Discover Environment

Big Picture: The Banks That Prevent—Rather Than Cause—Global Crises

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:45:00 -0800

Every year farmers in flood-prone areas of Southeast Asia lose millions of tons of rice to high water that kills their crops. That colossal waste may soon be a thing of the past: SUB1A, a gene discovered by researchers with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the University of California, allows rice plants carrying the gene to live completely submerged for two weeks. Flood-resistant rice turned up among the 110,000 types of seed stored at the institute. It produced disappointingly low yields, but scientists were able to transfer the gene into more bountiful varieties. These have shown promising results in tests by growers in India and Bangladesh over the past two years.

This rice success story would not have been possible without the trove of genetic diversity tucked away in the IRRI’s vaults. As the world faces new agricultural challenges—shifting climate, bugs and diseases that have developed resistance to old defenses—such genetic resources are likely to become increasingly valuable. Fortunately, the IRRI is one of more than 1,000 organizations around the world (including the USDA, the International Potato Center in Peru, the Millennium Seed Bank in the U.K., and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway) cataloging and preserving crop genes. Most plant species grown for food have an associated bank that stores thousands of samples: seeds of landraces, wild relatives, and varieties that are rare, old, or adapted to very specific environments. The banks ensure that it will be possible to develop new varieties in the future.

CO2 Emissions Are Rising. Or Falling. Actually, It’s Both. | 80beats

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:20:38 -0800

This week in Nature Geoscience, a cadre of scientists going by the name Global Carbon Project will publish a meta-analysis of global carbon emissions. The study led to headlines like, “Global CO2 emissions to drop 2.8 pct in ‘09: report,” and many others more in the ominous vein of “Earth ‘heading for 6C (6 degrees Celsius)’ of warming.” So how did both headlines come from the same study?

This year’s dip is correct: “In 2009, it is likely that the global financial crisis will cause global emissions to actually fall by a couple of percent,” said Michael Raupach, co-author of the report and co-chair of the Global Carbon Project [Reuters]. But, he says, the carbon cut will be short-lived if the recession ends.

In that case, the researchers say, the world will return to its normal trend. Since 2000 emissions have been rising by an average 3.4 per cent every year, compared to one per cent in the 1990s [The Telegraph]. Overall, worldwide emissions rose by 29 percent from 2000 to 2008, and the scientists put forward that 6 degrees Celsius global warming figure as a worst-case scenario—what could happen if the overall rising trend continued unabated.

The timing of their warning seems clear. This week President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao talked climate during their meeting in China, with the world climate summit looming. The two committed their countries — the biggest emitters of the heat-trapping gases causing global warming — to backing a detailed political agreement at next month’s climate-change conference in Copenhagen. In their formula, rich countries would commit to reduction targets while developing ones would agree to meet softer goals that would be monitored [MSNBC].

The most troubling assertion of the Global Carbon Project study, however, might be this: The team believes that carbon sinks – the oceans and plants – are probably absorbing a slightly lower proportion of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions than they were 50 years ago, although researchers admit that uncertainty about the behaviour of sinks remains high [BBC News].

Image: iStockphoto

Nanosilver Puts the Hurt on Microbes—and Maybe Fish, Too | 80beats

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:56:46 -0800

Toys, refrigerators, washing machines, socks—more and more products contain silver nanoparticles. It’s no wonder: These particles, which measure less 100 nanometers (smaller than a single HIV virus), can kill microbes on contact. But, researcher Darin Furgeson says, nanosilver can also escape into ecosystems and cause serious damage to fish embryos. Furgeson’s team published its results in the journal Small.

In one new experiment, Furgeson, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences, exposed zebrafish embryos to silver nanoparticles in a laboratory, and found that some died and others were left with dramatic mutations. “Some of the fish became extremely distorted, almost making a number nine or a comma instead of a linear fish,” he said [Scientific American]. Eyes, tails, and other body parts turned out malformed in the fish that survived.

Just how much nanosilver gets into the environment? A separate study from Environmental Science & Technology washed nine kinds of nanosilver-containing textiles, including some “anti-bacterial and anti-odor socks” that are already on the market. The researchers found that anywhere from less than 1 percent to as high as 45 percent of the silver came out in the first wash. Most of the silver was in the form of coarse particles of greater than 450 nanometers, suggesting that mechanical stress in the washing machine was responsible for most of the release [The New York Times], and that the nanoparticles might have aggregated to reach that size.

Those nanoparticles flushed out by a washing machine can end up in both fish habitats and drinking water supplies. Furgeson says his fish experiments could help show whether nanosilver is a health concern for humans, too. “Zebrafish have similar tissues and organs to us,” Furgeson said. “They don’t have lungs, but they do have a liver, kidneys and heart – though it is only two chambered – and they have a blood-brain barrier” [Scientific American].

Image: Wiki Commons / Kristof vt

Clumsy Tokyo Subway Commuter Drops His Bottle of… Hydrochloric Acid? | Discoblog

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:45:27 -0800

Note to self: the next time you need to carry a container filled with hydrochloric acid to work, take a cab.

Tokyo got a scare this morning after a man dropped his bottle of the toxic liquid on a subway train. Several people when to the hospital with minor injuries, but thankfully this chemical clumsiness didn’t cause a major disaster.

Police didn’t arrest the man in question, a 20-year-old stone mason, deciding he didn’t intend to spill his chemicals on the train. Hydrochloric acid has a number of industrial uses, though perhaps carrying it in a bottle on a crowded train isn’t the best transportation strategy.

And because of his butterfingers, New Yorkers aren’t alone in revisiting unpleasant memories of terrorist attacks (as a 9/11 conspirator’s trial comes to Manhattan). Reuters says:

Japan is particularly sensitive to hazards on its trains after a 1995 incident in which members of [the Aum Shinrikyo] religious cult released highly toxic sarin gas on the Tokyo subway, killing 12 and injuring thousands, some permanently.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Nerve Gas in the Subway, revisiting the 1995 attack
DISCOVER: What Invisible Things Are in the Surfaces You Touch and the Air You Breathe? (in a which a DISCOVER editor finds out how dirty the New York subway system really is.)
80beats: MIT Students Who Hacked Boston Subway Silenced; Report Gets Out Anyway

Image: Wiki Commons / Fg2

Hugo Chavez: “Any Cloud That Crosses Me, I’ll Zap It So That It Rains” | Discoblog

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:16:00 -0800

Hugo Chavez: ardent socialist, Venezuelan president, rain maker?

A crippling drought in his country has led Chavez to embrace cloud seeding. This week, he announced that he will team up with Cuban scientists to fly through clouds and “zap” them with silver iodide so they produce precipitation, one of the most popular kinds of cloud seeding and the one China said it used to induce a snowstorm this February.

Reuters was there to catch the president’s excitement:

“I’m going in a plane; any cloud that crosses me, I’ll zap it so that it rains,” Chavez said.

Seeding the clouds doesn’t do any good if there’s no moisture to begin with, but we presume that President Chavez wants to try anything that might help. Anyway, “zapping” is a more pleasing alternative to threatening, which the president previously tried on his countrymen. From UPI:

Earlier this month Chavez accused Venezuelans, including businesses, of wasting water and warned of tough punitive measures. He advised people … to limit showering to three minutes. Jacuzzis, watering of lawns and flowerbeds and filling of swimming pools have all been banned.

For the sake of Venezuela’s swimmers, horticulture enthusiasts, and hot tub manufacturers, here’s hoping the president’s plan is a success.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Harnessing the Weather
DISCOVER: Microwave a Tornado, Lase a Rainstorm
The Intersection: When Will Geoengineering “Tip?”
Discoblog: Brazilians Urged to Pee in the Shower to Conserve Water

Image: flickr/ Daniel Zanini H.

Scientists Solve the Mystery of Bangladesh’s Arsenic-Tainted Water | 80beats

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:50:29 -0800

It was a twisted cycle: In the 1970s, Bangladeshis used surface ponds or rivers to collect rainwater for drinking. But thanks to garbage dumping and sewage, that water became a breeding ground for disease. So UNICEF sought to fix the problem—the agency helped residents drill simple wells that drew water from a shallow aquifer. But this remedy became a tragedy. Bangladesh’s groundwater was laced with arsenic. Now, in a study in Nature Geoscience, a team from MIT has answered one of the outstanding pieces of the Bangladesh puzzle: Just how all that arsenic got into the water in the first place.

Bangladesh occupies the flood-prone delta of the river Ganges [New Scientist], and that river brought the arsenic to the region’s sediments. But why doesn’t it just stay in the sediments once it’s there? Back in 2002, another MIT team began to answer the question by showing that microbes digest organic carbon in the soil in such a way that frees up the arsenic, but they couldn’t say where that carbon itself came from until Rebecca Neumann and colleagues figured it out this year: man-made ponds left behind by excavations.

Using a six-square-mile test plot, they found that the organic carbon comes from shallow ponds that were dug to provide soil for flood protection. The carbon compounds sink in the pondwater and seep underground where bacteria digest them, setting up the perfect chemical conditions to free up the soil’s arsenic. Groundwater flow then brings the arsenic-rich water to the wells [Scientific American].

Hopefully, these answers will help to turn around the Bangladesh disaster. Around 25m people in the country have been exposed to arsenic through water. Experts have described the situation as the worst mass poisoning of a population in history [BBC News].There’s no quick fix, but Neumann’s team suggests two things: Digging deeper wells that go below the influence of the ponds, and using wells that retrieve water from beneath rice paddies, which the team found to be less toxic than wells in other places.

Image: Sarah Jane White, MIT. Researcher Rebecca Neumann hangs off the end of bamboo scaffolding to set up an experiment.

Glowing Green Bacteria vs Deadly Hidden Land Mines | Discoblog

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:27:30 -0800

A small crop dusting-style aircraft skims the land, spraying a mysterious solution onto the ground. Within hours, a few spots begin to glow bright green. No, this scene isn’t some hair-brained Homer Simpson scheme to use nuclear waste as a fertilizer. Rather, it could be a new way to locate one of humanity’s most vile creations: land mines.

University of Edinburgh scientists announced today that they’ve bioengineered a bacteria to glow a bright green when it comes in contact with the chemicals that old land mines leak out into the ground. The project was actually a student creation, and their supervisor, Alistair Elfick, says that they could mix the bacteria into a solution that could be sprayed by air over areas known to be infested with mines.

Elfick says the team isn’t planning to sell the glowing microorganisms commercially. But if the technique works, countries around the world could reap the benefits. From BBC News:

Each year, between 15,000 and 20,000 people are killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance, according to the charity Handicap International.

Some 87 countries are riddled with minefields, including Somalia, Mozambique, Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Could Rats Be the Next Sniffing Dogs? (They’ve already been trained to find landmines.)
Discoblog: Animal Prosthetics: False Limbs for Elephants, and Silicone Where You’d Least Expect It (Elephants in Myanmar and Cambodia are sometimes the victim of mines.)

Image: flickr / nestor galina

About That Garbage Patch… | The Intersection

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:16:26 -0800

Miriam Goldstein–chief scientist of SEAPLEX–is leading the voyage to understand the the island of garbage in the North Pacific Gyre to attempt to understand the effects it may have on marine life. She has a new blog post up entitled ‘“Millions, billions, trillions”…of scientific errors in the NYT‘. Yikes! Here’s how it begins:

On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article on the North Pacific Gyre called “Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash.” Written by Lindsay Hoshaw, it was the culmination of a $10,000 freelance journalism project* in which she visited the gyre with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Unfortunately, this NYT article was far below their usual standards. Not only did it not add anything new to the discussion, but it significantly misrepresented the state of the science, presenting broad estimates & conjecture as facts.

I sent a list of corrections to the New York Times, and I am republishing them here as well. They are in the order they appear in the article. Because there are so many, I have kept each explanation brief, but please ask in the comments if you would like elaboration. Thanks to my SIO colleagues Kristen Marhaver and Mike Navarro for their suggestions!

In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

The gyre is not a current, but a lack of currents. Please see Pete’s explanation of convergence zones for more detail.

And that’s only the beginning… Go take a look.

Thanksgiving for Fish: Food Chemicals Go Through People & Back Into Water Supply | Discoblog

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:06:16 -0800

Pulses of certain Turkey Day food ingredients are detected in the water supply in the days after the holiday, according to researchers. But as reported in National Geographic News, it doesn’t stop there:

For instance, thyme and sage spike during Thanksgiving, cinnamon surges all winter, chocolate and vanilla show up during weekends (presumably from party-related goodies), and waffle-cone and caramel-corn remnants skyrocket around the Fourth of July.

A research team from the University of Washington tracked pulses of food ingredients that enter Washington’s Puget sound to learn more about how our actions on land affect the water supply, and to determine what slips through sewage treatment plants. Similar monitoring is underway worldwide, and scientists have turned up things such as flu vaccines, cocaine, heroine, rocket fuel, and birth control in waterways.

Click on over to team leader Rick Keil’s lab Web site to learn more about the Puget Sound research. But Keil told National Geographic News that the no one knows yet whether the subtle seasoning of the water is having an impact.

For now, there’s no evidence that a sweeter and spicier sound is a bad thing—salmon, which can smell such flavors, could be enjoying their vanilla-enhanced habitat, Keil said.

Image: flickr / Lana_aka_BADGIRL

Why Chimpanzees Are NOT Pets | The Intersection

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:49:33 -0800

In February, 55-year-old Charla Nash made headlines around the world when she was brutally attacked by a friend’s 200-pound pet chimpanzee. She decided to reveal her disfigured face on Oprah this week and I am posting a clip* because I have extremely strong emotions concerning this particular issue–foremost as a result of my conservation biology background and also due to my friendship with science writer Vanessa Woods and her husband, evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Brian Hare. Together they study sanctuary orphans in Congo and often mothers have been killed so the babies can be sold as pets.

Most people still do not seem to understand the gravity of this issue. After watching, make sure to read Brian’s original guest contribution on the science behind why chimpanzees are not pets below the fold.

(A warning to readers of graphic content.)

The Science Behind Why Chimpanzees Are Not Pets
by Brian Hare, Evolutionary Anthropologist at Duke University

Last month, a 200 pound male chimpanzee named Travis mauled a woman outside the home where he has been living with his owner Sandra Herold. Charla Nash was nearly killed by Travis and now has life changing wounds to her face while Travis was stabbed by his owner with a butcher knife and shot dead by the police.

Was this incidence preventable or just a freak accident? Should chimpanzees and other primates be kept as pets? What is the effect of the primate pet trade not only on the welfare of these “pets” but on their species survival in the wild? To answer these question I consider what science has to say and draw on both my own work on domestication and over 50 years of research by primatologists on wild chimpanzees.Domesticated animals are biologically different
Most people keep domesticated animals, whether it’s a dog, cat or a cow. We know the biological systems in their bodies that control stress responses are down regulated relative to wild animals. This means that the average dog, cat, cow, etc. stays much more calm in a stressful situation than a wolf, lion or buffalo in the same situation. Because domesticated animals do not become as stressed, they rarely if ever attack humans compared to wild animals. It’s true that 23 Americans died last year from dog bites, but this statistic would be many times higher if the 68 million dog owners had wolves instead. By living together with us for thousands of years domesticated animals have been bred to live together with humans relatively harmoniously.

Summary: Domestication is the process of breeding out aggression

Chimpanzees are not domesticated animals
Although chimpanzees share more DNA in common with humans than they do with gorillas, they are not domesticated animals. So while a tiny percentage of pet dogs will bite a human,- all chimpanzees and all primates will readily bite a human. Moreover, chimpanzees in captivity can weigh between 150-220 pounds, live for over 60 years, and grow to be many times stronger than any human. In the wild, chimpanzees spend a lot of time defending their social status – they often seriously injure each other in fights (biting off fingers, testicles, face tissue, etc) and are known to occasionally hunt and kill rivals and their infants. After 50 years of research on wild chimpanzees we now know that, like people, while they are extremely social and prefer peace they can also be extremely violent – sometimes leading to murder.

Summary: Wild chimpanzees kill each other…it is in their nature.

Why do people think chimps make good pets?
Baby chimpanzees look a lot like human babies. They have fingers and toes, and they laugh and pout- they are adorable. People who sell chimpanzees as pets sell babies because no one would ever buy a 200 pound adult chimpanzee. Travis was bought as a baby from a group of trainers who used infant chimpanzees in TV commercials and in children’s birthday parties. Chimpanzee breeders are in the business of selling chimpanzees (~$50,000 each) not educating their customers about the hazards of pet ownership. In addition, Hollywood hires infant chimpanzees to star in movies that show them as cute human imitations. Currently, there are over 700 pet chimpanzees in US homes of unknown origin (i.e. they may be smuggled from Africa). Many of these chimp live decades in horrible conditions and present a real risk to neighbors. ALL primates potentially carry diseases deadly to humans including Herpes B, Yellow Fever, Monkeypox, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, SIV, HIV and tuberculosis.

Summary: Breeders and hollywood portray infant chimpanzees as suitable pets

What laws exist to protect the public from the hazards of pet primates?
Currently there are no federal laws in the United States or Europe preventing
the sale or purchase of a chimpanzee or other great apes born outside of Africa
after 1976. There are state laws in the U.S. preventing the sale of
primates such as chimpanzees but many loop holes exist in almost every
state. Chances are, your neighbor can legally own a pet chimpanzee.

Summary: No federal law prevents the sale or purchase of chimpanzees in U.S.

What message do U.S. chimpanzee pet owners send to Africa?
Chimpanzees live in tropical forest in over a dozen African countries. It is illegal to own, purchase or sell a chimpanzee in all of these countries. Unfortunately, an international trade rages in Africa – including the sale of great apes like chimpanzees. Hunters shoot mothers and sell their bodies as meat to rich city dwellers who can afford the luxury. They pull babies off the backs of their dead mothers to sell in the markets as pets. These pet traders are doing nothing worse than what is done in the United States legally: baby chimpanzees are pulled off their mothers backs and sold as pets. I have had Africans who have seen U.S. television shows with Hollywood chimpanzees dressed in clothing ask me why people in the U.S. can have chimpanzees
as pets while someone in Africa cannot….they wonder why chimpanzees in the United States are not protected?

Summary: U.S. Pet Chimpanzees seem hypocritical to Africans who know they need protection

You can help. Send a letter to you senators urging them to support the Captive Primate Safety Act. Go to: community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2009_primates_pets3

Links items related to the Pet Chimpanzee Issue

News Reports:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/29462809#29462809

Articles/ Newspaper coverage:
hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2009/02/chimp-attack.html
www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25wed4.html
www.thankingthemonkey.com/docs/HollywoodStories.pdf

Legislation Under Consideration:
Find information on the
Human Society’s website about the Captive Primate Safety Act and from
which you can send a letter to you senators urging them to support the
legislation. Go to: community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2009_primates_pets3.

Organizations working to help orphan chimpanzees:

www.chimpsanctuarynw.org
www.friendsofbonobos.org
www.ngambaisland.org
www.janegoodall.org
pasaprimates.org

(originally published March 4th, 2009)

In the Commute of the Future, Drivers Can Let a Pro Take the Wheel | 80beats

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:32:17 -0800

The European Union has contracted an engineering firm to develop a public transportation system that doesn’t require users to leave their cars. The British consultancy Ricardo will work to develop a system that allows drivers to surrender control of their vehicles, and the company plans to test the system on public roads within the decade. It all sounds highly fanciful, but the firm insists it is a genuine attempt to build so-called “road trains”, whereby various cars or other vehicles travel in convoy with only the one at the front steering. Big names, such as Volvo, have also signed up [London Times]. The project has been dubbed Sartre, for Safe Road Trains for the Environment. Basically, a lead car, driven by a professional driver, will travel down the highway and other cars can fall in behind and turn the driving over to the lead car. Cars would be able to enter and exit the platoon at any time by sending a signal to the lead car.

Ricardo officials speculated that those joining a platoon or road train may one day pay for the privilege of someone else effectively driving them closer to their destination [BBC News]. The benefits of road trains extend beyond being able to sing along to the radio or eat breakfast in the privacy of your car. According to earlier research, fuel consumption could be cut by 20 percent because cars wouldn’t waste energy on abrupt braking or acceleration, and also because cars traveling close together would experience less air drag. Also, road capacity will increase at the same time that accidents from distracted or drowsy drivers decrease [Wired.com].

The Sarte development project will run for three years, and towards the end they will begin testing their convoys on private road tracks. Eventually they plan to start public road trials in Spain, which would consist of two- or three-car road trains. Click here for a schematic of how the road trains would work.

Image: flickr / Nrbelex

Study: The Chemical BPA, in High Doses, Causes Impotence | 80beats

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:35:25 -0800

A chemical commonly found in plastics that has recently fallen under intense scrutiny by public health officials has now been linked to impotence. During a five year study, scientists followed 634 male Chinese factory workers who were exposed to high levels of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) on the job and compared their sexual health with that of similar Chinese factory workers not exposed to BPA. The men handling BPA were four times as likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction and seven times as likely to have difficulty with ejaculation [Washington Post]. The study (PDF), published in the journal Human Reproduction, marks the first time sexual dysfunction has been linked to BPA exposure.

To be fair, the workers were exposed to BPA levels that are 50 times greater than the average U.S. man faces, so scientists can’t say how smaller amounts of the chemical will affect sexual health. However, the chemical resembles the hormone estrogen and that’s fueled worries that even very small amounts of BPA can cause harm [NPR News]. The feds are determined to get to the bottom of the issue and have pledged $30 million to researchers over the next two years in an effort to finally settle the question of whether BPA is safe.

That would be a welcome development, since BPA is ubiquitous in consumer products—everything from plastic bottles to canned food linings is laced with the stuff. BPA is so widespread that 93 percent of the U.S. population has BPA in their urine, according to previous research. The Food and Drug Administration has maintained that BPA is safe, despite its own scientific advisory board’s criticism that the agency ignored over 100 research publications linking BPA to ill health effects. A growing body of research over the past decade has linked BPA to a range of health effects in laboratory animals, including infertility, weight gain, behavioral changes, early-onset puberty, cancer and diabetes [Washington Post]. BPA defenders have argued that the previous research conducted on animals is of limited use in determining the chemical’s toxicity, and have insisted that human data is necessary. The FDA is currently taking a fresh look at the issue, and is expected to complete its review by the end of the month.

Image: iStockphoto

Drilling Into a Stirring Volcano Is (Probably) Safe | 80beats

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:41:18 -0800

A super-colossal volcanic eruption rocked Italy 39,000 years ago, and troubling signs at the site, now known as Campi Flegrei, have many scientists wondering when the next big one will hit. To probe the issue, so to speak, the Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project will drill nearly 2.5 miles down into the collapsed volcanic crater to find out if another blast is on the horizon. Though the researchers on this particular project point out that any risk is small, it will begin amid debate about whether such endeavours are safe, given the unknowns of a volcano’s interior. A few say drilling might even trigger a major eruption [New Scientist]. However, scientists on the project say this isn’t likely, as their drills won’t dig deep enough to set off an eruption.

Campi Flegrei isn’t well known because it lacks a volcanic cone, but it dwarfs Mount Vesuvius. All of Naples sits within its caldera, an eight-mile-wide collapsed area of land formed by the eruption 39,000 years ago. A similar volcanic eruption would leave large parts of Europe buried under ash, say scientists, however smaller eruptions occur every few centuries; the last eruption was in 1538. The researchers hope that by drilling into the volcano, they’ll learn if another smaller eruption is imminent. They hope to locate fracture zones and magma pools that could only be guessed at without drilling. This could show exactly where magma might ascend and collect prior to an eruption. Meanwhile, rock samples could be tested under high stresses in the lab to help model the ground deformation prior to eruption [New Scientist]. The caldera’s center has risen about 10 feet since the 1960s, which has lit a fire under the researchers since a similar rise proceeded a series of intense eruptions 4,000 years ago.

However, some critics do worry that the drilling could trigger an explosion prematurely rather than help prevent one. An oft cited examples is the 2005 Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) that was halted when drilling into magma for geothermal energy created an explosion. At Campi Flegrei, the greatest threat would be drilling 5 miles deep into a silica-rich magma chamber under high pressure. If they hit magma, the sudden rise in temperature would vaporise their drilling liquid, causing an explosion which could in turn trigger an eruption. It’s a sexy and dangerous headline, but … the risk doesn’t seem all that great: 4km [almost 2.5 miles] wouldn’t even be halfway deep enough to reach any known reservoirs of magma, so it’s probably a moot point [Gizmodo]. Either way, the project is moving forward, and the bores will drop in December or January.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Donarreiskoffer

Japan Pushes Forward on Plans for a Giant Solar Power Farm in Space | 80beats

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:13:41 -0800

Refusing to cave to the “that’s far too crazy to ever work” crowd, Japan took a step forward this week in the country’s scheme to develop a giant solar power station in Earth orbit. JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, selected major Japanese firms like Mitsubishi Electric, Fujitsu, and Sharp to help develop the gargantuan project.

JAXA wants a system that can produce 1 gigawatt of electricity by 2030, and at one-sixth the cost Japan currently pays for electricity. The solar cells would capture the solar energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves. These would be collected by gigantic parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs [AFP]. There the energy would be converted to electricity.

Japan isn’t alone; California utility Pacific Gas & Electric asked for regulatory approval of a similar project in April, though both schemes must confront a mountain of challenges. Sending equipment up to space is one. Operating and maintaining the system cost effectively is another. How about minimizing losses during conversion and transmission of energy [Greentech Media]?

And even if space solar power works, proponents might need to hire some talented public relations professionals: JAXA said the technology would be safe but conceded it might have to dispel fears of laser beams from above roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air [Sky News].

Image: Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer

Are There Pesticides in Your Soup? Dunk a Pollution Dipstick to Find Out. | 80beats

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:32:07 -0800

Environmental monitoring is often expensive, cumbersome, and time-intensive. Equipment that can run quick and easy tests for pollutants like pesticides in our food are almost nonexistent. However, researchers in Canada are working on a new biomonitoring technique using treated paper on a stick that can quickly identify trace amounts of pesticides in your chicken soup, or your first early morning cup of joe [Technology Review]. Could these dipsticks lead to DIY pollution monitoring one day? That may still be far off, but this technology could give researchers a reliable and cheap way to get a better picture of what pollutants—even at trace amounts—are in the environment, and how they interact with our bodies.

In the study, published in the journal Analytical Chemistry, the researchers describe a new paper-based test strip that changes color shades depending on the amount of pesticide present. In laboratory studies using food and beverage samples intentionally contaminated with common pesticides, the test strips accurately identified minute amounts of pesticides. The test strips, which produced results in less than 5 minutes, could be particularly useful in developing countries or remote areas that may lack access to expensive testing equipment and electricity, they note [R&D Magazine]. If the dipsticks pan out, restaurant customers may one day have more to complain about than a stray hair in their soup.

Image: ACS

Checking Back In With SEAPLEX | The Intersection

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:35:15 -0800

The SEAPLEX (Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition) voyage to the island of garbage in the North Pacific Gyre continues… Watch marine mammal specialist Josh Jones deploy his acoustic array to study dolphins and whales:

More videos from the expedition are available at Dive Into Your Imagination.

Britain’s New Protected Minority: Tree-Huggers | Discoblog

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:55:38 -0800

Employers in the U.K. have just learned that there’s a word for discrimination against a person based on their earth-conscious, tofu-eating ways: “greenism.” And firing someone for their environmental views is just as illegal as firing someone for their religious or philosophical beliefs, according to a court ruling.

Tim Nicholson, former head of sustainability at property firm Grainger Plc, claims he was laid off because of his views on climate change and the environment. A judge said Nicholson could take Grainger to the Employment Appeals Tribunal over the layoff, but Grainger challenged the ruling on the grounds that climate change is a scientific and not philosophical viewpoint. However, that challenge was overturned, according to the Telegraph:

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.”

The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

Nicholson said during previous hearings that due to his strong convictions he refused to travel by air and renovated his house to be environmentally friendly. He also said Grainger’s chief executive, who allegedly once flew a staff member from Ireland to London to deliver a forgotten Blackberry, was hostile toward his beliefs. The company said it will now argue that there was no link between Nicholson’s views and his layoff.

Image: flickr / hpeguk

A Crack Opens in the Ethiopian Landscape, Preparing the Way for a New Sea | 80beats

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:07:42 -0800

In 2005, the earth cracked open in Ethiopia. Two volcanic eruptions shook the desert, and a 35-mile-long rift opened in the land, measuring 20 feet wide in some places. Now a new study adds weight to the argument that the opening of this crack marks the first step in the formation of a new sea that may eventually separate East Africa from the rest of the continent. Says lead researcher Atalay Ayele: “The ocean’s formation is happening slowly, likely to take a few million years. It will stretch from the Afar depression (straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti) down to Mozambique” [ABC News].

The study, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains that the seismic movements observed in Ethiopia are very similar to the changes wrought by faults and fissures on the seafloor, where the processes that move tectonic plates usually begin.

Seismic data from 2005 shows that the rift opened in a matter of days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today. “We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this” [LiveScience], says study coauthor Cindy Ebinger.

The active volcanic region in Ethiopia’s Afar desert sits at the boundary of the African and Arabian tectonic plates, which have been gradually spreading apart for millions years; the new study shows that large-scale seismic events can speed up that process. The gradual separation has already formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so [LiveScience].

Image: University of Rochester

The Snows of Kilimanjaro Could Be Gone by 2022 | 80beats

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:27:49 -0800

The glaciers that shine at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, could vanish entirely within 15 years, according to a somber new report. Says glaciologist Lonnie Thompson: “Of the ice cover present in 1912 … 85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone” [USA Today]. The mountaintop glaciers are both shrinking around the edges and growing thinner, Thompson’s team found. If the current rate of ice loss continues, the mountain could be ice free as early as 2022.

Thompson says his team has fresh evidence that global warming is to blame. As similar changes are occurring on other mountains in Africa, South America, and in the Himalayas, Thompson says that global climate change, not local weather effects, must be responsible for the receding ice. “The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause,” Thompson said [AP].

For the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers used maps, aerial photographs, and satellite images to track the ice’s retreat over the last century, and also looked at data from instruments implanted in the glaciers in 2000. Some previous researchers have argued that Kilimanjaro’s glaciers are disappearing because of what they viewed as local factors, namely less snowfall and more sublimation, which turns ice directly into water vapor. But Thompson found that higher temperatures are melting the ice, and he also argues that the drier and less cloudy conditions leading to sublimation on Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro are part of a suite of changes driven by global warming. “You change the temperature profile of this planet, you are going to change precipitation and cloudiness and humidity and temperature,” he said. “Those are all part of climate change. And so to say that that Kilimanjaro is not responding to global climate change is untrue” [National Geographic News].

If the glaciers disappear entirely, it will make an anachronism of a great piece of literature. The “snows of Kilimanjaro” were made famous in the Ernest Hemingway short story of that name in 1938, in which the main character notices “as wide as all the world, great, high and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro” [USA Today].

Image: Lonnie G. Thompson / Ohio State University

Ocean Beauty | The Intersection

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:56:51 -0800

More on the spectacular leafy sea dragon and other unusual critters at HuffPo…

Lesson of the Ancient Nazcas: Deforestation Can Kill a Civilization | 80beats

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:36:58 -0800

From an ancient Peruvian civilization comes this warning: Don’t chop down all your trees, or there will be hell to pay.

The Nazca people are famous for the enormous earthworks they carved into an arid plateau, in designs that range from simple geometrical forms to representations of animals like hummingbirds, lizards, and monkeys. They were previously known to have disappeared around A.D. 500, when massive floods powered by El Niño ravaged the valley where they made their home. Now, a new study that examined the pollen in buried layers of soil in order to trace the horticultural history of the land may have revealed why those floods were so devastating.

The Ica Valley, about 120 miles south of Lima, is barren today but was once a riverine oasis — a fertile landscape capable of supporting many people. The key to that fertility was a tree called the huarango [Los Angeles Times]. The huarango tree provided wood for building and fuel, and seed pods that can be ground up and used in flour or beer. Its branches caught the water in morning mists, and its roots stabilized the topsoil. Says lead researcher David Beresford-Jones: “These were very special forests…. It is the ecological keystone species in the desert zone enhancing soil fertility and moisture and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known” [BBC News].

The new study, published in the journal Latin American Antiquity, found that the pollen in the older layers of soil came almost entirely from huarango trees. But by A.D. 400, pollen from corn and cotton plants had replaced the tree pollen, suggesting that the Nazca people had chopped down the forests to make room for agricultural fields. About AD 500, a major El Niño built up in the Pacific, deluging the nearby Andes with rain. Walls of water and mud washed down the valley and over the denuded landscape, sweeping away food crops, buildings and artifacts. Beresford-Jones compared it with the 1997-98 El Niño, which left the city of Ica 6 feet underwater [Los Angeles Times]. The floods of A.D. 500 were many times worse, the researchers say.

In the soil layers that came directly after the flood, the only pollen came from salt-tolerant plants that could survive in the arid conditions left behind in the aftermath of the natural disaster. The land was clearly no longer able to support agriculture, and the Nazca people vanished. But although the El Niño floods were dramatic, they didn’t have to mark the end of a civilization, the researchers say. “The landscape only became exposed to the catastrophic effects of that El Nino flood, once people had inadvertently crossed an ecological threshold,” explains Dr Beresford-Jones. “Such thresholds or ‘tipping-points’ are sharply defined in these desert environments” [BBC News]. The study refutes the notion that pre-Columbian people always lived in perfect harmony with nature, the researchers say–and also serves as a reminder that medding with the ecosystem can have devastating consequences.

Image: Alex Chepstow-Lusty

Europe’s Plan to Draw Solar Power From the Sahara Moves Ahead | 80beats

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:15:46 -0800

When European Union officials first discussed the idea of a massive solar power plant in the Sahara to provide power to all of Europe, many people took it as a thought experiment, a plan that was far too outlandish to ever come to pass. But now a band of alternative energy companies have announced the formation of a consortium dedicated to pushing the project ahead.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) aims to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050 or earlier via power lines stretching across the desert and Mediterranean sea. The German-led consortium was brought together by Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, and consists of some of country’s biggest engineering and power companies [The Guardian].

The $400 billion project calls for building enormous solar power plants in the sun-drenched Sahara, and using new high voltage direct current cables that can efficiently transport electricity over long distances to bring the power to Europe. The power stations would use concentrated solar power, in which mirrors concentrate the sun’s rays on a fluid container. The super-heated liquid then drives turbines to generate electricity. The advantage over solar photovoltaic panels, which convert sunlight directly to electricity, is that if sufficient hot fluid is stored in containers, the generators can run all night [The Guardian].

The countries of the northern Sahara–Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia–are said to be interested in the project, although their governments are expected to insist that a portion of the clean energy remains in Africa and is allotted to their own countries. Meanwhile, the project’s backers say they’ll need evidence that the project won’t suffer due to local political instability or terrorism threats. But if all the players can agree on a way forward, the first solar thermal power station could be built in the desert by 2015.

Image: Desertec Foundation

America’s Electronic Waste Is Polluting the Globe | 80beats

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:48:16 -0700

It seems that every day brings a new electronic gadget to the market, whether it’s a smart phone, an electronic reader, a laptop the size and weight of a magazine, or a television the size of a wall. But each advance adds to the world’s electronic waste, which is the fastest-growing component of solid waste. Much of the electronic refuse ends up in developing countries, where workers strip down the gadgets to get at the copper and other valuable metals inside, often exposing themselves to toxins in the process. Now, scientists are calling for federal regulations in the United States to stem the tide.

Although the U.S. is one the world’s largest producers of electronic waste (e-waste), it is hardly a leader in addressing this problem, given that the country has “no legally enforceable federal policies requiring comprehensive recycling of e-waste or elimination of hazardous substances from electronic products,” the researchers say [Scientific American]. Instead, e-waste policies are left to the states, not all of which have laws on the books. In the article, published in Science, the authors note that the United States has not ratified the Basel Convention, which regulates the movement of hazardous wastes across international borders and has the support of 169 of the 192 United Nations member countries [Scientific American].

Electronics can contain a host of dangerous materials, from heavy metals to toxic chemicals. Toxic e-waste shows up in forms as varied as high lead levels in the blood of children in Guiya, China, where millions of tonnes of e-waste are illegally dumped, and as fire-retardant chemicals in the eggs of California’s peregrine falcons [CBC News].

Image: Basel Action Network. E-waste in a Nigerian dump.

Pwnage Made Easy | The Loom

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:30:16 -0700

I smell an anthology here: a collection of the all-time greatest take-downs, in which scientists expose lazy thinking. How about, The Best Pwnage of 2009?

My own latest nomination:

In the new book Superfreakonomics, economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner make lots of provocative claims about global warming. For example, they say that solar panels would absorb so much heat they’d be useless for bringing the planet’s temperature down by cutting down carbon emissions.

Raymond Pierrehumbert, who, like Levitt, is a professor at the University of Chicago, shows why that’s wrong–not with calculus or some other fancy-schmancy mathematics, but with some embarrassingly simple arithmetic.

Be sure to check out the map at the end. Ouch.

A Major Quake Could Release Plutonium From Los Alamos Lab | 80beats

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:20:26 -0700

Federal experts believe that a major earthquake could trigger fires at Los Alamos National Laboratory, releasing radioactive materials and endangering lives. The rupture of a seismic fault that runs underneath the lab would shake the ground more than scientists previously thought, according to a new report (PDF). A natural disaster here would be bad news, since the lab, just west of Santa Fe, is the main plutonium factory in the United States, believed to hold thousands of pounds of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons (the actual amount is classified).

Researchers study plutonium inside glove boxes—a Hollywood movie staple, consisting of a sealed enclosure with gloves so that someone outside the box can work on dangerous materials inside. A major earthquake would shake the ground enough to topple the glove boxes, says the new study. Some glove boxes are enormous and even contain furnaces to cast and mold plutonium. If one of these were to crash, the resulting fire would be uncontrollable and would create a vaporized plutonium cloud that could drift outside of the lab, says the safety report. In a worst-case scenario, a fire could release so much airborne plutonium that a person on the boundary of the lab would get a dose of radiation—potentially many thousands of times greater than a chest X-ray—that could be fatal in weeks, according to individuals knowledgeable about the study [Los Angeles Times].

The amount of vaporized plutonium could potentially be as much as 100 times more than the level allowed by the Department of Energy. Los Alamos responded to the report by saying they have taken many actions in the past year to increase fire safety including repacking plutonium into containers that would survive the accident. The lab also installed ventilation filters that perform at higher temperatures, improved the fire suppression system, implemented new controls for combustibles, added fire extinguishers to critical areas and developed plans to support firefighter response [AP].

The warning was delivered by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an auditing agency that oversees federal nuclear programs; the board urged Energy Secretary Stephen Chu to act quickly to improve safety at Los Alamos. The laboratory will present a formal response to the report later this week.

Image: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Resilient Social-Ecological Systems: How Do We Achieve Them? | The Intersection

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:16:35 -0700

I’ve been on the road in California all week so it’s been difficult to post, but I’d like to share this wonderful presentation by Elinor Ostrom at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Elinor won the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and I’ve long been a tremendous fan of her work. Take a look:

Watch another terrific talk by Elinor entitled, “Beyond The Tragedy of the Commons” here.

Would You Turn Vegetarian to Slow Global Warming? | 80beats

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:58:00 -0700

Lord Nicholas Stern, the British economist who produced an influential report on the potential costs of global warming, is strongly urging the British public to go vegetarian in order to slow the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. Said Stern: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better” [The Times]. Stern also suggested that climate change legislation that makes it more expensive to generate greenhouse gases could soon force meat producers to raise prices, which might lower consumption.

In a 2006 report, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. By comparison, it said, all the world’s cars, trains, planes and boats accounted for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions [BBC News]. The gases are produced by each step of livestock production. Take cows, for example. First forested land is cleared for cattle grazing or for agricultural operations that generate livestock feed, then there’s the methane emitted by burping cows and the nitrous oxide in their manure, and finally there are the energy costs associated with slaughtering the cows and transporting the meat.

Not everyone is calling for the drastic measure of eliminating meat entirely from our diets. Many experts agree that we could make a good start merely by dropping meat one day a week. This is what the citizens of the Belgian city of Ghent have been doing, voluntarily, all this year, without noticeable ill effects [The Times].

Image: flickr / Cathy, Sam, Max and Mai

New Ink-Remover May Be Key to Recycling Office Paper | Discoblog

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:28:07 -0700

Kindles, iPhones, laptops, and maybe an Apple Tablet make avoiding the printer a cinch. However, should someone actually need to read off dead trees, a new method to remove ink from white paper could make office paper far easier to reuse. All it takes is a solution of 60 percent dimethylsulphoxide and 40 percent chloroform and a little agitation to shake off the ink, and used paper will be almost as good as new, according to a new study.

From Physorg.com:

[Researchers] found that a combination of solvents can remove toner print from paper without harming the paper to make it reusable, although the resulting paper is not quite as white as new paper.

Physorg.com also has a an image of the comparisons between printing on paper treated with chemical solutions versus printing on a fresh sheet.

It’s hard to imaging any office keeping a wet lab and actually doing this, and sloshing through all that solvent can’t be very safe or economical. So here’s an alternative idea: Just stop printing altogether and read things digitally like everyone else.

Image: flickr / michaelkpate

Let’s Talk About Breast Cancer | The Intersection

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:59:24 -0700

Born and raised in Suffern, NY, pretty much everyone I knew was touched somehow by breast cancer. If it didn’t affect you personally, either your friend or aunt or mother or sister or grandmother seemed to be struggling with the disease. There was the routine of chemotherapy, hair loss, mastectomy, and on… it almost seemed as common as dealing with the removal of wisdom teeth. Just take a look at the incidence in Rockland County over 4 years (click here for the expanded list):

Later in Maine, the wife of a professor in my department was diagnosed with the same condition. Many peers had not encountered breast cancer personally until then and I realized my county was unusual. I also learned the couple coincidentally used to live on the street where I grew up.

So what’s going on in Rockland? Some local doctors wonder about environmental toxins and others suggest that the particular genetic make-up of residents may make the population more susceptible than average. Speculation abounds, but there are no answers.

This afternoon I’m concerned about yet another friend having a biopsy. Meanwhile CNN reports on the troubling new trend of younger women getting the disease. The incidence is still quite low, but we ought to be paying close attention. As National Breast Cancer Awareness month draws to a close, the American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates there were 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer in women and 1,910 in men last year in the United States. Rates in this country are among the highest in the world. (Statistics are available to download here).

Numbers: Plastics, From Manufacturing to Recycling to Long Death in a Landfill

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:55:00 -0700

Field Notes: Stalking Fish in the Name of Science

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0700

An exhaustive new marine census is tracking everything that swims in the sea, one fish at a time.

Call For A National Ocean Policy! | The Intersection

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:57:23 -0700

There has been no comprehensive statement from our government on oceans. Now for the first time, we have a common vision to govern the 4.4 million square miles of America’s marine waters: President Obama’s Ocean Policy Task Force has issued science-based recommendations for a national policy to govern, protect, maintain and restore ocean habitat.

Why should you care? Oceans are important to all of us–not just fishermen and boaters, but snorkelers, sunbathers, divers… even those who may not see the coast on a regular basis. They drive life on our planet. Unless we take responsibility for keeping oceans sound, we’re all in trouble. As the Marine Conservation Biology Institute explains:

If adopted, implemented and funded, the recommendations would usher in a new era of ocean management — one based on environmental stewardship. Just imagine the impact we could have if, rather than the hodgepodge of agencies and laws that currently govern oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes, we work together to restore the health of these critical ecosystems!

Go visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/oceans/ and tell the White House Council on Environmental Quality that you support a comprehensive national policy to protect, maintain and restore our oceans and coasts. The 30 day comment period ends on the 17^th.

For inspiration, once again, here’s My Top Ten List of reasons why oceans are vital:

Ocean critters generate a good deal of the oxygen we breathe.
We’re talking 99% of the habitat, 97% of the water, and 71% of surface on the planet!
Oceans drive climate and weather through transfer of water and heat.
Most U.S. commerce travels through the nation’s ports.
Oceans account for a $20 billion recreational fishing industry… not to mention, a $60 billion annual seafood industry.
And we’re talking $8 trillion estimated in oil and gas reserves.
They support nearly 50 percent of all species on Earth.
Over 50% of our nation’s population lives in coastal counties.
Oceans mitigate the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere at their own expense… (okay, and ultimately ours).
Marine animals and plants produce a ton of compounds that prevent and treat human disease. Like sea cucumbers…

Iceland to Save All Computer Servers (and the World)? | Discoblog

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:29:38 -0700

Things looked pretty bleak in Iceland a year or so ago. Declaring national bankruptcy is never high on a country’s list of priorities. But BBC News reports that the beleaguered country is attempting to make a comeback—as the nexus of all the world’s computer servers. In a way, it’s the perfect place to keep a ton of servers that require huge amounts of energy to be kept running, and cool. From the report:

In Iceland, with its year round cool climate and chilly fresh water, just a fraction of this energy for cooling [the servers] is needed. It means big savings.

Just outside Reykjavik, work is well advanced on the first site which its owners hope will spark a server cold rush.

In around a year – if all goes according to plan – the first companies will start leasing space in this data centre.

And if this proves successful more sites are planned.

And with its wealth of geothermal (and therefor carbon-footprint-free) power, the country stands to make a substantial global impact, particularly since all those servers mean a constant increase in CO2 production. As one expert put it:

“[I]f a large internet media company operating thousands and thousands of servers relocated its servers to Iceland, that company would save greater than half a million metric tons of carbon annually.”

Granted, now all they have to do is lay all that fiber optic cable. No getting around the series of tubes!

Visual Science: Vulcan Awakes

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:55:00 -0700

Okay, Let’s Talk About Energy: Biofuels | The Intersection

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:13:50 -0700

CM kicked off the day with a post on solar energy. I covered the prospect over a year ago at Seed’s Next Generation Energy:

Storage and back-up systems are going to be very important given the sun doesn’t deliver that much energy to any one place at a time. The solution would be photovoltaic panels and solar heating troughs over huge tracts of land along with a direct-current transmission backbone to send that energy efficiently across the nation..Imagine a future where solar panels pave the desert between Phoenix and Los Angeles and consider whether that be worth the ecological footprint?

We know lot that can be done with the existing solar technology today that would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Solar thermal plants are assuredly one part of the solution, but there is the water conflict which cannot be overlooked. In short, this alternative has the potential to create a great deal of electricity–now–and I hope the policy catches up and we integrate it into landscapes in a way that doesn’t add pressure on other limited resources.

Also remember that our energy needs exceed what solar power generates. So while I think we should be powering our cars and appliances on electricity, we must depend on many sources for a more sustainable future. We will still need combustible liquid fuels for shipping and air transportation.

Personally, I continue to be interested in plant based biofuels. There is no better solar panel than the leaf of a plant. Alone it will not be the only answer, but may eventually contribute to a significant percent of our energy budget.

The Washing Machine That Can Measure Your Sweat Stains | Discoblog

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:18:27 -0700

Revealed this week at Ceatec (Japan’s version of CES): The omniscient washing machine. Well, maybe it’s not omniscient, but it can detect precisely how dirty your sweaters and jeans are, and target any sweat stains. The Eco-Navi, made by Panasonic, uses a light-activated sensor to detect levels of dirtiness, while sweat stains are recognized by “another sensor that sends tiny electrical impulses through the wash as it spins,” according to Greentechmedia.

So how much water and energy are we saving? A lot:

Electricity consumption drops from 79 watt hours to 72 watt hours and water consumption trickles down to 67 liters from 72 liters per load.

Now for the downside: It’s currently retailing at $3,000. Which, for a washing machine, is a bit hefty. But as with all fancy electronic devices, the price will be dropping any day now.

Image: Courtesy of Ceatec

Introducing the Most Efficient Solar Power in the World

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:40:00 -0700

It's taken 25 years, but a new solar-thermal plant in New Mexico has finally broken the old efficiency record.

A Word About That Kakapo | The Intersection

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:56:19 -0700

You may have already come across this fantastic clip of a beautiful, very confused, critically endangered parrot circulating the interwebs:

Yes, this fellow is cute and funny, but more importantly, the video provides reason to tell the rest of his story.

The Kakapo (Strigops habroptila) is the fattest, largest, and rarest species of parrot on earth. It is a flightless, nocturnal bird that lives on four offshore islands near New Zealand. Estimates vary, but according to the BBC, there are only 90 left on Earth (after numbers have increased over past decades). The Kakapo feeds on leaves, nectar, fruit, stems, roots, and seeds, and breeds just once every two-five years. I hope, despite the title of this television series, this is not our ‘last chance to see‘ this incredible animal.

Harness the Waves! Scotland Launches Giant Cylinder to Nab Sea Power | Discoblog

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:37:35 -0700

A giant cylinder will splash into the water off the coast of Scotland next Spring, all in the hopes of harnessing the energy of waves and converting it to electricity.

Engineers are still tweaking the marine power converter, according to Reuters:

Dwarfed by 180 meters of tubing, scores of engineers clamber over the device, which is designed to dip and ride the swelling sea with each move being converted into power to be channeled through subsea cables.

The sea snake, as it’s called, is being developed for the German power company E. ON and represents a serious investment in marine power, which is considerably more costly than offshore wind power. A push by regulatory agencies to slash emissions has companies taking a closer look at marine power these days—and apparently these so-called snakes have the potential to capture a decent share of the energy market:

The World Energy Council has estimated the market potential for wave energy at more than 2,000 terawatt hours a year—or about 10 percent of world electricity consumption—representing capital expenditure of more than 500 billion pounds ($790 billion).

E. On is hoping the current project in Scotland will fare better than their fist foray into marine power—a commercial wave project in Portugal that flopped after one of the partners ran out of cash.

Image: flickr / Wonderlane

The Ultimate in Sustainable Toys: A Placenta Teddy Bear | Discoblog

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:14:24 -0700

We’re all for sustainable toys. After all, having children is the single most carbon-intensive action human beings can take, so the least we can do is give our kids a recycled rubber ball or eco-friendly duckie to play with.

And so we applaud the efforts of green-minded design group [re]design in putting together an exhibition of sustainable toys from around the world. But there is a line to all of this. And that line is the Placenta Teddy Bear. If you want to eat it, that’s your business—but forcing your placenta on the world in the name of sustainability is another matter. Here’s a description, courtesy of Inhabitots:

A crafty alternative for those who don’t necessarily want to eat their baby’s placenta, but want to pay their respects to the life sustaining organ by turning it into a one-of-a-kind teddy bear. Green’s ‘Twin Teddy Kit’ ‘celebrates the unity of the infant, the mother and the placenta,’ and enables preparation of the placenta so it may be transformed into a teddy bear. The placenta must be cut in half and rubbed with sea salt to cure it. After it is dried out, it is treated with an emulsifying mixture of tannin and egg yolk to make it soft and pliable. Then, you craft it into a teddy bear.

Then, you wait for the apocalypse. Which can’t come too soon.

(Hat tip to Maia Weinstock.)

Image: Inhabitots

Ok Readers, A Science Quiz | The Intersection

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:20:40 -0700

How many things are wrong with this video?

Let’s see some serious myth-busting in comments…

Apocalypse Via Press Release | The Loom

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:56:49 -0700

Today a team of scientists offer a new way of thinking about the environmental fix we’re in. In the words of one of the scientists, we’re driving around on a mesa in the dark with the lights off and without a map. We may fall off the edge of the mesa before we realize where the edge was.

The scientists argue for a safe operating space for the planet, which they propose should be bounded by limits on the carbon dioxide in the air and other factors. That way, we’ll stay away from dangerous thresholds and be able to pass on a healthy planet to our children.

I write about this concept today in Yale Environment 360. Nature, which is publishing the concept today, has posted it and a number of commentaries here.

Working on this story got me thinking (again) about the state of journalism. Because I’m teaching a class on writing and I’m a visiting scholar at NYU’s journalism school, I’m getting a bit meta . And there’s certainly plenty of food for metathought these days.

For example, last week a new site called Futurity was launched by a network of universities. The site publishes a selection of science-related press releases from the universities. As you can see, the site is well-organized and designed. As newspapers close science sections, you can’t help but look at Futurity and wonder if this is the future. And, in fact, Curtis Brainerd wondered just that in a piece he wrote last week for the Columbia Journalism Review.

Futurity justifies their existence as follows:

The way people share information is changing quickly and daily. Blogs and social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are just a taste of what’s to come. It will be easier than ever to share content instantly with people around the globe, allowing universities to reach new audiences and engage a new generation in discovery.

Equally significant has been the recent decline in science and research coverage by traditional news outlets. For decades, universities have partnered with journalists to communicate their work to the public, but that relationship is evolving. At the same time, research universities are among the most credible and trusted institutions in society, and now have the ability to deliver their news and information directly to readers without barriers or gatekeepers.

In an increasingly complex world, the public needs access to clear, reliable research news. Futurity does the work of gathering that news. Think of it as a snapshot of where the world is today and where it’s headed tomorrow. Discover the future. [Emphasis mine]

I don’t need to tell you that you should read everything I say about Futurity with the proviso that I am a reporter, and that I make my living in large part writing for magazines and newspapers. I do not write press releases. But, that being said, I would submit to you that for a university seeking to get out the message about its research, this argument about a decline of science coverage is not really an argument at all.

People who read pieces on Futurity will not come to it by watching television or by listening to the radio. They will come to it on the Internet, either as regular Futurity readers, as curious Googlers, or as readers of other sites following links. And on the web, arguments about declining coverage lose their traction because the same article that appears in a single publication can be read by millions and millions of people who do not actually subscribe to that publication.

What Futurity does do, however, is allow universities and research institutions to go straight to the reader. Originally, press information officers at these places wrote press releases, which, as the name implies, were things intended to get the attention of the press in the hopes that they’d cover something you’re doing. Futurity calls what it publishes “news,” but it’s still being written by employees of the organizations that are the subject of that news.

I have great respect for some public information officers; the stuff they write is, in some cases, wonderfully clear and informative. There’s good information to be had on Futurity. But I always treat press releases as a starting point. I do not, for example, assume that a piece of research is actually important just because a press release says it is. Imagine a press release with the headline, “Minor study published that is really not all it claims to be.” Such things just don’t exist.

As a result, press releases and university-penned news items have a serious shortcoming as “news.” Consider this story I just wrote. You can read the press release from the University of Minnesota (the home institution of a co-author) here. There are lots of quotes from people. All those people are co-authors. The press release quotes nobody who is not a co-author.

When I wrote my article, I interviewed several co-authors at length, and I also got in touch with a number of outside experts. Some liked it. Some didn’t. I mean, they really didn’t. They thought the whole idea of a safe operating space for civilization was meaningless from the start. Thus, my article was about a debate engendered by a new idea. These sorts of debates–with plenty of sharp elbows–are at the heart of the scientific process. But I don’t see how Futurity can reflect it.

I’m sure Futurity is here to stay, and so it will be up to readers to decide what kind of writing they want. Here, dear reader, is my sales pitch.

Are Walruses the New Polar Bear? | The Intersection

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:25:49 -0700

Nick Sundt of the World Wildlife Federation’s climate blog has a post on how, as Arctic sea ice reaches its low this year, lots of walrus corpses are turning up:

Just days after Arctic sea ice receded to the third lowest extent on record, forcing thousands of walruses ashore, researchers flying along the Alaska coast stumbled upon a grisly scene: 100 to 200 walrus carcasses along the shoreline of Icy Cape, southwest of Barrow….

You can read the full post here.

Here We Go Again | The Intersection

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:43:41 -0700

From yesterday’s NYTimes:

The answer to the eternal mystery of what makes up a Filet-O-Fish sandwich turns out to involve an ugly creature from the sunless depths of the Pacific, whose bounty, it seems, is not limitless.

The world’s insatiable appetite for fish, with its disastrous effects on populations of favorites like red snapper, monkfish and tuna, has driven commercial fleets to deeper waters in search of creatures unlikely to star on the Food Network.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, our oceans are going to hell in a handbasket. Sad, but not news to anyone paying attention. The signs of dramatic ocean decline are crystal clear.

When there’s nothing but jellyfish and algae left, our children may wonder why we knew, yet did nothing. So it goes.

Big Picture: The Easiest Way to Fight Global Warming?

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:30:00 -0700

Is there an easier way to slow global warming that doesn't involve halting CO2 emissions? The answer just might be yes: All we need to do is clean up the soot.

Beauty at the Beach | The Intersection

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:42:36 -0700

This morning the ocean provided a little reminder of why I love marine science.

Thank you.

Uncertain Future | The Intersection

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:02:16 -0700

African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus)

Astronomical conflagration? | Cosmic Variance

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:07:06 -0700

The mountains surrounding Los Angeles are on fire. One of the world’s largest metropolises has an uncontrolled wildfire at its very doorstep:

The Mount Wilson Observatory sits in the middle of the San Gabriel Mountains, and is visible on a clear day from many places in the Los Angeles basin. As you walk around Pasadena you can’t help but glance up at the dome, and imagine Hubble diligently performing his observations almost a century ago. By demonstrating that the nebulae aren’t in our galaxy, he ushered in one of the most humbling developments in the history of humanity. He showed that our galaxy is only one of many, and that the Universe stretches well beyond the limits of our familiar Milky Way. And, as if this weren’t insulting enough, he established that the rest of the Universe is running away from us at a tremendous clip.

The fire is now threatening this historic observatory. A live webcam (more commonly used to provide astronomers sky conditions [is it snowing?]) shows the view from the top (it occasionally goes down due to heavy traffic; if it doesn’t load for an extended period it may be a bad sign). Lots of smoke, but no flames at the moment. This is, of course, a chilling reminder of the 2003 fire at Mount Stromlo. You can follow the progress of the fire here. Perhaps our man on the ground will chime in with some live-blogging? Note: Phil is keeping us informed.

As it happens, many communication towers are also found on Mount Wilson. Should the fire sweep across the peak, communications for much of the Los Angeles area may be compromised. No cellphones. No TV. No LAX. Back to the stone age.

Although this looks like a still from a Hollywood disaster movie, it is much scarier. This is really happening. It is a sobering reminder that, despite our best efforts, Nature still trumps Man.

Snow Leopard | The Intersection

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:25:15 -0700

While the web is buzzing over Mac’s Snow Leopard, the original really needs our attention and remains the most inspiring of all:

New Orleans: Then and Now | The Intersection

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:55:47 -0700

CNN’s got an interactive map of the progress since Hurricane Katrina:

Many are still struggling: The city ranks first for murder and second in poverty. More coverage here.