The Great Beyond

The first survey of emissions from commercial shipping has shown them to be big dirty beasts. Daniel Lack from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) measured emissions from ships in the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. He estimated from this that globally ships emit 0.9 teragrams of particle pollution annually. (Press release)

But the resulting effect on the climate seems confusing. As reported by Bloomberg, the particulates, including sulfates, organics, cloud condensation nuclei, that commercial carriers spew out act to cool the atmosphere. This effect, the authors say, outweighs the warming effect of ships’ carbon dioxide emissions five-fold. (Bloomberg story).

Lack looked at differences between newer, cleaner low-sulfur fuel and the standard high-sulfur fuels. Sulfur makes up half of the particulates. “Fortunately, engines burning ‘cleaner,’ low-sulfur fuels tend to require less complex lubricants. So the sulfur fuel regulations have the indirect effect of reducing the organic particles emitted,” said Lack’s co-author James Corbett from the University of Delaware.

Last year, the greenhouse emissions of ships were revealed, and Nature has also reported on what the future of shipping might look like (pretty PDF, subscription needed).

Shipping has been a little overlooked so far in global environmental budgets, but here is yet more evidence that ships are major sources of pollutants. (That is, of course, unless they all switched to using giant kites to propel themselves.)

Image: NOAA

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

A black fungus is eating away at spectacular prehistoric cave drawings in France, and a team of scientists has convened in Paris to figure out a solution.

The Lascaux cave in southwest France, known as the "Sistine Chapel of Prehistory", contains 17,000-year-old drawings of horses, bulls, and ibexes (AFP). A white fungus called Fusarium solani that began spreading in 2001 was treated with fungicides and antibiotics, only to be followed by an outbreak of the black Ulocladium fungus.

Continue reading "Killer fungus devouring art: What to do?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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“Patents whose procedures are hard to reproduce are familiar to every industrial chemist, unfortunately, but coming across one that seems completely mistaken in its most important details is rare. And this is the first time I’ve seen one of these dragged out into the open literature for a give-and-take with the original authors about whether they’re delusional or not.”
Chemist Derek Lowe looks over a spat between researchers (In the pipeline blog).

“It had grabbed the tube that pulls out the water and caused it to spray outside the tank.”
Nick Fash, of the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, explains how an octopus came to flood the facility (LA Times).

“Thanks to lessons learnt in crane school we now have the feathery-fingered skills to raise crane chicks.”
Debbie Pain, director of conservation at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, on plans to reintroduce cranes to the UK (Daily Telegraph).

“In hospital they told me that I was very very lucky.... I still have all my fingers but it could up end really worse if the magnets collided in a other way.”
The dangers of neodymium magnets explained by ‘Dirk from the Netherlands’ (Magnet Nerd).
WARNING – NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH, LINK CONTAINS ACCIDENT PHOTOS.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A German group named after a famous heretic has decided to celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday by campaigning to have the Ascension Day public holiday renamed ‘Evolutionstag’ (Evolution Day).

Ascension Day is when many Christians celebrate supposed return of Jesus to heaven, it normally falls in May. As Spiegel notes in its coverage of the campaign, most holidays in Germany have Christian roots, although a third of the population is atheist.

The Giordano Bruno Foundation, which is behind Evolutionstag, says it is time for a secular holiday. (Bruno advocated heliocentrism and was burned as the stake in 1600, although many believe this was more to do with his unorthodox views of god than his astronomy musing.)

To spread their message they’ve made this song.

[Hat tip: Pharyngula]

Below the fold: Previously on Songs about Science

Continue reading "Songs about Science XV: You can’t fool the children of evolution" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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There is much excitement – and no small number of puns – greeting the news that ancient footprints found in Kenya show our distant ancestors were striding around on feet very like ours some 1.5 million years ago.

Writing in Science, researchers report that after laser scanning the sets of prints, they concluded these are “the oldest evidence of an essentially modern human–like foot anatomy”. While the famous Laetoli prints from Tanzania are substantially older, at 3.75 million years, those prints showed a more ape-like foot.

Study leader Matthew Bennett, of Bournemouth University in the UK, notes the importance of the find in the Times:

Now we know that 1.5 million years ago, Homo erectus had feet with an anatomy very similar to modern humans. It could essentially walk with the same biomechanical efficiency as you or I.

Continue reading "Ancient footprints make a big impression" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Science grants rise with stimulus spending
Extra money has researchers scrambling to join the queue.

African grant comes with no strings attached
Carte blanche for Malawi and Kenya to spend health research funds from international donors.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

US federal authorities have accused a scientist and his family of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from NASA to buy cars and real estate.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) searched the office of Samim Anghaie, a professor of radiological engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, on Wednesday. University spokesman Steve Orlando said the FBI also searched the school's Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, which Anghaie founded (CNN). The university has put Anghaie on leave without pay (Orlando Sentinel).

A research company founded by Anghaie and his family, called New Era Technology or NETECH, allegedly submitted fraudulent proposals and invoices to NASA, according to court documents. Anghaie's wife, Sousan Anghaie, is president of the company. Court documents say that NETECH has won 13 government contracts since 1999 and has received almost $3.4 million from NASA, the Air Force, and the Department of Energy (AP).

Investigators allege that hundreds of thousands of dollars was funneled from NETECH's corporate account into the Anghaies' personal bank accounts and used to buy six vehicles, as well as property in Gainesville, Connecticut, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa (Gainesville Sun). Authorities have warrants to seize the family's cars, bank accounts, and real estate. Anghaie and his wife have not been arrested, the US Attorney's office in Tallahassee said Wednesday.

Anghaie earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Pennsylvania State University and has worked at the University of Florida for nearly 30 years. He has served on advisory boards and panels for NASA, the National Research Council, the US Department of Energy, and the US Department of Defense (Chronicle of Higher Education news blog). Anghaie currently has two NASA grants at the University of Florida to study nuclear-powered space travel.

Posted by Alex Witze
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“We can do personalized genetics on these dogs. We’ve found out a lot about how to study disease.”
Gordon Lark, of the University of Utah, approves of Barack Obama’s choice of pooch for the White House, a choice Wired calls ‘solidly scientific’.

“This puts us in a pretty good position to launch by the middle of the month.”
Allard Beutel, a spokesman at Kennedy Space Center, comments on a new 12 March launch date for the next space shuttle mission (Gannett News Service).

"The review will be conducted by eminent representatives of the science and policy domains from the EU and US."
The European Union notes that Elias Zerhouni, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, is to sit on a panel charged with reviewing the European Research Council’s structure and funding mechanisms. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia from 1999-20007 and a former professor of psychology, will chair the panel, which also includes David Sainsbury, the UK’s former science minister.

“If people enjoy using these games, then they should continue to do so - that's a no-brainer. But if people are under the illusion that these devices are scientifically proven to keep their minds in shape, they need to think again.”
Martyn Hocking, editor of consumer magazine Which?, comments after a “panel of experts” concludes there is no evidence playing Brain Training games actually improve memory (Guardian).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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If you were an arms manufacturer – sorry “global defence company” – would you sponsor a science event called ‘The Big Bang’?

Well BAE Systems did. And campaigning group Scientists for Global Responsibility is not happy about it.

“The high-profile involvement of BAE Systems in this event sends completely the wrong message to young people,” says Stuart Parkinson, executive director of the group. “It encourages them to associate science and technology with war, the arms trade and nuclear weapons.”

Continue reading "BAE’s Big Bang" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Cross posted from Nature Climate Feedback.

March 1 marks the official end of the 2-year-long International Polar Year so the news team at Nature is taking the opportunity to look back at the US $1.2 billion research program, which involved over 60 nations. A leader urges nations to build upon the achievements of the IPY and to carry out some of its unfinished business. In a feature story, Quirin Schiermeier assesses the overall polar year and looks forward toward some of the challenges ahead. A second feature by me surveys research in the Arctic that integrated indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge. And a gallery feature by our art department spectacularly illustrates some of the projects at both poles, while evoking the sense of a remote research outpost. The photos and news in that gallery bring back memories of previous visits I’ve made to stations in Greenland and Antarctica.

The IPY leaders have produced their own 16-page report, available here, summarizing some of the key research findings, many of which Nature has already reported. Finally, don’t miss a special gallery of IPY-related photos that the World Meteorological Organization has on its site.

Rich Monastersky

Image: detail from "Die Erste Deutsche Nordpolar-Expedition Im Jahre 1868" by K. Koldewey. 1871 / Treasures of the NOAA Library Collection.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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It’s a double bill on today’s edition of songs about science. First up, the Nano Song.

This is the UC Berkeley entry in the American Chemical Society’s ‘What is Nano?’ contest. "We put a lot of work into making something we hoped would be accessible and enjoyable for everyone we know who doesn't spend their life studying nanoscience," says Patrick Bennett, the scientist who directed the video, told Wired.

The next item for your delectation is the welcome return of Richard Alley, who some of you may remember for his “musical review about the problem of scarce resources” set to the tune of Proud Mary and others may remember for his glacial calving work. Via the Highly Allochthonous blog comes this geological reworking of ‘Ring of Fire’.

Below the fold: Previously on Songs about Science

Continue reading "Songs about Science XIV – Nano vs Fire" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The US Food and Drug Administration has accused India-based drug manufacturer Ranbaxy of falsifying data in both approved and pending drug applications.

All drug applications from Ranbaxy’s Paonta Sahib facility have been halted as a result, using what is known as the Application Integrity Policy. The company was warned by the FDA last year about “deviations from US current Good Manufacturing Practice”.

“The FDA’s investigations revealed a pattern of questionable data raising significant questions regarding the reliability of certain applications, and this warrants applying the Application Integrity Policy,” says Deborah Autor, director of the Office of Compliance at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a statement released yesterday. “Today’s action reflects the FDA’s continued vigilance and its steadfast commitment to safeguarding the public’s health.”

Ranbaxy says it is analysing the FDA’s letter and adds, “The FDA has said it has no evidence the drugs on the market are substandard and also that they comply with specifications upon testing. No products from Ranbaxy’s other manufacturing facilities are included in the AIP.”

Comment on the situation below the fold.

Continue reading "Ranbaxy ‘falsified drug approval data’, says FDA" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

The US National Academies is hosting a meeting on "integrative medicine" this week, and some scientists are not happy about it.

The meeting, a "Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public" held in Washington DC, bills itself as a discussion of "health care that addresses together the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of the healing process". The academies' Institute of Medicine organized the summit in partnership with the Bravewell Collaborative, a private philanthropic organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

On the agenda are topics such as social determinants of health, mind-body medicine, and continuous care for chronic disease. "The purpose of the meeting is to discuss alternatives to the current health care system, which anybody would agree is facing a tremendous crisis," says Ralph Snyderman, a rheumatologist and chancellor emeritus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who chaired the summit planning committee.

Continue reading "Integrative medicine: What's that?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Today’s space picture is another contribution from the European Southern Observatory, or the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, to use its full name. This is the Helix planetary nebula, a giant shell of gas 700 light years given off by a star dying into a white dwarf.

ESO says:

Despite being photographically very spectacular the Helix is hard to see visually as its light is thinly spread over a large area of sky and the history of its discovery is rather obscure. It first appears in a list of new objects compiled by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding in 1824. The name Helix comes from the rough corkscrew shape seen in the earlier photographs.

The resemblance of the Helix to an eye has led to this nebula being christened ‘The Eye of God’ (Telegraph, Sun).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Roberta Kwok

Researchers have linked a genetic variation to a tendency to avoid gloom. As described in a study published today, people who carry longer versions of a serotonin-related gene are drawn to pleasing images, while paying less attention to negative ones.

The gene affects levels of the mood-altering neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain, and its promoter region, called 5-HTTLPR, comes in short or long forms. Researchers took DNA samples from 97 people to determine which combination of alleles they had. They then showed pairs of pictures, one positive or negative and the other neutral, and gauged the participants' reactions.

The 16 people with two long forms of 5-HTTLPR preferred the happy images and avoided the depressing ones, the study found. Those with at least one short allele did not show the same pattern and seemed to favour the negative images, though that effect was not statistically significant.

"We have shown for the first time that a genetic variation is linked with the tendency to look on the bright side of life," says lead researcher Elaine Fox of the University of Essex, UK (press release). The findings appear in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Scientists have previously found that people with short alleles of the gene are more likely to be depressed or attempt suicide (AFP). They may also have more intense neurochemical reactions to stress.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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On this week's Nature Podcast - This week the Nature Podcast plunges into the ocean to find see-sawing temperatures and a fish fossil that sheds light on the origins of sex. We also explore the ethics of brain-machine interfaces and trace the ‘footsteps’ of migrating planets.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Social aphids Nipponaphis monzeni show a remarkable dedication to the upkeep of their homes.

The animals force plants to grow ‘galls’ of tissue inside which they reside. When these galls are damaged soldier aphids rush to the breach and explode themselves, sealing the hole with a sticky mess of aphid goo and creating a protective scab.

Takema Fukatsu and colleagues at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, investigated what happens after the scab is formed.

“Within a month after repair, the plant tissue around the hole proliferated and sealed up the hole,” they write in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“Many soldier nymphs were localized at the hole area and extermination of inhabiting aphids by insecticides aborted the gall regeneration, indicating that the gall regeneration requires inhabiting aphids, wherein soldier nymphs are likely to play a major role.”

Peter Smithers, an entomologist at the University of Plymouth, told the BBC:

This is the aphids fooling the plant into doing something that it doesn't need or want to do. It's an interesting evolved set of behaviours and physiologies that are closely linked, that have co-evolved.

But the aphids are calling the shots.

Image: gall with hole bored by researchers and then repaired (hole indicated by arrow) / Royal Society.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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“Our country's lunar exploration research and development project will be opened to all of society, bringing in a competitive mechanism.”
Chinese newspaper Guangming Daily reports that China will implement a competitive bidding system for the construction of parts of its forthcoming Moon probe (via Reuters).

“It dragged me across the boat and would have pulled me in had my colleague not grabbed my trousers - it was like the whole earth had just moved. I knew it was going to a big one.”
Ian Welsh was on a stingray tagging project in Thailand when he caught a big surprise (Daily Telegraph).

“If you want some truly original seating for your living room, these giant foam dinosaur bones are where it's at.”
The Dvice website has the near-perfect answer for palaeontology fans in need of a sofa.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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After John McCain’s planetarium gaffe you might have hoped that politicians would learn the following lesson: trying to score cheap points off your rivals by criticising science projects is not a good idea if you don’t understand the science.

You might have hoped, but here comes Bobby Jindal.

The Louisiana governor was giving the Republican party response to President Barack Obama’s latest speech when he criticised the stimulus package designed to get America’s economy going again. One of his gripes was that it includes “$140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.”

Continue reading "Volcano monitoring row erupts" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The ‘freaky flat-faced fish’ discovered last year near Indonesia has been confirmed as a new species. In a newly published paper Theodore Pietsch, Rachel Arnold, and David Hall admit the fish is “bizarre” and name it Histiophryne psychedelica.

Pietsch told LiveScience that where the beastie had come from was still a mystery, although it may have been living in deeper waters and recently moved into shallower depths for an unknown reason.

“It seems that some of these animals do a bit of moving up and down into deeper water,” he says. “We know they come up in shallow water to spawn and reproduce, but that cycle should’ve been noticed in past years and it really wasn’t.”

Unlike other frogfish, H. psychedelica hops rather than swims. From the paper:

Members of the genus Antennarius [frogfish] typically move short distances by ‘walking’, with the aid of pectoral and pelvic fins, or longer distances by swimming continuously from one location to the next, using a combination of jet propulsion and fin movements …, without touching bottom until they reach their final destination. In H. psychedelica, however, jet propulsion in a sustained, long-distance swimming effort was never observed. On the contrary, both individuals moved consistently in a series of short ‘hops’, the paired pelvic fins making frequent contact with, and appearing to push off, the bottom at each bounce.

As the press release puts it, psychedelica is an apt name, “given the cockamamie way the fish swim, some with so little control they look intoxicated and should be cited for DUI”. The video of the fish ‘swimming’ is well worth a watch.

Image: ©David Hall/seaphotos.com

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Nations pull together to cut mercury emissions
Nairobi meeting kicks off negotiations.

Stem-cell inaction prompts concern
Legal complexities may underlie the delay in fulfilling election pledge.

Satellite to monitor carbon sinks sinks
Orbiting Carbon Observatory crashes into sea.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Soccer fans take note: if your anger over a lost game affects your heartbeat, you could be at greater risk of developing a dangerous heart arrhythmia in the future.

The concept that rage can be risky is not entirely new. Reuters cites previous research showing that “earthquakes, war or even the loss of a World Cup Soccer match” can increase death from heart attacks.

Rachel Lampert of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and her colleagues report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that they monitored the heart rate of 62 patients with a history of heart disease. The patients were subjected to “a mental stress protocol” in which they recounted a recent event that made them angry. Those patients who experienced an anger-induced change in their heartbeats were more likely to later develop serious irregularities in their heart rate over the next year.

Before you rush out to enroll in anger management classes, there are a few points to keep in mind. The researchers began with a pool of patients who were already vulnerable to heart arrhythmia. And what they’ve found is a correlation, but doesn’t establish causation. So whether those anger-induced affects on the heart actually contributed to future arrhythmia remains unclear.

That said, a little anger management never hurts. CNN offers a few tips from the Mayo Clinic in its story.

Posted by Heidi Ledford
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When it comes to hot-button issues like global warming, advocates often play fast and loose with facts. A few examples of that trend have popped up in recent weeks, with different outcomes.

The syndicated columnist George Will argued in the Washington Post this month that scientists were suffering from “eco-pessimism” and were wrongly predicting calamitous effects from climate change. As evidence, he pointed to the case of sea-ice and whether recent trends are attributable to human-induced global warming. Will referenced the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, claiming that this outfit reported “global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”

Continue reading "Who Needs the Cold Facts?" »

Posted by Richard Monastersky
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As Europe approves the blood thinning drug prasugrel, a nasty smell is emerging from America about the drug’s potential approval there.

The much criticised Food and Drug Administration, which will have to approve or reject the product, has admitted making a mistake by booting one researcher off a panel considering the drug.

Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, says researcher Sanjay Kaul was removed from the panel after prasugrel’s manufacturer Eli Lilly complained about research papers in which he questioned the drug’s safety (Bloomberg).

The drug ended up being approved by the panel by nine votes for versus none against.

“Basically, this was a mistake,” Woodcock told HeartWire. “And like many other errors, there were a series of small errors that led up to this happening.”

In a letter to the FDA, James Floyd and Sidney Wolfe of the consumer group non-profit Public Citizen, write:

Now, more than ever, the FDA needs to clarify and disclose to the public how it defines “intellectual bias” and the policy and procedures by which it decides to exclude members of Advisory Committees based on such perceived bias. The case of Dr. Kaul creates the appearance of a lack of such a policy, or the flawed execution of one if it exists.

Tamara Hull, a Lilly spokeswoman, told Bloomberg, “Panel membership is at the sole discretion of the FDA. We made the FDA aware that Dr. Kaul had previously published abstracts and made many public statements regarding prasugrel.”

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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“The Formula That Killed Wall Street”
Wired looks at the maths behind the credit crunch.

“Now you have an opportunity within this crisis, so let the experiment begin.”
Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, in the Guardian’s special report ‘can economic rescue plans also save planet?’

Video: Oktapodi
They may not have won the Oscar they were up for, but the team behind this octopus romance animation have produced perhaps the best thing on the internet [hat tip: Newsweek].

“She was a major force in the field of finding near-Earth asteroids, discovering or co-discovering almost 900 asteroids in her lifetime, as well as several comets.”
Phil Plait comments on ‘asteroid hunter’ Eleanor Helin, who died recently (Bad Astronomy).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for David Cyranoski

A big thumbs up for the Beijing Olympics. That was the conclusion of a Final Environmental Assessment released by the United Nations Environmental Programme on February 18 during its Governing Council Meeting in Nairobi (February 16-20).

For a city whose visitors have, over the past decade, rarely left without complaining about the air, it is quite an accomplishment.

China had made big promises ahead of the Olympics.

Continue reading "A big thumbs up for the Beijing Olympics" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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You can’t put it much more succinctly than the excellent Deep Sea Research blog does: “Scientists Solve The Mystery Of Why This Fish Is So Freakin’ Crazy.”

The fish in question is the barrel-eye (Macropinna microstoma). The ‘freakin’ craziness’ is that is has upward pointing tubular eyes that can rotate inside its own transparent head.

Previously, researchers had apparently not realised that the eyes could rotate, leaving them scratching their own non-transparent heads as to why a fish would want eyes that could only look directly upwards, and are thus not very useful for getting food into their under-slung mouths.

They mystery was solved when Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler used remotely operated vehicles from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and observed that the fish could rotate its eyes. They also noticed the transparent head, which had been destroyed on previously described specimens (press release).

“The eyes are contained within a transparent shield that covers the top of the head and may provide protection for the eyes from the tentacles of cnidarians, one of the apparent sources of the food of Macropinna,” write the authors.

As Reisenbichler told Fox35, the fish will attempt to swipe food that has been caught by jellyfish, and the shield may stop them getting stung. “Its a very elegant means of collecting food that it would be very hard to make a story of if you hadn't seen it,” he said.

The paper describing this work was published last year in Copeia. Videos are below the fold.

Continue reading "Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peepers?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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This inquisitive-looking individual is one of four endangered Saharan cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus hecki) snapped by camera traps in Algeria.

Researchers from the Zoological Society of London, the Office du Parc National de l’Ahaggar and the Université de Béjaïa set up camera traps over 2,800 square km of the Sahara to identify these animals.

The current ‘red list’ of threatened animals lists these cheetahs as ‘critically endangered', with a total population of fewer than 250 adults and no subpopulation larger than 50 adults. The red list adds that up-to-date estimates for population abundances in Ahaggar are needed, which these photos take us someway towards.

“This is an incredibly rare and elusive subspecies of cheetah and current population estimates ... are based on guesswork,” says Farid Belbachir, who is running the survey (press release). “This study is helping us to turn a corner in our understanding, providing us with information about population numbers, movement and ecology.”

Coverage
Rare cheetah caught on camera trap in Sahara – Daily Telegraph
Rare cheetah captured on camera – BBC

Headline watch
Spotted: rare pictures of desert cheetah – Times

Image: © Farid Belbachir/ZSL/OPNA

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Many of Washington's top power brokers gathered at the Newseum for four hours Monday, hoping to present a unified front on energy and climate. They made it look easy: Absolutely everybody agreed that building a more efficient and advanced electric grid will create jobs, enable renewable energy development, enhance national security security and help address global warming.

"I'm struck by the tone of this meeting, and the sense of purpose," said former US Vice President Al Gore. His former boss, Bill Clinton, followed up with a similar sentiment and then added: "Finally, we've got a consensus to move." Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called the meeting "inspirational."

So what's holding things up? As Clinton went on to acknowledge, "details matter." For all of the agreement about achieving a future powered by clean domestic energy, there are plenty of disputes about exactly what that means and how to get there.

People matter, too. While the list of attendees included much of the American left, including Congressional leaders and White House appointments, as well as representatives of business, labor and the environmental community, Republican lawmakers were nowhere to be found.

The meeting represents a confluence of interests, most notably between the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund and the oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, who is pushing a plan to develop wind and domestic natural gas resources in place of imported oil. Organizers say the purpose was to build support and showcase the growing coalition of interests.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Reid confirmed that senators would take up legislation creating a new federal requirement for renewable energy production in the coming weeks, before tackling global warming later in the year. Doing so simplifies things and gives Democrats time to garner more Republican support, he said. "We do not what global warming legislation to be a Democratic bill. We want it to be a bipartisan bill."

Reid also announced his support for increasing federal government's role in siting transmission lines (see coverage here and here), another divisive issue that frequently gets in the way of otherwise friendly discussions about bolstering the electric grid. Asked about likely opposition from state and local regulators, however, Reid appeared a little less concerned about unity: "Whatever we pass at the federal level trumps all of that."

Posted by Jeff Tollefson
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"The archive presents all of the negatives we hold from twenty-five separate expeditions."
Heather Lane, librarian at the Scott Polar Research Institute, discusses making photos from historic arctic missions available online (BBC).

"He was a very intuitive character, and although he was not an academic he understood the value of education in general and higher education in particular."
David Greenaway, vice-chancellor of the University of Nottingham, remembers Lord Dearing, who died recently (Times Higher Education).

"There was just a sense of unease that we did not quite have the rigor that we typically expect for a question like this."
John Shannon, space shuttle programme manager, discusses why the next mission has been delayed (AP).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

A federal terrorism task force has arrested four people accused of participating in violent protests and threats against university researchers in California. Two were arrested in North Carolina on Thursday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the others were arrested in California on Friday (press release).

Three of the suspects are accused of an attempt to invade a University of California, Santa Cruz researcher's home in February 2008, which resulted in the researcher's husband being hit by an object. Investigators also claim evidence shows that three suspects helped produce and distribute fliers listing names and contact information for UC researchers, with a message saying "beware we know where you live".

Continue reading "American animal rights activists arrested" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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India is following up its Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission with a billion dollar plan to put astronauts into orbit.

The Indian Planning Commission has reportedly signed off a $2.5 billion plan to follow an unmanned orbiter in 2013-2014 with a manned mission in 2014-2015. This is actually slightly less ambitious than some of the rumours that were circulating when Chandrayaan launched, which had India putting people on the Moon by 2015.

“We are planning to put persons in the vehicle and launch them into space for seven days in an orbit of 275 km,” says K Radhakrishnan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (various).

The London Times says that although the Indian Cabinet still has to sign off the plan this is a formality now the commission has approved it.

While the merits of manned space programmes can – and will – be debated till everyone is blue in the face, it’s nice to see some new players on the space scene. After all, there’s space for everyone up there (so long as you’re careful).

Image: launch of Chandrayaan-1 / ISRO via Wikipedia

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Pope Benedict XVI praised genetic science at a conference at the Vatican on Saturday.

He said such research had led to improvements in medicine and added that the human genome “allowed a glimpse of the possibility of new conquests”. However he also warned of the dangers of using genetics to discriminate.

“From the time that the laws of heredity were discovered in the middle of the 19th century by the Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel, who has been considered the founder of genetics, this science has truly taken giant steps in understanding the language at the basis of biological information, which determines the development of a living being,” he said (transcript via Zenit).

“… This knowledge, the fruit of the genius and toil of countless scholars, make it possible to more easily arrive at not only a more effective and early diagnosis of genetic maladies, but also to create therapies to alleviate the contraction of illnesses and, in some cases, to restore, in the end, the hope of regaining health.”

On a less positive note, the pope said that “all forms of discrimination exercised by any one power over persons or populations based on real or presumed genetic factors is an attack on all of humanity” (Vatican Radio). According to AP, he again cautioned against pre-implantation screening of embryos for conditions such as cystic fibrosis.

Reuters quotes him as saying: “Certainly, the eugenistic and racial ideologies that in the past humiliated man and provoked immense suffering are not being proposed again, but a new mentality is creeping in that tends to justify a different consideration of life and personal dignity.”

Image: via Wikipedia under creative commons.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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New antibodies block a range of influenzas
Discovery hints at the possibility of broad-spectrum vaccines.

Briefing: Iran's nuclear plans
Do a satellite launch and a tonne of enriched uranium add up to an arsenal?

Child abuse leaves lasting 'scars' on DNA
Lingering marks on DNA could amplify stress responses.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Both the Guardian and Australia’s ABC news have picked up on last week’s Nature story by K. S. Jayaraman about India’s moves to protect traditional knowledge by allowing European patent officers to check new patents against a database of historical remedies.

The database details ancient treatments from systems such as Ayurveda and Yoga and it is hoped it will ensure companies cannot patent things which have been used in India for generations. “We are trying to establish the claim on traditional cures,” Vinod Kumar Gupta, of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, told Jayaraman.

Continue reading "India moves to protect traditional medicine" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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For years researchers warned that fishing practices threatened the survival of most species of albatross.

The birds die in huge numbers after being attracted to long-line fishing boats. Attempting to eat baits being thrown overboard to catch tuna, they become caught on hooks and are dragged underwater and drowned. As students of English literature and music will know, killing an albatross is not a good move.

But now conservationists are celebrating a rare success story, with the news that the albatross appears to have been saved from looming extinction. A scheme that brings together fishermen, government and conservation groups is being credited with reducing albatross deaths from fisheries by 85% since 2007 (BBC, Times, Independent).

Continue reading "Albatross ‘saved from extinction’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BP is teaming up with Verenium to build a commercial-scale cellulosic biofuels plant that produces 36 million US gallons of ethanol a year, though the first drops won't emerge from pipes until 2012. It's one of the largest cellulosic plants to be announced thus far (along with Mascoma's 40 million gallon proposal for Michigan); Reuters has a helpful list of all open and planned US cellulosic plants, for comparison.

The scale of these grown-up cellulosic plants seems staggering: it will take 20,000 acres (8,000) hectares of sorghum grass planted across Highlands County, South Florida, to feed the behemoth. Such plants can't get much larger, or it won't be practical to grow all the feedstock. A federal mandate, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, requires fuel wholesalers to use 1 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2013, but analyst Ron Oster tells Environmental Capital (a Wall Street Journal blog) that "There is no way at all that will happen."

Verenium say they are hoping to produce fuel at $2 a gallon - on a par with gasoline - though the building cost alone is estimated to be between $250 and $300 million. And the two companies said they planned to build another full-scale facility in the Gulf Coast.

"It signals that the most sophisticated players in the industry are looking at this ... it's not just curious science but a real contributor," Carlos Riva, chief executive of Verenium, told reporters [The Guardian]. So far the partners have put $45 million into a 50-50 joint venture company.

Image: Sorghum/ wikimedia commons

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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If you’re enlisting the help of scientists to write a guide explaining genetically modified (GM) crops for the general public, should you declare in detail all their industrial interests?

Sense About Science (SAS), a UK charity, is being criticised for failing to do this in its recently published booklet, Making Sense of GM [pdf]. Anti-GM campaigners and academics, the Times Higher Education (THE) reports, say the guide’s potted biographies of its contributors don’t disclose fully their links to research institutes that receive biotech cash.

But the charity doesn’t think it’s done anything wrong.

Continue reading "Everything to declare? " »

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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Lucky American readers can now get an instant carbon-guilt trip, all courtesy of Google and NASA.

Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana, with funding from NASA, have shoehorned a wealth of data on carbon dioxide emissions into the interactive globe tool that is Google Earth. It’s a timely move, given that the Environmental Protection Agency seems to be preparing to regulate carbon dioxide for the first time (NY Times) and NASA is about to launch its Orbiting Carbon Observatory (Nature Reports Climate Change).

The data for this new addition to Google Earth comes from the Vulcan system which graced this blog last year (see: ‘Vulcan’ shows carbon dioxide’s death-grip - April 08, 2008).

“From a societal perspective, Vulcan provides a description of where and when society influences climate change through fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions,” says researcher Kevin Gurney of Purdue (press release).

“Users can see their county or state in relation to others, and see what aspects of economic activity are driving fossil-fuel emissions. Vulcan could help demystify climate change and empower people in the same way as seeing the miles-per-gallon number on the dashboard of a hybrid car.”

At the moment this is limited just to the United States, although Canadian and Mexican versions are being prepared. There is not a whisper though of ‘Project Hestia’, the global version of Vulcan that is supposedly in the works.

More coverage
Google Earth maps carbon dioxide emissions – LA Times
Scientists map CO2 emissions with Google Earth – AFP
Boilermappers: Purdue Researchers Put Emissions on Google Earth – WSJ

Image: Purdue University/Google Earth

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The Japanese space agency's SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer, or Kaguya) mission has sent back a stunning movie of the Earth blocking out the Sun during a lunar eclipse - the first time such an image has been seen from the Moon. Gawp away.

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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Posted for Quirin Schiermeier
The International Polar Year 2007-2009 draws to a close, but the show must go on. Today, German science minister Annette Schavan inaugurated Germany’s new permanent Antarctic Station Neumayer III - via the safety of a video link.

The new base, built on a stilt-carried platform above the Ekstrom Icefield in northwestern Antarctica, and connected to a garage under the snow, is operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research. Nine over-wintering staff will run the station during the dark Antarctic winter. In summer, it will host up to 50 scientists and technicians, allowing for continuous field work and measurements in meteorology, geophysics and atmospheric chemistry.

Germany’s old Neumayer Station, just a few kilometres from the new base, has sunk twelve meters deep into the ice since it was built in 1992 and will have to be abandoned soon. Der Spiegel has a detailed account of how, by contrast, the new station's retractable stilts should keep it 'dancing' on the shifting ice beneath. Construction of the station, which cost around €40 million, was overshadowed by a helicopter crash last spring that claimed the lives of two people and injured three.

Image: credit to the Alfred Wegener Institute

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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China pledges to get wealthier with less water
Updating farming practices key to hitting ambitious target.

Wheat genes could help fight fungal epidemics
Scientists isolate genes that help wild wheat fend off disease.

US considers a national climate service
Programme would merge climate-change data from multiple agencies.

Posted by Mark Peplow
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Posted on behalf of David Cyranoski

A turtle in Japan may soon be fit with prosthetic fins. The 68-kilogram, 20-year-old Yu-chan, "believed to be female," was caught in a fishing net last June looking the victim of a shark attack: half her left forelimb and one-third of her right forelimb were missing. She had shark teeth-marks everywhere.

The Sea Turtle Association of Japan has been orchestrating a repair job using artificial limbs. They are set for a challenge because turtles have fragile bones, and their limbs must be flexible for land or sea travel. "There is no known successful case of artificial limbs being attached to sea turtles", says the Kyodo News.

But then again, how many times has it been tried? There's always Allison of Texas, who similarly had a run-in with a shark and got a prosthetic flipper attached to a dental bone implant (Reuters).

Turtles have also been fitted with other prosthetics. Great care, for example, went into a dentist's efforts to attach an artificial jaw to a box turtle. But overall, dogs, dolphins and other animals have been more frequent beneficiaries.

No doubt such prosthetics, drawing on what we know from human artificial limbs, are getting better. But the best advice for any beloved turtles would still be to keep them away from sharks.

Image: Kyodo

Posted by Alex Witze
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Well, I don't know how surprising it is, but the Daily Telegraph reports that Israel has been engaged in a systematic effort to undermine Iran's nuclear programme.

The Telegraph article, which has been making the rounds in Israel and elsewhere, cites a lot of unnamed military sources, which say that Israel is using a number of tactics including assassinations of Iranian scientists, sales of faulty parts and other miscellaneous subterfuge. Such activities, the article points out, are better than bombing in the current political environment.

Of course sabotaging the Iranians is a favourite sport of the world's intelligence agencies. The CIA used a couple of Swiss engineers to do it. Hell, even the Dutch supposedly gave it a shot.

One place you won't read about this secretive Israeli plot? The Tehran Times, or IRNA. Both sites are keeping quiet about the Telegraph story (in their English versions anyway).

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
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Continue reading "Linnaeus muscles in on Darwin's party" »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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The reputation of nuclear energy in Russia, as elsewhere in Europe, took a mighty tumble after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. But nowhere else has the industry considered that a beauty contest might help its rehabilitation.

Russia’s sixth such contest is now ongoing. Any female between 18 and 35 who works for the industry in the former Soviet republics may enter Miss Atom 2009, reports the German news magazine Der Spiegel. And nearly three hundred have done so. Their pictures are displayed in an online gallery with text supporting their candidature – and, of course, their vital statistics. Some of the more serious beauty contestants say they hope for world peace. More career-orientated contestants say things like “I don’t need a modelling course - I am, after all, an employee of the company ‘Atomtrudesurcy’”.

Visitors to the gallery can vote online. The three winners will be selected on 5 March. They will win holidays in Cuba, Morocco and the Adriatic – “not crude money, but fun,” according to the organiser of the contest, Ilya Platonow.

Platonow told Der Spiegel that the contest, with its promotion of all that is healthy and beautiful in the controversial energy sector, should finally torpedo ‘the cliché of dangerous and threatening nuclear energy’. Russia is a major exporter of nuclear power stations. It plans to build more at home to increase the proportion of energy from nuclear sources from 17% to 25%.

Posted by Alison Abbott
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Credit: Fermilab, P. Ginter


All anyone has heard about recently is the Large Hadron Collider, the giant, currently broken accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland. But the world's most powerful, working accelerator is currently the Tevatron, at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois.

Recently, the Tevatron has been saying they've got between a 50-50 and 96% chance of finding the elusive Higgs Boson, a key part of the mechanism by which other particles get their mass. We at the news team had a good head scratch about what "50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best" means, but regardless it seems like reasonably good odds.

Budgets have been tight recently at Fermilab, and there was some question of whether the Tevatron would be able to continue running in the near future. The recent economic stimulus bill should help with that; it gives a $1.6 billion shot in the arm to the Department of Energy's Office of Science. One can only assume that the extra dough will help keep Tevatron kicking.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
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“Dealing with climate change will require a much broader strategy, even larger federal investments in clean-energy technologies and an effort to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions to unlock private investment on an enormous scale. But this is a useful down payment, which could also help reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil.”
The NY Times editorialises about Obama’s stimulus package and energy.

“In Peru, [the glaciers] are melting very quickly. More than 20 percent of the glacial ice caps have disappeared since the 1970s.”
World Bank climate change specialist Walter Vergara warns that the future of South America’s Andes glaciers is in doubt (AFP).

“People will be brought to task.”
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen comments after a jury finds Pfizer has overcharged for drugs in the state of Wisconsin (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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This is a viral coat, all 5 million atoms of it. To be precise, it is a capsid, used to protect a virus from the defences of the cells it invades. It took three years to get the picture of the structure, by layering hundreds of x-ray diffraction images (press release). The work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

"Because many viruses use this type of capsid, understanding how it forms could lead to new approaches for antiviral therapies," lead researcher Jane Tao said. "It could also aid researchers who are trying to create designer viruses and other tools that can deliver therapeutic genes into cells."

The image has hit the mainstream thanks to Wired’s blog and ShortNews.com ran the story with no image. Weird.

Image: J Pan & Y J Tao / Rice University

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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A massive haul of fossils has been unearthed from a car park near Los Angeles by the mysteriously named Project 23.

These fossils have been excavated from the famous the La Brea Tar Pits. The Page Museum, which oversees pit research, says the find is “so enormous that it could potentially rewrite the scientific account” of the area. ‘Project 23’ has so far produced over 700 specimens, including horse, bison, coyotes, dire wolves, and saber-toothed cats (press release).

As these are from the last ice age around 40,000 – 10,000 years ago, they are obviously not really a ‘Jurassic Car Park’. That headline was irresistible though.

The mysterious moniker comes from the fact that these animals were all carted out of the car park in 23 giant crates, weighing up to 56 tonnes.

Continue reading "Jurassic Car Park" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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This exotic green comet, named Lulin, will make its closest approach to Earth on 24th February (22.43 EST), when it will be a mere 60 million km (0.41 AU) away.

Astronomers have been avidly tracking its course over the last few months [spotting instructions, assorted links]. With a maximum brightness of between 4 and 5, it could be dimly visible to the naked eye, says Science News. NASA astronomer Stephen Edberg tells AP that Lulin will be paying a one-time visit only to our solar system: it rounded the Sun on 10 January, and is already on its way out, calculates Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, at Space.com. And weirdly, Edberg adds, the comet is circling the Sun clockwise (all the planets, and most other objects in the solar system, circle anticlockwise). “It essentially is going backwards through the Solar System,” he says.

Lulin was spotted by 19-year-old Chinese meteorology student Quanzhi Ye at Sun Yat-sen University in 2007, from a photo taken a few nights earlier by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin at the Lulin Observatory. Ye is now tracking the comet on his blog.

Its green colour, Science@NASA explains, comes from the toxic cyanogen ((CN)₂) and diatomic carbon (C₂) gases that make up the comet’s Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Other notable green comets of recent years (whose colour originates from the same gases) include comet Swan (2006), comet Lovejoy (2007) – spotted from a photo taken by an off-the-shelf digital camera – and comet Machholz (2004).

Image: credit to Jack Newton, at the Arizona Sky Village

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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China has banned actors from mimicking doctors or disease-sufferers in television adverts.

According to state media, the ban follows a story in the Beijing Times which exposed one actor who pretended to be four different experts on television in order to promote various drugs (Xinhua). In another case, 12 ‘experts’ selling medicine on TV shows were exposed as fakes on the internet (Shanghai Daily).

China has experienced numerous problems with fake drugs. In the most recent example a counterfeit diabetes product caused at least two deaths (Reuters, AFP).

Truth in advertising though? It’ll never catch on in the west.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Chemistry, Health and medicine | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

India protects traditional medicines from piracy
Access to national database eases search for existing treatments.

European disarray on transgenic crops
Forthcoming decisions set to bring disagreements to a head.

Tumours spark stem-cell review
Russian treatment linked to cancerous growths.

Rethinking silk's origins
Did the Indian subcontinent start spinning without Chinese know-how?

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Trophy fisherman in Florida are being short changed, according to a new study which has worrying implications for the marine ecosystem.

Using historical photos, Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher Loren McClenachan estimates that the size of fish being caught near the Key West reefs has dropped precipitously since the 1950s. While fish in the 1950s appear to weigh around 20 kg, in 2007 this had dropped to a paltry 2.3 kg.

The image right shows, top to bottom, fish caught in 1957, the early 1980s and 2007 (click to embiggen).

“These results provide evidence of major changes over the last half-century and a window into an earlier, less disturbed reef fish community, but communities of coral reef fish of the Florida Keys in the 1950s were themselves not undisturbed,” writes McClenachan in a paper in Conservation Biology (published in January and newly press released by Scripps).

“Commercial fishing for reef sharks in the 1930s and 1940s reduced shark populations before the 1950s, and large groupers have been commercially fished since at least the 1880s. Thus, pristine coral reef ecosystems supported far more large fish than are implied by these historical photographs.”

Continue reading "‘It was this big’ (in the 1950s)" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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As it gears up to build another generation of nuclear plants, Britain is expecting to close down its £470 million facility at Sellafield which converts plutonium waste into new nuclear fuel, The Guardian reckons. The plant, which was launched 10 years ago and is the only one in the country, was supposed to help use up plutonium recovered from nuclear waste by turning it into MOx fuel (mixed oxides of uranium and plutonium). It’s never been a success, reprocessing less than 3 tonnes of fuel a year since it started, and being dogged by embarrassing technical problems.

According to a strategy document recently published by Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which is wondering what to do with plutonium:

NDA have reviewed SMP [the Sellafield MOx plant] and do not believe that it provides either the capacity or longevity to be used for the UK civil stockpile and the recycle options that NDA has considered assumed that plutonium is either sold direct or that MOx is fabricated in a new plant.

Industry sources say that means curtains for the old MOx plant, The Guardian says, though the NDA says it hasn’t made a formal recommendation yet.

Continue reading "Britain's pox on MOx" »

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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GalaxyZoo2 just launched. If you weren’t aware of GalaxyZoo the original, you’re way behind the times, man. But never mind, time now to catch up. GalaxyZoo is every amateur astronomer’s dream – a chance to spot and characterise new planetary objects from a swathe of data that scientists just don’t have the time to analyse.

The data set is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and includes almost a quarter of a million galaxies.

The project in its initial guise became a bit of a media celebrity, which we pointed TGB readers to last year, when Hanny Van Arkel discovered an unknown, unique astronomical object. Van Arkel attributed her inspiration for taking part in the project to rock music.

The old version of GalaxyZoo asked participants to classify objects as either elliptical or spiral, but now things have got tougher. The Zoo wants more. So during a trawl of the images available from the website, you will now be asked to say what shape the thing you’ve spotted is. Not only what shape, but how much of that shape it is – so if it’s round – how round? These are taxing questions.

There is much rejoicing about the site's launch over at the accompanying blog, and media coverage has taken up the nicely placed PR bait of asking whether you want to be involved in “writing the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

Well if you do, or even if you don’t and just fancy a go at astronomical classification, or better still, a brush with fame, now is your chance. Oh, and GalaxyZoo isn’t the only chance for you to play your part. Other amateur astronomy projects include transitsearch, which coordinates amateur astronomers to look for extrasolar planets transiting their star – which then provide targets for the big academic boys to look more closely.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

Zoologists won't be partying in the streets of New Orleans come 2011. The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, an organization with 2,300-plus members, has boycotted Louisiana as a site for its annual conference because of recent state legislation that allows teachers to use "supplemental textbooks" to "help students critique and review scientific theories" (New York Times).

Scientists see this language as code that permits creationism to be taught in public schools. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed the law last June despite protests from state and national science groups (The Times-Picayune).

In a letter to Jindal, the society’s executive committee president Richard Satterlie writes that they have decided against holding their conference in New Orleans largely because of the new law, which "undermines the integrity of science and science education in Louisiana".

Kyle Plotkin, a spokesman for Jindal's office, said the group's decision was "too bad", as New Orleans is a prime convention site (New York Times). The society will convene in Salt Lake City, Utah instead.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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China is aiming to use no more water in 2020 than it does now, despite forecast economic growth, according to the country’s water resources minister.

Speaking at a conference on Saturday, Chen Lei said that current usage of 229 cubic metres of water per 10,000 yuan ($1,400) of products made would be reduced to 125 cubic metres in 11 years (Xinhua).

“We must take strict measures to preserve water resources in the face of the severe lack of water worsened by factors such as overuse, pollution and drought,” said Chen.

New Scientist says China’s GDP is actually forecast to grow by 60% by 2020. So a reduction in water use per GDP of around 60% would mean that the country uses exactly the same amount of water. (New Scientist’s headline, ‘Parched China to slash water consumption by 60%’ is rather misleading.)

China Daily says a quota system, with users paying for water used above their quota, will ensure people stick to conservation plans. New irrigation plans for agriculture will also be put in place.

Image: Alamy

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Nitrogen fertilizer warning for China
Farmers could cut use by two-thirds without lowering crop yield.

Hollywood star could restart damaged particle accelerator
Tinseltown goes to CERN as Tom Hanks promotes latest thriller.

Swedish authorities embroiled in furore over academic freedom
Journal removes paper from website after company threatens legal action.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A group of UCLA scientist think they may have answered a question that has baffled the most powerful military machine on Earth: where is Osama bin Laden?

“In informal conversations in the Geography Department at UCLA, we began to ask ourselves if the biogeographic theories we use every day – theories that predict how plants and animals distribute themselves over space and over time – employed in conjunction with publicly available satellite imagery, could shed some light on this question,” write Thomas Gillespie and colleagues in the MIT International Review.

“… By bringing these methodologies to bear, it is our hope that a long overdue debate might bring bin Laden back to the fore of the public consciousness – and possibly to justice.”

Combining facts about his behaviour and last known whereabouts with satellite images, the researchers narrow down his possible location to three building in the northwest Pakistan town of Parachinar. "If he's still alive, he honestly could be sitting there right now," says Gillespie (press release).

Kim Rossmo, of Texas State University in San Marcos, told USA Today he was not entirely convinced.
“It’s important to think outside the box, and this is an innovative idea worth more pursuit,” says Rossmo. “However, the authors are much too certain of their conclusions. The idea of identifying three buildings in a city of half a million — especially one in a country the authors have likely never visited — is somewhat overconfident.”

Continue reading "UCLA researchers ‘locate bin Laden’ " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Yoghurt bacteria could be used to deliver an anthrax vaccine, if Todd Klaenhammer gets his way.

The North Carolina State University researcher has just published a paper in PNAS describing how swallowing a vaccine based on the lactic acid bacteria protected mice against exposure to anthrax. As he notes in his paper the Lactobacillus bacteria can pass through the stomach and are safe in large amounts, making them potentially useful as a vaccine delivery mechanism.

“Normally, you can’t eat vaccines because the digestive process in the stomach destroys them, so vaccines are traditionally administered by needle,” says Klaenhammer (press release). “But using ‘food grade’ lactic acid bacteria as a vehicle provides a safe way of getting the vaccine into the small intestine without losing any of the drug’s efficacy in binding to the dendritic [immune] cells, which can then trigger an immune response.”

Klaenhammer is not the only person working on oral vaccines, and there are a large number currently in development. Way back in 2003, a review article in the American Journal of Drug Delivery noted other people were trying live vectors, transgenic plants, and even “virus-like particles”. An oral polio vaccine is already in use.

Still, anything that avoids needles is great progress. Now all we need to do is convince a vocal minority that vaccines are actually a force for good, any maybe produce this vaccine in a low-fat, raspberry flavour…

"This is eating the good guys," says Klaenhammer (News and Observer).

The research should be live here soon.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Asian elephants are being put at risk by some of the highest ivory prices in the world, according to the WWF group.

A survey by the WWF and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature found reports of raw ivory tusks selling for up to $1,500 per kg in Vietnam, with tusk tips going for up to $1,863 per kg. Traders in Vietnam are allowed to sell ivory provided it was in stock at the time of a ban on the trade in 1992.

Continue reading "Concern over Asian ivory trade" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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“It is really important that as a small country we can show our participation in large international efforts here in Antarctica.”
Belgian defence minister Pieter De Crem inaugurates the country’s new ‘zero emissions’ science base in Antarctica (AP).

“They entered briefly into contact at very low speed.”
The French Defence Ministry makes a collision between two nuclear submarines sound almost harmless (Bloomberg).

“One of the distinguishing factors of Liberty is that every single student here takes a class called creationist studies.”
Liberty University campus pastor Johnnie Moore tells the Lynchburg News and Advance about his institution’s creationist ways.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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University applications in the UK have increased, leading to a rash of speculation that people are jumping back into education as a result of the economic downturn.

Applications to study at UK universities have risen 8% for courses starting later this year, to around 460,000 (Guardian). Applications from those over 21 jumped 13% and applications from non-UK Europeans went up 12% (BBC).

“It feels like the rise in applications is linked to the recession,” says Steve Smith, the vice-chancellor of Exeter University (Guardian). “That happened in previous recessions so we’ve been expecting it. The big problem is that admissions numbers are capped and we’ve got a 7.8% increase in applications.”

Strangely, previous signs from the United States indicated that applications for graduate places had not been boosted by the current financial crisis.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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GlaxoSmithKline is to slash drug prices in the world’s poorest countries and reinvest profits made in less developed countries into hospitals and clinics, according to company chief executive Andrew Witty.

“Today we are setting out a new promise: we will reduce our prices for patented medicines in the LDCs so that they will be no higher than 25% of the developed world assuming we can cover our cost of goods,” he said at a Harvard Medical School talk (pdf).

As well as reducing prices in countries such as Zambia and Mozambique, GSK plans to establish a ‘patent pool’ to share research findings on tropical diseases. The patent pool could allow others to develop new products based on GSK’s compounds or process, with any benefits going “in full and solely” to the least developed countries (PharmaTimes). Other companies are being urged to join in the plans.

“Society expects us to do more in addressing these issues,” said Witty (Times). “To be frank, I agree. We have the capacity to do more and we can do more. The question is can we, big pharma, rise to the challenge and be a genuine catalyst for change?”

Continue reading "GSK’s pledge to the developing world" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Nature reporters are still at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. Here are some recent dispatches from the science news front line. Full coverage is over on our In the Field blog.

Bowser blazes the trail
Whenever I see Elaine Ostrander talk about dogs, I feel sorry for human geneticists. Ostrander, a researcher at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute on Bethesda, Maryland, studies the hundreds of dog breeds that exist in the world. And because human breeders have simplified dog genetics enormously, it’s a lot easier to answer questions about the genetic basis of all kinds of traits in dogs than it is in humans.

Darwin the Buddhist
Ordinarily, Paul Ekman is to be found doing rigorous, detailed studies of facial expression, body movement, emotion and deception...

Climate issue getting "more complicated"
A leader of the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told the meeting today that the world's climate is likely to change much faster than predicted, leaving the world with two choices: start cutting carbon emissions earlier, or make the cuts deeper.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Ever since Barack Obama was made the 44th president of the United States, stem cell researchers have been poised over their lab benches, waiting for the moment he would lift the ban on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

Their wait may nearly be over.

“We’re going to be doing something on that soon, I think. The president is considering that right now,” David Axelrod, a senior advisor to Obama, told ‘Fox News Sunday’ at the weekend.

This is probably not a moment too soon. Stem cell research advocates have been making unhappy noises of late about how long it seemed to be taking the new administration to get round to lifting the ban, as the LA Times has pointed out:

Wary of a delay, one prominent advocacy group sent Obama a letter recently saying that he had pledged to revoke the Bush order. “We wanted him to know that we were still counting on the campaign commitment,” said Amy Comstock Rick, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research.

Writing for the Encyclopaedia Britannica blog, Jonathan Slack, director of the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota says:

Lifting the ban also will be welcome because it will eliminate the red tape that is required to separate the financial accounting of federally fundable and non-fundable work. This can be quite complex; for example, a shared piece of equipment may have been partially paid for with federal funds. Fine judgement may be required to determine whether, say, 50 percent funding represents a problem if the machine is only 30 percent used for federally non-permitted purposes.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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BRIEFING: Obama may be tough on Canada's tar sands
How will future US emissions regulations affect North America's biggest oil owner?

Strike stalls reform of French universities
Sarkozy on the ropes as scientists take to the streets.

Drug banishes bad memories
Take pill, remember fear, remove fear.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

Tiny geolocating "backpacks" have helped scientists discern that songbirds can migrate three times as fast as previously thought, as reported in Science.

Researchers attached the devices, which track the timing of sunrise and sunset each day and therefore enable researchers to estimate latitude and longitude, to 14 wood thrushes and 20 purple martins in Pennsylvania by looping straps around the bird's legs (Washington Post). The following summer, the team recaptured seven birds and used the geolocation data to determine their migratory paths.

Two birds flew 2500 kilometres in 5 days on their southbound trip to the Yucatan Peninsula, while previous studies had estimated songbird migration speeds at less than 150 kilometres per day. One female purple martin clocked 577 kilometres per day as she sped northward from the Amazon basin in the spring, covering 7500 kilometres in 13 days. Spring return times were two to six times faster than fall migrations, possibly because the birds were racing to nab good breeding sites (Los Angeles Times).

"We were flabbergasted by the birds' spring return times," says co-author Bridget Stutchbury, a biologist at York University, Canada (BBC).

This is the first time that scientists have been able to track songbird migration over such long distances, Stutchbury says (BBC). Miniature geolocators have been used to follow migrations before, but only on larger birds such as gulls (LA Times).

"The data are exciting. It makes me drool," Peter Marra, an ornithologist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo in Washington, told the Times.

Stutchbury 's team tagged another 20 purple martins and 35 wood thrushes with geolocators last year and plans to get more data in spring (Post).

More images and video on the press release.

Photo: male wood thrush wearing geolocator backpack / Elizabeth Gow

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Roberta Kwok

At a talk yesterday in Washington, plant ecologist Christian Körner showed just how variable temperatures can be in the mountains, even between patches of land that are close together.

This could offer possible escape routes for animals impacted by global warming, as potentially they wouldn’t have to move as far as people think to reach a cooler place to live, he says.

Korner’s lab explains the image as follows:

Using a high resolution thermal imaging camera, this picture illustrates the large variation of temperatures in an alpine landscape at 2500m elevation in the Swiss Alps. Topography and plant cover engineer massive deviations from ambient conditions when the sun is out, permitting plants and animals to thrive in an otherwise cold world. By short distance migration plants and animals can select thermal microhabitats that would otherwise be hundreds of meters of elevation apart.

The image is based on unpublished data by Sebastian Leuzinger and Christian Körner, of the University of Basel in Switzerland and is used courtesy of Körner, who was speaking at the ‘Twenty-First Century Ecosystems: Systemic Risk and the Public Good’ symposium.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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One of America’s main nuclear weapons labs has been taken to task for losing a fairly large number of computers in the last year. Information on the losses only emerged after three were stolen from the home of one employee.

The non-profit Project on Government Oversight obtained a memo in which the government overseer of the Los Alamos National Laboratory notes that 13 computers have been stolen in the last 12 months and 67 are missing.

“The magnitude of exposure and risk to the laboratory is at best unclear as little data on these losses has been collected or pursued …” says the memo.

Continue reading "The case of the missing computers" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A small, rabbit-like animal in US may soon have something in common with the polar bear.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering whether the American pika (Ochotona princeps) should be protected under the endangered species act. If the FWS says it should then the pika will become the first animal outside of Alaska to be afforded this protection, and the only mammal other than the polar bear (San Francisco Chronicle).

However the FWS only agreed to assess the pika after being taken to court by environmental groups. “All the evidence we have suggests global warming will cause the species to go extinct and many populations have already been wiped out,” Greg Loarie, an attorney for Earthjustice group, told Reuters.

The problem is that pikas are hugely intolerant of temperature changes, and cannot actually survive outside their burrows if temperatures rise above 26 degrees Celsius, according to Earthjustice (SF Chronicle)

“Pika populations are in jeopardy, and we can’t afford to delay protections,” says Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity (press release). “As temperatures rise, pika populations at lower elevations are being driven to extinction, pushing pikas further upslope until they have nowhere left to go.”

Image: Earthjustice.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The US Fish and Wildlife service has produced some wonderfully cheesy Valentine's Day cards for you to send to your lover (or potential lover). These feature such cracking plays on words as ‘You’re Foxy’ over a picture of a fox and ‘I Moose You’ over a picture of a moose.

Actually that should probably read “to send to your lovers”. Strangely, the website allows you to send each card and message to up to six people. Is this a cunning attempt to obtain the email addresses of polygamists for a coming crackdown? Or do some people at the FWS just have very complicated love lives?

Image: FWS

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Lucky Nature reporter Erika Check Hayden is at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. You can read all her reports at our In the Field blog.

Here’s what she’s been up to so far…

AAAS: Happy Days are Here Again
As the annual meeting of the world's largest scientific society kicks off in Chicago, Illinois, this morning, there's an atmosphere of celebration despite the chilly temperatures outside.

AAAS: Neanderthal Strip Tease
Scientists have sequenced the genome of modern humans' closest relatives, the Neanderthals. And so far they have found....

AAAS: An assist for penguins?
Climate change is causing such dire problems for marine species that scientists are considering trying radical, previously 'sacrilege' methods to save them, they said today.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Today’s space picture shows the Carina Nebula, some 7,500 light years away.

It was produced by the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere by combining shots taken through six different filters on the Wide Field Imager in Chile. ESO says the Nebula is “where strong winds and powerful radiation from an armada of massive stars are creating havoc in the large cloud of dust and gas from which the stars were born”.

The big bright spot on this image is the star Eta Carinae, which ESO calls “highly unstable, and prone to violent outbursts”. Back in 1842 Eta Carinae had its “most notable” Christian Bale moment and for a few years was the second brightest star in the sky.

Phil Plait on the Bad Astronomy blog notes:

… one day it’ll blow, and when it does, well, yikes. It’s one of the most luminous and massive stars in the galaxy, and there’s a small but finite chance that it’ll go all gamma-ray burst on us some day. Happily, it’s not aimed at us if it does, but even as a plain old supernova it’s a terrifying object. It’s a binary, and one of the stars must have about 100 times the mass of the Sun, pretty much at the theoretical limit of how massive a star can be without tearing itself apart.

I’ve written about black holes, galaxies colliding, and even the eventual fate of the Universe. I tell you this to put in perspective that objectively, Eta Car scares the crap out of me.

More coverage
A colorful view of the Carina Nebula – USA Today

Image: ESO

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Two of US President Barack Obama's key science administrators passed their first test on Thursday, by withstanding a mostly friendly firing squad of senatorial questions during their nomination hearing.

John Holdren, the Harvard University climate scientist who is Obama's science adviser, has been picked to head the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Next to him sat Jane Lubchenco, the marine ecologist from Oregon State University who has been tapped to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the Department of Commerce.

The standing room only hearing -- held under the chandeliers and marble in a room of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee -- offered a first dose of Washington theater for the nominees. They still have to be confirmed by the Senate as a whole before they assume office. But they learned a quick lesson in the competing tug-of-war of Congressional politics, where parochial interests carry the day.

Continue reading "Confirmation of science" »

Posted by Eric Hand
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The House and Senate have tentatively settled on a compromise $789-billion economic stimulus package, in which science would score a big, one-time infusion of dollars. The dust is still settling, but a fact sheet released by the office of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, suggests that the numbers for science are mostly high like the version passed by the House in late January, and not incorporating many of the cuts in the Senate version of the bill.

Let's run through the numbers again quickly:

$3 billion for the National Science Foundation
$1.6 billion for the Department of Energy's Office of Science
$8.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, with another $1.5 billion for NIH facilities
$1 billion for NASA, including $400 million for climate change research

And, of course, the number that is so staggering it's hard to get your mind around: $30 billion for advances in the electric grid, advanced battery technology, and energy efficiency measures.

Lawmakers are hoping to push final votes on the compromise package through on Friday; Congress is supposed to break for a President's Day holiday after that, and they had wanted to get it to Obama to sign by Monday. Eventually, they may even get around to passing a final budget for fiscal year 2009 -- which began back in October.

It's been a busy day in Washington elsewhere. A Senate committee held confirmation hearings on the nominations of John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco to be, respectively, head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; for details, see Eric Hand's blog post here. But the man who would be Lubchenco's boss -- Judd Gregg, nominee for Commerce secretary -- withdrew his name from consideration, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with the Obama administration. He's the second person to drop out for the Commerce job, following New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.

Posted by Alex Witze
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So even though solar power and panel companies are in the financial mire, like the rest of the world, it seems some mega solar projects are still getting the go ahead.

Southern California Edison from Rosemead, California, has teamed up with BrightSource Energy to provide 1300 megawatts of solar power, which it says will power almost 845,000 homes (press release). The deal sees SCE buying solar power rather than making it themselves.

“This landmark agreement illustrates the increasing demand for solar thermal energy as a reliable source of utility-scale renewable power,” said John Woolard, CEO of BrightSource Energy. But only last week, financial analysts Lux research announced that, as they had predicted previously, there is currently a huge over supply of solar panels.

Continue reading "Solar goes up, solar goes down. Again." »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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If you’ve not had too much Darwin by now, here are some more stories that caught our collective Nature eyes.

In the Guardian, palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris writes:

[P]erhaps now is the time to rejoice not in what Darwin got right, and in demonstrating the reality of evolution in the context of entirely unexceptional natural processes there is no dispute, but what his inheritance is in terms of unfinished business.

Isn't it curious how evolution is regarded by some as a total, universe-embracing explanation, although those who treat it as a religion might protest and sometimes not gently. Don't worry, the science of evolution is certainly incomplete.

The New York Times profiles Richard Milner, the singing Darwin. “Officially, he is a science historian named Richard Milner, but he regularly turns into his hero on stage — complete with white beard, bowler and cape — in a one-man musical, ‘Charles Darwin: Live & In Concert’,” says the Times, which also has a video profile. Here him sing here.

Also in the Times, Carl Safina writes that “Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live”:

By propounding “Darwinism,” even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one “theory.” The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The point is that making a master teacher into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching. So let us now kill Darwin.

Darwin has also popped up on an internet site I’m told is very popular with young people at the moment. ‘Twitter’ lets you post short messages, similar to the ‘txts’ you can send via a cellular telephone.

“Thanks to all my well-wishers on my birthday,” says ‘cdarwin’.

“Happy Birthday to my co-discoverer,” says ‘arwallace’. Samuel Wilberforce is less magnanimous.

More
Secularist group posts 'Praise Darwin' billboards – USA Today
Google has a special Darwin’s 200th Birthday graphic (if it’s gone from the homepage, see here).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A burst of genetic changes occurred around 10 million years ago in one of the ancestors we share with chimpanzees, with consequences that are being felt today.

A new analysis of the genomes of macaques, orang-utans, chimpanzees and humans shows that DNA segments in this ancestor began to make duplicate copies at a very high rate around ten million years ago, even though other mutation processes such as single letter changes were slowing.

“There’s a big burst of activity that happens where genomes are suddenly rearranged and changed,” says Evan Eichler, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He adds, “Because of the architecture of the human genome, genetic material is constantly being added and deleted in certain regions. These are really like volcanoes in the genome, blowing out pieces of DNA.”

In Nature the team reports that this duplication spree occurred before humans and chimpanzees diverged, around 6 million years ago, but after the divergence from orang-utans 12-16 million years ago and the divergence from macaques prior to that. (See also this week’s news feature on human evolution: The other strand.)

Continue reading "‘Volcanoes in the genome’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Don’t forget to check out this week’s Nature, which is the second of our three Darwin 200 special issues. Highlights include:

Editorial: Humanity and evolution
Charles Darwin's thinking about the natural world was profoundly influenced by his revulsion for slavery.

News Feature: The other strand
Geneticists looked to the human genome to understand human evolution. But it's hard to interpret without considering the inheritance of culture, finds Erika Check Hayden.

Commentaries: Should scientists study race and IQ?
In the first of two opposing commentaries, Steven Rose argues that studies investigating possible links between race, gender and intelligence do no good. In the second, Stephen Ceci and Wendy M. Williams argue that such research is both morally defensible and important for the pursuit of truth.

Essay: A flight of fancy
Henry Nicholls wonders how things would be different had Charles Darwin given in to pressure from his publisher to rewrite Origin of Species into a popular book about pigeons.

Books and Arts: Poems from Darwin's descendant
Amid the many analyses of Darwin's life and work, a more intimate literary portrait emerges from the poetry of his great-great-granddaughter, Ruth Padel. Her series of poems on his life — six of which are reproduced here — evokes the emotion and drama of the naturalist's discoveries.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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It's a scenario that space analysts have forecasted for years: With thousands of satellites in orbit, sooner or later two had to collide.

As first reported by CBS News, a defunct Russian communication satellite known as Cosmos 2251 collided on Tuesday with one of 66 satellites in the Iridium constellation, which is used for satellite telephones. Within 12 hours, the US Strategic Command, which tracks space objects, had seen over 600 pieces of debris created by the collision.

That's not surprising considering these satellites weighed around 700 kg each and were travelling at 7.5 kilometres per second (a rifle bullet, by comparison, travels at around 1 kilometre per second). An analysis by David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, estimates that the number of debris pieces could easily stretch into the millions, with over a thousand posing a very real threat to other satellites.

Why didn't anyone see it coming? Well apparently, calculations of collision scenarios (known as conjunction in the biz) are presently only performed on the most valuable of space objects, such as the shuttle and space station. ESA also does conjunction analysis for its operational satellites.

Coverage
Orbital Collision Was The Worst Ever - Aviation Week
U.S., Russian satellites collide in orbit - MSNBC

Image: Iridium satellite

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
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The UK’s Royal Mail is getting in on the Darwin 200 celebrations by issuing its own set of ten stamps.

Of the ten, six are jigsaw shaped, supposedly to symbolise the different areas that came together in his work. There are stamps for zoology, botany, geology, ornithology and anthropology, plus one of the great man’s head (below the fold).

There’s also this very pretty set of four, that comes together to make a map of the Galapagos.

Rather brilliantly, the Royal Mail sent giant versions of the stamps to the Zoo, where the animals were able to have a look.

“The distinctive jigsaw design of the stamps is a great way to link Darwin’s vast areas of research, while the special sheet is a beautiful representation of the Galapagos Islands,” says Julietta Edgar, head of Special Stamps at the Royal Mail (press release).

Darwin honoured on new British stamps – AFP
New stamps marking Darwin's birth – BBC

Continue reading "Darwin in stamps" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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New rules that require UK scientists to include a two-page summary of the potential economic and social impacts of their research in funding proposals to the nation’s research councils, have sparked a revolt among leading UK academics.

In a letter to the Times Higher Education, 20 scientists, including Nobel prize-winner Harry Kroto and eight fellows of the Royal Society, the national academy of science, say the grant requirements will damage “blue-skies” research. They call on grant reviewers to ignore the summaries and “confine their assessments to matters in which they are demonstrably competent.”

Continue reading "Leading UK scientists call for revolt against grant rules" »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert
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The Obama administration continues its rollback – or at least reconsideration – of environmental policies from the Bush days.

On Tuesday, Interior secretary Ken Salazar announced that the agency would spend another 180 days accepting public comments on a Bush-instigated rule that would dramatically expand oil and gas exploration off the nation’s coasts (Washington Post). The extension likely signals that the rule will eventually get scrapped altogether: "In my view, it was a headlong rush of the worst kind,” Salazar is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The change is the latest in a series of environmental policy reversals instigated under Obama. Among them:

The Interior Department withdrew freshly-granted leases for oil and gas explorations on public lands in Utah.

The Environmental Protection Agency will reconsider its decision to deny California a waiver that would allow the state to regulate its greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA will also delay the effective date of, and further study, a ruling that would have eased pollution regulations on new sources of industrial pollution.

And the Justice Department dropped an appeal that would have set up a cap-and-trade system for mercury at power plants, suggesting that the new administration will instead regulate mercury directly.

Posted by Alex Witze
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For this special edition of the Nature Podcast we're at Down House, the Darwin family home for over 40 years. Join us on the hunt for Darwin's pigeons, for poetry from a Darwin descendant, and to find out how Darwin dabbled in psychology. Plus, we talk to actor Paul Bettany about playing Darwin in the new movie 'Creation'. You can hear an extended version of that interview in our Podcast Extra.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Around 400 cities across Europe have signed up to an agreement to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by more than the EU’s overall target of 20% by 2020 (from 1990 levels).

The ‘covenant of mayors’ initiative, ceremonially launched on 10 February in Brussels, is the brainchild of the European Commission. Participating cities – so far including London, Paris, and Madrid – will submit action plans within a year, including an inventory of baseline CO₂ emissions. They’ll have to publicly report once every two years on progress, and will get kicked out of the covenant if external evaluators fail them.

“The new group must not be confused with the World Mayors Council on Climate Change, the United Cities and Local Governments initiative on climate change, the Cities of Ambition climate change group, the climate leadership group of the C40 cities, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the Cities for Climate Protection group, or any other grouping of cities talking about climate change,” John Vidal notes in The Guardian.

The commission’s Pedro Ballesteros Torres told the New York Times that there was a “name-and-shame” aspect to the covenant (though it doesn’t appear to have any other force). “For a mayor to be told a city is noncompliant would be a very strong thing,” he said.

Continue reading "European cities sign climate change covenant" »

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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Obama puts focus on FDA after peanut poisonings - Premium content
Salmonella outbreak prompts review of US food safety.

Neglected disease boost
Fresh funding aims to raise awareness and improve control measures.

Prostate cancer marker found in urine
A simple urine test for sarcosine could be used to detect cancer.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Sanofi-Aventis’s new CEO, Christopher Viehbacher, made his debut today to present the company’s 2008 earnings, and speculation yesterday was that the executive – fresh from his former position at GlaxoSmithKline – would come in thundering for renewed cost cutting efforts and an overhaul of the company’s R&D system.

Both topics came up during his presentation this morning, but Viehbacher, who took the helm in December, declined to give details. He spent much of the presentation on the defensive: Sanofi’s stock fell 28% last year, making it the worst performer among Europe’s top pharma companies. Meanwhile, Sanofi employees have largely been spared from the painful cuts undertaken by other pharma companies to reduce costs.

Viehbacher acknowledged criticisms that Sanofi has an overstuffed, unfocused drug pipeline, and said the company would be taking a hard look at its research programs with the aid of its new science adviser, former NIH chief Elias Zerhouni. Viehbacher predicted cuts to internal R&D and increased acquisitions of small- to mid-sized biotech companies. And he said he’s shying away from megamergers with other large firms, which could put to rest periodic rumours that Sanofi may purchase fellow pharmaceutical company, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb. (For an example, check out this BNET Pharma article.)

When pushed to give numbers and dates for the company’s cost cutting plans, Viehbacher shot back, “Hey, look guys I’ve been at this job for 10 weeks. Give me a little room here.” He went on to elaborate that R&D cuts are not undertaken lightly. Sacrificing an internal R&D program to make room for acquisition of a new biotechnology company feels like turning against his own children, he said. “I love my children better than my nieces and nephews. It’s a fact of life,” he said. “You can never get far from human emotion, and that’s what makes R&D a tricky exercise.”

Posted by Heidi Ledford
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Posted for Declan Butler.

Today's newspapers are full of the supposed ‘news’ that the Vatican has reconciled Darwin and evolution as being compatible with Christian faith – see for example Vatican buries the hatchet with Charles Darwin and The Vatican claims Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity, or search for “Vatican” AND “evolution” on Google News.

The reports stem from remarks made this morning by archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, at a press conference in Rome detailing a conference to be held in Rome 3-7 March – Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories: A critical appraisal 150 years after ‘The Origin of Species’ – on the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. The meeting intended to boost dialogue between religion and science on evolution.

Ravasi, however, had already made similar statements last September, when the conference was first announced – see for example Evolution fine but no apology to Darwin: Vatican. Moreover, Roman Catholic Church theology has long cohabited comfortably with the science of evolution, with the church itself endorsing evolution in 1950, although with the theological rider that it should be a hypothesis and not a doctrine. And in 1996, pope Jean John Paul II – the man who rehabilitated Galileo – fully embraced evolution (see Nature’s new piece from back then, Papal confession: Darwin was right about evolution).

Continue reading "The Origin of the Scoops" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted on behalf of Erika Check Hayden

Under increasing scrutiny, the US government biodefence laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, has called a suspension on most of its work involving pathogens.

The suspension, first reported by Science magazine's blog, was called by the lab’s commander, John P. Skvorak, so that the lab could take an inventory of all ‘historical samples’ of pathogens stored at the lab.

These historical samples are mainly older pathogens “left behind by people who don’t work here any more, primarily in freezer storage,” said Caree Vander Linden, a spokesperson for the lab. “We need to accession those into [our] database or destroy them, basically – reset our baseline so we can move on.” She said the halt may last up to three months and will stop all work done in biosafety level 2, 3 and 4 laboratories.

Long the target of criticism from scientists who accused the lab of lax safety procedures, Ft. Detrick was again put under the microscope in 2001, when a former employee of the lab was fingered as a “person of interest” in the anthrax attacks that killed five people. That person was cleared, but another Ft. Detrick researcher, Bruce Ivins, emerged as another possible suspect and committed suicide last year.

The New York Times reported that an unidentified researcher at Ft. Detrick said that colleagues sometimes left behind unknown samples after departing the lab, but that “the Army’s recordkeeping and security were imperfect but better than procedures at most universities, where research on biological pathogens has expanded rapidly since 2001.”

The National Academy of Sciences is convening a panel to review the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s work on the anthrax attacks.

Posted by Alex Witze
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“Today, all the research councils have committees setting up the ‘grand challenges’ for their disciplines. Personally, I think this is bullshit. Clever people will find grand challenges that other people haven't even thought of.”
Chemist Graham Richards discuss research and commercializing research with the Guardian.

“My own story was really nothing special. I made $30,000 for the year, which is less than some of these doctors make in a weekend.”
Daniel Carlat, a psychiatry professor at Tufts University in Boston, discusses medicine’s ties to drug money with Reuters.

RIP Xiangzhong ‘Jerry’ Yang.
The man who “was born in poverty to a family of pig farmers in rural China but escaped to become a leading researcher in cloning technology” has died (LA Times).

Papers with good titles: Getting Smashed: The deposition of amphorae and the drinking of wine in Gaul during the late Iron Age.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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A University of Portsmouth, UK, palaeontologist says he's discovered 48 new species of prehistoric creature, including 8 dinosaurs, in just four years, which must be some sort of record.

The Portsmouth press release says Steve Sweetman's discoveries all date back around 130 million years ago, to the Early Cretaceous period. His method? First, work on the dinosaur-rich Isle of Wight; second, rather than looking for bits of bone sticking out of the ground, cart around three and a half tonnes of mud, in buckets, to your lab and sift through it there.

The story was covered in the Daily Mail and The Telegraph, but neither bothered to find out any more about it - probably because (according to Portsmouth's earth and environmental sciences department) Sweetman is currently on the Isle of Wight, no doubt looking to break the big five-oh before Darwin's birthday.

Sweetman has presented his research at various conferences, but only published on one of the new species so far, in Palaeontology - a second publication is in press. 'He has already discovered 48 species and he hasn't even started on the fish,' enthuses fellow Portsmouth palaeontologist Dave Martill.

Image: Sweetman in prehistoric-species-gathering action/University of Portsmouth

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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Microbicide gel may help against HIV
Early results suggest possible role against infection.

LHC faces further delay
Collisions won't come before November.

Briefing: Australian bushfires rage
Heatwaves and fires will become more frequent in a warming world.

Hidden memories guide choices
Images slip unnoticed into the brain.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The US Senate is poised to approve today its version of an $838-billion economic stimulus package that will have major ramifications for US science. Eventually.

Barack Obama has made pushing through the stimulus bill through Congress a top priority of his young administration. But lawmakers in both houses, and both parties, all have varying opinions on how to do that. The version approved by the House on January 28 contains massive injections of funds for science in many arenas (see earlier Nature news stories here and here). The Senate version contains comparatively less in some research areas, and much more in others.

Negotiators will now have to haggle out the differences in the two bills before agreeing on a compromise that they will pass to Obama to sign. Congress had hoped to do this before the upcoming President’s Day holiday this weekend, but it is unclear whether enough time is left to make that self-imposed deadline.

Some key differences in the Senate bill include:

$10 billion for the National Institutes of Health, compared with the $3.5 billion approved by the House. The extra money came tucked in an amendment sponsored by Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. Specter was part of the bipartisan group of senators who hashed out most of the details of the Senate bill going to the floor today.

$1.2 billion for the National Science Foundation, as opposed to the $3 billion approved by the House.

$1.3 billion for NASA, as opposed to the $600 miillion approved by the House.

$1 billion for NOAA, as opposed to the $600 million approved by the House.

$330 million for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, as opposed to the $2 billion approved by the House.

Remember, these would be one-time injections of funds into these agencies, who are still waiting to hear from lawmakers what their bottom-line funding numbers for the current fiscal year (which started last October) will be. Once Congress manages to pass those numbers retroactively, Obama is expected to lay out his funding plans for fiscal year 2010 later this spring.

The House and Senate appropriations bills can be followed at appropriations.house.gov and appropriations.senate.gov.

Posted by Alex Witze
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Now that they can do no science till their giant particle smasher is fixed, the Large Hadron Collider scientists are finding other ways to keep people interested.

Sergio Cittolin, who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid detector, has been sketching the different elements of his equipment “in the style of Leonardo da Vinci”.

Although they seem to have only appeared on the CERN website at the end of January, some of these drawings were originally featured in Physics World last year. They also grace the CMS website and are too cool not to share here.

Dan Brown fans will surely be thrilled to find two of their author’s interests combined.

[Hat tip: Alexis Madrigal]

More below the fold.

Continue reading "The LHC, Da Vinci style " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Market-based regulations were first deployed to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from US power plants in the 1990s, and cap-and-trade has since become the leading framework for reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But when the administration of US President George W. Bush proposed the same system for regulating mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants in 2005, environmentalists and many leading Democrats elected to fight. Nearly four years later, it appears a resolution might be in sight.

Last week US President Barack Obama reversed course, and directed the Justice Department to abandon an appeal to the Supreme Court, where the case has been pending since the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia tossed it out last year. Although the industry has maintained its appeal, a request for dismissal by the federal government certainly bodes well for opponents.

The dispute centres on "hotspots." Environmentalists argue that direct regulation makes more sense because mercury can build up downwind of dirty plants. Although markets might work well for carbon dioxide and other pollutants that disperse quickly, a cap-and-trade system could theoretically allow individual plants to simply buy credits and continue polluting, thereby endangering people who happen to live in the wrong place.

Advocates of the proposal downplay the danger of hotspots and say the rule would have reduced mercury emissions quicker and cheaper than direct regulation. Whether or not that logic would hold up at the Supreme Court is anybody's guess, but barring a major surprise it appears that its time has run out.

The Obama administration must now implement its own regulations - and likely fend off the inevitable court challenge.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Meredith Wadman

Elias Zerhouni, who stepped down as director of the US National Institutes of Health in October, last week joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a senior fellow advising on global health issues. Zerhouni will work half-time for the $35-billion charity. An Algerian native who is a radiologist by training, he plans to return to imaging research in the other half of his time.

Zerhouni is taking the job with Gates “out of personal passion and interest,” he told Nature. “It’s a labour of love, not a labour of money.” (He declined to reveal his salary.) His focus will include an initiative tackling 14 “grand challenges in global health” ranging from development of single-dose vaccines to therapies for hidden infections.

Zerhouni was approached about the position in November by Tachi Yamada, the president of the foundation’s Global Health Program. “If you know Elias, it’s a natural evolution,” says Anthony Fauci, the director of NIH’s National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. “He has always -- and much more intensely over the last few years -- taken a keen interest in global health issues.”

Image: NIH

Posted by Alex Witze
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Test balloon breaks endurance record
NASA's pumpkin-shaped balloon stays aloft for more than 42 days.

Genome sequencing: the third generation
Companies unveil data from their latest technologies.

The world's top ten telescopes revealed
The best observatories ranked by their scientific impact.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: On Nature News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The UK’s Home Secretary Jacqui Smith stands accused of “bullying” a senior government science advisor in a row over drug laws.

The row started when David Nutt, chairman of the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a researcher at Bristol University, wrote an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in which he attempted to put some perspective on the illegal drugs debate in the UK by detailing a “harmful addiction I have called equasy”. This turns out to be horse riding: Nutt is making the point that more people die from horse riding than from ecstasy use.

Smith was not impressed, saying “I made clear to Professor Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He apologised to me for his comments and I've asked him to, as well, apologise to the families of the victims of ecstasy.”

But opposition politician Evan Harris has hit back.

Continue reading "Love drug gets politicians fighting" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Last Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its first drug produced by a genetically engineered animal. The drug, called ATryn, is produced by goats engineered to make the protein in their milk.

The approval ends a long struggle by… well several parties. The so-called “pharming” industry -- which aims to produce drugs in animals – struggled to convince investors to continue investing despite the absence of guidance on whether or how their drugs would eventually be approved. The FDA struggled to come up with a way to regulate the industry. And activists struggled to hold off the guidelines. (Europe, by the way, got its act together and approved ATryn over two years ago.)

ATryn is designated for use in patients with specific blood clotting disorders and its market will be relatively small. But although the drug itself is not likely to be a big money maker, the approval of ATryn brought a sigh of relief from pharming companies. “[It] really takes away one of the biggest issues that have always been on the table, which is how do regulatory agencies view this kind of technology,” Samir Singh of Pharming, a pharming company headquartered in Leiden, told The New York Times.

How about those investors? “Investors shrugged,” wrote Forbes' Matthew Herper in his beautifully titled blog post “Goats Make Drugs, World Doesn’t Change”. Stock in Massachusetts-based GTC Therapeutics, the company that produces ATryn, actually fell on Friday and is now trading at around $0.60 a share.

Posted by Heidi Ledford
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If you haven't had enough Darwin yet, here are some more tidbits.

“I think in many respects Wallace was as talented, if not more talented, than Darwin.”
David Grimaldi, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, sings the praises of the poor man who has been forgotten in all this Darwin worship (Washington Post).

Previously
Darwin 200 - February 02, 2009
Darwin 200 redux

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology, Quotes of the day | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The controversial doctor whose research led to the MMR safety scare has been accused of manipulating his research data. According to an investigation by the Sunday Times, Andrew Wakefield “changed and misreported results” in a Lancet paper which has been used as support by those who believe the now conclusively debunked claim that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism.

The Times says:

In most of the 12 cases [in the paper], the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Wakefield is currently being investigated by the UK’s regulatory body for doctors, the General Medical Council.

“You also know that, at this juncture in the GMC process, it would be inappropriate for Dr Wakefield to give a detailed response to you,” his lawyers told the Times. “He has denied the allegations and gave a detailed response over many days to the GMC panel.”

However, a response – apparently from Wakefield – has been posted on anti-MMR websites.

Continue reading "Fakefield? MMR-autism link doctor stands accused" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Emma Marris

Marie Mason was sentenced last week to nearly 22 years in prison for a 1999 arson. Mason and others conspired to set fire to the Michigan State University campus offices of the Agriculture Biotechnology Support Project, which promoted the use of genetically-modified crops in the developing world (See the lead-in to this editorial for more information on the motivation). Because the arson of the was motivated by anti-genetic modification ideologies, the sentencing judge followed "terrorism enhancement" guidelines to set the sentence.

"This is the sort of sentence one would expect from a murder case, or a plot to commit mass, indiscriminate murder—something truly terroristic." says Mason's lawyer, John Minock. He adds that Mason plans to appeal the sentence. A support site for Mason has also been set up.

US Attorney Don Davis, who supervised the prosecution, says that scholars at Michigan State University felt fearful and intimidated by the arson—and that spells terrorism to him.

Other dangerous arsons in the west have met with stiff punishments. A group that set fires in the name of the Earth Liberation Front in the west got 3 to 13 years apiece. Mason's sentence is nearly twice that.

In a statement released last week university president Lou Anna K. Simon said, “This was an assault on the core value of free and open inquiry at a research university. We always must be open to ideas that challenge our own, but what we must never allow are disruptions meant to shut down the open marketplace of ideas.”

More on the crime and the case against Mason at Michigan State University.

Commentary on the sentencing from Green is the New Red, a blog that likens the campaign against "eco-terrorists" to the Red Scare and crackdown on US communists in the 1950s.

Image: the aftermath of the arson / MSU

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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“This observation adds to the growing evidence that dolphins may be included in the list of mammals that practice infanticide.”
Researchers tell an unpleasant tale in Marine Mammal Science. Repeat after me … dolphins are not cute animals.

“I go into 2009 with my eyes wide open and a sense of confidence.”
Andrew Witty, chief executive of GSK, announces more restructuring and more job losses (Financial Times).

“From an agronomic standpoint, it has all of the issues of GM rape, but is arguably worse.”
Richard Roush, of the University of Melbourne, doesn’t like a new herbicide resistant oilseed rape (New Scientist).

“The situation down here is getting very, very chaotic and very aggressive.”
Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson’s ship has collided with a Japanese whaling vessel (AP).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Quotes of the day | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Make methane while the sun shines
Nanotubes help turn carbon dioxide and water into natural gas.

What causes schizophrenia?
Findings from a 'brain training' study challenge theory.

Pygmies share a recent common ancestor
The rise of farming may have caused formation of diverse groups.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: On Nature News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here’s another selection from the ongoing Darwin 200 celebrations.

Everyone has a blog these days. This one is a novelty though: Emma Darwin – wife of Charles – has started blogging for the snappily titled UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology.

“On the occasion of my dear husband’s 200th birthday, and in response to the prodigious quantity of material and events marking the year, I am compelled to add my voice, soft though it may be, to the loudening din,” writes Emma (who may or may not be Karen James, of the Natural History Museum).

“… It grieves me to learn that some in these modern times think of him as a cold, hard man failing in – or even actively shunning – the preciousness of human life, for it was in its very cause that my husband worked so painstakingly to demonstrate that the bond of common descent is shared by all living things.”

Continue reading "Darwin 200 redux" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Some caterpillars trick worker ants into feeding caterpillars instead of ant larvae. That’s just nasty.

Even worse, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, those ants are tricked with song!

Here’s how it works, the horrid parasitic Maculinea rebeli caterpillar are carried, by ants themselves, into ant nests where the infiltrators secrete smells just like ant larvae. This tricks the worker ants into feeding the caterpillars, but to ensure the very best treatment, they unleash a second trick – the caterpillars start to mimic the sounds that the queen ant makes. This makes those loyal little worker ants start to feed the caterpillars more than they feed their own larvae because they think their queen is asking for more food. Nasty, nasty parasitic caterpillars.

Continue reading "The very hungry (and evil) caterpillar" »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As part of the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast George Hrab has recorded this ditty about how big numbers get for those working in space science.

You ponder the universe and a look comes 'cross your face You try to fathom distances of all the stuff in space But you can't wrap the bacon of your mind around the fig Of all the terms required to describe how big is big

“Far” (mp3).

UPDATE - Video now on YouTube

[Hat tip: Bad Astronomy.]

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
Songs about science part VI: ‘Don’t go messing with our telescope’
Songs about science VII: ‘It’s a long way from Amphioxus’
Songs about pseudo-science
Songs about science part VIII: the astrobiology rap
Songs about science IX: Rollin’ to the Future
Songs about science X: drilling’s killer songs
Songs about science XI: Charlie Darwin
Songs about science XII: Shubin’s song

Image: Punchstock

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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You might think that if/when the huge ice sheet in West Antarctica melts, sea levels around the world will rise by roughly the same amount everywhere. You’d be wrong.

You’d be in good company though. Some predictions – including the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports – have also assumed that meltwater will spread uniformly.

In this week’s issue of Science researchers report that some parts of the world – such as the United States – would see much more of a rise than others. Their paper – which draws on an apparently much overlooked work in Nature from 1977 – says US coastal states will see a sea level rise 30% higher than the uniform rise – called the effective eustatic value – estimates.

“When an ice sheet melts, sea level does not change uniformly,” says Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysicist at the University of Toronto (Globe and Mail). “You get this whopping amplification of sea-level rise in North America.”

Continue reading "Antarctic ice’s American inundation amplification" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb and a central figure in a major nuclear smuggling ring, has been freed.

A brief order issued on 6 February by the Islamabad High Court released the 72-year-old metallurgist from house arrest. Khan had been confined since 2004, after confessing to selling Pakistani nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

Khan's freedom has gradually returned over the past year or so. While he remains a pariah in the West, he enjoys overwhelming public support in Pakistan, where he is revered as a national hero. He has given a few interviews in recent months, and even started his own website.

It's a little unclear what happens next. The government has asked Khan to let them know if he's planning any domestic travel, and there's no word on whether he'll be able to take trips abroad. In interviews he says he's done with smuggling and will devote the remainder of his life to education.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
Categories: Physics & Mathematics, Policy, Quotes of the day | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

US President Barack Obama addressed the Energy Department on Thursday, although employees looking for a little inspiration or insight into their future at the agency might have come away disappointed; the renewed bid for a green economic stimulus bill was clearly directed at senators who were busy debating the legislation on Capitol Hill.

The president reiterated calls for a vast new investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, all of which will be needed to end "the tyranny of oil." He said a modernized grid on its own could reduce energy consumption by 2 to 4 percent; retrofitting federal buildings would put people to work and cut the government's energy bills by $2 billion annually.

"Washington might not be ready to get serious about energy independence, but I am," he said. "No plan is perfect ... but both the scale and the scope of this plan is the right one. Our approach is the right one."

Continue reading "Obama visits DOE, talks to Congress " »

Posted by Jeff Tollefson
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Posted for Heidi Ledford

A local entrepreneur has donated $100 million over the course of 10 years towards the establishment of a new immunology research institute. The new ‘Ragon Institute’ plans to focus initially on development of an HIV vaccine, but eventually aims to tackle broader issues in immunology and infectious diseases.

In a time of shrinking endowments and overstretched budgets, it is refreshing to hear that some philanthropists still have their wallets open. At the announcement of the institute yesterday morning, Harvard University President Drew Faust called the donation “particularly extraordinary at this time.”

The heroes of this story are Phillip “Terry” Ragon – an MIT grad who made his fortune by founding a software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts – and his wife, Susan Ragon. For more about their motivation to invest, check out the Boston Globe story.

Continue reading "$100 million stimulus package for Boston-area HIV research" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Financial Crisis, Health and medicine, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Geochemists have found evidence of animals living on Earth at least 635 million years ago – nudging back the oldest fossil records by tens of millions of years. Their research is published in this week’s Nature [subscription required].

"It is, definitively, the earliest evidence for animals," geochemist Gordon Love, of the University of California, Riverside, tells Wired.

The animals in question were demosponges, and were tracked by a characteristic chemical marker, a 30-carbon steroid called 24-isopropylcholestane (24-ipc), which they left behind in sedimentary rocks in a salt basin in south Oman.

These compounds are “40 to 50 million years earlier than any fossil sterols seen before”, Love told Chemistry World.

They show the sponges must have lived before the Marinoan ice age, the second great freeze of the Cryogenian period (and also sometimes referred to as the time of ‘Snowball Earth’). That’s some 100 million years before an evolutionary growth spurt recorded by a boom in the fossil record, the so-called Cambrian Explosion.

Continue reading "Incredibly old sponges found" »

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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Leaping lizard crap, it’s the saddest tale I ever heard. Daniel Bennett, a PhD student at Leeds University UK, writes in the Times Higher Educational supplement of his distress when, after years of collecting poo from a rare and incredibly shy lizard in the Philippines, he returned to his lab in Leeds one day to discover it had gone. Vamoosed. It seems it had been vamoosed by an over-zealous cleaner, but Bennett may never really know. His desk had been cleared too.

I mean, if I found 35 kg of poo in a bag, I think I’d assume it was there for a reason.

Continue reading "Lost: 35 kilos of lizard poo" »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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Bill Gates had a good idea yesterday, but failed to take it to its logical conclusion.

To make a point about malaria the billionaire software mogul punctuated a talk by releasing mosquitoes into the concerned audience.

“Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. I brought some,” Gates told the invitation-only Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in California (Fox News, AFP). “Here I’ll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.”

As the New York Daily News and other papers noticed, at a conference like TED this was always going to end up on twitter.

“Bill Gates just released mosquitos into the audience at TED and said: "Not only poor people should experience this." :)” wrote Facebook manager Dave Morin. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar added, “That's it, I'm not sitting up front anymore.”.

Later the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – which has combating malaria as one of its aims – said the insects were not carrying the disease. Now if Bill Gates really wanted to solve the malaria problem, what he should have done is get all the world’s important people in a room and actually infect them with malaria. I think we’d see interest in malaria research rise pretty sharply after that.

Image: Punchstock

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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There's a little buzz out there on this paper which appeared a few days ago in the journal Physical Review Letters. The paper is from an Italian-led instrument known as PAMELA, which you may remember made headlines after discovering an excess of anti-electrons (aka positrons) flitting about space.

As Sean Carroll points out on Cosmic Variance, this is hardly new. It appeared on the popular preprint server arXiv back in October. Most theorists have already taken the constraints set by the paper into account when formulating their ideas.

The jury's still out on whether these theories are right, but there should be more data soon. The Fermi Telescope, which was launched by NASA last summer, should soon see gamma rays from the galactic centre, if, that is, dark matter is the cause of PAMELA's signal.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
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Pakistan got a new science minister last week.

Azam Khan Swati is “an American lawyer of Pakistani origin”, says SciDevNet, which notes that Swati “faces the challenge of sustaining developments brought about by Atta-ur- Rahman, widely credited with reforming Pakistan's science and technology infrastructure and hiking its science budget 60-fold between 2000 and 2008”.

Continue reading "Azam Khan Swati" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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As you’ll know from the main Nature News site, “Researchers have found fossils of the biggest known snake in the world, a discovery that could shed light on the climate of the tropics in the past.”

Obviously a giant snake was always going to make massive media impact. Here are some highlights.

Much is being made of the fact that this snake could – and possibly did – eat a crocodile. Researcher Jonathan Bloch, of the University of Florida, is also getting a lot of play for his comment that, “The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie Anaconda is not as big as the one we found.”

One man who’s not so impressed is Ian Stephens, curator of herpetology at London Zoo. In an ‘expert view’, published by the Guardian, he admits “This is a bloody big snake.” But he goes on to say:

The largest snakes now are around the 30ft mark, but there are always rumours of bigger snakes going round. I still think there are 10-metre snakes out there, so if Titanoboa is just over 13 metres, it's not really that much longer. I was expecting this snake to be much bigger than it is. My guess is it won't be long before someone finds fossil evidence for a 50ft snake. Now that would impress me.

As ever, the best headline belongs to the Sun, who have cristened the beast ‘Rocky Bal-boa’. Metro runs them close with “At 14m in length, this is one snake you wouldn’t want to meet on a plain”.

Image: reconstruction illustration of the giant snake / Jason Bourque.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Declan Butler

French researchers have replied with a 5-minute video rebuke to a fiery speech by Nicolas Sarkozy where the French president chastised at length the country's scientists.

As described in an Editorial in this week's Nature – “No time for rhetoric” – “Sarkozy lambasted the country's university system as “"infantilizing" and "paralysing for creativity and innovation," and implied that French researchers were fainéants (layabouts) with cushy jobs, and no match for their supposedly more industrious British counterparts.” (See also “French scientists revolt against government reforms”.)

The 5-minute video sets excerpts of Sarkozy's speech to a jaunty tune and contests his assertions about the performance of French researchers using science indicators spliced in showing that French research is not in such an apocalyptic state as the president infers. I've made a similar point in an article published in 2007 – “French election: Is French science in decline...”

Continue reading "Entente pas cordiale " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Olive Heffernan

Among the many proposed techno-fixes for climate change, ‘air capture’ seems like one of simplest solutions – what could be more straightforward than sucking greenhouse gases out of air and storing them somewhere else?

But various proposals for the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere have largely been sidelined from serious discussions on climate control. Noteworthy scientists and engineers – including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – have regarded the technology as a non-starter owing to the large amounts of energy involved. After all, energy costs money and unless we find ourselves in ‘climate crisis’ mode, solutions to climate change will be considered on economic grounds as well as on efficacy.

But a new study by Roger Pielke, Jr. (of the University of Colorado and Prometheus blog) shows that air capture could be a cost-competitive mitigation option.

Continue reading "Could we count on air capture?" on Nature Climate Feedback»

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Scientists find world's biggest snake
'Titanic' boa fossils provide clues to past tropical climate.

India's drug problem
Chemists show how waste-water contamination affects ecosystem.

French scientists revolt against government reforms - Premium content
Strike threatens to undermine Sarkozy's overhaul of universities.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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On this week's Nature Podcast - Three record-breakers on this week's show: we uncover fossil evidence of the world's longest snake, discover chemical signs of the earliest animal life, and take a look at light from the oldest quasar known to mankind.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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“I’ve been working with ants for eight years, and have never seen a traffic jam — and I've tried.”
Audrey Dussutour, of the University of Sydney, discusses how ants smooth movement could help gridlocked roads (Wired).

“What we are seeing is not necessarily optimism, but a pullback in the pessimism.”
David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds, looks at a big pharma-led rise in the stock market (Bloomberg).

“We want to make sure we got this right. This has important consequences for us.”
Shuttle program manager John Shannon discusses why NASA has delayed the next shuttle flight (Reuters).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Pity Dow Chemicals.

Just days after learning that its dalliance with the Rohm and Haas firm could come back to bite it, Dow has warned of a $1.55 billion loss for the last quarter of 2008. Ouch.

If you stacked that much money in $100 bills it would still be a mile high.

Andrew Liveris, Dow’s chairman and CEO, says “the financial results are very disappointing and a reflection of the demand deterioration we saw in global markets and the turmoil in the financial world” (statement).

Continue reading "Dark days dog Dow" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Physicists report [ArXiv] they’ve made a metamaterial that reverses the Doppler effect for sound – so that you’d hear sirens rising in pitch as they race away from you.

Metamaterials are structures whose unusual properties - such as controlling light or sound waves - depend on how their parts are arranged, rather than on the atoms they are made of. So-called ‘invisibility cloaks’ which hide objects from light by bending electromagnetic waves are the most famous examples. Chul Koo Kim, of Yonsei University, Korea, and colleagues have now created a practical acoustic metamaterial, a thin tube which manipulates sound. So far, though, it affects only sound waves traveling in effectively one dimension – that is, inside the tube.

The tube is segmented by tensioned elastic membranes, and punctured with side holes. The researchers placed a sound detector inside this tube and linked it to a loudspeaker. When they moved a sound source along the outside of the tube – approaching, passing, and receding from the detector – the acoustic vibrations set up inside the tube propagate with negative phase velocity, creating a tone-shift from low to high pitch.

Kim tells Physics World that the invention is a stepping stone to an acoustic cloak which could hide objects from sound waves. Acoustic superlenses – which could achieve subwavelength resolution in ultrasonic imaging – are also an option.

Continue reading "Naw-nee, Naw-nee: reverse Doppler alert" »

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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A member of the US military’s controversial social science programme has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Don Ayala killed Abdul Salam in Afghanistan last year after Salam had set researcher Paula Loyd on fire. Salam was being restrained at the time he was shot. Loyd later died.

Both Ayala and Loyd were working for the ‘Human Terrain’ programme that puts social scientists with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq in an attempt to improve relations with local people and increase the effectiveness of American forces. As Sharon Weinberger reported for Nature last year, some researchers have problems with the programme and the American Anthropological Association has said it “creates conditions which are likely to place anthropologists in positions in which their work will be in violation of the AAA code of ethics”.

According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia Ayala will be sentenced on 8 May.

Coverage
'Human Terrain' Contractor Guilty of Manslaughter – Wired
Afghanistan Contractor Pleads Guilty to Killing Man Who Burned Co-Worker – Washington Post

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Climate guru James Hansen says he will scale back his dealings with the media in the wake of his comments about airport expansion.

Hansen’s apparent refusal to back protesters opposed to a new runway at the UK’s Heathrow airport made headlines around the world and forced Greenpeace onto the defensive. “I don’t think it is helpful to be trying to prevent air flight,” Sunday paper the Observer reported him saying, under a ‘Climate expert snubs Heathrow protesters’ headline.

Now, in one of his regular emails, he apologises to the protesters.

“I had no intention of damaging their case,” writes Hansen. “All I intended to say was that aviation fuel is not a killer for the climate problem – at worst case we can use carbon-neutral biofuels …”

For a man with such a large – and controversial – media-profile it is a little surprising that Hansen also says he has “relearned a basic lesson re interviews – which will have to be fewer and more guarded”.

Will we be seeing less of Hansen in 2009? This reporter rather doubts it.

Image: Plane at Heathrow / by SecretLondon123 via Flickr under creative commons

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Posted for Emma Marris

Susan Blum is likely to start quite a few conversations with her new book My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture. One such conversation is already up and running at Inside Higher Ed.

Blum's book represents the culmination of hundreds of confidential interviews with students, and comes to the conclusion that plagiarism doesn't have the same taint in a youth culture rife with riffing, borrowing, sampling and file sharing. And she notes that when students are in school primarily to get a diploma and the career advancement that comes with it, they have every incentive to cut corners to make the grade.

Blum says that an aggressive campaign of catching plagiarists with tools such as Turnitin is misguided. Inside Higher Ed quotes her as saying, "It undermines our whole raison d'être. Are we there as police? Are we there as adversaries or to serve as models for our students? If we are aiming to get our students to love our subject, I don't think this law enforcement approach is going to get us to our goal." She prefers softer tactics including discussion of plagiarism issues and having her students turn in work multiple times as they progress on a project, so she can see it grow.

The idea that kids these days don't see anything wrong with plagiarism has been floating around for a while. See this Guardian piece about plagiarism and the "Google generation". And then there is the essay about plagiarism by Jonathan Lethem in Harper's two years ago. It's worth reading to the end. And come to think of it, this blog participates in the culture of sampling, sharing and riffing. For what is it but a bunch of other people's words, artfully framed? Though, of course, we cite by linking.

See also
Cheating across the world - June 17, 2008 - British universities are turning a blind eye to cheating, plagiarism and manipulation of markings. That’s the message from former chair of the academic council of the University of London.
School’s plagiarism code plagiarized - April 01, 2008 - University of Texas at San Antonio students wanted to draft an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Inheriting memory
Mothers that have led rich lives may have offspring with longer memories.

Fossil of pregnant whale found
Position of fetus suggests that early whales gave birth on land.

Former MIT biologist penalized for falsifying data
Faked figures found in seven published papers and five grant applications.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Iran’s announcement that it has successfully put a satellite in orbit has successfully triggered the fear in many.

The satellite is named Omid (Hope), and according to Reuters is for research and telecoms. Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, commented, “Iran’s satellite technology is for purely peaceful purposes and to meet the needs of the country.”

However France, American and UK are already expressing concerns about Iran’s apparent space-ability, mainly because the technology used could also be used to make ballistic missiles (BBC).

Continue reading "Iran’s Sputnik" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Thanks Google, now I’ve got that annoying song Under the sea from The Little Mermaid stuck in my head.

You can do the same, just by taking a look at Google Earth’s latest addition. (Check out Climate Feedback last year on Google Earth's climate-related updates). It’s a very cool update that allows you to scoot around under the sea, and take a look at the sea floor, or at least a representation of it based on seismic data. Can you guess what it’s called? Google marketing people have done themselves proud this time, yes, it’s called Google Ocean!

This Very. Exciting. News. has set the internet alight with stories about the project.

Sylvia Earle, oceaneer extraordinaire introduces the project in a video neatly slotted in at the Guardian, and a great quote of hers is highlighted by Deep Sea News: “Anyone can discover in a few minutes what took me 50 years to understand.” DSN are in turn highlighting the Google Ocean live blogging epic by Danny Sullivan.

The application allows you to spin the globe round, take your pick of underwater treasure you want to find, and zoom in (or dive down) to check out how the land lies. It’s neat, and the Googlers have added tidbits of information about some of the features you might see.

The data has come from a load of research institutes, and the EU is also claiming a stake in the project.

Take a peek, but look out for the vampire squid, apparently lurking there somewhere…

Image: screenshot from Google Earth/Ocean/Mars/Sky/Etc

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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Another victim of the credit crunch: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Last week Rajat Gupta, the chairman of the fund’s board, warned the international meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that “the global fund is not immune to the environment today of the global financial crisis” (AFP).

Currently the gap between the cost of programmes eligible for funding and the funds pledged by nations is about $5 billion for the months up to 2011 (Christian Science Monitor, NY Times).

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, can see where some of the money can come from. He thinks the US government should take back the alleged $18 billion in bonuses Wall Street bankers are getting (NY Times).

“Those bonuses are being paid out of our bailout funds,” he says (LA Times). “I suggest the U.S. government reclaim that funding and put the money into the Global Fund immediately.”

And Eve Odete, Oxfam’s Pan-Africa Policy Officer, is warning of a “possible reduction in social spending as the global financial crisis is likely to hit Africa hardest this year” (Reuters). Given that we’re just printing money at the moment, it shouldn’t be too hard for the world’s treasuries to run off a few extra notes should it?

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Tom Daschle, the former South Dakota senator who was tapped by Barack Obama to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services, withdrew his name from consideration today. The decision stunned the Washington political scene, even though Daschle's nomination had been questioned for days over the fact that he had not paid $128,000 in back taxes. Last week, Tim Geithner had squeezed through Senate confirmation for the post of Treasury secretary, despite having also failed to pay back taxes on the order of $30,000.

Daschle's withdrawal leaves the main position overseeing America's health system unclear. Researchers have been waiting for other key appointments that come under the umbrella of health and human services, including head of the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. Now, with Daschle's withdrawal, the question is whether those jobs will be filled shortly. The White House has hinted recently that the FDA job, at least, may be named in the coming days.

Obama did fill one last Cabinet slot today, nominating Judd Gregg, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, as Commerce secretary. Obama's first nominee, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, withdrew last month pending a grand jury iinvestigation into his political dealings in New Mexico. If confirmed Gregg, a fiscal conservative, will be in charge of the odd and sprawling bureaucracy that is the Commerce department. It is meant to promote economic growth -- something America surely needs at this point -- but also contains elements such as the patent and trademark office. Most significantly for science, it contains the multibillion-dollar National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees the country's weather satellites, fisheries, and pretty much all things civilian that are related to the ocean.

On that, at least, Judd should have lots of scientific advice: Nominee Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, is awaiting her confirmation hearing to head NOAA. There's no public word on her tax situation -- which can only be a good sign, at least so far.

Posted by Alex Witze
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America is getting a new university. A rather strange sounding university.

Based at NASA’s Ames facility in California, the Singularity University has been inspired by the writing of ‘futurist’ Ray Kurzweil. This summer students – who may number 30 or 120 – will start work at the university, which is backed by Google (who else) to the tune of $1 million.

“Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges,” says the institution’s website.

Continue reading "A singular university" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Colombia has yielded ten new amphibian species, according to scientists from Conservation International (CI), the Washington DC-based environmental organisation. The frogs and salamanders were spotted during a three-week 'rapid assessment program' expedition in the mountains of the Darien, near Colombia's border with Panama.

'Without a doubt, this region is a true Noah's Ark,' said Jose Vicente Rodriguez-Mahecha, Scientific Director of CI-Colombia.

Introducing on your left, two new arrivals: a 'glass frog' of the Nymphargus genus - so called because of its transparent skin; on your right, a species of rain frog (Pristimantis genus). Say hello - and let's hope they'll still be jumping around a decade from now.

Images: Conservation International-Colombia/Photo by Marco Rada

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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Celebrity-obsessed UK newspaper the Guardian has wheeled out its big-hitting serious journalists today for an expose of tax avoidance and ‘offshoring’. In some potentially morally dubious (but likely entirely legal) tax-related cleverness it seems AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline have shifted the ownership of some of their trademarks to low-tax countries.

“This means they can reduce their UK-based profits and hence their British tax bills by paying royalties to the subsidiary in the tax haven for use of the trademarks,” says the paper.

GlaxoSmithKline moved the ownership of over 40 trademarks to Puerto Rico, including its big-selling Avandia diabetes drug. AstraZeneca has also moved rights to drugs such as Crestor to Puerto Rico.

The companies deny doing anything wrong, with Helen Jones, GSK’s head of tax, telling the Guardian, “It is a widespread and totally accepted practice for global companies to license out intellectual property in return for royalties which reflect the value of work carried out by the holder.”

Image: Puerto Rico / by scudsone via flickr under creative commons

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Hybrid embryos fail to live up to stem-cell hopes
Strategy for creating pluripotent cells called into question.

Tiniest exoplanet found
Satellite spots a planet less than twice the width of Earth.

Paper sparks fossil fury
Palaeontologists criticize publication of specimen with questionable origin.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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For NASA and the European Space Agency, the next major mission to the outer planets has come down to Titan or Europa (and Ganymede, really, but you'll have to read our story to understand how that fits in). The science chiefs for the two agencies, Ed Weiler and Dave Southwood, were planning on make a decision last week, via teleconference. But they now plan to meet face to face at the end of next week. I told one of the big Titan proponents, Jonathan Lunine, at the University of Arizona in Tucson, that he might get a present in time for Valentine's Day. But he says he's equally prepared for a Friday-the-13th "chainsaw delivery".

Posted by Eric Hand
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Fight! Fight! Fight! Carl Djerassi, inventor of the pill (and author, check out his page at Stanford, where his list of representative publications are all to do with his writing exploits, not his science) has hit out at one of organic chemistry’s biggest names, Barry Trost, also at Stanford University.

Djerassi, in a letter (subscription required) to the magazine Chemical and Engineering News, has a dig at Trost for playing down the role of Robert Pettit in Trosts’s recent Nature paper about the total synthesis of a bryostatin.

Djerassi’s complaint is that Pettit, who first discovered the bryostatins and worked on their anticancer properties, is only referenced in passing in Trost’s paper, hidden away in a review article. And not only that, Djerassi doesn’t hold back in accusing Trost of self-promotion: “Trost had no problem in starting his bibliography through references to his own work in 1991 and 1983 rather than to some anonymous review article”.

Oooh, now now Carl.

The fight is highlighted at the mighty Chem Blog, and at Everyday Scientist, the former of which has some great comments as well as pointing out the uncanny resemblance of Djerassi to a famous 'Colonel'. Everyone seems to have a strong feeling about this, and none of the three lead characters in this soap opera have too many fans. Ego is the word being used to describe Djerassi, Trost and Pettit, so perhaps we should leave them to it.

But does Djerassi have a point, or is it up to the peer-review process to pick up on sloppy referencing? It would have been interesting if Djerassi had been one of the referees for the paper in question.

It also occurs to me that, if they're both at Stanford, why doesn't Djerassi just wander down the corridor and challenge Trost to a fight? A duel for Pettit's honour, perhaps? Maybe that's just stupid. Everyone loves a fight, though.

Image: Punchstock (appropriately)

Posted by Katharine Sanderson
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“The whalers are deploying water cannons, concussion grenades, acoustic weapons, and throwing solid brass and lead balls at Sea Shepherd crew members."
Paul Watson, captain of anti-whaling ship Steve Irwin, on the latest run in with the Japanese whaling fleet (Times).

“All legal means available will be used to ensure these pirates do not board Japanese ships or threaten the lives of the crews or the safety of the vessels."
Glenn Inwood, of the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research, comments on the same incident (Times).

"The delivered kid was genetically identical to the bucardo."
Jose Folch, director of the bucardo project at the University of Zaragoza in northern Spain, comments on the birth of a clone of the extinct Pyrenean ibex (bucardo). The animal died shortly after its birth (Independent).

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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It’s groundhog day, but spare a thought for the prairie dogs – the burrowing ground squirrels which are being poisoned and shot out of their habitats across North America.

The environmental group WildEarth Guardians wants prairie dogs to be protected, and has issued its second annual report card grading each federal agency and state that manages them. As last year, no-one is doing very well. Arizona, by reintroducing 74 black-tailed prairie dogs to a small southeast parcel in October, topped the league with a B, up from last year’s C+.

Some agencies have for years financed the poisoning of prairie dogs, while others at the same time are paying to help recover species (such as the black footed ferret) that depend on them, WildEarth Guardians’ desert and grassland projects director Lauren McCain told Associated Press.

The Denver Post asked prairie dog expert Con Slobodchikoff, of Northern Arizona University, to give them the lowdown on the critters, of which there are five types (Utah: classified as threatened; Mexican: endangered; black-tailed and white-tailed: status under review by the US Fish and Wildlife Service; and Gunnison’s):

[They have a] sophisticated vocabulary of at least 100 ‘words’ or yips, most describing predators. There are, however, still mysteries even for the prairie dog listener. Slobodchikoff doesn’t know why a prairie dog gets up on his hind legs and gives a ‘jump yip’. ‘Maybe he’s happy about something?’ he said.

Image: Black-tailed prairie dog, Wikimedia Commons

Posted by Richard Van Noorden
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In case you hadn’t noticed yet, we’re rapidly approaching the 200th birthday of Charlie Darwin. As the Darwin 200 celebrations become ever more frenzied, the Great Beyond will be rounding up the best of the world’s Darwin coverage, starting now.

Continue reading "Darwin 200" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Alaska’s Mount Redoubt Volcano is getting antsy. According to the US Geological Survey it is looking increasingly likely that she is going to pop sometime soon.

“It looks like a volcano that wants to erupt, and our general impression is that it's more likely to erupt than not,” says Tina Neal, of the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AP).

The Anchorage Daily News says:

Two holes -- one more than the length of a football field across -- have formed in Drift Glacier below the summit. Each of the holes, known as fumaroles, is blowing steam and volcanic gas 2,000 feet into the air.

A vast sunken area known as a "collapse feature" also has appeared in recent hours. And a thin mudflow is streaming down the 10,197-foot mountain.

Last time Redoubt erupted, some 20 years ago, it sent ash plumes up 40,000 feet and caused engine failure in a 747 (press release). According to the Alaska Volcano Observatory “volcanic tremors” have also been detected.

“If you’re going to bring magma to the surface you’ve got to break rock, and every time rocks break at the subsurface beneath a volcano, that’s an earthquake,” says Charles Mandeville of the American Museum of Natural History in New York (Fox News). “They’re recording a whole bunch of earthquakes almost continuously right now.”

More images.
Volcano updates on Twitter.

Image: North flank of Mount Redoubt as of 31 January 31 / Chris Waythomas, Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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The folks repairing the Large Hadron Collider have spotted more bad connections of the sort that led to last autumn's catastrophic accident. But this time, they've found and fixed the problem before it caused tens of millions of Swiss Francs in damage and months of delays.

As a brief refresher, the LHC uses finger-sized ribbons of superconducting niobium-titanium wire to move the thousands of amps of current that it needs for its superconducting magnets. In September, a bad splice between two sections of wire caused a section of the ribbon to loose its superconductivity and heat up very, very quickly. The result wasn't pretty.

In the wake of the accident, the LHC project team made a number of changes to try and catch bad splices before they failed. That's just what they seem to have done in another sector (Sector 1-2). They suspect another bad splice is lurking in Sector 6-7, and they're warming it up just in case.

They claim that all this work will not add further delay to the LHC restart, which is now scheduled for mid-summer.
image: CERN

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel
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The discovery of a fossil Asian turtle in the Canadian Arctic is leading some scientists to reconsider how these animals got to America.

According to researcher John Tarduno, of the University of Rochester, the fossil suggests that tropical turtles may have reached the New World from Asia not via Alaska but by coming directly over the poles.

“We’ve known there’s been an interchange of animals between Asia and North America in the late Cretaceous period, but this is the first example we have of a fossil in the High Arctic region showing how this migration may have taken place,” he says (press release).

“We’re talking about extremely warm, ice-free conditions in the Arctic region, allowing migrations across the pole.”

James Parham, who works at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and was not involved in the work, told Wired, “This paper is actually providing a route of dispersal for some of these animals. The story’s starting to slowly get pieced together.”

Continue reading "Tropical turtle’s Arctic travels" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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Briefing: Halting the African armyworm
Liberia prepares for second plague of caterpillar pests.

Briefing: Clean-energy agency recruits its founding members
Nations have begun to hammer out the mandate for the International Renewable Energy Agency.

MS stem-cell trial shows promise
Multiple sclerosis treatment seems to reverse symptoms.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
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