince William Sound Fishermen Plaintiffs' Committee, told the Dallas Morning News, “It is so depressing to me that this case has finally come to this place. My faith in our legal and political system is at a very low point.”

Exxon-Mobil’s 2007 profits were just over $40 billion and the highest ever for a US corporation.

Alaskan responses below the fold.

Continue reading "Valdez spill fine slashed" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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It’s been far too long since the Great Beyond had a pretty space picture. Today’s is newly released by the Gemini Observatory and shows conjoined spiral galaxies 90 million light years away and 60,000 light years apart.

NGC 5427 (left) and NGC 5426 (right) are linked by an “intergalactic bridge” which the observatory says acts as a feeding tube so they can share gas and dust. They’re already too close for comfort and the observatory’s press release says “the mutual pull of gravity has already begun to alter and distort their visible features”.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Fossils of a four-legged fish have filled in our understanding of the evolution of land-based vertebrates.

Initially described in 1994, early specimens of Ventastega curonica were fragmented, and hard to interpret. New examples from Latvia have now allowed researchers to reconstruct the head, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the ugly looking beast (press release, research paper in Nature).

The editor’s summary in Nature notes that the new work shows Ventastega has the skull shape of an early tetrapod but the proportions of a fish. It provides new insights in the evolution of early land-dwelling vertebrates (called tetrapods) some 370 million years ago in the Late Devonian period.

"From a distance, it would have looked like an alligator,” says study author Per Ahlberg, of Uppsala University in Sweden (BBC). “But closer up, you would have noticed a real tail fin at the back end, a gill flap at the side of the head; also lines of pores snaking across head and body. In terms of construction, it had already undergone most of the changes from fish towards land animal, but in terms of lifestyle you are still looking at an animal that is habitually aquatic.”

Ahlberg speculates that it was crawling around on sandy banks and eating stranded fish in tidal creeks (AP).

Ted Daeschler, paleontologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, explains to National Geographic that although we have a general outline of the transition between fish and tetrapods there’s a lot we don’t know. It’s like building a house, he says: “We’ve got the frame built. We know what the rooms are shaped like. But we haven’t put in the electricity, installed the lamps, or put Sheetrock on the walls.”

Picture upper: Philip Renne and Per Ahlberg
Picture lower: Ventastega in side view / Per Ahlberg

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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At Nature we recently got very excited by the platypus genome, and now another important genome sequencing project has been announced.

Not quite so important from a biological science perspective, but important to millions of sweet toothed people and the developing-country farmers who rely on their appetites. The US Agricultural Research Service has announced a new partnership with IBM and Mars (of the bars fame) to sequence the cacao genome in five years.

Mars is putting up the money and IBM is going to use one of its supercomputers to analyse the genome. An end result could be drought and disease resistant cacao trees with higher yields.

“Sequencing the genomes of agriculture crops is a critical step if we want to better understand and improve a crop,” says Judy St. John or the US Department of Agriculture (Reuters).

I was initially worried that Mars might end up owning the genome of chocolate. But according to the NY Times the results will be freely available through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture.

For those interested in such things, the platypus genome was picked up as a story by about 350 news websites. So far the chocolate genome story has featured on about 170.

IBM video announcement

Headline watch
Unwrapping the Chocolate Genome – Washington Post
Another genome project? Sweet . . . – The Chronicle Herald
Sweet deal: Companies and U.S. team up to map cocoa DNA – Retuers

Image: Punchstock

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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In a little over 50 days a land speed record may be broken on the salt flats of Utah. In an unusual twist though the Inspiration car will not attempt to beat the jet-powered Thrust SSC’s 1,200 km per hour.

This is a steam-powered record attempt.

Officially unveiled yesterday after years of development, Inspiration will use liquefied petroleum gas to turn a tonne of water into steam, hopefully powering it up to 280 km per hour. Currently the record stands at 230 kmph.

The Guardian thinks it’s a ‘flying kettle’. Popular Mechanics says it’s ‘Jules-Verne-meets-Batmobile’. And of course, there is an eco-aspect to this. The people behind the project say:

With growing public concern about the buildup of toxic and smog producing gasses produced by internal combustion engines, a trend is emerging toward more ecologically friendly technologies for such sectors as public and private transportation. ...

With these issues in mind, the decision was made to create a vehicle that would set a new land speed record, incorporating new technologies to bring excitement to the arena of ecologically friendly technologies. In the process of setting the land speed record it is hoped that additional attention to green vehicle technologies will be generated.

“I’m not saying we're all going to be driving steam cars but the technology could have other uses,” says engineer Matt Candy (Guardian).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A student in America has worked out how to turn his face into a remote control.

PhD student Jacob Whitehill, of UC San Diego, used facial recognition technology to monitor the expressions of test subjects watching video lectures. By detecting confusion, he believes, lectures can be slowed or even replayed over difficult sections.

“If I am a student dealing with a robot teacher and I am completely puzzled and yet the robot keeps presenting new material, that's not going to be very useful to me,” says Whitehill (press release). “If, instead, the robot stops and says, ‘Oh, maybe you’re confused,’ and I say, ‘Yes, thank you for stopping,’ that’s really good.”

In a paper to presented at an upcoming conference he reports that his system predicts subjects' self-reported difficulty scores correctly 42% of the time. It’s not quite so good at preferred viewing speed, with only 29% accuracy on this.

Only eight people were involved in the pilot study, where Whitehill confirmed results from previous research showing that people blink less during difficult parts of the lecture. So there’s a lot of work left to do, but Whitehill believes his system could be trained to react to individual users’ expressions.

Are Californian students really too lazy to use a remote? Any readers from that demographic are welcome to comment on this question below.

More
Video of the face-mote
Whitehill’s work on automatic attractiveness detection and its online dating potential
“Developing a Practical Smile Detector”

Image: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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According to the New York Times the White House has come up with a novel way of avoiding potentially tricky environment reports: not opening its mail.

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

The Times goes on to say that the documents resulted from a Supreme Court decision that the EPA had to decide if greenhouse gases were a danger to health or the environment. After being confined to “e-mail limbo” a watered-down report with no conclusion will come out this week, it says.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Hundreds of California’s endemic plants could be driven out of the state by climate change, according to a new study.

Researchers calculated that two-thirds of the plants could have their range reduced by 80% by 2100. Changes in rainfall and higher temperatures will drive redwoods north and send oaks packing for the Oregon border, say the authors of a new paper in PLOS One.

“Part of me can’t believe that California's flora will collapse over a period of 100 years," says study author David Ackerly. “It’s hard to comprehend the potential impacts of climate change. We haven't seen such drastic changes in the last 200 years of human history, since we have been cataloguing species.”

The researchers looked at data from 16 state plant collections and used two climate models to see where Californian species would have to move to survive. They say we should prepare for the change by establishing corridors between several potential “refuges” for species, such as mountain foothills.

Continue reading "Californian plants can’t take the heat" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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This is one of the best chemistry videos, nay one of the best videos, full stop, I’ve ever seen.

The video accompanies a paper (abstract here, subscription needed for full paper) in Organic Letters about a photochromic molecule (one that can change between different forms when hit by light of some kind) that flips back and forth really quickly when UV light is shone on it.

The molecule changes from colourless to green, and that’s pretty much the best thing about it – so look at the video.

If you want to know more about the chemistry, which you might, then I can tell you that the molecules are hexaaryldiimidazole derivatives, and are a cyclic systems containing naphthalene units.

These kind of materials are used in spectacle lenses that change colour in bright lights. But really, just watch the video, that’s all you need to know.

[Hat tip: The Chem Blog]

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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After getting the scoop of a lifetime last week – finding ice – Phoenix is now ready to start doing some experiments of the chemical kind (press release).

This is the first ever chemistry experiment to be done on polar Martian soil. But I don’t think Phoenix will be using pipettes and test tubes, or even a Bunsen burner.

Phoenix’s lab is called MECA (microscopy, electrochemistry and conductivity analyzer) and will be able to test the Martian soil’s acidity and salt content, and the instrument can also check out the different isotopes of elements present, and work out if there are any organics there.

So far, Phoenix has been digging and baking – but this foray into chemistry is a pretty exciting step forward in working out what it is really like up there.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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Crocodiles can natter before they’re even born, according to a brilliant new study.

Writing in Current Biology researchers show that baby crocs use calls from inside their eggs to synchronise their hatching. Mother crocs also listen in for the calls, and swiftly dig up buried eggs when they hear them, according to Amélie Vergne and Nicolas Mathevon of Université Jean Monnet in France.

“We can well suppose that hatching synchrony can be of vital importance for crocodiles,” says Mathevon (press release). “Indeed, most mortality occurs early in life and hatching vocalizations might well attract predators. Therefore, adult presence at the nest and its response to juvenile vocalizations may offer protection against potential predators.”

The methodology of this research is simply awesome.

Continue reading "Crocodiles talk before hatching" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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US presidential candidate John McCain has upped the green rhetoric in his fight with Barack Obama, pledging to support “heroic efforts in engineering” to reduce oil dependency.

McCain also used a speech in California yesterday to propose a $300 million prize for battery technology that could succeed current hybrid and electric cars (speech transcript, good coverage in the LA Times).

“This is one dollar for every man, woman and child in the U.S. -- a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency -- and should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs,” he said.

Other proposals from McCain in the speech include $5,000 tax credits for Americans buying zero-emission cars and the conversion of vehicles to use alcohol fuels instead of gas.

“Think of all the highest scientific endeavours of our age -- the invention of the silicon chip, the creation of the Internet, the mapping of the human genome,” said McCain in his speech. “In so many cases, you can draw a straight line back to American inventors, and often to the foresighted aid of the United States government.”

McCain’s rival Obama has previously backed government support to domestic auto industry to enable it to produce more fuel-efficient cars (Obama energy plan pdf).

Reuters quotes one of Obama’s economic advisers, Jason Furman, saying McCain “had the chance to make a difference for energy security and America's families [in Congress]. And he consistently not only didn’t make a difference but has stood in the way of the people like Senator Obama who have been trying to improve our energy security.”

Image: stock photo / John McCain 2008

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Using a clever bit of retrospective stargazing researchers have managed to date Homer’s classic work The Odyssey. Another team has used a similar technique to shift Julius Caesar back in time by a few days.

First up: The Odyssey.

Marcelo Magnasco and Constantino Baikouzis identified four astronomical events in the epic poem and calculated dates within 100 years of the fall of Troy that would fit in with the events described around Odysseus’s return home and the ensuing slaughter of men propositioning his wife. April 16, 1178 BCE was what they came up with (press release).

This is handy because it ties in with a previous theory that dates an eclipse possibly described in The Odyssey to the same date. Some have previously argued that the poem does not make reference to the eclipse at all and that the phrase “the Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world” is not an actual description of events (LA Times).

But Magnasco and Baikouzis’s work seems to offer support to the eclipse theory.

Continue reading "Look to the ancient skies..." »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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It was twenty years ago today, Dr. Hansen taught politicians to play.

Jim Hansen, the scientist who is a perpetually clear and principled voice on climate change, was back in Washington today for the 20th anniversary of his famous 1988 testimony on global warming. Back then, in a planned-to-be-sweaty hearing room during a stifling heat wave, Hansen told senators that global warming was real, it was happening, and humanity was to blame. Today, on a slightly cooler though still muggy summer day, he told most of official Washington we are now at the point of a “planetary emergency.”

Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York City, has never been one for mincing words. Recently he has been talking about how the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 385 parts per million, is far too high – and that we should be aiming instead for a maximum level of 350 parts per million. This raises eyebrows among climate analysts who think even 450 parts per million is an optimistic scenario for what society can achieve.

Still, Hansen received a warm welcome in town. At a luncheon at the National Press Club, he received a standing ovation before even speaking. (To which the thoughtful, taciturn Hansen responded: “It’s not a time to celebrate.”) In the afternoon he addressed a joint Congressional committee on global warming, citing climate tipping points such as shrinking Arctic sea ice and the potential extinction of species as reasons to act now to curb the increase in greenhouse gases. (For the text of his presentations see his website here.)

Continue reading "He wants you all to sing along" »

Posted by Alex Witze
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Some of our non-British readers may not be familiar with reality TV show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here, where D-list celebrities are slowly voted off the show by viewers.

Which means they may be slightly baffled by I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here!

Funded by the Wellcome trust as a way of getting teenagers interested in science, this is a website where school children can ask practising scientists questions. Based on their answers they can then vote for their favourites, with the scientist with the lowest number of votes being evicted.

The winner takes home £500 and (presumably) a smug grin and the first victim has just been voted off.

Below the fold – why any teenage readers should vote for Peter to win.

Already booted off is embryonic stem cell researcher Heidi.

I'd vote for Peter, who currently works on “polymers that act as artificial muscles”, just on the basis of this Q&A:

Q: what would you do if you were not a scientist?
A: Own a restaurant and be an evil Chef
Q: Is it possible for a monkey to reproduce with a human?
A: I'm not a zoologist so can't comment. Although looking at some people you often wonder!
Q: do u actually like this competition or do u think its a waste of time?
A: There has been some really interesting things discussed. It does take quite a bit of time but trying to explain science is never a waste of time. Even if only one more person decides to do science that is a plus!

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Rock music is bad for art, according to Russian researchers.

Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, says concerts in the nearby Winter Square have damaged the sculptures housed in his museum, and possibly the building itself too.

According to the Independent, Piotrovsky was so concerned that he reached an agreement with the Rolling Stones to keep the noise down when they played in the square last year. The paper says he was “distressed” when Paul McCartney’s 2004 concert shook the museum’s windows (and maybe also by the fact he played some Wings numbers, but that’s my speculation).

According to a currently unpublished three-year study from the museum, every 10 concerts above 82 decibels “add an extra year” to the life of the work, say both the Daily Telegraph and the Independent (in suspiciously similar sentences – below the fold). In terms of artificial aging, rather than expanding lifetime, presumably.

Rock concerts can easily top 100 decibels and many places that host them have sculptures: the Independent cites Somerset House and Knebworth in the UK. Before we once again blame the evils of the world on rock music though, it’s worth noting a performance off Wagner can top 90 decibels.

Continue reading "Bringing the house down" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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What’s the worst thing that could happen from an outbreak at a top-security bio lab? According to the US Department of Homeland Security, over $4 billion of damage. And although it’s unlikely, outbreaks do happen.

The US wants to build a new ‘National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility’ to conduct research on livestock diseases at the highest level of security – biosafety level 4.

As the report website seems to be down at the moment, here’s a quote from it as detailed in the Kansas City Star:

The risk of an accidental release of a pathogen is extremely low, but the economic effect could be significant for all sites. Response measures to minimize risks and quickly contain any accidental release would also greatly reduce the potential economic loss.

At the moment there are no labs in the US for BSL-4 livestock work, says DHS. Existing government facilities on Plum Island, New York, are too small and have “an outdated physical structure that makes it unsuitable for zoonotic disease research that must be conducted at the highest level of biosafety”.

But, as AP has reported, a new environmental impact statement on possible locations says putting the new lab in Kansas or Texas could mean damage of over $4 billion in the unlikely even of an outbreak from the lab. This compares badly to the $2.8 billion cost of an outbreak from Plum Island.

Continue reading "New lab comes with $4bn outbreak risk" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator at CERN near Geneva, have taken a bit of time off from trying to get their shiny new toy up and running to address concerns that it might inadvertently destroy the planet. Their conclusion? It won't.

For those in need of an reminder, Walter Wagner, a Hawaiian botanist-cum-physicist indicted in February for identity theft, is suing the LHC and its partners because, he says, the particle accelerator could destroy the earth any one of a number of ways. It might create microscopic black holes that could swallow us all. Or it could make particles called "strangelets" that will turn the entire earth into a big blob of "strange" matter.

The new report rightly points out that there are plenty of places in the universe where particles collide at far higher energies than they will in LHC. There are also collisions right here in our upper atmosphere caused by cosmic rays—high-energy particles from deep space. So far at least, none of this has caused the planet to vanish.

To physicists, this whole debate is pretty silly, but it's good that they're taking the time to respond. Wagner and his cronies have been getting a lot of press, and it's important that the public know that the LHC is the least of the world's problems.

Image: CERN

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
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What's been on The Great Beyond this week, plus a few extras...

Continue reading "Weekly round up " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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