Santa should get off his sleigh and walk, says public health doctor

Santa should share Rudolf's snack of carrots and celery sticks rather than brandy and mince pies and swap his reindeer for a bike or walk, says a public health expert.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Link between infertility, low egg reserve, and breast/ovarian cancer gene (BRCA1) suggested

Scientists have concluded that mutations in the BRCA1 gene, which have been linked with early onset breast cancer, are also associated with some infertility indicators.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Valuable, rare, raw earth materials extracted from industrial waste stream

Fierce competition over raw materials for new green technologies could become a thing of the past, thanks to a discovery by scientists in the UK.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Hubble finds smallest Kuiper Belt object ever seen

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the smallest object ever seen in visible light in the Kuiper Belt, a vast ring of icy debris that is encircling the outer rim of the solar system just beyond Neptune.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Dyslexia: Some very smart accomplished people cannot read well

Contrary to popular belief, some very smart, accomplished people cannot read well. This unexpected difficulty in reading in relation to intelligence, education and professional status is called dyslexia, and researchers have presented new data that explain how otherwise bright and intelligent people struggle to read.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

New study links DHA type of omega-3 to better nervous-system function

The omega-3 essential fatty acids commonly found in fatty fish and algae help animals avoid sensory overload, according to new research. The finding connects low omega-3s to the information-processing problems found in people with schizophrenia; bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; Huntington's disease; and other afflictions of the nervous system.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Within a cell, actin keeps things moving

Using new technology, chemists have captured what they describe as well-orchestrated, actin-driven, mitochondrial movement within a single cell.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Why some insects can survive freezing: Huge X-ray microscope provides clues

Using a microscope the size of a football field, researchers are studying why some insects can survive freezing, while others cannot. Why is this important? Because the common fruit fly is one of the bugs that cannot survive freezing and the little creature just so happens to share much of the same genetic makeup as humans, therefore finding a way to freeze them for research purposes is a top priority for geneticists the world over.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

Stem-cell activators switch function, repress mature cells

New research shows how a crucial step in stem-cell growth and differentiation happens and how a reversal of that step contributes to cancer. It shows that three key proteins first stimulate stem cells to proliferate. Then, as the cells differentiate into their final cell type, these proteins switch function and stop the cells from dividing any more. Because of their central role, the proteins could offer a safe and novel therapeutic target in many cancers.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

'Smart' nanocapsule delivery system created for use in protein therapy

Today protein therapy is considered the most direct and safe approach for treating diseases. However the effectiveness of this treatment has been limited by its low delivery efficiency and poor stability against proteases. Researchers have recently unveiled a new novel intracellular delivery platform based on nanocapsules consisting of a single-protein core and a thin permeable polymeric shell that can be engineered to either degrade or remain stable for different size substrates.
Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 9:00 am

UN welcomes climate summit deal

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed a US-backed climate deal in Copenhagen as an "essential beginning".
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:33 am

UN conference recognizes climate deal (AP)

AP - The U.N. climate conference narrowly escaped collapse by agreeing Saturday to recognize a political accord brokered by President Barack Obama with China and other emerging powers.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:25 am

(AP)

AP - UN chief says 'we have a deal' on climate change.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:23 am

The nation's weather (AP)

AP - A major winter storm was forecast to keep moving up the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 3:01 am

Climate deal on knife edge as poor nations vent fury (AFP)

AFP - A climate change deal woven by US President Barack Obama and other top leaders hung in the balance Saturday after smaller nations lashed the pact as a betrayal.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 2:53 am

Nigeria rebels claim attack over president's absence (Reuters)

Reuters - Nigerian militants said on Saturday they had carried out their first attack on an oil pipeline since an amnesty offer because the absence of President Umaru Yar'Adua was delaying peace talks.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 2:25 am

Space sailing

Daring plan to float a boat on Saturn's moon Titan
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 19 Dec 2009 | 2:22 am

Forest plan gets ax at UN climate talks (AP)

AP - A plan to protect the world's biologically rich tropical forests was shelved early Saturday after world leaders failed to agree on a binding deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 19 Dec 2009 | 2:18 am

Copenhagen special: Climate change talks end in failure

A deal is done in Copenhagen but the climate change summit has been condemned as a failure.

From the middle of the media hall in the Bella centre, where the negotiations have been taking place, the Guardian's environment editor, John Vidal, US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg and Asia environment correspondent, Jonathan Watts , analyse the deal made by world leaders.

We look at Barack Obama's influence as well as his disappointing speech. We ask whether it was China that held up the talks.

Political correspondent Allegra Stratton, who has been travelling with the Downing Street team, tells us how Gordon Brown helped shape the negotiations.

Four major NGOs give their reaction to the deal.

We take a look at some of the lighter aspects of the final day in Copenhagen including the speech by Hugo Chávez, Barack Obama's phantom media conferences and why Canada has been given an award to be ashamed of.

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Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 11:10 pm

Climate deal bogged down in UN plenary (AP)

AP - A climate deal brokered by President Barack Obama with China and other emerging powers is being bogged down by arguments between delegates in a plenary session.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 10:43 pm

Major snowstorm advances on northeastern US (AFP)

AFP - A major winter storm barreled through the northeastern United States, threatening to dump up to two feet (61 centimeters) of snow on the last weekend of the Christmas holiday shopping season.

Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 9:55 pm

Marijuana, Alcohol Addiction May Share Genes (HealthDay)

HealthDay - FRIDAY, Dec. 18 (HealthDay News) -- The genes that make people susceptible to alcoholism also make them prone to becoming addicted to marijuana, a new study suggests.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 9:49 pm

Friday News Feedbag for December 18th, 2009

If this is your first exposure to the Friday News Feedbag...we're glad to have you in the club. Welcome to Feedbag Nation, which stems from our weekly science news podcast that you can subscribe to here on iTunes and chat ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 5:20 pm

Terry Pratchett on religion: 'I'd rather be a rising ape than a fallen angel'

At the Guardian Book Club, bestselling author Terry Pratchett gives his views on science and religion

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 5:19 pm

Doctor, doctor: Needle phobia and handwriting problems

How can I overcome my lifelong fear of needles? And is my declining handwriting a warning sign? Dr Tom Smith answers your medical questions

Since my teens, I have had severe needle phobia that has widened to feeling faint at gory scenes at the cinema or when conversations take a bloody turn. I've tried hypnotherapy, but it didn't help. Is cognitive behavioural therapy a potential solution?
It may be, though that said, I have often found a rational and calm conversation with patients such as yourself can help a lot. Behavioural therapy takes time, and needs to be with someone very familiar with the technique; sometimes, a session with a GP and nurse can go a long way to easing fears such as yours. There are other ways we can help, too, such as applying a local anaesthetic to the site of the injection so you don't feel it, or ensuring you look away when we take blood. It is really a matter of getting over your fear just the once, and from then on it will become much easier to deal with. As for gory scenes at the cinema, I'm with you on that one.

I'm 31, very healthy and happy, but in the last eight years my handwriting has gone from excellent to being barely able to wield a pen. I have to think very hard to remember what letters come next, and I struggle to keep them in a straight line, even when writing my name on a library card. It hurts to write for a long time. My typing is a lot faster than most, although not as perfectly correct as it once was. Is there something wrong with my head or with my hands?
Probably not. The clue is that you say that your typing is a lot faster than most. Maybe now you are just writing faster than you did in the past, and you can't maintain good writing if you are going at top speed. Try to write a piece slowly, as you did when you were younger, and if you can reproduce that, you are fine. However, if you really can't properly control your hand and fingers at a slower speed, you do need to see your doctor for a check on your coordination and fine muscle control. You didn't mention whether or not your writing has become smaller, as well as untidy. If it has, then you should seek help, because that can indicate early Parkinson's disease. However, that's very rare in someone as young as you are.

• Got a medical question for Dr Tom Smith? Email doctordoctor@guardian.co.uk

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 5:10 pm

A vintage year. Expect more in 2010

It has been a vintage year for dodgy science in government. We saw reports on cocaine that were disappeared, dodgy evidence to justify DNA retention, and government advisers who estimated the cost of piracy at 10% of GDP, to media applause, and then failed to tell everyone they'd got the figure wrong by 1,000%.

There were fantasies from the security services of using mass surveillance to spot terrorists from their communication patterns, although the basic maths of screening predicts a crippling rate of false positives when trawling for such rare outcomes.

And there was the government's claim to have captured £50m of heroin in Afghanistan which would "starve the Taliban of funding": in reality the haul was worth £100,000, while last year the export value of opiates at border prices with neighbouring countries for Afghan traffickers was roughly £2bn.

A £6m Home Office drugs education study was published with no results, because it was so flawed it couldn't produce any; we saw MPs being foolish about cervical screening and moon magic, and then when they didn't like the scientific evidence they got from Professor David Nutt, they sacked him.

If politicians want us to take them seriously on the evidence for global warming, they have to show they care about evidence everywhere.

We saw the benefits of Tamiflu overstated in the Parmageddon coverage but also uncovered more windows into how evidence is distorted. Industry-funded studies are massively more likely to get into respected academic journals than government-funded studies, even when there is no difference in methodological rigour and quality: all that lovely advertising revenue, perhaps. In Australia Elsevier produced a whole pretend academic journal just for Merck.

On the regulatory front, we discovered that despite trial registration being supposedly compulsory, a quarter of the trials in the world's most important journals still aren't registered, and the MHRA took 21 months to change the side-effects labels on statins, because one drug company objected (I'll find out which one by next year). The only good news is that the industry has failed to stop Indian companies making cheap copies of Aids drugs for people in developing countries.

In further Aids news, Christine Maggiore, poster person for the success of refusing medication, died of pneumonia, and we saw denialism promoted in an Elsevier academic journal (now retracted) and in a foolish feature film, shown by (although they pulled it) and promoted in – of all places – the Spectator.

Elsewhere, we saw that exercise makes you fat, coffee makes you see dead people, and Facebook causes cancer, while housework prevents it, in women.

There was industry-standard front-page wrongness about vaccines (and the Irish Daily Mail campaigning for the cervical cancer vaccine, while the UK Daily Mail campaigned against it). We saw a man in a coma communicating with a method shown not to help people communicate, hideous distortion of research on rape, and much more, although we also found that around half of all academic press releases fail to flag up studies' flaws.

In libel news, Peter Wilmshurst is being sued for criticising the results of a cardiology trial he had worked on, Simon Singh is being sued by the British Chiropractic Association, but now everyone knows how dodgy their claims are, and the Guardian got £365,000 of £535,000 costs successfully defending a libel case from Matthias Rath, which means the cost of winning is slightly less than the average cost of a home in the UK.

Lastly, lawyers from LBC 97.3FM threatened me with copyright law for posting a foolish anti-MMR broadcast, and as a result, the thing they wanted to disappear ended up being discussed on 160 websites, an early day motion, newspaper pieces and ITV news. There are a lot of people out there who want people like us to shut up. That's their bad luck. See you in 2010.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 5:05 pm

'Unprecedented' Deal Emerges from Climate Summit

The Obama administration claims to have reached a breakthrough in climate talks with world leaders.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 4:35 pm

Dark Liquor Makes For Worse Hangovers

A new study may help drinkers pick their poison. In a head-to-head comparison, bourbon gave drinkers a more severe hangover than vodka, report Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University and colleagues in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

But vodka drinkers aren’t off the hook: Drinkers’ sleep suffered equally with both drinks, as did their performance on tasks requiring attention and quick responses. Understanding the lingering effects of alcohol after a night of heavy drinking is important for people who engage in safety-sensitive tasks, such as driving, while hung over Rohsenow says.

The researchers recruited 95 healthy young adults, ages 21 to 33, and gave them caffeine-free cola mixed with bourbon, vodka or tonic water. The drinking ended when participants’ breath-alcohol concentrations hit an average of 0.11, well over the legal intoxication limit. Participants were then hooked up to sleep monitors, which record brain activity, and allowed to sleep it off. At 7 a.m. the next day, the researchers roused the subjects from bed (a wake-up that did not include coffee or aspirin) and asked them to rate the severity of their hangovers.

Overall, bourbon drinkers reported feeling worse than vodka drinkers, rating higher on scales that measure the severity of hangover malaise, including headache, nausea, loss of appetite and thirst. It should come as no surprise that alcohol drinkers said they felt much worse than those who had drunk only tonic water.

One reason for the different effects of vodka and bourbon, Rohsenow says, could be that bourbon contains 37 times more toxic compounds than vodka does, including nasty organic molecules such as acetone, acetaldehyde, tannins and furfural. A good rule of thumb for liquors, she says, is that the clearer they are, the less of these substances they contain.

Both the bourbon drinkers and vodka drinkers slept poorly compared to the nondrinkers, the team found. The next morning, when the participants performed cognitive tests that required attention and quick reaction times, the drinkers performed worse than the nondrinkers, but the type of alcohol had no effect on performance. Both groups of drinkers were impaired equally.

Image: Experiment_33/Flickr

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Dec 2009 | 4:21 pm

Boys Explore Cell Phone Features More Than Girls

Young boys are more likely to use the advanced features on their mobile than girls.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:48 pm

Free Wi-Fi at McDonald's Part of Trend

McDonald's is just the latest food chain to offer free Wi-Fi.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:33 pm

Darker Liquor Makes You Sicker

Before heading out to that holiday party this weekend, consider carefully how you pick your poison.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:15 pm

The Truth About Hangovers Revealed in Drunken Study (LiveScience.com)

LiveScience.com - If you've ever had one too many drinks during a night out, you're probably familiar with the dreaded aftermath: the hangover. Turns out, your liquor of choice could influence your morning headache.
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:41 pm

Wind Farms Don't Affect Home Prices

You would think that a wind farm, with its soaring turbines and low humming noise, might have a bad effect on property values. An especially bad effect when you consider all the news last year regarding infrasound and wind-turbine syndrome. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 2:39 pm

Keeping an Eye on Home

A Computer Scientist and Electrical Engineer can always keep an eye on his home. That's because he's rigged his home with sensors he invented and now all he needs is a laptop to help him keep track of all his appliances.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 1:48 pm

Anxious Eyes Can Trip up Athletes

High pressure situations can guide athletes' eyes away their targets.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 1:45 pm

Science Nation

Science for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 1:39 pm

The Truth About Hangovers Revealed in Drunken Study

Bourbon gives you a worse hangover than vodka, but both beverages impair your performance by the same amount, a new study says.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 1:25 pm

Video: The Asteroid That Will Almost Hit Earth

SAN FRANCISCO — Any number of undiscovered near-Earth objects could one day careen into the Earth, and there is a lot of talk here at the American Geophysical Union meeting about tracking them. So far, though, only one discovered object has seemed even mildly likely to hit our planet.

That asteroid is Apophis, a 900-foot asteroid. Calculations released on Christmas Eve 2004 appeared to show that there was a greater than 2 percent chance the asteroid would hit the Earth in 2029. The asteroid appeared ready to give the Earth its closest shave since astronomers began looking for such things. It was judged a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale for a short time, the highest rating any near-Earth object has received.

As it turned out, more precise observations brought the risk of collision down to just 1 in 250,000, but the scare sparked greater interest and study in the fields of asteroid detection and defense.

Even though the asteroid doesn’t look like it’s going to hit Earth, on April 13, 2029, it will come closer to Earth than any other near-Earth object that we know of. It will pass just 18,300 miles above the planet’s surface.

Here, we see an exclusive animation created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of what that approach will look like from the perspective of the asteroid. And whoo boy, does it seem close.

Video: NASA/JPL.

See Also:

• Saving Earth From an Asteroid Will Take Diplomats, Not Heroes
• To Deflect an Asteroid, Try a Lasso, Not a Nuke
• Giant Asteroid Impact Could Have Stirred Entire Ocean
• Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space
• Hunting Arctic Asteroid Impact With Hovercraft
• Anatomy of an Asteroid
• First-Ever Asteroid Tracked From Space to Earth

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:51 pm

Did NOAA See Fire Underwater?

Yesterday I posted the video below on the underwater eruptions captured by researchers last May. If you haven’t seen the video (click on the image to view) – I recommend you do. You’ll be among the first human beings in ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:45 pm

Free Wi-Fi at McDonald's

Will free wireless service finally stick?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:28 pm

Increase in Shining Clouds Highlights Climate ‘Weirding’

SAN FRANCISCO — Shining clouds at the edge of space are growing in number and brightness. For years, scientists have puzzled over the observed increase in these noctilucent clouds.

Now two groups modeling the behavior of the atmosphere have found new support for the idea that human-induced climate change is the cause.

Their models, presented here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, accurately reproduced both the variability induced by the solar cycle and the intensification trend. The intensification is driven by changes in the atmosphere below the clouds, triggered by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases.

“They are showing that it’s largely due to change farther down in the atmosphere,” said John Plane, an atmospheric chemist at University of Leeds who was not involved with the work. “That’s a really good thing because a lot of the rationale for studying these clouds is that you can use them as an early warning of climate change elsewhere in the atmosphere.”

Noctilucent clouds are one of the atmosphere’s strangest visible phenomena. As the sun goes down, these wispy clouds in the northern latitudes appear to glow as the ice particles in the clouds reflect the sun’s rays. They aren’t as dramatic as aurorae, but they are a distinct and mysterious phenomenon that’s much more common now than it was when our great grandparents bought their first cars and switched on the lights for the first time.

The new work comes from two separate groups of scientists using different models of the atmosphere. One group, led by Daniel Marsh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research used the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, which simulates how the various layers of the Earth’s atmosphere respond to changes in chemistry and solar radiation. They were able to model the increasing amounts of ice mass at the level in the atmosphere where noctilucent clouds and a close cousin, polar mesospheric clouds, form.

“My model does reproduce the trend, and its drivers are the increasing methane and increasing CO2,” Marsh said.

Marsh’s work broadly agrees with that of Franz-Josef Lübken, an atmospheric physicist at the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn, Germany. Lübken used the Leibniz Institute Middle Atmosphere Model, which looks just at the specific layer of the atmosphere where the glowing clouds appear. Lübken’s also reproduced the variability and long-term increase in noctilucent clouds. His model implicitly takes increasing carbon dioxide into account because it’s “nudged” by activity in lower layers where carbon dioxide is causing changes in atmospheric chemistry.

In 2003, a scientist at Lübken’s own institution questioned whether noctilucent clouds [pdf] were a good indicator of global change. Physicist Gary Thomas, who had been one of the first to float the idea, concluded in a review of noctilucent cloud data that “longer time series and more comprehensive models are needed before the link with global change can be established.”

And that’s exactly what Marsh and Lübken presented here this week.

“The new thing is that we have this consistency between the models and observations as far as the [upward] trend is concerned, which had not been the case,” Lübken said. “The past models hadn’t been able to reproduce the trends because the microphysics that goes into them was not good enough.”

The increase in noctilucent clouds appears to result from a decrease in temperature at the altitude where the clouds form along with an increase in water vapor. Warming in the in the layers of the atmosphere below the clouds actually causes the cloud layer to cool. The clouds only form under very specific circumstances, so small changes in the atmosphere can lead to large changes in the observed occurrence of the phenomenon.

“A very small temperature decrease, just 0.08 Kelvin per year, together with an increase in water vapor, causes a substantial increase in occurrence rates and brightness,” Lübken told scientists here Wednesday.

There are still differences between the two models and details to be worked out. In Lübken’s model, the temperature decrease is driven by the cooling of the stratosphere, which has long been a predicted impact of climate change induced by increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The increase in water vapor is a dynamic process caused by increased freeze drying of water particles a couple of miles up from where noctilucent clouds form. The atmospheric dynamics push more humidity to exactly the altitude at which the clouds form.

Marsh’s model includes the dynamics of methane, which, as it breaks down in the upper atmosphere, creates more water vapor at higher altitudes. Lübken’s does not, but the trend is still apparent, so it’s unclear how important methane’s role in the increase in noctilucent clouds is.

The clarity and similarity of the pattern coming from these two different models gives the greenhouse-gas hypothesis an edge over other explanations for the increase in noctilucent clouds, like an increase in water vapor driven by Space Shuttle launches.

Up next, Marsh will try to explain one of the most persistent and strange mysteries associated with noctilucent clouds. While historical astronomers and sky watchers reported seeing many of the phenomena we now know and understand, there are isn’t a single account of a noctilucent cloud before 1885. It’s unclear whether they just weren’t there or people just weren’t looking hard enough. The first descriptions of the clouds come two years after the eruption of Krakatoa, which caused spectacular sunsets and may have encouraged people to look up more often.

Marsh plans to run his model back in time to see if it can reproduce the appearance of the clouds in the 1880s solely in response to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by coal-powered industrialization.

Images: 1) The sky over Omaha on July 14th./ Mike Hollingshead, Extreme Instability. 2) NASA.

See Also:

• Mysterious, Glowing Clouds Appear Across America’s Night Skies
  
• Weird, Rare Clouds and the Physics Behind Them
• Baffling Patterns Form in Scientific Sandbox
• Dry-Ice Clouds Shade Martian Landscape
• Lie on Mars, Look Up and Watch the Clouds Go By
• Brown Clouds are Increasing High Altitude Melting
• UAVs Search For Scientific Silver Lining in Beijing Pollution
  

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:17 pm

The Black Hole That Made You Possible

Supermassive black holes are the open hearths upon which complex matter is forged; then flung far and wide.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 12:01 pm

France launches new spy satellite

CAYENNE, French Guiana (Reuters) - France launched a military spy satellite on Friday, space officials said, part of a boost in spending on independent surveillance.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 11:44 am

Big Bang collider sets new record

GENEVA (Reuters) - The "Big Bang" experiment at CERN has set new records for colliding beams of particles this week, and is now shutting down for a couple of months to prepare for even higher energy work, the research center said on Friday.
Source: Reuters: Science News | 18 Dec 2009 | 11:16 am

The Shortest Day: The Science of the Winter Solstice

Find out why Monday marks the beginning of winter.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 11:03 am

Copenhagen climate summit: Five possible scenarios for our future climate

With talks in Copenhagen descending into chaos, the prospects for stabilising temperatures below 'dangerous' levels look increasingly slim. Here are five possible scenarios for our future climate

1C – Vital for low-lying island states but virtually impossible

The Arctic sea ice is already disappearing and, after a 1C global average temperature rise, it would disappear for good in the summer months. Heatwaves and forest fires will become more common in the sub-tropics – worst-hit will be the Mediterranean region, southern Africa, Australia and south-west United States. Most of the world's corals will die, including the Great Barrier Reef. Glaciers that provide crops for 50m people with fresh water begin to melt and 300,000 people are affected every year by climate-related diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea.

2C – The temperature limit the scientists want

The heatwaves seen in Europe during 2003, which killed tens of thousands of people, will come back every year with a 2C global average temperature rise. Southern England will regularly see temperatures around 40C in summer. The Amazon turns into desert and grasslands, while increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere make the world's oceans too acidic for remaining coral reefs and thousands of other marine lifeforms. More than 60 million people, mainly in Africa, would be exposed to higher rates of malaria. Agricultural yields around the world will drop and half a billion people will be at greater risk of starvation. The West Antarctic ice sheet collapses, the Greenland ice sheet melts and the world's sea level begins to rise by seven metres over the next few hundred years. Glaciers all over the world will recede, reducing the fresh water supply for major cities including Los Angeles. Coastal flooding affects more than 10 million extra people. A third of the world's species will become extinct as the 2C rise changes their habitats too quickly for them to adapt.

3C – Looking increasingly likely

After a 3C global temperature rise, global warming may run out of control and efforts to mitigate it may be in vain. Millions of square kilometres of Amazon rainforest could burn down, releasing carbon from the wood, leaves and soil and thus making the warming even worse, perhaps by another 1.5C. In southern Africa, Australia and the western US, deserts take over. Billions of people are forced to move from their traditional agricultural lands, in search of scarcer food and water. Around 30-50% less water is available in Africa and around the Mediterranean. In the UK, summers of droughts are followed by winter floods. Sea levels rise to engulf small islands and low-lying areas such as Florida, New York and London. The Gulf Stream, which warms the UK all year round, will decline and changes in weather patterns will lead to higher sea levels at the Atlantic coasts.

4C - Possible with an extremely weak deal

At this stage, the Arctic permafrost enters the danger zone. The methane and carbon dioxide currently locked in the soils will be released into the atmosphere. At the Arctic itself, the ice cover would disappear permanently, meaning extinction for polar bears and other native species that rely on the presence of ice. Further melting of Antarctic ice sheets would mean a further 5m rise in the sea level, submerging many island nations. Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey become deserts and mid-Europe reaches desert temperatures of almost 50C in summer. Southern England's summer climate could resemble that of modern southern Morocco.

5C and above – Highly unlikely nightmare scenario

With a 5C rise, global average temperatures would be hotter than for 50m years. The Arctic region sees temperatures rise much higher than average – up to 20C – meaning the entire Arctic is now ice-free all year round. Most of the tropics, sub-tropics and even lower mid-latitudes are too hot to be inhabitable. The sea level rise is now sufficiently rapid that coastal cities across the world are largely abandoned. Above 6C, there would be a danger of "runaway warming", perhaps spurred by release of oceanic methane hydrates. Could the surface of the Earth become like Venus, entirely uninhabitable? Human population would be drastically reduced.

Sources: Mark Lynas, Stern report, Met Office

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 10:38 am

Nerdiness Turns Women Off to Computer Science

Stereotypically nerdy, masculine environments can discourage women from entering the field.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 10:30 am

Data to expose 'ghost mountains'

Scientists who have mapped one of the most enigmatic mountain ranges on Earth give a first glimpse of their data.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Dec 2009 | 10:25 am

Happiest States in America Are Sunniest, Too

Find out where your state ranks on the list of the happiest states in America.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 9:35 am

New Device Provides Internet and Phone Service in Disasters

An advanced router transforms any vehicle into a Wi-Fi and satellite command center.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 9:29 am

Spanish archeologists fail to find Federico García Lorca's grave

The poet and playwright killed by death squads during civil war was thought to have been buried in Alfacar

One of the greatest mysteries of recent Spanish history will remain unsolved for the foreseeable future, after a team of archeologists admitted they had failed to find the grave of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca.

"There was not a single bone, or fragment of bone," said Francisco Corrión, leader of the team that has spent six weeks digging at the site where Lorca was thought to be buried. "There is no chance of it being there."

García Lorca was the most famous victim of the death squads operating in territory controlled by General Francisco Franco's rightwing nationalists during the Spanish civil war.

Until today he was assumed to have been buried in a mass grave with several other death squad victims on a hillside in Alfacar, overlooking his home city of Granada.

The spot was identified three decades ago by a man who claimed to have helped dig the grave into which the author of Blood Wedding and Yerma was thrown, after being shot by a dawn firing squad of rightwing radicals in 1936.

After years of debate about what to do with the site, which had been turned into a park bearing Lorca's name, local authorities ignored opposition from the poet's family and began to excavate.

Today , however, the scientists involved said a thin layer of soil gave on to hard rock, leaving no space for anyone to dig a grave.

"No human remains have appeared, nor are there any signs of civil war graves," the team from Granada University, which investigated six potential grave spots, said in a report. "We believe that no graves were ever dug in the area we have studied. The study is conclusive and leaves no room for doubt."

The failed dig has brought the official quest for Lorca's remains to an end. "We are not going to be drilling holes all over Granada," said Juan Gallo of the regional government of Andalucia, which funded the dig.

"It is a challenge," said Maribel Brenes, head of an NGO dedicated to finding the graves of Franco's victims. "The investigation will have to start again from the very beginning."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 9:26 am

The Invisible AIDS Victims: How Women Cope

Celeste Watkins-Hayes is examining how women cope economically with HIV/AIDS.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 9:25 am

Presenting...The Tussock Moth Caterpillar

It's time for another Nature Walks with Mark Fraser species spotlight. Today he looks at the tussock moth caterpillar. "I think that tussock moth caterpillars are like jewels of the natural world," Mark said. "They have colors that are stunning ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 18 Dec 2009 | 8:57 am

How three wise men and a tube helped us find our place in the universe

As the International Year of Astronomy draws to a close, Tim Radford nominates Seeing and Believing by Richard Panek as the definitive guide to the revolution wrought by the telescope

The telescope changed our lives, and this book is about how it happened. Seeing and Believing tells only a fraction of a 400-year-story, and – since it was written in 1998 – it cannot even hint at the last decade of eye-opening discoveries. It is furthermore a very short book, so its scope is constrained. If you want to know how to design, fabricate and use your own telescope, this book will be no help.

But Seeing and Believing is still my candidate for the best introduction to this founding instrument of the scientific revolution. The key words in the subtitle are "how we found our place in the universe", and Panek's account reminds us in short and vivid ways of the disorderly progress of scientific discovery. For instance, we learn that Galileo did not "invent" the telescope in 1609, as is popularly supposed, nor was he even the first to think of using it for scientific exploration. Roger Bacon had predicted the "wonders of refracted vision" in 1267 and, more than three decades before Galileo, at least two writers had described peering into the distance with the aid of lenses.

Nor was Galileo the first to look at the heavens through a spyglass: the Englishman Thomas Harriot beat him to it by months, but failed to tell anybody. But in November 1609 Galileo began to use two lenses in a cylinder to look at the moon, Jupiter and the sun, and recognised the significance of what he saw. He saw that the moon's topography was Earth-like, that Jupiter had moons and that the sun had spots.

This was all very unorthodox and heretical, and Panek offers a vivid snapshot of the medieval cosmology that Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo between them overturned: the celestial order in which an imperfect Earth was the centre of the universe, and the moon, sun and stars revolved about it, set in perfect, crystalline spheres of increasing moral excellence.

The planets – the "wanderers" – required a bit of explaining, which is why the story starts with them. And if the moon had mountains and seas, like Earth, then it wasn't as "heavenly" as had been supposed. If Jupiter had moons revolving about it, then it had something in common with Earth: they were both planets. And the "wandering" of the planets made geometrical sense if the Sun was the centre of creation, rather than the Earth.

Why should we believe long-dead authorities such as Aristotle and Ptolemy when our eyes tell us something different? Why rely on ancient authors when we can open the book of nature and read a different and better story?

The revolution proceeded erratically, but within two generations amazing things had happened. The first telescopes presented problems of focal length, chromatic aberration, narrow field of view and so on. You could see planetary furniture that you had never seen before, but the stars remained enigmatic points of light.

Galileo, with a smugness that his contemporaries must have found ever so annoying, was convinced he had discovered almost all there was to discover: "It was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else."

Some people, including Christopher Wren, believed him. Some people continued to believe that the naked eye was a better instrument than two lumps of glass in a tube. But the new community of lens-grinding astronomers got on with the challenge. If the sun was the centre of our world, how far away was it? If light was the agency of discovery, was it instantaneous, or did it move? If so, how fast did it move?

In 1676, less than one lifetime on from Galileo, the Danish astronomer Ole Romer predicted an eclipse of a Jovian moon, and having calculated the changing orbital locations of the Earth and Jupiter at that time, boldly claimed that the eclipse would be visible 10 minutes later than expected. He was dead right, and he used the result to settle the matter: light moved, at a speed of 140,000 miles a second. Given the quality of the clocks and observing instruments of the day, that was pretty close to the true figure.

To make such a calculation, he and other astronomers had to have an idea of the diameter of the Earth's orbit, and they got a good ballpark figure in the same decade. By 1728, the English astronomer James Bradley had used this value for the Earth's orbital journey to try to calculate the distance to a star by observing from two separate points. Look at something first with one eye covered, and then the other, and see how the observed object seems to move. The apparent shift in position is called the parallax, and the nearer the object the bigger will be the parallax.

From his standpoint on the Earth in orbit, Bradley tried to measure the stellar distance by making observations six months and therefore (we now know) 186 million miles apart. He could detect no apparent movement, but he used this negative result to calculate that, because he could observe no parallax, therefore the nearest star (apart from the sun) must be at least 36 trillion miles away.

So, in less than two lifetimes, astronomers already had a grasp of the depth of space. Heaven wasn't a "vault", it was somewhere that went on and on. They also rather gave up on the stars until the Hanoverian William Herschel came along and with the innocence of the amateur, built better telescopes and looked at the whole sky, spotted Uranus, discovered infra-red radiation and formulated in a sentence the significance of a finite value for the speed of light: "A telescope with the power of penetrating into space, has also, it may be called, a power of penetrating into time past."

By 1859, someone had used a spectroscope to identify the elemental make-up of the sun; by 1888, a camera fitted to a telescope had collected enough light to discern the spiral structure of Andromeda; and within another lifetime, Edwin Hubble had confirmed that the Milky Way galaxy wasn't the beginning and the end of the universe, it was just a speck of matter in the enormity of everything.

The story goes on, and Panek's version of it reminds us that such revolutionary discoveries arose from a worldwide, non-stop, free-for-all of competing, collaborating and communicating enthusiasts, who often bickered, but also generously exchanged their data, their ideas, and their techniques.

We have an "exaltation" of larks and a "charm" of finches, but what's the right collective noun for a bunch of astronomers? How about a focus group?

In the querulous crossfire that followed last month's book on race, IQ and dubious anthropology, @EndPseudoscience suggested that club members might look at a book by Jared Diamond which "explains this subject very well."

Thanks, EP, the club will be back in February and the next book is indeed Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 8:42 am

Sex cannibals lack taste for males

Among spiders, male partners do not make a tasty meal for female sexual cannibals, scientists discover.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Dec 2009 | 8:40 am

Deepest Undersea Erupting Volcano

Nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the West Mata volcano spews superheated lava in this video shot by scientists controlling the ROV Jason in May of 2009.
Source: Livescience.com | 18 Dec 2009 | 8:34 am

Am I too 'nice' to get a girlfriend?

The Guardian's Evolutionary Agony Aunt Carole Jahme shines the cold light of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems

Man up!

From Stephen, age 24

What can I do to get a girlfriend? I have been in a few two-year relationships, and I've had the occasional date. But I'm the kind of guy that girls don't tend to look at twice when they see me out and about. I'm 5ft 6in (1.7m), small build, and not all that good looking. I am active and hard working, and I've been going to the gym every day for two months to build myself up. But I still don't have much luck! Past girlfriends tell me that I'm too much of a nice guy and I've got to "man up".

Carole replies
Research has shown that taller males have more mating opportunities. But other research has found that when looking for long-term breeding partners physical attractiveness and sexiness is far less important to females than commitment and social skills.

I'm guessing you are dating women of a similar age to yourself; past girlfriends may have said you are too nice, but they were not at the settling-down stage in their life. When you get into your thirties women looking for long-term commitment will be attracted to your naturally cooperative personality. Having a "gsoh" (that's "good sense of humour" in Lonely Hearts parlance) is considered to be a desirable social skill, so brush up on your repertoire of jokes and stop worrying!

Dunbar, R, (2000) Male mating strategies: a modelling approach. In: P Kappeler (ed), Primate Males, Cambridge University Press, pp 259-268.
Dunbar, R, Wayforth, D. (1995) Condition mate choice strategies in humans, evidence from "Lonely Hearts" advertisements. Behaviour 132: 755-779.

Single for four years

From Ellie, age 36
I'm a 36-year-old female, and have been single for four years. I'm young looking, told I'm attractive most days, have a wide circle of friends and am educated to postgraduate level and in a successful career. I am having little success meeting a suitable man to settle down with however. What could I do to improve my chances?

Carole replies:
You describe yourself as sociable, solvent, attractive and intelligent. Many highly eligible females, like yourself, find searching for a mate a soulless process.

A female chimpanzee leaves her natal group and transfers to other chimp communities for breeding proposes. She will have no family or friends to welcome her and thus on joining the new group she must accept the lowest status and try to build on her lowly position.

Maybe in your search for a mate you need to move right away from your wide circle of friends. Join adult education classes or a new sports club, or music group – find a social centre where there will be a wide selection of males and females unknown to you. In this situation you will have to rely on your sexually selected physical and behavioural charms to win over strangers.

He can't sleep …

From Rosa D, no age given
Our 14-year-old son reports that for the last couple of months he has found it very hard to get to sleep at night. He normally goes to bed around 9.30-10pm in the week as he has to get up early (6.45am) for school. Obviously, I don't want him to get stressed about it as this will only make it worse.

Carole replies:
As an adolescent, your son is at the transitional stage between childhood and adulthood that is unique to humans. All other apes go from being juveniles to young adults with little time to practise adult-like behaviour before it counts. You will need to be flexible and accommodate his behavioural and physical changes as he continues to develop.

Apart from the owl monkey, the higher primates are predominantly diurnal (active during daylight hours) but so-called cathemeral sleep patterns are frequently exhibited. Cathemeral behaviour means that several naps are interspersed with activity over a 24-hour period. Cathemerality can benefit individuals, for example during times of competitive feeding, capture of prey and avoidance of predators. Chimps have been observed to hunt at night, and some humans, perhaps including your son, feel more alert after dusk.

Trust your maternal instincts. Get him to talk to you about school: he may have some worries.

A few other tips. Primates are highly mobile animals and adapted to walking, leaping and climbing: in other words your son needs daily exercise to tire himself out before sleep.

You should also feed him up at suppertime and at bedtime give him a warm milk drink. Tell him no predators are coming and to read his chemistry textbook in bed, which will soon send him to sleep.

Tattersall, I, (2008) Avoiding commitment, cathemerality among primates. Biological Rhythm Research, vol 39, issue 3, June, pp 213-228.

You can email your questions to Carole by clicking here (they don't have to be about relationships). Please put "Ask Carole" in the subject line.

Terms and conditions
Please say whether you wish to be named in connection with your enquiry and if so by what name. We reserve the right to edit questions. If you mail us a question, you agree that your email may be published on the site.

We regret that Carole cannot answer all the mails we receive. We cannot provide urgent advice and suggest that if you need such advice you seek it immediately without waiting for a response from Carole. With regards to legal, medical or financial issues, we recommend seeking the advice of a listed professional. We will not be held liable for any loss, damage or injury you incur as a result of using this site or as a result of any advice given. We will not enter into personal correspondence via email.

Carole is UK-based and as such any advice she gives is intended for a UK audience only.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 5:42 am

Fathers face postnatal depression too | Richard Adams

My new son has turned my life upside down – but for some men becoming a parent can lead to mental illness

Since my son was born at the end of last year I've had many, many opportunities to realise how lucky I've been. Not only is he an utter joy to be around but he's also a happy, healthy, bouncing little boy who eats pretty much everything and sleeps easily. Even the arrival of teeth has, so far, been relatively untraumatic – nothing worse than a couple of days discomfort and some teething gel.

I know I've been lucky because I know how easily things could have been different. Friends with kids exchange horror stories about the colicky babies who can't sleep for longer than two hours at a time, for months on end. The ones who will scream for hours every night after being put to bed. The babies who can't or won't eat without elaborate preparation or persuasion. Every baby is different, for reasons that have nothing to do with parental aptitude.

And even without those complications, a healthy and happy baby is still hard work. Sleep deprivation means the first three months or more after birth are spent in a zombie's fog of stumbling misery for both parents. Minor events turn into major crises – just leaving the house, with or without the baby, takes on the status of an heroic expedition. Finding time to have a shower or even eat becomes surprisingly difficult. I can't begin to imagine the additional stress of going through all of that while at the same time recovering from childbirth – and possibly a major operation, if a c-section was involved – and in many cases having to learn to deal with breastfeeding as well as everything else.

We know, of course, that many women do feel overwhelmed by the experience, and that some are unlucky enough to suffer from severe forms of postnatal (or postpartum) depression, around one in 10 mothers in the UK and the US. What is more rarely discussed is that fathers can suffer from many of the same symptoms and a significant percentage – 4%, in one study – go on to develop depression. That 4% figure comes from a UK population-based study by Dr Paul Ramchandani and colleagues, published in the Lancet in 2005, into paternal depression and childhood development. It concluded: "Our findings indicate that paternal depression has a specific and persisting detrimental effect on their children's early behavioural and emotional development."

Exactly what the "detrimental effect" was is made clearer in a subsequent review by Ramchandani, published in the Lancet in August this year:

Most psychiatric disorders that affect fathers are associated with an increased risk of behavioural and emotional difficulties in their children, similar in magnitude to that due to maternal psychiatric disorders. Some findings indicate that boys are at greater risk than girls, and that paternal disorders, compared with maternal disorders, might be associated with an increased risk of behavioural rather than emotional problems.

It shouldn't be surprising that men can suffer from such disorders too. Looking at the NHS's guidelines for maternal postnatal depression, the list of possible causes includes worry and anxiety about the responsibility of having a new baby; relationship worries; money problems; having no close family or friends around you; and mental health problems in the past. The symptoms include: low mood for prolonged periods of time (a week or more); feeling irritable for a lot of the time; tearfulness; panic attacks or feeling trapped in your life; difficulty concentrating; lack of motivation; lack of interest in yourself and your new baby; feeling lonely; feeling guilty, rejected, or inadequate; feeling overwhelmed; feeling unable to cope; and difficulty sleeping. It's a rare new parent of either sex who wouldn't identify with several of those characteristics. As with depression in general, though, it's when perfectly normal responses to stress and circumstances are amplified and aggravated that illness can develop.

It's important to note a couple of things here. One is that the existence of paternal depression does nothing to diminish the fact of maternal postnatal depression, if anything quite the reverse, as I'll explain. The other is that more research needs to be done, although that's hardly a stunning conclusion to arrive at. But there is a point: what is it specific to men or fatherhood that can provoke paternal depression? What research there is suggests it is strongly linked with maternal postnatal depression. A recent article in the New York Times noted:

By far the strongest predictor of paternal postpartum depression is having a depressed partner. In one study, fathers whose partners were also depressed were at nearly two and a half times the normal risk for depression. That was a critical finding, for clinicians tend to assume that men can easily step up to the plate and help fill in for a depressed mother. In fact, they too may be stressed and vulnerable to depression.

So, the easiest way to prevent paternal depression would be to prevent maternal depression to begin with, while recognising that paternal depression is also a possibility. Yet, in the prenatal and perinatal books and classes I absorbed last year, at some point there would be a brief and tactful section entitled "For the partner", which would usually begin along the lines of: "During pregnancy and after giving birth, many women experience something known as 'baby blues'. This is not unusual. But in a few rare cases ..." followed by a sketch of postnatal depression. Given the prevalence and seriousness of maternal depression, that's inadequate. Looking back, all those classes about childbirth might have been more usefully spent concentrating more on what happens after you both leave the hospital.

Since my son was born, I can't think of a single aspect of my life that hasn't been affected by his arrival. That's something that can be difficult to come to terms with. Perhaps in my parents and grandparents' generations, less was expected of fathers in the earliest months of a baby's life – and we all know who got the raw end of that deal. Although we can debate the extent things may have changed, fatherhood is now a different experience. It's right that fathers are involved as much as possible in the lives of their children, from the beginning: another reason why I've been lucky is that the Guardian is an enlightened employer with a sensible attitude to paternity leave.

Other parents, especially here in the US, aren't so lucky. Penelope Leach's latest book, Child Care Today, published this year, argues that governments need to recognise the changed role of fathers, and suggests specific ideas for easing the financial pressure to allow families more time together. That's useful advice – although in the lonely hours of 3am, with a crying baby needing to be rocked back to sleep, there's no better advice for any parents than Leach's own introduction: "Whatever you are doing, however you are coping, if you listen to your child and to your own feelings, there will be something you can actually do to put things right or make the best of those that are wrong."

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 5:00 am

The first glimpse of dark matter?

US scientists have reported detecting signals that could indicate the presence of dark matter.
Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 18 Dec 2009 | 4:52 am

Why Geologists Love Beer

SAN FRANCISCO — Fact: Geologists love beer.

There is abundant proof of this here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, the largest collection of earth scientists in the world.

The talks, workshops and poster sessions go from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but at 3:30 p.m. every day, for five days, kegs of beer are rolled out into the meeting. The beer flows nonstop for an hour and a half at around 10 different stations, and AGU organizers tell me they go through about 175 kegs during the week.

“Every other convention assumes that if you have a beer, your brain goes soft,” said Kathy Sullivan, who has been serving beer at the AGU meeting for 26 years. ”But not the geophysicists. They think if you have a beer, you can still learn things. So they do.”

At the Thirsty Bear, the closest brewpub to the Moscone Convention Center where the annual meeting is held every December, the waitstaff claims this is the busiest week of the year for them. I heard from the Borehole Research Group at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory that one server at the Thirsty Bear said the staff can’t take vacation days during the AGU meeting ”because the geologists are coming.”

So the real question is why the bond between geologists and beer is so strong. I decided to do some research this week to get to the bottom of the phenomenon. So, beer in hand, I asked a sampling of the 16,000 or so geologists, geophysicists, hydrologists and atmospheric scientists at the meeting and got some very interesting responses. (Full disclosure: I am also a geologist, and I like beer.)

The most popular theory was that it must have something to do with the amount of time spent outside doing fieldwork.

“When it’s hot, and you’ve been hiking all day carrying 50 pounds of rocks, do you want a Merlot?” asked thermochronologist Jim Metcalf of Syracuse University. “No.”

“It goes down a lot easier than water because a lot of the places we go, we can’t drink the water,” said structural geologist Jonathan Gourley of Trinity College.

Geologists have been known to go to great lengths to chill their beer in the field, as well. A cold stream, a glacier or a patch of snow is handy, but many field areas are hot, dry and dusty. While doing field work in Mongolia, geologist Cari Johnson of the University of Utah and her colleagues cooled their beer with evaporation by wrapping the cans in toilet paper, pouring water on the paper and setting them out in the persistent wind to dry over and over until the beer was cold.

Another theory is that beer makes for better science. I think this hypothesis has some merit, but requires further investigation (as long as I’m not in the control group).

“Science doesn’t work when people keep secrets and don’t share their data,” said Daniel Jaffe of the University of Washington. ”And what could be better to help with the free flow of information?”

Rick Saltus of the U.S. Geological Survey explained that because geologists often don’t have enough data to say definitively what went on millions of years ago, creativity is needed to fill in the gaps.

“You have to think outside the box, you’ve got to release your inhibitions, and beer is one way to do that,” Saltus said. ”Anything that helps you get to that epiphany, that realization of what’s there in the rocks and not easy to see but there to spin a story from.”

 A third theory offered up in various forms is that beer is simply part of the culture, something that has been handed down from advisor to student for generations.

“It’s accepted and encouraged to drink beer,” said geologist Cindy Martinez of the American Geological Institute. “Other scientists like beer, but it’s not necessarily socially acceptable to have your scientific meetings revolve around beer.”

“I started getting on to wine and other stuff for a while, but I became an outcast among my geology friends,” said geologist Laura Webb of the University of Vermont. ”So I had to retrain myself to drink brew.”

Supporting the culture theory is the observation that earth science departments at academic institutions across the world almost invariably have a weekly get-together of some sort that revolves around beer.

At Stanford University, it’s called Friday Beer, and I hear that at UCLA it’s known as Liquidus. On Twitter, I confirmed that earth scientists at CalTech, The Borehole Research Group and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil also have a weekly beer congregation.

“I’ve been to a few geo departments around the world, and most of them have Friday Beer,” said Stanford biogeochemist Sharmini Pitter.

“We have three weekly beer gatherings,” said Christopher Harrison of the University of Miami.

None of the theories can be ruled out by this preliminary study, and neither can the possibility that all three are correct. Certainly, more research is needed. But one thing is clear: The love affair between geoscientists and beer is one for the eons.

Video: Michael Lennon/Wired.com

See Also:

• How Wired.com Built Beer Robot, Our DIY Kegerator
• Gallery: The Making of a Prehistoric Brew
• Barley + Space = Space Beer!
• Beer, Vitamins, and Jessica Simpson: Get the Facts
• An Emptied Flask Makes for Empty Promises
• Better Beer Through Chemistry: The Search For Noble Hop Aroma

Follow us on Twitter @betsymason and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.

Source: Wired: Wired Science | 18 Dec 2009 | 4:00 am

Farming with the Prince of Darkness | Graham Harvey

Small, mixed farms could climate-proof our food supply. Once again, Mandelson's political instincts are right on the button

Who'd have thought it? Lord Mandelson, Prince of Darkness, Grand Wizard of the Political Arts, harbours a secret desire to become a farmer. Or so he confided to Fraser Nelson from the Spectator.

It seems the scourge of the Tories longs to be – like many of them – the master of his own acres. His dearest wish is to gaze into a lowering sky and worry about getting his wheat harvested. Or whistle up his faithful sheepdog to move the ewes or gather in his happily free-ranging hens. He might even, he confesses, be willing to take on the odd dairy cow – all to be done organically, of course.

As someone who has watched the desperate decline of British agriculture over the years, I'm convinced Lord Mandelson's planned career change can't come too soon.

What the business secretary is dreaming of – the crops, the hens, the grazing animals – is the classic small-scale mixed farm. And according to one leading scientist it's small-scale mixed farming that the world needs to undo the damage of modern, high-input crop production and to climate-proof the global food supply.

A study based on the work of 400 scientists and other specialists reported earlier this year that current, high-input farming methods were damaging soils on a massive scale. They were also squandering scarce water resources. Study director – Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – called for scientific knowledge and new technologies to be targeted at small farmers who made efficient use of soil nutrients and water.

In other words, it was small, mixed farmers who would feed the world as the effects of climate change become ever more severe. So unerring are Lord Mandelson's political instincts that even when he's daydreaming he appears to come up with the right answers.

Sadly for the planet, the business secretary doesn't intend taking up his small country living any time soon. As he made clear in his interview, it's something for his retirement, probably around 2029.

This is a pity. Like many others he sees saving British industry as a worthwhile career objective. Rescuing the world from war and starvation can wait until his twilight years. No wonder our agriculture is in such a parlous state.

With luck, circumstances may intervene. It's just possible his lordship will find himself with considerably less to do after the spring or summer of next year. Perhaps then he will decide to advance his plans. He can lead a new army of small farmers in their re-occupation of the British countryside, allowing us all to eat in the coming decades.

If he wants to discover the importance of such changes he could so worse than attend an event in Oxford next month. It's called the Oxford Real Farming Conference and it will explore the best ways of feeding the planet in the 21st century. If the business secretary can make it I'm sure the organisers will be delighted to reserve him a seat.

Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 18 Dec 2009 | 3:00 am