News Picks

FYI | House Defense Authorization Bill Recommends Reduced Funding for S&T Programs

Thu, 31 May 2012 19:49:35 +0000

Germany struggles to transform its power supply

Thu, 31 May 2012 19:02:47 +0000

New York Times: Germany is behind schedule on a plan proposed by Chancellor Angela Merkel to expand its renewable energy sources. Since pledging to drop nuclear power last year in the wake of the earthquake and nuclear meltdown in Japan, the German government has been sidetracked by the euro crisis and a series of regional elections. In addition, transforming the energy supply to draw increasingly on wind, water, solar, and thermal sources will require an expansion of the energy grid, at a cost of billions of euros and mountains of paperwork to grant the necessary permissions. Yesterday network operators met to propose a timetable for upgrading the 4400 km of existing power lines and the building of 3800 km of new ones that will be needed for Merkel’s plan to work.

Supervolcanoes have short life spans, study finds

Thu, 31 May 2012 18:59:54 +0000

BBC: The largest volcanoes on Earth may actually form and erupt relatively quickly, possibly in as little as a few hundred years, according to researchers who published their results yesterday in PLoS One. Guilherme Gualda of Vanderbilt University and colleagues examined quartz crystals in the Bishop Tuff deposit, in California’s Long Valley, site of an ancient supervolcano. The crystals were formed in the underground magma pool, which started off as nearly pure liquid rock. Because crystal formation stops when the volcano erupts, scientists can use the crystals to estimate how long the magma pool existed. The eruption of a supervolcano can be devastating—hundreds of times larger than any eruption that has occurred in human history. Thus, to better predict eruptions, geologists seek to better understand how supervolcanoes’ magma pools develop.

UK plans to decommission three island telescopes

Thu, 31 May 2012 15:23:32 +0000

STFC: The UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council announced yesterday that it will be shutting down its two Hawaiian telescopes, the UK Infrared Telescope and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, by 2013 and 2014, respectively. The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) in the Canary Islands is scheduled to follow in 2015. If alternate operators cannot be found, the telescopes will be decommissioned once the existing science missions are completed. The UK hopes to negotiate with other European countries to keep the ING open; otherwise the UK will have no observatories in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ancient flutes help track migratory path of early humans

Wed, 30 May 2012 18:14:20 +0000

New York Times: Modern humans may have migrated from Africa to Europe more than 42 000 years ago, earlier than previously thought. The evidence is based on improved radiocarbon testing of animal bones and ancient flutes found in caves of southwestern Germany. Earlier tests had indicated dates of 35 000 years ago for the artifacts. If correct, the new dates mean that modern humans first moved along the Danube River, a major migratory corridor, before the onset of an extremely cold phase of the ice age some 39 000 years ago, rather than waiting for warmer weather as had been assumed.The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Gamma-ray bubbles in Milky Way suggest black hole activity

Wed, 30 May 2012 17:11:28 +0000

Nature: Black holes, which feed on stars and gas clouds, can create bright jets that are visible across vast distances. Despite its apparent lack of activity, supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, thought to be at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, may have been active as recently as 50 000 years ago, according to two researchers studying data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. Douglas Finkbeiner and Meng Su of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, report that they have detected evidence of a pair of gamma-ray bubbles emanating from the center of the Milky Way. Although there are several possible sources for the bubbles, Finkbeiner says he believes they are evidence of jets of material expelled by the black hole.

Fraunhofer funds laser research center in Scotland

Wed, 30 May 2012 15:42:09 +0000

BBC: The Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics is scheduled to open in 2014 at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. Funded by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Europe’s largest contract research organization, the new center will concentrate on laser research and technology. About 10 people will staff the center initially, but the number is expected to grow to some 80 employees and postgraduate students within five years. “Securing the UK’s first Fraunhofer center is a major achievement for the University of Strathclyde’s Technology and Innovation Centre and I look forward to watching this exciting initiative develop,” said Scottish education secretary Michael Russell.

China tries to block US tariffs on solar panels

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:37:17 +0000

Washington Post: The Chinese government has appealed to the World Trade Organization regarding US tariffs on Chinese solar panels and other products. The US claims that Chinese companies subsidize their products, which gives them an edge over their American competitors. The Chinese counter that only government agencies can grant subsidies. But the disagreement does not appear to be an all-out trade war. The products in question account for only some $7.29 billion, just a small fraction of the trade between the two countries.

Golden Age of Gas report provokes criticism

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:36:11 +0000

BBC: Environmentalists are taking issue with the International Energy Agency’s most recent report, Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas. In the report, the IEA promotes the development of the world’s vast resources of unconventional gas—shale gas, tight (trapped) gas, and coalbed methane—because increased natural gas use would displace the use of more carbon-intensive fuels, such as oil and coal. Only near the end of the report does the agency point out that such prolonged use of natural gas could lead to a global temperature rise of 3.5 °C, well above the widely accepted 2 °C target. Critics argue that because of global warming the IEA should not promote the use of any fossil fuel, whether lower-emission or otherwise, and that it should instead be promoting nuclear power and renewables like wind and solar.

Scientists under attack by eco-anarchist groups

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:12:01 +0000

Nature: Amid Europe’s economic crisis, not only are anarchist groups on the rise but there is “an increasing degree of international networking between perpetrators,” according to a Swiss report. The objects of the attacks are scientists. The terrorists argue “that technology, and indeed civilization, is responsible for the world’s ills, and that scientists are the handmaidens of capitalism,” writes Leigh Phillips for Nature. The most recent attack occurred 7 May when a nuclear engineering executive was shot in the leg in Genoa, Italy. The group claiming responsibility is part of a larger organization that calls itself the Informal Anarchist Federation, which is also responsible for various bombings including an attack on a Swiss pronuclear lobby group in 2011. Based in Italy, the federation says that it is uniting with eco-anarchist groups in other countries, including Mexico, Chile, Greece, and the UK, to target nuclear and nanotechnology workers.

Reduced carbon found in Mars meteorites

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:57:02 +0000

BBC: From the study of 11 Martian meteorites, Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and colleagues have found so-called reduced carbon, which could have been created by volcanic activity on Mars. Reduced carbon is chemically bonded to hydrogen or itself. “The storage of reduced carbon molecules on Mars occurred throughout the planet’s history and might have been similar to processes that occurred on the ancient Earth,” said Steele, lead author of a paper published online in Science. The finding is the first step toward the scientists’ goal of determining whether Mars could ever have supported life. They hope to gather more information from the next Mars mission—the Curiosity rover is in transit and scheduled to land on the red planet later this year.